chris farley and phil hartman...

Another day where I can pound out 2 entries in one day. I'm still waiting for the QA report, my boss left to go see Bon Jovi in concert (a 38 year old woman. She should be ashamed of herself. Bon Fucking Jovi? I mean really). I tried not to laugh in her face.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Phil Hartman and Chris Farley. While Doug and Jessie were away, E! Network ran their "True Hollywood Story" segments on both of them, back to back. I've never cried harder.

Chris Farley just breaks my heart. His face, his voice, his laugh... how he took everything way too far. And his brother's eulogy at the end of the show totally killed me. He took "the Clown's Prayer," which I guess someone wrote a long time ago for clowns, and turned it so that every sentence was about Chris

A Clown's Prayer

As I stumble through this life,
help me to create more laughter than tears,
dispense more happiness than gloom,
spread more cheer than despair.

Never let me become so indifferent,
that I fail to see the wonder in the eyes of a child,
or the twinkle in the eyes of the aged.

Never let me forget that my total effort is to cheer people,
make them happy,
and to forget,
at least momentarily,
all the unhappiness in their lives.

And in my final moment, may I hear You whisper,
"When you made my people smile,
You made me smile."
--Author Unknown

This is so appropriate for him. I sure do hope that God welcomed him into heaven even though he had issues. He struggled so hard with his problems, and tried so hard through his deeds and community service to make up for his sins. Sigh.

And Phil Hartman. What the fuck. I hate his stupid wife. I am so sad for their children.

I love Phil's voice and every single time I watch the Simpsons (which is twice a day at least) and he's on, I tear up. My husband started watching "News Radio" recently, and I just don't know why I never got into it the first time through on NBC, but not when I watch the show it is so bittersweet for me, and I can't help but love it. I'm glad there are little bits of Phil around.

I love when I'm listening to radio commercials and someone is doing their best Phil Hartman. Without any sense of Irony, Sarcasm... it's just damn funny.

I love the picture up in the corner, because Hartman played the the well-dressed, smarmy white-class elitist, and Farley the lout, bungler, poorly dressed buffoon so well... that this picture just sort of has them both in their element. I loved Matt Foley sketches, where Farley would rant about the Van Down By The RIVER! and break stuff falling around.

A lot of people contend there is a curse on the SNL cast, what with Belushi, Radner, Farley, and Hartman all being dead in 20 years... but I think that celebrity just leads to certain events. Gilda Radner got cancer, which happens, and so did Julia Sweeney but she survived simply by the benefit of having it 10 years after Radner did when treatment was more advanced. Drug addictions and the problems around them kill a lot of people, not just celebrities, and what happened to the Hartman family is just a complete tragedy and should never have happened. I don't think there's any sort of curse... unless you count Chevy Chase's continued existence as part of it.

I don't watch too much SNL anymore. I love Will Farrell and some of the stuff he does. He's got the greatest faces and is just so funny. But I don't know if his career would ever move to leading man status, the way Mike Meyers and Adam Sandler have of late. I think Adam Sandler is so funny too. But all of them put together can never be as funny in my book as Farley and Hartman. And even though it has been a few years since we lost both of them, they actually cross my mind on an almost daily basis. And I never even knew these guys.

But they sure made me laugh.