Friends Doing Well

Within the past few days two of my friends have had significant career achievements that I wanted to mention.

I wrote about Paul, who I’ve known since 1969, winning a DVD award. Now, I have a photo to prove it. That’s Paul Brownstein with Dick Van Dyke (Paul calls the project the DVD-DVD) whose commentary, along with Carl Reiner’s, had more than a little to do with Paul’s win.

I also heard from Marcia Mule. Before I go on, let me tell you you’re mispronouncing her name. It’s Mar-see Mew-lay. Much better!

Marcia, and her partner, are producing a new series on Bravo, “Celebrity Poker Showdown.” There’s a subject near and dear to my heart. In the first episode, the two best players left early, beaten by a lucky hand. Unfortunately, the two best players were fairly big names, David Schwimmer and Ben Affleck.

Still, the show held my interest, though the poker was far from well played. Alan Pergament wrote a nice article about Marcia and the show in the Buffalo News.

I know Marcia because she was one of our producers at PM Magazine/Buffalo back in the very early 80s. I remember how nice she was then, and how nice her parents were. Back in those days, when I was willing to appear on TV without a shirt (I don’t even shower without a shirt now), Marcia’s family used to let us use their pool as a location. Those shoots were wonderful.

Marcia and I spent too many days in too many Dodge vans in too much Buffalo snow. I am glad that her production company is getting work and hope she’s making huge money and becoming very happy.