Outtakes

Sometimes, I'm a bit perseverative.

I listen to the same few songs over and over again until I know every lyric, every intonation and nuance by heart. I like the same restaurants, and frequently order the same thing (though I'll always branch out for an opportunity to consume, and then expel, a new animal). I like my same favorite movies and old television shows, and I watch them.

A lot.

I can recite most of "Dr. Strangelove", "The Pink Panther" films, "Monty Python" major motion pictures (and most of the more obscure television sketches) and the dialogue from all "Fawlty Towers" episodes, with proper character imitations-- male & female alike.

I'm the same way, apparently, with clips on YouTube.

A friend of mine from work, who has found a kindred spirit in me as someone who appreciates acts of a truly depraved nature, frequently sends me YouTube Poop clips, via email and text. Most of these clips are re-mixes of old Billy Mays sales pitches with... just... horrible things done to them.

Believe me, once you climb up on the Suicide Ladder, your life just won't be the same again.

I enjoy the clips my friend sends me, and I'll watch them a few times, just to relish in the choicest moments, and to encode them into my mind to be able to reference them in casual conversation with him at work the next day.

(Because that's how you make friends.)

As I said, I do enjoy these clips, these memes, these fast-and-funny, poorly-constructed though outrageous outbreaks of comedy at someone else's (a dead person's, no less) expense, but they're not my favorite thing to enjoy on YouTube. No, what I turn to most frequently when I'm trolling around the internet looking for a way to pass a few pleasurable moments with my trousers on, are old clips from "The Carol Burnett Show."

Not just clips: outtakes.

The show was rehearsed for a few hours and then was taped in mid-afternoon before a live audience. Inevitably, there were line-flubs and prop cock-ups and mis-cues and dropped lines, so the show was always taped again, in the evening, again, before a live audience. There were imperfections in each recording of each sketch, because it's basically live theatre-- no re-shooting, editing, or touch-ups. After taping, the producer and director would take whichever version of the sketch came out best, and put that in the final show to be aired.

Frequently, Tim Conway would do the first taping straight, or at least as straight as he could. After the taping, he would confer with the cameramen and tell them that something would be up during the second evening taping with a certain sketch. Tim loved nothing more than breaking up his co-star, Harvey Korman, who could scarcely keep a straight face when simply paired up with Conway, as he often was. Typically during the second taping, Tim would let something fly-- some goof or an unrehearsed gag or funny voice-- and Harvey would be in absolute hysterics, as would the audience.

Many of these "outtakes" exist because they aren't actually outtakes at all-- Tim would sometimes fuck around (in different ways) during both recordings of a given show, so that whichever version aired, it would feature some bust-up between Tim and Harvey. Their effect on each other was priceless.

Was it unprofessional? Oh, I don't know. Probably. Sure, as a trained actor and as someone who strives to be competent and impenetrable on stage at all times, yes, it smacks of amateur theatrics, but to watch these clips, to watch those two men look into each other's eyes, you see something else besides the devil-may-care attitude-- you see love. They loved each other. They loved to see and hear each other laugh, to behave like children together-- to have fun.

And I love watching Tim and Harvey have fun.

Life's so serious sometimes, I often think we make it more so than it really needs to be sometimes. I reproach myself sometimes for spending time sifting through old "Carol Burnett Show" outtakes and clips when I could be writing something important, and learning more about the world in which I live, or researching smarter ways to invest money that I don't really even have, but I guess it's important to have fun, too.

Tim and Harvey knew that. And we could learn a thing or two from them.

My Memesonic Apron

In addition to working at a psychiatric hospital, I also teach theatre to impressionable youngsters.

(Of course I do.)

Mostly, I do private audition coaching and monologue work, on an individual basis which, I guess, the word "private" implies. Just me and the student, one-on-one, sparring intellectually, dodging each other's witticisms and engaging in the kind of reparte that, I suppose, college professors find stimulating during office hours.

Occasionally, we also do scenework.

I'm fortunate enough, pretty much, to have my pick of the litter. A student gets recommended to me, or referred to me, or suggested to me, and I get to give thumbs up or thumbs down whether I want to work with him or her. For the past year, I've been working one-on-one with a fine, upstanding young man whom I will call Jack, because that's not his name. Jack is a rabbi's son, comes from a pretty well-to-do family, and travels quite a distance for our lessons, which is kind of flattering. I have little doubt that there are perfectly suitable and competent acting instructors closer to his front door, some of whom would probably be willing to travel to his front door. But I'm not. I make him schlep out to see me, and, for the past year, he has done just that.

Apparently, it's paid off. Last month, he applied to and auditioned for, and just got accepted to my alma mater. And I didn't even have to grease a single wheel.

Jack works hard, and he works on hard material. I throw challenging playwrights his way-- Sam Shepherd, Harold Pinter, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Israel Horovitz, just to name a few. He doesn't blink, he doesn't say "I can't," and he never comes to class unprepared. He knows I would kill him.

We have a great relationship. I'm casual in demeanor with him, loose with my language, but, when it's time to work, it's time to work-- I'm supportive and encouraging, but I'm also firm, demanding, and, when I spy bullshit, I call him out on it. If he's mugging or indicating or phoning it in, it does not continue. He likes to be called out. "Nobody's ever done that to me before," he says. Well, welcome to Hell, son.

Sometimes, the hour we have together stretches into an hour and fifteen minutes, or an hour and a half. We philosophize, we story-tell, we talk shop, but also we talk life. I remember one conversation recently we had about television. I was in the midst of enjoying a significant amount of "The Carol Burnett Show" sketches on YouTube, and I asked Jack,

"As someone who has grown up completely saturated by and with reality television, can you tell me honestly, from your perspective, why television is all shit nowadays?"

He smiled at me.

"Uh-oh, I just said something cantankerous about television, and I also just used the words 'nowadays' and 'cantankerous.' Did I just age in your eyes by forty-five years?"

Jack laughed.

"Yeah, you did. You talk like my Zayda." Then, like in our lessons, he got serious. I could tell it was coming by the way he furrowed his brow. "Look, what is reality TV? Shows like 'Teen Mom' and 'Jersey Shore'? They're people behaving badly-- like idiots. Assholes. And what is everybody obsessed with? The latest YouTube clip of some asshole doing something idiotic."

"Right, or it's a cat belching the French alphabet," I chimed in, "or a baby creating a telescope out of a paper towel roll."

"Yeah," Jack said, "and that's all bullshit, and I think the television producers and execs see us going ape over this dumb, mindless crap and they say, 'That's it-- that's what they want to see!'"

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of his day off watching Tim Conway breaking up the late Harvey Korman with just a knowing, sideways glance before an expertly-placed bit of improv, this precient statement by my pupil struck a chord in me.

"It's as if there's nothing well-crafted anymore, like, the market for that has simply dried up," I complained, as an elderly man might when confronted by a poorly-constructed corned beef sandwich at a faux-deli.

"Right, that's because there's nothing well-crafted online either. It's all drug-addicted retards doing crappy animation in their basements being funny or 'Shit My Dad Says' or blogs that are all just pics and videos or other shitty user-generated content, like, I don't know if you know what a 'meme' is--"

I stared at him.

"I want to murder you right now," I said. He cracked up.

"Okay," he said, "sorry, but, like Double Rainbow guy-- like, that's just total bullshit and, in two weeks, nobody's going to give a shit about that,"

"Right, because this culture is so vapid and ridiculous that a video of a 4-year-old ballerina dancing with a terrier is going to take the country by storm."

"Right," Jack agreed, "we're all about the next meme. Who can share what with whom first. That's what we're all about."

And that talented sonofabitch is right. And that gave me pause. What also gave me pause was that an eighteen-year-old high school senior suddenly suspected that I might be too old, no, perhaps too out-of-touch to know what a "meme" was.

Though he sometimes places his foot strategically inside his mouth when he's in my company, he is a smart kid. But I'm sure my alma mater will fix that.