Another Fine LA Mess

Another normal night in the City of Angels.

So how do I wind up spending the night in a room full of Laurel and Hardy fans?

Yes, you guessed it.  There is a story.

Backtracking, I will admit that I am a huge fan of Stan and Ollie.  Going back to my youthful days in New York when I'd watch their comedies with my grandmother on rainy Saturday afternoons, I could never get enough of these guys.  One of their feature films, "Sons of the Desert" is on the list of my Top 25 Favorite Movies of All Time.  My college roommate and I somehow, to this day, incorporate some of their famous lines in our normal everyday conversation.

"We go to convention, we don't tell the wives, and they'll be none the wiser."

"Honesty is the best politics."

"Is it true your daddy is dead?  Well, I hope so.  We buried him."

Out of context, none of that means anything to you.  It's big yuks for us, though.

Now, there's been a national organization devoted to Laurel and Hardy.  It also is called the Sons of the Desert and there are regional tents all across the country.   It really is a huge and devoted society, which may have been jumpstarted forty years ago by the likes of Dick Van Dyke and Chuck McCann.

I must have put my name on the mailing list of the Los Angeles tent many years ago, because I've always received e-mail notices of their upcoming meetings.  I'd read them but never bothered to attend. 

Well, there's a first time for everything.  Last Tuesday night, I had dinner plans abruptly get postponed.  I saw again on my e-mail a reminder of the "Way Out West" tent's meeting that night.

Hmmmmm.

I called a friend and off we went. 

This tent meets in a shabby community hall called the Mayflower Club across the street from a seedy strip mall in North Hollywood.  You know the type of neighborhood.   Sporting establishments where you can eat Mexican, Chinese, or Jewish delicatessen food all in the same place.  Meanwhile, the parking lot to the Mayflower Club was jammed and we literally claimed the last spot.  I looked around at the other cars.  Lots of big gas guzzlers from the 70s and the 80s.  American flag decals on the bumpers.  Handicapped stickers on the dashboards.

Yep, we would be likely the youngest people there by about twenty years.

Once we entered the Mayflower Club, the expected demographics were confirmed.  We likely had entered into what might have been a Hollywood technicians' union meeting circa 1946.   At the front door sat an old lady behind a sign that screamed to me.  'TELL ME YOUR NAME."  She was either instructed to be very social or very deaf.

We paid our seven dollar non-member entrance fee and then wrote our names out for the stick-em tags.  Walking around the room, I noticed we had stuck to first names.  Everybody here was obviously not new to the crowd, yet all of them wore stickers with both first name and last name.  I reasoned that some of them, from time to time, may forget one or the other.

Rows of shop-worn chairs formed rows in front of a stage and a movie screen.  The banner heralding the "Way Out West" test was also carefully placed in front of the crowd like a cross on an altar.  For many of these people, this would be a church service.  Several sported fraternal fezes.  Other modeled "Stan and Ollie" t-shirts that had long since shrunk.  The average age of the audience was rounding up to 82.  No, wait, I spotted actor Curtis Armstrong, who was in "Moonlighting" and "Risky Business."  A-ha.  Make that median age 81.

In the back of the hall sat a movie projector.  Not one you'd find at the Arclight Cinemas.  No, this may have been on loan from the North Hollywood Grammar School.  Suddenly, we were in fourth period assembly.  I looked around to see if anybody was even remotely resembling a principal.

Refreshments were available for sale at a bar/kitchen location of the Mayflower Club.  This is a place that might have been the location for a wedding reception probably sixty or seventy years.  Perhaps some of the folks around here had actually tied the knot themselves.  On the wall were photos that hadn't been dusted since Hattie McDaniel was doing the housekeeping in David O. Selznick films.  Oh, look, here's a young Queen Elizabeth with a puppy.  Hey, isn't that Winston Churchill pre-World War II?  For this very simple and innocent night out, I had somehow fallen into a time machine.

Two guys who must be the exalted rulers of this tent took to the stage and welcomed everybody to the meeting.  Several other members were brought to the stage for their traditional toast to key players of the Laurel and Hardy stock company.  And then, the singing of "The Sons of the Desert" just as Stan and Ollie had done in the 1934 film.

"Everybody fold your arms and hold the hand of the person next to you."

Er. no thanks.

We were the only two who didn't.  If questioned, we planned to say we were new and oh, yeah, we don't see any hand sanitzer around.

Everybody else, however, sang.

We are the Sons of the Desert
Having the time of our lives,
Marching along, two thousand strong,
Far from our sweethearts and wives,
God bless them,
Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching,
And dancing to this melody
Dah ...dah..dah...dah..dah..
Dah...dah...dah...dah...dah..
Sons of the desert are we!

Some sang so loud that I thought they were back with the Kay Kyser Orchestra.

The two grand pooh-bahs then announced that the evening's proceedings would end before 10PM.  This was an important bit of information that was repeated about a dozen times throughout the night.  I am guessing that the event was being carefully time to coincide with everybody's medication.  Or perhaps the senior assistance home closes promptly at 10:30PM.  Regardless, the end time seemed to be the focus of all.

Two Laurel and Hardy shorts were shown on the loudly whirring projector behind us.  The quality of the prints was skeptical at best.  Yet, there was an amazing thing happening around us. 

Laughter.  Lots of it.  Coming from all these oldtimers.  Coming from us.

Indeed, there is no better way to experience Stan and Ollie than with a live audience.  And, yes, most in the audience last Tuesday night were thankfully still alive, although I did have my doubts about one elderly gentleman in the third row.

There was an intermission where free cake was served.   Meanwhile, raffle tickets were sold for a charity drawing.  Other tables sold memorablia of dog-eared photos and faded movie posters.  Also on sales were VHS copies of Laurel and Hardy films.  VHS?  I looked around at the crowd.  Of course.  Nobody here has ever heard of a DVD player.   I am guessing that color television sets might still be a luxury.

Next on the agenda was the unspooling of one of my favorite L&H features, "Blockheads."  Again, a raucous reaction around me.  Some were responding to the screen antics as if they were seeing them for the first time.  Perhaps, with a lot of long term memory loss, many of them thought they were.  But, still, it was pure cinema appreciation of the finest degree.  Movies the way they were supposed to be seen and enjoyed.  With a bunch of folks who might have been around when these films were first released in 1935.

The evening concluded at 9:55PM and I noted that the promises had been kept.  As folks wobbled out to their 1972 Chevy Impalas, I wanted to know their back stories.  Who worked in films?  Who knew what?  Who had slept with Joan Crawford?  I had a feeling that this was a goldmine of memories.

But, the retirement home was beckoning.  We didn't mix much.  We, too, got into our car in silence.

There's always next time.  I came home and send in my money to become a card-carrying member of the "Way Out West" tent of "Sons of the Desert."

Dinner last night:  Italian sub sandwich from Jersey Mike's.