If you asked “Name the person dead or alive you would like to spend an evening with”, Pete Barbutti would have to be on the short list.
Thanks to some dimwit at NBC who decided to erase the tape library holding the Johnny Carson show, much of his work lives only in my memory.
He’s an odd guy and I like that. He mainly played the piano, but in reality he played the band and the audience. His schtick was a mixture of comedy and improvisational music – sometimes the accordion, the trumpet… Tommy Newsone or Doc Severinson had their hands full as he would zig and zag. A musician listening to him enjoyed the challenge of keeping up with him… In the middle of playing jazz, he might slip into playing Bach or the Mexican hat dance. You had no idea where he was going next, and neither did he, or at least he was convincing.
While looking to see if there were any interesting clips on YouTube, I found this comedy bit about riding the CTA in Chicago. This is -exactly- what it is like (at least when this was recorded). He has the precise instructions what happens if you get on a B train and need to get off at an A station.
I think the hotel he is talking about is a block from here 😉
I enjoyed that and have ridden the Chicago trains. NJ transit is no easier for beginners.
I did a video search on google and found a long list of videos with him, probably half of them were on sites other than youtube.
He’s still alive – 80 something and a fairly recent one sounds as sharp as ever. Johnny Carson is the only place I remember seeing him. The clip above doesn’t have any music. He reminds me a but if the late Marvin Hamlish who could just sit down and start playing random things and beautiful and unpredictable things would come out. Of course, he could never get away with having a cigar on TV today
Good stuff. Never saw Pete’s act before tonight but then I didn’t watch that much of Carson, or anything else. There are a bunch on the playlist that came up at the end and I enjoyed watching a few. Some very good humor. Thanks for posting it.
BTW- If you get confused and/or frustrated by the train commute, perhaps you should tell your problems to an old time veteran of the Chicago commute. He has a special sofa for you to lie down on and there is no hourly charge:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QuFGVoLVv0I/Tox9elylvUI/AAAAAAAAC5g/YOj4hHcwPGk/s1600/bob+enter+train.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uqLp1uIzCk8/UAByATBmGHI/AAAAAAAAA8M/mr9QIu6qGkQ/s1600/Mbob.jpg
A solution might just be the bus:
http://rachelleb.com/images/2004_12_18/IMG_5801.jpg
I didn’t quite get that 😉
That white over green El train is of some personal significance – one night as I was riding home (1992), one of those came to the platform – the CTA tends to use their older equipment during rush hour. This train however was carrying signage saying “last run of the 6000 series” – it was a fantrip and being a transit geek I hopped in without hesitation, not being sure where it was going (it dead ended to Ravenswood).
The CTA bought a bunch of post war PCC streetcars but quickly decided that was a mistake. St Louis Car company took back the streetcars and remade them into multiple unit El Trains. Only one Chicago PCC streetcar survived – it is in the Illinois Railray Museum in Union IL. It’s a ver odd variant with 3 sets of doors and hand controls – due largely to union pressures to keep 2,person operations, when the main benefit of the PCC was single man operation.
No pictures, just memories. Someone needs a way to recover memories from your brain into computer videos 😉 Maybe we can reconstruct those destroyed Carson video tapes 😉
Yeah, must be some of the really good ones around and worthy of investing a bit of time to save. I use JDownloader to save clips that could either disappear or if I just want to keep them handy.
Sorry for being so obscure. That was a reference to the Chicago psychologist, Dr. Bob Harley (aka Bob Newhart) that took the train every day to his office on Michigan.
There is a statue on the Navy pier of him and his couch. For a time, it was temporarily located on Michigan, where his office on the TV show was located.
The AB service was of dubious value by the 1990s as fewer people worked downtown and moved out further and used commuter rail instead. AB service ended in 1995 when the CTA went to one person operation where the driver became responsible for opening and closing the doors.
The much bigger problem with the speakers was random express trains. You would hear a sudden message like “this train will be running express to Howard Street (the end of the line). If you are not going to Howard Street, exit the train at the next station and get on the next train following behind us. There were at least two problems – it was impossible to hear what they said. The other was a significant portion of the riders didn’t understand English – so even if the speakers worked, they had no idea what was about to happen – so picture Asian and Hispanic women (mostly) freaking out as the train whizzes through every station without stopping. I rode to Howard so the express was great for me, but probably added another 30 minutes to their trip as they had to ride the southbound train back to where they wanted to get off.
Sounds like those were wild and woolly days for commuters. Glad I never had to rely on that sort of commute. I can easily relate to the humor of Pete Barbutti’s act since most of have experienced the poor sound quality of most public address systems.