The Comedy of Lowered Expectations: Lecture One in a Three Part Series

In this age of everyman journalism, moblogging, satellite dishes, and
what have you, one needn’t look far to happen upon a list proclaiming
the “Ten Best Gimgracks” or “One Hundred Greatest Gewgaws.” Our
collective attention as a society becomes increasingly honed, the
prickly tip of a just-sharpened pencil… but the passages our pointy
nub underlines are exclusively the sensational, the impressive, the
prodigious.

If my learned and distinguished days have taught me anything,
however, it is that the truly rewarding prose is often relegated to
the endnotes of our awareness, shrouded safely away from the glaring
dalliances of exposition and dialogue. These selections may not be
top dogs in the kennel of life, yet they are the truest
manifestations of the substance of everyday being, of living.

All of which demands we turn our attention to Steve Martin between
the fertile years of 1979 through 1986. During these eight short
years, Martin co-wrote and starred in a cavalcade of delicious
mediocrity–The Jerk (’79), The Man With Two Brains (’83), The Lonely
Guy (’84)–that reached its apotheosis in the impavidly impotent
buddy western ¡Three Amigos! (’86). Throughout this cycle we root
ourselves hoarse for the talented Mr. Martin as he condescends
himself to feats of vulgar slapstick, entendre laden innuendo, and
passable pratfalls.

Why the unfloundering approval for such base spectacles? Why, like a
multitude of tiny jockeys, do we go along for the ride, advocating
the adequate, touting the tolerable? Precisely because we yearn for
the middling! We need it! Boilerplate, unremarkable brands of
experience are those which allow us to establish a continuum of
qualitative judgment and deem other more substantial works
noteworthy. They are the grains of the aesthetic diet. Have you
ever tried to live exclusively on crème brûlée and sauterne? I’ll
spare you the gastrointestinal spasms and state that it is no
pleasure, even for the most sophisticated of palates. As the adage
declaims, one truly can get too much of a good (or even exceptional)
thing.

My advice to you then, dear reader, is to load up your Netflix queue,
ransack your local bibliothèque, and spend a few evenings with Mr.
Martin, entertain The Lonely Guy. View the apartment party populated
by celebrity cardboard cut-outs and recognize your own withering
visage in its clouded reflection. Watch Mr. Martin absentmindedly
wipe his mouth with the napkin emblazoned with gay divorcée’s
telephone number and see yourself blotting the metaphorical slaver of
your existence. Entertain the outlandish lengths to which he will
strive and realize that you need The Lonely Guy more than he needs you.