Take My Lawyer . . . Please

When Ralph Kaplan bounced into the fast-food restaurant in Redondo Beach, he was wearing oversized fake glasses with large, staring eyes painted on the lenses, and a red sweat shirt with “I love young chicks” on the back.

It was not what I had expected.

The Ralph Kaplan who had written me, and for whom I was waiting, was a distinguished, 77-year-old lawyer whose letters were a study in formality and propriety.

But here I was being approached by a skinny little guy in shorts with shoulder-length curly gray hair who smelled faintly of Johnson’s Baby Powder.

“Al Martinez!” he said loudly, coming toward me, peering out of those strange stage-mask glasses and grinning outrageously.

His arms were outspread, as though he were greeting the multitudes in St. Peter’s Square.

Other patrons were staring at us, and it crossed my mind that maybe I should simply deny who I was, leave the restaurant and forget the whole thing.

Mr. Show Biz would go on poking through the place like a chicken pecking through grain until either he decided I had failed to show up or they threw him out at closing time.

But I couldn’t do that. I acknowledged my identity and found myself right in the middle of a radical career change. His, not mine.

Meet America’s newest stand-up comic.

Ralph Kaplan is among those men in their late or middle years who abruptly decide to abandon their wives or their jobs, or both, for something . . . well . . . different.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown, for instance, gave up politics to become a Tibetan monk, until the excitement of spinning a prayer wheel was more than he could bear, and he is back in politics again.

Kaplan is giving up a law career that spans 46 years in order to become a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and Jimmy Durante. Not only that but, in an odd juxtaposition of decisions, he has also given up red meat to become a vegetarian.

Is it necessary to say he was raised in L.A.?

Already divorced, Kaplan decided on the career change a few years back, studied comedy and in 1988 achieved something of a pinnacle by appearing on television’s Gong Show.

“Seventeen million people saw me!” he said, tapping my chest excitedly.

Kaplan is the kind of man you have the uncontrollable urge to back away from. It isn’t just the chest-tapping, but the raw energy of his enthusiasm that makes you want to get out of the way to avoid being run over.

We were in his condo overlooking Pacific Coast Highway. His walls are plastered with clippings and pictures that range from Pia Zadora in a string bikini to a cat with its tongue hanging out. Kaplan has carefully titled each picture on 4-by-5 file cards taped on the wall next to them.

I can’t tell you what the Pia Zadora label says, but the cat label reads, “What’s new, pussycat, meeow!”

“They brighten the place up, don’t you think?” Kaplan said. When I replied with a noncommittal shrug, he observed in a rare moment of quiet contemplation, “Well, I guess they’re not for everyone.”

Stand-up comedy, Kaplan will tell you, is something he has always wanted to do, and now he’s doing it in bars and clubs and sometimes for private parties. Occasionally he is paid real money, but most of the time they pay by feeding him.

They also offer booze but, as Kaplan says, his eyes bright with anticipation, “I don’t drink anymore.” Then (you can feel the punch line coming): “I don’t drink any less either!” He laughs wildly and says, “I’ve got a lot of those!”

True. Take his Rocky routine. Please.

It was the skit he performed on the Gong Show and also at Krazy J’s on the Redondo Pier. To demonstrate, he put on boxing gloves and a head-protecter, bounced around the room and said:

“Only one thing prevented me from becoming champ. I lost all my fights.”

“I was a very colorful fighter. Yellow.”

“I got a lot of breaks fighting. Mostly to my jaw.”

“I’ll never forget my first fight. I’ll never forget my last fight. Same fight.”

Those were the good lines.

“You gotta do what you like,” Kaplan said, ducking his head to put on a paper Jimmy Durante nose, “and this is what I like!” Ta-da! “I got a lot of crazy things.”

He walked me to my car and as I edged out of the parking lot, he trotted alongside and said, “One more. I got stopped by a cop who said, ‘Didn’t you see the red arrow?’ I said, ‘I didn’t even see the Indian!’ ”

I watched him in the rear-view mirror. He was standing on a street corner laughing like hell. I kept driving.