by Brad Garrett
24
Politics: Why Try?
I know this may come as a surprise after what you’ve just read, but with middle age, I have become increasingly fascinated by things outside of my own tiny world. Obviously, I don’t feel the need to see them in person, but I am becoming increasingly nationally and globally aware. And guess what? The view sucks. Most old folks are bitter and cranky simply because all the shit that they labored over, strived for, and dreamed of never panned out. The American dream has become an oxymoron. I love my country, but it seems these days we’re drowning in our own mediocrity and bullshit.
I should also mention right off the bat that I’m not politically savvy. I confuse the congress with the senate, all the old white guys in red and blue ties look the same to me, and I can’t explain a caucus, though I do love saying the word. One thing I can do is watch a guy talk for ten minutes and tell you if he’s full of shit or not. My batting average is most impressive. Because they are all full of it. They have to be to get there.
No matter how you feel about our current political situation, allow me to say a few words about the democratic system. You think your vote counts? Guess what? You’re an imbecile. It doesn’t. If it counted, your candidate would have won. If he or she did win, how’s that going? Voting is for idiots who believe they have a voice. You know which presidents change things? The ones on the green paper. And when’s the last time the Mint printed a new cash denomination to give a president props on a job well done?
We all know that the people who are powerful and smart enough to change the country don’t want the gig. When is the last time you remember a president actually fixing anything? Education and illiteracy among our youth? Roads and highways? Our nation’s growing poverty? Our national debt—can anyone shave a zero off that puppy? The war on terrorism? Which is as impossible to win as the war on drugs. Healthcare has finally been addressed, but I’m not sure how that will play out. Every Canadian buddy I have with a serious illness always runs over to the States, so that should tell us something about socialized medicine. How about children’s rights and the astonishing number who are abused? I say life in prison, what about you? We’re a nation notorious for not taking care of our own, and that’s because big business runs the country, boys and girls. They’ve got us by the jimmies. Unfortunately, that’s become the American way. Can I get a hallelujah?
Even our voting process is often a mess. The last time I voted, they told me I wasn’t registered. I had proof that I was registered. Turned out they had my name at a different address than where I lived. In a city I’d never heard of. The volunteers at your typical polling place are around eighty-five years of age. Remember, many volunteers are people who are unable to get hired. Like at the registration desk in a hospital. They figure, “I’m so friggin’ old, I might as well work at a place that has a defibrillator next to every elevator.”
These polling places are more like God’s waiting room. It’s like old people and their parents in there, wearing their little “vote” buttons. Most have no idea how they even got to the polling place, yet they are responsible for one of the most important democratic processes we possess as Americans. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you voted for Taft, you can’t volunteer on Election Day. Personally, I’ve voted four times in half a century. When I have, my head has protruded two feet above the booth’s privacy cloth. I look like I’m in a stable.
The only candidate I ever looked in the peepers and believed was Obama. Now, not so much. I think Brother Barack is a better human than he is a president. He seems to be lacking in the balls area. I wanted to be able to tell my grandkids, “I helped put the first black man in the White House!” But I feel the house is much whiter than he is black. I was hoping for James Brown and I got Lionel Richie, post-Commodores. This country really needed “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and we ended up with “Penny Lover.” I would love to see President “O” go a little ghetto. Or maybe even a little Hawaii Five-O. The DNA is in there to do either or both; he just needs to dig deep and open a can of whoop-ass. Put some spice on your macadamias, my good brother, and go out like the true Chicago thug you really are.
In Obama’s defense, I think that Hawaiian blood has hurt him in the long run. I love Hawaii and have vacationed there many times, but those familiar with the native people know one thing: they’re slower than a shit after a cheese wheel. Their clocks don’t have a minute hand. I thought we were the ones on vacation, not them. I once rented a car on Maui, and after I waited three hours for it, the manager said, “I guess my cousin Lava forgot to bring it back.” Huh?
One of the biggest issues we face as a nation is terrorism. Fuckin’ hate those guys. We all do. Unless you’re a terrorist. It’s difficult to combat an enemy who can’t wait to die so he can get to heaven and have his way with seventy virgins, the assumed reward for killing the innocent and free thinking. Have you ever gotten a good look at the women who hang with Al-Qaeda? Not so purty. They wear veils for a reason, and it’s not just to cover their sideburns. Put seventy of them all in one place—not exactly the Playboy Mansion.
Let’s get bleaker, shall we? Global warming. Yes, it’s happening. It’s inevitable and unstoppable. Period. If you want to drive a Tesla because it makes you feel you’re doing your part, good for you. But guess what? It won’t change a damn thing. If 50 percent of the world bought Priuses tomorrow, they would have zero impact as far as repair to the ozone. If all the factories got together and made a plan, which is impossible, the ice caps wouldn’t stop melting. We’re in an endless game of catch-up. The hole in the sky is there to stay, and between the population’s crazy expansion and the ineffectiveness of the EPA, nothing can stop the cycle. My uncle Benny’s farting isn’t helping matters, either.
Personally, I feel global warming is a part of our unfortunate man-made evolution. It’s unstoppable, like the extinction of dinosaurs or American Idol. Some shit has to disappear. And one way or another, we may be next. Climate change and all its issues are bigger than humanity and larger than the good of the earth. I’m not saying any of it is acceptable or healthy, but it’s all here to stay. It’s the atmosphere’s herpes, and let’s be honest, this earth has done a lot of banging. I want a clean, green planet for my grandchildren’s grandchildren, but do the math. It ain’t gonna happen.
What we can do is something humans aren’t very good at: prepare. Get those fucking levies and seawalls built, stat. Take in a polar bear. Invest in a company that sells tacky windbreakers or floaties. And for God’s sake, if you don’t know how to swim, show up at the YMCA tomorrow and sign up, anchor-ass. Who knows, maybe when it’s all said and done, you’ll get the waterfront property you’ve always wanted.
This all brings me to the topic of extinction, which could go hand in hand with the previous topic. I realize it is not good to lose a certain species of bug or owl. I get it, and I agree. It’s never good news. But with three million kinds of bugs (and most of them really scary and not very useful), we’ll manage. Spotted owl? Gorgeous, majestic, nocturnal . . . not the end of the world. There are one hundred and forty other kinds. Maybe not as spotted but definitely close, and what’s wrong with stripes instead of spots? Stripes make you look taller (I should know), and maybe that’s an advantage when hunting at night. Let’s save the people first and then work our way down the food chain. I’m sure when the cavemen saw the last T. Rex hit the pavement, they probably uttered, “We’re doomed. Who’s gonna eat us now?”
In conclusion, I’m afraid to say that as a species, we’re not as evolved as we think we are. I truly believe that as a group, we hit our prime in the late 1950s (except for the lack of the civil rights movement, LGBT equality, and HDTV). But that’s when we started to buy our own hype, and we’ve been spiraling down ever since.
The good and bad news is: there’s very little you can do to change anything. Aside from the impending-doom element, this should come as a relief, because it takes the pressure off. You don’t have to show up and protes
t the building of that new Walmart next weekend. It’s going to open whether you stand on the street all day with a sign or stay home and watch football. You can also put off getting those solar panels installed on your roof, or putting that candidate’s sign in your yard. I don’t mean to discourage all acts of goodness. Feel free to sit with an elderly person and feed him soup against his will. Or read to an undocumented child, or swerve in the road to avoid hitting a Smart car even though you really want to. Next to nothing, it’s the least we can do.
25
I Hate Poker and Golf Regularly
Without a doubt, poker and golf are my two favorite sports, to watch or to play. I hyperventilate during both. The best news is that you can participate in these two wonderful games right up until you’re dead. And there’s a good chance that those who are middle-aged could be in their prime when it comes to these two pastimes. This is precisely why I would venture to say that more heart attacks happen on the golf course or poker table than in any other extracurricular activity.
The upside of these two sports is that it’s possible for us middle-agers to defeat youngsters in either game. Therefore, if you’re looking for a boost in the self-esteem area, look no further. Unless you’re me. And that’s where the tragedy lies. How can I be so fucking bad at poker and golf yet love them so much? It’s hard to love something you suck at. Being naked comes to mind. Perhaps the reason I keep hanging on is that you need only one great shot or one great hand to get pulled right back into the torture.
What can I say about my golf game that hasn’t already been documented at charity events or told with glee at country club barbecues? Maybe I enjoy golf because it gives me an opportunity to dress like a pimp. If I could only stop falling off the ball washer, I think my game would improve greatly. I just don’t have the balance. Feel free to use that joke. My gift to you.
About thirteen years ago I joined a very nice country club in the San Fernando Valley that will remain nameless to protect the elderly. Let’s just call it El Yewish, which means “the Jew” in Spanish. It’s one of the most beautiful courses in Southern California, and when I joined fifteen years ago, I brought the average age of the members down to eighty-three. And the average round up to 118. I’ve been in the locker room twice in all these years; if you’ve never seen corpses naked and walking around, this is the place. It makes sense that lockers are left wide open, because people flee in terror. It’s like The Walking Dead meets Cocoon. The upside is that the food is really good there, and when you play like me, it’s all about the food anyway. I highly recommend the turkey salad, an iced tea, and a caddy named Rambo if he hasn’t been deported.
I played one of my best practical jokes at El Yewish about four years ago. There was a rumor that one of the elderly members had a heart attack while at the buffet; when he keeled over, his head hit the sneeze guard on the salad bar, and his glass eye popped out. A buddy who’s a member told me this story in front of my kids during a Sunday brunch at the club. Needless to say, the kids were totally grossed out. I’m not much of a practical joker, but when no one was looking, I grabbed a litchi fruit (which looks very much like an eyeball) and stuck a red bean in the hole in the middle. I swear this idea came to me because I was hallucinating from all the mercury in the whitefish. I then gingerly placed my creation on top of the croutons and began to scream. Anywhere else, this would cause a commotion, but since most of the diners were deaf, it didn’t have much of an impact. My kids ran over, went white, and squealed for ten seconds until they realized what it was. They then proceeded to tell me to grow up. At age fifty, I discovered that as a father, I had turned the corner from hysterical to corny in the eyes of my kids. It happens to every dad at some point in the preteen years. My favorite audience was about to move on to hipper ground.
For those of you familiar with the game of golf and the pro/celebrity element that often surrounds the sport, let me cut to the chase: I’m the only person ever to be beaten by Charles Barkley on national television. That’s saying a lot about how much I stink. Mr. Barkley, whom I have great respect for because I know he can cause me great harm, has a golf swing that is famous for its utter lack of grace or anything that resembles a fluid motion. It’s almost as if he’s getting struck by lightning in the middle of his backswing: he freezes, then remembers where he is, blows off the smoke, and continues through as if only suffering a mild stroke. And he beat me. On NBC’s well-known pro-athlete/celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I was the first player to fall to Mr. Barkley’s wrath, at least on national television.
After day one of the tournament, I was next to last in the field, just edging out Charles. Day two, I took five sevens and two tens on various holes. You heard me. I was wearing the Ping golf hat that came in the gift bag, and after day two, a representative from Ping kindly asked me to remove it because the tournament was being televised. Then a rep from Titleist approached me and said he would send me a free set of clubs if I didn’t wear their shirt. This may have been the first and only request for lack of celebrity endorsement for any product, ever. So instead I wore a baseball cap from Brent’s Deli, one of my favorite eateries, and turned my shirt inside out. I figured my pals at the deli would appreciate the exposure. Apparently not. My favorite waitress, Shirley, avoided me like the plague after that, saying she wasn’t allowed to wait on me because I five-putted wearing their hat.
By the end of day three, Charles beat me by, I believe, six strokes. I can’t remember, exactly. I stopped keeping score when I was lying sixty after nine holes. Romano and I played in the same foursome that weekend, and when a reporter went up to him and asked, “How does Brad shoot a sixty after nine holes?,” Ray quipped back, “Well, it appears he missed the putt for fifty-nine.” And that’s why everyone loves him.
My sweet revenge on Sir Charles came a few years later at the Ante Up for Africa charity poker event in Vegas, hosted by Don Cheadle and Matt Damon, where I took him out in a friendly game of Texas Hold ’em. It was a wonderful one-two punch. First I took him out with trips over his two pair. He immediately rebought; the very next hand he had pocket kings and went all-in, and I “rivered” him, making a gutshot straight to knock him out again. I have a great picture of it hanging in my office. Maybe one day I’ll have the balls to ask him to sign it.
Gambling in general is loved by many, but it’s especially appealing to the old fucks. I imagine this is because they figure, “What have I got to lose that I haven’t lost already? I can’t hear, can barely see, can’t taste, can’t remember shit, have trouble walking, am wearing a diaper, and nobody comes to visit unless they have a gurney.” Putting eight hundred bucks on 29 black has a whole different meaning when you’re waiting for a liver transplant. Which reminds me of one of my favorite gambling stories of all time. This one didn’t even involve me directly.
It was a good twenty years ago, and I was working in Vegas. I was nursing a hangover during the day while playing a quarter video poker machine. An older couple was playing the new Megabucks slot machine a few feet away from me. Megabucks was relatively new back then, and like most people, they didn’t realize that the odds were grossly stacked against them (like in most casino games). This was also a game that offered the possibility of winning millions by slipping two dollars into the ole slotsky. The Megabucks machines are tied into all the other Megabucks machines in all the casinos around the country, including Reno, Atlantic City, Tahoe, etc. Most people didn’t know that, especially back then. This is how the huge payouts were possible and also why the odds of your machine hitting were even more remote.
This forever-married couple was bickering with every spin. It was annoying and lovely at the same time. She kept grinding on him for putting in two coins with every spin, as opposed to one. He tried to explain that you win the millions only if two coins are played. She proceeded to call him “dimwitted” for believing he could actually hit the mega-jackpot. Her plan was to play it safe and get more spins by playing one dollar at a time, which in
all actuality could win them ten thousand dollars with the same three tiny rainbows appearing. A long shot as well, but more probable, according to the broad. And as we know, they’re usually right. “Quit being a nutcracker,” the husband squawked, with a Pall Mall dangling from his five teeth.
“I thought we agreed to only gamble at night,” she replied.
“When did we say that? You’re dragging me to Engelbert later.” He then told her that he had to go “take a leak,” but he was feeling lucky and wanted her to continue playing the machine. He made her promise to use two coins. She said okay. He made her swear. She stared at him the way only a long-suffering wife can as “I swear” dribbled from her overly glossed yapper. The old man gave her the plastic bucket of silver dollars and crossed into the john as she continued to play the machine with a look on her face like they may both end up homeless.
I was playing my quarter poker when all of a sudden I heard bells and whistles going off like I’ve never heard to this day. I glanced over to see the nutcracker screaming and jumping up and down. Everyone in the casino came running over. I got up and walked over to their machine as well. The chimes were deafening while the three rainbows illuminated in all their glory. She had hit it. The husband came running from the bathroom, screaming, while trying to pull up his stuck zipper. It was mayhem as the couple embraced and attempted to jump up and down as if they were young lovers again. The husband with the wet spot on his Sansabelt trousers looked up in utter joy and saw “$10,000” lit up and flashing on top of the machine. He froze. The number above the ten grand, the “$1,548,072,” was not lit up. Nor flashing. The crowd took this in simultaneously as the poor son of a bitch turned to his wife. He got pale and wobbled ever so slightly. Just then a casino host whispered, “She only put in one coin?” The crowd gasped, but the wife continued to gloat.