"The Elusive Senor Ha-Ha"

I thought it was just me.  (But that’s nothing new.  I always think it’s just me.)

Pilot Season – 1981.

Rehearsals for the first series I had ever created (Best of the West) had gone smoothly.  The reading got laughs.  The actors we’d selected lived comfortably up to expectation.  The rewrites during “Production Week” were not substantial. 

I had made certain guesses about what would be funny, and they were generally paying off.  It appeared like I actually knew what I was doing.  (Despite the fact that, to the concern of my bosses, much of the script’s comedy emanated directly from the situational “moment” rather than, as was traditional in sitcoms, from setups and punch lines, which was good, because I have little or no aptitude for setups and punch lines.)

On the Wednesday evening before the Friday “Shoot Night” (when the pilot would be filmed), we had what they call a “Camera Rehearsal.”  In order to reduce the possibility of mistakes, the cameramen (running three cameras, all filming at the same time) were given an extra opportunity to go through their moves, rolling the massive machinery from one pre-marked-by-masking-tape position to the next as the action played out in front of them.  You noticed those “marks” on the floor indicating where to go next, and it looked like a remedial school for hopeless dancers.

“Forget about the steps.  Just move your feet to the next mark.”  

The cameramen were amazing.  They had to learn dozens of moves in an extremely short time.  I don’t know how they did it.  Probably because they were professionals.

“Normally, we move furniture.  Today, it’s television cameras.” 

It was nothing like that.  They did one thing.  And they did it impeccably.

It was decided that we would bring in an audience to watch the camera rehearsal.  A live audience would give the actors a chance to find out where the laughs were, and would energize their performance.  Nobody “phones it in” when people are watching.  One of them could be considering them for their next job.

I do not recall where the audience came from.  Some of them were members of the show’s office staff.  Others were low-level network and studio employees.  Some were… I don’t know.  Better that disclaimer than theoretical conjecture.  I just know the bleachers were three-quarters full…of somebody.

And I also know this.

The Wednesday run-through was “through the roof.”

Everything worked.  The actors were “letter perfect”, their timing and delivery thrillingly “on the money.”  As a result, the laughs came loud and long and often, sometimes accompanied by applause.  And then it pinballed.   The more they responded, the better the actors performed, flying on the fumes of audience acceptance.

Even a pessimist like me had trouble finding something to complain about.  Of course, I managed.  I was sorry the Wednesday show had not occurred on the actual “Show Night.”  Everyone else was elated.  Truth be told, though I didn’t show it, so was I.

The next day, there was another camera rehearsal, but without an audience.

And it was….

Horrible.

The energy was down.  The timing was off.  The confidence-level diminished. 

And the shock set in.

Maybe the show wasn’t funny after all.  Maybe Wednesday had been just a fluke.  It was a stomach-churning feeling.   The pilot would be filmed the next night.  And nobody knew if it was great or an enormous stinkeroo.

Then, on “Show Night”, the “magic” mercifully returned.  About eighty-two percent of it.  The audience seemed to really appreciate what they saw.  Of course, they had not witnessed the “Miracle Of Wednesday Evening.”

The abiding question is, “Wha’ hoppin’?”

Wednesday – “Brilliant!”  Thursday – “Death.”  Friday – a resurgent “Very Good.” (Good enough to get us picked up as a series.)

At the time,

I thought it was just me.

And then I read Mary And Lou And Rhoda And Ted, by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, a book chronicling the trials and triumphs of the all-time classic, The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  A show the network originally hated.

Check this out.

Page 77.

CBS had asked the producers to stage a preliminary taping, and a lot was riding on it.  The network wanted the producers to test some new cameras, and the run-through would also allow them to prove that their pilot was better than executives thought it would be.

Page 78-79.

Sometimes what works in rehearsal doesn’t connect with the audience… Nary a chuckle escaped the bleachers, and the less the audience reacted, the less sure the actors were… Post-show polling indicated that Rhoda…was indeed universally hated.  Phyllis, also, was “too abrasive”, according to audience feedback.  Mr. Grant didn’t fare better; he came off as humorless and bullying when he grilled Mary about her religion and marital status at her job interview, then ended by telling her, “I hate spunk!”

That was the Wednesday rehearsal.  And then on “Show Night”…

This time, the audience roared… The atmosphere lightened like it was filling with helium, taking the studio up higher and higher.

Mr. Grant asked her about her religion and marital status; the audience laughed this time.  “You know what?” Asner finally said as Mr. Grant.  “You’ve got spunk.”  Mary nodded in agreement, then he delivered the punchline, “I hate spunk!”

Asner saw the audience take off like a guided missile…   

Two performances – two reactions; one – “outhouse”; the other – “penthouse.”

How does that happen?

I am not at all certain. 

But the good news is…

It didn’t just happen to me.

"The Power Of The Pacific"

The Pacific Ocean is four blocks from my house.  I can see it right now, looking out my office window in the upstairs of my house.  It’s blue, and, true to the Spanish version of its name – which is also its actual name – it is calm.

For claustrophobics like myself, Los Angeles’ open “Fourth Wall” on its western boundary is an easeful relief, an elbow-rooming exhale, in contrast to the suffocating confinement of the urban East.  I can relax at the ocean.  I have a ready escape route.

The ocean is also a reassuring “Force of Nature.”  (I like to think of myself as a “Force of Nature” as well, but in a smaller package.  So I identify.)  The ocean has been around and has seen it all.  On many past occasions, when inner turmoil threatened to overwhelm me, I would take myself to the ocean, and be soothed by its comforting eternality.  My problems are transitory, it reminds me without saying a word.  The ocean is forever. 

Surprisingly, I do not get down to the ocean that often.  As I said, we live four blocks away.  However, as the great writer Bruce Jay Friedman once wrote, comparing a condo he occupied on Malibu beach, for some reason if you’re not living directly on the beach, you might as well be living in Nebraska.

It’s really close.  But you don’t go.  It feels like it’s too hard.  There’s a hill, there’s lights, there’s traffic.  But it may be because it’s too easy.  The ocean’s not going anywhere.  What’s the rush?

I do go sometimes.  Yom Kippur, when I’m fasting, after a “long-enough” visit to the synagogue, I buy a magazine or a newspaper, I head for the beach, find a free bench facing the water, and I set myself down, to rest and relax.  And not go home, where they’re cooking the “fast-breaking” dinner, and the insinuating aromas threaten my resistance not to eat. 

Sometime, I ask the ocean if it thinks I’ve been inscribed in the “Book of Life” for another year, and the ocean – who knows – remains Mum.  Reminding me in its silence that the matter is out of my control.  Though I could have stayed in synagogue a little longer.

I also, on occasion, go down to the concreted beachside path to walk.  I never wear headphones.  I like to hear what’s going on.  Also, when I’m crossing the bike path, lacking great peripheral vision, I need the aural evidence of approaching peddlers to keep this perambulating gentleman from being bicycled into the pavement.

Last Saturday, tiring of treadmilling to nowhere, as is my habit as I listen to “Books- On-Tape, the most recent one being a biography of Calvin Coolidge, I decided to face the challenge of the four-block obstacle and I headed for the ocean.

And I’m walking along, singing a song.  That’s not just a rhyming sentence.  In lieu of an i-Pod, I sing to myself.  I am my own personal playlist.  And I am delighted with every selection.

The ocean on my right as I head south towards Venice pier.  Suddenly from behind, but relatively closely behind, I hear a male voice speaking with military insistence, shouting,

“WALKER!  ON THE RIGHT!”

This is followed by a series of repetitions echoing with diminishing volume backwards into the distance.

“WALKER!  ON THE RIGHT!”  “Walker!  On the right!” “Walker!  On the right!”  “Walker!  On the right!”

“Walker on the right.”  What, I wondered could that mean?  It sounded like some kind of a warning.  But what?  Was there a person with a walker that needed to be avoided?  Was it “Walker: Texas Ranger” and this was an unexpected ”Celebrity spotting”?  What exactly was going on?  And who was barking out those orders?

Then, as I turn my head, I see a squadron of maybe thirty runners (who I subsequently learn are preparing for the “L.A. Marathon” eight months away) passing me on my left, their leader alerting them, as he would do later concerning water on the ground and a big dog on an extended leash.  In this case, the impediment he was alerting them to

was me.

I was the walker on the right.

To be honest, I did not enjoy being “Walker!  On the right!”  I felt somehow diminished, a total stranger having taken the measure of my disciplined efforts to remain in shape and found them pathetically insufficient. 

Walker on the right.

Versus

Runners on the left.

“Hey!  I’d walked all the way down here, Pal!”

Only to hear

“Dawdler!  On the right!”

“Decrepit person!  On the right!”

“Person who thinks they’re exercising but come on who are we kidding?   On the right!”

This never happens when I’m on the treadmill.  On the treadmill, I feel vindicated.  I am getting my work in.  I am exercising my heart. 

I am doing the same thing out here.  How dare they insult me with their

“Walker!  On the Right!”

I turn to the ocean to back me up.

The ocean silently goes in… and it goes out.

Making me realize that I may be over-reacting.

"Hopeless Cause"

If it were up to me, I would get rid of football completely.

(Hence the title, “Hopeless Cause.”)

(And don’t talk to me about hockey.  Just don’t.  Until there’s a three hundred and twenty pound hockey player with the speed of an Olympic sprinter.)

Okay, L.A. doesn’t currently have a football team, so my “rooting interest” deficit if it went away would be zero.  But that’s not the point.  Though it could be an explanation of why I am less resistant about letting professional football take a hike.  Where I live, it has already took one, so there’d be no

“I miss the team.”

You don’t have a team.

“Oh yeah.”

There’d be none of that nonsense goin’ on.  My team done up and moved in 1995. (Sorry for the jargon.  I am listening to a blues CD while I’m writing this.)

Be fair here.  Does having no home team disqualify me from having an opinion on this matter?

“Yes.”

Let’s say the answer is “No” and keep going.  I can do that.  On my blog, I am the entire Supreme Court, and not only do I rule in favor of my right to an opinion on this matter, the ruling is unanimous.  One to nothing.

Resulting from a combination of pressure from NFL veterans, public relations exigencies, and (hopefully a modicum of) corporate guilt, after a concerted effort to get them to do so for years, pro football has finally agreed to pay out over $765 million in compensation money to settle lawsuits filed by players who’d been irreparably injured (the most irreparable injury being premature death, including suicide) after playing of football in the NFL.

The central concern involved brain injuries as a result of repeated head trauma from violent contact, leading to dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other incurable conditions.  There are also issues involving arthritis in the joints resulting from repeated surgeries, severe neck injuries and a overall inability to bend over and tie your shoes. 

Nobody is immune.  Not the biggest football stars.  Not the short-termer “no names” who give up their bodies playing on “special teams.”  Every former player, I imagine, endure some residual damage,  But thousands of them are really hurting.

Does anybody care about these guys?  And by “anybody” I mean us, the fans.  The answer to that question would seem to be…

No.

We want our football.  And the fact that it destroys the minds and bodies of the athletes who play it…

It’s just the price paid for playing the game.

And watching it.

The difference is, the fans’ bodies aren’t ravaged and their brains aren’t scrambled.  It’s just the players.

If you’re honest, you cannot ignore our part in the equation.  Fans are the reason they play.  Think about it.  If the fan base goes away, do you think they would unilaterally continue to do themselves injury?  And even if they did, do you think TV would broadcast the games? 

“Despite the massive erosion of the audience, our network will proudly continue our commitment to bringing the game to whoever still has the stomach to watch players give up their brains and their bodies for our entertainment.”

No audience and they keep showing it?  In what universe would that happen?   That’s not commercial television.  That’s PBS where they continue broadcasting Celtic music concerts whether anyone watches them on not.  I guess there are a few Celts who tune in.  But how many can there be?  

If the audience went away, football would be gone, or at least exiled to pay-per-view, like boxing, for diehards to continue watching two men punching each other into “greeters” jobs in Las Vegas casinos.  And that’s for the winners.  The losers go home, living out their shockingly shortened lives, fingering through scrapbooks, and watching their brain cells shutting down.     

Football is an enormously lucrative business because the audience, despite their awareness of the toll that “bigger, stronger faster” is taking on the game’s participants, still wants to watch it, if anything, more enthusiastically today.  Because the players are bigger and stronger and faster.

There are lots of reasons to watch.  The team has your home town on their jerseys.   There is a massive amounts of betting on games.  There are Fantasy Football Leagues.  And – and this is what inevitably hooks me – there are incomparable moments of excellence under pressure. 

But we’re watching the players now.  We’re not there when they can’t find a comfortable sleeping position and they’re gulping handfuls of painkillers.

There’s the point that playing football is voluntary, and actually the players’ enthusiastic choice.  It’s true.  Check them out on “Draft Day.”

“I’m a ‘First Round Draft Pick.’  I’m gettin’ my head kicked in for sure!”

Is this not, in fact, a free country?  Can Americans not do what they want to?  Well, no, not entirely.  They can’t take drugs if they want to.  They can’t ride motorcycles without helmets (in most places), or drive cars without seat belts. 

You argue that the players love to play, their participation in NFL football being maybe the high point of their lives.  Point taken.  But there are soldiers who claim combat was the highest point in their lives, and yet, we do not deliberately arrange wars for them, so they can feel maximally fulfilled. 

So what are we going to do?  Football is a huge moneymaker.  The fans love it.  They players aren’t complaining.  Until later.  There’s been some pressure to change the rules, but you can never take risk of serious physical injury out of the game.  It’s inherent in the process.  The rule changes are just band-aids.

AIR CRASH VICTIM:  “We hit the side of a mountain, and the plane blew up.  But since I was wearing my seatbelt, I did not get whiplash.”

The game is the game, and the fans, whose support fuels its phenomenal success oppose almost all risk-reducing changes. 

Here’s a thought, though.  Since we are insistent that football remain the way it is, why don’t the fans chip in and help pay for the injuries?  I mean, the guy got paralyzed for our enjoyment?  Do you not think we at least owe him a couple of bucks?

If that seems too much, what about signing a simple waiver, that says:

“We, the fans, are aware that football players regularly sustain irreparable damage playing the game, and we are pretty much okay with that.”

Football is never going away, and the ex-players will continue to suffer until they die.  But that’s okay.  They’re tough guys.  Tough enough, I am sure, to accept the fact that, though we appreciate and cheer like crazy when they’re on the field, we do not really care what happens to them afterwards.