A blast from the very distant past: sidewalk art via the road, circa 2010's, as performed during the annual Waterfall Festival. It's funny how images can conjour up a tenuous connection to a random song, in this case, The Spirit of Radio.
As most of you know, I am quite ambivalent to most forms of audio that originated during my teenage years which are currently being fossilized on an hourly basis on commercial radio.* There are however, a few exceptions, of which one is comedy. I grew up/came of age in what I consider to be the 2nd golden age of comedy (late 70's through the 80's) and is where I often retreat to when I want to listen to good comedy.
*the stuff being fossilized today I remember listening to when it was actually fresh.
I actually have quite a bit of comedy in my record collection that ranges from old time (Lily Tomlin), to really old time (Victor Borge), from crass druggie (Cheech & Chong) to the strangely topical (Vaughan Meader and Rich Little), to name just a few. But I rarely venture beyond that 2nd golden age of comedy, simply because the majority of today's doesn't really do anything for me (I will admit to watching some Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence in their collective prime though).
However, amongst the baker's dozen or so of comedy records that I own, there are three that I do cherish from my favorite comedian-turned-to-very-competent-actor, Steve Martin.
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Pictured to your immediate left is one of those albums, which in today's world the front cover featured would probably get you into trouble for being the "T" phobic word.
Like most adults who grew up in the seventies, my initial exposure to Steve Martin was through his novelty song "King Tut" (also had my first exposure to censorship on vinyl with the B side called "Excuse Me"). This novelty song of his piqued my curiosity enough to search out his comedy albums, of which three: the one pictured to your left, "A Wild And Crazy Guy" and "Let's Get Small", are part of my collection.
I felt his humor really connected with me on a personal level and some of his bits, like the aforementioned "King Tut" and "The Cruel Shoes" became absolute comedy classics. The man was an absolute legend as a comedian and I personally believe he was way ahead of his time with his comedy.
I for one, was truly sad when he stepped away from being a comedian and moved in other forms of entertainment, like acting (the majority of his movies were commercial/critical successes) and music (he dipped into bluegrass with his banjo playing, and became quite the solid entertainer in that endeavor). In general though, his comedy is still, some 40+ years later, my go-to humor of choice whenever I want to have a chuckle or two.
He was my introduction to the type of comedy that you really don't see much of these days: clean with the occasional swear word thrown in. In my later adult years, I came to appreciate his comedy as well-written sketches that actually relied on talent with the English language as opposed to 50 ways to use the "F" bomb in grammar. I think subconsciously, I wanted to emulate that with my writing: playing around with the English language just enough to make my stories interesting without an over reliance on select adjectives (trust me, creating a kneecap insult that replaces a swear word/multiple swear words is not the easiest thing to do).
He will always be a comedic legend in my book. A legend that people often strive to emulate but haven't yet completely succeeded in doing so.
So I leave you with this question: who is your favorite comedian, past or present, that has influenced you in a particular way?
Mel Brooks although his comedy is movie-related.
ReplyDeleteAnd you score extra points for seeing a Rush song in that chalk drawing!
Completely forgot about Mel Brooks. He's the only one that will make me go to a theater to see Spaceballs2.
DeleteThankee. It's funny, but more often than not, when I see something music related like that, Rush is the first group that comes to mind. The video is quite cool.