The anniversary of Dick Shawn’s death was yesterday (April 17) and I had intended to share this then, but there’s been so many posts about people dying here on Dangerous Minds that I held off. But fuck it, I love this video too much to sit on it. And any mention of Shawn is better than none at all, even if it is in the context of his dying. And Shawn’s dying, sad as it was, was also totally surreal - much like the man himself.

From Wikipedia:

In a stand-up routine in San Diego in April 1987 he was portraying a politician, saying “if elected, I will not lay down on the job.” Then he fell face-down onto the stage. The audience thought it was part of the act and laughed, but after a few moments of silence, someone came onstage, checked him out, and called into the audience for a doctor. Shawn had suffered a massive heart attack. He was dead.

Even as he was receiving CPR on stage, the audience was not sure whether it was part of the act or not, but they began to leave after paramedics arrived. Most of them were unaware that he had died until they read the notices in the morning’s paper.

Here’s Shawn as the tripped-out beatnik Lorenzo St. DuBois in the movie The Producers. The song “Love Power” is kinda punk, ain’t it?

And I give a flower to the big fat cop,
he takes his club and he beats me up.
I give a flower to the garbage man,
he stuffs my girl in the garbage can.
And I give it to the landlord, when the rent comes ‘round.
He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down.
It goes into the sewer with the yuck running through her,
And it runs into the river that we drink.
Hey world, you stink!

Shawn was a “hipster” before the term became a dirty word.