Evening star., 1942-04-21

entertain muSically are notorious
for their consumption Of mileage.
which. ordinarily. amounts TO tre-
mendous figures season In and sea-
son out. Theirs Is line OF duty
whose dictates are forever harsh
and unbending: One night In Po-
dunk. the next in Squash Center;
airplane and train. bus and hayrick.
eat on the run. sleep on the run
and play on the run, with perhaps.
indigestion tearing within and
pockets under the eyes shaking
without. Theirs Is the epitonne of
unsettled living at its most horrible,
and they know It,
On the other hand, some musical
performers are born lovers Of the
road-Richard Halliburtons, as 1t
were. with songs In their mouths
as well as in their hearts. Such a
one is to be found right here in the
city. In Restaurant s23, as q mat
ter OF fact--Van Taylor.
Every year about this time Mr..
Taylor finds an urge yelling up
within his generously proportioned
frame, an urge ike that Of the
Jennings which leap periodically
into the sea OF course. Mr.. Taylor
is very fond Of his present loca-
ton, so he refuses TO submit TO
those little inner whisperings. Be
sides, the routes he would prefer
to travel are currently being eyed
by submarines, the wrong kind. But
Van Taylor can at least blow smoke
rings over Singapore, Panama.
Shanghai and B. A." for Buenos
Aires.
Van comes by his infatuation for
the open road and sea lanes nat
urally. For at q very tender age in
his native strand of Louisiana he
joined q ChautauQua; and every one
knows that a Chautauqua Is not
stationary thing. What he didn't
see of Louisiana and the Southwest
as boy soprano with that agency
simply wasn't worth the brass in his
accompanies trombone. Although
there was one occasion year or so
later when a bewhiskered old South
ern gentleman of a stranger picked
him up one day and showed him
everything historical and scenic
there was to see in New Orleans.
Then Van started moving on his
own.
He first landed In Venice, where
he sang with q get-together col
lege band from the States. Those
were the days before Mussolint
had begun getting some of his
bright ideas, so the time the boys |
had among the boats and Venetian
was good. In unchron-
oligcal order, Mr.. Taylor proceeded
to Rio, the city of the mosaic side
walks, sugar loaf and million taxi
cabs; to Buenos Aires, where the
strut colorfully but every
thing else seems quite like our own
big cities; Shanghai. with its con-
fusion of odors, Eurasian dancing
girls and just plain confusion. And
there were other stop-offs.
Asked by a romance-crammed
spectator If he has ever witnessed
q Juicy night club brawl or at least |
one little stabbing In these ro-
mantle metropoh, Mr.. Taylor re-
plies in patient boredom that he
never did, why? And mumbles
about people reading too
many novels.
There was one place in the Canal
Zone, however, where the rotund, |
cigar -puffing baritone found sur
of some exceptional color |
''Maymie's Ritz" it was called; and |
1t was operated by character |
named Maymie, whose last name |
ever knew. Maymie was
a humanitarian, it appears, on |
whose shoulders any one passing |
by could weep. All he had to do |
was pull up a chair, order a drink |
and summon Maymie. She would |
always lean her elbows on the same
table and sympathize with the tale |
of woe, whatever it was. If the
guy needed few dollars to carry |
him over, she would even supply |
that, II his story sounded con-
vincing.
Like one of those swell old char
acters you see in the movies" Van |
muses.