Books
Tammy Wynette, popular country-and-Western singing star, was in one of those large, supermarket-type bookstores on Fifth Avenue the other day autographing copies of her just published autobiography, called Stand by Your Man, which is also the title of one of her songs. She was sitting at a table, and in front of her on the table were stacks of the book. Tammy Wynette’s husband, a man named George Richey, stood near the table. To one side of her were many people standing in a line and holding copies of the book, or record albums, or pieces of paper. Some of the people, when they got to her, said that they liked her jacket, which was purple. Some of the people, when they got to her, said that they liked her blouse, which was green. Other people said that they liked her jewelry—a gold chain worn around her neck and some rings on fingers of both hands. Still other people looked at her with smiles on their faces and said, “Your pictures don’t do you justice.” One man said to her, “You are absolutely gorgeous.” She said to someone who asked her if she had just got into town, “Well, no. I did Good Morning America, I was on WHN, and I did the Arlene Francis Show.” A man came up behind her and said, “You are the wildest woman in New York City,” and she looked behind her and recognized the man and they hugged. She introduced him as a television interviewer from Nashville. She told a woman, who had asked, that her children listen to Elton John and Donna Summer. A woman told her that reading her book made her feel young again. Tammy Wynette shrugged and laughed. In the books she autographed, she wrote, alternately, “Thanks for asking. Love, Tammy” and”Hope you enjoy the book. Love, Tammy.” Some of the people who asked her to autograph their books were named Don, Christian, Gillian, Paul, Bob, Dick, Paulette, Trixie, John, Regina, Lynn, and Mabel. Finally, she autographed a Xerox copy of a picture of herself standing near her swimming pool at her home in Florida, and autographed a copy of Lattimore’s translation of the Odyssey, and then autographed some more books. After much prompting from her husband, she got into a car and was driven away.
—December 3, 1979
Colloquy About Sting
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “Sting. Sting. Sting. I just saw Sting and his band, The Police, play at the Palladium. They were great, but Sting was incredible. Sting is what I really like about the new rock and roll.”
“Sting,” said the man who was her companion. “Sting. I suppose I will be hearing a lot about Sting.”
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “What did I really like most about Sting? It wasn’t completely the way he held his bass guitar. It wasn’t completely the way he wore his mechanic’s jumper. It wasn’t completely the fact that in his face he looks slightly savage. What did I like most about Sting?”
“Sting,” said her companion. “Isn’t it terrible what happened to him? He was walking down the street, minding his own business, when, suddenly, from out of nowhere, a large safe fell on his head.”
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “Sting has such an unusual voice. Sting has such an interesting, unusual voice. Sting’s voice is—well, mellifluous.”
“Sting,” said her companion. “How can I tell you this? Sting slept near an open window and he caught a terrible draft, and now every time he opens his mouth to sing, his poor throat just hurts and hurts, and he can’t make a sound. Gosh, I’m really sorry.”
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “Sting is in Quadrophenia. Sting was the best thing about Quadrophenia.”
“Sting,” said her companion. “Yes, Sting was the best thing about Quadrophenia. Too bad about that big truck bearing down on him so quickly as he crossed a busy intersection.”
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “Sting. The way he danced. Very cool. It’s a pleasure to see him move around.”
“Sting,” said her companion. “Sting. The way he used to dance. Too bad that now his feet aren’t even attached to his body.”
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “Sting has a very nice chest. When he came back onstage at the Palladium for his final encore, he had removed the top of his mechanic’s jumper, so I could see his chest.”
“Sting,” said her companion. “Poor Sting. Did you hear what happened to him? He was chasing a stack of pancakes around a tree when he stubbed his toe on a tree root and hurt himself badly. Now he doesn’t even have a chest.”
“Sting,” said the pretty girl. “Sting is the greatest person I have ever seen on a stage.”
“Sting,” said her companion. “Sting. Sting. Sting. Sting is greater than any living woman.”
—December 24, 1979
Three Parties
“That man over there is a popular journalist,” said a pretty girl. “He is at the center of things. He had an idea for an article, but then he saw his idea on Prime Time Saturday.”
“I picked up a piece of cauliflower,” said the man who was her companion. “I knew it was a piece of cauliflower. But just for conversation I said to a man standing next to me ‘What is this?’ and he said ‘Oh, it’s a crudité.’ Crudité! Can you believe it? I mean to say, he was an American and he told me a piece of cauliflower was a crudité.”
“That petite woman over there is a popular figure in modern dance,” said the pretty girl. “She did the dance sequences in a very good movie, but the movie was a big flop. She is the only real artist in this room—she and the man over there who is playing the piano. He is a bad pianist playing bad show tunes. All men who play the piano are great artists.”
“There’s Bill Boggs,” said her companion. “Bill Boggs is the only sane man in America. He is wearing a jacket with double vents. He is the only man in America who looks good in a jacket with double vents.”
“That man over there is a famous producer,” said the pretty girl. “I met him years ago. He took out a girl I knew then. He made love to her in the shower.”
“Right next door is another party,” said her companion. “A dinner party. People from a paper company. Perhaps they are very happy and will soon be eager to show it.”
“I have just remembered something,” said the pretty girl. “I once stood in this very room and a woman showed me twelve different ways to wear the same dress. She was from Japan. It wasn’t a very interesting idea.”
“Blythe Danner is standing over there talking to someone who could be a jerk or who could be Francis of Assisi,” said her companion. “I have no real thoughts on Blythe Danner.”
“That woman in the red cowboy boots once wrote a long article about Stevie Wonder,” said the pretty girl. “I admire all women, even when they haven’t discovered something as important as radium.”
“There is a reporter here from People magazine,” said her companion. “The same man, who lives in Greenwich Village, makes out our taxes.”
“All the people in this room care very much for each other,” said the pretty girl. “Look at how interested each one is in what the others are saying. I am sure they call each other up every day just to make sure that not one of them is running a fever.”
“Those two people are from Italy,” said her companion. “They don’t know who the man is they are talking to. Slowly, and using on-the-spot sign language, he is telling them.”
“Unknown to me, someone took my picture,” said the pretty girl. “I can feel myself losing altitude. I can feel my halo evaporating in the clear winter air. I can feel my spirit taking a long walk away from me.”
“There’s nothing out there,” said the pretty girl’s companion. “There’s nothing out there except sometimes you see big rats—the kind that come from Norway. Or people in bootleg-cut jeans.”
“Rats have buck teeth,” said the pretty girl. “That is, they do unless they gnaw on something.”
“When I look at Rockefeller Center,” said her companion, “I say to myself, ‘Now, that’s a tribute to something.’”
“I knew a man who used to take three teaspoons of sugar every day in his morning coffee,” said the pretty girl. “Three teaspoons of sugar. While he was drinking it, he said, he felt like Atlas. Bu
t shortly after, he said, he felt as sluggish as a mole.”
“Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street,” said her companion. “I ran into a woman I used to know, and she had just spent the summer in Montana. She said, This summer and fall in Montana, four hundred and fifty-six thousand six hundred and twenty-three dozen eggs, two hundred and eighty thousand six hundred and twenty-nine chickens, and forty-eight hundred pigs were destroyed because the feed had become contaminated with a chemical that causes cancer in animals.’ I didn’t tell her that that was not news to me.”
“Talk about sugar!” said the pretty girl. “I heard of a man who lived in Harlem and for breakfast he ate Hostess Twinkies and cola soda. Every day, he ate that, and every day he went out and committed a gruesome crime. When he was finally caught, he pleaded sugar rush.”
“When I look at the Empire State Building,” said her companion, “I say to myself, ‘Now, that’s another tribute, to an entirely different thing.’ When I look at the Empire State Building, I make a mental note of all the things I really need.”
“I took a trip to Port of Spain once,” said the pretty girl. “On a banana boat. I ate a lot of bananas, I was bitten by a lot of fleas, and a man who drank rum talked in my face constantly. For a long time afterward, it was no to bananas, fleas, and men.”
“The people here,” said the pretty girl, “don’t like to dance to the new Joe Jackson record, or the new Police, or the new Talking Heads, or the new Tom Petty, or the new Clash, and they don’t know how to dance to ska music. All the people here are older young white people. They like to dance to any Motown record from 1965.”
“Well, well,” said her companion. “Well, well.”
“Last night, I dreamed that I was at a party with all these people,” said the pretty girl. “The party was on the thirty-second floor. I willed all the guests to go out on the balcony, hold their nose, and jump.”
“Well, well,” said her companion.
“I danced with that woman in the man’s suit,” said the pretty girl. “As I danced with her, I knew she was a woman in a man’s suit. And I danced with her as if she were a woman in a man’s suit. When the dance was over, she said, ‘I bet you didn’t know that I was a woman wearing a man’s suit.’ I didn’t say anything, but I thought, I bet you don’t know that a potato when cooked has only about a hundred and twenty-five calories.”
“Well, well,” said her companion.
“This is my last party,” said the pretty girl. “Tonight, as I was getting dressed, I said to myself, “This is my last party.’ On a cold night like tonight, I wear long underwear. Leaf-green-color long underwear. I said to myself as I was putting on my long underwear, ‘This is my last party.’”
“Well, well,” said her companion.
“The next time I get an invitation to a party,” said the pretty girl, “I will say to myself, ‘All those fish heads I have in the freezer—it’s time to make a soup out of them.’”
“Well, well,” said her companion.
—January 14, 1980
Expense Account
Expense account for press breakfast for Milton and Rose Friedman, the Nobel Laureate economist and his wife, in honor of their new book and PBS television series, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement:
(1) Cost of transportation to and from press breakfast for this reporter (by subway) $1.00
(2) Cost of clothes this reporter wore to press breakfast, including makeup and hairpins (wild guess) $65.00
(3) Cost of building in which press breakfast was held $40,000,000.00
(4) Cost of transportation to and fro for other reporters (off-the-top-of-the-head guess, making allowance for the fact that some of them may have taken cabs, or the train from Connecticut) $250.00
(5) Cost of clothes other reporters wore to press breakfast (too complicated to make even a wild guess)
(6) Cost of heating pressroom for a couple of hours (an-other wild guess) $10.00
(7) Cost of Milton Friedman’s well-pressed suit $250.00
(8) Cost of Milton Friedman’s shiny black made-in-Hong Kong shoes $20.00
(9) Cost of Milton Friedman’s tie (with a pattern of Adam Smith portraits) $10.00
(10) Cost of Milton Friedman’s neat haircut $5.00
(11) Cost of Rose Friedman’s royal-blue Ultrasuede suit $300.00
(12) Cost of Rose Friedman’s blue polyester blouse $35.00
(13) Cost of Rose Friedman’s black mid-calf-length boots $50.00
(14) Cost of Rose Friedman’s brown Mark Cross handbag $100.00
(15) Cost of breakfast (including coffee, cream, sugar, 6-oz.- can servings of orange juice, fruit cup, bagels and bialys, smoked salmon, cream cheese, tea, and two people to serve the guests) $420.00
(16) Cost of press kits (including one or two free books given to press people) $500.00
(17) Cost of phone calls made by press people from the press breakfast to the office $1.75
(18) Cost of ball-point pen held by reporter who looked like the actor who played Dr. No in the movie Dr. No $.59
Total $40,002,018.34
—January 20, 1980
The Governor’s Party
NEWS RELEASE:
GOVERNOR’S OFFICE FOR MOTION PICTURE AND TELEVISION DEVELOPMENT IN NEW YORK, CREATED TO ATTRACT FILMMAKERS TO THE STATE, HOSTS LUNCHEON TO CALL ATTENTION TO RECORD AMOUNT OF FILMMAKING CURRENTLY IN NEW YORK.
There were twelve photographers; there was Sylvester Stallone, wearing an ill-fitting double-vented suit; there was the former Miss India, one of the stars of Star Trek—The Motion Picture, in which she appears completely bald; there was Billy Dee Williams, with his hair lying flat on his head, as if it had just been pressed; there was a man named Martin Poll, a producer, who has a wife named Gladys; there was a man who could have been a fishing-equipment salesman, because he looked so much like a smart old trout; there was an editor from Us; there was the woman who writes the “Newsmakers” page for Newsweek, and she had a lot of nice things to say about a stunning blond protégée of Mickey Rooney and a lot of not too nice things to say about the people she worked for, who weren’t going for a picture layout with a mention of the stunning blond protégée of Mickey Rooney; there was a man who said, “Isn’t Martin bold? He’s producing in Italian and shooting in New York”; there was a woman who had just won an emerging-artist grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for her photographs of people at parties; there were quite a few bowls filled with ground raw red meat; there was a woman who had known for twelve years a man who has written a book on De Quincey and a book on Lenny Bruce; there was a man who said quite matter-of-factly that he had been a member of the United States Army Special Forces; there was a woman who left her handbag under a table and then, when someone moved the table, couldn’t find her handbag; there was a woman who said, “See Being There. It is an American movie with an arty European feel to it”; there was a woman who didn’t want her picture taken with Sylvester Stallone—the only woman who didn’t—and who wondered out loud just what Sylvester Stallone, the former Miss India, and Billy Dee Williams were saying to each other for the full forty-five minutes that they stood around in front of the twelve photographers having their picture taken; then there was Earl Wilson, speaking to Sylvester Stallone, and all the time jotting down in a small brown notebook things Sylvester Stallone told him. A couple of days later, in his column, Earl Wilson wrote:
Sly Stallone was wearing a very dark beard. He looked like a great blackberry pie with a face in the middle. Slickly neat in a grey suit, he moved about quickly, authoritatively, at Maxwell’s Plum. The Governor’s Office for Motion Picture Development was giving a party for Martin Poll’s new film Attack, with Sly as a decoy cop.
“Welcome back to New York,” I said … . “Thank you, I’m looking for a new home, I may move back—if they’ll have me. I’ll be here 13 weeks. We’ll see how it feels.”
I was keeping some pretty female journalists from gasping over him. He was busy but polite.
Sara
Command: Find a new Little Miss Marker.
Question: Who is the new Little Miss Marker?
Answer: The new Little Miss Marker is a little girl who is six years old. Her name is Sara Stimson, and she is from Helotes, Texas. She has dark hair and dark eyes, and she has a line of little girls’ clothes named after her, a doll that looks more or less like her named after her, and a fruit punch for anybody who wants to drink it also named after her. Her mother, who goes with Sara wherever Sara goes, carries in her pocketbook a can of Band-Aids, a small bottle of Mercurochrome, a jar of baby aspirin, a tube of medicated ointment, and packets of Baby Fresh towellettes. Sara’s mother’s name is Dana. Dana says, “We are from near San Antone, Texas. I was working as a secretary at the V.A. hospital when a friend of mine came in and said they were interviewing little girls for a movie—a modern remake of the old Shirley Temple movie Little Miss Marker. You know, if you have kids, you like to expose them and you want to see if they have a talent for something. I told Sara to get dressed and comb her hair, and I would take her and see if she wanted to talk to these people. Well, when she got there, she just chatted with them and really opened up. They videotaped her and sent the tape to Universal Studios. Universal liked it and asked us to come for a screen test. It will be a year ago tomorrow that we went out to Hollywood. When they asked us to come out, I thought it would be an adventure for Sara. She had never flown before. Now she has flown a bunch. There were eight little girls tested that day. We went back home and waited, and then they called us one Tuesday and asked us to come back on a Sunday. Of course, you lie in bed and you say, ‘What is this going to be? Are you going to end up with a Judy Garland or a Marilyn Monroe?’ I would like to see Sara have a normal life. That’s what’s important to me. The money? I don’t care about the money. It took them three months to make the movie. Now comes the big publicity. She has done Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas. She is an extremely bright little girl. She has good manners, and she is very unselfish. She is just the furthest thing from self-centered that you can find. She cleans up around the house, makes her bed, plays with the neighbors. She likes applesauce, chocolate ice cream, Twinkies, bubble gum, I Love Lucy. She goes to public school and is in the second grade. She’s never had an acting lesson, and she has no problems learning her lines. On the set, she liked everybody. It’s as if God said, ‘Where can we find a kid who will be just great to play Little Miss Marker?’”
Talk Stories Page 12