* * *
From: Hirshey, David
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:51 AM
To: Morrison, Michael
As you know, I'm scheduled to leave Tuesday for LA to "supervise" the cover shoot for Sarah's book and we still haven't agreed on a subtitle and cover concept. I'll spare you the blizzard of e-mails with Madame Silverman about the cover of her book but suffice it to say she ground me down on the title. I wanted to push it over the line and call it "The Kikerunner."
Sarah, while patronizingly conceding that "it's kinda funny," dismissed it not for taste reasons but for commerical concerns.
"I'll never be able to say the title of the book on TV," she said quite reasonably.
"Couldn't you have fun with it and say 'It rhymes with Bikerunner'?"
"I also don't want people to think I wrote a parody of an international bestseller and movie that came out five years ago."
So we settled on her title that is "kinda funny" in a confessional sort of way: "The Bedwetter" It's certainly a lot better than her original title: "Tales From A Horse-Faced Jew Monkey," so we're ahead on that score.
Then came the surreal battle over the subtitle. We agreed on everything but the last word "Stories of Courage, Redemption and TK." I wanted the last word to be "Pee-pee" because I felt it was funnier and less off-putting than "Pee."
Ok, now I think I fold.
* * *
I share the above exchanges with you because they're representative of what most of my days are like. At any given moment, I'm mired in some sort of surreal teleconference or e-mail debate. I'll be arguing with late-night TV producers over the merits of "Chink" versus "dirty Jew," or clawing at the MTV Networks Standards and Practices Department, which oversees my TV show, for permission to say the words "labia" or "gaping rectum." I am in a frequent state of exasperation, but I also kind of love this about my life.
And that's about it for the midword. And now, please enjoy the rest of this delightful romp I like to call my book.
EXPLOSIVE DIARY
I've heard that when one writes in a diary, they are secretly hoping that it will someday be read and appreciated by others. But have you actually ever read anyone's diary? I doubt it, because they are unreadable. If life is a meal, then diaries are the toilets in which we shit out its vile remnants. They are litanies of complaints, grandiosity, and self-pity. There's always the occasional happy entry, but they tend to be more brief. If my experience with this book is any guide, the very act of sitting alone in a room writing fuels misery. If you're happy, you probably don't have time to write for long periods in a diary because you're out barbecuing or doing some sort of fusion-y sport like surf-ball-skiing or heli-yoga-jumping--I'm pretty sure this is what chronically happy people are up to. Regardless of the tone of the entries, what diaries never contain is an interesting story--which I recall my English professor from NYU saying is what people actually like to read. Behold this entry from an actual fourteen-year-old girl's diary:
Today was fine. I think I'm starting to become friends with Tara Atta. She's really nice. Julie is downright cruel. Uhhg! She makes me so frustrated. I get so paralyzed around her. I feel like she's saying things about me behind my back. I really think she is. It makes me feel so helpless. Oh well, as Dad says, "This too shall pass."
But wait--look how much more boring it is when she's not depressed:
Today was fine. It seems kind of weird, I've been having not boring really, but very ordinary days lately. I'm starting a book called "The Color Purple." It is excellent. I find it hard to put down. My mother bought it for herself to read because both of my sisters read it and said it was a great book.
The only way this diary entry would be interesting is if this little girl had turned out to be Oprah Winfrey, who starred in the movie The Color Purple. But she didn't turn out to be Oprah Winfrey. She turned out to be some Jewy comedian reputed to have an unhealthy obsession with penises, vaginas, and farts.
Occasionally, I had a gem in there (if I do say so myself). I enjoy this one:
I was practicing the song I'm singing on Saturday and mom was telling me I should add all these motions in. I thought they were fairly odd and told her so, and she then said quite seriously, "Yeah, well you don't know your ass from your elbow." I didn't know what to say next, so I put my hand over my elbow and told my mother I had to go to the bathroom. At least I made her laugh, but I was still steamed at her.
But occasional jokes in my diaries are drowned in an ocean of crap like this:
Today wasn't that great. I was totally deppressed [sic] all day (actually from about 3:45-7:20, but it seemed much longer). I was so sad and it seemed like no one understood how I felt! When I really thought about it, I think part of the reason that I was upset was because I feel like such a baby! Especially since Jody is only 3 months older than me and she is almost total [sic] self-reliant. And it's not anyone else's fault. I think they treat me my age. It's just me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm such a baby. I can't keep myself company. I really need someone w/me at just about all times.
At first glance you might find the above interesting but that's because it's me, and you obviously find me interesting enough to read this book. But try reading five more entries like that and soon you will want a time machine so you can travel back to the mid-'80s, find me as a tween, and rip that pen out of my hand. Incidentally, if you're going to be doing this, could you also swing by my place in the fall of '94 and prevent me from getting naked with a guy named Roger Borsky? I have never fully recovered from the smell of that man's balls.
I believe that diary entries are not written to be read. They're written to be written and then to be put in a drawer, eventually to be discovered by one's grandchild after one's death. At which point the kid will say, "Wow, I cannot wait to learn more about my grandparent by reading her diary entries, I bet they are fascinating." At that juncture, the grandchild will put the old diary in a box and go off to live her own life of self-created drama and, finally, will set pen to paper of her own diary, thinking she's commemorating the great drama of her life, when in reality she's recording only the most boring aspects of it. Unvisited tombstones, unread diaries, and erased video-game high-score rankings are three of the most potent symbols of mankind's pathetic and fruitless attempts at immortality. Not to be negative.
Ultimately, diaries are to writing what masturbation is to sex. The thoughts and fantasies that go through one's mind wind up in a tangible form, either on a sheet of paper or a sheet on your bed, and they should be quietly disposed of.
I should say that I'm mostly talking about the diaries of teenage girls. Teenage boys' diaries are different. They tend to read thusly:
Dear Diary:
I've been feeling so--oh, oops, look at this, I'm writing in a diary. So I guess that settles it: I'm gay. Thanks, Diary!
As an exercise before tackling this chapter, I tried writing my first diary entry as an actual grown-up, with an appropriately adult sense of perspective and balance. Here's how it turned out:
Today was okay. Having fun writing my book, but running out of things to say. Wish I'd been raped or something. That's at least a chapter. Mackenzie Phillips is so lucky. Why couldn't I have had sex with my father? I guess for one thing he made his living selling women's clothing and I don't see myself with someone in retail. But also because to do that is really bad form. It's just that MP's book is selling like proverbial hotcakes (poss fun/jokey piece for my book: try to compile evidence which proves that hotcakes never sold especially well) and that gratification alone probably mitigates whatever psychic damage was there from the teenage incest and heroin addiction. Wonder if it's too late for something like this to happen to me--some sort of horrible tragedy, but one that doesn't permanently disfigure me? Poss scenarios: me on run from mob, witness protection program, having to wear wacky but flattering disguises; me with some sort of serious addiction, but to something that doesn't age my skin. Moisturizer addiction? Eh. Addicte
d to sex with Clive Owen.
Needless to say, the exercise proved my theory: It's impossible to write a good diary entry. I mean, do you see what I'm talking about? There's no storytelling in the above whatsoever.
I began to get depressed.
I strive to be a healthy, self-aware, fully actualized woman, and it seemed to me that reading what I wrote as a child was a critical step along the path to understanding myself. But there was just no fucking way I could read that garbage. Life is too short to be immersed in drab, repetitive prose that goes nowhere. I called my editor at HarperCollins and got a referral for a professional writer who could "punch up" my diary entries. Someone who could extract the compelling parts and put them in a more entertaining framework. Here's a sample of the results:
"Today was okay," Sarah intoned to herself quietly, as her skin pulsed with the glowing warmth from her fireplace, which broke the silence only now and then with crisp consonants from the microscopic explosions of immolating timber, procured at local almond groves.
She began to reflect on her burgeoning friendship with Tara Atta. Would Tara ultimately disappoint her, as Julie had? Who was Tara Atta, really? And who was she to Sarah? Had they any genuine mutual admiration, or tangible emotional connection? Or were they merely two desperate voices in the squall of teenage life, calling to each other in terror and in hope, like survivors of a remote mountain avalanche? Could it be that this described all human relationships?
Okay, was this asshole kidding me? He put it in third person. Who writes their diary like that? I had to spend hours replacing all the pronouns. In general, though, I really liked it. The avalanche metaphor was killer, and then the way he wondered if love and friendship was all just about people finding ports in a storm--that's exactly the type of stuff I think about. I highly recommend this guy to anyone who strives to learn more about themselves but cannot actually stand themselves.
But unreadable prose is not the most shameful result of keeping a diary. It's also an extended lesson in becoming a stalker. Little girls spend their childhood composing countless passionate letters to a recipient who never once writes them back. Which gives me a great idea, by the way. I'm going to invent something, and by the time my as-yet-unconceived daughter is old enough to be slathering self-pity all over the pages of her diary, it will exist. And it will change not only her life but the lives of all young women and gay boys. I'll call it "The Smart Diary." It will be computerized, and the software will be designed so that every time the diarist adds an entry, my device will write her back! But "The Smart Diary" won't coddle its scribe or tolerate the standard self-indulgence. Here's an example of what I'm imagining:
SARAH: Today wasn't that great. I was totally deppressed [sic] all day (actually from about 3:45-7:20, but it seemed much longer). I was so sad and it seemed like no one understood how I felt!
DIARY: I hear you. You remind me so much of another Jewish teenager who kept a diary. She lived in an attic in Amsterdam and never knew the joy of rainbow parties or sexting. And she never complained.
SARAH: Today was fine. It seems kind of weird, I've been having not boring really, but very ordinary days lately.
DIARY: Oops, can you repeat that last entry? I fell asleep two words in. I have this odd habit of losing consciousness whenever subjected to mind-blowing boredom.
SARAH:...I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm such a baby. I can't keep myself company. I really need someone w/me at just about all times.
DIARY: Wow! Is this diary entry based on the book Push by Sapphire?
I've shared the foregoing thoughts not as an attack on the very notion of keeping a diary, but as a plea--a plea from a woman who has learned from brutal experience. I signed a contract to write a book, the one you're reading, which is largely a reflection on my past. It would have been literary malpractice to have ignored my own diary entries, considering that they reflect what really happened in my past as opposed to how I'd like to remember it, so I read them. They were informative, and even amusing at moments, but by and large they bored and depressed the shit out of me.
As you write in your diary tonight, ask yourself, "Is this something that will be interesting in thirty years? Is this something that will be interesting tomorrow? To whom will it be interesting?
Once you've taken the time to answer these questions, very slowly turn around. I'm behind you!
ME PLAY JOKE
* * *
Dirty Jew Drops "Nigger," Picks "Chink" over "Spic"
* * *
The second-worst disaster in American history preceded the first by exactly two months to the day. On July 11, 2001, I appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Although you wouldn't know it by looking on my imdb page (imdb.com is a Web site used throughout the entertainment industry to quickly reference people's professional credits; it's updated constantly, and it's very accurate; I have no idea how it happens or who does this), it's not listed there. It's as if this gig never happened.
The day that never happened went like this:
I arrive at 30 Rock and meet with Frank, the segment producer, to go over the plan. He tells me there's a problem with one of my jokes. The joke goes like this:
I got a jury duty form in the mail, and I don't wanna do jury duty. So my friend said, "Write something really racist on the form so they won't pick you, like 'I hate niggers.'" I was like, Jeez--I don't want people to think I'm racist, I just wanna get out of jury duty. So I filled out the form and I wrote "I love niggers."
Frank says I can't say "nigger" on the show, even though it's obviously not a racist joke, it's a joke about an idiot--me--trying to get out of jury duty. But no way could that word be uttered on NBC--period. "What about saying 'the N word'?" Frank suggests, but I tell him that won't work. It has to be brutal. "The N word" is the opposite of brutal; it's the phrase one uses when being delicate. He tries again: "What about substituting 'dirty Jew'?" At first I like the idea, but decide that because I actually am Jewish, it would dilute the humor. The more offensive the hate word, the more sharply it highlights the idiocy of the speaker.
So I say, "Nah. 'Dirty Jew' makes it too soft since I am a dirty Jew. How about 'Chink'?"
"No," Frank says. "How about 'Spic'? You can say 'Spic.'"
"How come I can say 'Spic' and not 'Chink'? That doesn't make sense. Fuck that--if I can say 'Spic' then I can say 'Chink.' I'm saying 'Chink'--it's a funnier-sounding word."
He doesn't argue. "Chink" it is.
I go out and sit on the couch with Conan to do the show. It turns out great. The joke about jury duty gets huge laughs. I go home to my sublet in the Village, feeling pleased with myself.
* * *
An Asian American Man Expresses the Wish That I Burn in Hell. My Mother Expresses the Wish That I Wear Jewelry.
* * *
The next morning I woke up to my cell phone ringing. I couldn't get to it before voice-mail picked up, but I saw the caller ID--it was Mom.
"Hi, Honey, it's Mom. I was just watching The View and they were talking about you! They said that some guy from an Asian American watchdog group is very upset that you said 'Chink' and wants an apology, and then Lisa Ling agreed that that word is racist, and they played the clip from last night of you on Conan and you looked GORGEOUS! But I really wish you would wear earrings. Earrings always frame a face..."
I was in shock. I went online and found the man my mother was talking about. His name was Guy Aoki, and he was from the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, or MANAA.
I felt terrible that he was upset and wanted to explain myself, so I found Guy's e-mail address on his Web site and wrote him a long message. I really worked hard on it, too. I enlisted my sister Susan, who's a rabbi, and her husband--he's a super-Jew with the super-Jewiest of names, Yosef Israel Abramowitz--to help me craft this e-mail just right.
Amazingly, for someone like me, who could lose a priceless Faberge egg seconds after possessing it, my manager actually saved what I wrote. It appears here on the following
page...
Reading this now, I wince at how my self-righteousness seems to match his. I received a very short, curt response from him that I wish I'd saved, but didn't. He also gave out my e-mail address to all the members of MANAA, and I wish he hadn't, because I received pages and pages of hate mail every day for months. You might think I'd just change my e-mail address, but you would be wrong. I can withstand almost anything if it means I can avoid tedious tasks. It's pretty impressive that to this day--eight years later--I still use that same e-mail address. I guess you could say I'm lazier than a...Eh, skip it.
* * *
To: Guy Aoki, President
Media Action Network for Asian Americans
From: Sarah Silverman, Comedian
7/18/01
Dear Guy--
I heard that you were hurt by my joke on the Conan O'Brien show, and wanted to write to you and address it. I had no intention to offend. The joke is satirical and the intended point of view is to underline the ignorance people demonstrate when they employ racial epithets. In my act, the joke is usually in a greater context, which explores race, tolerance, and fear.
I would like to say, though, that any notion I have of success does not just come from the laughter I hear, but the source of that laughter. If I had an all-white fanbase, I would re-evaluate my material, but because it is multi-ethnic, I feel as though the interpretation of my material is, for the most part, as intended.
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee Page 11
