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9:22:00 PM EDT
Feeling Quiet
Hearing "Fifty Miles Of Elbow Room" - Iris Dement
While watching the credits on CSI....
I don't usually pay attention to the credits at the end of TV programs (of course, I watch very little TV). Somehow this evening, watching CSI credits, I happened to notice a familiar last name... Berman. The Executive Story producer's name is Josh Berman.
The name "Berman" rang a bell. Back in 1959, I was fifteen years old. I did without lunch at school so I could buy record albums from Columbia Record Club.
One album I purchased with my saved lunch money was "Inside Shelley Berman".
Oh my goodness, that man was hilarious! Sometimes he'd appear on the Jack Paar Show, which I often stayed up too late watching, on school nights.
I watched "Meet the Fockers" recently and didn't have a clue until this evening that Shelley Berman was in it, playing the part of Judge Ira. I didn't even know the man was still alive. And he's been on Grey's Anatomy and Friends, and lots of other popular television shows.
So I did a Google, typing in Shelley Berman and Josh Berman: Turns out Shelley adopted a son, Josh.
Surely it's his son, Josh, who is producing CSI.
Now I must go to Amazon.com and see if there are any CDs of Shelley's old routines.
You know you're getting old when the credits of a television show send you tripping down memory lane.
A final note: I guess this Josh is not Shelley's son, because here's what I found on another search: "Then in 1975 the family got news that dwarfed Berman's professional struggles: Josh was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Within 18 months, at age 12, he was gone. 'I had him studying for his bar mitzvah until he couldn't stand it anymore, because I wanted him to live to the very last minute,' Berman recalls. According to Gerald Nachman's book Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s (Pantheon, 2003), Berman gave an interview a month after Josh's death. 'I've been taught a profound lesson," he said then. "the future is a breaker of promises.'"
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Oh my gosh! I haven't thought about Shelly Berman in years. I remember him and his routines. He was (and probably still is) hilarious! I'll have to check out Amazon, too. I'd love to hear some of his old stuff. Thanks for a good memory wake up call!
Kathy
http://journals.aol.com/kaydeejay5449/Yadayadayada/ -
Donna.....I have a couple of Shelley Berman's records. But 'Inside Shelley Berman' is the BOMB !! I love the the bit about the lady hanging out the window on the 3rd floor and the guy across the street trying to help her !! That one tears me up. And the one about the little kid that answers the phone.....on and on I could go. LOL. He's a funny funny man for sure.
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How sad about his son. I like that quote at the end. Very true.
Pam -
9/13/06 9:30 AM