Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood

by A. J. Albany

  When Dad played at these jam sessions, I would plant myself near the piano and marvel, along with everyone else, at his flying fingers and stomping feet. He was very physical, like Monk, in his approach. Dad liked to sit high above the keyboard; even at six feet, he would often put a phone book on the bench in order to “get on top of things.” Sometimes when he really got going, he’d grunt and groan (which posed a problem for one French recording engineer when they got into the studio). He sweated profusely and, I thought, gave the piano dirty looks when he played.

  I’d always wish that he was playing solo, and I was right on the bench next to him, listening to “Wait Till You See Her” or some other favorite song. I’ll never profess to understand the exact space that music occupied in his life. He tended to cover his devotion to music. I only know he preferred playing solo, and that he worshipped the music of Ellington, Arlen, Strayhorn, and others excessively, to the detriment perhaps of his own songwriting potential.

  eddie no-collar

  Father Eddie Calardi, or “Eddie No-Collar,” as Dad called him, was an excommunicated priest. Eddie, Dad, and many of their friends congregated at a bar that once lived on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Gramercy Place. Father Eddie could tell you which saint’s day it was on any given day of the year, though I’m not sure if his answers were always legit. Sometimes I’d catch him off guard, sneaking up from behind: “Hey, Father, whose saint’s day is it?” The poor man, deep in religious meditation, would jump, spilling his Jim Beam everywhere, but after a moment’s thought, he always came up with an answer: “February 8—Saint Jerome was born today in 1481, Venice, Italy. Italians, naturally are the best saints. He was named the patron saint of orphans in 1928, canonized 1767, died while caring for the sick on his fifty-sixth birthday. Let’s drink to Saint Jerome! Georgie, my son, encore.” He held up his empty glass to the bartender, who told him his tab was getting out of hand. “Ah, well. Just one more, George?” he asked ruefully. George invariably came over with a fresh Jim Beam, and a Shirley Temple for me.

  Father Eddie looked like Dean Martin, who I was in love with at the time, though he was an older, more wizened version. He even held his lowball glass and cigarette in the same hand, like Martin, always up in a toast, ready to absolve the sins of his fellow alcoholics, who stumbled into his red leather confessional booth both day and night.

  I asked him once why he didn’t belong to a parish anymore. Placing a heavy hand on my head, he told the following tale. “Do you know the demon called Asmodeus?” I shook my head as best I could, with it compressed under the deadweight of his hand. “Asmodeus is the fiery demon of lust. One night he visited me in the guise of a piteous, painted woman.” His hand trembled as he paused to drink. “She fixed me with eyes that turned crimson, and I was paralyzed. My soul, at least, impotent. Well, I’ve said too much now.” It was a strange story that meant nothing to me at the time.

  It wasn’t long before Father Eddie stopped coming to the bar. One day Dad asked George if he had news. George looked at me, and Dad handed over a dime for the jukebox to get me out of earshot, unaware of my supersonic hearing. “Dementia. Eddie’s been under a doctor’s care for years. He stopped taking his medication, and that combined with the booze . . .” George gave a thumbs-down sign. Dad shook his head gravely. Apparently Eddie went to the Olympic to watch the fights. Midway though a lightweight bout, he got the notion that this one boxer was possessed. “He jumped in the ring and stabbed this poor kid in the eye with a rosary—almost put his eye out. Anyway, he’s over in the psychiatric ward—county,” George said.

  “Christ, what a lousy deal,” Dad said, sipping on a ginger ale. I guess all that piety and compassion made for conflicted bedfellows. The church lost a devoted priest when they ousted Father Eddie. A religious scholar and a great, mad lush.

  baseball

  The Helms Bakery man came once a week, his truck filled with fresh donuts you could smell from a half a block away. Whenever he spotted me coming, he’d pull out the tray of giant glazed twists. They were the stuff of dreams. One morning, while sitting on the curb enjoying a warm twist, I felt a sharp burning sensation in my legs, and looking down, discovered that I was sitting on an army of angry fire ants. I launched into a frenzy that only ended after a cold bath followed by a dousing of calamine lotion.

  Dad, feeling badly about my half-eaten legs, surprised me with a present. It was the orange softball bat, ball, and mitt that I’d been eyeing in the window of the Hollywood Toy Store. We started going to a nearby church parking lot a few afternoons a week to play ball. As a kid, Dad had been a pretty good ball player, and would have pursued it—that or boxing. He was fast, agile, with a great reach, but Grandpop insisted that all his spare time be devoted to accordion lessons, which he hated.

  Sometimes, when we played ball, the two of us seemed to find a rhythm. The bat kept connecting, and seemingly impossible catches were made, one after another, all beneath the perfect light and warmth of the late-afternoon sun. It was an unspeakably corny bliss. During these times, I felt that my life was simple and ordinary, in the best possible way. It was overcast on the day that I pitched one straight on target, and Dad swung at it hard, sending the ball sailing, and ultimately crashing through a stained-glass church window. I looked around, nervous, awaiting a lesson in correct behavior for just such a circumstance, when Dad grabbed my arm: “Run for it—run!” We took off, looking behind us, expecting a mad mob of priests to be hot on our trail, but it was all clear. I hoped to find another lot to play in, scouted around, and made some suggestions, but Dad’s interest had waned, and my few weeks of masquerading as a regular kid came to an abrupt end. It was difficult for Dad to maintain any positive habits; only bad habits received his vigilant attention, because they demanded it. The bat and glove are long gone, but I’ll always have the scar on my elbow where I snagged it on a chain-link fence while making a fine flying catch. It’s the proudest scar on my entire body.

  the miraculous

  Miracles, I was certain, could occur only within the first two hours after sunup, and I woke every day at 5:00 AM, bursting with a sense of miraculous possibilities. As the day wore on and faded to evening, so faded my hopes that something spectacular would transpire. However, with the next day’s dawning, all bets were back on, and after lying in bed awhile, listening to familiar sounds of the city stretching its careworn limbs, I’d dress and head down to Hollywood Boulevard on my holy quest. At the age of nine, I was religious on this matter, for Izzy the astrologer had foreseen that great luck would come to me in my ninth year and smile, he promised, “long and hard.”

  It was like a ghost town that early when I walked through the piss-drenched underpass at Hollywood and Wilton, a risky proposition in itself, then continued west past the Salvation Army, which always had a soul or two huddled by its door, a few steps closer to God. Next came the closed-down Florentine Gardens Supper Club, where Dad had played the accordion as a teenager fresh from New Jersey, and where Grandpop had been a waiter. I’d cross over, make my way past the Blue Chip Stamp store and Chicken Delight, feeling more alive as I approached Hollywood and Vine. On the southeast corner was a small newspaper stand run by a guy who’d been there for over twenty years. At one time, he’d sold papers to some of the big stars, and would always offer a story, since he knew of my fondness for old movies. “Spencer Tracy was a real good guy, always said: ‘Here’s a tip for ya, Mack.’ And Joan Crawford”—he whistled through his teeth and rolled his eyes—“very grand, with a handshake like Joe Louis.”

  The newspaper man, who I guess I’ll call Mack, not knowing his name, eventually moved up the Boulevard to an office-building lobby, where he grudgingly sold candy and aspirin along with the occasional paper. “People don’t read anymore,” he complained. Last time I saw him, I was about fifteen, and sporting a head of violet-colored hair. Mack looked at me wearily: “Ah. What happened, honey? You lose a bet?” I felt suddenly self-conscious and weak-minded. “Yeah, you guessed it,�
�� I answered, thinking I’d lost a bet with myself that I could exist forever as an island.

  I don’t know what became of Mack, but I always felt they should have given him a star on the Walk of Fame. He was certainly more significant than most of the people who’ve received one over the last twenty years.

  I would continue up the street pondering the eerie loneliness of the Lerner’s store window mannequins, and imagined what the Boulevard must have been like in years past, when men like Cary Grant and women in Lily Dasche hats had strolled down the once-glittering pavement. The old Janes House fascinated me. It was a foreboding Gothic-style place that had two tall turrets framed by giant palm trees. It was the only house between Vine and Highland, and had been a private school for the likes of Charlie Chaplin’s and Mary Pickford’s kids, among others, run by two spinster sisters whose last name was Jane. I’d heard rumors that What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? had been somehow inspired by the old house and its mysterious sisters, which greatly added to its creepy mystique.

  One morning I knocked on the front door, then ran behind a palm tree to see, I suppose, what would happen. From one of the upper windows, a pale hand pulled back lace curtains, and a frail face peered out and looked around in desperation, as if searching for the company of a long-dead companion. My eyes filled with tears, and I was gripped with a terrible sense of guilt over my mischievous prank. It crossed my mind that I too could end up in solitude among nothing but cobwebs and trinkets, like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. My journey continued as far as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where I drifted from footprint to handprint, alone with Hollywood history, except for the occasional jet-lagged tourist who wandered at odd hours, camera in hand, trying to figure out why Hollywood didn’t look anything like the travel brochures or celluloid images they were accustomed to seeing.

  Even in the early seventies, I thought that if you looked hard enough, you could still see something of what it might have been. Not anymore, though. Now it’s deader than a cadaver that’s had its head caved in with a club, just for good measure. Every cheap gold-sprayed statue that’s erected is another blow to the corpse’s head. My ninth year came and went, and though it seemed to me at the time that luck hadn’t even stopped long enough to blink in my general direction, I grew to understand that sometimes luck is simply the privilege of seeing another sunup and having the chance to wait, ever expectant, for something miraculous to happen.

  a walk in the park

  My father and I spent a lot of time walking to Fern Dell, a park in the middle of Hollywood, right off Western and Los Feliz. Fern Dell was a haven for social outcasts, hippies, homeless folk. Sometimes we’d be accompanied by a couple of Dad’s friends—Bob Whitlock, Art Pepper, or Lester Hobbs (a trumpet player who had two fingers missing on his right hand, the result of shooting up in his hand, having exhausted all other veins). It was interesting to see the way these original hepcats adapted to the style of the times. They all had sideburns, longer hair, paisley shirts with big lapels, flares—but they still shined their shoes. All in their late forties, at the time, they were still the coolest.

  One Sunday, we headed to Fern Dell with Art and Lester and two friends of mine, Gerald and Lorna, the black albino siblings. They looked pretty strange, with their big white afros and pink eyes like white rabbits. The other kids at my new school were terrified of them, due in great part to the fact that the movie The Omega Man had just come out, and everyone thought they were atomic zombies. They cleared the hallways. The Omega Man was playing at the Star Theatre with Billy Jack—a kid’s dream double bill in 1971. I, being the official friend of the friendless, hooked up with Gerald and Lorna when the three of us got socked away together in corrective—or “retarded,” as the other kids called it—PE. I was there because of my asthma, and they were in with light- and heat-sensitivity problems.

  There we were at Fern Dell that Sunday, three jazz junkies, two black albinos, and me, along with loads of flower children, people playing recorders, dogs, and naked babies. Dad had just bought me a portable six-inch Sony TV that came with a battery pack larger than the television itself. We decided to take it to the park for a test run. The Brain That Wouldn’t Die was on Chiller, which was my favorite show. This TV must have been one of the first portables, judging from the excitement it generated. We ended up with a dozen people crowded around this six-inch screen, smoking pot and watching Chiller. Dad, Lester, and Art were having wasted laughing fits, making dumb jokes about getting head from the severed head of the woman in the movie.

  This was the same day that Dad met a free spirit named Melodie. Melodie attracted the attention of Dad and every other male, as she danced with a tree, wearing only a few colorful chiffon scarves that she’d tied into a makeshift dress. She lived in a commune over on Van Ness. Very pretty and very strange, Melodie ate cat food and had a son my age who’d shit in the old tires in their backyard. One week after this Chiller-in-the-park lovefest, Dad hocked my beloved TV set. I remember feeling angry with him for the first time. It was then that I realized that no love, however deep, remains unspoiled forever.

  christmas at the st. francis

  Christmas was a time to hone my shoplifting skills, and the Broadway Hollywood department store was a fairly easy mark. The place crawled with undercover store security, but they weren’t hard to spot, with their stiff mannerisms and shifty eyes. They are society’s reigning bottom-feeders.

  My technique was not particularly original. I would simply palm the desired item, and with a push of my fingertips, send it up my sleeve. The trick was to keep the left hand busy picking up merchandise in an assured and visible manner while the right hand quietly “palmed and pushed” the true object of interest. The obvious drawback to this method was the size limitation it imposed, though it’s surprising what one can fit in a large sleeve. I’d take lighters, cuff links, ties, handkerchiefs, and cologne for my dad, and even managed smaller mass-market paperbacks and some Chinese slippers for Gram, who wore them all year round. Dad naïvely believed that my dog-walking and odd-job money was enough to explain the rather pricey gifts he’d find in his Christmas stocking.

  Although we’d usually spend the holidays with Gram, I remember one Christmas spent at our St. Francis digs with a few other lonely misfits. We had a tree made of tinsel that looked like an accident, with blue frosted lights and a large clef note made of foil perched on top. Dad bought me Charlie Parker with Strings and The Complete Works of Shakespeare, which was a little rough to digest at nine, but I did enjoy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, having loved the movie with James Cagney and Joe E. Brown. Each of our five guests brought a stack of records, and for once, there was plenty of food. Two double hot plates and a toaster oven managed to create a sizable feast. Lester came dressed as a smacked-out, chain-smoking, three-fingered Santa, which was a dead giveaway to his identity.

  Dad danced around in his inimitable, fabulous fashion. I’ve only met one other guy who could dance half as cool, and he too was an Italian musician from Jersey. It was a style born of complete abandon and utter rhythmic confidence. I could dance with Dad for hours. There were four other musicians present that evening, and the conversation soon turned itself over to passionate debates on all matters musical. I’d always try to absorb what was discussed in these situations, realizing that I was privy to some musical genius.

  As the night wore on, a quiet tension hung in the air, and I sensed that it was time for me to retire for the evening so the grown-ups could get high. As I closed my eyes and faked sleep, I heard Dad admonishing Lester, “Hey, man—you can’t use that tie. A.J. just bought me that for Christmas!”

  jolly beans

  One of Dad’s best friends was Dalton, a fascinating guy who made porno movies for a living. From what I gathered, he was quite a talented filmmaker. They had met years earlier at an after-hours club on the Strip where fellow hipsters like Lenny Bruce, Terry Southern, Joe Maini, and others would get together after 2:00 AM to talk, goof off, mostly listen to music
.

  In the spring of ’71, Dad was in trouble with the law again. To hear him tell it, he had tried to cop, Mickey Mouse showed, and he got twisted and violated. In English, he was buying dope, the cops showed, and he was sentenced for the buy and for violating his parole. Most of the grown-ups around me spoke in a sort of code.

  Instead of standing sentence, we laid low at Dalton’s, and I soon learned the language of blue movies. Any innocence I had left would soon be gone. Dalton’s house was in North Hollywood, and he had a son a couple of years older than me named Monty. There was a large detached back house where some films were shot. During our stay Dalton was working on a series of “sexual enlightenment” films: “Real bon-a-roo sex education,” he’d say. Monty and I were always spying through the windows at the weird and wondrous sights. I saw an Indian guru performing auto-fellatio and auto-anal sex. There were demonstrations concerning the attainment of various orgasms. Fusion, tantric, altered states—after the initial shock wore off, all the writhing, moaning nakedness seemed commonplace.

  The house was filled with books and “sexual research” papers. Being an avid reader, I was kept busy reading everything I could get my hands on. Monty and I made up a dirty word game, the object being who could come up with the most genital slang words: snapper, cooze, lizard, short arm, quim, rod, snatch, box. I can’t remember them all now, but I usually triumphed.

  During this time Dad was quite happy. He had a piano to play, plenty of hash and other intoxicants, and women galore. Dalton was always hooking him up. He’d say, “Ladies, you are in the presence of greatness. This is the legendary Joe Albany.” Women really went for my dad. I think it had to do with this very sweet, almost old-fashioned quality he possessed. I remember walking in on him and Dalton with two skin-flick starlets while he was reciting that poem “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.” The girls were all giggles and coos, and Dalton, stoned as usual, was saying, “That’s beautiful, man.”