Found while seeking reruns
The hour-long block of time, just after supper is where the networks place “syndicated” programs. In the vernacular: reruns. I’m OK with that. Helps to reinforce those neural pathways that were weakly laid down, years earlier, when a given show was still prime time and I was too distracted to pay attention. This evening, starting at the top of the channel list, I spotted David Steinberg, dressed as I remembered him from back in the early 70’s. Even the colours give away the era.
Except that this wasn’t a rerun. I had stumbled across a documentary of his life and work, which contains so much more than I had realized. He’s been busy!
Turns out that when I saw him on Carson, it was one of about one hundred and fifty different appearances. And when he was on the Smother’s Brothers, he was the reason they went away. His jokes about Nixon; important in the paranoid sense. Tricky! And when he disappeared from in front of the cameras, it wasn’t because Winnipeg wanted him back (they did). He moved into the director’s chair, and liked it enough to get one with his name on the back rest.
He’s not old, yet. Just into the “able to retire to a lousy pension” demographic, if he wants. He doesn’t. Directing top notch comedy is a vocation, much like anything else requiring perseverance and a thick skin. The current goal of other “names” (Seinfeld, for example) is to get him back into standup. That would be good, but not necessary. He proved his skill in that field ages ago.
