Stay Hungry

by Sebastian Maniscalco

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  For Lana and Serafina

  CONTENTS

  Intro: I’m Starving

  1. Leftovers

  2. Cooking Lessons

  3. Two Drink Minimum

  4. The Pizza Bagel

  5. Hot Dish

  6. Hungry Heart

  7. Sous Chef

  8. The Dry Swallow

  9. Icing on the Cake

  10. Coffee Date

  11. Chip

  12. Acting Chops

  Last Bite

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  INTRO

  * * *

  I’M STARVING

  When I started working on this book I thought, Who the hell are you to write a memoir? You’re not an economist, president, scientist, or pro wrestler.

  True. I’m none of those things. I don’t even know how to speak right. But here I am, typing the words and some of them even have multiple syllables.

  I’m a comedian. My claim to authorship is my talent for making observations about people that come out in a funny way. My comedy is based on my own life, how I come from Chicago, that I’m the son of an Italian immigrant father, that I’m married to a woman who is out of my league, and that I’m easily annoyed by people.

  If you’re a fan (or at the very least can pronounce my last name, which is exactly how it’s spelled, but still nobody can pronounce it: Man-is-cal-co), you probably knew all this about me already. And if you didn’t and are just reading this on the toilet at your cousin’s house, well, now you do.

  Another thing about me: I’m constantly starving. My entire day is planned around food. What’s for breakfast? Should I scramble a couple eggs like a normal human, or wolf down the dozen my appetite is telling me to do? There are no leftovers with me. The only thing that’s possibly left over is a spot on my shirt. My wife, Lana, and I go to every new restaurant in L.A., where we live, and travel to a variety of restaurants all over the world. I know a lot about food and keep current on the food scene, watch all the chef shows (Top Chef is my favorite), and seek out phenomenal food. But I hate the word “foodie” as much as if not more than the word “selfie.”

  I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with multiple snacks in between. My wife will say, “Babe, don’t ruin your appetite.” I don’t even know what that means. My appetite is impenetrable. My father and I sit around, talk, eat, and justify the indulgence by reconfirming to each other how good the food is. In one sitting, we have Italian bread, meat, fruit, olives, olive oil, gelato. It just doesn’t stop. We push ourselves to the limit, not dissimilar to the Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest. We just frame it a little more elegantly. Instead of using water to wash down just one more bite than we could swallow otherwise, we use Cabernet.

  Tiger Woods’s father, Earl, pushed him to become better at golf; my father pushed me to eat tripe. He said, “It’s a delicacy!”

  I would roll my eyes and say, “Gross. No, it’s the lining of a cow’s stomach.” My grandfather couldn’t even speak English, so we communicated through pasta—rigatoni, cavatelli, pappardelle. As you read this book, you’ll see how cuisine always finds its way to the heart of my stories, even if they’re about something completely different.

  Some food rules of mine: I don’t eat around my computer. I don’t want crumbs wedged between the Control and Escape keys. Some people say, “I don’t shit where I eat.” Well, I don’t eat where I work. A meal for me is a time to chew the fat, to digest the day while filling up on food, recap, stories. I don’t do quick bites, drive-thrus, or eat at a stoplight. I need a proper setup. The dinner table is my informal stage where I work out material. There is nothing quick about my meals. The longer the better. We may even sit so long, one meal bleeds into the next.

  Food relaxes me. Not eating gives me a nervous, wide-awake energy. The longer I can go without eating a full meal, the more I can get done. So I don’t eat if I have things to do, like perform comedy. The day of a show, I have breakfast and a light lunch, but I skip dinner to get that hungry edge. If you’ve seen my standup or watched one of my Showtime specials, you know that I’m constantly moving up there, working up an appetite like a bear just awoken from hibernation. As soon as the set is over, I must beeline into the dressing room, change into a dry shirt, and head to dinner before I can even talk about what went on in my show. Even if it’s one in the morning, I don’t say, “Nah, I’m just going to go to bed.” Some people just grab a drink post-set. I’m ready for a full-blown spread: appetizers, entrées, desserts, and everything in-between.

  Problem is, I am also always trying to stay fit. My wife is like my coach, letting me know when I’m allowed to have something or not. A funny game we play: We act like I’m in trouble or sneaking food every time I eat, like she’s catching me with my hand in the cookie jar. In my family, you don’t open anything without finishing it. My wife will save one cookie, eating it little by little over the course of three weeks. Lana is so tuned in, she knows by my footsteps as I enter the house whether I stopped for lunch, and she can always guess what I had. Some guys come home and take a shower because they’re having an affair. I have to wash off the stench of the onions in my burrito.

  There is one major aspect of my life where I don’t over-indulge, fill up, or even let myself feel satisfied: my career.

  My recipe for success is to stay hungry. I never let myself bask in any glory. My father’s voice is like a broken record constantly playing in my head, saying, “Don’t get too comfortable! Nothing comes easy for the Maniscalcos! Get back to work!”

  When I first came to L.A. at twenty-four to become a standup comedian, everything I owned fit in my car. I didn’t know anything about making it in comedy or know anyone in that world. All I had was a dream, a hunger for success, and an insatiable work ethic that came from my father. I can’t not work. It’s like a sickness.

  I didn’t have a choice about staying hungry—metaphorically or even literally—my early years in L.A., working as a “cocktail waitress” at the Four Seasons Windows Lounge and surviving on tips and loose crumbs from the kitchen. I was thrown scraps of hope doing open mic nights and unpaid gigs at bowling alleys and boxing rings, but for the most part, I begged for stage time in exchange for bar snacks (if that).

  Even when things did break for me, I didn’t let small successes go to my head or fill up my stomach. A taste of success usually turned out to be just that. A sample. A few months after, say, opening for Andrew Dice Clay at the Stardust in Vegas, or touring the heartland on a bus with three other comics and Vince Vaughn, or getting the greenlight to write and star in a network sitcom, I’d find myself right back in that “What’s next?” mindset of being between gigs and meals, feeling the hunger.

  This insatiable feeling about standup comedy hasn’t let up in twenty years, and it probably never will, even now that I’m selling out theaters, touring the world, and writing a memoir. Here’s the thing: I’m just as hungry now as I ever was.

  In fact, I’m starving. I’m going to pause for a sec. My dad just walked in and I’m going to make an antipasti plate. I suggest you do the same!

  1

  * * *

  LEFTOVERS

  If you want to work in the stock market, you go
to New York. If you want to grow corn, you go to Nebraska. And if you want to get into entertainment, you go to Los Angeles. So, as soon as I’d saved what I considered a solid chunk—$10,000—I was going to move out there and become a standup comedian.

  Before I headed west, I thought it’d be wise—and considerate—to alert Hollywood that I was on my way. It was a version of calling ahead, like when I was in high school and I called my mom to let her know I’d be late for curfew. She always said, “If you’re going to be late just let me know.” I would stop whatever I was doing—dancing at the nightclub, having a bialy or clam chowder at the Greek diner—make up an excuse to my friends, and sneak off to a payphone to call her. I was the only one of my friends who had to call home to mommy. They had parents who could give a shit. But my mom was a worrier and still is. “Hey, Mom, we’re at Omega, and it looks like we’re going to be running a little late tonight. I’ll be home by 2 a.m. Don’t wait up.” She always said “Be careful!” and waited up anyway.

  Sending the news of my imminent arrival to L.A. was an extension of that. You call ahead. You tell the relevant people what is going on. It is just polite. And I already had a head shot to use, taken by a professional photographer.

  That’s a story in and of itself. In college, I heard one of those Barbizon ads on the radio that said, “Do you think you have what it takes to be a model? Come down to the Hilton this Saturday dressed to impress and meet one of our top model scouts from New York City!”

  Every Italian kid grows up thinking he’s gorgeous because his mother tells him every day. I heard this even when I had an insane mullet in eighth grade. At twenty-one, the mullet was long gone, and I thought, I could make some cash on the side as a model. This is my shot Finally, I’m going to be discovered. I looked at GQ magazines for inspiration about what to wear, pulled together a look by combining pieces from my grand-father’s and father’s wardrobes, and I went to the Hilton. They handed me a questionnaire to fill out. One of the questions was “What celebrity do you most resemble?” I wrote in Antonio Sabàto, Jr. Every Italian who grew up in the eighties wished he looked like Antonio.

  The Barbizon photographer set me up in a variety of outfits and poses that he called “the shots.” One was in Hanes tighty-whities in a stairwell, a shot that said, “I’m relaxed, but I gotta run.” He draped a sweater over my pecs for a shot that said, “I’m cold, but I’m hot.” I was game. I took it seriously. I channeled the raw sex appeal of Antonio, and I nailed it. I wrote a check for $300, money I’d saved working in the cafeteria, scooping potato salad with a hairnet while trying to pick up chicks. (You know the charm you have to generate to land a girl while dunking the ice cream scooper into hot water between serving the macaroni salad and the slaw? More than I had, apparently.)

  A few weeks later, I got my head shots in the mail and never heard from Barbizon again—or got any modeling gigs. The only place my head shot photo was featured was in a frame on Mom’s living room coffee table. “Stunning!” she said, and she showed it to everyone who came over.

  For my Hollywood announcement, I got clever. I made a copy of my head shot, and using a photo editing program on my computer, I made it look like my face was on a movie screen with a bunch of silhouetted audience heads watching me. The caption: “Coming Soon to Los Angeles—Sebastian!” I intentionally didn’t include my last name, phone number, or email address because I was building a sense of intrigue and mystery, ratcheting up the anticipation. I printed out a hundred copies and sent them to every agent and casting director in Hollywood. I assumed people would be impressed, and I knew my mailing would stand out because it was in a larger-than-regular envelope and the envelope was black, which was unheard of. They would chuckle at my cleverness and flip the head shot over to look for my contact info, since they’d want to call me immediately. Finding no number and no address, they’d think, This Sebastian character sure knows how to develop dramatic tension! I imagined them pinning up my picture, waiting with barely contained eagerness for me to send another.

  NOW, I’M AWARE that a more typical path for a comedian is to do standup in your town, get your feet wet, develop some chops, and then go to either New York or Los Angeles. But with my trademark delusional optimism, I figured, Why don’t I just dive in headfirst? Since I’d be in Hollywood, I figured I could do a little acting in movies and TV to make money on the side until I became a successful comedian.

  I went out for a short visit first. The only person I knew in L.A. was Dean Vivirito, the son of my dentist. When you’re from somewhere other than Los Angeles, you will connect with anyone within ten degrees of separation. We used to live in the same city and didn’t hang out once, but you move out of town and suddenly I’m asking, “Do you have toothpaste?” Back then, there was no Airbnb. You slept on the couch of someone you knew, or barely knew. These days, you sleep on the couch of a complete stranger. They could have fleas, bedbugs, hepatitis C. God knows what type of diseases are in the cushions of a strange couch that three roommates have been flicking boogers on and farting into after late-night burrito runs. Dean’s place was clean, though. His wife was a working actress. Her career gave me a glimmer of hope that it was possible to make things happen out here.

  I was respectful of their space and lived out of my bag. I didn’t even use their toilet; I went to the 7-Eleven instead, and I only stayed for three days. When I came back, I wasn’t going to sleep on anybody’s couch long-term. I’d rather have a cheap apartment of my own than impose on anyone else.

  Two months later, I returned to L.A. to stay. All of my possessions fit into a single suitcase. I had my clothes, the $10,000 I’d saved up from working at many jobs, and a stack of stamped follow-up head shot mailings. I used the same image as before with a different headline—“Now Playing—Sebastian.” I included my contact info on the second wave, which would relieve the anxiety of all those agents who’d been dying to get in touch since my previous mailing. I even upped my cell phone minutes in anticipation of being inundated with calls.

  Looking back, I know mailing the announcements was naïve, but I didn’t know any better. I did what I felt was right. Since I was putting in so much effort, I assumed that, out of basic human courtesy—something I’m very conscious of—agents would acknowledge my effort, even if just to say, “You got courage, kid. I like your style!”

  I started to learn, however, that Los Angeles was not a “basic human courtesy” kind of town. No one called me or acknowledged my mailings at all.

  Meanwhile, I started looking for an apartment and found an okay one-bedroom at the St. James Apartments on Hollywood Boulevard and Fuller for $685 a month. The apartment complex had two hundred units, probably filled with other aspiring actors and comedians. I say “probably” because I didn’t know any of them. A huge adjustment to living in L.A. was that no one knows their neighbors. Back home, you could pop over to a neighbor’s house and borrow a cup of sugar (why are people always out of sugar?). In my apartment complex in L.A., people didn’t eat sugar much less borrow it. The place was so seedy, the only white powder they’d have was cocaine. And unless you were their dealer, they weren’t opening the door for you.

  One exception at the St. James: I popped into the elevator one day and saw Bill Burr, one of my favorite comedians. I couldn’t believe he was in there. It turned out, he lived in the building. I was in complete shock, but I tried to play it cool. He invited me to his show at the Laugh Factory, my first exposure to a comedy club in L.A.

  A lot of the other residents hung out by the pool, but I wasn’t into it. A public swimming pool? Taking a dip would be like marinating in a stew of two hundred strangers’ scabs and broken dreams. The water looked okay, but I could think of ten skin conditions it could give me and I hadn’t budgeted for penicillin.

  My third-floor apartment faced another complex. My first morning, I was standing at the stove, cooking eggs. I casually glanced out my only window, which was over the kitchen sink and faced another building. I could not
make this up if I wanted to: A guy in the apartment across the way was naked, locking eyes with me, and fucking his couch.

  Welcome to Hollywood!

  Instantly, I closed the curtains. An hour later, I dared to peek out. My creepy neighbor was still at it, humping his Jennifer Convertible. A while after that, he was standing full frontal nude in the window. He was always there, always naked. I guess he didn’t have a job or any hobbies, other than being a furniture lover.

  I called the St. James management to ask if I could change units. I explained why. The landlord said, “Oh, that’s just Paul. He’s harmless.” Tell that to the poor couch!

  Harmless or not, I still wanted to move. The landlord told me that when another place opened up, he’d let me know, but it might be a while. In the meantime, I kept my curtains closed and stumbled around in the dark, which is a pretty good metaphor for my clueless early months in L.A.

  I FIGURED $10,000 would be enough to get me started, but I knew it wouldn’t last long, so I went looking for a restaurant job. Instead of just walking in and asking if they needed help, I would sit down, have a meal, and decide beforehand if I liked the environment, the people of course, and the food. Only then would I go up to the manager and say, “I just had lunch here and I really like the place. I’m new to the town. I was wondering if it’d be possible to work here.”

  Invariably, they said, “We’re not hiring.”

  I’d sulk out, wondering if the $40 I just dropped was ill spent. Whenever I thought about lowering my standards and working at a place I didn’t pre-approve, I’d remind myself that I was starting a new life, and that it was not going to begin with a compromise. The plan from the beginning was to get a good job in a nice place for a decent wage to supplement my income while I pursued comedy. I’m sure thousands of people arrive in L.A. each month with the same exact plan, and that was why I couldn’t find a job to save my life. All those other would-be actors and comedians beat me to them. It was especially frustrating because I had tons of experience. I’d worked as a banquet waiter throughout college, at the Olive Garden, at a high-end restaurant in the northwest suburb of Chicago called the Living Room. In the past, I’d never had a hard time getting hired. But L.A. was not Chicago. Out here, I was competing for waiter jobs with the next Bradley Cooper from Kansas and the next Jennifer Lawrence from New Jersey. One place asked for my head shot, and I was so proud to leave it—“Absolutely! Here you go! I’ve got underwear in the stairs and sweater over pecs in the weeds, take your pick.” Not only did the casting directors not call me back, neither did the failed actor’s manager at Il Fornaio.