Hollywood Nocturnes

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A man gyrating with an accordion — pumping his “Stomach Steinway” for all its worth.

My father pointing to the TV. “That guy’s no good. He’s a draft dodger.”

The accordion man in a grade Z movie: clinching with the blonde from the Mark C. Bloome tire ads.

Half-buried memories speak to me. Their origin remains fixed: L.A., my hometown, in the ’50s. Most are just brief synaptic blips, soon mentally discarded. A few transmogrify into fiction: I sense their dramatic potential and exploit it in my novels, memory to moonshine in a hot second.

Memory: that place where personal recollections collide with history.

Memory: a symbiotic melding of THEN and NOW. For me, the spark point of harrowing curiosities.

The accordion man is named Dick Contino.

“Draft Dodger” is a bum rap — he served honorably during the Korean War.

The Grade Z flick is Daddy-O — a music/hot rod/romance stinkeroo.

Memory is contextual: the juxtaposition of large events and snappy minutiae.

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