Reminiscence

Yesterday in commenting on an odd little story of a man who fell in a vat of chocolate I referred, perhaps obscurely, to a selection on an old, old record, The Two Sides of the Smothers Brothers. The first cut on that record is Chocolate.

I fell in a vat of chocolate
I fell in a vat of chocolate
I fell in a vat of chocolate
La-dee-do-da-la-dee-do-di-day.

I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate
I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate
I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate
La-dee-do-da-la-dee-do-di-day.

Why’d you yell fire when you fell into the chocolate?
Tom, why’d you yell fire when you fell into the chocolate?
I yelled fire cause no one wouild save me if I yelled “Chocolate!”
La-dee-do-da-la-dee-do-di-day.

Hadn’t thought of that in a lot of years. Odd, isn’t it, how one memory cascades into another? That song made me think of the record, the record made me think of Gaslight Square and the Crystal Palace, and Gaslight Square made me think of Frank Moskus.

Back in the 1950’s and early 1960’s Gaslight Square in St. Louis was a little area full of bars and nightclubs. And it was famous.

The Crystal Palace was the center of Gaslight Square and some of the best, most outrageous, most creative acts in the country used to appear there. Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, Nichols and May (Mike Nichols and Elaine May appeared together in a sketch comedy act for many years), Jackie Mason, Woody Allen, Dick Gregory, Phyllis Diller, and Lenny Bruce all appeared there at one time or another.

And the Smothers Brothers. The first six tracks on the album above were recorded live at The Crystal Palace.

My mom and dad spent some of their regular weekly date nights out (away from us kids) in Gaslight Square. They heard the Smothers Brothers there and, soon after, we had the record.

One of the bars in Gaslight Square was owned by a high school classmate of my mom’s, Frank Moskus. Was it the Gaslight Bar?

Gaslight Square died in the 1960’s, a victim of drugs and crime and, I guess, the changing times.

When Gaslight Square died, Frank opened up a new bar, the Frank Moskus In Exile Bar and it was there that I first met him thirty years or more ago. At the In Exile Frank held court most evenings, telling stories, playing the piano, singing songs, entertaining and being entertained by the patrons. I have vague recollections of his playing the piano while I sang show tunes.

Frank’s wife, Jan (Jan Mahannah Moskus), had exotic good looks and danced. IIRC she also taught belly-dancing.

The first time I took my now-wife to visit my mom in St. Louis I think we all went down to the In Exile. My mom and Frank reminisced about high school where they’d been in choir together under the direction of Bertie Hilb of whom they both spoke fondly and with respect and gratitude. Jan’s belly-dancing class performed for the bar patrons. Frank told stories, sang, and played the piano.

Frank’s gone now. Here’s an obit. I think that Jan is a minister in Baton Rouge. But I still remember the Frank Moskus In Exile and I’m sure my mom remembers the old Gaslight Bar, the Crystal Palace, and Gaslight Square.

I don’t have a picture of Frank as I remember him: big, burly, bearded, good-looking and with an amazing smile. I do, however, have his high school senior picture. Same good looks. Same smile.

Here’s a link to one of Frank’s stories.