Sidebars

Celebrity Meltdown....by Bob Sanders

 

Whether we observed a celebrity meltdown at the recent Republican Convention is anyone's guess but it could very well have been strong evidence of a late-in-life crisis for Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood, whose conversation with a chair occupied by an imaginary President Obama has attracted more than 2,180,000 viewers to a YouTube site, has now explained how the chair came to be.  In an exclusive interview with the Carmel (Calif.) Pine Cone (not to be confused with the Hoboken (N.J.) Pine Cone), East wood insists the chair routine was entirely ad-libbed without any prior thought.  Whatever it was, it drew 28.2 million TV viewers in its 10-11 p.m. live time on the night of dubious distinction.  Fox News on Cable grabbed 9.1 million of the total, more than double that of its combined competition.

These have to be very trying days for the Hollywood icon.  In addition to the pressures of directing, producing and acting in films, there is Eastwood's presumably current peripheral involvement in his wife's TV reality series.  The show, "Mrs. Eastwood and Company," is decidedly hers; on the other hand, it's not easy to avoid the inevitable wifely requests for help in all those creative matters about which he knows so much.  Just to confuse things further, there are the production people whose earlier triumph--"Keeping an Eye on the Kardashians"--may be a preview as they bring to life "Mrs. Eastwood."

Perhaps reference to the show's "life" is a bit excessive.  As things now stand, "Mrs. Eastwood" is more on the comatose side having had but one show out of 10 exposed on the E! Channel.  That exclamation mark in the channel's title is meant to call attention tosuch fare as: "True Hollywood Story" with the acid-tongued Joan Rivers; "Married to Jonas," about newly-weds living in (where else?) New Jersey; and "Keeping an Eye on the Kardashians" whose reality looks at Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and Kris simply must make us happier about ourselves.   Oh, yes.  Part of the original understanding of the deal was that "Mrs. Eastwood" was to be proceeded in its Sunday night time slot by the Kardashians whose average audience is 2.2 million not counting the 10 million who couldn't stay away from the wedding show whose nuptials lasted 72 days.

Poor Clint.  Any even slight confrontation with the Kardashian people must be something like confronting that monumental musician Andre Previn (a master of jazz and classical) with the worst of rap.

So, you ask, how did "Mrs. Eastwood" come to be?  The many ways to be counted began in Capetown, South Africa, where husband Clint and a cast including Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon had gone to film "Invicta."  Along for the ride, Dina Eastwood stumbled upon Overtone, a six-member acappella band whose voices wound up on the film's sound track.  Hey, whatayado on a rainy night in Capetown?  Why, you sign the kids to a contract and become their manager.  Before you could say "Kardashians," or "Osbournes" or "Hogan Knows Best" or "Rori and Dean," you've talked yourself (and others) into (da-da) a reality show.    

Dina Ruiz and Eastwood met when she was a news anchor at KSBW where she interviewed the actor in 1993.  They married in 1996; from the union came daughter Morgan who will be 16 in December.  The Eastwood at-home-for-a-reality-show-clan also includes Francesca, 19, a daughter whose mother is actress Frances Fisher.

Eastwood was pretty cool about the whole thing and even agreed to do three cameos never admitting his awareness of how such roles can be so good that they refuse to go away eventually becoming major members of the cast.  At his very essence, Eastwood remains first and foremost an actor/director aware of the importance of such characters as Scrooge McDuck in Disney films.  Donald's uncle, Scrooge McDuck , has been around in fim since 1967 while his first use in prnt (Four Colors Comics) goes back to 1950.  Film insiders believe Eastwood took his eye off the ball while not paying attention to enough of the minuses of "Mrs. Eastwood."

With the show on hold, some rather odd things have happened to members of the cast.  On July 18, professional photographer Tyler Shields did something stupid while probably attempting to bring attention to the moribund series.  Shields, Francesca's real-life boyfriend and 12 years her senior, decided to take a chain saw to a Hermes Birkin bag whose value was claimed to be $100,000.  The crocodile skin version of the bag was first burned in the names of art and attention-getting.  Hollywood publicity is heavy on photos these days; it's enough to give the paparazzi an even worse name.

Let's call it a sort of flak twofer for Shields who has a Mouthful exhibit in support of "Love is Louder" in Los Angeles.  Looking at pictures of youthful celebrities is similar to seeing still pictures of filmdom's Our Gang with Shields displaying all the maturity of Carl Switzer who played Alfalfa.  Shields has it all with the exception of Switzer's conspicuous cowlick.

Pictured with the thoroughly trashed bag--now bolted to a table in Shields' basement--is Francesca Eastwood whose contribution is playing tug-of-war with the purse in her mouth.  Perhaps that's the connection to the Mouthful exhibit.  Earlier hype for the exhibit involved sawing a pair of Christian Louboudin shoes whose value was not announced.  Live features of the exhibit are giant rabbits and pandas who wander around between games of chess.

August 28 found Overtone singer Valentine (Tino) Ponsonby flipping a white Escalade into four feet of water on Pebble Beach's 17-mile drive not far from where much of the "Mrs. Eastwood" show has been shot.  Ponsonby was booked on suspicion of DUI.

Reality-wise, the pilot show appears to include a high point of the series with the piercing of a belly button.  It is Morgan whose navel is decidedly at risk until Mrs. Eastwood comes to the rescue by offering her belly button to a body artist thereby proving how great a mother's love can be.  The once-played show was reviewed by Linda Stasi in the New York Post.  Her conclusion: "Mrs. Eastwood " is "one really horrible reality show."

"Mrs. Eastwood," obviously in trouble, is going to require some strong story lines to pull this clunker out of what we once called the muck and mire.   Sidebars, always willing to help fill the Hollywood maw, will spitball in William Goldman fashion and there might be a reality gem among the following:

Sondra Locke, who lived with Eastwood 14 years, is now a director and wants to do a documentary about "Mrs. Eastwood."  This plot outline sets up a number of confrontations between Dina and Locke--particularly when she learns Locke has rented the home next door to stay on top of the subject at hand.  The show's conclusion is climaxed by the appearance of the actor/director who enters one of the home's many green rooms and startles both women.  The screen goes to black.

Let's also consider working Sarah Palin into the series.  Maybe Palin and daughter Bristol run into Tino Ponsonby at a skate park.  Bristol goes nuts over the Overtone member although Palin is uneasy never having met anyone from South Africa.  Tino and the other Overtone members live at the Eastwood home where Mrs. Eastwood runs a household that employes five Yupik Eskimos, a remarkable coincidence in that Bristol is 1/16th Yupik.  Titled "Dialectical Variations," the show's verbal concentration is on the Chaplinski variety of Central Siberian Yupik in which heavy syllables remain heavy.  Key to speaking effective Chaplinski is the ability to walk funny while carrying a cane.

The concentration on Central Siberia gives Palin an opportunity to display her vast knowledge of Russia, the nation that continues to fly planes near Wasila, Alaska where the former governor of the state continues to reside while increasing her knowledge of all things Russian with time out for appearances on the "O'Reilly Factor."

Other plot lines come to mind.  Tyler Shields teaches Clint Eastwood how to take pictures; Eastwood, plugging his latest film, "The Trouble with the Curve," launches an attempt to get disgraced former major leaguer Pete Rose accepted into the Hall of Fame; and Dick Cheney gives hunting lessons to an ex-cop who looks very much like Dirty Harry.  The look on Cheney's face doubtless will make Clint Eastwood's day.

Of course, we may be building toward something that could be at the core of Eastwood's talking to unoccupied chairs.  Once upon a time in TVland, there was a Public Television series.  Titled "An American Family," it was about the Loud Family of Santa Barbara whose unscripted disintegration was the first reality show.

Five gets you seven Eastwood will be one happy guy as long as "Mrs. Eastwood" stays on the E! Channel's shelf.

                                                #    #    #    #    

Less Than Chairitable....by Bob Sanders

 

Already conceded to be among the most bizarre moments in American political convention history, film director Clint Eastwood's use of an empty chair continues to evoke astonishment.  Perhaps reflective of the media's reluctance to fully inspect the recent past in its consummate rush to achieve the next big get, an entertainment industry story but five months old contains a captivating rationale for Eastwood's odd behavior.

Writing in "The Hollywood Reporter," Mathew Belloni reported details of the legendary 82-year-old actor-filmmaker's suit against the owners of a furniture company for selling products branded 'Clint' and 'Eastwood.' 

Published April 7 of this year, the story tells of Eastwood's complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Evofurniture, maker of entertainment centers, ottomans and chairs.  Also sued were owners Alan Finkelstein and Casey Choron and a website called Inmod.com(http://www.inmod.com). Eastwood claims the stores have used marketing statements such as: "When you're invited into a person's home, you get to see the good, the bad and the ugly.  When visitors come to your home the Clint 47  Entertainment Center makes your family room alone look like you live in a perfect world of a million dollar baby."

As readers of this space have come to appreciate, "Sidebars" presently has a close relationship with "Leaky-Wiks" which, through adept uses of unique electronic devices, is able to report truths which, otherwise, would not come to the public's attention.  What follows is the story behind the Eastwood sage.  It is made possible through highly creative uses of drone Fly-on-the-Wall technology--often called "bugs on bugs."

                                                    *    *    *    *

Chairs were just one of many furniture products when film icon Clint Eastwood became aware of what Alan Finkelstein and Casey Choron were doing with his name.

In truth, the two were continuing the furniture industry's common marketing use of Hollywood names.  Eastwood, who won Academy Awards as director and producer of "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby," also was nominated for Best Actor in both films.  Some of the other actors, whose names have been used in furniture industry marketing programs, include: Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Elvis Presley and Humphrey Bogart.  It was Bogart's estate that was encouraged recently by a Georgia federal judge's decision that prompted a big bucks suit involving intellectual property.

The Bogart suit, initiated against Ashley Furniture of Arcadia, Wisconsin, claims various kinds of Ashley products are being sold through use of the late actor's name.  Ashley has countered by claiming the furniture in question actually is a reference to Bogart, Georgia, a small northeast community in the state; the firm further says its products, numbering more than 650, carry names that include colors such as Gable Mocha, Brando Cocoa, Newman Oyster, Presley Cafe and Bogart Ocean.

The furniture named for Brando is a sectional variety of considerable size.  Ashley denies the product's spaciousness has anything to do with the star's increasing girth achieved while making classic films.

Sometimes venturesome in creating product names, Chelsea Furniture has a Linda Loveseat, presumably a play on words involving Linda Lovelace, star of the 1972 runaway porno hit "Deep Throat."  Convinced of marketing viability inherent in associating products with all aspects of the film capitol, the firm boasts a chair with upholstery by Simmons called Malibu Wine.

At this juncture of the Eastwood story, a rumor has surfaced suggesting the chair used in the Bob Newhart-esque 12-minute talk to the chair has been purchased by President Obama and placed in the Lincoln Bedroom.  Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was one of the first to respond to the rumor suggesting: "If it is true, the presence of the chair in the Lincoln Bedroom is demeaning to the 16th President.  As Stephen A. Douglas, I would be more than willing to debate the chair's presence in the sacred room"

Choosing the right chair was not easy for Eastwood who realized he would likely attract the wrath of both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  It was Stewart who commented: "This is the most joy I've gotten from an old man since Dick Cheney non-fatally shot one in the face.  Give me more!"  Colbert's interview of the chair produced little of interest other than the chair's low esteem of Eastwood.

Sidebars can now report exclusively, because of bugs-on-bugs technology by Leaky-Wiks, that Eastwood, despite reports to the contrary, spent a great deal of time determining the type of seating to be used in his monologue.  First choice was a Barcelona chair designed in 1929 by the German architect Mies van der Rohe but the Hollywood great quickly determined that Mitt Romney might interpret such a choice as indicative of Eastwood's desire to be ambassador to Spain.  Also never really in the running for a similar reason was a chair from IKEA. Although it's possible the film deity may be considering government service as he eases into retirement, Sweden's appalling weather was an admitted challenge although the country's women are appealing to the megastar often called "a serial womanizer."  The father of seven acknowledged children produced in concert with five women, Eastwood has married twice.

A distinct chair selection possibility was a revolving model ruled out because it might remind viewers of Romney's flip-flopping.  Eastwood refused to share his decision-making process with the GOP hierarchy although members of the Swift Boating committee that sank John Kerry's Presidential campaign in 2004 were standing by.  Even the poofbag chair, designed by Francois Poof and brought to Eastwood's attention by both Koch Brothers, was finally determined to hint of homosexuality thus running the risk of losing the votes of white males in southern states--Texas and South Carolina among them.  The idea suddenly went poof.

Another early favorite was the curule chair of hieratic significance in Republican Rome.  Cooler heads prevailed when it was pointed out that Roman Republicans normally charged taxation at the rate of 1% although wars upped the ante to 3% in those good old days treasured by contemporary Republicans if only for low taxation.  Politicians, whose guiding principle back then (hang on to this one) was to get rich, bought votes and created tax farmers who dug up the money for them.  Although Eastwood continues to believe the curule chair to be emblematic of Roman Republicans, Karl Rove's astute understanding of public relations quickly prevailed when he pointed out that only the highest civil officers were allowed to sit on the chair, an upholstered campstool.  Such a chair would have provided unintended dignity to the imagined presence of President Obama.

Even a director's chair was considered but that, of course, was too much of a stretch and eventually turned down since it was extravagantly show businessy while running the risk of reminding the GOP audience of such remarkable directorial talents as Roger Corman, John Waters and Cecile B. DeMille and how Eastwood's skills might be compared with such notables.  Republicans have always had problems with Hollywood (it was truly remarkable that Eastwood was invited to speak considering that one of the industry's hallmarks is the surprise ending) and an imagined shout of "Ready, when you are, Mr. DeMille" could have reverberated quite easily through the stadium thus reducing the effectiveness of the hoped-for reality produced by the old Hollywood hand.  As Billy Wilder once wrote: "Nobody's perfect."

Republican politicos and policy wonks were particularly pleased to learn Eastwood had backed off from the tete-a-tete chair, a type of settee consisting of two connected chairs that allow two people to sit facing one another.  The chair, at first considered "perfect" for the occasion because of the intimacy afforded, was rejected for that very reason.  Aware that Republican politicians are uncomfortable with intimacy except when hitting the sauce at parties away from Washington, D.C. or their home towns, Eastwood wisely determined not to run the risk of promoting blatant though imagined gayness.

Despite all the presumed thought given the selection of the Obama chair, Leaky-Wiks' technology never uncovered Eastwood's final choice before he bolted onstage from a convention green room.  By asking an aide to grab the nearest (and, as it turned out, bland) chair, the actor's actions recalled former President Ronald Reagan who once commented about a tree: "When you've seen one, you've seen them all."

As the mystery of the empty chair deepens, it becomes likely Eastwood's actions may result in a worthwhile addition to our vocabulary.  The word is "Eastwooding" meaning ranting and raving to an inanimate object, something many Chicago Cubs' fans believe announcer Harry Caray did to microphones.  Actually, Eastwood's use of the empty chair is not a political original.  It goes back to 1924 and the Democratic Party's convention held in Des Moines.  It was Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler who used what now must be called the old empty chair routine in attacking Republican President Calvin Cooledge.

One of those distinctly possible rationales for Eastwood's actions may be a bit subtle for politicians.  There are Hollywood insiders who believe the actor/director/producer was merely issuing a warning to the furniture business to back off.  Dirty Harry with chair in hand is unquestionably a threat to kneecaps.

Meanwhile, Eastwood is unavailable for comment.  He's on the road flaking his latest film, "The Trouble With the Curve."  Perhaps, that's what he threw at the GOP.

                                                #    #    #    #  

Big Mouths....by Bob Sanders

 

Her professional clothes were designed by "Omar of Omaha," she wrote 75 percent of her material, her nude photos were judged too good by Playboy (the magazine was going for laughs), and she performed as guest pianist with more than 100 of the Nation's symphony orchestras.

Her name was Phyllis Diller.  She died last week in Brentwood at 95 and those at her bedside said she went out with a smile, thoroughly i keeping with her having been a very, very funny lady.  If she hadn't created such a long and successful career starting at age 37, she probably would have died in St. Louis rather than the Los Angeles suburb.

I had lunch with Diller in the Gateway to the West not long after being named TV Guide regional manager of a large chunk of real estate that included St. Louis.  Transportation in those days was of particular importance to entertainers and St. Louis' central location was a major career consideration.  Diller had achieved her initial success doing stand-up at the Purple Onion while working days writing copy at a San Francisco radio station.  That was in 1955 and it wasn't long before she was being seen on the shows of Jack Paar, Red Skelton and Jack Benny.

If memory serves, the luncheon was somewhere in the Gaslight Square area where Diller had held forth at the Crystal Palace, creative home of other talented people--among them song writers Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf whose credits include "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" from their "The Nervous Set."

The Diller luncheon included four other members of what was then called the press and I believe my invitation was decidedly more of an acknowledgement of my magazine's national stature rather than any impressive local strength.  A difficult market for TV Guide in those days, St. Louis had but three stations, one a UHF.  Diller's arrival from suburban Webster Groves was in a Rolls-Royce and she stayed in character complete with the cigarette holder, a crazy hat and clothes tastefully reduced in impact from her TV appearances.  Her cackling voice and references to "Fang," her brilliant and oft-used comedic invention, were on target and her best line, one of many alluding to her attire, was: "You know you're old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes, and you're barefoot."

My luncheon with Diller was oddly precient involving recognition on my part that her body, then 42, would have been appreciated by Playboy photographers.  Nude photographs of her were submittd to the magazine two years later and I went to work for Hugh Hefner in 1968.  Oddly enough, during my tenure with Playboy, I never became aware of the Diller photographs nor the "rejection" story until the facts were mentioned in her obituaries.

As many of us now know, Hefner began using photographs of celebrities older than the girls next door.  That was more than 30 years ago; Terry Moore has been the oldest at 55 followed by Nancy Sinatra (54), Vicki LaMotta (51) and Farrah Fawcett (50).  One has to wonder if Diller provided the original nudge some six years after the magazine's first issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.  It seems a bit surreal to include Phyllis Diller and Marilyn Monroe in the same sentence but life can, indeed, be curious.  Of more than passing interest are those Diller nude shots.  At least one survives and is included in her 2005 autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse.

Diller's greatest contribution to comedy probably was paving the way for a future generation of feminine big mouths including Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman and Joan Rivers who, come to think of it, is still being outragous while nearing 80.  The latter's introduction to comedy was as a writer for Diller with the most valuable lesson learned being the mileage achieved from self-directed barbs.

While Diller could be described as a somewhat beguiling big mouth (her work was remarkably clean), such was not the case with Howard Cosell, the sports journalist who transformed an obnoxious one-of-a-kind persona into a much-copied norm for sports broadcasting.

Indeed, there was and continues to be but one Cosell who once said of himself: "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff.  I have been called all of these.  Of course, I am."

Until Cosell became a household name in the mid-50s, sports broadcasters were largely a breed inventing their craft as they blathered along with home team announcers most often referred to as "homers."  The term remains in use today largely because of the role played by ownerships, particularly baseball, in choosing broadcast teams.  Vin Scully, now pushing 90, is a notable exception and before him such worthies as Graham McNamee and Ted Husing.  It was McNamee, a budding opera singer, who invented play-by-play prior to Husing coming on board as a crossover from news and political conventions coverage.  Arrogant, opinionated, even coarse, Husing could have been the role model for Cosell.

Cosell also was impressive with none of Scully's class and you either thought he was wonderful or an outrage.  Assuming a "tell it like it is" approach, the one-time lawyer (he was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1941), began on ABC with pre- and post-game shows of the then brand new New York Mets.

While baseball was a springboard to fame for Cosell, it was boxing and "Monday Night Football" that cemented his relationship with fans.  It was Cosell's defense of Muhammad Ali who, while still fighting under his birth name, Cassius Clay, refused to be inducted into the military.   Cosell's four years U.S. Army service during World War II made his defense of Ali a lot easier.

Cosell transformed sports reporting and nothing could have been of greater reportorial contrast than the work of Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean whose approach was more than bizarre.  Baseball was his game (he remains the last National League pitcher to win 30 games) and his base runners "slud" into third base while sometimes "returning to their respectable bases."  Inclined to mount evidence that good pitchers must be of stout heart, Dizzy suggested that one possessed "testicle fortitude." 

Until Cosell came along with an intellectual approach, sports broadcast reporting was heavy on cliches and light on stories behind the stories.  His feuds, particularly with New York sports columnists Dick Young and Jimmy Cannon, were classics.  Cannon once suggested: "This is a guy who changed his name, put on a toupee and tried to convince the world that he tells it like it is;  If Howard Cosell were a sport, he'd be the roller derby."

In a very real sense, Cosell legitimatized the sports loud mouth and probably helped open the door, if briefly, for Rush Limbaugh.  ESPN hired the master of hate radio to contribute his limited football knowledge to "Sunday Night Countdown."  That was in the fall of 2003 with Limbaugh lasting less than a month by making racist remarks about Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Sports broadcasting's big mouths are many these days with demands made by cable's 24/7 the biggest factor.  A lot of time has to be chewed up and the need for panels of experts results in an obvious contrast to sports anchors on 30-minute newscasts.  About as colorful as network sports broadcasters are allowed to be can be found on golf coverage now the province of CBS, NBC and the Golf Channel.  Johnny Miller of NBC is often peevish while CBS' Gary McCord is consistently amusing as he makes light of a sport that takes itself too seriously.  McCord, still barred from The Masters for nearly 20 years following his description of the 17th green as appearing to be "bikini waxed," is the same guy who split his pants while bending over a putt at the 1984 Fed Ex St. Jude Classic.  Unfortunately, he was without underwear and, after brief embarrassment, bought fellow pro Peter Jacobson's rain pants for $20.  McCord and David Feherty of Golf Channel are the sport's best.

Such ESPN cable carpers as Tony Kornheiser, Colin Cowherd ("The Herd") and "Mike & Mike in the Morning" have shown promise as certified blowhards.  The best of the bunch may be Samuel A. Smith whose boorishness is decidedly of the Cosell School.  A writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1994, Smith had his column yanked in 2007.  Arbitration ensued and he was reinstated while forced to remove political views from his website and cable news shows.  Called "a self-promoting, race-based gasbag" by the New York Post, Smith does radio shows for stations in New York and Los Angeles.  National exposure comes in the form of ESPN's "First Take" with Skip Bayless who can be counted upon to run counter to most of Smith's opinions.  Smith has referred to himself as "a cross between Bill O'Reilly and Larry King" and has been known to change his mind as often as Mitt Romney.  The NBA is his special province and he was a special commentator on the Michael Jackson memorial funeral service.  

Smith may very well be Cosell's heir apparent yet there have been times when I was convinced any mantle assumption would be by Jay Mariotti whose loud mouth career has been stalled by a series of misadventures climaxed by being charged with stalking and assaulting his ex-girlfriend.  His 2010 court appearance (he pleaded no contest, got five years probation) was highlighted by the charge that he allegedly demanded "as a high profile sports writer and general celebrity" that the ex-girl friend get plastic surgery.  A writer of 17 years for the Chicago Sun-Times, Mariotti was employed by ESPN at the time of his arrest in Los Angeles.  His work there included "Around the Horn" while occasionally hosting "Pardon the Interruption."  He has been without work for three years.

Boistrous and obnoxious, Mariotti was so offensive to Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert that the Pulitzer winner challenged Mariotti's inclination to write sensationalist columns while working at his paper.

This just in.  Jim Rome, who left ESPN for a CBS radio gig in January, will go CBS  Sports Network  all the way when he finalizes a deal to do "Rome," a 30-minute daily cable TV show on the network that debuted in April.  Rome may be recalled as a guy who works his name into his show titles as in "Rome is Burning."

Rome may be recalled for an in-studio interview conducted early in his career with NFL quarterback Jim Everett.  Convinced that Everett was a bit shy when confronted by NFL tacklers, Rome began calling him "Chris," a reference to female tennis star Chris Evert.  Everett eventually took Rome to the floor while on the air.  A desk that had separated them, was overturned.

Word is that Rome, once again, will make certain his interviews will be conducted over a very sturdy desk.

                                                #    #    #    #  

 

Long Time No See....by Bob Sanders

 

These lives we live can be loaded with tranquility or resemble the roller coaster ride at Puritas Springs Park, not far from where I grew up in Lakewood, Ohio.  If you tend to believe, as I do, that life is a series of easily recalled sets of time frames accompanied by dialogue exchanges plus the often ego-driven narratives of those we have come to know, then good fortune is ours. 

At 86, I'm lucky to be able to remember many of the dialogues experienced plus the faces of nearly all who have influenced my life.  Most of those recollections are vivid although the knife-sharpening  man, who pushed his cart through the neighborhood during my childhood while calling attention to his talents by shouting something resembling "pape-ah-lags," continues to be face-less. 

People with the ability to recall faces are now being singled out as "super-recognizers" and it's nice to know at an advanced age that I excel at something.

Speaking of faces, anyone ever around Nancy Joyce of Chicago's Station WTTW could hardly forget her.  I couldn't and proved it a couple of month's ago.  The words "bright" and "lively" couldn't do her justice 40 years ago.  The unfortunate aspect of our relationship was that I replaced her as promotion manager of the Windy City's public television channel.

I had been offered her job by station manager Bill McCarter, an astute professional whose short-comings were a tendency to nit-pick and believe that every new key hire would somehow provide the kind of magic that results in large market shares.  Joyce had not done a bad job but was the victim of unfortunate timing and thinking.  Slated to leave the station, she stayed on after I asked her to do so.  McCarter went along with that one, I eventually moved on to Field Enterprises (Chicago Daily News/Sun-Times) and I never saw a face-to-face Nancy Joyce again.

Enter Dick Hieronymus, a musician of considerable skills whom I met while living 14 years on the Fourth Corner's San Juan Island.  Having moved to Bellingham eight years ago, I continue to communicate with him and was startled a few months ago when I received an email accompanied by entre to a most unusual You Tube clip.

Titled "I Have No Secrets," the 18 second bite consists of a man-on-the-street interview of an obviouslky harassed woman pedestrian who turned out to be an unidentified Nancy Joyce.  The quite obvious Chicago locale was a few steps south of the Michigan Avenue bridge looking southeast.  Dressed warmly for the Chicago winter and asked if her hat might be a secret to staying warm, Joyce replies: "I have no secrets.  I'm mad, I have to go to work, I have to earn a living, I'd rather have a private income and get laid well and often."

You might look it up.  My old public TV pal delivers the droll lines with the kind of brilliant flippancy endearingly reminiscent of actresses Betty Davis and Eve Arden.  Judging from the clothing and Nancy's appearance, I'd bet the ranch she was on her way 40 years ago to a job at WTTW.

                                                    #    #    #    #

I first met Dick Fales early in 1950 at the Cleveland Press where we worked as copy boys while anticipating a break that would provide more significant employment at the outstanding newspaper.  Not long after my arrival, Fales made it to United Press whose offices were on the same second floor where Louis Seltzer and his bedazzling bunch brought news to Clevelanders.  It was Fales who beat the Press to the Sam Sheppard murder case by filing the first wire service story on July 5, 1954.

By the time Fales' story (a re-write of a hastily-written piece by another staffer) had set off a five-bell URGENT in the Press newsroom, I had moved on to the nearby Lorain Journal and checked out the crime scene.  Although the murder had occurred outside the Journal's circulation area, I attempted unsuccessfully to interview Sheppard's brother, Richard, in nearby Rocky River.  Neither Fales nor I had anything more to do with what was arguably the country's second most significant murder case of the second half of the 20th century with top honors going to that of O.J. Simpson.

The next time I saw Fales was in 1957 in Atlanta where I had been transferred by TV Guide.  Fales had moved to sales with UP and would remain almost exclusively with the organization until his retirement in 1988 and a move to the Pacific Northwest.  Neither of us mentioned our one-day involvement in the famous murder case during our brief encounter in Atlanta.

My retirement a year later took Jan and I to San Juan Island (population 6,000 give or take) in 1990.  The day a story about me appeared in the Journal of the San Juans was the day the phone rang with a voice asking for "Sandy," my nickname at the Press.  Soon, Fales and I resumed a friendship that lasted until 2004 when my buddy passed away.  I sometimes wonder what kind of odds were beaten when two one-time copy boys, once employed by a newspaper in Cleveland, would meet again 2,000 miles and 33 years away on a remote island and hoist cold ones at an American Legion bar to learn of each other's one day work history on the Sam Sheppard story?

                                                    #    #    #    #

One of my St. Louis time frames involves Mary Chase who in 1956 was the latest in a long succession of public relations people who tilled the publicity soil for the Chase Hotel (now the Chase-Park Plaza) under the same name. 

In the lobby where cocktails preceded a party honoring singer Nat "King" Cole, I ran into the very attractive Mary and it was during a time out in the men's room that pal/newsman/disc jockey Bruce Hayward indicated it was his firm belief that Mary Chase had amorous designs on me.  Happily married seven years and something of a coward, I fled the hotel in spite of telling Mary I would return.  One week later, I was transferred to Atlanta.

During the next three years, I was moved four times by the home office eventually landing in Kansas City where my regional responsibilities included St. Louis.

One evening, I entered the Chase Hotel and there, standing precisely where I had left her, was the woman I had stood up three years earlier.

"What took you so long?" she asked.

                                                #    #    #    #

It was Bob Cromie, host of such TV shows as "Book Beat" and "The Cromie Circle," who brought up Ernie Gann's name.  I had asked Cromie with which of the many authors he had interviewed would he like to spend a lot of time? "He is truly one hell of a guy," was how Cromie put it.

"I'll tell you something interesting about Ernie Gann," observed Cromie.  "His was the only interview I ever conducted in which the subject would not tell me where he lived.  I asked him why and Gann replied: "If I tell you, you'll ask me what it's like and I'll tell you how wonderful it is.  Members of your audience will then get interested in the place and they'll buy property and build homes and the place won't be the same.  That's why."

Our conversation took place in 1985 shortly before Cromie retired.  When five years later Jan and I moved to San Juan Island in the Fourth Corner, we discovered that two of its better-known residendt were Gann and wife Dodie.  Ernie, author of 25 novels about aviation and the sea, numbered among his best-selllers "Fate Is the Hunter," "The High and the Mighty" and "Blaze of Noon."

It was in August of the year of our arrival that the the Ganns protected their 760-acre Red Mill Farm by donating a conservation easement to the San Juan Preservation Trust thus denying development.  As Gann commented, "We have to do something to save this land.  People need to stop thinking of money all the time, or the land won't be here."  Jan and I became directect beneficiaries of the Ganns' thoughtfulness.  Our home on Little Mountain overlooked the property, now a working farm of unusual beauty to all islanders.  We could see nearly all of it.

                                                    #    #    #    #

Another of my time frames involves major league baseball's only death on the diamond and the glove worn by the player who replaced Cleveland Indian Ray Chapman, the victim of a much-disputed pitch by the New York Yankees' Carl Mays, a highly successful submarine pitcher inclined to pitch inside.  Mays' defenders believe shortstop Chapman, an outstanding bunter who tended to crowd the plate, leaned into the pitch.

The year was 1920, the season had but six weeks to go and the Indians brought up the Sewellbrothers, Joe and Luke, from the University of Alabama.  It was a remarkable package of talent that also includedleft fielder Riggs Stevenson, eventually traded to the Chicago Cubs where his lifetime batting average of .336 is the 22nd best ever.   Only mis-adventures in the outfield due to a football injury (he was A Crimson Tide quarterback) has kept him out of the Hall of Fame.  All three became storied players who totaled 50 years in the majors with Joe Sewell making it to the Hall of Fame.  His filling in for Chapman helped enable the Indians to win their first World Series.  To paraphrase an old and popular song of the era, stars truly had fallen from Alabama.

Traded to the Yankees in 1930, Sewell gained his greatest fame in New York where the press made the country aware of his remarkable achievements.  Sewell's career strikeout ratio: one in every 63 at-bats, and 115 consecutive games without a strikeout, still stand.  Lovers of trivia are enchanted by the fact that Sewell used but one bat during his 14 seasons.  He treated the bat during the campaigns by rubbing chewing tobacco into it with a Coca-Cola bottle, then buried it in his backyard for a little winterizing.

The arrangement with the University of Alabama also included Crimson Tide baseball coach Zen Scott who was given a sports department job with the  Cleveland Leader now the Plain Dealer).  His other "job" was keeping an eye on the kids.  Scott, who lived in my neighborhood, gave me Sewell's black Rawling's glove when I was about six and I learned to play the game--sometimes under Mr. Scott's tutelage.

It was late in the season of 1933 when some of the Babe Ruth Yankees, including Sewell, made personal appearances at the Masonic Temple next door to my Cleveland suburb home.  My parents encouraged me, seven at the time, to seek out Sewell to show him my glove.

"Where did you get that?" asked the astonished Sewell when I approached him at the end of the evening's festivities.

"Mr. Scott," I replied.

"Where is he?" pursued the future Hall of Famer.

"Down the street," I said.

"Let's go see him," suggested Sewell.

Scott had some years before left the employ of the newspaper and lost touch with Sewell after the trade to the Yankees.  I soon had re-united two long-lost friends who had played roles in a rare piece of baseball history.  I didn't realize then what I had done at age seven, but I carry with me such good feelings when I recall that moment.

The Sewell glove and my baseball cards eventually went the way of many cherished possessions, gathering dust before disappearing but leaving behind vivid memories.  I still wonder when it was that the great ballplayer had used the glove in his pursuit of the glories of the game.  For all I know, the glove may still be somewhere in the basement of a home at 1310 Summit Ave. in Lakewood.

Judging from the look on his face when I showed him what had become "my" glove, I like to think it was Sewell's first in the major leagues, perhaps one he bought or was given in his 'bama hometown of Titus, used at the University of Alabama and taken with him on the train to Cleveland where he helped the Indians win their first World Series.

I suspect that anyone who played 14 years of major league baseball with only one bat probably played with very few gloves.

                                                    #    #    #    #     

Obtusely Ozzie....by Bob Sanders

 

No one has ever accused Ozzie Guillen of thinking things through but the remarkable championing of Fidel Castro by the Marlins manager was as startling as Sarah Palin authoring a book about geography or, perhaps, providing us with an insightful analysis of the New York Times.

In the world of public relations, Guillen's gaffe is one of the grand disasters ranking right up there with the Chicago Tribune's Dewey Defeats Truman.

Highly creative writers of satire would have to draw upon muses of incredible inspiration to come up with Guillen's bizarre foot-in-mouth classic.  Just imagine.  Born in Venezuela and a resident of South Florida for the past 12 years, Guillen was a major league shortstop for 16 years, and a manager the past eight.  Playing with and managing Cuban players, he is well aware not only of life in Cuba, but, also, the low esteem citizens of Little Havana have for Castro.

Sensationally bumptious, Guillen had worn out his welcome in Chicago while plying his managerial skills for the White Sox and owner Jerry Reinsdorf.  Guillen's mouth got in the way of success following a World Series win in 2005 when he called a Sun-Times sports columnist a "fagot."  It was not the only time Guillen had demonstrated a lack of sensitivity when involved with the press.

Timing, as we have come to realize, is everything and Guillen's big trouble in Little Havana was astonishing in its essential perversity.  At least he didn't resort to sky-writing his declaration although, come to think of it, that would have been a fine photo op.

Take what had been the Florida Marlins and, as Henny Youngman would have put it, "please."  The Marlins, in spite of reasonable success on the field, have been box office failures fielding teams on the cheap while unable to connect with South Florida fans any better than Mitt Romney with Tea Party types.  What to do?

Starting with a name change, the Florida Marlins became the Miami Marlins and a new state-of-the-art tax-funded stadium was built within the cozy confines of Little Havana.  It cost $645 million and the sheer logic of it all was breath-taking.  Either by birth, pass along genes, or osmosis, those Cuban-Americans are nuts about what they call biesbol going back to the good old days before Castro, Che Guevara and others turned the country Communist, then invited the Russians to help create those missile-threatening 10 days in May that gave John F. Kennedy his finest moments in office.

Little Havana, once described as a Disney version of a displaced Cuba, is a unique place--so much so that U.S. policy toward Cuba is based upon the feelings of a minuscule percentage of this country's population.  A piece of Miami has the kind of clout envied even by Chicagoans who pioneered in such matters. 

The Marlins needed a manager and Guillen was more than available.  Owner Jeffrey Loria signed him to a four-year contract figuring that a Latino leader, admittedly a little loony at times, would captivate the fans of Little Havana with stream of consciousness rants accompanied by legendary accomplishments on the diamond.  Ah, the anticipated joys of genuine verbal linkage to the baseball fans of Little Havana.

As far as subject matter for those intemperate moments, such a possibility as the manager's love for Castro could not possibly have entered Loria's mind.  Castro's popularity in Little Havana is roughly that of a KKK Grand Dragon in Harlem.

It's worth noting that Chicago's press gave Guillen a lot of slack during all eight years of his responsibilities positioning him somewhere between aldermen on the take and Wrigley's latest chewing gum.  Time magazine's Sean Gregory, unaware that Ozzie is Ozzie, reported off-the-cuff flippancy leading with the manager's love for Castro.  The Chicago press would have turned a deaf ear but the guy from Time failed to play the game with dire results for Guillen.  Guillen, who has a heart-on-his-sleeve for anything Latin American, had expressed earlier devotion to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Two of the very strange aspects of the Guillen contretemps is Castro's "role" in baseball and Guillen's stupidity in not offering a reasonable explanation of why he loves Castro.  There exists a reason.

A much bandied-about folklore tale is Castro's involvement with baseball.  According to Snopes.com, one odd scenario has Castro awarded a tryout by either the New York Yankees or Washington Senators.  The left-handed pitcher was rejected, so goes the story, thus making possible the overthrowing of the Batista regime, the Soviet-aligned government in Cuba, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It was a Yale historian, professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, who researched thousands of Cuban baseball box scores finally finding one of an intramural game between the Law and Business Schools at the University of Havana.  It was in El Mundo in November, 1946 when an F. Castro pitched and lost, 5-4.  The dictator, of course, added to the quirkiness of his horsehide "career" by dressing in the uniform of a tongue-in-cheek team called Barbudos (Bearded Ones).  That was after he came to power in 1959 and he played in just a few games.  A photo helps promulgate the myth.

Guillen has reason to love Castro because of pitcher Jose Contreras.  As kindly as Castro might look upon a fellow pitcher, Contreras was tired of being the premier amateur pitcher in the world.  His fast ball was in the mid-90s, his curve exceptional and, besides, there was money to be made in the major leagues for a guy who said he was 31.  Contreras was the sort of fellow who could beat the United States on one day's rest for the championship of the 1999 Pan American Games.  He struck out 13 in eight innings.  Contreras was tired of amateur scuffling and life under Castro had its shortcomings.

The Yankees, quite naturally, had their usual big bucks to spend on a world class pitcher who finally defected to Gotham in 2002.  Contreras got the largest deal ever to run from Castro--$32 million for four years.  Guillen began managing the White Sox the next year.  

Contreras went 7-2 in 2003 and Guillen was particularly impressed on September 23 of that year when the Cuban pitcher shut out the White Sox for eight innings while striking out nine.  The baseball expression that you can't have enough pitching was a canard that year to the Yanks who traded Contreras to the White Sox and a salivating Guillen on July's last day in 2004.

The next year was a singular one for both Guillen and Contreras.  The latter started the season slowly reaching the All-Star break with a 4-3 record.  Contreras became the White Sox most reliable pitcher winning his last eight starts while gaining status as the stopper of the team's losing streaks.  He finished the season 15-7 with a 3.61 ERA getting 154 strikeouts in 204 2/3 innings.  Guillen had to love Castro.

He had to love him even more when the Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels for the American League flag, eventually winning the World Series with four straight victories over the Houson Astros.  Contreras started game one of every series going 3-1.

Contreras was so sensational that television commentators said that the fire-balling right hander had his name banned from being mentioned in Cuba by order of Castro--no way to treat a fellow pitcher.  Further, according to one story, White Sox games were banned from TV and could be seen only by way of illegal television satellites.  Contreras was a household name while Guillen had become the first Latino to manage a World Series winner.  There was a lot of love on Chicago's South Side.

The following year Contreras won a 17th consecutive game breaking the White Sox team record.  The string included eight victories gained the prior season.  Injuries impacted losing seasons the next two years and he was sent to the bullpen, then the minor leagues in 2009.  Guillen finally gave up on Contreras and he was traded to the Colorado Rockies on August 31, 2009 for cash and a minor league pitcher.  Love only goes so far.

The Contreras story continues today.  On January 28, 2010, the now 40-year-old pitcher signed a one-year, $1.5 (later upped to $2.5) million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, one of baseball's better teams.  The bad news is that Contreras is pitching relief for far less money although further compensation awaits a World Series winner.  The good news is that he finally made it despite years of deprivation in Cuba where, presumably, the beisbol hip hold guarded conversations about that superb pitcher from Las Martinas.

Meanwhile, those with knowledge of Guillen's real raison d'etre for a professed love of Fidel Castro can't figure out the manager's failure to explain the easily explainable and the good fortune made possible when a Cuban pitcher fled his homeland because of appalling conditions, including playing baseball for free.  Thank you, Fidel.

Baseball is a sport where brilliance is sometimes hidden by a failure to communicate effectively.  Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra, and, yes, maybe, Ozzie will attain their status if he can keep his job with the Marlins following five days banishment.

And, should employment at the major league level continue, perhaps Guillen will learn how to spin a disaster like love for Castro.  It shouldn't have been that difficult.

                                                    #    #    #    #