I imagine movie companies, especially the makers of those low budget “B” movies of the thirties and forties, felt no compunction about stealing classic comedy routines performed by nameless vaudevillians and inserting them, without credit or compensation, into their pictures. “Niagara Falls” (‘Slowly I turned…”), the “wallpaper routine” (everything sticks to the paper hanger’s hand), likely even the I-almost-died-laughing-the-first-time-I-saw-it, “Who’s On First?” popularized in pictures by Abbott and Costello.
This material-pilfering had to explain the only funny thing I ever saw The Three Stooges do, a “bit” exponentially sharper and as a result funnier than their standard repertoire of slapping and eye gouging. It’s not that I’m against stupid comedy. But I need it to be smart underneath. Like The Bowery Boys (who specialized in hilariously choreographed donnybrooks) and the sneaky-funny rurality of Ma and Pa Kettle.
(I mentioned this one before, but it’s my blog, and I’m doing it again.)
IT’S RAINING OUTSIDE. PA’S EATING AT THE TABLE.
PA: Ma, I think there’s a hole in the roof.
MA: How do you know, Pa?
PA: I finished my soup three times.
The Stooges were just stupid. Two Jews, and a third sometimes a Jew sometimes an Italian, knocking each other silly to the accompaniment of amplified sound effects. They never made me laugh. And in case of the eye gouging, I heard my eyes actually go, “Ew!” I don’t know about you, but it’s very rare for my eyes to say anything.
So Stooges – stupid.
Except this one time. Which makes me think the routine was stolen.
The Stooge who isn’t Moe or Larry is standing in front of the Witness Box in a courtroom, ready to testify in a case. He is self-assured and nattily attired, his smart-looking outfit topped by an impeccable Homburg hat. He carries a black umbrella in his left hand.
“Take off your hat,” drones the Bailiff.
The man, we’ll call him Curly – though it could have been Joe or Curly Joe – transfers the umbrella to his right hand, and with his now free left hand takes off his hat.
“Raise your right hand,” instructs the Bailiff.
Curly returns the hat to his head, transfers the umbrella to his left hand and raises his right hand.
“Take off your hat!” barks the Bailiff.
Curly transfers the umbrella to his right hand and takes off his hat.
“Raise your right hand!”
Curly returns the hat to his head, transfers the umbrella to his left hand and raises his right hand.
“Take off your hat!”
Curly transfers the umbrella to his right hand, and takes off his hat.
“Raise your right hand!”
Curly returns the hat to his head, transfers the umbrella to his left hand and raises his right hand.
“Take off your hat!!!’”
Curly transfers the umbrella to his right hand and takes off his hat.
“Raise your right. Hand!!!’
Curly, revealing a stress-induced, nervous blink, repeats the maneuver ad infinitum, his once-confident facade dissolving into helplessness before our sympathetic but laughter-filled eyes.
Thank you to whatever comic genius conjured that up.
And thank you, Stooges, for at least trying to elevate your game.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
"Indignity After Dark"
I’m an avid collector of, “What now?” An accumulator of new and exciting ways of, “It couldn’t get worse”, and then it does. These are personal experiences. The “understood” words after, “It couldn’t get worse” are “…for me.” That’s probably obvious. Why would I collect your experiences? How would I know what they were?
This memory floated into my mind after writing yesterday about “Rewrite Night.” I believe I made it clear that I wasn’t crazy about that process. Well, one time, it wasn’t just that. Which would have been plenty. It was that. And then this.
I was consulting one night a week on a Showtime series called, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Years later, I also consulted on Garry’s HBO series, The Larry Sanders Show. I’ll reserve talking about Garry for another time, except to say he’s a master of the comedy of personal discomfort. Never my favorite comedic genre, but he handles it better than anyone.
Wait. There’s one line I have to tell you, because it’s so beautiful in the way it capsulizes an entire character in a few short words. And I don’t just mean Garry’s character. I mean a certain character type, which very easily could include me.
I’m walking down the hall to the Writers’ Room, where I’ll be consulting on the script. It’s Garry Shandling’s Show chronicled the world of a single, male comedian, highlighting his problems with the various women in his life, including a platonic next-door neighbor. The show felt very much, in theme if not in execution, which was highly stylized, like the early Seinfeld. I actually thought Garry’s show was better. Then, early Seinfeld matured into middle Seinfeld. After that, there was no comparison.
But in the beginning, Garry’s show was more inventive and funnier. I actually shunned early Seinfeld out of loyalty to Garry. I’ve seen early Seinfeld since. I didn’t miss anything.
Anyway, I’m walking down the hall, and I pass Garry’s office, and the door is open. Garry’s on the phone, engaged in what sounds like a serious conversation. (It’s not like I hung around and eavesdropped; you could hear that right away.)
I only heard Garry say one thing. But that one thing said it all. About Garry, and, had I’d been in his shoes, I’m pretty certain, about me. Sounding serious and borderline anxious, Garry asked this precise question to the person on the other end of the line:
“How much do I have all together?”
I heard it. I archived it. I kept walking.
I met many interesting writers on It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. One was the show’s co-creator, who also wrote it’s theme song, which includes whistling.
I met another writer who’d go on to co-write Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which I adored, and Men In Black, which I didn’t get.
A third writer informed me that he owed a certain studio a half-hour comedy pilot. He was blatantly dismissive of the project he’d proposed. It turned out to be Full House, which ran for years, making the writer vast sums of money.
I wonder what it feels like. “I’m rich. But from that!” (This is not me, putting down Full House; it’s the creator of the show.) Is it something you get over, realizing, perhaps with therapeutic assistance, that the money spends the same as if you’ve written The Graduate? I guess you’d have to ask the guy.
Rounding out the staff was an older writer, highly regarded in his day, but whose more recent claim to fame was flying to tornados and finding someone to have sex with as the twister passes overhead, because…you’d have to ask that guy.
Okay, so I go in, and I do my consulting. We get done around one-thirty in the morning. Lemme backtrack a second. When I arrived, I had parked in a nearby lot, passed through a tall, turnstiley-type gate, and walked to the building where the It’s Garry Shandling’s Show offices were located.
Okay, back to the present. I come out of the building, one-thirty in the morning, and I trudge towards my car. When I reach the turnstiley gate, I discover that it’s been locked with a padlock. (I later learn that the gate’s always padlocked after midnight.) I can not go through the gate.
I can see my car, sitting alone in the parking lot (the regular writers parked somewhere else). But I’m separated from it by an eight-foot chain-link metal fence.
It’s been a long night. I’ve pretty much had it. And now, I can’t get to my car and go home, because the gate I came in through has been padlocked. And there’s a fence.
Imagine if you will, an exhausted and irate middle-aged Jewish man, a man with minimal arm-strength, at one-thirty in the morning, climbing a fence, to get to his car. All I’m thinking is, “I’m too old for this.” Which is technically untrue, since I had no ability to climb fences at any age.
I participated in many subsequent “Rewrite Nights”, some fun, some excruciating, many in between. But as I sat through those torturous rewrite sessions, enduring the agonizing silences of a roomful full of people who’ve “got nothing”, my spirits were bolstered by one strong and certain belief.
No matter how arduous the work, no matter how long it took to get done, at the end of the night, I would not be required to fit my foot in one of those chain-link metal “diamonds”, and pull myself over a fence to get to my car.
This memory floated into my mind after writing yesterday about “Rewrite Night.” I believe I made it clear that I wasn’t crazy about that process. Well, one time, it wasn’t just that. Which would have been plenty. It was that. And then this.
I was consulting one night a week on a Showtime series called, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Years later, I also consulted on Garry’s HBO series, The Larry Sanders Show. I’ll reserve talking about Garry for another time, except to say he’s a master of the comedy of personal discomfort. Never my favorite comedic genre, but he handles it better than anyone.
Wait. There’s one line I have to tell you, because it’s so beautiful in the way it capsulizes an entire character in a few short words. And I don’t just mean Garry’s character. I mean a certain character type, which very easily could include me.
I’m walking down the hall to the Writers’ Room, where I’ll be consulting on the script. It’s Garry Shandling’s Show chronicled the world of a single, male comedian, highlighting his problems with the various women in his life, including a platonic next-door neighbor. The show felt very much, in theme if not in execution, which was highly stylized, like the early Seinfeld. I actually thought Garry’s show was better. Then, early Seinfeld matured into middle Seinfeld. After that, there was no comparison.
But in the beginning, Garry’s show was more inventive and funnier. I actually shunned early Seinfeld out of loyalty to Garry. I’ve seen early Seinfeld since. I didn’t miss anything.
Anyway, I’m walking down the hall, and I pass Garry’s office, and the door is open. Garry’s on the phone, engaged in what sounds like a serious conversation. (It’s not like I hung around and eavesdropped; you could hear that right away.)
I only heard Garry say one thing. But that one thing said it all. About Garry, and, had I’d been in his shoes, I’m pretty certain, about me. Sounding serious and borderline anxious, Garry asked this precise question to the person on the other end of the line:
“How much do I have all together?”
I heard it. I archived it. I kept walking.
I met many interesting writers on It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. One was the show’s co-creator, who also wrote it’s theme song, which includes whistling.
I met another writer who’d go on to co-write Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which I adored, and Men In Black, which I didn’t get.
A third writer informed me that he owed a certain studio a half-hour comedy pilot. He was blatantly dismissive of the project he’d proposed. It turned out to be Full House, which ran for years, making the writer vast sums of money.
I wonder what it feels like. “I’m rich. But from that!” (This is not me, putting down Full House; it’s the creator of the show.) Is it something you get over, realizing, perhaps with therapeutic assistance, that the money spends the same as if you’ve written The Graduate? I guess you’d have to ask the guy.
Rounding out the staff was an older writer, highly regarded in his day, but whose more recent claim to fame was flying to tornados and finding someone to have sex with as the twister passes overhead, because…you’d have to ask that guy.
Okay, so I go in, and I do my consulting. We get done around one-thirty in the morning. Lemme backtrack a second. When I arrived, I had parked in a nearby lot, passed through a tall, turnstiley-type gate, and walked to the building where the It’s Garry Shandling’s Show offices were located.
Okay, back to the present. I come out of the building, one-thirty in the morning, and I trudge towards my car. When I reach the turnstiley gate, I discover that it’s been locked with a padlock. (I later learn that the gate’s always padlocked after midnight.) I can not go through the gate.
I can see my car, sitting alone in the parking lot (the regular writers parked somewhere else). But I’m separated from it by an eight-foot chain-link metal fence.
It’s been a long night. I’ve pretty much had it. And now, I can’t get to my car and go home, because the gate I came in through has been padlocked. And there’s a fence.
Imagine if you will, an exhausted and irate middle-aged Jewish man, a man with minimal arm-strength, at one-thirty in the morning, climbing a fence, to get to his car. All I’m thinking is, “I’m too old for this.” Which is technically untrue, since I had no ability to climb fences at any age.
I participated in many subsequent “Rewrite Nights”, some fun, some excruciating, many in between. But as I sat through those torturous rewrite sessions, enduring the agonizing silences of a roomful full of people who’ve “got nothing”, my spirits were bolstered by one strong and certain belief.
No matter how arduous the work, no matter how long it took to get done, at the end of the night, I would not be required to fit my foot in one of those chain-link metal “diamonds”, and pull myself over a fence to get to my car.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
"Story of a Writer - Part Twenty-Three"
Imagine a “Writers’ Room.” A team of comedy writers is rewriting a script very late at night. They’re stuck on a joke. They can’t move forward until they get it. Everyone’s exhausted. They’ve been at it for hours.
Finally, a writer pitches a joke. The other writers respond.
“Too broad” (funny but unreal), critiques one writer.
“Too ‘on the nose’”, (obvious), complains another.
Bob Ellison, one of the best joke writers in television, points deliberately to his watch.
“Two-thirty,” he astutely observes.
“Rewrite Night” in a nutshell. Tired people struggling to be funny with time running out. My stomach’s doing “flip-flops” just thinking about it. “Rewrite Night” had two objectives. One, obviously, was to make the script better. The other was maybe less transparent but equally important. What was it?
To get in your car.
“Getting in your car” indicates you’re done and you’re going home. That sentence triggers retroactive feelings of joy and relief. For me, there was nothing better than going home.
That says a lot. It suggests that I didn’t particularly enjoy “Rewrite Night.” Guilty. I don’t know if this put me in the minority, but when I looked around the room, either as show runner or as a consultant helping out, other people did seemed to be having a pretty good time. For me, however, somewhere deep inside, or not so deep, it felt like a punishment.
“Rewrite Night” – which can actually be three or even four consecutive rewrite sessions for the same episode – is a sometimes gratifying, sometimes excruciating, but always pressure-packed necessity. Its requirements vary in difficulty. Some weeks, a script just needs some minor “tweaking.” Other times, it’s a “Page One” rewrite, meaning you start at Page One and rewrite the entire thing.
Ooy.
A total rewrite in a few short hours. It sounds impossible, but somehow it gets done. Where does that energy come from? Wherefrom the inspiration? The motivation comes from two places. First, from the knowledge that the cast and crew expect a new script the following morning. And second, until that script gets done
You can’t get in your car.
No script is ever perfect. It always needs some adjusting. The following is an extended but hardly comprehensive list of reasons:
Sometimes, the script needs cutting, so it can fit into its allotted time. After that, you have to smoothly blend the two sections, from which the middle section has been cut out, back together. This is often harder than you imagined. Like gluing a broken teacup so you don’t see the crack.
Rewriting is also required when jokes, which seemed funny on the page, turn out to be considerably less so when the actors deliver them standing up.
There are times when the storyline needs clarifying. You could be working on that script for a month, and somehow at this desperately late hour, you’re still agonizingly trying to determine, “What exactly is this story about?”
“Standards and Practices” – the network censors – could have sent a memo saying, “You can’t say that”, or “You can’t mention that specific product.” (This was before the networks, falling on hard times, started encouraging not just the mention but the placement of specific products in the middle of the episodes.)
Network or studio “notes” could have requested our “revisiting” certain moments in the script, which for them, or the phantom audience they claim to stand in for, are somehow “unclear”. (This is not the same as us clarifying the story. This is being instructed to clarify parts of the story that, to us, are already clear.)
The star could be having problems with certain “transitions”, which generally means they want more lines.
The budget requires the cutting and replacing of a joke for which some costly prop had to be rented or built, or because buying the rights to some recorded “music cue” turned out to be too expensive. (For some reason, Universal would charge Universal’s Major Dad more to use their copyrighted music than other studios did. That always seemed odd to me.)
There’s a great “Arafat” joke in the script and Arafat dies during the week of production (leading to the bizarre now but less so at the time response: “Why do these things always happen to us?”)
There are lots of reasons a script needs to be rewritten. But as far as I was concerned, there was only one:
“You did it wrong the first time.”
I never had the best attitude.
For me, rewriting late at night felt like “Remedial Night School for the Fitfully Funny.” While sometimes spending forty-five minutes searching for a needed joke or line of dialogue, eating congealing dinners out of Styrofoam containers, I had the clear picture of the writers who knew what they were doing peacefully home and tucked smilingly in their beds.
To be honest, talking about “Rewrite Night” is a little tricky for me. You’re not good at something, so you disparage the process. I wasn’t great at “Rewrite Night.” I’ll be “disparaging” in a moment.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it seventeen times – I’m not a joke writer. I re-iterate this confession because a couple of “killer” jokes can put a mediocre script over the top, and these are frequently injected on “Rewrite Night.” That style wasn’t me. Occasionally, I’d contribute in my own style, but as a rule, “The Powers That Said Yes” generally said ”No”, giving me the disoriented feeling of a figure skater in a hockey game.
I’m rarely productive when I’m tired, and “Rewrite Night”, as befitting the name, takes place at night, invariably after a long and stress-ridden day. I meditate every morning. (I'll tell you about it some time.) By the time "Rewrite Night" comes around, my focus and equanimity had completely worn off.
Add to this list, when I was running the rewrite rooms as the creator of the show, I was more than sometimes indecisive and scared.
Now for the “disparaging.” The “Rewrite Room” is a wonderful arena for replacing “so-so” jokes with funnier ones. Writers shout out joke pitches, the show runner picks the one they like best (usually their own), and in it goes. You’re done, until the next joke that needs replacing, wherein the process is repeated, and so on, until FADE OUT, THE END.
However, if you want to write a structured comedic conversation, one that flows organically and builds to its natural crescendo, a “Rewrite Room” is not the best arrangement for getting that done. Doing that requires a single, focused mind, or a writing team with a focused mind, or a limited group of writers, all thinking alike, not a tension-filled room full of high testosterone (including the women) joke pitchers.
The “Rewrite Room” was constructed to help deliver joke-filled comedies, forcing every character to speak in the stylized rhythm of “set up” and “punch line.” This longstanding rewrite procedure contributed, in mine ‘umble opinion, to relegating the venerable sitcom format to the margins, on its inevitable journey to the junk heap.
But that’s one person’s perspective. A person who didn’t care much for “Rewrite Night.”
For many writers, however, “Rewrite Night” was, or at least appeared to be, a total blast. They enjoyed the comradery. The relished the challenge. They thrived on the friendly – though not always – competition. Some of them, for personal reasons – they didn’t have families to go home to, or they did, but they didn’t like them – looked like they’d happy to hang out in that room for the rest of their lives.
Me? I just wanted to get in my car.
Really, really badly.
Finally, a writer pitches a joke. The other writers respond.
“Too broad” (funny but unreal), critiques one writer.
“Too ‘on the nose’”, (obvious), complains another.
Bob Ellison, one of the best joke writers in television, points deliberately to his watch.
“Two-thirty,” he astutely observes.
“Rewrite Night” in a nutshell. Tired people struggling to be funny with time running out. My stomach’s doing “flip-flops” just thinking about it. “Rewrite Night” had two objectives. One, obviously, was to make the script better. The other was maybe less transparent but equally important. What was it?
To get in your car.
“Getting in your car” indicates you’re done and you’re going home. That sentence triggers retroactive feelings of joy and relief. For me, there was nothing better than going home.
That says a lot. It suggests that I didn’t particularly enjoy “Rewrite Night.” Guilty. I don’t know if this put me in the minority, but when I looked around the room, either as show runner or as a consultant helping out, other people did seemed to be having a pretty good time. For me, however, somewhere deep inside, or not so deep, it felt like a punishment.
“Rewrite Night” – which can actually be three or even four consecutive rewrite sessions for the same episode – is a sometimes gratifying, sometimes excruciating, but always pressure-packed necessity. Its requirements vary in difficulty. Some weeks, a script just needs some minor “tweaking.” Other times, it’s a “Page One” rewrite, meaning you start at Page One and rewrite the entire thing.
Ooy.
A total rewrite in a few short hours. It sounds impossible, but somehow it gets done. Where does that energy come from? Wherefrom the inspiration? The motivation comes from two places. First, from the knowledge that the cast and crew expect a new script the following morning. And second, until that script gets done
You can’t get in your car.
No script is ever perfect. It always needs some adjusting. The following is an extended but hardly comprehensive list of reasons:
Sometimes, the script needs cutting, so it can fit into its allotted time. After that, you have to smoothly blend the two sections, from which the middle section has been cut out, back together. This is often harder than you imagined. Like gluing a broken teacup so you don’t see the crack.
Rewriting is also required when jokes, which seemed funny on the page, turn out to be considerably less so when the actors deliver them standing up.
There are times when the storyline needs clarifying. You could be working on that script for a month, and somehow at this desperately late hour, you’re still agonizingly trying to determine, “What exactly is this story about?”
“Standards and Practices” – the network censors – could have sent a memo saying, “You can’t say that”, or “You can’t mention that specific product.” (This was before the networks, falling on hard times, started encouraging not just the mention but the placement of specific products in the middle of the episodes.)
Network or studio “notes” could have requested our “revisiting” certain moments in the script, which for them, or the phantom audience they claim to stand in for, are somehow “unclear”. (This is not the same as us clarifying the story. This is being instructed to clarify parts of the story that, to us, are already clear.)
The star could be having problems with certain “transitions”, which generally means they want more lines.
The budget requires the cutting and replacing of a joke for which some costly prop had to be rented or built, or because buying the rights to some recorded “music cue” turned out to be too expensive. (For some reason, Universal would charge Universal’s Major Dad more to use their copyrighted music than other studios did. That always seemed odd to me.)
There’s a great “Arafat” joke in the script and Arafat dies during the week of production (leading to the bizarre now but less so at the time response: “Why do these things always happen to us?”)
There are lots of reasons a script needs to be rewritten. But as far as I was concerned, there was only one:
“You did it wrong the first time.”
I never had the best attitude.
For me, rewriting late at night felt like “Remedial Night School for the Fitfully Funny.” While sometimes spending forty-five minutes searching for a needed joke or line of dialogue, eating congealing dinners out of Styrofoam containers, I had the clear picture of the writers who knew what they were doing peacefully home and tucked smilingly in their beds.
To be honest, talking about “Rewrite Night” is a little tricky for me. You’re not good at something, so you disparage the process. I wasn’t great at “Rewrite Night.” I’ll be “disparaging” in a moment.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it seventeen times – I’m not a joke writer. I re-iterate this confession because a couple of “killer” jokes can put a mediocre script over the top, and these are frequently injected on “Rewrite Night.” That style wasn’t me. Occasionally, I’d contribute in my own style, but as a rule, “The Powers That Said Yes” generally said ”No”, giving me the disoriented feeling of a figure skater in a hockey game.
I’m rarely productive when I’m tired, and “Rewrite Night”, as befitting the name, takes place at night, invariably after a long and stress-ridden day. I meditate every morning. (I'll tell you about it some time.) By the time "Rewrite Night" comes around, my focus and equanimity had completely worn off.
Add to this list, when I was running the rewrite rooms as the creator of the show, I was more than sometimes indecisive and scared.
Now for the “disparaging.” The “Rewrite Room” is a wonderful arena for replacing “so-so” jokes with funnier ones. Writers shout out joke pitches, the show runner picks the one they like best (usually their own), and in it goes. You’re done, until the next joke that needs replacing, wherein the process is repeated, and so on, until FADE OUT, THE END.
However, if you want to write a structured comedic conversation, one that flows organically and builds to its natural crescendo, a “Rewrite Room” is not the best arrangement for getting that done. Doing that requires a single, focused mind, or a writing team with a focused mind, or a limited group of writers, all thinking alike, not a tension-filled room full of high testosterone (including the women) joke pitchers.
The “Rewrite Room” was constructed to help deliver joke-filled comedies, forcing every character to speak in the stylized rhythm of “set up” and “punch line.” This longstanding rewrite procedure contributed, in mine ‘umble opinion, to relegating the venerable sitcom format to the margins, on its inevitable journey to the junk heap.
But that’s one person’s perspective. A person who didn’t care much for “Rewrite Night.”
For many writers, however, “Rewrite Night” was, or at least appeared to be, a total blast. They enjoyed the comradery. The relished the challenge. They thrived on the friendly – though not always – competition. Some of them, for personal reasons – they didn’t have families to go home to, or they did, but they didn’t like them – looked like they’d happy to hang out in that room for the rest of their lives.
Me? I just wanted to get in my car.
Really, really badly.
Monday, March 16, 2009
"The Mother Of All Analogies"
I’ve surprised I haven’t told you this already. It’s maybe my favorite analogy formula of all time. Lemme tell you something. This thing changed my life. Okay, that’s over the top. But I promise you, after you hear it, you’ll be noticing analogizing examples everywhere you look.
The prototype appears in a football movie (and presumably the book it was based on) called North Dallas Forty, written by Peter Gent, a former Cowboys wide receiver. Here’s the situation. A ballplayer is going at it with his coach over some team policy, and the player’s getting frustrated with how the back-and-forth is proceeding. Why is he frustrated?
“Coach,” the player complains, in reference to the dispute, “when I call it a game, you call it a business. And when I call it a business, you call it a game.”
As Gary Cooper said in High Noon, though in an entirely different context, “That’s the whole thing.”
Applying the Analogy: A Current Example
By now, the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer face-off is old news, but I write these things ahead, so this is Friday morning and the thing just happened last night. The night before on The Daily Show, Stewart touted his upcoming showdown interview with investor pro and CNBC Mad Money host Cramer, while making fun of touting the showdown at the same time. Jon Stewart can’t lose. But that’s okay. Stewart doesn’t call what he does two things. He calls it a comedy show.
I watched the interview. It was past my bedtime, but I wanted to see what was going to happen. The most important thing that happened was I was so tired the following morning, I showed up for my gym trainer appointment an hour before it was scheduled, killed the hour on the treadmill, and was exhausted before my training even started. That was the only meaningful consequence of the Big Event.
The interview itself was a letdown. I don’t know what I was expecting. A fistfight, maybe. Which says more about me, I’m afraid, than… There was no chance there was going to be a fistfight. I mean, think about it. Have you ever seen a host and a guest try to punch each other out on any interview show? It never happens. Not on the most contentious interview show on the air.
Why doesn’t it happen? Because if it did, it would upset the fundamental fantasy-structure of the interview show format – the rarely remarked-upon “host-guest” dynamic.
The host invites someone on their show. An invitation – that’s a nice thing. The guest accepts. That’s nice too. So now a mutual politeness has been established.
How do you follow up “mutual politeness” with punching and hitting? That’s not polite! Not only that, but this happens one time, and nobody goes on that show anymore.
“You want to go on the show?’
“No!”
“Why not?
“The guy hits people!”
The “host-guest” dynamic has no room for fisticuffs. It’s a civilized environment. Look on the desks. There’s coffee. Sitting in mugs with the show’s logo on them. Who knows? If you behave, you may even get to take your coffee mug home.
Okay, back to The Interview. Jon Stewart, the righteous Man of the People, is railing against, not just Cramer, but the entire corps of CNBC insiders who missed the story of the market crash and misled and possibly deceived a public that took their advice and predictions seriously
And now they’re poor!
Cramer sits there in his costume – suit pants, yellow tie and a pastel shirt with the sleeves rolled up – acting like a kid who’s been sent to the principal’s office and just wants to get out of the place alive. What’s his strategy? It’s classic “Rope-a-Dope.” No attacking. No defending his actions. Just bob and weave, and run out the clock.
“You’re right. I was bad. It was wrong. I promise I’ll do better.”
Can I go back to class now?
You can tell Stewart’s frustrated. He can’t lay a glove on the guy.
“But, but, but…sputter, sputter, sputter…attacks, accusations, a few bleeped expletives…
And it’s over.
And nothing happened.
They shake hands, thanks for watching, and good night.
Why did nothing happen? Here’s why.
The heart of Stewart’s complaint was this:
“You geniuses at CNBC are not doing your jobs!”
The problem is
They are.
What job is that? The only job they care about:
Making money for CNBC.
Busini-tainment. A fabulous enterprise. Totally legal, and it works like this:
“What is this show?”
“It’s experts offering investment advice.”
“Their advice lost me all my money.”
“You listened to a television show?”
Sound familiar?
“When I call it a show, you call it experts. And when I call it experts, you call it a show.”
I told you it was a great analogy. It works in all situations.
Just not for us.
The prototype appears in a football movie (and presumably the book it was based on) called North Dallas Forty, written by Peter Gent, a former Cowboys wide receiver. Here’s the situation. A ballplayer is going at it with his coach over some team policy, and the player’s getting frustrated with how the back-and-forth is proceeding. Why is he frustrated?
“Coach,” the player complains, in reference to the dispute, “when I call it a game, you call it a business. And when I call it a business, you call it a game.”
As Gary Cooper said in High Noon, though in an entirely different context, “That’s the whole thing.”
Applying the Analogy: A Current Example
By now, the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer face-off is old news, but I write these things ahead, so this is Friday morning and the thing just happened last night. The night before on The Daily Show, Stewart touted his upcoming showdown interview with investor pro and CNBC Mad Money host Cramer, while making fun of touting the showdown at the same time. Jon Stewart can’t lose. But that’s okay. Stewart doesn’t call what he does two things. He calls it a comedy show.
I watched the interview. It was past my bedtime, but I wanted to see what was going to happen. The most important thing that happened was I was so tired the following morning, I showed up for my gym trainer appointment an hour before it was scheduled, killed the hour on the treadmill, and was exhausted before my training even started. That was the only meaningful consequence of the Big Event.
The interview itself was a letdown. I don’t know what I was expecting. A fistfight, maybe. Which says more about me, I’m afraid, than… There was no chance there was going to be a fistfight. I mean, think about it. Have you ever seen a host and a guest try to punch each other out on any interview show? It never happens. Not on the most contentious interview show on the air.
Why doesn’t it happen? Because if it did, it would upset the fundamental fantasy-structure of the interview show format – the rarely remarked-upon “host-guest” dynamic.
The host invites someone on their show. An invitation – that’s a nice thing. The guest accepts. That’s nice too. So now a mutual politeness has been established.
How do you follow up “mutual politeness” with punching and hitting? That’s not polite! Not only that, but this happens one time, and nobody goes on that show anymore.
“You want to go on the show?’
“No!”
“Why not?
“The guy hits people!”
The “host-guest” dynamic has no room for fisticuffs. It’s a civilized environment. Look on the desks. There’s coffee. Sitting in mugs with the show’s logo on them. Who knows? If you behave, you may even get to take your coffee mug home.
Okay, back to The Interview. Jon Stewart, the righteous Man of the People, is railing against, not just Cramer, but the entire corps of CNBC insiders who missed the story of the market crash and misled and possibly deceived a public that took their advice and predictions seriously
And now they’re poor!
Cramer sits there in his costume – suit pants, yellow tie and a pastel shirt with the sleeves rolled up – acting like a kid who’s been sent to the principal’s office and just wants to get out of the place alive. What’s his strategy? It’s classic “Rope-a-Dope.” No attacking. No defending his actions. Just bob and weave, and run out the clock.
“You’re right. I was bad. It was wrong. I promise I’ll do better.”
Can I go back to class now?
You can tell Stewart’s frustrated. He can’t lay a glove on the guy.
“But, but, but…sputter, sputter, sputter…attacks, accusations, a few bleeped expletives…
And it’s over.
And nothing happened.
They shake hands, thanks for watching, and good night.
Why did nothing happen? Here’s why.
The heart of Stewart’s complaint was this:
“You geniuses at CNBC are not doing your jobs!”
The problem is
They are.
What job is that? The only job they care about:
Making money for CNBC.
Busini-tainment. A fabulous enterprise. Totally legal, and it works like this:
“What is this show?”
“It’s experts offering investment advice.”
“Their advice lost me all my money.”
“You listened to a television show?”
Sound familiar?
“When I call it a show, you call it experts. And when I call it experts, you call it a show.”
I told you it was a great analogy. It works in all situations.
Just not for us.
Friday, March 13, 2009
"Gun Check"
I’ve only fired a gun once.
Let me be more accurate about that. I fired two guns one time. Wait. I don’t mean I fired one bullet out of one gun and one bullet out of a second gun. It was this. On one occasion, I fired two guns multiple times. That best reflects what actually happened. But it’s hardly a great opening sentence.
On one occasion, I fired two guns multiple times.
It’s kind of lumpy.
Art and the truth. Always a battle.
SIGH.
And moving on.
At the time of the gun-firing experiment, I was training in a gym with a guy named Matt. I don’t know about other people, but when I’m training in a gym, I like to distract myself from the fact that I’m training in a gym. Otherwise, I start thinking, “What am I doing, training in a gym?”
My personal “distraction of choice” is talking. Matt and I were pretty good at it, so good, in fact, that I often forgot I was training in a gym. Until I had to lift something.
The conversation somehow turned to guns. I told Matt I had never fired one. (Cap guns excluded. Being a longtime cowboy in my heart, I’ve fired a truckload of those. Which leads me to a secondary point, “secondary” only for this post; in reality, it’s equally important. You can fire a million cap guns and still have no powerful inclination to fire an actual gun, especially at someone. This is a point the “anti-toy-gun” advocates steadfastly ignore: The vast majority of us know the difference between “playing cowboys” and dead.)
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah. I told Matt I had never fired a gun. Matt asked me if I wanted to try it sometime. I told him yeah. Why? Because I wanted to know how it felt.
A few days later, Matt drove us to an indoor place where people shoot guns, like a gun club, or something. Matt brought along a couple of pistols of his own, which he was willing to let me try, but he suggested that, being a beginner, I should rent a smaller caliber gun, a .22, as well. So I did.
Then we went in the back.
The back was like a bowling alley with bullets. Shooters stood in parallel lanes, wearing earphones to muffle the noise, and fired at black-circled paper targets, maybe thirty feet away. There was this mechanism, where you could later slide the target towards you, so you could check out how you did.
I sorta already knew this, but it came clearer when I was in there. Different guns shoot differently. With the .22 I had rented, you have to draw the hammer back each time before you pull the trigger. That’s how .22’s work. A consequence of this arrangement is that you have a measure of control over your shooting. The “hammer pulling” requirement allows you some “thinking time” to consider what you’re doing.
You draw back the hammer.
“Do I want to shoot this guy? Yes.”
BANG.
You draw back the hammer.
“Do I want to shoot him again? Yes.”
BANG.
You draw back the hammer.
“Do I want to…wait, I’m not sure.”
No BANG.
As you can see, this is a valuable safety precaution. As a result of the “thinking time”, you’ll have only shot the guy twice, instead of a bunch of times.
After firing a few rounds, I checked my target to see how I had done. I was surprised to find that a number of my shots had come pretty close to dead center.
Targets beware. I’m a dangerous hombre!
After shooting a while, I was ready to move up. Matt offered me his 9 millimeter.
What I’m about to describe was hardly my proudest moment. First off, I was incapable of loading the bullets. (I apparently lacked the arm-strength to hold back the spring at the bullet-loading place.) Matt had to load it for me.
You don’t feel all that manly when somebody else has to load your gun for you. Suddenly, I wished I were wearing an explanatory t-shirt with the words, “IT’S MY FIRST TIME…BUT I’M REALLY HAVING FUN!” printed on it.
I took Matt’s gun, walked over and faced the target. I remember needing to brace my shooting hand with my other hand. The 9 millimeter was substantially heavier than the .22.
I pointed the gun at the target and fired. And fired. And fired. And fired. And fired.
I quickly learned that if you don’t let go of the trigger of the 9 millimeter, the bullets keep flying out, one after another. Goodbye “thinking time.” You’re simply blasting away. Which is helpful if your adversary “passed” on “thinking time” and is blasting away at you.
I’m sure if you take lessons, they teach you to take your finger off the trigger. But that first time, it felt much less like I was firing the gun than that I was standing there watching as the gun fired itself.
Maybe it was smoky in there. Maybe it was pungent gunmetal oil burning my eyes. Maybe it was a dusty place. But for some reason, my eyes kept tearing up.
That was my only visit to the gun club.
(But I still watch cowboys on T.V.)
Let me be more accurate about that. I fired two guns one time. Wait. I don’t mean I fired one bullet out of one gun and one bullet out of a second gun. It was this. On one occasion, I fired two guns multiple times. That best reflects what actually happened. But it’s hardly a great opening sentence.
On one occasion, I fired two guns multiple times.
It’s kind of lumpy.
Art and the truth. Always a battle.
SIGH.
And moving on.
At the time of the gun-firing experiment, I was training in a gym with a guy named Matt. I don’t know about other people, but when I’m training in a gym, I like to distract myself from the fact that I’m training in a gym. Otherwise, I start thinking, “What am I doing, training in a gym?”
My personal “distraction of choice” is talking. Matt and I were pretty good at it, so good, in fact, that I often forgot I was training in a gym. Until I had to lift something.
The conversation somehow turned to guns. I told Matt I had never fired one. (Cap guns excluded. Being a longtime cowboy in my heart, I’ve fired a truckload of those. Which leads me to a secondary point, “secondary” only for this post; in reality, it’s equally important. You can fire a million cap guns and still have no powerful inclination to fire an actual gun, especially at someone. This is a point the “anti-toy-gun” advocates steadfastly ignore: The vast majority of us know the difference between “playing cowboys” and dead.)
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah. I told Matt I had never fired a gun. Matt asked me if I wanted to try it sometime. I told him yeah. Why? Because I wanted to know how it felt.
A few days later, Matt drove us to an indoor place where people shoot guns, like a gun club, or something. Matt brought along a couple of pistols of his own, which he was willing to let me try, but he suggested that, being a beginner, I should rent a smaller caliber gun, a .22, as well. So I did.
Then we went in the back.
The back was like a bowling alley with bullets. Shooters stood in parallel lanes, wearing earphones to muffle the noise, and fired at black-circled paper targets, maybe thirty feet away. There was this mechanism, where you could later slide the target towards you, so you could check out how you did.
I sorta already knew this, but it came clearer when I was in there. Different guns shoot differently. With the .22 I had rented, you have to draw the hammer back each time before you pull the trigger. That’s how .22’s work. A consequence of this arrangement is that you have a measure of control over your shooting. The “hammer pulling” requirement allows you some “thinking time” to consider what you’re doing.
You draw back the hammer.
“Do I want to shoot this guy? Yes.”
BANG.
You draw back the hammer.
“Do I want to shoot him again? Yes.”
BANG.
You draw back the hammer.
“Do I want to…wait, I’m not sure.”
No BANG.
As you can see, this is a valuable safety precaution. As a result of the “thinking time”, you’ll have only shot the guy twice, instead of a bunch of times.
After firing a few rounds, I checked my target to see how I had done. I was surprised to find that a number of my shots had come pretty close to dead center.
Targets beware. I’m a dangerous hombre!
After shooting a while, I was ready to move up. Matt offered me his 9 millimeter.
What I’m about to describe was hardly my proudest moment. First off, I was incapable of loading the bullets. (I apparently lacked the arm-strength to hold back the spring at the bullet-loading place.) Matt had to load it for me.
You don’t feel all that manly when somebody else has to load your gun for you. Suddenly, I wished I were wearing an explanatory t-shirt with the words, “IT’S MY FIRST TIME…BUT I’M REALLY HAVING FUN!” printed on it.
I took Matt’s gun, walked over and faced the target. I remember needing to brace my shooting hand with my other hand. The 9 millimeter was substantially heavier than the .22.
I pointed the gun at the target and fired. And fired. And fired. And fired. And fired.
I quickly learned that if you don’t let go of the trigger of the 9 millimeter, the bullets keep flying out, one after another. Goodbye “thinking time.” You’re simply blasting away. Which is helpful if your adversary “passed” on “thinking time” and is blasting away at you.
I’m sure if you take lessons, they teach you to take your finger off the trigger. But that first time, it felt much less like I was firing the gun than that I was standing there watching as the gun fired itself.
Maybe it was smoky in there. Maybe it was pungent gunmetal oil burning my eyes. Maybe it was a dusty place. But for some reason, my eyes kept tearing up.
That was my only visit to the gun club.
(But I still watch cowboys on T.V.)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
"London Times - Part Eight B"
My situation in London had radically changed. Instead of having a full-time teaching job and living in one of the classiest neighborhoods in London, I was out of work and living in a hovel.
A “room and kitchen” in a deteriorating building, a shared toilet down the hall, and no bathing facilities whatsoever, meaning I had to clean up at the often crowded and always humiliating Public Baths, a twenty minute walk down the street. Under such conditions, bathing becomes less “on a regular basis” and more “when you just can’t stand yourself anymore.”
Throughout my six-month stay in that building, I only met one other tenant. Tim, who lived in the basement. I’d been introduced to Tim by pub friends in Hampstead. It was through Tim that I’d learned of the availability of the apartment I was now living in.
Tim invited me down for a visit, and I went. His apartment was smaller than mine and, being in the basement, darker. We’re talking under ground basement apartment. No cute little Laverne and Shirley windows looking onto the sidewalk. A bare bulb in the ceiling illuminated the premises. You manipulated it by pulling a string.
There was a unique element in that apartment that you couldn’t help noticing as soon as you walked in. The man kept a falcon. Indoors. In a basement apartment. A large, impressively clawed, fully grown falcon. Like from the Middle Ages. Except it wasn’t the Middle Ages. It was the late 1960’s. And this thing was living in my building.
The falcon, whom Tim had named Cully, sat perched atop a high-backed chair, to which was attached a long, rawhide leash. The other end of the leash was fastened to the leather collar encircling Cully’s neck.
During our conversation, on numerous occasions, Cully would suddenly spread his substantial wings, let loose a blood-curdling screech, take off, and fly around the room, swooping and screeching at will, then return to his perch, where he calmly remained till his next unscheduled “fly around.”
I did not visit for long.
My life in London had turned rather distressing. My “covering” letters home were the best fiction I have ever written. The truth was, I badly needed a turn in my fortunes. Fortunately, I got one.
I have written about getting a job at Harrods Department Store, where I wrapped toys during the ten-week run-up to Christmas. (“London Times – Part Three” – December 18, 2008.) I have written about meeting a princess and leading my workmates out on strike. (“London Times – Part Three B” – December 19, 2008.) If you haven’t read those stories, check them out. They’re pretty good.
The Harrods job filled many needs at the time. A regular income. A place to go every day. Multiple toy wrapping adventures. But one “perk” rose in importance far above the others:
There was a shower in the “Employees’ Lavatory.”
No more Oasis Public Baths for this fellow. From now on, I was showering at work.
For other Harrods workers, the lunch break meant a generously subsidized three-course meal at the “Employees’ Canteen”. For me, it meant a generously subsidized three-course meal at the “Employees’ Canteen”, and getting clean without having to share a bathing facility with chimney sweeps.
Whenever it suited me, I would enjoy my roast beef, chips and peas luncheon, then proceed to the “Employees’ Lavatory” for a full and proper “wash-up.” It was hardly luxurious, but compared to my recent experiences, it was the penthouse at Claridge’s.
Clean. Well lit. Beautifully tiled. And I didn’t have to share. The shower was all mine. For as long as I wanted. (Or at least till my lunch break was over.)
I showered and I sang. I always sing when there are good acoustics. Showers. Tunnels. Underground garages. It’s what I do. No inhibitions. I just open up and I let it fly.
TO DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
TO FIGHT THE UNBEATABLE FOE
TO BEAR WITH UNBEARABLE SORROW
TO RUN WHERE THE BRAVE DARE NOT GO…
One day, I returned to my workstation, showered, shaved, hair neatly brushed and smelling like Lifebuoy Soap.
That’s when I learned about the “mystery.”
“Where have you been?” cried an excited co-worker.
“I was taking a shower.”
“So you didn’t hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“It was all over the store.”
“What was?”
“The place was absolute chaos. Everyone was trying to find out where it was coming from. But they couldn’t figure it out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The singing.”
“The what?”
“Somebody. It was coming out through the air vents.”
“They were singing?”
“The Impossible Dream.”
“Was it any good?”
"What?”
“The singing. Was it any good?”
HE STARED AT ME, THEN SHRUGGED DISMISSIVELY.
“You really didn’t hear it?”
“I told you. I was taking a shower.”
I believed I had never sung publicly in London. It turns out I was wrong.
--------------------------------
I want to thank those who sent along their thoughtful and persuasive comments on “funny numbers.” I will only add – and I’ll speak for all writers though they didn’t ask me to – that when you come up with a “funny number”, there is no planning or premeditation involved whatsoever. The number just pops out. There may be a legitimate explanation as to why that number is “right”, but these are retroactive considerations. The number just happens. And it’s always right. And that's not just for number. Blurt without censoring and you'll always be "on the money."
Questions and comments always gratefully appreciated.
A “room and kitchen” in a deteriorating building, a shared toilet down the hall, and no bathing facilities whatsoever, meaning I had to clean up at the often crowded and always humiliating Public Baths, a twenty minute walk down the street. Under such conditions, bathing becomes less “on a regular basis” and more “when you just can’t stand yourself anymore.”
Throughout my six-month stay in that building, I only met one other tenant. Tim, who lived in the basement. I’d been introduced to Tim by pub friends in Hampstead. It was through Tim that I’d learned of the availability of the apartment I was now living in.
Tim invited me down for a visit, and I went. His apartment was smaller than mine and, being in the basement, darker. We’re talking under ground basement apartment. No cute little Laverne and Shirley windows looking onto the sidewalk. A bare bulb in the ceiling illuminated the premises. You manipulated it by pulling a string.
There was a unique element in that apartment that you couldn’t help noticing as soon as you walked in. The man kept a falcon. Indoors. In a basement apartment. A large, impressively clawed, fully grown falcon. Like from the Middle Ages. Except it wasn’t the Middle Ages. It was the late 1960’s. And this thing was living in my building.
The falcon, whom Tim had named Cully, sat perched atop a high-backed chair, to which was attached a long, rawhide leash. The other end of the leash was fastened to the leather collar encircling Cully’s neck.
During our conversation, on numerous occasions, Cully would suddenly spread his substantial wings, let loose a blood-curdling screech, take off, and fly around the room, swooping and screeching at will, then return to his perch, where he calmly remained till his next unscheduled “fly around.”
I did not visit for long.
My life in London had turned rather distressing. My “covering” letters home were the best fiction I have ever written. The truth was, I badly needed a turn in my fortunes. Fortunately, I got one.
I have written about getting a job at Harrods Department Store, where I wrapped toys during the ten-week run-up to Christmas. (“London Times – Part Three” – December 18, 2008.) I have written about meeting a princess and leading my workmates out on strike. (“London Times – Part Three B” – December 19, 2008.) If you haven’t read those stories, check them out. They’re pretty good.
The Harrods job filled many needs at the time. A regular income. A place to go every day. Multiple toy wrapping adventures. But one “perk” rose in importance far above the others:
There was a shower in the “Employees’ Lavatory.”
No more Oasis Public Baths for this fellow. From now on, I was showering at work.
For other Harrods workers, the lunch break meant a generously subsidized three-course meal at the “Employees’ Canteen”. For me, it meant a generously subsidized three-course meal at the “Employees’ Canteen”, and getting clean without having to share a bathing facility with chimney sweeps.
Whenever it suited me, I would enjoy my roast beef, chips and peas luncheon, then proceed to the “Employees’ Lavatory” for a full and proper “wash-up.” It was hardly luxurious, but compared to my recent experiences, it was the penthouse at Claridge’s.
Clean. Well lit. Beautifully tiled. And I didn’t have to share. The shower was all mine. For as long as I wanted. (Or at least till my lunch break was over.)
I showered and I sang. I always sing when there are good acoustics. Showers. Tunnels. Underground garages. It’s what I do. No inhibitions. I just open up and I let it fly.
TO DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
TO FIGHT THE UNBEATABLE FOE
TO BEAR WITH UNBEARABLE SORROW
TO RUN WHERE THE BRAVE DARE NOT GO…
One day, I returned to my workstation, showered, shaved, hair neatly brushed and smelling like Lifebuoy Soap.
That’s when I learned about the “mystery.”
“Where have you been?” cried an excited co-worker.
“I was taking a shower.”
“So you didn’t hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“It was all over the store.”
“What was?”
“The place was absolute chaos. Everyone was trying to find out where it was coming from. But they couldn’t figure it out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The singing.”
“The what?”
“Somebody. It was coming out through the air vents.”
“They were singing?”
“The Impossible Dream.”
“Was it any good?”
"What?”
“The singing. Was it any good?”
HE STARED AT ME, THEN SHRUGGED DISMISSIVELY.
“You really didn’t hear it?”
“I told you. I was taking a shower.”
I believed I had never sung publicly in London. It turns out I was wrong.
--------------------------------
I want to thank those who sent along their thoughtful and persuasive comments on “funny numbers.” I will only add – and I’ll speak for all writers though they didn’t ask me to – that when you come up with a “funny number”, there is no planning or premeditation involved whatsoever. The number just pops out. There may be a legitimate explanation as to why that number is “right”, but these are retroactive considerations. The number just happens. And it’s always right. And that's not just for number. Blurt without censoring and you'll always be "on the money."
Questions and comments always gratefully appreciated.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
"London Times - Part Eight"
After living in Hampstead for seven months, I was evicted from my Bedsitting Room at 10 Church Row for being rowdy. (This is the only time me and “rowdy” have ever appeared in the same sentence.)
Mrs. Tompkins, my landlady, had a particularly narrow vision of the concept. I was challenging “rowdy” simply by coming out of my room. In fairness to her, it was summertime, and Canadian travelers were regularly ringing her doorbell to “look me up.” I guess she got tired of the door never being for her, and she decided to evict me. In truth, it was the visitors who were rowdy, but she could hardly throw them out. They didn’t live there.
I did.
And I had to go.
“Going” meant a lot more than finding a new place to live. I couldn’t find anything nearby in my price range, so I was forced to relocate to a different and distant part of town. This meant I wasn’t just losing an exceptional situation. I was also losing my community.
Sure, I could take the “tube” up to the Horse and Groom. But it wasn’t the same. I was an outsider now, no longer a citizen of the neighborhood.
The pub had been important to me. The “regulars” had taken me in. Once, a group of them invited me to accompany them to the Epsom Darby, a traditional, annual horseracing event, taking place the following day. I told them I couldn’t go because I had to teach. The next morning, they rang my doorbell, and told me to get in the car.
“I can’t,” I re-explained. “I have to work.”
“No, you don’t. We called your school. You’re ‘sick.’”
And off we went to the Epsom Darby.
I experienced many such kindnesses during my Hampstead stay. I’d have one more before I left.
On my last night at the pub, the manager – I now remember his name was Eddie, not Jimmy as I previously reported – presented me with a surprise going-away present. It was a half-pint beer mug, beveled glass with the official Horse and Groom, Hampstead etched on the side. I was told that pub glasses are legally protected in England, the licensing procedure making them “Property of the Crown.” Stealing a pub mug is like stealing a mailbox.
They gave me one as a memento. I’m looking at it right now.
I moved to a mid-city district called Euston. It was a totally different environment. A block away sat Euston Station, which housed both a train and an Underground station. (Euston Station also offered a “canteen” which sold a pretty decent steak pie. How do you tell the difference between steak pie and steak-and-kidney pie? The latter has bits of shiny meat in it. Those would be the kidney bits.)
The Euston neighborhood had a “downscale” feel to it. The buildings were caked in soot and indifferently maintained. Though decades had passed since World War II, there were empty lots still piled with rubble from “The Blitz.” My four-story building had been left untouched. It’s as if German pilots had flown over it and said,
“Ve are not vasting a bomb on zat!”
It wasn’t much of a place.
Why did I take it? The rent was two pounds a week. That’s less than six dollars. Charles Dickens would have called it a steal.
The landlord was decidedly “absentee.” Some oil company, as I recall. I paid the rent by mail. I was given a long, rusty iron key for my door. I looked at it and thought, “I have moved into a self-service prison.”
The apartment was small and dusty. The floors were uncovered plywood. The entire unit (furnished by Oxfam – read: Salvation Army) consisted of a room and a kitchen.
You will notice what I didn’t mention. I didn’t mention a bathroom. I didn’t mention it, because my apartment didn’t have a bathroom. There was a toilet, shared by all the floor’s tenants, at the end of the hall.
You will once again notice what I didn’t mention. I didn’t mention a shower or a bath. There’s a reason I didn’t mention a shower or a bath.
The building did not include a shower or a bath.
How did I take a shower or a bath?
I went down to Shaftsbury Avenue, the main thoroughfare of London’s glittering West End, and availed myself of the Oasis Public Baths.
Public baths are a longstanding English tradition. A lot of places – places poor people live – were constructed with neither indoor plumbing nor bathing facilities. The former need was accommodated by outhouses. The latter, by the public baths.
The Oasis, the closest bathhouse, was a twenty-minute walk from my apartment. This was not an easy adjustment for me. A person accustomed to middle-class amenities was now required to walk twenty minutes down the street to take a bath.
The culture shock, however, was only beginning.
My First Visit to the Oasis Public Baths
I arrive at the premises, clutching my bath towel and my shampoo, contained in a plastic bottle shaped liked Popeye. I pay the shilling (twelve cent) fee. I am handed a tiny bar of soap and a number. I proceed to the “Waiting Area”, planting myself on a rough, wooden bench, alongside other people who are waiting to take their baths. Many of them appear to have spent the day working underground.
Yes, indeedy. Little Early Peemerantz was bathing with miners.
After half an hour, my number is finally called. I follow a man holding a long, crank-looking object down a badly lit corridor. He unlocks a door with a number on it, and I follow him in.
Inside is a worn but surprisingly clean bathtub and a hook on the door to hang my clothes on. That was it. The tub had no “hot” and “cold” handles. That’s what the crank-looking object was for. The man attached it to the…whatever, and alternately cranked in hot and cold water for my bath. (The “crank” method kept unscrupulous bathers from abusing the “hot.”)
The man asked me to feel the water to see if the temperature was to my liking, and when I told him it was fine, he filled the tub, said I had fifteen minutes for my bath, and left.
I’m not clear on the explanation, but, apparently, there are parts of your body that are more sensitive to hotter temperatures than other parts. For example, my hands, which I had used to test the bathwater, are not sensitive. Other parts, however, parts I now found myself lowering into the water, are extremely sensitive. So sensitive, it turned out, that it was necessary for me to remove myself from the tub.
Which I did. Rapidly.
On my first visit to the Oasis Public Baths, in a misguided effort to insure that my bathwater would not be too tepid, I had ordered it cranked in way, way too hot.
I am standing there, naked beside the tub, waiting for the rising steam to abate, so I can again get back in the bathtub. You’re probably ahead of me at this point, but this is exactly how it went. Just as the water had cooled enough to allow me to climb back in…
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
‘Time’s up, sir. Time to go.”
One shilling. No bath.
Eventually, I familiarized myself with the process. But taking the twenty-minute trudge home afterwards, my hair, damp and stringy, my pre-bath clothing clinging to my body (it was too cumbersome to pack a different set of clean clothes), carrying my water-logged bath towel and my now-slick Popeye shampoo bottle, though unquestionably clean, I never failed to feel bewildered by my predicament.
Tomorrow: Rescued from the Public Baths.
Mrs. Tompkins, my landlady, had a particularly narrow vision of the concept. I was challenging “rowdy” simply by coming out of my room. In fairness to her, it was summertime, and Canadian travelers were regularly ringing her doorbell to “look me up.” I guess she got tired of the door never being for her, and she decided to evict me. In truth, it was the visitors who were rowdy, but she could hardly throw them out. They didn’t live there.
I did.
And I had to go.
“Going” meant a lot more than finding a new place to live. I couldn’t find anything nearby in my price range, so I was forced to relocate to a different and distant part of town. This meant I wasn’t just losing an exceptional situation. I was also losing my community.
Sure, I could take the “tube” up to the Horse and Groom. But it wasn’t the same. I was an outsider now, no longer a citizen of the neighborhood.
The pub had been important to me. The “regulars” had taken me in. Once, a group of them invited me to accompany them to the Epsom Darby, a traditional, annual horseracing event, taking place the following day. I told them I couldn’t go because I had to teach. The next morning, they rang my doorbell, and told me to get in the car.
“I can’t,” I re-explained. “I have to work.”
“No, you don’t. We called your school. You’re ‘sick.’”
And off we went to the Epsom Darby.
I experienced many such kindnesses during my Hampstead stay. I’d have one more before I left.
On my last night at the pub, the manager – I now remember his name was Eddie, not Jimmy as I previously reported – presented me with a surprise going-away present. It was a half-pint beer mug, beveled glass with the official Horse and Groom, Hampstead etched on the side. I was told that pub glasses are legally protected in England, the licensing procedure making them “Property of the Crown.” Stealing a pub mug is like stealing a mailbox.
They gave me one as a memento. I’m looking at it right now.
I moved to a mid-city district called Euston. It was a totally different environment. A block away sat Euston Station, which housed both a train and an Underground station. (Euston Station also offered a “canteen” which sold a pretty decent steak pie. How do you tell the difference between steak pie and steak-and-kidney pie? The latter has bits of shiny meat in it. Those would be the kidney bits.)
The Euston neighborhood had a “downscale” feel to it. The buildings were caked in soot and indifferently maintained. Though decades had passed since World War II, there were empty lots still piled with rubble from “The Blitz.” My four-story building had been left untouched. It’s as if German pilots had flown over it and said,
“Ve are not vasting a bomb on zat!”
It wasn’t much of a place.
Why did I take it? The rent was two pounds a week. That’s less than six dollars. Charles Dickens would have called it a steal.
The landlord was decidedly “absentee.” Some oil company, as I recall. I paid the rent by mail. I was given a long, rusty iron key for my door. I looked at it and thought, “I have moved into a self-service prison.”
The apartment was small and dusty. The floors were uncovered plywood. The entire unit (furnished by Oxfam – read: Salvation Army) consisted of a room and a kitchen.
You will notice what I didn’t mention. I didn’t mention a bathroom. I didn’t mention it, because my apartment didn’t have a bathroom. There was a toilet, shared by all the floor’s tenants, at the end of the hall.
You will once again notice what I didn’t mention. I didn’t mention a shower or a bath. There’s a reason I didn’t mention a shower or a bath.
The building did not include a shower or a bath.
How did I take a shower or a bath?
I went down to Shaftsbury Avenue, the main thoroughfare of London’s glittering West End, and availed myself of the Oasis Public Baths.
Public baths are a longstanding English tradition. A lot of places – places poor people live – were constructed with neither indoor plumbing nor bathing facilities. The former need was accommodated by outhouses. The latter, by the public baths.
The Oasis, the closest bathhouse, was a twenty-minute walk from my apartment. This was not an easy adjustment for me. A person accustomed to middle-class amenities was now required to walk twenty minutes down the street to take a bath.
The culture shock, however, was only beginning.
My First Visit to the Oasis Public Baths
I arrive at the premises, clutching my bath towel and my shampoo, contained in a plastic bottle shaped liked Popeye. I pay the shilling (twelve cent) fee. I am handed a tiny bar of soap and a number. I proceed to the “Waiting Area”, planting myself on a rough, wooden bench, alongside other people who are waiting to take their baths. Many of them appear to have spent the day working underground.
Yes, indeedy. Little Early Peemerantz was bathing with miners.
After half an hour, my number is finally called. I follow a man holding a long, crank-looking object down a badly lit corridor. He unlocks a door with a number on it, and I follow him in.
Inside is a worn but surprisingly clean bathtub and a hook on the door to hang my clothes on. That was it. The tub had no “hot” and “cold” handles. That’s what the crank-looking object was for. The man attached it to the…whatever, and alternately cranked in hot and cold water for my bath. (The “crank” method kept unscrupulous bathers from abusing the “hot.”)
The man asked me to feel the water to see if the temperature was to my liking, and when I told him it was fine, he filled the tub, said I had fifteen minutes for my bath, and left.
I’m not clear on the explanation, but, apparently, there are parts of your body that are more sensitive to hotter temperatures than other parts. For example, my hands, which I had used to test the bathwater, are not sensitive. Other parts, however, parts I now found myself lowering into the water, are extremely sensitive. So sensitive, it turned out, that it was necessary for me to remove myself from the tub.
Which I did. Rapidly.
On my first visit to the Oasis Public Baths, in a misguided effort to insure that my bathwater would not be too tepid, I had ordered it cranked in way, way too hot.
I am standing there, naked beside the tub, waiting for the rising steam to abate, so I can again get back in the bathtub. You’re probably ahead of me at this point, but this is exactly how it went. Just as the water had cooled enough to allow me to climb back in…
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
‘Time’s up, sir. Time to go.”
One shilling. No bath.
Eventually, I familiarized myself with the process. But taking the twenty-minute trudge home afterwards, my hair, damp and stringy, my pre-bath clothing clinging to my body (it was too cumbersome to pack a different set of clean clothes), carrying my water-logged bath towel and my now-slick Popeye shampoo bottle, though unquestionably clean, I never failed to feel bewildered by my predicament.
Tomorrow: Rescued from the Public Baths.
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