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What’d you say? Oooooh.

April 23, 2014 /

Luckily, most interview subjects are cordial during the session. But the others more than make up for it. Take for example, the reply given to the BBC’s Sandra Harris in an interview with British author Barbara Cartland…

Harris: Have English class barriers broken down?

Cartland: Of course they have, or I wouldn’t be sitting here talking with someone like you.

Ouch.

There is a bit o’ snide. Personally, I prefer the snappy comeback. My best in-person snappy is the one my father volleyed back when I pointed out the orchestral music he was listening to was actually a Beatles song. “Too bad the Beatles can’t play it like that,” he replied, without missing a beat.

Another quick-draw that remains one of my all-time favorites came from musician Frank Zappa. The interviewer was a fellow named Joe Pyne, who employed an argumentative and confrontational style. Pyle walked on a prosthetic leg after a bout with cancer, but it didn’t slow down his verbal assaults.

Joe Pyle: “So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?”

Frank Zappa: “You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”

Ooooh.

Merely repeating the quote from Winston Churchill leaves me red-faced with embarrassment for Betsy Braddock, who encountered the British Prime Minister at a party.

Braddock: Winston, you’re drunk.

Churchill: Bessie, you’re ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober.

Eeek.

Then, there are those casual observations that go beyond the mark, like that of then Senator Robert Dole of Kansas. He remarked on the Washington party that brought together former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon, a trio that Dole described as “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Evil.”

Pow.

Then again, some observations jab with a sharpened funny bone, like the words of comedienne Joan Rivers describing Mick Jagger and his lips of renown.

“I saw him suck an egg out of a chicken,” said Rivers. “He can play a tuba from both ends. This man has got childbearing lips.”

Oh, what an Awful Thing to Say. In fact, that’s the name of the book, with quotes gathered by William Cole and Louis Phillips. It may say something of the acerbic wit of Oscar Wilde that so many of his quotes found their way into the pages. He praises George Bernard Shaw as “an excellent man. He has not an enemy in the world and none of his friends like him.”

Bam.

Scanning through the volume makes me wonder whether these famed talkers stayed up late dreaming up these barbs and jotting them down in an ever-handy notebook. I suspect though, that some people have sharp enough tongues that – if they ever nodded off – the pillow impaled at their lips would smother them before sunrise.

No insults here, so – Come Visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow, OK!

Who so readeth this blog…

April 21, 2014 /

The year and occasion both escape me, but I remember visiting Tulsa (as a young pup) and being impressed mightily by the Camelot Hotel. Most of you probably recall it, although it has been gone for quite a few years and had lost its medieval identity years before that.

In its prime, that impressive structure made it easy to imagine King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Although history buffs will recognize that medieval castles had few amenities – you know, things like bathrooms.

The Camelot opened in September 1965 and became an instant landmark.

As ornate as the exterior was, I was compelled to see inside. The details aren’t as clear as they were decades ago, but I remember launching myself inside as though I had every right to be there, as if I had a room key stuck in my back pocket. Of course, I didn’t. But no one even seemed to notice me as I wandered around.

I poked my head into ballrooms that appeared more corporate than castle. I wandered down hallways checking out the décor. By the time of my exploration, the Camelot was on its last armour-clad legs. I distinctly recall the carpeting as pretty threadbare – long past the expiration date, if only carpets had such a thing.

The Arthur legend begins with the Sword in the Stone, (or the Lady in the Lake, depending on the version) and the Camelot had the sword-bearing-rock feature as well. In fact, the brass plaque that was mounted near the stone-embedded sword is currently being offered for sale on eBay.

If it wasn’t so pricey, I’d buy it myself and hang it over the literature section. I can imagine it with a little rewording: Who so pulleth this book of this shelf is rightwise born King Reader. Umm. Might work better left as is.

There’s no clue as to what happened to the Camelot’s sword, part of the display said to have been located by the swimming pool. If I saw it during my medieval sojourn, I have forgotten it. As I said, the place was pretty run down by the time of my tour, and apparently the carpet made a bigger impression than Excaliber. (Or maybe the sword had been removed from the stone by some King-to-be.)

Although there was no disguising the exterior, the hotel was reinvented for a short period as the Parkside Hotel, and I seem to recall a time when a religious group was going to make a headquarters of it, or some such.

Eventually, the structure went the way of so many aging buildings and was razed. Some stories associated with it are probably all but lost by now. I recall one of the Francis Ford Coppola films was shot at that intersection on Peoria, but I don’t remember if they worked it to include or exclude the hotel.

Maybe one of you broadsword-swinging-swordsmen (or swordswomen) will bid on the plaque and keep it in the vicinity. We can hang it over the mythology section until you clear up the required wall space.

Merlin smiled gently. “I cannot join you in that wish, brother.”

“Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.”

Arthurian quotes, while we wait for the auction to end. (Mists of Avalon, Monte Python and the Holy Grail – respectively. Or disrespectively, as the case may be.)

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

They aren’t like this these days.

April 8, 2014 /

He had trouble seeing out of his left eye. Certainly a problem for most right-handed batters, but Earl could squint a little and it cleared his vision enough to see the fastballs. He was twenty-three years old and he knew baseball wasn’t his strong point.

That’s why he went out for football. And basketball. And track. Oh, and in between he squeezed in time for bookwork, graduating from Colorado College with a BA in biology. Not PhysEd.

Biology.

Earl Harry Clark lettered in twelve sports and earned All Conference honors in football, basketball, and track. He was the first All-American football player ever from the state of Colorado.

His friends called him Dutch, and by the time his career was ended, so did most everybody else. When Tigers coach William Van Degraaff called Dutch from the sideline, he might have been going in as a quarterback, a punter, a drop-kicker, a rusher, or as a kick return man. Dutch Clark could handle all those duties.

When he graduated in 1930, he stayed on campus as the head basketball coach. Times were different back then. Instead of players leaving college early for the professional ranks, Dutch Clark spent four years coaching while – in-between – playing football in the National Football League. When his Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans moved to Detroit in 1934, Dutch gave it his full-time attention.

The team was renamed the Lions, and Dutch was a six-time All Pro triple threat, and three-time NFL scoring leader. In 1935, he led the Detroit Lions to an NFL Championship over the New York Giants. He received the biggest paycheck in the league in 1937, when his combined player and coaching duties earned him a record $7,200.

By 1939, Dutch was played out, but he wasn’t finished with football. He coached the Cleveland Rams until 1942 and after a wartime stint in the US Army, returned to sports as Athletic Director at the University of Detroit.

There is a statue of Dutch on the campus of his old high school in Pueblo, Colorado, but his early-day accomplishments have faded with time – except at the NFL Hall of Fame, where the plaque bearing his name is kept brightly-shined. Dutch was a charter member of the Hall, inducted along with Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, and Curly Lambeau. (Don’t remember Curly? How about Lambeau Field and the post-touchdown Lambeau Leap?)

He was in the first College Hall of Fame class, too. Inducted in 1951.

In the Colorado College yearbook for 1930, Dutch Clark can be seen wearing a spiffy leather hat, a bullet-looking thing that might have given his noggin better protection than the plastic helmets of today. The Pikes Peak Nugget, Colorado College’s yearbook, is a hardback-bound glimpse into history, with styles and fashions from that early Depression era.

I was hoping there would be someone famous among those many photographs, and I suppose in some circles there was. Dutch Clark is a new discovery for me, though, part of the fun of landing an estate sale collection of remainders – books that were passed over at the sale.

If the book has a protagonist it has to be the star quarterback who dominates the sports section. In the Wyoming University game, “Dutch Clark had a great day. From the very first play, when the Dutchman evaded the entire Cowboy team to run 77 yards for a touchdown, until the last of his 36 points were scored, fans were treated to a truly All-American brand of running.

There’s an old expression that is used to convey when someone is in trouble or disfavor, and the Wyoming Cowboys were certainly “in Dutch” that afternoon.

A number of other nice finds in the estate purchase – Come visit! and take a look at what’s new…

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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