Television personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer

Steve Allen

Of all the subjects that I write about, my experience of Steve Allen has to be the most tangential. It’s one thing to say that I was not even alive when so-and-so composed or wrote, but I am fortunate enough to read or hear their best known works (and often pretty much everything they did). Unfortunately, Allen’s most famous work came in the early days of television, which actually do pre-date me. Even worse, we don’t really have a lot of that available.

So, I heard about Steve Allen second-hand. He was that guy that started The Tonight Show. He worked with outstanding talent, such as Tom Poston, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Jonathan Winters, often giving them wide exposure at opportune moments (and all people that had always been there in my younger eyes). Allen hosted a Sunday night variety show that failed to take down Ed Sullivan. He wrote books of notable intelligence and wit. He composed music, even winning a Grammy. Basically, he just kept cropping up in the world around me.

Then, he finally did something that I could see: Meeting of Minds. Oh, that looks a little goofy now, but it’s… pretty good. I was a history geek already, so it was catnip then and… it kind of is now… excuse me… be back in a minute. Sun Yat-sen and Machiavelli getting into it- Facebook for historians. That’s Keye Luke!

But then

my forming brain had to assimilate the idea that this man who put this historical pastiche together was better known for his humor. Brains and funny could go together? History could be entertaining? It happened to real people? With feelings? They had off days? And they still appear in our history books?

Historical fiction never seemed too far removed from fantasy or propaganda to me. And the books were thick with character, but not a lot of background. If you are young and faced with Ragtime, then what can you make of it? There is a lot of knowledge crammed in there and more than a few assumptions about what you know (or are willing to Google). Steve Allen was always willing to provide a starting place that was entertaining and intelligent.

We can never know the ultimate results of our efforts. Artists create and send their work out into the world, hoping to reach a few other people. Allen kept making art his whole life. That’s what you do when you take on the mantle. Even at the outset of television, they could not know the impact of their work, so these words sent off into the Internet have no more foreseeable reach. All of us working in this age have no better sense of the child somewhere who checks out a link to a video and has their heart set on fire.

May the New Year bring new art into all our lives!

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 201 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

The Skin of Our Teeth

Play by Thornton Wilder

Our Town… What a colossus of the American theater. If we ever had a play that rivaled the staying power of Shakespeare… Maybe Death of a Salesman also qualifies. Maybe it’s the sparse set combined with a story that is clear as a bell. Perhaps it’s that magical combination of small-town down-home story-telling with just enough weirdness to appeal to a theater nerd. Your school board and that English teacher from the East coast can both get behind this show.

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love the show and everything else that Wilder wrote. The first play that I saw my Dad act in was The Matchmaker. Iwas just out of my single digits and I still remember him coming home one day after rehearsal. They had been visited by a dramaturge (someone who thinks like I blog, but for even longer and only about theatre). Dad talked about how much had been embedded in the text by Wilder and he never imagined there was so much, especially in a part as minuscule as his. Do I need to say that he set the wheels turning in my head?

I knew that The Matchmaker was the basis for Hello, Dolly (because Dad told me), but the name Thornton Wilder did not stay with me. A couple years later, my middle school teacher assigned us The Bridge of San Luis Rey. (Really- note this was after we had read Winesburg, Ohio. In retrospect, I have to wonder if the teacher read them before assigning them. Oh, did we have fun watching the teacher discuss Hands.)

I probably saw Our Town around the same time.

Somewhere thereabouts, I ran into The Skin of Our Teeth, and I was pretty sure this was the writer for me. Dinosaurs, for crying out loud!

Looking over the above, we might think I was scarred from all this darkness- even the evergreen O.T. is pretty brutal. But I would not forego any of it. Like everyone else, I was pretty malleable and fragile. We forget sometimes just how fortifying art can be. I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the redemptive power of music- how one song can bring us back from the precipice. I have not given enough credit to the writers who prepare us to tread along the edges that life always forces us toward.

Sure, Wilder may have taught me that bad things happen for no reason, but he also showed me that the survivors fulfill the promise of life itself which is only that you get another second. Spend it laughing or weeping, but you are fortunate enough to spend it alive. In short, he taught me resilience.

So, sure- maybe I lost a little sleep to a first brush with existential anxiety, but it really was nothing compared to Oliver Twist or A Separate Peace. Empathy was a good lesson, too, but it won’t get you far without the fortitude to withstand the tidal wave of emotion.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 202 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Down on the Corner

Song written by John Fogerty
Performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival

If you happened to be one of my big brothers stuck with ensuring I didn’t get into the sharp cutlery while our parents escaped for a little while, then three songs could always distract me. Two were by the Beatles: Yellow Submarine and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. The third was Down on the Corner. The Beatles were a cultural powerhouse at the time and their images were remarkably polished by that point. Even their names seemed to conjure different moods- each associated with specific music. I knew that if Ringo sang it, then it was for me.

So, how did Creedence enter the picture? I spent my pre-adolescence trying to figure out who they were. Their greatest hits released when I was twelve. I was shocked by how much I loved every single song on that double album, but it seemed like I couldn’t talk to anybody about it. Sure, the radio played their tunes, but something about that dirty swampy boogie… Those were the days of progressive rock and disco. Country rock was big, but the Byrds received the credit and the Eagles carried that torch.

And I was a little slow on the uptake. Remember that bit up above about the Beatles being distinct personalities? It took a lot longer than it should have for me to put together John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival. I was a kid. I spent some of those years sequestered away in boarding school from whence we all emerged somewhat behind the times.

During those years of isolation,

I had a limited set of music available. Either the radio played you or you were on the handful of cassettes I could keep in my dorm room. CCR was not available. Little did I know about all the legal wrangling that ensued after the band dissolved in 1972. Fogerty released solo albums and maybe I noticed some similarities to CCR, but I no longer remember.

Then, they released me back into the wild and I rediscovered CCR almost immediately. And I still felt weirdly isolated in my appreciation. I’ve got them playing in the background now and every damn song is wonderful. But I still don’t know where to turn. A few years ago, a local reporter covered a local John Fogerty concert and wrote about the thrill of listening in the wings. It felt like he was talking about someone else.

So, what’s wrong with me? For crying out loud, everybody loves Lookin’ Out My Back Door. But that’s just it- CCR somehow connected with that essential thing which creates our shared human condition. Their music seems like it was always here, more permanent than national anthems or number one hits. Every now and then, a new work of art comes along that seems as old as time. Any artist that can connect even once with our common soul needs our attention. James Brown did it. CCR did it. I’d like to think that everyone I mention in this series has done it.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 203 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.