Indianapolis – Page 3 – Alan E. Hunter

Health & Medicine, Hollywood, Indianapolis, Music, Pop Culture, Television

Warren Zevon — Accidentally Like a Martyr.

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Publish Date September 12, 2024. This column first appeared in August 2013.

https://weeklyview.net/2024/09/12/warren-zevon-accidently-like-a-martyr-2/

It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since Warren Zevon died. If the name is not familiar to you, his songs might be: “Werewolves of London,” “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” or “Lawyers, Guns and Money” should ring a bell. Zevon was considered the rock star’s rock star, known for his songwriting talents in songs that showcased his quirky, sardonic wit in the dark humor of his ballads. Rock ‘n’ roll royalty like Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young praised his talents and called him friend. Born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 24, 1947, he became the quintessential West Coast rocker, literally living the LA lifestyle right up until his death on September 7, 2003.

It’s easy to figure out why musicians thought Warren Zevon was so cool. From his earliest days, his personal pedigree made Warren unique and different. Zevon was the son of Beverly and William Zevon. His mother was from a Mormon family and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Russia whose original surname was “Zivotovsky.” William was a bookie who handled volume bets and dice games for notorious Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen. Known as Stumpy Zevon in Cohen’s employ, he was best man at Mickey’s first marriage and worked for him for years.

**Warren William Zevon was born on January 24, 1947.**

The family moved to Fresno, California when Warren was 13 years old. His British-born mother insisted that Warren take piano lessons. So Zevon started taking his lessons at the home of Igor Stravinsky, the Russian-American composer, pianist and conductor widely considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. There, Warren briefly studied modern classical music, alongside future American conductor Robert Craft. Zevon’s parents divorced when he was 16 years old and he soon quit high school and moved from Los Angeles to New York to become a folk singer.

Zevon got his first taste of success with the song “Follow Me” as the male component of a musical coed duo called Lyme & Cybelle. He left the duo, citing artistic differences, and spent time as a session musician and jingle composer. He wrote several songs for the Turtles and another early composition (“She Quit Me”) was included in the soundtrack for the film Midnight Cowboy (1969). Zevon’s first attempt at a solo album, Wanted Dead or Alive (1969), was well-received but did not sell well. Zevon’s second effort, Leaf in the Wind, went unreleased.

During the early 1970s, Zevon led the touring band for the Everly Brothers, serving as both keyboard player and band leader/musical coordinator. In the latter role Zevon became the first to recognize the talents of guitar player Lindsey Buckingham by hiring him for the band. It was during his time with the Everlys that Lindsey and girlfriend Stevie Nicks left to join Fleetwood Mac. Warren Zevon was a roommate of the famous duo in a Fairfax district apartment in Los Angeles at the time (September 1975). Zevon would remain friends with both for the rest of his life maintaining neutrality during the tumultuous breakups of both the Everly Brothers and Buckingham-Nicks.

In late 1975, Zevon collaborated with Jackson Browne, who produced and promoted Zevon’s self-titled major-label debut in 1976. Contributors to this album included Nicks, Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, members of the Eagles, Carl Wilson, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt. This first album, although only a modest commercial success, was later recognized by Rolling Stone magazine as a masterpiece. Although Zevon shared a grounding in earlier folk and country influences with his LA peers, this album brought Zevon to the forefront as a much darker and more ironic songwriter than other leading figures of the era’s L.A.-based singer-songwriter movement. Rolling Stone placed Zevon alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen as one of the four most important new artists to emerge in the decade of the 1970s.

In 1978, Zevon released Excitable Boy to critical acclaim and popular success. This album received heavy FM airplay mostly through the release of the single “Werewolves of London,” featuring Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood on bass and John McVie on drums. The song is considered a classic and has been covered by artists ranging from the Grateful Dead to Bob Dylan to comedian Adam Sandler. The song has become a Halloween season staple. For all you trivia buffs out there, The Chinese restaurant mentioned in the song (Lee Ho Fook) is a real location situated on Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown.

**Zevon & Billy Bob Thornton on set of Dwight Yoakam’s 2000 western “South of Heaven, West of Hell”**.

Although Zevon never again achieved popular acclaim, he continued to be recognized as an artist’s artist, releasing nine more albums over the next 25 years. It was during that quarter-century that Zevon lapsed in and out of the throes of excess, obsession, and addiction. To say that Warren Zevon suffered from excessive compulsion disorder would be a severe understatement. Warren had a continuing battle with drug addiction and alcoholism and was also a sex addict obsessed with the color gray and personal fame, or lack thereof. During this time, he and actor Billy Bob Thornton formed a close friendship galvanized by a shared obsessive-compulsive disorder and the fact they were neighbors living in the same apartment building.

One of Zevon’s compulsions was collecting identical Calvin Klein T-shirts. Like everything else in his life (his car, his couch, his carpeting and wall paint), the T-shirts were gray. One story relates how Warren insisted upon traveling to every department store carrying Calvin Klein T-shirts while touring on the road. If the store carried Warren’s prized Gray Calvin Klein t-shirt, Warren obsessively purchased every one of them and stowed them in the tour bus. When asked why, Warren replied that the new ones were being made in China and that those still on the shelf had been made in the USA and were “sure to become collector’s items and go up in value.” When he died at age 56, thousands of gray Calvin Klein t-shirts were found in his LA apartment; unopened in their original packaging.

**From left to right: Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, James McBride, Amy Tan, Kathy Kamin Goldmark , Dave Barry, Matt Groening**

A voracious reader, Zevon was friendly with several well-known writers who also collaborated on his songwriting during this period, including gonzo author Hunter S. Thompson, Carl Hiaasen, Mitch Albom, Norman Mailer, and Maya Angelou. Zevon served as musical coordinator and occasional guitarist for an ad-hoc rock music group called the Rock Bottom Remainders, a collection of writers performing rock and roll standards at book fairs and other events. This group included Stephen King, Dave Barry, Matt Groening, and Amy Tan, among other popular writers.

Zevon cemented his superstar status by appearing in various TV shows and movies during his career, most often playing himself. Zevon played himself on two episodes of Suddenly Susan in 1999 along with singer/actor Rick Springfield. Warren also appeared as himself on the Larry Sanders Show on HBO, alongside actor John Ritter as talk show guests in the same episode. Ironically, Zevon and Ritter would die within four days of each other.

Although highly intelligent, well-read, and obsessive-compulsive in every way, Zevon had a lifelong phobia of doctors. Shortly before playing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2002, he started feeling dizzy and developed a chronic cough. After a period of suffering with pain and shortness of breath, while on a visit to his dentist, Zevon was ordered under threat of kidnapping to see a physician. A lifelong smoker, he was subsequently diagnosed with inoperable peritoneal mesothelioma (cancer of the abdominal lining commonly associated with asbestos exposure). Refusing treatments he believed might incapacitate him, Zevon instead began recording his final album, The Wind, which includes guest appearances by close friends Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Timothy B. Schmidt, Joe Walsh, David Lindley, Billy Bob Thornton, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty, and Dwight Yoakam, among others.

On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. The band played “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” as his introduction. Zevon performed several songs and spoke at length about his illness. Zevon was a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman’s television shows since Late Night was first broadcast in 1982. He noted, “I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years.” It was during this broadcast that, when asked by Letterman if he knew something more about life and death now, he first offered his oft-quoted insight on dying: “Enjoy every sandwich.” He took time to thank Letterman for his years of support, calling him “the best friend my music’s ever had.” For his final song of the evening, and his final public performance, Zevon performed “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” at Letterman’s request. In the green room after the show, Zevon presented Letterman with the guitar that he always used on the show, with a single request: “Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it.”

Zevon was given only a few months to live after that fall of 2002 diagnosis; however, he lived to see the birth of twin grandsons in June 2003 and the release of The Wind on August 26, 2003. The album reached number 12 on the U.S. charts, Zevon’s highest placement since Excitable Boy. When his diagnosis became public, Zevon told the media that he just hoped to live long enough to see the next James Bond movie, a goal he accomplished. The Wind was certified gold in December 2003, just weeks after Zevon’s death, and Warren received five Grammy nominations, winning two posthumous Grammys, the first of his career.

I have a brief personal connection to Warren Zevon. I interviewed him in the pre-holiday winter of 1988 after a concert at the Vogue in Broad Ripple. Zevon was touring with a patchwork band that included Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles. He performed all of his expected hits along with a couple covers. I specifically remember an unforgettable version of the Tom Jones standard “What’s New Pussycat?” as well as the Eagles former bass player Schmidt performing his signature song, “I Can’t Tell You Why.”

See if you can pick out Warren Zevon in this clip from the movie…Don’t blink!

After the show, I was led through the music hall to the back of the Vogue and told to wait. Meantime, out walked Schmidt and the rest of the band. Soon, Warren Zevon emerged. With his long blonde curls and John Lennon glasses, he looked more like a professor than a rock star. He maintained a constant smile throughout our session. Luckily, I struck a positive nerve by remarking that I had recognized him from his brief appearance during the closing credits of the 1988 Kevin Bacon film, She’s Having a Baby. Zevon leapt from his perch atop the bumper of his band’s equipment truck and began calling to his bandmates, “Hey guys, he saw me in the movie! I told you I was in it.” His band mates shrugged, but Warren thanked me for confirming what had until then, been just a rumor. As I recall, Zevon’s only word spoken in the film came in the naming the baby segment when he offered the name “Igor”.

**My autographed copy of Excitable Boy from that Vogue encounter.**

I really can’t remember much of the encounter after that. I do remember Warren signed my copy of Excitable Boy and the interior paper cassette tape insert for A Quiet Normal Life, relics I still have. But the rest is a blur. There is a more important residual incident connected to that incident. That was the same night that my future wife Rhonda agreed to go out on our first date. Yep, I took her to a Sam Kinison comedy show at the old Indianapolis Tennis Center. Romantic huh?

**My signed ticket stub from that night.**

Two decades after that first date, Rhonda bought me the book, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon written and compiled by Zevon’s ex-wife Crystal Zevon (published in 2007 by Ecco Books). The book tore down every “nice guy” image I ever had of Warren Zevon, telling his life story through interviews with those who knew him. I walked away from it thinking “Wow, they had a real hard time finding anything nice to say about this guy.” The book has been described as being “notable for its unvarnished portrayal of Zevon.” Only later did I realize the book was written this way at Warren Zevon’s own request. As the words to Zevon’s song “It ain’t that pretty at all” bounce around in my head, I must say that I am not surprised or disappointed.

Indianapolis, Music, Pop Culture

“PeeWee the Piccolo” born in Indianapolis

February 6, 2025February 7, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date January 30, 2025.

https://weeklyview.net/2025/01/30/peewee-the-piccolo-born-in-indianapolis/

Okay all you Irvington audiophiles, quick, name the first song ever released on a 45 record. If you said it was the “Texarkana Baby” by Eddy Arnold, pat yourself on the back for remembering that lost gem. But you’re wrong. The first commercial 45rpm was “PeeWee the Piccolo” by Russ Case and his Orchestra on RCA Victor records (#47-0146 and b-side #47-0147) released on Feb. 1st, 1949. And it was born right here on the eastside of Indianapolis. Ironically Russ Case (1912-1964), a trumpet player and bandleader, led a few jazz and light music orchestras, including Eddy Arnold’s.

**RCA Magazine ad for their new 45 record player.**

RCA introduced the 45 rpm single to the world on December 7th, 1948 (seven years to the day after the Pearl Harbor attack), at the Sherman Avenue plant in Indianapolis. The confusion among the public comes from the fact that RCA released several commercial 45 singles on March 31st, 1949, including Arnold’s “Texarkana Baby.” The irony is that while “Pee Wee the Piccolo” is largely forgotten, “Texarkana Baby” topped Billboard’s country chart for three weeks, reaching #18 on the Best Selling Popular Retail Records chart. And it was the b-side of the single for Arnold’s standard hit “Bouquet of Roses.”

Pee Wee The Piccolo record.

“Pee-Wee The Piccolo” is a children’s record narrated by Academy Award winner Paul Wing (1892-1957). Wing was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942, survived the Bataan Death March, and was held prisoner in the World War II prisoner of war camp portrayed in the 2005 film The Great Raid. “Pee-Wee The Piccolo” was written by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger, who also created Tubby The Tuba. RCA color-coded their singles, pressing children’s 45-rpm records on yellow vinyl, popular music on black vinyl, country on green vinyl, classical on red vinyl, instrumental music on blue vinyl, and R&B and gospel on orange vinyl, international music was light blue, and musicals midnight blue. Eventually, they would all be pressed in black.

The 45′s tie-in to World War II is not without purpose. The 45 rpm single can trace its earliest origins to that conflict. Like many fields, World War II put a major dent in the music industry. Most homefront record and phonograph makers retooled their factories for the manufacture of products for the war effort. A wartime blockade stopped the import of shellac, the material from which .78 records were made. With that supply cut off, manufacturers scrambled for a new material to make records. The industry had been experimenting with synthetic PVC (polyvinyl chloride) since the 1930s, but it was more expensive to produce than shellac. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) engineers realized that PVC’s material properties meant that a vinyl record could be made thinner and stronger than a shellac record and that the grooves could be cut thinner, allowing more music to fit on each side. More music meant more money, outweighing the cost of the more expensive material. So the 33 rpm format was born.

Around September of ’48, William Paley at CBS offered RCA’s David Sarnoff the rights to the 33 technology at no cost. Paley thought that sharing his secret with his chief competitor would help boost the 33 format record sales for both companies. Sarnoff adroitly thanked Paley and told him he would think about it. Paley hadn’t realized that RCA had already perfected it’s secret 45 project. Paley was shocked and CBS miffed when RCA rolled out the 45 a few months later. The 45 rpm record became RCA’s answer to Columbia’s 33 1/3 rpm long-playing disc. The two systems directly competed with each other to replace 78 rpm records, bewildering consumers, and causing a drop in record sales. In media the period from ’49 to ’51 was referred to as “the war of the speeds” years.

A myth persists that the single’s designation of “45″ came from subtracting Columbia’s new 33 rpm format speed from the old 78: equaling 45. According to “Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record” by Richard Osborne, “the speed was based upon calculations made by the best balance between playing time and signal-to-noise ratio given by a groove density of 3 minutes per radial inch, and also that the innermost groove of a disc should be half the diameter of the outermost groove. Given the 6 7/8 diameter of the record it was found that 45 rpm provided the desired playing time within the designated bandwidth.” No wonder the 78 minus 33 urban legend remains so persistent — it’s easier to remember.

**The sprawling campus of RCA at Michigan & Sherman.**

Engineers from both companies had been working on a replacement for the 78 since before the war, experimenting with speeds ranging from 30 to 50 RPM. They were balancing the playing time (5 minutes – the same as a 12″ 78) with disk diameter, to get the most compact format that would have a surface velocity and lack of “pinch effect” so that the sound would not degrade as the stylus reached the inner diameter. In fact, for all but the outer inch or so, the 45 has a higher surface velocity than a 12″ LP. Both Edison and Victor had tried to introduce long-playing records in the 1920s and failed. In 1949 Capitol and Decca started issuing the new LP format, and RCA relented and issued its first LP in January 1950. While the LP could comfortably hold a large selection of music on each side, the 45, with its large central hole, worked better on automatic changers (like jukeboxes).

However the 45 rpm was gaining in popularity, and Columbia issued its first 45s in February 1951. Soon, other record companies saw the mass consumer appeal the new format allowed. By 1954 more than 200 million 45s had been sold. According to the New York Times, the peak year for the seven-inch single was 1974, when 250 million were sold. In the end, the war of the speeds ended without a decisive winner. By the early Eighties, the 45 began dying a slow, humiliating death. The number of jukeboxes in the country declined, stadium rock fans increasingly gravitated toward albums, and the cassette format (and even the wasteful “cassette single” and “mini-CD” format) began overtaking vinyl 45s.

Like most people my age, I fell in love with 45s in the early 1970s. Mostly because they fit into my limited allowance budget as a kid. That was, until about 1975 when the companies all raised the price of a 45 from $0.99 to $1.49! Then I had to be choosy. In most cases, the best song from an album would make it onto the 45 and, if I was lucky, there could be a b-side that was an unexpected bonus, sometimes a song not even on the album. Bingo, bonus track! Many of those 45s were made right here in Indianapolis. What’s more, back in the late 1960s/early 1970s it seemed like everyone in my family worked at that RCA plant on Sherman Ave. I remember that Mom and Dad got to pick out 2 or 3 free records every quarter, so I had a leg up on the competition (my sisters).

**The R.C.A. manufacturing plant located at 3324 East Michigan Street.** Courtesy Indiana State Library Photograph Collections.

Built in the 1920s, the RCA plant on the near eastside was a massive site that, during its heyday in the 1950s, employed over 8,000 people. RCA featured over 20 buildings on its 50-acre site, and aside from making records, the plant produced electronics like televisions, stereos, and radios. A gradual decline in business began in the 1970s, eventually leading to RCA being sold to GE in 1986. The Sherman Ave. plant operated for a few more years before closing in 1995. A heavy machinery and storage company operated in a small portion of the plant and a recycling nonprofit operated in the main building along Michigan St. for years before leaving in 2012. The RCA Sherman Plant was ultimately demolished in late January/early February 2017.

**Elvis Presley on stage at Market Square Arena 8.30pm June 26, 1977.**

Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton were two of the bigger names that toured the plant, although many bands and artists made the trip to the RCA plant to see how their records were made. One of the more famous records made there was Elvis Presley’s “Moody Blue” record, a special presentation copy of which was given to Elvis during his final concert at Market Square Arena on June 26, 1977. As it happens, the stage where Elvis stood when he received that gold record now rests inside the Irving Theatre.

Dad, who was trained as a draftsman in the service, worked in the relatively new computer processing area at the Sherman Ave. facility. He would take a sweater or zipper-pull fleece with him every day regardless of the season because back then the computers ran pretty hot and the room was kept so cold. They let employees smoke back in those days in the computer room and Dad smoked a pipe. I remember he worked with IBM cards back then. Those punchcards sorted all the info for the RCA record club members, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

**Nipper “His Master’s Voice”in wrecked interior of the abandoned RCA factory**.

My father lived for many years across the street from the plant on Sherman Avenue. He relished the idea of walking to and from work and eating lunches at home. The plant was an awesome sight to see when it was still standing. After it was vacated in the early 2000s, it became the largest abandoned place in Indy (besides the coke plant). There were some reminders of its former life throughout the building (the RCA dog could still be found in the main building) and leftover remnants from the other companies that operated there.

During those derelict years, I may (or may not) have surreptitiously ventured into the empty building. It was pretty sketch back then and you were likely to run into other people, mostly vagrants, scrappers, and other neighborhood kids. The attics had catwalks from which one could access various rooms/areas throughout the building via small doors. I remember one door in the back of the men’s room. There were muddy raccoon footprints all over the bathroom tile floors: proof that the critters would come in at night to drink out of the toilets. Some rooms were lined with meshed steel Faraday cages. The level beneath the main offices had large mounds of dirt reportedly earmarked for a BMX track that never materialized. When Thomson Consumer Electronics moved north to their new sparkling aqua green and blue paneled building at I-465 and Meridian, RCA left a ton of office furniture and obsolete audio-visual equipment behind in the building.

My dad worked in that building for over three decades. He died in 1997 just months away from retirement. My grandparents and my mother worked there in the 1960s. And it was in that lobby where I saw my stepmother Bonnie for the last time in 1997 before she left for Tennessee never to return. Back then RCA had a notary public in residence just inside the door. Tens of thousands of Hoosiers worked at that plant during its 75-year lifespan. Now, the vacant space is just a large patch of overgrown weeds and wild grass. My dad’s house sits empty, the doors and windows boarded up. Life goes on, the world still turns, and soon anyone with memories of working in that plant will fade away as well. Like phone booths, inspection stations, long-distance operators, and most of the products made in that building, RCA is just a distant memory now.

Indianapolis, Indy 500

The Liberty Bell In Indianapolis.

January 27, 2025February 7, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date July 3, 2024. https://weeklyview.net/2024/07/03/the-liberty-bell-in-indianapolis/

**The Liberty Bell in Indianapolis 1893.** Courtesy Bass Photo Collection.

The Liberty Bell is believed to have been brought to Pennsylvania by William Penn, arriving in Philadelphia on September 1, 1752. Its original use was to announce the opening of the Courts of Justice to the people and to call members of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly together. Surprisingly, the main purpose of the Liberty Bell was to announce the accession of a member of the British royal family to the throne, and the proclamation of treaties of peace and declarations of war. Ironically, the bell rang out loudly when the Declaration of Independence was publicly read for the first time in Philadelphia, on July 8, 1776. Contrary to legend, the bell did not crack at that time. It cracked exactly fifty-nine years to the day later during ceremonies honoring the death of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who died two days prior on July 6, 1835.

**The train carrying the Liberty Bell arriving in Indianapolis.** Courtesy Indianapolis Star.

Since the time of American Independence, no other inanimate symbol has come to represent the United States more than The Liberty Bell. Although inextricably associated with the city of Philadelphia, The Liberty Bell has traveled through Indianapolis on three separate occasions. The first visit came to our city on Friday, April 28, 1893, on its way to the World’s Fair in Chicago. It was traveling over the Pennsylvania rail lines which sent it directly through the heart of Irvington. America’s most famous relic to freedom arrived at 5 a.m. and was placed on a sidetrack at Tennessee Street (present-day Capitol Avenue) at downtown Union Station. By the time Mayor Thomas Sullivan and Chief of Police Thomas Colbert arrived with a squad of eight guards, the street was already choked full of people anxious to see The Liberty Bell. Nervous carpenters worked feverishly building wooden ramps to access the bed of the converted passenger coach upon which the flag-draped relic was fastened.

**Indianapolis Mayor Thomas Lennox Sullivan (1846-1936)** Courtesy Indiana Historical Society

The Indianapolis News reported, “Patriots came with such a rush to see the ‘Voice of Freedom’ that the ropes stretched around the car and along the street were incapable of holding the throng in check. Captain Charles Dawson began shouting at the top of his voice: ‘Get your tickets ready. Be sure and buy your tickets before you get in line!’ Of course, no tickets were necessary, but the cry had the desired effect. Hundreds fell out of the jam to make inquiries regarding tickets, and the police were then able to get the line properly formed.” The article details a strange phenomenon that swept that crowd. “When the crush was at its worst, a man passed up his matchbox to one of the policemen and asked that he touch the bell with the box. He felt that the mere touching of the bell would hallow the matchbox. Instantly, the policemen on guard were besieged with requests that they touch the bell with rings, ribbons, watches, canes, handkerchiefs, and a hundred other things.” Mothers and fathers handed babies up to the policemen for a rub against the bell. One child fainted amid the confusion. It resulted in a panic or sorts and “the touching incident had to be closed by the police for the sake of safety.”

That 1893 visit culminated with a viewing at the Indiana State House where former President Benjamin Harrison delivered a speech honoring the bell. During the celebration, children from the Indianapolis Blind School were permitted to “get the sense of sight through the joy of touch. They fingered the beloved relic and went back to school fully satisfied.” The second visit of the Liberty Bell came on November 17, 1904, on its way back to Philly from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition aka the St. Louis World’s Fair. Sadly, the bell’s 6 p.m. arrival at the intersection of West and Washington Streets occurred the same day that the historic landmark Meridian Street Methodist Episcopal Church burnt to the ground nearby. The poet James Whitcomb Riley was among the official greeters for that 1904 visit. The Liberty Bell was on display at the interurban train sheds and Ohio Street traction station through the night, leaving the next morning. The culmination was a parade of all Indianapolis Public School children to the interurban station where they marched in front of the cherished relic to music provided by the Indianapolis News Newsboys Band. The Indianapolis News reported that the scene “moved grownups to tears and brought a full realization of the patriotic value of The Liberty Bell.” The bell was removed to the train station and sent on its way back to Philadelphia “almost buried under chrysanthemums that had been provided by patriotic citizens. As the car passed westward on Washington Street, the school children strewed the track with flowers.”

On July 5, 1915 (109 years ago this Friday) The Liberty Bell left Philadelphia for the last time on its way to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition World’s Fair in San Francisco, California. The bell debuted in the city by the bay on “Liberty Bell Day” on July 17. It was displayed in the Pennsylvania Building at the Fair for four months, every evening it was rolled and stored securely in a vault. Finally, on November 11, the bell left the Fairgrounds accompanied by cheers, church bells, and tearful smiles of farewell from those present. During the trip home, the bell made its final visit to Indianapolis. The event was planned (perhaps fittingly) by an Indianapolis Mayor named Joseph E. Bell, an interesting but long-forgotten figure in Indianapolis history. Bell, a Democrat and former law partner of John W. Kern, served from 1914 to 1918. Bell is notable for establishing the first police vice squad in the city and for his many public improvements including the the transformation of Pogue’s Run from an open sewer to an immense covered drain and a flood levee along the west bank of the White River and railroad track elevation permitting street and the development of the boulevard system. He also authorized the construction of the sunken gardens at Garfield Park. During Bell’s administration, 281 miles of streets, sidewalks, and sewers were built. Bell, a founder of the Indiana Democratic Club, died from an accidental, self-inflicted shotgun wound suffered at the Indianapolis Gun Club.

Just as in 1904, The Liberty Bell narrowly escaped disaster during that 1915 visit when a warehouse fire in Louisville swept two large warehouses, coming within a thousand feet of the relic. No wonder Philly hasn’t let the bell out of its sight since that trip. The Liberty Bell was greeted upon its 7:45 p.m. arrival in the Circle City by 5,000 flag-waving citizens lining East Washington Street. The relic bell visited over 400 cities during its trip home. The Liberty Bell welcoming parade was led by a contingent of GAR Civil War Veterans, mounted Policemen, and cars containing Teddy Roosevelt’s former Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks, Governor Sam Ralston, Butler President Thomas Carr Howe, & Poet James Whitcomb Riley. The Nov. 22, 1915, Indianapolis News reported, “Impressive features of the occasion marked the stopping of the bell at the statehouse and courthouse where school choruses from the Manual Training and Technical High Schools led by the teachers of those schools, sang ‘America’ and other patriotic songs.

**Indianapolis Motor Speedway Pioneer Carl G. Fisher.**

An interesting side note occurred when Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s founding father Carl Fisher volunteered to repair the crack in the Liberty Bell. The Nov. 20, 1915, News reported, “Practical-minded Carl F. Fisher is going to propose that they leave the bell and its celebrated crack in Indianapolis so that by processes now in use at the Prest-O-Lite plant, near the motor speedway, the long silence of The Liberty Bell may be broken and its voice again proclaim the sweetness of American freedom.” Fisher, perhaps the greatest huckster the Hoosier state ever saw, told the News, “Philadelphia has been living off that crack long enough. We have had at our plant in the last two years bells that are older than the Liberty Bell. They were on old Spanish men-of-war and merchant vessels that represented ports older than Philadelphia itself. Unless Philadelphia wakes up and has some repair work done pretty soon they’ll have a total wreck of their famous relic. We can patch that crack up as easily as a shoemaker half-soles a shoe. Expansion and contraction are making the bell’s crack wider, and something must be done to heal that wound. If they will just let Indianapolis play surgeon for their beloved patient we will show them that we can do it.” The News further reported, “It was learned that the Philadelphia people have a pride in the crack and do not wish it mended.” The train carrying the Liberty Bell left Indianapolis at 12:30 a.m. en route to Columbus, Indiana. On Thanksgiving day in 1915, Philadelphians welcomed the Liberty back to Independence Hall at nightfall after its cross-country tour. Although the bell has been “tapped” many times for historic events after that 1915 homecoming, on September 25, 1920, it was rung for the last time in ceremonies in Independence Hall celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

Criminals, Health & Medicine, Indianapolis, Medicine

THE BREATHALYZER

January 24, 2025February 7, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date February 22, 2024. https://weeklyview.net/2024/02/22/the-breathalyzer/

Recently, I found myself at an antique show rummaging through a small box of paper, not unfamiliar territory for me. The usual: postcards, coupons, ads, snapshot photos. Then my fingers danced past a small greenish-colored slip of paper with a frozen gauge chart numbered .00 to .40 and a pair of machine-cut holes in the corners. Titled “Breathalyzer” it was identified as a “Test Meter” to measure “Per Cent Blood Alcohol” with an unused 3-line identifier at the bottom for the “Subject” name, “Date and Time”, and name of the person administering the test. Okay, we all know what it means (some more than others) and if we are smart (or lucky) we have managed to avoid these at all costs in our lifetimes.

But did you know that the “Breathalyzer” instrument, known around the world as the “Breath of Death”, the “Intoxalock”, or the “Booze Kazoo”, was invented in Indiana? In 1931, a 41-year-old toxicology professor at Indiana University named Rolla Harger invented the first practical roadside breath-testing device called the Drunkometer. He was awarded a patent for it in 1936. The Drunkometer collected a sample of the motorist’s breath when the driver blew directly into a balloon attached to the machine. The breath sample was then pumped through an acidified potassium permanganate solution and if there was alcohol in the sample, the solution changed color. The greater the color change, the more alcohol there was present in the breath.

*Rolla* Neil *Harger* (January 14, 1890 – August 8, 1983).

In 1922, Harger became an assistant professor at Indiana University School of Medicine in the newly formed Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology. He served as the department chairman from 1933 to 1956 and worked continuously in the department until 1960. However, the bulky Drunkometer proved impractical and unportable. The test required the suspected impaired driver to effectively inflate a balloon (a challenging task for some drunk or sober), which was then taken to the machine at police headquarters. This time-consuming, awkward process depended on the visual skills of the technician analyzing the sample-an Achilles heel that defense lawyers were often successful contesting. The Drunkometer eventually fell out of favor with police officers who saw it as complicated and unreliable. Police instead preferred to administer roadside dexterity tests to determine intoxication.

Enter Robert Frank Borkenstein. Born August 31, 1912, in Fort Wayne, Borkenstein was a natural-born teacher, researcher, and inventor. Borkenstein was a product of the Great Depression, and like many young Hoosiers of that era, he was unable to attend college. His first job in Fort Wayne was as a photographic technician, where legend claims his expertise in color film led (at least in part) to the invention of the color camera. While that claim is hard to nail down, what we do know is that his skill and creativity were recognized by the Indiana State Police Criminology Laboratory which hired him in 1936. Borkenstein quickly rose through the ranks, he went from working as a clerk to Captain in charge of Laboratory Services to Director of the State Police Criminological Laboratory, one of the first state police laboratories in the US. During his time with the department, Borkenstein helped perfect the use of photography in law enforcement and worked extensively on developing the polygraph, or lie detector. He administered more than 15,000 tests before his retirement in the late 1980s.

**Indiana University School of Medicine Dept. of Biochemistry-Toxicology display.**

Also while with the department, Borkenstein developed a close professional relationship with IU Professor Rolla N. Harger who was still working to improve his Drunkometer. In the 1950s, Borkenstein attended Indiana University on a part-time basis, eventually earning his Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Science. In February of 1954, IPD Lieutenant Borkenstein, Director of the State police laboratory, developed his first working model of the Breathalyzer (an amalgam of “breath, alcohol and analyze”) in the partially dirt-floored basement of his small Indianapolis home at 6441 Broadway near Broad Ripple. His machine was more compact, easier to operate, and consistently produced reliable results when measuring blood alcohol content. The Breathalyzer substituted a rubber hose for the balloon and featured an automatic internal device to gauge the color changes previously determined by the naked eye. Borkenstein’s Breathalyzer was an inexpensive way to test intoxication and meant that BAC (blood alcohol content) could be quickly collected and analyzed for use as evidence. Upon graduation from IU, Borkenstein retired from the State Police and joined IU as Chairman of the newly-formed Department of Police Administration.

Robert Borkenstein, a convivial fellow known as “Bob” to friends, family, and colleagues, enjoyed listening to Gilbert and Sullivan, entertaining visitors, and serving drinks to his friends. According to one account, ironically Bob “exhibited a Catholic taste in wines and spirits”. But Bob insisted on one rule for himself and anyone consuming alcohol in his presence: No drinking and driving! This, even though he supervised a study, paid for by the liquor industry, that suggested that “the relaxing effect of having drunk less than two ounces of alcohol might produce a slightly better driver than one who had none”.

At I.U., Borkenstein was well-liked and known for his generosity to younger colleagues. He was also a Francophile who traveled extensively to Paris and other parts of France, incorporating the French language into much of his work. Another gadget Borkenstein invented was a coin-operated Breathalyser for use in bars. The idea is that when a customer drops a coin it causes a straw to pop up. When the straw is blown into, a reading of .04 or less would produce a message: “Be a safe driver.” Between .05 and .09, the machine blinked and advised: “Be a good walker.” At .10 or higher, it sounded a small alarm and warned: “You’re a passenger.”

He later became chairman of IU’s Forensic Studies Department and director of the university’s Centre for Studies of Law in Action. The class he established on alcohol and highway safety became a national standard in the United States for forensic science, law enforcement, and criminal justice professionals. Today, it is officially known as the “Robert F. Borkenstein Course on Alcohol and Highway Safety: Testing, Research, and Litigation”, more simply known as the “Borky”. In light of his achievements, Borkenstein was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by Wittenberg University in 1963 and an Honorary LL.D. from Indiana University in 1987. In March 1987 Borkenstein retired, though he continued to hold emeritus titles as both a professor and Director of the Center for Studies of Law in Action and was inducted into the Safety and Health Hall of Fame International in 1988. Borkenstein’s mentor Dr. Rolla Neil Harger died on August 8, 1983, in Indianapolis and is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery. Borkenstein’s papers are held at the Indiana University Archives in the Herman B Wells Library in Bloomington, IN.

Robert Borkenstein graveLindenwood Cemetery
Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana.

In 1938 Borkenstein married Marjorie K. Buchanan, a children’s book author who died in December 1998. The couple had no children. Robert Borkenstein died on August 10, 2002, at the age of 89. Borkenstein held the Breathalyzer patent for most of his life, finally selling it to the Colorado firm that markets it today. Although the Breathalyzer is no longer the dominant instrument used by police forces to determine alcohol intoxication, its name has entered the vernacular to the extent that it has become a generic name for any breath-testing instrument. Between 1955 and 1999, over 30,000 Breathalyzer units were sold. Without question, Bob Borkenstein’s invention has saved countless lives over the years and has become an irreplaceable tool of the police. And to think, it all started in Indiana.

Indianapolis, Music, Pop Culture

“Louie Louie”

January 21, 2025February 7, 2025 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

This column first appeared in August 2013. https://weeklyview.net/2024/08/01/louie-louie-2/

**“Louie, Louie” by the Kingsman 1963.**

Fifty years ago this week, a song was released by an obscure Portland, Oregon, garage band that would change the face of rock ‘n’ roll history forever and ultimately resonate through the halls of the Indiana Statehouse. “Louie Louie” was written by Richard Berry in 1955 and was originally performed in the style of a Jamaican reggae ballad. The original version tells the first-person story of a Jamaican sailor returning to the island to see his lady love. Berry released his version in April 1957 with his band, the Pharaohs, and scored a regional hit on the West Coast, particularly in San Francisco. When the group toured the Pacific Northwest, local garage bands picked up the song, increasing its popularity.

**Richard Berry’s Original 1957 release on Jasmine Records.**

On August 8th, 1963, a relatively unknown band called The Kingsmen released their version and it swept across the airwaves from the West Coast like a musical tsunami. The band recorded the song for $50 at Northwestern, Inc., Motion Pictures and Recording studio in Portland. The band split the cost of the session. The session was produced by Ken Chase, a local radio personality on radio station KISN 91-AM. He also owned a teen nightclub that hosted the Kingsmen as his house band. The Kingsmen’s studio version was recorded in one take. They also recorded a “B” side song called “Haunted Castle.”

**Berry’s version of the song on Flip Records.**

The Kingsmen turned Berry’s syrupy sweet ballad into a raucous romp, backed by a twangy guitar, party chatter, and mostly unintelligible lyrics by lead singer Jack Ely. The song hit the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December and would remain there for 16 weeks. “Louie Louie” reached number one on both the Cashbox pop and R&B charts. The version quickly became a standard at teen parties in the U.S. during the 1960s, even reappearing on the charts in 1966.

**Louie Louie & Haunted Castle 45 Record.**

However, it was the urban legend about the indecipherable lyrics that gave the song lasting fame — or infamy, depending on your point of view. Rumors claimed that the band intentionally slurred the lyrics to hide the profanity contained therein, in particular, graphic sex between a sailor and his lady. Soon, crumpled pieces of paper containing “the real lyrics” to “Louie Louie” circulated among giggling, red-faced teens. In time, the adults got involved in the form of unamused parents and distraught teachers who demanded action against this supposed pornography sweeping the airwaves. Keep in mind, singles by The Singing Nun and Bobby Vinton monopolized the top slot on the charts during the song’s run.

Eventually, the song was banned on many radio stations across the United States, including Indiana, where it was personally prohibited by Governor Matthew Welsh himself. Yes Indiana, our state officially banned the song “Louie, Louie” on Tuesday, January 21, 1964. The unprecedented involvement between state government and a rock ‘n’ roll song began when Governor Welsh of Indiana received a complaint from a Frankfort teenager, claiming that the lyrics to the song were obscene. The teenager included a handwritten copy of the obscene lyrics as evidence.

Allegedly, Governor Welsh’s executive secretary Jack New went to a nearby music store to buy a copy of the record. Then, in what must’ve been a Monty Pythonesque moment, New and the Governor listened to it inside his Statehouse office. New told the Indianapolis Star “We slowed it down and we thought we could hear the words.” Billboard reported that the Governor said his ears “tingled.” The Governor’s press secretary, James McManus, said that the words were “indistinct, but plain if you listen carefully.”

**WISH-Radio’s Reid “Chuckles” Chapman.**

Governor Welsh snapped off a letter to Fort Wayne radio and TV personality and President of the Indiana Broadcasters Association Reid Chapman urging that the lyrics to the song be “examined.” Welsh said in 1991, “My position with respect to the whole matter was never that the record should be banned. At no time did I ever pressure anybody to take the song off the air. I suggested to him [Chapman] that it might be simpler all around if it wasn’t played.” The Governor had written to Chapman because he “was a friend of mine. I knew him; we weren’t close.”

In response to the Governor’s letter, Chapman sent telegrams to Hoosier radio stations asking them to stop playing the record. The Kingsmen, who were ready to embark on a Midwestern concert tour (including an appearance at the Indiana State Fair), objected to any attempt to take their song off the air. These “hidden lyric” denials by the Kingsmen did little to stop the controversy but did much to boost sales of the record among curious teens and investigative adults.

In a January 24, 1964, editorial page article titled “Young Singers Dismiss As Hooey Obscenity Charge in ‘Louie Louie.’”, a reporter for the Indianapolis Star interviewed Lynn Easton, leader of the band, who “somewhat angrily” denied that the band sang obscene lyrics. “We took the words from the original version by Richard Berry and recorded them faithfully. There was no clowning around,” Easton said. To the Star’s credit, the conclusion of the editorial was against government censorship in any form. Lead singer Jack Ely explained the garbled lyrics were a result of the studio’s 19-foot ceiling which had a microphone suspended from it.

Despite the band’s protestations, LeRoy New, Chief Marion County deputy prosecutor, assigned two investigators to look into the obscenity charges. After listening to the record at three speeds, the investigators found nothing obscene, though they admitted the words were garbled. New said, “The record is an abomination of out-of-tune guitars, an overbearing jungle rhythm and clanging cymbals.” But New stopped short of saying the lyrics were obscene, and the obscenity laws of the day “just didn’t reckon with dirty sounds.”

Although Governor Welsh’s “woofing” about the record was not the cause, soon after the Indiana banning, it fell off the charts. Ironically, by the time the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” had achieved national popularity, the band had split up. In February 1964, an outraged parent wrote to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, alleging the song lyrics were obscene. Subsequently, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI began a 31-month investigation into the matter that concluded the song was “unintelligible at any speed,” and they were “unable to interpret any of the wording in the record.” But by then, “Louie, Louie” was a footnote in rock history.

Maybe it was the controversy about the obscene (or not obscene) lyrics that killed the song — who knows? But two weeks after the swan song, on Sunday, February 9, The Beatles appeared for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show. The British Invasion had begun and the American garage band sound soon faded from the scene.

The song would not re-emerge until it was featured in the 1978 film Animal House. According to Kenny Vance, the musical director of the movie, a pre-Saturday Night Live John Belushi sang in a garage band that used to perform this song at frat parties. Belushi sang his version of the dirty lyrics in the studio while recording his vocals for the movie. Sadly, the tape of Belushi‘s version was lost in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy wiped out Kenny’s home in Queens.

As for this reporter, I admired Governor Matt Welsh. He was one of my first interviews back in the early 1980s. But make no mistake about it, regardless of his posturing after the fact, Matt Welsh had the record banned. When I asked the Governor about the song, although polite, he expressed his frustration that “Louie Louie” is all he’s remembered for by “today’s” generation. Welsh did not mention the matter in his personal memoir but did say, “I thought the whole thing was a tempest in a teapot, and not worth any extended pursuit. I have no interest in it either way.”

Everyone knows the chorus: “Louie, Louie, oh no. Me gotta go. Aye-yi-yi, I said. Louie Louie, oh baby. Me gotta go.” But once and for all, here are the lyrics: “Fine little girl waits for me. Catch a ship across the sea. Sail that ship about, all alone. Never know if I make it home. Three nights and days, I sail the sea. Think of girl, constantly. Oh that ship, I dream she’s there. I smell the rose in her hair. See Jamaica, the moon above. It won’t be long, me see my love. Take her in my arms again. Tell her I’ll never leave again.” The supposed “lewd” version can be easily found on the Web, but I’ll leave that to your own devices.