(no subject)
I wrote something about seeing Steve Martin a few weeks ago. It's a few pages long so peek under here for it.
Steve Martin
When I was a young man, a mere boy, I spent many hours in the living room seemingly alone. I say seemingly because I had a companion of sorts. He wasn’t in the room with me, not in the usual sense, but he was there. It seems strange to me now, but all he had to do was keep repeating the same jokes and, time and again, he could make me laugh. This was me sitting in the living room playing my Steve Martin records over and over.
I played them so much I had them memorized in their entirety. Even today, 31 years later, I can still tell many of the jokes. I may not be able to recite the albums by sheer rote anymore, but it’s all still there in my head.
At one point we had no record player in the house. My Mother took me with her to her dance studio and, when classes were finished, we sat on the hardwood floor in the middle of the studio. She put my Steve Martin record on the little stand-alone mono turntable that unfolded like a suitcase and had a built-in speaker. We listed to “Comedy is not Pretty” together. There is a banjo song called “Drop Thumb Medley” on the record. My Mother started to pick the needle up and I asked her what she was doing. She said he was going to play the banjo for a while and didn’t think I would be interested. I asked her to let it play. She did, and we sat there listening to the banjo music.
One Thanksgiving my cousins, Lance and Todd, came over for a family gathering. I told them I had a record with a dirty word on it. We got real close to the speakers and I turned it down low so that our parents in the next room couldn’t hear it. Martin proceeded to tell about how his girlfriend was taking singing lessons and her 84 year old coach wanted her to sing from her diaphragm. I didn’t have any idea what made it dirty but I could tell from the telling that it was somehow blue. My mom came in the room while we were hunkered down at the speakers, just in time to hear Martin say, “Diaphragm”. Of all the lousy timing. We must have looked guilty as hell. I had listened to the record over and over and not once concerned myself with the dirty aspect of the joke. I had no idea what it meant anyway. But when my cousins were there I decided to make a big point of it by turning it into a clandestine activity requiring us to operate with stealth. It wasn’t until years later that I even understood the joke. At the time I probably wanted either to appear knowing or I secretly hoped that my cousins would explain it to me.
I remember being in Boy Scout Troop 444. It seemed like a much tougher troop than troop 414, which eventually formed closer to my house, and contained neighborhood boys I knew. But one day at a Boy Scout Troop 444 meeting, full of tough-seeming boys I hardly knew, I made a reference to a Steve Martin joke. Someone nearby asked what was going on, thus drawing attention to our conversation. I replied, “Oh nothing. It’s just something on a dumb Steve Martin record.” I felt the need to call it dumb. If people discovered I liked Steve Martin I might find out they think he’s a fool, thereby making me a fool. To my surprise, a boy named Mike Lewis shot back with anger, “It is not a dumb record!” Making me feel foolish anyway.
Once, at grandma D’s house, probably Christmas or Thanksgiving, someone suddenly ran into the kitchen to tell me that Steve Martin was on TV doing “King Tut.” Back in the days before VCRs, something like this was a big deal, especially to me. I ran in there and watched it. I remember Grandma D saying, “I like the way he moves”. Someone I knew, someone I admired, had just expressed approval of Steve Martin. My thoughts were validated by an adult.
Steve Martin walked away from stand-up when he was on top. In his autobiography he states that he wanted to tell jokes with no punch lines. Somehow this made him the most famous stand-up comic in the world. However, since he walked away from the profession when I was only a kid, I would never have the chance to see him perform. I could, however, see “The Jerk”, and I did, over and over on HBO. But then something happened. The years went on. Time does not stop for boys just because they want to go on listening to Steve Martin records forever. The time alone in the living room with Steve was replaced by time in my own room, with my own record player, listening to AC/DC and playing guitar. I never considered playing the banjo. I might have though, if Angus Young had played it. Besides, Steve Martin stopped being so silly, or maybe, he started seeming silly to me. I remember debating with our neighbor, Sara Scallorn, whether or not people would think there was something wrong with him because of his childish antics. Years later there was a great television show called “Freaks and Geeks” in which the main geek manages to astound himself by getting a date. He takes her to see “The Jerk”. She complains that the movie isn’t funny. It’s about a thirty year old man acting like he’s five. The poor kid is crushed. The movie is spoiled.
As I grew older I started to be less and less amused by wild antics of adult men in the movies. I hated Jim Carrey when he was on top. I hated Adam Sandler. My friends accused me of having no sense of humor. An accusation I assert is wildly untrue. (They were just jealous that I suffered from existentialism, thereby making me wiser). I came to realize that; maybe, I was holding all these actors (Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell) up to my childhood idolization of Steve Martin. Compared to that they were cardboard cutouts. They stood no chance. Or, perhaps, like Paul Simon said, "Get these mutts away from me. I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." However, I thought "Talladega Nights" was hilarious. My friends seem to be bothered more than me by my lack of laughter at television and movies. Maybe it's them that really have the problem.
And then…I saw that Steve Martin was coming to Seattle on a banjo tour. I took my wife and we met my friend Margaret and her husband there. I was under the impression that he was doing strictly music. And then lo, he came out onstage and started telling jokes. He told jokes between every song. I laughed at all of them. I do have a sense of humor. I knew it. My friends really are just jealous that I have deep existential thoughts that make me wise.
Steve Martin has the most incredible ease. It's impossible to tell that he hasn't performed onstage, at least regularly, in decades. There were a few sound problems at first. The instrumentation was either not mixed well or our position to the right of center-stage skewed our sonic perception. Either way it was difficult to discern the instruments and make out the melody. This was a temporary problem however and cleared up after a few numbers. When Steve Martin first came out and started in with a banjo number it sounded tinny and hallow. I know that banjos aren't the most resonant instrument but it was excessive. This too seemed to change as far as I was concerned and was corrected shortly. The man at the mixing board started earning his pay.
Steve didn't sing much. He decleared that others with better voices should do that. He stepped up to the microphone plenty of times though. He sang particular parts of songs and lead a few times. He made his voice fit the show quite well. The music was all good and played by gentlemen who had mastered their instruments. The fiddle player was a genius. I urge you to seek out Steve Martin and the Deep Canyon Rangers playing "Orange Blossom Special" on youtube. The fiddle player was snapping horse hair left and right. By the time the song was over he needed a new bow.
The band was keen on comedy too and joined Steve for jokes and gags. Steve said the bass player's instrument doubled as a refrigerator. A little later Steve said he was taking a break (which was really an excuse to let the Deep Canyon Rangers play a few of their own songs). He turned and asked the bass player if he had a beer. The bass player came to the front and wheeled his instrument around. He lifted a panel and, no kidding, pulled a bottle of beer out of the back of the bass. After a few songs Steve stumbled back onto the stage, pretending to be drunk, and complimented the band. Then stumbled off again. The Deep Canyon Rangers sang a beautiful acapella song about not wanting to sit still because they were in heaven and wanted to look around. It isn't unusual for bluegrass to have Christian influences. Martin came back onstage and said, "I was just thinking about how religious people have all this art and music. Athiests basically have nothing...(laughter)...Until now!" And he produced sheets of paper and handed them to the band who all pretended like they were seeing them for the first time. Then they all did an acapella number with Steve about being athiests.
The band finished a song and Steve introduced a number as, “A classic bluegrass song.” And that's when I heard it. I didn’t know what it was for a second. It made no sense for a fraction of a moment. But as the musical notes made their way through axons and neuropathways, finding their way throughout my cortex to be deciphered, a synapse occurred. It took a moment for it to happen. My brain brought up information that was lodged in there from a Christmas holiday at Grandma D’s house where I rushed into the living room from the kitchen. I discovered the notes sounded out a melody that was distinctly Egyptian. This wasn’t classic bluegrass; this was “King Tut”. I was transfixed. This was it! This was truly something I never would have dreamed I would witness.
I remember thinking how magnificent it was that Steve Martin was onstage right in front of me (we were on row 5) telling jokes. I recalled sitting on the floor of my mother’s dance studio asking her to let the record keep going when the album came to a banjo number. Here I had it all right in front of me, live. Steve was older, though his hair was the same color (actually, it’s more white than grey now). His antics were generally gone. There was no arrow through his head as he played. He didn’t get happy feet. He’s not 30 and acting like a five year old. And yet…
As I sat there watching “king Tut”, I saw something extraordinary. . It only lasted a second. In a brief moment of fun that Steve was having with his bandmates he assumed the Egyptian pose. He, ever so fleetingly, moved like an Egyptian. I could almost hear my Grandmother comment at the end, “I like the way he moves.” This time, however, I needn’t fear the potential repercussions of Troop 444. I just smiled. Smiled and laughed.
There were many reasons to enjoy the show. There was fine music by great players, fine comedy, and fine company. And for me there was a bonus. A childhood dream came true.
Steve Martin
When I was a young man, a mere boy, I spent many hours in the living room seemingly alone. I say seemingly because I had a companion of sorts. He wasn’t in the room with me, not in the usual sense, but he was there. It seems strange to me now, but all he had to do was keep repeating the same jokes and, time and again, he could make me laugh. This was me sitting in the living room playing my Steve Martin records over and over.
I played them so much I had them memorized in their entirety. Even today, 31 years later, I can still tell many of the jokes. I may not be able to recite the albums by sheer rote anymore, but it’s all still there in my head.
At one point we had no record player in the house. My Mother took me with her to her dance studio and, when classes were finished, we sat on the hardwood floor in the middle of the studio. She put my Steve Martin record on the little stand-alone mono turntable that unfolded like a suitcase and had a built-in speaker. We listed to “Comedy is not Pretty” together. There is a banjo song called “Drop Thumb Medley” on the record. My Mother started to pick the needle up and I asked her what she was doing. She said he was going to play the banjo for a while and didn’t think I would be interested. I asked her to let it play. She did, and we sat there listening to the banjo music.
One Thanksgiving my cousins, Lance and Todd, came over for a family gathering. I told them I had a record with a dirty word on it. We got real close to the speakers and I turned it down low so that our parents in the next room couldn’t hear it. Martin proceeded to tell about how his girlfriend was taking singing lessons and her 84 year old coach wanted her to sing from her diaphragm. I didn’t have any idea what made it dirty but I could tell from the telling that it was somehow blue. My mom came in the room while we were hunkered down at the speakers, just in time to hear Martin say, “Diaphragm”. Of all the lousy timing. We must have looked guilty as hell. I had listened to the record over and over and not once concerned myself with the dirty aspect of the joke. I had no idea what it meant anyway. But when my cousins were there I decided to make a big point of it by turning it into a clandestine activity requiring us to operate with stealth. It wasn’t until years later that I even understood the joke. At the time I probably wanted either to appear knowing or I secretly hoped that my cousins would explain it to me.
I remember being in Boy Scout Troop 444. It seemed like a much tougher troop than troop 414, which eventually formed closer to my house, and contained neighborhood boys I knew. But one day at a Boy Scout Troop 444 meeting, full of tough-seeming boys I hardly knew, I made a reference to a Steve Martin joke. Someone nearby asked what was going on, thus drawing attention to our conversation. I replied, “Oh nothing. It’s just something on a dumb Steve Martin record.” I felt the need to call it dumb. If people discovered I liked Steve Martin I might find out they think he’s a fool, thereby making me a fool. To my surprise, a boy named Mike Lewis shot back with anger, “It is not a dumb record!” Making me feel foolish anyway.
Once, at grandma D’s house, probably Christmas or Thanksgiving, someone suddenly ran into the kitchen to tell me that Steve Martin was on TV doing “King Tut.” Back in the days before VCRs, something like this was a big deal, especially to me. I ran in there and watched it. I remember Grandma D saying, “I like the way he moves”. Someone I knew, someone I admired, had just expressed approval of Steve Martin. My thoughts were validated by an adult.
Steve Martin walked away from stand-up when he was on top. In his autobiography he states that he wanted to tell jokes with no punch lines. Somehow this made him the most famous stand-up comic in the world. However, since he walked away from the profession when I was only a kid, I would never have the chance to see him perform. I could, however, see “The Jerk”, and I did, over and over on HBO. But then something happened. The years went on. Time does not stop for boys just because they want to go on listening to Steve Martin records forever. The time alone in the living room with Steve was replaced by time in my own room, with my own record player, listening to AC/DC and playing guitar. I never considered playing the banjo. I might have though, if Angus Young had played it. Besides, Steve Martin stopped being so silly, or maybe, he started seeming silly to me. I remember debating with our neighbor, Sara Scallorn, whether or not people would think there was something wrong with him because of his childish antics. Years later there was a great television show called “Freaks and Geeks” in which the main geek manages to astound himself by getting a date. He takes her to see “The Jerk”. She complains that the movie isn’t funny. It’s about a thirty year old man acting like he’s five. The poor kid is crushed. The movie is spoiled.
As I grew older I started to be less and less amused by wild antics of adult men in the movies. I hated Jim Carrey when he was on top. I hated Adam Sandler. My friends accused me of having no sense of humor. An accusation I assert is wildly untrue. (They were just jealous that I suffered from existentialism, thereby making me wiser). I came to realize that; maybe, I was holding all these actors (Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell) up to my childhood idolization of Steve Martin. Compared to that they were cardboard cutouts. They stood no chance. Or, perhaps, like Paul Simon said, "Get these mutts away from me. I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." However, I thought "Talladega Nights" was hilarious. My friends seem to be bothered more than me by my lack of laughter at television and movies. Maybe it's them that really have the problem.
And then…I saw that Steve Martin was coming to Seattle on a banjo tour. I took my wife and we met my friend Margaret and her husband there. I was under the impression that he was doing strictly music. And then lo, he came out onstage and started telling jokes. He told jokes between every song. I laughed at all of them. I do have a sense of humor. I knew it. My friends really are just jealous that I have deep existential thoughts that make me wise.
Steve Martin has the most incredible ease. It's impossible to tell that he hasn't performed onstage, at least regularly, in decades. There were a few sound problems at first. The instrumentation was either not mixed well or our position to the right of center-stage skewed our sonic perception. Either way it was difficult to discern the instruments and make out the melody. This was a temporary problem however and cleared up after a few numbers. When Steve Martin first came out and started in with a banjo number it sounded tinny and hallow. I know that banjos aren't the most resonant instrument but it was excessive. This too seemed to change as far as I was concerned and was corrected shortly. The man at the mixing board started earning his pay.
Steve didn't sing much. He decleared that others with better voices should do that. He stepped up to the microphone plenty of times though. He sang particular parts of songs and lead a few times. He made his voice fit the show quite well. The music was all good and played by gentlemen who had mastered their instruments. The fiddle player was a genius. I urge you to seek out Steve Martin and the Deep Canyon Rangers playing "Orange Blossom Special" on youtube. The fiddle player was snapping horse hair left and right. By the time the song was over he needed a new bow.
The band was keen on comedy too and joined Steve for jokes and gags. Steve said the bass player's instrument doubled as a refrigerator. A little later Steve said he was taking a break (which was really an excuse to let the Deep Canyon Rangers play a few of their own songs). He turned and asked the bass player if he had a beer. The bass player came to the front and wheeled his instrument around. He lifted a panel and, no kidding, pulled a bottle of beer out of the back of the bass. After a few songs Steve stumbled back onto the stage, pretending to be drunk, and complimented the band. Then stumbled off again. The Deep Canyon Rangers sang a beautiful acapella song about not wanting to sit still because they were in heaven and wanted to look around. It isn't unusual for bluegrass to have Christian influences. Martin came back onstage and said, "I was just thinking about how religious people have all this art and music. Athiests basically have nothing...(laughter)...Until now!" And he produced sheets of paper and handed them to the band who all pretended like they were seeing them for the first time. Then they all did an acapella number with Steve about being athiests.
The band finished a song and Steve introduced a number as, “A classic bluegrass song.” And that's when I heard it. I didn’t know what it was for a second. It made no sense for a fraction of a moment. But as the musical notes made their way through axons and neuropathways, finding their way throughout my cortex to be deciphered, a synapse occurred. It took a moment for it to happen. My brain brought up information that was lodged in there from a Christmas holiday at Grandma D’s house where I rushed into the living room from the kitchen. I discovered the notes sounded out a melody that was distinctly Egyptian. This wasn’t classic bluegrass; this was “King Tut”. I was transfixed. This was it! This was truly something I never would have dreamed I would witness.
I remember thinking how magnificent it was that Steve Martin was onstage right in front of me (we were on row 5) telling jokes. I recalled sitting on the floor of my mother’s dance studio asking her to let the record keep going when the album came to a banjo number. Here I had it all right in front of me, live. Steve was older, though his hair was the same color (actually, it’s more white than grey now). His antics were generally gone. There was no arrow through his head as he played. He didn’t get happy feet. He’s not 30 and acting like a five year old. And yet…
As I sat there watching “king Tut”, I saw something extraordinary. . It only lasted a second. In a brief moment of fun that Steve was having with his bandmates he assumed the Egyptian pose. He, ever so fleetingly, moved like an Egyptian. I could almost hear my Grandmother comment at the end, “I like the way he moves.” This time, however, I needn’t fear the potential repercussions of Troop 444. I just smiled. Smiled and laughed.
There were many reasons to enjoy the show. There was fine music by great players, fine comedy, and fine company. And for me there was a bonus. A childhood dream came true.