Golden Bloody Oldie

The title suggests I've been co-opted by British colloquial use, wanting to make a pointed emphasis, but this is about a crime, a bloody crime, and I come to this entry having just done a review of a book about it.

January, 1947. South central Los Angeles, in the residential section near the massive sports arena constructed for the 1932 Olympic Games, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the discovery of the grizzly remains of Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia.

In my weekly review column for the Montecito Journal, I'm alternating a current release with something published in the past, having at one point reached all the way back to Gilgamesh (although in a modern, poetic rendition) and slipped in one of my favorites, Humphrey Clinker, from the eighteenth century.

This week, the subject was what I consider John Gregory Dunne at the top of his form, True Confessions, a fictionalized version of the famed, unsolved Black Dahlia case.

The Black Dahlia case was one of the first cases an LAPD cop by the name of John St. John was assigned to. Turns out nobody did well on that case, but St. John cracked some of the big LA cases, including the notorious Hillside Strangler, and became a legend in law enforcement. I met him when a student of mine tracked him down and persuaded him to collaborate with her on a book about his career. The chemistry between them was incredible: This tough, no-nonsense Irish cop finds a friendship and purpose with the wife of a small-town doctor. I got in on many a ride, including one where St. John gave me a tour of LA "dump sites," places where grotesquely mutilated bodies had been discovered. I developed a fondness for a less grotesque kind of butchery, the steak sandwich at Taylor's Steak House on Eight Street, that and a Molly Salad, which was a quarter of a tightly packed iceberg lettuce, doused with a dressing of cheese, diced onions, and tomatoes.

True Confessions used a fictional version of The Black Dahlia case, setting it against two brothers, a cop who was as gritty (but not as honorable) as St. John, and his brother, the monseigneur, each on the make in his career, tied to the case by a gritty political inevitability. The payoff is a lovely bit of moral irony.

The real Black Dahlia lived in Santa Barbara, apparently honing her game in this small town before trying the big time in L.A.
She lived right here at 321 Montecito Street, and as I slid by this afternoon to take a picture of the place to send along with the review, I tried, oh how I tried, to feel a sense of her presence. No go. A nice, small cottage adrift on a sea of neatly tended grass, considerately walled off and protected from direct contact with a gritty, funky neighborhood. A place I wouldn't mind having for an office or a get-away cottage.

From what I've read of her, The Black Dahlia was warm-hearted and open, eager to make something exciting of her life in the optimistic bustle and overnight possibilities exploding in post-war Los Angeles. Earl Muntz, the Babbit-gone-wild used car dealer was advertising that he wanted to give his cars away but his wife wouldn't let him. You could get a complete paint job on a car for $19.95 at Earl Scheib, and for an extra ten, you could get a deluxe job, meaning in time that any car thief with twenty bucks in his pocket could keep the cops off his trail. Republic Studios was cranking out Western movies, car hop waitresses at drive-in restaurants were being given screen tests and contracts, talent scouts and agents hung out at The Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine and the world must have seemed filled with limitless promise to Elizabeth Short. Living so close to it all, at 321 Montecito Street, must have filled her with the impatience of her throbbing beauty and youth, steering her to LA with the same kind of blind instinct that sends moths crashing into light fixtures.

There was none of this at 321 Montecito Street today, just a neat, quiet cottage on a Saturday afternoon, across the street from a Santa Cruz Market and around the corner from a 7-11 convenience store, neither of which were likely there when she was.

I first read True Confessions when it came out in 1977, and have returned to it at least twice before thinking to take it out again, go through it, and blend it with my memories of St. John.

The last time I saw him was during the Santa Barbara Writers' Conference of 1993, when it was held at the Miramar Hotel, now a relic awaiting the wrecking ball and some considerable cosmetic surgery. Because my workshop runs sometimes into the early ours of the following morning, it was held in the large basement room directly under the main auditorium. It was already growing late and I was in a listening trance, focused on some manuscript being read when I became aware of someone in the front row, waving to get my attention. He pointed just over my left shoulder toward the entryway, where St. John stood, blue suit, brown shoes, a truly offensive necktie, and a broad, bewitching smile. "Hey, kid," he said.

I moved swiftly for a hug and a handshake. "Buy you a drink sometime," he said, then he was gone.

"Who was that man?" someone in the audience asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I couldn't get The Black Dahlia out of where she used to live, but I got St. John all evening, writing that review of True Confessions.

Recognition: The Beholder and the Beheld

Just over the hill from the portion of Santa Barbara where I live is the splendid, funky, notional hamlet of Summerland, a place that attracts tourists with the most dreadful-looking knees imaginable. A distinctive landmark in Summerland is a restaurant, The Big Yellow House, which closes and languishes on a regular basis, is reopened, staffed with locals who have attractive knees and who serve tourists who don't. There are a few other eating places, a post office, a coffee house, and antique stores that look more like retro Los Angeles movie houses. There is one liquor store, a gas station that used to be called Jack Gas, and no longer is, reflecting, some say, the sad effects of encroaching gentrification. There is also a toning station that used to be called a gym, a fire station, and a market that used to be called Lucky's, where one could procure remarkably good sausage. Lucky's is no longer called Lucky's; it is called Available, and Will Negotiate, which means the man who owns Lucky's and who used to make the remarkably good sausage has retired and wants to sell.

There is also a restaurant/saloon called The Nugget, which used to be called The Nugget, and which used to offer foodstuffs of remarkable awfulness. Like the dresshop in Santa Barbara now occupying a restaurant that used to be called Mom's, customers were drawn for ambiance rather than food. The Nugget now presents reasonably good food at reasonable prices, and reasonably strong drinks at prices locals seem to respect. Tonight, while dining at The Nugget, I was approached, as I was the last time I dined chez Nugget and the time before that, by a person who claimed to have just seen me on television.

I want to make it clear that I do not in the slightest resemble Geraldo Rivera or Jerry Springer, and when I compare myself to other TV personalities, I arrive at a loss. I do not give the impression of having been on TV when I dine at any other restaurant. Nevertheless,the experience got me to thinking along a particularly morbid line that has as its denominator the fickleness and forgetfulness of the public.

The following authors are scarcely thought of, which is worse than shameful. Although some forgotten authors are richly and deservedly forgotten, the following ought to be remembered with greater intensity and clarity:

1. Jack London
2. James M. Cain
3. Mordecai Richler
4. Carol Stone
5. John Fante
6. Ring Lardner
7. John Sanford
8. Willa Cather
9. Sarah Orne Jewett
10. Stephen Crane
11. Robertson Davies
12. Dorothy Parker
13. Dorothy Baker
14. Hilda Doolittle
15. Wilfrid Sheed

Through some past associations, I have a sense of the tough buck publishing is. Nevertheless, I would put time and effort into a business plan whereby the works of all these and many other wrongly or unnecessarily overlooked authors, perhaps calling them to the attention of those who have missed opportunities to know the, perhaps not. But it would do the modern equivalent of bringing these shining lights back in twisted, coiled format, where they could once again emit their friendly glow.

Newspapers, Magazines

What it takes to get a picture of events:

1. The New York Times, home delivery. Was close to canceling but the editorials are pointing more fingers at all three branches of the government. Bill Keller is a disaster as editor, and David Brooks and Maureen Dowd need to quit their day jobs. Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman are delights. Not to forget the near poetry of Verlyn Klinkenborg's visions of country life.

2. The Guardian, on line. A smashing Brit daily with good global news coverage, more nuanced and greater depth. Better coverage of American politics than any American paper. Excellent coverage of books.

3. The Washington Post, on line. Growing cranky and crotchety, seeming to stumble over themselves in support of the incumbents. Best book review in America.

4. The Los Angeles Times, in the abandoned basket at Peet's Coffee and Tea. Some lovely political reporting, but clearly having its hedges clipped by a management looking to cut costs and find ways to up sales.

5. The New York Review of Books. A left-leaning, semi-elite critical path that is not afraid to allow its hand-picked authors to go on at some length.

6. The London Review of Books. A ditto although managerially unrelated clone of NYRB, some lengthy discussions of biography, memoir, political, and some fiction. Stunning classified adverts.

7. TLS, the venerable Times (of London) Literary Supplement. Lovely, idiosyncratic, and slightly snobbish reviews written atleisure. Great range of subjects.

8. Financial Times. A splendid, reliable daily with a worldwide news coverage, a sensibly conservative editorial slant, and a more realistic way of seeing ourselves as the rest of the world sees us.

9. The Economist, simply the best weekly news and opinion magazine in the Western world.

10. The Georgia Review. Lovely lit journal, occasionally good fiction, better than average photo art, fine art, and drawings.

11. Sewanee Review. All type, no illos, nevertheless well edited text trumps many less conservative publications by using material that is unquestioningly beautiful.

12. The Virginia Quarterly Review. Strong fiction,strong reviews, occasionally strong political coverage, art features from negligible to sublime.

Golden Oldies

There is a restaurant at the corner of State and Valerio, built about an impressive ficus macrophelia. In its current incarnation, the restaurant is known as IHOP, which decodes to International House of Pancakes. Native Santa Barbarans and those of us who carpet-bagged it in back in the good old days remember it as The Blue Onion. The food was good then.


If this were the estimable Harpers' Magazine feature, Index, I would have the percentages at hand, as in percentage of Santa Barbara population over the age of fifty who have had one or more joints replaced by the tall, elegant John Gainor, M.D. Indeed, I would be a part of the percentages. Ah, times change. During my callow youth in Los Angeles, a cosmetic plastic surgeon built a name from rebuilding the noses of young ladies. Most males of my contemporaries, to their credit, were looking at other parts on young women; a group of us were looking for and finding significant lack of bump in the bridge of the nose or an overall slenderness that gave us to conclude that there went a Newman nose. Now we see the effect of John Gainor. Even as I made this observation at coffee this morning, Steve Beisner, editor of the Inkbyte blog, flexed his right arm. Shoulder, bicycle accident, he said, mimicking Vladimir Nabokov's description of the death of Lolita's mother (picnic, lightning). In my Saturday workshop, Bruce Paine has a Gainor hip, and that splendid actress, Christine, has a Gainor knee.


Hardly anyone outside Santa Barbara knows about ABC-Clio, which is short form for American Bibliographical Center, Clio Press. Clio of course is the muse of history. Part but not the entire reason I no longer work for ABC-Clio is related to the fact that hardly anyone outside Santa Barbara knows about it, but that is another matter, a long, perhaps rancorous matter, off the subject of my observation that it sometimes seems that everyone in Santa Barbara except persons in the real estate profession has at some time or other worked for ABC-Clio. When the discovery is made, there is a moment of pause, a moment of reflection, a moment of wondering. Admission of having worked for ABC-Clio is like admitting to having been married once or perhaps even twice before, or if that comparison doesn't work, of having been a conscientious objector while the country was/is at war. ABC-Clio is a perfectly reputable publishing venture, and it has published some remarkable things that librarians, academicians, scholars would find useful and admiral. Like any publishing venture, it attracted quirky individuals such as myself to work there and rise up the Peter-Principle ladder; as well it brought some notable authors as well as some quirky and downright disagreeable ones. But those are not the issues; the real issue is the number of persons who have been employed there, how long they stayed, and why they left. Although I have not worked there since being fired in 1980, the secretary to the President still sends emails in which she speaks of the atmosphere that permeated the halls, as though it had been sprayed from some room freshener. "Weren't those the times?" she asks. And one of my assistants, who left long before me, still remembers my birthday, and refers to "those remarkable days." I still see the man who hired me and who I replaced, when he took an early retirement, a widower now, owner of what appears to be a permanent hobble, but somehow radiant of an inner spine. "You lasted longer there than I thought you would," he remarked last year. Sometimes in the Y hot tub or on a late night run at Von's market, I see one of the librarians, who left in order to write books with a mystical bent. "You left your chakras wide open," he laughs the sound of one Zen laughing. And there is Tracy, whom I see every year at the Writers' Conference and who worked at ABC-Clio years after I had left. "I mentioned your name once," she reported, "and there was dead silence except for one man with a beard who has an office but is never seen in it."

Would ABC-Clio have worked anyplace but Santa Barbara? Perhaps there is an answer there, a metaphor, a throughline. How do you rationalize wearing a striped necktie with a hound's tooth jacket? the publisher once asked me. I have never in my life rationalized what necktie I wear, I replied, and that was the beginning of the end. My end at ABC-Clio.

You also qualify as someone with tenure in Santa Barbara is you remember the days when Mom's, the Italian restaurant near Cota and Union was actually a restaurant, not a boutique, and Mom actually prowled the kitchen, occasionally muttering things about Arnoldi's, the restaurant across the street with whom Mom's family had been feuding for some years. "How," Mom wanted to know, "can they call that--that mush--split pea soup?"

And there was a roller skating rink next to an equally defunct restaurant called Talk of the Town, and there was not only a greasy spoon diner on Coast Village Road called Gino's, but it had a lavish mural, depicting many of the locals. I came along a tad too late to be included on the mural, but there, riding an elephant bareback, was Helene Merchand, who indeed kept an elephant in the enclosed pasture across the street from what has become the fortress inhabited by Oprah.

One of the things that impresses you about Europe is the permanence of places and things. Some of out activities during WW II seemed to fly in the face of this permanence, but it was rather nice to be nudged just so by Brian Fagan and told, mind, you're stepping on Jane Austin, and when you asked a particular publican if, as the sign on an ancient ceiling beam advertised, Christopher Marlowe bunged his head at this spot, he smiled. "Probably not. But he might of."
Things are not so permanent in southern California nor the Central Coast, nor, for that matter, farther north, say San Francisco, where few of the locals remember Market Street's nickname, "The Slot."

All things are a flowing, sage Heraclitus says,
And a tawdry cheapness shall outlast our days...says Ezra Pound in Hugh Selwyn Mauberly.

Things do change. To remember some of them before the change is splendid; doing so helps impart atmosphere to text. It also serves as a reminder that you are in transition from one time to another, giving you pause to wonder if when persons hold the door open for you at, say, Peet's coffee and tea, they are doing so from politeness or recognition that you are in transition.

Having a memory of people and places is akin to walking around with a power stick of history.

L.A. is change incarnate; Santa Barbara is close behind; much of the British Museum is wired. If archaeologists move quickly enough, they can score some goodies at building sites. And you, with your power stick of history; you are memory, strolling into the wind.

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Los Angeles to Me

Santa Barbara, California, a coastal town, is located about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles, but it better watch out. Los Angeles is moving outward in all directions, with rows of condos, single-family dwellings, and strip malls. Of the cardinal directions, Los Angeles seems at the moment to favor north, spilling inexorably, like an upturned can of Navajo white paint.

Essentially a resort town, Santa Barbara likes to think well of itself, relying on a sanitized version of a brutal history, hiding among such pleasures as sumptuous beaches, a dramatic coast line, and quirky neighborhoods some of the dumbest tourist attractions in the eleven Western states and one of the worst Mexican restaurants west of the Mississippi.

Being in Santa Barbara for any length of time is like having a seat at a 24/7 game of Monopoly, where property values seem to ignore stagnating markets and the crime rate is measured not by muggings or robberies but by real estate brokers hiding or stealing the signs of their competitors. If you think fortunes were made by those who sell the magnetized Support-Our-Troops signs, you will begin to appreciate the profits inherent in the Open House signs that proliferate like poppies in Afghanistan.

On some of the local web sites, the Chamber of Commerce is fond of reminding us that the Motel 6 chain began here as well as Sambo's restaurant, offering rationales for the name Sambo's that would be convincing if the wording were not so defensive.

Older people, it is said, come here to play golf and to visit their parents; young people generally cannot wait to move south, to the Los Angeles sprawl, or north to the legendary turf of San Francisco, another place so steeped in tradition that the muggers use surgical gloves, scrupulously changing for each new victim, where flashers in Golden Gate Park are so considerate that they only describe themselves.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are two of the major magnets, drawing a multifarious demographic from the south, the midwest, and the colder climes of New England. Although each city has its merits and its suburbs, although each has amenities and weather that rival such competition as New York, Boston, Atlanta, and yes, even Seattle, many of the emigrants find frustrations that drive them off, headed for that magical terrain called the Central Coast, where Santa Barbara beams forth, a cultural lighthouse.

They come with beards, ponytails, and buyer's remorse tattoos, willing to work at some of the available service jobs or simply to find a mobile home or illegal apartment in which to brood while trying to figure out why so many people are willing to stand in line on Milpas Street to be served such dreary tacos, drowned in sauces that remind one of Kraft Velveeta cheese, badly overcooked.

Each time I see the lines of tourists waiting patiently to be served and overcharged at La Super Rica, I tell myself that similar lines waited to vote for one of the worst presidents in the history of our republic. I tell myself that many of these tourists probably voted for one of the worst presidents in the history of our republic and would do so again if they could, because, they reason, no one who speaks so poorly can be all bad.

The Central Coast of California is a conglomeration of small, quirky, cranky places with quirky, cranky names, ruled over by two civic approximations of the Emerald City of Oz, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. There is a universe in between, a universe of Morro Bay and Avila Beach and who ever heard of Grover City or Pismo Beach? A universe where the orange-vested Cal Trans authorities don't bother to do things that will disrupt traffic during rush hour. There is no rush hour. There is the continuous buzz--or is it snore--of the Central Coast Dream.

Although billed as left leaning in its politics, The Central Coast is about as left leaning as Fox News. The Central Coast is a comforting place to live, except for August, when the residents simply cannot cope with all the zucchini that comes bursting forth. We should do with zucchini what Mao did with population explosion in China. But we denizens of the Central Coast, we happy few, we band of others, have off-season sun, pea soup marine layers, tourists wearing the full Cleveland, which is white loafers, polyester pants, and a white belt. We have found a turf worth homesteading, but it is a turf the real estate brokers cannot penetrate, it is the inner turf, the turf of men and women who have learned to dodge the dumb tourist attractions, the yearly Fiesta Days, and La Super Rica Taqueria.

Apologies, or at Least a Nod to Raymond Carver

...or what we talk about when we talk about Scooter.

There was neither surprise nor drama to the commuting of Ivan Lewis Libby's jail time; the wingnuts' spin of the punishment being harsh had begun not to soon after the verdict came through and the sentence meted out. As things stand now, at least one presidential candidate had contributed to Scooter's defense fund and indeed the incumbent President ventured forth his belief that the sentence was out of proportion to the crime.

What we talk about when we talk about Scooter is cronyism, a bonding and group behavior condition long known to anthropologists, archaeologists, and sociologists. We speak of it as loyalty when we speak of it coming from roommates at Yale, or fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. The curling of the lip into active sneer does not begin until we speak of tribalism, clans, moieties in nomadic cultures; then we expect cronyism. When we do it, it is a lady's or gentleman's agreement; when they do it we haul out the implications of primitive behavior.

In some ways, the behavior of this President of the United States is reminiscent of King Creon. You don't know about him without you have read the adventures of Antigone by Mr. Sophocles, but that ain't no matter. "This is law and order in the land of good King Creon," Antigone says at one sticky point in the play." Although Creon has nothing against Antigone and quite a bit against her brothers, he is forced by Antigone's behavior to threaten her life if she does not stop trying to bury one of her brothers who has died in battle.

If you were to see Antigone as a metaphor for the Rule of Law, or even more basic than that, the United States, you would get a picture of the position the President is maneuvering himself into.

A few days ago, it was Ahab, from Moby-Dick.

There will invariably some classic figure because this President sees himself as a classic figure, and very much like Hector, of Iliad fame, this President wants his legacy to be the President who was a classic figure.

Okay, so what about George Follansbee Babbitt?




The enclosed pictures have nothing to do with Ivan Lewis Libby or the man who commuted his sentence, or cronyism, but having been pressured to post images, I have chosen these:

Existential Issues

1. With all the fustian and fury roiling about the issue of immigration reform, we have turned our back on our northernmost border, which is not only typical of us, it is rude.

2. We appear to have statistics on the number of our neighbors to the south and, for that matter,all those from meso-America who are in this country illegally, but do we really know how many illegals from Canada are here?

3. Is the fact that in the eleven western states, there is only one Canadian restaurant (in Las Vegas, of course) an indication that the Canadians are better at secrecy than the incumbent administration here?

4. If unscrupulous profiteers and immigrant smugglers from below the southern border are referred to as coyotes, what name is given to those who smuggle Canadians into North Dakota?

5. Speaking of Canadian restaurants, does anyone know what the national dish of Canada is? (I told you they were secretive.)

6. Would shifting our rude behavior toward the Canadians to a collegial politeness make them less suspicious of us than they already are?

7. Would Canadians be less suspicious of us if we agreed to spell center as centre?

8. If a Canadian sought a permit to work in this country, would we make him/her sign a statement agreeing that English was the only legal language?