"This Close"

You sit in eateries in Los Angeles.  And if you keep your ears open, you will invariably pick up fragments of anecdotes in which the speaker is “this close” to a life-altering show business opportunity.  If followed up on, it would be revealed that the vast majority of these arrangements ultimately end in soul-crushing disappointment, the deal inevitably falling through.  The following is a story that did.  And then didn’t. 

Intrigued?  I am.  And I know what it is.

To protect his identity, I shall call the man Ted.  Though his real name is Frank.  Wait, did I just… Oops, sorry.  I have little experience with pseudonyms, though even a novice should probably not done that!  I’m going to stick with “Ted” here, hoping if I say it enough, you will forget that I said Frank.

Oh, Man!

Okay.

Ted, who was maybe twenty years my senior, had with his partner John – who I am only mentioning once so to heck with the pseudonyms – had built a respectable career, both creatively and commercially – though not with the same vehicles; they won awards for their classy work, and made millions off the shlock.  Ted, himself and expatriate Canadian, was tall, talented, charming, but not Jewish.  You can’t have everything.

Earlier that year, Ted and John had given me a job writing and performing on a syndicated talk/variety series they were making in Toronto.  Off that performance, I was invited to participate in a CBS summer replacement series they would shortly produce in Los Angeles.  As it turned out, I was already scheduled for my West Coast debut, writing on an upcoming Lily Tomlin special.  The summer series job meant I’d be “winging to the Coast” with two jobs securely in the bag.

I am glossing over a lot of this, because I have talked about it before, and because I want to hew assiduously to the message of today’s narrative.  Which begins with this.

While working on the summer series, knowing I was alone in a strange town, Ted magnanimously took me under his wing.  Divorced and living by himself, Ted would regularly have me over to his house, where he’d personally fix me hamburgers on the stove.  Once, he hosted a visiting friend and me to a weekend at his luxury condominium in Palm Springs.

One night, the doorbell rang in his house, and in came two semi-attractive women who had apparently, and without my knowledge, been contracted for the evening.

As with virtually all of my stories of this nature, this one too ends with “Nothing happened.”  Why?  Because the first words out of the mouth of the particular “party girl” assigned to me were,

“Are you a Jew?”

Historically, my personal moral compass may not be entirely unwavering.  But I draw the line at anti-Semitic prostitutes.

Moving on…

With my assignment on the summer series winding down, Ted called me aside, and catching me entirely off-guard, related this news:

“CBS wants to pay me ten thousand dollars to write a half-hour comedy pilot.  How would you like to write it with me, and we will split the money fifty-fifty?”

I immediately said yes.  It was precisely what I wanted to hear.  With this offer, an accredited practitioner was telling me I was capable of playing regularly in the “Major Leagues”, my abilities deemed worthy enough to allow me an even split of the scriptwriting money. 

I was on my way.  My next job in Hollywood was waiting for me.  I would not have to go back to Toronto.  And forage, a certifiable failure at my chosen field, for a “consolation prize” line of employment.

The single buzzing fly in the ointment was this.  Ted had a manager named Bernie, whose name I shall not bother to disguise, because there are a lot of “Bernies” in show business, the man is blameless, bordering on – by show business standards – virtuous in this narrative; plus, he’s dead.  Ted is now dead too, but as you will see from the forthcoming turn of events, he is less meritorious of scrupulous anonymity.

When Bernie got wind of Ted’s proposal, he took me aside and told me, point blank,

“Do not believe anything Ted says to you.  The man is admittedly charming.  But he is also an inveterate and notorious liar.”

And there I was.  I had heard what I wanted to hear from Ted, and then heard what I didn’t want to hear from Bernie. 

What was I going to do?

I decided to ignore Bernie.  Though the sampling was admittedly small, Ted had never lied to me before.  He had promised me a job on the CBS summer series, and I’d had a job on the CBS summer series. 

The guy seemed to genuinely care about me.  Heck, he had gotten me a Jew-hating hooker!

Having made my decision, I flew back to Toronto, gave up my Canadian apartment, arranged with a company to have my Mazda driven out to L.A., and I returned to Hollywood, waiting for Ted to call me with the details of our first day of collaboration.

He never called me.

I called his office.  Several times.  He never called back.  Why not?  How should I know?  He never called back!

It turned out Bernie had been right.  Ted was a pathological liar.  And because I believed him, I had pulled up stakes in Toronto, and was now living in Los Angeles, with no job.

That’s how ninety percent of the stories down here end. 

“I was ‘this close’ to my show business ‘Big Break.’” 

And they never got closer.      

For me, however, after six weeks in the “wilderness”, Lorne Michaels called, offering work on another Lily Tomlin special.  The show won an Emmy for “Best Writing”, and I never looked back.

My story, fortunately for me, is the exception. 

But I am eternally aware that it could have, breathtakingly easily, gone the other way.

"A Week At The Spa - An Interim Report"

Our week ends tomorrow, and I am writing this yesterday.  Other stuff can still happen, but here's what's been happening so far.

It had rained the night before.  We are on the morning hike, and I hear, "It's nice today, though."  To which I hear the instant response, "It's getting better and better!"   

The last voice sounded familiar.  It turned out to be mine.  

Regular readers know that does not sound like me.  "It's getting better and better!"  I'm thinking,

"What's going on here?  Has the spa turned me upbeat?"  
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Aside from the incredible landscaping - you know how eskimos have dozen of different ways of distinguishing various types of snow? This place needs a color-differentiating savant who can delineate the virtually uncountable nuances of green - scattered amongst the botanical opulence is an assortment of magnificent statuary, much of it fashioned from polished, black granite.

There is one particular standout that I am required to pass on the way from my room to virtually everywhere else on the property that elicits a personal response bordering on unhealthy infatuation.  (Think:  A curvaceous, granite-incarnated version of Her.) 

I will not be able to deliver an adequate "word picture" for two reasons.  One, though I am a decent writer, not privy to a massive vocabulary nor a discerning eye for artistic detail, I am a barely adequate describer.  And two, I have been unable to stop and examine the statue in detail, for fear of earning a spreading reputation for statuatorial perversion.

A free and unself-conscious nude, she rests comfortably on the ground, her arms braced in front of her, her supporting right leg bent behind her, her left leg nestling easily atop her right, her arching torso rising like a basking swan, her surging haunches....

Wait a second!  Where did that come from?  I better stop right there.  There could be children reading this. 

Let me just say however before moving on that, at each passing, I am unable to proceed without taking a moment to pay appropriate tribute to that beautiful statue.  I tip my cap in tribute to the sculptor - who either conjured this magnificent design concept from his imagination, or he is a lucky, lucky man - and to pay equal tribute to the creator of the original prototype.
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My favorite activity so far...

WATSU.

WATSU is a variation of massage treatment performed in a pool of ninety-six degree water, on this occasion, by a gifted practitioner  named Pete.  

It involves lying on your back, supported in his strong, supporting arms, and allowing Pete to gently manipulate your various body parts and extremities, the goal being to relieve tension and increase flexibility.  Later in the treatment, an additional element is injected, during which your head, for a maximum of five seconds, is immersed under the water.

Naturally, I was terrified.  (Dr. M had had a WATSU treatment earlier that same day, and her review of the experience was decidedly mixed.  And she's brave!  What does that bode for me?

Before we started, Pete informed me that the key to a successful WATSU experience, is to completely relax. Three reasons not to immediately jumped to mind.  I am lying in water.  I am going to be forced to go under water.  And I am entrusting my wellbeing to a complete stranger named Pete.

I was determined to do it.  It was my birthday.  And this was my treat.  Which, at least, I thought would make a nifty epitaph:

"Man Dies On His Birthday Of A Personally-Selected Treat."  

My original immersion triggered a nervous comedy impulse:

"Am I a Christian now?" I inquired.

But then, I surrendered the process and...

Lemme tell you, folks.  It was sensational. 

Back in the early eighties, the prevailing fad was Sensory Deprivation Tanks, where you floated inside a tube, borne on a couple of inches of salt water.  (The treatment fell into disrepute because they did not change the water and people got AIDS from it and died.  I believe the procedure has been upgraded since then.)

You think if you're a big-time claustrophobic like I am, you would be terrified, lying inside a closed-in, darkened tube.  However, you'd be wrong.

Rather than feeling closed in, you feel instead like you are floating away in an endless expanse of space.  

WATSU felt exactly the same way.  

It was - and I have never used this word before in over 1500 blog posts - 

Transformative.

The "WATSU Experience" left me purified and reborn.  Fearing a catastrophe, I had ventured beneath the water and had emerged from that mysterious nether-world untroubled and free!  (You haven't lost me.  This is going to wear off.)

WATSU turned out to be an indelible birthday-treat adventure.  Enhanced by the fact that, when a spa guest who had heard me singing its praises asked me if I planned to do it again, I replied, "I never do anything twice", but most gratefully did not add, "We only have one kid."  A decent joke - of the comedy writer reflex variety - but it really is not the way you want to be remembered.
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At night, invited professionals come in to give these, mostly, inspirational talks.  One night, the speaker's lecture was entitled, "From Aging to Sage-ing."  I decided to skip it.

I don't want to hear anybody talking about old age unless they're offering an escape plan.

"It's through that door."

Otherwise, I'll just pass.

There are definite limits to feeling upbeat. 

"Super Bowl At 'The Spa"

I am a little concerned today because sometimes my blog posts contract the vibe of the subject matter I am writing about, and since today's post is about the recent Super Bowl, my blog post might itself be a thunderous clunker.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.  Though it makes it exceedingly difficult to type.

The Fitness Spa where I am spending this week has arranged for those interested to watch the game on a Big Screen, set up in one of the gym facilities specifically for that purpose.  I have to admit that, though I am told this is my 33rd visit to the spa, I have never been inside this gym facility before.

When I arrive, the, maybe, one hundred arranged folding seats are no more than a third occupied.  As the game progressed, more people showed up, but there were never more than thirty-five attendees at the maximum.  (Though many, particularly the females, I noticed, were extremely rabid.)

That kind of turnout exemplifies "Super Bowl at a Fitness Spa."  Can you imagine?  Rather than sitting around watching athletes exert themselves, the majority of spa visitors prefer to exert themselves themselves.  What would it do to our economy if that kind of nonsense caught on nation-wide?  It would likely cause serious damage to the couch business, and virtually decimate the potato business.  

...because there would be a lot fewer "couch potatoes"...he explained, which, when you have to explain 'em...  Sorry.  It's my "Vacation Brain"  Half of it's functioning, the other half's thinking about lying in the hammock when I'm done.  I shall try to apply myself more diligently. You deserve the best for the expenditure of your time.

Okay, so "Super Bowl at a Fitness Spa" means...

No beer.  No nachos.  No pork rinds.  (Which they used to toss out, but now sell as a popular highly non-kosher snack item.)  Instead, what they have prepared for us as "game watching" treats is air-cooked popcorn with no butter, that tastes like what I imagine those excelsior peanuts they fill up transported packages with might taste like, and a healthy-ingrediented pizza, reminiscent of pizza only to people who have never in their lives tasted pizza.

Here's how thoughtful I am.  And spread it around, because it is hardly a popular belief.  Because the viewing crowd is so sparse, imagining the spa's service help as party hosts, I feel badly that they prepared way too much food, so I avail myself of a second slice of pizza.  For their sake.  No.  Really.  You should have seen them.  Their faces looked so sad.

From my perspective, though I am aware it is not everybody's, the parade of lavishly over-produced commercials was sporadically interrupted by an actual football game, which, even if it had been great, and it wasn't, is the way the Super Bowl extravaganza now functions.

Once when we were in Hawaii, we took a helicopter ride over a still-active volcano.  If we looked really closely, we could see these isolated ribbons of molten lava.  But what we were treated to mostly was an extended view of these huge, ponderous prehistoric boulders.  That to me describes the egregious disproportionality of the "Super Bowl Sunday."  If you paid really close attention, you could just about discover a game.  

As for the actual activity on the field - by which I do not mean the half-time show which I walked out on so I cannot comment of the band of "strangers" entertaining the universe - earlier that morning, there was a column in the Sunday New York Times written by Frank Bruni, whose message involved how Peyton Manning represented the older and savvier generation, going to battle against Russell Wilson, Manning's athletically agile but dangerously inexperienced opponent.  Bruni's preferential hope was that wisdom and experience would ultimately emerge triumphant.

Not such luck.  (To the chagrin and eternal agony of the old.) 

Young, strong and speedy obliterated old, experienced, and on the extremely short end of a 43-to-8 trouncing.  The only thing perhaps more disappointing than Super Bowl XLVIII was the quality of the Fitness Spa pizza.  Though, let me immediately add, that was not the fault of the beleaguered spa service staff. 

The end of the game - well the end for me, I left when it was 36-0 - triggered a torturous dilemma.  Uniquely for spa people.  The problem is, it was about six-thirty in the evening, and, truth be told, we had already eaten.  

But they were now serving dinner.

The question is, is it appropriate - and, by the spa value system,  morally and calorically correct - to eat again? 

My decision?

I went to dinner.  Not to eat, mind you, but only to keep my wife (who had skipped the game) company.

Though I did eat a little.

Follow-up from February 4:  There was a birthday cake.  Not carried out by the chef, but by three assistants from the kitchen, who wore hair nets.  The confection itself was a chocolate and banana cake, garnished with - wait for it - kiwi.  On the bottom, there was either an inordinately impenetrable bottom crust, or a round piece cardboard with chocolate on it.  

It did not matter.  

We ate it anyway.

"The Confection That Dares Not Speak Its Name"

AKA:  "The Thing With Candles In It That You Get On Your Birthday"

I am writing this from a Fitness Spa where the food is fine but insistently healthy (more about that in my "Super Bowl at the Spa" blog post tomorrow.)  The mention of food, meaning the kind you don't get here, can send people into a tizzy, causing them to run amok, salivate and attack other, most especially any allusion to the sweet and doughy concoctions turned out in in our finer bakeries.  That's just taboo, and entirely verboten.  You can be punched out just mentioning a bagel.  And I imagine receiving the same from anyone looking over my shoulder, so I shall follow the appropriate precautions as I proceed.

(I have this persistent fantasy of brigands and/or scalawags commandeering this spas, and e-mailing pictures showing them threatening to force-feed rich Mexican pastries to their loved ones if they they don't immediately send money to a prearranged scalawag-rented P. O. Number.  I always thought that might make an interesting movie.  Entebbe with cream puffs.)

So...

The first time I had my birthday at this spa, I was surprised at dinner, when the chef himself, appropriately chefly-girthed and decked out in white tunic and tall hat, emerged from the kitchen, bearing the thing with candles in it that you get on your birthday, and singing in a semi-operatic a traditional, mellifluous Mexican birthday song.  I recall tears in the eyes.  Not my eyes, the chef's.  And I never met the guy before.

The gesture was extremely touching.  However, the traditional, mellifluous Mexican birthday song is apparently quite long.  And the chef was insistent upon singing the whole thing.

There I sat, the smiling recipient of this melodic attention, aware that people's meals were being interrupted for the occasion, and this song kept going on and on and on.  In time, "touching" evolved into feeling uncomfortable, followed quickly by feeling incredulous, impatient, and annoyed.  

But I kept smiling.  As did the entire dining room, fearing offending their about-to-be-made "new friend" who may shortly - when the song finally ends - share with them his chocolatey beneficence. 

The next time I visited the spa on my birthday, I recall sitting at a table with seven or eight strangers, knowing they would soon feel lucky for having me as their table-mate that evening.  It is a rare and heady occasion, when I actual feel certain I am going to be liked.  I was virtually floating out of my chair.

The meal ended...

...and nothing.

Apparently, during the intervening years between visits, the tradition of bringing out the thing with the candles in it that you get on you birthday had been abandoned.  It, apparently, was felt easier to curtail such a highly-anticipated tradition that to tell the chef not to sing.  

At least, I didn't "heads up" my table-mates that there was something coming they were really going to enjoy.  I would have had to leave the spa early, hopefully unescorted and not ridden out on a rail.  

This post is being written a day before my birthday.  I do not know where the tradition currently stands.  (They have a new chef.)  No matter how things turn out, I shall attempt to retain my much celebrated aplomb.  

Que sera sera.

In the meantime, I shall practice "the Face."

The face that says (in an accent, rich in Gallic distain),

"I don't care one way or ze other."

It is not an easy face to pull off.

Especially if you do not entirely mean it.

"Random Birthday Memories"

Today is my birthday.

Like many people, I imagine, I look forward with little enthusiasm to my birthday’s impending arrival – I see my accumulating years as one block being stacked on top of the preceding others, such that, at some point, there will be an inevitable Toppling of the Tower.  But when the day actually arrives, I, personally, feel blissfully exhilarated.

I have always experienced my birthday as an exhilarating holiday – Thanksgiving, Christmas and the First of July (when Canada received its independence from England through the “British North American Act”) all rolled into one. 

I envision my birthday as a “Bank Holiday” during which the banks remain open because nobody observes it as a holiday, except me.  Which is fine.  There are fireworks in my head.  And that is all I require.   

As I prepare this cyberspacical epistle, memories fly up from my unconsciousness concerning random birthdays from my past.  Here are a few recollections that have floated into my awareness today:

When I was six, I had a party in my basement, during which a commemorative photograph (which I still have) was taken, a dozen or so birthday guests and myself, posed atop the counter of our basement bar, our short-panted six year-old legs dangling loosely in front of us.  One of the invitees was my friend, Shelly G., who now lives in Phoenix.  We have remained in touch for the past sixty-three years.

During my Elementary School years, I recall arranged February 4^th (or thereabouts) “skating parties” at the natural rink in the “Glen Rush” schoolyard, two doors from my house.  (Yes, there was an Elementary School an infuriating two houses away; I, however – and the reason why it was infuriating – was required to commute a considerable distance to the Toronto Hebrew Day School.)  Since I did not at all care for ice skating, I would remain comfortably at home, watching television until my party guests returned, after which we enjoyed hamburgers, hot dogs and birthday cake, and I opened my presents.

Once, receiving Maple Leafs hockey tickets for my birthday, I became so bursting with the excitement of being there that, when we went out after the game was over, I raced into the alley next to the Gardens and unceremoniously threw up.

On the night of my twenty-second birthday when I was living in London, on the way to a party after the pubs had closed, the inebriated driver of the car I was in lost control of the vehicle, and it careened abruptly into a lighting stanchion.  Though mercifully unhurt, I could not shake “Died On His Birthday” headlines flashing through my consciousness, along with the realization of how utterly stupid I had been, getting into that car in the first place.  (You kids out there, “Do not do that!”)

When I was thirty-two, I spent my birthday night dancing uninhibitedly (to the extent that my personality and talent for dancing will allow me to) on the star-lit beaches of Bora Bora.

My fiftieth birthday was spent weekending with my wife at an exclusive Beverly Hills hotel, catering primarily to high-rolling Eurotrash.  (We didn’t bother them; they didn’t both us.  Though I admit I did gawk a little.) 

When I turned sixty, we overnighted at a Santa Monica hotel, where, while I waited for Dr. M to return from work, I treated myself to a gala “Earl-A-Bration”, during which I “binge-watched” tapes of the “Written By Earl Pomerantz” sitcom episodes of which I was selectively the proudest.

One year, I spent my birthday watching the Super Bowl in the company of a handpicked handful of longtime friends.  Another year, I eschewed the Super Bowl (invariably played around my birthday), accompanying my family to the Planetarium, which was extra fun that day because it was empty, everyone else being at home watching the Super Bowl.

A couple of years ago, my daughter Anna hosted me to a day at Disneyland, at which time there was a promotion, allowing anyone celebrating their birthday to be admitted to the “Happiest Place On Earth” free of charge.  The celebrants were also provided large “campaign-style” metal buttons with our names printed on them, whose appearance required every Disneyland employee to say, “Happy Birthday, Earl!”, or whatever your name happened to be.  (This special promotion was subsequently suspended, and I have not returned to Disneyland since.)

Last year, per my solicited request, my daughters Rachel and Anna and I decamped to a major Cineplex with really good sound at ten-thirty in the morning, where we sat in a virtually empty theater, and very memorably watched Les Miserables together.

And this year, it’s this – a week of seclusion and pampering, in what is basically a year-round summer camp for grownups.  I know I am truly blessed to have the health and the resources to imagine what I would like for my birthday, and then make those sometimes extravagant wishes come true.  I am, without question, a fortunate Jewish man.

Next year, I turn seventy. 

I am going to try not to think about that today.

I would, on this birthday, like to thank anyone who has ever had a kind thought about me.  I would also like…to at least make a start at…forgiving anyone who has not.  That one’s a work in progress.  But, apparently, I have time.

And with that, it’s…

Happy Birthday to me

It’s a gift to still be

I am substantially the same guy

But I wake up to pee.

And now – “Watsu” – where you relax in human body-temperature water, and a stranger makes you feel sixty-seven again.  

"A 'Radio Earlo' Supplement"

Just in case things don't work out blog-wise early on my trip, I am hedging my bets, for at least the first day, by offering a late cut from my recent, and seemingly appreciated "Radio Earlo" series.

Lacking the inspiration and support of an established religion to keep me going during the "difficult times" - which was pretty much always until somebody paid me to write something - I would rely, for my spiritual nourishment, on the empowering songs from musical comedies.  I called them my "Brave Songs."  Because they made me feel, if not capable of doing something, at least, you know..."Maybe it's possible."

This song, from The Roar of the Greasepaint The Smell of the Crowd, was one of my favorites.  I apologize for its over-the-toppedness.  But there were times back then when I really needed a lift.    

I am currently learning to play "Nothing Can Stop Me Now" on the piano.  It a tricky one, so it may take a year or two to get there.  But the song tells me that someday I will.

And I choose to believe it.