September 4, 2019 – davidbruceblog #2

Money

• Henry Rollins, former lead singer of Black Flag, is a serious acquirer of and listener to new music. He says that wheneverhe visits Melbourne, Australia, he walks into Vicious Sloth Records, throws his wallet onto a counter, and yells, “There it is, you b*stards! Take it all!” According to Mr. Rollins, the owners smile and start figuring out what to name their new houseboat. (Mr. Rollins is a stand-up comedian, among many other things, so he may be exaggerating.) Mr. Rollins also spreads music around the world. He says, “In my journeys, I have left literally hundreds of gigabytes of music behind in young people’s computers all over the world.” He has left behind the music of the Ramones in Iran, the music of the Stooges in Sri Lanka, and the music of Fugazi in Bhutan. Mr. Rollins says, “When it comes to music, I am in constant acquisition mode. To me, getting the word out on new music is as equally important as acquiring it. In addition to utilizing my weekly radio show on KCRW, I mention bands in interviews and other ways as well. I have an agenda. I am on a mission.”

• By 2010, Lady Gaga had made a lot of money. So what is the best thing that she spent money on? She says, “I bought my parents a car.” The car was a black Rolls-Royce. Lady Gaga says, “My dad’s very Italian, so I wanted to get him a real Godfathercar.” She had the car delivered on her parents’ wedding anniversary. When she told her father, “Go outside,” at first he declined to do that. Why? Lady Gaga explains, “He thought I’d got him a dancing gorillagram.” The car was decorated with a huge bow and this message: “A car to last like a love like yours.” Her parents at first thought that the car had been rented for them to ride around in for a day, but she told them that the car belonged to them. Her father shouted, “You’re crazy!” And he cried. By the way, Lady Gaga believes that it is possible to protect your privacy against the paparazzi — if you have and are willing to spend the money to do so. For example, after a concert in Berlin, some paparazzi in cars wanted to follow her, but they were unable to do so. She had hired two burly men to stand in front of their cars until she had vanished.

• Fanny Brice got into show business by accident. At age 13, she took her brother to an amateur show, but unfortunately, she had only two quarters and all the seats that cost a quarter had been taken. To get into the theater, she told the manager that she wanted to perform on stage — her plan was for her and her brother to watch part of the show, but to sneak out before her name was called for her to perform. However, her name was called earlier than she had expected, she was forced to go on stage, and she sang “When You Know You’re Not Forgotten by the Girl You Can’t Forget.” Fanny was so good that she won the first-place prize of $5, and she decided to go into show business.

• Comedian Jack Benny loved music. Once he had the chance to get violinist Isaac Stern on the 3 February 1946 episode of his radio program. Mr. Benny’s show allowed him to pay $10,000 per episode to the guest stars. He had already booked Ronald and Benita Colman for $6,000. Mr. Stern’s fee was $5,000, but Mr. Benny gladly paid $1,000 out of his own pocket to book him. Mr. Benny, whose comic persona was that of a miser, said, “I got my money’s worth. During rehearsals, I made him play about twenty solos for me, just for me, in my dressing room. I pretended I wanted to choose the best short number for him to play on the program. It was wonderful.”

• Conductor Karl Böhm noticed that in the foyer of the National Theatre in Munich, Germany, the musicians used to spit whenever they passed the bust of former General Music Director Herman Zumpe. He asked why they did that, and a musician replied, “It’s been passed on from generation to generation, this spitting.” They explained that musicians who had previously served there had petitioned the King for a raise in salary; however, Zumpe had commented, “I am against the raise; it’s better to hunt with hungry hounds!” Thereafter, musicians spat first in his presence and later in the presence of his bust.

• Opera singer Clara Doria had a servant named Natalizia who found an interesting way of making extra money: She sold locks of Ms. Doria’s hair. She collected hair from Ms. Doria’s combs and cut and trimmed the locks and tied them with a narrow ribbon. She then put each lock of hair in an envelope — also stolen from Ms. Doria — which she sold to youthful male fans of Ms. Doria. Natalizia had quite a business until some friends of Ms. Doria caught her selling these love-locks.

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