The Man Who Didn't Talk

I was briefed before our visit to Los Angeles that Tonya’s childhood friend’s husband didn’t really talk much.  If I thought her friend’s husband who fought in Vietnam was weird, this guy is supposed to be on par or even up the ante a bit.

“How is he weird?” I asked. “He doesn’t talk.  He sits there” Tonya had simply replied.

I soon found out differently.

On our first night, the women went out to smoke and I am left with the fabled guy who does not speak.  Amazingly, he immediately asks me if I was interested in going to the Los Angeles car show on Wednesday with him and his Finnish friend.  I politely declined because I had a pre-arranged meeting taking place already.  We then talked about our feelings towards Mexico, and I was quite amused by the way he said “Metsico”.   I thought it was a one off, but no-he says “Metsico” every time he refers to the land south of the border.  I also found out that we share a lot of the same views, even though his wife is from Mexico.

While out shopping today, I was speaking with his wife about records.  She informed me that her husband used to work for a printing company in Los Angeles that made album covers.  I thought this was fantastic.  I was sitting in the passenger seat as we drove to dinner later that night, and I thought it was a perfect time to try to make to man who didn’t talk to talk again.  “I heard you used to print album covers” I said.  It was the key that unlocked the ensuing conversation.  He nodded his head, “Ooooh yeah.  I printed lots of album covers, almost anyone you can think of.  I did loads of stuff for Atlantic Records and A&M” he said.

I thought of those labels, and the first band that came to mind on Atlantic was Led Zeppelin, so I thought it was worth a shot, “Yeah, so-did you do led Zeppelin’s ‘Houses of the Holy?”.  He stared ahead at the road and then simply said, “Nah, didn’t do any Led Zeppelin.  I don’t recall that album”

He tells me that he kept prints of all the jackets he had worked on and only recently finally disposed of them.  He then suddenly recalls a few favorites; “There was this one album Tom Scott did, where we had this train coming out of a guy’s zipper.  Thought that was pretty cool.  Someone at the label decided it was too risqué, so we had to switch that up a bit.  I kept it though, because I always thought that if one of these covers would be worth something, it would be that one”   he looks like a guy who would have done something like this.  He’s older, in his 60’s and has long white hair that he pulls back into a ponytail.  He’s got a goatee, and is indigenous, as he says, “One of the few people in LA that was actually born here”   For a very long time he kept the proof for Cher’s ‘Take Me Home’ album. “You know that one where she only had on this gold stuff over her chest…”

“Yeah, yeah, with the big gold headdress on?”

‘Yeah, that’s the one.  Well, I thought it looked great, but what you see is not what it was.  We had to retouch it all up because the label thought you could see too much…but that was a good one too!”

I am enjoying this.  He is really letting go, and letting the tales roll.  For the most part, it was like a question and answer type thing.  However, certain questions would really get a lot of info.  Sometimes a question would get a simple, “Nah, I didn’t do any of them”.  He was quite a specialist in actuality.  In the heyday of music, he worked for the most renowned color house in Los Angeles.  He tells that there were about 7 or 8 places that did this kind of work, but the one he worked for was known for their attention to detail, and thus, they were expensive.  He went on quite a while describing what the job entails and how much he hates Photoshop, and how computers killed the industry.  He spent many long hours hovered over album artwork with a magnifying glass and an X-acto knife, scraping dots off film.  He looks at the taillights of the car in front of us as we sit in traffic, “See…say someone wanted that red.  I’d say it’d be about 20% magenta, with about a 60% yellow dialed in just about 2% black” I was impressed.  His specialty was retouching and color matching.  He loved his work.  I asked if he got to meet any of the artists from the album jackets he had worked on; it turns out, only a few.

“There was this record we did of Olivia Newton-John, where she is coming up out of the water and all the water is dripping off her.  Anyway, she came in one day and wanted to meet me.  She was thrilled that I done such a good job and making her look good, getting rid of all her pimples and stuff in the photograph”

“I did a lot of Elton John stuff, but never met him.  I did meet Bernie Taupin though.  You know he used to be a printer before he was a lyricist.  Because he had experience, he was always sent over to proof everything and he hated it. Yeah, so I dealt with him a few times’.  This is all so fascinating to me, but I am curious about how big of a music fan he was.  I ask him who his favorites were.  He spends some time thinking about it and says a few names, “The Eagles.  I always like the Eagles.  We did all of their albums.  They always had good artwork. Creedence Clearwater Revival too, I liked them” I tell him a story of a childhood memory I have of Creedence and their ‘Cosmo’s Factory’ album.  IN return, he shakes his head slightly, “Nah, don’t know that one.  When their lead singer did his solo album, I did that one though” He smiles a huge smile and stares off over the traffic ahead of us, “Man.  Linda Ronstadt.  I used to love Linda Ronstadt.  My kids tell me that when they go on long trips in the car that it just doesn’t seem right unless they hear some old corny Linda Ronstadt tune.  Yeah, I really liked Linda…”

“You know, I did that Neil Diamond album ‘Hot August Night’.  I never met him, but I was at one of those shows at The Greek Theater where they recorded the concerts.  He was great…” he says as he reminisces, ‘You know, but after you listen to five or six of his albums, you realize they are all the same’ he says as he laughs.  You should have seen my record collection.  It wasn’t any good.  I had all these records given to me from bands no one would listen to.  Black Oak Arkansas...” he starts laughing and shaking his head again, “…never liked them and had all their albums.  They would always give me their albums!”

According to what I was being told, the real money in album art was when an artist hit it big.  It was then that they would have to send film of the artwork to whatever country would then want to print the LP.  He was also responsible of doing all the ad work too.  The company figured that whoever did the artwork for the album would be the very same guy responsible for making sure all the film, colors and resolution was correct for every place the ad would run-whether it was magazine, newspapers, poster etc.  It turns out that one of the biggies was The Who’s ‘Tommy’.  “Remember that one?   Man, I hated Tommy!  Every day I went to work there was another ad campaign running somewhere and more artwork to be done.  It was ‘Tommy’ everyday for months and months.  I hated that record”

“Remember that guy from England…man, what was his name?  His big breakthrough record…he was wearing a red satin suit on it.  Man, the company was so busy with that guy…what was his name?”  He tries to remember.  I ask if he was rock, pop, soul, anything to jar his memory, but he still can’t recall. “Anyway, he was supposed to be a really big deal, but after that one album, he was never heard of again.”  He keeps commenting on the guy’s satin suit, and how hard it was to retouch the photograph.  I can’t recall any early 70’s album of a guy from England in a red satin suit that was a huge hit, but I do recall one with a guy in pink satin, “Was it Peter Frampton?”

“Yeah man! That was him!  Peter Frampton!” he says out loud and starts laughing. ‘I’ll never forget that record.  We had just hired a new printer.  He was actually the driver for the company, but he had gotten pulled in to start helping out because we were so busy.  He had no clue about anything, absolutely no experience.  The boss comes over to check the artwork and calls the new kid over to look it over too, ‘What do you think?’ the boss asks the kid.  I sat there watching them both, wondering what this kid could possibly have to say.  He looked for a minute or so and then looked to the boss, ‘I’d do him!’  Man!  We laughed so hard-that was great, ‘I’d do him’”

My mind is racing, trying to match up artists I knew from Atlantic and A&M. “well, working for A&M, you had to have done some Herb Alpert, right?” he did, but he tells the story of how they only did the re-issues because the Tijuana Brass didn’t originally record for A&M.  He did think that Alpert and Moss had a stellar label though. I rattle off more to see what big records he’d done.  Turns out he has done loads, all of Yes, The Cars, Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, and more.  He tells of different labels and how they used to work. MCA would only send over ‘big’ artists.  All of their jazz roster and country stars would get the cheap treatment.  The talk of country reminds him of Eddie Rabbit. “I got bitched out by Eddie Rabbit once.  I don’t remember what album it was, but I worked really hard on it to get rid of all his acne scars.  Eddie Rabbit was really pock marked.  Anyway, when he saw the final proof he was so angry that he came to the office and wanted to know who did the retouching.  He bitched me out saying that I had cleaned him up so much that it didn’t even look like him.  That was the first time I had to go back and add in acne and rough someone up a bit”

“Remember that album of Carly Simon’s where she was on her knees…?’ Yes.  I know that one very well.  ‘Playing Possum’ has got to be one of those albums whose image is burned deep into your brain as a young teenage male.  How could any guy look at that record and not have 1,000 fantasies started immediately.  I let him know that I know exactly which one he is speaking about. “That’s the one.  You know, that was actually a full color thing.  We played around with it and decided to shift the colors so that the image was sort of this sepia toned thing. Man. That went over huge.  Do you realize how many people wanted to use that effect for their album after we’d done that one?”

Our trip to dinner takes almost an hour.  One of the freeways here is closed, so traffic is horrendous.  He had said it would be.  Personally, I am grateful.  I am thrilled to have sat and heard so much about some of these albums and artists I loved, and to be riding shotgun with the dude who had his hand in these famous records.  I understand why he hates computers and Photoshop.  Hearing him go into the minutest details of what was involved and how they did this and that was fascinating and sad at the same time.  Album artwork was an art form; there is no doubt about it.  That is one of the things that is missing from music these days.  He worked in the printing business for over 45 years, and was in the think of it in music’s heyday.  He tells stories of how the other color houses in Los Angeles tried to lure him away.  He says he misses the prima donna aspect of his work.  He was good, and knows it.  He shakes his head as he tells how art departments now do everything half-assed, that artwork for music is a disgrace now.  He’d go back to work in a split second if he could, but admits that that type of handiwork is long gone.  Everything is computerized now and the real talent and technical aspect of retouching, adjusting color and manipulation is long gone.

“You know what I really like?  Fats Waller.  I had gotten an old 78 from my parents of a Fats Waller album.  It was like 7 discs in a box, with one song on each side. Man…he was great.  He did this one song called ‘Your Big Feets”.  I love that song” and he starts in to singing this song he is so fond of.

I sat and watched and smiled. This is the best ride to dinner I have ever had.

Three Times A Day

Certain things we are told growing up to do three times a day, I completely agree with.  As a grown up, some of the things I encounter on a daily regime, I am not too sure about.  There is an alleyway near where we live which is used for a myriad of things.  As one can easily imagine, it is layered in graffiti, filled with trash and broken glass, with its most basic use is for people going to and fro, amidst the typical filth and debris you come to expect living in Mexico City.  We use the alley daily, as a means for quick access to the next neighborhood. 

Likewise, in our constant usage, we have become familiar with others who use this alleyway on a daily basis-albeit, or their own very personal reasons.  Three characters are a given, each doing his thing, at least once a day, everyday.  The trash man, the pooper and the doper.

It is customary here to pay for everything.  Living may be seen as cheap, but when you realize how you get nickled and dimed to death, you come to realize that what you save in some areas, you spend in the most stupidest ways paying people off…like the trash man.  The trash man gets paid by the city, but ironically enough, he won’t pick up your trash if you don’t pay him too.  At first, it may not seem so obvious, but if you do not put change in his hand, you will not see your trash disappear.  Our trash man is not exception.

Initially he seemed very friendly and talkative.  He would ring the bell and ask if we had any trash to take.  He would also ring the bell and ask for his ‘tip’.  If we happened to be changeless at the time, he would smile and walk away and leave our trash until he got his tip.  Fair enough.  We would sit on our trash until we felt like giving him his tip.  When the change flows, the trash goes.

One day I stepped out with the dogs and saw the trash man walking into the alley.  I stood and watched, telling myself that he was not really going to do what I thought he would.  He was picking up the trash, taking it into the alley, ripping the bags open and dumping the trash.  Depending on what kind of trash it was, he may even start a fire in the alley to burn it off. Now I am not a Mexican, and I do not have the ‘anything goes, manana, manana’ attitude, so I found this intolerable.  I was so mad and in a state of disbelief to think this chump is taking peoples trash and just basically dumping it behind their homes, then stands smiling with his hands outstretched, asking for a tip.  It re-enforced the notion I was already building of the people here; as a rule, they are very clean…they just throw their trash and debris anywhere else but in their yard or home.  The trash man is a perfect example.  I tell Tonya what I just witnessed and she can’t believe it.  A few days later, she gets her own chance to see him lugging bags into the alley, and dumping the contents into a huge heap.  As the bits of trash were falling out, the decision was made that from this instant, no more change would ever transfer from our hands to his. 

Now, we just wait to hear the daily ringing of the bell that tells the street that the roving trash truck is here. Yes-we still have to tip too.

As with any secluded space, some prefer to use it for nefarious activities, such as drinking and smoking dope.  Just the other day, the cops were swarming on the street, man handling some young kid who was casually slopping around in a haze from his recently finished smoke-out in the alley.  Though, not a daily occurrence, it is multiple times a week that we walk through a haze of pot smoke as we travel through the alley.  After a few passes at a certain time of day, we began to recognize a familiar face; The Doper.

The doper works nearby and everyday at break time, he goes to the alley to do more than snack.  He is easy to spot…but usually you can smell his presence before seeing him.  He sits on an old log and smokes his dope. Everyday it’s the same.  For him, it is like he is wearing a uniform.  He wears a red ski-vest and a white visor cap, and big giant sunglasses to hide his eyes. He is a dark guy, very dark.  He has no front teeth, on the top or bottom.  He’s young-ish, and medium build.  He has a very deep voice, and usually slurs his words when he speaks.    

At first, he would sit very still (in a cloud of smoke) and did not move as we approached.  It was like he thought by being completely still, we would not recognize the smell, the smoke, or even him sitting on the old log.  After several chance meetings, we exchanged the ever-so slight nod to one another.  Knowing that I had gained his confidence, I would then pass by and wave, or does a combo nod-cum-salute type gesture.  One day, I started to point at him and move my thumb, like the dad making the ol’ pistol move.  I hesitated.  My own paranoia caused me to think, ‘What if he is linked to the cartels, and me doing this simple gesture he takes great offense to and sees it as a death threat?’  So, with hand outstretched and fingers ready to be cocked, I just made an awkward, arthritic move, and decided to pull back on the gunslinger greeting.  We see each other so much now, that we actually exchange verbal greetings.  I suppose, when he doesn’t want a ‘buzz kill’ he just nods and doesn’t spoil the moment.  I know everything is ok, when his dark face cracks a grin, and the white teeth blatantly point out what is missing, as he smiles and growls his greetings.  Once in a great while, the doper even attempts to raise his hand to acknowledge us.

Bums like dark, private places too.  Our most common friend in the alley is the old crazy guy.  Neighbors say that this old fella has been using this alley as his hangout for years.  He used to have another bum who he’d bum around with, but his buddy passed away and left him desolate and shattered.  I have no idea what his name is, but just call him ‘pasale’ because that is what he utters countless times as you walk by. (Pasale is a friendly way to tell someone that it is ok to pass).  I call him ‘Pasale’, but in truth, he is the pooper.

Pasale is a regular fixture in this area.  He’s lost his mind, and wonders the streets in his ill fitting clothes, a worn and frayed jacket, several times too big for him, and an old dirty straw hat with holes in it.  Some days, when he is ‘dressed up’, he buttons what buttons are left on the jacket.  Pasale is usually found in the alley with a handmade broom, cobbled together from trash, and sweeping the dirt path in the alley way.  I am not really sure what it accomplishes.  It just seems he clears the path, and pushes all the trash the trash man has dumped form side to side.  You can see when Pasale really cleans though, because the berms of trash are noticeably higher.  Every time we pass, he mumbles incoherently, steps aside, bobs his head up and down and says, “pasale, pasale, pasale”.

Sometimes Pasale is seen with a huge bag of trash, he goes down the pathway and fills the bag.  I have no idea what he does with it…but have noticed large trash bags filled to the brim, piled nicely on the already mounting mounds of trash.  Personally, I think this is what Pasale does to keep busy. He tends to the trashy alleyway.

The downside is, all this time cleaning and moving trash from one side of the path to the other, one has no time to find a restroom.  Pasale likes to clean up, but he also has no problem of dropping his pants and leaving big piles of poop there too.  One day, while walking the dogs, Tonya and I both reeled in horror at the site of a very human looking pile of messy poop. We looked at one another and asked the same question, “Is that from a person?’.  The more we passed through, we began to notice these piles here and there.  One day, Pasale had been seen walking away and as we walked down the alley, the smell of fresh poop was very near a fresh pile.  We could only assume…

I mentioned Pasale to the neighbor across the street.  He filled me in on the history of Pasale, and how everyone knows him.  He also added that it is Pasale who does his poops in the alley. “Oh yeah, it is him.  One day I walked out of the house on my way to school.  I turned to walk down the alley, and as I looked up, I saw him squatting with his pants around his ankles.  There is no doubt about what he was doing, but I didn’t actually see the process.  I turned immediately and walked the other way…”  My neighbor’s comments made it painfully obvious. Pasale was no longer the suspected pooper, he is the pooper.  Things must be going good for him though, as the other day we noticed a fresh pile, complete with a bit of used toilet paper.  I suppose we should be happy he is using better hygiene now.

While sitting in traffic a week or so ago, Tonya and I spotted Pasale walking down the street.  We sat at the red light, and as he got closer, he crossed in front of us.  As he neared the car, he recognized me.  He took his ratty hat off, smiled and issued a bonus greeting as he waved, “Buenos Dias!”.  He was excited.  I smiled back and waved.  I then realized that everyone standing at this intersection was witnessing the exchange between the guero and the pooper. Tonya laughed, she commented on how excited Pasale was.  “I can’t believe he noticed you in the car!  Wow, you made his day.  You have a new friend now…I think it is sweet”, she said while smiling.  We smiled at Pasale as he wobbled down the road on his way to who knows where.

No doubt, it is quite amusing of the acquaintances you can make here in this city, just from going about your daily routines.