Okay, here's what I'm doing....
I am going to continue to post here, but will moderate all comments. My comment engine, Disqus, does not allow you to turn comments off. So, if I can post your comment, I will. And if I can reply, you know I will. If you comment and I don’t post it and your nose gets bent, feel free to write me at billscheft@yahoo.com. You want to throw Noah Chomsky and the politburo against me, fine. But that is the only way I can continue this blog responsibly.
That said, a regular commenter cleverly asks, “We’re all dying for some information, so I’ll come out and ask…what do you think of Paul Shaffer’s new book?”
This is a layup. Paul’s memoir, WE’LL BE HERE FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES, came out Tuesday. If you love show business, you need to get this book. It is as good a look at the life through a blessed insider as you could possibly ask for. Tremendous rollicking fun.
Here are the three key questions you need to ask yourself after reading a book of this genre: 1) Did I learn things I didn’t know about people I like? 2) Was the book written or dictated? 3) Did the author keep his ego out of the way of the story?
I know Paul 20 years. I consider him a good friend, and not because that’s what people in show business show, and certainly not because he mentions me in the book. We have had many long conversations over the years. Believe me, I knew maybe 20 percent of the stories. Unreal. You know a guy 20 years and you have no idea about his contribution. So, giant check to question one.
Paul wrote the book with David Ritz, who is one of the great celebrity biographers of the last 50 years. But David Ritz doesn’t always get all of the fastball. Here he did. The book is distinctly in Paul’s voice. The prose has a musician’s rhythm. It is most definitely written. And written well. Giant check to question two.
I’ll be honest, I did not expect Paul Shaffer, lover of camp and show biz phoniness and the Jerry Lewis Telethon, to be so humble in recounting his life. Humility, as I have learned, is the ability to be inconvenienced. Everyone gets their due, even if Paul must stand off to the side. But that is the gig. Paul is as I have know him, a master accompanist. Hip to the end. And as Tower of Power tells us, “sometimes hipness is what it ain’t.” It is those tender moments, of love and family and gratitude, what hipness ain’t, that I will hold longer than the stories.
As a friend, I am proud of him. As a writer, prouder.
(I just read this…it’s going right to Amazon.)
