One of the great perks of having a pop who owned a drugstore: free magazines and comic books. Once a month or more on a regular basis, the discards – covers ripped in half (the other half was returned to the publishers for credit, maybe?) – a pile that might be four or five inches high, was delivered to us by my dad after work, tied up with twine. MAD Magazine, however, was not a discard, it was a ‘when does the new issue get here, we must have it now!’
MAD Magazine was silly and funny and chock full of ridiculousness; I have to wonder if the creators of The Simpsons were fans? I read it cover to cover including the teeny, tiny little cartoons in the margins. The entire thing was a delight, was in line with adolescent humor: silly, loopy, lewd, and sexist, even if I didn’t fully know that last quality at the time. It reminded me of the works of R. Crumb – which I had happened upon at my cousins, a disturbing discovery under the bed I was sleeping in for a few days while visiting Boston, where I was a little in over my head, trying to avoid my very tall uncle, who was too chummy, especially with my older sister, even for me, an unsophisticated eleven-year-old from small-town USA.
MAD’s movie spoofs were a favorite, even if I weren’t allowed to see the film (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, or Carnal Knowledge), yet with the films I did see (MASH, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Love Story) it was as if I were being let in on a secret joke, was part of a group of – well, of smart-asses. What more could a teenager want? This held true even if, pre-teen and teenager (an unsophisticated one at that), I didn’t really get the all of the jokes.
As a child I also believed I looked like Alfred E. Newman: freckles, big cheeks, large, crooked gapped teeth smile, a big head and big – or at least biggish – ears. This felt especially true if my mother had given me one of her specialty haircuts, which were special because they were hideous. She could never get my bangs right, which for her meant even, and so kept cutting, and cutting. Suddenly I was all face, all cheeks, all freckles, and my head really was huge, still is. I have a hard time finding hats that fit, no kidding. I once read that we all have an idea of ourselves and our looks based on a childhood photo, mine is one that most closely resembles Alfred. I know I don’t look like him, but – to me in my child heart, still beating – we’re not all that different.
