Make Your Own Kind of Music

Make Your Own Kind of Music

There's no way to describe what I do. Its just me. - Andy Kaufman

Andy was an absolute original. An uncompromised artist who marched through his short, strange life to the beat of a very different drummer. - Marilu Henner

   Andy Kaufman is one of my heroes. I'm old enough to remember him on Taxi when the show was on TV for reals and not on re-runs. I remember his foray into pro wrestling but it wasn't until my late teens that I really got a sense of what he was really about. That's what I want to talk about today.

   The Midnight Special was a pretty big show back in the day. If you remember NBC's Friday Night Videos, this was its predecessor. You would think that not knowing if you're ever gonna get another shot on national television you would want to come out swinging with your best material, but I love how he just uses the opportunity to sing, "I Trusted You!" for almost 4 minutes. That takes balls as big as church bells.  

   The kind of people I like to be around are intelligent, creative, highly original and unique in the way they live/think/act/whatever, and not afraid to show it.



I never told a joke in my life - Andy Kaufman

  I don't like being around people who feel the need to conform to whatever the average consumer is into. People who buy whatever television and top 40 radio tells them to. People who are afraid to stand out. Afraid to rock the boat.

  People who read whatever Oprah Winfrey tells them to. People whose idea of going out for Chinese food is Panda Express. People who go to the mall to buy anything. People who call radio stations to make requests. People who watch movies only because it has cool cars, guns or explosions in it. 

Ok, I've alienated enough people, you get the idea, haha.



  I just don't understand the need to conform, to be like everyone else. Its a completely foreign idea to me. I mean when you put your happiness in other people's hands, when that person leaves so does your happiness.

  I've been different ever since I was born. I'm a first generation Mexican-American but I can barely speak Spanish.  Too white for the mexicans, to mexican for the whites. Not a whole lot of us out in the upper middle class suburbs of the 70's and 80's, and definitely not alot of us in the private catholic schools we went to. 



   

   They let me know immediately that I was different from everyone else. I remember my first day there when the Principal decided that from now on I will be called Joe, instead of Jose because that would be easier for the other kids. These Irish nuns were not in the business of turning kids into Creative, free-thinking, original, people who question authority, religion and governments. But instead of desperately trying to fit the suit, and be like everyone else and conform, I chose to stand alone, and be proud of who I am. "Yeah I may be different and a bit weird, but thats me, take it or leave it and at least its a lot more real than the trip I see you on."

Ok I'm done writing now, and since I don't know how to end this nice and neatly, I'm just gonna go now. 





When Hunter S. Thompson ran for Sherrif of Aspen, Colorado he purposely shaved his head just so he could call the opposing candidate, "My Long Haired Opponent."