500 Sundays (Crystal)
Catching up on this year's readings, so far. Not that there's much of it.
500 Sundays was the name of Billy Crystal's one-man Broadway show, telling stories about growing up with his father, and life after that. The title comes from the fact that his father's one day off was Sunday, which he spent with his kids. Unfortunately, he died when Billy was only 14, which meant that they only had about 500 Sundays together. He doesn't go into every one of these. In fact, there's plenty that happens on weekdays at the Commodore Music Store in Manhattan.
I saw Crystal's show, so reading this was almost like reading a transcript of the show. I remembered quite a few of the stories, in particular, the fact that the first time he was in a movie theater, he was sitting on Billie Holiday's lap. Dad was in the music biz, particularly around Jazz. Billy Crystal grew up in that show-biz environment.
A lot of heart-warming stories are contained within, and it's an interesting contrast to two biogrpaphies I read recently: one by Don Rickles and the other by Martin Short. I guess I like reading about funny guys, even when their lives aren't all that funny.
The book continues past the 500 Sundays of the title and continues with his growing up, getting into show business, and, of course, life with his mother. The end of the book comes with two tragic events. I'm not giving much away to say that dealing with the grief of his mother's passing is the first one. The other is 9-11. Actually, there was anecdote from the show abut 9/11 that he left out of the book. Maybe it wasn't a good note to end the book on. (I think it came earlier in the show, because it involved meeting then-President Bush.)
One of the reasons I remember his story involving Bush and, believe it or not, Regis Philbin, was because I heard him tell it on a morning radio show in the months after 9/11. When he told it in the show, he changed the payoff line, which admittedly wasn't incredibly funny in its original form, to one that took a shot at Bush. That might've been funny in 2005, but it would not have been something he could've said to the President during a World Series game in 2001. It's just as well he omitted it.
Anyway, it's a sweet, fun read that drops quite a bit of names and gives you a bit of background about Crystal.
For my own notes: this was a hardcover book, not an ebook. I picked it up at a library sale.
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