HARVEY PEKAR

Harvey Pekar

Sólo quería poner un par de links de una de las figuras vivas más interesantes con las que últimamente me he (re)encontrado. Harvey Pekar, autor de (entre otros) AMERICAN SPLENDOR (la mayoría de las historias ilustradas por CRUMB), apareciendo en el show de Letterman. Pekar consigue hacer del aparentemente espontáneo e imprevisible y extremadamente calculado formato del talk show algo completamente reversible hasta el punto de llegar a lo más alejado de lo que se espera de un talk show. Vean aquí a Harvey Pekar con una camiseta que pone "On strike against the NBC" ("en huelga contra la NBC", cadena que emitía el show de Letterman), con un discurso arrastrado y depresivo, y al final con una coda estupenda contra "Gi-I", es decir, General Electric, que para quien no la conozca es una multinacional de infrastructuras, recursos energénicos y medios de comunicación fundada por T. A. Edison y propietaria, entre otros, de la cadena NBC. AQUÍ está su momento con Letterman enfadado (¡gracias Pekar!), hasta que ya no lo invitaron más al programa, claro (¡y esto es buena señal! señal del nivel de peligrosidad del tío quien se había vuelto muy carismático). Se ha hecho un biopic con Giamatti, dejo el TRAILER, premio en Sundance, que no he visto.

"Well, I mean, first of all… There’s NOT A WHOLE LOT OF THINGS THAT I CAN DO TO MAKE MONEY… I mean, I CAN’T TYPE, I mean I’m really LIMITED... Like, Crumb can’t drive… or he WON'T drive, but I mean there’s a lot of shit that I CAN’T do so I had to have some kind of a simple-ass job… so I got a simple-ass job that was not ONLY a simple-ass job but it was steady work with the Government, so I didn’t have to worry about getting laid off and I got nice fringe benefits and then I wound up with this job that was so EASY that I could do it and do it WELL and I got praised for it, you know, some PLAQUES for doing good work... But I mean, I was practically DOING IT IN MY SLEEP… It wouldn’t even be bumming me out or anything ‘cause it wouldn’t be consuming all my attention... putting these papers away and thinking about other stuff, and bullshitting with people I worked with. My job was to go around the hospital and find lost charts and give them to medical clinics and stuff so that meant I was constantly on the move so I saw a wide variety of people and I had all kind of relationships going with different people... IT WASN’T REALLY THAT BAD. If you’re in one place and you gotta concentrate really hard on what you’re doing and stuff. I don’t like that. If it's stuff you don’t like to do, but if you can move around and you don’t have to think about the work ‘cause it's so easy that THAT’S FINE" HARVEY PEKAR