Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian (19 page)

So even though I was age-appropriate as a teenager and resorted to some lying and pilferage, the truth is I was just a nerdy kid who was scared of fucking up and getting in trouble with his mother. I have since come to terms with that issue. Don’t you agree, Mom?

The thing about being a teenager is that the difference between right and wrong is often an in-the-moment judgment call. Unfortunately, I’ve known a lot of people who never learned right from wrong. Many are extremely successful in the legal profession.

It’s hard when you’re still a teenager—but it’s essential to figure out for yourself what you believe in, what’s right and wrong. That’s why certain “rules to live by,” like, say, the Ten Commandments, are maybe more than just a tedious set of dogma. I mean, no matter what you believe in as a human being, “Thou shalt not kill” seems like a perfectly good standard to live by.

And yes, there are always exceptions. “Thou shalt not kill” while “coveting thy neighbor’s wife.” Doubly wrong. This is why I don’t talk religion and politics. I always feel like I’m arguing with myself. And I live alone but once a fight with myself escalates it can really disturb the neighborhood. The only thing that calms me down in that case now is Taylor Swift music blasting through every speaker in my house. Two
A
.
M
. blasting from the jacuzzi—“WE ARE NEVER EVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER!!”

So no, I was not a hard-core youth, but I had to learn right from wrong like everyone else. And now, as a proud father of three who is inspired by young people, I sometimes feel like the stereotypical righteous parent telling the teenagers to “just say no”—unless it’s really good shit. That’s said facetiously, of course. Such a drag to have to add disclaimers, but I also don’t want to promote drugs—unless I’m selling them. Shit, did it again.

I just want to be your entertainer, not your gateway to stronger stuff. There’s another lovely quote. And don’t stick firecrackers up your ass on July 4. You’ll be left with a burned-out asshole. If you have more than one asshole you can ignore this because you’re one of the fortunate freaks who have an asshole to spare. One can never have too many assholes.

Back to “things I shouldn’t have done.” Okay, this is a big one. It’s about drinking to excess. This isn’t a twelve-step book by any means—that’s my next one. That will also be a twelve
page
book. Some of the people I have the most respect for are my friends and loved ones who’ve come out the other side: my twelve-step friends who fought the fight and continue to fight. They have inspired and influenced me to clean up my own act over the years. Not my stand-up. No one can clean that up.

I fantasize that my stand-up specials
have
been cleaned up when they’ve run in other countries, translated into other languages. I have this feeling people from other lands who speak no English do not even bother to translate my words, so there are no curse words or dirty subject matter. They translate everything I said originally into beautifully clean stories of love and kindness.

But getting back to the drinking I shouldn’t have done . . . here’s the scene. When I got divorced I was forty-two.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
said the secret to life is forty-two. It’s the answer to “life, the universe, and everything.” Kind of stuck with me after I made it through forty-two. To be honest, I was a bit out of my mind then. Damn, I’ve added that disclaimer to every year I’ve talked about.

This time it was in 1998. I’d just finished directing the movie
Dirty Work
for MGM with Norm MacDonald and Artie Lange. I came back to Los Angeles from Toronto and returned to live by myself at the beach for a year.

I was creatively inspired but personally adrift. My rewards in life were—and still are—my daughters. When I wasn’t out of town working, they lived with me on weekends, so during the week days alone in Los Angeles, I was a newly single man. I tried out the “just divorced shallow older single guy” landscape for a while. A couple years. Okay a little longer, because there was definitely a significant relationship in between a few times over a ten-year period. Until . . . possibly now? Whatever, my drunken “club years” were way too long. And they are over.

I was a fool. One of those idiots who brags to people, while intoxicated, that he can drive better when he’s drunk. I repeatedly committed a sin against humanity: drinking and driving. So many young dudes I see out in the world are competitive and wanna buy me shots and say they got fucked up with me. Sorry, bros, can’t no more. Shouldn’t have then. Can’t drink and drive. We lose too many people to it. So with all due respect, forgive my buzzkill fatherly honest advice—but just don’t fucking drink and drive.

I’m sorry to preach. I think I preach more to guys than girls because I never had a son. Well, the decade’s not over yet. [
Sound effects: record screech
] Fact is, I am lucky to be alive. I have zero tolerance for drinking and driving now—unless I’m driving a public bus.

That doesn’t even make sense. I don’t think the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority would let me drive one of their public buses even if it was for some television show. Hold on . . . That right there is a great idea we could sell together using the Kickstarter model. Let’s all go in as partners on a TV show called
Celebrity Bus Drivers
.

How cool would that be? We could all be “partners” and we would barely have to advertise it because the ads would be plastered on the side of the very same public buses! And the same celebrity bus driver could actually be plastered along the sides and back of the very bus he’s driving. Oh my God!! And the celebrity driver could be
plastered
too!! And that is how people come up with marketing ideas that go nowhere. That’s right, you’re welcome.

I’m now almost emotionally ready to tell you one of the life-changing stories that wouldn’t have taken place if in fact I had been on a bus. I am not by any means proud to tell this story, and if I could set the clock back on this one, I’d rewrite, reedit, recast, and relive it.

I was driving back from a college bar in Westwood with a comedian buddy of mine. That was a difficult sentence just now to pinch out. Some of us unfortunately go through a phase like this for some reason. It’s a handicap for being mortal in this fucked-up society. Again, no judgment—I mean, I’m calling
myself
out on this one.

As a parent, I look back at my behavior during this time in my life and find it repellent. Okay, some fun times with buddies were had, but looking back, I was a cliché. A divorced guy wanting to do anything but deal with his own life. I was a good father and good at my work, but frankly, how good can you be at anything if you’re driving the streets on booze? Not good. So I was fooling myself.

To smack myself around for your reading pleasure, here’s how I’d profile myself: I was divorced, dumb, sometimes drunk, and the luckiest asshole in the world for not doing anything that wound up hurting anyone. You may want to get a nice cup of herbal tea and a blanket to get all comfy for this one . . .

The year was 1927—oh, sorry, I fantasized we had just come into “talkies.” No, it was not that long ago—well, depending on your relationship with time. Okay, it was 2003, I believe. I was driving home on Sunset Boulevard from the UCLA area heading west to go toward the beach where I was living.

My buddy, a smart, dear, and brilliant comedian friend, was passed out next to me. He will remain nameless because since then he has had plastic surgery and changed his name and moved to Ecuador. Actually, no, he is very clean and sober and doing great in every aspect of his life. In fact, he has a groundbreaking podcast that I did an episode of not long ago.

So, kids, back to story time—I was driving and I blacked out and drove up the right curve on Sunset Boulevard just east of the 405 freeway. At that instant, my buddy woke up and said, “Man, did you just black out and roll up the curb?” We were actually balanced only on our left wheels for a couple seconds. I quickly slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car and said, “Yes, holy fuck, I could’ve flipped us.”

I was lucky. We were lucky. Again, they say luck is when opportunity and preparedness meet. Not in this case. This type of luck was whatever version of an “angel’s blessing” you subscribe to, even if you have no belief system. There was no preparedness involved. And definitely not an opportunity. Except one to change behavior.

I got myself as together as I could, focused on the road, and drove home very slowly, doing everything I could to stay awake. Would never do that now. We all need to pull over and call a cab. Although many of the cab drivers I’ve called have been more fucked-up than me. Then again, driving a cab is not always a dream gig. I am a master at stating the obvious.

Not long after that night where the dangerous reality of drinking and driving finally sank in for me, my friend worked on himself to clean up. Today, he hasn’t had a drink for over ten years. I have, but again, only when I drive the senior citizen mini-van from the Jewish Community Center to the Farmer’s Market.

My friend and I did have some fun during our dark times, which makes our reconnecting this past year all the more sweet. Neither of us wants to return to that drunken sea of late-night bickering with young girls who shouldn’t be where we shouldn’t be. Fuck, I probably just killed my chances of a great booze sponsor for my next tour. But there’s always Australia.

When you’re out late at a bar, and especially when you drink and drive, it doesn’t end up well. Occasionally at the end of the tunnel is a cop just waiting to take you in. A cop took me in once. Into his car, and I had to let him have his way with me so I didn’t have to take the Breathalyzer. Another officer actually painted his penis to look like a Breathalyzer to fake me out. He told me I had 5 percent. Just the tip. For clarity, everything after the word
cop
did not happen. When you look up the word
why
you may find this paragraph.

One of the most dramatic driving-after-one-drink escapades I ever went on was when my youngest child couldn’t get to sleep with her bunny, her favorite sleep doll. It was a stuffed bunny that had been left behind at her mother’s house. So my intention was a good one: get my baby her bunny.

The backstory on the bunny: The stuffing had come out, so one day, like a good newly single father in a panic to calm his four-year-old down, I sewed into it some crumpled paper to give it the appearance of a still-stuffed bunny. I think it was loose-leaf paper. Least that gets softer with time than copying paper.

My daughter asked me, “Why is my bunny so crinkly and hard?” I explained that I’d put paper in it because I didn’t know what else to stuff it with at the time—and I’d sewn it up all nice and neat so it wouldn’t come out. I’d have been more resourceful if I’d used dryer lint.

When a couple splits up, their kids’ things always get mixed between the parents’ houses. It can be traumatic, especially if it’s something that means a lot to your child. If my parents had ever split up, my treasured item would’ve been the calf liver I kept in a jar by my bed until I was sixteen. TMI.

So one night my daughter’s paper-stuffed bunny was at her mom’s house about a half an hour away. I’d had that drink at home—but last-minute, my daughter realized she didn’t have her bunny. And she needed it. I didn’t want her to be bunny-less for the night, but I think I overreacted a little. To the point where I was mirroring Liam Neeson’s character in
Taken:
“I don’t care what I have to go through or who I have to go through, but I. Will. Get. My. Daughter. Her. Bunny.” I got in my car and zoomed down the Pacific Coast Highway to go to her mom’s house to: Get. The. Bunny.

I was stopped by a police officer, who looked me in the eye and said, “Bob, you’re going twenty miles over the speed limit. Have you been drinking?” I’ll never forget this officer because he was so kind to me. I told him the truth: that I’d had one drink and needed to get my daughter’s bunny from my ex-wife’s house.

He told me in no uncertain terms, “I could run you to the station right now, especially if you tested too high with an alcohol level. But I’m going to let you go get the bunny if you promise me I won’t see you again speeding on PCH, especially with any alcohol in you. Next time I see you I’ll take you in, and they’ll read about that in the paper tomorrow.”

That was a fortunate moment for me. We have all seen those mug shots of people with any fame whatsoever who are taken into the station drunk and end up with a photo for posterity. And it’s always either with slicked-back wet hair or hair sticking out in every direction like Doc in
Back to the Future
.

I thanked the officer effusively and slowly pulled out from the shoulder of the road. He followed me, on my tail all the way as I drove the half an hour to my old house. Then he waited around the block as I got the bunny and even escorted me for the entire ride back. That was a very sobering moment.

To this day, I am appreciative of his compassion. The crinkly bunny was finally put quietly in my daughter’s bed, and I wrapped her sound-asleep arm around it. Mission safely accomplished. My record was still untarnished and most importantly . . . I got the bunny.

None of my fool stories end this easily resolved. One week later I was driving again on PCH at dusk, rushing to come home from work, and I was speeding again. Completely sober, but speeding. I saw the flashing lights and knew I was getting pulled over once again. Malibu is not that big a community. It was the
same cop—
rolling his eyes, trying to decide if he should just take me in or not. He told me he’d had a bad day and wanted to get home to his family:

“Bob, I told you I didn’t want to see you again, and now it’s just a week ago that I pulled you over. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, sir, perhaps give me one more chance, and I’ll drive slowly and be more cognizant than I ever have in my whole life.” It’s a book; I doubt I used the word
cognizant
.