But I digress...
The game plan changed during the rehearsal period (they were originally going to do a TV special), but for the first couple of weeks they rehearsed in a cavernous soundstage in London. Also present was the camera crew making the documentary, Yoko (ugh!), construction crews for the movie that was going in after the Beatles left, the sound and lighting crew, technicians setting up recording equipment, George Martin, various record executives, girlfriends Peter Sellers dropping by, and a couple of Hari Krisnas.
Somehow the Beatles had to write and learn new songs in the middle of all this commotion. Eventually they moved to their Apple recording studio and were so much more comfortable. But for a couple of weeks it was like rehearsing in the food court of the Mall of America.
I thought to myself — I would be so self-conscious. I couldn’t possibly work that way. And then I remembered, I did work that way. Every week for several years.
This goes back to MASH.
Production of each episode would begin with a rehearsal day. We’d have a table reading of the script on the stage and then the director and cast would go from set to set and block each scene. David Isaacs and I would then be summoned to watch the scene, and based on that we did the rewrite. Our office was a five-minute walk to the stage and it usually took about twenty minutes to stage and rehearse a scene.
So by the time we’d walk back to the office it was pretty much time to walk back to the stage.
What we decided to do instead was just rewrite the script on the stage. We could work in twenty minute chunks and then go watch the next scene. So it was somewhat like what the Beatles experienced. There was the cast and crew and sometimes swing sets were brought in and constructed and extras were milling about. There was plenty of constant activity.
Meanwhile, David and I would grab a table in the Mess Tent and do our rewrite.
But…
It was just the two of us. We were somewhat off to the side. And more importantly, no one was watching us. Watching the Beatles sing three feet away from you is way exciting than two writers staring at each other trying to come up with a Father Mulcahy line.
Still, ideal conditions they were not. And from time to time an extra or crew person would sit at our table, which was off-putting. But we didn’t want to be assholes and tell him to move. But very little work got done on those occasions. It’s somewhat stifling to write comedy with a Teamster maintenance guy listening in and eating a breakfast burrito. What I wouldn’t have given to be able to sing “Get Back!”
So I give the Beatles credit. They turned out some great work under horrible conditions. But I’d still like to see 'em come up with a killer joke for Father Mulcahy.
17 comments :
I don't know that Mulcahey had any killer jokes, except for "She hugged the stuffing out of me!" and his drunken "Let me quote Leviticus" sermon. It was his character we liked.
One thing I came away with is now I have a better understanding of why they went their separate ways. Seeing a photo of them in Germany, when they were teenagers was the light going on. No doubt in anyone's mind, McCartney / Lennon was "lightning in a bottle"! But how many teenagers could find a mate at those young ages and still be going strong after ten years?? Not many!! Then add 2 more personalities to the mix? I'm sure McCartney /Lennon would have gotten back together again at some point in their life had John stuck around longer. ~ Lots of people in the recording industry were identified as this goes along. But one that made me smile was a 20 year old Alan Parsons in the recording room at Abby Road. It would be another 5 years before The Alan Parsons Project would take flight!
"Father Mulcahey, writing the words to a sermon that he won't be able to hear..."
[until AfterMASH, when his deafness was miraculously cured!]
The real cool thing is they probably watched and enjoy some of your work.
It's a safe bet, Ken, that the Fabs drank more tea than you and David did during the GET BACK sessions. Makes one wonder why Yoko never made the tea ? She famously pinched a few of George's biscuits (not a sex euphemism, though it sounds like one), and that made George VERY angry !
George Harrison visited my high school before my time because he wanted to see a girl's high school. A lady I worked with saw them at the Civic Center in Baltimore. She said everybody screamed, they played a half hour, you couldn't hear anything and it was over. My Dad was a cop and ran behind their car when they were leaving. That's my Beatle stories.
Just an aside, but something I wanted to share. Had the opportunity to tour the Abbey Road Studios on the very rare day that both Studio 1 (cavernous studio used to record movie scores, symphonies, etc) and Studio 2 (the Beatles studio) were unoccupied. My friend, who worked with "the four lads" in his late teens (as an assistant to one of the studio engineers), pointed out that the little black table where I placed my tea cup (from the studio canteen) was the same one where "Beatle John" would place his tea cup and that the little tack piano adjacent to the studio entrance was the one John played on the intro to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" (actually Paul's song). Needless to say, for a Beatles fan (especially someone who has been greatly influenced by George Martin and his arranging work), it was a pretty cool experience.
When I was a boy reporter/editor at a local newspaper, we had a sports columnist who sat behind me in the newsroom. I liked him but he was loud. About everything. All the time. I'd sit there writing or editing amid the uproar. Then I'd go home and study. My parents would ask if I minded that the TV was on. I said after working at the paper, I could handle any noise around me.
Who knew I was imitating Levine and Isaacs?
FQ: I recently got sick and had a froggy voice for almost two whole weeks. Which got me wondering, when an actor gets sick (loses their voice, for example) is it ever just written into the show? In season 11 episode of MASH ("Say No More") the B story is that Margaret's hero is visiting camp and she desperately wants to meet him, but she gets laryngitis and has to enlist Charles' help. I was re-watching it and noticed that she can't talk for practically the entire episode. I don't think I've ever seen the "character loses their voice" plot device used on a TV show before so it got me wondering: Was this something the writers came up with, or did Loretta Swit actually lose her voice forcing the writers to work it into the episode?
This reminded me of the 1981 documentary "Making MASH" from Chicago PBS outlet WTTW and Michael Hirsh. I wonder if there are enough outtakes in storage for :Get Back (to Korea)." Doubt it, but fun to think about. Here is some material on it: https://www.mash4077tv.com/articles/making-mash/
I've asked this before for a Friday Question but haven't seen it answered yet. Still, I have to know, from any of you folks in show biz: what are the table readings for, and what are they like? Is it to work out timing, try out new lines, and are the lines said the way they will be when the cameras are rolling? What happens during those table readings? Inquiring minds want to know!
I picked up what I thought was a good review of Yoko Ono's work from Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews: "I have nothing against Yoko Ono; she's an important conceptual artist, and she's gotten a ton of unfair criticism from Beatle fans for reasons that I think have more to do with sexism than anything else. But pop music isn't her forte, and I think most people would've rather had a whole Lennon album, especially after a five-year break, than have to listen to a bunch of Ono songs."
I read somewhere that John somehow thought in early 1980 that one of his peers was going to do a duo album with his wife, and that's why he did Double Fantasy with Yoko. I'm not sure who that would have been (Paul with Linda? James Taylor with Carly Simon?), but anyway.
From what I gather, Yoko had a musical career well before she met John. I don't get it; to me she sounds like a combination air raid siren/pest repellent device/screaming warthog being killed by a lion but to each their own. Do you think, that if she hadn't met John, she would have eventually faded away as people would have eventually gone deaf from listening to her stuff?
B-52s early, live version, of their Rock Lobster, the Yoko-esque screams of which — Lennon claimed — prompted him to come out of a five-year career hiatus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4QSYx4wVQg
The famous full-frontal album cover of Lennon and Ono’s Two Virgins
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/TwoVCover.jpg
But you can dance to Rock Lobster. Maybe you could dance to Yoko but only if it was "conceptual" dancing.
Mad About You did a few episodes with Yoko that were fun, she seemed like a good egg. But I admit I always thought she was trolling us with her singing.
If you have an Audible subscription, I commend the free (to subscribers) audio book of "Solid State", by Kenneth Womack (foreword by Alan Parsons), which continues the story through the making of and release of Abbey Road (released before but recorded after Let it Be). Very balanced and nuanced story.
“At the beginning of the season I was listening to one of the games and they were talking about a bell that Dave Niehaus used to ring,” Zaborowski explained. “So for months and months and months I was like, ‘Can we find Abner the bell?’ We found it. That was my holy grail, so I am looking for a new one.”
I'm sure you don't have Abner #2 from your days of broadcasting Mariner baseball. But if you have something with some Mariner history you might contact Lindsay Zaborowski or maybe even Kevin Cremin who I'm sure you know. Also they have recently found Dave's broadcast of the first game in Mariner history.
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