by David Spade
After he handed us the shots he said, “Wait, I need to see this guy’s ID.” This was the biggest needle scratch moment. Obviously I didn’t have it with me. I mean I did, but it said I was twenty. So in a major buzz kill move, he took the shot back. All the fun was sucked right out of the moment, and a heap of embarrassment packed on top. But on the bright side, I was going to be getting regular spots at the Improv now. Then it hit me . . . I was going to have to move to Los Angeles.
Shit was about to get real.
I flew home and told my mom. She had moved back to Scottsdale after the L.A. job wrapped up. She was happy for me, but scared about things like where I was going to live, what I was going to eat, you know, important issues that didn’t cross my mind. But the window was open for me and I had to go for it. And in a stupid move, I sold my car for the money that I would need to get started in L.A. In a stupider move, I sold it to my brother Bryan, who said he would send me the cash but never did. And in the stupidest move, I was now in L.A. without money or a car. All I have is two twenty-minute spots at the Improv for thirty-five dollars a pop. Jim Vallely told me I could stay on his couch again, and thank God. He also had an old girlfriend who rented me a car for eighty dollars a week. (I was already ten dollars over my budget.) The car was an old light blue Dodge Dart with three on the tree, which means it was a stick shift but the stick shift was on the steering column, so it was hard to drive. It had a crack in the windshield, the works. But I loved it. I ran out of money pretty much a week in. Jim told me I could have the change he kept in a jar so I took it down to Ralph’s for a rotisserie chicken. I went home and doused it in A-1 steak sauce. Yummy. The Improv would let you eat there on nights when you had gigs, but you had to sign for your meals, which meant that when check day came around I’d be looking at a grand total of five dollars. It was lean stuff, survival mode. But I was getting spots onstage, which was all that really mattered.
After I had spent another weekend on his couch, Jim had had enough of me, and told me that he had a friend going to England who would sublet me a studio down on Stanley and Santa Monica Boulevard. This, I found out later—and I was officially the last one to find out—was a very gay neighborhood. Being from Arizona, I would parade around down to 7-Eleven and back with no shirt and Quiksilver shorts. All day, every day . . . like a little Joe Dirt in training. There were a lot of wolf whistles that I certainly never picked up on. But my most memorable night in that studio was spent lying on the futon on the floor (no frills in this place) and listening to a woman scream bloody murder next door. I didn’t know if they were having sex or he was killing her. (I’ve never heard girls get loud during sex; whenever I look down at them they just say “Continue.”) I lay there missing Arizona, and all my friends hanging at my mom’s house. All I could think was, What if something happens to me? I don’t even know where a hospital is! I don’t know anybody and I don’t have health insurance. (I know, what a pussy.) The screaming escalated and I was terrified. I picked up the phone to call 911 . . . but I couldn’t do it because I thought they would know it was me and would come kill me. So I got a huge knife from the kitchen and I sat on the bed, facing the door and holding the knife. I was ready to kill whoever came in. I was also scared shitless. The sun came up around 7:30 A.M. the next day and woke me up. I had fallen asleep on my side with my face on the knife. All that drama and I could have died by stabbing myself in the fucking face while I was sleeping.
One day, after a few sets at the Improv, they got a call from a casting director from Police Academy 4. They were looking for a wisecracking skateboarding kid and had been in the audience a week before and seen me perform. This was the best thing about the Improv. There was always someone in the crowd who could help you—a director, a casting director, an actor, a famous comedian, a studio executive, or just a friend of any of those people who tells them about you. So I went in for the “audition,” and the casting director told me there was no script. Those of you who have seen this movie can surely believe this to be true. My character was a new addition, and they were actually waiting for a new draft of the script. THANK GOD THEY DIDN’T HAVE A SCRIPT, because I haven’t mentioned this yet but I had no idea HOW TO FUCKING ACT! I’d never had a class, I’d never read a book about it, and I thought it was overrated. I sort of figured myself to be some kind of “natural” like Eddie Murphy. They put me in front of a camera and they told me to say some things a skateboarder might say to cops, and use some skateboarding terms. This was music to my ears. I’m pretty good on my feet for improvising and I had been skateboarding for ten years. So I talked about how I hurt myself during an aerial axle stall and fell from the coping to the drain and broke my wrist. I threw in some jokes. They asked a lot of questions, but thank God none of the questions were “Do you know how to act?” since I can promise you I never would have gotten that part.
Reading in an audition off a script, I found out later, was unbelievably hard. So I ship off to Toronto in shock that I have a role in a movie series I’ve actually heard of, starring the Goot! (Steve Guttenberg). I get to my hotel and only two of us from the cast are in this particular establishment—me and none other than Sharon Stone. Sharon was drop-dead gorgeous (of course) and a total sweetheart to me. She wasn’t a huge star yet (obv) or she would not have been anywhere near this movie. I quietly stared at her night and day throughout shooting, which was one very nice perk of working on a movie. Money was also a nice perk. I made $2,500 a week for ten weeks. “Run of the picture,” they call it. I was flying high.
I got to do my own skateboarding and show off for all the ladies on set, which was a blast. I had to have a stunt double for the hard skateboarding stuff so they brought in pro boarders from the “Bones Brigade,” Chris Miller and Tony Hawk. Chris was closer to my size and look but rode regular foot. Tony was two feet taller than me but rode goofy foot and I rode goofy foot too so he made more sense. (Goofy foot is a term they use to describe which way your feet go on your skateboard. When facing forward on a board my toes point to the left; when your toes are to the right that’s regular foot. A fun fact you’ll never need again in your life.)
Back to the cash. I had never made this much money before, so I actually felt “rich.” I remember walking down Toronto’s main street with $300 on me and looking into a window. Inside I saw pants that were $60 and I thought, I could just go in there and buy those. They would never think I had this much money. It was like Pretty Woman except they would probably have treated me like less of a whore.
The movies ended and I flew back to Los Angeles with $10,000 cash on me, like a regular old Floyd Mayweather. I considered stopping at a strip club and making it rain/downpour. I could have pulled a Lil Wayne and really had a fun hour and a half. But no, I decided I was going to be smart about this. I gave my mom $3,000. God knows I owed her that and more. I paid about $1,000 of my own bills, and then I had $6,000 left over to buy a car.
Now, buying a car is fun. I had never had anywhere near six grand to plunk down on wheels. This much money was enough to get me a better car than my last two cars put together, which had cost me $300 and $1,000 respectively. So I pored through Auto Trader (like Joe Dirt looking for a Hemi) and started to get weak hanging on the Camaro page for too long. I was dog-earing cars that I shouldn’t have been looking at. I needed a basic, reliable, gas-efficient, and boring car—not some tricked-out muscle car. So, going against my urge to buy a sweet pussy wagon like Greased Lightnin’, I decided on a boring, dark gray, two-door Honda Accord hatchback. It had good gas mileage and that’s about it. I did spring for the sunroof to make it a bit more of a pimp sled. And it was exactly $6,000 bucks. I called some woman and met her down at the Factor’s Deli on Pico Boulevard. I walked around the car, tire-kicked it a bit like I knew what I was doing . . . had her pop the hood . . . engine was there, check. We were on the right track. I then busted out an envelope with sixty crisp hundred-dollar bills, forked it over, and shook hands.
I was now a proud Honda owner. I head
ed off to the Improv high as a kite, with a new car that I had just bought with money from a movie I had just made. Now I had a spot at the world-famous Improv. I had the L.A. thing down cold. After my set, I invited Tim Rose, who had also been on that night, to come out and check out my badass car, like he would be so amazed to see an ’83 Accord. As we were walking down the street, Tim started getting antsy, because we’d already been strolling for four or five minutes and no car. Then it dawned on me that my car was gone. It had been towed. Crap. I did the walk of shame back to the Improv and got on the pay phone. (Yes, folks, a pay phone. I know they are gross. In fact I think that’s how I got crabs five times in high school.) The tow yard then informed me that my car was not there.
Holy fuck. It must have been stolen.
I turned white.
I’d had this goddamn car for just over an hour, and now it was gone. I had no insurance. I never even got to put it in reverse! I just sat there, staring into space, thinking, I just shot a movie for ten weeks and I’m exactly where I was the day before I left. I have no money. I have no car. I was embarrassed. And pissed off.
I slinked off into the night, walking all the way back to my shitty futon in my shitty sublet studio apartment in the gay neighborhood that I didn’t know was gay. A few tears might have squirted out along the way. I know you all think of me as a hard-ass, a tough guy, and an amazing athlete in movies and on television, but this one got to me, folks. As if this town weren’t hard enough, it took my car just to bitch-slap me for having a few minutes when I felt things were going the right way. I’ve never gotten so much nothing for $6,000 dollars. I would have been better off running on the 405 freeway at noon, naked, and throwing all sixty hundred-dollar bills in the air. At least I would have gotten some press out of it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LOSING MY HEAT
So what next? I was still broke. Running low on Top Ramen. With my pride empty, I went to see Bobcat Goldthwait. He was always nice to me and now I was there to abuse the friendship. I couldn’t ask the Funny Boys for more; they had already done enough. It was Bob’s turn to take on the burden of Spade. (Side note: There was this guy, Tim Rose, who I knew growing up in Arizona. He has a rich older brother, and right when I started doing stand-up in Arizona I made Tim’s brother this offer, even though I didn’t know him well . . . I told him that if he would cover a tiny apartment in L.A. and buy me a crappy car, he could have 15 percent of whatever I made for my whole career. I said I’d sign whatever he wanted. He didn’t take me up on this unbelievable deal. But he did call about five years ago and said he’d thought it over and he’d roll the dice with me now, and then asked what kind of shitty car I wanted.) By the way, most of you already know this but it’s very, very, very embarrassing to ask friends for money, even if it’s legit, and I’ve done it a lot. That’s why when people do it to me now I try to make it easier for them because I know how horrifying it is. Dana Carvey once told me he gets nickel-and-dimed so much by friends/acquaintances that sometimes it’s worth the eight hundred bucks just to never talk to them again. Because if they aren’t close friends and you know for sure they are not paying you back, they avoid you forever once you give them the cash. Sounds harsh but for some shady people, that’s a good idea. Chris Rock also told me when I started to get money, to be careful because most people highball you. He always gives half of the amount they ask for because he knows they pad it with extra shit like a new surfboard and maybe some drug money. So they ask for ten grand, he gives them five. Not a bad system. But I usually give full freight because I feel too condescending asking what they “really” need. It’s not my business. Chris also says, “You ever lend people money and they have the balls to buy shit in front of you? Dude, don’t you owe me eight hundred bucks? And you’re buying a coat?” Chris is funny and I like him better now that I can use his jokes in my book and the laugh sort of counts on my stats. Sweet.
Anyway, now I was back to square one. But I had a movie under my belt, which was great. It gave me some “heat,” as they say in the biz. Which is what you need to jump-start things. So right before I left I signed with a respected agent. I had gotten a manager, Marc Gurvitz, right before the movie, too. He had seen me at the Improv. So they made my Police Academy deal and now aside from my screwup with the stolen car I was back on track. I wound up borrowing another six grand from Bobcat. That was very tough to ask for but he said he wasn’t worried because I would work a lot. Very nice guy and very cool of him. I signed a note saying I’d give it back in a year. Seemed feasible. So now I went to buy another car so I can hit the audition world. What do I get? Dark gray ’83 Honda Accord. Exact same car. But this time a four-door, which I liked better. Weird I found almost the same car but this time I insured it first. By the way, I told the police the woman who sold me the original one probably had someone follow me with a duplicate key and just steal it back. He agreed, and then proceeded not to give a shit and do nothing about it.
Now I had a car and I was staying at that studio apartment and ready to party. My manager then informed me my agent had left the big agency (no names: lawsuit alert) and gone off on her own. I’m like, What the fuck? I liked her, what do I do? He said the big agency still wanted me and we should stay there. So they assigned me another agent. Now this was odd, because it wasn’t somebody who had gone out and fought to get me. It was a person saying, “Sure, I’ll look after them in case they hit it big.” But the agent had no real stake in my career. And they might have even thought that I sucked. But I still thought I was in great hands.
Our first call was to Steve Holland, a director Bob introduced me to up in Toronto and who had me read parts of his script to him as sort of an impromptu audition up there. He said he was still interested in me for the lead in a new Fox pilot called Beans Baxter. I guess that’s what I read scenes from. Fox was still sort of a newer network then and without tons of respect. But we all know that it turned out to be a monster. So because I have good agency and manager and a little “heat” they somehow got this guy to offer me the part without my ever going back in. This was a miracle. I’d never really acted, still never taken classes; I just got lucky. Because I got a good response in my month or two at the Improv and a movie. People thought I was about to blow up and they needed to jump on it. So guess what?
We turned down the part.
This was crazy to me. I hadn’t gone on one audition and they want to turn down a straight-up offer? I always wanted to be on a half-hour comedy and this seemed like a perfect fit. It was about an FBI agent who’s undercover as a high school kid or something. I loved it. I went in to the big agency and all these agents came together in a room to meet me.
“We think you’re too good for this. Fox isn’t big enough. You have heat. We are setting you up to meet NBC, ABC, and CBS. That’s where you should be.” I’m like, “Well, I really haven’t done jack shit. I mean, isn’t this huge? My own fucking show? I can’t picture why I would say no.”
“Trust us, you’re going to get a show on one of the big three.”
So I trusted them. I went against all gut feeling and said, “I guess you know what you’re doing. I’m new to this.” I also fell victim to believing the hype.
Now I had to go to meetings with all the networks because pilot season was hitting. So here I was, the guy in the ’83 Accord, bopping around auditioning for every show in town. And being horrible at it. I had no idea how to act. Literally. I would stare at pages, always sitting, reading stage directions out loud, etc. etc. etc. Such a goddamn rookie. But I didn’t care because I knew they would see through all this bumbling and hire me because I was a “natural” and I had what everyone strives for . . . “heat.” Over two months and about thirty auditions I got the same feedback every time: “He’s too green.” This was a way of saying I’m shitty at auditioning, have no experience, and no amount of heat and hype was going to get me hired. I basically burned every bridge to every casting agent and network executive in town. I came out the other side o
f pilot season with nothing but a bad rep and no show. The only thing I got was reading in Variety that Beans Baxter was a great pilot and Fox was going to make it a series. Without me! I couldn’t have felt sicker. What a huge fuckup. I had exactly what I wanted and got talked out of it. I made a vow to always stick with my gut feeling and speak my mind. I swore this would never happen again. (It has happened about five thousand times since then. Oh well, I’m a pussy.)
My manager Marc now had a game plan to shake shit up. He knew I was on the ropes and about to jump off a ledge. He told me I should leave this big agency. Fuck them. They hadn’t helped enough and given me bad advice. He knew a midlevel agent somewhere else who was great and would love to represent me. So with my head spinning, knowing I had turned down a great job and that now the whole town knew I was a fraud, I agreed. Plus, more bad news: all my precious heat was officially gone. I was in worse shape than when I got to town. This was crushing me. I went from zero to one hundred back to zero.
Now I signed up for an acting class. It was time. I was back to square one but at least I had an agent (that liked me) and a manager. So these classes were crucial. Every casting director I met with would not see me again because I was so bad. I had to get some classes under my belt and try to get back in to see them and change their minds. So I signed up with the great Roy London, but his class is overflowing so I take his protégé, Ivana Chubbuck. She was a blast. A bit kooky but very good. I took the class two times a week and would do stand-up in town and on the road the other times. I was getting serious about this shit. I couldn’t float by on my “charm” and “natural ability.” By the way, class was way harder than I thought. My buddy Rob Schneider, whom I met doing stand-up, took them with me. So did Julie Warner, who ended up in Tommy Boy years later. We all had fun in class but it was like school. Lots of meeting with flaky scene partners and getting props and studying lines . . . etc. You would do about one scene a week and you had to be ready. Because if not you would be ripped apart in front of the whole class. Even worse, half the class consisted of babes who had just moved to L.A. to act, so when you were bad they were like, “I might have fucked this guy but now it’s confirmed by the teacher he’s a talentless piece of shit I’ll just go nail Piven.” But even with all these ups and downs I have to say these classes really helped me. They gave me a better understanding of how to break down a scene and how to audition and a million other intangibles.
