Danny Kaye<\/strong><\/span> watched surgery for a hobby.\u00a0 He hung around doctors and operating rooms.<\/p>\n My parents admired Danny Kaye; he could dance, sing, and do impersonations, plus the medical stuff.<\/p>\n My parents wanted me to be Danny Kaye — the medical part.<\/p>\n Instead, I<\/strong><\/span> majored in history and became a journalist.\u00a0 I wrote a 4,000-word article on open-heart surgery. I also did a story on polio.\u00a0 I watched some surgery.<\/p>\n I tried surgery. \u00a0My patient \u2013- call her Karen — took two years to recover, and I suffered financial and legal complications.\u00a0 I never expected to make money from operating on her but I didn\u2019t think I would go broke, which I did.\u00a0 A lawyer called me a \u201ckidnapper,\u201d as if I had purposefully kept Karen captive for eight hours. (The surgery was only seven hours, schmuck!)<\/p>\n Post-op, I told Karen, \u201cThe good news is you\u2019re alive and your aortas — two of them \u2013 are 90-percent clear.\u00a0 I used pipe cleaner.\u00a0 The bad news is the other aortas are controversial.\u00a0 Any sudden outburst by you now, and you might die.\u201d<\/p>\n Karen screamed<\/strong><\/span> but didn\u2019t die.\u00a0 She sued me.<\/p>\n Danny Kaye hosted Herman\u2019s Hermits on his TV show in 1965, to encourage\u00a0 youngsters to watch. Danny\u2019s older viewers preferred Imogene Coca, Nanette Fabrey and Jim Nabors.<\/p>\n Kaye experimented.\u00a0 He took chances.\u00a0 So did I.<\/p>\n I have mixed feelings about Kaye, to this day.\u00a0 My parents liked him more than me. I performed my operation on Karen so I wouldn\u2019t have to endure more snide remarks from my parents, like \u201cSon, you write for a suburban weekly. That\u2019s not a living.\u201d<\/p>\n Walk in<\/strong><\/span> my shoes. The cold rejection of my parents.\u00a0 I took a knife to a young woman\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n I\u2019m good at surgery.\u00a0 I\u2019m not Cleveland Clinic quality but I\u2019m good.<\/p>\n I\u2019m as good as Danny Kaye.<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n Carlo Wolff wrote an in-depth, real<\/em> profile of Ralph Solonitz<\/span>, this blog’s illustrator. <\/em><\/span>Click here<\/span><\/a> to read it.<\/span> (Cleveland Jewish News,<\/em> 10\/25\/13.)\u00a0 By the way, the drawing above is a pen atop a gurney.<\/span> This is a fake profile. The complete fake-profiles series is here. Danny Kaye watched surgery for a hobby.\u00a0 He hung around doctors and operating rooms. My parents admired Danny Kaye; he could dance, sing, and do impersonations, plus the medical stuff. My parents wanted me to be Danny Kaye — the medical part. Instead, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake-profiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17075"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18833,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17075\/revisions\/18833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/danny-kaye-drawing-gurney1.jpg\" "\\"danny")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n—
\nYiddishe Cup is at KlezmerPalooza<\/a> at The Temple, Beachwood, Ohio, 7:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 16. $20, or $15 if you buy by Nov. 9. Call 216-831-3233. Free dessert, beer and wine. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"