Further Explanation Needed

Andy Kaufman was a genius. There is potential that I could say, Andy Kaufman is a genius. There are many people out there like myself that still think there is a chance that Andy Kaufman is still alive. He wasn't you normal comedian. He didn't just want to get a laugh out of people. He wanted to get a reaction. It didn't matter if it was a good reaction or a hostile reaction.

The last couple of weeks I have been obsessed with reading about Kaufman and the characters that he played. Twice last week, I went to see Tony Clifton play the Chopin Theatre in Chicago. I have to say that it was everything that I could have hoped for. I can remember seeing Andy on TV for years. Whether it was a re-run of something he did on Saturday Night Live or a special about his life. Tony Clifton wasn't someone I knew before he co-starred in "Man on the Moon", the movie about the life of Andy Kaufman. Tony Clifton was by far, the best live show I have ever seen. And the two shows were very different.

The last post was kind of a play on Kaufman's Great Gatsby bit. On some occasions, audiences would show up to one of Kaufman's stage performances expecting to see him perform as Latka from Taxi, and heckling him with demands when he did not. Kaufman would punish these audiences with the announcement that he was going to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to them. The audience would laugh at this, not realizing that he was serious and would proceed to read the book to them, continuing despite audience members' departure. At a certain point, he would ask the audience if they wanted him to keep reading, or play a record. When the audience chose to hear the record, the record he cued up was a recording of him continuing to read The Great Gatsby from where he had left off.

Tony Clifton did a great showing while singing Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" with full video clips, pictures and the actual recordings of the radio transmissions. For some reason, it really stuck in my head. So I decided to make a little experiment of my own.

I wrote that post about the Edmond Fitzgerald and its tie to the current economy first off, because I thought it was funny that those were the two other ships' names. And secondly because I wanted to see if I could get a reaction out of readers. There aren't any comments posted, but I received emails telling me that they couldn't even make it through the post without wondering why I was rambling. In one instance, a co-worker turned to me an hour after I wrote it (during my lunch break) and asked if she had to keep reading. To me, it was a small success.

If you have never heard of Andy Kaufman or Tony Clifton, please rent "Man on the Moon". It will change the way you look at comedy. Its not just about getting you to laugh out loud. The real question is, who was it that was performing as Tony Clifton? Is he real? Was it Bob Zmuda? Or was it actually Andy Kaufman coming back to enjoy his work after a 25 year long practical joke? Who really knows?

But in the words of Tony Clifton:

"Don't know nothin' about no Andy. Just some dead guy tryin' to ride my coattails.
Let's HIT IT, boys! One, two, anda one two three four!"