Lost in the Funhouse_ The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman - Bill Zehme [63]
As was by now obligatory—and as it would be for at least the next four years—he entered as Foreign Man (never mind that his actual name gave whiff of Long Island; somehow he was an immigrant of varying nonspecific origin). Thus he shambled out in front of the legendary brick wall wearing one of the two Foreign Man uniforms that would never be replaced—tatty ill-fitting blue-olive-tan checked sport coat (formerly Stanley’s, as was the pale pink jacket he sometimes opted to wear) over blue oxford shirt over black turtleneck with gray flood pants and white socks and brown loafers. Hair was slicked into an oily wave. Arms were rigid at sides, danglefingers ever tapping at air as though he were vertically typing invisible words. (With the finger movements, he innately counted his rhythms—his memory banks were wired to his digits, a small secret he rarely shared and barely understood himself.) Fear screamed in cerulean blue eyes. Pinched uncertain adenoidal voice quavered and—right there on very same network air which Howdy Doody breathed, sort of —“I … I am very nervous because ees my first time on TV. So, you know, last night ees very hard to go to sleep….” Point here was to engender empathy by being, well, deeply pathetic—so very bad and so very sweet; so desperate to be in show business, thus so desperate for love. There ensued what he privately called Bombing, and Foreign Man had always Bombed with a pure and pristine magnificence that built the first wall of oddness that led to the next wall of proficiency (odder still) and all that occurred betwixt was plain tragic fumphering. So he launched into the already long-employed misbegotten tale of the two boys and the one girl who hauled a cannon over the mountains of Spain and discovered that no one had a cannonball to fire at the castle (“Don’t look at meeee.”) and the requisite audience discomfiture came as ever. Then he attempted just one eemetation, that of de President Neexon, droopfaced and rigid, shooting both fists skyward into victory Vs—receiving laughs before opening his mouth—“vait-vait until I give you de punch!” Then, with voice unchanged—“Let me make one thing perfectly clear … um, I am de President of de United States, make no mistake about that! Tenk you veddy much!” Wordlessly, he next walked over to his phonograph, dropped the needle on the turntable, and Mighty Mouse played and he precisely lip-synched only to the rodent tenor’s infrequent seven-word braggadocio —Here I come to save the day!—absorbing all intervening moments of chorus by standing and fidgeting, eyes darting, pouring himself a glass of water, sipping the water, waiting through silences most cavernous and impressive, clearly incapable of saving any sort of day but then again … maybe. And then the record ended and cheers came like they always had and he bowed repeatedly.
The next day, he drove to the Playboy Club Resort in Great Gorge, New Jersey, where he performed poolside under spring sunshine for the Comedyworld cameras again as Foreign Man. (He had to place his guitar case and prop valise and tape recorder—the act always required serious lugging—on a chaise lounge behind him. Congas, as ever, stood to his left.) This time Comedy Correspondent Barbara Feldon read the cue-carded introduction—“… I can’t think of a single performer I’d rather be watching than this absolutely adorable young man from the Caribbean Islands….” Then more gentle Bombing ensued—“Tenk you veddy much I am veddy happy to be here tonight, er, today, but you know there is vun thing I don’t like about thees place ees too much traffic. You know today I had to come on de highway there was so much traffic eet took me an hour and a half to get here. But talk about de terrible things, my wife, take my wife