Never the Twain Shall Meet

Assumption: you have a time machine. You can go back in history and have lunch with one person. Who would it be?

I wager that many people would quickly respond, “Jesus. I’d meet Jesus.”

Well, that might be great if you’re prepared to find out that he looks nothing like Jeffery Hunter. I suppose just being in his presence would be enough for most. But lunch will most likely be bread and fish, and you’ll need to speak Aramaic. At least you won’t need silverware, but the crowds might be a problem.

No, I’d like to have lunch with Mark Twain. He was arguably the most famous man of his era, he speaks English and conversation would never be lacking.

Recently I came as close as I’ll get to meeting the great American writer. My wife, daughter and future son-in-law had second row seats at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts for the legendary Hal Holbrook’s show, “Mark Twain Tonight.”

I’ll be honest. If you had asked me last summer before we bought our tickets I would have said that Holbrook was dead, or was at risk of not lasting until a show eight months later. At age 91, he may not have a lot of time remaining, so it’s truly remarkable that he can still do a one man show supported by nothing but a table, chair and podium for two hours. He carries some notes that he gingerly removes from the inside breast pocket of his white linen jacket, but it’s never clear if he’s using them as prompts or props. He returns them with great care, raises his unlit cigar in a wave of his hand that emphasizes a point in his monologue and then strolls across the stage.

One of his sketches relates the tale of an acquaintance that took forever to get to the point of a story. So long in fact, that “Twain” sits in his chair and drifts in and out of sleep over a period of several minutes. The audience becomes uncomfortably quiet during this sequence. It is a convincing portrayal. So much so that my wife whispered to me with a sense of urgency, “If he dies on stage I’ll never forgive you!”

He didn’t die, or even fall asleep. Eventually he stood and casually commented, “And that’s why we never found out about…”

A woman in our aisle struck up a conversation with us. She has seen this show about twenty times, and labeled me a fellow “Twainiac” when the depth of my interest was revealed.

The evening took me to new heights of my obsession. Upon returning home I downloaded a copy of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to read again, and dug deeper into volume one of Twain’s huge autobiography.

Holbrook was the second oldest performer we’ve ever seen. At 93, classical guitarist Andres Segovia remains the record holder. And there is a certain sadness that accompanies leaving a show, given the unlikely odds of seeing performers of this age again. I simply recommend, if there is someone you’ve been putting off seeing, don’t delay any longer. Whether it’s Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, The Monkees, Gordon Lightfoot, Brian Wilson or Willie Nelson, you just never know how many shows they have left to perform.

The Chicago Odyssey of Lester Biggs

After decades on the street, Lester Biggs was something of a fixture near Western Avenue. He spent most of each night hunting through north side alleys for discarded treasures, moving like an apparition in faded mismatched sneakers and a stained white lab coat. He was noticed by passersby but aggressively ignored, and his feet shuffled under the weight of their projected guilt and gratitude.

“Hey there doc,” said Gus, propping open the rear door of his diner with cardboard boxes and several black trash bags filled to bursting with kitchen refuse. They began this role-play several months earlier when Lester found the lab coat and showed up at Gus’s door. Prior to that he had worn a broken plastic hard-hat and orange safety vest during his construction worker period. He had been for varying lengths of time, a secret service agent securing the alley, a bible-carrying pastor and an off-duty patrolman, all based on props he discovered in his wanderings. But he took obvious delight at being a doctor. It called to something hidden away inside him.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Beach Boys

I know that what I remember happened between 7 and 8pm, because that’s when the Ed Sullivan show aired each Sunday. If I were to guess, I’d say that we were trick-or-treating, or going door-to-door singing Christmas carols. Those were the events that brought kids of varying ages together as a group back then. But the timing is all wrong, because the Beach Boys made their first of two appearances on the iconic show on September 27, 1964. And that’s what I recall seeing on TV through the front door when we stopped to pick up my sister’s friend Lenore. Perhaps we were going on a scavenger hunt. It was dark. I was ten. And in hindsight it feels like I drove by Woodstock and wondered what that music was. I barely paid attention, but the memory stuck with me.

In the intervening years I came to understand Lenore’s obsession with the legendary surf band. She wouldn’t leave the house until they finished playing “Wendy” and “I Get Around.” The broadcast was monochromatic, which perfectly suited the band’s wide-striped black and white shirts. Earlier that year the Beatles made their American debut on the same stage, so we had gotten somewhat used to audiences filled with screaming girls, and curious parents looking puzzled and somewhat horrified.

It is now days before Brian Wilson is scheduled to play at Ravinia in Highland Park Illinois. We have pavilion tickets for the show. I am neither puzzled nor horrified, but I am now the parent of a second generation Beach Boys fan. My daughter shares my love of all things Beach Boys, and her boyfriend is equally obsessed with Brian Wilson. Go figure.

I have lost track of the number of Beach Boys concerts I’ve attended through the years. A double bill with Chicago was a definite highlight in 1975. Changing outfits, hairstyles and band members never distracted from the overriding joyous California dream that pervaded each experience. Dennis and Carl died, but life went on. Brian toured sporadically, but his music carried the band’s legacy forward through the decades.

I have blasted surf music from an 8-track player through the open T-tops of a Corvette on hot summer nights, from cassettes in a mini-van with kids in the back seat, and poolside from an iPod at the house where I plan to retire. For me, the music is timeless, my reaction is visceral and mood-altering. The Beach Boys make the sun shine on the cloudiest of days.

There used to be a concert venue called Poplar Creek in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. I was among the first to subscribe to the “mellow” series – performers like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffet and the Beach Boys. My seats were in the third row, renewable each year as long as I wished.

It is now well-documented, in an autobiography and the recently released film, “Love and Mercy” how Brian Wilson struggled with drugs and an emotional breakdown, becoming an obese, bearded recluse while the band played on. Dennis’s death during 1983 shook the Wilson brothers and fans alike. The endless summer was over, for Dennis anyway. Brian quit appearing on stage again.

At a memorable show during Brian’s absence in the early 80s, I smuggled half a dozen small, un-inflated beach balls into the open-air theater. I blew them up, hunched over in my seat, and surreptitiously set them loose. Security tried to snag them over the sound of jeering fans. Eventually, one made it’s way onto the stage to the feet of Mike Love, who never flinched. Holding a microphone in one hand, singing a classic surf tune, he landed a well-place kick on the nearby ball and sent it sailing up and over the head of a man in the front row.

Oh, that man. Motionless, bearded and obese. I wondered how he could be so detached from the action on stage and all around him. He occupied the best seat in the house, alone in the otherwise empty front row. He sat staring at the stage, perhaps experiencing the concert on a level that no one but he could ever understand. There may have been other tunes in his mind, complicated chords or instrumentation that no one else would ever hear.

In yet another Forest Gump moment, I repeated the metaphoric Woodstock drive-by. I barely paid attention, but the visual stuck with me. It wasn’t until years later that I learned what until that time had been only rumored about the health and condition of my musical hero. I turned my attention back to the antics on stage, the music, the magic, the glorious summer sounds on an endless summer night, blissfully unaware that I was sitting twenty feet from the genius who created it all.

Ordinary People

The nervous little man with the curly hair leaned over to urge his young daughter toward the movie theater door. He looked familiar, like an uncle out of context or an old school chum from high school, aged almost beyond recognition. When I realized who it was, the smile on my face probably telegraphed a warning to him that I might say something to interrupt his clearly cherished daddy-daughter time. He smiled reluctantly, desperately, as if to plead, “Please, not now. We’re good, right?” And then Billy Crystal continued toward the theater doors on a night out in Westwood Village in California, ushering his little girl ahead of him.

 

Life in Brentwood was surreal at best. Movie star sightings were less frequent than one might expect, but they were invariably a jolting reminder that our culture rewards an elite few with riches and status the rest of us can hardly imagine. These ordinary people experience a lopsided familiarity with millions of television viewers who sometimes expect the relationship to be reciprocal.

It seemed wherever we went in our adopted neighborhood in 1986, the quest for stardom was tangible, either in conversation with new friends who landed a part in a daytime soap, or as evidenced by 8x10 glossies hanging just about everywhere. Even our apartment manager’s office was lined with photos of her handsome, bald, aspiring actor husband. Perhaps he thought that the world needed another Yul Brynner. Unfortunately for him, Telly Savalas and Patrick Stewart came along with the same idea. Who loves ya, baby?

An essence of star-seeking scrutiny hung in the air like a bad stench. Seated near a window at a restaurant in Santa Monica, I recall being repeatedly stared at by passersby on the sidewalk outside. Maybe I was “somebody.” It was unnerving, and as a Midwesterner unused to this Californian curiosity, I found it completely annoying.  I instantly

assumed there was dressing on my face, splashed by a frazzled Meredith Baxter-Birney, who cut in line ahead of me at the salad bar with barely an “Excuse Me” as she returned to scoop up a forgotten item for one of her twins.

The phenomenon struck closer to home as well, only a half block from our back door. We found we could walk to Baskin-Robbins if we ducked behind the parking structure that shielded us from Barrington Court. We passed this routinely on our evening walks past the house where O.J. Simpson later went on a murderous rampage. Just your usual neighborly goings-on, California style.

The consistently gorgeous weather sustained a constant craving for ice cream during the endless summer of 1986. A short line led almost to the door of the 31 Flavors. Near the tubs of ice cream stood a very tanned man with a little square head. I could almost imagine him saying, “…sometimes I just go berserk!” while his cup of rocky road was scooped from the freezer case. Tom Laughlin had put on some weight since his success in 1971 with Billy Jack.

The early days of the frozen yogurt craze attracted a more health conscious crowd.  We were no different, and the perpetually nice weather resulted in a more active lifestyle, but no less desire for sweet treats. We sat curbside in our car one evening enjoying a cup of TCBY’s finest when a guttural-voiced fellow sauntered by.

“Who does this guy think he is, Arnold Schwarzenegger?” I commented, barely looking up from my Dutch chocolate. It was. The Terminator passed by without incident, though if we had it to do over again, I would have shouted, “I’ll be back” as we drove away. I bet he never heard that. The thing is, we left and we never went back. Southern California was too much for our Midwestern sensibilities. Money makes you stupid. Fame drives you crazy. Los Angeles has lots of both.

Physical

I wasn’t always the impressive specimen I am today. It took work. During my senior year of high school at Maine South in Park Ridge our gym class had a six-week weight-training module that most of us hated. We wasted time around the free weights and Nautilus machines and dreamed of nice weather and flag football.

The final exam for our weightlifting segment was straightforward. Demonstrate improvement against a pre-test in your ability to lift various amounts at half a dozen stations. These were basic lifts like curls, bench press, military press and deadlift. I flunked.

I went home that day and bought a 220 pound weight set from a neighbor. I then set about building a weight bench out of plywood and two by fours. Thinking back on the weights I rested on that un-engineered little piece of furniture makes me shiver. I’m fortunate that by the time I outgrew it and bought a real bench I hadn’t crushed my trachea under a pile of splinters and steel. It was all very “Pumping Iron” stuff in the basement, listening to Jethro Tull and ELO while I worked out – alone.

Within six weeks I had shown remarkable improvement. The human body at age 17 is hungry for growth. Building muscle and strength is easy when you have a metabolism, motivating humiliation and all the time in the world. At school I caught my gym teacher during a free moment when he wasn’t yelling at someone.

“Mister Boyle, I’ve been working out at home and was wondering if I could take the weightlifting test over?”

“That’s over,” is all he said, and turned away.

It was a testament to his inadequacy as a teacher. A missed mentoring moment, a chance to make a real difference in a student’s future. All lost. I was demoralized, but in a strange way, it convinced me that redemption was to be my own, and to continue on a path to fitness was my only option. Boyle may have wandered off to molest a cheerleader or teach Driver’s Ed, I’ll never know. But I went home and worked out harder than ever.

College is a pivotal time when many kids get really excited about fitness, or completely fall away from it. I joined the Chicago Health Club, later to be acquired by Bally’s Fitness, and have worked out at health clubs ever since. Thus it came to pass that I was on an abdominal crunch machine at the Kennedy-Cumberland Bally’s one afternoon in the early 80s. Those were the days of legwarmers and headbands. Big hair and big arms. Olivia Newton John was “Getting Physical.” Jane Fonda, Body by Jake, Denise Austin, Chuck Norris and yes, Richard Simmons were all strutting their stuff and getting rich on the new fitness craze. Baby Boomers were aging and didn't like what they were seeing.

The equipment used to blast abs and thighs was all over the map. Total Gym, Nordic Track, Bowflex, Nautilus and of course Susanne Somers and her thigh master. Arnold Schwarzenegger hit it big in 1982 as Conan the Barbarian. Hulk Hogan was popular among WWF fans at the time. Major wrestling events were held at the nearby Rosemont Horizon stadium, a new venue for that spectacle.

But back to the club and my abs. I sat in a black vinyl chair that stabilized my back and restrained my ankles with black vinyl rollers. I was very comfy. A stack of black weights to my right was adjusted with an inserted shiny metal pin. I selected about five little steel plates that may have totaled 50 pounds. I grabbed the two black straps over my shoulders to further secure me in place, then bent forward to isolate my stomach muscles. This brought my shoulders down and my knees up, supposedly by virtue of my abdominals. Crunch and continue for three sets of 10 to 12 reps.

I soon noticed that on an identical machine two stations to my right another gym warrior was mid-set, in stride with my motion, but precisely opposing my cycle, so that when my head went forward, his went back. Of particular note, the entire stack of weights on his machine was moving up and down, slamming with a gladiator clang at the bottom of the stroke, then straining under the tension of the pulleys and cables as some unimaginably strong abdominals commanded them to do their bidding.

We proceeded like this for several sets. The upper part of the Nautilus device shielded my neighbor from my prying glance. That was where they displayed illustrated instructions that showed me exactly where my muscles were being developed, and the proper steps for achieving safe and effective results. A little further down the aisle, two big-haired Newton Johns were loitering and giggling quietly, watching the other guy get out of the machine just when I did.

Now, I am not a small person at six foot one. But as I unfolded myself into a standing position the giant at the other machine continued to rise until I stared at the shoulder of his bright yellow muscle shirt. His bandana-clad head was a full head higher than mine, and the rest of him occupied a proportional, outrageously muscled six foot seven inch frame. Hulk Hogan looked big on TV, but standing next to him was absolutely intimidating. He smiled at the girls, who followed him and tried to start a conversation while he lumbered like a brontosaurus into the free weight section. I headed the opposite direction to the juice bar for a protein shake and drank my feelings. As I raised the plastic cup to my mouth I surreptitiously glanced down at my bicep and flexed just a little bit, then drank some more.