People used to think I looked like Richard Lewis. Or maybe that he looked like me. I’ve never really seen it, but that was a long time ago — when I was thinner and had hair. I always found it oddly flattering — not because of Lewis’ appearance, but because Lewis, who died earlier today, was a comedic genius, a self-deprecating Jewish comedian who wore his anxieties on the sleeves of his black sports coats and moved like a manic street preacher on stage.
I loved Lewis’ comedy from his early years (I stopped watching stand-up around the time he starred opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in Anything But Love, which Annie and I watched religiously). It was cynical and hip, very ‘60s-‘70s Jewish — meaning close enough to his family’s immigrant past, with a nod to Jewish ritual and belief, but not religious. This David Letterman “interview” shows this element of his comedy off:
You had to listen closely, as well, because his references ranged from literature and art across an array of topics. It wasn’t observational, not Seinfeldian, but observed. Detailed. He comes along in the wake of the greatest American comics: Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor, comics who mixed personal narrative with a pointed sense of the world around them.
Rest in peace.