Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 88: "Set To Go Off" (1970)

This week, Ed Wood gives us his subtle, nuanced take on the Vietnam War.

Bob Hope and Raquel Welch in Vietnam, 1967.

More than any other issue, the Vietnam War is responsible for the social divide known as the generation gap in the 1960s and '70s. Sure, young people had differences with their parents over lots of things—sex, drugs, music, art, fashion, hairstyles, race relations, etc. But none of those had the sheer, visceral impact of the war.

Young male baby boomers were being drafted into the military to fight and die in Southeast Asia, and they naturally began to rebel against a war they neither condoned nor even understood. The politicians sending them to Vietnam belonged to the older generation, the one that had survived the Great Depression in the 1930s and fought World War II in the 1940s. America's parents tended to side with the politicians. They'd gone to war, so why shouldn't their sons do the same? How was this new war different? No protest, no matter how vehement, could make them understand.

When I think of Vietnam and the generation gap, I can't help remembering an interview that author Richard Zoglin did with NPR's Terry Gross in 2014. Zoglin appeared on Fresh Air to discuss his biography of comedian Bob Hope, and the conversation turned to Hope's stalwart support of the Vietnam War. The author explained:

Bob had done his work [entertaining the troops] in World War II and then started up again in 1948, doing some Christmas shows for the troops. He did that through the '50s. When Vietnam came along, it was a routine. It was a yearly thing. At Christmas, he would go overseas, and his specials would be televised. Again, he was like maybe a lot of people from that generation. He was from the World War II generation. He could not conceive of a war that the United States wouldn't pursue to victory, that wouldn't be backed by everyone, the way it was in World War II.

Compare that to the sardonic lyrics of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," a 1965 protest song by Country Joe and the Fish, a psychedelic rock group popular among the youth of the era. This tune, a mock recruitment anthem, became especially legendary after the band performed it at Woodstock in 1969. Sentiments like these assuredly kept Country Joe and the Fish from ever being booked on a Bob Hope Christmas special.

Well, come on all of you, big strong men 

Uncle Sam needs your help again

He's got himself in a terrible jam

Way down yonder in Vietnam

So put down your books and pick up a gun

We're gonna have a whole lotta fun

And it's one, two, three

What are we fighting for?

Don't ask me, I don't give a damn

Next stop is Vietnam

And it's five, six, seven

Open up the pearly gates

Well, there ain't no time to wonder why

Whoopee! We're all gonna die!

Edward Davis Wood, Jr. was decidedly of the older generation. He was born in 1924, lived through the Depression, joined the Marines at the age of 17, and served his country during World War II. Though he greatly exaggerated his heroism, he was extremely proud of his military service and would speak of it often for the rest of his life. It's very doubtful that he would have had any sympathy for protesters or draft dodgers. Note that some of the characters in The Class Reunion (1972) speak with disdain about antiwar demonstrators. ("Nothing like those street apes ever happened when we were their age!")

War and the military are semi-common themes in Ed Wood's creative work, going back at least as far as his late '40s play The Casual Company. Among his short stories, we find "No Atheists in the Grave" (1971) and "The Wave Off" (1971), which both include mentions of combat but avoid naming Vietnam specifically. Jeff Trent, the square-jawed pilot of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), is another proud ex-Marine. And then there is Alan from Glen or Glenda (1953), who is drafted into the Army during World War II and serves successfully but whose penchant for cross-dressing makes him feel alienated from his fellow soldiers.

It's sometimes difficult to discern Ed Wood's true feelings about warfare. His magnum opus, Plan 9, is essentially a parable about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Eros the alien warns us that the human race will eventually build a bomb powerful enough to destroy the entire universe. (Jeff Trent responds, in typical caveman style, by punching Eros square in the jaw.) On the other hand, in Hollywood Rat Race, Ed refers to the atomic bomb as a "magnificent undertaking" and applauds the "many people of many trades" who helped build it.

Until Operation Redlight (1969) resurfaces, we may never get the definitive Ed Wood statement on the Vietnam War. Perhaps until then, we can draw some conclusions from a truly bizarre and outrageous short story published in 1970 and set explicitly during the Vietnam conflict. I'll warn you now that this is an ugly story with some very unpleasant racial and sexual themes. Only its cartoonish absurdity keeps it from being truly offensive.

The story: "Set To Go Off," originally published in Illustrated Case Histories, vol. 1, no. 3, November/December 1970. Credited to "Jacques Rippee." Anthologized in Short Wood: Short Fiction by Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Ramble House, 2009).

De Palma's Casualties of War .

Synopsis: Wally Armbruster is an excellent soldier, even though he does things his own way and doesn't really feel like he belongs in the Army. One day, in Cambodia, Wally and his buddy Thomson are surveying a small village that consists of only a few huts. There, they find a pretty Vietnamese girl of about 16, whom Wally immediately identifies as a member of the Viet Cong. Thomson suggests taking her prisoner, but Wally wants to have sex with her first. While Thomson notes that the girl seems terrified, Wally insists the young woman is "set to go off."

Wally undresses, and the Vietnamese girl initially tries to fight him off before resigning herself to her fate of being raped by the American soldier. She says she is the last living member of her family; all the others were killed by the Americans. Wally asks her why she didn't clear out of the village when she had the chance. "Stayed for you," she answers. When Wally finally penetrates her, he realizes too late that the girl has turned herself into a human landmine.

Wood trademarks: Warfare (cf. "The Wave Off," "No Atheists in the Grave"); war brides (cf. "Tank Town Chippie"); basic training (cf. Glen or Glenda); ridiculous sexual slang (in this case, calling a woman's vagina a "wazoo"); euphemism for penis (in this case, "his staff"); mention of bobcat (cf. Plan 9); ludicrous twist ending (cf. many stories in Angora Fever and Blood Splatters Quickly); feeling a sudden cold sensation throughout one's body (cf. Orgy of the Dead); wordplay (numerous puns on "peace" and "piece").

Excerpt: "He looked down. There was a ragged pile of shredded flesh and splintered bones where the lower half of his body had been. His blood mingled with the blood of the girl. He turned and saw her. The look of horror was frozen on her dead face."

Reflections: I cannot claim to understand what was going on in Ed Wood's mind when he was writing these short stories half a century ago. All I really know about Eddie's creative process is that he wrote extremely quickly, often while eating, drinking, watching TV, and carrying on various conversations with friends. My guess is that he came up with the ending of "Set To Go Off" first and worked backwards from there. The entire reason this story exists is to unleash that ghoulish and improbable final twist.

But how do you get to an ending like that? One interpretation of "Set To Go Off"—and the one that bodes best for Ed Wood—is that this is simply a story about sin and punishment. Eddie is playing God and doling out some cosmic justice to arrogant rapist Wally Armbruster, who ignores the warnings of his buddy Thomson. Wally gets what he has coming to him, while Thomson (a possible nod to William C. Thompson?) survives unscathed. The end. Nothing more to it.

If that were the case, however, why would Eddie go out of his way to set up Wally Armbruster as "one hell of a good man in a fight" and "a true innocent"? The soldier's combat-readiness has nothing to do with the story, and Wally is anything but innocent by the end of it. Ed even includes an itemized description of Wally's clothes and tells us that this man "never felt like a soldier." These details help to humanize the character and make him seem more three-dimensional. The story is told in the third person, but Wally is definitely our viewpoint character until the very end, when he literally gets the last laugh. Does Eddie want us to sympathize with this guy?

Is it possible that "Set To Go Off" is actually an antiwar story, showing us that the conflict has brought out the absolute worst in these soldiers? It's not difficult, after all, to see parallels between Eddie's short story and Brian De Palma's controversial 1989 film Casualties of War, in which some American soldiers kidnap and rape a Vietnamese girl. Eddie is not coy about calling this a rape story. He even has Wally say to his victim, "Never saw a girl this scared to get raped." But Wally also insists that the girl "wanted" this to happen. Does Eddie agree with him or not?

In the end, "Set To Go Off" is one of the more upsetting and disturbing stories in the Wood canon, and it showcases the darkest corners of Ed's imagination. We're a long way from Glenda or Plan 9 here, even if the story does share themes with those movies. If we are to understand this man fully, we cannot ignore stories like this one, as much as we might want to.

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'No Atheists in the Grave' (1971)

As late as 1971, Ed Wood's wartime experiences continued to influence his fiction.

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

"Maybe it's just fatigue, or maybe it's the indignities of war, or maybe ... it's something else."

-Paul Marco (Max Casella) in Ed Wood

"The indignities of war" dramatized in Ed Wood.

The story: "No Atheists in the Grave," originally published in Hot Fun magazine, Vol. 2, No. 2, from Calga, February 2, 1971.

Synopsis: Reverend Dr. Paul Carstairs, an Army chaplain, is 48 and has been working in combat conditions since World War 2. In some unnamed jungle battleground, he is currently ministering to the men of Charlie Company, many of whom are severely injured and under constant threat of enemy fire and cobra attacks. Paul's superiors urge him to retire, and the chaplain has been giving himself the same advice since 1965, but he cannot give up his work. The pressure, though, is clearly getting to him. 

After watching his friend die and refusing to offer any solace to the man in the last moments of his life, Rev. Carstairs has a meltdown in front of the entire company and accuses them of being hypocritical sinners who consort with whores. He punches a corporal who tries to calm him down and then is knocked out by a sergeant. The superior officers insist that this is the end of the line for Carstairs, but then Charlie Company is rocked by incoming mortar fire. Naked to the waist, Rev. Carstairs risks his life to salvage the bodies of four soldiers who died in the attack. He tells the colonel that "there just aren't any atheists in the grave."

Wood trademarks: Warfare; the military; mental breakdown; prostitutes; alcohol; anti-drug message (particularly marijuana); ghoulish reference to bodies in the grave; snakes (both metaphorical and real); the Devil; religion; issues of faith.

Excerpt: "On liberty, every one of you go out and swill the booze. And play with any jezebel-whore who accosts you on the street. You mingle with the dead and dying and laugh in their faces. You kill what is considered the enemy and bring back trophies, yet you get the big hit and you lay here sniveling like some mother's child."

Reflections: Hot on the heels of "Hellfire," here is another story which reminds us of the trauma Ed Wood carried with him from his days as a Marine in World War 2. It cannot be coincidental that the protagonist of "No Atheists in the Grave" is about the same age Ed himself would have been in 1971. Eddie's own patriotism and religious faith were unshakable, even after decades of setbacks, but this story gives him a chance to vent some of his frustration and bitterness before the sentimental, feel-good ending. 

In this respect, "No Atheists" plays like a miniature version of the Old Testament's Book of Job. In Ken's Guide to the Bible (Blast Books, 1995), author Ken Smith finds an upside to Job's pointless, God-induced suffering: "It motivates Job to spend many chapters of his book uttering the most bitter, cynical, and devastating damnations of God to be found in the Bible." Later, Smith observes: "Job, far from remaining faithful, has become the Old Testament's most eloquent rebel." 

On a smaller scale, the same thing happens to Rev. Carstairs. In his delirium, this man of the cloth belittles the power of prayer and calls out the men for their two-faced indiscretions. Naturally, this cannot be allowed to continue for long, and Carstairs is quickly silenced. He's a good "company man" again by the end of the story, and even at his lowest point, he refuses to take solace in the demon marijuana.

Next: "To Kill a Saturday Night" (1971)

This is just one of my favorite things: a Cisco Kid tin whistle

(left) My Cisco Kid tin whistle; (right) Vintage illustration of the Cisco Kid.

Behind those trees is the Beaver Island Toy Museum.

"It's funny how one can go through life, as I have, disliking bananas and being indifferent to cheese, and then be able to eat, and enjoy, a banana and cheese sandwich like this." So said Michael Palin as "Mr. Pither" on the "Cycling Tour" episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

I kind of know how he feels. I have no particular interest in either tin whistles or the Cisco Kid character, and yet one of my prized possessions is a Cisco Kid tin whistle. I suppose a lot of my affection for this little trinket comes from the manner in which I acquired it.

In the mid-1980s, my family started vacationing on a place called Beaver Island, a scenic but isolated tract of land located 32 miles off the coast of Northern Michigan. I'd estimate I was about 10 or 11 when we first started going there. Before then, most of the Blevins family vacations were to more obvious tourist spots like Mackinac Island and Cedar Point. Beaver Island is quite a departure from those.

The appeal of the isle is that there's almost nothing there: just a few humble restaurants, residences, and small businesses. The rest? Beaches, forests, and unpaved roads. It's the kind of place you go to when your goal is do nothing in particular for a week or two.

If you're so inclined, you can visit the Beaver Island Toy Museum while you're there. The fact that it looks like a private residence from the outside tells you a lot about the culture of the island. Inside, you'll find vintage dolls, model cars, and wind-up robots behind glass cases or suspended from the ceiling. But there are bins of stuff you can actually buy, too. That, as you may have already guessed by now, is where I acquired the Cisco Kid tin whistle.

Like I said, I have no particular nostalgia for that character. A Mexican caballero first created by American writer O. Henry, the Kid appeared in multiple formats (film, TV, radio, comics) from the 1910s to the 1950s, returning briefly in a 1994 made-for-TV movie with Jimmy Smits. I have experienced little to none of this. But I still have the whistle, and it still (pretty much) works. I mainly use it as a bookmark these days. Lately, it's been saving my place in The Real Frank Zappa Book.

Anyway, I have been't back to Beaver Island or the Toy Museum in well over 20 years. Wonder how (or if) the place has held up? In the meantime, I think I'll rekindle those fond childhood memories by listening to the one other bit of Cisco Kid-iana which has managed to breach my perimeters, namely the 1972 song by War. The lyrics apply manifestly to my life. The Cisco Kid really was and is a friend of mine.

Mill Creek comedy classics #10: "Here Comes Trouble" (1948)

The poster promises "gay new Cinecolor," but Mill Creek's print of  Here Comes Trouble is strictly black-and-white.

The flick: Here Comes Trouble (United Artists, 1948) [buy the set]

Current IMDb rating: 5.6

Director: Fred Guiol (Hay Foot, Why Girls Love Sailors, 45 Minutes from Hollywood)

Actors of note:

• William Tracy (Hay Foot, The Phantom of the Opera, Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith)

• Joe Sawyer (Hay Foot, Gilda, How the West Was Won)

• Emory Parnell (The Maltese Falcon, The Andromeda Strain, and so much more)

• Betty Compson (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, A Slight Case of Murder)

• Joan Woodbury (The Bride of Frankenstein, The Ten Commandments)

The gist of it: Officious yet gullible Dorian "Dodo" Doubleday (Tracy), returning to civilian life after a stint in the Army, picks up his old life where he left it, i.e. working as a newspaper copy boy at the Tribune and romancing his boss' lovely brunette daughter, Penny. Penny's father, irritable newspaper editor "Windy" Blake (Parnell), despises Doubleday and thus promotes him to the dangerous job of police reporter, hoping that the local gangsters -- angered by the newspaper's anti-mob crusade -- will kill him. On his new beat, Doubleday runs into his old Army buddy, Ames (Sawyer), a big palooka who's recently joined the police force and is so desperate to make good that he's arresting everyone in sight. Despite their total ineptitude at virtually everything, Doubleday and Ames find themselves at the center of a major news story involving organized crime, a shady burlesque theater, a sexy dancer named Bubbles La Rue (Woodbury), blackmail, bribery, and a diary which could bring down the city's crime boss.

A more serious approach.

My take: A kind of goofball, funhouse-mirror version of The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Here Comes Trouble focuses on the plight of veterans returning home from World War II and trying to reestablish themselves in America. Like the characters in that Oscar-winning film, Doubleday and Ames have to contend with personal and professional strife, but here it's played for lighthearted slapstick rather than pathos. Exploding cigars, sneezing clowns, and accidental judo flips are the order of the day here.

Despite the wholesomeness of Doubleday, the ultimate goody-two-shoes, Here Comes Trouble has a surprising undercurrent of sex and violence. It's strongly implied, for instance, that Mr. Blake cheated on his insufferable wife (Compson) with Bubbles at a convention in Chicago and will do anything to keep this information a secret. And Blake's total nonchalance at sending Doubleday to be murdered by thugs is, to say the least, eye-opening for what is supposed to be a carefree romp.

Far from being patriotic or reassuring, Here Comes Trouble presents America as a place where the police are incompetent, the so-called "crusading" newspaper editor is actually kind of a dirtbag (his reporters seem like pretty slimy guys, too), and a city's real business is conducted in hushed tones behind closed doors.

You have to wonder how Mr. Blake made enough money to afford the seemingly palatial mansion where he and his family live. The Tribune's motto, written in a very stylish art deco font on the wall of the bullpen, goes: "Is it news? Is it interesting? Is it fit to read?" Compare that to the more-direct motto of the small-town paper in Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951): "Tell the truth."

The cops, meanwhile, are seemingly impotent against an organized crime ring which has permeated the town, even its legitimate businesses, and everyone -- Penny included -- is all too quick to believe that the totally-innocent Doubleday is a murderer.

In short, it's a pretty rotten country we've provided for our returning GIs. On the plus side, Mr. Blake has a very nice private bathroom adjoining his office, complete with a shower. In its glory days, print journalism was quite a racket.

One last thought here: Is the fate of Bubbles La Rue meant to be some kind of moral judgment on her character and, if so, what does that say about gender roles and sexual politics in the 1940s?

Is it funny: For the most part, yes. Certain sequences in Here Comes Trouble, particularly a scene with Doubleday and Bubbles winding up together in Mr. Blake's bathroom while the oblivious Mrs. Blake visits her nervous husband's office, had me laughing out loud. Others, like a scene in which Doubleday's fellow reporters haze him by ruining his new clothes and smearing his face with black ink, just didn't work for me.

The ending of Here Comes Trouble is almost exactly the same as that of All Over Town: A murderer runs around a theater trying to evade capture while the cops and all the other characters stumble all over each other in a madcap pursuit, and the (onscreen) audience just thinks it's being treated to a great show. This final sequence goes on too long and deflates the comedy just a bit in the home stretch, but I have to admit I chuckled when Doubleday managed to lose his trousers and end up in his striped boxer shorts for the last five minutes of the flick. Underwear is always comedy gold.

My grade: B+

P.S. - Yes, there is one stereotypical Negro in a menial role here. This time, it's an elevator operator who reacts with wide-eyed astonishment at Doubleday, who is blissfully unaware that his coworkers have made him look like a bearded hobo.

Mill Creek comedy classics #5: "Hay Foot" (1942)

William Tracy and Joe Sawyer square off in Hay Foot.

The flick: Hay Foot (United Artists, 1942) [buy the set]

Current IMDb rating: 5.7

Director: Fred Guiol (several Laurel & Hardy shorts including Their Purple Moment, Sailors Beware and Sugar Daddies; later a screenwriter whose credits include Giant and Gunga Din.)

Actors of note:

• William Tracy (Angels with Dirty Faces, The Shop Around the Corner)

• Joe Sawyer (The Killing, Grapes of Wrath, and much, much more)

• James Gleason (Arsenic and Old Lace, Night of the Hunter)

• Noah Beery Jr. (Red River, Inherit the Wind, TV's The Rockford Files)

• Elyse Knox (The Mummy's Tomb)

• Douglas Fowler (Singin' in the Rain, The Thin Man)

The gist of it: Clever young Sgt. "Dodo" Doubleday (Tracy) is long on book smarts but short on street smarts. His encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry and his photographic memory help him win the favor of blustery Col. Barkley and Barkley's pretty daughter, Betty, but the poor dope is too mild-mannered to even fire a real gun. Meanwhile, the more brusque and worldly (read: crude and stupid) Sgt. Ames (Sawyer), who considers himself "the best shot in the Army," wants to prove that Doubleday's a fraud and win the favor of both the colonel and the daughter at the same time.

My take: Hay Foot is sort of an early 1940s military version of Revenge of the Nerds, with a goofy but likable brainiac outwitting some thuggish, dim-witted jock types again and again. This curiously brief feature (clocking in at a mere 43 minutes) feels more like an extended episode of a situation comedy than a feature film.

And, sure enough, UA churned out a whole series of lighthearted service comedies revolving around Sgt. Doubleday and Sgt. Ames from 1941 to 1943 including Tanks a Million, About Face, and Yanks Ahoy. Supporting players like Noah Beery (Jim's dad on The Rockford Files) and James Gleason came and went, but Tracy and Sawyer were in it for the long haul. In 1948, several years after World War II had ended, United Artists brought back Doubleday and Ames one last time as civilians in Here Comes Trouble, which is also included in this Comedy Classics boxed set. A few years later, even-lower-budget Lippert Pictures brought Tracy and Sawyer back for two more military comedies, and the series finally ended in 1952 with Mr. Walkie Talkie, the eighth installment in the "Doubleday" franchise.

It's kind of odd that there's not even a mention of the war in Europe in Hay Foot, the second film in the series, but this is light entertainment, not war propaganda. The strangest thing about this movie is that it seems to end one scene too early. There's a big sharpshooting contest mentioned in the dialogue, but we never get to see it. A shame, too, because it would have been the perfect opportunity for Doubleday to redeem himself as a marksman. As for the film's title, it's never actually said aloud by any of the characters, but it's a Civil War term for a "green recruit," i.e. an inexperienced soldier. Here's an American Heritage article all about it.

Burns & Smithers: One of the great comedy teams.

Is it funny: Yeah, for the most part. I laughed pretty much all the way through Hay Foot at both the verbal and physical humor, and it's always fun to see the little guy make a monkey out of the big guy. Plus the colonel and Doubleday have kind of a "Burns and Smithers" dynamic going on (minus the sexual undertones).

But the film has a bad habit of setting up jokes in a very obvious manner and then repeating them until they lose their appeal.  Case in point: Betty sends a dinner invitation addressed only to "the best shot in the Army." It's intended for Doubleday, but Ames and his crony Sgt. Cobb (Beery) find it, too, and since they both consider themselves to be the Army's greatest sharpshooter, all three men show up at Betty's doorstep. Okay, fine, but Hay Foot shows each of the three men discovering the invitation individually, and the script requires them to explain aloud what's happening even though there's no one else in the room to hear it. (The dialogue is always something to the effect of: "What's this? A dinner invitation for the best shot in the Army? That's me!") By the third time, you want to shout, "Yeah, we get it already! Let's move on!"

But I'm nitpicking. Hay Foot has some good-natured fun at the Army's expense (as usual, the top brass are morons), and the movie even has a cute little dog who thinks he's people. He stands on his hind legs and everything! That's always funny. Plus, if you think it's hilarious to watch guys being thrown out of windows, you need to watch this movie immediately. Hay Foot repeats that particular gag so often that it almost plays like defenestration fetish porn.

My grade: B

P.S. - Any negative racial stereotype characters here? Well, there's one heavyset African-American maid, but she doesn't have any dialogue. I'll say no.

A day (vicariously) spent with Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer: Mathematician turned singer-songwriter turned mathematician again.

"One man deserves the credit. One man deserves the blame."

-Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer would scoff at the idea of being anyone's hero. This is part of the reason why he's one of mine.

A native New Yorker born way back in 1928 (one shudders to do the grim calculations here), Lehrer was a child prodigy who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19. Since that time, he has spent most of his career either teaching or lecturing about mathematics at some of America's finest academic institutions, including MIT and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He formally retired in 2001, but he's still listed at the Rate My Professors website with a student review as recent as 2005.

Latter-day Lehrer

What sets Tom Lehrer apart from other mathematicians, apart from his claim of inventing the Jell-O shot, is that he devoted much of his time in the 1950s and 1960s to writing and performing some of the darkest, funniest songs I've ever heard -- deceptively joyous musical theater-type ditties with droll, sardonic lyrics about such topics as sex ("I Got It From Agnes"), drugs ("The Old Dope Peddler"), violence ("The Masochism Tango"), religion ("The Vatican Rag"), death ("I Hold Your Hand in Mine") and war ("So Long, Mom") with a candor that set him far apart from both the singers and the comedians of that era. Today, comedians can joke openly about pornography, incest, cannibalism, bestiality, and necrophilia on prime time network television, but this wasn't true 60 years ago when Tom's records couldn't even be played on the radio during respectable hours.

As with much of the music that now clutters up my brain, the bizarre and sometimes brutal song stylings of Tom Lehrer first entered my life through The Dr. Demento Show. This was back in the 1990s, before the internet was any damned good, and it was difficult to come by information about Tom's life or career back then. I couldn't even find a picture of the guy! I knew instinctively, though, that he wore glasses. Somehow, that was obvious to me. His myopia was audible. 

Despite the apparent rudeness of his lyrics, Mr. Lehrer conducted himself with the utmost decorum onstage, using impeccable Ivy League diction, eclectic and impressive vocabulary, and carefully-curated grammar. On his records, he comes across as man far too smart to take life the least bit seriously. Lerher's musical career occurred during the Cold War when it seemed ever-more-likely that mankind would annihilate itself with increasingly-deadly weapons. This looming apocalypse is the topic of several Lehrer songs, and he treats it the way he treats all other subjects: with an air of detached amusement at the absurdity of it all.

Tom Lehrer's 1953 debut

Today, almost two decades after I first heard "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," (the song that made me a fan) I spent some quality time listening to virtually every Tom Lehrer recording available to the public. That's not a great investment of time, honestly. There are roughly three hours of Lehrer audio in total, nearly all of it consisting of Tom singing solo and accompanying himself on piano. 

His musical output boils down to two brief studio albums (Songs by Tom Lehrer and More of Tom Lehrer), three live albums (Revisited [a.k.a. Tom Lehrer in Concert], An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer, and That Was the Week That Was), plus a handful of miscellaneous recordings. He recorded a handful of his most famous songs with a full orchestra, for instance, plus he did a few well-remembered educational songs (like "Silent E") for a PBS children's program called The Electric Company. There are a few good CD compilations out there of Lehrer's work, but buyers should know in advance that the same exact songs from the two studio albums are heard on his first two live LPs as well. And I mean, they're note-for-note the same. If you buy the boxed set with his "complete" recordings, be prepared to sit through the same songs two or even three times.

In all instances, the live versions are superior to their (crude) studio counterparts. For one thing, Tom tends to put a little more oomph into his singing and playing when he's onstage, hamming it up for the benefit of the crowd. He was supposedly uncomfortable with live performances and had trouble remembering the words of his own songs, but you'd never guess that from these recordings.

Better yet, Tom's between-song monologues are little masterpieces of deadpan, spoken-word comedy. He does long, elaborate intros to his tunes, often going off on absurd tangents that have little to nothing to do with the songs. These little digressions are the source of many of Lehrer's best one-liners and bon mots. A particular favorite, from his description of a fictitious doctor: "His educational career began interestingly enough in agricultural school where he majored in animal husbandry... until they caught him at it one day." The audience roars at that joke, and the reaction of the crowd is another reason why Tom's best records are his live ones. There's palpable tension as the audience members decide how far they're willing to let Mr. Lehrer go in his pursuit of tasteful bad taste. You can practically hear them wince, for instance, when Tom gets to this couplet from "Bright College Days":

Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife.
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life.

I'll leave this little discussion of Tom Lehrer's brilliant career with one of the nastiest, truest, and most cynical songs ever written. It first appeared on his 1953 debut album, and when he reprised it on his first live LP, he dedicated the song to those in the audience who were still in love. If you are in love, I now dedicate this song to you:

HEALTH NEWS AND NOTES: I haven't done one of these updates in a while because, frankly, there's been nothing much to report. Taking meds and attending therapy sessions no longer feel like digressions from my life anymore. They're simply part of my life, as regular as a job. Speaking of which, my job remains simultaneously stressful and dull.

Make no mistake: I am fortunate to be employed at all by anyone in any capacity, so I am very grateful to my corporate paymasters. I cannot forget that the insurance I have through my job is what's financing my treatment. Homer Simpson once memorably referred to alcohol as "the cause of and solution to all of life's problems." That's kind of how I feel about my job. It makes me miserable, but I'd be lost without it. 

My anxiety and depression have tapered off quite nicely over the last month, and the severe gastrointestinal problems that were once a huge part of my life have now disappeared utterly. I'm still isolating myself from the world, and I'm always in danger of disappearing into a sinkhole of solipsism or narcissism. I can spend entire weekends pondering the subjective nature of "truth" and "reality" rather than, you know, talking to other human beings or getting fresh air and exercise. Gotta work on that.