Mischief Makers

This is the place for random thoughts...right? Hm-m-m
This may not be so random as I have thought about it quite a bit.
Lights on...lights off. Doors locked...doors unlocked. Elevator on...elevator off. Radio off...radio on. Water running...I didn't touch it! Items found in remote places. Coins found dropped in certain areas. (They tell me that is an attention thing.) Now the baby cry mentioned before makes sense since we discovered that Brick lived here with his family for a while. I'm thinking...just maybe...what seems like mischief may be playing with things they didn't have in 'the day'... Well, not at our level anyway. More like toys. They were a happy bunch. That we know for sure. Any thoughts?

Columbia Theater
406 W Third StDavenport IA
Demolished: 1967
Also Known As: Esquire
Originally a vaudeville house, the Columbia was extensively remodeled into a movie house in 1940. The building was demolished in 1967 to make way for a parking lot for the Kahl Building across the street, which houses the Capitol Theatre.

Sophie Admires Bix

by Rolla Chalupa. Davenport.
While he was still in high school, Bix played in the orchestra at the Columbia Theater some nights and always on weekends. When Sophie Tucker ("last of the Red Hot Mamas") came to town she was always the star of the show - and what an elegant lady and good sport she was. Every time she's come out to take her bow, she'd point out Bix and introduce him as "the greatest trumpet player in the world" and he was just a high school kid. Whenever Sophie was on for the afternoon matinee, Bix would play hooky and always buy a box seat and sit there alone for the show. And as soon as she went off, Principal Marshall would march up to the box seat, take Bix by the ear and lead him back to school. It happened several times and always brought down the house. I'd heard about it and a couple of buddies and I played hooky to see it. Sure enough, Mr. Marshall took Bix by the ear. But he understood Bix and enjoyed the joke, and he was never punished.

The Shimmy Queen

From February 27 through March 2, 1921, Bee Palmer and Company played at Davenport, Iowa’s Columbia Theater. According to Esten Spurrier, he and a young Bix Beiderbecke, both budding cornetists, attended every single one of these shows and listened to the great music. The New Orleans men were among the top young jazz musicians, and Pecora and Roppolo were to become legendary.On March 3, 1921, before Bee and her band left Davenport for Peoria, she secretly married her pianist Al Siegel in a midnight ceremony at a judge’s office in the local Masonic Temple. On the marriage license application, Al gave his age as 24 and Bee gave hers as 23. She was actually 27. The Davenport Democrat and Leader reported that Bee “evidenced all the confusion and embarrassment of the unsophisticated school-girl bride and seemed extremely happy when the ceremony had ended.” The bride sported a large purple hat instead of the typical veil.
Bee introduced and is sometimes credited as a writer of one of the most popular "leavin'" songs ever written: Please Don't Talk about Me When I'm Gone In any case the Shimmy was immensely popular in the 1920's and served as the inspiration for the popular song If I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (A. J. Piron, 1922). Bee was sometimes referred to as "the Shimee-She-Wabble Girl".
On First Looking into Bee Palmer's Shoulders
by Franklin P. Adams. With bows to Keats andKeith's
["The World's Most Famous Shoulders"]
Then I felt like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent upon a peak in Darien."
MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of jazz,
And many goodly arms and shoulders seen
Quiver and Quake--if you know what I mean;
I've seen a lot, as everybody has.
Some plaudits got, while others got the razz.
But when I saw Bee Palmer, shimmy queen,
I shook--in sympathy--my troubled bean,
And said, "This is the utter razmatazz."
Then felt I like some patient with a pain
When a new surgeon swims into his ken,
Or like stout Brodie, when, with reeling brain,
He jumped into the river. There and then
I swayed and took the morning train
To Norwalk, Naugatuck, and Darien.

Brick's Place