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    Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment
    Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment
    Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment
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    Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment

    By Peter Mehlman

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    MANDELA WAS LATE traverses the inner universe of a satiric genius who maybe should be getting out of the house a little more often. Wrapped in his cocoon of Hollywood residuals, battling his own (mounting?) foibles day by day, former Seinfeld writer/producer Peter Mehlman somehow manages to see the world a little more clearly than the rest of us.
    Ride along through the arc of time drawn by six separate moving violations; only in L.A. can you mark life’s mileposts by the traffic citations you receive. Share the thrill of being nominated for an Emmy, and the agony of not winning . . . early in the evening. Meet a fictive pundit who becomes famous for publishing blank space; a detective who is ready to reopen the O.J. Simpson case and bust it wide open; a parole officer responsible for the newly won freedom of Nelson Mandela; and a Philip Roth who lengthens his literary career by resorting to ‘roids. Go “star trekking” across the urban wilds of Manhattan, hunting celebrity big game; dodge potholes along a memory lane that feels very familiar in spots and bizarrely antic in others; and remember where you were the first time you heard that infamous number. . . 69. Read and laugh and shake your head. Nothing is sacrosanct, including other people’s kids.
    Peter Mehlman, after whom a hypochondriacal giraffe was named in the Madagascar movies, lives in in Los Angeles where he writes essays, screenplays, NPR commentaries and hosts the Webby-nominated YouTube series Narrow World of Sports. He grew up in Queens, New York, and graduated from the University of Maryland before writing for the Washington Post and ABC's SportsBeat with Howard Cosell. He has written for Esquire, GQ, the New York Times Magazine and virtually every Conde Nast women's magazine because of his powerful grasp on what women want. He was also a writer and co-executive producer of Seinfeld. Associated with the show through nearly all of its nine-year run, he is well remembered for coining such terms as “spongeworthy” and “yada, yada,” the latter of which has been included as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Sager Group
    Release dateOct 3, 2012
    ISBN9780988178526
    Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment
    Author

    Peter Mehlman

    After graduating from the University of Maryland, Peter Mehlman, a New York native, became a writer for The Washington Post. He slid to television in 1982, writing for SportsBeat with Howard Cosell . From 1985-90, he returned to forming full sentences as a writer for numerous national publications, including The New York Times Magazine , GQ , and Esquire . In 1989, two years after moving to Los Angeles, he became a writer for the iconic TV show, Seinfeld . Over the eight-year run of the show, Mehlman rose to executive producer and coined such well-known Seinfeld-isms as “spongeworthy,” “shrinkage,” “double-dipping,” and “yada, yada,” the last of which has been included as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1997, Mehlman joined DreamWorks and created It’s Like, You Know... a scathing look at life in Los Angeles. In recent years, he has written screenplays, novels, and humor pieces, many of which were collected in his book, Mandela Was Late. Mehlman has appeared on-camera for TNT Sports and the Webby-nominated Peter Mehlman’s Narrow World of Sports. He’s the creator of the lifestyle brand Bravely Oblivious. He lives in Los Angeles.

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      Book preview

      Mandela Was Late - Peter Mehlman

      Mandela cover.jpg

      Mandela was late

      Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment

      by Peter Mehlman

      Published by The Sager Group at Smashwords

      The Sager Group

      MANDELA WAS LATE:

      Odd things & essays from the Seinfeld writer who coined yada, yada, and made spongeworthy a compliment.

      By Peter Mehlman

      Published at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2012 by Peter Mehlman

      See Permissions page for further credits.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in the United States of America.

      Cover designed by: Siori Kitajima, SF AppWorks LLC.

      Formatted by: Siori Kitajima and Ovidiu Vlad for SF AppWorks LLC.

      www.sfappworks.com

      Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is

      available from the Library of Congress.

      ISBN-10: 1481250779 ISBN-13: 978-1481250771

      E-book published by The Sager Group at Smashwords.

      info@TheSagerGroup.net

      info@MikeSager.com

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Title page

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Moving Violations

      BLANK

      So, Then They Gave Out the Emmy for Sitcom Writing and, Well, Yada, Yada, Yada . . .

      Dear Guilty Mogul, Cough Up

      Numerology

      Anxiety is Funny, Panic is Hard

      An L.A. Story

      Star Trekking

      Dodging Potholes Along Memory Lane

      Okay, I Confess. I Finagled My Way Out of Jury Duty

      Notes From the Sitcom’s Deathbed

      L.A.—The Hedge-a-Dream Factory

      Raising Moderately Healthy Jerks

      Six Hundred Choice Words for the Chatterers

      The Middle of Somewhere—Why I Hate To Travel

      Cold Case Files—O.J. Simpson

      Zuckerman Juiced

      DeBakey’s Heart

      Get Out in Front of That Epitaph

      Mandela Was Late

      Acknowledgements

      Permissions

      About the Author

      About the Publisher

      mehlman_22_f.tif

      Preface

      At the end of the last date I ever went on as a resident of New York City, the check came and I grabbed it. I’ll get the next one, she said.

      A next one would be nice, I said, but I’m moving to L.A.

      She was an actress but couldn’t find a facial expression.

      What? Why are we even—? When?

      Soon.

      She pulled a nifty override of her central nervous system and said, You’ll do very well out there.

      To this day, I wonder if she meant that as a compliment.

      At the time, April 16, 1989, there was a gratifyingly seedy exhibitionism in saying I’m moving to L.A. It was tempting to delay the move just to have more opportunities to say it, but no. May 30th at JFK airport felt like the end of an era. Now, twenty-three years later, it’s pretty clear that every second of every day is the end of an era.

      Odd thing . . . The actress was twenty-four. Whenever you date someone much younger, women friends ask, What do you even talk about with her? As if, on dates with women my age, we spend an hour on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

      Odd thing . . . At a party in Venice, the very short, middle-aged host/producer, natty in a suit from the Armani boy’s depart­ment, tore his Achilles tendon rising on his tiptoes to kiss the cheek of yet another twenty-four-year-old actress. L.A. is either the happiest or saddest place in the world. As if there’s a difference.

      Odd thing . . . Choosing what to bring to these parties is a plague. For a potluck Grammy party, I made eighty-five calls before buying a selection of pastries at porterhouse prices. Upon arriving at the party, the first visible object was a huge bucket of KFC.

      Odd thing . . . One Grammy party guest worked at The Museum of Tolerance. I suggested an exhibit devoted to lactose. No reaction. Nothing.

      Odd thing . . . a woman at Starbucks described someone as a Christ-like figure. I said, You mean he had a beard and a really low percentage of body fat? No reaction. Nothing. Must be too soon.

      Odd thing . . . it just seems strange that God only had one kid.

      Seven years of writing Seinfeld episodes turned a reasonably normal inner life into a generator of perpetual odd thing thoughts. It’s an unexpected but not unpleasant way to live. Sometimes, looking back at the sheer luck involved in getting to this nice place is overwhelming. Through all the striving and angling of life, people blindly assume everything they do edges them closer to some blissful place they can’t name or describe. Everywhere you look, they’re rowing through the day in what they absolutely know is the right direction, even while seeing people just like them going so obviously all wrong. Humility gets on my nerves, but I do feel lucky to live this particular life in a country where everyone thinks that as long as you have a paddle, it’s okay to be up shit creek.

      Whatever. Some people collect bobble-heads; I collect thoughts. The big upside is feeling productive, or potentially productive, all the time. Writing is the job but so is basketball, lunching, calling the gas company, getting Graves disease, stopping at a light, being held up at gunpoint, napping and anything else that might trip an original thought. A day with an original thought is my IPO, FDA approval and Good Housekeeping Seal of tacit approval.

      Since stepping back from TV, I shove my thoughts into old familiar places like magazines and op-ed pages. Granted, still striving to be in print puts me a little behind the curvature of the earth, but blogging feels like it’s for people who can’t get paid to write. Although I do blog when I finish a piece and realize it doesn’t quite work. In any case, all of it’s a joy: even in my early years at Seinfeld, part of me already missed writing full sentences.

      Not that Seinfeld wasn’t endlessly joyful. It was unalloyed joy. It was like a second shot at college—aside from harder work for grotesquely overpaid wages and a two-month spring break. Otherwise, it was hanging out every day at the coolest frat house on campus with funny people and—in lieu of freshman girls—oppressively gorgeous actresses.

      You know, with your eyes, your skin, your hair, your lips and your body, you and I could make a beautiful child together.

      Odd thing . . . There’s a lot you never get to say in real life. Then there’s so much you wish you didn’t say. You get to middle age and wonder if the median comment you’ve made in life is, You can move the seat back if you want.

      I guess hoping for some record of having said something worthwhile before you die is a good reason to write essays and articles. Which isn’t to say that’s my reason. So many writers say they write to see what they’re thinking about. That always sounds (over the) borderline pretentious. Really, is it so superficial to write just because you enjoy it? Isn’t it an endlessly good game to see little moments in the world and to try making some sense of them? Never playing that game is like spending your life singing Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

      On the other hand, a friend framed her divorce papers as proof of having taken part in whatever the hell it is we’re all taking part in, and it gave her a nice boost.

      Odd thing . . . When friends or acquaintances get divorced, I always ask them if they knew, walking down the aisle, the marriage wouldn’t work. So far, more than 90 percent said yes, they knew it wouldn’t work.

      Odd thing . . . People make so many mistakes it’s unbelievable.

      In this collection is a piece called Star Trekking that appeared in the New York Times Magazine’s About Men column on October 16, 1988. At the time, I wrote freelance magazine stories, an accidental career choice after working for Howard Cosell at ABC Sports. Throughout my two and half years at ABC, Cosell periodically said to me, So Peter, what are your plans? The implication was that he would fire me very soon, and it was always good for a laugh. In an office at 7 W. 66th Street on December 15, 1984, Cosell said, Peter, this is the most painful moment I’ve had at this show, but due to budget cuts, we have to lay you off. I smiled and said, Wow Howard, you’re really taking this joke to a new level. Howard Cosell didn’t laugh.

      The truth is, among hysterically funny bosses, Cosell edges out Jerry Seinfeld. It’s nice having a funny boss.

      Before ABC, I wrote sports for the Washington Post. No one was especially funny at the Post. That was my role because of the way I got the job: After hearing that the Post was not hiring white males, I wrote a job letter as a white woman and sent it to Managing Editor Howard Simons (played by Martin Balsam in All The President’s Men). Seeing as there were no meaningful qualifications on my resume, the letter was all jokes. Purely based on the letter, I was offered a job by mail as a copy aide on the 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift with Mondays and Tuesdays off. It was

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