Crash and Burn (17 page)

“Yeah, that would be great,” she said, smiling.

I couldn’t believe my luck, this was amazing! She was twenty-five, her name was Adrienne, and that is officially how she entered my life. She met me in the best shape mentally and physically that I’d been in a long time, and after I got to know her I warned her about how I usually was and what I’d just come through. I’d referred to myself as Hurricane Artie for a while by then because there’s no better metaphor: when I was in full-tilt dysfunction I was a storm that destroyed everything in its path with an “eye” that made people think everything was okay just before the most destructive wind and rain hit them.

“Things are calm now,” I told her, “but hanging out with me you’re entering a hurricane, which could be bad, but I swear, I hope things will be only good now. For the first time I really want to try.”

She took it in stride; she was sweet and young and beautiful and a breath of fresh air in my life. And lucky for me she was willing to take a chance on me. After the first time we met I saw her the very next day when I realized that Norm MacDonald was doing a guest spot on the season finale of
Saturday Night Live
. What better way to impress a girl than to take her to the
SNL
finale after-party?

SNL
flew Norm in to do his impression of Burt Reynolds for a celebrity
Jeopardy!
sketch that included Will Ferrell as host Alex Trebek and Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery—an impression that seemed to get better every time he did it. Will Ferrell was hosting the
show that night, and he and I had been friends for years—we’d been in
Old School
and
Elf
together. We enjoyed each other’s company and always cracked each other up, so this was going to be a great night, not to mention a great season finale. The same night my good friend Colin Quinn was doing the last performance of his brilliant one-man Broadway show
Long Story Short
, in which he discussed the economy, the fall of our society, and the history of the world, all in just over an hour. Colin’s show was as genius as his shows always are, and I was so envious of him being able to bring such intelligence, current events, and informed opinions to what was at its core a great piece of stand-up comedy that I had to see his swan song. I also wanted to see him personally and let him know that I was doing all right because he’d always been such a steadfast source of support for me when it came to beating drugs. Backstage at his show I ran into Mandy Stadtmiller from the
New York Post
and we chatted awhile, which resulted in her running an item in Page Six the next day saying that I was fifty pounds lighter, had a tan, and looked like a human being for the first time in a while. I have to say, that made me feel pretty good! I made sure to show Adrienne that piece of news because I needed all the proof I could get to make her believe I was worth her time.

After Colin’s show, which was in a Midtown theater, I walked over to
SNL
at 30 Rock and hung out with Norm in his dressing room. While we were there I met Bobby Moynihan, the heavy kid who joined the show in 2008 and looks eerily like a younger me. I also saw the great comedy writer Jim Downey, who is a friend I hadn’t seen in years, and Norm and his assistant Lori Jo, and I just had a blast. It felt great to be out there on the town, sober and enjoying myself, because I’d had no idea I was even capable of that, but I was. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out among my peers just having fun, totally sober. It had probably never happened. I have to say it was a great help that the whole time Norm was wearing the crazy Burt Reynolds wig and mustache because I was so transfixed by
it that I didn’t think about anything else. First off if you haven’t seen it, YouTube Norm playing Burt Reynolds on
SNL
—his impression is uncanny and hilarious. He’s naturally got that same twinkle in his eye that Burt has, so when he puts on that getup he looks so much like Burt, down to the fake hair, that it gets surreal after a while.

I called Adrienne from the dressing room, again, trying to impress her. “Hey, I’m up at
Saturday Night Live
and my friend is on the show tonight—a couple of them actually—and it’s the season finale, so there’s an after-party downstairs in Rockefeller Center. Do you think you’d like to come?”

“Yeah, that’ll be great!” she said.

So that was our first official date—the
SNL
finale after-party, which was in a bar/restaurant on the first floor of Rock Center. It was half-inside, half-outside, and since it was lightly raining, the whole scene was very romantic, with people kind of huddling under the canopies, and all the lights of the buildings twinkling through the mist. I sent a town car to pick her up and bring her there, but I had one small problem: I didn’t have a cell phone, so she couldn’t call me when she arrived.

“You don’t . . . have a cell phone?” she asked, confused and a little concerned. For a twenty-five-year-old, someone who didn’t have a cell phone was like someone who didn’t have a head. Instantly I was a weirdo.

“Yeah, I’ll explain it to you later,” I said. The truth was that now that I’d gotten clean and sober, Helicopter Mike, Joe the Cop, and my family insisted that I not have a phone for a while for obvious reasons. I’d hoped to avoid laying all my cards on the table with this girl right away, but it looked like I’d have to. At least not before I impressed her with
SNL
.

I needed to give her a number, so I borrowed my fellow comedian Craig Gass’s cell phone to call her, and when I asked him for it, he looked at me with the disdain of a twenty-five-year-old. I told Adrienne I’d wait outside of Radio City until she got there, and that’s
what I did. Half an hour later I was standing there in that light rain when the town car pulled up and she got out, looking even more beautiful than I imagined she would. I think about that moment every single time I pass by Radio City, which was every weekday for the most of the first year of my radio show, since our first studio was just a block south of there.

Adrienne got to meet Will Ferrell and a few other people she thought were funny on that night and we did the rounds and had a great time. She drank, but I didn’t because that was going to tempt me back to the dark side, and she was totally cool with that. We found Craig Gass and I returned his phone, and he took one look at Adrienne and understood why I’d been so intent about borrowing it. I had a weird interaction with actor Paul Rudd, which foreshadowed a much weirder one that would happen a month later on
Joe Buck Live
. During the
SNL
broadcast I’d told Craig Gass that I thought Rudd sucked and wasn’t funny, so as he and I and Adrienne walked by Rudd, Gass said loud enough for everyone within ten feet to hear: “Hey, Artie, there’s the guy you said sucked!” That’s Gass for ya, but Paul is such a classy guy that he shook my hand, smiled, said hello, and took it in stride.

It was a great first date and we had so much fun that afterward we went back to my apartment and stayed up until seven a.m. just talking, barely even kissing, just getting to know each other. It was very sweet and once the sun came up I drove her home. When I got back to my place and got in bed all I could think about was when I would see Adrienne again. I felt like something really cool was starting, and for once I felt like I might be capable of having something that cool and that real in my life. At that moment, everything seemed possible.

————

I’m not sure I ever got used to having the details of my life made public as instantly as they are when you’re a cohost on the
Stern Show
. It is weird and unnatural and for the brief periods when I was sober
I felt just how strange that reality is with every cell in my being. Everyone is on the spot on the show, which is half the appeal to the audience, but during my last days there, when I was really going down the drain, I felt that spotlight on me more than ever and it was hot. When I started dating Adrienne, for the first time since joining the show I realized that the attention I always saw as an advantage could be a problem because for once I had something in my life I wanted to keep private. Maybe I’d learned a lesson after having my entire relationship with Dana broadcast over the air, or maybe I was just sober—who knows. All I can say is that this new relationship was special, so I didn’t want to fuck it up and I didn’t want anyone butting into it. I wanted it to grow on its own, but that was impossible, of course, because there was no way Howard and Robin were going to let it be. That’s just not how it works on
Stern
, so I got hit with a million questions, and I had to honor the show, so I answered most of them. I ended up giving up more details on the air than I wanted to; put it this way, from the start Howard and Robin heard more about Adrienne and me than my closest friends had. I couldn’t help it: it was Howard and it was Robin and if I didn’t satisfy them they’d make fun of me for four hours every morning until I did. The whole thing made me very self-conscious, and it also made me realize that I really wanted something serious with this girl.

The microscope of the
Stern Show
has other consequences too: when Howard turns his insightful interview eye on you, he’s got a way of luring anybody in the world into revealing more than they ever thought they would. The problem is that in his presence, even though you know you’re on the radio, most people (even his co-hosts!) forget just how many people are listening. This phenomenon caused problems with every single woman I dated during my time on the
Stern Show
, whether it was just one night or a few years, and Adrienne was no different.

I got myself into even more trouble when it came to sharing my opinions of famous people. I’d be talking as if Howard and I were
just on the phone shooting the shit and I’d say off-the-cuff things like “I saw that Chelsea Handler’s show and I don’t think she’s that funny, do you?” A simple above-the-belt comment like that became, in the hands of some reporter interviewing Chelsea a few days later, me saying she wasn’t talented and didn’t deserve a talk show. This actually happened. I can’t blame Chelsea, because that version was an insult, so she responded and my simple opinion started a mean-spirited conversation between us via the media—because we never talked to each other directly about any of this. While we’re on the subject, Chelsea’s response to me was actually funnier than most of her shows: “Artie Lange? He’s grotesque. If I could find one who would, I’d pay any woman five hundred dollars to sleep with him. Honestly, any woman willing to sleep with Artie Lange, I’ll pay you five hundred dollars right now to do it.” I’d just like to say, Chelsea, that your assertion is complete bullshit. I have many friends who will testify, under oath, to the cold hard truth that I’ve gotten plenty of women to sleep with me for as little as $250.

Anyway, things were going all right. I was seeing a shrink that I liked very much, and I was enjoying my life and the world in a way I hadn’t in years. I kept up my sobriety for four solid months, even as it came time to record my second live DVD,
Jack and Coke
. I’d been working on my stand-up act for about a year and a half, and by Saint Patrick’s Day that year I felt I’d perfected it and was ready to capture it, so I put the wheels in motion. We shot the thing on May 28, 2009, at the Gotham Comedy Club, which is owned by my friend Chris Mazzilli. I had an hour and a half of material that I’d do for two different audiences, and we’d compile the DVD from there.

I couldn’t think of a better title:
Jack and Coke
, two great tastes that taste great together, even though I was clean and sober (and happy) and enjoying neither at the time. That is when I felt that I was at my peak, and sometime just before that I told Mike and Joe that I didn’t need them on the road with me anymore. I felt that I had my sobriety under control and could handle it all on my own. I even
invited the two of them onstage and talked about how they’d gotten me sober. It was a very emotional moment, but it was completely delusional on my part because it came just five short months before I tried to kill myself. I wish I’d listened to Mike when he told me that I needed a year of nonstop, twenty-four-seven supervision. I really do.

The sobriety I was so proud of onstage that night wasn’t going to last. A week later I slipped up, but going into the taping I was on top of the world when it came to my addictions. I had the Howard TV guys on board to produce the thing for me and it eventually became a Comedy Central special, which I’m very proud of. It didn’t air until the following January, and there was no way I’d miss the premiere, even if I had to listen to it from under the covers in my bed on a psych ward. That happened, by the way.

Like I said,
Jack and Coke
was shot on May 28, 2009, and it was craziness backstage because I’d invited everybody I knew. Adrienne was there because we were going out regularly by then, and I was just so happy when she was around because I still couldn’t believe she wanted to be with a guy like me. But she did, and we were becoming really close, really fast. Both of my sets killed that night, so the product is really great if you ask me. If you ask any critic on the planet I’m sure they’ll disagree because generally the “art” I make, most “tastemakers” hate.

Overall that month of May was hectic as hell for me. When you’re a cohost on a four-hour-a-day radio show that starts at six a.m., you’re basically fucked because if you have any kind of life or engage in any activities that are somewhat nocturnal you’re setting yourself up for extra stress. There’s a reason why I slipped back into drinking, then into drugs not long after this: I did every single thing that they tell you not to do when you’re freshly sober. They tell you not to jump into a relationship—did that. They tell you to avoid adding extra burdens to your work life—did that with my stand-up schedule, the DVD taping, and every other commitment I piled on. They tell you to avoid situations that are full of temptation where you’ve indulged
your addictions in the past—did that by going right back on the road, into comedy clubs and casinos where I could get anything I wanted whenever I wanted it.