as i said before i've found so many things to think of, and talk about; that i don't know where to start.
actually i do know where to start, i don't know where to stop.
i won't go into that any further.
i was watching 'man on the moon' yesterday, for no reason at all. curiosity probably. it is an amazing effort at bringing out the creative genius of andy kaufman.
i'd never heard of the man before i watched the movie, i knew that such people could exist. who could completely redefine comedy and entertainment for themselves; and actually have it accepted by others. kaufman was a man whose creativity was amazing. however, there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and you can see that in everything he did.
for example, who would want to play a joke that no-one understood? except the jokesters?
andy kaufman did this. all the time.
more than once, i've heard hippychix talk of this quality - the creative genius who knows no bounds, who redefines everything for themselves. and for others. and is hated, ridiculed, ostracized for it.
and it doesn't make the slightest difference to them.
2 scenes that stays with you long after the movie (at least they stayed with me). one was a show that kaufman did in the later years. i'm pretty sure most of it is fact, and the sheer idea of making grown-ups realise their inner child was amazing. following it up with santa claus, and milk and cookies was the statement that really showed me kaufman's genius.
we need these things to realise that we were once kids. that we can live life with no sense of logic. that leaving your worries behind is not wrong. that life is more than whatever we make of it.
the other was one of kaufman's first shows, where he does nothing that is accepted by anyone sitting there. he sings, he tells bad jokes, does a horrible impersonation - in short, everything that you don't do for entertainment.
but these are what we do.
we do these to entertain ourselves all the time. to entertain kids anytime.
growing up, growing older, growing more mature - we lose sight of the fact that amusement is something that makes you realise the fun in life. its not about being the greatest comic, or telling amazing jokes. forgetting that life is as bad as it is, is enough for us to get amused.
i'm maybe over-analyzing what is maybe a 'decently good' movie, but it is amazing what one can find, if one but looks.
even the fact that andy would assume different characters - they focused on tony clifton in the movie - he actually had 5 or 6 different persona, meant something to me too.
we all have this point where we almost become someone else. i know i do. to someone who knows you, it's like you are another person. completely different. we don't accept this, and struggle to come back to normal. the really psychotic people end up with MPD.
the point is that we don't know what is normal. defining it for ourselves, means we'll eventually lose it.
this is what 'living in the moment' means. at least to me. that you accept what you are, and react as you would. and hence be yourself. no matter what.
if you behave 'out of character', its called being 'eccentric'.
being the only point of change of your life, means that this is rhetoric we impose on ourselves. in the hope that we'll fit.
wrong wrong wrong.
being the man on the moon is easy. you act like the earth isn't there.
being the person on this planet is remembering that reality is as you define it.
“There's no way to describe what I do. It's just me.”
“What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality.”
