Picasso’s Last Words

If you can whistle that tune 10 points,

If you’re at a loss then shame on you. Unless you’ve the misfortune to be born within the last fifteen years. In which case what are you doing here at YoYo-Dyne?
Piss off ‘ya little phuckers and write your note to your shaved Bieber.

Band On the Run was one of the first LP’s I purchased. The day it was released. Already had Abby Road, Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison, and at least twenty 45’s. This was 1973, Making me 3 years old at time. Okay, may have been 12.
Life already consisted of nothing but music and film. An obsession with silent movies and a physical yearning and love for making music.

Being overweight, an A student and incredible spaz helped more than you can imagine. Oh, I had a bicycle. I could ride for miles. And I did. To see movies.

It took me at least a year to separate the musical scores from the film/dialogue and actually watch the film. That is how intrinsically interwoven these arts are to me.

Those long-ago days I walked uphill both ways to school in the snow, wearing only barbed wire on my feet, as snowshoes had not yet been invented.
In Los Angeles,

Spent the weekends at movie theaters. Movie palaces. The days before 20-plexes.
One of the wonderful things about Long Beach was that it was 30 minutes from Hollywood; virtually every film from Hal Roach shorts to David O Selznick‘s Gone With The Wind were first screened in Long Beach.
Fantastical theaters done in Art Deco, California Moorish and Art Nouveau.
None still stand. If you travel to Hollywood the closest you can find is the Chinese Theater. No longer Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Even Grauman’s Egyptian is gone.

Patron cards filled out, producers and actors present. This was still the norm into my teens. In the 70’s. Nineteen not Eighteen.
Filled out lobby cards, saw so many Hollywood legends in the seats (if I were not such a film nerd wouldn’t have noticed) and sneak peeked lots of films. Many of which had their wings clipped when officially released.

Better yet there was a theater in LA that screened Only silent films. Learned to know and love Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino.

Well, as a teen I didn’t hang out at the mall, go to sleepovers, call girlfriends at all hours. Certainly not boyfriends. Well unless they were gay, but not admittedly in those days.
Do you know the reason God made little fat girls? So little gay boys would have friends -smile-.

You could find me at the movies, paying for a cheap Hammer film in silver dimes (from my coin collection), watching MASH at the cheap matinee, sneaking in (ha, easily passed for 17 at age 12 with the right glasses and make-up) to view Cabaret, Clint Eastwood, The Sting -where I developed my love of ragtime and stride piano playing and a fairly worthless professional career- Chinatown and so many other movies.

And that’s a little bit of history.
Have at least 100 45’s now but most of the LP’s are gone, replaced by MP3s and CDs. Still have some classics.
Turntables are available again. Silent movies are shown on TMC. It’s not all dust.

It’s three o’clock in the morning, I’m getting ready for bed.
You know I can’t drink any more.

~Miss R