NO DARK SARCASM IN THE CLASSROOM

I discovered what my lot on life would be at the tender age of 6. I was in first grade and lucky to have made it that far. My parents didn't fill my crib with toys. Instead, they put a bookshelf within my reach and filled it with all the Golden books they could find: Three Little Kittens, The Pokey Little Puppy, The Little Red Hen, The Golden Book of Fairy Tales – these were my toys. These were my friends. It wasn't until I learned to turn the books right side up that I realized that the kittens and Pokey weren't going through life standing on their heads. Quite a revelation for a 3 year old. By the time I was 4, I was reading, to some degree. I remember my grandfather holding up the New York Times and showing me off to his friends by having me read it. They weren't always thrilled with the news content but, took into consideration that it was coming out of the mouth of a 4 year old, not John Cameron Swayze. This wasn't the Camel News Caravan – it was Louis Brettschneider showing off the fact that his grandkid could pick out a few words on a printed page. I couldn't wait until September so I could start school. I had just turned 5 and the excitement of kindergarten was being programmed into my every fiber. “You'll love it,” they would tell me. “You'll learn exciting new things and meet new friends and have a lot of fun,” they would drum into me at every opportune moment. And, I was thrilled. I wanted to enjoy this world of wonder that I knew only from my parents' description. They had built it up and I was ready to venture out. I could hardly sleep the night before my new chapter. I was going to school. Finally, the big day came. I could barely contain myself when we got out of the car and my mom took me in to meet my teachers, Mrs. Donaldson and Miss Smith, which was obviously not her real name. She apparently could tell, early on, what was going to become of a few of us and wanted to avoid any blame. The classroom was filled with toys and blocks and finger paint stations and cubbies stuffed with small rugs that we used for our mid-day naps. There were kids everywhere. A few I had known from my block and others who would become lifelong friends. I had a ball. Kindergarten was only a half day, so I was home by noon and had thoroughly enjoyed my time in the “trenches” of lower education. School had been fun. Just like everyone said. The next morning, my mom came rushing into my room and shook me out of a deep sleep. “C'mon, let's go....it's time to get up,” she was screaming. “For what?” I asked. “It's time for school, let's go,” “But, I went yesterday,” I reasoned as I tried to turn over and go back to sleep. After finally convincing me that going to school was not like going to the zoo, it was something I had to do on a daily basis, I got up and went. Kindergarten was fun but we weren't doing anything but finger painting and napping. It lost it's luster after a few days. Now I couldn't wait until first grade, where I could finally put my reading prowess to good use. First grade, where I would learn that numbers would never be my friend and that if I wanted to know what 2 + 2 equaled, I would have to wait until someone invented a calculator. The time for what I considered to be “real” school finally came and I mustered up as much excitement as I possibly could as I headed back to Bowers school with the new friends I had made in kindergarten. We were about to embark on the next learning adventure in our young lives. There were no more toys, no more small nap rugs in our cubbies, no more cubbies. We each had a little desk, which a short, educational film called “Duck and Cover” directed us to get under in case of an atom bomb attack. The fact that we believed it would sufficiently shelter us from the bomb was enough to show how incredibly much we still had to learn. The desks were made of metal and wood and had inkwells in the upper right hand corner. They also had an opening for storage underneath the desk top. I don't remember what was stored in there other than lots of material for spitballs. On one particular day, midway through the first grade, I was clowning with some friends as I often did but this time I had apparently irked the teacher. She was busy with the task at hand – showing us the order of the letters that would magically spell “cat” when arranged properly. “Bobby B.,” she yelled, still not having the confidence to try and pronounce Brettschneider, “if you're going to act like a baby then you belong with the babies. Pick up your things and go back to the kindergarten.” I was embarrassed and walked, slowly, with my head hanging, down the hall to Mrs. Donaldson and Miss Smiths room full of finger paints and five year olds. As I opened the door, I noticed that there were grownups everywhere. It was a special parent day and everyone was eating cake and ice cream. As I picked up a plate and filled it with pure deliciousness, I realized that I had just learned the most important lesson of my entire school career to that point and beyond – comedy pays!

HIGHEST OF HIGHS

As I was digging, recently, into the recesses of my memory to locate a few high points in my life, I realized that the recesses weren't where I wanted to be. There's nothing there. That's why they're called recesses. My mental “SIRI” recalculated and I soon began to find high point after high point after high point. It didn't appear that I had ever had anything to be pissed off or depressed about. I did a lot of, what many would consider to be, neat stuff. I got to spend time with rock stars, writers, actors, athletes, scientists, philosophers and even a politician or two. Three times with a President of the United States. It was the nature of the beast and I learned, in short order, that these folk of note were no different than anyone else, outside of the opportunity to act like an asshole in front of a lot more people at any given time. I met some extremely cool people who did not disappoint and a number who did. They were all high points. I had had 42 years of growth in my industry and was practically enjoying high points on a daily basis. Which showed me that, in order to find that special moment, I had to look outside of my morning show experience. After I left ABC, I wasn't getting a lot of offers that would have made any sense when it came to supporting my family. It wasn't long before I realized that my “music radio” days, were, for any number of reasons, over. It was time to try and reinvent myself at the age of 60. But, I wasn't sure in which direction to turn. I knew that I had always paid attention to the news. The fact that I like to be informed mattered less that the fact that I HAD to keep up with current affairs so I'd have things to talk about on the morning show. You have to be informed if you want to compete and, in those days, radio was still a competitive medium. I was hired to work at a small company that was attempting to pioneer stock market news and programming exclusively on the internet. We are, of course, at a point now where practically everyone and their respective mothers have a podcast but, Market News First was one of the first. It could have been the best had it not been for the small technicality of stock manipulation. It didn't last long but they DID allow me to develop a morning news show so that I was able to give myself a basic lesson in news anchoring. I enjoyed it so, I figured the most logical next step would be to try and get an anchor job on the radio somewhere. It was a medium that I knew better and felt more comfortable with than in front of a camera. Unfortunately, I had nothing to send out in the way of a news audition tape. I could have done a “dummy” tape but I had no access to a studio and technology had not yet provided the affordable “home studio” capabilities that now make all those aforementioned podcasts possible. The best I could do was a tape from a smooth jazz station where I had worked a part time weekend shift while trying to keep our heads above water. I sent it to the #1 news station in Dallas, the #5 market in the country, knowing full well that the news director was going to get a pretty good laugh out of the concept and shove the tape into “file 13.” That was exactly what he did but before he threw the tape in the trash, he called his assistant news director into his office to share the hilarity. “Listen to this,” he said, “you're not gonna believe the balls on this guy.” She listened but rather than laughing, she said, “I know him. I taught with him at a broadcasting school and he is a real pro with a pretty impressive resume. He'll be a really quick study and we could use an anchor on the weekends.” The next day, the news director called and offered me a Sunday shift. It would be a great spot for me to learn about news anchoring while not putting the station into any ratings jeopardy. We then had a good laugh about my “smooth jazz” audition tape. I was the Sunday afternoon anchor for about 6 months and during that time, the most important lesson I learned was to pay close attention to everything. There was an awful lot to learn about gathering, writing and anchoring an objective and professional news cast. It was right about that time that the corporation that owned the radio station was bought by one of the other 2 or 3 corporations that are now controlling the industry. One of their first moves was to eliminate staff including the radio stations regular, weekday, afternoon drive anchor. One of the most important slots on the air. The news director was in a bind and called me into his office. “Look,” he began, “we have to find an afternoon anchor and I feel that you have learned enough to fill in until we can find someone. Think you can handle it?” “I'm sure I can” I replied, not at all sure if I could. I was pumped because this would give me more hours which I desperately needed to help pay the bills and I could learn more about what was becoming a real fun and interesting job. I became a sponge. I took in anything and everything I could about the machinations of a big time radio station newsroom. And I learned my lessons well. It wasn't long before I was re-called into the office where the news director said, “It looks like we've found our permanent afternoon anchor. The pay is embarrassing but if you would like the job we'd like to have you with us full time.” I, of course, accepted immediately and called my wife with the thrilling news that I was the new afternoon anchor on the #1 news station in the market, adding, “but the pay sucks so, if you wouldn't mind - hang on to your job for a bit.” It was while I was working in the newsroom that, perhaps, the high point of my career came along. A bucket list item that I never imagined would be at the end of the path I had traveled to that point. It was November 4, 2008. Election Day. History was about to be made and I was about to be given the opportunity to be part of the big picture. I had finished my anchor shift at 7pm and the election results were beginning to roll in. I was handed a reporting assignment, which was rare for anchors but it was election day and the regular staff of reporters was being spread a bit thin. “Go to Denton,” I was told, “and hit both party headquarters and call in county returns results. Then, as a decision nears, go to the bars and other hangouts near the college and get reaction.” I watched the results trickle in from around the county and phoned in my reports but I was at a coffee shop very near the school when it became apparent that Barack Obama was the winner and the nation now had it's first Black President. History was made in a way that I never thought I would see in my life time. I got the last of my audio, got in my car and cried. I then drove home and checked “Be a news reporter covering a monumental history making election” off my bucket list. Highest of high points – achieved. .

Inseparable? Being Funny Isn’t About Liking Each Other

As I write this, I have auditioned and received a callback for the play The Sunshine Boys, Neil Simon's hilarious tribute to Vaudeville. It's about the comedy team of Al Lewis and Willie Clark, who over the course of forty-odd years, not only grew to hate each other but never spoke to each other offstage throughout the final year of their act—or for the ensuing eleven years. Willie's nephew Ben attempts to put the team back together for a TV special about great American comedy but getting the two cantankerous actors into the same room for a rehearsal proves almost futile and provides most of the laughs in the play.  The fact that Lewis and Clark had so much chemistry onstage but couldn't stand each other offstage is less of a stretch than it seems. In fact, there are a slew of examples of this phenomenon that can make The Sunshine Boys' tiff seem tame by comparison. For instance: Bud Abbott & Lou Costello, one of the most popular comedy duos of their day, suffered a rift in 1945, at the height of their popularity, when Costello accused Abbott of hiring a servant that he had just fired; he then refused to speak to Abbott unless they were performing. Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert, while coworkers for many years, were not the best of friends off camera due, in part, to the fact that they worked for competing Chicago newspapers. Roger wrote in a tribute shortly after Gene's death, “Gene and I were known for our rages against each other.” William Frawley and Vivian Vance, I Love Lucy’s Fred and Ethel Mertz, were not at all fond of each other. In fact, “Their hatred for each other started very early on, in the first week or so of the show.” And Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, possibly the hottest duo in all of America in the early fifties, called it quits in July of 1956. In his book Dean and Me, Lewis says Martin angrily left, telling Lewis with he was “Nothing to me but a fucking dollar sign.”  And then, there was Fox & Leonard, my duo, the first two-man morning team on FM and Rock & Roll radio. When we first teamed up, we found we had pretty amazing chemistry and essentially had the ability to know what the other was thinking. Ours was the kind of chemistry that makes for entertaining radio, television, film, vaudeville stage, or any other venue where a comedy team might perform. Sonny Fox was the program director, and had hired me to do the morning show solo until he realized that he and I might be able to try something that had yet to be done on the FM band. We found that besides a mutual admiration for each other’s work, we shared an adoration of the radio comedy team Bob & Ray—we had both grown up listening to them. I was struck by the amazingly creative ideas that came from Sonny's fertile mind but sometimes that was far as it went. I provided the follow through. This balance made for a very good team. Every time the microphones went on, we were flawless, and for the first couple of years, we also spent a lot of time together off the air. But like in many relationships, that began to deteriorate after we got to learn more about personal lives, priorities, and most importantly, idiosyncrasies. He loved the faster side of life, with all of its perks and problems, and I liked to go to my quiet, suburban home after work, mow the lawn, yell at the kids, and take a nap. Towards the end of our tenure together, we understood that the twains would never meet and we parted. It wasn't necessarily by choice, however; he was fairly unceremoniously "let go," and disappeared without ever saying goodbye. Perhaps the fact that we hadn't really spoken to each off the air about anything but the business of the show for over a year had a little to do with that. Then, not a word exchanged for more than thirty years. We were The Sunshine Boys.  Why would anyone stay with a partner who is a polar opposite? Willie says it best in the play, when his nephew Ben asks why he stayed with Al for forty-three years when they couldn't stand to be in the same room together: “Nobody could time a joke the way he could time a joke,” Willie explains. “Nobody could say a line the way he said it. One person, that’s what we were.” That's exactly why Abbott and Costello would meet in the middle of the stage and make magic. It's why Fred and Ethel were the perfect couple on I Love Lucy and why Fox & Leonard had the highest ratings in Philadelphia. When it works, don't ignore it because of a minor technicality, like not getting along—milk it for all it's worth.  At the end of The Sunshine Boys, Willie and Al find out they will be neighbors in the old actors’ home. They sit down and start to chat, and the intense love and respect they have for each other immediately trumps any ill will harbored over the years. They seem to just pick up where they left off. When I moved to Florida from Texas, my route took me through Pensacola, where I knew my ex-partner Sonny was living. I called and he asked me to stop by and spend the night on my way through. When he opened the door, we hugged and it was like nothing had changed in the thirty years we hadn’t spoken.  Just like Willie and Al, reuniting for a CBS special on comedy, we were asked to put Fox & Leonard back together as our old radio station changed formats and was producing a reunion show of all of the talent from across the years. We did and like all great comedy teams, the chemistry was in tact. More than three decades of silence and the magic was still there.  We are now the best of friends, who understand the importance of the contributions we made to each other’s careers. The parallels between Lewis & Clark and Fox & Leonard were almost eerie, considering the play debuted just a couple years before we met and teamed up. At the time we had no knowledge of who Neil Simon was, what he had written, or how it would relate to us thirty years later. It seems that Fox & Leonard were Lewis & Clark then and today, which helps me understand what Mr. Simon was trying to say in The Sunshine Boys. It showed me that even after all these years in retirement, I was ready to go to that audition and I am ready to do this part when I go to the callbacks tonight and nail it.  ***  I got the part of Al and kicked ass and took names for eight weeks. It was a great theatre experience, and I hope the audience enjoyed it as much as I did.

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS, BOTTLE OF (AGED) WINE

Why do we celebrate birthdays? We are aging and with that process comes pain. Most of it is a visceral pain that dates back to many, if not all of the decisions we made when we were at an age that we didn’t mind shouting from the rooftops. Some of it is more of a “just below the surface” pain that’s located in places like knees and other joints that were the victims of many, if not all of the decisions we made when we were at an age when we did stupid things like climbing up on rooftops to shout. July is my celebration month. I have a lot to celebrate in July. My sister in law starts us off with a birthday on the 6th. Then, as we move along through the month, we find my nephew’s birthday on the 21st, mine is the 22nd, one of my daughters has a natal day on the 26th, my brother-in-law turns another year older on the 27th and my granddaughter has her party on the 29th. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few people and can expect fewer gifts this year because of it. Not that I need any reminder of my own impending demise. This year I will officially be four years older than a Beatles song. A song I interpreted over the years as something my grandfather might relate to, but he’s been gone for a long time. Somehow, I have become the grandfather and I’m not quite sure at what point I turned that corner. Let’s see how well the song applies four years after the fact. Look at the very first line….. “When I get older losing my hair. Many years from now.”…… Well, I AM older and I AM losing my hair, and “many years from” has become now. I suppose I should have seen it coming a while back, when I started being able to comb my pillow in the morning. How about the line ……“If I’d been out ‘til quarter to three, would you lock the door”……Well, honestly, these days quarter to three is out of the question. Unless, of course, it’s quarter to three in the afternoon, so I can take advantage of the “Early Bird Special.” That way I can still catch a nap before I go to bed at 8:30. “Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?” Why would anyone ask for more. All that yard work is enough to make me want to take a nap. See a pattern forming here? “Send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view.” OK, here ya’ go - “Having a wonderful nap. Wish you were here.” “Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.” I think one of my biggest concerns now is, when I have my grandchildren on my knee, do I have to call them Vera, Chuck and Dave? This aging thing can get confusing. So let’s all celebrate. Especially the month of July when so many of the people I love have reason to don a paper hat, let out a whoop and a holler of pure delight and blow out the candles. As for me, I am weathering this process, as I am dragged through it, kicking and screaming, as best I can, celebrating the comforting fact that my wife will still need me and will, indeed, still feed me....that'll be great...now that I’m sixty eight!