Burt Prelutsky, a very nice person once you get to know him, was born in Chicago, in 1940, and raised in Los Angeles.
He has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. As a freelancer, he has written for the New York Times, TV Guide, Modern Maturity, Emmy, Holiday, American Film, and Sports Illustrated.
For television, he has written for "Dragnet," "McMillan & Wife," "MASH," "Mary Tyler Moore," "Rhoda," "Bob Newhart," "Family Ties," "Dr. Quinn," and "Diagnosis Murder."
In addition, he has written a batch of terrific TV movies that starred the likes of Jean Stapleton, Ed Asner, Keith Carradine, Mare Winningham, Jean Simmons, Jack Warden, Barnard Hughes, Richard Thomas, Sharon Gless, Sylvia Sidney, Harold Gould, and Lillian Gish. He has been nominated for three WGA awards (winning one), won three Christophers, been nominated for a Humanitas and won an Edgar.
Talk about being well-rounded, he plays tennis and poker...and rarely cheats at either.
He writes regularly for Townhall.com and WorldNetDaily. He is the best-selling author of Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco.
His most recent book is The Secret of Their Success, a collection of 78 interviews he did with the notable likes of Gerald Ford, Billy Wilder, Art Linkletter, Sid Caesar, Henry Mancini, George Carlin, Gene Kelly, Victor Kiam, Ginger Rogers, Judith Krantz, Dinah Shore, Steve Allen, and J. Peter Grace.
He is presently working on a sequel and has already interviewed, among others, Charles Krauthammer, Curt Schilling, Gary Sinise, Joseph Wambaugh, Newt Gingrich, Carl Reiner, George Kennedy, Andrew Breitbart, John Stossel, Morgan Brittany, Ross Porter, Alan & Marilyn Bergman, James Woods, Pat Boone, and John Bolton.
He lives in the San Fernando Valley where he takes his marching orders from a wife named Yvonne and a dog named Duke.
Write to Burt at: BurtPrelutsky@aol.com
Burt Prelutsky
Wanted: A Vaccine for Liberalism
by Burt PrelutskyWhenever I have suggested that left-wingers aren’t normal human beings, and have wondered if perhaps they’re some weird interplanetary life form like the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the liberals accuse me of indulging in ad hominem attacks, and I suppose I am. But I am honestly bewildered. It just doesn’t seem plausible that Americans could find good things to say about tyrants like Castro, Chavez and Ahmadinejad, while at the same time reviling the likes of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and General Petraeus.
Left-wingers side with the so-called Palestinians and insist that their country was stolen from them by the Jews, but when you ask them just exactly where the country was located, what their flag looked like and who their president was, they huff and they puff and they denounce you as a tool of the Jewish lobby. (more…)
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Where Are Liberals Hatched?
by Burt PrelutskyI used to be what I thought was a liberal. If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a decent wage and work in a safe environment, and that American citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their race, religion or national origin.
I quit being a liberal because I didn’t believe that members of particular minority groups deserved advantages denied to others; that illegal aliens weren’t entitled to anything but a swift kick to the backside; that being a devout Christian didn’t make you a bad person; and that capitalism was a system that worked, while socialism not only didn’t work, but, wherever it was tried, turned into a tyranny.
I honestly don’t know why there are so many liberals today and I certainly can’t imagine why they have such a lousy agenda. I have come up with a theory, however. Here in California, roughly 30 years ago, because of budget cuts, a great many people were released from insane asylums. They wound up living in the streets, which explains the large number of homeless people, even though Democrats would have you believe that those are normal people who simply lost their jobs along the way. (more…)
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A Matter of Opinion
by Burt PrelutskyAccording to my wife, I have a tendency to state my opinion as fact. She suggests that I begin my sentences by saying “It’s only my opinion, but…” and go on from there. It’s my opinion, however, that people already understand that it’s my opinion and that they share it if they’re smart, or don’t, if they’re not. Furthermore, I don’t see my main function as a communicator to convince liberals, who are notoriously as blind as bats, to see the light, but to provide my fellow conservatives with ammunition to use against left-wingers and, whenever possible, to amuse.
Gloria Steinem
In any case, in the spirit of compromise, let us pretend that each of the following paragraphs begins “It’s only my opinion, but…”
When Gloria Steinem, who had been lionized by the ladies of NOW for her rather dumb remark about women needing men like fish needed bicycles, finally got married at the age of 66, I thought people should have sent her greeting cards complimenting her on having belatedly grown gills. (more…)
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The Star-Mangled Banner
by Burt Prelutsky
There’s probably no single piece of writing in this country that’s as controversial or as likely to lead to fist fights as the U.S. Constitution. It’s difficult to decide which portion of the document gets people riled up the most. At times, it almost seems to change on a daily basis. On Monday, it could be gun ownership, with folks like Michael Moore frothing at the mouth at the mere thought that a law-abiding citizen might own a weapon. You’d think Moore was planning to burgle your home the way he frets over the possibility you might actually be armed.
On Tuesday, it could be the pointy-headed crowd at the ACLU that’s in full throttle, demanding that illegal aliens are entitled to all the rights and privileges of American citizens, not to mention a chicken in every pot. (more…)
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The ACLU: Self-Righteous Fools and Fascistic Bullies
by Burt PrelutskyI am not a religious man. I’m neither proud of that nor ashamed. I merely state that fact to establish where I’m coming from. I have friends who are believers and friends who are not. Where religion is concerned, I believe in live and let live. I only wish that the ACLU shared that attitude. I don’t like to describe myself as an agnostic or an atheist because I don’t care to align myself with the people whose own religion consists of a profound antipathy to everybody else’s.
I decided a long time ago that religion would play no part in my life, but I felt no compulsion to convert others. Oddly enough, I never resented the folks who would ring my doorbell and try to proselytize me. Although I don’t like dealing with uninvited guests, I always thought it was nice of them to be that concerned about the eternal soul of a perfect stranger. Having said all that, I wish to announce that I despise the ACLU for its relentless attacks on Christianity and Judaism. It’s bad enough that they will wage battle on behalf of any busybody looking to banish Christmas and Hanukkah symbols from public places, including one’s own front yard.
However, these very same lawyers will eagerly go to the mat to safeguard a Muslim’s right to wear a disguise on her driver’s license, a Navajo’s right to ingest peyote, and a cultist’s right to ritualistically slaughter small animals. (more…)
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Janeane: An ‘I Hate Myself’ Production
by Burt PrelutskyI’m not of the opinion that a person has to be perfect in order to point out the failings of others, but liberals take it to such an extreme that you have to wonder if they have any self-awareness at all.
I mean, when someone like George Soros, who collaborated with the Nazis, compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, am I the only one who wondered if he meant it as a compliment?
Or take Janeane Garofalo, who says stupid things with such regularity you might take her for a sulky teenager even though she’s 44 years old. Because she is an ignoramus and has the self-righteous attitude of an adolescent brat, she was a perfect fit for Air America, where she and Al Franken competed to see which of them could attract fewer listeners.
For those of you who have managed to go through life without ever having heard the nasty sound bites for which she’s best known, your good luck is about to run out. (more…)
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There’s More to Worry About Than the Obama Tax Plan
by Burt PrelutskyIn all of history, so far as I’m aware, there had only been two famous tea parties. At the first one, Samuel Adams and a few of his freedom-loving friends pitched several crates of tea into Boston Harbor. The second was the one Lewis Carroll wrote about, a madcap affair with the March Hare, the mad Hatter and the narcoleptic Dormouse, ganging up to give Alice a hard time.
All of that changed on the 15th of April, when a series of tea parties took place all across America. Even I, who try to avoid crowds, attended a gathering here in the San Fernando Valley.
If you believe the creeps in the MSM — and why would you? — we were all dues-paying members of political fringe groups, and none of us would think about leaving the house without first donning our little aluminum hats. If you believe Janet Napolitano — and how could you? — we were not merely man-created disasters like Somali pirates and Islamic butchers, but full-fledged terrorists. Some among us even confessed to being military veterans. (more…)
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We Should All Be a Little Cranky
by Burt PrelutskyRecently, I was called cranky in an article posted at the Huffington Post. The good news is that it’s one of the few times that anything approaching the truth has been posted there. The part I resented, though, was having my crankiness attributed to age. The fact is I was a precocious curmudgeon. But the question that springs to mind is why more people aren’t cranky these days when there is so much to be cranky about.
For instance, it used to irk me that Carl Bernstein, a rather minor footnote in America’s history, who only came to prominence because an anonymous snitch chose to pass along secrets to him and Bob Woodward, was depicted in two major motion pictures, “All the President’s Men” (Dustin Hoffman) and “Heartburn” (Jack Nicholson), when so many more deserving people haven’t been featured in any. But that pales when compared to the number of movies that have glorified Che Guevara, a blood-thirsty villain. In addition to numerous TV productions, he has shown up in “Che!” (Omar Sharif), “Evita” (Antonio Banderas), “Motorcycle Diaries” (Eduardo Noriega Gael Garcia Bernal) and “Che: Parts One and Two” (Benecio Del Toro). (more…)
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Obama, Your Slips Are Showing
by Burt PrelutskyJudging by my e-mail, a great many conservatives are counting down the days until they next get to vote in 2010. They hope and pray that Americans will come to their collective senses and undo some of the horrors unleashed by last November’s election.
Naturally, I hope they’re right. But I’m not sure that it will be enough to sound the alarm that the sky is falling because, by then, I suspect it will have already fallen. Besides, I’m not convinced that most of my fellow citizens have a problem with the direction that Obama, Pelosi and Reid, have taken us during these past few months.
At the rate that Obama and the liberals are going, when it comes to piling up the national debt; nationalizing banks and major companies; scuttling our missile defense system; reaching out to Islamic and Communist tyrants; funding ACORN, AmeriCorps and Hamas; discussing nuclear disarmament with Russia at the same time that Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are gearing up; talking tough to Israel while currying favor with the Arabs and the Islamics; I have no idea what will be left to salvage a year-and-a-half down the road. (more…)
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All the News That’s Fit to Ridicule
by Burt PrelutskySo many absurd things are taking place around the world on a weekly, daily and even hourly basis that there’s simply no way to stay on top of it all. If one man can barely keep up with the lunacy occurring in America, you can imagine what a Herculean task it is to also keep abreast of foreign follies. But I am not one to shirk my responsibility.
For instance, in Afghanistan, the farmers recently called for a meeting with U.S. Marines in order to alert them to the fact that they will be in their fields at night harvesting opium poppies. They wanted to make sure that the Marines didn’t take them for members of the Taliban and shoot them by mistake. Like the farmers, I also don’t want our Marines to shoot them by mistake. (more…)
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Just a Country Boy at Heart
by Burt PrelutskyA few years ago, I re-connected with a guy I hadn’t seen in about 50 years. We’d been friends in junior high, but once my family moved, Gary and I wound up attending different high schools. Which is pretty much like living on different planets.
After he came across my stuff on the Internet, Gary contacted me and suggested getting together for lunch. And so we did. While reminiscing about the old days, I told him that I was still grateful that he’d taught me to play tennis. He was surprised to hear that I still played. But his surprise was nothing compared to mine when he said that he was grateful that I’d introduced him to good books and great music. Quite honestly, I hadn’t realized I’d done that. Unlike his teaching me tennis, it wasn’t something I’d set out to do. But he assured me that I was the first person he’d ever known who read Steinbeck and Dickens, Salinger and Dostoyefsky, Hugo and Twain, Robert Benchley and S.J. Perelman, and who listened to classical music. (more…)
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The Thought that Counts
by Burt PrelutskyI never imagined I’d say it, but I’m beginning to identify with Barack Obama. I’m certainly not referring to his politics or his narcissism, but it seems that both of us really suck when it comes to gift giving.
First, he gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown some DVDs that were incompatible with English electronics and then he gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod that contained his speeches. Well, I hate to admit it, but I can empathize. Shopping for a prime minister has got to be hard enough, but trying to shop for a woman who has her own country would give me the mother of all migraines. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t just fall back on that old reliable. When in doubt, I say, you can’t go wrong giving cash. Which, by the way, seems to be one of the things, as opposed to bowling and speaking without a TelePrompter, at which the president seems to be quite adept. And, best of all, the cash, unlike the iPod, would be a personal gift because the Queen’s picture would be on it. (more…)
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Notes From a Lapsed Democrat
by Burt PrelutskyI was born in 1940, which means that during my lifetime 13 men have been the president of the United States. For many of those years, I was a Democrat. As was the case with Ronald Reagan, I didn’t feel I had left the party, but that the party had gone stark raving mad and left me.
By and large, I don’t find the baker’s dozen to be overly impressive, either as leaders or as individuals. There are only three or four of them I can even imagine being friends with or wanting to have as next-door neighbors. But there are only two of them, Carter and Obama, whom I regard as unmitigated disasters. While it took Carter four years in office and 29 years out to achieve his greatly deserved recognition as an incompetent, a phony and a sanctimonious anti-Semite, Obama has pulled it off in just a few short months. (more…)
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Taking Sides In The Middle East
by Burt PrelutskyJust for the record, I am a non-observant Jew. That means that my mother’s father, Max Lashevsky, who kept kosher and attended an orthodox synagogue twice-a-day every day of his life, would probably have considered me a heathen, while Adolf Hitler would have had me exterminated.
I want that to be perfectly clear so that when I declare my concern for Israel, nobody will simply assume it’s because I’m Jewish. I am on the side of Israel because it’s a western democracy, an ally of America, and because I regard her enemies to be our enemies, people dedicated to our mutual annihilation.
Israel’s foes believe in targeting women and children just so long as they’re Jewish or Christian. They are not only intolerant of the freedoms we take for granted — speech and religion — but they are polygamous, treat their women as chattel and encourage their children to achieve martyrdom as suicide bombers. Moreover, so-called honor killings are part of what passes for their culture. (more…)
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My 20 All-Time Favorite TV Series
by Burt PrelutskyTelevision is often treated like the unloved step-child of the arts. It’s been called a vast wasteland and worse. And vast it certainly is. It’s on all the time and on hundreds of channels, so it’s no surprise that most of it is just awful. The surprise is how much of it is worthwhile, and I’m not just referring to the artsy-fartsy stuff that shows up on Masterpiece Theatre.
Of course everyone’s list is going to seem eccentric to other people. My own is no exception. For one thing, there have been very popular shows that I never even tuned in. I’m thinking of “Beverly Hillbillies,” “Bonanza,” “Green Acres,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Dallas,” “Dynasty,” “Knott’s Landing,” “Peyton Place,” “L.A. Law,” “Six Feet Under,” “ER,” “Chicago Hope,” “CSI,” “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “Ally McBeal” and “Sex and the City.” There were a few I watched once or twice to see what all the fuss was about, but I didn’t care for “Star Trek,” “Picket Fences,” “The X Files,” “Boston Legal,” “Touched By An Angel,” “Monty Python” or “N.Y.P.D. Blue.” (more…)
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Squaring Off With Obama
by Burt PrelutskyI have to hope for the sake of our country’s future that when people voted for Obama they really had no idea what a disaster he would be, even though I kept warning them that he was a left-wing lug nut. It seemed to me that his legion of fans had been hypnotized or sprinkled with fairy dust. They blindly accepted that words like “hope” and “change” were complete sentences that actually added up to a national policy.
We, who assumed that a grown-up whose friends and mentors were people like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Saul Alinsky, the folks at ACORN and the most corrupt of Chicago politicians, believed he was more likely to belong in a square cell than in the Oval Office.
For my part, I felt a lot like Kevin McCarthy in the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” trying to warn my fellow earthlings that the pod people were among us and definitely up to no good. (more…)
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Madoff and Obama: Fellow Ponzi Schemers
by Burt PrelutskyFirst, let me make it clear that I despise Bernard Madoff and wanted to see him fry. Still, I must confess that when I first heard that they were sending this elderly rat to jail for a hundred years, it struck me as absurd. But if it’s true that the good die young, I suppose it’s just possible that Madoff might walk out of prison a free man in 2109.
On the other hand, I kept asking myself why anyone would invest with this schmuck. When I was a kid, I used to watch a TV show called “Racket Squad.” Every week they would dramatize a different con game. (Obviously, while young Burt was just sitting home watching, young Bernie was busily taking notes.) As varied as the cons were, the moral was always the same. As the show’s narrator, Reed Hadley, patiently pointed out week after week, if something sounds too good to be true, turn around and run, don’t walk. (more…)
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Let Us Not Praise Famous Men (Or Women)
by Burt PrelutskyThe way that liberal politicians and Hollywood celebrities carry on over the plight of poor people, you might easily get the idea that they actually know some. They don’t. Why would they when they only hang around with each other?
Those two groups are made up entirely of narcissists. Who else would want or need to exist entirely in the spotlight? They’re like moths. The irony is that, physically, the two groups couldn’t be more different and, yet, on a per capita basis, they probably spend the same amount on Botox, collagen and plastic surgery. When it comes to nips, tucks and hair transplants, alone, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, have spent enough money to keep several poor families in vittles for years to come. (more…)
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If I Were Boss
by Burt PrelutskyI have always contended that anybody who seeks the presidency is an egomaniac, every bit as certifiably crackers as those poor souls wandering around the grounds of the asylum insisting they’re Napoleon.
Still, I’m generally willing to cut people a reasonable amount of slack. But it’s quite another thing to pretend that a community organizer with just four years in the Senate, two of which he spent on the hustings, is qualified to be the leader of the free world. Even if I approved of his left-wing agenda, I’d find it impossible to make a case for him. Frankly, if it were up to me, I’d send this Napoleon wannabe to Elba. (more…)
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Keeping Score at the Movies
by Burt PrelutskySome time ago, in my eternal quest to set the record straight, I suggested that the true hero of the motion picture industry wasn’t Thomas Edison or D.W. Griffith, not Chaplin or Keaton, not Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer, but the anonymous fellow who first came up with the notion of putting salt on popcorn, thus turning packing material into a concession stand bonanza that costs more per-pound than lox and caviar put together.
But there are others who, more often than not, get overlooked while far too much praise is lavished on actors and directors. I refer to the men who compose musical scores for dramatic films. Although there have been great scores composed for mediocre movies, there has very rarely ever been a great movie that didn’t have a great score. An example of the difference a fine score can make was “Brian’s Song,” a TV movie that would have drowned in its own bathos and banalities if Michel Legrand’s music hadn’t saved it from itself. (more…)
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A 12-Step Liberal Recovery Program
by Burt PrelutskyMost 12-step programs start out by requiring that people understand that they’re powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity. Far be it for me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls. Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.
First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, are not moderates, but, rather, leftists with a Socialist agenda. Furthermore, they must recognize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN, the three major networks, the news magazines and the New Yorker, are not objective in their reporting of political events, and neither are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher, in their commentary. If these entities and individuals are not on the payroll of the DNC, they certainly should be. They certainly put in longer hours than Howard Dean. (more…)
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More Movies I Love
by Burt PrelutskyRecently, I wrote an article in which I listed my favorite 100 movies, broken down by decade. Frankly, I was overwhelmed by the response, both positive and negative. Even though I stated at the outset that it wasn’t my intention to suggest that they were the best movies ever made, a number of readers took me to task. They couldn’t get over my rotten taste. Others, who were in the proper spirit, merely suggested movies they assumed I had overlooked. I hadn’t. After all, I have been going to movies for over 60 years and, for a dozen of those years, I was a movie reviewer. I have seen just about every movie, both foreign and domestic, worth seeing and thousands of them that weren’t.
Some of the movies other people mentioned nearly made the list, while others, such as “Papillon,” “A Little Romance” and “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” didn’t even come close. There are two movies that failed to make the list because, at some point, I liked them too much and wound up seeing them once too often. As a result, even the thought of ever watching them again makes my blood run cold. They were “A Walk in the Sun” and “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Then there were two other movies that I loved the first time I saw them, but found I couldn’t even manage to sit through them a second time. They were “Arthur” and “The Big Country.” (more…)
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This War is not the Answer
by Burt PrelutskyI believe it is long past time to end the War on Drugs. That’s not because I approve of drug use nor have any desire to encourage it. But this particular war has already gone on longer than the ones in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, put together, with no end in sight and far less to show for it.
I would not only decriminalize drug use, I would give it the same legal status as tobacco and alcohol, and with the same age restrictions. For one thing, this would provide a great source of new tax revenue. Also, it would free up jail space for non-drug related crimes.
With the legalization of drugs, the profits that currently accrue to dealers, who use a portion of their ill-gotten gains to pay off politicians, judges and corrupt cops, could go to American companies and American workers. (more…)
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Favorite Movies, Least Favorite Award Show
by Burt PrelutskyWhen I first thought about writing this piece, I was only going to list my all-time favorite movies, breaking them down by decade. I was going to explain that these weren’t my idea of the greatest or most innovative films of the past 80 years or so, but merely the ones I have enjoyed the most, and in most cases have seen more than once.
Because the choices are totally subjective, a lot of movies you might expect to find — movies such as “Gone With the Wind,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Dr. Zhivago,” “The Godfather II,” “Easy Rider,” “All That Jazz,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Bringing Up Baby” — aren’t included. The reason is that I didn’t enjoy them.
But before I got to it, along came the Oscars, and it would seem like a serious oversight not to comment. (more…)
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The Not So Noble Prize
by Burt PrelutskyThere is probably nothing that people would rather have mentioned in their obituaries than the fact that along the way they had won a Nobel Prize. And it’s not just the money, either, although 1.3 million smackers is nothing to sneeze at. No, what makes the Nobel Prize so prized is the prestige it gives the recipients. If you are lucky enough to win one, you will forever be known as Nobel Prize winner Burt Prelutsky or whatever your own name happens to be, and your words, even those on subjects far removed from the field for which you were honored, will be taken terribly seriously by a very gullible public.
I mean, you only have to look at some of the folks who have taken home the Prize to recognize its hallowed place in the world. The list includes the likes of Ivan Pavlov, Sir Alexander Fleming, Marie and Pierre Curie, Harold Urey, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Albert Einstein. Personally, I have no problem with such honorees. I mean, even though what I know about chemistry, medicine, physiology and physics, could be inscribed on the head of a very small pin, I am willing to accept that their contributions were remarkable. And if dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel had left it at that, I’d have no problem with the Prize; I mean aside from my never having won it. (more…)
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The Groves of Hackademe
by Burt PrelutskyDown through the years, there have been a great many movies in which school teachers have been portrayed as decent and hard-working, even heroic. Just a handful that come to mind are “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Holland’s Opus,” “This Land is Mine,” “Up the Down Staircase,” “Good Morning, Miss Dove,” “Cheers for Miss Bishop,” “The School of Rock,” “Dangerous Minds,” “Blackboard Jungle,” “Stand and Deliver” and “Dead Poet’s Society.”
But when it comes to college and university professors, they tend to be portrayed either as comical buffoons (”The Nutty Professor,” “Monkey Business,” “Son of Flubber,” “The Absent Minded Professor,” “It Happens Every Spring,” “Horse Feathers”) or as petty, demented and, often as not, alcoholics (”Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “People Will Talk,” “The Squid and the Whale”). In fact, the last time I recall a movie about a professor that any normal person would wish to spend time with was the 1948 release, “Apartment for Peggy,” and even in that one, Edmund Gwenn spent most of his time planning to commit suicide. (more…)
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Running With Toothbrushes
by Burt PrelutskyOnce upon a time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Catchy, but wrong. We also have all that really scary stuff to worry about. What I find curious about fear is that so many of the things that terrify some people don’t even make other folks bat an eye. For instance, I have a relative who served honorably in Viet Nam and doesn’t think twice about soaring around in helicopters, but turns to jelly at the mere thought of driving on a winding road.
Whereas some people quake at the idea of going up in an airplane, others parachute out of planes just for the heck of it. What’s more, they pay good money for the privilege. Go figure.
Aside from listening to political speeches and watching really scary movies, the thing that invariably brings out the yellow in my complexion is finding myself in a high place — be it a mountain top, a tall building or even the back of a horse. I’ve always said it’s probably a good thing that I’m short because if I were any taller, I’d probably get vertigo every time I stood up. (more…)
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Captain Chandler And Me
by Burt PrelutskyRecently, I received an e-mail from a young associate pastor in Maryland. He introduced himself as an avid fan of “MASH.” He said that one of his favorite episodes had been one I wrote, “Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?” and that he was considering using the show as an inspiration for an upcoming sermon. He wanted to know how I had come up with the idea. He also wanted to know how my own faith and understanding of God or Christ had informed my writing.
I must confess that I am not usually given to thinking of my writing in such grandiose terms, and it shocked me to find a man of the cloth doing so. It took some thinking on my part, especially as the writing took place over 30 years ago. At the time, my TV writing career was at a standstill. Because my agents were a man and wife team who were well-meaning, but highly ineffective, it appeared that things weren’t likely to change for the better any time soon. (more…)
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Moms Make Lousy Dads
by Burt PrelutskyIn her new book, “Guilty,” Ann Coulter committed the major heresy of suggesting that children should ideally be raised by a mother and a father, not by two men or two women or even by one woman. She created a firestorm, as she usually does when she’s releasing a new book, with crowds of single women coming after her with torches and pitchforks and other crowds lining up at Borders and Barnes & Noble.
The fact is, she’s right. That’s not to say that a great many women aren’t forced by the circumstance of being divorced or widowed to be single mothers. But, more and more women, thanks to Hollywood role models, are choosing to be single mothers, and that’s a terrible trend, leading as it inevitably will to more and more criminals, druggies and psychopaths. (more…)
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Celebrities and Other Idiots
by Burt PrelutskyI have lived in Los Angeles most of my life, and for a good part of it worked in Hollywood, writing for TV. What’s more, for many of those years, I was a registered Democrat. I even voted for Jimmy Carter. Being in such a confessional mood, I almost feel as if I should stand up and introduce myself as Burt P, a recovering liberal, and proudly announce that I’ve been politically sober for over 8,000 days.
It may be coincidental that I began to see the error of my ways at just about the time the suits at the networks decided I was too old to write for the tube. On the other hand, being apart from the business for a while certainly gave me ample opportunity to take a more objective look at it. (more…)
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