little shop, little shop of horrors

This story appeared a few weeks ago on my illustration blog. I wrote it after I read that actor Jonathan Haze passed away. Jonathan was the star of the original 1960 version of the non-musical film "Little Shop of Horrors." However, the story is actually about my relationship with my mom. I had a great relationship with my mom and this story illustrates it very well. If you already read this story on my illustration blog... thanks. If you didn't... here it is.  — JPiC

Many, many years ago, my mom’s friend Arlene recommended a film called Little Shop of Horrors. She told my mom, in a phone conversation, that she had stumbled upon this little gem while trying to find something to watch during a late-night bout with insomnia. Arlene settled upon this quirky little flick after watching a scene that was riddled with references to the Yiddish humor she had heard as a child. Arlene explained to my mom that the film was somewhere between a science-fiction tale and the stand-up comedy of Borscht Belt comic Myron Cohen. In the days before VCRs, Netflix and other instantaneous home media, we would just have to wait until a repeat showing of Little Shop of Horrors popped up on a local UHF station. (UHF? Ask your parents.) 

A week or so later, my mom spotted a Saturday afternoon showing of Little Shop of Horrors in the daily TV listing of our local newspaper. My mom and I shared a wicked sense of humor, so based on Arlene’s account of the movie, it was right up our alley. My mom and I often bonded over eclectic comedy. We would watch episodes of the (then) newly-discovered Monty Python’s Flying Circus and — quite literally — roll on the floor in uncontrollable peals of laughter… much to my father’s chagrin. While we tried to catch our collective breath, my dad would glare at us and, bark, “I don’t see what’s so funny? I can’t understand a goddamn thing they’re saying!” He’d go back to chain smoking his Chesterfields, reading his newspaper and getting angrier and angrier as my mom and I continued laughing.

Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Jonathan Haze
and the ubiquitous Dick Miller

On Saturday afternoon, my mom and I sat down in our den to watch Little Shop of Horrors. My father was off in another room, listening to a Phillies game on the radio, smoking cigarettes and staying well out of earshot of our potential laughter. The film began and within minutes, we were laughing. Between the deadpan opening narration parodying the popular Dragnet format and the dialogue involving a bereft character slyly named “Mrs. Siddie Shiva,” our laughter had progressed to hysterics. As the film continued, it got goofier and goofier. There was a giant man-eating plant, a wildly-masochistic dental patient, a climactic chase through a toilet factory and all sorts of the Jewish humor that Arlene had told my mom about. The cast featured Jackie Joseph, a character actress who frequently showed up in sitcoms and whose distinctive child-like voice was often heard in cartoons like Josie and the Pussycats, as well as a host of unknown actors from producer/director Roger Corman's stock players… including an up-and-comer named Jack Nicholson (as the aforementioned dental patient). “Seymour,” the sad sack main character, was a typical “mama’s boy.” The role was played by Jonathan Haze, the former Jack Schachter from Pittsburgh, who was pumping gas in Southern California when he was offered a role in a Z-grade picture called Monster from the Ocean Floor.

For the next one hundred and eleven minutes, my mom and I laughed and laughed at the improbable antics unfolding in Mushnick’s Flower Shop. There were some overt horror aspects to the film, but overall, it was a hoot and, although presented in earnest, it was definitely played for laughs. 

Years later, my mom and I were surprised when an off-Broadway musical (a musical!), based on this silly little low-budget horror-comedy, was generating a buzz. We were doubly surprised when the off-Broadway production was made into a big-screen musical with Steve Martin, John Candy and Rick Moranis in the role of nebbish “Seymour.”

Jonathan Haze, who originated the role of “Seymour,” passed away this week at the age of 95. Although his published obituaries noted his appearance in Little Shop of Horrors as the pinnacle of his career, he actually enjoyed a career that spanned six decades. Jonathan appeared in over 20 films, including a dozen produced by his friend Roger Corman. He also wrote scripts for a science-fiction parody, as well as an episode of the hipster drama 77 Sunset Strip.

Jonathan also gave my mom and me some hearty laughs.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

yes, I remember it well

When my mom died in 1991, she took the entire family history with her.

Every family has an unofficial family historian. You know, that one person you can go to and ask any question about any family member for whom you need a little bit of information or possible clarification. How are you related to this person? Who's child is this and when did they get married? Is that guy we call "uncle" really my uncle? For as long as I can remember, my mom was that person. She was the keeper of the Small family (her maiden name) history and she eventually served in the same capacity for the Pincus family when she married my father. (Curiously, there was no one in my father's family that could be relied upon to give an accurate account of family relations. My father's family all shared one common trait. They were habitual liars.)

My mom knew facts about generations that pre-dated her own 1923 birth. She could rattle off names, dates, locations, offspring, offspring's spouses and countless children — some of whom she never even met. Right off the top of her head, she could tell of long-forgotten incidents, including explicit detail, as though they had just taken place the day before. She could sift through a box of mismatched photographs — ones spanning numerous time frames as exhibited by an assortment of black & white and color examples — and identify the subjects, the location and the approximate date on which the photo was taken.

My mom was the youngest of five siblings — her oldest brother being eighteen years her senior. I recall my mom settling many an argument among her siblings. The phone in our house would ring regularly as a brother or a sister would call to confirm with my mom which one of their uncles owned a produce pushcart or which aunt was especially promiscuous. My mom always had the answer. "Call Doris! She'll know!" was a phase that was spoken frequently among the Small clan and eventually the lying Pincuses came to rely on my mother's encyclopedic knowledge.

In October 1991, after a long, up-and-down battle with cancer, my mom died and left her family in a state of confusion. Not only was she beloved among her immediate and extended family, but she one of the few family members (on both sides) that nobody had an issue with. She was always helpful and pleasant and funny. And when she died, family history began to rewrite itself. Surviving family members were left to piece together their vague, mostly inaccurate memories. This left the Smalls and Pincuses with a legacy that resembled a poorly-sewn patchwork quilt.

There is one story that I really wish my mom were here to set the record straight. It's a story that has become a "bone of contention" between by brother Max and I. Max, as is the way of most big brothers, is always right. This story has been discussed many times since my mother's passing and the way I remember it and the way Max remembers it couldn't be more different. It's as though it isn't even an account of the same incident. Personally, I am fuzzy on the exact time frame. I don't remember exactly how old I was when it happened. But I do know that the way Max tells it is not the way it happened. The way I remember it was....

My mother had purchased a cake for an upcoming birthday — maybe mine, maybe my brother's. I don't remember who would be the eventual recipient. The cake was in a bakery box on the second shelf down in our over-stuffed refrigerator. (I always remember our family's refrigerator being packed so tightly that items needed to be constantly rearranged in order to accommodate new purchases from the supermarket or even a plastic container of leftovers. How my mom managed to find space to fit a bakery box in that frigid Tetris game remains a mystery..... but, I digress....)

The box containing the cake had the string that secured the lid removed and it sat on the shelf with the lid just loosely protecting the pasty within. As was typical for the Pincus family, I sat with my mom and dad in our den, watching television — most likely a program of my father's choosing. My brother was not with us. He was upstairs in his room doing whatever it was that he did up there. At some point, he came downstairs and visited the kitchen, perhaps for a snack or a beverage or both. From the den — adjacent to the kitchen in our small Northeast Philadelphia house — we could hear the refrigerator door open followed by my brother clinking bottles and moving covered dishes in an effort to see what sort of after-dinner nibbles were available. Suddenly, we heard a noise — a sort of a bang! — followed by my brother angrily muttering "OH!"

My mom, my dad and I scrambled into the kitchen to find my brother standing in front of the refrigerator. The door was open. At his feet was the cake box. It was upside-down and its visible contents were smashed on the kitchen floor — a scattering of crumbs and icing in a small, misshapen arrangement on the linoleum. We all stood silently for a few moments staring at the unexpected scene that surrounded my brother's feet. Finally, my father spoke. 

"What the hell happened?" he bellowed, gesturing with his omnipresent cigarette towards the destroyed baked good strewn across the Pincus kitchen floor.

My brother, with not a lick of fear in his voice, plainly stated, "I dropped the cake."

My father was positively dumbfounded. Dumfounded! He jammed his cigarette into his mouth, knelt down and awkwardly gathered up the cake box in his hands. He frowned and spat, "How do you drop a cake?" He repeated this like a mantra several more times, until he forcefully shoved the unwieldy mess into my brother's hands and screamed — demanded! — "Show me how you drop a cake!"

The words sounded downright stupid coming out of my father's mouth. It was one of those things where your anger is so out of control and over-the top, that your mind can't form coherent sentences to express the serious tone of the situation. My mom and I stifled our laughter knowing it would have made my mad father even madder. My always-defiant brother, however, just rolled his eyes as he accepted the dented cardboard box from my father. He placed it on the kitchen table. Of course, he wasn't about to demonstrate the procedure of dropping a cake for my father. This was a one-time performance. Max just stood by quietly and waited for my father's tirade to wind down. Finally, my father let out an annoyed exhale, lit another cigarette and retired to the den, shaking his head muttering about dropping a cake.

My brother returned to his room with a couple of slices of cheese from the refrigerator.

And that's the story. For years — years! — the phrase "Show me how you drop a cake!" — was repeated in the Pincus household for comedic effect. My son, whose birth came decades after the notorious "cake-dropping" incident, has made use of the phrase from time to time. It's a funny story with all the elements you'd expect in a funny story — a silly accident, an over-reaction from my father, my brother standing his ground and my mom and I hiding our amusement.

My brother, however, remembers the event completely different — right down to the action taking place on the sidewalk in front of our house instead of in the kitchen. Because of this, the story is never ever told in my brother's company.

He may have to start a blog of his own.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

happy loving couples

My parents had a group of friends with which they socialized on a fairly regular basis. By "regular basis," I mean whenever my mother made plans with the wife of the couple. Then, those plans were gently divulged to my father upon his return from a "hard day at work." (Every day at work was a hard day at work for my father.) My father would, of course, frown and grumble and express his displeasure at the thought of getting together with "those couples." Then he would relent when my mother would glare and threaten to withhold dinner beyond the unspoken but pre-determined 6:15 start time. You see, the majority of my parents' "couple friends" were my mother's friends from her days as a carefree, slightly uninhibited "party girl" and their husbands. I honestly don't remember any of the storied men from my father's youth making it to the "married adult friends list." 

My mom kept in close touch with her teenage (and beyond) girlfriends. She attended each of their weddings as a still-swinging single. When she became a bride at the unheard-of age of 33, her now-married friends joined her and rallied around to watch the once spontaneous and unpredictably wild Doris become Mrs. Pincus the First. Keeping in step with 1950s society expectations, my mom made regular plans with her friends and their husbands — regardless of how my father felt.

My mom had three very close friends in their early twenties — Annette, Roberta and Bernadette. These three women, led by my mom, would descend upon various Catskill, New York resorts (like the one you saw in Dirty Dancing) and — as they say — "paint the town red." They would swim and dance and drink and flirt and flirt and flirt. My mom was the ringleader of the "Four Musketeers" and her friends were only too happy to follow along. Marriage, however, calmed these ladies down — reducing their frenzied nights of debauchery to quiet games of Mah Jongg. But, my mom liked having friends and, even though my father didn't like having friends, she got together with her friends and forced my father to be as cordial as he possibly could.

Plans were made most often with my mom's friend Annette and her husband Rusty. Annette was a typical quiet, polite, reserved 60s housewife, behaving as though she stepped right out of a TV family sitcom. Rusty was loud and boisterous and wore bold plaid sport jackets and told corny jokes. And, according to my father and repeated regularly, Rusty was cheap. Maybe that's the reason my father never wanted to get together with Annette and Rusty. My father, one of the world's worst handlers of money, had a terrible habit of reaching for the check at the end of a restaurant meal with friends. Always wanting to appear "the big shot," my father would grab the check as soon as the waiter would drop it on the table. Other husbands would protest and argue with my dad that the check should be split — the reaction my father was always hoping for. But not Rusty. Rusty would shrug and loudly exclaim to his wife: "Look Annette! He's doing it again!" Rusty would never argue or reach for his wallet, but he always had the same reaction. And my father still continued to grab the check first. He never learned.

One time, my mom made plans to go to a baseball game at brand new Veterans Stadium, the giant concrete monstrosity in South Philadelphia that was the new home to the Philadelphia Phillies after the closing of the venerable Connie Mack Stadium in North Philly. My father often took my older brother to Phillies games at Connie Mack, leaving my mother and I to stay home and listen to the game on the radio. My mom's plans for a family outing at the ballpark would include Annette and Rusty and their daughter, Cindy Wanda, who was my age. I didn't especially like Cindy Wanda (and I think the feeling was mutual), but a friendship was forced upon us by our parents. And I always thought it was weird that she was always referred to by her first and middle names. As per usual, my father grumbled about plans with Annette and Rusty, but, as per usual, buckled under pressure from my mother. Tickets were bought and we were going.

The day of the game — a Sunday afternoon — we found our seats and settled in. Somewhere around the third inning, my father silently rose and left his seat, never informing anyone of his destination. A few minutes after my father left, Rusty also left and scurried up the aisle of our section. Rusty returned quickly, carrying three hot dogs in his hands. He made his way to our seats and handed a dog to his wife and his daughter and they ate in silence. My father soon appeared toting six hot dogs — one each for his family and for his "friends' family." He was visibly angered by the fact that Rusty and his family where already munching on their own ballpark staples. He grew more vexed when Rusty happily accepted three more hot dogs and opined a familiar sentiment: "Look Annette! He's doing it again!" 

Every so often, my mom would invite her friends and their husbands to our house for an evening of talk, camaraderie and some games — poker for the men in one room and Mah Jongg for the ladies in another room. With the notion of company, my mom would stock up on snacks and such, putting out a spread on our kitchen table of cold cuts, bagels, sandwich accoutrements and condiments, as well as big bowls of potato chips, pretzels and something called "bridge mix," little dark chocolate coated morsels that resembled rabbit droppings. Often these little get-togethers would rotate from house to house and a similar array of food and refreshments would be offered by the evening's host couple. My father dreaded when Annette and Rusty where the "hosts of the week." (Honestly, my father dreaded these evenings PERIOD.) The food at Annette and Rusty's was minimal, consisting of cheese slices and other foodstuffs corresponding to the exact number of people attending the night's gathering. Four couples? Eight slices of cheese. No more. No less. Eight bagels. Eight slices of tomato. Eight napkins. You get the picture. Oh, and eight cans of soda were set out. And no ice bucket.

After a while, my parents didn't get together with my mom's friends and their husbands. My mom began working full time and taking on lots of overtime hours. Her time at home was spent catching up on sleep. My dad was just as happy. he went to work. He came home. He smoked a ton of cigarettes, ate a lot of red meat and watched a lot of television. Friends he didn't need or want.

Especially cheap ones.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

washing dishes with my sweetie

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I certainly had my share of household chores. I would sometimes receive an allowance for completing my assigned tasks, but mostly my dad would forget. In his (and my mom's) defense, I was rarely denied a little extra spending money if I asked. I knew when I could ask and I knew when I  shouldn't... and that was a little game I played with my parents expendable income.

In the summer, at least once a week (when I wasn't gently reminded), I would fill this relic up with gasoline and push it all over our front and back lawns. This was a job that I inherited from my older brother once he graduated from household chores to employment in the "real" world. I didn't mind this too much. It was outside. It didn't take that long to complete. And sometimes, if the nearby Nabisco factory was in production, the air was filled with the delicious smell of baking cookies. It took my mind off that fact that I was cutting the grass, instead I mentally wandered through a magical world of 24-hour cookie ovens and stacks and stacks of Oreos and Chips Ahoy! (When I visited Walt Disney World for the first time, I was immediately taken back to this childhood scene as I passed the Main Street Bakery. It was only later that I learned that the wonderful "freshly baked cookies" scent was fake and Disney pumps it into the air to entice passers-by. Bastards!)

Every Wednesday evening, after dinner, I would wend my way around our house and empty the trash cans and wastepaper baskets in each room. (We called the trash receptacle in the bathrooms "wastepaper cans," but all the other rooms had "trash cans." I don't know why that was... but that's how The Pincuses lived.) Once that portion of the task was finished, I'd drag the big metal trash cans that rested at the side of our house down to the curb for collection the following morning. When I got home from school on Thursday, I would drag the empty cans back up the driveway to the side yard where they would remain until next Wednesday. (One day, there was an "incident" involving trash collection that you can read about here.)

While I was making my rounds on trash duty, my mom was doing what 1960s moms did. She was cleaning the kitchen. This was what society had deemed as "woman's work." My mom did "woman's work." Not happily. Not unhappily. She just did it. She did the grocery shopping. She did the cooking. She did the serving. And she did the cleaning up after dinner. Looking back, I remember that my mom always ate dinner last, sometimes just sitting down as my father was using a buttered slice of bread to wipe up the last drops of gravy from his plate before lighting an after-dinner cigarette (as opposed to the several "during dinner" cigarettes he enjoyed). My dad, my brother and I would exit the dinner table, leaving my mom to finish her meal alone and eventually clear the table and load the dishwasher alone, as well. (Boy, the Pincus men certainly were little shits!)

Our house did not have a basement or a separate laundry room. We didn't even have a dining room, as sometime in the swingin' 60s, my parents converted the designated dining room to a den, with a sofa, a chair for my father and a TV. That left our tiny 10' x 10' kitchen jammed with a clothes washer and dryer along with our family table and four chairs. Our house did have a dishwasher, though. It was a portable dishwasher with a butcher-block top that my mother put to good use. The dishwasher was on wheels, so during meal preparations, she'd maneuver it near the sink and chop up.... well, whatever it is that moms chop up when they make dinner. After dinner, and once the top was cleaned, my mom would put all the dinner dishes, as well as any pots and utensils used in preparation, into the depths of the dishwasher. With liquid detergent added somewhere inside, she'd extract a large garden hose-looking tube from the back and connect it to the kitchen faucet. For the next hour or so, the kitchen faucet was off limits! You want a glass of water? Get it from a bathroom! You want to wash an apple (like I actually ate apples! Ha!) Too bad! Again, use a bathroom sink or tough it out. My mom loved that dishwasher and, as far as the rest of the family was concerned, it was her dishwasher. After all, no one else in the family knew how to use it. We didn't need to. That was "woman's work" and my mom was the only woman in Chez Pincus.

Somewhere around the time I entered high school, my mom got a job in a women's clothing store. My dad was, at first, not happy about this development. My mom, however, grew to do whatever she wanted to do, regardless of my father's opinion... and my father knew it. Once my mom started working on a regular basis, family dinners became a thing of the past. Our freezer became stocked with TV dinners and other assorted meals of convenience. Pizza was a common dinner. While my brother and I would enjoy the cheese-laden pie my mom brought home from the pizza place next to her store, my dad would frown, grumble and make himself a cold-cut sandwich, smoke a couple of cigarettes and complain about how much he hated pizza, although I never ever saw my father actually eat a slice of pizza. 

Along with "mom-prepared" family dinners, other "mom" services disappeared. No more laundry. You want clean clothes? My mom gave one lesson in how to operate the washing machine and dryer. My brother and I paid close attention and soon we were doing our own laundry. My dad, the "breadwinner" (And breadwinners don't do laundry. They.... they.... win bread!) had no intention of washing his own clothes. He fought in World War II, ferchrissakes! He didn't defeat Hitler for the honor of laundering his own socks! My dad would often persuade my brother or me to add his dirty clothes to our batch. And, of course, we'd oblige. With family dinners a thing of the past, my mom's portable dishwasher was used less and less. It was only when the sink became an overflowing mess of plates and forks and the occasional pan (my brother figured out the secret of making grilled cheese sandwiches), that my mom would run the dishwasher. Still, no one else in the house knew how to load and operate the dishwasher. It was still my mom's thing.

When I got married, I wanted to be as helpful as I could be around our house. I wasn't going to be like my father, sitting back and watching my wife do all the housework while I smoked cigarettes and watched TV. (Well, I don't smoke, but I still had plans of watching TV.) I vacuumed and took the trash out and, briefly mowed the lawn... until we hired a guy to mow the lawn. As a matter of fact, we have also hired someone to clean our house on a regular basis. But there was still laundry! I had remembered the basics of doing laundry from the quick lesson my mom gave when I was a teenager. I made the offer to my new bride and, reluctantly, she let me take a shot at it. Our washing machine was much different that the one at my parent's house and the dryer...? The dryer had more buttons and dials and settings than the control panel of a commercial airplane. So, after I put one of Mrs. Pincus' favorite sweaters into the dryer, shrinking it to a size suitable for a Barbie doll, I was barred from laundry duty 'til death do us part. I wasn't about to ask to use the dishwasher.

Mrs. Pincus and I have been married for 38 years. In those 38 years, I have never loaded, closed, added detergent to, or operated the dishwasher in our kitchen. If someone came in, pointed a gun at me and ordered me to show them how to run our dishwasher, I would just shrug and tell them they might as well pull the trigger right now. I'd sooner be able to show them how to bake a cake... and I don't know how to do that either, but, I'm sure somewhere, there are printed directions. The dishwasher? Well, Mrs. P instinctively knows how to work it, just like she knows all the right questions to ask doctors and repairmen. She just knows. Good thing, too... 'cause I don't have those instincts. So, while I offer my (minimal) assistance in making salads for dinner, carrying packages from the car and carrying laundry (that I don't do) up from the basement, the dishwasher falls into the "appliance" category. As far as I'm concerned, when I was flagged from using the washing machine, I took that to mean all household appliances. 

Recently, an ongoing cacophony of uncharacteristic "clanky" noises coming from our 25-year old dishwasher let us know that we should probably start looking for a replacement before it is totally out of commission. Coincidentally, the ice maker in our equally-as-old refrigerator ceased working and, along with the various broken shelf brackets and cracked drawer guides, a new refrigerator would be a good idea, too. On Memorial Day weekend, Mrs. P and I wandered around the large appliance department at Best Buy and settled on a shiny new dishwasher and a shiny new refrigerator from the good folks at Samsung (makers of the TV in our bedroom and both of our cellphones.) Arrangements for delivery were made and in a few days, the Pincuses entered the 21st century of kitchen convenience. The refrigerator is a French door model with a through-the-door water and ice dispenser and a large drawer that houses a reach-in freezer. It is a far cry from the narrow, avocado green icebox in my parent's kitchen. The dishwasher, with its gleaming, stainless-steel front, has spacious racks and a cool flat shelf at the top for things like lids and spatulas that you don't want flying around during a cycle and smashing into your dishes.

On Day One with the new dishwasher, I don't know what possessed me, but I asked Mrs. Pincus to show me how to use it. I figured: "How difficult could it be? Technology has become simpler as time goes on, so the new dishwasher should be a snap! And sure enough, it was. My wife showed me what pieces she preferred go on the bottom rack and what should be placed in the protective top rack. She showed me where the detergent goes and how much to use. (First, she had to show me where the jug of dishwashing liquid is kept.) She explained the simple, silent, push-button operation. Then, just close the door and — BINGO! — magic occurs. A cool feature we discovered is when the cycle is finished, the door automatically pops open to help in the drying process.  

Mrs. P watched as I loaded the new dishwasher. She observed the way I squeezed the liquid into the little reservoir and snapped the lid of the compartment shut. I pushed two buttons — just two! — on the control panel, shut the door and the dishwasher whirred to life. Actually, it was pretty quiet. Next morning, after turning on the coffee maker, I emptied the dishwasher. I put our dinner dishes back in the proper cabinets, the glasses in their cabinets and the flatware in the correct drawers. There were a few items that, despite living in this house for nearly four decades, I had no idea where in our kitchen cabinets they are stored. I left them on the kitchen counter for Mrs. P to put away when she woke up. But — goddamn! — I acquired a new skill!

Now almost every evening, I fill and start the dishwasher and every morning I empty it and put our dishes and flatware away (except for the things I have no idea where they belong). Once again, I have chores.

Allowance, however, is still iffy.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

buona fortuna, addio bambina

This story appeared on my illustration blog in 2020.

Sergio Franchi. What a melodic, romantic sounding name! It was very fitting for the Italian tenor with the robust voice and charming demeanor. Sergio Franchi! Throughout the 70s, he sang on The Ed Sullivan Show, filled the big showrooms in Las Vegas and toured the country, enchanting audiences that were mostly comprised of suburban American housewives looking to inject a little Continental excitement into their routine lives.

My mom was one of them.

My mom loved Sergio Franchi. As a teenager in the early 1940s, she was fan of big-band swing and was quite the accomplished jitterbug dancer. She swooned along with her contemporaries to the likes of Frank Sinatra and Eddie Fisher. She could be spotted at the famed Steel Pier in Atlantic City doing the Lindy or on the dance floor at Grossinger's in the Catskill Mountains "cuttin' a rug" with some guy whose name she barely knew. As long as there was music, my mom was there.

She always kept up with musical trends. She fell for Tom Jones in the 60s with his tight, high-waisted pants doing their best to contain his gyrating hips. She listened with heavy-lidded eyes to Bobby Darin and Mel Torme and Vic Damone. And then she discovered Sergio Franchi.

Sergio Franchi! Rugged, chiseled, Romanesque features. Barrel-chested and impeccably groomed — always sporting a simple yet elegant tuxedo, its bow tie usually undone by song number three of his repertoire. In later years, Sergio would display a trendy perm on his previously close-cropped 'do. His easy, but charismatic, personality and his wide smile entranced his audiences. And that voice! Magnificent, velvety tones that could handle popular tunes as easily as soaring operatic arias.

My mom never missed seeing Sergio Franchi at the Latin Casino when he came to our area. "The Latin," as it was colloquially known, was a very popular night club that moved from its original Philadelphia location to a larger venue just over the New Jersey state line. Despite its name, The Latin Casino was not actually a casino, although it attracted the same caliber acts that played the real casinos in Las Vegas. Frank, Dean, Sammy — they all performed there on nationwide tours that stopped in and around the City of Brotherly Love. Ironically, its downfall was the introduction of casino gambling in Atlantic City, putting a clause in performer's contracts not allowing them to appear with a certain radius of the seashore resort — a radius that included the Latin Casino. However, in its heyday, my mom would go with a girlfriend or her sister to see Sergio Franchi — but never with my father. He wasn't interested in going anywhere — especially to see some singer who wasn't Al Jolson. Good thing, too, because my mom was very uninhibited and I'm sure she offered her share of screams and cat-calls along with the other female members of the audience. One morning, after my mom had seen Sergio Franchi the night before, I came into our kitchen to find a red cloth napkin folded neatly on the kitchen table. My mom, with stars in her eyes, explained that Sergio had wiped his face with the napkin and handed it down to her at her stage-side table. It was as though the Lady of the Lake had touched Arthur's shoulders with Excalibur. In later years, Sergio Franchi moved his Philadelphia area stop to the Valley Forge Music Fair, a smaller, in-the-round venue just minutes from where George Washington led troops fighting for our country's independence. As far as my mom was concerned, they fought for her right to sit in the front row to see Sergio Franchi sing. In between songs, Sergio Franchi would address the audience, often remarking about the name of the town where the venue was located. "King of Prussia!," he would say, his diminished, though still present Italian accent rolling the "R". He'd gesture with his outstretched arm in a mock-majestic flourish as he repeated it "King of Prussia! I love to perform in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania!" He'd smile and the audience would giggle and sigh in unison, as though they had rehearsed

Surprisingly, my mom owned just one Sergio Franchi album... but she played it over and over and over again. It was a 1973 RCA Records compilation imaginatively titled This is Sergio Franchi. The cover showed two sketchy drawings of the singer — a close-up and a waist-up action pose — against a very generic 70s-style design and typeface. When she could gain control of the family stereo, she would blast This is Sergio Franchi the way my brother would crank the volume on Physical Graffiti. This is Sergio Franchi earned a place in our family's all-inclusive record collection, even if it looked out of place among the many releases by Queen, Springsteen and Elton John. (Oh, my mom listened to those, too.)

Sergio Franchi appeared on the popular morning talk show Regis and Kathie Lee in 1989. It would prove to be his final TV appearance. Afterwards, during rehearsals for a show at South Shore Music Circus in Massachusetts, Sergio Franchi collapsed on stage. He was hospitalized and the remaining dates of his summer tour were canceled. Testing revealed a brain tumor and, despite treatments including radiation, Sergio passed away in May 1990 at the age of 64.

My mom, who was fighting her own battle with cancer, was crushed when she heard the news. When she returned home from her chemotherapy sessions, she played her copy of This is Sergio Franchi until the grooves in the vinyl wore flat.

My mom passed away in October 1991.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

you do what you wanna do

 

My mom made great iced tea. She made it all the time, often four or five times a week during the hot months of the summer. Our family would drink it regularly, downing several glasses each during dinner. Even my dad, who was very particular about what he consumed — he never ate pizza and he never drank Coca-Cola — happily drank my mother's iced tea. When guests would come to our house, my mom always made sure she had a pitcher or two of her iced tea ready to be served, because she knew that someone would ask for a glass within minutes of their arrival. Even my friends would refer to my mom's iced tea as "World Famous."

Because my mom's iced tea was so downright delicious, folks would often ask for the recipe. My mom was only too happy to give the recipe — one that she concocted herself — to anyone who made the request. She would even write it down to make sure all of the ingredients and procedures were included correctly. Actually, the recipe wasn't at all complicated. But, if it wasn't followed correctly, it wouldn't taste like my mother's iced tea. 

First off, she used a brand of tea bags called "Swee Touch Nee." Back in the 1960s, this brand wasn't always readily available at our regular supermarket. Sure, they stocked it sometimes, but other times, my mom would have to hit some out-of-the-way market or smaller grocery store to track down the main component that made her iced tea her iced tea. The recipe called for ten tea bags for a half-gallon batch... and she only made it in half-gallon batches. Then, she would fill up her old reliable whistling tea kettle and set it on the stove with a full flame underneath until the high-pitched shriek — or "g'shrei from the chinik" as she'd say in Yiddish — would alert her that the water was boiling. She'd drop the ten tea bags into her big Tupperware pitcher, pour in the boiling water until the kettle was empty, then add a cup of sugar. That's right a brimming cup of full-strength, one hundred percent granulated cane sugar poured right from that familiar yellow Domino's paper sack. She'd give it a few stirs, fit the lid in place and position it front and center on the top shelf of our refrigerator. Once the refrigerator door was shut, some sort of magic happened over the next hour or so. Those few, simple ingredients mingled and melded into something so indescribably delicious that it was.... well, indescribable! And that's it! That's my mom's "world famous" iced tea recipe.

But no one could ever duplicate it. No one. Even those with the recipe. Even those who were coached on the phone — by my mom — during the actual process... they still couldn't get it right. 

Now, I ask you. Were those instructions complicated? Jeez, there are only three ingredients. Sure, one of them could prove to be a bit difficult to locate, but not impossible. Besides, if my mom could find a lesser-known brand of tea bags, any of her friends and relatives were just as capable of doing the same. For all we knew, Swee Touch Nee was the top seller at the supermarket where they shopped. And the other ingredients? Everyone had access to water and every one of my mom's friends, neighbors and relatives had a whistling tea kettle. It was the 60s, for goodness sake! It was a required piece of kitchen equipment, like the ubiquitous electric can opener/knife sharpener. So, how tough is it to boil water, pour it over some tea bags, add sugar and stick it in fridge for a few hours? Evidently, very! My mom would routinely receive phone calls from those who were disappointed, even after claiming to have followed her recipe to the letter. They'd complain that their version of the finished iced tea didn't taste the same as the contents of those tall glasses that my mom served at our house. Trying to help, my mom would run down the short list of ingredients and the relatively easy process for making her iced tea. 

"Did you use ten Swee Touch Nee tea bags?," she'd ask

"Well, I couldn't find Swee Touch Nee, so I just used Lipton. And since they are, like, double-size — y'know, those "flow-thru" like on the commercial — I just used five."

"Did you use a cup of sugar?," my mom would further question.

"Well," the reply would begin... and when a reply begins with "well," you just know it will be followed by some lengthy justification for why the original instructions were not followed. "We don't like to use sugar in our house, so I used four or five packets of Sweet 'n Low, instead."

"Did you use a half gallon pitcher?" my mom would ask.

"Well, I don't have one, so I used a glass pitcher, but I don't know how much it holds."

"Did you put it in the refrigerator for a few hours?" my mom inquired.

"Well, I wanted to see how it tasted, so I just poured it over some ice in a glass as soon as I finished mixing it up. Oh, and I put some lemon slices in it, 'cause I like lemon."

They'd usually end with: "It didn't taste like yours!"

At this point, my mom would pull the telephone receiver away from her ear, stare at it, roll her eyes and shake her head.

For years and years, she received calls from various acquaintances, who were simply baffled as to why their iced tea didn't taste like my mom's ice tea. 

After all, they didn't follow the directions.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

tell me sweet little lies

Having spent most of my career in some aspect of the advertising business, I love and appreciate good and clever advertising, so I pay close attention to commercials during the inordinate amount of television that I watch.

"It's Dad.... and there's no Santa Claus."

About two years ago, Pepperidge Farm rolled out a new ad campaign to promote their line of Milano® cookies. The 30-second spot focuses on a woman alone in the bathroom. She is wrapped in a towel, lounging on the floor in front of a bathtub filled with children's toys. She is savoring each luxurious bite of a Milano® cookie with her eyes closed. Suddenly, she sees the locked doorknob begin to jiggle and a child's voice, from the other side of the door, questions: "Mom?" The woman bolts upright, furrows her brow, clears the cookie crumbs from her throat with a muffled cough and, with a put-on lower register in her voice, she replies: "It's Dad." Satisfied when she hears the pitter-patter of small feet retreating from the other side of the door, she resumes munching her cookies in serene privacy, while a voice-over states: "You gave them your bathtub. Don't give them your cookies. Pepperidge Farm Milano®. Save something for yourself." 

I hate this commercial.

No relation.

Wait. Wait. Wait! The commercial execution is fine, the actress is effective in the role and they certainly convey their message. What I hate is the message. Pepperidge Farm has always positioned their cookie category as being sophisticated and geared their advertising towards adults. I understand this and "positioning" is a key part of effective advertising. By not purposely going after market heavyweights like Nabisco and Keebler, Pepperidge Farm has essentially taken themselves out of the major brand cookie competition by creating the "Distinctive" line of cookies, thus creating a niche category the other brands don't have.

What they have also done is advocated lying. Specifically, lying to your children. Let's imagine, for a second, what happens after the tagline is read by the voice over and the commercial ends. The kid on the other side of the door wanders off looking for Mom — while Mom polishes off the remaining Milanos® in the bag. The kid strolls in to the living room and discovers Dad reading the paper. She is confused. "Dad?," she begins, "I thought you were in the bathroom." Dad looks up from the paper, himself confused. "What are you talking about?," he says, "Why would you think that?" The child explains that when she tried the locked bathroom door and questioned the occupant, a deep voice replied "It's Dad" and I'm sure I heard someone eating. I figured it was you, since you're the only one in this house disgusting enough to eat in the bathroom. Mom would never do that. And Mom would never lie or hide food from me." Dad frowns. He tosses the paper to the floor and stomps off to the bathroom to get to the bottom of this. He pounds on the door, demanding his wife let him in and explain this situation. The wife opens the door and, brushing cookie crumbs away from the corners of her mouth, exclaims that it is none of his goddamn business what she's doing in the bathroom. Then she goes on to explain that if she wants to eat a goddamn cookie in this God-forsaken house, she has to sneak them away from that fucking locust they have for a kid. The fight escalates. The kid cries. Soon the couple considers trust issues in their relationship and are now headed towards divorce. All because Pepperidge Farm forced Mom to tell a lie.

Is Pepperidge Farm happy with creating such familial turmoil is the name of selling a few more cookies? I am calling out Pepperidge Farm for the irresponsible message in their advertising. But, as far as the advertising world is concerned — mission accomplished! I remembered the name of the product.

Maybe I even gave them a new company tagline....

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

your mom threw away your best porno mag

I am on vacation right now, so I present a story that was originally published on my illustration blog in 2010. It is one of my favorite stories. If you haven't heard me tell it before, I think you'll get a kick out of it. If you have heard it before, you'll find it funny all over again.

My dad was a simple man and he loved simple things. He loved the Philadelphia Phillies. He loved breakfast at the Heritage Diner. And he loved pornography. 

I'm not talking about the occasional Playboy magazine that, as a nine-year old, I stumbled across hidden under some shirts in a bottom drawer or the lurid novel stashed behind the clothes hamper in the bathroom. Sure, my dad owned several copies of Playboy and Penthouse, but his tastes leaned towards the more — shall I say — exotic.  These weren't artful shots of lithe beauties, softly-lit and airbrushed to flawless perfection. I'm talking full-color, foreign-published, plain-brown-envelope, hard-core stuff. These tomes were filled with grainy photos of skanky women in various stages of undress, bent into impossible positions and inserting any one of a number of varied objects into any one of a number of body orifices. This was harsh and shocking stuff in the pre-Internet days of the 1960s. A thousand times more shocking than the sanitized material distributed by Hugh Hefner's fledgling publishing empire. 

My dad thought he was clever and wily and that only he had knowledge of his pornography collection. I can't understand how he could believe this while sharing a house with his wife and two young (and curious) sons. My father was terrible at hiding birthday gifts and his beloved Tastykake snacks  from his family and he was just as terrible at hiding his pornography collection. My mom used to joke that nothing could get past her, but my brother and I were not so sure she was joking. She knew about things that she couldn't possibly have known — from the whereabouts of a mysteriously missing cupcake to a failing grade brought home on a hidden school test. My father's porn accumulation was no exception. My mom was fully aware of my dad's explicit cache. On a semi-regular basis, while my dad was at work, my mom would gather up his X-rated stockpile. She'd load it into several heavy paper grocery-store bags until they were at the point of bursting. Then she'd cap each one with another inverted bag for extra security and privacy. She'd carry each bag, sometimes numbering four and five, to the curb and place them alongside our metal trash cans, where they would wait until the municipal sanitation department truck came for its weekly pick-up. After a few days, my father was obviously frantic. He would search for his pornography in the most casual and unassuming manner. My mom would smile silently and relish in his frustration. He couldn't very well come out and say to his wife, "Hey, where's all my pornography?" It was an unspoken ritual. They were both aware of what had transpired, but neither one would dare give verbal acknowledgement. 

One day, my mom decided the time was right to "clean house" of my dad's smut reserve. While my father was at work, she went from hiding place to hiding place and gathered the material up into the grocery bags. With the second bag securely capped on top of each bundle, she placed five or six of the obscenity-stuffed packages at the curb in front of our house. Soon, the trash collection truck appeared, slowly making its way up the block as the workers methodically emptied the neighbors' refuse into the truck's rear receptacle. When enough trash had filled the open cavity at the truck's posterior, one of the workers would pull a lever and the garbage would be compacted back into the large storage area that made up the bulk of the vehicle's size. Eventually, the truck rolled up to the Pincus curb. One of the workers ambled over to our trash cans, while the other hefted two of the paper sacks holding the lewd contents. He tossed them into the truck. They mingled with the coffee grinds and empty cans and the usual household discards as he returned to the curb for the remainder of the bags. After adding the last few bags to the repugnant mix, he decided the mass needed compacting to make room for the rest of our blocks' rubbish. He pulled the lever and the machinery roared to life, as a huge steel plate forced the garbage back into the depths of the truck's auxiliary stowage. Suddenly, under the pressure of the equipment and the sheer volume of trash, several of the bags burst, spewing their lascivious filling into the air. A cloud of vulgarity rained down. One worker realized what had happened and yelled "Stop! Stop!" as the other quickly disengaged the compacting switch. The two workers dropped to their knees and grabbed at the printed material that was now scattered in all directions, shoving it in their pockets and arranging it into neat little stacks. The driver climbed out of the cab to investigate and soon joined his colleagues in their pursuit of free porn. My mother watched, unnoticed from our kitchen window, as the trash collection was halted for a good twenty-five minutes, while the three sanitation workers reaped the spoils of hitting the erotica jackpot. When every last piece of my dad's collection had been retrieved, the truck continued on its way up the street. 

Inside the house, my mom chuckled to herself. She knew she had a great story that she wouldn't tell to me until years later. A story she never told my father.  

is this the real life, is this just fantasy

My mom was a character.

She had a wicked — somewhat twisted — sense of humor. She loved a good, dirty joke. Actually, some of the best dirty jokes I know were told to me by my mom. She taught me curses in Yiddish. She listened to rock and roll, once beating me to Peaches Records to purchase a copy of Queen's 1978 album Jazz when it was released at midnight.

Growing up, my friends loved her. Not many of my friends knew my dad, but everyone knew my mom. She was the "cool" mom before there even was such a thing. When I attended elementary school, she made a few extra dollars driving kids to kindergarten, so she was always around and visible. At the end of the school year, she ran the face-painting booth at the school fair, plying her artistic abilities to the faces of many of my classmates. In later years, she regularly volunteered to drive my friends and me around to the movies, and eventually, concerts.

My mom didn't take too much too seriously. So, when she expressed an interest in the supernatural, everyone was a bit leery. She started hanging out with a group of ladies to discuss reincarnation and past lives. My father wanted no parts of this, so she would often go to these little, informal gatherings alone. Once in a while, though, I would accompany her. Seated around someone's living room, these women would pour themselves a glass of wine (except for my mom, who did not drink) and earnestly discuss the afterlife. One member of the group, an older lady who resembled actress Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, but not as attractive, told about a form of hypnosis called "regression." My mom leaned in closer as the woman elaborated on the process of inducing a subject into a deep, hypnotic sleep and jogging their subconscious memory with a series of suggestive inquiries to ultimately have them reveal and describe the details of a past life. My mom was a skeptic from waaaay back, which is why her interest in any of this was puzzling. But, my mom was pretty mischievous, so who knows what she had up her sleeve.

She ended up taking a course in hypnosis and had a framed certificate hanging on the wall in our den to prove it (as if that proved anything). Soon, she was hypnotizing willing friends and family members with the mumbo-jumbo words and incantations that she learned. At first, she read the steps and recitations straight from a paperback "textbook" she balanced on her knee. She strained to read the words, as the room was dimly-lit for purely atmospheric purposes. Maybe my mom's soothing voice offered relaxation to those needed relaxing and maybe relaxing led to a dreamlike state, but — dammit! — if she didn't get some pretty entertaining results from her little parlor trick. Several of my friends happily volunteered to be "regressed." At various times, one of my friends would stretch out on the sofa in our living room. My mom would pull up a chair next to the prone victim subject and recite her little spell. Much to the surprise and delight of the onlookers, my mom's suggestive hoodoo seemed to have worked. With some gentle coaxing from my mom, my friend would begin to spin some incredible tales of ancient Rome, ancient Egypt and even 17th century, witchcraft-threatened Salem, Massachusetts. Word of my performing mom spread throughout my high school. Soon, my mom had a regular gig with kids clamoring to find out who they were hundreds (or even thousands of years) ago.

Actually, it's Scrabble®

My mom was having a blast and she was ingratiating her standing as the "cool" mom. How ever she was able to get a bunch of teenagers to dream up whatever scenarios popped into their subconscious mind was a testament to her ability and the power of her suggestion. Did she really believe she was evoking actual "first hand" accounts of past lives? I doubt it. Was she getting a kick out of the whole thing? You bet! She even began supplementing her little dog-and-pony show with a foray into OUIJA® boards, creating a homemade version with letters from a Scrabble® set and an inverted wine glass. I'm pretty sure that was bullshit, too.

After a while, the novelty of regressions wore off and my mom went back to playing mah jongg. At least with that, she could hustle a few bucks from some old ladies.

Anything to keep it interesting. That was my mom.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com