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Tale 24

 

I Was Like a Novelist

(Lore-ing a Cretan Bull)

 

 black and white line drawing of Hercules in
                a lion cape wrestling a bull by the horns to the ground

 

Hercules taming the Cretan Bull[1]

 

“Bill had lored people with catchy heart-throb stories...

like... a circus sideshow pitchman...

lored them in with a fairy tale,

to come to Fred’s live shows across the country,

the way Hercules lured and sweet-talked and tricked
the Cretan bull.”

 

“You never told me that story before, mj said. “You’ve never told me a lot of your Fred stories, I bet.” Bill could go on all night with them, and it was worrisome.

 

All night? All year!

 

Bill sipped and said, "I was like a novelist when I first came up here. I had to study the man, mj, before I could create interest in him. I had to get out press releases that said more than 'Fred Waring was a Boy Scout'."

 

That's all they had, apparently, until Bill promoted the myth – rightly, as mj saw it – that Fred and Poley had been the original Tom and Huck of U. S. American twentieth century pop music. That myth was true.

 

Bill had lored people with catchy heart-throb stories. He’d been like a huckster, a ballyhoo artist, a circus sideshow pitchman, a carnie barker. He lured them in, people like mj’s parents, Rev and Jo Lorenzo. He lored them in with a fairy tale, to come to Fred’s live shows across the country, the way Hercules lured and sweet-talked and tricked the Cretan bull. Fittingly, in his public relations handout for radio stations there was an ox:

 

Even animals succumb to the Waring sound. Once when the glee club sang "Bless This House" from a Pennsylvania Amish porch, the family cow ambled to the fence, raised its head and stood transfixed until the end of the hymn.

 

Technically it was a cow, not an ox or bull, and immediately mj felt charmed by the vignette and terribly sorry for such a musical cow. Like him, she loved music and fine things, when so much of life was like wading in your own and everybody else’s cow flop. He connected to the crazy cow instinctively, in a way that had nothing to do with reason, yet in a way that he could not ignore, and before three swipes of a cow’s tail, Tat tvam asi, as they said in India, This was that! It happened. The Ox was a cow was a bull; and mj was not just one but all three. He was hypnotized by a master bull handler in ancient Crete, listening to Fred Waring’s music, being lured with stories by Hercules, and he saw himself as this, and recognized himself as such. His animal instinct, in other words, had kicked back in a bit, and his subliminal mind could finally begin to see things from a broader and more natural-animal perspective.

 

Hindus who had created the expression ‘Tat tvam asi’, would not have appreciated Kierkegaard very much, with his insistence you had to choose ‘either’ this ‘or’ that in life on the rational basis that you could not be two things at once. Kierkegaard had claimed you therefore had to make ethical choices in life and that such choices were irreversible; and then Sartre and everybody else had taken off from this garbanzo on their grueling path of ‘existential choice’. Such hard-ass thinking and decision-making had pervaded the thought airwaves of Western civilization since the nineteen thirties and forties, affecting all the existentialists like Camus – and mj lorenzo too. But according to what Hindu thinking was claiming, as young Dr. mj was just beginning to understand from Joey and from reading Jung, Joseph Campbell and others, it looked as if it might be more correct to say that EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY was really at least two things at once, routinely. This struck a note in mj lorenzo, for sure. In the end he felt more at home with it than he had with Sartre all the years he had tried to admire Sartre. Because he had disliked exclusivist thought patterns and religions for several years now, ever since he had realized one day that every one of them, with their arrogant better-than-thou superiority, promised to be a serious threat to humanity. And anyway, all night long it was happening to him, wasn’t it? At the moment he was not one but FOUR things at once: mj lorenzo; the oxcart ox; Hercules’ Cretan bull; and the Amish family’s Waring-music-loving cow; all at the same time.

 

In ’74 mj lorenzo did not yet care as much as he would care later, that the Buddhists in the writing program at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, might condemn ‘allusions’ like these in a writer’s books, allusions to outside schemata such as religions or philosophies. It was against Naropa writing rules, according to the young college-age students there, who would inform him of the fact years after this interview, when he ‘audited’ classes in the adult ‘continuing education’ program there, in his late 40s, and it was ‘against everyone else’s rules too’ by the late 1980s and early 90s, as they would claim. But tonight he didn’t care because he didn’t know such people yet. Year in and year out since they had opened their Kerouac-ian Buddhist writing school, the Beat poets in Boulder led by Allen Ginsberg had complained that a red wheelbarrow was a red wheelbarrow was a red wheelbarrow, and that all U.S. American writers of any merit and of any hip, up-to-date good sense would reflect that awareness in their writing, or risk being shunned. But the fact was, mj was living Tat tvam asi this very night, during the entire interview, the whole night long, so had to report it as it was, or he would have been a dishonest storyteller. And when he met the Naropa Buddhists years later and showed them this kind of writing, as much as he loved and admired them all, he had to differ with them. Because for some very sincere people in the world, a red wheelbarrow was NOT just a red wheelbarrow, and an oxcart was NOT just an oxcart, as they should have figured out by now, if only out of respect for their Hindu and Jungian and other brothers. And furthermore, and by the way, he liked to point out, hardly any pack of writers in the U.S.A. had ever alluded to hidden religious meanings and other ‘outside schemata’ in their writing as much as the Naropa Writing School Buddhists had alluded to Buddhist and other outside notions, all along, ever since day one, starting right from Kerouac and Ginsberg. The pot had been calling the kettle black since day one, constantly. So there.


In the one-volume collection of Allen Ginsberg’s lifelong poetry[2] oeuvre, as a good example, there were so many allusions to outside subjects and schemata which an average reader would not understand, that Allen and the editors had felt forced to include pages and pages of thousands of footnotes explaining all of the esoteric, coded, religious, political, and other, allusions in his poems.

 

“Your writing is too analytical,” one of the college-age full-time undergrads had said in a Naropa writing class one day. “It’s not luminous,” agreed another. But was that student being luminous himself? That was the question. Dr. Lorenzo had no idea, because at that point he had no idea what the Buddhists meant by ‘luminous’; and later, even after looking up the word in the dictionary, even for the rest of his life, in fact, he still wasn’t sure in what way exactly they meant ‘luminous’, because although they had thrown the word around, they had never explained it, and what was that but referring to ‘outside schemata’?

 

“Thank you for illuminating me,” he thought later he should have said. “I feel duly and royally ill-luminous-sated by your whiz-dumb.”

 

No. It was a major moment for mj lorenzo the night of the first interview, when he realized and accepted that he was the bull, the ox and the cow, all three, even as insulting and self-deprecating as it sounded at first. It calmed and humbled him to recognize there was a kind of bovine significance about him, ridiculous or not. It gave him a kind of confidence he could not explain. It made no sense at first; yet it seemed to clarify something essential about him.

 

He looked at Bill puzzled. "Is it that Fred fascinates you?" he asked.

 

And the question christened Bill’s second brief course of psychoanalysis, which would last the rest of the night. The goal of mj’s psychoanalysis of Bill would be to get him to return to work with Fred; for young Dr. mj was just now making this his mission for the night.

 

"No," said Bill. "I've been that way since I was a little boy; being raised around farmers; and this Indian thing: American Indians are very strong on telling stories."

 

Mj knew about Native Americans. He was married to an ‘Indian’, as Bill called himself and his Native American people. And Dlune was certainly a storyteller. She could spin –.

 

"And as a little boy –," Bill began.

 

"But why Fred?" mj wanted to know. For, the psychoanalysts who had trained him would have insisted on knowing that. He was on a roll, finally. His Freudian analyst teachers would have been proud of much of what he was doing, but scandalized by the rest; for the contractual terms of the analysis were not acceptable in the least. There was no contract whatsoever between young Dr. mj and Bill Blackburn for treatment; and this broke a sacred, unbreakable psychoanalytic rule. The desire for analysis ALWAYS had to arise from the patient, not the doctor. The goal of analysis, as well, ALWAYS had to come from the patient, not the doctor. And furthermore, Bill was not a patient at all. Mj was about to ram a course of psychoanalysis down the throat of a friend, without even warning or informing him that he was doing so. So it was scurrilous, virtually; some might have said.

 

But in fact, and on the other hand, Bill knew so little about psychoanalysis he was barely aware of what mj was doing, and all the less damaged thereby. And going over Bill’s head in this way certainly had its advantages. Mj’s analytic approach to Bill’s stories, being a format unfamiliar to Bill, put the Huron attack off guard pretty much from here on out. It weakened it, affording mj more power and evening up the two sides energy-wise, so to speak.

 

Years later the Dr. condemned the act of psychoanalyzing friends without permission. He quit doing it because he found it lonely and boring, and preferred friends’ conscious participation in any effort at understanding themselves; but he admitted that in younger days he had given in to the temptation at times. And at this moment in the interview, as he explained later, given his limited experience in the world, and the pressured, confused, high-stakes circumstances of the night in question, young Dr. mj had felt desperate to come up with some stance that would serve as a counterbalance to Bill’s runaway oxcart. And, unannounced psychoanalysis was the best trick he had been able to come up with, at that desperate moment.

 

"Well," Bill said, "aren't you interested in what you do at the drug and alcoholic abuse center, in why somebody becomes an alcoholic?"

 

"Yuh," mj said. “Every day I listen to tales about addict patients; but not about my boss.”

 

Bill glared like a bullfighter aiming a banderilla. He said, "If you're listening to somebody that was renowned!"

 

"But you said as soon as you came here you were interested." Mj lowered his horns and charged. "He was your boss!"

 

Bill dodged, planting a strike. "NO! My job was promotion. At first I was just dealing with him in New York.[3] Now when you go in the studio –."

 

"Go back," mj said, slowing him down. Bill was showing weakness at last, giving mj a chance to shine at last. This was allowing his shrink-y doctor instincts to kick in. "Go back to what you were saying, 'As a little boy'." Something had happened when Bill was little, no doubt, that made him misjudge his boss now, misunderstand a male in a superior position. Freudians loved to dig around for things like that. If you dug around slowly, studied the patient in depth and pampered him, you could come up with ideas that would help your patient save his job. He'd be happy with his boss again. He'd forget the cow flop and remember the fairy tale, and finally tell it. And you’d be rich, or at least renowned like Freud and Jung, from all the books you wrote about successes psychoanalyzing cooperative patients who had wanted your famous help.

 

"The family," Bill said, "would tell stories, and as a little boy I got to understand everybody by listening to the stories of what they did." The bull charmer swerved. He eyed mj. "And one of the reasons I got Fred in New York, to produce – before I came up here to work – is that he was legendary; for a lot of things. But especially for firing his producers."

 

Mj tried to focus on this flashing cape: Bill, at Decca, had listened to his co-workers’ stories about Fred Waring, and studied those stories. That was interesting.

 

Bill said, "I was told by the head A and R[4] man at Decca, he says, 'You think that Decca's done you a favor?' He says, 'I'll give you three minutes in that studio.' I said, 'We'll come out with a bitch of a record'! And he says," Bill glared, "'Well, HEY, you're goin' in with the master'." Bill rose off his seat on one arm and grabbed a hanky out of his back pocket. "I said, 'Well, that's more reason'. He said, 'I don't mean master musician, I mean the master SONufabitch'! And I talked to all these guys that'd dealt with this man, and every one of them told me, 'God help you'!" Bill wiped his brow.

 

"Well," Bill said, "we set the ground rules the minute we got in the studio and it was beautiful. I never had a hassle with him as far as recording." Bill Blackburn had set the ground rules, that is, not Fred; as he would explain later in the evening.

 

"Mmmm," said mj. Where was this taking them?

 

Betty Ann finally looked up from stitching a hole in a sock on Sewing Day. "You never went through a recording with him when we did fifty-five takes on one song."

 

"No, you see."

 

A toreador's bugle rattled the windows. Violins wept with a tinny old radio sound, and there was a violent band intro. Soft strings held a wavering note mysterioso as a tenor gushed a serenade:

 

Gra-nahhhhhh-dahhhhhh...           (Granada!)

 

Mj checked the press release for the latest bull.

 

President and Mrs. Eisenhower were fans and warm friends of Waring as were Jimmy Walker, New York's mayor, and Bobby Jones, one of golfdom's greatest.

 

"Well," mj asked, fed up, "why would Fred let you leave now? If he could keep the U.S. President as a friend, he could keep you." Why would Fred want to scuttle the part of the fairy tale that included Bill and Betty Ann? It had been Fred’s fairy tale too, hadn’t it?

 

"Of course," said Bill. "You've got to understand."

 

Mj said, "He could offer you more money."

 

"Mj, I've set and tried to explain this a hundred times. I don't think I'm gettin' it across."

 

He had not explained it. That was the problem. He'd misled his friend by telling him half a story. Now it was a wearing game, a labyrinthine maze without his help. He had to realize it.

 

Or was it that Bill had indeed told mj the other side of the story, as Bill claimed, and it had gone in one ear and out the other. Mj lorenzo could be a bit dumb back then, and head-in-the-mud, ostrich style, when it came to understanding and accepting the world around him for what it was, sometimes; and especially, maybe, if he preferred living in a fairy tale fantasy.

 

The bugle struck again. Gra-nahhhhhh-dahhhhhh...

 

Mj glanced at the release:

 

And Al Capone was a devoted fan, as was Doug Fairbanks, Sr.

 

He pawed the earth, glowering. "But he's kept you as producer longer than he's kept anybody else," he said. "That doesn't fit."

 

Bill was giving him space to operate finally; and after being suppressed for so long, he was exploding with confidence and ideas.

 

"No he hasn't." Bill stuffed the hanky back in his pocket.

 

Fred made his bugler do it again. The brassy repetition was nerve-wracking.

 

Mj said, "He hasn't fired you like he did the other producers."

 

"Yeh, but he's had people around 'im thirty-five years."

 

"Yes," mj said. "But you are a producer, and you said no producers talked back to him like you did." Bill had said that. Fred should have fired him, obviously, but was neurotic like everybody else in the world, just as the Freudians said. So he'd kept Bill around for weird unconscious reasons. Mj’s trained Freudian gut sensed it. Fred and Bill had a love-hate working relationship, and the hate had gotten the upper hand recently, but in fact Fred still needed Bill for neurotic and emotional reasons. Mj wanted to say this, but Betty Ann distracted him.

 

"I don't think Fred's even thinkin' –," she said.

 

"'Bout me leavin'," said Bill.

 

She nodded.

 

"No," said Bill, "I don't think he is either."

 

Mj was frustrated. "You've spread the word," he said. "Apparently it hasn't sunk through his skull or something."

 

Betty Ann kicked a foot nervously. "He might think it's a conspiracy, a way to get more money."

 

She was no help, either. They were dodging him.

 

Fred did a fifty-fifth take on the bugle in ‘Granada’ and finally got what he wanted. The band in the mirror applauded. Somebody was on mj’s side, maybe the peyote.

 

He looked at the paper handout again.

 

Arturo Toscanini was an outspoken admirer of the Waring singers; Henry Ford Sr. sponsored them on coast-to-coast radio so that millions could share his taste.

 

"'Cause Fred could never think," Betty Ann took off her half-lenses and grew in her seat, "that someone would want to just leave him!" She thought this comment cute.

 

But: mj could ‘never think’, either, that someone would want to ‘just leave Fred’. "But why would you?" he said, irritated. They'd poked and prodded enough. He wanted meat.

 

...I'm fall-ing un-der your spell!... belted the tenor.[5]

 

He frowned: "When you've said he's mellowed!" It was time to pop Bill's hot air bubble, deflate it onto his easy chair cushion, and find out what baloney was in that bubble. Anybody who quit a man worth writing a book about, as they had all agreed Fred was, deserved a thorough exam.

 

...And if yooou could speeeak,

what a FAScinating taaale you would teeehll!...

 

Fred came to the end of the piece. The tenor gulped a lungful of air for a tripleforte uvula-buster. He finished by trumpeting:

 

Ro-man-tic aaaaaaaaaaa-AAAAAAAAA.A.A.A.A.AAAAAA-a-and—...

 

There was a vocal glissando down to –

 

...gay!!

 

Then a raucous tailpiece: the floor shook and mj’s drink fandangoed along the table toward Bill's.

 

All the Pennsylvanians, old and young, smiled and socked it viva voce:

 

Olé !!!

 

So why don't you join the crowd when Fred Waring's all new Young Pennsylvanians appear at the .....(name of amphitheater)..... on ...(date of show)...?!



[1]  Alice Low. Macmillan Book of Greek Gods and Heroes. Illustrations by Arvis Stewart. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985, p. 101.

 

[2]  A collection of most of Allen Ginsberg’s poems can be found in Allen Ginsberg: Collected Poems 1947-1980 (New York: Harper and Row, 1984). The Dr.’s own copy of the collection, Allen autographed for him on the title page, one day at Naropa. And on the opposite page, using a ballpoint pen, Allen drew a picture of the Buddha.

 

[3]  Bill Blackburn’s first contact with Fred Waring had occurred when Bill had bravely volunteered to take on this intractable monster musician no one else at Decca Records could handle, or wanted any more, and produce Fred’s records. Later, when they had gotten to know each other better from producing records together, Fred hired him directly, and Bill began working directly for and under Fred and his Organization, as their Promotions and Publicity man.

 

[4]  From the internet, June 6, 2018: “A & R stands for Artists and Repertoire. It is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and the artistic and commercial development of the recording artist. It also acts as a liaison between the artist and the record label.”

 

[5]  Granada’, the ‘art song’ (as some now consider it – meaning it may be given the qualifier ‘classical’ music), written by the Mexican songwriter and composer Agustin Lara in 1932 (having never seen the city of Granada in Spain except in pictures) was a Waring favorite. The ‘arrangement’ portrayed here by mj lorenzo, a Waring rehearsal – or recording session –version he (?thought he?) heard and saw as they were talking, was partly inspired by a recording of the song on Decca’s 33 rpm 2-record set, The Best of Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, which he had listened to repeatedly and absorbed before the first interview. These days (2018) it is still sung routinely by the great Spanish-language tenors, like Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo. The English translation of the Spanish lyrics, by Dorothy Dodd of Australia, is a very loose translation: “Granada, I’m falling under your spell. And if you could speak, what a fascinating tale you would tell.” The original is more interesting. A tighter translation, according to Dr. Lorenzo (who understands Spanish almost as well as some New Mexicans), would begin:

        Granada, land of my dreams,

        My singing goes gipsy when you make me sing.

   “The idea that someone or something could MAKE you sing,” said the Dr. (in Nov., 2018) to the student body of his great niece’s Chartertech (High School for the Performing Arts) in Somers Point, N.J., “is a universal experience of artists of all kinds: art is forced out of us by something or somebody that makes us do it.”

   (When some of Dana’s schoolmates told him they had NO WRITING PROGRAM, the Dr. asked Sammy to set up one of his after-school reading clubs, of which there were thousands by now, 2018, all over the world, but mostly in North America (Canada, USA and Mexico). Sammy’s clubs originally popped up in indigenous and other areas of non-dominant ethnicity, but in the eighties and nineties they caught on in other kinds of high schools, including private, and also colleges and universities. Dr. Lorenzo’s books were almost always a predominant part of their reading project, and each club kept in touch with Sammy or his appointees for assistance with interpretation, etc.)

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