Lisa Lampanelli
Chocolate, Please
My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks
I would like to dedicate this book to the two
people who have shaped my life and made me the
person I am today. No, not world-famous mimes
Shields and Yarnell. My parents, Leonard and
Gloria. You are my true soul mates.
Contents
Part One: What I’m Known For
Chapter 1 Once You Go Black…
Chapter 2 Chocolate, Please
Chapter 3 Popping My Cherry: Important Firsts in the Life of Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean
Chapter 4 Mixed Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire
Part Two: How the Hell I Turned Out This Way
Chapter 5 Macy’s and Hamburger’s
Chapter 6 Sit, Kneel, Stand
Chapter 7 School Daze, or I’ll Have an Honor Roll with Extra Jelly, Please
Part Three: Comedian, Heal Thyself!
Chapter 8 My Big Fat Italian Bottom—Tommy and the Crash of 2007
Chapter 9 Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Denial
Chapter 10 Fat Girl, Interrupted
Chapter 11 Porkers, Pukers, and Purgers
Chapter 12 Escape from Wickenburg
Part Four: It's Only Upward from Here! The Future of Lisa Lampanelli
Part Five: Lisa's Rules to Live By
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
part one
What I’m Known For
CHAPTER ONE
Once You Go Black…
It was Valentine’s Day 2000—and I wasn’t exactly in the best place I’ve ever been. I was eighty pounds overweight, I was working the weekend at Pips Comedy Club in Brooklyn, and I was miserable.
You don’t understand—this was really weird for me ’cause believe it or not, I have always been the chick who loves Valentine’s Day. I know what you’re thinking: “What? Lisa Lampanelli, the Queen of Mean, the insult comic, the chick who is to romance what Rosie O’Donnell is to beauty pageants—Lisa Lampanelli loves Valentine’s Day?” Yes, fuckers, I love Valentine’s Day. Deal with it!
I love the little inedible candy hearts with the stupid messages, I love the tiny paper cards with the white envelopes where the glue never works, I love the cheesy flower arrangements held together by that big green piece of Styrofoam. I never had any reason to hate Valentine’s Day. Hey, what wasn’t to love? Every year since I was twelve, I had a boyfriend. Today, people might call that codependent. Back then, the word hadn’t even been invented yet! I just thought I was popular!
Now, when you have a boyfriend for every single Valentine’s Day for more than twenty-five years, you get pretty used to it. But Valentine’s Day 2000 was different. That was my first Valentine’s Day alone. By choice. And—I’ll be honest with ya—it stunk!
So, why would a single woman just shy of forty suddenly decide to be alone? Three words: Dr. Joy Browne. Dr. Joy is my favorite radio shrink and I’d been listening to her for about a year. She is convinced people should take a year off between relationships to see what they really want—and who they really want to be with. So, after my last breakup that November, I decided to give her theory a try. Hey, she’s a Jewish shrink with her own national radio show and a great relationship of her own, and she wrote Dating for Dummies. How could this bitch be wrong?
Lemme go back a little. See, I always had boyfriends, sure. But they were never guys I wanted to brag about. They were never the catch, the prize. They were never guys my girlfriends tried to steal when I was in the bathroom. I woulda killed for that!
That’s because I always went after guys I knew I could get. But they were never guys who really got me. There was just this long string of near-misses: the junior varsity long jumper in high school, the electrical engineering major in college, the bass player. Those guys never got me all three ways—get your mind outta the gutter, people, not all three inputs! I mean mind, body, and soul. And they turned out to be about as hot as Jared from Subway.
Oh, come on—don’t even front! Like none o’ you has ever settled for someone beneath you? Everyone has! Drew Barrymore has long since done better than Tom Green. And J. Lo has moved on from Cris Judd! Like that had a fucking prayer! I can’t believe Courteney Cox is still married to that 1-800-retard.
That being said, I would have killed to date any one of those a-holes. See, all my life, it’s been the same. Chubby and white. I married a chubby white guy, I replaced him with a chubby white guy, and I inserted another chubby white guy here, which, by the way, is what the tattoo on my inner thigh says.
Jimmy Pantelones was my first chubby white guy—and I thought I was the shit! I was in the eighth grade and I had a boyfriend, one who liked what I liked—Jethro Tull, makin’ out, and cake. Especially cake! And it didn’t matter that he was shorter than me, had an out-of-control mass of wiry black hair, and resembled Howard Stern’s Baba Booey. I had music, food, and affection. Who was better than me? No one!!
Twenty years and forty-two chubby white guys later, it was no better.
There was Frank. People called him Big Frank—and rightfully so. Frank went about four hundred pounds. Four hundred pounds! Lemme illustrate that for you people who don’t go to the circus—you know how your guy’s underwear says BVD? His says “Boulevard.” Frank was so big, he used Twinkies for suppositories. Frank was so big that as soon as he stepped in the ocean, it was high tide.
Aw, c’mon—I joke. Frank was big. But it didn’t matter. He was suave!
It’s true! Frank oozed Soprano charm. Every date with him was like that scene from Goodfellas. You know, the one where Ray Liotta tips everyone in the kitchen? Only with us, Frank wasn’t tipping. He was paying for the dishes he knocked over with his love handles.
Frank would give me anything I wanted. “Hey, Lisa—anything—you say it, it’s done! Ya know, I’m connected.” Connected! What a turn-on!
Frank wasn’t lyin’ he was connected—to a fork! It only took me four months of dating him to figure out that Frank wasn’t a gangster—he was just fat! Frank wasn’t in the mob—Frank was a mob.
Frank really wasn’t that bad. He was actually the best of the worst. I’ve been dating forever and my list of exes reads like the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Boys: Big Frank, Stalker Pete, Retard Jim. Looking back now, I can see that I always dated the undatable.
There was Needy Steve. Steve was five foot three and Jewish. And he had hair plugs. What the fuck was I thinking? But worse, he was clingy!
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I hope I’m not overstepping. I-I-I-I know we’ve only known each other for a week, but I hope you will accept this key to my apartment, my humble abode. That way you can cook for me and I can have a nice meal to come home to. Doesn’t that sound good, Mommy?”
Mommy! Ewww! He wanted me to be his mother! Hey, I’ll breastfeed him. But cooking! No!!
Ross the Half-a-Fag—holy crap! All I can say about him is: “Hey, Lisa, guess what!! I’m not gay anymore.” Not gay anymore!! “No!!! I swear, I’m not. That was a long time ago.” Now I’m not saying gay guys aren’t terrific—in fact, if it wasn’t for gay guys, us fat chicks would have no friends. Just don’t try to make out with one of them—it hurts! “Hey, homo, it’s a nipple—not a dick. Ease up!”
Funeral Frank! Now, don’t get all depressed—don’t worry. Funeral Frank isn’t dead. I call him Funeral Frank because I picked him up at my uncle’s funeral.
Walking slowly down the receiving line of mourners, I parroted the phrase I’d heard at every funeral I’d ever attended: “I’m sorry for your loss. I
’m sorry for your loss.” But just then a hot leather daddy walked into the funeral parlor and caught my eye. Wow! He was hot. His name was Frank, he was an old family friend—and he looked like a biker! Rrrrrrrrr!!
After careful investigation, I found out Funeral Frank drove a Harley and worked for the phone company! Wow, benefits!
I was out of control! My uncle was about to get planted, and I was lookin’ to get plowed! It was shameless! I might as well have said to the funeral director, “Hey, you got any room in the back of that hearse? Move the coffin over—it’s gonna be a long night.”
I had to get this under control. Looking back, I realize these guys were nothing more than space fillers—I thought they’d help fill in where my self-esteem left off. But since the guys I picked weren’t exactly grade-A meat, there was still space left. And since I was lonely even with the guys in my life, I filled that extra space with food.
So, back to Valentine’s Day. I was alone and my weight was at an all-time high. To make my punishment complete, I was working the weekend at—did I mention?—Pips. Pips! Pips was comedy hell—a club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, whose only claim to fame was that it spawned Andrew Dice Clay. And they were proud of it! So there I was, at the goombah capital of the world, and since it was Valentine’s Day, everyone was paired off. I mean everyone!!! Imagine date night at the Bada Bing—only not as classy.
So I started scopin’ around for single guys. Hey, fat I could handle. Alone I could handle. Fat and alone—fuck that! Take your year off and shove it up your twat, Dr. Joy! (By the way, I think it’s this line that kept Dr. Joy from writing the foreword to this book.)
I looked around and spotted one guy alone at the end of the bar. And you can just imagine what a hunk o’ burnin’ love this one was. Screw it—I was by myself. I needed it! I was goin’ in!
“You’re Sal? Nice to meet you. Oh, you drive a city bus…What route? Oh, the 102. Excellent.” Somebody kill me, please!
Not even one minute of awkward flirting later, the door to the club opened and in walked this little person, this midget. And you know what? I was impressed. I had to give this bitch credit. She came in alone—I was only there alone because I was working. And—you ain’t gonna believe this—before I knew what was happening, this lollipop broad walked right up to Sal, my Sal, and get this, Ralph Kramden lifted her up onto a barstool and they started talking. So there I was—watching this she-elf cockblock me. And you know what? Everybody has their wall and it was at that moment that I hit mine. I figured out what had just happened: Sal chose the midget over me!
The great thing about hitting the wall is you can finally see things clearly. This chick was my hero. She had more self-esteem than me and she was half my size! I couldn’t believe it—I was actually looking up to a dwarf.
I’m not saying it didn’t hurt. I mean, at first, I got defensive. I wanted to rant that it’s a sad fuckin’ day when a normalsized guy would rather bang a midget than Lisa Lampanelli, Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean, headliner at Carolines on Broadway! But you know what? It was cool that she walked in by herself and it was cool that Sal—this bus-driving chooch from Brooklyn—had the guts to pick her. But there was one thing I couldn’t figure out: Besides the one-in-a-million chance she came with a pot of gold, what did she have that I didn’t have?
Driving home that night, I was feeling sorry for myself. I had to change the way I was living, but what was I supposed to do? I never wanted Sal in the first place, so why did I even go after him? That got me thinking. What would it be like to go after one that I wanted? I’d never done that. Ever since freshman year of high school when Ronnie Campanaro chose Lori Pagliarulo over me, I shot low. But what do I want? What do I want? I’ll admit that at that moment, I wanted cheese! Hot cheese! Dripping hot melting cheese! Who moved my cheese? One door closes, a window opens. Everything happens for a reason. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be…And suddenly the most profound thought hit me:
No more cheesy guys ever!
Hey, I know it’s not as clever as one of Dr. Phil’s sayings, but I knew one thing—I’d rather be alone than bottom-feed ever again!
I drove home with all those Oprah-isms flying around my head and they finally started to sink in. True, I got home and flopped down in front of the TV with a bag of peanut M&M’s. Shut up—I’m supposed to change everything in one night?!?! And I got the remote. Somehow I stumbled on the MTV Video Music Awards just as Jagged Edge, four R&B guys I’d never heard of, were onstage with the hottest rapper that year—Nelly.
Despite or maybe partly because of my Valentine’s “Rejection and Sugar” cocktail, I couldn’t help but notice that Nelly was hot in more ways than one. Nelly had muscles. Nelly had a stocking-thingie on his head and a Band-Aid on his mocha-colored cheek. “I bet he fights a lot,” I thought. “Hmmm…”
Laying in bed alone, watching, I started feeling a little—y’know—different, like I got a little tug. Hey, this guy was cute—no, he wasn’t cute; screw cute! Jared from Subway was “cute.” This guy on TV was tough, he was rough, he was naughty. He was dangerous, he was sweaty, and I was getting really hot. So, that’s how people feel when they say they’re “turned on”!
I should mention that this was new for me. I mean, yeah, I’d done the nasty before—if you could call it that. Sex wasn’t fun or fulfilling—it was something I did to keep a boyfriend. So, watching Nelly, I was like, “What the fuck is goin’ on here?” I had to compose myself!! I was the fat chick, the funny chick, the tough chick, not the sexy chick. Girls like me weren’t supposed to get hot and bothered over gangsta rappers!
But oh my God! There he was rapping about “If you wanna go and take a ride with me” and Jagged Edge asking, “Where da party at?” and that little thug Ja Rule serenading J. Lo wearing nothin’ but leather pants, long platinum chains, and a scowl! Who were these guys and where had they been hiding?
Turns out they hadn’t been hiding; I had. Well, what do you want? I grew up in Connecticut. The Connecticut license plate should say, “Connecticut: You won’t find your clitoris here!” In Connecticut, you follow the rules: You meet a guy in college and you marry that guy and that guy may not be perfect, but he sure as shit is white—except maybe in Bridgeport. It’s not like I was living in a bubble! I had seen black guys before—they had always been there. But back in Connecticut, they didn’t go with my pearls and sweater sets.
But watching TV that night, I started remembering stuff of a darker nature—these deeply buried images just popped up. Images of hot black guys with fat white chicks on daytime talk shows. Or the time I was shopping at Ashley Stewart—the store for fat black chicks—and saw these hot black security guards flirting with fat women! And the women were loving it! How many shows had I done with hunky black guys in the audience sitting with women who had huge tits, huge asses, and even huger self-esteem?
What is it about black men and fat women? These sexy, handsome, and—let’s not forget—manly men digging a big woman? They even talk about it in their music! Black guys sing baby’s got “back”—black slang for a big ass—and they mean it as a compliment! They don’t even say fat. They call it “thick” and they pursue it! In fact, when they insult a woman, that’s when they use the word “skinny.” “Look at that thin-lipped bony-assed bitch!” So why had I never considered black guys?
Then a vivid memory hit me. It was about ten years before, when I was walking near the Port Authority Bus Terminal and I heard the voice of this brother calling after me: “Honey, I just got three words for you: mmmm, mmmm, mmmm!” Even though I blushed, I thought I was the shit for hours after that. And finally I remembered hurrying out of a heavy metal club in my twenties, head held low after being rejected by another roomful of white guys, and the black cab driver saying, “No one should have a bad day, baby! No one! Especially not a fine piece o’ womanhood as yourself.”
Womanhood! I couldn’t even imagine a white guy saying “womanhood”! The white guys I knew didn’t even notice I had
womanhood or know what the fuck womanhood was. And the cab driver was right—I didn’t deserve to have a bad day. I was a fine piece of womanhood. And I started to get it, that thing that Sal and the midget had: They accepted themselves, they were comfortable with themselves, and that was attractive, that was sexy—and it was real.
So after seeing the MTV awards and watching BET for two months like it was the Religion Channel, my head was spinning like that little bitch’s in The Exorcist. It was as if some big Rubik’s Cube in my head clicked into place. All the colors on the cube finally lined up and on all six sides, the color was black!!
Three weeks later, I woke up in a black guy’s bed. Hey, when I decide to make a change, I work fast.
It happened one night when I was performing at the Comic Strip in New York—and my pants fit!
That’s right—they fit, motherfucker! It’s that simple. Not profound enough for ya? Maybe you expected me to reveal some painful secret I discovered doing the Life Strategies workbook with Dr. Phil, but hey, you want the truth, right? And the truth is my pants fit and that rocked. Pants from 1985! Sure, they were out of style, stonewashed, and completely faggy, something that Belinda Carlisle would have worn on a fat day, but they were my pants and they were hanging right. I had lost twenty pounds! Yes, I still had sixty more to go, but that night I felt—I can’t even believe I am saying this—I felt “sexy.”
So I was at the Comic Strip and it was one of those nights when there were like ten people in the audience. From the stage, I could see every single two-drink-minimum motherfucker in the audience, and trust me, they could definitely see me—I’m big and loud and not easily ignored. So I was onstage and I spotted this one guy right at the front table. There he was, the guy I always get—that nice, boring white guy, slightly overweight, less overweight if you squint. The kind of guy I’ve been dating since I was twelve. The kind of guy who probably has a good heart and a good job and always has just enough clueless self-esteem to talk to me after every single show. “There he is,” I thought, “there’s Lisa’s next boyfriend.”
Chocolate, Please Page 1
