I don’t know how many times I have heard that phrase - not necessarily directly at me -  but in conversations with other folks in the group trying to be witty, especially when they would try out a new joke. Trying out new jokes takes balls, especially when you do it in large groups. I did a new joke in front of 700 people. A picture of the show and crowd is here:

When you do a 2 hour comedy show, if everything works, you're not trying new stuff

New jokes very rarely go over, unless you are a pro, have been practicing it for awhile, or it is such a good short-hitter, that it can’t miss. Usually if the joke is flawed, an experienced comedian can doctor it up using his or hers “medical bag” of tricks: physical traits - faces, body language, pratfalls - local regional stupidity couture. This is a pouring on of your regional speech to disarm the listener. Timing and phrasing. A good comedian can take a racially charged joke and steer the characters into a different place. A place that has relative meaning to the crowd that is being performed for. Here is 11 minutes of the Bucky Lewis Show giving you a sense on dynamics, timing, set-up, and general overall ADD.
Bucky Lewis from Aura/Duce Productions/ Ariadne M on Vimeo

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So, how does it work?

You have to find and discover, AND use, what resources and assets you have: Do you have a funny physical feature? Do you look like anyone famous? Do people say that “You remind me of _ _ _ _?”  Use it. Even if you are not good at mimicking people, you still can use it, with some clever writing. And practice. Every single Do you sound like your Uncle George form the Old Country? Look at Borat as an example. You put a character face on comedy, it makes it that much funnier. Before Larry the Cable Guy hit the jackpot, he was just a husky guy with a mullet doing stand-up in clubs. Just another run of the mill comedian. And then, bingo! Dan Whitney

If you can’t see the video, go HERE:

THERE are a lot of different types of comedy. Slapstick, Cerebral, Character based, Improvisational, Stand-Up, Visual, Storytelling, etc. This is a very good illustration from Monty Python (at the Hollywood Bowl) on the different types of Slapstick, and the way it works:

NEXT UP: The Business of Funny Business (Part 2)

To break in the New Year Bucky performed at the Whittier House in West Ossipee, NH.  A Great Show, great audience and New Year Celebration Show and Dancing, Count Down and Champagne Toast!!  The Whittier www.whittierhouse.comalways manages to offer good service and a good show environment.  Bucky has been performing there for at least 15 Years… This was his first New Year’s Eve Event… Nice people.. good fun.. and warm beginings for a healthy and bright future.

So this was New Year’s Eve & Day!

But first, a word from our sponsor:

Yes friends, this is all about the past year and how the course of it was DICKtated by most. Some people got outright nailed on it.

It just doesn't work!

I guess the fact that from an early age when all of us males woke up in the morning with a built in kickstand, we actually didn’t know that this marvelous pull-toy of ours would lead to trouble by having a mind all its own. When we did discover that burping it would make it feel better, we tried to take it further by seeing if we suck ourselves off (see above).
We would listen to it more and more, and then when we understood it’s logic: to search and destroy, we got in trouble.

There is not one male reading this, who can say their pointer wasn’t the lead dog on the sled a lot (most) of the time.

The Top Sex Scandals of 2009:

1. Tiger Woods

Shouldn't Billionaires live in the country, and not the 'Burbs?

Now, if this doesn’t nail the fact that we are just basic male mammals in a meat eating society, and the “If it moves, kill it or fuck it” applies, nothing does.

The man had it all. But I guess, for I don’t know, that you can’t be content without being a hunter gatherer.
I’m not even going to get into the whole “Black guy/ White chicks thing…

SPECIAL:  ——Secret sex tape was just released! ——-

2. David Letterman

Those who throw stones...

It’s a bitch being the receiver not the giver on certain things.
I’m sure that ole’ Stephanie was wearing a pheromone on those nights. He just couldn’t help himself. He should have had his testosterone directed towards a hobby like collecting cars and motorcycles like Jay Leno.
Of course if I had to put up with that megalomaniac Paul Schaeffer every night, I would snap too.

3. Roman Polanski

"Calling all 13 year old girls"

OK, they say “Time Heals all Wounds”, or is it, Time Wounds all Heels”. Not quite sure. But rape is rape. Period.
I guess Polanski’s last name is pronounced ‘Pol - in - ski’ in English.

4. Charlie Sheen

"I just can't control them pesky fists"

I guess when you are talking sex scandals, abuse shoots right up there.
When people can’t keep it in their pants, they are having trouble with their inner self. This particularly applies to domestic abuse.
Let’s see, do we have a problem here? He told Denise Richards he “would have her killed”, shot Kelly Preston in the arm, and can’t stop the drug and alcohol thing.

Women like men who are funny, so why are they attracted to THIS man?

5. Governor Mark Sanford

"Trust me honey, it really is that big!"

Nothing could be finer than to be in South America…
At least the man had taste, even if he so stupid. Pretty scary that you can’t come up with a better excuse than the one he gave:
Hiking the Appalachian Trail. Really? I didn’t know it went through Buenos Aires. Musta been the faulty geography books they gave us in parochial school.

Woodstock - 40 years ago!

Imagine what a weekend it was. 400,00 people on 600 acres of dairy fields. No trouble, no texting, cell phones, Facebook. Wow. I guess the people who didn’t go wish they did, and the ones who did go, probably don’t remember it much , let alone having much of a good time. It’s one of those things that become a special and romantic part of human history. Probably because it was all about peace and good will. I wonder how many of the people who went continued on a path of enlightenment? And how many became greedy corrupt bankers, lawyers, and politicians? That would be a good question to ask. I guess having faith in the human collective can translate into some sort of spiritual righteousness.

Many of the people who were at Woodstock are retired now, some in - gasp - old-folks homes, and assisted living facilities. Or more obscuriously, become worm dirt. Time is a nasty mistress. If she posted a personal add on CraigsList it would be something like:

“ISO men, women, children, to share time with. No going back. Consequences for actions. No guarantees on remembrances or impressions, but you will have the ability to make sand castles, and live in the moment. Let’s feel good together!”

From Eight Track to Ipod:

40 years has brought us unbelievable change. We have gone from: Acid Rock to Acid Reflux. Instead of screwing the system, we are concerned with upgrading it. Getting more head means less hair falling into our eyes. We are still concerned with seeds and stems, but now it’s called roughage.

We felt oddly grounded by our parents and elders begging us to get our hair cut. Karma has the last laugh with that now that our kids our begging US to get their head shaved, or their eyebrows pierced.

We were concerned with tapping the KEG. Now we are concerned with getting tapped into the EKG.

What has it given us, and what’s next?
Depends.

One thing we have learned through all of this is that the “Shouldas” get louder as we get older.
I am sure that Joni Mitchell regrets turning down Woodstock to instead be on the Dick Cavette show, and who knows how much longer Tommy James and the Shondells would have been around if they hadn’t turned down the invitation to play there. Not to mention the regret that John Fogerty must have for not letting the producers film their spot at the show. Most people don’t even know they were there.
All you have to do is look at how Santana’a career exploded after his memorable performance there. And the channeling of the era by Hendrix’s searing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner…

Of course the whole reason that the festival was located in Woodstock originally was to bring Bob Dylan out and put him front and center right in his own back yard. But the NIMBY (not in my back yard) forces were at work and he ended up boycotting the event. Instead we do have him on film in more laid back settings like here on this TV show from Canada:

I guess listening to a song like that, had more affect on me than I realized. I not only ended up playing at a place called the North Country Fair in Mt Snow Vermont back in the Happy Hour Days with John M.organ, but it became my way of life.

These were the words of Frank Soper of Adams and Soper Talent Agency in Boston.

Abbott Adams and Frank Soper had a small office on the 3rd floor of 420 Boylston St. in Boston. Their office was always being visited by all types of entertainers looking for work. I know, I worked there “learning the business” helping out by shuffling papers, doing the mail, getting lunch for them at the deli downstairs, and anything else they needed.

When you do country music and you are from Maine, you need a gimmick. Let's try an eye patch. Which eye though?

Here is the classic song about Route 2 from Houlton to Bangor Tombstone Every Mile:

It seems that Mr. Frank Soper -who always dressed impeccably with his signature bowties (his own schtick) - had an eye for talent, having booked Blinstrubs in South Boston for years, having brought in the likes of Wayne Newton, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Vale, Tony Bennett, and all of the comedians on the circuit back then. Well, he thought that I had talent and wanted to help me exploit that talent. I remember him saying one steamy summer day in Boston: “You gotta have a gimmick kid. People will remember you if you have a gimmick”. He suggested to me things like: “Dress all in white with a white guitar, that will make people remember”. Of course at the time, I had no clue which direction my talent would take me, only that I had that ’something’. But ’something’ doesn’t get very far if you don’t have an engine to power the machine. That engine comes in the form of an important piece of the whole puzzle. The Jews, who we all know invented Vaudeville, have a Yiddish word for it: Schtick.

Johnny Cash was well known for his signature look of dressing in black.

The Blue Man Group. Well, where would they be without the greasepaint?

The Blue Man Group

We all know this scene and what Ralph was saying to his wife.

“One of these days Alice!”

It was perfect timing. Television had matured just in time for most of us to see the grainy and blurry images of a NH boy Neil Armstrong stepping and then hopping on the moon, shocking the Russians. It was the ultimate coup for the US to get there first, and we did. But what does it mean now?

Who owns the moon? Do we have any more rights to it than any other country?

GOOD NEWS! YOU can own real estate on the moon! That’s right. CLICK HERE to buy real estate on the moon.

The Lunar Registry

That’s right. The Lunar Registry has sold pieces of “Moon Pie” real estate to approximately 37,000,000 people. That is not a typo. I guess they have not read the Outer Space Treaty that was ratified at the UN by most nations including the US back in 1967. It basically says that the moon is owned by no one and everyone. I guess it’s the old adage of access. Look at how we flourished after Lewis and Clark. If you get there first and find a way to mine it through commerce… Bingo.

Access is after all how we remember all of those “I remember where I was when” stories. All seeming to revolve again, back to the technology of the time: television. Evrything was etched and burned more into our collective brains through the images that unfolded through the tube: Kennedies, King, Lennon, Olympics, the moon, and to infinity and beyond.

For me, my development-through-access came from watching the true characters that made the face of Funny on television: Milton Berle, Ernie Kovacs, Bennie Hill. I can go on and on. Such as this great live blooper sketch from Red Skelton:

And one more gem from another great character comedian and talent: Frankie Fontaine. Full circle back to Jackie Gleason to close out this blog.

Where have you gone Lewis Carrol?  The way I figure it is that Carrol was doing mushrooms obviously  - “that the mushroom is the key to navigating through her strange journey: “… one side will make you grow taller, the other side will make you grow shorter” ___ Alice in Wonderland, and John Lennon had some “really good shit” acid and was trippin’ when he wrote the words of the song, inspired by Carrolls ‘travels’.
I am the Walrus:

I don’t know how it all comes together (no pun) but it seems it was no accident Brian Epstein overdosed. He saw the future of meds! Seriously, how far would the Beatles have gone without George Martin?. The Walrus was his first song production with the Beatles, and he seemed to understand where John Lennon was coming from. No easy task.

Then again, if Brian Epstein wouldn’t have been there at the start, he wouldn’t have replaced Pete Best with Ringo Starr. And you would not have had Octopus’s Garden:

Hell, if Ringo wasn’t chosen to play drums with the Fab Four, he would probably be doing childrens parties now. No offense Ringo, as I am just pointing out this wonderful colorful - not knowing what’s around the next bend- life that we are journeying through. After awhile it becomes the mode of transportation we use to get through that makes a difference.

Maybe a Yellow Submarine?

Happy Trails.

It will happen, probably has already. A mother sealing the history of the greatest creative music phenomenon ever to happen. Of course, that’s just me. But the Dumbing Down of the World continues, including the use of digital audio pitch used in vocals. It was fine when Devo did it, when it was a novelty, but now it is coming into mainstream music. Check out this video to see what I mean:

And didn’t wearing numbers on your shirt -especially sport jerseys- go out a few years ago? C’MON! Any dickhead with a camera and Garage Band can put out a vid. Throw in some tits, and some digital tone enhancement, and… Ta Da! Look Mom, I’m a white trash punk singer.

Why have singers at all? I guess when you have now talent like Britney Spears singing, (Below is what she REALLY sounds like) you get the picture of how the digital age can change the paradigm of talent.

I really don’t know if I would have mined the depth of my talent and worked so hard on it if I had been brought up in the digital age. I have some ADHD goin’ on here and I know sure as briars disturb the stitch I would have never been practicing as much as I did back growing up in the late 50’s and 60’s. Every day for hours my brothers and cousins would tirelessly - at the expense of a normal childhood - practice harmonizing, playing, singing, and choreography.

The Lewis Brothers: Bucky, Timmy, and John

Of course, it’s so easy to record anything nowadays. Everything we taped back then however was a big production. You just didn’t bring a reel to reel tape recorder with you to record shows. It was very rare to get “live” shows recorded and put on Vinyl. The only time that ever happened was in Vegas or a Music Hall. If you look at your vinyl collection you will see that. Even in the early rock and roll days, the styles of play was developed by presentation. Hammering the keys was the only way that Jerry Lee Lewis (no relation) could be heard over his band.

So we have the plus side of digital: recording everything. Whether it is on the cell phone or the IPod, it’s all good.

Where did the Talent Go?

When the CD format came out around the early 90’s, it started to make new talent less of a priority for Record Labels. They knew they owned countless libraries of the Talent they had signed for a song, and now it was time to Reissue. There became an explosion of “Classic Sounds” from the 50’s 60’s 70’s and 80’s.

There will always be new talent coming out, but between PWM (people with money), and the countless ways that the digital age has made it easy to “create talent”, you have to weed through that much more grey noise to find it. The problem is, are we lowering our cognitive senses as well as our standards as a result?

I hadn’t seen him in awhile since he lives in the mountains of the Berkshires with a family, etc., so it was time to catch up on who was doing what now and with whom. I asked him about a mutual friend and was shocked when he told me he had died. When I asked him what he died from, Dave answered “Stupidity”. Then he went on to explain: “He was a hypochondriac, always thinking that something was wrong , and overcompensating for the supposed affliction by over medicating”. “Eventually, all of those drugs overloaded his heart and he had a heart attack”.

The problem with great entertainers is that the reason they are so great is directly related to their

Talented kid

personality flaws. It seems like the entertainers we remember the most are the ones who die suddenly and tragically. The sad thing about Michael Jackson is that at one point in his life he trully was the single greatest entertainer that ever lived. He was poised again to have a comeback. I guess his heart couldn’t take it. He was putting his heart into the upcoming tour and just then, life happened. Just imagined the amount of medications that MJ was on. It must have been mind boggling. I wonder if they made a medication for “Noboby understands me”.

Hiding in plain sight

Imagine the weight that he felt waking up every morning from  the farce that had become his life. Who was there to ground him? Everyone wants to tear down the champ. It’s human nature.

It begs to ask the question: Is the creative passion lost when life gets more comfortable? There is a balance I’m sure of it. What is more important? The longevity of life or the brightness of the comet?

I guess the real winners were his folks: long life, 10 kids, and comfortable retirement. But therein lies the rub of taking away a childhood and forcing your kids to work. Disfunctional families.

"Waiting for Muthah to get done with the Teeth"

Somewhere I have a picture of my grandfather with about 50 raccoon pelts on the “Grudge” in Laconia.

We lived in the apartment over my grandparents in the French Section of town. He just wasn’t suited to live in the city, continually upsetting the neighbors with dead animal pelts drying in the sun. After all, he had a 250 acre farm in Sandwich NH that they had to give up after my father lost his leg in a hunting accident when he was 13. Such is life.
It didn’t stop him from doing the thing he was good at: running hounds. All my life we had dogs, not just regular dogs, but working hounds. Beagles, Black and Tans, Walkers, Blueticks, any dog that howled -we had. Our neighbors loved us! Oh, and not to mention if you loved cats in our neighborhood you were out of luck. You know the saying “put butter on their paws and they will never leave home”, well we had a CBH in our yard. A Cat Black Hole. Cats would come onto our property never to be seen again. My grandfather was not a mean man, but something musta snapped when they moved to the city and could no longer have farm animals so he took it out on the cats.
I had never seen a cat fly so far and so fast as after my grandpa wound em up by the tail and let em go after sufficient tug torque had been achieved on the tail. I think he got some kind of release from watching Paws and Claws flailing through the air. I learned in my youth the limits of how amphibious cats can be, not to mention how well they can fly.

Here is an excerpt from my 5th album “Buck Naked” called got_it_from_grandpa

Bucky's 5th album: "Buck Naked"