We Are The One: A Look At Mickey One

One of my favorite films of all time is Mickey One. It was released by Columbia Pictures in 1965 and directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty. Mickey One is the story of a lounge stand-up comedian who’s on the run from the mob for reasons left open to conjecture: Were there unpaid debts? Was he playing around with the mob boss’ mistress? Was he in arrears for countless favors from the mob?

Mickey runs away after being called on the carpet by club owner Ruby Lapp (played by Franchot Tone in one of his last performances). He hits the skid row section of Chicago and lifts the social security card of a rolled drunk named Mickey Wonjhowcski. which he shortens to Mickey One.

Living in a flophouse and working as a pearl diver, he has a tenant forced on him by his insane landlady. He falls in love with the girl and she recognizes his talent, prompting him to badger a tenth-rate burlesque agent, who books him into a string of dogwater lounges.

Gingerly working his way back into the nightclub grind, he hopes he won’t attract much attention, but of course with his Warren Beatty looks and enormously successful comedic talent he eventually attracts all the attention he previously hoped to avoid. Mickey One ends with him performing to a dark, empty club with a blinding spotlight burning into him with an unknown figure behind the light (the mob boss?). The moral of the story: you can run but you can’t hide.

Mickey One was made in the Sixties, an era when the mystery of the John F. Kennedy assassination greatly disturbed the country and provoked endless meditations on conspiracies, innocent people on the run for unknown transgressions, and questions of personal identity. It was an era of Kafkaesque entertainment which spawned television shows like The Prisoner, The Fugitive, Run For Your Life, Coronet Blue, and other weird programs.

Arthur Penn once said that Mickey One was his attempt to make his version of a French New Wave film, and in that regard he considered the film to be a minor failure. Part of the French New Wave influence was the casting of Alexandra Stewart as the love interest, who was Francois Truffaut’s girlfriend at the time.

Mickey One is so much more than a Nouvelle Vague homage, though, in fact it’s one of the most American films ever made. The film looks like a Tom Waits album cover from start to finish with its scenes of Salvation Army bands, hobo jungles, wrecking yards and burlesque queens (and with no Barbara Nichols in sight!). If you liked Robert Frank’s book The Americans you will love the beautiful cinematography of Ghislain Cloquet.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Mickey One: it was in 1978 and I was living in The Canterbury Apartments in Hollywood at the time. I had a terrible case of the flu and had that thing where you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. I turned on my black and white portable TV and watched The Late Show and there it was, Mickey One.

I felt as if I was getting a broadcast from outer space. It was the parallel reality I thought I’d never see. Warren Beatty and his absurd America oif exploding industrial art called YES really sold it for me. From that moment on I called myself Andy Seven and I’ve never looked back, just like Mickey One.

Long Haircuts

It's been awhile since I've had a haircut, and I'm accustomed to having my hair a certain length. If my hair gets too long I start looking like Geronimo or some other cigar store Injun with my old face peeking out of a mop. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and I had to give myself a haircut.

I once gave myself a haircut when I was a teenager and it was so savage in butchery that I ended up looking like a shock therapy patient, big bald spots in my scalp followed by long, stringy strands of hair. It was truly horrorshow, but things would be different now.

I did my best to remember the way my hair was cut in the past. I used a tiny, delicate pair of snips, not some garden shears. I set up a large circle of mirrors around the bathroom so I could see my head from all angles.

Cutting the front and sides was never a problem for me, that was always simple. The real challenge lay in cutting the back of my head and making sure that it was done as evenly as possible. Wearing my barber's cape, I snipped gingerly around the left side rear....SNIP! Then the right side rear...SNIP SNIP!!!

Then moving up towards the middle of the head, gently combing out longer strands of hair...SNIP!! Again, a little to the left...then the right....SNIP SNIP!!

Getting towards the top in the back...don't take too much off the top, easy...easy...SNIP! I could actually feel my hair feeling stronger and healthier with each cut, the strands shorter and thicker. When it felt like I'd cut enough (who knows?) I appraised myself in the mirror and liked the job I did. And I'd be a liar if I told you it wasn't one of the hardest things I've ever done.

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It's funny that my internet friend Linda Bloodworth has a novel called A Raven's Touch because I know what that feels like. When I worked in Koreatown the blackbirds would get excited by my jet black hair and land on my head!

I'd feel their claws gently resting on my scalp while their wings would flap above me. It was like wearing a crown of black wings! You could say it was their way of saying, "WE ACCEPT YOU ONE OF US">>>>>>>>>>>>

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When I went into Sunland I saw a lot of beat trailer-style homes with cars parked on the front lawn, their guts pulled out sitting on blocks , not even finished, some even getting rusty from overexposure to the elements. There were kids' toys strewn about the yard, dirty and sticky from use and abuse. The odd mattress lay about here and there, springs sticking out like spikes from an old cactus.

The roads were not only poorly paved but looked like a pothole convention. My shock absorbers got a mad workout bouncing up and down the poverty roadwork. The car bounced like a bumper car from some long condemned carnival.

As beat as the homes looked, there was that constant of the American flag waving loud and proud in front lawn poles or at the very least stretched out over a stumpy porch. The poor always let you know what country they're living in , even though same country was giving them the rawest deal of their lives.

They definitely loved their horses as much as they loved their fucking flag. Every once in awhile I'd spot a horse trailer, empty, no horses, sitting in the driveway of the folks. An empty horse trailer looks a lot like an iron outhouse with no toilet inside.

Another block ahead and the veneer of the area changed completely. Trailer homes gave way to a lush suburb of beautifully manicured lawns with large driveways and luxurious mid-century homes. I felt as if I'd been dropped into an entirely different town within the course of a few blocks.

I came to a full stop when a willowy teenage girl walked her horse across the street in front of me. She glanced at me fro a moment, her chestnut brown hair falling into her bright green eyes as she gave me a small smile. The horse loped slowly as if it were ill.

The path cleared I drove to my delivery. She lived in a home that looked more like Cheviot Hills then Sunland. I pulled into her driveway and parked. I brought out her boutique order and rang her door bell. A very distinguished looking elderly lady opened the door. I saw a very bright chandelier sparkling behind her.

"Yes?"
"Your Oscar De La Renta is here, ma'am".
"Oohhhh...good!" She had a large pile of silver hair piled atop her head, immaculate makeup worn with a magnificent string of pearls adorning her neck.
"Have a great day, ma'am".
I handed her the long black garment bag and returned to my car, the sun baking everything inside my auto. I flipped on the air conditioning and sped back to Santa Monica.

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Made a delivery at this beautiful park in the Hollywood Hills to this rich Jewish couple. They were putting together this Easter Egg Hunt picnic and screaming at each other while I was dropping their stuff off. It was cool, though, because they tipped me while they were screaming.

"Fearless" - Family (1971)

The first time I heard about Family was when I saw a photograph in Rolling Stone of a scrawny man with wild, stringy hair flying all over the place in shirttails on stage screaming into a microphone. He had a wild, unkempt look that was jarring. It was a picture of singer Roger Chapman, and the music his band Family played was equally jarring.

My interest piqued, my first audio experience with Family was their album Anyway. The cover was a famous sketch by Da Vinci of a cannon, all packaged in a clear vinyl sleeve.

The music contained therein was some of the most violent I’ve ever heard. Chapman sang in a booming rustic bray that was downright scary in conjunction with the violent music. One of the violent performances on Anyway was Strange Band, “Strange looking band were we”. Standing out in contrast to the band’s violence was a bright, pretty vibraphone played by band multi-instrumentalist Poli Palmer.

The vibraphone added a jazzy element to all the sonic ultra-violence. Chiefly notable was Palmer’s pretty vibes solo on Good News Bad News, bringing a lot of texture to the pummeling fisticuffs sound.

Family fully realized their vision in 1971 with the release of their fifth album Fearless, which deftly combined all the anger and beauty in one brilliant package. The album cover shows a clever computerized photo of each band member in a cascade, with the cell of each picture becoming more and more distorted until each member begins to resemble this one face at the bottom.

Fearless shows a wider breadth and scope than many bands’ efforts, as evidence din tracks like Sat’dy Barfly, a bouncy, drunken saloon number complete with barroom piano and a bevy of booming tubas. Chapman gives a Rod Stewart-styled vocal about a pub regular making his big Saturday night appearance, blowing his dough and cadging free drinks, eventually tearing things up. The tubas do a good job of creating images of a drunken man trying to keep his balance walking.

Crinkly Grin is a brief Zappa-influenced instrumental with Poli Palmer playing the lead melody on vibes. I thought it was a little too brief, to be honest with you. I could have listened to a lot more of that cool jazziness. Definitely not a filler track!

Larf And Sing is a jazzy number with an understated blues guitar lead by Charlie Whitney. The chorus is delivered acapella by the band in wonderfully layered harmonies.

Spanish Tide has a great ascending vocal line with the melody moving from gentle to violent, and when it’s Family violent the vibes come out to play a wild, distorted solo. John Wetton does a terrific job on bass and does some singing on this number. When I met him on a Roxy Music tour several years later I asked him to autograph my copy of Fearless, which registered a surprised look from him.

Save Some For Thee is a soul rocker with a punchy horn section. The song ends with a perky marching band playing the melody, years before Fleetwood Mac did that whole thing.

Family had an endless line of bassists and keyboardists coming and going in their band (some of them were John Weider from The Animals, Ric Grech of Blind Faith, John Wetton and Tony Ashton, among others). They released two more albums and right after Chapman and Whitney formed Streetwalkers, a soul/R&B influenced combo. Not quite the manic art school rage of Family, but still a good way to spend a Sat’dy night.

Strokes And Carvings

Welcome to my DIY gallery, works by a largely untotured artist punching his way through arts and crafts! Although I tried my hand at painting in the late Seventies I stopped for awhile and now find myself creating pieces just for fun, which is a nice way of saying I've become more of a hobby painter. The serious art days are far behind me, and that's alright. I like being a Sunday painter.

One of my favorite subjects is glam rock, so painting Seventies style hard rock stars rockin' out makes me happy. Right up above is a favorite of mine. It's a dramatic portrait of my man Desi rocking out some righteous metal a la Poison, Great White, etc. with his band Whiskey Starr circa 1988 at White Trash A Go Go, maybe English Acid, prob not Zombie Zoo.

In front of the stage is his rich Jewish American Princess girlfriend wearing the official band tee getting pissed off at some cheap poodle-haired blonde who's been shaking her shoulders to Desi rocking out. I don't know about you, but I think a catfight is imminent.

Or how about a painting of Iggy based on one of the photos in back of the Raw Power album? I liked doing this one, and took great care in rendering a stylized look to his crazy eyes and lipsticked mouth. I really invested as much glam realness to the image as possible.

At this point it should be pointed out that when I first painted I used oils, giving everything a rough, expressionist look. I used a lot of heavy black lines and really slathered on the paints. It was a really violent look, however, later on when I got back in the game I used acrylics for a smoother, more refined look.

Getting tired of paints, I tried my hand at woodcuts because I liked the raw, violent look it gave, so here's yet another picture of Desi rocking out on stage with a smoke impudently dangling from his lips. I printed it with black ink on colored paper. I thought it turned out rather well.

Here's another woodcut I call King Cactus, showing a very tall, happy cactus rejoicing in his native habitat. I always liked the way large cacti always had long arms reaching out for you, and this guy seems to be having himself a good time in the wild.

Pictured below is Payin' The Bill, a painting of Desi offstge enjoying margaritas and some taco combination plates with the his rich girlfriend paying the bill for her very kept boyfriend. Where are these girls??? I need to find me one, but that's another blog.

(I've Got) The Tinnitus Touch

I love music. I love playing it and I love listening to it. I can't really go out and enjoy it anymore, though. In fact, I've only been to two shows last year and paid dearly for it. You see, I have this terrible problem. I have tinnitus.

Tinnitus is a condition where your ears are always ringing, the end result of too many loud bands, records, etc. creating permanent damage to your ear drums. After playing in bands for over 22 years and attending concerts for longer than that, my hearing is pretty blown out. I'm not alone, either. Pete Townsend, Neil Young and Barbara Streisand, among others, suffer from the same syndrome.

How did I get tinnitus? It comes from years of giving and receiving. Receiving means over 45 years of standing in front of the stage at shows by The Sex Pistols, Roxy Music, Patti Smith, Captain Beefheart, Queen and thousands of other noise addicts. Half these shows had me standing right by the speakers, and if I had to do it all over again, I would.

Giving means playing free jazz sax squall over a bed of not one, not two, but three distorted guitars turned all the way up to 10 and beyond. Wearing earplugs was never an option. I had to feel the vibrations shaking through my bones and tearing out my heart. I wasn’t some Adam Levine careerist dickhead, I was on a suicide mission to get my noise music played.

There are times when I can phase out the ringing, and then there are times when I can't. Sometimes I'll wake up at 3:30 in the morning and the ringing will be in full blast, like I just stepped out of a nightclub. It's pretty strange. My ears are ringing loudly as I’m sitting here writing,. But as I said, I can also ignore it, just as you would any annoying bit of sound.

I've been to the doctor and he said there's nothing wrong with my hearing. “That’ll be $three hundred dollars, thank you". All Western medical solutions are out. I may consider acupuncture if it works, but otherwise it's going to be this high pitched ring for a long time.

So, all you Facebook die-hard rockers, don't get pissed if I pass on invitations to your shows. And by the way, buy my books. Support is a two-way street.

The ability to hear is highly overrated, anyway. I was at the neighborhood laundromat, and it’s a reasonably small, modest one. It has the questionable perk of having not one, but two television sets. Both televisions were turned to the same program with the volume turned up very, very loud.

The television show that night was one of those Real Housewives programs where the women scream and bitch-slap each other for the better part of half an hour. It seemed longer than thirty minutes; quite frankly it felt like an eternity. It’s very hard to concentrate on folding your newly dried wash while both your ear canals are being pummeled by the shrill fighting of overly made-up women screaming their heads off.

I quickened the pace of my folding as I heard two, no, maybe three women shrieking and ruining their nails by raking them over each other’s faces, realizing that if I were truly deaf this would just look like inmates from a mental institution having it out. I would just move along, nothing to see here.

Well, the gals were still going at it like a vaginal demolition derby as I marched with my clothes out of the place, making a mental note to never go to the laundromat on a Wednesday night. Wednesday night’s not alright for fighting.

For more information about tinnitus, go to the American Tinnitus Association site at http://www.ata.org/