Miss (Ruth) Brown To You

IT HURTS the heart to have to drive by the remains of the Parisian Room, festering in the summer sun like some fenced-off sore on the corner of Washington and La Brea. This little treasure chest of a club once played proud host to a nation's worth of jazz and blues giants, opening its doors to all sorts of triumphant American sounds. But no more. By a cruel quirk, the United States postal system has bought the land, and they're going to scrape the place and stick up some squatty splat-of-a-building to sell stamps and make people stand in line. Still, they'll never get my money. I just don't think I could stand being abused by a frustrated screenwriter sunlighting as a postal clerk on the same ground where people like Ruth Brown once reigned supreme.