I’m All Lost In, #116: If Orpheus had a hit single in 1958; the antisemitic lady in the hotel lobby; the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
I’m All Lost In…
The 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.
#116
1) Susie Darlin’
I had to add a song to my already-definitive early rock & roll playlist this week; a lo-fi guitar-driven doo-wop-meets-rockabilly jam called Susie Darlin’.
It’s by a one-hit wonder named Robin Luke. I’d never heard of Luke nor his 1958 hit. Luke wrote and recorded this hiccuping, haunting love gem while he was still a Honolulu high school student; it went to No. 1 in Hawaii, No. 5 nationally, and was certified gold. As legend has it: A local record producer/label owner named Bob Bertram recorded Luke in a makeshift recording studio set up in Bertram’s apartment.
Over electric guitar, bass, and Bertram providing rhythm by tapping a pen, Luke’s flamenco ukulele floats from the 1 to the minor 6, the foundation of the instantly-poignant “50s-ice-cream-shoppe” progression. And with that, Luke’s echo-drenched vocal pleads: “I stood a-cryin' all night long/I stood a-cryin' all night long/Cryin' and wishin' you'd come back to me…”
You get the idea.
Though if you don’t, Luke goes all in on the Heartbreak Hotel posture: “Oh-uh, Susie darlin'/I thought that you knew…”
The mystical doo-wop-meets-rockabilly jam, Robin Luke’s 1958 hit, Susie Darlin’.
Susie Darlin’ is reminiscent of other hits from the era. Ritchie Valens’ Donna (also 1958, but Susie Darlin’ came out a few months earlier.) Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue-strum or Words of Love-sads. And 1954’s Earth Angel [I’m All Lost In, #104, 10/12/25 and I’m All Lost In, #33, 6/1/24]. But mostly Robin Luke’s Susie Darlin’ sounds like Orpheus crooning over a plucked lyre in the Underworld.
I used Susie Darlin’ as a prompt for a playlist this week, generating a pleasing set of 1950s teen laments. But none of the subsequent songs could match Luke’s charmed moment. I kept re-starting the experiment, not so much to find more great doo-wop, but just to hear Susie Darlin’ again and gain.
Planning to drop this new discovery on my friends at New-Year’s-Eve karaoke while visiting Brooklyn this holiday, I walked down Grand St. a few hours beforehand singing along with Robin Luke. I was trying to memorize his vocals. I didn’t end up performing it, though. I opted for some other songs I’ve been meaning to add to my repertoire for a while now: Aztec Camera’s Birth of the True; Fugazi’s ballad I’m So Tired; Generation X’s Kiss Me Deadly; and perhaps most similar to Susie Darlin’, the mystical epic Madame George, the centerpiece to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks LP.
2) The Antisemitic Lady in the Hotel Lounge
Just another day in the the Trump era. When trickle down bullying has given people permission to be openly hateful.
I was sitting in the lounge at my hotel in SoHo late last Friday night when two tipsy women, a lesbian couple from the south, shambled in with a large pizza. They asked if I wanted any, and we settled in to the kind of throw-scruples-to-the-wind chatting only drunk tourists can enjoy.
It was funny listening to the younger woman, probably 40, tease her partner, who was my age, about their deserted sex life. But then we drifted into politics. And when the my-age lady said she supported Trump, I rolled my eyes, told her I was a Jew and had a thing against president’s who give Nazi speeches. This is when the younger woman’s mask came off. She told me, as if I owed her some personal apology, that she didn’t like Jews. By way of explanation she added: You think you’re the chosen people. I looked to my fellow Gen Xer (yes, she was a Trumper, but at least she grew up when I did, a time when people agreed racist assaults were gross and what the fuck was wrong with her girlfriend). The older woman looked embarrassed, but didn’t say a word.
The hotel lobby bathroom, 12/26/25.
I said something about my George Soros check and how I controlled the media. The younger lady pressed on in earnest: Yes yes, you do. The Jews control everything.
Back in my room I stewed wishing I’d leaned into a fight rather than brushing her off. Something like, Jews might think of themselves as the Bible’s chosen people (this was the thing she seemed fixated on), but how does that affect you? Meanwhile, the rest of us now have to live our lives wary of a Christian Nationalist government that’s actually pushing and implementing Christian Nationalist policy such as dismantling the separation of church and state, banning books, doing away with civil rights, outlawing abortion, crushing LGBTQ rights (didn’t these women say they were lesbians), and terrorizing non-whites.
3) The International Tennis Hall of Fame, Newport, Rhode Island
The Hall of Famers’ Gallery, International Tennis Hall of Fame, Newport, RI, 12/30/25
Dateline Newport, RI. A 19th-century manor on Newport’s Gilded-Age row hosts the not-as epic International Tennis Hall of Fame. The museum volleys between sometimes Grand Slam and sometimes challenger-level quality.
The International Tennis Hall of Fame, 12/30/25
Seven-time Grand Slam champion Evonne Goolagong’s 1975 fit, 12/30/25.
Located up-a-Victorian-staircase and laid out over a series of posh rooms, the museum features some incongruently low-budget exhibits that often amount to nothing more than ticket stubs, programs, and faded newspaper clippings. Or randomly donated racquets, sneakers, and fits such as Evert’s, Rafa’s, Borg’s, Sabalenka’s, Rybakina’s, and Evonne Goolagong’s. There’s also some head-fake “reproductions” of Billie Jean King’s dress and Suzanne Lenglen’s bandeau. And there’s memorabilia like Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson Wheaties boxes. At first I thought these were Civil Rights-era treasures. But symbolic of the ITHF’s hit-or-miss experience, turns out the Wheaties boxes were special “collector’s editions” from the late ‘90s and early 2000s.
On the other hand, there are some well-crafted and inspiring exhibits in these stately rooms: A substantive presentation on Althea Gibson herself; hi-def installations including restored footage of timeless 1950s champion Poncho Gonzales in action; a reverent and moving presentation about the Grand Slams hosted by Roger Federer; a hushed, elegant room honoring the museum’s 270 inductees with golden racquets, plaques, and videos; and displays of antique equipment like an 1876 racquet bending machine.
Antique equipment housed at the ITHF, 12/30/25
My ITHF visit was an excuse to take my use-it-or-lose-it PTO for a much-needed end-of-the-year getaway. I was committed to the conceit. I arrived shortly after the museum’s 10 am-opening-time on a frigid northeast Atlantic morning. But my shoulders sank. A) The museum’s library, where I’d tried to schedule some research time in advance, was closed without notice. Bummer. Tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg reports that the museum’s research library (and accompanying vault for the museum’s extensive collection) is the magic ingredient at the ITHF. Along with the knowledgeable docents “the overflow of items is only matched by the enthusiasm the curators and archivists have for the tennis history they safeguard and celebrate,” Rothenberg wrote in late 2024. Rothenberg’s post is what set me on the course to schedule this trip in the first place. B) Under the impression that the museum was big deal—I bought my ticket online well in advance—I was deflated to discover no queue at the door and, with the exception of two halfhearted parents and three antsy kids in tow, I was the only visitor. C) I was frustrated by the inconsistency of the collection. Wow. There’s the pair of powder blue Adidas that Billie Jean King wore at the historic 1973 “Battle of the Sexes.” But then there were the VR goggles, supposedly loaded with footage of Arthur Ashe’s 1968 U.S. Open run, that didn’t work.
After leaving the ITHF and the off-point, hoodie-forward gift shop next door that was subbing for the museum’s actual store (closed today), I segued into a laughing fit. I had flown across country to NYC, taken the five-hour Amtrak to Providence, and then an hour-and-a-half local bus route to Newport. After collecting myself, I retreated to a local tavern for lunch. Then I went back to my Airbnb, a colonial lodging house, for a catnap.
When I woke up revived at 3 o’clock, I was ready for another visit to the ITHF. The second serve was better. Perhaps because there were several attentive gaggles checking out the exhibits right alongside me.
On this follow-up I was struck by the vintage Gonzales footage; by the well-researched patience of the hall-of-famer presentations (I watched a compelling interview with two-time grand slam champion and 2019 inductee Li Na); the equal weight given to the men and women’s tours and their respective story lines; and similarly, the balanced focus on all eras of the 150-year-old sport. An 1882 photo from the second U.S. Open of motley ball kids looking like the Fagin gang of my-poetry-sequence-aspirations [I’m All Lost In, #103, 10/4/25] made me gasp.
Ball Kids, 1882. ITHF, 12/30/25.