I Beg Your Pardon

I Beg Your Pardon

        Good, bad, or indifferent, towards my efforts as a communicator during my past forty-seven years of endurance within what many of you wrongly refer to as “show business”. In 1951, I stumbled on a book by Al Hirschfeld entitled “Show Business is No Business”. Admittedly, I didn’t grasp what the well-traveled Mr. Hirschfeld was getting at.

        It was seventy-one years ago. A much younger man about town named Harvey Kalmenson was eighteen and had recently graduated from high school here in Los Angeles. I had two goals—I was going to either become a professional baseball player or become a big-time operator in the magical world of entertainment, or the “attainment” industry.

        Three years passed, and I returned from Korea and the army; “Let the banging of one’s head into this new world of “No Business” begin”. And so, now at the magnificent age of nineteen and void of any near great mental eruptions taking place, an uneventful— sometimes successful—lifetime adventure began taking shape. Or so I thought! Age twenty-one. Love, luck, or skill?

da harv, 2021

In testament to transformation
All was right
At age eighty-nine, how divine!
Once more
Too many to recall
I’ve been asked
How I might describe
My pursuits
Those I’ve dared taking
During my life’s travels
Banging my head against the proverbial wall
As a rabid dog might
In search of whatever
Vainly travailing, consistently in wants
Even the smallest morsel
Considered to be success
Even if remotely stumbling upon it

Many are told
Be careful what you ask for
Many don’t ever ask
In fear they might be a receiver

“Sex burns calories, but you gotta move. But that shouldn’t be your only reason for gleaning from the experience! Luck rules the world!”

HK

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