DUST MY PUMICE

DUST MY PUMICE

The Greatest Telethon So Far

R.Meltzer

by

They should’ve had a big tote board with the weekend’s highway death toll on the wall but they did not. Just the big money tote, signifying to exactly what extent the Memorial Day T-Viewers felt like digging down into their pockets on behalf of wha-? Highway safety? Yes, a telethon for highway safety! Y’see highway non-safety’s the one realm of corporeal misfortune everybody’s either experienced fir hand or at least seen and gawked at sure ain’t like cystic fibrosis or myasthenia gravis (after all, who’s ever seen any victims of them except of TV?). Ipso facto the perfect source of a telethon and perfect it was, the very best telethon ever.

What made it so good was its total pointlessness: a mere abstract telethon, ho\y inevitable! Like what the heck’re you gonna do about highway death short of eliminating gasoline altogether? Not a helluva lot, you might think. But wait, RESEARCH & EDUCATION are the answer! So said host Sammy Davis Jr., who, along with co-host Paul Anka (fast becoming the telethon top banana — with both this and a damn good recent cerebral palsy performance to his credit), handled himself for most of the telethon’s 20 hours a lot better than he’s done for the last 20 years. Not enough to get him back in the people’s arms again but at least he had to sweat and strain even attempting it.

To hammer home the message of whatever the message was, Sam called upon folks like Mrs. Frankie Frisch, widow of the famed dead Hall of Famer struck down in the prime of his old geezerhood by someone’s highway miscue. H of F’er Monte Irvin even went so far as to suggest that if Roy Campanella hadn’t been (vehicularly) injured for life he’d have gone on to become the first black manager in the majors: in other words highway whatchamacallit — and nothing else — prevented the big topical move in civil rights/ race relations! Of

all the-!

To really get the diamond fans reaching for their phones to pledge away a portion of their beer-and-hotdog money, Phil Rizzuto of the Yankee broadcasting staff came up with a doozy: “Hey y’know everybody’s always , talking about rivalries and so we oughta see who donates more, Yankee fans or Met fans.” Phil went on to recommend that more drivers drink coffee. Caffeine maniacs on the road!

A switch down to Nashville had Mel Tillis talking about his bird dogs and the importance of highway safety to country musicians. As if nobody’d ever seen Payday or heard “Hot Rod Lincoln.” And what about all the appleknockers in the Indy 500 being held the same day?

. Not too many women driver jokes however.

But (suggested Sammy) young drivers wouldn’t have to do all that drag racing if only there were something better for them to do with their time: unlock those playgrounds! Or, Constance, teach them to play music and as we all know jass musicians die on thoroughfares too, Sam proving it by reading off a partial deathscography of late great jazzbos like himself. It was easy reading for him all the way, until he got to (who’s this?) “Scot-tee Le. .. Fah-row,” apparently whoever had prepared the list had thrown that one in just to confuse Sammy One-Eye and temporarily rob him of his cool.

Monte Hall was aboard ship as well (two Montes!) but his hands were severely tied and he was forbidden to hustle his usual hustle. Every time a dialing donor requested that 'Sammy sing “The Shadow of Your Smile” before agreeing to pledge his or her 35 bucks, Monte would shy distinctly away from his accustomed bargain-your-lifeaway approach and almost angrily tell the fool to pledge it now or hang up forever. By not wheeling and dealing one iota, Monte totally sacrificed his TV

personality on an altar of guard-rails and tire tred: a real leveler and negator of a telethon and for no apparent reason (what’s so solemn about seat belts that ain’t ditto about sickle cell anemia?).

Best quote of the day was by the lead singer of the Gospelaires (with whom Sammy jammed as if to show the white folks his natural affinity for things ethnic and primal): “We’re real proud to be on such a worthy cause as this here highway safety telephone.” Best joke was by Jake, Jake LaMotta: “When I fought Sugar Ray it was lucky for me I didn’t have diabetes. ” A brand of humor that would’ve been considered a bit too offensive for a disease telethon proper, but Jake’s a reg’lar guy so he just might’ve said it anyway in such a case (live non-bleep TV!). Har har har.

Yes it was a people’s show as through and through as telethons ever are, but with slightly more of a vengeance this time. After all, who’s gonna have to be financially responsible for all this safety . biz? Not the auto industry, no no no. Not the highway contractors, no way. Certainly not the government. And not the etc. No, it’s (once again) the PEOPLE who are responsible! Jesus.

But regardless of the absurdity of the whole swell neat fandango per se, there was one problem too archetypal for whatever actual folks were behind this event to have hoped to reckon with. The fact that it had to be watched with one’s peepers (it wasn’t a radiothon). So if motorists were paying attention to it while driving they were inviting the undertaker faster’n those not doing so. This whole end of the operation was reminiscent of that great public service message about how one out of five drivers during rush hour on the Santa Monica Freeway is , drunk: heaven knows how many telethon fans were either watching on portables while highwaying it along or speeding home recklessly in order to catch the remaining hours on their living room sets.

Next (hopefully): VD TELETHON!