Sidebars

Branding....by Bob Sanders

A recent story in USA told of identification problems being encountered by Fresno, California as the city re-brands itself with the slogan: "Be World-Class.  Be Fresno."

Naturally, the media is to blame for Fresno being a punch line as a city maligned for everything from smog and crime to hot weather to a reputation as a hotbed for the un-cool.  Hits have included an animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens in which a sappy husband attempts to convince his wife that a move to Fresno beats the hell out of Paris.  It's a running gag throughout the film.

Also doing recent damage to Fresno was a Toyota Prius advertisement in which it was suggested that "gas stations will become nothing more than low-budget tourist stops.  Like ghost towns...or Fresno."  The city squawked and the ad was pulled.  Now the city is trying to change its image with a $1.2 million marketing campaign built around the "Be Fresno" line.

We've been through this sort of thing before.  Cleveland suffered as a rustbelt example of what can go wrong including joblessness and the Cuyahoga River whose propensity for catching fire was four bell alarming.  Identified as The Mistake on the Lake, Cleveland found itself in competition with Toledo, another woebegone community believed by many to be an even greater bungle.  Cleveland has come back, according to those who know about such things while Toledo continues to struggle.

Cleveland's renaissance is built upon such heart-warming selling points as being the location where "A Christmas Story" was filmed.  The much-beloved production about a young boy's desire to get a bb  gun for Christmas has inspired a Christmas Story House restored to its movie splendor.  Across the street is the Christmas Story Museum where Major Award Leg Lamps may be purchased.

While the Clevelands, Toledos and Fresnos scheme to increase population, places like Bellingham, Washington should be exploring ways to turn back the human tides that escape from the Clevelands, Toledos and Fresnos who, by their invasion, threaten overwhelming change.  Change, of course, is bugaboo difficult for the people of this country to handle.  Not to put too fine a point on matters, but Bellingham desperately needs to create a reverse public relations program that will provide a protective shield for all we hold near and dear.

A resident of Bellingham, I explored this territory last year while examining such natural turnoffs as: the very close at hand Canadian Threat, a peril whose significance is exemplified by the cry, "Maple Leafs Never"; a Fourth Corner TV advertising campaign proclaiming Bellingham as "Tony Soprano's Kinda' Town," and Pacific Northwest Bada Bing Clubs headquartered in Bellingham and where strippers wear checkered flannels while occasionally flashing glimpses of uncommonly ugly tattoos, if you'll pardon the terribly obvious oxymoron.  

The matter of tattoos offers a host of possibilities.  We might consider promoting Bellingham as the Tattoo Capitol of the U.S. complete with a mid-summer Tattoo Festival Featuring Body Pierced Polka Bands.  That should keep everyone away from our shores with the possible exception of Wisconsin cheeseheads, unable to resist polka bands.

While we're at it, let's take advantage of Bellingham's unofficial slogan, "The City of Subdued Excitement," and do something with it.  The slogan begs the question: Why is Bellingham often described as being lacking in vigor?  Such a dismissive observation, proclaimed by so many, must have a basis in fact.

Indeed, it has been Dr. I.B. Spacey, Bellingham's world-renowned master of medical world stuff and all-around smart ass, who has specialized in the city's problem of intense torpor.  According to Spacey, it is Bellingham's yearly average of 230 cloudy days that brings on public sluggishness including an inordinate number of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) cases.  "Our lack of sunshine creates the kind of lethargy that makes slugs, by comparison, appear as lively as Mexican jumping beans on St. John wort," stated Spacey in one of his most condemning observations.  Attention could be brought to this Bellingham shortcoming by producing a Miss Vitamin D beauty contest, sponsored by Walgreen's and held as part of the Tattoo Festival Featuring Body Pierced Polka Bands.

Bellingham should bear in mind that Fresno research among all groups indicates it's the local population with the lowest degree of enthusiasm for the community.  This is in direct contrast to Bellingham's thinking too highly of itself as reflected by e-mails, twitters, Facebooks, snail mail and phone calls extolling the virtues of the place.  Only by doing 180 degrees can Bellingham effectively succeed with a reverse public relations campaign and change the minds of those who would move here.  Let's make it a criminal offense to sing the praises of Bellingham and B'hamsters.  It's those giddy paeans of praise that have resulted in the city being named "best" in so many categories by so mandy publications.  Enough!

Let's also examine such negatives as the Bellingham/Whatcom County phone book whose pages include 62 devoted to attorneys, their listings and ads.  Perhaps a comparison might be made to Seattle whose Bank of America Tower, all 76 floors, contains more lawyers than in the entire country of Japan.  Perhaps Bellingham Towers, the city's tallest at 14 stories, has comparable statistics, relatively speaking.  It would appear that a case could be made suggesting that our per-capita numbers closely rival or even surpass those of Seattle.  If not, we can fall back upon trickery and deceit and offer a few lies.  There are those among us who believe too many lawyers are something less than a blessing.

Let's save Bellingham by turning The City of Subdued Excitement into The Citadel of Ignominy.

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Corporate Christmas....by Bob Sanders

Now that our government has more than taken care of Wall Street while giving the fish eye to Main Street, it's increasingly likely that we are going to be living with 10 per cent unemployment for some time.

Being out of work is no fun and I have a lot of empathy these days for those who are.  I acquired the problem once for nine months during 1975-76; the only positive aspect was lower golf scores.  As job interviews became fewer and fewer, the Winnetka Golf Club in the Chicago suburb where I lived saw more and more of me.  My failure to find work eventually produced a condition Cole Porter once referred to as "fighting vainly the old ennui."  Ennui can really get to you.

Fortunately, a radio guy by the name of Wally Phillips and his producer, Marilyn Miller, came to my rescue.  Wally was WGN's remarkable morning man whose peak 1.5 million audience comprised half of the Chicago area's listeners.  It was  during an on-air conversation with Phillips, set up by Miller, that listeners heard Phillips ask what I was doing to which I replied (as the expression went back then) "on the beach."  Phillips then blatantly suggested: "Let's find work for Bob Sanders."  

Before the day was over, I heard from Virginia "Dinny" Butts who ran Field Enterprises Corporate PR Department.  A young man in her department had died suddenly (a death I hoped not business-related) and there was an opening.  Some years before Butts had written for Dave Garroway who helped invent television in Chicago before moving on to New York where he became the founding host of NBC-TV's "Today" show.

Field Enterprises in those days had a number of properties including the Chicago Daily News, the Sun-Times, World Book and real estate including River Plaza, a then new apartment high-rise located next door to our headquarters in the Daily News/Sun Times Building.  The site, hard by the Chicago River, is now occupied b y Trump Towers (Chicago), the Donald's 2009 controversial triumph.

A lot of our work was very social with two or three functions a week the norm.  I'm forever grateful Phillips,  Miller and Butts for what they did.  Some of our PR assignments were something of a stretch although, in retrospect, I'm inclined to believe it was more a matter of quid pro quo; Dinny was the best player of the corporate game I've ever seen and always had her eye on bigger and/or more corporate fish to fry.  She was uncanny at times.

One of our assignments had to do with Christmas.  Artificial trees were trimmed each year on our corporate floor--one in the lobby and one in Charlie Stauffacher's office.  Charlie was one of those unsmiling CEOs, a superior bean counter who had arrived by way of Continental Can.  Marshall Field V, inheritor of the business from the Roman numeral preceding him, was a nice guy with many of his social soirees handled by our PR  group.

The corporate Christmas tree trimming was a real pain in the ass, a job much more amenable to the more artistic members of our over-staffed group which numbered eight public relations professionals, as we were prone to proclaim while purposely mispronouncing Stauffacher's name, hardly in the Christmas spirit.

Why Stauffacher's secretary couldn't do his tree was beyond my understanding, but so it went.  Perhaps the secretary was an early conspirator attempting to destroy Christmas, one of those who raise Bill O'Reilly's hackles this time of year.

What made the tree trimming exercise much easier was a vast collection of yuletide trappings in a large musty room on the top floor of our building.  There were enough goodies to decorate, however unlikely, Marshall Field's where it was all started by the first Roman numeral in 1881.  By the time I arrived, the department store chain had been sold.  One Christmas I discovered a wondrous and long-forgotten item which my instincts told me I would some time put to use.

One of my Field PR pals was Ralph Liguori, a really nice guy and veteran employee who appreciated laughter.  It was just prior to 1979's Christmas that Liguori was moved down our seventh floor hall to join more highly-salaried and specialized corporate brethren.  I figured Dinny knew a sale of the Sun-Times (the Daily News had been folded in 1978) was forthcoming and that Liguori would be better off closely aligned with the corporate hierarchy.  Public relations and advertising are usually the first to be whacked or whittled under unfortunate times.

Hardly a snob, Liguori did manage to make sighs of contentment about his very own impressive office which had a bathroom--major recognition of arrival in the corporate world.  No longer would he have to take lavatory treks down the hall like the rest of the peons.  Liguori's good fortune deserved proper acknowledgment--something that would combine Christmas, his bagnio blessing, and just a touch of the often Machiavellian corporate culture.

What I had found in that bastion of bagatelles, gee gaws, gim cracks, fiddle faddle, folderol, fribbles and baubles was a discovery to gladden the heart of any practical joker.  There among the toy soldiers, nutcrackers, hobby horses and other holiday bric-a-brac was a near life-size Santa Claus.  Not just any Santa, but one electrically-powered who pivoted 180 degrees.  Further, this kindly St. Nick had a particularly radiant smile featuring a conspiratorial hint suggesting he possessed a very special secret he might or might not share.  The pivoting Santa held his hands about six inches apart as though to make a presentation of some kind.  This was my kind of fun.  I went to work after the corporate offices cleared out.

I finished and made contact early the next morning with public service manager Jim Cumming who phoned me immediately after Liguori entered the front door.  Quickly I hastened down the hall and zipped into Liguori's office where I completed preparations.  I knew I could get away with this one because my public service pal would detain Liguori long enough for me to make my furtive get-away from his office cum toilet.  It was the day before Christmas.

I watched giddily from down the hall as Ralph left the elevator and headed toward his office and very own bathroom.  Soon howls of laughter could be herd from Liguori where, first thing every morning, he paid a visit to his lavatory, emblematic of corporate success.  Upon his entry, Liguori encountered the beaming, swiveling, winking Santa proffering Scott's finest paper. 

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Forrest Tucker....by Bob Sanders

It was a bit difficult to believe, but there it was: actor Forrest Tucker's name and a quote of his among a list of Quotation Greats including Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Groucho Marx and William Faulkner who once upon a time had some fun with Ernest Hemingway suggesting: "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

Tucker, whose busy film career included nearly 100 action features during the 40s and 50s, was quoted as once saying: "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."  My Google find led to an unsuccessful search for the circumstances under which the actor made the comment.  The Tucker quote, to my way of thinking, conjured up nouns of assemblage as in a leap of leopards, a streak of tigers or a shiver of sharks.  Perhaps the observation was something less punishing like a flutter of butterflies directed at someone like Percy
Dovetonsils, Ernie Kovac's memorable comic invention.  Disappointed, I maneuvered my way back to Word and decided to write a piece about a guy who fell somewhere between a friend and and acquaintance.

It was in a tent one 1965 morning during Tulsa's usually oppressive summer heat that I first met Forrest Tucker.  I had seen him in countless movies plus on the stage in The Music Man.  Certainly, Robert Preston was the penultimate Harold Hill, but Tucker's performance was uncommonly good.

The tent where I met Tucker had been erected by Station KTUL for a promotion under the direction of the talented Barbara Roberts.  A press conference involved F Troop, a comedy to debut that Fall.  Along was Tucker's  F Troop sidekick, Larry Storch, plus their wives.  Both were named Marilyn and each had a terrific sense of humor.  Tucker and his Marilyn, a dancer, had recently married; they had met as cast members of The Music Man.  Most of my conversation was with the two Marilyns while the actors tended to duties involved in promoting the show that would run two years.

The temperature in the tent soon became unbearable and Tucker and Storch, interviews and promo spots completed, wanted out of there.  I was invited to accompany them to Southern Hills Country Club, then and of recent years the scene of some outstanding PGA Pro Tour tournaments.  We sat on the veranda overlooking the 18th green.  Drinks were ordered and Tucker's golf stories began.  I learned that he belonged to five different clubs including Wentworth in England where he said par is 74, that he had a very low handicap (2) and played most of his golf at L.A.'s Lakeside Country Club whose membership was largely from show business.  

Not all actors have commanding voices--particularly those whose efforts have been confined to TV.  Tucker, on the other hand, first did burlesque eventually gaining considerable legitimate state experience.  A very large blond fellow, he had a booming voice.  In terms of sheer resonance, he was a challenge to James Earl Jones.  Further, his physicality was such that it was much bandied about in film circles that Tucker would win Shower Champion honors at any athletic club.

With the golf stories completed and lunch ordered around 1:30 p.m., Tucker then launched into a series of observations about sex in the Orient.  His voice roared providing minute details about explicit methods of achieving orgasm through the subtle use of bamboo splints upon which was lowered from the ceiling a cage containing a lady of the evening in a welcoming position.

Looking about, I could see that Tucker had caught not only our rapt attention but, also, those of nearby elderly ladies.  They were inching forward in their chairs so that not a nuance of Tucker's vivid story-telling could be missed.  By the time Tucker finished, the women had moved a good five feet from their tables.

The following January, I ran into the actor at Lakeside Country Club where I was the guest of Lindsey McGoffin, then TV Guide's Southern California printer.  I saw Tucker on a back nine fairway running parallel to the hole I was playing.  In his foursome was Gordon MacRae, his golf skills equal to those of Tucker.  When it came to handicaps, Gordie had two--the other being liquor.  As Tucker approached his drive, we saw each other and exchanged greetings.  "How you doing, Tuck?" I shouted to him.  "Hey, Bob.  I'm doin' fine but Gordie's got a problem.  He ran out of booze on the 11th hole and ever since he's been drinkin' the ball wash."

The country club scene in Los Angeles was like no other in those days and I suspect little has changed other than the price of membership.  Actors, with one notable exception, could not belong to the Los Angeles Country Club--a bastion of old money accompanied by a plenitude of snobbery.  The only actor to break the barrier was Randolph Scott who played in a lot of westerns.  Scott found the idea of membership in the L.A. Country Club so enthralling that he signed a club affidavit that made it clear it accepted "no Jews, no Catholics and no actors."  His reaction was to suggest that "if you've seen any of my pictures, you'll realize I'm no actor."  He promised, Scott's honor, to never appear in another film and remains the only actor to make the grade.  Asked if he would ever consider a membership in the LACC, Groucho Marx got off his most memorable line: "Why would I want to join a club that would have me as a member?"

Scott made his last film, Ride the High Country in 1962.  Co-starring Joel McCrea and directed by Sam Peckinpah, it is probably his best picture.  Oddly enough, it also was McCrea's last.  Among Scott's many films, three were made with Forrest Tucker.

Film director Andrew V. McLaglen, a San Juan Island friend when I lived there, told me 30 years later about directing Tucker in Chism, a 1970 movie staring John Wayne.  McLaglen cast Tucker as the bad guy, an interesting decision since he had been playing heroes almost exclusively for more than 20 years.  McLaglen, as second director of Sands of Iwo Jima, also was involved in Tucker's first transformation.  Prior to the 1949 World War II film starring John Wayne, Tucker was cast as a bully or outlaw since The Westerner, his debut picture in 1940. 

My favorite Tucker role is in Auntie Mame, that marvelous episodic frolic with Tucker as Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside.  While the film is dominated by Rosalaind Russell's eccentric free thinker, the story line acquires an abrupt letdown when Tucker's character, married to Russell's, is killed in a mountain climbing accident.  Playing second banana to a woman who feels that "life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death" is not easy.  Tucker's character, however, is so ingratiating that his unusual demise (falling off the Matterhorn) casts a decided pall upon the artfully-created merriment.  It's as sudden a shift in film mood as you will find in a comedy.

I saw Tucker a fair amount at Lakeside in the grill room where a lot of celebs (Walter Brennan and Gene Autry among them) ate and drank.  I recall two or three telephone booths along one wall of the room.  One day, with my back to the phones, I overheard someone explaining to "Mary" that he would be late getting home.  An important meeting had come up unexpectedly and so and so on.  Just about the time I had decided that the guy had me beaten in the Glib Sweepstakies Department and that maybe I should take lessons from him about phony calls home, the guy hung up and crossed the room.  It was the remarkably well-preserved Charles "Buddy" Rogers who starred in Wings, the first Academy Award winner in 1927.  The "Mary" he was speaking to was wife Mary Pickford.  I don't know how many phone calls like that he made, but he sure lived a long time--more than 30 years beyond that day.

Lakeside club rules decreed the posting of members' unpaid bills.  I recall seeing a very old (and quite small) one of actor Johnny (Tarzan) Weismuller.  It seemed a cruel way to treat a guy with a good reputation who had brought a great deal of acclaim to the club.

If memory serves, it was  that "Buddy" Rogers day at Lakeside that Tucker took me aside and asked if I'd like to join the club.  He would sponsor me.  A membership there cost almost as much as I made in a year working for TV Guide.  Besides, owner Walter Annenberg had a decidedly dim view of country clubs and the chances of my employer picking up my golf tabs non-existent.  "Sunnylands," the Annenerg estate in Palm Springs, had just been improved by a nine-hole course; the owner had three tees placed on each hole and he continued to refer to it as a 27-hole course until his death in 2002.  His creation was the result of being challenged by the general manager of a nearby country club (or so the story went) who insisted Annenberg had been a member's guest more than the maximum number of times that year.  The confrontation made things unpleasant for both the member and TV Guide's owner.  Furious, Annenerg  built his own course.

My Lakeside host, Lindsey McGoffin, knowing of Annenberg's attitude toward golfing employees, also knew I simply couldn't afford to pay the full freight.  It was very nice of Tucker to take an interest in me.

The last time I saw the actor was in 1975 when I was working in public television at Chicago's WTTW.  It was Springtime, the Channel 11 Auction was on, and my responsibilities included the creation of auctioneer teams. Tucker was in town doing a reprise of The Music Man (a show he performed 2,008 times) and I recall picking him up at the Ambassador East Hotel in my Vega whose shortcomings cannot possibly be minimized.  Among other things, it was not designed for Harold Hill's bulk.  Tuck managed to squeeze in and out of it and soon we were approaching the station's front door.

Tucker at that time was one of the most recognizable of working actors and, as if to set him further apart over the years from other blond and brawny types including Sonny Tufts, Alan Hale, Jr. and Brian Keith, he took to wearing a red carnation boutonniere at public appearances.  It was his trademark and as associated with him as Hugh Hefner and a pipe or Michael Jackson and a glove although Jackson's disappearing nose was certainly becoming another.

While volunteers were signing in and receiving hand-lettered names, Tuck and I did an end run only to be pursued by a woman who worked at the station and whose name I have fortunately forgotten over the years.  "Oh, you," she said directing her remark at Tucker.  "You have to have a name badge."

Tuck, ever the gentleman and a bit surprised she didn't recognize him, offered a genial "that's mighty kind of you" in that down-home-in-Indiana voice he had developed since his birth in Plainfield.  "I think folks will know who I am."

That wasn't enough for her.  Onward she plowed waving Tuck's badge as we fled down the corridor leading to the auction.  "You must have a badge.  Everyone has a badge.  We just can't have people here without a badge," she continued.  Tucker did an outstanding job selling the kind of stuff available at what turned out to be the last year of the auction.  General Manager Bill McCarter ended the event in spite of the money it raised.  Not only was the money big but McCarter never understood the unique connection between the auction and the army of volunteers it brought into play.  

Booze and cigarettes finally caught up with Tuck.  He collapsed at ceremonies involving the placing of his star on a Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk.  He died shortly after of lung cancer in 1986.  He was 67 and his last years were not pleasant. 

While largely an action film actor, Forrest Tucker's surprisingly good song and dance abilities can be found on You Tube.

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Tiger Tale....by Bob Sanders

One of those indelible thoughts of recent vintage keeps recurring.  It's about a stop on the 1999 Professional Golf Association Tour.

Tiger Woods, having hit a number of errant tee shots that day while playing in the final round of the Phoenix Open, had pulled a drive on the 13th hole to a most difficult spot adjacent to a very large boulder.  At first glance, it appeared the only solution to Woods' dilemma was to hit the ball left-handed in an attempt to get it to the fairway where it would be playable.  Interestingly enough, Woods asked if the one-ton boulder could be considered a "loose impediment."  A ruling in his favor was made and about 10 Woodsian true believers then rolled the impediment away in seemingly biblical fashion.  The game's greatest player birdied the par 5 hole but finished three strokes behind Rocco Mediate.  A boulder as loose impediment is a card Woods played again successfully seven years later on the pro tour.

Golf is a most unique game and remains the only one in which a penalty can be self invoked.  It is THE game in the game of life that brings out the best and worst in us; those who observe golf etiquette believe it to be far more important than winning or losing.  Tiger was properly criticized by many for accepting the "loose impediment" ruling believing it was not in the spirit of the ground rules that govern the game.

There is nothing new about highly successful athletes receiving decision breaks by officials.  With super star salaries dominating financial aspects of sports, students of basketball watching the Cleveland Cavaliers and the remarkable Lebron James know that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-dozen times during a game when it will take James three steps to make a slam dunk or spin a ball dazzlingly off the glass in such a fashion that words fail to describe the action.  Technically, one and one-half steps are allowed after gaining possession of the ball although the rule is generally winked at with two steps having gained something approaching official approval.  Anything more is called traveling.  

During the last years of Michael Jordan's illustrious career, a large percentage of his dribbled baseline drives to the basket should have been called traveling yet weren't; the NBA and its officials knew people were paying their way into arenas to see Jordan score 30 points, not get called for traveling.  Further, baseball's great hitters have a smaller strike zone than lesser mortals.  Also part of the game is the phantom double play in which the shortstop drags a foot in the general direction of second base.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of Tiger's story of "indiscretions" (now at nine and counting) is that his career was on such rigid cruise control for so many years that something approaching sainthood appeared to be around the corner.  At the current Woods revelations rate, one wonders when Lady GaGA will make an appearance perhaps wearing a gown constructed of nothing but golf tees.  Woods, who turns 34 on December 30, had been a vivid contrast to most spoiled athletes having had a lot of preparation for success from the moment he appeared on a "Mike Douglas Show" at the age of 2 making him the golfing world's Mozart. 

From all accounts, Tiger's savvy father, Earl, had a relationship with his son that transcended the parent-child norm.  In the Army 20 years during which he became a Lt. Col. in the Green Berets, Earl Woods did two tours in Vietnam.  Surely, while raising Tiger, he must have had plenty of conversations with his son explaining what can happen when you achieve celebrity status and are confronted by the perils of success.  In Tiger's dogged pursuit of privacy, the young man failed to understand that he gave that up when he did the "Mike Douglas Show."  Those trashy supermarket checkout publications, probably giggled at by him during better days, are his new reality.

Sometimes, you get a heads up regarding something like the Tiger Meltdown.  Mine came earlier this year from wife Jan while we watched Tiger compete on TV.  She suggested: "I don't think I'd like to play a round of golf with Tiger."  In retrospect, it was an observation based solely upon her watching an often sullen competitor with inclinations to toss clubs, talk trash, and grumble over six irons that merely got within 25 feet of the pin rather than 10.  In his state of petulance, Tiger had more on his mind than being a serial transgressor when he returned to the game this year after missing half of 2008 due to a hip operation.

The matter of celebrities on the road has been worked over by expert observers, some of them participants in the pursuit of the opposite sex.  Jim Bouton, an eccentric pitcher for the New York Yankees, wrote of baseball's dark side in Ball Four chronicling a great many misadventures.  Another to tell all was basketball's Wilt Chamberlain whose sexual conquests numbered 10,000, according to Chamberlain.  The possibility of Tiger attempting to exceed Chamberlain's "record" looms all too real.  Between this posting's sixth paragraph and this one, the TV has told me a madam has come forward with "proof" that the golfer has had sexual liaisons with six of her hookers, a claim whose plausibility mounts since she made no mention of herself.

It will be fascinating to watch Tiger when he resumes playing a game that has made him the first billion dollar athlete, according to Forbes.  Something like $800 million is from endorsements now threatened.  How he handles loose impediments including people is a major part of the equation.  Will Tiger's fans move the boulders? Probably, because of their undying allegiance to a former role model who used to be highly private and who through natural talent, concentration, and a magnificent work ethic is able to hit and putt golf balls into holes better than anyone else.

Never has an athlete dominated a major sport like Tiger Woods.  When he doesn't play, the TV audience is reduced by nearly a half.  Advertising is another sensitive area and sponsors like Nike, AT&T, and Gillette have not been seen in prime time since November 29, two days after the car accident.  Since then, Woods' crisis management team has done a highly questionable job handling an icon who may not be manageable.  My best guess is that Tiger will suffer sponsor losses based upon how the public perceives the relationship between the golfer and the product.  Nike golf is 100 per cent Tiger and has much more to lose so they are pretty much stuck with him.  AT&T can easily pull its logo off Tiger's bag.

It was screen director/writer Billy Wilder who quite possibly penned the funniest line in the funniest film and it's applicable in relation to the Trials of Tiger Woods.  It's in the last scene of Some Like It Hot when Jerry (Jack Lemmon in drag) explains to Osgood, played by Joe E. Brown, that he's really not a woman.  "Well, nobody's perfect," replies Osgood.

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Harry Chan....by Bob Sanders

It's interesting in this life that we sometimes become closer to non-blood relatives than the real deal.  Certainly, that was the case with Harry Chan, a guy who provided a lot of laughs.

A six-foot third-generation Chinese, Harry fathered film actresses Meg and Jennifer Tilly.  The former is, perhaps, best known for her 1986 Academy Award-nominated role in Agnes of God while Jennifer, also nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Bullets Over Broadway-1994) is an accomplished poker player who recently gave up the game having become convinced she had acquired an addiction.  Meg Tilly quit acting in 1995 to raise her three children and write.

Harry's parenthood was achieved while married to a Caucasion; over the course of his daughters' successful careers until his death four years ago, Harry bridled whenever mention was made of their "faintly oriental looks" or comments to that effect.

Harry Chan came into my life by way of my second wife Mickey whose sister married him after a courtship of 15 years.  Harry, it was said, studied all considerations from every angle.

I recall my delight in telling Harry I had witnessed Jennifer wildly applauded by an Evanston, Illinois film audience when she re-appeared late in The Fabulous Baker Boys as a world weary waitress.  She certainly deserved the approval and reminded me of brilliant cinematic bits of a time long passed.  In the 30s and 40s, brief screen appearances by third bananas such as the affable drunk, the surly waiter, the unctuous hotel manager or the prissy department store floor walker would draw applause.  Maybe talking pictures were enough of a novelty back then or, perhaps, we simply lack those vivid character actors.  It's also possible film has lost the ability to deliver subtlety while concentrating on special effects heavy on explosions.  Great dialog is almost non-existent today.

One of my Palm Springs memories involves a discussion with Harry in which, over a reasonable number of martinis, it was determined that the Tilly sisters should be accorded a special family-only film festival at which time we would play their entire repertoire.  As I recall, popcorn and the inevitable martinis became integral aspects of the planned festival, considerations that led to criminal activity involving the theft of what had to be one of the world's largest lemons, a fruit so enormous that its peel would have been sufficient to accompany an entire neighborhood's martini consumption for at least a month.

We had become covetous of the lemon during drives into town from a home loaned to us by Weona Armstrong, a lovely and lively woman who spent most of her time in a Chicago suburb.  The Palm Springs home was on Chino Canyon Drive and was located immediately in front of one owned by Elvis Presley whose sightings there were seldom.  We never saw Elvis but we did spot the remarkable lemon on each of our forays.

Swipe it we did one night as a neighbor across the street shouted advice that we should consider buying a lemon rather than engage in such tawdry behavior.  To this day, I remain convinced the highly recognizable voice was that of actor Robert Mitchum, the "soul of film noir" as critic Roger Ebert has so aptly described him.  Although he never  lived in Palm Springs, I'm sure it was Mitchum.

My favorite Harry Chan story is set in Grand Island, Nebraska where he and Mickey's sister, Sue Christensen, were married.  A country club reception followed and members of the wedding party, friends and relatives gathered on a verandah.  It was a hot and sticky summer day.

During the celebration, Harry noticed a quite puzzled little old lady, likely in her 90s, standing nearby.  The woman had been studying the effervescent groom for some time and eventually toddled over to him, commented about what a good time she was having and then explained her confusion.

"Mr. Chan," she began.  "I have noticed the mosquitoes are out in full force and they are biting everyone but you.  I don't understand."

"Well, mam," replied Harry.  "Those mosquitoes know that if they bite Harry, they are going to be hungry in 20 minutes." 

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Laughable Laundry....by Bob Sanders

 

I think it's safe to say the more verbally-inclined of us go through life often presented

with opportunities to make pungent points perhaps putting them up there (at least in our

own minds) with the Oscars (Wilde and Levant) whose clever bon mots are still recalled. 

 

The problem with the rest of us is that, witty though we might be, our minds don't

respond as quickly to the kinds of opportunities given the two Oscars.  Five minutes or

five days later, we think of a perfect retort and become part of the I-Wish-I-Said-That

Syndrome.

 

My mother, who lived within a few weeks of 97, retained a sense of humor and,

indeed, nailed me beautifully one day as I set forth to make a simple adjustment on a lawn mower.  Infamous for my mechanical lack of savvy, I was seen by her defiantly striding toward the machine with a pair of pliers.  “Oh, dear,” observed mom to those within earshot.  “What is Robert doing with a set of pliers?  “Perhaps, he is going to pull hair out of his nose.” 

 

I had a modicum of success one time in Seville in the spring of 1989.  Soon after my

retiring from the Chicago Tribune, Jan and I decided to take an extensive trip which

began in Milan and ended in Madrid.  In between, southern France, Morocco, 5,000 miles of Spain and more than a touch of Portugal were worked in. 

 

One of the highlights of the trip was headquartering in Torremolinas while visiting

Granada, Cordoba and Seville.  I think we saw everything there was to see with the

exception of bull fighting, centered in Seville along with Andalusian gypsies, famed for

their scintillating songs, dramatic dances and deft ability to pick pockets.

 

After seeing the Alcazar, our tour group was taken to official looking buildings

fronted by a pond of perhaps an acre upon which families rowed rented boats in an idyllic setting.  We were then again confronted by our pompous guide full of braggadocio about himself and his homeland.  The latter was understandable; Spain is a remarkable country but we had had our ears pounded all day by the tour guide; he had become the kind of boor brilliantly played by Jeffrey Tambor--Hank Kingsley on HBO's 90's hit, "The Larry Sanders Show."

 

The guide, pointing to Spanish Army and Navy buildings, began a detailed

rundown of demented exuberance on a recent buildup of troops, the present armament of land forces, tank capabilities, then worked his way through the subject of fortifications, his emphasis on those near the borders of countries abutting Spain.  Unmistabable evidence of paranoia crept into our guide’s monologue as he introduced the subject of the Basques to the north and their bomb-throwing proclivities.  Finished with the Army, our host then took a deep breath and I knew damn well we were in a Spanish Navy soliloquy. It was certain to be of Limbaugh length.  Something had to be done.

 

Pointing toward the families rowing their boats on the pristine pond, I observed:

"And, that, I presume, is your Navy?"

 

Although being a smart ass comes rather effortlessly to me, I'm also capable of

playing the fool.  As indicated earlier, we headquartered in Torremolinas, located on the

Mediterranean half-way between Malaga and Gibraltar.  Seizing upon the comedic

opportunities offered by Spanish names, we re-named the town Beautiful Tortellini By-

The-Sea.  Our hotel, The Bajandillo, (a banjo is featured in its logo) acquired the not

terribly sober sobriquet: The Banjo Dildo.

   

The hotel's architecture, U shaped, provided water views from all rooms.  Our second floor location was above the central lobby with the hotel wings angled away from us.  Half-way into our 10-day stay we discovered a laundry problem on a Saturday--bad timing in most countries.  Since our room had a balcony, we sink washed some clothes and hung them out to dry before setting off for a late lunch.

 

Returning, we noticed that most of our clothes had fallen to the lobby roof so we

put retrieval procedures into motion.  To a wire coat hanger's shoulder was attached the

clothes line which I lowered to a position above some underwear.  I managed to hook a

pair of shorts.  After a few feet of success, the underwear fell off and I resumed my

laundry trolling.  This time I extended the middle of the hanger's base to form a V above

the hook.  Although I had never attended an engineering school (a thoroughly laughable

notion), I figured an engineer could improve the balance of the coat hanger by doing

what I did.  Jan, of course, spelled me during what probably was 30 minutes of mostly

frustration.  We finally hauled up the last of the laundry. 

 

It was at that moment that a startling burst of rather deafening applause greeted us from the adjoining wings of The Banjo Dildo.  Tourists, gathered on a great many of the hotel's balconies, either were demonstrating their appreciation of American ingenuity or, perhaps, recognizing our Chaplin-esque low comedy.  We treated it as a La Scala moment and bowed graciously from our stage.  

 

During the rest of our stay in Torremolinas, the guests of The Banjo Dildo greeted

us with applause accompanied by more than one drink.  The moral of the story is that loopy Americans are much better appreciated on foreign shores than ugly ones.  

 

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Olympic Games....by Bob Sanders

Living in what we quaintly call the Fourth Corner, it's accurate to suggest that the Winter Olympic Games are both just over the horizon and the Canadian border some 14 miles away if you take the short route through Lynden from Bellingham.  Once again, we are becoming aware the Olympics are fraught with dirty secrets in addition to the always presumed use of performance enhancing drugs.

You would think the memory of what happened in 1998 would have been a deterrent to the people who run projects like the Olympics.  It was 11 years ago that Salt Lake City was discovered to have bribed its way into hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics.  I'm not sure where to position bribery in the pantheon of Olympic problems since the event also has endured war, terrorism, politics and boycotts.  So here we are, approaching the winter spectacle to be held in Vancouver, B.C. February 12-28.  As the realistic yet lyrically charming Johnny Mercer once put it, we're probably building up to an awful letdown.  Mercer, a firm believer in accentuating the positive, also warned us about messing with Mr. In-between.

There are Olympic tweeners afoot all too willing to part with tickets at the right price.  Not to place too fine a point on matters, but we've been through Olympic black markets before.  Money, to no one's surprise, is what it's all about, a natural development like nasty politics in Chicago or influence peddling in our Nation's capitol.  It's based on an inescapable fact: there are far more fans who want to see the games than there are tickets.  Something like one-third of tickets to this winter's games will be purchased by Olympic Family members: committee members, sponsors and the well-connected.  That's when the call traditionally goes out to send in the scalpers enabling ticket buyers to pay more than $6,000 for Opening Ceremony seats whose face value is $1,100.  That same kind of money will purchase gold-medal hockey tickets at eight times face value.  Greed also comes into play in the housing area as those already fleeced tickets buyers have to put roofs over their heads with the daily room rate around $1,000.

I guess the best way to attend an Olympics is to be a guest.  Wife Jan and I were extremely fortunate to attend the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and tickets were not a problem; we were the guests of Antonio Escala Sisquellas who 25 years earlier had lived with Jan's family as an exchange student.  I filed four Barcelona columns for the Journal of the San Juans from Tony's EniChem Iberica, S.A. office where he is president and the possessor of a hard-to-ignore waste basket, once the foot of a particularly large hippopotamus, a memento of an African safari.

Among my vivid recollections of the '92 Olympic Games is having luncheon in the Hotel Royal's Cafeteria La Poma where basketball great Magic Johnson was at a nearby corner table attempting to consume an Olympic-sized portion of spaghetti. 

Magic (pronounced MAHJEEK by the Spanish) was with three companions immediately adjacent to an enormous plate glass window that fronted La Rambla, Barcelona's highly inviting and best-known boulevard.  A mosaic of faces, made possible by a human pyramid, had been formed immediately next to MAH-JEEK's left profile.  We're talking 20 or 30 children of all ages--their noses pressed against the glass.  MAH-JEEK was imperturbable while concentrating on the spaghetti and conversation.

Meanwhile, cameras-in-hand people inside La Poma were creeping up on the Dream Teamer, as members of the U.S. basketball team were called.  It was photo opportunity time and the place had gone loony.  The scene could only be compared to being around the Beatles and it was as though we were in a sudden time warp.  There was a surreal quality about it all.

Operation MAH-JEEK was not the only craziness going on.  Our table had quickly become a pin trading outpost thanks to my brother John, a retired track coach from the Cleveland area.  For the terrible un-hip, pins are to pin traders what stamps are to philatelists, only stamps don't weigh as much.  Further, pin trading at the Olympics continues to be far more significant to the participants that who wins the 100-yard dash.

Some of John's collection was worn on his head, a condition suggesting he could qualify as a pinhead.  I had noticed earlier in the day that he seemed shorter--an easy conclusion in our Golden Years.  We simply lose height.  On the other hand, I had seen John the past June at my daughter's wedding and he was his usual 5'9".  However, he was not wearing his pin hat.  

I finally figured that the weight of the pins on John’s head—let’s call it pinage—was forcing his head into his neck and his height was being diminished pin by pin as his need for pin fixes grew.  My guess was that his collection weighed about 10 pounds, not to compare with that of a Roman gladiator’s helmet but surely more than an Indy 500 driver’s headgear.

How pin trading became popular is anyone’s guess?  A fierce conspiracy theorist friend believes chiropractors are behind it all and that a significant fight continues to be waged by the AMA on the other side of the medical aisle.  Further, surgeons in particular are upset that chiropractors likely will get a major chunk of business from those suffering from pinitis and, of course, the sawbones want to operate.  Meanwhile, neck manipulations are on the upswing.

Between trades and glances at the basketball star’s spaghetti consumption. John revealed that he picked up his habit gradually.  It all started at the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976 when in total innocence he purchased a rather nondescript Lucky Pierre pin.

John’s swapping gained intensity at the Los Angeles games in 1984 and I asked if his La-La pin pursuits might have included such possibilities as a Hooray for Hollywood piece of gaudiness, a Franklin Pangborn Memorial gew-gaw or, perhaps, a Wicked Witch bauble featuring a likeness of Margaret Hamilton?  I don’t believe I got an answer thus stunting any questions involving John’s possibly becoming something of a pin wheel in organized state activities so pin-pointed that each club might very well create Pin PACs—political action folk capable of creating what beltway insiders could call pin money.  All evidence, to my way of thinking, indicated John was edging toward an extreme case of pindemonium.

Back at MAH-JEEK central, the Dream Teamer and his friends were getting up to leave when one of John’s fellow traders, a teenager from Philadelphia, asked for an autograph.  MAH-JEEK draped an arm over the kid’s shoulder, beamed that smile politicians would kill for, and obliged.  The kid was delirious.  MAH-JEEK disappeared—out a back door provided by a hotel employee.

Things continued to percolate pin-wise at our table, although the pace understandably had slowed down.  Perhaps what I had witnessed was a sort of warm-up for the big-time swaps at Placa de Catalunya official pin trading headquarters where pin suits hung out back then to discuss pinultimate matters.

I also recall wondering about the next Summer Olympics to be held in Atlanta.  A myriad of questions occurred including whether there might be a Sherman Marching Thru Georgia pin?  Then, there was the Rhett Butler Don’t Give a Damn possibility.  Alas, neither made the cut.

Such were my thoughts as we left the restaurant passing what today probably is still known to the restaurant’s staff as the MAH-JEEK table.  I couldn’t help noticing on the huge restaurant window stark residual evidence of the people pyramid so recently entranced by the presence of the basketball great; the glass was heavily befogged by human vapors.

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Of TV Guide, Annenberg & Belly Buttons....by Bob Sanders

I don't know whether it was the size of the magazine or its cluttered cover featuring the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street" that caught my attention.  Certainly, the checkout counter in the Fred Meyer store was where TV Guide was expected to be; it has been that way since 1953 when Walter Annenberg created the origins of a nationwide publication devoted to program listings.  The original 10 editions were oreod into a national section common to what became nearly 200 weekly issues.  It was wildly successful.  Except for largely inept newspaper products and a failed one-month attempt by Curtis Publishing to capture the kind of magic harnessed by TV Guide, Annenberg had no real challengers back in the pre-cable days when homes received a half-dozen or so television signals.

It's all changed now and TV Guide, once the dutch uncle of the television industry, isn't what it once was as I learned the other day from a disappointing examination of the publication.  The copy I bought measures 10 1/2 x 8 inches compared to the digest-size original that cost 15 cents.  The "Sesame Street" issue was $3.99, a lot of money to read about the admittedly captivating Big Bird and Oscar.

The earlier TV Guide was edited by Merrill Panitt, a very talented and aptly-named Philadelphian who had served as radio-TV critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer, an Annenberg daily.  Highly principled, Panitt's great fear was that, somehow, the publication could become a fan magazine.  His greatest challenge, as it turned out, wasn't the advertising department where good editorial intentions often have been impeded.  It was Hollywood where TV eventually became headquartered after early success in New York.

Dan Jenkins represented that odd threat.  He was a Hollywood writer who went to work for TV Guide when it was determined that the magazine had to have a West Coast presence having already established an office in San Francisco.  Jenkins lived within a wedge shot of two unlikely people about to become enormous hits both in front of and behind the camera.  You might remember them: Lucille Ball and  husband Desi Arnaz.  Their first success was the mega hit "I Love Lucy."  

TV Guide's  first cover (April 3, 1953) was Desi Arnaz, Jr., whose much-publicized birth was woven into the show's story line.  Neither Jenkins nor Panitt had any idea at the time that Lucy covers eventually would total 39; it was a unique problem for Jenkins who certainly had easy access to the stars whose relationship was building toward divorce, a fact kept quiet by intimates.  The challenge was coming up with different story angles and Jenkins, a mediocre writer, was inclined like most tinsel town media scribes to buy into minuscule story ideas advanced by highly caffeinated flacks.  I joined TV Guide the next year eventually spending 13 of them with the publication while moving eight times as circulation climbed from 1 1/2 million at the end of 1953 peaking at 20 million in the mid-70s.

Panitt became unhappy with Jenkins' fan magazine approach to Lucy and Desi; he wanted copy with some bite yet, surprisingly enough, Jenkins somehow managed to hang around until the mid-60s being replaced by, as I recall, by Les Raddatz although it may have been Dick Hobson.

One of the attainments of TV Guide not to be ignored was its newsstand success achieved largely at supermarket checkouts.  Without the sale of advertising (TV Guide didn't peddle a line of it until a late 50s tandem campaign with same-sized Reader's Digest), the magazine made money.  It was win, win, win with each sale producing four cents for the dealer, two cents for the distributor and nine cents going to the magazine.

TV Guide's success was well-deserved with major writers contributing serious pieces about the industry.  Among them were John Updike, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Miller and John Cheever.  Cartoonist Al Hirschfeld did some wonderful covers although we could nearly always count on a drop in circulation when his work appeared.

Three covers today are worth as much as $2,000 each.  They are: Desi Arnaz, Jr. (4/3/53), George ("Superman") Reeves (9/25/53) and Elvis Presley (9/8/56).  It was at a TV Guide convention in Bermuda that I asked publisher James T. Quirk if we would ever give cover placement to people who didn't appear regularly on the screen.  Asked who I had in mind, I suggested baseball player Mickey Mantle ("if the Yankees make it to the World Series"), Presley (he had just wiggled his hips on the "Ed Sullivan Show"), and Marilyn Monroe.  Quirk's retort was a rather heated: "Elvis Presley will never appear on the cover of TV Guide."  The latter two made the cut--Presley three months after my question.  Monroe never made the national TV Guide but did appear on the cover of the N.Y.C. edition issue of 1/23/53.  In December of that year, she made the cover of Playboy although an inside nude photo ("I had nothing on but the radio") achieved greater attention.

The contemporary version of TV Guide carries but 15 pages of program information located at the tail end of the publication.  While program details were what the magazine's original success was about, the current product is sadly lacking.  For example, the E! Channel listing at 7 p.m. for Sunday, November 15 promises a two-hour show about the 20 Best & Worst Celebrity Plastic Surgery Stories.  Not to be too jocular, but there is nothing in the way of names of celebrities, doctors, and parts of the anatomy involved.  TV Guide, always in search of details, would have had such information although the highly conservative Annenberg's anatomical sensitivities doubtless would have been considered.  It was during my TV Guide employment that a momentous publishing decision was rendered; that, of course, was the first non-airbrushed belly button to appear in Seventeen, an Annenberg magazine.

For purposes of gaining further insight into the matter whose significance could be compared to the release today of a sex tape involving a celebrity famous for being famous, I failed to find the first airbrush-less date after diligent Googling.  My belly button research did uncover much ado about piercing them and it stands to reason that even further pursuit would reveal novel navel uses by inspired tattooists.  Alas, there was nothing about belly buttons being hidden for so many years in Annenberg's magazine.

In fairness to the man who became one of this country's major philanthropists while giving away more than $2 billion during his lifetime, it's worth noting Walter Annenberg spent a lifetime successfully creating a persona of great contrast to his father, Moses L. Annenberg, who died a couple of weeks after release in 1942 from a federal prison where he served two years of a three-year sentence for income tax evasion.  Moe, a rough and tumble type, got his start as a circulation man for the Chicago Tribune.  The thought of Moe working for Col. Robert R. McCormick provokes wonderment.  Moe was hired away by competitors (William Randolph Hearst's Chicago American and Chicago Examiner before he became a magazine publisher whose titles included The Daily Racing Form, a solid connection to organized crime.

Son Walter, a well-established playboy, inherited a publishing empire upon his father's death.  Much has been made of Annenberg's brilliance in creating TV Guide by purchasing the New York product of that name, then buying local programming magazines in Chicago and Philadelphia, and then quickly establishing editions in seven other markets.  During my tenure, a story persisted that Joseph First, a Triangle Publications VP who specialized in financial matters, presented the idea to his boss and guided him through the complex creation.  The New York product was originated by Lee Wagner whose fertile mind also came up with flavor straws.  The series of moves by Annenberg plus a further escalation of editions, established Annenberg as a visionary riding the coattails of a burgeoning industry.

Just as The Daily Racing Form then as now provides information for the moment, so, too, did TV Guide. I recall my own challenged pursuit of program information that included a frustrating WICS (Channel 20) in Springfield, Illinois.  The station wouldn't reveal Monday-Friday afternoon movie titles, a decision I eventually got station manager Milt Friedland to rescind.  Station management was convinced that a relatively rube audience would be turned off by the films, all of them British-made.  A damnation of British accents seemed to sum up their attitude.

While the $3.99 charge for the current edition of TV Guide is a bit outrageous, it is possible to save 88% off the cover price by purchasing a subscription.  There, apparently, are people out there with limited programming access for whom TV Guide's 81 channels sans numbered locations are enough.  That and fan magazine stories like the "Sesame Street" celebration.

No question it was heartening to read the "Sesame Street" story and be reminded of how much the program has meant to us since its debut in 1969.  Back then, its mission was to assist inner-city kids and the rural poor in learning.  As the magazine story this week asks, "What other series can lay claim to being an indirect outgrowth of the civil-rights movement?"

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of TV Guide was its newsstand success.  During my 13 years with the magazine, we averaged something like 75 per cent of total sales at full price there thanks to supermarket and drug store checkouts where I'm sure position retention continues to be based upon dollars earned set against square inches of space given up.  At least that's the way it used to be.  TV Guide's current circulation is 2 million with trade publications rife with stories about a paring down of the figure by 500,000.

The current issue's understandable emphasis on industry stars provides the usual fan magazine drivel: a Hot List, a crossword puzzle (24 across answer: Desi Arnaz played Ricky on "I Love Lucy") a horoscope (Eva Longoria Parker is a Pisces), and Inbox (B'Jo Summers of Lake Placid, Florida suggests Matt Bromer of USA's "White Collar" is "the next Sexiest Man Alive!"  Among more weighty matters, there's a look at "Crime Scene Crossover," described as a "right of passage" in the CSI world and enthusiastically understood by advertisers as ratings enhancement.  The uninitiated may not know there are three CSI's located in Miami, N.Y., and Las Vegas and that crossover logistics involving air travel for program stars can be a brute.

Further breathless prose explains how Kim Raver, the "hot new cardiologist on 'Grey's Anatomy', refuses to abandon the fantasy that one day her popular '24' character, Audrey Raines, will reunite with Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer."  Everyone, including the bad guys, seems to want a piece of Jack Bauer.

Oh, yes.  The present TV Guide offers readers the opportunity to trade twitters about the TV industry with writer Matt Roush.  I don't know how Merrill Panitt would handle such a challenge were he alive but I suspect he would suggest that all that twitters is not gold.

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Homebound....reviews by Bob Sanders

Brothers Homer and Langley Collyer, a couple of heavy-duty eccentrics who lived much of the last century in a huge brownstone in New York City, eventually became the talk of the town.  There was good reason for their notoriety; they were obsessive collectors.  Nothing that came into the four-story Fifth Avenue mansion ever left.  Included was an automobile, long a startling sight in one of the living rooms.

Back on the historical reconfiguring and amplification beat is E.L. Doctorow whose license to expand upon events was earned by way of a dozen dazzling prior novels including The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, and Billy Bath gate.  Doctorow again proves why he is among a handful of our very best writers.

Homer & Langley were like most compulsive collectors; they started small yet by the time they died had packed every room and the backyard with junk, a heavy emphasis on newspapers.  The World War I-gassed Langley, full of sarcasm for what he feels is a depressing world, is the major collector.  A blind Homer narrates the story, set against 20th century events, tapping if out on a Braille typewriter.

"When Langley brings something into the house that has caught his fancy--a piano, a toaster, a Chinese bronze horse, a set of encyclopedias--that is just the beginning," writes Homer.  "Whatever it is, it will be acquired in several versions because until he loses his interest and goes on to something else he'll be looking for its ultimate expression."  

By re-working and augmenting the historical records, Doctorow is able to extend the lives of the brothers into the late 1970s while in fact they died in 1947.  This device enables them to hear about the Holocaust from a Jewish veteran of World War II, observe TV game shows and the moon landing, experience New York blackouts and learn about the 900 suicides of the Jim Jones cult.  Even a pack of hippies bring their values into play during the Vietnam War era while spending a month with the Collyers.

There's a darkening quality about Homer & Langley as the damaged brothers live lives ranging from hosts of tea dances during The Depression to scavenging drinking water from a public faucet in a nearby park approaching the end of their story.  Disinclined to pay bills, the brothers engage the city in a series of fights.  According to Homer, "I'm not sure when our battles with the Health and Fire Departments, the bank, the utilities, and everyone else who was demanding some kind of satisfaction attracted the notice of the press.  I will not pretend to a precision of remembrance as I try to tell of our life in this house these last few years.  Time seems to me a drift, a shifting of sand.  And my mind is shifting with it."

Once the press began reporting about the Collyers, relations with the city and the public escalated; children began throwing stones at the home.  Homer, blind and growing deaf, writes: "Most likely the word has spread.  Children are the carriers of unholy superstition, and in the minds of the juvenile delinquents who'd begun to pelt our house Langley and I were not the eccentric recluses of a once well-to-do family as described in the press; we had metamorphosed, we were the ghosts who haunted the house we had once lived in.  Not able to see myself or hear my own footsteps, I was coming around to the same idea."

While no Ragtime (named one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the Modern Library), Homer & Langley may very well offer the reader an allegorical challenge; does all the junk the brothers collected while achieving little happiness suggest a parallel to our population's recent and calamitous obsession with acquiring stuff?

It may have been that inspiration for the Collyers' intense desire to collect came from their parents who traveled often to Europe sending home souvenirs including "ancient Islamic tiles, or rare books, or a marble water fountain, or busts of Romans with no noses or missing ears, or antique armoires with their fecal smell....There were always presents for Langley and me, things to really excite a boy, like an antique toy train that was too delicate to play with, or a gold-plated hairbrush."

On the subject of the challenge of writing, Doctorow once observed: "It's like driving a car at night.  You can never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."  What trips he has provided!

Also homebound are two fallen socialites in "Grey Gardens," Michael Sucsy's stunning film that continues to play on HBO after an April debut.  New Yorkers like the Collyers, Big Edith Beale (Jessica Lange) and daughter Little Edie (Drew Barrymore) allow Albert and David Maysles to film a documentary about their recluse lives in an East Hampton manor home.  The Beales' story has been visited before in books, a Broadway musical and a stage play.  To suggest than Lange and Barrymore are perfect in their demanding roles would be a vast understatement.  The film also gives further evidence that HBO has come a long way from its start this month in 1972 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  Trivia fans know the first film shown was "Sometimes a Great Notion" with Paul Newman and Henry Fonda. 

The Sucsy film fills in a lot of holes regarding the Maysles' 1975 classic documentary.  Time, as we know, is everything and the Beale approach to living would not have come to public attention had they not been aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.  It is Jackie, effectively played by the always reliable Jeanne Tripplehorn, who orchestrates a cleaning up of the home rescuing them from filth and squalor created by the Beales' failure to care for their beloved home.  Big Edith wants to control Little Edie and succeeds by manipulation; Little Edie eventually becomes her constant caregiver.

The first scene of the squalor in the Beale home is a shocker even though you pretty much know it's coming.  It's not as alarming as the shower scene in "Psycho" nor does it suggest comparison to "The Picture of Dorian Gray" painting in the attic.  And yet and yet.  Cleverly managed aspects of telling the flash-backed story give the viewer knowledge that the home and garden are not aging gracefully but the camera's eventual prowls through the home's interior complete with feral cats and monumental putrefaction are stomach churners.

There are those who believe "Grey Gardens" would have won some Academy Awards had it been eligible for the most recent competition.  I have no quarrel with that kind of thinking.  "Grey Gardens" was nominated for 16 Emmys this year and won six times including Best Actress for Lang.

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Future Press: Rabelaisian Decibel Count Awards....by Bob Sanders

These are trying times with serious writers aware that the media, often puzzling in regard to its positioning in our society, needs further explanation.  In particular are the kinds of challenges presented by talk shows and the insistent blather they offer.  While Future Press is blessed with neither the insight of Nostradamus nor Johnny Carson's Karnak, it does offer an opportunity to see into an admittedly murky future by way of gut instinct and a little imagination.

Bob Sanders 

The Associated Press

By Doug Duffus

Columbus, Ohio -- August 13, 2010 - In what critics have come to regard as the media competition easiest to predict, "The McLaughlin Group" political talkfest again dominated the 15th Annual Rabelaisian Decibel Count Dinner Awards presented last night at the Ohio State Fair.  It was the ninth consecutive Raby win for the weekly TV program now in its 30th year.

By winning first places in Bumptious Bombast, Roundtable Inelegance and Extended Churlishness (the latter a new category), "The McLaughlin Group" reinforced industry understanding that regular members Pat Buchanan, Monica Crowley, Eleanor Clift and Mort Zuckerman will not engage in Viewer Suck Up as they continue concerted role-playing efforts.  Buchanan continues as the funny Irish guy with a long memory of former employers Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Crowley the quite superior right wing snob, Clift the largely polite token liberal and often failed interjector of insights overridden by human sound power levels and Zuckerman, the ultimate New Yorker.

Industry experts are unanimous in their praise for the show's ability to raise to an art form the interruption of fellow panelists.  Records of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Department of Airways Behavior show "The McLaughlin Group" last year registered a gross total of 7,365 Interruptions Category offenses of which 938 were characterized as being "unruly."  Questioned earlier this year, ringmaster Dr. John McLaughlin suggested none of his panelists are, as he put it, "perfect" and pointed to a comparative reduction from prior year statistics of both Histrionic Hindrance and Overt Obstructionism.

In a series of "firsts," it was both an initial outing for the awarding of Rabys at a state fair and a pairing with another Buckeye State crowd pleaser: The Hog Calling Championship of Ohio won by E. Pluribus Eubanks of Ashtabula after being pressed for honors by Terrance Teabaggy of Vermilion.  Media industry observers expressed satisfaction with the decision to make it an event twofer by combining the Rabys and the decidedly rural event.  One highly placed media maven went so far as to call it "a natural."

In a bit of post awards sidebar levity announced by Rabelaisian judge and former Illinois Governor Ron Blagojovich, Zuckerman's manners of marked contrast to the rest of the McLaughlin panelists were accorded mention with a special Raby awarded the publisher of the Daily News for "You Damn Near Blew It For The Team."

Judges for the event, in addition to Blagojovich, were an all-star panel of media targets intimately aware of the use of sound and fury as both diversionary tactics and instruments of suffocation.  Making judgments were: former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, fresh from her moose hunting reality show; Fox News' Bill O'Reilly (one pundit described O'Reilly as "smitten" with Palin); South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who flew in from Argentina prior to what aides called "a planned hike on the Appalachian Trail," and Roger Ailes, president of Fox News who didn't have anything better to do after another rumor about his running for the Presidency was met by something between a yawn and a shrug.

The use of a former Illinois governor as a judge (also a "first") underwent significant examination by event officials whose concern centered on precedence setting raising the question of whether or not former Illinois governors could be called upon as judges since so many are in prison.

One of the more unique moments of the televised show occurred when the ubiquitous Glenn Beck was given the Heart on Sleeve Award sponsored by Kleenex.  It was a mixed-bag evening for Beck who failed to win recognition for Excessive Use of the Chalk Board, the award going instead to ESPN's Lou Holtz who coached Notre Dame to its last national championship in 1988.  Beck, a first time winner, managed to plug his latest book, Relating to the Unrelated, three times during his acceptance speech.  Enthusiastically identified by Beck as an "epic," the six-page power point tome is bound by a two miniature chalk boards.  Holding high the Kleenex Award as he left the stage, Beck cried while muttering something about Mao Zi-Tung.

A special Sacked Award was given radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh as "The Man Least Appreciated by the NFL."  Limbaugh, denied partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams by pro football because of racial remarks, is rumored to be involved in the purchase of a major league baseball franchise, a sport participated in by fewer blacks.

As something of a climax to the Rabelaisian Decibel Count Awards, Don Imus was acknowledged as this year's Endless Rumination winner for efforts in making the public increasingly aware of his problems with prostate cancer.  In an accompanying note of gracious thanks, the judges, pointing to Imus's "concentration and vivid explanation of most of his bodily functions," commended the talk show host for "bringing to fruition a public understanding of what is near and dear to a man committed to self." 

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The Suit....by Bob Sanders

This is the time of year when down-sizers like me, with limited closet space, take the October trading-of-clothes-plunge.  In come the winter duds and out go Hawaiian shirts and other vestiges of summer to the garage where they'll rest in plastic containers for six months or so.

While performing what has become a semi-annual ritual, I couldn't help but notice a suit I've had for 22 years--a time frame slightly longer than my retirement.  I don't have many suits any more mostly because it takes funerals, weddings and other major occasions to get me into one.  We're talking four times a year max, although funerals seem to be increasing in number lately.  While Howard Hughes had his bizarre moments, he was my kind of casual guy, sartorially speaking.

Having given my all corporately for a bunch of years, there's no escaping the obvious: well-worn jeans of character plus t-shirts and sweatshirts have it all over suits.  I do confess a fondness for one suit and a story goes with it.

It was in late July, 1987 that my second wife Mickey and I set off from Chicago for Colorado Springs and the wedding of her step-sister's daughter. A cancer patient, Mickey had just completed six months of chemotherapy, she was feeling her best in some time and the planned wedding layover in the mountains looked like a celebratory tonic.  As it turned out, she lived 35 days past the wedding. 

In our rush to O'Hare Airport, I had left the wedding suit behind, a fact that demanded searching for one in Colorado Springs.  Setting off in mid-morning with my step brother-in-law, the mischievous Harry Chan, we quickly found a clothing store on the town's man stem.  Within scant seconds of entering the Rodger Thornton emporium, I had found a suit.  Further, it was what I had unsuccessfully looked for in Chicago: an olive Haspel both lightweight and washable.  In addition, the beauty was on sale, an impressive savings of 50 percent.

There was, however, a problem--actually, two problems.  I was (and still am) a size 41 while my discovery was a 44.  Not only that, but the wedding was 25 hours off, challenging facts to the very young man who waited on me with all the kind of heightened enthusiasm of Mickey Rooney back when he began discovering girls in the Hardy films.

Not to worry.  He would have the size 44 cut down to my proportions and be available for pickup at 10 a.m. the next day.  Mostly a big city guy, I was used to a week or two wait for a new suit that needed little in the way of tailoring beyond sleeves and trousers.  I was astonished by the young man's promise.

Sure enough, the suit was ready for me at the sale price and the bottle of wine I brought along for him was a minuscule offering for what he had accomplished with no charge for the considerable alterations that provided proper fit.  The $55 billing did not include sales tax, another oddity in view of a Google search revealing the city had a sales tax that year although I couldn't find the rate.  While dressing in the store immediately before getting to the church on time, I discovered my name and the date (July 31, 1987) had been stitched on the suit's inside right breast pocket.  Perhaps the young man figured any Alzheimer's awaiting down the road would be thwarted--at least in terms of name forgetfulness. 

These many years later, I continue to be impressed and considerably baffled by what the young man had pulled off--thoughts accompanied by awareness that good neighbor deeds are possible even when not a neighbor.  I finally came up with a possible scenario: My timing was miraculous, the young man was the son of the owner and the father had recently noticed his son was not exhibiting a proper attitude toward customers.  Having been told about service to the customer (Marshall Field I: "give the lady what she wants"), the young man decided that not only is the customer always right (more Field) but worthy of, in my case, having a half-priced size 44 suit cut down to a 41 at no extra cost.  I had been in the right place at the right time.

Continuing my analysis, it figured his new-found attitude probably resulted in his becoming the success his dad's lesson had helped create.  Either that or, perhaps he eventually put Rodger Thornton out of business, a development that happened in 2001. 

There is another possible scenario.  My earlier reference to Harry Chan as being mischievous is quite reasonable.  Harry was more than capable of suggesting to the young haberdasher while I was in a dressing room changing clothes that I was a famous Chicagoan traveling under false identification.  Such possibilities as being one of the Marshall Fields (there have been six), gumdom's William Wrigley, baseball's Bill Veeck (alas, I was without a wooden leg) or even Rev. Jesse Jackson (an admitted reach) come to mind.

As inventive as Harry could be and as naive as the young man appeared, I like the first story better.  Harry to the day he died denied having influenced the young salesman.

Clothing bargains certainly can be sheer flukes.  Six years ago in Hawaii, I wandered into one of those big box operations where I found a pair of running shoes at a most attractive price.  My son Gary quickly pointed out that the jazzy-looking footwear had a logo that in his vast language experience looked quite similar to the word Allah in Arabic, the shoes had not sold as expected and I had become the beneficiary of a market glut.  Advancing his theory, Gary suggested that shoe bomber Richard Reid had used Allah footwear as a hiding place in an attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner in 2001.  As I learned over the years, Gary does have an aberrant sense of humor.

One of my prized clothing possessions was a pair of red jeans with a snob label.  Purchased 20 years ago at a semi-snob outlet store, they had acquired an attractive fabric patina.  Fortunate timing, as with the suit, had put me in the store on one of those days when you get another 75% or whatever off the already bargain price.  I got the jeans for $5, have never seen another pair like them and, yes, it's possible no one else on earth wants a pair of red jeans except those inclined to play a hip Santa Claus or enhance an already guaranteed exhilarating run with the bulls in Pamplona.  Any doubts I may have had about their stylishness (the pants, not the bulls) were erased seven years ago in London when a well-turned out gentleman asked me where I acquired them.  Admittedly, that question was a long time coming.

Of course, you're never quite sure about motives when people sidle up to you on crowded big city streets or even lonely ones, for that matter.

While on the subject of clothing, I have an acquaintance of advanced age who lives in the nearby San Juan Islands and acquires apparel in a rather unique way.  An intense reader of obituaries, he checks phone books for addresses, waits a few days, then calls on homes of bereavement hoping to find such items as size 9 1/2 shoes and size 16 shirts.  I'll have more about him anon.

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