Tucson Festival of Books - March 11th and 12th

Join me and other Wheatmark Publishing authors on the University of Arizona mall March 11th and 12th in booth 137. I will be featured from 2:30 until 3:30 PM on Saturday, but my books will be available all weekend. This is the third largest book festival in the nation. Only one week away.

Alex Karras and Dick the Bruiser's Detroit Bar Brawl

One of the most infamous chapters in Detroit sports history involved Alex Karras--defensive lineman for the Detroit Lions--and William Franklin Afflis--AKA wrestler Dick the Bruiser. What started out as a publicity stunt to promote a professional wrestling match between Karras and the Bruiser became a full-blown brawl at the original Lindell Bar on Cass and Bagley Avenues. 

Before signing with the Detroit Lions, Karras was a rookie professional wrestler and learned the skills and secrets of the squared circle. For awhile he wrestled as part of a tag team. After the Lions picked him up, he gladly quit the wrestling game because he didn't like daily life on the road.

Alex Karras played football for twelve seasons with the Detroit Lions from 1958 through 1962 and again from 1964 through 1970. One week before the bar brawl in 1963, the NFL gave Karras a one-year suspension for gambling on professional football games. NFL officials urged Karras to disassociate himself from the Lindell Bar because of alledged organized crime influence.

Mel Butsicaris explained to me that Alex Karras bought into the Lindell with brothers Jimmy and Johnny Butiscaris. Johnny was Mel's father and Jimmy was his uncle.The bar business was on the bottom floor of the old Lindell Hotel, a rundown flopshouse soon to be demolished. The bar was less than a block away from the Leland Hotel where visiting sports teams stayed.

 

The bar became a gathering place for Detroit and out-of-town sports teams. With Karras's recent NFL suspension, the Lindell was his only source of income, now that he was no longer drawing his football salary. Karras refused to sell his interest in the bar until his suspension was lifted. He had a young family to support.

William Afflis was an offensive left tackle for the Green Bay Packers from 1950 until 1954 before becoming a professional wrestler and changing his name to Dick the Bruiser. There was much more money to be made wrestling, so he quit the Packers. The Bruiser was five feet, eleven inches tall, built like a fire plug and just as tough. He wore a crew cut and had a gravelly voice that struck fear into his opponents. His finishing moves were the Atomic Drop and the Diving Knee Drop. After thirty-two years in the wrestling game, the Bruiser retired in 1986.

According to Mel Butiscaris, the Bruiser walked into the Lindell Bar on cue at 1:25 am on Tuesday, April 23, 1963.  The Bruiser pointed at Karras and bellowed in his gravelly voice, "I want that fat, (expletive deleted), four-eyed bartender to serve me." He was belligerant and continued verbally abusing Karras as the staged confrontation was scripted.

Tavern co-owner Jimmy Butsicaris refused to serve the Bruiser, and the wrestler grabbed Butsicaris's shirt and threw a short punch at him, tearing Jimmy's shirt as planned. Mel tells me that his uncle wore one of his old shirts for the occasion. That was part of the publicity stunt. Everybody in the bar knew the scene was staged. Everyone but Jimmy's visiting out-of-town uncle. He had just walked in the bar when he witnessed the mayhem.

Uncle Charley took a pool cue and came to his nephew's defense. He pasted the Bruiser in the face leaving a cut beneath the wrestler's left eye that needed five stitches to close. Dick the Bruiser on a good day had an impulse control problem. Bleeding profusely, the Bruiser gave free range to his rage and virtually tore the bar apart. The Bruiser tore a peanut vending machine off the wall and threw it through the television screen. Some of the bar patrons tried to subdue the Bruiser. Big mistake!

The Detroit Times reported that Karras hit the Bruiser across the back with a chair, but Mel Butsicaris disputes that account. He says the newspaper story was written before the brawl happened as part of the carefully planned publicity stunt. The real story is that Karras wanted nothing to do with the brawl and ducked out the back door.

Two Detroit cops walking their beat looked in the window and saw the melee. They phoned for some backup. It took eight Detroit policemen to subdue the Bruiser with wrist and ankle manacles before taking him to jail. Two policemen were seriously injured. The Bruiser easily made bail and had to appear in a Detroit courtroom the following Monday morning where he was arraigned on assault and battery charges. 

 

  

Both Karras and the Bruiser told the police the brawl was a publicity stunt to promote their upcoming Saturday wrestling match at Detroit's Olympia arena. Prior to the brawl, Karras had signed on to wrestle the Bruiser because he needed the cash after his NFL suspension. In Karras' brief wrestling career, he and the Bruiser had become friends. After the brawl, the Bruiser told a local sports reporter that he heard Karras said he was a third-rate pro-football player, and he was angry about it.

On April 27, 1963, a mere five days after the brawl, the men were scheduled for a grudge match. A disappointing crowd of only 10,000 showed up for the match which lasted only eleven minutes and twenty-one seconds. The crowd thought the two men were sellouts. Nobody was fooled. The match was a humiliating defeat for the out-matched Karras, who took a beating in the ring for a $5,000 pay out. What the Bruiser made that night is not known. Whatever the amount, the two injured policemen sued William Afflis, AKA Dick the Bruiser, for a total of $50,000.

After his career with the Detroit Lions, Alex Karras became a television and movie actor, and co-host of ABC's popular Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford, from 1974 until 1976. Suffering from dementia in his final years, Karras died of kidney failure at the age of seventy-seven on October 10, 2012.

After retiring from the ring, the Bruiser bought the National Wrestling Association and became a promoter. Dick the Bruiser died from internal bleeding on November 19, 1991 in Largo, Florida at the age of sixty-two. He was weightlifting with his adopted son when a blood vessel ruptured in his esophagus.  

More tales from the Lindell Bar courtesy of Mel Butsicaris:
http://fornology.blogspot.com/2017/02/detroits-lindell-ac-nations-first_21.html 

The Legend of Nain Rouge--Detroit's Red Dwarf Demon

The yearly Detroit Marche Du Nain Rouge celebrates the liberation of Detroiters from Nain Rouge--the Red Dwarf. Legend has it that in 1701, Detroit's French founder Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac was telling a fortune teller about a vision he had. Cadillac described a dwarfish creature with blazing red eyes and rotten teeth dressed in fur boots who was haunting his dreams.

The fortune teller interpreted this apparation to be the harbinger of the city's doom and the cause of Detroit's problems. The legend continues that Cadillac was walking one night when he confronted the Nain Rouge and drove him out of town with his cane--the Nain cursing Cadillac and his new city for an eternity.

Of course, there are no public accounts to support the folktale which first appeared in Legends of Le Detroit written in 1883 by Marie Caroline Watson Hamlin. She was a local folklorist who wanted to perserve French heritage in Detroit, where English had become the predominant spoken language. Since the Nain Rouge story, everytime Detroit was in trouble the Nain was spotted more than the Gnome in the Travelocity commercials. If there was a crisis, Blame It On The Nain.

Folklore has it that Nain Rouge reappeared on July 30, 1763 before the Battle of Bloody Run. Fifty-eight British soldiers were killed by Chief Pontiac's tribesmen. A tributary of the Detroit River turned red with blood for days after the battle. The river became known as the Rouge River. It was said the Nain was seen dancing on the banks of the Detroit River celebrating.

Detroit's Masonic Temple

The Detroit Marche Du Nain Rouge was instituted in 2010 by two Wayne State University law students--Francis Grunow and Joe Uhl--but it has grown into a costumed Mardi Gras-like community based event with a parade. The celebration is held on the Sunday after the Vernal Equinox to commemorate Detroit's liberation from Nain Rouge. Detroiters come together to unite against negativity and show support for their city. Revelers are advised to come in costumes to disguise themselves so the Nain can not take revenge.

The parade begins near the campus of Wayne State University, continues down the Cass corridor, and ends at the Masonic Temple where the embodiment of the Nain bashes the city from atop his float. An effigy of Nain is destroyed--banishing the evil spirit from Detroit for another year. The parade and celebration are meant to be light-hearted and fun. It's an opportunity for Detroiters, who anxiously await the rites of spring, to blow off some steam after three months of winter.

For a more detailed account of the devilish Nain Rouge, read this account from the Detroit Metro Times: http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/the-legend-of-the-legend-of-detroits-nain-rouge/Content?oid=2404384 

Terror in Ypsilanti: John Norman Collins Unmasked--2017 Book Talk Schedule

Photo by Nick Abadilla Photography

2016 was a busy year for me. Bringing Terror in Ypsilanti: John Norman Collins Unmasked (TIY) to publication dominated the first half of the year. On August 1st, Wheatmark Publishing, Inc. brought out a quality paperback edition of TIY and a digital ebook edition. I direct-marketed the book as well as offering it online at Amazon, B&N, and ebook formats--notably Kindle, Nook, and KOBO. My year ended with selling the option for the digital-audio rights to Tantor Media, a publisher that distributes audiobooks in English-speaking countries worldwide.

For being an independently published book, I'm more than pleased with the reception TIY has received. Reader response has been overwhelmingly positive. One of my original goals was to get this shadowy story out to the public with the facts as they are known. That I have done.

2017 is shaping up to be another busy year. Most of my book talks last year were in Southeastern Michigan around the Detroit area. Only now am I beginning to work the San Diego County market. Being able to drive to an appearance, give the talk, and return home cuts my overhead expenses considerably.

My talk at the San Carlos Public Library last Friday, January 27th, went quite well, and I have scheduled a number of others. I hope to add several more venues as I go along. Here is my schedule thus far:

1. Friday, February 3rd -  the LIFE @ San Elijo program at San Elijo Campus of MiraCosta College, 3333 Manchester Ave, Cardiff CA 92007. Building 200 is the most westerly on the campus. Parking permits aren't required on Friday afternoons, but please do not park in a spot marked “Staff.” 1:00 pm until 2:30 pm, Encinitas, Calfornia.
2. Monday, February 6th - San Diego Educator Association (Ret.) featured speaker at their quarterly meeting luncheon at 11:30 am. San Diego, California.
3. Saturday, March 11th - Tucson Festival of Books on the campus of University of Arizona at 2:00 pm. Meet and greet book signing at Wheatmark Publishing booth. Tucson, Arizona.
4. Saturday, April 22nd - La Jolla Public Library, San Diego, California, from 2:00 pm until 3:00 pm.
5. Thursday, May 11th - Ypsilanti District Library, Ypsilanti, Michigan, from 6:30 pm until 7:30 or 8:00 pm. This year's presentation will be different than last year's talk.
6. Saturday, May 13th - Ann Arbor Barnes & Noble book signing, Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan, from 1:00 pm until 3:00 pm.
7. Sunday, July 16th - Book Club of Detroit's First Annual Detroit Festival of Books at the Eastern Market from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm.

I've been very happy with the overall reception of TIY. Direct sales of autographed copies from my author website have been good, and my Amazon sales are strong. TIY reached #4 on Amazon's Biography/Memoir/Regional/Midwest category, despite splitting the market with the online retailing giant. Kindle and other ebook versions have been selling well also.

Since the presidental elections, the holidays, the inauguration, and the shifting of the setting sun, sales have moderated, but with the lengthening days, my outlook for 2017 is optimistic.

History of The Lone Ranger On Television (2/3)

The radio success of The Lone Ranger program was phenomenal. It ran from January 30, 1933, through September 3, 1954, for a total of 2,956 episodes. 

The Lone Ranger brand name was a merchandising bonanza. Soon, novels, comic books, jigsaw puzzles, authentic hats, masks, Western style shirts, and replica twin gun and dual holster sets with silver bullets were available in every toy store in America.

George W. Trendle, founder and general manager of WXYZ Radio in Detroit wanted to bring The Lone Ranger to the new medium of television in 1948. 

Brace Beemer had played the title role on radio for eight years and wanted the television part. Trendle felt that Beemer was too long in the tooth and sat too low in the saddle at forty-six-years-old for the role. Brace didn't have the square jaw and rugged good looks that the role required.

George W. Trendle watched numerous Western and adventure movies and liked Clayton Moore's versatility as an actor. Moore had extensive film, movie serial, and television experience. 

The white hat and the black mask looked good on Moore. The Lone Ranger jumped off the small television screen and into America's living rooms on September 15, 1949. In all, there were two-hundred and twenty-one episodes made.

John Hart

The third year of the series found Clayton Moore sitting out the season because of a contract dispute. Another actor, John Hart, donned the uniform. The mask made the transition to a different actor easier for the audience to accept, but Hart didn't move the same way, nor did his voice match. And something was different about the chemistry between the masked man and Tonto. 

The first few episodes with the new Lone Ranger were shot in documentary style with a narrator to ease the transition to the new voice. Hart was generally accepted in the role, but fan favorite, Clayton Moore was back in the saddle for the fourth and fifth season, the only one shot in color.

In addition to a fatter contract, Moore wanted meatier roles to stretch himself as an actor. He liked playing the classic, two-dimensional good guy, but it wasn't enough. To take advantage of his acting ability, Moore began playing dual roles as the Lone Ranger going undercover. Sometimes he was an old prospector or a vagrant of some kind. The character became a master of disguise and infiltrated gangs and outsmarted the bad guys.  

No more episodes were made for television after 1955, but the show was so popular with the audience that it managed to hold on to its time slot through the 1957 season. 

Through it all, Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk Indian actor, played the role of Tonto, the masked man's trusted companion. The Lone Ranger always used perfect grammar, which may have pleased parents and English teachers, but it didn't seem to make much of an impression on Tonto. The Lone Ranger was his "kemo sabe," his trusty scout.

In later years, Jay Silverheels made an appearance on The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, and was asked about Tonto's clipped dialogue. He said it bothered him, but that's what the script required, so he read the lines.  

When his role as Tonto ran its course, Silverheels played minor supporting roles in the movies and on television into the early 1970s. He enjoyed harness racing in his later years and actively spoke out about the "Uncle Tomahawk" roles Indian actors were forced to play.

Clayton Moore continued to make appearances as the Lone Ranger for the rest of his public life. In 1979, he was banned from wearing the mask at appearances because of a new Lone Ranger movie that was to come out in 1981. The producers took out a court order against the aging but beloved actor. It was a public relations disaster for the film which tanked at the box office.

Clayton Moore got so much free publicity that he started making appearances in some specially designed Foster-Grant sunglasses and landed a fat endorsement contract. "Who is that man behind those Foster Grants?" began the successful ad campaign which played on the signature ending of each television episode, "Who was that masked man?".  

His commercials aired repeatedly which delighted fans, proving that you can't keep a good man down. In 1984, the court order was lifted and Moore could once again wear the mask while making appearances. By the 1990s, Clayton Moore retired from public life.

Jay Thomas tells a funny story about Clayton Moore on the David Letterman Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFabfnfhIaY 

History of The Lone Ranger--The Radio Years (1/3)

The Lone Ranger! "Hi Yo Silver!"

"A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi Yo Silver!' The Lone Ranger--with his faithful Indian companion Tonto--the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!"

 

Baby Boomers everywhere will remember those rousing words recited over Rossini's classical music The William Tell Overture. The television version of the masked man hit the small screen in a big way, but the character was already well-established on a radio show first broadcast from Detroit three times a week on WXYZ radio in 1933.

 

Fran Striker was the creator of the character; George W. Trendle was the producer of the show; and Earl Graser was the first Lone Ranger on the radio.

 

Earle Graser

Graser had a deep, authoritative, vibrant voice that sounded much older than his thirty-two years. On his way home from rehearsals at the station on April 8, 1941, he fell asleep at the wheel and veered into a parked trailer silencing one of America's most popular radio voices. He had been on the air as the Lone Ranger for eight years. The show was scheduled to air the next night, but who would take over the role?

 

Trendle had to find someone fast. Mike Wallace might work. He would become a journalist on Sixty Minutes decades later, but he was presently the narrator on the popular The Green Hornet program at WXYZ. Mike Wallace was available, but he had questionable dramatic voice acting ability.

 

Brace Beemer

It was decided that Brace Beemer, who narrated The Lone Ranger, was their best choice on short notice. He had already been doing publicity photos for The Lone Ranger, and now he could make public appearances around the Detroit area as well. Best of all, Beemer's voice was similar to Graser's with a slight head cold. Good enough! To ease the transition for listeners, the masked man would be wounded for the next few episodes and speak with a weak, raspy voice.

 

Brace Beemer was an excellent front man for the program. He was six feet tall, handsome, and an excellent horseman.  He had no problem booming out "Hi-Yo, Silver"during the program, but he couldn't handle the ending when he had to say "Hi-Yo, Silver, away." It didn't sound right to Trendle or the sound engineers, so they inserted a recording of Graser saying the line at the end of the program. In a 1944 radio poll, The Lone Ranger placed number one in popularity. In all, there were 2,956 radio episodes made.

 

The Lone Ranger television show opening with theme song "The William Tell Overture." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9lf76xOA5k

Allen Park, Michigan, F4 Tornado--May 12th 1956

Michigan tornadoes since 1950 when records began being kept.

A tornado is a violent rotating column of air descending from a thunderstorm and touching down on the ground, usually spinning counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. There is no shortage of tornadoes in the deadly swatch of America called "tornado alley"--a nickname given to a large area beginning in Texas and running through the Great Plains states northeast through the Midwest and the Great Lakes, stretching into Canada. The official boundaries are not clearly defined. 

The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project by U.S. Air Force meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert C. Miller. Tornado season runs from mid-March into September--the worst month being June.

Allen Park, Michigan, is located south of Detroit in an area known as Downriver--statistically a low risk area for tornadoes. But on May 12th, 1956, the day before Mothers' Day, an F4 tornado ripped through town and injured twenty-two people, damaging property in its wake.

An F4 rating is listed as "devastating" [207 mph to 260 mph] by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA]. Tornado ranking was developed by T. Theodore Fujita and first used in 1973 and enhanced in 2007 [see link for more detailed information].

--from Images of America [series] Allen Park by Sharon Broglin

Allen Park residents remember the 1956 tornado as one of the worst weather events in their history, the twister touching down on Ecorse Road and cutting across town. Eyewitnesses remember that it traveled down the railroad tracks near homes close to Jaycee Park. There was damage to the Westwood Dairy Bar at Allen Road and Roosevelt Street. Also on Allen Road, Gee's Drive-in hamburger joint had the roof torn off which landed in a yard several blocks away. Across Allen Road, the tornado took out all the front windows of North Junior High School, and close by, all the trees in Thomas Park were leveled.

This was a lucky day for Allen Parkers, only twenty-two people were injured with no fatalities. Flint, Michigan, had a tornado the same day with three fatalities and one-hundred, sixteen injuries. Only three years before, the Flint area had an F5 tornado, the most devastating tornado in Michigan state history--with one-hundred, sixteen deaths and eight-hundred, forty-four injuries.

NOAA Severe Weather 101--Tornado Basics: http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/

More information on the Fujita tornado rating scale: http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/tornadoes/page3.html