Eight Things You Didn’t Need to Know About Me*

*But Were Afraid I’d Tell You Anyway

Just when you thought it was safe to log back onto Jew Eat Yet? I’ve decided to respond to an invitation by Communicatrix to list eight random things about myself. I hardly ever participate in memes (it took me a long time to even understand what a meme was) but this one was so broad I thought it would be fun to do some stream-of-consciousness babbling about eight disparate topics. I’m doing this with no thought about chronology or content, they will just be the first eight things that pop into my head. Amateur psychologists, feel free to make any connections you like.

1. When I was a kid, I could not swear. I heard plenty of swearing from friends and family members, but I could not bring myself to use salty language of any kind. I thought that if I said the F-word, the skies would open up and sentence me to eternal damnation. One day in seventh grade, I was playing tetherball in my backyard with my friend Michael Siegel. The ball hit me in the face and I involuntarily yelled, “Fuck!” I was so horrified by this slip that I ran to the other side of the backyard and almost started to cry. Michael, no stranger to 4-letter words, thought it was fantastic that I finally broke through my goody-two-shoes veneer. Instead of making fun of my prudishness, he comforted me and assured me that I wasn’t a bad person for expressing myself in that way. With the floodgates now opened, I quickly transformed from sounding like a bible-thumping fundamentalist preacher to a hardened truck driver on the New Jersey turnpike. When I see letters that I wrote to friends after seventh grade, I am shocked by my crude potty mouth. It's gotten better as I've aged, and I especially try to watch my mouth around my 12-year-old daughter. But I was pleased when she told me last week that because we don’t make a big deal out of those words as some of her friends’ parents do, she doesn’t feel the need to use them. I always wondered what happened to Michael Siegel and I found out last year from his sister Sandy that he died in the 1980s while getting his PhD at Princeton. Michael was a brilliant, troubled guy who was a great friend to one very nerdy kid in Chicago.

2. I’ve only walked out of one play in my entire life. I’ve seen plenty of God-awful productions over the years but it takes a hell of a lot to get me to leave a theatre. I always hold out hope that the play will get better in the last act or else I blame myself for being unable to follow the convoluted plot. I also agonize about the actors noticing that anyone has walked out before the end of the show. But during a trip to New York in November 1991, I found one play so horrendous that I left at intermission. I couldn’t wait to see “Nick & Nora,” the new musical based on MGM's Thin Man films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy (and based on characters created by Dashiell Hammett). How could it go wrong with a book by Arthur Laurents (Gypsy, West Side Story), music by Charles Strouse (Annie, Bye Bye Birdie), and lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. (Ain’t Misbehavin, Baby)? Talented Barry Bostwick and Joanna Gleason played Nick and Nora Charles with help from such theatre stalwarts such as Christine Baranski, Faith Prince, and Debra Monk (who was up for a Tony Award last night). I’m a huge fan of Broadway musicals, as anyone who’s read more then two posts on this blog knows, but from the opening scene of this drek I wanted to run from the theatre and demand a constitutional amendment that would ban musical theatre in this country. The songs were tuneless attempts to evoke a 1930s insouciance, the costumes and sets tried way too hard (and failed), and Bostwick and Gleason’s repartee seemed forced and made it sound as if they hated each other’s guts. As the New York Times review stated, “For every spark it throws off, there are the smoldering ashes of an idea gone wrong or the faded outline of an inspiration left unaccountably to languish…‘Nick and Nora’ consistently takes one step forward and one step back—the bad canceling out the good, the boorish defusing the charming, the spiteful negating the witty.” Finally I couldn’t take another second of it and, with visions of William Powell and Myrna Loy dancing in my brain, escaped out onto 44th Street. Maybe the mistake was trying to fiddle with perfection. The only movie I ever walked out was “Switching Channels,” a 1988 monstrosity that was a modern version of “The Front Page” and its brilliant remake “His Girl Friday.” The film was such a bomb that for years I had a hard time watching any film with Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, or Christopher Reeve.

3. A few years ago I saw a ghost in our house. In our bed, actually! At about 5 am one morning I was awakened by someone tapping me on the leg. I turned around and saw a small figure in the semi-darkness and told my daughter to climb into bed with us since it was too early to get up for school. She did so as my eyes adjusted and I remember being surprised that she was putting her head right up next to Kendall’s sleeping face. Realizing that I was unable to fall back asleep, I whispered for her to follow me into the other room but got no response. When I walked into the hall I saw that Leah’s bedroom door was still closed. Needless to say, when I opened it I found her sound asleep in her bed. [Cue “Twilight Zone” theme.] And of course when I went back into our bedroom no one was in bed with Kendall. I know for a fact that I was fully awake and that I really saw this entity snuggling in our bed. But I wasn’t scared, it had a very loving energy. I always suspected that our 1909 house was haunted and was glad we had such a sweet ghost. Do you think I’m insane? Will this story hurt my chances if I decide to run for governor one day?

4. I like getting shots of novocaine. I know it’s sick but there’s something about that initial puncture that I enjoy even though it’s a little painful. I fact, I’d go so far as to say that any small cut in the mouth or lips holds some kind of fascination for me. What is that about? Am I further dooming my gubernatorial bid? Let me quickly add that as much as I enjoy certain parts of going to the dentist, I have no crazy love for the infamous dentist’s drill. The other day I heard an NPR report about Laurence Olivier’s 100th birthday and they played the scene from “Marathon Man” in which Larry is a Nazi dentist torturing the living daylights out of Dustin Hoffman with his trusty drill. Arrrrrgh! Apparently Olivier was so scared that he’d accidentally hurt Hoffman during this scene that he was constantly asking him if he was okay. As a little prank during one of the takes, Hoffman let out with an bloodcurdling scream which nearly caused Olivier to have a heart attack. Cute.

5. I’ve always fantasized about playing Rolf in “The Sound of Music.” Speaking of Nazis (like that’s a new thing for me?), I’ve always secretly coveted the role of Rolf, the Nazi sympathizer in the story. Why not the saintly Captain Von Trapp or his boys Kurt or Friedrich? Did I have some kind of swastika fetish? Did I just want to be the object of beautiful Liesl’s attention? Maybe I wanted to play Rolf so that I could change the ending and have the boy go off with the Von Trapps instead of foolishly devoting himself to National Socialism and nearly getting his girlfriend’s family killed. Oh Rolf, Rolf, you stupid weak idiot. Truth be told, I never cared for Daniel Truhitte, the actor who played him in the film. But at the endless reunion screenings I go to, I learned that Truhitte was a beloved member of the cast. Charmian Carr, the actress who played Liesl (and was the object of many of my childhood fantasies) loved him, and Truhitte actually married Carr’s Austrian stand-in whose parents’ names were—get this—ROLF AND LIESL! Daniel’s son, Thomas Rolf Truhitte, is now a famous opera singer. For all their acclaim at the time, Daniel Truhitte and Charmian Carr never made another film although Daniel recently starred in a local production of “The Sound of Music” as Captain Von Trapp and Charmian Carr appears every year at the “Singalong Sound of Music” at the Hollywood Bowl. I’ll be there again this year on June 30th watching Rolf and Liesl’s forbidden love along with 18,000 other crazed fans. I sang Rolf’s song, “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” so often to Leah when she was a baby that she still knows every abhorrent word: “Your life, little girl, is an empty page that men will want to write on…”

6. I have a recurring dream where I’m driving too fast but can’t lift my foot off the accelerator. I had this dream again this morning and it’s always very upsetting. I usually force myself awake just before the crash. What does it mean, doctor? This morning’s dream might have been inspired by the fact that I was rear-ended on the 110 Freeway yesterday while I was in a traffic jam and at a complete stop in the fast lane. A woman barreled into my car, sending my sunglasses flying into the windshield. God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. I motioned for her to pull over but as soon as the traffic started again she swerved into the crowd and was on her way. It made me think about the Paris Hilton debacle and how that judge did everyone a favor by locking up that irresponsible woman. Besides all the rest of the hoopla, maybe she’ll finally learn a lesson and prevent herself from killing someone one day. Hell, for all I know, the woman who hit me yesterday was Nicole Ritchie!

7. I had a bunch of international pen pals when I was a kid. They hailed from countries such as France, Korea, Poland, and Russia. I loved communicating with children from other countries and learning about their lives that were so different from my own. I had never even been away for a single night by myself when I decided to go visit my French pen pal in Alsace in 1975 for six weeks. 32 years later, Brigitte and I are still close friends. She now lives in the south of France and breeds Dalmatians. Visiting Brigitte many times solidified my role as a true Francophile which ultimately led to my meeting my first wife and having Leah. I’ll never forget how exciting it was to get an envelope from a foreign country back in the day. I recently looked up how kids today can get pen pals (via the Internet) so that Leah can have the experience of talking to people from different cultures. But first I want to make sure that her 12-year-old girlfriend in Botswana isn’t really a 54-year-old pedophile in Brooklyn.

8. The first movie that made me cry was “Carousel.” Hey, I told you I like musicals. I was watching the Rodgers & Hammerstein film on TV with my sister when I was 12. In the epilogue at the end of the movie, Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae’s daughter is about to graduate from high school but is being tormented by the local children who think she is beneath them. She is comforted by the ghost of her dead father during her graduation while “You’ll Never Walk Alone” blares so loudly that even Shirley Jones, covered in old lady makeup and fake gray hair, senses the presence of her late husband. To this day, the scene makes me blubber uncontrollably. I think I’ve always felt a close connection to social outcast Louise Bigelow, Shirley’s wayward daughter. “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone!” The song became an emotion-tugging standard for performers ranging from Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Mario Lanza, and Jerry Lewis to the majority of “American Idol” contestants. The other movie ending that reduces me to tears is “The Miracle Worker.” The scene in which Patty Duke’s Helen Keller utters “waaaaaaaaaa” when she finally gets that the water she’s touching has a name gets me every single time.

Okay, now I remember why I never do memes, I think this was supposed to be a short and pithy list. I know I’ve succeeded in my stream-of-consciousness experiment, at least, since I have a strong urge to delete the boring paragraphs above and replace them with something more interesting about myself, even if I have to make it up.

Comments

[communicatrix]

Last I checked, there was no word limit on memes. In fact, I may just start making up memes of my own (MEmes) to give you writing exercises and me something fun to read.

Speaking of reading, I am as delighted to hear of your ghost as I am horrified to know of yesterday's freeway incident. That bitch! Hope the whiplash (and the bumper) aren't too horrible.

[Heather]

My dad always sang “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” to me, too. I loved that.

[Michelle]

I *love* this! It's not too long at all. I enjoy reading your blog (via RSS) and these insights into your personality are so interesting.

Your ghost story is very sweet, not crazy.

I'm *so* sorry about your car accident! It's awful that she left you there, maybe she was just frightened, but what a jerk! I hope your sunglasses were the only things damaged and that you are totally okay.

[Rhea]

The ghost story is fascinating. I love ghost stories. The only ghost I've ever seen is the ghost of a cat at a friend's house.

[Churlita]

My ex-husband is an actor and we live in a town that has a lot of experimental theater because of the playwrights workshop, and I've never walked out of a play before. I didn't know it was legal...I've really wanted to, though.

[Pam G]

Danny: I also many pen friends as a child. Are you sure you're not my twin brother?
An ad I posted in Flip Magazine in 1973 generated about 10,000 responses. I had many foreign pen friends through IPF then and still have about eight I met through IPF--two of whom visited me here last year. They have a program for children, too. Real letters--not Internet based. You should check it out for Leah.

From your Pittsburgh reader.

[Julie R.]

Danny, I have a question and a few comments. First, how DO you handle swearing with Leah? I'd like any advice you can offer. Our almost-seven-year-old is in a pre-swearing phase (in our house, "stupid" and "idiot" are swear words). A couple of weeks ago she asked us, "What's a 'fock'?" She had heard this mispronounced word from a friend. We claimed ignorance on that one.

We walked out of a play at intermission many years ago. It was called "Ob La Di" and featured the oldest daughter from "The Cosby Show" doing interpretive dance while the other actors performed. I have no recollection of the plot, but I do remember that it was unwatchable. (This was at the Goodman Theater, in the same series as the fabulous "Death of a Salesman" with Brian Dennehy.)

I don't understand the novocaine thing. I just got a shot yesterday, and it still hurts a little.

My recurring car dream is that I'm driving, out of control, from the back seat.

When I saw "The Miracle Worker" on TV recently, I also cried at the "waaaaa" scene. How can you not?

Say hi to Kendall and Leah for me.

Julie

[Bathsheba]

OMIGOD. i have the same dream about driving!
i don't know how to drive though so it kinda makes
sense. also.... YOU LIKE GETTING NOVACAINE????
no. can't be true.

[shari]

I loved reading this. I always enjoy it when you share personal things about yourself; I get to see if I know you as well as I think I do. (I don't remember hearing the ghost story before...). I think this would be a great party game.

[KerstinMSD]

Danny, your writing is so engaging. Your posts are never too long!

And I TOTALLY understand about the weird mouth/pain/kind-of-like-it thing. Someone once explained to me that everyone has parts of their body where the pain/pleasure inherent pathways cross and...um...then they lost me. But it has something to do with places where nerve endings are really concentrated, like the mouth/lips or fingertips or feet. Trust me, it sounded massively plausible.

:)

[therapydoc]

Great post. One of my first childhood memories was a kid telling me in school to sing Yankee Doodle with an "F" in front of every word. I did, of course, and the other kids laughed hysterically. I went home, told mom, and she shrugged and said, "I don't get it either."

[wendy]

I really, really enjoyed this. I wish my husband liked musicals. The reason Rolf and leisel scene works...is the tension of the unknowing, yet the force of young passion. It's a shoet season, that first season of love..but well worth remembering!