What I've Read: Born Standing Up

This was the third book that I read on my Hawaiian vacation, and it was a pleasant and quick read. I've always enjoyed Martin's early work and think he's been unfortunately forgotten in the discussion of great American comics. It's certainly because the roles he's taken in the last decade or so have not resulted in anything of grand notoriety, but it's wrong to just instantly dismiss him.

The autobiography traces his early life more than his post-70s success. A lot of time is spent on his childhood (not surprising, it wasn't always the best especially concerning his father), and then on his strides in making magic and comedy his obsession. I've been curious to see what his early magic/comedy/music shows must have been like, but there are not a lot of video or audio of it out there.

He's also got a recurring theme of failed relationships with females, both of his own doing (hey, it was the '60s and '70s) and also a matter of his travel schedule being absurd by modern standards. I'm still amazed at how performers can ride on a bus for 300+ days out of the year and do shows night after night at varying cities and audiences where you never know what you're going to get from the crowd. There is definitely an amount of bravery it takes to put yourself out there for an hour or 90 minutes, and Martin does a wonderful job giving describing that sense of utter fear and excitement.

He doesn't discuss his wild success with much detail at all, and it's a decision I wish he hadn't made. As someone who only got to see King Tut and The Jerk and other Martin classics long after they were released, I wanted to hear more about that time period and how that all happened, but you can tell from reading that he's too humble or embarrassed or whatever to discuss his fame. I've even appreciated his short stories that have been turned into movies, like Shop Girl which is surprisingly rewatchable. So there's a lot of material from the past 20+ years that he never touches upon and that is disappointing, but the overall book is great and it's a super-fast read that I think appreciators of comedy will enjoy.