The Invasion Of The Pod People. 5.

"WTF with Marc Maron" was my introduction to Podcasts, shortly after my introduction to the IPhone, thus introducting me to ITunes, thus offering me the challenge of figuring out what the hell to do with Itunes. Or, as Marc Maron would say, WTF to do with ITunes.
WTF stands for exactly what you'd think it stands for.
And if you have no imagination, he regularly spells it out for you.
Marc Maron is, first and foremost, a comedian.
A very good one.
And his subject matter on the Podcast is, first and foremost, comedy.
He talks about it directly to the listener.
He talks about it to his guest, who is usually one of his contemporaries, in a studio.
He also, in about one out of five shows, does a live podcast at a Comedy Club venue, where there are about five comedians who do stand-up, along with talking to Marc.
In these shows, there is much interaction between the comics.

In all of the above, Maron bears his inner soul.
He wears his heart on his sleeve.
He can be excruciatingly honest.
Especially about his personal failures.
But in a very entertaining way.

The usual dynamic casts you, the listener, as a psychiatrist, and him as your very entertaining patient.
But none of it seems contrived.
He just needs to share his pain with the immediate world, and he does it in a very funny way.
Listening to Marc Maron got me through last night's excruciating World Series game. (Yes, I had money on St. Louis.)
Because what he was going through was a lot more excruciating than what I was.
If you're at all interested in the inner workings of comedy, you should really give him a try.
And if there are other Podcasts out there that I have missed, that you think I or my other readers might be interested in, don't hesitate to let me know about them.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

Invasion Of The Pod People. 4.

The other Pod Person I was referring to as one of the three I listen to regularly is Stephen Tobolowsky, a very steadily working character, who hosts "The Tobolowsky Files" as his Podcast.

I first discovered Stephen Tobolowsky when he was a guest on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, and realized, that to my knowledge, I had never seen him before, and was totally unfamiliar with his work as an actor.

Being one of the few who has never seen "Groundhog's Day", in which he had a significant part, my only subsequent sampling of his acting work was on an episode of "Law and Order:Criminal Intent", which is now the show that fills up my Tivo.

Once the regular "Law and Order" and "Law and Order L.A." went off, I was ready to give uo the ghost.
But my wife strongly recommended "Criminal Intent" as a show I would glom onto.
I was hooked from the first episode I saw, and have built up a collection on the Tivo.
One of the first episodes I saw was one where Stephen Tobolowsky guest starred.
And I recognized him from Kevin Pollak's show.
I haven't seen him in anything else acting-wise, but now, I have been on a constant lookout.
Maybe I'll get my hands on "Groundhog's Day".

When he did Pollak's show, he told stories that were totally mesmerizing, and quite structured.
He is also a writer, and for many years was romantically linked to the wonderful playwright and screenwriter Beth Henley.
It would not shock me if some of his writing talent came from hanging around with Ms. Henley and having osmosis seep through.

But he is a brilliant writer in his own right.
On his show, he works with a co-host, who primarily serves to introduce Stephen, and Stephen takes it from there, talking directly to his audience.
And what he provides is literature.
He makes no bones about having prepared what he's going to say by writing it out first.
I identify most closely to what he does than what the ones in the other Podcasts do.
I like to think that what he does verbally is closest to what I attempt to do on the page.
I think that I approach things with more overall humor, and he approaches things with a little more darkness and irony.

But at our best, I think we both indulge in telling ripping yarns.
He has a warmth and charm that I don't nearly possess as much of, at least on the page.
And his is a very friendly experience.
The Podcast runs just about an hour.

I recommend it highly.

I have also realized that there is a fourth podcast that I listen to just as regularly, and I will discuss that one next time.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Invasion Of The Pod People. 3.

Continuing on with the Pod People, today I'll be talking about "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show"
Kevin Pollak is a great comedian, and an extraordinary mimic.
For the uninformed, his current specialties in that regard are Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, Albert Brooks, and Christopher Walken.
There is a major visual component to each of these impressions, which he will launch into at the drop of a chapeau.
He is very big on chapeaus. Always wearing one.
So the fact that this podcast is also televised is very helpful.

Unlike Larry Miller's which runs approximately 35 minutes in length, Pollak's runs between two and two and a half hours.
And it is primarily an interview show.
He has one guest per show, ranging from fairly well-known actors to Giants of the Industry.
But it is always about Show Business, and this appeals to me.

In a previous post, "Why I Miss Tom Snyder", I bemoaned the passing of interview shows where the idea is to have extended interesting conversation.
This is what Pollak provides, and is primarily why it is worth your time.
Pollak is a first-rate interviewer.
He works in the rarefied air of expecting his audience to know almost as much about Show Business as he does.

The visual trappings are very similar to that of the Charlie Rose Show, without the somnambulistic similarities.
Aside from his guest, he has two other people filling two other seats that are on camera quite a bit: his young girlfriend, Jamie Foxx (yes, there is another one) and a young actor/friend named Samm Levine (yes, there is another one, for you old Jewish theatregoers out there).

Pollak spends very little time talking directly to the audience, preferring to talk directly to Jamie or Samm or his guest.
Much like Howard Stern does.
This does not rob us of any entertainment value.

There are, in my view, some minor excesses.
He likes to indulge in a patronizing game called "Who Tweeted?", where the object is for he and his guest to determine who, among Paris Hilton, Tyra Banks, and Justin Bieber, made the mindless Tweet that is quoted.
This doesn't imply that they don't deserve to be patronized.
I suppose this was funny the first time, but they do it every week.

He tends to fawn over his guests.
The bigger the guest, the bigger the fawning.

He shows some mock (I THINK it's mock) contempt for his viewers, having no trouble telling them individually to go fuck themselves at the drop of another chapeau.

He closes each show with his catchphrase,"Get out of my face".

But I am a fan of well-done mean-spiritedness, and that's what this is.
For regular readers here, I'm sure you notice that I indulge in it my own self fairly often.
So if Pollak should perchance read this, I would wear the "Go Fuck Yourself" hurled in my direction as a Badge of Honor.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Invasion Of The Pod People. 2.

I mentioned last time that I was going to discuss the three Podcasts that I listen to regularly.
I'm going to start off with, admittedly, my favorite, "This Week With Larry Miller"
It would only be fair to point out that I'm somewhat prejudiced, because of the three, Larry Miller is the only one of the Podcast hosts who is actually my friend.
I've never met the others.
Maybe if I knew them, I'd like their shows just as well.
But such is not the case, and maybe I just don't know what I'm missing.

However, Larry and I go back more than twenty-eight years, ever since he appeared in one of my plays.
He is a master comedian, actor, and more important, for Podcast purposes, storyteller.

Listening to his Podcast is very much like an experience I've shared with him many times: having lunch with him.
In a broadcast from last March, entitled "Cracking Spines..." he referred to me by name, and talked about my play, and how terrific it was.
This was the only time it didn't feel like we were having lunch.
But it was certainly nice to hear.

Unlike the other Podcasts I listen to, Larry is the only one who talks directly to you.
It's unscripted and never needs to be scripted.
Larry is hilarious off-the-cuff.

One of the others is in fact scripted, and sounds it, but it is scripted very well.
The other is the host talking to a guest and his two cohorts, very much in the Howard Stern style.

Larry is the only one who flies solo and a capella.

The major tone here is joviality.
When you simply want to feel good about things, you listen to Larry.
He is always upbeat, and always respectful of others.
Far more than I am.
I spoke to him on the phone yesterday to alert him that I was going to be writing about him today.
I did the math, and figured out that we hadn't spoken in eight years.
But as it is with so many friendships, we picked up right where we left off.
We didn't miss a beat.

I reminded him of the funniest thing I remember him saying to me.
When we were in rehearsals for the play, I had recently acquired a new girlfriend.
She had coerced me to start wearing cologne.
A cologne that she picked out.
Now, I really didn't want to louse up this relationship this early, so I indulged her.
And if you knew or know me, you'd know the words "Rothman" and "cologne" rarely appear in the same sentence.
So my flirtation with cologne was a brief one.
But when it was ongoing, I had returned after lunch to the rehearsal, with my girlfriend in tow, and the cologne drenching my pores.

Immediately upon our entering the theatre, Larry sidled up to me and said, "Ah!!!! I see you've just returned from the Cologne Store!"

The ensuing laugh I got from it, and the embarrassment I felt, are what made the experiment short-lived.

At Larry's website, he has an Amazon banner, so if you ever feel the need to purchase anything from Amazon, it would be nice if you clicked on Larry's banner first.
It helps line his pockets with silver, and I can't think of anyone more deserving.
It can take you to the Amazon Kindle Store, where, as you know by now, my books are available for purchase, or if you have the need, it can always take you to the Amazon Cologne Store.


*****

The Invasion Of The Pod People.

Part of the reason that this is the Golden Age of Television has to do with the Internet, and in fact, radio.
There is this fairly recent development that has shown up on the Net, and on Itunes called Podcasts.

I'm sure many of you are aware of them.
Maybe you even listen to some of them yourselves.

They are another version of Talk Radio, sometimes simulcast visually.
But the accent isn't on politics, as so such Talk Radio is.
Rather, the accent is on comedy.
I suppose their nearest antecedent is Howard Stern.
But the ones I listen to and/or watch are more for adults.
For generally Show-Biz hip adults.

At this point, I pretty much just listen, whether they are televised or not.
That's why it makes Television better.
It allows you to multi-task.
You can listen to these Podcasts while you have the sound off on your TV.
I particularly do this when I'm watching some sporting event.

I can't recall the last time I needed to hear anything a sportscaster was saying during a ballgame or a fight.
Unless I was dealing with Vin Scully.
But most of the time, I'm not.

So the Podcasts win out every time.

I guess I could have always just listened to the radio during a sporting event.
But in the past, there wasn't anything I necessarily wanted to hear.

But these Podcasts are archived.
You can listen to any episode of any one of them any time you want to.
No least objectionable programming for me.

The three main ones I listen to these days are "This Week With Larry Miller", (hosted by, of all people, Larry Miller) "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show", and "The Tobolowski Files", hosted by a character actor who has a ton of credits but whom I was unfamiliar with until he appeared on "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show", Stephen Tobolowski.

What these Podcasts have in common is that they are all hosted by working actors, all out of Los Angeles, and all mesmerizing, and for the most part hilarious, storytellers.

If you like what I do on these pages, you'll like what they do verbally.

Over the next few posts, I will discuss each of these Podcasts in some depth.
In the interim, you should seek them out yourselves.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

A Close Encounter With Robert Evans.

On the Current Channel, the one that houses Keith Olbermann these days, there is a program that follows it every night,
called "50 Documentaries You Should See Before You Die".
Mixed in with most of Michael Moore's movies is one called "The Kid Stays In The Picture".
This is a documentary biography of movie mogul Robert Evans.
I saw it not too long ago.
It is very entertaining, as was the book it was based on, which was an autobiography.
Evans narrates it himself.
Is it a documentary I should see before I die?
Not necessarily.
This, by the way, is how Evans talks throughout the picture.
It could have also been called "The Kid Asks Himself Questions And Answers Them Himself Throughout The Picture".

On Ali McGraw: "Did I want her the first time I laid eyes on her? You bet I did".

You get the idea.

Evans was Head of Production at Paramount Pictures at the same time I was working on "The Odd Couple" there.
Was Evans, in fact, instrumental in getting the "Odd Couple" movie made there?
You bet he was.
Was Evans responsible for putting together such classics as "Rosemary's Baby". "Love Story", "The Godfather" and "Chinatown"?
Was he ever.
He had quite a successful run.

Did things start going sour for Evans with "Popeye, "The Two Jakes" and "The Cotton Club"?
Did it ever.
There was even talk, though unsubstantiated, that he was involved in the "Cotton Club Murder Case", in which others were sent to prison for the murder of potential producer/investor Roy Radin.

As a sidebar, when I was producing "New Odd CUPPle", I used to see this big overweight shlubby-looking guy with stringy hair,who walked around in a raincoat, regardless of the fact that this was Southern California, hanging around the set.
Turns out, he was Roy Radin, and he was Demond Wilson's manager.
This accounted for his presence.
That was my close encounter with Roy Radin, who didn't survive much longer after that.

As for my close encounter with Robert Evans, it was common knowledge, when he ran Paramount, that he drove around in this gaudy black-and gold Rolls-Royce. Or maybe it was a Bentley.
Whichever, it certainly was gaudy.
And you knew it was his, because it was parked in the parking space with his name on it.

His office was on the other side of the lot from mine.
I had a used, beat-up light blue Volkswagen Beetle at the time.

For whatever reason, I was about to leave the lot in my Beetle one late afternoon.
Reaching the turn to the main gate at the precise moment was Evans in his gaudy Rolls or Bentley.
I mean THE precise moment.

But I had the right of way.
I had a right turn to make, and he had a left turn.
He started to edge into the turning space ahead of me.
I quickly darted in ahead of him and cut him off, proceeding to the main gate.

Was I proud of myself? You bet I was.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Chocolate Milk Pecking Order.

First, let me rank the specialty items, in descending order.

1) A New York Luncheonette Egg Cream.
Pure Heaven.
2) Any smoothie you can make in your blender, customized to taste.
3) Dairy Queen's chocolate shake. A superior store-bought product.
4) In-N-Out Burger's extremely cheap and extremely good chocolate shake.
5) Bottom of the barrell: McDonald's chocolate shake with whatever the hell they put in there.

Those were the prelims.
Now, for the main event.

The rankings of chocolate milk, in descending order.

1) Chocolate milk made with Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup.
Fox's U-Bet is primarily a New York thing.
The best chocolate syrup on the market.
Most, if not all Egg Creams are made with Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup.
Out here in Michigan, and in California, Fox's U-Bet can be found in the Kosher section of most supermarkets.
And it costs a pretty penny.
But it's worth it.

2) Yoo Hoo Chocolate syrup. Again, big in New York.
Not to be confused with Yoo Hoo chocolate drink, which is decidedly watered down.
I'm not even sure if the syrup still exists, but if it does, and it has retained it's quality, it's just about as good as Fox's U-Bet.

3) Hershey's Chocolate syrup.
Decidedly a comedown from the first two mentioned, but nevertheless acceptable.

4) Any gallon jug of chocolate milk you can get in any supermarket.
Usually quite tasty, but cannot be found in a non fat version, for you weight watchers.

5) Bosco. A triumph of childhood marketing. But a vastly inferior product.

6) Cocoa Marsh. Three steps below Bosco. Heavily advertised when I was a kid. Don't believe they make it any more.
Claude Kirschner of "Super Circus" used to hawk the hell out of Cocoa Marsh.

7) Nestle's Quik. Didn't taste bad, but always tasted powdery.
Who needs anything that tastes powdery?

8) Ovaltine. Didn't quite taste like chocolate. Could only be drunk when hot.

9) Flav-R-Straws. The bottom of the barrel. You pour a glass of milk, stick one of these straws which contains something resembling chocolate in it, shake it up and down, you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, the "chocoate" substance is released into the milk, and provides a less than satisfying experience.

I suppose that the reason for this exercise is to expose the unenlightened to the glories of Fox's U-Bet.
Check it out and you will immediately upgrade your chocolate milk experience.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

The Importance Of Chocolate Milk.

Occupying Wall Street.
Occupying D.C.
Occupying Boston.
Occupying L.A.

This is important stuff.
Maybe these are revolutionary times.

You can go to all the major news outlets and hear everything there is to hear about those occupations.

But you can only come here to hear about chocolate milk.
And that's what has been occupying my mind lately.

I love a good chocolate milk.
Or chocolate shake.
Or chocolate malt.
Or chocolate smoothie.

If you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say "Mark, would you like something to drink?" I could be counted on to say "I would like some chocolate milk."

I also hate a bad chocolate milk.
And there's plenty of that to go around.

So let me amend that last statement: If you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say "Mark, would you like something to drink?", I could be counted on to say "I would like some good chocolate milk".

Just exactly when is it appropriate to have chocolate milk?
This is a subject of much debate.
Although, in my mind, it is an open and shut case.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk with scrambled eggs, fried eggs, poached eggs, but not egg salad.

Any cheese is an OK accompaniment.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk with a tuna fish sandwich, with mayonaisse, with or without lettuce, but definitely without tomatoes.

It is appropriate to have chocolate milk as a dessert item a cappella.
But it is much more preferable to have it as a dessert item in the form of a shake or a malt, or a smoothie.

It is definitely inappropriate to have chocolate milk with something else sweet, like cake or cookies.
This is sugar overload, or overkill.

I don't believe that these are just my rules.
I think just about any Jew will tell you the same thing.

Speaking of Jews, particularly Jews from New York, we think we know more about what constitutes good chocolate milk than anyone else does.
New York City was where the Egg Cream was invented.
The Egg Cream was first found in candy stores there known as Luncheonettes.
I don't know if Luncheonettes still exist, but they certainly did in the Bronx and Queens, when I was growing up there.

The interesting thing about Egg Creams is that they contained neither eggs nor cream.

You made an Egg Cream by pouring two fingers worth of chocolate syrup into a glass, adding two fingers of milk, and filling up the rest of the glass with seltzer.

Then you stirred the glass vigorously.
The result was heaven.
Next time, I'm going to go through the litany of distinguishing good chocolate milk from bad.
In a descending pecking order.

As I see it, this too is important stuff.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

My Kind Of Town. 2.

The celebrities who showed up at the Hollywood Collectors Show essentially fell into three separate categories:

1) Those who looked extremely good, in spite of their advancing age----
I got to meet James Darren, "Moondoggie" from Gidget, who quite naturally looked like his own grandson.
It was astounding how young he looks.
I serenaded him with a chorus of "Goodbye Cruel World, I'm off to join the Circus", to which he replied "You wound me".
He was quite gracious.
Ron Ely, TV's original Tarzan, looked extremely dapper and distinguished.
As did Barry Bostwick.
As did my friends Dawn Wells and Leslie Easterbrook.

2) Those who were victimized by some bad plastic surgery.
No sense naming names here.
And

3) Those who Time decided to take into the back of an alley and beat the shit out of.
There were quite a few of them.

I sat directly across from James Hampton, whose foremost claim to fame was as the fifth lead in "F Troop"
He wasn't Larry Storch, or Ken Berry, or Forrest Tucker, or even Edward Everett Horton as Chief Roaring Chicken.

He apparently was the bugler.
I never watched "F Troop" very often.

I had hired James Hampton on an episode of "She's The Sheriff", in which he was quite dandy.
I approached him and reminded him of this and my feelings about his performance.
You've never seen a more grateful man in your life.
It even made it palatable to hear him blowing on his bugle to attract attention to himself every once in a while.
As the second day wore on, and it was becoming apparent that the goods weren't being moved as quickly and as profitably as many had hoped, the celebrities representatives started hawking their client's wares at severe discounts.
It was rather sad to watch.

A minor mystery was solved on this trip.
The actress Diane Baker had her own table.
Diane Baker was stunning when she was younger.
She is still quite a handsome woman.

I have a cousin-by-marriage who is a wonderful actor.
His name is Michael Lerner.
The lineage is that he is my father's sister's daughter's husband's brother.
Michael has specialized in roles where he plays characters who are morbidly obese.
That is because he had always been morbidly obese.
I feel that I can talk about him like this because he is my Couisin. By marriage.

He played the morbidly obese version of Arnold Rothstein in the film "Eight Men Out", in which he was wonderful.
I've never seen him not be wonderful.
I have also never seen him not be morbidly obese.
When he was much younger, the word "pudgy" would have covered it.
But he grew into himself in later years.
Michael was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film "Barton Fink".
He was magnificent in that.
I would have voted for him.
But the Award went to Jack Palance for "City Slickers".
Palance went up on stage to accept his award, and startled the audience by doing one-armed pushups.
Michael Lerner wouldn't have been able to do ANY pushups.

Along the way, Michael hired a publicist, and the publicist managed to wangle "Entertainment Tonight" to do "A day in the life of an Oscar nominee on the day of the event".

I got to see my actual cousin, who was married to Michael's brother, and when they got into the limo, there, sitting next to Michael, was Diane Baker.
Still looking stunning.
While Michael was still looking like Michael.
Not exactly a dreamboat.
This did not quite compute.
Maybe it was a studio-arranged thing?
I couldn't imagine that they were an actual item.

So when I met Diane Baker, I hit her with a barrage of questions about all of this.
According to her, she and Michael had been good friends forever.
Seemingly nothing more.
She informed me that Michael has since dropped over a hundred pounds.
Your proverbial drop in the bucket.
But at least it's a start.

I hope he's doing well, and if the family reads this, I hope they don't object to the fat jokes.
But as family can be, he has been merciless towards me in the past.
And probably will be again.

Let's hope for the best.

--------------------------------------

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

******

My Kind Of Town.

Thought you may like to hear some of the more telling moments of my trip to Chicago for the Hollywood Collector's Show.
One of the first things I noticed when I got there is that my nameplate at my table was placed directly between Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams.

My first reaction to this was "How flattering! This should probably help me sell a lot of books.

I arrived about a half-hour before they did, and immediately sold three books.
Then the girls arrived, and all hell broke loose.

They took their places, and neither Penny or Cindy could comprehend why I was seated between them.
I was having trouble trying to figure out that one myself.
Then, they unlocked the zoo.
People came swarming out of he woodwork to pay to get their pictures taken with Penny and Cindy and Henry Winkler.
And stepping over my face in the process to get to them.
And I kept getting in everybody's way
I was completely bypassed in the deluge.
Nobody from the zoo had any interest in noticing me.
I don't think any of them were at all literate, thus wouldn't have thought to have bought a book even if they did notice me.

It's quite comforting to know that the fan base for the show that you had so much to do with it's creation were not even vaguely interested in anything but having their picture taken with the girls.
Reading anything about how the show was created could not have interested them less.
I felt that the only chance I had at selling more books would be to get the hell away from them.
I did, and book sales improved rapidly.
They do these shows in L.A. and Chicago, and I imagine that it's easier to do it in L.A., because you don't have to fly the celebrities in and put them up in hotels.
I understand that for this last show in Chicago, except for maybe one or two celebrities, the rest had to make their own way to Chicago and pay for their own accomodations.
So they already have a pretty steep nut that they have to dig themselves out of.
They were significantly in the hole before they trotted out their merchandize.
There is new management there now, so I don't know how this is going to be handled in the future.
Because I drove from Detroit and my wife is a member of the Hilton Diamond Points club, it cost me virtually nothing to make this trip.

And after selling those first three books, I was already in the black.

Next time, I will talk about some to the cee-lebs I spent some time with.

My book, "Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store, You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
You might want to check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.

The paperback, "Mark Rothman's Essays" is still available for people without Kindle. I have many readings and signings remaining, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.

The website "On Screen & Beyond" has two hours of an interview I did on it's podcast in their archives.
Just Google On Screen & Beyond to find them if you're interested.

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