Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [38]
I like being a comedian because it’s a trade—and when you have a trade, you can always make a living. That’s the real key. I mean, doing TV is nice, but—as we know—they can tap you on the shoulder at any moment and say, “Okay, you’re done.” And there’s nothing you can do about it.
But if you have a trade, you can always keep working. You can go to some small club. You can do a Christmas party. It’s like going to a gym for an hour and a half and running up and down on a machine. The stage is not a normal place to be, and if you’re not out there at least twice a week, it seems abnormal. But if you do it like clockwork, it becomes easier.
I have never touched a dime of my TV money, ever. It all goes in the bank, and I live on the money I make as a comic in the clubs. This way, I’m always hungry. I try to do a minimum of three gigs a week—about 160 dates a year. That’s a lot of material.
But jokes are disposable. Here’s my thing: write joke, tell joke, get check, go home. I mean, if you think it’s anything more than that, you’re mistaken. It’s a disposable product—like a tissue. You use it and it’s gone. You don’t reuse it and say, “Oh, here’s a tissue I blew my nose in two years ago.” If you keep moving forward, you never have to go backwards.
Being a comedian is sort of like being a transmission specialist. There’s always somebody with a broken car who needs their transmission fixed. Same thing with comedy. There’s always someone who needs to laugh.
A JOKE FROM JAY . . .
A man is in a hospital, and he’s hanging in traction. He’s been hanging for two years. Every bone is broken. He’s bandaged from head to toe, looks like a mummy—except for one little opening near his left eye.
Everything else is bandaged, except for this one little slit. Doctor walks in, looks him in the face and says, “I don’t like the look of that eye.”
ANOTHER JOKE FROM JAY . . .
This man always wanted to meet the Pope; he’s been making donations to the Catholic Church for years. Finally he gets invited to the Vatican, and he’s so nervous. He’s in a room with about fifty people also waiting to meet the Pope, and he’s at the end of the line.
The Pope comes in and starts going down the line. There are kings and queens and senators and heads of state—and in the middle of the line, there’s a homeless man in this long, filthy, raggedy coat. The Pope walks down the line and blesses each person, and when he comes to the homeless man in the raggedy coat, he puts his arms around him. Big hug. The American thinks, “That’s unbelievable! Here are these kings and queens and senators, and they get a little papal blessing, and this homeless guy in a filthy coat gets a hug. I’d do anything to get a hug from the Pope.”
So he steps out of line, goes up to the homeless guy, and says, “Look, give me that jacket!”
The guy says, “You don’t want the jacket.”
The American says, “Yes I do. I’ll buy it. Here—I’ll give you a thousand dollars. Give me that coat!”
So the homeless guy gives him the coat for a thousand dollars, the American puts it on, messes up his hair, and gets back in the line. The Pope walks by, sees the American, puts his arms around him and whispers into his ear:
“I thought I told you to get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 19
Miss Independence
When I was growing up, my nickname was “Miss Independence,” and it fit. I was clearly of the I can do it myself persuasion, and though my dad had warned me that show business was a very difficult business—especially for women—I believed I could get where I wanted to go on my own. Still, the stories were legend, and scary, about how pretty young women were eaten alive at the hands of casting directors, directors and studio heads.
My desire to be an actress had always been a sore point with my father and me. He had come to see me in all of my school plays,