Volume 2 — Whiz Bang Editorials

“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”

Audrey Munson, the darling of the studios, is telling the poor but patient public what gorgeous parties some of the artists have pulled off, and speaks breathlessly of champagne baths and rose-covered stairways. It is nothing new, Audrey; the ancients, in the matter of luxury and license, could knock any of the present day sports for a row of Chinese pagodas.

I have recently been engaged in reading two very interesting histories, the one of the rose, the other of the perfumes, in reading which I was deeply impressed with the fact that all the civilizations of the past, previous to their downfall, had their rose fetes, their festivals of flowers, their perfumed halls and extravagant balls and soirees. Before the fall of the Roman empire; the wealthy abandoned themselves to pleasure, luxury and licentiousness and such expressions as “living in the midst of roses” and “sleeping on a bed of roses” had a deep and tragic meaning. Seneca speaks of Smyndiride, who could not sleep if one of the rose petals with which his bed was spread, happened to be curled. Cicero alludes to the then prevailing custom among the Romans of reclining at the table on couches covered with roses. Ah, my jeweled buddies there were Adonises in those days!

When Cleopatra, the perfumed serpent of the Nile, went into Cilicia to meet Mark Antony, she gave him for several successive days a festival such as the gods themselves would not blush to participate in. She had placed in the banqueting hall twelve couches large enough to hold three guests. Purple tapestry interwoven with gold covered the walls, golden vases admirably executed and enriched with precious stones, stood on a magnificent gold floor. On the fourth day the queen caused the floor of the hall to be covered with roses to the depth of eighteen inches. These flowers were retained in a very fine net to allow the guests to walk over them.

Nero, the fiddler of burning Rome and the tyrant par excellence of his day, gave a fete on the gulf of Baiae when inns were established on the banks and ladies of noble blood played hostesses to the occasion, the roses alone costing more than four million of sesterces, or $100,000.

Before her downfall Rome could spend millions on her royal tables, support the dignity of a single senator at $80,000 a year, employ courts for sycophants and flatterers, impose taxes at the pleasure of her ruler, declare any complaint treason, marry her daughters for money and titles, employ notaries to attest the fatness of her banquet fowls, punish men with death for trivial offenses and make slaves and menials of the profoundest philosophers.

Considering their natural limitations, those old boys set a pace that would keep anybody hustling to keep up with them. The sports of several generations back might have been veritable hicks compared to the modern brand, but those of several centuries back didn’t take a back seat for none—and don’t yet!

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In the May issue of last year, when Whiz Bang was a baby in the magazine field, we published a poem famed over the West Coast, “The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band,” which we obtained after much effort from a former convict of San Quentin penitentiary, wherein this masterpiece was written. Within a week after the Whiz Bang, containing the first publication of this poem, reached San Francisco, that city had sold out every copy, and a day or two later none could be purchased from Canada to Mexico on the western slope. The Whiz Bang mail box was full every day with requests for more copies of the issue containing “The Blue Velvet Band.”

Consequently, we republished the poem in our October issue, which we also called our first Annual. The big rush of the May issue was repeated in October, and from that time on we have been flooded with requests for copies of the poem. One enthusiast offered us a ten spot if we’d have Gus, the hired man, copy the poem from our personal files for him.

This year we are making the Winter Annual a separate book, with four times as much reading matter. “The Blue Velvet Band,” the verse of the dope layout, the burglar and the inner walls of San Quentin. “Lasca,” the tale of the stampede, “The Face on the Bar-room Floor,” and “Johnnie and Frankie,” are some of the poems scheduled for the “Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22” in October.

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Probably a Boxing Match

She (just back from Paris): “I can’t go to this dance tonight, my trunks haven’t arrived.”

He: “Good Lord, what kind of a dance do you think this is going to be?”

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If you interfere between man and wife, remember this, that they will be friends again and you won’t.