I hear ya bro'

Before I was a fat overly opinionated bastard who wrote a blog, I was a fat overly opinionated bastard who did improv comedy. But before that I was a fat overly opinionated bastard who did years of community/dinner theatre, a couple of films, and one national TV appearance. I also tried my hand at stand up comedy in the late 1980's. And I discovered early on in life, probably around when I was four or five that I was funny, that I could make people laugh.

After I figured out I was funny and could make people laugh I did it quite frequently because that's how I related to them, by making them laugh either by telling jokes, doing strange impressions, or just by commenting on the absurd and the stupid. Once I figured that being funny let me into the good graces of girls I became the class clown and my humor really took off. As high school progressed, I became known as the master jokester who was always ready with a quip or a one liner. And while I loved the attention, the adulation, the being on good terms with the pretty girls, there was a down side to it all. Because I was funny when I wanted to be, people expected me to be funny all the time, no matter what time of day, no matter if I was sick or feeling down, or whatever. The deal was I had to be 'on' all the time. And during all that time I was dealing with the usual teen angst stuff, my crazy aunt and her children and their abuse of me and my siblings, my mentally ill father and his suicide, and my sister's slow decline into delusional schizophrenia. So while I loved being funny for what it brought me, I hated it sometimes because in public anyway I always had to be 'on.'

In college it was a bit easier because I didn't have to deal with a shitty home life and to be constantly on guard against my cousins and their crazy mother. But at times the burden of being the 'funny guy' got to me so I self medicated and I smoked a lot of pot and I drank more than I should have. Eventually I learned how to compartmentalize things and I finally figured out that I didn't have to be 'on' all the time and my life got better in regards to being funny. I decided when and where to crack a joke or zing someone with a one liner and I did it not because I felt I had to but because I wanted to.

The only problem I ever had later on in regards to being 'on' all the time was when I was doing the improv comedy. Because the audience is such a big part of improv comedy, you have to rely on them for suggestions of things to make jokes or build scenes around, some audience members felt like it was fine to come up to me and the other guys in the comedy group after the show and tell us where we went wrong or what we should have said on stage. Or they'd want us to joke around more with them after we just spent and hour and a half working our asses off to make them laugh. If it was a bad show the last thing you wanted was some audience member telling you you should have said this, that, or the other thing. And if it was a great show, then you wanted to ride that good feeling as long as you could because that high you got made up for the nights when the show stank and you didn't want people harshing that buzz.

But if you didn't schmooze with them or do something zany to make them laugh, then they'd call you an asshole or a jerk and they'd go tell everybody what an ass you were. I'll freely admit that at times I'm an asshole and a jerk but if I just busted my ass to make you laugh for an hour and a half, then you should have backed the fuck off and let me enjoy my show buzz or you needed to back the fuck off and let me be me instead of the hyper charged manic onstage version of me that you just saw onstage.

I say all that in order to let you know where I'm coming from when I say that I totally understand Steve Martin's frustration with the recent incident where a bunch of people got pissed off at him for talking about art at a public interview/lecture in NYC instead of being the zany Steve Martin they expect him to be and want him to be all the time. It's as if comedians and comic actors can have no other interests or vocations other than making people laugh. Seriously, sometimes it's a pain in the ass to be the court jester all the time and we all need time to ourselves and time to pursue our interests and hobbies. This recent incident with Martin reminds me of the popular backlash against him when he followed up all his stand up comedy, his stints hosting SNL, and his film The Jerk with the pitch black depression era film Pennies From Heaven. People wanted to lynch him because he dared to make a film that wasn't funny. It was madness I tell you, madness.

My point in all this is that funny people will be funny when they want and don't expect then to be 'on' all the god damn time. Some have castigated me for not making all the posts on this blog funny or humorous, and to them I have said, "It's my blog and I post what I like. If you like it, fine. If not then don't read it." And people, for the love of gawd, Steve Martin has been making you laugh since the mid 1960's, if the guy wants to talk about art, literature, science, or about paint drying, then he's earned the right. But if you hate it when he does, then go watch All of Me or The Jerk or The Man With Two Brains or some of his SNL stuff from the 1970's and give the guy a fucking break.

The greatest film you've probably never seen

I recently bought this film in the bargain DVD bin at Big Lots:
I remember when it came out and the hatred it engendered. I remember hearing only one or two critics saying it was good, among them was the most influential American film critic/reviewer of the era Pauline Kael, but the rest of them ripped it apart. I also remember my film crazy college friend Lou loved it and he urged people to see it but his entreaties fell on deaf ears.

Through the years I have gained an appreciation for the works of Dennis Potter and I have sought out his filmed projects from time to time. So when I saw this film in the DVD bin for $3, I snapped it up. Potter adapted this version from his previous version which ran on the BBC and starred Bob Hoskins in one of his first leading roles.

Honestly, if I had seen this film in 1981 when it first came out I would have hated it because I had no real appreciation for great acting, great story telling, or films that made me think too deeply as this film did. I would have made fun of it and rolled my eyes when anyone told me how good it was and I would have been an idiot for doing so. Back in 1981 Steve Martin was king of the comedy world and had been for quite a few years. He was huge. His stand up act played to sold out concert halls and if he wanted to do a stadium tour he would have sold that out as well. Back then when he hosted Saturday Night Live it was an event. You knew it was going to not only be funny but it was going to be ground breaking as well. His first film, The Jerk, a comedy, was not a critical success but instead it was a hit with the movie going public, it made people laugh and it was the perfect Steve Martin cinematic vehicle. So when the word got out that he was following up that film with a Depression era musical, people scratched their heads and said, "Huh?"

Pennies From Heaven is about a sheet music salesman who has a bad marriage, knocks up a small town teacher, and gets mixed up in a life of crime. It's not funny and in fact, it's kind of depressing. The main characters can't express what they really feel about life and each other so they 'break into song' to tell us how they feel about those things. Well, they don't really sing because they lip sync to the period recordings of Depression era songs and most of the time there are big production numbers when they do so. I know, it sounds crazy but it's not. It works. And it works like magic.

I'm not kidding when I say this is probably Steve Martin's finest film role. All those years of having to be funny pushed him to take a role that was not only not funny but was disturbing as well. He is the polar opposite of his usual funny self in this film. He's dark, moody, needy, and an ass. And it all works.

Bernadette Peters as the once innocent small town teacher who is seduced, knocked up, and put out on the street to become a whore is nothing short of astonishing in this film. I've been a fan of hers ever since I first saw her on the Carol Burnett show years ago and my gawd, her talent, her beauty, and her magnetism all hit you like a tsunami in this film. You can't take your eyes off her and when she's not in the shot, you wish she was.

Jessica Harper as Steve Martin's unhappy and unhinged wife is fantastic in this film. She's a brittle beauty with fragile grip on her mental state. When she says, "Cut off his thing!" to the police detective, and yes, she means that thing, it gave me chills.

From Herbert Ross's sure and steady direction to Bob Mackie's costumes to the editing this film is a masterpiece of cinema. We were too stupid to realize it when it first came out because we wanted another wacky Steve Martin comedy. Instead Martin, Ross, Peters, and the rest of the cast and crew gave us a neglected masterpiece, a gem that is waiting for generations of film and movie lovers to discover and be bowled over by.

In the DVD edition I bought there are a few extras. They include a panel discussion with some of the cast and crew of the film and at one point they make mention of scenes that Ross cut to make the film leaner and stronger. I hope someone saved those scenes and they make it onto another DVD edition of this film one day, because I'll gladly pay full price for that edition. Yeah, I love this movie that much.

You need to see this film. If you never have seen it, see it ASAP. If you saw it when it first came out and you hated it, see it again. This film will probably never get remade, thank goodness, so you need to seek this film out and watch it. I'm not kidding. If you don't, then you're dead to me. Do you hear me? DEAD!