Starting the Day Right
A pretty stenographer had been transferred by the firm to another city. The first morning after the change had been made, she came into her new office, hung her hat and coat on the rack and meandered leisurely to the boss’ desk.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose you start in the day here the same as we do in Blanktown?”
“Why, yes, I suppose so,” replied the boss.
“Well, come on, then, kiss me so I can start working.”
Questions and Answers
Dear Captain—Why is it that people say I remind them of a river?—T. Bone.
Perhaps it is because your mouth is bigger than your head.
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Dear Skipper—What is meant by a triumvirate?—Bob O. Link.
Agnes, Mabel and Becky.
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Dear Cap—I have often wondered where all the jokes came from.—Al Fresco.
I don’t know, where were you born?
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Dear Bill—My feet are always cold. Do you know anything I could do for them?—Jean Ology.
Did you ever try shining your shoes with stove polish?
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Dear Captain—I found a pair of ice tongs in my parlor. What shall I do?—Art I. Choke.
Demand a reduction in your ice bill.
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Dear Cap. Bill—Judging from your last letters to me your fountain pen must leak all of the time. Why not get a new one?—Maggie Zeen.
No, you are mistaken. It leaks only when I’ve got ink in it.
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Dear Cap—Can you give me an example of the height of curiosity?—Otto Mattick.
A woman sticking her finger into a bowl of soup to see if it leaves a dent.
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My Dear Captain—I admire you very much and wish to tell you that I am a neat, nifty and nice little girl. All of my hats are from Paris, though I must confess my stockings were all made in America. Would you like to see Paris?—Chloro Form.
No, I’m patriotic. I’d rather see America first.
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Dear Cap—How come that your hired man, Gus, is a born musician?—Simon Konshush.
Because he has drums in his ears.
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Dear Capt. Billy—How can I impress upon my sweetheart that I am really in love with her?—Jim Crowe.
While talking to her, heave your chest up and down like the men in the movies.
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Dear Capt. Billy—Lately I have been keeping company with a delightful girl. Unfortunately, however, she is inclined to wear her skirts too short. Could you advise me how I can get her to lengthen them without offending her?—I. Hoofit.
Hoofit, old dear, you should learn to be diplomatic. The best way to accomplish the result is to say something like this, “Sweetheart, your eyes are simply dazzling, but no one will ever notice them, unless you lengthen your skirts.”
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Dear Skipper—What is meant by “Mind your P’s and Q’s?”—Dear Dairy Maid.
Probably means “Mind your pints and quarts.”
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Dear Capt. Billy—I have just been married and would like your advice on how long I should cook spaghetti.—Mrs. Dis N. Terry.
Spaghetti should not be cooked too long. About ten inches is right.
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Dear Skipper Bill—A land-lubber friend of mine recently joined the Navy and has been assigned to my ship. Could you please suggest a practical joke to play on him during his first trip at sea?—Jack Tarr.
Bet him a dollar he’ll come in the next roll.
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Dear Captain Billy—I visited a nice little girl the other evening and she would not let me kiss her. Instead, she insisted on kissing a perfumed Persian kitten she held in her lap. What would you advise me to do?—Bashful Bert.
On your next visit, select a dark and dismal night and at the psychological time meow like a cat. Maybe she won’t know the difference.
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Dear Captain Billy—I am a young married man. There is a handsome married woman, the wife of a traveling man, across the hall. She has a phonograph and each evening when he is away she plays such records as: “Lonesome,” “I Know That You Are Married,” “Won’t You Come Over to My House,” “Won’t You Come Over and Play?” Do you think I should take a chance?—Phical Phil.
You are hereby referred to the poem “Johnny and Frankie,” which appears in the Smokehouse section of this issue.
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Dear Captain—What large stream flows from North to South?—D. Jennie Rate.
Hootch, my dear.
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Dear Capt. Billy—When I sing I get tears in my eyes. What can I do for this?
Stuff cotton in your ears.
Our Monthly Drammer
“YOU HOLD MY WIFE”
A Comedy On “Behold My Wife”
BY JAMES STARR
There is in “You Hold My Wife,” which George Selford has screened from Sir Filbert Barker’s “The Translation of a Shimmy Dancer,” the sort of romance that appeals to all the primitive story-loving instincts of the widely known human race. A bum of an Englishman seeking a fortune in the Judson Bay country hears from home that his fiancee has not married another man as he had hoped she would. He is led to believe his own family had deliberately planned to go against his plans. To be even with them he drinks a pint of likker, marries an Indian girl, Lali, the daughter of old Fry-on-the-moon, and ships her to England as his wife. The good sports of the English family, dismayed and shocked, take the savage in hand and, of course, turn her out a raving beauty in two reels. So that when the bum English chap, stricken finally by remorse and put on his feet by a two-gallon can of likker, returns to England to recover his squaw, he finds her a social sensation of the season and the mother of a fine little son. He tells her that it is not his son, she faints, he cries to the servant, who is handy, “You Hold My Wife,” the servant does. The English chap leaves the house and joins a circus.
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“MIDSUMMER BADNESS”
A Comedy On “Midsummer Madness”
There are a few directors of pictures you can not depend upon for the sane, sensible and spirited productions. Billie The Mille is one, no longer just Sesil’s brother, but one who calls himself a director, no one knows why, but he does. Billy’s latest is a photographic essay, a world beater, a sensation, but it is unbelievable. The Mille has woven a real bum story, telling it by captions and not by pictures, such as all good directors do some time in their life, we all make mistakes, and Billy has just started at the beginning of his long list. No one knows just why this picture was made, but it doesn’t make any difference to the restless public, they will stand for anything and Billy knows it. He is a wise guy. In the story there is the new idea of the neglectful husband and a guy that likes this guy’s wife, the neglectful husband likes the other guy’s wife. They should swap each other’s wife and let it go at that, but Billy wouldn’t have it that way, so he made them love each other for awhile and then he tore them apart. The master of this picture put in a subtitle reading “The End” and let the public go home for the evening to start a drama of their own.
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The Sydney Bulletin tells a fairly good story about family foibles. Here it is:
The thud-thud of swiftly moving feet gave me warning as I was about to turn the corner, and I drew back to avoid a collision. An agitated figure, his breath coming in sobs, whirled past me and leaped on to a car that was leaving the car-stop; and almost at the same moment another shape shot around the corner and fell upon me. He released me at once and apologized profusely. Gazing furiously at the car, now fading in the distance, he explained the situation. “That man’s wife,” he said bitterly, “ran away from him and came to be my housekeeper, and just now, when I got home, I found him trying to make love to her. The dirty cur.”
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The clock struck nine, I looked at her,
Her lips were rosy red;
“At quarter after nine, I mean
To steal a kiss,” I said.
She cast a roguish glance at me,
And then she whispered low
With quite her sweetest little smile,
“The clock’s like you—it’s slow.”
Whiz Bang Editorials
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”
Audrey Munson, the darling of the studios, is telling the poor but patient public what gorgeous parties some of the artists have pulled off, and speaks breathlessly of champagne baths and rose-covered stairways. It is nothing new, Audrey; the ancients, in the matter of luxury and license, could knock any of the present day sports for a row of Chinese pagodas.
I have recently been engaged in reading two very interesting histories, the one of the rose, the other of the perfumes, in reading which I was deeply impressed with the fact that all the civilizations of the past, previous to their downfall, had their rose fetes, their festivals of flowers, their perfumed halls and extravagant balls and soirees. Before the fall of the Roman empire; the wealthy abandoned themselves to pleasure, luxury and licentiousness and such expressions as “living in the midst of roses” and “sleeping on a bed of roses” had a deep and tragic meaning. Seneca speaks of Smyndiride, who could not sleep if one of the rose petals with which his bed was spread, happened to be curled. Cicero alludes to the then prevailing custom among the Romans of reclining at the table on couches covered with roses. Ah, my jeweled buddies there were Adonises in those days!
When Cleopatra, the perfumed serpent of the Nile, went into Cilicia to meet Mark Antony, she gave him for several successive days a festival such as the gods themselves would not blush to participate in. She had placed in the banqueting hall twelve couches large enough to hold three guests. Purple tapestry interwoven with gold covered the walls, golden vases admirably executed and enriched with precious stones, stood on a magnificent gold floor. On the fourth day the queen caused the floor of the hall to be covered with roses to the depth of eighteen inches. These flowers were retained in a very fine net to allow the guests to walk over them.
Nero, the fiddler of burning Rome and the tyrant par excellence of his day, gave a fete on the gulf of Baiae when inns were established on the banks and ladies of noble blood played hostesses to the occasion, the roses alone costing more than four million of sesterces, or $100,000.
Before her downfall Rome could spend millions on her royal tables, support the dignity of a single senator at $80,000 a year, employ courts for sycophants and flatterers, impose taxes at the pleasure of her ruler, declare any complaint treason, marry her daughters for money and titles, employ notaries to attest the fatness of her banquet fowls, punish men with death for trivial offenses and make slaves and menials of the profoundest philosophers.
Considering their natural limitations, those old boys set a pace that would keep anybody hustling to keep up with them. The sports of several generations back might have been veritable hicks compared to the modern brand, but those of several centuries back didn’t take a back seat for none—and don’t yet!
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In the May issue of last year, when Whiz Bang was a baby in the magazine field, we published a poem famed over the West Coast, “The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band,” which we obtained after much effort from a former convict of San Quentin penitentiary, wherein this masterpiece was written. Within a week after the Whiz Bang, containing the first publication of this poem, reached San Francisco, that city had sold out every copy, and a day or two later none could be purchased from Canada to Mexico on the western slope. The Whiz Bang mail box was full every day with requests for more copies of the issue containing “The Blue Velvet Band.”
Consequently, we republished the poem in our October issue, which we also called our first Annual. The big rush of the May issue was repeated in October, and from that time on we have been flooded with requests for copies of the poem. One enthusiast offered us a ten spot if we’d have Gus, the hired man, copy the poem from our personal files for him.
This year we are making the Winter Annual a separate book, with four times as much reading matter. “The Blue Velvet Band,” the verse of the dope layout, the burglar and the inner walls of San Quentin. “Lasca,” the tale of the stampede, “The Face on the Bar-room Floor,” and “Johnnie and Frankie,” are some of the poems scheduled for the “Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22” in October.
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