Farewell To Everyman

There are times when this blog becomes a monument to pop culture icons that have passed, and there is an attendant tongue in cheek sentiment that comes along with it. After all, the number of interesting individuals who die every day without an eight by ten glossy is unfathomable. Just because you had the opportunity in life to have your name in lights or achieved some measure of infamy in your worldly existence shouldn't make you any more important than the guy down the street who passed on after quietly finishing his last day on the job as a bus driver.
For this I make my apologies, and offer up this: Larry "Bud" Melman died Monday. Actually, "Larry" died fourteen years ago when David Letterman moved to CBS. NBC, with all the alacrity and guile that one might expect from a major television network, claimed that "Larry 'Bud' Melman" was part of the "intellectual property" that Letterman was required to leave behind - along with his Peacock emblazoned coffee mug. In 1993, Larry reverted to being just regular old Calvert DeForest, oblivious everyman and comic foil to a world he never quite seemed to understand. I have a favorite Melman/DeForest moment, when he appeared via remote, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
He was a celebrity only because someone put a camera on him and let him go. His dazed look was always good for a laugh, and though he was often the butt of jokes, he could just as easily show up as the cynical tough guy at the end of a bit. It was always funny because he just never quite fit. He got to go to the Winter Olympics and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Woodstock. He got to be on TV. He got to be famous because he was the antithesis of everything that we associate with being famous. And that laugh - probably best showcased in his bit part in the film "Heaven Help Us" - it echoes in my mind even though I haven't heard it for more than five years. Aloha, Calvert. Adios, Larry.