Monthly Archives: July 2011

07.07.11
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Taste Free

After a hiatus from performing in the seventies, Bette Midler was asked by a reporter whether her new live act would contain her usual tasteless material. “Actually, no,” quipped the diva, “The new show will be taste free.”

I’ve thought of this comment periodically over the years, especially when family, friends or the general public tell me they find one of my jokes or comments “tasteless.”  What the heck is tasteless, anyway?  And I’m not talking offensive, as in disparaging a specific ethnicity.  I’m talking tasteless as in….well, you decide.

The argument surfaced this week all over the blogosphere when Casey Anthony was found not guilty for killing her two year old daughter Caylee (Oh, you haven’t heard about it?  Lucky you, who lives under a rock like the caveman in the Geico commercial).  Anyway, I casually glance on Facebook and Twitter later that day and am immediately bombarded with witticisms like: “Casey Anthony, meet Dexter Morgan.” “Don’t worry, Dexter will take care of her.”  “Dexter’s headed to Orlando with knives sharpened,” etc. etc.  (For those who don’t know Dexter, he’s our larger than life TV serial killer hero who only kills particularly heinous killers who have managed to avoid justice).  Lately (meaning today), the comments have gotten even more taste challenged — “Is Casey Anthony available for birthday parties now,” “Would that jury let Casey babysit for them?” and my favorite from the Borowitz Report: “Casey Anthony got off light – the Judge had considered sentencing her to one hour with Nancy Grace.”

I cop to laughing, to varying degrees, at all of these.   Are they in bad taste? Well, they don’t tar any particular group of people.  But they do rag on a person who has been in jail for three years and was just found NOT guilty by a jury of her peers and is now INNOCENT under our justice system.   HASN’T SHE SUFFERED ENOUGH?

Do you find this last statement tasteless despite the fact that this woman has been declared innocent under our justice system?  Hmm.  Now we’re getting into murky waters.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t know what else to do but laugh or crack my own joke when faced with an awful subject or uncomfortable situation over which I feel as if I have no say or power.  And the more outrageous the joke or reaction from the audience, the bigger the release seems to be.   George Carlin first said it best for me when I was in high school with his classic comedy routine about the seven dirty words you can’t say on television.

This was, of course, before cable television – which regularly features any of those words nightly on a given series, movie or special event program.  My, how times have changed.

Carlin was greatly inspired by comedians before him such as Lenny Bruce and Dick Gregory, who dared to venture into uncharted territory of language and race.  There were also a whole slew of female Jewish comedians, often performing in Florida or the Borscht Belt, who made people laugh with “taste free” jokes.  Goggle names like Rusty Warren (hint: one of her record albums was called “Knockers Up!” – yes, those knockers!) and Belle Barth, who used to sing to packed houses in Miami Beach, “I lined 100 men up against the wall, and bet $100 I could…“ well, you listen and you’ll see what inspired some of Bette Midler’s seventies antics.

None of those acts are particularly shocking today, though some are still probably considered tasteless.  But are they funny? Hell yes!  Are there people who don’t find them funny and find it/me tasteless? Hell yes again!  Do I want to be friends with those people? Hell, no!!!  Many times!!!

Consider this – there was some degree of hoopla when the fabulously terrific late actress Jill Clayburgh, Oscar-nominated for her performance in Paul Mazursky’s “An Unmarried Woman,” visibly upchucked onscreen when her husband of many years blurted out he was in love with another woman.  I think at the time more people were disgusted by having to look at vomit than the sexual politics of the moment.  Imagine if they were around now (some of them still could be!) and had to look at the tour de force food poisoning scene of the four gals in “Bridesmaids?”

I'd lay off the Brazilian food, ladies

One of my proudest moments as a screenwriter and taste-free, soap box standing liberal was when I was late for a meeting at Disney in the nineties, got lost in the animation building and ran smack into a tall man carrying an attaché case and wearing a plain suit.  I profusely and hurriedly apologized and as I looked into his eyes and rushed away I realized, “Holy sh-t, That’s John Waters!”  Who could have imagined when I clandestinely watched that bootleg copy of “Pink Flamingos” with my friends (where drag queen star Divine ate dog excrement), that one day its director would be rubbing shoulders with Mickey Mouse.   How subversively taste free of all of us!!!

I’d like to also add to this that several years after watching “Pink Flamingos,” when I was still in college, the student film society SPONSORED a midnight showing ON CAMPUS, of the popular X-rated porn film, “The Devil in Miss Jones.”  I went to see it, my first exposure to big screen movie porn, and I’ve managed to live a relatively moral life (depending on your morals) since.  How many college campuses across the country do you think would allow that now?

There’s no sense arguing for a mass acceptance of porn (unless it would increase tax revenues and solve the debt crisis, which it might, so we could) but I will go out on the line for 85 year-old Mel Brooks.  (Note:  I saw him six months ago at LA Chinese restaurant Mandarette and he was still sharp and hilarious).  He mainstreamed tastelessness in 1974’s “Blazing Saddles” and it’s famous bean eating scene.   Was that crass, stupid and tasteless?  You bet your sweet derriere it was/is!

It should be noted that Mr. Brooks hasn’t stopped.  His Broadway juggernaut musical of his movie from the sixties, “The Producers,” featured a homosexual Adolph Hitler sitting at the footlights of a New York theatre eight performances and six nights a week imitating Judy Garland.  I mean, if that’s not taste free, I don’t know what is.

I’m going to try to remember all of this the next time I blanch (not Blanche as in DuBois, but as in repelled by) when someone tries to get me to watch one of the “Hostel” movies all the way through or tells me I have to rewatch the original “Last House on the Left,” one of the only movies that has ever given me nightmares.   I might even try to remember it when I’m watching Sarah Bachman or Michelle Palin (oops!) giving a speech, though for me that will be a lot tougher. It is then you can come to my door (or blog) and shout me down with the inimitable words Oscar nominated and Emmy, Grammy and special Tony winner Bette Midler has shouted numerous times from stages all across the world,   “F—k ‘em, if they can’t take a joke!”

07.01.11
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Don’t Judge Me

Everything these days feels like it is a competitive race – presidential politics, entertainment industry awards, and year-end best lists.  This is reflected on reality television – which we know isn’t real (don’t we?) but still…

Bravo has created half a network around “Top Chef;” “Project Runway” (when it was on Bravo)” “Top Hair/”Shear Genius” but somehow failed with “Top Design” (was it Jonathan Adler’s signature admonishment “See you later, decorator.” We’ll never know).  The Food Network then jumped on the bandwagon with “The Next Food Network Star.”  But “Survivor” was really there first on CBS, awarding now convicted felon Richard Hatch with its original million-dollar prize.  CBS then upped the ante (in prestige, not ratings) with the perennially Emmy winning  competition, “The Amazing Race.”  But of course those were all surpassed by “American Idol,” the juggernaut of all television reality competition shows, with or without Simon Cowell.

Except maybe not for long because we now have “The Voice” – the unexpected breakout hit on NBC that seems to have managed a much more improved, kinder and gentler format with actual pop singer/mentors who both perform and guide rather than harshly “judge.”  Mr. Cowell himself might prove this all wrong in the fall when his new program “The X Factor” premieres and shows us once again that “mean” brings home the “green” – meaning it makes money and, as LB Mayer or some studio mogul once said, “puts asses in the seats.”

Experience tells us “asses in the seats” is really the bottom line in the entertainment industry.  But that’s a cynical view and only partially true because that statement doesn’t address the myriad of ways – both good and bad – you can get those derrieres on their cushions.

As a teacher and mentor, I try not to stress the “asses” reality though I do lament about it more often than I like to admit with my fellow writer friends. I mean, it’s tricky enough to write a good version of anything if you have to worry about the vagaries of the industry and audience when you’re trying to create something real, funny, dramatic or relatable on the page.  Not that we create in a bubble.  But worrying about writing a really popular script and selling it when you’re writing it is like stressing over what your marriage ceremony is going to be with the person with whom you’ve had only one really good date.  You might want it to head that way, and so might he or she – but you’re skipping the best part – the development of the thing.

Unless, of course, money and recognition (fame) is your thing.  If so, then you’re in big trouble.   Both professionally and romantically.

The whole world is watching...

I don’t know A LOT but one thing I do know is that too many people enter and stay in the industry just to be noticed or to make money.  Is this bad, you ask?  Well no, not really.  It’s motivating.  But noticed for what?  And by whom?  And for how much?  The people (or family member?) who ignore you growing up?  The talent you don’t really care about or don’t really enjoy doing?  The money you are more likely to make on a thousand different other things?  Let’s hope not.

Andre Agassi, tennis “Zen master,” (according to Barbra Streisand, and who am I to argue with her) admitted in his autobiography that despite his success at one point he hated tennis and it was only with some reflection later in life that he grew to love it again.  He began to hate the very thing he was blessed with a talent for because of all the financial pressures and peer/public expectations.  It was no longer fun.  Where’s the fun for you?  If you can’t have that in your work then what’s the point?  If it was never fun and just a means to an end (fame, fortune) then it can really be torture. Not fun?  Uh, oh.  Fun all the time?  Haha!! (said in a sarcastic tone).   Nothing is, not even eating pizza.  Engagement.  Emotionality. Satisfaction.   That’s the best and the most you can hope for.

Dorothy Parker once wrote it wasn’t the writing she liked – it was “having written.”  Take that how you will.  I prefer to think of it as Mrs. Parker liked the result of what she came up with – not the adulation or money that surrounded it.  Because truth be told she never made the equivalent of huge Spielberg/Michael Bay money, if that’s what you were thinking.  But she was known as the greatest wit of her day, especially among the gang of America’s top wits (the Algonquin Round Table) she hung out with.  And there is a lot of satisfaction in that – especially because it forced her to do good work while ENSURING she got the glory and recognition of others at the same time for her talent.  She came up with pithy phrases because she could and liked doing it, not because she dreamed one day it could make her famous (who could even dream such a thing?)

And if you think fame lasts: Consider when Barbra Streisand’s name comes up most of my current college students sort of roll their eyes and think about their parents.  Or grandparents.  Or some funny supporting character actress in “Meet the Fockers!”  I know it’s hard to believe but so is Michele Bachmann’s presidential candidacy to some people.

Would that we could all have the perseverance of 19th century French painter George Seurat, a  pioneer in creativity who never sold a painting in his life because his style was so new and different and unusual.

Just another Saturday with ol' George

Most of us need encouragement to nourish the ego and our talent.  But that’s not all we need.  We also need to work at our talent.  That’s part of the reason “The Voice” is so popular right now.  Real talent being nurtured, rather than knocked down.  Artists onstage dedicated to their craft, all of who seem to be doing it for the right reasons.  The winners being mentored by fellow famous artists, all of who seem to be doing it for the right reasons.  Yes, the prize is $100,000 and a record deal, but the odds of making that money in a career of music are much, much slimmer and way, way less likely than, say, becoming a plumber or….100,000 other professions.  It would seem the reason a 33-year-old father of two  and  a 41-year old bald headed lesbian (two of the four “Voice” finalists) sang professionally all of their adult lives and continue to sing — the work.  Not for all the money they’ve not made so far or the international fame they will now undoubtedly achieve.

Up until a few months ago, none of the four finalists were particularly well-known or even making a particularly great living at what they’re doing.  That’s how they landed on a reality show to begin with.  But they were still singing because they wanted to.  Enjoyed doing it.  Maybe even needed to.  And it showed through in their work.

The happy byproduct of the last six months for them is that they have made some money and have become a bit famous.  But working at their talent, fortified by their love and dedication to it, was what got them there.  The same can be said of almost (yeah, there are exceptions, but very few) every successful performer and artist in show business contrary to what you might observe in a lot of “reality” TV.  Take a look at the duet between the legendary Stevie Nicks, still making it happen in all her “witchy-ness” at the age of…well, post midlife, and “Voice” winner Javier Colon.  Watch how he sings her classic song , “Landslide.”  Watch how she guides him through it.  Listen to how their voices blend.  That doesn’t just happen.  It takes hard work, talent AND dedication.  Not to fame and money.  But at something they both clearly love to do and feel most alive doing.  Their art.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/254725/the-voice-javier-colon-and-stevie-nicks-sing-landslide