Da Harv's Journal

Of Great Magnitude

2012-01-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

Questions propel

Often in abstract form
From child hood on and on, endless

Wonder is what I do almost every day.
Wonder in every way

“A remarkable person exists as a wonder to those he or she may perceive with great wonderment.”
Hk

One day not too long ago, in another century, I found myself atop a hill in a far away land for then, but not for now; across a massive expanse of water, requiring most to cross by boat. Because of things yet to be discovered, my communication with those covered by the word "love" was accomplished through the mail. While I had yet to feel any real sense of mortality, those at home wondered about my safety. I had not yet discovered boredom, neither as a device stimulating anguish, nor as an excuse for taking chances with my own life. Of course everything relevant at age nineteen, most of what I was up to wasn’t part of what I considered to be overly dangerous. The accompanying photo is that of a very young da harv, sitting on top of a box containing a variety of explosives to be used for clearing the very same hill he’s sitting on. Our location is thirty-five miles north of the thirty-eighth parallel, in North Korea. (I wonder if any of the trees made it back to life?)

Can you be in a state of "art", when the "art" has not yet been invented? I wondered about it, and then in what flew by in less time than I might have imagined, this new form was there for me to concern myself with.

By foot, by horse, by boat, by train, by plane or by rocket ship propelled to the moon; all in a single lifetime, only taking a second or two to marvel at this magnitude of mans doing. With all these in my lifetime, in order to complement a mans quality of life, these same men manage to wage war in order to destroy what they think they have created under the guise of their endless search for peace.

A single explosive blast and all life on the hillside I’ve depicted would be gone for another lifetime, or perhaps forever.

1943

A ten-year-old boy or girl born in the early thirties, without the benefit of a hill high above their asphalt-covered turf, can only wonder about the shortages, that surround them. They have not yet contemplated relationships, such as their own value to our world, or their net worth as human beings. What has happened to them, without warning is the outrageous introduction of fear.

Begun in 1939, World War II is now ablaze, and their lives as little kids have been summarily renounced. Sure, they still run and play the kids games synonymous with the children of Brooklyn, New York in the early forties. What have dramatically changed are the people around them. The children are privy to the expressions of pain so vividly being registered on the adult faces around them. It is a time period when each of them becomes a working entity within their community. The schools organize paper, and scrap iron and metal drives. The kids are told they are helping the war effort. The word "war" has become common to them as breathing. Though common, it remains beyond comprehension for these ten-year-olds to fathom.

On a bright, warm spring day the children were ushered into their school's assembly hall to meet and listen to a veteran soldier. Excitement ran high for all of them. They wondered what this man hero would be like. Boys and girls alike were charged with the heroic depictions being offered to the general public on a regular nightly radio diet. Truth be told, what the public was hearing was totally controlled government approved information. The documented facts of the time period tell a story of us and our allies getting our brains beat out, on almost every corner of the globe. FDR had decided it would be in the best interest of the country’s morale if the citizenry were kept from hearing the real downtrodden truth.

The children wondered about why many of their parents were on hand for the event. Little did they know, children and parents alike were about to have an experience, which would stay with them for a lifetime? The schools history teacher, himself a returning, wounded World War II veteran, took the stage and briefly introduced the star of the show. His preface was a simple statement of fact:

“Like the soldier you are about to meet, I to have experienced the cruelty of war. And as a veteran, I share a bond with all other veterans who have served our country in time of war or peace. We are a large and proud group of men and women. I will count today as one of the finest moments of my lifetime.”

And then he said: (In a much softer voice than before)

” Albert Henry Woolson is here with us today as a returning Civil War veteran, He was born in 1850, and had entered our Union Army, some say at age fifteen. We hope you all will enjoy what he has to say about this great country of ours.”

At that moment the parents and children were instantly united in wonderment as this Civil War veteran, age ninety-three, made his way across the stage to the speaker's rostrum with only the use of a single cane assisting him. The history teacher adjusted the microphone, which was attached to the speaker's stand, and then signaled for us to rise, as he turned, placed his hand over his heart and stood facing our flag. Albert Henry Woolson raised his right arm as straight as he could make it go and began the Pledge Of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. It was the best salute any of the parents or children had ever witnessed. His voice was quiet, but strong. His delivery was deeply prideful. All in attendance marveled at this patriot, the antithesis of inspiration during this time of our countries greatest conflict.

“It was seventy eight years ago, in 1865 when our terrible Civil War came to its end. I was a young man then; the reports say I was fifteen years of age. When you get as old as I am, it becomes hard to remember anything other than how scared I was at the time. But some things remain with me…like being high up on top of a hill one day. By myself; you know, wondering about a lot of things. One of which was wondering if there could ever be another war as bad as this one. Well a few years later I got my answer; it was called World War 1;and they said it was the war to end all wars. It began in 1914, just forty-nine years after our Civil War ended. By then I was sixty-nine years old. I moved into my own home high up on top of a nice grassy hill. There was a lot of time then for me to wonder about things. I figured I’d seen the last of big wars. But you know what, I was wrong. In just twenty short years, it all began again. This was what we live with today. We call it WWII. Here I am again, wondering if this will finally be the one to end all wars and preserve the peace we thought we were going to have as a result of ending our civil unrest. We lost our great leader then, president Abraham Lincoln. I sure hope none of you ever have to go through the sorrow of losing your president, for whatever the reason may be."

He completed his little presentation and marched off the stage to a loud and lengthy ovation. Two years later the president of the United States, FDR died. Albert Henry Woolson lived on for another thirteen years.

Note: Albert Henry Woolson (February 11, 1850 – August 2, 1956) was the last surviving member of the Union Army, which fought in the American Civil War. He was just turning age fifteen when he entered the service of our country.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was the 32nd President of the United States. January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945; he was sixty-three years old at the time of his death.

***

And so, as I began with my own wonderment revelations; continuing today, unable to refrain from the same wonder of wonders; the passage of time.

The changes and the sameness continue on. Today, I once again find myself high a top of a hill. There are no explosives to be found. I live here in the present, but remain in contemplation and wonderment.

One day not too long ago (a lifetime), in another century (1952), I found myself a top a hill in a far away land. There remains miles of separation, across a massive expanse of water; commanding those before me, but relinquishing their command to jet planes. My communication with those covered by the word love remains covered, much as in the past; now faster, but not better. While I had yet to feel any real sense of mortality then, today the more human aspects have taken over. Those at home who wondered about my safety are no longer.

Note: My safety is no longer in the balance. The safety of my country, and of my comrades at arms remains alarmingly the same.

If one day I am the old man to walk across a stage, in a theater filled with children and their parents, will I be unassisted and able to raise my arm in a salute, and be able to lead them in a pledge of allegiance to our country? I wonder!

North Korea

2012-01-11T16:59:00.000-08:00

Talk, talk, and talk. The newspapers and the TV talking heads are all at it again. The despot jerk that was the leader of one of the most depressed countries the world has ever known has dropped dead, they say from an apparent heart attack. I doubt if anyone could ever treat his fellow citizens more despicably.

North Korea rots, while South Korea during the course of the last fifty-nine years has become one of the world’s global leaders. The north shrivels, while the south educates. What this communist regime, like all others, has always stood for is exemplified by bareness and depravity.

I witnessed first hand, as a young soldier a truth I had previously found too harsh to be believed. But the truth was just that. The barbaric presence of the communist leaders weighs so heavily on the shoulders of the North Korean people; their plight remains so miring, escape and freedom has become a virtual impossibility. The North Korean leaders have systematically removed all modern devices from the day-to-day lives of their people. While the south bathes in lights provided by electricity and its children have become privy to every computerized method of study known to man, the north, figuratively and materially has remained in the dark. But on the other hand, many argue, you don’t miss what you’ve never had. While almost everyone in South Korea duplicates the cell phone use of most modern societies, the families, as well as the business people, except those of the government are rarely if ever privy to a land line telephone. The beat is relentless; what is television, what is a washing machine, what does the word vaccine mean?

And by the way, how in the world can a people exist without actors? They have no Screen Actors Guild, no A.F.T.R.A, no agents, or personal managers. “Let’s go out and have a frozen yogurt ”; forget about it.

North Koreans wouldn’t dream of doing a Wall Street type of sit in. Americans, unlike our president, aren’t brought up to bow to despots. North Koreans, on the other hand make it a point to bow to everyone. Oh, I forgot, they do have one good thing; they don’t worry about having an Internal Revenue audit. Since the government owns everything, higher taxes aren’t a problem. They can’t promote a new congressional bill adding more taxation to the rich, because they emptied their pail years ago; kind of what we see happening in most of Europe today. Except for the military, and their president, who becomes president similarly to any family inheritance, their playing field is level; all are poor.

On July 27, 1953 at 9PM, at a semi horrid location to exist, the Korean Conflict, (that’s what it was called) came to a less than an auspicious ending. As a soldier none of us trusted what our leaders had to say. It wasn’t distrust because we felt our commanders were liars; our distrust was caused by a disbelief that this miserable war had really come to an end. We all thought it was too good to come true.

My purpose for writing this paper is straightforward, offered as a clarification for some of the deceit being fed to the American public. I pray the impact of my words does more than merely sneak up on you. By that I mean I pray those who can stay with me for a moment or two, might come away with a feeling our country is more than average. Please let it sink in. I’m not God, but please trust my verbal integrity as if it were the gospel.

If it were not for the United States Of America, the country of South Korea would not exist as we know it today: a country, much like ours, which shines, and promotes the growth of its citizens. South Korea is a capitalist society. North Korea is a communist dictatorship. And again, if it were not for the United States of America, the country and the people of South Korea would be held under the same tyrannical leadership as their brethren to the north. The students of Korea are now ranked third in the world in science and mathematics. While the north builds their army and bombs with an enormous capability to destroy, the capital city of Seoul, just twenty-five miles to the south enjoys the fruit of their existence as a capitalistic society.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO MY READERS:

When WWII ended, the Japanese were forced to relinquish their dictatorial possession of the Korean Peninsula.
In 1945 the United Sates and the Soviet Union divided Korea, separating north and south at the thirty-eighth parallel. Ultimately the Russians gave way to the Chinese communists.
Spurred on by the Chinese, the North Korean army attacked and invaded the south. The United States came to the aid of the south, ultimately destroying the destructive capabilities of the northern army. It was then that the Chinese entered the conflict.
Fifty thousand Americans were lost as a result of the Korean Conflict.
South Korea is a free and thriving country as a result of the Korean Conflict.

In order of occupancy; first it was a kingdom (the Japanese), then the Russian communists (also known as Socialists), and today the North Korean Communists, (also known as Socialists).

A quick recap reveals, and perhaps an even more rapid-fire history lesson clearly shows the plain facts. The people of South Korea in less than sixty years surpassed the tyrannical despotic leaders who mercilessly deprived their own citizens from any semblance of human dignity.

I suppose I am being naïve. Certainly everyone in our (still) free society is entitled to his or her own verbal stance. What it boils down to is my lack of patience and understanding for those who see the United States as a world detractor. Sir Winston Churchill expounded on his fervent belief that without the courage and determination of the Unites States of America, not only would Great Britain have fallen, but also Adolph Hitler, originally organized under the guise of socialism, would have seized all of Europe as well. Churchill along with many other great historians pointed out, the socialist, communist, dictatorships of the world all practiced the same credo, “divide and conquer, isolate the normal divisions between people, and foster blame on those being isolated as the cause factor for the current denigration that they, the socialists had brought upon their own people.” Race, creed, and color were all the ammunition necessary in order to divide the countries of Europe. Take God out of the mix and you have lock, stock, and barrel the grist for the formation and solid foundation of every nation in the history of world civilization that failed, void of magnanimity.

Keep in mind, what Churchill said, was the supposition of the necessity of a right wing and a left in order to gain and sustain flight. Weakness will never be able to maintain prolonged or aggressive flight. He (Churchill) pointed to the United States as a centrist country. Many confuse being a centrist with being a coward. Nothing could be further from the truth; between the wings, find the body of the bird, no matter how large or small.

In closing, I do have a single simple request to make. If any of you out there know of an incident in the history of this world we live in today where any civilization can remotely match the success the United States of America has experienced in the same short number of years we have existed, please pass it along.

Celebrating the Holidays

2011-12-20T15:42:00.000-08:00

We had our office staff, teachers and engineers Christmas, Hannukah, and all purpose seasonal holiday party this Sunday last, December 11, at Firenze Osteria; Lisa Long’s establishment on Lankershim Blvd. In what Lisa calls Toluca Lake.

One very large table in our own separate banquet room, was set up for us with all the frills one might need for the most warm and friendliest crowd to be found anywhere in Los Angeles on this special afternoon / evening event. Counting Cathy and da harv we had twenty-four there to eat and be merry. Only three of our Kalmenson & Kalmenson team was unable to attend.

Our team attendance included:

Cathy Kalmenson, Harvey Kalmenson, Donna Dubain, Michele Jastremski, Debbie Caruso, Lisa McCullough Roark, Leah Swetsky, Scott Holst, Steve Staley, Denise Krueger,

Lynnanne Zager, Kathy Grable, Samantha Robson, Melique Berger, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jill Remez, Doug Gochman, Jacob Cipes, Andrew Racho, Sara Cravens, Ashley Nguyen, Mitch Urban, Ben Lepley, Marie Bagnell.

Our evening's menu:

Each year we have a theme for our celebration. This year it was “A Toast To Our Future Together”, in twenty-five words or less. Surprisingly each and every one in attendance were able to write an appropriate toast staying within the twenty-five-word guideline. All guests showed up on time, prepared, and ready to go. We asked that the clinking of glasses, and the sipping of wine not be done until the end of the final toast. This ended up being a suggestion not adhered to by each of our colleagues. Some managed to actually consume twenty-four sips.

As usual we began with Cathy Kalmenson as our opening presenter (act). She was introduced by Mitch Urban who took on the presence of the “Sergeant At Arms” at a joint session of congress, as he called everyone to attention and saying, “Mr. Chairman, it is my great pleasure, and distinct honor, to introduce the beautiful president of Kalmenson & Kalmenson Cathy Kalmenson.” Cathy with great pleasure accepted the applause graciously, and began her presentment by humorously recapping the past year; highlighting in a most descriptive fashion the joys of our business, and the pleasurable accomplishments of our Kalmenson & Kalmenson teammates.

And once again as is our usual custom I brought up the rear. My comments almost always are spurred on by how taken I am with our team. Our people have a great deal in common with the men and women who are members of our armed services; every one of them is a volunteer. Every one of them takes pride in their professional choice of occupation. Every one of them must be accepted by a leader and then accepted by the people they themselves are paid to lead professionally.

Maybe I should modify my statement about being a volunteer. A person who desires to enter our military; they are the ones who truthfully should be called volunteers. They fill out an application for employment with the service branch of their choice, fill out the forms, take a series of physical, psychological, and aptitude tests, and if they come up to an acceptable standard, they are then officially inducted into that particular branch of the service.

Our requirements at Kalmenson & Kalmenson are a little different than the military, although some would say the Kalmenson’s are tougher to become a part of. Usually we are the ones who offer a prospective teacher or engineer the opportunity to become part of our team, only after we have known them for a considerable length of time. Most of the people, who join us, do so, after one or two things having taken place, either they have been in on numerous occasions as an actor for an audition directed by me, or they are current or past students, studying with us. In any case nothing is done quickly. Each of them has been personally participating in a testing program, long before they are made aware of it. When the right time becomes apparent, they will be asked if they would like to enter into a Kalmenson & Kalmenson training program. It should be pointed out, without variance there is never any salary or payments involved during the training period. These are all hand picked folks with far more natural desire to succeed than the average person out there. All are working actors, who bring with them the desired credentials for success. By accepting our conditions for entering into our demanding training regimen, they are in essence volunteering for a service unlike any other out there.

Many who read this will judge my next statement. Those who interpret, without the benefit of having their own personal years of experiences to forage through, will never have the capabilities, of understanding the true meaning of excellence.

I had before me a homogeneous group of individual intellects, banded by desire; culturally speaking a language driven by integrity and pride of accomplishment. These are the people who agreed to volunteer when they were asked to do so. In that room on our special Christmas and holiday night, Cathy and I were able to beam without the benefit of any artificial light. Our team provided us with the best toast imaginable. They represent our name as if it were their own.

“If they don’t learn, you aren’t teaching.”

John Wooden

Kalmenson & Alone

2011-12-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

A Throng of one

Without balance or justification
A stand-alone throng of one
Reviewed daily by way of mirror
As often as one might appear
Look what joy I see in me
No questions allowed
More speed when space need not be shared
Lacking despair, for none was ever there
What was has always been
A one sided building leaning
Towards Kalmenson
At one with being alone.

The Decision Making Process

For sure all family’s are different with regard to the decision making process. What is or isn’t important may have enormous variances from home to home around the country, your own neighborhood, or even the world. The case of vanilla or chocolate sounds so simple, but is it?

Three guys bring home some ice cream to surprise their families at the end of a workday. The scenario will vary.

In house number one the kids are eagerly awaiting Dads entrance; they’re all over him from the moment he comes into the picture. They over-react with yelling and screaming about what Dad has brought home with him. Their display shows how they couldn’t care less about the package he has with him. Believe it or not; the kids are hyped up about seeing their Dad; what a concept!
House number two; Dad shouts out, “I’m home”. No answer; the kids are busy watching Sponge Bob.

Lillian

I would be destined to remember this one morning in November; not that it was morning, or even the month or the year, which gave it an extra specialness, not as an earth-shattering event. Logic provides remembrance of ones own birth as just about an impossibility to forget. And lest I forget, the woman who carried me through to a full time pregnancy, found it her natural duty in life, to remind me whenever it was at all possible, that mine was indeed the most difficult pregnancy ever recorded as such. In her very own words, “You were a painful little infant to carry around for so many months, and an even more painful child to deliver.” She also had an unbelievable story about the number of hours she was in labor. I know my first two words on earth must have been, “I’m sorry.” And of course her response,” You should be!!!” Auspicious, wouldn’t you say?

A day or single moment added to many, through my early years which laid wide open what was mine, always and forever; they say seventy five percent of who we are, and most likely what we will turn out to be, coincides rampantly with what became ours by way of environment. In other more simple terms: It’s mostly about bloodline, baby. When do we allow for the acknowledgment of what is ours alone, and what was given to us unknowingly by a parent, or perhaps both mother and father?

Like so many boys who became men before me, I grew up with a heavy dose of hero worship for my dad. The thought of being anything at all like my mother was beyond my comprehension. In my mind mothers were there to take care of the house, prepare the food, and in general be a family caterer. She couldn’t possibly help me with the important things like playing baseball, or attending baseball games, or listening to baseball games on the radio.

(Yes, I did say radio. When I was a young boy, television had not yet made an appearance. My father and I spent many hours together sitting in front of the family radio listening to a sporting event, or to one or more of the popular radio shows.)

What could I possibly say about Lillian, to capture her nature, as one of the most benevolent people I’d ever meet during my lifetime? Many that met Lillian did not share my feelings and felt the opposite to be true. She was a wildly swinging patriot of the United States. She took this country personally, as if God had given it to her. Her character traits were by no means cultivated. Love, laughter or anger, she shot from the hip. So it came as no surprise that Lilly treated a person’s uncertainty as a gesture of deceit. Extremely quiet people occurred to her as having something up their sleeve. These were the folks she might never trust. The woman didn’t enter a room, she penetrated; without a word she became a focal point. Her words could be sweet or sour, matching a temperament capable of instant change, often times in mid sentence. And At Lillian’s Court, without reverence or resemblances of sweet talk,
The walk she walked was hers.

Lillie’s Convictions

Solar Power

It never rose and it never flew; there for it was bullshit they blew.
Politicians
To every answer you can find a new question. For every question those who understood neither would elect another question, and then you proudly take office without a prayer to succeed, or promises can you fulfill?

Neighbors

If each one sweeps before his, or her, own private door, the whole street is clean. But what may remain within each mans home, may never be seen.

Marriage

Don’t change for me, but do allow yourself the ultimate pain and gratification of some degree of alteration. And if not alteration, perhaps making a marriage license cost prohibitive as the solution for half of the pending divorces. If most people couldn’t afford to get married, we would have far fewer divorces.

Divorce

If the married couple doesn’t have children the divorce would be free of charge. A simple goodbye would do the trick. People who have brought children on to this earth would not be eligible for divorce until the youngest of the children reached age eighteen. Disrespectful children would not be allowed to reach the age of eighteen.

Understanding Love

As in things from childhood, never understood
When a parent gives voice to them
Some children never will or would
They must take what is given
And know all told must be true
When a child listens early on to a parent
Without living experiences
Never understanding
Never understood.

Positive Thinking

2011-12-01T13:07:00.000-08:00

There are times when I wonder why I write a blog. Many years ago when I first picked up a pen for profit I was told in no uncertain terms to prepare for criticism. At least then I was being paid, and somehow indecision regarding the validity of my work didn’t seem to get to me quite as much as it does today. There were times when I was working for a newspaper that I wondered if anyone was actually reading what I had to say. It was like I was writing an obituary column for those readers who had already died. No wonder they didn’t make comments.

I can remember early on, about thirty years ago, when I was a guest on a radio talk show, and found myself wondering whether there was anyone listening in to what I was saying. The host smiled and said with a sly wink, “Wait until we open up the phone lines for questions and comments”. It was then I found out the real importance of them having a producer who also functioned as a screener: Some of the callers were really screw loose with what they had to say. One of the kids at the radio station called it pounce time. I found out quickly what he was getting at. There are people out there who devote their energies towards indiscriminate attacks on whomever they can find who isn’t in a position to retaliate. These are the unpaid critics, the "wannabes" that don’t begin to have the talent or the fortitude to make it on their own. (There was a time delay, so luckily most of these nut jobs couldn’t get through.)

Today there exists a new and equally parasitic clutter the creative world must deal with. They are still categorized as critics, and their psychological thrusts are the same as most those other bygone eras produced. But today’s rock-throwers have far greater capabilities than ever before in the history of communications. All a person needs is a computer, a phone, a screen, and an acidic condition in order to render their dissertation to a world in waiting. About one year ago I was cajoled to venture fourth into the wide world of “blogdom”. In doing so I promised myself I would not take to heart any really mean spirited critiques any of my readers might offer. Admittedly, my promise to myself at times is hard to live with.

***

One Hundred Blogs Later

Writings, scribbling(s), statements of what have become lived in facts...receiving things from people, often the reality of tainted distortions of the real truth, or the truth as they perceive it. I try not to let another human beings misgivings about life, as they have lived it, get in the way of my attempts at remaining positive.

The majority of people offering their personal sentiments regarding my opinions, as I continue to scribe, have been positive in nature. Many have thanked me for reminding them of what they themselves know to be true. Most are reflections of little tidbits from my own past, which helped me during my own down times.

I doubt if we can uncover very many folks in the entertainment business that have reached a noteworthy degree of success without experiencing first hand a pitfall or two, or three, or four, or more. My own are numerous.

If I were to ask a person what gave them the right to vote for someone other than who I voted for, I believe I would instantly earn the title of one of the world's most boorish men. But what about an obviously bitter old person, who was never at any point of creative acceptance in their life, questioning why I have the nerve to write a blog, and further going on in asking if I’m seeking out a new career. To this person, I felt duty bound to offer my thank you. I will forever feel indebted to you for offering your boorish direction. You have given me the fortitude to go on with an even greater display of positiveness than ever before. Bless you for taking the time to let some of the vindictiveness seep from the core of uselessness that has centupled as you continue your creative condemnation during the remainder of your senior years.

Gobble, Gobble, Toil and Trobble

2011-11-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

What would a turkey say if not gobble, gobble? Does it trouble you as it does me? And do they always go with two gobbles, as opposed to just one, or a series of many gobbles in a row? And, what does gobble, gobble mean? Do you suppose perhaps the turkey has an idea of what intentions surround his or her well-being. I swear to you I heard a turkey say to its handler the other day, in turkey talk, in eight rapid fire gobbles, “keep your f…ing hands away from me, pervert!”

It isn’t as if a turkey is speaking a foreign language. I’ve never met a good-natured turkey. That’s not to say they have any influence on a persons good or well being. As a matter of fact good tidings at Thanksgiving time come to us from all over the world.

To you and yours on land or on the sea;

Swieto Dziekczynienia
(Happy Thanksgiving in Polish)

Good Morning, Here's Your Crutch

2011-11-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

What a difference a few years make. I suppose when cultures change, the people who live within them, simultaneously, and automatically modify as well. As a melting pot country, no other place on earth follows this traditionally the way we do.

I grew up in a household where we all worked. Our family followed a pattern, which was set up years before I came along by my mother and father's parents.

The year was 1904 when the boat carrying my dad’s mother and father, my grand parents, entered New York Harbor.

President: Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

USA Population: 79,163,000

Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton names teddy bear after Teddy Roosevelt.

Modify and Invent Only In America!

Morris Michtom arrived in New York from Russia about 1889 as a teenager. He married Rose, also a Russian immigrant, Rose was born Jan. 1863 in Russia and immigrated in 1889. Both became naturalized citizens in Sept. 1892. Together they developed an American icon: the "Teddy Bear".

On December 25, 1902, in a tiny village, some place in Russia, Harvey’s dad, Charles Kalmenson was born into the family of Ethel and Max Kalmenson; two years later they boarded a steamer en route to the United States.

…Concurrently

A cartoon appeared in December 1902 by Clifford K. Berryman showing how President Theodore Roosevelt couldn't shoot and kill a harmless little bear cub during one of his hunting trips. Morris thought to make a stuffed bear similar to the one in the cartoon and put that up for sale, first calling it "Teddy's bear" in February 1903.

Just like Morris Michtom, each of my aunts and uncles on both sides of the family tree were recognizable individuals. There was nothing robotic about them. Yes they all worked; they all quit school far too early; nary a college graduate amongst them, yet never a thought or complaint about living within a societal inflicted servitude; not as slaves to a ruler, but rather good people who played the cards dealt to them with a zeal for life living in what they all recognized as the greatest country in the world. In retrospect, I would have to say they were the strongest willed people I would ever come in contact with during my own lifetime. These were the immigrant grandparents and their immigrant children who are recognized today as the greatest generation ever.

Back Then and There

At family get "togethers” noise prevailed. I mean under the best of circumstances, that many aunts, uncles, and children running around always created the atmosphere of a medium sized commotion at best. It seems appropriate for me to refer to those gatherings as encounters.

What sticks in my mind was the way we were all welcomed by the relatives who arrived at family gatherings before we did. I don’t ever remember a door having to be opened for us. We got there, jumped out of the car and ran up to see which cousins would be there for us to play with. It was a glorious time for the kids. Mom and dad would bring up the rear, carrying a pie or cake mom thought would be suitable for the particular event.

The greetings were enormous smiles on my father's side of the family, as an aunt or uncle would shout out, “It’s Charlie and the kids.” I guess they decided my mother had not yet earned any form of billing. The funny thing was my mother's side of the family did the same thing when we visited them. If you were getting the feeling the families didn’t really care for each other, you’d be correct. My father's attitude towards my mother's side was mostly disdain. I’m sure their feelings were likewise as well. But regardless which side we visited the atmosphere was alive with life’s greatest gifts. Music, conversation, and monstrous amounts of artery clogging food prevailed.

(I never heard the word cholesterol until I was a grown man)

Believe it or not, as a child I never heard an aunt or uncle complain about their own trials and tribulations. That’s not to say they didn’t understand human plight. Conversations showing great pity for the next guy’s problems were ongoing. I guess it was their way of being thankful for what they had. The common belief however was they all practiced keeping any of the bad stuff away from the children. The premise was, “They’ll have plenty of time to grow up and feel the pain.”

As an aside, that’s how we learned to understand the Yiddish language. Anything the adults didn’t want the kids to hear was spoken in Yiddish. And as kids the minute the adults either lowered their voices or continued their conversations in Yiddish we all made it a point to learn. It’s fun thinking back about how my cousins and me would compare notes on what we thought they were gabbing about. As we learned, we also took on the mannerisms of our aunts and uncles as their story telling unfolded.

I learned gambling and flirtatiousness from my mother’s side. They to were the performers; the overly dramatic, drama queens and kings who never were troubled by qualms. They did what they felt like doing. All were merchants. As a child it seemed to me all of their customers were cut from the same cloth. Bargaining and often times flipping a coin; double or nothing in order to settle on the final sale price. Beware if you tried to pull a fast one on them during a business transaction. Those aunts and uncles all came equipped with tempers. That’s not to say they weren’t adverse to conducting a business deal with a questionable scruple or two. On my dad’s side, the practiced façade was intellect. They were the shirt and tie business people crowd. They were nine brothers and sisters who strove for excellence at all costs; eating, drinking, music and in depth political discussions. Eight of the nine children were in business for themselves. One of the brothers, who was categorized as a “lunch pail carrier” rarely offered as much dialogue as the other brothers and sisters did. He was the oldest, and the first to feel the pressure brought on by the need for him to help support the family. During his lifetime, he labored six days a week as a sewing machine operator in a variety of garment factories. As a child I wondered why he didn’t smile as much as everyone else.

Today I can identify. What a burden it must have been. He was the oldest child, in a new country; without friends; and accepting the involuntary removal of his childhood, without explanation, or with even the remotest understanding of his transformation into manhood.

“A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams”

Every one of the new folks in town practiced the precepts of early to bed and early to rise. None of them had any inkling of whether it might make them healthy, wealthy, or wise. It is also doubtful that any of them knew it was our own Benjamin Franklin who coined the phrase. What was happening in actuality was quite simple; everything was a contest with life itself. Don’t get me wrong. None of the old timers went to bed thinking about being the first person in the neighborhood to awake each morning. Just plain good common sense governed just about everything they did. The more hours of daylight they could devote to business, the more chance there was of selling whatever it happened to be they were hawking.

What occurred to me early on as a kid was the warm way they all greeted each other. It was as if the entire community was pulling together, even under the sorriest of conditions. The charm of hearing a person with a strange language saying good morning, and how are you this fine day to an equally traveled neighbor returning the greeting, will always remain with me.

“You know, mine boy…Irving Berlin wrote that”

Talk about “good morning how are you”, giving a lift to ones spirits. Know one ever had a greater display of pride in the United States then those European immigrants. There seemed to be a history lesson instantly available on the tip of every tongue. “Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America in 1918. He doesn’t make a dime from it. Every penny goes to the Boy Scouts of America, and to the Girl Scouts of America." And when they said the word America it was always so special. Even arguments turned somewhat positive, when one of the combatants said to another:

“Don’t tell me what to do. This is a free country we live in. Or haven’t you heard?”

(The response)

“I heard, I heard. I heard long before you heard. I came here to this country three weeks before you did. Did you know his real name from Germany was Baline, Israel Baline?.

(The response)

“Don’t tell me, I heard”

***

“Good Morning, Here’s Your Crutch” may strike many as a strange title for a personal journal. To all of you who might feel that way, cool, I agree with you. A great part of my life is free form; like when a flip card appears, and it’s up to you to say the first thing that pops into your mind. Admittedly, I am often painfully abstract in the assumptions which strike me each time one of life’s flip cards reveals a new question, a new challenge, or a new debacle of any kind. Without hesitation I’m going to wade in. In my defense, I remind you of the people who influenced the earliest part of my life. None of those folks who traveled long and hard by boat in order to get to this country, believed in half way measures of any kind. It was always a robust "Good morning" offered each and every day, to who ever came their way. Their greetings were straight forward, to the point and emanating from the souls of people who felt, being allowed to breathe and pray freely was gifted to them in Gods eminence, these United States. The hours they toiled made them self-sufficient.

One day a peddler who moved from street to street with his horse drawn wagon filled to the brim with used furniture and anything of value he could find in the street, offered this little six-year-old boy a ride in his wagon. I accepted with great joy. It was my first crack at being a cowboy. It was also the first time I received an intellectual message from a stranger. I sat next to the peddler on the flat bench seat that felt like we were three stories off the ground. Between us were his crutches. It was also the first time I had ever seen crutches, and had no idea what he used them for. A block later when our ride came to an end, I found out. As the peddler climbed down from his wagon the crutches came into play. The peddler was unable to walk without their aid. His very strong arms came into play as he easily lifted me down from the wagon. As I thanked him for the ride, the peddler noticed how curious I was about his crutches. “They're called crutches”, he said. “I need them to walk.” And then with the deepest and warmest smile he offered me, “To walk, but not to think. Don’t ever use a crutch in order to succeed. It won’t help you.”

And so it was that a person, who failed to say good morning to me, triggered the writing of this blog. And in my mind there arouses another flip card, with the question: Does it take an immigrant to train this new generation, so consumed by self-centeredness?

Have a great day. It was my pleasure being able to talk to you. And please, if you get a chance, say hello to anyone who knows me.

A Young Actor's Refleciton

2011-11-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Hi, Harvey!
Great seeing you again!
-Ben

I started my voice acting career when I was around six years old, so by the time I was ten, I'd been to pretty much every big casting studio for all sorts of different roles. They say, "Time flies when you're having fun," and to me, voice over is nothing BUT fun! I never really notice the passage of time until I think of all the places I used to audition at that have closed down since. That's why it's always both refreshing and nostalgic at the same time whenever I get to go to places like Kalmenson & Kalmenson that I used to go to over nineteen years ago. It's hard to believe that I was getting direction from Harvey Kalmenson as a ten year old, little boy and am still getting direction from him as a twenty-nine year old, little boy! Whenever I audition there, I can still hear my ten year old voice in my head say, "Gee, I really hope Mr. Kalmenson thinks I'm good enough!"

da Harv's Reply

Not to worry "Big Ben, you were good enough when they first "schlepped" you in to audition for me and you have improved with time.
It never ends, does it? Studying and practicing ones craft is a never ending process.
I do believe remaining a little boy is an important part of this game we play.
Thank you for the kind words.
da harv

Three Parts To My Brain

2011-11-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

OK then in response to the thousands upon thousands of requests, (actually one or maybe two people) I’ve decided to acquiesce; to accept, comply, and submit, tacitly, or passively with regard to da harv.

Translation, “This blogs for me baby”.

THE SCENE:

DAY, EARLY IN A TYPICAL AUDITION WEEK, AT THE WORLD FAMOUS STUDIOS (perhaps not but I happen to like the way it sounds) OF KALMENSON & KALMENSON, THE MOST INTEGRITY-RIDDEN, AND DRIVEN (that of course is an understatement) FOLKS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD OF VOICE OVER!

TODAY WAS TO BE ONE OF GREAT SUFFERING; OUR OWN DA HARV WAS SET TO AUDITION SOME TWENTY-FIVE OF THE BRIGHTEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. (I love saying “The United States of America"). THE SUFFERING PART COMES BECAUSE DA HARV IS KEPT BEHIND GLASS, SEALED IN AN ALMOST AIR TIGHT AND SOUND-PROOF THING THEY REFER TO AS A CONTROL ROOM. WHAT EVER MIGHT BE RUNNING THROUGH THE MAN'S MIND AT THE SIGHT OF THIS OVER ABUNDANCE OF EYE CANDY, TURNS OUT TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN HIS OWN PERSONAL REALITY SHOW; JUST PERFECT FOR HBO.

ALL IS SET ON THIS DAY. THE SCRIPTS ARE OUT IN THE RECEPTION AREA, ALONG WITH A PAGE OF SPECIFICATIONS TO ASSIST THE TALENT WHILE REHEARSING FOR THE AUDITION. TODAY’S AUDITION IS KNOWN AS A PSA; PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. THIS PARTICULAR PSA IS SEEKING DONATIONS FOR A WORLD WIDE GROUP, WHICH HELPS ABANDONED CHILDREN.

THE DIRECTION FOR EACH ACTRESS TO FOLLOW:

”KEEP IT SIMPLE AND DIRECT.

DON’T GET SAPPY.

THE VISUAL IS VERY STRONG AND REQUIRES VERY LITTLE EXPLANATION.

TOTAL HONESTY IS THE NAME OF THE GAME.”

First Person Singular

Let the games begin. The very first actress in to read, in a matter of seconds breaks into tears after delivering a sentence or two. Time out. The game stops. Naturally I ask what the problem was, or is; all the time knowing more or less what it had to be. You see… after thirty plus years of doing this, this director has developed similar emotional tendencies as his players. The magic, but not mysterious word is certainly reflection. Reflection and truth are synonymous.

“What did you recall?" I asked her. She responded with her own question to me; one I’ve heard more often than it would be possible to recall. Thinking of the past is a common occurrence for all of us. Recalling a memory, regardless of its content, is an instant assimilation of the truth.

Her recollections were of her early years as an orphaned child. She had grown and excelled as a good human being. What brought the tears was the visual of those kids who were experiencing a page from what resembled her own.

“How can I avoid this from happening to me again?” she asked. Always a tough question to answer; we seek the truth by conjuring up the past. All I could offer as a solution to excess emotional display is what sometimes works for me.

(Please take note…I said sometimes.) If it’s a script I’m to read, especially if its before a group, I’ll read it out loud over and over again with as many repetitions as time will allow. The other method is to attempt to remove ones self from any form of identification with the subject matter.

Note: If we perceive it as the truth, then that’s what it is.

***

Actress

(Not the same one)

(To da harv with complete seriousness)

You come across as if you have two brains, while the rest of us must live our lives with merely one.

da harv

(To the actress with complete seriousness)

Huh?

Actress

I mean you feel for what we’re doing or attempting to do, as if you were doing it yourself.

da harv

(To the actress with complete seriousness)

Excuse me. I am doing it myself. Think about this; I’m doing three separate things: directing, acting, and being an audience. As the director, I try to speak your language. As the actor I attempt to feel it the way your feeling it. And then as the audience, I’m listening for your truth to emerge.

da harv

(cont.)

It’s not that I have more than one brain…it’s that my brain, the one that I have and use regularly, has three separate compartments: left, right and of course the one I consider as the most important part, the middle, my central chamber.

Actress

(Smirking)

Central chamber? I’m really very serious about my question. I was trying to compliment you. You on the other hand sir, are being facetious.

da harv

Flippant would be a good word as well; you, my lady, are dealing with da harv’s central chamber. It's my practice to treat serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor, or perhaps even acting a touch. I need to …it helps to keep me sane.

Actress

I was talking about your ability as a director.

da harv

I’m not ever centered on the seriousness of self. I do what I almost always do; I placed your comment right smack in the center. Ergo, my center brain compartment...

Actress

Why?

da harv

It keeps me sane.

Actress

How?

da harv

Knowing it’s there for me to use if I want to; my chamber of ridicule...Right there in the center of my brain, able to go to either side effortlessly...

Actress

You mean you store the crap in the center?

da harv

Now you got it!

Actress

Why would you store crap to reflect on?

da harv

Think about it. Isn’t there a certain amount of crap in everybody’s life? If we remove all the bad things from our reflective repertoire, what roles would there be for us to portray?

Actress

Thank you for that Harvey Kalmenson. I never thought about it that way before.

da harv

You’re very welcome. I got it from Stanislavski.

***

First Person Singular

COMMERCIAL VOICE OVER IS A PART OF LIFE. SO YES IT DOES HAVE SOME CRAP AS PART OF IT. YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT. YOU MIGHT JUST FIND A PLACE TO STORE IT FOR ANOTHER DAY.

The Things I've Never Done

2011-10-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

Things I’ve never done
Some I’m proud I never did,
While wistfully thinking of those I’ve never tried.

There was one time most grim
When a divine force snatched me
As I teetered on a limb
I’ve never helped an old man cross a street

Splendid Ladies weren’t required to be old
Just neat, maybe sweet
Liking when they responded to:
“If I may be so bold.”
Not enough paper could hold
The places I’ve never been
Lists upon lists longing for more years to unfold
Stories yet to be told.

Not in envy of people do I sit
Irritating, they brag of journeys
The Rhine, Danube, and the Tuscan hills
Paris city when lights are lit.
Somehow pictures don’t serve to assuage
As time becomes too realistic a refrain
My lady suggests solace
Believing a way could be found
By train we rode together
And within the Santa Ynez Valley Wine land
We found
A place to visit
Where music, sun, and spirits abound!

***

What I have done, is work; it runs in the family. My Dad began his work life long before people, or our government worried about child labor laws. Growing up with him I don’t ever remember hearing the word career. Survival of the fittest would best describe so many of the immigrants who feverishly fought for family and country during the earliest first one third of the twentieth century. Their concerns weren’t over the places or things they had not been able to do; theirs was the day-by-day combativeness, and competitiveness of life itself.

At age fourteen, my Father and most of his friends worked to bring home some cash. The year was 1916.Effectively, in that era, childhood ended at age fourteen. At least that was the case on the lower east side of New York. You might say birth control wasn’t in vogue as yet. My Moms brothers and sisters totaled eight (kids) who managed to survive. Dad had nine in his family brood. The word welfare was non-existent. To get the proper prospective, here is a short list of what they didn’t have:

Multiple bathrooms (a waiting line)

Two ply toilet paper (many used news papers)

Elevators (multi floor tenements to walk up)

Refrigerators (ice boxes were the thing)

No radio or TV (they actually had to speak to one another)

Electric lights (just being introduced)

No car to drive (wagons, walking, & bikes)

Telephones (party lines for the upper middle class; separate private numbers for the rich)

Washing machines an dryers (forget about it)

And speaking of washers and dryers, the stories of the old timers and what they went through to get the families clothes laundered are to be cherished. The wintertime was especially challenging. Every kid had a pair of long johns; well actually they weren’t a pair. Most of them were one piece, buttoning up the front, with a flap in the back for when nature called. My Dad told me he was always reminded to drop his pants and to drop the flap. I loved the story my Father would tell about the great silent movie escape artist.

“The guy was trapped in a burning log cabin in the middle of a winter storm. There was only one window in the part of the cabin where he was being held captive. His back was pressed up against it. The sweat began to pour down his body. The heat of the fire was becoming too much for him to stand. He banged his head against the window until the glass splattered allowing the freezing chill to rush through the broken panes of glass. In nothing flat his long johns were frozen solid. He flipped down the rear flap and escaped out the back. The frozen underwear was left standing as his ladder to freedom flap.”

At this point all the kids were leaning in, mesmerized by every word my Dad would relate. The more dramatic he became the more they loved it. The way Dad told it, he was now a man sixteen years of age; the year was 1918. He’d tell those kids about the same escape, over and over again. But the absolutely amazing part was the way the kids were hooked on every word he had to say.
I remember a time in the army when I found myself in the predicament of having to wash my combat fatigue uniform in a frozen over Hahn River in South Korea. I hung the two pieces out to dry that evening. When I awoke the next morning I was instantly reminded of my father. The fatigues were frozen solid as if that was my intention to begin with. The arms and legs stretched out in a tee forming a perfect scarecrow. You can guess what my thoughts were in that moment.

Wholesome reflections don’t promote what you haven’t done. I will think of Santa Barbara, and the riches nature provides; the importance of properly decanting a bottle of fine wine, and being there to sample the splendor of another time. I’m free to think of it over and over enjoying the same story each and every time.

√

Out to Lunch

2011-10-10T16:55:00.001-07:00

Store Owner
That’s a nice hat; why didn’t you buy it from me? I carry hats like that.

Customer
Your door was closed.

Store Owner
The sign said out to lunch, didn’t it?

Customer
So that’s why I didn’t buy it from you.

Store Owner
I was going to come right back.

Customer
I was here for a couple of minutes and you weren’t.

Store Owner
You could have waited.

Customer
Down the street I didn’t have to wait. Besides…buyers don’t wait. Sellers wait.

Store Owner
I don’t understand.

Customer
It’s very simple. Don’t go out to lunch. Eat at your own private desk. Be a king in your own country.

Actors should always find a way to eat at their own desks. Being out to lunch is not an option. Your kingdom is waiting to be served. While you may be the king; and it’s good to be king (“Thank you Mr. Brooks”), wiggle room is not a welcomed characteristic for an aspirer to have. You may be a one-person kingdom consisting of just you, still you must constantly and continually aspire: To what, you might ask?

You must always be the king, or queen who is well prepared to serve his or her domain. Yours must be a realm where doors are never closed. Let those who seek you out, find you involved with the day-by-day process of intellectual growth necessary to serve those who find yours to be the “forever” open door.

No need to become a star. Being exalted will be quite enough!

Aspire to become exalted. But be forewarned, it often takes years of exertion before one reaches a state of exaltedness. Actor, director, producer, writer; how many will reach the heights? Your star on a boulevard or the naming of a street is not by itself the only qualification for an exaltation bestowal.

And Then There’s A Thing Called Self Exaltation

I have chosen to use my time on the freeway; twice each day, going and coming, as a time to write and to paint: Not to text. Fact is…I don’t know how to text. I’m not breaking the law. I have those stupid little white things plugged into each ear in the event someone finds a sapient need to reach me. I dislike my cell phone with a great passion. I don’t even like calling it mine. Yet, I find myself in the seldom-revered minority. To stay in touch with someone, anyone at all times, is the acceptable thing to do.

Yesterday at the train station, while awaiting our connection to return from a tour of a beautiful and most tasteful adventure in the Santa Barbara wine country, I was astounded by a group of college students who were returning from somewhere. There had to be at least fifty of them. Almost without exception each of them was armed with an up to date, state of the art cell phone. All were plugged in and talking. Without hesitation the reporter in me took over. Who could these young derelicts be conversing with at 6:PM on a Sunday evening? They were there together that day, or weekend on what had to be a wonderful sojourn, sharing the God like vistas of northern California. They stood together without touching, without looking into each other’s eyes, and certainly unaware of anything transpiring around them. They refer to it as “social networking”. Of course my questions will forever be unanswered. But my mind wanders; now back to more pleasant thoughts. It wasn’t my intention to make this about me. This shouldn’t be about me. …but since it is, what the hell! This is be about what I do with respect to driving the freeway each and every day of the week, in order to meet with people dedicated almost totally to their own glory search. These are the multitudes who strive to remain as breadwinners. Just as the cave people in their respective eras, they wander in order to eat. As is the case today, there is no glory in being a caveman or woman. There is, however a chance to achieve exaltation.

Going to work in the morning definitely differs from the drive I take on the way home each evening. In the morning I am definitely more adventurous than in the afternoon or evening.

Between seven and eight each morning I enter the freeway with the same goal in mind, to get over as far to the left lane as possible, as fast as I can. I treat the on ramp as my launching pad. With my left turn indicator signaling I step on the accelerator and I’m well on my way towards the sixty-five mile an hour lift off , as the wheels of my truck touch the far right lane of the freeway, exaltation! Within seconds I have moved from the far right slow lane across to the far left speed lane. As I glance at my speedometer a hint of a smile crosses my lips; I’ve reached the seventy-mile an hour mark, and I’m on track towards a new record; continued exaltation. This of course won’t qualify for a new record. (Because) It’s Saturday morning. I’m working this Saturday morning. In twelve minutes flat I arrive at my Burbank studios. From Encino to Burbank, a trip, which can take me as much as an hour during a weekday morning excursion. What a difference a day makes. The vast majority of working folks don’t realize what a great day Saturday is.

Long before I became aware of my custom, it had turned into a continuing daily practice. I gave no thought to the enormity of the project. Each morning and evening my changing cast of players performed for a different audience. The players appeared; some more fleeting than others; dependent on the flow of traffic.
They’d be there similarly disturbed, or undisturbed by this writers cause.

Some would call this lengthy maze a road, or a highway, or a freeway. Few would see this as a stage of players. But what if they were just that? What if it was the largest cast ever assembled on any one stage. Could I ever have the skills called for by the producer of this epic in order to stage this play?

There for me with each sight leading to another then being dismissed without cause, instituted by me. It becomes an endless stage with all players within this system hidden by the steel surrounding them on all sides.

***
Note:

• There are exactly 53 Saturdays in this year 2011. Each weekday morning it takes me on average forty minutes to travel from Encino to Burbank.
• On Saturday mornings my average travel time is fifteen minutes; representing a life saving twenty-five minutes for each and every Saturday I work.
• If I work fifty Saturdays this year I would be saving 1, 250 minutes, or a total of close to 21 hours.
• Is it any wonder then how many people like you and me become frustrated as they sit in their cars stopped on any number of local freeways?

A person could do a lot of reading in twenty one hours, or spend some valued part of this life on a cell phone.

"Discovering the Wheel"

2011-10-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

(They think-- I think not)

Actually “They Discovered the Sled “

Quiz time:

What do people do when they can’t find work for an extended period of time?
What is, or would be considered an extended period of time for the average person
What denotes the terminology, average person?

Not to worry, it isn’t my intention to return to the beginning of time, to provide the proper documentation in order to answer the questions posed at my lead in.

Lead in; now that’s sounds so familiar to me.

In the event you’re curious, here are some possible answers as provided by the earliest of Cavemen, and translated by me for your convenience.

And yes, I do speak Cavemanish!

In the prehistoric era women had not yet developed a voice of their own. Most women hung out around the cave doing chores until the man of the cave needed something. The woman’s main assignment was carrying things around from place to place. This was not easy work, especially when the carrying took place as the man of the cave was dragging one of his gals by the hair. Most cavemen of substance kept three or four women at his beck and call. Since the language of the day was mostly grunts, groans, screams, and a variety of body sounds; (nothing has really changed) communications with each of the women of the cave was troublesome at best; which would explain why many of the women died as they were being pulled by the hair, from one location to another.

It was during one of these pulling by the hair incidents a great discovery took place. A particularly long woman (people were referred to as either long or not long in those days; since they had no language as yet, stretching ones arms apart would signify how tall or short a female was; arms apart for long, arms together for short) was busily carrying a heavy load of rocks, when her caveman decided he needed her help. As usual she couldn’t figure out what he wanted so he grabbed her by the hair and began to pull her in his desired direction. She lost her balance and was flipped over on her back as he continued to pull. It was then he discovered it was much easier to pull a load from place to place with the carrier flat on her back. Ergo the sled, as we know it today was discovered. This procedure also explains why many of the women expired while being dragged along the ground.

The procedure of human sledding didn’t last very long. In no more than six or seven hundred years the cavemen and cave women learned to communicate by the actual use of some primitive words; Many of those same words are still being used by members of our society today. It was also during this era that the first songbook came along. It happened as one of the cave women was performing the nightly chore of readying her mans bed. She accomplished this by warming the bedrocks she found lying around the cave. While carrying her mans hot rocks from the fire to the bed slab, she inadvertently dropped a few of them to the floor of the cave. As the rocks fell, some began to roll away from her; she tried picking them up, only to have the process continue. The rocks fell and rolled; she picked them up as others hit the ground. It was then that the rest of the family began to sway to the beat of the rocks hitting the ground. And of course, you guessed it; this was the beginning of rock and roll music as we know it today; the words were not discernable, but the beat was overpowering, especially in the larger caves with the high ceilings and long hallways.

“In Those Days”

· People and animals had a great deal in common; they wandered the earth. It was described on the walls of the caves as “wandering, or roaming”.

· A day, a week, and a month, it was all the same to them. Their work was called eating. When they became hungry it always felt like an extended period of time.

· They were all average. Everybody dressed the same; the men all carried clubs, and never shaved. The women didn’t carry clubs; they to didn’t shave. Romance was nonexistent. There was no candlelight; it was dangerous to stay out in the moonlight.

“The first rock group.”

They didn’t tour. They played the same cave every evening.

Circa unknown.

And now after many centuries of man’s development, lo and behold (I love saying “lo and behold”) there exists many curiosity questions for one to ponder. Why have so many things changed, while so many things have stayed the same? Why have most people thrown their clubs away (except for when they play baseball) while others look for folks to hit over the head? Although clubs and hitting has been supposedly banned from public use, hitting still remains a form of communication within certain tribes.

Have you taken notice; today’s cavemen shave less, while the women shave more? (Or do I have that backwards?) Or is that just in San Francisco?

And it appears to me people and animals still have much in common, especially when it comes to being hungry. Just like in the old days; a hungry animal is liable to do anything, depending on how hungry he happens to be. Human beings often react the same way. Some people actually still steal food; mostly from places like 7-11.

There’s a lot of strange stuff going on. The other day this guy was telling about this place he went to where the women are required to remain completely covered from head to toe when out in public. Many of these societal dictates remarkably resemble those of the original cavemen, minus of course the rock and roll music that they have also disallowed. I asked the guy about how a woman goes about getting a passport picture taken. “That’s easy”, he responded. “They’re not allowed to leave the country.” Wow! That is exactly what the cavemen did with their gals. Many of these societal dictates remarkably resemble those of the original cavemen, minus of course the rock and roll music they have also disallowed.

I began with

Quiz time:

· What do people do when they can’t find work for an extended period of time?

· What is, or would be considered an extended period of time for the average person?

· What denotes the terminology, average person?

Do I have answers to any of these questions? Probably not. But for this average person what I can do is bring forward my personal testimony after having been there, and in my minds eye always being able to remember living with the anguish.

· Each day without work is a day of frustration and wonder. How does the man who is working do it? How did he get there? Will I ever work again?

· Without means to satisfy ones obligations, is an extended period of time.

· Being average is an excuse for being average.

A Critique

By some who have read this work,

Feeling duty bound to ridicule and smirk,

Those of intellect so sorely lacking,

This author never the less revels in their attacking.

Truth be told

Ciphering the walls of a cave

Isn’t necessarily that bold.

What was then returns to us now.

Disclosed between these lines

The separation of man and things might be found.

New things have been invented; but man’s sameness will astound.

Wake up da harv. We can’t return to the beginning of time. Rarely can we ever return to anything that once was; except perhaps evil.

Actually no language was required. All they were able to do was draw pictures. It was of course the introduction to what was later known as “French Postal Cards” (Porn).

True they didn’t speak, but they could hum, especially at night when they were putting the cave kids down to sleep.

Today’s women still keep carrying things around for the men. Sleds have been replaced in the better cave garages with things called BMW’s. These gals may be seen scooting around and dropping off the kids like fish, at places called schools.

Some men still keep more than one woman on call. There are even men who pay to have these ladies waiting in different locations around the country. Many athletes and politicians fall into this category. The story of how the sled was invented is at best debatable, since the original translations of the pictures on the cave walls was done by a Middle Eastern scholar who had the women being depicted on the walls completely covered from head to toe with cloth that had not yet been invented. Other anthropologists claim the sled was invented during a heavy snowstorm. The woman merely lost her balance and slid down the snow and icy hill.

The history of rock and roll is exact. Today many folks do the very same things with their rocks; only now they’re plugged in electrically.

“In These Days”

· People still wander the earth, traveling by bus, train, plane and car. Today’s people rarely walk.

· Then and now, eating is eating.

· Today the police, baseball, and hockey players are the ones with the clubs. Many of them also carry guns in order to protect themselves from the average people. Cave women had men to protect them. Today’s women carry pepper spray.

· In the old days the average people all wore sandals. The average people today still all wear sandals. Cavemen didn’t have socks. Today’s men and women have socks, but find little need for them. In the old days feet were ugly; they still are. It was commonplace for a caveman’s butt to be revealed when he bent over; the same applies to a great many men today.

· Romance was non-existent then, and it’s becoming that way today.

· Cavemen didn’t pray. They still don’t.

Social graciousness has never been less average than it is today. Or is it just my imagination?

What Gets To Me?

2011-09-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

I guess most of us have one thing or another that gets to us no matter how many times we see or hear about it. I mean it’s difficult for me to keep from tearing up when the nightly news comes on and we see a group of returning soldiers being greeted by wives, girlfriends, mothers and children. An athlete openly thanking a parent for their help along the way is another of those moments. Emotional sincerity is the deciding factor.

In my mind there isn’t anything that can rival the sincerity of a genuine thank you. That’s not to say each time I receive a thank you note, or an in person thank you, or just a quick phone call of thanks, I begin to cry like a baby. Some offers of thank you have a greater impact on me than others. Usually these are the ones received unexpectedly.

It was close to thirty years ago. I had the position of being the in-house voice casting director for “Sullivan Bluth Animation”. At the time they were a major player. I considered myself to be a lucky man to have the job. Of course, anytime I’m able to work in this subjective creative world I’ve chosen to exist in, I consider myself lucky; make that read "very" lucky. It worked out to be three years of almost complete enjoyment for me. It was a creative, exciting, and extremely challenging organization to be involved with. Some of my many assignments were more challenging then others. For me, as a professional, the most difficult assignments are those where the completion and project budgets are always in doubt. It’s almost exactly like building a house. Nothing is more expensive than making changes while in progress, or shifting from one project to another. The possibility exists for never completing anything. Having a series of films being worked on, without a supposition in place regarding a final outcome, can and will most likely spell disaster. There was a short period of time at Sullivan Bluth, when I do believe I had my hand in three projects at the same time. One incident will remain etched in my memory bank.

The late actor “Buddy Hackett” had been cast to play a lead role. We recorded him. In my opinion Buddy had done a superlative job. He was paid handsomely for his efforts. A few days later, I thought they were kidding me when I was asked to bring Buddy back, at full pay to redo his entire role. All concerned parties, (far too many of them), seemed ecstatic with his work on the second go around. Inwardly, I felt his first recording session was equally as good. The way it turned out none of it mattered. ” Hackett's work never made the screen. For whatever the reason, we recast the role with Charles Nelson Riley as the replacement. Even though I was the casting director, no mention was made of why Don Bluth and his cohorts were dissatisfied. And the strangest part of the entire incident was the film in question was placed on hold after it was nearly complete, in favor of another film they felt would do better at the box office. In either case, management or lack there of, was horribly mistaken. Everything they tried during the era in question failed miserably at the box office. It certainly all boils down to the same old cliché, "the audience will let you know what you have.” Without exception my colleagues at “Bluth”, yours truly included, felt we had a far better product than the gate receipts provided.

Four best moments remain in my minds eye, which occurred during my tenure at Sullivan Bluth Animation.

1. Early on the New Years day morning following our working together, I received a phone call from Buddy Hackett; very short, sweet, and to the point; "Hello Harvey, this is Buddy. I just wanted you to know you’re one of the nice guy’s I worked with this last year. Thank you,” he said, and hung up abruptly.

2. Larry Dobkin, at age eighty-three, after telling me of a first hand experience with Cecil B. Demille while filming “The Ten Commandments”, then taking my hand and saying “Thank you for bringing me in to audition Harv. It means a great deal to me.”

3. Hans Conreid, during the month before he died making it a point to come by the office for no other reason than to say, "Thank you Harvey."

4. And finally from a little boy, who remains unknown, but not unthought-of .

It was at Sullivan Bluth, when against my better judgment; I complied with management’s wishes, and proceeded to conduct field auditions of little children. Along with my production assistant we dragged our recording equipment to nursery schools around the city. After three weeks of sheer drudgery, management relented to my wishes and we began bringing kids in to audition in house at our studios. These were five and six year old children being submitted by way of agent representation. Two weeks, and four hundred children later I was ready for the "looney bin". Finally the in-house auditions came to a merciful end, I thought. Somehow we had missed a few kids who still remained in our outer reception area. I dutifully went out to where they were waiting and told the parents we’d be bringing their children in to record in a few minutes. The first two kids were in and out unceremoniously. The third and final child to audition for me, created far more than I had anticipated. When he entered the recording area, I felt a smile come across my face. Here stood a six-year-old little boy, dressed in slacks and a smart looking shirt and tie. His very blond hair was perfectly cut in a crew. This kid was destined to become a football line backer. I could tell from his lantern jaw, broad shoulders and overall countenance, this was a young man who had future hero written all over him. His audition went well enough. I dismissed him and he was gone in a flash. Thank God it was over. I was totally exhausted. The amount of extra talking it takes in order to direct most children can take it’s toll; especially when you’ve had weeks of it without a break. I was leaning against a wall taking a breather when out of nowhere here comes the kid, running down the hall like a linebacker straight at me. He stopped directly in front of me. I leaned over in order to hear what he had returned for. Now I was at his eye level. Without warning this little guy puts his very strong little right arm around my neck and kisses me on the cheek, and says all in the same motion, “Thank you for the help mister.” He was gone in a flash. At the end of the hall he turned as he stood at his Mothers side and waved goodbye to me. It was an overpowering incident. It caught me off guard as well as in a state of complete exhaustion. I turned away from my production assistant, but not before catching sight of him showing how he to was touched by the genuineness of this little boy.

And so on and so forth, through the years I have discovered more than I probably deserve,the many ways a thank you can be rendered. A wink of the eye; a quick smile, a handshake, and in some instances a tear being shown by the head of state, for the entire world to see unashamedly.

A Favorite Thank You

It was the beginning of the war for Great Britain. They found themselves at the mercy of Adolph Hitler and his band of Nazi tyrants. While the USA had not yet entered the conflict Sir Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been in contact and both were aware of the dire circumstances, which existed for the world’s future.

In August of 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt met secretly for their great “Atlantic Conference”, off the coast of Newfoundland. “The Atlantic Charter” was conceived, seventy years ago. And to further implement the ever-growing bond between our two countries, FDR dispatched his personal envoy to Britain, Harry Hopkins, during a special dinner with Churchill, took the floor and quoted from the Book Of Ruth:

“ Whither thou goest I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,” he declared, dramatically adding “even to the end”.
Churchill wept openly.

As do I whenever I reread of the incident.

2011-09-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

A Little More From The Old Guy

Another incident popped into my mind about a visit with the Old Guy. As usual he began with a statement, which would have come across to an untrained ear as totally out of reasonable context.

I had long since become a trained listener. I’m one of those people who get a variety of oddball clues from apparently nothing. Perhaps it was cultivated by the melting pot of humanity I was raised with. Immigrants had their own language cultivation systems in place almost from the instant they set foot on land here in the United States. As an example, the Jewish immigrants change their Yiddish language into a combo of English, as we know it, and Yiddish as they spoke it;”wellah” a thing called “Yinglish”. They brought a special music and lyric to conversation. The sounds always struck me as funny. The East side of Manhattan was like a continual stand up comedy routine. Initially the players had little idea of how funny they sounded, especially when they co-mingled an assortment of dialects. The most entertaining for me was the sound of a person with a heavy-duty Irish brogue, conversing in Yiddish. In other words, actually speaking “Yiddish” with an authentic Irish accent.

You folks, who think you’re good at dialects, try doing an Irishman with a Yiddish accent. As a point of fact, I heard “James Cagney” as a lark, at a private party, speaking perfect Yiddish with an Irish brogue. As if doing those two things simultaneously wasn’t enough of an accomplishment, Jimmy without missing a beat, added a perfect impression of “John Wayne” to the mix. And at that same party, a gentlemen named “Hermes Pan”; Fred Astair’s choreographer, pointed out to all of us, the fact, Jimmy could do all of this while dancing an Irish jig. If you think I’m making up this story about James Cagney, think again. And while you’re thinking find someone like the “Old Guy” to talk to.

He grew silent for a few moments. I’ve learned when it happens to stay patient, another image of the past was taking shape. The Old Guys next assessment:

“Those bound to forget have forgotten; those who remember; will never forget.”

And as I gazed at him, (the) from whence it came will remain without my understanding. The name of a restaurant popped into my head. It was during an evening of adventure, at the old “Frascoti’s” restaurant, on Wilshire near La Cienga Blvd. in Beverly Hills. I believe I was about twenty-three years old at the time. Following a show run through I had been working on; a rather attractive woman offered me her business card and suggested I come by her place to end the evening. It turns out she was the recently widowed, newly inherited owner of the “Frascoti’s restaurants. When I arrived at her Beverly Hills restaurant it was already one in the morning. The year was 1956.

It turns out the lady had spent the entire evening inviting people to her restaurant. At 2AM it was a large, well-oiled entourage, which left her restaurant, en route to an area, which is now known as “Trousdale Estates”. To this day I can’t imagine why in the world I was invited. Other than being in the same business, it would have been a more likely scenario if I were there as a parking lot attendant. Never the less, make no mistake, I was there, and the event helped to shape my future. I learned during the evening, the bigger and more successful they are, the nicer they are.

Fifty-Five years ago; It was 1956

The United States presidential election of 1956 saw a popular Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully run for re-election. I doubt if Eisenhower had ever been to “Frascoti’s”. That of course means, I was one up on the president of The United States. …And in the event you’re wondering, “Frascoti” was named after a township in Italy.

As a reference to who was in attendance on this evening in 1956, I’m duty bound to mention the previous year 1955.

“Marty”, (1955) Paddy Chayefsky cinematization of his television play was originally presented in 1953 as a 60-minute TV broadcast, with leads played by (1)Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand (2). It was the only film based on a TV drama to ever win Best Picture award. (“Steiger” came across to this young guy (me) as a man who was in the process of impersonating himself. My first thought after meeting him was; he’s just like Rod Steiger.)

As a feature film, Marty was one of the biggest 'sleepers' in Hollywood history, from the independent production company of Harold Hecht and actor Burt Lancaster (Hecht-Lancaster). It’s $340,000 production budget yielded over $5 million in gross proceeds. Marty was nominated for eight Academy Awards, Including best actor (3) Ernest Borgnine, and Best Screenplay (4) Paddy Chayefsky. (These two people appearing in the same private social happening, in retrospect, would most likely be deemed as highly unlikely today.) I’ve never seen any other individual in my lifetime that smiled more than Ernest Borgnine. As an aside…I never spoke directly to either of them. It’s difficult to speak when your mouth has dropped open and remains in awe like freeze for an entire evening.

Oh, did I mention (5)Humphrey Bogart showed up with this attractive (6)tall girl, just staying long enough to give (7)Cagney a hug, and compliment him about having so much to do with starting the Screen Actors Guild, back in 1933.

“So, the piano played, and the guests stayed.”

Surprisingly, the talk did not center on Ernie Borgnine, or Paddy Chayefsky, and how they had scored the year before. That was far too shallow a conversation for this group. The crowd was zeroed in to the present; to what was happening then, and what was about to happen within the movie industry during 1956. My comment today, simply, they really knew what they were talking about.

1956 Top Grossing Films (U.S.)

Rank Title Leading Star Studio Gross

1. The Ten Commandments Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner and Anne Baxter Paramount $43,000,000
2. Around the World in Eighty Days David Niven, Cantinflas and Shirley MacLaine United Artists $23,120,000
3. Giant Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean Warner Bros. $14,000,000
4. War and Peace Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda Paramount $12,500,000
5. The King and I Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner 20th Century Fox $9,000,000
6. The Searchers John Wayne Warner Bros. $8,500,000
7. Bus Stop Marilyn Monroe 20th Century Fox $7,269,000
8. High Society Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra MGM $6,250,000
9. The Girl Can't Help It Jayne Mansfield and Tom Ewell 20th Century Fox $5,878,000
10. Written on the Wind Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone Universal $5,712,000

“Those bound to forget have forgotten; those who remember; will never forget.”

So another of The Old Guy’s word gestures, as I refer to them, has come to pass. Nothing of utmost incredibility to challenge ones mind set. I guess anyone in my position in life who forgets an evening of his past, similar to the one I just described, has some faulty brain waves, or a lack there of.

Each and every time the Old Guy offered a word, it served me as a hand reaching out. There are those who preach the gospel of our industry; then there are those who have lived and shaped, and given me an indescribable wealth, which money could never purchase.

***

This Old Guy

2011-09-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

When I least expect it a guy or gal comes in for an audition and without warning brings with them a slice of life I wasn’t at all planning on. Sure I conduct my auditions on schedule; the show must go on and all that sort of thing applies, but somewhere along the way a word or a gesture allows for something special to occur; humanness finds its way between the cracks of our commercial world of puff. There, in an instant or two, I am permitted the pleasure of another man, or woman’s sentiments as they regale over a truth; nothing by design; merely stemming from a mutual need I would guess. No hand signals are given; to the casual observer, what appears in our scene is a "busy as usual" director, trying to stay within his allotted time frame.

On this particular day the guy who stood there before me required, during the "then happening" event, a listener, in this case Harvey Kalmenson, to capture the meaning of every word he spoke. I never felt the pressure of a comprehension test to follow. It was the sheer importance of the man himself, which dictated the importance of my attention to what he was willing to share.

I rarely break for lunch, and almost never have a lunch companion. On this day, lunchtime had long since come and gone. In fact I was more or less on my own for the rest of the afternoon. Man or woman, an experience being honestly shared with an individual in their tenth decade of life is a titled happening to be treasured by the listener; in this case Harvey Kalmenson.

Oftentimes people of a rare vintage offer openings, seemingly without direction. They might name an event, like an occurrence, which took place many years ago in a foreign land:
”I remember how she trembled when finally it was over; Florence was the first lady to swim the English Channel.”

Summer in a very hot San Fernando Valley venue, and without warning a conversation begins on a fog-ridden day across the pond; swimming history occurred on August 8, 1950, when Flo swam the English Channel in 13 hours and 20 minutes, breaking the then-current world record held by American swimmer Gertrude Ederle. Before I could ask the guy what a sixty two year old happening had to do with today’s, he was away and running. This was going to take awhile...

The Old Guy

“If ever you’d like to hear about 1932, I think there could be some substance to what I have to say."

Now that caught my attention. As a matter of fact, it demanded it. I treasure books; films; magazines; presenting documentation of those who came before me. Having a man, who for many years has been a respected community leader, willing to personally take me to an era by way of his first hand living experiences, is, and was of unrivaled magnitude!

In 1932 our Old Guy (or Gal) was age nineteen.

The Old Guy

“I’d like for you to try to assimilate the era, Harv. By that I mean…think about all the things we didn’t have, you and yours take for granted today. Few had phones; many dreamed about having a radio for the family’s entertainment; my source for assimilation was verbal communication, newspapers, magazines, books, and the rarity of an occasional movie.”

I settled in and prepared to participate in the afternoon as a listener. While I’m a devout lover of the abstract, I couldn’t quite get a handle on what his reference to assimilate meant for me as an individual who was not yet an inhabitant of the days the Old Guy had lived in; especially as a thirteen year old.

Assimilation Through The Eyes of a Thirteen year old

The Old Guy

The 1932 Olympics took place in Los Angeles, California. The Coliseum held fourth as a magnificent mainstay of the games. History documents this as possibly the worst worldwide economy ever. Can you imagine the desperation? The USA was the only country in the world to bid for the 1932 Olympic games. Talk about a bleak outlook; six months before the Games were to begin, not a single country had responded to the official invitations. The world was mired in the Great Depression which made the expense of traveling to California seem nearly as insurmountable as the distance. Many of the spectator tickets had not been sold and it seemed that the Memorial Coliseum, which had been expanded to 105,000 seats for the occasion, would be relatively empty. Then, a few Hollywood stars (including Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, and Mary Pickford) offered to entertain the crowd and ticket sales picked up.

Only 1,300 athletes participated, representing 37 countries. And if you think times sounded bad…try this on for size: The United States presidential election of 1932 was taking place as the effects of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and the Great Depression were being felt across the country.

In 1932 President Herbert Hoover's popularity was falling as demonstratively as our current president's. The voters felt he was worsening the depression through his excessive spending and protectionism. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

But just when you think things can’t get any worse, even the emotions of a thirteen year old boy can be shaken to their core. Poverty hit our household, along with the calamity of what being forced into adult realizations can do to a very young man.

The Olympic games seemed of little importance to me. It was a first time, first hand experience. I had never seen my Mom ill before. Who cared who the President of The United States was? My Dad struggled to bring home enough money to feed the family. No longer dressed in his banker's garb, he had become a common picker; leaving in the wee hours of the morning at the beginning of each new week, and returning when there was enough money to help support us. I sold newspapers, and delivered prescriptions for the local pharmacy. The friends I had in those days were all in the same boat. Survival was the name of the game. Financially, nothing seemed to get better. The next seven years allowed me to reach manhood. At age nineteen I was completing my second year of study at Los Angeles City College. We were all studying diligently. There was togetherness about LACC. None were on a free ride. Even our conversations were a conscious learning experience. It was a twenty-four hour a day, around the clock effort. Not what most would think? We were dedicated to not falling short. The talk was of events; of the world; of our campus colleagues; some who preached of the most unholy doctrines. One day we had a guy who spoke of a new group called “The Aryan Nation”. He claimed to be its founder. It was the first I’d heard of “Adolph Hitler”. It turned nasty that day. There he stood in the center of our new campus. Until that very moment I had never heard his form of venom. He singled out some of my friends, not aware we were part of the fledgling drama department. It was far too much to take. We took a stand and moved him bodily from the campus, to the cheers of the lunchtime student body. I can remember feeling good about the stand we took and how together we became proud of being young actors. Unfortunately it wasn’t the last we saw of the imbecile. He went on to become a well-known hater. The rest of us completed our two years at the school, and moving forward into what was then still a rather sleepy Los Angeles society.

September 4, 1929, Los Angeles Junior College opened its doors for the first time with over 1,300 students and 54 teachers. It later changed its name to Los Angeles City College.

Notable alumni, many cut from our cloth.

Entertainment Industry Performance:

Bob Arbogast, radio broadcaster and voice actor
Pete Arbogast, radio announcer
Alan Arkin, actor, Academy Award® recipient
Billy Barty, actor and founder, Little People of America
Brenda Benet, actor
Tommy "Butch" Bond, actor
Albert Brooks, actor, comedian and director
Diana Canova, actor
James Coburn, actor, Academy Award® recipient
Clint Eastwood, actor; producer, Academy Award® recipient; director, Acad
emy Award® recipient
Mike Evans, actor
Al Freeman, Jr., actor, Emmy® Award recipient; educator
Morgan Freeman, actor, Academy Award® recipient; producer
Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, actor, Tony Award® recipient
Deidre Hall, actor
Mark Hamill, actor
Michael Harris, actor
Allen “Farina” Hoskins, actor
Jackie Joseph, actor
Margaret Kerry, actor
Wallace Langham, actor
Ruta Lee, actor
Tony Maggio, actor
Whitman Mayo, actor
James Mitchell, actor and dancer
Dickie Moore, actor
Wayne Morris, actor, WWII ace
Shelley Morrison, actor
Stephen Nichols, actor
Jeannette Nolan, actor
Hugh O’Brian, actor, Golden Globe Award® recipient
Rosie Perez, actor and choreographer
Donna Reed, actor, Academy Award® recipient
Maggie Roswell, actor
Alexis Smith, actor, Tony Award® recipient
Louise Sorel, actor
Robert Vaughn, actor, Emmy® Award recipient
Stuart Whitman, actor
Cindy Williams, actor and producer
Esther Williams, actor, Golden Globe Award® recipient
Paul Winfield, actor, Emmy® Award recipient
Jo Anne Worley, actor
Aron Kader, comedian
Production_Nick Grippo, caterer and author
Gary Stockdale, composer for television shows
Ray Aghayan, costume designer, Emmy® Award recipient
Rudy Behlmer, director and author
Charles Burnett, director and writer
F. Gary Gray, director and producer
Michael Lembeck, director, Emmy® Award recipient; actor
Karen Moncrieff, director
Albert and Allen Hughes, directors
José Quintero, directo
Ray Harryhausen, producer, director and special effects artist; special Academy Award® recipient
Bruce Kimmel, director, producer, writer, actor and composer
Mimi Leder, director, Emmy® Award recipient
Gene Roddenberry, producer and screenwriter
True Boardman, screenwriter and actor
John Milius, screenwriter, producer and director

Friends Bearing Gifts

2011-08-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

When a pleasant surprise is just what it purports to be, it is then that we have both pleasantness and the unexpected of the two joining forces: AKA “Spirituality”

TODAY (in particular)

Very early in my morning;

The economy and the heat of the day, neither of which came as a pleasant surprise, bore nothing less than the most solid of doldrums, to surround us. This proved to be a descriptive as opposed to a forecast of the morning hours, and the day that followed.

Television and newspapers did little to brighten or lighten tired spirits. I have long since given up on attempting to find cheer on the pages of almost all those representing themselves as objective clarions of the gospel.

In other words…if I were to allow it to be, the remaining remnants of the morning would undoubtedly segue into an afternoon of equal listless upheaval. Pleasantly behold!

10:00 AM and Cheryl Rhoads was at our doorstep. Well not exactly a doorstep. We live behind two massive gates, which manage to separate us from reality; our choice of course.
Cheryl and Catherine Kalmenson (my wife, and family’s dominant,) became friends some twenty-six years ago.

I always felt like I was an observer, on the outside looking in at their relationship, not out of envy. Since I cannot consciously tell a lie, I’ll cop to the real truth about being an outsider.

I couldn’t stand listening to the two of them practicing in an effort to enter the “Guinness World Book Of Records” for non stop conversation pertaining to world and local minutia. They could, and would systematically take turns reviewing their lives on this planet; each and every time going back to their beginnings in Chicago’s so called inner city. Actually it was Catherine who began in the inner city; Cheryl on the other hand coming from a much tidier starting point. Both were products of a strong Catholic belief, and fervor for an ungodly like telling of the truth; another of the things I admittedly had some trouble with. Not that I considered myself to be a liar, but rather I felt more comfortable often times not relaying the full story. But all that was the past. Things have changed a great deal, I thought.

I had eaten my breakfast early that morning in order to allow the two friends time alone to catch up. It had been three and a half years since the two of them were in person. Let the talks begin. Then, without warning a strange and unforeseen occurrence I found myself participating in their conversation. You know…this wasn’t half bad. I wondered, "Had they grown since the last time I was privy?" Certainly it couldn’t have been a case of my faculties diminishing.

Without thinking, there I was at the table with a coffee cup in my hand. I was actually listening to what Cheryl was saying. Don’t get me wrong; she was still the Cheryl from the old days; non-stop; a continual exposé of the entire world. Yet, I wondered, "What was different?" I wasn’t alone with my query. Out of the corner of an eye I noticed Cathy looking at the two of us, and enjoying it. I do believe Cathy was also noticing a change. Breaking bread and honest conversation does provide an unforeseen spirituality. Neither the economy, nor the heat of the day prevailed. The predicted doldrums never came to pass.

As Cheryl hugged us and said goodbye, without warning it became clear. I know Cathy and Cheryl recognized the change before I did. They have known each other for twenty-six years, but I have been part of their friendship almost from the start. Whether I knew it or not, I was always a part of it, albeit a distant part for most of the years.

It had been a pleasant morning, and a day later it remains as a pleasant thought. Cheryl was now duly acknowledged, whether I like it or not as “a friend who came bearing a gift” - Herself!

Looking Back

2011-08-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

The other day, for whatever the reason, I found myself wondering about years past, as I looked in the mirror during my early morning "get ready" for work routine. It was a good thing. The way it used to be, way back in the fifth or sixth grade.

I’m sure most of you over the age of thirty, from time to time wonder where an old childhood friend might be today. How did he or she turn out? What variety of life’s pitfalls did they overcome? He might have been the best athlete in the school; someone you admired, or competed with. She was the little girl with the big smile who sat directly in front of you; the one who was the smartest kid in the class. I saw faces; remembered attitudes; who was tall; who was sloppy, and who was neat. There were aggressive kids and those so shy the teachers had trouble getting them to participate on anything requiring a verbal presentation up in front of the class. The voices are gone. For whatever the reason, I can recall many of the faces, but what my schoolmates sounded like escapes me.

It was a time in my life when all of us had everything in common. We were boys and girls who lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, and shared the label of middle class Americans, not poor, not rich, decidedly middle.

The word love rarely came into a meaningful play; nor was the term hate used in a serious vein. “I love chocolate. I hate chocolate.” That was about the extent of our love/hate expression.

Most of us have delved into self-reflection. It’s ours to experience, usually at our own propelled bidding. Naturally there are the conditioned response memories, times when without warning an event resurfaces, allowing pleasures as a rekindling; Some to our liking, bringing smiles, with endearments, capturing the moments in time which are ours alone to savor. Surely there were the not so pleasant events, none of us wish to relive. But those are the ones we learn and experience growth from by thinking back.

At eleven years of age, it was my first really deep thought experience. Up until that moment, what had existed for this sixth grader were happiness, laughter, and the occasional disappointment over the realization the Dodgers were not going to win the pennant for yet another year.

Robert wasn’t a really close friend of mine. He was one of those quiet introverted types. He wasn’t a klutz, but by the same token he wasn’t a kid who was one of the first to be picked when we were choosing up sides for a sandlot ballgame. Robert did however have the unpleasant distinction of being the first kid in our class to lose a parent. I suppose it was a day or two following his father's funeral that Robert returned to school. He looked different to me. There was something in Robert’s eyes that told the story. Of course his life would never be the same; none of us knew that. What we didn’t know was Robert’s loss was also ours. For the first time in my life I was to say, “I’m sorry about your Dad, Robert.” Robert could barely speak. I don’t recall a sound being made. Robert mustered a token thank you nod. The next day I picked him first to play on my team. To this day I wish I might have picked him before his Dad was gone.

Loss or gain is always an action, which causes change. For an eleven-year-old boy in the sixth grade, a new thought was to be perceived without warning. While I had not yet used the word empathy, I would never the less have it with me for the rest of my life.

***

From time to time I will be writing about some of my friends from the past who have become well known to the world. There names will be changed to protect their privacy.

Where Do You Want This Tank Put?

2011-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

“Who cares? What difference does it make? What are you worried about?”

1937, upstate New York, summertime; endless performances by an ensemble of players; there for the money; there for a chance; there in order to survive the enduring heat, and best of all to feed an inner drive to be discovered by a "somebody" in the audience who came up to escape the heat, and be with their families on the weekend.

They were sixteen men and women, taking part in the pure romance of an era: to this day known as summer stock.

The Borscht Belt

I doubt if any successful stand up comedians of the time could have made it without learning or practicing their craft at one of the upstate New York retreats. Arguably the most famous, as well as the most popular place to vacation, was “Grossingers’.

As a young man entering this business I enjoyed listening in to many of the old timers relating stories of their days spent during summers of vacationing, or actually being entertainers at any number of places in Concord, New York. But of all the stories I was privy to, none held my attention more than tales of what went on at the variety of playhouses scattered around this famous mountain community.

When you became a member of a summer stock company your duties would include anything and possibly everything having to do with the current productions, often two different plays each week, while also working on anything and everything having to do with next week’s bill of fare. Since air conditioning hadn’t clicked in as a Broadway staple as yet, the names of the most famous and most outstanding actors and actresses of the time were often seen appearing at theaters in some unlikely places. But the average player, those who were not yet famous, knew in advance, taking tickets, doing local promotion appearances around town, and seeing to it the theater was clean, including the bathrooms, was part of the package they signed on for. For most, the pay was a meager stipend, and often those participating in theater production, also functioned as part time waiters, waitresses, and bus boys. Dependent on the hotel, a wide variety of rules and regulations existed regarding what was and wasn’t allowed to take place between hotel employees and guests. Teens will be teens, so you might imagine what went on when supervision relaxed; for some, an underground society operated after hours, when Mom and Dad had retired for the evening. Most of the time what occurred between the help and the hotel patrons was harmless, but on occasion there were incidents when a bus boy or waiter was caught with his pants down. And these incidents weren’t limited exclusively to the teen population. Some women were known to vacation in the Catskills on their own, or without husbands until the weekend. Many of the younger waiters and bus boys were taken care of handsomely for services provided far beyond the call of required duty. Much has been written and portrayed through the years about the well-known transgressions, which took place during the summer escapes to the mountains of the Concord establishments.

Many of the actors who began in the “Borscht Belt” were able to do so out of necessity created by the great number of shows being produced. At Grossingers they introduced the nightly change in performers. When a family came to Grossingers they were guaranteed to see a different act every day of the week. As an example; Eddie Fisher got a chance to sing while Eddie Cantor was in the audience that evening. Cantor immediately announced Fisher was going to be a star. Cantor signed him to a contract and Eddie went out on a national tour. The next time Fisher was seen at Grossingers he was there to be married to Elizabeth Taylor; or so the story goes.

Cliff Norton, a very well known journeyman actor told me how he cut his teeth as an actor while paying his dues appearing on the Borscht Belt circuit. Being an ex stage manager is probably the reason Cliff’s stories of summer stock, in the Catskills, have remained my favorites. While we were working together during a play here in Los Angeles, at the “Merle Oberon Theatre”, in West Hollywood. I was the production stage manager and Cliff was the star of the show. If I remember correctly the “Oberon could seat about nine hundred. I can’t recall the name of the play, and I don’t have dear Cliffy around any more to ask. But what led into his telling of the story was just following an incident at the theatre, which called for my advanced talents as a stage manager. We had an electric failure just prior to curtain rise, and because of my dumb luck I was able to re-connect the power to our main board in time for the show to go on as scheduled. In Cliffs eyes I became his go to guy. Shortly following the electrical incident, Cliff was holding court on stage and telling a group of us how I would have come in handy during his summer stock days. We all leaned in closely making sure not to miss a word. His stories about the old days in the mountains (as he called it) were not to be missed. This one in particular sticks in my mind, mainly because of the way Cliff described the incident.

Earlier I explained how the sixteen people taking part in a production companies presentment were kept very busy by the number of different projects they were required to stage. What I didn’t talk about was the last minute changes, which by the nature of the beast occurred with far too much frequency. Cliff began by saying he couldn’t remember a time in the Catskill’s when all went well. A stage manager, or an actor would get sick at the last minute and would have to be replaced. There was never a time when a performance was cancelled. That would have meant money being returned. Audience revenue lost during a short season could never be recaptured.

The normal procedure for staging a play, at first glance, appeared to be a simple one. Actors were handed sides; no one ever was given a full script to read. You only studied the pages where you had lines to deliver. The sides (pages) you were given had nothing to do with blocking or any other physical directions. So you can see how important the daily daytime rehearsals were to the ultimate success of the performances. Cliff described how a last minute replacement actor would make an entrance on stage and often times be physically moved from one point to another by one of the actors who was already on stage. During a slow moving drama, as Cliff went on it didn’t present too much of a problem. But this time they were performing a domestic comedy where there were three men and two women on stage at the same time. On the afternoon of the performance to take place that evening, two of the actors were taken to a hospital with what was most likely food poisoning. Neither man would be able to go on that evening. Two of the stagehands were pressed into service. They were handed sides to study, and were told by the director, that Cliff would be the actor on stage who would guide them around the stage during the performance. In other words, these two replacement actors would have no idea of where to stand or move until the curtain rose and they found themselves facing a live audience.

“Where do you want this tank put?”

The owner of this particular playhouse happened to be a World War one artifacts collector. He thought it would be a great crowd attraction if different implements of war were on display at his theater site. Early on the afternoon in question a rather large flat bed truck came rumbling up the mountain road and stopped in front of the theater. The driver yelled out to one of the young stagehands, “Where do you want the tank”. Without looking up the stagehand responded with, “Take it through the back doors.”

Cliff relates that as a young guy he worked as many hours during the day as he could get in prior to coming to the theater for the evenings performance. “Boy was I in for a surprise,” he began.
We all looked at each other as we started to get the picture. “There, right smack in the middle of the stage was this real army (blankety blank)world war one tank.” We all moved in closer as Cliff continued. Cliff was enjoying himself as much as we all were. I mean there they all were getting ready to go on. Two of them were completely unrehearsed, other than reading over the sides they had been given that very same afternoon. What was the play about cliff was asked. “Well it wasn’t supposed to be a comedy,” he replied. It was a dark drama about a man being eulogized. It takes place at the funeral home where the man was to lie in state, and at his request the members of the funeral party were to say a few last words to him as they viewed his remains in the open casket.

We were all hysterical with laughter as Cliff continued telling us the rest of the story with the straightest face I’ve ever seen. At rise Cliff stepped center stage and expressed to the audience who he spoke to as if they were part of the funeral proceedings; explained how the deceased had expressed his wishes to be buried in his personal tank. After a beautifully delivered opening speech, where the audience was obviously touched with emotion, the mood instantly changed to raucous laughter. The two new replacement actors, sides in hand each took turns climbing the side of the tank and delivering their lines through the opening at the top turret to the dead man. When the second guy up fell through the turret while saying his farewell to the dead guy, the play was now a confirmed comedy.

From what I understand, and what others who labored in that era of show business have told me, the colorful stories related by the Cliff Nortons of this world are only slightly exaggerated. In retrospect, I often crack a smile when I’m reminded of a past experience of my own as a stage manager.

So if ever you’re the one being asked:
Hey kid, “Where do you want this tank put?”
You’re the one whose been appointed as the in charge decision maker.
“ What difference does it make anyway?

***

Much of the tradition of Borscht Belt entertainment started in the early 20th century with the indoor and outdoor theaters constructed on a 40 acre tract in Hunter, New York, by Yiddish theater star Boris Thomashefsky.

Comedians who got their start or regularly performed in resorts include: Joey Adams, Woody Allen, Morey Amsterdam, Benny Bell, Milton Berle, Shelley Berman, Al Bernie, Joey Bishop, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Pesach Burstein, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Eddie Cantor, Jean Carroll, Jack Carter, Myron Cohen, Bill Dana, Rodney Dangerfield, Phyllis Diller, Carl Reiner, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Freddie Roman, Rowan & Martin, Mort Sahl, Allan Sherman, Phil Silvers, Jackie Vernon, Jackie Wakefield, Jonathan Winters, and Henny Youngman.

And God only knows how many others.

"I Wrote A Blog"

2011-07-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

“I Wrote A Blog”

Entitled:

“From the Heart”; Taking a stand for what you believe and what it means to the actors of Los Angeles and all over the country; perhaps the world.

***

Straight from the shoulder was a way of communication taught to me at such an early age, I doubt if I could even recall when my Father began it all. What I do remember, most of all were his words to the wise; and that would be me. In no uncertain terms my Dad said:

“If you have the courage to take a stand, on your own, on behalf of the next guy, when at first glance it appears to be of little benefit to you personally, then be prepared for the outcome, which in most cases will provide personal loneliness, and disappointment.”

Charlie, aka my Dad, was attesting to his belief, that to take a stand for the next guy, will not bring more than a fleeting fame, or fortune, or acclaim. Rather, he said a thank you would be your welcomed gratuity; not that you were seeking any. But it isn’t my intent to describe personal disappointment as derived from monetary loss. I’m talking about the deep disappointment, which I derive from people in general. Charlie warned me about expecting too much from people. He told me not to let them get to me, yet over and over in my lifetime I’ve kept from heeding his words.

“Do it for the good feeling it gives you, never because of any monetary rewards. “

Charlie was the definitive Good Samaritan. I personally experienced his courage come into play on more than one occasion. Once as a little boy, Charlie and I, as would be the case for many Fathers and sons, were at Ebbetts Field for a ball game. It was about the fourth inning, when these three guys, who had had too much beer to drink, began to make real pests of themselves. A young family that included a Father and his two kids was sitting close by. The drinkers became too rowdy for Charlie’s liking, and as their language disintegrated along with their faculties, so did Charlie’s patience. If I remember correctly, little da harv was about ten years old at the time. I wasn’t the least bit afraid because I was there with my proven champion.

There was an apparent bad call by an umpire, and it had the effect of really setting these three guys off. Now they felt justification to become a mob. The three of them were on their feet and chanting one expletive after another for all to hear. Charlie cupped his hands together, and let go with a marvelously cultivated Brooklyn shriek of his; yelling at the three of them, “Hey guys how about giving it a rest!” Charlie, all five foot five inches of him stood there looking straight at these jerks. He motioned for them to sit down, and that’s exactly what the three noisemakers did. The very next inning they were once again on there feet making every one uncomfortable. This time without hesitation Dad signaled to a near by usher and in very short order the three guys were ejected from the ballpark. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Dad had gently pushed me behind him when he first made eye contact with the three guys. On the way home I received a verbal lesson, which still holds true today.

“Never become violent with anyone in a situation like the one that happened to us today. Take your stand as a man, but don’t be the one to raise your hands combatively unless it’s the only way to protect yourself against the bullies of this world.”

Dad referred to the mob mental cases as bullies. He had four sisters, and five brothers who all shared his mantra. They had never met a bully who didn’t take on a true posture of cowardice when separated from the mob they ran with. While they have long ago passed on, to this day and forever I will take great pride as I think back to the stalwartness of my Kalmenson uncles. Family, friends, home, our country, it’s people; in that order, became their order of importance. They were never part of a gang of hooligans. I guess with that many brothers and sisters in the family they really had a gang of their own. All of them became successful working middle class citizens. Some served in the Second World War. A few of the family members had established a small degree of name recognition. None of them went to college, and probably only half attended high school. Beginning with the third and fourth grade, all of the brothers and sisters worked to bring in what ever they could in order to help support the family. In that era, employees were paid with cash. At the end of each week pay envelopes would be issued. The year was 1941. Social Security had been in place for six years, and was of little consequence at the time. Family medical insurance and welfare was non-existent. My Dad’s two-year-old Chevrolet cost him a whopping nine hundred bucks. The theme each of the immigrant families revered was simple and straight to the point;

Stand up for your near and dear. Take a stand and make sure you’re counted. If help is needed, be the one to be there.

Who knows what the cause may have been. Some said the new arrivals to the United States learned to say please and thank you as their first and most important words in the English language; words they felt would help them to assimilate. They strove for ways to become one with The United States Of America. They easily down played the boorish displays of the three guys at the ball game, in favor of standing, and joining in with great pride in the singing of our national anthem before the start of each game; and being an every guy contributor in the bottom of the seventh inning when it was time for “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”.

And as an aside…in the movie theaters they stood and sang, often before the feature came up on the screen. When the American flag appeared on screen, the audience broke into spontaneous applause. Honestly, I will never have the best words available, for me in order to describe ours, the genuineness of so many moments, so many years ago. Nor can I offer anything more than mere opinion over why a man or woman will stand by a brethren, willing to sacrifice in order to take a stand for no other reason other than it was the right thing to do.

(And back to “From The Heart”)

On June 13, of this year 2011, I shared with you via blog, some of my inner most feelings. I threw caution to the proverbial wind as I chose to ignore some of my Fathers most sacrosanct leanings. To date, I have received two formal references to “From The Heart”, the blog, (mine) in question. And as my Father pointed out with his patented approach, displaying complete certainty, what followed my posting of “From The Heart”, was the revelation; my Father was correct once again. The loneliness he referred to with his assumptions truthfully does not play a part in my life. The aspect of the disappointment however does. I’ve never learned how to resign myself to it. My salve has been an acquired one. Learn to live with it Harvey; that’s the way it is; accept this credo: Disappointment goes with life’s territory. I learned about disappointment long before I entered the world of show business. A person does not have to become bellicose, nor depressed, as the end result of each and every one of life’s disappointments. When I asked people to take a stand, I did so from the deepest place in my heart. The air we breathe and the words we hear today make me fearful of a repeat of one of histories most vile eras.

There Will Be Times To Reflect, "As Time Goes By"

2011-07-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

In two large corrugated cartons stored in the corner of my office, there are many stories, which will forever remain, not found, and most likely never again to be read by anyone but me. Scripts that began with a dream, and ended in two nondescript boxes in the corner of an office. It took all of five years to fill the two boxes, probably around forty pounds of paper, eighteen hundred and twenty five days of an immeasurable journey. The worth of the trip is only a selfish value. I’ve talked to other writers who cop the plea allowing how they were only writing for themselves anyway. If they happened to get paid for their labors, it would represent icing on the cake. To them I would offer, “What good is icing when you don’t have a cake to put it on?”

The younger writer brings enthusiasm. The older writer finds his or her enthusiasm turning to cynicism, without willful attempt. The younger writer tells a story with his or her passion for the truth being enthusiasm for the life and times being depicted. The older writer may bring forth a truth cloaked in cynicism regardless of the time period they’ve chosen to write about; happening without a willfulness to be downtrodden.

Many of us have given in to following a heart whose choice for joy is far less indiscriminate than should be allowed; our choices are not without limits. Personally, I admit, not necessarily to poor judgment, but too often to no judgment at all. I doubt if many young people enter into a pursuit of a dream, by first really taking heed of their dreams' limitations. If you’re dreaming about your dream not coming true, the result will be just that. The question becomes, why in the name of good common sense did I fill the two boxes in the corner of my office? My writing was a day and night never-ending pursuit. The words hit the paper with reckless abandon. Days, weeks, months, and finally five years of damage had to be accounted for.

While I was never guilty of deliberately conjuring defeatist’s thoughts, my dreams of success at the heights of the literary world had come to a sour end. Sound the trumpets; reality had set in. What does remain in my minds' eye, and perhaps will stay with me forever, is the stack of rejection letters I received during the course of my travails as a struggling scribe. At first I found the letters shocking, mainly because much of what the reviewers had to say about my work didn’t jive. It often came across as if they had sent the rejection notice to the wrong writer. I actually found myself wondering what in the world they were talking about. But the turn-downs that remained with me were the ones that were just outright cruel. One review was particularly nasty. It came in at the end of my professional writing career.

Note: I had already made my mind up about the futility of my continuing pursuit of a career as a writer.

The reviewer attacked me with a vengeance. Line by line, she pointed out my obvious ineptitude. That became it for me. The time had arrived. The cartons were sealed. However, not all was lost. Her review provided me with two pluses. It improved my vocabulary. Nothing in the review was the least bit conversational. It wasn’t a tutorial. It would be a much better descriptive if I referred to her assessment of my work as a verifiable documentation of my inability to communicate at even an average level of intellectuality. And secondly, after rereading her assertions of my literary clumsiness, I laughed uncontrollably for the balance of the afternoon, most likely a form of temporary insanity.

The amazing part about all of this is how many years ago it all took place. Everyday we hear someone remark about how fast time is flying by. “I can’t believe it’s Christmas, or New Years again. What happened to the summer? Your daughter is how old?” Probably one of the most agreed upon terms in all of humanity: Race, creed, color, religious preference, men, women, friends and enemies. The universal cry for all is agreed on: Time flies by, “As Time Goes By”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThuwa5RZU

So, if we all agree about how short life really is, why do so many of us waste it? Why do we usually do just the opposite of what should be done in order to slow things down?

The other day I gave an actor the note, “Romance it a little.” His look wasn’t one of complete understanding, because the script wasn’t calling for any degree of intimacy. I added,
” Read in the present as if you’re relishing the moment, and recognizing the satisfaction you personally are experiencing.” And the key to all this is not merely asking the actor to slow his reading pace, but rather slow because of a pertinent reason to do so. What better reason could there be than creating the romance of what once was commonplace? It may have been a fleeting moment you’re reflecting on, but in the instant it takes to recreate it, your thought process will bring into play the missing romance aspect required.

The boxes in the corner of my office are not painful keepsakes. They have within them some tears, some laughter, and a great many dreams of what could have been. What they don’t have are buttons, switches, portable screens, and games to be played. Nothing in those cartons was ever “Googled”. The five years cannot be recaptured. The content of those boxes however are mine to recall and savor at my will. The five years may have been nothing more than short flashes of light, but the pages will never again be misunderstood. Those are mine forever to recall, “As Time Goes By.”

Is the vast number of words in our world ever read?
If every discarded script in our fair city was solicited for a paper drive, would there be enough space in our city o hold them?
Is there anyone in Los Angeles (Hollywood) who doesn’t have a script in his or her possession that will be the next blockbuster sensation?

From The Heart (mine)

2011-06-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

What follows has nothing to do with voice over.
Perhaps what follows has everything to do with voice over.
A past memory, what once was, for my family and me, stimulated a familiar and painful need to share my mind. Who better than actors, creative men and women, with the heart capable of understanding a fellow human beings complex emotion?

I favor laughter, the ability to smile, and a firm or soft hand within mine,
the child who brings me unabashed glee as responsiveness to my presence;
The simplicity of a hand written note saying thank you for the help, could never be replaced by an intrinsic value.
I question, is this a time for hope, when hope seems to be the standard for fleeting dreams?
Each day comes with stories being told of what was.
But many of these new stories come to us with tales of what never was, but what the despotic tellers dream and pray for; the total elimination of my people; my brethren; what they, the tellers alone, want it to be.
These tellers seek a recurrence of what was, while denying histories unbiased reports of what took place.
I am here today, writing what follows, courtesy and with a full single line screen credit:

“Existence By The Grace Of God”.
By hk

“I swear to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! So help me God”.

I was a little boy of five. Dad was attentive to me and our family's needs. Mom was a twenty-four hour a day leader of the home front. We lived in the small up-state community of Newburg, New York. I spent my entire day playing with my friend Cookie. We looked and acted alike. Cookie's family had emigrated from Ireland, and were practicing Catholics. When I was at Cookie's house, I practiced right along with him. I attended my first wake at Cookie's aunt's home, before reaching the ripe old age of six. Both Cookie's Mom and mine spent many hours reading to us. His Mother's heavy duty Irish brogue was a definite influence on my life. It still is to this day. My Mother's approach to everything was a constant contradiction of thought and practical application. While the Mothers had a great deal in common, they never socialized. The relationship between the two families was entirely the domain of Cookie and me.

By the age of seven or eight, our family had, out of necessity, moved to Brooklyn, New York. It seems a thing they were calling the depression had something to do with it. It was while living in Brooklyn; I found out there was a difference in the beliefs of Catholics and Jews. I really thought a person could be Catholic and Jewish at the same time. I ended up marrying a Catholic girl; so I guess my beliefs remain the same.

In any event what Cookie and I really had in common was, what either religious sect wasn’t espousing. Cookie's Mother and mine could always be heard saying, “Live and let live.” And that’s just what they meant and that’s exactly what they taught their children. Of course, dependent on their mood, an expletive might be heard as a precursor to the statement. Both ladies shared a bent toward the extreme of a blue-collar demeanor. I never heard an anti-Semitic word, or experienced similarly any nasty gesture towards the Jewish people until I was eight years of age.

Exacts are hard to recall. World War II was raging. Every household in the neighborhood was deeply involved, some more than others. It became a far too common occurrence to see a blue star in a friends window replaced by a gold, when word of a husband or son being killed in action was received. All of us dreaded the sight of a Western Union man on a bicycle coming on to our street, making the formal announcement from our government, that the worst fears had been realized.

On one particular day, my Father's words became etched in my mind. “Protect yourself Harvey,” he said to me. “It’s always been this way, and it’s never going to change. There are people out there, all over the world who despise us for being who God made us.” When I asked my Father the reason there are those who hate the Jewish people, he was unable to give me one. At the time I remember thinking about my friend Cookie and his Mothers teachings. The words kill or destroy never entered into any conversations we had. But on this day, for this little boy, the world’s axis had brought an unbelievably heinous reality into my personal life. I was introduced first hand to the name Hitler. It was by way of the smuggled out letters from relatives in Europe, that we learned; the Holocaust was in full functional mode. Adolph Hitler had made a promise to cleanse Germany of all people Jewish, or remnants of Jews, their work, and anything, which could possibly dispel their value to the world, past or present.

Hitler’s official doctrine was to eliminate all Jews, Gypsy’s, and homosexuals from Germany, and any and all territory to fall under his maniacal rule. He was well on his way to fulfilling his promises. His total prisoner extermination came to over eleven million human beings annihilated; six million happened to be Jews. They were murdered because of what God made them to be, Jews, Gypsy’s, and homosexuals.

If Hitler’s plan sounds familiar, it comes without surprise. The Iranian president makes the exact same promises as Adolph did. Iran is close to having nuclear weapons. Can you imagine the outcome if Hitler would have had the same destructive powers? The churches and synagogues that have stood as a symbol of our American democracy would be non-existent. It wasn’t my imagination. I didn’t dream it up. My eyes didn’t betray me. I experienced the transference of the pain in my friends and relatives eyes. I had reached the age when my questions required answers. My Mother cried, and I asked, " Why are you crying Mommy? Why are you crying aunt Rosie?" The stories, the letters, the pictures of as great a degree of human suffering the world has ever seen, were there for us.

My indignation is righteous. It always will be. What did any peoples of the world do to deserve what was inflicted upon them as a result of one man's criminally murderous pursuit? Could Cookie and I have made a difference if we were men at the time this anti human, totalitarian, and tyrant came to life? The dates of Adolph Hitler’s beginnings trouble me. 1933 was the height of the depression in our country. It was also an all time low ebb for the German people. Their German economy low point far exceeded ours because of the monumental inflation they were experiencing. The German economy hit bottom long before ours. In 1924 Adolph Hitler had published his book “Mein Kampf)”. Prices for goods and services were actually increasing on a daily basis. It became impossible for most Germans to support themselves or their families. It was an easy doctrine for Hitler to sell to the German people; the Jews were the reason for the German economic collapse. His words are being echoed today in Iran and all across the Middle East.

The history of my thirty years on the voice over scene can only be described as unique. The uniqueness continues, ever growing in substance. Each day something new is presented to Cathy and da harv as a challenge to the way we have done business in the past. Certainly the longer we stay in business, the more we learn, and the more we increase our abilities to deal with the uniqueness of the changes which come with the territory. Every single day, in our business life, the word truth, and making the viability of it’s meaning, the most integral part and placement in our quest for success as our driving force. In short…we learn, and we benefit by understanding one single premise; the most important building block for a successful business, and life with a partner is our predication, without truth all will fail.

Being happy with our love and with our daily work is a genuine satisfaction. Our bottom line is a beautiful one! We’re being paid for our labors attempting to get work for people, and for providing a professional curriculum for our actor students to follow. If that was all there was to our lives this blog would end right here; a happy guy who expressed his thanks for what he has, and for being allowed to continue his dreams without reservations.

For those of you expecting the remainder of this journal to contain information beneficial to you’re on going voice over career, please be forewarned. I am about to open my heart and mind by sharing with you the fear I feel for the welfare of my Jewish cousins and allies in the democracy known as Israel. As a professional, this will be a first time event for me. Never before have I brought anything really personal into my work place. I pray my truth of expression will not offend any who read what follows.

A Time To Take A Stand

My commentary; Harvey Kalmenson

I am in complete and total agreement regarding the survival of the people of Israel; including all Israeli inhabitants, regardless of their religious beliefs or practices.
Jews do not occupy Jerusalem.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims inhabit Jerusalem.
Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Israel is the only true ally the United States has in the Middle East.
The foul mad man, who is currently the president of Iran, is as treacherous as Adolph Hitler.
He claims the Holocaust never happened.
He calls for the complete annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.
Most of the Arab block sides with his doctrine.

What I grew up hearing, as a little boy is no longer an echo. The same words from the past are once again upon us. Now the promises, and that’s just what they are: promises are far more devastating than ever before. Now it’s not just the Israeli flag being stomped upon, and burned, but it’s companion, the United States of America. Now it no longer is the disallowing of the Jewish rights as human beings, but Christianity has become a target in the same Middle East. All over the Middle East churches are being destroyed with equal vigor as synagogues. Now it isn’t a question of who a supposed occupier might be, now the all out attack is on anything remotely Judeo-Christian.

All of the problems, which now exist in the Middle East, are being blamed on the Jews who occupy Israel. Get the Jews out of Israel, they say and the problems will all go away. But watch the nightly news; take note, Arabs are killing Arabs. You have presidents of country’s ordering soldiers to gun down their own protesting citizenry. None of our children, in this unbelievably wondrous country of ours are being taught, in our churches or synagogues, to burn down each others place s of worship. That’s not who we are or what we do. No Christian that I’ve ever come in contact with has threatened to destroy my family or friends, because they found out Harvey Kalmenson is a Jew. No Christian that I’ve ever come in contact with has ever promised to drive the Israelis from their homeland. The terrorist leaders of the Middle East preach hatred for my people. Many years ago I recognized a simple fact, my people consisted of Christians as well as Jews.

Taking A Stand
What Does It Mean?
Who Benefits?

If taking a stand translates to making a commitment as far as your concerned, then I do believe you and I are on the very same page; along with just about every fair minded successful human being in the history of this planet. Take away the luck aspect, now we’re down to the real truth. Believing in what you do is what commitment is all about. I ruled out luck, it’s nice to have, but not anything one can depend on. And along with luck I’m ruling out evil. Those two ingredients aren’t success factors over the long hall. I’d like to talk about who we are; the people of influence within this great industry of ours; those of us who’ve been able to make it mostly on the merits of our talent, our integrity, and our commitment to excellence.

My longevity within my life’s calling enables me to offer more by way of personal experience than the average career professional. Having spent a great amount of time on numerous firing lines has provided direct knowledge of what being under fire feels like. Telling you, or attempting to explain what it feels like to experience game conditions will serve no purpose unless you personally have had like experiences or encounters. Understanding and empathy for me comes easier when you have experienced a similar happening. Think about the first time you walked the boards, or felt the hearts and energy of a live audience, or maybe the sickening sensation of that moment when your next line has somehow left you. I’ve had many actors express their feelings about all of those incidents, and I, of course, have experienced them myself. As a stage manager I have lived through the disaster of a performer vomiting in the wings; then with a mutual wink join in that same performers joy as the audience erupts in tumultuous applause.

I speak to all of you who have lived life following the individuality of the personal experiences I’ve described. You have made a commitment to the dictates of your hearts alignment. I applaud you as I have applauded you all, for my entire life as a professional. As Cathy and I have said on numerous occasions:” Without actors, we have no business.”

Without Actor’s We Have No Business. “Without actors”? What a concept!

For Kalmenson & Kalmenson it’s a "no-brainer." I mean who would come in to audition for us. Cathy and I could go out and get the work, but our company of players would be nil without actors. Yah think!

But now I present the other side of the story. As promised at rise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, without unnecessary embellishment. Succinctly stated, Cathy and Harvey Kalmenson, a married couple are partners in our business of voice casting and education. Both of us are totally and completely apolitical, and share equally in our assertions regarding political correctness. During the course of the last nineteen years of business under the Kalmenson & Kalmenson banner we have never been selective with regard to the religious indulgence of the actors either being chosen to come in for an audition, or for any person wishing to sign up for our workshops. In other words…if we think you’re the right actor for the role you’ll be on our call sheet without hesitation. And of course if you can afford the cost, you can qualify to study with us.

During our best year in casting we brought in twenty thousand actors to read for just about everything you can think of requiring a human voice. I can’t begin to tell you how many that translates into during the last nineteen plus years. We have some twenty two people in our education department, and six permanent in house staff members, none of which was hired on to our team based on their religious preference or whether or not they liked boys or girls. Anyone who has ever had dealings with the Kalmenson & Kalmenson team knows that color of ones skin is also of no consequence.

Millions, upon millions of dollars have been earned by actors, because of our efforts, as a casting company. We treasure the opportunity God has allowed us to have. Like any other business, there have been some rough times thrown in along the way. But at no time did we need to fear for our lives, the way my people of Israel fear for theirs today. As a reminder, a great many people in the Middle East are continuing to call for the ultimate demise of the Jewish people. The same plea, seeking out each and every Jew in order to rid the earth of them; once delivered by Adolph Hitler, and responsible for six million deaths, is again being heralded and supported by thousands of sympathizers.

As an American veteran, I cringe when I see our beautiful flag being stepped on and burned along side the Israeli flag. They say and repeat every day; we are the ones responsible for their economic problems. These are exactly the same oratories given by Hitler, not that very long ago. Think about what would have been the case for German actors who happened to be Jewish. Or what about voice casting folks like Harvey and Cathy. The millions upon millions of dollars earned would not have happened.

Now those same evil people are at it again. This time the churches are being targeted along with the synagogues. The same culprits are making promises of annihilation. Are you listening? If you are, stand up and take a position. Tell anyone and everyone you can how you don’t like what’s going on. It’s not about being Jewish. It’s about being human; the best way. Please let me know you’re taking a stand.

I’ve Been a Cheerleader My Entire Life

2011-06-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

My God…I’ve been a cheerleader my entire life. That statement isn’t an attempt or a continuance of a hopeless endeavor at me gaining praise. I just do what I do because I do it. But there are times; as a matter of fact there have been a few times when I find myself asking “What the hells wrong with you Harv? Give it up…leave it alone already.” One of those times occurred not more than a week ago.

A (not yet) star with an attitude walks briskly from the set of a film many would die for. (Isn’t that a stupid statement? I mean if one dies, they can’t actually play the part anyway.) Today, my situation is quite a bit different from his. I can’t remove myself from the project I’ve been hired to direct because I’m the designated entertainment committee. I’m the one charged with the responsibility to keep things going; to cheer the ingrates on to new and loftier heights than even the wildest supposition of their self imposed entitlement might demand or require. Fortunately for me, in general not too much bad attitude finds it’s way into our world of voice over. Most of the veterans who make it; those who are able to exist on what they earn as a voice over artist; rarely if ever put on a pout face. The newbies, those who make it into me for the very first time to audition, usually have been forewarned about the dos and don’ts practiced and expected by us at the Kalmenson & Kalmenson ranch. What it all boils down to is nothing more than common courtesy. Just as I don’t appreciate an actor with bad manners, I try to set an example for my own Kalmenson teammates. A hectic day isn’t an acceptable excuse for being rude. And rude is the word, which covers a wide variety of poor taste. Hectic comes with the territory. Hectic is our accepted parameter of our life in voice casting. Ignoring the needs of the people sending us the casting assignments would be tantamount to running our business with the snail-like dispatch of derangement necessary for those seeking an end to their business world. Without a doubt we are guilty of catering to those who are helping to place bread on our table. Likewise, without actors, we don’t have a business. These two salient points demand an unequaled display of social grace by all concerned parties. By this I mean, the actors coming in to audition for us, and we the people who endeavor to keep the clients we have in a constant state of the "happy camper" mode. In other words, we need whom we have, and we know whom we need. To ignore either side would spell ultimate disaster.

The Ignorish People

The little known or publicized country of “Ignoria” has a reputation for boasting about how his or her people and leaders pay little or no attention at all to anyone, including their own “Ignorian” citizenry. Hence, the new and revised Kalmenson dictionary of refined letters has coined the word: ignorish;one who pays absolutely no attention to anyone or anything of a productive vain; as in, it was a non productive vain and or attempt.

Another common use of the word ignorish would be: Most politicians are ignorish.

Actors as a special breed must never be, or become ignorish. Ignorish actors usually suffer banishment.

In The Pitch Black; Or Maybe Not

2011-05-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

“I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.”
- Brenda Ueland

Being alone on a very dark night doesn’t mean you’re in the dark. If you’re on the walk that Brenda recommends, it doesn’t necessarily mean it has to occur at a prescribed time of day. As a matter of fact, daytime walks might be more to your liking. But time of day has little to do with your degree of enlightenment.

There have been many before we came along who professed to have their eyes wide open, yet had difficulty with any form of clarity. Of course, those were the folks before us, living life during a far less enlightened period of time. Those poor folks only had newspapers to keep them abreast of what was taking place in the world. Sure, there was the printing press churning out books, millions of them all over the world. But books were for epics, stories of adventure, and learning. While newspapers were the communication mainstay, most people found things out by word of mouth. The country was still kind of new and there were less than thirty-five million mouths to tell it like it is (or was).

The Original Voice Over Artist

The town crier was the original voice over artist. Usually every hour on the hour after dark, from gas lamp post to post around the town square to every place of importance, the loud voice could be heard giving out with the hour of the evening, and proclaiming how all's well. And during the daytime, a proclamation might be posted and read aloud, at the town square, or the town jailhouse. The qualifications for the town crier job, or the man who did the proclamation, was much like today’s voice over artist: You had to be a good reader - actually you had to be able to read - and have a reasonably clear voice. There were no residuals to concern you with because yesterday’s news was never repeated.

In some townships, the decision making process for determining who would become the local town crier became a traditional community competition. The ultimate winner was the guy with the loudest voice.

Seeking Clarity & How Will I know When I Find It?

Explaining The English Language: Forget About It. Making my point:

"One fowl is a goose but two are called geese.
Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese.
If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and the whole set are teeth,
Why should not the plural of booth be called beeth?"
- Author unknown

The above comic verse helps us to understand the plight of immigrants from all over the world who ventured forth to this marvelous country of ours, and discovered their own wonderful ways of figuring out the English language.

Herbert Passin, the noted anthropological scholar maintains in his Language and Cultural Patterns; no language is completely translatable. The more deeply you go into a language, the more unique it becomes.

And for every young director out there taking pleasure in an over-assumption of his or her individual communicative skills, Herbert Passin’s doctrine maintaining the inability of translating the truest of word meanings at the most sophisticated of intellectual levels, should be etched in their creative brains, never to be forgotten.

A hand extended in order to help needs no verbiage. A hand extended has no language barrier. A tear shed is universal. I remember one day in far off Korea, the war had come to an end, and, as usual, the American soldiers shouldered the most difficult of assignments. I may have still been a teenager, in a man’s body, but my mind was being permanently etched by life’s daily imbalances.

We came from all over the United States as young soldiers to this place of wounds and scars. Regardless of our backgrounds, to a man, none of us had ever experienced any overdose of merciless upheaval such as the experiences being suffered by these Korean people.

I experienced first hand, family was the most important part of Korean life. The father is the head of the family. Respect for a human beings attained position in life, was and is part and parcel of the Korean child’s up bringing. Take away the indignity and the pain and suffering brought on by the carnage of war, and we found the Korean kids to be much like children in many other parts of the world.

The mind is a miraculous work. An effortless thought is stimulated by an effortless thought. Thinking of the Korean children, I recalled a tinge of the first light being allowed to enter their lives, first as the most sparing glimmer, and then, as quickly as we could make it happen for them, the most radiant beam of hope began to brighten their souls.

I guess most of us were close to the chronological age of the children we were seeking to help. Maybe it was our youth which helped the children to quickly trust us. They all seemed to love the way American soldiers would invent all kinds of kids games to break the tensions of the day. Overnight the children learned to communicate in our language. They picked up our dialects and our unique ways of communication. And we found their pronunciation of English, especially American colloquialisms, more than just amusing. Oftentimes, it became the cause of borderline raucous laughter. Hearing a little Korean kid with a southern drawl, or another with Jersey City or Brooklyn bluster was always a tension reliever. And of course, like young kids all over the world, their minds were like sponges. They learned our language and our ways far more readily than we did theirs.

“To all out there who have experienced a seemingly impossible turn in life’s tell tale adventure of never ending hurdles to overcome; be apprised, nothing rivals the travails of the homeless child, as witnessed through the gaze of this mans eyes. No language barrier, or statement of grief can ever require more explanation than a story told by the pain in a child’s eyes forever etched.”

And so when I hear our troops referred to today as occupiers, I cringe. The term occupier doesn’t remotely fit the comportment of who, what, and how we really bring forth to others what American soldiers are all about. Those Korean children never looked at us as being occupiers. They attempted to emulate our every move. They picked up on our mannerisms, they learned our songs, our dances, and most of all, they loved to play baseball. We shared what we had, and taught them everything we knew.

Today I have many Korean Americans in my life, many of whom have recent ties to the very people who depended on us, not as occupiers of their homeland, but much more suitably considered as saviors. I’m sure there are moms and dads who managed to grow up and become nurturing parents because of the communication which managed to surpass any possible language barriers. I expect one day to have a Korean actor step forward and relay a story of how his mother or father went to school because of the help given them by an American soldier or Marine.

We had a field first sergeant that had a way with words. During the darkest of moments he’d come up with something, which came across as a rallying cry or call to arms. This guy was a huge man; standing about six foot five inches, and weighing in at about two hundred and fifty pounds. He was a classic case of looks being deceiving. When the man spoke, his words bellowed out with perfect diction. He may have been big and bulky, but it did nothing to detract from the humanness of his intellect. He was voice over personified. Pure gold. I find myself thinking about people like him whenever any of our country's important holidays roll around. The sergeant made all of us proud to be on the same team; especially on this one freezing cold day as we made our way into a small North Korean village. The sight of the children stopped us in our tracks. Imagine the worst and you have conjured the picture of what we found. “Bring that mess truck up,” the sergeant shouted. “Assemble,” he yelled. In seconds, certainly less than a minute, we were ready and waiting for our orders. And as the sun shone threw the bleak and overcast sky the sergeant gave forth with the command, "Let’s bring some light to these kids.”

Occupiers? I think not!!

A Writer Writes About

2011-05-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

On a day in May...

A writer writes
Where he’s been
Where he is

Where he’s going

All while void of coherence
Forgetting his past
Unsure of his present
Fearful of his future

Then as the success bell tolls

He’s congratulated

He relates stories of his past

Enjoys his present

And sells many books predicting everyone’s future

Still, perhaps not his own

Then on a day, as yet not fully lived

Sanguineness somehow prevails

And only to himself he reveals:

“Never have I been more touched by life than today.

For special reasons which will forever be unclaimed,

Yet so deeply felt.

Understanding, perhaps not a possibility.

Reasons for what transpires don’t find themselves getting in the way of the most unimaginable emotions beyond previously experienced recall.”

A message saying one's breath is far more important than its description. This is the moment for the writing to stop. This becomes a new time to capture new meanings, for quiet to resound within.

A writer listens intently though without prescription,

And just maybe an American pioneer was heard to say:

"Begin now!

Start the rest of your life

With this first day,

And each day thereafter

Serving as the canvas for your own

Personal masterpiece.

Each day is your audition for the next!"

hk

1859 As A Philosophical Abstraction, Or Maybe Not.

2011-05-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

The man wrote in an era when much of what God had beseeched was still in a "to be determined" process. His A Tale Of Two Cities was to be ultimately dubbed a masterpiece -- in my humble opinion, not the least bit an overstatement. The two cities were London and Paris. They were, at the time, a mixture of the extreme haves and have-nots: Those who never worked because of their life’s station, and those who didn’t work because work wasn’t available. They were the rich and the poor with inactivity as their sole mate.

Was it the past of which Charles Dickens scribed what he saw, or was he gazing into our future, here in 2011?

The words of the past, mainly those expressed in a form of complaint, seem to always resemble today’s most common disorders. There were those who dwelled high up on a hill, while the rest hunted for a place to sleep, and a crumb or two in order to keep their inner fires burning. Nothing has changed regarding our subsistence needs. Lets face it. It’s what all human beings have in common: We need to eat.
Grilled Cheese

Around 4,000 years ago, people started to breed animals and process their milk. That's when cheese was born. It was most likely a strong reason for the first politicians to get elected.

Villager #1: "Elect me as your mayor and each of you will have a goat to milk.”
Villager #2: "Elect me as your mayor, and I’ll send a serf to milk your goat for you.”
Villager #3: "Elect me as your mayor and I will deliver a jar of milk to your abode each and every day of the year, free.”

Well, if you’re interested in the outcome of that very early mayoral race, I’ve taken it upon myself to do a little research. Villager #3 was a big time winner. In those days, the counting up of votes didn’t take very long because most of the villagers were functional illiterates. They voted by physical acclamation. The three candidates would stand in front of the gathered villagers in the town circle. At the precise signal (I was unable to determine what signal was used), the villagers moved directly behind the candidate of their choice. It wasn’t really a difficult process because at the time of this election, less than one hundred people inhabited the village. All worked out well until directly following the mayoral inauguration. In short order, the people began to complain about not receiving delivery of their free milk. Some unforeseen problems which were not allowed for began to pop up directly following the election campaign promises.

Word of mouth had spread the news from township to township. Come and get the free milk, even if you’re not a citizen of our village. Bring you’re family and friends. The only good thing to come from all of this was it didn’t affect their village school system. They had no schools. The mayor made many speeches telling the villagers how things were improving. But more and more of them were unable to earn any money to give the mayor in order for him to supply enough free milk to make the cheese. Most of the villagers found it far too expensive to buy their own goat. Soon the people began to leave what had become a large community in favor of finding a different village to live and work in. The mayor served one term, and is now a very successful goat handler.

Way back when, not that very long ago, in these United States of America, the most famous sandwich of all time would have to be the grilled cheese, or up until that point in time, depending on who was the reporter writing the food column, and what were his or her leanings, politically. Some would ask, "What sort of abstract baloney are you spewing now? What could cheese have to do with anything politically?" To them I would answer, "Just everything, you dolt."

(If you consider the foregoing as being in the abstract, then it would never be my wish to visit an art gallery as your companion.)

The facts have been with us for centuries. If you make it, bake it, milk it, grow it, farm it, raise it, sell it, or live in the vicinity where any of the former transpire, it will be now, or ultimately a short time in the future, a political boondoggle (a scheme, which wastes time and money).

But for a short moment, long before governments knew anything about taking large quantities of oil from the ground, the healthy business of extracting oil from the fat of whales thrived, that is, thrived for those countries which could boast a strong maritime fleet. Many of you won’t recognize the name “kerosene.” It was the main product for lighting one's home - lamp oil - that and, of course, the development of natural gas.

Ancient societies were known to be using the oil, which managed to seep up from the ground in many parts of the world, since prehistoric times.

Petroleum became a major industry following the oil discovery at Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859.

Please take note: A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens.

Do you think I’m being a little too abstract? Not for me, I’m very happy with it, and myself. You see, I take the greatness of this country of ours very personally. Think about it for a minute. Oil has been around since prehistoric times. In 1859, the United States of America was an infant state. We were just then beginning to bind the wounds suffered by every American during the Civil War.

Charles Dickens might have named his book “A Tale Of All Countries.” It may have begun in 1859, but by the late eighteen hundreds, the United States was producing more oil than any other country in the world - 83% of which took care of our own needs. Our capitalistic society was almost in full bloom. What followed were all the necessary ingredients for brewing the greatest success story in the history of the world. At the time we had a total of 31,(443,321 M) - thirty one million, four hundred forty three thousand, three hundred and twenty one of us Americans preparing to serve grilled cheese sandwiches to the rest of the world.

320,000,000 later

I hated grilled cheese sandwiches when I was a kid. They lacked gusto. I remember some kids bringing American cheese sandwiches to school for lunch. I never traded with them. I was so pleased to find out later in life, the infamous American cheese was processed, and those in the know were quick to point out the drawback of eating processed food. Those infidels were not only eating processed cheese, but were in the process of shortening their lives by doing so. Yet, to my deep chagrin, just yesterday I was made aware of the fact, processed cheese in some countries was considered a deterrent to contraction of scurvy while sailing around the world. I’m going to hold off believing the credibility of this report, as it was filed by an Afghanistan wire service. My operatives were unable to check out their reliability do to a shortage of electric power service in their area of the fifth world. It does however sound suspicious, since Afghanistan keeps no admiralty records. The United States continues to fund the Afghani Navy in expectation of them one day having one. Credit must be given to our general accounting bureau as they have formally discontinued any shipments of grilled cheese sandwiches earmarked for shipment to Afghanistan.

And speaking of Afghanistan; where were they back when Dickens so vigorously went to the quill? If you said: “They were being occupied by a foreign country,” your answer would be correct. Dependant on what one reads, it appears since 500 BC, all kinds of folks have been trying to take hold of them. My point is, we aren’t the first to enter with thoughts of calming the searing heat, freezer chest winters, and mountainous terrain of this cruel societal location; land locked, desperate, and without structure.

And just maybe an American pioneer was heard to say:
Begin now!
Start the rest of your life
With this first day,
And each day they’re after
Serving as the canvas for your own
Personal masterpiece.
Each day is your audition for the next!

(A Primer On) Compiling “Ten Thousand Hours Of Experience”

2011-05-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Theater Shows Film

Just prior to this monumental period of my life, I had merely dabbled in the world of show biz. My ex-wife’s opinion of what I was doing represented far more than dabbling. A couple of years before, she had asked me pointedly if I didn’t think I was getting a little too old to be an intern. Her question followed directly after she found out Hitchcock didn’t pay interns. As a matter of fact, the man didn’t even speak to us (I do believe the woman was beginning to tire of my antics). Come to think of it, my ex-wife was wrong. It was a great time to intern, be alive, and make the most dominate decision of my life: To follow my heart.

Ten thousand hours of storage begins at birth for all of us. I refer to what enters our brains as storage because, not being a medical man, it’s the easiest way for me to remember what many refer to as "our own personal think tank." Is it a mental or physical attribute? We’re usually equipped with both. Storage begins for most at or around two years of age.

All things being equal, regardless of the time period, I had not yet arrived as "da harv," but neither had Walmart. That same year, 1962, Sam Walton opened the First Wal-Mart discount store in Bentonville, Arkansas. All Sam did was become the biggest and most successful retailer in the world. He didn’t begin at the top, and he wasn’t the first to open a store. At the time, the J.C.Penney Company had seventeen hundred stores, and Sears Roebuck & Company boasted seven hundred fifty department stores. Then there were others, like Macy’s, the May Co. and many, many more.

There are those who argue it was much easier to make it back in the old days. I think not. Sears Roebuck began in 1886, and the first J.C.Penney store opened under a different name in 1902.

Today, about fifty years later, some new giants have arisen: Home Depot, Kinko’s, Costco, and of course, the most famous of them all, “SpongeBob.” Few were given any likelihood of having success.

Let’s face it, how many of you would have invested money in a Starbucks coffee shop? I mean… give me a break. They’d have about as much chance of making it as a talking square pants sponge named Bob.

Cost Of Living 1962:
Year-end close of Dow Jones industrial average: 652.
Average cost of a new house: $12,500.00.
Average income per year: $5,556.00.
Average monthly rent: $110.00 per month.
Tuition to Harvard University: $1,520.00.
Average cost of a new car: $3,125.00.
Eggs per dozen: 32 cents.
Gas per gallon: 28 cents.

Folk music was evolving into protest music thanks to young artists like Bob Dylan, and the birth of surfing music by The Beach Boys grew in popularity. Meanwhile, in England, the Beatles were recording the single "Love Me Do." The new hit on TV for that year was "The Beverly Hillbillies," and the first of the James Bond movies, "Dr. No," was an instant success. Some of the other movies released included "Spartacus" and "El Cid."

Alternatives:
In Beverly Hills, on little Santa Monica Blvd., there existed one little theatre group seemingly on every corner. These groups began forming in the forties. Just about every character actor you might think of at one time or another took part in some form of little theater. Most came from locations all over the country, seeking to make it on what we knew as the silver screen.

It was also the era of big time radio broadcasts. During the daytime hours, the soaps prevailed. In the early and late afternoons, all the kid shows came on. The history of film and radio go hand in hand.

New York’s Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway was a respite for most of the actors before coming to Los Angeles (they thought), attempting to break into films. As they arrived, they encountered what actors had been experiencing since time and memoriam: Competition.

It was an absolute certainty: Without radio and little theatre, actors in general found few venues for practicing their craft, let alone making a buck.

On January 1, 1962, NBC broadcast the first coast-to-coast color television presentation of the Rose Bowl football game. Walter Cronkite replaced Douglas Edwards as the anchor for the CBS Evening News. He lasted nineteen years.

But most importantly, 1962 was the official kick off for da harv. I do believe that comes to a total of forty-nine years. Let’s see now… if we count it up, forty-nine years would be 2,548 weeks, and at fifty hours per week it comes to a total of one hundred and twenty seven thousand, four hundred hours of me practicing my craft.

The last nineteen plus years have been devoted entirely to the field of voice over.

I chose 1962 because much of my official academic world schooling had come to an end. Truth be told, and that’s what I’m doing at this moment. My theatrical training began with the subliminal exposure I began experiencing as a child. Anything vaguely resembling a group of people (two or more, sometimes even one) became my audience. They didn’t know it. They were sent to me by a divine power in order to have their way of life improved upon. They all needed me - even those who attempted to push me away. It was all to no avail. Even the Army, in a much earlier time period of my life, recognized I was the guy put on earth to tell people what to do, whether they liked it or not.

I doubt if there are many who may claim fame or accomplishment without fording an endless stream, or taking less than ten thousand hours of their life’s dedication. Admittedly, any thoughts of hours of study were not an occurrence of mine as I embezzled the first moments as they came to me. There were no explanations, because no one close to me was prepared to understand a person toiling without monetary rewards, either gained or offered. In the beginning, I cherished the smallest plaudits more than any man should.

Seeing my name printed on a playbill for the first time was an unequalled event. Stepping forward to begin a show produced by me brought my heartbeat to a crescendo I knew could be heard by those in the back of the house. Sharing the pain with a troupe of my players about to strike a set, the next day reborn and hopeful over an unexpected gig to direct a dream cast. The radio programs, the industrial shows, the films, the commercials, and the thousands upon thousands of actors I have had the pleasure of directing, are all in a special place within my now incomprehensible number of hours at work practicing my craft. But at the very top of my list, and what I would deem as the most rewarding adventure of my lifetime is an easy one for me to choose: It is as an educator where my most treasured plaudits lie.

What I didn’t know then, I do know now. It began during the first twenty-nine years of my life. The physiological brilliance of my father. When he asked if I would give him a hand with something was by far the most important life shaping moment of my young existence. He knew his kid well. I was bursting at the seams to show him my talents as a helper. I don’t remember what he had asked me to help with. It doesn’t matter. The thought of being paid to help someone with whatever they were up to never occurred to me. At eight years of age, I guess I was feeling like a pretty big, big shot. We lived directly across from the schoolyard, so I never ran out of kids to help.

There was this one kid in particular who became a fan of mine. He was a poor soul who was a real klutz. He constantly showed up in the school playground with his shoes untied. When I called it to his attention, he told me how his mother yelled at him for not being able to tie his own shoelaces. I kind of felt sorry for him. I learned how to tie my shoelaces by watching my dad do his own. I told the kid I would tie his shoelaces for him every day until he learned to do it for himself. It turned out to be one of my simpler feats to accomplish. Each day before he was called to return home, we both untied our shoelaces and then as I retied mine, he merely mimicked my every move. By the end of the week, he was functioning on his own. But something else happened: The kid no longer came across as the playground schlep. (Schlep: A person who drags his or her feet in an ungainly fashion would be referred to as a shlep; German origin)

Nothing has changed. A teacher is a helper. A person who is always joining in for a free ride is known as a shlepper. Schleppers rarely make it in acting - a profession where a free ride is almost nonexistent.

Saying "try it this way" to an actor, and then seeing the proverbial light go on is an amazing feeling. Nowadays, many of the actors I run into aren’t wearing shoes that need lacing, so I have resigned myself to helping them improve their acting skills. What I ask our students to do is continually practice their craft. The question comes up quite often. How long do I think it will take for them to make it? There will never be an exact answer for any question with as subjective a nature to it.

I remember seeing Tiger Woods as a child of no more than six years of age come on the Mike Douglas show along with his Dad. He put on a demonstration of his ability to hit a golf ball. Well, by the time Tiger had his ten thousand hours compiled, most golfers were just beginning to play the game.

Questions only you can answer:

1. When did you begin?

2. How much do you work (number of hours) at it each day?

3. Are there things in the way?

4. How badly do you want it?

5. Are you financially able to hold out for an indefinite period?

6. What must you do to avoid being average?

Within my hours of practice, I have experienced many of the lifestyle encumbrances which would keep the average guy from making it in our voice over world. The most important word in the previous sentence would be “average.” Average is a term which, when applied as a description of an actor, translates to “unable to support himself or a family."

For the answers to all of the above questions, please take a time out, and with not another soul around to disturb your process, answer the six questions presented above. I was honest with you. What I recommend is you be brutally honest with yourself.

da harv’s answers up:

1.When did you begin? Around age eight.

2. How much do you work (number of hours) at it each day? I usually hit it for about ten hours, six days each week.

3. Are there things in the way? Only I get in the way of me!

4. How badly do you want it? To be able to say, "I have helped more actors to win than any other man in history!"

5. Are you financially able to hold out for an indefinite period? I have been for the last twenty-five years.

6. What must you do to avoid being average? Continually seek out my goal to live and make each day of my working life a masterpiece.

Baruch Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) was a Jewish, Dutch philosopher. He said:

“Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.”

It Comes with the Territory

2011-04-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
- Thomas Paine, 1776

“It comes with the territory.” We’ve all heard the phrase many times from people - some good, some bad. In any event, when a person delivers the line, “It comes with the territory,” they usually do so with the intent of showing acceptance of the situation they must deal with. They’re the leaders of the tribe, the bosses, the head coaches, the generals and the teachers, amongst others who manage to take charge, either by their own life’s design, or perhaps an act of God which placed them in the position.

By nature… these are not the whiners of the world. Rarely will a whiner ever find himself or herself at the top of the heap, unless said heap is destined to be only a temporary assignment. Please don’t become confused over the fact the whiners appear to be getting what they’re whining about, what they end up getting is usually the worst of everything.

What follows might make my point:

From the time I was a very young man, I found myself enamored with those effectually labeled “junkyard dogs.”

Again, it was my dad who bore the responsibility of introducing me to the term. It was his belief that if you owned something of value, you’d better have a “Junkyard Dog” to watch over it. To Dad, it meant fighting for it. He pointed this out to me at a Dodgers baseball game, referring to their then manager, Leo "The Lip" Durocher. “That guy will fight like a junkyard dog in order to win."

NOTE: Never consider a “junkyard dog” as a member of a whiner's club. He or she could be a most purposeful and trusted hired hand.

"Junkyard dogs” bite. They never whine. They accept what goes with the territory. While they are not leaders, they are dedicated followers of such.

When a “junkyard dog” accepts his or her position at the top of the heap, he or she is most likely finding one of two scenarios in place. The yard has been constantly victimized by thieves who manage to break in and steal, or all is serene and calm do to the previous guard dog who had an exemplary work ethic.

In our first scenario, the new “junkyard dog” throws himself or herself into the work, not taking the time to blame or whine about the previous dog. During day one, the community, state, city, town, office, or stage, quickly takes heed of the facts. This dog will bite your ass off if you enter his or her home without first gaining permission from whoever the leader happens to be. Never whine around this dog - he or she will ultimately find out the origin of the whine.

In our second scenario, the “junkyard dog” takes over at the top of the heap and finds all is well. The job called for him or her to keep things status quo, and that’s what he or she does. The leader explains to the junkyard dog that in the event he or she begins to lie down on the job, a dog that can follow the leaders dictates will immediately replace him.

The community is welcome to come in and do business, providing they remain cognoscente of the leader's rules.

The leader got what they were paying for, in both scenarios. No whining, no blaming, and no fixing what wasn’t broken to begin with. The community had a clear understanding of how the game was being played, and they continued to go along with the rules as prescribed.

At Kalmenson & Kalmenson, we will always endeavor to keep our junkyard running on an even keel. We will accept the credo: “It comes with the territory.” Although we’re not going to become guilty of prejudging a book by its cover, we will however also not be guilty of disregarding the lessons taught to us by experience.

Don’t you just love these dogs? Which one are you? (Which one would you hire?)

The dogs who bite their owners
Soon will not to be found,
Neither resting, nor waiting to be fed
It’s not their fault,
They whiningly expound
Reluctantly giving way
To other dogs
Waiting in a reception room
For their talents to be found.

Here, succinctly stated, is a Harvey Kalmenson feeling: I truthfully do not enjoy having actors who are whiners come in to audition for us. Extremely low on my favorites list: Actors, non-actors, and want-to-be actors who fall into a whiner category. They are of equally little consequence to the ultimate success of human beings, in general.

A non sequitur for me would be man's inhumanity to man. Being human should have little to do with the infliction of pain administered by one to another. But I guess if we didn’t have some pain to rely on, what would the great Russian playwrights have to write about?

Accordingly, the human characteristic which remains atop our "social dislikes" list: The disdainful posture of reckless indifference. In other words: “Man's inhumanity to man” -- expounded on by the most revered men and women throughout recorded history. Nothing in nature’s realm matches the injustices dealt by man to man. Regardless of our life’s walk (or run), the magnitude of infliction manages to stay with us with never ending divisiveness.

And with each new age reached comes more necessity to count our blessings of good health and all things which, without our control, continue the enhancement of any prosperous living cycle.

While I personally remain duty bound,
To my daily ritual, shamelessly counting my endless blessings, their remains a painful cognizance of all, which is still, left undone.

What were the plays and novels of times gone by are again being reenacted for a new and younger audience's confusion. The many stories of life’s distortions continues at the whims of the same unknown causes, reviving a testament to the egregious substances which continue
Man’s ability to avoid the moral weakness of inhumanity itself.

Today, the powers that be operate with the advisement: “We’re looking for a younger and new breed of writer.” The younger and new breed enters the arena, putting on a display they deem to be new and fresh. Yet the subject matter remains the same. A man, a woman, a child, a pet, a friend, a neighbor, a stranger in town, a family drinking too much, and one that doesn’t care at all. We have doctors and nurses, guards and prisoners, cops and robbers, and soldiers we call "troops" -- some are leaving, while others are returning home. There’s nothing really new as far as I can see. Seems to me I once read about guys who were just like the soldiers the new and young writers are writing about. My dad told me about them. He said they went to Europe during the First World War. Then the writers talked about guys who looked exactly the same. All that was different, I think, was about twenty years between the two of them.

The news reported a story of a Christian church, bombed by a suicide bomber in Egypt.

There’s really nothing new and fresh about people killing one another. I doubt if the age of the writer could bring back any of the twenty-six parishioners who were attending service.

The real chroniclers of our world’s injustices have been around for centuries. Their work remains new and fresh.

Early on, after reaching the age of fifty, I was taken with (Benedict) Spinoza’s simple appraisal of life:
“God is love, we're all parts of God, that love is the most important thing we have in the world, the most successful thing.
For whoever loves their fellow man will never know the pain of death."

I doubt if I ever thought about my own death until I reached age fifty. Maybe it was because my attained age was coupled with a variety of what I thought God had no business sending my way. Like the theatre, acting, producing, writing, listening, telling tales, accepting the applause with the unmeasured humility of a needy man. After all, how could a person who is busily accepting what life has lured him into be anything other than caught up in how he was being screwed and tattooed at the same time?

“Did you hear them clap? What an audience!"

“The man is going to read my script tomorrow!”

“People die for screen credits like yours!”

Then, at the end of another long and emotional trip, a relationship ends, and a new one begins.

(Mortality falls into a separate category of all the things totally out of our control.)

Things out of our control should not be contended with. What gives me the right to say that to you? No right and every right are mine to say it. Your's is the right to listen while not paying attention, not to listen at all, or to say, "Maybe during his extra few years on this planet, he is less encumbered with burdens brought on by a naivety not shared by any other industry than those of the arts."

“Our Arts Intend To Mend”

Our creativity brings with it a joyous recklessness, bearing no ill will, and stimulating our brainless desire for what stays staged, mostly for the other guy.

Again and again, if you feel the discomfort of the variety of slings and arrows on the narrowness of the road we chose, you might find some comfort by saying out loud: “It was my choice to go for it." And though it may still remain a distinctive "I don't know what the hell I want" in many of our artist’s lives, it is enduringly ours.

I wasn’t forced into it. What happened can be simply explained. I awoke one day, or I thought I was awake, and if not, perhaps it was a dreamlike experience. I found myself in this strange, rather large junkyard. Somehow, I was the one who escaped danger by making a long and arduous climb to the top of a heap in the center of it all. There were hordes of people trying to get into the yard. Each time they surged forward, I was somehow able to get them to stay back by threatening to turn my dog loose on them. In truth, I had no dog.

It was coming to the end of a very long day, or was it a year or two? A respite of a few years, perhaps a decade or more disappeared. I awakened and found myself in the same junkyard. Much of the equipment around me performed the same chores, but each machine was different. It seemed like nothing was happening. I heard no sounds of whirring or churning. All I saw were symbols and numbers and waves of light forming lines moving across a huge screen. There remained those same hordes of people trying to enter my yard. An attractive lady, all made up, and carrying a microphone, magically made her way to me. Some light went on as a man signaled her with thumbs up as he moved in with a TV camera. The interview began.

SHE: How long have you been at this?
ME: I’ve been climbing for thirty-five years.

And on the interview went. The praise and idolization was overpowering. She would ask a question and I was in disbelief over why she was even there speaking to me.

And then it mercifully came to its end. I was back asleep and dreaming of tomorrow when some fifty close friends were visiting and entertaining me with antics that could only be found in my kind of junkyard. I was the entertainment committee. One of them was to win a grand prize. The very best interpretation of a talking toilet seat would be the recipient and owner of a great deal of money. The shame of it all was that there could be only one winner. The rest would leave my yard in the hope I might invite them back to try for a prize on another day.

And as they shuffled out, still all smiles as they left the yard, a single spokesman for them was heard to say:

“It comes with the territory.”

(And it also goes with the territory.)

When People Talk (To Each Other)

2011-04-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

“Conversation"

Talk about ever-changing. The advent of our electronic age has influenced our lives and has certainly placed a variety of new pressures on today’s voice over talent. But guess what? The voice is definitely secondary to the performance, and voice over as we know it remains an acting craft. As a matter of fact, there are more inherent acting requirement skills on today’s competitive actor then ever before.

Contrary to what has become an accepted belief, the advertising agencies don’t control what the public likes to hear -- they provide it. The general public always shows their likes and dislikes by the way a commercial is accepted. The agency pundits refer to this phenomenon as a "trend." The same has applied to theatrical films since their inception.

The interesting thing about trends is they might come and go, but never entirely disappear. Often the public treats a conceptual return as one might treat an old friend returning after being away for a while.

From 1960 on commercials used almost every form of communication in order to sell product. Every fancy electronic connivance has been tried, but thankfully, the wizards of innovation have not been able to replace the human instrument (voice). God knows it’s not because they haven’t tried -- everything from talking toys, to the most sophisticated forms of science fiction delivered by computerized animation. The public stays constant with their preference for the truth. It may be a talking toilet complaining about being mistreated by it’s owner, but the voice coming at you is that of a real live human being delivering the lines while following any number of possible directions: bad, sad, glad, mad, sick, upset, bright, dull, big, small, blue collar, or upscale.

And what follows is the most consistent trend the commercial advertisement industry has experienced to date:

“Laid back and conversational.”

And yes, you’ve heard this direction before, but it bears repeating:

“No announcers.”

And the wonderful people putting out those directions by and large have never been in front of the camera, or a microphone. In other words… they’re asking the actors to do something they themselves have never been successful at professionally. We find non-performers responsible for writing most of the commercial scripts we receive from the advertising agencies. The written directions are not theatrically driven. Some of the blame must be placed on the sponsors who indiscriminately over load the commercials with facts and numbers, which translate into a pushy type of sales approach. When this happens, we (the casting company) can also expect as part of the directions, the instructions for us not to let the actors become too much of a salesman or saleswoman. And invariably, when we get our hot little hands on the script, there it is right smack up at the top, a word none of us would ever use conversationally: "Introducing."

“Accomplished actors book more jobs.”

Our responsibility as actors is to make it work. If we make it work, they pay us -- the same people who furnished the seemingly contradictory directions.

“Conversationally Speaking”

Make it real -- what a concept. Like actual human beings in a conversation. At a glance, your first thought might be, “Are these people stark raving mad?”

I can advise actors until I’m blue in the face, of how counter-productive an un-positive attitude is. Yet there still remain a number of folks who don’t get it. If you bring an attitude into the recording booth with you, it will be hard to shake loose of it during your performance.

“Be a listening type observer.”

There are many questions about the every day occurrences of people having, or attempting to have a conversation.

“Rely on your past in order to get and keep a handle on today and tomorrow.”

About conversation:
* Is it general (in nature)?
* Is it casual?
* Is it polite?
* Is it off the cuff?
* Spiritual?
* Meaningful?
* Of importance?
* Of great importance?
* Of no importance at all?
* Is the person doing the talking speaking at the other person with the singular intent of hearing him, or herself talking?

Note: The more an actor listens to him or herself while attempting to perform conversationally, the less chance there is of accomplishing a creative portrayal of any kind or type.

Be aware of people holding conversations. It doesn’t really matter where or when. You may notice the person doing the talking doesn’t have to be an actor in order to be enraptured with themselves.

My concern is always improvement, whether it is self or another’s improvement as a person, or improvement in order to enhance one's income. Improvement means individual growth. Growth and success are not necessarily synonymous in the immediate future, but without personal growth, success becomes problematical. Learning some guidelines about conversation spells growth.

For the time being force yourself to discern some basic conversational differences. What kind of conversation are you observing?

* Polite and cordial?
* Passionate?
* Concerned?
* Matter of fact or off the cuff?
* Sarcastic?
* Imperative?
* Deliberate advice?
* Who are you conversing with?
* Where are you?
* What time of day is it?
* Why are you in conversation with this person?

The above are only a short list of conversational possibilities. In reality, the list is endless. If you get nothing from this offering other than the following two advisements, you’re well on the road to improving your conversational skills.

“At the audition”

1. Don’t be afraid of asking your imaginary conversation partner a question, either verbally or by doing your own subconscious degree of wonderment.

2. Be genuinely responsive to the person you’re attempting to have a conversation with.

The above items are excerpts from a syllabus first presented at the University Of Southern California by Harvey Kalmenson, and is currently used as an application within our current Kalmenson & Kalmenson educational curriculum.

… and speaking of income,

When it comes to an actor’s possible income, my professional mentoring remains, of course, in the field of voice over.

As a director, educator, and casting director, I find myself in the admirable position of being able to offer salient points to actors which are necessary for them to compete in today’s highly charged marketplace.

And certainly a key word in the preceding paragraph is definitely today’s market place. What changes tomorrow will bring are unknown. The actors who have developed a strong basic repertoire of emotional deliveries will always meet our industries nuances with confidence; which breeds success.

The ball is in your acting court. As we say at the beginning of our Level Two workshop: "How badly do you want it?"

Snowbound

2011-04-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

It was six in the early morning of what was my usual work weekday. When a full screen appeared along with a voice talking about New York’s worst snowstorm since the nineteen twenties, it caught my attention. Just like in Los Angeles when we have a heavy rain, voices of doom seemed to broadcast from one corner of the country to another. New York’s mayor had some unbelievable story he was feeding the public about how the city was just not equipped to handle that amount of snow. And the common folk were heard whining as only New Yorkers can. Inclement weather shouldn’t come as a shock to inhabitants of the city of New York (yah think).

Come rain, snow, hail, or even a hurricane, regardless the inclemency, the networks all managed to station some weather person outside in order to establish the degree of problems they might be having. How strong a storm it was would serve to determine how much whining is necessary, or prudent, before an annoyed bystander came up the side of a whiner's head with an umbrella.

Have you ever noticed how audiences manage to get to the theater of their choice regardless of the weather? They may complain about the bathroom facilities not being adequate, but when it comes to making use of their high priced ducats, the better their seats, the less whining you’ll hear.

Descriptive notes regarding above average actors:

Above average actors (they're the ones who aren’t constantly listening to music being piped into them via a surgically attached headset, in place of reading, or understanding real news); they don’t require a mayor’s explanation. Most New York actors are perfectly capable of understanding inclement weather. Although at a recent audition one of them asked me, “da harv, did you hear how they're suffering out on Long Island?” “No,” I responded (sarcastically). I would have had to be comatose to miss it, the way the media was constantly broadcasting updates.

At our auditions, I have long since given up on general discussions of anything having to do with the conditions our world is in; not that I consider myself some kind of knowledgeable, world-recognized sage. It’s just that most forms of whining get in the way of any productive outcome. There have been many times in my life, when having a whiner around was not only non-productive, but also served as a disruptive force.

Whiner (to da harv): “Do you think I’ll ever win one of these spots?”
da harv (to whiner): “Not a chance!”

Long ago in a far off land, I found myself, along with many other men - visually similar in body and dress - sharing in the earliest beliefs of the folks who founded our country.

You may have guessed, we were in the service of our country, specifically, the United States Army. Our age-range was from nineteen to twenty-five (on average). We were a mixed bag; every race and color you could think of was represented. The most outstanding attribute we had going was the respect we had for one another. Contrary to what the average person stateside might think, we were an army of outstanding gentlemen.

Keep in mind, this was an era long before any form of political correctness had been introduced. Being in harm's way some how eliminates a need for political correctness. In any event none of us had yet to hear the term expressed.

From basic training on, and all through the fulfillment of a required tour of duty, for us common soldiers, all things were equal. And I mean equal! We ate, slept, showered, prayed and went to the bathrooms (if you could call them that) together. And what whining there was, managed to come across as a factor for unity. There was no separation of states (life's stations). We laughed at and with each other. Sure we all complained, but for some reason, it didn’t come out like someone whining about the weather, or the table a waiter showed them to. All of our seats were the same price. There wasn’t anything special about being up front.

Without consciously going for it, in our own makeshift way, many of us were becoming amateur philosophers. We existed in a no holds barred environment. Personal questions were asked and usually answered with total honesty. We wore whom we were on our sleeves for all to see and feel. Sure there were times when things raised in conversation became too personal for a guy to handle. A build up of incipient anger flickered, then was headed off and defused before turning into anything more than a little extra heated conversation. Only when serious drinking was involved did we ever experience some uncommonly difficult moments. I guess that’s why the army did whatever they could to keep us enlisted guys away from hard liquor. The definitive word is “try.” American soldiers are the most inventive in the world. We always had a bottle to pass around. Admittedly, some of what I ingested was downright vile.

Still, I was only nineteen years old, I hadn’t had the time to cultivate any serious lifelong relationships at home. The guys who experienced a breakup with a stateside girlfriend were the ones who suffered the most; yet it was never an annoyance to any of us. It never came across as whining.

We managed to enjoy a diversion or two. For a short period of time we had a tackle football league (if you could call it that). A group of guys who were heavy duty jocks back home decided to continue competing while in the service. It didn’t last very long - we were systematically killing one another.

Then there was a series of other hobbies we cultivated. All they (the brass) had to do was tell us we couldn’t have something, and the next thing you'd know we’d, have more than we knew what to do with. An example of that process was the number of dogs we had in our company area. Keep in mind, this was a God-forsaken location, carved out of the side of a mountain. The terrain was treacherous. Nature’s elements never held back. Summer heat and humidity so harsh it became visible, then to the other extreme of wind and cold which served to create a living tomb like winter existence. And with it all, our adolescent sense of humor continued to blossom.

Each company of men had four or five dogs roaming around. They were our pets, and as well taken care of as any raised back home. Not surprisingly, one day at a company formation, we were informed of a new rule. It turns out the guys had been smuggling in a puppy or two from Japan. The number of dogs in our compound had grown to thirty. We would have been fine, except for the fact our mess hall sergeant was complaining about food being stolen in order to feed our animals. The stealing of food stopped, almost immediately; that is to say, corresponding to the shipments of pet food that began to arrive from a variety of charitable organizations. Some of the guys had shared our debacle with the folks at home. The dam had been opened. Our company sergeant in charge of mail delivery, and himself a genuine dog lover, never let on about the increase in the number of large packages we were now receiving from home on a regular basis. Our dogs were living in style. None of them ever experienced wearing a collar. All of them were trained to respond to the one word command “hide” whenever an officer was in the area.

In retrospect, I do believe most of our officers were as pleased to have the dogs running around as we were. Somehow, heat nor the cold, or even for some of us, the loneliness, wasn’t as dominating a factor as it would have been were it not for our smuggled in friends.

Note:
* We didn’t have cell phones.
* Digital anything was not yet a part of our lives.
* The only way our antics were shared was by word of mouth or the written word.
* Any photos deemed off-color or obscene weren’t allowed to be developed.

Another time
Was it really lived by me?
The far away place has changed
And without effort, I to changed along with it
There are no complaints to share
Whining, to whom?
I wonder where they are today
No matter, I guess
The present is where I must reside.

* "Being in the present." Nary an actor who hasn’t heard the term.
* From one coach or another: “Be in the present. Stay current. It’s the here and the now.”

This just in:

Sergeant Shriver passed away, at age ninety-five.

This is a news report of nothing more profound than a life coming to an end.

I listened to Maria describing her father, the former head of “The Peace Corps.” She talked about visiting with her father, who no longer recognized her. Maria spoke of entering her father's room and saying, “Hi Daddy, I’m your daughter Maria.” And he would respond with the words, "Are you really?” She went on to say this same reintroduction took place even if she left his room for just a moment or two to get a drink of water. When asked how she was able to cope with it, Maria responded with, “It’s my choice to stay in the present. To introduce myself to my father each time like it was new all over again.”

While Maria Shriver may not be an actress, her choice of a method to deal with a trying situation at best, represents a classical method for overcoming the weekly trauma she bravely endured.

Staying fresh and vibrant, as opposed to giving in to a living trepidation, is never a good time for grief to be experienced personally, or by your compassion for others.

And so perhaps your real audience being the people in your life, those you know, and those for you to meet for the first time. If there is to be a moment when you’re in command, it will be there for you, as you choose in taking pleasure introducing yourself to them for the first time. Each new introduction to whomever will represent a pure and living present tense.

Like me, for some, a dream brings a recapturing of the wonderment of what had been. Strangely enough the very dream, which captures the past, will allow for the pleasantness of what your future might become. (If you let it.)

“And so.” Well before six in the morning of a common workday, just as the clock “ugly’d” me up, and my eyes not yet at full rise, there came to visit another of those dream recollections; though dark in places, there again of a dramatic nature, thankfully not companioned by any form of physical disturbances. The years gone by, limiting the aftereffects, to never more than occasional numbness in my extremities, and some perspiration signaling the end of whatever an army man’s subconscious had recalled without solicitation.

Remembrances of instances lived before, during, and after a sequence of events, never of equal weight, are not consciously thought about. Recollections unable to be understood remain uncontrolled during my sleep, lasting a lifetime. All the words in a dream have become jumbled together. What was I dreaming of this time?

I looked in on what meant little to one guy, a nineteen-year-old kid, and me in reality, soon to become a so-called man feeling the christening of his mortality. It was nothing more than a surreal split of a single second, his body covered in perspiration caused by one hundred degree temperatures, and humidity too high to be measured by the meters the army supplied us with. And then, an explosion, which lifted him upward, and with a sickening jarring, returned him to a precarious and painful position. One of his older buddies sternly admonished, “You're never going to get used to it either.”

In the moment, mortality became a reality. In the moment, an experience some men never realize until the end, became his to keep within for the rest of his life.

Three days later, at 9PM, on July 27, 1953, the Korean conflict came to its unceremonious end. According to the record books, the official ending time was twenty–two hundred hours (10 PM.)

I had experienced fright beyond my previous beliefs. My life would never be the same. And although there were a number of occasions when my life was in serious peril during my tour of duty, those three days, thirty-five miles north of the thirty-eighth parallel will remain seared in my mind's eye, equaled only by the formal surrendering of my boyhood.

Watching as my words hit the paper, I do so with the belief, only a few out there who may read what I’ve scribed will understand the emanation and meaning of my moments being recalled.

And yesterday morning I was there again - or was I? Awakening by what had to be a dream. The recollections were clear, but there were no memories of fear, nothing the likes of the sweet scary induction of a shock wave, entering the top of an instep and swiftly making its way up the sensitive inner thigh, and winding uncontrollably up and through the center of a man's groin. Only standing at the precipice of a jutting cliff with a stiff wind forcing you forward could ever match in similarity the fearful anxiety of that moment.

It isn’t a fear of pain. What has happened is as totally the present as a human being may realize. Mortality is there, not as a remembrance for an actor to recall. More aptly, it is the most personal moment a man could possibly experience. A man made element had lifted me from the ground, then replaced me there against my will. But it was an act of God determining whether my senses might be left intact enough for any future to even exist at all.

That morning, the face I looked at as I shaved did not exist in the dream just gone by and lost.

The lines were not those of a nineteen year old.

The nineteen year old wore his fear in eyes experiencing a first time and unexpected moment. His face not yet etched by time. Looking deeper into the mirror before me I searched to regain my self-composure. It darkened and I must have again returned to a deeper sleep than before. The boy was gone. Only an older man awakened this time. The past had passed. I thought for a moment about shaving, and then smiled inwardly, asking myself, what if it wasn’t a dream. In anticipation, I rubbed my face. The stubble was there. I was in the present.

Down stairs: "You’re awfully quiet,” Cathy said.

"I think I had another of those dreams."

“About what?” she asked.

I honestly couldn’t tell her. The whole damn thing was so convoluted this last go-around. Part of the time I was the older man I am today, and then at the very same time, I found myself away in another place with a young body. Then an overall feel good moment as I remembered the German Shepard dog I had when I was ten years old. But when I went to pet him, he wasn’t my dog at all. He was a dog from another time and place. And I heard this God-awful explosion as I awakened to a huge jet flying over our home from the nearby Van Nuys airport.

“You’re smiling,” Cathy said.

“It’s good to be here in the present with you. We have a lot to smile about, don’t we!”

Each of us in this world we are privileged to make our living in, must look to these days as our own personal present to live in. We go forward with the intent of capturing and recapturing a new performance to be honestly performed with each and every person we come into contact with. Trying on each hello as your latest presentation of your one and only God-given experience. And if luck would have it that you find yourself being greeted by this guy, please take notice - I’ll be right there with you, in the present, saying hello and thanking you for coming in today and sharing my "present" seemingly for the very first time.

Days of Distraction

2011-03-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

It could have been Sir Winston Churchill, or even Mark Twain, or one of the infamous judgments emanating from within the Algonquin Round Table. No war or neighborhood disturbance can ever equal the joy or sorrow of what nature may send forth. And in these moments of despair or rapture, when time or ultimate consequences are measurable, perhaps the poetic prose “Days of Distraction” becomes the greatest of all understatements.

The depths of human suffering being unmercifully inflicted on the people of Japan, equal or rival any nature-driven disaster in recorded human history. These trying times for the Japanese people are not merely occurrences to be poetically chronicled or measured by any man's descriptivism. Ours may be a distraction, a series of ungodly bulletins presenting us with another painful documentary. But theirs is a reality being lived at the most personal level possible.

Maybe I’m one of those guilty of overreacting. Perhaps I shouldn’t let my inability to help them get in the way of my daily life. After all… I have auditions to conduct, scripts to study, March Madness in which to partake. The baseball season is about to begin. There are lists of obligations I must attend to. I really don’t have time for any “Days of Distraction.” But then again, why am I writing about it? Why can’t I remove the visuals from my mind? Why don’t I just go out and play a round of golf?

There must be a message somewhere in all of this. There has to be a reason for nature to do what it does, always at an inopportune time. Opportunism rarely has anything to do with human suffering. We never pray for it, hoping our time has come. There isn’t anything gracious about feeling pain. But the best part of our human condition is readily on display by the same people who are undergoing the worst victimization ever generated by nature. We all must make sure our children and their children are made privy to the courage and compassion for one another as human beings that the Japanese people have placed on the world stage. We all may learn from them. I find myself praying they will have the fortitude to withstand all that has been dealt them, and in as near to the future as possible the smiles of happiness will be made free to return.

A Word To and For the Wise

2011-03-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

A word to and for the wise.

Or, in the event you’re one of those extreme cases of being an over indulgent, self aggrandizer; living life with a singular lust for ones own selfish betterment, please disregard the word “wise,” which I’ve selected as the title alliteration for this blog.

Contrary to what you may think the word "wise" connotes, the facts of life prove, without question, from day one of our existence on this planet, even the most self-assured, self-serving, and self-reliant people we happen to think we are, still owe some degree of our success to some individual other than ourselves.

In other words… I took the long way around to get to my point .

Saying, “I made it on my own,” is bull----, .

If it were possible to be totally on your own, who would be there to hire you? Who would be there to applaud? Who would be there to hand you a Kleenex? And, if you continue to read on, where would you be without the benefit of someone like Harvey Kalmenson to express glee, satisfaction, or complete disillusionment over your display of social grace - or lack of it?

Okay, okay. What brought this on? You might be curious. I usually don’t waste my time in a display of angst over having been exposed to an individual who brings to the party nothing more than a richly cultivated superiority complex. I am duty-bound to share this incident, in order to help provide a guide of what an actor should not do, say, or put on display, especially when the recipients being shown this lack of graciousness, happen to be in the position of providing work for you.

“Don’t even think about biting the hand that feeds you.”

Endear yourself, or at least make an attempt at faking it. Certainly, this isn’t just for actors. Most parents at least attempt to instill a variety of good social grace attitudes within their children. There are some parents whom, for whatever the reason, fail. The individual who was the stimulus for this blog, undoubtedly was brought up under the poorest of parental environments.

Instead of me going into all the things our culprit was guilty of, I’d prefer to offer a few tips that might be of some help to your future as an actor.

(13) TIPS FOR THE TAKER

* Treat everyone you meet as a possible work source. ”Today’s receptionist, tomorrow's boss.”
* Learn how to remain quiet. You’ll hear more if you’re not talking.
* Make sure your questions are pertinent.
* Never tell a teacher that you already knew the points he or she was making. Say the points being made stimulated your memory, and now you’re able to make good use of a technique you had forgotten about.
* Visibly show as much attention to your teacher or coach as you possibly can.
* Avoid yawning.
* Avoid giving your opinion unless it is requested.
* Never criticize another actor’s skills or the quality of his or her voice.
* Don’t be guilty of rigidly predetermining the direction if you are aware the director will be there to give you notes. Marking up your script in advance of the actual direction can prove to be disastrous during an actual session or audition (once something gets in your head, it’s hard to remove).
* Always thank your teacher, coach, or director for the notes they gave you, regardless of whether or not you made use of them.
* Show interest in each of your classmates. Networking is the single most important factor in order to have a chance at succeeding.

As an aside, some of my most important professional assignments came as a direct result of a student contact. Years ago, it was a fellow student that got me an acting job as a last minute plug-in for an actor who was unable to make it to the set. And that job was responsible for me becoming a member of The Screen Actors Guild.

* Always cheer for a teammate. Don’t spend time commenting or trying to figure out how a competitor got a job you both read for. (It’s wasted energy. You will never get into the head of the producer who hired him or her.)
* Please don’t be or become a know-it-all. Voice over will remain a subjective (art) form. Being in the business for a long period of time doesn’t allow for anyone to remotely know all the answers.

Associates have heard me moan, “What the hell do I know?” I say those words quite often. Do I make an educated guess from time to time? Yes I do. Usually, it’s because a staff member asks me to guess who I thought the ad agency picked. In the event you’re a curious soul, I’ll end your wait. I rarely pick out who the winner is on any of our auditions. It’s not that I have fewer skills than the next guy, but the truth is once again summed up with the word "subjectivity."

The Four Friends

They all so loved to get together and share experiences. The goal was to set up a marvelous networking system that would ultimately benefit the four of them. Each week they would meet to discuss all that occurred in their careers. As time passed t became obvious to the four companions; only one of them was making any headway in the acting community.

In one of these meetings, the three non-accomplishers decided they would pin the successful participant down, and make him share his secrets. So forcefully he was questioned about his methods.

He began, "Wherever I go, I listen to people talk, I watch people walk, I try to feel like they feel, and I breathe in their presence. I sometimes shake my head in agreement and often shrug in disbelief. When I ask a question, it’s always about them; things that are going right or wrong, like a job promotion or a job loss. I pay special attention when they speak of their families and friends; you know, like, relationships. All the people I meet are just the same as you three, except when we get together, the conversations are always the same. You’re always talking about careers, and how you don’t seem to be winning. I don’t have to listen as closely to the three of you, because you only show interest in one subject: Yourselves.”

If you’re not in-the-know, meaning you lack experience, your knee-jerk reaction might be a commentary about the harshness of the winner’s appraisal of his three friends' lack of interest in anyone but themselves. But, on the other hand, if you have any degree of classical training, you would undoubtedly applaud the winning actors supposition, for even as he expressed his feelings, he did so with total truth. And as the three friends offered their objections to what he had to say, our winner was intent in gathering up their display of emotions. What the three of them were now offering our winner was what successful actors must ultimately decree: Total truth.

“But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.”
SHAKESPEARE: Henry V

Shared Passion

2011-03-04T18:15:00.000-08:00

The teachers who do it, those who are filled to the brim with the most valiant substance God has given us - they are the truest of teachers. They are the ones who, by nature, teach with a display from inside out. They are the teachers being recognized for there unselfishly “Shared Passion.”

I doubt if most students ever do an analysis of why they like a certain teacher. Sure, they allow how much this one or that one really rocks, but more times than not, the assertion of how much a teacher rocks, or doesn’t rock for that matter, falls far short of the true scope of what the most favorable of teachers brings to the party.

One of the world's most renowned mentors believed, and I quote:

“Profound responsibilities come with teaching and coaching. You can do so much good – or harm. That’s why I believe that next to parenting, teaching and coaching are the two most important professions in the world.”
- John Wooden, UCLA

End quote.

Few teachers ever experience being idolized by anyone. Community recognition seldom compares to the scope or magnitude of the individual teacher's accomplishments.

During school time, it’s the student’s report card that shows the significance of the teacher’s efforts. That same report card never displays the written credit: “Student Taught By.”

John Wooden received his proper credits during a lifetime of continued and unequalled successes. To date I have read each and everything written and subsequently published by John Wooden. Admittedly, at the outset, it was because I was a UCLA basketball fan. As time wore on, and my profession as an educator began to reveal itself, noticeable similarities between the “Wooden” doctrines, and those of the people I am privileged to refer to as my mentors became apparent. During his esteemed lifetime, John Wooden was a leader in the truest sense of the word. One of his favorite claims was, “I lead by example.” Wooden felt it took about twenty years in order to fully ascertain whether or not his students had really prospered from his teachings.

If I were able to personally compile all I have gleaned from my "who's who" list of mentors, one phrase would ring clear as the most common factor describing them: Personification of self truth’s.

The actor, the basketball coach, the teacher, all those who share a professional banner, without discrimination, lead by example and sign on free of deceptiveness; accepting the rigors of being an educator with dedication and courage.

And during a coach’s seminar, Wooden had a favorite quote:

“No written word, no spoken plea can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves, it’s what teachers are themselves.”
- Anonymous

End quote.

A yesterday, or many yesterdays ago, a young actor, or perhaps it was an actress, came to me, spieling with a single-minded explicitness. But when they took my hand, it was not a story I heard. It was a "thank you" for the winning report card they’d just received. Allowing for what some called a "hook for words" I had given them, on a page they studied and read.

Each and every day, we teachers are privy to an uncommon exhilaration: We are treated to the wonderment of learning. Without doubt, it is our assignment to educate. Specifically, we are attempting to provide for the professional success of those who come to us as patrons. And though we strive to give out an optimum of information, we never-the-less find ourselves, as actors, coming away with an increased understanding, of our craft and the human condition each and every day we remain as teachers.

A person who has difficulty in extending a helping hand should never be given a teaching assignment. John Wooden referred to it as each day painting a masterpiece. I share his belief.

“Hello. My name is Harvey Kalmenson. I teach voice over. I am and will remain an educator.”

Learning to Learn

2011-02-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

"In the groove" is a common statement often heard from a wide variety of professional athletes. They speak of how the game around them has slowed down, and how they are seeing the ball or the entire field more clearly than ever before.

A golfer remarks about how comfortable he or she feels while addressing the ball. The same golfer finds himself or herself on a streak when everything he or she attempts to do works out perfectly.

Then there’s the basketball player who describes the basket as appearing twice the normal size. Every shot he throws up goes in. The guy announcing the game says how the player appears to be "in a zone."

All the old-timers agree, when skill and experience are coupled with an exceptional work ethic, one day the unusual slowdown will occur. The batter will see the ball better, the golfer becomes relaxed and comfortable, our basketball player sinks a three pointer to win the game.

***

It was probably around age fifty. A time when things in general began to slow down, appearing to all those within my spectrum, as if I was a guy who might know what he was doing. Without knowing or feeling a transition, the ten-thousand hours of toiling away at my craft were beginning to take a firm hold.

Was it others or I? Inside, the same drums continued to beat out a rhythm as background for the same word, “Learn, learn, and learn.” I may have been fifty years of age, but I was in many ways still the little kid tuned in to his dad asking him with religious fervor, “What did you learn today?” The ever-present upper right side of my grammar school report card, visibly tolling out the score of “Could do better.” The report card thing has never left me. I guess it never will.

Exactly when it happened will always remain my unanswered query; one day my personal signature became self-acknowledged. When people around me began to comment about how comfortable I appeared to be.

My life, from it’s earliest stages, was dedicated to the totally agreed upon premise of the greatest philosophers the world has known:

“Wisdom is a blessing only to those prepared to absorb it.”

When learning becomes wisdom, and one's dedication is an absolute and resolute way of life, it then becomes possible for each of us as human beings to experience being in a so-called "zone." When we are questioned and give answers while displaying a demeanor of total confidence.

Most of us, regardless of the field of endeavor we may choose, are striving to become the best we can be. Rarely, however, will a student declare their desire to get into a zone. The subject never comes up, because in life’s earliest stages, comfort zones have not yet been cultivated.

The academic world provides many of our needed tools. But the desire to reach one's goals while playing through the pain of real life experiences can’t be derived from a book. In almost every walk of life, success and endurance go hand-in-hand. A kid graduates at the top of his class, and immediately faces up to the question, "What do I do now?" In the business world, the answer is gaining some experience. And be prepared to start at the bottom.

In our entertainment world, staying in the game, enduring, and continuing an uninterrupted study of one's chosen craft, are all must have parameters for success; yet these same parameters will never guarantee your goals and aspirations will ever be met.

May I dutifully present the following life’s experiences, to hopefully serve as a helping hand to whomever there is out there in need of encouragement?

His and Hers

EXPERIENCE: 10,000 HOURS APPLIED, serving as the catalyst for the two of us to join hands and together begin the process of building:

Kalmenson & Kalmenson: The business of voice casting and education.

Catherine and I agreed:

“If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately. I love the man (and woman) that can smile in trouble that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”
-Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776

Our company's goals are to always provide for our patrons the ability to share in the wisdom we have both gained during our years of dedication to our craft.

Learning will remain our theme. Cultivating our learning into the wisdom we may pass on to our students and clients will remain the driving force behind the constant passage of integrity behind all we endeavor.

The last eighteen years of business have enabled each of us, Cathy and da harv, some thirty six thousand hours, in order to turn some of what we have learned, into the wisdom we endeavor to pass on.

“Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune.”

“Wisdom will not support ignorance.”

Working Reality

2011-02-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

Ever dread being in front of a particular somebody who, even in his or her own dreams, wouldn’t be referred to as a director? Usually a guy or gal who epitomizes the true meaning of the word "ego."

Forget about it, my friends. You’re going to have to deal with it, whether you like it or not. It’s your work, your profession, and perhaps what happens in order to feed your family. Just grin and bear it. Tomorrow will be a better day. Remember, mediocrity is not limited to politicians. There are many folks within our industry whose positions of attainment are quizzical at best. Total wonderment, to say the least. How did they get where they are?

As said a million times before da harv came along, the audition is your life’s work as a voice over artist. The gig itself is really the icing on the cake. Bad direction during the audition presents nothing more than a work-around for the experienced actor. All of us develop little tricks, allowing for our own good taste, in order to interpret the audition script. But the little tricks you will develop must never be hurtful or cause embarrassment to the person who is there to direct you. It’s just like being in a restaurant: Don’t insult your waiter or waitress. Good to know the food you're about to eat doesn’t have any "getting even" quality to it.

The same applies to your audition director. It’s nice to know your audition makes it to the powers that be. Treat your audition director with reverence whether he or she has earned it or not.

The actual session, on the other hand, is a different story. You’re being paid to be there, and to take and follow directions. Please don’t fall into the terrible trap of doing an analysis of the director’s personality (reserve becoming a psychologist for when you are a paid professional).

AT THE SESSION

DISCLAIMER: WHAT FOLLOWS IS MY OWN, PERSONAL, DIRECTOR'S POINT OF VIEW.

Most of what I am going to impart will apply almost entirely to commercial sessions, as opposed to theatrical performances. Reason being: The commercial session more often than not brings with it far more cooks than should be in the proverbial kitchen. This phenomenon requires much more tolerance on the part of the director, as well as the actors involved.

I.e., at one session which I was hired to direct, there were no less than fifteen people in the control area with me. That’s not a typo. Fifteen people who, (borrowing from Orson Welles) within the depths of their ignorance, still managed to offer an overabundance of unnecessary babble for the actors to cipher. That is, in the event I’ve allowed them to do so. Some were from the advertising agency, while others were with the production company responsible for the animated characters we were there to create the voices for. While this represents an extreme situation, it did happen, and it exemplifies the necessity for the actor to be and stay focused on what the assigned director is requesting of them.

NOTE: If the director happens to be yours truly (ME), you can expect total courtesy.

Your job will be to listen and look at me when I’m speaking to you, or in the case of multiple actors in the recording booth simultaneously, to pay equal attention to me (as your director) even when I am offering direction to one or more of the other actors involved.

The people positioned behind me are not privy to my facial expression.

(I make sure to position myself so as not to allow a reflection of da harv to appear on the glass, which separates the control room from the recording booth.)

Unless the lead producer insists on speaking directly to the actor or actors in the booth, I will be the only one (as director) giving you instructions.

(I set this up in advance with the assigned engineer, who makes sure I have the only button to activate the microphones on our side of the glass.)

In other words… if the people behind me have anything to say, I’m the one who will act as the translator between them and the actors. Here’s the way it is in a nutshell. I speak the actor’s language, the entourage behind me doesn’t. But, at the same time, we must never lose track of the team’s objectives. Yes, there were far too many people present during the session. All of them in attendance had the same target to focus in on; the best voice over performances possible. If however they were all allowed to communicate their thoughts to the actors, we might all still be there trying to complete the project. I will admit, fifteen people in the booth at the same time could be a record attendance. What is mind-boggling about the session I’ve described for you, is the same mistake is constantly being perpetrated throughout our industry. Once again, what it all boils down to is: Too many cooks spoil the broth. They simply don’t get it.

The bottom line: Our job as the actor or director is to do the very best we can.

I find the easiest way to accomplish this goal is to stay in the game no matter how difficult conditions may become. It’s not an audition.

The fact is, we’re being paid to listen and to do.

Revisiting

2011-01-28T16:00:00.000-08:00

Maybe it’s because digital cameras didn’t exist during my days in the United States Army, that I have maintained a fondness for the snap shots which still remain in my possession today.

Taking photos had a certain romance involved with the process. There was always a wait-and-see-what-they-would-look-like flavor to it all. Nothing was instant, especially when you happen to be many thousands of miles from home, and the vendor responsible for film development can’t speak anything more than broken English.

I’m reminded of the Orson Welles words in the wine commercials, “We will sell no wine before it’s time.”

Time. It moves when it wants to. Years, far too quickly, while a child waiting for their presents to be delivered, far too slowly.

Romance should never be allowed to turn into memories, but should take forever as it occurs, and the anguish of anticipated pain measured by less than the smallest instant taken.

Waiting for the words "you will be allowed to come home" was a time span too lengthy to be measured.

As is my want, I often review, from a time seemingly long ago, a photo in which I appear too young to ever be that young. Perhaps only those of you old enough to recognize your own physical change will appreciate fully what I will relate.

It was a time when cigarettes were ten cents a pack, my brand new Ford convertible was less than twenty five hundred dollars, and I was able to buy it with five hundred bucks as a down payment, against a monthly payment of seventy dollars. That beautiful car of mine was able to go anywhere on a couple of bucks worth of twenty-five cents a gallon gasoline. It had to be that price because I was only earning seventy dollars a week. After payroll deductions, my net pay came to a total of fifty-seven dollars a week.

But some of my most cherished remembrances are just that, remembrances. No photographs. Not even the old places I can drive by and look at. It must forever remain in my mind's eye in order to relive, recapture by the wonderment derived from the ability to reflect.

“Would you prefer color, or will black and white prints do the trick?”

Color photography for the non-professional was still some years away from being available. So today as I revisit my senior high school prom night, I see myself, all decked out in a rented tuxedo, posed along side the most beautiful girl at the prom. The orchid I presented her with is still perched, and remains in full bloom adjoining her strapless formal gown. I met Gail following the finish of a baseball game I had just pitched and won against her across-town school. She was a year younger than me, and was quite taken with my athlete star demeanor.

The photograph of the two of us is of course a still shot, but somehow it continues to have a life about it. It was an evening of romance, free from love.

Every actor, writer, director, producer, or creative source should every so often look at a time period of his or her life, and conjure what was and what wasn’t. In reflection, my prom was a romantic evening taking place at a time period, existing for no more than a single day; standing back and capturing what the truth was. And then easily describing the joy of the moment, the anticipation of Gail’s answer, whether or not she would be my date for the prom, and finally the reality of its truth as a fleeting moment.

And with reflection, often comes salvation; salvation in a form only yours to assume, if you choose to do so.

The performers I was so blessed to have experienced and worked with, first hand remain forever on the old recordings, films, and television shows. I’m free to listen to Sinatra, and view a photograph of the man taken at the time he performed in person. I was there in Las Vegas watching him on stage in complete command, while giving the audience far more than they could have possibly expected.

Las Vegas was the entertainment bargain of the ages. I doubt if there will ever be a comparable package. The best food in the world, being served twenty-four hours each day for the lowest prices imaginable.

When I first visited Las Vegas, we stayed at the old Sahara Hotel for a grand total of ten dollars a night. And it wasn’t a low-end accommodation. Appearing as an opening act in the Sahara Lounge was a rather young Don Rickles. Followed by the headliners, Louie Prima, and Keeley Smith, with Sam Butera and the Witnesses. It was free admission, and no cover or minimum. Just walk in, sit down, maybe order a drink for a $1.00, and watch the show. Then off to the Sands and the Rat Pack. Las Vegas treated me to Lena Horn, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Ella Fitzgerald, and about everyone you could think of. A weekend was almost more candy than any enthusiast could stand.

But still to this day, of all the thousands of actors and actresses I have met and or directed, one woman made the most lasting impression on me as a young man. There will never be another Peggy Lee, in my estimation. Those were the high-flying nightclub days on Sunset Boulevard, in Hollywood. The two "in" places for a performer to appear were Ciros and The Macambo. I was introduced to Peggy Lee by Dave Barry, the erstwhile comedian who served as her opening act.

We shook hands outside the club, and as a young man it was all over for me. I fell in love with her instantly. On stage Peggy Lee was the sexiest performer I had ever seen or heard. A close second was the absolutely unbelievable Lena Horn. Even mentioning Peggy Lee and Lena Horn in the same sentence brings a reflection I will always be able to count on as an everlasting truth, depicting quality, and the best ever.

What You Have, and What You Were Given

2011-01-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

“Let the artist live, let him be enchanted, disappointed, happy; let him suffer, love, and live through the entire gamut of human emotions, but let him at the same time learn to recreate his life and his emotions into art.”
- Constantine Stanislavski

"Each and every day I will place before you all that I have lived for, lived with, and have learned from, during the ten thousand hours necessary in order for the artist within me to emerge."
- Hk / 2010

I have allowed people to teach me.

And with it far too many questions arise. Is it because of the day and time I live in?

I learn, during the allotted twenty-four hour prescriptions, yet I find myself, creatively without the necessary skills to apply what I have earnestly striven to accomplish.

Why is it for many of us, the more skilled and adept at our craft we become, the less we see ourselves accomplishing all which we have set out as our life’s goals, or aspirations, dreams, and satisfactions?

Wandering through life’s numerous abstractions it causes me to often think about young children who come to our big party with a seemingly apparent learning disorder. Perhaps theirs is a version of mine?

What if we could slow down the twenty-four hour cycle by adding minutes to each hour for them? The new scenario would provide for classrooms with clocks, having faces displaying two extra hours of time.

And what if each of the children had their own button to press, which would set the clock back, giving them an expanded time period?

Do you think there might be a possibility some of those children didn’t have a learning disorder?

A man began by saying to me, “We’re going to practice some learning skills. I’m going to teach you a great way to learn. When you work on how to learn, the rest will come easily.”

He pointed out the power of our God-given senses. It was never a stock statement, like "I want you to pay attention." I would hear things like, “Look at this, Harv." I remember him saying this and simultaneously covering my eyes with his hand. Of course, I responded with the obvious, not being able to see with my eyes covered.

“That’s the point," he said. “Always keep your eyes wide open, and try to see as many things as you can.”

The man had given me a method for learning, along with the precise instructions to go along with it. The process was a simple example (covering my eyes) followed by, “Always keep your eyes wide open, and try to see as many things as you can.”

During the ensuing years, I continually practiced what he had given me. When I was very young, I was under the impression I would be able to see more things if there was a way to open my eyes wider.

As we drove together, I’d be in the back, pressed against a window, using my thumb and index fingers on each hand to hold my eyes open as wide as they would stretch. When I discovered it would cause others who drove passed us to laugh at my birdman appearance, I took it to school with me and enjoyed the laughs it got. When one of my teachers (most of them resented me) witnessed what I was up to, she asked what I thought I was doing. “I’m practicing how to be an observer,” I replied. Most of the kids didn’t have a clue to what I was taking about.

(She has to be long ago dead, so I guess it’s okay to mention her name: Mrs. Kaplan.)

By now you must have guessed, the man responsible for all of this was, of course my dear father.

Mrs. Kaplan figured she had me now, so I was told to explain it to the class, and to come up to the front of the room, by her desk. Mrs. Kaplan was so in to herself, she had little idea of whom she was dealing with. After all, I was the class humorist. I loved that nomenclature (humorist), as opposed to being called the "class clown." I wasn’t the kind of kid who might jump up on to a desk in order to get the students' attention. That, of course, would be clowning. I loved disrupting the class by telling a story I had heard. In my eyes, it's what Will Rogers or Robert Benchley would do.

In any event, there I was, in front of the class, along side Mrs. Kaplan’s desk.

Note: By now it was the fourth grade. I believe I was nine years old. My voice over career had begun. I was about to perform a living narration, explaining what a powerful tool observation was and could ultimately be. My daddy had introduced me to his way to practice when I was entering the first or second grade. It gave me a hefty three to four years of working out under my belt in preparation for this day in front of the class. The stage was mine. Eat your heart out, Mrs. Kaplan.

I asked my fellow students how many of them had a favorite baseball team. All hands went up. Not a tough question for any kids from New York, specifically a Brooklyn(ite) to answer.

I picked out one of the boys, and asked him to name each of the players on his favorite team (it was the Brooklyn Dodgers). He did so easily. Most of the kids who were Dodger fans instantly agreed. Now I asked them to give me the number of each player. They all did so in a snap, including the manager, all the coaches, and the team trainer.

We all agreed how easy a task it was. But then I went on to say, “You were all able to do what I asked, because you’re all observers. You’ve all been practicing by way of doing it over and over again. It’s called observing.” Even crab ass Kaplan liked that one, though she wouldn’t acknowledge I had done anything well.

So far I had only used up about ten minutes of class time. Then I picked out my favorite little girlfriend Miriam (last name deleted in order to protect the innocent). I had her come up and stand by me, with her back to the class. “Now Miriam,” I instructed, “Tell us the name of every one in this class in order of where you remember them sitting.” In nothing flat, Miriam did her thing easily.

* Both the naming of the Dodger team, and the placement of each student was done so by the ability to observe.

* The practice of observation creates the subconscious memorization of just about anything, when the observation itself is more than occasionally adhered to.

* People have been described as poor observers. The underlying factor however, is they are basically lazy.

Think about it. What I have just recalled is in direct alignment with my opening reference to Stanislavski.

“Let the artist live, let him be enchanted, disappointed, happy; let him suffer, love, and live through the entire gamut of human emotions, but let him at the same time learn to recreate his life and his emotions into art.”

And with a well-cultivated ability to observe, will come an automatic stimulation of the senses, our friend Stanislavski so adamantly advises us. They are the most vital of necessities, for every actor who seeks the reliability of substance.

For it is within the substance which we alone can become aware of an innate ability to look into, and dig deeply, searching for inner meanings of the writer's intent. Only then could any actor possibly bring to, and present our audience with the total truth as he perceives it to be. Then, upon one's perceiving it to be true, it will be so.

I became privy one day to a translation of a foreign language newspaper interview of Stanislavski. In it, the young reporter brought to the surface a comparison of an actor's depth capabilities he was not expecting to hear. Most of the time the questions were of a benign nature, never requiring much more than a superficial answer, especially at this particular segment of the Stanislavski career. He was assuredly at the highest point he would ever attain.

It was well into the end of the hour when the reporter asked and received more than expected.

“How does an actor perceive the truth?” he asked.

“He reflects upon it from another era, or near space in his time spent.” More or less, the reporter retorted with how he didn’t get it. Stanislavski replied, "The more one lives, the more they have in their reflective arsenal."

Propriety; impropriety; despair; elation; birth; death; ceremony, and celebration, when all are visually true, the verbal description or portrayal of the incidents may be interpreted as such. The audience will, without exception recognize the truth. They may find the truth disturbing: If they do, perhaps then true theater is an experience they too will one day reflect upon.

The audiences are the gods. Never lie to them.

The Promo and the Tag

2011-01-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

There is a great similarity between a promo actor, and a commercial actor. In both cases truth casting applies.

In the so-called old days, “promo guys” were all cut from the same cloth. Either the Ernie Anderson basso, or the Casey Kasem sweet, sweet, “California Crackle.” Both of these men, for many years, led the way. Combined, they arguably earned more money than any other two actors in the business, during the same time period.

What Casey and Ernie had in common was conviction. They both believed that they were the best salesmen in the world; one with sweetness, the other with outright arrogance.

Amazingly enough, both sweetness and arrogance translated into sincerity. Why? Because it was their truth.

In that era, from the late forties to the late sixties, there were literally only three major playgrounds for the commercial promo actor: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Of course, most cities had their own local channels, but those were not the fertile big money domains enjoyed by a network promo announcer.

Today, the promo producers use a wide variety of types. Men, women, kids, adults, younger, older, upbeat, sarcastic, sincere, loving, and scary. Well, you name it, and they’ll use it on air. The old days are obviously gone. For the actor… they weren’t the “Good Old Days.” It was nothing more than a limiting time for the vast majority, and a prosperous time for the very few that fell within the limited guidelines of what was then acceptable.

While we exist within a subjective art form, we must never the less strive for certainty whenever possible.

What do we know about the promo? What stands out, besides the great sums of money an actor might make for seemingly very little work?

The very nature of the promo demands that the actor selected must be an exceptionally good reader.

If it’s written in English, our actor should be able to read it with ease.

The actor must be able to handle last minute, and constant script changes.

This isn’t the place for a prima donna.

This is the place for the professional who by nature is confident, and comfortable with and within themselves.

The actor must be able to perform multiple attitude transitions under tight time constraints.

It pleases me to offer that many successful promo people are graduates of Kalmenson & Kalmenson.

Proponents of our method have praised the "lead-in" as their tool for quick study, when they find themselves in the throes of being handed a stack of twenty or thirty promos to deliver. As I said earlier: "This isn’t the place for an actor who keeps dropping words."

Like any program where the rewards are great, the work it takes to get there is in concurrence. For any outsider looking in, the determination of how simple it looks and sounds to be a promo actor announcer is a classic underestimate of the talent and perseverance required.

Having had many of today’s premier promo actors as both students and colleagues allows me to make an in-depth appraisal of what these guys who are making the big bucks have in common (well, maybe not so in-depth).

It almost always boils down to a few of the same human determinations actors must make for themselves. Of course, first and foremost for every active competitor is the question: “How badly do you want it?” In other words… are you willing to sacrifice your time, energy, money, while sharing the experience of frustration almost everyone before you living a similar adventure has had to live with?

There is a bright light, however. In the days of the earliest of promo actors, there were far less outlets for their work. Ernie Anderson and Casey Kasem had the basic three to ply their talents. With the advent of cable, and other networks as well, today’s marketplace for the promo actor has increased substantially.

◊ The closest thing to an actor is his or her website. Showcase your talent on your own website. Tell people what you do and give them a sample of your work.

◊ Multiple representations around the country, especially if you have your own home studio, are now commonplace.

◊ Today, an actor can electronically have many agents; New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are absolute musts for the serious voice over promo talent.

◊ Web content companies, production companies, independent movie trailer companies, and of course every recording studio where the human voice is being recorded can serve as an outlet for your talent. Many actors are booked in as last minute replacements due to a variety of extenuating circumstances.

◊◊◊

The Tag

They called it a tag.

There were only a few words on the page.

And to add insult to injury, none of it made sense to me. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was during my short-lived (seven year) career as a commercial talent agent.

The head of our voice over department had informed me in his raspy tones that today I was to direct some tags. Trust me... I had no idea of what a tag was. Guess what. My boss, the guy who had given me the assignment, really didn’t know what the technical definition of a tag was.

Simply stated, a tag is a word or line, that usually appears at the end of a commercial script, and that, that particular line does not change the meaning of a previous script that also contained, or was void of a tag. In other words when an actor does a tag they receive payment of the then established tag rate. An actor may be hired expressly for the sole and singular purpose of doing the tags on a series of commercials. The sponsor may tag as many commercials as he chooses to without having to pay for an additional session providing the tag does not change the meaning of any individual commercial. If the meaning is changed, they, the sponsor must pay you for an additional commercial. Now if none of this makes any sense to you it doesn’t really matter. Your agent is the one who is required to know about all this crap.

“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”

“With a name like Smuckers, it’s has to be good!”

“Miller light. Everything you’ve always wanted in a beer and less!”

"Chevy. Like a rock!”

"Ford. No boundaries!”

And of course, the question: “Do you... Yahoo?”

Those are just six of the many tags that I could have mentioned. Each of them accomplished exactly what the sponsor’s ad agency was attempting to do. That is, become a household saying. Each of these tags comes from a different time period, yet all of them are remembered.

The average actor might say how lucky these people were to get a tag like that to perform. Certainly I would have to agree that a great deal of luck was involved.

In many cases, we may audition hundreds of actors for one single tag. We at Kalmenson might not be the only casting people in the country that are conducting a search for just that one individual who happens to be letter perfect. That one voice who could be the “Bud”, the “Wise”, or the “Err” that came out of the three most famous frogs in the world. As an aside and as a point of interest, we were the ones who found the Budweiser Frogs. But during the course of the last twenty-five years, we’ve been able to find many different voices and sounds that have become easily identified in households all over the country.

While we did mention luck on the part of the winning actors, there is nevertheless a great deal of skill and confidence that was also part of their winning formula.

Okay... here’s the basis for their magic: Entitlement. Da harv has had numerous professional experiences with the actors who were the chosen ones for all of the previously mentioned tags. They all have that belonging thing in common. They are all comfortable with themselves as people. They have all settled in. We can’t teach that. All I can do is point it out to all of you. These actors all believe that their individual truth gives them the right to influence our lives. That’s their breakthrough as actors.

They are able to look the other guy right in the eye and tell him the truth.

Keeping it Together (as a professional, that is)

2010-12-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

Firstly, here comes the disclaimer: Who am I to offer advice on how to keep it together?

Yes, I do have a lot of work experience, the kind you might think would help me to be an expert on the subject of how not to become a sniveler, sappy, crybaby, girlie-man who cries when he sees an event, like a squirrel hiding their nuts in the ground.

Never drink alcohol before making a presentation of any kind (if there is any chance of becoming unwound or losing it, alcohol is guaranteed to bring on a performer's emotional undoing).

Certainly I'm not the first nor will I be the last speaker who worries about keeping it together (not losing it) when the subject of the presentation is one of such heart-rendering emotion. It tests our ability as caring human beings to keep from losing it; a time when we find ourselves unable to continue. I’ve been there on many occasions during the course of my professional appearances.

One would be inclined to think the ability to perform without an overt display of emotion would become easier as one gains in experience. Yes and no. The bottom line, of course, is who we really are as individuals.

Obviously, we’re not all the same. Some of us, by nature are just more emotional than others. An obvious assertion.

For the sake of conversation, I’m limiting what I have to say to those of us who make, or are destined to make presentations to groups in public.

Regardless as to whether or not we have emotional stability in our every day life, we are faced with the task of performing as professionals; reportage, being an event guide, or speaking on behalf of a group of people, either paid, or as an obligation to assist during a time of crisis. The thickest of human skin has suffered through a melt-down at always the most inopportune of times. It could come during an audition for the lowliest of jobs. Environment as well as subject matter, or what may have recently occurred in your (our) own personal life,

Activate the emotional trigger. When pulled, it creates a will of its own.

Holding it together while rendering the voice during a fundraiser commercial for deprived children is one form of public service announcement, which almost always promotes more emotional involvement than the norm. There are many more of similar category.

Have you ever wondered how people who appear to be like you in every way, manage to hold it together, and still show attachment for the subject, or the event they are tending to? This coming at a time when you are inwardly concerned with your own personage.

There are methods, tricks of the trade, supposedly designed to enable one to go on with his or her presentation, while experiencing a lip beginning to quiver or a mouth becoming dry, as a personal sensitivity to the subject matter begins finding it’s way to an uncomfortable place of no return.

I marvel at those who have mastered their own personal method of being able to perform with great passion, while being able to keep from presenting an out-of-control display of emotion. Some very strong men and women have shed a tear during one of these moments.

Many high profile and prominent leaders use the method of reading and rereading a script over and over again, until they supposedly become immune to experiencing an uncontrolled display of emotion. This method carries with it the risk of being perceived as uncaring.

Of course the easiest of all tricks to remember would be an inward feeling or expression of anger, or dismay.

(Even the wrong attitude can serve as something to focus in on in order to break away from what you feel is about to happen.)

What follows is a thumbnail look at some of history's grand men and women, who managed to make it through a variety of trying events.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressing congress, and asking for a declaration of war following the December 7, 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. He was deathly serious, angry, and personally affronted by “a date that will live in infamy,” as he put it.

Our president's visage was grave. Our country had suffered one of the worst indignities; we were hit, and our only alternative was retaliation.

For our president, tears were not an option. Can you imagine if FDR went before congress, and began to sob as he asked them for a declaration of war?

Sir Winston Churchill was in my opinion the best of the very best. Historians have a positive consensus of opinion regarding his ability to rally his country and, many feel, ours as well.

In 1941, as his country experienced the death toll of air raids as a nightly regimen, Sir Winston stepped to the podium in order to address the congress of the United States for the first time.

“[Japan’s leaders] have certainly embarked on a very considerable undertaking [Laughter]…What kind of people do they think we are?”

And for the above, Sir Winston received a standing ovation. Perhaps the most monumentally depressive moment in world history, was never the less treated with the aplomb and dignity only a person of his stature could possibly have effectuated.

"Undertaking" (the word), signifying the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and "undertaking" (the word) as the reference to the corpse at a funeral home, was delivered to congress with complete and total understanding. Hence a moment of laughter, ultimately followed by a standing and thunderous ovation of thanks for the encouragement.

In this situation… there was no time for the shedding of tears. He was a world leader, at work, leading!

The thought of breaking down never entered Winston Churchill’s mind.

Although FDR and Winston Churchill were experiencing a never before crises of overpowering magnitude, the scope of the historical events preceding their speeches far out weighed the grief of any individual's suffering. Their concern was for the survival of their respective countries. It becomes far more difficult to contain one's self when the suffering is individualized.

An athlete making a goodbye or farewell speech at the end of a career, upon retirement, often turns into a tearjerker for all concerned.

I’m always reminded of the movie “Pride Of The Yankees,” when Gary Cooper playing the part of the famous Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig, steps up to the microphone at a packed Yankee Stadium, and delivers the now immortal line, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man in the world”; there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater. He touched us as individuals. His loss became ours, and so the tears flowed. In retrospect, much of Lou Gehrig’s departure speech did serve as encouragement for thousands of people who found they too suffering through some form or another of life’s unforeseen trials. Doubtful if this category of speech can ever be properly prepared for.

Margaret Thatcher

At a time in her career when the press as well as the parliament was tossing rocks and boulders at her, she managed from deep within an effervescence, which served as a rallying point for herself and her country at the same time. She stepped up to the microphone on what was to be recorded as one of her most auspicious outings.

It came at a particularly trying time for the prime minister of England, but as opposed to succumbing to human and emotional upheaval, she followed in the sublime footsteps of Sir Winston, as she delivered with:

“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and importance, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.”

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, they have not a single political argument left.”

And for me, the most difficult performance assignment is definitely the one where I know in advance of the people who will be in the audience. Those who, along with me, have experienced a loss, or a change of guard, after many years of personal association.

A real life recent example of this would have been delivering the eulogy of the late great basketball announcer, Chick Hearn. (I’m glad I wasn’t the one chosen for this assignment). In this particular case, the high visibility of this very personal individual brings with it the additional pressures of a celebrity-packed audience.

(Note: If you’re ever called on to extol the virtues during the celebration of a person’s life, it’s a necessity to stay focused. Putting names with the faces in the audience can be a terrible distraction. Eye contact is not the key to a good performance in this instance. Seeing a close friend or acquaintance begin to tear up isn’t exactly a stabilizing factor.)

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

"I Owe It To Them" Attitude

Some events are obviously far more taxing then others. As the master of ceremonies at a local beauty pageant, the danger of me being driven to tears would not normally exist.

(I mean, how bad could it be, surrounded by a group of look good, smell good, bright young women who by nature are seeking approval.)

Who Am I

2010-12-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

What is it that helps you identify a person by the sound of his or her voice?

Sure the first and probably best answer would be "familiarity." That one's the easiest to remember.

If you chat with a person often enough, you most likely will be able to recognize their sound after just hearing a word or two. We all have our own distinctive voice print. High or low, fast talker or slow, or maybe as clear as a bell; maybe too darn soft, or way too loud most of the time. Some of us even might sound like they need to be oiled to help get rid of that damn squeaky sound. Or there are people like da harv who have that "lived-in" sound that some describe as whiskey, or dry, or used. Voice recognition. For sure it’s the same process as identifying a musical instrument. I mean a musical instrument that’s not plugged into a wall socket. I’m referring to the sound of a violin, or a guitar, or a trumpet. We’ve all grown up listening to these and similar musical instruments as well as listening to an enormous variety of sounds that emanate from the human instrument.

Just as there are many people who are very adept musicians, there are also many actors who are extremely good readers and, in addition to that, have a magnificent sounding instrument.

The very same may be said about singers.

What we’re getting at now is not a question of whether or not they have a recognizable sound, or how pretty that sound may be. What I’m moving towards is what we listen for as casting directors. What magic do these seemingly special people have? The people who manage to get the work. The "demand players," regardless of what art form they have chosen to pursue. Why do they manage to excel in the most subjective art form of all: The Voice Over. The verbal Picasso’s; each of these wonderful artists has developed their own comfort zone. We choose to call it their own "signature."

Imagine that we have a Stradivarius at our disposal. Arguably the best crafted and best sounding musical instrument known to man. Along with our Stradivarius, we are miraculously able to assemble the three most renowned violin virtuosos in the world. Each of our violinists will be playing the same piece of music on our Stradivarius. It’s the classical piece: “Schubert's Serenade.” As each of our musicians concludes their rendering, we find ourselves emotionally moved by the individuality of their musical interpretations.

Here’s the point. All three used the same instrument and played the same piece of music. We found ourselves completely entertained and spiritually moved by their performances. Yet, despite the similarities, there was noticeably a masterful difference that stood out. Each of our players had their own way of telling the truth. Each had an individual signature. When we examine the instant replay and slow down the tape, more of their differences can be observed without even listening to the sound. Each of our musicians handles their instrument with a different form of obvious care. Their appearance on stage is dissimilar; their stances have individuality, as do their facial displays. So what makes them different? What gives one a more dramatic feel than the others? What makes one sound as if only pleasantness has surrounded their lifetime?

The answer to all of these questions surely must be qualified as being subjective. Our experience with many years within the creative world has taught us, if nothing else, that methods for creating emotion can not be manufactured. Our proven method can only help bring out what was already there for you to either share or hide from the world.

Our musicians displayed honest emotions. What they had in common was two-fold. On one hand there were all the mechanical moves for making themselves comfortable. I refer to their setup. Their own way of coming on stage and with a nod, allowing that they were ready to perform. That was the obvious.

But in that singular instant of what appeared to be nothing more than setup time, something else occurred. In an instant almost too minimal to notice, the three of them in their own way displayed a calm and a confidence that emanated from their total and absolute belief: "I belong here. I am entitled." Every odor, every site line, every audience murmur was a reinstitution of personal joy. They reeked of belonging. And what in the name of hell does all or any of this have to do with voice over? The "what’s missing" is the fact that these professionals all were able to consistently visualize there past images of success. All this accomplished in an instant. And all attributed to one simple word: Reflection.

I’ll admit that what I’m about to share with you was said by a kid with a very high IQ. The fact that it was a five year old kid makes the simplicity and depth of what follows a touch on the over-powering side. Trust me for a moment more, I do have a reason for relating a poignant incident.

It happened on a warm and sunny day during a summer school break. The schoolyard on this Saturday afternoon was a bustle with a bunch of kids as busy as you could possibly be, doing what kids are supposed to do: Having fun. You all know how five-year-old little boys play. They go all out until they drop. Then and only then, they know that it might be time to stop. Mom might be calling them home to eat, or dad is there to put his own boy on his shoulders for the ride home.

One of the dads, as he helped to tie his son’s shoe, asked the little guy playfully what was keeping that big smile stamped on his face. “I’m thinking about what a great day I had today, and what a good time I’m going to have tomorrow,” was the reply to his father's question.

Well, you might be under the impression that my story is over. I don’t blame you. That was pretty powerful stuff coming from a five year old. I mean, the kid was able to reflect in order to feel happiness. But remember, I began by saying the kid had a very high IQ. Hold on... it gets better. Since they only lived a couple of blocks from the neighborhood school yard, our young group arrived home in no more than a few short minutes.

Our little boy's closest friend managed to make it home first. When our father and son approached their front door they found the friend sitting on the front porch with tears in his eyes. It didn’t take long to find out that the friend's little dog was nowhere to be found. It was one of those times when a kid knows that an end had come. The two boys sat there on the porch, asking about the dog. In a few minutes, Dad returned to the front porch and found the two boys once again in a good mood. That night after dinner, he asked his boy what had made his little friend happy again. “I don’t know, Dad. All I did was remind him of how great a time we had today, and how we were going to do the same thing tomorrow.” Wow. A promise of future happiness based on a five year old's reflection of the past.

While the afternoon was a fleeting moment in the day of a five year old, it never the less served as a lesson learned. Emotion shared freely brings a purity that can not be challenged. Here we have an incident when a five year old was able to bring comfort to his friend by reminding his friend of what happiness they had shared. Need I use the term "reflection" again? While it might not be necessary, I’m going to end this little sermon with a reminder: The most important commodity we might have been endowed with is a brain that gives us all the ability to recall a pleasant moment. Again, we’re back with my favorite tool for comprehension. The ability to recall honestly.

Emotion shared freely brings a purity that cannot be challenged.

A Recent Disturbance

2010-12-21T16:55:00.001-08:00

Not bad, I would say; after nineteen years of not keeping my love for the United States of America a secret, only one person who partakes in the services being rendered by Kalmenson & Kalmenson has voiced an objection to our generous displays of our country's flag.

The man who did so actually put his feelings in writing. He referred to the American flag as being “Harvey’s flag.” I was under the impression it was our flag. He pointed out: Politics has no place in the workplace. In his eyes, I guess I was making a political statement. I was under the impression our American flag was significant for all political affiliations. In this great country of ours, this complainer has the right to say just about anything he wants to. He also has the right to pick and choose attending whatever event is open to the general public.

Displaying our American flag is a prideful and patriotic gesture. For many out there like Harvey Kalmenson it represents a love I’ve had for my country from the time I was a little boy, and further cultivated as a wartime member of the United States Army.

My American flags will remain unfurled and unbowed.

To Tell the Truth

2010-12-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

Remain natural. Be yourself. Don’t go for it.

The toughest assignment for an actor is to remain natural.

As a young director, I was warned by my mentors to try to stay away from asking an actor to be themselves. I was told that many actors haven’t a clue to who or what they really are. In fact I was also told that many actors think they know but are under a misguided conception of what their truth really is. Others might not want to know.

So here’s a very broad statement to chew on. If you don’t want to discover and practice your own individual truth, your chances of becoming successful as a professional actor will be unmercifully diminished. It may not make you happy to discover your truth as a human being, but knowing your truth will definitely give you a tremendous leg up as an actor.

There are times in my travels when an encounter with an actor in an everyday situation is disappointing at best. I'm referring to a chance meeting at some sort of function or during a casual coffee shop conversation. Coming away from the encounter with the feeling that this guy or gal came across as being rather shallow; they didn’t have the ability to share their true feelings with me. And then to meet that same person in the actor/director environment, only to be elated as well as surprised by their total ability to tell the truth through the eyes of another. That other person that I refer to is the character they happen to be portraying. What they don’t want to give into is the fact that, whatever they may think of it as, playacting is still a way of telling the truth.

Perhaps one of the greatest actors of all time said it as succinctly as any actor I’ve ever heard when he responded when asked during an interview what his acting method was:

“Well I just look the other actor right in the eye and tell them the truth. The truth was always evident in any role portrayed by that actor.” - James Cagney

Many actors who had the opportunity to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock usually were in for a big surprise when they discovered how little direction he offered in the way of acting. One day, when Carey Grant asked Hitchcock for some advice on how to interpret the meaning of a particular scene, Hitchcock responded with: “You’re here because you’re right for it.”

In his own way he was telling Carey Grant to be himself. That was the end of the acting direction. Hitchcock sought the truth and that’s what his actors gave him. During another incident involving Mr. Hitchcock, a visitor to the set had the guts (or the stupidity) to endanger his life by, without warning, asking Hitchcock to explain why he wasn’t looking at his actors during a rehearsal of the scene. Mr. Hitchcock’s reply: “I can hear what they look like.”

That response has become a major part of my professional career. For many years, I have earned my living listening to actors. As your audience, if you tell me the truth, I will buy from you, and I will allow you to influence my life.

Just as a reminder, the Kalmenson Method was derived by the means of close study of the most successful actors in our industry during the course of more years than I desire to call attention to.

Many of the attributes the foremost talents have in common became apparent to me. By and large these weren’t the actors that the general public described or held in esteem as celebrities. These were and are the journeyman actors.

John Houseman expounded on his credo for success. He advised us to be journeyman actors, to practice and study our craft, to search for a way to grow everyday, to be an observer with our eyes and with our ears, and to find a way to tell someone, anyone, a story that they might believe.