"Big Earlo On: 'The Newsroom'"

I never knew with children, and I know even less so with strangers.

Does Aaron Sorkin need a spanking or a hug?

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!

Take a breath, will ya?

You know how I wrote recently that watching westerns lowers my blood pressure?  The Newsroom does the opposite.  I had to turn off the second episode in the middle, because I was starting to hyperventilate.

“I don’t understand, Doctor.  He was fine.  Then suddenly, he exploded right before my eyes!”

 

“Was he watching The Newsroom?”

“How did you know?”

“That’s the fourth one this week.  They really ought to put a “Health Warning” on that show.  ‘Speed kills!’  Including fast talking.”

In Sorkinland, fast talking equals genius.  I say, not always.  Will Rogers was a genius.  And he always took his time.  Chewed gum.  Twirled a rope.  And said some of the smartest things to come out of an American person’s mouth. 

“Fast” doesn’t necessarily equal genius.  “Fast” may equal frenzied.  “Fast” may equal desperate – “You don’t like that Mensa-inflected wisecrack?  There’s another one coming in two seconds.” 

“Fast” may also equal hurried.  I once read where, during the letter-writing era, a guy wrote to his friend, “Please excuse me for writing such a long letter, but I did not have time to write a shorter one.” 

You put everything down.  You don’t edit.  You ignore outside input, telling you your dialogue needs to be more comfortably paced. 

You get The Newsroom.

“Hey, I won an Oscar for The Social Network.”

“We know, Aaron.  And Newsroom has exactly the same energy.  It’s just nowhere near as good.”

Caveat Auditor – Let the audience beware.  In the Sorkin oeuvre, fast talking inevitably comes with the territory.  As does insight, at least of the “hit-and-run” variety.  And intensity.  And thinking the right thoughts, if you’re a fan of fairness, rather than winning at all costs.* 

* That’s probably why my greatest concern about The Newsroom is not, as with other reviewers its preachiness.  I’m preachy along the same lines.

It’s interesting.  The things that bothered other reviewers bothered me less.  And what bothered me the most, they didn’t mention at all.

That being, the show’s concept.

A fictionalized representation needs to feel real, to serve as an anchoring jumping off point for wherever else you want your show to go.  For me, an admitted addict to cable news programming, The Newsroom is a jarring fabrication.

Following The Newsroom’s premise, the show called News Night, which aired before this series began, was a safe and successful cable news show.  Anyone familiar with cable news can tell you there are no such thing as a safe and successful cable news show. 

Successful cable news shows are loud, contentious and polarizingly partisan.  Safe cable news shows run on CNN and are unsuccessful, consistently finishing last among their competition in the ratings. 

Fabrication Number One:  That there is or has ever been a safe and successful cable news show.  There has not.  Aaron Sorkin made that up.

Moving on…

News Night – both the earlier and what will become the revamped version – takes its structural format from Nightline.  Nightline was not a cable news show, but rather a network news show, specifically on ABC.  Being a network news show, Nightline’s ground rules and objectives differ significantly from the ground rules and objectives of cable news. 

Fabrication Number Two:  That a show like News Night ever appeared on any cable news network, even on safe and unsuccessful CNN.  It did not.  Aaron Sorkin made that up too.

The “conceit” of the show is that the formerly safe and successful cable news show will transform itself into an issue-oriented, balanced, truth-telling cable news show, which may or may not end up being successful.  This premise cannot be tested, as no program of this nature has ever been attempted on actual cable news.  But considering the current cable news viewing environment…

Give me a break!

Summing  up…

The Newsroom is premised on the concept of a show that never existed evolving into a show that is unlikely to exist in the future.

And this is supposed to feel real?

In the two reviews I read, The Newsroom was pilloried for being smug, condescending and self-righteous.  I can see where they’re coming from.  When the most idealistic character in the show talks about “speaking truth to stupid”, I had to stop for a second and ask myself, “I watch cable news.  Does that mean I’m stupid?” 

With its relevant subject matter and a perspective I support, The Newsroom is, overall, a worthwhile undertaking.  But if they’re going to insult me in the process, there’s a good chance I’m not going to watch anymore.

A show, using as its template a cable news show that has never existed, whose idealized version is unlikely to exist in the future, and whose machine-gun rhythms send my blood pressure into “call the paramedics” territory…

Yeah, I probably won’t be watching anyway.

"Summer Times - An Odiferous Assignment"

I was used to bedwetters.

Two summers as a Senior Counselor for six year-olds brought me into direct contact with that unfortunate though not infrequent phenomenon.  I make no judgments.  Except, in retrospect, what kind of parents ship six year-olds away from their “comfort zones” for two entire months?  Who wouldn’t pee in their pants?  Or, in this case, their beds.

We had the “low down” on them before they showed up.  My roster listed three bedwetters, who arrived packing a mattress-protecting rubber sheet, along with extra, regular sheets and a half a dozen pair (rather than the standard two) of pajamas.

In case of “accidents.”

To avoid such “accidents”, the bedwetters were required to be “lifted” at eleven o’clock each night. 

Somehow it had been calculated that, if the bedwetters were “lifted” at eleven, they would wake up the following morning with dry sheets.  Who knows, maybe this was determined by “trial and error”, an experiment I was happy not to have been involved in.

“Lifted” did not mean they were literally lifted.  They were roused from their beds and escorted to the bathroom.  (I don’t know what they did in the days before the cabins had bathrooms.  I imagine the counselors “lifted” the kids outside, and they peed in the forest.)

It was also important that the campers, including the bedwetters themselves, remain oblivious of who the other bedwetters were, for fear of ostracism and abuse.  Fortunately, the “liftees” were half asleep, so even the participants had no idea who the bedwetters were, other than, of course, themselves. 

Normally, the procedure was successful.  Occasionally, it wasn’t.  In which case, while the other campers were elsewhere, a counselor – we worked in pairs, a Senior and a Junior – would remain behind to clean things up.  After surreptitiously being aired out, the “evidence” would be stuffed in with the dirty clothes and shipped to the camp laundry for rehabilitation.

Fast.  Efficient.  Nobody “outed.”  Everything good.

The “variation of a theme” occurred when – and in my four years as a counselor it only happened once – a camper – forgive me if you’re squeamish or have loftier standards – pooped in his sleep.

As I mentioned, it only happened once. 

Though once was enough.

Leave us retreat from the biology of the matter.  I am both unqualified and uninterested in the specifics.  What concerned me were the consequences. 

What was I supposed to do? 

Unlike the “pee-pee” sheets, the “poopy” sheets could not simply be aired out and stuffed in a laundry bag.  Extraordinary measures needed to be taken.  And, having never dealt with this before, or been trained for the possibility during pre-camp orientation, I had no idea what they were.

Being me, I was eager to pass the problem off to somebody else.  I was hoping, for example, that the camp director/owner, whose name was Joe, and who had an elaborate cabin on the camp grounds that I was certain included a washer and dryer * would take the sepiaed bedsheets off my hands. 

*  I could not imagine Joe sending his laundry to the same place the rest of us did, as it was hardly a reliable enterprise, our laundry consistently coming back shrunk, the whites dyed pink, or it did not come back at all. 

After breakfast that morning, I took Joe aside and apprised him of the crisis.  Being the instinctual leader that he was, Joe immediately grasped the severity of the situation, and had an instant solution, though it was hardly the one I was hoping for.  His two-word instruction stays with me to this very day:

“Hose 'em!”

He then walked away, his hunched-up shoulders paroxysmally rising and falling.  Joe's affection for me did not keep him from finding my predicament hilarious.  

CUT TO:

A forlorn counselor, standing in an untraveled area behind the Mess Hall, holding a garden hose, watering a damaged, bedsheet spread out on the ground, buttressed from the breeze by four anchoring rocks, its troubled partner waiting patiently for its turn.

Occasionally, the cook would emerge to throw out some potato peelings, momentarily glance my way, and re-enter the kitchen, shaking his head at the unimaginable range of Senior Counselor responsibilities. 

I could have, I suppose, passed the buck to an underling, but I am not at home giving direct orders, especially in situations where I am transparently angling for a reprieve.  Quite surprisingly, it being my specialty, I could not imagine pulling it off passive aggressively. “I sure wish I didn’t have to do this” was not going to do the trick.  With the unenviable task at hand, it was unlikely the words, “I’ll do it!” would come rushing out of anybody’s mouth. 

I leave you with the picture of a forlorn Senior Counselor, standing alone behind the Mess Hall, hose in hand, his face, an unenviable blend of discomfort and disgust, spraying detritus off a young, sphincter-challenged camper’s bedsheet. 

I could sense, however, that I was not alone.  Somewhere, undetectable as always, was Joe, hiding in the bushes, chortling up a storm.

"What Exactly Do We Owe To Movie Theaters?"

sed in Fiddler on the Roof:

Nachum, the Beggar:  Alms for the poor!  Alms for the poor!

Townsperson:  Here, Nachum.   Here’s one kopeck.

Nachum, the Beggar:  One kopeck?  Last week, you gave me two kopecks.

Townsperson:  I had a bad week.

Nachum, the Beggar:  So?  If you had a bad week, why should I suffer?

The joke comes to mind in connection with movie theaters, wherein the theater owners justify the exorbitant price of movie popcorn by citing the insufficiency of their split of the ticket sales money, which they divide with the companies supplying them with the movies. 

It’s the same issue.  If the theater owners are stuck with a bad deal, why should the moviegoer suffer, handing over a five-dollar bill for a “small” popcorn, and being asked for seventy-five cents more?

What’s going on here?  We are supposed to worry about the financial situation of theater owners such that, after paying an inflated price for our ticket, we are now required to submit to, among other overpriced refreshments, a bag of popcorn whose price is as big as the bag they fill up with it is little?

Think about it.  Is there any other business that demands of us a similar sacrifice?

Independent Pharmacist:  Walgreen’s is killing us.  It’s twenty-eight dollars for toothpaste, or we’re history!

Supermarket Owner:  The suppliers are robbing us blind.  So it’s twelve dollars for a carrot.

Normally in business, it’s “sink or swim.”  Only in this exceptional situation do business people expect us to be concerned about their livelihoods. 

Theater Owner:  Our children can’t eat, unless it’s five seventy-five for popcorn scooped into a bag that wouldn’t hold two bananas.

Hey, theater owners!  Go into another business and leave us the heck alone!   By the way, are you concerned about my livelihood? You aren’t?  Then why should I be concerned about yours?

The standard justification for the stratospheric popcorn prices is that, if the theater owners go under, then we can’t go to the movies anymore.  No more romantic dates in the dark, or, if you’re extendedly married, “getting out of the house.”

A persuasive point.  But let’s stop for a second.  If the movie theaters go “bye-bye”, the studios will have no place to exhibit their movies.  Since the studios, therefore, have a powerful interest in keeping the movie theaters open, why don’t the theater owners go to them and, in the best interests of all concerned, petition them to renegotiate the profits arrangement? 

Theater Owner:  “We have raised popcorn to fifty-two dollars.  People are rebelling; they are sneaking in Trail Mix.  Please!  We need a more favorable split of the ticket money, before we’re gone and you’re showing your movies on a wall!”

That’s a reasonable solution, isn’t it?  Ask those guys to help you out!  Not the people who were gouged on the ticket prices on the way in!

Of course, the studios will blame the moviemakers.  “The budgets are skyrocketing; the profit margin is shrinking.”  This is a definite problem.  The conglomerates who now own the studios are losing their patience.  They bought the studios make money.  Now their only reason to be in the movie business is to meet actresses.

Worst Case Scenario – the movie theaters disappear.  With new distribution technology and bigger and better TV apparatus, you can see movies in your house, arguably more comfortably.  When you’re watching at home, you do not have to wear pants.

Leave us not talk about the quality of the pictures, though it comes to me sometimes, that, one day, just for fun, I wish the studio bosses and their crack team of executives would take some moments to pore over the libraries of their classic movies and ask themselves, “How many of these would I have said ‘Yes’ to?” 

Apples and oranges?  I may be crazy, but, to me, “quality” is a perennial apple.

Okay, so putting the pictures in the movie-going experience aside, what exactly are we going out to?

“Boutique” (Read:  Tiny) theaters.  A varying range of legroom, including not enough.  Sticky floors.  Earsplitting previews that send old people racing from the theaters to young theater managers who tell them the kids like it that way. 

Nearby moviegoers, talking and texting.  The guy behind you, kicking the back of your seat.  Couples saving babysitting expenses by bringing the baby to the movie.  And topping it off, a pre-movie program, featuring promos for TV shows, annoying commercials and a “quiz.”

And now, a new, hi-tech indignity, masquerading as an improvement.  The Landmark theaters will only allow you to buy tickets on the Internet.  (And get this!  They then charge you two-fifty as a “Convenience Fee”, pretending you actually had ticket-buying options and, for your own “convenience”, you selected that one.)  

How many times have we somehow messed up, our order is cancelled and we have to start again?  How often have we thought we ordered tickets but we didn’t?

“I’m sorry.  Your reservation says “Ponerantz”, which does not match your I.D.”

“I accidentally typed an “N” instead of an “M.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.  If no one named “Ponerantz” comes for their tickets, we will happily let you in.”

The Wave of the Future.

We had elaborate movie houses in Toronto, gargantuan and ornate – The Odeon, The Imperial (where you walked down a spiraling staircase to get to the theater), The Loews – both Uptown and Downtown – The University, and, closer to home, The Eglinton, where I saw Davy Crockett.

I would gladly have subsidized those movie Meccas, though back then I was not asked to, a bag of popcorn costing twenty-five cents.  (Admittedly, this was “fifties money”; still, the popcorn profit margin was undeniably less laughable.) 

I’d have pitched in to preserve the magic and memories of the movie theaters of Yesteryear.  But today’s no-frills mini-theaters?

Who’s gonna miss them? 
-----------------------------------------------------------------

A special birthday shoutout to Mommy Rachel.  Mommy or otherwise, this day is still yours.

Enjoy!

"Why I Love Westerns (Which I May Have Written Already But Am Doing Again In A Refreshingly Different Context)"

Consequent to symptoms which are hopefully manageable, my doctor, whom I fight with but ultimately obey due to his less than subtle insinuation that if I don’t, I will foolishly contribute to an earlier demise than is otherwise necessary, advised me to purchase a monitor by which I can check my blood pressure on a regular basis.

My early efforts drove me to put it back in the box.  Aside from the disturbing numbers, the apparatus was equipped with a voice-activated function, where a woman, in a tone that seemed seriously concerned, informed me I was in trouble. 

Three weeks before my doctor’s appointment – and five months after I had purchased the apparatus – I extracted it from the box and, after a family member deactivated the "Scary Lady" I tried again.  After a rocky start, my numbers generally descended to the normal range.  I have no idea why.

Well, I have one idea why.  Noticing positive consequences, it has now become habitual that, whenever I am ready to monitor my blood pressure, I turn on the Westerns Channel and watch reruns of Lawman.  Apparently, the mere sight of cowpokes on horseback has an ameliorating effect on my numbers.  (I get the same reaction at the sight of expansive lawns on British mysteries.  One glimpse of the verdant landscape fronting the magnificent Manor House, and all is right with the world.) 

In truth, however, it is more than the rolling gait and bobbing heads of cowboy horses that relaxes whatever it is that relaxes my blood pressure.  It is the comforting nature of the cowboy movies (and TV shows) themselves.

Off the top of your head, you may find the calmative effect of western entertainment to be headscratchingly counterintuitive.  What about the bone-crunching fistfights, the cattle stampedes, the ferocious battles between the cavalry and the Indians, the excruciating tension of the gunfights, the marshal and the bad man face-to-face in a deserted street, the townspeople cowering in safety, though not beyond peering through windows to find out who bit the dust?

These are violent and disturbing images.  And every western has them.  There is no

“Draw, marshal!”

“I don’t think so.” 

in any of them.

I know – there’s mayhem aplenty.  Still, for me, watching westerns is like rocking lazily in a Guatemalan hammock. 

I once observed during a welcome moment of clarity that I have an adult’s love of language and a child’s love of adventure.  The former, I hope, is on view occasionally in these ramblings.  The latter finds expression in my passion for westerns. 

Note:  I am talking specifically about the type westerns they stopped making by the sixties, the kind where, if the moviemakers had any understanding of the West as it actually was, they kept it to themselves, sticking only to the clichés and distortions we had come to adore.

The wide-open spaces.  The archetypal characters.  The life-or-death jeopardies.  The character-testing “Moments of Truth.”  The last minute rescues.  

“Here’s Adventure! Here’s Romance!  Here’s O’Henry’s famous Robin Hood of the Old West…the Cisco Kid!”

That introduction said it all.  If you were me, you were hooked on westerns for life.  And, in the repetition of their traditional rhythms, comforted.               

But there is an even deeper element than that, having to do with what the westerns themselves represented.

One of entertainment’s numerous functions is wish fulfillment.   Onscreen love stories kindle the dream that somewhere, there is love out there for you.  Movies about “Somebody wants something and they get it” nourish the possibility that the moviegoer can get it too.  And then, there’s my Dream of Choice, the dream of

Justice triumphing gloriously over Evil.   

As a kid with bad eyes and spindly arms, I needed that reassurance, the belief that the Good Guy could prevail in actual life.  At least, sometimes.  And I got it in every western I ever saw. 

Everlasting love is dandy.   Success?  Who wouldn’t want that?   But my dream was equally fundamental:

“The Good Guy, against all odds, Carrying The Day!”

What a comforting fantasy.  And there it is, infusing every episode of Lawman.  

Beginning with the theme song:

The Lawman came with the sun

There was a job to be done

And so they sent for the badge and the gun

Of the Lawman.

And as he silently rode

Where evil violently flowed

They knew he’d live or he’d die by the Code

Of the Lawman.

A man who rides all alone

And all that he’ll ever own

Is just a badge and a gun and he’s known

As the Lawman.

My blood pressure numbers?

That sounds mighty good to them.

"Two Kinds Of People"

Several decades ago, I compiled an extensive accumulation of notes on my experiences at summer camp.  Over the years, I have drawn on those notes for blog posts under the umbrella title of “Summer Times.”  Today, I offer a short offering (with minor adjustments, and additional commentary) dating from, if not the time of the events themselves, a time decades closer to them than today.

Three purposes are served by this exerptation from my notes: 

I have an example of how remarkably little my “back then” writing style and point of view differ from my considerably more recent offerings.

I have a July-appropriate camp reminiscence.

I have a virtually pre-written story, so I am relieved of having to come up with anything new.  It’s like a day off.  But with a story.

The locale is Camp Ogama, nine miles from Huntsville, in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada.  The specific locale is Fox Lake, a two-mile expanse of often refrigerator-cold, brown water. 

I am presently an unwilling participant of Swim Instruction, an obligatory activity, scheduled twice weekly for every camper.  I am cowering on the dock, a nine year-old non-swimmer, though things changed very little as I got older and more buoyant. 

A gargantuan Swim Instructor hovers over me, waiting impatiently, as I prepare, in my own deliberate fashion, to submit my quivering body to the uncertainty of the Deep. 

Which was actually only up to my chest.

Let us begin.

There are a lot of people who say, “There are two kinds of people.”  My Third-Cousin Herschel was one of them. 

“There are two kinds of bald people,” Cousin Herschel would say, “those with hair and those without.”

That’s a bad example of the genre, but I use it so mine won’t sound so bad.

Observation:  Mine isn’t bad at all.  Saying it was was lazy writing.  Today, I would fess up and say, “That’s a bad example of the genre.  I just used it, so I could start funny.”  I have gotten more honest over the years.

Sorry, Cousin Herschel.  (For selling you down the river.)

My version is this.  There are two kinds of people – people who dive in and people who ease in.  There is a consistency in those actions.  Those who dive in always dive in.  Those who ease in always ease in.

I always ease in. 

I was sure if I dove into the water, my heart would say, “What!” and stop, and I’d be dead.  I am totally convinced that it would be a terminal shock to my system, even though I see people diving in all the time and their systems don’t seem to be shocked at all.  Some of them appear to actually enjoy it.  But that’s them, and this is me. 

I always ease in.

How?  The traditional “easing in “ procedure.  You wade into the water up to your knees – keeping away from the splashers.  You reach into the water, pat some on each wrist and on the back of your neck – it always drips down, and makes you shiver.  Then, you ease in a little more, maybe up to your bathing suit.

The process so far takes about ten minutes. 

If the water’s wavy, some will slop up your chest, giving you more shivers, and reminding you what it would feel like if you dove in. 

You ease in a little further, maybe up to your ribcage, submerging your heart, and some feelers in your chest that seem extremely sensitive to temperature changes.  I don’t know if they even exist, but they’re there for me. 

Finally, you bend you knees, and you duck down up to your neck.  By then, you are hopeful that Swim Instruction is over and you can get out of the water. 

Additional Observation:  There is no question of immersing myself completely.  If they had required me to put my head under water, I would have immediately called my mother and demanded that she take me home.  I had had surgery on both eyes when I was two, and was certain that if I went totally under, the water would seep in through the (long healed) place where they’d put in the stitches and drown my brain.   

You can imagine that easer-inners experienced considerable difficulty acquiring “buddies” for General Swim. *  Who wants to wait that long for the entire ritual to unfold?

*  The twice-daily, maybe forty-minute-long General Swims were a supervised free-swimming activity, where campers were required to swim paired up with “buddies.”   A whistle would be blown every few minutes, at which time, all water activities would cease, the buddies would grab each others’ hands and raise them high in the air, to be counted and matched with the number of swimmers recorded on a “Sign-in Board.” This safety process was meant to determine that nobody had drowned since the previous whistle.  It would seem to be unnecessary.  If your “buddy” had disappeared under the water, you would think you would not wait till the next “whistle” to report it.  Unless you were having a really good time without them.

Joke.

When I was a counselor assigned to “Swim Duty” I was required to count those pairings when the whistle blew, double-checking other “Swim Duty” counselors engaged in the same operation.  Especially on busy “General Swims” when campers were all bunched together, I abandoned the possibility of an accurate count, and simply went along with the counters who had gone before me.  I dreaded being asked first, invariably saying, “Ask someone else.”

Even two “easer inners” had their own tempos, so that slow as each of them were, they could still get on each others’ nerves, one going straight to “knees”, the other taking a minute or two to acquaint his ankles with the wonderful world of water. 

You can see these two groups falling into their predictable patterns in non-watery pursuits.  Check out how a guy removes a Band-Aid from a place on his body where’s there’s hair, and you will know for a certainty how he gets into the water.  You can count on a slow Band-Aid remover being an equally slow water getter-inner. 

I bet there’s not one person in a million who pulls off Band-Aids fast and gets in the water slow.  Or vice versa. 

Easer-inners ease into everything.  Relationships, a career, trying new foods.  The behavior is invariably the same – always cautious, always methodical.  It looks like the hard way of doing things, but, the way things are for them, it’s those people’s only choice. 

And by “those people”, I mean me.

We have this firm belief about how our body is going to react if we pull something shocking and sudden on it, and we don’t do it.  Of course, our culture picks a favorite way of how people should behave, and they picked fast, so we slow ones take a lot of heat.  Rather than bold and decisive, we are branded tentative, even cowardly.  Which, I believe is wrong.  It takes a ton of courage to face pulling a Band-Aid off really slow.  You have no idea how painful that is.

  

There are dueling phrases reflecting the two kinds of people.  There is “He who hesitates is lost” and there’s “Look before you leap.” 

I find a lot of wisdom in that second admonition.  And the person who thought it up?

I bet they really took their time.

"Marketing A Movie As What It Isn't"

They talk about a movie “opening big”, meaning it raked in big money on its opening weekend.  Why is that good?  Because, first, it’s big money, and raking in big money is better than raking in small money.  Second, having a big opening weekend affords the Publicity Department the opportunity to tout the movie as, for example, “The Number One Movie In America”, or “The Country’s Most Popular Slasher Picture.” 

Conventional Wisdom says that seeing the “Number One” designation influences people’s decision-making when selecting a movie:

(TO BE READ SLOW-WITTEDLY):  “It’s ‘Number One’, so it must be pretty good.”  

They then go to the movie because it’s “Number One”, and by so doing, the movie remains “Number One.”

Okay, let us step back for a moment.

There are numerous elements contributing to a movie’s “opening big” – the stars acting in it, its being a sequel to a previously successful movie (the words after “sequel” being redundant, because they don’t make sequels to previously unsuccessful movies), it’s a movie based on hit book, or comic book, or possibly a website – Just Thinking:  The Movie...

Nah.

To some people’s thinking, however, the most decisive element in getting a film off to a fast start is the movie’s pre-release promotional campaign.

The way the film is marketed to the public.

The implication here is that a movie – like a presidential candidate – is a product.  And the range of possibilities for promoting that product are virtually unlimited.

Okay, here’s me, being endearingly but embarrassingly naive.

“Why not sell the movie as exactly what it is?”

(TO BE READ WITH CONCERN FOR MY ABILITY TO FUNCTION ON THE PLANET):  “Oh, Earlo.”

Say a movie is sweet and charming with flashes of insight, and humor drawn from character.  Is that really how you want to promote it?

“Sweet and Charming”  (They had considered an exclamation point – “Sweet and Charming!” – but it didn’t really seem to fit.)

You drumroll the movie as it is, no more, no less.  Report in Variety on the movie’s opening weekend?

“‘Sweet’ Has Sour Debut!”  (Exclamation point deserved, due to record-low attendance.)

“Sweet and Charming” could not get the audience out of the house.

“We’re sweet and charming.  Would you want to see a movie about us?”

“P.R.” professionals are highly adept at knowing what buttons to push to draw people into the theaters.  There are limits, of course.  You can not sell a war picture as a musical. 

“They played ‘Taps’ when the soldiers died.”

No!

You take the movie, and you showcase the elements of maximum appeal, while deemphasizing what might possibly turn people off.  A recent example:  Ted the Family Guy’s movie about the man troubled by a talking Teddy Bear may trigger taste concerns, especially among women.  Females like stuffed animals:

“Look at the cuddly, Teddy Bear.  This movie is for you!”

Okay, I get it.  You do whatever it takes to get them into the theater.  My question is,

“Then what?”

You have this packed Opening Weekend audience, eager to see the picture they were promised in the ad.  The movie starts to play, and

This isn’t it.

Wouldn’t that make you angry?

You’re set up on a blind date with a guy, touted as having a glorious head of hair.  The guy shows up, he’s entirely bald, except for a rapidly thinning tuft in the front.

“It’s a glorious tuft though, isn’t it?”

Stop it!

Mission Accomplished – Stage One.  You got them in there on Opening Weekend.  But by achieving this objective, haven’t you simply expanded the army of attendees who will now leave theater and, through the proverbial “word of mouth”, tell potential future attendees not to go?

“Number One Movie Plummets In Second Week Collapse”

Short run victory.  Long run “Chapter Eleven.”

Generally speaking, are you not better off, as someone whose name escapes me at the moment once suggested, selling the movie as exactly what it is? 

By the way, Studio Bosses, if you are not a fan of “what it is”, why did you agree to make it in the first place?

Of course, I could be wrong about this.  I have never understood the motives behind the stars of Reality Shows.  I mean, I know about the fame and money and attention.  But does this concern never cross their minds?

“I am a truly unlikable person.  And with a Reality Show, that failing with no longer be a secret.”

Apparently, it doesn’t.  People continue signing up for Reality Shows.

And they continue marketing movies as what they’re not.

"A Regrettable Error"

After receiving the top grade on my second-year Philosophy final at the University of Toronto, I was awarded an honorarial prize, that included money.  The award was named after the donor – “The Someone Someone Philosophy Award”, though I cannot recall who that “Someone Someone” was, if I ever took note of it in the first place, which, given me, is unlikely.   I only knew that somebody – Lucky me! – enjoyed giving money to people who hit their Philosophy exam out of the park!

The award was two hundred and fifty dollars, which does not seem that impressive, but, given that my entire annual tuition was four hundred and eighty dollars, if I was careful with my expenses at camp – didn’t buy my own paddle, a t-shirt, or a candy bar – the award and my counselor’s salary was all I needed to get me through the year.  (I wound up buying a number of candy bars, so I guess it was even more than I needed.)

So one day, I get this call.  It is a refined elderly gentleman with a carefully trimmed mustache.  He did not introduce himself that way – “Mr. Pomerantz?  Permit me to introduce myself.  I am a refined elderly gentleman with a carefully trimmed mustache.”  But he didn’t need to.  His cultured tone gave him entirely away.  It was a voice that said, “My children have trust funds, and I am leaving a considerable stipend to the dog.”

I feel uncomfortable when strangers call me, my anxiety reflected in a quote from my favorite western Red River, where the Walter Brennan character observes, “I ain’t never liked strangers, ‘cause no stranger ever ‘good-newsed’ me.”

The caller congratulated me on having won the Philosophy award, which, for all I knew, had been named after him, or perhaps an ancestor whose portrait was currently hanging in a museum.  I said thanks, suddenly having to go the bathroom, and hoping that that would be it. 

It wasn’t.

He wanted me to come over for tea.

He and his wife were extending an invitation to join them in a celebratory get-together at their house, where we could get to know each other and chat.  This was apparently an annual tradition – the Philosophy award is announced, and the winner is invited to “take tea” with his benefactors.  I imagine this ritual had been going on forever.  Their first tea guest was Aristotle.

“So, what was Socrates like?”

“He was nice.  But he never said that much.  It was always Questions!  Questions! Questions!  He called it his ‘Method’, but between you and me, I’m not sure he knew anything.”

The ball was now in my court.  An invitation – hardly an invitation to the White House or an audience with the Queen though it seemed like that at the time – had been offered.  A specific time and date had been mentioned.  Would I be able to attend?

I may have first said, “I appreciate the invitation”, or may not have – usually, I don’t.  What I do recall – possibly prefacing it with “I’m sorry”, though possibly not – I forget to be polite when I’m nervous – is turning the invitation down. 

The caller seemed surprised, bordering on shocked, and a little bit hurt.

Maybe if I had taken a moment, or discussed the matter with my mother, my response would have been different.  My spontaneous reaction was reflexive.  I could not help myself.  I did not want to go.

Why?

In order of unimportance:

I did not drive, and had no idea how I would get there.

I did not know what they’d be serving.  I imagined little sandwiches, possibly with egg, jam or ham fillings.  I only ate peanut butter sandwiches.  To this day, the only one I could force down would be jam.    

I did not wish to expose my actual ignorance about Philosophy – I am a great memorizer, but when the exam is over, it’s gone – fearing they might take back the money and redirect it to a more deserving scholar.

My apparel was unworthy of their doormat. 

My table manners were appalling.  I scoop peas onto my fork with my finger, and, though it was unlikely they’d be serving peas at a tea, I cringed at the possibility of an equally eyebrow-raising faux pas.

I have no small talk for cultured people.

I was afraid that my hands would shake, or my leg that would jiggle, or I would accidentally swear, stammer or spit when I talked.

And the big one.

I was Jewish, and they were not.

Canada, at that time as least, was an overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon enclave.  And I did not, in my personal life, know any of them.  I also imagined they did not know anyone like me.  Did I believe myself to be of a lesser status?  Shamefully, at least unconsciously, I did. 

I knew I would feel uncomfortable in their presence.  And would make them feel uncomfortable as well.  Beyond that, I was not built to be “The Standard Bearer For My People.”

“They are not as I imagined they’d be.”

Or, more crushingly,

They are.

I know. 

I should have gone.

 But instead, I begged off.  Explaining lamely, with a lie,

“I think I have a Bar Mitzvah that day.”

(Retroactive Insight:  Did I really think I was the first Jewish person to win a Philosophy prize at the University of Toronto? 

Nah.  I still wouldn’t have gone.)