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| Meeting Marty at Nickelodeon. |
In January of 2017, Nickelodeon had just finished construction on a brand new, shiny building at the corner of Olive and Lake in Burbank. To celebrate this massive undertaking, they threw a huge wing ding, with Big Wigs from New York and celebrities I'd never heard of.
Amidst the VIP's, I hob-nobbed with fellow common artists, enjoying the amazing spread of food and drinks. In the courtyard, a stage was set up where the Big Wigs spoke and people clapped. There was a hunched over old man mingling about. He was exceptionally old. So old, he stood out in the crowd.
"Who's that old man?" someone asked.
"Is that Sumner Redstone?" another asked. Sumner was the owner of Viacom, which owned Nick. Quite ancient, he was nonetheless still alive then, so it wasn't totally inconceivable that he could be in attendance.
Things suddenly got very loud as the rap artist Pitbull took the courtyard stage. Being Nickelodeon, I had assumed Pitbull would be a guy in a dog costume. Not even close.
After a few Pitty minutes, I went inside the shiny new building to escape the noise. There's an old rock and roll adage: "If it's too loud, you're too old." To that point, there was another guy in the lobby - 'Sumner Redstone'. As I sat alone at one of the swanky new lobby seats, he came over and sat on a matching swanky new couch angled perpendicular to me. He tapped me on the knee and said very quietly, "Do you work for Nickelodeon?"
"Yes." I nodded.
"So do I." he said.
I looked at him incredulously. "Really? What do you do?"
"I have a couple of shows here." he said. He spoke so quietly, I found myself leaning toward him to hear. He asked, "Have you ever heard of Sid and Marty Krofft?"
"Sure." I said.
"I'm Marty."
