He was great, of course. He didn’t participate in skits but instead his stand-up was interspersed among the skits and musical performances by Billy Preston and his band of nattily dressed ‘70s hipsters, and poor, unhappy Janis Ian. Such a sad sack.
The ‘70s ... so long ago.
Carlin’s schtick about the irony of going through airport security and then being handed eating utensils was prescient. His joke about threatening a stewardess by cutting her throat with a piece of paper was disturbing.
And did you catch the TV commercial satire about a razor with three blades? Three blades! Can you imagine? Outlandish!
I think we’re up to five blades now. How high can we go?
My, how things have changed.
I’ve also been watching Maude on DVD again. Most disturbing: Maude is supposed to be 47 years old in the show. The disk I have includes an episode of Walter celebrating his 50th birthday.
I'm still waiting to feel older than Archie Andrews and now I learn I'm older than Maude.
Aside from that, this disk includes the episodes in which Maude gets pregnant. (Oy, she’s so upset, she needs a double something. Looks like Scotch.) She decides, after two episodes of discussion, to get an abortion. It was weird, just weird, to hear a discussion that frank and unburdened by politics or hysteria. Her daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau) was all over ditching that fetus. It’s hard to imagine any television show today touching this topic.
My how things have changed.
In another episode, Maude and her “housewife” friends decide to protest a young supermarket checker getting busted for pot by buying pot and all getting arrested.
The whole episode is like entering a parallel universe.
For example: Carol comes downstairs in the morning feeling groggy. Maude and Walter had kept her up fighting about the planned protest and so Adrienne finally had to give in and take a Valium, she explains. Oh, Maude can help--here's a Ritalin to wake her up. (“That’s what mommies are for.”)
Then, their doctor buddy Arthur stops by (with a hangover) and Walter hits him up for refills on their drugs--Secenol, Miltown, Librium.
Holy crap, Maude. You’re all hopped up on dolls! Who knew?
Yes, that’s the point—the hypocrisy of marijuana laws when people are taking all kinds of other drugs, but still… Can you imagine Ray Romano downing a Miltown after a bad day?
Maude was responsible for getting weed to get herself and her friends busted but Walter confiscates her $20 bag and she ends up going to the police station with a bag of oregano. The sergeant at the desk figures that out and won’t arrest anyone for that. He also complains of exhaustion and so Maude rummages in her purse and helpfully hands him a Dexamil.
I was sure the punch line would be that she would get arrested for distributing another kind of controlled substance. Nope. Blablabla, Maude and the women end up going home, free, and after she’s gone, the cop shrugs and pops the Dexamil.
Cue the music.
MY how things have changed!
Finally, last night Tom and I wallowed in VH1 Classic’s History of Rock episodes about 1970s rock and then punk. No particular insights about that here, except to note how deep the roots of the rock of our formative years run. It just sounds, looks and feels so right to me, so personal, in a way no music from before or after does. I still belong to the Blank Generation. That doesn’t seem to change.
6 comments:
Yeah I saw the SNL... interesting, I loved Billy Preston. They rarely show anything pre-1990's on cable anymore, unless it's part of a "Best Of."
Yes, I particularly loved that it was complete, not just selections, so we got to see even the stuff that was dated and/or slightly inappropriate.
Oh yeah--and did you catch the leather suit on Billy Preston's guitarist (or bass player, I didn't notice). Man, that is stylin'!
The sad part of watching that show was noting how many people who had appeared on it had passed on (sigh).
As for Adrienne Barbeau...mmm, Adrienne Barbeau...(Some things never change ;-D)
That whole set and band was so colorful and decked out, it was hard to notice a specific outfit! So I'll take your word for it. It was such an interesting combo too with Janis Ian... happy/funky and a sad, tortured soul. They should throw together two completely unrelated musical acts on the modern SNL.
Too funny. I wish I'd seen the SNL show.
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