Brother Theodore
Nov 12th, 2007 by lisa
In this best of all possible worlds, everything is in a hell of a mess.
The best thing is not to be born. But who is as lucky as that? To whom does it happen? Not to one among millions and millions of people.
As I spent the past week, wallowing in negativity, I chose for myself a champion to help me face my darkest of moods. Brother Theodore.
I’ve gazed into the abyss and the abyss gazed into me, and neither of us liked what we saw.
The only thing that keeps me alive is the hope of dying young.
Dear God, if you exist, please help me! And if you don’t exist…help me anyway!
You may not have heard of Brother Theodore. If not, that’s a shame. Especially if you enjoy the dark and twisted side of humor. So let me introduce you.
My name, as you may have guessed, is Theodore. I come from a strange stock. The members of my family were mostly epileptics, vegetarians, stutterers, triplets, nailbiters. But we’ve always been happy.
It seemed that Theodore was born lucky, November 11, 1906. His family was extraordinarily wealthy and he had the best of everything, though his autocratic and disciplinarian father sometimes made life difficult. The Gottlieb family owned magazines and had great influence. Theodore recalled that in 1926 Einstein spent three months as a guest. At one memorable party, Theodore witnessed someone approach The Great Man and ask, “Is there life after death?” Einstein replied: “How the hell should I know!”
Years later, Theodore would become virtually the only comedian to rage a losing battle against existentialism. While his contemporaries such as Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce took on politics and sociology, only Theodore made a career out of speaking what was REALLY on peoples’ minds: what is the meaning of life, how does one cope with death, and what’s behind the beyond.
If you’ve seen The ‘Burb’s, you seen Brother Theodore as Reuben Klopeck. If you watched Late Night with David Letterman with any regularity during the 1980’s you may have also experienced the Brother Theodore experience.
Brother Theodore passed away in 2001. But his spirit lives on in the ethereal world of film and sound recording. I find myself contemplating his particular brand of dark humor when depression tries to take hold. He was blessed with a talent for peering - no, make that glaring - into the darkness and finding a way to make you laugh at it.
