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November 2011 • Vol. 1, No. 2

Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o

Takin’ Care of Business Zoom, Zoom!

A Tale of Two Zoomers

The New Oldies Good Rockin’ Revival The Chitlin Circuit The Verdict on TV Lawyers In Defense of Lost in Space Robert Shaw Rocks

Mary McDonough Coming Down from Walton’s Mountain

Somewhere In Time • Candid Camera • Big Roads

c ntents November 2011

T h e M o d e r n — Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o

In this issue:

Mary McDonough: Coming Down From Walton’s Mountain

Little Erin Walton shares her real-life triumph over tragedy, and enriches our knowledge of TV’s poorest family.

A Tale of Two Zoomers Former Zoom cast members Mike Dean (the one with the fisherman’s cap) and Bernadette Yao (the one with the butterfly arm thing) discuss their current artistic lives and the challenge of being “normal kids” on TV.

Good Rockin’ Revival Preston Lauterbach’s extensive look at The Chitlin’ Circuit shows how this backwater musical mystery tour paved the way for mainstream rock and roll.

Takin’ Care of Business Workin’ for the man every night and day never looked so good.

Life Is a Highway Earl Swift praises the unsung heroes of our interstate highway system in his new book, Big Roads.

Lawyers on Television: The Good, the Bad, and the Insulting Attorney Myra Chack-Fleischer cross-examines the role of TV lawyers – barristers from the bitchin’ to the bogus.

In Defense of Lost in Space Call it camp. Call it fun. Call me crazy. So says Mark Mussari in his serious defense of this laughed-at TV classic.

Girls Were Girls & Men Were Men: Robert Shaw The versatile actor shows us many ways to live a manly life, retro style.

The New Oldies What song requests are partygoers giving DJs these days? Hint: it ain’t “Celebration.”

Memory Speedway: Somewhere in Time • Lionel Trains • The Computer • Dark Shadows • GI Joe • Aurora Monsters DVD Review: Candid Camera Smile! you’re on TV’s original reality show.

Parting Shot: Just in time for Thanksgiving -much ado about giblet gravy and sliced turkey.

letter from the editor

Hello, Old Friend In every issue of The Modern, we put you back in touch with old friends. However, we have to clarify the word “old.” You know that the people with whom we are reconnecting are undoubtedly wiser and, yes, older, but also newer, reinvented and evolved into higher beings.

Take our good friend, Mary McDonough. We loved her for years as little Erin on The Waltons, but now, in her new role as a life coach, her day-to-day is all kinds of amazing. She’s put a lot of mileage behind her, but only to step up to a new existence and an incredible newfound happiness. She is reborn.

Our old pals from Zoom, Bernadette Yao and Mike Dean, are now living completely satisfying artistic lives in the Boston area. They have intense memories of their days on the show (and they share them with us), but that doesn’t eclipse the passionate experiences they’re currently having as adults and artists.

The satisfaction and the adventure of youth doesn’t always evaporate into an anti-climactic bummer once the spotlight shuts off. Sometimes the light only gets brighter, and the path it illuminates means more. And the good times continue and intensify.

We’re checking in on them, and they’re doing just fine and never looking better. Nice to know. We’re glad to share their past and celebrate their present. We also wish them the very best in the future.

We wish the same for you.

Ron Sklar Editor

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Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o .

Editor • Ron Sklar Art Director • Jennifer Barlow Copy Editor • Patty Wall

Contributing Writers Jay S. Jacobs • Mark Mussari • Jack Rotoli • Marji Rio Desiree Dymond • Michael Garbe • Art Wilson

Contact us: info@themodern.us The Modern | November 2011

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Tapping the shoulders of

65 million baby boomers (and their babies).

Tap our shoulder if you want to advertise:

info@themodern.us

Your life in retro. The past is very now.

mary mcdonough

Coming Down From Walton’s Mountain

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Life Coach Mary McDonough opens up about her troubled childhood on The Waltons, her battles with body image, and her long road toward coping.

“Part of the reason I wrote the book is because I never want anyone to feel the way I did growing up,” says Mary McDonough about her new memoir, Lessons From The Mountain: What I Learned From Erin Walton [Kensington Books].

That statement alone is enough to make us say, “Goodnight, John Boy.” You would think McThe Modern | November 2011

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Donough’s life would have been nothing but perfection: at the age of ten, she won the coveted role of Erin on The Waltons, as a result of her very first audition. The series, about an impoverished but strongly connected mountain family during The Depression, was an immediate hit. It ran for nine seasons on CBS as millions watched McDonough literally grow up on television. But her new memoir tells a story from the other side of the mountain: low self-esteem, perceived imperfection and misperceived body image were McDonough’s demons – something the Walton family would never dream of confronting.

“I never asked questions,” she says of her younger self. “I was terrified to make a mistake. I didn’t want to do wrong. I didn’t want to ask. I just kept everything inside.”

Even before playing Erin Walton, her insecurities were firmly set in the stone that became her deeply guarded persona.

“I think we’re all pretty much pre-disposed as to who we are,” she says. “My second-grade teacher www.themodern.us

was so particular about what I looked like. I never looked right to her. She would always kind of fix me and make comments about me. I remember it vividly. I think that’s what set me on my path of perfectionism. And my dad always expected a lot. So when I got to the show, it was a place where they wanted perfection. I was afraid, and trying to be perfect. And looks became a big part of it. So I think it wasn’t because of the show. It was probably in me already. Those seeds had been planted.”

Yet, those nagging insecurities were only magnified by television.

She says, “Sure, growing up in front of millions of people and figuring out how to look and what to wear and the weight you gain, it was just difficult for me. And that triggered all of my body-image stuff, up and down with my weight and trying to diet all the time. I had a wardrobe woman ask me if I could still fit into my clothes or if I had instead gained more weight. In actuality, I was just growing. It was kind of a weird mixed message for me.

And I took it personally and got really confused and it started me on the path.”

Still, despite these personal dilemmas, she cherished her years on The Waltons and is continually grateful to her on-screen siblings for being there.

“It was like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” she says of being on a longrunning TV show. “It is really not a normal way to grow up, that’s for sure. But I think the fact that we had so many other kids with us, it was helpful. It wasn’t like one of us was the star of the show. There were six of us. We were all run

The Modern | November 2011

mary mcdonough

ning around and being brothers and sisters and hanging out with each other. Still, it was definitely different. I got plucked out of my McDonough life and popped into the Hollywood/Walton life. I left my school and my family. I didn’t really get to know my siblings

until after the show ended. I was working all the time.”

In an effort to continue to work after the show’s cancellation, McDonough made some drastic and regretful career moves.

She says, “I wound up making the bad choice to have breast implants to boost my career. It was the Dallas/blonde-andbooby era. That was a really bad choice. I didn’t tell people.

I even hid it from my mother.

I hid the whole thing. I was so embarrassed about it. It never felt really natural. Then my implants ruptured and that’s when I started to get really, really sick.

I was 23. I had them out ten years later. If anybody was going The Modern | November 2011

to have an allergic reaction, it was the fair Irish girl.”

To complicate matters that affected more than her self-esteem, she developed Lupus, which had gone undiagnosed for ten years. Lupus is an autoimmune disorder that is hard to detect. It affects the skin, brain and many other body organs.

“I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” McDonough says. “My hair fell out. I had chronic fatigue, ulcers in my mouth, photosensitivity, rashes across my face and body, and muscle and joint pain.

But it was the chronic fatigue that was very debilitating. All of these things happened at different moments of time. By the end of the ten years, I was pretty sick.

“I went to rounds of doctors, but not knowing what it was, you’re always feeling like you’re crazy. I finally got properly diagnosed and got treated. I’m in remission now. I’m pretty healthy, but the challenges of ten years of not being diagnosed and another ten years of really actively dealing

with the disease and treatment were pretty amazing.”

During this decade-long fall to the depths of hopelessness, followed by her determined climb back, she was forced to take a new look at herself and her life.

“I was a single mom,” she says.

“I lost my career, I didn’t work and nobody knew what was really wrong with me. Later on, I heard feedback: ‘well, she just doesn’t really look well. She doesn’t look okay. She doesn’t look the same.’ “ These days, she learns how to cope with the disease as she builds a new life for herself and her family.

“It’s a struggle,” she says, “but I know what my triggers are and I stay away from them. For me with Lupus, it’s more about what I don’t do than what I do. Every person with Lupus is different.

That’s why it’s so hard to diagnose. They call it the snowflake disease. For me, it’s about staying out of the sun, and also dealing with stress; how I eat and how I exercise, and getting enough rest; staying away from the stuff I need to stay away from.”

In the interim, she has joyfully taken on a new career. Even though she still works regularly as an actor, she is now certified as a life coach. In this capacity, she regularly participates in public speaking and conducts workshops, emphasizing body image for women.

She also works with corporate employees, focusing on their life balances and presentation skills.

“Having a coach is a very brave act,” she says. “It’s true. It’s for people who really want to take a look at themselves and better their lives, their children’s lives, their www.themodern.us

communication with their spouses, and to better their communication at work.

I realize that the people who I actually coach are very brave, especially the ones in the companies that I have done workshops for and retreats for. They are very brave, because they are really looking at what doesn’t work.”

McDonough also works as an activist in Washington DC, raising awareness of Lupus and women’s health issues. She is particularly passionate in addressing the regulation of breast implants.

“I’m not anti-implant,” she says. “I’m pro-information and pro-education.

And I want everybody to know the information that I did not have when I made the choice to have them. I don’t want anyone to feel as frightened or as uninformed.”

www.themodern.us

Even though her Walton days are long behind her, she still marvels at the love she receives from

life-long fans who still think of her as little Erin.

“The biggest word that comes up for me is ‘gratitude,’” she says. “I feel so grateful for all of it: the bad times, the good times, and having come out the other side. The show was a spectacular adventure in Americana. It has so touched people’s lives. I just feel very blessed to be part of it. It’s really not about me. I just happened to have been lucky enough to be on it. Everyone has a story about the show.

“I’ve had people just sit with me and cry. The people would just sob, the show meant so much to them. I would just hug them. It was very humbling and really amazing to feel like I got to be a part of something that touched people so much.”

To find out more about Mary, go to Marymcdonough.com

The Modern | November 2011

“I’m Bernadette!”

On the audition: I was in a Chinese language school in the suburbs of Boston. WGBH knew about our school and called us and asked if anyone was interested in auditioning. I didn’t know anything about Zoom. All the kids that I knew wanted to audition, and they asked me to come along. So I tagged along. I didn’t think it was a big thing. We didn’t even have to sing or dance or anything. They just wanted to know The Modern | November 2011

our personalities and how our imagination worked and how we work with each other. It was fun.

It was very low-key. And I wanted to see what Channel 2 (Boston’s WGBH) looked like.

On her signature butterfly arm motion (shown in the opening credits): My father is the one who taught me the arm thing. Everybody knows it who had watched Zoom. And he had learned that

from watching a Manchurian opera, and watching these warlords waving swords around, three times in a row like helicopters. He taught me that because I didn’t know what else to do [for her opening credits signature]. I wanted to do a backwards walkover as my signature for Zoom, but that was already taken [by fellow cast member Lori].

I came home really upset because Lori got to do the backward www.themodern.us

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A Tale of Two Zoomers Two former Zoom cast members share their stories of going from obscurity to fame, long before reality television.

Marketed as “by kids, for kids,” Zoom was a revolutionary concept when introduced on PBS in 1972. These were not your polished child actors; no singing and dancing Mouseketeers or overly rehearsed sitcom products; instead, the WGBH show introduced a generation of Americans weaned on mindless television to their flesh-and-blood, Boston-accented counterparts.

These kids were purposefully “normal,” (although often cast from the recommendations of area theater-arts teachers) and the regularly-changing troupes were decidedly multi-racial (a stunning shock in 1972, but TV and America were quickly getting used to that.).

A surprise hit by PBS standards (they were already on fire with Sesame Street), Zoom forged its trademark by letting young viewers determine the content of the show, albeit vicariously: their letters were read, their skits were performed, their Super 8 films were shown, and, most importantly, their voices were heard. An early attempt at interactive communication (sans computers), the popular theme song encouraged home-viewer participation with the line, “we need you.”

Invariably, the cast members became famous for, among other things, their bare feet and uniformly matching rugby shirts. The majority of them returned to civilian life after their stint, but millions of middle-aged Americans can easily remember most Zoomers by their first names and by causal little moments the series joyfully provided.

Here, we talk to two former cast members: Bernadette Yao, who appeared on the show from 1972-73, and Mike Dean, who appeared from 1973-1974.

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walkover and they told me to go home and figure out something else. I cried, ‘Dad, I don’t know what to do!’ And he said, ‘I know something.’ So he stood in front of me and with his arms, did the arms thing. I could only do it once, but he could do it three times. And I said, ‘Dad, that’s so stupid. I can’t do that.’ But I had nothing else. I call it ‘the arm thing,’ which is a fancy name from a very simple girl. Some people call it the butterfly, but I just call it ‘the arm thing.’ www.themodern.us

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On the show: I really have to give it to the staff. They were wonderful. They made me feel very comfortable. And this is from somebody coming from a Chinese-American background.

When I would meet a teacher or my parents’ friends or any adult, I would have to call them Auntie or Uncle. I mean, we really have to show respect for adults. You never call them by their first name.

But the first thing the staff told us to do when we were at WGBH was that we should just call them The Modern | November 2011

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by their first names. I was blown away by that. And I think that kind of put me at ease and made it a lot easier for me to be myself. I think that’s pretty amazing. They really knew how to make us feel comfortable and just have fun. I was there after school. This was like a play date for me. And they really made it feel that way. We get to sing and dance and read people’s letters. And then they would do their magic and edit us so it looked better. It was very laid back and comfortable.

On sudden fame: I once had a bunch of Zoomers come to my house to go ice skating. There was a rink near our house. There were a lot of us, about six or seven. And everybody started to recognize us.

We would stand in one part of the rink and everybody would crowd around us. The people working there would yell at us, saying ‘You guys have to break up and

not stand together because you’re blocking the floor of the rink!’ It wasn’t fun. We couldn’t escape.

While I was that age, I would see people doing the arm thing, not even knowing I was there.

To be standing in the WGBH studio at 51 years old, and looking at the monitor, thinking, this has come full circle! This is pretty bizarre!

Today: I sometimes go to WGBH to help them with their TV pledge drive. They ask me to do my arm thing and just introduce myself on camera. And then they bring up the old footage of me. That was pretty amazing, to be standing in the WGBH studio at 51 years old, and looking at the monitor, thinking, this has come full circle!

This is pretty bizarre!

Bernadette is currently married with two daughters and lives in the Boston area. She is a TV producer, musician and healing artist, and has recorded a CD on meditation and healing.

For more information, go to bernadetteyao.com.

“I’m Mike!”

On the audition: WGBH, as a way of generating interest in the show, would hold New-Englandwide auditions throughout the grammar schools. They would have huge cattle calls. I mean, literally, thousands of kids lined up outside the studios of WGBH after they had been recommended by the theater-arts teachers of the various schools in Brookline, Cambridge, and Newton. I was one of those names that the teachers recommended to the producers who had contacted The Modern | November 2011

her. I was given a preliminary audition where I had to come up with a skit on my own. Other kids came up with a song or magic tricks or whatever it was that they thought would get them to the next round of auditions. It was a large series of auditions. I think three or four, actually. Then there was an audition where you had to interact with a group of other kids. There was an audition where you had to perform in front of the camera, under the lights of the studio. Then there was an inter-

view with the producers and the directors to see if you clicked at all and got along with people in general, adults in particular. And so, I think out of 4000 kids — by that point, the show was a monster — they chose me and I think it was three others.

On his signature cap: There was some concern that I was the only kid with a hat and that it would make me stand out. [Executive Producer] Christopher Sarson made an executive decision and www.themodern.us

said, ‘No, I think I like the hat. I think we’re going to keep it and let him just do what he normally does.’ I’ve always loved hats, bowler hats, top hats. That was, in fact, a Greek fisherman’s cap, with a little bit of lace across the brow.

Actually, it’s the kind of cap that John Lennon used to wear when he was wearing caps in his Dylan phase.

On the show: In the offices of Zoom, there were boxes and boxes of mail everywhere.

Of course, the Emmys were all on the shelf in there, but the office was very informal. The producers would pour through these stacks of mail, looking for something. There were a lot of good ideas in there. As far as individual fan mail, we were not given that because they felt – and I’m sure they were right – that it would swell our heads. And there was a certain amount of male interest in the girls, and girls writing in with interest in the boys — of a Justin Bieber nature. They didn’t want us to read “I love you!” in a stack of letters. They didn’t want to have that be an issue.

We got $60 a show. That was the contract. It was a decent amount of money then, but of course not a lot of money. There were no residuals, no rerun fees.

Once you had done the show and were paid your $60 for that week’s work, WGBH owned everything outright at that point.

You may remember that I had www.themodern.us

little intimidating, actually. Of course, that kind of stuff is what everyone is hungering for today.

They all want to be on TV and have a shot at reality fame. I was recognized in New York City at the top of the World Trade Center, at The Sears Tower in Chicago, anywhere you could name that I was, people would ultimately point at me and recognize me and follow me around.

Today: I’m an oil painter. I do scenes from my North End [Boston] neighborhood, as well as from the waterfront and from my trips to Italy and Sicily. Also New-England-type stuff. Pretty

I was recognized in New York City at the top of the World Trade Center, at The Sears Tower in Chicago; people would ultimately point at me and recognize me and follow me around. an episode where I had my tonsils out. That was the show that they submitted to win an Emmy.

In fact, it did win the Emmy that year. They sent me a letter saying that I played a big part in it, because obviously without my tonsils being removed, we wouldn’t have won the Emmy perhaps.

On sudden fame: It certainly made me visible, that’s for sure.

I was recognized virtually everywhere I went. It was difficult to go to places, because someone would point out, ‘Look, there’s Mike from Zoom!’ I would be kind of mobbed for autographs and people just wanting to get closer and to see me. It was a

much any subject matter that I find appealing I can render in oil paint.

I also have kind of a Beatles tribute thing. I love The Beatles. I have an acoustic duo, two guitars, two vocals, and we do an eclectic Beatles set. Not all the hits but the great B songs that are on all the albums and that everybody knows.

Harmony vocals and two guitars are my two favorite sounds, and that’s what I’m doing with that.

The name of that outfit is Nothing New, which is a play on words from The Beatles’ American album Something New. To find out more about Mike’s work, go to zoomboymike.com The Modern | November 2011

big roads

Life Is a Highway Earl Swift praises the unsung heroes of our interstate highway system in his new book, Big Roads.

By Ronald Sklar We take it for granted today, but the interstate highway system (first opened in 1956) was the yellowbrick road we gunned into current pop culture. These expressways have been the catalyst for the rise of AM radio and rock and roll, fast food, car evolution, the suburbs, malls, motels and vacations for millions. In the Fifties, when Dinah Shore sang, “See the USA in your Chevrolet,” she wasn’t just whistling Dixie. The immense project seemed impossible on paper, originally concocted to unclog our urban traffic congestion (actually worse than anything you would experience today). Eventually, it transformed us as a people, taking us along on a fabulous detour that enriched our lives.

Author Earl Swift has written Big Roads: The Untold Story of Engineers, Visionaries and Trailblazers who created the American Superhighways [Houghton Mifflin Hartcourt Publishing]. Here, he tells us about the heroic task of creating these miracle miles, and how, thanks to our current budget woes, its future has roadblocks.

The common knowledge seems to be that President Dwight Eisenhower was responsible for the creation of our interstate highway system in the 1950s.

Eisenhower had very little to do with it, but he got all the credit. I’m not sure that he actively sought it, but he managed to get it. The first George Bush named the system after him, and that just sealed the

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perception, as if this was a product of his administration, which of course it was not at all.

Which brings us to the subtitle: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.

The important thing to me is that this is a story that most people think they know. And I need to telegraph that subtitle that the real people responsible for that system were unsung unknowns. We didn’t even say it wasn’t Eisenhower in the title. We needed to make it clear that this isn’t the story that you’re expecting. And so that’s why it was put together the way it was.

So what is the story we don’t know?

By the time Eisenhower came to office, this was a done deal. It had already been approved by Congress. It had already been completely routed. There was little left to do except come up with a way to pay for it. And Eisenhower was a cheerleader. He prodded Congress into making that happen. Actually, the financing scheme that he favored did not fly. He was not happy with the system that we got. He was under the impression that it was going to be an American version of the Autobahn.

What was the original purpose of the American highway system?

The system was actually designed to alleviate urban congestion first, and to link cities second. When

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this was developed in 1938, when the concept was first kind of roughed out, we had titanic congestion in American cities — congestion that makes what we have now look like kids’ stuff. So once you understand that, you recognize that a national high-speed expressway system would be nice, but only if it really helped where the problem was.

clear-cutting. You’re going to have to tear through a town with essentially a band saw. In a lot of places, thousands of citizens found themselves in the way, and without a good means of picking up and getting out of that way. And it wasn’t until fairly late in the process that they were really accommodated the way they should have been from the start.

There were challenges from an How close did we come to not havengineering standpoint all through ing the system at all? the thing. There are 55,000 bridges Everybody wanted it. For a in the interstate system, which is couple of years, the big problem just an astounding number when was, how do you pay for it? There you think about it. And each were schemes put together to pay bridge is a pretty impressive enfor it with bond financing. There gineering feat in and of itself. The were toll schemes that wouldn’t mountain ranges that this thing fly either because no toll system had to cross are numerous in could pay the highways’ costs. some places, really kind of hairy.

They only paid pennies on the They drilled through The Rockies dollar. It was inevitable that we with the world’s tallest auto tunnel, would get something, maybe not The Eisenhower Tunnel, on Intera system that was extensive, but state 70, west of Denver. That thing something. took years to build. That goes right The system took That’s because the cities were through The Continental Divide! choking to death. It was clear to It’s a pretty impressive feat of enthe better part of everybody that we needed some gineering. They blasted through expressway system in place to althe Bristol Mountains in Southern leviate what had become a comforty years to build. California. They blasted through pletely stultifying traffic situathe Alleghenies in Maryland and tion. This was also, I think, one of in Pennsylvania for that matter. It Eisenhower’s big interests. He thought of a way to put had to bridge a lot of rivers. So there were a lot of just people to work. He thought of it as a way to control plain engineering challenges dictated by the topograthe economy because we were coming out of Korea, phy, but the human obstacle was, I think, really, the when he took office. He was very conscious of the toughest. fact that we had a large number of returning soldiers.

And he knew that the economy had to absorb them How long did it actually take to build? in some way. It would stretch out over a dozen years The system took the better part of forty years to or more to complete. It offered the president the build. It was always in a state of construction, into the means to put people to work and goose the economy early 90s. It was slowly spreading across the country. when it needed it.

There were some links that were particularly tough to build: I-64 through West Virginia ; I-70 through What were the problems associated with this incredthe Glenwood Canyon in Western Colorado; I-93 ibly large task? through Franconia Notch, New Hampshire.

One of the problems they faced was land acquisition. The single biggest expense of building this thing How did they attempt to unify the system and make was in acquiring the property to run these highways it, more or less, consistent? through. And that became a particularly thorny isThe standards of the system itself had been absosue in older cities which were densely developed and lutely unvarying from the beginning. They were dehad been for a couple of centuries. To put a 300-footvised in the Forties with the traffic of the Seventies in wide corridor of concrete right through the middle mind, and they were really pretty forward thinking. of a densely populated city involves some human The highways have not evolved in terms of the way www.themodern.us

The Modern | November 2011

big roads they were laid out. Every lane is twelve feet wide. The outside shoulder is ten feet and the inside shoulder is supposed to be six feet, but that varies a bit, a median of a standard width. Grass is cut to a standard height.

That sort of stuff has not changed. Maybe in the earliest interstate, you would encounter an exit ramp that bends more tightly than those that have been put in more recently. I think that the radius of most exits now is probably longer than it was back in the early days, but without exception that’s pretty much a standard all through.

What are some of the most beautiful and scenic stretches of highway in the system?

Some highways are just drop-dead gorgeous.

I-72 Glenwood Canyon in Western Colorado might be the prettiest road in the world. It’s a phenomenal piece of engineering. Also I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley from, say, Winchester, Virginia south pretty much all the way to Knoxville is awfully pretty.

You’ve got the Blue Ridge on your left and the Alleghenies on your right. And I-80 across Wyoming, it’s got this kind of forbidding beauty about it. It’s one of those stretches of highway where the road is situated to have a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. It’s gorgeous. I-40 through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest in eastern Arizona is awfully nice.

What are some of the common misconceptions about the highway system?

The interstate system was designed not to be tolled. In the language that created the system, tolls were outlawed. That’s changing even as we speak, as states struggle to come up with a way to finance maintenance that has been deferred for so long that it now requires major reconstruction.

It’s also important to note that the interstates are not a federally owned system. They’re owned by the individual states through which they pass. That’s something that a lot of people don’t realize. So their conditions vary from state to state, depending on how much money that particular state has to spend on highway maintenance. Go from Iowa to Illinois on I-80, and you go from a glass-smooth, very nice ride of highway — cross the Mississippi and sudden-

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ly you’re on concrete so broken with potholes that it practically takes a lunar rover to make the traverse.

How exactly is the system funded?

The major issue here is that for fifty years now, we’ve financed the system through the highway trust fund, which is a kitty that is fed with the federal gas tax. The federal gas tax is now 18.4 cents per gallon.

That 18.4 cents hasn’t changed since 1953. It’s been absolutely static since then. Yet the needs of the system have ballooned.

Also, something really awful has happened. The price of gas has gone up, so the people are driving less. So they’re using less gas and there is less money going into the kitty. And number two, we’re driving much more efficient cars, which use less gas. As wonderful as green technology is, it’s bad for our roads.

That doesn’t sound promising for the interstate’s future.

We’re not charging enough in gas tax to continue to pay to keep the system intact. And because it’s now a half a century old, it will require greater and greater attention in the years to come, more and more money just to keep the status quo. And so we’re going to have to come up with a new taxation model. There are a lot of different ideas of what that model may look like, one of them being a tax based on how many miles you drive rather than how much gas you use. It’s called a Vehicle Miles Tax, or VMP. It is very much like EZ Pass.

When you fill your gas, what you pay is based in part on a record that has been kept on an on-board computer, recording how far you’ve driven and on which roads you’ve driven. It can very easily be coupled with congestion pricing.

In New York, there are certain roads during the day where the highways are much more in demand than others. For driving on those roads at high demand time, you would pay more in tolls than you would at slack times. Maybe many times more. And all that can be worked into the technology so that when you fill up with gas you pay a premium based on where you’ve driven and how far you’ve driven.

For more information on Earl’s work, go to earl-swift.com.

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chitlin’ circuit

Good Rockin’ Revival Preston Lauterbach’s extensive look at The Chitlin’ Circuit shows how this backwater musical mystery tour paved the way for mainstream rock and roll.

By Ronald Sklar

© Preston Lauterbach/Photographer: Sax Kari

A major force in American popular music started gathering its fierce energy on barely known back roads.

In shacks that doubled as whorehouses, gambling dens and bar-b-que joints, some of the world’s greatest music was first performed, and legendary careers were born.

Before Little Richard, Fats Domino and even James Brown went supernova, they were headlining at these off-the-map shanties, known collectively

Esquerita, Little Richard’s piano teacher/fashion inspiration, in New Orleans, 1963.

Rufus Thomas, 1973

as The Chitlin’ Circuit. The original audiences were exclusively African-American, and they weren’t welcome at very many other venues.

Although still operating today as a shadow of its former self, the Circuit was left in the dust thanks to rock and roll, urban renewal and record industry economics. But Preston Lauterbach makes the rounds and gets a first-hand look at how it was and what it contributed to our culture. The result: The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road To Rock and Roll [W.W. Norton and Company.]

Why the fascination with The Chitlin Circuit?

The Circuit and its story had enough pull and enough mystique to keep me researching, to keep me hunting it down for years, before I even got an agent and could think about getting it published.

I went out on tour with an artist named Bobby www.themodern.us

Rush. He bills himself as the “King of The Chitlin’ Circuit.” He has this lurid show with this chorus of dancers — between two and four women gifted in the rear-end vicinity, not only in size but in skill.

In other words, these women have these enormous asses, but they can move them sort of like a belly dancer. Each of the glutes can act independently of the other. I mean, it’s really impressive. I’m sitting here trying to do some of their moves!

Ray Charles at Loyola Auditorium in New Orleans, 1963.

I went out with him and in one day he did a festival and a nightclub, one in Mississippi and one in Arkansas. The crowds were these large, 100% black crowds, which, according to white-boy-blues doctrine, just doesn’t exist. It’s such a vivid, vibrant and active scene. I was just surprised. It just led me to ask, ‘Who is behind it and how does it function?’ That eventually led me to ask questions about its history.

Who dreamed it up?

How did The Chitlin’ Circuit Begin?

It’s starts rolling in the early ‘30s, really out of the Prohibition/Depression fallout: musicians, particularly black musicians who had entertained all of the Prohibition-era cutthroats, like Al Capone and the guys who ran the Cotton Club in Harlem. They had good gigs while all that bootleg liquor money was flowing, but The Modern | November 2011

chitlin’ circuit What made the music distinctive?

It evolved. It covers everyone from Jimmy Lundsford and Big Swing bandleaders all the way up to James Brown. What made it distinctive is hard to Did The Circuit grow due to word of mouth? say. The really dynamic thing about the music on the There was one particular circuit was this: the economics of character by the name of Walter black America really dictated the Barnes. He was the house band sound and the style of the muleader at Al Capone’s Cotton sic. This is what stimulated the Club in Cicero [Illinois]. He was growth of rock and roll. not only a bandleader of a good During World War II, it was enough band, but he was also a really a nice economic time for journalist for The Chicago Defendblack people. They enjoyed aler, which circulated in the deep most total employment, working South through back channels. in munitions factories and being This was in the early 1930s. part of the whole war machine.

What he did, more or less, was They had a lot of cash to throw follow the Defender circulation around, and they wanted places through all of these black enclaves to spend it. Consequently, nightand perform. People down there clubs opened up all over the deep thought he was a star, because they South, the upper Midwest and on had read his name in The Chicago the west coast. This is where all Defender. It was kind of the equivthe work was taking place, where alent of being on MTV today. He all the bases were, where the facBefore Little had what we call “platform.” tories were. This stimulated The He did an interesting thing: he Chitlin’ Circuit.

Richard, Fats not only followed that route, but After the war, all these nighthe reported on it. He would send clubs still existed but the jobs Domino and even off dispatches from small spots, vanished. So the promoters who everywhere from Shreveport, had opened these clubs needed Louisiana to Jackson, Michigan; alternative to be able James Brown went ato cheaper Birmingham, Alabama; Jacksonshowcase entertainment and ville, Florida. Smaller places than continue operating. Fortunately supernova, they that even. He would describe the for them a new trend had come scene down there for black people. about during the period, which were headlining at was the small band.

He was publishing nationally, telling where the black hotel was in these small places, where a black Who was the emerging star of these off-the-map café was, where a black orchestra this new trend? can have a dance and who would A guy by the name of Louis shanties. promote that dance.

Jordan. I had always known how It was like this underground great he was and I had always travel guide to staying alive, being a black person loved his music. In doing the research for this book, on the road at that time. Of course, there were very I came to understand what a pivotal figure he really hostile forces to be reckoned with, and it wasn’t was because up until the time he got hot in late 1940an easy thing for black people to travel. Planning 42, everything was Big Band. But he came along with a road tour is something we take for granted toa five-piece band, and not only was he playing with a day, being able to travel and move about safely small band but he was also singing. He was upfront, — just to be able to pull off the road and crash singing! Today, we take for granted the vocalist as the at a Holiday Inn for a while when you’re tired. featured attraction, but in the Big Band era, it was It wasn’t an option back then. So this guy really all about the composer or the arranger or the band opened things up. leader of the hot soloist. Bands carried vocalists, but as soon as that got turned off, they had to seek their money further across the map. They couldn’t just do one gig and make a living. So that led to travel.

The Modern | November 2011

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it wasn’t really that big of a deal. So Jordan changed those two very basic elements of pop music. He emphasized the vocals and used a small band, which were very simple but very revolutionary changes.

After Louis Jordan came along, every artist from Fats Domino, BB King, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and James Brown [admired Louis Jordan]. Ask any of them who their Beatles or who their Elvis were, and they will say Louis Jordan. Louis Jordan was everything.

How did rock and roll evolve from The Chitlin’ Circuit?

The power brokers in black entertainment needed cheaper acts to fill their nightclubs. So the small band just became the thing. What came after Jordan was a guy by the name of Roy “Good Rockin’” Brown. He brought a whole new ambiance to songwriting. Roy Brown is the one who popularized the term “rockin’.”

He had a song called “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” which came out in 1947. He sang about brick fights and getting drunk and getting blow jobs, and he sang it in a way that was he was throwing down. His style was rocking. That’s another of the basic elements of rock and roll that came from The Chitlin Circuit. You got Louis Jordan’s small band and vocals but Roy Brown really brought that hard core, hedonistic lifestyle and attitude to the lyrics, which is another really key aspect of rock and roll.

Once rock and roll crossed over, did TheCircuit itself suffer?

Absolutely. The cross-over was the big pull factor.

It pulled talent from The Circuit. It de-emphasized The Circuit’s importance in black music, in the business. What the success of people like Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Fats Domino really signaled was that records were a way to make money.

Back in the Louis Jordan days — we’re talking just five years earlier – artists and management looked at records not really as a revenue generator

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in themselves but as a promotional tool. Today you hear about people touring to support their records, but back then it was basically reversed. People cut records to promote their live shows. That’s where they made the money. And that’s where the creative energy followed. Creative energy followed the money.

Well, when that money got diverted into the recording studio, and when records started to be a very viable economic option for black artists, that changed The Circuit’s role in things.

The crossover of black culture into mainstream – also known as white culture — and the white system fighting back against black America was called Urban Renewal. Urban renewal literally bulldozed the neighborhoods that were really the backbone of The Chitlin’ Circuit. [Most of] these nightclubs from my research [are now] parking lots and freeway offramps.

What is the legacy of The Chitlin’ Circuit?

These artists were bringing a new style to music, and it wasn’t from playing ballrooms and fancy nightclubs every night. They were down in the juke joints in the deep South. There were shacks, and some of them were for gambling or for sex or for barbeques.

It’s still going today, but it’s no longer the cutting edge of popular music. There are not a lot of new, fresh ideas coming out of it. Now, it serves the middle-aged black audience with Southern roots.

Has it become a parody of itself?

Yes, to outsiders; no to insiders. It’s not for us [white people]. Who it’s for, they like that. It’s where rock and roll began. It’s where so many important musicians were able to get their start simply because they didn’t have access to the world at large, being black.

For more information on Lauterbach’s work, go to http://prestonlauterbach.com

The Modern | November 2011

retro fashion

The Modern | November 2011

Takin’ Care of

Business

Workin’ for the Man Every Night and Day Never Looked So Good.

Taking care of business (every day) Taking care of business (every way) We be been taking care of business (it’s all mine) Taking care of business and working overtime

You get up every morning From your ‘larm clock’s warning Take the 8:15 into the city There’s a whistle up above And people pushin’, people shovin’ And the girls who try to look pretty And if your train’s on time You can get to work by nine And start your slaving job to get your pay If you ever get annoyed Look at me I’m self-employed I love to work at nothing all day Copyright 1973 Randy Bachman

Photographer: Syed Kazmi | www.syedkazminyc.com Stylist: Thomas Wynder Models: Beck and Josh from Fusion Suits: Custom Men, New York | custommen.com

The Modern | November 2011

retro lawyer

Myra Chack Fleischer

Lawyers On Television: The Good, Bad, and Insulting Doctors are represented on TV by Marcus Welby.

Lawyers? We get Denny Crain and Ally McBeal.

The medical profession is fairly well respected on series television shows. Yes, there are shows like Scrubs, and there’s more personal drama than medicine on Gray’s Anatomy many nights. But think about it: E.R., M*A*S*H*, Marcus Welby, and even Doogie Howser.

House might be a difficult personality but he is unquestionably brilliant.

Why is it OK to portray lawyers as the craziest people on TV not on a reality show? No one can match the crackpot factor of Boston Legal.

Ally’s colleagues channeled singer Barry White in the unisex bathroom.

In the new series Harry’s Law, the Oscar-winning actress Kathy Bates starts practicing criminal defense because she gets busted for smoking pot. She brandishes a gun in the office, blows an air horn to get attention at meetings, and lets her assistant sell shoes. In real life, a lawyer would be disbarred for such behavior.

A 2010 Rasmussen Poll found that people rated lawyers as a profession far below doctors, nurses, teachers, small business owners, and military officers. At least we rated higher than journalists, stockbrokers, and at the very bottom, members of Congress.

Of course, many congressional representatives are attorneys.

The Modern | November 2011

We have heard all the lawyer jokes.

So when rating the top shows about attorneys on television, I find myself exasperated. I have to go back to Perry Mason, a show that ran before many of you reading this were even born (1957–1966).

Perry Mason changed peoples’ lives and righted wrongs. He defended the innocent and the downtrodden. He was a superhero in a suit.

But that was 45 years ago. Since then, it is hard to find a show about the law that I or many of my colleagues can sit through.

The various Law & Order shows are fair, although they have their share of attorneys behaving badly, like bitchy alcoholic assistant DA Sonya Paxton, played by actress Christine Lahti.

Lawyers themselves rated the drama LA Law the number one legal TV show of all time in a 2009 American Bar Association poll. The senior partner ends up in bed with his adversary who eventually gets killed falling down an elevator shaft, another attorney sees a sex therapist, and we still wonder to this day what the “Venus Butterfly” is all about.

I prefer the scrappy attorneys of The Practice, who demonstrated a lot more caring for their clients. They were smart, worked hard, and showed the real frustrations of practicing law.

They had their fair share of relationship issues but www.themodern.us

Shutterstock/LesPalenik

Attorney Myra Chack Fleischer summons the best and worst TV lawyers, and restores some order in the court.

that is what popular TV shows are about.

One of the best shows about lawyers is actually about law school: The Paper Chase. The reason I rate this show highly is because at its heart there is respect for the law and the profession. The students sincerely want to be lawyers, and they want to please their esteemed law professors, especially Professor Kingsfield, played by the intimidating John Houseman.

People sometimes ask me if shows about the legal system are realistic. Most of the shows get some of the basic technical details of being in court right. What these shows don’t ever depict are the real world issues that would make a more realistic TV show extremely dull. Cases don’t often get wrapped up neatly in a day in court. Most of the time, the lion’s share of the work isn’t done in court at all. It’s done in the legal research, investigation and depositions, and negotiations far away from the courtroom. If every single lawsuit that got filed ended up in a courtroom, people would wait multiple years for trials to take place.

So what about live coverage of real trials like the Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson cases, or all the trials seen on Court TV? These sensationalized cases do the biggest disservice to the legal profession. Even though these trials are real life, producers for the networks who air them carefully choose only the most lurid, scandalous, and outrageous cases to show on television. These are the mainly criminal cases that shock the conscience of the community. They don’t represent even the typical criminal case.

People get their impression of the legal professional from watching these programs. What bothers me is not the disrespect for lawyers as individuals per se, but disrespect for the profession as a whole. We rely on our American legal system to insure that justice is done, that people are compensated when they are wronged, and that everyone has a chance, literally, to have their day in court.

Most people will experience the legal system serving as jurors. It’s not a good thing if they expect a trial to be something like they’ve seen on television. Lawyers don’t mouth off to judges, crack jokes, sing or dance in court. It’s even worse if you are the plaintiff or defendant hoping justice is done, a witness, or even the family and friends of people involved in a legal matter.

How can people trust us if they think the attorneys are seeing hallucinations of dancing babies?

Fleischer and Associates is online at www.fleischerlawoffice.com; on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ fleisherlawoffice, and Twitter at @LawyerMyra. www.themodern.us

The Week in the Film Industry, November 2, 1990 This week, you can go to the movies without being disturbed by cell phones (nobody had them yet), but you can’t avoid patrons bringing their crying babies to R-rated flicks (those same babies are now twentysomethings).

The Rocky Horror Picture Show celebrates its 15th anniversary. How appropriate: the gift for the fifteenth year happens to be toilet paper!

Entertainment Weekly names Woody Allen the 72nd most powerful man in the entertainment industry. And now he’s actually in his seventies!

The world awaits the release of The Godfather, Part III. But every time Coppola tries to get out of it, we keep pulling him back in.

Bruce Willis gearing up to star in The Last Boy Scout. Back when Boy Scouts didn’t have a negative connotation.

Jacob’s Ladder knocks Ghost to #2 in box office receipts. But “Unchained Melody” keeps playing for eternity at weddings.

Prince’s Graffiti Bridge bombs. Graffiti Bridge is falling down. Way down.

in defense of

Mark Mussari

Lost in Space Call it camp. Call it fun. Call me crazy.

By Mark Mussari Mention Lost in Space to most serious sci-fi aficionados and you’re likely to get laughed at. Seriously.

Laughed-out-loud laughed at. And they aren’t kidding. They’re laughing.

Lost in Space premiered in 1965 — in black and white—at that time one of the most expensive television shows ever made. Most people forget (or have repressed with the help of therapy) the fact that originally the show had an eerie, Twilight-Zone-ish quality. The actors played their roles “straight,” and the direction was disturbing, even threatening.

If you’ve never watched the first six episodes, find the DVDs and watch them. You’re in for a surprise.

Lolita on film (but her adoptive mother wouldn’t let her). As a twelve-year-old, I couldn’t take my eyes off her and still can’t.

Meanwhile, Mark Goddard played irascible Major Don West, fitting snugly into his silver-lamé spacesuit (probably because the producers wouldn’t allow any hanky-panky between him and Kristen on screen).

If you don’t remember or never watched LIS, they were one of the most attractive couples ever to hit the small screen. And they both could act—which no one remembers because we were all too busy looking at their tight spacesuits.

Judy’s younger siblings were played by television and film royalty: Angela Cartwright (Penny) had played Danny Thomas’s daughter for years on Make

As a science fiction version of The Swiss Family Robinson, Lost in Space tried to out-camp Batman in pursuit of ratings.

Dark and fatalistic, they seem to be saying: no good can come of this space program stuff.

The lost Robinson family—with dashing Guy Williams fresh off Zorro and June Lockhart having finally given up searching for Lassie—was a good-looking, white bread slice of Americana. Think Protestants in Space.

Beautiful in that mod way that people could only be beautiful in the mid-1960s, Marta Kristen played Judy. Kristen was a Finnish orphan who had played a mermaid in Beach Blanket Bingo and almost played The Modern | November 2011

Room for Daddy and then went on to play one of the Von Trapp children in The Sound of Music. Billy Mumy (Will) had appeared in the film The Glass Bottom Boat and in episodes of The Twilight Zone. Two wonderful actors whom time should not forget.

The cast was rounded out by Jonathan Harris playing expedient and disruptive stowaway Dr. Smith.

He was supposed to be a minor character. He was supposed to die after the first few episodes. If only…

After those first few dark episodes, creator Irwin Allen turned the show over to Harris’s effete Dr. www.themodern.us

Smith—and it was never really the same. Playing his role like a fussbudget on steroids, Harris camped up every scene, single-handedly destroying any vestige of serious science fiction that remained.

Even the lovable Robot—whose “Warning, warning,” “That does not compute,” and “Danger, Will Robinson,” have become national catchphrases— couldn’t save Lost in Space from itself.

So, what makes LIS watch-worthy? If you accept it as a children’s show, it’s as if Aesop decided to take a space shuttle to his message. There’s always a little moral tucked in somewhere in each episode. Also, the show is relentlessly imaginative, even when the limited

So the lost space travelers never made it home to Earth—though they did make it into an anemic fulllength movie in the late 1990s.

• Best episode: “Space Creature” (third season).

Thanks to a strange blue mist, one by one the Robinsons vanish from the Jupiter II, leaving Will to face a possessed Dr. Smith.

• Some amazing character actors appeared in LIS, including Michael Rennie, Mercedes McCambridge, Albert Salmi, Al Lewis, and Michael J. Pollard.

If you accept it as a children’s show, it’s as if Aesop decided to take a space shuttle to his message. There’s always a little moral tucked in somewhere in each episode.

special effects don’t quite live up to the premise.

And it’s oh-so psychoanalytical. In one episode, adolescent Penny befriends a conscious cave named Mr. Nobody (paging Dr. Freud … Dr. Freud to the courtesy desk). In another, young Will must face his inner fears as a shadowy figure lurking in the depths of the spaceship informs him: “I am your id!” And people wonder why kids took drugs in the 1960s….

And, really, how can you go wrong with a talking carrot? That episode, called “The Great Vegetable Rebellion,” is frequently cited as one of TV’s worst moments. At one point, Harris is dressed as a shimmering stalk of celery. To this day I’m leery of the produce aisle in the supermarket.

Actually, the high production cost is what drove LIS off the air. There was supposed to be a fourth season, but the network (CBS) squeezed Allen to cut his budget and he flatly refused, storming out of a meeting.

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• Surprise: Lost in Space consistently beat Star Trek in the ratings.

Whereas Star Trek never rose above 52nd place, Lost in Space sat comfortably in the 30s.

• Williams never acted again after LIS, and Goddard refused to talk about the show for years.

Still, it has become a cult classic with a loyal following.

• In 2003, the WB ordered a new pilot of Lost in Space, directed by John Woo, but the network did not pick it up.

Mark Mussari is a freelance writer, translator and educator living in Tucson, Arizona. He is currently writing an educational book on the history of popular television for Marshall Cavendish Benchmark.

The Modern | November 2011

girls were girls & men were men

Robert Shaw The versatile actor shows us many ways to live a manly life, retro style

By Jay S. Jacobs There used to be men once upon a time. And Robert Shaw: he was a man. He was an athlete and a soldier and an artist. He ran into trouble with the law.

He drank hard and lived harder. He had a sweet tooth for women – surviving three passionate and tumultuous marriages. He was an acclaimed novelist and playwright, best known for The Hiding Place and The Man in the Glass Booth.

However, his finest work was as an actor, appearing in almost 40 films and dozens of TV shows and theatrical productions, in a career that spanned less than 30 years.

He hung with the wild men of swinging 60s London, including Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Michael Caine and Michael York.

His acting technique, even his life mantra, was summed up best by Shaw himself. “I drink too much,” he explained. “Will you tell me one great actor who doesn’t drink?” There is even a pub named after him in his hometown of Westhoughton, England.

As a child, Shaw was misdiagnosed by a doctor and told that he’d probably never live to his thirties. His father and grandfather had perished in their late 40s, making Shaw obsessively believe that he too would die young. Therefore, he most likely believed that he should live life to its fullest.

He ended up beating his ancestors out slightly, making it to 51 before dying of a heart attack in 1978.

This was soon after completing his final film, Avalanche Express. It was a sad irony; he was taken away at the very moment when his movie career was completely taking off.

Still, in those 51 years, Robert Shaw inhabited some indelible characters. Here are some of the best. Ya follah, Chief?

Quint – Jaws His best-known character was also his ultimate film portrait, starring in the film based on a massive best-selling novel by Peter Benchley. Shaw was only hired to play Quint when the director – a young, mostly unknown Steven Spielberg – learned his first The Modern | November 2011

choice, Sterling Hayden, would be unable to take the job due to tax problems. (Ironically, Shaw lived the last decade or so of his life in Ireland, greatly due to tax problems.) As the aging shark hunter hired by Amity Island to capture a rogue great white shark, Shaw was the epitome of a hardened and cynical old salt. Shaw also holds the distinction of being the first actor – and the last – who director Spielberg ever allowed to film a scene while drunk. The result was merely one of the defining monologues in modern film: Quint’s description of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The iconic scene was rewritten and improvised by Shaw. www.youtube.com/embed/QtcNyUOytU4 Mr. Blue – The Taking of Pelham One Two Three An earlier film that Shaw made was also based on a popular novel of the mid-70s.

John Godey’s book was about a former mercenary who put together a crew to hijack a Manhattan subway train.

Shaw played the leader of the plot, who called himself “Mr. Blue.” (All the criminal characters had color aliases. Years later, Quentin Tarentino ripped off the idea of giving criminals color-coded names in his www.themodern.us

film Reservoir Dogs.) Shaw’s character earned his respect through intensity. He was in complete control.

This was one seriously bad man and though he never once raised his voice, he made it clear if you crossed him even a tiny bit, you can kiss your ass goodbye.

John Travolta’s cackling loon version of the character in the 2009 remake of the film could not hold a candle to the original. www.youtube.com/embed/ZR61ARDfvE8 Doyle Lonigan – The Sting Shaw’s true breakthrough was playing the bad guy and the con men’s mark in the 1973 Best-Picture winner. Acting against such all-world talents as Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Shaw not only held his own, but shined.

Lonigan was a self-made mob boss in Depressionera Chicago. He was vicious in protecting his turf, but not above becoming a bit nostalgic about his origins. An extended poker scene with Newman allowed Shaw to show off one of the definitive slow burns in movie history. www.youtube.com/embed/Lh8dcvj-0NA

Romer Treece – The Deep It seemed natural that after Shaw succeeded with a movie of Peter Benchley’s hit novel, Jaws, that he would also work well on the film of the author’s follow-up, The Deep. Shaw co-starred with a little-known young actor named Nick Nolte (hot off the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man) and Jacqueline Bisset’s wet T-shirt (which was really the main thrust of the film’s promotion). Unfortunately, the source material was not quite as good as the other Benchley story, a concern that Shaw and co-stars Nolte and Eli Wallach pointed out to the producers during filming. Still, as a hardened tropical treasure hunter, Shaw rose way above the mediocre material. www.youtube.com/embed/LQzTL2RZyY Donald “Red” Grant – From Russia With Love­ I had always thought that Shaw would have made a perfect megalomaniac evil genius in a James Bond film. Interestingly enough, the one time he appeared in the series, relatively early in his career, he instead played the steely assassin/sidekick. With blonde hair! Still, Shaw handed Sean Connery one of his toughest fights, back before the series relied completely on gadgets and quips. www.youtube.com/embed/28XuOri5Pnk

The New Oldies A new generation of young people is coming up in the world and coming up to the DJs. Here’s a rundown of what’s new in oldies requests.

There was a time when “More Today Than Yesterday” and “Build Me Up, Buttercup” were enough. No more. Now, a generation of tattcovered peeps (who have no idea what “give it a spin” means) are turning back to their own nostalgia in order to loosen up on the dance floor Kim Alexander, of the No Macarena event DJs, shares with us her most-frequent oldies requests. As you can see, the dance floor has lost none of its electric slide. Or maybe it has.

If you’re in the Philadelphia area and want to schedule Kim for your next party, contact her at nomacrena@comcast.net or log onto nomacrena.com

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Don’t Stop Believing

Journey

Living on a Prayer

Bon Jovi

Bust A Move

Young MC

Like A Prayer

Madonna

Jump Around

House of Pain

(the most requested oldie)

(the girls love this) (the boys love this!)

Let Me Clear My Throat DJ Kool Poison

Bell Biv Devoe

The Modern | November 2011

memory speedway Somewhere in Time I grew up in Michigan. I remember seeing beautiful scenery shots of the movie Somewhere in Time. It featured the brilliant lighting of the picturesque Michigan locations set to the tone of Rachmanioff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganin. It moved me as a child to a rare altered state of euphoria. After seeing the movie, I was fascinated with the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island. I remember my dad telling me I’d been there as a small child of about three-years old, and that I had loved the tall grasses surrounding the hotel. He said that when I saw the grass, my eyes lit up and I took off running, yelling “Simondy, simondy,” a word I had made up on the spot. I started spinning around in the grass, with my arms extended out on each side. I wish I could remember such a hazy blur of a moment of what was once such pure and innocent bliss.

In the beginning of the movie, the main character, Richard (played

by Christopher Reeve), meditates himself back to the year 1912 from the year 1980. I can’t recall the countless hours I spent as a kid trying to meditate myself back in time, but it was fun — the magic of possibly opening my eyes and being in another era — then that brief second in time that I thought I might have been there. I never made it The Modern | November 2011

as an adolescent, but I still don’t think the idea is entirely impossible today, especially with mindaltering drugs and lucid dreaming.

As a child I knew it was possible to conjure up the images in my own head and then pretend like it really happened… or was I “pretending?”

The question, though, is did it really happen or not, since whatever it is that did happen, happened in my own mind. This is similar to the philosophical riddle: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? This conundrum boggled me as a child; I thought about it all the time.

What is the truth anyway, when all we experience eventually turns into a fading song of our imaginations?

And that we hold onto it for dear life so we don’t forget?

I spent a lot of my teenage years hidden away in a beautiful fantasy world based upon this movie.

I’d sit at my desk all day at school, imagining myself walking the majestic hallways of the Grand Hotel.

I would have proper afternoon tea, and be dressed like a lady, in a gown and hat with matching gloves and parasol. Everybody was nice to me, and men would tip their hats as they passed by me, murmuring pleasantries. I was the star of my own stage in my head, and there was a man in the future about to fall in love with a beautiful photograph of me somewhere in a far-off hotel. Then he’d make his way back in time to come save me from my wretched past life as the martyr girl-child. It made me feel safe, knowing that there was a superman somewhere out there in the future working so hard to travel back to me. I convinced myself it was true most of the time, mostly

when I was sad or scared, which was often.

To me, the entire movie felt like it could have been a dream, or a long hallucination by Christopher Reeve’s character to escape his harsh reality. That reality consisted of his girlfriend dumping him and his frustrating writer’s block. In the book version, it was the character’s impending death brought on by a brain tumor. The writer, Richard Matteson, did a great job of letting this question brew in the reader’s mind. Did it really happen, or was it all imagined? The whole movie felt like a dream: the shots that mimicked impressionistic paintings, the clothing style of the characters, and the innocence of Reeves’ character as he walks out of the hotel elevator for the first time after his time travel. Ultimately, Reeves’ character must realize that he belongs in the present, despite his love and attachment to the woman and the time he has traveld to. I cry every time I see this part of the movie.

I loved the things I came up with in my own head, based on this movie. This was all to keep myself happily entertained. This also helped develop in me a strong, vivid imagination. It also gave me hope that anything was possible.

Having a fantasy in which to escape as a child and a teen is a very important coping mechanism. It helps in dealing with the all-toooften harsh reality that faces a young person. Being shown how to do this through the art of a film is an invaluable lesson to be learned at the earliest age possible.

Desiree Dymond is a model, singer/songwriter, and blogger residing in NYC www.themodern.us

Lionel Trains I love trains. There is something deep about them that fascinates me. I don’t mind being stuck at the tracks, when the lights blink and the guardrail comes down. The parade of boxcars and prerequisite graffiti offers an immediate mobile gallery. Then “What’s in that one?

What’s in that one?” goes through my head as each hopper car passes.

I believe my love of trains goes back to my dad’s first set of Lionels that repeatedly circled our silver/ aluminum pom-pom tree every Christmas.

There’s the engine of course, the steam locomotive that hauls the rest in tow, and the adjoining coal car that holds the whistle audio. A red canister car safely carries an imaginary cargo of milk, or oil. A wheel car in case, for some reason, all the trains’ wheels spontaneously fall off, I have backup.

One car holds two trailers that will never be delivered to the truck

depot and it’s a good thing. Inside one of those two plastic trailers is the little bottle of tablets, that when dropped into the engine, magically turns into puffs of smoke with each turn of the engine’s wheels.

The boxcar has a little man on top. Naturally I thought he was a hobo, or a transient who lived in the boxcar and was just riding on top to get some air. When the train rolled under a flag, the little man knew to duck down before the boxcar went through the upcoming papier-mâché tunnel. Another flag on the other side told him it was safe to stand back up. It took me YEARS to figure out that the signal was not in the flag, but in the pole connected to the track. The electric signal went through the boxcar full of wires and dropped the man. He’s still train surfing and still cool.

Then, after that, bringing up the rear is the red caboose, where the conductor patiently maps the route for deliveries and pick ups,

counts receipts, and maintains the railroad.

No matter how complex or simple, what train layout would be complete without making a trip through Plasticville? Rolling hills and factories, farms and housing developments evenly spaced and all amazingly close to the railroad.

Plasticville residents had it so easy, just standing around all day, sometimes in the same spot for weeks, waiting for transport to town or further into the rural areas of the countryside.

My collection of model railroads has grown since I was a kid, and they still make an appearance every Christmas, but my dad’s old set of Lionels will always be my favorite.

Jack Rotoli is an artist and writer living in Pennsylvania.

Dark Shadows If you are about fifty or older, you will remember standing up on the school bus in order to be the first to burst out the sliding door. You tear down the street, throw your books on the floor, plop in front of the console TV and click the plastic dial to ABC. You would hear that familiar eerie music playing over the blackand-white waves crashing onto the rocks. The words Dark Shadows float over a New England sea.

Whether you watched it with your older siblings or you were the oldest, every kid sat cross-legged in front of the screen to see what supernatural creatures Barnabas, Angelique and Quentin were battling each day. Yes, it was produced like local theater with all the flubs and rickety sets, but that just made it closer to our young hearts, especially when we reenacted the scenes in the back yard.

Every afternoon, we were right there next to Barnabas as he tried to save Julia from a young vampire’s “affection,” or battled www.themodern.us

the werewolf who threatened Collinwood. Barnabas was our first anti-hero; he was a conflicted man who was both very cruel and very gentle over the run of the series. But most of all, he was “cool.”

Dark Shadows was at its best when the early story arc transported us into the past to reveal the origins of the main characters. Driven by jealousy, Angelique tormented Barnabas by causing his one true love, Josette, to jump off of Widows Hill while he helplessly watched in horror.

As you read this, Tim Burton is filming a big-screen adaptation in a remote, coastal town in England. Johnny Depp is cast as Barnabas Collins. The story line is fresh with a new take on our old favorites. The grown-up version of the kid who ran home from school is eagerly awaiting the familiar theme song, forty-five years later.

Marji Rio is a costume creator and witch who inhabits an old farm house in PA.

The Modern | November 2011

memory speedway Early computers

Shutterstock/stephen rudolph

I am not exactly a child of technology, but now I guess I can think of myself as a senior citizen of technology. Almost half of my life has been ever increasingly influenced by the computer.

After completing college and the military (and a few brief jobs), I began a thirty-one year career as an analytical chemist for a major city’s water utility.

At the Water Department, I spent my first years in a production line control lab, strictly on the bench. But I was promoted to a quality assurance group, which monitored laboratories’ work. It was more of an administrative and statistical job.

This was in the early 1980s, and IBM had revolutionized the world with the introduction of the personal computer. Now homes and businesses could have a few pieces of equipment on a desk top, rivaling the power of machines that had taken up entire rooms.

My uncle was a very techniThe Modern | November 2011

cal person, and he was an “early adopter” of gadgets. He purchased the first model of the IBM Personal Computer (PC), and when he demonstrated it, I was awestruck, but also aware of my ignorance of this new gadget.

I purchased a primitive Radio Shack computer that resembled an elongated calculator. It was mounted on a docking device that sent and received data from a cassette recorder. I selflearned the BASIC programming language, and started to “computerize” our quality control data.

PCs were also permeating the business and technical world. Our laboratories started to use them for controlling instruments and collecting and analyzing data.

At work, one of our laboratories needed to move its instruments into our clean and quiet office. They brought with them a new associated IBM PC, and they operated it there.

This turned out to be a great breakthrough for me. The PC was only needed part of the time and was available for us to use during its down time. We acquired a spreadsheet program, and I was encouraged to play with it. Soon I was officially computerizing our quality assurance data.

I quickly became known as an expert in the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software, and I was asked to help department executives with their software. I also self-learned word processing and database software for

the PC. I was then informed of an evening part-time job, to teach adult students software at a trade school that specialized in computers.

The job was totally compatible with my day job, and I quickly realized that teaching a subject forces you to learn it in more detail.

As a musician, I learned that simple MIDI tones could be synthesized to sound like real instruments, or spacey electronic notes. They could be musically arranged and saved by sequencers, usually housed in electronic keyboards. I purchased a portable, hand-held sequencer and learned how to make arrangements to accompany myself with rich orchestrations.

All these years later, I would guess that various generations have different perspectives on the digital age. Take Facebook for example. My age group is finding the decades melting away by locating family, friends, and classmates from long ago.

One can share photos, music, and memorabilia on social networks, and also self-promote.

I have made some real friends via the internet, and we share common interests.

Currently there are some of all generations who choose not to be very involved with the new technology. Some think that it is an obsessive, time-wasting behavior. I disagree. It is a rapidly evolving way of life, which can inform, entertain, and communicate with us.

Art Wilson is a Philadelphia-based musician, teacher, software specialist, and retired chemist. www.themodern.us

G.I. Joe When I was a kid, my life revolved around G.I. JOE. That includes action figures, cartoons, movies, whatever I could get my hands on. There was no such thing as my mother taking me to the department store to shop, and not finalizing the purchases without including an action figure. There were so many figures to choose from, each with individual and unique characteristics and storylines behind their persona. The greatest joy was to finger through all the options while concocting the adventure that would carry themselves out when I arrived home with my purchase (excuse me, my mother’s purchase!). From soldiers to mad scientists, and from ninjas to punk-rock swamp people, the choices seemed limitless, and for years the adventures were.

The greatest G.I. JOE moment I

ever had was on a Christmas morning, looking through my gifts. G.I. JOE figures were continuously being reinvented, so there would be more than one version of the same character throughout the years. Storm Shadow was a white ninja. Besides being an amazing character, (Come on! A WHITE NINJA!), he was a very difficult character to find, especially

the first and original. I can remember going from store to store, thumbing through all the figures, trying to find this fellow, and occasionally finding a newer version. It truly was impossible and frustrating not being able to find the prize. However, on Christmas day, after all the gifts were open, my mother pointed into the tree, to the one gift Santa had hidden from me. The smallest gift of the bunch ended up being the greatest Christmas present ever! I still don’t know to this day how my mother found that white ninja, but I guess that’s what moms do. It definitely was a white Christmas. A WHITE NINJA CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Michael Garbe is a native New Yorker and currently a graduate student in social work.

Aurora Monsters Lugosi’s Dracula, Karloff ’s Frankenstein, Chaney’s Phantom, Laughton’s hunchback. I had them. My friends had them. I’m not talking about DVDs or VHS tapes – I’m talking about Aurora’s classic models of Universal’s monsters!

I’d get them for Christmas, birthdays, or my dad would take me to the toy store on the weekend, until I had the whole set.

Sometimes the other gifts would just have to wait to be opened. Once I saw the familiar “Glows-in-the-Dark!” burst revealed through the tear in the decorative giftwrap. I’d anxiously think “which one?”

Then I’d rip through the shrink-wrap and open the box just to see the jigsaw puzzle of pieces waiting to be snipped off their molded tree, painted, and reassembled according to the equally exciting and impeccably drawn instructions.

All in miniature and all molded in green, grey, and brown plastic, Aurora’s classic series captured all of the excitewww.themodern.us

ment of their celluloid counterparts. I was more familiar with the characters via the model building and Famous Monsters magazine, than actually watching the movies. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, long before the aforementioned DVDs and VHS, I’d have to scour the TV listings to find the airings of the classics late on Friday nights. Sometimes I’d be awakened by the blue glow in my room and the hiss and snow after the movie, after the national anthem, after the station went off the air for the night, having missed the entire picture.

King Kong came with a little Fay Wray.

Godzilla stomped on a miniature Japanese city. Dr. Jekyll choked down his infamous concoction over a flimsy lab table. I always wondered where Castle Mare was, and why they forgot about their prisoner.

One of my favorite parts of the series, but not actually inspired by a movie that I know of, was “The Witch.” An old crone is

choking a bat and about to drop the poor, hapless creature into a boiling caldron.

She stands in front of stacked cages, each with a resident rat. A snake slithers along the rafters over the cauldron, and its brew molded in the glow-in-the-dark plastic.

This adds to the mystery of the witch’s den.

I discovered later that there was one model I didn’t have: Elsa Lancaster, strapped to Victor von Frankenstein’s lab table. She was manufactured to be Karloff ’s bride.

I see the series every now and then at flea markets and collectible shops. Their inflated prices are far more than what was shelled out way back in the Seventies. I have no idea whatever happened to my monster models. Yet when I see them, it brings me back to that first excitement of tearing off the gift wrap. I want to build them all over again.

Jack Rotoli is an artist and writer living in Pennsylvania.

The Modern | November 2011

DVD review

Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles Smile! You’re on TV’s Original Reality Show

By Ronald Sklar Candid Camera – the original reality show – began life on radio as Candid Microphone in 1947, at the dawn of the television age. Its creator, Allen Funt, would spend the rest of his life championing this can’t-miss concept, making it the longest-running entertainment program in history – with good reason.

The idea of Candid Camera needs no explanation, but it sure did when it debuted on WNBT-TV in New York City in 1948. Amazingly, this premiere broadcast is preserved and included on the must-have DVD, Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles (Rhino).

In this very first episode, before a studio audience of very well-dressed and thrilled-to-be-there people, host Funt takes more time explaining the concept of the series than the time it actually takes screening the bits themselves. He is also proud of the fact that the broadcast is “coast to coast,” although the actual number of television owners that evening probably number only in the thousands.

Funt projects a benign, fatherly persona that ­— in most cases — prevents anyone from feeling offended by being the unwitting subject of a televised prank.

The Modern | November 2011

What he is careful to offer is gentle humor for an easily amused audience and — seemingly — nothing more. Of course, we slowly realize that there is much more to this tomfoolery than meets the eye; it’s a study in human behavior. Though the series will survive (sometimes barely) through five turbulent and culture-altering decades, we learn that times may change, but human nature remains consistent.

As of this premiere episode, the eventual catchphrase — “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!” has not yet been fine-tuned, and Funt fumbles with the clunky “You’ll never know when you’ll be made the star of Candid Camera!” He explains the notion of “secret film,” and introduces actual celebrities in the audience, including the too-classy-for television John Garfield and “Mrs. Eddie Albert” (“you may know her better as the wonderful Margo!” Uh, okay.). One of the victims of Funt’s secret film prank receives as a lovely parting gift a “wonderful new Polaroid camera!”

The very first stunts on this very first program are not as funny as they are fascinating. We watch regular people walking on the streets of Olde New York, housewives attempting to return hats at Klein’s department store on Union Square, and a looseygoosey father in a maternity ward just after his son is born. When he is told he is on television, he becomes so overwhelmed that he almost faints – once again proving that television trumps childbirth.

Of course, they roll out what is to become a Candid Camera standard and instant classic: the talking mailbox, chatting it up with befuddled passersby. Astoundingly, the shock of a mailbox talking wears off quickly, and the victims engage in regular conversation with it as if it is the most natural act in the world.

And when a man on the street is finally told that he is on Candid Camera, he responds like a typical New Yorker: “what the hell you talkin’ about?”

Say what you want about Funt — he had guts — and he made it look easy. However, throughout the 1950s, Candid Camera was merely a poor stepchild of the television schedule, appearing only as segments, bits and afterthoughts on variety programs like The Jack Paar Show.

By 1960, however, Funt’s baby was ready for prime www.themodern.us

time, and it was placed as a regular series on CBS’ powerful Sunday night lineup. It was an instant smash. Because network execs may have felt Funt to be too “ethnic,” they humiliatingly demoted him to that of a minor co-host to the more All-American, smooth-talking pitchman Arthur Godfrey (“I’m thrilled to be working regularly,” Godfrey says without shame). Godfrey eventually had a famous falling out with Funt and was replaced by the even milder and more Nordic-looking Durwood Kirby.

The series hit its stride almost immediately: a lady (Dorothy Lamour, actually!) is baffling a service station attendant by driving a car without a motor (“Oh, now where is it?” she frets); we laugh at bowlers’ frustrated expressions; a live kangaroo is left in a ladies’ restroom; a centerpiece squirts water at a couple eating a meal; Woody Allen himself dictates a love letter to a puzzled secretary; passengers are horrified by the sight of a lady pilot (“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” a worried stewardess says); and — in that favorite postwar prop, the supermarket, we get to watch harried housewives dealing with food displays that fall down dramatically and a shopping cart that has a mind of its own.

Unintentionally funny is a trashy mom smoking up a storm in the middle of the supermarket, then tossing the butt behind a Jell-O display.

True to Andy Warhol’s statement about the future during that very decade, it looked as if everyone really would be famous for fifteen minutes, thanks to Candid Camera. Yet the average-looking Funt, for as associated with the show as he would become, would fail to get recognized by victims over and over again. (“It’s a television show, Pop. You’re on it,” Funt says to a “sweet old Italian gentleman.” The old man says sadly, “I watch it all the time. I got no place to go.”)

By the mid-sixties, the word “smile” was added to the show’s theme song, to downplay the potentially perceived cruelty. And although the bits would range from the hilarious to the downright monotonous, Funt was always correct: “we want to catch people in the act of being themselves.” The idea being driven www.themodern.us

home again and again is that it is an honor to be caught by Candid Camera; it will quickly become a beloved tradition as American as apple pie.

Perhaps the wildest Candid Camera stunt took place in 1961, when the show was filmed in the Soviet Union and broadcast — reluctantly — on American television. This was one of the few thaws in the Cold War, as Westerners marveled at watching their enemies being themselves, and in a surprisingly ordinary way: a man tries to talk himself out of a ticket; Eastern bloc tourists pose without smiles in front of a famous war cannon; and Funt himself tries to read a Moscow subway passenger’s newspaper (in Communist Russia, it was considered a sin not to share). What’s even more fascinating is that Funt pulled all of this off without a permit — the idea of using “secret film” in the Soviet Union — even if it was only for the sake of schtik — was quite ballsy.

By 1966, the show was broadcast in color. Durwood Kirby warned us nervously about the coming switch: “Color means [having to utilize] more light and that means more suspicion.” And although Kirby would be replaced by former Miss America Bess Meyerson, Candid Camera would only survive for another season on network television.

In 1970, with the sexual revolution in full swing, Funt produced “the cleanest dirty movie ever made,” called What Do You Say To A Naked Lady?, which was precisely that (a beautiful naked woman exits an elevator and the camera focuses on the stunned witnesses). By 1974, the series syndicated itself and a year later inexplicably moved to Nashville (perhaps to be closer to the real real people that New York couldn’t provide).

Film was still used (rather than videotape) and the aging technology gave the pranks a sort of claustrophobic and stale feel. Somehow — in this era of pessimism and jadedness — the cute novelty was starting to wear off. Not even co-host Phyllis George could perk up the proceedings (though her replacement, Jo Ann Pflug, made a much more enthusiastic attempt — marvel at her hairdo, sprayed to within an inch of its life).

The Modern | November 2011

DVD review Funt, with his never-say-die support of the concept, appealed to the people of Nashville in this mind-boggling explanation: “This is the program where we hide cameras only to catch you in the art of being yourself, because there is no way that people are more interesting than when they are caught off guard doing something that all of us do, but are rarely ever observed.” In a shining example of democracy in action (’70s style), the audience was invited to vote as to whether Funt should continue to wear a tie (guess the outcome — and we have Stanley Blacker and Company to blame for Funt’s outrageous Seventies wardrobe).

Still, as badly lit as these filmed pranks seemed, there were bright spots during this era — some of them blindingly bright. Most amazing is Muhammed Ali making a surprise appearance before a series of school children who just finished chatting excitedly about him; also, an unknown Richard Belzer, playing a cheese importer, forces a secretary to eat disgusting cheese; a waterbed in a sales showroom springs a leak, to a shopper’s horror; and the good old talking mailbox chats it up once more, this time with an African-American mailperson.

By the 1980s, Candid Camera was reduced to mild theme specials (kids, money, sports, doctors, sex) on HBO (“Candid” Candid Camera) and on the traditional networks. Cameras became lighter, film got faster, microphones were more delicate, but America had caught up by now, with their own camcorders.

Funt’s son, Peter, began to take over the hosting duties, usually playing a slow-talking authority figure purposely getting on the victims’ very last nerve. In one especially memorable bit, he hilariously plays a cheap boss who monitors his staff ’s every stamp and phone call — those poor office temps were always favored victims of the show.

Allen Funt reluctantly wrestled with semi-retirement, but not before you get to witness him in a pure-80s headband (we also get treated to pure80s co-hosts like Susan Anton and “Downtown” Julie Brown). And — let’s face it — who deserves to be punk’d more than American fools wearing acidwashed jeans, mullets, backwards baseball caps and jams shorts?

In the 1990s and beyond, Candid Camera soldiered on in the form of specials and then a return to regular weekly series on CBS and PAX. An attempt at a daily syndicated version (with host Dom DeLuise) didn’t work. However, using the sparklingly confident Suzanne Somers as a co-host was a brainy move, as the show dared to become slightly more brazen.

The Modern | November 2011

Peter Funt introduces the star with this witty tease: “435 men and women were caught in the act – the act of being themselves, that is! And I can’t think of a sexier person I’d rather do battle with than our special guest. Please welcome Suzanne Somers!”

Of course, with the advent of America’s Funniest Home Videos, reality television and a 500-channel cable universe, Candid Camera victims seem evermore jaded to the phenomenon of being caught on camera (when a sexy woman assertively asks guys on the street for a kiss, a man responds with, “are you a prostitute?”). Yet, with the popularity of Seinfeld, a show about nothing suddenly hits the spot like never before.

Candid Camera now becomes faster, slicker, less raw and more media savvy — it has to be: viewers can now e-mail their suggestions for pranks and log onto the show’s website.

Starbucks presently houses the schtik that used to be performed in more traditional coffee shops; reluctant computer students are taught to operate a mouse with their feet; food is physically delivered by fax to a stunned office temp; a monotone voice drones on for minutes in a seemingly endless voicemail prompt; the DMV issues a license plate named DUFUS to an angry driver; a perfume with no smell is marketed to a focus group; a nervous tattoo artist freaks out a potential customer; a husband is kept on a leash; and — in a shockingly bold post-9/11 stunt — a restaurant offers only plastic knives in an attempt to take precautions against terrorism.

Sadly, the senior Funt died in 1999 after a debilitating stroke in 1993. However, his legacy remains strong and vital, as Candid Camera clips are now used in psychological research and behavioral education, and also to deliver laughter medicine to cancer patients.

As a youth, Allan Funt was influenced by a 1788 poem by Robert Burns, which read, “The greatest gift would be to see ourselves as others see us.” Funt brought this concept to life with tender care, cuttingedge skill and a true sense of what it means to entertain while educating.

For more information on Candid Camera, log onto www.candidcamera.com. www.youtube.com/ watch?v=u1D3p15xMXU

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parting

sh t

http://youtu.be/sqx9zbdfK9k Just in time for Thanksgiving -- much ado about giblet gravy and sliced turkey.

This one defies description, but that never stops us: a housewife channels a Tennessee Williams character and, naturally, loses her mind over the time it takes to heat up a TV dinner (and we’re not talkin’ microwaves). Her husband is understandably terrified. You may be able to detect it in his eyes.

She says, with great accuracy and dramatic license, “and by and by it was done.” Could be a Bible passage or a unique physics term to measure time. Perhaps these specific instructions were listed on the packaging.

Whatever the case, she really sells it, and we buy.

The most significant frozen dish of our time indeed, or anybody else’s time for that matter. DO YOU HEAR ME? Ronald Sklar

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The Modern | November 2011