Archive for May, 2009
Lucia Pamela, Fresno’s Interstellar Squeezebox Queen

Lovely Lucia
As WFMU’s Irwin Chusid pointed out in Songs in the Key of Z, Neil Armstrong was not the first earthling to stroll the lunar surface. To the contrary, the first feet to navigate that cheesy green orb were none other than those of former NorCal/SoCal denizen, Lucia Pamela, just a few months before Armstrong took one small step for man, an event documented in the 1969 album Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela.

“It was recorded on Moontown,” Ms. Pamela said of the album. “I was the only one from Earth there.” She also produced a coloring book, Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela In The Year 2000.
Voted Miss St. Louis of 1926, Lady Pamela enjoyed a career that spanned nine decades, including a stint in Vaudeville with the Ziegfeld Follies where she led an all-gal band named Lucia Pamela and her Musical Pirates, and then later formed a vocal duo with her daughter Georgia known as The Pamela Sisters.

An early photo of Lucia with one of her musical pirates
In the swingin’ 60’s, Lucia’s daughter and former singing partner, now known as Georgia Frontiere, married L.A. Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom, her sixth husband. When Rosenbloom died in 1972, Georgia inherited the team and later drew the wrath of rabid L.A. fans when she moved the team to St. Louis.

Gorgeous Georgia holding court during her reign as Rams' Queen Bee
During World War II, Lucia Pamela was awarded a Medal of Honor for her wartime service with the USO. Pamela later moved to Fresno, California, where she was renowned for cruising around in her custom Pink Cadillac. There she hosted several early radio and television shows, including “Gal about Town.” Afterwards, Lucia was the manager and host of Storyland Amusement Park, located in Fresno’s Roeding Park, appearing as Mother Goose.

As a wee lad I used to visit Roeding Park’s Storyland and Playland, and those memories still fill me with a sense of magical wonder, with visions of giant mushrooms and Mother Goose serenading me with songs about the man in the moon.

Lucia — who was honored by Ripley’s Believe It or Not for having memorized over 10,000 songs — performed in Las Vegas hotels in the 1980’s. She died in Hollywood on July 25th 2002 at the ripe old age of 98, survived by one son, 12 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren. Her daughter Georgia died in 2008.
Currently, there is an unreleased documentary on Pamela’s life, which you can find out more about here:
http://home.iae.nl/users/jada/innerlandscapes/links.html
Lucia Pamela’s obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/18/nyregion/lucia-pamela-98-a-musician-to-the-moon.html
The Supermarket Psychic (1993)
I am the supermarket psychic. When I stand at the cash register with my wife – watching the groceries as they are waved across the electronic computerized eye – suddenly I become attuned to certain psychic energies existing in the ethers which precognitively enable me to predict the final total rung up by the guy or gal behind the cash register tallying these numerological numbers.
The first time I did it, Heather considered it a fluke. But the second time, just today, it made her do a double take and shake her head, wondering from whence these amazing powers came, and why I of all people had been chosen to receive this miraculous gift of second sight.
“Fifty-four dollars and sixteen cents,” I said and my prediction rang true in cosmic unison with the cash register. You see, Heather’s not at all into this Shirley McLaine out on a limb new age horsewater. Though neither really am I, for that matter, at least not the kind of new age nonsense presented that Shirley spontaneously spouts for whatever unknown reasons. Surely she doesn’t need the extra dough that bad. Perhaps she actually believes the nonsense presented in her book as well as the inane mini-series version of Out On The Limb a few years ago that had everything in the psychic kitchen sink thrown into a metaphysical mix of UFO’s, Channelers and past life regressions, not to mention cars driving themselves, as I remember. “See ma, no hands. My psychic force field is steering the karmic wheel!” What swill!
But today I did it again, at Raleys, my mysterious powers once again coming to the fore. Why God in Heaven has chosen me to carry out His will, I do not know. What I need now is a following, a group of mindless sycophants to support me as I grown gracefully into my golden years, supplying me with a steady income so instead of working I can sit home, swill beer, munch chips, and watch sports all day and night on cable TV while visualizing world peace.
Surely God had something in mind!




