What Tom Selleck and I Have in Common

Note: it's not a hit TV show

Random noun: commercial

I did several TV commercials back in my acting days. You may have seen me lifting a tray of McDonald’s hamburgers, pouring Pepsi at a party, drinking milk on a dock, or playing football on the beach before gathering around a cooler of Colt .45. What? You don’t remember? So fleeting is celebrity.

But there was money involved and, indeed, when I went to law school it was nice to get residual checks every few months. Meant my wife and I could have dinner out every now and then.

That’s how a lot of actors used to put bread on the table as they awaited their big break. I recall an ad for Dubonnet in the early 70s featuring Farrah Fawcett walking around fetchingly in a cowboy hat. Then she’s sharing a drink with this impossibly handsome guy with mustache and dimples, one Mr. Tom Selleck.

Of course, Farrah went on to fame and poster superstardom on Charlie’s Angels. Tom got the greatest gig in the world, a P.I. role filmed in Hawaii. Tough duty!

Somehow I got passed over for the lead in Three’s Company. That also featured a “blonde bombshell” named Suzanne Sommers. She’d made an impression in the hit movie American Graffiti as the “blonde in the white Thunderbird” with whom Richard Dryefuss becomes obsessed. When Three’s Company became a big hit, Somers demanded pay equal to the “star” of the show, John Ritter. That pit her against the giant ABC. They fired her.

She did not slink away. She performed in Vegas, had another hit show in the 90s called Step by Step, and later made a bundle doing infomercials for a device called ThighMaster. You put this thing between your knees and squeezed. It worked your hips, thighs, and caboose. Sold a ton.

Somers was later inducted into the Infomercial Hall of Fame. Did you know there was such a thing? It includes those who pitched things like spray on hair, Chia Pets, and The Clapper (Clap on! Clap off! For those too lazy to flip a light switch).

Reminds me of the Steven Wright line: “I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.”

I thought about all this the other day when an ad appeared on my phone. A young woman talked about a product (which escapes me at the moment) in a typical pitch kind of way. But as I listened, there was something just a bit off about the cadence. Subtle, but noticeable. Something missing like, well, humanity.

You know what I’m talking about. “She” was AI generated, which means the company was spared the expense of paying human talent. Which meant an actor was denied a job. Which was one of the reasons the Writers and Screen Actors Guilds went on strike in 2023—fear of the great replacement.

Before all this went down I speculated on what might happen if a company wanted to use a digital John Wayne. That short story is available here. (I’d appreciate the “tip.”)

Speaking of today, it’s a sunny morning in L.A., so I’m writing this in my back yard, enjoying the sounds of nature which, in my town, includes the distant honk of the migrating commuter mixed with the distinctive trill of the racing ambulance.

And squirrels, who are right now chasing around in the trees and bushes in my yard. They’re in a tizzy about something. It’s nuts! (I couldn’t resist. I mean, yes, of course I could resist, but chose not to, being the fan of cheap laughs that I am, which reminds me of the quote by Oscar Wilde, who said, “I can resist anything except temptation.” He also said, when talking to customs in America, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” No shrinking violet, Oscar, which got him into trouble when cross-examined in his infamous morals trial, but I have gone on too long for one parenthesis, and shall therefore hasten to close it.)

Who came up with the parenthesis, anyway? It was a brilliant innovation, a way to capture a thought or explain a part of a sentence without shutting off the flow with a period, to add substance in a quick fashion and then kindly get out of the way. To close that bit of content inside two half-arcs—which operate like the sides of a goldfish bowl (to use a visual metaphor) or a fence (as in a corral for horses, keeping them in one place so they don’t break out and overrun the sentence or, in a stampede, the entire paragraph)---was a good move (generally speaking).

An interesting rule about parentheses (the plural of parenthesis) is where to place the period. If the parenthesis stands alone as its own sentence, the period goes inside the arc. If it is part of the sentence itself, the period goes on the outside. Here are two examples:

…the firing squad went home. (Each man left his rifle leaning against the wall.)

…the firing squad went home (with each man leaving his rifle against the wall).

You now know more about the proper style of parentheses than 99% of the population of the entire world (nice!) and 100% of the students in LAUSD schools (not so nice).

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Mary Castro died in Columbus, OH, at the age of 87. Her obituary says “she slipped quietly out of a rich, long life.” She had children and grandchildren, and in mid life became a dedicated cyclist, joining a group of women riders calling themselves the “Granny Gears.” The “granny gear” is a biking term that refers to the lowest gear on your bike. That's a clever name for these older women peddling around together.

I love a clever name. My favorite was the 1970s squad of Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders: The Embraceable Ewes.

The Embraceable Ewes

This was the brainchild of David Mirisch, a powerful Hollywood PR man. Ten years earlier, Mirisch had discovered an actress named…Farrah Fawcett, which just goes to show how Whimsical Wanderings connect so beautifully if given enough time!

From a college essay: Mary, the mother of Jesus, was special among women because of her immaculate contraption.