This week's video posting of original Saturday Night Live cast member Garrett Morris talking about marijuana on a pro-weed blog brought back memories. In 1978, I interviewed Morris for Rolling Stone. An ambitious young journalistic, I pitched the mag on Morris, who was the least known member of SNL's Not Ready for Prime Time Players. They gave me the assignment, but never ran the piece.
Now 72, Morris runs the Downtown Comedy Club in Los Angeles, where the above interview took place. Asked about pot, he says: "It's absolutely the right thing to have marijuana legalized. I don't understand why it was ever made illegal... Nobody's ever died from smoking a joint. If it doesn't kill anyone, why is it illegal?"
From 1975 to 1980, Morris was part of TV's funniest comedy troupe. He was SNL's first black cast member, joining John Belushi, Dan Akyroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman and Jane Curtin in the show's lineup. Morris' most famous character was Latino baseball player Chico Escuela who best line was, "Baseball been berry, berry good to me."
By 1978, when I interviewed Morris, Belushi (Animal House) and Chase (Foul Play) had become big stars and the show was starting to going through its first major cast transitions.
I visited Morris backstage at NBC Studios in 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Nov. 18. 1978. In the interview transcript, my first question is, "Can you give me a little background about yourself?"
"No, no, no, no, no," Morris replied. "You have to ask questions now. The background, you can just get that from NBC."
Good point. It was a lame question.
"Do you smoke cigarettes?" he asked.
I said no.
"Do you sniff coke?"
I said yes.
"Got any with you?"
Unfortunately, no.
"OK, just so I know that you sniff it, I'll just do it in front of you. Of course, you won't write it down on the thing. Hello, is this thing on?"
He was yelling into my tape recorder.
"I did not say anything about cocaine! That was not me talking!"
Remember, this was 1978, when coke was rampant in society and especially on the SNL set.
Here's the story I submitted to Rolling Stone:
Garrett Morris, the resident "Negro" at Saturday Night Live, has pegged me the minute I step through his dressing room door. "I can tell what you're going to ask me," he announces. "You're going to ask me about me being black in the show, how I feel about it, why isn't my part bigger, why don't I get more to do..."
I search for a plug to wire my tape recorder into while Morris, who is costumed for rehearsal in an outrageous Chubby Checker outfit, continues his discourse on interviews. "My interest is in acting and writing, not in giving interviews. It's not something I gravitate to," he explains. "But we're not going to be talking about my attitudes towards interviews." Thank you.
Morris has to be the least-publicized member of the now star-studded Saturday Night cast. I ask if his reluctance to do interviews has anything to do with this state of affairs?
"No, no, no, I like to stay behind the scenes, to keep a low profile. When you don't say much, people think you're more artistic, more professional. They think, 'Hey, he must be deep,'" he jibed.
Well, he does come from the Deep South. In fact, 20 years ago, Morris completed a music degree in his home town, New Orleans. He immediately hopped on a bus to New York, bent on becoming "a great singer." Four unsuccessful years later, he found himself lining up outside off-Broadway theaters vying for dramatic parts instead. After almost two decades on stage, Morris joined the Saturday Night staff as a writer. How did it come down to this? Simple. "Lorne (Michaels) needed a black writer," he recalls.
And how did he become a member of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players? How else? "Lorne wanted a black actor," he says.
Michaels required someone to caricature black celebrities (recently, he portrayed Diana Ross and Mickey Rivers) and stereotypes (i.e., pimps, drug dealers). But Morris thinks too much is made of his role, complaining that although, for instance, "Gilda does Jewish stuff," he is always being accused of doing "the racial stuff."
"The black thing is so noticeable," he contends, "that people don't even realize seven skits have gone by which have been white Anglo-Saxons doing Midwestern types because they are white and white people don't think that way. You could, in fact, be doing to a Midwesterner the same thing that would be done to a black, but if I did it blacks would say, 'Garrett Morris is a disgrace to black people,' right?
"John (Belushi) can get up and do what he did to (Joe) Cocker, spitting up beer and everything, but if I had done that to you-know-what, the NAACP would have been writing in."
He reveals one incident which nearly instigated a walk-out of black crew-member technicians. The skit, titled "Tall Brush" (written by Michael O'Donaghue, who Morris calls a "very viscious, sick man"), was a dig at the "Black Is Beautiful" theme. O'Donaghue reasoned that if everything white is so bad, then blacks should bush their teeth black too. Of course, Morris was tabbed for the part. "It was pretty heavy, I'll admit that," he says, "but all we did was try it out n rehearsal.
"Afterwards, I told Michael, 'It'll work in Lampoon or Mad magazine, but it won't make it in Mississippi. It's too heavy a thing to lay. Plus, anyone who is on our side is going to question it.' Anyway, two black dudes on the crew didn't want to hear shit, so we dropped it."
Morris was happy the piece was canned, though he concedes, "The way I am, I probably would have done it.
"It comes down to at least having a modicum of respect for the playwright," he says. "The man has written it and he thinks it's cool. Goddamn, they killed Galileo and then found out the whole thing was true."
Then, you don't feel an obligation to speak for the black community? "That ain't one that I''ve accepted as of yet," he cooly replies. "If you check into my record, you'll see that there aren't many who can match me for militancy. But, right now, I'm about the worst militant you want to find. I never thought that anybody could speak for the black community, so why would I think I can now?
"I do have a lot of politics and racial stuff in me," Morris adds, "but that is not what this is all about."
According to Morris, the "Court Jester Mentality" is what it's all about. "The court jester was there to make the King laugh," he hollers, slamming his fist on the table to crack down the point. "That's all he was there for! Not to tell him about politics and philosophy. He was there to make the man laugh, because there is value in that - in laughing.
"To me, that's the most valuable thing we can do. If people laugh, and they laugh heartily, then we have done our job and that's great. I don't want to put that aside because 'we're not saying something heavy'."
Besides Live, Morris is involved in several other projects, including his play, The Secret Place, which he recently presented as a solo videotape performance at La Mama E.T.C.
Currently, he is composing a gospel-jazz ballet and is also concentrating on the formation of a new "sex-oriented" magazine to be named Mahogany.
Morris' affection for porn-type publications arise towards the close of our discussion. "If you hit things on the head, like Hustler did, I think people suddenly become less embarrassed by whatever it is they're ashamed of," he prescribes.
"The best line I ever heard was something Larry Flynt himself once said. Someone asked him, 'What's the purpose of Hustler?' He replied, 'The purpose is for it to go out of business.' That's exactly what it should be. That's what doctors should be all about. If you deal with something that is a blight on the community, then your job is for one day to make sure your whole profession is not necessary."
Not bad for someone who doesn't like giving interviews.
***
The last line of the transcript reads: "Let's hook up again because I have to get this fucking make-up job, a pompadour for Chubby Checker."
I never did meet Morris again.
A few weeks after submitting the story, I received a letter from Rolling Stone:
"Peter Herbst asked me to write a note explaining that he thought we would not be able to use your story on Garrett Morris in Rolling Stone."
Racists!
Note: Thanks to Mike Cann for posting the Morris clip
Well not really. I was 14 in 1979 and my Dad knew somebody and we got to see the show. Afterwords, My dad and I met Garrett and he was pretty cool. He took me by the hand, totally smelling of booze and dragged me all around NBC studios. He invited my Dad and I up to the "after party" on the upper floors. My father declined, as I was only 14... He missed out on a "blizzard" I'm sure. -Damion
2
Wednesday, 25 March 2009 03:26
Dave Green
I always thought he was a great guy. He did some really great stuff on that show.I stopped watching after he left.
It's funny and sad at the same time , where he observes that, white people play white people all the time and it's not considered racial. A black guy plays a baseball player from the Islands and it's an insult.
I'm happy to see that he's still going strong and true.
Thanks, Dave Green
1
Sunday, 22 March 2009 13:39
Mamakind
That's a kickass interview, Steve. I pictured Morris yelling out his answers a la "News for the Deaf." ;-D
It's funny and sad at the same time , where he observes that, white people play white people all the time and it's not considered racial. A black guy plays a baseball player from the Islands and it's an insult.
I'm happy to see that he's still going strong and true.
Thanks, Dave Green