It reminded me that I had done an imaginary interview with him some years ago on the occasion of a blog anniversary. Well, given that we are coming up on another commemoration next week, I might as well recycle that dialogue with Mr. Lipton. Well, at least, as I imagined such an interview might go.
Ladies and gentlemen, here's James Lipton.
Lipton: Thanks, Len. I'm excited to be here on the occasion of the anniversary of your terrific blog, Len Speaks.
Me: Thanks, Jim. Or James. What do I call you?
Lipton: I prefer Mr. Lipton.
Me: Whatever.
Lipton: So, let's go back to the beginning. March 15, 2007. The very first entry on Len Speaks. How did this all start for you?
Me: Well, er, Mr. Lipton, I basically wanted to give myself a regular writing exercise. Some people hit the treadmill to get in shape. A writer writes to do the same thing. I had seen some other blogs and I said, "gee, I should try this." You can now flip your index card for the next question.
Lipton: What or who specifically inspired you to start Len Speaks?
Me: Well, comedy writer and now-baseball announcer Ken Levine has a terrific one that I had been reading on a daily basis. At the time, he was focusing a lot on American Idol and his recaps of that show were hilarious. As I was watching that show as well, I thought it would be fun to crack wise on my own. Of course, I never really did focus on Idol, even though I mention I will in my very first blog post which I will rerun on Thursday. These days, nobody watches or cares about Idol, so we’ve all had to move on. But, Ken’s Idol rants were the real impetus for me. Oddly enough, when I met Ken several years ago, he read my blog right in front of me. That was a bit unnerving. Sort of like what happened when my mom unexpectedly walked into my bedroom when I was 14.
Lipton: And what was that, pray tell?
Me: Go to your next index card, Jimmy. I mean, Mr. Lipton.
Lipton: So you write every single day?
Me: Like a true writer, I found a way around that. Truth be told, I do a lot of daily pieces in advance. Most of the upcoming week is planned out and written the weekend before. When I decided to do something every single day with regular features, I really needed to map out the blog in advance. Of course, I also learned how to cheat on the “writing every day” bit. Two of the days every week are devoted to videos and God bless “You Tube.” And, most Fridays are compilations of funny pictures with captions. Heck, it does take time to lay those out but they certainly go a lot quicker than the full-blown essays I usually do on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Lipton: But you have a new posting every single morning?
Me: Yeppers. I frequently post them the night before. Blogger.com lets you set up an advance time. I tell my friends who read daily that, if you don't see a new posting by 12 Noon Pacific time, please send the paramedics to my home address. Or SWAT. That actually works. About a year ago, I posted something with a wrong date. Friends went on-line, saw nothing new, and then hit the internet to find out if I was dead.
Lipton: But you also tell us what you had for dinner the night before? You don't know that in advance, do you?
Me: Yes, I actively have to load that every single day.
Lipton: What's the reason behind that feature?
Me: Well, I originally started that to let friends back East know that I was eating decently. Of course, I now have such a database of past dinners I should go back and try to find what percentage of my meals over five years included sausage.
Lipton: A favorite of yours, I understand.
Me: You sure do have a cracker jack research staff.
Lipton: Your blog has a counter at the bottom of the page. Can you see all the hits you get?
Me: Yes, and they're from all over the world. Somebody from India is on regularly, so I'm guessing Len Speaks is really popular amongst the tech staff for Dell Computers. I did worry a bit when, for about three days, there was somebody checking from the server "whitehouse.gov." I am thinking there will be a tax audit some time in the next two years.
Lipton: The picture on top of your blog never changes. Why is that?
Me: That photo is probably one of only three snapshots ever taken of me that I actually like. Sitting at LA's Farmers Market with some nifty product placement for Coca-Cola. I've been asked to vary the picture and I have given some thought to using the other two decent photos I have. But, about a year ago, the dear friend, who was on the other end of the camera lens that day, passed away. Nope, I'm never changing it now. My tribute to her. And it's only the profile picture I use on Facebook as well.
Lipton: Tell me please. Who are Saul and Heshe?
Me: They are imaginary characters I use to do commentary every year around the Oscars and the Emmys. Go into any Jewish deli in Beverly Hills from the hours of 10AM to 2PM and you will find guys like them. Old, grizzled Hollywood veterans kvetching about anybody born after 1985. I get lots of positives from readers when I use them and I'm asked to feature them more. That would be overkill. We won't be seeing "Saul and Heshe Go to Disneyland" or "Saul and Heshe Go for Prostate Exams." Let David Letterman be the one who continuously beats a good joke to death.
Lipton: Far and away, your most popular daily feature is your "Sunday Memory Drawer."
AUDIENCE APPLAUSE.
Me: Thank you very much. It's definitely the most popular and I also post it weekly on Facebook as well.
Lipton: Tell me how that started.
Me: Well, I wanted to do something that was sort of like a feature you might read leisurely in the Sunday newspapers. I thought of Sunday afternoons when I was a kid. I'd go downstairs to my grandmother's living room and, all of a sudden, she would tell me some disjointed story from her life. I started to write the same way. And, after almost four years of doing them, I have essentially composed my memoirs in this forum. And friends tell me it's a great outline for a movie.
Lipton: You seem to have an infinite supply of memories.
Me: Er, not so much. Grandma's a big focus and, unfortunately, she died in 1982 and she stopped doing funny stuff around the same time. About a month ago, I had a pretty unsettling experience that made me think that my memory drawer does have a bottom. Around my birthday in February, I told a tale about having a birthday party when I was five or so. There was a children's game and I cheated to win a set of Colorforms.
Lipton: I saw that in my research. Very funny.
Me: Uh huh. Except I was going through my archives about two weeks later and I found that I had written this up two years earlier. It's one thing to rerun a piece. It's another thing to remake one. Ironically, the first version of the Colorforms cheating incident was a lot better. So, yes, the long-winded answer to your question is that memories are finite. Luckily, in the past two months, the deaths of Gary Carter and Davy Jones have jogged some youthful thoughts and helped me to fill some weeks where the mental cupboard was bare.
Lipton: Now comes the time where I refer to famed interviewer Bernard Pivot and his questionnaire as immortalized in L'Apostrophe. Len,
what is your favorite word?
Me: Anything that starts with a "K." That's comedy.
Lipton: What is your least favorite word?
Me: Ruttabega. It's a vegetable that nobody knows how to spell correctly.
Lipton: What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Me: The sound of a friend's laughter.
Lipton: What turns you off?
Me: The sound of a friend crying. I wonder what I did.
Lipton: What is your favorite curse word?
Me: It's a tie. Fuck is always terrific. But shit also works. And it happens. Two days ago, my toilet was clogged and I was working it with a plunger. It was really messed up and I said "shit." I immediately followed that with "exactly."
Lipton: What sound or noise do you love?
Me: Well, that day, it was the sound of the water finally flowing into the sewer.
Lipton: What sound or noise do you hate?
Me: Clanging garbage cans.
Lipton: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Me: Airplane pilot. Just once. And I hope John Denver didn't say the same thing on this show.
Lipton: What profession would you not like to do?
Me: Waiting on tables. Those people get tons of grief from customers.
Lipton: Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Me: Guess what? Baseball season opens in Heaven every April, too.
Dinner last night: Had a big lunch so just a sandwich.
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