HTA-0660: Bartender School & Will Rogers Impersonator

Metadata

Summary

Henry reports on a bartender training school where students learn to mix drinks, followed by a feature on a Will Rogers impersonator who performs the humorist's classic routines.

Full Transcript

00:06
Yeah. Chug a look, chug a look.

00:16
Make you want to holler at home?

00:20
Burn your tummy, don't you know?

00:23
Chug a look, chug a look.

00:25
A crowded bar on a Friday night.

00:28
Not unusual.

00:29
Lots of noise, lots of customers on one side of the bar, being served by a few besieged bartenders on the other.

00:34
But what is this?

00:36
In this establishment, the mob is behind the bar, and there's nobody on the other side.

00:41
But that's because this is not really a bar.

00:43
It's a school, a school for bartenders.

00:45
Grape wine and amazing joy.

00:48
Homemade in broad school. Bye, friend of mine, after class.

00:54
Man, him, and this other fool, aside, that whale drank up, plus, well.

01:00
The bartenders' Academy at 14th and K Northwest, six blocks from the White House, a school that teaches future bartenders, not just mixicology, but also beverage management and customer service.

01:10
And where a would be bartender named Henry Tennenbaum is going to try to learn, in two hours, what normally takes two weeks and $345 intuition.

01:19
But why do bartenders need a school?

01:21
But making drinks is just a very small part of tending bar.

01:24
You have to know how to deal with your customers, okay?

01:27
What we call customer service.

01:28
There was a man who trained the monkey in New York City to make his guests simple highballs.

01:33
But what the monkey couldn't do was make money.

01:35
He didn't have the ability to have customer relations.

01:38
Mark Salis is the education director and chief instructor of the bartender's academy, and the designer of a course that covers everything from equipment to etiquette to employment. Any drink which has a name, flying or screaming, or any drink which deals with a young lady's name, will contain vodka.

01:55
Actually, being a bartender is not as easy as you may think.

01:58
While students learn how to mix a myriad of drinks, some basic and some quite fancy, they also learn to be friendly.

02:03
Be polite, be sociable, be neat.

02:06
Be efficient, be alert, and collect for each drink as it's served.

02:08
The course also covers don'ts.

02:11
As in, Don't drink on the job.

02:12
Don't gossip, don't be nosy.

02:14
Don't gamble, don't loan customers money, and don't serve drunks.

02:18
I conducted a spot quiz to test the quality of the instruction.

02:21
I'm drunk, okay?

02:23
Like, I'm drunk, okay?

02:25
And I want another drink.

02:26
Okay, give me a, give me a, to kill a sunrise.

02:29
My seventh.

02:30
Can I have one?

02:34
No.

02:34
Come on.

02:36
Um... You can't have one, because by law, if you die, I go to jail.

02:45
And I'm too pretty to go to jail.

02:47
Well, I never looked at it that way.

02:51
You're right, I don't want another drink.

02:55
Despite the obvious effectiveness of the education.

02:59
Some of the academy students do not intend to be professional bartenders.

03:03
They just want to be the life of the party behind the bar.

03:05
But most students are there for career reasons.

03:08
My mother had bartended her for about eight years, and she enjoyed it, and she found it exciting, and I came here with a friend, and I saw it, it looked interesting.

03:16
I gave it a try.

03:17
And it's very enjoyable.

03:18
I was, um, in between jobs right now, and I decided that I would, um, learn something that I could use, and, um, my brother had just finished bartending school, and a girlfriend of mine had also finished bartending school, and thought it would be a good idea for me to do.

03:33
So that's how I ended up here.

03:36
I think he was challenging.

03:37
That's the main reason I came, you know, started this.

03:40
The nice work.

03:42
Thank you.

03:42
Thank you.

03:43
How much is this?

03:43
250.

03:44
Chug, look, chug, look.

03:49
Finally, it was my turn to prepare for the bar exam.

03:51
I should tell you that none of these bottles we're using contain real liquor that would be prohibitively expensive.

03:57
Darn.

03:58
The bartenders' Academy uses colored water to simulate liquor and recyclable plastic limes, olives, cherries, and lemon peels as garnishes.

04:05
Now, the course of study I was given was condensed, but intensive nonetheless.

04:09
In fact, Mark Salas seemed to take perverse delight in pressuring his new pupil.

04:14
Seven and seven.

04:15
7 and 7, right with you, ma'am.

04:16
Tequila someone else.

04:18
Kill us.

04:18
To kill an arm.

04:21
Got it.

04:22
Tangaray and tonic.

04:23
Tanquery.

04:24
Tanquery.

04:26
There you go.

04:28
double.

04:30
Of course, making drinks involves more than filling glasses.

04:32
There is also the matter of cleaning glasses, and cleaning them, and cleaning them.

04:36
Screwdriver.

04:38
You're not going fast enough.

04:42
I don't want that.

04:47
I want a hardy old banger.

04:48
Galiano.

04:49
Yes, sir.

04:54
Is that how I told you to hold your bottles?

04:56
No pipe.

04:57
You got to hold it.

04:58
Okay, that way.

04:58
What if that pops off?

04:59
He's gonna be wet.

05:00
Right.

05:01
Okay.

05:13
That's it.

05:15
I am ready to go.

05:15
I am ready.

05:17
can work a bar.

05:17
I think.

05:18
You think you're ready to go?

05:19
I think I could do it.

05:21
That remains to be seen.

05:22
And so, we went to sea on a Friday night in Georgetown.

05:25
Now, this elegant establishment was crazy enough to let me try my luck.

05:28
You want a night watch?

05:30
And what would you like?

05:31
Night watch in the Samboa.

05:33
What's a Samboa?

05:34
Henry.

05:35
Henry, where's the ice?

05:36
Where's the ice? Where's the ice?

05:39
Coffee? Coffee, I like hot.

05:43
Martinis, I like cold.

05:45
The way this crowd is tough.

05:46
Bring me this, bring me that.

05:48
They're like my producer.

05:49
Do this, do that.

05:50
I wanted to take this abuse.

05:52
I could have stayed in show business.

05:52
Well, we have been so much fun. Double, huh?

05:57
Several half past one.

06:00
Turn around more clock it was half past 4

06:06
I could get one on the rock.

06:10
Vodka, gimlet on the rocks.

06:11
Oh, Gimlet glass.

06:12
What we doing?

06:13
Really?

06:14
Oh, I can sign the lock, so it goes in one of these.

06:16
I just got my first tip.

06:20
What do I do with this?

06:21
What is the tip company, the tip cup?

06:23
I'm so excited.

06:24
You had a, that's a sambuca.

06:27
Yes.

06:28
And that's a midnight madness, a pineapple passion, a... something we've seen.

06:33
What is it?

06:33
It's...

06:35
.

06:40
Garbage.

06:42
What of customers are a murderer.

06:45
They really are.

06:45
Tanker and martini on the rocks.

06:52
Very dry.

06:53
After one evening as a bartender, I have a whole new admiration for them.

07:01
And all I really have a desire for is a drink of water.

07:05
Just put me right back with our P.I. magazine department.

07:08
Ah, hello. Find your tummy, don't you know? Chug, look, chug, look.

07:26
Witness and combat technique. Despite all this, the red tails were still subjected to adverse publicity, controversy, and discrimination.

07:38
Members of the old 332nd are now professionals, many in business for themselves, some in politics, others retired, though time and distance separate them, the men of the 332nd the red tails share a bond that transcends race, that transcends war.

07:57
Mm.

08:01
I didn't like that one.

08:02
Yeah, this one was better.

08:06
Okay.

08:08
As student pilots, the red tails, trained in an airstrip built near Tuskegee Institute by the United States government prior to World War II, heading up the training program, was chief pilot instructor Alfred Anderson.

08:24
I like this one better than the other one.

08:28
Mm-hmm.

08:32
Dealers have at least one strong element in common, motive, but surely there must be an easier way to make a living.

08:43
We'll be right back with our PM magazine departments.

08:49
No, I'm sorry.

08:50
PM magazine in New York will continue right after these messages.

08:58
I don't like that either.

09:00
We'll be right back with our PM magazine departments.

09:11
Okay, that takes care of that one.

09:13
Now I've got above washing.

09:14
The late people in the back of the theater, I guess, couldn't hear, but he jingled his chains, so he had people that would always remind him, We'll get the change out of the pocket, because he, and he was nervous, and he chewed gum, or a rubber band, something.

09:31
And that, obviously, was a sign, it seems to me, of nerves.

09:35
Did you adopt any particular mannerisms? Relaxation, trying desperately, being frightened to death naturally, and doing it, you know.

09:45
Tried to get relaxed, tried to find that inner core of the man.

09:49
And also, he was not a, he was not filled with hostility.

09:55
You know? And it's very easy to become that, you know.

10:01
And we all know the cliche comic, who is so funny in front of the people, but then comes back and tears everybody's head off backstage.

10:08
Will one that way.

10:10
I mean, he stopped on the street corner, and with the stage hands, and delivered some of his best stuff to small audiences of two or three, you know?

10:18
Now, certainly, he was trying it out, to see how it worked.

10:22
But he was, the old shoe thing was rather real, not totally real.

10:27
There was certain, as I say, a lot of artifice involved.

10:30
But basically, and down deep, it was not an act.

10:33
W.C. Fields, though, it said when he gets home, he talks just like everybody else.

10:38
But...

10:40
But I don't think that was true.

10:41
As soon as this plane passes overhead.

10:44
It's a wonderful occasionally.

10:46
We spend weeks picking out locations for these things where we can get the maximum benefit of the airport.

10:55
They't have trouble there, do you?

10:56
No, it's easy there.

10:57
Actually, my folks live, there's a train along the rail, or half a block away, and it's running to LaGuardia.

11:02
So I don't even hear it anymore.

11:03
Train, yeah.

11:04
Well, they're not worse. Where the whole apartment building shakes.

11:07
I'd like to try something.

11:08
This is your Will Rogers face.

11:13
Your Harry Truman face is...

11:17
Same face.

11:18
Same thing.

11:19
You are a Teddy Roosevelt face.

11:21
Mustache.

11:22
But otherwise, the same thing.

11:24
And glasses.

11:24
The glasses are really one of, I think, the biggest change of all.

11:29
And we all know people that the minute they take off their glasses, they look somehow indecent.

11:35
They look naked.

11:36
You know, it's true.

11:37
Steve Allen, can you imagine Steve Allen without his glasses?

11:40
And it has an incredible effect, as hairdos.

11:46
do.

11:47
And, of course, mustaches and beards.

11:49
But you don't use any makeup for any of these parts.

11:52
Well, I use mustache.

11:54
I mean, I grow a mustache for Teddy.

11:56
Right.

11:56
Cut the hair like Teddy.

11:58
And then I wear the Teddy Roosevelt glasses.

12:00
Truman, Hare, and Truman glasses.

12:04
You do not, if we just look at you without anything else, look particularly like any of those three characters.

12:11
I think not, no.

12:13
Then how do you manage to be so convincing?

12:15
A secret.

12:16
Oh, come on.

12:17
How do I... Shit.

12:19
I know, for God's sake, man.

12:20
Well, it's got to be an idea.

12:21
It's obviously not in the appearance.

12:25
got to be something much deeper than that.

12:26
Can you, to what extent can a person inside, so much adopts, so, such totally different roles?

12:35
To get pompous.

12:37
And it's easy for me.

12:39
is the, we all, that's what Will said, our component.

12:44
It's very hard for people to, honestly, say it all the time, but none of us really believe it, because we think we're unique, like our fingerprints are at the only ones on this Earth.

12:54
Now they tell us that even that isn't true.

12:56
And it isn't true that we are unique.

12:58
The juxtaposition of all the various genes and everything together, of course, gives us a different appearance and all, but we are all compounded of the same damn things.

13:10
In different degrees and arranged in different ways.

13:14
So, if you want to play Adolf Hitler or Richard Nixon, and I couple them purposely, uh, you have elements in you, that could become a Richard Nixon or Adolf Hitler, given the right kind of impetus, whether from your environment or your whatever.

13:39
So an actor goes and finds those elements in those little doors and tries to open them, and sometimes it's a little painful, but not really, because it's just make believe, after all.

13:50
And you find those elements, and then you bring those to the forefront, and then that's what you present.

13:57
You know?

13:58
The last thing it seems to me that one should do is try and get the package to look like that person, 'cause that's not what that person really was all about.

14:09
Which is not to say that, if you're short, that you're not gonna be a bit Napoleonic, or if you're terribly tall, you're not gonna fancy you're with John Wayne, or you're fat, you want to be Fred Astaire.

14:20
No, that's true.

14:21
The physical personas, unfortunately, do influence what we eventually become.

14:26
But that's not the way you should approach a character, in my view.

14:30
Doing one man shows as you do over such long periods of time, you'll do a fairly long road trip.

14:36
Do you find the characters to be more consuming in those circumstances than they would be, if you were just acting in a play with lots of other characters.

14:44
Do you find it takes over more?

14:47
I suppose, because of the loneliness involved.

14:49
You are alone, indeed.

14:51
And I think so, and I think it's more important that you stay with that character.

14:56
Because, you see, when you can bounce off other actors, the believability factor comes as much from them as it does from inside you.

15:05
Burgess Meredith tells about not believing his role as Mio in Sherwood Anderson's winter set in New York, on opening night, because he was absolutely catatonic.

15:16
He was so frightened.

15:17
He walked out on stage, and he saw Margot's face, and he sought real tears in Margot's eyes, and he immediately believed himself as Mio.

15:24
She made him believe himself.

15:25
But you don't have that with a one man show.

15:28
Do you like doing one man shows?

15:32
I like anything that I can get away with, you know.

15:35
People will, you will like, enjoy, and... and let you do, you know?

15:42
It's got to be so much more pressure.

15:45
I mean, there's no safety valve.

15:46
There's nowhere else you can turn when you're up there on stage.

15:49
Well, you know, you do have, at least you're hiding behind a character. Mm hmm. Because comics.

15:55
which is one of the most deadly professions I can possibly think of, you know?

15:59
They die on stage.

16:01
And Carson said a funny thing to me one time.

16:04
He said, Dear Todd, do you feel badly when things doesn't go well?

16:08
I said, of course I do, but, you know, I'm not destroyed by it of an evening.

16:11
And he said, You mean, in other words, you say, Well, Rogers wasn't very funny tonight.

16:14
So there's an element of truth in that, but it's not true, of course, because I know I let him down, 'cause he was, he is funny.

16:20
But the pressure isn't that great.

16:25
After all, only make believe, you know?

16:27
I think it's a great danger in taking it all too... too big.

16:30
What about Ford's Theater?

16:32
Love it.

16:33
Why?

16:34
Well, obviously, there's historical importance of it, and the fact that we have taken a place that was very important in our country's history, and a negative importance, but we have preserved it, and brought it back to what it was originally, which was a live theater.

16:54
Well, you know, we don't do this more often.

16:56
with things that are important in our past.

17:00
So I love it.

17:01
I love the audiences, I like the intimacy of the theater, I think it's a beautiful theater physically, and the confluences of history that all come through into that little theater are very exciting.

17:19
Will Rogers was the first one man show you had ever done.

17:22
Indeed.

17:23
What was it like at first?

17:24
Terrifying?

17:27
Terrifying, right?

17:29
But you learn to live with Tara to a degree, and then I'm using a bad word.

17:36
It wasn't terrifying.

17:37
World War II was terrifying, but, uh, it was discomfiting.

17:42
And I didn't think I could do it.

17:45
Convinced I couldn't, you know?

17:47
It wouldn't work, but... I learned some great lessons, you know, and that is that audiences do not go to the theater to be bored.

17:55
They go to the theater to have a good time.

17:58
And it sounds like a ridiculous thing to say.

18:01
I mean, everybody knows that.

18:02
But most actors I don't think do.

18:05
And I think they're very paranoid in that regard.

18:07
They call it the Great Black Giant, you know, or other terms.

18:10
Mob violence is always present, and so on.

18:13
Rejection and all that stuff.

18:15
But I found out that, basically, people really want to have a good time.

18:20
So if you don't twist them and jerk them around, then you're honest with them, and you really say, after all, folks, it's his make believe, you know? The Rogers show, a guy named Paul Shire contributed a very important conceit to the Rogers show, and that was that I came out as James Whitmore, good old, dull Jim, and stood out there and started talking about Will Rogers, and I know the audiences were saying, Oh, my God, he's gonna talk to us about Will Rogers.

18:50
you know, with chapter and verse.

18:53
And then, the conceit is that I, as I speak, I try to become Will Rogers before their, quote, very eyes.

19:01
And that's what makes it fun, because you say to an audience, this is what it is, folks.

19:08
It's make believe.

19:09
This is what we did as kids, and now let's have some fun doing it.

19:13
And, uh, so that was one thing I learned very early on.

19:18
Very important listen to me.

19:21
Did you internalize any of the character aspect of Urajers permanently?

19:28
Is there anything about him that you felt has changed you?

19:30
I hope so.

19:31
I'm not aware of it, and I... People close to me say that when I'm doing Rogers, that I do indeed start to drop my Gs, you know, and things of that nature.

19:42
But I'm not aware of it.

19:44
But I would hope, you know, that some of it has rubbed on.

19:50
What about Harry Truman?

19:51
Same thing.

19:52
I would hope that some of Mr. Truman's better qualities would have rubbed off.

19:58
We talked about Will Rogers and his characteristics that you tried to employ on stage.

20:04
What about Truman?

20:05
Well, he was a much more self conscious man.

20:09
than, uh, than, uh, Will Rogers.

20:12
And I think much more complex.

20:13
I hesitate to use the word neurotic, but a man who lived with his mother in law, in her house, and his mother in law was an anti Semi.

20:25
His mother in law was an anti Semite, and a very difficult woman.

20:29
But a man who lived on in that situation.

20:32
I suppose the argument could be made.

20:34
Well, he must have been extremely healthy.

20:36
to have been able to do it.

20:37
I would think perhaps the converse is true, but he must have been infinitely more complex, and there must have been a lot more crossed wires, in terms of... But I don't know that, and that bores me anyway, the psycho portraits.

20:51
But, um, he, uh, he was a very courageous man, you know.

20:57
Perhaps limited in his vision.

21:00
I don't know.

21:00
But he never backed away from a decision that he had made, which, you know, takes, and I mean, never shilly shallied.

21:09
He never tried to get out of the way so that the bullets went that way.

21:13
He made a decision and said, There it is.

21:16
That's all there is to that one.

21:20
And I admire that, of course, in anybody.

21:23
And he never did it to my knowledge, although there is a large body of thought that says that he did sometimes do it for money.

21:29
I don't think there's no evidence, historically, that even with the Pendergast machine, uh, rampant in Kansas City, that Harry ever benefited from it, uh, monetarily, and my God, you have to point to something, a Vicuna coat, or, you know, a rug, or some artifact that he must have bought, or a big car, he never did.

21:49
You know, he and Mrs. Truman lived very in a very Spartan sense.

21:53
Let me just change tapes here, 'cause...

21:56
Mr. Miller.

22:00
Telling us about an amazing music...

22:02
This kid going under... I hate that... And a couple.

22:05
They are sort of the Northern Virginia's version of it.

22:07
That's beautiful.

22:07
Look at all that.

22:08
Yeah, Texas.

22:09
Yeah. But first... We're here...

22:14
What do you say?

22:15
Give me that autograph yet?

22:16
No, not me.