Category: nathan marsak

Widow Warfare!!!

July 15, 1927
The Southland

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Of our common cohort Latrodectus—the black widow—there is in the Times no mention whatsoever until this day in 1927.  For it was on this day that Bureau of Housing and Sanitation officials were alerted to the presence of one lone lady in a pile of trash lumber at 147 North Hoover Street—a specimen believed to have come in a crate of fruit from Hawaii.  

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But worry not! general public, says M. S. Siegel, Chief Supervisor of the Department, for we have destroyed the specimen, burned the lumber, and saturated the ground with gasoline!  No other reports of the spiders have been made in Los Angeles, and so far as Siegel knows, there are no more of the type in our geographic region. 

 

But he spoke too soon:  it was the beginning of the end.  July 19, 1927:

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From here, the paper goes spider-nutty. 147 North Hoover was apparently our arachnid Alamogordo, for few days passed in the late 20s without mention of some terrible arachattack: 

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(Personally, I’m of the opinion that the area always had the spiders hanging about in our privies and junk cars and whatnot, and the Times just felt it needed something new to harp on.  And what better?  After all, they’re colored…[they’ve got “black” right in the name!]  And they’re women.) 

(And that whole sexual cannibalism thing is a little suspect.)

Who Says There’s Never a Cab Around When You Need One?

July 14, 1927
Los Angeles

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yellowcabClifford J. Morgan needed some dough—hey, don’t we all—and what surer way to procure some than to stick up a gas station?  So he hailed a dimbox and told the hack to take him off to the filling station at Jefferson and Figueroa.  There the would-be highwayman told the taxi to sit tight, strolled into the oilpit, stuck a gun in the ribs of one C. F. Williams, relieved him of $45 ($537 USD2005), sauntered back to his waiting hansom, and motored away.  Unfortunately for Williams, do-gooders Ralph Paine and W. Burke were in the station at the time, and, grabbing Officer Best along the way, found Williams’ taxicab quite conspicuous in its lines and coloring and was thus followed easily.  At 51st and Central the trio caught up to and apprehended our hapless and callow highwayman.

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taxibwVehicles-for-hire made the news again today in the strange case of five year-old Kenneth Stubbs, who had been placed by his mother Della in the home of Mrs. Bertha Whitiker at 3040 South Hoover.  Mrs. Whitiker reported that a man called at the house, purporting to represent a local orphanage in which the boy’s mother wished to place him.  After a brief conversation, the man departed.  Two hours later, another man arrived in a taxicab.  Mrs. Whitiker saw the little Stubbs boy invite the man into the apartment before witnessing said man scurry away with the boy in his arms, and the taxi speed away.  (Estranged husband John Stubbs, up in Vancouver, is said not to know of Della’s whereabouts and therefore could not be part of this misuse of our public transport.)  No further mention of the Stubbs kidnapping, or of little Kenneth Stubbs, is ever made in the Times.

New Swag

The 1947project elves have been hard at work, updating our Cafepress shop with a delectable assortment of swag and oddities certain to enliven your life and spark conversations with local crazies.

Surely, your Gremlin would be racier still were its bumper decorated with this jaunty slogan (also available as a license holder):


 

And for that little tyke in your life, perhaps a Beth Short bib? (Also available as adult and kid Ts)

 

The tyke’s not out yet? How about a maternity T featuring our very own Nathan Marsak in a pensive pose. Let your friends speculate about the significance of the imagery, which is also available in a more discrete edition which we like to call "The Betsy."   

 

Also in stock: Tooth Decay Fiend Ts and treasures.

Suffocution Device throw pillows. 

And of course lots of lovely 1947project gun logo items, too. We hope you’ll drop by and have a look and decide if "The Betsy" is right for you.

 

Together As One

July 7, 1927
Riverside
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James Clark has but one leg.  Fortunately his wife has another.  Together, they make one fine two-legged person.  Unfortunately, their capacity for imbibery allows for the drunkitude of four persons, their double vision providing the visual acuity of eight.

Seems the Clarks got a few in ‘em and, sans hollow leg and all, the booze went to their collective head, and they thought it a good idea to hop in a flivver and go tearing down Mission Boulevard here in Riverside.  Despite the symbiosis that stems from years of wedded camaraderie, his stomping the gas while she pounded brake and clutch didn’t work out to their combined advantage…no, these tourists from the Lone Star state plowed into another vehicle driven by one Fred Stutzman of West Riverside.

Deputy Sheriff Scott hauled the intoxicated unipeds off to the hoosegow, and reported that while both autos were severely damaged, no-one was seriously injured.  Scott certainly realized that had someone involved lost a limb, he would have had to fill out the separate irony paperwork, instead of just checking the irony box on his standard report form.

Eight Arms to Hold You

octopusJuly 1, 1927
Newport Beach

Readers should remember our last post about beasts from the international waters of terror—and now comes the tale of the thrilling night battle between one Captain Ole Ellasen and his truck-sized, razor-beaked, toxin-injecting foe.

Ellasen has been contracted to remove the wreck of the Muriel from the Newport Beach channel, and as such was diving to inspect the underwater ruin, when something brushed his side.  It was the besucker’d arm of a mighty fire-eyed cephalopod, turning red with anger as it thundered “Who dare invade my domain?!”  Fortunately Ellasen had carried a crow bar down to the wreck and freed himself repeatedly from the demon’s circling tentacles; the crowbar proving useful in finally besting the beast in fight and killing his vicious attacker.

Ellasen brought the marine monster to the surface, then descended to kill and extract five baby octopi.  Hundreds of people arrived to view the octocorpse; Ellasen declared magnanimously that he expected another battle under water, as he was convinced another octopus lurked beneath.

(Truth be told, this writer has no love for crowbar-wielding killers of mothers protecting their young, and hopes Mr. Widower Mollusca turns Ellasen into one of those creepy sea-ghosts.)

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Above:  the final voyage of the Muriel? 

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Ellasen at his return battle, left. 

 

 

(For this and more jaw-dropping octomazement than you can shake a machete at, go here. )

The Mad Gasser of Fullerton Strikes Again!

 

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June 30, 1927
Fullerton

Two members of the Ralph Ince Film Company returned to the California Hotel in Fullerton ’round midnight tonight to find their fearless leader, Ralph Ince, semiconscious and supine upon the floor.  Nipping the ol”™ Hollywood joy juice down in Valenciaville, eh, Ralphie?

califhotelpicWhy, no!  He”™s been the victim of the Mad Gasser of Fullerton!  Hotel resident Carl Breusch said he’d seen a man skulking about the corridor, carrying a can, and that said can-carrier leapt out of a window when approached.  Guests Charles Scott and Charles McMaster were awakened in their respective bedrooms by the odor of the anesthetic solvent and then espied through their windows a shadowy figure running down the street.

Though the papers reported Alois Sabinski’s recent battle with chloroform in his Nicholas Street home, California Hotel lessee Ellen Lincoln declared she’d heard nothing about any “chloroform burglar;” Fullerton Chief of Police T. K. Winter said, ahem, reports regarding any such character have been greatly exaggerated.

In any event, Ince has departed for his company”™s location in Santa Ana Canyon, and can not be reached for comment.

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She Threw Herself Into the Part

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eileenbasilJune 24, 1927
Hollywood

Yeah, she threw herself into the part.  She could throw a mean left cross too, apparently.  In fact she went so nuts she broke several straw hats and mussed up the hair of several spectators and managed to bust the nose, teeth, and blacken the eye of some ponce named Basil Webb.

She is Eileen Sedgwick, and she was portraying an excited Swedish servant girl, cheering the home town team in Metro’s Slide, Kelly, Slide.  And now she stands shoulder to shoulder to shoulder with Metro and the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, as Basil bemoans his condition before Referee Crowell of the State Industrial Accident Commission.

We are beguiled by the fetching Ms. Sedgwick!  Mr. Webb should consider himself lucky to have be walloped by so charming a creature.

Chicken Tonight

June 24, 1927
Monterey Park
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Yeacio Tavary, Isa Magana and Daniel Garcia were brought before Police Judge F. F. Guaiano today on charges of stealing chickens.  It seems last night officer T. J. Neal discovered the gentlemen in an automobile in the hills south of Monterey Park, along with empty sacks with feathers stuck to them, and a headless chicken.

The defendants pleaded not guilty, and to explain the presence of the chicken-in-question, one testified:  “The chicken was hopping along the road with its head off and jumped into our car.”  The others corroborated his statement.

The judge thought it was a good story, but not quite good enough to keep the trio out of jail for ten days.

Great Mysteries of Life

embalmoJune 23, 1927
Ventura

Fishermen Beryl Adams and Al Huston returned from the waters off Santa Cruz island with something other than tasty comestible cod today, as they had in tow what their salty sea-dog buddies down at the shanty will no doubt label a fish story…for the catch of the day is:  embalmed corpse.  

Seems that bobbing along in the brine was a casket—constructed by Springfield Metallic Co., who furnish such boxes to the government, as opposed to the window’d copper containers favored by civil undertakers—containing a rather well-embalmed gentleman, the only hints to his identity being a necktie bearing the seal of “Lyons, France” and a suit of clothes made by J. Brownstone Company, New York.  Meager clues they, the other clues of note being the corpses’ flowing beard and large aristocratic moustache.

Coroner Reardon is working with the Naval Office at San Pedro but there has yet to be a break in the case, despite, or likely because of, there being every earmark of international espionage.