Letter of Recommendation: Rodney Dangerfield

Alex Halberstadt, writing for The New York Times Magazine:

Imagine having no talent. Imagine being no good at all at something and doing it anyway. Then, after nine years, failing at it and giving it up in disgust and moving to Englewood, N.J., and selling aluminum siding. And then, years later, trying the thing again, though it wrecks your marriage, and failing again. And eventually making a meticulous study of the thing and figuring out that, by eliminating every extraneous element, you could isolate what makes it work and just do that. And then, after becoming better at it than anyone who had ever done it, realizing that maybe you didn’t need the talent. That maybe its absence was a gift.

And here it is: Dangerfield on The Tonight Show, 1 August 1979. We live in a world of miracles and wonders.

★ Tuesday, 30 January 2018