Santa Monica Mirror: My Dinner with Chuck E.

As I approach the corner of Ivar and Yucca, I see Joseph’s Restaurant , a low rent Greek joint that specializes in immolating just about any kind of flesh. As I turn off the ignition, my passengers, Diane, our photographer and my dog Bob, swiftly exit the vehicle to survey the outside tables in preparation for our dinner / interview with one of the great hepcats in the Los Angeles night club scene. Diane is looking for an outside table that would accommodate the dusky light that is available at 7:30 PM and Bob is urinating on just about everything. And I am caught off guard when I hear a snarly question:
   “ Is that the same dog that bit me in the ass?”
   I turn to see a ruffled Chuck E. Weiss in shorts and a T-shirt looking very erudite in some rather groovy glasses. His particularly broad shoulders are adorned by his famously large head. The cellophane that wraps his new CD, <Extremely Cool> out on Slow River / Rykodisc has an alleged quote from Willie Dixon, “Don’t you know? That big headed Jewboy sure can play the blues”
   “Yeah Chuck, that’s Bob. He’s almost fifteen.”
   Bob becomes alert and stares at Chuck.
   Nodding his head ,”I hope he doesn’t remember me.”
   Chuck E. Weiss has been a welcome staple in the Los Angeles club scene since the late seventies. Stories and songs abound from what is known as the Tropicana Motel Years . These were years when Tom Waits, Ricky Lee Jones and Chuck were feverishly writing, performing and tearing up the Hollywood music scene. As Chuck says, “They named a booth after me in the Kibbitz Room at Cantor’s Deli.” His eleven-year stint at West Hollywood’s Central nightclub was instrumental in joining friend Johnny Depp in converting the venue into The Viper Room. It is not unusual to see Chuck go nuts, roll on the ground and into a complete frenzy during his act. He’s performed with some of the great L.A. club musicians and has a story about every one of them.
   “It’s hard for me to find the right players. My music is real primitive and if you have higher than a third grade education, you can’t be in my band.” Most recently he has collaborated with Tony Gilkyson, Rick Vito, John Herron, Spyder Mittleman, Eleni Mandel, Michael Murphy, Nick Vincent, C.C. Worall, Will McGregor, Jim Cristy,J.J. Holiday and of course, his best friend and producer Tom Waits to create<Extremely Cool>. I have known Chuck peripherally for about eleven years and, yes, Bob did bite Chuck on the ass at a noon day luncheon not far from our present dining table. As introductions go around the table, we are joined by a man who Chuck calls Murray the Jew. Murray has arranged this meeting of minds. And after we each order our particular portion of indigestion, the stories begin to flow. Chuck tells us of his upbringing in Denver, Colorado where he was “the only Jew for 100 miles”. He wrote his first song at four when his friend Romaine knocked him down. The song is called “Romaine Made Me Fall Down.”
   In 1971, he met Tom Waits at the Reese Coffee House in Denver where Chuck was the house drummer. Over the years they would become best friends and collaborate on several albums. I have to get it out of the way and so I ask the obvious. “Tell me about Chuck E. ís In Love?”“ I don’t know... I didn’t write the song.”“ Legend has it that you were one of the great houndogs of the day. That you fell in love with a different girl every week.”“ I had a new prisoner every week. A bum of the month sometimes... No, really, you should ask her because she has a different story about the song every time you ask her.”
   The meal arrives and the dinner conversation becomes an uptempo riff on contemporary culture. We talk movies , particularly Herzog’s <Strosyk> ,< Five Easy Pieces> and <Hester Street>; we talk about Johnny Mercer as we lie in the shadow of the Capitol Building, (“Yougo through that building and ask about him, they’ll say - yeah, isn’t he in the mail room?”); Murray and Chuck E. go crazy arguing the spelling of Yiddish slang such as “Schmekel” and “Shayna Maidela.”. Goy that I am, I break in at this point.”
   Let’s talk about <Extremely Cool>. I mean, that is the point, right.?”
   Luckily, we all agreed. This is a great CD. Chuck E. weaves for us an utterly original and vital synthesis of some of the greatest strands of American music. I question him about some of my favorite tracks on the CD.
   DEEPLY SORRY This hilarious, blues driven track revolves around a love affair between a guy’s girlfriend and the guy’s mother.
   “Tony Gilkyson said to me that I needed to write a popular song that revolved around a teenage dilemma. It was originally called that, "Teenage Dilemma". Tony said, ‘How about a story about a girl who falls in love with her brother ?’ I just took it a bit further.”
   OH MARCY To this writer, this is an elegantly, simple Cajun composition as good as anything from Beaujolais. I asked him what the French words meant.
   “That wasn’t French. It’s just some language I made up. This is a sea chanty. Everybody says that it’s Cajun. God, what do I know.”
   JIMMY WOULD The lyrics are fantastic. Old man tight pants, braggin like a fool, actin like a Negro in a Bel Air swimming pool. Spyder Mittleman goes crazy on the sax.
   “This is about my friend, singer and harp player Jimmy Wood. This guy is really from Bel Air but you’d never know it from his music.”
   EXTREMELY COOL This title song is reminiscent of some of the best base lines of King Curtis. The lyrics ...I got a large bank account and a small peepee.. demand the question, does a large bank account equate to a small “schmekel?”
   “Three-fourths of the time, this is true. Actually, the schmekel is no longer important to me.” he declares. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I IDI AMIN This wonderfully nonsensical chant sung with Producer Tom Waits is accentuated by the moody undertone of a Hammond B - 3 and some great jungle - like drumming.
   “We made it up about five minutes before we went into the studio. I call it a dark nursery rhyme.”
   At this point in the interview, Chuck is into his fifth cigarette as a rather shapely woman walks past our table. Chuck calls out, “Nice toukas.”
   Now I’m a little wary. I have scars on my body from such public expression. The woman stops.
   “What?” The woman is staring in consternation.“ I said you have a nice toukas.” Chuck is beaming, his cigarette raised high as if to say this is a qualified fact.“I bike everyday.” The woman bends over and pats her rear. “Thank you very much.” And she pertly goes her own way. I am frantically writing this all down. “ Hey you guys, how do you spell toukas?”
   Murray is laughing. “You goyisha kup. Let’s see t-o-u-c-h-e-s.”
   Chuck is in stitches. “Who taught you how to spell. It’s t-o-u-k-a-s.”
   Yelling over the laughter and from behind her camera, Diane says, “Isn’t it t-o-o-k-i-s?”
   Chuck turns in mid-grin to Diane as she clicks off a frame, perfectly catching the ribald joy that is Chuck E. Weiss. He leans in close to Diane and almost purses his lips.
   “No, no, that’s to kiss.”
   This is great, I’m thinking. This guy is an interviewer’s dream and a great musician. I can use all this stuff. The music, the stories, the Yiddish stuff.... But it occurred to me in that moment, that Chuck had lied to me. As Chuck slyly grinned at Diane and exhaled a stream of smoke, it became infinitely apparent that the schmekel and its use was still very important to Chuck E. Weiss.

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