Rodney Dangerfield, when he was a young comic, did a Borscht Belt-style routine about how hard he had it coming up in his early years in show biz. He followed two terrible precision dancers, a horrible singer, and, while he did his act, the final act on the bill, a group of rabies infested performing dogs, heckled him mercilessly. Very bitter dogs, bitter dogs, kicking around show biz for years. In a mocking bitter tone: “Lassie didn’t get where she is on her talent, you know… Rin Tin Tin… heh heh heh…”
Nothing funny about spoken comedy delivered without jazz trio timing. Its deadpan, hairpin turns of voice and face that get the laugh, not humorous concepts on paper, which may or may not bring a smile. I don’t mention those bitter dogs for yuks, they’re an illustration. I had a good howl over a friend’s assessment of a certain deli-owner (“too bitter”) back when we were trying to sell beef bi-products to bodegas and delis in the Bronx.
My partner came back to the car carrying the case of beef sticks, smiling but also shaking his head to show me it was no sale. “Nah, he immediately recognized the product, and said he’d sold hundreds of them, that it was a great product, he made good money with it. But the old distributor never came back, left him high and dry, and he was too bitter to try the product again. He was actually a very nice guy, and he was on the fence, but I couldn’t convince him, he was just too bitter.”
And when he said “bitter” I laughed, and it’s still funny to me twenty-five years later, just not so gleefully. At my mature age I know the taste a bitter person actually gets in the back of the throat. Back then it was still just a hilarious abstraction to think of someone as bitter.
I’m thinking of all the things I have to feel gratitude about, and I take stock of them periodically. Today I’m thankful for my general calmness under fire and my patience, especially with young people. And also for my general physical and creative robustness.
In a busy animation workshop my attention is sometimes called for by three kids at once, while at least one other is running wild. I have to convey instantly to two that I’m sorry they’ll have to wait, attend quickly to the other and get back to them. Often, by the time I do, the problem will already be worked out, another kid calling me from across the room to come help them with something else. The workshop is running at about 80% efficiency now, which is amazing if you consider that it’s an after-school session, Thursday, at the end of a long week of school.
I get home from the session after a meditative subway ride, fire up the macBook and see what the young editor has put together during the session. This is the first time I am seeing much of the animation. The editing is about 90% done before I first see the material they’ve shot that day and there is very rarely any call to censor anything they’ve shot. The bulk of the inputting of frames and editing and titling the animation is done by one of three fifth graders, which is amazing, if you think about it.
Lately I’ve also been able to get an improvised soundtrack done by the kids each week, featuring their percussion and voices. Nearer by two or three big steps to working out how to get really good soundtracks than I was only two or three weeks ago.
Once the week’s sound and the picture are mixed and adjusted and I’ve sufficiently tweaked the final result, I will pump my fist, turn and give a high five to my shadowy, imaginary partner. “We did it!” I’ll say, and laugh, to see how mischievously it is all going exactly according to my long-shot, hard to describe plan.
“We vugging did it, man!” the imaginary partner will shout, proffering a fist for a heartfelt fist bump. And I’ll give a good bash, and pump my fist again.
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