Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [29]
Chris: They do.
Marlo: That there’s the alcoholic uncle, and the gay uncle, and the stealing uncle. Did you observe this in your own family?
Chris: Yeah, all those uncles. I have an uncle who’s a surgeon, too, but, you know, that’s not funny. He always gets left out.
Marlo: You talk a lot about men and women on stage. You say, “When you meet somebody, you’re actually only meeting their representative, because all men lie, and all women have hair extensions, makeup, and heels.” That kind of comment could be offensive, especially to women, but the women in your audiences really seem to love it. How do you do that?
Chris: You’ve got to include the women in on the joke.
Marlo: Meaning?
Chris: Meaning, when I’m on stage doing relationship stuff, I’m essentially a woman comedian.
Marlo: Ah-hah.
Chris: There are very few jokes I do on relationships that a woman couldn’t do. I remember Martin Lawrence once telling me that, unless you’re AC/DC, there’s always going to be more women in the crowd.
Marlo: Really?
Chris: Yeah. And so you want jokes that get the hard laughs, not just the cute laughs—because most humor that’s directed towards women is kind of cutesy. Some comedians assume that the women at their shows were dragged there by men, but I approach the women in my audiences as if they actually came to see me. Because women like to laugh hard, too.
Marlo: We sure do. In watching your concerts, what I found most shocking was your take on O. J. Simpson. You actually make the argument that you understood why he may have committed murder. You run through the whole thing—he’s paying twenty-five thousand a month in alimony, another guy is driving his car, he’s paying the mortgage and the guy is coming to his house. You say, “He shouldn’t have killed her—but I understand.” I was floored by that. Weren’t you afraid people would stone you for saying a thing like that?
Chris: It’s funny, I never had any problems with that joke. With lots of jokes, it’s like, “Oh, man, I’ve got to figure out how to get this one right.” Like the niggers and black thing. When you don’t have that joke right, it’s the worst joke ever. I was dying every night. People were walking out, cursing me out. But never with the O.J. joke. Everybody laughs at it. And the important thing is, even women laugh at it because . . .
Marlo: Because they understand jealousy?
Chris: Yeah, and let’s not kid ourselves here. We’re not supposed to murder, but let’s not act like none of us ever thought about killing somebody. I mean, most of us have a switch that says you can’t do that. O.J.’s switch did not go off that day.
Marlo: So, in a way, that gives you the license to do a joke like that.
Chris: Right.
Marlo: Which a lot of other comedians might shy away from.
Chris: Look, when you listen to the news, you realize that it’s so much easier to report things as black or white. But the world is not black and white. The world is grey.
Chapter 15
Beverly Hills, My Neighborhood
The words Beverly Hills conjure up Rodeo Drive, Hollywood and glamour. But for the kids who grew up there, it was just our neighborhood.
Well, maybe it was an odd hood to grow up in. Louella Parsons, the famous gossip columnist who, like all gossips, was known to write (make up?) items that could be hurtful—personally and professionally—lived across our alley on Maple Drive. She and her assistant, Dorothy, would take a walk around the block every afternoon at about five. My mother did not want to have any interaction with Louella, for fear of giving her something to misinterpret. So the minute she saw them approaching, she would quickly dart inside. We kids even avoided Louella’s house on Halloween. In our neighborhood, she was the all-year-round witch.
But that didn’t stop us from going to all the other houses on our street. We’d dress up in our costumes, many borrowed from studio wardrobe, and toddle up and down Elm Drive, clutching our little bags with dreams of candy apples in our heads.
Some of our neighbors didn’t quite