Friday, March 28, 2008

Standing Up through A Rear View Mirror


I encountered some good reviews and interesting press coverage of Steve Martin's memoir Born Standing Up when it came out in time for the holiday season, but didn't think much about it until it appeared on the library's new book shelf. Pam and I had a category of books called "unbooks" that were meta books about a TV show, odd or illegal enterprise, or were written by or about celebrities. The print is usually larger, there is a likelihood of copious illustrations and a couple of hundred pages is generally the max unless it is predominantly illustrations. I had kind of pigeon-holed Martin's look back at his "Wild and Crazy" times to be sitting near Cosby's Fatherhood or other lucky cash-ins by TV stars (Paul Riser, Roseanne, et al.)

But Born Standing Up was a well thought out look at the past, a nice surprise with some seemingly honest revelations, much as Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1 covered his life and career a few years back. It is the story of how he was seeking an original comedic voice and how fame "fell on me as a by-product." The best of his book is about how he seeks and attains this orignality, which coincided with a time when in the mid seventies, comedy eclipsed Rock and Roll as being the most significant youth megaforce in our culture. And subsequently Martin found himself in front of Aerosmith and Elton John sized audiences. The book also benefits from distance. In the "Beforehand" he talks about how his book feels more like biography than autobiography because it is about someone he used to know, but he has encountered a kind of affection about that person now several decades removed.

Some of his book is not surprising in the world of entertainment biography. He had an emotionally frozen relationship with his father and a mother who enabled it. There is admittedly a storied naturd to his life: ten he started an employment history at a newly opened Disneyland, first selling guide books and then working in the park's magic shops throughout his school years. This was followed by his first professional stage experience at Knott's Berry Farm and the main content of the book laid out in his opening sentences: "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."

There are some great stories and remembrances along the way. He writes about his experiences of writing for the Smothers Brothers, the experience of dating Dalton Trumbo's daughter, the importance of school friend John McEuen (of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Fame) and more importantly, John's brother Bill, who nurtured a good part of Martin's career.

I admit it, I read these kinds of volumes for the reflection of zetgeist and good bits of name dropping factoids, gossip even. But there is one little section that stuck to me. He wrote a girlfriend of his resolve to succeed when on a roadtrip to the east coast with a college friend's research project where they encountered Aaron Copland in a house full of men with black thongs(which was later not mentioned between the two, "because like trigonometry, we couldn't quite comprehend it") and later the Museum of Modern Art and the home of e.e. cummings. (Modern art a significant force in Martin's life and cummings an early hero) Anyway he wrote her that I have decided my act is going to go avant garde. It is the only way to do what I want. In modern voice, Martin then adds: "I'm not sure what I meant, but I wanted to use the lingo, and it was seductive to make those pronouncements. Through the years, I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration." And somehow, I find that inspiring indeed.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:56 PM
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