Created by June Morrall
Dear Mr. Video Professor,
I know youâre from the âold schoolâ? and your tv sales pitch is directed to computer illiteratesâbut I am sick and tired of you, the lady and the three- year- old daughter who knows more about computers than all of you.
BTW: If the kid exists at all, sheâs probably in juvenile hall by now awaiting sentencing.
Isn’t it time for a new commercial with real computer geeks and nerds? Iâll probably learn to hate that one as much but at least itâll be a change.
What’s the story here?
Many years ago I produced/wrote a 60-minute documentary called âThe Mystery of Half Moon Bayâ?.
The way I pitched the project and sold it made me feel like a waitress at Schwabs discovered by a famous Hollywood producer.
Okay, maybe thatâs way too romantic.
I was passionate about my idea of putting the colorful Coastside** on the small screenâand I appeared at the offices of KCSM-TV in San Mateo, landed an appointment with Stewart Cheifet, the general managerâand I can still visualize myself seated on the opposite side of Cheifetâs desk, a very serious look on his face as he took an egg timer and turned it upside down.
(Photo: Stewart Cheifet)
âYouâve got three minutes,â? he told me, sternly. I noted he had one of those fine broadcast voices, honey-coated.
Maybe it was really one minute and maybe it wasnât an egg timer but one of those little glass âthingiesâ? with sand inside that tells how much time has passed by dripping grains of sand.
Iâd never produced or written a script for a documentaryâI was just a noviceâbut I had a brave, bold soul and I was in love with Half Moon Bay. Apparently that feeling got across to Stewart Cheifet because, to my total surprise, I got the âgoâ? signal. *
To make the hour show, I was paid a tiny sum but I happily spent nearly a year of my life absorbed with it. I was assigned to work with longtime director Rick Zanardi, and cameraman Jim Threlkeld– and we went out in the field to shoot this doc. They were experienced and great to work with.
What I most regret now is that I didnât have the financial means to keep the raw footageâthere were some oldtimers, now gone, interviewed on those precious tapes, gone forever.
Before âMystery of Half Moon Bayâ? aired on KCSM, there was a premiere at the Pete Douglas Beach House in Miramar Beach. I was so nervous I didnât go into the concert room where âMysteryâ? was being shown on a huge tv screen, donated via the contacts of Coastsider John Essa.
I loved the show and its theme– that Half Moon Bayâs historical failures were actually the reason for its success. KCSMâs publicist took ads out in TV Guide and there were newspaper interviews. Before vanishing from the screen, âThe Mystery of Half Moon Bayâ? was aired several times.
For a long time my copy of âMysteryâ? sat with my books on a dusty shelf.
One day I was invited to a meeting organized by the folks who founded MCTV, the local access station. To me the words âlocal accessâ? seem painfully bureaucratic words that donât convey anything meaningfulâcertainly not what the founders intended: a tv station where local talent could produce shows and have the creative result seen by Coastsiders.
The small group met at the Half Moon Bay library. Thatâs where I encountered Connie Malach and her husband Mike. Theyâd recently moved from San Francisco to El Granada.
MCTV was just being born and Connie and Mike didnât own a vast video library; they didnât have a lot of shows to air. When I told them I had a tape of âThe Mystery of Half Moon Bayâ?, they were excited. Yes, they wanted to air it. Almost immediately âMysteryâ? (with permission from KCSM) hit the local airwaves.
And Coastsiders loved it.
When MCTV hosted their first âSeals of Approvalâ? award ceremonies at the glamorous golf course south of Half Moon Bay, âThe Mystery of Half Moon Bayâ? won a âsealâ? for the most popular show!
A most thrilling moment in my life.
My MCTV trophy sits proudly on my bookcase, a symbol of the mutual affection between the Coastside and me.
The “Seal of Approval” for most popular show. The photo doesn’t do justice to the beautiful slick mammal.: 
*Stewart Cheifet injected a tremendous dose of optimism and much-needed change into KCSM-TV.Whoever hired him should receive an award. As the new GM, Cheifet had the staff going out into the real world for the first time. They were following politicians running for office and suggesting ideas that would have been nixed before. Stewart Cheifet was innovator and everyone at the station came to life–I know because I was a witness to it.
**I had written a book about HMB, had lots of photos, developed an outline for the show, submitted letters of recommendation & etc.)
At San Gregorio Farms, in the 1970s, the main crops weren’t artichokes or chocolate milk cows.
What do you think it was?
I’ll give you one guess…..Nope.
How about a super-agricultural earthworm, a hybrid called “the small miracle”?
The 300-acre ranch at San Gregorio had its quota of conventional farm animals: chickens, ducks, horses, cows, pigs and ponies but the 1970s was the decade of “everything to do with gardening”–organic compost, crocheted potted plant hangers, ferns, ferns, ferns–and so the earthworm, long neglected as a soil enchancing creature, slithered to its very brief moment of glory.
I knew the owners, Channing and Corri Pollock, because my Ex, a talented contractor, turned their woodworking concepts into reality. The Pollocks visited their ranch often, spending days and evenings there–but actually lived in a unusual home overlooking the sea in Moss Beach.
They were an extraordinary couple. He had been a tuxedo-ed magician whose magical spells made his white doves vanish on the wildly popular Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950s and she was a beautiful, artistic and wealthy woman. Now retired, they were drawn to the soil.
“We want you to meet a small miracle,” the San Gregorio Farms pamphlet explained.
“Our most fascinating work is with our domesticated earthworms…and related soil improvement research. We cultivate on a large commercial basis a rugged hybrid species of earthworm uniquely suited to gardening, orchard and farming methnods….”
These hearty creatures were not like fleas performing tricks at the circus; they were hard workers.
In order to get the word out as to how valuable these critters were, the Pollocks signed up for a large display booth at the legendary rock impressario Bill Graham’s “World of Plants” exhibition held at the Cow Palace.
Channing recognized the theatrical possibilities.
The entire event had to be choreographed. Corri designed the brown costumes, even the shoes (see photo of Roland Reese pointing to a custom-made container.) for the booth attendants who answered the public’s questions with the hope of selling worms. The Pollocks intended to spend full time at the trade show and to be comfortable they brought exquisite furniture from their Moss Beach living room. Oriental rug. Coffee table. Couch.
Constructing the display booth turned into a monumental task because the Pollocks required the booth to be hand-carved, using only the earthworm as the motif. Throughout the space, the earthworm was the dominant theme.
Even the redwood containers, home to the earthworms, were custom-made, including one in the photo that looks like a pyramid. The budget buyer carried his or her earthworms home in a clever simulation of a Chinese take-out box.
During the final inspection of the booth, the Pollocks, to their horror, noted the main wall of the booth was blank. Emergency! It needed something quick. A mural?
How about a life-size photo of a pair of beautiful young people holding the reins of super earthworms a they till the soil.
Mark and Flower looked just great–they were a gorgeous couple often asked to model. Michael Powers, the Miramar Beach photographer, took pictures of them in the flower fields of Half Moon Bay or riding on the white sandy beaches. But they’d never shared the camera with earthworms before. (See photo of Mark and Flower below).
San Gregorio Farms was the talk of the Bill Graham “World of Plants” exhibition but the hybrid earthworms never were launched as a business. Everything the Pollocks did they did with style and grace–and the earthworm caper was no exception.
Note: Channing Pollock passed away at age 79 in Las Vegas on Sunday, March 19. His wife, Corri died a few years ago in Moss Beach.
(All photos–June)
Commuting Coastsiders are holding their breath….but officials say it’s only temporary, a matter of hours– intermission time at Devil’s Slide.
I guess you should know that I will miss the old Devil’s Slide route. Thinking about getting stuck in traffic inside a tunnel makes me feel helplessly claustrophobic. I hope they put in skylights and picture windows!
(Photo above shows a rock slide at Devil’s Slide decades ago)
In the mid-1990s storms closed Devil’s Slide for several months. Closed the road. With my friend and neighbor, Peter Logan, we drove as close as we could get to the “Slide”, parked the car and walked the rest of the way, a thrilling experience. Then we could go no further–Peter’s photo shows the reason why:
âDown the Ocean Shoreâ?*âFrom “San Francisco: A Chapter in Your Life”, a pamphlet encouraging people to visit California after WWII, published by Californians, Inc, 1946. I inserted the photos by R. Guy Smith.
(âS1â? = Highway 1âautomobile tour begins near Sharp Park, Pacifica, then proceeds south to Half Moon Bay and Pescadero).
.â? â¦On S1 you follow in reverse the way of the Portola expedition up coast in 1769, expedition that discovered San Francisco Bay, led to settlement of San Francisco in 1776.
“Near mouth of San Pedro Creek, 8.1 m, guarded by lofty San Pedro Point, Portola expedition camped by an Indian village Oct. 31, feasted on mussels pried from rocks. Portola sent Sgt. Ortega with party to scout eastward. As they climbed to top of ridge they saw vast expanse of San Francisco Bay, never before seen by white men. Here, in Pedro Valley, begin fields of silver-green artichokes which supply bulk of this delicacy for nation.
(Photo at right): Montara Lighthouse
“Montara, 12.3m, with its Lighthouse, U.S. Navy Radio Compass Station and U.S. Navy Anti-Aircraft Gunnery School, is a land checkered with fields that supply as many as 20,000,000 blossoms of everlasting flowers annually. Coast from this point on is said to closely resemble that of Bay of Biscay. Off-shore from cluster of houses that makes Moss Beach, 13.6m, are strangely beautiful marine gardens.”
(Photo at left): anti-aircraft gunnery school
(Photo at right): “Marine” gardens at Moss Beach
…to be continued…
Soprano, that is.
Star of the HBO hit, The Sopranos.
For almost two weeks now, Tony has been lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a gaggle of life-saving equipment. With a huge ugly hole in his stomach from the bullet wound inflicted by his senile Uncle Junior.
Tony’s in an induced coma. Last week all I saw from my side of the hi def screen was his big chest rising and falling as some medical machine helps him to breathe. Emotionally drained wife Carmella, and son, Anthony, and daughter, Med, visit; together or separately they sleep in the room with “Tone”– they talk to the unconscious body in the hospital bed and they play his favorite rock ‘n roll tunes.
But Tony’s dreaming. He’s dreaming a weird story about some guy who’s accidentally taken his identiy– when, through a mix-up at a bar, far from home, this guy picked up Tony’s briefcase (identical to his own), the briefcase filled with Tony’s credit cards, driver’s license, etc. How’s he going to get on the plane without showing his driver’s license, he asks Carmella during a frustrating phone call. That’s what he’s dreaming about…
From the beginning, from the very first show, I became a Sopranos fan. And the family became very real to me.
A couple of Soprano seasons ago, Tony was cheating on Carmella with a beautiful, young Russian lover, and his wife found out and her price for peace was a summer vacation in Rome. With her girlfriends. Where was she going to stay? She told us tv viewers that she was going to stay at the elegant Hassler Hotel.
The Hassler is not a made-up hotel for tv–it’s a real hotel, set high on a hill.
A few months later we (Burt & I) were traveling to Europe, to Italy, and where did I want to stay? The Hassler Hotel–that’s where Carmella stayed, I remembered.
And when we arrived at the Hassler and were enjoying a drink in the intimate patio, I summoned the courage to ask our waiter: “Did Carmella Soprano stay here?”
He looked at me cockeyed. I couldn’t believe it. “You know,” I said gently, but with a bit of a push, “The Sopranos, the HBO show…Tony’s wife, Carmella, said she staying here for the summer.”
He had no idea what I was talking about. Not even the great HBO rang a bell.
Later an American friend who lives in Europe emailed me asking about the Sopranos. At that time it wasn’t on tv over there, he said, and he knew it was a hot cable series. When he was in New York he’d seen a few of the early episodes. He was anxious to talk about the characters and the plots. Could I tell him what the current episodes were about?
Which brings me back to Tony lying in a coma in that hospital bed. I hope he’s okay, I hope he’s doing fine. I hope he’s going to live.
Update: Did I hear right? In the last or next-to-the-last episode of the Soprano’s 2006 season, did I hear Carmella say to Tony that she never got to Rome? Never got to Rome that summer several episodes earlier? No wonder nobody knew who Carmella Soprano was when I was staying at the Hassler Hotel. Mystery solved.
Channing Pollock, world class magician, movie star but most of all a spiritual person.
(My photo of Channing taken at San Gregorio Farms in the 1970s)
After Captain Peabody telegraphed the New Yorkâs owners, the Luckenbach Brothers, headquartered on the New York, giving them details of the shipwreck at Half Moon Bay, the tug Reliance arrived from San Francisco but was unable to get within a half -mile of the stranded vessel.
On March 14, 1898, the day after the wreck, Peabody, Callip and six sailors made several trips to the ship to retrieve personal possessions, including Claireâs parrotâbut the last effort ended with disaster.
âWhen the lifeboat was halfway to the beach,â? Claire wrote, âa breaker hit it broadside. Father, Mr. Callip and the sailors were thrown into the surfâ¦The boat was abandoned and the men with the assistance of ropes thrown from shore managed to make their way through the surf to safetyâ¦It was then that gentle Mr. Callip had a hemorrhage from the lungs.â?
Callip immediately received first aid on the scene, and was âroundly applaudedâ? by the people of Half Moon Bay for his heroism, but he needed round-the-clock medical care and was taken to San Franciscoâs Marine Hospital where he died two months later.
The Coastsiders were so charmed by Thomas, Clara and little Claire Peabody that the family was invited to stay in Half Moon Bay at the home of Mr. and Mrs. George SchaefferâGeorge was the editor of the townâs newspaper. They had become local celebrities and their presence was demanded everywhere.
âI have many pleasant recollections of your good old dad,â? George Schaeffer wrote Claire Peabody in 1941. âI salvaged a goodly sized keg of old Jamaica rum from the wreck, and I remember how many times we tested it to see if the sea water had spoiled itâ¦â?
Stuck hard and fast on the sands of Half Moon Bay, the New York was dismantled quickly and efficiently. Much of what was salvageable was bought by Joseph Debenedetti, a well known Half Moon Bay entrepreneur.
Afterwards, for days, the beach was crowded with buggies and wagons as people from all over San Mateo County came to see the shipwreck, picking up souvenirs such as firecrackers that had floated to shore.
The iron vessel New York, the unlucky ship that failed to revolutionize the shipping industry, settled into a watery grave at Half Moon Bayâand while it left a bitter memory for sailors the world over, the shipwreck of the New York was a sweeter moment for the isolated Coastsiders, the taste of an unforgettable adventure.
THE END