I'm Not Gonna Lie (11 page)

I escaped.

But just for the moment.

•   •   •

I
dismissed the doctor's reaction. I didn't think about it. I didn't pursue it. I didn't say, “Man, I'm eighteen years old, an athlete, and I have high blood pressure? What's with that?” No. I didn't go there. Besides, who would I tell? My grandparents had conditioned me to tough it out, to battle through pain or discomfort and ignore any potential warning signs. I've never figured out if my grandparents didn't trust doctors or if they were afraid of what they would find out if they went to a doctor. Maybe a little of both. Anyway, I kept moving forward, continued pushing on.

By the time I reached my twenties, I wet the bed less frequently and then almost not at all. But by my late twenties, I started to feel fatigued at the end of every day. Every morning I woke up tired no matter how much I'd slept. I chalked that up to overworking. I was busting my ass, going on the road, working at club after club, honing my act. It paid off. My career started to catch fire. Late-night talk shows began to notice me. Then, in 1991, when I was thirty, the booker from
The
Arsenio Hall Show
called and offered me a spot. A big break.

As I sat in the green room waiting to go on with Arsenio, I felt unusually warm. Sweat pooled under my arms, on my neck, and then I felt that the back of my neck was drenched. I stood up. My knees felt rubbery. I took a step and the room started spinning. The door flew open and the stage manager burst in, shouting back at a thin, metallic voice that squawked at her through her headset. She pointed at me, then wheeled her arm in a circle like a third-base coach waving in a runner. I was on. I followed her to the stage, desperately trying to keep my balance. She steered me to my spot on the stage. Lights above me flicked on, their high beams drilling me, baking me. Rivers of sweat poured off me. I heard Arsenio's introduction and the audience's applause and I began my set. I somehow made it through, the distant sound of laughter and applause bouncing vaguely around me. I went straight home after the show, stripped off my sweat-soaked clothes, and took my temperature. I had a high fever. I drove myself to the doctor the next day, and he gave me his diagnosis: pneumonia. He prescribed antibiotics, and in a couple weeks I was back to normal. Normal, that is, for me.

What the doctor didn't realize was that pneumonia can be a side effect of kidney disease.

He would have found that out if he had done a full blood panel.

Which, of course, he didn't.

•   •   •

SEVEN
years later.

I'm constantly fatigued, due, I'm sure, to my ferocious work schedule. I refuse to complain or cut back. I live to work.

One morning I wake up with a dull pain in my lower right side. I pop some Advil. The pills have no effect. I pop some more. The pain persists through the day, making it hard for me to walk. I work through the pain, hoping that it will go away. Basically, I approach the dull pain in my side the way I always approach pain and discomfort: I ignore it.

After a while, the pain lessens but I start to become fatigued. I drag my ass to Canada to play some club dates. A friend tells me about some supplements he heard about that increase your energy, which happen to be illegal in the United States. I find them for sale in bulk in a bin at a Canadian pharmacy. I buy a bagful, down a couple, and feel my energy amp up instantly.

I go to Las Vegas to play a weeklong gig at a major hotel on the Strip. I keep taking the supplements, but lower the number. My appetite decreases. I find that I'm constantly thirsty and I have to pee seemingly every five minutes. One night, I finish my first of several sold-out shows—a challenge, because I have to pee the whole time I'm onstage. I rush to the bathroom in the club, the crowd's applause breaking like a wave at my back, and position myself at the closest urinal. I start to pee and I gasp.

My piss is purple.

At first I think I'm pissing blood, but I realize I've never seen purple blood. “What the hell is that?” I say.

I move in tighter to the urinal to make sure nobody can see what's happening. I look away, hoping that maybe I'm hallucinating; maybe it's something in those supplements, but I've cut way back on those. I think maybe it was something I had for dinner, but I don't recall eating any purple food, can't even think of any purple food. . . . Wait—eggplant, plums, grapes, licorice, cauliflower . . . have I had any of those? I look back down. . . .

And I'm still pissing purple.

“Damn, I'm pissing
purple.
”

Of course, it's obvious what I will do the moment I finish pissing purple.

Nothing.

I do nothing.

I don't tell anyone.

I don't go to the doctor.

I should have gone to the doctor. I know that.

But I have shows to do.

And I think I had some baba ghanoush the other night. It was probably bad. Tainted baba ghanoush. Yeah. That's what caused the purple pee. Must have been.

After a couple of days, I stop pissing purple. Just like that. No more violet whiz. That must mean everything's okay, right?

No. Of course not. Purple piss must mean
something
. And that something cannot be good. Doesn't matter. I ignore this warning sign, this bright, flashing, blinking, deep purple indicator light. I pretend that I never saw it.

I finish playing Vegas and hit the road for a series of club dates in Texas. San Antonio. Houston. Austin. I'm killing every night.

And every day I feel like I'm dying.

The pain in my side returns.

Only worse.

The dull ache becomes a constant, jabbing pain. It feels as if someone has stabbed me in the side with a butcher knife.

The fatigue returns.

I spend my days soaking in baths to soothe the pain, or zonked out in bed trying to sleep.

I stop taking the energy supplements, replacing them with a regimen of Advil.

I keep working. Half the time when I perform, my head's in a cloud, my words blurred by the pain that burns my side. The audience doesn't notice.

Then one day I tear my Achilles tendon.

I limp for weeks, the injury refusing to heal. Back in Los Angeles, I go to a wound care center. They extract some of my blood, spin it, make a serum, and apply it to the tear. My Achilles heals.

But I can't stand up.

The pain in my side is so severe it bends me over.

Finally, I do what I should have done years before.

I go to the doctor.

I see the same doctor who diagnosed my pneumonia seven years earlier.

When he sees that I can't stand up, he looks at me with what I see as deep concern.

He checks me over completely.

He takes a full blood panel.

I come back the next day for a follow-up visit and to receive the blood work results. Walking like a ninety-year-old caveman, I follow a nurse down a corridor past a row of examining rooms, and into his office. I sit in a leather chair across from the doctor's desk. A few minutes later, the doctor comes in holding my chart. He closes the door behind him and sits at his desk. He absently flicks the corner of my chart.

I feel like shit.

He looks like shit.

He may look even worse than I do.

“I have bad news,” he says.

“So much for the foreplay,” I think.

“You have kidney disease, and it's pretty advanced.”

I squirm in the chair, the leather squishing as I try to find a comfortable position. I'm biding time, trying to digest what the doctor has said.

Kidney disease.

“Sure,” I think. “Why not? Of all the crap that's happened to me, why the hell not? Why wouldn't I have kidney disease? Makes perfect sense. Of course.”

He lowers his voice, clears his throat. “You're going to need a transplant before you're forty-five.”

I'm thirty-eight.

“Okay,” I say, exhaling softly. “So I have seven years—”

“It doesn't work like that. You're going to deteriorate every year. I'm going to be on you now, watching you carefully, checking you, measuring your kidney function, but you've got to start thinking about lining up a donor now. You will get worse and worse. I'm going to prescribe medication for you today, right now, but it's going to get a lot worse.”

I wish I had gone to him sooner.

I wish he had noticed the kidney disease seven years earlier, when I came in with pneumonia.

I wish . . .

Well, it doesn't matter.

Getting angry, getting depressed, getting even . . .

Those emotions don't help.

Dealing with it.

That can help.

Which is what I did.

•   •   •

I
made it until I was forty-four. I survived that season of
The George Lopez Show.
I made it through in one piece, upright . . . barely. At my last examination the doctor told me that I had a total of eighteen percent function in
both
kidneys.

As I lay in that hospital bed before my transplant, a million thoughts swirled through my mind. The first words that came into my head were, “Well, this is where the rubber meets the road.” I'd never said that before in my life. I'm naked, scared, about to go under the knife, and suddenly I became an old white guy. Then I thought about dying and about all the things I hadn't yet accomplished. But mainly I thought about how lucky I was and how precious time is. Time is a gift. Especially if you're over fifty. People waste too much time on nothing. I hear people saying all the time, “I'm thinking about going to Hawaii next year.”

Why wait? Go this year. You don't know what's gonna happen next year. Do not assume you're going to live to a ripe old age. You're already pretty damn old. Grab things now.

I also thought about how my fear of doctors nearly killed me.

Listen, this is not a self-help book, not even close, but help yourself to this one piece of advice:

If you're afraid of doctors, get over it.

If you hate physical exams, or colonoscopies or prostate exams, get over it. I'm not gonna lie: When that doctor shoves his rubber-covered finger up your ass, it's gonna hurt, unless you're used to it. But if he finds something that shouldn't be up there, like a half of an apple or an old iPhone or a tumor, you're gonna thank him.

I also thought about all the warning signs I saw that I did nothing about.

You have to learn to accept this fact:

Your body is your best friend.

I know. You're thinking, “Hey, my best friend lives in Wisconsin.”

No, he doesn't. He lives inside of you. Your best friend in Wisconsin is not gonna know that you've been hacking in your sleep.

Don't do what I did. Don't ignore those warning signs. See a doctor right away.

And never ignore purple urine.

THE
moment I turned fifty, I started contemplating the future. Let's face it: At my age, you need to make choices. Lifestyle choices. I started thinking about things that never would have entered my consciousness ten years ago, even five years ago, foreign concepts such as “slowing down,” “drinking less,” and “having sex once a week.”

I even toyed with the idea of retirement.

Not immediately, but possibly in ten years. I could definitely see that. The road's a grind, man. Performing in clubs, finishing a set at two o'clock in the morning night after night, flying to the next city, trying to get your bearings, fighting jet lag, keeping your energy high, and then starting all over at another club in another city until another two a.m. It's wearing me down at fifty. It could kill me at sixty. I can see how retirement might be appealing. As unbelievable as it may seem, I can foresee a time in the not-so-distant future when I might give up performing.

But I'll never give up golf.

When I die, I either want to go in my sleep or after sinking a thirty-foot birdie putt.

I don't just love golf. I
am
golf. It's in my DNA.

Without a doubt, I am happiest and most relaxed when I'm on a golf course. When I finish a round, it's hard for me to leave. I like to hang out at the clubhouse afterward and have a drink with the guys, chilling and watching other guys playing golf. If I have nothing else to do after that, I'll go home and watch a golf match or the Golf Channel. It doesn't stop there. At night, to relax, I sneak off to my secret undisclosed location and take out my special box of tees, balls, and ball markers that I've accumulated over the years. I climb into bed, turn over the box, and dump out all the contents. I sift through all my tees and markers—my cherished mementos—look them over, polish them, and put them carefully back into the box, one by one.

One time my girlfriend came in and caught me sorting my tees and markers. I didn't hear her walk in, and I don't know how long she stood in the doorway watching me, because I was too engrossed going through my tee stash.

“What are you doing?” she said.

She didn't sound happy. In fact, she sounded a little put out, as if she'd caught me in bed with another woman instead of a box of tees.

“I'm going through my tees and markers.”

“You're sorting your old golf tees?”

“And markers. It relaxes me. What's the problem?”

“No problem. It just seems a little . . . unusual.”

“Well, I can do this or I can watch porn.”

“No, no, have a good time. Okay, well, I'm gonna get ready for bed. Think I'll have a glass of wine, take a bath, maybe slip into something more comfortable, like that new nightgown, in case, you know, you might want to—”

“Is it Wednesday already?”

She left. I waited about ten seconds before I packed up all my tees and markers and got ready to go after her. I filled the box up and started to get off the bed when my hand brushed against a golf ball that had rolled under my pillow. I picked it up and looked at it. It had a picture of Bugs Bunny on it.

“My Looney Tunes golf balls,” I said.

I remembered the day not that long ago that I ended up with a package of golf balls with a different Looney Tunes character painted on each one. I decided to play a round with one.

I teed up Bugs Bunny on the first hole at my local course. I hadn't played in a while and I felt a little rusty. I probably should've hit a bucket before playing a round, but I didn't. I jumped right in.

I decided to play it safe and hit my drive with a threeiron. I swung and immediately knew I shanked my shot. I looked up and Bugs Bunny flew in a line over the fence to my right and bounced into a construction site.

“Damn,” I said. “I hit poor Bugs sideways. Let's see what I do with Yosemite Sam.”

I got into my stance and hit my second drive.

Crraaank.

“Whoa. There goes Sam.”

Yosemite Sam sailed over the fence and banged off a bulldozer.

“I can't shank all of them,” I said. “Wile E. Coyote. Come on, man.”

I swung and hit the three iron.

I might as well have been
facing
the damn fence.

Wile E. Coyote landed two feet away from Bugs.

“This is ridiculous. I can't hit all six over. Come on, Tweety Bird; straighten your feathery little ass out.”

Whack.

Shanked in a line over the fence.

“Well, I know this: I hold the record for hitting the most consecutive Looney Tunes characters into a construction site.”

Normally, at that point I would have felt somewhere between trying to bottle up my frustration and not scream at the top of my lungs and about to throw my clubs over the fence after the Looney Tunes balls, but as I watched Tweety Bird clang around the construction site, I started to laugh.

“All right, Sylvester, are you gonna go down the fairway or chase Tweety Bird?”

I swung.

He went after Tweety.

I held the next Looney Tunes ball in my hand and stared at it.

Speedy Gonzales.

“Speedy, it's you and me, brother. Do not let me down. Do not join your cartoon brothers. Go straight down the fairway. Prove your Mexican mettle. I want to see your loyalty.”

I teed up Speedy, slowed my swing way down, and concentrated on not lifting my head or pulling my shot.

Whacccckkkkk.

“Yes! That felt so good. . . .
No!
Not you, too, Speedy. Nooo!”

He flew over the fence and nestled right up next to Bugs Bunny.

“Really, Speedy? What are you doing going after Bugs? I knew it. You two are gay!”

Six Looney Tunes balls over the fence. Two more left. Taz Devil and a second Bugs Bunny. I shook my head. I smiled, placed Taz on a tee, stuck him into the ground, and walked off the course, laughing. I put Bugs in my pocket. As a result of my worst driving exhibition ever, Bugs the Second earned a cherished spot in my box of mementos.

Golf Lesson Number One:

Some days just suck. The only thing you can change about that is your attitude.

On those days, if you can, laugh.

•   •   •

IT
doesn't matter who you are—how rich or how powerful—golf does not discriminate. The game is an equal opportunity torturer. I've played with Donald Trump, and as wealthy as he is, he could not buy a par.

The game not only tests your will and patience; you also have to factor in several outside forces. The course itself, for one. In basketball, for example, it doesn't matter where you play; the court is always the same size. A twenty-foot jump shot in L.A. is still a twenty-foot jump shot in Boston or Miami. In golf, every hole you play is different, not only on every course, but on the same course. Plus you have to deal with all sorts of complications and distractions—sand traps, water hazards, trees, rough, wind, the glare of the sun, the cut of the grass, the placement of the pin, slow players, fast players, players who wear loud pants or clothes that don't match or stupid hats.

Ultimately, I think that golf is an addiction. It sucks you in and then grabs hold of you and won't let you go. I've heard experts say that the reason people get addicted to drugs like cocaine and heroin is that they are always chasing that first high. Same with golf. When you hit a great shot, a sensation runs through your entire body, pulsing up from the face of the club all the way into your chest. It's a deep feeling of joy and power.

Once you get that feeling—especially the first time—you jones to get it again. You can't wait to hit your next shot. And if the next time you swing, you top the ball and it trickles ten feet in front of you and rolls into a pond, you can't wait to erase that crappy feeling and take your next swing, hoping to experience that indescribable feeling of joy and power again. You chase that high from swing to swing and from round to round.

If you play a great round, you can't wait for your next round so you can experience those feelings again. If you play a bad round, you can't wait to play again to redeem yourself, always chasing that sensation of joy and power. No doubt: Golf is a high.

Golf is also a great teacher. I think people should give up therapy and take up golf. It's cheaper and more effective. I know I wouldn't be the comedian I turned out to be or the man I am if it weren't for golf.

When I was younger, if I hit a couple of really awful shots in a row, I used to throw the club. I'd curse and wind up and let the club fly. I'd wing it into the bushes and storm off the course. One day, playing in a foursome with RJ, I lost it after nine horrible holes. I dropped my clubs into the rough and headed straight for my car.

“Where you going?” RJ said.

“I'm out.”

“What? Come on. We got the back nine to play.”

“I'm done, man. I play like crap. I'm
out
. The hell with this.”

I got into the car, started it up, and froze. I couldn't move. I sat behind the wheel staring through the windshield, seething, my chest heaving. I said to myself, “What are you doing? You can't keep reacting this way. How you gonna get better if you quit? You've been a quitter your whole life. You gonna quit now, too?”

“No,” I said aloud. “I'm gonna stick it out.”

I got out of the car, slowly walked back to RJ, and picked up my clubs. “You gotta be a fool to play this stupid game,” I said.

“That's true. Or a masochist.”

I sighed. “I'll do better on the back nine.”

“That wouldn't be hard,” he said.

Lesson Number Two:

You can't get better at something if you quit.

•   •   •

I
used to spend half my round in the trees. When I swung, I developed a bad habit of leaning back too much. I'd end up pushing my shot to the right. Way to the right. Every time. I'd charge into the woods, find my ball, select a long iron, and hit some crazy-ass shot to try to save par. Even though I'd be in the middle of a damn forest, I'd try to make my ball curl around a tree, or I'd attempt to lift the ball over the top of the trees. I
had
to get on the green. I had to salvage the hole. That's what I thought. Even if I had an impossible lie, I'd go for it. I was insane.

Guess what. The same thing happened every time.

I'd hit my shot, and instead of going around a tree or sailing over the trees, my ball would whack into the tree right in front of me and shoot back at me like a bullet. I'd cover my head and duck to get out of the way. Sometimes I hit the ground. It took me years, but I finally figured out that being so reckless wasn't working. I needed another plan. I realized I had to calm down, slow down, and . . .
play it safe.

The next time I pushed my ball into the trees, which was pretty much the next time I teed off, I tried something completely different. Instead of hitting some wild, crazy, impossible shot, I took out my pitching wedge and chipped easily out to the fairway. Much less dramatic, but much safer. I didn't get my hat knocked off. Or my head. And I didn't lose two extra strokes.

Yes, I was in trouble, but I accepted it rather than doing something ridiculous that would make it worse. I should've been true to my heritage. Because if there's one thing a Mexican can do, it's get out of trouble.

Lesson Number Three:

If you get in trouble, don't try to do too much. Take the safe way out. You can't fix everything with one wild, dramatic swing.

If you get in trouble, the first thing you have to do is get out of trouble.

•   •   •

PEOPLE
do some crazy stuff on a golf course.

I once played with a guy, call him Clem, a serious golfer and seriously cheap, who fell in love with a new golf ball that had just come out, call it the Suprema Pro. According to Clem, the Suprema Pro was superball, the greatest golf ball ever made, a duffer's dream. Scientists had supposedly spent years locked away in a laboratory perfecting this golf ball, adding extra dimples so that you'd always hit it straight, and inventing a special core made of Flubber or some magic dust so you'd always add an extra fifty yards to every shot. Of course, you had to pay a premium price for the Suprema Pro, something like nine bucks a ball.

One Sunday, I played Pebble Beach and the starter paired me up with Clem. In addition to a three-pack of the new Suprema Pros, Clem brought along his five-year-old son, Tommy. Fine with me. Might as well get kids started young.

First hole. Clem teed up his nine-dollar Suprema Pro, waggled his ass like a stripper, wound up, and hit his drive. The ball flew way off to the right, sailed out-of-bounds and over a fence, and landed in someone's backyard right near a swing set.

“Nice shot, Daddy,” the kid said.

“I wasn't aiming for the swing set, Tommy. Come on; let's go get that ball. It cost me nine dollars.”

He lifted Tommy into the cart and roared off. He drove along the fence, finally stopping at the house with the swing set. His Suprema Pro lay on the other side of the fence, twenty feet away. He parked the golf cart as snugly as he could against the fence.

“Tommy,” Clem said, “I want you to get Daddy's ball. I'm gonna lift you over the fence. You run to the ball, pick it up, then run back to the fence, reach your arms up, and I'll bring you back.”

The kid stared at his father. He didn't look so sure about this plan.

“It's no big deal,” Clem said. “It'll be fun.”

Before the kid could say anything, Clem stood up on the seat of the golf cart and picked up Tommy.

“You ready?”

The kid nodded.

“One . . . two . . . three!”

Clem lifted Tommy up and over the fence and gently deposited him into the backyard of the house.

“You see the ball? It's right over there. You can't miss it.”

Tommy turned and located the Suprema Pro lying against a metal support of the swing set. “I see it,” Tommy mumbled.