If Ray was the heart and soul, Egon was the dignity and class...(RIP, Harold Ramis)

I went a little nuts in the 4th grade during the book fair.

We have an unusual blog today.  I'm not given much to use this as a pulpit to eulogize- one of the last celebrities I remember commemorating was Carson, and a few years back talking about my feelings on that terrible a-hole who still had an Academy Award winning/Bechdel-passing movie made about them.  I even tend to keep the one's that are closer to home, like my dad or my uncle's pretty mum.  there are things I feel comfortable sharin', and things that mean the grief is far too near.  Celebrities, for better or worse, have a latitude that means we can rhapsodize about them for good or ill.  And while I don't subscribe to anything tabloid-y, it doesn't mean that I don't keep apprised of what's going on in their world.  Usually it's just noise.

So today, I learn that Harold Ramis passed away after battling an undiscussed and undisclosed illness.  He was 69.

And in a year, a brief...brief 2014, where we've lost some pretty great one's?  This news has nailed me in the gut from the 1st moment I read about it.

Why?  It was probably after I found out that he was the main scribbler/director behind all of those great comedies I'd sit down and watch when I was a kid.  (Heavily scrubbed, in rotation after Noon on our local Twin Cities affiliate, channel 9.)  "Caddyshack", "Stripes", and "Meatballs" were on nearly ALL the time.  I don't even think I saw them in their original, unedited, form until I was in my very early teens. 

 I wanted to be Bill Murray.  Venkman, Tripper, et.al.  That was how I wanted to be in real life.  Cool.  Helped the little guy.  Funny.  Witty.  Scored with Dana Barrett.  Whenever we played "Ghostbuster's" (and we played it.  A lot.)  I was Venkman.  Except it wasn't Venkman, right?  It was the creation of this guy using Murray as his mouthpiece.  See what I'm getting at?  It was his creation of these characters, in these movies, that I love that I worshipped. 


Man.  After "Star Wars" ran it's course and even though I didn't understand some of the more adult aspect's of the humor of some of his earlier films like "Caddyshack" and "Meatballs", "Ghostbusters"?  Came along at THE perfect time for me.  With the balance of funny, scary, smart (did I mention I looked into getting degree's in psychology and parapsychology?)...yes, fantastical elements abounded...but here was a group of guys.  Just guys.  Not human spider's, bionic men, or grumpy telekinetic space-wizards.  And they all represented something about what I thought it meant to be a grown-up and "cool".  To be a little nerdy kid who liked reading and playing make-believe to not be in such a hurry to grow up.  ("Hey?!?  Does this pole still work?")  To question authority, and the accepted status quo.  (Within reason.  "Yes your honor...it's true.  This man has no dick")  To not give up in the face of adversity.  (I mean...you sort of figured Peter and Dana would get together, but it was her staunch refusal and his persistance and commitment to "All new old cheap moves" that eventually put them together)

And these were all his words.  His ideas.  Everybody gets a good line.  The a-holes always get their comeuppance.  Everybody gets Romance, even if they aren't stand-up heroes.  "Ghostbusters", and through no coincidence the other '84 comedies "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Real Genius" made it feel okay to be a kid who was in the Gifted program.  Who wasn't to great at sports, who liked writing stories and playing make believe, who had wistful love pangs for unattainable girls.  Even in the Scouts, I can tell you for fact that my brother and I were Patrol Leader's we were more in line with the Bluto's and Tripper's of the world versus the straight-laced/upright Walter Peck's/Dean Wormer's.   And the younger scouts dug that, and the Scout Leader's would tolerate it.  But I like to remember that we were fair and had fun.

And yes, celebrity worship is not my thing.  And yes, people die all the time.  In the last few years, I've lost my dad and very recently my uncle- two guys who had a tremendous affect on my sense of humor.  And I'm here to say that Harold Ramis had that effect on me, and all my fellow Ghostbuster lovers out there. 


And it's a big old drag.