The Choirboys (book)
Encyclopedia
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
officer-turned-novelist Joseph Wambaugh
Joseph Wambaugh
Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. is a bestselling American writer known for his fictional and non-fictional accounts of police work in the United States...
. In 1995 the novel was selected by the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
as Number 93 of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time
The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time
The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time is a list published in book form in 1990 by the British-based Crime Writers' Association. Five years later, the Mystery Writers of America published a similar list entitled The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time...
.
The Choirboys is a tragicomic parody about the effects of urban police work on young officers, seen through the exploits of a group of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
police officers in the Wilshire Division of the Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
.
A group of ten patrol officers on the nightwatch
Shift work
Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of the 24 hours of the clock. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts....
conducts end-of-shift get-togethers they euphemistically call "choir practices" (possibly to hide their true nature from superiors but actually a sardonic reference). These "choir practices" almost always involve heavy drinking, complaints about their superior officers, and war stories
War Stories
"War Stories" is the tenth episode of the science fiction television series Firefly created by Joss Whedon.Angered at Zoe's unshakable war connection to Mal, Wash demands a shot at a field assignment...
(and, occasionally, group sex with a pair of lusty, overweight barmaids). They hold the choir practices in MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park is a park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, named after General Douglas MacArthur and designated city of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #100.- Geography :...
because it is in another division's territory and "one does not shit in one's own nest."
Each of the officers is disillusioned, to varying degrees, that many of the people they're paid to protect are not unlike the suspects they arrest, and that the ridiculous regulations of their department are onerously enforced on them while their commanders (without skills in police work) indulge themselves hypocritically. Wambaugh's portrayals of the ten officers are stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s of varied types found in police departments in the 1970's, albeit well-drawn, but his most cutting descriptions are saved for the brutal "black-glove officer," Roscoe Rules. The theme of police officer suicide, which runs through many of Wambaugh's books, provides a grim undercurrent to the black humor of the novel and suggests a sub-conscious motivation for their activities.
The final choir practice ends with the accidental shooting death of a gay teenager by one of the officers. The shooting and its resulting CUBO (Conduct Unbecoming an Officer) investigation is the framework through which the course of the novel is viewed.
Due to the popularity of the book, the slang term "choir practice" became a somewhat popular euphemism for off-duty recreational activities even if it does not involve alcohol.
The Choirboys is considered an indictment of the LAPD hierarchy in several ways: 1) the choirboys' dislike and distrust of command-level officers; 2) the way the investigation into the shooting was handled; and 3) many of their superiors' apathetic attitudes about the pressures officers have to deal with. Wambaugh, however, summarized the conduct of the choirboys both on and off-duty by having Sgt. Yanov, their field supervisor, comment to his superior at the conclusion: "They weren't troublemakers...they were just policemen. Rather ordinary young guys. Maybe a little lonelier than some. Or scared."
Wambaugh's previous LAPD novels, The New Centurions
The New Centurions (novel)
The New Centurions, written by Joseph Wambaugh, is a novel depicting the stresses of police work in Los Angeles, California in the early 1960s. The author wrote the novel, his first, while a working member of the Los Angeles Police Department. The novel became a film starring George C...
and The Blue Knight, had been conventional and straight-forward portrayals of his experiences. With The Choirboys he "found his voice," and thereafter his novels were stylistic lampoon
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
s of not only the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
police world but the Hollywood lifestyle, and often filled with black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
. Wambaugh, by then a successful author, resigned from the LAPD after fourteen years of service in order to publish The Choirboys without retribution from those he burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
d. The Choirboys is also significant in that Wambaugh turned to the bizarre anecdotes of others (which he terms "cop talk") to provide the grist for his writing after previously drawing from his own experience.
7-A-1: Spermwhale Whalen and Baxter Slate
At age 52, Herbert "Spermwhale" Whalen is the oldest and — legitimately — the toughest of the choirboys. However, unlike Roscoe Rules, he isn't "an insufferable prick," although he has the same contempt for most "civilians, police brass and station supervisors, and all members of the Civil ServiceCivil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
Department." A nineteen-year veteran, Whalen considers anyone with less tenure a rookie. Whalen was a transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
pilot in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, and even the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. He attained the rank of major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
as a reservist in the Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
. Whalen is the only choirboy who never attended college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
. He carries a cropped mugshot of his dead son because it's the last photo taken of him before he died. He's been married three times and says he respects the second one the most because she had the most fortitude to take him for nearly everything he owned.
Baxter Slate, almost 27, is a cynic with a baccalaureate
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in classical literature (which he considers worthless), can tell dirty jokes in Latin, and amuses himself by confounding Roscoe Rules with his advanced vocabulary. Outwardly, Slate appears to be the most stable of the officers, but he is tormented by inner demons, particularly emotional scars from working child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
cases, and is driven to suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
because of his shame in inadvertently being caught by Sam Niles in a humiliating encounter with a dominatrix
Dominatrix
Dominatrix or mistress is a woman or women who takes the dominant role in bondage, discipline and sadomasochism, or BDSM. A common form of address for a submissive to a dominatrix is "mistress", "ma'am", "domina" or "maîtresse"...
.
7-A-29: Sam Niles and Harold Bloomguard
Sam Niles and Harold Bloomguard, both 26, are (like many police officers of the era) VietnamVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
veterans, former Marines who were trapped together in a North Vietnamese Army cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
during their tour. Harold found a father figure in Sam and followed him into the LAPD where both obtained college degrees in their off-duty time.
On the surface Niles is the dominant of the two. From a background of poverty and abuse, Niles is uncomfortable with all relationships, hastily marrying a coed. They were divorced as quickly. Although he tolerates his partner, Harold Bloomguard, he also fears him because Harold knows his innermost shame and secret, the helpless weakness he once showed in the cave.
Bloomguard is the opposite. He's a physical and emotional weakling who attached himself to Sam Niles and dotes on his partner. While Niles had no difficulty meeting all the police selection requirements, Harold Bloomguard, who barely met the height requirement, gorged himself on high-calorie food for three days just to meet the weight requirement. Harold Bloomguard is a protector of the ducks at MacArthur Park and other small and meek animals.
Due to his Vietnam experience, Sam Niles developed severe claustrophobia
Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia is the fear of having no escape and being closed in small spaces or rooms...
, which becomes a key factor in the MacArthur Park shooting. Harold Bloomguard was the "driving force behind the inception of the MacArthur Park choir practice."
7-A-33: Spencer Van Moot and Willie Wright
At 40, Spencer Van Moot is the second-oldest of the Choirboys and their "great provider", taking the fullest advantage of free meals, cigarettes, and other gratuities offered to uniformed officers by businesses within the division's jurisdiction. He is also a connoisseur of food and fashion and spends much of the time at choir practices complaining about his failing third marriage."Father" Willie Wright is a short, chubby 24-year-old officer. A converted and thoroughly devout Jehovah's Witness, Father Willie is, like his partner, in an unhappy marriage, but in his case, his unhappiness is due primary to an obsessively religious wife who would rather distribute Watchtower
The Watchtower
The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom is an illustrated religious magazine, published semi-monthly in 194 languages by Jehovah's Witnesses via the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and printed in various branch offices around the world...
magazines door-to-door on his days off than have sex with him. Wright joined the choirboys out of loneliness and frustration. His guilt-driven, drunken sermons over the evils of drink and marital infidelity — despite the fact that he frequently engaged in both — earned him the moniker "Father" Willie Wright.
7-A-77: Calvin Potts and Francis Tanaguchi
Calvin Potts, 28, is a recently divorced blackAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
officer and an alcoholic like the rest of his middle-class Baldwin Hills family. His ex-wife's father is one of Los Angeles' top black attorneys who convinced the divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
to order Potts to pay nearly half of his salary
Salary
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis....
in alimony
Alimony
Alimony is a U.S. term denoting a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce...
and child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
, so that Potts now rides an old Schwinn bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
to work.
Francis Tanaguchi, 25, is a third-generation Japanese-American who was raised in the barrio
Barrio
Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...
s of Los Angeles, and "unquestionably, the biggest pain in the ass on the nightwatch at Wilshire Station". He believes, at heart, that he's more Hispanic than Asian and goes to great lengths to de-emphasize his Japanese ancestry. Francis is also an inveterate practical joker, once pretending to be a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
for three weeks and suspected of being behind the an anonymous sultry female voice nicknamed "The Dragon Lady" who makes anonymous phone calls to the homes of the choirboys in the middle of the night. Potts and Tanaguchi are collectively referred to as "The Gook and The Spook."
7-A-85: Roscoe Rules and Dean Pratt
Henry "Roscoe" Rules, 29, is a five-year veteran of the LAPD. He is brutal and mean; a bully. He was nicknamed "Roscoe" during a choir practice when he referred to his police-issue .38 special as a "roscoe" after watching a Humphrey BogartHumphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
movie on television. Of all the officers, he is the one most intent on proving he is the toughest cop on the force and refers to people he dislikes (which is just about everyone) as "scrotes" (short for scrotums). The word was coined by Father Willie Wright for Roscoe to use when referring to all mankind since Rules felt that the word "asshole" was overused, and the word scrotum too long. Of the word "scrote" as used by Roscoe Rules, Baxter Slate refers to it as "a philosophy in a word". Rules hates the city and lives on a "ranch" sixty miles from it, "east of Chino
Chino, California
Chino is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. It is located in the western end of the Riverside-San Bernardino Area and it is easily accessible via the Chino Valley and Pomona freeways....
". To describe just how mean Roscoe Rules is, one of the rumors fellow officers invented was that he "handed out towels in the showers at Auschwitz".
Dean "Whaddayamean Dean" Pratt, 25, is a bachelor
Bachelor
A bachelor is a man above the age of majority who has never been married . Unlike his female counterpart, the spinster, a bachelor may have had children...
who fears Roscoe and kowtows to his every impulse. Pratt is notorious for being unable to tolerate even moderate amounts of alcohol. When inebriated, Dean is incapable of holding even the simplest of conversations. "Any question, statement, piece of smalltalk would be met by an idiotic frustrating maddening double beseechment: “I don't get it. I don't get it.” Or, “Whaddaya trying to say? Whaddaya trying to say?” Or, most frequently heard, “Whaddaya mean? Whaddaya mean?”"
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In 1977, The Choirboys was adapted into a filmThe Choirboys (film)
The Choirboys is a 1977 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Aldrich, written by Christopher Knopf and Joseph Wambaugh based on Wambaugh's novel. It features an ensemble cast including Randy Quaid and James Woods...
starring Charles Durning
Charles Durning
Charles Durning is an American actor. With appearances in over 100 films, Durning's memorable roles include police officers in the Oscar-winning The Sting and crime drama Dog Day Afternoon , along with the comedies Tootsie, To Be Or Not To Be and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the last two...
, Perry King
Perry King
Perry Firestone King is an American television and film actor. King played the role of Cody Allen on the detective series Riptide from 1983 to 1986.-Early life:...
, James Woods
James Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
, Louis Gossett, Jr.
Louis Gossett, Jr.
Louis Cameron Gossett, Jr. is an American actor best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman and Fiddler in the 1970s television miniseries Roots...
and Randy Quaid
Randy Quaid
Randall Rudy "Randy" Quaid is an American actor perhaps best known for his role as Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon's Vacation movies, as well as his numerous supporting roles in films, including his Oscar nominated performance in The Last Detail, Independence Day, Kingpin and Brokeback Mountain...
. Ultimately the film was unsuccessful and critically panned. The entire ending was changed for the film, and critics complained that while the book showed the police officers as sympathetic characters, the film painted them as a bunch of drunken jerks. Wambaugh himself refused to have his name associated with the film, as he considered it to be an extremely poor interpretation of his novel. For this reason he is uncredited.
Several characters had their names changed from what they had been in the novel:
Sam Niles - Sam Lyles, Calvin Potts - Calvin Motts, Willie Wright - Cheech Martino,
Dean Pratt - Dean Proust.