by Brad Garrett
“But you can’t even fit in it,” said my practical cousin.
“Relax. Don’t confuse me with logic,” I uttered, and drove home in the automatic. I will not lie, it was pretty amazing. Except for the fact that my left leg fell asleep after three miles, and I was afraid to get out of the car in that condition; we’ve all had to walk with a sleeping leg at one time or another, and it’s never pretty. Especially after exiting an Italian sports car.
I had never wanted to be five-ten more in my life than the day I took the Modena to a racetrack in Lancaster to partake in a driving school where owners of every car imaginable could show up and go out on the track with a professional driver. The idea was the pro would give you a crash course on driving for about thirty minutes as he drove your car, and then you would drive him around for thirty minutes while he critiqued your technique. After that, you were on your own for the rest of the day while you practiced what you had learned. At least that’s what it said in the brochure.
I met Dirk, the driver, in his silver flame-retardant jumpsuit. He told me to get a helmet from the race shop and meet him on the track. I have a large head, and they had only one XXL left. I managed to squeeze it on, but unfortunately, it made me over seven fuckin’ feet tall. This posed an even bigger problem: there was literally no way for me to fit into the car. If the helmet came off, I wasn’t allowed on the track for legal and insurance reasons. Helmet on: “Big Jew, no fit.” That’s Cherokee for “What the fuck was I thinking?”
* * *
I’m trying to save you time, money, humiliation, and permanent damage to your body and ego. Like you, I wish I could hang on to my youth, adopt every non-shit-eating puppy I see, and own every hot rod known to man. But sometimes we have to know when enough is enough. Or when none is enough. And even if you don’t listen to me, at least you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
21
Your Arms Are Too Short to Tickle Jesus
I don’t necessarily believe in divine intervention. Though I am a firm believer in drug and alcohol intervention. Most comics have a hard time allowing themselves to get healed by the Lord because (for the most part) we’re too analytical, leery, cynical, or maybe too smart to believe in something so ethereal and irrational. Or maybe we’ve just succumbed to the fact that we’re going to hell, so why get our hopes up?
I’m a believer in evolution. And that we came from the ocean. (That’s evolution, right?) My proof: sperm swims. They must know something. (That’s all I got, sorry.)
The stories in the Bible certainly don’t help make a case for creationism. Why they couldn’t have made either Testament a tad more believable in order to get more people on the bus, I’ll never know. Immaculate conception had me at the get-go. It’s just another guy denying that he fucked someone. Mary was probably from the South and needed to convince Papa Drew that it was in fact a gift from the Lord or else that hussy would have seen the backside of a hand that remarkably resembled the Grand Dragon’s. Joseph, poor guy, was probably black or Hispanic, and that’s why there was “no room at the inn.”
I believe that Jesus was nothing more than a homeless magician. That he was perhaps the first person to perfect the art of sleight of hand or close-up magic. Think about it. He had great hair and a ton of followers, turned water into wine, hosted huge suppers, traveled from town to town, walked on water, hung with a hooker, healed the sick, and always wore the same cloak. Forgive me, but this sounds a lot like David Copperfield sans the private island. His followers may have been other homeless fans or magic geeks who loved seeing the same tricks from city to city, like the first Comic Con. After all, they had no life, either.
* * *
I was raised a reformed Jew, which meant you needed to know someone to be able to score tickets for the High Holidays. According to my people, every September, God would write down everything you had done during the year and review it and get back to you. It was like an audit. Rather strange that He wouldn’t wait until the end of December. Obviously, nothing ever happened to anyone, nor did we ever hear from Him. Conveniently, Jews don’t believe in the devil, so why all the hype about being judged? My bubbie would say, “If God had a problem with me, I’m sure I would have heard something during Yom Kippur. After all, we had great seats. Fifth-row Torah. You could smell the blue velour.”
Thank goodness Jews don’t have confession. If we did, it would be called “blaming” and would be all about who else was at fault. It would be a three-day event just like our holidays. I was always embarrassed that my people charged their congregation members to join the temple. (I told you stereotypes have some truth.) The temple charged extra for tickets to the more popular holidays; I believe that’s why they made them several days long, in order to compensate for the steep prices. Rosh Hashanah: three days. Yom Kippur: three days. Hanukkah: eight days. Passover: a week. It’s like Kosher Coachella. And why? Because Jews never shut up, and we like hearing ourselves talk. Plus, the services are in Hebrew, so we never have any idea what anyone is saying, and therefore we can never challenge or deny the message, only form our own opinions.
Want to know why I toyed with Christianity and Catholicism for a while? The brevity. Christmas: one day. Easter: one day. Ash Wednesday: one Wednesday. Midnight Mass: takes care of back-to-back trips to the church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And it’s all free. You throw a couple dollars into the holy basket and nobody tries to fix you up with their three-hundred-pound daughter. My friend Pat McFadden used to say, “You guys fuckin’ charge people to pray? I wish we had that. Then I’d have a real reason to blow off church.”
* * *
After my dad was miraculously cured from stage-three colon cancer in 1982, without chemotherapy and with only two days of radiation, he became a full-blown Jesus freak. The scar left by his extremely invasive surgery resembled a cross on his abdomen, and that was the only sign he needed. He started believing he had healing powers and a divine connection like no other and that he was saved by the Man Himself. He told everyone. Constantly. Especially Jews whom he felt obligated to save. That’s never pretty, especially at a deli.
These behaviors unfortunately are also the hallmark of someone suffering from bipolar disorder. His religious fanaticism took a huge toll on our relationship, but we remained very close nonetheless. His myopic view of the world was predicated on religion; the Bible tainted his keen instinct and the streetwise philosophy that I always regarded as genuine and insightful. Unfortunately, our love for humor took a hit as well. The Bible just isn’t funny. Making fun of the Bible is. Or was to me. When was the last time you howled at a Christian comedian? Jewish comics, on the other hand, just about invented the art.
Almost all of my later conversations with my father revolved around the Second Coming and the need to get baptized. I told him I had a huge fear of people watching me bathe and I had no idea how I’d ever allow myself to be held underwater, the by-product of watching too many Scorsese movies. My dad pressed on, and it practically drove me nuts. We were Jews. We weren’t particularly good ones, but we weren’t qualified to become Christians, either.
When he started to live in a trailer and eat at Wendy’s, I knew it was the official end of our Judaism, though he never relinquished his sharp negotiating skills. He got thirty-three hundred dollars off on the purchase of his double-wide Teton, and the salesman showed up to his trailer park begging for four hundred back. Apparently, the guy had made a terrible mistake and sold it for just under what the dealership had paid, and his boss was going to kill him. My dad had a good heart and agreed. But only after he made the salesman listen to a thirty-minute sermon on Moses.
My father was baptized in Watts, California, in the back of some guy’s office to whom he had sold hearing aids. The guy was a black preacher with a slight stutter who was between churches, and this was the only space he could get to spread his gospel. The minister used an old lobster tank he purchased from a defunct local restaurant to administer the religious dunkings. I used to tease
my dad that they should have given him drawn butter instead of wine following the ceremony.
My father’s dysfunctional upbringing, along with his bipolar condition and lack of judgment, was a perfect storm to become a fanatical Christian. That’s why many folks find Jesus after doing prison time or waking up naked in a foreign country without knowing how they got there. It’s like the classic go-to when everything else has turned to shit. I do know some truly wonderful Christians, but I notice they stop talking when I walk into the room.
I find that most people who have “turned their life over to God” are very difficult to be around. They’re often controlling and judgmental, giving off the feeling that they’re frozen in the 1950s with painted-on smiles and a hand in your pocket.
Growing up, I had to pray to someone. I needed help in so many areas and was so fearful of something happening to my family that I needed to cover all my bases. In temple, you’re never taught how to pray. As in church, there’s more cardio than connection. “Open to page fifteen, stand, sit, stand again,” and repeat.
When I hit fifty, I had pretty much given up on God. I realize this looks pretty bad in print, and I’m sorry, but shit, just turn on CNN and tell me His presence isn’t long overdue. Nobody has ever gotten better press than He has, but after spending half a century on Planet Blah, I have my doubts. Despite my generally skewed outlook on life, if you take into consideration all the unthinkable atrocities worldwide, it just doesn’t add up. Where is He? Or She? If He can have some influence over who wins the Latin Grammys, shouldn’t He be able to do something about that tornado that wiped out half a state? You can’t have your Jesus-cake and eat it, too. So God, come out, come out, wherever you are! Or are we not allowed to say “come out” if we profess to be good Christians?
My father’s biggest fear was having to leave me. When he was moments away from passing and his breathing was extremely labored and the pain from the cancer had created the need for huge amounts of morphine, I held his hand and said what I thought he’d want me to say: “It’s okay, Dad. Don’t fight. You can go to Jesus now.”
His last words to me were, “Do you want me to die?”
It caught me so off guard, I was practically speechless. “Of course not, Dad. You’re everything to me. I just don’t want you to be in pain anymore.” He never responded. How could those be his last words to me? I figured after twenty-five years of preaching the Gospel, he was ready. Then I panicked. What if he never heard my response? How could he ask that question when I idolized the man? Hopefully, he was asking my permission instead of questioning my love for him.
I’d never know. He passed away shortly after that at seventy-seven, twenty-five years after his first cancer diagnosis, when his doctors originally gave him eighteen months to three years to live. I was the only one at his bedside. I guess it was me and Dad against the world after all.
I have way too much experience with fucking cancer. I lost my amazing oldest brother, Jeff; my father; and my best friend, Ed, all within a three-and-a-half-year period, all to different types of cancer—not to mention several other loved ones and friends. My father was a huge fighter and strong as an ox mentally and physically. My brother smoked for forty years, up until the day he passed, nine months after being diagnosed, using his acerbic and brilliant humor to lead the way. My dear friend Ed had a heart of gold and lived an incredibly healthy life and fathered seven beautiful children, my godchildren; he passed way too soon. In a frightening turn of events, Ed’s beautiful wife, Lorri, the sister I never had, succumbed to cancer three years after Ed. Ed and Lorri had started their own church years before and, without a doubt, were the most spiritual, kindhearted, and godly people I’d ever met.
They all took different routes of treatment, trying various combinations of chemo and radiation combined with holistic ingredients and God. These four beautiful souls had the best doctors available, and all had different opinions, philosophies, and remedies. In the end the cancer won, as it usually does.
You can “live right,” “pray right,” and “do right,” but there are no guarantees. Ultimately, you have to live right for you. As in get your eyes off the clock, get off your ass, and do something good for yourself and the people around you who have your back. And keep swingin’, baby.
Notice how the Jewish kids weren’t allowed inside the workshop.
He insisted on meeting us on the porch.
Santa’s Village, Lake Arrowhead, California, 1965.
Left to right: cousin Darren, brother Paul, me, cousin Kevin
(Courtesy of author’s collection)
22
Dreck the Halls
In fifty-five years on earth, I’ve never heard anyone say, “Boy, I sure can’t wait for Hanukkah!” And that’s because Hanukkah blows. Hard. Like Neil Patrick Harris after winning the Tony.
It’s known as the Festival of Lights. Which are technically candles. I’m sure that would be a thrill if we hadn’t had candles for the past several thousand years. Yet as Jews, we’re not allowed to have pretty lights, like our gentile brethren. Unless they’re blue and white, the color theme in most hospitals. And they definitely cannot be displayed on the house, because apparently, that means you believe in Jesus. Or Thomas Edison, I can’t remember. But we can put a candle in the window and wait for the troops to return from the Civil War. Or light the menorah for eight nights. Wow, squeeze my nipples and call me Phyllis, is that fun. So I guess it’s technically the Festival of Candles. Again, boring as shit.
Every December when I was a kid, my mom would drive me down a particular street close to our house called Candy Cane Lane just so I could eat my heart out. It consisted of about two square miles of homes that would compete every year to pull off the best damn Christmas display. And it was mind-blowing. Especially to a kid whose biggest holiday spectacle was a yarmulke that glowed in the dark. One house I’ll never forget had twelve giant gingerbread men, all lit up, waving to Santa and his reindeer as they landed on the roof; all the figures moved independently. They also installed a snowmaking machine in the five days leading up to Christmas. When you see shit like that in Southern Cali, you never forget it.
I remember asking my mom once how Hanukkah began. Mom looked at me like she had just downed a bad oyster and told me “not to worry about the beginning of things but to enjoy the now.” To this day I’m not sure if she was unfamiliar with the story or if she knew how lame it actually was. Excuse me while I paraphrase the parable that is Hanukkah, but I believe it has something to do with the following:
The Jewish people were once again running from some bad soldiers, known as the Maccabees, as they were migrating south to get away from the brutal winters of Mount Sinai (not the hospital). The Macs were pissed off about something and chased the Yids into a temple, ironically, where they were able to hide. The soldiers, unable to find the fleeing settlers, decided to call it a night. I don’t understand how hard it is to capture people hiding in a temple, but whatever. Chances are they were huddled in the gift shop.
As folklore has it, Jews love to read before bed, but alas, they noticed there were no candles in the temple. As the more courageous Jews searched the temple for candles, they happened upon an oil lamp. One of the less intelligent Semitics rubbed the lamp, asking for better accommodations, a boat, and a referral for a good dentist.
Apparently, the oil lamp had only enough oil to keep the temple aglow for one night. Grateful that they were able to have any light at all (Festival of Lights), Mickey, the only Jew with matches, ignited the flame. And it burned for eight nights instead of one. And that’s how Hanukkah was born. No manger, no Wise Men, no North Star, no Son of God, zilch livestock, not even a midget posing as an angel or elf. Just a few Jews and a lit lamp. Great story, right? Wrong. It makes zero sense and you know it.
First of all, if you’re hiding from soldiers, why the fuck are you lighting the place up? You think Anne Frank thought, I need to brighten up this attic. Someone’s gonna break their neck? Doubtful. A
nd big deal—so the lamp burned for seven days longer than expected. A miracle? Or more like a guy who had no fuckin’ idea what he was talking about and miscalculated the amount of oil. What good Jew does that? We invented calculating. Sorry, but it’s no different than guessing how many jellybeans are in a milk bottle. So what makes you think you can guesstimate how long two inches of oil will last? Plus, my people seem to lean a little toward the negative side of things; expecting the oil to last only a few hours is textbook Judaism. And what rhymes with Judaism? Pessimism. I’m damn proud to be both, my friends of the goyim persuasion.
Anybody ever slip you a piece of chocolate Hanukkah gelt (money)? For those unfamiliar with the frighteningly stereotypical tradition of Jews handing out holiday chocolates shaped like money (HELLO?!), it must be noted that this is without a doubt the worst chocolate you’ve ever tasted. It typically comes from Israel, and as fabulous as they are, they’re not known for their tasty confections. I keep tasting gunpowder. The crappy candy comes wrapped in a tiny pouch, like a hairnet, tied at the top. Inside are various chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil that seemed to be welded onto the stale candy discs. I remember having to sometimes bite the tinfoil off to get to the chocolate. Ever do that on a tooth filling? Put that in your dreidel and spin it.
I remember my gentile friends saying, “You’re so lucky! During Hanukkah, you get gifts for eight nights!” Really? How about crap for seven nights and one cool gift on the eighth? I don’t mean to sound like an ungrateful fuck, but come on! Where’s all the shit under the tree, Moeshe? I mean the Hanukkah bush.