Coyote V. Acme

by Ian Frazier

  Making “Movies” in New York

  If you live in New York City, or if you’ve ever visited it, you have probably come across street locations where movies are being made. There are big motor homes parked at the curb, and equipment trucks, and cables on the sidewalk, and brisk young people with polo shirts and walkie-talkies asking you please to walk on the other side. For me, as for most New Yorkers, such an occurrence is now commonplace, and I obey the brisk young people without a thought. Or, rather, I used to. Recently I have made a strange discovery: whatever it is those “film crews” are really doing with their clipboards and their umbrella reflectors and their streetside buffet tables and their hand-lettered signs saying MAKEUP or WARDROBE or MR. VARNEY’S TRAILER, they’re not making movies!

  This discovery came about by coincidence. Some years ago I took my sister and two of her friends for drinks in a bar in the lobby of a midtown hotel. We had hardly begun our first round when the waiter told us that we would have to leave, because someone was about to begin filming a movie there. Suddenly squads of brisk young people were toting cables and moving furniture and talking among themselves in a telegraphic way. As we slid toward the revolving doors, I managed to ask one of them what movie they were working on. He mentioned the name of a well-known director and the title: They All Laughed.

  That should have tipped me off right there. Instead, I watched the movie pages of the local papers for months, then years, waiting for the opening of They All Laughed. Of course, any well-informed person knows that probably there is not and never has been any such movie. They All Laughed? I’ll say they did. They probably howled and roared in the privacy of that emptied-out hotel bar, as they achieved whatever mysterious purpose they had commandeered it for. I began to think back over all the movies I had ever seen—could I name even one that had been filmed in New York? Also, I recalled other instances in which I had asked “film crews” the titles of the alleged movies they were working on. Once, a couple of large men blocking the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge told me that it was closed for the filming of a movie called Hudson Hawk. Give me a break! Hudson Hawk? I could come up with a likelier title off the top of my head. And it goes without saying that no cinematic offering by that name ever did appear (as far as I know) at my local quadriplex. Another time, I couldn’t eat at a favorite lunch counter downtown because of the purported filming of a supposed work titled Something Wild. In later years did I or anyone I know ever see or hear of the release of any movie by that name? Well, maybe there was one, but I never ran across it. Sometimes I wonder why those “filmmakers” bother to concoct names for their “movies” at all.

  So what are they up to, if they’re not making movies? One rather obvious answer comes immediately to mind. They spend a lot of time in and near large motor homes—a favorite recreation of Californians. They move about the city from place to place; Californians are known for their mobility. Many of them are tan. They like to set up buffet tables in the out-of-doors —a habit reminiscent of the patio-style dining favored in California. The food on the buffet tables is usually juices, fresh fruit. and vegetables—well-known staples of the Californian diet. In short, these self-described “on-location crews” may simply be Californians who have adapted to the environment of New York City.

  Naturally, the disguise of filmmaker suits these people better than it would emigrants from other states; California has long been known for its association with the movies. Still, I cannot help wondering if something more is going on behind the charade. A while ago the motor homes and cables and buffet tables showed up in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. This time crew members handed out flyers asking residents of certain streets to remove all air-conditioners from streetside windows, in the interests of the period authenticity of the “movie.” Residents who failed to comply at once were petitioned again and again. My neighbors and I all took down our air-conditioners and laid them on the floor, where we tripped over and stubbed our toes on them for several days until a second flyer came telling us we could put them back. Meanwhile, the motor homes sat at the curbs with their cables snaking down into the basements of adjacent buildings. After a few days I noticed that the motor homes had gotten slightly larger, while the buildings they were connected to had lost a few feet in height.

  On a hunch, I called Con Ed. They still haven’t called me back, but when they do, I am sure another piece of the puzzle will be revealed. Meanwhile, I continue to watch the situation closely, and I advise others to do the same. Peek through a side window of the longest motor home the next time you come across a convoy parked somewhere. Most likely the shades will be tightly drawn. But if they aren’t, chances are that this is what you’ll see: feet in expensive running shoes, propped on a countertop or table; ankles, negligently crossed, in white sweat socks; tan bare shins covered with fine blond hairs; boxy tan knees; and, propped on the knees, an open copy of the New York Post. Many times I have seen just this sight bathed in the motor home’s interior glow and framed in the porthole-like window. The brand of the running shoes may change, and the stripe on the sweat socks, and the issue of the newspaper, but the knees, the shins—they are always the same. Owing to the angle and perspective, I can never see the rest of the figure. It could be a woman; it is more probably a man. The shins especially radiate an unmistakable aura of power. Unless I miss my guess, they are the still center of the whole mad enterprise. Something about them is tantalizingly familiar. If I could match them with a face, perhaps I would know all.

  Stalin’s Chuckle

  Seldom did anyone see Stalin laugh. When he did, it was more like a chuckle, as though to himself.

  —G. Zhukov, Marshall of the Soviet Union,

  Reminiscences and Reflections

  Irwin C. Brown,

  TV and Radio Entertainers’ Retirement Home Stalin’s dacha, his summer place or whatever—now, that was a hard room. I worked it just the one time when I was on my world tour in the fifties. No stage or nothin’, only a little, like, conference table with a lectern. I pushed the lectern aside, didn’t need that for my act. They offered me some herring, but herring dries up my pipes. I just started right in. They was all sittin’ there, right in the front row. Matter of fact, it was the only row, these big high-backed chairs: Beria, Khrushchev, Poskrebyshev, Litvinov, Molotov. Stalin sat on the aisle. Kept his hat on. I thought I saw the mustache go up when I did my “Go get yourself your own white man!” It just sort of went up, oh, ‘bout a quarter inch. That room was quiet, man. I could see Beria holdin’ it in, face turnin’ purple. And Molotov was makin’ these little chokin’ sounds, kinda snortin’ out the nose every once in a while. But if Joe don’t laugh, don’t nobody laugh.

  Freddie Drake, Friars Club

  I worked ten days at the old Flamingo in Las Vegas and then flew straight to Moscow. A. N. Poskrebyshev, the personal secretary, booked me. They put me up in a God-awful hotel, hot and cold running soot. At eleven at night some guy called for me and took me to the private apartment in the Kremlin where Stalin stayed when he couldn’t get home. A lot of guys were sitting around with cigars and wine. It was a smoker, basically. I took one look and told myself, “Freddie, tonight you work blue.” I used material so adult it would have gotten me kicked off American TV for life. Stalin was tanked but he didn’t show it. I did the Shorty’s joke, I did “Run, Harold, Run!,” I did “Death or Chi-Chi”—nothing. I ended with my killer, really hit the punch line hard: “So the plumber says, ‘I can save your wife, Mr. Schonstein—but I’m afraid it’s too late for the rabbi!’” Stalin wanted to laugh, I know that. He did laugh, sort of, in that there was possibly a slightly redder color in his face. He gave off a strong feeling as if he might have been laughing. But did he laugh laugh? Not per se, no.

  A. N. Poskrebyshev,

  Palace of Party Members, Moscow

  I remembered he used to play Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah!” over and over again on the phonograph. This story-song of the young boy’s letter home from summer cam
p made him helpless with laughing. Sometimes his mustache would rise perhaps half a centimetre. As his personal secretary, I had the job of replacing the needle at the beginning of each recording after it had reached the end. He especially liked the song “God Rest You, Gary Mandelbaum,” and sometimes you would think he was almost humming along. Many other so-called novelty songs from America had a similarly strong effect on him. He often spoke of his desire to meet the man who wrote the song “I’m My Own Grandpaw.”

  Kayla T., Los Angeles

  As a humor therapist, I immediately got a sense that all these men at the Kremlin were very stiff and rigid, and that uninhibited laughter might break up the rigidity—as it so often does. So I had the idea of getting everybody on the floor for a game of Ha. Now, in Ha what you do is you lie on the floor on your back, and somebody lies on his back perpendicular to you and rests his head on your stomach, and so on across the floor in sort of a herringbone pattern, and then the first person says “Ha,” and the second person says “Ha, ha,” and the third person is supposed to say “Ha, ha, ha,” and so on. And the way your head bobs up and down on the other person’s stomach when he says “Ha,” it generally has everybody laughing hysterically by the time you get to three “Ha”s. I laid them out carefully—Mr. Molotov, Mr. Beria, Mr. Malenkov, and the others, with Mr. Stalin at the end. I told them all to relax and take deep breaths. Then Mr. Molotov said “Ha.” Mr. Beria, suppressing giggles, continued with “Ha, ha.” Mr. Malenkov strained to control his dignity as he added his “Ha, ha, ha.” Mr. Khrushchev’s attempt at “Ha, ha, ha, ha” became an uncontrollable fit of belly laughs, which violently bounced Mr. Mikoyan’s head, causing him to laugh until he wept, which in turn set off Mr. Yagoda. In a minute the whole line was howling with nonstop laughter—all except Mr. Stalin. His head bounced and bounced on his neighbor’s stomach, but his expression didn’t change. He stood, excused himself, and walked over to the men’s room. He closed the door and slid the bolt. Gradually his colleagues on the floor began to calm down, and one by one they sat up. Soon we all fell completely silent. From the men’s room we heard a faint sound. I am of the belief that what we heard was Mr. Stalin chuckling as though to himself.

  A. N. Poskrebyshev

  Booking comedy acts added greatly to my secretarial responsibilities, and I often neglected it in favor of more regular tasks. Comrade Stalin noticed this, imprisoned my wife, Bronislava, and then asked me to obtain at all costs a performance by a Mexican comedian. Through our embassy in Mexico City, I got in touch with ex-Comrade Trotsky, who was living there at the time. As it happened, Trotsky knew the Mexican comedy circuit well and had even contributed a few gags to some of its leading members. So in a manner of speaking certain comedians owed Trotsky a favor, and here was a perfect opportunity to make use of it. I was delighted with all these developments, and did not conceal my pleasure from Comrade Stalin. At the mention of Comrade Trotsky’s name, however, Comrade Stalin grew agitated and began to chuckle, as though to himself. Still chuckling, he insisted that I telephone immediately to Comrade Beria at his flat and summon him. When Beria arrived, Stalin rushed to the door, answered it, chuckled again, and screamed at Beria for his slowness. Chuckling very loudly as though to himself, he pushed Beria before him into the inner office and slammed the door. Soon after this he told me he would prefer to be entertained only by comedians from cold countries. “A Finn, for example, is always funny,” he advised.

  Though others may disagree, I have always maintained that Comrade Stalin knew funny. Hidden among his many attributes was a sure comedic sense. “You must never forget,” he exhorted me, “a comic is one who says things funny, while a comedian is one who says funny things. Both of these phases, however, must be passed through on the way to the third and final phase: good stand-up. When we as a society attain really good stand-up, every evening will be open mike and the state as we know it will wither away. For jokes, we will require new ones appropriate to our modern times, and on modern themes—airplane food, for example, that syphilitic abomination! Or how about the vapid and syphilitic listings of television programs published in the newspapers? Such a form, if used in proper satiric style, could be most effective. A master of stand-up should possess a full repertoire of funny voices—Negro, sports announcer, and robot, to name only a few. Draw your comedy from daily life if you wish to reach the true audience: the people. Enough of the syphilitic vaudevillians’ noise! The modern comedian will instead find his subjects at airports, in the behavior of overbearing shop clerks, and in the differences between one’s own city and Los Angeles. Let us develop a scientific system for the production of trenchant comedy riffs, using as our models the best comedians of the past. Let our youngsters who wish to perform stand-up devote hours, years, to the watching of films of these masters. The true comic is the revolutionary, sticking swords in the stuffed shirts of the bourgeoisie. Let the comedy revolution never end, let it fill entire television channels, let it grow until everything is thoroughly funny!”

  Eventually Comrade Stalin began to question my own sense of humor, and I was dismissed from his service. My wife, Bronislava, remained in prison until she was shot, I believe. Toward the end, the splendid theories of comedy Comrade Stalin had developed were under attack. Saddened as I was by his treatment of my wife and me, I did not lose faith in the soundness of these theories. Properly applied, they could have provided uproarious material on an international scale for years to come. The noise resembling a chuckle that we delighted to hear from Comrade Stalin’s lips could have spread to every land. But, unfortunately for the cause of world humor, such a result was not to be.

  Also by Ian Frazier

  Family (1994)

  Great Plains (1989)

  Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody (1987)

  Dating Your Mom (1986)

  PRAISE FOR IAN FRAZIER AND Coyote v. Acme

  Can you imagine Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Co. for all those faulty explosive devices that failed to work in the Roadrunner cartoons? What if Boswell did a life of Don Johnson, rather than Samuel Johnson? The writer also pokes fun at Bob Hope’s flawed memory about accidents and golfing gems, Stalin’s theory of comedy and a bank with a great new system of notation. It’s sophisticated and it’s funny.

  —Bob Trimble, The Dallas Morning News

  In Coyote v. Acme, a collection of (very) funny pieces; Ian Frazier separates issues (“Young Elvis, old Elvis”) from nonissues (“Old Elvis, dead Elvis”); contemplates a life-insurance questionnaire for daytime drama characters; and has fun with critics’ favorite crutch: positing cities (or mortality, or the English language) as a novel’s character.

  —New York

  A few years ago, when the title piece from this collection appeared in The New Yorker, it lit up fax machines all over town … Now this masterpiece of the humorous essay spearheads a collection of similar gems.

  —Susan Kelly, Time Out New York

  Makes Henry Kissinger look like a straight man.

  —David Mamet

  To write ineffable lyrics, page-turning thrillers or profound epics —none of these is easy. But to write something that is truly funny—so funny that your eyes water and you laugh out loud —this may be the hardest and rarest thing of all. Ian Frazier does it with apparent ease.

  —George Gurley, The Kansas City Star

  COYOTE V. ACME. Copyright © 1996 by Ian Frazier. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10010.

  www.picadorusa.com

  Picador® is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux under license from Pan Books Limited.

  For information on Picador USA Reading Group Guides, as well as

  ordering, please contact the Trade Marketing department at

  St. Martin’s Press
.

  Phone: 1-800-221-7945 extension 763

  Fax: 212-677-7456

  E-mail: trademarketing@stmartins.com

  These pieces appeared originally in The New Yorker,

  The Atlantic Monthly, and Army Man.

  First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  eISBN 9781466828759

  First eBook Edition : September 2012