Sidebars

Waiting for Gojoe....by Bob Sanders

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything and that undoubtedly explains my recent series of failures to find Joe Scarborough on his "Morning Joe" television show.

Slotted on MSNBC beginning at 3 a.m. (PCT), the three-hour program is my Plan A when I find a return to sleep challenging.  Searching for Scarborough has been something like "Waiting for Godot," Samuel Beckett's absurdest play in which nothing happens while the main characters anticipate the arrival of Godot who never appears.  Let's call my Joe no show "Waiting for Gojoe."

The interruptions of my sleep were occurring about every fifth night or so.  Scarborough simply wasn't showing up whenever I flipped on "Morning Joe" and there were a number of possible reasons.  Had the former Florida U.S. Congressman returned to hometown Pensacola preparatory to running for public office?  Never in memory has any former politician shown greater evidence of a longing for, in his case, those good old days featuring Newt Gingrich as House Speaker and his Contract With  America--proudly signed by Scarborough.  What a contrast with today; yesterday's Contractors, who screwed things up, have been replaced by today's Tea Party leaving in the dust such forever pols like Scarborough whose evidence of GOP loyalty consists largely of trumpeting the triumphs of Ronald Reagan.

There were other possibilities for Scarborough's absences including a resumption of talks with CNN or CBS regarding a move away from MSNBC.  The original rumors came last year on the heels of "Morning Joe" executive producer Chris Licht's leaving NBC to take over the always foundering "Morning Show."  Self-serving like most rumors of its kind, they coincided with contract negotiations involving the major "Morning Joe" hosts.

Those devilish contracts nearly ended Joe and Mike Brzezinski's show about a year after it began in 2007 when Mika learned Joe was making 14 times her salary.  There were a number of factors involved including Joe's positioning as producer plus Mika's having joined NBC after being fired from CBS.  A then recent book published by her with the title, Knowing Your Value, was a bit awkward and she successfully battled for a re-worked contract after producer Joe, the guy who underpaid her, casually gave her one of his paychecks.  Joe, obviously, didn't want to lose Mika.

Another plausibility for Joe's no show might involve that very odd intern death back in Walton Beach, not far from Pensacola.  Had the cops finally come up with some answers to questions about Lori Klausutus' mysterious death 11 years ago?  Klausutus, 28, a Scarborough employee, was found in the congressman's office early one morning.  The shoddiness of Florida police work was no better then than the current Trayvon Martin shooting death in Sanford.  The cops all too quickly determined that Klausutus, a long-distance runner in outstanding condition, had fainted striking her head twice on a desk.  The cause of death, heart arrhythmia, was determined by a discredited medical examiner apparently incapable of wondering how a head could strike a desk twice.

Scarborough, scornful of the media these days, back then also was publisher of the Redneck Riviera's Independent Sun and he quickly resigned his ties to the newspaper and his seat in Congress.  The man people now refer to as "Morning Joe" had initiated divorce proceedings two years earlier from a wife of 13 years.

A much more likely reason for Scarborough's disappearing act would be occasional guest appearances by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mika's father and national security adviser during the Carter administration.  Do not invite Zbigniew and Scarborough to the same party.  The latter plays smart ass to a man who treats the show's host much as an un-wanted son-in-law.  Their relationship peaked late in 2008 when Brzezinski called him "stunningly superficial" for his assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Brzezinski's umbrage was very reminiscent of Jack Paar's Alexander king, maybe the best TV guest ever.

"Morning Joe," close to celebrating its fifth anniversary, has strange origins even for television and began with Brzezinski doing a news segment from beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey for Scarborough, then hosting a failing "Scarborough Country" program from Florida.  Informed by friends that Mika had used mocking tones about "Scarborough Country" during her feed to the show, Joe was intrigued, looked her up and, as they say, it was just a matter of time.  That time came when Don Imus, host of "Imus in the Morning" and the prior occupant of the "Morning Joe" time slot, was fired for making insensitive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.  We can measure the true power of a broadcast personality on the basis of whether or not they get fired for serious indiscretions.  Imus was gone quickly for what was paltry compared to Rush Limbaugh's recent disgraceful series of rants leveled at a female law student.

Keith Olbermann, who left MSNBC last year for the Current Channel, continues to suggest that Scarborough's sharp elbows are being thrown all over NBC as he challenges credentials of guests on shows other than his own, now augmented by a talk pack of nearly 30. 

There is an odd chemistry, not yet fully realized, that exists between Mika and Joe.  The fractious relationship of "The Odd Couple" has been suggested more than once although it seems to this viewer that whatever magic exists is much more reminiscent of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn although Trace rarely did the kind of off-putting body language now so seemingly intrinsic to the Scarborough persona.  Arms across the chest, Scarborough seems committed to sweaters and other casual attire to set himself off from the guests, regular and otherwise, who bring to the table far too much about politics--particularly the strange people who have been attempting to unseat President Obama.  Third host Willie Geist seems to be on board mostly to keep beady-eyed Joe from running roughshod over Mika.

Of late, the political pickings have been so sparse that clothing worn by regulars and guests has been seized upon as slim and obvious subject matter.  Three hours a day is a long, long time.  Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and clearly a sartorial dandy, was a bit put out recently by show regular Mike Barnicle whose clothes might best be described as the kind of go-to-hell casual worn by far too many men in Bellingham, Washington, a serious candidate for dress down capitol of this country.  I know about these things because I live there. 

With my sleeping habits much improved during very recent days, I have managed to note that Pat Buchanan is no longer a "Morning Joe" regular.  Pat, who has managed to maintain guest status on the decibel impressive "The McLaughlin Group," recently dashed off a book in which he finally put in writing what he has been saying for many years: he's an out and out racist.  Good luck with the book, Pat.

Other people have come, gone and, in one case, come back.  The comebacker is Mark Halperin who got cut from the talk team last year when he called the President a dick.  To be perfectly accurate, the quote was "sort of a dick the other day."  Poor Obama gets blamed for everything: gas prices, wars, being a Muslim (according to one poll, 52 percent of Mississippi residents believe so), a questionable birth certificate (45 percent of Republicans are birthers), and, probably, bad asshood for putting a hex on second-seeded University of Missouri by picking the Tigers to be one of March Madness' final four.  Missou was knocked off in the first round by 15th seed Norfolk State.

The dick caller returned to "Morning Joe" after a month's banishment and everything, as my dad used to say, is copacetic.  A Time senior political analyst, Halperin is co-author of Game Change with fellow "Morning Joe" regular John Heilemann.  It's an inside look at what went wrong when John McCain and others decided to put Sarah Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket.  Made into a feature length film, it is currently playing on HBO.

In truth, Halprin should have received a stiffer sentence than a month's dismissal not so much for disparaging the President but for being so inaccurate with political predictions.  Among his gaffes: insisting that both Palin and fellow lightweight Donald Trump were serious GOP ontenders; suggesting that McCain's mid-campaign week's return to Washington "won the week" for the Arizona Senator, and just about any crystal balling found in his (2006) book, The Way to Win.  Co-author John Harris, co-founder of Politico, has to share the blame for that turkey.

Halperin's castigation that morning of the President created a momentary pall upon the show's usual cocktail party atmosphere (Starbucks served, of course) with Scarborough expressing agitation that a new producer was unable to activate a seven-second delay.  Such are the vicissitudes of broadcasting when a producer can't punch the right button.

The essence of "Morning Joe," clubby yet rife with the distinct possibility of someone walking in off the street to take exception to Scarborrough's brand of conservatism heavy with wish for the halcyon days of Reaganism, may very well be on the right track.  The challenge is that the rigors of doing it three hours a day for five days a week may wind up boring the hell out of viewers but that would have happened by now.  "Morning Joe," with less than half the audience of the hardly scintillating "Fox & Friends," continues to stay ahead of CNN in the time slot.  Certainly, the casual roundtable banter is a welcome contrast to the all too traditional panel stuff seen in short segments on "Meet the Press," "This Week," "Fox News Sunday" and "Face the Nation," soon to expand to 60 minutes.

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Sarah Revisited....by Bob Sanders

 

Anyone who thought Sarah Palin was simply going to disappear from public consciousness has been convinced otherwise by two cable films during recent days.

The first, "Game Change," debuted this past weekend on HBO and it must have been tempting to those responsible for creating the film's trailers to borrow from the marketing maneuvers of Jack Nicholson's 1980 "The Shining."  Yes, Sarah is back.

Perverse pleasures admitted, this viewer has missed Palin and it may very well be due to the obvious contrasts she offers to the rag tag collection of politicians who for far too long have flailed away at nailing down the Republican Party's presidential nomination.  Mitt Romney, challenged by Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul, simply can't make the sale to a party base moved to the right somewhere in the general vicinity of Attila the Hun.  All this, of course, has come after semi-final rounds during which we were introduced to the strange campaigns of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, and poor Jon Huntsman, he of the nice-guy-what-am-I-doing- here? persona.  Never in the past 100 years of the election process has the American public been confronted by such a collection of boring possibilities.  Never has the other party been given such a leg up while 20 debates put audiences to sleep.

Palin's remarkable selection as John McCain's running mate is the focal point of "Game Change."  The film is based upon the best-seller by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  Palin, as played by Julianne Moore, initially is drawn as a sympathetic character decidedly over-matched as McCain's advisers determine she is a logical choice as the Arizona Senator's running mate.  Moore's portrayal of Palin invites comparisons to the wickedly funny Tina Fey impressions on "Saturday Night Live."  As good as Fey's you-betcha takes were of Palin, Moore's provide much greater insight as we experience her strengths (connecting with crowds) to her weaknesses (foreign affairs about which she knows next to nothing).  It is through Moore 's nuanced performance that we see the many Palins: fragile, sullen, magnetic, and vain.  The pit bull mom may not have much upstairs but she appears to have a vast collection of hockey jerseys.

Woody Harrelson, as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, gives another outstanding performance as he moves from enthusiasm for Palin to a realization that five days were simply not enough time to vet the Alaska governor.  Ed Harris is splendid while offering a compassionate portrayal of McCain.  Harris and Harrelson, both compiling impressive bodies of work, have become two of our very best film actors.

What is particularly intriguing about "Game Change" are the sympathetic roles played by the advisers who, much like race horse bettors given a sure thing in a four-horse race, are aghast as their filly stumbles out of the gate and at all the turns.  Often with media backgrounds, advisers in a political story are people in the shadows, rarely gaining audience rapport or even interest.  Senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, played by Sarah Pauley, bears the brunt of Palin mistakes and malice; Schmidt's "explanation to Palin about the why of not allowing her to give a concession speech is a classic.

Something quite different in Palinology may be observed in "The Undefeated," like "Game Change," inspired by a book.  Going Rogue, "written" by the then jobless governor having fled Juneau, was Palin's explanation of how things happened.  The bad show business people, led by Bill Maher and Matt Damon, are introduced.  The best line is that of ex-New York mayor Ed Koch who, in describing Palin as "plucky, perky," then adds, "and she scares the hell out of me."

First viewed last July, the documentary comes off as an infomercial rather inexpertly cut on somebody's dinner table.  The guilty are director/writer Stephen K. Bannon and the late Andrew Breitbart whose producer credits are augmented by appearance snippets enabling the audience to better understand Palin's brilliance.  He is joined by conservative talk show host Mark Levin and others as the banal product unwinds providing explanation of the box office failure following theatrical release.  It is currently playing on the ReelzChannel as what can only be regarded as a curiosity piece.

One of the reasons for it being a curiosity is its frantic pace and helter-skelter use of very low grade digital video of a lesser quality than YouTube.  Be assured that when the bad guys are offered up as depraved contrasts to the self-appointed mama grizzly, you can count on either stock footage of good old boys in a smoke-filled room or an incessantly brooding film score.  The feel of much of the material is that it is a collection of out takes clipped from promotional film shot for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" whose run on The Learning Channel mercifully has been completed.  There are always re-runs for the Palin-addicted.

Another of the oddities of Bannon's love letter to Palin is the paltry amount of time spent on the presidential election although her considerable triumph, an acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, gets a lot and it's Sarah at her best, by golly.  John McCain is barely recognized.  Hardly a master of subtlety, Bannon tells us that government is wasteful, then gives us three shots of money swirling down a toilet.

We never see Palin inThe Rogue: Searching for Sarah Palin, Joe McGinniss's wickedly amusing and sometimes frightening six months spent living next door to the remarkable woman who threatened to become a heartbeat from the Presidency.  McGinniss is not new to Alaska having researched the critically acclaimed Going to Extremes  there in 1977.  McGinniss does make it clear that, in his opinion, the Palinized Wasilla and much of Alaska is full of people thoroughly fed up with Palin.

In an unusual bit of good fortune, McGinniss, having determined that Alaska's most famous resident was worth a book, was offered a rental next door to Palin.  The mere beating of such odds strongly suggests Palin has a lot of enemies in Alaska in general and Wasilla in particular.  In investigative journalist fashion much more Confidential  than New Yorker, McGinniss gives us Sarah: having a fling with an NBA basketball player; doing drugs back when with First Dude Todd; coming up with easily doubted stories about the birth of son Trig suggesting she is not his mother; and as being committed to religious control of government in spite of not being sufficiently devout.  Oh, yes, the Palin family in all its dysfunctional glory is on board and, as described by McGinniss, not pretty.

She may be guilty of all his charges but McGinniss weakens his case with a disconcerting bitchy quality to his reportage and there are far too many stories told by "a friend," "one resident," and "a former resident."

On the other hand, if only one-quarter of McGinniss's stories can weather a scrutiny closer than the author's he said, she said conclusions, then Sarah Palin is, indeed, one of our major oddities worthy of the Koch quote about scaring the hell out of us.

McGinniss strikes just the right note with his last two paragraphs: What should never have been more than a freaky sideshow performed on a carnival midway was transformed by John McCain's desperation into what many still seem to see as the greatest show on earth.

Actually, it's long past time to strike the tent.

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You Can't Beat Fun....by Bob Sanders

 

A couple of weeks ago I reached into the past for some vignettes of laughter either experienced by me or told this unremitting appreciator of hilarity.

The following are more of the same and provide, I believe, further proof that seriousness is something we should avoid at any peril.

Some of the best stories come from the world of golf and it could be that a game both wondrous and reviling has contributed more humor than any other pursuit.

I first met actor Forrest Tucker in Tulsa when he and Larry Storch were promoting "F Troop" and we met, again, 18 months later at Lakeside Country Club, a hangout for the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.

Tucker was a terrific golfer playing to a 2 handicap at Lakeside while belong to four other clubs including England's Wentworth.  With skills honed in burlesque, Tucker gained considerable legitimate stage experience with impressive presence augmented by a highly commanding voice.  He made nearly 100 action films although his ingratiating Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside role in Auntie Mame was likely his best.

One day I ran into Tuck on the back side of Lakeside where I had hooked a drive on a lengthy par four.  The hole ran parallel to the one being played by the actor and he had pulled his shot so that his ball and mine were within a few feet of each other.  We exchanged greetings.

In his foursome was singer/actor Gordon MacRae whose golfing skills were equal to those of Tucker.  When it came to handicaps on the links, MacRae had two--the other being liquor.

"How you doing, Tuck?" I asked.

"Hey, Bob.  I'm doing 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."

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Among my great good fortunes in living a life includes working at the Cleveland Press in the early 50s.  I started off a copy boy and one of the delights of the job was being privy to the give and take that took place among the print troubadours who included stars, supporting players and supernumeraries of an enormously colorful newspaper.

Among the denizens of the paper's copy desk was a New York Irishman, Joe McCarthy, whose employment included the august Herald Tribune.  Dour of disposition, McCarthy had an unhealthy look about him.  It was as though the only light that had ever been cast upon him had come from a Budweiser sign.  The word was that he was a reformed alcoholic.

One day McCarthy came back from lunch and I could see he was positively glowing.  Demon rum was coursing through his veins as he returned to the copy desk; suddenly, he burst into a story about how he had put one over in the distant past on the Herald Trib's copy desk.  The newspaper business in those days made Tom Sawyers out of, otherwise mature adults and the role of copy boy was similar to being a golf caddy where close proximity to country club players provided insight into human kind.

Covering a police court, McCarthy observed Puerto Rican Jose Rodriguez, new to this country, attempting to persuade a judge that an arrest for having fighting game birds was insensitive to those fond of the sport.  Illustrative of Rodriguez's point of view was his bringing to court some caged birds.  McCarthy turned in his story that "played one edition until some smart ass editor noticed the lede and killed it."

McCarthy then pulled from a tattered wallet proof of his stunt--a dog eared clipping of his triumph with a lede that read: "Jose Rodriguez, 27, of 1341 Bloch Street, strode to the stand with cock in hand."

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Helen Hayes and Charles MacArthur have been gone long enough that introductions make sense.  She was one of our great stage actresses (Victoria Regina) who also performed splendidly on the screen (A Farewell to Arms) while he was a playwright whose work with Ben Hecht produced The Front Page eventually filmed a number of times with the Cary Grant/Rosalind Russell version (His Girl Friday) the best of the re-makes.

My favorite very touching romantic vignette is built aroiund their difficult early times, a park bench and a bag of peanuts.  It was in 1928, shortly after their marriage that they shared a Central Park bench while communicating their hopes and dreams that eventually came to exceptional fruition.  MacArthur offered his wife the bag of peanuts commenting: "I wish they were diamonds."

Many years later, the two acclaimed successes sat on the same bench that had become "their's."  MacArthur offered his wife a peanut bag containing diamonds and observed: "I wish they were peanuts."

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There are a lot of people still at the party who believe Charles O. Finley was crazy enough to be institutionalized.  Owner of the Kansas City Athletics midway through the last century (he later moved the team to Oakland winning three straight World Series (1972-74) and five straight division titles (1971-75), Finley was baseball's wild card with loopy ideas generated at a remarkable pace.

One involved "The Pennant Porch."  Enormously frustrated because he felt the confines of his ballpark did not accommodate his largely left-handed long ball hitting lineup, Finley called upon a Conference of Carpenters who quickly erected additional stands in right field so that routine fly balls could become home runs.

Bizarre developments followed as Finley became baseball's all-time Machiavelli.  Threatened by the American League president to tear down his creation, the devious Charles O. then had a three-foot alley sawed to the wall--a move of such flagrant deception that the press quickly called it a "Half-Pennant Porch."

Working for TV Guide in Kansas City, I read the magazine's advance piece about Finley's "creativity" written by Mel Durslag, an outstanding writer for the Los Angeles Examiner.  The story extolled Finley's imagination and represented the first positive look at the highly unique team owner.

I called Finley, read him the story, and pitched him about doing a promotional spot for the magazine.  He would be seen sitting in his half pennant porch while wearing an A's baseball cap.

A lengthy pause was followed by: "Well, Bob, that's a very interesting idea, but I can't do it."

"Howcum?"

"Well," said the man whose mode of transportation around an infield following home victories (accompanied by Looney Tunes music) was by mule, "it lacks dignity."

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George Davis was drama critic of the Cleveland Press when I worked there and a good one he was.  Well into his 80s at the time, Davis liked to drink in his stocking feet while banging out theatrical observations.  A tidy person, he was very inclined to create trails of newspaper pages which he followed while advancing to the conveniently located men's room.  Decidedly old-fashioned in his attire, the critic favored buttons over zippers.

One evening in the midst of evaluating the night's entertainment, he took the paper trail and was gone an extended period.  Working the 4 p.m. to midnight copy boy shift, I saw Davis re-enter the newsroom.  The elderly newsman was bent over and couldn't straighten up.

"I can't figure this out," complained Davis.  "I can't stand up, yet I don't feel any pain."

An examination of the puzzled reviewer revealed he had buttoned his fly to his vest.

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"Rin Tin Tin" by Susan Orlean...reviewed by Bob Sanders

 

Susan Orlean, whose The Orchid Thief  found the enormously able writer examining an obsession, is at it again with a nearly 100-year look at Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.  Be advised that any fond memories of a dog will make it difficult for the reader to put down the unlikely tale of a man who masterminded the creation of what was billboarded as America's Greatest Movie Dog.

The obsession in Rin Tin Tin is that of the dog's owner and trainer, Lee Duncan, who found the celebrity canine on a World War I battlefield in France.  Duncan's extreme devotion to his dog is similar to John Laroche's intense attachment in The Orchid Thief.

Orlean weaves three story developments in telling the compelling tale of a dog who achieved public recognition that grew into the cult of Rin Tin Tin.  There's the story of Duncan's bonding with and training of the dog; the Hollywood part of the story as Rinty (as intimates called him) achieving greatness in silent pictures; then the super dog's TV career when producer Herbert B. Leonard re-introduced him to audiences.  With an eye for rich detail, Orlean explains how Rinty (there were a great many over the years totalling a singular icon) fit in with the transformation of dogs from work animals to pets.  "Keeping an animal in the house as a companion is so common now," she writes, "that it's easy to forget how fundamentally odd it is, and what a leap it must have been to share living quarters with a nonhuman life form just to have their company."

Abandoned first by his father, then his mother when he was six, Duncan lived in an orphanage three years before his mother retrieved him and an older sister.  Lacking the ability to make normal human interaction, Duncan became dependent upon animals for lasting bonds.  His single-mindedness in creating a legendary super dog and the author's pursuit of a sprawling story are the book's recurring themes.

It was in a shelled kennel in eastern France that Duncan stumbled upon a newborn litter of German shepherd pups.  In an unfinished memoir, Duncan wrote that Rinty "crept right into a lonesome place in my life and...became a part of me."  Although the dog was found in September, 1918, Rinty's greatness didn't become obvious until he was filmed in slow motion by a friend of Duncan's.  The footage of Rinty jumping over an obstacle nearly 12 feet high wound up on newsreels resulting in a Warner Bros. contract.

Rin Tin Tin's enormous silent film success was in 23 productions that saved the studio from bankruptcy on a regular basis. He was then the most famous dog in the world; at the height of his popularity, he was filmdom's number one box office star receiving 50,000 fan letters a month.  Duncan became very wealthy.

"A dog was at no disadvantage," writes Orlean, "to a human in silent film; both species had the same set of tools for telling a story--action, expression, gesture.  In fact, an animal acting without words looked natural and didn't fall into pantomime and exaggeration the way human actors in silent film often did." 

The original Rin Tin Tin died in 1932 and the Hollywood rumor mill had the dog dying in the arms of handy Jean Harlow who was living across the street.

Talkies were tough on Rinty whose contract was terminated shortly before the dog's death.  It wasn't until 1954 that Leonard brought him back in the huge TV success, "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin."  The show played in more than 70 countries and became so popular in the U.S. that nearly one-third of the television sets in the country were tuned to the show.

Leonard is one of many odd characters who wander in and out of Orlean's impressively researched story.  Caring nothing about dogs, Leonard sought out Duncan who held TV in low esteem.  It was Leonard, whose other tube triumphs include "Route 66" and "Naked City," who "antagonized everyone he ever knew," according to one insider as Orlean pieces together who did what to whom in those early days of TV production.  Some of Leonard's more significant battles are with Ralph Cohn, founder of Screen Gems and nephew of the outrageous Harry Cohn, head of parent company Columbia Pictures.  Leonard, whose extravagances included four wives and a gambling addiction (at least one studio assumed his losses contractually),  wound up sleeping in cars and homes of friends.  Orlean has to have so much Herb Leonard material that she must be tempted to crank out a book about him.  On the other hand, Sammy Glick in Hollywood has already been done.

One of the particularly insightful passages of Orlean's writing occurs near the book's end; more than anything else, it explains why she was so drawn to the dog:.."I was used to the idea that everything connected to Rin Tin Tin was full of happenstance and charm, lightning strikes of fortune and hairpin turns of luck; from a standstill, life around Rin Tin Tin always seemed to accelerate out of the depths of disappointment to a new place filled with possibility.  Just like that, wonderful things happened to someone who otherwise would have been luckless, friendless, abandoned.  This is what the story of Rin Tin had become in my mind--a myth--and why it had drawn me in, as it had drawn in all these other people.  The facts were all interesting, but they were mere armature; the rest was like an ancient legend, wondrous, lifting everything around it, as buoyant as a dream."

Orlean, a Clevelander and graduate of the University of Michigan, has been a New Yorker magazine writer since 1992.  The Orchid Thief, one of several books, formed the basis of a film script by Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze.  The film, Adaptation,   portrayed Orlean (played by Meryl Streep) as Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation in which orchids were transformed into a fictional psychoactive substance.

Now, go get the book if you haven't already.  Susan Orlean's pursuit of detail is extraordinary, her insight also at that level.  She is simply one of our very best writers.     

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Frank: The Voice....A review by Bob Sanders

 

I finally caught up with James Kaplan's ring-a-dingdingally good Frank: The Voice and, once again, became intrigued by the two Sinatras; one, a singer of remarkable sensitivity able to communicate in thoroughly entrancing fashion, the other an often highly immature, nasty, selfish oaf who fraternized with hoodlums in an apparent attempt to further a reputation for being tough. 

The book, of more than 700 pages,  while largely a re-write of many of the tomes about the entertainer, is a penetratingly good one comprehensively researched.  Like Gary Giddons' examination of Bing Crosby (A Pocketfull of Dreams), it takes the reader up to the break-through moment in the life of a musical sensation.  The Crosby book ended with his entry into films having concentrated on his development as an artist in addition to stories of palship with such notables as Hoagy Carmichael, Bix Beiderbecke, the Rhythm Boys and other members of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra who enjoyed a drink or ten.  Unlike, Sinatra, Crosby was regarded favorably by the public thanks to astute public relations and The Groaner's ability to confine his shortcomings largely to the home.  He was, by nearly all accounts, a complete antithesis of the merry, nice guy next-door screen presence.  Kaplan devotes considerable space in the Sinatra book to Crosby and for good reason.  It was Sinatra's worship of Crosby that inspired a career built on a lot of talent buoyed by intense determination.

Kaplan takes a warts and all approach to the finger-snapping singer from Hoboken, NJ in a kind of hip, semi-wise guy fashion--particularly when telling of gangster connections, piggish behavior and insensitive endings of relationships with women including Ava Gardner.  Yes, Ava is there along with Lana Turner, Marilyn Maxwell and women of less notoriety.  Actually, Ava, according to Kaplan, drove Sinatra up a lot of walls including one time in Palm Springs when the two of them had serious spat #187 (or whatever) with Sinatra taking off for the desert community presumably to resume a relationship with Turner.  Gardner, a good friend of Turner, beat Sinatra to Palm Springs as another Hollywood tale unfolded.  Good reporter Kaplan takes us through a number of versions of that overly-reported story including Kitty Kelley's His Way.  A bibliography of 127 suggests how much digging the author did to come up with what is, above all, a fair look at a most complicated performer.

Many of the musicians who played roles in Sinatra's early days as a band singer are there.  Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers, Jack Leonard (he preceded The Voice as the boy singer in Tommy Dorsey's band), Harry James & The Music Makers, song writer Jimmy Van Heusen (worth a book himself), Dick Haymes, Alec Wilder (the vastly underrated, eccentric, self-taught composer) and drummer Buddy Rich, a Sinatra nemesis whether it was women or tempos.  Anecdotes of musicians and their lives on the road are particularly effective while providing enormous insight.  The reader gets a vivid sense of what the Rustic Cabin was like when Sinatra waited on tables in the New Jersey joint and sang for his supper while learning his craft before discovery by James. 

One of the book's delights involves the circumstances of some of the 1,300 songs recorded by Sinatra.  Kaplan is particularly adroit at analyzing Sinatra's style revealing small but significant differences between the live and recorded singer.  "Four nights later, on an NBC radio broadcast from the Astor Roof, Sinatra sang 'I'll Never Smile Again' to another houseful of upper-crusters.  The air check of the number reveals a small but striking difference from the recording: on the radio version's out chorus (the last words sung in the song) as Sinatra sings 'Within my heart, I know I will never start/To smile again, until I smile at you,' he uses the vocal trick he'd discovered back at the Rustic Cabin, a breathy little catch in his voice, in this case before the initial h of 'heart.'  It's a small thing, a showman-like touch that would have made no sense on a recording but all the sense in the world before a live crowd--a naked play for the hearts of the rich girls in the audience.  Calculated, and thoroughly effective."

A fan of the Pied Pipers, I once sat next to Jo Stafford on the dais of a Kansas City Advertising Club luncheon where Stafford was a special guest, not the main speaker she should have been.  What a delight.  She was funny, a great teller of stories, totally engaging and the best lead singer of vocal groups I ever heard.  We spoke of Sinatra and her comments about him were almost word-for-word what Kaplan got from her some 50 years later.  "When you sing with a group, it takes a certain amount of discipline, and Frank was excellent at it," Stafford said.  "You can't wander off into your own phrasing.  You've got to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.  Very few solo singers can do that.  He could.  When he sang with us, he was a Piper, and he liked it, and did it well.  I don't know any other solo singer, solo male singer especially, that can do that."

Some of Sinatra's not so supporting players come off worse than others.  Hardly surprising, Louis B. Mayer is his usual suspicious, small and vindictive self while being critical of his MGM singer/actor property during a period when Mayor's mistress was former Kay Kyser singer, Ginny Simms.  Simms, vivacious and appealing, was something less than beautiful and some thought her a bit horse faced.  Sinatra had fun with that one.  Seated one day in the MGM commissary, someone threw him a provocative line: "Hey, did you hear about L.B.'s accident?"  Not missing a beat, Sinatra replied: "Yeah, I hear he fell off of Ginny Simms."  The incident immediately preceded the actor's leaving the studio.

Earl Wilson, whose Sinatra: An Unauthorized Biography gets heavy usage by Kaplan, comes off as a guy desperately wanting to be considered a Sinatra intimate.  His column items reflecting various stages of the singer's career--particularly the seemingly never-ending series of Gardner/Sinatra fights--suggests he asked a lot of dumb and self-serving questions.

A typical Wilson/Gardner scene occurred shortly before the actress filmed "Mogambo."   She and the columnist met "in a large eatery run by a large eater" (probably Toots Shor's) and the column item suggests an editor had complainted about Wilson plugs for "eateries."  Continue Wilson, "I happened to mention her Herculean husband whom she considers has negleted her, which--if it's true--makes him this century's man of iron."  Wilson then asks if he can be an intermediary and the onslaught of drivel continues.  

There has always been an understandable disconnect between segments of the public and artists whose personal lives are less than exemplary.  There's the Charlie Chaplin of all his cinematic triumphs and The Tramp's suggested but never proven communist sympathies.  The right's disenchantment with Hollywood goes back to Chaplin.  He was the first movieland "enemy" and it wasn't long before McCarthyism began doing damage to a bunch of people who didn't deserve it.  Kaplan's telling of the Sinatra saga includes the singer's early liberalism but, because the book ends with the career-changing Best Supporting Oscar for his role in From Here to Eternity (1954), we don't learn of his switch to conservatism because of what he felt was a social slight by John F. Kennedy.

Mitch Miller, who produced Sinatra's largely disappointing recordings at Columbia Records, comes off better than expected.  It was Miller who tangled with the singer over such fare as "Mama Will Bark."  The recording, possibly the worst of Sinatra's career, was done at the depths of his career.  The "Mama" on the record was Dagmar (her straight name was Virginia Ruth Egnor) whose description as a "tall, eye-poppingly buxom West Virginia blonde" is not nearly sufficient.  According to Kaplan, Sinatra did not squawk when Miller broached the tune.  The author also reveals that Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Stafford and others had to pay for their own recording sessions.

If there's a hero in the book, it's George Evans, a brilliant PR guy who guided Sinatra's career through nearly all the time covered in the book.  Evans was enormously creative, far seeing, loyal, and of tremendous energy.  It was Evans who gave Sinatra the tag that never left him: The Voice.  Evans invented the bobby sox hysteria that provided the singer such overwhelming attention which, nevertheless, brought a great deal of grief to the publicist; Sinatra was not an easy going employer.  Evans, more than a savvy PR practitioner, somehow worked his success in a quaint era where such a thing as bad publicity actually existed; he painted the singer as mostly a family man in spite of reality's red flags.  No one thus far has been named the inventor of spin, but George Evans' name has to be right up there should such a determination be pursued.

While there is little new in Sinatra: The Voice, the writing is crisp and the research exhausting.  James Kaplan has succeeded in giving us a much better understanding of an American icon who dramatically changed popular culture.   

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"Prohibition"....by Bob Sanders

 

Fourth Corner TV viewers fortunate enough to have seen Ken Burns' absorbing documentary, "Prohibition," probably are unaware there's a second shoe that, understandably, never dropped during the fascinating look at Roy Olmstead, a featured bootlegger in part two of the three-part PBS series.  First a cop, then Seattle's biggest mover of booze, Olmstead received a lot of attention from Burns.

That second shoe involves what happened after Olmstead, a Robin Hood-like character, was finally done in by a series of events during the last four months of 1924.  It was in September of that year that a trusted Olmstead lieutenant turned informant revealing intimate details of Olmstead's operation.  A series of raids by federal agents, aided by wiretaps and surveillance on Olmstead's home, was followed by the bootlegger's arrest November 17 of that year.  Arrested with him: a wife and 15 guests.

Because of time constraints involved in packing a sprawling and complicated story into five and one-half hours, Burns was understandably unable to expand upon Olmstead's remarkable tale by including material likely of interest only to people of the Pacific Northwest.

Let's back up a bit while adding details.  Olmstead had joined the Seattle police force in 1907 rising through the ranks to be named its youngest lieutenant in 1917.  That was one year after the State of Washington became one of 23 states to enforce "dry laws" that produced Prohibition.  It was while making bootlegging arrests that Olmstead noticed a lack of "professionalism" among the criminals and decided he could do a better job.  Soon, as the Burns film indicates, he was making more in a week than he could as a cop in 20 years.  His entrepreneurial spirit was reminiscent of Willie Sutton who targeted banks because "that's where the money is."

Olmstead's rum-running success, whose key factor was proximity to Canadian liquor where there were no prohibitive laws, lasted nearly four years.  Early on, his criminal activities were discovered and his police career was over.  His only charge was a $500 fine; the experience strengthened a belief that bootlegging offered more advantages than police work.

Olmstead also changed wives marrying Elise Caroline Parch, something of a dazzler whom he met in the summer of 1924.  They wed August 5 of that whirlwind year.  Friends observed Elise as quite an improvement over former wife, Viola, and it was the young and vivacious Englishwoman (they met in Vancouver, B.C.) who maneuvered Olmstead into purchasing a knockout of a mansion in the Mt. Baker area.

Possessor of an agile mind, Olmstead had become interested in the possibilities offered by new-fangled radio broadcasting and a logical progression of thought produced an exciting use of extra space in his home.  Whether Burns chose to ignore Olmstead's creation of a radio station in his mansion (a matter of record) or because, as Seattle author Emmett Watson learned, all of the bootlegger's police records were destroyed, is anybody's guess.

Evidence does exist that Olmstead's radio station, KFQX, was Seattle's first; further, the station's broadcasts were from what had been a bedroom in the home the two often referred to as their "snow white palace."  The good times rolled in Olmstead's Gatsby-like existence with old-timers insisting that wife Elise's dulcet English voice was employed to signal rum-running boats in Puget Sound through codes sprinkled among Mother Goose rhymes and Hans Christian Andersen stories.

Alise's broadcast persona was as "Aunt Vivian" who read to "children" of the Puget Sound as twilight approached for the daytime-only station.  Those possessed of a sense of humor wondered if more appropriate station call letters might be KRUM?  It is now the venerable and all-news KOMO.

Since those were the days before radio newspaper columns and awards shows, there are no records indicating the quality of the programs originating in the Tara of Radio.  The only audience that really mattered: crews of rum-running boats.  In retrospect, it appears radio neophyte Olmstead was stumbling around in what would become the hallowed halls of broadcast narrowcasting.

During all of this, Olmstead was a popular member of a Seattle society aware that more than half of the city's police force was in on the game.  Although rum-running was hardly a walk in the park, Olmstead's employees were prohibited from carrying firearms.  He was often quoted as saying he would rather lose a shipment of booze than a life.

Not to stray too far from the core of this story, but the online Encyclopedia of Washington State History insists Alfred M. Hubbard, a young inventor, built the radio station in a spare bedroom of the Olmstead mansion.  Highly mysterious, Hubbard has various online accreditations including being called "the Johnny Appleseed of LSD."  Apparently, he also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) later called the CIA.  It was Hubbard who informed on Olmstead in the fall of 1924, a career move for the young man who swapped life in the mansion to become a prohibition agent that led to the CIA gig.

Thanks to Hubbard, the booze balloon burst on Thanksgiving Day, 1924 when the mansion was invaded by gendarmes including Federal Agent William Whitney, long an Olmstead nemesis.  The November 27 date was big in New York as the first Macy's Parade and even bigger in Seattle with a scene that would have worked in The Untouchables.  Whitney arrested the Olmsteads and, perhaps inspired by the show business setting, began making phone calls to area bootleggers urging them to come to a party ("don't forget to bring some booze") by doing a voice impression of the rum-runner/broadcaster.  The heavily attended party saw 48 revelers charged with breaking the laws of Prohibition.  Details of the rollicking party and Olmstead's remarkable life are told in Watson's book, Once Upon a Time in Seattle.  

Olmstead was sentenced to four years in the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary and fined $8,000.  With his bootlegging empire in disarray, Olmstead dispatched an underling with orders to re-locate Station KFQX.  He chose Aberdeen, a particularly quiet community in the southwest corner of the state.  Enter Rogan Jones, a businessman and owner of the building chosen by the Olmstead lieutenant to house the station.  Within a few weeks, the station was closed down by the Feds and Jones, whose knowledge of radio equaled an ability to write Sanskrit, eventually inherited KFQX because no one wanted it.  He had become a broadcaster in the strangest of ways.

That was in 1928 and he quickly achieved success although Aberdeen had its limitations.  Looking about, Jones learned that Bellingham, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, had a dormant station available. 

Like Roy Olmstead, Louis Kessler had established a Seattle station in his home.  With call letters KVOS (Voice of Seattle), he began broadcasting in 1926 from an apartment on tony Queen Anne Hill.  A bit overwhelmed by the big city, Kessler moved the station to Bellingham where it folded.

Jones became a huge success in Bellingham.  The future member of the Broadcast Hall of Fame was a natural in his new-found career.  The public appreciated his approach to broadcasting--particularly his battle with the wire services.  While so much of broadcast news today builds its stories around published reports (the New York Times is the most utilized), it wasn't always so.  Back in Jones' time, the wire services refused to sell stories to radio stations.  Jones told his news staff to rewrite newspaper copy and in 1936 the Supreme Court backed him up in a landmark decision.  He then created KVOS-TV largely because the Vancouver area had but one station.  That was in 1953 and much of the advertising placed on the channel was Canadian.  A signal tower atop Orcas Island's Mt. Constitution (elevation 2,400 ft.) did not hurt.

Jones had become the recipient of what critics caustically called "a license to steal" but he became a much-loved and respected broadcaster because of his sense of public service.

The old KVOS radio is now KGMI, a station whose far right programming (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al.) is in stark contrast to its origins.  Burns would enjoy the abundant ironies as would Jones, an outspoken liberal, and Olmstead whose life took new direction even before his release from prison in 1935.  Franklin D. Roosevelt granted a full presidential pardon with the $8,000 fine and $2,288 court costs returned.  It would be nice to report that wife Alice of the dulcet voice continued her broadcast career and became "The Singing Lady" or some other significant performer but such was not the case.  She filed for divorce in 1943 claiming Olmstead "deserted her without just cause."

Olmstead wasn't finished with his already highly interesting life.  Having converted to the Christian Science faith while in prison, he spent a great deal of time visiting jails and working with prisoners while castigating demon rum.  Headquartering his ministry in an obscure downtown Seattle office, Olmstead lived an exemplary life his remaining 35 years.  He became everything he wasn't during the first 44.  

The twists and turns of the story are complex but certain conclusions are rather easy.  If Roy Olmstead had not switched careers and become a bootlegger, it's extremely doubtful that Rogan Jones would have become a broadcast pioneer.  Further, had Louis Kessler not failed as a Bellingham broadcaster, the city's FCC license would not have been available to Jones.  Taking another look backwards, the Aberdeen station location, hurriedly switched from Seattle, would not have become a reality had an Olmstead aide not turned informer sending the cop turned bootlegger to prison.

One wonders how our own lives might have been affected had those of greatest impact on us taken different turns in the road? 

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Clifford Parker Robertson III....by Bob Sanders

 

Clifford Parker Robertson III, who died a couple of weeks ago, was the nicest and most ethical actor I have yet to meet.  A true Renaissance man whose achievements included a Best Actor Academy Award for his 1968 portrayal of Charly, Robertson experienced a lot of breaks in life--uncommonly good and bad.

His parents, a wealthy La Jolla, California couple, divorced when he was one and his mother died when he was two.  Never close to his father who married three more times, he was raised by a grandmother.  As a highly dependable actor of some 60 films covering six decades, he may be best known not for his acting but his taking on the Hollywood establishment.  That was nearly 35 years ago when a Hollywood embezzler, doing what came naturally, forged Robertson's name on a check for $10,000.  It wasn't a hell of a lot of money and the forger was a studio head, David Begelman.  President of Columbia Pictures, Begelman had practiced more significant forms of larceny on people like Judy Garland.  For more about Garland and Begelman, read Rainbow's End (1993) by Coyne Steven Sanders.  Those free-wheeling days of the 60s when, with Freddie Fields, Begelman founded Creative Management, were full of duplicity.  The CM edge in the marketplace was packaging the shop's talent to make bigger and better films.

There was a whole lot bilking going on in those days.  There are remarkable stories of writers being stiffed in spite of work that resulted in huge box office success.  Thievery, like stealing signals in professional baseball, has always been looked upon within the industry as business as usual.  It's quite likely that contemporary Wall Street manipulators have been inspired on occasion by Hollywood commandments of thievery including the primo suggestion that thou shalt always take something off the top. 

Begelman underestimated Robertson.  The actor didn't need money; he had it very early on as a result of his adoptive father, Clifford Parker Robertson II, whose idleness was somewhat understandable because of inherited ranching money.  Things got even better later on for Cliff when he married actress Dina Merrill, a second wife whose parents were both extremely wealthy.  Merrill, still at the party, is the only child of Post Cereal heiress Marjorie Merriwether Post and Wall Streeter EF Hutton.

Robertson was a frequent critic of the movie industry and once was quoted early on in his career as saying he moved to Hollywood from New York and television "to work and never to live."  It has always been the Paul Newmans, the Al Pacinos, the Elia Kazans, and the Robert De Niros who live on the East Coast, often in New York.  It's a lifestyle decision not easily understood by Hollywood regulars.  Robertson was a natural opponent if there ever was one and, as a filmland rebel, type casting.  

Like many actors who found it difficult to move from TV to film, he starred in Days of Wine and Roses on television, but lost the movie role to Jack Lemmon.  Another disappointment was missing out on the film version of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending (re-titled The Fugitive Kind) to Marlon Brando.  Robertson's Broadway performance was outstanding but Brando's box office appeal was too much.  A fixture in TV's golden age, Robertson appeared often on "The Chrysler Theater," "The United States Steel Hour," "Playhouse 90" and other popular programs.  When he finally made it to film, he was personally chosen by John F. Kennedy to play him in P.T. 109 (1963).  Other significant people played by Robertson include Henry Ford, Hugh Hefner and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Begelman had a hard time in 1977 believing that Robertson had gone to the cops.  The actor, obviously, was not playing the game; Begelman had written two other phony checks made out to cash that day with no complaints.  The head of Columbia Pictures had his case heard corporately by two powerful board members neither of whom knew that Begelman's claim that he was a college graduate and lawyer (Yale) was untrue.  It was further proof that Hollywood lies are even more common than stars on the town's sidewalks.  Begelman got a slap on the wrist by the film studio and a plea bargain was achieved with the law.  His community service was the production of a short film ("Angel Dust") that warned kids about drugs, and the thief got off the hook.  Four years later he was named to an even more prestigious position.

Robertson was the guy on the right side of the law when Begelman forged the actor's check, but that didn't matter in the film capitol.  According to Columbia insiders, Begelman suffered from intense self-hatred.  Robertson was blackballed by the industry and didn't work for nearly four years.  I met him in the summer of 1980, the last of my five years with Field Enterprises, then the corporate arm of such firms as the Chicago Sun-Times/Daily News, Encyclopaedia Brittanica and real estate in Chicago and Boston.

It was Marshall Field who sent me to Jacksonville, Illinois for a weekend's "work" at MacMurray College, a four-year liberal arts school with an enrollment of about 500 students.  I was to help Cliff Robertson raise money for the school.  it was all very social and somewhat murky.  I got my marching orders on one day's notice, and never learned of Field's connection to the college.  My best guess is that an alumnae put the arm on a guy whose only link to the film industry was half-brother Ted Field, then thinking of leaving auto racing for film production.  He made the move and Mr. Holland's Opus and Three Men and a Baby have been among his efforts.  Somehow, Robertson and I got roped in.

Robertson was highly available in 1980 because of the Begelman matter.  Further, his nemesis was enjoying remarkable success largely on the basis of impressive box office winners including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kramer vs Kramer and Shampoo.  It was in 1980 that, to little surprise, Begelman signed a four-year contract as president and CEO of MGM, later heading up United Artists/MGM when a merger was pulled off the following year.  Hollywood loves a "winner" and Begelman was that--at least temporarily.  It's not easy being a non-person in Hollywood and, according to Robertson, people told him: "I set a dangerous precedent."  Ex-wife Merrill (they divorced in 1986) once suggested: "if I had played the game, I would have owned the town."  Robertson was not that kind of game player nor did he want to own a town--particularly one short on ethics.

A radio/journalism student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Cliff was a very good writer whose efforts were a factor in Charly being named Best Picture in 1969.  The film, in which he played a lovable baker with an I.Q. of a five-year-old, was a subject of discussion that weekend at MacMurray.  Robertson had written a sequel and hoped to bring it to the screen.  It took some six months before he would be embraced, again, by Hollywood where his acting was often more compelling than his films.

The MacMurray weekend was almost entirely social.  Robertson schmoozed hoped-for contributors and made those already involved feel singled out when engaged in conversation.  It was a series of thoroughly winning connections with strangers.  The genuine character of the man was impressive and the college drop-out enjoyed rubbing elbows with academia.  Positive word about our efforts (I had some success with regional press) drifted back to Field who thanked me the following Monday.  Robertson had flown me back to Chicago along with the plane's owner, some guy who owned a chain of jewelry stores and was a MacMurray alumnae--maybe the fellow who solicited Field.  Cliff's love of flying was expressed by him in the air and he mentioned hanging around a San Diego airport as a youngster doing odd jobs in exchange for flying hours.  I got the impression that the actor was happiest while flying.  A long-time member of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Robertson co-founded the EAA's Young Eagles Program.  Owner of a number of classic planes, he was flying a Beechcraft Baron over the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 when the first Boeing 767 struck.  He was ordered to land immediately as were all aircraft on the fateful day.

When we landed at O'Hare, Cliff insisted I join him for an early dinner at the Carson, Pirie Scott Restaurant at the airport.  Once again, Robertson came off as a warm, outgoing guy of enormous humanity who took great delight in his life.  Father of two daughters, Cliff would lose Heather Merriwether Robertson in 2007 when she died of cancer in Buenos Aires.  She was 38.

I saw Robertson nearly three years later at a press conference in Chicago to promote the highly forgettable Youngblood.  Cliff's Hollywood ban had been lifted and he and star Jacqueline Bisset were in town hoping for attention from reviewers who included Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert--both in print and on TV where their "At the Movies" had clicked.  I had the chance to ask Robertson if there was anything new (we had corresponded in the interim) regarding the Charly sequel.  There wasn't.

Begelman's contract with MGM was not renewed and he spent much of the next 11 years running rather badly two small production companies.  Bankruptcy followed.  On August 8, 1995, he took a room at a Century City luxury hotel, spent some time with an ex-wife of singer Tony Bennett, made a few phone calls, and committed suicide by way of the gun he was prone to carry.,

Reflecting upon his role in the Begelman scandal in a New York Times interview, Robertson had reasoned: "I never intended to play Don Quixote and I don't intend to go out looking for more windmills, I can tell you.  I love making movies too much."

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Brooks & Cavett Together Again....by Bob Sanders

 

In a brilliant piece of counter-programming, HBO is to be commended for its decision to schedule a wildly funny Dick Cavett interview of Mel Brooks during a weekend overwhelmingly devoted to 9/11.  Titled Together Again, it's as funny as funny gets.

There can be no denying the significance of Twin Towers terror and its effect upon this nation.  There is, however, an unfortunate inclination on our part to think of the event solely in terms of America but the truth is that 372 foreign nationals from 90 countries were among those who perished.  As this country momentarily came together like no other time since World War II, it was strange, even bizarre, when George W. Bush failed to place proper emphasis on the world-wide aspect of the tragedy.  It wasn't The Decider's only terrible decision during a failed presidency but so it went.  Having watched a great deal of television dealing with 9/11 last weekend, I am unaware of any reference to those 372 deaths other than President Obama's overseas guidelines which awkwardly included them as in: "we honor all victims of terrorism in every nation around the world."

Cavett, now 75, is no stranger to the interview game and Brooks, whose triumphs include The Producers, Blazing Saddlesand (with Carl Reiner) and The 2,000 Year-Old Man, is one of the great crazies whose list is not nearly long enough.  Certainly, Jonathan Winters, with whom I once spent three hours, belongs on it.  My recollection is that it took my stomach at least a week to recover from his inspired dementia.

While occasionally accused these days of being in the final stages of old fartism, I feel it's a shame that we see so little of the highly civil Cavett who, if age has to be a consideration, is nearly 20 years younger than the dyspeptic yet oddly venerable Andy Rooney who continues to growl at us for what are but two CBS minutes a month.  Perhaps it's time to suggest we have heard enough about Andy's office, items in his office, shrinking coffee cans, kitchen gadgets, plus boring letters and items sent by viewers.

Admittedly, Rooney has not dealt with depression.  It was in 1980 that Cavett suffered what he describes as his "biggest depressive episode."  On board a Concorde prior to take off, he was removed from the plane later undergoing electroconvulsive therapy.  It worked and he has never been reluctant to talk about a problem that began during his freshman year at Yale.  Five years before the Concorde incident, Cavett began taking prescribed antidepressant medication.  Thirty-one years without a recurrence suggests he is out of the psychiatric woods.

It's quite possible that Cavett's major problem is simply being too good in a business still producing laughs by way of the banana peel and the pie in the face.  There are people like Jay Leno who, in your scribe's humble opinion, comes off as the funniest guy in an average American Legion bar.  George Lopez is another and there are further suggestions that America's dumbing down has lessened our appreciation of humor.

Cavett, born in Nebraska like Johnny Carson, scratched around in New York as a TV extra, typist, mystery shopper in department stores, and a copy boy at Time, then hooked on with Jack Paar, first as a gag writer.  Among his famous lines, an introduction of a busty actress: "Here they are, Jayne Mansfield."  Cavett also wrote for Carson.

Obviously influenced by Groucho Marx and the singular wit of S.J. Perelman, Cavett had a brief career as a stand-up comic producing such commentary as:

"Somehow, I don't think the caviar was the finest--I don't know much about caviar, but I do know you're not supposed to get pictures of ballplayers with it."

An even better one, also about a dining experience, involved exotic food: "I went to a Chinese-German restaurant.  The food is great, but an hour later you're hungry for power."

Cavett's dining adventures reminds me of a favorite relative by marriage, a third-generation Chinese whose name was Harry Chan who, unfortunately, left the party five years ago.  Chan, father of actresses Meg and Jennifer Tilly, was a guest at a wedding reception in Grand Island, Nebraska where, coincidentally, Cavett once lived.  Cocktail in hand, Chan found himself on an un-screened clubhouse veranda in the midst of a beastly hot summer.  The mosquitoes were out in full force when Chan became aware of a very elderly woman watching him with intense interest.  She approached him, they introduced themselves, and the woman asked:

"Mr. Chan, I'm aware that the mosquitoes are biting everyone but you.  Is there a reason?"

"Yes, mam," replied Chan.  Those mosquitoes know that if they bite Harry Chan, they'll be hungry in 20 minutes."

It was while doing stand-up that Cavett once had fun with a drunken female heckler who suggested: "I pay your salary, buddy, with my hard-earned money."  Replied Cavett: "And I'm tempted to guess at your profession."

Brooks is not everybody's cup of oolong largely because of an inclination to milk laughs from such subjects as Hitler and gas passing; thus far he has resisted melding the two but you never know about Brooks.  A lot of his Jewish friends couldn't handle "Springtime for Hitler" but taste judgments involve a variety of mouths.  Germans have always been striking comedic fodder for Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky) as in The Producers'  Franz Liebkind who suggests:

"Not many people know it, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer" and later: "Hitler...there was a painter!  He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon!  TWO coats!

Cavett writes of meeting Brooks for the first time in his September 9 New York Times online column.  Ballantine Beer, having determined to start a new commercial campaign, hired Brooks to be "The 2,500 Year-Old Brewmaster" and needed a Reiner replacement to interview the sudsy veteran.  Brooks walked into the studio, took a look at the slight and very waspy Cavett, then pronounced him: "Spectacularly gentile!"  The story is in the HBO special programmed for repeats the rest of the month.

The special includes an appearance by Reiner who explains how The 2000 Year-Old Man was created.  I had the enormous pleasure of meeting Reiner in 1966 at a Universal Studios party heralding the start of NBC's "Saturday Night Movies."  I recall the evening rather vividly having sat next to a very funny Leslie Nielsen at dinner and drinking at a nearby Lankersham Ave. bar afterwards with Robert Wagner and TV  Guide's Joe Finnigan.  Then divorced from Natalie Wood (they would re-marry in six years), Wagner spoke very ill of Wood's mother making clear momma was a major factor in the divorce. 

I guess my good fortune that night in meeting Reiner, another comedy genius, was evident as we shook hands following an introduction by Finnigan.  "You are a very enthusiastic hand shaker," he observed and I said something inane about there being good reasons and how much I had enjoyed his fun over the years.  Seizing upon the handshake as a comedic springboard, Reiner began a handshake shtick in which I was the recipient (playing straight-hand, so to speak) in his concept of how famous people might handle the social greeting.  As a recall, the folks he had fun with, as a crowd gathered, included John Wayne, Liberace and left-handed Dodgers hurling ace Sandy Koufax who, in pitching parlance, came over the top.  I don't believe Hitler was among Reiner's victims.

While on the subject of handshakes, I wonder if Reiner ever succeeded in greeting comedian Howie Mandel in that fashion.  Chances are overwhelmingly against it since Mandel, now bald by choice believing he is cleaner that way, suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder.  Called mysophobia, it's an irrational fear of germs; Mandel's solution is the fist pound.

Reiner is used very effectively in the HBO interview of Brooks by Cavett.  Seated in the audience, Reiner explains howThe 2000 Year-Old Man came about.  It's a great way to explain Brooks' genius as our greatest filmmaker of spoof, shed light on how Reiner can ignite Brooks' creativity, and make clear why Cavett is the best interviewer working today, albeit, in a much-too-limited fashion.  The Alfred Hitchcock stories drawn from Brooks are remarkable.  Perhaps the most revealing tale by Brooks involves a recreation of a Jerry Lewis-like walk that figured into his most embarrassing moment ever.  The fact that the story was kept in the show provides evidence of the honesty prevalent in the making of Together Again.

During the course of the show, Brooks' films are mentioned prompting enthusiastic applause.  At one point, something like one-third of the audience responds.  Brooks, modestly holding up a hand, responds: "Please: Either a lot, or nothing."  Cavett nearly falls out of his chair.

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Going the Statue Mile....by Bob Sanders

 

Understanding judgments by and of the art world these days is, as Johnny Carson used to say, "a caution."  There are times when even Carson's Karnak the Magnificent would be mystified.

Americans get increasingly stirred up over art with statues still leading the league.  Take the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, still looking for a dedication date after the scheduled one was washed out by Hurricane Irene.  Administered by the National Park Service, the memorial's design was awarded ROMA Design Group from among 900.  Cost of the project, named the Stone of Hope, is $120 million with all but $8 million raised by the end of last year.  Among the public donors are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Walt Disney Company Foundation, the National Association of Realtors (perhaps, making amends for yellow and red lining activities of past members), and filmmaker George Lucas.

The ROMA people saved $8 million by having the memorial made in China, perhaps a mistake if you agree with questioning letters to editors, angry blogs, and the twittering brilliance of the uninformed.  It was the China angle that really set people on a bumptious outpouring initiated in 2006 when Lei Yixin was announced sculptor of the memorial's centerpiece.  One of the loudest voices was that of human rights activist Harry Wu who complained that Lei had once sculpted Mao.  This is something like leveling artistic criticism against David Zucker for directing O.J. Simpson in two sequels of Naked Gun.

The China critics are vehement in their belief that the memorial to the iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in America falls short of what was anticipated.  They include a number of African-American artists and let's not forget the Washington area local of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsworkers union screaming about the Chinese laborers factor.  They came into play after the foundation gave written promises to use local stonemasons.

While this country loses world ranking in nearly every aspect of human endeavor, there is no questioning its unique ability to screw things up like no other.  We learned Wednesday that we're down to #41 in maternal health.

Even the selection of granite was fraught with frustration.  That was in 2008 when the memorial design team took an inspection tour of China and determined that its granite is superior to ours.

Oh, yes.  There were complaints that the King sculpture was "Chinese looking."  This slant-eyed business has been bruited about before and there is nothing like an Asian-appearing Mickey Mouse or Martin Luther King to rile us up.  Other complaints about Yixin's work use such words as "weak," "communist roots," and, most damaging of all, "too white."

Money, of course, reared its repugnant head with revelations the King family had negotiated, among other things, an $800,000 licensing deal for the use of Dr. King's words and image in fundraising materials for the memorial.  That was two years ago and the Kings have been increasingly involved including approval of the statue.  

Oddly enough, there have been almost no complaints about the statue's body language.  Those who know about such things tell us 55 per cent of our communications are done that way, a commentary all its own regarding the 29 ft. King statue so tied to his "I Have a Dream" speech.  King is depicted with arms folded across his chest while clutching a scroll of papers, not the more appropriate Bible.  There are words the body language people use to describe such a pose: "nervous," "negative," insecure," and "uncertain."  None apply to Dr. King.

Significant objects of aggravation are statues of Civil War Confederate generals whose activities, during what they called the war between the states, continue to be criticized by those usually located north (but hardly exclusively) of the Mason-Dixon Line.

A bizarre statue, made of fiberglass, is located seven miles south of Nashville on Route I-65.  Seated on a horse and brandishing a sword, Gen. Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, thought by many historians the best cavalry general of the war, also is honored by 32 dedicated historical markers in his name.  If he sounds vaguely familiar, Forrest is referenced by the Tom Hanks character in Forrest Gump when he explains the person he was named after belonged to a "club" that rode horses and "dressed up as ghosts."  After the war, Nathaniel Bedford Forrest became  the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

While searching for further information, I recalled an email received some four years ago from a San Juan Islander who had moved to Nashville.  Prior to retirement, Richard Baker, a former City of Los Angeles Fire Department Commander, had acquired an interesting gig following a debilitating injury.  He became a one-man link between motion picture production and the fire department when filming involved fires.  His wife was a Los Angeles cop who looked a great deal like Angie Dickenson, not a bad-looking cop impersonator.

Baker's message of four years past mentioned a desire to get involved in military re-enactments that would honor a great-grandfather who had served the Confederacy.  By Googling Nashville Richard Baker, I came up with all manner of information about my friend including details of an upcoming "Living History Skirmish" involving the Blues vs the Greys, a rivalry exceeded only by the Yankees vs Red Sox.  Baker, a colonel in something called the Friends of Fort Negley, looks very spiffy in a large collection of pictures accompanied by copy indicating that His Spiffiness and Fort Negley pals in uniform are in a 20th Century Fox film to be released next spring.  Shot near New Orleans, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was directed by Timur Naruakhitovich Bakmambetov and produced by Tim Burton, whose name has been associated with vampires before.

The plot of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter begs further understanding of Hollywood creativity.  Honest Abe's mother is killed by a supernatural creature thus fueling a passion for crushing vampires and their slave-owning helpers.  On the off chance that the film is partly historically accurate, Abe was nine when his mother died.  With such an ax to grind, it's easy to understand how the future rail-splitter & President could become adept with such a weapon providing the film's creators the opportunity to have a uniquely-armed Lincoln chasing vampires at a very early age.  Oh, yes.  The script is based upon Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies whose origins are the Jane Austin novel.  (Note to readers: That may have been the strangest paragraph I've ever written. R.H.S.)

Further exploration of the upcoming September 24 skirmish reveals it will be between the Confederate 8th Tennessee Cavalry and the Federal 13th Colored Troop.  The latter is one of three black units massacred by troops led by future KKK Grand Wizard Gen. Nathaniel Bedford Forrest likely causing interested observers to wonder if black face will be donned in the re-enactment.  Called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history," by historian David J. Eicher, the Fort Pillow Massacre occurred 40 miles north of Memphis.

In its April 24, 1864 edition, the New York Times reported but 20 of 400 soldiers survived the slaughter.  Most historians say the Federal troops had already surrendered.  Perhaps filmmaker Burton could arrange a re-write of history with a politically correct vampire turning the military tables on Nathaniel Bedford Forrest who, by the by, would be shocked to learn how many times his fiberglass statue, now six years old, has suffered the indignity of bullets fired from passing cars.  On the subject of munitions, Forrest had three horses shot out from under him the day of the massacre.

There's a connection between Gen. Forrest and Martin Luther King.  Jack Kershaw, a  wealthy lawyer who provided the land and built the statue of Forrest (accompanied by Confederate flags), was the same guy who defended James Earl Ray, King's killer.  That was before Ray fired him in favor of conspiracy theorist Mark Lane.  Kershaw's dismissal was due to his arranging an interview of his client by Playboy magazine for which the attorney was paid an unshared $11,000.  The lawyer's 27-ft. monstrosity is both aesthetically and politically incorrect and has joined the ranks of such Tennessee roadside attractions as the First Church of the Elvis Impersonator, the Museum of Appalachia (don't miss the Apocalypse Signage), the Dinosaur Walk Museum, and the Museum of Salt & Pepper Shakers.

Statues of Civil War generals almost always display them riding a horse.  Yankee General Philip Henry Sheridan was no exception as Trevor Wilson, a particularly free-spirited San Francisco Giants pitcher, learned.  As certain as 60 ft., 6 inches separates home plate from the pitcher's slab, ballplayers are well-aware that lively hazing of rookies is one of the rights of spring in the major leagues.  In 1988, Wilson was honored by Wrigley Field's Bleacher Preacher, Jerry Pritikin.  Dressed in white robes and carrying his Ten Fanmandments of Baseball, the Preacher presented a plaque to Wilson commending him "for his courageous assault against the statue of Civil War General Philip Henry Sheridan and his horse, Winchester, above, beyond and below the call of duty in his rookie campaign."

Wilson's award as "The Most Valuable Painter" for his Lincoln Park escapade was for brushing Winchester's testicles a brilliant pink.  Wilson became a favorite of the Bleacher Bums, the feeling was mutual and word circulated that he wanted to be traded to the Chicago Cubs.  His wish was never granted.

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Rodent Repartee....by Bob Sanders

 

It isn't every day you get to talk with Mickey Mouse.  My meeting with the affable rodent occurred 45 years ago this summer and it took three people, more than two years and a move of 1,500 miles to make possible.

By the time I returned to Kansas City in 1959, I had been employed by TV Guide five years having provided the magazine a willingness to be moved.  Often.  Publisher Jim Quirk used to refer to me as "the peripatetic Bob Sanders" on the basis of having served the firm nine months in Atlanta, five in Rochester, N.Y., and 16 in the Quad Cities.  I hoped that my return to Kansas City would be of greater longevity.  The first time around had been for three months but with the move back to St. Louis included a promotion from editor to regional manager.  I transferred eight times for the magazine in 13 years with the second stop in Kansas City good for six and one-half years.

Kansas City was a production center so I was not surprised when told to develop an Arkansas Edition around three stations in Little Rock plus single channels in northern Louisiana cities Shreveport and Monroe.  Little Rock was in turmoil after  Central High was desegrated following tumultuous times; among them the failed notion that golfing President Dwight D. Eisenhower might symbolically lead a black child into the school.  Humorist Mort Sahl, master of the labyrinthine digression, had wondered whether Ike would use an interlocking or overlapping grip.

I haven't seen Little Rock in nearly half a lifetime but it was a pretty limited place in those days--certainly one of the lower 48s least impressive capitols.  Overnight accommodations in terms of easy access to TV stations was a choice between the Marion Hotel and the newly-constructed Coachman's Inn.

The Marion had seen better days.  On the tattered side, it boasted a bar called The Gar Hole.  On one occasion while traveling with promotion manager Eddie Cassard, we dropped in for a beer.  Long, narrow and a bit forebodidng, The Gar Hole had a very large fish tank behind a bar presided over by a pleasant enough fellow.  Eddie and I settled in and eventually expressed curiosity about the name of the place.

"Why call a place The Gar Hole?" I asked.

"Y'all know what a garfish is?" asked the bartender exhibiting early proof that Bill Clinton would not be the first Arkansan to suffer syntax shortcomings involving the word "is." 

"No, what's a garfish?"

With that, the bartender reached under the bar, pulled up- a handful of what appeared to be hamburger and, with a reasonable facsimile of Kareem Abdul Jabbar's hook shot, tossed the meat into the tank and let loose a rebel yell not unlike Slim Pickens riding Dr. Strangelove's bomb to eternity.  Transfixed, Eddie and I witnessed an aquatic explosion featuring the ravenous garfish, a piscine wonder whose alligator-like snout appeared to run half its length.  I recalled seeing an iguana lizard for the first time and wondered how such ugly rascals, obvious remnants of the Mesozoic Era, could hang around this long?

With a George Bush the Younger half-hidden smirk, the triumphant bartender announced: "Now, that there's a garfish.  He jess loves hamburger."

It wasn't long after the introduction of the Arkansas Edition that I was contacted by a disappointed station in Hot Springs.  Because the channel claimed a limited number of homes reached, we didn't include its listings.  I agreed to hear their case and was soon being shown through the station whose tiny tower was located atop a short telephone pole and whose amoeba-shaped signal, according to a coverage map, did not reach all of Hot Springs.

As I recall, the station had fewer than 10 employees, one of whom took me into the channel's only studio.  Noticing a huge mirror leaning against a wall, I became curious.

"What's it for?" I asked.

"Well," said the young man, "we have a Dick Clark kind of dance show.  You know, one of those programs with high school students.  We don't have many kids so sometimes we angle the camera at the mirror and it looks like there are twice as many people dancing."  My story is told in The Annenbergs: The Salvaging of a Tainted Dynasty by John Cooney.  The story is told correctly.  My name is misspelled (Saunders) and Cooney gave me an advertising sales background rather than editorial.   

In term of Mickey Mouse of another kind, I found myself one 1964 night in a Hot Springs supper club where Kaye Ballard was performing.  A very funny lady, Ballard had graduated from Cleveland's West Tech High located relatively close to Lakewood High, my alma mater.  Born Catherine Gloria Balotta, she has done it all from a first gig straight from high school with Spike Jones to television (she and Alice Ghostley played the ugly stepsisters in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella) to Broadway ("Lazy Afternoon" was introduced by her in The Golden Apple).  Still active in the theater, Ballard now lives in Rancho Mirage, CA in a home she stayed in when working on The Mothers-In-Law.  The home was owned by her producer/friend Desi Arnaz.

Aware of Ballard's educational lineage, I sent a note backstage on my business card indicating that Lakewood High says "hi."  Chatting with her afterwards, I indicated it was likely I would be transferred to Los Angeles and she mentioned a high school friend who also had been a cheer leader in high school.  "Funny thing," said Kaye.  "Joe is Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.  If you're ever there, tell him I said 'hello.'"

Two years and two months later, I was moved to Los Angeles and soon took my three kids to the Magic Kingdom.  Suddenly, there he was, readily within reach, the rather radiantly resplendent, resourceful, rarely rankled, revelry-rooted and receptive rodent available to respond randomly to this now retired reporter's initial sally.  Not to gee whiz this piece to pieces, but Mickey Mouse was then (and now) the most famous personality in the entire world.  Bigger than Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles, LBJ, Charles de Gaulle, Pope Paul VI, Leonid Breznev or Simon & Garfunkel, was the magnificent mouse.  Even today, MM is bigger than Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Rupert Murdoch or the latter three as a matchless trio, but, of course, Mickey has been working celebrityhood longer than any of them.

Mickey was taking five near Pirates of the Caribbean just like regular mortals and it was while furtively sidling over to him that I began contemplating effective ice breaking methods so vital in initiating dialogue with the famous.  Might there be subjects of historical significance that, while provocative, might very well make  communications with Mickey awkward?  I had heard, for example that Walt Disney had a pronounced fear of mice.  At the heart of things was an obvious challenge: How do you talk to a mouse and not just any mouse?

In the company of celebrities, we tend to notice certain things that even memory's loss makes difficult to forget.  What we are left with are Frank Sinatra who talked like a gangster in person, Barbara Eden who appeared to glow, and Jerry Lewis who, more than anything else, was angry.  What struck me about Mickey Mouse was the enormity of his ears; they were each bigger than the catcher's mitt of Yogi Berra.

Out of a corner of my mouth, I managed a half-choked whisper: "Hi, Joe.  I'm Bob Sanders of TV Guide.  Kaye Ballard says 'hello.'"

"No shit," said Mickey Mouse.  "How is she?"

Mort Sahl isn't the only one capable of labyrinthine digression.   

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