A reprise of a very early interview with Phyllis Diller.

A reprise of a very early interview with Phyllis Diller. Her eternal memory passing at ninety five , August 20, 2012,

I

"You want anything?" she chuckled, her eyes gleaming. "My father would be over a hundred, if he were alive today. My mom had me late in life. I was an only child nd led a lonely life.
They wanted me to get a musical education andf go to college. All that bit," she said..

"I always remember how as a child, I kept myself busy playing with fantasy.

II

"You asked me if I have a point of view about my comedy. "Did you ever see children’s drawings?"
"They’re so simple," she said. "I think they’re beautiful. As a chld, m y fantasy.was about kings and queens and princesses.

III

"Do you feel you have something to say? Something to communicate to grown ups?"
"Absolutely! You can call it what you will. Whether imagination or fantsy, it hovers over, above and under reality.
"It concerns a woman’s approach," she said."Because I am a woman All woman That’s why I do, what I do. I have something to say.
"Being a mother of five chuldren, I think it makes it easier for me to say something. And be
somebody.

IV

"You find it hard to be funny in a day of whirling threats and atom bombs"
"Ever since humans crawled out of the cave, there’s been something or other. Starvation.
The bubonic plague..
"My job is to try and communicate happiness to these humans.

V

"How do you manage?"
"A woman I met in Philadelphia, asked the same question," she said.
"I asked her how did she manage?
"She told me she, her husband, and their five kids are all in analysis. Going to shrinks.. You can’t be happy, if you take yourself so seriously.

VI

"Look", she said, her fingers pointing to the glass of ginger ale, at the end of the table.
"Lots of humans would say the glass is half empty. I would say it’s half full.
Those gleaming eyes saw the reality........
The bubbles rising to the top of the glass were not bubbles of ginger ale.They were bubbles, looking like Phyllis Diller’s point of view..
The "Village" of the city that never sleeps, September 1, 2012

With an aging frog in his throat, Geoffrey Rush, the actor, morphing as the therapist "The King’s Speech"

With an aging frog in his throat, Geoffrey Rush, the actor, morphing as the therapist "The King’s Speech" , hemed&hawed at the For Sale "sign on the Ocean Parkway& Avenue I’s mansion driveway .....
II
Why hesitate? Coming from across the pond, surely he remembered the Bard’s admonition. "He who hesitates is lost."
Hadn’t he become a triple threat? Awarded the Tony Emmy and Oscar arwards, American audiences and those in the know, he parlayed his panacea all for King George’s psychic stuttering in his public addresses.Could Sigmund Freud have done any better? Stripping away his inhibitions and insecurities, growing up in an authoritarian realm of Buckingham Palacev where
fantasy gave drift to status... role playing ran amuck., the palace guards in their gaudy top hats and buttoned down red blouses did their "dance" in front of the gates..
III
How to turn the King back to the uninhibited joy of his spit balling adolescence? Ah that is the question "my dear Leo " the 24 month olf great grandson, Stanley Kristalball, spoon feeding cod liver oil to his Kristalball inherited DNA, hemming&hawing from his yellow hi chair, several miles down Ocean Parkway, at Avenue P, six blocks down the pike, as they sway in the trades.
　
IV
Could he roll his therapeutic dice in this Flatbush monarchy? Wasn’t it like the Brooklyn "presdente" Marty M. Asking him to turn back the Gowanus to the wave capped Atlantic off Coney Island. Not unlike Moses crossing theRed Sea?
"Cure our denizens or Flatrbush floogies of Brooklynese. Speakinga poifect English/ You can do it, man. I know you can. I know."
" If you did it for the King.,you can do it for our royalty," said Marty, el Presidente from his throne in Borough Hall....or Senator Chuck endorsing the ticket in Charlotte’s Democratic convention.
" Enunciating Poifect English"to the television audience in "poifect" prime timeV
But the Ocean Parkway mansion "For Sale" was still in the therapist’s minds eye. Could he risk his reputation as a triple threat ..Tony... Emmy... Oscar.....
A decadent manse yes, unlike the seven other Avenue I mansions...But a "poifect" front for a therapis on the make... rehabilitating "Brooklynese". To demystify the "shorthand", speaking thru their teeth, while on those death defying runs to the bus stops
To take the time, inhaling...exhaling. No longer on the tempo to catch the Avenue I bus or jay walking across Ocean Parkway for the bus stop Wavin g their arms, screaming at the top of their lungs....at the center of their "Brooklynese" souls.
Was it worth the risk? To hunker down in an Avenue I palace.. to eradicate "Brooklynese" from the lexicon of their universe.
Would the expenditures outweigh the panaceas of re-speaking "the King’s Speech"
Seven decades after the fact, the "Brooklynese" stronger than ever.
On the corner of Ocean Parkway& Avenue I. In the Boro of "Brooklynese."
September 7, 2012

In the hurly burly of the Sunday "High Noon" Ocean Parkway traffic

In the hurly burly of the Sunday "High Noon" Ocean Parkway traffic (Paris’s Champs- de-Elysees) the Aussie actor, marching as "The Kings stuttering..., Speech" therapist, his countenance, setting on ‘FOR SALE’ in the driveway of the decadent manse on Avenue I’s mansion row.

II

Having gained the triple threat ...Tony, Emmy, Oscar.....maintaining his profile in the "Phantom of the Opera"’s bloops and blobs.....his smarts higher than a kite( forgive the cliche) he hailed the B ll bus, bound for Brooklyn College’s 50^th annual alumni awards.

III

By all accounts of what was once stage screen and radio....on line I phone and streaming androit....the information highway’s coincidence beyond coincidence, Governor Romney, at a $50000 fund raiser in Boca Raton’s mansions claimed 47% of the voters come November would not vote for him because they paid no taxes, were on the dole, depending on the feds to bail them out.
"That 47% are just not committed to my flavor" he said, a a hidden camera surreptiously capturing his confession, writing them off for President Obama.... and the South Side of Chicago.

IV

But the 1947 Brooklyn College Alumni maintained their own soul searching flavor and time welching cutups......of Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Ethel Merman no less,
and those stalwarts of the Yiddish theater, their posters tattooed on lighting poles.
"The King’s Speech" therapist foun d an empty chair at table two in front of the dais and the cables to the mikes and unhidden cameras. V
A hundred year old centurion on hearing her name pounced out of her chair, leaving her fish and veggies..
"The class of 1932" announced the mistress of ceremonies. And the audience broke into thunder -ous, if not earth shaking applause.
When asked the "the secret of my longevity genes is only one marriage, lasting 12 years. He was a rat ," the alums standing in rapture as one of their own, entered her century’s promised land....
　
"Next is the class of 1933..."the lady sitting next, arose ,leaving her roast beef. "My longevity genes are just as resilient as the class of ‘32 .I loved the college scene that the Van Nuys family from Holland donated. Thank you all for coming and honoring my class. Many of those who could not be here. For them may I thank you. God Bless Brooklyn College."
"And we have one more from this very special and spry table. A 97 year old graduate, the class of 1936." Another great lady, tailoring her fish plate, rose to the ovation. "Thanks you all for this recognition and honor. The college was my springboard from the school of hard knocks, bringing my persona in to how shall I say, the promised land of fruition and big potential. I couldn’t have done it without you ....my daughter and niece from Boston attest to that. God Bless"

VI

The "King’s Speech" of a therapist couldn’t spook this once in a lifetime ceremony. A lost fore words luncheon. The laurels upon these three immortals made him think about his Tony, Emmy, and Oscar.
Wasn’t it all relative? Larger than life alumni Class of 1947. "Ne c’esp pas?"

VII

A double feature playing out "Symphony of Six Million:".."The Charge of the Light Brigade"....a testimony to divine providence and these enuring immortals.

The city that never sleeps....9/9, 2012 .