I still have my bouts with depression, but I work through them. The worst depression I had was when I was in my seventies. It was a bad one. For two years, I couldn’t function. Finally I snapped out of it and started working again.
* * *
When we got married, the first thing my wife did was put everything under both names—hers and her mother’s.
* * *
In 2000, I had a double bypass, which is a technical term for: they cut my chest in half with an electric saw. It still hurts when I think about it.
When the operation was over and they wheeled me out, Joan was waiting for me in the cardiac intensive care unit. She later told me I had tubes stuck in me in every imaginable place, which reminds me of something my friend Joe Ancis said: “When you come to the end, you have a pipe in your nose, a pipe in your mouth, a pipe in your chest, arm, and neck. For the finish, we all turn Scottish.”
Later that night, when they took the tube out of my mouth, I could finally talk. I looked at my wife, and all I could say was, “Pain.”
Joan went to the nurse and said, “Look, he’s in a lot of pain. What can you do for him?” So they gave me something. Within five seconds the pain was gone and I was smiling. It was fantastic.
I asked Joan to find out what it was that they had given me. She told me it was Dilaudid—synthetic heroin—and boy, I can see how people get hooked on the real stuff.
* * *
I tell you, with my doctor, I don’t get no respect. I told him I’d swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.
* * *
I was lucky I made it through all my surgeries. Many aren’t so lucky. Hospitals now admit that 120,000 patients a year die because of their mistakes. (It’s probably much more than that, but that’s all they will admit to.) That comes to more than 300 people a day who die by mistake. When you read things in the paper like He died after complications from heart surgery, that’s a lot of BS. They probably accidentally killed him.
You see a doctor. He looks so mature. His hair is neatly combed. His pants are perfectly pressed. In his pocket he has two pens. He’s smart. He knows that if one don’t work, he’s got another one. It’s hard to imagine that an hour from now there’s a chance he’ll be killing someone.
I’ve experienced plenty of hospital mistakes. Most of the nurses who brought me my pills made errors. Many times Joan stayed with me overnight in the hospital just to check on the pills—and they were usually wrong.
* * *
My doctor was giving me a complete physical, so he said, “I want a urine sample, a stool sample, and a semen sample.” So I left my underwear and I went home.
* * *
The doctors aren’t the only ones who don’t always prescribe the proper medication. I can do that for myself. I was in St. John’s Hospital recently. I forget exactly what was wrong, but I wasn’t feeling too good, so I went down there to get an EKG and a checkup, and it was a drag. I ended up in intensive care.
I was really bored, waiting around for hours, so I thought, Hey, there aren’t too many people here, and it’s dark. I’ll light up a joint. Nobody’ll notice, and I’ll feel okay.
The smoke from the joint went right down the hallway—a breeze or the air-conditioning must have caught it or something—and everybody could smell it. Two minutes later, a security guard came over.
I got lucky, though. He was a nice guy. I told him, “My wife won’t let me smoke at home, so I decided to come over here.”
* * *
You know you’re getting old when your insurance company sends you a half a calendar.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
Turkeys in Wheelchairs
I got no sex life. My dog keeps watching me in the bedroom. He wants to learn how to beg. He taught my wife how to roll over and play dead.
I’ve met a lot of funny people in my life, but to me and for those who knew him, the funniest guy going was my friend Joe Ancis. A lot of people say Lenny Bruce was influenced by Joe’s comedic genius.
You’ve probably never heard of Joe because he wasn’t famous. He had no desire to get up on a stage or be in show business in any way.
I knew Joe for over fifty years. In fact, he lived with me for eighteen of them. He died while I was writing this book, and I can’t believe he’s gone, because we always talked about how I would be the one to go first. I was the wild man, the drinker, the smoker. Joe was extremely careful, probably too careful.
Most of Joe’s best stuff was of the “you had to be there” variety, but I’ll try to lay some of his things on you.
When Joe lived with me, I had a miniature poodle named Keno. One time I was talking to Joe, but I was distracted because I noticed that the dog kept looking at me.
After a few minutes, I said to Joe, “What’s with the dog? He keeps staring at me.”
Joe said, “Man, you’re a star.”
One day Joe said, “How’s the weather outside?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Go out on the terrace.”
“No, they’ll want speeches,” he said.
Back in the fifties, Joe and I worked together in the siding business in Englewood, New Jersey. He was a salesman—a very good one—but like me, he never got up early, which was actually okay because one of the biggest advantages of both the siding business and show business is that you can sleep late. So we never made appointments in the morning—we always got up late and went to work late. Sometimes, though, a client or a prospective customer would try to schedule an appointment in the morning.
I heard Joe deal with that situation on the phone once. Joe said to his customer, “Tomorrow morning? Uh, let me see…” He pretended to check his date book. “Well, tomorrow morning I’m all tied up,” Joe said, then put his hand over the phone, looked at me, and said, “In my pajamas.”
Another time Joe and I were watching a boxing match on TV. Joe said, “If only one of them would just say, ‘I’m sorry.”
One of my favorite things to eat is a turkey leg, and I have that all the time, at home or in restaurants. One night Joe saw me eating a turkey leg. “Man,” he said, “you’ve put more turkeys in wheelchairs…”
Joe was paranoid about germs, so he had his own way of using public restrooms. He would get into a stall, lock the door, then stand on top of the toilet seat, take all his clothes off—except for his shoes—and squat over the toilet. (He told me he had to be very careful when doing this because he didn’t want any splashes.)
One time Joe went into the stall but forgot to lock the door. He was right in the middle of his routine—standing on the toilet seat, naked, facing the door—when some guy looks under the door, sees no feet, and figures the stall is empty.
This guy opens the door, sees Joe—now seven and a half feet tall, and naked—screams, and runs out of the men’s room.
Germs weren’t the only thing Joe was afraid of. His parents made him fear many things. When Joe was a kid, his father told him, “Never fly on an airplane. They explode in the air.” That was just one of many nutty things Joe was told growing up. Joe wasn’t much for dating because his mother once told him, “If you break up with a girl, be very careful. They throw acid in your face.”
Joe would never sleep with the window open because he was afraid a pigeon would get in and peck him in the eye.
The following could only happen to Joe with his head full of fear. It happened forty-five years ago.
Joe was very much into music and singers. So one night he went to see Nancy Wilson in concert in New York. Halfway through her act, he noticed some empty seats way up front. During the applause for Nancy’s next song, he walked to the front, around the third row, and took one of the empty seats.
Then his head went to work.
Joe started thinking, What if someone shoots Nancy Wilson? They’ll think I did it. I’m the only white guy in the place. They’ll say, “It’s him! He even changed his seat to be close and get a bette
r shot. He wasn’t even applauding for Nancy.”
For the rest of the performance, Joe sweated it out, hoping that Nancy didn’t get shot. Joe kept applauding heavily for Nancy and making sure people sitting near him would see him smiling. That was Joe’s head. It was tough for him to relax.
One day I was in a bank with Joe when he wanted to cash a check. The woman behind the cage looked at Joe and said, “How do I know you’re Joe Ancis?”
Joe said to her, “How do I know you’re Next Window Please?”
* * *
I went to buy a suit. I told the salesman “I wanna see something cheap”…he told me to look in the mirror.
* * *
Joe Ancis, my best friend, was the funniest guy I ever knew.
Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.
Joe and I understood each other, and we had the same kind of dark thoughts, so we got along great. But unlike me, Joe never wanted to meet people. He used to say, “I’m not lookin’ to make new friends—I’d like to lose the ones I got.” Me, I love communicating with people. I’d rather be in Secaucus with somebody I can talk to than be in Paris alone.
People always wanted to meet Joe, though. He was famous among the hipsters and comedians, who’d heard so much about him, but he didn’t want to meet them.
Dave Goldes, who wrote for Carson and for me, was always bugging me, saying he wanted to meet Joe. I’d say, “What can I tell ya? He’s not lookin’ to meet you.”
One night Joe and I were eating at the Stage Deli when Dave walked in. Dave spotted us and immediately headed our way, thinking this was his big chance to meet Joe. I saw Dave coming, so I said to Joe, “Look, man, here comes Dave Goldes. You’ve heard me talk about him. He’s a great guy. How ’bout letting him sit with us for a minute, okay?”
Joe said nothing.
When Dave got to our table, I said, “Joe, say hello to Dave.”
Joe’s first words to Dave were: “Your mother sucks midgets.”
Dave had heard so much about Joe that he broke up laughing. I thought it was funny, too, but the midgets at the next table dropped their corned-beef sandwiches in shock.
* * *
A few weeks ago I did a show. The whole audience was midgets. I got a standing ovation and I didn’t even know it.
* * *
One day Joe and I went to the beach. As we were getting our stuff out of the car, a cop said, “Hey, Rodney, how ya doing? Did you come for the nude beach?”
“Nude beach?” I said. “Where?”
The cop said, “Right over there.”
So Joe and I took a walk on the nude beach. We didn’t have to get naked, but everyone else there was, which was fine by us.
We were strolling along the water’s edge, pretending to mind our own business, when we saw this man walking toward us, like he was in a hurry. He looked to be about sixty years old, gray hair, very mature, with his dick swinging back and forth.
Joe looked at me and said, “Monday morning in the bank, that same guy turns you down for a loan.”
* * *
Last week, I had a bad experience. I went to a nude beach. They kicked me out. They told me it’s impolite to point.
* * *
Forty years ago, I was feeling really depressed, even more than I usually do, so Joe recommended a famous psychologist to me. I went to see this guy many times, and he was very helpful. I still remember two things he told me: “People are all fucking crazy and most are unethical.” Like I said, a smart guy.
Joe had a similar take, but he put it brilliantly. He said, “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know too well.”
* * *
I know I’m getting old. When I whack off I get tired holding up the magazine.
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
My Heart Started Doing Somersaults
I told my doctor, “I think my wife has VD.” He gave himself a shot of penicillin.
Although I complain about doctors, I’m only alive today because of some very good ones. I was having some unusual symptoms around the time of my eighty-first birthday in November of 2002. I was only able to walk short distances before becoming exhausted, and Joan thought I might have been having little strokes—I’d sometimes say something odd or disconnected, totally left-field kinds of things. How she could tell the difference, I’ll never know.
We knew I had a bad aortic valve that was considered too risky to repair when I had my double bypass in March 2000, and we attributed most of my symptoms to that.
In addition, my right carotid artery had been completely closed up since New Year’s Day of 1991 when I suffered a tiny stroke in Florida. But by February 2003, my shortness of breath was worsening and my doctors were debating whether or not to go ahead with the aortic valve replacement, despite the risks. The way they explained it, I might suffer a stroke during the surgery or go into heart failure if I didn’t have the surgery soon.
A short time later, my heart started doing somersaults in my chest, and I had to spend a night in St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica until they got it under control. My cardiologist told us that I would only live three months if I didn’t get my valve replaced.
* * *
My doctor is strange. No matter where it hurts you, he wants to kiss it and make it better. After he checked me for a hernia, I had to change my phone number.
* * *
Joan and I quickly started interviewing heart surgeons and decided to go with Dr. Hillel Laks at UCLA Medical Center. When I went to him, he ordered a bunch of tests on me, including angiograms to my brain, which revealed a whole boatload of problems. Not only was my right carotid 100 percent blocked, but so was my right vertebral artery. Once those suckers close off, you can’t do much about it. The aortic blockage was moderate to severe and one of the bypass grafts from the previous heart surgery had closed down. The doctors said that either the aortic valve or the blocked neck arteries or a combination of both could be causing my symptoms, and they needed a little time to evaluate the situation.
Here’s a free anatomy lesson, and not the kind I had to pay for in those Times Square strip clubs: four arteries supply blood to the brain. I was down to two and they were both on the left side of my neck. That meant the right hemisphere of my brain must have been very bloodthirsty! The two arteries on the left were no day at the beach either—they had partial blockages in six places. The doctors said they couldn’t stent them, so heart surgery would be very risky because there was a good chance I’d have a stroke in the middle of it.
Joan and I met with Dr. Laks a couple of times. He suggested that I get examined by Dr. Neil Martin, chief neurosurgeon at UCLA, before going ahead with the heart surgery.
Dr. Martin ran me through another marathon of tests and, after looking at the results, said the words “brain surgery” to us for the first time. He said the good news was that he happened to be a specialist in the very procedure that could protect me from having a stroke during heart surgery. He called it an extracranial, intracranial bypass. I only know this because Joan had him write it down. When we got home, she immediately got on the Internet to study up on it.
Meanwhile, Dr. Martin told us that he wasn’t sure he would recommend the surgery because he wasn’t certain my heart was strong enough to endure it. He wanted to talk some more with Dr. Laks, and said he would give us a call in a day or two. So Joan and I went home not knowing if I was going to have brain surgery or heart surgery, or both. Some choices, right?
* * *
My doctor told me he had good news and bad news. I said, “Doc, only tell me the good news, all right?” He said, “All right. They’re going to name a disease after you.”
* * *
The following day, which was a Saturday, our building concierge took a message from the brain surgeon that read: Spoke to Dr. Laks. Decided against heart surgery. Go ahead with brain surgery.
This really surprised us, so we quizzed the guy who took the message to be sure he got it
right. He was sure, though, so we prepared ourselves for that.
We weren’t able to reach the doctors until Monday, when they told us that the concierge had taken the message down backward. I would be having only the heart surgery, which would be scheduled as soon as possible.
By this time, I was not able to stand for more than about ten seconds without experiencing symptoms. I could barely get from one room to another, so Joan rented me one of those three-wheel scooters so I could get around in our apartment.
Here’s a message I hope you never get.
Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.
To show you how serious all this was, I even stopped smoking pot to clear my lungs. Joan had me eating healthy foods and getting lots of rest. It was much worse than when I checked into the Pritikin Center. No sneaking off for Chinese food with Roseanne.
A few days later, the date for my heart surgery was set. I had to be admitted the following afternoon, so my son and daughter flew in from the East Coast. I was scheduled for another angiogram to my heart to make sure there were no surprises before surgery the following morning.
That day, a lot of my friends called to wish me luck. I can’t remember much of that time, but Joan says Jay Leno, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Louie Anderson, Dom Irerra, Brad Garrett, Lenny Clark, Michael Bolton, Robert Davi, and Bob Saget were some of the more famous ones.
It's Not Easy Bein' Me Page 14
