Conversation with a Dentist

by Willam Blinn

The occasion was a family visit, a return to the hometown to see old friends and roll back in time with a barrage of memories. That’s all you need to know. That, and the fact that this visit brought me into conversation with a pleasant man who spent his life in the Midwest as a dentist. The man led a busy and productive life that lacked the trappings of glamour and adventure, but one which nevertheless deserved respect and in which he took a certain amount of understandable pride. Still, the respective worlds in which he and I functioned were a number of light-years apart. While the wire services do tug at our awareness in regard to box office grosses and television ratings, they do not carry updates about dental implants and cavity prevention. As a result, he had a great deal of curiosity about my world while I was distinctly disinterested in his. It’s called elitism. I’m good at it.

            “So, you’re a TV producer, is that right? That’s what your sister told me.”

            “That’s right.”

            “What is that?”

            “What’s what?”

            “What is it that you do? I mean, what does a producer do? A writer writes, I get that part. A director directs and I guess that’s putting the camera where the camera ought to be and telling the actors where to go and what hand gestures to use and all that. Isn’t that pretty much it?”

The doctor wasn’t a young man, but his question was offered with such straightforward innocence that it required care and concern in framing the reply. Gene Reynolds would have been proud of me as I detailed the subtle pressures thrust upon a director, the balancing of budget and ego, the long hours and limited prep time. He listened patiently, emitting grunts that indicated there were items he hadn’t known about and that this directing thing was clearly a more challenging task than he knew about. But after a time he shook his head, indicating some impatience with my litany of action-cut-print.

            “It was the producers I asked about,” he said. “I still don’t understand what it is they do. I guess I mean I don’t understand what it is you do. At any rate, that’s what your sister told me you do.”

            “Well, that’s true.”

            “Okay, then. When you go to work in the morning and you walk into wherever it is you go, to do whatever in the hell it is that you do, just what’s the first thing you do when you get there?”

In the back of my mind I kept hearing the voice of Lou Costello asking Bud Abbott about who gets the paycheck for the first baseman. (“Who does?” “That’s right. Sometimes his wife comes down to get it.” “Who’s wife?” “Exactly.”) But I plunged on, nevertheless, offering thoughts about selection of cast, choices regarding those who would affect the visual texture of the show, options that might enhance the post production process and on and on. All in all, I thought I’d done a fairly good job, detailed yet to the point.

            My dentist friend looked impressed. “And all those people do that?”

            “All what people?”

            “At the end of a lot of shows I see, even the ones that only last a half hour and are based in one room, they show all those names. They’re all listed out as producers, and based on what you say a producer does, it must take a whole lot of folks to do all that.”

            The spirit of Leonard Stern landed on my shoulders. Kicked me hard behind the ear. “Well, they don’t actually do all the things I just told you about.”

            “But is says they’re producers.”

            “It does.”

            “And you told me a producer was a guy who did such and such and so and so.”

            “That’s what I said, yes.”

            “Well, if those people don’t do what you said, then how can they call themselves producers?” I’m not sure how long the stillness following his question went on, but once he realized my silence was going to constitute my reply, the good dentist went on. “There are times in my line of work when I have to take out teeth but I suppose a hockey player has that capability too, but no one calls him a dentist for doing it. There are standards and skills and knowledge I have that he doesn’t. It’s sort of required that a person who gets to be called a dentist has a minimum amount of study and experience and talent. Isn’t it the same way with whatever it is you do for a living?”

I just shook my head.

            “You Hollywood people are hard to figure,” he said.

I changed the topic then, mainly because I had no answer to his questions. That, coupled with the fact that I truly dislike attempting to defend the indefensible. Neither do I enjoy the vague sense of shame that arises when the industry of which I’m a part is shown to be utterly lacking in courage and creativity when it comes to dealing with this problem. It makes us all look collectively like self-serving jerks. It provided sufficient motive for me to bail and avoid defending the absurdity.

I’m good at that.