"It's All Under Control"

I am sitting at a red light at the steep, upward (if you still need that if you say) incline of La Cienega Boulevard and its “T-ing” cross-street Sunset Boulevard, my foot pressed on the brake…

… and my other foot pressed on the gas pedal.

DMV DRIVING EXAMINER:  “That’s an automatic ‘Fail’!”

Shut up.  I don’t drive anymore. 

Why do I have one foot on the brake and the other foot on the gas pedal?

Because I am deathly afraid that when the light turns “Green”, during the time I switch from the brake to the gas pedal, my car will roll back into the car sitting behind me.  This way, I can lift my foot off the brake, and my other foot is already on the “gas.”

What’s that about?  Besides “Vehicular ignorance”?

It is about control.

I want to be in total control of my car.  And if I use one foot, my concern – involving a loud crashing sound and the exchange of “pertinent information” – is that I won’t be.

The need for total control.

The same reason I was unwilling to take drugs.

The psychedelic perception of three-dimensional things suddenly dissolving before one’s very eyes – a liquid Chihuahua, perhaps – would be the ideal description of “losing control.”  And I did not want that.

Even though I was assured that “Loss of Control” was exactly what was required to creatively ascend to “The Next Level”, the implication being, if didn’t, I wouldn’t.  And I would be left behind by my bolder associates.

I hate having to defend – and pay the price for – being eminently sensible. 

Which, to me, ties the previous and current stories together.

I think.

Though I am doing this without drugs.

So I could be laughably superficial.

Flash Back to before my arrival in Los Angeles.  I am working on a talk-variety show in Toronto called Everything Goes, co-writing one hundred episodes in three months – which primarily involved typing, “Would you welcome, please…” before every “Guest” introduction – and performing self-written comedy in ten of those episodes. 

(The show was hosted by comedian Norm Crosby, who was, I believe, the only professional talk show host who was functionally deaf, meaning he would ask prepared questions and then pretend to hear the returned answers.)

I include salary because it comes into play later.  On Everything Goes, I was paid five hundred dollars a week for the writing, and two hundred-and-fifty dollars per performance, which essentially meant that I made seven hundred-and-fifty dollars a week, to date, the most I had ever received in my fledgling career.

Half way or so through production I get a call from Los Angeles.

Lorne Michaels, whom I had previously worked for and had subsequently transplanted to the States is wondering if I am interested in writing for a Lily Tomlin special he is producing. 

(Lorne had shown Lily a short film I had written for one of his comedy specials in Canada.  Lily had apparently liked it, and asked Lorne to invite me to work on her special.)

I was flattered and excited.

But also eminently sensible.

“How much would I be getting for the job?” I inquire.

“Twenty-five hundred dollars for four weeks.”  (That was, of course, “American money”, but we shall keep that out of the equation.)

Being “eminently sensible”, my immediate reaction is,

“I’m making more than that here.”  (In the comparative time period, I would make three thousand on Everything Goes.)

I then “eminently sensibly” say, “No.”

Allow that to sink in for a moment.

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I had opted to work on a meaningless trifle in Toronto over collaborating with a comedy genius – Lily Tomlin – in “The Show Biz Capital of the World.”

Why?

Because I wanted control.

As in,

“How dare you offer the wished-for ‘Chance of a Lifetime!’  When it comes to ‘career trajectory control’, that’s my job.”

And I slam down the phone.  (In my head.  In real life, I politely say good-bye.  And go back to writing “Will you welcome please… Frank Sinatra Jr.”)

I know that’s all crazy.

But that’s exactly what I did.

For me, the unsettling move up was too fast.  Using a “car analogy” again, if the freeway “Speed Limit” is 65, I drive a more comfortable 47.

DMV DRIVING EXAMINER:  “That’s another…”

EARL GRABS AN IMAGINARY WEAPON, SHOOTING THE DRIVING EXAMINER NUMEROUS TIMES. 

(It appears the American “Gun Culture” has rubbed off on me.)

As luck would have it, “Fate” fortuitously intervened.  The same week Everything Goes was cancelled, Lorne Michaels calls again, explaining that the previously postponed Lily Tomlin special was scheduled for production and wondering if I wanted to work on it now.

And I reversingly say, “Yes.”

(Years later hearing this story, my daughter Anna observed,  “Hey, ‘Opportunity’ knocked twice.”)

It appears everything can be taken to unreasonable extremes.

Including ultimate control.

Leaving the decision of “when to do what” up to the individual.

Who may, on occasion, be the wrong person to make it.