Carl Reiner yaks it up about his ‘mostly happy’ tales

by REBECCA ROSEN LUM, Bulletin Staff

Why shouldn’t Carl Reiner be happy? A giant in the entertainment industry, he has enjoyed a career of gold nuggets, from "Your Show of Shows," which he co-wrote with Sid Caesar in the glory days of television, to the long-running "Dick Van Dyke Show," to such films as "The Jerk," "Where's Poppa?" and "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid."

His children are "wonderful human beings," and he waxes sensuous when discussing wife Estelle's song stylings.

Reiner has just released a new book, "How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Mostly Happy Stories.” He emerges happy even in the biting, irreverent title story, in which as Corporal Carl Reiner he fends off baiting by a racist staff sergeant through a deft combination of lies and fast wit.

Reiner appeared at the Marin Jewish Community Center Monday night to chat about the book, drawing a crowd of about 425. The talk was part of CenterStage's "Authors and Artists" series.

To many, Reiner represents that perfect blend of heart, win, passion, conscience, intellect and cynicism that personify the term "mensch." At one time, a fair village of such comics dominated TV and film: Caesar, Elaine May, Mel Brooks, Reiner.

"Robeson" is his most recent book. He's written several others, autobiographical to varying degrees, beginning with his play "Enter Laughing." In the stage version, Alan Arkin won a Tony Award in 1963 for his portrayal of the young Reiner. But the 1967 film "didn't really catch on," Reiner acknowledged.

That's still a mystery to him.

"They showed it at the Skirball Institute a few weeks ago," Reiner said during an interview from his home in Los Angeles. "I hadn't seen it in 25 years. People were screaming."

But the grating parents came purely out of Reiner's fantasy. His own parents loved comedy and delighted in his burgeoning career: "When I was a kid, I remember my folks would go to the Yiddish theater," recalled Reiner, who grew up in New York City. "They loved the comics. One time my mom took me with her and we saw Molly Picon. She was brilliant."

They also got a kick out of his tenure at the 63^rd Street Daily Theatre.

"It was only when I was going to go away for the summer to do the Rochester summer theater my mother said, 'Can't you act closer to home?' But then she bought me a Gladstone valise, which was her way of saying she supported me."

Reiner worked in a print shop much like the one in "Enter Laughing." He made $8 a week, and for six months, also performed in little-theater shows at no pay. "You could get a 30-cent lunch at the Stuart Cafeteria," he said. Still, Reiner had such a hard time making ends meet he finally approached his boss at the Gilmore Theatre and negotiated himself a $1-a-week salary.

"Mr. Gilmore closed the door, and said, 'I can't let you tell anyone about this, and if you do I will rescind this offer.' I was dying to tell everyone, 'Hey! I'm getting paid for this!' But I didn't, of course."

In a recent interview, Reiner's longtime partner, Mel Brooks, yawned away much of what passes for topical comedy in films these days. But Reiner said there is much to applaud.

And, he'll have you know, one of the brightest lights in Hollywood is still knocking 'em out: His son, actor/writer/director/producer Rob Reiner. "Robbie has a new film coming out, 'The Story of Us,'" he said. "Of course, that's quite serious."

In comedy, his taste runs to "Seinfeld" (produced, coincidentally, by Rob Reiner).

There's success to spare in Reiner's life, but you get the best sense of who this man is in discussing the things that never quite made it.

Like his son's six-part pilot "The Old Country." To Reiner, the offbeat, coming-to-America comic saga of a Jewish couple early this century represented the sweetness and eccentricity of Jewish life in a way that is seldom done in American media."For that, you have to go to Europe," Reiner said.

Another thing that didn't make it past the pilot: Reiner as the star of what became "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

He based his lead character on himself -- a comedy writer who lived in New Rochelle, N.Y., had a wife and two kids. He played the lead and wrote 13 episodes. The studio chiefs turned it down cold.

Then out of the blue he got a call from producer Sheldon Leonard, who saw the pilot and liked it.

"I said, 'No sir, I don't want to get shot down again. This is as good as I've got.'" Leonard persuaded him to try it again with Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie and Mary Tyler Moore as Rob's wife, Laura. Was Reiner distraught at flopping as a leading man? He'd rather talk about Van Dyke.

"Oh! Dick could do it all," he said. "Physical comedy, acting, he could sing, he could dance. And Mary's talents complimented Dick's. If we hadn't gotten Dick and Mary, who were so brilliant, it wouldn't have happened."

Another Reiner hit, "The 2,000 Year Old Man," a collaboration with longtime partner Brooks, reappeared last year with "The 2,000 Year Old Man in the Year 2,000." But don't look for any references to Y2K or technology.

"We decided modems aren't funny. Plus, Mel isn't computer-literate."

But that's not to say changing times aren't important in the funny business.

"Comedy always reflects changing times," he said. "If you listen to comedians, they're usually first to note a changing trend. Chris Rock, one of the big 'mouths' of the decade, is a perfect example." Then again, "At this point, the world is satirizing itself. Look at Pat Buchanan. What luck! He's going to divide the Republican Party so a Democrat can win."

In his films, Reiner created the stock, shpilkes-ridden New York Jewish family that has remained a mainstay in American movies for decades. But the inspiration came from neighborhood families. His own was decidedly secular.

"I was always embarrassed when my friends came over," he said. "We had a separate set of dishes for Pesach, but we didn't have two sets of dishes for every day. I went to shul with my friends...I learned more about Yiddish life from my friends' families than my family."

Just as he crammed for his "bootleg bar mitzvah," held on a Thursday morning with barely a minyan in attendance, his son Rob, otherwise unschooled in Judaism, had his own crash-course bar mitzvah.

"But he was so much better," Reiner said. "You could swear he knew what he was doing."

His son Lucas, a working artist and a writer, married a non-Jewish woman who has studied and fallen in love with the faith -- and has brought a new awareness of it into the family, Reiner said .

His kids "are all wonderful human beings," he said. "My daughter Annie is all P's: She's a psychoanalyst, she's a poet, she's a painter and she's a playwright."

Like the old man, Rob Reiner is a full-tilt liberal. He spearheaded the successful Proposition 10, which taxes cigarette sales in California to pay for early childhood-education programs

Reiner crows when discussing his son's success in getting Proposition 10 passed and crusading for Democratic causes. ("The president was to Robbie's house last night.") But he fairly flames with passion in discussing the urgency of early-childhood enrichment of the sort the proposition will fund.

A dearth of nurturing can spawn violence and racism, he said -- leading him back to the title story and the mean-spirited staff sergeant.

In this book, only "Robeson" is autobiographical, he said. "The rest came out of my mind. I love this book. They really are mostly happy stories.

"How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Mostly Happy Stories" by Carl Reiner (Clift Street Books, 159 pages, $20).

In the beginning was the Word, and it was so cool

Pop culture-infused 'Biblezine' renditions of the Good Book, aimed at teenage audience, draw mixed reviews from clergy

Contra Costa Times
By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Times staff writer

Feb. 12--A glossy, candy-colored magazine with three laughing teenage girls on the cover and the Bible inside has area clergy praising pop culture's value to scripture -- or warning of its threat.

Revolve 2007 has hit bookshelves, promising teen girls tips on beauty, boys and battles with Mom.

Some pastors say "amen" to the so-called Biblezine, which wraps articles around a modern-text New Testament. It may put the Bible in the hands of youths who might otherwise not read it, they say.

Others say the trendy mag trivializes the Good Book.

It is required reading for middle-schoolers at Golden Hills Community Church in Brentwood, as is Refuel 2, a newer version for teenage boys.

"A literal translation is great, but if no one understands it, it defeats the purpose," said the Rev. Cliff Olson.

Unlike the baby boomer generation, today's teens bring little religious literacy with them, he said. The Biblezine's accessible images and text help bridge the gap.

"Jesus spoke in parables," said Brenda Noel, acquisitions editor at Thomas Nelson, Inc., publisher of the magazine-like Bibles. "He took things from the culture people were familiar with and taught through those things."

Anything that makes the Bible resonate with youths is a good thing, said the Rev. Rob Baker, pastor of Oasis Christian Fellowship in Pleasant Hill.

"I don't care if it's a magazine or smoke signals," he said. "One of the last things we need in the Christian community is stodginess, lack of creativity."

The problem? Teens tend to blur the lines between messages of faith and the commands of popular culture, and revolve can blur them further, said the Rev. Tim Barley, student ministries pastor at Valley Bible Church at the Crossing in Pleasanton.

"Over the years people have found ways to soft-pedal scripture and make it more palatable, rather than emphasizing God's standard for us and how we've fallen short of it," he said. "It's there, but the way (the magazine) couples it with trendy issues can be a distraction."

Alarm bells sounded for the Rev. Donald O'Keefe when he learned that the translation is not literal.

"That is scary, because that is paramount to passing an individual's idea of God's meaning along as if it were the word of God, when in fact it is merely his private opinion of God's meaning," said O'Keefe, pastor of United Pentecostal Church of Christ in Bay Point.

The pop look brings God, patriarchs, saints, apostles and martyrs down to the level of "rockers and druggies," rather than lifting up those who've lost their way, he said.

But when revolve exploded onto the market in 2003, it performed so well that Thomas Nelson followed it with Refuel, a version for young men in 2004, real, a hip-hop incarnation marketed to urban ministries in 2005, and Blossom, for younger girls, in 2006.

The line spurred unheard-of sales in the Godzilla-size Bible market.

Fans trumpeted revolve's emphasis on social responsibility and volunteer work.

Critics hammered it, partly because of its language. For instance, the authors explain Corinthians 13:4-5 as follows: "A wise mom once said, 'Take it as a compliment that other girls think your guy is great too. Be secure enough to acknowledge their good taste.'" The King James version reads: "Love is patient; love is kind. Love does not envy; is not boastful; is not conceited; does not act improperly; is not selfish; is not provoked; does not keep a record of wrongs."

Feminists chastised Thomas Nelson for claiming to promote a healthy body image while filling the Biblezine with photos of slim, pretty girls in midriff tops.

Liberal Christians balked at the conservative political slant of the advice. "Blab," an advice column, tsk-tsks at homosexuality and says God wants guys to take the lead in relationships.

Unlike the King James Bible, the New Century Version -- which Thomas Nelson owns -- offers a "dynamic translation." That's a "thought-for-thought" rather than word-for-word translation, said Noel, the Thomas Nelson editor.

"'Dynamic equivalent' right away doesn't rock my boat, but the idea of getting the Bible into kids' hands does," said the Rev. Tony Aria, youth minister at North Creek Free Evangelical Church in Walnut Creek. "With the dynamic equivalent, there's a danger of injecting your own biases in there."

Religious leaders must understand that the traditional black-clad Bible is "a thing of the past," said Stewart Heller, executive director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Media.

"To the degree they can create an alternative to pop culture, they're smart," he said. "This is a battle for minds in the media. If you're going to compete you better get up to date, or your show will get canceled, so to speak."

Increasingly, overhead projection screens replace the pew Bible, and churches employ Web sites to attract or keep in touch with parishioners, according to a 2005 study by the Barna Group, a Christian researcher.

Despite these changes, the Bible commands a killer market. It remains the top-selling book every year, Publishers Weekly says.

Thomas Nelson claims more than 36 percent of that market. The company, which went private in 2006, netted $253 million that year. The entire line of Biblezines has sold more than a million units, Noel said.

The company sank plenty of market research into the layout and design of each Biblezine, she said.

"We go onto the Net to get as much information from the fashion industry we can, and pull what we feel is the color we'll see the most often on the runways," Noel said.

In 2003, that was pink. The new issue features a spectrum of hues from yellow to indigo.

"We make sure there is a scriptural foundation" to the articles, she said.

The company's newest foray is Redefine, for baby boomers. Articles offer tips on caring for aging parents and picking a "hot" second career. On its cover, a couple in jeans and leather jackets ride a motorcycle on a country road.

"We had an incredible struggle trying to get the right look," Noel said. "One of our staffers was driving down the road one day and saw that very thing."

Leap called godsend for nonreaders

Contra Costa Times

Rebecca Rosen Lum
TIMES STAFF WRITER


RICHMOND -- John Tate's cell phone rings with a Bach fugue. A slim, well-spoken man with wire-framed glasses and a neatly clipped goatee, Tate could easily pass for a writer.

But Tate, 54, never learned to read. Born in New Orleans, he grew up picking cotton, then migrated to Richmond in 1983 to work construction. He had "mother wit," black Southern parlance for the moral sensibility learned from one's mother, but no education.

That's a gift Richmond's Literacy for Every Adult Program, or LEAP, gave him.

"All my life I've been pretending I could read," Tate said. "LEAP is like a family for people like me who come in scared to let the public know I can't."

After an on-the-job injury ended his work life, he sat down with a tutor and learned to sound out long vowels and short vowels. How to break down words. How to sound out the letters of the alphabet. How to form sentences.

"Oh, lord!" he said. "I'm 54. It's hard to absorb all the fundamentals at my age."

LEAP program staff have patiently prodded, inspired and cajoled hundreds of people like Tate to learn to read long after most others have given up or mistakenly assumed they could read.

But those days could end soon. The program is slated to shrink drastically in January.

Although LEAP pays its own way by landing state and private grants, another city department has tapped those funds, leaving little to run a program that serves more than 100 clients a year.

"If they close this program, they close down hope," Tate said. "Of all the things in the world. Man! Something so small, yet something so large."

According to a national survey, nearly one in four Richmond residents struggles with literacy.

Literacy specialist Mark Trotter said program clients create ways to navigate a literate society. "It's, 'I lost my glasses,' or 'I have arthritis in my hands, could you write this for me?'" Trotter said.

"I'd always watch people reading the newspaper," said Fred White, 43. "Now, I can do that. It felt so good to read a newspaper in front of other people. When I came in here three years ago, I couldn't read a children's book."

Education has been a disappointment for many adult literacy students, said Trotter, 30, now in his sixth year at LEAP and his fourth as a staff member. "In order not to dash their hopes, you've got to have a lot of patience. A lot of it is frightening. (But) one's life can change, even though it might seem like it's unchangeable."

A smile playing over his face, he added, "Since I've been working with Fred, he's penned two plays."

Clients include an executive chef at a four-star hotel whose wife read menus aloud to him so he could memorize them.

One woman successfully kept her functional illiteracy a secret from her husband.

"Some, at one point, could read to some degree when they were younger, but over time their skills diminished," Trotter said. "For some, where they lived, education wasn't valued. A woman from Fiji told me in her culture, women really weren't expected to learn to read. They were just expected to cook, clean, care for the children. It didn't matter if they didn't learn."

It mattered in Tunami Eaton's family; many had attended college, and she hoped to follow.

But Eaton, 26, and the mother of four young children, had reading disabilities. Like other adult learners, she bluffed well.

When her 9-year-old daughter showed signs of reading problems, she got help.

"She would say, 'My stomach hurts,' or 'I'm tired,'" Eaton said. "Then at a certain point, she didn't want to go to school anymore. I realized I was no help to her unless I could assess my own disabilities."

At LEAP, "The hardest thing was letting my guard down," she said. "I was in a private room so I didn't have other eyes looking at me or judging me. It made it easier for me to say, 'I can't read.' This was the only place I could go to find some assistance.

"It really opened my eyes that I didn't have to stop with a GED; I could go to college and reach my dreams."

Layoffs resulted from plunder of literacy program

December 16, 2003 Rebecca Rosen Lum TIMES STAFF WRITER RICHMOND -- The city's Employment and Training Department managers drained $221,447 in restricted cash from the city literacy program to pay their own salaries, then laid off nearly all the literacy teachers for lack of money. Department records obtained by the Contra Costa Times show that city literacy funding, plus state and private matching grants, were tapped to help pay 11 employees with salaries up to $133,285 a year who do not work in the Literacy for Every Adult, or LEAP, program.

An incoming grant of $98,922 could delay pink slips sent to seven of nine literacy staffers, although there is no immediate plan to do so. Irregularities do not end there. Records show that at least one LEAP worker was directed by a supervisor to falsify a timecard. The wife of the department's deputy director makes $80,000 yearly as a top-level information technology specialist assigned to the department. SEIU Local 790, which represent LEAP employees, says that flouts the city anti-nepotism policy, which is in its contract with the union. City officials recently decided to lay off more than 100 city workers to close a yawning budget gap. The literacy misappropriations could spell big trouble for Richmond. The state library, which issues the grants, has tight rules for spending and overseeing the money. "At the very least, I know the state would pull its funding if they knew about this," SEIU Local 790 shop steward Linda McPhee said. "Literacy programs all over the state compete for these grants, partly dependent on their history. This does not look good for Richmond." Cities may eye literacy programs during hard times "because they are a magnet for funding," said California State Library consultant Valerie Stadelbacher Reinke. "But there are certain minimum standards for using these grants, and if they are not following those standards, we would hold Richmond responsible." One is that the program must be run by the city library. Here, it is not. "That alone is equal to fraud," McPhee wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to assistant city manager Leveron Bryant. Not true, said Employment and Training assistant director Sal Vaca. "This is a total misunderstanding," he said Monday. "LEAP is paying its fair share of the Employment and Training Department overhead. It's a cost allocation plan, and it has been negotiated with and approved by the finance department." Studies show that in Richmond and across the state, one in four residents can barely read, as dismal a showing as three of the lowest-ranking states: Alabama, Florida and South Carolina. Only Louisiana, with 28 percent adult illiteracy, and Mississippi, with 30 percent, are worse. More than one-fifth of Richmond's population has reading problems, according to a recent survey by the National Center for Education Statistics. After Upesi Mtambuzi, the Employment and Training Department director, issued the pink slips, closed satellite offices and bumped the main office from its longtime home, she left for a monthlong trip. "The level of their conduct is surreal," teacher Mark Trotter said. "Funds were taken unconscionably. Two staffers isn't hardly enough to give this city literacy." Tonight, the City Council expects an explanation of the concerns raised by LEAP staff members earlier this month. None of the Employment and Training workers whose salaries were subsidized with LEAP funds take home less than $65,000 a year. The list includes office helpers, bookkeeping assistants and secretaries. Mtambuzi earns more than $133,000 year; $25,725 of that i LEAP money. According to the city's agreement with SEIU Local 790, employees can only be laid off for lack of work or lack of money. Demand for literacy help continues to soar, and minus the misappropriations, there would have been plenty of money, McPhee said. Of LEAP's $845,000 budget, the city contributes $385,000 from its general fund. The state library fund and other private sources ante up matching funds. After long meetings with City Manager Isiah Turner, Vaca proposed changes to Mtambuzi's plan, with only one tutor-coordinator losing his job. "Upesi (Mtambuzi) tried to fulfill (both departments') objectives and also reduce dollars, but her restructuring has disproportionately affected the LEAP staff," Turner said. "The city doesn't have much experience laying off people," Vaca said. "It's awkward and uncomfortable for a lot of people, but it needs to be done to preserve the financial health of the city." SEIU members slated for layoffs have muddied the waters: "If they go down, they want to drag everyone down with them," he said. Meanwhile, many LEAP clients will watch the outcome of today's council meeting to see what will come of the proposed cuts. "I could see if it was a place where no one succeeds, but everyone comes out of here benefiting," said Kareem, 19, an aspiring electrician who came to LEAP to improve his math skills. "There are jobs where you can get out there and work your body to death, but I want to use my mind. It's already a struggle to get hired. It's crucial to get the skills." Reach Rebecca Rosen Lum 510-262-2713 or rrosenlum@cctimes.com.

Atheist groups 'springing up all over'

Oakland Tribune

Sept. 29, 2006

by Rebecca Rosen Lum
Staff writer

When Richard Golden put the word out that he was starting a group for atheists in Walnut Creek, about a dozen people showed up.

Two years later, 80 are dues-paying members and several more drop in on twice-monthly meetings to chew on everything from particle physics to court cases.

Horrified by escalating religious violence and alarmed by the Bush administrations faith-based initiatives, which make government money available to religious organizations, atheists are coming out of the closet -- and organizing.

Local groups "are springing up all over the place," said Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists. Active groups have grown by about 90 percent over the past six years, she said.

In the past few years, groups affiliated with American Atheists have taken root in Walnut Creek, Berkeley, San Francisco, Davis, and Silicon Valley. East Bay Atheists has grown to more than 300 members.

California membership in the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group of atheists and agnostics that monitors the separation of church and state, increased from 900 to 1,200 in one year. Nationally, it grew from 5,000 in 2004 to 6,400 members by the beginning of 2006, said co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor.

Meetings and rallies, once the province of older folk, now include younger people with tattoos and dreadlocks. The Internet, radio spots during Al Franken's Air America radio show and campus groups are responsible, Johnson said.

"They don't have the baggage that someone my age does," Johnson said. "Atheism was such a dirty word -- associated with communism. Plus, this is a very scientific era. They are not afraid to say what they think."

But atheism appears to be gaining ground as a belief, not just a wave of political activism by those who fear the wall between church and state is being disassembled."The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins appeared at No. 5 and No. 23 on the Amazon.com bestseller list Sept. 20.

"Our primary conviction is that there is only one world -- there is no supernatural world -- the world that is the subject of scientific investigation," he said. "We are focused, as the humanists are, on having our human potential increased in this world, rather than working everything out in the world to come."

Two UC Berkeley sociology professors found that the proportion of Americans with no religion doubled from 1990 to 1998, but has leveled out at 14 percent.

"We argue that . . . reflects a growing backlash against the role of organized religion," said Claude S. Fischer, one of the authors. "People on the political left have reacted against the organization of churches on the right. Their statement is a reaction: If that is what religion means, than I am not religious."

Studies suggest the surge in interest is more a wavelet than a tsunami. The Baylor University Institute Religion Survey, released Sept. 11, showed 10.8 percent of the nations population, or some 10 million Americans, do not adhere to some faith. The majority of the 1,721 respondents who were unaffiliated with a religion said they believe in some higher power.

On Oct. 6, many atheists will head to the Freedom From Religion Foundations convention in San Francisco to hear author Sam Harris ("The End of Faith") speak and to watch comic Julia Sweeney perform her solo opus "Letting Go of God."

The Foundation has brought 30 First Amendment lawsuits since 1977 and has more percolating through the courts. Among its victories: winning the first federal lawsuit challenging direct government funding of a faith-based agency.

Sept. 11, 2001 hammered home the dangers of religious fundamentalism for Larry Hicok of Berkeley, who describes the terror attack as an ultimate faith-based initiative.

Now he chairs East Bay Atheists, whose membership has been growing over the past five years.

One of the most recent developments to galvanize activists is the Public Expression of Religion Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind.

The bill would deny attorneys fees and damages to those who successfully argue against violations of the church-state separation. The House Judiciary Committee passed on a party-line vote, Republicans for, Democrats opposed.

"There is no other time in American history where the wall between church and state was in such danger," Gaylor said. "We could be taking a faith-based case every day if we had the resources. This is the time to come out swinging."