The Twisted World of Billy Connolly

 

 

 

Tall Tales & Wee Stories (2019)

By Billy Connolly

Two Roads, 325 pages.

★★★

 

Billy Connolly will be 82 next month. He has nee called the funniest comic in British history. That’s debatable, of course, though he has been knighted. That’s pretty funny, as he’s a supporter of Scottish independence!  Americans might know him best for his work in TV and movies, like Mrs. Brown (1997), a Muppets movie, or in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. The last two are hilarious given that Billy Connolly is one of the filthiest comedians ever to make the stage roar.

 

If you pick up his Tall Tales & Wee Stories, you might want to keep it out of reach until young whelps are ready for blue words–say six when they hear them in school. Connolly is Lenny Bruce unleashed. (Bruce got arrested for material that has gone from obscene to routine.) Connolly’s also an example of what happened once Scotland threw off the chains of John Knox-style Presbyterianism. These days you’ll run into people who think the Scots are the funniest people on the planet. T’was not always so. Until World War II, Scots were as grey and gloomy as their weather.

 

Connolly came of age in gritty postwar Glasgow, was abandoned by his mother, was raised by two aunts, and became a welder. In other words, a working class outlook with no time for bourgeois niceties. This became fodder for the no-whinging first section of his book: “Childhood & Family.” Thank heaven for someone who can say of deprivation, “Nonsense! When you’re a wee boy it’s not like that.” The things that rankled were a visiting priest that ate all the good crumpets and pretense. All of sudden their tenement had a “cloakroom.” (“ Bloody ‘cloakroom.’ She thinks it’s a dance hall she’s in.”) Connolly’s rants against mathematics, substitute teachers, and telling a cardinal to “fuck off” are priceless. Outings to swim in the North Sea led to one of his greatest lines: Scots aren’t white people; they’re translucent blue.

 

 

 

Rock n’ roll, the folk revival, and the counterculture fit Connolly like a condom, which he hates by the way. He’s six feet tall, but projects the ‘tude and swager of someone even more substantial and gained the nickname “Big Yin." He certainly cut a commanding figure with a bull neck,  a wild, long mane and striding in his banana boots. Wait! Did I say banana boots? Yep. They were his trademark for a while and are still on view at the People’s Palace in Glasgow. Connolly is also a very good musician who still gets called upon to pick up an instrument (banjo, guitar, autoharp) for gigs and studio recordings with traditional musicians.

 

In in “Scotland and Beyond” Connolly regales us with observations about the Irish, Australians, waiters who don’t offer menus, Scots getting drunk on crème de menthe, rain, and the British National Anthem. He’s okay with the idea of “saving the Queen” in the latter, but overall the anthem is “boring… appalling… racist.. and anti-Scottish.” Leave it him to link the anthem to poor showings in the Olympics.  

 

The chapters get bluer as he delves into “Real Characters”–never trust a comic who uses the word real– “Accidents and Adventures,” “Sex, Drugs & Folk Music,” and “A Life Worth Living.” He offers commentary such as, “Never trust a man who, when left in a room with tea cosy, doesn’t try it on;” and “if you’d like to lose weight, never eat anything that’s served in a bucket. A bucket is the kitchen implement of the farmyard.” He hates  stupid questions, like when you witness an accident and you’re asked, “Can you tell us in your own words what happened?” ‘What, do you think I have my own words? Who would I talk to?’” You name it and Connolly has a twisted POV: computers, “beige” people, naked bungie jumping, cuddling, sexy bandages, scrotums, vomit, New Age nonsense, and swearing (he’s for it).

 

I’m a huge Billy Connolly fan, so why just three stars? First, Connolly often goes for cheap jokes and second, non-Scots will be baffled by some of his tales. Mainly, though, Connolly has to be seen to be appreciated fully. His comedy is akin to the manic energy of the late Robin Williams; it’s often not what he says, but how he says it. Read his cuddling story and then see it on YouTube. Connolly has been married to a psychologist for the past 35 years. Take from that what you will!

 

Rob Weir

My Black Friday Shopping Wish List

 

 

 

 

Santa has arrived and now that he’s done with the Macy’s Parade he’s making his list for 12/25. If you see the Big Red Dude, please tell him I’d like the following:

 

1. A mysterious targeted electronic pulse that wipes out all Christmas music at retail stores and public venues.

 

2. A ban on clothing made of non-natural materials.

 

3. Laryngitis for anyone who tries to say that Trump cares about average Americans—he’d sell your organs on E-Bay—or those who want to say that Joe Biden is not too old to be POTUS.

 

4. A genius brewer to discover that beer can be made without using 3,000 different types of hops in each 12-ounce glass.

 

5. Collective awareness that an “influencer” isn’t a real thing.

 

6. Airtime for any naturalist who can explain the difference between a reindeer and a plain old deer.

 

7. The discovery of a magic pill that transforms pie into health food.

 

8.  An IQ requirement for voting. Or for running for elected office.

 

9. Unionization of elf labor.

 

10. Don’t we all want this one? A definitive explanation of how a rotund dude can fit down chimneys and how he gets into locked homes that have none.

 

Lake Wobegone at a Stadium Near You

It’s official: mediocrity rules. It’s been creeping up on us for quite some time. First it was the movies. The simple thumbs up/thumbs down of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave way to a movie report card in flash trash publications like USA Today and Entertainment Weekly (which, by the way, fired serious reviewers to make way for “hipper” ones—read, those who are studio PR flaks). You all know what it means when a film gets a B-. It means the script was written by a chimpanzee.

Then it came to public schools. Competency testing means teaching to a specific test—no thinking required. Not that any of that matters to helicopter parents who know that Little Susie is a genius—even if they have to take her to a psychologist to discover a hitherto unknown learning disability to explain why she only got a C in math or why she had to drop Spanish. The same parents love their local schools, though they also believe American education is in crisis and that other schools are horrendous. Memo: Even the parents of kids in terrible schools rate their schools highly. They would have graded their school within an A instead of a B, were it not for the 11 assaults and 9 drug busts last semester. 

Now Magical Thinking has come to colleges. Profs are often blamed for “grade inflation,” but I accuse Garrison Keillor and football. Recall Keillor’s ending tag line about his fictional town of Lake Woebegone, Minnesota: “where all the children are above average.” That’s a problem. Somehow or other we’ve come to think that average is the same as failure. But Groucho Marx might be a better guide to what’s happening in colleges these days. 

In the 1932 film Horse Feathers Groucho is Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, who has just become the president of Huxley College. He tells his stunned faculty, “Huxley doesn’t have enough money for both a college and football, so tomorrow we start tearing down the college and building a stadium.” When asked where the students will sleep he quips, “In the classrooms, where they always sleep.” Funny stuff, but also painfully prescient. In 40 of our 50 states, the highest paid public employee is either a football or basketball coach. That’s not quite true here in Massachusetts, but almost. The UMass basketball coach makes nearly a million and the football coach nearly half a million, the latter despite the fact that more students will come out for a Fruit Loops giveaway than would ever attend a football game.

College football sets society’s bar for successful mediocrity. Check out this year’s bowl game lineups. Silly me—I thought going to a bowl was a reward for a great season, but I was wrong. Bet you can’t wait for this year’s Independence Bowl, which pits  Virginia Tech against Tulsa. Both were 6-6 this year. My calculator tells me that 6-6 is 50%, which is an F. In all, eight of the teams competing in this year’s bowl games won just half of their games. Here’s your Hall of Shame list: VA Tech, Tulsa, Connecticut, Indiana, Auburn, Kansas State, Washington, and West Virginia.  Even if they win, 7-6 is 54%, which is still an F.  This brings me to the eight teams going to bowl games with 7-5 records (Duke, Central Michigan, California, Colorado State, Texas Tech, Louisville, Penn State). That’s 58%, which is also an F, though if they win they’ll edge up to 62%, a gentleman’s D.  It gets worse. Nebraska and Minnesota are bowl-bound despite 5-7 records. That gets rounded up to 42% and I can assure you that no student of mine gets a pass with a 42! 

Even the 8-4 teams are D+/C- territory. Sure, I know that the NCAA and helmet-headed fans will tell me that a .670 winning percentage has to measured against “strength of schedule.” That’s how they justify Minnesota and Nebraska going to bowls and it’s certainly the rationale behind 8-4 teams. Poppycock, I say. It’s Lake Woebegone logic. What? We give out bowl bids to teams that tried really hard? Should we give them gold stars and lollipops while we’re at it?

Shouldn’t you have to have at least a B to go to a bowl game? That means 10-2 as a minimum. If that means we’re denied watching Central Michigan (7-5) take on Minnesota (5-7) in Detroit’s Quick Loan Bowl (or is it the Quick Lame Bowl?), so be it. In my youth, the Liberty Bowl was a sop given to two really good teams that weren’t quite up to a Cotton, Rose, Sugar, or Rose Bowl bid. This year’s Liberty Bowl pits Kansas State (6-6) versus Arkansas (7-5). Whoopie! Any readers contemplating a trip to Yankee Stadium the day after Christmas to see mighty Indiana (6-6) take on Duke (7-5) in the Pinstripe Bowl?

When your kid comes home from college with a 2.0 GPA just remember, 50% is the new C. Blame football.

Gallagher's Farewell to Comedy?

I Am Who I Pretend to Be

Gallagher

Uproar Entertainment 3937

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Remember Gallagher? The long-haired guy who dressed like a cross between a mime and an audition for "Where's Waldo?" The dude who used to smash watermelons with a sledgehammer? Gallagher was ubiquitous in the 1980s and early 1990s, including on Showtime and Comedy Central. Then his star faded when he his act took turns some deemed racist, homophobic, and nationalistic. For the record, some of his jokes could be viewed as sexist, crude, irreligious, and mean to people with disabilities. Gallagher might be the Southern rightwing-redneck-cracker his critics make him out to be for all I know, but I've never felt that that Political Correctness had any place in comedy. Let's face it, if nobody is insulted–even if a joke is self-deprecating–there is no comedy. If your nose goes easily out of joint, stay out of comedy clubs. Tell me that Richard Pryor wasn't also racist. Did you ever hear the recently departed Joan Rivers light into a person who heckled her for being insensitive?  Comedians are supposed to make us uncomfortable. The real question is whether or not the shtick is funny.  

Funny or not? The jury has always been out on Leo Gallagher, 68, and now we're going to have some time to assess him. I Am Who I Pretend to Be looks like to be Gallagher's swan song. It's a May 2014 live performance recorded at Sacramento's Ice House Comedy Club. He has subsequently suffered his third heart attack and has announced that his health won't allow him to tour any more. His latest (last?) album is a mishmash of new routines, selected classic jokes, musings on life's absurdities, and some poking around in the audience in search of cheap laughs. That is to say, it's similar to what he's been doing for decades. One also suspects that the title is also a backhanded slap at his brother Ron, who appropriated a lot of older brother's act.

Gallagher's shtick can best be described as uneven. Like a lot of comics, he is at his best when he takes logic and stretches it to its social extremes. Why, he ponders, do new socks come with little plastic hangers when no one hangs up their socks? If there is extraterrestrial life, why haven't they contacted us? Gallagher suggests it's because "they can smell stupid" and fly right on by. Don't get him started on sporks, the presence of French in the English language, or people who refuse to look at evidence. Other bits are simply dated. There are gems hiding amidst dross in his observations of the battle of the sexes, the dross mostly being social views about 30m years out of date. He has a routine about using handicapped bathrooms that isn't as offensive as it is sophomoric. Throughout the concert he plays the crank, sometimes with hilarious results and sometimes in the ways that make you want to leave him to wallow in his own irritability.   

Gallagher was reportedly very upset when Comedy Central rated him just the 100^th greatest stand-up comic of all-time. On all such lists there are weird choices. Does anyone find Bobcat Goldthwait (#61) Bernie Mac (#72), or Andrew Dice Clay (#95) funny? But let's be honest– Leo Gallagher was always a second-tier guy, as the recent deaths of Rivers and Robin Williams so poignantly remind us. I don't think it was Gallagher's bad boy antics that pushed him down the ranks so much as the fact that his initial rise was a zeitgeist thing. Smashing things appealed to a generation that used to say, "tear down the walls" and mean it. His anarchic high-octane energy resonated with Baby Boomers when they were still in their 30s and 40s. When Gallagher's energy flagged, the zeitgeist shifted, and running across the stage yielded to stand-up, some people were offended by what they heard and others simply grew tired of same old/same old.

Is Gallagher's swan song worth caring about? I'll give it a gentleman's B-. It has some very sharp and funny moments, but overall it does not sparkle with transcendent wit, cleverness, or brilliance. Alas, it's also more rant than frenetic anarchy.—Rob Weir