Hoolihan and Big Chuck

They always ended the show in their PJs.

Histories have been written about the preponderance of late-night movie programming that featured a terrible B-movie hosted by some kook in a costume. Cleveland’s Ghoulardi one-upped a lot of his national competitors with his regional digs, arch (one might say “meta”) humor, and his adventures into chroma key, placing himself into the movie, decades before MST3K.


Ghoulardi.
When Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson left Cleveland in 1966 to make his fortune as a voice-over artist in Los Angeles, one of his producers Chuck Schodowski and weather man Bob “Hoolihan” Wells took the slot. Now, instead of a dimly-lit studio haunted by a deranged beatnik who blew up things, we had two charming, rubber-faced twits creating hilarious and hilariously cheap comedy shorts to pad out the awful movies.


Now, local television has always been cheap. But reviewing segments from the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show, you can understand how they inspired several generations of dorks from Northeast Ohio to pick up dad’s Super 8 camera and make silent, physical comedy, usually involving obvious costumes, wigs, mustaches, and a grand, goofy, visual punchline.

I am looking at you, Litz.

A keen interest in bizarre music was always a plus.


"Certain Ethnic Bankrobbers"
WARNING: Hideous gay stereotype.
In 1976, Hoolihan and Big Chuck aired at 11:30 PM on Friday nights, which was awesome because that meant we could stay up late and not worry about having to get up for church the next day.

This clip was filmed at the corner of Fleet and Klonowski, and once upon a time the Jolly Tee Cafe may have been on the corner of Aetna and East 76th street in Slavic Village:


Pure Cleveland.

Miller's Dining Room

The Miller family was on old Cleveland food family. The had a butter and egg stand at Central Market. Doris Miller had a degree in home economics from Mather College and had trained as a dietician at Stouffer's. After Central Market caught fire and burned down, she talked her parents into joining her in taking over the former "Kaase's" restaurant in Lakewood at 16707 Detroit Ave.

Miller's Dining Room opened in 1950. My memories are faint, and because we always went after church I think of it as some fancy place, but it was a family-style restaurant where the emphasis was home-cooked meals at a decent price. The table cloths were crisp and white, and they even had finger bowls!

Ask anyone about Miller's and they will tell you about the sticky buns. Servers circulated throughout the meal offering a selection of piping hot rolls to whoever wanted one. It was like dim sum for crackers. The sweet and chewy, caramel-swirled sticky buns were the most popular selection.

The "average costumer ate two." The child must have had three or four, or until someone told him to stop. This was important, because I also usually ordered the chicken a la king, chicken in gravy served in a crispy shredded potato basket.

After 40 years of business, Doris Miller Urbansky and her husband Tom sold the venture to the Thomas family, who kept the Miller name and style. Five years later, in 1995, Miller's Dining Room caught fire and burned down.

Doris Urbansky died in 2010.

Sticky Buns
originally served in Miller’s Dining Room
[makes approximately 30]

For the Sticky Buns:
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (regular white enriched flour; not bread flour)
2 packages active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup cold water
1 1/3 cups butter
1 egg

For the Topping :
(to be put in each muffin cup)
1 to 2 teaspoons melted butter
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 dash cinnamon
For the Filling:
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 to 3 cups light brown sugar

In large mixing bowl, combine 2 cups flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Mix well.

In saucepan, heat milk, water and butter just until warm (between 120 and 130 degrees F). Add milk mixture to flour mixture. Add egg. Blend at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed. By hand, gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make soft dough.

Turn out onto well-floured board or pastry cloth and knead until smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes.

Place in well-greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover with clean cloth toweling or waxed paper. Let rise in warm oven (turn oven to lowest setting for one minute, then turn off) for 15-20 minutes, or place in warm area of kitchen and let rise until doubled in size.

Prepare muffin tins by generously greasing each cup with butter, adding about 1 tablespoon of brown sugar to each cup. Set aside.

Amply flour clean toweling or pastry cloth. Roll dough out into rectangular shape no more than 12 inches wide and about 1-inch thick. Generously brush dough with melted butter. Sprinkle up to 1/2-inch brown sugar over top of butter.

Roll dough loosely as for jellyroll, pinching along the seam to secure filling. Cut into 1-inch slices and place in prepared cups.

Bake rolls in oven preheated to 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool a minute, then remove rolls with fork. Spoon any remaining topping over the rolls.

*Recipe note: Miller’s secret was the type of brown sugar the restaurant used — C&H Pure Cane Golden Brown. You can buy it in bulk ($22 for 24, 1-pound boxes) by calling the company directly at 1-800-234-5708, but Domino brand is a good substitute.

Source:
Lakewood Sun Post
Cleveland Magazine
Cleveland Memory Project

"A factory of sadness."

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

We all have loved you, Rael.

Cleveland has always been kind to Peter Gabriel and to Genesis. When few in the United States even knew who they were, they would attract sold-out crowds here. I found a review of their 1973 gig at the Musical Hall in my high school newspaper.

In 1974 they released their most ambitious and ill-fated album to date, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. "Concept" albums were already a worn-out phenomenon, and yet the band created a two-album set that weaved out an utterly bizarre tale from the mind of Peter Gabriel, following what we would call a "Nuyorican" kid (of whom Gabriel knew none) named Rael, who is transported to an "Alice In Wonderland" type underworld in pursuit of his lost brother John.

He is frozen in space, is forced to confront his first, humiliating sexual encounter, is made love to by a mythical beast, has his penis surgically removed, and finds out he and his brother are actually the same person.

I love this record.

Unfortunately, the album had not yet been released when they began their world tour in America. Imagine paying good money to see your favorite band, but they refuse to play anything you have ever heard before. Some may have been thrilled, most were not. This "performance event" also involved over 1,000 slides and many large, unwieldy costumes which Gabriel had designed with no thought given to how to get the mic anywhere near his mouth.

As you can imagine, there were plenty of "Spinal Tap" moments. The show closes with a strobe on Rael and his doppelganger (a mannequin) at opposite sides of the stage, making it look like he's in two places at once. Closing night the dummy was missing and in its place a nude roadie. And after 120 performances, it was never filmed.

According to manager Tony Smith, the day came, early in the tour, when Gabriel announced that he was quitting the group. The fact that he decided to tell his manager this news in a hideous, orange-paneled hotel room at Swingos makes yet another notable moment in Cleveland Rock and Roll history.

In 2005 (Jesus, really? Six years ago?) I took Josh to see The Musical Box, a French-Canadian tribute band that recreates the Gabriel-era Genesis tours in exacting detail. They brought The Lamb to the Allen Theatre. I had asked my father, but he was going to be out of town. He was pretty interested in Genesis around the same time I was, during my high school and college years. This time around, however, he asked me, and I was only too delighted to accept.

So last night we saw The Lamb in the State Theatre. Myself and a 76 year-old man. The median audience member was a guy somewhere between mine and my father's age. There were assorted wives, but also other women who looked like they actually wanted to be there. I noticed this time, as opposed to five years ago, a number of teenage girls with their fathers. The father-daughter combo seated behind us were cute, she was really interested in the program they'd bought, and he was only too happy to share his insight.

It's a great show. I mean, it's a tribute band, but I would much rather see this than, say, 1964: The Tribute because once you get beyond the "Whoa! They sound just like ..!" factor, what do you have? Why pay to see someone impersonate the Beatles when you can just listen to a CD or watch a movie?  

Watching these guys is like seeing a play or something, rock storytelling, there's a lot to look at and listen to -- with a crowd of like-minded creeps who applaud and whoop and cheer. And, if you are the guy sitting in front of me, light up a marihuana cigarette.

For an encore, they played Watcher of the Skies and, yes, The Musical Box.

Sources:
Genesis: Chapter and Verse (Collins, Banks, Gabriel, Rutheford, Hackett)
Peter Gabriel: An Authorized Biography (Spencer Bright)

The New York City Marathon

Today, Harris Falk runs the New York City Marathon.
(This photo is from 2009.)


UPDATE: 5:10:46 Way to go, Harris!


Founded in 1970, the New York City Marathon was originally four laps around Central Park. While attractive (by 1970 standards) I cannot imagine anything more challenging and tedious than running around Central Park four times. It's not merely the repetition, it's also a very hilly course.


Marathon Man (1976)
"Hurrr -- why don't you just trying ACTING!?"
In 1976 the race map was drawn to touch all five boroughs. Expecting New York City denizens to be outraged at over 300 blocked intersections, no one was prepared for the crowds, excitement and positive energy created by the event. Participation in the NYC Marathon exploded.




Beginning on Staten Island, runners traverse the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn where they remain for 13 miles before taking in a few miles of Queens, and crossing the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan. North up First Avenue into the Bronx (one mile) and then back into Manhattan before concluding in Central Park. The cheering is truly outrageous.


Cruising under Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 2009 ...


... running over Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 2006.


Hey! You! Douchebag in the hat!

Soucres:
My 2006 NYC Marathon Experience (Daddy Runs Fast)
The Bowery Boys Podcast: NYC Marathon History

Alex Bevan

"I'm a skinny, little boy from Cleveland, Ohio.
Come to drink your women and chase your beer."
- Skinny
My brother had a copy of Springboard (released 1976) and while the original attraction for me was to hear the forbidden lyrics of his signature song about the ectomorphic, young, alcoholic from Cleveland, Ohio, I soon enough found myself lying on the couch in the den, wearing those oversize headphones, listening to both sides of an album of sweet, simple acoustic love songs that I still really like a lot.

I first saw Bevan perform live my freshman year at O.U. where I learned alternate lyrics to Skinny which I ended up stealing, or "improving upon" when Scott T. and would perform the song at Lucky's a few years later. He also played the coffee house anthem, FOLKSINGERS ARE BORING:

Nobody comes to the coffee house,
Nobody comes to the coffee house,
Nobody comes to the coffee house,
Folk singers are boring.

Boring, Boring
Folk singers are boring,
Boring, Boring
Folk singers are boring.

First they sing a song about a train,
Then they sing a song about a train,
And then they sing a song about a train,
Folk singers are boring.

I was at my friend Leah's house almost ten years ago for her dad's birthday party, when out of the house walks Alex Bevan. Turns out her dad has been playing with him on and off since the late 1970s. Crazy.

Curtain (book)

Through her early 80s Christie found it increasingly difficult to write. Contemporary studies suggest she was suffering from Alzheimer's, as her capacity for vocabulary began to diminish exponentially. In 1975 she chose to release Curtain, the "final" Hercule Poirot novel. It was released in Britain in September of that year, and shortly thereafter in the United States where it became a best-seller.

Critics noted this work was a marked improvement over her recent work. This may have been because Christie had actually written Curtain during World War II. She has also written a "final chapter" for her popular detective, Miss Jane Marple. She did this out of concern for her own survival during the war, and to give her characters what we today might call "closure."

Because in the case of Poirot, he dies. Sorry to give away the ending. He did receive an obituary in the New York Times, so it's not exactly a secret. I will say no more.

Oddly enough, the author did little to update the book from the 1940s to the present, in spite of the fact that her other works took place during the time period in which they were published. Poirot's last case reunites the Belgian detective with Captain Arthur Hastings whom we meet in the very first Poirot mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, though Christie had not used Hastings as a character since 1937. If contemporary, Hastings would be in his late 60s ... and Poirot a centenarian.

Preparing for the role of Hercule Poirot has its challenges. I'm not a big mystery reader, I never read a single Poirot novel or story until this year. However, my awareness of the character stretches back to 1976 when my brothers returned from a trip to England with my father. Henrik was consumed with mystery novels, he had a monthly subscription to Ellery Queen Magazine. Christie had been dead since the beginning of the year, and though I had little comprehension of what he was telling me about her detective, the idea of writing a novel to be published posthumously (it wasn't, but I thought he was telling me it had been) seemed kind of spooky. So did the shadowy cover of this book, written by a dead woman, featuring a guy in a bowler and a weird mustache.

I have avoided watching any of the films, or any of the TV series -- which is a shame because I love David Suchet and am looking forward to seeing what many have told me is the definitive interpretation of the role. No, I am just reading the books, finding my inspiration there. Right now I am ploughing through The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. My father famously gave away the ending to Henrik, for which he has never been forgiven. Unfortunately, whenever my father recounts this tale (he finds it amusing) he gives away the ending again, to whomever is listening.

Including me. I will never forgive him.

Sources:
The Guardian
Wikipedia