SHOW BIZ WAS MY LIFE

I was watching my grandson do his new math homework and then I was thinking of Bob Riley… he was a my high school math teacher – probably no one would suspect this as he wasn’t the type.  Big, bodybuilder, football line coach.  But he was and he loved a quadratic equation and all that other stuff I avoided.

But one thing he loved more was writing, directing, designing producing, casting and painting the scenery for his annual extravaganza – the MHS Senior Variety Show -  a fundraising tradition that helped us all pay for our trip to Washington that coming spring.

Rile cast the biggest hams in our class – he knew us all as he was our class advisor for four years.  But he always over - used me as a receiver for his classroom joke of the day – kindred spirits I guess, as he new I a walking card file of old jokes and the most hammy of the class wanna be performers.

He searched and found me in study halll and gave me my scripts – good grief I was to be in two skits; a parody of Happy the Clown; Mitch Miller and the Singers - and he ordered me to perform my mostly in my mind -  Iszard the Wizard Magician big stage act.

Good grief this was the downside of being one of his football players and math class welfare case.

We rehearsed on our own in the hallway after school and had just two nights on the big stage.  Rile conned the Home Ec class into designing and producing our costumes.  I painted a very artistic brown paper one size fits all backdrop used in every scene in my Art Class with the help of all the future artists I could muster and our teacher too.

Rile was feverish for days – as his math class floundered while we did a lot doing countless math problems on the blackboard, he spent most of the class time doing what show biz producers mostly do– sweat, re-writes and worry.

We had a very long dress rehearsal– chaos prevailed.  The show ran 4 hours and 13 mintues - it needed cutting to say the least.  Most of the “performers” and I use that term loosely, had never ventured on a stage since Jr. High graduation for a flying handshake.  It showed.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I would have gone over my lines for my skits – but there weren’t any lines.  Rile said, “Your funny Cal, just ad lib…it will be hysterical.” Right Rile" were my only thoughts.  Rile thought everything was funny.

Showtime!

I already owned a set of tails – vintage 1950 from a wholesale house of used theatre costumes in Chicago that I had found in a magazine ad…they were the heaviest wool I have ever worn.  One wouldn’t need a fur coat in the tundra wearing this black serge – I was drenched just putting the outfit on.   And the silk lapels were so large that in a stiff breeze I was certain I might go airborne. 

I was on early in the two act show mainly because I was one of the only “real” acts on the program along with an accordion solo, Flight of the Bumble Bee by Mary Jane our class virtuoso  and a flaming baton twirler, a former Tony Grant’s Star of Tomorrow cast member who appeared on the Steel Pier for a week one summer. 

  My  magic act that my mentor, glass factory sales VP, The Magical Al Marks, the man who tried every hobby, worked up for me used six of his borrowed “tricks” which we magicians never call tricks – they were “effects” and took me a few weeks to master.

All the apparatus was professional quality and still resides in an attic trunk waiting for another magi to appear someday.  Never did return it to the Magical Marks.  And it's too late now.

We worked on my timing in Al’s den wih my “assistant”, Geraldine.  Fact is,  a stage magician doesn’t really need an assistant to manipulate the gimmicks – the assistant is always dressed in a skimpy leggy costume for another reason- to misdirect the audience when needed. On cue she would prance on stage carrying something. The audience's attention is diverted for a few seconds for the magician to set up the magic.  It always works, promised Big Al.  I was dubious. But Gerry did have pretty legs for a high school gal. 

The tricks actually were very mechanical and worked themselves – many of them seen on the Ed Sullivan show – the show that killed magic forever - with too much exposure.   The Pitcher of Milk vanished in a newspaper cone; The Chinese Linking Rings;  The Floating Silver Ball and for a big finish – cutting and restoring a volunteer from the audience's garish tie right before one’s eyes. (A ringer by the way)

We were a hit  and now the rest would be easy for me – at least I thought so.

My next bit, came after Rile did an unending stand-up routine of corn fed jokes.  Next came several “cleaned-up” burlesque blackout bits that were old when the strippers where young – then came our Happy the Clown, a parody of the premiere morning kiddie cartoon show featuring a bunch of coy seniors playing really "snotty" kids.

I was in full clown costume with white grease paint that gave me pimples for a month after the two nights of shows (oh yes our extravaganza was so popular it ran two nights to sell out crowds filling our high school auditorium).

The bit was for me to interview the “little kids” as they came sliding down a kid's slide that Ole Rile had liberated from the city playground for the show.  The first several stuck to the quasi-script parroting Riley’s lines and actually getting some laughs.

But the last one in very short shorts with a big purple bow tie was Gus (one of my fierce competitors in almost every way except math class where he was a wizard and I the moron).

Instead of sliding down the slippery slide as rehearsed,  he jumped off the top of the thing.  Ran around me screaming then without delivering a single line, ran up and kicked me as hard as he could in the shin.

I double up in excruciating pain – as he cackled, stuck out his tongue and darted into the wings to a roar of laughter and applause.  I wasn't acting - this really hurt.  (I walked with a limp for a week afterward)  I couldn’t even speak a line  – the blow took my breath away.  I waved both fists at him in legitimate anger and raced off stage to another big round of applause.

Rile met us in the wings, “That was great Cal and Gus – do it just the same tomorrow night!”  

I glared at the the smiling Cheshire Gus – “The hell I will…” (expletive deleted for family reading) And if I didn't fear expulsion I would have choked him right then and there...

And I knew from that time forward – I would never ever do a painful pratfall to get a laugh -  I would stick to one-liners.