West Hollywood, California (March 1, 2010) - Maybe I’m just getting too grumpy as I grow into old(er) age, but it’s hard to find a radio station that plays the sort of music I grew up with- music that had melody, lyrics actually sung instead of shouted which did not have a rhyme scheme that did not include repetitions of the word “baby.” 
Werner Haas is a West Hollywood writer whose latest novel is named “Wasps.” |
I was lucky enough to have parents who made me take violin lessons and dragged me to the regular symphony concerts. My mother, when she was healthy enough to attend, would continuously nudge me as we listened (live) to Heifetz and Milstein and Francescatti and Menuhin. In those good old days we could find seats for less than it costs today to go to one of those awful movie cineplexes.
More than that, as I think back on my growing up, in Indianapolis, we had the opportunity- as many cities did at the time, of going to a downtown movie theatre and seeing a movie and a stage show, usually with a traveling orchestra.
I went and saw and heard bands that are just dusty memories on shellac these days- Horace Heidt, with that whistling sensation, Elmo Tanner Clyde McCoy, Claude Thornhill, the Dorsey Bothers, Henry Busse, Sammy Kaye, Tex Beneke, Freddy Martin, Jimmy Lunceford, to name just a few who passed through the old Circle Theatre.
Were these great memorable musical occasions? Hardly, but, compared with what we get today - screeching, genitalia-scratching “idols” who appeal to the lowest sensual and sexual appeal of those who believe they will forever be teenagers, they had a certain talent.
I actually saw Mae West live, in person, in an otherwise forgettable show called Catherine Was Great. WeHo News. |
That was why, at that time, their product was called “popular” music.
I grew up before television. So, for entertainment, we had to do other things. There were always the traveling stage shows that came, for a few days to the old English Theatre.
I actually saw Mae West live, in person, in an otherwise forgettable show called Catherine Was Great. I sat in the balcony for $1.20.
I saw touring companies of forgettable plays with second-tier stars like Edmund Lowe and Conrad Nagel. My parents and I went to the ice arena at the State Fairgrounds to see Sonja Henie live.
During high school summer vacation, I appeared in small roles in summer theatre musicals, and Olsen and Johnson’s show.
Richard Burton as Hamlet. WeHo News. |
There is still something top be said for finding live entertainment that requires getting up off your duff, leaving the house and participating in something even if it is only applause for a fine live performance.
I was lucky enough, when I did my two-year army stint, to end up at the Signal Corps Pictorial Center in Long Island City. So, each night, I’d don my uniform and stand in front of some Broadway theatre, and, that way, some generous person with an extra ticket made it possible for a “serviceman” to see every show that season.
I saw Shirley Booth and Ethel Barrymore, Cornelia Otis Skinner and Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner and Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews and Dame Judith Anderson as Medea, and Orson Welles (in a wheelchair and leg cast playing King Lear) and John Gielgud and Marcel Marceau.
I saw the Tennessee Williams plays long before I met him as my neighbor. I saw Richard Burton as Hamlet, and, like every other fan, waited afterwards to see him and Liz emerge from the stage door.
The original Broadway poster for Guys And Dolls. WeHo News. |
I got in free to Guys and Dolls and Pajama Game and Brigadoon. I got freebies to Rosalind Russell’s Auntie Mame. I saw Barbra Streisand as Miss Marmelstein and Liza Minelli as Flora the Red Menace.
On those matinee days when I was off duty, and if I got no freebies, I could get a balcony seat for about three bucks.
These were experiences- live and in person- I wouldn’t trade for anything or anyone today. There’s nobody around today who can match Ethel Merman’s stage presence in Gypsy.
I still howl with laughter thinking of Bea Arthur’s first big stage hit at the crummy little President’s Theatre in Ben Bagley’s Shoestring Revue, where she played Medea as if produced by Walt Disney.
Memories still keep me alive and hoping that, someday, real talent will somehow make a comeback and I’ll be around to see it in person.
Werner Haas is a West Hollywood writer whose latest novel is named “Wasps.” | Summary: Long Island is no longer a place for complacent suburbanites. It is now a festering ground for anti-social activity by bored or power-hungry teens. “The Wasps” is a story of such a neo-Nazi gang made up of otherwise “ordinary” middle-class young people. Get “Wasps” here.
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