Let me start, however, by saying that if you’re protesting a comedy show, you need a big cock in your ass to loosen it up. It’s free speech, bitches! But you know what? When all is said and done, being protested is a compliment. I was honored that people hated me enough to come out and stand in the rain. I wouldn’t stand in the rain to end world hunger and these douchebags were standing in the rain to stop a coupla jokes.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. In March 2007, I was protested by the worst group ever! No, not black people—I’ve brought joy to more black men than Kwanzaa. Not Mexicans—they were too busy undercutting white workers. And definitely not Asians—they never protest. They just run around the parking lot putting Chinese menus on the protesters’ windshields. No, folks, the people who were mad at me were—hold on to your Miracle Ears—deaf. But before you say I should have broken their fingers to shut them up, here’s the story.
When you book a concert, you call in to the local radio station six weeks in advance to plug your tickets. So, when I found out I was booked at a building on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, I called radio legend and member of Rochester royalty Brother Wease, with whom I had always had great radio rapport.
Wease, whom I had met at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal several years earlier, asked me whom specifically I would be making fun of during my show when I came to town. I told him that, as an insult comic, I make fun of everybody—whites, blacks, Jews, Asians, blind, deaf. With that, Wease said something to the effect that the deaf jokes might not go over well in Rochester because there was a college in the area with a predominantly deaf student body.
Without missing a beat, I said something along the lines of, “I don’t know about all that, but what I do know is deaf people ain’t really deaf. They’re retards trying to give themselves an upgrade.”
I instantly forgot the whole incident, but apparently the deaf people didn’t. I showed up at the hotel in Rochester a month and a half later, and I noticed right on the front page of the local paper a substantial story about the deaf students being up in arms because of my comments on the radio. The next morning, it didn’t go away. I showed up at the radio station and there was a TV newswoman chomping at the bit to interview me about that “deaf people are retards” comment. I couldn’t believe it! What I had said was absolutely harmless. It wasn’t even a joke—it was just a fact. I can’t even comprehend that deaf people got mad at me because I made fun of them on the radio! Who the fuck told them?
In all fairness, the newswoman did a very balanced job of reporting the story, and I was happy I was allowed to tell my side. Deep down I was sad that the deaf people were angry at me because at every comedian’s core is the desperate need to be liked by everybody—even retarded deaf people. But I prepared for the show that evening, sending my own camera crew (okay, one of my openers with a digital camera) to the venue in advance to interview audience members and tape the protest.
The good news kept coming: The venue was completely sold out due to the controversy, and the ten or so deaf protesters and their supporters were well behaved and were simply exercising their right to free speech—although when a deaf person speaks, can it really be called “speech”? However, one thing did offend me—the protesters all had picket signs and banners that were not in Braille, so I guess we know these deaf people were really card-carrying racist-against-blind-people douchecocks at heart.
I didn’t go away from the incident unchanged. That weekend I learned that I, as a comic, am not for everybody, and if one group has to hate me, I’m glad it’s deaf people. They’re not exactly my target audience for selling CDs to, so they can lick it.
My First Time in the NEW YORK TIMES
There are all other colleges, and then there is Harvard. There are all other automobiles, and then there is the Cadillac. In media, there are all other newspapers, and then there is the New York Times.
The first time you’re in the New York Times is a big deal. It’s the most important newspaper in the world. The New York Times is kept in a vault for eternity as a record of our civilization and is not like other papers that are lost once the dog takes a shit on them. It’s read by respected people around the world. It’s the PBS of newspapers. And it’s thicker than a black man’s rap sheet.
People lie and say they read the New York Times to sound smart. For a stand-up comic to make it into the Times means they’ve reached a significant cultural milestone and not just told a couple racist jokes. That’s because the Times is all class. There are no ads for Asian massage joints or phone sex in the back of it. You don’t get in the Times because you’re in a show your hippie friend is putting together in the Village.
So since the Times is the most respected paper in the world, it’s unbelievable to think they would do an article on a know-it-all bitch who gets her jollies by shouting racial slurs. But enough about Martha Stewart. A mention in the New York Times is a huge help and really ups the ante when it comes to promotion. A poster looks so much better when you can say, “The New York Times calls Lisa a thought-provoking laugh riot” instead of “Joe Sneadley from the Mount Kisco Penny Saver thinks Lisa is just wonderful.” So the New York Times was a real breakthrough for me. Now if I can just get my picture in the New York Post blowing A-Rod, my work will be complete.
Don’t get me wrong—even though the New York Times is the paper I worship, it is one I have never read. Sure, in my vivid fantasy life, I am one of those classy Upper East Side New Yorkers who lounges over brunch at her favorite outdoor café perusing the ginormous Sunday Times over coffee and croissants. Instead, if I’m home in New York on a Sunday morning, I’m in bed ’til at least eleven, then prone on the couch watching Project Runway or Date My Ex: Jo and Slade marathons until it’s time to go to bed again.
But even though I don’t read it, I know the value of being in it. Making it into the Times is getting the crown jewel of media coverage, and I just had to make that happen.
In 2008, the New York Times gave me a dream come true—a half-page feature in the Sunday Arts and Leisure section on the day I was attending the Grammy Awards to hopefully pick up my statue in the Best Comedy Album category. It was an amazing piece, with a huge picture, and was completely factually accurate and complimentary.
However, this wasn’t my first mention in the Times. That one had come ten years earlier, in a small article that held even more weight for me. I’ll explain.
Around the year 2000, I was appearing at a weekly all-women show at the sadly-now-closed Rascals Comedy Club in West Orange, New Jersey. In its heyday, the club hosted lots of big-name talent on the weekends, but Tuesdays were reserved for “special shows.” No, not shows with retards—shows with themes. After watching me a few times, the Magnuson brothers, who owned the club, gave me my own show every Tuesday with the catch being it had to feature only women comics.
Now, I’ve always hated theme shows, but this was a chance to headline one of the best clubs on the East Coast every week, build a following, and work out more than an hour of material. One week, a Times reporter who covered the arts and entertainment scene in New Jersey showed up to do a piece and I not only manipulated myself into the paper but landed myself a nickname that stuck.
See, I never wanted to be a comic who didn’t have a moniker. I wanted to have a tagline—a way for people to introduce me onstage, a handle that would make people remember me even when my actual name slipped their minds. One of my openers and I had come up with “Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean.” I didn’t want to be known as simply the “Queen of Mean” since Leona Helmsley already had dibs on that for all the wrong reasons. And I wanted the word “lovable” to appear somewhere in there to show that even though I was an insult comic, I meant no harm to people and they wished me no harm in return. And of course, I wanted the word “comedy” in there so the gays didn’t think I was a drag act.
I sized up the reporter, who seemed to be a semi-newbie. I mean, c’mon—covering arts
and entertainment for the Sewage State had to be on the bottom rung of the Times hierarchy. So I set about planting my nickname in print.
“They call me ‘Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean,’” I told the reporter. I looked at her reporter’s notebook and saw upside down that she had written down “Queen of Mean.” I corrected her, “No, it’s ‘Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean’—it’s a lot different, you know? Nobody gets mad at me,” I said. She quickly added the two words, and when the article came out the following Sunday, I had a new nickname and it stuck. Thank God! It was so much better than my original show business moniker, “That Fat Bitch Who Cusses.”
So now, whenever a reporter asks me why I call myself that, I matter-of-factly say, “The New York Times—they said that about me. Why?” Nothing like being anointed by the best newspaper in the world—even though it was engineered by li’l ol’ L.L. Incidentally, that reporter was later indicted for leaking CIA secrets in the Scooter Libby trial.
My First Limo Ride
The first limo ride is the bomb. And I’m not talking about you and twenty of your friends renting one to play “smell my finger” on prom night. I’m talking about the first time a comedy club sends one for you at the airport and then keeps it at your service all week long. It is a little odd, though, being dropped off at the movies in a limo, especially when you’re by yourself and you’re going to see Shrek 3. It’s worth it, though, if the comedy club is paying.
It’s actually shocking the first time a club sends a limo for you because it sneaks up on you. The year before, they refused to pay your taxi fare from the airport and they put you up at the shittiest hotel that didn’t specialize in crack whores. And suddenly since you started making money for them, not only do they get you a limo, they also have to have bottled water and fruit trays in the greenroom. That’s the first sign you’ve made it: when a club owner is kissing your ass.
Now, I have never been big on stretch limos—they’re difficult to get in and out of and embarrassing to ride around in. But early on, the stretch limo sends the right message. Nothing says, “Hey, club owner! Yeah, you—the guy who last year didn’t let me order a steak! The tables have turned!” like a stretch limo. The only thing better is farting and having the owner too fearful of offending you to even plug his nose. Quite honestly, I usually try to combine the experiences so the greedy bastard can’t escape.
All in all, your first limo ride is awesome but you feel a little weird. It‘s not someone’s wedding; it’s all for you and you’re just going to a comedy show. You remember going to comedy shows in your ’74 Duster, and now you have a car and a driver.
And there’s a lot of pressure—you want to be totally nice to the driver and not have him think you’re an asshole, so it’s like, do I turn on the TV? How loud should I play the music? Is it okay if I take one of the bottles of water with me? Will he think I’m a bitch if I ask him not to talk to me?
Then comes the issue of tipping. Now that I’m a bona fide huge celebrity, the promoters hire high-end transportation companies that figure in the tip, presumably to protect the driver from getting stiffed by cheap Jew producers and black professional athletes who think “gratuity” is just the name of their baby’s mama. But in the old days, the limo companies the clubs hired for me didn’t include the tip, so the question became “How much?” Of course, I didn’t want the driver to think I was a cheap cunt and tell stories about me. Plus Wynonna Judd had probably given him a hundred yesterday when all I have is a twenty and a five. Great! Now I’ll be up there on his list of twats, along with Donna Summer and Paul Anka.
The first time you take a limo, you’re kind of embarrassed ’cause you have the sort of “What have I done to deserve this treatment?” mentality. God forbid you inconvenience the driver. You’re okay with him dropping you off three blocks away from the gig so he doesn’t have to make a U-turn. But pretty soon, that thoughtfulness wears off, and you start bossing him around like you’re Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. These days, unless my driver has my coffee the way I like it (venti iced decaf latte, skim) and the car’s temperature at exactly 72, his boss is getting a call. And he better not give me shit about hopping out to pick up my dry cleaning. My promoter’s paying you for your time—make it happen.
My first limo ride was during a series of gigs at the Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut. It wasn’t a stand-up gig, per se. I was hired to act in a corporate training seminar and was being paid more than I’d ever been paid before—almost $1,000 per day. As a perk, the other actors and I got to eat at the employee cafeteria for free and they had a limo pick me up every day for two weeks at my parents’ house in Connecticut. Nothing says “I’ve made it” like having a stretch limo pick you up before the crack of dawn at your parents’ house where you’re staying rent-free so you can save money as a struggling comic.
Since I had to arrive at Foxwoods by around seven A.M., it was still dark out when the limo picked me up, but the neighbors in my parents’ suburban town never failed to notice. Lights in the three houses that surrounded my parents’ would pop on as the limo pulled up and go abruptly off as we pulled out of the driveway. My mother would wave good-bye every morning from the open front door, and before we’d turned the corner, I’d be off to sleep.
Now, if you’ve ever tried to sleep in a stretch limo, you know it’s impossible to fall asleep and stay asleep lying across the seats. One quick turn or lane change, and you’re in a pile on the floor. This happened to me the first few days, so after day three, I had a brilliant idea. I asked the driver if the limos were vacuumed after each use, and he assured me they were. So, in the me-sized nook on the floor of the limo, I spread out my coat and curled up like a cat. I slept the entire hour and a half to Foxwoods each and every morning on the floor of the car with the sounds of ice and thick crystal decanters of mystery liquor clinking and tinkling in my ear.
I often think back to those days at Foxwoods when I was first treated as if I’d made it and it makes me smile. Of course, today, I prefer a high-end Audi or Mercedes when I’m driven, or when I’m feeling particularly black, I like an Escalade. The cars may have changed, but one thing hasn’t—I still lay on the floor. I don’t want my opening act to see me and ask for a ride back to the hotel.
Oh, and I hope in my next book you’ll hear about the first time I took my private jet and how I’m already over it.
My All-Time Favorite: My First Time on HOWARD STERN
The first time you do the Howard Stern show, you’re a nervous wreck. Everybody listens to Stern. He is the King of All Media and can make or break your career like Johnny Carson used to in the old days.
The first time on Howard Stern is terrifying, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s like your first time with a Latino—it could be fantastic, or you could wake up with a sore ass and all your valuables stolen. It could easily go either way.
That’s because you’re not doing a comedy set on Howard’s show. You are going to have a really personal interview, with questions as intimate as those in a shrink’s office. Only unlike at the shrink’s office, you feel pressure to make it funny and it’s on the radio with millions of people listening. And the people listening can be brutal.
Howard’s audience members are like pit bulls. If they sense Howard likes you, they nuzzle right up and sniff your crotch. (I wish I were talking figuratively, but anyone who has ever dealt with Richard Christy knows that I’m not.) But if they sense Howard doesn’t like you, they attack. Howard’s audience is the only group of people I know who will pay good money to see a comedy show just because they want to fuck it up.
Plus, it’s so early in the morning, you’re not even awake. You go to the studio and it’s still dark outside. Simple yes-or-no questions are confusing at six A.M., let alone a Stern zinger. You’re worried about what Howard is going to ask you. He always digs deep into people, and when you dig into me, there are a lot of things to pull out of my vagina.
But before yo
u say, “Well, at least it’s radio, not television,” think again. Times have changed. Used to be you could be as ugly as you wanted on the radio, but now there are TV cameras in almost every studio—especially Howard’s—so you have to look good and you can’t pick your nose. Plus every woman wants Howard, the arbiter of all things attractive, to tell her she looks good. Or at the very least try to get her to take her top off once.
The biggest compliment Stern can give you is being asked to stay for the news. It’s the same as when comedians were called to Johnny’s couch—it means you’re in. I could care less about the news, but I’d sit through Baba Booey’s colonoscopy to get in with the king.
I know what you’re thinking: “That’s a lot of pressure.” Well, with me, add on even more. Not only did I have Howard, his staff, his listeners, and the early morning hour to deal with, I had to deal with the fact that Howard is my hero. To fail on his show would be like shooting an air ball in front of Michael Jordan. Here I was appearing on his show on K-Rock, on terrestrial radio (not on no-holds-barred Sirius satellite radio), and this show would not only impact my career, it could seriously affect my self-esteem and ego. It’s one thing to go on a show and have a desire to kill. It’s quite another to appear on a show and want to kill plus get the approval of the man you’ve had on a pedestal for the past quarter-century. To blow it here would be like farting on your wedding night.
Being on the Stern show had been a dream of mine since the day I started comedy. But until I did the roast of Chevy Chase, I didn’t feel like I had earned the right to be there. Chevy, though, was, at the time, a sworn enemy of Stern and had been such a scowling, sulky, humorless bitch at the Comedy Central roast, I thought this was the hook I needed to get on Howard’s show.
After the taping of the roast, I left a message for producer Gary “Baba Booey” Dell’Abate, telling him I had appeared on the roast and wanted to come on Howard’s show and tell all the jokes I did about Chevy, plus give them the inside scoop about how Chevy behaved that night. When Howard hates someone, he really hates him, so something told me I’d get a call back. Within two days, Gary called and booked me for the following week.
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