Master of Ceremonies

Twenty years ago I would never have envisioned myself where I stood last Friday, serving as Master of Ceremonies for a local non-profit fund-raising event and roasting thirty contestants in a History Bee -- proof positive that skills which one thinks are alien to him can, with boldness and practice, be acquired (excepting, at least in my case, those which demand a modicum of hand-eye coordination).

The best public speakers are those who, through some subtle combination of sparkling wit, provocative wisdom, and empathetic warmth, entertain as well as instruct, who effortlessly render their preachments as pure performance, who stalk their podiums and platforms like seasoned soliloquists -- attributes which explain the seamless transition of Ronald Reagan from thespian to politician and of any number of stand-up comedians from night clubs to the silver screen.

My own brief acting career was hardly a harbinger of future stage presence. Seeking an antidote to low self-esteem and a broader social network, with no prior experience, I tried out for the E.C. Glass 1965 Senior Play -- which, I believe, had something to do with Henry Aldrich -- surmising that, with ten male speaking parts up for grabs, I could surely land one of them. Alas, so did eleven of my classmates, and, when the music stopped, the gamesman left without a chair was none other than your faithful chronicler.

When the drama teacher, the legendary, ceremonious spinster, Ms. Virginia Wiley, apparently taking pity on this dejected outcast, offered me the consolation prize of serving as understudy to the lead, Russell C., a perennial star whose talents had won him the favor and company of a bevy of beautiful girls, I scorned the fruitless exercise of memorizing hundreds of lines and haughtily declined, preferring instead to work as Ms. Wiley's superfluous assistant.

I got my comeuppance two weeks later, however, when poor Russell was injured in a car accident and the starring role -- which, except for my stubborn pride, would have been mine -- devolved upon a close friend of mine, Macey R., who had another part and already knew most of the lines. (Don't ask who got his part; it wasn't me.)

Years later, another friend scolded me for portraying myself as the victim of this cruel turn of events, when, in fact, the one who suffered most was the wounded Russell C.

From then on, my feeble attempts at public speaking coughed and sputtered like the recalcitrant starter on the 1983 RX-7 I finally sold last month after innumerable towings and repair bills. I tried debating in high school but foundered under a plethora of detail and a lack of spontaneity. I muddled through a course at Washington and Lee taught by the venerable, voluble, beady-eyed William Chapin, but could never quite summon the poise and rhetorical polish to make effective, convincing presentations. I remember trying to roast a college roommate at his rehearsal dinner with some grotesque tale about his passing out in a bathtub -- only to see it drown in incoherence and pathos.

When drafted to toast my father in front of thirty Schewel managers at a semi-retirement luncheon held for him after his cancer diagnosis, I even butchered the tired story of the quick-witted, young grocery clerk who runs to his boss cursing the eccentric customer who wants to buy half a banana, is startled to realize the customer has followed him and overheard his deprecations, and adroitly recovers with the enthusiastic riposte: "And this fine gentleman wants to buy the other half."

My father was well aware of my reluctance to speak in public. When he received the ADL Torch of Liberty Award in 1988, one year before he died, he selected my brother Jack -- ten years my junior -- to represent the family before an audience of two hundred. Jack has an understated, creative sense of humor, and entertained us all with some witty tales of growing up in a household with the remarkable Bert Schewel.

While delivering the eulogy at my father's funeral -- which I wrote about two months ago ("The Power of Love," April 4, 2009) -- led me to believe that, if prepared, I could speak with candor, self-confidence, and relevance, my first real attempt at humor came a few years later at the behest of a very talented roastmaster, a physician friend who asked me to co-host a fund-raising event. I think he saw me as a straight-man foil to his biting commentary, a Southern Jewish counterpoint to the Yankee Italian persona he reveled in.

Not wanting to embarrass myself, I labored diligently, compiling over two thousand words of canned jokes, original quips, and provincial satire, most of which I couldn't use, because there was no opportunity for a monologue and my partner took up most of the time roasting me and members of the audience and auctioning off door prizes.

For source material, after quickly exhausting my own imaginative powers, I turned to a joke book (I now own four, although they have lately been displaced by the Internet, where, with the click of the mouse, one can find a joke on any conceivable subject plus pages of late-night Letterman and Leno humor) and to my father's archives -- a drawer full of speeches which he gave over a period of twenty years, wisely preserved by me when I moved into his office in 1989.

Since my sidekick was a Catholic and a gastroenterologist, three of my father's favorite jokes -- two of which he frequently told about a friend who was a proctologist -- fit the occasion.

"I was late getting here this evening," I said, "because a priest stopped me in the lobby. 'Aren't you Marc Schewel?' he asked. 'Yes, Father, I am, but I don't believe we've met.' 'We haven't,' he said, 'but I've heard a lot about you. Your name comes up in confession all the time.' "

"I found out how Dr. C. gets a lot of his patients. Last week he invited me over to his house for dinner and fixed me a drink consisting of Philips Milk of Magnesia, Welch's Prune Juice, and Smirnoff's Vodka. 'What's this called, Doc?' I asked, to which he replied, 'A piledriver.' "

And then, in a joke which dates itself, since the company mentioned is no longer around, I announced that Dr. C. and I were going into the furniture business together and would be forming a company called "This End Up."

Years later, in introducing Dr. C., I reprised and embellished an old joke I used that night. "Dr. C. is one of the few doctors I know who still makes house calls. Just yesterday he called his house at Wintergreen, his house at Smith Mountain Lake, his house on the north corner of Paddington Court, and his house on the south corner of Paddington Court."

And I thought this remark, which I lifted from a tee shirt given to me because of my fund-raising work for the United Jewish Appeal, captured the essence of Dr. C.'s profession: "After I finally convinced Dr. C. to increase his sponsorship to tonight's dinner, he retorted, 'Okay, Marc, I've upped my pledge; now, up yours.' "

I rarely turn to my father's files these days, although an occasional perusal brings back bittersweet memories. Many of his jokes were topical and timely, and even those that weren't don't read nearly as well as he told them.

Although my father could speak extemporaneously -- and comically -- on a multitude of subjects, I find it instructive that he wrote out his speeches -- or, more likely, dictated to a secretary who typed them up -- and that he saved them all for future reference -- two habits religiously adhered to by his successor.

Inventing jokes is no easy task -- it entails long periods of gazing at the four walls of one's office intermixed with bursts of inspiration -- and my father had a gift for it as well as applying the canned variety to attendant or recognizable individuals and to contemporaneous situations. He would seek out familiar faces in the audience and make them the object of such comments as: "I'm glad to see George here tonight; he always looks good in cheap clothes." Or,"George comes from very humble beginnings. One day I saw him with only one shoe. 'George,' I said, 'did you lose a shoe?' 'No' he said, 'I found one.' "

Schewels strategy of opening stores in small towns gave my father the opportunity to mock places like Williamston, N.C., "which is so small that the City Hall is over a car wash, so small that McDonald's has a sign that says 'only four sold,' so small that the Masons and the Knights of Columbus meet in the same building; they are called Mason-Knights."

As my burgeoning involvement with various non-profit organizations required that I speak or preside before large groups, I began to experiment with injecting my own brand of humor into the proceedings. Most manuals discourage the practice; not every one can tell a joke, or choose one to fit the occasion. While I am certainly no expert, I have developed a basic philosophy which usually serves me well.

Most audiences, at least initially, are conditioned to respect your presence, your willingness to risk your reputation to stand and deliver, and will be attentive to your message. Even if they don't find all (or any) of your remarks funny, they will appreciate your well-intentioned efforts to make them laugh -- especially if you employ a dash of originality.

I write out every speech word-for-word, including the jokes. A joke can rise or fall on the precise arrangement of the words used.

Any joke can flop, which is why I plan several. Chances are at least one will strike a chord with the audience. Besides, I don't have to make every one laugh; a few loud guffaws can arouse the whole crowd.

I try to keep my jokes short and simple. Stand-up comedians make their living off one-liners -- because they avoid hushed anticipations. When I resort to a lengthy canned joke, I edit it down to the fewest possible words.

Relish the moment. Like a runner's high, nothing invigorates me more than establishing a sensory connection with my listeners, knowing that I possess the power to affect their emotions, projecting a love for them that is reflected back upon me.

Speakers, especially those who are going to tell jokes, must be fearless, and never intimidated by deathly silences or the thought of failure. I have always regretted backing away from the following story I wanted to tell several years ago about George W. Bush when it was announced he was coming to the opening of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va.

"He was planning to fly by commercial airline to save money after signing off on his big tax cuts -- until he discovered that a round-trip ticket from Washington, D.C., to Lynchburg, Virginia, on U.S. Airways cost $4635, with intermediate stops in Pittsburgh and Charlotte.

"Then he decided to fly over on Air Force One. His team conducted a trial run at the Lynchburg Airport. The plane touched down safely -- but by the time it came to a full stop, it was in front of the Vines Center on the campus of Liberty University, where stood Reverend Jerry Falwell asking for a contribution to his newest faith-based initiative.

"Next, President Bush did what so many of us do when going to and from Lynchburg; he decided to drive. He directed the FBI to draw up the best route (at the time, the FBI was under fire for a series of egregious errors), and, wouldn't you know it, he ended up in Bedford, Massachusetts. On top of that, the FBI lost the speech he was supposed to give.

"Finally, the President decided he would fly in by helicopter -- until it was ascertained that the only helicopter landing pad in Bedford County was atop the roof of the Jefferson Forest High School." (At the time, it was common knowledge that the roof -- in fact, the entire school -- was in dire need of repair.) "Since landing there didn't seem too good an idea, I am sorry to report that George W. Bush will not be coming to Bedford, Virginia."

I did muster enough courage to tell this joke about Reverend Jerry Falwell (he was alive then) when I received a Chamber of Commerce Award at a breakfast held at Liberty University.

"I was really curious to see the new Thomas Road Baptist Church when it first opened, so I came to a Sunday Service. Afterward, I went up to Reverend Falwell and said, 'Reverend, you have a helluva fine church here.' He replied, 'Thank you, Marc, but I would appreciate it if you wouldn't use profanity in the Lord's House.' 'I'm sorry, Reverend,' I said, 'but I couldn't control myself. And that was a helluva fine sermon you gave.' The Reverend replied, 'Marc, please, I cannot allow you to talk this way in the Church.' 'Sorry, Reverend,' I said, 'but I just wanted you to know that I was so impressed with all I saw and heard today that I put $10,000 in the collection plate.' Dr. Falwell's eyes widened and he exclaimed, 'Marc, that is a damn fine contribution.' "

Finally, I try to prepare my remarks well in advance, to give them time to percolate, to roll around in my brain, to leave openings for sudden flashes of brilliance -- which came to me one week before a scheduled talk at the YWCA Women of Achievement banquet while I was sitting in Randolph College's Smith Hall, ostensibly listening to President John Klein's Inaugural Address.

The context of my opening lines is that, only a month earlier, Presidential candidate Barack Obama had visited Lynchburg and spoken at E.C. Glass High School. When the Democratic organizers had asked Jerry Falwell, Jr., to allow overflow parking at the Plaza, he had refused, supposedly for security reasons.

Thus, I explained to my audience, "This YWCA event had originally been slated for E.C. Glass High School. And, when it was announced that I was to be the keynote speaker, a very large crowd was expected, more than could be accommodated in the parking lot. The YMCA contacted Jerry Falwell, Jr., to ask if the overflow could park at the Plaza. Is anyone surprised that he refused?

"He might have relented if he had known that I, traditionally a Democrat, am voting Republican this year, along with two of my Democratic friends on City Council, Joan Foster and Bert Dodson. Why? Because John McCain has promised to buy up every bad mortgage in the United States, and City Council and I couldn't be happier about that. We are both investors in Bluffwalk -- and if there was ever a mortgage that needed a bailout, that's one." (Of course, after the election, the Obama Administration implemented several programs to assist imperiled mortgage-holders.)

"I see where Jerry Jr. finally broke down and agreed to let a representative of the Obama campaign appear at Liberty University. I thought I would be more likely to snow ski down Liberty Mountain in July than see a Democratic governor speaking on the Liberty campus." (Liberty is building an artificial year-round ski slope.)

"And finally, I'm only here tonight because the YWCA's first choice, Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, couldn't make it. She accepted the invitation but while driving down to Lynchburg from Northern Virginia, she took the Charlottesville bypass. Someone forgot to tell her it was the Road to Nowhere."

Sometimes a throw-away line gets the biggest laugh. When I received the NCCJ Humanitarian Award in 1999, I began my acceptance speech with the innocuous (and honest) comment that I had been on the committee that had selected all the honorees, including myself. It brought down the house.

Conversely, for the aforementioned YWCA dinner, I had composed a painstaking revisionist history of Lynchburg, inventing eight famous females who had made significant contributions to its past -- including my piece de resistance, Reverend Geraldine Falwell, "a true visionary, who launched her career on television, hosting the Old Time Good Smell Hour, a cooking show during which she shared her favorite recipes. She always delivered a moving prayer before partaking of her selected delicacy. One day a viewer called in and said, 'Geraldine, your prayers are a lot tastier than your dishes. Maybe you should take up preaching full-time.' And the rest is history."

Alas, not one of these cleverly-conceived mini-biographies elicited even a chuckle.

My most memorable engagement took place four years ago when I joined Governor Mark Warner, former Attorney-General Jerry Kilgore, and WSET anchorman Jeff Taylor at the Holiday Inn Select to roast local Virginia delegate Preston Bryant, a Republican who had bolted the party ranks to craft a budget agreement with Governor Warner which included a tax increase.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to skewer not just Delegate Bryant, but the other dignitaries in attendance -- as well as a host of local personalities.

"And what was I doing in that illustrious group? Well, Crisis Line (for whose benefit this event was being held) wanted at least one person at the podium who would pay his own way."

I chastised the Governor and Delegate Bryant for their tax increase, explaining to them that their compensatory sales tax reduction on food didn't do me much good, "because I don't buy that much food. I'm like a politician; someone usually buys me lunch and dinner. If you lawmakers really wanted to help the workingman, you should roll back the sales tax on furniture."

I announced that "our City Fathers have decided to name the long-awaited Crosstown Connector" -- which still hasn't been built and probably never will be -- "in honor of Martin Luther King. Of course, by then, it will be called the Martin Luther King VI Highway."

I told Delegate Bryant why his Republican comrade, State Senator Steve Newman, was boycotting the celebration. "He became very suspicious when he heard it was a gala event. 'None of them are getting married, are they?' he asked."

Since candidate Kilgore had proposed a statewide referendum on taxes (An absurd non-starter; who's going to vote for higher taxes?), I told him that "I conducted a poll of the audience prior to dinner and found only two persons who favored higher taxes -- and they were both sitting beside him. We could take care of that easily, however: just gerrymander them into Tennessee. These two fellows are too weird for Virginia anyway; they actually like roads, bridges, schools, and garbage collection."

I told Kilgore that our mayor -- who was under investigation for fraud and nonpayment of taxes -- was disappointed in his proposal to cap property taxes at five per cent. "He was hoping for a moratorium."

Then I turned to Governor Warner, "whom I had the honor of meeting tonight for the first time. It's not easy meeting a person of power and influence -- but he handled it well.

"Governor Warner, some people get you mixed up with that other Virginia Warner, John. In fact, I did a survey of the audience tonight and found out that fifty per cent voted for you because they thought you were John Warner and fifty per cent voted against you because they thought you were Marc Schewel."

And in a joke which didn't go over as well as I thought it would, in reference to our current mayor's problems, I said about Governor Warner (whom some suspected would run for President; he never did, of course) that there has been a lot of speculation as to what he intends to do after leaving office, and, therefore, "after our conversation over dinner, it gives me great pleasure to reveal tonight that in 2008 he will be following in the footsteps of past Virginia statesmen and announcing his candidacy for . . . Mayor of Lynchburg." (Former Governor Doug Wilder had recently been elected Mayor of Richmond.)

I cautioned Governor Warner not to get too excited about all the good press he had been receiving. "I know you were recently named Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine, but that just shows what kind of year it's been. And isn't this the same magazine which named Ken Lay (remember Enron?) Executive of the Year in 2000, Michael Jackson (remember his youthful playmates?) Big Brother of the Year in 2001, and Martha Stewart Investor of the Year in 2002?"

Moving on to the guest of honor, Delegate Preston Bryant, I drew a connection between his efforts to rescue last year's budget and the evening's host, Crisis Line.

"An audit of Crisis Line calls from January 1st, to April 15th," I said, "disclosed that 3248 out of 6159 calls came from the General Assembly or the Governor's Office. Records also indicate that for 90 per cent of those calls Crisis Line's recommendation was: Jump off the Rivermont Bridge." (site of a couple of recent suicides)

And, satirizing a ridiculous and ill-advised bill to ban drooping pants, I sunk to a new low when I launched the following scatological diatribe: "Far be it from me to be so cheeky as to make any wisecracks about this bum bill. Briefly speaking, if you ask me, some of our legislators are just behind the times. As a furniture salesman, I've been fighting this problem for years. Because when you get past fifty, you get the furniture disease; your chest falls into your drawers."

When it came time to roast Delegate Bryant, I pounced on his reputation for being a smart guy, which had been supplied by his wife Liz, "an assessment I realized was as accurate as the weather predictions she used to make in WSET, where she is no longer employed.

"Delegate Bryant," I said, "you've made some mistakes this year. And if it's true that we learn from our mistakes, you'll be the best at your profession.

"One mistake was the picture of him his mother had plastered all over the walls of the Lynchburg Mammography Center where she works. When I asked her about this, she said, 'I look at boobs all day, and I thought Preston would fit right in.'

"Another mistake was collecting a spate of speeding tickets while cruising back and forth from Lynchburg to Richmond in your brand new BMW -- a habit which has once again brought you into conflict with your Republican associates. For while Steve Baril, candidate for Attorney-General wants to add one hundred state troopers to the law enforcement roster, you want to fire one hundred.

"I voted for you once, Preston," I said, "when you told me you were pro-choice. But I found out that meant you would choose between raising the income tax or raising the sales tax.

"Once again, Delegate Bryant proved how smart he was when he signed Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Only Preston thought that was a pledge to distribute condoms to college seniors throughout the Commonwealth." (a controversial issue at the time)

I applauded Bryant's actions on the House Human Services Committee, when, "after a bill to anesthetize fetuses prior to abortion was rejected, he introduced a bill to anesthetize lawmakers prior to each legislative session."

To illustrate Bryant's salesmanship skills in engineering the budget compromise, I closed with the story of the country boy who applies for a sales job at a big-city department store. It's too long to reproduce here; you can find it online at landbigfish. com / jokes / default. cfm under "Fishing for a Sale."

The History Bee is a concept I developed initially as an Executive Spelling Bee, in which any number of local businesses would put up $1000 to sponsor a participant, ideally the CEO, although most declined to appear on stage and designated a surrogate. Ticket sales covered most of the expenses of a cocktail buffet, and, thus with thirty sponsors, the beneficiary, the Alliance for Families and Children, would reap $30,000.

To make the event more entertaining, I volunteered to offer up humorous introductions (mini-roasts) of the contestants, based on brief questionnaires I asked them to fill out.

After loquacious physician and City Councilman Scott Garrett identified as his favorite event in history the first documented use of anesthesia at the Boston Medical Center in 1846, I told the audience that "when Scott was a practicing surgeon, he didn't use traditional anesthesia. Instead, he laid his patient on the operating table and started talking, without pause or interruption. In a matter of minutes, the patient had lost consciousness."

When Jimmy C., quotations manager for Ferguson Enterprises, submitted Winston Churchill as his favorite historical figure, I said that I indeed called Ferguson Enterprises and asked Jimmy for a quote. "His response was 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, sweat, and tears.' "

Introducing George D., CEO of our local hospital, I said, "It was good thing for him that our teams were chosen at random. The doctors and insurance companies didn't want to sit down with him. Businesses and ordinary citizens were angry about the hospital's exorbitant rates. The only person who was satisfied with the work he was doing at the hospital was Chris T., Tharp Funeral Home."

And when Chris reported that his hobby was body surfing, I asked him, "Is that your body or someone else's?"

I said that retired history teacher, Marie Waller, couldn't lose. "Either she would win the History Bee or she could claim she had been defeated by a former student. It won't be the student, however, whom she was reprimanding for failing to learn the Presidents. 'When I was your age,' she said, 'I could name every President and Vice-President.' 'No big deal,' said the young man. 'When you were my age, there had only been sixteen.' "

In a joke that lit up both me and the audience, I questioned how well Greg K. was going to do. "I had obtained a copy of a history test he had taken in high school. When asked who Ferdinand Magellan was, he wrote, 'Ferdinand Magellan circumcised the world with a hundred-foot clipper, which was very painful to all men.' As for Socrates, 'he died from an overdose of wedlock, which is apparently poisonous.' "

And, of course, I had to compliment my assistant, Liz P., representing Schewel Furniture Company, for thinking like her boss. When asked for her favorite event in history, she correctly answered, "the birth of Marc Schewel."

About a year ago I was asked to present a brief history of the 110-year-old Schewel Furniture Company, as part of a local lecture series. Having worked in Downtown Lynchburg for thirty-five years -- and at the site the business has been located since 1958 -- and not willing to forgo an opportunity to add levity to the occasion, I opened with, and will close with -- a la David Letterman -- the top ten reasons why I love Downtown Lynchburg.

I love to drive fast, and am able to do so twice a day when I speed down those two one-way racetracks -- Church Street in the morning and Main Street in the evening.

I like to collect orange traffic cones -- and am always able to pick up a few every time I come Downtown.

Downtown Lynchburg is the only place where the City Fathers would spend millions of dollars to streetscape and beautify its main thoroughfare and then close it for some mysterious public works project.

In Downtown Lynchburg, a new restaurant opens every month -- and an old one closes. And usually it's the same one.

Downtown Lynchburg thinks retail. It's the only city I know where the streets are closed on Saturday for a Christmas parade.

Downtown Lynchburg brings people together -- like seven City Council members, six unpaid contractors, five impatient bankers, and twenty-five irate investors, including me, to meet with Bluffwalk visionary Hal Craddock, wanting to know where all the money went.

I own stock in two city planning consulting companies -- and Downtown Lynchburg keeps them in business.

I like the old Academy building just the way it is -- which is a good thing, since I am not likely to live long enough to see it look any different.

Only in Downtown Lynchburg would the City Fathers stick a fifty-foot metal pipe in the river, shoot a stream of water through it -- and call it a fountain.

And the number one reason I love Downtown Lynchburg is that you can't see the Liberty University logo on the top of Candler's Mountain from anywhere in Downtown Lynchburg.