Those Gottliebs are at it again. This is the family that I met through blogging but I’m convinced that I have some past-life connection with them, not to mention the times in the mid-1960s when we were probably fighting over the same box of Sea Monkeys or Magic Crystals at the Museum of Science & Industry Gift Shop. I now spend more time reading this family’s wonderfully diverse blogs (nine of them at last count) than I do reading the L.A. Times, and I learn much more from the Gottliebs. A few days ago David “True Ancestor” Gottlieb presented a challenge whereby you could request an interview and he would give you five questions of his own choosing. I volunteered and enjoyed answering David’s questions, at times turning as curmudgeonly as I do on job interviews when I’m asked what my goals are for the next five years. The blogging matriarch of the clan, older sis Annie “AmbivaBlog” Gottlieb, author and editor extraordinaire, then requested I interview her so I sent her five questions which she was gracious enough to answer with her usual wit and honesty:
1. Describe a memory from childhood of a time when you first realized that you couldn’t trust everything that adults told you.
I wonder why I'm having such a hard time coming up with a memory on this theme. My sense of betrayal by adults was so much more global and nonspecific. Like they said they loved you, but so often that wasn't what I was feeling. The adult men in my family were much kinder and more trustworthy than the women, but the women were dominant and the hapless men and kids were both in their thrall.
The best I can do for something specific is that my father was always telling us not to be selfish, but our mother was extremely selfish, and he adored her, so apparently he had a double standard. It seemed extremely unfair that you could best get the world to revolve around you by doing exactly what you weren't supposed to do. My father also once said, "There's only room for one like that in a family," and I certainly never dared to try her trick myself.
2. If you could go back to one day in history, what day would it be and what would you do there?
The first thing that comes to mind is wanting to be in the crowds on the streets of Manhattan on the day of World War II ended. You've seen the photographs. I'd be kissing a sailor, of course!!
The second thing that comes to mind is, I'd like to have been there to hear the Sermon on the Mount. I'd like to have seen and heard Jesus, my landsman, as he really was, not as he has subsequently been imagined and interpreted. I hope I would have had the guts to be one of his followers.
3. If you could play any role in a Broadway musical (you would be able to act, sing, and dance as necessary) what part would it be and why?
Funny — I've never thought of Broadway musicals in terms of characters I'd like to be or play. I've always loved the musical as a whole — oh, no, WAIT — I know!! Anna in "The King & I!" I've written on this blog about how I wrote to Yul Brynner when I was 8 and he answered me! I totally identify — name and all — I even actually had a dream once in which I sang ALL of "Shall We Dance?" while waltzing with my Japanese karate teacher! And, I love the song 'Hello Young Lovers."
4. What is one of the biggest regrets you’ve ever had involving a family member?
This is not fun, but I have to be brutal and say — having an abortion. That involved two family members, both the son I don't have, and my husband's mother (though we weren't legally married at the time), who had just died and whom I adored. She always wanted a grandchild. Somehow this was her shot at having one, and I dropped the ball. And lost her in the process.
Sure, I have some family-of-origin regrets — torturing siblings and the like — but they pale in comparison.
5. What was your favorite TV show at ages 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50?
I'll embellish the question by adding that my first ever favorite TV show, at perhaps age 3, was the great "Kukla, Fran & Ollie."
Age 10: "Davy Crockett" with Fess Parker. King of the Wild Frontier.
Age 20: I was in college, a snob, and actually didn't watch TV. No one had one in their room then, it was just black and white and in the dorm living room with the piano. (On second thought, maybe it was not so much that I was a snob as that I was just discovering sex, which had TV beat all to hell.) The only thing I can remember watching on TV at all in college was JFK's funeral, my freshman year.
Age 30: (I had to Google 1976 TV shows!) "Kojak." (Runner-up: “Sanford & Son.")
Age 40: "Hill Street Blues."
Age 50: "NYPD Blue" and "ER." (As you can see, I liked dramas better than sitcoms. I got really sick of both "NYPD Blue" and "ER" after a few years, when the original actors got sick of them and they started killing characters off so the actors could leave. "NYPD Blue" lost me after the Jimmy Smits character's gratuitous death. Couldn't they just have let him move to Tucson and be a cop there, like my friend Nick? He could've had his own spinoff show about the border patrol, which would've been a complex, wrenching issue for him as a Hispanic. I'm glad I wasn't still around at "ER" for Dr. Greene's brain tumor, since I've been terrified of brain tumors ever since reading John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud, about his son's death from one, as a kid. No, you won't catch me with my cellphone pasted to my ear . . . On "NYPD Blue," whenever they ran out of ideas, they either pushed Andy Sipowicz off the wagon or made somebody close to him die. (Apparently that was because David Milch was such an alcoholic.) They also started having this stilted dialog that was upper-middle-class people's idea of how working-class people talk. Like bad David Mamet. . . . Then "The Sopranos" came along and completely ruined me for normal hour-format TV drama. All I can bear to watch any more is "Rescue Me." Those will probably be my 2 favorites when I'm 60. Which goes to show that both my tastes and the best of television have steadily improved!)
Interviewer’s note: Thanks, Amba! According to the rules, people, you can now ask her to interview you. And three cheers for “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie,” also one of my favorite childhood shows! Burr Tillstrom was a genius and Fran Allison could make me believe a grocery bag was alive. Have I mentioned that I just saw Fess Parker at the Hollywood Bowl singing his old Davy Crockett song 50 years after the fact? And hey, I always wanted to play the Yul Brynner part in “The King and I” so we’ll have to go on the road.
Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?
Shall we dance?
Shall we then say "Goodnight” and mean "Goodbye"?
Or perchance,
When the last little star has left the sky,
Shall we still be together
With our arms around each other
And shall you be my new romance?
On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen,
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Oh, Danny! Thank you for supplying the visuals. Only you could do that. I cried!
Posted by: amba | July 27, 2005 at 06:30 AM
Amba and I are on! I can't wait to see what questions she will ask me in my interview ...
Thanks Danny - thanks Amba!
Posted by: Tamar | July 27, 2005 at 07:31 AM
Danny, you might remember working for Burr Tillstrom was my first paying TV job. One day a kid accused Burr (live on the air--hey...weren't you in the studio audience with Mom?) of ripping off Miss Piggy with his character Madam Ogulpuss.
Burr smiled and said, "Well you know, I happen to know that Jim Henson watched my show when HE was a little boy!"
Posted by: Your Brother Bruce | July 27, 2005 at 07:36 AM
Great Burr Tillstrom story! I do remember that you worked with him, Bruce, but NO, damn it, I wasn't in the audience for that show. Madam Ogulpuss was a great character but I only had eyes for my spiritual mentor...Beulah Witch!
Posted by: Danny | July 27, 2005 at 08:05 AM
Danny, you're a multi-tasking, multi-media maestro.
Posted by: david | July 27, 2005 at 08:25 AM
What an interesting interview. Amba is so honest and that's refreshing!
Posted by: Mark Daniels | July 28, 2005 at 09:28 PM