Catch A Rising Star

The group photo that accompanied the obit on Rick Newman, the founding  owner of the comedy club Catch a Rising star, is to me as iconic as the one taken decades ago from he backyard of Café Nicholson in New York's Greenwich Village that shows Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams at an afternoon lunch. There are other artistic folks captured in the photo taken a few years after WW II.

We now have the passing of Rick Newman, 81, whose comedy club Catch a Rising Star was the springboard for so many singers and comedians. In the photo, left to right are Joe Piscopo, David Brenner, Pat Benatar, Richard Belzer, Robin Williams, Neil Geraldo, and Rick Newman.

These people are in their prime, and enjoying their popularity. Richard Belzer has just passed away, and of course Robin Williams passed away several years ago, having committed suicide.

To lose Williams to suicide is the polar opposite of what we associate with someone who was I think the funniest comedian I ever listened to. I still shake my head that he committed suicide. But drugs and medication, coming in and out of them leaves the mind in an altered state and in no position to see things as funny and positive. The dark side of being funny.

Williams is almost smiling. The other are having a riotous time, but Williams has to stand still for the photo, and standing still is not something he's used to.

Watching Williams again on the Johnny Carson show via You Tube, or anywhere else is, to behold a true comic genius whose mind moved faster than a cyclotron.  And team him up alongside his idol Jonathan Winters, and your sides will hurt from laughing, His appearance on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera house is beyond belief.

In the obit for Newman there is mention of an appearance by Williams at the club that went an hour and ten minutes. It was a Springsteen concert. It was never going to end. Just three years before, Williams was only on for a ten minute stint.

Photos like the Café Nicholson and Catch a Rising Star remind me of the documentary I once watched about the people left at Life magazine and the home movie of the office life they enjoyed that was part of the documentary, as they talked of the final closing down of Life magazine. It was sad to listen to people recall when they were kings and queens of the print media mountain, but were now putting the key in the door on the way out. 

In my posting of June 8, 2010 I liken the Café Nicholson photo to a "key race," a race track handicapping angle that recognizes future winners that come out of one race. The photo proved to be a key race photo for my blog, because I made postings on August 3, 2012 and August 9, 2016, using the photo to write of he passing of Gore Vidal and eventually even the owner of  Café Nicholson, Johnny Nicholson.

It's what photos do. They bring back memories. They create nostalgia. I never went to Catch A Rising Star. That part of New York's entertainment offerings was not something I took part in. I did listen to and laugh when the pictured comedians appeared in other venues, but not ones that required me to leave the house and pay a cover charge.

Thomas Wolfe wrote of the majesty of the old Penn Station in New York City, saying, "few buildings are vast enough to hold the sound of time."

A small photo can hold time as well.

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