Tough Sh*t: Life Advice From a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good (24 page)

So we sat down to watch it that weekend evening: my dad, my mom, and me. During the cold opening where George talks about the old joke “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” (“Practice, man. Practice”), my mother checked one last time with my dad.

“You sure this is okay for him to watch?” she asked, handing her third child—the
plump
one—a Swanson’s dinner in front of the TV.

“Sure,” Dad replied, forking through an Apple Brown Betty. “Carlin’s a Catholic.”

George Carlin, we’d soon learn together as a family, was a
recovering
Catholic.
Big
difference …

So there I was, lying on my stomach on the floor, eyes on HBO, waiting for my TV dinner to cool down. There was my father, sitting on the couch to my right. My mother was sitting to my left, in an aged recliner we called the Big Chair. And on TV was some magical place in New York City I’d heard Bugs Bunny mention in a cartoon once, making it as unreal as Pismo Beach or Albuquerque. But while he was crafty and cool as Bugs, George Carlin was real—which meant Carnegie Hall had to be as well.

And George Carlin stepped out onto the Carnegie Hall stage and made it all
way
more real with his opening line.

“Have you ever noticed that people who are against abortion are people you wouldn’t wanna fuck in the first place?”

As you might imagine, there were two different parental reactions to that joke: hysterics from Dad, horror from Mom.

“Turn it off!” Mom said in that Mom-Don’t-Like voice.

“Oh, why?” my dad countered. “He’s totally fine.” And then turning to me, he asked, “You think this is too grown-up for you?”

“Mom”—I turned to her over my left shoulder, mustering as much earnestness as I could—“what’s abortion?”

“You’re on your own, Don …,” she barked, heading to the kitchen. “Have fun explaining all the curses to your youngest son!”

He would’ve, I’m sure, but he knew he wouldn’t have to. Of course I knew all the curse words; I was a Catholic school student.

George Carlin was the first person who ever said
fuck
in my house. Back in the day, the movies didn’t feature that word so prominently; and
nobody
in my house was allowed to use vulgarity. But here was this intelligent, articulate, thinking man who wielded the word like a rapier—and
that
was suddenly permitted. The lesson: You can curse if you’ve also got an impressive vocabulary to choose from. The conventional wisdom had always been, “People who swear are uneducated and lazy.” This guy Carlin proved you can know a shit-ton of words—you could even command the English language like you’d found its magic lamp—and
still
opt to employ the occasional (or frequent) F-bomb. Someone cursing didn’t make my father laugh; someone cursing while
being humorously truthful could make my father cry laughing. Duly noted.

I was twelve years old watching a man many years my senior curse a blue streak while exposing the hypocrisy of a medium (and a society) that couldn’t deal with the public usage of terms they probably employed regularly in their private lives. And while he seemed to revel in being a rebel, here was a man who also clearly loved the English language, warts and all—even the so-called bad words (although, as George would say, there are no such things as “bad words”—only bad intentions). I wouldn’t say George Carlin taught me obscenities, but I would definitely say he taught me that the casual use of obscenities wasn’t reserved for just drunken sailors.

And that was
before
he got to the seven words you can’t say on television …

But more than the naughty words, I loved Carlin’s freedom: Whether he was spinning a yarn about Tippy, his farting dog, or analyzing the contents of his fridge, Carlin expressed himself not only humorously but amazingly eloquently as well. He was a nimble public speaker who never excluded you, even if he was making fun of a common human foible you share with many others. But whatever he spoke about, you got the impression he was getting away with something—saying things others may have wanted to but couldn’t, or weren’t allowed to, or were simply too nervous about expressing themselves to say. He was having a good time being himself
for
the audience, and the audience loved him for being
exactly
who he was: the guy not afraid to mix fart jokes with biting social commentary or simple observations.

And he went high and low: jokes about hypocrisy and jokes about Rice Krispies. While he mimed floating proudly in milk, Mom rejoined us, giggling. This man Carlin was a
magician
: He could relate to smart cats like my dad, Catholic cats like my mom, and everybody in between—including (and maybe in this instance,
especially
) twelve-year-old comedy nerds.

After
Carlin at Carnegie
, I became a disciple (believe me, if I could’ve followed him around like he was Phish or the Grateful Dead, I’d have gone for apostle). I bought every album, watched every HBO special, and even sat through
The Prince of Tides
just because he played a small role in the film. I spent years recruiting friends into the cult of Carlin and even made pilgrimages to see him perform live (the first live gig I attended being a college show he did at Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1988). Carlin influenced my speech and my writing. Carlin replaced Catholicism as my religion. Carlin was the person I most wanted to be when I grew up.

Sixteen years later, I sat across from the star of
Carlin at Carnegie
in the dining room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. It was a meeting I’d dreamed of and dreaded simultaneously. George Carlin was the type of social observer/critic I most wanted to emulate … but he was a celebrity, too. What if he turned out to be a true prick?

What I quickly discovered was that in real life George was … well, George. Far from self-obsessed, he was mild-mannered enough to be my dad. He was as interested as he was interesting, well-read, and polite to a fault—all while casually dropping F-bombs. But most impressive, he didn’t treat me like an audience member, eschewing actual conversation
and electing, instead, to simply
perform
the whole meeting. He talked to me like one of my friends would talk to me: familiar, unguarded, authentic.

He liked the script for
Dogma
, a flick in which I was asking him to play Cardinal Glick—the pontiff-publicist responsible for the Catholic Church’s recall of the standard crucifix in favor of the more congenial, bubbly Buddy Christ. He told me he was flattered, as the content made him feel like a spiritual godfather to the script. I confirmed that he was.

“Well, I’ll tell ya,” he said. “I’d really like to do this. But there’s something I’m gonna need.”

Money. Here it comes: George Carlin is a capitalist pig. I readied myself for a letdown.

Instead, he stole my heart.

“My wife just died,” he said, twisting his wedding band. “And I’m not ready to take my ring off yet. But you want me to play a cardinal. So I was hoping you’ll let me wear a Band-Aid over my wedding ring.”

At that moment, I’d have let him be my dad, if he’d asked. I loved George Carlin even more for loving his late wife.

I made three films with Carlin over the course of the next six years, starting with
Dogma
. A few years later, I wrote him a lead role in
Jersey Girl
as Pop—the father of Ben Affleck’s character. It called for a more dramatic performance than George was used to giving, but the man pulled it off happily and beautifully (something most folks probably don’t know about George: He took acting very seriously). Sadly, I consider that
Jersey
Girl
part my one failing on George’s behalf—not for the reasons most would assume
(the movie was not reviewed kindly, to say the least). No, I failed because George had asked me to write a
different
role for him.

In 2001, George did me a solid when he accepted the part of the orally fixated hitchhiker who knew exactly how to get a ride in
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
. When he wrapped his scene in that flick, I thanked him for making the time. He said, “Just do me a favor: Write me my dream role one day.” When I asked what that’d be, he smiled and said, “I wanna play a priest who strangles six children.”

It was a classic Carlin thing to say: a little naughty and a lot honest. And I always figured there’d be time to give George what he asked for, but unfortunately, he left too soon.

On June 17, 2009, it was
my
turn to play Carnegie Hall. It was a very cool accomplishment to even get
booked
into the grand old barn, but I
know
me: If I walked out and saw empty seats, I wouldn’t feel as accomplished. I’d just sold out some dates up in Toronto, and if I didn’t sell out Carnegie Hall, I might be forced to expatriate, as clearly the True North really liked whatever bullshit I was slinging.

So I started publishing a daily update of ticket sales—something a bunch of folks warned me against. For fringe/cult acts like me, ticket sales info is
closely
guarded data, because perception is power. If you know a band has only sold a quarter of the seats available at their forthcoming concert you’re thinking of attending, you may be swayed out of your potential purchase by hearing the show’s selling poorly—or at least feel no pressure to purchase tickets in advance. When you don’t buy tix in advance, your chances
of actually mustering up the interest to leave the house come show day will almost certainly wane.

But here was the tough shit: I knew the only way I was gonna sell out Carnegie Hall was with
help
. So every day, I updated the ticket tally, showing what a game of inches it was to get to twenty-eight hundred seats sold. It didn’t help that the economy was in the toilet as we were asking sixty dollars per ticket for what sounded pretty bland. I could see some troll online: “Paying to see a Q & A? Yawn, as well as an in-advance meh …”

It took many weeks and a shit-ton of tweets, but on the day of the show, producer Jared Geller told me that walk-up purchases pushed the gig to a sellout at the venerable old theater. As I stepped onstage that night, I did a completely uncharacteristic leap-and-land thing that was born of relief and joy: The selling was behind me—it was time to have some
fun
. It was time to talk about breaking a toilet on the world’s most famous stage.

As cliché as it sounds, the whole show’s a blur. I recall tidbits: being nervous at first; the aforementioned celebratory leap nearly costing me a knee; talking about people I dearly love and knowing they heard their names bandied about in a cornerstone of high society, which we redefined that night; wrapping up by pointing out my mother and my wife sitting near each other in the audience, observing, “There’s the pussy I came from, and there’s the pussy I go to.” But the rest of the show? A blank.

After the show, my mom came up to me and I thought I was about to get smacked for the crack I’d made during the show. Instead, she rubbed my head as if I wasn’t thirty-eight
at the time, gazing at me with glassy eyes. She didn’t have to say anything; I knew what she was thinking.

“Dad would’ve liked?” I asked.

“Dad would’ve loved.” She smiled. Then, she added for good measure, “And George would’ve been proud of you, too.”

That night, as I left the stage, I took a picture. Whenever something got me down, or whenever someone tried to make me feel I was less than someone else (or in the case of one classless piece-of-shit airline,
more
than someone else), I’d look at it as a reminder that nobody is allowed to tell me who I am and what I’m worth. I’m including it here for everyone to see … and use. Are you trying to get somewhere?
Do
something?
Be
somebody? It can get frustrating waiting for
your
time—particularly because there’ll be no end of panty-puddles telling you, “It can’t be done!” Or “If it is to be done, you’re not the person to do it!” Or the ever-popular “Who the fuck do you think you are? I mean, you’re fat.” All variations of the will-killing “
Why?
”

If you get frustrated, simply glance at this image of the crowd at Carnegie Hall. Sure, it’s something
I
did; but it could easily represent what you’re
going
to do. And when you look at this image in a time of need, remind yourself that all of those people packed into that frame, hootin’ and hollerin’? They’re doing so for a very average, overweight white boy from a Nowheresville, New Jersey, town who got on that stage and induced that reaction simply by being himself. A fat, lazy slob who done good.

So be yourselves, kids.