The Witzard

MF DOOM/BIG BENN KLINGON? (CREDIT: Tim Saccenti) Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson. "Thanks for the inquiry. Like I was saying in that [Facebook] message, I had been wanting to make a DOOM series of mixes called Vik Ferrrari (Andy Kaufman character from the TV show Taxi) 'cuz DOOM has always been an Andy K. kind of character to me [...] Plus, I've always wanted to use the Vic ...

I can vaguely remember my parents watching Taxi re-runs on either Nick at Nite or TV Land when I was a kid; Starring alongside Tony Danza , Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd , Jeff Conaway, and Andy Kaufman (Latka) , who would all go on to have varying degrees of success, following the show's 1983 finale. Although generally lumped in with stand-up comics, Kaufman was more or less a hoax/performance artist and anti-comedian, for argument's sake. Andy Kaufman 's career really only spanned from 1974-84, yet included countless appearances on SNL , Taxi, 11 Letterman visits, The Dating Game, Johhny Carson , Fridays, Inter-Gender Wrestling [women], and a bloody staged on-air 1982 fight with Jerry "The King" Lawler , etc. Some of his most infamous stunts include: reading The Great Gastby to an unruly audience, taking 24 bus loads of fans out for milk and cookies, opening for himself as washed-up lounge singer "Tony Clifton," a pre-concieved TV brawl with M...