Festivus
In 1997 the outrageously successful sitcom, Seinfeld, aired it’s 166th episode, the tenth episode of its ninth and final season. I think it is fair to suggest that that timing indicates that Seinfeld was at its peak audience viewership by that time. As with all Seinfeld episodes, there were multiple subplots which came together in the end of the episode with some humorous and mostly intertwined resolution. The episode was called “The Strike” because it explained why Kramer hadn’t had a job for the duration of the run of show to date. It seems he had been an employee of a bagel company that went on strike twelve years before. As with most Seinfeld stories, that alone was a funny set-up. Embedded elsewhere in the episode was the fact that George Costanza’s father, Frank, had sent a Festivus card to Elaine. It was emblematic of the Costanza family line of reasoning that Frank should invent his own alternative holiday to replace Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza with his own generic, non-sectarian holiday of Festivus.
Festivus was intended to be a secular holiday that falls on December 23rd. It eschewed the commercial elements that permeate Christmas and have even invaded Hanukkah. When asked about the organizational tactics of Festivus, Frank Costanza, played by the wonderful actor Jerry Stiller elaborated on his holiday offspring. The creativity of the Seinfeld writing staff shifted into overdrive and in keeping with the whacky nature of the Costanza clan, in lieu of a tree or bush, Festivus adorned an aluminum pole for some reason. It was also a holiday about airing of grievances and displaying feats of strength. In a humorous sing-song, Frank Costanza declares that “Festivus is for the rest of us”, thereby explaining the choice of name.
I was a big fan of Seinfeld, but I had been a fan of Jerry Stiller and the duo of Stiller & Meara for a long time. This dynamic comedy team were one of the early graduates of the Second City comedy troupe and they became ubiquitous on TV in those days (Jerry and Anne were married). Anne died at 85 in 2015 and Jerry made it to 92, dying yesterday in his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, coincidentally the approximate setting of the Seinfeld sitcom. I had a personal connection to Jerry Stiller that I feel inclined to explain in honor of the passing of this great comedic talent.
Back in 1997, I saw a small, two-inch-square ad in The New Yorker announcing that HBO and producer Rosie Perez were looking for true stories of New Yorkers on the subway. They organized this as a contest with the prize being advertised as a year’s worth of subway tokens. Not that I was in the habit of riding the subway, I was very much in the habit of writing stories. I went to my archives and found a story about the commuter train in from Rockville Centre to Manhattan. I don’t care what anyone says, the difference between a commuter LIRR train and the subway is de minimis, so I felt OK about adapting it as a true subway story. As for being truthful, it was 95% true with only a small amount of poetic justice. I would argue that what I submitted was more true-to-life than the final screenplay (how’s that for foreshadowing!)
One day (probably nine months after submission and well after the supposed notification deadline) I got a Certified letter from an unknown company in the sweepstakes management business. The letter said my submission was “perhaps” a winner and that I would be told if it was, indeed, a winner once I had returned a full release document which gave HBO full legal rights to my story. It probably took me three nanoseconds to decide to give away my rights and repost the return letter (at least it was pre-stamped in the era of snail mail). Then I went into the creative black hole, not hearing anything more for over six months. I finally took the initiative when I noticed a small news article saying that HBO was filming its latest production called Subway Stories. I simply called HBO, whose offices were only several blocks north of me on Bryant Park. I asked to speak with the Subway Stories production staff and got through to a young woman who said she was a production assistant (i.e. an intern).
I explained who I was and wanted to know if my story was being made into a Subway Story. If she had been more experienced she would have known to say that she knew nothing about nothing. Instead, she asked which story I had written. I told her my story was called Financial Litterbug, but she said they had changed all the names and asked what it was about. I explained it briefly and she immediately said, “oh, you mean The 5:24!” My story involved a train I had noted as the 5:14.
About ten questions immediately popped into my head, not the least of which was, “why exactly would someone find 5:24 more entertaining than 5:14?”
The production assistant didn’t give me a chance to ask any questions, but rather said, “They’re filming the 5:24 right now.” Boom!
I was excited, stunned, curious just to name a few emotions that were suddenly rushing through me. I asked if I could come and watch and even a young intern knew enough to say that was unlikely. So I asked the only thing I could think of, “who is starring in it?”
She very quickly said Steve Zahn and then added, almost as an afterthought by a young woman more focused on young male actors than old male comedians, “…and Jerry Stiller.”
I left her my name and contact information to have someone contact me since I said I wanted to know about my subway token prize. I figured that would get more attention (defrauding contestant winners being a concern I imagined might be more worthy of a contact than the curiosity of a story writer who had signed away all his rights). I did eventually get a call back from an Assistant Producer (probably a minimum-wage earner) and I was told the prizes would be forthcoming soon and that there were ten vignettes being produced and while they were all deemed winners for contest purposes, whether they would make the final edit for the movie was yet to be determined. I then went back into a different black hole, the post-production black hole.
When I returned from vacation in 1998 I had five messages from HBO. I called and they asked me to come over to view my story on film since several newspapers wanted to meet the original storytellers, ostensibly to learn if these were real stories. I will save my post-production story for tomorrow’s story, but let it suffice that my first viewing of my story on film involved enjoying Jerry Stiller’s portrayal of the old man (actually named Herman) I had met years ago on the LIRR and who had prompted me to write the story. I will forever think of Jerry Stiller as the creator of Festivus and the embodiment of my story-writing ambitions.