"Better Late Than Never"

During the most recent “Wednesday Walk”, I expressed a bewilderment about why people run.  I didn’t entirely like how that sounded.  I admit that on the continuum of “Run – Jog – Walk – Sit In One Place With a Bag of Doritos”, my predilection leans closer to “Doritos” than “Run.”  Giving my “Running? – Why?” perspective a self-justifying ring.  At least, to my ear.

In my defense – though I’m not certain I need a defense, since nobody’s attacking me, except possibly, in their heads, my readers who run, and how many of them can there be, they’re too busy running – in my defense, I can only confess that, “I used to be worse.”  

Up to the age of 44, I engaged in virtually no exercise whatsoever, other than, when I had the choice between being transported in a golf cart or walking from my office to a studio soundstage, I almost always preferred walking, though that may have been less an exercise issue than that I was in no hurry to get to the soundstage.  Things could get really hairy down there.

Most of my life, I sat and I wrote.  That’s not exactly right.  Most of my life, I reclined and I wrote, my “Position of Choice” being lying on my side, my head propped up comfortably on my elbow.  The only less active position than that would be writing while asleep.

My aversion to physical exercise began when I looked in the mirror and became uncomfortably aware of my long, spindly arms and no noticeable musculature on any part of me.  What I had was a “Writer’s Body.”  (I realize there are athletic-looking writers, but, Darwinially, there is no reason for it.  Maybe it attracts women.  “Hi.  I’m a writer and I’m strong.”  “Gosh, I’ve never met anybody like tha-at!”)

My physical…what’s the opposite of “attributes”?…whatever that is, served me in terrible stead during gym class.  They wanted me to pull myself up – on bars, on rings, climbing ropes to the ceiling.  My response to their instructions was, “Look at me!”  I had nothing to pull myself up with!

Running, especially long distances which meant anything over fifty feet, gave me an excruciating stab in my right hip that the gym teachers thought I was faking but I wasn’t.  Tumbling made me nauseous.  I was anomalously adept at the “backwards somersault”, but it is hardly the most graceful move in the “Tumbler’s Lexicon”, and it rarely garnered me a “Good job!”  Or a passing grade in gym.

With that kind of a start – which was not really a start, it is more of a “Holding Pattern” at “Zero” – I was not encouraged to pursue any form of athletic activity, either professionally – I just chuckled when I wrote that – or recreationally.  I loved watching sports, but I was never tempted to emulate what I saw.  In fact, observing magnificent athletes deterred me from even trying, like dieters are deterred by pictures of swimsuit models.  They were spectacular, and I was hopeless.  That’s a long distance to cover in one lifetime.  It’s a lifetime to improve just a little.  So I forgo the opportunity and I watch.

Through my adult life advancing into middle age, I was involved in no exercise whatsoever, if you exclude yoga, which I practiced fitfully over the years, but usually wound up snoring in class.  I was a Thinker.  I had a highly developed “Think Muscle.”  And nothing else.

And then, something happened.

Oh, good.  It’s turning around.

When I was forty-four, I got a detached retina.

That’s not the upbeat transition I was counting on!

Be patient, Italics Man.  It’s coming. 

Good, because “I had no muscles and then my retina fell off” really sucks as a story. 

Recovery from retina surgery required me to lie as still as I could for six weeks.  I do not recall any bedpans during that period, so I suppose I was allowed up a little.  But then, it was back on my back.  For six full weeks.  Which, for me, was not that big a change from lying on my side.  My left elbow (that I propped myself up with) actually liked it better.

“We needed a break.”

When I finally recovered, I was extremely wobbly.  My legs did not exactly forget how to walk, but they did forget how to walk normally, struggling with the previously unchallenging responsibility of holding me up.  It was only then that the concept of “basket case” was truly driven home to me.  I could easily see myself having to be carried around in a basket.

At that point, the wiser heads in the family prevailed, and despite my protestations, I was directed to join a gym. 

And I’ve been going to one, Tuesdays and Fridays, for the past twenty-three years.

My current location, after attending four others all of which closed, is Gold’s Gym.  Gold’s Gym is famous.  Ahnolt did his bodybuilding there.  Hockey players train there in the off-season.  I once spotted Lou Ferigno (TV’s Incredible Hulk) doing bench presses.  Lou Ferrigno nothing!  I saw Magic Johnson, walking out!  I almost followed him to his car!

Am I stronger because of my training?  A little.  But my wonderful and extremely knowledgeable trainer, Eve, focuses more on “infrastructure” – the smaller muscles underneath that support the muscles you see, which, in my case, are still – as they say of a script with a scene missing – “To Come.” 

In regards to my progress, I recently received an encouraging compliment from my daughter Anna.  I had my picture taken to accompany an article for the Writers’ Guild magazine.  I was posed seated sitting on a staircase leading down to our backyard.  Anna studied the picture and said, “Dad, you’re sitting really straight!”

That alone is worth twenty-three years of training. 

I have never hungered for big muscles.   But I dreaded turning into that stooped-over old guy whose Scoliotically-curved back looks like the left end of a parentheses.  (Or the right end, if they're going the other way.)  Now it appears that that won’t happen.

Eve, and the “Horse Doctor” who helps me when my mid-back gets crampy (he works three days a week on people, and three days on horses) share a compatible philosophy.  In their view, nothing in your body “wears out.”  The problems arise when, through longstanding habits, you deleteriously diverge from the “User’s Manual.”

Your parts will last, if not forever then considerably longer, if you keep them in proper alignment and move them only in ways they were intended to move.  Right now, I’m working on walking with my feet pointing more forward, rather than angling East and West, so as to relieve the pressure on the insides of my knees.

That’s interesting, isn’t it?  And if I would never have known about it if I hadn’t gone to the gym.

Gee, Earlo. That detached retina was the best thing that ever happened to you.   

No.  You’re the best thing that even happened to me.

Thanks!

"Chaos - Pros and Cons"

You would think you could get a consensus on the issue of chaos.  It turns out, however, that, when it comes to chaos, I don’t even agree with myself.

For the last two weeks, our house has been in chaos because we are repainting our kitchen.  It’s been fifteen years since it was last painted, and the walls and ceiling (our kitchen has a tin ceiling) have become coated with accumulated cooking schmutz (grime).  

Simultaneously, our cast-iron Master Bathroom sink needed refinishing because it was getting rusty, and nobody likes a rusty sink.  That job, including the “letting it set” period, wound up taking a week. 

So we emptied the shelves, and we emptied the cabinets, and the painters started sanding and scraping, and, even though the kitchen was sheeted off with plastic, particles of debris were flying everywhere – covering the floor, the carpets, the furniture and staircases – upstairs and downstairs –

And us.

We ate our meals in the basement, where, since there was no stove, it was all takeout, and if we needed something from the upstairs refrigerator, we could not get to it.

We had to brush our teeth in the downstairs bathroom, forbidden to spit in the newly refinished sink.  I could shower upstairs but had to shave downstairs.  Our nighttime medicines got moved.  And when I came up to bed and had forgotten floss, I had to go back downstairs, and sometimes, I didn’t, and who knows what damage that neglect did to my rapidly receding gumline!

Our routine was a shambles, our longstanding habits in complete disarray.  Everything easy was now difficult.  And inconvenient.  And frustrating.  And stupid.  And maddening.  And…

I hate it!  It is getting on my nerves!  Make it stop!

Finally, it did stop, and they were done.  But now, as we reconstitute our lives, we discover new irritations.  During the work process, things have inevitably been moved.  Things have been misplaced.  Things have been accidentally thrown away.   

Gone, and lost forever.

Our lives had been visited by chaos.  Not good, that chaos.

And I know it’s not just me who feels that way.  There is a substantial segment in our society – and I am hardly antagonistic to their view – who, fearing change as the first step down a precarious slippery slope, commit themselves to nipping any semblance of change in the bud, before things get irretrievably out of hand.

There’s a Black Hole down there, my friend.  You have to be eternally vigilant… 

Or it’s chaos.

I memorably recall Supreme Court Justice Scalia rationalizing the necessity for an “originalist” approach to the Constitution – by which he meant that, when attempting to resolve legal issues related to the U.S. Constitution, only the original intent of the Constitution’s Framers should apply. 

Scalia saw this as essential, because if you permitted everybody to understand the Constitution in their own particular way, the result would inevitably be chaos.   

Since this argument is premised on the belief that nothing is worse than chaos, to avoid that unimaginable alternative, we are required to pay the substantial but necessary price of having our legal understanding frozen in the Early American assumptions of 1787.

That’s how bad chaos is.  We will do something that makes minimal sense to avoid it.

And yet – and here’s where I make my turn with a contrarial example from my life, indicating that a surrender towards chaos may not be such a bad idea.

A while back, my daughter Anna noticed this expanding snarl of accumulated blog post ideas cluttering my desk to the right of my computer.  (I had this messy pile that I tossed new ideas on, and on those days when no inspirations urgently rushed to my mind, I would rummage through the pile, pick out an idea, and away I’d go.) 

Anna said, “Dad, let me organize those for you.”  Since it is in my nature to like things organized – the “expanding snarl” is, characteristically, not me – I said to her, “Go to it.” 

She took the ideas, scribbled on various sheets of whatever was handy when they came to me, and she neatly rewrote each, with maybe a few accompanying notes, on a three-by-five card, carefully stacking them when she was finished in a carved wooden box that she had given me for Chanukah.  She does a lot for me, that girl.

My desktop has now been cleared.  Chaos has been vanquished from my office.  Order has once again been restored.

And you know what?

When I was stuck for an idea and I would break into the box and flip through the pile of three-by-five cards, I would discover that, more often than not,

The ideas, neatly stacked in there, were not good anymore.  And I mean virtually all of them.

Once these ideas had aroused my interest – at least, I’d been enthusiastic enough to write them down.  I read them over now, and I am fundamentally uninspired. 

It would appear that the process of organization and storage had sucked the life from my previously intriguing blog post ideas.  The juice had been drained right out of them.  They were dead meat on a card.

It’s an interesting phenomenon.  I abandoned chaos, and I lost excitement.

(I have a new “expanding snarl” of ideas on my desk now and, once again, they are unilaterally fresh and viable.)

I understand that traditional structure is reassuring and comfortable.  But if you don’t loosen the reins and relax in the direction of chaos – not all the way, we are not automatons, we are capable putting on the brakes – my experience suggests there is an energizing vitality that will be sacrificed. 

Despite its reputation, chaos has its pluses.


If you can handle the ride.

"Rumble! Rumble!"

Not long ago, as I was dropping off to sleep, I experienced a shake.  I wasn’t cold – that would be a shiver – and I was not feeling fearful – that would be a shudder.  This was a shake.  And in fact, it wasn’t even me who was shaking. 

It was the house.

Venn Diagram:  Southern California is “Earthquake Country.”  The city I live in is in Southern California.  Ipso facto, the city I live in is in “Earthquake Country.”

This shake was nothing, a Richter Scale measurement of “Ho hum.”  There would be no mention of it on the local news, no anchorperson ducking under their desk, demonstrating the appropriate response to such situations, but also a trepidatious concern that the overhead studio lights could at any moment come crashing down on their heads.

The shake is a jolting reminder – that’s too much; let’s say a jostling reminder – that, where I live, an earthquake of serious magnitude could befall us at any moment.

Without warning. 

This is no twister on the horizon – “Get in the cellar, Dorothy!” – or tropical storm off the coast – “Drive away from the water!” – This is “We’re here.  We are shaking the life out of you.  And there is no place to hide.  You can run under your door jamb, but who are we kidding?”

Earthquakes are scary.  Precisely because they arrive without warning and you cannot get away from them.  Plus, we’ve seen movies about earthquakes, where the ground opens up and buses fall in.  And I’m not entirely certain where they end up.

There is always the question of why people would choose to live in “Earthquake Country”, the same question applying to “Cyclone Country”, building your home by a river with a reputation for flooding, or close to a swamp where an alligator could crawl out at any time and snap up some young ‘uns.

The answer to such questions is because, excluding these occasional disruptions, these are generally nice places to live.

“Ah lahk to look at the rivah; jest nawt when it’s a’risin’.”     

The other reason for selecting dangerous places to live is because of a mechanism in human nature that allows us to forget the bad parts.  This is the same mechanism that explains why women have more than one baby.

Of course, writers are different.  We never forget anything.

It was late Sunday night, in 1994.  Our daughter Anna, then ten, was at a sleepover in the Fairfax area, about a twenty-minute drive from our home.  A Sunday sleepover was permissible, because the following Monday was Martin Luther King’s birthday, which is a school holiday.

It was, like, four-thirty in the morning, when we were jolted – I mean it this time – out of our sleep.  There are two kinds of shaking that I’ve experienced– a rolling rhythm reminiscent of whitewater rafting, and the kind where the earthquake’s a pair of pliers and your city is the tooth that it’s trying to yank out. 

Major pieces of furniture are sliding around.  Cabinets fly open, spilling their fragile contents onto the floor.  And in our case, the violent shaking induced our rooftop chimney to break off and crash through a skylight in a downstairs sunroom.  Such an occurrence makes an extremely loud noise. 

For the first few seconds, your reaction to the earthquake is always the same:

“Is this an earthquake?” 

When you decide that it is, you jump on of bed, and stand in the doorway, although honestly, this seems as equally protective during a “big number” earthquake as crawling under your desk during a nuclear attack.

The next uncertainty about an earthquake is, “When is it going to stop?”  In the ’94 earthquake, it was less than a minute.  But while it’s happening, it feels like forever.  And there is no reason to believe it won’t be.

Finally, the shaking ends, and you catch your breath.  Though the lights were out, we went downstairs to check on the damage.  A large cabinet and all our floor lamps had toppled over.  There was a huge crack in one of the living room walls.  The glass was shattered on several of our framed pictures that had been shaken off the wall.  And, of course, our chimney was a pile of brick rubble on our sunroom floor, mixed with the shards of our obliterated skylight.

There was no power, and the phones were out of service.  (This was before cellphones.)  We went outside, and turned on the car radio, our only source of communication with the outside world.

We were told that the quake had been a substantial one, and that its epicenter was in Northridge, about twenty miles away.  However, a underground “fault line” led straight through Santa Monica, which we later learned had been extremely hard hit.

Dr. M’s maternal reflex required her to jump in the car, drive over to the Fairfax area, and retrieve Anna from the sleepover.  My reflex, as usual, was caution (with a modicum of fear.)  I told her it seemed unwise to drive on the freeways until we knew how they had survived the impact of the tremor. 

As it turned out, the radio reported that that the 10 Freeway had been seriously damaged.  A portion of it had collapsed just before the Fairfax off-ramp.  

(There are occasions when caution is synonymous with common sense, though less than enough of them to rehabilitate my reputation.)

With the freeway impassible, we took surface streets to get to our daughter.  Pico Boulevard was abandoned and lightless.  It felt like driving through a city after an apocalyptic blast.

Finally, we found the sleep-over house, and located Anna in the dark.  She seemed okay.  Until she saw us.  After which, she immediately raced to a bathroom and threw up.

Relief takes a variety of forms.

The following morning was for, literally in this case, picking up the pieces.  Our nerves remained frayed, and we were hardly reassured by the sporadic, often extended, “aftershocks” that continued throughout the day.  After about the dozenth aftershock, I recall turning angrily to the heavens and shouting, “That’s enough!”  As usual, my instructions to heaven went entirely unheeded.

At that time, I was consulting full-time on a series called Thea, which was meant to be the female answer to The Cosby Show but wasn’t.

With the phones working again, the first call I received was from Thea’s show runner.  He wanted to know when I was coming into the office.  I told him my house was a shambles, my nerves were shot, and I intended to spend the day trying to return both of them to their usual condition.

The show runner only heard “I’m not coming in.”  His response was to drive over to my house, where he required me to work, oblivious to the fact that I had just participated in a real-life disaster movie.  He viewed this as dedication.  I just hated the guy.

It is now 2012, making it eighteen years since the last “Big One.”  The “Big One” before that was in 1971.  Though earthquake prediction is far from an exact science, the intervals between them seem to be in the area of every twenty years. 

What I am saying is,

We are pretty much due.

"Wednesday Walk - Musings and Meanderings"

Or at least one musing.  And I’m not sure yet how much meandering.

On many of my Wednesday Walks, but particularly on this one, I have noticed people running with dogs.  Let me quickly explain that this is not the same as “running with wolves.”  If it were, I would most likely remain indoors.  And I am understating with “most likely.”

What I’m talking about is the regular occurrence of people – men and women; they both do it – holding a leash, running, with their dogs running alongside them.  Which they are obligated to do if they don’t want to get strangled by the leash.

What appears to be happening is one of my least favorite planning strategies – “Killing two birds with one stone.”  I hate killing two birds with one stone.  I don’t like killing any birds at all.  Though, contradictorily, when I was twelve, I did try to bring one down with an air rifle.  I missed.

“Killing two birds with one stone” is a self-serving time saver, which invariably ends up killing no birds, and wasting a stone.  (Note:  Shameless dog owners could claim they are killing three birds with one stone, the third “bird” –  providing exercise for the dog.)

Here’s the rationale behind this two (or three)-birds-with-one-stone situation:

“I want to take my dog outside, and I want to run.  Hey, I know!  I will go outside and run with my dog!”  (“And my dog gets to run too!”)

Fine.  Except, Mr. or Ms. Two (or Three)-Bird-Killer:  Have you ever, as I have as you speedily traverse my path, seen the intense look in your dog’s eyes?  Trust me.  That canine is not happy.  It’s like,

“I wanted to go outside.  And now I’m running.  I have no interest in running.  I just wanted to go outside.” 

(Adding, if it’s a particularly talkative dog:)  

“Why am I running, when what I really want to do is to go inside and lie down on a rug?”

Am I projecting my own feelings here, about being forced to run when you don’t have a say in the matter?  Is this merely a flashback to my Bathurst Heights Collegiate gym class days?  Perhaps.  But I am not imagining the sense of annoyance in those people’s pets’ eyes.  Those pooches are pissed!

“We can’t just go outside for me.  They have got to throw in the running.”

There is a screaming injustice here, which reminds me of the Supreme Court’s Plessis versus Ferguson decision of 1896.  For obvious reasons.  Plessis established the “separate but equal” principle, without ever consulting with the “separates” as to whether they would not prefer to simply be equal.

Though perhaps I am overthinking this point.

My next thought naturally turns to the – to me, inexplicable practice – of running itself.

A man goes streaking by me, taking enormous strides, at a pace that would leave thoroughbreds scratching their heads.

“I run that fast.  But they’re hitting me with a stick!”

Why, I can’t help wondering, do people run?

I know why they used to run.  To get away from big, scary animals that were running after them.  But today, those animals are extinct.  Possibly due to excessive running.

Unless you live in the wilderness, and if you exclude urban street thugs – which, in my sixty-seven years of urban living I have encountered exactly none –  “running for your life” is an anachronism, now applied primarily to sitcom writing staffs whose script is in terrible shape and they have desperately little time to fix it.  And that’s figurative “running for your life”, which feels the same – because in both cases you think you’re going to die – but isn’t.

So that rationalization for running is out.  As is “So I can get places faster.”  Modern society has provided superior alternatives in that regard.

So why then, once again, do people run?

“Because they likes to.”

Fine.  It’s a free country.  Anyone can virtually do anything that is not harmful to others.

“I like to eat fire.  Is that a crime?”

No.  It’s stupid.  But it’s not a crime.

People run because they like to challenge themselves.  They run to stay physically fit.  Others run for the well documented “runner’s high”, triggering endorphin-induced feelings of euphoria and happiness without ingesting products that could get you arrested, or in rehab, or if you’re a celebrity, in “Celebrity Rehab.”

In the movie Chariots of Fire (1981), an Olympic long-distance runner espoused a religious reason for running:  “…when I run, I feel His pleasure.”  So, some people run for God.  Though if it were me, I would ask God why He created those big, scary animals that required us to learn to run in the first place. 

Of course, I’m just a big troublemaker.

Let’s turn things around for a second. 

Why don’t I run? 

Well sir, I have always harbored this theory:  If you do not want to incur any sports injuries – which I do not – do not do any sports.  To date, this strategy has worked like a charm.  No sports, no sports injuries. 

I met a guy once who had undergone four knee replacements as a result of skiing.  I do not ski.  And I retain my own knees.  (By the way, that lunatic is still skiing.)

You know, when you think of it, runners and walkers are on the same continuum; I’m just at the really, really slow end of it, not far from, “Standing Entirely Still.”

A meaningless comparison?  I don’t think so.

And neither do the poor dogs those runners are dragging along.

“I wish you owned me,” I hear them whine,

As their paws go skidding the sidewalk.

"In Good Hands"

It happened twice on the same show.  Apparently God was having a good laugh at my expense.  Or God was trying to knock off two well-known entertainers and I was merely the medium of their demise.  Or there is no God, or there is but that God has better things to do than to think about me, relegating these events to the category of random misfortunes.  That would appear to cover all the bases, so I am moving on.

The show was called Everything Goes, a syndicated talk/variety show taped in Toronto, on which I participated as a writer and sometimes performer.  (Of the hundred produced episodes, I performed in nine.  I remember being good once, though I may be exaggerating.) 

I was a member of a three-man writing staff, penning comedy sketches, often partnered with a fine writer named Ken, the third member of the staff being memorable almost entirely for his name, which was Londos D’Arrigo. 

One of my strongest memories was of observing the man – actually, more of a kid – come in every morning, call up his answering service, and inquire, in a sonorous tone of unearned authority, “Anything for D’Arrigo!”  A performance Ken and I would mimic mercilessly until the producer told us to stop.

(This was also my last job in Canada.  When Everything Goes was cancelled, I moved to L.A., and stayed there.)

My first encounter with mortality – not my own, but another’s of considerably more significance – occurred when I was asked to drive to the hotel, pick up “Professor” Erwin Corey, a comedic anarchist who never failed to crack me up, and deliver him to the studio.

I just skated past the scary part, though regular readers will ferret it out immediately.  I was being asked to drive someone someplace.  Me, whose theoretical bumper sticker reads, “I Brake For Shadows.” 

Me, who only recently, at the age of 27, had passed my Driver’s Test (after previously failing twice) during a televised segment of a Canadian network Public Affairs program, never certain if I had actually driven well enough to pass, or if the DMV guy had rubber rubber-stamped my performance so as not to destroy the happy ending of the broadcast by failing me yet again.

That’s who they were sending to chauffeur a performer to the studio. 

Oh, and did I mention it was winter? 

It was only two blocks from the hotel to the studio, but on ice-glazed streets, in the dark, because it gets dark early in Toronto in the winter, two blocks was distance enough for

Neophyte Writer Kills Double-Talk Comedian With Erratic Driving

Fortunately, we made the two-block journey in one piece.  But, as a result of my unique style of driving, the “Professor”, whose hair was sprayed to stand straight up during his performances, arrived with his follicles already immobilized in the vertical position. 

That’s the appetizer.  Here’s the main course.

Another guest on Everything Goes was the old-time comedian/raconteur, Georgie Jessel, who was born in 1898, and the show was produced in 1974, so at our encounter, the man was seventy-six years of age.     

Georgie Jessel’s career hearkened back to vaudeville and silent movies.  (Jessel had rejected the deal to star in the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, after headlining in the theatrical production on Broadway.)

Dubbed “The Toastmaster General of the United States”, Georgie Jessel was also famous for delivering celebrity eulogies, primarily for the “passed on” of the Hebraic persuasion.  A story is told about Jessel once delivering a funeral oration, eulogizing some Jewish notable’s beloved pet, leading a guest at the event to subsequently observe,

“I had no idea how much that dog had done for Israel.”

We taped two episodes of Everything Goes per day, three days a week.  There was an hour break between tapings.  After the first show, Jessel, who would appear on both programs, creaked up to me, only because I was the one standing closest to him, and said,

“Young man.  Do you know someplace where I can get a drink?”

I informed Mr. Jessel that there was, as Toronto calls them or at least did back then, a tavern, located a block south of the studio. 

“Would you be so kind as to escort me there?”

I said okay.  What am I going to tell him, “Find somebody else”?  This was the Toastmaster General of the entire United States!  Plus, a walking show business encyclopedia.

Not that he walked that well.  Especially on ice. 

In pitch-black darkness.

I retain to this day the indelible recollection of this seventy-six year-old trouper clamping onto my arm for support, as we gingerly traversed the slippery sidewalk and jay-walked across the equally treacherous thoroughfare, on our way to a side street that would take us to the tavern. 

My dependent companion had been awarded a Special Oscar for Humanitarian Services.  Returning me instantly to “Headline Mode”:
 

Academy Award Winner Breaks Both Hips In Toronto Fall.

Under which is written,

“Neophyte Driver Of Irwin Corey Involved Again.”

We took tentative, little steps as Mr. Jessel regaled me with stories of entertaining the troops during the Viet Nam war, informing me that he had recently been forced to jump from a helicopter before it landed, to avoid enemy fire.  I was wondering if this adventure came to mind, because he felt equally imperiled by our trek to the tavern. 

I led him unsteadily into the bar, and, after his double Scotch, led him even more unsteadily back to the studio.  The only eventful moment occurring when my venerable charge repaired to the Men’s Room, and some curious denizens of the tavern came over to inquire who he was.  I immediately replied,

“Al Jolson.”

To which they were duly impressed.  As well they should have been, as Mr. Jolson had died twenty-four years earlier.  

I am happy to report, as the movies do about animals, that “No Celebrities Were Injured During The Course Of These Stories.”

But I cannot in all honesty report that

It wasn’t close.  

"A Welcome Arrival"

Okay.  This is admittedly, indisputably and indefensibly ridiculous.   Forgiveness may have to be asked.  It would be understandable if it were not granted.  But...

Whattayagonnado?

Dr. M and I are not profligate people.  (I looked it up, and it fits…that we’re not that.)  Aside from my twelve belts, I am in no way obsessively self-indulgent.  (Thinking it over, since one of my belts is reversible and serves double duty, I could be considered to have thirteen belts.)  In fact, I am demonstrably the opposite.

My car is twenty years old.  My clothes closet includes outfits purchased during the Reagan Administration.  I retain the suit I bought for Rachel’s Bat Mitzvah. 

And she’s thirty-eight!

So much for my credentials for non-spendthriftyness.  And my wife is the same.  If you don’t count shoes.  And purses.  And…I really need to be moving on.

I had mentioned in passing that, during our recent holiday in Hawaii, we encountered, to our pleasure, comfort and satisfaction – how do I handle this tastefully – I am sure Noel Coward could pull it off, but it is beyond my literary capacity – what happened was that our hotel room’s bathroom came equipped with this truly magnificent toilet seat.

All right.  I said it.  It’s out.  No cutesy euphemisms.  No beating around the bush. 

The appurtenance was sensational.

So we bought one for our house.

It was installed in the Master Bathroom.  It’s interesting.  Dr. M had originally wanted it in the Ground Floor bathroom.  But I nixed the idea, embarrassed to expose our extravagance to our friends.  And yet, here I am now, beaming our ostentation to the universe. 

Inconsistent?

“Yo.”

Specifics – whether you want them or not.

When you step up to it, the toilet lid automatically rises.  In salute.  Saying,

“Welcome.”

(It doesn’t actually say “Welcome”, but its crispness and efficiency indicates it is indeed happy to see us.

Sometimes, however, it jumps the gun.  Getting to our shower requires walking past the toilet, and whenever I do that, the lid pops up, with the eagerness of a well-trained puppy.  Though I hate to dampen its enthusiasm, I am forced gently to reply,

“Sorry.  Not you.”

After which, after a period of time, and with detectable disappointment, the toilet lid descends to it previous position.  

(I am not certain how long that “period of time” is, as, though my days are not exactly brimming with activity, I have not stooped to standing over my toilet with a stop watch, timing the interval between when the lid automatically rises, and it, later, automatically goes back down.  Besides, if I did that, the lid would never go down, as the “electric eye” would detect my continued presence in the vicinity.)  

Sometimes, heading for the shower, I have to deliberately sneak by, so as not to hurt the toilet’s feelings.  Other times, I give in and “go”, when I don’t actually have to.

The seat is comfortably heated, at precisely the “right” temperature.  I imagine engineers conducting rigorous tests, in an effort to determine what that precisely “right” temperature is, offering apologies and medical care to those who experienced “Too hot.” 

I will race through the other features, as the specificity makes me uncomfortable.  

The toilet offers water-generated “cleansing” functions, providing “soft” and regular alternatives.  The water dispensing options include, “Oscillating”, “Pulsating” and “Wand Cleansing” – I have not experienced that last one, as I am afraid of it.  But I imagine its action’s similar to a windshield wiper’s.  

A warm air “Dryer” function completes the unique and pampering experience.

(At the moment, the toilet is not “self flushing”, but we are looking into adding this feature to its formidable repertoire.)

The plain truth is, we bought this device, because we wanted it.  But we needed a “cover”, a redeeming rationalization for purchasing something nobody even close to actually needs. 

It turns out we had a credible explanation for our unnecessary expenditure.  Which was this:

It was our thirtieth anniversary.  And after about our twentieth, it had become our habit to, instead of giving each other presents (as we abundantly do on Chanukah and our respective birthdays – I mean how many sports shirts or decorative pins does one actually need? – I will leave you to determine which of us receives which), we would instead mark each marital milestone by purchasing some decorative or enhancing upgrade for the house – towels, sheets, an eye-catching doormat.  

We were a month past our anniversary, and we still coming up empty.  The best idea we could think of was a “stick-to-the-floor” mat that you spread in front of your kitchen sink, so you don’t slip around while you’re doing the dishes.  Something about that said, “Keep looking.” 

So we did.

There is a traditional list of commemorative anniversary gifts.  The First Anniversary is "Paper."  The Fifteenth Anniversary is "Crystal."  The Twenty-fifth Anniversary is "Silver."

The Thirtieth Anniversary, for us, at least, 

Would be "Toilet Seats."

"Bad Taste - Part Two"

I recently flipped by an episode of Two Broke Girls.  In the scene I happened upon, the two broke girls were being verbally assaulted by two Hassidic (Orthodox Jewish) thirteen year-old boys, complete with the traditional earlocks and the all-black attire, including the hats. 

Their “acting out” included a lot of “smack” – if that term is still in service – and transparently coded sex talk.  When the mother came in, the boys immediately reverted to their expected personas – obedient, well-mannered and respectful of women. 

You can see the “funny” they were going for.  Yeshiva bochers (Hebrew School kids) “presenting” as inner-city smut merchants, then making the “quick switch” when a grownup shows up.  Nothing new there.  The “switch” from mouthy to respectful is as old as Eddie Haskall and “the Beaver.”  Probably older.

The difference here was the content.  Though I had difficulty deciphering the patios, I got the sense that rather graphic sexual innuendo predominated, and that subtlety was of minimal concern. 

Setting aside the “Hassidic” element, which was the original “twist” in the proceedings, what we were offered here was two young boys talking dirty to two women who had heard it all before, but, ostensibly, not from children.   

Good taste?  Bad taste?  Does any of that matter?

The show’s studio audience was howling; they clearly thought this was hilarious.  Does that mean they didn’t find the scene is bad taste?  Or they did, and that’s what was funny about it.  In which case, the taste issue was a big joke to them.

And now, a little background.

Writers hate to be criticized about anything.  What writers like to hear is, “It’s perfect!” from a person they can believe actually means it.  (Understanding that a writer’s capacity for self-delusion is alarmingly limitless.)

Given writerly sensitivity, it is not at all surprising that, in my day, writers bristled at executive interference, retaining particular venom for the “Standards and Practices” representatives, assigned by the networks to adjudicate “appropriateness” issues in the scripts.

“Where do they get off criticizing my taste!” the diatribe would go.  “I make content decisions all the time – what goes in the script, and what does not.  In doing so, I necessarily apply my own taste and judgment.  Who else is more qualified?  A controversy-averse lackey with an arbitrary set of rules?”  

Well…

Yes.

Why?

Because the heat was on the networks.  And that heat could be hellish. 

In my day, when they measured viewership in terms of total volume rather than demographic cohorts, the network mandate was for their shows to appeal to the widest possible audience.  It was therefore “bad for business” to offend anybody, the dreaded concern being,

“We’ll get letters.”

It was amazing how very few letters it took to send the network racing for the exits.  A handful of letters, and series, including series that had not even aired yet, were in serious danger of cancellation.

I never liked being criticized for taste issues – which, in my case, involved “off-center” commentary more than curse words or sexual situations – because I felt they were tying one hand behind my back, keeping me from doing my best work, and making the final product – which had my name on it – seem out of touch, simplistic and dumb. 

This reality was neonly demonstrated when HBO and other cable stations arrived, offering considerably more true-to-life comedies like The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.  This contrast made the heavily constrained network sitcoms appear to have emanated from another era.  Not quite “double beds for married couples”, but that’s what it looked like. 

The networks bounced back to an extent, though considerably less artfully, as a result of two factors.  One, cable competition required them to “push the envelope” as Tom Wolfe once said and now nobody can say anything else. 

And two, abandoning their mandate to attract the widest possible audience, the networks honed in on the younger viewers, whose concerns about taste were considerably more relaxed.

The result:  Two Broke Girls and the potty mouthed Jewboys.

So…

What we have here is this.  Though no one can define precisely what it is – the closest approximation of a guideline was a Supreme Court justice who said, re pornography, “I know it when I see it” – the “Taste Police” were on the case in television of yore to insure that no viewer in the vastest audience they were trying to attract saw anything that might possibly ruffle their feathers.  In the process – I am not speaking literally here but – a “universal” taste standard was instituted:  “One Size Fits All.” 

Some people might find the resulting programming pablumish.  But at least there would be no letters.  (Or advertisers dropping their sponsorship of shows due to letters sent to them.)

Taste today is no longer universal, but cultural – which includes religious – regional, and, as I alluded to earlier, generational, personal offense increasing as you get closer to death. 

(This is the kind of line I would, in earlier times, get in trouble for.) 

More precisely, it is not age that triggers taste concerns, it is more the age you grew up in.  Older people came to maturity in tamer times.  Current comedy legitimately offends their sensibilities. 

Speaking of older people, let us now move on to me, and the termination of my career.

As much as I railed against the restrictions I worked under, I was also protected by them.  What do I mean by that?  I mean that today’s relaxed standards not only provide the permission, they create the necessity of having to write things that I would not personally feel comfortable committing to paper.  

For taste reasons. 

Not only would I feel uncomfortable writing such things, most of them would probably never come to mind.

In a way, censorship prolonged my career.

And relaxed censorship ended it.

Do I want the tighter censorship back? 

No, thank you. 

But now that more taste decisions are in the hands of the writers, I would ask those writers to show a little taste.