Word: shtick
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That quip was uncharacteristic of a man who scrupulously separates the clarinetist from the comedian and never tells a joke on the bandstand: when Woody is playing jazz, he's all stick and no shtick. Not that funny things haven't happened in connection with Woody's music. When he and his New Orleans Funeral and Ragtime Orchestra first got together in the early '70s, they were summarily ejected from the first few clubs they played in because their music was so noncommercial. At one establishment, the band was fired in the middle of a particularly lugubrious spiritual, after...
...President. As a lead-up to that year's Democratic Convention in Chicago, they vowed to spike the local water supply with LSD. The schemes were mostly put-ons and fodder for the press, Hoffman's most faithful co-conspirator. It was revolution as street shtick...
...practices its own form of race discrimination. Prospective members are traditionally given a "paper bag" test: only those with skin lighter than the bag are asked to join. The messages are soft-pedaled, however, in favor of funky atmosphere, fragments of offhand humor and characters refreshingly free of sitcom shtick. No big laughs, but not Big Band either...
...were to be hit over the head by his fiercest rival, then stumble around and yell "Aarrggh!," he would be acclaimed as a great tragedian. But if he were to do ten minutes of witty stand-up, then bash himself with a club, he would be accused of doing shtick. It is ever thus. At the movies, comedy may be king at the wickets, and most of Hollywood's nouveau novas -- Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks, Dan Aykroyd, Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Pee-wee Herman, Martin Short -- may have won their early stardom cadging laughs...
...once arrested for walking in someone else's sleep." "When I die, I'm going to leave my body to science fiction." "I was walking through a forest and a tree fell right in front of me, and I didn't hear it." Like many comedians with a shtick, Wright (who grew up near Leno in Massachusetts and also got his start in Boston clubs) seems in danger of boxing himself into a performing corner. But he has branched out into movies, with roles in Desperately Seeking Susan and the upcoming Stars and Bars...