Bio Diversity; Carol, Willie, Jules

Carol Burnett’s new book “This Time Together” isn’t really a biography. It’s a string of anecdotes with punch lines and large print and can be read in about two minutes. Hardly a tell-all, she only implies slight negatives about certain people, but mostly everybody is perfect, without sin and so lovable she should include a barf bag as an attachment to the dustcover. I loved Ms. Burnett on television but she pretty much sucked in the movies and has the dubious honor of having been in one of the worst directed (and most miscast) adaptations of a Broadway show of all time, Annie. But you would never know it from this book. Her only stab at real life is her recounting of the sad and wasteful death of her daughter although even this story is (mercifully) short and, wouldn’t you know, full of “inspiration” <~~~see quotation marks. Upon further reflection I now realize that Ms. Burnett hasn’t written a book; she’s (OMG) written a blog!

“Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend” is a true biography. It’s written by James S. Hirsch (authorized by Mays) and is satisfyingly and historically complete, although I’m not really sure Hirsch got into Mr. Mays soul as much as he would have liked (and claims). Like Ms. Burnett’s book it’s full of anecdotes but they are told within the background story of Willie Mays’s growing up in a racially segregated society in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Yup, there’s lots of stuff in, and about, black and white but, still, not much new to tell us about Willie Mays the man. I’m sure he cooperated with Mr. Hirsch as best he could but part of his persona is in the withholding of the details. My connection with Willie Mays is almost personal in that I was living in San Francisco when the Giants snuck out of the Polo Grounds in NYC and into San Francisco in 1958. Not only was I thrilled by having a major league baseball team at my fingertips, I also had a superstar to gaze upon. Over the years I spent many a freezing evening in Candlestick Park for one reason, Willie Mays. Other stars emerged but, for me, he was The Man and I witnessed a lot of his triumphs as an adult (both his and mine). His days as a young phenomenon in New York were only snippets on the sports pages to me but now I was Johnny-on-the-spot and had my eyes peeled for anything-Willie. So this bio doesn’t tell me much I didn’t already know, both good and bad (and racially biased) but it has reminded me that I did know it and have now been reminded. Oddly enough, when he was dealt back to New York, and the Mets, I had also moved to Brooklyn and was a first-hand witness to his last two years of physical decline as an athlete and his retirement as a baseball player. What is so damn stupid about biographies of athletes is that, suddenly, and I’m not kidding, being 40 is the new 65. Mr. Mays was 42 when he retired from baseball (as a player) and everybody was treating him like a nursing-home patient. Good grief, nowadays 40 is the new 25!

My timing was also pretty good in that when I moved to New York Jules Feiffer had started making a splash with his cartoons in the new “alternative” Village Voice and I was an attentive witness as he burgeoned into being a true social satirist, an accomplished playwright and a raconteur of the first rank. Feiffer is now 81 and seemingly his drawing, writing and verbal powers have not diminished in the least. Has anybody seen his tour de force interview with Charlie Rose? In fact, if anything, he’s better than ever and his new memoir “Backing into Forward” seems to prove it. Although he had a horrible childhood in the Bronx and the first 100 pages are painful to read, once he was able to kick his mother to the curb the book takes off and is pretty wonderful, especially if you’re an indignant, border-line radical, liberal mouth-off like he is. Yes, I can identify.

So that’s the bio-diversity regarding the last three books I’ve read. The only thing they have in common (the books themselves, not the people they are about), is an incredible amount of name-dropping. But that’s reasonable I guess since, after all, you are known by the company you keep and these three people, in their lifetimes, knew and continue to know and sometimes stay in touch with, the headliners.

Next up: John Carey's "William Golding; The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies."