The Liquor Store Proprietor

Tommy Bina is owner of the legendary Canyon Country Store.  Located halfway up Laurel Canyon, the store was immortalized by Jim Morrison in the song Love Street as the "store where the creatures meet." Originally built in 1908 as a lodge for local hunters, the Country Store was the center of the Los Angeles counter-culture hippie movement in the 1960's.

Tommy bought the store in 1982 and quickly became a staple of Laurel Canyon life.  He loves to tell the story about the time a stylishly-dressed man came in asking for "Flakes," a British candy bar. When Tommy realized the man was David Bowie he began stocking the chocolate.  He added "English Kit Kats" for Mick Jagger and specialty French wines for actress Christina Applegate.  Before being accused of murdering his wife, Robert Blake, in an effort to quit smoking, kept an open pack of cigarettes behind the front counter.  He asked the staff to dole them out to him, one per visit.  Though overpriced, the store is a place where music & film celebrities do their local shopping.  I once inquired of Tommy, "Why is your milk is so expensive?"  He responded, "Don't ask me, I don't shop here."

Every year, Tommy gathers locals in front of the store for the annual "Canyon Photo day."  Tommy can also be seen on Sunday mornings with a garbage bag in hand cleaning trash from the Canyon streets.  The store remains much like it was in the 60's and Tommy is the eclectic steward of Laurel Canyon history. (6" x 6", black ink print)

Buster Keaton

Joseph "Buster" Keaton was one of the three great silent film comedians (along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd).  Born into a performing family, Keaton's father Joe owned a traveling vaudeville show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company.  At the age of 18 months, Keaton fell down a flight of stairs without injury.  Houdini observed the event and said, "That was a real buster."  The nickname stuck.

Keaton began performing with his parents at age 3 in a comedy act called "The Three Keatons."  As part of the act, he was manhandled and tossed around stage by his father while his mother played saxophone on the side.  A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton's clothing to make him easier to toss. Father Joe was arrested for child abuse on stage but after the boy showed authorities he had no bruises or broken bones, the elder Keaton was released. Keaton became known as "the little boy who can't be damaged."

Keaton learned early on how to take a pratfall.  "The secret is landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand.  Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat."  Keaton also  learned that smiling on stage drew fewer laughs than a deadpan expression.  This is how he acquired his famous "stoneface" demeanor that became his signature.

Keaton served in France with the 40th Infantry during World War I.  He suffered an ear infection that permanently damaged his hearing.  After the war, he began working at the Talmadge Studios in New York.  He befriended Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle who hired Keaton as a co-star and gag writer. Keaton's first film appearance came in The Butcher Boy in 1917.  Soon, Keaton was directing Arbuckle's films.  (When Arbuckle was falsely accused of raping actress Virginia Rappe in 1921, Keaton was one of the few people to defend Arbuckle's character.)

Keaton's golden period of two-reel comedies and full length features was 1920-29. The films included the classics The General, The Navigator and The Cameraman. He became known for creating brilliant gags and dangerous stunts.  In Sherlock, Jr., Keaton broke his neck when a torrent of water from a railroad water tank fell on his head.  During Steamboat Bill, Jr., Keaton stood motionless as the facade of a two-story building toppled onto him.  He emerged unscathed thanks to a single open window.  The house weighed two tons and provided just a few inches of clearance around his body.  Throughout the stunts, Keaton maintained a stoic, emotionless expression.

Keaton appealed to audiences as an everyman who refused to succumb to life's difficulties.  He became known for his large eyes, solemn stare and his ever-present porkpie hat.  He made the hats himself.  "I knew straw was too fragile for my kind of antics so I took a good Stetson and cut it down, then I stiffened the brim with sugar water."

When movies turned to sound in 1927, Keaton signed with MGM, a decision he later called the worst of his life.  MGM limited Keaton's creative input and cast him in dialogue-heavy scripts with few gags. They forced him to use a stunt double despite Keaton's concern that "stuntmen don't get laughs."  The studio teamed the quiet Keaton with the obnoxious Jimmy Durante, a decision that yielded box office success but less than memorable films.  Keaton complained so much that MGM fired him after production of the 1933 film What! No Beer?

Keaton was demoralized by the state of his career.  He was also stuck in a loveless marriage to Natalie Talmadge, sister-in-law of studio head Joseph Schenck.  They had two children but Talmadge sued Keaton for divorce in 1932 and took his entire fortune.  She also refused her sons any contact with their father.  Keaton turned to alcohol.  At one point, he was briefly institutionalized.  He escaped his straitjacket with tricks he learned from his vaudeville days.

In 1933, Keaton married his nurse during an alcoholic binge.  He later claimed no memory of the event calling those years his "alcoholic blackout" period. They divorced in 1936, again at great financial cost to Keaton.

After making a few films in Europe, Keaton became a gag writer for the Marx Brothers and Red Skelton.  He also mentored Lucille Ball advising her to eschew dramatic films for comedy.  In 1939, Keaton made ten short films for Jules White (who later directed the Three Stooges).  Audiences enjoyed the films but Keaton was simply rehashing his early silent work.  He swore he would never "make another crummy two-reeler."

In 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, a woman 23 years his junior.  They would remain married the rest of his life.  She was credited for saving Keaton's life by stopping his heavy drinking.  Keaton's last starring role came in the 1946 Mexican science fiction film Boom In The Moon.  He appeared in cameos in big budget studio films like Sunset Boulevard, Around the World in 80 Days and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  He also appeared with Charlie Chaplin in the vaudeville tribute film Limelight.  This was the only time Chaplin and Keaton appeared together on film.

Keaton turned to television in the 1950's.  He hosted the Buster Keaton Show and appeared often on the Ed Wynn Variety Show.  During one appearance with Wynn, the 55-year old Keaton recreated a stunt from his youth where he propped a foot on a table then swung up the other foot only to crash to the ground.  Wynn asked Keaton how he did his falls.  Keaton opened his shirt and revealed bruises all over his body.

In 1954, Keaton sold his beloved Beverly Hills home to actor James Mason. Mason found several cans of Keaton's silent films including the lost 1921 classic The Boat. Keaton continued his television work into the 60's including appearances on The Lucy Show, Candid Camera and The Twilight Zone.  He also appeared in the teen beach movies Pajama Party and Beach Blanket Bingo.  His last film role came in 1966 in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum.  Despite ill health, he insisted on doing his own stunts. Keaton died of lung cancer in 1966 at age 71.  He had no idea he was terminally ill.  He thought he was recovering from bronchitis. He died shortly after playing cards with his wife Eleanor.  (5" x 6", black ink print)

Tom Waits

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." 

Tom Waits is a street poet with a heart of tarnished brass. With a voice like broken tiles spinning in an old washing machine, Tom Waits fuses the pathos of Louis Armstrong, the ramblings of Charles Bukowski and the earnestness of Bing Crosby.

In the 1980's, Waits lived in the Tropicana Motel on Sunset Boulevard.  He could be seen driving the streets of Hollywood in his Cadillac Coupe DeVille, his arm slung out the window holding a cigarette.  He could also be heard playing music at the Troubadour or Burbank Airport.

Waits once witnessed an altercation between local musicians and plainclothes police officers at Duke's Coffee Shop in Hollywood.  When he and his pal Chuck E. Weiss came to the aid of the musicians, Waits was roughed up and arrested by the police.  Waits subsequently won a $7,500 settlement against the Sheriff's Department for false arrest and false imprisonment.

Waits' music has spanned the cultural landscape for four decades. He's a brilliant songwriter, an imaginative lyricist and he's one of the funniest men around. In 2006 he appeared on Bob Dylan's now-defunct radio show "Radio Bob" with a list of famous Jewish curses. (Imagine these uttered with a gravelly, hungover voice):

"May all your teeth fall out except one which should remain for a toothache."

"May you grow like an onion with your head in the ground and your feet in the air."

"May you have a good long sleep and may your dreams be only of your troubles."

"May you be the proof that man can endure anything."

"May your wife eat matzohs in bed and may you roll in the crumbs."

(4" x 6", black ink print)