Phil Hartman X: The Way I See It
Phil was born in Canada. He didn’t spend much time there, his parents moved to the US when he was a kid, so how much of the old country remained is debatable. But since we were both from the equivalent of small Ontario towns (mine was of the suburban variety) I always felt we shared a secret handshake or a portal to ancestral memories. The part I think of as Canadian, which is probably just a construct based on my wishful thinking about the differences between our two peoples, stems from the pleasant, lilting accent we all have. There’s something of a song in the rythmn and somehow makes us all seem fresh and just a little naive. Just a hint, perhaps of the lyrical ancestral Irish in us, maudlin, introspective, charming and romantic. But whatever it is we’ve always been underestimated for our cunning and strength. We didn’t fight for independence with broadsword and blood, we wiggled our way out of the yoke of imperialism by shuffling a lot of paper around for so many centuries that King and country were eventually bored to death and lost interest in us. And as gloriously free citizens we define Canadianism more by what we aren’t (American) than what we are, and yet as a nation of immigrants we are much more open to examining and re-defining that question than our southerly neighbors.
I don’t think it’s an accident of statistics that Canada produces so many successful, cross-border comedians per capita than any other country. Mike Myers, John Candy, Martin Short, Jim Carrey, Eugene Levy, Dan Akyroyd, Cheech Marin, Catherine O’Hara, The Kids In The Hall, Bill & Doug McKenzie, let’s talk about doughnut holes, eh? Phil may not have identified himself as Canadian but we claim him, just like we claim Alexander Bell, who invented the telephone while we was living within our borders despite what those fanatics in Boston go on about (so tiresome, really…and so wrong!). More importantly, Phil reminded me of home, in that secret language of ancestry, and we connected as innocents on the quintessentially American sandbox of Hollywood. We understood each other and it was enormously comforting. Phil’s gift was to seem both humble and outrageous all at the same time, a clever mind at work both as a social commentator and political pundit with an ego so sublimated it made his biting humor easier to swallow.
As with many comedians, Phil was alive when he was funny, but unlike Steve Martin (known as the White Rabbit to those who work with him) he was kind and sweet when he wasn’t ‘on’ so I enjoyed him either way. You always got the sense that he found his talent for mimicry hilariously entertaining and he was amusing himself as much as his friends. These were his gifts, in the most traditional sense, and he was generous with them for all our benefits.
I was driving into my job at an ad agency when I heard the news that Brynn had killed Phil and then herself in a long drawn-out saga that left their two children to live in the mess she’d exploded onto them. Phil was gone, vulnerable and naive to the very end and that seemed strangely in keeping with his character. The finality of it meant I had to let go of one of the last dreams I’d had about salvaging what was left of those glory years as a young turk in the film business. The last time I saw them at our final dinner together ten years before, I had a very bad feeling. Goodbyes were said, the door shut behind them and I fairly turned on Michael. “That’s the last time we’ll ever see Phil!” I wailed and fled into the kitchen to thrash a few dishes around in the sink. I was restless and angry, and I knew that losing Phil as a friend meant that I would have to own up to my own particular blindspots, the ones that had left me rootless and drifting, about to implode from all the dishonesty in my life.
When I saw him at the movie theatre on that night when I was disheveled and living on someone’s couch I had thrown up the pieces of my life into the wind and let them fall away. I’d given in to my fear that I would never amount to anything and was finally coming out the other side. To see Phil’s resigned face in that moment when Brynn pulled at him, to understand that all his dreams to be recognized as a comic genius had finally been realized and yet he was still not there, not truly emancipated, was one of those moments when you see the wholeness of the universe in the eye of a needle. I looked like crap and all I had was possibility at that moment, but Phil, my friend Phil, he was trapped.
This morning I watched the tape of Phil’s SNL audition, available as part of a DVD collection highlighting the contributions of some of the show’s more famous alumni. There he was, wearing the same plaid shirt I’d photographed him in at one of our parties. It was the Phil I knew, cocky beyond words, effervescent to manic in his smart-alecky way, never letting on he was nervous, laughing when he screwed up, looking for all the world like he belonged on that show. And yet, at the end when he and Jon Lovitz (whom he’d pulled up on the stage to do some rehearsed bits) made a mess of the last number, he grinned in his apologetic way, grabbed his stuff and yelled, “Next!” like he never expected for a moment that he would get the job.
Some things you can’t take away. Despite what happened to Phil that night in his house, curled up in his cartoon pyjamas, he managed to do what we all hope to do no matter how long we're around. Live on. Through his children, his family, his work, his friends, and people who loved him. Like me.
I don’t think it’s an accident of statistics that Canada produces so many successful, cross-border comedians per capita than any other country. Mike Myers, John Candy, Martin Short, Jim Carrey, Eugene Levy, Dan Akyroyd, Cheech Marin, Catherine O’Hara, The Kids In The Hall, Bill & Doug McKenzie, let’s talk about doughnut holes, eh? Phil may not have identified himself as Canadian but we claim him, just like we claim Alexander Bell, who invented the telephone while we was living within our borders despite what those fanatics in Boston go on about (so tiresome, really…and so wrong!). More importantly, Phil reminded me of home, in that secret language of ancestry, and we connected as innocents on the quintessentially American sandbox of Hollywood. We understood each other and it was enormously comforting. Phil’s gift was to seem both humble and outrageous all at the same time, a clever mind at work both as a social commentator and political pundit with an ego so sublimated it made his biting humor easier to swallow.
As with many comedians, Phil was alive when he was funny, but unlike Steve Martin (known as the White Rabbit to those who work with him) he was kind and sweet when he wasn’t ‘on’ so I enjoyed him either way. You always got the sense that he found his talent for mimicry hilariously entertaining and he was amusing himself as much as his friends. These were his gifts, in the most traditional sense, and he was generous with them for all our benefits.
I was driving into my job at an ad agency when I heard the news that Brynn had killed Phil and then herself in a long drawn-out saga that left their two children to live in the mess she’d exploded onto them. Phil was gone, vulnerable and naive to the very end and that seemed strangely in keeping with his character. The finality of it meant I had to let go of one of the last dreams I’d had about salvaging what was left of those glory years as a young turk in the film business. The last time I saw them at our final dinner together ten years before, I had a very bad feeling. Goodbyes were said, the door shut behind them and I fairly turned on Michael. “That’s the last time we’ll ever see Phil!” I wailed and fled into the kitchen to thrash a few dishes around in the sink. I was restless and angry, and I knew that losing Phil as a friend meant that I would have to own up to my own particular blindspots, the ones that had left me rootless and drifting, about to implode from all the dishonesty in my life.
When I saw him at the movie theatre on that night when I was disheveled and living on someone’s couch I had thrown up the pieces of my life into the wind and let them fall away. I’d given in to my fear that I would never amount to anything and was finally coming out the other side. To see Phil’s resigned face in that moment when Brynn pulled at him, to understand that all his dreams to be recognized as a comic genius had finally been realized and yet he was still not there, not truly emancipated, was one of those moments when you see the wholeness of the universe in the eye of a needle. I looked like crap and all I had was possibility at that moment, but Phil, my friend Phil, he was trapped.
This morning I watched the tape of Phil’s SNL audition, available as part of a DVD collection highlighting the contributions of some of the show’s more famous alumni. There he was, wearing the same plaid shirt I’d photographed him in at one of our parties. It was the Phil I knew, cocky beyond words, effervescent to manic in his smart-alecky way, never letting on he was nervous, laughing when he screwed up, looking for all the world like he belonged on that show. And yet, at the end when he and Jon Lovitz (whom he’d pulled up on the stage to do some rehearsed bits) made a mess of the last number, he grinned in his apologetic way, grabbed his stuff and yelled, “Next!” like he never expected for a moment that he would get the job.
Some things you can’t take away. Despite what happened to Phil that night in his house, curled up in his cartoon pyjamas, he managed to do what we all hope to do no matter how long we're around. Live on. Through his children, his family, his work, his friends, and people who loved him. Like me.
posted by vallie at 1:06 PM
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