French Crime Time

It’s simply a matter of propinquity, but lately I’ve discovered a lot of great crime novels and movies this past summer, all produced in France. Nobody renders crime stories the way the French do. Their slant on noir is unique for two reasons I can think of:

1. They are the biggest fans of noir, bigger than America. Writers like Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson and David Goodis have enjoyed greater popularity there than in their home country. Many American noir novels have been adapted into film on a routinely regular basis, so as a result their influence on modern French crime writing is considerable; and,

2. The French have always suffused their noir with erotica, so in addition to all the cold-blooded misanthropy the story-telling serves heaping dollops of sex. Many of the books and movies listed below have strong sexual activity in them that serve the stories well.

One of my discoveries this past summer was the works of Sebastien Japrisot, a highly successful, award-winning writer who’s virtually unknown in the United States. That’s a shame, because he’s a brilliant story-teller and deserves to be read by more people. My favorite books by him are:

One Deadly Summer, the tale of a beautiful but amoral girl who moves into a small town and marries into a family that she believes played a role in brutally attacking her mother. In the course of her revenge there’s lots of Brigitte Bardot-styled sex shenanigans.

Trap For Cinderella, a tale of two girls, one rich and beautiful, the other poor and plain, trapped in a house fire in the South of France (where else?). One girl survives with her face reconstructed and her memory lost. Which girl survived the fire? An inheritance of millions is at stake, so if the poor girl survived she’ll require lots of training from an insane female guardian.

The Lady In The Car With Glasses And A Gun, a timid yet beautiful secretary drives off with the boss’s expensive American convertible, picking up hitchhiking gigolos near the South of France (here we go again!), having her way with them and finding a dead body in the trunk of the car.

Another great crime writer is Jean Patrick Manchette, whose novel Fatale is the bizarre tale of a female hitman losing her grip on sanity. She stops in a small upper-class village and foregoes the chance to blackmail the richest citizens after having a meltdown and simply kills them methodically, one after another. This one also had some surreal touches in them, as well, like the professor who serenely urinates all over the banquet room wall in one chapter.

Right around this time I also caught TCM’s Summer Under The Stars series on the day they highlighted crime star Jean Gabin. They screened Jean Renoir’s classic film, La Bete Humaine (Human Desire), a great noir with a brilliant performance by Gabin. The film has a recurrent theme of a speeding train during scenes of murder and lovemaking. The love interest is played by Simone Simon of “Cat People” fame, and she’s also very good in it.

Another Gabin film I saw was Georges Simenon’s The Night Affair, a hipster noir about a police inspector who falls in love with a strung-out jazz singer who frequents a beatnik night club. Made in the Fifties during Gabin’s older years, it has that weird French underground vibe with a TV detective show vibe (think “Johnny Staccato”) combined. I liked it a lot, and of course there’s lots of sexy Fifties gals like Nadia Tiller in it to keep it French and noir.

The French love for noir is the stuff of legend. Film critics have always professed their love for film directors like Anthony Mann, Robert Aldrich (“Kiss Me Deadly” being a big favorite), Sam Fuller, and many others, while upper-echelon directors like Francois Truffaut have directed noir classics like “Shoot The Piano Player”, “The Bride Wore Black”, and “Mississippi Mermaid”.

I really like the French spin on noir and intend to investigate more great stuff that hasn’t enjoyed enough popularity in our country. What we take for granted here in the States is a revered genre in France, and sometimes we need the superfans to remind us what an important art form it is.

Fearless Food Faves

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not much of a foodie, but I know what works for me and what doesn’t. Poorly prepared Mexican food (99.9% in Los Angeles) always gets me sick with equally poor Chinese food running a close second. The best eats are the ones I discover at the market to prepare, and lately I’ve discovered a lot of great stuff I want to talk about.

I’m pretty fond of the Near East line of flavored couscous (http://www.neareast.com/#products/couscous). My favorite is the Mediterranean Curry flavor, but the Roasted Garlic & Olive Oil and Wild Mushroom & Herb flavors are excellent as well. They’re also the quickest cooking sides I’ve ever made. A full saucepan will cook in less than five minutes, pretty awesome.

Also on the Middle Eastern front is Tribe Hummus (http://www.tribehummus.com/) and Ralphs market Tabouli. You can probably get fresher and tastier from a specialty store, but for the folks that live out in the smaller cities this is the best option. Tribe makes a wide variety of flavored Hummus, but I’ve found that the regular classic recipe is still the tastiest.

Not being a big fan of salmon in general I found myself addicted to Trident brand Wild Alaskan Salmon Burgers (http://www.tridentseafoods.com/retail/products.php?id=537). They’re surprisingly easy to make and taste great even to a seafood hater like me. I think they’re formed firmly like a meaty hamburger so there’s no fragile flaking that you get with a standard fish fillet.

Gekkeikan Kobri Plum Wine (http://www.gekkeikan-sake.com/product.cfm?start=10&type=domestic) is a white wine that’s infused with plum flavoring and caramel so it’s the most golden-colored white wine money can buy. This plum wine isn’t for everyone, but it's so sweet and candy tasting it’s hard to resist. It’s got a fruity versatile taste that matches well with meat and fish alike. Dig in.

On the cooking front I’ve been using Armenian Cucumbers, aka The Snake Melon, because they stay crunchy longer than the average cucumber. I think this is due to the fact that it doesn’t hold as much water so it keeps longer. At any rate, I use these for my cucumber salads and I think they taste better than regular cukes, anyway.

These are a few of my favorite things I’ve been cooking and eating lately. It’s a great antidote to the eating-out blahs I’ve been experiencing. Cooking with these great products eliminates any kitchen nightmare you could possibly think of.

I leave you with a picture of some salt-stick rolls I baked last week. We couldn’t eat these breadly devils fast enough. Starch out!

Smokin' Like A Villain

I’m not going to justify my enjoyment of smoking and drinking because it will inevitably result in a debate with some blue nose, usually female, who takes great pride in leading a supposedly sanitized lifestyle. The argument usually culminates on how the sanitized female will live forever, which of course raises my favorite question: Who the fuck wants to live forever? What are you looking forward to? Economic recovery? World peace? Another awful contest show on television?

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I want to talk about smoking. I first started smoking when I worked as a clerk in bustling downtown Los Angeles in the 1970’s. Girls in skimpy outfits stood on street corners around 5 o’clock handing out free packs of Winston cigarettes, and they just wanted to get rid of them sitting on those trays hanging around their necks. I liked Winston a lot, and soon tried out different brands to taste the difference in the tobacco.

I tried Kool menthols which made my sinuses freak out worse than pot, I tried lights which felt like smoking toilet paper, and I even tried old school unfiltered brands like Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, and Chesterfields, which Captain Beefheart once said should come with your own iron lung. I stayed with Winstons.

Owning cigarettes was only part of the ritual: Zippo lighters were the next step. I got a great one with an image by Robt Williams that Amphetamine Reptile used to sell back in the day. They sold lighters with images by Pizz, Dennis Worden, Gary Panter and Kaz, to name a few. Then you had to have a rockin’ cigarette case because those crush-proof boxes were garbage. I got a nice metal one with a Chinese dragon on it to match my Chinese dragon bracelet. A vice is incomplete until one acquires the proper paraphernalia for it.

One of my favorite stops in Palm Springs used to be The Tinder Box which had at least three cigar stores on every block. There’s a good one in West Hollywood, too, and I always like checking out all the smoking paraphernalia, like smoking stands for your sofa for that old lounge vibe. Cigarette holders are pretty weird, too, the longer the better. Some of the best smoking paraphernalia can be found at truck stops, so on that next trip to Vegas keep your eyes peeled for that Winchester rifle lighter.

I do confess to calling a moratorium on smoking several years ago when I started chain-smoking and having choking fits, which I no longer do and no longer have. When I did chain smoke, I didn't do it as weirdly as I've seen some people do it, which is lighting the next cigarette with the butt of the previous one that's burning out. Even as a smoker I found that practice creepy, quite frankly. These days things are different. I have one coffin nail a day and even skip a few days here and there. It’s not that terribly important like it was 20 years ago, so when I skip a few days I don’t start nervously twitching or overeating.

But if there's anything weirder than chain smokers it's the actual haters themselves. While some people object to cigarette smoke in patios they think nothing of toting their dogs. If there's an odor more offensive than Marlboro Lights it's the smell of a wet dog when I eat. Then there are those hipster parents that shoot daggers at me when I light up in front of their children like I'm the devil. These are the same clowns that think nothing of dragging their kids to the supermarket at 10 pm. Perhaps these Orwellian moms and dads are bugged because the kids look a little excited to see my cigarette case, lighter, and other tobacco toys in action. Roll over, Joe Camel!

The most extreme case of smoking hatred might be the time someone posted a movie review on the Independent Movie Data Base (iMDB.com) ripping into an old Cary Grant movie because he counted people lighting up 35 times in the film. His review didn't critique the nice set design, cool Edith Head wardrobe or dazzling performance by Cary Grant, no - cigarettes were lit up and smoked 35 times in this movie, so he hated it. What a freak!

Why do people smoke anyway? Why do people consider this recreation relaxing? I’ve always felt that smoking is the only time one can breathe deeply in a social situation and not look like a total freak. The calm inhaling of tobacco makes the body relax and stimulate the mind. So the next time you see me and my friends standing twenty feet in front of a building out on the sidewalk puffing away it’s because we’re chillin’ while the healthy blue noses are insanely screaming at each other driving on the road.

Rip, Rig and Panic

Back in the Pleistocene era of punk rock (1977-1979) the top fanzines of the West Coast were Slash (Los Angeles) and Search & Destroy (San Francisco), which were both written and designed by people that worked in the field of graphic arts, cinema and publishing. This meant that both fanzines not only covered the new music that was emerging at the time, but also covered cutting edge artists, filmmakers and performance artists. Performance artists got an extraordinary amount of coverage in Slash/Search & Destroy, and a lot of these artists were every bit as exciting as any punk band.

In an era of Siouxise Sioux, The Slits, and Cindy Sherman, no other artist embodied femininity gone awry better than Johanna Went. Playing every feminine role with the manic ferocity of a mental patient, Went portrayed nuns bathed in blood carrying crucifixes, violent housekeepers throwing flour around the stage with baby dolls tied around her neck, speaking in tongues, babbling and shrieking into a microphone. A terrific jazz-noise combo would punctuate her whirling dervishes, creating an aural wallpaper as disturbing as her I Am Woman nightmarisms. She even released a great EP of jazz-noise bludgeon called “Hyena” (available on eMusic with bonus tracks, yes!).

 

If there was a British Music Hall act from Hell it would be The Kipper Kids. Two stocky men who favored a cross between British lorry drivers and The Blue Meanies from “Yellow Submarine”, a performance from them would include: a boxing match between them clad only in jock straps – who would you root for, Harry Kipper or Harry Kipper?, a version of The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” on ukulele, or an argument between them in a language only they knew. And of course, a lot of blood, animal entrails, food product and fluids all over each other, which is the sort of “Johnny B. Goode” or “New York, New York” of the performance art world. No performance artist could complete their show without making a mess all over themselves.

But performance art was more than just a spectator sport. When I lived at The Masque (1978) I once woke up to the sounds of metal being banged around, kind of like a garbage can fighting its way out of an alley. When I got up to see what the racket was all about I saw Z’ev auditioning on stage, which meant him hurling a gauntlet of metal cans, pots and scrap metal all tied together and creating a cacophonous metallic soundscape. I thought he was great, but I wanted to jam, so I busted out my saxophone and walked into the hall blowing some wicked atonal tenor saxophone. Z’ev looked shocked and probably a little pissed that I was playing along, but Brendan Mullen and company were entertained by my contributions.

 

Word got around The Canterbury (where I lived after the Masque) that Hermann Nitsch was doing his“Orgien Mysterien Theater” (trans: Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries) at The Otis Institute of Art and if you had a horn you were invited to play. My neighbors Don Bolles of The Germs and Pat Delaney of The Deadbeats were going but I couldn’t make it, and I was bummed. The day after the performance Pat had dried blood all over him, and he said I missed a great show. Naked men and women were tied to crucifixes behind hacked animal carcasses as Nitsch poured blood and cow entrails all over them while the horn players blew a wall of noise. I kicked myself all week for missing that one!

Another phenomenon that was fairly big at the time was tons and tons of loft parties in the warehouse district in Downtown LA where all you had to do was show up with your horn and blow. Sometimes with a band, sometimes just by yourself along to prepared tapes, it was important for the maximum effect of the loft party. Nobody played crummy rap records, it was all about the originality of the environment and even if youdidn’t know the host of the party you were welcome to play. Shit done changed after all these years. People need to loosen up!

At the risk of writing yet another whiny piece about how cool the scene used to be I just want to testify that there was a time when punk rock was more than just a lot of bands and party merchandise. It was a living, breathing wall of sound and vision, and I’ll always fondly remember those days of watching, listening, and even participating in the sonic outrage of the Seventies.

"A Salty Dog" - Procol Harum (1969)

It all happened one beautiful Sunday afternoon in Beverly Hills. I walked into the Burberry boutique to view their fiendishly fashionable Prorsum line, and the first thing that hit me was “The Wreck of The Hesperus” by Procol Harum booming over the Burberry speaker system. So sweepingly cinematic, it brilliantly complimented the dramatically beautiful and quintessentially British Burberry fashions in the boutique. Matthew Fisher’s airy vocal melodiously drifted through the room, making us all feel as if we were out to sea, singing the maritime lyrics of Keith Reid:

“We’ll hoist a hand, becalmed upon a troubled sea

“Make haste to your funeral”, cries the valkyrie

We’ll hoist a hand or drown amidst this stormy sea

“Here lies a coffin”, cries the cemetery, “You will surely see”…

Majestic English horns blew fanfares while Robin Trower’s guitar conjured an endless seascape as 1,000 strings laid a melodious pattern of sheer ardor. I almost forgot I was supposed to be looking at the new Burberry Prorsum line.

It’s been an eternity since music had the power to transcend its environment, but then again I haven’t owned “A Salty Dog” in years. Although I enjoyed “Shine On Brightly” I forgot how unique “A Salty Dog” was, one of the great albums that never really received the attention it deserved.

Procol Harum released their third album in 1969, an album so eccentric, a much too British maritime-themed album that it turned American listeners away. 1969 was a year for outrageous album covers, i.e. Blind Faith, Trout Mask Replica, and the great Blodwyn Pig cover that still disturbs people, etc. “A Salty Dog” featured a take-off on the Player’s Navy Cut cigarette box; rather than show a respectable English sailor a shaggy gob of indeterminate origin wearing a cap with the name “Herod” stitched on top. That got my five dollars in a flash. I thought it was cooler looking than some ugly naked girl holding a toy plane, really.

Most of the tracks on the album are dirges, the most notable one being the title track, the lyrics articulating feelings of hopelessness on a restless and poorly charted sea. While the keyboards and strings play staccato minor notes, Gary Brooker sings mournfully,

“Across the straits, around the horn: how far can sailors fly?

A twisted path, our tortured course, and no one left alive…”

“We sailed for parts unknown to man, where ships come home to die,

No lofty peak, nor fortress bold, could match our captain’s eye…”

Ironically, while many of the songs allude to distress and despair aboard the ocean blue, the lyrics also define the despair of drug addiction. “The Devil Came From Kansas” reflects these feelings:

“There’s a monkey riding on my back, he’s been there for some time,

He says he knows me very well but he’s no friend of mine…”

“For the turning and the signpost and the road which takes you down,

To that pool inside the forest in whose waters I shall drown…”

While Gary Brooker leads a monkish sounding choir chanting the chorus, Robin Trower’s blistering metal guitar screams over a tattoo of tribal drums, setting this anti-Wizard of Oz fable in a tail-spin with descriptions of “a dark cloud just above us” and “for the sins of those departed and the ones about to go”.

The lost-at-sea analogy as drug damaged casualty is also expressed in the blues dirge of “Crucifiction Lane” (dig the pun):

“Tell the helmsman veer to starboard, bring this ship around to port,

And if the sea was not so salty I could sink instead of walk,

In case of passing strangers who are standing where I fell,

Tell the truth: you never knew me, and in truth it’s just as well”.

In spite of the fact that the tempo to every song is slow like the languid waves of a calm sea (with the exception of “Kansas” and “Hesperus”) there is enough sonic seafaring to keep the record from sounding like one monotonous moan. I don’t know why I set this one to the side, but I’m glad it’s back on my deck. And to think, a trip to Burberry Beverly Hills made it all possible. I wonder what they’re playing tonight?

All lyrics (c) 1969, Keith Reid (Onward Music)