![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
... I tell you this story of my father and me to let you know I am qualified to be a comedian."
When I was going off to college,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fiveseconddelay gave me an Ayn Rand two-pack: ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD. When I graduated college four years later, he asked if I ever read them. When I replied of course not, he said, "Well fuck, now it's too late!"
There's something about discovering something at just the right moment of one's life. Whether it's a work of art or a person you meet, like the comedian says, it's all about timing. As such, it was absolutely perfect that--on the heels of my misadventure in Boulder--I would decide to read Steve Martin's memoir BORN STANDING UP.
I just now realized how ironic that cover really makes this whole situation.
I first read about Martin's book in the great Nathan Rabin's essay for the AV Club's series, "Silly Show-Biz Book Club," which proved intriguing enough for me to wanna check out the book. Insight into the lonely life of a solo performer who has daddy issues? I am there!
I used my library copy as a mini-table for my laptop computer for most of my Boulder trip, spending my time and energy on important things like revising the Monologues, the Harvey Dent novel, and of course precious precious internet. But once I started to realize that my audiences weren't ever going to crack past single digits, I felt like I didn't have it in me to create or even think, so when better to veg with a good book?
Here's the very first chapter, kindly provided by NPR:
***
BEFOREHAND
I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare—enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford. After the shows, however, I experienced long hours of elation or misery depending on how the show went, because doing comedy alone onstage is the ego's last stand.
My decade is the seventies, with several years extending on either side. Though my general recall of the period is precise, my memory of specific shows is faint. I stood onstage, blinded by lights, looking into blackness, which made every place the same. Darkness is essential: If light is thrown on the audience, they don't laugh; I might as well have told them to sit still and be quiet. The audience necessarily remained a thing unseen except for a few front rows, where one sourpuss could send me into panic and desperation. The comedian's slang for a successful show is "I murdered them," which I'm sure came about because you finally realize that the audience is capable of murdering you.
Stand-up is seldom performed in ideal circumstances. Comedy's enemy is distraction, and rarely do comedians get a pristine performing environment. I worried about the sound system, ambient noise, hecklers, drunks, lighting, sudden clangs, latecomers, and loud talkers, not to mention the nagging concern "Is this funny?" Yet the seedier the circumstances, the funnier one can be. I suppose these worries keep the mind sharp and the senses active. I can remember instantly retiming a punch line to fit around the crash of a dropped glass of wine, or raising my voice to cover a patron's ill-timed sneeze, seemingly microseconds before the interruption happened.
I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a by-product. The course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps. I was not naturally talented—I didn't sing, dance, or act—though working around that minor detail made me inventive.
I was not self-destructive, though I almost destroyed myself. In the end, I turned away from stand-up with a tired swivel of my head and never looked back, until now. A few years ago, I began researching and recalling the details of this crucial part of my professional life—which inevitably touches upon my personal life—and was reminded why I did stand-up and why I walked away.
In a sense, this book is not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know. Yes, these events are true, yet sometimes they seemed to have happened to someone else, and I often felt like a curious onlooker or someone trying to remember a dream. I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years.
***
Ever have a book where you want to read a chapter/a section/multiple sections over and over again? Certain parts stand out to me more than others (that early part about "enjoyment" hit me hard, man), but this intro as a whole just floored me. Even before I got halfway though, I knew this was a book I must own and reread over the years. For me, at this stage of my life, this book is many things, including a spiritual guide and a cautionary tale.
whimmydiddle warned me that I shouldn't go into showbiz if I couldn't take what happened in Boulder, and this book was a powerful reminder of that: for every triumph Martin had along the way, there would be a dozen more failures and missteps to follow. He had to appear on The Tonight Show twelve times before it ever did him any real good. And even then, while it finally and suddenly catapulted him to fame, none of it ever seemed to give him any real joy (which helps one ultimately understand how seemingly easily he was able to turn away and--until this book-never look back).
Rabin's article discusses the BORN STANDING UP itself much better than I could at the moment, and is definitely worth reading for curious parties, but I will say that I am absolutely gonna buy a copy to earmark and underline the hell out of as I reread it over the coming years. That said, I will quote Rabin in one part, because it completely echoes my own thoughts after reading this fine book:
As a habitual over-writer, I treasure economy and elegance in other writers. BORN STANDING UP has economy and elegance up the wazoo. There isn’t a wasted word or pointless digression in the entire book. It’s spare, understatedly funny and absolutely essential for students of comedy. Here’s my closing question for you, dear reader. Does the fact that Martin is still capable of greatness, of writing something tender and true (to borrow a particularly resonant phrase from SHOPGIRL), make his current cinematic hackdom more or less excusable?
When I was going off to college,
fiveseconddelay gave me an Ayn Rand two-pack: ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD. When I graduated college four years later, he asked if I ever read them. When I replied of course not, he said, "Well fuck, now it's too late!"There's something about discovering something at just the right moment of one's life. Whether it's a work of art or a person you meet, like the comedian says, it's all about timing. As such, it was absolutely perfect that--on the heels of my misadventure in Boulder--I would decide to read Steve Martin's memoir BORN STANDING UP.
I just now realized how ironic that cover really makes this whole situation.
I first read about Martin's book in the great Nathan Rabin's essay for the AV Club's series, "Silly Show-Biz Book Club," which proved intriguing enough for me to wanna check out the book. Insight into the lonely life of a solo performer who has daddy issues? I am there!
I used my library copy as a mini-table for my laptop computer for most of my Boulder trip, spending my time and energy on important things like revising the Monologues, the Harvey Dent novel, and of course precious precious internet. But once I started to realize that my audiences weren't ever going to crack past single digits, I felt like I didn't have it in me to create or even think, so when better to veg with a good book?
Here's the very first chapter, kindly provided by NPR:
***
BEFOREHAND
I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare—enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford. After the shows, however, I experienced long hours of elation or misery depending on how the show went, because doing comedy alone onstage is the ego's last stand.
My decade is the seventies, with several years extending on either side. Though my general recall of the period is precise, my memory of specific shows is faint. I stood onstage, blinded by lights, looking into blackness, which made every place the same. Darkness is essential: If light is thrown on the audience, they don't laugh; I might as well have told them to sit still and be quiet. The audience necessarily remained a thing unseen except for a few front rows, where one sourpuss could send me into panic and desperation. The comedian's slang for a successful show is "I murdered them," which I'm sure came about because you finally realize that the audience is capable of murdering you.
Stand-up is seldom performed in ideal circumstances. Comedy's enemy is distraction, and rarely do comedians get a pristine performing environment. I worried about the sound system, ambient noise, hecklers, drunks, lighting, sudden clangs, latecomers, and loud talkers, not to mention the nagging concern "Is this funny?" Yet the seedier the circumstances, the funnier one can be. I suppose these worries keep the mind sharp and the senses active. I can remember instantly retiming a punch line to fit around the crash of a dropped glass of wine, or raising my voice to cover a patron's ill-timed sneeze, seemingly microseconds before the interruption happened.
I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a by-product. The course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps. I was not naturally talented—I didn't sing, dance, or act—though working around that minor detail made me inventive.
I was not self-destructive, though I almost destroyed myself. In the end, I turned away from stand-up with a tired swivel of my head and never looked back, until now. A few years ago, I began researching and recalling the details of this crucial part of my professional life—which inevitably touches upon my personal life—and was reminded why I did stand-up and why I walked away.
In a sense, this book is not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know. Yes, these events are true, yet sometimes they seemed to have happened to someone else, and I often felt like a curious onlooker or someone trying to remember a dream. I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years.
***
Ever have a book where you want to read a chapter/a section/multiple sections over and over again? Certain parts stand out to me more than others (that early part about "enjoyment" hit me hard, man), but this intro as a whole just floored me. Even before I got halfway though, I knew this was a book I must own and reread over the years. For me, at this stage of my life, this book is many things, including a spiritual guide and a cautionary tale.
whimmydiddle warned me that I shouldn't go into showbiz if I couldn't take what happened in Boulder, and this book was a powerful reminder of that: for every triumph Martin had along the way, there would be a dozen more failures and missteps to follow. He had to appear on The Tonight Show twelve times before it ever did him any real good. And even then, while it finally and suddenly catapulted him to fame, none of it ever seemed to give him any real joy (which helps one ultimately understand how seemingly easily he was able to turn away and--until this book-never look back). Rabin's article discusses the BORN STANDING UP itself much better than I could at the moment, and is definitely worth reading for curious parties, but I will say that I am absolutely gonna buy a copy to earmark and underline the hell out of as I reread it over the coming years. That said, I will quote Rabin in one part, because it completely echoes my own thoughts after reading this fine book:
As a habitual over-writer, I treasure economy and elegance in other writers. BORN STANDING UP has economy and elegance up the wazoo. There isn’t a wasted word or pointless digression in the entire book. It’s spare, understatedly funny and absolutely essential for students of comedy. Here’s my closing question for you, dear reader. Does the fact that Martin is still capable of greatness, of writing something tender and true (to borrow a particularly resonant phrase from SHOPGIRL), make his current cinematic hackdom more or less excusable?
