Call Me Lucky

I’m not a victim. I was but I’m not anymore. But I’m a witness. I’m my life’s testimony. Not only what happens to kids but what you can go on to; what you can become; no matter what they do unless they kill you. And that was close in my case. It was real close. But I’m here; I made it. Thus, call me 'lucky.'

Barry Crimmins is a comedian that has led a life; a life he'd rather not have lead. How he comes to terms with the situations thrust upon him is what makes the documentary so inspiring.

Born in Skaneateles, New York on the 3^rd July 1954, Crimmins was very nearly a 4^th July 'firecracker'. It’s prescient that a man like Crimmins would be born so close to America's pivotal date; for even as a boy, Crimmins was interested in his nation and the mythology surrounding it. Friends allude to how he was the brightest kid in town, someone who could turn the chalkboard on the teacher and run intellectual rings around them. Crimmins attests that his thirst for knowledge might have come from the moribund culture that surrounded him: everyone in his town was a church-going patriot, believing steadfastly in its institutions. Today, Skaneateles has changed: every year they have a Dickens festival - something Crimmins notes as ironic, given how 'most of the people (he) grew up with would have rooted for Scrooge.'

Skaneateles.

From a young age Crimmins lost faith in the institutes of church and state. Every week Crimmins would go to church, only to be admonished every week by the same Catholic priest. Crimmins was just a boy helping the Father with the rituals of mass; he had done nothing to warrant such treatment. Seemingly, the cruelty stemmed from an earlier incident where the priest attempted to fondle Crimmins’ hair, to which the boy responded by parrying the hand away. Smarting from a child's rejection, the priest made it his mission to make the child pay. In the face of this barbarism, Crimmins somehow managed to keep the wolf at bay, turning down ‘lifts’ on a number of occasions.

Outside the church he attended as a child.

Free from this adult tyranny, Crimmins was to face more. Raised by loving parents, the home was always a safe place. His parents nurtured his talents with his mum and dad encouraging his comedic and intellectual pursuits; they could not, however, discourage evil from invading their door. On the occasions that they went out they hired a babysitter, a respected local girl. Unbeknownst to them, this girl would invite around her mother’s boyfriend to help. Crimmins knew that the man was no good. In attending Mass each week, he knew what the devil looked like. Unfortunately, his sixth sense proved true: the man on a regular basis would take him into the basement and subject the child to vile rape. In safe suburbia suffering had become a daily occupation.

Understandably, Crimmins was desperate to get out of his hometown, to run from the scene of the crime. Fortunately, comedy offered salvation. On arriving in Boston, he founded the Ding Ho comedy club, which was attached 'Hong Kong', a Chinese restaurant. Starting slowly the club would go on to attract some of the biggest names in American comedy. Comics loved performing there because they knew that they would be paid well and be supported by comedy-literate fans. As well as establishing the club Crimmins performed too: an intense counterpoint to the frivolity of other acts.

An inauspicious building yielded great results.

 Watching the footage of Crimmins is redolent of Bill Hicks. Only it shouldn’t because Crimmins worked the same time as him. A lot of people wrongly believe anger started and ended with Bill. Crimmins had just as much fire. Whilst Crimmins was attending demos against American foreign policy, Hicks stood on stage speaking about it. If you like the words of Bill Hicks, then look to Crimmins, for he made them flesh. Like Hicks, Crimmins would take no prisoners when it came to the audience’s intellect: he wouldn’t play to the dumbest person in the room but the smartest, hoping the rest would keep up. When people didn’t get a joke, he would give them a history lesson until they got it. He was a teacher who talked in punch-lines, and if you didn’t like the lesson then be prepared because a tongue-lashing was on its way. This period for Crimmins was one of rage where he could fly off the handle at any given minute- a man made of raw nerves, a friend describes. This volatility, of course, was a manifestation of Crimmins’ childhood trauma: yes, he was genuinely angry over the direction America was heading, but his short-fused psyche owed more to that. 

Ultimately, Crimmins had come to the end of the line: he knew that he had to speak the trauma tumour out of his body, only then could recovery begin.

So the film, Call Me Lucky, is about Crimmins’ soul journeying out of the underworld into life. Along the way, he undergoes the torture of realising that his escape isn’t everyone’s escape; that children get abused every day, sometimes so badly it proves fatal. In the mid 90’s Crimmins was made aware of AOL chatrooms being used as a conduit for padeophiles to share child pornography; when he informed AOL of this they ignored his calls. As far as they were concerned, the chatrooms meant people stayed online longer, meaning money for the company. Crimmins wouldn’t let AOL close their browser to criminal activity so assisted prosecutors in taking the company to Congress. Seeing an alt-comic put the corporation on trial is something you would expect from Hollywood everyman James Stewart, not bearded Castro-a-like Barry Crimmins.

Crimmins testifies against AOL.

For everything Crimmins has had to go through in order to become a successful activist, comic and person; the film proves that good can overcome; that talk can lift you out of the wreckage; that for all the hell there is, this remains a wonderful life.

Call Me Lucky is available on Netflix.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is subtitled A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League and here begins the first of many juxtapositions. Newark, the largest city in New Jersey, is known as ‘Brick City’ due to the amount of brick high-rises that litter its landscape. Over time, this has taken on even worse associations to mean: a place where bricks of crack cocaine are bought and sold. For years, Newark has had problems with unemployment, crime and institutional corruption. The Ivy League on the other hand is the American equivalent of our Red Brick universities. One such university that belongs to this esteemed chain is Yale, of which Robert Peace attended. This then is a story of a boy who went from economical rags to educational riches, who exchanged life in Gomorrah for the ivory tower.

Newark.

I should mention that this social ascension is true; it is a story stranger than fiction. It is authored by Jeff Hobbs, Rob’s university roommate; an aspiring novelist at Yale, who never knew his greatest story slept next door. After Rob died, he set about interviewing friends and family to piece together this extraordinary life.

Robert Peace was a young man born in St Mary’s hospital, less than half a mile from his soon-to-be family home in Chapman Street. His father Skeet dealt in low-level drugs and high-level wisdom, making the boy both street-smart and book-smart. Jackie saw the academic potential in her son and was wary of his father’s influence. Consequently, she kept Skeet at arms length. Perhaps she was right to do so: Skeet was found guilty of murdering two women; a charge he vehemently denied. As a man with a history of non-violence and an alibi it seemed like he had a good hand; when his witness died before his trial the cards were stacked against him. He was put away for life.

Rob and his dad.

Untethered from his father and idol, Robert Peace was an astronaut lost in space. His mother knew that if she didn’t do something then his intelligence would be stomped on by the local school. So she scrimped, saved, trained and got promoted. She kept her nose to the grindstone to continue Rob’s private school education. This cost wouldn’t be astronomical for suburban couples ($400 dollars/£300 per month), but for a lady in low-paid work, who had a house to maintain, ailing parents to care for and regular prison visits to attend, it was a job to remain solvent.

For Jackie though it was all worth it. Her son prospered under the auspices of the school. His grades were sky high; his reputation with staff and peers equally so. Yet she still worried. Every day he walked home he had to cross the temptations that caught so many: the drugs; the machismo. Rob though assimilated with ease. He called it ‘Newark-proofing,’ the ability to change stance, gait and lexicon in order to dissolve and thrive in a tougher environment. Although he was the private school boy in a world of broken social housing, he didn’t experience much trouble – the reason? He never became ‘uppity.’ This word kept people in their place- for good or bad – in Newark. It stopped people from being condescending, kept them real to their neighbourhood; but stopped them from climbing out of their circumstances too; no one wanted to be a traitor to their people.

Rob continued to climb due to a combination of his mother’s sacrifice, his natural intelligence and the patronage of a benefactor. In many ways it is a story of Great Expectations where an impoverished boy is plucked out of poverty and sent to live as a gentleman. For Peace it wasn’t a convicted con of Dickens’ tome, but Charles Cawley, a philanthropist, who paid for Rob's transformation. Cawley, a former student of Rob's school, knew what a service the institution had done for him, and wanted to pay it back. On meeting Rob at a graduation evening, he was struck by the young man’s brilliance and charm. So mesmerised by the boy’s dazzling enterprise, Cawley offered to pay for him to go to Yale.  Finally, Jackie and Rob had achieved the American Dream. Together they had flown through the glass ceiling of colour, stopping only to land when they reached the manicured lawns of the Ivy League.

So how did Rob, who worked in a cancer and infection research unit whilst majoring in molecular biochemistry and biophysics, come to be killed aged thirty over dealing marijuana?

How did a boy who climbed out of the mire get sucked back in?

Read it; the answers aren’t simple.

Robert Peace was murdered in the basement of his friend's house.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is available to buy from all good bookshops.

Freaks and Geeks

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's
What I'm gonna do
An' I don't give a damn ' bout my bad reputation.

(Joan Jett, Bad Reputation - theme tune to Freaks and Geeks)

I’ve written about my adolescence in blogs before. Many of you have already heard the one about the navel-gazing teenager. For those of you who haven't read my back catalogue – shame on you! – I’ll summarise briefly.

I was a cliché of a schoolchild. A mess of contradictions, a tangle of torment; I was incredibly complex. I loved football, but had no sporting ability. I loved reading, but wasn’t a nerd. I could listen to girls, but not talk to them. I had an ear for comedy, but not a mouth for it. I wasn’t popular, nor unpopular. I didn’t mix with the ‘IT crowd’ or the ‘IT crowd;’ I simply blended into the crowd.

Despite sitting here bald-headed and baggy-eyed, I would not swap my life for a teenagers To my mind, Josh reversing his transformation in Big was a terrible mistake. I mean alongside getting paid to be creative he was having regular sex. Is there any better life than that? The paperboy world he returned to would be sad and depressing in comparison. That wild imagination would soon be tamed by educational drudgery. He probably became an accountant with a less springy sex life.

Idiot.

Because I’m naturally cynical towards ‘the best years of your life myth’, I appreciate TV shows that depict the reality of teen experience. I was never a fan of Skins when it came out. I don’t want to see popular kids with issues. In choosing a playground life of celebrity they made a pact with the devil; consequently they don't get my sympathy when things go belly-up. Anyway, humanising the ‘in crowd’ cheats me out of ignorant hate, which is why I never liked watching it. (In the age of Trump, who wants their prejudices challenged?)

Skins made problems look impossibly glamorous, but the best shows reveal the ugliness and brutality of adolescence. The Inbetweeners was for the most part a brilliant distillation of what being a teenager meant for most people. Most schoolchildren exist in an unhappy centre: there are a few at the top – the 1 percenters, who protect their popularity by locking it in a safe behind their sports day pictures; and there are a few at the bottom – the 1 percenters, who are perfectly happy in school so long as they have access to the board games cupboard. Most of us though were caught in an endless game of piggy in the middle where our opponents proved too tall, too athletic, to ever drop the popularity ball. 

By the third season though The Inbetweeners had run out of steam with gross out laughs replacing finely observed embarrassment. It lost its verisimilitude, becoming cartoonish and oafish; a shame because the early episodes are great.

Skins: hard to feel sorry for them.

A series I’ve been watching this week that surpasses The Inbetweeners is Freaks and Geeks. The fact that you might not be familiar with the show is because it’s something of a lost classic. When it was aired in the late 90’s it attracted a loyal following; this fan-base wasn’t enough for NBC though, who quickly pulled the show. It was only because of a public clamour that it was brought back to complete its run. With its awards and critical recognition it’s often cited as a show that was cancelled too soon. Like The Office and Fawlty Towers, the programme never lost its sparkle; with familiarity denied so too was contempt - it is therefore pretty much faultless.

Freaks and Geeks is different to The Inbetweeners: its scope is far more ambitious. For a start, it doesn’t just focus one group of teens, but two. Also, it has more emotional range: embarrassments are scored by sympathy as well as laughs. All in all, Freaks is a show that looks at the bruises behind the banter, a feat achieved with humour and sensitivity.

The first episode is indicative of the writer, Paul Feig’s aspiration to capture the range of people that inhabit teenland. Initially, the camera’s focus is on the American Football field where a coach barks instructions; it then pans up to the stand where a cheerleader seeks a four letter word from her four letter boyfriend; next, it sidles down to a surly band of gum-chewers; then pans to a trio of Bill Murray acolytes re-enacting his scenes; before ending on a gang of bullies. Within two minutes, we’re deftly introduced to the whole fabric of adolescence; a coterie of characters that will be our friends - and enemies - for the next eighteen episodes.

A jock and a cheerleader.

The two cliques that we spend most time with are the titular Freaks and Geeks. The Freaks aren’t the popular kids in school; they’re not the cheerleaders or American Football players; instead they’re the latecomers, the burnouts, the failures. They are going nowhere fast. Lindsay, a straight A student, is drawn to them. Within this motley crue, she finds an expression that is missing from her regimented life of competition and deadlines. Her father is not pleased. (You know who cut class? Jimi Hendrix. You know what happened to him? He died.) Lindsay doesn’t want to give up on her studies completely; she just wants to escape the pressure that comes with it. Her new surrogate family that consists of Ken, Nick and Daniel (Seth Rogen, Jason Segal, James Franco) seduce her into a world of light drugs and heavy tunes.

In the other corner is Lindsay’s younger brother Sam. His group of friends are much like mine. They are comedy nerds. On Sam’s door is a poster of that wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin; on Neal’s wall is a poster for Duck Soup; on Bill’s TV is the stand up of Larry Sanders. For the boys laughter is the be all and end all. If you don’t like The Jerk, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful you are you’ve become personas non grata. Comedy gives them the sense of humour to survive the ritual humiliations they are subjected to.  In today’s world of Sheldon Cooper's being a geek isn’t a big deal; in the 1980’s it was a kamikaze act of courage, only laughter could break your fall.

The Freaks and The Geeks.

Over the course of the season, Feig excavates the bravado of adolescence and finds its soul. The fact that he does this without resorting to Dawson’s Creek melodrama makes it an incredible achievement. Feig recognises that for the Geeks asking a girl to dance at prom is a valid plot-line; he doesn’t put young concerns in inverted speech marks and allow us to scoff; instead he recognises that a small step for some might be a giant leap for others. Feig himself documented his travails with love in his book, Superstud or How I became a 24 year-old virgin, and you sense his youthful timidity in the boys.

As for the Freaks he shows the cost of freedom. Yes, Lindsay loves their carpe diem lifestyle, but she learns that it’s at a cost to their future. As the series slides towards the end of school, the Freaks begin to question, ‘what next?’ It’s all very well driving through life at a breakneck speed but eventually you’re going to crash. The gang know reality will soon come hurtling into them, giving their escapades a tinge of sadness.

Freaks and Geeks is ultimately a show that celebrates teenagers, whilst denigrating the age they have to live through. It is a beautiful, bitter-sweet meditation on what it means to be young. I’ll happily watch it again-  just don’t make me live through it.

Freaks and Geeks is available on Netflix.