#i just read the story Alan told about those pictures as I shared above...

[hooked-on-elvis]

Elvis Presley and Gene Smith (his cousin), and Elvis and Alan Fortas (his friend and Memphis Mafia member) during photo shoot for "King Creole" in 1958.

Alan Fortas (nicknamed "Hog Ears" by Elvis), said about his pictures with EP: "To prove to my friends I was actually making movies with Elvis Presley, I had wallet size pictures like these made up from shots taken at promotional photo sessions for 'King Creole' held at Paramount studios 1958."

Elvis and friend, Alan Fortas. Early March 1958, at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood, CA.

[flyboytracy]

Okay but what if Scott rly was Alan’s dad?

I was gonna post this for Earth & Sky week if I managed to complete it but it’s smol Tracy’s birthday and it’ll probably never see the light of day otherwise so why not :D

I’m always a ho for an AU so here’s one I started over lockdown called ‘Okay but what if Scott really was Alan’s dad’

☆ ⌒ ★ ⌒ ☆ ⌒ ★ ⌒ ☆ ⌒ ★ ⌒ ☆ ☆ ⌒ ★ ⌒ ☆ ⌒ ★ ⌒ ☆ ⌒ ★ ⌒ ☆

Long before International Rescue was a thing, the Tracy boys had lived on a farm in Kansas. It’d belonged to their late mother, God bless her soul, and these days it only grew crop for an environmentally friendly fuel because Tracy money came from technology instead of the earth.

The boys’ famous army father was gone for days at a time and there was plenty of rumours why that was. Mrs Wyatt who lived down the lane from the Tracys said she’d heard the man was alcoholic and probably had been for a long time because his teenaged son had been looking after the rest of them since his poor momma died. She saw them troop past her gate every day on their way to school and back, and then to the park on the weekends when their pa’s jet wasn’t on the drive.

Mr Colton, who lived at number fifty-four said he’d taken his son to the pool at the same time that the Tracy boys had been there without their father as usual. He told Vera that he’d overheard the youngest chattering away to the red-headed one about a rocket he’d called the TV21 until the eldest had overheard and shushed them. According to Mrs Johnson who was friends with Ms Hernandez at the school, Col. Tracy had budding engineers, astronauts and a future Olympic swimmer at the home he never seemed to return to. Instead it was Scott and Virgil who took their brothers to swim meets and galas and even to the Cosmosphere. Ms Hernandez could find nothing to complain about because all four of the Tracy boys grades were above average and threw off the teachers’ bell curves when it came to subjects like science and math.

That Scott boy sure had his hands full with three brothers, his own future and a possibly alcoholic father to look after, so the whole town was surprised when he went and knocked up the Austin girl after being crowned king and queen of their grad ball. Not much ever happened in the backwater towns of the sunflower state so everybody knew about it the morning after the night Pa Austin went round the Tracy’s farmhouse to have it out with the Colonel.

The rumour mill had been on fire for months after that because Mrs Johnson had been having her usual perm when she’d heard Ma Austin tell Shirley all about how her daughter’s boyfriend had been going to leave their small town after graduation. She’d seen the way the Tracy boy cared for his brothers and had expected he’d give up his plans to join the military if he had a kid of his own at home with her.

To the town’s surprise, it turned out that the Colonel was actually a long distance father and not an entirely absent one. Pa Austin had stormed to the farmhouse that night with his shotgun in hand, only to be greeted by a hologram of the great Colonel himself, sat eating dinner on a beach somewhere as his boys ate dinner round a table in Kansas. Austin had gone round with the aim of threatening at least one Tracy with his shotgun but hadn’t got that far because Colonel Jefferson Tracy could still dominate a room from over a thousand miles away.

According to Pa Austin, his fancy hologram was just as tall as the real thing and pretty sober which put paid to Mrs Wyatt’s theory that he was an alcoholic. In fact he was a Big Apple businessman now, and a darn good one at that because by the end of the evening it had been decided that his eldest son would join the GDF as planned and the child would remain with its mother but want for nothing. Tracys took care of their own and Pa Austin said he’d realised that when the colonel’s youngest boy had kept interrupting their conversation to show him trash he’d found in the pond at the park and Tracy hadn’t brushed the youngster off at all.

The big holographic man had promised they’d feed the ducks at the weekend, which meant half the town was hanging around the park come Saturday morning.

The youngest had appeared first, full of joy and enthusiasm that his older brother didn’t share as the red-head was dragged across the grass to the pond. The second eldest was close behind them and had a couple of toy boats in his arms which left the eldest Tracy boy and his father to bring up the rear.

They were deep in conversation when they appeared, the Colonel strolling along easily with his hands behind his back like an old fashioned gentleman. Scott was by his side and gone was the little boy always running to catch up. In his place strode a man and it was rather disappointing really.

The Tracys moved away shortly afterwards. Stan the mailman said he’d seen fancy suits taking pictures of the farmhouse and the Tracys had paid for their mail to be redirected but he couldn’t seem to find an address. The Austins had an address for the Tracys, but they also had a pretty hefty NDA in exchange for a very comfortable lifestyle and weren’t much inclined to break it just to satisfy everyone else’s curiosity.

It all died down after a while and people got bored of watching Sophia get bigger. Her old flame might’ve flown out of the picture but his presence sure was felt around town when Sophia got her own car and fancy place on the Tracy’s dime.  Ms Hernandez said the colonel had insisted Ms Sophia continue her education alongside being a momma to his first grandchild and Shirley heard there was a job at the Tracy’s family business when she wanted to get out of Kansas.

Nothing exciting happened in their little backwater until the day a private jet landed on the main street and Sophia was whisked off to give birth at a very fancy hospital. According to Ma Austin, she had a private room and the colonel had parked his jet on the roof since his son wouldn’t make it back in time for the birth.

They did seem to be a good family, the Tracys, even if they’d disappeared off the face of the earth in the past eight months or so. The only trace anybody could seem to find of them was on the Tracy Industries website where each son had a mention in the CEO’s bio but real information was scarce. They disappeared off Ms Hernandez’s records and there was nothing about them on any government website. Nobody was truly surprised that the Colonel had chosen to disappear because they’d come to realise a few things after reading his bio. For one, the fella was a billionaire several times over and two, he adored those four boys of his more than anything because his words about his achievements had been clinical but the paragraph about each of his sons’ achievements had made old Mrs Johnson cry.

Of course everybody wanted to know what happened but the Austins didn’t have a lot to say. The Colonel was a very nice man who didn’t seem to have taken offence to Ms Austin’s actions. He’d offered her further education and employment instead of the lawsuit most men in his position would’ve filed. There were rumours the fella was working on a top secret project that’d change the world, but in their little backwater there were rumours about everything.

Alan Tracy didn’t pay attention to any of those rumours as he grew up with his momma in a sleepy little town in Kansas. The little boy loved many things including his momma and their house that had a big garden with a tire swing and a sandpit he used to re-enact grandpa landing on Mars. He loved ice cream and going to the park and he even liked Kindergarten ‘cause he got to draw pictures of his family and space.

But what Alan Tracy loved most of all was his daddy. He didn’t get to see him a lot ‘cause he was learning to be a pilot like grandpa, but every Friday evening a fancy car arrived to take him a little way out of town where grandpa’s jet would be waiting to take him to the island for the whole weekend.

Sometimes grandpa flew it but he had lots of meetings around the world so other times he’d see Uncle Virgil through the window and squeal with excitement ‘cause his biggest uncle had the best toys. He was gonna be an engineer and could fix any of Alan’s toys, even the one that failed a moon launch. He had Alan’s undying love ‘cause the little boy could hang from his arm like a monkey and  he had lots of fun stories about his daddy. They were best, best friends and Alan liked to crawl into that big plaid shirt and bug him ‘til Uncle Virg showed him pictures of when daddy was little.

Uncle Virg wasn’t always around though ‘cause he was studying in Denver but that was okay ‘cause Alan had two more uncles to play with. Johnny didn’t really like to play but when he was home he let Alan play with his telescopes and taught him all about space.

Alan loved his daddy but he thought he might love space even more. He loved it when Johnny took him up to the peak of the island in the dark and they sat for an hour to watch for shooting stars. Alan had fallen asleep once on the big fluffy blanket and the best thing of all was when he woke to find daddy had an arm around Johnny’s shoulders and Alan had been drooling on his shirt.

“Hey, sprout.” Daddy had smooched his forehead when he’d noticed bright blue eyes staring up at him with joy, “I love you. John says you’ve been learning about the stars some more.”

“There’s Ursa Major!” Alan had stood up to be able to point out the little pinpricks of light that made up the Ursa Major Constellation and he still hadn’t been taller than his daddy, “Johnny says Ursa’s a big bear like Uncle Virg.”

“Johnny told you that, did he?” his daddy’s laugh had made Alan feel warm right down to his bones and he’d dived for a hug. Impossibly long arms had folded around him and Johnny, drawing them both into the safest place in the universe for so long they missed most of the shooting stars and Johnny made them go away so he could see the rest. Alan didn’t mind ‘cause dad swung him up onto his shoulders and let him get wet on the rocky beach by the villa since it was bath time anyway.

Alan loved Sunday mornings on the island when daddy was home. Alan liked to wake him up by bouncing on the bed ‘cause the sky was awake so they should be too. And then they’d get dressed in matching blue swim shorts and go for a run around the island and if he ran faster than daddy on the home stretch he was allowed to jump into the pool like Superman. Gordon was usually in there by then and kept an eye on Allie doing the doggy paddle in the shallow end whilst daddy went to get breakfast out the fridge. There was something cool that beeped super loud that time he tried to moonwalk on the bottom of the pool like an astronaut and Uncle Virg had dived in like a bowling ball to fish him out. Gordon had laughed a lot but Uncle Virg hadn’t even smiled ‘til daddy gave him one of those hugs that made booboos stop hurting.

Alan really loved his uncles but he loved his daddy most and it was hard to stand on the runway with Uncle Virg to wave goodbye. Uncle Virg didn’t seem to like waving goodbye either so Alan always held his hand to make him feel better and did his best to be like daddy so Uncle Virg wouldn’t miss him too much.

He seemed to end up being more like John as a couple of years passed and everything in his life changed. Grandpa took him to London to get measured for a suit for daddy’s graduation and he didn’t understand why Uncle Virg kept frowning at Gordon for laughing about daddy’s graduation from big school. He asked Uncle Virg what was so funny, and then Grandpa and Grandpa’s weird professor friend who used big words Alan didn’t know yet, but none of them seemed to know and even daddy missed a step when Alan asked him on their way to the fancy dinner Grandpa was hosting at his penthouse in New York for his newly graduated son. Daddy never ever missed anything which was annoying when Alan was trying to get hold of Gordon’s cookies but he’d breathed air the wrong way and Uncle Virg had to thump his back a few times.

Daddy had talked about how cool Alan looked in his little gray suit and Alan had been so happy he’d forgotten about his question ‘til after dinner when they were still at the table and he’d pulled himself onto Grandpa’s knee ‘cause Uncle Virg and Gordon were being loud and he’d been a tired little boy by then. He’d tried one last time to find out what was so funny about daddy’s last graduation and Grandpa had rested his chin atop Allie’s head.

“Your momma and daddy had you after his last graduation.” Grandpa rumbled, “You were quite an unexpected surprise for your daddy, but a welcome one. Gordon likes to remind your daddy about what a big surprise you were.”

“Your daddy was a surprise too, as I recall.” Grandma Tracy was sat with Grandpa and Alan loved visiting her but sometimes she made him cookies and he didn’t love those.

“I love daddy, not cookies.” he mumbled tiredly and fell asleep right there at the table.

That meant he missed the way his Grandpa coughed to quieten his four boys because he had something real important to discuss with them. Scott knew what it was, and Virg had an inkling because it was difficult to disguise underground excavations from a highly skilled engineer. They were sat together with Virgil’s elbow resting on the back of Scott’s chair and blue eyes softened when he realised where Alan had got to.

Alan had managed to sleep through the inaugural meeting of International Rescue and life was never the same again after he woke up.

[willow-salix]

Isolation update and this was based on two prompts by @eirabach and @cloudkicker09 for the irrelief challenge by @gumnut-logic. Big thanks to the amazing @avengedbiologist for the art collab!

Day 83 of Isolation on Tracy Island and our poor Virgil is still feeling a little tender . His back is a lot better but he’s still having to be careful how he’s sitting and so we’ve banned him from doing anything remotely strenuous. For Virg, this is hard. He’s usually quite happy to chill out for a few hours and do nothing but that’s when it's on his terms, not when he’s been ordered to stay put. Then he needs some bribery.

“OK,” I started, “what do you want? What’s gonna get you to stay put?”

He thought about it for a moment or two and then he dropped his bombshell.

“Couch day. If I have to stay put, so do you all.”

I glanced around at everyone else who nodded. They could do that.

“On one condition,” Virgil threw in. “You know those special things we ordered online a few weeks ago and were saving for Christmas?”

My mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, ohmigods! Are they here? Did they arrive?”

He nodded, grinning evilly. “Picked them up last supply run and hid them in my wardrobe.”

“Yessss! Can I go get them?”

He nodded again.

“Woohoo!” I ran off like I had Thunderbird Three up my butt.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re going to hate this?” I heard John sigh as I left the room.

***

“I feel ridiculous,” John groaned, looking down at his outfit in obvious disgust.

“Nooo,” I assured him. “You look gorgeous!”

“Well I love mine!” Alan grinned, spinning around to look at his reflection in the window.

“Me too,” Gordon agreed, checking out his backside in another window. “Look at my little fin!”

“Mines a tad too short,” Scott pointed down where he was showing a good six inches of ankle and hairy calf below the cuffs.

“Mines so comfy,” Virgil moaned, snuggling deeper into the warm material.

“Mines actually kind of cool,” Kayo admitted. She looked as awesome as always, curled up like a cat in one of Alan’s bucket seats, her black and silver onesie fitted her like a glove and she was clearly revelling in the soft warmth it provided.

“I’m not putting the hood up,” John stated, thumping down on the couch and crossing his arms in protest.

“Oh come on, it’s so cosy,” Alan wheedled, having already tugged up the hood of his red onesie, the pointy top forming the nose cone of his Thunderbird.

Virgil and I had been rather bored, it had been late and we had stumbled across a fan site that had made its own International Rescue merchandise. A few clicks later and we had purchased one of every onesie they possessed and then found me a cute little halloween bat onesie so I could join in. I loved it and was currently flapping my wings excitedly.

Virgil's was, of course, big and green, the yellow trim and red cuffs looked great on him. His hood was rounded like Two’s nose and his arms had flaps of material that attached down to his sides to give him wings. The large lettering of Thunderbird Two straight down his sides completed the look.

Gordon’s was bright yellow with a red stripe around the middle and midway up his calves and he had a fin that started halfway down his back and reached right down to his butt, flaring out wider the lower it got. His also said Thunderbird Four down the sides.

Alan’s had a grey striped strip around his belly and back, a white collar and white cuffs and was just the cutest thing ever with Thunderbird Three running down his chest in white and with a white three on each ankle.

Scott’s was simply glorious, his hood sported a pointy red cone, two dark grey stripes circled his upper chest and back and his arms also had wings like Virgil’s. The lower legs (which was more just below the knee for him) were blue and the ankles and cuffs were the same dark grey as the stripes on his chest. Thunderbird One was written in white on his chest and he looked amazing. Clearly he thought so too if the poses he was striking were any indication.

John’s was a little more elaborate than the other boys and honestly I don’t completely blame him for his reaction. His hood had a soft, bendy circle hovering above it like a weird angel halo, made to represent Five’s gravity ring and was grey on the outside and red on the inside, which also had International Rescue written on it in white letters. His chest area was a puffy ball where the monitoring station would be, making him look like he had suddenly developed a massive beer belly. The legs were yellow and his ankles (it was a little short on him too) had two stiff panels that stuck out. I thought they were adorable, he hated them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

“Stop being so grumpy,” I told him, dropping down next to him and attempting to snuggle the bad mood out of him as we all prepared to watch Virgil’s movie of choice, La La Land, another musical but this was his day so we weren’t going to complain.

Drinks were gathered, snacks were shared out and everyone got comfy as the movie started. Surprisingly enough it wasn’t one that I’d watched before and I found it quite enjoyable although Alan and Gordon were clearly not impressed, come to think of it, neither were Kayo and Scott.

As soon as the movie ended all four of them made their escape, leaving John and I to keep Virgil company.

“This was not part of the deal,” Virgil yelled after them, they ignored him. “You have to at least keep your onesies on!” he ordered.

“Sorry about them,” I said, getting up to fetch him another drink and at his request, his sketchbook and pencils.”You just can’t trust family.”

“What am I, invisible?” John asked, batting at one side of the gravity ring that kept getting in his way.

“No, you’re awesome,” I answered.

“Suck up,” Virgil laughed, then winced when his back twinged.

“Will you sit still!” I ordered, plumping his pillow and settling him back.

“Is she always this bossy?”

“Hard to imagine, given how quiet she usually is, but yes,” John answered dryly, picking up his abandoned book. I smacked his shoulder in retaliation but still used him as a pillow as I located the magazine I’d been reading and went back to the article about vampires in Scotland.

We chilled quietly for around half an hour before a voice broke the silence.

“John, I’m bored.”

“You don’t get bored, EOS,” he replied, glancing over at her portable drive which he’d left on the coffee table. “At least you’re not supposed to.”

“It feels like I am. You told me that when someone has nothing left to do they get bored, that’s why you keep sending Alan out to collect space debris.”

Virgil sniggered.

“I have finished all the tasks you set for me and I have downloaded today’s statistics to your comm so now, I believe, I am bored.”

EOS had been brilliant in keeping Five running smoothly in between John’s daily visits in which he spent a few hours with her checking in on the world. Sometimes I went with him, or one of the others, but she had been alone for the majority of the time. We had grown used to checking in with her at night too, talking to her before we settled for the night and she often popped up with a question or two during the day.

With so little to do for International Rescue in the way of actually rescuing people she had taken to it upon herself to work her way through every encyclopedia that had ever been uploaded to the internet, to familiarize herself with customs and cultures around the world and, weirdest of all, pop culture and slang words. That had made for some interesting conversations, especially when the younger two got involved.

“What are you all doing to relieve your boredom?” she asked.

“Reading,” I answered, lifting my magazine to show her.

“Reading,” John answered, displaying his book.

“Drawing,” Virgil answered.

Her lights flickered for a few seconds.

“Reading I understand, if one wishes to gain knowledge then reading is an acceptable way to do so. But drawing serves no purpose.”

“Uh oh,” John muttered, ducking into his hood.

“Serves no purpose?” Virgil gasped, shocked to his very core by her words. “Of course it does.”

“It has no function.”

“It does!”

“Can we not argue about this?” I asked.

“I’m not arguing,” Virgil insisted. “I’m educating, is that OK?.”

“Anything that will keep her occupied,” John shrugged. EOS had taken to playing with the comms and the fire alarms when she had nothing to do, so we needed more to amuse her.

Virgil reached for the drive but groaned, his back protesting. I got up and fetched it for him, handing it over. He settled back against his cushions and set the drive on his shoulder like a weird parrot.

“Art,” he began, “can’t be broken down into functions and reasoning, art is about feeling.” He sketched a few lines on his pad. “Humans are complicated creatures; they all have different likes and dislikes, things that they love and things that they hate. Art, above all else, makes us feel, even if it's a negative emotion.”

Virgil had a lovely voice to listen to, soft and warm, you just couldn’t help but pay attention to everything he said. I put my magazine down and snuggled closer to John, settling like it was story time.

“Art comes in many forms, music, literature, photography, sculpting, cooking, anything and everything that is creative is a form of art. For as long as there has been humans, there has been art, humans have an inherent need to create, to make things, to leave their mark on the world in some way or another. Look at you.”

“What about me?” EOS asked, having been listening silently, her lights flickering thoughtfully.

“You evolved from game code that John created, you yourself are a form of art. And you yourself create things every day.”

“How do I?” EOS had been learning to emulate tone and expressions, putting them into her voice whenever she thought it was appropriate, it could be pretty hit or miss, but this time she sounded genuinely puzzled.

“You form pictures, you create charts, you correlate data and display it. That’s a form of art.”

“But that art has a purpose, it's to display information.”

“And so does all art, it can be pretty, it can be ugly, you might not understand it, but it will still make you feel something. That’s it’s purpose.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“People like to see pretty things, they make them feel better when they feel bad. Pictures can remind them of good things, paintings of people they love make them smile, pictures of places they have been to bring back memories of good things.”

“Why do you draw when you could just take a photograph? Drawings and paintings are not accurate, they are filled with inaccuracies.”

“Because some things can’t be captured with a photograph, they may not exist anywhere but in your own mind.”

“I cannot picture something that I have no reference for. If it does not exist it cannot be pictured.”

“Of course it can, things can't be simplified to if they can be referenced or not, you can paint emotions, you can play feelings, you can bake love. If what you are making makes you feel, or when you look at something, hear something, taste something or smell something, it can trigger emotions within you.”

“I’m not sure I understand, because I cannot feel.”

“Of course you can, you feel love, friendship, loneliness, you feel a lot and you’re learning more every day,” John assured her.

“But they are not art, I cannot picture those things,” EOS argued.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” Virgil assured her.

Virgil turned to a fresh sheet of paper and picked up his pencil.

“It’s human nature to create faces and pictures of things that we cannot see but that we interact with,” Virgil continued, his pencil flying over the page. “How do you two picture EOS?”

“I see her as a small girl, not too young because they are annoying,” I started, ignoring John’s snort of amusement, I can’t help it if I’m not a kiddy person. “Maybe around ten, eleven years old, a tween that can swing between moody and loving in an instant.”

“Accurate,” John agreed.

“I picture her with hair down to her shoulders maybe, sometimes in pigtails if she’s in a bratty mood.”

“I’m never bratty,” EOS argued petulantly.

"I beg to differ," John whispered to me.

“I see her hair as maybe a strawberry blonde, maybe somewhere between John and Gordon’s hair colour,” I continued, getting into my stride. Having had no part of her creation and no understanding of how code or computers of any kind worked all I had been able to do was assign her a face so I knew who I was talking to. Virgil was right, us humans always had to put a face to a voice. If we heard someone on the radio we would get an impression of who the voice could belong to, what the person speaking would look like and I had done exactly that.

“I’ve never really thought about it before, but I think she’d have green eyes,” John added, his eyes closed as if he were picturing her in his mind.

“With a cute little nose and a smattering of freckles just like Alan has,” I added.

“I sound quite pleasant,” EOS said thoughtfully.

“What clothes would you choose?” Virgil asked, still sketching.

“Since I live in Thunderbird Five, if I had a body to clothe I would need a suit like John’s.”

“Makes sense,” Virgil agreed, frowning slightly as he concentrated on his work.

“I think I would like a hairband like Kayo has,” EOS mused.

“Hairband, got it,” Virgil answered her, pencil moving back and forth in soft strokes a few more times. “OK, finished.” He turned his pad around for us to see.

“Oh, she’s adorable!” I squeaked. “She’s just how I pictured her.”

“She’s very cute,” John smiled. “Can I keep that?”

“Sure, I’ll colour it later for you.” Virgil turned the pad for EOS to see. “That’s you, EOS.”

“That’s me?”

“Well, it’s how we picture you. See, your body doesn’t exist, this face doesn’t exist, but it’s still in our heads. It’s how we see you and when we look at this, we feel happy and we feel love, because it’s you. Do you understand art now?”

“Yes,” her tone had changed from thoughtful to confident. “Yes I think I do.”

[siribear]

with the paint job finished and dried, all that’s left is to prepare for the trip. the sun creeps overhead as minutemen continue to bustle about the castle. her people strap the minigun she took from the museum of freedom to the back of her new power armor; others load in enough ammo to take down another deathclaw. 

meanwhile, whisper and deacon sit underneath a canopy, double, triple checking their usual weapons of choice.

‘you’re sure this old thing will protect you out there?’ whisper rolls the fabric of the hazmat suit between her fingers. the material has thinned and worn over the past couple centuries, and even now her hands come away with dust.

‘no rips or tears,’ deacon says confidently. ‘des and carrington looked it over.’

this time, she switches to the helmet. the surface is scuffed and dirty, but intact. ‘the respirator? all the valves work? does it - ‘

‘yes.’ he sets aside his rifle and snatches the helmet from her hands. ‘it’s not as sturdy as your walking death machine over there, but it’ll do.’

whisper frowns. ‘i’m just trying to make sure you’ll be safe, deacon.’

‘then keep you and that minigun between me and any glowing sea creatures.’

another minuteman drops by with a bag of supplies: more stimpaks than she can count, a few bottles of rad-x, a handful of radaway. they’ve already packed away their rations and ammo. now they’re down to basic necessities and however many rolls of duct tape whisper can find. just in case.

the longer they sit, the more anxious she gets. every step brings her closer to shaun, but she has to take those steps. ‘i’m sure no one would notice if we just snuck out now.’

‘with the power armor?’

‘sure. i’ll distract them.’ he stands and points in a random direct. ‘everyone, look over there!’

they share a laugh when a few minutemen do stop and look, only to stare at them when nothing appears. though whisper has to wave them off in apology, she feels her nerves abate, if only a little.

-

an hour later, she’s back in her quarters, slipping into a spare suit of underarmor danse found for her. the muted black bodysuit offers little protection itself, but danse had said it would make walking around in the armor feel a little less awkward. pulling on the gloves, she finds they fit well enough just over her wedding ring. a break between the wrist guards and gloves gives her enough room to reattach her pipboy. the needle stings more than usual going under her skin, thanks to the mottled black and blue bruise around her wrist.

somewhere, back at home, is a picture of nate wearing a similar suit under a set of combat armor. 

all dressed, she returns to the courtyard. there stands deacon, just outside and away from the crowd, ready in his bulky hazmat suit. ‘well,’ he says when he sees her, ‘you look good.’

she adjusts her collar. ‘not as good as you, partner. are we ready?’

deacon nods his head toward the others, gathered around her new navy blue power armor. ‘they’re ready for you. careful you don’t get caught up in a parade.’

preston, sturges, ronnie shaw, and alan, who runs radio freedom, do look like they’re gathered with purpose. organized. preston better not have made this into an old minuteman ceremony she doesn’t know about. when she approaches, she asks preston the same question.

‘would have killed them to give ya a new suit of armor, huh?’ sturges puts a hand on the arm of the suit. ‘but she shouldn’t give you any trouble out there. she’s even an even better model than the one you picked up at the museum, and that survived a deathclaw, too.’

‘she gets the sturges seal of approval?’ she says with a hint of a grin. ‘maybe the brotherhood doesn’t hate me so much.’

‘but don’t take any unnecessary risks,’ preston argues.

‘can’t have the minutemen fall apart again so soon,’ ronnie chimes in. ‘not when you’re doing some actual good, here.’

whisper shakes her head. ‘if anything happens to me, preston becomes - ’

‘nothing’s going to happen,’ her second-in-command interrupts, shaken. ‘you,’ he says to deacon, approaching, ‘you’ll keep her safe.’ his tone brooks no argument.

‘of course,’ deacon replies easily, too easily, in preston’s opinion, because he frowns.

‘well then!’ sturges claps his hands. ‘let’s get you in this thing, boss.’

at the press of a switch, the back of the armor opens. arm and leg plates unfold, and she steps into it, fitting herself once more into the frame. the thin material does help, as danse noted, and the metal joints barely dig in with the protective padding the underarmor provides. sturges hands her the helmet and, because she has to try it once, she tosses it in the air and flips it like she’s seen danse do before. she catches it and clicks it into place, hiding the giddy grin she’s now sporting.

the heads up display boots up immediately, picking up information from her pipboy and feeding it into the edges of her vision momentarily. she checks the fuel levels, and it’s at - ‘uh, sturges? this is reading me at half fuel right now.’

‘ah, right. we took your old fusion core from the other set of armor. figured it’d give you a little more oomf to get you out there.’

‘everything else good in there, partner?’

‘one thing,’ she says, almost to herself. there was one modification she specifically asked sturges to handle, other than the new paint job. she flips on her headlamp and aims at the ground.

‘little early for the floodlights, isn’t it?’ deacon asks, looking at her. but when she directs him to look down, at the picture that will be lost when the light is cast into the distance, he smiles. in the center of the light, in a shadowed grey, is the silhouette of the railroad lantern. she turns off the headlamp, pleased.

‘everything looks good in here, then. time to head out.’

their escort takes them to the edge of the castle’s new neighborhood. minutemen fall in line behind preston and the others walking behind her and deacon. it is a parade, in its own right, but the entourage breaks off before travis can start a rumor about the minutemen marching through the commonwealth.

and then it’s just her, deacon, and the sound of metal footsteps on broken pavement.

-

whisper leads the way west across south boston, sticking to the flat roads. anything to conserve fuel. december hits the commonwealth differently than she’s used to. by her birthday she’d normally be bundled thicker clothes. long sleeves, jackets. but now that it’s passed, she’s content in the underarmor, and deacon hardly looks cold in his suit.

beside her, he stretches his hands upward. ‘you’re carrying me there if i get tired, right?’

she holds her arms out in front of her. ‘feel free to hop on whenever, as long as you return the favor.’

‘sure thing, partner. as long as i get to take that armor for a test drive.’

‘what? no. after all i went through for this, you’re carrying me and the armor.’

he takes a deep breath. ‘did i ever tell you about the time i carried a whole suit of power armor on my back?’

deacon proceeds to tell her a story of how he once saved a brotherhood soldier in the capital wasteland. ‘couldn’t get that hatch to open,’ he says, pointing toward the back of her armor. ‘so i had to carry him all the way back to the doctor in rivet city. mind you, that took hours.’

she doesn’t try to keep her indulgent hum even remotely convinced. he continues anyway.

‘dropped him off at the entrance to the city, where he finally woke up. didn’t know where he was, just remembered almost getting gunned down by super mutants. so, i told him that i,’ and he flexes, ‘brought him all the way to the city.’

‘let me guess, the city threw you a party for being a hero?’

he shrugs. ‘nah. he accused me of being a synth and held me at gunpoint until the guards stepped in.’

‘i see. there’s a lesson in there somewhere, isn’t there?’

his gaze catches somewhere to their left. the landscape is different. even from the road, she can see the metal fences and structures obviously erected long after the war. even the coast looks too close, with buildings half swallowed by the sea. massachusetts bay university. whisper remembers a few friends that went there. along with the poisoning incident that appeared in the news.

‘what’s over there?’ she asks when deacon steers them further away.

‘institute took over university point a few years ago,’ he says, gravely. ‘get too close, we might run into the stragglers.’

there’s something more to it, she figures. he’s too tense for fear. but she doesn’t fight him, instead finding a road outside jamaica plain to travel further west.

-

just outside milton general hospital, whisper picks up a faint distress signal. deacon stops his patrol of the area as she plays it through her speakers.

‘if anyone is out there, please... help.’ deacon sits next to her, face illuminated by her pipboy light. ‘what’s going on out there? i felt the ground shake, and nothing since. it’s been... four days, i think?’

‘this is... pre-war,’ she says. felt the ground shake. they’re still a few days away from the impact sight, but even from sanctuary hills, she remembers the sound of it. loud above even the grind of the elevator. a crack of thunder, then the shockwave coming over them like a wave only seconds later.

‘i’m so thirsty. please... somebody, hurry.’ the message ends with the woman crying, and the jarring monotone voice notifying them that the message will repeat. and it does. trapped in the jewelry safe - please help.

‘hey, shut it off.’ deacon reaches for the dial himself when she doesn’t move. ‘it’s been hundreds of years. you can’t do anything for her now.’

she snaps out of it. ‘i know. i know, but - ‘ four days. longer? no water, no one to save her. trapped in that small hole in the wall, like - like her neighbors in the vault. suffocating in their pods. and she just - slept. ‘i know.’ travis comes over the radio and flips to a new song. she lets it play through the night.

-

days later, they finally approach the edge of the glowing sea. blown apart trees and scattered car frames cover the area. the air grows thick with yellow-tinged fog. her geiger counter clicks slowly in her ears.

deacon snaps his helmet into place, the respirator hissing as it begins to recycle the irradiated air. ‘shit. never really thought i’d have to come out here.’

‘you can still turn back.’

he rolls his shoulders. ‘the walk back to hq would be boring without you. come on. sooner we get in, sooner we get out. maybe des will finally approve my vacation request after this one.’

stepping into the glowing sea is like diving head first underwater. whisper leads the way, branches crunching underfoot. with every step, the ground looks more cracked. ‘if not, you could always be a full-time minuteman.’ she pushes aside the shell of a car so they can pass. ‘i’ll approve your vacation myself.’

‘well, then.’ he gives her a salute. ‘yeehaw, sugar.’

through the fog, the entire landscape looks the same: stretches of fallen highway, buried underneath irradiated dirt; pools of orange water, feral ghouls wading through the sludge. one group notices them, and though whisper tears through them with the minigun, her geiger counter becomes a stream of noise instead of a steady click. deacon raises a hand in a thumbs up, unscathed.

they hardly speak, for fear of attracting unwanted attention. neither of them can tell what’s over the next hill, or the next. is that the sound of her steps or something else? did she breathe too loudly in her helmet? even though there’s nothing around them, whisper feels surrounded. even deacon is silent as he scouts ahead. quieter than her, he presses forward, keeping them away from roaming deathclaws.

though he can scout over hills, she has the advantage when the land becomes flat. a scanner built into her power armor picks out enemies in the distance, too far for him to see without a scope. when the yellow fog camouflages another pool of feral ghouls, she leads them out of the way.

as night descends upon the sea, it becomes almost untraversable. whisper keeps them at a slow pace with her night vision, but deacon is forced to stick close. a church steeple becomes her beacon in the night as she aims for a place for them to stay. though it’s half-buried, when she looks through the hole in the roof, she can see the sanctuary is still safe. mostly. she picks off the few feral ghouls she can see through the holes.

‘we can climb in through the steeple,’ she tells deacon, crouched at her hip. ‘clear out the last ghouls and we’ll be safe for the night.’

‘and how are you getting in there? you step out of that suit, you’ll die.’

he’s right. though the power armor has kept her safe from most of the radiation, her rads are still ticking upward every second. she won’t last an hour without it.

‘i jump through the roof, obviously.’ she turns on her headlamp, illuminating the broken roof for deacon to see. it’s definitely large enough for her to fit through, and with the armor she won’t even feel the impact. ‘the steeple is big enough for me to climb back out in the morning. it’ll be fine.’

they aren’t left with very many options. the area is dangerous enough during the day, but at night? and with deacon unable to see, they have to stay somewhere. there’s nowhere else nearby that she can see, either.

deacon laughs, shakily. ‘you first.’

-

they find a room underneath the stairs for shelter. a priest’s room, it looks like, with a now-broken desk and filing cabinets full of faded sheet music and sermons. a wooden cross still hangs stubbornly above the desk.

‘feel at home?’ whisper asks, taking up the space near the door. if anything gets curious about the gunshots, they’ll have to go through her solid power armor first.

‘ha-ha,’ he intones. ‘haven’t heard that one before. you’re as bad as glory.’

‘don’t compare me to her. you’ll hurt her feelings.’

deacon settles himself in a corner, helmet hitting the back wall with a dull thunk. whisper remains standing, fearing if she sits she’ll never get back up. ‘we’re in a church, sugar. i’m a deacon. anything you want to confess?’

‘bless me, father, for i have sinned,’ she begins, and deacon leans forward to listen. ‘i made fun of a brotherhood paladin, once, for sleeping in his power armor. and now i find myself in such a situation.’

‘i see.’ deacon sighs heavily, playing the part. ‘your penance will be to step in his shoes. rest in your armor for the night and pray we don’t have to do this again,’ he finishes, breaking character near the end. she laughs.

‘amen.’

-

her alarm wakes them just before dawn. deacon climbs the steeple first, stairs creaking beneath his feet. he calls to her when he’s outside, and then it’s her turn to mount the stairs. she climbs quickly, each one threatening to give with every step. but it’s only when she ducks under the steeple roof to jump to the ground that it gives. the tower leans, wood cracking beneath the power armor’s weight. she jumps, landing hard on her knees. the wood snaps, tower crashing to the ground.

‘uh,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘that’s not blasphemous, is it?’

deacon raises a hand, makes the sign of the cross. ‘you’re forgiven. but let’s get out of here before something comes and smites us.’

they head west, toward a building barely visible on the satellite view of her pipboy. given that they have little information to go on, checking any potentially sealed building sounds like their best bet. there’s nowhere for him to survive anywhere else out here.

keeping up their previous strategy, they make quick work across the sea. any heavy footfalls that don’t belong to her drive them slightly off course but they continue to follow her map west. they’re almost upon it when deacon holds out his hand to stop her.

‘do you hear that?’

whisper holds her breath. her scanner doesn’t pick anything up on the horizon, but she does hear... something. a slight rumble, then - rain. light patters turns to a downpour in moments. she relaxes, thinking it’s just the storm, until something shifts in her peripheral. she only has time to turn before a giant creature bursts out of the ground.

she sidesteps an oversized stinger before drawing her minigun. the thing steps back, large, black claws held high and threatening. it looks like a scorpion, but its size easily dwarfs a car. its body is covered in a hard, black carapace, broken up only by its exposed joints, glowing a faint green. the thing screeches, high and piercing, and whisper brings the minigun to life, firing directly into its face. green blood splatters across the ground, but it doesn’t stop the thing from charging.

deacon fires, hitting the stinger hard enough to send it plunging into the ground instead of her face. whisper continues to spray into its head, bullets flying wildly. the scorpion squeals again, and a roar answers to her right.

a deathclaw stares the trio down with pale red eyes.

‘the building!’ deacon yells, and she spins without a second thought. stinger still stuck fast in the ground, the scorpion doesn’t follow immediately, but the thundering footsteps that follow tells her they aren’t the only ones running.

she looks behind her to see the deathclaw tear into the scorpion. its massive jaw closes around the tail, snapping it off with ease. though it tries to fight back, the damage it sustained from the minigun keeps it from lasting very long. another roar, victorious, the albino deathclaw turns its attention toward the fleeing humans.

deacon turns the corner on the building’s second floor, easily accessed from a nearby hill and a hole in the wall. she hears two gunshots before she’s upon him, two feral ghouls dead on the ground. the footsteps grow closer. he runs toward an elevator at the end of the hall, and she pries open the doors to - an empty shaft.

rifle held ready, he turns back toward the hall and the albino deathclaw, slowly turning the corner. no need to chase prey it knows is cornered, apparently. but whisper has other thoughts. she grabs deacon without warning, scooping him into her arms, and jumps. they land on top of the elevator cart, the crash echoing through the shaft. above them, the deathclaw roars, thundering down the hall. it tries to fit through the elevator door. head first, then shoulders, then -

‘down!’ deacon yells, lifting the elevator hatch at her feet. this time he jumps and she follows, down into the basement. the deathclaw roars long and low, but never follows.

-

they head deeper into the building’s basement, clearing any feral ghouls in their way. ground zero, she thinks with each one they kill. each feral wears the tatters of office suits and dresses, likely still working before the bombs fell. too late, before anyone saw it coming.

she doesn’t know when, but her geiger counter stops clicking at the constant presence of radiation. she double checks it, just to make sure it’s working, but her screen still shows her status. and if those numbers are correct, then likely she and deacon need to stop regardless - their rads are at the edge of ‘healthy’ levels.

stepping out of her power armor in a back room, she breathes a sigh of relief. she unzips the top of her underarmor and peels herself out of the sleeves. the cooler air of the basement chills the sweat on her skin. after a moment, she returns to the main room they’ve made their shelter with a bundle of food and radaway. deacon sits, legs outstretched, in front of a fire he’s built out of old papers. whisper rests her legs atop his as she prepares to hook up their bags of radaway.

deacon flinches when she pulls away from inserting his IV. ‘what happened to you, hero?’ he reaches out toward her neck, fingers brushing against her throat, down her arm, to her wrist. she follows the trail he leaves, and sees what he means. illuminated by the firelight, her bruises stand in stark contrast to the orange glow against her skin. ‘maybe i should have gone with you, if this is what going with the brotherhood gets you.’

‘danse stopped it from being worse,’ she says, leaning back to set up her own radaway.

‘is this the lead up to, you should have seen the other guy?’

her stomach churns from the radaway. ‘considering the supermutants are dead now?’

‘i should have gone with you. the brotherhood - ‘

‘i know! look, i don’t like the brotherhood either, but danse and his team - ‘ well, haylen, if anyone. ‘ - they’re not bad people. if i hadn’t found preston first, i could have been in the brotherhood.’

‘you wouldn’t have lasted.’

‘how do you know?’

when he shifts, his knees brush against hers. she refuses to move. ‘i know what kind of person it takes to be in the brotherhood,’ he says as she stares him down.

‘deacon - ‘

he sighs, and turns the basement of the abandoned offices into his confessional. ‘you’ve put up with enough of my bullshit. if there’s one person i should come clean to, it’s my friend, right?’

whisper swallows, throat as dry as her bag of radaway. she removes her needle as he does the same. ‘i’m a liar. everyone knows it. i don’t try to hide it, because the truth is: i’m a fraud. to my core.

‘when i was young,’ he tilts his head. his eyebrows rise just above his sunglasses. ‘a hell of a long time ago, i was... scum.’ his voice cracks on the word, voice rough. she wants to tell him to stop. it’s okay if she doesn’t know if it hurts him too much, but she finds that she can’t.

she wants to know.

‘i was a bigot, like the ones in the brotherhood.’ he tosses his empty bag into the darkness. ‘a very violent bigot.’

‘like the brotherhood?’

‘worse. i ran with a gang in university point.’ he pauses, lets the pieces fall into place. that’s why he was looking at the old university. running away from his past, not the synths. ‘we called ourselves the UP deathclaws. for kicks, we’d terrorize anyone that we thought was a synth.

‘we kept egging each other on. started with some property damage. broken windows, broken fences. graduated to some beat downs in back alleys. then, inevitably,’ he swallows, ‘a lynching. the claw’s leader was convinced we’d finally found and killed a synth. looking back, i’m not so sure.’

she blinks. doesn’t say a word. nods when he continues to stare. she isn’t running away, not from him.

he hangs his head and continues. ‘i broke all contact with my brothers, after that. time passed, i became a farmer, if you can believe that.’ he laughs, smiles, wistful. then, ‘one day, i found someone.’ he removes his sunglasses and looks to the dark ceiling, blue eyes bright. watery. ‘she saw something in me i didn’t know - didn’t think - was there.’

‘what was she like?’ she asks, curling her legs against her chest, resting her head on her knees.

‘barbara,’ he sighs her name, ‘she was... she just was.’ he looks to her. ‘when she smiled, it was like those old magazine covers. her eyes - ‘ with a hand on his face, palm pressed against the bridge of his nose, he laughs softly. ‘ - we were trying for kids.’

she sits up straight, at that. a family. he wanted -

‘then one day, it turns out, my barbara? she was a synth. she didn’t know that. i certainly didn’t. i don’t know how the deathclaws found out, but... there was blood.

‘they killed her,’ she says, knowing. blood - nate’s vault jumpsuit turning red with it.

when he croaks out a, ‘yes,’ she slides in next to him. barely touching. ‘i don’t remember much clearly after that. i know i killed most of the claws.’ he laughs again, this one broken. ‘i must have made a big impression because the railroad contacted me. figured i’d be sympathetic, seeing that i lost my wife. and, well, what i did afterwards.’

‘you know i know what that’s like.’

‘yeah. you against kellogg? that was - i should have said something sooner. i’m sorry. i don’t even know why i lie anymore, but i can’t tell the truth. everyone - tom, des, you, even carrington - they deserve to be in the railroad.

‘i don’t. i’m everything wrong with this whole fucking commonwealth. but you’re the only friend i got. i don’t deserve you being okay with this, and i’m not asking for forgiveness. i just... figured you should know who you’ve been traveling with.’

‘i know who i’ve been traveling with,’ she says quickly. takes her own sunglasses off, just to prove it. ‘you’re deacon. the one friend i’ve got in this place. all that you’re doing with the railroad, everything you’ve been helping me with - you’re trying to make up for your past. that’s admirable. i’m on your side, you know?’

deacon shifts back against the wall. ‘well, i’m not really the hugging type so. good talk, partner.’

and yet, he doesn’t move away when she shifts that extra inch closer to lean her head against his shoulder. nor does he move to put his sunglasses back on. instead, he rests his head against hers. ‘john,’ he mumbles, eventually. ‘my name’s john. feel free to forget that in the morning.’

together, they watch the fire burn down to embers before bedding down, back to back in the shadowed corner of the basement.

[themastercylinder]

SUMMARY

The film opens as Rose is found drifting alone in a small rowboat. Two fishermen find it and pull her onto their own boat, barely alive and in a horrible state. Her voiceover indicates she had been rescued from some terrifying experience and the film’s events are flashbacks of it.

Rose is part of a group of tourists on a small commercial boat. The Captain and his mate, Keith, share a fondness for Rose. Also on board are Dobbs, who is the boat’s cook; Chuck, another tourist; and a bickering married couple named Norman and Beverly. After trouble with the engine, the navigation system goes haywire when they encounter a strange orange haze. The others sense that something is wrong. Norman in particular becomes abrasive. In the darkness of night, a hulking ship suddenly appears and sideswipes their boat. The Captain sends up a flare, which momentarily lights up the eerie sight of a huge, rotting vessel wrecked nearby.

The next morning, everyone wakes to find the Captain missing. Realizing the boat is slowly taking on water, everyone evacuates in the lifeboat and makes for a nearby island. They see the huge wreck in the light of day; it appears to have been there for decades, nothing more than a skeletal framework, and now seemingly immobile, stranded on the island’s reef. The group is startled to find the body of the Captain, apparently drowned while he was trying to check the underside of the boat for damage. They explore the island and discover a large, rundown hotel. At first they think it is deserted, but they discover a reclusive old man living there.

The man seems alarmed by their story, and he goes down to the beach to personally investigate. Under the water, strange zombie-like men gather, walking from the wreck along the ocean floor to the island. As Dobbs gathers items to help prepare food, the zombies corner him in the water and one of them attacks; before it kills him, Dobbs falls in a cluster of sea urchins and is horribly mangled. Rose discovers his body while swimming. Back inside the hotel, their reluctant host tells them that he was a Nazi commander in charge of the “Death Corps”, a group of aquatic zombies. The creatures were intended to be a powerful weapon for the Nazis, but they proved too difficult to control. When Germany lost the war, he sunk their ship. Knowing the zombies have returned, he says they are doomed. The Commander goes down to the beach again and sees a few of the zombies off in the distance; they refuse to obey and drown him.

The others locate a boat that the Commander told them about and pilot it out through the streams to the open water. They lose control of the boat, and it sails away from them, empty. A zombie drowns Norman in a stream, and another chases Rose back to the hotel, where she kills it by pulling off its goggles. Chuck, Beverly, and Keith return to the hotel, and they barricade themselves in the refrigerator unit. The close quarters and stress cause the survivors to begin infighting, and Chuck accidentally fires a flare gun, blinding Beverly. Keith and Rose escape to an old furnace room, where they hide inside two metal grates, while Beverly hides in a closet. The zombies drown Chuck in a swimming pool outside.

The next morning, Keith and Rose discover Beverly dead, drowned in a large fish tank. Now on their own, they try to escape in a small sightseeing rowboat with a glass bottom. The zombies attack, and although Keith manages to defeat one by pulling off its goggles, a second one grabs him and drowns him just as the dinghy breaches the reef and drifts free. Rose sees Keith’s lifeless body pressed up against the glass bottom of the boat and screams.

The film comes full circle, and Rose’s voice over returns. She is now in a hospital bed, seemingly writing in a journal. Her dialogue begins to repeat itself over and over, and she is revealed to be writing nonsense in her journal, showing that she has gone insane.

Peter Cushing & Fred Olen Ray

  BEHIND THE SCENES

Wiederhorn didn’t have much budget to work with on Shock Waves, but still managed to find intriguing, inexpensive ways to complete his first feature film, shooting everything in 35 days in 1975 although it wasn’t theatrically released until 1977. He was limited in how he could use Cushing and Carradine, whose contracts only accounted for four shooting days (both actors earned just $5000 each). He was able to secure a permit to film on the SS Sapona — a concrete-hulled cargo steamer which ran aground during a hurricane near Bimini in 1926 — and the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, was rented for $250 per day, which was abandoned at the time.

Wiederhorn employed two cinematographers — Reuben Trane above the water, and Irving Pare below — who shot on 16mm (which was then blown up to 35mm for theatrical prints, accounting for the film’s grainy look).

  KEN WIEDERHORN INTERVIEW

I want to ask you first, does the idea of talking about SHOCK WAVES and revisiting this title excite you still? How do you feel today about the film’s legacy and your role in horror history?

KEN WIEDERHORN: I love the film because it’s the movie that keeps on giving

Do you mean that in a financial sense or otherwise?

WIEDERHORN: In the financial sense. When you make your first film, little do you know that it’s going to follow you around for the rest of your life and keep putting money in your pocket so that’s always a very nice feeling. I’m delighted when anything happens with SHOCK WAVES

Were you born and raised in Florida?

WIEDERHORN: No I’m from New York.

Ok, so how does a New Yorker end up in Florida with Peter Cushing and John Carradine?

WIEDERHORN: I was working as an assistant film editor for a documentarian who had also made some feature films and somehow he wound up being appointed the head of the film program at Columbia and he said well if you’re interested in taking some more courses let’s talk about it. I’m pretty sure I can get you into the film program’. He in fact did that. So I have an MFA with no undergraduate degree. Anyway, there I met Reuben Trane who is from Florida who was also in the films program and we partnered on our thesis film which was called MANHATTAN MELODY and that won the first Motion Picture Academy Student Film Award. Then Reuben decided that he wanted try his hand at producing a low budget film and raised some money. The investors said basically we’re fine with this as long as you guys make a horror movie because we heard that horror movies always make their money back so that’s how that happened. He raised a couple hundred thousand dollars and I drove down to Florida and we figured out how to do it there

Why a zombie movie? Or did you even think of the Nazi ghouls as zombies when you were coming up with this idea?

WIEDERHORN: I was not necessarily a horror aficionado. I really worked in the cutting room and was coming up that way. I was still very much thinking that I was going to become a producer at CBS news so I can’t say that I came to it with a great deal of interest or expertise in the horror genre. I simply went looking for material. I found a book called The Morning of the Magicians which purports to tell about the Nazi belief in the supernatural and in reading that book somehow I thought, ok this makes sense. We knew we were going to shoot the film in Florida. Reuben knew his way around boats, we were going to be in Miami so the water element came in and I suddenly had a vision of Nazis attacking Miami Beach which could be quite humorous. See, the thing for me about horror is that it always walks the line with comedy so you have to be very careful to make sure you’re on one side of that or the other so I thought, no, we can’t go in that direction. That led me to thinking about soldiers underwater and one thing led to another and with the help of a few joints we came up with the idea of underwater Nazi zombies!

Even if you haven’t seen SHOCK WAVES, you know the art and you know those creatures which have been riffed on several times in several films but there’s a look to them. Alan Ormsby did the makeup FX and the Nazis remind me of his work on Bob Clark’s DEATHDREAM, Did you give Ormsby much guidance when it came to creating these creatures?

WIEDERHORN: I hadn’t seen DEATHDREAM and I still haven’t seen it so I had nothing to relate to in Ormsby’s background. I know he had worked on a movie called CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS. Listen, when you’re in Miami, you don’t have a lot of choices in terms of crew and people to help you imagine the film so I was delighted to meet Alan because I felt we were very like-minded. He thought the film would be very problematic because one requirement was that the makeup had to withstand exposure to water. We didn’t want to get bogged down with it washing off and having to re-apply it eight times a day so he very brilliantly came up with a solution for that and it was amazing how that makeup withstood the constant submersions those guys had to make. Now as far as the details of the makeup, I know that we already decided that we wanted to make their vulnerability be exposure to light so hence the goggles and we wanted to make sure they were blonde and that came about primarily because we got a deal with a Cuban beauty school in Miami to take the guys and strip the colour out of the hair with bleach and that was affordable and doable and that’s what defined that. But Alan certainly, I would say was ninety percent responsible for the look of the zombies.

Obviously people that love SHOCK WAVES always cite the heavy dense atmosphere that the movie trades in. Talk about that eerie ruined boat. Did you find the boat first and make the movie around it?

WIEDERHORN: The wreck is off one of the Bahamian islands so we could get there easily enough from Miami. Somebody had a chart of wrecks in the south Florida area that was more oriented towards treasure hunting and somehow this wreck was marked on the map and we investigated it and discovered it was an old World War II cement ship. The hull of the ship was actually made from cement. We saw pictures of it and we thought ok that will do and that was that.

Did the script reflect that they would run into some sort of ruin or did the ruin end up being written into the script because of the existing wreck?

WIEDERHORN: No, the script was always scripted that way.

Is the boat still there do you know?

WIEDERHORN: As far as I know.

Amazing. The other key element of the film is Richard Einhorn’s minimalist music. Was Richard your choice or was be brought to you?

WIEDERHORN: Richard was also at Columbia and he was studying with a professor whose specialty was electronic music. So I went to the department head and said I’m looking for somebody who can do electronics for a horror movie score and Richard was one of the people who they recommended and we sat down and talked. I thought he would do a terrific job and I think he did. I think that the movie owes much to its music.

It sure does and you used Richard again for “EYES OF A STRANGER as well didn’t you?

WIEDERHORN: Yep and then used him again for the last film I made called A HOUSE IN THE HILLS

He went on to quite an illustrious career as a composer…

WIEDERHORN: He’s more of a serious classical modern composer and he’s done all orchestral score for JOAN OF ARC and he’s very active in New York. Richard was always my first choice for anything I was doing.

Now we’ve got to talk about Peter Cushing. This is, I think, one of his last notable horror roles…

WIEDERHORN: Ah yes, Peter. The horror movies that I actually knew were Hammer films. Why that is, I don’t know but I knew quite a number of the Hammer films and what appealed to me about them was that they really relied on story to some degree. But even more importantly, atmosphere and quality of acting. They were well produced and they were able to work on that level. So I very much had that in mind. We knew going on that we did not want to get into a lot of bloody special FX because we were making a low budget movie and it seemed to me that the way to succeed was not to become overly ambitious. To really make sure that what we were doing was something that we could in fact do. So the element that cost the least is all the elements of building suspense. I look at the film today and parts of it seem terribly slow to me but I understand and I see how at the time it worked in its way. It certainly worked because what I hear from people telling me about their experience of seeing the movie when they were 13 years old on late night TV is that when you’re channel surfing, this film stands out because it looks different. I personally really hated the locations because they were really difficult to work in terms of physical comfort. It was hot, it was humid and we would have to cover ourselves with mosquito repellent several times a day. There were sharks swimming in the water that we were working in Biscayne Bay so I think that worked for the film. I wasn’t the only one having a difficult time with the physical element that we were working it.

But back to Cushing, his nickname while making the Hammer films was “Props” Cushing because he would always find a way to work the surrounding props into his performance. Did you see any evidence of that in his work? Was he resourceful that way?

WIEDERHORN: The only prop I think he had was a cigarette holder that he used. He gave me a preview of the accent and I thought well it’s not really a German accent but it’s an accent so it’s fine. The great thing about Cushing was that he was very giving and very professional and even though he probably saw a lot of us walking into walls during the day, he was helpful and extended himself in ways that I certainly didn’t expect. In fact one day I was trying to figure out how to set up a shot on a beach somewhere and he was always available and he was always nearby, it’s not like between takes he went off and sat in his trailer, he was very available. So he’s watching me having a problem figuring things out and he gets my attention and motions me over and he says “Dear boy may I make a suggestion?” and I said “Sure Peter, what?” he says “I think if you move the camera a little bit off to the right and you lower the frame a bit you’ll get what you’re looking for and damn, he was right! I realized this is a guy who’s had more set experience than most of the directors he’s probably worked with and I knew that he was observant to what was going on. He was watching and so whenever we were ready, he was always ready. Whereas Carradine who came from a different discipline entirely and probably had been in four times as many movies as Cushing was in, he didn’t want to know about anything except what’s my line, where do I stand and when can I get the hell out of here.

Peter’s wife passed in 1970 and apparently those who worked with him around this period said he almost had a death wish. He always talked about her in a very morbid way. Was he a melancholy guy did you notice? Was that evident at all?

WIEDERHORN: I would say no. I do know about the wife but all I can tell you is that he was very open and frank about the fact that he would communicate with her through various mediums.

Have you seen any evidence of SHOCK WAVE’s influence in any other films or pop art?

WIEDERHORN: Well, people have pointed out to me that there is a whole collection of Nazi zombie movies now and I really have no idea if SHOCK WAVES had anything to do with that or not, that’s for other people to figure out. Other than that. I know it happens that there are references made to it. Somebody sent me a mystery show where SHOCK WAVES was a central part of the plot…

What about a remake? Since everything even borderline cult has been remade or is in the process of being remade, there must be somebody knocking on your door to try and do a remake of SHOCK WAVES…

WIEDERHORN: Yeah, I get that knock on the door a couple of times a year but frankly it’s usually ‘let us take an option and give us two years and we’ll see if we can get something done and I’ve been around that track many times and I figure if somebody is really serious about remaking it or doing a sequel in some way it will either happen or not. I don’t really have any interest in doing it myself.

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Promotional and Advertising Material/Lobby Cards

  SOUNDTRACK/SCORE

Richard Einhorn’s haunting experimental, analog-synth score — one of the earliest electronic compositions created for film — is often singled out for its creative use.

SHOCK WAVES LP (Waxwork Records) Original Richard Einhorn Score

  CREDITS

Cast

Peter Cushing as SS Commander

Brooke Adams as Rose

John Carradine as Captain Ben Morris

Fred Buch as Chuck

Jack Davidson as Norman

Luke Halpin as Keith

J. Sidney as Beverly

Don Stout as Dobbs

Directed by   Ken Wiederhorn

Produced by Reuben Trane

Written by    

Ken Wiederhorn John Kent Harrison

  REFERENCES and SOURCES

Delirium Issue 005

Shock Waves (1977) Retrospective SUMMARY The film opens as Rose is found drifting alone in a small rowboat. Two fishermen find it and pull her onto their own boat, barely alive and in a horrible state.

[chmergess4ever]

His Redhead Girl (Part 2)

Hey Everyone! So here it finally is! I’m sorry it has taken so long. Because of the first part being posted so long ago the story takes place during the timeline of the tour when Val was still dating Amber. This chapter got very long but I didn’t think anywhere fit to cut it into two. I hope you enjoy it. I will post a link to the first chapter, so you can read a refresher if you like. 

Part 1: http://chmergess4ever.tumblr.com/post/156948077081/his-redhead-girl

Like/Reblog! Enjoy! 

“Babe, is everything alright?”

“Not really.” Val ran his hand through his hair as he looked at Sharna who was staring at him, questioning this terrible decision. “We just- I just-”

“You what?”

“I just need to tell you because-”

“Tell me what?” “I haven’t been completely honest with you. Actually, I haven’t been honest with you at all.” “Continue.” “I’ve been talking to someone else.”

Amber went silent. Val could hear her purse her lips. “Talking? Or sleeping with.”

“Talking. Kissing, here and there. Flirting.”

After taking a moment to digest what he had said Amber yelled into the phone, “You fucking asshole. I trusted you!”

“Amber-”

“Don’t you fucking “Amber” me. You’ve been having sex with someone else when I have been dating you. Being loyal as fuck to you.”

“I have not been having se-” “Oh Bullshit. Val Chmerkovskiy does not, not have sex.” “It was her rule.”

“Whose rule?” “You know I won’t tell you that. But I haven’t been sleeping with her. Cause she said she wouldn’t do the cheating thing. She said I had to break it off with you if I wanted her. I was going to wait till I got off tour so I could do this in person but I couldn’t-”

“Cause you needed to have sex with her?”

“Fuck no! Amber. Because I’m in love with her!” Val dropped silent realizing what he had just said. Sharna started back at him shell shocked.

“Wow. Just plain wow.”

The producer of the tour came into the backstage area, “Val, you’re on in 2.”

“Coming!” He called. He spoke back into his phone. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“No you won’t. Fuck you.”

Val hung up his phone and handed it to Sharna as he walked away and followed the producer to the stage. She looked at it and clicked the home button. He had reset his background to a picture of the two of them. She looked at it as she realized that she didn’t say anything back. She heard the music start playing to the next dance he was in but ran up the stairs to the stage anyway. She stood in the wing and watched him dance, when she caught his eye she mouthed the three simple words she had been scared to do. “I love you.”

Val smiled and wiped his head forward releasing more energy into the dance. Sharna walked back down the stairs, walking back over to the wall. He came off shortly after and met her there pushing her into the wall. “Yes. I can have you.” He captured her mouth in his own. There were cheers from the guys that saw it and a lot of smiles and “aww” from the girls. All of a sudden the both of them felt a vibrating.

“Oah, babe. Don’t get too excited.” She bit her bottom lip, looking into his eyes and she teased him.

“I’m not-” He smiled and laughed and then looked down into her hands where she was still holding his phone. It was Amber. He slid the button to the right. “Thought you weren’t going to talk to me again?”

“It’s her isn’t?”

“Who?” “I just need to know.”

“Amber-”

“Val, tell me it’s Sharna.”

“I won’t”

“She’s the redhead.”

“What?”

“She’s your redhead.”

“Amber- I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You never do, Val. I was told to stay away from you. I was told that there was only one girl you loved, that you would end up with inevitably. And stupid me, giving you a chance-”

“Amber, I don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say. You screwed up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear “I’m sorry.” I just don’t want to be played anymore. I needed to hear it was her. I needed to know.”

“It’s her, Amber. It’s always been her.”

“Right.” And with that statement she was gone.

Val looked down at the home screen of his phone acknowledging what had just happened. Sharna tilted his chin up so he was looking at her. She stood on her tippie toes to align their mouths. “Hey. I love you. That’s what matters.”

He kissed her and they heard the producers voice interject again. “I’m sorry, guys. But you need to get changed for the finale number.”

Val looked at her and nodded. She turned to walk away from Sharna to the costume rack and she called after him. “Hey babe!”

“What?” “Zero days.”

Val laughed and smiled. “Zero.”

Later that night after the show finished, Val and Sharna walked outside towards the bus holding hands. They decided they didn’t care who knew, hiding was going to make their relationship so much bigger of a deal than it needed to be. The fans that were waiting for autographs acknowledged it and asked if they could take pictures with them together. They happily obliged and shortly after got on the tour bus, which was headed to a nearby hotel. Once they got there and were checked in, the group decided they were going to go to the hotel restaurant for a quick bite to eat but Val and Sharna decided to skip out and head upstairs.

They settled on spending their night in Sharna’s room. Their bodies pressed up against each other and they walked intertwined with each other. They fell down on the bed with Val on top of her. “Yes.” He unzipped the black hoodie that she had put on after the show and kissed her stomach right above her waistline. He stood up and lifted his shirt over his head. “You were really serious about the wait.”

“You didn’t think I would be?” “I thought you would be, but I also thought that I would be able to convince you.”  

“It’s going to be so much better now though babe.”

They undressed each other and made love for the next two hours.

Val rolled off of her and put his arm behind his head. “Wow.”

“Worth the wait?”

“Yes, and a thousand times over.” He turned his head to face her and pressed his lips to hers. Sharna reached for her phone on the nightstand and opened instagram. She noticed Alan was on instagram live. She pointed at it for Val and they opened it. She sat up and she cuddled under his arm.

The rest of the cast was in Alan’s room and they were playing Cards Against Humanity. When it wasn’t Alan’s turn to judge he began to read the questions out loud that were popping up on the screen. “What’s my favorite color? Blue. Which dance is my favorite? The argentine tango. Where are Val and Sharna?” Alan smiled looking at the last question and spoke to the rest of the cast.

“Where are Val and Sharna, guys?”

They all began smiling and laughing. “Gleb, where are Val and Sharna?” Alan flipped the camera towards Gleb, and he looked straight into the lens. “Val and Sharna, are spending some much needed alone time together right now.”

Val smiled and Sharna gasped.

Alan whispered from off camera. “They’re doing the nastayyyyy.”

Sharna let out a scream and Val started laughing. Sharna typed in a comment. “We most certainly are not.”

Alan saw the comment and read it outloud. “Guys, Sharna’s on here. She’s typing in.”

“Hey Shar!!” The girls yelled. “Text us the deets.”

“Guys! Stop!” Sharna typed again.

Val opened it on his phone and began typing comments as well. “Are you guys really playing that game right now?”

“Nice diversion, Val, not gonna work!” Alan spoke to the camera.

Alan continued talking. “For those of you that haven’t heard yet. Val and Sharna are a thing. I think you guys call them chmergess?”

The girls laughed from off camera and you can hear them all cheering with Lindsay’s voice saying “Chmergess!!!”

Alan read more of the comments coming in. He laughed as he pointed to one on the screen. “Yes, Chmergess is alive.”

Sharna put her head down and laughed into Val’s shoulder.

Keo echoed Alan saying “Alive, alive. Alive.” In a joking manner.

Sharna commented again. “Hate you guys.” She added with the laughing emojis. “We’re leaving.”

Gleb typed in the chat. “We all know where you guys are going.”

They both laughed again. Val typed again. “Ha. Ha. Very funny. Bye.”

ALan spoke to the camera again. “Have funnn.”

Val and Sharna both got out of the stream. She rested her head on his shoulder. “Did they really just do that to us?”

“They did.” Val span his phone around in his hand. “We’re public.”

“We are.”

Val opened his twitter and received an influx of tweets about him and Sharna, him and Amber, his relationship status. He closed twitter and opened his notes, composing an explanation that he would tweet out. Sharna looked over his shoulder as he typed. She pressed a kiss into his neck, calming him down. He wrote:

“To all my fans that are asking about Me and Amber, and Me and Sharna, I will address this only because I don’t want anyone getting undeserved hate. I have been dating Amber Rose for a little over 4 months. She is a great woman, with a great personality, who I have absolutely nothing but respect for. She’s not too happy with me right now but I hope that over time we will heal and we can be friends. She has reasons not to be happy but I don’t want to apologize for falling in love. The thing is, I didn’t fall in love with her. I noticed after all this time that I’m in love and have been in love with Sharna Burgess. She’s the love of my life and dragging Amber along when knowing this, seemed like the wrong thing to do. I’m not sorry for loving Sharna, I’m sorry for hurting Amber. But, Sharna and I don’t want to hide. We want to be public with our relationship, so please be respectful. Respectful of us and our relationship and respectful of Amber. We want to share as much with you as we feel comfortable with so show us that we can.”  

He attached a picture of the note to a tweet and sent it. Then he opened instagram. And attached a picture of the two of them, that someone had caught when they weren’t paying attention. He captioned it. “Guess I have a thing for redheads.”

Sharna smiled and looked up at him. “I’m your redhead girl.”

“That you are.”

[mrmedia]

124 Robert Schimmel, comedian (2 of 2)

Today's Guest: Robert Schimmel, comedian, author, Cancer on Five Dollars a Day (chemo not included): How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life

Order from Amazon.com by clicking the book cover above

(APRIL 2008) I tried my hand at stand-up comedy twice in college, once as a freshman at the University of Miami and again a year later at the University of Florida. And no, I wasn’t so bad at Miami that I was asked to leave. They were a lot more subtle than that. Anyway, I gave up that dream early. It’s a tough, humiliating life, not for me. Now, Robert Schimmel, on the other hand, is one of the best stand-up comedians of his generation. He, like Richard Belzer before him, is the guy other comedians watch and measure themselves against. He is naturally funny and naturally crude, rude, and not recommended for listeners under the age of 18. That’s my way of saying if you’re too young to drink or if you’re easily offended, tune out now. The button-down mind of Bob Newhart this definitely is not. These days, Schimmel is still out doing his job making people laugh, but there is a twist. In 2000, when his career was reaching new heights, he was diagnosed with Stage III non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, cancer. Not good. But he underwent aggressive therapy and routed the disease, even discovering a new source of material for his act in process. And he’s written a book, Cancer on $5 a Day: Chemo Not Included, How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life.

ROBERT SCHIMMEL audio excerpt: "I did find humor in it. When you’re in the hospital and you lose all your hair and everything, and your doctor comes in and says, “Would you be interested in a wig?” And he has like an 8 x 10 like a binder, a notebook with different headshots with wigs on them. I said to the guy, “Do you have one for my crotch?” And the guy says, “As a matter of fact, we do,” and he showed me pictures. I almost fell out of the bed. And he said, “Robert, they’re virtually undetectable,” and I’m thinking, Undetectable? I don’t have one eyelash, and then I’m gonna have a shrub between my legs, and that’s not gonna be detectable?" 

BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Robert, I’m kind of curious. You’ve written your first book. What was it like to see your material in such a permanent format? You’ve done CDs, and, subject matter aside for the moment, it’s Robert Schimmel’s voice on paper. What was that like for you? ROBERT SCHIMMEL: It was hard. I never had any intention of writing a book before because I have friends that are comedians that have books out and basically what their book is is it’s like their stand-up act that’s been transcribed and put into a book. And I never wanted to do anything like that because I know that there are some jokes that you can tell live on stage, and maybe it’s your delivery or your timing, your personality where all those things play into the way the joke works, and you look at it on a piece of paper, and it’s not the same thing. I used to write for “In Living Color.” There were sketches that you’d write that you knew were funny, but other people read them on a sheet of paper, and they go, “Naah, we’ve got to punch it up a little bit,” and it was perfect the way it was the first time.

Robert Schimmel: Life Since Then. Order your copy today by clicking on the DVD cover above!

I had somebody help me write this book. I’m not gonna deny that because I respect writers, and they usually don’t get any credit for when they help somebody else, but I have a picture of the guy in the inside flap of the book. His name is Alan Eisenstock, and the reason why I chose to have him help me was twofold. One, he interviewed me in 2000 when I was on top of the world career-wise for a Father’s Day issue of Variety magazine, and as we spoke, it wound up us getting kind of close, and he found out that I’d lost a son in 1992, and I found out that he lost a son. So when they offered me the book this year, I wanted to find someone that could help me because I knew that I wanted to have somebody else that shared that same experience as I did because they could help me express myself and maybe in some words that might not be in my vocabulary or a way to say it that I don’t. I also wanted someone that didn’t go through cancer the way I did because I wanted them not to be in my shoes for that because then he could be a good judge. I can talk about what I went through and some of the procedures and tests and all these other things, and to me, it’s like I might as well be reading a menu to you, but I talk to other people, and a lot of people get overwhelmed and they’re like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t tell me anymore!” So I needed someone to say, “You know what? You’re getting too heavy here, and you kind of said this in this other thing.” He helped guide me into putting it in order and making sure that the book was still light-hearted. That’s why I chose the title, Cancer on $5 a Day: Chemo Not Included, because I wanted people to know right up front that I’m not Deepak Chopra or Dr. Phil and that I am a comedian. This is about cancer, but there are light-hearted moments in it. The only other choice I had for a title…They wanted something like My Unplanned Journey, which that’s not me, but the other title was When Bad Things Happen to Seemingly Good People, but I like Cancer on $5 a Day. I think that that grabs you, and you look at it, and I’m very proud of it. I really am. First of all, it’s dedicated to my son, and I’d been waiting ever since that happened to find something that I can dedicate to him and leave that mark even after I’m not here anymore. And if people read this or someone reads it, and I know that people have heard my story before cause I talk about it on stage, if it gives somebody hope or inspiration or go wow, he’s seven years out from what he had, and I just started treatment now, I can do it, then what I went through wasn’t for nothing. I get to do what I love doing the most, which is make people laugh and entertain them and maybe touch them in a way that can help change their lives for the better, and I do believe that laughter is very healing, not only for the people laughing but for the people on the receiving end of the laughter, too. ANDELMAN: I have to say, as a guy who makes his living co-authoring books, that it was very nice, not only to hear just a minute ago you give Alan Eisenstock credit for helping you with this, but he actually wrote the introduction to the book, which was very touching in and of itself. It’s very unusual that way. SCHIMMEL: Yeah. I know he’s written other books for a couple other comedians he’s worked with where he told me that those guys never mention his name, that he’s gone to book signings with them where they don’t even acknowledge he’s in the room, and I just can’t do that. Maybe it’s because of what I went through versus somebody else where they’re just a comic, and they have a book out for something. I admire what he did, and I respect him, and he deserves the credit for what he did. I can’t lie and tell people that I did it all by myself cause it’s not true, and I just wouldn’t do it. And I mention him on the radio. I did now. Every interview I do, I bring his name up. I don’t see what’s wrong with it, and I can understand why writers would want to strike, and when they don’t get the credit that’s due to them because this guy basically had to go back into his own feelings about losing his child. We sat together for days and days and days. Every week, we got together like 3, 4 days a week at Taverna Tony, this Greek restaurant that’s in Malibu, and it’s like halfway between where he lives and I live. There were days that we were laughing. There were days when we were crying where we just had to stop, and we said we couldn’t do anymore that day because he started talking about things about his son, I would talk about mine, and then that was just it. And we knew that we weren’t going to get anything done that was going to be able to get on paper that day. So for him to do that, to me, that’s not just sitting down and writing a book with someone or transcribing or re-writing. He emotionally took that roller-coaster ride with me, and it’s a tough ride to take. It really is. I didn’t want to write about my son in the book, and I’ll tell you why. It’s so bizarre. I only want to have a positive effect on people with this book, not negative, and the fact that my son lost his battle, I didn’t want to put that in anybody’s head. I very rarely talk about my son in my act onstage unless it’s a fundraiser for a pediatric oncology thing. Otherwise, I don’t. I don’t want to use what happened to Derek… I don’t want to exploit what my son went through to elicit a certain response from the audience because honestly, I told Alan, “We both have the ultimate trump card. I could go onstage and bomb, and people can come over or the owner and say, ‘You really stunk,’ and I could say, ‘Yeah, yesterday was my son’s birthday and he would’ve been...’ That’s all you gotta say, and you’re off the hook right there, and I just won’t do it.” There are people that don’t make it. I want to be realistic also, but life is still beautiful no matter what. My life is as precious as his was, and I have other children, and I just didn’t want them to feel like second-class citizens to him. What would they have to do? Get really sick before they get the attention he got? And I did find humor in it. When you’re in the hospital and you lose all your hair and everything, and your doctor comes in and says, “Would you be interested in a wig?” And he has like an 8 x 10 like a binder, a notebook with different headshots with wigs on them. I said to the guy, “Do you have one for my crotch?” And the guy says, “As a matter of fact, we do,” and he showed me pictures. I almost fell out of the bed. And he said, “Robert, they’re virtually undetectable,” and I’m thinking, Undetectable? I don’t have one eyelash, and then I’m gonna have a shrub between my legs, and that’s not gonna be detectable?

Order Robert Schimmel: Unprotected by clicking on the CD cover above!

ANDELMAN: Now wait a minute. Did you actually buy one, though? SCHIMMEL: Of course I did. ANDELMAN: That’s what I thought, yeah. SCHIMMEL: Of course I did, and it looked so stupid. It looked like a hair donut. It was like a Krispy Kreme donut that somebody dropped on a barbershop floor, and my wife wouldn’t even play ring toss with me. ANDELMAN: Now, did you buy a wig for your head, though, for the top of your head? SCHIMMEL: No. ANDELMAN: No, but you bought one for your crotch? SCHIMMEL: Yeah, well, because I was losing my hair already before chemotherapy, and I was thinking if I walked out of the hospital with a full head of hair, people would go, “What, are you kidding?” That was already gone way before chemotherapy. ANDELMAN: Right. SCHIMMEL: I do believe that attitude has a lot to do with overcoming obstacles in your life. When I first got diagnosed, my doctor came in the room, and I thought I had the flu. I was working in Las Vegas at the Lance Burton Theater at the Monte Carlo. It was June 2 and 3, 2000, coming back from the from shopping with my dad, and I’m freezing, and I say, “We gotta stop. I gotta get a sweatshirt or something. I’m shivering.” And he said, “Bob, it’s like 112 degrees out.” And I go back to my room. Like an hour before the show, I’m getting the chills and sweats, and I go into a hot shower that was so hot my dad couldn’t believe that I was standing in there, and I still had goosebumps, and my teeth were chattering. I thought it was the flu. And I felt tired, I was losing weight, I go to the doctor, they find a little lump, they go and do a biopsy, and even after what I went through with my son, cancer was the furthest thing from my mind. I would think that that’s not gonna happen two times in my immediate family. And when they told me, the guy came in, I was with my mom and dad and my wife, and he had a legal pad, and he drew down the center a line. On one side, he wrote “Hodgkins Disease.” On the other side, he wrote “non-Hodgkins.” Then he wrote “aggressive, indolent, Stage I, Stage II, Stage III, Stage IV,” and all this stuff, and he said, “Robert, I wish I could tell you that you had Hodgkins Disease, but you have non-Hodgkins.” And I said, “You know what? That’s just my luck. I got the one that’s not named after the guy.” And he laughed, and he said, “You know what? You’re gonna be okay.” And I said, “I am?” And he said, “Yeah, cause your head’s in the right place.” And I’m not saying I wasn’t scared because I was. It got to a point right before the last treatment where it’s like you’re thinking, If this didn’t work, I don’t know what would happen to me mentally. Only so many things can happen to you before you just start laughing because that’s the only thing left to do is laugh. It really is. My parents are Holocaust survivors. My dad’s parents and his sister and brother were shot in front of him and killed, and he’s the sole survivor of his family and went to Auschwitz. My dad has the greatest sense of humor I’ve ever heard. He never is negative. As a matter of fact, when Derek got diagnosed, he said, “Robert, don’t look up at God and ask why. Derek didn’t do anything wrong. It has nothing to do with that.” He said, “Life doesn’t always go the way you plan it, and the toughest thing for some people is to surrender to the fact that there are things in life that you just have no control over.” I’m a very lucky guy. I have, including Derek, six children. There wasn’t any time in my life where I could afford to have a substance abuse problem, and I don’t drink, but I have gone with a couple of friends to some AA meetings, and I gotta tell you something. The Serenity Prayer, that’s not a bullshit story. If you live by that, I think that you’d be in good shape because I think a lot of people get hung up where you don’t know the difference between things that you can change and that you can’t. I did everything I could for my son. My wife did, my parents did, the doctors did. The rest of it is in somebody else’s hands. For me to know why, honestly, if an angel came down right now while we are talking and said, “You know what? I heard you talking about your son, and I know you still miss him and you love him, and I’m gonna tell you why he died,” it wouldn’t make any difference. It really wouldn’t.

Robert Schimmel Comes Clean. Order your copy today by clicking on the CD cover above!

I just read something the other day, by the way, in front of a dry cleaners in Burbank. They have a marquee at the dry cleaners, and they always have these little quotes up there. And this one said, “Life’s not about surviving the storm, it’s learning to dance in the rain.” That really hit me because that’s really what it is, and to me, when I’m on stage and I make people laugh, I feel like I’m in complete control of everything. It’s probably the only place that I feel in control completely. The minute you step off stage anything can happen, but what’s gonna happen when you’re up there? What - that I bomb and I die? Well, every comic’s died on stage, and one of the first things you learn is there’s life after death. You get to come back to die again. There’s a lot of dying before you start getting funny. ANDELMAN: Now, Robert, I have to interrupt you there because one of the things that I marked in the book was that you say, “I’m not ready to die period. To begin with, I cannot imagine a future without me in it.” SCHIMMEL: Yes, because my doctor said, “Here’s what you have to do. Everyday, you have to take a few moments a few times a day, when you wake up, in the afternoon, before you go to sleep, and you have to visualize yourself in the future. You have to constantly do that.” And, to me, I couldn’t see the future without me in it. I couldn’t, and I tried. I really did. I closed my eyes and tried to see my funeral because I wanted to see a lot of people crying and going, “Bob, come back,” and I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I know the way things go in my life, it just wasn’t gonna be that easy that I would just die and get off the hook. I just wasn’t gonna be gone yet. Look, I miss my son. I know one day that I’ll be with him, but it’s not time for me to be with him, and I can’t feel bad about it. Did I? Yes. Probably the worst feeling that I had, worse than getting diagnosed with cancer, honestly, was on December 12, 2000 after I finished all my treatment, and I got my first MRI and my CAT Scan, and they said that I was clear and that, starting that day, I can consider myself in remission. And I started suffering from survivor’s guilt because I felt really weird that, “Why did I make it and my son didn’t?” I talked to my father about it, and my father told me he went through the same thing after the war, that after he met my mom, he said, “Why me? Why did I get to meet the love of my life and have three children and get to see my grandchildren being born, and my mother, father, sister, and brother didn’t?” Well, it’s not for him to know why. There’s no way it could not be funny. When you go to the doctor and he says that you have open sores in your mouth and down your throat cause that’s what happens with chemotherapy, that to avoid any kind of oral/ anal contact, and I’m thinking: Do I look like an ass eater to you? First you tell me I have cancer and now I can’t kiss anybody’s ass? When’s the punishment gonna stop? What did he think I was gonna be doing that? I could barely eat Jell-O. You’re not supposed to have sex when you’re on chemotherapy because all the chemotherapy in you comes out in all your bodily fluids. So actually they told me that if I had a bathroom that I could use that my wife and daughters didn’t use, that would be the way to do it because guys sometimes pee on the seat, and a girl sits on it, and any that gets on them or in them, that could be dangerous.

] If You Buy This CD, I Can Get This Car by Robert Schimmel. Order your copy today by clicking on the CD cover above!

And he said, “You could take care of yourself.” Well, it is really hard to lay in bed and pray to God and say, “Please let me get through this,” and then be jerking off in the same bed looking up at the same ceiling. It’s impossible. It just really is. And I prayed, and I had a really hard time doing it, and I’ll tell you why. I think I’m more spiritual than religious. I’m laying in bed asking God to get me through this, and it felt like I had a friend that I hadn’t talked to in 10 years, and out of the blue, I’m calling him and asking him to lend me a thousand dollars. I don’t pray all the time, and then here I am asking for the biggest thing you could ask for, which is not to die, but I prayed to everybody. I prayed to Buddha, I prayed to Jesus, if there had been a G.I. Joe in the room, I would’ve been praying to him, anything and anything to get me through it. ANDELMAN: You said in the book that the day you were diagnosed, a rabbi came in and then, I guess, priests came in, and you talked about prayer. I think it was the priest who said, “What’s it gonna hurt to try?” I think you also talk about how you’d just as soon talk to all sides because you don’t want to get up there and find out that all those people who were trying to interest you in Jesus that, maybe, they were right. SCHIMMEL: Yeah. There’s a chaplain in the hospital, and they do their rounds everyday. When the guy came in the first time, he said, “Hi, I’m the chaplain. Are you a Christian?” And I said, “No, I’m Jewish.” He said, “Well, I’m sorry that I bothered you.” I said, “Where you going? I don’t want you to leave.” He said, “Do you want to pray with me?” I said, “Yeah, let’s go.” He said, “Okay, but I’m gonna be praying to Jesus,” and I said, “I’m gonna be right there with you. I don’t want to die and get up there and have Jesus at the gate going, ‘You? Where do you think you’re going?’” Who knows? I think people invented religion. God didn’t do all that. And so whether you’re Catholic or Lutheran or Protestant or Jewish or whatever, I look at God as like in the middle of a bicycle wheel, and every spoke is a different religion, and it doesn’t make any difference which one you’re on, they all lead to the same thing. As long as you’re on one of them then that’s good. I did a radio show last week, I think, in New York where I was on the radio with a doctor on the show. And when I said that I prayed when I was getting chemotherapy, he started laughing, and he said, “You really did that?” And I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “You know you’re praying to nothing. There is nothing.” I said, “What?!” And he said, “That’s not real. The Bible is made up by other people. I believe in evolution, and we evolved from apes. That’s where we came from, not from the Garden of Eden and all that stuff.” I said, “Well, if we evolved from apes then why did apes stop having human kids?” And he said, “What?” And I said, “If fish had gills and then they came out of the water and became animals that lived on the land and then they don’t have gills anymore, then if we evolved from apes, how come we stopped evolving?” And there was just dead air space. He did not have an answer, and I thought it was really funny. I read a book. I read a lot of books when I was going through treatment. I read joke books. I read books on philosophy, on religion. I read a book that was called Searching for God that was written by this rabbi, and I really liked it because the whole premise of it was that he says that when you’re a little child that God is an old man that lives up in the sky with a long beard, and he looks down on everybody, and he sees everyone, he hears everyone, he knows everything, and then when you get older and you’re about the age that you realize there’s no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus that you know there’s no old man that lives up in the sky with a long, white beard. And the problem for most children is most parents don’t have a way to help their kid transition from the old man living up in the sky into the concept of what God or the Creator or whatever you believe it is is. So he says when people say to him I don’t believe in God, he says that’s okay cause I don’t believe in the same God you don’t believe in.

Inside Comedy with host David Steinberg and guest Robert Schimmel. Download your copy today by clicking on David Steinberg's nose, above!

ANDELMAN: I like that. SCHIMMEL: And you know what? That is the way I was brought up. And I watch George Carlin talk completely in the opposite direction, and it floors me. He makes me laugh so much. I know him. When he came out with the book When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? or whatever it was, I bought it. I was laughing out loud reading it on an airplane. And the next radio show I did, I talked about how funny his book was, and I get home and he calls me up. And he goes, “Are you plugging my book on the radio?” I said, “Yeah,” and he said, “Why?” I said, “It’s fucking hysterical.” He said, “Schimmel, why would you buy my book? All you have to do is ask me, and I would give it to you.” I said, “I’m not gonna ask you to give me your book. I was on the road, and I wanted to get it then.” Like two hours later, a messenger knocked on my door and handed me this package. I opened it up, and it was the same book from Carlin. He sent it over, and inside it says, Hey, Schimmel, Go fuck yourself – George Carlin. ANDELMAN: That’s great. That was worth having him send the book over. SCHIMMEL: Oh yeah. Well, I’ve had some amazing experiences. I was friends with Rodney Dangerfield, and people asked me what he was like, and I say, “Just imagine the movie Back to School or Easy Money and think that Rodney’s not acting. They built a movie around his behavior because that’s the way he really was. There was no ‘Get into the character.’ That was him, and he used to walk around in a jogging suit and a bottle of Evian water, but there was really Absolut Vodka in there and not water.” I went to go see Rodney in Vegas, and my mom and dad were there. And I wanted my parents to meet Rodney because I thought, You know what? They’re gonna meet Rodney, and they think he’s really funny. They’ve seem him on Ed Sullivan and on The Tonight Show and on the Mike Douglas Show, and they’re gonna really believe that I’m in show business for real So we go see his show. And my dad’s a real early bird, and he goes to bed like 9:00 at night. So I go up to the dressing room with my mom, and I knock on the door, and Rodney -- I swear I am not making this up -- Rodney opens the door, he’s wearing a silk robe that has playing cards on it with his balls hanging out, no underwear, literally out of the crack of the robe, he had a joint in one hand and a Miller Lite in the other. And he said, “Hey, you must be Bob’s mom.” I’m like Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me. This is not what I wanted my mom to see, and he started hitting on my mom. He said, “Where’s your husband?” She said, “Oh, he went to bed.” He goes, “What are you doing later, baby?” He was really something. ANDELMAN: It’s so nice to hear that, too, because I’ve watched Caddyshack about 200 times, and I wanted him to actually be the guy in Caddyshack because I didn’t want him to be acting. SCHIMMEL: The first time I met Rodney was perfect. It really was. Talking about things happening at a moment, I had just come off stage at The Comedy Store, and Gallagher came over to me. And comics all hang out back in the out back there of the parking lot and talk and everything, and he was talking to me, and he said, “Where do you think you’re going with talking about jerking off and going to the bathroom? That leads nowhere.” He insulted me in front of other comedians, and right then, Rodney came over to me, and he said, “Hey, kid, I just saw you on stage, and I have a new HBO special I’m shooting next week, and you’re the first person I’m picking to be on it.” And it couldn’t have happened at a better moment. So then Rodney goes, “Hey, you want to have dinner with me?” And I said, “Yeah!” So I go with him to have dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Wilshire and Santa Monica. We have dinner in there. When we come out, Merv Griffin is standing out front because Merv owned the hotel. ANDELMAN: Right. SCHIMMEL: And Merv said, “Hey, Rodney, how you doing?” And Rodney said, “Hey, Merv, everything’s okay, alright?” And as soon as Merv turned around, Rodney went, “Big fag!” and I’m like, Oh, my God. There’s no way that Merv didn’t hear that! ANDELMAN: Oh my God. SCHIMMEL: After I finished chemotherapy, Conan O’Brien was really great to me, and he told me, “When you’re done with treatment, whenever you think you’re ready to come on, you let me know, and you’re on.” So I flew to New York. I’m gonna go on Conan. I wanted to even though I didn’t look my best because I had to know for myself that I still had it. I performed in Las Vegas in the middle of chemotherapy because I had to know for myself that even though cancer was ravaging my body the way it was, that it could not touch who I was or my sense of humor or my spirit, and I just refused to give in that way. I’m walking down Broadway, and Jackie Mason comes out of the Stage Deli, and he’s with two friends, and they’re walking up Broadway. And the two friends stop, and they’re talking to someone else, and Jackie sees me. I’m completely bald. I have a little bit of hair under my lip, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, I’m wearing a baseball hat, and he comes over, and he goes, “Oh, my God, what happened to you?” I said, “I just finished chemotherapy.” And he said, “Chemotherapy? You had cancer? What kind did you have?” I said, “Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.” He said, “Oh, my God, how you doing now?” I said, “I’m doing okay,” and he goes, “How’s your brother?” I said, “My brother’s great.” And his two friends walk over, and Jackie goes, “I want you to meet a real funny guy, Howie Mandel.” He thought I was Howie! ANDELMAN: Because you were bald. SCHIMMEL: And his friend goes, “He doesn’t look like Howie Mandel,” and he goes, “Of course he doesn’t look like Howie Mandel! He just finished chemotherapy. He lost a lot of weight.” And Jackie says to me, “What are you doing in town?” I said, “I’m doing Conan O’Brien tomorrow night.” He goes, “Are you busy tonight?” I said, “No.” He goes, “How’d you like to have dinner, you and me, two intelligent comics, have a nice dinner and a conversation together?” I said okay. He said, “Where are you staying?” I said, “At the Parker Meridien.” He said, “Under what name?” I said, “Robert Schimmel.” He said, “Robert Schimmel? How did you come up with that name?” I said, “That’s my real name.” He said, “Howie Mandel is your stage name?” And he felt so bad for Howie. I didn’t have the balls to tell him I wasn’t him. ANDELMAN: And did you go through with dinner? SCHIMMEL: Yeah, and then he winds up telling people that Howie went through chemotherapy. And like a month later, I’m up in Montreal for the comedy festival, and I’m checking into the Delta Hotel, that’s where everybody stays. And the first person I run into in the lobby is Howie, and he comes over to me, and he goes, “So how am I doing?” ANDELMAN: That’s great. Oh, God. SCHIMMEL: Yeah. ANDELMAN: And, of course, everybody talks, so everybody knows. SCHIMMEL: That’s why I can’t believe the life that I’ve had. When I was a kid, I always loved comedians, and I watched everybody. I’m 58 years old. I remember Sid Caesar and “Your Show of Shows” and Ernie Kovacs and Jackie Gleason and all that stuff, and one of the comics, Jerry Lewis, I idolized, and one of the comics that I really loved that made me laugh so much was Jackie Vernon, and I got to work with him a couple of times. Once they called and said, “Hey, this guy’s opening. Do you think you want to go work at this place?” They don’t tell me who it is. I get there, and it says, “Tonight Only, Jackie Vernon.” And I’m like, “Holy shit!” and I’m hanging out with him. And then he goes, “You’re pretty funny. I’m doing this gig at the Hoosier Dome. You want to do that with me? It pays a thousand dollars for the opening act for one night in a first-class arena. You sign for meals.” I said okay. Well, we get there, and it’s a religious convention, and Jackie was completely clean. It was nothing you could find offensive in anything he said no matter who you were. He could literally do a show in front of the Pope. There was nothing. And these guys that were like the Oddfellows or whatever they’re called, they looked like Amish people, but they’re not Amish, but it’s almost something like that. So we get there, and he goes, “Oh, boy. This isn’t gonna be good. Let me tell you how we’re gonna do this. I’m gonna go on first because they know me, and I’m gonna go do the show. Then I’m gonna bring you on and introduce you as my protégé, and as soon as I get the check, I’m gonna give you the signal, and you say, ‘Good night.’” I said okay. He goes on, does 45 minutes, they love him, and then he goes, “Now I’d like to bring up this young, up-and-coming comic. He’s a really funny guy. He travels with me on the road. Robert Schimmel!” and I walk out there. He hands me the mike, and I said, “So I’m taking a shit…” and he grabbed the mike out of my hand, and he said, “How about another hand for Robert Schimmel, ladies and gentlemen?” And I turned to him, and I said, “What about the signal?” And he said, “We’re waaaay past the signal.” ANDELMAN: One of the things I wanted to ask you about was who makes you laugh now, but you mention Jackie Vernon, and I’m thinking, Great comic, but Jackie Vernon makes Robert Schimmel laugh? Who would’ve guessed? SCHIMMEL: A lot of people make me laugh. There’s a lot of guys on the road that I work with that people never hear about. Chappelle makes me laugh, Dennis Miller makes me laugh, and Sarah Silverman makes me…There’s a lot of people. I love to laugh. I just really do. And one of the biggest things for me, as far as in my comedy career, is my manager called me about a year and a half ago, and he goes, “Did you read The New Yorker magazine this week?” And I said no. He goes, “There’s an interview with Jerry Lewis in there, and they asked him who his favorite comics were, and he said you and Richard Lewis.” ANDELMAN: Wow! SCHIMMEL: I’m like, “What?” So he said, “You should call him up and thank him.” I said, “I’m not gonna call Jerry Lewis!” I was in love with this guy. You can’t tell by my act, but I used to emulate him as a kid. I would knock stuff over intentionally. I wanted to be him so badly. I even wore white socks with a suit. And I said, “I can’t call Jerry Lewis up. I can’t. Rodney you can call, but Jerry Lewis, that’s another level completely.” He said, “Well, at least call his office and just leave a message for him.” So I call up, I leave a message for him, and I said, “I just wanted to please tell Mr. Lewis that I read the thing in The New Yorker and that I really appreciate it.” I go to lunch with my wife, and my cell phone rings like a half an hour later. And I go, “Hello?” and it’s Jerry Lewis. I’m like what? He goes, “What can I do for you, kid?” And I couldn’t talk. I really couldn’t talk. And he goes, “I don’t like the phone. What are you doing tomorrow?” And I said, “Nothing.” He goes, “Why don’t you fly up to Vegas? We’ll have someone pick you up at the airport, and we’ll hang out tomorrow.” I almost started crying. You have no idea. This is why I can’t not be positive about life, okay, because I’ll tell you how wild it is in this world and this business. I would’ve never, ever dreamt in my wildest imagination that Jerry Lewis would ever know who I was, ever, before I was in comedy and even when I was in comedy. And I know for a fact that he does not go for profanity at all. It’s something that he detests. He doesn’t like it. And I go up there. He said, “I saw your HBO special. I was in the hospital. I gotta tell you, kid, I almost started crying. You made me laugh so hard.” And I sat there, and I couldn’t talk, and he said, “You don’t want to talk to me?” I said, ”I can’t. I can’t believe I’m with you.” He said, “You’ll get over it.” And I was there like all day. The night before, I didn’t go to sleep. I literally was like a girl, asking my wife, “Should I wear these pants and this shirt?” I was getting to meet my idol. ANDELMAN: Right. SCHIMMEL: And then he was so nice to me. I spent the whole afternoon, and I gotta tell you. You hear these stories about people, Streisand and Jerry Lewis and these other people that are supposed to be real assholes and everything. Well, I don’t think they’re assholes. I think that they’re maybe perfectionists and that it’s their career, it’s their name, people are coming to see them, and they just want the shit to be right. It’s not being an asshole if you want it to be right, and he told me that. He goes, “I would love to tell you that Dean and I were geniuses and that we had the whole thing planned out, but it wasn’t. We were really lucky. We were two guys at a time. The timing was perfect. It was right after the war, and people really loved the camaraderie between Dean and I, and we were getting $50,000 a week in the fifties.” In the fifties, they were getting $50,000 a week, and he said, “Our best jokes would be throw-away lines for real comedians who are getting $50 a week.” And he told me that he missed Dean every day and that he talked to him everyday from the day Dean’s son died in a plane crash, and he said, “It’s not true that we never talked to each other. It’s just that I couldn’t go anywhere without them asking where Dean was, and Dean couldn’t go to a party without them saying, ‘Where’s Jerry?’” and that they had to know who their own identity was for themselves and that he wanted to be a director. He liked staying on the set and doing all that stuff, and Dean would want to do his thing and go play golf. He said it wasn’t that they hated each other and was a big blowout thing, that they decided to end while they were on top because he said they knew it could only last so long and that they didn’t want to split up on the way down. ANDELMAN: Robert, you mention Jerry Lewis, which is interesting to me, because as I was reading the book, I was actually thinking a little about him because one of the things that happens in the book is that you, and just by virtue of publishing the book I’m sure this is the case, sharing your story and talking about it, in some ways, you are kind of helping people. And I was actually thinking about Jerry Lewis. I can’t really make a neat, clean parallel here, but here’s a guy who was affected by something at some point and just really changed the tenor of his career. SCHIMMEL: I know, but he won’t talk about it. When I was with him that day, he said, “You can ask me anything you want except why I do the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. That’s a personal thing, and that is gonna go to the grave with me, but you can ask me anything else.” And people can make fun of him and say that’s a real hacky thing and that it’s all a put-on the way he acts. Well, I spent a day with him, and I don’t know what it is. Something definitely happened that he’s that passionate about it, but you can say whatever you want about him, but there isn’t anybody else raising that kind of money for Muscular Dystrophy. How can you knock him for doing that? Talk to people, parents, that have kids that have it, and they’re not gonna say he’s a hack. Where would they be without him? God knows how much money he’s raised since he started. It’s a lot. So I don’t think it’s selling out doing stuff like that. That selling out thing with comedians is a really bizarre deal. You do network television, and then people go, “He sold out.” Well, that’s just like saying that people say you’re a “Comedian’s comedian.” That’s great, but being a comedian’s comedian doesn’t pay a lot. Comics don’t pay to see other comics. You get in for free. And for you to not do “The Tonight Show” or Letterman because you want to show people that you’re not gonna do that kind of thing, well, not only is it shorting yourself, but don’t you think even if you were me or Sam Kinison or Bill Hicks or Richard Pryor or whatever, that if you did Letterman or “The Tonight Show” or Conan, that all your fans would say, “Wow, he’s on ‘The Tonight Show’? I knew this guy was funny 20 years ago.” Nobody’s gonna say we don’t like you anymore because you did network television. ANDELMAN: You were on Howard Stern last week so he teased you by saying that you were finally going on “The Today Show” but only because you got cancer. Lots of people knew you were funny, but it took that to get you on there. How did that go, and what did you think about that? SCHIMMEL: First of all, that was the wildest radio show I was ever on. My wife has absolutely no desire to be in show business. She did not go there to be on Howard. She’s never been on Howard. My daughter’s been on with me a few times and that was only because once, the first time I went and my daughter went with me, she was in the Green Room, and Gary went and got her and brought her in. That was the first time I ever saw Howard back down was with my daughter because he said, “Wow, you’re a really cute girl,” and she said, “Oh, thank you.” And Howard said, “How’d you like to model a couple of bikinis for me?” My daughter said, “Sure. Bring your daughter in, and we can do it together,” and he changed the subject immediately. The first time I did Howard I had no idea what to expect. My CD had just come out on Warner Brothers, and the president of Warner Brothers was friends with Howard, and Howard’s soundtrack for his movie was on Warner Brothers. He sent Howard my CD. He thought it was funny. I go there, they bring me in, I sit on the couch, he goes, “Here’s a real funny guy, Bob Schimmel. He’s a new comedian.” Howard is the only one that calls me “Bob.” As he goes, “Bob Schimmel, and he’s got a really funny CD out,” I sit on the couch, and he goes, “You had a kid that died, huh?” That was the first thing he said, and I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Wow, that must’ve been really something, huh?” And I’m like, Geez, where’s he going with this? So I said, “Howard, yeah, I did have a son. His name was Derrick, and he passed away in 1992. And I gotta tell you that, when Children’s Hospital sent him home and said they couldn’t do anything anymore, the Make-a-Wish Foundation came to our house, and this is a true story. They said, ‘We’d like to make a wish come true for your son,’ and I said, ‘Well, his wish is to watch Dolly Parton blow me.’” And Howard screamed. They cut to a commercial, and Gary Dell’Abate came over to me and said, “You can be on for the rest of your life.” I said, “Why?” And he goes, “Because that was unreal. There is no way that Howard expected that kind of comeback. You could’ve made him look like a real creep at that moment, and instead, you came up with the line that got him.” What Howard originally got famous for was getting the best out of people where they wouldn’t do it on any other show. And he was really great. Howard used to call me when I was in the hospital. He actually called me once, and I was live on the air, and I didn’t know. I felt really shitty. It was like after my sixth chemotherapy, and I’m really just beat up badly. I’m laying in bed, and the phone rings, and he goes, “Hey, Bob, it’s Howard.” And I said, “Hey, Howard, how you doing?” He goes, “Can I ask you a question? Do you think you’re gonna make it to New Year's Eve?” ANDELMAN: Oh, I remember that. SCHIMMEL: I said, “What?!” And he said, “… because Robin’s got Anthony Quinn in the death pool, and I don’t know whether to pick him or you.” I said, “Are you shitting me?” And he said, “Hey, watch your mouth, we’re on the radio!” And I’m like, ”We’re on the radio? You’re calling me, and you don’t tell me? You know what? Go with Anthony Quinn because I’m not dying.” Then Anthony Quinn fucking dies! I can’t believe it. This guy wasn’t even sick. He had a kid when he was 75 years old or something. He dies, and Howard said, “I picked the right person.” I’m like, “Oh, man, I feel really shitty that that happened.” I just really did. It’s amazing to be in this. I loved making people laugh ever since I was a kid. I didn’t know I was gonna be a comic. I don’t know if you know, but I got into this business totally by, I was tricked into it, basically. ANDELMAN: I didn’t know that. SCHIMMEL: I was married already to my first wife, living in Scottsdale, Arizona. I grew up in New York. I had Jessica, my daughter who was on Stern last week, and I was managing a high-end stereo/video store in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s called Jerry’s Audio, and it was great. I was having a great life. We had a brand new house we lived in. I went to visit my sister in L.A. It was just me; my wife and daughter didn’t come. On Saturday night, she took me to The Improv on Melrose, and even though I watch comics all the time on TV, I had never been to a comedy club. This is 1980 before the boom, and there weren’t clubs everywhere, and she signs me up on this amateur thing. And the way it works is you put your name on a piece of paper, you fold it up, you put it in the wastepaper basket. Bud Friedman, the owner of The Improv, actually was the emcee of the show. He would stick his hand in the bucket, pull out a piece of paper, read the name, and you got two minutes on stage. He had an egg timer on the bar stool on stage, and they would set it for two minutes, and when the timer went Ding!, you had to say, “Good night,” even if you were in the middle of a joke and you couldn’t get to the punchline. “Good night,” and that’s it. Well, my sister signs me up without telling me, and I’m sitting in the audience, and I’m having a beer with her, and all of a sudden, he goes, “Robert Schimmel!” And I’m like, What? She goes, “Come on, you’re funny. Get up there!” And I said, “I can’t get up there!” and Bud’s like, “Come on, don’t chicken out. Where are you? Don’t we want him to get up here?” And the crowd is clapping. So I go up, and I said, “I’m not really a comedian, I’m a stereo salesman, and my sister signed me up because she thinks I’m funny, and I don’t know anything about show business. I could sell you speakers…” and they started laughing! I said, “Please don’t laugh, because everybody has a sexual fetish or a fantasy, and mine is to be humiliated in public in front of a lot of people.” And somebody yelled out, “Go fuck yourself!” and I said, “Thank you very much.” They started laughing. I got off. Bud came over to me, and he said, “Sign up for spots. You can work here whenever you want.” ANDELMAN: Wow! SCHIMMEL: And that’s all I needed to hear. That two minutes on stage hooked me right away, and I go back home, tell my wife I want to be a comedian, put the house up for sale, quit my job, pack everything up in a U-Haul. “We’re gonna drive to L.A., we’re gonna crash at my sister’s until we find an apartment, and I’m gonna be a comedian.” Well, we drive to L.A., I get off the Hollywood Freeway on the Melrose exit because I want to show my wife the club that I’m gonna be performing at, and it burnt down the night before we got there. ANDELMAN: And was this the first divorce or the second divorce? SCHIMMEL: No, this is the first. ANDELMAN: Okay. SCHIMMEL: And it was still smoldering. ANDELMAN: Wow! SCHIMMEL: The sidewalk and the street were still wet, the windows are boarded up, there was this smoky steam coming out of there, and Bud was out in the street talking to insurance guys and whatever. And my wife said, “Oh, my God!” and I said, “Don’t worry; I’m sure they have insurance.” She said, ”Who gives a shit about them? You sold the house, you quit your job, and now the place doesn’t even exist!” I walked over to Bud, and I said, “Wow, what happened?” And he said, “Do I know you?” And I’m like, You gotta be kidding me! He didn’t even remember who I was anymore, and that was it. I got a day job selling stereo equipment in Beverly Hills, and I wound up -- this is such a crazy life -- I wound up selling a stereo to Steve Martin. And I go to his house to install it, and I’m in Steve Martin’s house, and I’m on my hands and knees. I’m laying speaker wire, running it under the rug from the living room into the den and this other room, and he’s there. He’s home while I’m doing it, and he comes into the room because I was working at the stereo store in the daytime and then getting on stage on amateur nights at the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory and Osco’s Disco and any place where they had a comedy night. And I said, “I’m a comedian, too,” and Steve said, “Yeah, that’s why you’re installing my stereo system.” And then I’m like, Oh, God, I sound like Rupert Pupkin. I wind up getting discovered by William McEuen, and he’s the guy that discovered Steve Martin. If you look at all Steve Martin’s albums, they say, “William E. McEuen presents Steve Martin.” That’s what it says on mine: “William E. McEuen presents Robert Schimmel.” On my second CD, Steve Martin wrote the liner notes. Robert Schimmel Wikipedia • IMDB • New York Times obituary • Order Cancer on $5 a Day via Amazon.com LISTEN! Robert Schimmel returns to Mr. Media (April 4, 2008) WATCH! Geri Jewell interview with Mr. Media about her friend and roommate Robert Schimmel

Kicking Through the Ashes: My Life As A Stand-up in the 1980s Comedy Boom by Ritch Shydner. Order your copy today by clicking on the book cover above!   The Party Authority in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland!

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