Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian (11 page)
Sam Kinison had a funny physical bit about having sex with his wife—about how she would buzzkill him while he was trying to have sex with her by bringing up errands and daily chores he had to do for her. He would disconnect the mic as though it was his dick and mime being behind his wife. He’d thrust himself toward the audience, miming as if she was in front of him, and yell at the back of her head, “Come on, let’s do this . . . ah, that’s good, baby.” And then she’d kill his buzz: “We’ve gotta fix the fence. It needs another coat of paint.” Then he’d go off: “Can we talk about this later?! I’M TRYING TO FUCK YOU . . .” And then he’d scream: “AHHHHHHHHHHGGGHHHH!!!!!”
I never made a decision to be a dirty-bastard comedian. I just did then—and do now—what I find funny. I like entertaining families too. Man, does that read oddly. Over the years my sick litany of humor may be blue at times, but predominantly, it’s just silly. There’s a time and place for cursing. And I never wanted to do it just arbitrarily for shock value. Fuck.
Sam was just one of the many interesting people I had the fortune of knowing in those years. It’s amazing how many of us came up through that circuit, doing spots at the Comedy Store and the Improv, and the other clubs in L.A. that started lots of us as well, the Comedy and Magic Club and the Ice House. And later, the Laugh Factory. Always memorable names. They were more than just nightclubs, they were stores that were open for business based on the premise that you would pay some money to the owner and you would be compensated with laughter. That’s not a bad trade. Just entertainment. Simple in theory, but complicated when a lot of people who’d perform in New York and L.A. wanted a career break so they’d never have to work in those places again.
There came a time when all my peers seemed to be “graduating,” getting their own television shows and movies, while I was stuck doing the same thing, hosting the Comedy Store, doing spots at the Improv, getting occasional gigs on the road.
This was during the big comedy boom when Robin Williams was about to do
Laugh-In 2
and Michael Keaton was cast with Jim Belushi in a CBS show,
Working Stiffs
. For a period, it felt like I was never going to get “out of the clubs.” Every couple months another one of my comedy friends was becoming a breakout star . . . Arsenio Hall, Howie Mandel, Garry Shandling. Not to mention the earlier comedians I’d only just met in the clubs who were already popping off to the next stage of their careers: Robin, Keaton, Billy Crystal, David Letterman.
David was always kind to me. I even offered him the option of sleeping with my cousin Joyce, because I’d heard they’d gone out once. He seemed to like earnest younger comedians who worked hard and had an original voice and dignity. And I could never have displayed more dignity than I did when I offered him my cousin to sleep with.
As smarmy as the atmosphere often was, I somehow knew I was in the right place to learn from all these funny people, but I always felt ten years behind schedule. And that kind of thinking can keep you there. You gotta do what Rodney said, “Just go like a tank.” You can’t care about someone else’s career path. If anything, I was at my best during those struggling years when I was sincerely happy for my peers’ successes, not walking around like a loser late at night, being fed by the negative patter of comedians out of work: “How’d he get that?” “Why wasn’t I submitted for that?” “They wanted him over me?” “I hate my agent.” “You’re lucky you have one.” All negative commentary, all said to this day standing outside of comedy clubs around the world. And none of it moves anyone forward.
It’s all about timing. I may have been remotely likable, but I didn’t have the high-energy performance combined with the kind of material that I knew could’ve set me apart. It’s almost like I chose to make the life of a stand-up and the many thousands of sets onstage—just the whole thing itself—the best takeaway from all those years.
I don’t regret it. I learned something very simple and significant in those years: I loved doing comedy. I loved watching things I’d introduce one night turn into something much funnier a few days later. A craft it is. Just like acting, writing, and slicing deli. Slicing deli is actually regarded as a trade, but I will always look at it as a craft.
There are many exciting art forms enveloped by show business. I love many of them as much as I do stand-up. But stand-up comedy does something unique. It allows an artist to go onstage alone; weave together all their writings, thoughts, feelings, and emotions; and then share them live, directly with an audience. There is nothing like a stand-up audience. Because there is nothing like a stand-up.
This feels frighteningly like I am about to spontaneously burst into a comedian’s sound-alike anthem version of “God Bless the USA.” So in that vein, I’d like to dedicate this chapter to all our young women and men around this entire planet, out there every day, risking their lives and presence of mind, selflessly bringing laughs into the hearts of millions of human beings who need to laugh so badly.
Bill Cosby said it pretty eloquently: “Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.”
And once you have survived the difficult times in your life, if you choose to, and have that gift, you can channel them through stand-up. And then you can proudly, and with no shame at all, tell your audience things like: My newest Grammy-nominated stand-up comedy special,
That’s What I’m Talkin’ About,
is available now on iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix. God Bless America.
I will never forget my first time on
The Tonight Show
Starring Johnny Carson
. In all my appearances with the TV legend, I never did straight stand-up, just paneled with him and tried to weave in my comedy as stories in the conversation, which he was a master of. So on my first appearance on
The Tonight Show
—well, first appearance with Johnny (I had appeared once previously with guest host Garry Shandling)—I talked about this real dream I’d had with Johnny in it, a dream about us in a limo together.
He found the story compelling, apparently, and had me back numerous times, always treating me with great respect. At the time, with more than I imagined I deserved. I couldn’t believe I was actually on Johnny’s show. I’d watched him my whole life, just loving his humor, his style, and the comedians he enjoyed having on, never even considering the possibility I’d be a stand-up one day.
I find it fascinating that I just wrote the words
I’d watched him my whole life
. People come up to me and say “I’ve watched you my whole life” and they are sixteen. That is their whole life. Then I shake their hand and feel my elbow crack and think to myself, Holy shit, Bob, you are really not sixteen anymore.
I remember when I was only eleven and had a poignant moment, as a viewer, watching Johnny on New Year’s Eve. I was staying in Washington, DC, visiting my cousin Tootsie—that’s right—and her husband, Jules. They had a dinner party to go to so I stayed home in their beautiful apartment near the Capitol with my aunt Becky. She was actually my dad’s first cousin but was so old I called her “aunt” out of respect.
I knew it was going to be a rough evening because I was going to have to sleep in Aunt Becky’s room, and she was a giant snorer. So I stayed as long as possible in the den watching the entire
Tonight Show
. It was ninety minutes long then. Johnny made my night. He brought in the New Year for me. I’m not sure I recall correctly, but I believe he lit a sparkler and then made fun of it, saying that was all the show had in the budget for fireworks.
When I finally went into Aunt Becky’s room, she was asleep and I arrived to a chamber of THX sounds the scope of a George Lucas film. She was in one single bed and I was in another—I crawled into my bed but couldn’t sleep; the snoring was insane. So I used my resources, grabbed a couple tissues, balled them up in my ears, and to secure them, put a ski mask over my head. All was good. I laid my head down to sleep but suddenly had to sneeze . . .
The volume of my eruption woke Aunt Becky out of her Snuffleupagus coma, and when her head sprang up at exactly the same time my head came up, she screamed at the sight of this person next to her in a ski mask. I started to yell, “
No, Aunt Becky, it’s me!”
and grabbed the ski mask to pull it off, but that only made her scream more. It was quite a scene.
She didn’t have a heart attack, though she may have soiled herself. Eventually things calmed down and we both went to bed. It was a memorable night, but what stuck with me above all else from that New Year’s was having watched Johnny Carson. That’s the thing about late-night TV like Johnny—as a viewer you feel an intimacy, like you have a personal relationship with him. Not creepy if you accept the whole host–audience broadcasting premise.
From then on I was a huge fan of Johnny Carson and by the time I was sixteen I was watching him every night—and his frequent guest, the beyond-hilarious Don Rickles. Of course, I never dreamed that I would be so fortunate as to have Don as a dear friend today, that this icon would be someone whom I now have dinner with and revere as I would my own father. With the exception that if I was at a dinner with my own father, I wouldn’t be subject to Don’s famous ridicule and told over and over again how little I mean to him.
All right, sorry, these damn tangents, back to the dream about Johnny Carson that I shared with him on the air . . .
So I’m on
The Tonight Show,
telling Johnny about my limo dream: I was in the passenger seat, Johnny was driving. He politely acted intrigued that I’d made him the driver. In the backseat were comedian Buddy Hackett, legendary drummer (and friend of Johnny’s) Buddy Rich, and actor Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett, Barnaby Jones). Three Buddies. Only a comic can dream in alliteration. I turned to Johnny, telling him and the audience, “This is true . . .” I said that a lot. And Johnny responded the way he did with most stories I’d tell him by saying, “I don’t care if it’s true or not, just tell it already.”
So as the dream goes, we drove into a ditch and water was pouring in and close to covering our heads. We would’ve drowned, except I saved everyone, Johnny first. He said, “Uhh, thank you very much.” And then, in order, I saved Buddy Hackett, Buddy Rich, and went back much later for Buddy Ebsen. I looked into the camera and said, “Sorry, Mr. Ebsen.” Then I turned back to Johnny and said, “Then we all went back to your house and you gave us your robes, slippers, and pajamas to put on and we sat around and had milk and cookies.”
Didn’t take a therapist to figure out I wanted to be accepted into show business. Many years and appearances later, Johnny had me on, for the last time, just two weeks before he left the show entirely. On that night I’d given him an engraved watch, thanking him for his “thirty years of great service.” He seemed visibly touched—until I whipped out another dozen watches and started handing them out to Ed McMahon, Doc Severinsen, the band, and later, Bill Cosby. Bill came out and said, “I want one of those watches,” so I gave one to him, and he stood at the center of the stage and stomped on it with his foot.
All in all, I was on
The Tonight Show
with Johnny thirteen times. After one appearance, Johnny passed my mother and father backstage and politely listened to my mom say, “It’s so nice to meet you. We think you’ve been doing a
very
good job.” Thanks, Mom. Man had been the king of television for thirty years and Dolly Saget thought he was doing a
very
good job. But he was the king. And my mother was, and still is, Dolly Saget.
So for around a decade I was floating as a panel guest with thirteen appearances on Johnny, and roughly the same number with David Letterman, and also with Conan O’Brien. I count talk show appearances like Rain Main counts lines in the sidewalk. In my early twenties, some of the first television I ever did was
The Merv Griffin Show
. Thirteen times on that one. Ask any comedian when they’re starting out how many times they’ve been on a talk show and they’ll know the exact number. Merv was very kind to me. He never touched me either. I’ve been relatively unscathed. Merv was very good to comics, as was Johnny. I appeared once on
The Mike Douglas Show
from Philadelphia but only because I was an intern on the show during college.
Any time I reflect like this on showbiz things from the past I feel like I’m dating myself. Well, at this moment in the book writing process I
am
dating myself. I’m gonna get to second base tonight. Second base is still “copping a feel,” right? I get to second base every time I say the Pledge of Allegiance. Or take a shower. Or massage my tits. Until they lactate. That’s always an unexpected buzzkill.
What’s third and fourth base now? Third used to be something involving fingers, and fourth was going all the way. I think fourth now is anal sex while both people are standing in front of a jet engine. That should be third base and then you could get your head blown off while you’re getting your head blown off. Best way to go—ever. I’d be shocked if anyone doesn’t flat-out agree with me on that one.
But back to
The Tonight Show
. Of course I didn’t just
wind up
on Johnny Carson’s show. There were a couple beats in between, during my early struggling comedian days. Stand-up is hard and success is elusive. But back in 1986, I had finally started to feel like the eight years of comedy on the road, and thousands of sets at the Comedy Store and the Improv, had begun to pay off. Especially when I got to work with Richard Pryor, in a Paramount movie called
Critical Condition
. He inspired me beyond words. Silly to type that, right? I mean, he was Richard Pryor.
But before I got to work with Richard on that film, I’d spent many weekends hosting at the Comedy Store seeing him perform and getting to know him a little. He was already a big star. I mean, again, he was Richard Pryor. One night my spot was bumped because Richard had decided to go on. To make me feel better, he asked me if I wanted to go outside and see his new Testarossa. I was dumb, didn’t know it was the name of a car. Thought he was making a joke, like he was gonna show me his dick on Sunset Boulevard.