Everybody Curses, I Swear!

by Carrie Keagan

  The great bookings created so much positive momentum and energy behind the scenes—great TV for the viewers and tons of media buzz all around. It established the show as a place to be seen. It was a huge part of the reason why we stayed on as long as we did. When the likes of Aaron Sorkin, Steve Carell, Emma Stone, Nicolas Cage, Seth Rogen, Madonna, Jennifer Lawrence, Sylvester Stallone, Nicole Kidman, Kris Jenner, Judd Apatow, Jonah Hill, and Cameron Diaz appear on a show, that show is a keeper. But what made this so special for me was that pretty much all of our friends showed up, which for me was proof that what I had been doing all these years with NGTV had worked. And, if you payed close enough attention, you could feel the F-U being put back into fun! I had connected with and impacted these celebrities and their teams in such a positive way that they were reciprocating by following me wherever I went. Kourosh and I played a significant role in booking the show during the entire nine seasons. Thanks to our industry friends, my little show wasn’t so little anymore.

  One of the first of my longtime friends to come on the show was Adam Sandler—the mufuckin’ SAND MAN, himself!! It was amazing, plus you couldn’t ask for a sweeter guy. Let me just set the scene for you. Remember, we’re literally set up in the lobby on the twentieth floor of the Viacom building, right in front of the elevators. So I’m sitting with my back to the elevators, and every couple of minutes the elevators open and people walk out behind us as we’re broadcasting live. Then, all of a sudden, as I’m mid-hosting, I hear someone yell “KEEEEEEAEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAAN!!” There are only two people who greet me that way: the showbiz love of my life, Emma Stone, and the great Zohan, Adam Sandler (and Emma’s voice is way lower). I looked back and smiled at him, knowing just how many broners were standing at attention behind me. That’s a bro with a boner, for the uninitiated.

  Come to think of it, there were more than a few times the guys on my show presented a cornucopia of a chubbious maximi. In fact, my recollection of all the A-list guests is pretty much a mental scrapbook of crew boners. There was the jock boner or the joner, when Eli Manning was there. Which was a purely physical arousal and not to be confused with the intellectual boner or the cerebroner present each time Aaron Sorkin came on. I have to say, there are very few people that have the astonishing bone appeal that Aaron has across the gender divide. When he enters a room, men experience rapid velocity in the nether region and women suddenly spring girthy hogs. It’s a gift.

  I’ll never forget the time I booked Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the show. I remember, after the obligatory “how the fuck did you get a Kennedy to come on the show?” that it created quite the commotion in everyone’s pants. First of all, there was a solid contingency of political boners aka Chappaquidoners. Then, there was a surprising array of confused boners, aka coners, when all the executives at VH1 were freaked out one morning because the president and CEO of Viacom, Philippe Dauman, was coming down to visit the set. Apparently, that was a first. Shocking that the head of this multimedia conglomerate had never really expressed an interest in visiting the set of Tool Academy. I was quite proud that something our little show did, early on, brought us to his attention. In those days, every little bit of interest in our show helped. Plus, he and I became good friends. I guess my executive boner, or xoner, must have been showing.

  Then there was the invasion of the spiritual boner, aka the Choproner, inspired by Deepak Chopra’s appearance. I couldn’t believe that nine years of dick humor had finally brought me together with the father of “Oprah spirituality,” available wherever Oprah people and products are sold. Last but not least, one of my all-time favorites came courtesy of my friend and all around Boss Bitch, Kris Jenner’s appearance. When she walked in, interest just peaked, and there was not a loose pant in the house. Nothing really comes close to the dense and thick-headed Kardashian boner primarily known as the Kanye, which was in full effect. When she was there, there were a lot of tiny, chunky Kanyes ready to spit without provocation. Now that I look back, it occurs to me that, with the sheer number of awesome guests we had, our studio was pretty much a boner buffet and jizzatorium. It would get messy.

  Anyway, back to Adam Sandler—he and I have known each other for over twelve years, which is a crazy long time when I think about it. We hit it off instantly the first time we met on a beach in Hawaii for a junket on a perfect sunny day while we were both a bit tipsy from all the hydrating we’d been doing. I asked him to “Give me fifty fucking reasons why people should go to this fucking movie?” and he obliged with “Yeah, you fuckin’ got it, baby!” followed by an F-bomb bonanza. Our friendship was born. He always makes the time to appear on my shows and goes out of his way to make me feel special while he’s there. He’s always generous with the compliments, especially when he’s paired with a costar that I may not know well. As he christens the filth about to be unleashed, he’s always on the lookout to see how quickly I can organically work a dick joke into the forefront of an interview. Here he was with Jennifer Aniston at the junket for Just Go With It; he was clueing her in on my whole uncensored thing, but little did he know the game had already begun:

  Me: How many times did you get bleeped today? (I asked innocently as we were getting settled in.)

  Adam: Oh, I don’t know …

  Jennifer: (Wanting to help.) How many … I’m sure you’re allowed to say penis as much as you want.

  Adam: Penis is fine.

  Me: You can say penis on NBC, I think … even …

  Adam: Yeah.

  Jennifer: I think penis is alright.

  Me: (I found my opening.) It’s cock. You can’t use cock on any other network but this one!

  Adam: (Looking at Jennifer with an all-knowing smile on his face, he perks up.) Ya hear Keagan? She slipped out cock! (Sounding quite proud.)

  Me: (Everybody laughs.) There it is!

  Observe, the power of the “Sandman.” At this point, he’s pretty much watched me grow up in this business, which is kind of cool and a little bizarre. I mean, I’ve been a fan of his since Click, and now our relationship is, like, super close! Well, I suppose it’s more super than close.

  Before I forget, I should give a shout-out to Adam’s producing partner, Allen Covert. Covert and I met on the set of Grandma’s Boy. Let me just say that “to know this movie is to love this movie.” Aside from laughing your ass off and committing your entire life to a smokin’ hot and super-high-maintenance new girlfriend called Maryjane, you’ll walk away from this film with two lasting impressions you’ll take to your grave. First, Jonah Hill bursting onto the scene in a supporting role that almost stole the film, in which he sucks a stripper’s naked lactating tittie and delivers the line: “Baby love milky?” A role he was born to play. Second, Covert standing over a toilet, furiously boxing his Jesuit while molesting a Lara Croft doll only to be interrupted by his friend’s hot mom, whom he accidentally covers with endless ropes of his creamy custard while screaming, “I can’t stop cumming! I can’t stop cumming!” Watch the film and thank me later! So, of course, the second we arrived on set, I remember Covert being excited to show me where he was going to be shooting what was clearly going to be a career-defining scene. We ducked into a fake bathroom, and we’ve been buddies ever since. By the way, not everyone got the memo about the fake toilet because that toilet was all method! HOT SET, PEOPLE!!

  Anyway, the best part of when I see Adam now is that aside from the sack punching during the interview and me trying to sneak in as many dick jokes as I can while he’s promoting his family movie, we also get to reminisce about old times. Like when I was still a “press person” to him and I, unwittingly, showed up to his private family dinner at the Chateau Marmont with my buddy Rob Schneider, who didn’t exactly fill me in on where we were going. That could have been all kinds of awkward, but Adam was nothing but accommodating. He is, hands down, one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever met in this business. I have no idea why he took an interest in me and continues to do so. I can only guess that I must have been hi
s kind of crazy.

  Being on a television show is an extrasensory event that sends more shock waves of experience through your body and mind than we’re built for. Without question, it’s extraordinary, but it is also schizophrenic. I came to realize that there are three distinct realities that comprise a life in front of the camera. The first is the fun one, the blemish-free version that the audience sees; the second is the surreal one comprised of hyper-condensed fond reflections that only the talent sees; and last, there’s the real one, which is what actually happens day-to-day. Surviving the first one means you put on a good show and found a connection with the audience. Surviving the second one means you were able to feel all the wonder and amazement of the journey without succumbing to the intense pressure. Surviving the third one means you have strength of character and know how to take the hits and keep moving forward.

  The distinct honor of becoming one of only a small number of women to ever host her own talk show was a gift that went far beyond the obvious. The community experience of working with a cast and crew with boundless creativity and courage was the most rewarding of all. The challenge of evolving to meet the demands and expectations of a giant TV network that was pushing me to elevate my game was the most satisfying. But by far the most mind-blowing earth-shaking life-altering experience was witnessing firsthand what happens when a group of powerful female executives converge to create and execute an incredibly complicated and creatively challenging project of enormous magnitude. Only that experience could be eclipsed by the extraordinary fact that this dream was brought to life for me by a group of grounded, smart, secure, and decent women.

  So much good has happened in my life that I try not to dwell on the bullshit. The memories of those stomach-churning experiences where either I or someone I knew had suffered at the hands of women have always left me struggling to understand why it happens. It’s a lot like when women say, “I’m fine,” when we’re anything but. It’s the global disaster of relationship-speak. It’s been classified by the government as an E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event). I think the roots of it stem from a place of fear and insecurity that has been bred into us by a male-oriented culture that has reinforced this notion that we’re not good enough. Thus, having been severely marginalized and made to feel powerless for so long, we’ve decided to take out all that pain and anger on each other because we can’t stand to see any of us rise. If we don’t start empowering one another and embracing each other’s ambitions and dreams, we may be dooming this generation and those to come to live out their lives in a vicious cycle of criticism, denigration, attack, and sabotage. Pawns in another man’s game.

  I think if we’re going to break the cycle, it’s really important to talk about it. Ask uncomfortable questions and take the time to discover all the roads that led us to this point. We women are the inheritors of a powerful legacy. One that was hard earned by our foremothers. And they did not eat shit for hundreds, if not thousands, of years so that we could now throw it at each other like a bunch of monkeys. We women need to remember who we are, where we’ve come from, and what we’re truly capable of.

  So I ask: Is it possible that after spending most of our lives kicking, clawing, scratching, biting, and punching our way through the “battle royale” we call a career path, for some of us women, fighting is all we know? Is it possible that women are so used to being on the defensive and blindly beating down the endless attacks on our dignity that some of us just don’t know how to stop anymore? Has the perpetual rage torn into the very fabric of unity and support that has been the backbone of our movement? Can we, as women, save the sisterhood that we’ve been fighting for from being decimated from within? I certainly hope so. I think the answer lies in remembering where it is we came from, what it is we’re fighting for, and who it is we’re fighting against. In my mind, that’s the only way to remove these calluses that seem to have formed over some of our hearts. And it all starts by looking within.

  Women, much like men, are creatures of habit, and that predictability in our behavior is undeniably our own worst enemy. I think there is an unheeded flaw in our very nature that is constantly stifling our ability to move past some of our baser instincts. If The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy taught us anything, it’s the fact that the only way we’re ever going to solve any problem is by “really knowing where [our] towel is.” So, basically, we need to face the truth. And strangely enough, we’re not going to have to go that far to find it because the truth is a mirror we take with us everywhere but rarely look into. So, ladies, it’s time to take out your compacts, wipe off the inexplicable white powder residue, and start reflecting instead of deflecting.

  I’m not saying there are any easy answers, but there is plenty of food for thought, some of which reveals itself in the most unexpected places. I recently stumbled across a profound bit of wisdom from a time when wisdom on women’s issues was in short supply. Here was an intriguing commentary, published fifteen years before women were given the right to vote, that seemed to dissect this matter with inexplicable clarity. In his intriguingly forward-thinking essay entitled “The Gentleman’s Code,” first printed in Sunset magazine in May 1905, poet, author, and humorist Frank Gelett Burgess observed,

  Most women have all other women as adversaries; most men have all other men as their allies. Women know little of this esprit de corps, this mutual shielding of sex by sex, for the reason that they are not, ordinarily so accustomed to law.

  It hit me like Truman’s boat hit the horizon of his reality in the movie The Truman Show! I realized that from as far back as anyone can remember, women have lived in societies whose very social infrastructure has been designed by men. And much like a zoo, we have been kept on display and told how to behave while they have been our keepers who set the rules. We are maintained in environments created to reflect their idea of the world and how we should live in it. By keeping us separated from one another, with locked ideological doors, they’ve nurtured an organic insecurity, distrust, and paranoia that is now firmly rooted in our subconscious. And as a precaution against escape and gathering, the zoo is designed as a labyrinth to confuse us and give them a safety net. Now, during the last century, we seem to have found a way to gradually convince our keepers to unlock the doors and let some of us roam freely. But centuries of subconscious conditioning don’t just disappear overnight, especially if you’re encouraged to believe that all the other animals are out to get you.

  Could Burgess’s simple and straightforward analysis actually be the root cause of the inconsistency that exists in relationships women have with one another? Is this an illuminating perspective that should have been dead and buried in the past but seems to have transcended time? Is the sad irony of this uncomfortable truth the fact that its words may be no less true today than when they were first written, over 110 years ago? Should it bother us that we’re still trapped in this maze that men created a very long time ago? Is this double standard the tie that binds us and, possibly, the insight that can get us the fuck out? Can we use this bit of harsh reality to move forward? I hope we can, and I think we should.

  The answer has always been right in front of us and we haven’t been paying attention. We need to wake the fuck up and start paying fucking attention. Women need to be cool to each other. We just don’t realize how much power we have, especially if we band together. Our first instinct always seems to be to beat the crap out of each other, animal kingdom–style. That’s why guys are winning right now—because girls get distracted by each other’s BS. It’s not in our nature to get along for “some reason.” But we can change that. If we turn that around, we can get so much shit done.

  We women have always been independent spirits. It’s in our blood. It’s in our heritage. It’s in the very essence of who we are. We’ve often had to fight our battles alone and in secret. We have had to bear the guilt and shame of crimes committed against us in isolation. To survive, we have had to rely only on ourselves. We have suffered in silence for so long that w
e’re quick to distrust and will attack each other even when unprovoked. Through time and repetition, we’ve cemented this selfish, defensive, and paranoid legacy into our psyche. Perhaps it’s time we eliminated the adversarial culture that divides us and focus on the common ground that unites us. We have always been outnumbered, but we have never been outgunned. We have got to get out of the business of one step forward, two steps back, and get into the business of never going back.

  20

  THE EMANCIPATION DICKLAMATION

  It’s all about a girl who lost her reputation but never missed it.

  —Mae West

  One night, recently, I found myself engrossed in yet another article about the most insane things found in the butts of college fraternity brothers. I’m sure you’ve been there. And after having spent hours analyzing all the data, I ended up reaching a depressing conclusion: Why do women not get the same kind of press for their equally reckless behavior as men? And then, just like the eighteen-inch reproduction of the submarine from the film The Hunt for Red October discovered in one of their rectums, a powerful epiphany surfaced in my mind. The double standard that exists in the way men and women are judged is no longer limited to the privacy of the boardroom and the bedroom; it has now reared its ugly head in the pop culture garbage dumps of society, as well.