Farewell then, Winston Spencer-Churchill (a reminiscence)
I once won something in a radio quiz. This was in 1984.
Mark Simone, a snotty, smarter-than-thou deejay on WNEW-AM, said “What do Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill have in common?” Other than the fact that they are [after a fashion] English, he elaborated. “First caller with the right answer wins a dinner for two at the Red Blazer Too! ”
Impusively I rang up. “Spencer!” I shouted.
“What?!” said Mark. I think someone had fed him the question from The Big Book of Radio Promotion Ideas.
But of course I was right, and now the proud recipient of a next-to-useless voucher at a sawdusty dive on the Upper East Side. The voucher was not good for drinks, or valid after 8pm. I couldn’t find anyone to go with me except a chirpy Oklahoma girl in my standup-comedy circle. So we trotted up to East 88th Street or wherever, and had a lousy meal and a couple of drinks in this vast, barnlike, near-empty room with a band platform.
It was about 7pm, and we were the only patrons. This was one of those joints that catered to old duffers who liked to go see “Dixieland Jazz” and related brands of “live music” played by guys who wore straw boaters and sleeve garters and had names like Dub. These venues were a big 60s fad (Your Father’s Mustache, Mickie Finn’s, et al.), now surviving on twofers, radio promotions, and other forms of life support.
I believe my “prize” ended up costing me twenty dollars, counting the tip. My fellow comedienne treated it all as a hilarious adventure. I kept thinking how it was so totally emblematic of my life, like the time I was all alone on Christmas and had a ham sandwich for dinner. My life would always be like this, I was certain. And I was right.
February 27th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
Correction, please. I did indeed answer Mark Simone’s question this way. However, there was no prize. I won the “prize” late in the summer of ‘84 when another deejay, Mr. Jim Lowe, noted that it was the anniversary of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (August 1939). Question: Who were at the time the foreign ministers of the following four countries–the USSR, Germany, Italy, USA?
The first two were easy, because their names provide the usual title of the aforementioned pact. The Italian is memorable because he was Mussolini’s son-in-law. But I am still astonished that I was able to provide the name of the American Secretary of State in August 1939. For what purpose did I save up the name of that nonentity?