Ladies and gentlemen. the irascible, the opinionated, and the not always wrong, Uncle Grumpy.
It was the darndest thing I ever heard. I was watchin’ The McLaughin Group – which I know, technically, is not “cable news”, but its performing style brands it as a Fellow Traveler.
McLaughlin’s panelists, or guests, or whatever, are yammerin’ away about some issue or other, when suddenly, this booming voice interrupts, stoppin’ the crosstalk dead in its tracks. It’s John “Boom Boom” McLaughlin himself. And here’s what he says. This is classic. You gotta hear this.
McLaughlin says – concernin’ whatever issue they were yammerin’ about:
“The question is not, ‘Is it good for the Left?’ or ‘Is it good for the Right’? The question is, ‘Is it good for our show?’”
John McLaughlin said that on television. I heard it.
I don’t know why he said that. It’s like he was deliberately blowin’ his brains out in front of the cameras. Suicide by Truth. His panel looked shocked. His pronouncement was never followed up. What could they say?
“You’re right, Mr. McLaughlin. We’re exploiting this issue – and every issue for that matter – for ratings, which translates into profits. Let’s face it. We may look like a news and information program, but we’re actually an entertainment program, masquerading as something ‘important’.”
“Bottom line? We’re in it for the money.”
“Oh, and it’s good being on TV. It boosts our book sales and speaking engagement fees.”
“Plus, we like being on TV.”
As far as I know, McLaughlin never blurted anything of the nature again. The “Truth Door” slammed shut. Why? Because the truth would end cable news as we know it. They’d have to change their networks’ motto to:
“Pretending to Matter for Entertainment and Cash.”
I know cable news is as bad for you as a giant bag of Cheetos, and equally as nourishing. The only difference is, well, there’s two of them. One is: After eating a giant bag of Cheetos, you have orange crumbs clingin’ to your fingers and all over your face. And Number Two: Cheetos doesn’t lie about what it is. Cheetos lays it on the line:
“We’re crap, but we’re tasty.”
Cable news is nowhere near that honest.
“So what?”, you say. If a certain type of show is crap, don’t watch it. Case closed. The trouble is, I do watch it. I can’t help myself. I can’t blame the product, of course. It’s my fault for consumin’. I watch cable news because I want to, and I’m disgusted with myself for doin’ it. I just wish they’d make the shows better, so I could feel a little less terrible about watchin’ ‘em. Is that too much to ask?
It’s not their news anyway, goldarnit. The news is “what happened”. It belongs to all of us. What gives cable news the right to manipulate our news for their profit?
Example of the problem?
Chris Matthews. The best of the bunch. (By “calling out” the best, understand that what I’m sayin’ is, the rest of ‘em are the same, only worse.)
Chris Matthews fools himself every day.
“I’m a newsman.”
No, you’re not. You’re a news star. You, the “cheeks” guy from Meet The Press, Brian pretty-face from The Evening News, you’re as famous as the people you cover, probably more so. You’re in show biz, Chris. You know how you know you’re in show biz? Real newsmen don’t go to work wearin’ make-up. I mean, the women do, but you know what I’m sayin’. No question, cable news – all TV news – is a star-driven show-biz gig.
More self-delusion. Chris Matthews recently talked on his show about the Democratic campaign operatives “playing the refs.” “Playin’ the refs” is when one side rails against the “egregious fouls” committed by their opponents, so the referees will sympathize with their complaints and more carefully scrutinize “the other side.” In Matthews’ analogy, the cable news commentators are the “refs” the operatives are “playing”. Only one problem with that analogy.
It’s wrong.
Cable news commentators are not referees.
Here’s how referees themselves describe the ideal official. As the game’s bein’ played, the referee, at their best, is…
Invisible.
The “refs” job is to make the calls. They never impose their presence on the game. The game is the thing; he “refs” are the guys who make the thing run smoothly. It’s never about the “refs”. It’s always about the game.
Any of this description fit Chris Mathews’ behavior? Or Keith Olbermann’s? Or O’Reilly’s? Or Hannity’s? Or “Morning” Joe’s? You think, judgin’ by their performance, that the goal of these Jaspers is to be invisible?
Cable news anchors are not referees. While coverin’ the game of politics, these media stars, are engaged in a game of their own – the “Ratings Game” – which runs at the same time as the game they’re coverin’.
“Everybody knows that, Uncle Grumpy.”
They know it, but these Bohunks do everything they can to make you forget it. Like hypnotists, they wave their hands in front of your eyes, purring,
“It’s the news.”
Wake up! It’s a television show!
Back to Matthews. The brightest. The cleverest. The most decent. The most knowledgeable. The most dedicated. The most sincere.
His only problem?
Chris Matthews is on television.
(Walter Cronkite was on television too, but in his day, the network’s news division was not expected to be profitable. Now it has to be. That difference changes everything.)
Chris Mathews’ fondest wish is to stay on the air. Hey, it’s America – that’s his right. But what does it mean, “Chris Matthews wants to stay on the air”? It means, up to the point where Matthews draws the line:
“Whatever it takes.”
That’s what’s different. No longer do news shows have a single objective. Now, there are two. Reporting the news. And stayin’ on the air.
What’s Chris Matthews’ “hook” for turnin’ Hardball into Must See TV? The electric enthusiasm of a junkie. Chris Matthews – no question – is addicted to politics. In the commercials for his show, he says, “I love it!” about politics, like he’s talking about ice cream, or football. Or heroin. For cryin’ out loud, the last segment of his show’s called “The Politics ‘Fix’!”
What’s wrong with bein’ passionate about politics? Nothin’. But to stay “hot” and interesting, Matthews focuses on the “horse race” aspect, not the policies, showcasin’ the excitin’ and ever-changin’ over the static and the terminally dull.
“Hey, it’s a show, Baby! The action’s in the action. Who put their foot in their mouth? How much money did they raise? Who’s ahead in the polls?”
And who are the guests invited to “rate” this “horse race”? Pundits. Partisans. Political operatives. Plus, hosts of other news shows on the same network, in a gesture of transparent cross-promotion. (To paraphrase the great Ed Grimley, ”That’s rather sad, I must say.”)
What kinds of questions are the guests asked? Predictable questions, easily parried by memorized answers. Ever see anyone on a cable news show take a moment to think? They don’t have to. They’re Talking Robots. Don’t look to cable news for illumination. You’ll never hear anything new.
And when a good and honest man like Chris Matthews tries to be a responsible reporter? What happens – as he’s done on occasion – when Chris ventures more deeply, ferreting out contradictions and challenging inconsistencies?
He can’t pull it off. Why? Because, the way cable news shows are structured, Chris Matthews is the host, and his guests are guests. A “host” doesn’t go after their “guest”. It’s not good manners. Pushin’ too hard offends the “host-guest” relationship.
I once Chris Matthews go after a female guest, whose position was a mess of contradictions, misstatements and mistakes. He pushed and he pushed, trying to get her to concede she was wrong. And then he stopped. Why? Because One: You don’t attack a girl. And Two: You don’t beat up on a guest. (Unless that’s the “hook” or your show.)
I hate to come down on one guy, especially the best guy. They all have the same problem. With their primary objective being stayin’ on the air, the shows have to make their product – in this case, the news – as entertaining as possible. This inevitably leads to serious conflicts of interest.
Here’s a big one. Maybe the biggest. One way to make a show entertaining is to tell a compelling story. Or, if you don’t have one that day, to fashion the story you do have into as compelling a configuration as possible?
“Hillary’s bein’ pushed around by the Big Boys to get out of the race.”
“Obama’s a tsunami that can’t be stopped.”
Good stories. Very compelling. But what if they’re not accurate? And what if – and here’s my big point – by showcasin’ those stories in “as compelling a configuration as possible”, you bring about a change in the electorate, first, in their opinions and then, in their voting patterns?
Now, cable news isn’t just reporting the story, or even commenting on the story, they’re creatin', manipulatin' and influencin' the story. Couldn’t happen?
The New Hampshire Primary.
Think about it. Just possibly, by merely engagin’ in an effort to entertain, cable television could be changin’ the news.
I’m out of gas. Hey, Nephew, can I come back tomorrow?
EARL: I guess so.
Thanks. I’m just gettin’ started.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
"Saddle Up! - Part Five"
“SADDLE UP! – PART FIVE"
People, animals, a piece of vegetation and a Force of Nature remember – in their own words – their experiences working in classic and not so classic western movies. (As imagined by me.)
FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: FEATURED PLAYERS
THE SHEEPMAN
“We just stunk the whole time.”
“At the start of the picture, all the ‘extras’d’ be lined up for assignment. The Assistant Director’d go down the line, and he’d point – ‘Cowboy,’ ‘sheepman,’ ‘cowboy,’ ‘sheepman...’ We’d stand there, prayin’, ‘Please! Not ‘sheepman!’ Please!”
“I never made ‘cowboy’. Figured it was a height thing. You think of cowboys as bein’ tall men. I’m five-foot three. In boots.”
“I’d come home, one whiff, and my wife knew which part I was playin’. I’d have to sleep in the garage. Not from the shame of it. It was the smell.”
“‘Course, the cowboy weren’t no bouquet of roses either. But somehow – the ‘Cowboy Mystique’, or some such – their smell was ‘heroic.’ Ours was just stinky.”
“Sheepmen got the short end of everything. Cowboys dressed in stylish clothes and used up-to-date weapons. Sheepmen wore sheep vests, and used firearms that looked like they made them themselves. Cowboys also rode horses, while we rode, I don’t know, donkeys.”
“In every picture, the sheepman was considered 'the interloper'. When the cowmen would bushwhack us or burn down our houses, or shoot us to pieces when we’d go to town for provisions, it’s like, ‘They had it comin’.’ That always burned my chaps, even though I was just playin’ a sheepman. I mean, what’s the difference?
"Sheep, cattle. You raise ‘em, you butcher ‘em and you eat ‘em. And, in our case, make sweaters out of ‘em. Sure, they get belts, but which would you rather have, a belt or a sweater?
“We never caught a break, ‘till the Good Guy took our side. He wasn’t fighting injustice, or anything noble. He was just sweet on some sheep girl.”
“Word was the Assistant Director was on the take. Slip him a ‘ten spot’, and he’d make you a cowboy. I refused. And I was always a sheepman.”
FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: CRITTERS
THE NEWBORN CALF
“As I came out, pulled myself up, and took my first unsteady steps, there was the sense – or so I was told by the cattle who were there – that a star had literally been born on the silver screen. Who knew that would be the high point of my entire career?”
“It’s not that I’m bitter. It’s just hard when your shining moment occurs seconds after you’re born, and your life is downhill from there. I mean, I did work after that - I worked a lot - but I never stood out.
"After the auspicious way I came into the world, I was just part of the herd. One of many. Never played a stray, never got branded or butchered – thank God – never became a little cowgirl’s pet. I was just there. In the middle. Trying not to get stepped on. It was quite a comedown. You're a star for a second, and then, just another piece of meat.”
“When I was born, I was special. Everybody said so. I had something. The camera loved me. But the minute I wasn't cute and vulnerable anymore…nobody cared. (TEARING UP) Okay, here come the waterworks. As you can see, it still hurts.”
“I really should be grateful. I mean, how many cows can claim that the moment of their birth was immortalized by the iconic director, John Ford, in the classic western, Red River? Not many, I can tell you. I was truly blessed."
"I just wish I’d been blessed a little longer.”
FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: "BITS" AND "EXTRAS"
THE CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN
“In those days, you had two choices: You could play a Chinese laundryman, or you could be a Chinese laundryman. I chose the former.”
People, animals, a piece of vegetation and a Force of Nature remember – in their own words – their experiences working in classic and not so classic western movies. (As imagined by me.)
FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: FEATURED PLAYERS
THE SHEEPMAN
“We just stunk the whole time.”
“At the start of the picture, all the ‘extras’d’ be lined up for assignment. The Assistant Director’d go down the line, and he’d point – ‘Cowboy,’ ‘sheepman,’ ‘cowboy,’ ‘sheepman...’ We’d stand there, prayin’, ‘Please! Not ‘sheepman!’ Please!”
“I never made ‘cowboy’. Figured it was a height thing. You think of cowboys as bein’ tall men. I’m five-foot three. In boots.”
“I’d come home, one whiff, and my wife knew which part I was playin’. I’d have to sleep in the garage. Not from the shame of it. It was the smell.”
“‘Course, the cowboy weren’t no bouquet of roses either. But somehow – the ‘Cowboy Mystique’, or some such – their smell was ‘heroic.’ Ours was just stinky.”
“Sheepmen got the short end of everything. Cowboys dressed in stylish clothes and used up-to-date weapons. Sheepmen wore sheep vests, and used firearms that looked like they made them themselves. Cowboys also rode horses, while we rode, I don’t know, donkeys.”
“In every picture, the sheepman was considered 'the interloper'. When the cowmen would bushwhack us or burn down our houses, or shoot us to pieces when we’d go to town for provisions, it’s like, ‘They had it comin’.’ That always burned my chaps, even though I was just playin’ a sheepman. I mean, what’s the difference?
"Sheep, cattle. You raise ‘em, you butcher ‘em and you eat ‘em. And, in our case, make sweaters out of ‘em. Sure, they get belts, but which would you rather have, a belt or a sweater?
“We never caught a break, ‘till the Good Guy took our side. He wasn’t fighting injustice, or anything noble. He was just sweet on some sheep girl.”
“Word was the Assistant Director was on the take. Slip him a ‘ten spot’, and he’d make you a cowboy. I refused. And I was always a sheepman.”
FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: CRITTERS
THE NEWBORN CALF
“As I came out, pulled myself up, and took my first unsteady steps, there was the sense – or so I was told by the cattle who were there – that a star had literally been born on the silver screen. Who knew that would be the high point of my entire career?”
“It’s not that I’m bitter. It’s just hard when your shining moment occurs seconds after you’re born, and your life is downhill from there. I mean, I did work after that - I worked a lot - but I never stood out.
"After the auspicious way I came into the world, I was just part of the herd. One of many. Never played a stray, never got branded or butchered – thank God – never became a little cowgirl’s pet. I was just there. In the middle. Trying not to get stepped on. It was quite a comedown. You're a star for a second, and then, just another piece of meat.”
“When I was born, I was special. Everybody said so. I had something. The camera loved me. But the minute I wasn't cute and vulnerable anymore…nobody cared. (TEARING UP) Okay, here come the waterworks. As you can see, it still hurts.”
“I really should be grateful. I mean, how many cows can claim that the moment of their birth was immortalized by the iconic director, John Ford, in the classic western, Red River? Not many, I can tell you. I was truly blessed."
"I just wish I’d been blessed a little longer.”
FROM THE CHAPTER ENTITLED: "BITS" AND "EXTRAS"
THE CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN
“In those days, you had two choices: You could play a Chinese laundryman, or you could be a Chinese laundryman. I chose the former.”
Monday, April 7, 2008
"Story of a Writer - Part Ten"
Look at that. I’m in double digits. I never thought I had such a long story. I hope it’s interesting.
Okay, I’m not on the writing staff of Phyllis anymore. From now on, I’m strictly a scriptwriter. The pressure’s off. I only have to write.
I’m given another office. It was bigger than my first office. And it had a shower in it. Technically, it wasn’t really an office, it was a dressing room. Amazing. They had given me a dressing room for an office. If I got dirty while I was writing, I could take a shower.
My office sat on the second floor of a two-floor, bungalow-style building. Directly below me was the studio barbershop. Whenever I got shaggy, I could hop downstairs and Sol, a veteran studio barber in his seventies would give me a haircut. He'd also offer me lemons from his tree. Sol told me he used to cut Desi Arnaz’s hair, and other famous people’s too. It was a kick having you hair cut by the man who’d trimmed the famously Cuban locks of Ricky Ricardo.
At that time, the lot I worked at was called Studio Center. All the MTM shows were filmed there, as well as certain hour shows, whose names I don’t remember. I didn’t care about hour shows. I was a comedy guy.
What mattered, at least to me, was that Studio Center, in an earlier incarnation, had been Republic Studios, a studio where they shot many of my favorite “B” westerns from the 1930’s and 40’s. Studio Center had retained Republic’s “Cowboy Street”, a recognizable location for hundreds of western movies. The street was decked out with water troughs, hitching posts, and, nearby, a “Boot Hill.” You could almost smell the gunsmoke from years and years of phony shootouts.
In fact, that set served as the exterior for long running television series, Gunsmoke. Many’s the time, I’d grab food from the commissary, head over to the “Gunsmoke Street”, plunk myself down on the wood-planked sidewalk, and eat lunch where Chester once limped and Matt Dillon gunned ‘em down.
Unlike Universal Studios or Paramount – two lots where I spent substantial time – Studio Center was cozy and small. No building was higher than two stories, there were peaceful, suburban 50’s-looking “streets”, lined with facades of picket-fenced houses, with manicured lawns (I think the Leave It To Beaver house was there; or was it My Three Sons?). Studio Center also included a fountain and grassy, park-like areas, giving the studio the relaxed feel of a college campus.
That’s also how it felt working there. The best comedies on television were written in those offices, and filmed on those soundstages. And it was no accident. Everyone I encountered was a First Class talent, all working at the top of their game. The writers never said it in words, but their no-nonsense intensity reflected that their goal was not just to crank out sitcoms, but to work tirelessly to sharpen every story point and hone every joke to comedic perfection.
Studio Center didn’t just look like a college campus, it felt like one too. And not just any college campus. MTM was the Ivy League of half-hour comedy.
In three years, I wrote a total of twenty-four half-hour scripts. I wrote for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis, Doc, Rhoda, The Tony Randall Show, The Betty White Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Not all the series were hits, but whatever show I collaborated on, I never met anyone who wasn’t smart, talented, and dedicated to making the best show they knew how. It seems like that should go without saying, but it’s, sadly, not always the case. In later years, I found myself sharing a writing room with a disturbing number of sycophantic no-talents, lazybones, cynics, and burnouts.
For talent, effort, dedication and decency, the MTM experience was one of a kind.
I was unique in another way too.
The boss of MTM was a man named Grant Tinker. Grant was a handsome-looking Gentile man with neatly styled gray hair, the type you’d see in an old-time magazine ad, smoking Pall Malls, or playing golf. Grant looked impeccable at all times, but he was a knockout in a sweater.
At the time, Grant Tinker was Mary Tyler Moore’s husband. Grant ran the whole shebang. And he ran it like this:
Grant Tinker believed in talent. That meant he trusted the writers. Let me say that louder. GRANT TINKER TRUSTED THE WRITERS! Just as importantly, or maybe more so, Grant protected the writers, insulating them as much as possible from the murderous insanity of network interference, “murderous” in the sense that, when the network executives interfered, the writers wanted to kill them.
Years ago, I heard Mary co-creator, Jim Brooks, say in an interview that the main job of the writing Executive Producer was to protect the material. While Jim Brooks and other MTM Executive Producers protected the material, Grant Tinker protected them.
Why am I taking up space telling you about Grant Tinker? Because he was special. In all the places I worked after MTM, no television executive ever treated writers with the same level of care, consideration and respect ever again. Grant Tinker never pitched a joke, suggested a change in the story, altered the director’s blocking, or told an actor how to read a line. He never acted like he could do our jobs better than we could, if he only had the time. He was aware there were boundaries, and he kept to his side.
About fifteen years ago, when Grant Tinker wrote a memoir, I read it, and then sent him a letter. The letter spoke of Grant’s uniqueness as a television executive, and went on to say that in the twenty years (at the time I wrote the letter) since I’d worked at MTM, I had never experienced such a magnificent working arrangement again. Then I got angry. I told Grant his impeccable treatment of writers had set an example that reflected nothing I’d experienced since. I felt cheated and betrayed; I blamed Grant for setting a misleading precedent. I ended the letter by demanding my twenty years back!
An oft-repeated line attributed to Grant Tinker goes, “First be best, then be first.” When Grant went on to run NBC in the Eighties, he renewed low-rated but wonderful series like Cheers and Hill Street Blues. Sticking with these quality building blocks helped propel NBC to the Number One position for years to come.
“First be best, then be first.” Does anyone believe that anymore?
I’ll conclude with this memory. On the Friday night that my first Mary episode was going to be filmed, I was invited to come down to the stage and watch. Since I was not a member of the Mary writing staff, I had not been involved in the rewriting process that took place during the week the episode was produced. Nor had I read the final version of the script. Discovering how much – or more to the point – how little of my original writing remained would be, to put it delicately so I won’t cry, an education.
Before the filming, Mary’s Executive Producer, Ed. Weinberger, invited me into his office. He knew I’d be unhappy about how much I’d been rewritten, and he wanted to cushion the blow. He cushioned it with marijuana.
“Smoke this,” he insisted. I dutifully complied. I was never much of a drug person, but Ed.’s instruction had an urgency to it, like when the doctor in westerns jams a stick into the mouth of the patient he’s about to cut open, and says, “Bite hard, dammit, bite hard!”
I got a little goofy. Then, they ushered me down to the stage. I remember watching the show from the gallery, standing behind the studio audience. The show was going very well, despite the dearth of my original material. Then, at a crucial point in the story, a substantial section of the script was played exactly as I’d written it, and it got a really good response. Hearing the big laughs was exhilarating. And I didn’t keep the feeling to myself. Elated, and on drugs, I heard myself giddily shouting,
“I wrote that!”
shortly followed by
“Wasn’t that good?”
My memory gets a little hazy after that, but I believe I was quickly escorted from the building.
--------------------------
I’m concerned that I’m disappointing the readers who want specific information on the nitty-gritty of the writing process, like how the story meetings worked, etc. I seem to prefer to chronicle my, hopefully, interesting remembrances. I hope I can give you what you’re looking for sometime in the future, maybe in the upcoming posting about Taxi. I just haven’t figured out how to make that kind of stuff fascinating, especially to readers who don’t care about sitcom writing. But I’ll think about it. I promise.
Okay, I’m not on the writing staff of Phyllis anymore. From now on, I’m strictly a scriptwriter. The pressure’s off. I only have to write.
I’m given another office. It was bigger than my first office. And it had a shower in it. Technically, it wasn’t really an office, it was a dressing room. Amazing. They had given me a dressing room for an office. If I got dirty while I was writing, I could take a shower.
My office sat on the second floor of a two-floor, bungalow-style building. Directly below me was the studio barbershop. Whenever I got shaggy, I could hop downstairs and Sol, a veteran studio barber in his seventies would give me a haircut. He'd also offer me lemons from his tree. Sol told me he used to cut Desi Arnaz’s hair, and other famous people’s too. It was a kick having you hair cut by the man who’d trimmed the famously Cuban locks of Ricky Ricardo.
At that time, the lot I worked at was called Studio Center. All the MTM shows were filmed there, as well as certain hour shows, whose names I don’t remember. I didn’t care about hour shows. I was a comedy guy.
What mattered, at least to me, was that Studio Center, in an earlier incarnation, had been Republic Studios, a studio where they shot many of my favorite “B” westerns from the 1930’s and 40’s. Studio Center had retained Republic’s “Cowboy Street”, a recognizable location for hundreds of western movies. The street was decked out with water troughs, hitching posts, and, nearby, a “Boot Hill.” You could almost smell the gunsmoke from years and years of phony shootouts.
In fact, that set served as the exterior for long running television series, Gunsmoke. Many’s the time, I’d grab food from the commissary, head over to the “Gunsmoke Street”, plunk myself down on the wood-planked sidewalk, and eat lunch where Chester once limped and Matt Dillon gunned ‘em down.
Unlike Universal Studios or Paramount – two lots where I spent substantial time – Studio Center was cozy and small. No building was higher than two stories, there were peaceful, suburban 50’s-looking “streets”, lined with facades of picket-fenced houses, with manicured lawns (I think the Leave It To Beaver house was there; or was it My Three Sons?). Studio Center also included a fountain and grassy, park-like areas, giving the studio the relaxed feel of a college campus.
That’s also how it felt working there. The best comedies on television were written in those offices, and filmed on those soundstages. And it was no accident. Everyone I encountered was a First Class talent, all working at the top of their game. The writers never said it in words, but their no-nonsense intensity reflected that their goal was not just to crank out sitcoms, but to work tirelessly to sharpen every story point and hone every joke to comedic perfection.
Studio Center didn’t just look like a college campus, it felt like one too. And not just any college campus. MTM was the Ivy League of half-hour comedy.
In three years, I wrote a total of twenty-four half-hour scripts. I wrote for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Phyllis, Doc, Rhoda, The Tony Randall Show, The Betty White Show and The Bob Newhart Show. Not all the series were hits, but whatever show I collaborated on, I never met anyone who wasn’t smart, talented, and dedicated to making the best show they knew how. It seems like that should go without saying, but it’s, sadly, not always the case. In later years, I found myself sharing a writing room with a disturbing number of sycophantic no-talents, lazybones, cynics, and burnouts.
For talent, effort, dedication and decency, the MTM experience was one of a kind.
I was unique in another way too.
The boss of MTM was a man named Grant Tinker. Grant was a handsome-looking Gentile man with neatly styled gray hair, the type you’d see in an old-time magazine ad, smoking Pall Malls, or playing golf. Grant looked impeccable at all times, but he was a knockout in a sweater.
At the time, Grant Tinker was Mary Tyler Moore’s husband. Grant ran the whole shebang. And he ran it like this:
Grant Tinker believed in talent. That meant he trusted the writers. Let me say that louder. GRANT TINKER TRUSTED THE WRITERS! Just as importantly, or maybe more so, Grant protected the writers, insulating them as much as possible from the murderous insanity of network interference, “murderous” in the sense that, when the network executives interfered, the writers wanted to kill them.
Years ago, I heard Mary co-creator, Jim Brooks, say in an interview that the main job of the writing Executive Producer was to protect the material. While Jim Brooks and other MTM Executive Producers protected the material, Grant Tinker protected them.
Why am I taking up space telling you about Grant Tinker? Because he was special. In all the places I worked after MTM, no television executive ever treated writers with the same level of care, consideration and respect ever again. Grant Tinker never pitched a joke, suggested a change in the story, altered the director’s blocking, or told an actor how to read a line. He never acted like he could do our jobs better than we could, if he only had the time. He was aware there were boundaries, and he kept to his side.
About fifteen years ago, when Grant Tinker wrote a memoir, I read it, and then sent him a letter. The letter spoke of Grant’s uniqueness as a television executive, and went on to say that in the twenty years (at the time I wrote the letter) since I’d worked at MTM, I had never experienced such a magnificent working arrangement again. Then I got angry. I told Grant his impeccable treatment of writers had set an example that reflected nothing I’d experienced since. I felt cheated and betrayed; I blamed Grant for setting a misleading precedent. I ended the letter by demanding my twenty years back!
An oft-repeated line attributed to Grant Tinker goes, “First be best, then be first.” When Grant went on to run NBC in the Eighties, he renewed low-rated but wonderful series like Cheers and Hill Street Blues. Sticking with these quality building blocks helped propel NBC to the Number One position for years to come.
“First be best, then be first.” Does anyone believe that anymore?
I’ll conclude with this memory. On the Friday night that my first Mary episode was going to be filmed, I was invited to come down to the stage and watch. Since I was not a member of the Mary writing staff, I had not been involved in the rewriting process that took place during the week the episode was produced. Nor had I read the final version of the script. Discovering how much – or more to the point – how little of my original writing remained would be, to put it delicately so I won’t cry, an education.
Before the filming, Mary’s Executive Producer, Ed. Weinberger, invited me into his office. He knew I’d be unhappy about how much I’d been rewritten, and he wanted to cushion the blow. He cushioned it with marijuana.
“Smoke this,” he insisted. I dutifully complied. I was never much of a drug person, but Ed.’s instruction had an urgency to it, like when the doctor in westerns jams a stick into the mouth of the patient he’s about to cut open, and says, “Bite hard, dammit, bite hard!”
I got a little goofy. Then, they ushered me down to the stage. I remember watching the show from the gallery, standing behind the studio audience. The show was going very well, despite the dearth of my original material. Then, at a crucial point in the story, a substantial section of the script was played exactly as I’d written it, and it got a really good response. Hearing the big laughs was exhilarating. And I didn’t keep the feeling to myself. Elated, and on drugs, I heard myself giddily shouting,
“I wrote that!”
shortly followed by
“Wasn’t that good?”
My memory gets a little hazy after that, but I believe I was quickly escorted from the building.
--------------------------
I’m concerned that I’m disappointing the readers who want specific information on the nitty-gritty of the writing process, like how the story meetings worked, etc. I seem to prefer to chronicle my, hopefully, interesting remembrances. I hope I can give you what you’re looking for sometime in the future, maybe in the upcoming posting about Taxi. I just haven’t figured out how to make that kind of stuff fascinating, especially to readers who don’t care about sitcom writing. But I’ll think about it. I promise.
Friday, April 4, 2008
"Wishful Thinking"
During the late 1990’s, when the stock market was going through the roof – experts were writing bestsellers with titles like Dow 36000 –a veteran stockbroker, a vigorous man in his eighties, was interviewed on a television business show about this unprecedented financial boom. The prevailing wisdom at the time insisted that something fundamentally different was taking place. Some new paradigm had supplanted the sound investment principles of the past, the old model considered permanently obsolete. The question the interviewer wanted answered was this:
“Do you think the stock market will ever go down again?”
The elderly money maven smiled patiently and said,
“Of course.”
“Why do you think so?”
The veteran broker, with twinkling eyes, replied,
“It always has.”
After a decade-long rollercoaster ride, the Dow stands, not at 36000, but at somewhere around twelve and a half. Who was right and who was wrong?
What’s the message here?
Wishful thinking is not thinking.
Example Two:
During the last football season, the New England Patriots had a perfect record through the regular season and the playoffs. Lacking a reliable running game, the Patriots won almost exclusively by passing, their quarterback, Tom Brady, setting a single-season record for touchdowns through the air, with fifty. Football commentators hailed the demise of the “balanced attack” as a winning principle for the game. The Patriots had initiated the Model of the Future. The “balanced attack” was yesterday’s news.
The Patriots lost the Superbowl? A primary reason? No balanced attack.
The team had no running game, so they championed a model when the balanced attack didn’t matter.
All together now:
Wishful thinking is not thinking.
Numbah Three:
Today, in the paper, NBC jumped the gun by announcing its 2008-2009 programming schedule. The announcement reported that three of the shows NBC is bringing back are ER, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights. ER is a former blockbuster, long past its popular prime. 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights were never popular. Since the beginning of television, the traditional programming paradigm was to schedule shows that substantial numbers of viewers wanted to watch. It would appear, judging by NBC’s current strategy, that some new paradigm is now in play, one where you schedule shows that viewers have either stopped watching or never watched in the first place.
There are explanations for NBC’s decisions beyond the “Despite less than stellar ratings, we are proud to have these shows on our schedule” blah-blah provided in the paper. The Writer’s strike may have interrupted the development process to the extent that the new shows were not ready to go. But that’s based on the premise that the development process actually makes shows better.
There’s also the Cheers precedent. Cheers was a show, which, in its first season, ranked last in the ratings, but was picked up for a second season anyway. We know what happened then. Cheers found its audience and ran successfully for years. The three shows NBC renewed are also quality shows. But ER has been on for fifteen years and is not coming back. 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights have failed commercially for two seasons, and there’s no Cheers-like ratings explosion on the horizon. NBC’s decision-making has to represent a new approach; otherwise, it’s just stupid.
The NBC decision has all the makings of a third example of wishful thinking.
And wishful thinking – Everybody! – is not thinking.
These examples represent new hotshot theories eliminating the tried and true. The first two were wrong, the third, doesn’t look good. So what I’m saying here? Stick to the old ways, no matter what? Never try anything new? Is this blogger then a closet, or not so closet, conservative, clinging stubbornly to the past and steadfastly opposing all change?
J’accuse, Mr. Pomerantz. J’accuse!
Oh, dear. I kind of scared myself for a second. I saw poor little Earl in one of those tumbrils rolling to an appointment with Monsieur Guillotine.
Allow me a small rebuttal. In this blogger’s opinion, neither the past nor the future – alone – holds all of the answers. The past had some good stuff and some terrible stuff – assemble your own list on that one. The future offers hopeful possibilities but, unchecked by a wisdom of the past, a headlong reliance on “the new” can lead you into giant blunders. The sub-prime lending practice. There was a new idea. But was it ever a good one? Hey, Bankers! You think somebody could have researched the Savings and Loan debacle before plunging mindlessly ahead?
The future also offers experiments – social, economic, and otherwise – that have yet to be proven, one way or another. I’ll get into those in future postings. All I’ll say now is this:
Put everything to the test.
The test is to think about it, whatever it is. Weigh the evidence. Hear all sides. Imagine the future, but consider the past. Put it all together, then make the “call.” What you need to leave out, however, is wishful thinking. That’s dreaming with your eyes open.
Definitionally, wishful thinking may, in the end, be thinking. It’s just not the most helpful kind of thinking.
-----------------------
Did you ever ask yourself "Where are my keys?" I do that all the time. I also have this nasty habit of checking for my keys, after I've closed the door. A friend named Judy Marcus can help with this problem. She's helped me. Now I check for my keys before I close the door. It's a lot better idea.
If you have memory issues, if you have memory issues, did I say that already? Anyway, if you do, you can get help by contacting Judy Marcus at judy@memorylady.com. You can also check out her website at http://www.memorylady.com/.
I've been meaning to mention Judy for some time, but I, you know, keep forgetting. It's not Judy's fault. We only worked on keys.
“Do you think the stock market will ever go down again?”
The elderly money maven smiled patiently and said,
“Of course.”
“Why do you think so?”
The veteran broker, with twinkling eyes, replied,
“It always has.”
After a decade-long rollercoaster ride, the Dow stands, not at 36000, but at somewhere around twelve and a half. Who was right and who was wrong?
What’s the message here?
Wishful thinking is not thinking.
Example Two:
During the last football season, the New England Patriots had a perfect record through the regular season and the playoffs. Lacking a reliable running game, the Patriots won almost exclusively by passing, their quarterback, Tom Brady, setting a single-season record for touchdowns through the air, with fifty. Football commentators hailed the demise of the “balanced attack” as a winning principle for the game. The Patriots had initiated the Model of the Future. The “balanced attack” was yesterday’s news.
The Patriots lost the Superbowl? A primary reason? No balanced attack.
The team had no running game, so they championed a model when the balanced attack didn’t matter.
All together now:
Wishful thinking is not thinking.
Numbah Three:
Today, in the paper, NBC jumped the gun by announcing its 2008-2009 programming schedule. The announcement reported that three of the shows NBC is bringing back are ER, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights. ER is a former blockbuster, long past its popular prime. 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights were never popular. Since the beginning of television, the traditional programming paradigm was to schedule shows that substantial numbers of viewers wanted to watch. It would appear, judging by NBC’s current strategy, that some new paradigm is now in play, one where you schedule shows that viewers have either stopped watching or never watched in the first place.
There are explanations for NBC’s decisions beyond the “Despite less than stellar ratings, we are proud to have these shows on our schedule” blah-blah provided in the paper. The Writer’s strike may have interrupted the development process to the extent that the new shows were not ready to go. But that’s based on the premise that the development process actually makes shows better.
There’s also the Cheers precedent. Cheers was a show, which, in its first season, ranked last in the ratings, but was picked up for a second season anyway. We know what happened then. Cheers found its audience and ran successfully for years. The three shows NBC renewed are also quality shows. But ER has been on for fifteen years and is not coming back. 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights have failed commercially for two seasons, and there’s no Cheers-like ratings explosion on the horizon. NBC’s decision-making has to represent a new approach; otherwise, it’s just stupid.
The NBC decision has all the makings of a third example of wishful thinking.
And wishful thinking – Everybody! – is not thinking.
These examples represent new hotshot theories eliminating the tried and true. The first two were wrong, the third, doesn’t look good. So what I’m saying here? Stick to the old ways, no matter what? Never try anything new? Is this blogger then a closet, or not so closet, conservative, clinging stubbornly to the past and steadfastly opposing all change?
J’accuse, Mr. Pomerantz. J’accuse!
Oh, dear. I kind of scared myself for a second. I saw poor little Earl in one of those tumbrils rolling to an appointment with Monsieur Guillotine.
Allow me a small rebuttal. In this blogger’s opinion, neither the past nor the future – alone – holds all of the answers. The past had some good stuff and some terrible stuff – assemble your own list on that one. The future offers hopeful possibilities but, unchecked by a wisdom of the past, a headlong reliance on “the new” can lead you into giant blunders. The sub-prime lending practice. There was a new idea. But was it ever a good one? Hey, Bankers! You think somebody could have researched the Savings and Loan debacle before plunging mindlessly ahead?
The future also offers experiments – social, economic, and otherwise – that have yet to be proven, one way or another. I’ll get into those in future postings. All I’ll say now is this:
Put everything to the test.
The test is to think about it, whatever it is. Weigh the evidence. Hear all sides. Imagine the future, but consider the past. Put it all together, then make the “call.” What you need to leave out, however, is wishful thinking. That’s dreaming with your eyes open.
Definitionally, wishful thinking may, in the end, be thinking. It’s just not the most helpful kind of thinking.
-----------------------
Did you ever ask yourself "Where are my keys?" I do that all the time. I also have this nasty habit of checking for my keys, after I've closed the door. A friend named Judy Marcus can help with this problem. She's helped me. Now I check for my keys before I close the door. It's a lot better idea.
If you have memory issues, if you have memory issues, did I say that already? Anyway, if you do, you can get help by contacting Judy Marcus at judy@memorylady.com. You can also check out her website at http://www.memorylady.com/.
I've been meaning to mention Judy for some time, but I, you know, keep forgetting. It's not Judy's fault. We only worked on keys.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
"Why I Can't Be A Comedian"
It’s a new series, Kids. I’ve got “Story of a Writer”, I’ve got “Saddle Up!”, I’ve got Uncle Grumpy; today, I initiate the first chapter in the “Why I Can’t Be A…” series. You’re gonna love it.
I got a million of ‘em. Things I’m certain I couldn’t do. Why not? Because “Negavity ‘R Me.” My attitude is so relentlessly non-positive, it’s amazing I accomplished anything at all. Sometimes, though not often, I imagine how many more things I might of accomplished if I hadn’t been so sure I couldn’t do them. Then again, if I’d been upbeat, bold and optimistic, given everything I was afraid to try a shot, said “Yes!” to every opportunity that came my way
I wouldn’t be me. (Therapists, back off!)
And I wouldn’t have all these wonderful “Why I Can’t Be A…” stories to tell.
Okay. Here we go.
Number One:
Why I Can’t Be A Comedian
Did I want to be a comedian? I thought I did. Not the joke-telling kind, but a Truth-teller , with comedy. Kind of lofty, but there it is. The fact is, if I’d taken a moment to consider what was actually involved in being a comedian, I’d have realized that job was really not for me.
I’d have hated the travel. I’d have hated the loneliness. I’d have hated the cheap hotels, and the crappy food. I’d have hated waiting till forever to go onstage. I’d have hated the smoking and the drinking, the clattering cutlery and the chattering people not paying attention. I’d have hated the other comedians, bitter and fiercely competitive, “bonding” in a fabricated “us” versus “them” brotherhood, which evaporated into resentment the moment another “brother” got a break. I’d have hated sitting around at three o’clock in the morning with gangsters.
It just isn’t me.
If I’d thought about it, I’d have realized that I really didn’t want to be a comedian. What I wanted to be was a successful comedian. It’s not the same thing.
All comedians – even the ones who end up successful – have to start at the bottom. They have to learn their craft. And there’s the sticking point. Comedians have to practice in front of a live audience. Strangers. People who have no interest in you whatsoever, and wouldn’t care if you died. I don’t mean “died” on stage. I mean really died!
Practicing in front of strangers is the unique agony of becoming a comedian. No other learners have to go through that. Medical students train on cadavers; if they mess up – no harm, no foul – they’re already dead.
Comedians have to develop their craft – being bad before they get good – in front of living, breathing human beings, human beings who can “boo” and heckle you while you’re learning the job, people who can tell people who weren’t there that night how bad you were, people who can bump into you the next day at the supermarket, and no matter how polite their words might be, their eyes are saying, “You suck!”
I couldn’t handle that.
For me, there was an even bigger problem. There was a strong possibility that I hated the audience. Now who knows, maybe hating the audience is natural for a comedian. I didn’t know any comedians personally, so I couldn’t check that out.
I thought you should like the audience. I thought liking the audience was the best chance you had of the audience liking you. I felt, like with fear, the audience could also smell hate. I was afraid they’d smell mine. And then, they’d kill me.
Why did I hate the audience? Well, I didn’t hate all of them, of course. That would be too anti-social even for me. But there was a sector of the audience – this imaginary audience in my “Why I Can’t Be A Comedian” fantasy – I did hate. Their prototype looked something like this:
He’s a guy. Great looking. Beautifully groomed. Perfectly proportioned features, impeccably styled hair. Fashionable outfit accentuating a gym-toned physique. Penthouse apartment, top-of-the-line electronics. His car gets girls all by itself. He’s got money. A glamorous, power job, and he’s rapidly moving up.
His name is Greg.
Greg has it all. Including a female companion, his ideal fantasy counterpart in every way. We’ll call her Julie.
Greg and Julie look like the perfect couple. They met through friends. Or at a bar, tossing darts. It’s their first real date. Greg’s a shoo-in, certain to get whatever he’s looking for. But like everyone ever born, there being a compassionate Creator, Greg has a flaw. There’s one thing missing.
Greg’s not funny.
It’s understandable. Perfect people do not need to be funny. Comedy is essentially about complaining about what you don’t have. “I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have equality….” Whine, whine, whine. Perfect people have everything, hardly fertile comedy soil. Did you ever hear a comedian open their act by saying,
“Things couldn’t be better for me. Lemme tell ya….”
Perfect people don’t need a sense of humor. Not surprisingly, they don’t have one.
Okay, so that’s Greg’s flaw. He’s not funny. The trouble is, in order to get Julie to…fill in the blank here…Greg has to get her to loosen up. Alcohol helps. Drugs too, but that’s, you know, illegal. There is another – totally legal – way, however, to get Julie in the mood.
You make her laugh.
You make her laugh. The one thing Greg has absolutely no ability to do. Ironic, isn’t it? So what does he do now?
Two words:
A comedy club.
It’s perfect. Not being funny yourself, you lower your date’s resistance by taking her to a reliable, comedy surrogate – a professional comedian. Possibly, me. The plan is simple. The comedian makes Julie laugh, and Greg gets what he wants.
The problem for me is this. I hate Greg. Greg kicked my books down the hall in High School. Greg played football. Greg dated the girl I had a crush on and was afraid to speak to. You see my problem here? If I can’t stand Greg, why should I help him with Julie, by making her laugh, so that Greg can get what he wants?
I used to fantasize that I’d been really terrible one night, and I ended my performance with this closing:
“For me, it’s win-win. If I make you laugh, I’m happy. And if I stink it up, like I did tonight, I can leave the stage with one deeply consoling thought: (POINTING DIRECTLY AT GREG) I did nothing for this guy!”
Admittedly, I had an abominable attitude. Nevertheless, I did try, for a while, to become a comedian. I moved to New York, lived in a crappy hotel where rust came out of the taps in the bathroom, and I went to “Open Microphone” nights at famous comedy clubs, like The Improvisation and The Village Gate.
I went on twice in five weeks, the first night I got there, and the night before I decided to go home. The first time, I was terrified. At the beginning of my performance, I literally told the audience, “Don’t scare me, okay?” The response was polite, but not good.
The last night, knowing it was over and I had nothing to lose, I relaxed, and scored big. I got huge laughs, and a manager of comedians offered to represent me. I appreciatively declined and returned to Toronto.
I never tried to be a comedian again. Though I did do a handful of standup performances in protected settings, like my daughter’s school’s fundraising show. I did pretty well. Once, really well.
I suppose it’s not too late. Maybe I should try it again.
Who am I kidding? Greg’s still out there.
I got a million of ‘em. Things I’m certain I couldn’t do. Why not? Because “Negavity ‘R Me.” My attitude is so relentlessly non-positive, it’s amazing I accomplished anything at all. Sometimes, though not often, I imagine how many more things I might of accomplished if I hadn’t been so sure I couldn’t do them. Then again, if I’d been upbeat, bold and optimistic, given everything I was afraid to try a shot, said “Yes!” to every opportunity that came my way
I wouldn’t be me. (Therapists, back off!)
And I wouldn’t have all these wonderful “Why I Can’t Be A…” stories to tell.
Okay. Here we go.
Number One:
Why I Can’t Be A Comedian
Did I want to be a comedian? I thought I did. Not the joke-telling kind, but a Truth-teller , with comedy. Kind of lofty, but there it is. The fact is, if I’d taken a moment to consider what was actually involved in being a comedian, I’d have realized that job was really not for me.
I’d have hated the travel. I’d have hated the loneliness. I’d have hated the cheap hotels, and the crappy food. I’d have hated waiting till forever to go onstage. I’d have hated the smoking and the drinking, the clattering cutlery and the chattering people not paying attention. I’d have hated the other comedians, bitter and fiercely competitive, “bonding” in a fabricated “us” versus “them” brotherhood, which evaporated into resentment the moment another “brother” got a break. I’d have hated sitting around at three o’clock in the morning with gangsters.
It just isn’t me.
If I’d thought about it, I’d have realized that I really didn’t want to be a comedian. What I wanted to be was a successful comedian. It’s not the same thing.
All comedians – even the ones who end up successful – have to start at the bottom. They have to learn their craft. And there’s the sticking point. Comedians have to practice in front of a live audience. Strangers. People who have no interest in you whatsoever, and wouldn’t care if you died. I don’t mean “died” on stage. I mean really died!
Practicing in front of strangers is the unique agony of becoming a comedian. No other learners have to go through that. Medical students train on cadavers; if they mess up – no harm, no foul – they’re already dead.
Comedians have to develop their craft – being bad before they get good – in front of living, breathing human beings, human beings who can “boo” and heckle you while you’re learning the job, people who can tell people who weren’t there that night how bad you were, people who can bump into you the next day at the supermarket, and no matter how polite their words might be, their eyes are saying, “You suck!”
I couldn’t handle that.
For me, there was an even bigger problem. There was a strong possibility that I hated the audience. Now who knows, maybe hating the audience is natural for a comedian. I didn’t know any comedians personally, so I couldn’t check that out.
I thought you should like the audience. I thought liking the audience was the best chance you had of the audience liking you. I felt, like with fear, the audience could also smell hate. I was afraid they’d smell mine. And then, they’d kill me.
Why did I hate the audience? Well, I didn’t hate all of them, of course. That would be too anti-social even for me. But there was a sector of the audience – this imaginary audience in my “Why I Can’t Be A Comedian” fantasy – I did hate. Their prototype looked something like this:
He’s a guy. Great looking. Beautifully groomed. Perfectly proportioned features, impeccably styled hair. Fashionable outfit accentuating a gym-toned physique. Penthouse apartment, top-of-the-line electronics. His car gets girls all by itself. He’s got money. A glamorous, power job, and he’s rapidly moving up.
His name is Greg.
Greg has it all. Including a female companion, his ideal fantasy counterpart in every way. We’ll call her Julie.
Greg and Julie look like the perfect couple. They met through friends. Or at a bar, tossing darts. It’s their first real date. Greg’s a shoo-in, certain to get whatever he’s looking for. But like everyone ever born, there being a compassionate Creator, Greg has a flaw. There’s one thing missing.
Greg’s not funny.
It’s understandable. Perfect people do not need to be funny. Comedy is essentially about complaining about what you don’t have. “I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have equality….” Whine, whine, whine. Perfect people have everything, hardly fertile comedy soil. Did you ever hear a comedian open their act by saying,
“Things couldn’t be better for me. Lemme tell ya….”
Perfect people don’t need a sense of humor. Not surprisingly, they don’t have one.
Okay, so that’s Greg’s flaw. He’s not funny. The trouble is, in order to get Julie to…fill in the blank here…Greg has to get her to loosen up. Alcohol helps. Drugs too, but that’s, you know, illegal. There is another – totally legal – way, however, to get Julie in the mood.
You make her laugh.
You make her laugh. The one thing Greg has absolutely no ability to do. Ironic, isn’t it? So what does he do now?
Two words:
A comedy club.
It’s perfect. Not being funny yourself, you lower your date’s resistance by taking her to a reliable, comedy surrogate – a professional comedian. Possibly, me. The plan is simple. The comedian makes Julie laugh, and Greg gets what he wants.
The problem for me is this. I hate Greg. Greg kicked my books down the hall in High School. Greg played football. Greg dated the girl I had a crush on and was afraid to speak to. You see my problem here? If I can’t stand Greg, why should I help him with Julie, by making her laugh, so that Greg can get what he wants?
I used to fantasize that I’d been really terrible one night, and I ended my performance with this closing:
“For me, it’s win-win. If I make you laugh, I’m happy. And if I stink it up, like I did tonight, I can leave the stage with one deeply consoling thought: (POINTING DIRECTLY AT GREG) I did nothing for this guy!”
Admittedly, I had an abominable attitude. Nevertheless, I did try, for a while, to become a comedian. I moved to New York, lived in a crappy hotel where rust came out of the taps in the bathroom, and I went to “Open Microphone” nights at famous comedy clubs, like The Improvisation and The Village Gate.
I went on twice in five weeks, the first night I got there, and the night before I decided to go home. The first time, I was terrified. At the beginning of my performance, I literally told the audience, “Don’t scare me, okay?” The response was polite, but not good.
The last night, knowing it was over and I had nothing to lose, I relaxed, and scored big. I got huge laughs, and a manager of comedians offered to represent me. I appreciatively declined and returned to Toronto.
I never tried to be a comedian again. Though I did do a handful of standup performances in protected settings, like my daughter’s school’s fundraising show. I did pretty well. Once, really well.
I suppose it’s not too late. Maybe I should try it again.
Who am I kidding? Greg’s still out there.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
"Just Trying To Help"
John Lahr is a theater critic for The New Yorker magazine. I had met him in New York, at a dinner my friend John had arranged, and we got along well. Lahr’s main residence is in London. As we were saying goodbye, Lahr mentioned that, if I was ever in London, he would invite me to one of the weekly salon-type gatherings he hosted. He wanted me to be part of it. I told him I’d be happy to be part of it.
Before I met Lahr, I was an enormous fan of his work. Whenever the latest New Yorker included one of his theater reviews or personality profiles, those were the pieces I’d turn to first. I always enjoyed his writing style, and the content, review or profile, was consistently illuminating and insightful. He was a big time favorite.
I had one quibble with his writing, however. With me, nothing’s ever perfect.
Ninety-six percent of the time, Lahr writes clearly and evocatively, his words skillfully capturing the information he’s attempting to convey. But, invariably, Lahr will inject a couple of words in his pieces – words that are not in general use – and I have no idea what they mean. This always throws me off. It’s like you’re taking a pleasant walk in the park, and all of a sudden, you hit a wall.
A digression. Writers of comedy strictly avoid unfamiliar words. Why? Because we don’t want our audience to hear a word they don’t understand in the middle of a joke they’re being told and go,
“Huh?”
Confusion kills comedy. Write that down. In comedy, you want clarity and simplicity. That’s how it works.
Another digression. I promise, these matter. My wife – who for privacy reasons has asked me to refer to her as Dr. M – does the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Every day, even the later in the week ones, when they’re really hard. My wife is intelligent. She’s articulate. She’s been voracious reader since childhood. She knows a lot of words.
Dr. M doesn’t know Lahr’s unfamiliar words either, and she’s as unhappy and I am when they appear. Dr. M interprets these verbal flourishes as the writer’s trumpeting his superiority. That’s not just a voracious reader talking. That’s a psychologist with psychoanalytic training.
What I’m saying is, it’s not just me. A smart, educated woman. My wife. Doesn’t know those words. And is no happier than I am when confronted with them.
What words am I talking about? Okay, this is dangerous. It may turn out that you know what all of these words mean; ipso facto, I’m an idiot. (And so is Dr. M.) But in order for you to reasonably evaluate the behavior I’ll be describing shortly, you have to see these words, so you can judge for yourselves how unfamiliar they really are.
The following is a partial list of the words that stop me dead in my tracks when I’m reading them.
Louche. (Ha! Even Spell Check doesn’t know what it is.)
Anodyne.
Recondite.
Manichean.
Inchoate.
Jejune.
Refulgent.
There are more, but that’s enough – I’m feeling ill. I have no clue what any of those words mean. I don’t use these words in everyday conversation, nor does anyone I know. If I used any of them in a joke, I’d most certainly get “Huheh?” by my audience.
“A rabbi, a priest and this louche guy walk into a bar…”
“Huh?”
What I know and have permanently tattooed on my comedy brain is this: Using words nobody knows is a practice you should definitely avoid.
Okay. So.
John Lahr’s doing a profile on Kristin Chenoweth. I’m working on a TV show she’s starring in. Lahr interviews me, among others, for his profile.
I’m beyond flattered that a famous profiler has set aside time to solicit my opinions. I’m saying smart things, and expressing my views cleverly. Lahr’s responses indicate he agrees.
It’s all going great. I’m loosening up. We’re connecting. It feels like, down the line, we could be friends.
That’s when I say “The Thing.” I say it, because I like this guy, and I want him to succeed. (Ignoring the fact that he’s already succeeding.)
“I love your pieces in The New Yorker,” I say with unforced sincerity. “But in every article, you throw in a couple of words I don’t understand.”
That’s when the storm comes in. Lahr’s facial muscles begin to tighten, his mood turning angry and funereal. If he’d let me finish, I’d have said,
“I think you could connect more successfully if you stuck to words that people know.”
Like a comedy person does! You use obscure words, you get “huhed?” by the audience. You get what I’m doing here? I’m trying to help you!
He never got the concept. As soon as “… a couple of words I don’t understand” came out of my mouth, Lahr interrupted, with an intensity I hope never to experience again, and he said,
“You could look them up.”
The man was clearly hurt. I didn’t understand. Didn’t he know I was on his side? Didn’t he “get” that I was giving him some practical advice – writer to writer? Didn’t he realize that, more than anything, I wanted us to get along?
Thinking back, it occurs to me that when he was writing his pieces, Lahr knew he was using unfamiliar words and, like me – like all writers – he had selected them deliberately, likely after long and serious consideration. Those were the words he wanted to use, so he used them. That should have been it.
A whippersnapper writer of comedy was criticizing his choices. That’s what was hurtful, I guess. Though it was never intended to be.
Since then, two things have happened. I, and my wife, have interrupted our reading to look up obscure words in the dictionary, especially the word “louche.” We find ourselves looking up the same words, again and again. And we still can’t remember what they mean. They just don’t seem to stick.
The second thing is, since that unfortunate interview, I’ve been to London at least three times. No salon invitations from John Lahr.
I leave the final verdict to you. My own conclusion? I tried to make a helpful comment, and it was taken a different way. Is there any more to it than that? Or is that all there is?
Whatever. It still makes me sad.
Before I met Lahr, I was an enormous fan of his work. Whenever the latest New Yorker included one of his theater reviews or personality profiles, those were the pieces I’d turn to first. I always enjoyed his writing style, and the content, review or profile, was consistently illuminating and insightful. He was a big time favorite.
I had one quibble with his writing, however. With me, nothing’s ever perfect.
Ninety-six percent of the time, Lahr writes clearly and evocatively, his words skillfully capturing the information he’s attempting to convey. But, invariably, Lahr will inject a couple of words in his pieces – words that are not in general use – and I have no idea what they mean. This always throws me off. It’s like you’re taking a pleasant walk in the park, and all of a sudden, you hit a wall.
A digression. Writers of comedy strictly avoid unfamiliar words. Why? Because we don’t want our audience to hear a word they don’t understand in the middle of a joke they’re being told and go,
“Huh?”
Confusion kills comedy. Write that down. In comedy, you want clarity and simplicity. That’s how it works.
Another digression. I promise, these matter. My wife – who for privacy reasons has asked me to refer to her as Dr. M – does the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Every day, even the later in the week ones, when they’re really hard. My wife is intelligent. She’s articulate. She’s been voracious reader since childhood. She knows a lot of words.
Dr. M doesn’t know Lahr’s unfamiliar words either, and she’s as unhappy and I am when they appear. Dr. M interprets these verbal flourishes as the writer’s trumpeting his superiority. That’s not just a voracious reader talking. That’s a psychologist with psychoanalytic training.
What I’m saying is, it’s not just me. A smart, educated woman. My wife. Doesn’t know those words. And is no happier than I am when confronted with them.
What words am I talking about? Okay, this is dangerous. It may turn out that you know what all of these words mean; ipso facto, I’m an idiot. (And so is Dr. M.) But in order for you to reasonably evaluate the behavior I’ll be describing shortly, you have to see these words, so you can judge for yourselves how unfamiliar they really are.
The following is a partial list of the words that stop me dead in my tracks when I’m reading them.
Louche. (Ha! Even Spell Check doesn’t know what it is.)
Anodyne.
Recondite.
Manichean.
Inchoate.
Jejune.
Refulgent.
There are more, but that’s enough – I’m feeling ill. I have no clue what any of those words mean. I don’t use these words in everyday conversation, nor does anyone I know. If I used any of them in a joke, I’d most certainly get “Huheh?” by my audience.
“A rabbi, a priest and this louche guy walk into a bar…”
“Huh?”
What I know and have permanently tattooed on my comedy brain is this: Using words nobody knows is a practice you should definitely avoid.
Okay. So.
John Lahr’s doing a profile on Kristin Chenoweth. I’m working on a TV show she’s starring in. Lahr interviews me, among others, for his profile.
I’m beyond flattered that a famous profiler has set aside time to solicit my opinions. I’m saying smart things, and expressing my views cleverly. Lahr’s responses indicate he agrees.
It’s all going great. I’m loosening up. We’re connecting. It feels like, down the line, we could be friends.
That’s when I say “The Thing.” I say it, because I like this guy, and I want him to succeed. (Ignoring the fact that he’s already succeeding.)
“I love your pieces in The New Yorker,” I say with unforced sincerity. “But in every article, you throw in a couple of words I don’t understand.”
That’s when the storm comes in. Lahr’s facial muscles begin to tighten, his mood turning angry and funereal. If he’d let me finish, I’d have said,
“I think you could connect more successfully if you stuck to words that people know.”
Like a comedy person does! You use obscure words, you get “huhed?” by the audience. You get what I’m doing here? I’m trying to help you!
He never got the concept. As soon as “… a couple of words I don’t understand” came out of my mouth, Lahr interrupted, with an intensity I hope never to experience again, and he said,
“You could look them up.”
The man was clearly hurt. I didn’t understand. Didn’t he know I was on his side? Didn’t he “get” that I was giving him some practical advice – writer to writer? Didn’t he realize that, more than anything, I wanted us to get along?
Thinking back, it occurs to me that when he was writing his pieces, Lahr knew he was using unfamiliar words and, like me – like all writers – he had selected them deliberately, likely after long and serious consideration. Those were the words he wanted to use, so he used them. That should have been it.
A whippersnapper writer of comedy was criticizing his choices. That’s what was hurtful, I guess. Though it was never intended to be.
Since then, two things have happened. I, and my wife, have interrupted our reading to look up obscure words in the dictionary, especially the word “louche.” We find ourselves looking up the same words, again and again. And we still can’t remember what they mean. They just don’t seem to stick.
The second thing is, since that unfortunate interview, I’ve been to London at least three times. No salon invitations from John Lahr.
I leave the final verdict to you. My own conclusion? I tried to make a helpful comment, and it was taken a different way. Is there any more to it than that? Or is that all there is?
Whatever. It still makes me sad.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
"Going Extinct"
I seem to dwell quite a lot on the idea of going extinct.
Right now, I’m hoping a lot of you are saying, “Wow! Me too.” But I’m not fooling myself. I may be taking this journey alone.
Actually, I go beyond thinking about it, I have “extinction” decorating my living room. Hanging prominently on my living room wall is this vintage photograph taken by Edward Curtis. For those who aren’t familiar with the name, Edward Curtis was a late nineteenth century photographer, whom the U.S. government commissioned to take pictures of Indians across the country, before they and their way of life was obliterated by unstoppable progress and, you know, the U.S. government. I guess the government thought dispatching a photographer was the least they could do:
“We’re wiping you out. But first, we’re taking your pictures.”
The photograph on our living wall is called The Vanishing Race. In shows a band of Indians, riding single-file into what appears to be a low-hanging cloud. The way Curtis staged it, the Indians seem to be riding into extinction before our very eyes. It’s as if Curtis said,
“Okay, we’re taking the ‘extinction’ picture now. Ride into that cloud. Trust me, it’ll rip their hearts out.”
Curtis was right. Aside from sparking feelings of retroactive culpability, the picture works on you in deep and unexpected ways. Suddenly, not only are you thinking about the Indians’ extinction, you’re also thinking about your own.
I mean if you think about it, each of us, in our own time, will eventually be going extinct. You may think I’m using the wrong word. We have “dying” to describe that situation. I just don’t think the word fits. A car battery dies; but you clamp on some jumper cables, and back it comes. Not with us. Yes, there’s that “Clear!” thing they do on hospital shows, but most of us – unlike car batteries – when we “go”, we’re gone. I’m suggesting here that rather than saying about a person, “He died”, we say, instead, “He went extinct.” It feels loftier, doesn’t it?
“My Dad went extinct yesterday.”
It sounds like something big happened. And, if you’re the “extinctee”, it was huge.
I know we generally think of “going extinct” in the context of an entire species, but I looked “extinct” up in the dictionary, and it merely says “no longer existing.” When you’re dead, you’re “no longer existing”, so why can’t it be said that you went extinct?
I just thought of something. A whole species doesn’t go extinct on the same day; they drop off a few at a time. It just occurred to me that that’s exactly what we’re doing. Is it possible that we’re going extinct right now and we don’t even know it? Maybe we’re on the way out as I’m writing this, and we haven’t the slightest clue. It’s possible, isn’t it?
Think about the dinosaurs. Do you think dinosaurs knew they were going extinct? Or did extinction catch them totally by surprise? Were there signs of extinction all around them, but they were too caught up in their everyday lives to notice?
What was it like for dinosaurs as they were heading out the door? Is there anything we can learn from them? Let’s take an imaginary look, imaginary looks being the only looks available, since no one from back then is still around to tell us what actually took place.
Imagine dinosaurs, living their lives. Little by little, below the noticing level, like the frog in the pot where the water temperature is raised so gradually, he never senses the danger and is ultimately boiled – subliminal extinction is taking place before their blissfully unnoticing eyes. Is that how it was for the dinosaurs?
One day, the traffic isn’t as bad. And, as often occurs, the dinosaurs draw an erroneous conclusion.
“Must be the gas prices.”
After years of waiting, you can now get tickets to hit shows.
“Dinosaurs must be losing interest in live theater.”
There are suddenly openings at exclusive dinosaur private schools.
“’Home schooling’ is on the rise.”
Signals everywhere. None of them heeded. Life has been proceeding smoothly for so long, it’s unimaginable it could be coming to an end. It’s inconceivable - total extinction. Like the “doh-doh” bird. Or the four-camera situation comedy.
I can imagine dinosaurs being extremely arrogant. They’re thinking:
“Extinction is for other species, the ones that aren’t “the fittest.” That’s how it works, isn’t it? And come on. Who’s fitter than a dinosaur?”
No wonder they never saw it coming.
But come it did. A gradual winnowing process, eventually reaching close to home. Dinosaurs aren’t returning your calls. You think it’s you. It’s not. It’s extinction. More and more people out at work. A serious flu epidemic? You should be so lucky. Extinction is on its way.
And then it’s here. One day, you return from a long, business trip.
“Honey, I’m home.”
No answer.
You walk into the kitchen. Nobody. Down in the laundry room? Not there. Gardening in the back yard? Uh-uh. Finally, you find a note, taped to the refrigerator door:
“Dinner’s in the oven. Gone extinct.”
You’re stunned and confused.
“What’s going on?!”
You go outside to clear your head. You look around the neighborhood. Newspapers are piled up on every porch.
“Hello?”
No answer. It’s quiet. Deadly quiet.
Finally, it hits home. It’s happening. Your species is going extinct. One dinosaur at a time. Somebody has to be the last to go. It turns out, it’s you.
You’re understandably upset.
“Wait a second. We’re going, and the snail is sticking around? No frickin’ way! Spiders get to stay too? Even the hairy ones? What about those weird-looking creatures that walk around on two feet? Nobody likes them! Aw, man. If they’re staying and we have to go, I mean, it’s just totally unfair!”
Okay. You know you’re going extinct. Others have already gone, your turn is coming up. What do you do? Do you run? Can you run away from extinction? Who knows? It’s better than standing around, isn’t it? Maybe it’s just more tiring. And maybe “tiring” speeds extinction up. But what are you going to do? Take a nap? You might never wake up.
Exactly how is extinction going to happen? Little by little, or do you just go “poof”? There’s no one to ask, you’re the last of the dinosaurs. No books on the subject, and even if there were, there may not be time to read them.
Time. So terribly wasted. How many precious hours thrown away watching Dancing with the Dinos? How many lost hours watching “crucial” ball games that now seem so utterly meaningless? And those diets! And the gym! Trying to stay fit. Not fit enough, it turns out. Maybe “fit” has nothing to do with survival. Even the fit dinosaurs are gone.
Do you leave a note? For who? Nobody cares about dinosaurs. Spielberg, maybe, but he won’t be around for ages.
A tear starts to fall. A little self-pity. Stop it! You’re a dinosaur. You were the Beast That Walked the Earth, scaring the world, with those heavy steps. Trees shook! And you’re crying? Get it together! Go out like the terror-inducing species you are, I mean, were. Show them how a magnificent specimen goes extinct.
It wasn’t so bad, all in all. You went to a lot of places; there was nothing there, but you went. You picked other species up off the ground, and threw them a mile. That was fun. Leaf eating wasn’t the greatest, but hey, it kept down your cholesterol.
“A lot of good that did me.”
Uh-uh-uh…
“Okay.”
You sigh a deep dinosaur sigh. You’ve made your peace, your bitterness, set aside. The time has come. There’s nothing left to do.
You sit down on the curb and you wait to go extinct.
Right now, I’m hoping a lot of you are saying, “Wow! Me too.” But I’m not fooling myself. I may be taking this journey alone.
Actually, I go beyond thinking about it, I have “extinction” decorating my living room. Hanging prominently on my living room wall is this vintage photograph taken by Edward Curtis. For those who aren’t familiar with the name, Edward Curtis was a late nineteenth century photographer, whom the U.S. government commissioned to take pictures of Indians across the country, before they and their way of life was obliterated by unstoppable progress and, you know, the U.S. government. I guess the government thought dispatching a photographer was the least they could do:
“We’re wiping you out. But first, we’re taking your pictures.”
The photograph on our living wall is called The Vanishing Race. In shows a band of Indians, riding single-file into what appears to be a low-hanging cloud. The way Curtis staged it, the Indians seem to be riding into extinction before our very eyes. It’s as if Curtis said,
“Okay, we’re taking the ‘extinction’ picture now. Ride into that cloud. Trust me, it’ll rip their hearts out.”
Curtis was right. Aside from sparking feelings of retroactive culpability, the picture works on you in deep and unexpected ways. Suddenly, not only are you thinking about the Indians’ extinction, you’re also thinking about your own.
I mean if you think about it, each of us, in our own time, will eventually be going extinct. You may think I’m using the wrong word. We have “dying” to describe that situation. I just don’t think the word fits. A car battery dies; but you clamp on some jumper cables, and back it comes. Not with us. Yes, there’s that “Clear!” thing they do on hospital shows, but most of us – unlike car batteries – when we “go”, we’re gone. I’m suggesting here that rather than saying about a person, “He died”, we say, instead, “He went extinct.” It feels loftier, doesn’t it?
“My Dad went extinct yesterday.”
It sounds like something big happened. And, if you’re the “extinctee”, it was huge.
I know we generally think of “going extinct” in the context of an entire species, but I looked “extinct” up in the dictionary, and it merely says “no longer existing.” When you’re dead, you’re “no longer existing”, so why can’t it be said that you went extinct?
I just thought of something. A whole species doesn’t go extinct on the same day; they drop off a few at a time. It just occurred to me that that’s exactly what we’re doing. Is it possible that we’re going extinct right now and we don’t even know it? Maybe we’re on the way out as I’m writing this, and we haven’t the slightest clue. It’s possible, isn’t it?
Think about the dinosaurs. Do you think dinosaurs knew they were going extinct? Or did extinction catch them totally by surprise? Were there signs of extinction all around them, but they were too caught up in their everyday lives to notice?
What was it like for dinosaurs as they were heading out the door? Is there anything we can learn from them? Let’s take an imaginary look, imaginary looks being the only looks available, since no one from back then is still around to tell us what actually took place.
Imagine dinosaurs, living their lives. Little by little, below the noticing level, like the frog in the pot where the water temperature is raised so gradually, he never senses the danger and is ultimately boiled – subliminal extinction is taking place before their blissfully unnoticing eyes. Is that how it was for the dinosaurs?
One day, the traffic isn’t as bad. And, as often occurs, the dinosaurs draw an erroneous conclusion.
“Must be the gas prices.”
After years of waiting, you can now get tickets to hit shows.
“Dinosaurs must be losing interest in live theater.”
There are suddenly openings at exclusive dinosaur private schools.
“’Home schooling’ is on the rise.”
Signals everywhere. None of them heeded. Life has been proceeding smoothly for so long, it’s unimaginable it could be coming to an end. It’s inconceivable - total extinction. Like the “doh-doh” bird. Or the four-camera situation comedy.
I can imagine dinosaurs being extremely arrogant. They’re thinking:
“Extinction is for other species, the ones that aren’t “the fittest.” That’s how it works, isn’t it? And come on. Who’s fitter than a dinosaur?”
No wonder they never saw it coming.
But come it did. A gradual winnowing process, eventually reaching close to home. Dinosaurs aren’t returning your calls. You think it’s you. It’s not. It’s extinction. More and more people out at work. A serious flu epidemic? You should be so lucky. Extinction is on its way.
And then it’s here. One day, you return from a long, business trip.
“Honey, I’m home.”
No answer.
You walk into the kitchen. Nobody. Down in the laundry room? Not there. Gardening in the back yard? Uh-uh. Finally, you find a note, taped to the refrigerator door:
“Dinner’s in the oven. Gone extinct.”
You’re stunned and confused.
“What’s going on?!”
You go outside to clear your head. You look around the neighborhood. Newspapers are piled up on every porch.
“Hello?”
No answer. It’s quiet. Deadly quiet.
Finally, it hits home. It’s happening. Your species is going extinct. One dinosaur at a time. Somebody has to be the last to go. It turns out, it’s you.
You’re understandably upset.
“Wait a second. We’re going, and the snail is sticking around? No frickin’ way! Spiders get to stay too? Even the hairy ones? What about those weird-looking creatures that walk around on two feet? Nobody likes them! Aw, man. If they’re staying and we have to go, I mean, it’s just totally unfair!”
Okay. You know you’re going extinct. Others have already gone, your turn is coming up. What do you do? Do you run? Can you run away from extinction? Who knows? It’s better than standing around, isn’t it? Maybe it’s just more tiring. And maybe “tiring” speeds extinction up. But what are you going to do? Take a nap? You might never wake up.
Exactly how is extinction going to happen? Little by little, or do you just go “poof”? There’s no one to ask, you’re the last of the dinosaurs. No books on the subject, and even if there were, there may not be time to read them.
Time. So terribly wasted. How many precious hours thrown away watching Dancing with the Dinos? How many lost hours watching “crucial” ball games that now seem so utterly meaningless? And those diets! And the gym! Trying to stay fit. Not fit enough, it turns out. Maybe “fit” has nothing to do with survival. Even the fit dinosaurs are gone.
Do you leave a note? For who? Nobody cares about dinosaurs. Spielberg, maybe, but he won’t be around for ages.
A tear starts to fall. A little self-pity. Stop it! You’re a dinosaur. You were the Beast That Walked the Earth, scaring the world, with those heavy steps. Trees shook! And you’re crying? Get it together! Go out like the terror-inducing species you are, I mean, were. Show them how a magnificent specimen goes extinct.
It wasn’t so bad, all in all. You went to a lot of places; there was nothing there, but you went. You picked other species up off the ground, and threw them a mile. That was fun. Leaf eating wasn’t the greatest, but hey, it kept down your cholesterol.
“A lot of good that did me.”
Uh-uh-uh…
“Okay.”
You sigh a deep dinosaur sigh. You’ve made your peace, your bitterness, set aside. The time has come. There’s nothing left to do.
You sit down on the curb and you wait to go extinct.
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