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Page Eighteen
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, November 22, 1970
Sunday, November 22, 1970
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Frank sm
(Continued from Page 17
Their mommas are starting to
raise hell with the inspector."
* .* So Frank was happy to help
us go into the business as
For-the nicest choice middlemen. He would sell
ofae Clitrs cr tilshigh grade heroin, which he
h s tbuys from a wholesaler, at a
stainless steel and silver profit to us. We would cut it
into low grade heroin a n d
*oO : make a 100 per cent profit.
at the The free enterprise system at
work.
JOIT, N B. tliDY Darryl wanted to start sell-
1;ing that weekend. I agreed
SIFTS because Frank was ready to
call my bluff.
601 -607 E. Liberty St. Richmond and I went to a
668-6779 Ann Arbor F bar a few blocks away later
that night to figure out what
_ebankI didn't have $1havem
k.: . .r......: .k{. :.\r..v. . <;:......--*'-----the-vbank;do I didn't eve n hav
1 1111o1 1,lio 111 si a bank account or a bank
book. Finally we decided I
would try to stall by pretend-
ing to get mugged and lose
my identification papers on
CHRITMA GITthe way home. I felt s af e
CHRISTMAS GIFT BOOKSA few minutes later a girl
ran screaming into the bar.
Her girlfriend had tried to re-
sist a pursesnatcher and had
been slashed with a r a z o r
A Very Large Selection down the side of her neck.
Somebody called an ambu-
lance while some of us went
outside and tried to stop the
forYourselfanbleeding. The girl would live.
;the ambulance doctor assur-
H ded us. But I didn't feel safe
or ay Gifts anymore.
f Darryl sulked when I told
him I couldn't get my money
out of the bank until I got
new papers. But I gave him
BUY EARLY WHEN STOCK IS COMPLETE another $20 bill f r o m my
YECpocket money, which I carried
concealed in a gambler's belt,
and he left for Frank's to cop
some "jones" for himself.
On Friday night Darryl
made certain I met our pros-
R0 pective customers. They drive
C up in shiny cars just out of
the car wash, Mercedes and
126S.63 Triumphsand even one Con-
tinental, 15 to 20 carloads a
weekend, Darryl guaranteed
me.
s 4A 0 .^ #40*6t .Agd .A 40^ ;+- , Ay. A* k . They wear leather-fringed
veSts_ headbands and boots.
wing to the suburbs
They
Review
Films,
Dont
They.)
She
ing
spur
gently pushes the needle, feel-
for his vein. A geyser of blood
is up. "Oh God, that's good," he
sighs.
rands. He also rented s o m e
extra syringes and needles
and helped one girl get off for
the first time.
She is about 16 with san-
dy straight hair, a model's
face and long legs. She has
a long ugly birthmark on
one arm and she pulls back
in shame when Darryl rolls
up her sleeve.
"Hey, what did you shoot
to get that, kerosene?" Dar-
ryl snorts.
She offers her other arm
and grimaces when Darryl
pokes at her with the need-
le. When her blood starts
dripping onto the floor, she
turns her back and counts
aloud, "one, two, one two."
Darryl probes deeper into
her arm until he is satisified
the needle is in her vein, not
through it. He squeezes the
bulb.
The girl sits frozen for
several minutes. Then she
gets up and picks up a
bloody wad of cotton and
tosses it into a waste basket.
She moans softly, stretches
out on the couch and begin
doing Debby Drake exercis-
es is slow motion, counting,
"one, two, one, two."
Darryl makes about $30
for the night's work. "Next
weekend we'll make 50 times
that," he promises.
Many of the kids wander
around the house. Two oth-
er junkies in the house are
also taking care of suburban
FRITZ METZGER'S
RESTAUR ANT
Imported and Local
2 Liquors
Dinner S-ecials
FEATURING ...g
Hassenpfeffer
Weiner Schnitzel
Kasseler Rippchen
A
v ~; iC , cbl. ttu f va
and carry $25 or $50 in bills.
Darryl and I made several
trips to Frank's with their
money to buy heroin. Darryl
always pocketed a couple
bucks in exchange for his er-
Put some heroin
in a spoon, add
water and heot
By NEAL GABLER
The New York Times building stands dirty
gray on Manhattan's 43rd Street, austere mas-
ter over neondelic Times Square. It is solid and
proper, West 43rd Street's fortress against the
Square's pop impiety. Like all fortresses it has
guards: two at the door in police-like uniforms
with silver badges and visored caps, a third in the
City Room foyer in suit and tie, and a large por-
trait of one of the Ochs or Sulzbergers hangs
vigil as a final check.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans, includ-
ing just about everyone of any influence, depend
upon The Times for news and opinion. When The
Times talks, people listen. Even the White House.
The Times can make or break you, as a politician
or a stockbroker - or an artist. Clive Barnes can
still level a Broadway show with a few mighty
blasts from his typewriter.
None of this is lost on the employes, who car-
ry on the glorious tradition with reverant ser-
vility. But the preoccupation with the monolith-
ic Times can sap an entire department and kill a
writer's spirit. There was a time when a pan could
decimate a film's box office receipts. Who cares
what The Times thinks about a movie now?
"Movie reviewing is a rough business," sighs
A. H. 'Abe' Weiler. Forty years at The Times and
he's still reviewing fourth-string trips like Trog,
Witchcraft and The Computer Wore T e n n i s
Shoes. Years ago back at CCNY, Weiler hoped for
a medical career but somewhere his ambition got
derailed and he's been at The Times ever since.
"I wouldn't recommend film reviewing to any-
one," Weiler says now. "It used to be adventure-
some, wonderful, exciting. Today, they tend more
and more toward the IBM concept. It's a sadness,
a real sadness."
"Hiring is a very drawn out process," says
Roger Greenspun, the Times' number two film
critic and newest member of the fraternity. "Af-
ter you're interviewed by the man who really
does the hiring, the metropolitan editor, a man
named Arthur Geld, and after he's sort of de-
cided in your favor, then you're interviewed by
half the staff of the Times. For my lowly job I
was interviewed by Salisbury, I wasn't interview-
ed by Reston but by his assistant, and then by
Abe Rosenthal who was at that time assistant
managing editor and has since become managing
editor, and by Clifton Daniel, who was at that
time managing editor and has since been kick-
ed upstairs, and by oneor two other people. So
you really go the rounds. It takes a long time,
about four months in my case."
Promotion is no less jealously guarded than
hirinu. Ask Weiler. He's survived all the critics,
Hall and Nugent in the thirties and Bosley Crow-
ther and Renata Adler, and while they've come
and gone he's been variously Sunday editor, mov-
ie editor and fourth string reviewer.
"Promotion works entirely on the whim of
management," Weiler grieves. "It's haphazard
actually; there is no way you can put your finger
on it. Lots of people ask: When Crowther left
why didn't you get the job?' I didn't get the job
because manageient never even informed me,
never even asked me, never even thought of me.
Maybe they did think of me. Maybe they were
thinking, 'Well, we don't want some guy who's
been here this long.' You can't take these things
to bed with you every night. You'll go crazy."
In the beginning (1940) and for 27 years
thereafter, there was Bosley Crowther. Crowther
had, in fact, been around so long that he man-
aged to stake himself out a little duchy in the em-
pire, a duchy ruled by what Andrew Sarries call-
ed "consensus power" meaning most of the peo-
ple who read the Times agreed with him. Ac-
cording to Vincent Canby, who sits now in Crow-
ther's chair, the movie industry "was trying to
get Bosley fired every week. He was tough, and
he had a terrible reputation with the film com-
panies. They circulated stories t h a t he was a
Communist, if not a Communist, a spy, or that
he was left-wing. Awful stories. United Artists
pulled their ads at least once that I remember
because of his review of Trapeze."
But when the Sixties rolled around,-doubts
arose in some quarters as to whether the movie
duke had kept pace with the kandy-colored-tan-
gerine-flake-streamlined-
Bonnie and Clyde was r
1967, Crowther answered
Penn to task for the film's
Bonnie and Clyde weren't
sisted in four reviews of t
ic put it, "At the end of h
curious position where he
a major disagreement. Sc
ence for going to Bonnie a
What happened next,
people claim Crowther u
those years and that he
long before the Bonnie
flared. "There are other
management was tired c
don't know who's right c
"Film reviewir
adventuresomc
Today, they to
more toward 1
cept. It's a so
sadness."
that he was aware he w
with things. I don't think
I know that there were
tors, who are no longer i
solutely despised him. B
those editors didn't like
with him as a film crit
about film criticism and
was out of tune or not.'
In any case, Crowther
aging editor Clifton Dan'
New Yorker political ess
Crowther's successor. Ad
man, educated at the Sort
Continued
Complete Take-Out
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