--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Steve Novak
<Cinefrog@c...> wrote:
> Merci for this wonderful update about...many
things...and those
extracts of
> noir, tough books...
>
> My stay in Louisiana was in a small city right
between NO and Baton
Rouge
> from July 69 to June 70...I was just married to a
lady from that
town who
> had been the American assitant in my University in
Pau, France.
> Her father is the one who introduced me to many US
sports (football
with
> archie manning-old miss and Bradshaw-louisiana tech
and pete
maravich in
> basketball...etc
Thanks Steve and I've enjoyed your posts as well. Your
mention of Pete Maravich gives me an opportunity to get this
thread back on topic. As a student at the University of
Georgia I saw Maravich play when Louisiana State University
came to Athens. Maravich was signed by the Atlanta Hawks of
the professional National Basketball Association. Ralph
Dennis, the author of the Jim Hardman series, wrote a novel
loosely based on Maravich. The novel was ATLANTA and it was
published in 1975 as a paperback original by Popular Library,
the same company that published the Hardman books. It is much
longer than the Hardman books (318 pages) and seems clearly
intended to be a book that would break Dennis out of the
genre novel ghetto. While Popular Library packaged it as a
mainstream book ("...the most enthralling blockbuster novel
since AIRPORT and HOTEL"), I bet Dennis' agent tried to place
it with a hardcover publisher. There is crime and corruption
in the novel and it is worth seeking out, especially by fans
of the Hardman series.
By the way, I have no progress to report on getting the
unpublished Dennis novels in print. The lawyer for the estate
of Dennis's sister
(who tragically died last year)has to get a rather simple
change made in Georgia but although he tells me it is in
progress, I know of no progress. I will continue to press the
issue and may call one of her children to see if they will
add a voice to my urgings.
>
> My marriage did not last long but we are still good
friends and I
keep a
> deep fondness for that time, that place and the
people there. I
remember
> Roosevelt Skykes because I followed music when in
France & UK in
the years
> before and mostly because he was idolized by the
black Assistant
Principal
> in the Junior HS in Gonzales, who was a mean pool
player and had
daper
> clothes and a gold front tooth with a cut star in
the middle that
showed his
> white front left tooth in the cut...A groups of us
(teachers) went
several
> times to see him play and also to other taverns
either in NO or in
BR or
> even in Lafayette. I wish in retrospect I had know
more about him
at the
> time.
Roosevelt Sykes toured Europe often beginning in 1961 and
later as a part of the American Folk Blues Festival in 1965,
1966 and 1972. He also recorded in Britain and France and was
the subject of a Belgium film "Roosevelt Sykes--the
Honeydripper." I have a later film someone made with him in
New Orleans.
>
> An other memory in the crazy carnival in Feb 70: it
was a true
rendition of
> what you get glimpses of in Easy Rider (the
film)...except in much
more
> violent!...I had been in nasty soccer crowds in UK
and small
villages in the
> French Southwest (where I grew up), with rampant
fighting and
bashing..but
> this was very very wild, totally unpredictable, and
completely
tangled with
> the racial tensions. It was that year that schools
were
desegragated in the
> parishes down there and, as a teacher in a public HS
I had to cross
loud and
> vociferous white pickets in front of the school for
months...There
were wild
> groups obviously looking for each other all along
the parade and so
many
> people on bad, bad trips and many wild looking
bickers pushing and
punching
> everybody in sight...It was very scary and
culminated in the brick
that
> landed in the mouth of local hero and trumpet player
Al Hirt as he
stood on
> a float.
Those were bad times indeed. You reminded me that on my first
visit to New Orleans in 1965 I noticed two Sikhs who were
also enjoying a visit to the French Quarter. They were tall
and wore turbans and really stood out from the crowd. The
next day I read in the Times- Picayune that after I saw them
they were assaulted by a group of toughs who thought the
Sikhs (who had dark complexions) were Negroes integrating the
nightclubs of New Orleans. It was a time when the white,
knuckle-dragging idiots were enabled to practice their crimes
in public without fear of prosecution. It shamed me then and
it shames me now.
You mention the soccer riots in the U.K. I lived in Brussels
when they had some sort of multi-country football tournament
and some U.K. teams were playing. Let me tell you the Belgium
police are as tough as they come. They had military-style
vehicles with water cannons parked in front of the hotels and
when some toughs slipped out and tried their hooligan stunts,
they woke up with lumps on their heads in a Belgium hoosgow
and when I left a few weeks later, some were still trying to
get released.
>his was just a follow of the August 69 NO Pop
Festival which was
> quite wild itself (I only went one afternoon and
much prefered the
club
> atmosphere for any style music...to this
day).
Let me recommend to you (and the other Rara-Avians) the movie
"Hard Times" starring Charles Bronson and James Coburn. It is
a very nice period piece about illegal, bare-knuckle boxing
during the Great Depression. It is one of Bronson's best
movies and Coburn is also in fine form. Strother Martin has a
great time playing a defrocked doctor who serves as Bronson's
cut man at matches. Early in the film, Bronson and Coburn go
out into the hinterlands of Louisiana for a match that is
being held at a local festival. The band playing at this
gathering is that of the King of Zydeco Clifton Chenier--a
special treat in a delightful movie.
> Merci for all your info, your love of noir writing
and your
memories of
> Louisiana.
>
> Steve Novak
> le Montois de Dé´˛oit
>
And thank you for your's and my apologies for being so
off-topic. There are times when things here cause me ro rif
from point-to-point without always touching noir and
hardboiled fiction.
Richard Moore
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