Bakelite Radio Machine

Solomon of the Sanctuary. Headshot.

2007-06-13T06:02:00.001-07:00

Scroll down 2 posts for more of Solomon.

Self-Portrait with Peggy, retired Elephant of the Circus.

2007-06-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

Peggy, retired Circus Elephant

2007-06-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

Solomon of the Sanctuary

2007-06-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

Solomon, an African Elephnat at the Riddle's Elephant Sanctuary outside of Greenbrier Arkansas.

Queenie, elephant of the circus

2006-11-30T08:22:00.000-08:00

Here's Queenie. She works for the L.E. Barnes and Bailey Circus.

Hey, it stilll works...I even remembered the password.

2006-10-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Actual Proof

2006-05-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that the previous photos are merely proof that me and the boys own tuxedos. That Empire State Building could have been Photoshopped....herewith better proof -- the Genial Orleanians on-stage in their up-to-date amusement, "The Ukulele: France's Gift to the Musical World."

Proof

2006-05-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

The kids are clamoring for a full report on the Genial Orleanians at the New York Ukulele Festival. It will be forthcoming, but today we must devote to writing school. In the meantime a couple of pre-performance photographs. Those were heady days, when the band lived in a 5th floor walk-up on West 17th Street. Heady (3) days indeed.

Please note Kong-less Empire State Building in background of first photo.

Reason for the lack of new posts

2006-03-31T08:08:00.000-08:00

"Crown Royal?"

Oh, yes!

"One more?"

Why sure!

"Same....Crown?"

Just a sliver!

"Another?"

Yes, Ma'am!

(This time she worldlessly holds up the bottle)

Unintelligible assent

Hot Jazz and Snake Charming

2006-03-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

Bix goes to the zoo.

The Day I Saw Bix's Hankie

2006-03-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

Herewith an article I wrote for the fondly remembered Scat Magazine a little while back. RE: the photo, no it is not a Radio Bow Tie.

Hanky Panky

With stages arrayed around the grounds of the Old U.S. Mint, the first weekend in August is the busiest of the year for the Louisiana State Museum’s Jazz Collection. Ever since the first Satchmo Summerfest in 2001, great throngs of visitors assemble on lower Esplanade each year to pay homage to Louis Armstrong.

The Jazz Collection, still known affectionately to many as the Jazz Museum (apropos of its roots as an extension of the New Orleans Jazz Club), is best known for its assortment of musical instruments used by famous and not so famous jazz musicians. All told there have been more than 150 donated over the years. They form the centerpiece of the state’s collection, housed on the second floor of the Mint. It’s the largest collection of its kind and includes the trombone Kid Ory played to accompany a young Armstrong on the legendary Hot Five recordings, Sidney Bechet’s saxophone, and Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet with its oddly angled bell. There are also the instruments of lesser known figures—an intensely filligreed trumpet used by Oscar “Papa” Celestin for example, or a guitar from Dr. Edmond Souchon.

A display of instruments is the first thing visitors encounter in the dim light of the collection’s entrance, making up a sort of ghostly tableau. Six instruments silent behind the plexiglass, a band on permanent break.

Moving through the exhibits, Steven Teeter, a Jazz curator at the Museum, puts names to the trumpets and trombones, clarinets and saxophones. He points out Pete Fountain’s first horn and Alcide “Slow-Drag” Pavageau’s home-made bass. And then there is the instrument for which the collection is best known, Armstrong’s first cornet from his days at the Milne Boys Home. In many ways, the instruments of famous musicians make for an odd display. It’s like looking at a collection of Picasso’s paintbrushes or Rodin’s tools. The art of George Lewis, for instance, wasn’t the clarinet itself, but the ethereal sounds it produced.

But the Collection is also home to odd personal effects; photos and letters and business cards, which have a particular appeal. In a Proustian way, these objects conjure the everyday lives of jazzmen, not just the music they created. Like Bix Beiderbecke’s handkerchief.

“Here it is,” says Teeter, as he takes a grey archival storage box from a shelf across from the desk in his office. He opens the box to reveal a large swatch of thin woven cloth printed with an art deco design and edged with tan piping. Much care seems to have been taken to preserve what looks like a fairly ordinary, if old and faded, gentleman’s hanky. But when one thinks that it wiped the brow of the cornetist whose tone was famously described as “like a girl saying yes,” it becomes extraordinary.

To look at Bix’s handkerchief is to remember, in an instant, a story of genius and tragedy. As a youngster in Davenport, Iowa, he came under the spell of recordings by Nick LaRocca and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. He made historic recordings with the Wolverines and the orchestras of Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman—all before age 28, when he died, a symbol of roaring twenties excess.

The handkerchief, which has not yet been put on display at the Mint, has a history, too, beyond Bix’s demise. In 1963, Hoagy Carmichael—composer of “Star Dust,” “Georgia on my Mind,” and the lesser known and brooding “New Orleans”—donated it to the museum, along with a pair of cufflinks. In the accompanying letter, Carmichael details how he got the items from a “Miss Weiss” shortly after Biederbecke’s death. The cufflinks, he says, were the ones “he was wearing just before his last illness.” In fact, among the many bad habits Beiderbecke was known for were his sartorial ones. Stories abound of ill-fitting rumpled tuxedoes. So it is no surprise that the cufflinks, both done up in highly ornate black and gold, are mismatched.

The cufflinks, the letter, with its post script suggesting the handkerchief not be laundered, and one of Bix’s old cornets, share a case in the back of the jazz wing of the museum. A number of other items associated with Beiderbecke are on also on display. There is a piano, a Wurlitzer console that Bix played while living in a hotel on 44th Street in New York, above it a copy of the sheet music to his composition “In a Mist” and several photographs. One photograph in particular, taken while Bix was in the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, catches Teeter’s fancy. Like the handkerchief, the handwritten inscription Bix left behind gives us something of the young man who revolutionized music. Teeter leans over to read what Bix wrote: “ ‘To Les, personnally’ and here Bix corrects himself, he writes above the word ‘only one ‘n’—‘and musically I think you’re the nuts and that’s no east of Buffalo stuff.’ ”

—Jon Pult

Bix Beiderbecke Birthday

2006-03-10T13:20:00.000-08:00

Bix Beiderbecke was born 103 years ago today. We here at the machine believe that he made some of the finest music this country has ever known. So go here:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

and listen...closely. They are playing his music, as well as music he inspired, all day. It'll make you better.

Without Comment

2006-03-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

Wait....I will say that is Emmett Kelly's picture on the piece of paper. Click on it and see for yourself.

"Sazerac! If you don't cease playing that infernal ukulele..."

2006-03-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

"...you'll ruin the Mardi Gras!"

Mad Dog

2006-03-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

Mad Dog, Sazzie and a Fiddler turned Trumpeter in an impromptu tribute to Mr. Crosby

Another Historic Reunion

2006-03-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

While Original Peychaud was keenly studying mime and papier-mache, the remnants of the Felicity Street Circus Show recruited a new Peychaud, a man reknown for his mastery of the Romance languages...Spanish Peychaud. Because of his interest in Latinate traditions he returned to New Orleans for what one of his heroes, Errol LaBorde, has called "The most important Mardi Gras in history." Here he is pictured with Sazzie and the Ringmaster in the lounge area of the latter's private rail car before an afternoon of revelry.

An Historic Reunion

2006-03-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

Before it gained fame through its many broadcasts over the AM radio, the Felicity Street Circus Show was a hardscrabble troupe featuring a couple of scrappy clowns and a fastidious ringmaster. The original Peychaud would soon leave to slake his thirst for guerrilla street theater as a member of the Skeleton Krewe. Here that original troupe meets again on the steps of the home of Radio Peychaud.

I almost forgot

2006-02-13T23:05:00.000-08:00

For years, before the advent of this Bakelite Radio Machine, there has been an internet machine shop.

here is the link for you to cut and paste:

http://www.cafepress.com/bakeliteradio

Buy a sticker for your uke case.

A Mortal Foe of Gloom!

2006-02-13T19:33:00.000-08:00

Herewith a radio program, "The Bakelite Radio Theatre Presents: Sazerac at The Circus" in an episode (#43 of 69 BRT episodes) entitled "Doubletalk," featuring Carl Lowenthal, the Doubletalk King (he's also a drummer and Stacy Adams Shoe Salesman based in New York...really).

A Tech note: This was recorded on a 4 track cassette machine and broadcast on AM Radio WTIX New Orleans. What is here for your listening pleasure is a cassette recording of the broadcast that has been digitally transfered and brought to the internet machine via a telephone held next to an ibook speaker. In other words it is super "hi-fi."

It's all the Rage

2006-02-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

Trying to capitalize on the popularity of Moon Man Cheese, its writers came up with this ditty, here recorded live at New Orleans' famous Neutral Ground...there are digital glitches at the end of the second verse but you'll probably turn it off before that.

By Popular Demand

2006-02-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

Anywhere in New Orleans where the young people gather, you know the coffeehouses and some of the better taverns, you can hear them humming that smash novelty success, "Moon Man Cheese."

Herewith a timeless melody combined with a timeless sentiment. What more can you ask for?

The Genial Orleanians play Aileen Stanley's Sensational Song Hit

2006-02-12T10:47:00.000-08:00

Remeber kids, to post this i held the phone to the perforations above my F1 key...

Testing fanciful high-tech item

2006-02-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is perhaps the Gambler's Blues as performed by the Genial Orleanians posted via telephone-held-to-ibook-speaker technology.

There will be some trombones...

2006-02-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

but nowhere near seventy-six. The New New Orleans has such a dearth of musicians these days that I had a paying job today...anyway...

Tomorrow marks the first parade of the Mardi Gras season (unless you count the streetcar number on 12th night). It's the annual Krewe du Vieux march through the French Quarter and for the first time I'm in it (against my better judgement). Look for Sazerac as he attempts to rebuild New Orleans "One Cocktail at a Time." I got to thinking about parades and the general lack of them. And then I found this photo on the internet machine. It is from an early 20th century Labor Day parade in Chicago. This is the procession of "Meat Cutters."

Butchers march!

Bakelite Radio Machine: Pro-Cigarette Girl

2006-02-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

If for no other reason than the Ruth Etting song that follows...

Cigarettes! Cigars!

I'm one of the hicks
I came here from the sticks
Trying to find the kind of fame
the name of Broadway stands for
I'm one of the fools,
I dreamt of riches and jewels
Now I awake, find my mistake
Can't get a break, Broadway's a fake.

I work in a speak that's dim and dingy
Spenders are pretenders cheap and stingy
All I smell is rotten scotch and gin, gee
Cigarettes! Cigars!

Now I know what being too darn slow means
Among the gals who never learned what no means
They ask me if I know what making dough means
Cigarettes! Cigars!

To heaven I just send up
My lonely plea
Is this where I must end up
Oh good lord answer me

Every morning when the nighttime dies out
I go home to sleep and weep my eyes out
Can't you hear a broken heart that cries out
Cigarettes! Cigars!

Camels! Chesterfields! Luckies! Cigars!

I peddle my wares to gay millionaires
To wise guys and hoboes
And sweet gals with no beaus
To misers and spenders bootleg vendors
All of them playing their trump
I won't let them maul me
And so they all call me the fool
The virgin!
The chump!

Every morning when the night shades fade out
I see all the tramps and drunks parade out
When I sing to the last one who is laid out
Cigarettes! Cigars!

Sans Cork

2006-02-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

The Duncan Sisters, famous in Vaudeville for their "Topsy and Eva" act.

Zellner...Protean Characterist!

2006-02-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

One of the great artists on the Red Path Circuit.

Attended their own modern universities.

2006-02-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

Sazzie of the Islands

2006-02-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

Those who know, know

Prognostication

2006-02-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

Jimmy the Greek Snyder used to have a big board with a list of keys to the game. He would put a check mark next to whichever team had the advantage in a given phase of the game..."pass defense" for example. My favorite entry on the board was "Intangibles." However I made this pick based on a tangible. Seattle has a bald Quarterback

Seattle: 24

Pittsburgh: 14

Etymology: Yiddish tshatshke - trinket, from obsolete Polish czaczko

2006-02-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

I have lots of crap, you know knick-knacks, ephemera, baubles, curios, gaud, gewgaw, novelty, trinket, bric-a-brac, trumpery; trifle, figurines, objets d'art, souvenirs...tons of it. Here are two of my favorites, actually the same item in two different finishes. It depicts Cliff Edwards in blackface and is marked "Abneeb c. 1924." The coarser of the two is also marked "Made by Natl. Spec. Mfg. Co."

P.S. The camera on my phone is better than the digital number I bought recently...and the phone is rotary dial...I'll try for better ones later.

He hated the movie

2006-02-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

We here at the Bakelite Radio Machine remember fondly that day in 1998 we spent on the back lot of the Clyde Beatty Cole Brothers Circus. We were especially fond of the Elephants "Conti" and "Pete" who were nice enough to let us stand right next to them. "Pete" a few years previous had killed a man in the town of Fishkill, NY who, after a night of drinking, had stumbled upon the elephant pen and reportedly threw beer bottles and cigarettes. When the interloper got close enough, Pete (actually Petunia, a female) dispatched him with dispatch. Both of those elephants have since passed. Another circus employee I met that day has also passed away, just this week, Dave Hoover. Hoover was a protege of Clyde Beatty and was by all accounts the last of the adversarial style of big cat trainers. By the time I met him, while he had had a moment of noteriety as one of the subjects of Errol Morris' film Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control ("Dave says it's the worst film he's ever seen" one of his collegues told me), he no longer performed on the show. Hoover held the honorific "Chief of Security" and wore a gun on his belt. The Big Cat Man on the show at that time was Khris Allen, a self styled "Tiger Choreographer." Hoover hated the very idea of Big Cat "Choreography," he was strictly chair and whip. Today that show has dropped the Clyde Beatty portion of its name and has gotten rid of animal acts altogether, save for a display of performing house cats.

"Lou, Lou, Lou....Gehrig, Gehrig."

2006-02-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, one of the main signs of spring would be the annual showing of "Pride of the Yankees" and "It Happens Every Spring" on TV. Tonight on TCM they are showing the former as part of their "31 Days of Oscar" celebration and you should watch it. 11pm in our central time zone. The story of Lou Gehrig won the Academy Award for best editing. It amazes me that Gary Cooper didn't win best actor...OK, maybe he wasn't so believable portraying "The Iron Horse" in his prime (Cooper was past 40 when the film was made), however Gehrig was also known as "Biscuit Pants" and Cooper filled that role admirably. The latter film concerns a college professor (Ray Milland) who invents a substance that repels wood and becomes a big league pitcher. Sadly, it did not win the Oscar it was nominated for, best writing. How it did not win for special effects is beyond me...not only does the ball go around the bat every time Milland throws it, but you should see what happens to Paul Douglas' pate when he inadvertently uses the secret substance as a hair tonic!

Excerpt from speech

2006-01-31T21:47:00.000-08:00

"My fellow Americans, I never knew what it was before to be dressed without knowing I had anything on..."

"The state of the union suit is strong!"

2006-01-31T21:43:00.000-08:00

"Because of siltrine and a patented elastic yoke!"

Alternative Cocktail Photo with Sazerac Special

2006-01-31T14:12:00.000-08:00

In our last entry, the ever popular "A Lovely way to Hit The Bottle" post, those keen-eyed among you might have noticed the inclusion of the headstock of the rare mid 1920s P'Mico Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards model ukulele in the accompanying photograph (let me also note that the cocktail pictured wasn't just for show, it was delicious). Anyway, herewith the alternative illustration which shows not only all of the ingredients for the "UIC," but the famous Joel Eckhaus/Earnest Instruments Sazerac Special custom ukulele. Of course those who know me know full well that a ukulele in proximity to a bottle of hooch in proximity of yours truly is a terrifying combination.

A Lovely way to Hit the Bottle

2006-01-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

The Ukelele Ike Cocktail
(Invented during the evacuation vacation)

For some reason there exist references to our hero Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards being born in Canada. He was born in Hannibal, Missouri. Considering his up-and-down career (mostly down) and his rueful personal life, Little Cliffy had every reason to be bitter.Through it all he entertained the folk withginger and pep.

Fill a cocktail glass with cracked ice
add 4 to 5 splashes of bitters
add 2 jiggers Canadian Whiskey
top with Ginger Ale, garnish with lemon peel.

"I'll drink Manhattans, the Bronx (Cocktail) and Staten Island (Martinis) too"

2006-01-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

This is Sazerac the Clown.

This is Sazerac the Clown on drinks.

Wonderful Vaudeville Comedy

2006-01-26T21:27:00.000-08:00

From Moran and Mack, the Two Black Crows, Part 3 1927 -- (I'm not sure who is who, so Moran will be first):

Moran: My dog, he had bad luck, he was crossing the railroad track and the train came before he got by...before he got ALL by...and the train cut the dog's tail off. What you know about that, hmmm?

Mack: The train cut the dog's tail off?

Moran: Yeah!

Mack: Oh, boy that's bad when a dog gets his tail cut off, he's got nothing to guide him, or nothing to balance him.

Moran: True, brother. True.

Mack: Certainly must have hurt his carriage.

Moran: He got his TAIL cut off.

Mack: That's what I said, it must have hurt his carriage.

Moran: No, it didn't hurt his carriage, but it ruined his waggin'!

Hyphens

2006-01-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

Here is an over-hyphented logo to something that me and my pal Andrew Lee's dad, Don Lee, did maybe three times at the Neutral Ground. I did the Tin Pan and Don did the Ragtime. Maybe we'll do it again. However, this logo makes us sound much better than we are. The souvenir handkerchiefs bearing this logo are no longer available.

Troupers

2006-01-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

The Tunica gang poolside: Back row: James Naylor, Hula Gal, Phil Melancon, Jim Pierce, Hula Gal. Front Row: Hula Gal, Dave Maleckar, Man in Bakelite Brand Radio Bow Tie, Hula Gal.

Well, at least I didn't have to flag a ride

2006-01-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

One of the highlights of my evacuation vacation was the trip to Tunica, Mississippi. C’mon who doesn’t love Tunica? (?) Anyway the aforementioned Phil Melancon asked me to join his merry band of music makers, James Naylor, Dave Maleckar and Jim Pierce as well as a bevy of hip-shaking, grass-skirt-wearing beauties, in an Hawaiian themed evening of entertainment at the Grand Casino, Tunica for a convention of customers of the Amerimulch Corporation (visit them on the web at amerimulch.com!). Basically we were performing for men with very large wood chippers. It was Grand fun…except for the roulette table. Jim Pierce had driven all the way from Grafton, Wisconsin to play the steel guitar. He offered to drive me back to Memphis on his way out, but first he asked if I might mind heading to the intersection of Routes 61 and 49 where he had some business to attend to.

Selling his soul.

That's Jim in the picture. He went up to the counter and made his transaction. No problem. I was next in line. When the Devil saw my ukelele case he said, simply, “We’re closed.”

Hurricane Romancer

2006-01-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

Phil Melancon stayed for the hurricane. Never left. The photo here I found on an accordian website but it originally appeared as visual accompaniment to a feature about him in the New York Times. You can search "Philip Melancon" on the Times website to access it. You need to have Times Select actually, so herewith a favorite paragraph or two...actually the next four:

"In the weeks after the hurricane, he spent the days minding the apartment building he manages all the way in the Uptown neighborhood at the end of Magazine Street, and in the evening, he would sit at his grand piano, amusing himself and the crickets in the dark.

"Two weeks after the hurricane, some military police from the Puerto Rican National Guard stopped by to check on his well-being and stayed for the music. One thing led to another, and they eventually loaded his piano and hauled it onto the bandstand in Audubon Park, where they were stationed. He told some bad jokes and played some of his own tunes, gorgeous miniature reflections on the city, and in the more recent ones, on its abasement.

"The soldiers found him a comfort, something the city continues to be a little short on, and word got around. He has since played five shows at high schools and community centers, mostly for the soldiers who are here to secure the city.

''It's my own little U.S.O. tour,'' he said, sitting in his apartment on Wednesday with his feet propped up on a cinder block.

Me again...anyway I say all of this because Mr. Phil has recorded an album of songs about his experience and calls it Hurricane Romance. He was kind enough to include on this disc the first number I ever wrote, "The Broadwater Blues" as a paen to our dearly departed Mississippi Gulf Coast. You can hear him play (and buy the record) any Friday or Saturday night at the Ponchartrain Hotel's Bayou Bar where he entertains the swells.

"...And then the baby Harp Seal says 'Anything but the Canadian Club!'"

2006-01-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

OK. If all has gone according to plan, there is a photo here. It is from the Genial Orleanians first performance since August 27, 2005. Might have been the 26th. Anyway before the recent "weather event" here in New Orleans...this photograph is from the Neutral Ground last Monday night. It appeared in the Loyola Maroon. We're all about the kids.

I'll Take Manhattan

2006-01-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

For reason's unbeknownst to me, my little trio "The Genial Orleanians" will perform at the New York Uke Fest in April. If you go to their website, www.nyukefest.com , you will see us listed after James Hill. Being on the same bill as Sazerac the Clown is, I am sure, the lowpoint of his career.

Is this thing on?

2006-01-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

Please wait while I tune the dial