Don't Know Much About History

I minored in history in college, so I got pretty geeked up when we decided to write about local history in the May issue of Madison Magazine. The last time we tackled the topic in earnest was to mark the sesquicentennial back in 2006. This time around we’re returning to the city’s roots with the help of some remarkable historians and archival experts.

We started our journey back in time by meeting with the good folks at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Jammed into a dated and dusty conference room, a half-dozen history geeks shared ideas and inspiration for how we might frame the article. The conversation was so stimulating we weren’t quite sure what to do with it all. Editorial director Neil Heinen came away geeked up about the idea of history in the digital age and how the Internet has made it more accessible than ever. We both began to think about the instructive if not eerie connections between the past and the present given the unprecedented economic downturn the world is experiencing.

Then next step was a fascinating follow-up conversation with WHS archival historian Jim Draeger, co-author of Fill’er up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations. I’d worked with Jim a few years back on a terrific Mad Mag article featuring Frank Lloyd Wright protégés so I was confident his mega-brain would help set the story in motion. After we peppered him with dozens of questions on historic corollaries to modern-day issues and he responded with enlightening answers, it occurred to me that we had a really nice story in the making.

I’m about three-quarters of the way through all the research and halfway through the writing, and I’m happily spent. The folks at WHS continue to amaze me, and books like David Mollenhoff’s Madison: A History of the Formative Years and Stuart Levitan’s Madison: The Illustrated Sesquicentennial History Vol. 1 are life savers. Mollenhoff offers a sweeping journey through the social, economic and political history of our city, while Levitan places particular emphasis on biographical portraits of influential people and the politics and turning points that have shaped the city’s growth and development. Both are remarkable in their intellectual depth and accessible prose.

These two books, the WHS website and local historian Ann Waidelich have helped me make sense of the past; UW–Madison professors Patrick Remington and Ann Smart Marin, along with an encouraging associate editor and art history major Katie Vaughn, are helping me draw comparisons and conclusions about the present. What fun! I hope readers are just as geeked.

Good News

For the second year in a row, Madison Magazine has been chosen as a finalist in a prestigious national city and regional magazine awards competition. Five magazines from around the country are vying for the top spot in the General Excellence category. There are three tiers based on circulation; our magazine is in the 30,000 and under group. We're a small market compared to, say, Chicago, New York and L.A, but our competitors are not lightweights. And neither are we! There's some spectacular magazine editorial and design work happening across the country, and we are grateful to be named among the best. Click here for the details. They'll announce the winner in early May. No matter what happens, making the cut is an accomplishment, and I'm proud of the staff and those who've supported us in our efforts.

Mrs. Farley's Son

I hope Chris Farley’s mom Mary Anne had a nice Mother’s Day last Sunday. I hope her four living children called from wherever on earth they were to say they love her, sent her cards that made her giggle and flowers that make her happy. If anybody was nearby, I hope they stopped over with the grandkids and fussed over her more than usual. And I hope these bright spots in the day brought her joy, because you have to believe Chris Farley’s mom was in pain. I imagine it was a quiet pain, the kind you feel down deep, the kind that washes over you, then weighs down like an anchor on the tips of your toes. The kind of pain that can only come over a mother who has been made to endure the death of a son—a young son, a loving son, a smart and funny son.

Mrs. Farley’s son was the kind of famous only a handful of humans get to be. Rock-star famous. Some Saturday nights Chris Farley was the funniest damn guy on the planet—at least to the parts of the planet that aired Saturday Night Live and the people on the planet who could stay up late enough to watch him. How somebody could get into a character the way he did—with such “gusto,” as one person who worked with him back in his Madison improv days put it—is the stuff of genius.

The Chris Farley Show, released in hardcover by Viking last week, describes in detail the funnyman’s rise to renown. But to the Farley family’s credit the story does not shy away from the ugly tailspin into obliteration that followed. To be honest, it sort of feels like E! True Hollywood Story with a purpose. Chris’s biography is at times so sad it’s almost too hard to go there with him—even in the pages of a book. But his brother Tom, who co-wrote the book, did. He went there. He says it took him ten years, but he did it. And so I think you should, too.

I promise you won’t regret it. To be honest, I had no personal or professional investment in the book (see the blog before this one). I only know Tom a little, though I think he’s a really nice, warm, well-meaning guy. I certainly don’t know the rest of the Farleys or anybody particularly close them. My closest claim is a friend who grew up a few blocks away from their home in Maple Bluff. That and the time I stumbled into a Northwoods bar to find Chris holding court on a visit to the summer camp he and his brothers cherished. It’s a memory I’ll never forget.

As for Chris’s career, I wasn’t all that impressed with the guy the few years he was an uber-celebrity. Hated Tommy Boy. Still do. Other than the fact that I’ve spent the last fourteen years living in his hometown, and for the last eight I’ve edited a magazine named for that city, I didn’t have any compelling reason to connect with the story—and yet I devoured the extremely well-edited string of recollections from the people who knew him like it was my first meal in a week. SNL captain Lorne Michaels said part of Chris’s attraction was you felt like you knew him. But after reading the book, it’s clear I didn’t. I had no idea the depths of his talent or the sad, frightening toll his addiction took on him and his loved ones.

After speaking with Tom yesterday during a taping of Neil Heinen’s For the Record, I came away feeling like the book was cathartic for him, and that it’s given him a renewed energy to pursue his noble efforts to reach kids battling addiction through the Chris Farley Foundation he runs. Tom turned me on to one more reason to read, appreciate and share this book with others: it can help heal people. Read the speech Chris gave at the Hazelden rehab facility during his three years of sobriety, then turn the pages that lead to his death just a few years later. It’s a real wakeup call to how deep and devastating it is to battle alcohol and drugs.

Tom told us that when Chris was sober, “nobody could touch him.” The skits etched into our collective memory, such as motivational speaker Matt Foley and rabid fan Chris fawning over Paul McCartney, were crafted and performed when the man was healthy. When Chris’s mom could sleep at night.

Everything Happens for a Reason

It took me a while to get over being snubbed by Tom Farley’s publisher, Viking Press. Okay I’m still not over it, but, anyway, a few months ago I asked about excerpting The Chris Farley Show, the new oral history out by Tom and Tanner Colby (he's the guy who co-wrote the John Belushi biography). They said no, that I couldn’t have at anything in the book until after Playboy’s excerpt came out in May. Niiiiiiiiiice. Because I am THE GOLD MEDALIST in the Holding Grudges Olympics (just ask my spouse), I decided I was going to let the book release occasion pass with nary a written word. But then I ran into Jodi Cohen last Friday and I realized why Tom couldn’t secretly break the Viking Press rules for Chris’ hometown magazine—a magazine that put him on the cover in 1994. The reason is, duh, because Madison Magazine is supposed to write about Chris’ early career in Madison. And Jodi, who co-founded and directed Ark's second improv company Animal Crackers, where Chris got his start, is my conduit to those years. Off we go.

What’s your history with the Ark Improvisational Theater (whose most famous members were Farley and Joan Cusack)? I think I joined the Ark in ’84. They were still at Club de Wash and it was before we moved into 220 North Bassett. I was there until it closed in 1991. 220 N. Bassett was a Brinks truck garage that (Ark founders) Dennis Kern and Elaine Eldridge rented and turned into a black-box theater. I started out doing improv and then, when we got the theater, we did started doing sketch comedy and musical revues. Then Dennis and Elaine asked me to direct a (a new company) Animal Crackers, and so we auditioned people. That’s the first time I met Chris. I didn’t know until the book came out that he had come to the theater the night before and talked to Dennis.

In the new Chris Farley book, which is basically a string of quotes—an oral history—that tells his fascinating life story, you get 109 words on page 57. Really up until I had read the book I had very much packaged and just robotically talked about Chris, what I knew about Chris, my experience with Chris. My standard response was, “Chris Farley was in my improv company.” People were like, “Ohhhhhhhhhh! Oh my God what was that like?” It’s like, “Well, it’s hard to be with somebody who’s an addict.” Improv is all about trust and it was always an adventure because I never knew what shape he was going to be in the night of the show. The other thing I would always say, and this still remains true is that he was a really great improviser. And once he became famous and once you saw him on SNL or in the movies you never really got to see what was so great about his comic genius.

What was so great about his comic genius? He was really physical and he could think on his feet. Reading the book, that was kind of the beginning of my feeling the heartbreak of Chris not being on the planet anymore. It really hit me. It was like, "He's gone?" And he was so young and he was really talented. I feel like when he got to be at SNL and in his movies he seems kind of two-dimensional. You know it’s the difference between live theater and something that’s videotaped, it’s not the same. He was a great scene partner. People did get to see him being a physical improviser in the moment. What was so fun improvising with him is how his physicality would manifest in whatever was happening in the scene.

Do you have a specific memory? I remember we would do these characters where we were performing surgery using these teeny, tiny instruments that we would use. He’s so big so the contrast was so funny. And he would take it really seriously, which makes the comedy all the more heightened—that he would really commit to whatever was happening. The other thing was I remember something about him barbecuing and doing this character of Mr. Carruthers and “Yeah, come on over.” It was very much a joyful, jovial character. On SNL all that stuff is scripted so you don’t get to see a lot of the joy or a lot of the creativity that would come out that you do in improv. He was very physical as an improviser and we would always do this one beat in a certain scene where I would run across the stage and jump into his arms. For all the garbage that went on off stage … he had a lot of gusto as a scene partner.

Dennis Kern talks about Chris’ motivational speaker character, Matt Foley, getting its start at the Ark. I don’t remember that. That character scared me when I would see it on TV. It just felt too out of control. And you know he was really trying to pimp his scene partners by either varying off the script or just breaking the boundaries. I do remember watching them crack up, which is always fun. I remember at the Ark, Todd Brown, one of the improvisers, would do “Elvis Before.” And then Chris would come out in some white jumpsuit and do “Elvis After”—after all the drugs and the drinking.

Brian Stack, who was at the Ark with you and Chris, says in the book, “He could do the same thing fifty times and somehow always make it funny." I think part of Chris being a good improviser is his total commitment to whatever was happening in the scene. … I always think comedy basically comes down to taking something really mundane and you add something bizarre. Or you do something really bizarre in a really mundane way. It’s the contrast and that you’re not expecting it, and then when you really commit to it, it just heightens it all the more.

There are a lot of similarities to Chris in the way that you use humor. You wrote, “Humor is what helps me get through, get by, get around, get over things and people … keeps me from digging around on the inside.” That’s Chris. All I have is my own experience. What was so sad about reading the book was the depth of the struggles that Chris had. I think about what it means to live a self-examined life and what it means to just stay at the surface. I know that I’m really sensitive. The good things are really great. The bad things are horrible and I feel like I need to leave the country and I’m going to go live on the side of a mountain and eat a grain of rice that’s lifted up to me by a bucket every day. That’s the ultimate escape fantasy. The thing about being sensitive is that we feel everything. I had no idea about Chris’ OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). It just seems like there was so much suffering and no matter how many people tried to help he was alone with it. I didn’t understand about alcoholism and I didn’t understand about addiction back when I worked with him. In my ignorance I just thought, “You can’t do that," or, "That won’t work," and I didn’t understand what I was up against. As the director, I was the authority figure and Chris was not happy with my response to his habits.

In hindsight what might you have done differently? I didn’t understand how addiction works so I didn’t understand the loyalty to using and what happens when you interrupt that or get in the way of that.

Were you writing for the troupe? I'd written some sketches that the improv group performed. The first thing I ever wrote was with Lois Nowicki, who’s since passed away, and Nancy Deutsch, who lives in San Francisco. The three of us did a show together called “Just Listen, It’s NukeSpeak,” where we did a series of characters, monologues and scenes. It was this very sweet three-person show. I remember Chris was living in Chicago and came back to town and saw the show when he came to the theater to say hello to folks. He had broken his foot. He was on crutches, which I read about how that happened in the book. I remember him being in the lobby one night. We didn’t get along off stage so he’d be very aloof, very cool, and said, “That was really good.” And I was very icy, very aloof, and said, “Thank you.” Just dagger, dagger, dagger, dagger, back and forth.

Is your current improv company Spin Cycle a mature, grownup version of Animal Crackers? I’m still doing short-form improv. Everything I learned back then is what I still do. I very much have Dennis and Elaine’s sensibility. We weren’t really encouraged to do gutter humor. The thinking behind that was anybody can do gutter humor. It's an easy choice in a scene. And what I've learned since is that it never serves the scene. Somebody will grab focus for a laugh or a joke but it never really moves anything along. Also we were encouraged not to swear. I feel a little bit prudish about improv that way. Elaine and Dennis had theater backgrounds. We would do a game called theater styles, and I would read Chekhov and Shaw and Ibsen and Williams, so that when somebody called those things out I knew what those plays were. There was so much theater that occurred in the improv and then in the sketches. I remember we were rehearsing a sketch and Elaine said, “Who brought the samovar?" and I was like, “What the hell is a samovar? I don’t even know what this is but I’m supposed to bring one.”

You wrote in your blog: “Real humor has little to do with telling jokes and everything to do with connecting with others.” I think with anything done well it looks easier than it is. I think that telling stories is really age-old and it's how we connect with each other. I keep thinking that Chris, in his own way, with all of his shtick and everything that went on, he was such a great storyteller. He used all of his body and everything that he had got used in the communication when he was able to do that.

Your writing makes me laugh out loud. I get such joy out of it. Thank you. When I’ve written something that I like, I love to re-read it. I love to let it alone and then come back to it. It’s nice to find it again. I always encourage people who are writers to take improv because you’re working on your writing skills. It’s very much writing in the moment. You are called on to invent things and write on the spot without the censor. And when you’re improvising you really have to keep things moving. I think it’s great training for anybody that writes.

You wear lots of hats in the work that you do. I think about us being human “doings” and us being human “beings.” I’m a writer. I’m a storyteller. I’m an improviser. I’m an artist. I’m a creator. I’m a comedienne. Those are the labels. And then I think about what I do. I do improv. I do keynote speaking. I do motivational speaking. I do training. I teach. When I think about what’s most important to me, I really think it’s art in whatever way it shows up. When I’m performing I feel like this is what I’m meant to do–when it’s going well, I should say. When it’s happening and it’s clicking there’s nothing else like it. I feel like this is why I’m on the planet this time around. And then when I’m writing and the writing goes well and the writing is well received, I think, “This is my real work!” I think it all has to do with offering something and being received in whatever format that is. I think I know how to do that best when it comes to creating art.

Finally, Jodi, please finish these sentences…

After Russ Feingold came to my one-woman show... I finally realized that we would never job share.
The difference between being funny and writing funny is... being funny doesn’t necessarily involve sitting down, writing funny is all about the editing. This is my final answer after three edits. Make that four edits. Five edits.
What I really love is... making art that is well received by people.
What I really hate is... feeling disconnected from people.

Jodi’s spiffy bio: Jodi Cohen translates how the principles of ‘Improvisational Thinking’ impact our everyday lives, liberate our innate talents and awaken the muscles that allow us to connect, collaborate and generate big ideas. Jodi teaches ‘Improvisational Thinking’ strategies to an increasing number of business and community leaders to afford them new ways to think, respond and behave. These simple, profound and user-friendly ideas inspire improved performance, increased productivity and rampant innovation among participants. Jodi’s studied and taught improv for twenty-five years and is artistic director of SPIN CYCLE Improv Troupe.

Poetry in Motion

So I flip to the back of the book, maybe because that’s what Madison Magazine readers do every month (see why here). More likely, though, it’s because the paperback I hold in my hands—a poem of epic proportions—is so new its spine hugs a hundred pages tight like earth clutching skinny blades of grass. I hold the soft cover steady with both hands, and then scan the words on the page with indifference; they’ll be of no use to me.

“This book is set in Adobe Jensen. Jensen is a digital reflection of typefaces designed in fifteenth-century Venice.”

The person who gave me the book loves Italy like a drunk loves gin. But I quickly conclude that the font’s Euro-pedigree isn’t why he picked up Braided Creek, by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser, for my thirty-seventh birthday last week. (Nor is it the gin.)

While I’d like to think there’s some karmic moment hard at work here, my rational self tells me I ended up at the end of the book by accident. And that the reason my boss chose the raw and sentimental Braided Creek is not because of Italian typeface but instead to high-five the launch of our new poetry column, “A Poet’s Place.” Neil is a huge fan of both poets, who in the book correspond back and forth with one another through short poems after Kooser is diagnosed with cancer. The intimate exchange is published as one long and winding sonnet played out on the page like a dynamic tennis match between two of the best players in the world.

To execute the mag’s new poetry corner, Neil wisely suggested we use Kooser’s free weekly column for newspapers and online publications, “American Life in Poetry.” So like any enterprising editor, I lifted the format in full. Kooser, who served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004–2006, picks a poet, writes why it’s inspirational to him, and then shares the poem. But Kooser isn’t podcasting the things of beauty. That was our idea.

Our debut poem was penned by Madison poet laureate Fabu, who, from henceforth, will choose poems submitted to her for consideration at fabu@poetfabu.com. The project is in its infancy and already we have a passel of poets aching to be published. It’s good to be desirable, but I fear (no, I know) that part of this endeavor’s popularity is the dearth of poetry in everyday life. While there is poets’ prose percolating in every corner of this city, you often never know it unless you travel in their circles.

That’s in part why Fabu came to us with her mission “to place poetry in unusual places.” Sure, I’d prefer our magazine not be cast as an “unusual” venue for poetry. In a way that’s sad. And yet I don’t bemoan our heretofore lack of it. Instead I celebrate its place—a poet’s place—now, and in future issues of Mad Mag, as well as on our website.

Calling all poets.

Neil?

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Here’s how to find poetry all around you: www.madpoetry.org
In August Madison will host the Olympics of poetry slam, with 75 teams of poets from North America and Europe competing in venues around the city. http://nps2008.com/