Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian Read Free Page A

self-deprecating cap to the loss of one of the many great people I knew briefly (in his case, very briefly) in my life whose end came too soon.
    There were many others. My family saw so much death and drama over the years it was like we were always waiting for the next tragedy to arrive. As soon as the first of my young uncles died, the other ones got paranoid—as some Philadelphia people of the Jewish persuasion do—that they were “next.” And unfortunately, they were.
    I always found it a paradox that when I was growing up in Norfolk, Virginia—this was before moving back to Philadelphia, where I was born—people would occasionally ask my family, “Are you of the Jewish persuasion?” That is a statement of redundancy. If you are Jewish, odds are it is within your nature to be persuasive. Better, I guess, than if the expression had been “Are you of the pushy Jewish variety?”
    But my theory is this: Pushy people became that way because they were afraid they’d get left behind. Because when they were kids and all the food was put out, they were the last ones to get to the buffet, so they didn’t get any. And as they got older, they could relate more to their parents’ lives—in essence, always running from the guard at the border. This was all the more reason for them to charge ahead and get some roast beef brisket before missing the opportunity of nabbing the juiciest slices. It all comes down to survival. And a good piece of meat. But we’ll get to that.
    Rodney Dangerfield used to tell me his whole life was like the Jewish man trying to escape Europe during the war, and he had to give the Nazi border guard his best six minutes so the guard wouldn’t shoot him dead. That’s how Rodney looked at life. You’re only as good as your last six minutes. It’s not just a set —it’s a choice between life and death. Comedy is serious business.
    Whenever you talk to people about your survival, it makes them want to share their own losses with you. It’s like comparing battle scars. Makes me think of that scene in Jaws— which I just watched for maybe the tenth time—with the great Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider, where they compare their wounds at sea.
    A shark attack is similar to my sweet aunt Ruthie grabbing my face and kissing me so hard she sucks blood to my cheek. In fact, her ex-husband, my dad’s brother, my uncle Joe, resembled Roy Scheider . . .

    And not unlike Robert Shaw in Jaws, he was also bitten in half—except by his ex-wife. Uh, okay, Bob. And by the way, I love my Aunt Ruthie, which means more slams to come.
    Uncle Joe survived but I lost three childhood heroes to heart attacks; all were funny, handsome overachievers with high cholesterol, and all died between the ages of thirty-seven and forty-one. First, when I was eight, I lost my uncle Ozzie, one of my dad’s three younger brothers. He was only forty. He had a heart attack while running down the street chasing a couple kids who had stolen his tire. Nice, right? They tell me I look the most like him.

    One year later, I lost my uncle Manny to a double heart attack.

    Apparently, he had two different heart attacks—one brought on by his business, the other just by pressure in general. His wife, my aunt Millie, loved him more than anything, but she was young and a bit of a hottie—and with that comes complexity. Yes, I just typed that my late aunt was a “hottie.” I’d like to believe she’d have smiled at that one.
    Manny was found after his double heart attack on the couch in the living room; he was later diagnosed as having had a front and back heart attack (to use clinical-speak). As for my aunt Millie, may she rest in peace and God bless her—as we say before we dish someone—she was known to have complained to him constantly about the state of their lives, before, during, and I’m guessing after the heart attacks. She meant well though. I’m still close to her daughter, my cousin Sandra. Life can