Richard Belzer died in February. We weren’t friends but were friendly; I was more a fan than anything else. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, I saw him perform many times. “The Belz” became a legend not because he got old and nobody knew what else to say about him but because he did legendary things: He hosted shows at New York City’s hottest showcase club, Catch a Rising Star; worked as the first-ever warm-up comic for Saturday Night Live; and opened for Warren Zevon on his infamous Excitable Boy tour in 1978.
