Humor Me
The year was 1978. October 7th, to be exact. The venue was the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. On stage, Stephen Glenn Martin, a gangly, prematurely graying, 33-year-old operating under the moniker of Steve Martin, had the audacity to stand alone in front of a sold-out stadium and tell jokes. That’s right, all by himself, for an hour or so, he did his routine, just yucking it up. And get this… he got away with it. Not only that, but he killed. He slayed. He crushed it. Had ‘em in stitches, rolling in the aisles, roaring with laughter. The man had props: a three-piece white suit, a banjo, various juggling items, a gag arrow-through-the-head device, and a goofy smile. The dude was one “wild and crazy guy!” performing in an arena that the New York Islanders NHL team once called home. That’s right, the same place that hosted The Grateful Dead 42 times. How outrageous is that? We’re talkin’ some kind of weird, off-the-wall, in-your-face alchemy here. Some kind of theater of the absurd. A comic playing an arena?!
So, get this, it’s still 1978. December 10th, to be exact. Just two months after Steve slayed in Uniondale. The venue was the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, California. On stage, Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor, alias Richard Pryor, a skinny, 38-year-old comedian, had the audacity to perform his stand-up act in front of a multi-camera setup for a film slated to open in wide release on February 2nd of the following year. Yeah, you read right: wide release. To the tune of 500 theaters. In a word: unprecedented. What the hell was going on here? Stand-up comedy, a format going back to the late 19th century vaudeville shows and later making its home in smoky nightclubs in oftentimes, seedier sections of the city, suddenly had a new residence in cinema complexes across the country? People in virtually every state could simultaneously munch popcorn and slurp sodas at all hours of the day while laughing themselves silly. And all this while some other guy with an arrow through his head was doing his act in sold-out arenas? Whoa, how could this even happen?
Look, I don’t claim to be a sociologist (hell, I’ve never even stayed at a Holiday Inn Express), but watching the summer of 69’s “Woodstock”, billed as “Three Days of Peace and Music” give way to that December’s “Altamont Festival”, resulting in the murder of an eighteen-year-old woman by a Hells Angel while the Stones played “Sympathy for the Devil” seemed like one hell of a portent issuing in the new decade. And, indeed, it was, as the 70s proved to be a chaotic, rebellious, and oftentimes violent era. Just five months in, as the highly unpopular Vietnam War continued to wage, four protesting students were killed by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University. Later on, there was the Watergate scandal, forcing President Nixon’s resignation, causing even more unrest while, arguably, the most creative, eclectic musical era in history ended, replaced by mind-numbing disco beats and the grimness of punk rock, a harsh signal that the times had changed. And not for the better. The years had definitely taken their toll, and people had had enough. They needed a release. An outlet. And comedy was there to provide it.
So, yeah, because of the likes of Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and a host of other stand-up pioneers, the comedy scene exploded, and by the time we hit the late 80s-early 90s it was in full bloom, which, coincidentally, was the time my brother Rick and yours truly threw our hats in the ring, calling ourselves the Guz Brothers and pronouncing ourselves as “The Official Comedy Team of the 1988 Olympics”. We did okay, lasting 4-5 years, initially playing all the open mic nights we could find before getting an agent and performing all around western Massachusetts, the Boston area and other parts of New England. Plenty of nights we slayed and, truth be told, there were a few nights when we died onstage. That’s right, folks, comedy isn’t always pretty.
So, anyway, being a comedy team was pretty rare back then, even rarer now. But, hey, if any of you out there are entertaining the notion, I have a couple of tips: If you think because you’re a team you’re getting paid double, think again; you’re not. Club owners only pay for the time slot, be it one person or an improv group, so do it for the love of comedy, not the dough. Oh, and one more thing, if by chance you’re in a comedy team with your brother and you happen to have another brother--I don’t know, let’s call him Steve--and you and your brother are in the midst of your comedy act in front of a crowd, and you hear his voice in the background, heckling you? (that’s right, heckling his own brothers!)… Yeah, here’s what you do: immediately call him up to the stage, telling the crowd they’re about to witness a first: A comedy team featuring THREE brothers! I guarantee that brother of yours—let’s call him Steve—won’t be heard from again the rest of the night.