Tag Archives: quixotic projects

Dennis Miller: A Stranger to My Own Soul

A while ago, nearly every season of Saturday Night Live was added to Netflix Instant, and I rejoiced. I was anxious to rewatch the episodes I remember from my youth–the Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey/Jon Lovitz years–and see if they were just as awesome as I remember. I also had very vivid memories of SNL band leader G.E. Smith, and the utterly nauseating “rockin” faces he would make as the show went to commercial. I wanted to see if this, too, was everything I remembered.

Sadly, the SNL episodes on Netflix are woefully incomplete, with tons of stuff cut out–some are as brief as a half hour long. And almost none of them retained the bumpers and the attendant guitar wankery I was looking for. ‘Twas a bitter pill to swallow.

But! I discovered something else while searching in vain for G.E. Smith’s painfully pursed visage. Did you know that while he was on SNL, Dennis Miller was acting in a one-man show into which he poured his tortured psyche? It’s true! I noticed that in every episode in which he appeared, at least once Dennis Miller would stare off into the middle distance and conduct a dialogue between himself and his innermost essence in a vain attempt to understand his place in the cosmos.

I have now captured these moments at a new Tumblr entitled “Dennis Miller: A Stranger to My Own Soul.” Tune there for regular excerpts from the Weekend Update anchor’s meisterwork. You can also follow the show on Twitter, where you can be apprised of updates and get occasional insights from the tortured late-80s mind of Miller himself.

So follow. And read. And be transformed by “Dennis Miller: A Stranger to My Own Soul.” Frank Rich once said of it, “the only things on Broadway that stink worse are the streetcorner garbage cans on an August afternoon and Legs Diamond.”