Still Crazy After All These Years*

I watched the last hour and change of the Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary special. I knew it would be impossible for someone like me, who reveled in the antics of some of the minor characters--Dr. Jack Badofsky (Tim Kazurinsky) and Operaman (Adam Sandler) spring to mind--but there were palpable yawning gaps in what they presented.

I did enjoy the too-brief clips of actors breaking character, but they didn't show Debbie Downer at Disney World. Adding Jon Lovitz to the necrology was a weird but funny touch (He's not dead yet), and it reminded me that folks like Jan Hooks, Jon Belushi, and Phil Hartman were gone all too soon.

But the two moments that really gave me pause to reflect both involved Paul Simon, a performer who had graced the 8H stage at 30 Rockefeller Center many times over the years.  The first was Miley Cyrus singing "50 ways to leave your lover" sounding for all the world like Reba McEntire in her prime--but hardly my first choice to cover that song, especially given her stage antics of late.

The second, and far more poignant, was Simon himself, singing "Still Crazy After All These Years". Looking downright elderly--and I guess he's entitled, being 73 (but when do the pop stars of our youth gain the right to look their age?)--he creaked through the song, leaving out some of the high notes, but it was as though he had the presence of mind back in his early thirties to pen lyrics of such wisdom and strength that would serve as inspiration to the next generation of singers and songwriters. They've become timeless, along with Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages", Harry Chapin's "Taxi", and Dan Fogelberg's "Same old Auld Lang Syne". There are no doubt other songs like that, and I'll add them as I think of them--but I'm not the only one who knows song lyrics.  If you think of them, let me know.

Onward, SNL, to whatever the future holds.

Cheers.

*--Paul Simon, 1972