Some time ago -- oh, ten years at least must now have passed -- I had a conversation with Ron Padgett that remains clear in memory. I believe there are three reasons for this clarity. First, it was the only conversation I've ever had with Ron Padgett. Second, I had been preparing for the conversation over many years, hoping that I would someday have a chance to speak with Ron. Third, the conversation was everything I'd hoped for, although it was essentially finished after the first minute or so. This was because the start of the conversation was so powerful, thought provoking, and fulfilling that the rest didn't matter. It was like a baseball game with such a spectacular home run on the first pitch that no one pays attention to the rest of the game -- and, as John Ashbery wrote, "this is only one example."
I said to Ron Padgett, "Reading your own work, and also some of your collaborations with Ted Berrigan in Bean Spasms, I felt that this was as funny as anything else I'd seen. As funny as Mark Twain in "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," and much funnier than most professional funny men. Yet many professional funny men are making a really good living from not actually being that funny, or not being funny at all. So my question is, did you ever think of somehow taking a commercial route with your funniness -- maybe into film or television, or by writing jokes for famous comedians, as Woody Allen did?"
The reply from Ron Padgett was instantaneous and emphatic: "Hell no!"
Well, I knew where Ron was coming from, and felt like I was from the same place. Yes, we were brothers in our allegiances and our renunciations. We were both students of Kenneth Koch, who could have been Jerry Lewis but who chose to be himself. Hooray and boo-hoo, as Koch himself liked to say. (Or just hooray, if you prefer.) Let's keep all this in the back of our minds as we consider Nora Ephron -- her life, death, and the memorial service that took place this week. She was a very funny lady.
from the archive; first posted some sunny day
A comic mountain out of a molehill!
Posted by: David Schloss | August 10, 2024 at 12:15 PM
Poetry is the most refined and dignified use of language; why should the brilliant Ron Padgett (or any poet) strive for a role in the least refined and dignified use
of language, popular television.
Posted by: Howard Norman | August 10, 2024 at 04:26 PM