The Lollipop Guild is for Suckers

So ABC is likely going to cancel the broadcast of the Golden Globes, because the Screen Actors Guild members refuse to cross the Writers Guild picket lines. Great news. Now if only the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild and mayhap the Lollipop Guild would further bond together to get all the other crap on tv canceled.

Then there would be more air time for quality things. Like reruns of The Ropers.

The strike has gone on for a zillion years now. The writers seem to be bearing up okay, even though it's costing them a fortune. Rachel and Bill told me their nanny was on vacation for a couple of weeks at Christmas. But I don't know . . . what if she was actually furloughed?

Another friend, David, said he wouldn't pay me if I played accordion at his daughter's bat mitzvah. And not just in the old gag about someone getting paid NOT to play the accordion. David was responding specifically to my offer to play the great Simcha Trifecta. Meaning, Havah Negilah, Sunrise Sunset, and Celebrate Good Times - because it just isn't a bunch of Hebes hoofing the Horah till you hear Kool & the Gang. Apparently David actually told the DJ at his wedding that he wouldn't be paid if he played CGT. He just wanted me to be forewarned.

The matter isn't too pressing, as David's daughter is all of about 15 months old right now. But I am already looking forward to her bat mitzvah. I think bar/bat mitzvah tourism is hilarious. Have everyone who's ever met the kid come visit when she is at her absolute gawkiest. Because thirteen is truly the the least attractive age. As you can see here.

That's me on the right, wearing the baseball jersey with what I can just barely make out is a "The Best Man for the Job Is Probably A Woman" iron-on decal (I can still smell the melting plastic from that booth at the mall). Clearly I modeled myself more on Maude than on Mrs. Roper.

I can't remember whether this picture was taken before or after my bat mitzvah, but it is definitely of the era. The other hair-nose combo belongs to Michelle Exelbert, a junior high friend about whom I remember very little except that her grandmother knitted a couple hundred two-tone (light blue on dark blue) yarmulkes for her bat mitzvah. Each one had a tag that said "Lovingly knitted for you by Grandma Exelbert." My grandmothers were both dead long before my bat mitzvah, so I just had the standard fake satin numbers.

Not that it mattered, because who among the lucky congregants could be looking at or thinking about anything except that mouth full of metal?

The real reason I dug this photo out today is that my friend Brenda, who has been sporting adult braces for the past year, was just told by her orthodontist that she needs to wear elastics. She is mortified. She asked me if I had ever had them. Her question immediately brought back a host of visceral, spine-chilling sensations.

• The feel of the elastic snapping against my tongue as I shot my mouth off in the most literal way.
• The horror of the elastic flying across the junior high cafeteria, sending a spray of saliva toward panic-stricken onlookers, as I shot my mouth off in the most embarrassing way.
• The scrape of the braces brackets against my inner cheek.
• The metallic taste and aching from the headgear I had to wear every night for two years. And the rubbing of its blue elastic brace on the back of my neck.
• The molded plastic of my retainer sticking to my palate, thank to some youthful bubbalicious Blow Pop indiscretion. Damn you, Lollipop Guild.