I Must Say by Martin Short Read Free Book Online Page A

Stiglick, and Marvin Barnett. My people: the chosen.
    I dated my share of Jewish girls, too. One of these romances had to be carried out in secret, because the girl’s parents were deeply observant and didn’t approve of their daughter’s dating a goy. After a couple of furtive petting sessions in Hamilton’s Churchill Park, we tearfully went our separate ways. A sort of West Side Story , with blue balls.
    Then there’s the fact that I work in comedy, and so many of the comedic greats have been Jewish. Some of them—Jerry Lewis, Harpo Marx, and Mike Nichols—were childhood idols of mine, while others, among them Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, and Larry David, became dear friends. So I understand why I’m often mistaken as Jewish, and I find it flattering. By osmosis, I’ve absorbeda lot of Jewish-comic rhythms into my performances, and when I’m doing a Jewish character, it’s an easy fit. The foremost of these is Irving Cohen, the ancient, prolific Tin Pan Alley songsmith I introduced on SCTV , carried over to Saturday Night Live , and still do in my live act:

    It’s wonderful to be here representing the world of the tins and the pans and the sulfur flash pots going off here and there.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  At my age, the only time I don’t have to pee is when I’m peeing.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  I just poy-chased a Maserati. I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m going through a little mid-death crisis.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  You know, I have written over twenty-eight thousand songs—two thousand since lunch. Such classics as “Honey Do the Hula,” “Wigwam Serenade,” and who can ever forget the Al Jolson classic, “Sam, You Made the Truss Too Short”? And I feel another one coming on right now—either that, or the Metamucil is kicking in. Gimme a C! A bouncy C!
    Listen, even I was confused as a child about whether I was or wasn’t a son of Abraham. For reasons too convoluted to get into here, I was not baptized until I was seven years old, at my family’s regular church, Christ the King Cathedral. Which means that, unlike the babies who were routinely baptized there, I was fully cognizant of what was going on—physically, if not sacramentally. After the priest had done his business of ladling holy water on my head, I looked at him and asked, in all seriousness, “Am I Jewish now?”
    He just barely managed to stifle his laughter into a snort, whichresonated gloriously, along with my father’s laugh, through the majestic cathedral.
    M y inadvertently interfaith upbringing notwithstanding, I was never particularly stirred by the spirit of the Lord as He or She is presented in organized religion. Nor have I ever put much stock in the paranormal, the occult, or anything smacking of clairvoyance. With one notable exception.
    In the summer of 1962, I was twelve years old, and my brother David was twenty-six. The age difference made him a little mysterious to me, living a life a world apart from mine. In our family photos he’s kind of off to the side, handsome and brooding in his shades, like Stu Sutcliffe in those early photos of the Beatles as a five-piece. But in reality David was total sunshine, a funny and loose charmer. As a small child, I’d creep into his bedroom on Saturday mornings around seven a.m. (he’d probably only gotten in at five thirty) and play this game we invented called “Giant.” Basically, it was David, groggily aware of my presence, good-naturedly pretending to be a sleeping giant while I tried to steal the “magic pillow” from under his head without waking him. He always tolerated my mischief and had a special nickname for me, “Muggers-All,” though none of us in the family can remember its etymology. I just worshipped him.
    At the age of twenty-six, David was justly excited about his life. He was living and thriving in Montreal, following in