We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives (19 page)

Iraq—Biff, Dave, and Paul. Note the crossed sabers; note my terrified smile.

Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, the best band in the land. From left: Al Chez, Anton Fig, Felicia Collins, Will Lee, Tom “Bones” Malone, Sid McGinnis, Bruce Kapler.

The enchanting Cathy.

Family is everything. Paul, Will, Cathy, and Victoria.

I can’t forget the final words spoken to me by Schwartz before I headed out of the studio after that long day of recording:

“Paul,” he said. “One way or another, I’ll find a way to bring you here. You belong in New York. This is your town.”

But how long would I have to wait? How would I ever find the patience? And would Schwartz really make good on his promise? Or had he made this same promise to dozens of musicians and then forgotten all about them?

How was I to know?

And in the meantime, how could I do anything but scheme, plot, and pray my way back to the big city where people never slept and the music never stopped?

Why Canada?

Why are so many brilliant comics Canadian? What are the subtle reasons for this phenomenon? My suggestion is this:

Canada is cold as hell. That means we stay inside and watch Canadian television. Watching Canadian television means watching the proceedings of the Canadian Parliament. Watching the Canadian Parliament means hearing the right honorable gentleman from Nova Scotia arguing about fishing rights. Later in the evening you’ll be entertained by
The Plouffe Family
, in which the dad, Théophile Plouffe, a former provincial cycling champion, must come to terms with being a plumber.

Watching Canadian television makes sane children crazy. The only alternative, of course, is American television. So if you take the factor of the freezing cold that keeps us inside and combine it with the less than thrilling nature of Canadian TV, you wind up with a nation hungry for truly funny comedy. Thus
American comedy, no matter how goofy, is embraced wholeheartedly. We watch it, we study it, and then we watch it again.

There is, of course, the larger issue of Canadian culture. We have a British sensibility. Yet the paradox is this: that sensibility is not British enough to provide the chic urbanity of, say, London; yet it
is
British enough to cast a pall of boredom over our great nation. Far be it from me, however, to cast Canada in anything but a positive light. On a clear night in Thunder Bay, to venture outside and view the northernmost mountains of the Canadian Shield in all their breathtaking beauty—the rugged birch, the towering evergreens—is indeed an aesthetic experience of the highest order. If you like that kind of thing.

After experiencing the subzero evening, however, many of us ran back indoors and turned on the tube. That’s where we escaped a culture and climate that chilled our blood and froze our spirit. It is for this reason that we not only became connoisseurs of American comedy, we actually invaded the United States, becoming participants—and in some cases innovators—in the high (or, depending upon your point of view, low) comedic art practiced by our neighbors to the south.

With your kind indulgence, I’d now like to offer something I call the Shafferian Theory of Selling Back Your Own Shit.

I came to the theory through music. In the sixties, England sold America’s music back to America. Take the Rolling Stones—they loved American blues, absorbed American blues, repackaged American blues, and sold it back to America. Americans called it the British Invasion. But if it was an invasion, Britain was using musical weapons forged in the U.S.A.

In similar fashion, Canada sold American comedy back to America in repackaged form. Just as the English learned how to
play blues from America, the Canadians learned how to be funny from America. Thus the Shafferian Theory.

When Canadian comedy careerists landed on U.S. soil, they had an edge. Many had toiled in the field of television production based on the English template. The CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was modeled on the BBC, our British counterpart that saw the producer/director as a single job function. Put simply, you learned to do it all. So when Canadian pros like Chris Bearde and Alan Blye landed in Hollywood, they were already whiz kids who were able to take over and run shows like
The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour
. Other Canadians were equally active: Frank Peppiatt with
Hee Haw
and Dwight Hemion with Steve Allen’s
Tonight Show
. Later, Lorne Michaels, a Toronto-born graduate of the CBC’s rigorous boot camp, would make the biggest mark of all.

The Sell-Back-Your-Own-Shit Theory applies to performers as well as to producers/directors. When Second City, the famed improvisational comedy group from Chicago, opened its Canadian branch in Toronto in 1973, at the very same time we were knee deep in
Godspell
, they sent up two comedians, Brian Doyle-Murray and Joe Flaherty. Their job was to recruit and train. Second City, of course, was renowned. We knew their alumni list. They had trained, among others, Alan Arkin, Avery Schreiber, Joan Rivers, David Steinberg, and Robert Klein. Naturally Brian and Joe picked up the buzz surrounding
Godspell
. When Brian and I became fast friends, he was quick to tell me about his brother Billy back in Chicago, whom he said had fashioned the funniest takeoff on Allen and Rossi in the history of takeoffs. He also mentioned another Chicagoan named Belushi who was tearing it up with
Lemmings
, the National Lampoon musical in New York.

The
Godspell
and Second City crowds merged into one. Eventually Brian and Joe wisely raided our cast and hired Gilda and Eugene Levy. The merger became more intricate when Brian started going with Gilda.

Meanwhile, my stint at
Godspell
continued. When my rock guitarist quit, I immediately thought of Munoz as a replacement. Tisziji was unorthodox, but I thought he could cover it. I went to his house, where his wife told me that he was living in the Hare Krishna temple. To see him I must arrive at 7 a.m. because at 7:15 their all-day chanting and praying began.

Next morning I got myself out of bed and knocked at the temple door at 7 a.m. sharp. The man who opened the door had a fully shaven head, a white appliqué on his face, and a flowing orange-and-white gown covering his body.

“I’m here to see Tisziji Munoz,” I said.

“Paul,” he said. “It’s me, Tisziji.”

I took another look and yes, it
was
my man Munoz. I was shocked. It was too late. I had lost him to Krishna consciousness.

“I had wanted you to take over the guitar chair in the show for a while,” I said, “but now I don’t think it’ll work.”

“Of course it’ll work,” he said. “When should I start? Tonight?”

“Are you sure, Tisziji?”

“Believe me, Paul, it’ll be beautiful.”

And it was. For four months Munoz was brilliant in
Godspell
. Tisziji’s music flowed just as freely as his flowing white-and-orange robes. It was that time in the history of entertainment when the rock musical allowed and even encouraged expansive freedom. Tisziji was all about freedom—later he’d call it “God Fire”—and though he was playing a suite of songs designed around a Christian narrative, he took the story further. All of
us—musicians, singers, and audience alike—went along on his mystical merry-go-round.

At the same time, the arrival of Second City in our fair metropolis was anything but mystical. It was biting, satirical, sometimes sarcastic, but always hysterical. There was a formula. The first two acts of the evening were sketches molded in this Second City style and always ending with a musical number. That way the music would mask the sound of the waitresses collecting the tabs. The third act was a series of improvs based on a formulaic technique. The thing worked like gangbusters.

Before Brian Doyle-Murray started going with Gilda, Marty and Gilda had been an item. One night, Mary Ann and I double-dated with Marty and Gilda to see Frank Sinatra Jr. at the Hook and Ladder Club. I tell you this to demonstrate our devotion to the Sinatras. We loved the kids as well as the father. In fact, I have a clear memory of Junior appearing on
Hullabaloo
sometime during my Thunder Bay childhood. He sang his bid for a rock hit, “Shadows on a Foggy Day.” Marty, knowledgeable in all things Sinatra, knew the tune as well. So sometime toward the end of his act at the Hook and Ladder, when it didn’t look like Junior was going to do the song, Marty and I yelled out, “Sing ‘Shadows on a Foggy Day!’”

Junior turned to our table and gave us a demonic glare.

“Shadows up your foggy day,” he said.

Allow me to advance the calendar and set the scene for when Junior appeared on Letterman:

It was the late eighties. Was (Not Was) had a hot new album,
What Up, Dog?
The big singles off the record were “Walk the Dinosaur” and “Spy in the House of Love.” True to the Was
(Not Was) tradition of including a Vegas-y song on every album, they recorded Frank Jr. doing “Wedding Bells in Vegas” on
What Up, Dog?
After Junior gave a note-perfect performance of “Wedding Bells” on Letterman, I approached him in the dressing room to tell him how much I liked his “Shadows on a Foggy Day.” “Make no mistake about it, Mr. Sinatra,” I said. “Seeing you sing it on
Hullabaloo
is a most cherished memory from my Canadian childhood.”

Junior was as stern as he had been at the Hook and Ladder Club in Toronto.

“That song nearly ruined my career,” he said.

“How so?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to sing it because it was about LSD. I did it anyway. But when they wanted me to do a follow-up—still
another
drug song—I flat-out refused. So they dropped me from the label.”

Frank Sinatra Jr.—he just said no.