"Uncle Grumpy on: Lawyer's Work "

Sometimes, I think you miss Uncle Grumpy. He’s mentioned frequently in comments. One person even asked if he was married. When I passed that along to Unc…well, he just spit. You know, like, “Oh, pshaw!” For the record, the Unkster remains single. To paraphrase the Groucho Marx line, Uncle Grumpy asserts: “I would never marry anyone who’d want a person like me for a husband.”

I worry about some of my uncle’s opinions. Maybe I’ve got him on too tight a leash, but I’m frankly, reluctant to let him platform his “certainties” on my blog. The man has some provocative perspectives, and as much as I say, “It’s him, not me”, I’m concerned you’ll think it’s really me. It’s him. Believe me. It’s totally him.

This is one of his tamer outings. Unless you’re a lawyer. If you’re a lawyer, there’s a chance you’ll be offended. Maybe more than a chance. Nobody enjoys being criticized or demeaned. Even if they deserve it. Especially if they deserve it. That wasn’t Uncle Grumpy talking. That was me.

The rest is pure him. Really.

Uncle G? The floor is yours.

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Thanks, Nephew. You’re a good boy. Maybe a tad lily-livered but that’s all right. Wimping out is a small price to pay for personal safety. Look at that. He gives me a chance, and I impugn his integrity. Well, what do you expect? I’m me.

Okay. Lawyers.

Let’s get this out of the way first. I have nothing against lawyers. They’re just people doing a job. They didn’t make the rules they work under, they’re simply governed by them. If those rules happen to be slippery, slimy and slithery, it’s not the lawyer’s fault. At least, not the current lawyer’s fault. Lawyers from the past made up the slippery, slimy, slithery rules. It’s their fault. But those guys are dead.

Today’s lawyers cannot be blamed for the slippery, slimy, slithery rules that dead lawyers made up. Of course, when they became lawyers, they clearly knew what the deal was, and they said, “I’m in.” They gotta take responsibility for that, don’t they?

Also, now that they’re lawyers, they can fight to get the slippery, slimy, slithery rules they don’t agree with altered or expunged. I’m on the outside of this one. Is a lot of that kind of stuff going on?

What do I mean by slippery, slimy, slithery rules? I’ve already spoken about the adversarial system. That’s a bullcrap arrangement right there. Two lawyers, stretching the truth as far as they can get away with, and that’s supposed to lead to justice? Sure, it will. Now, pull the other leg, so they’ll be even.

Here’s the thing that’s chafing my gums today. It’s not the lawyers. It’s the legal system, which is administered by lawyers, but let’s not swirl down that privy hole again. Let’s press ahead.

The Legal System.

The legislature passes a law. The people have spoken. The community’s against some activity being practiced or threatening to be practiced in their locality, and they alert their representatives that they’d like a law passed saying, “You can’t do that here.” It’s very simple.

“We don’t want it.”

“You can’t do that here.”

That’s the law.

Typical example? Gambling.

I take no stand on gambling on moral grounds. If you want to throw your money away, that’s your business. Though you might want to avoid getting addicted to the process and impoverishing your family. That can be a problem.

I, personally, am allergic to gambling. I played Blackjack in Vegas once. I lost twenty dollars in five minutes. Watching the dealer slip my twenty down a slot in the table, I suddenly developed a huge hive on my face. It just popped up. A big, itchy… That was it for gambling. My money went down a rat hole, and it gave me a rash!

A lot of people like gambling. But a lot of people don’t, and, apparently, they’re in the majority. How do I know that? Because it takes a majority to get laws saying, “You can’t do that here” passed. A minority tells their legislators, "We don't want gambling", and the legislators go, "So?" You have to be a majority. Or a minority so passionate about the issue that if you don't do what they want, they'll kill you.

Forget about lotteries for the moment. Forget about off-track betting. Forget about Internet gambling, “Bingo” parlors, and point spreads printed in newspapers. This country’s hypocrisy over gambling will make the top of your head blow off. Judging by the statutes, there’s a consensus, at least, on casino gambling.

There is no casino gambling in any state except Nevada. That’s the law. (Gambling is a state controlled issue.)

Then the lawyers step in. And they study that law. Word by word.

State laws about gambling stipulate – I haven’t read any of them, but it appears, by observation, to be the case – that casino gambling will not be permitted on state land. The lawyers read that law on behalf of their clients – people who want casino gambling, for profit or enjoyment – and the lawyers go,

“Hm.”

They then read the law again, to make sure they were right about the “Hm.”

And they realize they were. The statute says:

“No gambling on state land.”

What do the lawyers notice, because that’s their job – to notice what’s stipulated in the law, and, often more importantly, what’s not stipulated in the law?

The lawyers notice that the law says, “No gambling on state land” but it doesn’t say, “No gambling on state water.”

“Glory Oskie! We’ve found a loophole!”

The law prohibits you from gambling on state land. But the law does not prohibit you from gambling on state water.

Ipso facto: Floating casinos on barges.

They can’t touch us. It’s totally legal. The law has not been broken.

Well, not the letter of the law, but what about the spirit? What about the will of the majority, who instructed their legislators to prohibit gambling in their state?

“If they didn’t want to have gambling on water, they should have said so in the law.”

Can you imagine anyone saying, “I am opposed to gambling in my state. But if the gambling occurs on water, I have no problem with it”? The majority wanted no gambling. What did they get? Gambling. Why did that happen? Lawyers and loopholes.

“If you didn’t want gambling on water, you should have said so in the law.”

And by the way…

Indian reservations.

Indian reservations?

“Indian reservations are unquestionably on land. But they’re not on state land; they’re on Indian land. The law says no gambling on state land.
Ipso facto: Casinos on Indian reservations.

Wow. These guys are brilliant!

Okay.

It’s possible people actually wanted gambling, but, desiring to appear morally upright, they wanted to pretend that they didn’t. Or, they wanted casinos, but not in their neighborhoods (their neighborhoods being neither water nor Indian reservations). The statute could have been deliberately constructed in such a way that they could get what they wanted, and still have gambling.

Pretty tricky, huh?

What members of which profession do you think dreamed that one up?

"When You Know It's Right"

A recent excursion to Beverly Hills reminded me of the time Dr. M – she was just M at the time – and I ventured to Beverly Hills to shop for wedding rings. (I love going to Beverly Hills. It’s like visiting Monaco without getting on a plane. I’ve never actually visited Monaco, but I have a feeling that’s what it’s like. My Monaco readers can straighten me out if I’m mistaken.)

We check out the big name jewelry stores – Tiffany’s, Cartiers. We’re not really Tiffany’s-Cartiers people. We’re rarely in the market for a jewel-encrusted letter opener. We’re barely jewelry people at all. When we got engaged, M retrieved my Dad’s Masonic…something ring from my nighttable and said, “This is my engagement ring.”

It was very touching. And cheap.

The first couple of places, we didn’t see anything we liked. Too gaudy. Or too Gotti. Wedding rings Mafia wives would wear to lord over other Mafia wives.

“You see how much he loves me? You see?”

Shopping for engagement rings could be a real deal breaker. Arguments could break out. Conflict and serious re-evaluations could ensue. Questions about taste. The price. The issue of extravagance. “It’s just a ring” could end things then and there. Cancel the caterer. We’re done.

That didn’t happen with us. The experience felt fun and easy, and totally lacking in pressure. It wasn’t life and death. It was rings.

We’re about to call it day when we notice a jewelry store across the street named Fred. I’d had never heard of Fred before. The name cried “unpretentious.” I think, in reality, Fred was a fancy jewelry store too. But when you’ve never heard of it, you can fool yourself. To the ignoranti, Fred is a guy in a sweater going, “Hi. I’m Fred. You kids getting married?”

M found a simple wedding band, mounted with small, though not embarrassingly small, diamonds. I chose a narrow gold band for myself. I really liked it the best, in no way influenced by the fact that it was the cheapest ring in the store. (I brought my ring back four times for re-sizing. On my last visit, they made it clear that they didn’t want to see me there anymore.)

And there you have it. Wedding rings for two. No fuss, no muss, no screaming, no arrests.

That’s when you know it’s right?

I would have said so, Attentive Questioner. Till something happened later that really sealed the deal.

Shopping for wedding rings makes you hungry. It’s a scientific fact. We decided to celebrate our adventure with a late lunch. We chose Nate ‘N Al’s – the legendary Beverly Hills deli – delicious rye bread, heavenly mushroom-barley soup. Sometimes, celebrities eat there. Celebrities of a certain demographic. Once, I spotted Wolf Blitzer wiping sandwich crumbs from his beard. Another time, I saw Jerry Vale.

M drops me outside Nate ‘N Al’s, and drives off to park the car. (M’s the driver in the family. By choice. Hers. She’s seen me drive. It’s not happening with her in the car.)

I buy a newspaper from the newspaper-coin-box place. We like to read when we eat. Not unfriendly; it’s just our habit. I go inside. It’s, like, two-thirty. Lots of empty tables. The hostess seats me. M will be joining me shortly.

I pull out the Sports Section of the paper and I start to peruse. Suddenly, I hear this voice from the table next to me.

“Excuse me. Do you mind if I borrow your Business Section?”

I look up. It’s Milton Berle.

“Uncle Miltie!” The biggest star in the early era of television. “Uncle Miltie” wants my Business Section. So I give it to him. And he says, “Thank you.”

I am glowing, inside and out. My face is a beaming beacon of ecstasy. I’m sitting beside Milton Berle. I couldn’t have been more excited.

M enters the deli, sees where I’m sitting, heads to the table, and sits down. Then she notices my face. She knows immediately why I’m beaming.

We had just purchased wedding rings.

M squeezes my hand. How sweet, she’s thinking. My hubby-to-be is a romantic.

At this point, I give her the sideways nod. “Look over there,” it says. M looks. She sees “Uncle Miltie.” And she realizes the real reason for my glow.

Was she mad?

No!

She was as excited as I was!

That’s when you know it’s right.

"Eleven O'clock Meeting"

Ten or so years ago, while consulting on the Al Franken/ John Markus show, Lateline – a half hour comedy version of ABC’s Nightline – I had the opportunity to visit the Nightline production offices in Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital – I get excited about these things – and, along with Al and John, I got to sit in on the “Eleven O’clock Meeting”, a daily routine, during which the show’s production staff gathers around a table to decide which topic Nightline will focus on that night.

(During this trip, we also got to go to the White House and meet with Al Gore (to pitch him an idea for an episode of Lateline). At the time, Gore was Vice President. Duh. What else? He was renting an office in there? Anyway, our visit took place at the height of the Lewinski crisis, and Gore seemed at loose ends, eyeing the door, as if expecting someone to show up and say, ‘Clinton quit. You’re president now.’ It didn’t happen.)

Something was happening in Kosovo. The word was, they were about to discover some mass grave over there. A mass grave is obviously a big story. If the mass grave was discovered, that would be the Nightline story for that night.

In case, however, the mass grave was not discovered, or not discovered in time for that night’s telecast, Nightline would require a back-up idea. We’re sitting there, learning important lessons about the show. Mass graves are not discovered at Nightline’s convenience. The show needed protection. Otherwise, it’s…

“Good evening. This is Ted Koppel for Nightline. Tonight, our coverage was supposed to take us to a mass grave site in Kosovo, but they didn’t find it, so, goodnight.” You can’t do that. That’s a fifteen second show.

The producers threw around a bunch of ideas for the “back-up.” One of them was a story about Canada, concerning, I believe, a logging dispute. I hear “Canada” and my ears immediately perk up. Imagine. A story about my country of origin on Nightline. Not bad, eh?

At that point, the Executive Producer, Tom somebody, reminds his underlings that whenever they do a story about Canada, Nightline’s ratings are disastrously low. My heart hits the floor. It’s humiliating hearing that stories about your home and native land are guaranteed losers. I was immediately concerned. Can a country be cancelled because of low ratings?

I knew a great story Nightline could do about Canada. But I was a guest in the room, and was required to remain silent. Often since that meeting, I have fantasized myself jumping into action at that point. It’s just the way I am. In life, I do very little. But I can fantasize with the best of them.

“May I have ten seconds?” I fantasize myself saying.

My interruption is not enthusiastically received. There are room-wide grumblings. “Who is this guy?” Al’s rolling his eyes. John’s embarrassed for having recommended me to Al.

I hold my ground. If you can’t stand firm in your own fantasies, what’s the point?

“Ten seconds,” replies the Executive Producer.

“Thank you,” I say. And I tell the room my story.

“I once read an op-ed article in the Los Angeles Times entitled, ‘Why Canadians hate Americans.’ The column was datelined Ottawa. And they spelled Ottawa wrong.”

The Nightline staffers aren’t stupid. They get the point of my story. Misspelling their nation’s capital’s name in a major American newspaper before you even start the article is precisely why Canadians hate Americans.

“It’s still about Canada,” drones the Executive Producer.

“May I have ten more seconds?”

Fantasy or no, I’ve earned another ten seconds. The Executive Producer nods okay. At this point, I go “all prescient”, anticipating the attack on the World Trade Center and the poisonous hatred of this country by its enemies.

“Canada’s feelings towards the United States are the most benign version of the way a lot of countries feel about the United States. You ignore those feelings at your peril.”

Man, was I persuasive. Responding to my argument, the Executive Producer orders “The World, And Why They Hate Us” for Nightline that night, and invites me on as a guest, where I will offer “the Canadian perspective” with my “Ottawa” story. My fantasy. I put myself on the air.

The telecast has international reverberations. The ratings are through the roof.

What actually happened at that meeting?

Nothing.

Nightline’s Executive Producer vetoes the Canadian logging story, and, the “mass grave in Kosovo” story having “missed deadline”, goes with “The Wall Street Rollercoaster”, chronicling the up’s and down’s of the American stock market, a story they could have done any night during the past ten years, and for as long as Nightline remains on the air in the future.

When it’s over – we had returned at eleven thirty to watch the live production – I hear a Nightline producer compliment the producer directly responsible for the “rollercoaster” program, calling the telecast, “a well executed cliché.”

I have no idea what Nightline’s ratings were that night. In my fantasy, they weren’t that great.

"Saddle Up - Part Ten"

Actors who performed roles in classic westerns recall their experiences. As imagined by me.

FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: SPECIAL TALENTS


THE MAN WHO SWUNG THE ROPE OVER THE LIMB OF THE TREE

(The typical western hanging scene would begin with a rope being swung over the limb of a sturdy tree. I wondered about who did that. And how he got so proficient.)

“It’s just somethin’ I was good at. It’s kind of funny, y’know? I can’t twirl a rope, or do fancy tricks – Figure Eights, jump in the loop, jump back out. But show me a tree limb, and I’ll sling ‘er over ninety-nine times out of a hundred. It’s kind of this freak talent. It’s the only one I have.”

“The producers had faith in me, ‘cause I always came through. How important was I? Well, I hate to blow my own horn, but you asked me. Listen to this:

“One day, they were shootin’ the hangin’ scene, and through some kind of mix-up, my wife, Louella, had taken the car. I couldn’t get out there, which put the production in quite a pickle.

“They really needed me, you know? It wasn’t like, ‘We’ll get someone else to swing the rope.’ I was the specialist.

“You know what they did? God’s honest truth. They sent a limousine to pick me up and bring me to the set. A big, black Cadillac. With fins.

“I’ll never forget it the looks on their faces. Limo’s drivin’ up and they’re thinkin’, ‘Here’s some big muckymuck comin’ onto the set.’ The door opens, and it’s me. My pals got a big laugh outta that one. The ‘rope slinger’ in a limo.

“It was the greatest day of my life.”

“There was a lotta tension around those hangin’ scenes. I mean, cripes, you’re stringin’ somebody up. Not for real, of course, but the feelin’s not that different. I imagine. I never been to an actual hangin’.

“Mess-ups? Always possible. It’s no easy thing, you know? And there’s all that pressure besides. What can happen? Well, the big moment comes, and you fling the rope in the air. And you don’t fling it high enough. Or it gets snagged up in some branches. Or the rope jerks out of your hand, goes flyin’ over the tree limb and ends up on the ground on the other side.

“You miss a coupla times, and pretty soon, you’re doubtin’ yourself. And doubtin’ yourself makes you miss more. Of course, the more you miss, the funnier it gets. You look around, and the whole lynch mob’s got the giggles. There goes your ‘gloomy atmosphere’ right there.

“You can’t have a funny hangin’.

“Meanwhile, we’re eatin’ up valuable time. The Assistant Director’s lookin’ at his watch, the cameraman’s goin’, ‘We’re losing the light’, the director’s sayin’, ‘Can we get it right this time? Please?’

“And that poor fella, y’know, he just keeps tossin’ the rope.”

“You can pick it up on the screen. I mean, you’re lookin’ at, ‘Take…Sixty-Two’, or somethin’ – the one where he finally gets it right – and the folks ‘round the ‘Hangin’ Tree’ are bitin’ their lips to keep from crackin’ up. Even the fella they’re hangin’ can’t keep a straight face. He’s chokin’ but he’s laughin’.

“The only one not laughin’ is the poor lunkhead who’s been throwin’ the rope.”

“Nothin’ of that nature ever happened to me, of course. It’s just somethin’ I heard about.”

Jewish New Year's For The Not That Religious"

(I wrote this yesterday.)

I’m sitting in this synagogue. I’m not a member; I just come for the High Holidays – New Years and Yom Kippur. I’m not exactly sure why I do this. I mean, I know the reason I do it. But I’m far from convinced that my reason’s that strong.

Clinging to the rituals of a religion whose fundamental principle, the existence of a Supreme Being, I feel “iffy” about – I could be hugging a bubble. Comforting in its configuration, but empty on the inside.

I remember we were sitting in the synagogue one New Year’s when I was twelve, and I turned to my brother and said, pretty much spontaneously, “Religion in like spinach. You may know it’s good for you, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.”

(In later, years, I came to like spinach, so I needed a replacement “hated food” for my analogy. I thought of cooked carrots. But a lot of people like cooked carrots. Succotash? That’s corn. I like corn. I guess there’s anchovies. But are anchovies good for you? – I have no idea. Anyway, if you can suggest a “good for you” food that nobody likes, I can swing my analogy back into action. Otherwise, it’ll have to remain retired.)

The “spinach” story provides a clue here to my continuing participation in the High Holiday routine. Merely going through the motions sets free a wave of memories, memories of a considerably younger me, sitting – make that squirming impatiently – in my seat, beside my mother, my brother and my grandfather, the only one of us who’s actually praying – either that, or he was fooling us with some kickass Hebraic mumbling. Nah. He was doin’ it.

I remember an overflow turnout in a cavernous sanctuary. A lot of marble, or what passes for marble to the untutored eye. I remember a rabbi, whose sermons were interminable but whose dramatic flair could capture your attention, if not your heart. An opera-caliber choir, offering heavenly harmonies from some hidden locale – you heard them, but you had no idea where they were – made the services entertaining, but also longer.

I remember a synagogue usher, standing at the end of our row as we chattered away, fixing us miscreants with “The Look.” And though I’d dearly like not to, I retain the memory of this oversized woman sitting in front of us, wearing a fox stole that included two actual fox heads, whose sewn-on, beady eyes seemed to be staring, through the duration of the service, directly at me.

Many of the melodies that are chanted at the synagogue that I go t0 are the same melodies that were chanted in our synagogue when I was a kid. Singing full-throatedly along with the congregation fills me with nostalgia and deeply warms my heart. This is the closest I can come to for the reason I continue to attend these services.

But when you throw out the blah-blah and rationales, what it comes down to is this:

Why do I spend New Year’s in synagogue?

It’s where the Jews are.

Why does that matter?

It’s my team.

I wish a healthy and revitalizing New Year to those who participate in such activities. To those who don’t, a Happy Tuesday to ya.

"Leadership Quality"

When it comes to character, you can tell early on the qualities you got and the qualities you don’t got. If the people who had hired me to run shows had been aware of the story I’m about to tell you, they would never have hired me to run shows.

When I was around ten, they discovered the cure for polio, and they started giving out shots at school to prevent you from getting it. The shots, though painful, were better than polio.

The polio shot protocol involved a series of three inoculations, spaced about six weeks apart. You got a shot, there was a six-week gap, you got second shot, there was another six-week gap, then they gave you the third shot. I lasted two shots and that was it.

I hated getting polio shots. They used these enormous needles. And they weren’t that sharp. I think they were made out of wood. I dreaded the injections. I hated the post-shot soreness in my “needle arm.” And the spontaneous screaming in front of my classmates did very little to enhance my popularity.

Our teacher announced that the medical folks would be visiting with our third round of polio shots on Thursday. I immediately decided to be sick on Thursday. My thinking on the matter was spectacularly simple. If you’re not there, they can’t give you the shot.

My mother was no stickler in the “I don’t feel well” department. You told her you were sick, she let you stay home. Still, I didn’t want to take any chances. Wednesday evening, I put on a “show”, acting listless and picking at my food. I voluntarily went to bed early, sacrificing Wednesday Night Hockey on TV (though I caught it on the radio from my “sickbed.”)

Thursday morning, I felt even lousier, or so I reported. I may even have feigned throwing up, or more likely, “I felt like it but nothing came out”, which, in my limited medical wisdom, was worse. Throwing up cleared the books. A false alarm, and there was business yet to do.

Bottom line: I missed the third shot.

Friday morning, I’m miraculously recovered. Twenty-four hour flu. It must have been that. I skip into school, relieved to have dodged a needle-shaped bullet. I commiserate with my classmates, with their throbbing “needle arms” and their tales of woe. Apparently, there’d been a fainting. My empathy is Oscar-worthy.

My teacher tells me the principal wants to see me. Mrs. Snider. I had no idea what it was about, but just hearing her name gave me a chill. Snider wants to see me. It can’t be good.

(I’ll tell you how terror inducing the woman was. When I was in my twenties, Mrs. Snider happened to live in the same apartment building as my grandmother. One time, I’m waiting by the elevator, going up to see my grandmother, and I’m smoking a cigar. I hear the lobby door open, and I reflexively turn to see who it is. It’s Snider. I immediately stick the lit cigar in my pocket.)

“You weren’t in school yesterday,” Mrs. Snider begins, as I’m sitting in her office.

“No, I was sick.”

“You missed your polio shot.”

“I know.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes, it is.”

That’s when Mrs. Snider breaks the news. There’s a taxi waiting that will take me to another school – where the medical caravan has moved on. I would receive my missed polio shot there. This was a good thing, Mrs. Snider explained, because you needed all three shots or the protocol doesn’t work and you can get polio. I agreed that that would be bad.

My foolproof plan had failed. I missed school for nothing, and now, I’m getting my shot. I guess I wasn’t that smart.

The taxi delivered me to a pre-school – kids, aged four to six. The building was immaculate. That may have been the name of the place – “The Immaculate School For Little Children.”

The principal is warm and welcoming.

“It’s good to have you here.”

“Thank you.” My voice was calm, but my face said I wasn’t happy. I was about to get less happy.

“I’d like you to do me a little favor,” she began.

“A favor?”

“A lot of our children are concerned about getting their polio shots. I’d like you to get your shot first, to show them that there’s nothing to worry about.”

There was stunned silence. Words eluded me. I simply stared.

“Will you do that for me, please? Will you show the children how a “Big Boy” takes his polio shot?”

I considered my options. I didn’t have any.

“Okay,” I heard myself mumble.

“Wonderful,” enthused the principal, oblivious to my jump-started feelings of distress.

We’re in the gymnatorium – it’s a gym with a stage at one end. I’m standing on the stage, with the principal, the nurse, and the infamous “Dr. Needle.”

The children are marched in, one class at a time. The most impressive group of preschoolers you ever saw. Shiny scrubbed faces. Hair arranged neatly in place. I think, maybe uniforms. And not a peep out of them. Silently, they take their pre-assigned positions, six class-segregated cohorts, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

The principal begins to speak.

“Children, we have a special guest with us today. He has come to us from a big children’s school, and he’s going to show us that getting a polio shot is really a ‘snap.’”

I’m standing there, trying not to shake. I’m determined to play my part. I’m the leader. My job is to show that getting a polio shot is really a “snap.” I have to come through. The kiddies are counting on me.

The nurse rolls up the shirtsleeve of my left arm. She moistens a swab of cotton with alcohol. She takes my arm, and begins rubbing the cotton on the appropriate spot.

I immediately start to scream. I know it’s just cotton, but I have a powerful memory. I know what’s coming next.

My scream turns the obedient preschoolers into a terror-stricken mob. There’s chaos in the gymnatorium. Like rats fleeing a rapidly sinking ship, children are scattering in all directions, racing for the exits, scrambling up the walls, their teachers in desperate pursuit, struggling to restore order. The noise is deafening. The medical staff is confused. The principal is really upset.

I get my shot, and I’m back in the taxi, leaving behind the reverberating residue of a preschool in disarray.

Leadership quality? I don’t think so.

"Story of a Writer - Part Eighteen D"

When I did Best of the West, Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels oversaw the operation. With The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby, show owners Tom Werner, Marcy Carsey and the director, Jay Sandrich shared the load. On Family Man, it was just me. I had a business partner, Universal Studios, but from a creative standpoint, I was completely on my own.

I liked that better.

Not that there was no pressure. There’s always pressure. (Just writing the word “pressure” makes me feel pressure.) And it wasn’t that I’d grown from my previous experiences, though maybe I had, at least a little. The “growing” thing is hard to evaluate. You look in the mirror and it looks like the same person. The person who’d left The Cosby Show after seven episodes, the person who during an excruciating moment running Best of the West lamented, “There must be an easier way to make three hundred thousand dollars a year.”

The conditions on Family Man were decidedly different. I had written all of the seven ordered scripts myself, our schedule permitting me to complete them before we went into production. The show was not yet on the air, and would not be, until after all the episodes were done, freeing me from the added anxiety of ratings and reviews.

Family Man was an ideal situation from a writer. Especially one who handles the second-guessing of others – others generally low in comic instincts and expertise – not generously. To me, creative interference is like a surgeon trying to make a cut, and somebody’s jostling his arm.

Too lofty?

Okay, then it’s an artist painting a landscape, and the guy buying the painting’s peering over his shoulder as he works.

“I love the sky. Could you make it bluer?”

TV’s not art?

Okay, see, that’s just what I’m talking about. They never let you do your job.

I used to say to Pete, our “line producer”, who puts it all together from a technical standpoint, that while the show’s in pre-production, it’s like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. When we start making the show, that weight gets transferred to me. As we’re about to enter the Family Man soundstage, the first morning of the first day of production, Pete mimes lifting a big, heavy globe off of his shoulders, and transferring it onto mine.

I accepted it with a dancing heart.

“Let’s go make shows.”

And so we did. Seven episodes of Family Man, shot on videotape, without a studio audience. The set, modeled after the interior of my house looked sensational. (I also used the exterior of my house as the “exterior” of the house on the show. When the crew came to shoot the “exterior footage”, our family was at home, eating dinner. Every time we left the table, we had to crouch down, so we wouldn’t get “caught” through the window. It was weird. We were crawling around in our own house.)

The actors brought the characters I’d written excitingly alive. The director, drawing on his improvisational background, established a natural rhythm in the interplay, thus grounding and enhancing the “funny.” (Some sitcom directors are more adept at working with actors than they are at working with the cameras. With others, it’s the other way around. I, by far, prefer the former variety.

For me, performance is everything. From a visual standpoint, a situation comedy is not that complicated. How bad can you do it? I mean, you’re not filming the Normandy landing. The “coverage” involves a small number of people. They get up, they sit down. They come into a room, they go out of a room. That’s pretty much all there is.)

(In a Best of the West script, I once headed a scene: Interior Cabin – Dusk. The Director of Photography, who, in his heyday had worked with Alfred Hitchcock, came up to me and said, “Earl, in the script, you wrote “Dusk.” When you’re doing this, you’ve got ‘Day’ and you’ve got ‘Night.’ That’s it.”)

Everything was going well. I oversaw the taping (which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I hadn’t already written the scripts), made suggestions, fine tuned things in editing, even got to re-shoot stuff, if it wasn’t right. Once, when the director was unavailable due to a work conflict, I got to direct a scene myself. Doing that brought me an immediate understanding of, “But what I’d really like to do is direct.”

Directors say, “Action!” and the actors, the crew – everyone – immediately starts doing stuff. You say, “Cut!” – even if it’s in the middle of a scene – and they stop. They have no choice. It’s not like, “We’d actually like to keep going.” No. The director says, “Cut!” – and that’s it! It’s very Divine-like. Thus spaketh the director: “Cut!”

This doesn’t work at home. Dr. M’s saying something I don’t care for, I yell, “Cut!” – and she just keeps going. And she looks at me funny. “Ultimate control” is not available in any other aspect of life. It only happens when you’re directing.

We were doing good work. There were times when what we were doing in reality was better than what I’d imagined in my head. And my head has pretty high standards.

Okay, that’s the positive stuff. There was quite a bit of it. Being of a negative nature, it wasn’t easy being positive for that long. I’m a little tired. Now, we’re heading into "my area.”

A lot of the bad stuff relates to my decision to shoot the show without an audience. First, because there was no audience response, we were obliged to “sweeten” the show with a “laugh track.” I wasn’t against the idea. There are shows where injecting, what was then, an obligatory “laugh track” was ridiculous, like, for example on M*A*S*H, which was set in Korea, and it made you wonder, “Who exactly is laughing? The Koreans?”

For Family Man, a “laugh track” seemed necessary. Doing a sitcom on videotape, minus a live audience, if you played it without a “laugh track”, the show felt like a soap opera. A weird soap opera, since no one was in a coma.

The problem is the “laugh track” laughs don’t sound real. (Studio audience laughs don’t sound real either, due, I believe, to the way they’re recorded, but they sound better.) Though the “laugh track” can be modulated, in terms of volume and type of laugh – “The Titter”, “The Rolling Ha-ha”, “The Guffaw” – no matter how skillfully it’s administered, it still feels “canned”, distancing and glued on.

So that’s one problem – a real show with fake laughs.

The bigger problem concerns how the lack of a live audience affects the actors’ performances. I should have known this, but I forgot. Performing in front of a live audience is energizing in a way that cannot be fabricated. It’s “the rush of the now.” You’re on the line. The audience is there, and you have to come through.

You get a laugh, and it juices your confidence. You get another laugh, and you’re on “a roll.” Your adrenaline’s pumping. The response is building, one laugh, on another, on another. Suddenly, you’re flying. You’re doing things you never did in rehearsal, and the audience is eating up. Though you’re in “in the moment”, for the tiniest flash, you’re thinking, “Where did that come from?”

You’re on fire.

Working without an audience, though the director reminds the actors to “keep up the energy”, it’s nowhere close to the same. As professional as you are, you’re aware, on some level that, when there’s no audience watching, there is nothing really at stake. You can always shoot it again.

I remember running into meeting Family Man’s Leading Man, Richard Libertini, after the production was over, and asking him if he had any residual thoughts about the way things had gone. His only comment was, “I wish the show had been funnier.”

That was the problem. Libertini had been funny, and, frequently, hilarious. But without the audience reaction, he never got the word.

Not long after that, we set up a screening of Family Man, offered to volunteers from the Universal Studios tour. We wanted to demonstrate to the invited Fox executives how a “typical audience” would respond to our show. A crowd of about a hundred assembled in the bleachers, a large screen was lowered, and they watched two episodes.

They laughed their heads off.

I don’t know what was more gratifying: hearing the audience’s enthusiasm for the show, or watching Libertini’s face, realizing how funny he had actually been.

Despite the successful screening, Fox was unwilling to put the show on the air. When I had originally pitched Family Man to them, I had promised “the best show I know how to do.” Fox didn’t want that. They wanted Married With Children. (Which I didn’t know how to do.)

Eventually, ABC picked the show up, airing it in March and April. The audience was surprisingly large, more than seventeen million viewers a week. But it wasn’t enough to keep the show alive. Family Man ended its run after seven episodes.

Maybe if I’d used an audience. Maybe if Paul Reiser had starred in it instead. Maybe if I’d mixed my “actually happened” stories with “Andrea thinks Shelly is having an affair.” It doesn’t matter. Though it was done the way I wanted it to be – and there’s nothing more gratifying than that – the bottom line was, it was done.

And when it’s done, there’s only one thing left to say. In the words of that famous manager, concerning the most important word in show business:
“Next!”