The Bedwetter
Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee
Sarah Silverman
For my family. I am so proud to be a part of us.
In loving memory of John O'Hara.
Contents
Foreword by Sarah Silverman
Cursed from the Start
The Bedwetter
My Nana Was Great but Now She's Dead
Hymen, Goodbyemen
Some of My More Moving Violations
Sarah Silverman: The College Year
Make It a Treat
Live from New York, You're Fired
Photographic Insert
Fear and Clothing
Midword
Explosive Diary
Me Play Joke
Calls from Schleppy
The Most Important Thing in Life: Being on TV
The Second-Most-Important Thing in Life: Love
Jew
Afterword by God
Thanks-Yous
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
FOREWORD
by Sarah Silverman
When I first selected myself to write the foreword for my book, I was flattered, and deeply moved. It is not every day that someone is asked to write the foreword for such a highly anticipated book by a major publisher. There was a time in my life that I would not have trusted myself with a responsibility like this. The foreword sets the tone for the entire book, and I might well have said, "Sarah, you're not smart enough to handle this." I would have taken the safer route, and just asked someone other than myself to write it. To trust myself this much, to think so highly of my own literary skills, is a testament to just how far I've come--both personally and professionally. Personally, because I'm finally in a place where I can really look up to myself, and professionally, because I'm now able to see what a coup getting me to write my foreword really is.
Not everyone agrees that I should be writing this thing. Take, for example, the people at HarperCollins. They're staunchly opposed to it. Old media traditionalists that they are, they seem to be stuck on the idea that a foreword should be written by someone other than the author. They even went so far as to claim that the very point of a foreword is to have someone else writing about the author. Here's an excerpt of an e-mail chain between my editor and me regarding the issue.
* * *
From: David Hirshey
To: Sarah Silverman
Date: July 2, 2009
Re: Foreword
Hi Sarah--
Can we talk about the foreword? I really don't think it makes any sense for you to write it yourself.
Stay Jewish,
David
* * *
On July 3, 2009, Sarah Silverman wrote:
You are dumb and smell fartish.
Best wishes,
Sarah
* * *
From: David Hirshey
To: Sarah
Date: July 3, 2009
Subject: Re: Foreword
Dear Sarah:
I'm sorry that our last discussion regarding the foreword issue was upsetting to you. If you perceived a lack of sympathy, or any recalcitrance on our part, it is because your suggestion took us a bit by surprise. No one in our history--and we researched this--has ever proposed that they write the foreword to their own memoir. It's a complete contradiction in logic.
Best,
David
* * *
In other words, I guess he's saying that if it was me writing, it would not really be a true "foreword," it would simply be the start of the book, thus making the book effectively foreword-less. I would argue that, if this book is foreword-less, how can you be reading this at this very moment? That said, if you aren't reading this, I can't blame you, since I've said literally nothing so far.
Now, then.
I have known Sarah (me) for thirty-nine years. I have watched her grow from a flat-chested, gawky little blastocyst into a full-grown woman with big naturals and a major career. Her contributions have ranged from telling offensive racial jokes in dingy comedy clubs to playing a decisive role in getting the first person of color elected president. She has peed on mattresses up and down the Northeast Corridor and has used the topic of human excrement to vault her from obscurity into the global fame she enjoys today. Her life has been an inspiration, and I look foreword (!!!) to seeing what she does next. With her tremendous reserves of talent, Sarah just might cure AIDS, or at least cause it in deserving people like those genocidal dinks in Darfur. She might become the first Jewish president, or win the NASCAR award if something like that exists, or start some kind of movement. Or stop some movement that's especially annoying. Like those people who denounce circumcision and insist on ruining penises across the globe. I guess the effort to stop a movement could be called a "Removement." That's a horrible joke. The first thing Sarah should do with her powers is to put a stop to jokes like that. Sarah is the embodiment of possibility and promise. I love her.
Wow. Now, that's a foreword. Egg on your face much, HarperCollins?
Okay, I just read this over and I have to be honest--I'm maybe coming off a touch insecure. A hair overcompensate-y. Maybe it's because I don't want to accept the hard truth about my precious book, which is that you are most likely going to be reading this, my freshman literary effort, while making a bowel movement. There's one birthing its way out of you at this very moment, isn't there? It's okay. In fact, I'm happy for you, and I'm honored that you've chosen to bring me into this very private and vulnerable part of your life. For all you know, I'm making one as I write this, except that I can tell you with all certainty that I don't do that. Ever. My asshole is as clean as a whistle. (Whistles are traditionally filled with gym-teacher saliva and women-who-fear-they-might-get-raped spit. So, yeah, that's the level of clean. You can see this is not a bragging thing...)
I'm not a literary genius. I'm not Dostoyevsky, whoever that is--I'm pretty sure I just made that name up. I'm only thirty-nine years old, with most of my final two years of show business still ahead of me. I was not an orphan. I have never blown anyone for coke or let other people do coke off any part of my body. I have never struggled with addiction and I was never molested. Tragically, my life has only been moderately fucked up. I'm not writing this book to share wisdom or to inspire people. I'm writing this book because I am a famous comedian, which is how it works now. If you're famous, you get to write a book, and not the other way around, so the next Dave Eggers better get a TV show or kill someone or something.
But I will say that my life has been interesting and often outright hilarious, so if you take it just one poop at a time, I think you'll find the journey worthwhile.
I will give you the same advice about your poop that I give myself while writing this very book: Don't push.
Now wipe thoroughly, wash your hands--boil them if you have to--and I'll see you back here tomorrow morning after your cigarette and coffee.
Love,
Sarah
CURSED FROM THE START
* * *
My Life Started by Exploding Out of My Father's Balls, and You Wonder Why I Work Blue
* * *
Like most children, I learned to swear from a parent. But most children learn to swear by mimicking moments when a parent loses self-control. That is typically followed by the parent stressing that such words are bad and shouldn't be repeated outside the home. When I was three years old, I learned to swear from my father, but he taught me with every intention to do so. It was like he was teaching a "cursing as a second language" course f
or one.
"Bitch! Bastard! Damn! Shit!" I proclaimed with joy, if not necessarily wit, in the middle of Boys' Market in Manchester, New Hampshire. Random shoppers stopped in the aisle, and watched me with delight--or at least curiosity--as I regurgitated this mantra. Dad stood by with genuine pride, beaming through the mock surprise on his face.
Dad and me circa 1975. I believe we were laughing at a comment I made about how his nipple is reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Night.
My guess is that when something is so easy, so greatly rewarded, and bears so few negative consequences, it's a recipe for addiction. From that moment on, everything I did was in search of that rush. So I guess I'm saying that I'm, in most ways, my father's fault. He filled my mother's vagina with the filthy semen that consisted of me, then filled my head with even more filth.
When I was four I sat coloring a piece of typing paper during a dinner party at my Nana and Papa's house in Concord. It was a white ranch house perched on a hill with long concrete steps leading up to the front door. The living room had bright turquoise carpeting under a long white couch. A blue-and-white candy-filled bowl rested on a thick-glass coffee table. Nana, a fashionable woman in her late fifties, who rocked hot pink lipstick under a swirly mane of salt-and-pepper cotton candy, came out of the kitchen carrying a tray of her famous brownies.
"Sarah, Nana made brownies for you!" she beamed in the third person.
I looked up from my drawing, glanced over to my father, who gave me the nod, then turned to Nana.
"Shove 'em up your ass," I said.
The tide of the guests' laughter quickly swept away any anger Nana had toward Dad. She had to smile. Remembering this very early time makes me nostalgic for the days when naked obscenity was enough for a laugh, and didn't need any kind of crafted punch line to accompany it. It was good to be four.
It strikes me that, in this story of a little girl telling her loving grandmother to shove baked goods up her ass, I might come across as a monster. But allow me to place this anecdote in a cultural context: It was the 1970s. Countless friends of mine who grew up in that decade tell stories of their parents giving them liquor, or pot, or buying them Playboy magazines, or letting their boyfriends sleep over at very young ages. Or having "key parties" and orgies while they believed their children were upstairs sleeping. Like oversexualized retarded adults, the 1970s had the distinction of being both naive and inappropriate. For a naive and inappropriate girl to be born from it, it's really not so crazy.
What I said to my grandmother yielded a strange kind of glory, and I basked in it. The reactions were verbally disapproving, but there was an unmistakable encouragement under it all. No meant yes.
* * *
He Farts in the Face of Strangers
* * *
My father, Donald Silverman, is a black-haired, dark-skinned Jew who walks exactly like Bill Cosby dances. A little bounce with each step, elbows bent with hands dangling at the wrists on either side of his chest. When you see him approach, you might think, "A ridiculous man is walking toward me." And you'd be right.
My dad is pretty much fearless, which makes him a natural showman and public speaker. He's always the one asked to make a toast or a speech. But a perceived fearlessness can sometimes be mistaken for what is actually gall. This is clearly exemplified by my father's willingness to steal all his material. He would lift bits from comedians, songs, sitcoms--anywhere--then tweak them to fit and claim them as his own. He once spoke at the Bar Mitzvah of his friend's son David.
"Today, David, I find in being Jewish a thing of beauty, a joy, a strength, a cup of gladness, a Jewish kingdom as wonderful as any other. Accept in full the sweetness of your Jewishness. David, be brave. Keep freedom in the family and do what you can to make the world a better place. Now may the Constitution of the United States go with you, the Declaration of Independence stand by you, the Bill of Rights protect you. And may your own dreams be your only boundaries henceforth now and forever. Amen."
Tears. Not a dry eye in the house. People flocked to Dad to tell him how moving and brilliant his words were. Evidently, they had never seen the play Purlie Victorious by Ossie Davis, because that's where those words were first heard. On Broadway. Other than changing all the instances of "black" to "Jew," my father stole the passage pretty much word for word.
My dad was born in Boston, Massachusetts, before moving to New Hampshire where his family settled. His Boston accent is as thick as a stack of ten lobsters and he is almost entirely impossible to understand. My sisters and I became adept at translating what he said into English. Caaah was "car," shaht was "short," etc. This was a good system, though one that occasionally backfired, causing us to say "parker" or "sofer" in places where he actually was pronouncing something accurately, like, "Get your parka off the sofa." My father says fuckin' the way people say, "like" or "totally." He might say it in anger like the rest of the world, but what makes him special is he evokes it in everyday talk. "I had such a fuckin' great time." "I'm such a fuckin' lucky daddy." Or, referring to his favorite HBO series, "Is that Ahliss [Arli$$, the HBO classic] fuckin' wild o'ah what?"
Happily, Dad found a career that perfectly suited his personality. He owned a store called Crazy Sophie's Factory Outlet. Much like a certain "Eddie" of legend, who perceived the unlikely connection between psychiatric disorder and retail sales volume, Dad did his own radio ads as "Crazy Donald." They were highly spirited--and like everything else that came from his mouth, unintelligible--pitches which went something like,
"When I see the prices at the mawl I just want to vawmit. Hi. I'm Crazy Donald, Crazy Sophie's husband."
Dad would list all the brands of jeans he had in his store--brands I've never since heard of, like Unicorn. At the end he would say either,
"So, spend you-ah time at the mawl, spend you-ah money at Crazy Sophie's!"
or:
"So if you cay-ah enough to buy the very best--but yo-uah too CHEAP, come to Crazy Sophie's!"
In fact, Dad was not Crazy Sophie's husband. Sophie did not exist. He invented her. He wanted a woman's name because he was selling women's clothes. Dad's mother, my Nana, Rose, yelled at him after he named the store, insisting, "You named the store after my friend Sophie Moskowitz, and she will be very insulted!" Dad insisted, "I did not name the sto-ah aftah Sophie Moskowitz. If I named the sto-ah aftah Sophie Moskowitz, I would have named it Ugly Sophie's." Classic.
When my father first came home from college, he sat my grandparents down to tell them some very serious news. They followed him quizzically into the living room, and from the bantam couch stared up at their nervous, pacing son.
"I'm gay," he announced.
They sat stunned for a moment, and just as his mother started to cry he said,
"Just kidding. I smoke."
Genius.
The neighbor's dog was repeatedly shitting in our yard. For a common problem like that, there's a sensible solution: to drop by the neighbor's house and ask, "Would you mind curbing your dog?"
But Dad didn't say a word to the neighbors. Instead, he got up in the middle of the night, gingerly maneuvered the feces onto a piece of cardboard--careful not to disturb its signature shape--tiptoed to the neighbor's driveway, and transferred it onto the pavement just below the driver's-side door of our neighbor's car. It was worth it to him to be nearer to this canine excrement than one would ever need to be, in exchange for the possibility that our neighbor would step in his own dog's shit on his way to work.
My parents were enjoying hot fudge sundaes at an ice cream parlor called Rumpelmayer's in New York City. A man at the adjacent table was smoking. Since my mother was eight months pregnant (with my eldest sister, Susie), my father asked him if he'd put out his cigarette.
"Fuck off," the man suggested.
My father kept his eyes trained on the man as he instructed my mother to go wait by the front door. He then sidled up to him as close as he could, lifted his leg, and twisted as he sang, "Puff on this," which was followed by
the most putrid blast of human gas known to man at that time, and was not exceeded until the late '80s by the great violinist Yo-Yo Ma.
* * *
The Reason I Am Not Completely Retarded
* * *
My mother, Beth Ann, is fair-skinned with green-blue eyes, soft brown hair, and a God-given nose most Jews would pay thousands for. She speaks beautifully and with great passion for proper grammar and pronunciation. Books--real books by fancy book writers--are read with pen in hand to correct typos and grammar mishaps--and she finds them. She's a real-life Diane Chambers. She didn't care if we said "fuck" or "shit" as long as it was with crisp diction and perfect pronunciation.
My mother, Beth Ann, in 1977
When we were kids she marched up to the counter of our local movie theater to complain that the voice on the recording (this is way before Moviefone) was so garbled she couldn't make out what movies were playing. The guy just shrugged and said, "You wanna do it?" A star was born.
Mom would take me to the tiny room where the popcorn was stored. There were gigantic bags of pre-popped, yellowed, and packaged popcorn, taken out in increments and placed in the popcorn machine out front to simulate freshness (and also be heated by a lightbulb). The popcorn room was where she would tape the recording of the week's movies, and here, she quietly put her values into practice. Giving such care to each word, her beautiful voice was clear and articulate with just a hint of whisper--like a Connecticut-born Julie Andrews. She expected from herself what she would expect from anyone: perfection. And she did those recordings over and over until she achieved it.
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