I pre-ordered the book. You gotta luv Joe Willie. FWIW, a friend of mine used to sing at the Canebreak that Bob Cane owned in B'ham. Bob was a former BAMA cheerleader & a lot of BAMA people used to hang out there. She slept with both Joe Willie & The Snake. She said The Snake was better. I'm not sure I spelled Cane correctly because I was only a teenager at the time & she would sneak me into the place. Bob has since died of cancer.
----- Original Message ----- From: "kurtrasmussen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "rtf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:39 AM Subject: [RollTideFan] Booze & Broads > http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/224394p-192771c.html > > Booze & Broads > By MARK KRIEGEL > Saturday, August 21st, 2004 > > End Zone > > Excerpted from "Namath," a biography published by Viking for release > tomorrow. > > It was October, an autumn for all that Jimmy Cannon held dear. A quarter > of a century had passed since Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak, and fifteen > years since Joe Louis's last fight. The athletes Cannon commemorated as > avatars of the strong, silent virtues were no longer athletes. Like him, > they were on the far side of middle age. > > Cannon was 56. His column now appeared in something called the World > Journal Tribune. Nicknamed "the Widget," it was a hastily assembled > combination formed from the remains of the Journal-American, the > World-Telegram and Sun, and the Herald Tribune. Those papers, like so > much of Cannon's New York, had been rendered obsolete or extinct in this > age of television. The Widget itself only had a few more months to live. > > Today, October 17, 1966, Jimmy Cannon was scheduled to interview Joe > Namath. If it were his call, they probably would've met at Shor's. But > it wasn't his call, was it? The kid had only been here two years, but > already he was as big as Mickey Mantle, which was to say, bigger than > anyone else in town. Namath wanted to meet at a joint on 49th off > Second. They ought to call this kid Second Avenue Joe. > > The sky was a flash of periwinkle - "Garish dusk," as Cannon would > describe it. The joint was called the Pussycat. The short, sweet-faced > girl at the hat check was called JoJo, and her boyfriend, a corpulent > Lucchese gangster, was known as Mr. Gribs. His real name was Carmine > Tramunti. He was treated with great respect in the Pussycat, as was > another wiseguy, Tommy (Tea Balls) Mancuso. But none of that concerned > the old sportswriter or the young quarterback. Joe was much more > interested in the Chinese food, spare ribs with duck sauce and mustard > and pork fried rice. The Pussycat aspired to be like Jilly's with a > younger crowd. The girls were a good draw. The dancers from the Copa ate > for free. The Bunnies from the Playboy Club were on scholarship, too. > Namath liked the girls even better than the pork fried rice. > > The bartender was setting up for cocktail hour. They didn't have > bartenders like this in Cannon's day. Her name was Linda. The way she > was dressed reminded Cannon of a bathing suit with stockings. He was a > long way from Shor's. > > Now, at the Pussycat, Namath ordered a beer. > > Cannon, who hadn't had a drink in years, was obliged to give the kid his > due. "This guy doesn't try to duck it," he would write. "He knew what I > intended to interview him about. This is where he chose to meet me. It > was as though he would be a phoney if he had steered me to a squarer place." > > The meeting had been occasioned by Namath's performance in Houston the > day before. The issue wasn't the four interceptions, but the bitterly > facetious remarks about booze and broads that required clarification. > The partying, Namath declared, had nothing to do with the defeat. "Why > don't they accept we just got beat?" he asked. Namath insisted he'd > never do anything to jeopardize his career. He studied the game. He got > his sleep. "I'm not going to let having a good time affect my physical > status," he said. "The way some people put it, they got me an alcoholic." > > Namath tapped his beer glass with his thumb, as if to remind the > columnist that this had all been caused by the insidious politics of > appearance, the gossip that fills the gaps between reputation and > reality. Cannon gladly took Joe at his word. Then again, there was a > reason ballplayers weren't supposed to hang out in places like the Pussycat. > > "I'm no hypocrite," said Namath. "I don't hide anything." > > That was a curious concept for a man of Cannon's generation, for whom > subterfuge was an accepted practice, especially for a star ballplayer > dealing with the rigors of public life. Shor's, and all the places like > it, were men's clubs. Booze was the sacrament. But broads were something > different. Broads were mostly a secret vice. How many times had DiMaggio > borrowed the keys to Cannon's room at the Edison Hotel? In public, > DiMaggio appeared regal and expressionless. He considered fame an > irritant, an embarrassment. Fame was a bright beam in his eyes. But when > the lights went down, the Dago came alive. > > Joe Louis was another one who epitomized the wordsmith's notion of > wordless grace. But the maintenance of such dignity was a burden. For > Louis, the price of fame remained a secret - just like all the tea he > smoked to ease his mind. > > And now this Namath had the balls to sit there with a beer and proclaim: > I have nothing to hide. > > He resided in a penthouse with a llama-skin rug that looked like dry ice > - or so all the magazines said. There was an oval-shaped bed with a > mirror suspended above. > > Who'd have thought Cannon would live to see a football player living > like a space-age pimp? Still, unlike these other creatures of > television, Cannon couldn't help but like the kid. > > "He doesn't have to sneak around," he wrote. "He goes where the action is." > > Even as he sat there with his beer, Namath posed the question: Was > something a vice if you didn't have to lie about it? Or was the real > sin, as Cannon might have put it, phoniness? > > In Namath, one saw fame without fear. In the men's clubs Cannon > inhabited, booze was an end in itself. But in Joe's New York, booze and > the broads ran together, everything from the same spigot. > > As garish dusk gave way to another moist night, the old sportswriter had > to be wondering: What was it like to be a prince of this new city? What > was it like to be Broadway Joe of Second Avenue? > > * * * > > Booze and broads were similar opiates, administered differently. They > eased the pain. They eased the nerves. Where there had been an arthritic > vise or a knot in the gut, they left a spray of endorphins. Booze and > broads were to be taken liberally and casually, for medication and > recreation. "I drink for the same reason I keep company with girls," > Namath once said. "It makes me feel good. It takes away the tension." > Tad Dowd, who didn't drink, came up with a name for Namath's girls: > "tension easers." Namath, to his later chagrin, had started calling them > foxes. > > First among Joe's foxes was the wondrously named Suzie Storm. One of the > magazine writers assigned to profile Joe that season described her as "a > rock-'n'-roll chickie." But that doesn't begin to do her justice. She > was a navy brat from Pensacola, still in college, majoring in French. > She enjoyed museums as much as she did bars. Suzie Storm was the pure > drug, uncut: slim but ample-chested, with straight blond hair. She was > southern groovy, and she could sing her ass off. "I don't know where she > got it from," says Dowd, who was still managing Mary Wells. "But that > voice was like the white woman's answer to Tina Turner." > > Eventually, Joe would talk of marrying Suzie Storm. But such talk was > still a few years away, for he was too busy sampling the many and varied > gifts bestowed upon him at night. "I don't like to date so much as I > just like to kind of, you know, run into somethin', man," Namath told > Dan Jenkins, a Sports Illustrated writer who would go on to write the > blockbuster novel "Semi-Tough". > > Broadway Joe couldn't help but run into something. The girls were just > there - at the Open End, where the pimps hung out; at the > western-motifed Dudes 'N Dolls, where they worked as teepee dancers; at > Mr. Laff's and the Pussycat and the Cheetah and Small's Paradise up in > Harlem. Namath made the same connection as his father, finding something > almost patriotic in the pursuit of (women). "Seems almost un-American to > me for a bachelor not to go around having a drink with a lady now and > then," he once said through his signature grin, part put-on, part leer. > > The rube from Alabama had learned fast. By '66 Joe knew his way through > the Manhattan night. Tad Dowd recalls bouncing around town with Namath > and Tom Jones, another of his pals. They were leaving a place called the > Phone Booth. Tad was trailing the Namath entourage when he spied that > famous duo, Emeretta and Winona, looking as good as ever. But they were > already comfortably ensconced at a table with Mick Jagger and the > Stones. "C'mon, girls, let's go," said Tad, gleefully waving his stogie. > "We're having a party at Joe's place." > > Winona and Emeretta promptly picked up their purses and followed him out > the door. > > "What were they going to say?" asks Tad. "You want to be with Jagger and > the Stones? Or you want to be with Joe Namath?" > > An invitation to Joe's place was not to be passed up. > > "I was a healthy young American boy," he said. > > The guys who bitched about the women's libbers missed the whole point. > Let Jimmy Cannon put a nickel in the jukebox to hear Sinatra lament the > loser, "Set 'em up, Joe." The new city's anthem had just been released. > It was James Brown, one of Joe's favorites, belting out "It's a Man's > Man's Man's World." This was Men's Lib. You could get everything you > wanted, booze and broads, under one roof. > > "It was great," said Art Heyman, a professional basketball player who > had a piece of a bar called the Bishop's Perch. "All the girls wanted to > get laid by Joe. Everybody got leftovers." > > Being around Joe meant your cup runneth over with yum-yum. > > "I was taught that sex is a mortal sin," says David Kennedy, for whom > confession was a weekly event. He went late Saturday afternoon, mostly > to St. Patrick's, hoping to find an indulgent priest. He didn't want the > ones who made you feel as if you would dwell for eternity in a lake of > fire, even though anyone who'd seen Winona and Emeretta in their prime > wouldn't find lakes of fire to be much of a deterrent. But even as he > confessed, Kennedy knew that in a matter of hours he'd be with Joe and > the boys, eagerly committing the same sins for which he was now > repenting. It was a lot easier to stop going to confession than to stop > going out. > > Namath, for his part, suffered no such guilt. He said a prayer of thanks > most nights, but would not ask to be forgiven for fornication. "So I > stopped going to church," he said. "I wasn't going to go to confession > and lie." > > * * * > > Thus said the high priest of lush life, a man who thought nothing of > ordering beer for breakfast, just to get his bearings after a rough > night. "A Miller, right away, no coffee," recalls Spiros Dellartas, a > waiter at the Green Kitchen who became a friend. The Green Kitchen was > near the corner of 77th and First. By then, Joe, Ray, and Joe Hirsch > (when he was in town) were living down the block, at 370 East 76th > Street, in the penthouse of the Newport East, an exclusive new apartment > building teeming with stews and nightclub owners. Renting for $500 a > month, their apartment had an expansive terrace affording a great view > the Manhattan skyline. The penthouse became a kind of temple - a > high-rise shrine to the Hefneresque ideal. It even featured a couple of > oil paintings of Joe as rendered by a hot Playboy illustrator, LeRoy > Neiman, whom Sonny had commissioned as the Jets' in-house artist. The > coffee table and chandelier were glass. The leather bar and the mirrored > bed were round. Joe's sheets were green satin; his wallpaper silk, his > floors marble. The sofa and ottoman were brown suede. The fixtures in > the john were eighteen-carat gold. A miniature Spanish galleon Namath > bought in Cincinnati rested atop a French provincial cabinet. What would > they think in Beaver Falls? Broadway Joe was the king of this jungle: > Siberian snow leopard throw pillows, cheetah-skin bench, an easy chair > and drapes in a brown-and-white jungle-cat print. And of course: the > llama-skin rug. It looked like a patch of exotic marine life or furry > tentacles from a cheap science fiction movie. The shaggy strands were > about six inches long, deep enough for one of David Kennedy's cuff links > - a gift from his father, appropriately enough - to vanish without a > trace. "It's with the God of the llama rugs now," Kennedy says > wistfully. Like the white shoes and the green Lincoln, the rug is > recalled with great affection by men of a certain age. > > ______________________________________________________ > RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics Discussion List > > Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup! > > To join or leave the list or to make changes to your subscription visit http://listinfo.rolltidefan.net > > AOL.com addresses are NOT allowed on this list. Get a real ISP. ______________________________________________________ RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics Discussion List Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup! To join or leave the list or to make changes to your subscription visit http://listinfo.rolltidefan.net AOL.com addresses are NOT allowed on this list. Get a real ISP.
