Jason who?

I’m going to sound like a braggart, but bear with me. I’m not boasting but if you don’t know something about my background, nothing else I say will make any sense. I was raised in Scarsdale, New York. At the time, it was the wealthiest community in the U.S. and had the finest public school system for which I am eternally grateful. My next door neighbor was John Raitt (Bonnie’s father and a Broadway legend.) Two years ahead of me at SHS was Liza Minelli. My best friend’s father was Dean Rusk (Secretary of State). My girl friend’s friends were Tovah Feldshuh, a movie star and Barbara Koppel, Oscar winner for Best Full Length Documentary. My own father was the Executive Vice President of the Marx Toy Company, the largest toy company in the world — more than ten times the sales of Mattel and Hasbro combined. My father was a personal friend of Eisenhower who called from the White House on Sunday mornings. Nixon brought my father a large carved statue of a Chinese fisherman as a memento of the President’s historic trip to China. Frank Sinatra called my sister to wish her a happy birthday. I was bounced on Douglas Fairbanks Jr.s’ knee. When I graduated from Fordham Law School, I practiced in NYC. My self-started firm was retained by the Helmsley (as in Leona & Harry) Group to teach them real estate broker law, of which I was the leading expert in the Big Apple. My kids hung out with Madonna and Prince. I ate dinner with Jim Nabors, Tina Turner and Candace Bergen. Diana Ross used my office as a dressing room and I didn’t have to leave. I knew people, real famous people. I had and have a blessed life. Moving to NEPA as a retirement place has not broken the spell even if it’s no longer swarming with celebrities.

I was sitting with a bunch of codgers in the coffee shop and the name Jason Miller came up. I said, “Jason who?” The response was a stunned silence. “You know, the guy that played the priest in ‘The Exorcist.’” “Oh, him, yeah …” “He’s from Scranton.” “Oh, that’s interesting,” says I. “And he won a Pulitzer Prize for ‘That Championship Season.’” “Wow,” says I, not revealing that in graduate school, we used to call it the Pullet Surprise because most of the winners wrote some of the most forgettable and mediocre stuff ever set to paper. When Sinclair Lewis won it, he turned it down — one of the things I really admired about the author of “Main Street,” “Babbitt” and “Elmer Gantry.” My lack of awe over the name Jason Miller irked some of the geezers, but it was forgotten. Awe was not my strong point.

Then, I heard about the Jason Miller Project. I assumed it was a rehabilitation center specializing in drug and alcohol abuse like, as I discovered, the real Jason Miller. Turns out this writer not only won the Pulitzer, but could down a bottle of good scotch quicker than you could say, “Your mother rots in Hell, Father Damian.” And the good old PP did not do much good for Jason. He had a string of failures — as I learned, his own play was a tough act to follow (no pun intended) and he went the way of most “One-Hit Wonders.” None of this is NEPA’s fault. And it’s not mine for not knowing this guy, either. Outside of NEPA, not 1 in 10,000 would know him, if that. Don’t misunderstand and think I’m being an effete intellectual snob (thanks Spiro Agnew). I want to win a Pulitzer. (Better yet, I’d like to turn it down. Now that’s cool!) If the best we can manage is Jason Miller, maybe we should find another name for an organization that sucks up grant money (your tax dollars) faster than a Dirt Devil and with about as much purpose.

The Jason Miller Project recently had a play writing competition and it turns out no one else has heard of him either because they had no entrants. (I wonder where the grant money went.) When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, some old bag once said. When life gives you Jason Miller, think of someone else! There are far more influential people from NEPA than Father Damian. Or better yet, instead of a foolish and blind chauvinism for a local yokel, how about latching on to someone a little more reputable and renowned who just may not be from here. Does it really make a difference? Couldn’t the Arthur Miller Project be in NEPA? Maybe the problem is with trying to please the people in charge of hand-outs. Maybe the money grubbers are figuring a way to finagle that they think is fool-proof. (The Bernard Madoff Project?) Maybe they’re right. I hope not. It would seem that if we want to encourage dramatists in this part of the universe, what we call the organization, isn’t important. It’s the work it does that is. And the money needs to get to the people who need it, not some “Project” and the people who dreamed it up. Do you suppose some young playwright would rather identify with Jason Miller than Arthur Miller? Let’s see … I could be like Jason Miller and vomit my dinner at the corner of Mulberry and Wyoming … that’s cool. Or I could marry someone like Marilyn Monroe and write a play like “Death of a Salesman” … hmm … decisions, decisions …. Jason who?

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