Los Angeles Stories, by Ry Cooder

After finishing The Martian, by Andy Weir around July 14, I picked up Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder.  The husband and I were killing time in North Beach (San Francisco) one evening waiting for Tosca Cafe to open and some friends to arrive (side note:  GO HERE - the drinks are absolutely AMAZING).  

We wandered into City Lights Bookstore and browsed around.  I happened upon Los Angeles Stories and read the first few pages.  It was intriguing and I wanted to read more, so of course, I bought the book.  I started reading it on July 26th, and finished it on August 30th.  It took a little longer than other books for me to read, partly because it was strange, and partly because I wasn't reading it as much at night because I was tired, and because it was so strange.  Upon reflection, I guess I should have known it would be strange after reading the note on the back of the book:

"What's that you say?  Nothing ever happens in Los Angeles?  Ask your downtown friends and neighbors, working folks you pass on the street - the cross dressing piano player, the Filipino labor agitator, the Mexican bolero singer, or the steel guitar-playing dental technician - buy them a cup of coffee and they'll tell you their stories.  Sit down, take a load off, try some pork fried rice.  Dig it and pick up on it, it happened like this.

Ry Cooder is a guitarist, singer and composer known for his interest in roots music, and for his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries, including the Buena Vista Social Club.  He has composed soundtracks for more than twenty films, including Paris, Texas.  This is his first published collection of stories."

Um, yeah.  Strange, intriguing, weird, bizarre.  Yes, all of those things and more.  But for some reason, after reading the first few pages while killing time in the book store, I wanted to read more.

I grew up in Los Angeles, so I have a soft spot for books set in the area because it is interesting to me to read about other peoples' takes on the area, and it always lends a more visual setting to books when I know and have been to places that are being described in the book - it makes it seem all the more real.

The book begins:

"1940:  I work for the Los Angeles City Directory, a book of names, addresses, and job descriptions.  I am one of many.  Our job is to go out and collect the facts and bring them back.  Other people take our work and put it in the Book, but we do the important part.  Los Angeles is a big city, and the City Directory, is a big book...

I made the aquaintance of a Mr. John Casaroli.  Mr. John, as he was known, was a retired opera singer and teacher.  I listed him as Casaroli, John, vcl tchr, New Grand Hotel 257 Grand Ave.  It turned out we got along, and I was often a guest in his apartment.  One evening I arrived there to find police and onlookers crowded around what looked like a body on the sidewalk.  The police said Mr. John had jumped from the roof just minutes before and was dead.  They asked me if I was an 'associate' of his, and I explained that he was my friend and I'd been invited for a spaghetti dinner.  They took me to police headquarters and I was questioned for an hour.  When I asked why, the officer told me it was routine.  That's when I learned that Mr. John had made a will and left his record player and all his records and Italian poetry books to me."

Each of the 8 short stories in the 232-page book has to do with musicians, some kind of crime, and how the main character deals with it or gets out of a bind.  The stories are gritty, colorful, and full of details.  It wasn't until the end of the book that I realized that some of the characters in each of the stories had small supporting roles in other stories.  Some of the stories were more engaging than others, but they were all quite strange.

There is one about a cross-dressing piano player (a woman dressing as a man) who falls for a young girl (who thinks the piano player is a man), and the young girl ends up killing someone, and the main character of the story, Al Maphis, and the piano player, Billy Tipton, need to get her (Betty  Newlands) out of Arizona and away from the cops.  So Al drives her to Los Angeles and gets her in with a band that plays at a Filipino club...

"I introduced Johnny to Betty.  He was suave, Latin-esque.  He huddled with Betty in a booth, making diagrams in the air with his hands: I go from here, you come from there.  They went onstage and did some steps.  Johnny spun her around.  He threw her down and picked her up.  Betty was a cheerleader, she got it.  He counted off "Hernando's Hideaway" - a pop tango for straight-life moms and pops.  Johnny gave it the twist - a domestic scene from the dark side of town.  The man is aroused, the woman is coy.  He slaps her around a little just to get a mood going.  He preens, checks his attitude.  They embrace, they dance, she stabs him in the crotch with a big prop knife.  Olé, thank you ladies and gentlemen, especially you, ladies."

Colorful, strange, detailed.  John Lee Hooker makes an appearance in the story about Betty.

This book is eclectic, like most musicians are, I gather.  I liked it though, in a strange sort of way.

I don't give this book two overwhelming thumbs up, nor do I give it any thumbs down.  If you are in the mood for something strange, and off the beaten track, something the likes of you haven't ever read before, this may be just the thing for you.

Until next time..