Larry Jaffee on Dan
Quite simply, if it wasn't for Dan Abramson, the Walford Gazette might have not existed.
People often wonder how this publication ever was started. It began with an offhand conversation between myself and Dan at my then-new workplace back in late 1991, when I overheard Dan talking with another co-worker about EastEnders. I chimed in, "Oh yeah, I watch that too."
Dan turned around speechless-- a wide grin on his face, most likely mulling to himself, "There's another one!!!" The next day I received in my office mailbox, an impeccably double-space typed five-page memo about that week's most recent episode, intermittently punctuated by "IAN SHOULD BE SHOT!" Most of it contained Dan's brand of off-the-wall humour, unlike anything I ever previously encountered.
In our next conversation, Dan later claimed that I insisted, "We can make money with this." I don't recall saying exactly that, but it doesn't surprise me. I was looking for something entrepreneurial to do, and I genuinely loved EastEnders (although not nearly as obsessively as Dan).
It became apparent that our partnership would take advantage of our strengths. Dan was to be the in-house creative genius, who could churn out reams of copy about Walford and Albert Square. He also was friendly with Freddie Hancock, a BBC publicist who was married to the late British comedian Tony Hancock. She was instrumental in us eventually gaining permission to publish the Gazette.
I, on the other hand, knew how to put out a newspaper, came up with a marketing plan that would appeal to the public television stations, and would chip in stories here and there time permitting.
We figured we'd lose a few hundred dollars on a first and only issue, and that would be the end of the Walford Gazette. We were wrong. Hordes of EastEnders fans came out of the woodwork, thirsting for as much information about the series as we could muster. And major media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic the likes of BBC Radio, the Times of London, The Guardian, The Independent, Time Out, the Daily Mirror, USA Today, the New York Post, Newsday et. al., were intrigued with our fledgling venture.
Dan, of course, was something of an odd duck, who had an unusual way about him. For example, when the New York Post ran a brief item about the Gazette, he lit up a cigar in the office we worked, as if we won the lottery or our IPO was the darling of Wall Street.
But Dan had an undeniable talent for writing prose, a way with words that captured insight which I'm sure the EastEnders creators never even considered. He also at times was very funny, best exemplified by his Top 10 lists.
We collaborated a few times on comical EastEnders fantasy scripts. The process would be he'd write the first draft, and I'd polish the lines, adding a joke here and there. It reminded me of Carl Bernstein polishing Bob Woodward's Watergate articles.
Dan also was incredibly well read, a self-taught historian bordering on savant-hood (reminiscent of Cheers' Cliff Claven), who could instantaneously cite the nuances of British Royalty going back centuries in one breath and the batting average of some hapless baseball player on the 1962 New York Mets in the next. (Admittedly, I possess a repository of useless rock 'n' roll trivia.)
When we'd put together an issue of the Gazette, I sometimes found myself playing the role of censor, letting Dan know from time to time that his references will go straight over the heads of most if not every reader. On the other hand, we were in agreement that the publication needed to be "an intellectual journal," as our friend Jonathan once dubbed it, with the right balance of intelligence, humour and insight.
Occasionally, I had to point out to him some of his musings went a little too far, like when several years ago he wrote about the sexual attractiveness of the female castmembers of EastEnders, and wanted to use the byline of my then two-year-old son.
He also used numerous nom-de-plums ("Sid Reilly," "F. Scott FitzNigel," "Dora Kaplan," "Phyllis Domesticus," "Sir Walter Cockney," "Chris Orthodox," and "Alan Badelian Traherne") that occasionally would be attached to some of his Gazette articles. He'd use a pseudonym when he felt there were too many Dan Abramson bylines in an issue.
Another thing about Dan and his idiosyncracies is that he was afraid of technology. By 1995, he was still writing on an electric typewriter. Dan finally agreed to use a computer when I and then-Gazette managing editor Aaron Berman (who was tired of retyping his articles) finally insisted that he get one, courtesy of the Gazette.
I never quite understood his reluctance to join the computer age, and told him if he ever learned how to use e-mail, he'd be dangerous. He was my only acquaintance who actually wrote letters to people. I figured that back in grade school he must have had a teacher who once gave a homework assignment that the class needed to write a letter to a relative. Dan never stopped writing those letters-- to everyone he knew.
His allergy to computers reminded me of a lyric from an Al Stewart song about two friends who hadn't see each other in 15 years: "I have no use for modern tricks."
Dan often admitted that if wasn't for me his writing about EastEnders would otherwise sat in some file unread by anyone.
At the beginning of our partnership, we split the duties. I'd handle the business deals and strategy; he'd deal with the subscribers and stations on a day-to-day basis.
From the outpouring of condolences, I know that he was very well like by our readers, who often would call him to find out what they missed in a given episode. Dan would provide total recall of every scene, including actual dialogue. (Thankfully, he didn't attempt the voices and accents.) Of course, some readers, called him to complain that they hadn't received their Gazette after mailing in a check. Dan would stay on the phone with them for hours, winning them over with his charm and deep well of knowledge. He'd then inevitably forget to update the database, maybe subsconsicously so that he'd get to talk to them all over again. In any case, I know that I, the family man with a demanding full-time job, can never match the time and energy that he put in handling subscriber calls.
Here's another lament: the world's biggest Anglophile in his lifetime never got a chance to visit the U.K. My guess is he would have been like a kid in a candy store.
I once told Dan that when I had enough of the Gazette, I'd let him some day run wild, and let him put anything he wanted in the publication. That sadly never took place. I'm sure there would be plenty of outrageousness, but it would also have been damn funny.
