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 A few days ago, iTunes was featuring old time radio broadcasts as free podcasts from Humphrey/Camardella Productions. In fact, they still are; I just wandered over to the iTunes store and sure enough, the huge old-time-radio button is still on the podcast page.
Humphrey/Camardella Productions are the people who bring you Boxcars 711 old time radio (it’s also free) and they can be found in my list of “great listening sites” in the sidebar at right. I’ve loved the free programs I’ve listened to at the Radio 711 site, so I subscribed but the podcasts through iTunes were of disappointing quality – muffled, indistinct… you know that sound, like listening through a wet sponge. I unsubscribed quickly. Don’t know what the issue is – theoretically the exact same feed – but I’m going to stick to the Radio 711 site.
The problem, of course, is that as listeners, we wind up hearing somebody’s copy of some other person’s copy of another person’s copy of the copy of a copy that was originally made from… well, who knows? It might have been recorded off the radio by a home enthusiast, and if that’s all that’s available, we should consider ourselves lucky to have anything.
 However – Radio Archives is an outfit that deserves your attention and patronage. Yes, it’s on CDs, and yes, it costs, but even in this day and age of free old time radio on the internet, these CDs are worth every penny.
For their Premier Collection, they only will work directly from original transcription discs, and their release from last month, The Coconut Grove Ambassadors, sounds stunning. I don’t have it yet, but plan on ordering it, based on previous purchases from these folks, and based on the clip you can hear on the page linked above, which has to be the most incredible sounding band remote from this era I’ve ever heard, even in its internet sample.
They have other great first generation recordings and are definitely worth a visit.
Tom Snyder always seemed to get a kick out of Harlan Ellison, who here looks amazingly good for a guy only seven weeks past open-heart surgery in April 1996. Ellison has always been as outspoken as he is talented… and he’s very talented, which makes him an ideal talk show guest.
His lawsuits are written with the same gusto that infuses his books – a recent one described Ellison as “…a famous author, screenwriter, commentator and public speaker. He is the winner of countless literary awards…” and described the person he was suing as “…a scheming pathological liar and little more than an obsessively vindictive and petty man trying to be a mover and shaker.”
If you ever need to sue someone, try to get Harlan and his team on retainer. (He usually wins).
Alas, the Edgeworks series promoted in this appearance, which promised to be for Ellison what the Atlantic Edition is for H.G. Wells, ceased publication after only four volumes. But here is the highly entertaining Late Late Show appearance (30m), smacked and cracked into three bite-sized chunks.
Part 1 is above Part 2 is below Part 2 is above Part 3 is below
[ 2021 note: Don's original embedded videos are missing; these are equivalents on YouTube.]
 Did you ever hear of the movie Fickle Fortune?
The original treatment was co-authored by Alfred Hitchcock’s wife. The screenplay was written (in part) by the man who wrote A Night At The Opera for the Marx Brothers. The producer was a former rabbi whose first credit was an 30’s exploitation film, The Birth Of A Baby, and whose final film was an industrial starring Buster Keaton that had been commissioned by an Arizona real estate developer. Fickle Fortune (later remade by Mel Brooks as The Twelve Chairs) was released under the title It’s In The Bag in 1945 except in the UK, where it was known as The Fifth Chair, since a film titled It’s In The Bag had been released there in 1944.
Fred Allen and Robert Benchley played together in this film, which was once available on VHS. I can’t imagine any old time radio fan who wouldn’t love to have a copy. The main Allen/Benchley scene appears below. It is preceded by the film’s main titles, which are not to be missed.
[2021 note: The video which Don embedded is missing. This substitute one includes the opening credits but not the Allen/Benchley scene.]
Fred Allen’s quip about Mr. Skirball’s name occurring twice in the credits is even funnier when you learn that Mr. Skirball, through the Skirball Foundation, has had his name placed on:
- NYU’s Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
- The Jack. H. Skirball Health Center in Woodland Hills, CA
- The Jack. H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics at the Salk Institute
- The Jack. H. Skirball Fund for the Center for Jewish Studies at CUNY
- The Jack. H. Skirball Chair for Opthamology Research
- The Skirball Institute on American Values
 From the New York Times, November 16, 1997:
(Part of a dialogue between Marty Scorsese and Woody Allen)
Scorsese: We… met a couple of times, I think, inadvertently.
Allen: I remember years ago meeting you at a video store on Broadway.
Scorsese: That was very funny. I was behind the counter looking for ”It’s in the Bag” — Jack Benny and Fred Allen.
Allen: I remember that. Why were you looking for ”It’s in the Bag”?
Scorsese: Oh, I love that film. I like Fred Allen a lot. And, of course, Jack Benny.
Allen: But it was not a successful movie, I don’t think.
Scorsese: No, no.
Allen: It was a chance to see Jack Benny and Fred Allen.
Isn’t Life Terrible’s coverage of vintage comedy is not yet supported by an underwriting grant from The Skirball Foundation.
 This post started out as a Bob and Ray video clip.
It’s an entertaining segment in which Messrs. Elliott and Goulding have a chat with Dick Cavett about two comedy heroes shared by all three men – Robert Benchley (in the white suit) and Fred Allen. The discussion is followed by a terrific Wally Ballou interview with one of Bob and Ray’s lesser-known characters, Mr. Wwqlcw.
Watching this clip sent me back to my Benchley books. My White Suit is a piece collected in My Ten Years In A Quandary And How They Grew (1936). I also pulled Fred Allen’s Treadmill to Oblivion (1956) off the shelf and started reading bits and pieces at random. This led me to change my mind about… well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. First, enjoy the clip:
[ 2021 note: Unfortunately, the video which Don embedded is missing.]
Benchley’s short film That Inferior Feeling (1940) is all about feeling ill at ease in situations where there are no real reasons to feel ill at ease. And despite the promises of the ask-your-doctor ads, no amount of Paxil or Prozac will alter the clothing-purchase experience for those who find it painful.
There are still many men who experience great relief each time they exit a store without being  detained for shoplifting. Not because they have actually committed that heinous act, but rather because they sense in themselves an inability to appear nonchalant or non-suspicious looking as they meander toward the egress.
Those of us who admire entertainers of yesteryear often have a tendency to drift along with the undercurrent of melancholy that is the wake of the public’s fickleness in its never-ending search for new amusements. Younger fans who missed the heydays of their idols often make substantial efforts to seek out the portion of the work that survives, then use it to proselytize on behalf of their hero. They shake their heads sadly when few join them in their celebration of those who reached incredible heights of popularity in their own day… only to arrive at a near-total indifference and anonymity in ours.
 Ray Goulding can’t understand why they don’t show Benchley’s short films on TV. Dick Cavett correctly believes that Benchley will be “…virtually unknown to the younger listener or viewer,” and suggests a trip to the library. Cavett’s bittersweet story about Fred Allen’s “fan club” portrays the radio star as an under-appreciated, nearly forgotten man at the end of his life.
Hero worship can be equal parts adulation and sympathy. Adulation and sympathy not just for the hero, whose greatness was once – but is not currently – recognized; but also adulation and sympathy for one’s self, as a person both blessed and cursed with the capability to perceive and champion criminally overlooked genius.
 Yet Allen, for one, expected his fate. He finishes his 1954 book Treadmill To Oblivion with these words:
Whether he knows it or not, the comedian is on a treadmill to oblivion. When a radio comedian’s program is finally finished it slinks down Memory Lane into the limbo of yesteryear’s happy hours. All the comedian has to show for his years of work and aggravation is the echo of forgotten laughter.
Like Benchley’s man in a white suit who can’t help feeling ill at ease in non-threatening situations… like the law-abiding citizen worried about the security guard’s suspicions… there’s no good reason to feel bad for comedians and other successful entertainers who connected strongly with the audience of their day but are now largely forgotten. Neither should we feel sorry for those who can’t, today, appreciate an old Fred Allen radio show or Robert Benchley short. Few can. And we should never, under any circumstances, make it our mission to convert the heathens who will not acknowledge, let alone bow down before, the old gods some of us still worship.
Because truth be told, the treadmill never actually reaches oblivion. As in Zeno’s paradox, there’s always another halfway point ahead, a halfway point where fewer remember, fewer enjoy, fewer care.
Between 1932 and 1949, Fred Allen built up an average speed on that treadmill. As soon as he got off, that average speed started to decline. But it never quite reaches zero.
 Here’s why I like Tom Snyder, right here.
The hour he spends with Bonnie Hunt.
Tom Snyder falls head over heels in love with Bonnie Hunt right on the air. You can hear it happen. It can’t be anything else.
And, of course, why not? Bonnie’s beautiful, funny, talented, easy-going… and Tom means no harm; he just lets himself fall completely under her spell, and it’s lovely. Tom and Bonnie recall their respective strict Catholic upbringings, and Tom makes a couple of remarkably intimate and revealing statements about his life and philosophy.
 First up is a segment with Norman Lear, followed by some “open phones” calls. The Lear show is from May 29, 1991 and the Hunt show is from April 19, 1992. And no, we never do get to hear how Norman Lear got through to Danny Thomas.
Two shows, both a little incomplete (The Lear segment is joined in progress, as is the Bonnie Hunt interview), but still a treat. Just under an hour and a half in total; commercials have been painstakingly removed. This program will stream in Box.net’s audio player, or you can download it.
Link
 He won’t accept your check.
He was the victim of a Y2K error at his bank that moved a decimal point and made a $2,000.00 check into a $20.00 check. The mistake was so difficult to correct that he vowed to never touch a check again. “Checks will be silently ignored.”
He doesn’t have a computer.
He does the typesetting work for his magazine, The Mystery and Adventure Series Review, himself. “No computer equipment is ever used here for any purpose whatsoever.”
You can’t buy a subscription, anyway.
If you have a sincere interest in series books (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Rick Brant, Tom Quest, et al) he’ll send you his magazine without charge, trusting that if you like it, you’ll send him a contribution.
Can’t find that Tom Quest you remember so fondly?
 He’ll loan you a copy from the magazine’s own Tom Quest lending library.
On a tight budget?
The M&A bookstore has copies of series books they’ll give away.
Have you sold series books to other collectors at inflated prices?
You can’t ever get a copy of M&A Review. Ever. You’re already banned for life.
“He” is Fred Woodworth, and the arrival of an issue of his irregularly published, gorgeous hand-produced magazine, is always an event.
Fred writes about his eclectic interests: series books, of course, but also typography. And in the current issue, perpetual calendars, libraries that discard old books, found photographs, and the Antikythera Mechanism. He is iconoclastic and inspirational. Here’s a quote from the current issue:
I believe that the topics we concern ourselves with here, though usually ignored or at best smiled at by today’s cultural arbiters, deserve no less than these high aims. While I have to admit that on top of declining interest in old series-type books, the internet is rapidly removing readers from the world of the small magazine (and postal policies seem deliberately aimed at stopping small publications), I myself remain committed to supplying – as long as there are any readers at all – a product that reaches for the highest possible level.
 This past summer, on a recommendation from The M&A Review, I picked up The Rocket’s Shadow, a Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story. I had more fun reading that old series book than I could ever have imagined.
If you have an interest in connecting or re-connecting with the world of series books, write a letter to Fred Woodworth, Post Office Box 3012, Tucson, Arizona 85702. He might just send you a copy of The Review, so if you want to send him some cash and/or stamps up front, do so.
Just don’t send a check. You’ll be silently ignored.
Let me share just a bit of a favorite video with you… one that features “extraordinary, fantastic, stunning, colorful, rare and beautiful little gems” floating in an icy limbo.
Dannny Turner describes his lots in a honeyed voice soothing and smooth as wet-mint glass. Nine is ‘nahn,’ bright is ‘braht,’ wild is ‘wahlled,’ white is ‘waht.’ When the spheres spin and reveal imperfections, there is comfort in knowing they are ‘as made.’ The evocative language is not one you and I speak, since it describes worlds we do not know – worlds of tri-color flames, cyclones and rapid twists, and divided Laticcino ribbon core swirls.
Danny’s finger moves marbles as if they were living. It’s the hand of God exploring new and unknown worlds, strange planets with ground pontils.
And it’s always summer for Danny’s marbles. Crickets and tree frogs, even birds, for lower-number lots, provide subtle accompaniment for the presentation.
Mesmerizing videos. I’ve never seen their equal.
[ 2021 note: Don's embedded video is missing.]
Link to modern latticinos.
The Great Gatsby isn’t just the great American novel; it’s a cottage industry. There’s no lack of odd and unusual editions and companion volumes out there.
There’s the original first printing, published on April Tenth of 1925, identifiable by errors such as the one on page 205, lines 5 and 6 – “sick in tired” instead of Fitzgerald’s preferred “sickantired.”
Thank goodness the printers screwed up, otherwise how would we be able to recognize a first edition of the first printing? In addition to the in famous “sick in tired,” you can also check for:
- Page 60, line 16: “chatter.” In the second printing, the word is changed to “echolalia.”
- Page 119, line 22, “northern.” In the second edition, it’s “southern.”
- Page 165, line 16: “it’s” instead of “its”
- Page 211, lines 7-8; “Union Street station” instead of “Union Station”
There’s also a facsimile of the original first edition, with facsimile dust jacket. It’s quite a deal at 30 bucks, since the original with wrapper goes for ten thousand dollars and up. The facsimile dutifully reprints all the errors of the true first edition.
There’s also an edition that contains a facsimile of the entire original manuscript in Fitzgerald’s hand:
My favorite book related to Gatsby is I’m Sorry About The Clock, which details how the narrative’s timeline is all screwed up.
The author of I’m Sorry… got a calendar for 1922 (the year in which the events of the book take place), started checking and found that, for example, a party in Chapter 2 that must take place on July 2 must logically occur two weeks after the mid-June party that takes place in Chapter 3, and yet it’s clear that chronologically, the events of Chapter 3 are meant to follow the events of Chapter 2.
I love the conclusion of I’m Sorry About The Clock, which begins by asking why nobody else had ever noticed all the “temporal incoherencies” in Gatsby. Answer? They just had assumed it was right (and they didn’t have a 1922 calendar handy).
One step weirder is a graphic novel (that would be “comic book”) in which Gatsby is a seahorse and Daisy is a dandelion with a worm growing out of her head.
You can’t buy this one in the United States… some sort of a problem with copyright, but it has gotten amazingly good reviews.
The longest book in the Gatsby library is a boxed edition of the original galleys. Each galley is six inches wide and two feet long. When the galleys were printed, the title was still Trimalchio. Note the hand-written change on the first galley which misspells “Gatsby” as “Gadsby.”
Intriguingly, there is a book called Gadsby. The title character is even a J. Gadsby. It’s a very, very odd book, written by Ernest Vincent Wright and published by him through a vanity press in 1939. Here’s the first paragraph:
If youth, throughout all history, had had a champion to stand up for it; to show a doubting world that a child can think; and, possibly, do it practically; you wouldn’t constantly run across folks today who claim that “a child don’t know anything.” A child’s brain starts functioning at birth; and has, amongst its many infant convolutions, thousands of dormant atoms, into which God has put a mystic possibility for noticing an adult’s act, and figuring out its purport.
Anything about that paragraph strike you as odd? How about the final paragraph:
A glorious full moon sails across a sky without a cloud. A crisp night air has folks turning up coat collars and kids hopping up and down for warmth. And that giant star, Sirius, winking slyly, knows that soon, now, that light up in His Honor’s room window will go out. Fttt! It is out! So, as Sirius and Luna hold an all-night vigil, I’ll say a soft “Good-night” to all our happy bunch, and to John Gadsby — Youth’s Champion.
I don’t have a hard copy of Gadsby, but it is not only available in the United States, it is available for free download as a .pdf.
 The book isn’t remembered for its similarities to Fitzgerald. It’s famous because over the course of 50,000 words, the author never once uses the letter ‘e.’ (Go back and look!)
“As the vowel E is used more than five times oftener than any other letter, this story was written, not through any attempt to attain literary merit, but due to a somewhat balky nature, caused by hearing it so constantly claimed that ‘it can’t be done; for you cannot say anything at all without using E, and make smooth continuity, with perfectly grammatical construction—’ so ‘twas said.”
- Ernest Vincent Wright
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Isn’t Life Terrible? "Isn't Life Terrible" is a Charley Chase short from 1925. The title was derived from a 1924 D.W. Griffith film, "Isn't Life Wonderful?" Other Charley Chase film titles that ask questions are "What Price Goofy?" (1925), "Are Brunettes Safe?" (1927), and "Is Everybody Happy?" (1928). Chase abandoned his titles with question marks for titles with exclamation points during the sound era.
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Isn't Life Terrible moved from Blogger to WordPress in May of 2010. As a result, some links in older posts were broken. If you encounter one, let us know by leaving a comment on the post with the broken link, and we'll move it to the top of our "to-fix" list.
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A few days ago, iTunes was featuring old time radio broadcasts as free podcasts from Humphrey/Camardella Productions. In fact, they still are; I just wandered over to the iTunes store and sure enough, the huge old-time-radio button is still on the podcast page.
However – Radio Archives is an outfit that deserves your attention and patronage. Yes, it’s on CDs, and yes, it costs, but even in this day and age of free old time radio on the internet, these CDs are worth every penny.
