My Beamish Boy
It is the twenty fifth anniversary of the world wide web today. It is also the tenth anniversary of this blog. I place them in order of importance, but, happily, other, more capable fingers can type paeans to the WWW,
An online Magna Carta: Berners-Lee calls for bill of rights for web
Jemima Kiss / GuardianExclusive: web’s inventor warns neutrality under sustained attack from governments and corporations — The inventor of the world wide web believes an online “Magna Carta” is needed to protect and enshrine the independence …
leaving me only with this, my little blog in its four incarnations: Skiing Uphill, Boregasm, Zug and, home again, home again, my homepage his vorpal sword and my blog his vorpal sword.
The homepage, dating from 1995 will celebrate its twentieth anniversary next year.
I will post the first scribblings below, but first, I think — after several days of thinking — that I need to tell you the Comedy Store story. I was going to tell you the Katherine Hepburn story, but let’s save that for another day.
The Comedy Store Story – Prologue
From my earliest days of writing, propelled almost entirely by an inordinate amount of chutzpah, I have been a self-empowered journalist. It was the hot days of late ’70s comedy, and I wanted to write a piece on the LA scene. I pitched it to Jared Rutter at ADAM magazine, he liked it, and I did the legwork, and it was a cover story.
I always particularly liked the illustration they did for it: a detailed porcelain bust of a clown’s’ head, shattered on a surreal plain. Exquisite gouache number that I later got to see the original of in the art department. They liked it so much that they ran the same illo in PLAYERS, and I wrote a cover story there, TOO. (But that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, as they say.)
My friend, author Alexa Wolf, invited me to audit Harvey Lembeck’s comedy workshop, and I continued going although she stopped….
Lembeck in the Phil Silvers Show a/k/a Sgt. Bilko
The original workshop was located in a little no man’s land between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, down the Doheny Partition Line. It had a very intimate feeling, and I availed myself of the amazing free comedy improv show for months. Once Harvey asked me why I was auditing, and I told him that I wanted to write comedy dialogue, and understanding the actors’ process would help me and help them.
He liked that and let me stay until the workshop split in two and ways were parted….
[NOTE: a long and personal piece, it is not appropriate to post the entire piece here. The rest is HERE.]
And thanks to Joe and the crew here at TMV. It’s been great being a guest contributor.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.