BELUSHI: a BIOGRAPHY JUDITH BELUSHI PISANO & TANNER COLBY (RUGGED LAND BOOKS) Beyond Bluto If You Want the Gory Details, Read Bob Woodward’S Belushi Bio
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34 CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 14, 2005 | SECTION ONE Books BELUSHI: A BIOGRAPHY JUDITH BELUSHI PISANO & TANNER COLBY (RUGGED LAND BOOKS) Beyond Bluto If you want the gory details, read Bob Woodward’s Belushi bio. But if you want to get to know the lovable lug behind the bedsheet, pick up his widow’s new oral history. By Kabir Hamid elushi: A Biography, a new responsible, if anyone? Could it people and string them together seeing in Belushi a reincarnation oral history edited by the have been different or better?. .. with bits of narrative exposition. of Jackie Gleason’s archetypal B subject’s widow, Judith He made us laugh, and now he The story follows Belushi from his prole, Ralph Kramden. Quite a Belushi Pisano, contains little of can make us think.” For childhood in Humboldt Park and few touch upon Belushi’s ability the detail that went into Bob Woodward the meat of Belushi’s Wheaton and his time at Second to improvise on camera, a skill Woodward’s exhaustively story lay in his drug addiction, City to New York, where he gets that gave his performances their researched 1984 bio Wired: The and he chronicled Belushi’s involved with National Lampoon critical—and hilarious—element Short Life and Fast Times of prodigious cocaine use and the and Saturday Night Live, and of surprise. Says his Animal John Belushi. A freewheeling monstrous behavior it spawned then to Hollywood, where he House costar James Widdoes, compilation of stories and con- with a fetishistic eye for detail. achieves true fame with Animal “During the scene on the cafete- jecture recounted by Belushi’s Belushi’s comic talent and per- House and discovers the real pres- ria line, [director John] Landis friends, family, and colleagues— sonal charm were at best ancil- sures (and pleasures) of stardom. was talking to Belushi all the way with a foreword by Dan lary concerns for the Washington The sillier, smaller stories along through it, and Belushi was just Aykroyd—it lacks Wired’s exten- Post reporter. Woodward saw the the way reveal the most. “Late one taking it one step further. What sive contextual information on Belushi story as a spectacle, a car night we leave his place down in the playfulness that extended started out as Landis saying Belushi’s many wreck that onlookers could the Village around one or two in beyond stage and screen. Tom ‘Okay, now grab the sandwich,’ Judith projects, its deep observe with fascination. the morning,” says Danny Brokaw (of all people) points out became, in John’s hands, taking Belushi background on Judith Belushi Pisano and her Kortchmar, a musician and friend. that a good chunk of his appeal the sandwich, squeezing and Pisano his associates, coeditor, Tanner Colby, don’t “We’re walking down Bleecker, and lay in his everyman persona; bending it until it popped out of WHEN Tue 10/18, and its down-to- explicitly mention Wired in it starts to rain, I mean a torrential Belushi reminds you of that old the cellophane, sucking it into 5:30-8:30 PM the-last-gram Belushi, but Pisano includes a downpour. But John and Danny pal of yours whom you can laugh his mouth, and then putting half WHERE House of descriptions of pointed reference to Woodward in [Aykroyd] don’t want to go home. with endlessly and who always the sandwich back. He would Blues, 329 N. his drug use. her introduction when, running We keep wandering the streets of seems to liven up the room. just go a little further each time.” Dearborn And yet Belushi through her reasons for embark- the Village and they start to sing all “Everybody knew somebody like Belushi includes some of the INFO 312-923- succeeds exactly ing on another “Belushi project,” their favorite tunes, starting with him, or wanted to know some- same unflattering drug stories as 2000 where Wired she writes, “I once mistakenly gave ‘Flip, Flop & Fly.’ They just burst body like him,” Brokaw says. Wired—albeit in fuzzier form— MORE Signing fails, delivering the key to John’s story to the into song, snapping their fingers— “John just raised it to an art form.” but Belushi’s friends have drawn only more than a cau- wrong person, and this was a and it’s pouring. All of us are com- Many of the contributors are such a vibrant portrait of him tionary tale chance to get it right.” Belushi pletely soaked to the bone, just screenwriters, comedians, and that they’re harder to take. As a about a talented fuckup and “gets it right” by celebrating its dancing and singing in the rain in directors, and they have a lot to fan it’s tough to hear, for showing instead a man who was subject rather than using him as the middle of New York City. say about the particulars of instance, that Landis, who also as generous toward his friends as fodder for a D.A.R.E. seminar. Of There’s nobody else on the street. Belushi’s comic style. His brother directed The Blues Brothers, felt he was deleterious toward him- course, it’s not all sunshine—the It was like something out of a Jim traces the origins of his very that Belushi’s performance in self, as loved for his celebratory editors include criticism of Belushi movie.” The immediacy of these physical comedy back to his that film would have been even approach to living as he was and his bad behavior, especially stories gives a sense of Belushi and childhood, when he communi- better without the coke. Harold doomed by his lack of self-control. when it was drug induced. The his crew that more polished prose cated through gestures with their Ramis remembers Belushi at a Woodward had never met book’s best moments show the can’t capture. Albanian grandmother. Former party two weeks before he died. Belushi, and was a showbiz out- symbiotic connection between As reminiscences pile up, SNL writer Alan Zweibel remem- “He looked exhausted,” says sider when he started research- Belushi the life force and Belushi Belushi’s magnetism emerges—as bers Lorne Michaels watching Ramis. “I said, ‘How ya doing, ing his book. His introductory the self-destroyer. a reader you can almost feel the Belushi do his irate weatherman John?’ He just laid his head on note is pensive. “What hap- Pisano and Tanner collect anec- warmth he exuded, the excite- character on “Weekend Update” my shoulder and said, ‘Oh, pened?” he asks. “Who was dotes and insights from various ment he could muster in others, and murmuring, “It’s Gleason”— Harold.’ That was it. Oh, Harold. Need an expert? See Services, in Classifieds CHICAGO READER | OCTOBER 14, 2005 | SECTION ONE 35 Ink Well by Ben Tausig 41. Camel qty. Atonal 42.Civic need? 43.Push ACROSS 45.Full of Sparks, perhaps 1. Player in a cast 48.Sushi wrapper 6. It may be raw or processed 49.Note of resignation 10.Gardner and others 50.Payment marker It was like he couldn’t even artic- 14. In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice 51. Part of a GI’s address Guy crooner Pat 53. Observance through Oct. ulate anything about his situa- 15.They’ll never fly 55.DJ’s bagful tion. I just sensed total despair.” 16.Give a ticket More than one contributor spec- 56.Celebrate Yom Kippur? 17.Benjamin 60.Dance in a pit ulates as to what—besides addic- 18.Tora ______, Afghanistan 61. Word before ghanoush or O’Riley tion—drove Belushi’s drug use. 19.Running behind 62.Homer’s first episode One of the most convincing theo- 20.Yom Kippur exchange? 64.[I’m talking here . ] ries is that drugs were an integral 23. Great, in bygone slang 65.Warm pie perch part of living up to the hype that 24.Hot body 66.Crackers had been created around him, the 25.Bit of back talk 67.All up in someone’s business life-of-the-party persona that he 26.“Yay team!” 68.Frequent fort locale felt he had to maintain. Says Jann 27.Blueswoman James 69.Solemn stretches Wenner, editor and publisher of 29.Dempster’s opportunity 31. Ease up DOWN Rolling Stone , “He became a victim 33. One of 12, at some meetings 1. Desperate Housewives shower of it. He’d always have to come over 34.Trilogy finale 2. Parade pieces and be the professional crazy guy, 35.You’s is 3. More than necessary the dope guy, much like Hunter S. 36.Observing Yom Kippur? 4. Not fooled by Thompson. If Hunter showed up, 5. Winds, usually people wanted the Hunter S. 6. Suave LAST WEEK: MOONLIGHTING Thompson Experience, and it was 7. Cupid 8. Long-living swimmer the same with John: let’s get the 30.Summer babe 46.Rum drinker’s refrain 9. Tokyobrewer drugs and party. And John was 32.Swains 47.Racetrack prizes torn about it.” 10.Patriot Act challenger 11. It may keep you up at night 35.Stockton statistic 48.“I got the smaller half!” Belushi ’s structure makes a com- 12.To boot 37.This sucks 52.1893 blue-ribbon winner prehensive biographical package 13.Stew 38.Home shopping channel? 54.Govt. security impossible; you’ll have to look else- 21. Type of jazz or cuisine 39.One million million 57.“Goodness gracious!” where for minutiae. But the book 22.Escher’s genre 40.Moussaka need 58.Fit presents something more interest- 23. ______ Moines 44.Codger’s queries 59.Succulent houseplant ing: a glimpse of the man under 28.Pavement pounder’s adverb 45.Field with frequent firings? 63.