Medford mail tribune., April 12, 1936, Page 19, Image 19

tJ r-i ,VMl-e!l: Tll :
vSfflSQty BUD LAN DIS liV.r1 ' '-- .'tJ&r
BUD: Our first contestant is Tom Foolery. Step
up to the "mike," Tom don't be nervous.
Amateur: I'm kind of upset because I heard
they're going to cut out amateur hours.
Bud: Nonsense. Amateuring is one of the coun
try's leading industries.
Amateur: Just the same, they tell me the Noise
Abatement commission has cracked down on the
idea.
Bud: Set yourself at ease. The N. A. C. has been
declared unconstitutional -it had to abolish itself.
Amateur: No sound value, eh?
Bud: 'At's the stuff! now you're beginning to
get amateurish. Keep up those snappy come-backs.
Amateur: That one wasn't in the script. I made
it up out of njy own head ...
Bud: Maybe you'll have enough left over to
make a wooden rocker.
Amateur: Wait a minute, now. Let me take
them comedy lines. But why was the noise abat
ing movement done away with?
Bud: Because noise actually drowns out sound.
Amateur: You mean, the quieter it is the better
you can hear?
Bud: Exactly. Let me demonstrate. We'll trans
fer controls down to the street. Listen . . .
Sound: (Street noises . . . car bells . . . horns
. . . newsboys shouting . . . etc.)
Bud: There did you hear it?
Amateur: Hear what?
Bud: That baby crying down there on the curb.
Amateur: No, but I heard a lot of other hubbub.
Bud: That's just the point. I'll have the young
ster brought up here to do his. stuff again, but this
time without the background noises. Now Baby,
if you please
Sound: (Kid yelling at the top of its lungs).
Bud: Hear it?
Amateur: Hear it! Boy, that's enough to drive
you nuts!
Bud: Well, this is election year. You don't think
they're going to cut out harmless amateur chatter
and let a lot of political acoustics clutter up the
air, do you?
Amateur: I guess not. Can I go ahead with my
number then?
Bud: Sure what'll it be?
Amateur: The amateur's voting song: "I'm
going to sit right down and write myself a letter."
MYSTERY SHIPS
The U. S. S. Cycbps
v Naval Collier That
Vanished During War
An Eskimo might be expected to feel slightly out of place in the South Seas and Mala certainly dldl Particularly
when a movie script calied for him to do a hula. Upper left Is Mala with Lotus Long, leading lady In the South
Seas film; upper right. Mala as he appeared in "Igloo," a picture in which he was quite at home. Below, typical
scene on a tropical isle where Mala made his debut as a hula dancer.
South Seas Movie Forced Mala To Do
Hot Hula - Now He's Tame Eskimo!
Whole Polynesian Village Had The Laugh Of It's Life At His Efforts To Solve Mysteries Of
The Shimmy; Now He's Anxious To Get Back To Arctic Home!
MALA, a 21-year-old Eskimo, who, only a year
aeo herdod reindeer over the cheerless hnr-
OT IN ONE instance, but several, have great
KIC
I N wheels of light appeared below the surface of
the sea. In 1909. in the Straits of Malacca, reported
by the steamer Bintang; and in the South China
Sea, 1901, reported by the Valcntijn.
The tremendous wheels radiated a bright light
like Neon illumination on a black night. One of
them was so large that only half of it could be
observed at once its hub touching the horizon.
The wheels rotated, moving forward not away
from, but toward the ships.
The center, the spokes, the entire wheel was like
, a hjige whirling body that had sunk into the ocean.
It seemed to touch bottom. In one case the display
lasted for ."5 minutes, in the other about 15
minutes.
Reports estimated the speed of movement to be
about 80 miles an hour that is, the velocity of
the spokes.
Samples of water were drawn up, but showed no
phosphorescence. In each case the sky was clear,
with no electrical disturbance to account for the
weird manifestations.
Have you a reasonable explanation for this
phenomenon?
ren wastes of the Arctic, pulled fish from the icy
waters of the Bering Sea and joyously swirled the
lash over the furry backs of his sturdy malamutes,
is back in Hollywood from the tropical, hibiscus
laden islands of the South Seas, a thoroughly sub
dued and chastened young man.
His tropical adventure, which began with so
much promise, almost became his undoing. And
all because his employers, M-G-M Studios, required
Mala to do a hula dance in a grass skirt in Papeete
while a whole village of Polynesians looked on
and laughed until the tears came to their eyes!
"And that," confided the black-haired Eskimo,
without a glimmer of a smile, "took what you call
'the starch' out of me."
THE youthful brave, dark skinned, proud and in
scrutable, is taking hja "downfall" seriously.
"We Eskimos do not dance, as a rule," he re
lated. "We are a suppressed people. We do not show
our emotions in any way, because we are of the
red-skinned tribes. We have httle laughter and
little song in our lives.
"I don't recall, as a youngster, ever dancing or
seeing a dance in my home village, Kotzebue,
Alaska, which is 50 miles north of the Arctic
Circle. I only know what it means to wear clothes
of reindeer skins, a parka that smells of stale fur
and hard, high boots of hide.
"I am familiar only with the crunch of snow
and ice under, my feet. The swish of the sea in
Bering Straits lulled me to sleep. The fights of my
husky dogs furnished me with excitement, and
the habits of the reindeer as they searched for
feed on the barren plains claimed my entire atten
tion. "So, when I went down to Tahiti and was re
quired to make love to a young girl in my picture,
'The Last of the Pagans'; to beat a im-tom; to
doll my hair in ribbons; don a grass skirt and
wiggle my hips before hundreds of laughing Poly
nesians the very people who originated the South
Sea dances I tell you, it took something out of
me. I just can't explain what I mean. But I feel
different that's all."
MALA sat quietly, his face impassive.
It was apparent he considered his dance un
becoming to a man of the Arctic. He who had bat
tled whales with his sharpened spear and who con
quered the icy North in his stride in a grass skirt,
dancing the hula!
After a silence, he continued.
"They are a marvelous people, those Polynesians.
They are exactly opposite in nature from the Es
kimos. We live within ourselves. They live with
out. They are laughing, dancing, singing all the
time. We are reserved and cold.
"They tell us what they are thinking. The Es
kimo says nothing. Those Polynesian girls down
there are lovely, but " He stopped. A look of
apprehension flashed across his impassive counte
nance. "No, no, I almost got into trouble , . , please
say nothing about me and the girls, please. . . ."
Mala appeared so distressed, the promise was
given.
But if the girls were a matter of er conse
quence, so was the food Mala had to eat.
"I am accustomed to eating fish," he went on,
"and in fact I have taken fish out of the Bering
Sea ever since I was 4 years old.
"But when in Tahiti they served me raw fish
in cocoanut milk, it almost made me sick. Ba
nanas, too, were given us every meal. We had
bananas boiled, bananas fried in butter made of
goat's milk, and bananas raw. After the second
week I skipped them and lived on mangoes."
QOR five long months Mala lived in the Islands.
When he wasn't working and making love be
fore the camera to Lotus Long, a California act
ress, who is said to be Chinese, French and Ameri
can, he was playing in the surf with his new
found friends, the Island natives.
The Polynesians were delighted with the Es
kimo's skill at handling a boat, but were somewhat
disappointed because he could not swim as fast
under water as they could.
At the termination of his stay, a great feast
was tendered to the entire M-G-M company. Wild
boar was served and the hula maidens were turned
. loose in force to do their best.
Now that he is back and "at leisure" in Holly
wood, Mala plans on going back to his native
Alaskan village, Kotzebue, some time this summer
to tell his folks of his experiences.
His village holds 2000 inhabitants in the sum
mer. Because it affords grazing for the reindeer
herds which the U. S. government presented to
the village, as it did to other villages in the Arctic
Circle area, only 300 people reside there in winter.
M ALA'S home folks his father's name is Wise
live on reindeer meat, whale meat and flsffi
The squaws make the clothing for the household
out of reindeer hides, and while some of Mala's
neighbors still live in igloos, his own family, he
says, lives in a frame dwelling.
He attended a government school, but by ven
turing beyond the confines of his own village, he
learned to speak the dialect of 17 different tribes.
Because of his skill as an interpreter, Mala was
taken by Knud Rassmussen, Arctic explorer, to
Siberia for the purpose of obtaining data on a
little-known tribe of Eskimos.
There, the explorer and his guide fell under the
suspicions of the Russians and were jailed. It was
not until some internal trouble broke out in the
Siberian village in which they were interned, thus
giving Russian officials more trouble than they
could handle, that Mala and his companion were
released.
The two left Siberia in the explorer's boat, mak
ing their way to Nome. It was at Nome that Mala
got the urge to expand his adventures to the
States. Landing at San Francisco with his scanty
savings, the Eskimo found his money did not last
lone in civilization.
With his last few dollars he boarded a bus for
UNCLE SAM'S Navy would like to know what
happened to the U. S. 8. Cyclops sometime in
March, 1918. Today she is counted another obscure
mystery of the sea. One of the growing list of
complete marine disappearances which leave no
vestige of evidence behind.
A naval collier, the Cyclops was not an ordinary
cargo vessel. She was a unit of the United States
Navy, used to bring manganese from Brazil a
big ship of 19,000 tons carrying capacity. She was
sturdy, well constructed fulfilling an unromantic
routine of service, of "orders carried out" with no
undue incidents. Her officers and men were highly
trained, as efficient and experienced as any in the
fleet.
' Her last voyage was brief too short to leave
anything but the riddle of incomprehensible dis
aster. On March 4, she anchored at Barbados, British
West Indies, to take on coal. On the 13th she was
due home. She topped the gray horizon, disappeared
in the morning mist was never seen again. The
K1
1 a m
personnel represented 20 officers, 57 passengers, a
crew of 213. All we're lost,
BECAUSE one of her engines was Injured, the
Cyclops was traveling at reduced speed. This
did not incapacitate her, but she was forced to
make slower time. Once out of Barbados, no radio
message suggested that she was in trouble. No
information could be obtained from her by wire
less. Silence had swallowed her, blotted out her
SOS if she sent one.
The entire region was searched for months with
out result. The big collier, with officers, passengers
and crew, was set down among the vanished ships.
It was noted at the time that it was in these waters
that the Navy lost the frigate Insurgente, a prize
taken from the French a century before. This ves
sel, too, was lost in the same mysterious fashion.
It was more than strange that the Cyclops did
not communicate by wireless, if she was in dis
tress. Some tremendous explosion may have des
troyed the wireless outfit at once. Yet an explosion
from a bomb would have certainly left wreckage
on the sea. I
After the war, rumor said that German spies had
smuggled an infernal machine aboard. But noth
ing has been proved. The ,end of the U. 8. 8. Cy
clops is still unknown.
Hollywood. There for several .weeks he lived on
money obtained from pawning his fur clothing
clothing, he discovered, utterly useless In the
sunshine of California.
At the casting office of M-G-M, Mala was
brought to the attention of some of the studio
officials. Later he was signed for his first picture,
"Igloo."
Assured of success, he went Into court at Los
Angeles and secured permission to change his
name from Wise to Mala.
"The court said I hnd to have a given name,
also," the Eskimo explained, "so I took the name
of Ray, although I never use it."
Mala is six feet tall, weighs 175 pounds and is
sfngle.
"And when I want a wife," he added, "I'll
back to the Arctic to get her."
PAOt THHEE-