It's Not Easy Bein' Me

by Rodney Dangerfield

  “One day the chief took his son to the top of a mountain. As they looked out over the hills and valleys, he spread his arms wide and said, ‘Son, someday none of this will be yours.’”

  Another comic I know, John Fox, a very funny guy, has a line he uses when someone heckles him. He says to them, “I’d call you a cocksucker, but I know you are trying to stop.”

  Bob Schimmel does a very funny line: “How does a blind person know when they’re finished wiping their behind?”

  Forty or fifty years ago, Birdland, a famous, wild jazz club in New York, had a black doorman named Pee Wee. He was a very short guy, but he had a way about him. He was a bit snippy, and he walked around like he owned the place.

  I saw him get into an argument one night with a customer. They exchanged some heated words, and the guy said to Pee Wee, “Don’t you bug my ass, you half-a-motherfucker.”

  We all like different types of shows on television. I like a show where anything can happen. The Howard Stern Show does it for me. I wish I was Howard Stern. He has a way with women. Whatever he tells them to do, they do. He says, “Pick up your dress, honey. Higher, higher. I want to see your ass. Higher.” They do it. Girls don’t listen to me that way. I go out with a girl, spend all kinds of money. She won’t take off her gloves.

  * * *

  I tell ya, my wife and I don’t think alike. We got problems. I want to go see a marriage counselor and she wants to go on The Jerry Springer Show.

  * * *

  A show that really makes me laugh is The Jerry Springer Show. It’s much funnier than all the sitcoms with their piped-in laughter. The show is real, the people are real. There’s nothing better than something funny that’s spontaneous, something that comes out of the moment, instead of out of a script.

  * * *

  I want to go on The Jerry Springer Show, but they turned me down. I got all my teeth.

  * * *

  For some people, the thrill of gambling is better than sex. If you don’t believe me, just hang around the slot machines in Vegas for a while. A woman wins five dollars and she screams like she’s having an orgasm. If a woman was being attacked in a casino with slot machines and she was yelling and yelling, the guard wouldn’t do a thing.

  He’d just think, Another winner.

  People go crazy to make money. I guess they wanna see how much they can die with. But like Redd Foxx said, “I never saw a Brinks truck following a corpse.”

  People think that the more money you have, the happier you’ll be. Then why does Connecticut, the richest state in the country, have the highest suicide rate? So if you want to live a long time, stay broke.

  * * *

  I tell ya, in Vegas you gotta go broke. They got slot machines all over. Even in supermarkets. I bought a container of milk—cost me $238.

  * * *

  Here I am in Vegas making a few extra bucks holding up a couple of billboards.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  Back when I was selling aluminum siding, I was in a customer’s house one day, chatting up the lady of the house, who was standing there with her dog and her two small children. I said to the woman, “Cute dog.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “he’s very cute.” Then she pointed to her children. “If it wasn’t for them, I could spend more time with him.”

  Children have their own way of looking at things. I was walking on the beach one day when a group of kids came running toward me, asking for my autograph. So I signed something for each of them, and they ran off.

  The last kid was a little girl, ten or eleven years old. As I was signing my autograph for her, she said, “You’re doing pretty good today, huh, Rodney?”

  I said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  She thought I was out there trying to sign as many autographs as I could.

  * * *

  I shouldn’t tell jokes about my wife. She’s attached to a machine that keeps her alive…the refrigerator.

  * * *

  I’ve learned a lot of things. One is never have dinner at a friend’s house. From the husband you hear things like, “My wife’s the best cook in the world.” My last dinner at someone’s house did it.

  My friend and I sat at the table while his wife was serving the food. There were some chicken wings on a small plate. I started nibbling on one of them while waiting for the main dish. Then I said to my friend, “What’s the main dish?” He said, “Chicken wings.”

  I was in shock. I said, “Chicken wings?”

  He said, “Is something wrong?”

  “No, I love chicken wings,” I said. “Little crushed bones with pounds of fat rolled around them. Why, chicken wings, that’s my favorite.”

  * * *

  My wife can’t cook at all. In my backyard, the flies chipped in to fix the screen door.

  * * *

  You always hear that you get wiser as you get older, but the longer I live, the less I understand.

  In my travels and with all the years I’ve spent hanging out in clubs and bars, I’ve spoken to many married men. I’ve learned that when they do something that is considered wrong, they justify their actions with some twisted reasoning. And I’ve heard all the reasons they give to justify cheating.

  I’m sure you’ve heard the standard ones: “As long as my wife and kids are provided for, then I can do whatever I want.”

  One guy was good at mathematics. He told me, “Whatever I earn, two thirds goes to the family and one third goes to me.”

  Or, “I cheat to see if all women laugh during sex.”

  And, “I cheat so that I can get a decent breakfast.”

  I’ve had married men tell me, “I never come on to a girl. That’s cheating. But if a girl comes on to me, that’s not cheating. And if I knew a girl before I knew my wife, then that’s not cheating.”

  One guy told me he never cheats on his wife—or his mistress.

  And we’ve all heard this classic justification for cheating. A guy’s wife could be a wonderful person, a churchgoer who helps the poor, and he makes a tramp out of her with the implication: “Who knows what she’s doing?”

  * * *

  I tell ya one thing, my wife keeps me in line. No matter how many guys are ahead of me.

  * * *

  The best justification for cheating I ever heard was from a guy I met at a hotel in Las Vegas. We were sitting at the pool, and his wife and two kids were splashing around in the water.

  I said, “Your wife is a lovely woman.”

  He said, “Yeah, she’s good. I love her. My kids, I love them, too. I tell ya, I’ve got a beautiful family.”

  I said, “Do you play around?”

  He said, “Oh yeah.” He told me that when he plays around, he does it for his wife. “If I didn’t play around,” he said, “I’d be miserable to live with.”

  * * *

  I went out with a hooker. She told me, “Not on the first date.” So I saw her again. This time, she drove a hard bargain. She said, “The sex will be seventy-five dollars.” I said, “I only have fifty dollars.” She said, “Okay, I’ll do it for fifty. But I’m telling ya, I’m not making a dime on you.”

  * * *

  I put on TV the other night and I came to a fashion show. It puzzled me. All those beautiful models walking around and they all look mean. Why don’t they smile as they walk? Who are they mad at? They do all right. They make good money. All the guys love them. All the girls want to look like them. But they still walk around mean. It’s a mean turn. A mean stop. It’s always a mean face. They make me feel like I did something wrong.

  Another thing that puzzles me. When models pose for pictures, they show their belly button. Why? A belly button is not sexy. A belly button is good for only one thing: when you’re lying in bed eating celery, it’s a place to put the salt.

  When I say she’s a doll, I mean it.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  Here’s something I don’t understand. When I got married,
the guy said to me, “You may kiss the bride.” Big deal. After all the things I’ve already done to the bride, he tells me I can kiss her.

  When I watch a football game, I see guys trying to bang the other guys as hard as they can. They tackle hard. Their heads collide. Their bodies slam against one another. And all of a sudden the game stops. There’s a penalty for “holding.”

  And another thing.

  Why do they make such a big deal out of the “two-minute warning”? Everyone knows you got two minutes to play and that’s it. To me, a two-minute warning is like when I’m in bed with a chick. The phone rings. It is her husband calling from his car phone. He says, “Honey, I’ll be home in two minutes.” Now, that’s a two-minute warning.

  I also don’t like when they have girl announcers for a football game. They should have only male announcers. Football is a man’s game. I don’t want to hear a girl tell me it’s two inches short.

  * * *

  With my wife nothing comes easy. When I want sex she leaves the room to give me privacy.

  * * *

  I was working in Atlantic City. One night after the show, my friend and I went to a little nightclub to get a bite to eat. We were feeling good, had a few drinks. There were two girls who worked onstage there. One played the piano, one played the harp.

  Not too many people were there. It was toward the end of the evening, and the girls were close by. So we started talking to them. It got to a point where they were coming off in about fifteen minutes, and maybe we’ll go somewhere and have a drink.

  They said, “Fine.” So we had a date.

  My friend says to me, “Which one do you want?”

  I didn’t know which one to pick. They were both attractive—maybe the harp girl had a slight edge.

  Then I thought, She plays the harp. It seems like such a religious thing, a saintly thing, a “do what’s right in life” thing. The chances are she’s not gonna be a wild girl.

  I picked the piano player.

  As usual, I picked wrong.

  * * *

  I know how to always make a woman say yes. I ask her, “Am I bothering you?”

  * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three Lucky Breaks

  I’m at the age now, when I meet a woman sixty years old, she’s too young for me.

  Let’s face it, I’m getting old. That’s bad enough, but in the last few years, I’ve had four major operations. I’ve been cut up so many times, I feel like I’m back in my old neighborhood.

  Before each operation I’ve had, the same thing always happens. As I’m lying on the gurney, the doctor comes over and he smiles at me. The smile says, “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. Have confidence in me.”

  I always tell the doctor, “If I don’t make it, I’ll never know it.”

  My first major operation was in 1992, to fix an abdominal aortic aneurysm. That was serious—if your aorta goes, you go. Most people die in minutes. Lucille Ball, George C. Scott, and Albert Einstein all died of ruptured aneurysms.

  When a doctor catches it in time, it’s often discovered by accident. That’s what happened with me. One day I woke up and had some pain on my right side. I went to the doctor and got an X-ray. As the doctor had suspected, the tests showed that I had pancreatitis. But they also showed something the doctors really didn’t like—an aneurysm. So I had the surgery—what they call “the open procedure.”

  Here’s how that goes: First they cut you open from your diaphragm down to your “ecstasy rod.” Then they take all of your intestines and put them on a table next to you. Then they perform the operation.

  When I came to, I was in intensive care. My torso was wrapped in bandages, and there was an IV stuck in my arm to feed me intravenously.

  A doctor looked in on me and said, “Hiya, Rodney, how ya doin’? Don’t worry, we’ll have you walking in no time.”

  He was right. I got the bill. I had to sell my car.

  * * *

  I mean, I’m not a kid anymore. I could go tomorrow. And I hope I go tomorrow. I haven’t gone today yet.

  * * *

  People often say, “It’s a miracle I’m alive.” And for me, they may be right. I was a heavy smoker for over fifty years. Never could stop. I used to walk around with three different packs of cigarettes in my pockets—filters, non-filters, and menthols. Sometimes I’d quit for a whole day. Then I’d give myself a reward—a cigarette.

  That’s how I ended up going to the Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Monica in 1982. It’s no longer there, but it was a highly recommended place where you could lose weight and stop smoking. So I thought, I’ll check in there for a month. I’ll take care of myself—which I did.

  One morning, I ran into the head man, Nathan Pritikin, a great guy who was really down-to-earth.

  I said, “Dr. Pritikin, nice to see you.”

  He said, “Rodney, how’s your cholesterol?”

  I thought, Wow, he gets right to it.

  “Getting better, Doc,” I said. “But tell me something. You say don’t eat lobster because it’s all cholesterol. But if lobsters are all cholesterol, how come they live a hundred years?”

  Nathan had a sense of humor. He said, “They don’t smoke, they don’t drink, and they watch what they eat.”

  I said, “How about sex?”

  He said, “No thanks. I don’t know you well enough.”

  After a month in that place, I felt like a tiger.

  After I left Pritikin, I didn’t smoke for three years. It gave me a chance to clean out my chest. It made my lungs fresh. Then one night I got drunk, and I had a cigarette.

  After that, I was back smoking again. I smoked even after I had my aneurysm operation, right up until my double bypass. By then I knew it meant my life. So I finally stopped.

  I haven’t smoked now in over three years. After my last bypass operation, I was all cleaned up, and I’d be a fool to start stuffing my lungs up all over again with cigarette smoke.

  I never thought I could quit, but I did. Now when the urges come, when I think I can’t make it, I just remind myself that nobody ever died from not smoking.

  * * *

  What a doctor I’ve got—he’s really mixed up. Last week, he grabbed my knee and told me to cough. Then he hit me in the balls with a hammer.

  * * *

  I got three lucky breaks that summer I spent at Pritikin. I lost weight, I stopped smoking, and I met my wife, Joan Child. She owned a flower shop in Santa Monica. One day I stopped by to smell the roses. And I stopped by again the next day. And the next day. And the next…

  We started dating, which was tough because I wasn’t in L.A. much once I got out of Pritikin. At that time I was doing dates all over the country and in Canada. Luckily, we stayed at it, though; we dated for ten years.

  One night, when Joan was closing up her store, she said, “I know a great place to get a bite.”

  I went back to visit all my old schoolteachers. I only had to make one stop, the cemetery.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  Me and my beautiful wife, Joan, on our wedding day. Joan is a Mormon, so next week, I’m marrying her sister, too.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  I said, “Let’s go. But I need to take my car, too. I have to get up early tomorrow, so from the restaurant, I’ll go right back to Pritikin.”

  “You’ll never find this restaurant,” she said. “Follow me.”

  We took off in two cars. I was right behind her, but I had to drive fast to keep up. Next thing I knew, there was a police car behind me, lights flashing, bullhorn screeching, “Pull over!”

  But I couldn’t. I knew that if I pulled over I’d lose her, and I didn’t know where we were going, so I hit the gas—and so did the cops. So now I was following Joan, and the cops were following me, lights still flashing.

  When Joan finally stopped, the cops pulled up with their sirens wailing, bullhorns, the whole thing. I thought th
ey were going to drag me out of my car and club me to death, but they were cool. When I explained the situation, they started to kid around with us, they were all right. Then they said they wanted my autograph—on a ticket.

  * * *

  People think I get plenty of girls. I go to drive-in movies and do push-ups in the backseat of my car.

  * * *

  My neighbors complained when I tied up traffic to have my new hot tub flown in. I didn’t see what the big deal was—it’s not like I was naked in it.

  Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.

  I moved to L.A. in 1990, and Joan and I finally got married on December 26, 1993. It wasn’t a big, dramatic thing—we just decided to do it. We flew up to Vegas, got married, then I played some craps and we flew home that night.

  Besides going into show business and opening Dangerfield’s, this was another time people told me I was nuts. I married Joan with no prenuptial agreement. They thought I was making a big mistake. We are now married over ten years. It looks like “the mistake” worked out.

  I learned in life, you can never say never. After my first marriage, I said I’d never get married again. Here I am married again, and this time it is the way it should be. Joan and I get along great. Thanks to Joan, I am in love, and I’m loving it.