I loved how the laws even separated the vices that were allowed. I could talk graphic sexuality onstage in a nightclub for a living but if you want to hear it over the phone, bring your Visa. Of course, you couldn’t jack off when I talked dirty in a nightclub (not that you’d want to) nor could you smoke a cigarette afterwards with your cocktail. You could go to a titty bar where you could have a cocktail and see partial nudity. You still couldn’t jack off or smoke, and if you wanted to see full nudity you could but you’d no longer be allowed to have a cocktail and chances are she wouldn’t talk dirty to you unless you got too handsy. The only place the girl could legally touch you was in a massage parlor but she couldn’t be naked, wouldn’t let you drink or smoke, probably wouldn’t talk dirty and could touch you everywhere but there. You could see an actor naked and hear them talk dirty in an R-rated movie but then you couldn’t drink, smoke, jack off or even heckle for that matter.
So you go back home to drink, smoke, get naked and jack off to porn. Your cable porn wouldn’t show penetration and porn without penetration is like hockey without the fights, so you go out in those pre-Internet glory days to rent some real porn but you couldn’t rent real porn because you don’t have a credit card! Besides, if you jack off too much you’ll go blind, and if you’re going blind that’s the only way they’d allow you to smoke a joint.
Well, there you have it.
I went back to my gay phone sex job the next day only on the assurance that they’d let me work on one of the hard-core lines. I spent six hours making the most perverse prank calls ever, all at a cost of $4.99 a minute to the customer. This was a precursor to my days “baiting” online, my time fucking with online pedophiles, but it was the same type of monkeyshines. It’s amazing what a guy will listen to or pretend not to hear when he’s right about to come. If I started off too goofy, they’d just hang up but if I played along at first and waited for them to really get into it, I could say anything.
“Oh ya, I’d love to fuck your ass! Oh baby, yeah. I’d love to have you fuck me up the ass but I just found out today that I have colon cancer and it’s spread to my lymph nodes and it doesn’t look very good… But this probably isn’t the time to talk about it. Go ahead, fuck my ass! Pound me right past that malignant lump all the way to the bottom, baby!”
It was the same as if a girlie told you she had worm-riddled diarrhea as you were close to coming. You try to ignore it as best you can. I tried to make them ignore the worst possible scenarios.
“I just had my first black guy last week. I swear, he had an eleven-inch cock and when he pulled outta me, my ass slammed shut like a car door! It shoved my stool up into my lungs! You ever cough up feces? Anyway, what do you look like? Me, I’m a sixty-one-year-old Korean War veteran. I used to drive cross-country tractor-trailer until diabetes took away my legs. I have three and a half inches of uncut, twisted, herpes-scarred penis and one ball. Geez, I guess I shoulda made something up right there, huh?”
When I felt like I was losing them, I’d go back to serious gay jack-talk. Only long enough to get them back to not hanging up. Then I’d go right back to warped.
“I used to use gerbils but that got too pricey after a while and I think the pet store was catching on so now I like to get a big string of rats on a rope, shove them up my kucky-hole one at a time and then yank them out just when I start to come. By the way, do you know anything that will get shit stains out of a Persian cat? My mother is going to kill me!”
I was hoping to get fired but no one in charge seemed to be paying attention. I just kept getting more vile and abusive until my shift was over and I was in pain from the laughter. I don’t think I ever went back for my paycheck but if you’ve read my Best of Baiting book, now you know the catalyst story.
And if there’s a lesson to be learned for new comics, it’s “don’t own a couch in LA.” Get a love seat. That way, your friends who sleep on it will cramp up with scoliosis after a few days and move on before they become a burden.
IF SOMEONE IS A CUNT TO YOU, HOLD IT IN YOUR HEART FOR LIFE
My early life in the wilderness of the road seemed nothing but a happy time with all the comedians having a certain bond. Even if we hated each other, the audience was always our common enemy. We were weak and outnumbered. And we mostly sucked, so we were usually fighting uphill.
When I moved to LA, I had that same innocent, naive assumption that all comics were a tribe.
Let me cut straight to the shit-talking. I got my first Comedy Central television spot on a show called Premium Blend. It went well by my standards of not having many standards at all and I was jubilant. The theater where it was being filmed had a bar attached, much to my appreciation. California had just passed their first smoking ban that only allowed you to smoke in bars but not restaurants. I strutted into the bar with my hot redheaded actress girlfriend, finally feeling like I deserved her. I wanted a beer and a cigarette and polite round of applause for my genius performance, but mostly the cigarette. My heart sank when I saw that the bar was full. That was my pole position. The nonsmoking restaurant side was nearly empty but the bartender said that the corner horseshoe booth between the two sides—the DMZ if you will—was still smoker friendly. I looked in that special booth and I saw David Cross holding court with other people who I assumed were comedians and friends from the shows that had just taped.
I knew this table from the road. All the comics on the road would hunker down in a safe place in the back corner and distance themselves from the plebes in the audience. Comics were all friends from my limited road experience. My gal was getting impatient as I waited for any seat at the bar or that table to open up. Finally a few people left David Cross’s table and I breathed a sigh of relief. I could smoke and drink and be the guy who just killed on his first Comedy Central show.
“Thank God.”
That’s what I remember saying as I pulled into the booth with my gal and lit up a cigarette.
David Cross looked at me incredulously, like I’d just pissed in his calamari.
“Um… I’m with people???”
He couldn’t have said it cuntier. I felt like I’d just walked into a wedding and knocked over the cake. I thought I was sitting down at the regular road comics’ table after the show. To say that I felt humiliated is not strong enough. The fact that it still bothers me some twenty years later is telling.
Having nothing else to say, I almost begged for forgiveness at a transgression I didn’t even understand. I stammered that I was sorry and that I was told this was the only table I could smoke at.
He looked at me like I was throwing bad excuses for trying to get past the velvet rope into his VIP section as he pointed to all the empty tables in the restaurant. I was too embarrassed to explain the recent smoking ordinances, much less how I thought comedians were all a tight-knit group of friends. It wasn’t until later that I realized that “road comics” were generally derided in those circles as boring hacks. That wasn’t wrong for the most part. I didn’t know that “alternative comedy” meant a bunch of elitist, exclusionary piss-jackets until around that time either. Or at least a few of them.
You shouldn’t label. Even when it generally works. Be polite and find exceptions to the rule.
I’ve hated David Cross ever since—even though I like a lot of his comedy and the fact that I’ve probably been that much of a self-involved asshole to many more young comedians in my later years. I was just trying to take up a corner booth with friends and have a quiet conversation. But I never would be a cunt to anyone who just wanted to smoke. Even when I won’t give homeless people money, I will never deny them a cigarette.*
Randomly, as of this last draft of this book, David Cross followed me on Twitter. So maybe he’s not that bad after all.
Fucking ego.
* I’ve caught myself at least thirty times denying homeless people cigarettes since I wrote this. I’m a hypocrite.
NEVER SHY AWAY FROM A CHANCE AT A GOOD STORY
A lot of people
don’t remember how huge The Jerry Springer Show was when it first came to prominence in the late 1990s. Some of you weren’t even born yet. At its height, the show was beating Oprah Winfrey in some markets. I’d schedule my day around it, not that my days back then were clogged with appointments. Half the fun of the show was trying to figure out the real brawls from the staged ones, the Hulk Hogans from the Mike Tysons. I could come up with less dated references but that would be disingenuous because those are the last wrestler/boxer names I remember. But knowing that some of the shows were clearly bogus, I’d often considered staging an episode myself. I’d also considered quitting drinking, spending more time with my girlfriend, writing a screenplay, etc. that I never got around to doing.
Then I ran into Tom Ryan. Tom and I were booked together at the Laff Stop in Houston, Texas, and were talking one day about Springer. Tom told me that he had a stripper friend (every good comic has at least one) who was going to do an episode and needed people to go with her to play different roles. Her motivation for going on the show, he explained, was to push her new literary achievement, How to Be a Successful Stripper, or some such horseshit that she’d evidently penned between spins on the brass pole. He said that his stripper friend, Suzanne, had spoken with the Springer people who’d shown interest but said she needed to come up with a storyline around which she could push her book.
Figuring a storyline for Springer was about as difficult as writing a porn plot, I called Suzanne immediately and started devising possible scenarios. Her only concerns were being the only blond girl in our segment and, of course, pushing the book. Don’t forget, she had a message.
Before I could even pitch a simple pizza-boy plot, the producers called up Suzanne and told her they’d come up with a storyline of their own. I would be brought to the show so that my “girlfriend” could reveal to me her secret life as a titty dancer. I would act as though I had been kicked in the nut. Then a second girl, Suzanne, would come out as my girlfriend’s new lesbian lover. A kick to the other nut. Adding more insult to injury, they’d then perform a striptease for the audience, during which I was to go apeshit. End of segment. Suzanne would now seek out a girl to play my girlfriend while I worked on getting into character, pretending to hate titty dancers while my friends took turns kicking me in the nuts.
I first spoke with a segment producer about a week before the taping. He briefly went over the storyline, asked a few pertinent questions and told me that I could not, at any time, for any reason, tell anyone that this story was anything other than the truth, including my own friends. My friends laughed when I told them this.
They’d arrange my airfare from LA to Chicago where the show was taped. The taping date was, appropriately enough, April Fool’s Day, 1998, although we’d get there two days ahead of time to rehearse.
A limo waited for me when I landed at Chicago O’Hare. No matter how many times I get in a limo, I always look around first hoping that someone I hated from high school is panhandling nearby. No such luck. As I waited in line at the hotel check-in, I noticed a young trailer-trash couple ahead of me looking completely out of place and had to assume they were also there for the show. I listened to their conversation with the front-desk girl as they told her about that day’s taping. These two were for real. They didn’t need any coaching, I’m sure. I’d bet they fucked in the limo, not sure if they’d ever see the inside of one again. I bet they fucked in the shower for the same reason.
I met with Suzanne and her friend Danielle, who would be playing my girlfriend, in their room where they were waiting on the segment producer. Both seemed pretty war torn, Danielle from a two-day Ecstasy binge and Suzanne from too many years of titty dancing. It was obvious why she left the lap dance for the laptop. Danielle, however, was young, twenty, and many years and rehabs away from writing her memoirs. She was somewhat attractive in a low-grade kind of way, like she could have been voted prettiest girl at Job Corps. But pretty has a lot to do with attitude and with that in mind, Danielle was as ugly as pigs fucking.
It was also clear from the beginning that we weren’t on the same page. My plan was to be so outrageous that we were shooins for the Too Hot for TV video, the uncensored video they sold in infomercials. That was my goal even if I had to punch Jerry right in the face. Suzanne wanted absolutely no violence. She was very “Gandhi-like,” if Gandhi were an obsolete stripper with a tit job that looked like it was done in an auto body shop. Danielle actually said she wanted our segment to have “a little class.” I waited for laughter but none came. I was definitely a man alone.
The producers, who couldn’t produce a loose stool after a hard “Cinco de Mayo,” exuded all the class and competence you’d expect from a show of this caliber. They arrived late and began spitting out greetings, directions, flirtations and questions like they were fresh from an Adderall tasting party. We were handed outlines of the show we’d be doing. It wasn’t a script, really, as it contained no actual dialogue. Just the basic beats of the segment. Danielle will tell Doug that she lied about her secret job as a topless dancer, Doug will become upset and so forth.
We were warned not to let the outline leave our rooms, as they’d be taking them back before we taped. We were also warned not to talk to anyone if we were approached in the hotel, as the investigative television show 20/20 had been snooping around. With that said and done, we started rehearsal, which mostly consisted of having the ladies strip. Over and over again. It was clear, if only to me, that this wasn’t all in an effort to make a quality television show, but merely a perk of the job. I mentioned this to the girls afterwards when we were alone but they defended it, saying it was the production’s job to make sure it looked perfect. If it looked perfect the first four times, why the fifth and sixth times? More blank stares. My fault for trying to point out blatant sexual harassment to vapid titty dancers. I didn’t bother to point out that at no time was there any mention of promoting Suzanne’s book.
I was still a man alone and now the numbers against me were mounting. I went back to my room and in the morning I had my agent put in a call to 20/20. Shortly afterwards my phone rang. A woman named Penelope Fleming was on the line from New York. She was vague and would not commit to the fact that they were indeed doing a story on Jerry Springer. She listened to my story with a distant interest and said she’d call back.
Soon my phone was ringing off the hook. On the next call Penelope remained vague but “happened to have” someone in Chicago now and would have them call. Next a guy named Glenn Ruppel called and I reiterated my story. He asked for a copy of the outline. I told him I’d leave it partially sticking out under my door so he could come pick it up and copy it while I was at another rehearsal. I told him to do it quickly, in case they asked for it back. Fortunately the Springer people were hours late again so I waited in the hotel bar. Glenn and his assistant wasted no time getting in and out. I was still in the lounge when they came down from returning the outline to my room. I pegged them immediately, as they looked around, walking like they had rods shoved up their asses. They were either the 20/20 people or rookie narcotics officers destined to have memorial highways named after them. I made eye contact, gave them the high nod, did everything but scream “I’m from Springer” through a bullhorn before they sidled up to me at the bar. They positioned themselves to look like they were only talking to each other and told me to call them as soon as I was out of rehearsal. I felt like I was Deep Throat in All the President’s Men and I liked it.
As soon as we were done, I called Glenn and arranged to meet him somewhere up the street at another hotel lounge. From there we hopped in a cab and I was secreted off to an office building where a camera crew was waiting to do an interview. Had I known I was going to be on camera I might have showered or maybe combed my hair. But probably not. Nonetheless, we taped the interview and before I knew it I was back in a cab and on my way back to the hotel, without a kiss goodbye or a Handi Wipe to clean off with. I felt like I should have been graciously heralded as a hero
for blowing the lid off this case.
The next day in the studio we were separated into groups, segregated from any other person in our own segments. I was sharing a dressing room with three other guys from different segments, all of which they readily admitted were contrived. We were outfitted by the wardrobe people and given contracts to sign. I asked for a copy of mine but was denied.
Shortly after, some producer came crashing in like a drill sergeant, shrieking at the top of his lungs: “ALL RIGHT! I WILL NOT HAVE ANY PUSSIES ON MY FUCKING SHOW! I DON’T WANT ANY BULLSHIT! I WANT FUCKING ENERGY OUT THERE!!!!!” It was hard not to laugh but I’m sure with some of the dunce caps they get on this show, it’s sometimes necessary to focus them.
He went through each person’s dialogue and then brought them out one at a time as each new segment began taping, mine being the last. Once onstage, everything went as planned. The horrible secret revealed, me spouting my disdain for the field of titty dancerdom, the lesbian lover, the nudity and my going apeshit.
“How would you like it if I came on national TV and said I was gay and took off my clothes?” I said, jumping up and dropping my pants. “Hey, Jerry, look at me! I’m half a fag! Ya, c’mon, dance with me, Jerry, I’m a homo!” I was quite the riffer. I walked off the stage and they went to commercial. We all went back out for the final segment, answering questions from the audience. No one had any questions for me so I just sat there until it was over.
At that point a half dozen of us (neither of my girls) were taken directly to the airport where we were all on the same flight back to LA. I talked with a few of the other guests on the plane and we went out for sushi and drinks back in LA. Most of them said they had done the show for the “exposure,” as though Tarantino would be sitting on his couch with his hand down his shorts watching Springer looking for the next Uma Thurman. We exchanged numbers and called it a night.
This Is Not Fame Page 5