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For Your Funny Bone
Humor rules as Book Fair ends.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
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November 13 • 2008
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farmington Hills
hile Bob Morris tours the
country to promote his
first book, a new chapter
is being added to his life.
Morris, author of Assisted Loving:
True Tales of Double Dating With My
Dad (HarperCollins; $24.95), is enter-
ing negotiations to adapt his memoir
into a television series; and he will
touch upon his recent experiences
during a Jewish Book Fair talk that
begins 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 14, at the
Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield.
At the core of the book, series and
presentation are how
he helped his dad
overcome loneliness
after the death of his
wife (the author's
mother) and how their
relationship changed
and affected him.
"I'm going to tell
the story of the book
and what was behind
the love story my dad
had: says Morris, 50,
whose one departure
from reality has to
do with not using the f;.-
names of the women
his father met late in life.
"I travel with a ukulele and sing
stuff that he and I would sing hanging
around together, and I'm going to tell
about trying to get over the mishegoss
children have with their parents and
parents have with their children!"
Morris, who recently collaborated
with Diahann Carroll for her autobi-
ography The Legs Are. the Last to Go,
wrote columns about his dad in the
New York Times before moving on to
the book. His 15-year newspaper stint
followed his theater interests, which
included working on Off-Broadway
scripts after completing studies at
Brown University.
"I started taking notes for the book
early in the wake of my mother's
death:' Morris recalls. "It all happened
soon after my father handed me his
copy of the [New York] Jewish Week
with ladies' names circled on the per-
sonals page.
"My dad asked me to call some of
the women because he wanted to be
in love again. I don't think I had heard
anything quite so moving as when
he explained that everything worked
so beautifully with my mother for 50
years that he wanted to do it again."
Morris' Jewish upbringing is dis-
cussed in Assisted Loving and during
his presentation. He tells about his
feelings attending Rosh Hashanah ser-
vices as a single adult with his parents,
and he recalls Yom Kippur services he
went to alone while his father was hav-
ing hip replacement surgery.
"My dad helped me find love by
constantly telling me I was a good
person and worthy of being loved:'
says Morris, based in
New York and recently
married in California
to his gay partner.
"I watched my dad
pursue romance so
ardently and with such
an open heart that it
-
000 was inspiring. Most
important was his
advice to stop looking
for perfection because
that's the only way to
find it."
Morris hopes his
words can help people
have a laugh about the
obstacles they encounter in just having
as good a time as possible.
"When I go around and talk about
my dad, it makes me very happy to
reach people through their hearts and
funny bones," says Morris. "My dad
has been with me ever since he died in
2006 because I've either been working
on the book or talking about the book.
Keeping him so vital is a joy."
Shtick Shift
Simcha Weinstein is a devoted Chabad
rabbi who doesn't own a television but
is a pop- culture student, movie buff
and fan of the arts.
Weinstein, 32, who became religious
after time spent behind the scenes
working in the film industry, watches
shows by renting them or finding
them on the Internet. He and his wife
don't want their two young children
to see all that is available to television