Annotations for Speakers: Bill Irwin

You got one deck you always bring with you?

They are.

[Inaudible]

[Inaudible]

[Inaudible]

Yes.

What's that, I'm sorry?

Plans have failed?

[Inaudible]

I hope so, in March, yeah.

One sister.

What's that?

Okay.

[Inaudible]

Okay. Pull them out of anywhere, Kathy, or?

Uh-huh.

Random.

Yeah, I don't know. Antique cards, she says. She reads these, and she's got another deck from Vegas.

Mmm, yeah.

It's not been what?

Can't concur with you more.

Mhm, okay.

God's card is business?

All right, good.

Big talk?

[Inaudible]

Don't know much about it yet.

You think so?

Mhm, yeah, he is.

This one here?

Good question.

No?

Yeah, I think this is where---

Really?

Gonna hit! Yeah, that's what it looks like.

Ah, that's good.

I see, I see.

Yeah.

Strictly business?

Yeah? Oh, hope so.

Yeah?

The 28th.

Heart's wish?

Mhm.

It's you again.

Billy to Jack? You're right.

What did we just come up with there? Those last two.

Short trip in February to Minneapolis, and then a longer trip to San Francisco in March.

Comes out well?

Do you?

Uh-huh, uh-huh. It's worked out for the better, maybe, but---

But they're due now, maybe.

Do I want to ask you anything? Well... how about, uh... aside from success, about---

Yeah.

Well, just call it a lightness of heart.

Yeah, maybe even know what my heart wishes is.

Where's your family from in Ireland?

Galway? I've been there once.

Yeah, it's beautiful. I think that's 19.

Really? That's my wife?

Okay.

That is interesting.

Came in there, did you say, in '84?

Mhm.

Are you really, Kathy?

I thought that's what the card says.

Is that what you're getting?

Uh-huh.

That one here?

Oh, yeah, no I'm doing a lot of thinking.

Yeah. Mhm. That's what you're getting here.

Did you go through a divorce, Kathy, ever?

You're not seeing that?

Is that what you get?

You think so?

That's what you get? This, uh, there was, at least at that point, there was some happiness for her, somewhere.

Mhm, mhm.

Yeah, we've been---

Yeah, since Christmas.

You what?

I know, when we used to come in here.

We haven't, we haven't seen each other.

Okay, Kathy, might as well go for gold, let's talk about a child. Or children.

I feel more responsibility on picking these cards than any of the previous ones.

Seems quite alike.

J or an M?

An R is good in business. J, M, R.

No. Although, my agent is the daughter of one of those---

Later?

Mhm.

Yes, she was.

Yeah.

That's the wish, there?

Mm, no.

Yeah?

Sometimes you gotta play cards close to the chest.

Her cards.

Yeah?

The man with the trunk? Who calls me that?

Bobby's students?

Yeah, Joe. I know his name but he calls me the guy with the trunk.

Was Faisal lost last night?

That's his health.

Yeah, it's pretty early. Late, late night. I don't know why I never... This may be indicative of something. I'm having trouble counting them. 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13... 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

83!

Mmm.

Mmm.

Really?

It's the contract.

Mm, no, not really.

Mhm.

Mhm, yeah, with the glasses.

Eh, not for sure, yeah.

It's a nervous card.

Yeah, we brought up that two---

---of hearts before.

Instead of procrastinating.

Good.

I mean, I have put a little time in with Calico lately. Calico's Kathy's cat.

It's a money cat. It's a good cat. A nice cat.

No gray?

It's good---it's a good card.

Yeah.

That's not going to happen, Kathy. As long as you've got some rooms open.

Oh yeah. I'll be here daily. Thanks!

Well, that was---

After.

It may be the person's desire to be read. That's her strongest impetus, thing to work from, her strongest suit, so to speak. Did you ever read the book World of Wonders by Robertson Davies? Novel you should read sometime. It's about a magician, but he does all sorts of things like that. It's part of a trilogy by Davies. He's a Canadian novelist. Very funny writer.

He's written novels and plays and also lots of other things as well, but mostly novels. And this is from a trilogy called the Deptford Trilogy. Fifth Business was the first. But it follows a whole group of people through America, Europe, and that particular one is about a magician who becomes a world-famous celebrity on the basis of his magic and mind reading.

Somebody has the movie rights to it, and they're trying to film it.

World of Wonders. And actually, what's his name? The fellow who did The Seven Sense Solution, Nicholas Meyer, bought the rights to the whole trilogy and is making a movie called "Conjuring" based on the three books. If he can get the money.

It's also funny. Kathy was saying, talking about an agent last night who called---

It's a woman. She's a woman.

But not an American woman. Such an interesting blend of adventuresome statements. But also sort of coaxing through. Some of what little I know about carnival work, weight guessing and that kind of entertainment, have a lot to do with that psychology. Someone's straightforwardly telling you something and you just have to, I guess, trust it somehow.

Yes, she did. She changed that.

[Inaudible]

So I thought, ooh, Kathy, are you trying to tell me something? But I don't think she was. I think she was just sharing an old joke.

[Inaudible]

Such as what?

I'd like to talk to you about that sometime. Mike is an old, old friend. An actor, sort of an uneven development, but incredible. Difficult, the two of us together are difficult.

I just got a wonderful letter from him which sort of laid to rest a lot of tension, with some reflection. We just... thought differently of things, but... Different people in watching him, some of them just get it, just the right strokes. They had seen the other guy do it, but some poeple... it's almost a litmus test or something, you know some taste sour and some taste sweet or bitter, but very pronouncedly.

I was starting to feel my disattention of guilt and complexity of feeling. Because a lot of what he does is only... He can only be as good as the writing is. And I did most of the writing, and built everything around myself and created his persona in order to bounce off a little. It sort of troubles me a little.

The chase is really real with Michael chasing, I'll tell you. I'll tell you from my point of view, even watching it, there's a really ferocity there. It's like we worked on, it's a hard thing to do. But often what starts happening is people indicate, whcih totally falsifies the chase when he's running. It's, to me, like I better keep going.

So it's really there, which is why when you hide behind the piano that again it's a strong laugh, it's a hiding sanctuary.

Yeah, sure. Actually, that's something we all laughed at. A new and maybe stronger than I ever laughed at.

Don't come to this baby.

I'm trying to steal a few of George Carle's moves. I was going to call him today. I want to make sure he's going to be there for a while.

Have you met him at all?

Yeah, you should. I want to mention him to Pat.

He was a very nice, very gracious, very charming man. He was, to my relief, kept very general. Kathy's right on. Dark-haired older man, not gray.

Sandy-haired possibly.

He's got a couple different things, but it's all very much down the line in due process. I guess he sized up is what I wanted to hear. I didn't want to be pressured into anything. Doing this musical, that---a young guy named Ken Robbins is creating a musical. It's an interesting premise, but I don't know anything about it and they don't really know much about me, I wouldn't say. Just between you and I, the public never really knows what's happening until it's on the stage. And I can tell you, we were supposed to be there once.

I think so. He's never become effusively apologetic, but he did, under my agent's pressure, he sent both Michael and Doug a $500 because of the scheduling mishap. That was the thing that came back to him. We can't just slide around after guys who have careers. I didn't want any money out of it but I would have been pissed, $1000 is an apology.

Money does talk.

George works with a hat like this and he does great things with it, I haven't been able to really make one of these behave properly. *inauduible* for me is something that is funny, but it's not behavioral in the way that a hat like that is. Although actually his does not look like this grotesque. His is... Larry Kazomi works with a hat, the same design but it's a different shape, it's more---it's shallower. Very much in shape. Not like mine. I'll just backtrack. But my head's the wrong shape.

Well, the hat has to be round. And my head's oblong. But George and Larry have to sort of cover their heads so that, uh, there's this, I don't know, it's more likely to fall right on the head.

Weight in it makes it much more regular.

Yeah. Yeah.

It is big. I mean, it's big probably. Maybe it's too big. But the little thing that Larry does with this hat is that he and I used to do versions of an act together---tossing it like this like a Frisbee and then catching it.

It's nice, isn't it? It's a nice effect. He used to catch and throw four of them to me. He did this whole, from the top of the show, with his little red hat of my design. He came out in the middle of the show, "I can't find my red hat," and I'd be out in the audience and [loud clapping sound] It was great. So we did this whole long-distance dialogue, like, "C'mon brother, give me my red hat," and I said, "Well, try one of these," and I'd throw him three others. On a good day, with the wind permitting and the proper altitude, he'd catch all three. Red hat! On occassion, it's a very nice night, I tried to hit a better shot.

You know, that did get a lot better. In fact, it wasn't marionette. It wasn't marionette when I first did it.

Flimsy.

Yeah, his are, his is a hat like this and they have his own flavor. It's interesting, I was looking in the mirror thinking, in some ways we're kind of opposite. My character movement is very---a lot of it is down below, this low, and a lot of stillness up here, a lot of things going on down here. Or up here. He's very... about this tall, very short man. And his torso, in many ways stays very still, very, kind of, spree. I can't get this quality out. I've watched him twice.

Well, it's a sprightliness even though he's... 20 years my senior. Maybe 10, 15 years my senior. I feel like in many ways he's got more bounce than I do in a lot of what he does.

[Whistle]

When he's been working his hat so long, it's just gorgeous. He, looking dead ahead at the audience, towards everyone, goes---

[Inaudible]

[Inaudible]

Oh, shoot.

There is really a nice height here, and there are a lot of stages, but there is a lot of height---and I think what's nice about this is you throw it up, and you pretty much know when it can come down and it gives you lots of time to do something. I'm working on something else that I can't get anywhere. Suspender gets stuck somewhere over the trousers. Throw the hat up, way up, fix the trousers just in time to catch it.

Oh yeah, the arm is caught in the jacket. Oh, shoot.

Oh, shoot.

[Tap dancing]

[Tap dancing and scatting]

I gotta get down to the basics. That's what I want to do in the workshop. I spend a lot more time, really discreetly, working with isolation. Isolating movement in different places.

[Tap dancing and scatting]

Do I write?

[Inaudible]

[Tap dancing]

I'm getting my arms moving a lot. I'm dancing.

Yeah.

I saw most of it. I didn't think it was very good at all.

I just wanted to... I missed the first part, it was the first couple minutes. Actually, what had the most going was I thought the beginning of what I saw, is Caesar just talking to them, in some bit---he does this routine with now becoming then, now becoming was, becoming gonna be.

Yeah, it was his book, yeah.

Whoever, Mel Brooks or whoever, in other words.

Because you rely on your stuff, I guess.

Well, they're terribly funny. They're terribly funny, but I think one of the reasons they're funny is because their, the sort of sensitivity in watching transports you to that time. And you're seeing it in that context where it's largely because of the writing, but partly because he wasn't sure how to do it.

Yes.

Yes. Well, the fact that he would have benefited from different circumstances and the circumstance seems to be illustrative of the fact that he did that show. I tell you what I find the saddest and broke my heart. Watching those old shows and Caesar's Hour and the one that came before The Admiral... he would be on for nearly 90 minutes, and you never got the feeling that he was struggling or he seemed to be coming out, and there, on Saturday Night Live, and much as any other host I've ever seen, including those cute little girls... I mean that's something. It's an indictment of something.

They should've done something.

I was very touchy with Eddie Murphy, wanted to embrace him at the end.

He is, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

No.

There's a little bit, you know, having come through what he's come through in his life and found this sort of mellowness of center, it doesn't entirely jive with what he does best, which is essentially going to be manic.

That's a funny thing. Well, basically someone else who I always admired a lot was Alan Arkin, who also through Zen or whatever else has reached a certain, I haven't seen him in some years now, but reached a certain balance in his own mind. And he hasn't been as funny. He was really crazy in the early years off-Broadway and on Broadway.

It's like the Second City things he was doing.

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.

And then that incredible part he played. Wait Till Dark. Bad guy.

[Inaudible]

It's not easy because they were working on this, the whole cast is involved in this film, and they can slowly see it and kind of go---

He was coming back on stage.

That's what he did best.

We've seen, yeah.

I saw him do something long ago, when, when, when, when Sesame Street first came out, when I was in college. I was kind of a fan of the show, it was new, something new to television. And he did a couple things with his wife, and they were not very good. It looked like they were trying to bring a Second City zaniness quality to a very packed, sentimental, scripted message piece. I was disappointed. It's a great disappointment to see somebody who you respect and admire do something less than, it's really scary. Scary to contemplate what to do next. Scary to contemplate disappointing people.

Oh. It wasn't that bad. I'll set up another reading, stat.

[tap dancing]

Sorry? Good to see you! Oh, no.

All right.

[Inaudible]

Well, I'm glad you watched.

Yeah, she show up yet?

Any second.

Yeah. Yeah.

The turmoil!

[Inaudible]

[Inaudible]

[Tapping]

Yeah, you said about that. Did you go?

I wonder how good that was, if you really verbalize it. Probably so much of what's good in the book really comes from Bill Davidson, prodding into the trivial. For all the fact that he was a member of his writing table, he's never really been a writer, or even a speaker. In fact, as he says, when he's himself he just can't verbalize anything.

Perhaps if he did his lecture as a German professor, maybe that would be.

Somebody mentioned him the other day. Oh, it was the Caramansos.

He came to see them in Brooklyn, I guess.

Yeah.

They're talking about him.

[Tap dancing]