The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1932)

January, 1932 The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER Thirteen and politicians what is posin for the photogs, after gettin off the same soft coal speedwagon he is on, he looks around for Pat McCarthy. . . . Finally he asks one of the photogs if he knows his new film burner. Enters Speakeasy "Oh, Mac? Sure, jest left him over at Chester's place." And he scribbles the address on the back of a list of ole telephone numbers from yesterday's beauty contest assignment. Well, Rod doesn't know who this hombre Chester is, but he gets into one of these Chicago fender smashing buggies and rolls over to the address. He rings the bell and a guy with a nose like a Jonathan apple and wearin a apron comes to the door. So Roddy asks for "Mr. Pat McCarthy, the Screen Digest cameraman!" "Come in," says the old maestro of the beer tap and comb. . . . And Rod finds hisself for the first time in his life in one of these million monuments to the eighteenth amendment ... a speakeasy. Over at the bar sits a bird drinkin em straight and using beers for chasers (Ches calls em Truck Driver Specials) and Chester ambles up and says "Here is a guy to see you, Mac!" Rod puts the ole Manhattan fourflush into his stride and sticks out the ole mitt with the dialogue, "Glad to know you, Mr. McCarthy! I'm Roderick Giles, your new sound technician!" Mac kinda looks him over ala slow motion 8 to 1 and finally belches "What do you want me to do, sing Babv Shoes ? Sit down and have a drink." "What'll you have?" chimes in Chester like a automatic piano on the contact of a nickel. "Oh, I'll have a chocolate malted milk," snaps our hero (they was his favorite luxury). "And put a lily in it, Chester — nothins too good for a noise ketcher," sneers Mac. And so wuz born, or maybe it just kinda happened, the perfect team of the movie news snoopin industry. Settles Down Rod gets hisself a room and settles down in the chain store plan of homelife at the Y.M.C.A. . . . Nightly the good little boys who room with Roddy gather round the fireplace to listen to some baboon tell Horatio Alger tales. . . . Here wuz spent many a great night by the good little lads who had made their way to a big cruel city, spent in this nice atmosphere. It wuz just dandy, you know, sort of a nightly indoors corner Salvation Army meetin, only the bass drum wuz missin. They didn't eggsactly hold a collection because the Y.M.C.A. had other ways to get a donation from its inmates. Wun night Roddy is called on to tell how he had made his way up in the woild from nickel snatcher to sound technician. . . . Roddy even thrills hisself when he gives his own history of another small lad who made good in a big way. . . . He even mentions the queer critters his callin forces him to associate with. "Button Pushers! The poor guys what had to sell papers when they wuz kids and jest didn't have the breaks of book learnin". . . . He even flatters them a bit by sayin "Well, they have got guts." Maybe it is a pretty speech Rod makes to them hallroom boy pals of his sittin there before the burnin gas log, but how wuz Rod to know Pat McCarthy wuz to stray into that lobby that particular night to try to line up a story for Screen Digest on young kids learnin how to be life savers. Mac is jest hangin again the desk, waitin for the flat-chested guy they calls the physical director to sell him on the idea of the pitcher, when he looks over to the nightly gatherin which was applaudin a orator about to start a evenin . . . and Mac, bein a dyed in the wool news snooper, always took note of all birds he ran across in search of the stuff called human interest, what made his callin so dear to his gin-soaked heart. So it just happens that Mac's eyes pan over to a hero of the evenin of the lobby adventurer's, and the hero is none other than Mac's noise ketcher. ... So Mac just kinda forgets his mission as he sinks into a chair in a dark corner . . . and listens. Mac Blows Up "Well, the poor yap's gotta do sumpin to pass the nights away since he ain't hot on skirts!" thinks Mac and he really enjoys this noise ketcher of his and feels proud so dumb a hombre could entertain a crowd of guys even if only in a Y.M.C.A. lobby ... but when Roddy gets down to mentionin cameramen and the way he draws a pitcher of em, Mac can stand it only so long and finally the Irish in him turns the blow torch on his blood when he ups and hollers across the room "Throw him a fish!" and he walks out. Well, evrybody looks around and wonders who the uncouth feller is . . . except Roddy. Mac's voice kinda sizzles into them two spaces where Rod parks the ear phones when on the job and it isn't wax in em that makes em tickle either. . . . Rod even forgets to take a bow. He just walks up to his room and he almost forgets the nightly fiery love epistle to his gum-chewin blond babe back home in Manhattan. The next mornin he sneaks into the joint which is almost home to Mac but to others it is the office. . . . Mac is already there and sumpin in his eyes tell Roddy everythin isn't jake eggsactly ... he wonders if maybe his oration on Button Pushers last night is stale beer to Mac . . . but no, Mac busts out: "Just had the ole man burn up the wires from New York . . .• said my interview with Al Capone which I finally got after two years of pluggin is ruined. . . . RUINED . . . and laff this off, you dumb dial twister! . . . RUINED . . . because there ain't one lisp of sound on it!" "Sure, I know that!" fires back our hero. ... "I could a tole you that the day we made it!" "What you mean!" screams Mac. Well, Roddy kinda gains his composure and he starts to explain, or maybe we should say, gets started on explainin. "Well, you see, I didn't like the way my mike wuz placed in the scene . . . so ... I just turned off the sound!" And all of a stidden everythin goes black before Rod . . . only this time he hasn't fainted like the day he got the job in the gallopin tintype industry. . . . This time sumpin hit him. "(To Be Continued — Maybe Soon) Rodd even thrills hisself when he gives his own history