Word: martinisms
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Almost as fast as he can deliver his trademark "Excuuuusse ME!" Martin has become one of the country's hottest comics, stumbling, smirking and stroking his banjo through a sold-out 50-city headliner tour. The act is a lunatic deluge of sight gags, supercool show-biz parodies, zany body language and well-paced one-liners. Martin seems spacey, and his props appear to be simplistic. But below that surface, the act is as tight as a bear hug, and even the simplest shtik has flip-side gags within gags...
...make each line or attitude multilevel," Martin explains. "Each word is expressed with my entire body. I feel like I'm living the joke." And killing his audiences. Martin says he is looking for "cat handcuffs." His tabby-a tiger-stripe he calls Dr. Carleton P. Forbes-has amassed $3,000 worth of "cat toys" by filching checks from Steve's mailbox. But alas, Dr. Forbes has escaped ... to Catalina. On a catamaran. Audiences invariably groan as this inventive tale turns into mushy vaudeville. Wide-eyed pause. "You think comedy is ... pretty?" leers Martin. He catches them catnapping...
...comic did an existential somersault. He enrolled in Long Beach State and studied philosophy "like crazy." He recalls: "I got to a point where I could no longer speak." When after three years he began reading Ludwig Wittgenstein, who declared that if philosophical problems are solved, "little is achieved," Martin dropped back into show business. But he still likes to ponder philosophical problems. "I know all the important ethical questions," he tells audiences, "like is it O.K. to yell movie in a crowded firehouse...
After a brief interlude writing jokes for the Smothers brothers' and other variety shows, Martin decided to hit the circuit himself. In 1973 he made the Tonight show, and more recently has been appearing on Saturday Night Live. Says Bill McEuen, Martin's longtime manager and boyhood friend: "We're trying to assess each move to make sure he doesn't become an instant cliché." The translation for that is a mix of limited television exposure and carefully spaced albums. (On his new album Let's Get Small, now climbing the charts, Martin recalls...
...Angeles Psychoanalyst Martin Grotjahn thinks he knows the cause of the malady. Says he: "People who have strong needs to love or fight are more prone to writer's block." Most psychiatrists believe that, just as there is no single explanation for murder or theft, there is no one cause for writer's block. But Grotjahn, who discusses the problem in his book Beyond Laughter, believes hostility is the fundamental reason. Writing is an aggressive demand for attention. It can be blocked when a writer projects his anger onto reviewers and readers. "It's the fear...