The following are people, TV shows, publications, and other media, some famous, some not so, who influenced my writing style and demented sense of humor. I've listed them in some sort of chronological order.
Maybe.
1-My family, especially my father
The sarcasm would drip from his lips, and could destroy you.
He died in 2002.
A few years after that was when I started pouring over his body of work.
The photos were easy.
Reading all the printed material, both published, unpublished, and rough-drafts, took a considerable amount of time.
There were/are mountains of it dating back to 1958 when he started his career with the now defunct Indianapolis Times.
His investigative reporting was good, and he won several awards for it.
It was his human interest stuff, some of it never published, that got my attention.
His mother, my grandmother.
She had a subtle way of insulting people.
Years ago, there was a race driver named Steve Krisiloff. He was NOT attractive. He looked like Alfred E. Neuman from Mad Magazine.
One day she said, "He's unfortunate-looking." A family legend was born that day.
2-1960s and 70s Mad Magazine
Everybody read it, even Mom and Dad.
My favorite cartoonist at Mad was Al Jaffee.
He would insert tiny (often delightfully gross) details into a panel that one would have to look for...and then you'd shit your pants laughing.
Mad would also put tiny Jaffee vignettes in the margins of a page and BETWEEN panels.
If he wanted to depict someone or something barfing, the vomit would contain complete chicken bones, eyeballs, insects, veins and arteries. You get the picture.
Perfect content for juvenile boy with juvenile tastes and interests.
One of my faves was a piece called, "A photo of a jackal retching." It still makes me piss myself.
The vomit is pouring outta the poor sick animal and hitting the ground.
On the ground is a small animal...maybe a mouse...running thru the stream of puke using a leaf as an umbrella.
Now that's attention to detail I can admire!
If he was depicting a drunken dirty slob, there would be several flies buzzing around his head.
My buddies and I folded up with laughter about this shit even during our high school days, which at the time Mad Magazine was a shadow of its former self.
If you look at my blog's right hand panel...up at the top is an ode to Mad. "Our Price 50 cents. Cheap"
Mad did that on their front cover where the price tag was.
Another thing about Mad. It was an introduction to political satire, current events, and pop culture...even though I didn't understand much of it at the time.
Vietnam, Nixon and politicians, hippies and protests, race relations and civil rights, recreational drug use, women's rights, the sexual revolution, current cinema.
Big stuff for a kid to digest.
3-National Lampoon
...the magazine, not the movies...but the movies came much later and were definitely a part of my development too.
The magazine itself was like Mad all grown up and at college. Party like a frat boy, and nothing's scared.
The throwback parody of a typical edition of a Sunday newspaper was legend with my older brother and I.
We both delivered newspapers as kids, so we knew all about the extra heavy Sunday edition with all its extra content and advertising.
Lampoon's version was exactly the same, but with a more mature version of Mad Magazine treatment to every page.
A few years ago, my brother found a complete original version of it online in pristine condition and bought it.
Youdda thunk he'd discovered the Rosetta Stone with his excitement!
4-Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In
Politics, pop culture, sex, current events.
The entire family would gather and watch it.
Again...I didn't understand a lot of it, but I knew that for some reason Goldie Hawn's writhing, painted, bikini clad visage was something special!
5-The Tonight Show/Johnny Carson
As we got older, we (my brother and I specifically) were allowed to stay up later.
I enjoyed the standup comedians the most.
Sometimes if it got too late on a school night and we couldn't afford to lose so much sleep, my brother and I would set up a tape recorder next to the TV speaker and record the audio for later.
I can remember my father saying he hated Don Rickles, which I found particularly odd coming from him.
I LOVED Rickles! What a talent.
He destroyed people, but I knew he wasn't serious.
I think there was a lot of love in Don Rickles people didn't see.
6-Monty Python's Flying Circus
My father's mother, previously mentioned, watched A LOT of PBS.
I generally found PBS to be stuffy, sterile, and mind-numbingly boring....Something only nerds and people who think they are smarter and better than the unwashed masses consume.
Then I discovered these absurd Brits and a different, foreign worldview.
My dad howled with laughter. Mom love it too.
I don't recall my sisters taking to it like my brother and I did.
My brother and I had a couple of their 33 1/3 record albums, and we could recite the bits by heart!
ONE particular bit, amongst many, has been part of my repertoire for decades.
In the original bit, a couple meets another couple for the first time.
After knocking and being welcomed in, the homeowner's wife (actually a man in drag) greets the new visitors and says, "I'd shake hands, but I've just wiped lard on the cat's boil."
Motherfucker!
I use that same line all the time when I'm taking part in a family cookout/gathering, and I'm handling the food!
Python's movies were great also. The Life Of Brian. The Holy Grail. The Meaning of Life. All gut busters, and provided countless one liners for a lifetime.
7-Firesign Theater
Not sure how my brother got exposed to this, but glad he did.
Also a source of many one-liners, and also content I didn't fully understand.
It has been said that Firesign Theater is best enjoyed whilst under the influence of LSD.
I wouldn't know of such matters.
8-Saturday Night Live
We memorized these summbitches too!
Mom and Dad were along for the ride with this one.
Not so much for Firesign.
I don't think I could have handled my parents on an acid trip.
9- P.J O'Rourke
I could have included him with National Lampoon, but I think he deserves his personal place in my history.
He did the Lampoon thing.
He did automobiles with Car & Driver magazine.
He did Rolling Stone magazine.
I read all of it.
He wrote "Give War a Chance," which was about his coverage of the Gulf War, which, as you know...I wuz thar.
Looking back on it now, he may have influenced my decision to leave the Corps.
I loved his style.
It was "me"...if I was more intelligent.
10-Bob and Tom
Fucking obvious.
I grew up in Indy. I was here before them.
I was here for all of it, even before syndication.
I wanted to be in radio. I wanted to be a part of B&T.
I admittedly wasn't good enough. I sounded terrible on-air, and I knew it.
My forte was production and writing...I could have been of service to them in that aspect, but it never happened.
I got over it rather quickly, though.
To me, I always believed the strengths of B&T lay with the producers and bit players...who were oftentimes the same people!
Bob was goofy, and all he seemingly talked about was tits, beer, the Beatles, and cigarettes.
Apparently a good man, and obviously there was more to him than that, but he was not especially interesting to me.
Tom's always been a fucking neurotic basket case...especially now.
Reportedly very generous, but I'm sure I couldn't have dealt with his many mental quirks, and it might have come to blows between us!
11-Rush Limbaugh
I know.
A completely divisive character.
Loud. Sure of himself. Obnoxious sometimes. (I don't give a fuck. I loved him.)
But it ain't braggin' if you can do it.
Woke me up to conservatism and politics.
Reported about the early stages of Iraqi tomfoolery in Kuwait with an ominous tone. I just knew it would swallow me up.
Two of my favorite quotes from him: "Brevity is the soul of wit."-may not have originally been his. I don't know, nor do I care, and I can't be arsed to look it up.
"Illustrating absurdity by being absurd." -golden
12-Andrew Dice Clay's comedy CD The Diceman Cometh
Whilst getting bounced around in a 5-ton (6-wheeled troop-carrying truck) I overheard a small group of Marines discussing a comedian and describing some of his bits.
I thought, "That sounds like something right up my alley."
I asked the jarheads who they were talking about, and the rest is history.
Talk about absurdity. This guy had it all.
Sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia....every gottdamned phobia there was, this guy was sounding off about it and making liberal PC heads explode...all while doing it in an accent/attitude that I have always loved.
The New York/Jersey/Boston/East Coast/Italian/Jewish/Irish...fuck me...who knows what amalgamation of shit it was.
I found it gut-bustingly funny and entertaining...But it was all there, and I was gonna consume every fucking drop of it.
An innocuous, "Hey buddy. Got the time?"
Got a reply of, "Eh? You can't afford a fucking watch? What do I look like? Big fucking Ben to you? Go fuck yourself. Your mother's a whore did I ever tell you that?"
I needed oxygen after that.
I have a friend who I met thru work who eventually came to be like a little brother I never had.
I love this dude. We both had a demented sense of humor.
Anyhoo, I used Dice one-liners with him all the time.
When I told him to go fuck himself, he'd reply, "MY mother's a whore.!"
Turning it around...instead of calling my mother a whore he was calling his OWN mother a whore.
Doing two things at once...avoiding all possibility of offending me (wasn't EVER going to happen), and insulting his own mother, with whom he had a terrible relationship.
13-Robin Miller
A local racing journalist.
Worked for the Indianapolis Star newspaper, same as my dad, but I think Dad was on his way out as Robin was on his way in.
A good friend knew him personally very well.
I asked him to ask Robin if he knew my dad. I never heard back about the subject, so I don't know.
What I DO know is that I was EXTREMELY jealous of my friend's relationship with Robin, but I didn't try to force my way into it.
They would meet up with absolute, bona fide racing legends at a local diner that sat in the shadows of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and have epic bench racing sessions.
I desperately wanted into that circle but it never happened...maybe because I didn't push the issue like a fangurl asshole about with my friend.
Anyhoo...Robin was a hardcore CART guy, and he wasn't afraid of saying it.
Most of the IRL folks hated Robin with a passion.
I didn't care for him at the time, but I appreciated his style.
As the years went on Robin did a lot of TV work also.
When the two series merged, Robin was still reporting and commenting.
As he got older, he became a fixture in the IndyCar paddock, embraced the series, drivers and fans, and everybody, including me, came to love him.
His death in 2021 rocked the racing community, and left a huge hole that, to this day, hasn't been filled.
I wish I could have met him.
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Or something.
Maybe.