Brief Encounters Read online

  You hate to take any of the fun out of this by impertinently wondering whether, since the chance of error and catastrophic failure was so high (cf. poor Jimmy Carter), a president with an approval rating of, say, 86 percent might have been less likely to risk it. And maybe the most intriguing question of all: Could this mission, if it had failed utterly, have been kept secret?

  Please consider these, and have your paper on my desk by Friday.

  MAY 6, 2011

  The First Shall Be Last—or, Anyway, Second

  Whoops. I’ve misinformed you.

  I didn’t mean to.

  It happened in the recent column about political correctness. I love the fact that that particular column and subject drew from your side so many gratifying, sometimes vehement, well-written, and impressively thoughtful responses.

  What you might call my unintended deception had to do with the incident in which the network man denounced (why don’t I just go ahead and say “hated” and see if the heavens stay up?) my very first network Dick Cavett Show.

  It turns out it was at once different from and worse than that.

  An unearthed folder of stuff from that time reminds me of the true story. And incidents like this cause you to ponder the alleged fact, in current studies of that most fascinating of phenomena, memory, that we forget 80 percent of our past life. (Resisting joke about what other part of your life could you forget but the past part?)

  And will they ever discover what determines what gets remembered and what doesn’t? Why can I recall the words, and melody, to an ancient shampoo commercial (“Dream girl, dream girl, beautiful Lustre Creme girl”), my cousin’s 1948 Michigan license plate number (JV 81 56), the full names of all my teachers from kindergarten through college (one friend remembers none), but not where I ate last night? What says, “Okay, this item goes in the Permanent Recall box and this into the Burn box?”

  Now, where was I?

  Ah, yes. So here, in the vernacular of the period, is what really went down at ABC in memory-dimmed 1968.

  My original report is accurate as far as it goes. Coming off the set after somehow surviving the nerve-shredding ordeal of taping my very first live-on-tape, no-stopping, ninety-minute talk show (it took real men to do talk shows in those days), a show that had gone beautifully and was full of laughs, a man from the Nervous Executive Harassment Department summed up the accomplishment with “Nobody gives a goddamn what Muhammad Ali and Gore Vidal think about the Vietnam war.”

  Recovering from shock enough to point out that the audience did, and that Angela Lansbury, the other guest, had, and that the scary subject had occupied but a brief fragment of the whole show, didn’t help. It only further tightened his grim visage.

  Now for the part repressed—and maybe also suppressed—by Mnemosyne, lovely goddess of memory.

  “This is not the show we bought,” issued from the bloodless lips. “We can’t air this as your first show.” (Debut day was still a week hence.)

  “What do you plan to do, then?” my agent, the legendary Sam Cohn, inquired in a controlled tone.

  “We’ll have to tape another show and put it on first and this one second. We can’t risk this one for the first time out of the box.”

  Whether from bravery or career-ending tendency, I inquired in as polite a tone as I could muster, “And at that point will you stop being chickenshit?”

  Well, boys and girls, under protest we did tape another show. And on the following Monday it aired as the first show. Happily, most reviewer types had decided to wait for more than just one show to write about the new program. They knew nothing, of course, about the first show / second show scheduling switcheroo.

  You guessed it.

  One reviewer said that the “first” show was a bit of a disappointment, that I seemed a touch dispirited, but that the “second” show was a pip, that I’d hit my stride in only a day. Of course, thanks to the network’s timidity, those who did review the first show they saw got the duller one as my “opening night.”

  Funny, but pathetic, isn’t it?

  What can we learn from this?

  Similar incidents lay ahead. Vietnam, of course, remained a continuing sore subject, producing cold sweats on the brows of my overseers. But it was impossible to avoid a subject that screamed at you daily. Unless, of course, you went out of your way and did a show about nothing more controversial than puppies, kitties, recipes, and how to embroider a dirndl. (I thought about it.)

  But I learned to prevent secreting excess stomach acid by having the occasional war supporter on, for “balance,” after guests had denounced that war we lost. (The wretched one that LBJ had formerly and famously referred to in the later regretted line that it was “a war for Asian boys.”)

  Having Buckley or Goldwater, or much less desirable types than these two real charmers, would, I was told, help pacify complainers (and life-and-limb threateners) and calm the FCC, not to mention keep stations from losing their licenses; all of it having to do with what the network told me was the “equal time requirement.” This was bull. “Equal time,” someone eventually pointed out to me, had to do only with political campaigns. So much for “Your guest bad-mouthed fly-fishing and I demand equal time.” (Do you think I’m kidding?) And individual stations could “retain their licenses” by airing other shows, or shows of their own, on controversial subjects.

  Before I knew that, I made waves for myself by saying what a silly idea “equal time” was anyway. An effective speaker can do more damage or more good in a well-stated minute than an angry klutz—poorly chosen to respond—could do in half an hour.

  Although recalling these things right now has increased my pulse and given me the vapors, I must admit I loved it when the ice got thin. I gradually eased into the realization that the occasional challenging of a guest could produce “good television” and the viewers loved it. As when I said to the LSD-advocating T. Leary, “You know, I really think you’re full of crap.” The powers left that in, to my surprise, probably because it would play well with right-wing complainers. (Would they have been so reasonable had I said it to, oh, Spiro Agnew?)

  How silly to have thought when the first show / second show problem slipped into the past that from now on it would be only smooth sailing.

  Ahead lay: Lester Maddox’s walk-off when I declined to apologize; the Chicago Seven, and the press’s saving that show upon learning the network was going to bury it; Gore and Norman; Lily Tomlin’s abrupt departure from the stage, protesting a male star of minimal forehead area whose sexist remarks appalled her; veterans for and against the war (John Kerry, e.g.); at least one murderer (Jeffrey MacDonald, of Fatal Vision fame); Jane Fonda and Mark Lane on purported atrocities by U.S. soldiers; Lillian Hellman suing Mary McCarthy and, oh yes, me; John and Yoko singing “Woman Is the Nigger of the World” and the flap it caused (for another time); and on and on.

  And just while wondering what else could possibly happen that hadn’t, the on-camera death of J. I. Rodale, which, as the Brits say, “just about put the tin lid on it.”

  But I loved it when the ice got thin.

  As Dr. Samuel Johnson said about facing the gallows, “It focuses the mind wonderfully.”

  MAY 20, 2011

  Waiting (and Waiting) in the Wings

  You forget it can happen.

  You finally get tickets to the show you’ve been dying to see, you settle into your seat—and it happens. The dread announcement.

  An amplified voice from backstage utters those awful words: “For this performance, the part of _________ will be played by _________.”

  Before the sentence ends, a groan goes up from the entire audience. The moment is bad for them, but infinitely worse for one person standing backstage who hears it clearly. The one who, somewhere earlier in the day, has been told, “You’re going on tonight.” The one who has not yet made an entrance but has already, in effect, been booed. Hearing the dismal reaction at the mention of his name is enough to shrivel the soul.


  Meanwhile, out front in your hard-to-come-by seat, self-pity hits hard. You’ve read what a great team the two lead actors make, and it’s as if, in a far-off time, you were told that Mr. Hardy had been taken ill and you’d be seeing Laurel & Jenkins. Why, you wonder, did this have to happen to me? I finally get tickets to The Book of Mormon and I have to endure an understudy. (Technically, in this case, a “standby.”)

  The actor missing is invariably one you’ve looked forward to, and who’s been praised to the skies. The wonderful comic actor Josh Gad had awakened with the actor’s nightmare: an absent voice. (The other male lead, by the way, is the impeccable Andrew Rannells.)

  Sorrow and self-pity were short-lived. Another splendid actor, Jared Gertner, entered for Gad and instantly won the hearts of the disappointed. And held those hearts right through to the big, rewarding moment at the end—the one that surely makes up for standing backstage and hearing the announcement of your name trigger a groan—the curtain call. There’s a big surge in the cheering as you take your solo bow and your onstage fellow players salute you for having not just somehow gotten through it, but gotten through it with distinction.

  He looks delightfully funny. Bulky of upper body (padded, possibly) and with legs appearing barely adequate to support their load, topped by oddly orange hair that fits the head like an ample, folded-under hat of some sort, Gertner exudes comic presence.

  His physical movements reach back to the eccentric and hilarious ones of the skilled vaudeville comedians of another time. Where did he acquire them? In any case, Jared Gertner won’t be a standby forever.

  There are actors who love such a job. A friend of mine stood by for a star for a year and went on only twice.

  “Best job I ever had,” he said then. “I have a place to go at night, I get a nice check, I’m in the world I love, I schmooze with my fellow actors, catch up with all the latest gossip, and I sit in a dressing room with a good book. This month I’ve read four great novels I cheated myself out of in school with CliffsNotes.”

  In Henry Fonda’s more than a thousand performances on Broadway in Mister Roberts, reports Fonda’s daughter Jane, he had a series of standbys. Not one ever set foot on the stage.

  Someone said the best way to vanish from show business was to be Ethel Merman’s understudy.

  Merman famously never missed a performance, saying, “I’m gonna take a chance on some young cutie going out there and being better than me? Fat chance!” (The printable version of the quote.)

  A lady I know who stood by for the indestructible dynamo in Call Me Madam was warned, “If a cement truck hits Ethel she goes on.” (Some would pity the truck.)

  Mormon is not a show for dummies. Like South Park, from the same intrepid pair—Trey Parker and Matt Stone—it is chock full of allusions, paraphrases, and, yes, classical references enough to delight the well-read and educated. And, as in South Park, they come thick and fast, especially in the sparkling lyrics.

  The production sails through the evening at such a hilarious clip that you dread the inevitable duller spots that any show has. They never come. And I’ve never laughed harder.

  Is it actorproof, as one critic erred in asserting? Nothing is. I’ve been distressed this year by an alarming trend in my beloved Broadway theater that wasn’t so before: seeing largely fine shows, with otherwise good casts, in each of which are from one to three actors who appear to have mugged someone for their Equity cards. There’s no excuse for this in a city where Law & Order for years proved how many countless splendid actors we have. (Will someone please explain this?) If Mormon appears actorproof, it’s because there isn’t one clunker in the company. This may be a recent record.

  On the way to seeing the show, I had one trepidation. Was it conceivable that I could be offended?

  As one who has railed in these columns against political correctness and who maintains that being offended is a witless waste of time, I wondered, could this show test my limits? But denunciation of the show, as far as I can tell, must have been confined solely to those who have not seen it, a practice much in fashion these days. (Maybe the show’s having been laden with Tony Awards earlier this week will encourage some naysayers to at least have a peek. Maybe with an aisle seat, in case their fears are confirmed.)

  The evening is a virtual encyclopedia of that strictly American contribution to the world, the Broadway musical. Homages, references, parodies, and allusions in all the art forms of the musical—choreography, sets, costumes, lighting, music, and lyrics—are there throughout. (The guy in the next seat enjoyed ticking them off: “Robbins, Fosse, Busby, Rodgers and Hammerstein.”) Movie allusions also abound.

  So, finally, how do you present sacrilege, irreverence, blasphemy, and lots of dirty words onstage and get away with it? Apparently it is done by some mysterious alchemy whereby truths and profundities somehow come through all the frivolity and escapism.

  This remarkable work inspires the thought that every religion springs from two universal needs: to explain the origin of the human race and to be comforted about the harsh finality and loss that is death. Whether this involves pyramids, seventy-two virgins, healing frogs, burning bushes, walking on water, or tribes of alien forebears, the camaraderie, the mythologies, and the comfort factors are about the same. Different religions—each of which always claims to have a monopoly on the truth—work for different people. (Is that too profound?)

  The good news is that Book of M. will be around a long time. The only physical danger in seeing the show is that you might laugh your head off.

  Finally, there is a strange irony afoot.

  The evening has touching, tender moments. And for all its themes and targets—traditional faiths, religious hypocrisy, icky sanctimony, corrupt religiosity, bizarre sexuality—the show has by some ingenious trickery co-opted one of the supposed virtues of going to church. Considering the fineness of everything you see and hear combined with the buoyancy of a cast of actors who seem to be having the time of their lives, you leave feeling exhilarated, renewed, uplifted, and full of something alarmingly akin to—brace yourself—faith.

  That is its magic.

  JUNE 17, 2011

  I Owe William Jennings Bryan an Apology

  Three fifteen p.m.

  Certainly among the most delicious of childhood and early schooldays memories is that magical moment when the standard old-fashioned classroom clock with the Roman numerals at long last clicked to that magic rightward position: 3:15.

  That moment was great on any day, but couldn’t hold a candle to the one accompanied by the words “Have a nice summer.”

  Three solid months of NO SCHOOL!!

  Three months of leisurely reading what you wanted to read. In my case, Penrod for the fifth or sixth time; all the Sherlock Holmes stories, again; both Tom and Huck; all books on Japan and Indians and magic. And Nancy Drew. I doubt that any of my male friends or I would admit to one another that last-named item, but there it is.

  Summer meant mischief. Blowing up people’s mailboxes around the Fourth with two-inchers from China. (“Instructions: Lay on ground. Light fuse. Retire quickly.”)

  And it seemed that most summers would contain something truly outlandish—and sometimes dangerous and destructive—dreamed up by me, or Tom Keene, or Marvin Breslow, or Hugh McKnight, or the now dead and longed-for-in-memory Jimmy McConnell, my personal Huck Finn.

  One such incident—wince-making in recall—contained all the desired elements: some devious plotting, borderline—and sometimes south of the border—illegality, “minor” destruction of property, and excitement enhanced by virtue of its being committed under cover of darkness.

  And not least the tantalizing possibility of once again experiencing the fun of eluding (“ditching”) an unwelcome squad car.

  A bit of history: While my companions in malfeasance and I were all in high school, somebody decided to adorn the majestic front steps of Lincoln’s Nebraska state capitol building with a statue. Not a statue of some ancient mythical
figure, or a sculptor’s rendering of some unnamed “God of Wisdom” or “The Spirit of Law,” but—for mysterious reasons—William Jennings Bryan. A bronze, virtually black (remember that) eight- or ten-foot statue of the great “Prophet from Nebraska,” as he was derided by Clarence Darrow in the Scopes trial.

  W.J.B. was caught by the sculptor in full oratorical pose, arm in the air, proclaiming. Perhaps the famous gem of his cultured windiness, the “Cross of Gold” speech?

  We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

  Plopping Bryan on the capitol steps bred anger in the community. Fiery letters swarmed. “It looks like our great capitol building is dedicated to this mediocrity,” read a typical protest missive to the editor of the Lincoln Journal.

  We hatched a plot of action. I think it was born in the brains of two friends of mine, Roger Henkle and / or Marvin Breslow. At this distance—considering the “whew!” factor of what might have happened to us all—I don’t know whether to assign their scheme praise or blame.

  Neither fellow was the sort mothers feared their child might associate with. A year older than I, they seemed better educated then than I feel now, and both went on to distinguished academic careers in “fancy eastern schools” (like Harvard).

  Sadly, they had to—I confess it—fill me in on who Bryan was: booming-voiced orator, U.S. congressman from Nebraska, thrice-failed candidate for president, ardent Prohibitionist, and vehement enemy of Darwinism for religious reasons in the famous Scopes trial.

  My knowledge was limited to knowing there was a hospital named for him in Lincoln.

  I have no idea which or what combination of these facts about “the Great Commoner” made us decide his looming presence on the capitol steps required attack.