Official Book Club Selection (19 page)

“Well, we don’t know if he’s here yet,” the college rep said.

“At the school?” I said.

“No, we don’t even know if he’s in Florida yet.”

It’s now 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m.

“Well, do you have any hints that he’s left California?” I said.

“We don’t know anything.”

I felt a little psychic. So I said, “If Andy doesn’t come at all, no matter what, I’ll go out there and give it my best, and hey, maybe he’ll show up! Stay positive!” I knew, though, there was probably a 50/50 chance that he’d show up. Those aren’t terrible odds.

The gig was set up in the basketball court, a common venue at colleges. It can be great for music, but not for stand-up, because acoustically those spaces are better for accommodating loud noises, like a concert. And instead of nice theater seating, you’re dealing with metal risers on the side and metal folding chairs taking up the court itself. What’s fun about it, though, is you get a big audience, and for me, that was a huge audience. Something like 1,800 kids and, it turned out, adults, since it was homecoming weekend. Oh yeah. It wasn’t just eighteen-year-olds on their way to keggers afterward. It was alumni, the dean, and university staff.

So I’m out there trying to keep in mind the youth contingent—the MTV music awards, Britney and Justin, and any frickin’ young celebrity I could think of that I’d had a run-in with. Jokes about my seventy-something mom just weren’t going to be relatable. Anyway, the crowd was nice, and at the end I yelled out, “Thank you, everybody, get ready for Andy Dick! Good night!” and walked off. Meeting me halfway from the wings is a mousy unibrow-sporting girl from the audio/visual department who had squeaked out a shaky-voiced intro calling me “Kathy Griffith,” and now she’s trembling even more. “Um … Andy’s not here yet,” she tells me. “Can … you … keep talking?”

“Fuck no,” I said, and just walked away from her. Later I realized that was kind of rude—sorry, Unibrow Girl, if you’re reading this now—but we were sort of in the middle of the stage, and in my head I’m thinking, I’m saying no because I know Andy, and he might not be coming for a very long time. He’s not just parking the car or finishing up his costume, surely.

So Unibrow Girl quiveringly tells the crowd, “Give it up … ladies and gentlemen … for Kathy Griffith. We’re … waiting for Andy Dick … who’s not quite here yet …”

And just then from the side of the stage comes Andy’s distinctively flamboyant roar: “I’m HE-E-E-E-A-A-RRRGGGH!”

The A/V girl’s pleasantly surprised that he arrived. And me? Well, with just those two words, I know he is Fucked. Up.

Andy walks out in a suit, and he brings his band out with him. He starts by saying, “You guys all think I’m gonna be Matthew from Newsradio, don’t you?” His words are slurry, that sibilant meow of a voice is kind of trailing off. “But like, I don’t really have an act. Kathy’s got her stories, but like … I don’t really … have anything. I didn’t really … prepare anything. For you guys. So …”

And I’m like, “O-h-h shitballs.” The audience is confused, they’re not sure if it’s part of the shtick or not, and they’re just looking at him. He’s not giving in, either. “S-s-s-s-seriously, I don’t … have anything. I didn’t … do anything.” And then, out of the blue, “You guys are all looking at me like I’m a FAGGOT.”

Pause. “You think I’m a FAGGOT?”

Nervous laughter, signs of discomfort are emanating from the crowd. Maybe it’s a bit, they’re thinking. But … maybe it’s not a bit. Is he supposed to say the word “faggot”? Those kids are there for a show, and to be able to laugh and blow off steam. And here’s this guy saying over and over, more belligerently each time, “Quit lookin’ at me like I’m a FAGGAHT! YOU’RE THE FAGGAHT, FA-A-A-GG-A-A-AHTS!”

Whatever I do or don’t know about Jacksonville, Florida, I’m pretty sure eighteen-year-old guys there don’t like being called “faggot” over and over on a microphone when they’re at a comedy show. Maybe there are audiences out there that would enjoy the on-the-ledge aspect of this brand of humor, but when it’s guys who will be piling into pickups to go to the Outback steakhouse afterward or a frat house to drink cheap beer, they probably don’t want the word “faggots” ringing in their ears on the way there. No surprise, the crowd starts to turn, and one guy gets the nerve to respond, “Yer the faggut!”—which of course Andy in his Andy Kaufmanesque way loves.

Cue a louder, even more aggressive Andy: “DID YOU CALL ME A FAAAGGGAATT?? YOU’RE THE FAAAAGGAAAHT!!!”

At this point those nice audio/visual department kids come up to me with crisis-management looks in their eyes, as one of them says, “Ms. Griffin, would you like us to take you out of here?”

“No,” I blurted. “Get me a folding chair, a cheese platter, and a Diet Coke.” Who would want to miss this?

I park myself in the back of that theater in a little protected area offstage where I could see Andy but he couldn’t see me—thank God—and settle in for the train wreck. Now, a tiny part of me is thinking maybe I can help in some way if Andy really goes too far. I’ve known him long enough that if I had to (and I never have), I could play bouncer and go grab him by the seat of the pants and pull him off the stage. I’m sort of on standby, I realize. But really, I wouldn’t have left that spot for all the money in the world.

Suddenly, without warning, Andy’s off the stage and out in the audience. It’s pitch-black out there, so there was really no way to tell who had yelled back at Andy. The sound is bouncing. But he picks some nearby random audience member—there was no way it was the guy who actually heckled him—and says, “I’ll show you who’s the fag now, FAG!” And with that, Andy pulls down his pants, revealing his lack of underwear, and starts grinding on some poor guy’s lap. It really was like one of those Abu Ghraib prison photos. The look on the audience member’s face was like, “All I wanted to do was come to a comedy show and now I’m being called a ‘faggot’ and getting Andy Dick’s bare ass rubbed on me!”

This whole episode happened at lightning speed. Andy is stealth. He was back on that stage as if it had never even happened. The audience was traumatized, like they’d been given a roofie. The vibe from the crowd had turned as well. “I think something really bad just happened. It was over fast, but I don’t feel right. I don’t feel good about myself. I feel dirty.”

Andy, meanwhile, is on to the next thing. “Oh, you guys, this is my band, and I’m gonna do a song!” he cheerily announces.

“I gotta go change, there’s gonna be a few minutes where you guys are gonna be looking at nothing. Does anybody sing or dance? DO YOU GUYS DO ANYTHING?”

People are genuinely looking at each other like, “Oh God, now I have to perform? I just got over the guy getting a bare-assed lap dance.” There was lots of murmuring of the “Do you do something? I could do card tricks, I guess?” variety.

Sure enough, one guy raises his hand, a big man with long, straight brown hair in a ponytail and a beard, and he says in this southern drawl, “Well, ah could SANG.”

“Where are you from?” Andy asks.

“Ah’m from right here in Jacksonville,” he says.

The minute I saw this guy, I recognized him. His nickname is Big Fat Paul. I know him because he travels with Andy and he does bits with him. They do the kind of bits at clubs that end with them bloodying each other, or one of them puking. These are committed guys. So I am now the only person outside of Andy’s group who knows this man is a plant. Everyone there thinks he’s an audience member. Everyone there thinks he’s a local. Everyone there, I begin to think, is fucked.

Andy prodded everyone to give it up for one of their own. “CLAP, you guys! CLAP! He’s gonna come up! BE NICE!”

Big Fat Paul had some story about how he was a town florist or something, and when he gets onstage he acts as if he’s unfamiliar with the mic. He turns to the band and says, Well, ah mean, ah don’t know what songs y’all have, but ah mean, I wrote a song, and if y’all want to follow me, that’d be fine.

At this moment, the audience is almost a little calm, because they’re probably thinking, Well, at least Andy isn’t out here calling us “faggots” repeatedly. Maybe one of our own is going to rescue this.

I got a second Diet Coke.

Paul starts singing a made-up song called “Hey Go-Go Girl,” in this surprisingly sweet, Sinatra-style crooner voice.

After a little while, Andy reenters in full drag, dressed as a go-go girl. I mean, white-fringe minidress, white platform stripper boots, white fishnets, huge blond wig, and drag makeup he’s obviously slathered on very quickly. Paul picks up the pace, and Andy starts doing some very funny go-go dancing, like something out of Laugh In. Real Goldie Hawn-in-the-cage stuff.

As Paul is singing “Dance, go-go girl! Dance!” Andy’s dancing gets more frenetic. Then Big Fat Paul in character starts to act like he’s so sexually attracted to Andy’s go-go girl persona that he can’t stop himself. As he sings faster, he moves toward Andy and starts gently grinding up against Andy’s butt. Andy affects a look on his face like, “Who the fuck is this guy?” Andy tries to wrest himself away, making hand gestures as if attempting to keep Paul from touching him.

What happens next takes place in a flash. Paul, who’s 300 pounds, grabs Andy and pulls his dress up, and sure enough, Andy is wearing nothing underneath. You just see his dick flapping in the wind. Paul throws Andy on his stomach and proceeds to act as if he’s ass-raping him. This happens for maybe four seconds, after which Paul makes his exit, running into the audience like he’s filled with shame.

Remember who’s watching all this: not just students, but storied alumni wondering what in God’s name had become of the glorious educational institution they once attended.

Overall, the audience at this point looks like those see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys. There’s a smattering of traumatized gasps, appalled outbursts, nervous laughter, and then walkouts. Those metal risers echoed in a symphony of disgust: CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK, with plenty of shouts along the lines of “I’m fucking outta here!”

As if that weren’t enough, Andy is back on the mic, and with full commitment starts screeching, “I WAS JUST RAPED! AND YOU DID NOTHING!” Now, there was an element of the audience that you could tell was genuinely thinking for one second, “Oh my God, did I really watch this poor little one-hundred-seven-pound comedian get violated by some freak?”

But it’s mostly a lot of walkouts, a controlled chaos as people can’t get out of there fast enough. And then, the one truly unplanned thing happened: Somebody hit the fire alarm.

BOOOWUP BOOOWUP BOOOWUP BOOOWUP.

It’s now a melee. All you hear are people flinging themselves off the risers, out of folding chairs, trying to find the exit, going every which way, holding hands buddy-system-style. As the fire alarm keeps sounding, Andy looks pissed because his bit ended too soon. He looks bored, and barely even cognizant of the fact that 1,800 people are basically running amok. “Fuck it,” he says, drops the mic, and walks offstage.

I was there to meet him, and so was a reporter from the city paper, with a tape recorder. Right away, I knew this was not good. Remember, Andy had fully exposed himself. Now, I’m sorry, but Andy is my junkie. I have a theory that everyone has a relative in prison, and everyone has a junkie. Think about it. Look at all your friends and relatives, and I’ll bet you have a junkie. It doesn’t mean you own them, or clean up after them, but they’re a presence in your life. Well, Andy had been my junkie for a while, and a little part of me thought, I don’t want Andy to go to jail for this.

The reporter starts right in, “Did you expose yourself? It looked like you exposed yourself.”

“I don’t know what happened!” Andy replied in a woozy tone, clearly sensing a chance to continue his bit for the benefit of the press. “I took my … I think I was RAPED out there!”

I jump in, “Sorry, Andy’s not doing any interviews!”

“Oh, can we talk to him for a—”

“No, Andy’s not doing any interviews!” I yell as I pull him away.

As we get some distance on the reporter, Andy turns and says, “Are we gonna go eat something?” We had plans to eat after the show, but in an attempt to keep his ass out of jail, I laid down the law and said, “Yes, Andy, but at a restaurant, not a bar. We’re going now. We’re getting a meal, and you need to stay away from any reporters.”

“I have to come in your car,” he says. “I lost my limo.”

I’m dumbfounded. “How did you lose your limo in Jacksonville, Florida?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” he cried out. “GA-A-AHD!”

“Fine. We’re going to a restaurant, but it’s just you and me. No boys.” Andy has a penchant for eighteen-year-old boys. As well as girls. He can’t decide. “No eighteen-year-old boys. I’m not gonna get pulled over in fucking Jacksonville, Florida, with you and some fucking teenager.”

“All RIGHT, GRANDMA!” he screams.

So I’m waiting in the limo, and when Andy hops in he goes, “Let’s go eat!” He’s acting like nothing’s happened. Sure enough, three college boys get in. I say, “You’re fucking kidding me. I might be codependent, but I am not going to jail for this shit.”

Andy closes the door, and as the car was pulling away, I turned to all three boys.

“You guys all know you have to blow Andy, right?”

Two of them instantly hop out of the moving vehicle.

The other one shrugged, and stayed.

Do I look thinner?

Trust me, if you’re watching TV or a movie and you see a pretty lady over the age of seventeen, she’s had some shit done. (Not you, Miley. You’ve got at least six months before Daddy signs you up.) I would estimate that a lot more women and men in show business have had plastic surgery than not.

But this is my chapter about plastic surgery, so I’m not implying in any way that these experiences reflect any of the plastic surgery that, oh gosh, may have played a part in the lives of, say, if I were to pull names out of thin air, Mickey Rourke, the cast of Desperate Housewives, Al Pacino, Nicole Kidman, and the Octomom.

It’s still a taboo topic to talk about and admit to, so let’s get to it, shall we?

I got my first nose job when I was twenty-six. This was in the ’80s, when face-lifts and boob jobs weren’t as common, but nose jobs were everywhere, and altering my nose—one of my more Griffinesque features if you look at the rest of my family—was a no-brainer, especially after I’d meet with prospective agents, who would just be brutal about this kind of stuff. I’ll never forget one agent who said to me, “You could be pretty if it weren’t for that awful nose.” But he said it as casually as if he’d said, “Would you like some water?”