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Norman Lear Seminars at the Museum of Broadcasting The Mark Goodson Seminar Series June 1986
Bill Moyers
Writing for Early Live Television
June 17, 1986
THIS seminar, which is the first in a new annual series that will focus on a writer/producer, has been underwritten by one of the Museum's supporters and Trustees who gave a seminar series here last year. This man has been very generous and has had a very distinguished career of his own in broadcasting—Mark Goodson.
MARK GOODSON: Thank you. Before we talk about producing and about television, I have thoughts in my head about money. I am apparently the underwriter who is funding this series and it suddenly occurred to me that Norman Lear has just sold his company to Coca-Cola for $450 million, and that probably one of the upcoming producers in this series is going to be Merv Griffin, who sold his company to Coca-Cola for $250 million. I have only one comment: Pepsi-Cola, make my day.
But seriously, I am proud to sponsor this new series of seminars for the Museum of Broadcasting, in which eminent writers/producers who have made lasting contributions to television are given the opportunity to communicate their experiences, struggles, skills, concerns, and hopes for the medium. I am particularly pleased that the star of this first seminar series is my friend Norman Lear. Certainly if there is anyone who deserves the label "distinguished contributor to the television arts," it is Norman, for he is one of the most preeminent, innovative, and influential producers in our history. I think Norman himself said it best when he commented, "I consider myself a writer who loves to show real people in real conflict, with all their fears, doubts, hopes, and ambitions, rubbing against their love for one another." Michael Arlen, the dean of television critics, put it another way when he said, "Norman Lear has a feel for what people want to see before they know they want to see it." Norman Lear has had a long career, but the Norman Lear that most of America knows came into prominence in 1971 when he obtained the rights to the BBC series Till Death Us Do Part and created All In the Family. The rest is history. The success of All in the Family led to Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Hot L Baltimore, The Baxters, and all the others.
But setting aside Norman Lear the creative genius, it's important to say something about Norman Lear the man. He's not only a very talented, and—since he has his company—a very rich entrepreneur, he is also a concerned American. Most recently he has directed his efforts and energies towards the formation of People for the American Way, an organization whose purpose is the maintenance and restoration of pluralism, individuality, freedom of thought, tolerance, and compassion for others. It seems to me that all of these attributes shine through in Norman's television shows. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Norman Lear.
NORMAN LEAR: It is strange to sit here and be asked to talk about yourself when all you've done is to have such a wonderful time. Mark talked about the difficulty and Sturm und Drang of a career. And I've been through enough of that to know a bit about it, but you have to understand that we all work hard, and I won't stand second in line to anybody in terms of how hard I've worked in my life, but what I've worked at is the business of laughter. So all along the way in the course of earning my living, supporting a family or whatnot, I've been laughing. These lines are all laugh lines; I'm only thirty-seven years old, you know. I started laughing in a household that used to live at the top of its lungs and the end of its nerves. My cousin, David Susskind, is here and he can attest to that. In our family we were at each other in this fashion. Whether it was a reflex with which one saves oneself, or whether it was really the way I saw it—and I tend to think it was really the way I saw it—I always saw all of it through the end of the telescope that saw the comedy. There was a lot of foolishness going on at the ends of nerves, at the tops of lungs, and I would score that foolishness.
A hundred years ago I wrote a picture called Divorce American Style and there was a scene in that picture in which the camera was on Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds arguing in the kitchen. The camera then panned up to a transom, dissolved through to the other side of it, and then came to an upstairs bedroom where a twelve-year-old boy was sitting on his bed scoring their argument: Mom losing points for this, Dad losing points for that, and so forth. That was me.
In real life we had no upstairs bedroom because we were living in a one-room apartment and it all took place in the kitchen—much like The Honeymooners many years later—but I scored those fights. All of it came out of that.
I never particularly thought I wanted to write, although I wrote the humor column for the Weaver High Lookout in Hartford. I wanted to be my Uncle Jack because he was the only uncle on both sides of our family who cracked one hundred dollars a week. And my Uncle Jack always had a fresh quarter. You have to understand, I was a kid of the Depression. (I lied about being thirty-seven years old.) All we ever talked about at the dinner table was who could afford this and who could afford that, because we had absolutely nothing. But when my Uncle Jack came, he could flip a quarter to me, and to any other niece or nephew who was standing by. I wanted to be nothing else but an uncle who could flip a quarter to a nephew.
So what I set out to do was be a press agent like Jack. After the war, in which I flew fifty-seven missions for the Fifteenth Air Force, I came back and got my first job in publicity in New York at forty dollars a week. Six weeks later I went in and asked for a five-dollar raise. They told me they were just about to ask me to take a five-dollar reduction in salary. So much for that job. I decided to pack up and take my wife and two-year-old daughter to California. My father's advice was for me to buy the latest model convertible I could afford in Connecticut and sell it in California, which would pay my expenses. So I did what my father said. It took me nine weeks in California to sell the bloody car, and I got fifty dollars more for it than I paid. But I got to California, and started to sell baby pictures door-to-door. I didn't know anybody out there.
One day I ran into the husband of another cousin who had also gone to California. His name was Ed Simmons and he had moved to California to be a comedy writer. Our wives became fast friends, and one evening when they were at the movies, he asked me if I would spend the evening working on something with him. We wrote a parody of The Sheik of Araby and when our wives came back from the movies, we went out. In those days there were a lot of night clubs in California. There was the Bar of Music and Ben Blue's Supper Club, among many others. We went to Larry Potter's Supper Club and a woman whose name I can't remember was playing the piano and singing dirty ditties. We got thirty-five dollars or so for our parody. My half of that was as much as I had made the previous two days by selling baby pictures with Ed Simmons, so that looked pretty good. We started to write together every night, and we would go out and sell it for twenty or fifty dollars.
One day I had an idea for something that Danny Thomas might be able to use. And I had Danny Thomas's number—how did I get Danny Thomas's number? Oh, I had a friend when I was a little boy by the name of Merle Robinson. I would use his name anytime I was in trouble. If I was in trouble in the army, if an MP stopped me or I didn't want to be talked to, I was Merle Robinson. So I called the William Morris office, who was Danny Thomas's agent, and said, "My name is Merle Robinson, I'm with The New York Times. I've been doing a story on Danny Thomas. I'm at the airport now, I'm on my way back to New York. I want to write the story and file it when I get there, I only have two minutes left. I have a question for Mr. Thomas. I have to talk to him!" And I scared somebody to death so they gave me his number. I called Thomas and he said, "How the hell'd you get this number?" Miraculously, on that day he happened to be working with his pianist, Wally Pop. He was trying to find something he could do just two nights later at a place called Ciro's. He said he was fascinated to know how I got his phone number so I told him, which made him laugh, and he asked, "Whaddya got? I can't do anything that lasts more than six minutes!" I said, "Well, I've got something that's five and a half minutes." And he said, "Get over here right away." I said, "I'll be over there in about three and a half hours." He said, "You're in Hollywood, I'm in Beverly Hills, get over here now!" I said…uh, I don't know what I said—you see, I hadn't written it yet! It took that long to write it, and Thomas had to wait. I got there, he gave me five hundred dollars for it, and promised me that if it worked, I would get another thousand. I kid him every time I see him because I never collected the other thousand. He did the routine for about five years.
Do you remember the long, wonderful stories, the anecdotes Danny Thomas used to tell? He'd go on for twelve minutes to get to one punch line, but he mesmerized you in those twelve minutes and made you laugh along the way. This one was a routine about some Yiddish words that have no counterpart in any other language. And he talked about three Yiddish words, "Tsimisht," "Tumult," and "Farblungit." These were gradations of the same condition—and they had no counterparts in the English language. Thomas told this to his audience, and illustrated each word with a story, which became a very well-known routine for Danny Thomas. The night for which he wanted this routine he was at Ciro's, and the reason he wanted something new was because it was a showbiz crowd, a Friar's Dinner, and everybody had heard his routines so he needed something fresh and new. So when I raced it over to him he agreed to do it, and he did it.
In the audience that evening was a young agent with MCA whose name was David Susskind. He was knocked out with this material, and he wanted writers for a show he was putting together called The Jack Haley Ford Star Revue. So he went up to Thomas afterwards and said, "Who wrote that piece of material?" Thomas said, "Two guys, I don't know, uh…" He took out a piece of paper and said, "Ed Simmons and Norman Lear." He said, "My God, Norman Lear!" David did not know his cousin was in California, let alone writing, let alone in the business, let alone everything else.
I was on a plane with Simmons two days later, or the next morning or whenever, but two days later we were holed up in the Wellington Hotel writing a one-hour comedy, The Jack Haley Ford Star Revue, per week. When asked if I had ever written a sketch, I said, "Sure we've written a sketch." I lived in a little bungalow behind a bigger house, both of which were owned by a pair of screen extras who happened to have some scripts around. So we borrowed some scripts to see how they looked on paper—a television script. Audio, in those days, was on one side, video on the other side. We then wrote a couple of sketches so we'd have something with us when we got off the plane.
The funny thing was that this was the entrance into television itself, and live television at that, which was a miracle we don't see at all anymore. Simmons and I did two weeks of The Jack Haley Ford Star Revue and then Jerry Lewis saw a sketch that we did on that show and asked who the hell those writers were, and we were hired to do the first Colgate Comedy Hour and we were off and running. Ed and I became, along with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, enormous successes. The four of us, Simmons and Lear as writers and Martin and Lewis, of course, could do no wrong for three years. And I wrote the Martin and Lewis show with Eddie for three years.
Let me get you to California. All of the foregoing happened in New York. And in New York we were all hungry to get to California because there was all this talk about their laying a cable across the country so we could do shows in California that could be broadcast at the same time to the East, and then repeated in the West. After the first year of the Martin and Lewis show there was talk that this was about to happen. Then it happened—they laid a transcontinental cable and we were able to go to California. And there was a party, at Bud Yorkin's. There were four stage managers on the Colgate Comedy Hour at that time: Bud Yorkin, Jack Smythe, John Rich, and Arthur Penn. All of them became very famous directors. Pat Weaver, who was running NBC at that time, was there, and Sam Fuller and Pete Barnum, NBC executives, who are now gone. The four of us and some others stood around the piano and wrote a song which, God help you, you're gonna hear now, because I don't have the opportunity to sing it very often. We wrote this parody to "When the Red, Red Robin …" about getting to California:
"When the transcontinental coaxial cable is laid, is laid; When the transcontinental coaxial cable is laid, we're made! There'll be no more great kinescopes, we'll be there with our kin 'o' folks; You'll fear those Cucomango jokes coming to you from Hollywood or Vine Street; We'll be on the run to the land of sun and swimming pools. The dramatic shows will be static shows—if they stay, those fools! Horchichornia! It's California! We'll ride the Super Chief! When the transcontinental coaxial cable is laid!"
Now let's do it together, shall we? Don't you wish you had the words in front of you? You must want to sing! Anyway, before we take questions and everything else, we're going to show you a little tape and I'd like to introduce two people who came with me from California and put it together. They have made this seminar series possible for me because they pulled all the notes and memories together and all of the tape that we'll be showing for the next four days. But Betsy Kenny and Mark Pollack, who are both sitting here, had to dig out a lot of material and the terrible truth of life in our busy existence is that some of the most treasured things, or things that would be most treasured were they available, are lost. You'd be amazed at how much material the Museum of Broadcasting looks for to put in their archives that they can no longer find because ABC, CBS, or NBC destroyed those kinescopes, got rid of that warehouse, took that stuff and burned it. A lot of that material includes a number of episodes of some of the stuff I did, all of the "Golden Age" of television drama, and so forth. Much of it is gone. So instead, Betsy and Mark had to find pieces of Martin and Lewis shows, Martha Raye shows, etc. And that's what we've put together. I'll now show a few minutes of some of those old shows for you, and I'll mention a couple of things as we go along.
[Videotape is shown to the seminar audience.]
When Mark and Betsy brought that last piece back, I thought I'd die. I had barely remembered it, and then I saw it after all these years. Before we go to questions, there are a few things I want to tell you about why we selected some of those clips. They are the kinds of things you just don't see on television any more. When television was live, you opened a suitcase that was supposed to spring shut and if the spring that was supposed to be there wasn't there, you couldn't stop the tape and do it again and go on. So the audience would laugh at the goof—and the performers would break up. Today, if one performer breaks up another, once in a while, with Bob Hope, maybe they'd let it ride, but most of the time it's done for the purpose of breaking up and taping it that way. The reality is never what it was when things were live. You saw Martha dancing a little bit, which gives you some sense of the size of the shows. We were dealing with twelve and sixteen dancers.
With The Martha Raye Show we were doing book musicals, which means that we were not writing original songs each week, but using songs out of the public domain. But there were sketches and story and music and dance, all intertwined, all live, fading up at eight o'clock, fading out at nine o'clock, and everything had to be in. And when Martin and Lewis were ad-libbing over something, if too much time went by, there were a couple of nervous people someplace else in that theater, cutting something that was yet to come—to be able to make room for the fact that they were blowing time over such moments.
I remember sitting with David Susskind one night after what I think was the second Martin and Lewis show. I don't remember what the scene was, but I know the audience imbued them and they went crazy and left the sketch. We had to cut the whole ending. But I thought Jerry was Everyman, and we were writing scenes that had some importance, something to say, despite all the craziness. And they blew it.
The show was a big success, a sensation, but I remember sitting in a Chinese restaurant weeping because they had blown the meaning of the sketch, whatever the hell that was. Nobody that ever saw a Martin and Lewis sketch would say that meant something, but to me it did.
We wanted you to see a little Gloria Lochman because there was a major story that took place after that show. Gloria Lochman, as I said, won The $64,000 Question some weeks before. What was her subject, spelling? That's why she spelled in the scene you just saw. So we wrote this show that had Talullah Bankhead as her good fairy and somebody else as her bad fairy and whatnot, and the show went famously. At the bows, when they were saying goodnight, Talullah Bankhead picked Gloria Lochman up and hugged her and Martha joined them, and the three of them were hugging, and they both kissed her. This was 1954. There were so many letters about hugging that little black child that the show never recovered from it, with the ad agency carrying on the way it did. I'm sorry we didn't have a piece of another show for you to see, just to give you an idea of the kinds of things that did happen on live television because this incident had nothing to do with live television. They would have hugged that child at any time. But that's the mark of what was happening in those years.
A few weeks later we did another show, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., that I had directed. Martha Raye did a sketch on an old comedic conceit called Guzzler's Gin in which she was drinking something that she didn't know the alcoholic content of and she was getting progressively drunk without realizing it. As I directed Martha to play this, I remember saying, "You're not going to be drunk, you're going to be tipsy, just like Irene Dunne. So you're going to be on your little tippy-toes, the bubbles are bothering your nose, and you're going to be that kind of drunk." She was hilarious playing that kind of a tipsy lady. But just before she went on the air, some old crony of hers says, "Martha, the hell with that tipsy stuff. You're funny, let it go." So, Martha is funny. She took the bottle of booze, when she finally realized that she was drunk, God, what didn't she do! She let it come out of her mouth, she poured it down her dress, under her arms—and she filled up her mouth and gave it once to Fairbanks right in the face. His makeup ran, her makeup ran, and the audience howled, because a live audience will always howl over things like that. At home, when you're not part of the fun, you're not part of the "in" group, it looks like something else. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Fairbanks—Lady somebody—and Douglas Fairbanks came to me afterwards, just throwing their arms around me, thinking they had been part of the funniest show that ever happened. But between the Gloria Lochman show and the Douglas Fairbanks show, The Martha Raye Show never recovered. And that was part of live television in those years. I guess we can now go to questions.
Q: You're a New York boy, you've heeded Horace Greeley's advice and gone West. Is there any hope for the struggling New York writer other than moving to California?
LEAR: It depends on what you want to do. If you want to see somebody in California, you're going to have to go there. If you want to write somebody in California, you can stay here.
Q: Is it true you were one of the writers in that long line of television people who wrote for The Jackie Gleason Show for a week or two and then it didn't work? Harry Crane seems to remember that he knew you there. Is he mistaken?
LEAR: Harry Crane knows me because he was on the very first Martin and Lewis show. But I held very few jobs. I regret I couldn't get through all of it. I worked The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Ford Star Revue, The Martha Raye Show, after Nat Hiken, who was the dean of all comedy writers, did the first two years. Eddie and I did the second two years, then the show was cancelled and I was out of work for a while. My friend Bud Yorkin, who was doing The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show, asked me if I would join the staff of writers, which was the only time I ever wrote with anybody. Although Eddie and I collaborated, we wrote separately, and then took each other's stuff and went over it, but I could never write in a room with anybody, not even on the Ernie Ford shows. I was one of four or five writers. I also wrote for the hour show that George Gobel did; then Bud and I formed our company, Tandem Productions, and we went on to do other things.
Q: Could you expand on what you said about the difference between what a live audience would laugh at and what people watching the screen would laugh at?
LEAR: When you sit with an audience in a theater, like this one, you're part of an experience. We're together, you and I, and we're all talking together here. You may or may not be interested, or you may or may not be having a good time, but you're a part of it. Your question would be a very interesting one to ask the people who are watching this seminar in the other rooms here at the Museum. I hope this is a good experience for them, but I would suspect that it is—at the very least—different from what you are experiencing simply because people respond to body warmth, and even at this distance there is some connection taking place. I'm much more on trial with the people who are not in this room than I am with those in this audience, although I recognize that it's a strain here, too, and I want to do well. But I stand a better chance with you. I am much more on trial with those people who are removed. This is part of the reason why I wanted so much to make the situation comedies with a live audience, and not with canned laughter. I wanted at least to transmit to people at home that shared experience of a live cast and an audience, which is altogether different from what happens without a live audience.
Q: When you were writing for a live television comedy show, would you write only for the current week's show or would you try to write and plan ahead? I heard something about people scrambling on Monday to write Friday's show.
LEAR: I'm glad you asked that question. This is the way The Martha Raye Show went into production. Eddie and I would scratch our heads, argue, fight, carry on, have some idea of where we were going—these hour book-musicals were every other week. Let's say we were going into rehearsal Monday morning. On Saturday afternoon we would not have had a word on paper. And, under pressure at five o'clock in the afternoon, we'd have the costume designer, the set designer, the conductor, the lighting person, and whoever else was involved, and by then we would be able to say, "We're going to be in the kitchen, then we're going to do something at a street corner, then we're going to go to the living room, then we're going to have a piece of the courtroom, and so on and so on.." We would give them just the bare bones, and they would go away so they could get carpenters and seamstresses and music and whatever was needed to get ready—and then we would start to write around the clock. And because things were mimeographed back then—there was no photocopy machine—I would go on Monday morning to the mimeographers to make certain they weren't crazed as a result of the script having gone in the way it went in. Then I'd be on my feet at ten o'clock with Margaret Truman, Paulette Goddard, Martha Raye, and a cast of whomever, directing the show. This is the way my friends doing Your Show of Shows were working—perhaps not as insanely as that, but almost. We were all in live television going through the same thing. These were also the days when nobody told you that Dexedrine was bad. You could get it in some drug stores simply by asking for it, many times without a prescription. It was the same with Secanol. You'd go to sleep for two hours with Secanol, then you'd wake up with Dexedrine and go to work. If there's anybody here who is young enough to be impressionable, don't try it—these were sick times.
Q: Did you have a dress rehearsal?
LEAR: Yes. I can't remember when we needed to add time, but in a panic, we would cut twelve and fifteen and twenty-two minutes.
Q: You didn't pay any attention to the advertisers or the networks. Didn't you run your show?
LEAR: We ran our shows. I don't remember their having that much to say, except when the Gloria Lochman incident happened. And then I remember a lot of what they said.
Q: Thank God times have changed.
LEAR: Thank God, indeed. It was still bad, years later, around 1962, when Petula Clark put her hand on Harry Belafonte and created a major incident. So times have changed very slowly, and thank God they have.
Q: Your shows obviously moved to a kind of seriousness. People think of Norman Lear as comedy that's serious, that has a political edge to it. Can you explain how you went from what we saw then to that? Would you comment on the process?
LEAR: We were writing for clowns, but there was something serious about what we were writing. And I always thought of it that way. It mattered to me, but it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things—I thought there was something each time that was just a little germ. I don't want to overstate it. There was a germ of something serious in everything. And then, as I think through the rest of my life in television and films, if you look at The Night They Raided Minsky's and Cold Turkey and Divorce American Style, those films that I had a great deal to do with creatively as a writer or producer, were about something. They all had layers of social meaning and, at least as much as I could affect them, were funny. That was their intention. That's the way it felt on the inside.
Q: When you were in California, did you ever receive offers to write for I Love Lucy?
LEAR: No, I was always engaged.
Q: Why did they ever get away from live television? Was it because the seasons became longer?
LEAR: It was because tape was viewed as progress. It helped actors and others to manage their lives and their schedules and their careers and their leisure time and so forth. Tape was progress, first in radio and then in television.
Q: I have two questions. All of your material is funny, that which we grew up with as well as the more recent material. When you are writing, how do you know if it's funny? How do you know if it will work? That's the first question. The second is, considering the frenetic pace at which you created or at least put the shows together, was there ever a time when Saturday afternoon came and you didn't have any ideas? Did that ever take place, and if so, what did you do to try to get the juices flowing to be able to get the skits for the show?
LEAR: To answer the second question, I never sat down to a blank page where I wasn't absolutely positive there was not another idea. And what I did about it was throw up. Cry, stall, wait, sharpen pencils. The throwing up part is not such a joke; I spent a lot of years blocked that way. I started to say it before I realized it might be funny. But that's how it happened. I would pull my hair out, that's what I would do, I'd just pull my hair out! Otherwise I'd be sitting here looking like Mr. Batscha. I don't know many writers who don't feel that kind of panic and think, "Where will the next idea come from? It's just impossible. It won't happen." And then when you prime the pump to a point, it just spews.
Q: How do you know if the material is funny? How do you know if it will work?
LEAR: I don't know. I go with my gut. This applies to each of us in whatever we do. I figure if I laugh, you'll laugh. I don't know another way to judge it.
Q: You didn't try it out on people?
LEAR: No. We played it for a live audience and if it didn't make them laugh, we changed it.
Q: How was Martha Raye on television and why did she drop out of the scene for a while?
LEAR: She was enormously successful on television, but I can't tell you how she did in ratings. People then didn't pay attention to ratings the way they do now. This business of rating everything is a phenomenon that's occurred in our culture. I don't remember that we paid any attention then to anything like that. Martha Raye was just very successful. And we were on. And the kinds of things that would affect you would be a disenchanted sponsor, for whatever reason. That would affect you seriously. Or bad mail, which always has been a given. A handful of letters that might come from a handful of Americans who simply wish to express themselves are always viewed by the agency or the network as "Get that show out of my house!" Networks and agencies have always misinterpreted much of the mail they receive, which is often written by people who simply wish to get something off their minds and is not intended to be threatening.
Q: Do you ever get the urge to go back to sketch writing? Do you miss it?
LEAR: I miss seeing it. I'm a great sketcher of a person, an audience person. I love Saturday Night Live when it's working this much. I will watch it religiously. If it only makes me laugh twice I will watch it, I miss it so. I can't say that I've had an idea for a sketch. I hope Nancy Walker does a Broadway show sometime soon, because she's the only person I know who could do it. That's the only thing I can think of that I've often wished I could write.
Q: Did you ever try to develop a show with all these sketches and things?
LEAR: No.
Q: Did you and your partner Ed Simmons ever have any problems getting in sync, with the two of you going on the same wave length? Was that ever a problem in developing a show or a skit?
LEAR: Not a lot because you grow to know the other person, and we grew in time to feel pretty much the same way about the same things, although of course it didn't always happen. If it did, I'd take something I couldn't otherwise sell him and just simply write some of it. He would do the same. And then we would convince the other person on paper. You can only talk about something to a point. That's a big problem, for whoever was asking me about writing. Don't send anybody treatments, write it.
Q: To what extent do you marry material to a performer?
LEAR: To every extent. You start off with a character, but if you understand something about direction, you're not so word-proud that you won't bend what you've written to meld with the glorious talents of the actor. Archie Bunker could have been six Archie Bunkers, or twelve if there were, at that given time, twelve great actors who could do it. But to not have understood that Mr. O'Connor was bringing something to it of his own personality, out of his own talents, and then made the character work with that in harmony, would have been to miss a great deal. So you do tailor your material.
Q: In all of the shows you had a lot of guest stars and one-shot appearances. Were there any surprises, positive or negative, as to some who were straight actors, like Errol Flynn, who were really very funny, or some you thought would be funny who just kind of died?
LEAR: Well, you saw a little piece of Cesar Romero. We were in rehearsal with Milton Berle to do a show that was a take-off on Liberace, who was the biggest thing in show business, and we did a show that was called National Smile Week. It was National Smile Week and Liberace was the star of the show. And Milton Berle got sick three days before. It took a day to decide how we could replace him. Cesar Romero flew in from California and learned the show in a day and a half cold and knocked us out! I mean, he was glorious! That was a huge surprise. It was a big surprise to see the little girl who won The $64,000 Question. She had never acted a minute of her life but she got up, knowing how many millions of people were going to see her, and did an entire show without missing a cue. So, yes, there were surprises. A lot more surprises in live television than tape.
Q: Is there one thing you've done that you're the most proud of?
LEAR: My mind ran to something so I'll mention it, but it might be because I was talking about it just a little while ago before the seminar began. It was a special I did about four years ago called I Love Liberty. It had, haltingly, falteringly, mistakes. But it had so much to say about our country that I feel and care about, and I loved it, I loved it! But also, Beatrice Arthur made me laugh harder than any human being. I often feel, and I have told her this, that if sorrow and grief takes time away, laughter has to add time. Bea Arthur as Maude added time to my life. She made me laugh in places nobody will ever touch again, places that I don't know how to find. God, how I laughed at her! I think about episodes of Maude and also of All in the Family. In tomorrow's seminar we'll show some pieces of all of those shows, every one of which are, for me, the best things I've ever seen.
I also want to say that when I'm proud for me, I'm proud of a lot of people. I've mentioned the actors. When I was answering somebody's question about All in the Family, I was thinking that there is a miracle that takes place with a cast like Maude—those four people—and a cast like All in the Family, and those four people. I get a lot of credit for the casting I've done, and I accept the credit because I think I've done a terrific job, but it's more than that. There is some kind of miracle that takes place that's bigger than the four people or the person who has cast them, or the script or anything else, which makes it possible for all of that to come together in a moment of time and go for eleven years—in the case of The Jeffersons–or, especially in the case of Maude and All in the Family. If you look at the way those people worked together, and what they all brought to it—not just one person, or any group of those people alone—there is something bigger than all of us that makes it work in a moment of time, that makes all of it come together.
Q: In the early days of television, did you ever long to interject some social commentary into your comedy writing? Did you ever experience any frustration between what you wanted to say and what the networks would allow you to say?
LEAR: That's the subject for the next two seminars. The answer is yes to everything.
Q: You were talking about what you are most proud of. What was your biggest disappointment professionally?
LEAR: The biggest disappointment was something else we were talking about just a little while ago. One of the shows I loved the most was called Hot L Baltimore. I easily think the biggest disappointment was that the basic network, although not all of the people in it, hated the show. And it was on the air at a time when if you bought thirteen they were on for thirteen. Before that, the show had been on for twenty-six weeks, and before that thirty-nine, but that year you were on for thirteen. Today, the way this craziness with the competition in the ratings has escalated, if you don't succeed in two shows, or three shows, it's over and out. But that show had everything for me, and for all the rest of us who worked on it, although we knew two weeks into it that they would never let it go to the fourteenth week. That was a disappointment.
Q: Do you have a dream project now that you know is never going to get off the ground?
LEAR: No, I don't have a project that I think will never get off the ground. I don't want to wake up in the morning if I feel that.
Q: I'm not trying to wheedle your age out of you, but I wanted some idea of how old you were in those days when you sold something for fifty dollars or one hundred dollars. I'm a twenty-two-year-old frustrated writer. It makes me shake to see you sitting up there and to look at your history. You're wonderful. And I want to know or just have an idea of what it was that you did that made things start to click for you.
LEAR: I'm sixty-three. And I lied. It occurred in exactly the way I said. I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight when I went out to California. I was very lucky. I mean, I pulled off this thing with Danny Thomas, I wrote a good piece of material, David Susskind heard it, and then I delivered when I got here. I want to say something that will help you. You're twenty-three or four?
Q: I'm twenty-two.
LEAR: Would you trust me if I said you've got lots of time?
Q: I know.
LEAR: But, don't stop being impatient, too.
Q: I've heard horror stories all the way down the line. I wanted to be an actress when I was six years old and got the wind knocked out of my sails for that one, and then I felt I really had a desire to write. I wanted to know what kind of preconceived notions, if any, you had? I'm hearing all of these horror stories, and some terrific stories like yours, but going in did you have any idea of what you were getting into?
LEAR: Well, I didn't go to California or any place to become a writer. It happened just as I said. Somebody else wanted to be a writer, I helped him, and, you know, fell into it. But I realized as it happened that I'd been writing ever since I was a kid. I wrote in grade school, I was the comedy writer. I wrote the class night play. But I never thought of it in terms of being a writer because I only wanted to be my Uncle Jack. But if you want to write for television, my suggestion is that you find the show you think is most terrific, that you think you could write, and write a few episodes for it. Do it just for yourself. And then show them to some people. If you've got a half dozen people who are looking at a script for Family Ties and they say to you, "This is terrific. I could have seen this one last week," or something like that, then you will begin to get a sense that maybe you've written something for a market that you know exists, and then you will find a way to get it to somebody. The best advice anybody ever gave a writer was to write.
Q: Did you have any role models in those days? People who worked in television who you particularly admired?
LEAR: When I worked on The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show there was a writer by the name of Roland Kibbie; he died not too long ago, bless his soul. Kip taught me more about writing, which I will never forget, and I hope I have passed it on to lots of younger writers who I've worked with through the years. Roland Kibbie taught me so much more by word and deed than anybody I can remember. Had I prepared or sought to be the other role models, in literature, you know I'd have cut my throat a long time ago. I fell in love very early on with George Bernard Shaw. And to compare one's work with something like that is futile—thank God I learned that somewhere along the way.
Q: I'd like to ask a general question about what you see in the relationship between anger and comedy?
LEAR: That's a terrific question. Wherever there is anger there is comedy. Now, you can't say wherever there is comedy there is anger. There are all kinds of gentle comedy, but there is comedy close to anger in any situation, and that's why there is so much humor and drama in confrontation. And we looked quickest for what Archie is coming into that will get him angry. or what's wrong. You look for what's wrong and you'll find sticks to rub together to light the comedic fire. Does that answer your question? It's a good question.
Q: It's the kind of question I can't expect you to answer in two minutes off the cuff.
LEAR: Well, what are you doing for dinner?
Q: From the sublime to the pedestrian, were films the next step from sketch writing before you went into a different comedy world?
LEAR: Yes, it was situation comedy. After the Martha Raye shows, Bud Yorkin and I formed Tandem Productions and we made a deal at Paramount Pictures to do a number of television pilots, on film. I hated it. But we made one television pilot called Band of Gold that caught Paramount's attention and they said, "That's a good piece of film. You guys ought to think about pictures." Well, this is an interesting story that I almost never get to tell. I don't know if I ever got to tell it. "Pictures, huh?" Jack Karp was the fellow who was running Paramount Pictures. I said, "I have a script I love, a play, that I think would make a picture." Years before, on the few Jack Haley shows, there were two writers who came in to work under Simmons and Lear, and they were Danny and Doc Simon—Neil Simon and his brother Danny. Neil had just written his first play and had sent it to me because I was at Paramount Pictures. I was doing television, but he didn't know anyone else in pictures so he sent me the play, which was called One Shoe Off. It was hilarious, so I brought it in to Karp, who arranged a deal where they put up $75,000—that's what it took in those years—to put on this show at Buck's County. They changed the title to Come Blow Your Horn. The $75,000 was the pre-production money they needed to put it on, and the deal called for me to write the screenplay and for Bud Yorkin to direct it. That's the only Neil Simon play that he didn't write the screenplay for. It was his first. And I wrote that screenplay and we made the picture.
Q: Where did you go from sketch writing? Did you go through movies before you got to sketch writing?
LEAR: No, we then started to make pictures. I was in New York and Bud Yorkin and I formed Tandem Productions. Bud was not a writer and although I was not, at that time, a director, I had directed some of the Martha Raye shows. But I didn't think I wanted to be a director. So, we were going to do different things in the same company and hope one and one made three. Bud was in Europe doing an Inspector Clouseau picture with Alan Arkin. I was in New York editing The Night They Raided Minsky's, which William Friedkin directed for us, and Friedkin left four or five days after the picture ended because Bert Lahr died while it was being made—these are such stories! I was writing ahead of the camera to make up for Lahr's death. Editing the picture was very difficult, of course, and he had gone to England to satisfy another commitment so I was left with eleven months of editing. In the course of editing Minsky's I read this little paragraph in TV Guide about a British television show called Till Death Us Do Part, written by a fellow by the name of Johnny Speight, about a bigoted father and his son-in-law who fought about everything. And that was my father and me. I went crazy for it. And that's how All in the Family started, without any notion of getting into situation comedy or anything. I just wanted to write about my father and me.
Q: Your company was involved in bringing British television series over here and Americanizing them. All in the Family is the first American series I can think of that was based on a British series. Were there any others before that or were you a pioneer in this?
LEAR: No, I don't know how much it was pioneered. I did All in the Family based on that little thing. Then I saw episodes of Till Death Us Do Part. It's an entirely different kind of show. And he did twenty-one or twenty-two episodes in six years. They're far more civilized over there. They don't have the kind of schedules to deliver that we have here. Then we did Sanford and Son. And that was Steptoe and Son. John Ritter's show, Three's Company was also a derivative.
Q: Could you talk a little bit about working with Martha Raye and Martin and Lewis?
LEAR: Well, Jerry Lewis and Martha Raye were clowns, and I use the word "clown" very seldom and with great reverence because I think comedians are born often enough, but clowns you get only very rarely. With clowns, their earlobes are funny. Their toes are funny. And they can make you cry like that. Jerry Lewis could do that, and Martha Raye could do that, and Bert Lahr for the little bit I knew him, could do that. Carroll O'Connor also is an enormously inventive, gifted comedic actor in that role of Archie Bunker. I don't know how much comedy he can do in another role, but in that one he was a genius. I don't think I ever regarded anyone else I worked with as a clown. It's incredible to be able to sit here and talk with people who are interested in a love story. And my story with comedy is a love story. I wish for each of you the kind of a work life I've had. It has been glorious. And working with Martha and Martin and Lewis—God, there are endless stories there! And Dean, I should add, and I should say it and underline it nineteen times because Dean Martin was magnificent and there would not have been a Jerry Lewis the way there was a Jerry Lewis without him.
Q: Although I know better, those performances seem to be spontaneous and built on the barest kind of writing.
LEAR: Yes, Jerry was fighting the establishment. The establishment was not interested in his free soul, his free spirit, they only wanted it one way! Jerry was Everyman, Jerry was the lost soul, Jerry was trying to make good in a culture that wouldn't appreciate him. All of these things were inherent in what we thought we were writing, in what appeared to be, and probably were, skeletons, that just gave them some platform to be as hilarious as they were. But we young writers were investing something else in that. For us it wasn't enough to be that hilarious. We had something else in mind to do.
Q: Do you know if there were differences between writing or producing live comedy variety in New York versus your work in Los Angeles?
LEAR: No, because I did live shows in L.A., too, with Dean and Jerry, and George Gobel, and some of those were live. Audiences were different. We always used to talk about how audiences were different. And the better audiences were here [in New York]. I'm trying to remember why that is. Mark, you have some experience with shows on both coasts. Wasn't that true? And has it always been true? Is it still true? GOODSON: Yes, it always has been true.
Q: What's the difference?
GOODSON: Audiences are faster, more sensitive, better read. They see the same play open in Los Angeles. I saw Biloxi Blues open in L.A. at this enormous theater and I said, "This is really good. It's a shame I haven't seen a Neil Simon show previously." Then I saw it in New York and I said, "My God, it's a different show!" A lot of it, of course, was the containment.
LEAR: I think I can explain that. We'd tape two shows for all these episodes. We'd tape one at five-thirty and we'd tape one at eight o'clock. The reason for it was to learn from the five-thirty show audience what we could do to improve it for the eight o'clock audience. Then we took the best of both when we edited it. We always saw a difference between a five-thirty audience and an eight o'clock audience. With the five-thirty audience, we often wondered whether it had something to do with their stomachs, were they hungry? Was the eight o'clock audience fed and more comfortable? Was the eight o'clock audience out for a good time because it was eight o'clock in the evening, and was the five-thirty audience kind of pulling toward the end of the day, before dinner where they were less likely to be out for a good time? We would speculate endlessly, but there was a difference. So, I have no difficulty believing there is really a difference between a New York and a Los Angeles audience. Los Angeles audiences are more laid back, generally.
Q: How about writers? Is there a qualitative difference? I always think that when you go to comedy clubs, the material that's being done in New York is tougher, maybe more angry, than what is being done in California.
LEAR: Well, there are so few writers in Los Angeles who are from Los Angeles. Everybody's an import out there. In that respect, I don't see any difference. They're all transplanted New Yorkers. And anybody who wants to write comes from someplace else to L.A. or to New York. And the New York writers eventually wind up in California.
Q: What is your advice to the young writer who's trying to get the big break like you did when you got Danny Thomas's phone number? Somebody who says to himself, "Gee, if I could just get to somebody like Norman Lear . . . . If he could just give me twenty minutes he'd like my stuff because he really understands the material."
LEAR: Well, if you gave everybody twenty minutes of your time, you wouldn't have a life. But I don't know why you would want twenty minutes if you've written something because that might take even more than twenty minutes. But it isn't twenty minutes you need, it's the twenty minutes he needs to read what you gave him. Let me tell you how I think about it. I only go from what happens in my own company and in my own circle, what I learned specifically myself. I can't tell you how many people have come to my door and wound up at my desk who have, through a kind of courteous persistence and humanity, succeeded in attracting the attention of my secretary or my sister or somebody, to the point where that person either has taken it and read it and then said, "Norman, read this," or that person has said, "I can't get rid of this guy, but he's so charming," or "I've read three pages, it's so interesting." And I have met, I have read, I have found, people, things, ideas, and so forth, in that fashion. So, it's too easy to say, "I can't get read."
I've said this to actor friends all my life: "Don't wait for the agent. Don't wait for the agent." This is the hardest thing you'll ever do. Working after you are successful is much easier than chancing that you're going to be a pain in the ass. But, if you want to be read, if you want to be seen, you must chance being a pain in the ass. And you must develop, somewhere along the line, enough of your own feelings of self that you know you're a decent person and there'll be another decent person someplace that will respond to that. And you can't stop, you can't take the "no's."
Q: You were speaking very recently about the old days. And I was wondering if, when all that frenzy was going on, you felt as fondly about it, or did you really literally not have time to enjoy it?
LEAR: I did both. I remember weeping and agonizing over "When will I get another idea?" I remember loathing the time I was spending. Then, and I guess it's like somebody climbing a mountain, you're suddenly getting to the top and breathing free, and just on the greatest high in the world. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic. It's all, of course, looking backward that makes you feel that way. But there was never any pain that wasn't followed by the greatest high in the world. And I'm the kind of person who remembers the highs better than the pain—but I can tell you there was a lot of the pain.
Q: When you were taken away from your family, especially in the early days—I assume you were recently married—did you miss a lot of them? Did your wife get very upset about the hours you were putting into this new job in this new state?
LEAR: That's a question for the fifth seminar! And I know you want me to sing the song again! Thank you very much. Thank you!


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Tuesday, March, 11, 2014
11:30am to 1:00pm
Lunch provided by Ideate, Inc.
Click here to register.
1.5 CES LU's
The presentation will be an overview of the current applications of 3D scanning technology as it relates to as-built data collection, collaboration, and BIM processes.
Anyone who works on the project team will benefit from the information including Superintendents, Project Engineers, Project Managers, Pre-Construction Professionals, VDC Managers, BIM Managers, etc.
About the Presenter:
Jordan Banning leads the Construction Technology Department at CSDS Inc. He has extensive experience in Model-Based Layout as well as 3D Scanning and Data Processing. Jordan works on multiple projects on a daily basis across all disciplines, including healthcare, light commercial, heavy commercial, and civil applications. With a broad understanding of applications of 3D Technology in the Architecture, Engineering, and MEP trades, Jordan assists clients with implementation and integration within their respective trades. Jordan holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from Sacramento State University and is currently working on CDT Certification from the Construction Specifications Institute.
Learning Objectives:
1: Get and overview of current applications of 3D scanning technology.
2: Learn how 3D scanning technology relates to as-built data collection.
3: Gain insight into how 3D scanning technology relates to collaboration.
4: See 3D scanning and the BIM processes.

subset: commoncrawl


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SHERMAN, Texas –The Austin College women's basketball team got 23 points and 10 rebounds from Bryce Frank and the 'Roos made their free throws late to hold off No. 14-ranked Texas-Dallas on Saturday afternoon in Hughey Gym. This is the first time the 'Roos, who improved to 4-0 with the win, have beaten UTD since November 2012.
The 'Roos and Comets went back and forth early on in the opening quarter, with Addison Walling knocking down a pair of threes to put Austin College ahead 9-8 midway through the period. Texas-Dallas got back on top 12-11 with 3:42 left before Frank made a bucket and Reagan Chiaverini buried a three to make it a 16-12 game. Chiaverini would hit another three and Ally Longaker beat the buzzer with a layup to make it 21-14 after one.
The Comets quickly cut the margin to three before Walling and Frank each scored to make it 25-18, and after UTD had pulled to within two Austin College answered with four quick points to make it 29-23 with 1:18 left before the break. Two free throws from Ann Savage would send the 'Roos into halftime leading 31-24.
Austin College went cold offensively in the third quarter, not getting their first basket until the 6:24 mark when Frank scored to make it 33-29. Both teams struggled to get anything going for the next few minutes, but Chiaverini knocked down her third triple of the game with 2:24 on the clock to give the 'Roos a 38-31 advantage. UTD would chip away at the lead, and a three from Amber Terry with only a few seconds left cut it to a 40-36 game heading to the fourth.
Frank scored the first five points of the fourth for Austin College to make it 45-40, but the Comets battled back and cut it to a 47-46 game with 5:36 left to play. Walling knocked down a three to make it 50-46, but five quick points gave UTD its first lead since the opening quarter at 51-50 with 3:12 left in the game. Frank would score four straight to give the lead back to Austin College, and a pair of free throws from Walling made it 56-53 with 15 seconds left in the game.
After two more free throws from Ann Savage, the Comets were able to cut it to a 58-57 game with four seconds remaining, but Walling iced the game with two more from the stripe.
Frank hit 9-of-16 shots to get her 23 points, and Walling finished the game with 16 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field, including 3-of-4 from deep. Chiaverini hit 3-of-4 three point attempts to finish with nine points, while Savage finished with six points, four assists, three rebounds, and two steals.
Raenett Hughes paced UTD with 19 points and added six rebounds, and Katie Gunther had 12 points for the Comets.
Next up for the 'Roos is another home game on November 30, as Austin College takes on Millsaps at 6:00 p.m.
Austin College athletic teams participate as a member of the NCAA Division III and the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.


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The list of exhibitors for our Montreal Job Fair is here. Check the links below for more details about the companies participating in the job fair.
Also, bookmark and save the date! With many companies attending our job fair, this is your chance to meet the Hiring Managers face to face. Get hired and start your career!
Check our Youtube Channel to watch our recent job fairs
Montreal Job Fair
Date: Thursday, November 29th, 2018. From 1pm – 4pm.
Location: Best Western Plus Hotel Europa located at 1240 Rue Drummond, Montreal H3G 1V7
Register online here


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Everest View Trekking
Everest View Trekking, also known as Everest Panorama Trekking is suitable for those adventurous who wish to see the Mt. Everest in short span of time by doing trek in low altitude only. So this easy trek can be done by everybody. During Everest View Trek, the friendly Sherpa people you meet; explore their pristine rich culture, colorful festivals and monasteries; encountering with different rare flora and fauna; and very beautiful picturesque view of landscape, mountains and different snow capped peaks along with Mount Everest make the holiday lifetime memorable. For more: http://www.blackdiamondexpedition.com/trip/view/everest-view-trek/overview


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The Truth About Small Business Grants in Canada
True Government Grants for Small Businesses Are Hard to Find
Many small business operators want government grants (i.e., funds provided to start or expand a qualifying small-to-medium-enterprise (SME) that do not need to be paid back). These grants are different than small business loans, which do have to be paid back.
Unfortunately, the federal government prefers to invest in the small business by operating loans programs, or assistance programs, that involve some sort of shared contribution rather than in small business grant programs.
Very Few Grants Are Actually Free Money
Free money is what most people are looking for when looking for a grant, especially if they need money to start a business. Unfortunately, almost all the government grants available have strings attached.
For instance, in many cases, small business grants require a financial investment by the applicant. So, although the grant itself doesn't need to be paid back, in order to get the grant you have to put down your own money first. The funders see your investment as demonstrating a commitment. An investment of 10–20 percent is standard.
Job creation is another attached string in order to receive a government grant to start a new business. For instance, one of the guidelines for the Northern Business Opportunity Program - Small Business Start-up Projects reads:
"The proposed new business will operate on a full-time basis and result in job creation in Northern Ontario."
Government Grants Are Extremely Specific
The government's purpose in providing grants to businesses is to spur the development of particular businesses in particular places. They might, for instance, be focused on creating a biotech hub in Ontario or increasing the number of call centers in Nova Scotia.
This works if you're involved in any of the industries the government is interested in spurring on. However, most people who start businesses in Canada want to start small retail businesses such as bakeries, clothing stores, and bookshops.
Additionally, small business grants are often only available to individuals of a certain demographic who reside in a particular place, as well as being tied to a particular condition of a business or certain industry.
These examples of small business grants in Canada will serve as examples:
Small Business Grants for Particular Places and People
- Grants to Small Business Program Northwest Territories – These small business grants are for small businesses, co-operatives, partnerships or sole proprietorships with less than $500,000 in gross sales. Through the SEED Entrepreneur Support Program, All NWT Businesses are eligible for up to $15,000 per year in assistance to assist with costs associated with Start-up, Capital Assistance, Operational Support, and Market Development and Product Promotion.
- Start-Up Grant for Aspiring Farmers in Quebec – Aspiring farmers between ages 18 and 40 who reside in Quebec and are just starting out in agriculture can apply for a grant of up to $25,000 for projects involving sustainable development. (La Financière agricole du Québec).
Small Business Grants for Particular Industries
Particular industries have the edge when it comes to small business grants. For instance:
- AgriMarketing — SME Component – SMEs that are part of the agriculture, agri-food, fish, or seafood sectors may be eligible for funding of up to $250,000. Eligible projects must aim to develop new export markets or further penetrate existing export markets. To be eligible, your company must have annual sales of no more than $50 million, have completed market research, be export and market ready, and contribute a minimum of 50 percent of the project costs.
- Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN) – Technical and financial support equivalent to $50,000 to $100,000 is available to businesses and researchers "looking to accelerate the commercialization of your innovative communications technology, products, applications or services." Qualifying fields include Software Defined Network; Network Function Virtualization; SD WAN; Internet of Things/Smart City Applications; Data Centre/Cloud; Network transport, applications, or mobility, and Security.
Partial Canadian Small Business Grant Programs
You will get some "free" money with the following grant programs, though you'll have to put up some of your own money:
- Toronto Region Sustainability Program – The purpose of the Toronto Region Sustainability Program is to cut down on the amount of smog, greenhouse gases, toxic releases to the air and sewers, and hazardous wastes which threaten the region's environmental health. To this end, the program provides one-stop pollution prevention technical assistance for SME manufacturers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and a 50 percent cost-share funding incentive, up to a maximum of $5,000.
- Bioenterprise Seed Funding Program – Businesses in the agriculture, agri-food, sustainable, or environmental technology sectors in southern Ontario could access up to $30,000 in seed funding as well as coaching and mentorship support services. Applicants must match the grant with their own financial contribution.
The Best Canadian Small Business Grants of All
While small business grants with no strings attached are few and far between, even better financial assistance is available, in the form of programs.
But there's one caveat. You must be willing to make the required contribution (often sweat equity) and demonstrate your level of commitment. If you do that, these programs offer small business funding as well as training and/or mentoring, which can make the difference between success and failure.
- Self Employment Program – What makes this program so outstanding is the level of support provided. Participants not only get help in creating a business plan but receive income support while they do it for up to a year (or 78 weeks for a person with a disability). You have to be Employment Insurance eligible to apply.
- Summer Company – Students in Ontario aged 15 to 29 can receive small business grants (i.e, awards) of up to $3,000 as well as hands-on entrepreneur training and support to run their own summer businesses. Applicants must not be eligible for other self-employment programs, such as the Ontario Self-Employment Benefit.


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Florida Managing Principal Larry Richey and Miami-Based Executive Managing Director Mark Gilbert Named to List of Florida's Most Influential Business Leaders
Cushman & Wakefield of Florida is honored to have two of the state's most influential business leaders at our firm!
Larry Richey, who serves as Managing Principal for the state, and Mark Gilbert, Executive Managing Director who specializes in retail investment sales in Miami, were selected for inclusion in Florida Trend's inaugural "Florida 500."
This prestigious designation recognizes the 500 most influential Floridians in different economic sectors throughout the state, such as real estate, transportation, education, energy and arts and entertainment.
Florida Trend, a monthly magazine geared toward Florida's business community, selected executives for the Florida 500 based on extensive contacts in regional business circles, multiple interviews and months of research, all culminating in a highly selective biographical guide to the people who really run Florida.
To have two of Florida's most influential professionals at Cushman & Wakefield is a tremendous honor. We congratulate Larry and Mark on this well-deserved recognition!
Learn more about the Florida 500 here.


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This attractive and well furnished cozy two Bedroom Apartment at Hauz Khas are amazingly done up and are located in the center of the city. These 2 bedroom luxury furnished apartments with a drawing room, dining room, a small kitchen and a balcony is nicely equipped with furniture and branded gadgets. Located very close to the Green Park Metro Station and prominent hospitals like AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi holiday apartment is ideal for the medical tourists. Large number of places of historical significance like Kalkaji Temple and Qutab Minar and majority of the well known destinations of South Delhi are very close to this Apartment.
For shopping freaks famous malls like Select City Walk, MGF Saket, DLF Saket, Emporia Mall, Greater Kailash market and South Extension Market are well within the close reach of these apartments. Hauz Khas Serviced Apartment are very good for the students as IIT Delhi, NIFT, JNU university and Hauz Khas village are all walking distance. Hauz Khas Serviced Apartment are stunning residences and promise watchfully cosseted privacy and full security from one month to a year. These luxuriously appointed airy rooms have been designed to the challenging standards of world famous interior designers. Every room has good air conditioning, high speed internet, LCD T.V and all the other facilities and amenities that offers you the comfort of a home away from home.
Available Unavailable


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by Heike Ewing Ott
Converting a parrot from a seed diet over to pellets can be a challenging endeavor for any parrot owner, and this is especially true for new owners. However, the benefits of a healthier diet make it truly worthwhile. This article discusses several tips and ideas that have worked successfully for others in getting birds to make the switch to a pellet diet.
How Can I Get My Bird to Eat Pellets/Vegetables?
I see a lot of questions about how to convert birds to pellets, or how to get them to eat vegetables and fruits. Actually, I have converted most birds with the instructions on the pellet package, but there are always those picky ones that you have to be more creative with….. Here are some of the things that have worked for me:
At night before going to bed, take ALL food out of your bird's cage. When you get up in the morning, give the bird only the food you want it to start eating. After a couple of hours, give the bird the food it usually eats, but give it either for a limited time (20 minutes or so) or give a limited amount.
If you are trying to convert to pellets, leave them in the cage all day. If you're trying to get the bird to eat fresh foods, give them again in the evening for an hour or two. Then, in the evening, about an hour or so before bedtime, again give the bird's usual food and let it eat what it wants. Then take all food out of the cage before putting it to bed and start over. Eventually you should see the bird start eating the desired food. It won't starve, but it will experience some hunger at those critical times that should encourage it to eat the new food.
If you are trying to get a very stubborn bird to sample greens, take its water away for 2 or 3 hours, then soak the greens in water and put them in the cage. You may have to do it more than once, but usually the bird will "accidentally" sample the greens while getting the water off of them and discover that they really are food.
The Pellet Sneak: Start giving your bird a few fruit loops as a treat daily. (yes, the nasty sugary cereal – the end justfies the means in this case.) After a few days, start mixing colored pellets in with the fruit loops. The bird will, sooner or later, accidentally eat some pellets. Then gradually start reducing the number of fruit loops and adding more pellets.
Hopefully the bird will continue to eat the pellets once it has realized they are food, as the fact that the bird -doesn't- recognize pellets as food is usually the reason they don't eat them. If you want to go to the "natural" (not colored) pellets later, just start adding them in and gradually reduce the amount of colored ones that are in the mix.
The Reducing Diet: This one has always worked for me, but it has taken as long as eight months. To begin, measure the amount of food you give your bird. After the bird has eaten, figure the amount it has eaten as best you can, taking into account what spilled. Do it for a week until you're sure you have a pretty good idea of how much your bird eats daily.
Now give the bird a separate dish of pellets, and always keep it filled. For the first week, give the bird 10% less than it normally eats in a day of its usual food that it has been eating. If it still doesn't start eating the pellets, give it only 80% of what it normally eats for one week, and if it still doesn't eat the pellets do 70% for one week. After that week, give the bird its usual food for two weeks, unlimited, to allow it to gain back any weight it may have lost. Then start over from the beginning with 90%, 80%, 70%. Keep repeating this pattern, always giving two weeks in between for the bird to recover any weight loss, until the bird starts eating the pellets.
Eat some pellets in front of your bird and pretend it can't have any. 🙂 John says they really aren't bad. According to him, Zupreem and Hagen taste the best, followed by Roudybush and Harrison's, and Exact in last place.
Try Hagen Gourmet mix. Both my Quakers love it, and it has very little seed in it, but lots of other good stuff.


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|Hexie flowers
Thursday, August 2, 2012
4 comments:
These are beautiful, Mary! Love the idea of all blues. That reminds me that I have a red hexie quilt started somewhere. Must look for it. Thanks for linking to my blog. I think my hexies are a bit bigger than yours and I am not using triangles and diamonds. But is a good idea! This is what it is all about. Now I am being inspired by you!ReplyDelete
Love the hexies, I am going to get mine out and do something with them. You have inspired me.ReplyDeleteReplies
First of all, Thanks for reading my blog. My posting is whenever I can get to it.Delete
I would love to see your hexies and if you need papers, I can send it to you or you can do what I did. I bought a paper punch from Creative Memories that has 2 sizes on one punch. I was told they are coming out with a new size. Bigger than my 1 and 1/2 inch dies.
Good luck and again thanks.
Mary K.
Hi Mary K, I'm stopping by from Gayle's Blog Tag game. I love hexies too! Our guild once made a Grandmother's Flower garden queen size quilt using the English Paper Piecing method. It was a challenge to put together but it came out beautiful! I'm your newest follower, I'd love if you would come over and follow me too!ReplyDelete


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Financial Founding Fathers
The Men Who Made America Rich
Robert E. Wright and David J. Cowen here chronicle how a different group of founding fathers forged the wealth and institutions necessary to transform the American colonies from a diffuse alliance of contending business interests into one cohesive economic superpower. From Alexander Hamilton to Andrew Jackson, the authors focus on the lives of nine Americans in particular—some famous, some unknown, others misunderstood, but all among our nation's financial founding fathers. Such men were instrumental in creating and nurturing a financial system that drove economic growth in the nascent United States because they were quick to realize that wealth was as crucial as the Constitution in securing the blessings of liberty and promoting the general welfare. The astonishing economic development made possible by our financial founding fathers was indispensable to the preservation of national unity and of support for a government that was then still a profoundly radical and delicate political experiment.
Grand in scope and vision, Financial Founding Fathers is an entertaining and inspiring history of the men who made America rich and steered her toward greatness.
- Contents
- Review Quotes
2. The Creator: Alexander Hamilton (1757?-1804)
3. The Judas: Tench Coxe (1755-1824)
Economics and Business: Business--Industry and Labor | Economics--History | Economics--Money and Banking | Economics--Urban and Regional
History: American History | General History
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.


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My Listings
483 GLENWAY Avenue in WINNIPEG: Birdshill Area Residential for sale (North East Winnipeg) : MLS®# 1506444
483 GLENWAY Avenue WINNIPEG R2G 1H5 : Birdshill Area
Showings start now, offers presented when received. Wow! What a beautiful home! Perfectly located across the street from a playground/School and on the ESP side of the street! Score! Bamboo floors grace all the main living areas on the main level and the lower level. You'll love how the natural light drenches this home in sunshine and warmth throughout the year. The livingrm is oversized and offers a nice bay window. Upper level boasts the remodelled kitchen that offers both painted cabinets and oversized IKEA island and ceasarstone counter tops. Stainless steel appliances and custom tile backsplash complete this transformation. Bay window and garden door to deck and picturesque back yard. MB has dcc and 3pc ensuite. 2nd & 3rd bedrooms are great for the kids and have double closets. Lower level has an outstanding recroom with 2 oversized windows and a woodstove insert, huge 4th bedroom used a gym in addition to a 2pc bath, laundry room and oversized finished storage room. Hurry!
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|Get ready to apply for Walmart online.
Anyway, it's about time you get a little more light-heartedness from this web site and just for you, we have assembled the top 10 reasons you should apply for Walmart online in reverse order, of course:
10. Because you're tired of your Aunt Martha telling you, "Get a job kid, you're not getting any younger and your welcome at your parents' home is getting older and older by the minute."
9. You're tired of that old Chevy your father lent you and let you keep after it spilled oil all over the garage because you didn't have enough money to take it to your uncle Leo's auto repair shop.
8. You have been trying to get real cable TV instead of that connection you got when your neighbor rigged it up for you and said he hadn't paid for cable in twenty years.
7. You want to apply for Walmart online because your haircut still looks like a mess after you've exhausted those 6 dollar-a-cut beauty salons because you need to save some money for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every two weeks.
6. You hate eating spam and popcorn while watching American Idol, thinking you need to improve your lifestyle.
5. Studio apartments that are 15 feet by 15 feet just don't cut it for you anymore.
4. You can't picture yourself waking up at 11 AM every morning and hanging out with people who think you are as lazy as them.
3. Every time you visit Starbucks every one looks like they have a job but you!
2. You've been trying to get a year's membership to LA Fitness where all your friends work out but you just figured out with the allowance your parents give you it's possible you will be able to get a membership by the year 2025!
1. And the number one reason you should apply for Walmart online is it's a chance to have the kind of stability and family life few people ever get a chance to have.
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California's first lady shares the pain of Alzheimer's disease
Maria Shriver may be part of the powerful Kennedy clan – and married to California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – but she doesn't want anyone to think her life is absolutely perfect.
"I don't have it all together … the road is bumpy, and I don't have any shame in sharing that," the mother of four, 53, tells Lynn Sherr for The Daily Beast. "I find that people are so grateful that you say, 'Well, I'm having a very difficult time with my parents getting older.' Or, 'My parents are struggling and I'm struggling, too.' "
It's true: Shriver's 87-year-old mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, has had several strokes, and her father, Sargent Shriver, 93, has Alzheimer's disease. "I would say I've had a character transformation with both of my parents," she says.
Her experience with her father's disease, in fact, led her to co-executive produce a four-part HBO series, The Alzheimer's Project, which premieres Sunday.
"I think anybody in their 50s or 60s or 70s should be concerned that they're going to get Alzheimer's, whether you have a loved one with it or not," she says. "Everybody should be terrified."
Shriver tries to stay healthy by exercising and eating right – "I try to be conscious of what I eat for my heart, with the idea that what's in my heart can go to my brain" – but she admits to some weaknesses. "I like cookies, any cookie you put in front of me – animal cookies, sugar cookies, anything crunchy."
While she hopes Congress will begin to focus attention on brain research, Shriver doesn't plan on following her uncles, cousins, or husband into politics. She says, "That's not who I am, at this point in my life."


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Conficker Tries Its Hand at Extortion
Kaspersky Labs has reported that the worm has downloaded a fraudulent "antivirus" program, and will attempt to charge users $49.95 to remove it from a user's infected system. As previously reported, the worm is also connecting to servers using the Waledac botnet.
"Fear is used, universally, as a means to control people," opined Sendio Chief Technology Officer Tal Golan. "Governments use it. Large businesses use it. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that "cyber bad guys" use it."
Read the rest of this story at eWEEK: "Updated Conficker Ropes Victims into Rogue Antivirus Scam"


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Now I DID take lots of pictures of this cool house. But I didn't notice until the end that I had left the SD card for my camera at home. *Womp womp* I put a few cell phone photos at the bottom of this post, but here is what we brought home!
There was a shed full of cool little toys. That bagpipe player is a coin purse!
Pom pom fox with sleepy eyes? He's coming home with me!
Christmas crafting supplies. I have a few plans for this holiday season. Hopefully I'll get to them.
I Love a kitchen witch! They are so weird and kind of ugly but still cute.
I didn't notice until we got home that she is a magnet! Perfect.
Display cases full of toys!


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General Technical Support
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Fort Collins, Colo., October 22, 2008 – Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq GM: AEIS) today announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2008. Sales for the third quarter of 2008 were $84.5 million, which represented a 6.6% decline from $90.5 million in the same quarter a year ago and a 4.0% decline from $88.0 million in the second quarter of 2008. The decrease was attributed mainly to weakening global economic conditions and continued challenges in the semiconductor capital equipment market. Our book to bill ratio for the quarter was 0.92:1, with an ending backlog of $48.9 million.
Despite the overall decline in revenue, sales to non-semiconductor markets grew 11% sequentially to 48% of total sales for the quarter. Non-semiconductor performance was driven by sales to the solar market, which represented 23% of total revenue, and sales to the flat panel display market, which were also strong at 11% of total sales. Service sales grew to 18% of total revenue, as customers evaluated the benefits of making near-term investments versus extending the life of their existing equipment with upgrades and maintenance during these challenging economic times.
Gross margin for the third quarter was 41.7%, up from 40.6% in the third quarter of 2007, and 40.1% in the second quarter of 2008, due principally to a more favorable product mix.
Net income for the third quarter of 2008 was $5.4 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, compared to $5.9 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2007. Net income also decreased sequentially from $5.9 million or $0.14 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2008.
"Sales to the solar market reached their highest levels yet, and were once again key to the success of our quarterly results, aided by strength in sales to the flat panel display market and our service business. We continued to build out our non-semiconductor businesses with new products such as our recently announced 500KW Solaron inverter. The expansion of this product portfolio will allow us to penetrate larger inverter installations, including utilities and solar farms. Overall, we were pleased with our performance in the third quarter, especially in light of the particularly challenging economic environment," said Dr. Hans Betz, president and chief executive officer of Advanced Energy. "Unfortunately, the distressed economic conditions are impacting all markets and have led us to guide lower revenues and earnings for the fourth quarter. We will, however, take important steps to manage costs in order to maintain a healthy business, while investing in key products and markets to position the company for future opportunities."
Fourth Quarter 2008 Guidance
The Company anticipates fourth quarter 2008 results to be within the following ranges: • Sales of $66 million to $72 million. • Earnings per share of ($0.05) to $0.01
Third Quarter 2008 Conference Call
Management will host a conference call today, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time to discuss Advanced Energy's financial results. Domestic callers may access this conference call by dialing 888-713-4717. International callers may access the call by dialing 706-634-7937. Participants will need to provide a conference passcode 68332373. For a replay of this teleconference, please call 800-642-1687 or 706-645-9291, and enter the passcode 68332373. The replay will be available through 12:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, October 24, 2008. A webcast will also be available on the Investor Relations webpage at http://ir.advanced-energy.com. About Advanced Energy Advanced Energy® is a global leader in innovative power and control technologies for high-growth, thin-film manufacturing and solar power generation. Specifically, AE targets solar grid-tie inverters, solar cells, semiconductors, flat panel displays, data storage products, architectural glass and other advanced applications. The Company's expectations with respect to financial results for the fourth quarter of 2008 are forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the volatility and cyclicality of the industries the company serves, particularly the semiconductor industry, the timing of orders received from customers, the company's ability to realize cost improvement benefits from the global operations initiatives underway, and unanticipated changes to management's estimates, reserves or allowances. These and other risks are described in Advanced Energy's Form 10-K, Forms 10-Q and other reports and statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports and statements are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Copies may also be obtained from Advanced Energy's website at www.advanced-energy.com or by contacting Advanced Energy's investor relations at 970-407-6555. Forward-looking statements are made and based on information available to the company on the date of this press release. The company assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release. ### CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (UNAUDITED) (in thousands, except per share data) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2008 2007 2008 2007 Sales $84,510 $90,492 $261,393 $300,863 Cost of sales 49,249 53,765 155,008 170,873 Gross profit 35,261 36,727 106,385 129,990 Operating expenses: Research and development 14,681 12,937 41,528 37,883 Selling, general and administrative 14,337 15,537 42,760 46,169 Amortization of intangible assets 223 201 689 727 Restructuring charges 522 556 1,589 3,505 Total operating expenses 29,763 29,231 86,566 88,284 Income from operations 5,498 7,496 19,819 41,706 Other income, net 429 308 2,330 3,367 Income from continuing operations before income taxes 5,927 7,804 22,149 45,073 Provision for income taxes (558) (1,948) (4,951) (14,879) Net income $5,369 $5,856 $17,198 $30,194 Basic earnings per share $0.13 $0.13 $0.40 $0.67 Diluted earnings per share $0.13 $0.13 $0.40 $0.66 Basic weighted-average common shares outstanding 41,787 45,248 42,773 45,117 Diluted weighted-average common shares outstanding 42,201 45,761 43,183 45,696 CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (UNAUDITED) (in thousands) September 30, December 31, 2008 2007 ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $81,232 $94,588 Marketable securities 53,687 110,676 Accounts receivable, net 65,582 64,188 Inventories, net 53,637 50,532 Deferred income taxes 13,747 23,696 Other current assets 4,037 4,289 Total current assets 271,922 347,969 Property and equipment, net 29,819 30,912 Long-term investments 33,307 1,483 Deposits and other 5,869 5,562 Goodwill and intangibles, net 68,587 67,768 Customer service equipment, net 1,223 1,236 Deferred income tax assets, net 19,292 4,098 Total assets $430,019 $459,028 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Trade accounts payable $14,431 $12,424 Other accrued expenses 28,584 29,590 Total current liabilities 43,015 42,014 Long-term liabilities 9,109 9,953 Total liabilities 52,124 51,967 Stockholders' equity 377,895 407,061 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $430,019 $459,028
SOURCE Advanced Energy Industries, Inc.


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Two events from last night stand out. First, Timothy Cardinal Dolan praying for the unborn at the Democrat Convention in his closing prayer. Just such an eventuality is why the Democrat powers that be didn't want the Cardinal to be there to begin with. Good for the Cardinal.
Second, Jennifer Granholm, former Democrat governor of Michigan, doing the best Howard Dean parody I have ever seen. ( The impact is somewhat blemished when one recalls that GM is facing bankruptcy again. Oh well.)
And that was that, nothing else of note. Bye Democrats.
Oh, there were two minor speeches by Biden and Obama. As for Biden, I have used him as a clown figure here for the past four years and doubtless I will again, but today I will mercifully ignore the desire to literally give his speech a fisking to remember. Shooting ducks in a barrel is small sport.
As for President Obama's effort, it had a touch of Greek tragedy about it, as he has led the country into being a semblance of the bankrupt modern Greeks and because I think he knew as he delivered his speech that his gift for oratory which was hailed by his supporters to the skies in 2008 could not come close to saving him politically in 2012. I will allow Charles Krauthammer to do the autopsy of the speech:
Law Professor and blogger Ann Althouse captures what I suspect was running through Obama's mind after his speech ended:
There's a closeup of his face and I think I see his lip curl with a bit of disgust, and I rewind and ask Meade to interpret the face and he says: resignation. Subjectively, we think we see in his face that he knows he's going to lose.