THE WEEK THAT WAS

 

It has been a while since my last entry and no, I have not had my third hernia surgery in a matter of months (more on that another time); I have not given up watching shows (how about eight on Broadway just last week?); and I have not really taken a vacation from TV or anything else… although some quality time with my award winning poet grandson on summer leave from Sarah Lawrence in New York City might just qualify in that regard.

Feeling under the weather by more than I should, I braved the long-planned trip to The Big Apple, congested as I was, damaging my hearing on my American Airlines flight enough so that for the first time in my life I had to resort to sound amplification devices in the theatre. I am recovering slowly but do not be surprised if I ask that you speak louder when next we meet.

I have also done some reading, which is not particularly characteristic of me, but Cagney & Lacey alumna Georgia Jeffries has written a very nice domestic thriller in The Younger Girl which I commend to you. And then Tyne Daly sent me Going Home, a novel by first time author Tom Lamont which, if I were a younger man, and the film industry was anything like it used to be, I might well have optioned to make a family friendly movie. Not so sure what Ms. Daly, who more often sends me books of poems, had in mind with this novel but whatever, it was a most enjoyable, if unremarkable, read.

I am also re-reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to prove to myself that I was right in believing that regardless of all the awards and praise, the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winning James, by the multi award winning Percival Everett, while possibly a very good idea, is a half-baked, under achieving work of fiction. I did not have to re-read more than the first chapter of Twain’s work to realize how right I am about that.

There are incredibly talented artists, both literary and cinematically, who sometimes take advantage of their gifts and present their audiences with something approximating a “first draft” of their work, rather than digging in and finding ways to make it deeper, richer, fuller, and better. Author Everett gives me the impression of taking the easy way out, not only with James, but with the film American Fiction made of his book Erasure… a great satirical idea that could have/should have been so much more important. The brilliant Woody Allen often gives the impression of doing the same thing… with his film of Play it Again, Sam being a primary example of that kind of laziness.

I am going to leave the world of the literary… again, not my long suit… with a couple of points: first off, “deeper, richer, fuller, better” is not something I own. It comes to me by way of Tyne Daly who I believe was quoting her mother, Hope, when she first told me these words nearly half a century ago. It became the mantra for our Cagney & Lacey writing staff.

Lastly, as I may have previously mentioned, I have typed “The End” to my 90,000-word autobiography, A Life Without Cagney & Lacey. Having done that, I then sat for days… not only trying to figure out what I was going to do with the remainder of my life but really questioning why I had bothered with this book project in the first place. Who, I asked of myself, would read it? Who would care? It is not as though I am Steven Spielberg or even the Barney Rosenzweig I once was.

Some friends, readers of these notes, and family, intervened and assured me that they cared, that others would too, and besides, they reminded me, many of the details and stories of my life were quite interesting, and the damn thing was already written. Why stick it in a drawer now?  My friend, author, Marcia Wilkie, intervened. She had read an earlier draft of my work and was always encouraging. This time she recommended a publisher, McFarland Press, which specializes in (among other things) autobiographies and memoirs. I took Marcia’s advice. Onward to deeper, richer, fuller, better. No agent. No connection to anyone in this publishing house. I followed their website’s instructions as to preferred font and type size, numbered the pages, and sent it in by Email with a covering note.

While in New York… in between those eight Broadway shows… came a return Email from the publishing house. This is the first paragraph:

Thank you for sending your memoir “A Life Without Cagney & Lacey.” It received a very warm welcome at our acquisitions meeting – it’s fantastic and we’d love to publish it!

A hernia recurrence, continued congestion, a hearing loss. Still, overall, not a bad week.

 

Barney Rosenzweig