Regardless of what I actually accomplished for the Obama campaign, I can tell you that I did plenty for my relationship with the Jews. And it's not because my message in the video was pro-Jew. It wasn't. It was a scold to the Jews whose ignorance and irrational fears made them blind to the potential of the man behind the funny name. But still they ate it up because what they saw was a visibly Jewish, somewhat familiar woman saying words like "Schlep" and "Jew" and "grandparent" in a loving manner. To say that I now can do no wrong in their eyes would not quite be an understatement, but I would say it's at least exactly accurate.
* * *
The Vatican Is Great. For Me to Poop On.
* * *
Well, it's nice to have a home with the Jews. No matter how disgustingly I behave in public, no matter what I say for or against the religion, they seem to accept me.
I have not been as reliably successful with Gentiles.
In the summer of '09, I was struck with an idea for a new video. I called it Sell the Vatican, Feed the World. It was so simple, and to me so unarguable. I wasn't speaking as a Jew, but as a person with eyes and ears. To me, the Vatican is an incomprehensibly extravagant and flamboyant headquarters for an institution that purports to promote humility and commitment to the needy. It's an actual city, teeming with hundreds of millions of dollars of treasure. I imagined what a huge and heartening change it would make if the Catholic Church cashed all that out and fed the whole world with it. If they actually did that, I'd probably join the church.
I knew Sell the Vatican, Feed the World wasn't gonna be for everyone, but what surprised me was how many critics viewed the piece specifically as a message from a Jew. Here's a sampling of the negative e-mail and good old-fashioned Jew-hatin' that the video elicited:
This jew should have burnt in an oven.
not sure if i should laugh my ass off or tell the jew whore to burn in hell...
fuck you you stupid, jewish, unfunny dumb cunt. take ur anti-american comments and shove them up ur nasty twat.
she is a jew and she is talking about selling the vatican??? why dont we ask your ppl to pay money since they are rich ms BIG SCREEN TV...instead of buying a tv maybe you should have a nose job.
you JEW has no right to speak about the vatican and the pope, speak about your own fucking religious institutes Pinocchio. And for the record, even though she is obviously (in my opinion) a formerly molested child (hence the fucked up views of the world), now that she is over 30, and hot, I wouldnt mind throwin 'it in her.
dear sarah silverman, please go kill yourself. you're ugly to look at and your jokes are not funny. You try a little too hard and its just not working. just go kill yourself please. quit wasting our oxygen!
This is why i fucking hate jews. They demand things that belong to someone else to be sold and use it for the greater good and take all the credit for it. Fuck, Hitler had the right idea.
Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, issued a statement:
Silverman's filthy diatribe would never be allowed if the chosen target were the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.
That might have been a keen point if I hadn't just done my previous video, The Great Schlep, which was directed at Jews, and where in it I literally tell them to "get off [their] fat Jewish asses."
And so I have finally come to understand that whatever I say, I should at least consider that some will view it through the filter of my Jewishness. That said, I'm really fine with the above hate mail, and there is a strong likelihood that, somewhere down the road, I will remark again on the papacy and the Vatican. It's an enormous target, both physically and intellectually, and I don't like to work too hard.
* * *
A Nose by Any Other Name
* * *
Winona Ryder was born Winona Horowitz but she changed it. What a classic sneaky Jew move.
I have a Jewy last name and I would never think to change it, but I totally get Winona's choice. With a name like "Horowitz," you're no longer an actress, you're a Jewish actress. Just like I'm "Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman." For an actor, any modifier like that immediately creates limitations. Think of what the word "character" does when placed before "actor." It denies that actor access to nearly all leading roles. You never hear "White actress Reese Witherspoon..." Eh. That's probably an old observation but it's true. I have comic friends who are gay. Some remain in the closet, and I don't blame them. It's not just out of fear of prejudice--it's fear of the gay community taking ownership of them. Suddenly, they are a gay comic, saddled with the responsibility to represent.
I have polled various show-businessy friends about Winona Ryder. I ask, "If Winona Ryder was Winona Horowitz, would she have been the star of Edward Scissorhands and Age of Innocence and all those elegant ingenue roles?" They all said no. All of them. I didn't expect that. I thought I was going into the discussion as the cynical one. Jesus.
"Silverman," I say quite subjectively, is less ethnic and more graceful than "Horowitz." There is the added advantage that Silverman alliterates with "Sarah" and therefore sounds more catchy. Maybe for that reason alone, I never felt the temptation to rename myself. It's hard for me to imagine that Jon Stewart would wield the same power if he had kept Liebowitz. Under his anglicized nom de show business, he talks almost nonstop about his Jewishness, but still, I think it would be different if he was doing so as Jon Liebowitz.
Whether I like it or not, I am, at least from the world's point of view, Jewish. And yes, I admit I draw on my Jewishness when comedically advantageous, though nothing I have ever done, or plan to do, will be about advancing any kind of Jewish agenda. But as it turns out, I cannot have it both ways. Because I have accepted being identified as Jewish, I'll also have to accept the responsibilities, limitations, and consequences. If I ever want to get away from that, it'll be an uphill battle that will require, among other things, a larynx transplant and some major hair removal.
AFTERWORD
by God
Despite Sarah's and my rather strained relationship over the course of her life, I am thrilled to be involved with this book. I've been tracking it from the day the deal was announced on Gawker to the moment I heard Sarah's first actual prayer to me. This happened roughly a week before the final deadline for the manuscript, and went something like,
Dear God, I know I have denied your existence my entire life, and have only spoken your name at crucial moments of jokes and orgasms, but I really need you now. I need you so much, in fact, that I want to accept you right now as my lord and savior, and renounce any negative things I've said about those who worship you. Please make this book be finished. I'll be honest: I kind of blew it off. I thought I could just knock the whole thing out in a week, but the assholes at HarperCollins never told me until JUST NOW that the font can't be larger than 12 point. I know I don't deserve your help, but I'm asking anyway. I can make it up to you. I'll even stop supporting abortion, if that's what you want. [LONG PAUSE.] Holy crap, I am realizing...I am incredibly stoned. I ate half a brownie just to ease my anxiety, but I think I went too far. This is always the problem with pot cookies--you have no idea how potent they are 'til you eat one, and by then it's too late late late. I'm making my own echoes echoes echoes. I don't think I've ever been this high in my life. This is way too intense. I'm really scared. I don't want to be alone right now.
At this point, she began to sob, and since I'm not completely heartless, I agreed to help her with the book. By no accident it came out perfectly. But before we explore Sarah's life, a little about me...
No doubt you know the basics: I created the universe and everything in it from scratch--but oddly, I never tire of reminding people.
What you might not know are my priorities. Given the sermons and prayers of my followers, you might think I'm primarily interested in human suffering and punishing the wicked, but you'd be mistaken. I mean, I follow what goes on in Darfur in the same way I follow Top Chef. I'm totally interested, it's edge-of-your-seat stuff, but
if I forget to TiVo it, I probably won't bother buying it on iTunes. For me, it's pretty much out-of-sight-out-of-mind-ish.
What holds my attention are things that I, personally, had a direct hand in developing. Like, I'm really proud of cancer. Also the HIV virus. I don't say that to provoke anyone, either. It's just that at a basic scientific level, both of these inventions are really cool. They wield this enormous destructive power simply by reproducing themselves, and no one can figure out how to stop them. Locusts, flies, viruses, funguses--all that stuff just furiously and egoless-ly copies itself until it dominates everything, and it's all my work. So cool--so awesome to watch. Better, even, than Top Chef.
Meanwhile, human beings are of diminishing interest to me. They seem to have developed priorities other than copying themselves. Namely, they all just seem to want to be on television. I can't make much sense of this, because I made sex more pleasurable for humans than almost any other species, except rabbits. That's not a cliche about rabbits--it's the truth. They fuck like meth-fueled monsters, and it's incredibly amusing to watch. But humans have taken on a strange habit of copulating in such a way that they don't reproduce. I was on YouPorn recently, and I was astonished by the places semen was landing--the hair, the eyes, the face, the toes, reading glasses, martini glasses. If this is what's in fashion, why would I care about Darfur? The entire human race is determined to let itself die out anyway--and in such a weird way. You'll never see cancer cells on the Internet smearing their genetic codes all over each others' cellular membranes. Cancer has a modicum of self-respect.
So that's more or less where my head is at these days.
Wait, just one more thing. I saw a video on YouPorn where two men managed to position themselves in such a manner that they could both penetrate the woman's vagina simultaneously! Regardless of what they think, let me just tell you where I stand on it: Let's not touch balls in a situation where we're working up to a cum. But that's just me. I'm not gay.
As for Sarah Kate Silverman...she was born on December 1, 1970, the result of an eleven-and-a-half-minute-long period of revitalization in her parents' marriage, nine months prior. I took her life at the age of ninety-three as she was doing what she loved most--watching Lost. For her, it had not grown stale, even though fifty-three years had passed since the series finale.
After the blockbuster success of this book, Sarah was on a roll. She starred in a million hit movies, and even did a Tony Award-winning stint on Broadway. She released a CD of her own songs that went triple platinum and also collaborated with Ben Folds on an album which he maintained was not an "ironic choice."
Then on her forty-eighth birthday, a man in a suit appeared at Sarah's door, clutching a letter from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The letter thanked her for years of service to America but went on to note that, by industry standards, she could no longer technically be considered "cute" at this age, despite her thinness and youthful skin, and henceforth barred her from future work in show business. Like any Jewish girl made to feel insecure, she promptly developed an eating disorder that lasted until her next serious relationship.
In her late fifties, Sarah's career experienced a very brief bump. Due to changing demographics, network executives approached her with a show called Wrinkles in Thyme (her character's name was "Thyme"--"Thyme Stevens"). It was a sitcom about a washed-up actress being filmed for a reality show in which she returns to show business to star on a dramatic television series about a middle-aged woman looking to revive her acting career. The show ended when one of the editors committed suicide by impaling himself on another editor.
With her free time and large reserves of capital, Sarah devoted herself from there on in to rearing a brood of adopted children from--sigh, you guessed it--Africa. It might surprise you that I don't have more favorable things to say about Sarah's devotion to children. To be honest, I'm not that big a fan of kids. I had just one of my own, and I murdered him. So there's that.
Sarah had a much happier and more productive life than I'd ever intended for her. She loved dogs, New York, television, children, friendship, sex, laughing, heartbreaking songs, marijuana, farts, and cuddling. She hated everything else. Though she did not view it as one of her more interesting performances, I really loved her in School of Rock. And she was, for the record, the deciding factor in Barack Obama's victorious campaign for president of the United States. That alone makes her existence a net gain for the universe. I'm sitting five feet from Obama right now, and to be perfectly frank, I have a raging boner.
God,
December 1, 2063
THANKS-YOUS
THANK YOU FOREVER TO DAN STERLING WHO LENT HIS GENIUS TO ME AND WHOM I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS BOOK WITHOUT. YOU ARE A JEWISH BEACON, UNLIKE THE MANY JEWS WITH BEAKS-ON.
Thanks to HarperCollins president Michael Morrison, who allowed me to put Harris Wittels's penis in the book (see The Most Important Thing in Life: Being on TV); inspired designer Leah Carlson-Stanisic, who brought visual order to my verbal chaos; and, of course, my editor, David Hirshey, who for the last eighteen months has made me so fuckin' miserable by insisting that he knows what's funny (he doesn't), demanding that I meet my deadlines (I didn't), and valiantly defending the comedic merits of pee-pee versus pee (he failed). Though despite everything, he's kind of brilliant and he made this a much better book...Just don't eat with him because his chewing will make you want to stab yourself in your face.
Thanks to my family for their undying support and tolerance.
Thanks to Rick Kurtzman and Matt Snyder at CAA for telling me to write a book, and to Dan Strone of Trident Media for selling it.
Thank you, Robyn Von Swank, for your amazing cover photo--I'm a huge fan.
Thanks to Deanna Rooney for her graphic delights.
Thanks to my beautiful, spunky manager, Amy Zvi--you are my manager and my friend.
In that order.
xo
s
About the Author
SARAH SILVERMAN is the co-creator and star of The Sarah Silverman Program. She starred in the feature-length film version of her one-woman show Jesus Is Magic. She won an Emmy in 2008 for her video I'm F***ing Matt Damon, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on The Sarah Silverman Program. She has engaged in sexual relations with men from places such as Queens, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side, as well as parts of Chelsea. Silverman grew up in New Hampshire and now lives in Los Angeles (by way of her beloved New York City) with her dog, Duck, presuming he does not die prior to publication, which is moderately to extremely likely.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Credits
Jacket photograph by Robyn Von Swank
Jacket design by Jarrod Taylor
Copyright
A few names have been changed so I don't hurt anyone's feelings or get sued.
THE BEDWETTER. Copyright (c) 2010 by Sarah Silverman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
EPub Edition (c) March 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-198707-6
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* I may or may not have made up this story.
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee Page 18