The Telephone Hour. 2.

A fascinating thing, at least to me, happened as I was continuing my research for the second part of this article about Shelley Berman and Bob Newhart.
I went to Shelley Berman's Wikipedia page, and found this:

On his website, comedy writer Mark Rothman discussed the history of comic "telephone" monologists:
"As far back as the 1920's George Jessel was doing phone conversations with his mother in vaudeville, with the opening line "Hello Mama? This is Georgie." In the 30's and 40's there was this radio comedienne named Arlene "Chatterbox" Harris, who did telephone monologues to one of her "friends." ...She was featured doing one of them on an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show that featured many old radio entertainers... In the 50's, a great comedienne, Betty Walker, made about a zillion appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, doing essentially the same kind of act as Arlene Harris, talking to her friend Ceil. Only it was intensively Yiddishified... Whereas Arlene Harris was white bread, Betty Walker was challah... All of this pre-dated Shelley Berman. Even Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who were contemporaries of Berman's at Second City, engaged in telephone dialogues, with very similar styled material. And who's more brilliant than them?"

I found myself being quoted.
The day after I posted the first article.
I didn't do it.
I wouldn't know how to do it.
Boy, things get around fast these days.
Anyway, Shelley Berman was never destined to have the kind of success that Bob Newhart has had on television.
He could never have carried a sitcom, the way Newhart carried three of them.
Newhart was always unflappable.
A cool performer in a cool medium.
Berman was and is an insecure, somewhat mean-spirited hothead.
Not the kind of performer you'd want to invite into your homes on a weekly basis.
There is evidence to back this up.
Evidence that I saw firsthand at the time.
Evidence that Marc Maron was too young to see, or maybe even know about.
Because he was either an infant, or still a gleam in his father's eye.
So he didn't ask Berman about it.
In March of 1963, there was a documentary run on NBC on a Sunday Night, as part of the Dupont Show of the Month series.
It was called "Comedian Backstage"
Shelley Berman allowed a camera crew to follow him around for 24 hours on a day when he was working in a nightclub in Florida.
Everything was going swimmingly until they showed him, in the middle of his act, doing one of his telephone monologues, when, of all things, a telephone rang offstage.
You could see the brutally pained look on Berman's face as he gallantly finished his monologue.
He left the stage to enthusiastic applause, and in the wings, threw the biggest hissy fit I have ever seen.
He took that cradle of the wall phone and nearly smashed it to bits.
He immediately started yelling at every member of the backstage crew mercilessly.
It was a better show than the one he put on stage.
He looked like the world's most awful human being.
As I, a fifteen year old, maybe Thirty Seconds Over Show Business, was watching, my first thought was "His career is over."
Apparently, he had total approval as to the documentary's content.
But he was so short-sighted that he didn't see any problem with airing that part of it.
Remember Vaughn Meader?
The comedian who had an act handed to him because of his uncanny resemblance to, and impression of John F. Kennedy?
When Kennedy was assassinated, his career was officially over.
This alone eliminated him from a long list of suspects.
This was only months after Berman's documentary aired
And Berman experienced an almost similar fate.
His career took a major hit.
One he never really recovered from.
Oh, he got work, but mainly as a straight actor on TV dramas.
Nothing major.
And he was still welcome as a panelist on game shows.
But he was no longer any kind of major comedy draw.
With some comedians, it's better to hide your personality.

The only consolation is that nobody could seriously consider him to have shot JFK.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

The Telephone Hour.

I'm taking an excursion from writing about the MeTV shows that I watch.
I will return to them anon.
I'm doing this because I listened to a podcast yesterday that was so strange in its ontent that I had to yell "Stop the presses!" to myself, and NOT write about "Make Room For Daddy" at this time, and replace it with this entry.
The great comedian, Marc Maron, hosted this podcast, and his guest was the great comedian Shelley Berman.
I have been in Shelley Berman's presence a few times, and found him to be a most unpleasant man to be around.
Maron, in segueing into the pre-recorded interview with Berman, also expressed that Berman was unpleasant, daunting, nervous, and nervous-making.
And he was all of that in this interview.
What he also was, was compelling.
Maron is about sixteen years younger than I am, thus his experience with Berman's comedy was rather limited to recently listening to his albums, which are brilliant.
Berman is undoubtedly a very bitter man.
This bitterness was expressed quite frequently during the interview, which lasted about an hour.
For those of you also about sixteen years younger than me, Berman's act, which he performed in major nightclubs and TV variety shows, consisted exclusively of telephone monologue sketches, where he put his hand up to his ear to simulate being on the phone.
And the material was brilliant, and brilliantly performed.
Now, who else can we say this about?
Class?
Does the name Bob Newhart ring a telephone?
It had and has with Berman.
He tried to put it in the past, but it seemed obvious to me that Berman resented, and still resents Newhart for "Stealing his act"
And the much greater subsequent success that Newhart experienced throughout his career.
Berman copped to past resentment, but not current.

All because Newhart used an imaginary phone in his hand and did monologue sketches with it.
And as we all know, Berman invented the telephone monologue, and was the first to give it national exposure.
Sure he was.
As far back as the 1920's George Jessel was doing phone conversations with his mother in vaudeville, with the opening line "Hello Mama? This is Georgie."
In the 30's and 40's there was this radio comedienne named Arlene "Chatterbox" Harris, who did telephone monologues to one of her "friends"
The only reason I know about this is that she was featured doing one of them on an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show that featured many old radio entertainers.
And she performed one of them. Brilliantly.
Then, in the 50's, a great comedienne, Betty Walker, made about a zillion appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, doing essentially the same kind of act as Arlene Harris, talking to her friend Ceil.
Only it was intensively Yiddishified.
They talked about marriage and children, and how impossible it was to maintain both.
Whereas Arlene Harris was white bread, Betty Walker was challah.
Betty Walker's catchphrase was "Ceil....Ceil....Ceeeee--ullll!!!!
Really, really funny.
Also brilliant.
All of this pre-dated Shelley Berman.
Even Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who were contemporaries of Berman's at Second City, engaged in telephone dialogues, with very similar styled material.
And who's more brilliant than them?
So Berman did not exactly corner the market on the telephone, or brilliance.
Yes, Newhart worked in a very similar style to Berman, but his material was completely his own, and completely original.
So who does Berman think he is?
Alexander Graham Bell? Don Ameche?
Who?
Next time, the real lowdown on why Berman's and Newhart's careers went in divergent directions.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

More Dobie Wih a "B".

Aside from what I said about "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" last time, there were other things that I didn't get around to.
Such as fifty years worth of perspective.
And its unique, groundbreaking use of music.
I think it was the first series that punctuated its humor with music cues.
And it did it quite effectively.
Zelda Gilroy squiggling her nose at Dobie, causing him to involuntarily squiggle back,
was perfectly punctuated musically.
It was the direct antecedent to Samantha squiggling her nose to a music cue on "Bewitched"

The main thing about fifty years of perspective on this show, much like the perspective on
most of the MeTV shows, is the use of the IMDB page on the Internet, to attempt to discover what became of some of the actors who appeared on these shows.

Never has so much IMDB use been as prevalent as when I am watching Dobie Gillis.
That show provided my first adolescent fantasies.
The "Many Loves" that Dobie experienced consisted of all these young, nubile, stunning actresses who appeared as his potential love interests.
And in my imagination, mine.
It was the first show that I can remember that really stirred up the loins.
Only one of these actresses became really famous.
Tuesday Weld.
The rest of them, I learned from scouring the IMDB, reached either obscurity, death, or a ripe old age.
An age at least ten years older than myself.
This saddens me.
On an almost daily basis.
I have found none to be younger than their mid-seventies.
These young women that this young adolescent lusted after, I would have no reason to lust after any more.
Particularly if they turned out to be dead.
Remember the actor who played David Puddy?
One of Elaine Benes's boyfriends on "Seinfeld"?
He's now starring on some CBS sitcom or other right now.
Well, it turns out that one of those young nubile, stunning actresses on Dobie Gillis
gave birth to the actor who played Puddy.
She is Puddy's mother.
If anything would cause one to lose their lust, it's thinking about how one is, in fact lusting after Puddy's mother.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

That's Dobie With A "B".

Now that I'm done trashing MeTV over Valerie Harper, I'm going to begin a series of articles about show that I regularly Tivo on MeTV.
I'm going to begin with "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis"
It was a show that I really liked as an adolescent.
I still like many aspects of it, fifty years later.
I've never seen a show that indulged in catchphrases as often as this show:

"I gotta kill that boy some day. I just gotta"

"Gee, like, you're all heart."

"Surely you jest"

"You nasty, nasty boy!"

"It's only you, Maynard"
"So, my young Barbarians...."

"Class.......dismissed!!!"

After being called "Dopey" Dobie would retort "That's "Dobie" with a "B"

"I just came back from downtown, where they were tearing down the old Endicott Building"

"They're showing a great picture at the Bijou: "The Monster That Devoured Cleveland"

"You're a real human being"

"I was a first Sergeant in the BIG war. WW2. WITH the good conduct medal"
I know that most actors don't like line readings, but think about how much less funny it would have been if the word WITH had not been emphasized.

"You rang?" was the direct antecedent to Squiggy's "Hello"
It was set up exactly the same way and was conscious theft.

Dobie, to Zelda, in a dead-on Jack Benny impression: "Now, cut that out!"

Most of these catchphrases were used in virtually every show, and were undoubtedly part of its charm.
The dialogue was always well paced and intelligent.
What wasn't intelligent, but equally well paced, perhaps too frenetically paced, especially as the series went on, were the stories.
They were usually not just dopey.
They were particularly dopey.
That's "Dopey" with a"P"

More about "Dobie Gillis next time

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

The Halo Around Valerie Harper.

I mentioned last time about the dastardly, horrendous, unthinkable thing that MeTV did to
Valerie Harper last week.
As most of you know, Valerie Harper is dying from a rare form of brain cancer.
So, and I can't believe that this is unrelated, MeTV decided to launch "Valerie Harper Week" on the Mary Tyler Moore reruns that they show.
They don't carry "Rhoda", or, knowing them as well as I do now, they would be running "Rhoda" twenty-four hours a day until she dropped.

About a couple of years ago, I met Valerie Harper for the first and only time.
My wife and I had gone to a Thai restaurant in Stamford Connecticut.
At the very next table was undoubtedly Valerie Harper, along with an older woman, who turned out to be an old friend of hers whom she appeared with in the chorus of the original cast of "The Music Man" on Broadway.
I immediately engaged her in conversation, not only because of our common background, but because when I was running "She's The Sheriff", her show, "Valerie", was shooting on the very next soundstage.
We were, in fact, neighbors, yet we had never actually met.
It took being three thousand miles and twenty three years into the future for that to take place.
She was fired from that show by the studio, Lorimar, and replaced by Sandy Duncan.
Valerie promptly sued Lorimar for wrongful termination, and collected a cool two million for her troubles.
I had been having my own troubles with Lorimar, and expressed the joy that most of the people who worked on the lot had for her.
We all loved that she won the suit.
So, for the entire next hour, we virtually all had dinner together, and she was totally delightful.
Looking back at the timeline, she had already been going through her first bout with the brain cancer.
But there was no indication that her spirits were dampened.
Shortly after that, she opened on Broadway in the play "Looped".
I saw it, and wrote a glowing Report Card about it.
I really don't think it was colored by my personal encounter with her.
She immediately responded with a thank-you note.
A totally class act.
Which is why she, in fact anybody, deserved better treatment than she received on MeTV.
Here's what they did:

During the promos for "Valerie Harper Week" on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", they showed clips of Valerie as Rhoda.
And in all of these clips, they smeared Vaseline around the corner of the screen, creating a halo effect around Valerie.
This was their way of saying "We all know she's going to die soon, so we are going to be melodramatic about it to keep you aware of this and get you to watch".

This halo effect is not unprecedented in the history of television.
When Michael Landon wa dying, and knew he was dying, he made one last appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
And they used that same Vaseline on the lens halo effect on Michael Landon.
It was very dramatic, along with being very tacky and cheesy.
But it was merely an artistic choice.
A rather ill thought-out one, but they probably meant well.
With MeTV and Valerie, not only was it tacky and cheesy, but also extremely exploitative.
Not that she would probably care at this point, but I care.
And no one should be subjected to this sort of thing.
This is the kind of stuff you save for the memorial reel at next years Emmys.
And not a moment sooner.
Particularly when there is blood still coursing through her veins.


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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

Me Are Usually Amused.

Within the last couple of months or so, I found a new station on my cable service.
One that I had not known existed until then.
It turns out that it has been around since the end of 2010 nationally.
I don't know when it reached my cable company.
But it reached me a couple of months ago.
It is called MeTV.
And it has since been cluttering up my Tivo all over the place.
Because it offers up classic old television shows.
Mostly from my youth.
Some of which I never got to see because they were on past my bedtime.
Some of which I never got to see because there was something else I preferred watching at the same time.
And some times it was a tough decision to choose the other one.
But some of them are my favorite shows of all time, and have not been regularly shown for years:
Sergeant Bilko, Car 54 Where Are You?, Naked City, Route 66....
And seeing them again, but now on my big 60 inch flatscreen, is a completely joyous experience.
There is a completely different perspective, watching these shows, most of which were made over fifty years ago.
Oh, there is also the usual crap that I didn't watch then, and wouldn't watch now, but there is enough really good stuff, and good stuff to talk about, that I will probably continue to watch it religiously, and write about the shows there frequently.
They also do this very nice thing that they advertise that they are proud of:
They show all the end credits of all of their shows, in the original sized letters.
Not any of that marginalized, miniaturized, unreadable stuff they do nowadays on major networks.
And in their ads for how proud they are to show their credits, they include MY credit for"Laverne and Shirley"
Thank you MeTv.
But they're not perfect.
No, not perfect.
Not even close to perfect.
It's not that the channel is not in HD.
Hell, none of these shows were in HD to begin with.
No, they do other things that are less than perfect.
Like, they keep showing all those reverse mortgage commercials, and Viagara or Viagara equivalent commercials, Funeral Insurance, or Walk-in Bathtub commercials.
Commercials designed for their target audience: Old people.
Of which they are constantly reminding me that I am becoming one of.
Yes, you can fast forward through them on the Tivo, but you still get the message.
Another thing that they do that is less than perfect is that they make cuts in these shows mercilessly.
So they can shove in more of those old people commercials.
I watched an episode of "The Odd Couple" on there last night.
It was an episode that featured Wally Cox in a small but hilarious role.
I was there. I saw it.
It was not long before he died, and it afforded me the opportunity to meet him.
What they did was, they cut his ENTIRE PART.
Oh, in one scene, you could see him in the background, briefly.
They turned him into no more than an extra.
Wally Cox.
And they jiggered the end credits so that he didn't get one.
Maybe that saved them a few bucks on residuals.
But this is nothing,
NOTHING, compared to the dastardly, horrible, reprehensible thing they did to Valerie Harper all of this past week.
Like she doesn't have enough problems.
I'll get into that next time.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

4:57 pm.

First, let me express my gratitude for all the orders I've received for my novel, "I'm Not Garbo".
And for the gratitude you have all expressed to me in e-mails after having read it.
I don't think I'm giving much away here by mentioning that early on in the novel, Greta Garbo's agent has a meeting at Louis B. Mayer's office.
It is for 3:57 pm.
Garbo's agent knows all too well what that means.
He's not getting more than three minutes.
As with every other piece of writing I do, this was drawn from my own life.
Before my writing partner and I had landed on "The Odd Couple", we were still living in New York, and my father was still attempting to get our material to people who mattered.
My partner and I had collaborated on a screenplay.
It was a light comedy about guys our age.
We were in our early twenties.
My father told us that he could arrange a meeting for us with Otto Preminger.
You know. Otto Preminger.
The director who directed some wonderful movies from the 1940's into the early 1960's.
The director who was pretty well-known for being a tyrant.
The director who had directed a whole lot of overblown dreck after the early 1960's.
The director who had never really directed a good light comedy.
I include the boring "The Moon is Blue", which generated a lot of controversy, but no laughs.
And the less said about "Skidoo", the better.
This was the man my father thought might be interested in helming our light comedy about
guys in their twenties.
The thought terrified us.
The thought of meeting Otto Preminger terrified us.
But there was enough perverse curiosity there that we agreed to have the meeting.
At his office.
The meeting was scheduled for 4:57 pm.
His idea. Not ours.
And we knew what that meant.
We weren't going to get any more than three minutes with him.
And for those three minutes, we actually put on suits and ties.
We arrived at his office on Park Avenue.
We were shown in.
And there, behind the longest and biggest desk one could ever imagine, was the man himself.
"I understand you have written a screenplay", he said, as if we were being interrogated
by the Gestapo.
We handed it to him.
"I shall read it", he stated.
We didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.
I mean, what if he liked it?
"Thank you for coming"
And at 4:59 and a half, we were out the door.
We were told later that he did not think it was for him.
Hell, we could have told him that going in.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

Rumbling Preparation. Part 2.

It happened again this past Saturday Night.
In Brooklyn.
HBO aired one of its title fights.
And Michael Buffer was, as usual, the ring announcer.
I'd mentioned last time that I wondered if guys like Michael Buffer and Jimmy Lennon Jr.
made an actual living from uttering only a handful of words introducing the fights and announcing the results.
For Jimmy Lennon Jr., I'm still wondering.
For Michael Buffer, the mystery has been solved.
His entry over at Wikipedia indicates that he makes FIVE MILLION DOLLARS for an evenings
work.
This would seem to preclude the need for any kind of day job.
Why does he make FIVE MILLION DOLLARS for an evenings work?
Well, for one thing, he had the wisdom to patent the phrase "Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!"
And apparently this is worth it to the promoters of the fights and to HBO to pay him FIVE MILLION DOLLARS per event.
For "Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!"
And he only says it for the main event.
This comes out to A MILLION DOLLARS A WORD!
Seems a bit much, don't you think?
I mean, he's really good at his job, but really...FIVE MILLION DOLLARS?
For "Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!"?
Something's out of whack.
And with all this money going to Michael Buffer, this can't leave much for Jimmy Lennon Jr.
They're probably paying him in the dark.

I also had the same question about boxing referees.
I haven't the slightest idea if they make a living from this.
I know that baseball umpires make a decent if modest living from umpiring, as do basketball referees.
Football referees pretty much do it as a sideline.
But what about Boxing referees?
The closest I've ever come to first hand knowledge involves Hall of Fame referee Carlos Padilla Jr. He refereed tons of Championship fights.
Including the Ali-Frazier "Thrilla in Manila"
Some time after that fight, I was having dinner in the restaurant at the Union Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas.
I was finished with my meal, and the busboy, pushing his cart, came by to put my plates in the cart.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was Carlos Padilla Jr.
Either he was never paid much, or he blew it all at the crap tables.
But I'm pretty certain he didn't blow FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!

So I've now used the expression "Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!" four times in this article.
I hope it doesn't mean I owe Michael Buffer twenty million dollars.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

Rumbling Preparation. Part One.

I am a huge and knowledgeable boxing fan.
I have been one since I was a kid.
My access these days to good professional boxing is the almost weekly events they have on
HBO and Showtime.
When I was a kid, my main access was the Saturday Night Fights on ABC.
Then, when each network had a major "Sports Spectacular" type of show, good professional
boxing gravitated to them.
But that died out, and now, it's almost exclusively HBO and Showtime on Friday or Saturday nights, with an occasional Pay-Per-View which I never pay for.
During the Saturday Night Fights era, usually held in Madison Square Garden in New York,
the man who introduced the fights and the fighters was a quintessential New Yorker who never made an introduction without sounding like he was reading it.
His name was Johnnie Addie.
Even though his introductions weren't colorful, there was something about him that was.
Witnessing Johnnie Addie do his job raised a question in this young adolescent's mind.
Did Johnnie Addie make an actual living from doing this?
I never heard of him having any other kind of job.
I know he also had the same job working wrestling matches.
This was during the days when I actually watched them, and honestly had no idea that they
were fixed.
So I guess Johnnie cobbled together some sort of living.
Later on, the ring announcer at Madison Square Garden was a man named John Condon, who was also the Director of Sporting Events there, so ring announcing was just a sideline for John Condon.
The other major ring announcer contemporary of Johnnie Addie's was Jimmy Lennon.
But he was primarily a West Coast guy.
Whenever there was a fight from L.A., Jimmy Lennon was the announcer.
So I never got to see that much of him.
He brought an elegance and class to ring announcing that Johnnie Addie simply did not have.
I also wondered if Jimmy Lennon had a day job. or was ring announcing was enough to pay the bills.
Jimmy Lennon was perhaps best remembered as the ring announcer in the "Rocky" movies.
This brings us to today.
Jimmy Lennon has passed on, and on Showtime, his son, Jimmy Lennon Jr., usually billed
as "the classy Jimmy Lennon Jr." is the go-to ring announcer there.
And he certainly is classy.
Just like the old man.
And the same questions persist.
Does he make a living purely from this?
If so, he must be making a whole lot of money by the word.
Because none of these guys say all that much.
Jimmy Lennon Jr.'s catchphrase introducing the main event on Showtime is, appropriately enough, "I-i-i-it's Showtime!!!"

This brings us to Michael Buffer.
HBO's go-to guy.
Also very classy.
And he brings a sense of drama to the proceedings.
He's the one who always says, before the main event, "L-l-l-l-et's get ready to rumble!!!!"
And the crowd goes nuts
I did some research on this article, and learned something very interesting about Michael Buffer.
I'll share it with you next time.

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My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.

And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

Whatever Happened To Anchovies?

I was going to write about this a couple of weeks ago, when it seemed like an aberration.
Now, it seems to be turning into an epidemic.

My wife and I love anchovies.
Particularly on Pizza and Caesar Salad.
After a rather disastrous experience at our local California Pizza Kitchen, where they do
not have one single anchovy in the entire place, we wised up and bought anchovies at the local supermarket,and brought them with us to the California Pizza Kitchen.
Now, the California Pizza Kitchen, like most restaurants, can be a satisfying experience if you know the menu, and know how to order from it.
The Pea and Barley Soup is first rate.
The Cobb Salad is excellent.
Then one time, we braved the elements and ordered the mushroom pizza.
It had a lot going for it.
It tasted good.
But that's when we found out that they didn't have anchovies.
So we decided that next time, we'd bring our own.
And so we did.
For the uninformed, there is no way you can open a can of anchovies in a restaurant without making a major mess.
Which is what we did.
But it was worth it.
The other thing about the pizza at the California Pizza Kitchen is that they don't seem to believe in pizza sauce.
You know. Marinara sauce.
So something was still missing on this rather good pizza which now had home-brought anchovies on it.
I then asked for a side of marinara sauce.
They brought it.
It was cold.
You know. This is how everyone likes marinara sauce on their pizza.
Cold.
I wasn't going to ask them to heat up the marinara sauce, because the pizza was already on the verge of cold.
So I begrudgingly ate the pizza with cold marinara sauce on it.

So okay.
That's the California Pizza Kitchen.
A place that thinks pineapple is a more suitable topping for pizza than anchovies and
hot marinara sauce.
But just today, we went to a much more traditional Italian restaurant, part of a chain
called Buca Di Beppo.
The food has always been first rate.
They always had anchovies for their excellent Caesar Salad and pizza.
No more.
They no longer have anchovies.
They should know better.
It's inexcusable.
And they're costing themselves money.
They would charge for anchovies on a pizza.
It's cheaper to get them at the supermarket.
How hard is it to keep a can or two on the premises?
I haven't heard anything about them becoming a health hazard.
If anything, I hear that they're good for you.
If there was something wrong with them, they wouldn't keep selling them in supermarkets.
We're now beginning to hoard them.
Because we don't know where the next abandonment will strike.
We will be armed whenever we go out, and there is the slightest chance we'd be ordering pizza or Caesar Salad.
And fully prepared to make the mess that accompanies it.

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.

And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******

A Very Sad Sunday Morning.

I was watching "CBS Sunday Morning" a couple of weeks ago.
This has always been a very classy program.
Charles Osgood is a very classy host.
It is usually quite upbeat, and a wonderful way to start your Sunday.
But a couple of weeks ago, they did a couple of stories, pretty much back to back,
that left me totally depressed.
They were stories that mourned the passing of two inanimate objects.
I had never seen either of these inanimate objects in person.
Nor did I realize that they were gone.
It took "Sunday Morning to show me and tell me.

One was the S.S. United States.
Our flagship of ocean liners.
I thought it was still functioning.
Still making regular crossings across the ocean blue.
It turns out that it has been sitting in mothballs in Philadelphia since 1969.
Was I the last person on earth to realize this?
They showed what it looks like now.
Paint peeling.
You could barely tell that it was ever painted.
It was like Gloria Swanson's mansion in "Sunset Boulevard"
Then they showed the ship in its heyday.
And boy, was it painted.
It was painted great.
They interviewed a guy who was the head of a restoration committee for the
S.S. United States.
And he wasn't holding out much hope.
I remember when it was first launched.
It was 1952. I was five. And full of hope.
Just like we all were in 1952.
And now, the S.S. United States is just a bucket of rust, most likely headed for the scrap heap.
That's how I started my Sunday Morning.

Then they segued to a segment about the Borscht Belt.
Because there is a show now playing Off-Broadway called "Old Jews Telling Jokes"
Now, you'd figure that this one would at least be upbeat.
And clips from the show were upbeat indeed.
But then, we were regaled with the information that most of the famous Borscht Belt
hotels were gone. Vanished. Destroyed. Rubble.
The flagship hotel of the era, the 50's and 60's, was the Concord Hotel.
Grossingers was a close second.
That's where the Headline entertainment and the best food was.
Grossingers was best remembered for hosting Liz Taylor's and Eddie Fisher's wedding
reception.
They're gone now too.
Just as gone as Grossingers.
And I had no idea that these hotels weren't still thriving.
Am I the last Jew on earth not to know this?
I never saw either of these hotels in person.
When my family made our summer excursions to the Catskills, we usually stayed in bungalow colonies.
That was the equivalent of steerage on the S.S. United States.
A few times, we stayed at the grade B Hotels, like the Nevele, the Laurel, and the Pines.
But we never got a whiff of the Concord or Grossingers.
Sunday Morning took a camera to the former site of the Concord.
It was a weedy, dirty, empty field, surrounded by wire fences, which, too, were falling down.
And I wept.
And I wept all the way through "This Week With George Stephanopolous"

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

My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel,"Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
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 paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.

And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne & Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

******