One Part is About Email Spam Another Concerns Biographies and the Third is a Discussion on the Greatest Talk Show Guest

Whenever someone wants to comment on my blog the web host sends me the comment before it is published. I can choose to publish it, delete it or mark it as spam. It’s a good system that I heartily approve of. Lately I’ve been bombarded with “comments” many of which are for posts that are more than five years old. These comments have several things in common. One is that they either only vaguely relate to the post in question or have nothing to do with it all. Many of the comments are poorly written and some make little sense. The other commonality is that within them are links to websites. I’ve only checked a couple and they were for sites that provide writing help. (Clearly many of the commenters could use the services these sites provide.) In a couple of cases the comments have referenced how one can improve their writing through the site.

None of this is a terrible imposition. All I do is take a cursory glance at the comment, see there’s a link, hit “mark as spam”and delete the email. Still it annoys. The annoyance doesn’t stem from having to go through the steps of getting rid of the comment but from the very idea of this spam. It’s an incredibly cynical thing to do. The, let us say perpetrators, are merely pretending to provide a comment on a post and what they’re really do is trying to get free advertising. It’s deceitful.

I wonder how the people who do this feel about their actions, about themselves. Are they proud of what they’re doing? Do they have a conscience? Do they hope that some of their comments will slip through and help traffic on their website and do they feel that that in turn is a legitimate way to drum up business? Honestly, I don’t understand how people think this is okay. I also wonder if there are other bloggers out there who fall for these charades.
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I recently finished reading a spate of biographies. Four to be exact. Maybe that doesn’t qualify as a spate. Perhaps I read several. Surely four is more than enough for several. In any case….

Biographies are comfort reading. They’re generally easy, fast reads but at the same time long enough to sink one’s teeth into — although not a recommended dental practice. I suppose circumstances in my life dictated these “easier” reads, what with occasional bouts of raging depression. Still good bios are hardly pablum. Learning about a person and what shaped his life is instructive and illuminating and one can’t help but draw parallels to one’s own life. Also a biography is a history lesson. History being something we learn far to little about let alone from. Sadly history is to often used — by both the right and left — to propagandize, being presented with glaring omissions or rife with distortions, exaggerations and downright mistruths. But I digress....

Biographies — assuming accuracy, balance and perspective — are fun and easy ways to find insight into the forces that shape people and their actions. For the record the bios I read were about George Armstrong Custer (I found him to be a most unsavory, albeit interesting character, who probably deserved far worse than the death he suffered at Little Big Horn); Ulysses S Grant (known primarily for having been a great general largely responsible for the Union victory in the Civil War, he was also surprisingly progressive man, particularly as president, who aimed to do much for African-Americans, sadly his efforts were largely negated by the long string of racist presidents who followed); Alexander Hamilton (a complex man who, despite the excellence of the book, I could never quite get a handle on, a crucial figure in the forming of the US Government as we know it today and worthy of an eponymous musical); Richard Nixon (an endless source of fascination to me, someone who I grew up despising — and not without reason — a tortured soul who’s political demise looks inevitable in retrospect, he deserves vilification more for his dastardly actions regarding Vietnam than any of his misdeeds in Watergate).

I followed my bio binging by reading a book of essays by David Foster Wallace, a few of which did not much interest but most I found to be both utterly compelling and thoroughly entertaining. Wallace, like Thomas Wolfe, Jack Kerouac and a handful of others, leave me inspired and in awe. I fancy that I write a bit like Wallace only he did it about a hundred times better. Better make that a thousand. To read Wallace is to really be with him to a greater extent than with other writers and it is also to be almost overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of his intellect and intelligence.

I have followed the Wallace essays with a novel and after a couple months off of fiction it’s a different world. What year is it? How old is that person? Who’s he again? Now the author has changed location and time and I was just getting familiar with the story. Wonder what this guy looks like? What’s his backstory? Wait, are they at the office or the cafe? Which person is taking? I wish there were a damn index.

Of course, I’m not an idiot — not so that you’d know it, anyway — and I do get things sorted in my mind and follow the story and enjoy it and my little brain is stimulated and I am happy.
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I read an article in the New Yorker (aren’t I Mr. Fancy Pants?) about how Martin Short is the greatest talk show guest of all time. You’ll get no argument from me. He was especially good on Letterman (and by the way Dave’s monthly Netflix show is terrif) appearing on Dave’s two shows a combined 50 or so times. The only one to rival Martin Short as a guest is his good buddy, Steve Martin. The two not only have performed together but appeared together as talk show guests.

After reading the article I went to my old friend You Tube and watched Mr. Short's last appearance in Letterman, it might have been his best and isn’t nice of me to have linked it for you?* One thing I particularly enjoy about the appearance is watching two old show biz hands enjoying one another’s company and swapping stories. Dave always appreciated guests like Mr. Short with whom he could chew the fat, share war stories from the old days or reflections on fellow artists or just reminisce. I’ve always like chummy conversations with people who’ve been through the wars together. I used to have a lot of those with fellow veteran teachers in my middle school teaching days. We’d often recount the same stories we’d hashed over before but it was still worth a laugh. I have fond memories of my father and other Finns talking about the old days whether it was about the homeland or construction jobs or fishing trips. Sports fans can enjoy the same sort of repartee.

I fear the likes of Martin Short and Dave Letterman are going to be fading away soon enough and wonder if the next generation of show business vets will have the same gravitas and respect for the past. Hope so.

*You may further be interested in Martin Short's first Letterman appearance -- which he references during his last -- 33 years prior.