Sunday, February 26, 2006

Belushi

I just finished reading the John Belushi biography, appropriately titled Belushi. Wow. Amazing.

I'll be the first to admit that although I am a huge fan of Saturday Night Live, I wasn't always necessarily a huge Belushi fan. Not that I didn't like his work, but there were always other cast members I was more into. His only films I've seen are Animal House (how can you not have fun with this one) and 1941 (a film I always loved, despite the fact no one else did).

I was just a few years too young to be aware of him during his heyday (I was only 5 when SNL came on TV and was much more preoccupied with Sesame Street) so my only real knowledge of him was more of how he died than how he lived. You might ask me who John Belushi was and the first thing that would come to mind is Died of overdose and then oh and he was on SNL and in Animal House.

Belushi does a great job of capturing how he lived. Because I am an SNL geek, I've read a few books on the history of SNL and they always cover the Belushi saga, but Belushi captures every facet. In the forward, Dan Aykroyd comments there are stories and anecdotes in the book that even he had never heard before.

This book is many things at once: informative, inspiring, and illuminating. I have really come to admire the man and his drive for comedic perfection. I stopped for a few minutes before reading the final chapter to mentally prepare myself because I knew what was coming. This is the part where he dies and I don't know if I want to read about it just yet.

I come away a little surprised at how emotionally attached I felt to the goings-on. It would have been nice if he'd been with us a little longer, if only so I could have enjoyed more of his work.

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