Writings for ReVue Magazine
Exploring US Highway 41
Road Trip Tips
Remembering Johnny Cash
 Remembering Joe Strummer
Pisco Sour!
Collecting Pulp Fiction Paperbacks

by James Teitelbaum
©2001-2004 All Rights Reserved
v.1.2

Exploring US Highway 41
by James Teitelbaum
Originally published in ReVue magazine October, 2004


Route 66 is over-rated!

That choppy old road, many parts of which have been completely erased, is the subject of a lot of hype, most of it undeserved.

Sure there are some old drive-ins and motels along the way, but for every authentic vintage 1940s diner on old 66, there are three that were built in the 1990s in a desperate attempt to lure in the retro crowd.  Also, there are large sections of Route 66 (aka US66) that just don’t exist anymore, having been replaced with Interstates, or - even worse, perhaps - having just faded away, sunk into the ground, and evaporated.  For a road that is barely even there anymore, old 66 gets a lot of love!

For these reasons it seems clear that the only reason people even care about that decayed strip of tarmac is because of the hype it received in the Route 66 television series (1960-1964) and it’s hit theme song by Nelson Riddle. From the perspective of hindsight, however, “Get your kicks on Route 66” could just have easily been “Have some fun on Route 41” -  at least Route 41 is still there!

There are still a handful of old US Highways that do cross this great nation uninterrupted, passing through myriad and sundry small towns, and few big cities too.  They are all chock full of old motels, dairy-freez shacks, diners and drive-ins... not to mention all manner of fun, hokey tourist traps.

US 1, for example begins at the southernmost point in the USA - Key West, Florida - and winds its way to the USA’s northernmost point (excluding Alaska), a few miles north of Caribou, Maine.  This road is uninterrupted for this entire journey.

US 1 has an even more interesting opposite number on the west coast: US 101 begins in northwest Washington state, and ends at the Mexican border, just north of Tijuana.  The road continues into Mexico as Mexico Route 1.

Some of the routes are horizontal too: drivers on US10 can begin in Detroit, take the ferry over to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and then wind their way through the badlands and then through the Rockies all the way to Seattle.

US30 connects Portland and Philadelphia, passing through Chicago on the way.

Washington DC to San Francisco?  That’s US50.

Perhaps the most interesting route for Chicagoans is US41.  This amazing road begins in Miami, passes through the Everglades, and then snakes it’s way north, through Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago. It finally peters out at the very northern tip of Michigan (in Marquette), on the edge of Lake Superior, just over the water from Ontario, Canada.

The Chicago section of US41 begins in Indiana, where the road crawls up the edge of the Hoosier state, never more than a few miles from the western border.  It is known as Calumet Ave. and then Indianapolis Blvd. in northeastern Indiana.  US41 enters Chicago on S. 106th street, and then snakes it’s way north, finally becoming Lake Shore Drive at S. 67th street, near the Museum of Science and Industry.  Lake Shore Drive itself continues for just a bit longer after US 41 turns left, leaving the drive, and becomes Foster Ave.  To follow Foster to Lincoln, and then Lincoln to Cicero (through the towns of Lincolnwood and Skokie) is to follow the route our grad-dads took before the Interstates existed. 

The road then joins up with I-94 for a while - one of the only sections of this 1800-mile road to have been turned into an interstate - before reclaiming it’s own territory, separating from I-94, and making it’s way north towards Milwaukee.

Zeroing in further, the 1.5 mile stretch of US41 that we Chicagoans would think of as Lincoln Ave between Foster and Devon is a treasure trove of mid-century coolness.  There are a half dozen vintage motels with great signs and atomic architecture along that stretch of road (although I wouldn’t want to stay in any of them) as well as some other treasures - look for the travel agency with the big globe on their sign.

There is also a lot of mid-century architecture along this route that is more subtle, but worth seeing nonetheless.  Astounding Googie masterpieces are few and far between in the Midwest (compared to, say California), but that doesn’t mean that people weren’t putting up buildings at all here... they’re just a bit more understated.  But the modernist style can still be seen, if you know where to look.

Traveling the old US Highways is always a more interesting way to travel than taking Interstates, but remember that it is also far more time-consuming.  The speed limit is often 55 or 60 MPH between the towns, but going through the various population centers, you may have to slow down to 25 MPH.  I usually figure on taking 2 or 3 times longer to get where I am going.  That said, passing through endless little towns with their antique malls and thrift stores, their old soda fountains and diners, their perfectly preserved Main Streets, and the unexpected surprises each of them has in store, is what makes a road trip worth doing.

As always, bring a camera - development right across the street from some of the aforementioned motels on the Lincoln Ave. stretch of US41 has already destroyed a vintage one-screen movie theatre and replaced it with a Borders book store.  These old motels are certainly doomed - as is the case with so many mid century landmarks - so document them while you can.



Road Trip Tips
by James Teitelbaum
Originally published in ReVue magazine, June, 2003

Summer is upon us and it is time to gear up for one of America’s favorite summer pastimes: the road trip.

Road tripping may seem simple on the surface: get in the car and go.  But, a little bit of foreknowledge goes a long way.  Here are some hints to keep you on the road and ensure a good time.  I am going to assume that most ReVue readers are interested in all things vintage or retro, and to this end I will focus on this premise for the duration of this article. 
So here we go!

First things first: packing.
Since you’ll be in the car, don’t worry about packing light, as you would when flying.  You have plenty of room, so throw anything you may need into that trunk or back seat.  In addition to the fabulous wardrobe to wear when you get where you’re going, you’ll need comfortable clothes to wear on the road.  If traveling west beyond Nebraska or so, you’ll find yourself at drastically different elevations every few hours, which bring extreme changes of temperature.  From Arizona to Colorado to Wyoming, when going through the mountains you’ll see snow in all but the hottest months, and then you’ll find yourself in the scorching desert a day later.  Be flexible.  More stuff to bring: a cooler full of food and beverages (cheaper to eat bagels and fruit for lunch than to risk that spectacular vintage diner’s crummy food...), an emergency pillow and blanket, plenty of music and audio books (audio books make the time much faster than music when you’re in the boring parts.  Get ‘em free at the library), and of course, a really good map.  But all in all, don’t panic.  One of the good things about being on the road is that if you forgot something, you can just pull over and buy it.  Better still, once you leave the city, things get cheaper.  Small towns in Iowa are bargain central to Chicagoans, and gas is (relatively) cheap, cheap, cheap until you get to the west coast.

Second: pick your route.
The thing I must absolutely stress the most is that if at all possible, don’t take the freeway!  The big slab o’ concrete that Mr. Eisenhower built for our parents may be a fast way to get from A to B, but you’ll miss all the good stuff.  Freeway exits are breeding grounds for corporate fast food chains and clusters of gas stations.  You can see that stuff at home.  All the stuff you really want to see is on state routes and old US Highways.  Yank out your map and have a look.  The Interstates (freeways) are thick blue lines with black borders.  A careful look at the map will also reveal magenta lines almost as thick.  Those are the state routes.  Between towns, the speed limit is usually the same as that of the freeway, and you can pull over whenever you want to, not just at that ‘next exit’.  In the villages, the velocity limit decreases.  Most importantly, since the freeways went in, most entrepreneurs stopped building things on the state routes.  Therefore, they can be treasure troves for fans of vintage motels, diners, and bowling alleys.  Are you a fan or photo-collector of cool old 50’s neon signs?  This is where you find them.  Old diners galore.  Cheezy road side attractions?  They’re all here.  I didn’t find the Barbed Wire Museum, The Bourbon Family Center, or National Dinosaur Monument on the Interstate - they’re on the magenta roads! 

Watch for all the small-town cops along the way, they’re looking for blood.  And, taking these routes through densely populated areas can be slow going.  So take the Interstate out of Chicago for a few miles, then hop on Rt.30 through western Illinois and Iowa.  Use the map, and use common sense: if the route goes through a lot of towns, you will have to slow down at the city limits of each of them.  Do you have time?  Is your priority seeing interesting things, or getting where you’re going in a hurry? 

Some favorites:  Rt. 66 of course is the one most people will want to do if possible.  Once (as the song says), it wound from Chicago to LA.  Now it exists only in pieces, starting across the street from the Art Institute in the Chicago Loop, and ending some 2700 miles later not too far from Disneyland.  There are plenty of guide books out there to help you figure out where the remaining bits are.  However, there are other roads that while less famous, have the advantage of being completely intact.  If you take Rt. 66 from Chicago towards Texas, Rt. 60 can be picked up just south of Amarillo.  This will take you across the western half of the panhandle, all the way across New Mexico, and well into Arizona.  Highlights include Jesse James grave, the VLA (all those huge radio telescopes you see in the movies), lots of ghost towns, plenty of vintage 1940’s and 1950’s architecture in sundry small towns, and mind-numbingly gorgeous scenery between the hamlets.  Heading back east, I also adore the drive on Rt. 50 from Reno (another goldmine for 1950s architecture) across Nevada and into Utah.  Halfway across Utah, pick up I-15 for a bit to Rt. 40, and take that across the rest of Utah and into Colorado.  You will not be disappointed.  It is a spectacular mix of gorgeous nature, the likes of which you will NEVER see on the interstate, and towns that are stuck in 1961.  Depending on how much driving you can do in a day, and how much you want to stop and sight-see, allow a little less than one state per day.  Rt. 31 in Tennessee and Kentucky is a great trip: it connects Louisville and Nashville, and can be done in a day.  You’ve got to love the Wigwam Motel - ten concrete teepees in a circle with a playground in a sinkhole in the middle.  Each wigwam contains a bathroom, a bed, AC and TV, so you’re stylin’.  Forty bucks a night, and worth every penny.

Third: rules of the road.
1.  Respect truckers.
2.  Cruise on the right, pass on the left.  Do not drive slow in he left lane.
3.  Pull over if you are one of the 98% of us who drive like an idiot while on the phone. 
    And you are not in that other 2%, trust me.
4.  Cops tend to congregate near state borders, so be extra careful there.
5.  Old motels with cool neon signs are usually disgusting inside.  You are warned.  If you’re into camping, camp sites are clearly marked on better atlases.

Next: car trouble.
Yes, your vintage car is cool.
Leave it at home.
You need something reliable that will get you across states that only have gas stations every 150 miles without worry.
Beg, steal, borrow, or rent a dependable new car.

Finally: send me a postcard!



Remembering Johnny Cash
by James Teitelbaum
Originally published in ReVue magazine, October, 2003

I was at the corner of Wabash and Monroe, sitting in traffic on a cool, clear, bright, and sunny September afternoon.  The streets were busy, crowded with people going about their business.  The second anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks had occurred the previous day, and I think that perhaps more than a few of the pedestrians on the street might have had current events on their minds.  I know I did.  It was then that I heard a street musician’s guitar above the din of the rush hour traffic.  I saw a guy sitting on top of his amplifier, playing a crappy old stratocaster.  He was playing badly, but I knew the melody and began to sing along with it a little:

“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the ties that bind
Because you’re mine
I walk the line”.

I got a little choked up as I sang, for Johnny Cash, the author of the song heard by the thousands of people who rushed by that corner that day, had died that morning.   Cash’s passing was not unexpected; at the age of 71, his health had been failing for several years, and had gone into a more serious decline after his wife’s death just a few months earlier.  However, that doesn’t make the impact any less significant.  Johnny Cash was a guru to thousands of fans of country, rock, folk, rockabilly, gospel, and untold other musical genres, having placed 140 singles on the Billboard charts over the course of almost fifty years.  Few people have had this sort of crossover appeal in their careers, and few careers have lasted as long as Cash’s did.  It would not be a cliché or an overstatement to have called Johnny Cash a living legend in the final years of his life, and many people did.

Later on the night of September 12, I was at the Lakeview Lounge, listening to Night Watch.  They can always be counted upon to do some Johnny Cash songs, and this night was no exception.

“When I was just a baby
My Momma told me son
Always be a good boy
Don’t ever play with guns
But I shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die...”

Not the most sensitive lyric to have heard the night the man who wrote it died, but that’s Night Watch for you.

Johnny Cash was a legend for a lot of reasons, but there is one quality that stands out above all the rest.  He sang about everything from incarceration to unrequited love to being eaten by a boa constrictor.  He sang about things as simple as dancing, and as heartfelt as his pride in America, and as serious as the suffering and horrors associated with the war in Viet Nam.  But I think that the reason he’ll still be remembered many decades from now is not for the subject matter of his songs, not for the way he lived his life, not for the huge numbers of records he sold, but for his strength, his clarity, and his honesty.  For his integrity as a songwriter and as an individual.

Powerful performers who can entertain us and challenge us simply by virtue of the solo voice against a minimal musical arrangement are few and far between.  In this era where music is dominated by slick computer programs concocted by focus goups, like Britney Spears and her ilk, we need people like Johnny Cash more than ever.

The thing with Johnny Cash is that no matter what he was doing, or singing, or saying, he meant it.  And not just a little.  He was a man of his convictions, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else tell him what to do or to think, to say or to sing.  He was a passionate guy, and whether singing a ballad or giving a photographer the finger, he was giving it 100%.  Even given the shady periods in his past (drug abuse, and some time spent in prison), you felt like you could trust Johnny Cash, like he would never give you bad advice or lead you astray.

Right up to the end, while Americans find themselves navigating an endless sea of tepid repetitive pop music, Cash’s baritone voice - often accompanied only by a quiet acoustic guitar - spoke the truth again and again.   The quartet of records he made for the American label (how appropriate) solidified his legend among the members of two generations who were not yet born when he started bringing his message to the world.

Even when engaged in questionable song choices, such as covering Depeche Mode (this choice could only have been at American Records producer Rick Rubin’s suggestion), Johnny Cash’s rock solid integrity, undeniable convictions, and untouchable sincerity made the song work.  But it is Cash’s own compositions for which he’ll be most fondly remembered.

“Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell in to
A ring of fire”.

Lyrics like this are so simple and so yet so universal, revealing a depth of soul and a strength of character so powerful that the members of Depeche Mode must surely cower in the face of it.

And now, Mr. Johnny Cash, who lived so long and brought so much joy and understanding and (let’s just say it) sheer coolness to the world, has moved on.

Yes, we’re all upset that the upcoming American V will be his final new release (although boxed set of out-takes from American I through V is planned), and that there will be no more performances, and no more kicking back wondering how anyone so damned cool could have evolved in the same universe as schlubs like you and I.  All we can do to ease the pain is take the man’s own advice:  “Get rhythm, when you get the blues”.  Johnny Cash is gone, but his records remain for us, and will continue to do so for a long, long time.

“Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.
Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.”

Johnny Cash, known as the man in black, was born on February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas.  His given name was simply J. R., and he had six siblings.  The Cash family moved to Dyess county, Arkansas in 1935, where the entire family worked on a 20-acre cotton farm.  Young J.R. passed the evenings listening to the radio.  He once wrote: "Nothing in the world was as important to me as hearing those songs on that radio. The music carried me up above the mud, the work and the hot sun."  J.R. also had seminal exposure to gospel music while in church. 

Cash joined the Air Force in 1950, where he adopted the name Johnny.  He was stationed in Germany, and there acquired a guitar.  In July 1954, Cash was honorably discharged and soon married Vivian Liberto (they later divorced). Settling in Memphis, Cash's older brother Roy introduced him to Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, with whom he formed a band.  It was for their first gig that Cash adopted the all-black stage attire for which became famous.

Cash met Sun Records legend Sam Phillips in 1954.  Cash’s first recording, "Hey Porter", was recorded on March 22, 1955... and failed to chart. "Cry, Cry, Cry," was tracked in May 1955.  The song reached number 14, and Cash hit the road with label mate Elvis Presley, soon meeting lifelong friend Carl Perkins.  "I Walk the Line" (recorded April 2, 1956), was Cash’s fourth single, and became the song that solidified a career that would last for almost fifty years.  The single sold two million copies over 43 weeks on the charts.

By 1957, Cash was doing 200 shows a year, and appearing at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. He also staged his first prison concert at the Texas State Prison in Huntsville, Texas.  In 1958, Cash left Sun and signed with Columbia Records. Although he had enjoyed tremendous chart success with Sun, Cash wanted to record gospel music and believed Columbia would be more receptive to the idea than Sun.  Appearances on major network programs including The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Ozark Jubilee further expanded Cash's popularity. In the early '60s, Cash also made his movie debut with an appearance in Five Minutes to Live, a low-budget thriller.

Becoming more concerned about social issues, Cash included "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" on his 1964 album, Bitter Tears. Radio refused to play the song (about the death of a World War II hero), so Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine asking "Where Are Your Guts?" The song cracked the top 5.  Cash also began his musical partnership with his wife of 33 years, June Carter.  

Around this time, Cash developed a dependence on amphetamines. He was missing shows and recording sessions, and concerns were growing among his friends and family over his health.  Cash was banned from the Opry for busting up the stage with a microphone stand, and was arrested in El Paso, Texas (for drug possession), while returning from Mexico.  A kind hearted sheriff arresting Cash yet again in Lafayette, Georgia inspired Cash to beat the pills.  He called June Carter and asked her for help.  June, her family, and Cash set up home in Tennessee, and with their family support and religious faith helped Johnny kick his amphetamine habit.

Carter and Cash were married on March 1, 1968, and had a son, John Carter Cash (Cash’s daughters Rosanne, Kathy, Tara and Cindy were from his marriage to Vivian).  "Folsom Prison Blues" (from Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison) hit the number 1 spot on the charts.  The album was the Country Music Association’s album of the year, not to mention a Grammy winner. In 1969, The Johnny Cash Show premiered on ABC television. In 1971, Cash appeared on the big screen with Kirk Douglas in A Gunfight. He furthered his acting career with several film and television roles throughout the 1970’s.  His music a career began to wane throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Cash was dropped from Columbia, briefly signed to Mercury, did some recordings with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson as The Highwaymen, and even guested on a U2 record.  Cash’s more successful years had not been forgotten, however: In 1990, Cash received a Lifetime Achievement award from NARAS, and in 1992, Cash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Years earlier, he had been the youngest living person to have ever been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The biggest of his multiple come-backs was marked by his signing with American Records (owned by record producer Rick Rubin, known in rock circles for his work with the Beastie Boys, Run-D.M.C., and the Red Hot Chili Peppers).  American Recordings I was a stripped down record of covers and originals, arranged minimally with Cash singing along to his simple guitar accompaniment.  Multiple Grammys followed in the wake of all of American’s three follow-ups.

Following his wife’s death, Cash made his final public performance during a surprise appearance on July 5, 2003 at Carter Fold, an amphitheater at the Carter Family Memorial Music Center in Hiltons, Virginia.

In a world where terms like “legend”, “genius”, and (unfortunately) even “talented” are vastly overused, Johnny Cash certainly deserved to be called all of those things and more.  We have truly lost an all-time great.



Remembering Joe Strummer
by James Teitelbaum
Originally published in ReVue magazine, January, 2003

Someone once referred to The Clash as “The Only Band That Matters”.  Twenty-five years later, this statement is as true as ever.  The Clash were the first of the old-school punk bands to expand their musical horizons, concocting a unique mixture of punk, reggae, rockabilly, and funk.  Their influence on virtually all rock music created in the past couple of decades is undeniable.  While The Clash’s contemporaries have all cashed in on the first generation punk legacy to one degree or another (witness the miserable Sex Pistols reunion, or the endless attempts to maintain the corpse of the Damned), The Clash have stuck to their guns and avoided gratuitous reunions, preferring to let their legend grow to epic proportions in their conspicuous  absence from the reunion game.  And it has.

As their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame becomes imminent, a hoped-for Clash reunion - for good or ill - is finally, definitively, and irrevocably out of the question.

Joe Strummer, the Clash’s lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and punk rock icon, died on December 22, 2002 of heart failure.  No additional cause of death has been provided by the media.  Joe Strummer was 50.

Widely regarded as punk rock’s own Lennon and McCartney, Strummer and co-vocalist/lead guitarist Mick Jones mixed savage fury with thoughtful political commentary to produce a body of work that sounds as vital and important today as it did in punk’s (first) heyday.  Venturing beyond the limiting constraints of punk that other iconic bands such as the Ramones and the Buzzcocks were happy to remain locked in to, The Clash tackled rockabilly classics like “I Fought The Law”, and “Brand New Cadillac” with a rage that would have brought the authors of these classics back from their graves.  Not stopping there, The Clash were able to completely turn around at a moment’s notice to handle reggae and even ska classics like “Pressure Drop”.

The Clash are remembered in eighties pop circles for goofy numbers like the once-again-topical “Rock the Casbah” and the frat rock favorite “Should I Stay or Should I Go”, but as time passes, it seems as though the turbulent anthem “London Calling” is the single song that The Clash will most likely be remembered for.  Currently featured prominently in the new James Bond movie, we can only hope that Joe had a chance to see two cornerstones of British popular culture - James Bond and punk rock - mixed together so successfully.

After The Clash disbanded, Mick Jones went on to great commercial success with his band Big Audio Dynamite, while the rhythm section of Topper Headon and Paul Simonon more or less faded into obscurity (and jail, in Headon’s case).

Joe Strummer released a some half-hearted attempts at solo records, and appeared in a few films by kindred spirits Alex Cox and Jim Jarmusch, but generally seemed content to spend the 1980s and 1990s becoming a legend and an inspiration to neo-punkabilly poster boys such as Mike Ness of Social Distortion.  Strummer spent the last few years of his life making a satisfying comeback with a new band, the Mescaleros.  Picking up where The Clash left off, the Mescaleros created a mature and satisfying blend of punk, reggae, and rockabilly.  Live, the Mescaleros mixed this new material with Clash favorites to collect universally positive reviews. 

As was the case with Joey Ramone last year, Joe Strummer’s death came far too soon.  He is already missed.




A man on a quest:
Traveling the globe pursuing the perfect Pisco.
by James Teitelbaum
Originally published in ReVue magazine, August, 2003

After sampling the latest version of my constantly evolving Pisco Sour recipe at Anne and Stephan Gelau’s great barbecue on July 12, Re-Vue editor Susan Funk asked about the genesis of that particular potation.  After my slurred oration on the legend of Pisco, she suggested that I write about it for Re-Vue.  This story doesn’t have Jack Daniels to do with the Chicago RAB community, but hey, I do what the lady who runs the magazine tells me to do, you know?

So, we proudly present to you the tale of the Pisco Sour.

It started, of all places, on the single most remote inhabited spot on the planet, the mystical island of Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island), in May of 2000.

No, actually it started at Sam’s Wine in Chicago in 1997. 

While wondow shopping at the liquor store, I spied a big black bottle that looked like a Moai (or a Rapa Nui ancestor carving) full of some mysterious liqueur called Pisco Capel.  I didn’t care what the stuff was, I just wanted the ultra cool bottle for display in my Tiki room at home.  Of course, it would be folly to let that 80 proof booze go to waste, so I started trying to drink it.  I say ‘trying’ because the spirits in that bottle were angry ones.  The stuff in that bottle was vile.  Pisco originated in Peru, but it is now as ubiquitous in Chile as Old Style signs are in Bucktown.  It is essentially a brandy made of white muscat grapes.  Attempts were made to drink it as a shot, and then with soda, and then with juice... no luck. 

Now we can forward to Easter Island in May of 2000.  There are only 2500 people on the island, and they all live in a little village called Hanga Roa, which is on one corner of the roughly triangular island, 3500 miles west of the coast of Chile.  Since Chile governs Rapa Nui, the islanders are at the mercy of the mainland.  They get a supply ship a couple of times per year.  If you find yourself in one of Hanga Roa’s two bars (each of which seats about 12 people) you drink whatever it is that happened to come over on the last boat.  In most cases it is Pisco, since this particular rocket fuel is made in Chile.  So, the islanders have become pretty adept at finding ways to make it drinkable.

The most common recipe is what they call a Pisco Sour.  Both of Hanga Roa’s little pubs make it differently; I took notes about both variations after coming back from long days of hiking through the ruins of a lost civilization, looking at the monumental Moai figures, and getting bit by a black widow spider (really!).

My next stop that spring was in Santiago, Chile.  Most of the bars there make Pisco Sours, as well as a bunch of other recipes using this ubiquitous local aqua vitae.  Other companies besides Capel make Pisco.  Inca Pisco comes in a bottle that looks  - you guessed it - like an Incan Sun God, in direct competition with Capel’s superior souvenir Moai decanter.  Inca Pisco tastes no better than Pisco Capel, by the way.  The Chileans like to mix their Pisco with unlikely ingredients such as raw egg.  I was willing to give this firewater another shot, but there’s no way I was putting eggs into my hootch.  I don’t like to mix both of my favorite breakfasts in one glass, see?  But here’s the rub (finally): blended with the proper ingredients (not eggs), this Pisco stuff is actually really good.  You just need to find the right things to compliment it.

Pisco is $23 a bottle at Sam’s, but only $8 at the duty free shops (those prices are for the Moai bottle; it also comes in a clear glass vessel for less dough).  Now that the Chileans and Easter Islanders had enlightened me in the way to make this rotgut taste good, I could justify stocking up on a bunch of the slick bottles - and drink the contents enjoyably.

Back home, I experimented with amalgamations of all of the various Pisocombinations collected on Rapa Nui and in Chile, and I added some touches of my own.  Two years later, when it came time to add a dozen classic Tropical Drink recipes to my book, Tiki Road Trip (Santa Monica Press, 2003), I decided in a moment of whimsy and perhaps ego to add my customized libationary souvenir of the South Pacific to the listing of classic and no-longer secret 1940s and 1950s blends by such legends as Trader Vic, Don the Beachcomber, and Paul Fong.

Since then, the recipe has been refined even further, with the reinstatment of some ingredients left out of the previous revision, and he deletion of the orange juice (and thanks to Nels from www.tikizone.com, the only other guy I know who’s actually been to Rapa Nui, for a reminder about the brown sugar!).  Believe it or not, adding fruit juice to Tropical Drinks is cheating: the best ones achieve a refreshing and fruity taste without resorting to dumping pineapple juice into the mix.  Anything more juicey than squeezing a lime into the drink, and you’re copping out.

So, here (in print for the first time), is the latest version of a constantly evolving drink, the recipe for which has been tracked and tweaked from Chicago to Easter Island to Chile to Berwyn and back.

Pisco Sour v.5 (aka Aku Hall Sour)

For two:
5 ounces Pisco Capel
1.25 ounces fresh lime juice
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 ounce Triple Sec (may substitute Orange Curacao)
1 ounce rock candy syrup (may substitute simple bar syrup)
.75 ounce John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum
1/4 teaspoon orange bitters

Mix ingredients and two large heaping handfuls of ice in blender until ice is completely crushed. 
Pour into Moai-shaped Tiki Mugs with 1/4 lemon rind in each.
Float a drizzle of drak rum (such as Myers) over the top, and then sprinkle a large pinch of brown sugar over that. 
Add paper umbrella skewering pineapple chunk.
Drink. 
Say: “Hey - this is  good!”
Repeat until soused.



Collecting Pulp Fiction Paperbacks
by James Teitelbaum
Originally published in ReVue magazine, March, 2004

At one time or another, any enthusiast of mid-century pop has gazed upon the lurid cover of an old paperback novel.  Usually featuring a sexy girl and a kitschy tag-line, they were designed to draw in potential readers at the news stand, and that they did.  At least two dozen publishers hatched several thousand novels of dubious quality throughout the middle 20th century, and as is the case with so many artifacts of the era, these novels have become collectible.

Now adorning postcards, magnets, several coffee-table books, and even vinyl purses, the garish pulp fiction novel cover is bonafide vintage-pop collectable, a close cousin to the work of ‘situational’ pin-up artists Gil Elvgren, Zoe Mozert, and Edward Runci.

Beginning after World War II, and flourishing, like so many other genuinely cool things, in the 1950s, the paperback novel as we know it was published with great success by Avon, Ace, Dell, Gold Medal, Lion, Signet, Popular Library, Signet, and others.

Most of the books were numbered by the publishers, and collectors look to obtain complete runs by their favorite publishers.  Some of the biggest publishers produced hundreds of novels over several decades, spewing out a handful of new titles every month.  Others were less prolific, but no less collectible now.  In order to increase sales, publishers such as Ace tried various gimmicks, such as putting two novels in one volume, but each with it’s own front cover; you had to flip the book over and then rotate it 180 degrees to read the ‘upside down’ novel that began at the opposite end of the book and met it’s companion in the middle.

Another gimmick, this one from Dell was dubbed the “mapback” by collectors.  These novels always featured a back-cover map or diagram related to the story.

But it isn’t only the specific publisher that makes a book collectible: some people collect by subject matter: bad girls/juvenile delinquents, drug themes, motorcycle gangs, racial stereotypes (black, Asian, etc), exotic locales... you name it. 

The genre of crime dramas and detective thrillers is perhaps the most prevalent.  Some authors working in this genre, while not exactly venerated in literary circles, went on to have their work adapted for Hollywood, and some wrote work of significant complexity and characterization.  Jim Thompson was the grand-daddy of the genre, and his depression-era tales of the ex-criminal trying desperately to keep straight... until the dame comes along... set the standard for all that was to follow.

Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler were at the top of the detective fiction heap from the 1930s onward.  Both writers saw their best-known characters (Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, respectively) played by Humphrey Bogart in the 1940s (in The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep ).

In the UK, James Hadley Chase had a successful career from the 1940s through 1960s, but it was Ian Fleming’s cold war era spy James Bond who went on the become one of the most widely recognized fictional characters in history.  Long before James Bond’s film legacy began (with 1962’s Dr. No), Bond’s adventures appeared in America as just another title in any given stack of paperbacks.  The first Bond adventure was Casino Royale  (1953), which is also the only Bond film never to have been made into a legit film adventure (it was filmed as a parody in 1967).

The James Bond one sees in print is a rather different character than Sean Connery’s classic film portrayal, and by the time Roger Moore inherited of the role in the 1970’s, any similarity between the cinematic Bond and the literary had evaporated.  George Lazenby gave his best effort in the single Bond film he appeared in, but when Timothy Dalton was given two shots at the role in the 1980’s, viewers were treated to a take on Fleming’s creation that was closer to what appeared in print than even Connery could muster.  Somewhere in the middle of the scale is the (relatively) Politically Correct James Bond of the 2000s, starring Pierce Brosnan.  The novels are more plot-driven, less concerned with Bond’s sexual conquests, almost free of gadgets, and we get to witness Bond seriously getting his ass kicked in almost every one of them.

Some of the Beat generation writers who were active at that time also ended up being published in editions by the top paperback houses.  The slick and sleazy cover art often belies the depth and sensitivity of the best of the Beat writers.  Kerouac’s adventures were decorated with catchy tag lines and seductive women to suck in the curious.  William S. Burroughs was exploited similarly.  His frank explorations of homosexuality, drug abuse, and the murder of his wife made for excellently lurid cover art subjects.

Kurt Vonnegut’s work was also published with some sexy and misleading cover art, and names like Steinbeck, Huxley, and Faulkner were no stranger to having sensationalistic covers adorning their literature.  Let us not forget the science fiction crowd: among dozens or hundreds of forgettable hacks were notable geniuses like Issac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, A.E. Van Voght, Robert Heinlein, and C.S. Lewis.  The more or less forgettable A. Merritt is also a pulp collector’s staple: his books seemed to consist entirely of giant sentient frogs abducting mini-skirted space maidens.

This list of successful authors is a relatively short one, unfortunately.  The vast majority of the people working in the paperback novel form were hacks who were paid by the page to churn out product.  In the interests of economy and of continually keeping material on the racks, plots were re-used, and the same text appeared frequently with different titles and different cover art.  Usually, in the interest of fair consumerism, the original title would appear in small-print parenthesis below the new title.  This got to the point where publishers of new material took to bragging “Brand new complete novel!”  or “Not a reprint” on the cover.

Similarly, novels were often butchered down to shorter lengths to make the same material saleable without having to use as much paper, thus being cheaper to print and lighter to ship.  “Unabridged complete novel” was a badge of honor for the uncut.

It is a bit of a sad statement that a majority of the authors of these novels are largely regarded with indifference.  These days, more people (by far) are interested in the garish artwork churned out for the covers.  The hokey tag lines designed to help separate the potential reader from his twenty-five cents are treated with more reverence than any line of prose within the covers.

Given that most of these books are remaining unread these days, it is no surprise that people choose to build their collections based not upon author or publisher, but by cover artist.  If it is the cover that makes the book collectible, then it makes sense that certain prolific and talented cover artists would be identified and venerated.  This is more tricky than it may seem, because in those days cover artists were often slighted on the receiving of a credit.  Many of them were freelancers, also doing magazine covers and spot illustrations, movie posters, advertisements, and sundry other forms of commercial art.  Although some squeaked signatures into the work, it was (and is) rare for commercial artists to sign their work.

Once identified, however, the stylistic differences between the paperback cover artists is just as clear to the observant collector as are the differences between, say, pin ups by Gil Elvgren, Alberto Vargas, and Peter Driben are from each other.

Perhaps the most well-known of them is Robert McGinnis.  Known for also designing a bunch of the Roger Moore-era James Bond movie posters, McGinnis was a prolific illustrator who did some 1500 novel covers.  His heyday, however was in the 1960s and 1970s, and his moody, often psychedelic renderings aren’t always what collectors more tuned to earlier decades are looking for.

At the opposite end of the temporal spectrum was Earle K. Bergey, who did dozens of covers for pulp magazines in the 1930s such as Fantastic Stories and Startling Stories, as well as cheesecake magazines of the era like Snappy Stories, Pep, and Real Screen Fun.  Later, his lush style allowed him to adapt easily to the paperback genre.

Spanning the decades between Bergey and McGinnis were George Gross, Norman Saunders, Paul Rader, Reginald Heade, Robert Bonfils, Robert Maguire, Robert Stanley, and Rudolph Belarski, to name a few.

Heade worked in the UK, making his work tough to get in the US.  The covers rendered by Heade universally featured a gorgeous woman in distress, her dress ripped or hiked up to show lots of leg and stocking.  Ropes and bondage were a favorite theme as well.  Often shown in her nightgown, or about to lose her bra, his practically topless women were squeaked through the censors by his conspicuously absent rendering of any nipples!

Rudolph Belarski was called “the perfect paperback artist” by the Saturday Evening Post in the middle 1950s.  His color palette was simple and primary, making his images pop right off of the cover.  His women were beautiful, and always in trouble.  He went on to illustrate milder subject matter, mainly for outdoors magazines. 

Norman Saunders liked to include the men of the story in his cover images, usually showing a pretty heroine being either tormented by a villain or rescued by a strapping hero.  One of his famous covers, for one of Robert E. Howard’s Conan novels, shows the king of the barbarians dressed like a Roman solider.  This attire is not quite what was later imagined for Conan by either Marvel comics or governor Arnold’s film portrayal.

Ruth Belew was the map artist on Dell’s mapbacks.  Belew was a Chicago artist who created at least 150 maps between 1942 and 1951.

James Avati is sometimes called the "greatest cover artist of them all,".   Avati was a department store window display designer and an illustrator for magazines before painting his first paperback cover in 1948.  He produced dozens of covers for New American Library, Signet, and Bantam.

As the medium of the pulp paperback degenerated into porn by the early 1970’s, a new breed of artist rose to the challenge of creating cover art.  Robert Bonfils illustrated almost every cover in Ember Library’s catalogue, and his style (reminiscent of a sexed-up Robert McGinnis) is easy to recognize.  Cartoonist Bill Ward, known for his risqué (for the late 1940s!) cartoon Torchy and his later work in Mad  magazine, contributed more than a few covers, and Eric Stanton -  patron saint of submissive fetishists everywhere - is quite present on the scene as well.  The enigmatic Eneg is responsible for the covers to such masterpieces of literature as Celluloid Sex Bomb and Sorority Snob.

Now that you’ve decided to collect vintage paperbacks, and made up your mind about how to collect: - by publisher, by artist, by subject - geting the books isn’t hard.  Common books in decent condition can be had, even in expensive places like antique malls and vintage shops, for $5 or less.  Thrift stores are largely picked clean of truly great material, but that 25-cent thrift-score is still be discovered occasionally.  Ebay is a great place to find books, but many sellers have started scamming buyers with inflated shipping charges.  It still does not cost more than $1.50 to send an average book via US post office book rate mail.  Factor in packing costs, and $2.50 is the maximum you should pay, or maybe $4.50 if you want Priority Mail.  The cost of the book itself is up to you: how bad do you want it?

Some books are more rare than others, and books with low print runs, or particularly quintessential cover art, or with art by desireable artists will fetch more money.  The author of the book -  believe it or not - will even influence the price.  The sky is the limit.

The most expensive books are ones that have cross-appeal.  For example, Avon T-429 will appeal to at least five different collectors: Ones looking to complete their run of Avon books, fans of author Jack Kerouac (the title is Tristessa), fans of the cover artist, people looking for bad-girl theme covers, and people who like especially creative tag-lines: “A new and hauntingly different novel about a morphine-racked prostitute”).  So given that more people want it, the price will go up accordingly.

In addition to the expense, the main problem in paperback collcting is the size and weight of having dozens or hundreds of books.  In the case of people who love the cover art and have no intention of reading the book (this is many, many collectors... to the disdain of any living writers, I am sure), it comes as no surprise that collectors often scorn having to cart around large crates of books when it is truly only the cover that interests them.  Few, if any, would take the plunge to tear off the cover and discard the rest of the book.  Most agree that there is something intrinsically wrong with destroying a rare vintage book just to own the cover.  Is there a middle alternative?

Yes.  Scan collecting has become popular among many paperback fans.  With a computer, a scanner, and a half dozen paperbacks to get started with, a collector can preserve the cover art in all of it’s vivid detail, while not having to devote the weight, space, or baggage to having a library of books destined never to be read.

Via file trading and surfing internet sites, a collector can accumulate many, many scans in little time and often at no expense.  Like any other community, the people posting their scans on-line have devoted time and energy to the project.  If you are going to leech people's scans for your own use, at least do buy a few books and post your own cover scans, so you can contribute something to the available pool of scans floating around the internet.

Also, be advised that it is a major faux pas to resize a scan.  Making it smaller is depriving every one who may in the future get a copy of your version from getting the larger one.  Making a scan bigger, even with a professional imaging application like Photoshop, will not improve the quality of the image, and may even degrade it significantly.

Some of the scans out there are of higher quality than others.  It is true that there are in fact a lot of poor quality images on the ‘net,  but it is always best to leave them as-is.  Also, note that some scan-making collectors will also be offended if you rename their files.  Once you have the scans, using a slide-show screen saver program (usually easy and often free to download - or use the one built-into Macintosh OSX), ensures that every time you leave your computer alone for a while, a pulp paperback slide show will start up. 

For all of the merits of scan collecting (almost free, easy, no space or weight taken up), there’s nothing quite like having that dusty old book in your hands.  No vintage-inspired home is complete without a stack of them on the Heywood-Wakefeild coffee table, screaming “I’m cool!”.

And if you get inspired, maybe you can even try reading  a few of them.

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