HUNGRY GERALD

Peter Alan Meyerson died this week in Los Angeles at the age of 82. It was remarkable that he lived to an advanced age since he relished a variety of unhealthy habits: A diet that stressed pizza and Jewish delicatessen (with an occasional visit to a Chinese restaurant). He chain smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes and was no stranger to mind altering substances. He usually had a rich, mahogany tan, the result of relentless sun bathing. Peter was a dear person, HG’s friend for some 58 years. It is very difficult to sustain sad thoughts about Peter’s passing because, simply put, he was one of the funniest people that ever lived. Yes, he had a many decade career in Hollywood as a comedy writer and producer of such shows as The Monkees, Welcome Back, Kotter (the TV show where John Travolta got his start), That Girl etc., etc.. But, the place where his humor was best expressed was in his wild improvisations. In New York, on Fire Island, in Hollywood delicatessens…Peter reduced his friends to weakness-in-the-knees as his comic riffs became more irreverent, scatalogical, satirical, surreal. So many memories: Peter doing an routine (complete with patriotic song and dance) that reduced President Lyndon Johnson’s actions in Vietnam to a mad travesty. Peter (looking very furtive) asking a porn shop clerk: “Do you have anything with marshmallows?”. Peter narrating a bathing beauty contest for Nuns. All pure spur-of-the-moment creations. Goodbye, unforgettable Peter. You left us the memory of a million laughs.