And very rarely came back, even to visit.
One thing that was always sure, when I lived there, was that I was broke.
Totally financially insolvent.
Oh, I had jobs. Mostly jobs that required no notable skills.
That was my specialty.
My favorite of those was as a page at the ABC Television Network.
A monkey could do it.
I just happened to fit into the suit better than most apes.
As I lived at home until I was 24, I was besieged to contribute much of my income to help support the household. Not that they couldn't have gotten along without it.
These were upper middle class Jews who raised me.
When I was Bar Mitzvah'd, my mother insisted on throwing me the swankiest one that could be had in all of Forest Hills.
One that we all knew would throw them into debt for the longest time.
And my mother successfully convinced me that she was doing this for me.
If I had been able to be at all objective about this, I would have realized that this was not being done for me, but instead, for the purpose of keeping up with the Goldsteins, or the Silverbergs, or name the Jewish family of your choice. It was done purely and extensively for her.
But I let her keep up this ruse. And as I did, I knew that whatever Bar Mitzvah gifts I would receive
(the going rate back then was usually a $75 savings bond), I would never get my hands on.
And it didn't matter how swanky the event would be, the gifts would be the same.
You don't downgrade the gifts based on how shabby the event is.
So, we had a first-class bash.
Surely enough, just a few months later , my parents came to me, pleading poverty, and can we cash in the bonds?
Me, simultaneously being the good son and knowing that I'd never see that money again, relented.
And I never confronted them about it. And, of course, they never apologized.
Consequently, I was always broke.
But my bitterness grew and grew unexpressed over the years.
My one salvation was, living in New York, was that I could go to the theater.
Not as often as I wanted to, and as reasonable as ticket prices were, I was still totally broke.
So what to do?
There was a very common practice that I took advantage of quite often called "Second Acting"
It involved waiting for a play or musical to break for intermission, mingle with the crowd, and finding a seat for the second act.
Usually you could figure out what happened in the first act.
I considered that my first writing lessons.
It was quite helpful.
Or I'd read the play.
Most of them were available from the library. Remember them?
So in the sixties, I saw almost everything in one form or another.
I have come to learn that at some point after I left, the Nederlanders and the Shuberts have cracked down on this practice.
Second Acting is now a thing of the past.
And it's not that the plays are any better these days.
If anything, they are only far more expensive.
Just another way that the past was better.
And then, the more successful I got, the more my father resented me.
Otherwise, to quote one my of my second-acters , life is a Cabaret, old chum.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.,
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and 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@comcast.net
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts
My parents took all my bar mitzvah money & presented me with $100. That's what I got.
ReplyDeleteI opened a checking account (my first), ordered checks with mogen dovids on them & wrote checks until the money was gone.
I still have the old checks somewhere.
And by the way, this past Saturday, the 16th, was the 50th anniversary of that day.
In a way, I'm glad I'm not all alone.
ReplyDelete