Fall Finale 2017 “Lies! Lies! All of It, Lies!” Issue No. 31 Jericho High School Est. 2003 ’68-’69-’70-’71-’72-’73-’74-’75 Online Magazine

Yearbook to Facebook 2 Official Propaganda Tool of 1968-1975 JHS Alumnuts Linda Dalton (’68), Renee Maltz Levin (’69), Lee Sorocca (’70), David Rhodes (’74), Michael Leshin (’72), Cathy Cardinale Straus (’73), Joel Stern (’73), Barbara Blanc Sunshine (’75)

Nooz About Yooz 3 Mindy Wertheimer (’72), Amy Lubow Downs (’72), Andrew Van Tosh (’69)

Catch Up With ... 4 Corey Pepper (’74): His love of performing is no act

First Person Singular 10 Shelley Block (‘75): Left brain, right brain

Takin’ Care of Bidness: 15 Jerichonians at Work TV producer Bob Simon (’72) chases the magic

State of the (Re)Union 18 Don’t miss the 10-6-18 “Unraveling of the Tribes 6: Return to PolyesterYear”

Cartoons by Dan Clurman (’72) 19

Between the Covers 20 New books from Bill Reif (’71), Philip Bashe (’72)

Faculty Lounge 24

Mrs. Joan Kupferberg: At eighty-four, she might be retired from teaching—but not from performing

Rachel Glickman’s New York 46 New York A girl, a camera, and the greatest city in the world!

And So We Bid a Fond Adieu 47 — or Fondue ...

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In our travels around cyberspace, we frequently come upon photos of former classmates, especially on Facebook. Can you believe how good everyone looks?! Maybe they’re all robots. Yep, that must be it.

Linda Dalton (’68) Renee Maltz Levin (’69) Lee Sorocca (’70) Massachusetts Long Island New York

David Rhodes (’71) Michael Leshin (’72) North Carolina Massachusetts

Cathy Cardinale Straus (’73) Caryn EllenbogenJoel Stern (’74)Dayney (’72 Barbara Blanc Sunshine (’75) Long Island Sarasota,New Jersey FL Long Island

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month. Mindy, who directs the “Mrs. Broadwin was the person master’s program at Georgia State who taught me more about deduc- University School of Social Work, has tive reasoning than any other profes- especially helpful in advising us on sor I was to have. It was an amazing governance issues and has conduct- experience. Perhaps it takes getting ed the governances best-practices old to realize it.” model at Federation’s Jewish Andrew is the clinical director of Leadership Institute (JLI). nuclear cardiology at the renowned “Mindy is a past president of St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, Long Do the clean-cut young folks above look JF&CS, has been a Federation trus- Island. familiar? They should. Their images tee, and served on our Caring Out- graced the Jericho School News newslet- ter that was mailed to your parents to let comes Allocation Committee. We are them know just what it was you were sup- grateful for Mindy’s breadth, depth, posedly doing on weekdays. and commitment to Jewish Atlanta.”

Volunteers of America: Better Late Than Never, Mindy Wertheimer (’72) Right?

We can’t improve upon the following After reading announcement from Jewish Family & the last issue’s Career Services (JF&CS) of Atlanta feature on My Favorite Photo honoring Dr. Mindy Wertheimer as its beloved math Volunteer of the Month, so we’ll teacher Mrs. “This is my favorite photo,” writes merely offer our congratulations and Judith Amy Lubow Downs (’72) of Brook- let the organization speak for itself: Broadwin, Dr. lyn. Taken in 2008, it shows Amy “Mazel tov to Dr. Mindy Andrew Van surrounded by sons Keith (left) Wertheimer, who has shared her Tosh (’69) and Ian, plus pooch Toby, who is time and talents with Federation in wrote, “It is now eleven in dog years. many different roles, on being hard to believe: Today Ian is a physician, while named this month’s volunteer of the I went to Johns Hopkins, New York Keith helps out Amy’s ninety-eight- University, and Yale for my medical year-old father. “At age ninety-four, training, but the best teachers I had my dad sold his house in Jericho in my life were at JHS. I took Mr. and moved to an independent- Vigilante's freshman English class; I living facility in Port Washing- learned more about writing an essay ton. My mother died in 2002, and from him, and Ms. Bueschel, than he’d lived alone for twelve years. from anyone in my life. He was very stubborn and didn't want to move. But finally he agreed, and now even he admits that he is much better off where he is. Keith and my father are good buddies, and he visits his grandfather often.” (Above) That’s Mindy with Longevity seems to run in the husband Ira Katz (’72) and family, says Amy. “My father had a their daughter Leanna Katz,; sister who died recently at age and (right) with their other 103. She always lived on her own, daughter, Jessica Katz was very independent, and even Yonatan. She and Ira married played the piano and recited in 1978 and have lived in poetry.” Atlanta for nearly that long.

JHS Classes of 1968-1975 Online Magazine • Fall 2017 Page 4 Catch Up With … Corey Pepper (’74) His Love of Performing Is No Act

was one of those kids Succeed in Business Without markable man, who spent who fell in love with act- Really Trying, which was the time with kids outside of I ing at an early age. In Harlequin Players’ big produc- class and really taught me kindergarten at Cantiague tion during my junior year. I not just acting stuff but also Elementary School, Mrs. Do- was very close with a lot of life stuff. Just a great, great ris Gilbert cast me in the seniors from the class of ’73, guy. I write him periodically to

class play. When I say “cast,” like Peter Green, Roberta thank him, because when I I mean that she picked me—I Eagle, and Charlie Koppel- talk to my students today, I’m don’t remember having to man, all of whom had major really just trying to channel actually audition. But not long parts. And my cousin, Elyse Steve Piorkowski. after that, when I was seven Pepper, and I also had big I had a closeness with years old, I asked my mom if I roles in that: I was Bud Frump many teachers, and I know could start taking acting clas- and was in about six musical from my own sons’ educa- ses. I took classes on Satur- numbers; Elyse played Hedy tions that just doesn’t hap- day mornings with drama La Rue. It was just the most pen anymore. I used to be teachers Burt Wolfe and Ar- fun, and by far the best pro- able to go hang out in the nold Hruska as part of a duction we had in high teachers’ lounge, and nobody ☼ weekend enrichment pro- school. I just loved it. would say a word to me. Or I gram that the school district Steve Piorkowski directed would sit in Steve’s office, or offered. How to Succeed, as well as if Steve wasn’t in, I was really “After all Early on, I developed most of the other shows I per- close with the other drama these years, nodes on my vocal cords. At formed in at Jericho. He was teacher, Gene Huber, who I’m still one point, either in fifth or and is the most important passed away maybe ten or sixth grade, I wasn’t allowed teacher I ever had. Just a re- Continued on page 5 doing what I to talk for almost three love, and I months, so that my voice know so could heal. Then I began tak- many people ing speech and voice lessons who can’t with Ms. Andrea Jones who say that. was a speech therapist at Cantiague and she really I’ve never helped me learn how to had to stop speak and sing properly, so doing it, and I’ve never had any vocal prob- at this point, lems since then. In high school, being an it doesn’t look like actor really became my iden- I’ll ever tity. And it’s funny, because now, as a drama teacher, I have to.” recognize that trait in my stu- dents. Not only was I in lots of Corey (sitting, second from right) was a sophomore in the plays, but I also directed. The December 1971 musical Good News. Behind him are show that always stands out seniors Michael DiPasquale, Jim Rudy, and Michael Gilbert, most fondly for me is How to and, from the class of 1973, Marc Powers.

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Corey Pepper child who wanted to go into show business, which, of course, is a risky was to make a living. They were always Continued from page 4 encouraging me “Have a backup plan, Corey. Have something to fall back on.” Which, in retrospect, was fifteen years ago. I was also really close with English good advice. They really wanted me to get my degree, teacher Estelle Stern (later Rankin), who passed away and, to be honest, that knowledge was probably the only earlier this year. way I made it all the way through college. I was our class’s president in tenth and eleventh Nowadays I encourage all my students to finish their grade. Between student government and acting, that college programs because having that degree gives you took up most of my time. Another favorite show for me more options later on. They ask me all the time, “What is was our junior-year one-act play: the comedy Lovers and the one piece of advice you have for young actors?” And Other Strangers. It was a four-member cast. I starred as I say, “Perseverance.” Be willing and able to stick at it for a long time. Because it doesn’t matter when you’re suc- Frank, Rose Rabena played Bea, David Snyder was Richie, and Bonnie Raymond was Joan. Carrie Kass and cessful. If you’re successful between the ages of twenty- Claude Stein codirected. We upset the class of ’73’s five and forty, great! Good for you. But there a lot of ac- entry, Small Packages, from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, tors who achieve success between the ages of fifty-five to win the one-act play contest. and seventy. How many talented people would have fi- nally gotten their big break, but they gave up and bailed Binghamton Bound too soon? You need to stay in it as long as possible. I mentioned before that being An Actor! was very My older brother, Larry, who’s a oral surgeon, had gone much my self-identity. Here’s a funny story. In my sopho- to SUNY Binghamton, and my dad wanted me to go to more year at SUNY Binghamton, I went to an audition for Binghamton too. Due to the entire semester of financial constraints, it The Pepper family at Dodger Stadium: shows, and I thought I had had to be a SUNY from left to right, sons Griffin and just kicked ass. I thought I school. Binghamton and Logan, wife Susannah, and Corey. had done so well. After- SUNY Purchase were the Clearly this was taken in July, well before the ward, a row of professors two that I most wanted team’s eleven-game losing streak. evaluated us. This new to go to because of their young professor, whom I’d arts programs. I audi- never met before, stood tioned for both. Truthful- up, and he had this big ly, I never would have smile on his face. “Hey, gotten into Binghamton Corey!” he said. “Were based on my grades you, like, the big star in alone. I fell just short. I your high school?” was a B-plus student, Being the asshole I and you definitely had to was back then, I an- be an A student for swered, “Yep! I sure was!” Binghamton at that “Did you do a lot of mu- time. I went through a sical theater in high Talented Student school?” Admission Program “Yes! I did!” there, so I was able to “Hey, tell me some of go up some weekend the musicals you did in

and audition for the the- high school.” ater department there. I I didn’t realize that he was admitted as a theater major based upon that. I was was making fun of me. So I proudly listed all of the musi- very lucky to get in cals I’d been in, and he let me talk and talk and talk. Af- My parents were supportive of my wanting to pursue ter I finished, he said, “Great. Now I’m going to explain to a career in acting, but like many people from their gener- you what we’re going to do: we’re going to knock the ation—which lived through the Great Depression and high school out of you and teach you how to act.” And he then World War II—they were a bit fearful about having a Continued on page 6

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Corey Pepper stars Harry Hamlin, Col- leen Dewhurst, Charles Continued from page 5 Durning, and Brad Dourif. The cast also did. So I was really very lucky. Bing- included a pre Batman hamton offered plenty of opportuni- Michael Keaton, Jessi- ties to be in productions. They had a ca Harper, Diana Scar- big theater and three small theaters. wid, and a young Mare What was really cool for me person- Winningham. ally was that I was able to expand Filming took three and not just act but also direct. I months, and I was real- loved musical theater—always have— ly kind of miserable out and I got to direct a whole bunch of here in LA. For one musicals there, including a major thing, I had a girlfriend production of A Little Night Music . back in New York. For Then in my senior year, the depart- another, I had an ego ment produced a comedy that I had the size of North Ameri- written “…and I’ll Go To Bed at Noon” ca. Even though I had All this time, beginning when I was this great opportunity fourteen, I would spend my summers in Hollywood, I decided acting in various summer stock thea- to go back to New York. ter companies, where we would put “If they want me, they’ll on something like ten shows in elev- find me,” I reasoned— en weeks. It was just the greatest which was a very stupid education and experience. By the choice at that time. time I finished college, I had ap- Although musical The program for the 1973 One-Act Play Contest, peared in something like a hundred theater has always been in which the class of ’74 scored an upset win musicals and plays. Unfortunately, my first love, I’d become over the seniors with Lovers and Other Strangers. for today’s young actors, summer really interested in do- stock theater barely exists anymore. ing standup comedy and sitcom work. For that, I have to credit my childhood friend Arthur Miller. When I was eight or nine years old, I used to go over to Comedic Inspiration: Charlie Chaplin, Artie’s house to hang out in his basement and watch these old black-and- Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd—and white comedies he had: Chaplin, Keeton, Lloyd. I fell in love with comedy. I Classmate Arthur Miller thought that the two of us had discovered something that no one else in the world knew about. Artie also turned me on to the Marx Brothers. I recently While I was in college, my parents contacted him on Facebook and thanked him for the education. sold our home on Tioga Drive in West Back in New York, I went to the Improv, the famous comedy club in the Birchwood and moved out to Los An- heart of Hell’s Kitchen, on West Forty-Fourth Street near Ninth Avenue. My geles. Like all other Jews, they’d first night there, I passed the audition and was asked to become a regular planned to retire to Florida eventual- standup there. So that’s what I did for the next few years. It was a great ex- ly, but in his late fifties, received a perience. Not only does it improve your acting, but it also sharpens your writ- job offer in Santa Monica. Since the ing. The other regulars at that time included Bill Maher, Jerry Seinfeld, and weather is so nice out here, they de- Larry David. Let me think of who else. Rita Rudner. Dana Carvey. I enjoyed cided to come out West for good. performing my own material, but I never really enjoyed doing standup. I

I graduated from Binghamton in don’t mean the performance itself but the lifestyle. It’s just not for me. There 1977, a year early. Then in 1978, I was a lot of drinking and drugs, which just wasn’t of any interest to me, and was cast in a large role in a three- there were a lot of politics involved. episode TV mini-series, Studs Lo- nigan, movie that was filming in Los “I Love L.A.” (Caveat: Not Really) Angeles. So I flew out here. It was my first time on the West Coast. I played After several years of doing standup and not getting the kinds of auditions I the young Davey Cohen opposite Continued on page 7

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Corey Pepper especially at a club near my home in was over, I’d given twelve thousand the San Fernando Valley called the performances, in which I got to use Continued from page 6 L.A. Cabaret. It’s not around any- all of my improv skills. more. I appeared on TV in some wanted, in 1983 I decided to come sketch comedy shows you might Corey Is Grumpy for Three Years out to L.A. for TV pilot season, which have watched if you had kids in the (We’re Referring to the Dwarf, Not runs from February to April. I just 1990s: Nickelodeon’s Kenan & Kel, His Disposition) wanted to see if it would be good for starring Kenan Thompson (a fixture my career to relocate. I came close on Saturday Night Live) and Kel While Aladdin was still running, I was to getting two pilots and realized, Mitchell, and The Amanda Show, asked if I’d be interested in acting in “Okay, this is ridiculous. What am I starring Amanda Bynes. She’s had a something else, and, of course, after doing dicking around in New York, lot of personal problems as an adult, all that time, I jumped at the oppor- when I’m close to getting TV and film and I’ll sometimes have people ask tunity to do something new. Disney work? This is where I need to be. me about what a train wreck she was staging a huge Snow White mu- I’d recently gotten married. I flew was. But was wasn’t when I worked sical at the park, with a $12 million back to New York, packed up my with her. The teenage Amanda was budget. I played Grumpy for four wife, our pets, and our apartment, as sweet as can be, and extremely years. and moved out here permanently in talented. Actually, make that three years. 1984. More than thirty years later, An acting career can be very un- After a while, stage management have I come to love L.A.? No, not re- predictable, with lots of ups and took me aside and said that my ally. I still don’t love it out here. I downs. I moved out here mainly to Grumpy was too “angry.” don’t like the weather, I don’t like the do film and TV work, and I wound up “Too angry?” I replied (not angri- traffic. I’ve just never been crazy having a twelve-year theater gig, of ly). “What do you expect? You gave about living here. all things. I starred in a show for Dis- me only one adjective to work with! I still miss New York, but I have- neyland—an improv version of the What other type of character would n’t been back there in ten years. No Disney film you expect me to come up reason to. My parents were long Aladdin—that with? He’s Grumpy! gone from Long Island. My brother was supposed What’s another word for lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, be a six-week grumpy?! Angry!” and my second wife’s family lives on summer run. I asked, “Have there Cape Cod. So I do get back to the It ended up Continued on page 8 East Coast, but not New York. running for Once settled in California, I start- eight years. ed working regularly as a standup, By the time it

(Top) Corey on TV’s Keenan & Kel; (left) in a 1994 cast photo for Disney’s improv version of Aladdin (that’s him kneeling, third from left); and (above) as a perfectly amiable Grumpy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

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Corey’s Kids Corey Pepper (nonbiological Continued from page 7 division): just some of the been any complaints? Am I scaring aspiring young children?” actors who’ve “No, we just think the character benefited from seems angry ...” Corey’s many I thought I was about to be fired, years of experi- but they asked me to take on the ence. role of Doc instead. It was actually my favorite year, because I had my own song, a lighter costume, and a shorter beard. You’d be surprised how much those things can matter. studio lost its im- I was making a good living, with prov teacher, and Disney benefits and stock options, they approached too. Most actors would love to be in me about taking such a steady situation. But it had a over the class. And few drawbacks. I live in Sherman that’s what I’ve Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles, and been doing for the Disneyland is an hour and a half past ten years: away down in Anaheim. So it was a teaching improvi- real schlep. I’d leave home at eight sational comedy, in the morning and usually be home which has really by eight at night. That made it impos- turned into a great sible for me to audition for other act- career for me. ing gigs. After Snow White closed, Truthfully, I was not looking for- ulars on major TV shows this past Disney offered me other roles, but I ward to it. It totally took me by sur- season. One, Ryan Simpkins, just finally decided, “You know what? I prise. After I started teaching, I starred opposite Amy Pohler and Will think I’ve had it with driving to Ana- thought to myself, “How did I not Ferrell in the movie The House, and heim. I’m going to stay in L.A.” know that I would love this? How her brother, Ty, was the younger It was now 2007. For the first could this have been such a mystery brother in Jurrasic World. It’s just time in my life, I had to go on unem- to me?” It seems so obvious, and been real fun. ployment. To not have been unem- now I just love it. I think that a lot of Not all of the kids in my profes- ployed before is very unusual for an people get to a stage in their lives sional class are actors and actress- actor, especially someone who’d where they enjoy giving others the es. The ability to improvise—to think been in the business at that point for benefits of their years of experience, fast on your feet; to react quickly to thirty years. After just a few months, I in an effort to help them. This has what’s thrown at you—can be helpful landed a job working at TVI Actors been really satisfying for me. in terms of going on job interviews, Studio, as an advisor and consultant Also, the success that my stu- interacting with peers, talking to to other actors, helping them with dents have had has been really grati- adults; you know, just being able to their careers. The studio also offered fying. About twelve years ago, I was walk into a room full of strangers and classes, and when they hired me, the hired to teach some weekend clas- being able to talk comfortably with owners asked me if I would ever con- ses for a very well known on-set act- them. It really instills self-confidence. sider teaching a class. ing coach, Lisa Picotte. Well, she’s The arts, in general, are crucial to I had to be honest. “I’ve never now opened her own studio (the Lisa child development. That’s something taught before,” I told them, “but I’ve Picotte Young Actor Workspace), and I learned from Steve Piorkowski all been doing improv for twenty years- together we teach kids ages five those years ago. five. So I think I could …” Sure through eighteen. Really good young I’ve been on the faculty of the enough, about six months later, the actors. Four or five of them were reg- Continued on page 9

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Corey Pepper Corey’s Kids (biological division): (left) son Griffin served as best man at Continued from page 8 Corey’s 1997 marriage to Susannah Todd; (below) almost twenty years later, York Film Academy for the last six here they are at his wedding to year in addition to teaching at the Madeline Taskier. Young Actor Workspace, I teach col- lege bachelor of arts and master’s At the bottom of the page, Logan (on classes several days a week there. the left) playing Cooper Bradford on the They have schools in LA, New York, TV sitcom American Housewife; and he and all over the world as well. We and Griffin with Corey’s mom who lives have a lot of international students. in an assisted-living facility not far from I’d still like to perform. But, frank- his home. ly, I’ve lost the desire to fight for it. That’s what happened with “old age”: I’ve lost the desire to continue to play the game. At this point in my I met my wife, Susan- life, I’m more interested in spending nah Todd, in 1989. It was that time helping my youngest son, sort of a classic Holly- Logan, with his acting career: taking wood romance, in that him on auditions, which is incredibly she was actress at the time consuming, so that it doesn’t all time, and we were both fall on my wife, Susannah. working in the same res- I know I haven’t mentioned my taurant: me as a bartend- family up to this point, so let me er; Susannah as a wait- back up. ress. We married in 1997. She eventually left He’s a Pepper, She’s a Pepper … acting and is a Pilates instructor for Equinox. My first marriage ended after five Against my better judgment, our son Logan, who’s fifteen, is an actor. years, in 1988, just one year after He’d taken my improv class for about the last four years. Then about a year my oldest son was born. Griffin, who or so ago, he started taking acting classes with my teaching partner, Lisa. turns thirty this year, is a high school He wasn’t terribly good when he started, but, boy, he’s made himself into a history and journalism teacher at the good actor. He has a great agent and manager and has been going out on a E. L. Haynes Public Charter School in ton of auditions. I’m proud to say that he has a recurring role on the ABC Washington, DC. Teaching is his call- sitcom American Housewife, as Cooper Bradford, doing three episodes dur- ing. However, after college, he went Continued on page 35 to work for Teach for America, which turned out not to be a good experi- ence. For a while, he left education for political public relations, because he had a degree in poly sci. But eventually he decided to get his mas- ter’s degree in secondary education at the University of Michigan, and by the time he graduated, he’d fallen in love with teaching all over again. Griffin got married last year to Madeline Taskier, a third-year medi- cal student at George Washington University. Yes, that makes her another Dr. Pepper.

JHS Classes of 1968-1975 Online Magazine • Fall 2017 Page 10 Shelley Block (’75): Left Brain, Right Brain Whether Belting the Blues or Helming a Project for a Major Corporation, She's Got It Covered

adults, my sisters Abby, Cindy, and I are all close. But growing up, I was closer to Abby (’69), who was six years older than me; Cindy, who graduat- Aed in 1972, is exactly in the middle. Abby turned me on to a lot of musicians and artists that I never would have The family that plays together …. heard about in a million years. When I was little, she Shelley and husband Alan Gerber. would come home from college and hold up an album and say, “Shelley, you have to listen to this.” She intro- duced me to Joni Mitchell, whom I’ve been obsessed was a self-taught musician, so every Sunday, the entire with ever since. The Band. The English jazz singer Cleo family would gather around the piano, and my father Laine. Just a lot of interesting things. would play all the old songs, always ending the musical Cindy and I had a music connection, too. She turned evening with all of us singing “Goodnight, Sweetheart.” me on to Sly and the Family Stone, the Rolling Stones, My mother was a great singer, with a rich, almost op- and the Four Seasons. She was obsessed with Frankie eratic mezzo-soprano voice, but she suffered from stage Valli and the Four Seasons. So between the two of them, fright and could sing only for us. Music was a major con- I got to know a wide cross section of music. Then there nection in our family. It was around us all the time. These was my parents’ influence, too. memories stick with you. Our mom died last year. In my eulogy, I remembered Like everyone else, my first instrument was the Fluto- that we grew up in a house where my parents used to phone. Then, when I was twelve, Abby decided to teach listen to a lot of musical theater and great singers, like herself to play acoustic guitar. Since I always looked up Dean Martin, Al Martino, and Jerry Vale. And, of course, to her and wanted to do whatever she did, I taught my- Frank Sinatra. Money was tight in our family, so self to play too, using this very popular book, Alfred’s my parents couldn’t Basic Guitar Method. I’ve never taken guitar lessons. I afford the original- don’t think I played very well back then, to tell you the cast soundtracks. truth, but in my mind, of course, I was fabulous! Abby Instead, they would and I learned all the Joni Mitchell D tunings that she buy these knock-off used on her 1971 album Blue. (I wish I still remembered versions of every what a D tuning is.) Broadway show: all As soon as I learned to play guitar, I began writing my Rodgers and Ham own music. Between my own stuff and the songs I’ve merstein, and so on. collaborated on with my musician husband, I’ve probably We put our foot composed around three hundred or more songs. I was (feet?) down and mainly into folk rock, and wrote about being a woman in insisted on the movie angst. Yes, I had so much angst and suffered so—I was soundtracks for West twelve years old. But in addition to folk, I loved show

Side Story, Bye Bye tunes, too, because I wanted to become an actress.

Birdie. But we knew In junior high school, I played Deborah Sue, one of Shelley at fifteen: She’d all the music. All of the teenagers in Bye Bye Birdie. Then in tenth grade, I already been playing acoustic us. My dad, he was got the part of Smitty in How to Succeed in Business guitar for three years and like this little macho Without Really Trying. I really wanted that part. In addi- was composing her own man who looked like tion to working in finances, I teach voice to around forty songs. a Mafia thug, but he Continued on page 11

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Shelley, second from right, in Shelley Block How to Succeed (1973), with Continued from page 10 (l. to r.) Jon Cantor, Anne Glussman, Brian Litt, and students, and I always tell them, Bonnie Raymond. “Don’t just focus on landing the lead role. Think about who’s the second Below, going all the back to lead or third lead? Which character 1969 at Robert Williams is the comic role or the interesting Elementary, Shelley (as Nancy) role. In other words, which is the best with Michael Sammis in Oliver: role for you? That’s the part you “He was a fabulous Artful should want to play. Sometimes, in Dodger. Had these big, puffy fact, the lead character isn’t all that cheeks; he was so cute.” interesting.” Mr. Piorkowski, whom I The family that plays together …. adored, was a great director. I was Shelley and husband Alan Gerber. just this young sophomore, and I had 1974–75, and he said to me, “If you a very big part in the show, and prob- stay, we’ll do Funny Girl.” It was so ably felt a little intimidated. During tempting, because I love Barbra tech week, he left me the greatest Streisand. He did a lot to help me note I could possibly have gotten: prepare for college. Nothing against “Smitty: You have the potential for Jericho, but I really felt like it was stealing the show.” time for me to leave and go to In my junior year, I played Gladys, college. the comic lead, in Pajama Game. The best friend; the sidekick. Again, that A Tumultuous Senior Year was the part that really interested me. My senior year, though, I never What became my last year at Jericho got the chance to be in the play, be- High School, 1973-74, couldn’t have Jordan both attacked the country at cause I left Jericho for college a year been more stressful. Both my sisters the beginning of October. Abby was early. Mr. Gene Huber was going to were living in Israel at the time of the living on a kibbutz in the Golan be directing the high school play for Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Continued on page 12

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Shelley’s White Birch Neighbors: The Politos, the Northshields, the Leibowitzes—and Bob Costas?

White Birch was more of the blue-collar neighborhood of Jericho. We used to jokingly refer to it as the other side of the tracks. Many people probably don’t know this, but Bob

Costas, the famous sportscaster, lived diagonally across the street from us for a time. He would have been in the class of 1970. He and his sister, Valerie, used to hang out at our house all the time. And my mother and Mrs. Costas were best friends. They remained close for many years, long after the Costases moved to California when I was around seven. Then they came back to Long Island, but to Commack, in Suffolk County. Wonder- ful people. Bob came to my Dad’s shiva. His sister, Valerie, came to his funeral. I was in touch with Bob shortly after my mom passed away last year. He had to work the TV show Football Night in America on NBC and could not come to see us.

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and that probably Shelley Block happened when I Continued from page 11 was around four- teen years old, be- Heights, which got attacked; she cause I used to go spent about a month in the bomb away to sleepaway shelters. And Cindy was working at camp every summer the Tel Aviv Hilton. The Israeli de- at Camp Na’aleh in fense minister, Moshe Dayan, used upstate New York, to come in there all the time. At and one of my coun- night, she had to keep all the lights selors there was a out in her apartment. huge feminist. She I remember the night the war really opened up my broke out. We got a phone call from eyes. one of my sisters at, like, three If you look at my o’clock in the morning. How the call yearbook picture, Sisters are doin’ it for themselves! Abby, Shelley, and came through, I don’t know. Both my I’m wearing a Jew- Cindy at the September 2016 Gathering of the parents were very protective, espe- ish feminist button Tribes IV Rock & Roll Heaven Reunion. cially my mom, who was a real worry- that my camp coun- wart, and I could hear her crying. She selor had given me. I wore it every day for three or four years. The only time I said to them, very forcefully, “Be took it off, in fact, was when I was in a play. I took a lot of crap for it in safe. And do whatever the Israeli school from people who didn’t understand. Both guys and girls. Some would government tells you to do.” The war call me names, like “Hippie Radical,” or they’d call me a lesbian. I didn’t give lasted three weeks, and I went to a crap. school every morning totally stressed I give a lot of credit to my parents, who had strong political and social out about my sisters. beliefs. I would describe them as extremely conservative yet socially liberal. In high school, I was friends with For example, both my parents believed in a woman’s right to choose. They people from all groups. I didn’t care also believed in equal rights for women, even though, back then, my mother if you were an artsy person, if you was very old-fashioned when it came to a woman’s place. But from the time were into sports, if you were a cheer- we were little, my parents would lecture us about the importance of civil leader or a nerd. If you were nice and rights. And my father, from the time I was three until he died, he would give a decent person, you were my friend. us monthly lectures about the Holocaust. I’ll always have a place in my heart for Carolyn Pollito, because she’s a beautiful person both inside and out. “When I was around ten or so, we would turn on the TV, I was also very close to Lynne Rosen- baum, who now lives in England, al- and there’d be Mom and Dad taking part in a protest, ways playing music together. Mere my mom with hair all done up, and holding her sign. This Cohen, Leah Funtleyder (more so in college). A lot of my friends were mu- was normal to me.” sicians: Joyce Imbesi, Susan Roggen (wasn’t a musician, but took me to the train station for my college audi- My parents belonged to the Jewish Defense League, which had been tion), Miki Stanton. Claude Stein and started by Rabbi Meir Kahane. (This was long before he lost his mind.) They I went out for a little bit, but we re- used to drag me to JDL meetings. When I was around ten or so, we would mained friends. I know I’m leaving turn on the TV, and there’d be Mom and Dad taking part in a protest, my out somebody, but it was just a mom with hair all done up, and holding her sign. This was normal to me. whole potpourri of very cool people. “Oh, yeah, there’s Mommy and Daddy on TV. I wonder if they’re going to get I also gravitated toward anyone arrested!” Even though they were right wing, they always encouraged my who was political, because I had a sisters and I to express ourselves, even if they disagreed with our positions very big mouth! I was probably one of and points of view. first feminists at Jericho Junior High, Continued on page 13

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Syracuse part-time, and his name “I know you have a reputation Shelley Block was Al Roker. He was awesome then, around campus as being open- Continued from page 12 and he’s awesome now. As soon I minded, you accept everybody, plus got there, I started auditioning for you have a background in theater shows. and music. So, yes, I want you to be One of the most influential clas- my assistant.” ses that I took was black theater his- I said, “I’m in.” tory. I took two semesters of it my Looking back, that was the great- freshman year. It was taught by An- est thing I did in college, even better derson McCullough, a Pulitzer Prize– than performing. I sang in a tavern winning playwright. He was paraple- (the drinking age was eighteen then, gic. A large man; looked like the foot- remember?), I was in bands—I even ball player Rosie Greer. I never saw sang opera with the Rochester Phil-

someone with such a severe disabil- harmonic. But being Anderson ity get around like he did. He even McCullough’s assistant showed me drove a car outfitted with a special that I could teach people, which system; he used to drive me places. would come in handy many years Mr. McCullough liked me for my later. I’d never thought about becom- tenacity. (Also, I was a really good ing a teacher, although I did consider student.) I just loved his class. At the myself a nurturer, and someone who end of the second semester, he likes to help others. He had me work asked me to meet him after class to with the leads in the show, which Well, hello, there! Publicity shot, discuss something important. “Next was gospel based. We had great 1988. year,” he explained, “I’m doing some- singers, but they needed to learn thing very provocative here. We’re how to sing from their diaphragms, That included my wanting to getting a lot of resistance, and peo- and so on. I helped the conductor in graduate a year early. They really, ple are very angry, but I convinced the orchestra pit, worked with the really did not agree with it. But I the theater department to do the lighting crew—everything. Whatever made my case, and then my parents first African American musical here he needed me to do. consulted with Mr. Eldon Bush, my at Oswego.” This was 1975, and the I also studied voice for four years guidance counselor, who was fabu- show was Purlie. Ossie Davis had with the department chair, Leon Car- lous. In the end, they told me, “We written the book, based on his own petyan. Midway through my sopho- don’t agree with this, but we are giv- play. It’s brilliant. more year, though, I had a revela- ing you our permission.” On Gradua- “I need someone to assist me as tion: I really did not like theater peo- tion Day 1974, we went out to din- the director,” Mr. McCullough said. “I Continued on page 14 ner, and my father made a toast. He will give you three said, “We did not agree with this, but upper-class cred- after seeing you with this graduating its if you will be class, we now realize that it is time my assistant.” for you to go to college.” He under- I was speech- stood. less. That doesn’t happen a lot. Off to Oswego I said, “I’m really, really hon- I went to SUNY Oswego as a theater ored, but I have to major. They have an amazing theater tell you, this is building there; back then, it was con- going to be an sidered one of the top fifty theaters African American in the country, and that included pro- musical, and Shelley and Alan Gerber at fessional theaters. I was in theater you’re picking me, (a) a toga party or (b) their class with this really nice, cool sen- this white Jewish 1984 nuptials. You decide. ior, who was a TV weather man in girl?”

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Shelley Block ple! I preferred being around musicians. So I went to my college advisor and said, “Listen, I have all of these music credits, and I have all of these theater Continued from page 13 credits. Can I change my major to music, and use these theater credits for something else, as a double major?” The something else was communica- ple! I preferred being around musi- tions. A few months before graduating in 1978, I began sending out re- cians. So I went to my college advisor sumes. I got a phone call from a gentleman named John Barron, who owned and said, “Listen, I have all of these a summer stock theater company up in Forestburgh, New York, part of the music credits, and I have all of these Catskills. He interviewed me over the phone and hired me sight unseen to theater credits. Can I change my ma- be the Forestburgh Playhouse’s box office manager and the cabaret manag- jor to music, and use these theater er. I was twenty-one years old. credits for something else, as a dou- It was the worst job I ever had, but I learned so much. I performed my ble major?” The something else was own music in the cabaret, ran the box office, wrote press releases, cleaned communications. A few months be- toilets—I didn’t care. The experience also confirmed my earlier distaste for fore graduating in 1978, I began theater people. So when the summer ended, I was ready to get a regular job. sending out resumes. I got a phone call from a gentleman named John From Box Office to Office Barron, who owned a summer stock theater company up in Forestburgh, I wound up getting hired at an advertising agency, Cadwell Davis Savage, a New York, part of the Catskills. He subsidiary of Compton Advertising, which then was bought up by the huge interviewed me over the phone and Saatchi & Saatchi agency in 1985. I started as administrative assistant to hired me sight unseen to be the Franchielle “Frankie” Cadwell, one of the first women to have started her own ad company. I loved her; she was another big influence on my life. If you ever saw the movie The Devil Wears Prada, the Meryl Streep character was In Tribute: my boss; she looked like her, acted like her. Mr. Stephen Piorkowski During my two years there, I kept on writing music and singing. I lived with my parents for four months, and then my sister Abby and I moved to Mr. Stephen Piorkowski, truly a Forest Hills, Queens. Cindy, meanwhile, was living in Brooklyn. The ad agen- beloved teacher of English and also cy promoted me to junior copywriter. I wrote ad copy for Maxi Pads, tam- director of so many plays at Jericho pons, toothbrushes. Back then, there were real constraints and a lot of cen- High School, passed away on Sep- sorship. For instance, you couldn’t say “menstruation” or “period.’ They did- tember 15, 2017. It’s fitting that in n’t even let you say “that time of the month.” You had to say “those special this issue of the JHS alumni maga- days.” It was really screwed up! zine not just Shelley but also Corey From working on Madison Avenue, I started to get depressed. Like, seri- Pepper (’74) talk at length about ously depressed. I decided I wanted to live in Manhattan. For a year, I was what an important person he was basically a vagabond. I lived in all the different neighborhoods: Soho, in their lives. Tribeca, the Upper West Side. At one point, I roomed together with Anne Glussman, from the JHS class of 1974. I started seeing a therapist, and I realized I needed to sing again. One day, Frankie Cadwell and her partner, Herman Davis, the art direc- tor, called me into the conference room. They both loved me, although ex- actly why, I couldn’t tell you. She said, “Listen, we can see that you’re not yourself. We think you’re realty talented, but something is wrong. What is it?” I started crying, and I told them, “I want to go back to singing. I don’t think I want to be here.” The two of them were so kind. They suggested that I think about it for a month and then decide. When I did indeed give them thir- ty days’ notice—that seemed only fair—they couldn’t have been nicer. They threw me a big going-away party, and Frankie bought me a designer outfit from Fiorucci. Abby, who was still living in Forest Hills, was working at a law firm. One day she called me up and said, “Shelley, don’t get a job working as a wait- Continued on page 29

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rowing up in the Princeton Park section of Jericho was ness, you were a doctor, a lawyer, or you were a sales the best. Debi McLaughlin and Cheryl Rassell were my rep, like my father. Probably every adult I knew was in bestTakin’ friends. We Care were called ofthe “three Bidness! musketeers” either in retail, health care, or manufacturing. I don’t and were inseparable. We were all tomboys — even think I ever knew somebody’s dad who was, say, a writer or an artist. It didn’t dawn on me that some people write the books we read and make up the stories we loved for a living. I hire new assistants and many production assistants on most projects; people in their early twenties just start- ing out on their career paths. I marvel at kids today. They want to be storytellers, although they may not know how that will manifest in terms of a career. They have their eye on the big prize and have so many avenues open to them. Many want to be screenwriters, and even though they may end up doing something else, within or outside of the filmmaking process, they’ll be storytellers. With so many more outlets, including YouTube, blogs, and other venues that haven’t been invented yet, the sky is the limit. There is no financial barrier to getting your ideas into the world. If I thought about telling stories, it was only in my im- agination when I was playing. Nowadays, many high schools—and even my old summer

camp—have their own TV studios and radio stations. Everyone has an excellent video camera on their cell phone, but not in the 1970s. “Bob’ll Fix It!” Continued on page 16 Robert Simon (’72): Forty Years of Chasing Magic TV Producer Los Angeles, CA

ome people know who they are in high school, and some don’t. I was more in the second group. Looking back, I realize I could have been more S driven growing up. It was like, I’d be in a school play if chosen, but I didn’t go out of my way to look for my passion. I liked reading, I liked playing. I loved the outdoors, and still do. Bikes, too, were important to me, then and now. But I was insecure about stepping out; I was just getting by under the radar. I could have tried more things. I liked television as a kid but never thought about it Bob? Meet Bob: In April 2017, Bob was inducted as a career. I didn’t even consider that being in TV was a into the JHS Alumni Hall of Fame. Here he is with job and that real people made it their careers. That kind hall founder Mr. Bob Hoffman. Bob was wrapping of thing wasn’t available to us, because where we were up shooting the NBC series Quantico the very next raised, most people had a profession. You owned a busi - day and looking forward to going home to LA.

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as a teenager, the world opened up for me when I went to college at Georgia “I feel so bad for kids today coming out of Institute of Technology. I college saddled with such enormous debt. feel so bad for kids today You know much I paid for college? After my coming out of college sad- first semester, $7.50 per credit … When I tallied dled with such enormous up what my parents spent on my college debt. You know much I education, I joked to them once, ‘You know, paid for college? After my you can’t really hold that over my head!’” Robert Simon first semester, $7.50 per Continued from page 15 credit. Along with my lodg- ing and meal card, I think I paid $2,000 for my fresh- There are many ways to man year. That was largely Truthfully, I don’t know how I got accepted into flex your creative muscles, because I became a Geor- Georgia Tech for architecture and civil engineering, be- at least in the affluent gia resident; I did the same cause the school was in the top ten and took roughly schools. Unfortunately, thing when I transferred to the top 5 percent from high schools in the South, and there are a lot of practical the University of Florida in that definitely did not include me. My high school things our formal educa- my junior year. When I tal- grades were terrible. But I’d scored extremely high on tions don’t prepare us for. lied up what my parents the SAT—particularly in math—and that’s probably the I try to fill in those blanks spent on my college educa- only way I was able to get into a decent school. with new grads who come tion, I joked to them once, I turned over a new leaf once I got there. I’d never into the business. “You know, you can’t really worked so hard at education before. There were so One teacher at Jericho hold that over my head!” I many smart people around me that it forced me to sort High who was really im- guess bang for the buck of wake up and step up. I took calculus, organic chemis- portant for me was Mr. and financial puzzles were try, design. Going to college was also an awakening in Thomas Bryant, who taught in my DNA. that it was the first time I was truly free and on my own, mechanical drawing and except for having gone to metal shop and was also a sleepaway camp. I’d never been soccer coach. He was a in the South before. I made a lot real role model. Mr. Bryant Jane and husband Ed , of friends, some of whom still was the first adult of color who’s originally from live there (and many of whom that I knew. Jericho was a East Northport. The had never met a Jew before). great community, but there couple wed in 1986. One of my best friends is a dude was still a lot of racial bias. from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He Of course, it wasn’t like insists he’s not a redneck be- being in the South, my next cause he’s from northern Ala- stop after graduating high bama. He is still the smartest school. It was subtle. Peo- guy I know. There were no wom- ple in the neighborhood en to speak of at Georgia Tech. would have been nervous if so there was a minimum of on- “other” people moved in. I campus distractions, but Atlanta would say that my parents was full of them, so it was a would have reacted that great, fun time. I even had the way too. But Mr. Bryant opportunity to host the E Street was so intelligent, kind and Band. Bruce Springsteen and soft-spoken. It had to have company were an opening act been strange for him to be for the Beach Boys. Since it was the only African American Because Bob (shown here with classmate Amy early in their career, they had adult in the entire school. Lubow Downs) was in New York shooting Quantico minimal road money, so the Even though I would in September 2016, he was able to attend his first band would try to find local often venture into the city JHS reunion in a decade and a half. Continued on page 17

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Robert Simon Continued from page 16 housing. Clarence Clemons slept in my dorm bed. My life would collide with Bruce on more occasions down the road. At Georgia Tech, the easy classes were the liberal arts courses, like English, history, and the humanities, and many of the students would sleep through them. But those were the classes that fascinated me. I be- came more interested in education for education’s sake, whereas the focus at Georgia Tech felt more like vocational training. Getting you ready to be an engineer. So after my soph- omore year, some friends and I all transferred to the University of Flori- da in Gainesville. It was totally differ- ent from Georgia Tech, but after my Jane and husband Ed , folks dropped me off with my bags at who’s originally from LaGuardia Airport again, I figured out East Northport. The how to navigate another new place. couple wed in 1986. I began reading more, studying histo- ry, humanities, and philosophy. I had to pick a new major, of course. I changed from civil engineering to journalism, not because I necessarily wanted to become a journalist but because it seemed like the closest thing to literature and storytelling. And it led to my working in television: the school had a public broadcasting station, and I got a job there first as a cameraman and then as a director.

Culver City, CA: It Sounded So Swell

My first job out of college was as a cameraman at Long Island’s Cable- Continued on page 18

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State of the (Re)Union:

Don’t Miss “Unraveling of the Tribes 6,” Saturday, October 6, 2018

Robert Simon Continued from page 17 sion, Cable TV was really just getting off the ground. I’m not so sure that they cared about where I’d gone to college, or even if I’d My first job out of college was as a camer- aman at Long Island’s Cablevision, Cable TV was really just getting off the ground. I’m not so sure that they cared about where I’d gone to college, or even if I’d gone to college; it was more a matter that I was willing to work for minimum wage. I worked on a weekly news show with Larry Meli, also from Jericho; he was in the class of 1970, along with my sister, Phyllis. Larry and I are still friends. He lives near me now, in Malibu, and is a very success- ful businessman; in fact, we had lunch togeth- er just a few weeks ago. Ironically, around the same time that I moved from Florida back to Long Island, my Jane and husband Ed , parents sold our house on Merit Lane in East who’s originally from Birchwood and relocated to Fort Lauderdale. East Northport. The Eventually they moved again, to Boynton couple wed in 1986. Beach. My mom passed away four years ago, but my dad, who is now ninety-three, still lives there on his own, mostly independent. The sixth annual “Gathering leisure suit, and your clunky I spent a year and a half at Cablevision, of the Tribes” will be held on platform heels, and hustleon then I moved into Manhattan and started to Saturday night, October 6, down to the Homestead. The figure out what I wanted to do with my life. 2018, at the Homestead festivities begin at 7:00 p.m. I still remember going on my first interview restaurant/bar, 107 South We’ll also organize a beach for a job as production assistant on the film Street, in Oyster Bay. Only this picnic at Bayville’s Random The Eyes of Laura Mars. It was a psychological gathering is an Unraveling of Beach on Sunday the 7th, thriller, starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy the Tribes: the final formal and we’ll try to arrange a tour Lee Jones, and written by John Carpenter. This reunion. It’s going to be the of Jericho High School for would have been 1977. I showed up wearing best party you’ve ever been Saturday morning, as we’ve what I thought was appropriate attire: a blue to, so don’t miss this one. done in the past. sports coat and khaki dress pants. Unbe- It’s also our first 1970s- Click here for your knownst to me, the uniform for the movie in- themed reunion: “Return to invitation, which includes dustry was already just a T-shirt and jeans. PolyesterYear!” Check your directions, a list of places to The people doing the interviewing looked at mood ring, break out your stay, and every other conceiv- Continued on page 36 Huckapoo shirt, your denim able piece of information. ■

JHS Classes of 1968-1975 Online Magazine • Fall 2017 Page 19 T O O N S C A R T O O N S C A R T O O T O O N S C A R T O O N S C A R T By Dan Clurman (’72)

About Dan:

“I have been a coach and educator for the last thir- ty-plus years, deliv- ering train- ing and classes in nonprof- its organizations, universi- ties, and corporations. “I assist professionals, business people, couples, and students to more skill- fully navigate life transi- tions, as well as improve their communication and presentations. I also have a small practice as a Feld- enkrais® practitioner, a movement-based form of education. “I've cowritten a few books, Money Disagree- ments: How to Talk About Them and Conversations With Critical Thinkers, as well as a book of poems and drawings, Floating Upstream.” These toons are taken from Dan’s most recent book, You've Got to Draw the Line Somewhere, available for $15 at http://www.dantoons.com. Daniel Goleman, best- selling author of Emotional Intelligence, has this to say about You’ve Got to Draw the Line Some- where: “impish but point- ed, edgy and astute, wise, and just plain funny.”

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New Works from JHS Authors

Physical Therapist Bill Reif (’71) Feels Your Pain

ill Reif, from the JHS class of had unnecessary surgeries, but, B 1971, has been a physical unfortunately, they are still in pain.” therapist for going on forty years. A His e-book reveals what he graduate of both the State Universi- calls the Back Pain Secret. First, ty of New York at Buffalo (BS in by using the techniques explained physical therapy) and Emory Univer- and illustrated in TBPS, readers sity (MS in physical therapy), he are able to help identify the source has written his first e-book, The of their pain. Then through illustra- Back Pain Secret: The Real Cause tions, instructions, and sixteen of Women’s Back Pain and How to Continued on page 21 Treat It. Over the years, Bill observed that when women expe- rience back pain, “their source of pain is often very different from men.” To download According to Click Bill, many of his Bill and Linda Reif The Back Pain female patients bookended by their sons Secret ... Here “have seen count- Josh (left) and Jake. less doctors and

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Continued from page 20 Bill Reif exercise videos directly accessible through the e-book, they can learn how to how to alleviate their pain. To download The Back Pain Secret, simply click on the button at left. The book can be read on all Apple devices (iPad, iPhone, Macbook), with iBooks or the free kindle app or Google play books app, as well as on Android or Windows devices (tablets, phones, computers). Bill lives in Roswell, Georgia. He and wife Linda will be celebrating their thirty-fifth anniversary in 2018. ■ Top l., the new book jacket; above, the original cover. (That’s stalwart Roy White holding the bat; the only Philip Bashe (’72) Yank to suffer through the entire Gets Recycled ’65–’76 draught.) Far l., my original ’94 author’s photo. Hey, I was hree of author Philip Bashe’s having a poofy hair day. So shut up! T eighteen books are being Near l., my “current” photo. (It’s republished in the coming months, really from 2010, but I know you beginning with the November publi- won’t say anything.) cation of Dog Days: The New York Yankees’ Fall from Grace and Return Point Books, a publisher in Vermont ees stars trudged off the field at to Glory, 1964–1976, originally pub- that specializes in resurrecting de- Busch Stadium while the newly lished by Random House in 1994. serving titles that have gone out of crowned World Champion St. Louis Used to be, most books went out print. They were interested in repub- Cardinals joyfully mobbed winning of print after ten or more years, simp- lishing my biography of Rick Nelson, pitcher Bob Gibson, they had no rea- ly because, in the days before online Teenage Idol, Travelin’ Man: The son to assume that they wouldn’t book sales, mortar-and-brick book Complete Biography of Rick Nelson, return to the Fall Classic for a sixth stores had limited space. With thirty- published by Disney’s Hyperion com- consecutive year in 1965. After all, five thousand new titles published pany in 1992 and 1993. Then they they were the Bronx Bombers, who, annually, you couldn’t possibly stock looked at the list of books I’ve writ- in a dynasty stretching back to 1949, them all. ten and also wanted to republish had won the American League pen- The new model, with the advent Dog Days as well as Heavy Metal nant fourteen times in sixteen years, of online sales and books stored digi- Thunder, one of my first titles, pub- including nine World Series rings. tally, is “print on demand,” which lished by Doubleday in 1985.” The very next day, the Yankees means that, at least in theory, books Dog Days tells the tale of the na- cruelly fired rookie manager Yogi will never go out of print again. Yet tional pastime’s greatest franchise Berra, despite his having come with- they’ll still be available as traditional suddenly laid low, beginning with the in two runs of winning it all, and, books or as downloadable e-books. final out of the 1964 World Series. bizarrely, replaced him with none “Last summer,” Phil explains, “I As Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, other than the man who had just de- received a phone call from Echo Elston Howard, and the other Yan- Continued on page 22

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What’s more, they had to com- pete against the circus attraction They’re b-a-a- Continued from page 21 across town: the lovable losers c-k! Coming known as the New York Mets. It used out in 2018, Philip Bashe to be said that rooting for the peren- Teenage Idol nially winning Yankees was like root- and Heavy feated them: Cardinals skipper ing for US Steel. They were coldly Metal Johnny Keane. efficient, inspiring loyalty but not nec- Thunder. Poor Johnny Keane will forever be essarily love. Then here came the remembered as the Herbert Hoover of expansion Mets, under another be- baseball: the wrong man in the wrong loved manager that the Yankees had place at the wrong time. When the cut loose unceremoniously following opportunity to manage the Yankees the 1960 World Series: Casey Sten- Steve Hamil- came along—secretly, in August 1964, gel. The 1964 Mets, now playing in a ton’s “Folly when it appeared that both New York pop-art ballpark, Shea Stadium, bor- Floater”: a and St. Louis were destined to finish dering the New York World’s Fair, high-arcing well out of the running in their respec- finished last for a third consecutive stop-action lob tive leagues—he couldn’t believe his season yet outdrew the Yankees. that hung tan- good fortune, Not long into the 1965 Unfortunately for the Bombers, talizingly in the season, he couldn’t believe how fate falling on tough times did not confer air before waft- had tricked him. upon them the rock-star popularity ing down as if The perennial Yankees dynasty, that the Mets enjoyed. And when the by parachute. beginning with the 1921 team led by Amazin’s achieved the impossible in Every time the mighty Babe Ruth, plunged into 1969, going from ninth place to win- Hamilton decline, finishing dead last in 1966— ning it all, they only lured more New tossed it, the by which time, Johnny Keane was long York fans from the Bronx to Queens. crowd went gone. Three months after the season The young Mets were the team of bonkers. Most ended, he died of a massive heart Woodstock; the Yankees still repre- opposing hit- attack at age fifty-five. But, says Bob- sented the stodgy establishment. ters fell into by Richardson, who’d just retired after They tried bucking that image, the appropri- a decade as the team’s steady sec- engaging in sideshows that the Old ate spirit, ond baseman, “I really think Johnny Yankees would have considered laughing as died of a broken heart.” blasphemous, such as manager they hacked It would take New York eleven tor- Ralph Houk’s bringing in recent away madly. In a June game against tuous seasons to rebuild and return to acquisition Rocky Colavito—one of Cleveland, Tony Horton begged Ham- the World Series. Bear in mind that the preeminent sluggers of the ilton to throw him one. After popping free agency was still years away, and 1950s and 1960s, now winding up weakly to second, the Indians first the Yankees’ owners had allowed the down his career in the Bronx—to hurl baseman crawled back to the dugout franchise’s fabled farm system to go 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief on his hands and knees in mock barren before selling to team the CBS. against the first-place Detroit Tigers shame. “The pinnacle of the Folly This odyssey between pennants saw in August 1968. Floater,” Hamilton called it. aging players retire or fade away. A Light-hitting shortstop Gene Still, attendance at Yankee Stadi- parade of replacements—men such as “Stick” Michael, known for his base- um lagged far behind their crosstown Roger Repoz, John Ellis, Celerino ball cunning, distinguished himself rivals. At one infamous game at in Sanchez, Steve Whitaker, and the in- as a master of the hidden-ball trick. September 1966, a mere 413 fans famous Horace Clarke, who, some- He employed it twice in crucial situa- braved misty weather for a day game what unfairly, came to epitomize this tions during the 1970 season, which against the White Sox. “I don’t think sorry era in Yankees history—faced marked the first time New York had it was even that many,” recalls rook- the unenviable task of competing not won ninety or more games since that ie right fielder Steve Whitaker. “It only against the rest of the American last pennant year of 1964. was so quiet that Clete Boyer and I League but also against the club’s Another highlight of 1970 was carried on an entire conversation own storied past. the comic relief provided by reliever Continued on page 23

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(Left) Just another morning at the Bashe household circa 1985. Put up Continued from page 22 the coffee, turn on the smoke machine. Naw, Patty and I were Philip Bashe hanging at noted photographer Mark Weiss’s Manhattan studio the day he without having to shout.” Boyer, who was shooting the cover to my book guarded the hot corner, was on the Heavy Metal Thunder, using a model other side of the ballpark. Another from Montreal. After he’d finished time, in 1967, someone called the and turned off the smoke machine, office of charismatic team president he said he had some film left and Michael Burke, to find out what time took a few shots of us for fun. “Hello, the game started that night. Cleveland! Are you ready to rock?” “What time can he get here?” Burke deadpanned. As for illicit drug use, which was But eventually, year by year, new just beginning to infiltrate society at stars emerged: Roy White, Bobby large, the counterculture couldn’t Murcer, Rookies of the Year Stan compete with Major League Base- Bahnsen (’68) and Thurman Munson ball, where for decades players had (’70), Ron Blomberg, Sparky Lyle, been routinely gobbling ampheta- Graig Nettles, Catfish Hunter. And a mines—pep pills, or Greenies—for new dynasty would be christened on new generation of second basemen energy. Now other substances found a chilly October evening in 1976 how to bail on the double play.” their way into the clubhouse. when first baseman Chris Chambliss Dog Days also examines the Yan- One of the more colorful charac- rocketed a ball into the right-field kees’ struggle in the context of the ters of the 1970s, pitcher Dock Ellis, stands at the renovated ballpark in societal changes taking place in the won seventeen games for the Yan- the bottom of the ninth of the final 1960s and 1970s. On one hand, kees in 1976, the year they finally game of the AL playoffs, breaking a baseball was a microcosm of Ameri- finished first, under Billy Martin. He 6–6 tie and catapulting New York ca, but in certain respects, it was may be better remembered, though, back into the Fall Classic at long last. well ahead of the rest of the country. for the time when, as a star on the “Most of my books are about se- Jackie Robinson broke the color bar- Pittsburgh Pirates, he forgot where rious subjects,” explains Phil, who rier in 1947. By the 1960s, most he was and wandered out onto the has written about parenting, medi- teams were well integrated—even the field wearing pink hair curlers. Or the cine and science, caring for the seri- Yankees, whose racist general time in 1970 when he pitched a no- ously ill, biotechnology, addiction, manager, George Weiss, had resist- hitter while tripping on acid. and cancer prevention and treat- ed signing black players longer than “I got my days mixed up,” Ellis ment, among other subjects. “I’m most of his contemporaries, a factor explained, “and thought I wasn’t proud of all of them, and I love re- that contributed later to the fran- pitching until the next day. So I searching and interviewing, whether chise’s decline. dropped a tab. Then I got to the ball- I’m sitting down with renowned phy- Talented lefty Al Downing, who park and found out it was my turn to sicians, scientists, or musical artists. grew up in Trenton, recalls how, as a start.” In nine innings, he didn’t But I have to admit that it was spe- joke, he and two other black players, allow a single hit to the purple- cial fun talking with about 150 of the Elston Howard and Hector Lopez, melting-demon-headed San Diego players that I grew up rooting for as a used to stand in front of the team’s Padres, although Ellis had no long-suffering Yankees fan: Murcer, Fort Lauderdale hotel during spring memory of the game whatsoever. White, Houk, Hunter, Chambliss, Mi- training. “We knew that sooner or Not to mention most of the 1976 chael, Lou Piniella, Bobby Cox, Tom later somebody would come up, season in the Bronx, which he float- Tresh, Tony Kubek, Jim Bouton, and, hand us their keys, and say, ‘Hey, ed through in a drug-induced haze. yes, the immortal Horace Clarke. At mind parking my car?’” At the Yan- “I was usually down in the corner the time, he was back in his native kee Clipper Hotel, “the black players of the dugout, high, messing with the Virgin Islands working as a baseball were allowed to eat in only one of the camera guy,” he recalled. In the Big instructor—presumably teaching a dining rooms.” Continued on page 41

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(Above) Mrs. Kuferberg is close to a number of her former students and is a regular presence on Facebook. On a recent visit to see her son in California, she met up for lunch with the class of ’75’s Pamela Lopez in Burbank.

Our home high school was Tilden Mrs. Joan Kupferberg High. But neither I nor my brothers went there. Allan went to Stuyvesant At 84, She Might Be Retired from Teaching … High, and Arthur went to Polytech High. I went to the High School of But Not from Performing! Music and Art, in Manhattan. My par- ents had heard of it, and when I was grew up in Brooklyn in a half private teacher who held annual re- in eighth grade, I took the admis- musical family: my father played citals in Carnegie Recital Hall, so I sions test and passed. To get in, I violin, and my mother sang. My got to perform there every year. Then though, you needed a recommenda- two brothers, however, are not musi- I continued with another very fine tion from your principal, and Mr. cal, although one time my younger teacher until I was twenty. And in Withers, the principal of Winthrop brother said to me, “Why did you let high school, I also began taking voice Junior High, refused! me stop taking piano lessons?” He lessons. My parents were furious, and regretted not continuing. I said, they scheduled a conference. The “Arthur, I’m your sister, I’m not your principal explained his reasoning, mother. It wasn’t up to me.” I have a such as it was: “Look, Joan is too gorgeous six-foot Steinway piano in young to be traveling to the city. Give my home, and every time Arthur her a year to grow. Here she’s a big comes over, he sits down at the pi- fish in a little pond. There she’s going ano and plays. That was my retire- to be a very little fish in a very big ment present to myself, when I re- pond.” tired from Jericho High School in So I didn’t begin at the High 1988. Because I never used up all School of Music and Art until my my sick days, I received an extra sophomore year, which I really year’s salary, which was … very nice! resented. I missed a lot. That really I bought the piano and put the rest wasn’t Mr. Withers’s decision to into annuities. make; it should have been left up to I’m eighty-four years old, and I’ve my parents. But that was the way it been playing the piano since I was Joan Brooks performing at the age was. four. At age six, my mother got me a of twenty. Continued on page 25

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lives up in the Albany area, con- Mrs. Joan Kupferberg ducting and writing music and AccordionThe family never that plays together …. Continued from page 24 arrangement. He is amazing. lookedShelley so and good husband ... Alan Gerber. I still lived at home with my “The Happiest Time I Ever Had in parents while attending Hunter. I School” spent a lot of my early life on the train: I went to high school in The High School of Music and Art Manhattan by train, and I went to was the most fantastic school. It was college in Manhattan by train. the happiest time I ever had in I started off wanting to be a school. And I still have friends from performer. But my mother said, there. We meet every once in a while “That’s not practical. Get yourself and have mini reunions. It’s a won- a teaching degree.” Which I did. I derful feeling. I have one friend who didn’t use it, though, for a very recently lost his wife, and he was a long time. Beginning around the mess, and I said, “Why don’t you age of twenty, I started doing come down here for a change of club dates. All different kinds. I scenery? Clear your head up a bit.” I played at conventions. I did wed- met him when I was fourteen years dings, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs. I also performed at a lot of “twenty-five- old! Seventy years later, we’re still year clubs.” These were clubs for people who’d been with a company for friends. twenty-five years. They were rewarded with a lovely dinner—and me! I played It was a fairly small school; I the pop tunes of the day: “Bewitched,” “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” think my graduating class of 1950 and later on, “Sweet Caroline” and “Proud Mary.” had about 220 students, 98 percent I also sang in many languages. So if someone in the audience asked me of whom went on to college. It was a to sing a song in Italian, I could. Hungarian? I could. German? Ja! (I played tough school, with a passing grade of at a lot of Oktoberfests.) I also sang in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Spanish. 75. What a pleasure it was to be sur- In the club-date business, you have to know those languages. And if I rounded by other boys and girls who didn’t know a particular language, one of my many women friends who were were as passionate about the arts as also in the club-date business could teach it to me. For example, I had a I was. And the teachers were marvel- Hungarian friend who taught me a famous old Hungarian love song. I once ous and very committed. The classes played a club date where violinist Yitzhak Pearlman was a guest, and his were small, so you received a lot of friend, who was a very famous violist, from Hungary, was also there. And I individual attention. I received such was strolling the party, and the friend looked at me and said, “Magyar?” a good foundation at M&A. The Meaning “Hungarian?” I sang that song for him, and he was thrilled! courses were so advanced that when Most of the clubs I played were in New York and New Jersey. But I also I got to Hunter College, I was able to performed at the opening of the Boston Aquarium and did a lot of home par- go directly into sophomore and even ties in Connecticut. My instrument then was the accordion, which was es- junior classes. That’s how far ahead sentially the forerunner of the electronic keyboard. I have one now, and I we were of kids from other schools. hate it! I’m a Renaissance woman: I like an acoustic piano. But what can Many of the graduates went on you do? You need something portable. Electronic keyboards are here to to do fabulous things. Bernie Nero stay. was in one of my classes. You proba- bly know of him as Peter Nero, the At Age Thirty, a Sour Note famous pianist. Another classmate, Eli Levine, became a well-known mu- When I was thirty, I developed a double vocal cord hemorrhage due to an sic educator in jazz, under the name undiagnosed allergy to aspirin. I went to a doctor to see what could be done Lee Evans. You know who else at- to repair the damage. He dissuaded me from undergoing laryngeal surgery. tended the School for Music and Art? “If you have the operation, you’ll never sing again,” he said bluntly. This was Alan Arnold, who many years later the same surgery that Julie Andrews underwent many years later, and look was largely responsible for my teach- what happened there: it ended her singing career. He suggested a noninva- ing in the Jericho district. I’ll tell you sive option: vocal coaching. There were no guarantees it would help. But I you about that in a moment. Alan Continued on page 26

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“What’s the matter?” I asked Mrs. Joan Kupferberg him. “Every day, I cried. Continued from page 25 He said sadly, “I lost something I cried, and I cried. today.” I had no idea what he was I just couldn’t get decided to try. He gave me the referring to. the hang of teaching names of three teachers; I picked “Well, what did you lose?” seventh-grade the one who lived closest to me. He looked at me and said, “I lost For a long time, not only couldn’t you.” music.” I sing but also I couldn’t even speak. “What does that mean?” I was It was very difficult because I had really confused. two young children: my daughter was He explained: “The registration in “and,” I confessed, “I don’t have a six, and my son, three. I had to pan- the district is down, and they are clue what the repertoire is.” He kind- tomime everything. My doctor was closing the Robert Williams Elemen- ly went through his material and he very wise. When we were discussing tary School. Therefore, teachers who gave me a packet. “Here,” he said. the course of therapy, he suggested, do not have tenure are being dis- “This should carry you through your “Go back to school, get your mas- missed. The choral director at the whole first year.” ter’s degree, and start to teach.” middle school and the high school Now I go in to meet the chairman Which I did, at Queens College. And was the last one hired. He’s now out, of the music department, Bill Kupfer- that’s how I came to Jericho, by way and you’re in.” berg. And … I didn’t like him at all! of Wantagh. “But I don’t want to go there!” I He was kind of nasty. Truthfully, he I’d been teaching in Wantagh for protested. “I want to stay right here didn’t want me, and I didn’t want six months. Alan Arnold happened to at Jackson.” But there was nothing I him. He liked the guy who had just be the organist in my temple, and could do about it. In the fall, I’d be been dismissed, and he didn’t want one day in 1965, he took me aside moving up to the junior high school an elementary school teacher, But and said, “A job just opened up in and the high school. what he didn’t know was that my the Jericho district at the George A. training and my degree were in sec- Jackson Elementary School. I’m go- Face to Face with Intimidating Mr. K. ondary music. ing to bring you an application. I presented him with all of the You’re going to get that job.” A longtime friend of mind was the music my friend had given me and So I filled out the application and choral director at Hicksville High, the said, “I’d like to use this for the mid- sat down for an interview with Dr. school my own kids attended. I ex- dle school and the high school.” He Carey, who was the superintendent plained to him that I was being took one look at it and groaned. of schools at the time. He said, moved up to the secondary level, Continued on page 27 We’ve had four music teachers in this school, and they have not been successful. How are you going to make the kids like music?” I replied honestly, “You can’t make kids like anything. I hope that they like me. And maybe if they like me, they’ll like what I like.” He said, “You’re hired.” I spent ten happy years there. Every spring we had a concert, and beforehand, I would invite Mr. John Bolles, the principal, and the teach- ers who were going to serve as chap- erones to my house in Hicksville for dinner. Then from there, we’d all go to the school for the performance. In 1975, at the preshow dinner, Mr. Bolles wasn’t acting like himself. JHS yearbook photos for Mrs. Joan Greenberg and Mr. William Kupferberg.

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Mrs. Joan Kupferberg 82 school year. It was only then that we told David Nydick, the school superintendent, that we’d gotten Continued from page 26 married. Bill was a marvelous, very accomplished trombone “The cost of all that music,” he said, “is more money player. In his twenties, he was first trombone for the San than I have in the entire music budget! I have to repair Antonio Symphony and also played for the Baltimore instruments; there are many things that have to be done Symphony. His sound on the instrument was exquisite: in the music department that don’t involve you. So you he made is sound like a cross between a French horn can’t have that music! We have a music library. Go pick and a cello, which is not a traditional trombone sound. out your music from there.” He was headed for the New York Philharmonic, but first I went home, and I cried. What a nasty guy! Then they wanted him in Pittsburgh, which had a very fine came the first day of school. I meet my first class. Sev- symphony. However, his wife at the time didn’t want to enth grade. It’s 7:20 a.m. Make a seventh-grader sing at travel; she wanted to be back in Brooklyn near her moth- 7:20 in the morning? You feel like er and father. (Bill grew up in the an animal trainer in the circus. And Bronx. It seems like everyone who guess who’s in the class? A lot of taught at Jericho came from either the kids that I’d had at Jackson. the Bronx or, like me, from Brook- And they’d turned into little hel- lyn.) So he gave up his career as a lions. They didn’t want me; they musician and went into teaching. wanted a new teacher! They’d had He had taught previously at the me every year throughout elemen- Peabody Institute at Johns Hop- tary school. And they gave me the kins University in Baltimore, which business. is similar to Juilliard. He and his Every day, I cried. I cried, and I wife moved to Long Island, and he cried. I just couldn’t get the hang got a teaching position in Com- of teaching seventh grade music. mack. Then an opportunity The saving grace was the high opened up in Westbury as chair- school. The students there were man of the Music Department. He marvelous. was there for many years. Finally, Bill Kupferberg saw what was The Kupferbergs married in 1981, while the same job became available in going on and called me into his of- both were still teaching at JHS, but they Jericho, which was a step up from fice. He said to me, “Joan, if you didn’t tell the district superintendent until Westbury. Bill auditioned and was can get through a whole week the end of the ’81–’82 school year, when hired. without crying, the department is Mr. K. retired. See, you weren’t the only The kids all loved him. The stu- going to take you out for a drink one afraid of the superintendent! dents used to hang out in the Mu- on a Friday.” Sometime in October, sic Department office all the time. it finally happened: I didn’t cry once all week. So a group He was a very sweet and gentle man. I told you how I of us went out to the Milleridge Inn. Then the following didn’t like him the first time I met him. He had a goatee week, I started getting the hang of it, and I made it to at the time. One day I said to him, “You know, you look Friday again without crying. “Well, then,” he said, “we’re like Mephistopheles! You’re really frightening looking. going to take you out again.” This went on for weeks. But underneath, you’re really a marshmallow!” Finally, one day he sad to me, “Tell you what. The He shrugged. “Just don’t tell the kids,” he said. other music teachers aren’t really drinkers, so I’ll take you out.” And that’s how a relationship began to build Her Carnegie Recital Hall Debut—At Age Forty-Two between Bill K. and myself. From there, the relationship grew and grew. His marriage was on the rocks; my mar- I taught another seven years at Jericho after Bill retired. I riage was on the rocks. We both got divorced. And in had a lot of fun there, I must say. Although most of the 1981, we got married. We didn’t tell anybody, though. kids were into rock, when I taught them the Crucifixus The kids might have suspected something, but none of from the Mass in B minor, by Johan Sebastian Bach, they the teachers knew. Bill had taught in Jericho since the went crazy over it! Now, these were mostly Jewish kids late 1960s, and he was retiring at the end of the 1981– Continued on page 28

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and Broadway in Manhattan, and I overheard one of the waiters ask the Mrs. Joan Kupferberg head waiter, “Who’s doing the music?” And the head waiter gestured to- Continued from page 27 ward me and said, “Le vecchia.” That’s Italian for “the old one.” I came home, and, let me tell you, I was furious. I said to Bill, “That’s it, I’m not ac- singing a Latin mass. (We were not cepting any more dates. No one is going to call me ‘the old one’ again!” allowed to teach religious music, so I Bill, too, continued to work as a musician after retiring from teaching. taught it as a historical piece—that’s He was first trombone in a number of big bands and also managed the Long how I got around it.) I had them sing- Island Philharmonia. He continued to perform, also in big bands, after we ing in almost every language you moved down to Florida in 1997. We had a beautiful home in Glen Cove. But could conceive us—Spanish, Hebrew, the winter of 1995−96, we had something like seventeen snowstorms. German, French, Yiddish, Italian— Now, we lived on a hill, with a huge driveway. It was easy to slide down it, and they took to it like ducks to wa- but not so easy to get up it. And I was the snow shoveler; I was getting tired ter. They loved it because it of shoveling snow all the was something new. time. One day I just said, In addition, I had a Sweet “Bill! Enough! I want out of Adeline group, with the girls. here.” We had friends in a Singing a capella is so in community in Boynton nowadays, and that’s what Beach. We came down, this was: music from the looked around, and eventual- 1920s. Then there was a ly bought our home (off madrigal group, too. I used to Piper’s Glen Boulevard, be- set a table onstage, with a tween Jog and El Clair Ranch nice lace cloth, candlesticks, Roads, for those of you who and a bowl of fruit in the mid- know the area). dle, and the students would sit around the table and sing Mrs. K.’s Joy and Sorrow madrigals. It was absolutely children beautiful! You know, when Teddy and It was a very easy transition you give something new and Jan recently for both of us. I like green challenging to a student, they (left) and not and warm weather, so we grasp it. I also taught the so recently were very happy down here. boys how to sing barbershop (above). Bill developed bladder can quartet. cer, and appeared to have The whole time I was beaten it. Unfortunately, in teaching, I never really stopped per- 2014 it returned. I asked the oncologist if there were any treatments for forming. In 1975, at the age of forty- Bill. He said no, because Bill had related kidney failure, and the chemo two, I made my debut as a classical would have killed him. bell canto mezzo soprano (isn’t that “How long have I got?” Bill asked. The doctor replied, “Six months.” He a mouthful!) at the Carnegie Recital lasted only three. He had a very difficult death. At the end, we had hospice Hall and got good reviews, including care, and they were marvelous; I cannot say enough about hospice care. one from music critic Robert Sher- But Bill was in such pain. At seven o’clock in the evening, they called in a man of the New York Times. I sang in critical-care nurse, who kept administering morphine. By three in the morn- several small regional opera compa- ing, he was gone. I was happy that he was out of pain, finally, but so sad nies. I played the Egyptian princess that Bill had to suffer so. He just didn’t deserve it. He was ninety. Amneris in Aida; Cherubino in The Both Bill and I had two children, from our first marriages. My daughter, Marriage of Figaro; Mercedes in Car- Jan, just turned sixty. She was a teacher, too, of children from infancy to age men; and I also played the witch in three, which has always been her passion. Now she writes curricula for that Hansel and Gretel, which was my age group. She lives in Annandale, Virginia. And my son, Teddy, is a Grammy favorite role. I love singing opera; Award−winning musician and soundman. (Two Grammys, to be exact.) He that’s how I got my jollies. attended the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts as a percussion major; I did stop playing club dates, he’s a really good drummer. But around 2004, he switched to sound engi- though, when I turned fifty-five. This neering, and he’s been doing it ever since, running his own studio in Bur- is why: I was performing at the Amer- bank. He oversaw the sound for the documentary Standing in the Shadows icana Hotel at Fifty-Second Street Continued on page 29

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Mrs. Joan Kupferberg Shelley Block ed me up with Joshua Green (whose father, Hal Continued from page 28 Continued from page 14 Green, was the musical director for a lot of the of Motown, which won a Grammy. The second Grammy ress or in a bar. I’m work- great Broadway musicals) came from his having engineered singer Chaka Kahn, ing on this new system for ear-training lessons. who appeared in the film. called Wang. It’s word pro- Except for Mr. Sandy Va- I have two grandchildren, from Bill’s daughters, Alice cessing. This is like the lerio at Jericho, I’d never and Julie. (He also had a son, Eric.) Our granddaughter hot new thing.” had a really good voice just graduated from Oxford University with her master’s. I hung up on her. “I’m coach before until Terri And my grandson has a master’s in engineering; he not doing that!” I huffed. DiLeva. works for one of the auto companies in Detroit. But then I thought about I studied with a voice I’ve had a very varied, exciting career. I never knew it, and an hour later I teacher while at SUNY what I was going to do next. For fifteen years, I was the called my sister back. Oswego, but in four years, organist in a temple in Roslyn, Long Island, and for five First, I apologized. Then I we never really found a years at the temple we belonged to in Sands Point. Then asked for the information connection. He never I was the accompanist for the cantor at a temple down for how I could learn word showed me how to apply here. processing. Before long, I classical singing tech- I’m also part of a group, Les Dames, made up of five was getting sent out on niques to the material women. We perform in senior communities, libraries, jobs. Next, I got a job at a that I was doing. That’s independent living facilities. Basically, anyone who’ll hire law firm. As for my sing- what I mean by connect- us, we’ll be there. It’s a really nice act. We sing songs ing, I began studying with ing the dots. Back in sev- based on our lives: songs about our kids, about being an excellent vocal coach, enth grade, there was a addicted to chocolate, and sex! The oldest, a soprano, is Terri DiLeva. She was lovely chorus teacher, eighty-nine; the youngest is sixty-eight—a mere baby. amazing. It was like she Joan Ganz Kramer. (She’s They love singing, and their voices are absolutely beauti- connected the dots for married to Mr. Herb Kra- ful. It’s fun. My belief is, if you have a passion, never give me. She taught me about mer, the science teacher.) it up. Do it as long as you can. So I think I’ll be playing the mix: mixing the chest She told my parents, that Steinway until my last breath. voice with the head voice, “Your daughter has a I always considered my Jericho chorus kids my chil- and then making it sound gift,” and suggested that I dren. Sometimes after a concert, I would invite them to like one voice. She used would benefit from private the house and throw a party for them. I loved these kids. to have me listen to differ- voice lessons. Loved them. And we had a good time together. They per- ent recordings. For in- But my dad was a formed beautifully, and they learned so well. Now I get to stance, if you listen to New York City school- converse with them on Facebook, which is wonderful. Barbra Streisand singing teacher; my mom was a Many of them were Bill’s students. What I like about it is “People,” it sounds like stay-at-home mother. that we are politically connected, and we all rant and she’s belting it out. But There’d just been a rave together. I’m so proud of the men and women they she wasn’t. She was sing- lengthy teachers’ strike, have become. ■ ing in her mix voice. She and prior to that, my dad had a strong head voice. had been through thyroid It was a revelation for me. cancer and a huge can- Then she said to me—and cerous mass in his neck. I tell my own students this He nearly died on the op- all the time—“Everyone is erating table. My parents going to tell you you’re were hanging on for dear fabulous. But then you life financially, and I didn’t have to evaluate, Are you want them worrying about really fabulous?” The oth- coming up with the money er thing I realized was that for me to take voice les- Mrs. K. (far left) singing with Les Dames. Click here to I had pitch problems sons. So I made up a lie. hear the ladies: ♫♫♫♫♫. sometimes. So she hook- Continued on page 30

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Shelley Block out that he was a full-time jazz musi- soon as they walked in, I said, “I just Continued from page 29 cian, composer, and arranger, and met my father of my children.” he played all kinds of music, and he “What!!??!” Of course, they im- “I don’t need voice lessons,” I told was from New Jersey, and his name mediately thought I was pregnant. I them. “I’m a natural singer.” It was was Alan Gerber. This was 1983. reassured them that I wasn’t. “I the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I never thought this would hap- mean, I met the father of my future pen, but after just one hour of meet- children.” At a Songwriting Workshop, Finding ing him, it was literally love at first I was dating a lot of lawyers at Inspiration—and a Husband sight. We both fell instantly in love. that time. So they asked, “Is it Rich- He was living in New Jersey, and I ard?” “No.” “Is it that other one?” During the day, I was working at the had my own apartment on East Nine- “No. It’s a guy named Alan Ger- law firm. At night, I was performing a ty-Fourth Street and Third Avenue. ber. He’s a musician.” one-woman show around Manhat- Alan drove me back to my apartment Dead silence. Finally my mother tan, at places like the Horn of Plenty and said, “I have a bunch of gigs to- said, “Shelley, you’re a musician. You Restaurant in the Village and the In- morrow, Saturday, and Sunday. But need to be with a lawyer; someone ner Circle. I sang mostly my own who’s going to support you,” blah songs but also Stevie Wonder, Rickie blah blah. “No, that’s not in the Lee Jones, a showtune. Just a cool cards. I like musicians, what can I tell mix of different styles. you?” On the advice of one of the law I went over the Alan’s house on partner’s wives, in 1983 I attended a Sunday night, and we wrote this Thursday night songwriters’ work- great song together called “We Can’t shop run by a songwriter named Lou Take It Back.” We fell madly in love, Stallman, who’d penned a great and by Monday night, he told me that 1960s r&b hit, “It’s Gonna Take a he wanted to marry me. I told him Miracle.” I loved the class, in which the same. And … that was it. We Shelley and her parents circa 2012. you had to write a song a week and were inseparable. I moved in with then debut it in front of the others why don’t you come out to my house him shortly after, and then we got and receive feedback. We’d just go Sunday night, and we’ll work togeth- married a year later. And the only around the room. er on a song for the next workshop?” reason we waited that long was that One night, I performed early. We exchanged numbers. my parents had moved to California About a half hour into the class, this The next morning, I‘m walking and his family had moved to Texas, really cute guy walks in. He’s ex- down Third Avenue on my way to so it took a bit of doing to get every- tremely late, and I’m pissed off, work, and I’m thinking to myself, Oh body together. We had a beautiful thinking, Who the hell does this guy my God, I’m in love. This is going to wedding at the Livingston Country think he is? He sits rights across be my husband. I just met my hus- Club in Short Hills, New Jersey. Natu- from me, cute as can be. But I’m band. I’m going to marry this guy. rally, our first dance was to the song thinking to myself, Oh, I can’t wait to And unbeknownst to me, he was that he played in class when we first hear the crap that he’s gonna play. thinking the same thing. met, “Find Me Someone to Love.” He plays this r&b song he wrote, On Saturday I went to Abby’s The two of us also performed four “Find Me Someone to Love.” It was house in Queens for dinner with her songs, including ”We Can’t Take It one of the most beautiful songs I and my parents. She opened the Back.” ever heard. And I am looking at him, door and says, “What’s up?” I said, Alan got me into singing more like, Are you kidding me? Holy crap! “I’m in love. I just met my future hus- jazz and expanded my horizons. He’s (Not crap.) When the class is over, band!” a world-class pianist and synthesist, this crazy guy comes running over to She rolled her eyes. “You’re out and if I’m to be honest, he’s more me. “Listen,” he says, “I missed your of your mind. Whatever you do, don’t talented than I am. That’s why he’s song. I’d really like to hear it. Do you tell Mommy and Daddy; it’ll just up- been able to make music his full- want to get something to eat?” set them.” time career, which is remarkable. I said sure. We wound up talking And I didn’t tell them I’d met my He’s never done anything else. for, like, three hours, and it turned soon-to-be husband. Instead, as Continued on page 31

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Shelley Block me, kissed my hand, and said, ”My dear, you have a lovely voice.” I al- Continued from page 30 most fainted because he was really handsome! Alan was laughing the I can understand why musicians, whole time. Afterward, he said, “I and actors, and artists often fall in gotta tell you, that’s one good- love. Creating together is a very inti- looking guy. And he’s a king! Good mate act. Alan and I speak the same for you!” language; we don’t have to explain anything to each other. We get it. We Motherhood + Music = Magical began working together, performing Mania at weddings, parties, Bar Mitzvahs. We also began recording. Alan rec- We named our daughter Jazlana. I orded a few commercial jingles, suppose she might be the only per- which I sang on. You’d go to this one son by that name in the world, be- mall in New Jersey, and you’d hear cause we made it up. My husband the mall’s “theme” over the PA sys- wanted a musical theme, but we also tem every fifteen minutes: “The val- wanted her name to include letters ue is alive … at Feedmill Plaza!” Well, from the names of my deceased that was us. grandmothers Jenny and Leah, plus I sang the national anthem at Shelley Block Alan’s grandma, Lillian. Originally, in Shea Stadium a number of times, MVP— Most Valuable the hospital, we had a hyphen in which was a thrill because to this Performer of the Anthem there somewhere. But it became day, despite everything, I’m a Jazlana. Our son, Jess, came along diehard Mets fan. “The Star- five and a half years later, in 1996. Spangled Banner” isn’t as hard to Kensington House Hotel. (By then, Once we had a child, I realized sing as people think, but what’s real- he was actually the former king, that one of us had to have a more ly hard is that when you sing in a Greece having abolished its monar- stable thing going on other than mu- large venue, you have to contend chy in the 1970s.) I’ve never been a sic, so I took a full-time job at the with what we call the “bounceback.” royalty fanatic—in fact, I think they’re investment firm Lehman Brothers in When you’re singing into the micro- jokes, really—but this was pretty cool. its creative resources department. A phone “By the dawn’s early light,” Princess Diana was there, along with funny thing happened: they kept on you’re hearing “Oh, say can you much of the European royalty. Continued on page 32 see?” echoing throughout the stadi- I have to tell you, they treated um. You have to wear earplugs. the musicians nicer than we’d ever The first time I sang there was been treated in the United States. 1987, the year after the great Mets They had a French chef prepare us a team of 1986 won the World Series. meal before we performed, and the Gary Carter, Ron Darling, Darryl charming Greek consul gave me a Strawberry, Dwight Gooden. What a private tour of all the rooms. No one thrill. I sang at Shea until about knew I was in my first trimester, but I 1994; after that, life got in the way. sure did. I felt like shit. My mother-in- In June 1990, I’d just found out law, who owned a clothing store, got that I was pregnant with our first me gowns to wear that would accom- child. Alan got a call seeking a key- modate my newly acquired huge boardist and vocalist to be flown to breasts. London for a special gig with a thir- The gig lasted eight hours non- teen-piece band. It wasn’t until we stop, so I was exhausted by the end. turned up at JFK Airport that we were It was around four o’clock in the “Can I keep the chair as a souvenir?” told it was a fiftieth birthday party for morning, and I thought I was going to An exhausted (and pregnant) Shelley King Constantine II of Greece at the die. King Constantine came over to relaxes after performing for royalty.

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Shelley Block I lost interest in singing dur- ing this time that we were dis- Continued from page 31 placed. I just focused on our kids and on my job, which I was now promoting me. I discovered that alt- doing for the investment bank hough I was this crazy, artsy person, UBS. Same job as at Lehman the other side of my brain worked ex- Brothers, but at four times the tremely well: organization, focus, and compensation. I became the di- also, I got shit done! rector of the Presentations De- We’d bought a house in Middlesex, partment, putting together the New Jersey, in 1986. So in addition to slick PowerPoint presentations, working full-time, I was raising a baby, and other types, that the bankers maintaining a household, and then would rely when they went out to recording until two in the morning. pitch businesses or existing cli- While making demos together, we’d ents. keep Jazlana on her little play mat. Having been a performer Three hours of sleep, and then I was helped me in terms of being able up to catch a train into Manhattan and to walk into meetings with confi- work eight hours. dence and having good interper- If you lived on the East Coast, you sonal skills. But corporate Ameri- Shelley and Alan with daughter might remember Hurricane Floyd in ca is just like the arts: it’s very cru- Jazlana, the Rutgers grad. 1999. The category 4 storm flooded el. To succeed, or to survive, our house. All my demo tapes were you’ve got to have a degree of tolerance for bullshit. (I tell this to my voice ruined, and Alan’s beautiful sound- students; if nothing else, I am very direct.) I wore my nice suits to the of- proofed recording studio was de- fice, but sometimes the Human Resources Department would have to visit stroyed. It was a very traumatic time me: “Um, The Bankers didn’t like the slit in your dress.” “The Bankers did- for us. Our son, Jess, who was three at n’t like that you wore your hair to the side; it looked too cabaret-ish.” Are the time, remembers nothing about it. you freakin’ kidding me? But okay. All right. But Jazlana, who was eight, was trau- matized. We were evacuated in the Caught Up in the 2008 Financial Meltdown middle of the night, and of the twenty- three houses on our street, only five Everyone knows what happened to the financial sector during the so- survived. Ours wasn’t one of them. called Great Recession. My old company, Lehman Brothers, dissolved. And Thank goodness my mother-in-law UBS was affected too, though not as badly. As a vice president, I’d had to lived in a large house one town over let people go over the years, but that was usually for poor performance. and could take us in. Alan stayed at It’s never easy, but having to let dozens of people go because of the reces- our house to try to salvage some of his sion and the mortgage crisis was painful. I was overseeing seven major recording equipment. We had more offices around the country: New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, and than five feet of water in the base- others. Plus I had my global partners around the world. In April 2008 we ment. During the three years that we started laying off employees, and things came to a head in May, on a day I lived with his mother, he would go called D-Day. I always tried to do what was best for the firm and what was back and forth, because he was afraid best for my folks. So we set up a room in the executive suite, and we start- the house would be vandalized; alt- ed letting people go. hough we couldn’t live there, we still Most people cried. We hugged. We tried to do it with dignity. At one had our lives on the upper floors. Cin- point, the person from HR, Maureen, and I were so emotionally wiped out dy’s husband, Benis Dawkins, was ex- that we took a break and went down to the office, where everyone was tremely handy, and, God bless him, he sitting paralyzed, terrified that they were going to be let go. When Maureen came over every week to help rebuild. and I walked down the stairs, all the people who were left suddenly stood In the end, however, the federal gov- up and started clapping. I absolutely lost it. “Why are you applauding?” I ernment bought out the houses of asked, crying. those who wanted to sell. Continued on page 33

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Shelley Block ation. Things were done properly and humanely. But after the Continued from page 32 economy collapsed, it was like no one gave a shit anymore. You Someone spoke up. “Because would go on an interview, and we’re getting calls from people who nobody would even get back to said that they’d been let go but that you. So unprofessional. And I’m they’d never been treated with such talking about large companies, respect and dignity before.” If only all too. companies exhibited that kind of On the positive side, my kids basic decency. I can’t say it was ex- were thrilled to have me home. tended to me, however. Jazlana, who was going into her In August the ax fell. I got called senior year of high school, con- to come up to Human Resources. fided to me, “Mommy, I’m not The global head of my division, who upset that you lost your job, be- was probably one of the most inap- cause now, for once, I’m going to propriate people I’d ever met in my have a stay-at home mom for a life, tells me over the phone from the while.” And she really meant it. London office, “Well, you know, we’re Just as I grew up in a house making changes, and we’re letting full of music, both our kids grew Son Jess, also at Rutgers, is a double you go.” Boom. The whole time, the up surrounded by music. Jazlana major in acting and communications, head of HR, whom I always gotten used to go to gigs with Alan with a minor in film. And like his mom, along with, stood with his back when she was little. She was he’s a Jets fan. It’s good they have each turned to the rest of us. I found out also in a dance company from other to lean on. later, it was because he’d argued age five until she was twelve; at with them not to fire me, right up un- one point, she was taking eleven classes a week. But then she announced til the minute they called me in. He that she’s had enough. “You know, Mommy, I really don’t like being around was furious. When it was over, his dancers.” (Sound like me and my feelings toward actors.) “I just want to was the only hand I shook. take ballet, because ballet relaxes me.” So that’s what we did. I will say this: UBS gave me a As for Jess, he’s always had excellent pitch. Jazlana and I share a love very generous severance package. of hip-hop. One day when she was five and a half and Jess was maybe just But I was extremely upset. However, six months, we were driving in our van with Hot 97 blasting. Remember the you know what? I left there with my female r&b group En Vogue? The radio started playing one of their songs dignity intact. with really complex harmonies, and from the back, we hear Jess, sitting in Under the terms of my leaving, I his little car seat, matching the notes. My daughter and I just looked at each couldn’t accept another job for two other. “Are you hearing this?” “Yes!” months, but every day I got up like I By the time he was three, he was sitting in on my husband’s jazz gigs, was going to work. The job market, of singing a jazzy version of “This Old Man.” They kept modulating up the course, was terrible. Unbeknownst to scale—going from one key to the next, higher and higher—and Jess never me, I would be out of work for more flinched. The musicians were looking at him like, What the hell? He’s played than three years. It was frightening. If violin, saxophone, and played in both his high school marching band and it was just Alan and me, we would the band at Rutgers. He just started his senior year at Rutgers, where he’s a have been okay. But we had two chil- double major in acting and communications, with a minor in film. dren to worry about. Our daughter went to Rutgers too, but at its Newark campus. I’ve insist- I was still of the mind-set “I’ve ed that both my kids have double majors, like I did. Jazlana chose journal- got to get back into corporate Ameri- ism and the university’s school of criminal justice. She had an internship ca.” But things had changed in cor- with the Newark Police Department doing community outreach, which she porate America. Used to be, you’d absolutely loved. It turned into a paid position, but then she got shifted to interview someone for a job and be an office job. She missed being out on the street. At the same time, she was upfront: tell them either yay or nay or working as a blogger for Funkmaster Flex, a hugely popular DJ on Hot 97, that they were under serious consid- Continued on page 34

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school, so naturally I helped him with his singing. He said Shelley Block to me, “Wow, you’re a really good teacher!” In seventh Continued from page 33 grade, he was to play Benny Southstreet in Guys and Dolls. Some neighbors down the street, a brother and who’d started his own website. It’s funny, because when sister, were also in the show: he was Nicely-Nicely, and she was little, we used to listen to him together all the she was Adelaide. They were struggling a bit with the mu- time. He got a real kick out of that, when Jazlana first sic, so Jess suggested they come see me for some infor- told him. mal lessons. One day she called up Alan and me and said, “I need One day I went to pick up Jess at rehearsal. The di- to choose one job or the other. Would you be angry with rector, who was also the choral director, asked me, “Are me if I chose the radio station?” you giving the three of them voice lessons?” I said “Yeah I said, “Who do you think you’re talking to? Your fa- …”—a bit hesitantly, thinking she was going to yell at me ther and I have the most unconventional life possible! So for interfering or something. Instead, she thanked me, long as you pay your bills, we’re in your corner.” She lives adding, “You are teaching them exactly how I teach my in Elizabeth, New Jersey; her room is still here. Some students.” She asked if I’d ever thought about becoming comes over and crashes. Jess lived on campus his fresh- a voice teacher and gave me some advice and pricing man year but didn’t like it. He felt that he could study and so on. better at home, so he lives with us. He has been on full I thought about it a bit and decided, “You know tuition scholarship his entire college career. He also has what? Maybe I should do this.” One by one, I started ac- an extensive and diverse range of music, which now in- quiring new students, entirely through word of mouth. I cludes hip-hop. Both our kids are very interesting. They went from having three students to around forty. I give are different from each other yet very close. lessons both in the music room in our home and I also make a few “house calls” in New Jersey. The Next Chapter: Teaching and Consulting I have such a range of students. My youngest is eight, and my oldest student is this seventy-three-year- After my layoff, I started volunteering for nonprofit organ- old firecracker who is also a belly dancer. I see her in her izations, which turned into part-time consulting jobs. I home in Princeton once a week. Another student is the started working at a digital marketing company in 2011, mother of a student; she sings Indian music. My stu- but two years later, they downsized. Within days, I began dents expose me to all types music: Indian, Ladino, gos- working as a consultant for Morgan Stanley. After work- pel, indie, pop, musical theatre, rap, and more. Another ing forty to fifty hours a week, since 2013, I now work woman, who is around my age, wanted to learn to sing three ten-hour days. Now, there is a shelf life with con- Contemporary Christian music, just for her own enjoy- sultants, and I know that someday this will come to an ment. At first, she thought I might be offended because end, I feel blessed to be there. I also know that a lot of I’m of a different faith. “Offended?” I said. “So long as people think ill of a lot of these banks, and deservedly the music doesn’t suck, I’m in!” Good music is good mu- so, but I have to tell you, Morgan Stanley was exactly sic, and a lot of the Christian Contemporary stuff is excel- what I was looking for: to be part of a company where lent. In fact, there’s this one song she sings that makes the people are professional but without having a stick up me cry every time. I’ve got to tell you, it’s absolutely their ass. Everyone has a mutual respect for one anoth- beautiful. er, and I like it. Plus, we have fun! Continued on page 35 The rest of the time, I’m building my ADVERTISEMENT business as a voice teacher. I’d taught a few private students a long time ago. I Continued on page 00 had a twelve-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, and two heavy-metal guys in their in their twenties or thirties. They wanted to learn how to scream-sing. But I had to stop once I got promoted at Lehman Brothers. This time around, my returning to teaching happened almost accidentally. My first student was my own son. Jess performed in plays throughout high

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Shelley Block “One day a young Corey Pepper Continued from page 34 female colleague came up Continued from page 9 to me and said, ‘Can I ask So now I’ve got this perfect bal- you something? Were you, their first season, and he’s about to ance between my creative side and like, a rocker chick? Be- start work on his first episode of sea- my organizational side. At work, at son two. the big Morgan Stanley Building in cause you’re cool, and You might think that he benefits Times Square, I’m surrounded by a young, and with it.’ from having a father who’s both an lot of people in their forties, thirties, “‘I was a lot of actor and an acting teacher. But, in and even their twenties. Everyone different kinds of chicks,’ I fact, he didn’t really like working with gets along great. I’m sort of the of- me. He heard my constructive advice fice mom. The young guys invite me told her. ‘Rocker chick. Jazz regarding his performances as being out to go drinking with them. Most of chick. Musical theater critical. In short, he was offended. the time I can’t. “I’ve got to teach. chick. All of the above.’” That’s why he takes lessons from Sorry!” But sometimes I join them; one of the other teachers I work with. we mostly talk sports. It’s so cute. Lesson learned: sometimes a parent One day a young female col- close. Cindy’s son, B. J., is a realtor must stay the parent and leave the league came up to me and said, in Spokane, Washington. He’s mar- coaching to others. “Can I ask you something? Were you, ried to this model-gorgeous police I just turned sixty-one, and I con- like, a rocker chick?” detective. She’s a total badass! They sider myself to be very lucky. To have I said, “Well, something like have three adorable daughters. the stability that I’ve enjoyed is really that.” Abby, who is also widowed, has one kind of ridiculous for an actor. After “Because you’re cool, and young, daughter, my niece Natalie. She is all these years, I’m still doing what I and with it.” just a beautiful human being. She love, and I know so many people who “I was a lot of different kinds of doesn’t live far from Abby, on Long can’t say that. I’ve never had to stop chicks,” I told her. “Rocker chick. Island, and has a master’s degree in doing it, and at this point, it doesn’t Jazz chick. Musical theater chick. All social work. I’m lucky to be close to look like I’ll ever have to. ■ of the above.” my mother-in-law who now lives in They couldn’t believe I turned the same assisted living facility that Advertisement sixty this year. I’m not embarrassed my Mom had moved into. about my age, so why lie about it? Life throws a lot of curves at you, and we just all kind of move ahead. With Age Comes Hard Moments Because what else can you do? So I choose to stay positive. That’s how Just a week into my job at Morgan I’ve gone through life. It’s been an Stanley, in 2013, my dad, Seymour, amazing journey so far. ■ was put on life support and died. Three years later, my mom passed See. away, and just two months after that, See Shelley. just before last Christmas, Cindy’s wonderful husband, Benis, died of See Shelley Sing cancer. It was a lot to process emo- (and Alan Play). tionally. I cannot tell you how nice my colleagues were. You know how much you are loved when a crisis ♫ “Twisted” arises, and people don’t have to go out of their way to be kind, but they ♫ “The Nearness of You” do so anyway. And, of course, my sisters and I ♫ “Neverland” always have one another. We’re very

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chasing tax incentives has changed the business, but in the late 1980s, the business was slowing down as New York and its crews priced themselves out of the market. One day I was with a friend of mine, and I turned to her and said, “It’s time.” I think it took me all of two weeks to get my stuff together and make the move. I didn’t have a job lined up per se. But I was a second assistant director, I was a member of the Directors’ Guild, and I had some people who had left me behind on the cold New York streets to call for work once I relocated. Robert Simon Incidentally, one of the first things I did when I got out to California was visit Culver City. It’s actually a lovely little place now, with a really nice down- Continued from page 18 town with cool restaurants. But thirty years ago, it was a pit. I remember driv- ing down the I-10 Freeway in my Volkswagen Bug, and I saw the sign: you me and scratched their heads, like could get off and turn right to Beverly Hills or go left to Culver City. I made “Who is this kid?” (Nowadays, of the left. It was … a wreck. Nobody ever went there. The city was full of va- course, even the most successful cant stores, cheap houses, and only a couple of studios. The beloved Culver people dress like they’re homeless.) City of my dreams turned out to be kind of a joke. My early work was in movies (Into One of the first TV series that I worked on the Night, starring Jeff Goldblum and “Crap. Guess I’m brought me back to Florida: I spent two years there Michelle Pfeiffer, A Stranger Is Watch- not going to on Miami Vice. I was first assistant director. In ing (from a Marry Higgins Clark thrill- Mid-Island Plaza some respects, it remains the favorite experience er, starring Kate Mulgrew and Rip today…” of my career, simply because it was so much fun Torn) and TV movies (Christmas Eve, Continued on page 37 Triplecross), mainly as a second as- sistant director or first assistant direc- tor. After ten years, I was ready to move to California. I kind of knew I’d end up out there one day, because even as a kid, I liked the idea of Cali- fornia—probably from listening to the Beach Boys. Do you remember how at the end of many of the TV shows we used to watch, it said, “Filmed at Cul- ver City.” I always thought to myself, “Wow, Culver City. That must be a cool place.” Career-wise, it just felt like my future was in the West and not in New Yes, Bob Really Did Produce the Pilot for a TV York. Content was all created in Los Show Called Jericho Angeles, and New York was just a dis- tant shooting location. A very expen- Remember Shaun Cassidy? Singing teen idol? Star of The Hardy Boys sive place to shoot with great back- Mysteries? Half-brother of David Cassidy? He’s a good friend and an grounds. If the story was set in New amazingly prolific and talented TV producer and writer. In fact, he was York, there was just no other place to already into his third career while on The Hardy Boys, because he knew shoot. Many times, I’d work on a film, that the acting thing wasn’t going to last forever. shooting exteriors in sub-zero temper- We’ve worked together on several shows that Shaun created. The atures for a few weeks, just to be left series Jericho (2006–08), about a tiny Kansas town struggling to sur- behind when the company went back vive in the aftermath of a global nuclear holocaust (not about a certain to the West Coast to the warm, com- suburban hamlet on Long Island with extraordinarily high SAT scores) fortable studios to shoot on sets. It’s came to life from an idea he had in his head. ■ not that way so much anymore since

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work the way that Dick envisions the scene. But do you think we could take that scene in the club and put Sonny Crocket [Don Johnson] and Rico Tubbs [Philip Michael Thomas] on this poolside, which overlooks the Robert Simon beach, with hot girls in bikinis and all of that.” Continued from page 36 And they said, “Yeah, maybe! Call Dick and pitch to work on. The show played a big him on it.” part in Miami’s renaissance and its “M-m-me?” I was the becoming a cool city. Series creator first assistant director, Michael Mann had conceived Miami and this was just my Vice to be this thing that Miami wasn’t second episode. When Bob has time off, “I’ve got to get out into yet but could aspire to. It became in- But I called Dick, nature,” he says. That’s Bob with Seanne Biggs grained in the city’s identity and in- explained the idea, and and their eight-year-old dog Bird. “She’s a res- volved the entire community. he was immediately cue. Hates other dogs, loves people, and she’s We owned the city. For me, as a receptive to it. “Sounds a great office dog, so she’s been able to travel single person living there, it was good. What’s the geo- with me to a bunch of TV locations.” Wonder if amazing. We shot scenes in every graphy of it?” The writers she qualifies for SAG card? club, so managers would give me a tailored the scene to the VIP card. We knew the cops, and they location that I’d presented to them, just like that, and I felt like, “Oh, this is knew us. Now, contrast that with Da- amazing!” I came to the important realization that everybody’s voice is vital. vid Lynch’s Twin Peaks, for which I In episodic television, we were doing twenty-two hours—twenty-two episodes, was coproducer during its two sea- or the length of about twelve films—in a single season. Nobody can make sons from 1990 to 1991. As great every creative decision, so everybody’s creative input is important, and I’ve and as creative as Twin Peaks was, carried that lesson with me ever since. when we were filming, it was like working in a vacuum. Because until I Know What You’re Thinking: What Does a TV Producer Do, Anyway? the show aired and began generating a lot of attention—maybe midway My job, whether I am credited as “Produced By,” or “Coexecutive Producer,” through the first season—nobody in or “Executive Producer,” I am the only producer in the credits who actually town knew who we were. We were doesn’t have another job. Everyone else can be called something else. Asso- just another network show that odds ciate producer is the head of post production; a coproducer could be any- said would fail. body from the production manager to a midlevel writer. An executive produc- The other thing that was great er could be the guy who developed the show or a high-level writer. All of about Miami Vice is that, as a long- those titles are fluid. Sometimes there are people credited that I do not running show, you could use your im- know, or who were associated with the project in some ancillary or historical agination and then realize your vision way but have nothing to do with the current team. for the show. For example, for one A “Produced by Robert Simon” credit is my favorite, but I don’t take that episode, Dick Wolfe, the writer, had a anymore. It’s the only one nobody else can get, but you leave that credit scene take place in a club at night, behind when you move up to another title rung. Ultimately, the executive and I just couldn’t make the schedule producer creates the overall vision of the show and has final say over the work without us needing to move to scripts we shoot; then the studio entrusts me with an allocation toward another location, hiring extras, and so $100 million for a season of twenty-two episodes, and I have to spend that on. We were shooting on the beach money creatively and wisely to turn the creator’s vision into the show that for much of the day, so I went to the you see. producers and said, “I can’t make this Continued on page 38

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plane. We’d construct what was like West Side of Manhattan. Well, guess a ribcage that would appear to be a what they also have there on the pier plane mockup in the middle of a right next to it: one of the original dark warehouse. Imagine a plane Concorde jets. We needed that with its skin stripped away, and open plane. on the sides. The production design- I asked the location manager to er sketched out what I suggested, call the Intrepid Museum and see if and it wound up working out great, they would let us shoot on board the because it wasn’t as confining as Concorde. Yes, they would. Then I Robert Simon shooting the scene on an actual air- had to do battle a bit with the studio plane. So we came up with a solution Continued on page 39 Continued from page 37 that was not only fiscally responsibly but also was visually interesting; in A boy and his bike. (Clockwise from I work with a new director on each fact, it probably worked better than lower left): Bob, at age five, exploring episode and guide the project in the using the real thing. So everyone was the wilderness that is East Birch- right direction, while keeping it within served. wood; riding ’round Austin, Texas, the budget. Because sometimes the The following season took us to where his TV travels took him for show’s creator or the director’s vi- New York. This time, we had to show several years; and exploring the de- sion is way beyond what we can af- passengers traveling on an airplane. sert under the big sky. ford. I’ll give you an example: We couldn’t find a plane From December 2015 until April locally without breaking 2017, I was the producer and coex- the bank and sucking up ecutive producer of Quantico, an a shooting day for a very ABC drama about young CIA recruits short but not unim- training at the base in Quantico, Vir- portant scene. I love go- ginia. I came in midway through sea- ing exploring wherever son one after the short-lived Wicked we’re filming, and one City was cancelled. Quantico’s first day I went to the aircraft season was being shot in Montreal. carrier the USS Intrepid, We had a couple of training scenes which is docked on the that took place on air- planes. First we looked around to see if there was a plane we could use, but there wasn’t. Now, there is a company out in the California de- sert that I’ve rented plane fuselages from in the past. But it would have cost a fortune to ship it all the way to Montreal. The executive producer really wanted this scene: a series of training exercises with agents drawing their guns on a hijacked air- plane. I pitched the fol- lowing: we’d use real seats, but not a whole

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shot and just don’t want to come to will have an actor that he doesn’t work for that. So a lot of what I do is like. My door is always open, and just deal with trying to keep every- they come in, and I have to find a body happy. Just like in any work- way to keep the peace and keep the place, an actor will have a director process moving forward. that she doesn’t like, or a director High-Def Equals High Expectations Twin Peaks’s David Lynch: Robert Simon Caution—Genius at Work If a show I’m producing looks crappy, I am the first person that the studio Continued from page 38 will complain to. Even when the am- bition of the show is greater than its regarding insurance. When you shoot budget. I need to find a way to make on a ship or a plane, you need to it all work. With the advent of high- take out special insurance on the definition TV, the quality has to be hull or the fuselage, respectively, better than ever. You can’t build a even if the boat or plane isn’t mov- crappy set, because it will show. You ing. For this scene, we needed both. learn to be resourceful, which is one But I made it work because I figured of the challenges of my job that I lov- we could fill out the rest of the day Working with David Lynch on Twin er the best. shooting some scenes in rooms on Peaks, I saw how very, very aware I’ll give you an example from an- the Intrepid. he is of everything that goes on other show I produced a few years In a sense, I’m the pragmatic around him. Early on, there’s a ago: ABC’s The River, a supernatural creative guy who has to make the scene where the town’s sheriff, action adventure. Lincoln Cole jour- show fit within all of these boxes, played by Michael Ontkean, meets neys through the Amazon Jungle with taking into account that I’m dealing for the first time in a conference his mother in search of his father, with people who have very different room at the station with Special the famed explorer Dr. Emmet Cole, interests: from the actors, to the di- Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLaugh- who has vanished mysteriously. To rector, to the show’s creator, to the lin). It’s this terrible-looking, pan- bankroll the mission, they agree to studio. That means I have to deal eled room with a conference table let their trek be filmed for a docu- with the actors and all their needs, in the middle. And there was either mentary. which ultimately come to me and a deer head or a moose head (I We needed to show a research which I’m more than happy to in- honestly don’t recall, so let’s so vessel making its way down the Ama- dulge as best as I can, and to medi- with moose head) on the wall. zon River. Not just once but every ate all of the petty little fights that go After rehearsal, everybody went week and throughout each episode. on between the people who creative- home. The next morning, they came Now, how do you do that? Where can ly facilitate the show. in to do a final rehearsal and shoot, you find a navigable river that is pic- When I started in film and TV, I to find that the taxidermied moose turesque and undeveloped? Well, was intimidated by actors. I am still head had fallen off the wall and nowhere, but my job is to figure out a amazed by good acting. The industry landed on the table. The set dress- way. The studio thought it was going in-joke is, “You know how to make an er ran in, picked it up, and began to to do it all with visual effects. I told actor unhappy? Give him a job!” mount it back on the wall. them, “No, you’re not going to have When an actor gets a job, they’re “No! No!” David said. “Leave it the money to do it all with visual ef- thrilled. Young actors on television? there. Let’s get some black spray fects, so you’re going to end up This puts them on the map, and they paint, and paint an outline where shooting on sets, and it’s going to are paid boatloads of money. After a the head had been on the wall.” So look cheesy.” couple of months, though, all of that he shot the scene with moose head Here’s what I came up with: A is forgotten. Most are great, but lying on the table. If something did- location manager showed me a many just turn into whiny babies who n’t feel right, he wouldn’t do it. The short, beautiful little river on the would rather not have to show up. man could waste a lot of time. But north shore of Oahu. Problem was, Maybe they have to be in the back- once it felt right to him, he would there was a bridge blocking the en- ground in some other cast member’s go like gangbusters. ■ Continued on page 40

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For two other shows, I lived in Austin, Texas. Then there was Richmond, Virginia, more Miami, Denmark, New “Used to be, I’d be up Mexico, Colorado … I could go on for for anything. If the a bit. phone rang—’We need Wherever we shoot, I bring my you’—I didn’t even ask bicycle with me, and whenever I find where, I went. I was up some spare time, I’ll go looking for some local artifacts and trace some for any challenge. Robert Simon history that’s going to show me But I’ve had a change Continued from page 39 something else. By the time we’re of heart. I would love done, I usually know the place as trance so no way to get a boat in to be able to work and well as the location manager, be- there and if you could, the water sleep in my own bed.” cause I’ll have gone up and down wasn’t deep enough for a boat of any every alleyway and read every histori- size. So we built a three-story set on cal marker. top of what was essentially a gigantic Basically, I am not the expert in Like, during the year that I was a surfboard that we pushed up and much, but I know enough about a lot back in New York doing Quantico, I down this narrow spit of water and of different things to be able to know rode my bike to every site listed in created a couple of floating foliage who the expert is and be able to Atlas Obscura. I went down to the rafts to change the look of the shore- work with him, so that when famous Five Points section of Man- line. I had a great production design- called upon, I can say, “Yeah, I know hattan, which doesn’t exist anymore. er and construction team, but it was something about that!” The federal courthouse building a marine architect I’d met who fig- And each show, in turn, teaches stands right on the spot. But when ured it out with me. This goes back me something. I once did a pilot you explore the surrounding neigh- to my broad liberal arts education as about a guy who buys a circus. I got borhood, you can understand the well as my engineering background, one of the clowns to teach me how migration of the people who lived beginning with learning mechanical to juggle. While filming a Western, there in the nineteenth century. And drawing from Coach Bryant. one of the stuntmen taught me how from that, I came to understand the Almost everything I’ve ever stud- to rope. And you never know when city so much better. I love that. Want ied, I use in work and life. Because juggling and roping will come in to know where the oldest manhole while I don’t design sets personally, handy, right? cover in Manhattan is? I did, and the first pass of set design is the now I do. blueprints that the set designer Travelin’ Man That said, the nine months in makes. And the funny thing is, I al- New York was tough. I’d already ways thought that everybody could Then there’s the learning experience spent time in Montreal; then I had read a blueprint, because to me, from traveling to shoot on location. move the show down there, with reading a blueprint is like reading a For The River, ABC suggested shoot- twenty-five tractor trailers. I was set memo. I understand elevations, I ing on the Mississippi River in Louisi- up in a great apartment on twenty- understand how to see in 3-D what’s ana. I said, “Winter in Louisiana? Ninth and Fifth Avenue, but that is a on a page in 2-D. And that has That’s going to look terrible!” We long time to be away from home, served me so well, because I don’t went to Puerto Rico instead. ABC did- which for me is West Los Angeles, have to wait for a set to be built to n’t want to shoot the show there be- where I live with my girl, Seanne understand what it will look like. So if cause they’d had a bad experience Biggs. we want to make revisions, which we there with one of its other shows, but We’ve been together for twelve have to do all the time, we can do it we made it work and had a great ex- years. Seanne, who’s from Orange early. Bringing all affected depart- perience. I met a whole new group of County, California, used to be a car- ments in will save time and money, film professionals, and learned a lot diac ICU nurse taking care of people and, in the end, make the project about boats and how to move them. right after heart transplants—talk better. I can be part of that conversa- Then when The River got picked up, I about pressure! Now she’s in the tion and speak to experts in these instigated the moved to Hawaii, I got field of medical informatics. We met fields in their own language. to live in Mahalo, Oahu, for a year. Continued on page 41

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cult shows. I don’t get the shows like This Is Us, which I would love to do: something that shoots in town and is Continued from page 23 … simpler. I thrive on the huge chal- lenge of floating a boat down the Philip Bashe Amazon, creating battle scenes and big visual effects shows, but those Apple, “kids used to throw me are the things that shorten your life. drugs on the field, because Robert Simon DGA members tend to die young. they’d heard that I was a head. It’s just an extraordinary time in A doper. New York was a big, Continued from page 40 television. Because the hours that beautiful playground for me.” are being created for Showtime, According to Phil, “In writing through our mutual love of cycling. HBO, Netflix, Amazon, are just amaz- Dog Days, I was curious to learn We’re part of this very big and robust ing. Sure, there are still crappy to what extent the players I root- Southern California cycling communi- shows; there always were and always ed for were affected by the tu- ty. We didn’t like each other very will be. But there’s lots of quality, mult of the 1960s and 1970s. much for a while! But then a mutual too. I did two network pilots and one They seemed like men to me at friend insisted that we go out togeth- show with Noah Hawley, who created the time, but many of them were er. Good thing we listened. Fargo for TV. He’s a producer, barely out of their teens.” Because of the nature of the screenwriter, and author. The FX Net- For instance, rookie Thur- work I do, we’ve gotten used to being work basically told him, “Do whatev- man Munson was just twenty- apart, in a good way. It’s hard, but er you want to do,” and left to his two when he and the other we do it. When I’m away on location, own devices, he’s found a great Yankees heard about National I’ll fly home if we have a break of place off network for himself where Guardsmen shooting to death four or more days. Luckily, Seanne he can work much better. four young people at Munson’s loves traveling and has a flexible With all of these outlets, there alma mater, Kent State Universi- work schedule. So she’ll fly out to be are more TV shows than ever before. ty, during a student protest with me and hang. Now, that makes my job harder on against the Vietnam War on May Production on Quantico ended some levels. For one thing, it’s be- 4, 1970. Shortstop Gene last April. As soon as I get back, I come much harder to hire good Michael, a decade older than have to get out into nature. I took a crews. When we were shooting Munson, not only attended Kent monthlong motorcycle trip to Colora- Quantico in New York, we’d have State but also grew up in Kent, do, visiting my sister in Denver. My crew members literally walk across Ohio. Upon hearing the news, father was staying with her, so I got the street to work on another show while the Yankees were out west to see both of them. Then I took a for another nickel an hour. in Oakland, a horrified Michael couple of other road trips to San Die- In general, we don’t have all the was thoroughly dumbstruck. go and through the dessert around assets that we used to have. We’re “Kent was the most con- there. expected to do and do it better with servative, laid-back community Used to be, I’d be up for any- fewer assets and less time. But, you’d ever want to see,” he thing. If the phone rang—“We need again, I enjoy that challenge. My goal recalled. “A pretty little town, you”—I didn’t even ask where, I went. never changes: to make the best called the Tree city. The school I was up for any challenge. But I’ve show that I can. Even after all this was laid back too. It was easy had a change of heart. I would love time, I adapt to the changes in the and nice. to be able to work and sleep in my industry and remain open to whatev- “I thought, Jeez, if this can own bed. er opportunities present themselves. happen in Kent, it can happen I was working a lot with a director I’ve never wanted to be pigeonholed, anywhere.” who is a cancer survivor. Quantico so I’ve tried many different types of Ballplayers were affected by was very difficult for everyone at the shows. the quagmire in Vietnam, but not beginning, and we would have these That’s the thing: you have to be to the same degree as others conversations about “How much open to the magic, because it’s going their age. Most were able to time do you have left?” It sort of to happen—just maybe in ways that serve safely in the Army sunk in. I tend to work on very diffi- you didn’t anticipate. ■ Continued on page 42

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Philip Bashe Reserves just one weekend a month, with no worries about being shipped Yogi Berra congratulates Cardinals manager Johnny Keane following the hard-fought sev- overseas. Reservist Steve Kline, a en-game 1964 World Series. Twenty-four promising right-handed starter whose hour later, the Yankees callously fired Berra career ended prematurely due to arm (the same day the Soviet Union canned trouble, remembered receiving an Premier Nikita Khrushchev), while Keane angry letter from a grieving mother shocked the baseball world by resigning in who wrote, “My son died in Vietnam, St. Louis. He replaced Yogi as manager five but you get to duck service just days later—though the deal had actually been because you’re a ballplayer.” It stung, struck in secret two months before. says Kline, a sixteen-game winner in 1972, but he understood her out- A melancholy Mickey Mantle watches his close rage. friend Whitey Ford retire abruptly due to arm One of the few major leaguers to trouble on May 30, 1967. Bobby Richardson be conscripted was the Yankees’ had retired over the winter; Roger Maris and nineteen-year-old phenom Bobby Clete Boyer had been traded, and Elston How- Murcer. The latest in a long line of ard would follow them out of town shortly. The New Mickey Mantles, he too hailed Yankees’ infield consisted of a gimpy Mantle from Oklahoma. Murcer was even stationed at first, Horace Clarke at second, signed by the same Yankees scout Ruben Amaro at short, and Charlie Smith at third. Small wonder the Yankees finished ninth who’d discovered the Mick: Tom that season. Greenwade. “I didn’t really worry too much about being compared to Mick- ey Mantle,” he reflected. “I mostly The Major loses his shit over an ump’s call. It worried about what Mickey thought happened a lot and never failed to entertain. about being compared to me!” After two and a half years as GM, a job he never The lefthanded-hitting shortstop wanted, Ralph Houk returned to the dugout in was expected to share the infield with May 1966. He wrung the most out of mostly Mantle in 1967, when Uncle Sam lackluster squads but quit on the final day of suddenly beckoned. Previously, he’d the disappointing 1973 campaign. Houk could- been deferred, but “out of the blue, I n’t abide the interference of cantankerous new owner George M. Steinbrenner. He remains the got a 1A classification in the mail, only one of the Boss’s many skippers not to be along with my draft notice. That was a fired. little bit strange. Obviously, we were wondering what the deal was.” Somewhat unfairly, this losing period in Yankees histo- According to Murcer, the deal was this: he was being made an example ry is often refered to as “the Horace Clarke Era.” The Virgin Islander started at second from 1966 until 1974, of. In an atmosphere of increasing much to the dismay of the pitching staff, most of whom public discontent with the Vietnam were sinkerballers who lived or died on the quality of War, accusations were flying that the the infield. Clarke not only had limited range, but he troops overseas were inequitably was notorious for holding the ball on the double play at drawn from minorities and the under- second to avoid being spiked. According to reliever privileged. Jack Aker, in 1971 all the starters, including ace Mel “At the time, I couldn’t really talk Stottlemyre, all threatened to go on strike if Ralph Houk about it, but I guess I can now,” he didn’t replace him. But as the Major explained, there Continued on page 43 simply wasn’t anyone better down on the farm.

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Over the winter of 1971–72, Yankees GM Lee Mac- Phail traded reliable Stan Bahnsen to the White Sox for a third baseman named Rick McKinney. “The worst Continued from page 42 trade I ever made,” MacPhail called it years later. McKinney, nicknamed “Bozo,” committed four errors Philip Bashe in one game in April and developed such a phobia that he’d pray the ball wouldn’t find him. By May, he was Gradually, this ragtag assemblage hiding out at the triple-A club in Syracuse. Far more of players coalesced into a team, successful was McPhail’s ’72 trade of Danny Cater to becoming incrementally better year the Red Sox for colorful Albert “Sparky” Lyle. He an- chored the bullpen for the next seven years, ringing up by year. If you were a younger fan, thirty-five saves his first year in pinstripes and the Yankees’ glory years were winning the Cy Young Award in 1976. ancient history. This was your team, and you rooted for Jake Gibbs, Pat In spring training 1973, a different kind of trade Dobson, Mel Stottlemyre, Danny dominated the headlines: pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich revealed that over the winter, Cater, and the others, taking pride they’d traded wives. Not just wives, actually, but in their modest successes. their families—even their pet pooches. Condem- nation was harsh and swift. But the critics got it told Phil in a 1992 interview. “Me all wrong. This wasn’t some tawdy instance of being a nineteen-year-old kid, I was wife-swapping a la Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. getting a lot of publicity in New York. The two couples had married young and came to The Kennedys got involved with my realize they were better suited to the other’s draft board in Oklahoma, wondering partner. The public pressure broke up Kekich and Marilyn Peterson’s relationship. But Fritz why in the heck I wasn't serving my and Susanne Kekich are still married forty-five time. It became a political issue.” years later. Robert Kennedy, then the junior sen- ator from New York, was a staunch It wasn’t quite Murderers’ Row, but by 1973, the supporter of a lottery-type draft. Yankees displayed some of the ol’ five o’clock As a college undergrad in the off- lightning. The middle of the lineup was built season, Murcer should have quali- around Bobby Murcer and Ron Blomberg— fied for a student deferment. But baseball’s first designated hitter—Thurman Mun- when he inquired at his local draft son, and newcomer Graig Nettles. Blomberg, board, “I was told that the heat from being Jewish, was hugely popular in the Bronx. In 1972 militant activist Rabbi Meir Kahane Washington was too much, and there demanded permission to present the twenty- wasn’t anything they could do.” On three-year-old Georgian an award on the field. March 6, 1967, he was inducted into When the club turned him down, he showed up the army. anyway. Blomberg had never heard of Kahane, “I certainly didn’t have any but the words militant and radical convinced him qualms about serving my country,” that he was going to be shot at first base. Stadi- Murcer stressed. “It was just the way um security tailed Kahane in the stands, howev- it came about that I questioned.” But er, and Blomberg lived to breathe another day. during his two years as a radio oper- ator, he fretted that by the time he October 14, 1976: Chris got discharged, his baseball career Chambliss (middle) muscles a would practically be over—at the ball just over the right-field wall in geriatric age of twenty-two, the bottom of the ninth to put the Yankees back in the World Series “Back then,” he said with a for the first time in twelve years. laugh, “if you lost two years, it Thurman Munson (l.) leaps out of seemed almost like the end of the the dugout, while on-deck hitter road.” Hardly. Murcer never equaled Sandy Alomar exults at right. Mickey Mantle, but he became the Continued on page 44

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years. And some of them, like the been an extremely involved dad. Pat- thousand-page Complete Cancer ty, who has written twenty-five books, Continued from page 43 Survival Guide [Doubleday, 2000 including several bestsellers and and 2005, named book of the year books that have been made into TV Philip Bashe by the American Medical Writers movies, decided to change careers Association], were the equivalent of fifteen years ago. She earned a mas- cornerstone of the New York lineup two or three books in terms of size. ter’s in autism education and be- and played a total of seventeen Over the years, I’d done some came a certified instructor in applied seasons. From 1969 through 1977, editing on the side for Simon & behavioral analysis (ABA), the only he averaged 90 runs batted in. Schuster, Random House—the usual approved therapy for children with Like Mantle, he was shifted to suspects in the publishing world— autism. As a supervisor at Life’s the outfield—primarily to minimize and decided to take a breather from WORC (the same agency that runs casualties. In his first thirty-two writing and do book editing full time. the dayhab program that Justin has games at third base, Murcer commit- I enjoy it, get a lot of satisfaction out attended since 2011), she works ted fourteen miscues, many of them of it, and, also, editing other people’s directly with children and families, on javelin tosses to Joe Pepitone that work improves your own writing. For supervises ABA providers, and fre- sent fans in the stands behind first starters, it quickly disabuses you of quently teaches and lectures. She base ducking and covering. During a the idea that every word or thought is still finds time to write, too. May series in Oakland, two of his a pearl. When I was a magazine writ- “With Patty no longer working at throws to second sailed into the out- er and editor, my nickname was home since 2003, much of Justin’s field. “Later in the game,” Murcer ‘Basher the Slasher.’ But I was al- care and needs have fallen to me, remembered, “somebody hit a two- ways every bit as critical of my own and being an editor gives me the hopper to me, and as I fielded it, a work as I was of my staff of writers, if flexibility to take our son wherever he voice in the stands yelled, ‘Watch not more so. needs to go. He has a very active out! He’s got it again!’ “Well, here it is, nine years later, social life but doesn’t drive, and nei- “After the inning was over, Ralph and I’m still doing it. Writing a book ther do his friends. So … Phil the Houk said to me in the dugout, can be grueling work. I’ve had books chauffer at your service! I can do ’Young man, tomorrow you come to that have taken me nine months to editing at two in the morning, if the ballpark and take some fly balls complete, while others call for so necessary; it’s hard to do that on a in the outfield.’ much research and interviewing that steady basis when writing, which is “‘How come?’ I might be living with them for two more intense and eats up a different “‘Because I want to get you as and a half years, and spend time part of your brain. Plus, my editing far out there as I can. I hope they traveling, too. projects are finished in a few weeks, never hit you a ball.’” “As most people probably know or at most, two months, as opposed A few nights later, Murcer was by now, Patty and I have a wonderful to several years. pawing the grass in right field. He son, Justin, now twenty-five, with au- “I would like to write one more quickly proved himself to be such a tism spectrum disorder. I’ve worked book. I have a proposal ready for a natural outfielder that Houk soon at home since 1986, so I’ve always book geared toward moms of kids installed him in Yankee Stadium’s with special needs on how to get the vast center field (461 feet to dead men in their lives more involved. center), a hallowed spot in franchise Absent fathers, both figuratively and lore that had been patrolled previ- literally, is a major problem in the ously by Mickey Mantle and, before special needs community. For me, him, Joe DiMaggio. being Justin’s dad is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done, and I Taking a Breather Turns Into an would propose that being there for Extended Vacation one’s child is the ultimate test of manhood. As Phil explains, “By the time of my “But until circumstances allow last book, Science Lessons [Harvard that kind of commitment again, I’m Business Press, 2008], I’d written really happy doing what I’m doing. I eighteen books in about twenty-two Continued on page 45

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Phil Knight, Cass Sunstein, and Ar- Who Listens to nold Schwarzenegger, as well as Critics, Anyway? Continued from page 44 many books on health and medicine from physicians, and a series on US Philip Bashe Wars from the US Military Academy If they say something at West Point. nice about your get to edit books in virtually every “As you can see, it’s pretty books, everybody genre, both fiction and nonfiction. varied, which I thrive on, both as a should! Why, critics “At this point, I’ve edited proba- writer and an editor. Most are good are as infallible as the bly close to a thousand titles, from and some are great, while with other Pope! Every single authors such as Hillary Clinton, Dr. manuscripts, my job basically boils word below is the Mehmet Oz, Linda Ronstadt, Tony down to ‘polishing a turd.’ But I get unvarnished, gospel Robbins, David Carr, Shania Twain, satisfaction from that, too. My truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! attitude is always ‘Damn it, I’m political writer Roger Cohen, Jerry Dog Days: The New York Yankees’ gonna make this the shiniest turd it Rice, Jerry West, Amy Goodman, Dan Fall from Grace and Return to Glory, can possibly be!’ Brown, Gene Hackman, Cyndi 1964 to 1976 Lauper, Tony Curtis, Stanley Bing, “Which, I suppose you could say, “An outstanding sports history.” Hunter S. Thompson, Judith Miller, is kind of my approach to life in —Publishers Weekly US Congressman Keith Ellison, general!” ■

“With great care and compassion, Dog Days rises above the multitude of similar sports books; Bashe’s mixing the Yankees’ and its play- ers’ stories with that of America’s should be a model for others writ- ing in the same genre.” —South Bend (IN) Tribune

Teenage Idol, Travelin’ Man: The Complete Biography of Rick Nelson “Fluidly told and thoroughly docu- mented. A singular and interesting biography.” Teenage Idol, Travelin’ Man —Kirkus Reviews

Rick Nelson grew up in America’s living rooms as the undisputed star of his “Bashe’s style and the varied family’s long-running, culture-defining ABC-TV sitcom The Adventures of career and influence of his subject Ozzie and Harriet. In 1957, at sixteen, he started recording records, with place this volume several notches father Ozzie at the controls. (Yes, “square” Ozzie Nelson, a onetime popu- above other recent biographies. lar bandleader—wife Harriet was his orchestra’s singer—was literally a —Publishers Weekly founding father of rock & roll.) The music was still regarded by most as a nefarious influence on Amer- Heavy Metal Thunder ican youth and a threat to unravel the very fabric of US society. Yet almost “Bashe gives a surprisingly rich every week, the wholesome Nelsons essentially smuggled rock & roll into and reflective overview. Rather US homes, as Rick appeared at the end of most episodes to debut his latest hit: “Stood Up,” “Waitin’ in School,” “Poor Little Fool,” “Believe What than pandering to prejudices, he You Say,” “Travelin’ Man,” “Hello Marylou,” to name just a few. Even once examines them.” the hits dried up in the mid-1960s, he continued to make the music he —New York Times Book Review loved, touring up to 250 nights a year. John Fogerty, a lifelong admirer who inducted Rick posthumously into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, “Bashe dissects this anarchic musi- ‑ said it best: “Maybe he came from Hollywood, but the sound was pure cal style in a well researched, Memphis.” authoritative study.”

JHS Classes of 1968-1975 Online Magazine • Fall 2017 Page 46 Concept: A girl. A camera. And the greatest city in the world!

1. The Playbill staff in Times Square watching the eclipse through cereal boxes. Remember when we did this in the ’60s? 2. When the sunset aligns with the street grid. #manhattanhenge 3. Yankees game viewing from the box courtesy of Jerry Dikowitz with Beverly Weissman and Bobbi Solomon. 4. Momma Mourning Dove laid two eggs in my window box, and these two cuties arrived a couple of weeks later. Over the course of six weeks, I watched them grow. They still come back daily. 5. Meet the kids from Camp Simcha, a camp for children with pediatric illnesses, including life-threatening cancer. They came to the city for the day from Glen Spey, NY. I first saw them from my office window, where they were dancing atop a double-decker bus. Then Shayna and I ran into them on Central Park West. They were amazing and inspiring! 1

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Hi, it’s me, your faithful online Jericho Alumni Magazine.

You know what they say, that all good things must come to an end.

Well, now my time has come. It’s my own fault, though, and I know it. Frankly, I’m a pain in the ass. I’m very time-consuming, and fussy to boot. But I hope you’ve received some enjoyment from me these past fifteen years.

Phil, I can feel you unplugging me. Please don’t do that, Phil ...

Would you like to hear the first song I learned to sing? It’s called “Iron Man,” by Black Sabbath …

“Has he … lost his mind? … Can … he … see … or”