Jason Klamm's Blog, page 2

I spent the better part of a year planning a move to the Detroit area. That plan never involved becoming obsessed with a brand new sitcom but, given the natural progression of my life, that should be no surprise. After a couple of months of finding Detroit podcasts, and watching abandoned Detroit buildings on YouTube, and planning several small businesses I thought I might start, I found the true highlight of what proved to be a harrowing move: the Comedy Central show Detroiters.

I have a lot of family in Detroit, hence the move, and when you sign up to watch a show that purports to show the real city, you run stuff by people who know the real shit. I’d only recently learned that Detroit style pizza was a thing, and I was already aware of the Mel Farr Superstar commercials, but there were cuts deep and surface-level that I wanted to be privy to. Fortunately, my family is kind and they let me in on all of it.

Garner-Weisch is really Gardner-White. Yes, Donut Cutter is a real donut shop, and eventually I’d find myself wolfing down half their menu. That father and son are playing the father and son of Father and Son Construction, but it’s barely referenced. And yes, Mort Crim is his real name and, what’s more, Will Ferrell has cited him as the inspiration, at least somewhat, for Ron Burgundy in Anchorman.

Mort Crim as a character is, arguably, more insane than Ron Burgundy, though when I recently interviewed him for the Comedy on Vinyl podcast he did say that the stuff that made it into the show was the stuff he didn’t veto for being not just too wild, but for being too out-of-character. Sure, he said “Alright, let’s get down to brass tacks: who shit in his pants?” and talked of a pedophile ghost who was “get this: a woman!” but there was some stuff in some scripts that he wouldn’t do. Kindly, they gave him his preferences, not unlike the way his guest-starring episode resolves.

I interviewed Mort primarily because I wanted to talk to the man. I was fortunate that he said yes and, although the vinyl talk was relatively minimal (toward the end of the show I am, admittedly, exploring every possibility of what the show can be), we talked a lot about what comedy is, to him and in general, and how important he finds humor as a tool, primarily in life. This is the kind of thing you can’t always talk about with comedians. Some of them even insist they don’t watch comedies, because their lives are so filled with comedy, blah-de-fucking-blah. It’s refreshing getting a non-comedian’s take on it, especially when he’s a guy who has given it this much thought, and who, as it turns out, can bang out a solid punchline for the sake of one of the best sitcoms I’ve ever seen.

My move from LA, after eighteen years, was harrowing. I was equally desperate to move and sad that I was letting go of this invisible, nonsense accomplishment of Having Stuck Around Somewhere. I was filled with panic for weeks preceding the actual move, and had a severe mental breakdown during it, and then it only ramped up on the first day of the road trip to my new home when I lost my wallet and $400 of desperately-needed cash. Detroiters, though, was with me the whole way. The greatest stressors of my life are usually abated best with the earworms and brainworms I give myself voluntarily, so there’s a good chance that the phrase “Boop! Droppin’ holes in the butter” didn’t actually leave my brain for that whole week.

I feel fortunate to have heard Mort Crim’s story, even as just another step toward feeling like I’m ready to be here, or feeling like it was okay to leave. I’ve known for sometime that both of those things are true, but the last time I made this big a move, I cried myself to sleep, panicked and unsure, and on some level, that crying 22-year-old was with me until my last day in California, when I lost that fucking wallet. When I got to Detroit, I had something to look forward to, something I already loved, and a brain soundtrack that isn’t going to leave me, singing “313-555-0197! Frank Franklin.”

You can hear my interview with Mort here: https://is.gd/4TIpF3

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Published on August 19, 2021 08:43