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Down South Jukin’




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October 01, 2009

On Saturday, October 3, a world-class collection of antique jukeboxes dating from the 1930s through the 1960s will be auctioned in the Tuscaloosa suburb of Northport. Also up for bid are some 5,000 78- and 45-rpm records and advertising memorabilia.

Original Wurlitzer jukeboxes from the 1930s are expected to bring the highest bids. (Images of the jukeboxes can be viewed online at www.halhunt.com.) Each is a visual splendor, with Space Age curves illuminated by brightly colored lights.




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“There’s never been a better collection sold at public auction,” says Hal Hunt, who explains that Houston-based owner John Gurrech was originally a record collector who became fascinated with jukeboxes in the 1980s when he decided he needed somewhere to store and play his records. Dubbed with cool names, such as the Wurlitzer Peacock and the Rock-Ola Spectrovox, the jukeboxes are expected to sell from $1,500 to $50,000. An early 1960s contraption known as a Scopitone that played early music videos on film will also be auctioned. One of the most unique jukeboxes includes a “Strike Up the Band” feature: on top of the machine is a bandstand with drawn curtains that open when a record begins, revealing an orchestra of musical figurines that appear to be playing. When the song is finished, the curtains close until the next record is selected.




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Gurrech housed the collection at his home in Houston. His thousands of records include an autographed Sun Records 45-rpm by Johnny Cash and a 78-rpm recording of “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins, as well as an impressive assembly of singles by Hank Williams, Sr. In addition to the jukeboxes, the collection includes miscellaneous treasures, such as gasoline pumps, barber’s chairs, neon beer signs, and gas station signage.

The auction will be held at Hal Hunt Auctions, 5925 Highway 43 in Northport, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, October 3. The collection may be previewed on Friday, October 2, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 205-333-2517 or go to www.halhunt.com for more information. &

String Theory

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String Theory

Luthier Jason Taylor knows mandolins and guitars inside out.

By Ed Reynolds

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August 06, 2009
“I hate to throw wood away,” says Jason Taylor with a laugh, surrounded by numerous wood scraps and partially constructed guitars as he strums a mandolin in his instrument shop. Taylor recently opened Red Mountain Music in Forest Park, where he builds and repairs guitars and mandolins. He also offers guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, and singing lessons (with a focus on harmony vocalizing techniques).As a luthier (a craftsman who makes or repairs stringed instruments), Taylor has a deep appreciation for different types of woods, and his enthusiasm for the aromas and textures of various woods is obvious. “Rosewood and mahogany, they both smell amazing. On some of my early mandolins, I experimented a lot with woods, but now I build them more to traditional guidelines because people want a certain thing. I’m no longer trying to change things radically in any way. Brazilian rosewood is the ultimate, but it’s endangered. When you touch it, it has a different vibe. It’s almost like hitting a piece of sheet metal; it’s got a ring to it.”




Luthier Jason Taylor will custom build guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments. (Photographs by Brian Francis.) (click for larger version)

Rosewood from India has replaced the Brazilian species as the coveted wood for expensive guitars, though Indian rosewood is not quite as visually dynamic. “There’s something slightly different about the colors that the Brazilian rosewood gets,” Taylor explains. “It can be orange, it can be black with reds and greens and purples; it can have all sorts of crazy colors to it. My favorite is the chocolate brown.”




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Taylor started playing guitar at age eight after learning the cello. He built his first instrument at age 16 while studying classical guitar at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. “I had wanted to build a guitar for a while and had a few tools,” he says. A family friend had a carpentry shop in his basement and taught him the process. Taylor eventually moved to North Carolina to study jazz but soon found himself smitten with the bluegrass sound so common to the area. Today, his tastes lean toward bluegrass and “old-time” music, especially traditional Irish melodies played on banjo and fiddle. Taylor currently performs with local bluegrass band Back Row Baptists.




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It takes Taylor about two weeks to build a mandolin, as opposed to five or six days to assemble an acoustic guitar. He charges around $3,500 for a mandolin, and $2,500 to $3,000 for a guitar. “It takes a lot of patience to make a mandolin; it’s a lot of work,” Taylor says. In comparison, retail stores sell guitars that range in price from cheap $100 models all the way to Martin brand guitars, which can go for more than $5,000. “By having a guitar custom made, the buyer is more involved in the creative process. You get to know the person that’s making it for you, develop a personal relationship,” he explains.

“You can choose your woods, the inlay, the style of guitar you want.”




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The most difficult step is the finishing, or varnishing, process. Bubbles can form if the shellac is not applied properly, which then involves further sanding and polishing of the instrument. Taylor says the varnish will affect an instrument’s tone, though how hard a player plucks the strings must be factored in, as well. “Whatever you put on the wood, it’s going to stop some of the vibration,” he explains. “If it vibrates a whole, whole bunch, you want a thicker finish [varnish], maybe, to lessen the vibration. But then it goes back to the player. Maybe that player doesn’t play as hard as some other guy, so maybe he needs more resonance, you know? That’s very dicey territory, especially when you talk about trying to change the little 1% details on a guitar.”

The most expensive instrument he’s worked with is a “mandocello” that is currently on display at Maralyn Wilson Gallery. (A mandocello is played like a mandolin, but the body is larger. The neck is identical to that of a standard guitar, making the pitch lower than that of a mandolin, with the eight strings tuned as a cello.) The SOS Children’s Villages, the world’s largest orphan charity, has agreed to purchase the instrument to add to their list of items available in their catalog used at silent auctions held around the country.

“When all is said and done, I’ll get over $10,000 for that instrument,” Taylor says. “It was all hand carved.”

Taylor does not put any brand on the instruments he builds. “I haven’t started using labels. Every one of them is one of a kind,” he explains. “Each will have a slightly different mother of pearl inlay pattern (on the headstock, where the tuning pegs are), and I’ll give the instrument a number . . . I hope to have 700 or so instruments made before I die, which is a whole bunch for one person to build. Maybe 400 is a better number.” &

Red Mountain Music is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 825 39th Street South, behind Zoe’s in Forest Park. For more information, call 907-5166 or visit www.redmtnmusic.com.

Luthier Jason Taylor knows mandolins and guitars inside out.

By Ed Reynolds

write the author

August 06, 2009“I hate to throw wood away,” says Jason Taylor with a laugh, surrounded by numerous wood scraps and partially constructed guitars as he strums a mandolin in his instrument shop. Taylor recently opened Red Mountain Music in Forest Park, where he builds and repairs guitars and mandolins. He also offers guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, and singing lessons (with a focus on harmony vocalizing techniques).As a luthier (a craftsman who makes or repairs stringed instruments), Taylor has a deep appreciation for different types of woods, and his enthusiasm for the aromas and textures of various woods is obvious. “Rosewood and mahogany, they both smell amazing. On some of my early mandolins, I experimented a lot with woods, but now I build them more to traditional guidelines because people want a certain thing. I’m no longer trying to change things radically in any way. Brazilian rosewood is the ultimate, but it’s endangered. When you touch it, it has a different vibe. It’s almost like hitting a piece of sheet metal; it’s got a ring to it.”




Luthier Jason Taylor will custom build guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments. (Photographs by Brian Francis.) (click for larger version)




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“You can choose your woods, the inlay, the style of guitar you want.”




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“When all is said and done, I’ll get over $10,000 for that instrument,” Taylor says. “It was all hand carved.”

Red Mountain Music is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 825 39th Street South, behind Zoe’s in Forest Park. For more information, call 907-5166 or visit www.redmtnmusic.com.

A Relaxed Pace

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A Relaxed Pace

While most of Highway 280 has experienced out-of-control expansion, time has happily stood still at Perrin’s Grocery.

By Ed Reynolds

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July 23, 2009

Across from Lloyd’s restaurant on Highway 280, amid the sprawling commercial development that has sprouted throughout the area in recent years, sits a stone façade bait shop and convenience store known as Perrin’s Grocery. Having occupied the same location for the past 51 years, the building stands in stark contrast to its surroundings. Inside, one finds a clientele different than the thousands of suburbanites who commute to jobs in the greater Birmingham area.A weekday afternoon visit finds the store bustling with customers, though only one is interested in bait (most of the store’s fishing business occurs on Saturdays). “We’re out of crickets, but they should be here in just a few minutes,” owner Jamie Perrin tells a disappointed fisherman. Most of Perrin’s patrons are shopping for the business’s real bread and butter: landscaping supplies courtesy of Perrin and Son.




Photo by Tina Lampton. (click for larger version)

The front door of Perrin’s is plastered with fliers. One seeks a home for a “Redbone hound dog” found wandering in the area; a business in Wilsonville, Alabama, asks the question “Got coyotes? Give us a call,” with a photo of several men brandishing rifles. Baskets of peaches and tomatoes sit outside the front door, along with jars of Amish Wedding–brand pear, blackberry, and muscadine jams. Meanwhile, a landscaper fills up his truck with gasoline, noting, “Jamie’s got the best gas prices around.” When asked if he has considered upgrading his old-fashioned pumps for newer models, Perrin shakes his head and replies, “Nah, these work just as well and they’re paid for.”

The store’s merchandise includes fishing gear, slingshots, and an impressive selection of knives. Jars of chow-chow relish and pickled okra are also available. Large, generic-looking bags with the brand name Redneck Charcoal are stacked near the beer section. Store shelves are sparsely stocked, as if the place is going out of business. Behind the cash register, a couple of fly strips with a dozen dead flies stuck to them hang from the ceiling. Like clockwork, the cricket dealer shows up, just as Perrin had promised his lone bait customer. Egg crates covered with chirping crickets are dumped into a two-foot-deep Plexiglas tub. Chunks of red-skin potatoes are scattered across the bottom of the cricket tub for the creatures to munch on. “They’ll clean that potato all the way down to the peel,” a customer adds. He then gestures toward the minnows, bragging on Perrin’s bait selection. If one prefers worms for fishing, there’s plenty of those for sale, too.

“My daddy ran around with Jamie’s daddy,” says Columbiana resident Donald “Tootie” Duke, one of the regulars who hangs around Perrin’s most afternoons eating boiled peanuts from a simmering kettle while joking with Perrin and Perrin’s wife, Dee, who operates the cash register. “Mr. Perrin used to let people buy on credit, or he’d trade instead of selling for cash.” Jamie says that boiled peanuts are a longtime store tradition begun by his father. “Boiled peanuts are one of our biggest sellers, been selling ‘em for 30 years. We boil ‘em for 14 hours,” he says, offering a sample. “We got roasted peanuts, too.”

Perrin’s father Jimmy, an imposing figure of a man with a flowing white beard who always wore coveralls, bought the store in 1958 at age 21 when Highway 280 was basically bordered by a forest. In 1969, construction began to widen 280 from two lanes to four. Perrin’s building sat several feet lower than the new highway’s elevation, so the store was demolished and rebuilt to bring it level with the roadway. Jimmy Perrin died in 2006, and his son carries on the family trade. Though the store was essentially conceived as a convenience store and bait shop, the elder Perrin learned that he would have to diversify to stay in business. “Dad saw the writing on the wall when the modern stores began being built [along 280] in the 1980s, so he started the landscaping supply business,” Jamie explains.

Jamie and Tootie laugh about the horse-drawn buggy that Perrin’s father often drove. “He had a little black dog that would ride with him,” Jamie says as he recalls the day a decade ago when the buggy became a runaway vehicle along Highway 280. “Dad stopped and got out to adjust one of the harnesses, and those two horses suddenly ran off down the highway, with just that little dog sitting up there like he was driving. They ran for about a mile down 280 before we finally got ‘em stopped. Caught ‘em over there at Lloyd’s [restaurant].”

Jamie Perrin says that the current recession has affected his business somewhat but “not extremely bad.” “Dad would never have sold the store, but we would if the price is right,” he admits. He says politics aren’t discussed very often by the store’s regulars, but he offers his opinion: “Obama inherited a mess, but he’s not gonna be able to straighten it out.” This prompts Dee to comment, “If they’re gonna give all that money away, those that get the money oughta be held accountable!” When asked about Michael Jackson’s death amid rumors of a drug overdose the previous day, Dee claims she heard that morphine was involved. She shakes her head and says, “He was a nice-looking guy at one point. I don’t know why he had to go and do all that stuff to his face.” Jamie is philosophical about the drug rumors. “I don’t know why they want to do an autopsy,” he says. “If it was drugs, it’s not going to change anything. It’s like Elvis. He’s still gone.” Perrin then addresses Farrah Fawcett’s death. “Do you remember those posters she had, in that bathing suit?’ he asks a nodding visitor. “I wish I had a few of those posters here at the store. Those things would be worth a lot of money now.”

An assortment of stuffed animals are mounted on the store’s walls and shelves: huge striped bass, wildcats, turkeys, squirrels, raccoons, and deer. “See that raccoon pelt up there? I gave Dad that one Christmas. That raccoon weighed 46 pounds.”

The store’s property includes six acres to accommodate the landscaping supply business, which includes huge mounds of pine mulch, sand, gravel, and top soil. Perrin’s teenage son, Trey, and a longtime employee named Curly are operating Bobcat front-end loaders, dumping materials into the beds of customers’ pickup trucks. Trey walks into the store for a soda. When asked how long he’s been driving a Bobcat, the teen replies, “I learned to drive one when I was four, but my dad wouldn’t let me load trucks ’til I was eight.” Jamie laughs as he recalls the horror on customers’ faces when they saw a child loading up their trucks.

“You need to meet Curly, he’s worked here for 25 year,” Jamie suddenly tells me. “Curly, I got a police officer here that wants to talk to you,” Perrin tells his employee via walkie-talkie, winking at me before whispering, “He might not come in here now.” Ten minutes later, Curly saunters into the store, eyeing me suspiciously. After being convinced that I’m not a cop, he begins sharing his opinion of the evolution of Highway 280. “I don’t like to see all this change,” he says, gesturing toward the strip mall across the street. “Used to be I couldn’t see anything out here except woods. That was what my kind of fun was, just sitting out in the woods around here, swimming and fishing, watching the sun set. People look at progress different than I do. All these places out here keep going out of business,” Curly says, shaking his head in disgust. “And I can’t eat asphalt and concrete.” &

Perrin’s is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Call 991-5026 if you need landscaping materials, which Jamie Perrin will be happy to deliver if you can’t stop by the store.

A Pocketful of Doubt

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A Pocketful of Doubt

Local author Jim Noles pens a clever but factually troubled history of the 50 states.

By Ed Reynolds

write the author

June 12, 2008
A Pocketful of History: Four Hundred Years of America—One State Quarter at a Time

By Jim Noles

Da Capo Press, 324 pages, $25.

Birmingham attorney Jim Noles’ latest book, A Pocketful of History, digs into state histories and relevant icons that inspired the designs on coins in the U.S. Mint’s 50 State Quarters Program that began in 1999. The book devotes a short chapter to each state, offering historical trivia and enlightening glimpses of America throughout. Who knew, for example, that the mountains depicted on Colorado’s quarter were home to a training camp operated by the CIA from 1957 to 1963, where Tibetan freedom fighters learned espionage techniques to resist Chinese communists?

The 50 State Quarters Program legislation was approved by both houses of Congress in 1997, after which the program proved its worth by earning a profit (known as seigniorage) for the U.S. Treasury, because many of the quarters, which cost only a nickel to produce, were hoarded by collectors and did not stay in circulation. In 1999, the U.S. Mint began issuing five new quarters each year for 10 years, with coins minted in the order that respective states joined the Union. After receiving thousands of submissions, the Secretary of the Treasury chose each state’s design, although governors also played a major role in the choice. The commemorative coin program is estimated to have generated $6 billion in profits since its inception.

The diamond featured on the Arkansas quarter points to the 1906 discovery by a farmer that led to Arkansas becoming the eighth largest diamond source in the world (a boom that had run its course by the 1920s).

Noles uses Idaho’s peregrine falcon as a jumping off point for a brief history of nature conservation efforts. The peregrine was listed as endangered in 1966. A primary cause was the pesticide DDT, which entered the falcon’s diet and collected in the bird’s tissues, leading to egg shells that were too thin to remain intact until hatching. In 1973, a year after the pesticide was banned, President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act. In 1999, the peregrine falcon was taken off the list of endangered species.

Wyoming’s quarter features a cowboy on a bucking bronco next to the slogan “The Equality State.” In 1869, Wyoming became the first state or territory to grant women the right to vote. (The wife of the representative who introduced the legislation was a staunch suffragette.) At the time, many territories were considering similar legislation because expanded voting rights were considered a lure to settlers. When it became a state in 1890, it was still the only place in the United States where women could vote. It was another 30 years before the right was extended to women in all states.

South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore was so named because New York attorney Charles E. Rushmore traveled to the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory to investigate legal titles for properties affiliated with a tin mine. One day Rushmore asked his guide the name of a 5,725-foot granite peak, to which the guide replied, “Never had a name, but from now on we’ll call it Rushmore.”

In 1924, South Dakota’s Department of History contacted Connecticut sculptor Gutzon Borglum for a commission at Mount Rushmore. (Borglum created the marble bust of Lincoln that is displayed in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.). At the time, he was beginning his carvings of Confederate heroes on the side of Georgia’s Stone Mountain. However, the sculptor was bickering with the project’s financial backers, and after finishing his relief sculpture of General Robert E. Lee, Borglum was fired. He destroyed all of his models for the Stone Mountain venture, which prompted the state of Georgia to issue a warrant for his arrest. (The state eventually removed Borglum’s impressive Robert E. Lee creation from the side of the mountain and started over.) Beginning in 1927, it took Borglum 14 years and 400 workers to finish the Mount Rushmore sculpture. Borglum died in 1941 before the project was finished. His son, Lincoln Borglum, completed the sculpture seven months later.

The book’s concept is delightful, which makes all the more regrettable the fact that A Pocketful of History contains a series of factual errors that cause the reader to wonder how many other facts in the book are inaccurate. This reviewer found several by happenstance, detailed here. There may be others.

For instance, Noles wrote of Alabama quarter subject Helen Keller’s socialist leanings, much of which this reader was unaware. She joined the Socialist Party in Massachusetts in 1909 after reading Marx and Engels in German Braille. Keller lectured on the socialist circuit and was quite the activist. Her purported affiliation with the Communist Party prompted the FBI to keep a file on her during the 1950s. That’s the same FBI that author Jim Noles references in this sentence: In another touch of irony, Keller, who was apparently unaware of the FBI file compiled on her during the height of the Red Scare period, later included FBI chief Herbert [sic] Hoover in her mailing list of solicitations for her American Foundation for the Blind. It’s amazing that Da Capo Press’s proofreader failed to notice that the FBI was headed by J. Edgar Hoover, not President Herbert Hoover, before the book was printed.

Noles also writes of the Indianapolis 500 (a racecar is prominently featured on the Indiana quarter). Noting that only men had won the prestigious race, Noles speculates that the inclusion of women in the field will perhaps change that fact one day. He tells of the female pioneers at the Indy 500, writing that the first, Janet Guthrie, was “followed by Lyn St. James and Danica Patrick. In 2007, a record number of women—Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher, and Venezuelan Milka Duno—joined the field.” Actually, Sarah Fisher raced in her first Indianapolis 500 in 2000, and has competed every year since then except for one. Fisher is the third woman to race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, not current racing babe Danica Patrick.

The most egregious mistake, though, is in the chapter about the Ohio quarter, which displays an astronaut. It could be Neil Armstrong or John Glenn, both Ohio natives. But since the rules for quarter designs forbid any portrait of someone still alive, it’s simply an astronaut. Noles chose to retell Neil Armstrong’s exciting adventure to the moon on Apollo 11. Amid alarms sounding on board the lunar module Eagle, alerting the crew that the moon landing should be aborted, Armstrong continued to descend. (The alarms later proved to be false.) Suddenly, he realized that the craft was headed for dangerous terrain. With little fuel left, Armstrong coolly flew to a safer region as Mission Control and a listening audience of millions held its collective breath on Earth. After writing correctly that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were in the Eagle as it headed toward the lunar surface, Noles becomes confused in the following two paragraphs.

“As Eagle descended, a series of alarms sounded, warning the astronauts and Mission Control back in Houston, Texas, that the rudimentary on-board flight control computers were being overwhelmed with data. Ignoring the alarms, Collins took manual control of the module as planned and began to guide it in for landing.

“At that point, the two astronauts realized that their prospective landing field was strewn with truck-sized boulders. In response, Collins brought Eagle to a hover 270 feet over the moon’s surface. Nearly three minutes passed as he and Armstrong angled Eagle for a safer spot to land. When they finally did settle in for a landing on the moon’s dusty surface, they had a mere seventy seconds of fuel remaining.”

There’s one small problem. Michael Collins was not in the Eagle; he was 60 miles above the moon orbiting solo in the Command Module Columbia, awaiting Armstrong and Aldrin’s return to the mothership the next day.

Nevertheless, A Pocketful of History is a fun read, with plenty of surprising facts. It’s the kind of book that’s easy to spend half an hour with every day or so, skipping from chapter to chapter. Its bite-sized chunks of history can be pretty engrossing and easy to digest, as long as the truth doesn’t come back to ruin the meal. &

The Queen of Green

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The Queen of Green

A new store caters to the green lifestyle.

By Ed Reynolds

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Owner Nancy Tran inside her new store that stocks environmentally friendly products. Photo by Brian Francis. (click for larger version)

May 14, 2009

Nancy Tran recently opened Green Central Station in Birmingham’s Lakeview district because she had grown weary of searching local shelves for certain hard-to-find environmentally friendly products. “My store is here for my convenience, and I thought I’d share it with the community,” says Tran, laughing. “Plus, it’s a great way to meet chicks.” Billed as a neighborhood general store, its stock consists of environmentally friendly products such as soaps, non-toxic natural cleaning supplies, dog and cat toys, rain barrels, biodegradable bamboo planters, and recycled toothbrushes made by Preserve. “When your toothbrush wears out, you mail it back to the company and they crush it up and make new ones out of the old ones,” she explains.

Also featured are refurbished vintage bicycles and various thrift store-type treasures such as a pink acoustic guitar and assorted lamps and desks. All-natural snacks, locally produced honey, and Blue Sky natural sodas are available. For outdoor types, water bottles equipped with a built-in filter allow safe drinking from streams or lakes. There are even soy candles (“guaranteed to burn longer and cleaner, with a lead-free wick”) and certified organic cotton candy.

But the picnic accoutrements really stamp the store as original. “I’m a closet romantic,” Tran admits. “I want to reintroduce the art of picnics.” Displayed on a patch of green Astroturf are picnic supplies for sale or rent: pop-up wooden picnic tables, picnic baskets, and picnic trunks complete with wine glasses, plates, and dining utensils. Croquet and badminton sets, the ideal complement to any weekend outing, are also available for rent or purchase. Tran is so smitten with the notion of “picnicking” that she even offers her companionship. “If you want to rent some picnic supplies but have no one to go with, I’ll go along for free.” &

Green Central Station (202-4056) is located at 2717 7th Avenue South. The store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. The store offers delivery within a four-mile radius of the shop.

Animal Refuge

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Animal Refuge

There’s room in the Humane Society’s rescue barn for creatures great and small.

By Ed Reynolds

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April 30, 2009

For the past year, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office have jointly operated the Equine and Large Animal Rescue Barn, a facility near Mount Olive that provides a safe haven for agricultural animals confiscated in cruelty and neglect cases. Farm animals needing shelter in the event of disasters, catastrophes, and emergencies—as determined by the sheriff’s office—can also be sheltered there. An eight-stall, $185,000 barn is currently under construction as the GBHS continues to raise the $25,000 needed to finish the project’s final phase.

The nine-acre property was donated by Deputy Dwight Sloan, animal cruelty officer for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Sloan was named the National Humane Officer of the Year for 2008 by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) for his relentless efforts in finding and arresting the person who shot to death a horse named Champ in a local family’s pasture a couple of years ago.

Joe Murphy, cruelty investigator for GBHS, said that some 20 horses have been placed since the project began. The animals at the shelter have varied histories. “Two groups [of horses] actually came from U.S. Steel property. One group included a [horse owner] who did not have a lease with U.S. Steel, and had set up shop there and was boarding horses for other people,” he explains. He believes the trespasser was probably offering riding lessons, as well. “When we got there, none of the horses looked very good. There was one in particular that was probably on the verge of death—emaciated and dehydrated. The man pled guilty to animal cruelty, criminal trespassing, and criminal littering, and signed over his horses,” Murphy says. A second group of horses was found on U.S. Steel land near Wylam. “No food was provided,” he says. “The horses had stripped clean all the vegetation that was in the area. We never were able to prove who owned them. They came here in pretty sad shape.”

A white horse named Hurricane, one of a group of neglected horses reported by neighbors in the McCalla area, was of major concern to Murphy. “She was in very, very poor condition,” he recalls. Hurricane has been at the shelter since August of 2008 and is still waiting to find a home. Murphy says that most of the animals are adopted through word of mouth among those involved with the local horse community. The contract stipulates that if the person adopting the animal no longer wants it, the horse must be returned to the care of GBHS rather than be given away to someone else.

Recently, the facility housed 93 roosters confiscated from a cockfighting operation. The roosters were being held as evidence until the case was brought to trial. Rabbits, donkeys, mules, and goats have also stayed at the shelter.

The Alabama Department of Agriculture is considering building several similar rescue barns across the state to shelter livestock in the event of natural disasters. GBHS director Jacque Meyer says that catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina, which left many agricultural animals abandoned, further heightens the need for such shelters. &

The End of an Era

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The End of an Era

The glory days of Birmingham International Raceway are recalled by veterans of the track, including one of the greatest names in NASCAR history.

By Ed Reynolds

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Promoter J.P. Rotton’s 1953 Studebaker Starlight Coupe, which was painted with gold dust. (click for larger version)

April 16, 2009

Birmingham International Raceway (BIR), the third oldest automobile racetrack in the nation (only the Milwaukee Mile and Indianapolis Motor Speedway are older), has been demolished to make way for an indoor golf driving range. That change is part of Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford’s revitalization dreams for the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Five Points West.

Originally built as a one-mile horsetrack, the facility hosted a motorcycle race in 1906, its first foray into motorsports that eventually led to at least 95 years of auto racing. Some of the greatest names in automobile history passed through its gates. In 1925, the now-razed 8,000-seat grandstand was constructed, hosting the renowned Chevrolet brothers as they unveiled a new dirt-track race car. Richard Petty, David Pearson, and a trio of upstarts from Miami—Red Farmer, Bobby Allison, and Donnie Allison (who became famous as the Alabama Gang)—are part of the track’s history.

Most races were held in conjunction with the state fair until promoter J.P. Rotton began putting on Sunday afternoon races in the late 1940s. Tom Gloor took over racing promotion there in 1962, paving the dirt track and installing proper lighting that ushered in the city’s golden era of Friday night racing. Gloor changed the track’s name to Birmingham International Raceway.




More than one driver lost control of his car and plowed through the wooden fence, ending up in the “hog barn.” (click for larger version)

Though the track attracted sparse crowds during its final decade, events there once drew huge audiences. “I had some good days over a long period of time at BIR. I had good fortune there, and I was cocky about that,” NASCAR racing legend Bobby Allison says, during a recent afternoon telephone conversation from his North Carolina home. “I first got there in ’59 before they paved it, and the place impressed me from the first day. Then, when Tom Gloor took over in ’62, it became one of my favorite racetracks in the whole country. When Tom paved it, he stretched the front straightaway out to where it was closer to the grandstand.”

Rotton began promoting races at the Fairgrounds Raceway in the 1940s. As the 90-year-old Rotton recalls, “I had built a small racetrack called the Iron Bowl out in Roebuck, but it didn’t have a grandstand. So I decided to rent a racetrack. That Iron Bowl had no seats or nothing. People were sneaking in through the woods to get in free. These guys from Graysville and Sumiton wanted a place to race, and there were some bootleggers out of Chattanooga and Nashville that wanted to come down here and run. That was in 1946.”

Rotton eventually talked a reluctant fairgrounds manager into letting him run four races, where he drew some 6,000 spectators for each event. The crowd size impressed the facility’s manager. “He kept 20 percent of the gate and he got all the concessions,” says Rotton, who promoted races at the fairgrounds from 1946 through 1960. “We put on a good show. Mostly, we ran ’34 Fords and ’33 and ’34 Chevrolet coupes.”




A Corvette leads a parade of new-model cars before a race at the fairgrounds in the early 1950s. (click for larger version)

Rotton worked with an automobile body-work specialist named Cannonball Brown. Rotton also maintained a stable of his own race cars in addition to his promo duties. “I had a 1953 Studebaker Starlight Coupe that we set up to run really fast, and you’ve never seen anything like it. Back then, Studebaker was a joke,” he recalls. “Ol’ Cannonball Brown was a country boy painter. He asked me what color I wanted, and I said I wanted it really sharp looking. Cannonball said, ‘You want it painted gold?’ I asked him if he could find some gold paint. And Cannonball said, ‘No, I don’t wanna buy no gold paint, I wanna buy some gold dust.’ Gold was $8 an ounce then. So I said, ‘OK, but be sure and get enough,’ and I think he got two or three pounds. It cost us around $400,” Rotton remembers. “He painted on this red primer, then sprinkled in the gold dust and added layers of clear lacquer. When the sun hit it, it would just sparkle. You ain’t never seen anything like it . . . I always thought money was made to spend!”

One of the great anecdotes in fairgrounds racing lore concerns a race in the late 1950s during which Nero Steptoe won a 25-lap race after losing his front left wheel several laps in. Rotton smiles when asked about Steptoe. “Ol’ Nero was leading the race, and he was going into the first turn and the wheel and all came off. The car didn’t fall, it stayed up. Nero came around and we kept giving him the black flag [which signals the driver to pull off the track] but he wouldn’t stop. I said, ‘Give him the green flag!’ [allowing him to stay in the race] We paid the second-place driver for the win because we should have disqualified Nero. Everybody in the world knew who Nero was from then on.”

Jerry Massey, an 80-year-old former racer and car owner at the Fairgrounds Raceway, claims that the dirt at the track was from Kentucky. “It was the best dirt in the country. You could go like a blizzard,” he remembers. “I knew, because I used to ride with the guy that used to scrape the racetrack and turn the dirt over and put salt in it. Riding with him taught me a lot about how to read dirt. If it had a dull color, you could get a good hold [tire grip] of it. If it was bright and shiny, it’s too slick. You didn’t want to run where the bright and shiny was at.” The Allison brothers and Red Farmer were living in Miami in the 1950s and didn’t realize how much more money was paid to race winners in Alabama than in Florida. Bobby Allison had earned $95 finishing second at a big race in West Palm Beach. After some other Florida racers spread the word about the quality racing in Alabama, Allison and his younger brother Donnie decided to head north. “Donnie and I had a pretty good relationship. We supported each other about 85 percent of the time and fought each other the other 15 percent,” Allison says. “We loaded up and headed for Alabama, and I finished fifth at Dixie Speedway out in Midfield. I went to the pay window and the guy gave me 135 bucks—way more than I had won finishing second in a major event in south Florida. I said, ‘Donnie, we’ve died and gone to heaven. Look at all this money!’ So we went to Miss Mary’s Drive-Inn that we’d passed on the drive up and got one of her $1.98 steaks that she used to have advertised out there on the marquee. And Donnie and I found one of those little roadside inns on the way to Montgomery [where they raced the next day], and instead of sleeping in the truck, we bought a $2 motel room.”




Chattanooga’s Friday Hassler was a Birmingham International Raceway legend. He was killed while attempting to qualify for the 1972 Daytona 500. (click for larger version)

Bobby Allison purchased the contract to operate the track for the 1976–’77 seasons. BIR was where his good friend Neil Bonnett and later, Allison’s son, Davey, both found early success (Davey Allison died in a helicopter accident at Talladega Superspeedway in 1993, a crash that Red Farmer survived. Bonnett was killed during a practice run for the 1994 Daytona 500.) “It breaks my heart that BIR is gone,” Allison admits. “But it was a great place, and I have great memories.” &

My Turn

In the summer of 1998, I was hanging around Birmingham International Raceway while researching a story about the track. A driver nicknamed Sluggo asked if I’d ever driven a race car. I had not, so he graciously let me drive his racing Camaro some 30 laps with no other cars on the track on that Sunday afternoon.

It was fun until I put my foot on the brake pedal to come in for a pit stop and the pedal went straight to the floor. I had to coast an entire lap, as it takes a while to roll to a stop when you’re going 90 mph. Amused at my timidity to “put some speed on that thing,” as well as the fact that I was riding around with no brakes my first time in a race car, Sluggo told me I wouldn’t achieve a true racing experience until I had been on the track with other cars.

He wasn’t kidding. One Friday night, Sluggo turned the Camaro over to me during the 7 p.m. practice session for street stock cars, the classification in which he was competing later that evening. I was more or less “mixing it up” with a dozen other cars at race speeds. Nauseated from fear when I heard the engines being revved at deafening levels upon my arrival at the track, I was almost shaking when I climbed into the car. The worried expression on Sluggo’s face suggested that he was beginning to have second thoughts about putting me out there with the other drivers. Nevertheless, he reassured me that the brake failure a couple weeks earlier had been rectified. I’ll never forget his final instructions before I drove off: “Hey, if you wreck it, buddy, don’t worry about it . . . ’cause we’re just out here to have fun.” With those words of encouragement, I attempted to merge onto the track as several cars stormed out of turn number four at more than 100 mph.

Somehow, I put the car into the middle of race traffic, and away I went. I held on for dear life as cars passed me on the right and left, often at the same time. There were no side mirrors on the Camaro, just a wide rearview mirror above the dash. The full-face helmet and painfully tight seat harnesses that strapped me in allowed for nearly zero peripheral vision. I’ll never forget the sight of race cars rapidly approaching in my mirror. Suddenly, a car in front of me slowed, which meant that I would have to pass another driver. I sweated bullets but somehow stayed out for 10 noble laps.

I drove slowly through the corners but floored it as I exited the second and fourth turns, blasting down the respective straightaways (approximately 150 yards in length) at a top speed of maybe 90 mph before having to turn left again. On the 10th lap, the car’s rear fishtailed out of control as I tried to increase my speed between turns one and two. I gripped the steering wheel to brace myself for impact, with either the outside retaining wall or another car. I knew from racing lore at BIR that I’d probably have to fight whomever I wrecked—if I were still conscious. Amazingly, the car straightened out as I lifted off the accelerator. (The pros know you usually step on the gas to straighten out a sliding car, but I didn’t have that much courage.)

I barely touched the accelerator again as I crept down the back straightaway doing maybe 30 mph as others whizzed by at 120 mph. I returned to the pit, where Sluggo shook his head in shame, though relieved that I brought his Camaro back in one piece. The brakes indeed worked well, and I never had a desire to race again. —E.R.

Dead Folks: Writers

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Dead Folks: Writers

A look at some of the notable individuals who passed away in 2008.

By J.R. Taylor, Ed Reynolds, Bart Grooms

January 22, 2009

Studs Terkel




Studs Terkel.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel wrote books that focused on his interviews with ordinary Americans. He called his style “guerrilla journalism” and is credited with establishing oral history as a viable genre. “The thing I’m able to do, I guess, is break down walls. If they think you’re listening, they’ll talk. It’s more of a conversation than an interview,” he has said of his interview approach. His interviews ranged from former slaves to Ku Klux Klan members. He acknowledged his time managing Chicago hotels popular with blue-collar workers as an indispensable part of his education as a writer and observer. He was blacklisted from radio and TV during the McCarthy red scare, but returned to radio in the mid-1950s for a 45-year run of his own show. (96) —ER




Dave Stevens’ creation, The Rocketeer. (click for larger version)

David Foster Wallace

An American writer of novels, short stories, and essays, Wallace is best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest. He later covered John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone and cruise ships, tornadoes, and state fairs for Harper’s Magazine. Wallace suffered from depression for two decades and, at the advice of his doctor, quit taking medication in 2007 because of the side effects. He hanged himself a year later. (46) —ER

Dave Stevens

Few cartoonists indulged their fandom like Dave Stevens. He started out drawing storyboards for music videos and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Fortunately, Stevens had all the right pop-culture obsessions needed to become a visionary geek. In 1982 his comic book The Rocketeer paid tribute to 1930s cinema and pulp fiction. The folks at Disney eventually turned the series into the best comics-based film of the 1990s.

Stevens was also an early advocate for pin-up queen Bettie Page. The Rocketeer’s girlfriend was drawn as a Bettie look-alike, and Stevens created a popular series of Bettie Page portraits. He always claimed that he was setting aside royalties for the then-reclusive Page, and kept his word when Bettie finally reemerged in the 1990s.

In a blow against geek stereotypes, Stevens was a handsome man who was briefly married to B-film sex siren Brinke Stevens. His high standards kept him from being as prolific as lesser artists, so it was even more frustrating to lose him at a relatively young age. (52, leukemia.) —JRT

Roger Hall

A spy working for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, Roger Hall wrote a 1957 memoir titled You’re Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger detailing his experiences at the OSS. The book pokes fun at military protocol while praising the dangerous tasks undertaken by undercover operatives. Among the goof-ups he recalls is his first mission: parachuting into Allied territory instead of Nazi territory because the OSS. had not been told that General Patton had pushed the Nazis back. He later refused an offer to join the CIA.

Working a variety of jobs as he struggled as a professional writer, he was once the public address announcer for Baltimore Colts football games until he was fired for announcing the following after a questionable referee call: “A seeing-eye dog has been lost. Will the owner please return it to the officials’ dressing room.” In later years, Hall reportedly took great delight when told that You’re Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger had become a vital component of CIA training. Instructors would hold up a copy of his book and inform new agents, “Never let this happen again.” (89, natural causes) —ER

Tony Hillerman

Hillerman authored 30 books, most famously the 18 that feature Navajo police detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, which weave Native American lore into the mysteries so organically that the reader is not aware how much he is learning, not only about Navajo culture, but about the struggles of these people to deal with the dominant Anglo culture around them. The books are eminently readable, with a special kind of spookiness all their own. After the success of the books, Hillerman remembered that his first agent advised him that if he wanted to get published, he would have to “get rid of that Indian stuff.” (83.) —BG

Dave Freeman

A lot of inappropriate jokes were made when Dave Freeman fatally fell on his head while in his home at Venice, California. All the obituaries were obliged to note that Freeman was the coauthor of 1999′s 101 Things to Do Before You Die. (47, head injury.) —JRT

Dead Folks: Trailblazers & Entrepreneurs

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Dead Folks: Trailblazers & Entrepreneurs

A look at some of the notable individuals who passed away in 2008.

By David Pelfrey, J.R. Taylor, Ed Reynolds

January 22, 2009

Albert Hofmann

If you can just get your mind together,

Then come on across to me.

We’ll hold hands and then we’ll watch the sunrise




Chemist Albert Hofmann, with the world’s largest hit of LSD, nicknamed “Liquid Universe.” (click for larger version)

From the bottom of the sea.

But first, are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

Well, I have.




Sir Edmund Hillary (L) and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in Kathmandu following their conquest of Mount Everest in 1953. (click for larger version)

Albert Hofmann didn’t say that; Jimi Hendrix did. But in the case of Dr. Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938, actions speak louder than words. His was the original experience, the first time being the accidental absorption through his skin of a small portion of the substance in 1943 at Sandoz, a Swiss pharmaceutical firm. After a few hours of colors and visions and other sensations he couldn’t describe, Hofmann determined that LSD had induced a temporary and profound psychological reaction. On April 19, 1943, Hofmann dosed himself with a small amount of LSD, then recorded in his lab journal that he began feeling the simultaneous sensations of “anxiety, and the desire to laugh.” Anticipating even stronger reactions, Hofmann returned home on his bicycle. It was some trip, and not a very pleasant one.

It wasn’t long before Sandoz was issuing samples of LSD to medical researchers, psychiatrists, and various experts in the field of mental illness. A body of research grew over the next decade, much of which indicated that LSD warranted further examination as a valuable tool in treating addictions, personality disorders, and various mental afflictions.

Meanwhile Hofmann’s research continued apace, leading to the synthesis of psilocybin, the psychedelic component in certain varieties of mushrooms, and the discovery of lysergic acid amide and lysergic acid hydroxyethylamide in a Mexican morning glory vine, Ololiuqui.




Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger and Dr. Wernher von Braun at the observatory of the Rocket city Astrnomical Association in Huntsville in 1956. (click for larger version)

All of that coincided with the emergence of a young counterculture that was questioning social mores, values, and the reliability of individual perception. The idea that taking an ostensibly harmless drug that assisted one in “breaking through to the other side,” well, that warranted further examination as well—according to Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary.

Leary’s promotional efforts for psychedelics may have been sincere, but the flamboyance—and often arrogance—with which he encouraged the use of drugs to achieve “higher consciousness” established ground zero for a new conflict: the establishment versus youth/drug culture. LSD lost that battle in 1966 when it was outlawed, and Leary’s subsequent catchphrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out” merely guaranteed that LSD would remain a controlled substance. Hofmann often expressed keen disappointment with that turn of events, once telling Leary in person that the self-styled guru’s exploits were responsible for the prohibition of LSD.

From his earliest research into psychedelic chemicals, Hofmann’s conviction was that the mystical and spiritual experiences either mimicked or induced by LSD and psilocybin should remain in the serious realm of a search for enlightenment. What he envisioned as a sacred journey, too many recreational users saw as a one-way ticket to wig city. Hofmann frequently adopted a capital R Romantic stance in this regard; he declared that the modern, materialist world was too much with us, and so this Wordsworth of the pharmaceutical lab urged the responsibly applied therapeutic principles of mind-blowing chemicals. He often urged friends and colleagues to take LSD and then contemplate flowers in a garden. He went so far as to suggest that psychedelics could ultimately reveal to the human race its authentic nature, “what we are supposed to be,” as he phrased it. Or getting back to Hendrix, “Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful . . .” (102, heart attack.) —DP




Wham-O co-founder Richard Knerr (R). (click for larger version)

Sir Edmund Hillary

On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. This was later embarrassing for Hillary Clinton. She tried to convince a Nepalese audience that she was named for the famous explorer who didn’t really become particularly famous until six years after her birth.

Hillary himself was a lot more sincere in his devotion to the region. The native New Zealander continued adventuring right through the 1980s—including a flight with Neil Armstrong to the North Pole—but also spent much of his life financing the Himalayan Trust to benefit the people of Nepal.

Hillary enjoyed plenty of celebrity, beginning with a knighthood granted in the same year as his ascent. He always remained a favorite son of New Zealand and a popular international figure. Hillary also wisely marked his Everest triumph with a pithy quote, informing fellow climber George Lowe, “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.” (88, heart failure) —JRT

Ernst Stuhlinger

Stuhlinger was one of hundreds of Nazi rocket scientists behind the German V-2 missile program who surrendered and emigrated to the United States at the end of Word War II. He played the somber, behind-the-scenes genius to the more flamboyant Wernher von Braun as the pair developed the Saturn V rocket that launched men to the Moon. Stuhlinger was essentially von Braun’s right-hand man, his most valued assistant. When America launched its first orbiting satellite, Explorer (in response to the Soviets’ Sputnik satellite), Stuhlinger created an ingenious timing device that allowed him to press the command button at the precise time needed to fire the second rocket stage that put Explorer into orbit. His contribution earned him the nickname “the man with the golden finger.” (94, natural causes) —ER

Richard Knerr

Richard Knerr and his pal Arthur “Spud” Melin, both USC graduates living in Pasadena and looking for the fast track to fame and fortune, started a toy/gadget company in Knerr’s garage in 1948. Their company, Wham-O Manufacturing, made a decent slingshot but not much else. It took about a decade for the entrepreneurs to realize it, but Wham-O’s future would be determined not so much by products as by demographics. The Baby Boom was working in their favor. Children were everywhere, and consumerism was in full force. Show the kids something neat, swell, or cool, and their money was yours.

Enter the Hula Hoop, first marketed by Wham-O in early 1957 and immediately recognized as an out-of-control fad. Knerr and Melin sold 100 million units in roughly two years, after which Knerr claimed they couldn’t give them away. By definition, a fad doesn’t last, but with almost $50 million in profits, Knerr was okay with that. The template was in place; wow your audience, and demand will take care of itself. (Knerr often claimed that the ideal product was any item that had kids screaming, “What’s that?!”)

By 1958, Wham-O was producing or marketing all kinds of “what’s that?!” gadgets. It was the golden era of being a kid, so sales were reinforced by ads on afternoon and Saturday morning TV and through displays at every dime store in the land. The price for most items made it easy for moms to acquiesce when a visit to Woolworth’s brought the inevitable request for a Slip & Slide, a Superball, Silly String, or a Frisbee.

With the market for fun practically in his lap, Knerr even found ways to bounce, as it were, Wham-O fads off other fads. California was ground zero for beach music and drag racing in the 1960s, so the Wham-O Wheelie Bar, ideal for the sleek new banana-seat Schwinn bikes, hit the stores just when Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys were hitting the charts. The Wheelie Bar TV ad and product package employed music and images associated with hot-rod culture. This kind of marketing dream lasted only as long as its demographic stayed young. Though it’s easy to regard much of Wham-O’s success as fad-driven, it’s worth noting that Knerr passed away after seeing the Frisbee mark its 60th anniversary. (82, stroke.) —DP

Wilbur Hardee

Hardee ended up earning little money from the Hardee’s restaurant chain he founded. He sold his share in his burger namesake (which included five franchise locations at the time) in 1963 for $37,000 amid rumors that he had lost controlling interest during a poker game with his new business partners. In 1960, already an established success with a dozen other restaurant ventures, he opened his first Hardee’s drive-in in Greenville, North Carolina. The place had no tables or waiters, and “char-broiled” hamburgers sold for 15 cents—the same price as his milkshakes. Hardee went on to earn a small fortune with other food enterprises. (89) —ER

Carl Karcher

The founder of the Carl’s Jr. fast-food hamburger chain got his start in the restaurant business when he spent $326 in 1941 to open a Los Angeles hot dog stand. In 1945, he opened his first full-service restaurant, Carl’s Drive-In Barbecue, in Anaheim, California. In 1956, he began opening Carl’s Jr. restaurants, which eventually numbered more than 1,000 worldwide. An outspoken political conservative, Karcher was often at war with the gay community after he urged the firing of homosexual schoolteachers and all who defended them. Karcher, who fathered a dozen children with his wife of 66 years, rubbed elbows with Presidents Nixon and Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bob Hope, and Pope John Paul II.

In 1981, Karcher took the company public, allowing it to expand from the existing 300 locations. He was later accused of insider trading. He forked over $600,000 in fines but never admitted any guilt. In 1993, after years of clashes with the company’s board of directors, Karcher was ousted as CEO. He could only watch from the sidelines as the company began running provocative TV ads starring Dennis Rodman and Paris Hilton that clashed with Karcher’s conservative beliefs. In 1997, Carl’s Jr.’s parent company, CKE Restaurants, purchased the Hardee’s chain. (90, Parkinson’s disease) —ER

Gary Gygax

Gygax help create Dungeons & Dragons, the seminal role-playing game where a fantasy universe evolved into actual role-playing instead of being confined to the pages of books such as those by J.R.R. Tolkien. An experienced creator of board games, Gygax later criticized interactive computer-based games because participants did not have to rely on their imaginations. (69, abdominal aneurysm) —ER &

Dead Folks: Celebrities

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Dead Folks: Celebrities

A look at some of the notable individuals who passed away in 2008.

By David Pelfrey, J.R. Taylor, and Ed Reynolds

January 22, 2009

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

He’s best known for associating with pop stars in the 1960s. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi infiltrated popular culture in broader ways, though, with his Transcendental Meditation technique challenging Erhard Seminars Training (EST) in the 1970s as the leading pop-psychology fad. That helped the Maharishi get on the cover of Time in 1975. By then, his biggest acolyte was Mike Love from the Beach Boys. That wasn’t a particularly hip association.

Earlier though, the Maharishi had been hanging out with The Beatles in India. The band members had studied with him in Wales, but the trip to the Maharishi’s home country played a big part in the Beatles mythos, with much of The White Album written during their stay. That includes the scathing “Sexy Sadie,” which John Lennon wrote in disgust after hearing that their spiritual leader had tried hooking up with student Mia Farrow.




Lefty Rosenthal, the inspiration for Robert De Niro’s character in Casino. (click for larger version)

Accounts continue to differ on those charges, but the other Beatles kept speaking highly of the Maharishi in the decades to come. The spiritual leader always maintained an American following, with his Maharishi University of Management prospering in Iowa. His big project for the past decade was constructing Maharishi Peace Palaces in 3,000 major cities, each with “Peace-Creating Experts who will create an orderly influence in the whole atmosphere of the city.” He was raising $1 billion for that endeavor, but the peace palace for New York City is out on Long Island. That’s probably why Manhattan hasn’t gotten orderly yet. (91, natural causes.) —JRT

Lefty Rosenthal




	Mr. Blackwell. (click for larger version)

Not many people live to see their death portrayed on screen. For example, that’s supposed to be Lefty Rosenthal getting blown sky-high when Robert De Niro’s car explodes at the start of Casino. Just like De Niro’s character, Rosenthal survived the 1982 attempt on his life. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the bombing—most likely because Rosenthal kept his mouth shut. He left Las Vegas for Miami Beach the next year and enjoyed a uniquely long life for a guy who (unofficially, of course) ran some of Vegas’ biggest hotels/mob operations. (79, heart attack.) —JRT




A very young Yves St. Laurent. (click for larger version)

Mr. Blackwell

Richard Selzer left Brooklyn for Hollywood, and ditched his last name to become the notorious fashion designer Mr. Blackwell. He dressed a celebrity clientele with his House of Blackwell line in the 1950s, then retired in the 1960s to cultivate his celebrity status—although he did some work behind the scenes for “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Blackwell’s role in pop culture began with his annual list of the Worst Dressed Women of the Year, first introduced in 1960. He was slightly ahead of his time. It took a while, but Blackwell eventually found his audience through shows like “Entertainment Tonight” and publications like People. He never said anything particularly daring, and he occasionally confused an actress’ costumes with her clothing. He was also quick to rise to the bait whenever Cher trotted out increasingly moronic outfits. Ultimately, Blackwell died as a pioneer of the snarky celebrity fascination that lives on in hundreds of showbiz blogs. (86, intestinal infection.) —JRT

Yves St. Laurent

On the basis of a few sketches 14-year-old Laurent made for a couture competition in Paris in 1952, leading designer Christian Dior hired the young fellow that week. In 1958, upon Dior’s untimely death from a heart attack, Laurent was thrust into international fame because, remarkably, the founder of the House of Dior had decided much earlier that Laurent would succeed him as head designer. After a bizarre turn of events that had Laurent conscripted into the French army, then placed in a mental institution for radical treatment (including shock therapy), the designer and his partner founded their own house with assistance from an Atlanta millionaire. The Rive Gauche stores followed in 1966, selling prêt-à-porter designs to both the general public and a fairly exclusive clientele previously devoted strictly to YSL haute couture (it is rumored that Catherine Deneuve was the first customer through the door).

A lot of fashion firsts followed: black and Asian runway models, re-creations of Art Deco period silhouettes, tailored tuxedo suits, and most significant, the profits from ready-to-wear exceeding that of the YSL haute couture line. YSL also established a new kind of society figure: designer as jet-set superstar. Decadence, drug dependence, and debauchery at Studio 54 and sundry international hot spots characterized the YSL persona from that point until his decline in health. It was time to pack in the scissors once models were propping up what appeared to be an intoxicated Laurent on the runway. It may have been simple fatigue. With some 6,000 designs under his belt, so to speak, Laurent had certainly earned a retirement. (71, cancer.) —DP

Christian Brando




Bobby Fischer. (click for larger version)

The eldest of actor Marlon Brando’s often troubled children, Christian Brando was best known for his run-ins with the law. He spent five years in prison on manslaughter charges following the 1990 killing of his half-sister’s boyfriend. They had scuffled over a gun during an argument about whether the boyfriend had beaten Brando’s half-sister, Cheyenne, while she was pregnant with the boyfriend’s child. Cheyenne committed suicide in 1995 after losing custody of the child. Christian once dated Bonnie Lee Bakley, who was shot to death in 2001. Bakley’s husband at the time, actor Robert Blake, was acquitted of the murder. (49, pneumonia) —ER

House Peters, Jr.

The bald Peters couldn’t have been blessed with a more appropriate first name, considering that he starred in commercials for the Proctor & Gamble household cleaning product known as Mr. Clean, which was also the name of his character in the ads. Often cast as a villain in various acting roles, the muscular, intimidating Peters will instead be primarily remembered for attacking dirt and grime in TV commercials during the 1950s and ’60s. (92, pneumonia) —ER

Sunny von Bülow

Martha (Sunny) von Bülow, an American heiress, spent her last 28 years in a coma. Her husband, Claus, a Danish-born society figure and man-about-town, was twice convicted and later acquitted of trying to kill her. She was discovered unconscious on her bathroom floor in 1980, and she never regained consciousness. Claus divorced Sunny in 1988 and currently lives in London. He and Sunny had discussed divorce, but it was noted at his trial that a divorce would have deprived him of the $14 million he stood to inherit from Sunny’s will when she died, instead leaving him with a paltry $120,000 a year. (76) —ER

Dock Ellis

Former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis always claimed he was under the influence of LSD when he pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in 1970. Ellis, who eventually founded an anti-drug program in Los Angeles, said he didn’t know the Pirates had a game that day, much less that he was scheduled to pitch. He picks up the story in an interview that was published in Lysergic World in 1993: “I was in Los Angeles, and the team was playing in San Diego, but I didn’t know it. I had taken LSD . . . I thought it was an off-day, that’s how come I had it in me. I took the LSD at noon.” His girlfriend, who had also taken acid, was reading the newspaper and shouted, “Dock, you’re pitching today!”

“That’s when it cost $9.50 to fly to San Diego,” Ellis remembered. “She got me to the airport at 3:30. I got there at 4:30, and the game started at 6:05 p.m. It was a twilight-night doubleheader. I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the [catcher's] glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. . . . The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder.” Ellis reportedly talked the Pirates’ catcher into putting red reflective tape on his catcher’s mitt to provide him with a target. (63, cirrhosis of the liver) —ER

Bobby Fischer

It’s hard to believe now, but Bobby Fischer was front-page news while competing in the World Chess Championship of 1972. All of America got chess fever during his climactic match with the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky. City parks were soon littered with players on the benches, and there was a great episode of “Columbo” with Laurence Harvey as a homicidal chess master.

As it turned out, America deserved a better chess hero. Fischer was a brilliant player, but he grew increasingly unstable in his daily life. He refused to defend his title in 1975, gave up competitive matches until a 1992 rematch with Spassky (Fischer won), and lived all over the world while making increasingly loony statements. His anti-Semitism reached a dizzy climax after 9/11, with Fischer cheering the terrorists while calling on the U.S. military to take power and “arrest all the Jews.”

He wasn’t too crazy about other chess players, either. He might be best remembered for creating the popular Fischer Clock that provides a time limit for players’ moves. (64, renal failure.) —JRT

Richard Fortman

Fortman was the world’s foremost checkers champion, writing the essential book Basic Checkers, among several others about the game. Fortman was renowned for winning games blindfolded, as well as effortlessly winning while playing up to 100 matches at the same time. (93, natural causes) —ER