Back To Work
It could be worse. At least it's not Monday.
Memorial Day
Remembering
David Letterman And Me
I haven't watched him for at least twenty years, since his show was called "Late Night With David Letterman". Still, I was compelled to watch his final show the other night. A friend had posted a clip of Bob Dylan singing "The Night We Called It A Day" from earlier in the week, and had I found it a tremendously moving coda for Letterman the man, and all he had meant for all those years he was so relevant to those of us who watched him. I seriously doubt there's another person Dylan would honor like that.
I also watched the Tina Fey's #LastDressEver segment (on YouTube) because, well, Tina Fey.
I DVR'd the final show, and found it slow and unsatisfying until the video montage at the end of the show, played over the Foo Fighters performance. It was all quick-cut, but very moving, and it really underlined for me how much the show has been on autopilot for the past twenty years. The New Yorker had a very good takeaway on the finale.
I actually appeared on "The Late Show With David Letterman" in 1991, when it was still that hip-ish show that followed "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson" on NBC at 12:30 AM, and was broadcast from 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. The third edition of The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book had just been published, and our publisher arranged an extensive media campaign, which included David Letterman and Larry King. Brendan had done the author tour and promotional appearances for the first edition (described eloquently in our book), and this time it was my turn.
What I most remember about that appearance is the amount of time I spent on the phone with the show's Producer in the weeks prior to my appearance. I discovered that what looks spontaneous on television may possibly be spontaneous, but usually it's the result of careful planning. The Producer really got to know me over the phone and discovered which parts of the book would be the most fun for Dave, and what themes in the book would generate the most laughs. He had read the book (I don't think Dave had) and was the person who realized in the first place that the sarcastic tone of our writing would match up well with the show. But he had to get a sense of the potential guest (me) and what I might bring to the table, and he had to make me comfortable in advance so that I wouldn't get blindsided by anything once my segment actually began. It was planned, but not scripted. It was trememdous fun.
My most lasting and clearest memory of that appearance doesn't have anything to do with my segment (which went very well), but rather with how small the studio was, and how close the audience was. And especially with that particular night's musical guests - Booker T and the MGs. They played through all the commercial breaks, as well as performing a song or two during the show. They happen to be one of my favorite groups and that was better than any big venue concert they would ever do. It was very much like a club date.
So here's to you, Dave. All the best, and thanks for everything!
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Changes
Phil Ochs, one of the most gifted singer/songwriters of his generation (and there were a lot of them in the 1960s), was so overwhelmed by changes that he took his own life. But before he did, he wrote a beautiful song about them - simply titled "Changes."
As the sign suggests, computers frequently offer do-overs, especially for writers. Regardless of what we write, I think most writers would agree that we spend a lot of time editing what we've written, which imposes a useful discipline on us when we engage in other forms of communication (especially text messages), where there's never a prompt to reconsider what we've just so heatedly typed, either for content or style. Especially for content.
But life never offers us the chance to delete the changes we've made during the day. We give them a certain amount of thought in the moment, when we make them, or as we decide whether to do or not to do something. But then they're done. And we move on, with the consequences of the changes we've made.
I honestly don't know why I'm waxing philosophical about changes today. I haven't undergone any significant transitions lately, other than creating my own website - which has allowed me some space and motivation to be writing more frequently. But as to a specific reason, I think it's probably the sign in the photograph. Sometimes, images just jump off the page at me, grab hold and stay around. That's what this one did to me. But it also brought Phil Ochs back to mind, and I wanted to be sure that people who read my writing and are not familiar with his music get to hear his "Changes."
This one's for you, Phil.
On Taking Things Too Literally
Don Draper is not real. I don't care about the real McCann Erickson guy who thought up the iconic Coke commercial, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing". And I'm not interested in speculating about how Don would have fought through the corporate culture at McCann to sell his concept. The ending of the Don Draper part of the series finale was just so perfectly cynical and so in character for Don, that it deserves to stand on its own. That's how that character in this story would have pushed through his darkness and gloom to re-invent himself once more at an ashram, taking out of the EST-like group therapy "seminars" those elements he needed in order to experience the breakthrough that would propel him forward.
Bill Graham And The Rock And Roll Revolution
I think that my Facebook friend Dick McDonough would especially enjoy this exhibition in at The Skirball Gallery in Los Angeles. I wish I could invent a reason to visit the Left Coast myself, just to see it. Graham was a very important figure in the production and promotion of live rock and roll concerts in San Francisco and New York in the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition also focuses on Graham's life, as a child refugee from The Holocaust (his parents didn't make it out), and as an inspirational American success story. Business people hated him and the artists he promoted loved him. So did his customers.
Movin On Up
I started blogging several years ago on the Blogger platform. I called my blog "Antelope Freeway" in homage to the Firesign Theatre. I took a break from blogging for a while, and now I'm back, and I'll be blogging here on my own website. Moving from Blogger to Squarespace has been like moving from the suburbs to the city. And like Peter Max, I love cities.
So all new posts, beginning with this one, will only appear here, on my website. Antelope Freeway will continue to exist at the old address, but will not receive new posts.
The Real Thing
Last night's series finale of "Mad Men" was very satisfying for me. As someone who has watched every episode more than once, I had imagined several different ways that Don/Dick's story might have ended. But the image of Don "finding" himself at the Northern California retreat - putting himself through the hippy-dippy seminars and using his experience as a vehicle for his own self-discovery - was wonderful. That he came out of that with the concept for the iconic McCann Erickson Coca Cola ad was so perfectly cynical and so perfectly reflective of what the show has always been about that it almost brought me to tears. Well, not really. But you know what I mean.
And I love the way Matthew Weiner inserted a sneaky preview in the penultimate episode, with Don attempting to fix the motel Coke machine, of how Coke would be at the core of Don's epiphany on the mountaintop.
Always Good To Be #1!
The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book has only been available for two weeks, so it was especially nice to wake up this morning and see this:
Of course this is a subcategory of a subcategory on Amazon, but being #1 in something is always a good thing. And a great way to start the day.
My Interview On Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
I've done a lot of author interviews since my book was first published - on television, radio, and over the phone - and it's not often that the interviewer has actually read and enjoyed the book. Usually, they're just filling space on their program, website or blog, and they're thrilled to have an author who is engaging and willing to do all the talking. But in Ron's case, he really read the book, and his questions were informed and engaging - about the book, specific cards, the Topps company, and about baseball in general. It was a whole lot of fun.
Here's a link to the audio podcast of the interview on Ron's site. It runs about thirty minutes.
Show Me The Money
The Republicans ain't got nothin' on these two in terms of raising money.
Artifact From A Time Before Auto-Correct, When Writing Was Something You Did On Paper
Who still has one of these in a drawer somewhere? Who still uses one?
McDonald's New Hamburglar
This new version of the Hamburglar looks like a guy in the midst of a mid-life crisis.
Wally And Beaver
Wally and The Beav, in some "realistic" promotional situations. What ever happened to Wally? Maybe he's the creature who lives in the Green Monster at Fenway Park...
Kiss Me Kate
If you enjoy good Broadway theatre, and especially if you enjoy Cole Porter, you only have one weekend left to see The Concord Players' production of "Kiss Me Kate" (www.concordplayers.org).
From the gorgeous costumes (with details like late-1940s seamed stockings) to songs like "Too Darn Hot" and "So In Love" (which I still can't get out of my head), it's a first-class production.
Congratulations to the actors, Director, and the entire crew, including Fearless Leader Tracy Wall, for a spectacular evening of theatre. Don't miss it next weekend!
Go Go!
Joanie Labine, DJ at the Whisky A Go Go in LA, does her job while suspended over the dance floor, back in in 1964. Soon, the Whisky would add dancers suspended in their own cages and-Voila!-there were Go Go dancers.
Newspapers Are Alive And Well In Lexington - Chinese Newspapers.
On a recent Starbucks run in Lexington MA, I parked near a line of newspaper boxes along Massachusetts Avenue, the main drag through this posh suburban town west of Boston, where property values are sky-high.
In Boston and in most of its surrounding communities, newspaper boxes have pretty much fallen into disrepair or been removed as eyesores because of the steep and continuing decline in sales of print-edition newspapers. And in fact, the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald are both long gone from this location.
What's selling here is Chinese newspapers. In my short time in the parking lot, three different elderly Asian men walked up to the boxes and purchased newspapers, reflecting the dramatic increase in young Asian homeowners in Lexington - two-income couples with high tech jobs, with kids - who have brought Mom and Dad over to live with them. And their newspapers keep them in touch with the world they've left behind.
