Mandelbaum in the Movies

Here's a link to one of the first of my Mandelbaum stories in The Big Ugly Review back in 2004:

http://www.biguglyreview.com/firsttime/fiction/goodstein.html .

Mandelbaum in the Movies

The news that they were looking for extras for the made for television motion picture they were shooting in Kittaning reached Mandelbaum weeks after it reached everyone else in town. Mandelbaum didn’t read the papers. Mandelbaum didn’t communicate much with his neighbors. Mandlebaum would as soon listen to the voice of the devil as WKIT, the voice of Kittaning. Because he had no relatives, he had no relatives to speak with, but if he had had relatives, it is not likely he would have had much to say to them in any case. In fact even the news that there was a made for television motion picture being shot in Kittaning, didn’t reach Mandelbaum until weeks after that shooting had begun.

Had his neighbors thought to tell him about it, they would have quickly put the thought out of their minds, since Mandelbaum, they all knew very well, Mandelbaum was a private person, a massive hulk of a private person who was prone to meet a friendly greeting with a grunt and a scowl under the best of circumstances. And while the whole town might be agape and agog with movies and movie stars, what would such things be to Mandelbaum. Besides for all anyone knew, the man might not even own a television set, and if he did, was it at all likely that he would watch such a thing as a made for television motion picture. So it was with surprise bordering on shock that the good people of Kittaning arose one morning to find Mandelbaum leading the sun down Main Street, made for television motion picture makers beginning their day quite early, to the front of the Super Bee Market where that day’s shooting was to take place.

“Look,” said the early rising paperboy pointing.

“I see,” shrugged the driver of the schoolbus.

Their surprise was even greater when he walked straight up to that eminent man in the baseball cap and jeans, a man of such importance that the fraying of his shirt collar and the scuffing on his shoes went unnoticed, or at least uncommented upon, by all those around him; walked right up to the great man who was clamping his teeth down on a poppy seed bagel shmeared heavily with cream cheese and announced: “I am here.”

“For what?” said the paperboy.

“For what?” said the neighbors to each other.

“For what?” asked the nonplussed minions of the celebrated mucher of bagels.

“I see that,” said the great man, who had not become great a great man by allowing anything as inconsequential as an ignorance of circumstances to prevent him from taking control whatever the situation, “I’ve been waiting.”

He finished chewing his bagel, surveying the bulky body of Mandelbaum as he chewed, waiting perhaps for some clue as to who this man was and what it was that he was here for, perhaps not caring at all. For when no clarification was forthcoming, he simply called to his assistant, pointed to Mandelbaum, and said: “He is here.” This cogent remark he punctuated with another large bite into the bagel which clearly indicated to the assistant that no further explanation would be forthcoming.

“Follow me, please,” the assistant smiled at Mandelbaum.

And Mandelbaum followed him. Followed him to the assistant’s assistant, to whom the assistant said with all the authority of an aspirant to greatness: “He is here.” And with that he turned and walked away in search of his own poppy seed bagel.

The assistant’s assistant looked up Mandelbaum and down, hoping perhaps for some indication of what was to be done, but with nothing forthcoming in a timely fashion, and loathe to indicate indecisiveness by any failure to act he said, “Come with me.”

And Mandelbaum was led to a young man with a note pad who took him to a younger man without a note pad who introduced him to an older man with a neatly trimmed beard who brought him to a red haired woman in a tee shirt that read: “I’m With Stupid,” and showed an arrow pointing to the right. The red haired woman pointed Mandelbaum to a high stool standing before a mirror, covered him with a sheet like cloth, and began to cover his face with some sort of greasy substance.

“You here for the heavy?” she asked.

“I’m here,” muttered Mandelbaum.

“I thought they were bringing in a name from the coast,” she opined.

“Mmm,” mumbled Mandelbaum. Polite converation was an indulgence he allowed himself. Instead he sat quietly as she painted his face, etched a red line of scar on his left cheek, clipped a few hairs from his nostrils, and rose obediantly as she pointed him to a pinstriped suit, a black shirt and a bow tie. Mandelbaum looked at the clothes as if he didn’t comprehend what cothes were for.

“They’re waiting,” the redheaded woman said.

Mandelbaum did not move.

“Put it on,” she said indicating the suit.

Mandelbaum looked for someplace to change.

“Hurry,” she shouted, “they’re waiting.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Mandelbaum dropped his pants and forced his massive frame into the waiting clothes which although a little tight managed to withstand the thrust of his efforts.

The redheaded woman, watching the stuffing of the suit with some fear for its seams, but realizing that it was not her place to question the great or even the near great for that matter, called over to where the camera had been set up: “He’s here.” And she pushed him gently forward.

“Ah, here he is,” said the man with the neatly trimmed beard.

“He’s here,” called the young man without the note pad to the young man with the note pad, who checked his note pad and finding nothing, escorted Mandelbaum back to the assistant’s assistant.

“Here,” he said.

The assistant’s assistant looked at Mandelbaum and as if the addition of the scar to the left cheek had awakened some recognition in him, led him proudly off to the assistant, at whom he smiled knowingly.

“Here’s the man.”

The assistant, disoriented for the moment, didn’t recognize Mandelbaum. He had been busily checking so many things. He stared at the scar. He stared at the pinstripped suit. These he remembered, not on the body of Mandelbaum, but these he remembered. And then it came to him: the great man, the poppy seed bagel, the cream cheese. This was the actor that had been entrusted to his care. And looking at him in make up and costume he had done well.

“We’re here,” he called.

The great man looked at Mandelbaum approvingly. “Well done,” he thought.

“Check his light,” he said.

Two months later when Mandelbaum left for Hollywood, his neighbors may have been surprised, or maybe they were not. Mandelbaum was a private man. They knew so little of him. Who knew what he had inside.

Spokes(man)person(delbaum)

“A spokesman?”
Kessler looked smugly at the older man across from him. There would be days like this, they had told him at the agency. They were right.
“Spokesperson, Mr. Grossbart. In this day and age,” he winked knowingly, “spokespersons we call them.”
“Spokesperson. Spokesman. It’s all the same thing. Like the guy with the white beard from the fried chickens.”
“Like the guy with the chickens, but we were thinking of someone a little more in touch with the younger demographic. Someone like–.”
“Demographic?”
Days like this, Grossbart chanted silently, days like this, days like–.
“Audience,” he said aloud, “someone to appeal to a younger audience. Oh like a musician perhaps, a rapper, some heavy–.
“A wrapper? What kind of wrapper? What the hell are you talking ‘a wrapper.’”
“Rap is in. They’re very big with the sixteen to–.”
“Big. I’ll bet its big. Sixteen to whatever is just about the right age for a wrapper. For wrapping you don’t need four years in college.”
“The buck some of these guys are making they can buy themselves a college if they want one. Rapping is big money these days. That’s why it makes sense to take advantage of–.”
“Wrapping is big money? Not with Grossbart, it isn’t. With Grossbart Wrappiug is minimum wage. Very minimum minimum wage.”
“You’ve got to look at the big picture, Mr. Grossbart. Sure, rapping isn’t for everyone. Even me personally, it’s not my favorite, but–.”
“This is what I mean, you went to get a big shot business degree, a PH.b–.”
“An MBA.”
“Whatever. An MBA you got so you should listen to a wrapper.”
“You have to keep in mind who you are trying to sell to, Mr. Grossbart. Who are they listening to?”
“To wrappers?”
“On the nose. Rappers. Turn on your radio. Any top forty station.”
“Radio?’
“Any top forty station. And it’s not just black–African Americans.”
“Who said black? Black, white–it’s not this. Who listens to a wrapper? A ball player, maybe. A movie star. But a wrapper? Better a cashier. At least they handle money.”
“A cashier?”
When it finally hit Kessler what the problem was, he figured let it drop. An explanation was going to make somebody feel like a fool, and this was not the best way to do business.
“You know something Mr. Grossbart, you’re right. Who’s going to listen to a wrapper?”

“I’m not in business forty years, because I don’t know something.”
“The wrapper was just an example. What the agency really had in mind was one of the hottest movie stars around.”
“I told you movie star. Did you hear me? I said movie star.”
“You said it. . . .you said it and I heard it. What would you say to the biggest name to come out of Hollywood in a decade.”
“What would I say? I’d say who are we talking about?”
“You are something, Mr. Grossbart. They told me down at the agency. Mr. Grossbart, they said, Grossbart has been in the business forty years, and it’s not because he doesn’t know something.”
“So?”
“So? You saw the remake of ‘Weekend at Bernies?’ Biggest box office of the year.”
“I saw.”
“And who is the actor that made it the biggest box office?”
“Who?”
“And who is the actor who is going to star in the new silent remake of ‘Gone With the Wind?’”
“Silent. You mean–.”
“Who else? Mandelbaum!”
“Mandelbaum? The big guy? The one who doesn’t talk.”
“Mandelbaum.”
“But he doesn’t talk.”
“He doesn’t say anything, but he–.”
“You’ll excuse me, but what you’re telling me is that you want I should have a spokesman for Grossbart’s that doesn’t–.”
“Spokesperson.”
“A spokesperson that doesn’t spokes.”
“This guy is hot. Just his face will sell.”
“What’s the matter, I can’t get a face and a voice too?”
“Some people don’t need a voice to communicate.”
“First a wrapper and then a dummy. Who else you got? A convict maybe, a child molester?”
“He’s not a dummy. He just doesn’t talk. That’s his thing. His. . .schtick. Like Presley’s hips, like–.”
“Good enough, get me Presley. His schtick, I like better.”
“Come on, Presley’s dead.”
“So he doesn’t talk either, right. Dead , dumb, same difference.”
“Alright, Mr. Grossbart, you don’t want Mandelbaum,, you don’t want Mandelbaum. But you’re making a mistake. This guy will make you a fortune. You know what they’re planning on spending on that ‘Gone With the Wind?’ I’m talking about ‘Gone With the Goddamn Wind.’ And Grossbart’s can get in on all of that hype. Mandelbaum! ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Grossbart’s. Think of the billboards. Mandelbaum’s face all over Times Square. All over the country. Think about it.”
“And for a spokesperson without the spokes, what does it cost?”
“Now you’re talking.”
“For a spokesman without the spokes. Half price.”

(originally published on line in Laughter Loaf: http://molyworld.net/laughterloaf/spokespers.htm)

Mandelbaum on the Radio

“A mute? You want me to put a mute on the radio?”

“Hear me out, will you please? Just listen for--”

“What is there to listen to, you moron. You’re out of your goddamn mind. He wants me to put a friggin’ mute on the radio.”

“Look, Lennie, listen to me. You were the first with the retards, weren’t you? You were the guy with the stutterers, no? The midgets? You can’t see midgets on the radio. You were the first with--”

“And now you want me to be the first with fifteen minutes of dead air? What are you nuts? The guy doesn’t talk. This is friggin’ radio, remember? Sound? How do you interview a guy that doesn’t talk?”

“You can start--”

“Wait let me see if I can figure it out. I can start the next big thing, the new vogue: SILENT friggin’ RADIO, right? I can see it now. ‘Lennie Slotnik: FCC Bad Boy’s New Blow for Freedom of Speech. Silence.’”

“There is some question about whether or not he really can speak or not, you know. Maybe he really isn’t a mute. And if anyone can get him to speak, it would be Lennie Slotnik.. Think about the headlines. Mandelbaum Speaks. Slotnik’s Miracle.”

“Like one of them guys laying on the hands: ‘I can walk–it’s a miracle–I can walk.”

“Like getting one of those guys in the street to move.”

“What are yo talking about, guy in the street, it would be like getting one of those guards at that English palace to break up in hysterics. Like.. . . what the hell am I talking about. You’re making me nuts. The guy doesn’t talk. This is radio and the guy doesn’t talk.”

And that ended the first meeting where Slotnik’s producer, Larry Bellomatti pitched a guest shot for Mandelbaum the mute actor whose breakout performance in “Weekend at Bernies” was the rage of the moment.
A week later, when the news about Mandelbaum starring in a remake of “Gone With the Wind” was all over Entertainment Tonight, Slotnik was, if not quite convinced, at least willing to talk about it.

“This Mandelbaum guy, he talks? Yes or no.”

“I heard from a guy on the set at “Bernies” that he can talk if he wants to. The no talking, it’s just a publicity stunt. This guy tells me that in his trailer--”

“And this is a guy knows what he’s talking about? He’s not blowing smoke?”

“I know him for years. He’s not gonna smoke me. If he says it, it’s gold.”

“And if it’s not?”

“It’s not not. It is.”

“And if it’s not, I’m stuck with fifteen minutes of talking to myself.”

“You’ll think of something. You always do.”

“Right, it’d be nice if somebody else did some thinking around here once in awhile. Why am I surrounded with–. Let me give it some more thought. Meanwhile see if you can get me that one legged stripper from Miami.”

The morning after Mandelbaum appeared on Letterman, Slotnik was sold.

“Get Mandelbaum,” he told Bellomatti.

“What we need is somebody to talk for him, just in case. I mean Letterman is television.”

“You have to tell me that Letterman is television? I don’t know that Letterman is television. Give me a little credit for some brains. You think I’m Lenny Slotnik because I don’t know that Letterman is television.”

“I was only saying--”

“Who cares what you were only saying. I’m saying we got to have a back up just in case.
Someone to--”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“Who gives a shit what you were saying. I’m telling you what we got to have. We’ll get his people to send someone over with him. Like a--”

“Spokesman.”

“Translator. I’ll ask Mandelbaum. If Mandelbaum doesn’t speak. The translator will tell us what he’s saying.”

“Lennie, baby, if anybody can get him to talk, it’s Lennie Slotnik.”

“You have to tell me it’s Lennie Slotnik? Slotnik will get him to talk. . .but just in case.”

And so it was that at six thirty on the morning of January 18, Mandelbaum found himself sitting in the green room of The Lennie Slotnik Show with an intern from studio publicity and his agent’s brother listening intently to production instructions from Larry Bellomatti and nodding his head, perhaps in agreement, perhaps in boredom. For fifteen minutes he had sat listening and nodding. Never once did he say a word.

“You understand,” Larry asked, raising his voice as though Mandelbaum might have trouble hearing.

“He understands,” said the intern.

“Why doesn’t he say it?’

“He understands,” said the agent’s brother.

“Can’t he tell me? Just to be sure.”

“He doesn’t speak,” said the intern.

“He never speaks,” said the agent’s brother. “That’s his shtick.”

“But he can speak? I mean if he wants to he can speak, right.”

“We never heard him at the studio,” said the intern.

“At the agency, he never opens his mouth unless,” the agent’s brother paused for dramatic effect, “it’s to shove in a hot dog. Hot dogs he loves.”

“So how do you know what he wants? He writes?”

“Not on the set.”

“He does that sign language?”

“Who knows sign language?”

“So how do you know?”

“You look at him, you know,” said the agent’s brother.

“That’s it,” said the intern, “you look at him and you know.”

Bellomatti looked at the stub of an actor mashed into a ratty old easy chair. Deep into his eyes, he looked. Lennie’s going to kill me, he thought. Lennie’s going to have a fit.

Lennie will be fine, don’t worry. It was Mandelbaum. He didn’t say it so anyone could hear it, but it was almost like Bellomatti could read his mind. Mandelbaum never said a word, but Bellomatti understood.

“Everything’s ready?” Slotnik asked at the commercial break.

“I explained. He knows.”

“He told you he knows?”

“He didn’t exactly tell me, but he told me.”

“Larry, he told you he knows.”

“It will be alright. He said it will be alright.”

“He didn’t exactly say. But he told me.”

“What the hell are you giving me? He said, but he didn’t say. He told me but he didn’t tell me. Stop with the games, already. This is my ass on the line. This better work out, or. . . .”

The station switchboard began to light up the second Mandelbaum left the studio, and the calls kept coming in until late in the afternoon. There were more the next day. And more the day after that. Mandelbaum had never said a work, yet millions of listeners had heard every word he didn’t say. The called to say how thrilled they were. They called to congratulate. They called to praise. But most of all they called to make sure that Lennie would get Mandelbaum back for another interview.

“See,” Slotnik crowed at the next production meeting, “why can’t any of you come up with something like that! Why do I have to do everything! Why do. . . .”

Deconstructing Mandelbaum

Here's a link to one of the older Mandelbaum pieces:

http://www.eclectica.org/v7n2/goodstein.html

My Doppleganger

Goldstein has haunted me for years. From nowhere he comes. One minute he’s there, the next? Who knows? One minute he’s there, the next? Who knows? I go to a new place, meet new people, and he is there. From nowhere, he appears. People see him; call him by name. “Goldstein,” they say, “a pleasure to meet you.” I look around, nothing. He’s gone. Disappeared. Scrammed. Vanished.

The son of a bitch, I have never seen.

This is how quick he is. Last week, at my audition for–I’m an actor, did I mention? Last week, I walk out on the stage at the Playlab, to do my monologue, and the director says: “Whenever you’re ready Mr. Goldstein.” I turn around, and he’s gone. I look in the wings–right and left, no one.

“Mr. Goldstein?” says the director.

Again, I turn. Again no one. He’s quick, that son of a bitch.

I can’t even remember the first time he showed up. In grade school, teachers would see him sitting in my seat on the first day of class. He’d be standing next to me when we lined up in size places at the side of the room. He would be playing dodge ball in the school yard. In the fourth grade, he took credit for the American Legion essay I wrote, somehow getting his name inserted into the bulletin that announced the winners, instead of mine. At home, I’ve still got a certificate with a gold stamp and the name Jack Goldstein hand lettered where my name should have been.
On the first day of Little League tryouts, he shows up in the outfield to catch pop ups only to disappear when the coach shouts for him to come in and get on deck. Three times the coach calls him, but just like at the audition, he is gone. Finally, the coach, probably upset by Goldstein’s shenanigans, points at me. “You’re waiting for what?” he shouts. “An invitation? Engraved?”

In high school, he never once shows up for baseball practice; I show up every single day–I’m there early and I stay late–and on the list for the varsity team posted in the locker room, there is Goldstein. Goodstein doesn’t even make the second team.

My freshman year in college, when I played Sebastian in the fall production of Twelfth Night, who somehow managed to get his name inserted into the program? Who was it that got his name in the review in the student newspaper? And if this was the first time it certainly wasn’t the last. If I had, for every time, he got credit for one of my performances, fifty cents. . . you get the idea. It was Goldstein who played Mortimer in Arsenic and Old Lace at the South Hills Community Theatre. It was Goldstein as Happy in the Barebones Players’ production of “Salesman,” Goldstein as Sam Craig in. . . . Goldstein in this; Goldstein in that. Here a Goldstein. There a Goldstein. Everywhere a Goldstein.
Once I read a story, in college probably, I don’t remember the name, but it’s the same thing. A guy tells a story about his own Goldstein. It wasn’t Goldstein of course, it was another name I can’t remember, but everywhere this “Goldstein” also shows up, every time something important happens this “Goldstein” is there ruining everything. In the end, he decides to get rid of him, kill him. What happens, I don’t remember, but I can understand how he feels.

Last week I got the program for the production of my first one act play–I am also a playwright–did I mention–and sure enough, in big bold letters, there he is again.

If I could get my hand on him, if my Goldstein would stick around in one place long enough, I, sure as hell, could be tempted to get rid of the son of a bitch.

Appeared originally in A Flasher's Dozen, eds. KR Mullin and Sandra Seamans, vol.1, no. 1, Autumn, 2005, pp. 10-11.

A Mandelbaum Hoax: a story

Always, Fischel Tannenbaum, had insisted that the idea had been his, no matter what that lying goniff Schmuckler said.

“I’m a lying thief?” Schmuckler demanded, “I’m a lying . . . I’ll show you who is a lying. . . .” His face would redden and he would wave a fist, too irrate for speech.

“You and what army,” Fischel would cackle.

Schmuckler claimed to the day he died that until the seed was planted in Tannenbaum’s evil garden by this green thumbed gardener, “to wit myself,” he would add to prevent confusion, Tannenbaum had never even heard of the actor who spoke with the voice of silence, “to wit Mandelbaum.”

“Never heard of Mandelbaum,” Fischel chuckled knowingly, “ the creator of the silence of sound. . . .”

“The sound of silence, yuld, idiot.” Schmuckler would grin pointing to his head a twirling finger. “You see?”

“It’s a joke, I’m making a joke. Who doesn’t know from Mandelbaum? I never went to the movies? I didn’t see the Weekend at Ernies.”

“Bernies!”

“Bernies, I said Bernies. What did I say?”

“You see?”

The way Schmuckler told it the idea came to him while he was watching on the American Movie Channel a documentary on the silent film.

“I like documentaries. I like real things. Fake movies, I don’t watch.”

They were talking about some silent movie star(“who was it, I can’t remember. It’s years ago”) whose career went down the sewer when the sound came because he had this little squeaky voice (“a big he-man with a little pip squeak voice.”).

“So I’m thinking, this hot shot movie star, this Mandelbaum how come it is he never speaks. Maybe he’s got some defect he can’t speak. You know he’s dumb or something. But then maybe he just don’t want to speak, maybe he just don’t want to speak because he’s got also a little pip squeaky voice. You seen him in the movies? A big man. A giant with a little squeaky voice. It could have been? Why not? Of course by this time Mandelbaum had his little disappearing act pulled . Vanished. It was in all the newspapers. You must have read. . . . Anyway, I ask myself, why does a man making millions of dollars in the movies, everybody knows who he is, women throwing at him their room keys and their underwear, why does a man like this out of the dull gray sky suddenly decide to take off into wild gray yonder never to be seen or heard of again. And to myself I answer. . . .well you know what I answer.”

“But the idea to make the film was--” Tannenbaum insists, pounding on the kitchen formica. “I don’t care what that son of a bitch tells you. You believe what you want. I know the truth. He knows the truth. From my mouth to God’s ear, the idea to make the film was--”

“Big macha! He knows from making films.”

“The film I don’t have to make. Metro-Goldwyn-Disney I don’t need to be. All we need is a copy–“

“What we do is get a copy of some of his old movies. They’re all over the place. We’ll take it to this guy I know, he knows all there is Know about this movie business, he used to work for Izzy Lefkowitz when he ran the video store over in Sheepshead Bay. From the movie we’ll cut out a piece, and over it we’ll put in a voice for the actor without a voice. Like in the cartoons. We’ll give him a voice: the great Mandelbaum will speak.”

“The great Mandelbaum will squeak, you mean. We’ll say we found it in an old file when we were cleaning out the office of. . . well somebody’s office, somebody big in the movie business. We’ll say it’s from the movie a take out--”

“Out take! Take out, he says. Take out is sesame chicken you moron.”

“Moron, you are calling me a--”

“No I’m calling a moron your brother, Hymie, you moron.”

“I’ll give you m-m-m,” sputters of rage from Tannenbaum.

“I’m in my pants, shaking,” from Schmuckler. “The decision is we’ll take this film to the big shots in the studios; we’ll say they [“The big shots,” Tannenbaum by way of clarification] cut this out of the movie because by accident Mandelbaum spoke and they couldn’t let everyone–[“The Public,” Tannenbaum interrupts] the public. They couldn’t let the public know that Mandelbaum who all these movies they were selling[“Marketing,” injects Tannenbaum], marketing as the voice of silence. So maybe they would be willing to pay a couple of shekels to keep it quiet. And if not. . . .”

‘If not there was always The National Enquirer or The Star. They were always having stories about Mandelbaum sightings in West--”

“Mandelbaum was the biggest thing since Elvis.”

“For sure at least they would spring for a nice size check. It was an idea, couldn’t miss.”

“Couldn’t miss is right. Unless you are dealing with a moron who--”

“Again with the moron? I’ll show you moron, you ignoramus.”

“Ignoramus? You learned a new word?”

“A new word, I’ll--” Tannenbaum grimaced and clutched his chest.

“Never mind him. He’s a Mandelbaum, you know what I mean, a Mandelbaum?”

Tannenbaum was breathing heavily.

“Enough with the acting. You got to have a heart before you can have a heart attack.”

Tannenbaum smiled: “You see the kind of person I have to deal with. Anyway, a couldn’t miss idea it was.”

“Was? Still is? So what the big shot wouldn’t go for it.”

“They laughed at us. Somebody will believe this, they said.”

“At you they laughed. You would have let me talk. They would have laughed out of the other side of their--”

“Somebody could stop you from talking? I’d like to see the day. At the Enquirer, they would have taken it--”

“The story.”

“Of course the story, what do you think I’m talking about, the bar mitzvah of the Prince of Wales?”

“Chicken feed, they offered us. Ich hab em in dred. You know what this means. They should go to. . . . ah, so what. We still got it, the tape.”

“We could put it the VCR.”

“If you like, you could hear. You could tell the world how you were the one to hear Mandelbaum speak.”

“Maybe, you’ll make a buck.”