Is it name-dropping if no one has a clue whose name it is that you’re dropping? I am the first to admit that Lorraine Brodek is one such name…thus the title of my book A Nobody in a Somebody World. But Dr. Elmo Shropshire? Dr. Elmo who?
Starting right about the time kids are in the midst of their Halloween sugar highs, the musical airwaves begin pelting haggard parents with Chipmunks squeaking the Christmas Song and Jimmy Boyd high-pitching I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. But my personal favorite is when Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer starts bringing the real message home. Go Grandma! Better to be taken out buzzed and happy on eggnog by a rogue reindeer than hooked up to a feeding tube at the geezer home. Go Elmo! No…he’s not the red, furry, falsetto-giggling Muppet monster.. he’s Dr. Elmo Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer Shropshire. My guee-tar strummin’-singin’ hero.
So you can imagine my excitement when Tom invited Elmo and his shy wife Pam up to meet me and share some margaritas following the guys’ weekly Pasture Golf game (please see my blog on Pasture Golf). Elmo started the conversation off by reciting some direct quotes from my Savage Bees and Porno and Public TV chapters in my book. I was almost as speechless as Shy Pam is before two margaritas. Now here’s the clincher…Elmo was in Hasegawa General Store in Hana and bought Nobody in a Somebody World two weeks before he even met Tom. He was going on and on about how much he loves the book as much as I love his singing about Grandma being the victim of a hit and run by a reindeer (my guess is it was probably Blitzen). But most importantly…Elmo wanted me to know that Hasegawa’s was sold out of my book!
So next day, after going to the Post Office, I stopped by to see if owner Neil Hasegawa was in his store. He was. I went up to his office above the cash register which is directly across from the books-for-sale shelf where my Nobody SKU slot was empty. Neil stood up from his desk…to be cont’d. Stay tuned for next week’s blog.
Lorraine is a former needlecraft designer who formed her own company (Fingerworks, Inc.)
during the 1970’s and 80’s. With this marketing experience, she ventured back into her chosen
field of film and television and rose up the ranks as an executive with Warner Bros. (Time-Warner). She is also a landscaping professional, author, humorist and artist. She has published four books: “The Tale of Peeky Peeper” (a fun children’s rhyming Holiday book, which she also illustrated); followed by her humorous memoir, “A Nobody in a Somebody World: My Hollywood Life in Beverly Hills.” Playfulness is the theme in whatever she does, as you’ll see in the two versions of her puzzle-like charted coloring books: “Griddles.” When she’s not creating something, you’ll find this 82 year-old grandma whacking a Pickle Ball, teaching movie
history, testing new recipes on her husband, Tom, or serving on the board of the Del Webb Performing Arts Center in Wickenburg, AZ.