Andy's Life and Mine

A few issues back, Andy Glazer wrote a satiric column about me. I didn't mind because most of it was true - except for my not going to college, that is. For the record, I have a journalism degree. The fact that I got it by mail from the Barstow Institute of Fine Arts and Auto Repair is beside the point.

His column was in reply to an article I wrote about that tag-team event I won. I don't know why he got so upset with me, because I was just reporting the facts. He also hoped that I wouldn't carry things further with a response to what he wrote. Well, of course not. This tit-for-tat business is so childish, so last month. I'm not in the habit of making fun of people - especially not Andy Glazer, who, as Big Denny might say, is a real gent, a decent and honorable man possessed of prodigious talents. And I would say that even if he didn't occasionally hire me to subcontract some of his tournament write-ups.

Also, I would be crazy to get into a war of words with Andy Glazer. This man has a Promethean ability with language. He constantly uses words I never heard of, some of which haven't even made it into the dictionary yet. And I was daunted and overwhelmed when he listed some of his accomplishments: tennis instructor, sports editor, lawyer, college professor, master chef, COO of a big division of a big business, and so on, and so on. The only thing he left out was his stint as a male stripper at a New Jersey nightclub, probably because he ran out of space. I showed this column in advance to Andy because we are friends, and he insisted that he lost the stripper job "because it was really cold that night."

Anyway, I was depressed when I compared Andy's extraordinary accomplishments and interests with my own depressingly drab resume. But then I realized that Andy probably was to the manor born, one of those trust fund scions you see in those Polo ads, insouciantly strolling the grounds of his family's East Hampton estates. So, he had the luxury of being a dilettante, dabbling one day in this enterprise, the next day in another. I, on the other hand, had a very depraved (I mean deprived) childhood, kind of like Oliver Twist. I had to start hustling early for pennies, frequently putting myself in harm's way in the process.

Take my childhood punchboard business. Punchboards were little cardboard blocks full of holes that held slips of paper. Let's say you were hustling a baseball punchboard. Another kid would pay you a nickel for a pick. If he got a paper with a single, he'd win a dime, a double, maybe 15 cents, on up to 50 cents for a grand-slam home run. I took an extra edge by slicing open the block, removing the 50-cent winner, and then pasting everything back together. But this reasonable maneuver for improving my profit margin was fraught with danger. One day I found myself surrounded by tough kids demanding to see the 50-cent winner as I rapidly ran out of holes. I did a little sleight of hand, pretended to punch out a hole myself, and adroitly palmed the grandslammer, thus narrowly avoiding getting killed.

Then there was the ice cream business my Uncle Hymie started me in. I'd buy a gross of ice cream bars for a nickel each and sell them on the beach for a dime. The sands of Brighton Beach, where I lived in Brooklyn, were packed with bodies in the summertime and business was great. The only problem was that the business was also illegal. The Good Humor people had exclusive ice cream rights from the city, gypsy peddlers were not welcome, and plainclothes cops patrolled the beach on the lookout for them. (People were getting mugged, having sex under the boardwalk, and drowning in the ocean, and these lousy cops had nothing better to do than hassle a 14-year-old kid.) A couple of times I got rousted, but was let off with warnings when I promised to cease and desist. Instead, I'd just walk a couple of blocks to another location and start selling again. Then, one bleak day, I actually got arrested and detained in one of those cages where they kept lost children. I sat there fuming, with the ice cream melting, until a couple of uniformed cops showed up a few hours later and began marching me down the middle of the boardwalk to the Coney Island police station. Halfway there, knowing they had scared the heck out of me, they let me go, warning of the dire consequences should I be caught again. This time, much to my Uncle Hymie's disgust, I abandoned the ice cream business.

As for my subsequent career, well, it mostly involved writing of one kind or another - newspapers, advertising copywriting, PR, travel brochures, a few movie press releases. Nothing dangerous there, you say? How about the time I crossed Frank Sinatra?

I was working in the L.A. bureau of Women's Wear Daily, the apparel trade publication. Sinatra was planning a 25th wedding anniversary party at the Sands Hotel for actress Rosalind Russell and her husband, producer Freddie Brisson, and the paper was dying for coverage. I knew a coat manufacturer who had points in the casino, and asked him to get me in. He was leery because WWD was capable of printing sarcastic things about people. After I assured him that the paper only wanted fashion photos of the ladies and there would be no funny business, he promised to try.

I checked in to the hotel a day early and was told that the unpredictable Sinatra had not yet decided whether to allow photographers in. Not wanting to go home empty-handed, I scouted around and discovered that Frank was taking a busload of the guests to dinner that night at an Italian restaurant. I decided to lurk in the parking lot and see if I could get any ambush photos as backup. Sure enough, a bus pulled up and out poured a mob of celebrities ranging from Cary Grant to one of the Kennedy sisters. I began flashing like crazy, much to the annoyance of Sinatra, who glared at me as I snapped his picture. I didn't get all the photos I wanted, so I decided to take a chance and get more when they left. To kill time, I went into the restaurant's bar. After a while, one of the guests, Bennett Cerf, wandered down from the upstairs dinner party. Cerf - an author, founder of Random House publishing company, and a panelist on a popular TV show of the time called What's My Line? - was pleasantly smashed and I engaged him in conversation. I asked what was doing upstairs and he said that Sinatra was going nutso, throwing things and threatening to break the photographer's arm if he was still there when they left. I considered this news and asked if Sinatra had any bodyguards with him. Given a negative response, I dared to take some more pictures when the guests got back on the bus. Sinatra glared at me even more murderously, but didn't do anything.

The next day I learned that a few photographers would be admitted to the anniversary party, me included. Now I was really scared. What if Frank recognized me? Well, he didn't. He was a gracious host, and even shook hands with the photographers, which frightened me all the more because the man had a powerful grip and I had visions of that fist connecting with my jaw, which would hardly be a first for him. Anyway, I got all those great photos and triumphantly sent them in.

One problem: The paper screwed me. When the photos ran, the captions contained snide references to the aging guest list ("The Sands of Time") and referred to the hotel as "Mafia Mesa." My coat manufacturer friend was furious, the Sands wouldn't buy my explanation that it wasn't my doing, and a message was sent down to me from Sands impresario Jack Entratter that I had better stay out of his casino, or, better yet, out of Vegas.

Well, enough of my resume. I didn't exactly face the same hazards as a war correspondent, but I certainly had a more grueling career than my Renaissance man friend Andy. Near the end of his column he said he didn't want to engage me in a duel of wits because, he conceded, I am funnier than him. Well, yes, he got that right, and I have no intention of starting anything. It's too bad, though, because I can envision an ongoing series (much like the artificial feud between radio comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen) in which Andy plays the straight man and I play the obnoxious ass. I have the perfect title, too: "Anus 'n' Andy."