Tape 154, Side 1, Part 1: Collection of 16 television and radio news broadcasts regarding the LA Police Board of Commissioners hearing to determine whether the Gas House would be granted an entertainment license, 1959 August […]
1 media/high-volume.png 2019-07-18T12:32:08-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e 34610 5 Tape 154, side 1, part 1) Collection of 16 television and radio news broadcasts regarding the Los Angeles Police Board of Commissioners hearing to determine whether the Gas House, 1501 Ocean Front, Venice, California, would be granted an entertainment license, 1959 August (0:21, 1:38, 3:44, 5:15, 11:33, 23:55, 28:55, 30:04, 32:07, 32:53, 33:33, 35:07, 35:52, 36:59, 37:42, 42:03). DETAILS: Microphone testing by Lawrence Lipton (0:02). ❧ News program (television or radio) (0:21): on hearing for license to operate the Gas House, Venice, West: mentions Al Matthews (landlord), Board of Police Commissioners, A.S. Roberts (president, Venice Civic Union), Eric Nord (beatnik), Mrs. Robert Swann[?] (witness), noise, immoral actions, A.L. Wirrin (attorney). ❧ News program (television or radio) (1:38) on hearing for entertainment permit to operate the Gas House: mentions beatnik art. ❧ News program, ABC television, 1959, with Clete Roberts, foreign correspondent, and Pat Michaels, local reporter (2:31, 2:52): on China invasion of India (3:01, 4:28), Dwight Eisenhower cold-war talks (3:09), labor reform bill (3:16), permit for the Gas House (3:44), weather (4:23), sports: Dodgers (5:07). Commercial: Mark C. Bloom tire distributor (2:38), Tom Harmon sports authority (2:48), Deborah Kerr on actress May Britt (3:27), John Daly and the news (4:35), ABC's High Road debut (4:49), Pepsi Cola (5:01). ❧ Lew Irwin Reports (television program), KABC Channel 7 Los Angeles, 1959 August 28 (5:15, 6:37): on the beat generation and Venice community distress over Gas House entertainment license (A.L. Wirrin, attorney; Lew Irwin interview of Lawrence Lipton; Michael Kelly, witness; Al Matthews; Eric Nord) (5:15, 11:33), delayed bus strike (Charles Thompson, judge) (7:17), Abraham Lincoln sculptor Dr. Emil Seletz and supervisor Kenneth Hahn (8:47), final rites for William V. O'Connor (attorney) at high mass service, Vibiana's Cathedral, Los Angeles (9:20), 231 U.S. citizens naturalized at Federal Building, Los Angeles (9:31), middleweight boxing match in San Francisco (9:54), baseball at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (10:07). Commercials: Papermate Holiday pens (5:27), Maxwell House instant coffee (6:51), Rex Marshall on Maxwell House instant coffee (7:41), Maxwell House instant coffee (10:27). Public service announcement: radar outposts (19:48). ❧ News program (Ed Fleming, reporter), [CBS KNX-TV?] (television): Russia refrains from testing nuclear weapons (19:55), Richard Dimbleby (BBC) reports on on British royal military event for visiting Dwight Eisenhower (president) mentioning Harold Macmillan (prime minister) and Nikita Khruschev (premier) (20:37), China invasion of India (22:10), transportation strike (23:18), USC coed Linda Martin funeral service (23:27), Chris Albert sued for divorce (23:40), Gas House entertainment license hearing (A.L. Wirrin, attorney; Robert Swann, apartment house manager; Mrs. Gerhart Custo[?], witness; Julie Meredith, folksinger) (23:55), weather (27:17). Commercials: John Harland on Chevrolet dealers (22:33), Tidewater Flying A 100+ gasoline (23:15, 26:15), Arpege perfume (27:39), telephone company (27:45). ❧ Annoucement for upcoming news (television or radio) (28:41). ❧ News (television or radio) (28:55): Gas House entertainment license hearing, Al Matthews (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (hearing examiner), K.A. South (policeman) (28:55); broadcasting officials endicted (29:41). ❧ News (television or radio) (29:50, 31:44): automobiles driving on front lawns. ❧ News (television or radio) (29:56): re Ignacy Paderewski (pianist) (29:56); Gas House entertainment license hearing, Igor Stravinsky (composer), Stan Laurel (actor), Ron Waller (football player), Eric Nord (beatnik), Al Matthews (landlord) (30:04), VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and American Legion (31:44). Commercial: Maxwell House instant coffee (30:34). ❧ News (television or radio) (32:07): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, Al Matthews (landlord), A.L. Wirrin (attorney) (32:07, 32:53), FBI on crime (32:43), Ransom Calicott (councilman) and Edward Roybal (councilman) (32:48), Walter G. Williams, oldest living Civil War survivor (33:22, 34:46), baseball club (34:57). ❧ News (television or radio) (33:33): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, Al Matthews (attorney) (33:33), Jimmy McHugh (composer) honored, Lemoine Blanchard (councilman) (34:25). ❧ News (television or radio) (35:07): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, Lawrence Lipton (writer), A.L. Wirrin (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (judge) (35:07), shooting during robbery in Beverly Hills (35:41). ❧ News (television or radio) (35:52): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, A.L. Wirrin (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (judge), Lawrence Lipton (poet) (35:52). Commercial: George Barclay on Tidewater Flying A 100+ gasoline (36:49). ❧ News (television or radio) (36:59): beatniks, Lawrence Lipton (poet), A.L. Wirrin (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (judge) (36:59). Commercial: Maxwell House instant coffee (37:34). ❧ News (television or radio) (37:42): beatniks, Gas House hearing, Thomas Mulherin (judge), comments by A.L. Wirrin (attorney) and Willis O. Gooden (resident), Lawrence Lipton (poet) reading a poem "Upbeat, downbeat, offbeat" (poem 39:46) (news 37:42), baseball news (41:45). ❧ News (radio), KNX radio (41:54): monorail for mass transit (41:54), Gas House entertainment permit hearing, comments by Lawrence Lipton (witness) and Thomas Mulherin (judge) (42:03), weather (49:44). ❧ Tape 154, side 1, part 2 (0:02); side 2, part 3 (23:56) Lawrence Lipton and teenage? male (Hugh) and teenage? female (Blanche) discussion, re theft from corporations vs. from individuals, church attendance, Presbyterian, Catholic, upbringing and independence, living in night vs. day, watching television, talking and interacting with individuals vs. groups, marijuana, reading the newspaper, listening to television or radio news, Suez crisis, sporting events, parades, hunting or fishing, camping, having children, atomic anihilation and radiation, education, growing old, love. ❧ Tape 154, side 2, part 1) Unidentified male reading poetry: "Upon no time other than up and down time" (0:02, 0:26). ❧ Tape 154, side 2, part 2A) Lawrence Lipton reads his poetry: "In Africa" (0:43) with music. ❧ Tape 154, side 2, part 2B) Lipton reads his poetry: "Newscast for a disconnected microphone" (14:13). ❧ Tape 154, side 2, part 2C) Lipton reads his poetry: "I was a poet for the FBI" (18:08). -- TIMES indicate where sections begin. plain 2019-07-29T11:13:33-07:00 Lawrence Lipton Papers, USC Digital Library 1/8/59 Barclay, George, speaker; Custo, Mrs. Gerhart, speaker; Dimbleby, Richard, 1913-1965, reporter; Fleming, Edward J. "Ed", 1918- , reporter; Gooden, Willis O., speaker; Harland, John, speaker; Irwin, Lew, reporter; Kerr, Deborah, 1921-2007, speaker; Lipton, Lawrence, 1898-1975, speaker; Marshall, Rex, 1919-1983, speaker; Meredith, Julie, speaker; Michaels, Pat, 1925-2010, reporter; Mulherin, Thomas, speaker; Roberts, Clete, 1912-1984, reporter; Swann, Robert, speaker; Wirrin, A.L. (Abraham Lincoln), speaker Bo Doub 59bddb0b27f7b3138b6b5c39e4cc435e9208ebadThis page has annotations:
- 1 2019-07-27T09:30:45-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Lew Irwin interviews Lawrence Lipton Bo Doub 3 plain 2019-07-29T11:15:31-07:00 Bo Doub 59bddb0b27f7b3138b6b5c39e4cc435e9208ebad
- 1 2019-08-09T15:35:34-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News (television or radio): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, Al Matthews (attorney) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:36:01-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:33:29-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News (television or radio): Gas House entertainment license hearing, Al Matthews (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (hearing examiner), K.A. South (policeman) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:33:46-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:31:12-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News program (television or radio) on hearing for entertainment permit to operate the Gas House: mentions beatnik art. Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:31:51-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:38:05-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News (television or radio): beatniks, Gas House hearing, Thomas Mulherin (judge), comments by A.L. Wirrin (attorney) and Willis O. Gooden (resident) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:38:27-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:36:09-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News (television or radio): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, Lawrence Lipton (writer), A.L. Wirrin (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (judge) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:36:32-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:33:56-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Gas House entertainment license hearing, Igor Stravinsky (composer), Stan Laurel (actor), Ron Waller (football player), Eric Nord (beatnik), Al Matthews (landlord) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:34:24-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:32:02-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Lew Irwin Reports (television program), KABC Channel 7 Los Angeles, 1959 August 28 on the beat generation and Venice community distress over Gas House entertainment license (A.L. Wirrin, attorney; Lew Irwin interview of Lawrence Lipton; Michael Kelly, wit Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:32:27-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:38:36-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Lawrence Lipton reading a poem "Upbeat, downbeat, offbeat" Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:39:00-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:36:41-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News (television or radio): Gas House entertainment permit hearing, A.L. Wirrin (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (judge), Lawrence Lipton (poet) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:37:00-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:34:33-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Gas House entertainment permit hearing, Al Matthews (landlord), A.L. Wirrin (attorney) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:34:50-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:32:35-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Gas House entertainment license hearing (A.L. Wirrin, attorney; Robert Swann, apartment house manager; Mrs. Gerhart Custo[?], witness; Julie Meredith, folksinger) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:33:17-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:30:46-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News program (television or radio) on hearing for license to operate the Gas House, Venice West: mentions Al Matthews (landlord), Board of Police Commissioners, A.S. Roberts (president, Venice Civic Union), Eric Nord (beatnik), Mrs. Robert Swann[?] (witne Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:31:04-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:39:16-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Gas House entertainment permit hearing, comments by Lawrence Lipton (witness) and Thomas Mulherin (judge) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:39:42-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-09T15:37:14-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e News (television or radio): beatniks, Lawrence Lipton (poet), A.L. Wirrin (attorney), Thomas Mulherin (judge) Curtis Fletcher 2 plain 2019-08-09T15:37:53-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
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- 1 2019-08-07T11:19:41-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Theme 2 Curtis Fletcher 1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque lorem neque, lacinia at tincidunt in, iaculis sed lorem. In ac velit convallis, lacinia ante at, venenatis mi. plain 2019-08-07T11:19:41-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
- 1 2019-08-07T11:25:15-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e Lipton and Venice Curtis Fletcher 1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque lorem neque, lacinia at tincidunt in, iaculis sed lorem. In ac velit convallis, lacinia ante at, venenatis mi. plain 2019-08-07T11:25:15-07:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
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Audio Collection
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Browse all the Audio in this Exhibit
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Below is a collection of all audio clips included in this exhibit.
To view and access timestamps for each clip, click on "Annotations" below each audio player. To collapse the annotations for a clip, click on "Description."
To see where, in this exhibit, a given audio clip appears, click on "Citations."
Introduction
Lawrence Lipton, the Beat Generation in Venice West, and the Lawrence Lipton papers at USC.
Lipton and the Beat Generation Poets
Lipton’s interviews with or about Beat poets, featuring Stuart Perkoff, Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others.
Lipton and Venice
The Venice West Picture Essay, the Gas House, and the history of Venice.
Lipton and Jazz
Jazz Canto, Langston Hughes, and Lipton’s recordings of poetry jazz sessions.
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Lipton and Venice
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The Venice West Picture Essay, the Gas House, and the history of Venice.
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I have chosen Venice, California, as the scene, the laboratory as it were, because I live here and have seen it grow up around me. Newer than the North Beach, San Francisco, scene or the Greenwich Village scene, it has afforded me an opportunity to watch the formation of a community of disaffiliates from its inception. Seeing it take form I had a feeling of "this is where I came in," that I had seen it all happening before. But studying it closely, from the inside, and with a sympathy born of a kindred experience, I have come to the conclusion that this is not just another alienation. It is a deep-going change, a revolution under the ribs. These people are picking up where we—left off?—no, where we began. Began and lived it and wrote about it and waited for the world to catch up with us. I am telling their story here because it is our story, too. My story.[1]
As much as The Holy Barbarians is a study of the people that inhabited the Beat scene in Venice West, it is also a profile of the city that housed them. The final pages of The Holy Barbarians feature a "Venice West Picture Essay" with photographs—taken by Austin Anton, William Claxton, and others—depicting the Beats of Venice West in their chosen setting: the cafés, apartments, streets, and canals of Venice, California in the 1950s. The Lawrence Lipton papers at USC contain many of the original photographic prints from the picture essay (right: parts of the essay as it was printed in The Holy Barbarians).
The Gas House
The Holy Barbarians refers to a couple of the gathering places frequented by the Venice West Beats: the Venice West Café, the Cosmo Alley coffee shop, Lipton's own living room, John Altoon's studio, and the Gas House. The Gas House was an especially popular Beat haunt during the time that Lipton was writing The Holy Barbarians and it is mentioned on a couple of Lipton's audio recordings.
The majority of Tape 154 consists of a compilation of various television and radio news broadcasts from August of 1959 regarding the Los Angeles Police Board of Commissioners' hearing to determine if the Gas House would be granted an entertainment license. Caught on this tape is Lew Irwin from KABC Channel 7 Los Angeles interviewing Lipton about the hearing. Irwin introduces Lipton to viewers as "the philosopher of the Beat Generation" and summarizes Lipton's claims that "the hip squares" (squares posing as Beats), not actual beatniks, are the ones "causing Venice citizens so much distress." Irwin's full interview with Lipton begins at 12:35 on the recording.
In December of 1959, presiding officer Thomas Mulherin denied the Gas House an entertainment license. A few years later, in August 1962, the Los Angeles City Board of Building and Safety Commissioners declared that the building that housed the Gas House was structurally unsound and on September 3, 1962, the Gas House officially closed.[2]Venice's Beginnings
Both The Holy Barbarians and Lipton's collection of audio tapes present the origins of Venice, California and its evolution over time as central themes. Lipton uses "Slum by the Sea" as the title of The Holy Barbarians' opening chapter and introduces the setting: "Venice by the Pacific, dreamed up by a man named Kinney at the turn of the century, a nineteenth-century Man of Vision, a vision as trite as a penny postal card."[3] The chapter repeatedly highlights the contrast between the grand vision of Venice's developer and the current (circa 1959) reality of moral and economic decline.The Venice Pier Opera House, where Kinney dreamed of Nellie Melbas warbling arias and Italian tenors singing Neapolitan boat songs, went into history instead as the ballroom where Kid Ory first brought New Orleans jazz to the West Coast.
[…]
The luxury hotels along the beach front promenade, too costly to tear down at present-day wrecking prices and not profitable enough to warrant proper upkeep and repair, stand like old derelicts, their plush and finery faded and patched.
[…]
To this area of Los Angeles, as to similar areas of other large cities, have come the rebellious, the nonconformist, the bohemian, the deviant among the youth.[4]The "nineteenth-century Man of Vision" that Lipton describes is Abbot Kinney (1850-1920), developer of the 1905 "Venice of America" plan, which eventually grew into the present Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. The recording on Tape 434 of Lipton's audio collection begins in the middle of a discussion between Lawrence Lipton and Nellie Loeb regarding Abbot Kinney and his family. Lipton and Loeb discuss Kinney's ownership of the Los Angeles Saturday Post; his political views; the competing visions for Venice as a summer resort and a cultural center for the arts; Kinney's children, who took over some of the Venice enterprises following his death; a love for Italian opera that Kinney fostered in his children; and the roots of jazz music in Venice. During the conversation on Venice, Nellie Loeb refers to her notes from a recent talk, written piece, or interview involving Abbot Kinney's daughter. Since Abbot Kinney only had one daughter who survived into adulthood, Helen Kinney, much of the biographical details discussed on this tape probably stem from Helen's accounts.
