Hipster saint

[Talbot]

Love the thread on Lord Buckley. Got me to thinking of another hipster, Al Jazzbeaux Collins and the purple grotto.

http://www.sfradiomuseum.com/audio/jazzbeaux/

He invented the imaginary subterranean studio one night in New York in 1950, when he looked around at the violet paint job in the announcer's booth at station WNEW and began telling his listeners about a glowing grotto with stalactites and mushrooms.

Soon Al and his nightowl audience invented a cavern filled with imaginary friends like Harrison, the 176-year old purple Tasmanian owl with bright orange eyes, named after onetime "Talk of the Town" columnist Harrison Kinney of the New Yorker.

In New York, Al did dog food ads by speaking directly to the dogs. "It's all theater of the mind," he used to say.

Dick Conte, music director and midday host at KCSM who was a disc jockey at KJAZ for more than 20 years, said he started listening to Jazzbeaux as a teenager.

"I always admired his laid-back style," Conte said. "He was definitely a one-of-a-kind character. He also said that Al never wanted to hear anything negative. "His thing was about being positive all the time. I think that's what kept him going for so long."

Al was such a wild character that Mad Magazine once did a cartoon spread on him and his imaginary characters in the 1960's.

He loved purple, once had a Porsche covered with purple velveteen and topped with a faucet, and liked to wear jumpsuits made by his wife Patti, along with little hats.


Botches, I don't have to show you any stinkin' botches...

 

[Wally_Hood]

I remember Big Al from tv shows from the early 60s. I was a wee tyke, living south of San Francisco, near the Stanford area, but Al was so far-out and did such wacky things that even though I didn't know what hip was, he still entranced me. I knew enough about life that I pegged him as a beatnick, rightly or wrongly. He wore the jumpsuits and had the chin beard.

As I recall, his show would open with shots of him getting into a 'vette and driving, I guess, to the set of the show. The clip from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with stinkin' badges would run frequently.

Does anyone else have memories? I didn't know anyone else remembered him...

Edit: I followed the link up above and read up on Al. It confirms those foggy memories of Al's show on SF tv, right down to the jumbled up recollections of Crusader Rabbit and Jack La Lane. I'd love to find some video of his show!