The Choirboys

About The Choirboys

Written by Bernie Weisz Dec. 24th, 2009 E Mail Address:BernWei1@aol.com Pembroke Pines, Fl orida In 1975, a Los Angeles Police Department officer-turned-novelist named Joseph Wambaugh wrote the controversial novel "The Choirboys". Still a hot book, Wambaugh wrote this almost 40 years ago! What was happening in 1975? Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, the city of Saigon on April 30th was surrendered to the North Vietnamese and all remaining Americans were evacuated, thus ending America's role in the Vietnam War. The U.S. "Apollo" and the Soviet "Soyuz" spacecrafts took off for their historic July 15th link up in space. Gerald Ford experienced two unsuccessful assassination attempts on his life, one by ex Charles Manson gang member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. Muhammed Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the "Thrilla in Manilla, The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Minnesota Vikings in New Orleans to win the Super Bowl, and the Cincinnati Reds defeated the Boston Red Sox in 7 games to capture baseball's "fall classic", and Joseph Wambaugh penned "The Choirboys" The Choirboys was a tragicomedy that parodied the effects of urban police work on young officers, which Wambaugh exaggerated through the exploits of his characters, a group of Los Angeles police officers in the Wilshire Division of the L.A.P.D. Wambaugh used a group of ten patrol officers as his main characters that held end-of-shift "get together's" Wambaugh euphemistically coined "choir practice". It was sarcastically called "choir practice" to disguise their true nature from their superior officers, which involved heavy drinking, complaints about their superior officers, war stories, and group sex with a pair of raunchy, overweight "police groupie" barmaids. Wambaugh had these "choir practices" held in MacArthur Park, overviewing downtown Los Angeles. Although a novel, MacArthur Park (named after General Douglas MacArthur) is a real park located at 2230 West 6th St., in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Aside from Wambaugh's novel, MacArthur Park was featured as the setting in two movies, e.g. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", and "Training Day". Sardonically disillusioned, each of Wambaugh's officers expresses differently that many of the fellow officers they work with are not unlike the suspects they arrest, and the absurd regulations of the L.A.P.D. are oppressively enforced on them while their commanders (who usually acquire their positions through nepotism, favoritism and are without basic police work skills) indulge themselves hypocritically. I do not want to be a "plot spoiler", but I will mention that the theme of police officer suicide provides all the way to the end of this novel a grim undercurrent to the black humor and is suggestive of a subconscious motivation for all the "Choirboy's" activities. The author, Joseph A. Wambaugh, born January 22, 1937, was originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a police officer, and joined th