By the time I went to work for Fred, I had a few months of IT experience under my belt and wasn’t completely incompetent. My friend Tony at the Apple Store gave me the referral before they implemented standards. I showed up at Fred’s and got down to business.
What I didn’t know was that Fred had a legendary temper. He used it on me that first day, and it wasn’t even my fault. Fred was old school, dragged unwillingly into the computer age, thinking a user-friendly Mac was actually user-friendly. It wasn’t. And Fred’s fuse was short and lit. He didn’t believe in counting to ten. He blew up, and I happened to be in the blast radius. I don’t recall what he said, but I can still feel it twenty years and a thousand miles away.
I didn’t know what to do. I needed the money, but I didn’t want to be a doormat. “Let’s just see what happens next time.” I stuck around, and he became a dear and lifelong client. I was with him through the first Lindsay, the second Lindsay, and the non-Lindsay who assisted him in between. I got to know his wife Cathy and daughter Melissa. I may even have spoken to his son Billy, who opened a burrito stand I meant to visit but never did.
Fred yelled at me on more than one occasion, and I took it. I was using him as a sparring partner, to help me learn to absorb blows. I discovered he was really a teddy bear. And that some people with horrible tempers are worth knowing and being around. I learned how to trigger Vesuvius without fearing the eruption. I genuinely liked him, and he liked me. He knew I had his back.
Fred passed away in the lead-up to the pandemic. Lindsay (the second one) was organizing the eulogies, and I asked if I could say something. She said yes, as long as Bob okayed my script.
Bob, as in Bob Cooper, famed studio executive. I didn’t know who he was at the time, so I just wrote the thing the way I wanted to say it.
I knew right away what I would talk about. Melissa’s dog, Birdie. Birdie was a sweet little canine Phyllis Diller. You know, white hair standing up on end like she’d been struck by lightning, with a nervous system to go along with it. Fred loved that dog and doted on her like he was somebody’s mama.
Bob approved, enthusiastically.
Rob Reiner and Dick Van Dyke opened for me at the memorial, but only because they front-loaded the headliners. I’m not sure whose idea that was, but it was backwards and wrong. At least I get to say that Rob Reiner and Dick Van Dyke opened for me at Fred Silverman’s memorial. I assume Billy was there, too, but I can’t for the life of me remember one thing about him besides the burrito stand, and how difficult it is to find parking in that part of town.
Melissa asked me not to introduce myself to Dick Van Dyke, but then afterwards changed her mind. Good thing, because I’ve been a fan since I was four years old, and I needed to tell him so. He was very gracious about it and was glad I didn’t want my money back.
If you’d only known blow-up Fred, you’d say there’s no way it was the same Fred. But it was. When it was my turn, I read the script word for word rather than memorize or riff off it like I would now. I was nervous, stilted, and unpolished. Everyone at the memorial nodded along, because I was right. You couldn’t just look at one side or the other and say “this is Fred.” Bite Your Head Off Fred and Kiss on the Doggie Fred were one and the same.
Bob thought it was great, and so did Cathy, but one of these days I’m going to set up a camera and record it the way it should have been.
Somewhere, God (and my wife) knows where, is a three-ring binder copy of Fred’s unpublished autobiography. He thought it was a kick that I wanted to read it. He wrote me a personal, self-deprecating message of encouragement inside. I saw it just the other day, when we moved everything from cardboard to clear plastic boxes. That’s how lousy a reader (and friend) I am. I read part of the autobiography before setting it aside for a better day. Now I want to read it, but I can’t say for sure I’ll make it past where I got to last time. The writing is good, the reader is bad. I know deep in my heart that Penny will find it in a clear box in the garage.
Maybe we’ll stop at Billy’s burrito stand next time we’re in LA, assuming it’s still there.
When I die, with or without an autobiography of my own, after the bagpiper wows the guests with the first-ever rendition of Amazing Grace at a Jewish boy’s funeral, I hope my body goes missing just like Fred Silverman’s autobiography, and that God only knows where I end up.