My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [11]
Elmo has taught me that on-screen or off, touch makes the magic of love more real.
THERE’S ONE LAST lesson on love I’d like to share, and that is that before you can love someone else, you have to love yourself. Through Elmo, I pass that message along. I learned it from my parents, who taught me the importance of self-respect early in life. With that belief in myself, I gained the freedom and courage to pursue the life I am trying to live now.
When I talk to children and young adults as Kevin—not Elmo—I always try to impress upon them the importance of having self-respect, of listening to their hearts and going after their dreams. I tell them a little about my background and how I got into puppetry, and then point out that my story mirrors the message of the characters on Sesame Street: No matter who you are—a big yellow bird, a grouch in a can, a frog in a trench coat, or a furry red monster—you can love and be loved and find your place in the world.
With Elmo as my partner, with my family as my inspiration, I’ve learned that love works best when we keep it simple, when we remember to say it and show it, and, most of all, when we share it.
NEARLY EVERY SUNDAY, we’d exchange worn jeans and T-shirts for carefully pressed clothes and shiny shoes, and pile into the family car—the 1919 Get Out and Push, as we kids called it—to gather as a family at the New Psalmist Baptist Church. When the reading was over, we’d get up on our feet for a pew-vibrating, hand-clapping, Lord-praising song. “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands…” I basked in the sound and fury of it all.
To me, there is no greater “joyful noise” than the sounds of music and laughter, and our home in Turner’s Station was infused with both. Music was such a part of our lives that I can’t recall our house ever being silent. It just made us feel good.
Dad and my Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Odessia sang in the church choir, and my uncles all sang in church, too. For me Sunday mornings meant services and a visit to my Grandma Banks’s house in Baltimore. My Uncle Ed was confined to a wheelchair, so he couldn’t attend church in person. I’d get to Grandma Banks’s, and Uncle Ed and my grandfather would be watching services on their old Philco, their heads bobbing in time with the music.
I’d hang back in my shy style, but the gospel music was so moving my toe would start tapping and I’d start swaying, all caught up in the sounds of Mahalia Jackson singing “Move on Up a Little Higher.”
I’d catch my grandfather’s eye and drop my gaze, embarrassed. He’d come over to me, squat down, and put his arm around my shoulders. “Hey, Kevin, it’s okay to show your love for something. If you feel it, let it show, especially if it’s for the Lord.”
Gradually, in the years to come, I’d learn there was no harm in letting my joy out. In fact, doing so would bring it back to me tenfold.
Gospel wasn’t the only music I loved. Growing up as I did in the 1960s meant growing up with the sounds of Motown. I loved the Jackson Five, the Chi-Lites, The Stylistics, and Earth, Wind & Fire. I still can’t help singing along in falsetto (Motown style, not Elmo style) when I hear “Oh Girl” and “Betcha By Golly Wow,” and of course my feet get happy with “ABC.”
As my musical tastes broadened, I got into jazz in a major way, listening to Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday. Louis Armstrong became a favorite, especially for his gravelly voice. One of the first Sesame Street characters I performed, before Elmo, was Hoots the Owl (created out of a workshop with director Jon Stone). I based his voice on Armstrong’s.
I wasn’t alone in this joyful appreciation; everyone in my family loved music and whether we were gathered in front of the television set watching Ed Sullivan,