Bill Steinkellner’s All-American Blog: A Late in Life Love Affair

Well, it’s official I love my little blog. At the beginning I did not. Trying to learn how to scan the image and post the story made me feel incompetent. (I know a child could do it but when you feel incompetent you feel like you have no idea what you are doing until bingo suddenly you do. Until that magic moment arrives you are like someone drowning with people yelling at you not to panic. Hyperbolic? Sure, to everyone except those who are trying to learn something new.)

But now I love my blog. I love checking the daily stats. I love getting comments. (All good so far.) I love being surprised by who is reading it and who really likes it. I love WordPress’s charts. You can see how the little columns rise and fall and you can compare them to earlier in the year or see if you’ve made progress since last year.

Some stories are more popular than others. I try to figure out why. Luckily, the stories that attract the most views are among my favorites. People sure do like pictures of babies. It helps that writing stories that go with baby pix is fairly easy for me. The cool thing about this blog is that I have been writing these stories for Cheri for over 30 years. And I plan on writing them for another 30.

In posting the images I like to vary the color with the black and white. If I could figure out which stories were going to be the most popular I might pander to that crowd more. Like every producer great and small I try to guess what the market might be hankering for. But like all producers I am left with this insight– who the hell knows?

Best of all is that I get to revisit thousands of stories. And you know a lot of them don’t seem half bad. Thank goodness I (Full disclosure– Cheri) had the idea of posting them on line. Thanks for viewing.

Buzz: The Life’s Blood of Show Biz

FULL DISCLOSURE–This story is from around the last decade. I am very happy with our current agent.

There’s a buzz when you leave your BIG AGENT and can sign with somebody else. But before you hook up with a new BIG AGENT there’s a process that you must endure.

You have to have long serious meetings with your current BIG AGENT to see if you can patch things up. (Never mind that it would be totally different if the BIG AGENT was leaving you. In that case the process would most resemble someone sneaking up behind you, slitting your throat and slipping your corpse into the cold dark waters of the nearest river.)

At the same time you must have meetings with your most likely new BIG AGENT so they can flatter you beyond your wildest dreams and promise you the moon. (The moon, of course, being unavailable for delivery until you have officially signed with the new BIG AGENT.)

While this is going on, whether you like it or not, all the other BIG AGENTS see blood in the water and come swarming all shark like and all. You have no desire to deal with them but you still have to return phone calls, be appreciative, not burn any bridges before you come to them and blah, blah, blah.

And because you are so busy with this, you never get to enjoy all that wonderful buzz.

Of course, there’s still the buzz on your new movie script. A hot spec. script. Nothing buzzier than that. Booyah!

But then you remember you don’t have enough good friends that you trust enough to give you honest feed-back.

Hey, what’s that buzz? Oh, right Killer Bees.

Shore Leave or Sometimes the Fog of War is Just a Hangover.

Nearly every one of us got back on board only a little worse for wear. All concerned thought it was a fine grand time in port.

We wrecked the rent-a-car place and set it on fire.

We were unceremoniously banned for life at the Live ‘N Nuditorium for “using language too shocking for the ears of exotic dancers”.

A four block area around the old City Hall and all of its residents are still shaking in their boots from the blast of the old cannon that for fifty years previously sat in the town square. No one can figure out how Michalski managed to a rig it to fire after all those years of inactivity. Marty Margolin, sure. But the Great Horned Pole just works in the galley knocking pots and pans together.

Michalski was so drunk I doubt if he could do it, again even if you put a gun to his head. Which as I recall is how we got him to do it in the first place.

Oh, man they just did head count and Jake the Snake is missing. I bet he’s still on stage at that Hypnotist’s Club (The one next to the bowling alley, not the other one.) clucking like a chicken.

The Unwritten Code of Television and What You Won’t Be Seeing There for Some Time Even Though It Is Almost 2012.

Characters or “Reality Show” actors saying they love Satan even as a joke. Even if they are falling down drunk. Even if you can see the Jersey shore in the background.

Have people act toward one and other in a holiday scene in a cold defensive hostile somewhat depressing way that most American families do.

Advertise cigarettes or alcohol. Except beer. Beer is not an alcoholic beverage but instead gets its zip from fairy dust.

Have a woman character be portrayed as stupid. (Except Swedish blondes because somehow they don’t count.)

Have a smart kid be cute and likable or anything but a loser geek.

Have an adult be smart and likable unless you mean smart the way characters on tv are smart which is street smart which isn’t smart at all because people who write tv are really smart but they don’t have street smarts to speak of. And trust me this really shows in the writing.

Have characters with lots of flaws who are basically selfish and not particularly aware of the world around them. And who have lots of second thoughts about taking on anyone else’s personal problems. Like every body else in the real world.

Bill Steinkellner: Man of Mystery.

Why did he get a stiff neck every so often for no reason at all?

Why did he stay up till everyone else in the house was home even if he was falling asleep on his feet for all practical purposes?

How come he could never know for sure if certain colors went together or not?

Why could he not wear clothes if they strayed a mere two degrees from the center of the mainstream?

Why did he laugh and talk so much louder than everyone else even though he didn’t exactly have a barrel chest?

How is it that he could dawdle and seem rushed at the same time?

How could he work so well in a short form that he only wish he had refined to two or three words instead of
two to three hundred?

Why did he get so nervous before anything that even slightly resembled a performance?

And why did he seldom seem as nervous as he was?

Why, I ask you, why?

The Art of Being a Secret Santa

Angela drew Margaret and got her a lovely pen and pencil set which her boyfriend, Stevie, managed to sneak- engrave a monogrammed version of down at his plant.

Emily drew Dana and tossed and turned for days over what to buy her. A Jack LaLane Slim-Down kit made it seem like she thought Dana was fat. A little transistor radio seemed good but Emily was almost for certain positive that Dana had one because she knew she had seen her with one at the beach. Though, that could have been one that she borrowed from Margaret. So, Emily wildly overspent on a crock pot and finally got a good night’s sleep.

Francesca got Marissa a great “Parisian type” dress which was on sale for 75% off. Francesca knew that it was too small for Marissa but figured she could either return it or give it to one of the other girls. Francesca was busy and didn’t have time for all this nonsense.

Marissa got a great start on the holiday by getting the most adorable sweater set on Black Friday. She got both pieces for the price of the jumper alone. It was really unbelievably cute. She wrapped it beautifully and put it high on her closet shelf. There it pulsed in her mind like the tell-tale heart until she just ripped it open and put it on. She gave Katherine a pound of home-made fudge.

Laura gave Francesca a blouse with a big red “S” on it. She couldn’t figure out why Francesca was so cold when she opened it. It was perfect for the holidays for cry-i-i.

Katherine gave a subscription to Vogue. She thought this was perfect for Margaret since she certainly couldn’t afford to buy anything that was in there.

Danny got Angela a bottle of Southern Comfort. But he was entertaining Dana one night and carefully opened the bottle and snuck out a couple of snorts that he artfully replaced with tap water. And darn if he didn’t get away with it… for awhile.

Eventually, Angela ended up with a top of the line Sunbeam toaster.

I Like Ike

First off — “I like Ike!”– greatest campaign slogan in history. (Great story: when Adlai Stevenson was running against Ike he ran a half hour long commercial. One viewer responded — “I like Ike. I love Lucy. Drop dead.”)

The early fifties were a great time to be in America. (If you weren’t a minority, gay, a woman or had made the mistake of getting too cozy with Russian when they were still our allies.) The fifties have gotten the reputation as being boring. But how much more fun is it to be living in the days of global terrorism and North Korean nukes?

Ike wasn’t my first President. That was Truman. But I was too young to realize when he was in charge. So, Ike was my guy.

He was pretty conservative and certainly no Kennedy. (In World War II while JFK was commanding a PT boat Eisenhower was giving the order to launch “an invasion with the greatest numbers of men, guns, airplanes and
warships in history”. To brush up his warrior credentials when he became Commander in Chief, Kennedy almost blew up the world.)

I think as the years go by Ike’s rep is going to tend to get better. Mount Rushmore won’t see his chrome dome any time soon but he did a decent job as far as a conservative goes. So, Team Steinkellner gives him a serious salute where ever he might be in eternity.

A Chicago Cat

He was a Chicago cat. He liked gangways better than alleys. Though, he was willing to scamper through an alley if there was any action to be had or he could catch a cool breeze on a brutal summer night.

He liked pizza better than a saucer of milk. Especially if the pie was loaded with Italian sausage. Oh yeah.

He liked to watch the old ladies in babushkas as they came out of eight o’clock Mass slipping and sliding on the icy sidewalk throwing their arms this way and that to keep from falling on their keisters.

He liked to watch the el train roll by with a roar like a bat out of hell. To see the flashes of people falling asleep in their seats or hanging from straps. It was like flipping through the old family photo album and trying to figure out which one was the black sheep.

He liked the trees all stripped of leaves from the time school started until it almost let out again in the late
spring. He liked spring days when all the cruddy patches of snow went bye-bye. Leaves jumped back onto the trees like families of green mice and the air smelled succulent and sweet.

He liked balancing on a backyard fence with wet laundry snapping on the line and kids running underneath yelling one damn thing or another at each other.

He liked an exhausted fireman, coming back from battling a mysterious small store fire, bending down to give him a long scritch behind the ear.

But then he would. After all he was a Chicago cat.

Nine Billion Reasons Why I Recommend Cruises.

“I always recommend cruises. It’s not the relaxation or drinking. Or the fabulous food they’ve got going morning, noon, night. Not to mention the midnight snack. Not the Festival of Desserts. Or even the unbelievable ice carving exhibition. It’s the interesting folks you meet on board.”

“Me, for instance. On my very first cruise I ran into a pair of sisters from Norfolk. We got to talking. You know, just shooting the breeze until the next buffet was laid out.”

“We started sharing stories of our childhood and what all. One odd detail led to the next and before you know it we were connecting the dots. They pull out half an amulet. From a chain around my neck I pull out the matching half. They inform me that I am the long lost heir to a Duchy and worth nine billion dollars.”

“Since then I always recommend cruises.”

The Many Uses of Religious Tracts in Modern America

1) They make excellent bookmarks. (If you should happen to put it down somewhere and lose it– no worries. They are free –except psychically there may be a small emotional fee. But isn’t there always?)

2) They are good for jotting down phone numbers. (Some tracts are better for this than others. With the sample provided you’d have to write very tiny in the one off white space advertising “The Prayer of Jabez”.)

3) If you are a waiter you can brush crumbs off the table if you happen to lose your little metal flat edged thingy. Waiters should try to carry several tracts at all times. The shelf life of these flimsy paper pamphlets is three uses max.

4) It could be made into a colorful paper airplane. (Unless you are all thumbs like me. In which case you should go back to suggestion #1.)

5) You could pick your teeth with it. (Not as effective as a matchbook but if you still carry matchbooks you are either a smoker or an arsonist, you have much bigger problems than what is the best thing to pick your teeth with.)

6) They’re fun and interesting to read. (Hah! I love that gag.)

7) You could hand them out to folks on the street but there is a possibility of constant rejection. Plus it would mean that you believe in this “it’s all made up by some guy a long time ago or last week” so sincerely that you want to see if you can find some new suckers to keep you company while you breathlessly await The Rapture.

8) You could use it to write a postcard story. Highly improbable but I hear it happens.