A gift.
I think that’s where the contrarian cacophony began.
Perhaps it was also the admiration of the rebel. Likely, through the introduction of dry, witty humour before I could tie my shoes (I also wore Velcro shoes until I was almost 12, so maybe it is a moot point).
Whatever star-crossed alignment it was, what it produced landed me in situations that even Jack Kerouac or Wes Craven couldn’t have conjured in their wildest fever dreams.
You see, the gift was the classic Fisher-Price cassette recorder. The beige one with the giant buttons with colourful icons that countless of us kids in the mid-to-late ‘80s had on our shelves and in our toyboxes. The one where I would build a Lego platform around on one side that looked like a stage in front of a wall of amplifiers. Five LEGO people. Me. Mick. Tommy. Nikki. Vince. Putting Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood cassette in the deck and turning the volume up was my way of hanging out with (and jamming with) the rockers.
The rebel? The comedians. The wordsmiths of hilarity.
You see, in Grade 1, my parents dubbed a copy of Eddie Murphy’s “Delirious” live from Washington D.C. “Dubbing” may be an activity lost to time as VHS tapes gave way to DVDs. It involved connecting two VCR players together like MacGyver to duplicate a movie like a miniature pirating operation. See? Rebels all around.
At six years old, I could recite Eddie’s complete set from watching the special so many times. Relentlessly. How the magnetic tape did not disintegrate from use, I still wonder. His “Ice Cream Man” story, “Aunt Bunny”, “Gus and the Backyard Barbecue” and “James Brown”—each was locked, loaded, and waiting in the chamber for someone to say “Hi, Robbie.” Conversation would open, and so would their eyes and mouths as their jaw hit the floor with what I began to recite and share.
Then there was the book. Truly Tasteless Jokes by Blanche Knott. For the time, it was outrageous and offensive on a whole other level (as conveyed in the 2018 documentary Tasteless available on Tubi). It belonged to my parents, but I quickly tried to claim it.
They hid it. I found it. They hid it again. I would crawl under couches like a six-year-old bloodhound. With anything less than a titanium safe, concealment did not stand a chance. They knew it, and it soon became a hand-me-down which found a home next to my collection of Archie and Jughead double digests. With a mind loaded down with the most outrageous showstoppers (many I didn’t understand), I would go to school in second grade excited to share new jokes.
And I thought bringing my marble collection to kindergarten each week inside a purple Crown Royal bag made my teachers lock eyes and with looks of dire concern—this outpaced and lapped it.
Let’s take stock:
The Fisher Price cassette player.
Outlandish and rebellious humour by means of Eddie and Blanche.
The stars were now aligning. The trifecta arrived with the purchase of a pack of Memorex recordable cassettes at a Sears Surplus store and the discovery that my Fisher-Price toy could record.
Once I figured out the basics, I turned to Eddie Murphy once again—and way beyond: Robocop. Robocop 2. Total Recall. Terminator. Nightmare on Elm Street 3…
Yes, I was raised on the streets. If my parents rented a new movie and if I was aware there was highly offensive language or vocal vulgarity in it, I would fast-forward to a millisecond before the word, phrase, or rant.
Tape player: Record.
VCR: Play.
When the magic passed while shaking with restricted laughter, I would press stop on the recorder. Then, it was time to fast-forward to the next obscenity-laden word or phrase in another scene or a new movie altogether.
At six, seven and eight years old, this was my art and my masterpiece kept growing. The manic monorail of curse words, obscenities, and words I didn’t yet fully understand increased at a geometric rate as the Memorex tape filled.
Now, I cannot stress enough how many starts and stops, how many movies, and how many minutes of a long, long, loooong train of obscenities piled up without a pause or a break.
Sometimes the project would last all weekend. Summer break helped the quantity and the quality of the chaos.
Out in the neighbourhood, I would carry my small Fisher-Price tape recorder with me everywhere. Its frontier edge always ready, always on guard for another sound bite to be found, rewound and recorded to the sound of small me snickering.
It was my Mona Lisa.
Be it family, friends, or strangers, I gladly held up my tape player, pressed play and shared my masterpiece.
Some would stare, unable to react (much less begin an intelligible phrase or respond).
Some were horrified.
Some laughed until near unconsciousness.
Maybe it was the late ‘80s.
Maybe it was finding humour, rebellion or an outlet during a time when life brought huge changes.
Whatever it may have been, I was passionate. I played it to myself and laughed myself crazy (and loved to see the stunned reaction of others).
As the years flew by, it gave way to other projects with the recorder.
Grade 3: Figuring out how to bungee-cord my tape player to the front frame of my bicycle and pedalling furiously around the Fort Frances Lakeview trailer park to “Kickstart my Heart” by Motley Crue at ear-piercing levels from a speaker akin to a tin can. This invited many a nemesis, like kicking a hornet’s nest.
Grade 4: Interviewing friends and family, trying to emulate Howard Stern.
It was surely a different time.
Looking back, it made me understand edges of comedy very early. It taught me to laugh at myself, to not take things too seriously, and provided me with one more story to hopefully make a few others smile today. As provocative as what I stumbled upon to create was, I can’t deny that it is part of my emotional life and intellectual growth as a child, fanning the appreciation of the rebel, the contrarian, the anti-hero, the outsider, the intelligent provocateur, the value of laughter, understanding that words and comedy can be art, and the willingness to laugh at ourselves.
Today, this has grown to include: spending time front row at Caroline’s in Manhattan like it’s a second home, appreciating comedians like the late Patrice O’Neal, Taylor Tomlinson, Ms. Pat (and others who intelligently offer biting perspectives in their comedy if one looks for it) and loving the endless march of comedy roasts. All flow from this taproot at only a few years old.
Today, I wouldn’t have known where the middle of the road was if I hadn’t played on the far curb.
Robbie didn’t just play on the far curb—that’s where he danced in the rain during thunderstorms.
And he still does.
Robert Horton is an educator, author, orator and linguist. He is a member of Rainy River First Nations.
