A palate cleanser, people. Since this challenge is about albums that were significant in your life, this one is right up there. Steve Martin was an incredible comedic force and inspiration to me. He began college as a philosophy major, then changed to a theatre major, then dropped out.
Young Steve loved making people laugh, and had a different philosophy about what comedy could be. As he wrote years later: “What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation.”
Martin crafted his stand-up act for years, bombing more often than WW II. He persevered and eventually found his voice. Steve was the world’s biggest horse’s ass, for our amusement. A pompous prick. A jerk (“born a poor black child”). Every set up he delivered had a surprising left turn.
He was absurd. Silly. A refreshing tsunami into comedy. And people loved it. “Excuuuuuuuuuse me!” and “I’m just a wild and crazy guy” soon became catchphrases (they also became obnoxious). Martin made arrows through the head, balloon animals, even playing the banjo cool.
Then, he quit stand up. He was a guy selling out arenas, cashing easy money, and walking away because it lost its thrill.
Steve Martin has an incredible body of work–– movies, concerts, plays, and books. His memoir “Born Standing Up” is one of my favorites. It shows how his overnight success took years of pain and suffering, and his unending quest to receive his father’s approval.
Some factoids you may not know about him. At age 23, Martin received an Emmy as one of the writers on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He has suffered from tinnitus (ringing in the ear) ever since the filming a shooting scene in Three Amigos. Only Alec Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live more than Martin.
If you still have an album collection, chances are there is a Steve Martin disc. Enjoy it.