Cancer on Five Dollars a Day* *(chemo not included): How Humor Got Me through the Toughest Journey of My Life

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Copyright © 2008 by Robert Schimmel

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142.

 

Designed by Linda Harper

Set in 12 point Adobe Garamond by the Perseus Books Group

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schimmel, Robert.

Cancer on five dollars a day (chemo not included) : how humor got me through the toughest journey of my life / by Robert Schimmel with Alan Eisenstock. p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7382-1158-9

eISBN : 97-8-073-82126-6

1. Schimmel, Robert—Health. 2. Cancer—Patients—United States—Biography. 3. Cancer—Humor. I. Eisenstock, Alan. II. Title.

 

RC265.6.S29A3 2008

362.196’9940092—dc22

 

2007044913

All photographs courtesy Robert Schimmel.

First Da Capo Press edition 2008

 

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

 

Note: Information in this book is general and is offered with no guarantees on the part of the authors or Da Capo Press. The authors and publisher disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book. The names and identifying details of people associated with events described in this book have been changed. Any similarity to actual persons is coincidental.

 

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I met Robert Schimmel in spring of 2000. Schimmel was riding high. He’d previously won the Stand-Up of the Year Award, his HBO special
Unprotected
was a huge hit, he was a frequent Howard Stern guest, and his Fox sitcom
Schimmel
had been picked up and was slated for a September start in the time slot following
The Simpsons.
Schimmel was white hot, somewhat surprising for a comic who was about to turn fifty, but long overdue to those who knew him. Schimmel was the comedian’s comedian, the guy other comics would actually pay to see, the ultimate compliment because comics never pay for
anything.

It was also surprising because Schimmel worked blue.
Deep
blue. He would often start his set without a hello and would instead begin by saying, “So this girl’s giving me a blow job . . .” and he was off and running, segueing into a celebration of sex, a ninety-minute nonstop onslaught probing the pitfalls, frustrations, awkwardness, and sheer comedy that comes from coming. Was Schimmel ready for prime time? Or, more accurately, was prime time ready for Schimmel? Fox, known for taking chances and working close to the edge, apparently was unconcerned because the network had committed to thirteen episodes.
Emmy
magazine asked me to profile Robert, which I did for the June 2000 issue. Robert and I hit it off. After the article came out, we spoke for an hour on the phone and he invited me to attend his show at the El Rey Theater and the industry party in his honor afterwards.

And then it all came crashing down.

Schimmel was diagnosed with stage III non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His chances of survival hinged on undergoing an immediate and aggressive course of chemotherapy. Robert informed his manager, the Fox executives, and the show’s producers. The network put the sitcom on hiatus, which, in TV talk, means they dumped it. No sense investing in a show called
Schimmel
if Schimmel was about to die. So Robert lost his sitcom. And, of course, his fire went out.

But as his heat faded, he discovered something else. Something deeper.

When Robert Schimmel got cancer, he found himself.

Further, he came face-to-face with his soul. He saw that what he had been chasing his whole life up until then were mere
things,
material objects. Symbols of success and status. He realized that they didn’t matter. A person’s life is not defined by the size of one’s house or bank account. Material things, Robert Schimmel realized, are immaterial.

Originally we called this book
I Licked the Big C—And I Beat Cancer
because during his chemotherapy, Robert never lost his sense of humor, his knifelike edge, and, most of all, his passion to entertain. At the core of Robert Schimmel’s being is his absolute, basic need to make people laugh, even if the only people around him are suffering from cancer and the room he’s playing is the Mayo Clinic infusion center. Going for the laugh is his survival mechanism, an instinct as primal as another person’s need for food or water.

As soon as he was able to stay on his feet for an hour, Schimmel played Vegas. But he had changed. He refused to ignore his battle with cancer. In fact, he embraced it. He adjusted his act to include comic riffs about being diagnosed, smoking pot to alleviate his nausea, sex during chemotherapy, and losing all his hair, including his pubic hair.

But talking about cancer wasn’t enough. Robert went way beyond that. He closed each set with a ten-minute Power-Point presentation featuring photographs taken during his chemotherapy. He punctuated each picture with a joke, but the underlying message was clear: my comedy is raw but my life is rawer.

Few comedians had ever revealed so much about themselves onstage. Here was Schimmel, emaciated, frail, hairless, at his most vulnerable—and his most powerful. For with this naked truth—this fearless depiction of his disease, his decision to share it publicly, and his daring to laugh at it—something rare, if not unique, was happening nightly between comedian and audience: a connection that broke all barriers. It resulted in both a creative release and an unspoken bond. I’ve experienced this before after certain extraordinary evenings in the theater. I’d never before experienced it in a comedy club. Schimmel would call himself a comedian; I would now call him an artist.

Interestingly, he wasn’t less funny. If anything, he was funnier. This was measured by the sheer quantity and volume of the laughs. Before cancer, Schimmel was merely hysterically funny. After cancer, he nearly killed you. Every night when he finished his set and clicked off the last slide, the audience as one leapt to their feet. And as the house lights came up and the audience filed out of the club, their faces alternated between those who were still smiling and those who were overcome with tears.

One Thursday night in January at the Improv in Irvine, California, a young man named Jesse Gonzalez shared a table with his family. Jesse’s brothers, sister, and mother had bought seventeen tickets to see Robert, Jesse’s favorite comedian. The occasion was Jesse’s twenty-fifth birthday—and the one-year anniversary of his father’s death from cancer. Jesse and his dad had discovered Schimmel together a couple of years before during one of Robert’s frequent appearances with Howard Stern.

Jesse remembered that first time. “Howard introduced him, then got out of the way and let Robert roll. He was amazing. At that moment my dad and I became his biggest fans.”

That night in January, Robert had arrived late, just a few minutes before his set was to begin. In street clothes, his trademark suit in a plastic garment bag, Robert rushed into the men’s restroom and changed for his show. Five minutes later, he strode down the center aisle of the club, applause rolling like a wave at his back, sweeping him onto the stage. Ninety minutes later, all pretenses at politeness had exploded. The audience was on their feet, howling, clapping, five hundred strong delirious with joy and love, emotionally spent from both laughter and heartache.

Moments later, Robert, as usual, stood in the lobby signing autographs and selling CDs and DVDs. A line of people waited patiently to make their purchases, and possibly exchange a word, a handshake, and more often these days, a hug. Because Robert Schimmel, a newly crowned hyphenate—comedian /cancer survivor—now represented them, not only those who found sex funny and identified with Robert’s raw and raucous take on life and love, but also those whose loved ones were battling cancer and those who were fighting or had survived cancer themselves. Robert spoke to them and for them. They waited to talk to him. They were in no rush. They would wait as long as it took to see him. And Robert, in turn, would wait for them, as long as it took to see them. He was in no rush either.

That Thursday, Jesse Gonzalez waited in the lobby with his girlfriend, his mom, and his older brother. Jesse was a big man, well over six feet tall and three hundred pounds. He wore a loose-fitting hooded sweatshirt atop a chocolate brown T-shirt that announced in sunny, happy-face script, “Boobies Make Me Smile.”

As I stood to the side watching Robert interact with wellwishers, autograph seekers, and CD purchasers, I heard a soft moan. I turned and saw the big man, Jesse, begin to crumble. His knees buckled, and his brother and girlfriend grabbed him under his arms to keep him from falling. Jesse moaned again and started to sob. His face contorted in pain, he shook his head in a continuous windshield wiper motion. Somehow defying gravity, Jesse stayed in that position, hunched over, crying, clinging to his family, his arms draped over them as they held him up, for twenty minutes, until the line moved forward and he found himself facing Robert Schimmel.

Suddenly Jesse let go of his family and grabbed Robert with both of his meaty arms and held him in a body lock that fell somewhere between a bear hug and a boxer’s clench. His body heaved as he continued to cry.