False Advertising on the Legendary Sexual Paradise of Santa Monica Boulevard

“I’m here about your sign.”

“We’re not hiring no more. Besides Wanda does all the personnel and she’s off Wednesdays. So, vamoose.”

“No, no, the sign says that this is a sexual catharsis center?”

“Oh, yeah are you a cop? Because our license is in perfect order. All our ladies are American … or legal aliens… or whatever the law requires.”

“No, I’m not a cop. I’m just a potential customer or client or whatchamacallit. I just need an explanation of sexual catharsis.”

“It says sexual catharsis, huh? I never looked. I like to keep my head down and my nose out of other people’s beeswax. You do that and sometimes you find a dime. But mostly you stay out of trouble.”

“Okay, but … it does say sexual catharsis quite plainly…”

“Okay, I’m thinkin’…First off it is totally legal and well within the community standards of the community …
of our section of Santa Monica Boulevard. And it doesn’t say sexual catharsis is guaranteed. We are a center but not a certifier of your sex being cathartic. Could hit the jackpot. Could fail. Not our fault either way.”

“Well, what can you guarantee?”

“We guarantee you’ll uh, … get off.”

“Sounds good. What can I get for ten bucks?”

“Ten bucks!? Beat it and don’t let me see your punk face ever again. … Some people… Wants a sexual catharsis for ten bucks. That don’t buy you two minutes of sexual confusion in this berg, Pally.”

When Are You Houdini? (Oh Come on Don’t Be Shy.)

When I suddenly come up with who the surprise murderer is right before it’s time to wrap up the Instaplay (for the first time in 22 years) I am Houdini.

When everyone else in the family counts on me to find something that is lost and I come through. I am Houdini.

When all seems lost and depressing in the Writer’s Room and I think of something that turns the whole story around and makes us golden. I am Houdini.

When I throw in a totally off-balance wild shot that I have no right taking in the first place and breaking all the laws of physics it banks in (no swish by any measure but it still counts) and we win. I am Houdini.

When I take a bunch of rag tag high school misfits and by hectoring, encouraging (and sometimes just pushing them off a dramatic cliff into the scary unknown) I transform them into an award winning improv troupe. I am Houdini.

When smack dab in the middle of nothingness I come up with a clever bon mot (yes, yes “clever bon mot is redundant).
I am Houdini.

When right at the beginning of an improvised scenario I can smell where the story is going merely by feeling rather than thinking and I turn the whole thing on a dime just because I can. I am Houdini.

And most mysterious of all, when I am looking at one incredible picture after another of my wife and kids as they come up on my computer screen all mixed up images of haircuts, costumes, graduation days and birthday cakes. Abracadabra– I am Houdini.

It’s All Just a Click Away… Except Attaining Wisdom.

Wisdom is being alert but silent when everything inside you is bursting to say something stupid, snarky, inappropriate or well past the moment.

Wisdom is knowing that “I’m sorry” is a thousand times more valuable than “I told you so”.

Wisdom arrives after Ego has blown town after trashing the house almost beyond repair.

Your child’s first word is more important than any trophy you’ll ever get.

Love at first sight is a wave that rolls all the way into the shore while you hold your breath and wish.
Marriage is the ocean.

Sometimes wisdom is a large rock falling on your great toe.

You can’t chase wisdom but if you leave safe, eventually it will tag you.

No wisdom was harmed during the making of this story.

How to Be a Professional Actor While Still in High School: The Further Adventures of an Improv Troupe Alternate.

“Okay, everybody up… Yes, the Alternates can do the warm-up, too. I guess. I know I haven’t gotten around to doing the monthly workshop for Alternates that I promised but… I’ve been busy this year with Sister Act going world-wide and my blog at almost 24,000 views plus Hello! My Baby opening on the Central Coast…

“But you promised. And a promised made should be a promise kept.”

“Well, you are certainly right there, Francis. I didn’t intend to not keep my promise but it’s just a little crazy this year…”

“Time creeps into our lives from day to day.”

“I thought that was ‘tomorrow’.”

“What?”

“I thought the quote was ‘tomorrow creeps into our pace…’ never mind. Francis, why are you dressed like that?”

“For the auditions for The Teen Huguenots. It’s rumored that Mr. S. is going to announce it as the Fall play. It was written about brave French protestant teens a lotta years ago.”

“But I thought auditions weren’t until the end of the year.”

“Yes, but by then I will have worn this outfit for hundreds of hours. So, acting like a Huguenot will come as second nature to me.”

“Where’s your back pack?”

“In my pantaloons.”

“Of course. O-kay, let’s move through space… without crashing into each other.”

Yet Another Scheme to Join a Steinkellner Workshop

From a litte favor a thousand migraines will grow. – Yiddish proverb (Entirely made up by the author because he couldn’t find one on the subject.)

“Hello, Billy. Listen I don’t have much time so I’ll get right to the point.”

“O-kay.”

“It’s about the Improv Troupe and Francis Maclennan.”

“Isn’t he that guy that everyone is afraid will go postal any day now?”

“That is just a rumor started by a disgruntled student who had to stand next to him in Jazz Choir. But it’s funny that you should bring that up. Has anyone ever told you how funny you are?”

“Well, on occasion but never enough. So, Francis?”

“He said that at the improv auditions you made everyone so comfortable and everybody seemed to have a good time. And that you were a genius.”

“Uh-huh?”

“And that he hasn’t heard back yet but Francis thinks he did a fantastic audition.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What, I didn’t catch that?”

“Nothing, go on.”

“Well, I didn’t see him audition or what the qualifications for the workshop are but I just wanted to give you a little back story on Francis.”

“O-kay.

“He’s an only child because his identical twin was wiped out in an avalanche. Francis survived but was in a full body cast for two years. Somebody went on the internet and spread the rumor that he hated poor people on sight so he couldn’t leave his house for another two years. Being alone all that time he developed double vision and tinnitus. And last week the only person who ever showed interest in him said she was going to the Prom with his arch-enemy. So?”

“Sooooo, you thought it might help if I put Francis on the Improv Troupe?”

“Yes, yes. Is that possible? It would be a game changing-end of a long dark night-turning point-life saver for Francis.”

A REALLY LONG PAUSE WHERE YOU CAN SEE SEASONS CHANGE AND BABIES GROW INTO OLD PEOPLE.

“I guess I could make him an Alternate.”

One of Many Schemes to Get into a Steinkellner Workshop.

“Please, sir we would like to be Imps.”

“Yes, Mr. Steinkellner, and by that we don’t mean little freckle faced sprites who cause trouble far beyond their years.”

“We’re sure that you know we mean like Imps in the award winning Dos Pueblos Improvisational Troupe.”

“Or in your Los Angeles workshop or the other one in the Awesometown garage-theater.”

“You can count on us, truly. We will be as positive as one of the spots on a car battery.”

“And if we say any form of the word “no” in a scene it will mean that we have lost our minds and may be cashiered right there on the spot.”

“Yes, we will turn and go. We won’t grumble off, muttering dark things about the never ending nepotism in the workshops.”

“If you somehow see it in your heart to make us Imps we will play every game with the very joy of life.”

“We will be a good audience when we aren’t on-stage ourselves.”

“Oooh, I got the shivers just imagining us on-stage in one of the workshops.”

“Shhh, don’t be a twit!”

“Sorry. We promise to create interesting funny scenes in which the comedy comes out of the characters and not because we are forcing in some dumb jokes.”

“But we will realize how hard it is to come up with good jokes based on the absurdity of the human condition so we will refrain from making disparaging remarks about jokes in general.”

“Oh to do a “Hello I’m” with you side-coaching “Explore and Heighten” would be the most sublime thrill of all!”

“Please, sir let us be Imps?”

“Pleaaaaaaase?”

Nuts and Bolts When Giants Roamed the Earth: A Chastisement of Modern Engineering.

“Engineers ain’t engineers so much any more. Nowadays, they’re more like college perfessers. Might as well wear a cap ‘n gown to the job for old Nelly’s sake. They all got pretty hands and gussied up suits, pfaaa!”

“They can watch a movie on their phone while they wait for their lunch partner to show up so they can have a gab fest about all the ramifications of doing one piddly little thing or other. And their phones are smarter than they are! Squirrel guts!.”

“As soon as you get close to figurin’ out how to do somethin’ they decide to put off that decision until the next time they have lunch. In the meanstwhile you have to get a whole wagonful of lawyers to help you with the protocol of why you got to stop what you’re doin’ already.”

“I say piss on that noise. In my day you just used the smarts that the Almighty gave you. Didn’t need no help from Verizon — whatever the heck that is. All we had was the ol’ slide rule of common sense to help us. Nobody ever lost their ‘puter either because we just carried it safe and sound between our ears. The only thing in your lap was your lunch.”

“Most problems can be solved with a good yank with your wrench. Or you could give it a sold Whack in the right place. That works with smart mouthed, wet behind the ears, bean counters, too.”

“Sure sometimes you’d get a spritz of hot oil right in your puss but hell, your eyes gotta go sometime.”

“So, take a look at an engineer who was here when giants walked the earth. And you don’t see the Brooklyn Bridge falling down any time soon, do ya?”

How to Get a Job If You Can’t Be There in Person: The Perseverance of Skeleton Dude.

Dear Circus Booker or Entertainment Mogul:

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words but I’m sure after you see the photo on reverse side of this missive you will be thinking more in terms of millions. Yes, millions of show-goers will flock to see your newest and most fabulous attraction. Millions of dollars will line your wallet as a result of this tremendous addition.

If this photo has not sufficiently “introed” myself may I proceed further? If it has don’t hesitate to immediately cable me with your terms and I will board the next locomotive to Sarasota or wherever your far flung troupe is playing at the moment. (If it weren’t for my retinue — which I strive to keep in as thin a Gladstone as possible I would be able to climb aboard the train even with the doors closed. Yes, I am indeed that thin.)

How is it that I am free at the moment you might ask as a cold fisted businessman? (And I call you that in admiration. I am not one of those entertainers who considers this “not a business but an ahht”. Like you, I view life through “world colored glasses”.) The reason “Skeleton Dude”– as bankable a creative force as has ever existed — is eager for any engagement east of the Mississippi, after November 15th, 1910 is quite simple.

An affair of the heart with a lady festooned con picturas that blanketed her entire visage. I am too much of a gentleman to disclose more. Suffice it to say that Enrico Balducci’s Circus Mysterioso had become too emotionally claustrophobic for yours truly.

Their loss is your gain. And now the ball is in your court, Circus Booker, etc.

Regards,

A. Atherton

Browsing at the Orient Bazar

“Yes, yes. Halloo. Welcome to my Bazar. You are enjoying, Smyrna? It is better when it is not so hot. Which is never– Ha ha. U.S.A., yes? Earlier today I met a man from Eagle Rock. He assures me that it is a very normal place in California not too far from the Universal City.”

“You have heard of it? He said it would be better if it were more near a beach. … Oh, yes I have heard of beaches. How? By watching the Bay Watch. Pretty girls and mighty boys. Some day I will visit the Bay Watch. Would it be wise to open a Bazar there?”

“Should I go to this Eagle Rock instead? Barack Obama went to school there. So, maybe sometime I will go to see where he chased the pretty girls.”

“You have many grey hairs on your head but not the curved back. Is it the gingko that they put in the water in
water of USA! USA! USA!? God is a mystery, yes?”

“Look everywhere I have many things. I have the sprinkler head that never breaks. The sodas with the bottles that disappear when you are done. I have the wristwatch with the thirty hours day and the pillow of back trouble vanishing after one night. I have the cookbook where the ten year old makes food by himself. I have the carpet where doggy and kitty mistakes and bad smells disappear like a bad dream.”

“Our special today is attar of roses which my wife went a little crazy gathering during the new year’s celebration. All marked to go. Take your time and browse. I will go in back and make a record of the Bay Watch. Please refrain from the shop lift or the law makes me chop off your hands. Good day.”

The True Life Adventures of Modern Media Mogul, Sumner Redstone: An Apocryphal Story

Sumner was born, squalling, grabbing and in general trying to impose his will on everyone around him during the fiercest electrical storm seen in these parts since anyone except Ol’ Blind Pete could remember. (Even Blind Pete was a little hazy about the birth since lightning struck a mere 16 feet from his personage.)

Sumner $. Redstone had arrived on our planet. (His middle name, of course was for his Uncle “Dollar Sign” McGrew. Sumner’s uncle invented the “$” one day while he was doodling around with the letter “S”. Later that week he came up with the “&”.)

From the age of 18 months when Sumner haggled with his Nanny over the amount of supper he had to consume to be considered “full” he was a prodigy of brilliant financial negotiating.

But his first authentically stunning business move came while “playing store” with some odds and ends from around his grandparent’s house. Granny and Pop Pop laughed when he begged them to let him keep the profits from the sale of these bits of junk.

They were flabbergasted when his little venture grossed close to 2.4 million dollars in his first six months alone. Some claimed it was just fancy bookkeeping but there it was.

Eventually, he parlayed a bunch of ol’ drive-in movie dives into owning Paramount Studios. And the rest is history.