Rubber Balls and Liquor Page 2

  Well, we’ve all been on the receiving end of that look … so I backed off and let my lover be. If there’s one thing I know about women, it’s when to let them be. God knows, I’ve had an awful lot of practice.

  I called the stripper later to see if she’d like to get together again, but there was a silence on the phone that seemed to suggest she was back to giving me that “look.” And so, in a blind panic, I hung up the phone and went about my business.

  Okay, so there’s my big, sock-o opening. Right out of the gate, you get the full flavor of me and my life so far. It’s all right here, in this neat little anecdote. But apparently they want me to write a little bit more, so I’ll keep going. Where I’m going, I’ve got no idea. I’m just making this stuff up as I go along, which people tell me is how most authors go about writing their books, so I’m not too worried. No kidding, they just make this stuff up, or pull it from thin air, or they stick their fingers down their throats and something comes up, and somehow or other everything comes together and starts to look and feel and smell like a book, which is close enough in my book.

  (And all this time, I just thought this stuff was written down somewhere.)

  Another thing I found out on that ill-advised trip to the library is that a lot of these books start at the beginning. A very good place to start, if you believe Julie Andrews. The writer picks a point in time, and shares a few autobiographical anecdotes, and then things really start moving, so I figure I’ll give that a try. (Hey, at this point, I’m up for anything.) I’ll reach back a couple generations and start with my grandmother. I called her Bubbie. In Brooklyn, it wasn’t the most original name for a grandmother, but in my defense I had no idea that it was Yiddish for grandmother. I just liked the name. I liked my Bubbie, too. She used to visit us every week, and before she came over she always baked some pastries for us. She was well known for her mandelbrot, which is like Jewish biscotti. (If you happen to be a ninety-seven-year-old Jew, and someone is reading this book to you at the home, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.)

  As soon as I started ripping open all these Jewish delicacies, my Bubbie would go to work on her English. For some reason, she decided that I would be her helper. She was determined to speak perfect English. All week long, she’d collect newspaper articles and remember the one or two words she didn’t understand. Or she’d hear something on television that made no sense to her, and make a mental note of it. Then, as I stuffed my face, she would tell me the word she didn’t understand and ask me the meaning.

  In addition to her pastries, my Bubbie also came prepared with at least one joke she’d heard that week—very often with a word or two missing, because she didn’t understand it. The one joke I still remember is the only joke she ever told that was even close to off-color. (Probably that’s why I remember it.) The joke turned on the Yiddish expression tsuris, which is pronounced tsoo-ris, and basically means “troubles” or “difficulties.” The joke went something like this: An old Jewish man is sitting on a train, shaking his head back and forth and crying. Every once in a while, he puts his face in his hands and says, “Tsuris! Oy, tsuris! Such tsuris!” An Irish man walks by and hears the old man’s cries and says, “If you have such a sore ass, why don’t you go to a doctor?”

  My Bubbie lived to 104, which is probably a little too old to consider a ripe old age, because she had already started to turn. I still say she died young. When I was little, she used to take me by the hand to the neighborhood butcher. She would order brains. This, too, wasn’t so original. Lots of Eastern European Jews eat brains, it turns out, but I don’t want to scare off my Gentile readers, so let me state for the record that not all Jews eat brains. We do, however, all drink the blood of Christian babies.

  Have I mentioned that we were Jewish? Does that come across? A lot of people, they see my act, and the fact that I’m Jewish never enters their minds, which takes me to a true story. On second thought, the story is really more of an aside than a stand-alone anecdote. It’s an important distinction, and it’s probably in all of our best interests to consider it here, before this book gets away from us. Really, it’s more of a space filler than an attempt to advance the story or keep my confused readers turning the pages. As a side note—specifically, as a side note to my aside, which I guess puts us way, way off to the side for the moment—I should mention that most of the stories I plan to share in this book are true, except for the ones that aren’t. Even the asides. This one happens to be true. It was 1980. I was a young comic, about to be discovered. I went to a casting call for the new season of Saturday Night Live. It was the year the show went from being good and relevant and talked about to when it started to suck. It was also the year that my career went from sucking to being good and relevant, but only for a while. I might write a bit more about Saturday Night Live later on, if I need to fill a few pages, but for now I’ll tell just enough to set up this story.

  (Remember, this is meant to be an aside, and I’ve read enough book reviews to know that if an aside takes too long to tell it’s not really an aside. Then it’s more of an amiddle, and it gets in the way of the story. That’s about the last thing I want to do, get in the way of my story, which is basically how I’ve tried to live my life as well. I prefer to stay out of the way, off to the side, where I’m less likely to offend.)

  Anyway, the show back then was produced by a woman named Jean Doumanian, who happened to be a great friend of Woody Allen. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Jean Doumanian’s work, she was the type of person who would watch a Marx Brothers movie and say, “Well, Margaret Dumont is good, but why do they need those strange gentlemen running around her?”

  It just so happened that Woody Allen himself decided to come down to an NBC screening room one afternoon, to watch the auditions with his good friend Jean Doumanian. Maybe his adopted children were busy that day, with playdates of their own, so he needed to find something to do. He had his reasons, I’m sure, and it just so happened that I was one of the comedians he just so happened to catch on tape that afternoon. It also just so happened that I was doomed to overuse the phrase it just so happened, simply because of this strange confluence of events.

  Let’s review: there was me, at the Saturday Night Live audition. There was Jean Doumanian. And then there was every working comic in New York. All in the same room, trying to impress the hell out of each other. And then, a couple days later, there was Woody Allen and Jean Doumanian and another few influential people crammed into a darkened screening room, reviewing our auditions on videotape, so of course it just so happened that we all came together in just this way.

  Woody sat in the back, off to the side, all by himself. All afternoon, he sat and sat. For a comic genius, he could be a pretty stone-faced guy, and here I’m told it’s like he was posing for the fifth spot on Mount Rushmore. Comic after comic, audition after audition, this guy didn’t say a word. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. Or so I was told. And then it was my turn. I popped up on screen and went into my act. I did a few voices. Somewhere in the room, I’m almost sure of it, somebody laughed. But not Woody. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He just crinkled up his face in an unpleasant way, as if he had just come into close proximity with some turned cheese, and leaned toward no one in particular and gestured toward me and said, “Is he a Navajo Indian?”

  True story.

  How do I know this is a true story, if I wasn’t even there? One word: you can’t make this stuff up. (Yes, I know, that’s actually six words, but I was never a big fan of counting.) I also know this because one of the no ones in particular seated next to Woody Allen told me about it afterward, and for a brief moment I thought about changing my name to something a little more Native American–sounding, like Dances With No Rhythm or Sleeps With His Hands On His Balls.

  Truth was, I was about as Navajo as Shelley Fabares. I was Jewish, through and through, although in our house that didn’t mean a whole lot. We never went to synagogue. I never had a Bar Mitzvah. We di
dn’t keep kosher or observe the Sabbath. In fact, I’m not so sure I would have known what the Sabbath looked like if it passed me on the street, so how could I observe it? And yet we were Jewish. This alone wasn’t so unusual. Where I was born, in Coney Island, it wasn’t the most Jewish neighborhood. In other parts of Brooklyn, though, and all over New York, we were a regular plague. Okay, so maybe I’m overstating. We Jews tend to do that, I’ve heard. Let’s just say there were a great many of us, and we were all rather pleased with ourselves. But that’s where it ended for me. I enjoyed a nice sour pickle from time to time, or maybe a Hebrew National hot dog, but that was about it.

  Some people, they’re born Jewish, and they disavow their heritage. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar, the aging teen actress. Nothing against Sarah Michelle Gellar, the aging teen actress, although I don’t think she’d mind being mentioned in this context. She could use the publicity. She goes around saying she was born Jewish but she doesn’t consider herself a Jew. What’s that about? I mean, with her nose, she doesn’t really have a case, but she keeps at it.

  I’ve never understood people who say they’re not a practicing Jew. You never hear a black guy say he’s not a practicing African-American. What does it even mean?

  Yeah, I’m not a practicing Jew. I buy retail. I never count my change when I leave a store.

  My father considered himself an atheist. He identified himself as a Jew, but he was a Jewish atheist. We never really talked about God or religion or eternity around the dinner table. In fact, we never really talked about much of anything, we were so busy stuffing our faces. To my father, being a Jew meant that if the Nazis came back, we’d be loaded into the cars with everyone else. Even Sarah Michelle Gellar would be along for the ride. That would be a small silver lining, if the Nazis ever came back into power. Yeah, it would be terrible, because nobody likes to be persecuted or tortured or on the receiving end of such all-around unpleasantness, but at least we’d get to see Buffy and smile knowingly to ourselves and think, Aha! I knew she was a Jew. Who did she think she was fooling? And with that nose!

  Of course, we couldn’t count on Buffy to kick any sort of ass on our behalf, or help us escape. She’d be standing off to the side, hoping no one would notice her, saying, “I’m sorry, I wish I could help, but my hands are tied. In college, I studied vampires. Vampires, I can slay. But I missed that whole Nazi thing. It’s just not my field.”

  Don’t get me wrong, I’d happily add Sarah Michelle Gellar to my list of Jews I’d Like to Fuck, because the fact that she’s a self-hating Jew just makes her hotter, and leaves me wanting to drive my stake into her.

  What’s that you say? You didn’t know there was such a list. Oh, indeed. I keep it wrapped up in my mezuzah, for easy reference. I take it out and update it from time to time. Of course, it follows that there is a subcategory to this list—Jews Who’d Consider Fucking Me—but I can’t imagine that list would be too terribly long. (You’ll notice I’m not including my list of Gentiles I’d Like to Fuck because there’s simply not enough room in the book.) Being a Jew, it’s only too easy to want to fuck shiksas. The true challenge, for us horny chosen few, is to lust after one of our own. At the top of the list, four out of five rabbis surveyed can agree, is Natalie Portman, and here most readers are probably scratching their heads or sticking their meaty paws down the front of their pants and saying, “She’s Jewish?” Yes, she is—and that’s a tribute to her hot, steaming beauty, that you even have to ask. She’s so hot you’d almost have to turn down a Gentile for the chance to have sex with her.

  (Confession: watching Natalie Portman on Broadway was the only time I’ve ever jerked off to a production of The Diary of Anne Frank. I have, however, jerked off on several occasions to Hal Holbrook’s stirring performance as Mark Twain, for those of you keeping score.)

  Another hot Jew? Bar Refaeli, the Israeli model. Scarlett Johansson. Jennifer Connelly. Abe Vigoda’s wife on Fish. The two actresses from That ’70s Show. They also follow in the goes-without-saying department. Also, Phyllis Diller, another perfectly do-able Jewess, although it’s possible I’m overestimating Phyllis Diller’s appeal because she’s a comic. In the real world, she’d be the first to tell you, she’s not much to look at. But in the subterranean world of stand-up comediennes, she’s a regular Marilyn Monroe. And by regular, of course, I mean she shits lilacs.

  Back to Coney Island, where we were safe from Nazis and vampires for the time being. The most haunting thing about Coney Island was a clown with a whip that kept turning up on the boardwalk, next to the Steeplechase ride. That’s just the sort of thing a small, benignly Jewish boy needs to keep him up nights, a clown with a whip. Either one, without the other, and it would have been no big thing, but a clown and a whip? It was plainly terrifying. The Steeplechase ride was unsettling enough. There were creepy wooden horses, racing against each other on a rickety wooden track, round and round like on a twisted merry-go-round. And then there were the creepy, hardly toothed carnival types who ran the midway. It was like growing up in the middle of a Fellini movie. A lot of times, I look back on my childhood and wonder if it wasn’t all some terrible nightmare, but then I start to think that everyone must have grown up in the shadow of a clown and a whip and a Steeplechase ride. That’s normal, right? The subtitles might have tipped me off, but as I’ve indicated, I wasn’t the most observant child.

  I went to P.S. Something Or Other. I never could remember the number. Math, counting … these just weren’t my strong suits. Also, observing and paying good attention. Back then, I didn’t exactly have a strong suit. Just regular suits. I was like every other kid on that boardwalk, trying to put my thumb over the hole-punch on my Steeplechase card, so the creepy guy working the ride would give me a free turn. This, I realize now, was what it meant to be a practicing Jew. And I was getting good at it!

  I cracked my first joke when I was four or five years old. People are still talking about it. (Basically, it’s just me who’s still talking about it, but I’m hoping that once I mention it here it will catch on.) We were at my grandmother’s apartment, in Brooklyn. She had a long couch in her living room, and we were all seated on it, waiting for my sister Arlene to take our picture. Arlene was our family photographer, only she took such a painfully long time to set up her shot. Even at four or five years old, I was impatient. Finally, after we had been sitting there a good long while, my entire family across this big long couch, I said, “When’s this roller coaster gonna start?”

  It wasn’t much of a joke, but it got a big laugh. My sister Arlene didn’t think it was funny, but my parents and my grandmother thought it was hysterical. It caught them off-guard—a line like that, from a kid like me.

  I did my first bit at P.S. Something Or Other. (Comedy historians take note: this Gottfried character doesn’t have the best eye for detail—and, for a Jew, he doesn’t have the best eye for retail, either.) I was in kindergarten, and my mother used to walk me to school. I was a very shy kid. The routine was the teacher would call out your name, and you were supposed to say “Here!” or “Present!” They called it “Taking Attendance,” and it wasn’t my best subject. Every day, the teacher would call my name and I’d just sit there. I wouldn’t say anything. And the other kids would laugh and laugh, like me not saying anything was just about the funniest thing in the world. Who knows, maybe it was. But then one day, as I was walking to school with my mother, I thought to myself, Today’s the day, Gilbert. Today’s the day you’ll finally say something when they take attendance. And underneath that thought it occurred to me this would probably get a big laugh, because it would be such a surprise. I was five or six years old, and already I was working the room, assessing the crowd.

  Sure enough, the teacher called my name and I raised my hand and said, “Here!”

  Let me tell you, it killed. The other kids in the class just went crazy. At Rest Hour, which turned out to be one of my better subjects, they were still talking about it. At Snack Time, another one of my strengths, they we
re still talking about it. One of my classmates, a hardly Jewish boy named Timothy, did a chocolate milk spit-take that people are still talking about. No one could get over it. Me, out of nowhere, after all this time, announcing myself.

  So that was my first bit. My humor was very subtle in those days.

  My next big performance came later that year, or maybe it was in first grade. Who can remember? (Comedy historians, take further note: this Gottfried character can’t be trusted with the details of his own story.) This time, the teacher was frustrated with a kid who happened to be sitting next to me. He kept turning his head away from the teacher, and couldn’t seem to pay attention. These days, they’d send the kid off to the school psychologist and have him tested for Attention Deficit Disorder, but they weren’t so sophisticated about these things at the time. Instead, the frustrated teacher just walked past the inattentive student and put a newspaper on his head. She meant it as a joke, I think, but it wasn’t a particularly good joke. I thought I could improve on it, so I got up from my seat and pointed to the kid and said, “And those are today’s headlines!”

  Once again, it got a big laugh. Once again, it killed. And it’s probably fair to say that my sense of humor hasn’t really advanced since that moment. Actually, I still use this line in my act. In fact, I open with it, only now I say, “And those are today’s fucking headlines.”

  It’s more age-appropriate, don’t you think?

  2

  Star Power

  I’m fascinated by celebrity. Really and truly and utterly fascinated by celebrity. Have been since I was a kid. I used to think it was a great big deal, to meet someone famous. Of course, I usually thought this when I was jerking off to Barbarella and wouldn’t have minded too terribly much if Jane Fonda walked into my room wearing a hot rubber body suit. That would have been a great big deal, believe me.