Here's Johnny!

Johnny Carson, the King of Late Night for 30 years.

Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show on NBC from October of 1962 through May of 1992 - just under thirty years as the King of late night television in America.  He went on the air just months before I was born, and I was married by the time he signed off.  I was a huge fan.

On September 27, 1954 Steve Allen became the first host of The Tonight Show.  Allen created the parameters of the late night talk show that we take for granted today: an opening monologue, a live band, a desk, a sidekick, interviewing a mix of celebrities and odd personalities, some musical acts and a little comedy.  That all came from the genius of Steve Allen.  He only hosted the show for a bit more than two years.  If you watch clips of Steve Allen today, you will notice that his direct descendant is David Letterman, but he paved the way for Carson.

The temperamental Jack Paar took over for Steve Allen in the late 1950's, and took The Tonight Show into the 1960's.  Paar was so high strung that he once walked off his show mid-broadcast because he was so angry with a joke cut by NBC censor's from his show - a joke which not only seems incredibly tame by today's standards, but wasn't really funny - only to return a month later.  That was part of Paar's appeal.  He was an open wound.  A ticking human time bomb ready to explode at any moment.  That initially makes for great television, but it wears thin after a few years.  He was the anti-Carson, but it was during Paar's reign that Carson first made an appearance as a guest host of The Tonight Show.

Johnny took his rightful place behind the desk of The Tonight Show in the Fall of 1962.  The wise-cracking, cool, quick-witted young man from the Midwest hit the bullseye as a late night comedy host.  It seemed like he was inviting everyone to end their day with a few laughs, and maybe some interesting conversation, in his living room.  The way Johnny pretended to invite you into his living room made America invite him into their homes in large numbers for years.

I can't remember the exact moment I first watched Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, but I would guess it was in the early 1970's.  I was just hitting puberty and was entranced.  He was smooth, classy and quick on his feet.  He always had just the right ad-lib, knew exactly what to say, and looked so comfortable on camera.  Like all the greats,  he made it look easy.  I didn't understand all the jokes early on - many of the political and sexual references went way over my head - but it was like sitting at the adult table.  If you're adult table included Dean Martin, Don Rickles and Jimmy Stewart.

My parents let me stay up late on Fridays and during breaks from school, and that meant only one thing - the chance to stay up late and watch The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. 

What's noticeable when you watch clips of Carson today, particularly when he's interviewing a civilian (which meant unpredictability - he was working without a net) such as a young spelling bee champion (like in the clip below) or an elderly potato chip collector, is his lack of ego and willingness to share the stage.  He knew he looked good if his guests looked good.  If someone was entertaining and doing well, he was willing to sit back and let them go.  You just don't see that much on television today.

Steve Martin, with his "Wild and Crazy Guy" routine, started to become popular in the mid 1970's.  He was right in my wheelhouse.  I thought his appearances on Saturday Night Live were amazing - we would all be imitating his routines and sketches the following Monday at school.

But it was his appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny where he became almost a show biz bridge between his (Vietnam) and Carson's (World War II) generations.  He was a welcome fixture on The Tonight Show - a show the new breed from SNL considered "square" and "old school" - straddling the line between becoming part of the lore of Hollywood comedians to mocking talk show conventions at the same time.  It was a tough balancing act, and he walked it with aplomb.

Watch this clip where Martin sends up the talk show convention of a "big" star having to leave the show early - they're too high up on the Hollywood food chain to sit there on the couch like a normal person and listen to someone ELSE talk.  Note in this clip, too, how Carson is perfectly willing to let Martin run with the bit and get the laughs.  Carson just plays the straight man, but he knows it's great television.

So I can't pinpoint the exact date when I had my brush with Johnny, but I believe it would have been during 1979 or 1980.  No, it wasn't a "brush" in the sense of encountering him out in public.  That just didn't happen.  He was a ghost, an apparition, in real life.  Even celebrity guests on his show would marvel that they never saw him at restaurants or parties around town.  It was as if he only existed that one hour a day when he taped his show.

My younger brother and I were visiting my father in Los Angeles during the summer break.  My father had a friend who was able to get us on the V.I.P. list for a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.  We didn't have to wait in line all day in the heat of the San Fernando Valley - just walk up to the page in front of the studio - give our names and be escorted in.  It was that sweet and simple.  But it didn't turn out that way.

My father drove my brother and me from his home in Playa del Rey to beautiful downtown Burbank.  The temperature difference between the two places was 30 degrees.  It was hot in Burbank that day.  How hot was it?  I'll tell you how hot.  It was so hot that Dolly Parton was selling shade.  Ah, that's how hot it was.

We drove right past the NBC Studios in Burbank, and saw the long line of people standing out front waiting for a chance to get in to see a taping of The Tonight Show.  My father parked the car, and the three of us walked over to a page with a clipboard, who seemed to be in charge, and gave our name - Cleary - party of 3.  The page looked at his clipboard and scrolled down a list of names with his pen, stopping about halfway down the page, and then looked back up at us.  I knew immediately by the look on his face we were in trouble.  He took one look at my younger brother, about 15 years old at the time, and said, "I have you on the list, but (pointing towards my brother) he can't go in.  We don't allow anyone in the audience under 18.  If the two of you want to watch (now pointing towards my father and me), that's fine.  But not him."

Damn.  My father was a lawyer and even he couldn't talk them into letting my brother attend the taping.  He tried to talk to the page with the clipboard, another page, and then I think even a supervisor in street clothes with a walkie-talkie.  He may have even gone inside and called our friend who had put us on the list.  They all made it quite clear there wasn't any wiggle room.  Mr. Carson was adamant that he didn't want any children in his studio audience.  Everyone had to be 18 or older.

I was heartbroken for my brother, but I was a much bigger Carson fan than him anyway.  Most TV shows had a much lower age cut-off - 14 or 16.  It didn't make any sense, but there wasn't any getting around it.  It wasn't as if Carson worked blue or anything.  My father and brother decided to go have dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant while I attended the show.  It was just about five o'clock, and they were starting to let the audience inside for the 5:30 taping.

Once we had tried everything we could to get my brother inside to no avail, I got in the short V.I.P. line as they left.  A page quickly escorted those of us in the V.I.P. line  into the lobby, through a pair of double doors, down a hallway and then we came in through a side door into Stage 1 - the set of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The studio pulsated with the tension and bustle that occurs just before a television taping.  Or a rocket launch.  But this crew had been doing this for 20 years at that point.  Everything was perfectly plotted down to the second with Swiss precision.  It wasn't done live - those days were long gone - but was shot what they call "live to tape," which means you shoot it straight through without stopping, as if it were live.  You still had the safety valve of time afterwards to cut or censor anything in the two hours between the end of the taping in Burbank and when the show was broadcast on the East Coast.

I've traveled around the world and seen many iconic buildings, structures, statues and paintings.  I don't think anything had the impact on me of walking into that studio.  There's Johnny's desk!  Oh, my god!  The cup with his pencils on the edge of his desk!  The curtain where he's comes out and does his monologue!  The star on the floor where he knows where to stop and stand when he comes out!  Look, it's Doc Severinson and the NBC Orchestra!  It all looks so small!

All five hundred of us in the studio were having the same thoughts go through our minds.  TV and film sets ALWAYS seem smaller in person than they do on TV or the silver screen.  It was probably less than 80 feet from one side of the set to the other.

As I settled into my seat - a pretty darn good seat - and scanned my surroundings, it started to dawn on me that it was cold in there.  Damn cold.  Also common on a set that's about to start taping.  Bright lights started to flicker on and off around the set as they made one last lighting test.  It gets hot under those lights during the taping, and you don't want to see Johnny or his guests sweating under those lights.

Ed McMahon walked into the audience about 5:20 and did a brief audience warm-up.  He introduced himself, Doc and the band, made a couple of lame jokes about the heat, asked a few audience members where they were from, and then got set at his familiar position in front of a mic stand, just to the left of the audience.

5:29 p.m.  There was a big clock above a television monitor, down on the stage right next to Johnny's couch, that Johnny, the crew and the audience could see at all times.  It showed 11:29 p.m.

Suddenly the studio got very quiet.  All four studio cameras, one on Ed, one on Doc and the band and two ready to pick up Johnny as soon as he came out from behind the curtain, were in position.  Two boom operators had their long boom microphones in place, hovering over the star on the floor.

The silence was broken by a stage manager, a gentleman in his mid-40's, wearing a headphone and a microphone, loudly counting down, "we're on the air in 5, 4, 3, 2 ..."  There was no "1."  Doc Severinson moved his baton and the familiar sounds of the Tonight Show theme came thundering from the bandstand down to my right.

The stage manager turned and pointed at Ed McMahon.  His familiar booming voice started, "from Hollywood...the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson..."

I cannot describe the adrenalin and energy pumping through the audience at that moment.  Hearing the band live, Ed's familiar baritone, the thought that we were seconds away from seeing our TV idol right in front of us.  It WAS a rocket launch.  I felt like I was INSIDE my television set.  If it was like that for the audience, I can not possibly fathom would it must have been like for Carson.  Talk about a drug.

Ed continued with the announcement of the night's guests, "...inviting you to join Johnny and his guests Steve Martin..."  Wait a minute?  Did Ed just say Steve Martin was on the show?  Holy shit!  I go to see a Tonight Show taping for the first time in my life and Steve Martin is the guest?  Jackpot!  I felt even worse for my brother...for a moment.

"And now heeeeeeeeeere's...Johnny!"

A spotlight suddenly clicked on and illuminated a large circle dead center between the now opening curtains.  An averaged sized man, maybe 5' 10", dapper and trim in a charcoal sports coat and light slacks, jauntily emerged from the curtain and, without looking down, casually stopped right on the star on floor, as if he could do it in his sleep.   Johnny's iconic face, outlined by gray hair, emerged into that familiar grin.  It was as if you were staring at Mt. Rushmore and the Abe Lincoln figure had suddenly come to life.

He raised his hands to acknowledge the warm greeting from the audience,  put his hands in his pockets, took a quick glance down at the 20 or so cue cards that were stapled onto three 4' X 8' pieces of plywood right in front of him, and started another trademark monologue.  The rocket was launched.

The rest of the show was a blur.  It went by so incredibly fast.  Everything was choreographed to the second.  A segment would last 6-7 minutes, they'd break for a commercial, the bright lights on the set would die down, the band would go into another number - and the band just filled that room.  They sounded so much better in person - something I would hear from everyone else who had attended a Tonight Show taping.

It was time for his first guest and Johnny introduced Steve Martin.  Martin was already making movies at this point, and had given up live performing.  He could have toured around selling out every 18,000 seat arena in the country, making millions of dollars in the process, but he had stepped away from stand up comedy.  Goldmine or not, it just didn't interest him anymore.

The band played an intro for Martin, the curtains parted again, and out strolled Steve Martin with a banjo around his neck.  Wow!  Johnny Carson, Steve Martin and now the banjo! - which he seldom used for any appearances by that time -  I felt even worse for my brother.

I have no recollection of any of the jokes Martin did that night or what he played on the banjo.  I just know it was the only time I ever saw him perform live, and he was hysterical.  He killed.  I kept glancing over at Johnny's silhouette in the darkness behind his desk - hunched over, his cackling laughter audible even though his mike was turned off.  I can't find this appearance on YouTube or on Carson's web site.

Another thing occurred to me for the first time during Martin's appearance: he's always an impeccably dressed man.  Carson was always dapper, he had his own clothing line at one time, but Martin was in another stratosphere.  The next time you see Martin appear on TV, check out his suit.  He's a man who knows good clothes.

(Note:  A few years later I would work as a page on a short-lived summer sit-com starring Martin Mull.  It was entitled Domestic Life, and was produced by Steve Martin's production company.  The show only lasted six episodes, but Martin was on the set once or twice a week, usually on taping days.  He didn't seem much for fraternizing with the crew, and I was much too intimidated to introduce myself or say anything to him, but every time he walked by me he looked FABULOUS.)

I have no recollection of any other guests besides Steve Martin.  There must have been somebody else: an author or rising comic.  My mind's a blank.  It was Johnny Carson and Steve Martin.  Two innovative entertainers who were able to produce work at a high level for decades in the fickle world of popular entertainment.  Two comedy legends.

Every rocket, no matter how powerful, eventually must come back to earth.  Johnny said goodnight to the camera and stood up from behind his desk and waved to the audience as the band played out the end credits.  Johnny came around to the front of his desk and shook the guests' hands and walked off the stage to our left.  And like that, he was gone.

After Carson retired in 1992, he only made a couple of more appearances on television.  For a man who lived most of his life in front of the cameras, it was amazing how he was able to walk away from it so abruptly and stay away.  A good entertainer always knows to leave the audience wanting more.

His last television appearance was a brief walk-on during David Letterman's show, when Dave was doing a special week of broadcasts from Los Angeles.  I hope you'll take the time to watch the clip below.  We will never see the likes of Johnny again.  Television is too fragmented and diffused now with 700 cable and satellite channels, YouTube and iTunes.  So many people watched Johnny on the Tonight Show in the 1970's and 1980's that his average rating then would equal the highest rated show on prime time TV today.

And what's fascinating about this clip is that he was retired and had not been in front of a camera in years, Letterman and the audience were both awed and adored him, there were multiple cameras and microphones in place to record his every word.  And what does he say?  Not a word.  He does a few takes, milks the moment for a few laughs, and then gets up and exits without saying a word.  Wow.  If only he'd be right back.

 

Flying Eyes and Traveling Bears

When you step on an airplane and settle into your seat, you are probably unaware that much of what's being loading into the belly of the plane right beneath your feet isn't bags or items checked by fellow passengers on your flight. 

It's Air Cargo:  items that need to be shipped quickly from one destination to another.  I've seen flowers leaving Seattle, Salmon from Bellingham, boxes and boxes of computers being loaded in San Francisco, and voluminous amounts of U.S. Mail at virtually every destination in the country.  An airline's ability to fill its cargo bins on every flight can make a huge difference in its bottom line.

But there are occasionally a few other items "shipped" in the cabin that you never see.

One item that I would see as a flight attendant on a regular basis in the cabin is something you would probably never guess:  human body parts.  Primarily eyes.  The gate agent would come down just prior to boarding with a small cooler, usually solidly sealed with duct tape, and accompanying paperwork.  The paperwork would have details of where the item had started and who would pick it up at its final destination.  An airline employee was responsible for it at all times, signing the paperwork with their name and employee number.

On flights without food service, we would usually just place the cooler in a secure spot in an empty compartment in the galley or in the valet closet.  If the flight had a meal service and the galley was full, we would often place it under the extra pilot jumpseat in the cockpit.

When the flight arrived at the gate, the "A," or "Senior," flight attendant would usually disarm the emergency slide on their door (1L) and wait for the agent to open it from the outside.  As the agent opened the door, the first words out of their mouth would always be, "any specials?," meaning any passengers requiring special assistance.  They would have been notified about the eyes, but we would remind them, and they would sign the paperwork and take the cooler before anyone stepped off the plane.

The other item we used to see being transported in a similar, yet unofficial, fashion was what I called the "traveling bears."  They reached the height of their popularity in the 1990's.  A teacher of an elementary school class, usually in an attempt to bring home the idea of U.S. geography, would bring in a medium-sized stuffed animal, usually a bear, and add a small backpack or fanny pack that would contain a small notebook and a sheet of paper, often laminated, introducing the bear, maybe giving his/her name if the class gave one, and giving instructions on how to return the bear.

The instructions asked the crews to travel with the bear to as many different places as possible, take pictures,  and place them back in the bear's pack, if possible, and write anything about the bear's travels in the notebook.  The bears would typically travel for a couple of weeks and then be returned to a particularly city on a given date.  Some of these bears traveled so widely that they'd put Rick Steves to shame.

When you had one of these bears onboard, the crew would usually look through its backpack during a break to see where the bear had been.  Some crews would take pictures of the bears at famous landmarks and leave copies of them in the bear's backpack.  I'd see pictures of bears in front of, or on top of, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State building, the White House, the Trevi Fountain, Big Ben, the Golden Gate bridge or sitting at sporting events or taking in Broadway shows, and strapped into a seat in First Class with a cocktail.  These bears lived life in the fast lane.

I never took a bear on an overnight, but plenty of crews did.  I would write about their travels in their notebooks.  The bears were deemed a security risk after 9/11 and we never saw them again.  I would have loved to have been in one of those classes when the kids got their traveling bears back, and the teachers pulled out the stack of pictures and postcards from around the world, recording the bear's adventures over the past month.  I hope it inspired some of those kids to travel and see the world themselves.

Anytime one crew would take over a flight with through passengers (let's say my crew is waiting on the jetway in Philadelphia for a plane arriving from Boston, and we are working the same flight through to its final destination in San Francisco) continuing to another destination, the Senior or "A" flight attendants would have a short, informal briefing giving the incoming crew any information they needed to know about the plane or continuing passengers.  A typical conversation would go something like this:

"Hey guys!  You have quite a few thrus (passengers continuing on the same flight to the next destination), 2 chairs (passengers requesting a wheel chair to exit the plane), a UNAC (an unaccompanied minor - a child or children traveling without an adult), eyes in the cockpit and a bear in the forward galley.  Oh, yeah, and your aft coffee maker is inop (inoperative - broken).  Make sure they dump the biffys (empty the lavatories - you never wanted to push back on a long flight if the lavs hadn't been properly serviced).  Have a good flight!"

A third and final cargo item that I'd see in the cabin as a flight attendant only occurred on flights between Buffalo, New York and Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  And it had an incredible smell.

Our "short" overnight (the hotel we used on layovers shorter than 14 hours) hotel in Buffalo, New York was the famous, or infamous, Airways Hotel.

The old Airways hotel in Buffalo, New York.

The place was retro before it was built.  The rooms were small, the beds and sheets uncomfortable, the carpets filthy and the walls paper thin, but the staff was very accommodating to airline crews, something all crew members appreciate.

But the real attraction was the Irish pub, the Shannon, conveniently located on the first floor, right off the lobby.  And the meal everyone ate at the pub in the Airways was an order (or two) of their famous Buffalo wings.  I mean, crews just went crazy for them.  Some people would even admit to me they had bid the trip just for the overnight in Buffalo and the wings.  I've been a vegetarian for thirty years, so I never tried them.  But everyone else - and I mean everyone - couldn't get enough of them.

And that included airline employees, mostly guys working on the ramp, who had never even been to Buffalo.  They would call up the Airways Hotel from their break room at the airport in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and place a large order of their coveted wings.  They would charge it to a credit card and tell them what flight to ship it on.

Then a few minutes before departure from Buffalo, some delivery guy from the Airways hotel would walk down the jetway to the front door of the plane with a large, brown bag of steaming buffalo wings from Buffalo.  We would stow them in an empty galley compartment, and then pass them along to a ramper or mechanic meeting the flight in PIT or PHL.  I saw this happen dozens of times.  I think this may have stopped after 9/11 as well, although I'd find it hard to believe that the Airways even survived into the 21st century.

I would love to stay around and chat, but I gotta' fly.  In this biz, you aren't making any money on the ground.

My Google Problem

A Google search for "Vincent Cleary blog" yields the above results.

I started writing this blog a month ago to share some stories and sharpen my writing and internet skills.  Today is my 21st posting - meaning I have been able to write a new post every weekday for the past month.  It's been a challenge to come up with something new and interesting to write every day, but all the great comments and encouragement have kept me going.  I can't believe it's already had more than 500 page views.  Thanks to everyone for reading along.

But when I started this one month ago there's one thing I didn't anticipate: I now have a Google problem.

As you can see in the screen grab above, if you type my name into the Google Machine, I'm listed just below a "Vincent Cleary - Florida Sexual Offender."  No, it's not me.  No, it's not a relation.  A sex offender from Florida?  Who knew?  And this proves once again why truth is stranger than fiction.  I couldn't have thought this up if I'd tried.  A sex offender from Florida?  I would have backed off the Florida angle as just a bit over the top. 

Although the surname "Cleary" is not unusual - there are pages and pages of "Cleary's" in the Dublin phone book - I met a couple of Cleary's at US Air, but I've never met another Vincent Cleary.  Never had anyone else claim to know another.  The infuriating thing is not only that he's a registered sex offender, but he's a sex offender that shows up HIGHER in Google search results than I do, dammit!  I'm not sure which is considered the greater sin in Silicon Valley: sexual deviance or poor Googling results. 

Looking for a bright side, I am hoping in San Jose perhaps this sort of thing is considered a status symbol. Many of you out there undoubtedly have a Gulfstream V,  a Porsche and the latest prototype of the iPad; but do you have a Google Problem?

Nice tie, Senator.  Clip-on?

Looking even further on the bright side, at least my Google problem isn't nearly as embarrassing as this guy's.  I've never been a, uh, member of the U.S. Senate.  And I don't foresee a Presidential run in my future.

I'm not going to worry about it.  I'm just going to let it sort itself out.  It's like water off a duck's back.  If the duck had to check in once a month with his parole officer.

Oh, yes, there's just one more thing...I'm never setting foot in Florida again.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?

Leading man John Garfield in Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil

High school is when we learn the mythology of American History.  College is when we deconstruct these mythologies, and start to learn what really happened; the stories that don't necessarily fit the American narrative.

I am fascinated by these dark times in American History when what really happened doesn't fit the mythology.   Or perhaps it's more American than we'd care to admit.

The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, Watergate, and most personal for me - the Hollywood Blacklist - have all been parts of American History that I have always found fascinating for what they say about our country.

My first project in film school was a story I wrote and directed (poorly) about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and I had the opportunity to interview a couple of Japanese-American internment survivors as research.  I lived in the Washington, D.C. area during Watergate (a future post) - a few of our neighbors popped up on TV during the Watergate hearings, and through my favorite professor in college I had the good fortune to meet an authentic American hero, whose promising writing and directing career was tragically cut short because of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Abraham Polosnky in 1951.

Abraham Lincoln Polonsky - how's that for an American name? - was born in New York City in 1910 to the parents of Russian-Jewish immigrants.  He received his Law degree from Columbia in 1935.  As was common among many intellectuals during the height of the Great Depression, Abe became disenchanted with the ill effects of Capitalism.  He started going to Communist Party meetings in New York and soon became a card carrying member.

Abe, as I would come to know him, grew bored as a lawyer and labor leader, and became a writer.  He would go on to write several novels, the first of which would be published just before the U.S. entered World War II.

Abe Polonsky in 1996.

During World War II, Abe was an undercover agent of the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) - the predecessor of today's Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) - and assisted members of the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France.  How much more American could you get than that?

After World War II, Abe returned to America and found a home as a writer in Hollywood.  Abe's second  screenplay, a boxing picture entitled Body and Soul, garnered him an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay.  Many critics today still consider Body and Soul one of the best sports pictures of all time.  How much more American could you get than that?

Considered a rising star in Hollywood, Abe wrote and directed Force of Evil in 1948.   Force of Evil, a rare film at the time to be shot on location in New York City, contained dark themes and its dialogue was blank verse, was considered by most critics and knowledgeable filmmakers to be ahead of its time.  Martin Scorcese has said Force of Evil was a huge influence on his work, and he filmed an introduction to the original home video release of the film.  Abe would not direct another film for over twenty years.  

After Force of Evil, Abe's past association with the Communist Party and his growing prominence in Hollywood would attract the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee (H.U.A.C.).  He would share a screenwriting credit for the 1951 film I Can Get It for You Wholesale.  That same year, he was finally called to testify before H.U.A.C., refused to name names, and then his own name was placed on the Hollywood Blacklist - he would not have a screen credit again until 1968 (as a writer for the film Madigan). 

One of the most talented and promising filmmakers in Hollywood, a man whom the American government had determined was safe enough to fight the Germans in occupied France, was declared by that same government not safe enough to work in Hollywood for fifteen years.

He wrote and directed Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (starring Robert Redford) in 1969, and would continue to have occasional screenwriting credits up through the 1980's.

Abe and his friend and fellow blacklisted screenwriter, Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, Fail Safe),  were two of the primary writers for the popular You Are There television program starring Walter Cronkite.  This was in the mid-1950's during the blacklist, so they used "fronts" - people not on the blacklist - who would pretend to have written the material, and would take screen credit in exchange for a percentage of the writing fee.

The premise of the show was that the viewer would go back to famous moments in American history and the CBS news team of the 1950's would interview prominent players in the story.  For a certain generation of Americans, this was how many of them learned American history.  The irony being they learned it from a couple of writers who had been blacklisted.

Bernstein would go on to write about this time in The Front, which was released in 1976.  The most powerful part of the film is the end credits when they list all the people who worked on the film who had been blacklisted. 

When I first met Abe in 1985 - in my Film Noir class after we had screened Force of Evil -  - he was a clever, charming, impish man who was savoring a renewed appreciation for his life's work by film students and historians all across American.  His size and carriage reminded me of Jacques Cousteau.

I would spend time with him in the next couple of years at school, and while working as a production assistant on an educational video series, where we interviewed such screenwriting luminaries as Julius Epstein (Casablanca), Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, The Big Chill, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and  Waldo Salt (Serpico, Coming Home, Midnight Cowboy).  Abe was the producer, and they all did the interviews as a show of respect for Abe and his work.

We shot the series at an office in an industrial park in the middle of nowhere in Los Angeles -  Downey, Norwalk or Cypress - someplace you hear about on the weather or traffic reports, but you never actually go there yourself.  I had the pleasure of driving Abe, and several of the other writers, back and forth to the set, and then pretty much sat back on the location and took a Master Class in screenwriting.

Abe, born and raised in New York, never learned to drive, and always had to be driven everywhere he went in Los Angeles.  It was a tough way to get around L.A.  I loved driving him and hearing his stories.  He lived in a fashionable condominium in Beverly Hills, and every time I picked him up at his place, he was sure to remind me that even though he'd been blacklisted by the U.S. Government, he was still the President of his condo association in Beverly Hills.

Unlike any of the other writers or directors I picked up and drove to the location, Abe would always ride up in the front passenger seat.   He would tell his old Hollywood stories - I would egg him on ("I really shouldn't say anything else about that s.o.b., but if you insist...") and ask questions to try and keep him talking.  But he would always stop his stories and ask me questions - things in my life, school and my thoughts on current events.  The rides flew by in a blur.

My film professor, a co-producer with Abe on the project, pulled me aside one morning when we got to the set and asked me what I was talking about with Abe on the drive back and forth to Beverly Hills each day.  I thought I was in trouble.  "Nothing special.  Just movies.  Travel (I had just come back from Vancouver and loved it - so did Abe)...just chit-chat."

"Well, keep it up," my Professor said, "he asked me to make sure you were always his driver."  I was thrilled.

Abe knew his career was nearing its end, but he was working with French director Bertrand Tavernier (who had just released 'Round Midnight) on an autobiographical screenplay (which would eventually be released as Guilty by Suspicion in 1991) in which the lead character, like Abe, was a blacklisted filmmaker.  Abe, and the rest of us, hoped it would be his cinematic swan song.  

Tavernier eventually dropped out of the project and the film's producer, Irwin Winkler (Rocky, Raging Bull, The Right Stuff), decided he would change the character from a screenwriter to a director, tone the political aspects of the story down, and direct it himself.  Robert DeNiro played the lead character, but the film met a lukewarm reception.  Abe felt so betrayed that he asked that his name be removed from the credits.  Winkler, who couldn't write his way out of a paper bag, took the screenplay credit - his sole feature film writing credit.

There were times when there would be a break in taping the writers,  the lights and the camera positions were constantly being adjusted, and I'd find myself in a conversation with Abe and Waldo Salt or Abe and Walter Bernstein.  They were comrades in a long, dark war who had survived, and now they were revered within the film community.  I could have sat there forever and just listened to them tell their war stories.

I eventually came to my senses, moved from Hollywood back home to the Bay Area, and started to raise a family.  I never lost my fascination with the blacklist.  I still read any new, well-reviewed books on the blacklist.  I was hoping Abe would write his memoir before he passed, but that was never to be.  Walter Bernstein published his memoir in 1996, and I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it.  He mentioned Abe and their years using "fronts" to write for the "You Are There" TV series.

Several times in the 1990's, I thought I should write Abe a letter and let him know how much our friendship meant to me and how much I admired his body of work, and how his refusal to rat on his friends to clear his name was a terrific moral lesson and inspiration to a young man looking to find his way in the world.  But each time I talked myself out of it.  It was too late. 

Every year while re-watching Body and Soul and Force of Evil I would often wonder if Abe was still alive.  I felt surely I would read about it somewhere, at least an obit in the New York Times, when he passed.

In 1996 I read that the Writer's Guild was finally working to restore film credits lost to writers who had worked under a "front" or pseudonym during the black list; restoring Abe's rightful credit to Odds Against Tomorrow, released in 1959 while he was still on the blacklist.  Some screenwriting credits from the 1950's still haven't been properly restored.

And then an odd thing happened.  The Motion Picture Academy, in all its self-congratulatory twisted glory, announced that they were giving Elia Kazan - a man who couldn't rat out enough former friends and co-workers to H.U.A.C. to keep working during the blacklist - was to receive a special "honorary" Oscar from the Academy.

And then, as the saying goes, the fit really hit the shan.  Many in the Hollywood and film community were appalled the Academy - never having made any atonement for their compliance with the blacklist - would honor Kazan - one of the most reviled men in Hollywood.  Guess who was leading the charge against Kazan?  Abe and Walter Bernstein, right there on the evening news.  They were both as smart and clever as ever.  Fighting the good fight to the bitter end.

Kazan received his lifetime award from the Academy, to a mixed reception, and Abe passed away six months later.

Looking back on my time with Abe and his fellow blacklisted writers, I can't help but be saddened by how many great American movies were never made because scores of talented writers, actors and directors were never allowed to work again, so a few grandstanding public officials could gain some political points.

How many cinema masterpieces did we lose?  We'll never know.

The Puck Drops on a New Season

When my twin boys first started to play Travel youth hockey at seven years of age, their try-outs were usually right after Labor Day, followed by their first preseason games in early October.  Their season mercifully came to an end in late February.  And then we moved on to baseball or soccer.  Or anything else played OUTSIDE.

Now a couple of months away from their 17th birthdays, they are in their final two years of Club/Travel hockey.  This year will be their third season wearing the sweaters of the San Jose Jr. Sharks, as members of the 18AA team.

But this season their tryouts were in the last week of July, and they had their first preseason game last weekend (mid-August).  Last year, when they were California state champions in their 16A division, their season ran into April.  Their high school varsity hockey team started play in March and finished in mid-May.  Youth hockey now extends from August through May.  It's one long season.  And there's little time for anything else.

I'm blaming it all on Charles Schulz.  The Peanuts cartoonist, a Minnesota native and hockey player in his youth, had moved to Sonoma County in the early 1960's and built an ice rink in Santa Rosa in 1969. We moved up to Santa Rosa from San Francisco to buy a house and raise some kids (and a dog) in 1993, and quickly realized the rink was one of the social centers of town.

The Redwood Empire Ice Arena, now known as "Snoopy's Home Ice," was opened in Santa Rosa, CA in 1969 by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz.  The rink is still owned by the Schulz family. 

I learned to skate, and eventually joined the lowest level men's late night "beer" league in Santa Rosa.  I only call it a "men's" league because there weren't any women playing hockey at that time in Santa Rosa.  Schulz thought that should change and soon developed a women's team, and that's when my wife laced up her skates and learned to play.  Schulz gave the women prime ice slots early in the evening - rare for adult hockey - and posted a security guard in the parking lot, so they would feel safe at the rink.  Schulz would even come out on occasion and join them.

So with that beautiful rink, made possible only because of the hockey whims of a wealthy cartoonist, as a focal point in town, it wasn't so strange when our kids started to walk that we put hockey sticks in their hands.

When they were three or four, we bought them roller blades, helmets and little hockey nets, allowing them to play street hockey in our driveway.  That soon moved to the outdoor roller hockey rink Schulz had built in a small park next to his office studio.  And by the age of five, they were going through the Basics - learn to skate - hockey classes on the ice inside the Snoopy rink.

If we had known back then exactly how many mornings we would have to wake up in the dark on a Saturday or Sunday morning for practice, or worse, a game as far away as Fresno, Stockton or Lake Tahoe, I'm not sure if we would have willingly committed the rest of their childhoods to the sport.

And if we had known how many tens of thousands of dollars we would pay in the next ten years for hockey dues, hockey gear and travel expenses, I don't know if we would have encouraged them to play ice hockey as much as we did.

"Hey, guys, how about baseball?  America's pastime?  Swimming?  You could spend all summer long in a cool pool!  Soccer?  You could run all over the place and kick a ball!  Basketball?"

They played them all, but nothing else stuck.  Once a kid is hooked on hockey and becomes a "rink rat" - someone who just loves hanging around the ice rink - it's tough to talk them into anything else.  You don't choose the sport of ice hockey as much as it chooses you.

Cindy was their assistant coach for two years when they were Mites (7-8 years of age) and Squirts (9-10), and I picked up after her and was an assistant coach during their second Pee-Wee (11-12) and first Bantam (13-14) years.

It's a lot of work to play ice hockey.  The sport requires total commitment and a high level of physical conditioning.  It's very physical and the incidence of concussions and broken bones is high.  It's an incredibly long season.  You'll spend numerous Holidays in a cold rink.  There aren't many kids or families that can make that commitment.

It's equally demanding to be a hockey coach.  Their coaches spent hundreds and hundreds of hours teaching them all about technical aspects of the game: face-offs, break-outs, regroups,  forechecks, reverses, protecting the "house," P.K.'s and power plays, triangulation, etc.  (don't worry - there will not be a quiz), and I must say it's a sense of great pride that both of our sons are considered by all their coaches to be "smart" hockey players.  They anticipate and see a play develop before it happens, and seem to wind up in the right spot just as the puck arrives.

But through all the games, practices, coaching and Board meetings, I was never sure after all that time and effort, if the kids were any better off than if we'd just had them throw their sticks in a pile, pick teams, and just let them play pond hockey.

That's exactly what happened every summer.  We would get together with some hockey friends outside on numerous summer mornings - before the Wine Country sunshine became too warm - and just let the guys play unstructured roller hockey for hours and hours at a time.  I believe it was this time that contributed to their current skill level as much as anything.  It was seldom the lessor skilled players who came out to extra things like this.  It was usually the kids who really loved the game, and couldn't live without it, who came out to get even better.

In his landmark book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the "10,000 hours" theory of achievement - that great talents, or "outliers," in a given area are not born, but made.  It takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill.

Our boys are getting close to that 10,000 hours touchstone, and are now able to play the game at an incredibly fast, highly skilled level.  A level far beyond anything I could have ever done.  It's amazing to watch them play.  They are no longer boys out on the rink, but young men.

And through all those years of structured league play: the practices, games and travel;  I'm still not sure they're any better off in the long run than if they'd just been able to go out on a pond somewhere for a couple of hours and played around.  That seems to be the environment in which the best, most creative hockey players ultimately develop.

The best we can do for our kids as parents is to point them in the right direction, support them and try not to do any harm.

Last season they played in Canada for the first time, in the International Silver Stick finals in Newmarket, Ontario.  On our last day in the Toronto area, after they had been eliminated from tournament play, the entire team went out to a local "pond" and played two hours of unstructured "pick-up" hockey in the frigid morning cold.

I believe all those California boys were playing hockey outside for the first time.  Once they started playing, not one of them complained of the chill, or came off the ice early.  After two hours, it was the frost-bitten parents who had to drag them off the ice, just like we did when they were five years old.  I thought it was the purest hockey moment of the year, maybe of their lives.

And on the drive back to the hotel, I couldn't help wonder if, in the long run, hockey playing kids would just be better off playing on that pond, if they could, three or four days a week.

I've videotaped hundreds of the boys' hockey games over the years, but if somebody asked me why we have endured all the early mornings and late nights, long drives, injuries, frustration and expense of youth hockey; I would show them this video that I made of them last year playing on that pond in Ontario.  Many of you reading this have already seen this video, but I'll post it again here, just in case you haven't.  Just look at the smiling faces of these guys out there on that cold January morning.  No coaches, parents or pressure.  A pure hockey moment.  And ultimately, that's what it should all be about, eh.

Jeff and Geena

Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum at the Academy Awards in 1990.

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job.  - Bill Murray

Fame is a funny thing.  We see people on television or on the big screen and somehow we believe that we know them.  I completely agree with Bill Murray.  I have no problem with people who just want to be rich.  I would love to be rich.  Who wouldn't?  But I'm very suspicious of someone who just wants to be famous.  It's just not a healthy desire.  If you want to be the best in your field and that may result in fame, fine, but if your end game is just to be famous, I think you need to have your head examined.

When you live or work around famous people, as I occasionally have, you realize that they don't "glow" or necessarily stand out in a crowd.  My theory is that people who really don't want to be recognized generally aren't.  I've had famous people on some of my flights, walked by them in the airport or seen them out and about in Los Angeles or New York.  If they're dressed normally and minding their own business, they're not going to be recognized or bothered that much.  Dress and act normal, keep walking and don't make eye contact, and it's amazing how little attention you attract.

If you're strutting around in outlandish outfits, wearing shades inside a restaurant or airplane, and have four bodyguards shadowing your every move, well, you're probably going to attract a little attention, but then that's what you really wanted, isn't it? 

As someone who has been a lifelong "observer" of human behavior, I think being famous would be the worst curse in the world.  This is particularly true of actors who literally make their living trying to observe and portray other people.

Fame also creates an odd familiarity.  Just because we see someone every week on television or a movie screen, we think somehow we know them.  We project how they would actually be in real life. I must admit I've done this.

"Yeah, that Tom Hanks seems like a nice guy.  Russell Crowe though, big time d-bag."

That's the impression each of those actors gives off, but I have no idea if that's reality.

When I was first dating my wife, she shared a rental with a couple of her friends in a small house in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles.  The homes at the bottom of the hill were often reasonably priced, and then as you moved up the hill or into the canyon, the real estate values skyrocketed.  But it was a livable area conveniently located between Hollywood and the film and TV studios over the hill in Burbank.  We would bump into famous people at the cute, pricey, little neighborhood grocery store - the Beachwood Market.  We would see famous people when we ate breakfast at the local cafe.  No big deal.  Just part of life living in Beachwood Canyon.

Drama queen Lindsay Lohan and her then partner Samantha Ronson exiting the Beachwood Market.

But one famous couple caught our eye.  Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis were at the peak of their careers in the late 1980's, and were one of the hottest couples in Hollywood.  They must have lived in Beachwood or the surrounding area, because we kept seeing them around town: at the movies, in a restaurant or in the grocery store.

The Village Coffee Shop in Beachwood Canyon

And however gorgeous they may have looked on the big screen or in People magazine; they looked more beautiful and adorable in person.  They were both statuesque.  Some actors lie about their height to give the illusion they're much taller than they actually are (Ahnold, cough, cough, Stallone, cough, cough, Gibson).  Jeff and Geena were so tall that they probably lied by claiming they were shorter than they actually were.

We perceived them to be smart and clever.  And they were, of course, both gorgeous.  Did I mention they were gorgeous?  When we'd spy them around town, they just looked so cute together.  They were always touching each other, whispering in each other's ears and smiling.  My wife, in particular, loved it every time we saw them.  She thought they were just so cute.  I had to admit they were a handsome couple.

The historic Cinerama Dome in Hollywood where we saw The Untouchables with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.

Sometimes you'll have a group of couples who are your friends and there is a couple or two who just seem perfect together - you know they'll be together forever - and others make you wonder "what in the hell were they thinking?"  When you hear news of the former breaking up, your first reaction is "oh, that's too bad, they were a cute couple."  When the latter finally breaks up, you think "thank goodness, how in the heck did they last that long?"

Jeff and Geena were magic.  You just had to root for them.  Young, talented and beautiful - the toast of the town.

So when word came out that they had finally broken up as a couple - which is just about inevitable in Hollywood - Cindy took it like two of her best friends had broken up, not just two random people we'd never met.  They were Jeff and Geena.  They were perfect together.  Remember the time we saw The Untouchables with them at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood?  We had breakfast together at the Village Coffee Shop, shared some late night cherry pie at House of Pies.

I wonder if they'd just been two prominent people in another profession, something normal without the fame and constant travel, would they have made it?

Time marched on, my wife and I got married and eventually found a home in Sonoma County - 50 miles north of San Francisco.  One Fall day in 1993 I headed out with our pup to the dog park and spotted a bunch of helicopters flying overhead.  Several of them, all flying quite low.  You usually only see helicopters in Sonoma County when there's a large wildfire.  I felt like Ray Liotta in the end of Goodfellas.  What in the hell was going on?

Turns out Geena Davis just couldn't stay away from us.  She was getting married that weekend to the action film director Renny Harlin at the Kunde winery in nearby Kenwood.  Our invitation must have been lost in the mail.  News reports said the wedding cost them close to a million dollars, an amount believed to be the most ever spent on a wedding in Sonoma County, up to that time.  Money didn't buy happiness.  They were inevitably divorced in 1998. 

Davis has now been married four times.  Do you think she's nuts?  A drama queen?  Maybe, but I don't think so.  I think it's just very tough to be in a relationship with someone that famous.  Goldblum never married again.

My wife and I will just remember them as Jeff and Geena.  The cutest couple in Beachwood Canyon.

San Jose Lights Up

Every major city in America has a free, tabloid style weekly that covers restaurants, theatre, music and movies such as the Village Voice in New York, the L.A. Weekly in Los Angeles, the Bay Guardian in San Francisco and even the Bohemian in l'il ol' Sonoma County.

San Jose's arts and culture weekly is called Metro.  It's free, widely distributed and occasionally carries an interesting or noteworthy story that doesn't involve high tech.

These weeklies are free to readers to encourage as high a circulation as possible, which makes them more attractive to local advertisers.  The back pages of these weeklies are stuffed with ads.  If you'd looked at them about ten years ago, you would have seen some classified ads and LOTS of personal ads that made it seem like EVERYONE in that town was looking for someone special.  Many of those people had someone special and were still looking for someone special. 

"You - a quiet librarian type who loves walks along the beach, yoga and a biker guy with lots of tattoos.  Me - ruggedly handsome Josh Brolin type who loves to ride and party, looking for that perfect gal to ride off with me on the back of my hog."  You get the picture.

Then the internet dating sites came along and took those personal ads with them.  So the weeklies sent out their sales people and they reeled in the escort services (or so I'm told).  The backs of these weeklies were filled with enticing ads for one beautiful lady (or man) after another, dying to spend the evening with one special person - you (or so I'm told).

You can't buy love, but you could rent it.

A county by county map of the Prop. 215 voting.

Then the escort ad traffic drifted over to the internet (or so I'm told), and once again the weeklies were forced to send out their sales forces to find a new gravy train.

Eureka!  They realized that the voters of California had helpfully passed a state initiative (Proposition 215) in California that allowed for the medical use of marijuana.  It passed rather easily with 56% of the vote. 

The initiative didn't really cover how marijuana was to be cultivated, regulated or sold for this medicinal use. So-called "medical" co-ops and collectives started popping up in every city in California.

Which brings us back to the weeklies.  I've noticed in the San Jose Metro that the growth of medical marijuana clinics in and around San Jose is exploding.  A recent story said the number of these clinics has DOUBLED in San Jose in the past two years.  There are now nearly a hundred in San Jose alone.  While it's positive to have ANY business showing signs of growth in our current economy, the medicinal marijuana industry is now reminiscent of the Wild, Wild West.  If those old gunfighters had just, like, mellowed out, dude.

And in this week's edition of the Metro, the ads for the marijuana clinics in San Jose take up ten full pages of the weekly paper.  A one time full page color ad buy in the Metro is $2,300.  That's a lot of mary jane moolah.  In all fairness,  it goes down to $1,900 an issue if you buy one full page ad a month.  Once you start buying full page medical marijuana ads, it's tough to stop at just one, right?

What's interesting if you start examining these ads is that these "collectives" are ALL OVER TOWN.  They are everywhere.  Presumably with a McDonald's or 7-11 located right next door.  It's another Gold Rush, only this time it's Acapulco gold,  in every medium to large-sized city in California.

There are virtually zero zoning laws and regulations regarding these clinics.  Certainly nothing on a statewide basis.

I find it hard to believe that the actual usage of these sweet herbs has dramatically increased since the passage of Proposition 215, there doesn't seem to be much research or data on any of this stuff because the government doesn't want to do any research on this stuff.

There may actually be a benefit to users being guaranteed a consistent, safe supply of the drug.  I assume all the competition is keeping the cost down, which lessens the illegal trafficking and cash-starved local governments could use the tax dollars.

But it just seems odd when marijuana clinics are the most robust retail outlets in San Jose.  They're definitely giving Starbucks a run for their money.  Care for a hemp Grande?

And if you're looking for someone to do something about it, don't look to Dave.  Dave who?  Dave's not here, man. 

A Fairy Tree in Clare

Having flown all night in the darkness over the Atlantic, and now being rudely welcomed by the sunrise just as our bodies were telling us it was time to go to bed, we placed our bags for the driver next to the back of the jitney van, and wearily shuffled inside.  There was plenty of room inside the van, a minibus really, and each of the eight crew members – two pilots and six flight attendants – who had just worked the flight in from Philadelphia on a Boeing 767, had a row to themselves for the 30 minute ride to our overnight in the charming Irish town of Ennis

In my last year as a flight attendant, I finally had enough seniority, after seventeen years of flying, to hold some trips to Ireland.  I worked the flights to Shannon and Dublin as much as I could that final summer.  Dublin, a more cosmopolitan destination which featured a terrific hotel for our crews, went a little more senior and was tougher to get.  I could pick up Shannon as much as I wanted, and flew there a couple of times a month that summer.  And the West of Ireland is a far different place from Dublin.

A couple of the flight attendants had planned ahead and commandeered the remaining champagne and orange juice after the First Class breakfast service, and offered mimosas from plastic water bottles to everyone in the van.  I passed.  They celebrated the end of a long day and night by sipping on them during the ride.  I took out my iPod, selected my “Irish Mix” from the playlists, and sat back to enjoy the scenery as the sound of Van Morrison and the Chieftains played in my ears.

About 15 minutes after we had left Shannon Airport and headed north through County Clare, we came to an interchange on the N18 motorway, and the driver turned back to the crew and pointed out the window, to a motley looking large bush off to the side of the road, and proudly proclaimed, “see your bush, there, do ya’?  That’s our fairy tree.  Quite a fight over that tree when they built the bypass, there was.  But they moved the road and kept the tree."

Those of us who had flown this trip before knew the tale of the fairy tree, of course.  The fairy tree was pointed out on every ride to Ennis whenever there was a crew member aboard enjoying their first Shannon overnight.

The Fairy Tree that diverted the N18 motorway in County Clare.

"Whaaaaaattttt?,” came a female voice from the back of the van, after she had cleared her throat of her early morning mimosa, wondering if she had heard correctly.  

“A fairy tree?”

“Ah, sure, have you never seen a fairy tree before?  We’ve lots of them here in Ireland,” explained the driver.

I had lived in Dublin, Ireland many years prior, and I don’t know if I had ever seen a known fairy tree, let alone one that was saved from demolition as it sat in the path of inevitable modernization: the bypass of the N18 motorway through County Clare.

"The locals fought hard to keep the fairy tree.  It’s bad luck to destroy one, ya’ know.  They made a fuss when the bypass plans were first announced, but the government saw the error of their ways and eventually moved the bypass,” the van driver added.  

The plans for the N18 Fairy Tree bypass.

Sure enough, if you knew about the tree and looked carefully, you could discern that the motorway took a slight path out of its way around the small tree, which was more of a bush, really.

The Americans in the van laughed and talked in bewilderment about the absurdity of moving a huge, modern freeway around a tree or a bush.  That would be unthinkable in America, would it not?

I doubt they would even do it any more in Dublin; too modern and forward looking.  Dubliners today are more worried about interest rates, home values and cell phone reception than fairy trees.

The modern Irish can be a little touchy with Americans about some of the myths and stereotypes of old Ireland.  The leprechauns, jaunting carts, The Quiet Man; “top o’ the mornin’” Ireland, as some would refer to it.  Similar to the way I viewed Fisherman’s Wharf when I lived in San Francisco; I would stop by to drop off visitors playing tourist, but it was long past its life as an authentic part of The City. 

I didn’t laugh at the story of the fairy tree.  I just smiled.  I’ve never seen an Irish fairy – although one night on the Aran Island of Inishmore I had to walk home with a few friends from a ceili in Kilronan to our B&B about a mile away (“is that a real mile or an Irish mile?”) in the PITCH black night – where I could barely make out my hands right in front of my eyes – and I would have been a believer in just about anything that night.

Irish folklore, the mythologies, they may not mean as much to everyone today, but I figure they served a useful purpose.  There’s a reason they existed and a reason there are still believers.  And as a modern American, who am I to pass judgement on “fairy trees?"

Quite the contrary, I found great comfort in its existence.  Ireland has become so much more modern and fast-paced since I lived there; its economy was known as “The Celtic Tiger” during the go-go 1990’s, and even the infrastructure in the rural, isolated West has been vastly upgraded with money from the European Economic Community (E.E.C).

But no matter how affluent and modern a country it may become, and how many high tech factories and cell phone towers are built along its western shores, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where I didn’t know that somewhere in Ireland there was a modern motorway bypass that was moved, just a wee bit, at the insistence of its people, to make way for the “fairy tree."

Would you?

The Film Snob Quiz

Film Snob Quiz Question #1:  What is the greatest American movie of all time?  (Tip: if you even have to think about this answer, then you're going to have a tough time on this quiz.  And it's certainly not Star Wars.  Geek.)

My lovely wife and I will occasionally escape for a movie matinee, buy a bag of popcorn (large - free refills!) and a cup of Dr. Pepper (10, 2 & 4!), and settle in to our seats, ready to be entertained by the latest offering from Hollywood.

Two hours and thirty minutes later, because NOBODY except Woody Allen* makes 90 minute movies anymore, we will walk outside, stop for a moment, look at each other, and I'll ask, "well, what do you think?"

My lovely wife will cautiously ponder the question for a moment, and then say something positive such as, "I thought the acting was good.  It wasn't as violent as I thought it was going to be.  The costumes were pretty."  A movie has to be incredibly bad for my wife to trash it immediately upon exiting a theater.

I will nod to her answers and we'll start walking again.  Then she'll hesitantly ask me what I thought.  Long sigh.

"The leads were terribly miscast.  The exposition in the first act was sloppy.  The music was obtrusive and distracted from the film.  The camera work was dreadful - I detest when they constantly use those trendy shaky handheld camera shots - um, I would guess they didn't have an ending when they started shooting.  Oh, yeah, and the pacing was brutal.  You could chop 15 minutes out of that thing - EASY!"

"Well, yeah, but you're a film snob" she'll say, "most people won't see it that way."  Fair enough.  Guilty as charged.  I AM a film snob.

Orson Welles' 1941 masterpiece, Citizen Kane

Film Snob Quiz Answer #1:  Citizen Kane (right).  Orson Welles' 1941 masterpiece still holds up 70 years later.  Although it initially received positive reviews from critics, it was a financial failure when it was first released.  Loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Hearst did everything in his power to have the film buried.  Welles received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, Best Director and won for Best Screenplay (co-writer).  It continues to place number one on the American Film Institute's list of greatest American films.

Fact o' the day sure to make your life more meaningless: Welles was all of 26 years of age when he co-wrote, starred in and directed Citizen Kane.  

Film Snob Quiz Extra Credit:  Citizen Kane was released by RKO Pictures.  What did the letters R-K-O stand for?  (No fair using your computer.  Or your smart phone, wise guy.)

I believe that in this day and age, more than a 100 years after The Great Train Robbery, any professional filmmaker should know how to make a film.  And if you have six months to write the script, four months to shoot it and six months for post-production, and you have vast resources to get the best actors and production people in the world,  then it should be more entertaining and skillfully shot than an average episode of a primetime TV show.

Film Snob Quiz Extra Credit Answer:  You googled, didn't you?  You have that Google look about you.  R-K-O stood for "Radio-Keith-Orpheum." RKO Pictures was the combination of David Sarnoff's/RCA's theater chain and Joseph Kennedy's distribution company, as well as Pathe's small film studio, to form the first fully vertically integrated (production, distribution and exhibition) motion picture company.  Add two points if you knew that already.

Film Snob Quiz Question #2: This one is another gimme if you are a film snob.  What is considered the "Greatest" year for American films?  And it wasn't 1977 because of Star Wars.  You would think there would be more debate on this question among film snobs, but there's a pretty solid consensus.

Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in the Howard Hawks' classic Only Angels Have Wings.  My heart flutters just looking at a picture of Jean Arthur.

Film Snob Quiz Question #2 Answer:  1939.  The end of the Great Depression and just before World War II.  The heyday of the studio era.  You would presume that with our technology, film schools and 100 years of film history to study, we would be able to crank out a few more notable films than they did just twelve years after the introduction of Talkies.  But no, the pinnacle of American film was 1939.

The Best Picture nominees that memorable year?  Dark Victory (Humphrey Bogart & Bette Davis), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Robert Donat, Greer Garson), Love Affair (Irene Dunne & Charles Boyer), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (James Stewart & Jean Arthur), Ninotchka (Greta Garbo), Of Mice and Men (Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney, Jr.), Stagecoach (John Wayne), The Wizard of Oz (Judy Garland), Wuthering Heights (Laurence Olivier); and the Best Picture in 1939 went to ...the envelope please...Gone with the Wind (Vivien Leigh and that Gable kid).  Wow!  That's quite a list.  Classics all.

And that doesn't even include these other notables from 1939: Destry Rides Again, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Only Angels Have Wings and Young Mr. Lincoln.

There are more films on the National Film Registry from 1939 (17) than any other single year.

For the record, my favorite of the "golden year" films of 1939 is Only Angels Have Wings.  A young Cary Grant and Jean Arthur.  Tough guy pilots flying dangerous mail routes in South America.  Directed by Howard Hawks.  Worth a viewing if you've never seen it.

Jeez, you're thinking, can't we discuss a few films that were made after I was born?  Maybe something that was shot in color?  No problem.  The answer to our next question was shot in color and made in my lifetime.

Film Snob Quiz Question #3:  Speaking of the Academy Awards, what was the last comedy to win the Best Picture Oscar™?  This is another freebie if you're a film snob.  Comedies are highly undervalued and just don't do well at the Oscars™.  Film snobs remember the rare ones that win.  Still thinking?  No, it didn't involve Judd Apatow or Will Ferrell. It was made in the 1970's, but it wasn't Star Wars.  There's a clue* up in the third paragraph.  I'll give you a moment.  La-dee-da.

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Annie Hall (1977).

Film Snob Quiz Question #3 Answer:  Woody Allen's Annie Hall won the Oscar™ for Best Picture in 1977, the last comedy to do so.  Allen was also nominated for Best Actor and won for Best Screenplay (co-writer), becoming the first to achieve this trifecta since - are you paying attention - Orson Welles for Citizen Kane!  A thinly veiled, autobiographical account of his relationship with Diane Keaton (Keaton's actual surname is Hall),  it was originally written as a dramatic murder mystery with a romantic subplot, but Allen expanded the romance plot after it overtook the rest of the story (Allen would go on to use the murder mystery plot with Manhattan Murder Mystery with Keaton in 1993).  Allen, of course, did not show up to win the award (he has only appeared on an Academy Awards telecast one time - to introduce a film tribute to New York City in the wake of the 9/11 attacks ).  He kept his regular Monday night gig playing clarinet with his Dixieland jazz band in New York.

Film Snob Quiz Question #3 Extra Credit:  Every year there seems to be a Best Picture Oscar™ nominee that "directs itself" - the one picture that receives a nomination for Best Picture but not for Best Director.  Can you name the picture in 1977 that "directed itself?"

So how are doing so far?  Did you have Citizen Kane, 1939 and Annie Hall?  Great!  One last question.

Film Snob Quiz Question #3 Extra Credit Answer:  Herbert Ross for The Goodbye Girl.  He was the only director of a Best Picture nominee in 1977 not to be nominated for Best Director.  

Film Snob Quiz Question #4: OK. You ready?  Last one.  Which OTHER 1977 film, a sci-fi classic, following a young boy on a quest, a princess and a renegade pilot, went on to become the second highest grossing film (adjusted for inflation) of all time?  Hint:  its success led to five sequels.  No, not Close Encounters.  Saturday Night Fever?  No, only one sequel from that one.  Need another hint?  "Let the Wookie win."

Just because I'm in the mood for a legal injunction from Lucasfilm, LTD.

Film Snob Quiz Question #4 Answer:  Yes, Star Wars!

Film Snob Quiz Question #4 Extra Credit:  What is the  highest grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation), just ahead of Star Wars? 

Film Snob Quiz Question #4 Extra Credit Answer:  The highest grossing film of all time (inflation adjusted) is Gone with the Wind, which was made in - I hope you're paying attention - 1939!

See, even on the Film Snob Quiz you can't get a zero - just like the S.A.T.  So how did you do?  Here's how you can score at home:

1 answer correct:  You're never going to be a film snob.  Sorry.  But, hey, those Star Wars movies are pretty cool, eh?

2 answers correct:  Not bad.  You are permited to use the words "montage" and "auteur" when you describe a film.

3 answers correct:  Now we're getting somewhere.  You are definitely a cinephile.  Very high potential as film snob material.  Can't believe you didn't get the one about Star Wars.  

4 answers correct:  You ARE a film snob.  You drive your wife and others crazy after every movie.  Can't you enjoy anything?  Can't you watch a movie in color?  What's the matter with Star Wars?  It's a lot of fun and millions of people loved it.

Thanks for playing. That's all the time we have for our Film Snob Quiz™ for today.

Although I see there's a double feature of Bicycle Thief and Open City at the Rialto...