Almost Interesting (21 page)

Chris came around, but it was an uncomfortable moment. Luckily, he faced reality and decided to focus on making a great film.

Now for the next problem we didn’t see coming. To direct the film, Paramount hired Penelope Spheeris. She was a hot director coming off the success of her documentary
The Decline of Western Civilization
and then
Wayne’s World.
Of course, that movie was a massive success and starred two
SNL
comedy leads, so it all sounded perfect to everyone but Chris and me. Trouble started right away. Penelope told us right off the bat that she didn’t love
Tommy Boy
and that she knew how to make Chris and me funny. That’s where someone should have pulled the plug. Then she ripped forty pages out of our script and said she would fix them with her writer. Fred and he had a few bad meetings and he was essentially kicked off the project from then on. She was making so much more money than us, she outranked us and that was hard for Chris and me to deal with. I wish Pete Segal would have done it but he was tied up. We all had it down and could have really made that thing a crusher. My gut told me Mike and Dana had made all the comedy decisions on
Wayne’s World
but for some reason they were giving the credit to Penelope. I didn’t get it.

In the movie, Chris and I shot a lot of scenes apart. This was odd, because the whole point was our chemistry. We were always funnier together. Chris was also asked to make the relationship between him and his brother slightly more dramatic, which I didn’t mind, but I personally thought the movie should be straight comedy with as many jokes as we could cram in. I could tell she really thought Chris was a great talent. Unfortunately I could also tell she thought I was not. It was package deal, and unfortunately for her I was part of the package so she had to deal with me. The shoot went all right but we had troubles along the way; it was just not a good match. Once there was a scene where I ran around singing “Summer Lovin’ ” from
Grease
. The idea was that I would be out in the woods, singing at the top of my lungs, when I am caught by a bunch of tough hunters. Then I would immediately switch gears and talk about how I wish I was blowing the heads off antelopes with my trusty twelve-gauge, never acknowledging that I had just been prancing around singing “Summer Lovin’ ”—both the Danny and Sandy parts. Twenty years ago this probably would have worked but it was not funny to Penelope. At all. She kept telling me she didn’t like that scene and wanted it out. Fred, Chris, and I stood our ground. We wanted to shoot it, but promised to get rid of it if it didn’t test well. Seemed fair.

The day of that shoot (another scene Chris wasn’t in) we were twenty miles outside L.A., in the middle of nowhere. We set up a crane shot and I was waiting in my trailer. I was all by myself . . . waiting . . . and waiting . . . until finally Penelope knocked on my trailer. She came in and shook her head. “I can’t do it. I’m not shooting it. I can’t put this scene in my movie. I hate it.” There was a pause while I went over my options in my head. I finally said, “Okay, got it. That’s a wrap.” And we all went home. With no cell phone, no landline, and no way to get to Lorne . . . there was nothing I could do, so I had to eat that one. Penelope has said since then that I have never made her laugh. That made a lot of sense to me. She just couldn’t say it out loud back then. I know my comedy isn’t for everyone but in my opinion, she never should have taken the job.

Despite all of that nonsense, the movie came out and still did pretty well. I liked a lot of it and so did Chris. We by no means hated it. There are fans who still really like that one and even a few who like it better than
Tommy Boy
. But if all the jokes and scenes that we came up with had been included, what that movie could have been when Chris was at the height of his popularity and on top of his game . . . that movie could have been fucking unbelievable.

A FEW MORE THINGS ABOUT CHRIS

A
s you can tell if you are reading this book, Chris Farley was a big part of my life, for a small amount of time. After what happened I got to chat with Danny Aykroyd about what happened with John Belushi. It was nice to have a cool dude I looked up to let me open up and ask questions on how to handle it all. I will always be remembered by many people first and foremost for the things I did with Chris. I’m all right with it.

Chris and I were so young and stupid on
SNL
and when we made our movies together. We thought we had it all nailed. I think we can all agree that he did. I was still learning, and happy to be his straight guy, hanging on for dear life in the tornado that was Farley. But more than the comedy, it was the fact that Chris was my friend that was the important thing. Our bullshit at
SNL
carried me through the times when I wasn’t exactly tearing it up on-screen, or in the writers’ room. I could rely on him to make me laugh or to laugh at my jokes when no one else would.

I wanted to share one more story that perfectly represents the nature of our personalities and our friendship. Not many know this story aaaand I wish it was classier but . . .

Once during our
SNL
stint I had the amazing luck to be dating a
Playboy
centerfold. Being the tool that I am, I had to puff up and bring the
Playboy
to work, bragging to my friends that I was hooking up with this hot chick. I showed the pics to Chris, Adam, and Chris Rock, and after a few high-fives and fist bumps (so street) we went to the read-through. Well, during the read-through, Farls sends me a crumpled note (no cell phones then) that said, “Did you look in our office yet?” I looked at him confused and he smiled like a psycho Cheshire Cat and then nodded and giggled. I was like “whatever.” Then on an intermission he asked again. I said, “No. What the fuck is in the office?” He just laughed and said, “You should look.” Then laughed a sinister laugh he usually did in the Gap Girls sketch. So I walked to my office with the others in tow only to find the
Playboy
magazine open on my desk, and the centerfold was covered in jizz. Chris’s jizz.

Yes folks, you heard right. He hustled out a jack-off sesh right before stressful read-through and was so proud of his work. He was behind me when I walked in and saw it, as were Sandler and Rock. We were all a little shocked, even though we thought it was funny. And gross. And crazy. Chris looked around at all of us, taking in our reactions. I could tell by the look on his face that he was suddenly worried he had gone too far. That made it even funnier. Chris
had
gone too far. He did every time. That’s what made him Chris. And the fact that I was such a lame little shit that I had to bring the mag to work to brag to my buddies, like a teenager, I deserved a hazing. I’m not sure that was exactly the hazing I would have guessed but it was a great example of how “out of the box” he thought. This was borderline psycho.

Chris always went right to the edge, and often over it. Taking things too far is the thing that made him Chris but it was also the thing that took him away in the end. I miss the guy every day.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SKIPPY

H
iring an assistant is a very difficult thing for people like me. Being an assistant to a celebrity (cue eye roll) is a vague job that everyone thinks is easy because you seemingly need low to zero skills. And zero schooling. Most people think it’s a total cakewalk. One of the first questions I get from model/actress types when they realize things aren’t going perfectly as planned in L.A. and that they may need some steady income (and don’t want to be hookers yet) is, “Hey, do you know anybody that needs an assistant?” They are like, “What do I do? Just pick up dry cleaning, gas up cars, fly to New York on a private jet and hang backstage at Letterman, hit premieres, and fuck off the rest of the time? Sure, I can handle that.” This was the type of assistant I had, when I first hired one. So I guess there’s a reason they think that. My first assistant was an old friend so she just hung out and shot the shit with me and did what she wanted, when she wanted, because I’m a softie, I never yell, and I am easy to work with. Naturally, they take advantage of me. I’d tell her to come over at 10
A
.
M
. and she’d roll in at 10:45 with a Starbucks going “The fucking 405 was nuts today!” I would sit there thinking,
Well, this isn’t new information. No one ever says, “If you want to save time, take the 405. Best-kept secret in L.A. Shhhh.”
The 405 is nuts every day! Then she said something to the effect of, “I can usually make it here in twenty if there’s no traffic.” Well, when’s that? Christmas Eve? Any other time it’s fucked. Never say “if there’s no traffic.” In L.A. that is not a real scenario.

When that one left to have a baby, I had to hire a new assistant. This time around I interviewed a guy and a girl. I knew the guy already. He was named Skippy. Well, that was his nickname. His real name was David but since I had dibs on David we went with Skippy to keep confusion down to a min. While I was deciding between Skippy and the chick, I got the unforgettable call that Chris Farley had been found dead. Since Skippy had worked for the director of
Tommy Boy
(that’s how we met), he knew Chris and knew me and knew all the parties who would be involved dealing with this disaster. So I just hired him on the spot.

By the way, I should say here that Skippy is six foot two and about three hundred pounds. He was a very nice guy, laughed a lot, was funny and easy to be around. Once on the set of
Tommy Boy,
he had been caught at the wrong place at the wrong time and I felt bad for him. Chris and I were doing a scene where we had to wait outside a house before going in to see Rob Lowe and Bo Derek. Unbeknownst to me, Chris was pissed at me that morning. The night before when we landed in Toronto, Chris had said he was sick and going to bed. I called Rob and asked him if he wanted to get a beer. And I found out later Chris didn’t like that. Why? Because I was sort of his wife. I mean, we were so close that it was weird. He was jealous that I called Rob and didn’t tell him. Now, I’d seen this angry look from him before. He would kind of bite his lip and stare at me. And it sucked, because it meant storm’s a-brewin’. It was like looking at a grizzly. I could run or try to make myself bigger.

I should have known that something was up because while we were sitting next to each other in makeup, Chris kept mumbling, “Where’s Rob Lowe? Hmm? Where’s Rob Lowe?” I just said, “I think he’s on the set.” And he’d start again, like Travis Bickle or some shit. Everyone’s eyes are darting around thinking “Um what’s going on?” So a few minutes later we were, outside the scene and waiting for our cue to enter. It was freezing. I was sitting on the ground eating a tuna sandwich and he was staring at me. Grinding his jaw, biting his lip. And staring. Eventually I said, “Can I help you, sir?” (to be a smart-ass, if anyone can picture that) and he stepped on my hand and sandwich, which were both on the ground. I popped up (this is the making myself bigger part) and threw my Diet Coke on him (so
Basketball Wives
). Then he pushed me down five stairs. And this was the textbook beginning of a street fight. Not a UFC fight, or actually any fight in history, but we were about to go at it. And by go at it I mean I’m about to lose quickly to this Ronda Rousey mothafucka. “ANNNND ACTION, DAVID AND CHRIS!” we heard over the walkie-talkie. We stared at each other for a beat then casually walked into the scene. I had the first line. I just stared, silent because too much was going through my head. Pete the director yelled, “What’s David’s line!?” The script supervisor said it. I walked off set. Pete was like, “Ummm, okay, let’s take a five.”

So I went to my trailer and Chris went to his, like Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj. We were two divas arguing about God knows what. Fred Wolf went to Chris and said, “You can’t go after Spade like that. We have a movie to finish. I know you guys are tired. And he’s smaller than you. If you’re going to fight, you can’t go after a dude that weighs 130.” This pissed Chris off even more, because Fred was not taking his side (not that anyone even knew why we were fighting). Chris calmly got up and looked out the window of his trailer to see Skippy walking by. He bolted out of the trailer, ran over, and tackled Skippy hard for no reason other than that he was pissed at me. Then he kind of laughed, and walked away. Skippy was dumbfounded but you can’t talk back to number one on the call sheet so he sort of chuckled and limped away.

Skippy was my assistant for about three years. He did a fine job. We got along. He did some improv comedy on the side. It was all good. Having an assistant means that you now have someone who helps do all the kinds of shit work you used to do when you were struggling. When you have an assistant it’s such an odd thing because all my life I was doing these kind of jobs. Valet parker, dishwasher, busboy, clothing store assistant, etc. So now to have someone working for me was so weird. I still wanted to be the “cool” boss because I had had so many dicks in the past. (Let’s not take those last eight words out of context.) But eventually, some weird shit started to happen. All was normal for a long time. But then I saw some odd things, like NBC asked if I wanted Dodger tickets. I told Skippy to say no . . . mostly because if you take something from the network, then down the line they can come asking for a favor in return.

And sure enough, I got asked for a favor down the line. I said no. They say, “Hey, come on, we gave you all those Dodger tickets.” I went to ask Skippy. He said, “They told me I could use them if I wanted.” Okay, so I’m still thinking,
Don’t be a dick about it. It’s an honest mistake.
Next odd thing is when I heard from Rebecca Romijn and Kid Rock (name drop!) that my assistant had texted them. Just to say what’s up. Nothing business related. Hmmmm. But the one that really hit me wrong was when he asked for a part in
Joe Dirt.
(Applause. “Oh, a few of you remember that one? Thank you . . .”) I told him I would see what was possible but that I didn’t have final say. Skippy was big, funny, and likable so I figured that maybe he could do it. But when we were almost ready to film the movie, Adam Sandler called me to suggest Kevin Nealon for the part because Adam thought he’d be funny for it. I agreed. Kevin’s always solid and Adam’s my boss. Easy enough.