Remembering Dad...and Pearl Harbor

This is a repeat from last year. I've heard new stories about my father this past year...and my Seester remembered the name of the man he waited for on the dock of the Arizona the day of the attack. Howie Whims. Yesterday, at my Sister's for Christmas, with cousins and Aunts--my Aunt Barbara looks GOOD!--there was a lot of laughing rememberances. And my Sister had on display a picture of Mom and Dad at a cocktail party--Mom, bright-eyed, compensating, with my Dad, head tilted back, squinting at the camera, a soused smile on his face. Both, younger than me. Crazy kids.

Today is my Father's birthday (he rarely complained that he had the bad luck to be born the day after Christmas...because we never forgot it and made sure that we had a separate but just as special celebration for his day of birth). I've written about him before (here and here), but one aspect of Dad's life I never considered until I was physically where he was. That was Pearl Harbor. He was there the day of December 7th, 1941. He had volunteered and was stationed at Pearl when the Japanese strike force attacked on a Sunday dawn raid, decimating our Navy and killing a lot of kids. My Dad made it through despite the fact that he was standing on the dock of the Arizona at the time of the raid. Church services were being held on that ship and Dad was waiting for a buddy who was late...luckily. The chapel took a direct hit, and the Arizona's still there, upside down, oil burbling up from its tanks to this day, and crested by what is called the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Dad belonged to the organization called "The Pearl Harbor Survivors" but he refused to go back to Hawaii for their reunions. In fact, he would never entertain the notion. Too many memories, I guess. Bad ones. He had a bit of hearing loss from the attack, and you can only imagine what it must have been like--the explosions, the alarms, the toxic smoke from burning oil-fires, the confusion and panic, the screams...the stench. The death. The only story Dad ever told about the War was that "late" story, but he would scream at night the first year back after V-J day. And buried it with the stoicism that all the soldiers did...until "Saving Private Ryan" and other clear-eyed looks at the conflict allowed them to remember and acknowledge what they'd been through.* Certainly my father wanted to get on with his life. They all did.

But I went back to Pearl Harbor. When K and I went to Hawaii for a first vacation I felt a duty to go to Pearl. I would be the first in my familty to do so, and I wanted to see. So, early into our time there, we went...and it was peculiar. My dad had seen Pearl Harbor movies, of course..."From Here to Eternity" and "Tora! Tora! Tora!" were all shot on location. But being there was bizarre. If my Dad had been there with me, he almost would have freaked. The barracks are exactly the same as in those movies and at the time of the attack(they were freshly-painted as they were about to be filmed for the big Bruckheimer "Pearl Harbor" movie). In fact little has changed about it except for the addition of the visitor center...and the Memorial.

The visitor center is odd. I bought a variety of flyers and souvenier books for my Mom (she collected stuff about Pearl Harbor), and went in to the middling-sized theater to see the Presentation-an artfully produced film with a toneless female narrator that stuck to the facts of the attack without any sort of judgement or jingo-ism--a quiet, contemplative movie about a subject loaded with, well, explosive repercussions. The crowd that watched it, and it was made up 75% of Japanese tourists, did so quietly, and with a funereal respect. No cracks. No sarcasm. But a sad contemplation.

This mood continued with the short ride to the Memorial by water-taxi--the same toneless female voice pointing out facts, statistics, ship-positions...strategies. Costs. And when we got off the boat and stepped onto the marble Memorial, it was, again, like a funeral...held perpetually at a pure alabaster marble church, for that is what the Memorial, in its purity, feels like---the Arizona, rusting below it--the oil from its stores still slowly smearing the water's surface after fifty years. The names of the dead are etched in the marble and there are a lot them, too many to comprehend.

And then, Katheryn pointed something out to me, something that has filled me with wonder and mystery ever since. There is another section inside the white arch of the Memorial. A rectangular edifice that makes its way down to the water and the submerged Arizona, and it, too has names etched there. But they're not the names of men who died during the attack. They're recently buried. Comrades who survived the attack, and who are now buried with the Arizona.

Now, think about that. You survive the attack. You go through the war, and you live your life. You may have a good life or it might be horrible. You may marry and have kids, have a good life and die peacefully in your sleep. But where you choose to be buried, after all that, is back at the U.S.S. Arizona, with the ship-mates you left behind...decades and a life-time ago. When I realized what it meant, it raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and tears stung my eyes. Why? After all that time...after a full life...why here? And the concept of Survivor's Guilt hit my heart like a sledge-hammer. It was a debt to repay...beyond family and friends. You go back to the ones who didn't make it. I remember seeing a documentary about WWII veterans going back to Iwo Jima, and one of the vets, barely able to get the words out, saying "Better men than me...died here." Survivor's Guilt. As if any of it...any of it at all...was their fault.

That memory stings to this day, and I think about my Dad and wonder...did he think about those men left behind? Did he carry the names of the ones he knew didn't make it? Did it darken...even an hour...of the life he fought to achieve? And I think of his strength, and I know that if it did, he bore the burden with silence and didn't reveal it.**

Except for the screams...which he couldn't help.

My father is not buried at Pearl Harbor. He's buried in Seattle...with my Mother. He never went back.

I did...for him.

And I'll put flowers on his grave today to celebrate his birth, and that life.

*When my Mom died, I found a lot of my Dad's old papers from during and after the War, one of them a letter from the military saying, basically, "it's over--put it all behind you--don't talk about it--get on with your life." Probably everybody got that letter. My ex-wife's step-grandfather was at Normandy I was told, and when I asked him 'what the hell was that like," he replied: "It wasn't good (long pause) but I'm here."

**That popular propaganda phrase "Remember Pearl Harbor"--that was for everyone who wasn't there. The ones who were could never forget.

Happy Birthday, Brother John!

The man standing next to Ernst Stavro Blofeld is my Big Brother John, who turns mrphmty-murmph today. Called him earlier (earlier than usual, anyway) and we had a good chance to chat after I gave him the traditional serenade of "Happy Birthday" in the inimitable Wison fashion (off-key, and deliberately slow). He fairly cackled that since My Seester got her cell-phone, he could leave "Happy Birthday" on TWO voice-mails (Man! Wish I'd thought of that--he's always smarter than me!).

Happy Birthday, Big Brother. We'll be talking.

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What a wondrous sight to behold at this time of year. There at our front-door, was a jolly fat man with hair and beard the color of snow, a red bob of a nose, cap on his head and a laugh that made his belly shake.

It was Barney, the Electrician.

A few weeks ago (Hallowe'en, in fact), K and I were watching "The Innocents" when the set started to flicker, then konked out along with the reciever and DVD player. Right at a scary part, too. Killed the mood. But we got out another surge protector and plugged everything into that and plugged it into the bedroom socket. Everything worked fine. But ever since, the house has been electrically...intermittent: a socket would go dead. you'd plug something into another socket and it would come to life. Lights would flicker and die, with perfectly decent bulbs screwed in. Electrical efficacy would bounce around the house, with us chasing after it with our little gadgets plugging them into one socket, then another until they purred to life.

Which would be fine...be merely an annoyance...if we didn't live in a completely wood cabin. Then it gets to be a matter of concern. So, we called the last electrician who'd come out. Didn't return our phone-call. That's to be expected on "The Rock," the contractors get hired for some new development and all of a sudden you have to make an appointment to get a phone-call back. I tried. K tried. No spark. A couple of days ago, I tried again. I called, left messages--I did get one "live" one, though. He said he was booked up to January 17th, and he figured that might be a little long to wait. With such keen instincts I wanted to hire him on the spot, but I decided to make other calls.

I made ten, then called it a fine day of one-way convesations. Thirty minutes later, Barney called. He said he could be out first thing Thursday, I gave him directions, and he asked if I wanted him to call before showing up. "That'd be nice," I said. "It'll give me a chance to stash the dog some place." "Mean dog?" Barney asked, warily. "Nah, I said. More protective, territorial a bit." "Ah well, that's his job! Ya WANT one like THAT!"

Barney called Thursday morning: "See ya in thirty minutes!" And I took Smokey out to K's car with some chewey snacks, and half an old banana. When Barney showed up, Smokey didn't make a peep. Strange. After getting over the sight of Father Christmas in blue cover-alls, I said "The dog didn't bark." "Nah!" said Barney. "But he was sure curious! Where do you want me?"

I pointed to the walls with the problems--the one behind the wood-stove and the one with the view-windows. "I'll start over there." He pointed to a socket in the open. "I like to start with the easy ones." "Just like eating dessert first," I remarked. "Yup," said Barney gravely. "Life's uncertain."

As if to prove his point, he started to pound on the walls. "You'd be surprised what good this does," said Barney. "Sometimes in the cold weather, it'll just solve the problem, but at least if I see a light flicker, I can trace it." He opened out his pen-amp-meter, looking to see what sockets were "hot." "Yeah, I've had enough of winter," he said as he sat in a corner to test the plug by Smokey's crate (I wondered if winter had even started yet).* Every breath was a grunt and a wheeze as he made his way from one socket to the next alternately pounding the wall, and making his pen chirp. "Lemme go look at the box," he said, and K came out from the office to see what all the noise was about. Suddenly, from the bedroom, he yelled, "Number Six!" "Go see what that's about," said K, and eyes eide, turned to go into the office. I was curious myself. Had the last electrician put in those exotic No.6 fuses by mistake? "What's up?" I said.

"Oh!" he chuckled. "Number Six! I saw your coaster here. The Prisoner! I loved that show!" He was looking at a coaster NPR Dan had sent us from Portmeirion in Wales, where they'd filmed "The Prisoner" in the '60's. It was one of my and K's favorite shows, too, and we'd planned for some time to go there one day. NPR Dan beat us to it, but sent us some piquant tchotchkes. "Man, I loved that show! Too bad it was a limited one!" We gabbed about the show for awhile--a friend of his had made the "kit" car that Patrick MacGoohan drove in the opening. "Aw nuts, here's a white wire," he said, and did something about it. We moved a chest of drawers to see if there was a socket back there, and though we didn't find one, we found the sneakers that K had been missing for months. Then we turned to the plug where all the trouble began. He tested it. No problem.

"Have you got a...?" He opened the door to the bedroom. "Yup! Here's an outlet behind the door." It was the one we'd plugged the surge-protector into. We thought it was the only thing in the vicinity that was working. "You got a flashlight?" asked Barney on the floor. I didn't think to question why a socket-jockey didn't have a flashlight, but I dutifully went off to get one. I handed it to him. "Wait a minute!" I said. "I've got a better idea!" I handed him my baseball cap with "The Bug" on it--the LED clip-light my sister-in-law got me one Christmas. "Try this on for size," I said. "Woh!" said Barney. "That's a BRIGHT one! That's GREAT! I'm almost ashamed to BE here!" He replaced the socket, corroded and with a couple scorch-marks on it, and he managed to do it with one hand, holding the socket in his paw, and using his fingers to twist the wires. Quite the trick. Then he screwed everything in place. "I think I've screwed enough screws to go to the Moon and back," said Barney. Then with a large grunt, he got off the floor and lurched into the living room. "He found it!" he joked to K, as I wrote him a check for $85 (pretty darn cheap, we thought). "Well, have a Merry Christmas" he said as he roared out of sight.

Be seeing you, Barney. I have half-a-mind to send him a "Bug"...and one of my "Prisoner" coasters for Christmas. I think he'd genuinely enjoy that.

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Speaking of bologna, I got some at the store the other day, I'm not sure why, but maybe it has something to do with my Father. I've been thinking of him a lot since the 7th, and I remember him once walking into the kitchen, and looking at the lunch my Mom had made him. "Ya know," he said a bit wistfully, "last night I had a dream where I was sent to Hell, and all there was to eat was bologna sandwiches." My Mom shot him a look that spit daggers, but he'd made his point...and maybe he didn't get a bologna sandwich the next day (if he was lucky to get a lunch at all!)**

So, I'm eating a bologna sandwich a day until his birthday, December 26th. I mentioned this to K, who thought it was a bit wierd that I'd be focussing on bologna, but I did manage to keep the dog away from her while she was eating dinner by tempting him with the word "bologna" said in the same reverential tones we say the word "bacon." I knew he'd like it, but I didn't expect the ecstatic look on his face when he tasted it for the first time. He looked like he was going to cry, he enjoyed it so much. I walked into the bedroom where K was eating, with my bologna sandwich, and told her about Smokey's reaction. "Actually," she said, "the way I've been eating lately (she's been on a strict, almost harsh diet), I'm wondering what it tastes like--I'd like to try it..." I gave her a bite. "That is really good," she said.

Ah, bologna.

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K. mentioned that "Alvin and the Chipmunks" was playing at the local drive-In, and wanted to know if I wanted to go. I didn't particularly (it sounds like "My Name is Earl" with extra vermin), but Smokey might like a trip to the Drive-In. I asked her if she wanted to go, and she said "No. I hate the Chipmunks--always have." ***

I told her we could check out "Enchanted" (which we might), but I really want to see "I Am Legend." I told her the story--it's one of my favorite books, and she became intrigued, especially at the premise of deer running up Broadway. "He just stays in his barricaded apartment with his German Shepherd," I said. "Just like a New Yorker," she said, going back to her paper, "...keeping a German Shepherd in an apartment..."

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*Nope. Not 'til December 22nd. Glad I didn't tell Barney.

** Which brings to mind an ethnic joke, and for the requisite "dumb" minority I will use "Irish Catholic" since they're taking a lot of hits lately, and since I was one, I can get away with it.

Three construction workers, a Latino, an Italian and an Irish-Catholic were sitting on a girder, eating from their sack-lunches. "Madre Dios!" says the Latino. "Tacos again!! I swear if I get tacos for lunch again, I'll throw myself off this building!" The Italian looks at his lunch. "Mama Mia!!" he says. Another meat-ball sandwich!! I swear on the souls of my grandparents that if I get another meat-ball sandwich I will throw myself off this building!!" The Irish-Catholic looks at his lunch. "Faith and begorrah!" he says, "Ecumenically blesssed corned beef and cabbage AGAIN!! I swear, by all that's holy that if I open this bag tomorrow and see ecumenically blessed corned beef and cabbage, I will throw myself off this building!"

The next day at noon, the three open their lunches. "Tacos! Tacos again!" yells the Latino and throws himself off the building. "Ayee," says the Italian. "Meat-ball sandwich again!!" and throws himself off the building. The Irish-Catholic looks in his bag and yells "Ecumenically blessed corned beef and.." and he's dead before he can get the whole thing out.

At the funeral the wives are bereft. "Oh, if only I could have made burritos that day," says the Latino's wife. "If only I could have put in a slice of pizza...anything different...he'd still be here," wails the Italian wife. They look expectantly at the Irish-Catholic's wife.

"Well, don't look at me," she says. "He made his own lunch!"

Thank you, try the salad bar, we'll be here all week.

*** Last time in Portland a DJ (on 106.7 "K-HITS") played "Christmas, Don't be Late" and ended the song, saying "Looove the Chipmunks...especially roasting on an open fire")

On this same radio station, this same DJ made a joke about the O'Jays song "Used to Be My Girl" that went something like"...and here, from the soundtrack of 'The Rene Richards Story'--'She Used To Be My Girl." I thought "That's a rather arcane reference for a joke about a sex-change..." and it was right then I realized I'd made the exact same joke when I was a DJ...it wasn't so arcane back then.

Tossing the Dice

Today, the links are highlighted. They're all parts of the story.

First off, today is Pearl Harbor Day--a not-insignificant date in the life of my family, as regular readers *of this blog know.

The echoes of that event have reverberated down through time, and the memory of it resulted in this story, which was the first spark for my returning to the "QWERTYUIOP" keys to write again.

But every spark has to have a generator and that was Mr. Jeff Hoyt who, one day in a mass e-mailing, asked for stories with lessons learned for a class he was auditing. He took that piece and made it part of a collection called "Memory Song." "I want to do something with that thing of yours," he said last year, and a couple of weeks ago, he stumbled onto this blog through the vibrating strings of the Intra-web, and decided, "Now's the time."

You can peruse that story (Now called "From Mom to Mary," and any number of Jeff's brilliant little pieces) on his Pod-Cast Central "Hoytus Interruptus." It should be "up," starting today.

But another story about my Mom and Dad, and Pearl Harbor, and War, and the sacrifices and the courage that Life takes.

When Pearl Harbor "happened," my Mom (Mary) was living at home with her folks. Her Father was a former Sheriff of King County, and once had run unsuccessfully for Governor. He served as sheriff during a time of bootleggers and corruption that is now quaintly looked on as Seattle's "colorful" past. My grandfather had a reputation for implacable honesty, which was tough to do in those times in the Seattle PD. He was not a glad-hander, a panderer, a slick operator, or an easy mark, but he was a stubborn man--a determined man, and he expected the same integrity from his children. He was a strict disciplinarian. He and my Grandmother had six kids that survived the ravages of childhood disease--one son, Buddy, never made it past three--and he made sure that the Survivors toed the line, and would not bring Scandal and Dishonor to the reputation that his incorruptibility fought against for so many hard years.

Mary was working as a fashion-buyer at Frederick and Nelson downtown. She met John (my Father) through the urgings of his twin sisters, Katherine and Marybeth, who were models at the store. Their first date was to see "Fantasia," (Mary's first words upon seeing John at the door were "You don't look anything like the girls!"-- which is not an auspicious beginning) and when my father asked Mary how she liked it, she tartly replied, "Well, I saw it already last week." With another guy. With better prospects.

His twin sisters were waiting up for a report on how their little match-making escapade went. "Didja kiss her?" they wanted to know. "No," he said quietly. "But I'm going to marry her."

Sounds just like my Father.

This is the story of how they got married.

Mary was home. John was at Pearl. My grandfather heard the news of the attack over the radio and had to break it to her. What must have it been like to hear that the country had suffered a terrible attack with so many casualties, so many dead, and know that your fiancee was right in the middle of it? What must that have done to someone? And she wouldn't hear from him for days. A black-out had occurred, security was tight in Hawaii, and within days Roosevelt had declared war. World War. But where was John? News wouldn't come for quite awhile, and when it did it came in the form of a post-card, with few options to be checked off. "I am well." "I am injured and in hospital." He had checked off "I am well." One check-mark. That was all she got. That's all he was allowed to make. A scratch of life. And the only hope. Not much to go on.

But soon they were writing. John couldn't say much, but at one point, he said he would be getting leave in San Francisco, and they should get married while they could. Mary agreed.

Her family thought she was nuts. Get married in war-time, while he's in the service in the Pacific? Insane! Stupid! Throwing your life away! She got all that. Probably said it a couple times to herself, but she was determined to go to San Francisco. And if there were any doubts about her father's views on the subject, they were answered when he wouldn't accompany her to the train station. Her mother, dutifully, saw her off. Her father stayed home, for all the good it did.

And she went by herself to San Francisco. Along with all the other service-wives with their infant children, to greet the ships when they came to port, to see their husbands, their fathers--to catch a glimpse of them before they returned to the war from which many of them wouldn't return. She took the trip alone. Without the blessing of her parents. And she helped with babies, and talked with the wives. She was surrounded by the possibilities of her choice the whole way and knew, they all knew, that they were rolling dice taking a chance on the future when war was chewing it up.

She said it was all worth it when she saw John. They made arrangements to be married in between church services at a local parish, and Mary stayed with John's fabled Aunt Marie. On the day of the wedding, traffic was bad and Mary was late for the service. When she got there, with John and the priest and the early-birds for the next Mass, he looked at her in terror and said, "What, are you trying to kill me?" which is a rather ironic thing to say, considering.

They got married. That's them, up at the top of the page on the day of their wedding, photo by Aunt Marie. Eventually, John returned to the war. Mary took the train back to Seattle, to wait for him and for the war to end...for Fate to play out.

Don't we all?


* Are there regular readers? Really?

Thanks-giving for the Memory

Friday was a day to do things at home, like sleep in, chop wood (a lot! I got rid of three rounds, chopping them into nice wedge shapes that have been thrown under the tarp to dry off for use later in the Winter), and got around to wrapping the outside pipe, since the temperature has dropped down to below freezing. I can't use one of those handy-dandy foam contraptions ("foam-boobs" one of the elder ladies at the Normandy Park condo used to call them) to just latch onto the nozzle to tighten, so the process is to find one of my socks with holes in them, take a few of the more "thick" pages of the Voters Pamphlet and wrap them around the pipe and cover the wad with the rolled-up sock (Nothing like a sock full of hot air to keep the pipes from freezing). Presto! See you in the Spring.

While I'm swinging the axe (and to keep him happy, and out of the arc of my swing) the dog is chewing on an "O-bone" from the butcher's shop. He likes to gnaw on them 'til they're nice and shiny, while the action does the same for his teeth. His vocabulary has expanded to where the word "0bone" makes his ears perk up, and he snaps to attention.

While I was doing these chores I also managed (for the second time since we moved to "The Rock") to brain myself by stepping on the tongs of a metal rake in the cluttered shed. The handle snaps up and clobbers me, just the way they did in the silent movies. My reaction both times has been to laugh like a hyena, probably because that joke always works for me, but also because it rattles my brain and drops my IQ fifty digits.

The big toe on my right foot feels better. For the past few days it's been swollen and hurting. I don't know why but I surmise that when I stuck my foot into a shoe this week, I might have been stepping into the new home of a spider, who "bit it." But before "biting" IT, he bit my toe. All better today, though it's just made me reflect that I've acquired more scars since living here than I have in my entire life previous. Which brings to mind the old Red Barber quote: "It's not the one with the most toys, wins. God doesn't count the toys. he counts the scars."

That in mind, I should get on Ebay and sell some of these toys.

But all this activity was just an excuse to think about Thanksgiving, which was rough. A little devastating, really. And I've needed time to think things through--to digest from Thanksgiving, not only gastrically, but also mentally.

Things started off well with the Walaka/Otis pumpkin pancake feast. A fine time was had by all, even by Smokey who got a couple good walks in and got to bound around the RD. It was splendid to see everyone and engage. I disengaged about 1300, and headed for My Seester's, where we went to a local dog park and tossed the frisbee for Smokey until he was taking extended "time-out's." Then we headed for Thanksgiving dinner at a local hotel, with Claudi's neighbor Joan, my cousin Rob and his Mom, Aunt Chris. Chris is my Mom's youngest sister. She's 80. And she's had a series of small strokes, and may possibly have Alzheimer's. Anyway, Rob was helping her with her food--making "runs" to the get, helping her negotiate the utensils, stuff like that. I would engage Chris in conversation, and found that she still had the same caustic wit she always had, which I found was the same with my Mom. That basic core-personality of the person hangs on right until the end, so if anybody thinks they're going to get "mellow with age," they're confusing human beings with wine. So, I kept making Chris laugh, went and got her some dessert to let Rob eat, and helped her with that. At the end of the dinner, she looked at me and said--"You're a pretty nice guy." I thanked her, but it felt like a knife in the heart. That's what my Mom used to say to me on my visits long after she'd forgotten who I was. "You're a pretty nice guy." We talked about Rob for awhile, and then I had to leave. I had to "deal."

I went to the men's room and took long deep breaths, splashed cold water on my face, and tried to keep my heart from racing. It was all coming back and I wasn't handling it well. I took a few minutes, gathered myself, and went back. We had a wonderful time.

But I woke up this morning still obsessing, and my plans for heading to the Mainland were scattered to the winds. I had to digest this as much as I had digested the Thanksgiving dinner, and it was going to take time, activity, and time. And activity. And time. But I'm okay now. I've been thinking about my Mom a lot lately, because the "thing" I wrote all those years ago about her and Alzheimer's and reality had been brought up a few times in the past week (more on that later), and that story was comfortably filed away in my thoughts as "The Past."

And here I was being confronted with it again, like an echo, in the form of my Mom's sister saying the same words, meant to compliment, but bringing no comfort.

Despite things like Alzheimer's, and the other afflictions with similar symptoms, you never really can lose The Past. And whether it warms the heart or chills the soul depends on the prejudices and attitudes of the one who keeps it, or is kept by it.

Like a scar.

It's Cartoon-Time, Kids!!*

"Sunny" Day sent me this and I laughed so hard (and K laughed so hard) that I am compelled to share, despite the fact that I can't embed the damn thing. No, you have to go to all the trouble of clicking on a link.

Rest assured, you are going to a safe site (it's Yahoo!®Video), but this is the only place I've been able to find this cartoon.

It's worth it, though.

Joy of Cat

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*Of course, that line comes from every kid's show ever transmitted through a photon tube, but the guy I remember saying it the most was Chris Wedes, aka "J.P. Patches." Today the Mayor of Seattle declared November 5th "J.P. Patches Day," which hardly seems like enough. The man would pull down 2 shows a day and one on the week-end and then go out and open every single grocery store in the Puget Sound region. To read more about the self-proclaimed "Mayor of the City Dump," click on the "City Dump" link over there on the right, and enter the peculiar (and mostly ad-libbed) world of J.P. It's an understatement to say he had an influence on my life and career. Here's a check-list that I still have from J.P.'s show:

Ghost Story

Happy Hallowe'en!

I'm a "recovering" Catholic. I don't believe much (but, I do believe I'll have another beer ), so Hallowe'en does nothing for me except raise my blood-sugar. I don't believe in God and Heaven. But angels? I don't know. Satan? Well, I told that story here, here and here. Again, I don't know. I need to see it with my own psychic orb. But nothing is black and white. I know people who've seen spirits. I know people who've seen Jesus.

I know people who've seen my dad.

The day my dad died was a traumatic, nearly incomprehensible thing. One minute I was sitting on his bed, talking stuff inconsequential and consequential; "Don't worry about stuff. It's just a waste of time..." Two hours later he proved the point by dying.

One minute he was there, and the next--no dad. All or nothing. 24 grams of difference, they say.

When the doctor came in and told us he did all he could do, my mom collapsed into my brother's arms and wept. It's one of the few times I've ever seen him cry. My sister grabbed onto me, and me? All I could do was not believe it. It was inconceivable that my father could die, and I couldn't imagine what life, for us, on the other side of that event, would be like. It didn't occur to me to think about him. He was dead, and that was it. His troubles had ceased. I remember crying violently and pounding on my leg in disbelief, like it would wake me from a nightmare. Pound pound pound. For all the good it did. Dad was just as dead.

And life was just as changed. It would never go back. My family went in to see Dad's body to see him at rest. I demurred. Mom told me it would reassure me, but I said no. I've never regretted that decision. My memories of my father are only of him alive. *

We went back to our house, stunned. No more Dad. We were cried out, in shock; not much to say, not much to be said, really. And then the relatives started showing up, with casseroles, with sympathy, and with stories...and a miracle. Within two hours, my morbid Uncle Rob and his brother-in-hijinks, Uncle Bill, had us laughing hysterically--my Mom, too, laughing gratefully at their jokes and cutting up. It's my fondest memory of my uncles, and whenever I see their kids I remind them of it.

But at some point, everyone had to leave. We were exhausted. I had a date that night, and I cancelled. I stayed at home with sister and Mom and tried to make sense of it all. Failing that, we all went to bed early....

I was the last to get up. I hadn't slept well and was restless all night. I groggily made my way to the kitchen, noting that coffee would be nothing like my father had made it--thick, black and slightly chewy. He'd learned to make coffee in the Navy. Both my mother and sister were up. They looked at me. My mother looked at me gravely.

"Did you see Dad?"

HUH?!

"I saw dad last night," my mother said. "So did I," said my sister.

What'd you see? Are you sure it was him?

"Yes. I saw a flashlight first, like when your dad would get up in the middle of the night. I looked at him and I said 'John?' He told me not to be afraid--that everything was going to be alright."

What'd he look like, mom?

"He was beautiful. He seemed so at peace. He said not to worry about him, he was alright, and everything was going to be fine. Then he walked away. I got up to follow him, but he was gone. So I went to your sister's room, and she was sitting up in bed." My sister nodded. "She looked at me and said, "Did you see him?"

I looked at my sister. "You saw him, too?"

"Yeah. I saw a light, and I saw him. He said he was alright, and everything would be fine. The mom showed up."

"Did you see him?"

No. (But that doesn't mean anything--I'm as psychic as a brick.)

Both my sister and my mother I consider rational people. This was twenty years before my mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis. After my father's death, she would go to work at a mall bookstore, and for the majority of the time before her retirement, worked the mall Information Booth--ironic, as that's the least-likely job for someone who would suffer from short-term memory loss. I could argue that the shock of my father's death triggered some chemical spurt in their brains to manifest his image (the way they say that those stories of "life flashing before your eyes" is caused by strength-producing adrenaline being released through your system). I don't know, but I suspect not. In the subsequent years, when I've heard similar stories--many of which came from an all-day session recording people's near-death experiences--I've been alert to the similarities between those stories and my mother and sister's. For instance, the phrase that seems to be a lulling mantra--"Don't worry about me, I'm alright and everything is going to be fine"--is common in the majority of these stories. The similarities are striking--unnervingly so.

But is that real or the imagination? Are we consoling ourselves through brain chemistry, or does St. Peter allow a free phone-call at check-in? Either way, I find myself marvelling at the mechanics of the Universe that would provide such comfort. Does it work for everybody? How about when everything isn't okay, and not fine?? Do the dead return to console in war? How about a death by violence? Are those the ghosts who wander the Earth as wraiths, poltergeists and banshees?** In death, apparently, one size does not fit all.***

We will all die (Garrison Keillor says that "Nature doesn't care about your golden years--it's aiming for turnover" and that's exactly right). But some of us could die "better" than others. One hopes that when The End comes for us, we can have the opportunity to reassure those we love...one way or another. It's the unfinished business of a finished life. The opportunity of a lifetime.

"Don't worry about me. Everything's going to be alright."

Reading over this, I'm a bit frustrated that there are far too many questions and not enough answers, but I suppose I won't know those answers until I cross-over, with the possibility of discovering The Big Picture.

When I do, I'll get back to ya.

*Subsequently, when my Mom died, I was the one to go make sure the funeral arrangements had been met, so I elected to view the body. My brother and sister did not. My sister-in-law, Jane, went with me. I've never regretted that decision, either, relieving them of that task.

** I'm sure I mentioned my psychic-friend. On this subject he was blunt: "Ghosts are ass-holes!" he said. He was very contemptuous of them.

*** I remember reading that Stanley Kubrick thought his film of "The Shining" was, actually, quite hopeful. "Isn't anything that implies life after death?" But Kubrick gave death his own spin by implying that it could be just another trap, waiting to make life...or death...hell.

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Bumper-sticker of the day: "Yes! This is my truck and NO! I won't help you move"

Song in me head: "Mrs. Robinson" (Simon and Garfunkle)

Believe It or Not: Do-It-Yourself Genetics

I was in the back of a car heading for an interview with a couple of merchants I was going to be writing an ad for. In the front seats were the Sales Manager, and one of the salesmen, both there to close with the client. As I sat back in the car looking at notes and trying out phrases, the two guys in the front started a conversation about family. The Sales Manager had four kids: three girls and a boy. The salesman had two girls, and mentioned the were going to try and have another baby, hopefully a boy.

The Manager stopped for a moment. Then he plunged ahead. "You know I've got three girls, but when we decided to have another kid, we really wanted a boy. So I wondered if there was any way to tilt the odds a little. Well, there was a guy I knew who had a couple of daughters and then he had a son and I asked him and the guy said...swear to God...'high and to the right.'"

"...what?"

"High...and to the right. Well, I tried that, and, well, you've met my son."

"High and to the right? That's crazy!"

"I'm just sayin'.....it worked for this guy and it worked for me. No guarantee."

High and to the right. I've always remembered that story, not only because it sounds so crazy, but I also like the phrase because it sounds so "baseball." It always reminds me of that scene in "Play It Again, Sam" where after making love Woody Allen and Diane Keaton discuss what just happened:

"What were you thinking of when we were doing it?"

"I was thinking about baseball. It calms me down and helps me prolong the moment."

"Yeah, I was wondering why you kept yelling, "Slide!"

Anyway, the salesman and his wife did have another kid.





Boy.

I'm just sayin'....
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So, it's been quiet on the Rock. Besides the baby eagle learning to fly, nothing much of consequence has happened. The past three days we've taken Smokey to what Walaka calls "Two Cliffs" Beach, which has a seemingly endless expanse of sand. It's very flat and Smokey can run and run to his heart's content. Once he's in the water it takes a while for the water to become so deep he has to swim, and he likes that. He's becoming more used to not having his feet touch bottom and less inclined to want to jump into our arms to get out of the water. That cuts down on the bruises, cuts and scrapes for us.

Next week is going to be very busy. K's working three days next week, and for me the freelance has piled up so that I'm working every day next week on something: Video sweetening at the Agents, foley recording at the Animals, animation sweetening and training audio at home. That's good. It almost feels like a full schedule.
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Tales from the Red Envelope:

Actually, the Red Envelope's been on-hold while K's been away...and she just opted out of "The Prestige," so we await the next installment, I've been paying a visit to the Socialized Book Vendor. You know, that terribly inefficient bureaucracy where nobody owns anything...the library? Anyway, I picked up a couple of DVD's: one being an early formulative Hitchcock, "The 39 Steps," and the other being that classic film I talked about having never seen here:


"La Srada" (Frederico Fellini, 1954) Before his imagination took surrealistic flight, Fellini was still grounded in the Italian neo-realist school, and his "La Strada" takes place in the still existent ruins from the second World War--the villages and hovels where roving bands of merchants and entertainers try to eke out a living on the road. Strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn), who breaks chains for a living returns to the family where his first assistant (now deceased) was acquired. Next in line is dim, but sweet Gelsomina (played by Mrs. Fellini, Giulietta Masina), and she hops on board Zampano's makeshift motorcycle/carnival tent/camper-trailer ("It's American!") and learns the tricks of the trade, which she takes to quickly. Eventually, they hook up with a larger circus, where they meet The Fool (Richard Basehart), who is sweet to her, but pushes all of Zampano's buttons, making the frustrated performer ever more enraged. Quinn is terrific, a bull with steam constantly coming out of his nose, Basehart shows his lighter irresponsible side rather than the stalwart authority figure he became used to playing, and Masina's performance is one of such force of personality that you can only call it "Chaplinesque," so much of it is tied to wordless expression and acting with the face. It's a melancholy circus Fellini liked to paint, supported by Nino Rota's ebullient/lyrical score but in the end shows how some chains can never be broken. Like any good fable or morality play, it saddens but doesn't disappoint.

(A week after watching "La Strada," Nino Rota's score still capers in my head.)

Feeling Clannish

Behold Clan Wilson.

Four generations of it. The latest edition is less than a couple weeks; The eldest, 87. There are grandparents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, brothers-and sisters-in-law and a fiancee or two, and a couple of friends of both sexes. They stem from the Wilson family tree, specifically, my father and his twin sisters, only one of whom, MaryBeth, is still around to enjoy the growth, the depth, the extent of it. There's an older Wilson brother's family not represented here, and neither my wife or my brother is here (though his wife and daughter are), but this was the scene Sunday at the "Wilson Twin" Reunion and Holey Board Tournament that lasted all day. Uncle George was in the restaurant game, and so the food was offered and consumed in copious amounts that never seemed to end. My father's side of the family is a hilarious band of ragamuffins, seriously unpretentious, who let fly with a great deal of honesty, humor and affection. We all rag on each other and laugh a lot.

And we play Holey Board, which is a tradition. Basically you throw elephantine washers at an astro-turfed encrusted wooden board with three holes in it (you can see it there on the lawn--I believe that was "Court 3" in the competition, there were eight in all). Everyone participates, ice is broken, and damn, if even the most disinterested in the outcome start getting a lit-tle competitive. Me and Cousin Lisa were one team. Final outcome: Won-2; Lost-2.

Sister-in-law Jane and niece Annie were able to come this year, and they fit right in. I think they might have been a little non-plussed to see what this side of my brother's family was like. I know when I first attended one of these soirees my Sister and I and my wife were welcomed with open arms, though we hadn't seen many of them in years. But it was an amazing feeling, walking into a room filled with people you could look at and know they had your DNA--the same eyes, jaw-lines, wolfish grins (and same pattern of baldness)--it was a feeling of belonging. I was told stories of my father when he was much younger and of his sense of the world, and his sense of humor (which I've talked about here). Aunt MaryBeth and her sister Catherine, were twin models who introduced my Mom to my Dad--actually they nagged my mother into going out with their brother. It didn't go all that well. Dad took her to see "Fantasia" at the movies, and when he asked her what she thought of it, she groused "Well, I've seen it be-FORE...," she being not the most encouraging of dates. Oh. The twins hounded my dad when he got home--"Well, did you kiss her?" "No," he said quietly. "But I'm going to marry her." True story.

Either my brother or I have Dad's old Navy cap from WWII, where taped inside were pictures of Mary and the twins as a reminder of love back home. As a family, the Wilson kids were really close, and everyone had a hand in the family I was born into. So, of course, I go to these reunions. My father died thirty years ago (is it really so long ago?), but he lives in the faces of my aunt and cousins. How can I miss him, when they live so close in proximity and familiarity. Our roots are deep.

Thanks to Mary A.Q.D. for getting the photo to me so fast!

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Next day Update: Got home last night about 9:00pm--ferry traffic to the Rock was fine, no prob, but coming back looked hellacious. Niece Kayla stayed overnight to get up early and drove right on a boat. She chose well.

After writing the above I went out to star-gaze. It's Perseid time in our neck of the Universe. Stood out for about 20 minutes in the light breeze and the almost total dark the Rock provides. Managed to see 3 meteors: a couple of short blasts that basically disintegrated, and then a nice long trail--it's like skipping stones, sometimes they sink before you get a good jumper. But it did bring back that same thought that I always get looking at the stars, and which Berkley Breathed cartooned so well last week.



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True-Life Adventures Update: The eagle, "Baby Huey" has left the nest. I repeat, "Baby Huey" has left the nest (Sure it only jumped to the next tree over, but, c'mon, how long has it taken you to fly?)

Letting Go, again

This is a repeat of the piece I presented last year at this time. Nothing's changed, except another year older (and deeper in debt). The fellow who instigated this piece, Jeff Hoyt, will be producing it as one of his wonderful "Hoytus Interruptus" presentations to air 'round about Pearl Harbor Day. The writing of this inspired me to keep writing, and to start this blog. It has a lot to answer for. And yes, I'll be doing it again this year. As I said, Nothing's changed.

Marys First Grandchild

It's my 52nd birthday today, and I will do what I've done the past 11 years--give flowers to my mother on my birthday. My birthday. It seems only right, doesn't it? I mean, what did I do to deserve a celebration (cake, candles, presents) other than to survive another year? On the day of my birth she was in the hospital. She went through the pain. It was her accomplishment, not mine. And so the flowers--roses when she was alive--have become a tradition and I've maintained it as a way of saying "thank you." I'm here because of her. And her choice to bear me. I feel the need to acknowledge that on this day. So, it's the long trek to the cemetery. I don't go there very often. Her birth. Dad's birth. My birth. That's it. One should spend as little time as possible in cemeteries.

Consciously, anyway.

The following is a piece I wrote (it's long, but it needs the set-up) for a friend, Jeff Hoyt, who was auditing a class on story-telling at Antioch. The assignment was to write a story where wisdom was achieved--a "Wisdom Song." Jeff sent out a mass-e-mail asking for stories from his "Radio Community" and I wrote this in one sitting, very fast, because the story was--ala Brando's line in "Apocalypse Now"-- "like a diamond bullet." I remember the details of this so vividly, it's like it happened yesterday. I remember the inflections, and I remember the thoughts that raced through my head as it happened, and I'm frankly amazed I was able to keep my composure. I've told the story so many times to explain Alzheimer's or to get a laugh that my long-suffering wife has graduated from "brief eye-rolling" to "passive check-out 'til it's over." It still is such a clear delineation from knowing one thing to knowing another for me. There are others.

Anyway, I wrote it down and sent it to Jeff, who laughed. And it got some good reactions. The "lesson" was included in a piece Jeff produced and I remember he got a remark from the instructor like "Thanks, that was nice."

Wasn't this guy, was it?

Hmmm.

Anyway, with only one change for presentation, this is what I wrote that night.

Thanks, Mary. For everything.

My Mom died of Alzheimer’s in 2001.

Thanks. I’m sorry, too.

Before she died, my Sister and I went through some Herculean measures to make her quality of life as comfortable as it could be. The most prominent of these was to keep her in her home for as long as humanly possible. By the time she was diagnosed, what she was and was not able to do for herself had become obvious to the point where we couldn’t ignore it or rationalize it anymore. She couldn’t pay her bills. She couldn’t drive her car. She couldn’t cook her meals. She could walk to the mail-box and get her mail. She could maintain the demeanor of a hostess and make you feel comfortable – a trait she would keep to the day she died.

And she could still recognize us as her children.

She had also learned to give the appearance that she knew the identity of whoever stopped her on the street to strike up a conversation, and hold up her end of the conversation as if she knew whatever the other person was talking about…even if she didn’t have a clue. She never admitted to having Alzheimer’s. She denied it. And if she couldn’t recall a face or a place or a date, then she’d make it up. And she became increasingly comfortable in this world that she made for herself.

It would drive my Sister and me batty. An Alzheimer’s patient, because they’re losing their memory and the details of their life, will look for clues as to what that life could have been like. And they’ll make it up as they go along. They will also try to hide the disease from the people around them. This leads to paranoia. Suddenly, someone will tell you that something that you know to be true is not, and you begin to wonder why that person has it in for you. If you suddenly have misplaced something, it has probably been stolen. A request to go to the doctor leads to suspicions that you’re being forced against your will. A request to take some medication becomes a plot to poison you. It has nothing to do with reality, but reality has nothing to do with Alzheimer’s.

I once got a frantic call from my Sister. “Please!” she said. “You’ve got to tell me. Did Mom and Dad once own my apartment, and that’s why I’m living in it?” “Of course not!” I said. “They lived in the same house in Bellevue for 45 years.” “Thanks,” she said. “I know it’s true, but sometimes….she can be so damned convincing…”

My wife and I were planning a trip to Hawaii, and we’d be leaving in a couple of days. I went to Mom’s to pick up some bills to pay—I had been doing her books by this time—and check up on her, have a meal, scope out the house, anticipate problems. We had a fine time, and we were standing in my old bedroom, making small talk. “Now, where are you going on vacation?” she asked. “Hawaii, Mom.” She brightened. “Oh, your Dad and I loved Hawaii!”

Now, let me interject. My Dad had been at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. He was stationed aboard the Maryland. But, at the time the zero’s came in he was standing on the dock waiting to board the U.S.S. Arizona for Sunday church services. This is the Arizona that is still there, but it's now called the Pearl Harbor Memorial. The only reason he wasn’t on the Arizona when the attack came, was that he was waiting for a buddy who, for whatever reason lost to History, was late getting there. It was the only reason he wasn’t entombed with the other sailors on the Arizona, and it’s the only story he ever told about the War(Before the Alzheimer’s, Mom had told me that after V-J Day, the first year back, my Father would wake up every night, screaming. He spent the entire War in the Service, but the only story he ever told was about that near-miss through no fault of his own, but owing to the lateness of his friend. As a result, I never try to be on-time for anything.)

So, my Dad never wanted to go back to Hawaii. Never. Hated the idea. Whether it would trigger traumatic memories, or he just didn’t want to give ‘em another shot at him, he didn’t want to go. Not for vacation, not for Pear Harbor Survivor’s Meetings, not for anything did he want to go back to Hawaii. My Mother would suffer in silence all through the Sixties, when friends and relatives would take their tony vacations to the New State, and regale them with stories of hula girls and luau’s and the beaches of Waikiki and “you two REALLY should go.” But she knew it wouldn’t happen. It was a given. Dad did not want to go back to Hawaii. Been there. Done that. Survived it, barely. She understood that, and accepted it. If they were going on vacation it would be on the main-land. She knew that. We knew that.

“Oh, your Dad and I loved Hawaii,” my Mother said dreamily.

I scoffed. “Mom. You and Dad never went to Hawaii. Dad was at Pearl Harbor.” “I know that! But we certainly did go and we just had the best time!” “Mom! You didn’t! Dad hated Hawaii!” “Well, we most certainly DID! I remember the boats!” (She had every book ever written about Pearl Harbor and the attack. I think that, like the Japanese pilots that morning, she could identify every ship just by its silhouette!) “Mom, no-o! No-o! Dad had absolutely NO DESIRE to go to Hawaii after the War…” Well, you can guess how it went. Mom was vehement. She and Dad had TOO gone to Hawaii. She was sure of it. And I was just as sure that they hadn’t, and I had the advantage because I didn’t have Alzheimer’s. But sometimes, that’s not really an advantage. I should have stopped. I should have conceded. I should have let go of reality. But I couldn’t. As a result, she flew into a rage and she kicked me out of the house (something that had happened frequently since she’d been
diagnosed)…and don’t you ever come back…and I’ll do my own bills from now on…you’re probably stealing all my money. SLAM!

I was wrong. I knew I was right, but I was still wrong. I had unnecessarily agitated my Mother and thrown her into a tizzy -- a tizzy that would set her back. It was not her fault. She was sick. If there was fault, it was mine. I clung to my reality, and it really wasn’t that important. It was selfish. And I regretted it. I was still mad, but I regretted it. And the worst part was…I’d have to go back there eventually, anyway. I had to check on her. When Mom was first diagnosed, my Sister and I attended a lot of classes on the disease and care-giving and one axiom they drill into you is: “You cannot make them happy, but you must keep them safe.” Well, I failed at both. I had to go back.

I had one thing going for me, I realized. She had Alzheimer’s. She was probably going to forget the whole thing anyway. With my Mother, that was never certain. She was a Nixon Republican and she could hold a grudge. But I had to go back, so I was determined to act like nothing had happened and make the best of it. The next day, I knocked on the door. She opened it a crack. She looked at me warily. “Oh. Hello.” She knew she was mad at me, but she couldn’t remember why. She looked stern, but she didn’t have a full-mad look, what my Father described as “having a face like a meat-axe.” “Hi, Mom!” I said cheerily and acted like nothing had happened the previous day, and within a couple of minutes, we were laughing and joking and having a fine visit. I made her a meal, and we talked, and I went over bills with her that she couldn’t comprehend. I asked her if she still wanted me doing them for her, and “Yes, of course! That would be fine, dear!”

So we had a nice visit. As I was leaving, she smiled and said, “Now…WHERE are you going on your vacation again?”

I lowered my head and smiled. “Hawaii…….”

She brightened. “Oh, your Dad and I lo-oved Hawaii.”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’ll bet you did.” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Oh, that’ll be so nice. You have fun.” That out of the way, her face turned serious.

“Now…are you going to drive?”

“Uh….no. No. I thought we’d fly this time…”

“Oh, good!” She patted my arm. “That’ll be so much easier!”

“I’ll say!”

That’s when I turned the corner on Alzheimer’s and my Mother. I couldn’t cure it. I couldn’t make it better. I couldn’t cram reality back into her life. I couldn’t do anything about that. But I could keep her safe. And I could make what she had left as pleasant and as free of stress as I could. And if I let reality slip a little bit, it didn’t matter much in the end. But it meant a lot to her. I could voluntarily let things go, since she had so much taken away from her. And, with time, she wasn’t my Mother anymore. The disease eventually broke that relationship down. I wasn’t her son. That designation confused and worried her, I began to notice. So before it made her afraid, I dropped it completely, and I was simply that nice man who came to visit and joked and laughed and seemed to know her. And she was simply “Mary” – this woman who had lived an amazing, long life that I knew very well and who deserved the best I could give her…even if she was no longer my Mother.

I learned it was alright to let go...of her, and reality. Eventually, you have to. It's inevitable.

The Rest of the Story Part 2

Walaka had asked me last week if I'd worked with any celebrities, and, frankly, I had blanked them out of my mind. But over the week a bunch of names came to me. Remember I said I wouldn't name-drop? Well, now that memory's returned, here comes some deep-dish name-dropping!

Ann Wilson of Heart proved to be a funny, funny lady and had the best "whiskey laugh" I'd ever heard. Tom Skerritt is quiet--even humble in an unassuming way. Tim Daly is flinty and very professional, while Mykelti Williamson couldn't be a sweeter human being, and one hell of a talent. The late Harold Gould was a consummate professional, during breaks of the session he'd glance at a script to learn his lines from "I'm Not Rappaport," which premiered at the Seattle Rep. Locally, Stan Boreson is a warm raconteur, as was the late Ivar Haglund--he seemed happiest sitting in the lobby spinning stories for "us kids."

I got to work with a lot of the "Northern Exposure" cast when they were filming in the Northwest. John Corbett was a happy knockabout guy who was clearly enjoying his fame. While he was picking through his script, he saw the "Rocketeer" poster I had on the wall. "I was runner-up for that," he said wistfully. "Billy Campbell got it." Well, look how it all turned out, I said. He smiled, then turned serious again. "Billy did a good job." Darren Burrows was exactly like his character, Ed, on the show, unbelieveably polite (he insisted on calling me "sir"), and expressed amazement that someone wanted him to voice a commercial. So did Peg Phillips, a wonderfully down-to-Earth woman who came to acting and fame late in life. "What do they want me to sound like?" she boomed in her raspy gramma's voice. "They just want you to sound like you!" The lookof bewildered disbelief was priceless. Barry Corbin sauntered in with a ten gallon hat and a drawl the size of Texas. I'd seen him act in things without a trace of accent, so I thought it was pretty phoney-baloney. He got into the voice booth with a commercial that was overwritten--the first take was 45 seconds when it should have been 30. Corbin insisted on a second take before any copy was cut, and he did it in 28 seconds, without sacrificing any nuance or inflection--Corbin is that good an actor, and the Texas drawl is pure Barry. But he's so good he can lose any trace of it at a whim.

Yaphet Kotto did much the same thing with a 60 second spot--insisting on a second take for something that was clearly too long. But he did it, as rushed as it was. I hit the talkback, laughing "You just wanted to see if it was possible!" And Kotto's grin lit up the room.

One of the nicest guys was James Doohan. He came in to do a commercial announcing a theme park. "Hi, this is James Doohan--'Scotty' on 'Star Trek'" read the copy and the first couple of takes Doohan read it naturally, hit all the marks, did a great job. But there was silence on the end of the line (we were talking to the client by phone-link) "That's great, Jimmy" came the producer's voice. "But...could ya do it as 'Scotty?'" Doohan looked at me through the booth window. "But...it says 'James Doohan" on the copy and the 'Scotty' accent isn't really..." "Yeah, yeah,we know. Could ya do it anyway? It's more familiar!" Doohan looked at me through the glass again. He was deciding. "Okay!" he said. "Let's do a take!" This time with the familar faux-burr of the Enterprise engineer. I've always admire him for that.

Okay, last time, I told you the first of two studio stories with "Surprise Endings."

Story 2

In my studio career, I've done lots of auditions. Lots and lots. We've had whole days where folks came in to read a part, or we'd ask agents to bring folks in we'd never seen before to see who was out there, and if they had some possibilities.

There was an open-call for the part of a kid for a video game company, and we were pretty shy of "young adult" voices, so we held an open casting. People would come in, take a look at the script, and then I'd record them for one or two "takes," say "Thanks! That was great!" (whether it was or not) and go on to the next one. Then, we'd take all the recordings and put them into a nice little collection and ship them out to the producer/director/writer who would do the casting. Sometimes, they'd ask for our recommendations. They'd at least inquire if there were any possibilities. This particular writer/producer/director (we'll call him "Bob") was also an actor, so we could talk about specific qualities that we were looking at in detail. In other words, we could "fine-tune" the search.

The day of the audition, actor after actor showed up to have their voice recorded so that Bob could hear what they might do with the material, and as with every audition they ran the gamut from possible to horrible. By two in the afternoon, there wasn't anybody I thought was any good. Oh, there were a couple we could "get by" with, but on the whole it was one of the worst casting sessions I'd ever had. I'd even go so far as to try and direct these people into a performance to little success. In fact, I'd just finished the worst audition of the day when a guy showed up--a late addition to the schedule. He was about six feet, carried a back-pack, it was obvious he came in right off the street. He apologized for seeming unprepared, said he'd just graduated from Cornish and his agent thought he should do some auditions. I said, "Great! Whatever!" And put him into the booth. Then I gave him the standard instructions I gave all the auditioners about the part and what the producers might be looking for.

Right off the bat, he was good, with an intensity and a commitment that nobody else gave to the role. Plus, his timing was terrific, making the most of lines that had only a bit of humor to them. And--this was amazing--he had a sense of subtext, like the character actually had a life before he started talking, and it informed what he was saying now. Very rare, and that put him head and tails above all the rest of the auditioners. In fact, when Bob asked me if there were any I'd recommend, I said "Just one." That guy. "In fact, I wouldn't consider anybody else." "He's that good?" "He's THAT good."

So, Bob hired him. He thought he might be a bit old for the part, but he said, "He knows how to make himself sound younger, so we'll see." He said he was very easy to direct, and did things in a very subtle way, He was very happy with the performance, and the project was completed.

But it was rejected by the game company. "He's too old!" they said in their infinite wisdom. "We want someone 14 to 15. He sounds 18, youngest." So, Bob had to recast and do it again, which was too bad. But, the client is always right in these things. So, this guy who was so good ended up getting replaced in the project.

But everything turned out all right in the end. This guy got paid for the part, and went on to do other things.

And the client got what they wanted, which was to get someone who skewed a little younger. I'm sure they've forgotten the incident, and that they rejected this guy. But if they tried to get him today, they couldn't touch him.

His name: Brendan Fraser.


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000409/

http://www.brendanfraser.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Fraser

The Rest of the Story Part 1

I was over at Walaka's having dinner, and he asked me if I'd worked with any celebrities. I demurred. I couldn't honestly think of any, but I have. A lot of them are people that would mean something to me--for instance, Russell Johnson ("The Professor" from "Gilligan's Island"*) or Frank Buxton--he asked me to update his demo, as he'd just come into town, and his name was familiar enough that my "Spidey Sense" started tingling. Turns out he was a writer-director in New York, had hosted a kid's show that i watched regularly on Saturday mornings, had voiced the cartoon character "Bat-fink" (now out on video), was the producer/editor of "The Bill Cosby Radio Show" that I listened to religiously, oh, and he'd worked on "Love American Style" and "The Odd Couple" writing and directing, but, hey, that's not as big as "Bat-fink."

There are others, but I don't want to do too much name dropping...except for two stories with surprise endings, ala Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story."

Story 1

I was working on a radio play series for NPR, sponsored by the Boeing Company called "Sixteen Stories of Anton Chekhov." I've talked about it before, but in another context. One of the plays had the cream of Seattle acting all in one room. Folks like John Aylward and Ted D'Arms, who've done decades of stage plays and even made it to Hollywood. This particular radio script was based on Chekhov's "Sleepy," a tough story about a young baby-sitter who is basically a slave in a 19th Century Russian household: she cooks, she cleans, she does laundry, she takes care of the baby--the constantly fussing baby. She's exhausted--sleep-deprived, actually, and haunted by visions of her mother and others trudging as refugees through a driving rain. Tough story. Tough, in that the girl narrates most of the story...and tough in content. Especially, when at the end, in her delirium, the girl smothers the baby. Okay, it's a devastating story. Cast in the role of the girl was a very young girl. She was, actually, the daughter of the fellow who helped secure the Boeing funding, who inquired if their was a role his aspiring actress-kid could play. Well, yeah, this one. It would be an acting challenge for anyone, but this girl was relatively untried. The director assured us that she seemed okay in the reading, but was prepared to either work with her for a good performance, as well as lowering his expectations.

We assembled the actors in the studio together and hoped for the best.

When she began to perform, it became clear that she was prepared for the ardurous task of recreating this part. Her voice was a low, hopeless, exhausted monotone. It drew you in. You hung on her every word. Early on, we started exchanging looks in the booth. She was good. Could she sustain it? And we noticed something else. The actors in the studio weren't looking at their pages, or fussing with their parts. They were watching her. She was this tiny little frame, huddled, her face intense, focussed on the script, and all eyes were on her. When the actors' parts came up, they were always on-cue, and when they had to be rough, they cranked it up a notch in intensity. The actors in the dream sequences, inched closer to their microphones and made their parts more intimate, more haunting. There were very few pauses, not a lot of takes--it had the intensity of being done live and they had to get it right, riding on the wave of this little girl's heart-breaking performance.

By the end, we were all drained, our jaws on the floor. Not only was she better than expected, she was better than we COULD expect. At the end, there was silence as the final haunting words were spoken with a tragic depth, and it was like no one wanted to move, to hold the tension as if it would all go away if anyone said anything to break the moment. "Wow," someone said in the studio. "Yeah!" The actors congratulated the young actress. "Was it okay?" she looked up at the booth. "Yeah, it was VERY good. You'll want to hear this."

"REEALLY?!!"

We brought her in and let her listen to the recordings, and she began to relax. "Who's picking you up?" we asked. "My Dad." "Well, he's going to want to hear this."

Dad showed up. "How'd she do?" We praised her to the skies (in all honesty), and told him he should listen to what she did. We played it for him, and his eyes became cloudy, listening to his daughter's performance. He was obviously proud, as well he should have been. She did an amazing job, and when we put it together and combined it with sound effects, we took extra care with it, she was that good. And doubly amazing because she was so young and the acting was so mature.


This aspiring actress' name? Anna Faris.


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0267506/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Faris

http://www.annafaris.net/



* Johnson's a great guy and a very talented man. I loved recording him. He had a very specific reading set-up when he first came in, which he, rather sheepishly, requested, and I went and got it all set up. He was genuinely grateful, "Thanks, I really appreciate it." "Hey! No problem" I said "After all, you went back in time to save Lincoln!" He looked at me like I was daft for a moment. Then he smiled and laughed and said, "We're gonna have to talk about that!" On "The Twilight Zone" episode "Back There" Russell has played a theoretician who found himself going back in time right before Lincoln's assassination, but is frustrated that no one took him seriously enough to stop it and I vividly remembered that episode. Every session things would be set up just so, without him having to ask, and as I was shutting the studio door, I'd say "Hey! You went back in time to save Lincoln!" Last time I said that to him he had a look on his face like "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did."