By Steve Staeger

Contributing Reporter

A logic class is the last place you’d expect to find a wild and crazy guy.

But in his new book about his life as a comic, Steve Martin writes that one of his biggest inspirations came while sitting in a logic class at Long Beach State College.

In fact, Steve Martin’s time in school inspired a lot of his comedy.  

“Sitting in a science class, I stared at a periodic table of elements that hung behind the professor. That weekend I went on stage at the Ice House and announced, ‘And now, I

would like to do a dramatic reading of the periodic table of elements.  Fe…Au…He.’ “

“Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life” chronicles the early life and stand-up career of Steve Martin.  It is part of his life that he has detached himself from to the point that he calls his writing a biography rather than an autobiography.

The book travels through Martin’s stand-up career starting with early gigs where he was placed on stage to try and lure people into an empty coffee house. At the capstone of his stand-up career, Martin attracted crowds of 60,000.

But “Born Standing Up” does more than just tell the story of Steve Martin’s career —  it actually allows you to enter his mind and see how his humor is formed.

In this account of his early life, Martin proves that his gift is not only making people laugh with silly dances and faux stupidity, but that he can also write in a witty and intelligent style.

When most people think of Steve Martin, they think of the goofy grey- haired guy who made up a song and dance about King Tut.  

After reading this book, and taking a more informed look at Martin’s work, you realize that he is a genius and an intellectual, and all of his humor, though wacky and in his words, “silly,” is the product of a lot of thought and a serious look at life.  

Although Martin writes of the events that made his stand-up career a period in his life that he couldn’t wait to start and subsequently couldn’t wait to end, they were events crucial to the genesis of a comic genius.