Comedy is dead in America. It has been replaced by mean-spirited bitchiness with a punchline. Today’s comedian is not what I wanted to be, back when I was young and green and itching to be funny, and to be making my living in show business.
The other thing I never wanted to be, was ‘washed up.’ Especially if it was before actually accomplishing much. I’ve managed to hit both unwanted milestones – perhaps just philosophically so, but it still stings.
None of us will ever really know the totality of how we’ve affected the world, if at all. Just the other week I learned that a poem I’d written – and placed online free – was used in a documentary project. I hope it made someone happy, or helped the film’s impact. I expect no compensation; I’d placed it out there long ago with no request of a royalty – nor even a byline. I get merely the satisfaction that someone found it, and liked it enough to use it, and gave it a degree more exposure.
I hope it isn’t used to propagate something or someone I would disagree with, but I have no control over that. Again, I had no forewarning fine print; it was just an idea that I had tossed onto the big table, and made rhyme.
Do I feel cheated? Not at all.
It was my contribution to someone’s joy, whomever, where ever and whenever. Take it and run. Good luck to you. My joy was in writing it. It was a win-win. I’ve borrowed from others before me, too, in the same way. We keep each other alive that way.
I imagine I’ve pissed off just as many people, with my ideas, as I’ve delighted. Maybe more. Maybe that’s how I never ‘made it.’ But again – I’ll never know.
George Bailey never realized just how many people his life had touched, for the good – yet was out in the dead of a winter’s night, contemplating suicide, due to what he perceived as – and what the world seemed to tell him were – his failures. As a business man, as a father, as a human being with too many dreams unfulfilled.
I was watching some old variety TV shows the other night. Mostly the Steve Allen Show, upon which Abbott & Costello trotted out their standard routines for the last time, all widely known to a disparaging point of overexposure. Their shine was long gone, their material tired and outdated even to a 1950s audience. Who’s On First got courtesy giggles and applause for its place in comedy history. Bud and Lou themselves looked like you could smell them; two exhausted old men. Lou Costello was only 53 when he passed away in 1959 – he looked 73.
They had not worn out their welcome, just their relevance. Their comedy was dead. They had gone from being the hottest box office draw in show business, just fifteen years prior, to being a nostalgia act, fit more for a museum than a comedy club. They all but hated each other, despite their practiced rapport on stage. They hated their act; they'd done it too many times. They were beyond caring whether it was performed correctly anymore. They were done.
As the titular character in the film Shane told the ruthless ranchers before gunning them down, "you've been living too long."
They had worked their entire careers, for this, to become who they were, and there was no escape.
They’d seen the top. It had exacted a hell of a cost from them. They skipped the Draft because they were worth more as comedians (the job they had anyway) than soldiers; they garnered over $85 million for the government in War Bond sales. Surely that was an adequate amount worthy of some slack – yet the same government sued them out of their houses and fortunes for back taxes. Lou Costello had to work, right up to the end, despite his tools being edge-worn and outdated. Bud died near-penniless. They’d been screwed by the best. I wonder, at that point in their lives, if they felt cheated?
Being loved by unknown generations of strangers is a reward unto itself. Having rent is nice too.
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