Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian (23 page)

All you can see, out of your blurry peripheral vision, are these people running past you. Some even step on you and crush your ribs because they don’t see you on the ground lying flat on your face. So you summon all your emotional strength and confidence to pick yourself up and . . . get back in the race.

Now imagine you’re running alongside the other runners again. But now it’s the very end of the race, and the runners speeding past you to the finish line are only the incredibly slow or way overweight ones. Doesn’t matter, you’re right there with them. You did it. You may have come in last, but you’re not alone. There are other losers there with you. And you just “picking yourself up and getting back in the race” makes you a winner.

And through that blood gushing out of your nose, and your broken and battered body, you start to sing to yourself, kind of like Sylvester the Cat after he gets smashed to smithereens: “Thhhatttssthh liifffeee . . . Thtataathhhs whaatt all the pppaah-pppaah-peeeoplle tthhhhaayyyy.”

The spirit of that song tells you, you know you’re gonna get over it. Even though you pretty much feel like shit for about a year because you chose to follow the lyrics literally and you picked yourself up and got back in the race and were trampled over.

And then you wonder—maybe you shouldn’t have gotten back in that race. Maybe if you were going through such a tough time in your life, you should’ve skipped the marathon that year and just gone right to the neighborhood bar and drunk your pain away. Watched the race on TV.

But you didn’t. And you learned. And now you know. There’s always next year. And if you’re not so imbecilic as to fall flat on your face at the start of the race next time, you could even finish with the runners who come in first, near the
front
of the race. That’s what drives people to move forward, the belief that with hard work, you too can be number one.

And if not, then at least you learn from it being ingrained in you that day—that, okay, you are a loser—and it’s okay not to be number one. Then you can finally embrace
that.
Maybe even stop needing to be in races. Maybe racing’s not your thing. Maybe it’s badminton or chess, or being a chicken mascot at a Little League game . . .

And maybe, just maybe, you don’t have to base your life on lyrics from a Frank Sinatra song. Just ’cause Frank was the Chairman of the Board is no reason to have to follow his every lyrical command. Or if you still have to worship Frank and all his lyrics, perhaps try other Sinatra songs: “All of Me,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and eventually, you can get to “It Was a Very Good Year.”

These days I can’t help but talk in this weird self-help, parental-type way. It comes from a real place. It’s my genetic makeup. My daughters aren’t just “beards” for me to look like a nice guy.

So with that in mind, for all my young readers, I’ll continue my Tony Robbins Jr. motivational rant for just a little longer if I may . . . This is assuming you’re not older than me and looking for parental advice from this book. If you
are
older than me and looking for me to be your father figure . . . I’m flattered . . . and completely creeped out. But I am here for you, old sweet child of mine.

My biggest advice is, whatever you choose to do with your life, do something you love, whether you’re going to be number one at it or not. Not everyone has to be number one. Coming in third on
The Biggest Loser
could be the biggest win of your life. Not to mention, it means you can go right back, the day after shooting, to your solid diet of thick-cut bacon and ice cream shakes. By the way, why would they call a show
The Biggest Loser
? Seems slightly mean, doesn’t it?

But really, not everyone can be number one. Look at me, I’m not great at sports. I like ’em. I
love
going to a game, but playing most group sports was never my thing. It’s kinda fucked-up to have to admit that in a book. There are so many good athletes out there. I have jock envy. I was always itching to be a jock.

That’s not to say I haven’t had some decent luck in public a few times. I can par a hole-in-one every ten years and then lie fifteen every hole after. Gimme a golf cart and a cigar and I’m a happy man. And an honest man. I never lie about a hole.

Teed up by my dear athletic actor/director friend Jonathan Silverman, I once got an RBI at a Hollywood All-Stars celebrity charity baseball game. I was at Dodgers Stadium, I hit the ball, and I ended up with turf toe. That means I ran so hard my toenail came off in my shoe. Spaz attack. But I made it to first base.

John Salley was there to meet me as the first baseman. I jumped up, clinging to John, and his comment, coolly, to me was, “Are you the new Jewish kid in the neighborhood?” Sandy Koufax I was not.

So there you have it, no hiding anymore. I’m out now as a guy who under the heading of “sports” on his acting résumé listed all the things he was actually pretty good at: biking, swimming . . . biking . . . walking, sitting, lying, oh, and standing.

When I was eight I was playing football with a bunch of kids. The ball got thrown to me and I panicked and ran the other direction. Got a touchdown for the opposing team. They have names for kids who do that. Mine was “Fag.”

And the first syllable of my last name was an assist. But I got knocked down and I got up again. Because you’re never gonna keep me down. Thank you, Dad. Thank you, Rodney. And thank you, Chumbawamba.

We get up and reinvent ourselves. We all have stuff happen that detours us from what we expect. But every morning there’s—in addition to morning wood—the faith that the new day will let positivity and growth into our lives. It’s always safer to not take chances and to not get your heart broken and try your best to not break someone else’s. I’ve never taken the safe route.

GPS is a good metaphor for “safe-routing.” I’ve driven with my car’s GPS and my iPhone’s GPS on simultaneously, and both of their lady voices go out of their way to fuck me up. Especially when I’m driving across ancient American Indian grounds. That’s a true fact that I think we can both be thankful I am not expounding upon.

I used to always make it more difficult for myself to get to where I wanted to go. Not anymore. I cut to the chase quicker. Doesn’t always go as I’d like it to go, but I try to waste less time. Time is the most valuable commodity. More valuable than tires.

The Greek playwright Aeschylus was correct when he wrote, “Wisdom comes alone through suffering.” I don’t know if his plays were ever successful. But he wrote some good shit.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve always felt throughout my life that I was ten years behind. Okay, not at ten. That’s why I enjoyed being ten. Didn’t feel like I was still held back at zero years old.

Admitting in this book that I’ve always felt ten years behind is tough for me. Concerned it’s too personal. And throughout the process of writing this, I’ve often experienced these moments of hesitation—not just because the material is personal but because I imagine other people who may be reading this who’ve been through their own hard times.

That’s why I haven’t wanted to write a book until now. I’m honored you want to read my stories, even though I’m still deciding if I should write this book. It’s probably a little late not to write it now, as this has already been published. We’re past “just the tip” at this point. Do you feel anything? Is it good for you? Am I in yet? Please don’t look me in the eye and say my name.

Maybe in addition to the audiobook, I should release this in dry-erase board form. Or Colorforms. Just to give you the option to remove things as you see fit.

Getting back to the ten-year theory, none of us know in life what the next ten years are going to bring—in the world, in our health, work, family, relationships . . . Again, if you’ve got it all going on at the moment—your work is good, your family isn’t a pain in the ass—then bless you. Freeze it, ’cause life is sweet. And it goes fast.

I’ve learned to appreciate those frozen moments. Life is like my sperm. I want to freeze it sometimes. It’s nice for the company. I’m cherishing my life right now, because as soon as I get into the next lascivious chapter, as life imitates art, some weird shit will end up in my life just as I’m writing about weird shit.

Every few years, work shows up in my life completely unannounced. A couple of those types of career moments changed me as a person just as much as if I’d been in a long-term relationship.

When I lost my sister Gay to scleroderma in 1994, I wanted to share our family’s story with others and let them know they weren’t alone in this battle. So in 1996 I directed a television movie for ABC called
For Hope,
starring Dana Delany, that was “loosely based” on events that “directly” affected my family. It was a very emotional and fulfilling project and a poignant moment in my life, one I will always treasure.

That TV movie helped put scleroderma on the map and inspired me to continue working toward the effort to fund research for the disease. At the time, Oprah graciously devoted a half-hour of her show to the telefilm: She had me on, along with Sharon Monsky, the founder of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. Sharon had played herself in the film, and Dana Delany was brilliant as Hope, a woman stricken in her prime with this prevalent but still largely unknown disease.

The great experience with
For Hope
made me want to direct more. I did a few TV movies—
Jitters,
Becoming Dick
—and I loved making them . . . but the wildest experience, without question, was the Norm MacDonald comedy feature I made for MGM, called
Dirty Work
.

Norm claims I was the first comedian he ever saw when he was a teenager in Ottawa. Yes, I met Norm MacDonald when I was twenty-one and he was only seventeen. I remember picking on this smart-looking kid near the front row of a club and razzing him over his large hair-fro. Years later, I got to know Norm better. I had hosted
Saturday Night Live
and when he needed a director for the script he’d cowritten, he decided I might be the right guy.
Dirty Work
is about two guys, played by Norm and Artie Lange, who open a revenge business to try to raise fifty grand to buy a new heart for their dad, played by the amazing Jack Warden.

We shot the movie in Toronto, and part of the modus operandi was that everybody had to behave. Artie Lange had to stay clean and sober, and we had to bring in all the renegade comedy actors as quickly and efficiently as we could so they could get in and out before their loved ones and the government knew they were gone.

I was dealing with my own personal stuff at the time, going through a divorce—flying my daughters and parents to Toronto so I could spend some time with them.

The movie had a cool cast that’s an honor to name-drop: Chris McDonald, the great late Chris Farley, Traylor Howard, and Chevy Chase, with cameos by David Koechner, Adam Sandler, John Goodman, and an icon whom I have the pleasure of having become very close to since that movie was made . . . Don Rickles.

Don played the abusive movie theater owner. Norm and Artie and the other ushers in the theater were being verbally abused by Don’s character, so their task was to screw him over—by switching the film
Men in Black
with
Men in Black: Who Like to Have Sex with Each Other
. The end result being the firing of the theater owner.

(© by MGM/Photofest)

We were all in worship mode in the presence of Don, having been raised on his killer appearances on
The Tonight Show
and all of the Dean Martin roasts, in addition to having seen him perform live for years.

I caught some crap that day after aiming two cameras at Don and just letting him riff. With our two thirty-five-millimeter cameras, I used up several magazines of film on Don and was informed I’d gone through our whole film stock budget for the day. If only digital had existed, I wouldn’t have been “disciplined.”

The result was a classic scene edited by George Folsey Jr. of Don just ripping Artie apart: “So there you are, Tubby . . . You look like a bucket o’ lard on a bad day . . . You baby gorilla . . . Why don’t you work in a zoo and stop bothering people . . . I got a call yesterday from Baskin Robbins . . . They said that they’re down to only five flavors . . . You’re swelling up as I talk to you . . .”

It was hilarious. To this day, Don tells me he’s always hearing from people how much they loved
Dirty Work
and how funny he was in it. He’s told me more than a couple times that I’m one of the few directors who just let him go and do what he does. He says if only he’d known sooner how much people loved him in the film he would’ve tried harder to work with me in the ten years that followed.

Since then, through John Stamos—who’s been very close with Don for a long time—I’ve gotten to know Don very well. I love him like a father. At this moment in time, he is the godfather of most of us stand-ups. It’s not “old-school,” it’s just “school.” Last year I had the great pleasure of honoring Don at the Friars Club dinner in New York. He is one of the last, if not the only, cuttingly on-mark, professional, kind, and dignified men who have ever done comedy.