"The Reel Deal... Or Is It? .... And Anyway, Who Cares?... Besides Me."

I have written about this before, but I am writing it differently this time, because I am a congenital “Good Boy” and “Good Boys” do not reprise identical material and pretend it’s something new.  (In the Major Dad pilot, I concocted an original “Knock-knock” joke, because I felt using an already familiar “Knock-knock” joke was cheating.)

We recently saw the Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks-starring Bridge of Spies, concerning an historic prisoner exchange during the Cold War.  The film arrived virtually simultaneously with Steve Jobs, written by Aaron Sorkin. 

I identify those specific names with the projects to explain the reason I went to see those movies – because of the auspices involved – despite having ideological objections to “biopics.”  Excluding The Jolson Story, which I heartily enjoyed, but there are exceptions to everything.  And “Jolie’s” singing is magnificent.

I could talk about the dishonesty of movies “Inspired By Actual Events”, cinematic enterprises promoted as real but produced – unapologetically – as fiction.

But the problem may simply be my inability at handling contradictions:

“The events inspiring this movie are real.  After that, we did whatever we wanted.”

There is something troubling about that assertion.  I am always wondering,

“Which part of this movie is real, and which part has been ‘reimagined’ to ‘juice up’ the box office?”

(Paralleling Side Note:  I posed a similar question to our guide Sarhan when we visited the ancient Turkish city of Ephesus, specifically, “Sarhan, what exactly am I looking at?”  Meaning, are these centuries old ruins unearthed from antiquity, or is this an authentic-looking “recreation” for an unwitting public?  An antiquerial Disneyland for tourists.

And if, as is likely the case, it is a little of both, what percentage of it is the actual Ephesus and what percentage is archaeological “reproduction”?   To me, that was an important question.  Who wants to take pictures of two-thousand-year-old ruins they threw up there a couple of years ago?  I mean, “Nice job”, but it’s hardly the genuine article.)

There is something not quite kosher going on.  A movie “Inspired By Actual Events”, reminds me of fast-food hamburgers,

“Inspired By Actual Meat.”

But enough of that foolishness.  Instead, let me, for your skeptical enjoyment, deliver Aaron Sorkin’s in-his-own-words reaction to the critical heat Steve Jobs has been taking, some of .Jobs’s intimate associates angrily proclaiming, 

“This is not the Steve Jobs I knew.  It is only the mean, hyper-dramatic portion.”

And now, without further ado,

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Aaron Sorkin.

(WARNING:  “THE FOLLOWING IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR READERS EXPERIENCING UNHEALTHY REACTIONS THE TRANSPARENTLY WEASLY”) 

AARON SORKIN:  “We have this conversation every year around this time (meaning the “Awards Season” when the “serious” movies are released.)  Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln, Selma.  Steve Jobs doesn’t fall into the same genre as those films.  It’s not meant to be a dramatic recreation of actual events.  Which isn’t to say it’s fiction.

“I believe the movie announces itself pretty quickly as being impressionistic… I wince a little when I hear ‘artistic license’ because it generally sounds like a dodge – and an excuse for hyping the truth.  I don’t think we employed artistic license.  I think we were just artistic.”

Yikes.

This is not a man from whom I would ever buy a pre-owned automobile.  Nor allow my daughter to go out with.

We follow up with an extraneous though possibly a propos observation: 

Citizen Kane was a thinly veiled biography of William Randolph Hearst, rendered “artistically” by Orson Welles.  The difference is, the movie was called Citizen Kane, not Citizen Hearst.  

I know.  My critique, although highly readable, is fruitless.  Studios will keep making these movies as long as they continue to make money.  And when they do make them, there will always be the concomitant outrage about “the unconscionable betrayal of biographical reality.”

That’s when I started thinking about reality.

(Warning (although not "Bold" and in capitals): The following observation may be ponderous.  It may also be wrong.  Or possibly irrelevantly “off the point.”  But the connection came to mind, and I am passing it along.  Feel free to disagree.  Or simply gag, or roll your eyes, uttering the word “Lightweight!” as you do.)

Consider “reality”, as we understand it.  The way we say something, and then, to underscore its veracity, we add insistently, “It’s true!”  Well, I am not entirely sure about that.  And by “that”, I mean, everything we see, believe, experience and remember.

We may try to be truthful, but there is the possibility that, owing to “selective perception” and some tidying “artistic license” of our own, our personal recollections are not indisputably accurate but merely   

“Inspired By Actual Events.” 

It now occurs to me that if our reality cannot stand up to maximum scrutiny,

Maybe we should cut our inaccurate “biopics” a little slack.

 

They are only doing what we do.

All

the time.

"Peanut Brittle Or Snakes"

is a classic practical joke device, dating back to 1915.  My introduction to this comedic subterfuge came via an episode of The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978, for which I wrote three episodes, but that has nothing to do with this story, so I am putting it in brackets, though I may take it out later.  Nah, probably not.)

Here’s how it works.

A cylindrical metal tin labeled “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” is presented to an unsuspecting recipient, as a gift, or with the invitation, “Would you like to try some?”

The recipient twists open the lid of the “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” tin, and instead of discovering old-fashioned peanut brittle, a giant “snake” comes flying out, to hilarious effect.  (The surprising “snake” is in actuality a coiled spring wrapped in cloth or vinyl sheath printed like snake skin, launched into the air the moment the lid to the “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” tin is unscrewed.)

In the “Bob Newhart” episode (from Newhart’s first series where he played psychologist Bob Hartley), Dr. Hartley is offered a “peace offering” from orthodontist Jerry Robinson, with whom Bob has an amicable but sometimes prickly relationship.  The “peace offering” is a tin of “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle.”

Bob thanks Jerry for the present.  Invited to “Try some, it’s delicious”, Bob unsuspectingly twists open the lid of the “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” tin…

…and two five-foot “snakes” come flying out, frightening Bob – and the audience along with him – half to death.

A “confused” Jerry apologizes profusely for his “mistake.”  He had intended to give Bob peanut brittle, and had unwittingly given him “snakes” instead.  Jerry then replaces the offending tin with another tin of “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle”, assuring Bob that this time, it is definitely peanut brittle.  And not snakes.

Bob is understandably apprehensive.  Persuaded, however, that there will be no surprises this second time, he twists open the lid of the  “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” tin, and…

Two more “snakes” come flying out of the tin! 

Scaring Bob and the viewing audience as much as the first time, and possibly more.  (Jerry once again looking on in mock bewilderment.)

Jerry then exits.  But not before placing a third tin of “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” on Bob’s desk, promising that this time, it unquestionably contains peanut brittle. 

And not snakes.

Alone in his office, Bob is seriously tempted.

But he decides not to try it.

Very funny. 

Until it happens in real life.

Under analogous circumstances.

An allergist recommended “Nasal Irrigation” to combat ongoing concerns in the sinus department.  The “Irrigation Kit”, sold in pharmacies and on-line, includes a plastic bottle equipped with a tube attached to a nozzle with a hole on the top of it.  What you do is you fill the bottle with lukewarm water, pour in the contents of a small saline packet, and then squirt the salty concoction into each nostril through the nozzle. 

“Nasal Irrigation.”  (And now you know.)

Does it help me with my sinus difficulties?  It’s hard to tell.  But I continue the regimen, if only to avoid having to lie to the allergist, or – which is more likely in my case – avoid confessing to defying his authority when he asks, “Are you still irrigating?”

Anyway, one day, I find myself out of saline packets.  So I call up the company and I order a “double refill” – two (hundred-packet-containing) boxes, rather of one.  As a precaution against running out again, and having to breathe Neanderthalically through my mouth till the replacements arrive.

I wait a couple of days.  Then a package from the company is delivered.  The “Shipping Box” looks bigger than I expected it to, but I presume it is mostly insulation, shielding the saline packets from U.S. Postal Service desecration.

I open the “Shipping Box.”  And I discover…

Instead of two boxes of saline packets, I have received twenty-four “Nasal Rinse” bottles.  (Intended, according to the accompanying Billing Slip, for a doctor in Vancouver, Washington.)

They had shipped me somebody else’s order.  (And had apparently shipped “Dr. Vancouver, Washington” mine.)

I call back the company, and I explain to them what happened.  They are sincerely apologetic, promising to ship out my order immediately.

I wait a couple of days.  A package from the company is delivered.  I feel instantly relieved.  I open up the “Shipping Box”, and discover…

Say it together, children…

Twenty-four more bottles of “Nasal Rinse”  (Intended this time for a doctor in Sonoma, California.)

“Are you frickin’ kidding me?”  (I scream inwardly, and maybe outwardly as well.)

This is insanity!  I am expecting to get one thing, and I am discombobulated by twenty-four bottles of another.

Leaving me the proud possessor of forty-eight bottles of “Nasal Rinse”.

What am I going to do?  I really need those saline packets.  I call the company again, demanding shipment of what I had asked for for the third time!  Persuading me not to cancel my order, I am assured that this time, it will be right.

So here I am.  Awaiting the third delivery of my original order.

I am hoping it isn’t “snakes”.

But, if you’ll remember…

So was Bob Hartley.

(Climactic Payoff:  As a marital prank, Bob brings home the third tin of “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” Jerry gave him, presenting it as a gift to his wife Emily.  Appreciative, Emily twists open the lid of the “Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle” tin, as Bob struggles desperately to stifle a giggle.  And she discovers…

…old-fashioned peanut brittle. 

Sneaky Jerry has done it to him again. 

This time, without snakes.)
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Follow-Up:  Acting on a commenter's suggestion, I read an article about naming medicines.  But I remain in the dark about two questions.

Why do they give prescription medicines meaningless names?  And having decided to do so, how do they come up with those meaningless names?

Let me know, if you know.  Then, I'll know.

Thank you.

"The Stand-Up Comedy Approach - My Personal Preference"

A couple of days ago, I mentioned our family’s attending a recent Jerry Seinfeld concert, during which his opening act was heckled and I identified with him to the point of remembering the main reason I did not want to be a comedian.  Again, just remembering the incident ignites a “Not for me” reaction in my highly sensitive intestinal area.

Having attended another Seinfeld concert three years before, it became quickly apparent that the comedian was reprising a substantial portion of his 2012 material in this concert.  But, as my daughter Anna astutely observed, imaginably through repetition during the interim, Seinfeld had “tightened his old material up.”

Jerry Seinfeld has an identifiable stand-up approach.  He races onstage without introduction and goes straight into his act, infusing his material with what to me at least was an inexplicable urgency. 

Seinfeld accompanies certain moments in his act with an underscoring physicality, his more demanding maneuvers demonstrating an admirable limberness, which I also took note of in my post about his 2012 concert (which, regular readers will be unsurprised to hear, I am unable to locate.)

Jerry’s contentual stock-in-trade involves, primarily, two areas of exploration. 

“Area of Exploration Number One”:  Conversational colloquialisms.  Jerry mentions the disconcerting over-inclusion of the word “ass” during verbal interactions, as in “Blow it out your ass” and “I’ve got it coming out of my ass” (as if the person had stored a certain category of item in his ass and had accumulated so much of that particular item, “I’ve got it coming out of my ass.”

Jerry also observes that if you repeat the same word twice in the same sentence, it accords it a heightened intensity.  As in, “It is what it is.”  “A deal is a deal.”  And “You are what you are, and you do what you do.”  (That last one is mine, but I feel it comfortablly belongs.)

“Area of Exploration Number Two”:  Contemporary behaviors and institutions, in which Seinfeld includes the wheezing comedic punching bag, The United States Postal Service, albeit to unexpected effect.

Seinfeld is sarcastically surprised that an institution whose modus operendi includes “licking and walking” would have difficulty staying afloat in the Twenty-First Century.  He goes on to mock the agonizing humiliation of the Postmaster General coming on TV, explaining the necessity of raising the price of postage stamps another penny.  The routine builds to a climax with Seinfeld’s proposal that the Post Office simply opens our mail, reads it, and then e-mails us what it says. 

Charging us a penny for the service.

(Note:  The preceding recreation was not verbatim, as I was not taking notes during the concert.  Plus, kudos go to Jerry Seinfeld for his difficult-to-reproduce, vocabularial specificity.  It’s like he picks every word, phrase and descriptive with a tweezers.)

Jerry Seinfeld’s concert made me laugh, though not always hard, and not all the time.  As with the earlier outing, I perceived in Seinfeld’s performing M.O. a stylistical distancing. 

There is something impersonal about Jerry’s approach.  He will momentarily open up, like when he mentions his three children, while withholding personalizing details, such as their names, their ages, and their sexes.  He has a wife, but the revelation her name as well appears to be on a strictly “need-to-know” basis.

In my view, backed by the corroborating evidence of two concerts, Jerry Seinfeld treats the audience like a mirror, in front of which, after thoroughly memorizing it, he smoothly and professionally delivers his act.  Tiny slips are apparent, after which he instantaneously, and without comment, continues his recitation.  

“Hey, the guy’s hilarious!”  Is the rebuttal response, the accompanying pejorative “Asshole!” being entirely understood. 

I agree.  Jerry Seinfeld’s act evokes enthusiastic laughter. 

But where is the engagement with the audience?

At this point, by way of contrast, I was going to mention, as my preferred style of comedian – if not human being – Bill Cosby.

When I was working on The Cosby Show, Cosby capsulized his comedic philosophy:

“You know when you’re in a restaurant and you see this guy telling a story and all the people at the table are laughing.  I wanted to be that guy.”

Bill Cosby included his audience in the proceedings, making the overall experience warmer, to me deeply funnier and consequently more rewarding.

One last, revelatory comment. 

I try to duplicate Cosby’s approach writing this blog.  Generating the feeling that we are all in this together, you, reading and reacting, and me, talking to each of you individually, fully aware of my excesses and inanities. 

“Did you really need to include that?” 

Not really, but I wanted to.   

A not dissimilar practitioner in this regard is Amy Schumer.  Whose HBO Special I recently watched.  (Alternating back and forth between her curiosity about her vagina and a C-SPAN lecture delivered by historian Joseph Ellis concerning the Founding Fathers’ letter-writing techniques.  Call me “Mr. Eclectic!”)

Wherever you stand on her body of work – and her wardrobe selection for her performance – Amy Schumer knows how to connect with an audience.  (Although I wish her act were as enjoyable as her audience’s reaction to it made it appear.)

Paralleling Cosby’s mythical roundtable raconteur, Amy Schumer felt like the funniest girl at the pajama party.  (Putting me in the position of the eavesdropping brother hiding in the closet.) 

When you get down to it, it may simply be a matter of taste.

I like to laugh. 

But I prefer it when the concert performer offers an indication that I’m there.