Last night, my father-in-law Pete, friend Bob and I traveled across the state to
Jumer's Casino to see a true showbiz legend, Mr. Don Rickles, work his magic. And we were not disappointed.
If you've seen the documentary
MR. WARMTH (and I highly recommend you do), you've seen the act we saw. Rickles is played out on stage to his theme song, "The Matador," he starts to sing crazily, throws down his mike, berates his bandleader for a few minutes, then launches into a litany of (very) dated but (still pretty) funny insults.
He also (rightfully, probably) bemoaned the fact that he was performing in Rock Island, Illinois, saying before the pilot landed, he asked "Are you sure?" and told the audience that when he gets "back to the States," he'll remember them. My favorite line was when turned his back to the audience, shaking his head, and said "The things you do for a hundred grand," then turned back with a fake smile and said "But really, I do it for the love of you good people." Funny stuff, no matter how old it is.
Rickles' act is the sort of show that barely exists anymore. In fact, Rickles -- at the ripe old age of 82 -- might be the last guy practicing this particularly brand of entertainment. There are the ethnic/racial jokes, of course, most of them focusing on anyone in the audience with German or Polish heritage. (I mean, really, when was the last time you even heard the word "pollock"?) Rickles reminded us he was Jewish about 750 times over the course of the evening, and walked in a goosestep to make the Germans in the audience feel "more comfortable." He did a few gags involving drunken Irishmen, and brought two audience members (including a drunken idiot of a chiropractor) onstage to do his ancient "three Japanese soldiers" bit.
Actually, calling it a bit is a bit of an exagerration. It was just a way for Rickles to bring out some timeworn gags that he's been using since Connery was Bond. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. You don't go see a guy like Rickles to see cutting-edge comedy, you go to witness a bit of showbiz history. And hell, he's still pretty funny, too. The jokes maybe old -- and sometimes not even really make sense -- but Rickles knows how to sell a funny line, to make an endlessly-polished quip sound like a spur-of-the-moment ad lib.
And then there's the singing. Coming from an era where an entertainer was supposed to, you know, entertain, Rickles sprinkles his act with a few musical numbers -- and they're not jokes, either. (Though they are oddly funny.) He sings "I'm a Nice Guy," his standard song that sort of acts like an apology for his insult humor while still managing to contain some insults. He also sings another tune or two that, frankly, I couldn't remember. (For one thing, the acoustics at Jumer's were awful, and you could barely hear the singing over the band.)
But then, for reasons known only to himself, he sang "Yankee Doodle Dandy." After describing a youthful encounter with James Cagney where the legendary actor told him how tough showbiz was. Rickles said "To you young kids, he's the wisecracking gangster, but us older folks know him as a song and dance man."
Wait a second. Cagney's gangster movies came out 70-plus years ago, he hasn't acted in anything since 1981's RAGTIME, and he died almost 23 years ago. Expecting anyone in that crowd -- much less "you young kids" -- to even spell "Cagney" was a bit of a stretch. (I love the guy, but I'm an old movie geek.) Then he launched into "Yankee Doodle Dandy," the title song from a movie that hit theaters 67 years ago.
But -- and here's the key -- he made it current: During his semi-rousing version of this Irving Berlin chestnut, he quite sincerely hoped for the troops (boys and girls, as he said) to come back safely from Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Rickles is a World War II vet who saw some serious action in the Phillipines, so I don't doubt that he knows about the horrors of combat, and it's nice to see him to show public concern for today's soldiers. But when he ends the song yelling "Jimmy! Jimmy! Bring those boys and girls back home!!," well, it's a little odd. Sweet, but definitely odd.
At the end of the show, Rickles repeated (for about the ninth time) that "when the whole world was booing" at him, his mother was the only one who stood by him. Then he toasted (for about the ninth time) to "the one thing we can't buy," our health, and stepped to the edge of the stage to shake hands.
I didn't get to shake the man's hand, but I saw him up close, and he looks damn healthy for someone in his 80s. I don't know how much longer he'll be touring -- or if he'll ever return to this neck of the woods -- but if you're a fan of old showbiz and you get a chance to see him, by all means, do so. There's nothing quite like him anymore. Plus, he really does put on a funny, funny show.
And hell, I wound up ten bucks ahead at the blackjack table. So it was a good night all around.
But it was Farmer's other work that I really liked, the books that, long before the concept of "fan fic" grew and festered, took classic characters and used them to tell knew stories. Farmer had a real knack for this sort of thing, writing complex, elaborate fictional biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage (TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE), then using even more complex, elaborate family trees to tie them to each other -- and to virtually every other pulp hero, fictional character and in-joke he could think of. It's nerdity of the highest order, but Farmer makes it all make sense somehow, and what's more, he uses it to tell some great stories. And he never admits it's a joke either. Look for the wink or the nod in TARZAN ALIVE OR APOCALYPTIC LIFE and you're not going to find it. 
