For instance, the movie time listings in the NY Daily News. As a very young movie buff, I would love when my father would go down to the 241st Street news stand at night and bring up the "night owl" edition of the next day's paper. There was virtually no timely news in it, but I didn't care. I needed to digest the local theater movie times and plan out how to get my parents to take me to my next foray into the RKO Proctors or Loews of Mount Vernon, New York.
I was doing this at the age of five and it is primarily the reason why my reading skills were so accelerated that I skipped the first grade.
The same could be said for the TV Guide. It came out every Wednesday and the bundle at Bob's Candy Store around the corner had been barely opened before I was walking out with next week's edition. Heck, I had to plot seven nights of prime time viewing. I had a whole grid set up in my bedroom that listed all of my favorite TV shows. Plus I had to do the crossword puzzle.
I lived for Wednesdays. My parents once subscribed to TV Guide via the mail. It didn't show up until Thursday or...gasp...Friday.
That didn't work for me. I somehow got that subscription rescinded pretty quickly.
You would think that, with age, I would grow up a bit with this obsessive behavior.
Er, not so much.
Once I got to the ninth grade, I was even more immersed in the entertainment world. Back then, there was no Entertainment Weekly or Entertainment Tonight or TMZ. Nope, my only source of information was...
Variety.
The show business bible. Totally for insiders or people in the know.
And me.
I had learned about this industry newspaper from watching reruns of "I Love Lucy." They were always talking about it in relation to Ricky's screen test in Hollywood or the new nightclub he was opening. And, as the junior film and TV buff, this was the only way for me to go as well.
Now, the national paper itself (I had no idea that there was a daily version that got printed in Hollywood every single day) came out on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, I had no access to it when the ink was still wet. But, for some inexplicable reason, there was a store in Mount Vernon that got it delivered by Saturday.
The Intown Newspaper store on First Street and Fourth Avenue. Don't ask me why, but they somehow managed to get three copies of the newspaper every week. I mean, it's not like there were many big show biz moguls roaming around Mount Vernon. But, by Saturday at noon, one of their three copies was already in my hands.
That was my Saturday morning ritual throughout my high school years. Walking down First Street from Fifteenth Avenue to Intown for my Variety. In the snow. In the ice. In the blistering winds that always seemed to envelop my route.
Sometimes, I would multi-task on the route and visit the Mount Vernon Public Library for a book or two. But, always on the trip back, I'd be at Intown with my fifty cents. Or...gasp...seventy-five cents after the price increase. I'd tuck my prize under my arm and head home.
There would be the odd Saturdays where there would be bitter disappointment.
"Variety didn't come in this week."
I would sink back into my skin. Crestfallen, I would crawl home. And think that I was missing out on vital information that was totally necessary to my life.
Of course, most weeks, I had the paper. And, once home, I would settle into my grandmother's rocking chair and devour the print for the next two or three hours.
I would know the top grossing films of the week.
I would know all about every TV show and where they fell in the Nielsen ratings.
I would know when my favorite series were in production or in hiatus.
Even though the world was strange to me, I knew which Broadway shows were selling out. And, even though we lived relatively close to the Great White Way, it was not a venue my family ever frequented. I mean, with ticket prices of $5.80 or $6.40, even that was probably out of our league economically.
My three hours every Saturday with Variety forged my way into so many different directions that I couldn't imagine at the time. Being in broadcasting. Writing. Understanding audience ratings.
All of that would essentially form my career as an adult.
I had no clue at the time. All I knew was that, at some point during my Saturday afternoon, Grandma would walk into the living room and ask me what I was doing. I'd explain I was reading the show business newspaper "Variety."
"Okay, but don't get any of that black ink on my slipcovers. I just washed them."
Dinner last night: Moo shu pork from Century Dragon.
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