Results 1 to 1 of 1

Thread: The Last of the Greats

  1. #1
    Inexplicably Undiscovered
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    next door to the lady in the vinegar bottle
    Posts
    5,089
    Blog Entries
    72

    The Last of the Greats

    The Last of the Greats

    A musty legend occasionally surfaces amid the smog of Hollywood about a long line of faux mourners snaking around a funeral parlor. They came in the proverbial droves not so much to pay their last respects to the departed mogul but to assure themselves that the s.o.b. was really dead. The same with this guy -- still alive -- about whom it was said that if he had a dollar for each time someone gave him the finger behind his back, he'd have so much dough that he could quit the Business this very night, and the rest of us could sleep soundly.

    It was likewise said that Sammy Canard was a legend – in his own mind. To the barber he blustered, "I want it real close, like they say in the gossip columns 'closerthanthis.’ Course them
    columnists never write about you, do they, Angelo?" He gave himself a big hearty laugh, as Angelo forced a wan smile. Why did he put up with him and all the others like him? Two kids in college, that's why. Characteristically, the star kept it up. "They can't be bothered with the little people, right, Ang?"

    "The little people? What am I, a leprechaun?"

    Another guffaw from the master. "Not unless they got leprechauns in Salerno."

    Angelo clenched the razor. Stanford, remember. U.C.L.A.

    "Hey, Sammy, Alec Baldwin's agent's on the line!" This from a "P.A." -- "production assistant," one of many underlings, who, among other duties, helped pad the payroll and keep the I.R.S. at bay.

    Inverting his palms in mock surrender, The Star flashed his trademark quizzical look. "Your headline guest tonight? The guy who’s in 30 Rock? He did that French teacher bit on SNL. God, Sammy, don't say you don't remember it. It was pants-pissingly funny."

    Sequeless slide into fake Mex accent. "No comprende, Senor. What is Es en el? Ees funny, si?"

    "Well, anyway, Baldwin cancelled for tonight. We’ve gotta get another guest for the slot."

    "Good riddance. Get one of those babes -- " he made a swooping, double convex gesture. Sammy had a certain nonchalance about his show, with not a thought to his place in this niche of the Industry, his professional ancestry including the likes of of Jack, Steve, Johnny, Merv, and the innumerable quipsters who've parked their rears behind a desk in front of a camera."Get some chippie from Desperate Housewives or somethin'." He was
    serious.

    "No go, Sammy." The P.A. smarted with the thought of his destiny as a parking valet, but what the hell. "Every chickin the Business is on to you. Nobody wants to be the butt of your sexist comments anymore."

    "Ha, ha, 'butt' is right -- and gazongas, too!"

    "Benny Hill lives," said the P.A., A.K.A. "Toast."

    With perfect timing, the barber, done, applied the obligatory after shave -- the scent, overpowering; the slap, exaggerated, but excruciatingly sincere.

    The Star sprang from his seat, too late, for the
    swinging door testified to the former P.A.'s sudden unemployment. "Good riddance," the Star said for the thousandth time that day. A momentary wave of pity for the kid flushed over him--was he ever that young? Let's not forget the Borscht Belt Busboy, incorporated into an early routine, blubbering the B's à la Crosby. Bing was alive then, and audiences got it. Try doing it today, try doing Cagney or Edward G. or even Jimmy Stewart. All you'd get is slack-jawed stares, despite the old movies available on DVD.

    He completed his daily exercise: the brief toddle from one plush chair to another, the latter that of the make-up girl. He recalled the first time he saw that sketch -- circa l958 -- it killed the crowd. At the very mention of the
    word, a trashcan-lid-sized puff plastered the nearest puss with pancake "Make-Up!" Stole that sucker from Berle, fair and square.

    "How 'bout it, Cupcake? Let's go to my dressing room, and I'll show you my itchings."

    She didn't even try to stifle the yawn. "Don't you mean 'etchings'?"

    "Sure! We can do those, too! Seriously, Lola-"

    A disgusted cluck of the tongue. "It's Farrah --"

    "Farrah. Come on. I'll make it worth your while." At that she turned on a sneakered heel and scrammed, the make-uptray a-clattering in her wake. He snarled. "Lezzie! In the old days the girls would slap ya, now all you get slapped with is a sexual harassment suit. I tried on a suit like that -- it didn't fit."

    What's-her-name in New York, the first Mrs. C., the one who didn't contest the divorce. Didn’t bleed him like a vampire.She had class. One day they had dropped everything, packed a lunch, and ducked up to Bear Mountain, the one near West Point, and they had spent the entire afternoon wordlessly staring at the Hudson and the sky. Whatever happened to her? -- he made a mental note to look her up (or to have somebody look her up), but inevitably he crumbled that particular mental note and tossed it into the wastebasket of his cluttered brain.

    The night's show "went well," according to the Executive Producer, who said that very thing after every taping. A few flubbed lines, couple of missed cues have to be expected, but the long tentacles of the Network packed a fearsome grip; everything had to be timed within a tenth of a second. Once that videotape started rolling, there was no stopping for retakes. Man, how he missed spontaneity, those heady days with Jack and Steve and Carson! God forbid the surprise walk-on by Hope or Dino or George Burns which screwed up the schedule and you -- in that lowly 12:50 segment -- got bumped. You prayed for a shot, for a measly four minutes of stand up. You counted the laughs; you noted how long, how loudly they clapped when you hit 'em with that final killer punch line. If Johnny gave you the high sign, you knew you did o.k., but if you got an invitation to come over and sit on the couch, you knew you had made it: you were a Prince of
    the Blood.

    Comes full circle, he's the guy behind the desk, perhaps a pallid parody of the original, perhaps self-parody -- or in postmodern times, a parody of a parody. This painful, albeit rare, qualm of self-awareness was a malady from which he hoped to recover, as he and his business manager, full of glad-handedness and the Post-show High, headed for the currently “In” spot.

    Going in they saw a faded star coming out. Sammy was constantly running into so many people in the Business --people who were "personal friends of his" -- that his lifewas one big cameo, a never-ending surprise walk-on. Face to face with the former talk-show host, Sammy raised the corners of his mouth, inhaled, but the greeting got pre-empted. The man stared so frigidly that were this a Tex Avery cartoon, a blizzard would pound each shoulder, but the guy’s eyes were burning. The evil eye lasted for a few beats, then he moved on.

    The business manager was embarrassed. "My God! What did you say to the man? He's the friendliest guy in the business. He's nice to everyone!" Even Sammy,apparently. Formerly. "I mean it's not like you two aredeadly rivals. Your time slots didn't conflict. What did you do?"

    Sammy sloughed it off with a shrug, a wave of a multi-ringed hand. "Nothin'! You know me-- I rib people. Well, one night we were all over at Penny Marshall’s. I spotted him across the room. I yelled, 'Hey! Has-been!' That's my shtick. I ride everybody. I kid people."

    "You jerk! You oughta be ashamed of yourself."

    Sammy, far from sheepish, turned around and pushed the thick glass door open with his butt. His shtick. "Let's discuss this over a drink."

    Ah, shame! As good an excuse as success for getting drunk, when the whole concept of "getting drunk" is itself an anachronism. Speaking of which, each fresh drink brought up another anecdote from his early days in the Business, when he was a comic manque trying to break in. Back then there were no comedy clubs, no open mic nights. He coughed up a chestnut that was moldy
    even then: you slip the waiter a sawbuck and have yourself paged. Do it today and the only reaction would be: "What kind of cheap schmuck doesn't own a cell phone?"

    Then a real phone rang, in real time, close by. In one motion, the business manager reached into his pocket, flipped the tiny device, and held it to his ear. He did very little talking and a hell of a lot of listening. By the time the great-great-great grandchild of the “Ameche” made it back to its Armani pocket, the Business Manager's face looked medieval.

    "Bad news."

    "And? . . come on, you know the bit." Sammy rolled his hands. "And good news. . ."

    "Just bad news. You're cancelled."

    "Ha, ha, good one! Barkeep, another round for this comedian here."

    The business manager shook his head. "That was the Network. Your show tanked."

    "What? After fifteen years? I win the time slot and the share every week!"

    The business manager never stopped shaking his head. Not even Catholic schoolgirls indicate "no" so adamantly. "Your ratings skew to an older crowd. Retirees. Nursing home residents. The sponsors want to cultivate a more affluent audience, or at least viewers who are a little less tight-fisted. They want a show that'll
    skew to the eighteen-to-thirty-four crowd."

    "Yeah, well, skew them! Skew you!" He slammed the heavy-bottomed Scotch glass on the bar. "Look at the crap they shovel in prime time. Cops. Lawyers. Cockamamie reality shows. So what do they do? Ditch the last remaining comedy show in prime time." He signaled for two more -- not one for each, both for him -- and he downed them faster than a show that's the critic's darling gets cancelled.

    "Tell me somethin'. Tell me one funny -- I mean really funny -- comic working today. I don't mean Carlin. He’s old school. Nobody knows how to take a joke these days. Nobody knows how to tell a joke! It's all this observational crap. In the clubs and on cable it's all 'F' this and 'F' that. Let me tell ya somethin’, Morrie. When I worked blue, it really meant somethin'!"

    Even now, in the depths of degradation -- for once, he was the victim -- Sammy held court. He wasn't always "on" --but when he was this good-and-pissed-off, he needed an audience -- even an audience of one, the twenty-something bartender, who himself was clinging to the last straw of hope that his own Big Break arrive any day. He was just jaded enough to think that Sammy's improv was lame, and he'd been here long enough to
    have seen his fill of the washed-up, but, my God, this, was Sammy Canard, the last of the greats, almost worth a collect call to Des Moines: "Ma, guess who came in the bar today!" The business manager thought he’d need a miracle to drag Sammy out of there, but all it took was a one-liner. "Let's go get some air."

    Fresh air is rare in L.A., and walking is even rarer, but the two expensively-dressed men consumed the former and performed the latter as they ankled it through the streets. They ended up in a park, a little flat oasis of green amid the urban desert. A blue and be-fowled pond loomed a short distance away. "Let's go look at the ducks," Sammy commanded. “They're the only creatures left on earth that don't have their hands out."

    Near the pondside a man standing atop a flat rock expounded about camels and needles' eyes and a kingdom not of this world. The preacher's face shone not so much with righteousness as with earnestness. "What does it profit a man," he asked, "to gain the whole world yet– " Sammy walked right up to the preacher and stared him square in the face. "Morrie, come 'ere,"
    he ordered in a voice inappropriately loud. “Look at this guy. Isn't he the spittin' image of the one who was in all the Spike Jones movies?"

    "Lee. You mean Spike Lee." Then, to the man an apology. "Please excuse my friend here. Had a few too many--" to which the preacher responded with a compassionate smile, a knowing nod.

    Sammy boozily dug into his pocket and stuffed a C-note into his hand, who handed it back and said, "I'm afraid you can't buy your way into heaven, my friend."

    "Well, I'll send it over to Father Malarkey then. TheCatholics never turn an honest buck -- or a dishonest onefor that matter!" Mortified, the Business Manager led him away, farther from the preacher, closer to the ducks.

    "See, Sammy? See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. The Catholic bashing. The rough, tough, insult shtick. The public is sick of it."

    "What'd they want, a kinder, gentler comic? What's the big deal? It's all in good fun. Sheesh! Can't anybody take a joke anymore?"

    As they strolled closer to the water's edge, the
    Business Manager noticed that Sammy was about to step into a pile of dog excrement the size of Newark. Morrie frantically prayed to the Pantheon of Gods that Sammy would indeed step in it -- and then would look down and laugh the all-important laugh that would signify redemption. Sammy made a full-footed sortie squarely into it, looked down, and cursed. He swore like a
    over-salted sailor and land-lubbing longshoreman, street-smart dropout and college sophomore girl, sadistic drill sergeant and Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross. He sputtered about custom-made Italian loafers, fumed and fussed, retched and gagged, but he didn’t laugh.

    A little later, sitting on a bench, next to a wad of soiled tissues and a pair of expensive shoes with their soles facing upward toward the sun."You know what, Morrie? When life hands me a lemon, I make a whiskey sour."

    "Ya got that right, Sammy. But for once in your life, would it kill you to be nice to people?” On the way up, and especially -- Morrie thought -- on the way down.

    Sammy tossed the wad of crap-covered tissues into the pond; a small brace of ducks floated over to investigate,swiftly turned tail, and moved on. "The problem is," Sammy said, "niceness just isn't in some of us. We can't be nice -- ever, not up, down, sideways, and six ways from Sunday."

    Such self-revelation didn't trouble Sammy. Nor did cancellation. There were some five hundred cable stations. There was always syndication. There was always Vegas. He was willing to bet his last buck on the fact that the audience, the people – they’ll remember for sure – with affection, or at least begrudging respect. Forty years in the Business, fifteen years in prime time, for god’s sake. Fifteen years. That was nothing to laugh at.



    All Rights Reserved.
    Last edited by AuntShecky; 11-14-2007 at 03:04 PM. Reason: Unexplained breaks in the text

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •