A few thoughts on Lewis Grizzard

[Wallingford]

March 20 would've maked the twentieth anniversary of columnist/author Lewis Grizzard's death.....presumably content and well-fed on all the greasy fried chicken and pork rinds he unashamedly consumed. I've just now started reading one of his original books....one dealing with sexual topics apparently too taboo for regular newspaper columns.

I wonder what kind of menories others have of Grizzard? During his last year of life I lived in Seattle, and a blue state like Washington apparently thought him too un-PC for a big-city journal. He seemed to find his biggest audiences in the small-town newspapers scattered across the land.

There were times I was convinced Grizzard was one of relatively few level-headed people around when it came to world events and the little details of life in general. And then he'd turn around and convince me he was just another ignorant redneck.

What are other people's memories of him? Has he made a lasting mark on American humor, do you think he would've won the Mark Twain Award? Or has time been unkind to him?

[John F]

Never heard of him, but I like the titles of some of his books listed in the Wikipedia article. "Shoot Low Boys - They're Riding Shetland Ponies" and "When My Love Returns From The Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old To Care?"

[lennygoran]

"When My Love Returns From The Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old To Care?"

Oh boy ,why did this make me think about intermissions at the Metropolitan Opera house! Regards, Len [fleeing]

[Wallingford]

One strong dividing line between me and Grizzard is our personal choice of music--or rather, the political and sociological frame of mind we each have. In his book Elvis Is Dead And I Don't Feel So Good Myself, he devotes a couple of chapters to Elvis as the saviour of his generation (the baby boomers) and the final loss of innocence when presented with the news of the rock star's premature passing (compounding the loss of the Kennedys; Lennon's murder isn't included); and his assertion of "where rock and roll went wrong" with the British Invasion:

I'm not certain what it was that caused me to reject The Beatles from the start but I suspect that even then I saw them as a portent of ill changes that would soon arise--not only in music but in practically everything else I held dear.

The Beatles got off to a bad start with me because the first thing I heard them sing in 1964 was "I Want To Hold Your Hand," and it was basically impossible to do any of the dances I knew--the Shag, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey, the Pony, the Gator, the Fish, the Hitchhike, the Twist, or the Virginia Reel--to that first song. About all you could do to it was jump and stomp and scream. which, of course, was what every female teenybopper at the time was doing ehenever The Beatles struck guitar and drums and opened their mouths.

Also, patriot that I was, I stood foursquare against the importation of foreign music, just as I have since stood steadfastly against the importation of Japanese cars and Yugoslavian placekickers. The only materials we really need to import from foreign countries, in my way of thinking, are porno movies. It doesn't matter that you can't understand what anybody is saying in those movies anyway, and I like the imagination of the French when it comes to doing interesting things while naked.

But the British? I still have problems with them, especially with the current royal famly. I'm sick and tired of Lady Di getting pregnant, I don't care if Prince Andrew is dating Marilyn CHambers, and every time the Queen comes to the US, she is always getting offended by something a well-meaning colonist has done to her. I wish she would stay in Buckingham Palace and give the Cisco Kid his hat back.

After several tirades about the clothing and hair styles of these new heathens, and a quick primer on right, proper, macho college-boy behavior and the sexual preferences of Elton JOhn and Boy George--as well as making it loud and clear just which of the fabled "Two Americas" he belongs to--Grizzard relates his one and only date in the late 60s with a non-liker of country music:

My date immediately reached for the selector button on my car radio and punched until she found some whiny Simon and Garfunkel song.

"What are you doing?" I asked in genuine horror.

"Somebody put your radio on a country station," said my date, in the same voice she would have used to tell me a large dog had committed a horrid indiscretion in the front seat while I was out of my car.

....."I put my car radio on a country station," I said proudly.

The girl made a horrible face. Maybe a dog did committ an indiscretion on the front seat. But no, it was worse. My date was turning up her nose at country music.

"You actually listen to that crap?" she asked.

"Crap? You're calling country music crap?"

"That's exactly what I said, crap."

"And what is that you're listening to?"

"Simon and Garfunkel."

"Hippie music.'

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is. That kind of music is exactly what's wrong with this country."

"Are you some kind of Bircher or religious nut?"

"No, but I like country music and I don't like anybody who doesn't and I will thank you to keep your communist, unpatriotic, ungracious fingers off my radio."

The girl asked to be put off at the next bus stop, which I was more than happy to do......