never took his ideas seriously. Most of all, he was deeply bitter that he never achieved the wide-ranging fame of other Jewish comics like Danny Kaye and Jerry Lewis.
But then, he never had the broad appeal of stars like them. They were sleek, handsome, charming, upbeat, and essentially sentimental. My dad was fat, bald, bespectacled, and barbed. He was not made for the nation as a whole. He was a New Yorker through and through. He loved the frenetic individualism of the city. He loved its million minds and dialects, almost all of which he could imitate to perfection. He loved the chaos, most especially. He didn’t even like to see New Yorkers politely standing in line for a bus. Too orderly, he said, too organized, the first small sign of fascism on the march. For a Jew, the city’s chaos was safety. Out there—out in the bland, farmer-faced homogeneity of the fruited plains beyond the Hudson—a Jew stood out like a sore thumb and was always in peril. Here, in Bigtown, he could get lost on the pushing, shoving, arguing, watch-where-you’re-going-buster streets. If life on those streets sometimes seemed like a Hobbesian war of all against all, it was still better than a Hitlerian war of all against him!
My father had a story he liked to tell about his own father. Grandpa was a Lithuanian immigrant. A tough, domineering, sometimes violent man. He ultimately became a pawnbroker in a run-down, black neighborhood of Baltimore. But before that, for a time he lived in a small town—in Maryland somewhere or upstate New York, I don’t remember. In any case, one night a fire erupted in the town. The flames raged through the buildings of Main Street, leaping store to store. Then they spread to the private houses beyond. As the disaster became unstoppable, the town leaders hurriedly called an emergency meeting—and elected my grandfather fire chief because he was the only Jew around to take the blame!
That story is too good to believe and too funny to check, but it gives you a sense of my dad’s perspective. It was a perspective imbued with fear—fear of the Man, of the State, of the Power, fear of the goyische streets of Anytown where every gentile was a Cossack Waiting to Happen, if not a Nazi in Disguise. Dad joked about that fear a lot. Don’t make trouble; they’ll come and take you away! But the fear was real, and it kept his mind buzzing like an electric spark between the two poles of anxiety and rage.
People were not to be trusted. They were envious, hostile—all of them. This is another trait I’ve seen in many comedians. They all seem to feel that someone’s cheated them out of something. My father likewise. He knew the secret reason why everyone was out to thwart him. If he couldn’t sell a screenplay he’d written, it was because the producer was jealous of people who were multitalented. If an editor wouldn’t publish his book, it was because he was too stuck-up to believe a mere funnyman might have something interesting to say. And, of course, like every artist who’s ever been rejected, Dad knew the hidden truth about every publisher and movie studio and television producer alive: It’s just about money to them. All they want is to sell mediocre garbage to the lowest common denominator! But you couldn’t say that too loudly, or they would come and take you away.
Even if someone hadn’t committed a transgression against him personally, Dad could still always spot a member of a transgressive class. Intrusive executives. Fascist Republicans. Stormtrooper cops. Intellectuals were especially suspect. College professors: pretentious snobs, the lot of them; thought they were better than you were. Teachers in general: they were just people who couldn’t make it in the “real world.” Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. If an English teacher so much as criticized one of his sons’ papers, Dad would say it was only because he or she was a frustrated writer, jealous of our talent.
No one simply
But then, he never had the broad appeal of stars like them. They were sleek, handsome, charming, upbeat, and essentially sentimental. My dad was fat, bald, bespectacled, and barbed. He was not made for the nation as a whole. He was a New Yorker through and through. He loved the frenetic individualism of the city. He loved its million minds and dialects, almost all of which he could imitate to perfection. He loved the chaos, most especially. He didn’t even like to see New Yorkers politely standing in line for a bus. Too orderly, he said, too organized, the first small sign of fascism on the march. For a Jew, the city’s chaos was safety. Out there—out in the bland, farmer-faced homogeneity of the fruited plains beyond the Hudson—a Jew stood out like a sore thumb and was always in peril. Here, in Bigtown, he could get lost on the pushing, shoving, arguing, watch-where-you’re-going-buster streets. If life on those streets sometimes seemed like a Hobbesian war of all against all, it was still better than a Hitlerian war of all against him!
My father had a story he liked to tell about his own father. Grandpa was a Lithuanian immigrant. A tough, domineering, sometimes violent man. He ultimately became a pawnbroker in a run-down, black neighborhood of Baltimore. But before that, for a time he lived in a small town—in Maryland somewhere or upstate New York, I don’t remember. In any case, one night a fire erupted in the town. The flames raged through the buildings of Main Street, leaping store to store. Then they spread to the private houses beyond. As the disaster became unstoppable, the town leaders hurriedly called an emergency meeting—and elected my grandfather fire chief because he was the only Jew around to take the blame!
That story is too good to believe and too funny to check, but it gives you a sense of my dad’s perspective. It was a perspective imbued with fear—fear of the Man, of the State, of the Power, fear of the goyische streets of Anytown where every gentile was a Cossack Waiting to Happen, if not a Nazi in Disguise. Dad joked about that fear a lot. Don’t make trouble; they’ll come and take you away! But the fear was real, and it kept his mind buzzing like an electric spark between the two poles of anxiety and rage.
People were not to be trusted. They were envious, hostile—all of them. This is another trait I’ve seen in many comedians. They all seem to feel that someone’s cheated them out of something. My father likewise. He knew the secret reason why everyone was out to thwart him. If he couldn’t sell a screenplay he’d written, it was because the producer was jealous of people who were multitalented. If an editor wouldn’t publish his book, it was because he was too stuck-up to believe a mere funnyman might have something interesting to say. And, of course, like every artist who’s ever been rejected, Dad knew the hidden truth about every publisher and movie studio and television producer alive: It’s just about money to them. All they want is to sell mediocre garbage to the lowest common denominator! But you couldn’t say that too loudly, or they would come and take you away.
Even if someone hadn’t committed a transgression against him personally, Dad could still always spot a member of a transgressive class. Intrusive executives. Fascist Republicans. Stormtrooper cops. Intellectuals were especially suspect. College professors: pretentious snobs, the lot of them; thought they were better than you were. Teachers in general: they were just people who couldn’t make it in the “real world.” Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. If an English teacher so much as criticized one of his sons’ papers, Dad would say it was only because he or she was a frustrated writer, jealous of our talent.
No one simply
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