Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (5 page)

J.T. was a straightforward guy or a hair-triggered time bomb,

depending on who was talking. He had the fury of ten men—ten

very self-righteous men. He believed in truth, justice, and the American way. Unfortunately, he wasn’t related to Superman, nor did he live in the 1950s, and the letters
J.T.
just didn’t look as good on a sky blue T-shirt as the well-known
S
. He was taught at a very young age that he could never be good enough. Therefore, J.T.

grew into a tortured perfectionist (not the romantic kind; the real kind. Basically a pain in the ass to live with).

If a curious outsider were to Google J.T. Baker, they would

learn that he was a Teen Star (precocious baggage), a Broadway

Star (pedigree baggage), a Film Star (has-been baggage), and a

Recording Almost-Star (laughingstock baggage). And then when

his
time
was over and desperation set in, J.T. reinvented himself and became a Writer (cynical baggage), an Executive (impe-

rious baggage), a Producer (my-son’s-a-producer baggage, and

exactly-what-does-a-producer-do? baggage), a Musician (take

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one-step-back-and-go-directly-to-jail baggage), and finally, for the past fifteen years, a very successful Television Sitcom Director (I’m-finally-the-big-kahuna-completely-in-control baggage).

Not to mention that he sometimes sold his old wardrobe on eBay

(whoa—fill-in-the-blank baggage).

Oh—and J.T. was indeed a College Professor (priggish baggage).

The job of director was the Holy Grail of Hollywood film suc-

cess, but television didn’t suit J.T.’s personality. A perfectionist in television is bad math: the sum of this equation is borderline insanity.

J.T.’s earnest goal was to do it all: create worthwhile televi-

sion, care for his colleagues, nurture his actors, respect the craft of filmmaking, and not show contempt for the viewing public. Doing it all was in direct contradiction to the networks’ standards and practices, because it cost too much. The industry tolerated J.T.

when the shows he directed pulled in big Nielsen ratings and were considered hits. But when the numbers dropped and ended J.T’s

lucky streak, the director’s devotion to his ideals became the stuff of mockery behind his back.

J.T.’s downfalls were always his own doing. His baggage-laden

crusades took a heavy toll on him physically, causing him stomach ulcers and daily migraines. J.T. was ridiculously naïve for an artistic veteran, a lummox when it came to diplomacy and politicking, and alarmingly proficient in the art of self-destruction. He persisted in wearing his quixotic, utopian work ethic as a badge of honor.

The standards J. T. Baker imposed on himself were a direct

product of working with adults his entire childhood. Somewhere

along the way, his personal growth had been stunted and actually come to a screeching halt. He would forever be stuck with the mores of an idealistic teenager. Things were either
right
or they were
wrong
. He was a self-made man-child, programmed to be a pro, to give his all, and believe that even his best wasn’t good enough.

The project
was always more important than the players. Selfish-R o b b y

B e n s o n

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ness would never be tolerated. And J.T. understood that he must always surround himself with people smarter than himself, and

always gave them full credit.

While digging in deeper and deeper and becoming more and

more rigid in his self-proclaimed war on mediocrity, J.T. never took a step back to analyze the scaffolding he’d erected in order to be and stay J.T. Baker. He never allowed himself a moment to realize the extreme conformity it took to be a nonconformist.

To protect his freedom of creativity he became a slave to self-

preservation. He no longer knew what he was fighting for, and

he was exhausted.

J.T.’s standards and expectations of himself were so high that

one notorious day, in the middle of directing a sitcom, he
lost direction
and began to shake. He had a meltdown that immediately became part of showbiz lore and was still legendary.

In clinical terms, J.T. suffered a nervous breakdown. What ac-

tually happened was that he’d matured within the space of a single moment. With sudden clarity, J.T. understood that he could not

continue believing it was his job on the planet to make everything perfect.

With that epiphany, he no longer had purpose. And the part of

him that was genetically programmed to find
the funny
in everything triggered a laughing fit as he stood, unresponsive to others, pathetically shaking in the center of a sitcom living room set. He stood on the same spot, laughing, for over an hour until his wife Natasha could be contacted and made it to the soundstage.

Natasha was the only person J.T. responded to on that fateful,

fit-f day. J.T. continued to laugh at the inane, schmaltzy world he now recognized as his life. He not only had a nervous breakdown, but also found the nervous breakdown to be ironically

funny. Always funny.

Natasha gently walked him to her car and drove him off the

studio lot and went directly to the Santa Monica Hospital.

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As they rode up the elevator in the hospital, J.T. looked at his savior and whispered, “Are you committing me?”

“You’re already committed, J.T.,” Natasha said with shrewd

wisdom but without judgment, “to me; to our son Jeremy.”

Natasha gripped J.T.’s hand and led him from the sixth-floor elevator to the maternity ward. She took J.T. to the glass window where he had stood eight years prior, when their son Jeremy was born with a life-threatening kidney ailment. Nothing more needed to be said.

Together, J.T. and Natasha stood and stared through the glass at the newborn babies for hours . . . well, until a nurse realized none of the babies belonged to them and had Security escort them out of the building. But—no trips to a shrink, no vacations at a spa, not a single pill was swallowed—only now, Natasha had given J.T. perspective. From that day on,
Jeremy
became their personal code, whether they were together or not. Whenever J.T. found himself dog-pad-dling in a pool of dementia, Natasha would appear at his shoul-

der—in person or in his mind—and whisper,
Jeremy.

Show business began to leave J.T. behind.

Natasha was the one person who had absolutely no hidden

agenda and whose love for J.T. was unconditional. With his

trademark childlike certainty, J.T. always maintained that his

wife had to be either utterly right or utterly wrong. Faithful or unfaithful. Good or bad. So J.T. came to the logical conclusion that Natasha was a goddess. During J.T.’s sole attempt at psycho-therapy, the psychiatrist had unwisely suggested that J.T. might have what he referred to as the Madonna-whore syndrome. J.T.

dove at the good doctor and knocked out two of his teeth.

True story.

It was Natasha who talked him down from a roof, made him

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promise that he’d never
play with sharp objects,
stopped the internal bleeding, and was the one who finally called the moving company and hauled her family out of Los Angeles, reasoning that J.T.

couldn’t be that self-righteous and survive in La-La Land.

They hightailed it, leaving Hollywood far behind. On the op-

posite coast, actually: they bought a seven-acre farm in a remote area in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Not that J.T. knew anything about farming. He had accepted a job as a part-time professor of film at a local university.

As Natasha had put it, “If you want future generations to un-

derstand the old-fashioned way of doing things
right,
rather than just
doing things,
you ought to
teach
future generations the right way to do things and stop complaining about it.”

“You’re right.”

“Besides, sweetheart, the only ones who want to listen to your

idealistic rants about filmmaking are college kids.”

“Really?”

“’Fraid so.”

“Oh.”

On the top of his (admittedly smallish) mountain, J.T. found elements of life he had seen in the movies or even shot as a director. But now he was no longer a spectator. Mother Earth quickly schooled J.T., showing him that there was actually a world outside of show business. There were no hyperkinetic edits pushing the

day to move faster. J.T. was so accustomed to that former existence that it took a while for him to actually believe his new pet phrase:

“This is the life!” After a time, though, the rhythms of his new life became hypnotic, symphonic. He could absorb the beauty as long

as he wanted to without the fear that somebody would
change his
channel
. He could see . . . forever.

Damn,
J.T. thought more than once,
Mother Nature would’ve
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made one helluva director. She can really bring it on! What the fuck
am I saying?

J.T. finally had a life.

“Can you smell the—who the hell is smoking?! Why would

anyone smoke with all of this clean air and the mountains and the trees!?”

“J.T., sweetheart, we live in a
tobacco state
.”

“Oh. Right.”

J.T. learned to handle a tractor, and for Tasha’s forty-fifth birth-day he bush-hogged the shape of a giant heart in the cow pasture.

She saw it every morning from up on the hill where their A-frame house jutted out into the clean, if a mite tobacco-y, air.

At first J.T. predicted what his neighbors might be saying be-

hind his back. He’d write country dialogue in his head, like “That retarded liberal Hollywood Jew. He’s why America’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket,
bless his heart
.” Once he allowed himself to get to know his neighbors, though, J.T. learned that they were more substantial than any he’d ever had. Their knee-jerk kindness and generosity always caught J.T. off guard. He realized he’d had

stereotypical thoughts because he’d been directing stereotypical shows for over a decade.

On this Sunday afternoon in late summer, J.T., Natasha, and their nine-year-old son Jeremy were all midwives to Lola, a miniature Jersey cow that had become a family pet. Lola was having a rough go of it, trying to force her little calf out of her swollen body.

At first, J.T.’s mind wandered to a comic-book place, where he

imagined that all of the world’s troubles were inside Lola: oppression, tyranny, cruelty. All the world’s problems were about to come out of a cow’s vagina.

Then the cow’s scream-moos finally registered. If J.T. was go-

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ing to save the world, he would have to purge the pregnant cow of
the Fox Channel
!

Natasha nodded to J.T. He took a deep breath and plunged his

hands into the bovine mama.

“J.T., how’s she feel?” Natasha had spoken to the vet about

problems that might come up with the birth, and what it would

feel like if the calf were breech.

“Not nearly as good as you, but she’ll do.”

“Daaaad!”

“J.T.?”

He got a good grip and
pulled
. The wet calf came out so fast J.T. had to use every remnant of his athletic ability to catch it before it flew past Natasha and Jeremy. It was slippery, and lighter than he’d expected.
If I were filming this right now, I wouldn’t use
a filter because that would make it too sentimental,
J.T. thought as he gently laid the calf next to its mother. He fell back in the straw and laughed. Even in that moment, show business had intruded.

And he was amazed all over again that there was life outside Hollywood.

“Good catch, Dad,” Jeremy said.

“Thanks, big guy. Next time, you call for it.” He winced as he

stood up.

J.T. had bad knees. Bad ankles. A bad back. J.T. was a poster

boy-man for over-the-hill jocks. All of the stunts he’d done as an actor were kicking him back. He could’ve really used the hazard pay now. Or the meds.

The lightbulb above the barn door started to flutter. It was

connected to the phone in the house, pulsing when it rang.

“Should we run and get it?” Jeremy asked. “It could be Lola’s

husband, wanting to know if he’s the real father.”

“Funny. But if it’s Lola’s husband, he’s calling from McDon-

ald’s,” J.T replied.

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“Not funny, Dad.”

“Sorry . . . pain. Knee. Hurt.”

“No excuse for bad jokes, Dad. You’ve said it a million times,”

Jeremy pointed out.

“You’re right, big guy, one of the worst sins on this planet Earth is . . .”

“NO FUNNY,” they all flatly said in sync, making it
teeny
-
tiny
funny.

“Funny is good,” J.T. lectured for the million-and-first time as they all walked back to the house. “BAD FUNNY is bad,
ALMOST

FUNNY is okay—but
NO
FUNNY is a sin against all humanity.”

The sun was starting to set behind the Smoky Mountains.

They stopped and watched it disappear. “Breathtaking, huh?” J.T.

whispered.

“Yeah. My asthma’s kickin’ in, Dad.”

“Infinitesimal
FUNNY.”

“No. Dad. My asthma is kicking in.”

“Oh. Shit.”

Tasha ran ahead to get Jeremy’s inhaler and J.T. picked his boy up, cradling him in his arms and running into the house. Jeremy recognized the funny in how pitiful he must look, but Tasha and J.T. had a hard time with that brand of funny.

Green Acres
it wasn’t. Lisa’s trust fund had probably paid for Oliver’s rural idyll. The Bakers had no such reserves. Sunsets behind mountains cost money. Cow feed cost money. Health care for Jeremy cost money. “Good times and tough times, we’re a team!”