RMJ 62 April 17

THURSDAY, APRIL 17 ● travel to LA

Today was an off-day — meaning we don’t have a game, but we do have to travel.

The last few years, traveling secretary Barry Waters has been scheduling the flights later and later. It’s a good idea. Why not spend most of the open date at home?

Today we left for Los Angeles at 7:30 p.m., and I needed the whole day to work off my loan of a Chevy Tahoe for a year.

At first, the deal was that I would cut several radio spots, and one for television. Then it was that I would cut two TV spots — one at the start of the season and one midway through.

What we ended up doing today was four TV spots. I don’t have a big problem with working one whole day for a year’s use of a car, but I would like to know what I’m getting into in advance.

My old broadcast partner, Milo Hamilton, has been trying to get off TV for at least five years. He likes to give direction, rather than take it. In TV, the announcers are functionaries: guys who help guide the audience from one chart or graph to another. There is not a lot of time for developing a theme or telling a story. Instead, there are a lot of sponsored segments and game action in between.

The play-by-play announcer on television is like a master of ceremonies. Milo likes to be a master of ceremonies, but he also likes to be part of the ceremony. He likes to do it his way. In the world of video, this is impossible.

I gained a great deal of respect for Milo’s position today. Making four commercials took seven hours. My part probably took no more than one of those hours. The other elements — the set, the lighting, the sound, the extras, the camera angles, the script changes — took the rest.

I didn’t really mind so much, except that I was supposed to spend the late afternoon with Judy and Julia. I haven’t seen much of Julia since I left for spring training. When it became clear that I couldn’t finish the commercials in time to drive home and pack my bags and get back to the Dome in rush-hour traffic, I told the crew I would have to leave in midafternoon and come back to finish. If I didn’t get caught in traffic, I might be able to finish the shoot before we departed.

Unfortunately, Calvin Murphy of the Rockets was scheduled to do one spot with me at 2:30. I didn’t get back until 4:00, and Calvin was good about it, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. I didn’t blame him, or myself. That’s just the way it goes in TV. Because Calvin is a TV guy these days, I think he understands.

           

The one thing I was happy about was the creative work of the agency. I was a little hesitant to do a car commercial, but since Julia cracked up her car, a car deal became hard to refuse. Even so, I was not about to bang my hand down on a hood and come on like an auto evangelist.

Luckily, these spots were funny. They contained some nuts-and-bolts information, but it was done in a way that did not embarrass me, and it could actually help me get more commercial work. In the last one, I had to swing a golf club and hit balls while I was pitching the dealership. This was quite challenging, because four extras in Astros uniforms were standing about fifty yards away from me, trying to catch my wedge shots with baseball gloves. Ordinarily, the fifty-yard wedge shot is about the weakest part of my game. I usually tighten up at the bottom of the swing and hit the ball poorly, with little touch.

Oddly enough, I was able to lob these wedges to the fielders with considerable accuracy, while talking about volume selling and customer satisfaction. Most of my concentration was on the script; almost none on the shots. This leads me to believe that if I can just suspend thinking on this type of shot when we play at Torrey Pines on Monday, I will solve my most persistent problem in golf.

This is a pipe dream, I know. It’s like Milo thinking he can either take himself off TV or take control of it. Neither of these things is likely to happen.

 

Luckily for me, Julia was home when I got there. We had 15 minutes to share. Not much, but better than nothing. When we arrived in Los Angeles, I took a taxi to my folks’ house in the Valley. My brother Rick and his wife Susan were there to greet me. We kept Mom and Dad up until 1:30 (3:30 body time) and had a great visit.

I finished my book, The Last Picture Show, before falling off to sleep. The book was better than the movie, and I have decided that it is better to see the movie first — at least five years in advance.