conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Jackie, Mann, School with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'A Conversation with the Mann'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Conversation with the Mann
  Fran was okeydoke, the kind of girl you thought of as one of the guys. Except when she smiled. When she smiled she was all woman.
  TIME. PLACE. DIDN'T MATTER. New York. The modern age. Didn't matter. Didn't, but maybe it did. Maybe it mattered more. New York City, 1956; eight million people. You are one in eight million. So, maybe the instinct to not be alone, the need for tribalism, mattered more even among the millions, even—especially—in New York. A voice by itself is nothing. A voice timesed and timesed and timesed again is a shout not to be ignored. The city was a collection of tribes trying to be heard. The Chinese had Chinatown pressing right against Little Italy for the Italians. The blacks took Harlem. The Puerto Ricans were left the crumbling west side of Hell's Kitchen. The rich had Park Avenue. The rich had the Upper West Side. They had the Upper Es and Wall Street to work on, and Fifth Avenue and all of Fifty-seventh to shop along. The establishment had established itself all over the borough.
  I felt queer about that joint, felt about it the same as you'd feel about a woman you dug but knew in your heart you could never have. Catching a show there was a harsh reminder of how far away success was, the distance from my seat in the audience to the stage.Nothing in my life ever seemed any farther. And the irony of the agony: As much as I hoped one day The Angel would figure into my future, I never figured doing nothing more than watching a show would kick my life in a whole new direction. But it's when you're not expecting things that you step off a curb and get yourself side-swiped. I got hit hard.
  Frances and I were at The Angel catching acts—a few singers, a few comics—me having a good time despite washing each performance down with a straight shot of jealous envy. It was a good way through the show when the emcee stepped to the mike, did a preamble, and brought out the next performer.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: CRESCENT HEIGHTS AND SANTA MONICA. King's Restaurant. I handed my car over to a valet and went for the door. I got looks but no trouble about it. Like Ciro's, King's glowed with a stellar shine. Celebrities hanging around smiling, idle-talking. Doing nothing but being famous with each other.
  There was a crush of people to one side of the room. If you eye-balled them hard enough, you could make out, barely, Sammy Davis in the center of the swarm. I thought of going over, trying to say hello, but figured it would take at least half an hour to get close to him, and when I did I'd just come off as some gushing fan.
  There were some open tables, but I didn't much feel like spending any more time at a table for one. There were groups that had open seats, but no one in particular seemed eager to have me join them. No one much looked my way. They buzzed from table to table pollinating each other with kisses to the cheek. They would flash smiles at each other, chat, but all the while their eyes kept rolling over the room, looking for the next—the next star or producer or personality who was loftier than the star or producer or personality they were currently smiling at. And when they found them, off they'd buzz again.
  The goal was to move up the ladder, not down. A nod from Sammy or no, I was still just a club comic. A black club comic. I stood there with all those people, those people I wanted so much to be one with, but my existence didn't add up to anything more than, or more significant than, room dressing—a chair or table, a piece of furniture to be stepped around. The reality of my non-stature—the cut of it coming so close after being clapped for and whistled at by the same bunch who, now, didn't ignore me, they couldn't even see me—set loose a dull sickness in my body. A sharp sadness.
  Somebody said my name. Had to say my full name twice before it sunk in that anybody in the restaurant could be—would be—talking to me.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: King's Restaurant. I handed my car over to a valet and went for the door. I got looks but no trouble about it. Like Ciro's, King's glowed with a stellar shine. Celebrities hanging around smiling, idle-talking. Doing nothing but being famous with each other.
  There was a crush of people to one side of the room. If you eye-balled them hard enough, you could make out, barely, Sammy Davis in the center of the swarm. I thought of going over, trying to say hello, but figured it would take at least half an hour to get close to him, and when I did I'd just come off as some gushing fan.
  There were some open tables, but I didn't much feel like spending any more time at a table for one. There were groups that had open seats, but no one in particular seemed eager to have me join them. No one much looked my way. They buzzed from table to table pollinating each other with kisses to the cheek. They would flash smiles at each other, chat, but all the while their eyes kept rolling over the room, looking for the next—the next star or producer or personality who was loftier than the star or producer or personality they were currently smiling at. And when they found them, off they'd buzz again.
  The goal was to move up the ladder, not down. A nod from Sammy or no, I was still just a club comic. A black club comic. I stood there with all those people, those people I wanted so much to be one with, but my existence didn't add up to anything more than, or more significant than, room dressing—a chair or table, a piece of furniture to be stepped around. The reality of my non-stature—the cut of it coming so close after being clapped for and whistled at by the same bunch who, now, didn't ignore me, they couldn't even see me—set loose a dull sickness in my body. A sharp sadness.
  Somebody said my name. Had to say my full name twice before it sunk in that anybody in the restaurant could be—would be—talking to me.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I work. I do my shows like always. Like always, but, post Sid's letter, different from before. Before, being onstage had always been about getting ahead, getting over, being famous. Being someone. It was a means to an end. Nothing more.
  Now it's about the simplest of things, what it should have always been about but never was, using the little gift God gave me to give people a good time. Make people laugh.
  So I do that now. Ten people, a hundred; I go up onstage and enjoy the moment. Most times the shows are good. Usually entertaining. And sometimes, for whatever reason, because I'm hitting a groove, or maybe the audience is on my wavelength, or maybe it's a combo of those and a thousand other things starting with a butterfly flapping a wing over in China, sometimes I'm on. I'm really on. The jokes are just as crisp and the laughs are coming just as strong as anytime I ever played the Sands, the Copa, or Ciro's. Sometimes I'll say a line, and like back in the day, I'll have to stop and stand and wait for the audience to finish wringing every last laugh they can out of themselves. And somewhere married up with their laughter and applause...
  You can say I'm corny. You can say I'm just a sentimental old man. In my day I've been called everything there is, so you want to call me names, go on. See how much I care. But somewhere in the laughter and applause I hear my mother's voice saying to me like she was right there beside me: "You're a special one, Jackie Mann. Don't let nobody ever tell you otherwise."
  Maybe age has just made me comfortable with myself, but after all these years, what that voice is telling me, I'm finally starting to believe.