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Excelsior, You Fathead!: The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd
Jean Shepherd (1921-1999), master humorist, is best known for his creation A Christmas Story , the popular movie about the child who wants a BB gun for Christmas and nearly shoots his eye out.
What else did Shepherd do? He is considered by many to be the Mark Twain and James Thurber of his day. For many thousands of fans, for decades, “Shep” talked on the radio late at night, keeping them up way past their bedtimes. He entertained without a script, improvising like a jazz musician, on any and every subject you can imagine. He invented and remains the master of talk radio.
Shepherd perpetrated one of the great literary hoaxes of all time, promoting a nonexistent book and author, and then brought the book into existence. He wrote 23 short stories for Playboy , four times winning their humor of the year award, and also interviewed The Beatles for the magazine. He authored several popular books of humor and satire, created several television series and acted in several plays. He is the model for the character played by Jason Robards in the play and movie A Thousand Clowns , as well as the inspiration for the Shel Silverstein song made famous by Johnny Cash, “A Boy Named Sue.”
Readers will learn the significance of innumerable Shepherd words and phrases, such as “Excelsior, you fathead ” and observe his constant confrontations with the America he loved. They will get to know and understand this multitalented genius by peeking behind the wall he built for himself – a wall to hide a different and less agreeable persona. Through interviews with his friends, co-workers and creative associates, such as musician David Amram, cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, publisher and broadcaster Paul Krassner, and author Norman Mailer, the book explains a complex and unique genius of our time.
“Shepherd pretty much invented talk radio ... What I got of him was a wonder at the world one man could create. I am as awed now by his achievement as I was then.”
– Richard Corliss, Time magazine online
What else did Shepherd do? He is considered by many to be the Mark Twain and James Thurber of his day. For many thousands of fans, for decades, “Shep” talked on the radio late at night, keeping them up way past their bedtimes. He entertained without a script, improvising like a jazz musician, on any and every subject you can imagine. He invented and remains the master of talk radio.
Shepherd perpetrated one of the great literary hoaxes of all time, promoting a nonexistent book and author, and then brought the book into existence. He wrote 23 short stories for Playboy , four times winning their humor of the year award, and also interviewed The Beatles for the magazine. He authored several popular books of humor and satire, created several television series and acted in several plays. He is the model for the character played by Jason Robards in the play and movie A Thousand Clowns , as well as the inspiration for the Shel Silverstein song made famous by Johnny Cash, “A Boy Named Sue.”
Readers will learn the significance of innumerable Shepherd words and phrases, such as “Excelsior, you fathead ” and observe his constant confrontations with the America he loved. They will get to know and understand this multitalented genius by peeking behind the wall he built for himself – a wall to hide a different and less agreeable persona. Through interviews with his friends, co-workers and creative associates, such as musician David Amram, cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, publisher and broadcaster Paul Krassner, and author Norman Mailer, the book explains a complex and unique genius of our time.
“Shepherd pretty much invented talk radio ... What I got of him was a wonder at the world one man could create. I am as awed now by his achievement as I was then.”
– Richard Corliss, Time magazine online
- GenresBiographyNonfictionHumor
496 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 2004
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77 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 31, 2016
3.5 stars.
Eugene Bergmann's book is the only comprehensive Shepherd biography out there, and for good reason. Shep, as he went by to friends, was a tough guy to know. And an even more difficult one to live with, full of contradictions and inner turmoil. Almost no one knew the whole man, who chose to reveal himself in fits and starts throughout his life, creating a persona that felt so intimate in his work, but whose warmth and empathy contrasted with the human being he actually was.
The man was a ball of nerves, insecurity and inner conflict whose masterpiece film, "A Christmas Story" -- based on his radio broadcast stories and collections of published short stories, which were based on his life -- is beloved by millions and who's other career in radio also touched a generation of listeners. Despite his genius, he was an egotistical, cruel man at times and a completely absent father who denied he had children (he did, a son and a daughter). He didn't like his wife to call him "dear" in public, because he didn't want people to know he was a "sap who was married.." He was married four times. His last wife was instrumental in bringing his most well-known work to life on screen. She may have been the only person who truly knew him and was able to deal with him and his, to say the least, difficult personality.
All of this and more -- specifically his radio career in New York on WOR from the 1950s to the 1970s, is detailed in "Excelsior, You Fathead!" Bergmann does his best, as a longtime fan, to show the world this complicated artist. The book suffers for lack of a good editor for huge portions of it. Much of it is repetitive and dull, too circular and should have been cut.
But when Bergmann gets Shep right, he gets him right. I felt like I know so much more about the artist, who truly was and remains an "enigma." As a reader at least two generations removed from Shepherd, I only know him through the movie, so this gave me a chance to learn much that I found fascinating.
I'd been meaning to get to this book, as it had been on my shortlist for years. This season, I decided I finally had to read "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," and just had to read this too, as I've been curious about Shepherd all my life, and "A Christmas Story" is my favorite movie of all time. Plus, Shepherd is an Indiana native, which has made him all the more beloved in my mind. I still love him, but with a better understanding of the human being behind the movie narration.
Eugene Bergmann's book is the only comprehensive Shepherd biography out there, and for good reason. Shep, as he went by to friends, was a tough guy to know. And an even more difficult one to live with, full of contradictions and inner turmoil. Almost no one knew the whole man, who chose to reveal himself in fits and starts throughout his life, creating a persona that felt so intimate in his work, but whose warmth and empathy contrasted with the human being he actually was.
The man was a ball of nerves, insecurity and inner conflict whose masterpiece film, "A Christmas Story" -- based on his radio broadcast stories and collections of published short stories, which were based on his life -- is beloved by millions and who's other career in radio also touched a generation of listeners. Despite his genius, he was an egotistical, cruel man at times and a completely absent father who denied he had children (he did, a son and a daughter). He didn't like his wife to call him "dear" in public, because he didn't want people to know he was a "sap who was married.." He was married four times. His last wife was instrumental in bringing his most well-known work to life on screen. She may have been the only person who truly knew him and was able to deal with him and his, to say the least, difficult personality.
All of this and more -- specifically his radio career in New York on WOR from the 1950s to the 1970s, is detailed in "Excelsior, You Fathead!" Bergmann does his best, as a longtime fan, to show the world this complicated artist. The book suffers for lack of a good editor for huge portions of it. Much of it is repetitive and dull, too circular and should have been cut.
But when Bergmann gets Shep right, he gets him right. I felt like I know so much more about the artist, who truly was and remains an "enigma." As a reader at least two generations removed from Shepherd, I only know him through the movie, so this gave me a chance to learn much that I found fascinating.
I'd been meaning to get to this book, as it had been on my shortlist for years. This season, I decided I finally had to read "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," and just had to read this too, as I've been curious about Shepherd all my life, and "A Christmas Story" is my favorite movie of all time. Plus, Shepherd is an Indiana native, which has made him all the more beloved in my mind. I still love him, but with a better understanding of the human being behind the movie narration.
March 12, 2010
I believe that it is possible to make something so orderly and so compartmentalized that it actually results in chaos. My mother is an example of this. Everything at her house is boxed and held together with rubber bands. Alike things are stored together with alike things, and everything in their places. She knows where those places are, but try to find office supplies at the computer desk and you can't; they're in a box somewhere in the kitchen or in a hall closet. In other words, she's so neat and clean and organized you can't find anything.
This book about the great multimedia genius Jean Shepherd is very much like all that. Shepherd is best known as the narrative voice on and creator of the hugely popular seasonal film favorite, A Christmas Story, but most of his career was spent on radio, particularly on WOR in New York City where he hosted an innovative all-night show of humor and wild flights of philosophical and personal fancy that influenced the beat generation and countless artistic creatives and comedians. Jerry Seinfeld calls Shepherd his primary influence, even though his style differs greatly from Shepherd's. Radio monologist Shepherd's oeuvre also included books, TV projects, a play and more. He was a philosopher and wit, cult figure, and possessor of a unique and irresistibly hypnotic voice.
Author Eugene B. Bergmann knows about as much as anyone alive about the elusive Shepherd, and, so far, this is the only book that has attempted to tell his life story and to analyze the uniqueness of his artistry. It's all in here and very informative, especially with its many transcripts of Shepherd monologues, but, somehow, it is so boxy and insistent on compartmentalizing the information that it flows rather poorly. For instance, unless you're already an expert on Shepherd, you wouldn't know what he meant by "Excelsior," so the book's title will mystify you. It isn't until the book is nearly halfway over that Bergmann explains it, and by then he's already mentioned Excelsior a few times previously in the text without explaining it. He refuses to explain it until it fits neatly into his boxy, stilted organization.
Bergmann threatens to kill the thing he loves here, at least for the reader, and for the first 50 pages (a tortuous and repetitive analysis of the nature of truth) I was ready to write this off as a complete misfire. Even though it recovers from this, somewhat, the rest of the book still remains a slog. Bergmann has great insight into Shepherd, offering countless examples of his art and themes, and he obviously put an incredible amount of work into it. But the book is overlong and overanalyzed. The serpentine organization of the material, the frequent repetitiveness, the poor flow, and the author's lack of concision and inability to cut any of his precious words make this more like a massive catalog about Shepherd than a readable book.
I'm very conflicted about this book: It's both recommendable and hard to recommend. It will be of great interest to anyone interested in Shepherd and his enigmatic contradictions, the history of radio, the beat culture of the '50s and postwar New York City, and in wit and humor in general.
I think every bit of the material necessary to write a great book about Shepherd resides entirely in the pages of this book, but it all needs to be reshuffled.
Like my mother's house, with its chaos of excessive order, this book is orderly but not "lived in." Ironically, Shepherd himself trafficked in a different kind of chaos, but of a narrative variety. I wish this book had taken that cue from its subject.
This book about the great multimedia genius Jean Shepherd is very much like all that. Shepherd is best known as the narrative voice on and creator of the hugely popular seasonal film favorite, A Christmas Story, but most of his career was spent on radio, particularly on WOR in New York City where he hosted an innovative all-night show of humor and wild flights of philosophical and personal fancy that influenced the beat generation and countless artistic creatives and comedians. Jerry Seinfeld calls Shepherd his primary influence, even though his style differs greatly from Shepherd's. Radio monologist Shepherd's oeuvre also included books, TV projects, a play and more. He was a philosopher and wit, cult figure, and possessor of a unique and irresistibly hypnotic voice.
Author Eugene B. Bergmann knows about as much as anyone alive about the elusive Shepherd, and, so far, this is the only book that has attempted to tell his life story and to analyze the uniqueness of his artistry. It's all in here and very informative, especially with its many transcripts of Shepherd monologues, but, somehow, it is so boxy and insistent on compartmentalizing the information that it flows rather poorly. For instance, unless you're already an expert on Shepherd, you wouldn't know what he meant by "Excelsior," so the book's title will mystify you. It isn't until the book is nearly halfway over that Bergmann explains it, and by then he's already mentioned Excelsior a few times previously in the text without explaining it. He refuses to explain it until it fits neatly into his boxy, stilted organization.
Bergmann threatens to kill the thing he loves here, at least for the reader, and for the first 50 pages (a tortuous and repetitive analysis of the nature of truth) I was ready to write this off as a complete misfire. Even though it recovers from this, somewhat, the rest of the book still remains a slog. Bergmann has great insight into Shepherd, offering countless examples of his art and themes, and he obviously put an incredible amount of work into it. But the book is overlong and overanalyzed. The serpentine organization of the material, the frequent repetitiveness, the poor flow, and the author's lack of concision and inability to cut any of his precious words make this more like a massive catalog about Shepherd than a readable book.
I'm very conflicted about this book: It's both recommendable and hard to recommend. It will be of great interest to anyone interested in Shepherd and his enigmatic contradictions, the history of radio, the beat culture of the '50s and postwar New York City, and in wit and humor in general.
I think every bit of the material necessary to write a great book about Shepherd resides entirely in the pages of this book, but it all needs to be reshuffled.
Like my mother's house, with its chaos of excessive order, this book is orderly but not "lived in." Ironically, Shepherd himself trafficked in a different kind of chaos, but of a narrative variety. I wish this book had taken that cue from its subject.
January 22, 2013
The first (and probably only) full-length biography of American humorist, raconteur, and radio personality Jean Shepherd has a lot of good information. I got to know his work through poison nostalgia pieces like The Phantom of the Open Hearth and his WOR radio show. Eugene Bergmann opened my eyes and ears to Shep's earlier career, his jazz improvisations, and his role as a pioneer of free-form radio. Bergmann is an impressive schlepper of facts, and this will probably remain the go-to book for anyone researching the man's background and career. But Bergmann's style could best be described as Higher Fanboy, and he is very weak on analysis and criticism. While it's easy to scorn the suits who pressured Shep to homogenize his act, there's no denying that many of his broadcasts (especially toward the end of his radio stint) could be dead-air wastelands of endless kazoo playing and tedious riffing. Worthwhile subject; adequate book.
July 8, 2011
A bio combined with a discussion and examination of why Shep was the way he was. Ultimately, he was not a very happy guy, but he brought many smiles and enjoyable stories to a lot of us.
July 9, 2012
I read this book a few years ago and my memory isn't what it once was so you can take this with a tub of salt.
I remember slogging through the book, it was very informative but I was only able to keep it up because of my excitement about Jean Shepherd and because I had already listened to over a hundred episodes of his show.
It was informative though, I didn't realize - although I might have suspected - that all his stories about Schwartz and Flick and Bruner were made up, I didn't know about his varied involvement in all sorts of other media besides for radio.
If you're a Shep fan, this book is your only option.
I remember slogging through the book, it was very informative but I was only able to keep it up because of my excitement about Jean Shepherd and because I had already listened to over a hundred episodes of his show.
It was informative though, I didn't realize - although I might have suspected - that all his stories about Schwartz and Flick and Bruner were made up, I didn't know about his varied involvement in all sorts of other media besides for radio.
If you're a Shep fan, this book is your only option.
January 2, 2023
only a yes is a yes, shepherd this book are no
Gore Vidal seemed fine at it. Lincoln, Henry Adams, Kermit Roosevelt, & and every parent who was to hustle to keep the kids feed and safe. There is a real good reason Shepard has half-assed outside of radio: it was never about the content it was always about the performance itself. As it was with Robin Williams. All this talk about Jazz & classical music is just so much more pseudo intellectual rationalization. Rappers do make it all up on the spot. The problem here is the 1950s last end or the era of this high art low art nonsense and false dichotomy. Western Civ and drive one crazy with its false dichotomies. There is no reality in them or in any of it. If one has to try so hard to succeed in tv or movies or whatever then one doesn’t get it. Shepard at best is a immoral, neural-diverse (Asperger syndrome) individual who found a way to be high functioning. But, was a harm to himself (wouldn’t accept responsibility) most certainly a harm to others. He didn’t leave his past behind he dragged it behind him till the day he died. Love the art ignore the artist, no van do. Love is always reserved for that which is alive. His dad leaving and army put the finishing touches on an already serious hurt person. Anger in this case was to fight the fear. I learned a way to tell stories in any medium by listening to Shepherd but in the end Shepherd promised to break my heart your heart and did. And let’s hope re-incarnation is real. You try for your publishers’ sake to talk a fine line, but the truth contrary to the books many forms of rationalizations and failed attempts at justifications for the things he did in life do not hide or excuse the evil of what he did to his children. All the lies all the lack of empathy and compassion for anyone but himself. This is tragic. Sad. It is heart breaking. It hurts bad
Gore Vidal seemed fine at it. Lincoln, Henry Adams, Kermit Roosevelt, & and every parent who was to hustle to keep the kids feed and safe. There is a real good reason Shepard has half-assed outside of radio: it was never about the content it was always about the performance itself. As it was with Robin Williams. All this talk about Jazz & classical music is just so much more pseudo intellectual rationalization. Rappers do make it all up on the spot. The problem here is the 1950s last end or the era of this high art low art nonsense and false dichotomy. Western Civ and drive one crazy with its false dichotomies. There is no reality in them or in any of it. If one has to try so hard to succeed in tv or movies or whatever then one doesn’t get it. Shepard at best is a immoral, neural-diverse (Asperger syndrome) individual who found a way to be high functioning. But, was a harm to himself (wouldn’t accept responsibility) most certainly a harm to others. He didn’t leave his past behind he dragged it behind him till the day he died. Love the art ignore the artist, no van do. Love is always reserved for that which is alive. His dad leaving and army put the finishing touches on an already serious hurt person. Anger in this case was to fight the fear. I learned a way to tell stories in any medium by listening to Shepherd but in the end Shepherd promised to break my heart your heart and did. And let’s hope re-incarnation is real. You try for your publishers’ sake to talk a fine line, but the truth contrary to the books many forms of rationalizations and failed attempts at justifications for the things he did in life do not hide or excuse the evil of what he did to his children. All the lies all the lack of empathy and compassion for anyone but himself. This is tragic. Sad. It is heart breaking. It hurts bad
January 15, 2023
Tough read, and I’m a huge fan of Shep dating back to the late 1960’s when I discovered his WOR radio show and short stories in Playboy.
I didn’t enjoy the author’s construct of co-mingling a biography with verbatim transcripts of his radio performances … but that’s just me. As a result, it took me months to finish as I kept putting it aside for long periods of time.
I finally finished it by skipping the transcripts and sticking to the author’s contributions, which helped me better understand his life and the complicated contrast of the man and artist.
I didn’t enjoy the author’s construct of co-mingling a biography with verbatim transcripts of his radio performances … but that’s just me. As a result, it took me months to finish as I kept putting it aside for long periods of time.
I finally finished it by skipping the transcripts and sticking to the author’s contributions, which helped me better understand his life and the complicated contrast of the man and artist.
December 19, 2007
I'm about 125 pages into this nearly 500 page book & it seems to be as much a psychological analysis of the man as a biography... and I'm not so sure I like this approach. The author seems fixated on the idea that Shepherd's stories were a mix of fact and fiction & that he never was quite straight about his own history. It's getting a bit old, IMHO.
I didn't realize Jean Shepherd was one of the first "talk radio" type personalities - I'll have to do some searching to see if/what recordings might be available.... wwww.flicklives.com is listed in the preface.
Notes & Quotes
Quotes from Jean:
- "But nevertheless, as an observer of the scene, I can only say that I have always admired people who can honestly say that they were influenced by Dostoyevsky."
- "I've often said and I still maintain this - that the big difference between humor and satire - I shouldn't say satire, I should say humor and comedy - is the longetivity of humor versus the short-term value of comedy."
Bergmann - "Trivia represents the culture of the common man."
To look for - 1950's sociological treatises
* The Lonely Crowd (1950) David Riesman
* The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Sloan Wilson
* The Organization Man William H. Whyte
Info on Lord Buckley - Dig Infinity! Oliver Trager
I didn't realize Jean Shepherd was one of the first "talk radio" type personalities - I'll have to do some searching to see if/what recordings might be available.... wwww.flicklives.com is listed in the preface.
Notes & Quotes
Quotes from Jean:
- "But nevertheless, as an observer of the scene, I can only say that I have always admired people who can honestly say that they were influenced by Dostoyevsky."
- "I've often said and I still maintain this - that the big difference between humor and satire - I shouldn't say satire, I should say humor and comedy - is the longetivity of humor versus the short-term value of comedy."
Bergmann - "Trivia represents the culture of the common man."
To look for - 1950's sociological treatises
* The Lonely Crowd (1950) David Riesman
* The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Sloan Wilson
* The Organization Man William H. Whyte
Info on Lord Buckley - Dig Infinity! Oliver Trager
October 29, 2009
Jean Shepherd is best known as the man behind the film "A Christmas Story" but radio was where he really shone. I had hoped this book would be a straight up biography but it turned out to be more of a study of his career & humor. The book is well written and it is obvious that the author researched it painstakenly, but it was just not that interesting to me.
April 29, 2014
This will be short and not so sweet. I was disappointed in this book for one reason, it read like a text book, and a very boring text book at that. I don't mean any disrespect because I know this work took hundreds of hours, and the information was very interesting, but like I said it was boring and I had to struggle through just to finish it
October 24, 2015
Mostly for Jean Shepherd fans.
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