Photo by Sandee O.
Interview by Chris Garcia.
I remember watching Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy on a crinkly VHS tape, while sitting on my parent’s bedroom floor. I was just a little fat kid at the time. My parents were at work, as they often were, and my older sister, my only sibling, had just married her high school sweetheart and moved two miles away.
I lived in a lonely latchkey world of Eggos and Legos and sitcoms and cable tv. My surrogate parents were the Huxtables. My siblings were Pee Wee Herman, Weird Al, and ALF. My best friend: laughter. It was my security blanket, my safety net, and my secret weapon. And when I wasn’t watching people creating laughter on tv, I was creating it myself. I’d dress up in my dad’s clothes and fall down a flight of stairs, blast arm pit farts, run around with my weiner out. I’d do anything to get a laugh. I was that kid.
So there I was, a little lonely clown huddled in front of the Magnavox, watching this man in a white suit with a fake arrow through his head play the banjo in front of thousands of people. I remember thinking to myself, “This guy is just like me! The type of guy that runs into his room, grabs a bunch of props, and starts running around to make people laugh. I’m a wild and crazy guy, too!”
And so my obsession Steve Martin began. I memorized his albums, watched all of his movies, stayed up to watch him on SNL, read ‘Cruel Shoes‘. Twice.
I loved this man. I started emulating him. I’d dress up in a suit for Thanksgiving and recreated scenes from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and the Jerk for my family. I even put talcum powder in my hair so I’d look more like him. I’d break into the “wild and crazy guys” voice and get sudden bouts of “happy feet.” I wanted to be this man, because he was silly and smart like me, and he made everyone around him so happy.
Not until years later would I realize, that this guy was lonely, too, and that being funny is how some people react to the world, and that laughter is the glue that holds it together.
I, along with a few other writers, had the great pleasure of speaking with Steve over the phone from his Los Angeles home the other day. He has a new banjo record out and a tour he’s promoting, but I managed to sneak in some comedy related questions. He was as nice and thoughtful as I imagined him to be, and, of course, very funny.
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Posted: October 1st, 2009 under Interview, News'n'stuff.
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