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I told this story six years ago (almost to the day, but definitely to the occasion), but it bears repeating. My favorite Halloween memory came about 20 years earlier. And it involved a Staples office supply store. No, really. In the late afternoon, I parked in the lot of my local West L.A. Staples and headed towards the building. And coming outside at that moment was Ray Bradbury. Now, mind you, that alone would have been good enough. I've always loved Ray Bradbury's writing, and the first book of his I'd read was his classic Something Wicked This Way Comes, which centers around Halloween. But then, so did many of his works. He wrote a collection of stories, The October Country. One of his creepy stories is The October Game. He wrote a short novel, The Halloween Tree. And much more. Side note: years after I read the book, Disney Studios made a movie out of Something Wicked This Way Comes. A friend at the studio got me a copy of the screenplay and poster, both personally signed to me by Ray Bradbury. Which I still have. So, the author, book, and the connection to Halloween has long been strong with me. And then there was Ray Bradbury, walking through the parking lot. On Halloween.  I tend not to go up to celebrities. And Ray Bradbury was clearly not in the best of health, helped by a caregiver. But...this was Ray Bradbury. And it was Halloween, for goodness sake. You don't ignore that and expect to have any self-respect. It would almost like avoiding Santa leaving an Ace Hardware on Christmas. Sure, he's busy because he's the patron saint of the holiday, but he more than almost anyone in the world is celebrating the day to its fullest. And wants the day celebrated to the fullest. So, I walked over, simply said how much I enjoyed his writing and expected to leave it at that. But he was charming, and engaged me in conversation, helped in part by him finding out that I grew up near where he did, in Waukegan, Illinois. (Glencoe, where I'm from, is about 25 miles directly south.) I don't recall a great many specifics about the conversation, though I do remember his saying how Halloween was his favorite holiday. (Gee, no kidding!) Which is why it came as a thrill -- and is my favorite Halloween memory -- when, as we parted, Ray Bradbury wished me, "Happy Halloween."  And just as a bonus, here is that poster I have of the movie, Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on his novel -- which as I said was the first story by him that I ever read. (And which, as it turns out, is about Halloween.) As I mentioned, the movie was released by Disney Studios, and at the time I was in my dark days doing PR, and knew a few of the PR folks over there. One of them, Arlene Ludwig, was aware of my love of Bradbury and this book in particular (made clear when I expressed my great pleasure that her studio had made it into a film) -- and to ever-great and appreciated credit, she got a signed poster for me.  And for good measure, here's the signed copy of the screenplay that he wrote, which she, bless her heart, asked him for. 
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I was scrolling through the on-screen TV guide a few nights ago and noticed that tonight on a very old (of course…) rerun of Perry Mason, one of the guests is…Erle Stanley Gardner! I checked iMDB, and it’s the only time he appeared on the show. In other words, it took nine seasons before the Perry Mason show asked the man who created and wrote the "Perry Mason" books to do a cameo!! Gardner plays “Second Judge,” so for all I know he doesn’t have any lines, though maybe they gave him one. I like such things, so I set my DVR to watch. (All the better since I can fast-forward to the courtroom scenes.) But it also has a good cast, with Jackie Coogan (renowned as a child actor who starred with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid and later got famous again as "Uncle Fester" on The Addams Family) and Estelle Winwood (who had a long Hollywood career, but is perhaps best known today for playing the "Hold Me, Touch Me" old lady in The Producers. And oddly, Dick Clark. For those interested in such whimsical things, the episode airs tonight (Tuesday) on MeTV at 11:30 PM Los Angeles time. It's called, "The Case of the Final Fade Out."  I’ve been meaning to post this for a long while, since it was first posted in the New Yorker back in July. But for reasons inexplicable – since I dearly it love and find the piece hilarious -- I keep putting it off or forgetting. No More. It’s a three-part, serialized short story, written by Simon Rich. He’s a frequent contributor to the New Yorker; was on staff at Saturday Night Live; wrote for The Simpsons, wrote the screenplay for the HBO Max original, An American Pickle that starred Seth Rogen, based on one of his short stories; and currently wrote the upcoming remake Wonka. But I most love his work for the TBS insane and wonderfully funny series, Miracle Workers with Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi, based on his short stories. This particular story is from his latest collection, New Teeth, of which Kirkus Reviews wrote, “"Rich presents parody, absurdity, observational wit, the sudden shift in a familiar premise, and a surprising touch of sweetness and charm throughout... [New Teeth is] so consistently funny, so exceptional in its imaginative use of parody as to be near genius. A fertile mind provides many smiles in this entertaining collection—and more than a few out-loud laughs." The story is called “The Big Nap.” It’s a film-noir type tale of a hard-boiled gumshoe who’s seen it all and is a bit world-weary when, against his better judgement he’s dragged into a case by a mysterious dame who claims that someone has gone missing who is very important to her. The twist on things is that the detective is a two-year old, and the mysterious dame is a younger girl he’s seen around after recently showing up. She's lost her toy unicorn. Rich’s writing style is spot-on perfect, and he’s able to somehow make all the old detective cliches fit like a glove, that gives them a surprising freshness. Yes, it’s personal taste and all, but that’s mine. It’s also to the personal taste of my friend Treva Silverman who sent it to me, and who won two Emmy Awards writing for the Mary Tyler Moore Show, so I give it added points for that. Here’s how the story begins –  The detective woke up just after dawn. It was a typical morning. His knees were scraped and bruised, his clothes were damp and soiled, and his teeth felt like someone had socked him in the jaw. He reached for the bottle he kept under his pillow and took a sloppy swig. The taste was foul, but it did the trick. Now he could sit up and think. Now he could start to figure out how to somehow face another goddam day. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. He wasn’t getting any younger. His eyes were red and bleary. His scalp was dry and itchy. He was two years old, and soon he would be three. Unless he stayed two. He wasn’t sure if you stayed the age you were or if that changed. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things. The only thing he knew was he was tired. Tired of this down-and-dirty life. Tired of trying to make sense of a world gone mad. The client was waiting for him in his nursery. He’d seen her around before. She’d come onto the scene about a year ago, moving into the white bassinet down the hall. Some people called her Sweetheart. Others called her Pumpkin. But most people knew her by her full name: Baby Anna. She looked innocent enough, with her big, wide eyes and Princess Elsa onesie. But her past was murky. The detective had heard that she came from the hospital. But there was also a rumor that she’d once lived inside Mommy’s tummy. It didn’t add up. Still, a job was a job. “So, what brings you here?” the detective asked. “It’s Moomoo,” Baby Anna said. “She’s missing.” I shall say no more about the story. All I’ll add is that Rich sustains the tale wonderfully through three parts. You can find Chapter One here. The other two parts have links at the top of the page, but just to provide another option, here’s also how to get to them -- For Part Two click here. For Part Three click here. It’s always a weird experience when a friend gives me something they've written to read for my opinion. If it’s a first draft, their expectations are sky-high, though since nothing is yet set in stone there’s a little flexibility for constructive comments. (I always call them "comments," rather than "notes" which sound far more imperious, a haughty checklist of things that Must Be Followed. But it's just comments, my personal opinion. It might be good, experienced opinion, but still opinion.) The tricky part is asking them how detailed do they want my comments to be? Because I say I can be cursory or go into great detail, which might be much more than they want. And most people say, “Oh, tell me everything and be totally honest.” Though what they’re thinking is that they want to hear me say, “Okay, I am being totally honest here – not since William Faulkner has writing moved me so much. And that’s my totally honest opinion.” Anything less tends to really annoy them. (Not everyone -- I have two talented friends who dearly love rewriting, Bart Baker and Rob Hedden. Rob actually loves rewriting so much it's almost to an obsession, to the degree that it’s become a joke, even Bart the Rewriter considers it hilarious. On the other hand, another friend always said he wanted a totally honest reaction, and after a couple of totally honest reactions for his work, I didn’t get sent any more. To be clear, it wasn’t that I didn’t like what he wrote – I did -- but the problem for him was that I didn’t think his first drafts were without flaws and needed no changes.) Trickier, though, may be when a script or manuscript is finished, and in final form. If you see problems, there’s not much you can say. Because it really can’t be changed. So, how do you get across an honest reaction when anything critical can only hurt? The most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever had to read was an early draft of a play by Larry Gelbart. Now, Larry was probably one of the great American TV-movie-theater writers of the 20th century. And that’s not hyperbole. Among his voluminous works were the Tony-winning Best Musicals A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and City of Angels, Oscar nominations for Oh, God! and Tootsie, developing the TV series M*A*S*H for which he won an Emmy, the HBO movie Barbarians at the Gate, writing for the legendary Caesar’s Hour, getting 17 Emmy Nominations, being inducted into the TV Academy Hall of Fame and…and…and…and… (that's just the surface). And it isn’t that I’m not at that level, but that I can barely even see it. However, Larry said he liked to give me his works because he knew I’d be honest with him. (I once asked if he had a hard time getting reactions from friends because He Was Larry Gelbart, and so they’d all be loath to tell him if there was anything they didn’t think was right? And he said, in all honesty, yes, and that was a problem. Because he knew drafts all need work, but no one would tell him what wasn't working. So, I felt an added obligation.) As I said, there was this one play he gave me -- and it was very good. And later got produced and got good reviews. But there was one scene in the early draft that I just didn’t think he got across the way he wanted. I was wary (the very low-key word) about how to tell him that, but he was appreciative with all the comments, and rewrote the scene. And it was better -- but…but (and this was the hellish part) it still didn’t work for me. So…er, um, ack, how on earth do I tell Larry Gelbart that?? When I give comments to writers, they always begin with “This is only my personal opinion.” But still… But I had to tell him, it was why he gave me the draft, and with much hesitancy and coughs and ahems I did. And he was appreciative, because that’s who he was. And addressed more changes. And happily the play got finished, was extremely good and got successfully produced. I say all this because the other week a friend, Ed Zuckerman, gave me his new book to read. And when I say it was his new book, I don’t mean the first draft -- or even the final draft. But a hardcover copy because it’s just been published. So…aghh, what do I say if I don’t like things in it -- or don’t like it at all? "Wow, it was beautifully typeset!" I first met Ed when we played in a weekly softball game of Writers Guild members. I tended to pitch much of the time -- and Ed is something like 6’17” (okay, yes, that’s an exaggeration, but from where I stand close to the ground, that’s how he seemed), so whenever he came to the plate, I would generally fear for my life. Usually, I prayed that we’d be on the same team. Happily, Ed is an accomplished writer, and the book is very enjoyable. So – phew! My old concerns of pitching to him and seeing my life flash before my eyes disappeared. To put his talent is perspective, among his many credits Ed wrote on the TV series Law & Order for around 20 years, give or take. In fact, he co-wrote my favorite three-part episode for the show, their sort of version inspired by the O.J. Simpson case, which they called “D-Girl,” “Turnaround” and “Showtime.” But his credits go far beyond that, over 100 from series like Miami Vice to Star Trek: the Next Generation, JAG, Blue Bloods and a lot more, but over 50 writing credits from Law & Order. So, I knew he knows his stuff. His novel, Wealth Management, is a financial thriller set in Geneva. It centers around three friends from Harvard business school whose lives have periodically crossed paths romantically and in their individual fields of hedge funds, international banking, and investments. And bit-by-bit, their personal and professional stories overlap with global terrorism. What struck me is that Ed tells the story in an interesting way – moving between about a dozen characters, jumping the story around in chapters that are mostly no more than three pages. That gives the book a very cinematic feel, something I suspect was intentional because it keeps the story moving at a fast pace, which is important since a lot of the action is, in essence, about moving paper. But what I think he does best for my taste is give “backstories” to almost all the characters, and not just the main three – even including a very minor character, a Syrian street kid who does a bit of pick-pocketing, and so we learn how he got to that point. It’s not critical to the story, but it makes his character more real whenever he comes on the scene, rather than as just A Plot Point. All of this fleshes out the story a great deal, making it more involving, understanding motivations of most everyone, rather than knowing only about the main characters and relying solely on the plot to create interest. If I had one quibble, it would be that it with three main characters and covering so many other characters – all of whom are easy to follow – I wished on occasion that it focused on just one or two main characters to feel more grounded with them on where the story was going. But ultimately, that’s not what this story is. It’s meant to be a whirlwind affair to keep you wondering, filled with various surprises. And in the end, the three main characters do create a foundation to it all. The larger point being that it was a pleasure to tell Ed. Not that it mattered all that much, since, in fairness, the book has been published regardless of what I said. But I know that should we ever find ourselves on a baseball field again, and I’m pitching to him, there’s a good chance the bat won’t come flying at me. To anyone interested, the book is available here.  Yesterday, I posted a 20-minute video of an interview with the great humorist James Thurber, the only video I’ve ever seen of him. In a social media exchange afterwards, I noted that our family had a couple of Thurber books, but what probably most pushed me to reading him was something else entirely. The classical music station WFMT has had a wonderful show every Saturday night for over 50 years, The Midnight Special, (which was created by its then-staff announcer Mike Nichols) which was folk music, comedy, Broadway and odds-and-ends. And they would periodically play selections from the 1960 stage revue, A Thurber Carnival, which was adaptations of a wide range of Thurber short stories. It had a great cast of character actors including Tom Ewell (who most famously starred in the movie The Seven Year Itch, opposite Marilyn Monroe), Peggy Cass, two of my faves Paul Ford and John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, and others. One of my favorite scenes from the show that The Midnight Special played a lot is also one of my favorite Thurber stories, “File and Forget,” a first-person story about a hellish time that Thurber supposedly had trying to correct with his publisher about a delivery problem of one of his books. On stage, the role of 'James Thurber' was played by Tom Ewell. Discussing this with a friend who grew up in New York, he said that he actually saw the show when it ran there. Lucky him. (By the way, as I noted yesterday, the real Thurber was a bit of a ham, and into the run it turned out that for a month the Broadway production had James Thurber himself play himself in that one scene! There was one particular challenge: Thurber was legally blind. Because of this, he couldn’t make the entrances and exits properly. What they did was build a sort of conveyor belt with a chair on it. Thurber simply sat in the chair and it would roll on and off the stage. I’ve tried to find video or even just audio of this for decades, but so far…alas, nothing. But it seems almost impossible, if not malpractice that no one with the production filmed it, or recorded it, even if just off the sound board. So, I live in hope.) Anyway, I thought that it was only proper to play “File and Forget” here. I’ve found a few video versions of it from small productions, but I’m going to go with this great truly cast here, even if audio only. They're just too good. And the whimsical background music is spot-on perfect. This is a real treat, and much thanks to the inveterate Chris Dunn for the heads-up. It’s a 20-minute interview on camera with the legendary humorist James Thurber. The 1956 conversation is with Alistair Cooke, which may possibly have been done for the Omnibus series he hosted – however, since there are standalone credits which are limited in their information and don’t identify the source, it seems like this was done for a separate purpose. The interview is interesting and a bit dry, though that doesn’t mean it’s without humor since much of Thurber’s humor is bone dry, as are many of his comments here. But about two-thirds of the way through they get into how is drawings initially got into the New Yorker, and there’s a lot of laugh out loud material there. (Besides which, it’s great hearing him talk about E.B. White and New Yorker co-founder Harold Ross. Surprisingly, most of the interview deals with Thurber’s drawing (of which he’s continually disparaging), that ultimately leads to his loss of sight. Quite a few years back, I wrote about the wonderful stage revue done in 1960 called A Thurber Carnival, which was made up of adaptations of a bunch of short stories by Thurber. As I wrote at the time, there’s a great cast album which is well-worth tracking down if you like Thurber. One of my favorite scenes from the show is also one of my favorite Thurber stories, “File and Forget,” a first-person story about a hellish time that Thurber supposedly had trying to correct with his publisher about a delivery problem of one of his books. On stage, the role of 'James Thurber' was played by Tom Ewell. Into the run, it turned out that the real Thurber was a bit of a ham, and for a month the Broadway production had James Thurber himself play himself in that one scene! There was one particular challenge: Thurber was legally blind. Because of this, he couldn’t make the entrances and exits properly. What they did was build a sort of conveyor belt with a chair on it. Thurber simply sat in the chair and it would roll on and off the stage. Now, that I would have paid really-good cash money to see. It's a shame it wasn't recorded (as far as I know). And a shame it occurred in the days before cell phones, when someone in the audience would have recorded it. Much as I’ve long wished to find footage or even just a sound recording of that event, though I suspect it’s a lost cause. In fact, this video of Thurber is the first I’ve ever seen of him. So, it’s the next best thing. |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting.    
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