by Paul Shaffer
But the next morning I’d wake up and rush over to the piano and play the song. I’d play so loudly that the sound got all up in my ears. I’d close my eyes and, in the haze of my foggy morning mind, I could almost hear Ronnie saying, “Paul, come down to the States. Come down to Spanish Harlem, Knock three times to see if I’m home. Come down to where it’s hot and sweaty and gritty. I’m waiting for you down here, Paul. I may not be of your faith…but we’ll work something out.”
One morning my reverie was broken by my mother shouting. “Start packing, Paul, we’re leaving for the weekend.”
“We can’t leave,” I said. “The Four Seasons are on Sullivan again Sunday night.”
“Seasons come and go, son,” said Dad, “but it’s summertime. We’re going to our cottage on the lake.”
We often spent summer weekends lakeside. That was fine, except our cottage had no TV.
“I don’t want to go to the lake,” I said. “I want to watch Sullivan. The Four Seasons are going to do their new song, ‘Rag Doll.’”
“You’re already playing that ‘Rag Doll’ song. Isn’t that the one where you bash the bongos on top of the piano?”
“Yes, that’s how I duplicate the intro that’s on the record.”
“Well, so you have it down.”
“I need to see them do it on TV,” I said. “I’ve never seen the song performed and can’t afford to miss it. I can stay home by myself.”
“It’s a family outing,” said Dad. “You’re coming.”
I pleaded to stay with relatives; I pleaded for a plan that would have us home in time for Sullivan; I pleaded for a postponement of the trip. But all pleas fell on deaf ears.
Watching Canadian geese flying through summer rainstorms, I was miserable all weekend.
The storm in my heart, the one that stirred my soul as it had never been stirred before, had come earlier from watching the Seasons on Sullivan singing “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” My parents had no idea how riveting that moment had been to me.
Naturally it was in black and white. As the music started, singer Frankie Valli, guitarist Tommy DeVito, and bassist Nick Massi slowly began walking downstage in triangle formation. Valli, who considered Sinatra the performer’s performer, was almost conducting in a Frank-ish manner. The opening chords were chilling. The vocals were astounding, but my eye went to Valli’s right, to the fourth Season, the group member who interested me most. This was the great Bob Gaudio, the co-composer, along with Bob Crewe, of their greatest hits. He stood behind a keyboard. I practically pressed my nose against the TV screen to catch every nuance of their presentation.
Later in life, I actually met Gaudio and pumped him for information. That’s when he told a story that blew my mind: After writing “Who Wears Short Shorts” as a member of the Royal Teens, he had an offer to go on tour. But he was only fifteen and Dad said no, not until he graduated. Bob was crafty enough even then to arrange a meeting with his dad and the principal of his high school. After Bob eloquently pleaded his case, the principal made his pronouncement: “Mr. Gaudio, your son can finish high school anytime. An opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime. Let him go.” Bob prevailed.
I didn’t.
He wrote “Sherry.” I only learned it. And back in the hot summer of my discontent, I couldn’t even talk my parents into taking me home in time to watch the Four Seasons do “Rag Doll” on Sullivan.
“You’ll get over it,” my dad said. “It’s no big deal.”
“Yeah, no big deal,” I said, but I never got over it. For me, the Four Seasons style was life changing. For my folks, it was just little Paul obsessed.
Meanwhile, the summer cottage party scene was in full swing, and my parents weren’t about to cut it short. That Saturday night my folks were invited up to Bill Maloney’s place. Bill, who became a Superior Court Justice, had an outdoor sauna. Because Thunder Bay had a large Finnish population, saunas were a staple of the party scene. In fact, I was awakened at midnight by Bill himself, who insisted I join the party and bring my ukulele. Bill knew I could strum in the style of George Formby, the English music hall star whom George Harrison claimed as an influence. When I cleared the cobwebs from my head and got to the sauna, the liquor was flowing and, in no time flat, my parents were going pretty good to “Mr. Wu’s a Window Cleaner Now.” Bill and I had written special lyrics to “I’m Henry the Eighth I Am.” Our parody was about Sulo the Steam Bath Man and included the line “every sauna was a Satana.” I was especially proud of that line because “Satana” was a Finnish word that meant devil, as in “a devil of a good sauna.”
Well, it was a devil of a good party—so good that our host, the Honorable Justice William Maloney, scooped up a dipper of boiling hot water and instead of pouring it on the hot rocks, poured it down his bathing trunks, scalding, if you will, his rocks. He was immediately rushed to the hospital. The next night, though, while the Seasons were singing “Rag Doll” on Sullivan, Maloney was back partying at his outdoor sauna—and so were the Shaffers.
Once in a great while we would escape the deep freeze and vacation in warmer parts of the world. A most memorable trip unfolded in the Bahamas. We went to Nassau and stayed at the Royal Victoria Hotel. My dad, of course, was eager to hear jazz and discovered a club on the wrong side of the tracks. He took me and Mom to hear a hip revue where a big band wailed on “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” complete with a smokin’ Hammond B3 organist. Nassau’d gone funky, and I soaked it all in.
The next day Dad spotted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by the pool. The great leader was in matching shirt-and-bathing-suit cabana attire. My father approached him and said, “My family and I greatly admire you and would be honored if we could take your picture.”
“With pleasure,” said Dr. King.
Dad snapped the photo. We all shook hands and went to the lounge chairs. A few minutes later, Dr. King entered the pool from the deep end while I entered from the shallow. Just like that, the dozen or so vacationers, white people all, who were in the pool suddenly got out, as if the water had been contaminated. Dr. King and I stayed in and swam for the next twenty minutes or so.
When I got out, my father took me aside and said, “We’re changing hotels. I’m not staying anywhere the guests display this kind of racist behavior.”
An hour later we checked out and headed for the Nassau Beach Hotel, a little outside of town. There we were given a lovely room with an ocean view. The next morning we all went for a swim. This time we ran into Harry Belafonte who, together with his daughter Shari, was about to take a dip. “May we have a photo, Mr. Belafonte,” said Dad, “for the kin-der?”
“Of course,” said the singer, who often sang in Yiddish. “For the kin-der.”
Decades later I was musical director for a charity concert produced by Joseph Papp. Belafonte appeared. I went up to him and said, “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Belafonte. Last time was a million years ago at the Nassau Beach Hotel. We were all vacationing there.”
“Impossible,” said Belafonte. “I’ve never been to Nassau. You must be thinking of Sidney Poitier.”
Oh God, I thought to myself, I’ve committed some terrible racial blunder, confusing one famous black entertainer for another.
Belafonte stood for several seconds, allowing me to die this slow death, before breaking into a smile and saying, “Just kidding. I was in Nassau, but I can’t honestly say that I recall the Family Shaffer.”
I was relieved.
When I told this story to my son, Will, who was nine at the time and studying the civil rights movement in school, he was puzzled and said, “Dad, how could Dr. King stay at that hotel when there were segregation laws?”
“Those laws were in the United States, son,” I said. “That’s why to vacation comfortably, he had to leave his own country.”
Chapter 7
Did You Hear
the One About the Ventriloquist and the Rabbi?
You hadn’t lived till you’d watched Sullivan with the Shaf
fers. Back in the sixties, neighborhood kids would come over just for the experience of viewing the show with Bernie and Shirley, Thunder Bay’s most sophisticated show-biz observers.
Sullivan brought us million-dollar stars; my parents’ critiques of those stars: priceless. However, even though it was the musical stars that held my attention, I was also intrigued by Ed himself. It might have been his absolute squareness, especially in contrast to the hip acts he presented, that gave me an early understanding of irony. I immediately took to the concept. In fact, when Ed hosted the Beatles—the starkest possible contrast between an old-time presenter and a newfangled act—I was nearly as intrigued by his introduction as I was by their performance. After listening to it again and again, I memorized Ed’s exact words and, to this day, give a credible impersonation of Sullivan—the nationally syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News—as he brought on the Fab Four:
“Well now yesterday and today our theater’s been jammed with newspapermen and photographers from across the country, and these veterans agree with me that the city has never seen the kind of excitement generated by these four youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves the Beatles. Now tonight you’ll twice be entertained by them …”
“Twice be entertained”—that was one hell of a construction that Ed formulated, something like “twice cooked Chinese pork.” In any event, the Beatles came out and tore the roof off the very theater where, three decades later, I’d be leading a band, and, from time to time, at the request of my boss, David Letterman, doing my imitation of Sullivan introducing the Beatles.
Back in the sixties, while Ed was presenting the Beatles to their hordes of screaming fans, he was also hosting an older generation—Sullivan’s own generation—of entertainers. This included everyone from Kate Smith to Jerry Vale to Jan Peerce. Jan Peerce, the operatic tenor, was of special interest to the Shaffers because he once came to Thunder Bay to perform a recital. It was a grand occasion, and the city’s Jewry, knowing Peerce was a member of the tribe, invited him to our shul for a reception.
“Mr. Peerce,” asked a member of our congregation, “would you be good enough to honor us with a musical selection?”
The great star looked straight in the man’s eyes and said, “Sir, may I ask what you do for a living?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“Well, Doctor,” said Peerce, “if I were to invite you to my party and then ask you to take out my gallbladder, what would you say?”
The doctor said nothing.
Some years later, the good people of Shaarey Shomayim had the chance to be entertained by another celebrity whom we knew from Sullivan. Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, we would be hosting Ricky Layne and Velvel, a ventriloquist and his Jewish dummy.
Ricky and Velvel, like Myron Cohen, were among Sullivan’s favorites. Ed had a fondness for Catskills chicken-soup humor, and of course my parents and I got a special kick out of Velvel, who actually spoke Yiddish. Starting in the fifties, Ed had been introducing middle America to the ways of funny Jews, thus preparing the country for an era when our brand of humor, from Woody Allen to Jerry Seinfeld, would prove popular with the masses. Back in the sixties, precisely because of Sullivan, Ricky Layne and Velvel were extremely popular. I was a fan. And when I learned that they would be coming to our synagogue to put on a show in support of an Israel bond drive, I was thrilled.
So was the whole town. Ricky Layne and Velvel were so massive, the Israel bond drive couldn’t be contained. It had to be opened up to the goyim, including the mayor and the Pattersons, one of our city’s leading families. The Pattersons were our Kennedys, and my parents were proud to be included in their social circle. I had even fancied one of the Patterson daughters when we were in our early teens, but I was too shy to make a move. I may have missed a golden opportunity to relieve myself of what would become a burdensome virginity.
On the eve of the bond drive, our shul was filled to the brim with Jews and gentiles alike. It was almost as if Ed Sullivan himself had come to Thunder Bay to present one of his favorite acts. But the irony was this: instead of Ed introducing the man and his dummy, the opening act was a Hasidic rabbi bent on selling Israel bonds.
I can’t recall the name of the rabbi. But I can recall the power and passion of his plea for money. He was extraordinary, detailing the progress Israel had made while dramatizing the extreme danger the country still faced. When he was through, he asked for pledges, and though a few came dribbling in, they were modest. After all, this was Thunder Bay, not Manhattan. The rabbi wound up again and delivered another strong pitch, this time heightening the drama and raising the volume of his voice. The congregation responded, but only slightly.
The rabbi got pissed. Real pissed. He let go with a stream of vituperative accusations and flung insults at the integrity of Canadian Jewry. We were irresponsible. We were cheap. We were cowardly. We were misinformed. We were shaming our forefathers. We were shaming ourselves. And as the rabbi went a little nuts in his chastisements, his Yiddish-accented English grew more Yiddish. Seated next to the very goyish Pattersons, my assimilated parents slid down in their chairs, hoping this would soon end. But the more the rabbi’s mission faltered, the less giving the crowd, the crazier the rabbi became. By the end, he was shouting in our faces and crying real tears.
During the ordeal, my eye had been on the dummy whose face peeked out of the case carried by Ricky. While the rabbi was ranting, I quietly slipped over to take a better look at the dormant Velvel, the very doll I had seen so often on Sullivan. Just then, the rabbi, still raging, concluded his pitch. I watched as Ricky leaned down under the table, brought the dummy out of the case and slipped his hand up Velvel’s ass. Ricky looked at the man sitting next to him, the president of our congregation, and asked, “How the fuck am I supposed to do shtick now that this goddamn rabbi has reamed out the room?”
“Don’t worry,” said our president. “After that, we’ll laugh at anything.”
And we did.
Chapter 8
Here I Come to Save the Day
Ricky Layne and Velvel bring to mind Andy Kaufman. Both acts operated from a unique and bizarre perspective. Ricky Layne’s was the first novelty act with which I had personal contact. Andy came much later in my life, but was perhaps the greatest novelty act of his time. Like Ricky, Andy had an alter ego. As it turned out, that alter ego bumped up against my actual ego.
My first encounter with Andy was during the debut of SNL in 1975; it was a performance that ignited Kaufman’s career. As a painfully shy boy, he stood in front of a phonograph and simply dropped the needle on a record. Out came the Mighty Mouse theme. Rather than dance or even move, Andy simply stood there, like a little boy. At the chorus, though, he suddenly came alive and mouthed the words “Here I come to save the day.” For those few seconds, he transformed into a superhero—his facial and body language pulsating with heroic masculinity—only to return to his listless state of awkwardness once the short chorus had ended. This strange little act was a sensation and put Andy on the map.
For a period, Andy went to any length to make audiences love him. In concert venues, he invited the entire crowd to join him for milk and cookies. Then he led them to a convoy of buses parked outside the auditorium—and off they went to a restaurant, where Andy would treat every last patron.
Conversely, or perversely, he went through another period where his solitary aim was to incur the audience’s wrath. Now he wanted to be hated, and he succeeded by avoiding any semblance of entertainment in his act. All he would do was read a crushingly dull book out loud. The book would have no relevance. Andy would simply stand there and read until he was booed. When the booing stopped, people would start throwing things at his head. When the throwing stopped, the crowd would get up and leave. And when the last audience member walked out in disgust, Andy felt he had triumphed. He was hated.
His need to be despised darkened over the years. He got into the habit of insulting women and accusing them of inf
erior intelligence and strength. To prove his claim, he invited women to wrestle him onstage. Several were willing. In some cases the women—who may or may not have been shills—were injured, thus antagonizing the audience even more.
Andy Kaufman was a performance artist who trafficked in unpredictability. When he did a parody of a talk show, for instance, he placed his desk eight feet high so that he literally talked down to his guests. The piece was brilliant.
He was a semi-regular on the Letterman show in the early eighties. In a famous appearance, he showed up with wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler. At one point, Kaufman began cursing Lawler, who, in turn, reacted violently. They lunged at each other, spilling Dave’s coffee and scalding him. Andy looked to be seriously injured. Everyone was concerned for his health. But when he and Lawler were spotted having dinner later that same evening, we knew we’d been had.
Then came the week that Andy was scheduled to appear on Letterman two successive nights. The first night he would come on as himself, the second as Tony Clifton, his alter ego, a highly obnoxious Las Vegas—style lounge singer. He went so far as to have a latex application that altered his entire visage. In Clifton, he created a character who was not only abusive to the audience but to his accompanying musicians as well. One false note and Tony might attack you.
After his first night, Andy as Andy came over to me and said, “Tony Clifton will be here tomorrow. Now listen—he’s notoriously tough on piano players. If you don’t know your stuff, he’s likely to punch out your lights.”
“Oh, I can handle Tony,” I said. “I’ve been backing lounge lizards my entire life.”
“Well, you better have your shit together, Shaffer,” he said, “or Tony will ream you a new asshole.”
