Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. Read online

  Rob Delaney has been named the ‘Funniest Person on Twitter’ by Comedy Central and one of the ‘50 Funniest People’ by Rolling Stone. He writes for Vice and The Guardian. This is his first book.

  ‘WARNING: This book may cause involuntary seepage. Some funny, funny, funny, funny s*** from the most dangerous man on Twitter. The fact that he’s just as funny in long form makes me want to vomit with envy’

  Anthony Bourdain

  ‘All it takes to be as funny as Rob Delaney is luck, good timing, deep compassion, reckless imaginative agility, a flawless grasp of the inner workings of language, and criminally vast quantities of mojo. What a jerk’

  Teju Cole, author of Open City

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Blackfriars

  ISBN: 978-0-349-13419-2

  Copyright © 2013 by Rob Delaney

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  This imprint has no connection with The Order of Preachers (Dominicans)

  Blackfriars

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  This particular copy of this book belongs to you. Every copy, however, belongs to my mom. Because I am dedicating it to her. I’m dedicating it to her because unless the sun incinerates the earth in the next few decades, this book will outlast me. And I want something that will be around longer than me to show that there was once a woman in Marblehead, Massachusetts, who loved her son very much and set him on his path with a beautifully wrought map and the fullest of tool kits. She taught him that when things are tough, one must keep on truckin’. That woman is my mom. I love her. And you would, too.

  “A heart that hurts is a heart that works.”

  —Juliana Hatfield

  contents

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Part I: L’enfance

  La curiosité

  Ma vie avec les juifs

  La sexualité

  Le narcissisme

  La honte

  Part II: La soûlerie

  L’excès

  La peur

  La mer

  Le courage

  Nu et sanglant

  Part III: La réhabilitation

  Mes amis morts

  Dépression!

  Part IV: La romance

  SIDA?

  Une liaison fatale

  Le beguin

  Une toquade

  Part V: La famille

  L’hépatite A

  La paternité

  Bonus Chapter: Problem Areas

  Acknowledgments

  @robdelaney I love it when someone’s Twitter bio says something like “Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.” etc. @robdelaney My niece just said “Birds live in a birdhouse & we live in a people house!” Cute, huh? Wrong; my niece is 26 & on trial for manslaughter. @robdelaney I wonder if I’ll ever love anything as much as Wes Anderson loves gingham. @robdelaney Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. Unless they’re Crocs, then fuck that guy. @robdelaney You’ve really got to hand it to short people. Because they often can’t reach it. @robdelaney My son just said he’s going to write his name on our cat with a raisin. Guess I won’t have to waste money on college. @robdelaney OK, think of a number. Add 7 to it. Divide it by 2. Point at it. Show it a picture of your father. Go to sleep. Omelette. @robdelaney Chinese babies must be like “Fuuuuuck…” when they realize they’re gonna have to learn Chinese. @robdelaney The story of the Titanic speaks to me because I once tripped over a bag of ice at a party & then killed over 1,500 people. @robdelaney If I were a woman, when I encountered sexism I’d be like “BRB, I’m gonna go *MAKE A HUMAN* IN MY BODY LIKE A MAGICAL GOD, YOU SAD OAF.” @robdelaney Just saw a fat kid at the bus stop with a violin case. It’s like hey little Mozart I know that thing is filled with snacks. @robdelaney Guys calm down; squirrels invented parkour @robdelaney Cats probably wouldn’t need 9 lives if they wore tiny little helmets and didn’t smoke cigarettes. @robdelaney NPR head resigns after calling Tea Party “racist.” Tomorrow, NASA head to resign after calling space “big.” @robdelaney Just passed a guy wearing a “# 1 Dad” T-shirt. On my way home now to ask my kids what the fuck. @robdelaney Sometimes I put a dog poop in the toilet at work so the guys don’t think I only went in there to cry. @robdelaney Donuts are gay bagels. @robdelaney My son just handed me a duck & a pig from his barnyard puzzle & smiled as if that made us “even” for all the food/clothing I’ve given him. @robdelaney @charmin my daughter was killed by a bear yesterday when she tried to offer it toilet paper you son of a bitch @robdelaney No, it’s about friendship. RT @BarackObama : Is “Wind Beneath My Wings” about Bette Midler farting through a maxi-pad? @robdelaney If you bite the inside of your mouth by accident, you should be allowed to fire a shotgun at an old bus till you feel better. @robdelaney “They make their kids do WHAT?!” - Hitler, hearing about “Toddlers & Tiaras” @robdelaney THE JEWS RUN HOLLYWOOD!! Which is probably why it’s a fun place to work with a lot of great restaurants. @robdelaney

  introduction

  In early 2009 I was in a hotel outside of Minneapolis where I’d just performed at the Joke Joint comedy club. I was on Facebook and saw that Louis C.K. had announced he’d opened a Twitter account. Like many people, I thought Twitter was for notifying people you were taking a shit at Burger King, so I avoided it. But I thought, “Hey, if Louie’s doing it, maybe I should check it out.” I started an account and posted the worst image of myself I could find as my photo. It’s me standing on a beach wearing a green Speedo with horrid blue designs swirling around my tightly bunched cock and balls. People ask if I really wear that Speedo and the answer is yes, but only under my wetsuit when I swim during the winter.

  One evening in the fall of 2008, I was preparing to put on my wetsuit for a swim when my friend John said, “Jesus Christ, you look awful. Let me take a picture.” As I posed, my wife looked on with a sad resignation I’ve seen maybe two hundred times. What’s funny is that we were married a few yards away from where the photo was taken, so it was doubly sad. Naturally, many people don’t like that picture and they often ask me to change it. I won’t.

  My first tweet was “About to go onstage in Minneapolis after I finish this tuna melt and go pee.” Soon after, I realized that my favorite tweets to read were the ones that made me laugh. Tweets of no informational value were the ones that made me happiest. If I wanted to know what someone did every waking moment, I would keep them in my basement, not scan their Twitter timeline.

  At the time I signed up for Twitter, I was in debt and adding to it every month. I was submitting my writing to TV shows, hoping to get a job as a writer. I would consistently get replies with comments like “Great stuff!” but no show actually hired me. Other comics were publicly expressing worry about giving up their material for free on Twitter, but since nobody was paying me to do much of anything (with the exception of the SAINTLY owners of the aforementioned Joke Joint in Minneapolis, the only club in the country that would book me a couple of times a yea
r to headline), I figured, Fuck it. I’ll give it away for free. I decided to show the people who were kind enough to become my Twitter followers that, whether or not they necessarily thought I was funny, I had a work ethic and liked to write jokes all day, every day.

  I had also cultivated a somewhat relaxed philosophy about my own intellectual property. Some years before, I’d had the good fortune to have a joke stolen from me and performed on TV by a comic I knew. I was upset at first, but then I realized that—poor etiquette aside—the guy was funny and he would’ve been on TV with or without my joke. I also realized that if I couldn’t immediately write several more jokes to replace it, then I wasn’t funny, and I had no business calling myself a comedian. So I forced myself to make a mental adjustment and I decided that the guy had done me a giant favor. And he had. I became much less precious about material. Of course I’d be “proud” of a good joke, but I knew that I just had to continue producing material.

  My silent motto when people started stealing my jokes on Twitter was, “Go ahead and take ’em, motherfucker. Here come five more.” My goal as a comedian was to become a Delta Force operator of humor who you could throw into an empty room with nothing and he’d make something funny, and then kill people with it. This remains my goal today.

  On Twitter, I try to elicit an emotional response. Usually it’s laughter. Hopefully it’s involuntary. I don’t fault people for posting pictures of their food or just chatting back and forth with one another; that’s just not my style. People come to my page to be entertained and I view it as my sworn duty to do so.

  In December of 2010, a woman named Julie Grau tweeted to me, “Would you please write me a book?” I wrote back, “I’d love to,” and immediately forgot about it. The next day I got an email from my friend, the author Mat Johnson, who said I might give this friendly stranger’s tweet a little more attention, as she was responsible for publishing a respectable percentage of the best books being written today. I went to the bathroom in my pants, figuratively, and wrote Ms. Grau back telling her it would be my sincere pleasure to write her a book and I asked how I might go about beginning the process formally. I also told her I happened to have a show coming up in New York—I did not—if she’d like to meet and discuss further. After that email, I scrambled to book a show in New York and bought a plane ticket.

  After meeting Julie and her team in New York, I returned to L.A. and my wife and I prepared to greet our first child, who was nearly done ripening in her belly. One day while I was sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot, staring at a wall and contemplating fatherhood, Julie called and formally offered me a book deal. I said, “Thank you,” then hung up and started crying. A few days later our son was born.

  Since that moment, I’ve been very lucky and have gotten to work on projects with my heroes and make a living doing stand-up around the English-speaking world, including Canada. In this book I endeavor to tell you how I got to where I am now, and perhaps more important, what celebrities wear diapers to “get off” (Dancer/Actor Channing Tatum and Texas Governor Rick Perry).

  Thank you for joining me, and I wish you a terrific reading experience.

  I’m the Michael Phelps of taking shits at McDonald’s. @robdelaney Just forced some dogs to look at MY boner for a change.@robdelaney My boss is like a father to me, in the sense that he’s stolen money from me & called me a faggot in front of my children. @robdelaney Living well is the best revenge. Rubbing your asshole all over someone’s cellphone is pretty good too. @robdelaney Billion dollar idea: Figure out how to pierce Mexican baby girls’ ears in utero.@robdelaney I just did the cutest little kitten sneeze! Out of my masculine adult butthole. @robdelaney Just watched an Asian toddler make a fully functional iPhone out of a

  PART I l’enfance

  piece of cheese and some copper. @robdelaney Whenever a Hasidic Jew sees an Amish guy from a distance I bet he gets excited, but then he’s like “Oy” when they get closer. @robdelaney If they can grow a human ear on the back of a mouse, how come they can’t grow a couple clits in my armpit? Get it together, science. @robdelaney Our daughter Jimothy just won 2nd prize at her bvTae Kwon Do tournament!! #proud #blessed #fitness @robdelaney I’d rather have someone SHIT INTO MY HAND than hear them clip their fingernails. @robdelaney Made my wife a “surprise” appointment for lap band surgery. April Fools! She left me a few weeks ago. @robdelaney If your response to calls for gun control is “Should we get rid of cars too?” the answer is, for you, yes. You should not have a gun or car. @robdelaney Probably the worst thing you can do to a person is leave them a voicemail. @robdelaney Hey #teens! What’s this “Friend Zone” I keep hearing about?? Sounds fun! Can I bring my wife? She’s my best friend. @robdelaney??? RT @MittRomney: It’s no “Trash Humpers,” but Ann & I still enjoyed “Spring Breakers.” @robdelaney Just heard some Japanese girls saying a bunch of Japanese who-knows-what. Probably something about how they like my jeans. @robdelaney Just found a delicious crouton in my therapist’s purse! @robdelaney Imagine a shark. Terrified yet? Well you will be when I tell you that THE SHARK IS MADE OF GLUTEN!! @robdelaney I met my wife Kevin at Lilith Fair in 2004. @robdelaney I’m not crazy about tennis but I love listening to women grunt. @robdelaney Name the thing you want most in this world. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Inhale my hot, beefy fart. Call the police. Tiramisu. @robdelaney Domestic violence is never OK. Even at IKEA. @robdelaney “Linger” by The Cranberries is probably my favorite song about Prince Charles farting at the 1988 British Open. @robdelaney Understood. RT @Pontifex: My pas-

  la curiosité

  We got our first microwave when I was ten. I’m not even sure if I was warned that it was dangerous. My parents must have thought I should understand, by that age, that if something can make ice-cold water scalding hot faster than any machine in history, I shouldn’t monkey with it. The microwave’s primary use was to make hot water for my mom’s nightly tea. It took us years to collectively figure out that a kettle was a vastly superior tool to make tea. I guess our understanding of technology evolved backward. It’s not odd, I suppose, considering that my dad grew up very poor and my mom grew up in relative wealth. My dad spent a portion of his childhood in Catholic orphanages and foster homes in Boston—even though his parents were still alive—and for part of her youth, my mom’s home had an elevator in it. My dad’s mom wasn’t terribly interested in parenting and ran around on my grandfather, disappearing for years at a time. My dad’s father was very poor and wrestled with alcoholism, so sometimes his four kids—of whom my dad was the second youngest—were placed in an orphanage or foster home for a year or two. Fuck. Now that I’m a dad, I wonder how you could arrive at the decision to let your kids out of your sight like that. Physical distance between me and my son is my least favorite thing in the world.

  My mom grew up in a decidedly different situation. She was the fourth of five children in a wealthy Catholic family who lived an hour north of Boston. To this day, my family spends a couple of weeks every summer at the beach house her parents bought back in the 1950s. My mom went to Catholic school from first grade all the way through her senior year at Regis College, just outside of Boston. She has a fantastic story about a nun brutally yanking her pigtails when she laughed at a friend’s antics one time in first grade, the way a beautiful little girl in first grade fucking should. A friend of my uncle’s, at the same school, had his ear boxed by a nun until it bled. Desks in the classroom were set up in order of the students’ grades, so there was quite literally a “stupid corner.” It was a phenomenal school.

  When I was in sixth grade, I did not sit in the stupid corner. We didn’t have one, but I wouldn’t have been placed in it anyway. I loved to read, so I loved English and Social Studies. I coasted to good grades in all the other subjects. That changed in later years, when I discovered shoplifting, cigarettes, girls, and booze, and allowed my self-will a little more free reign. But just because I did well in sixth grade didn’t mean I had any kind of street smarts or would be inclined to obey the ru
les of thermodynamics as they applied to microwave ovens.

  My mom and dad had settled in Marblehead, Massachusetts, right before my third birthday. Marblehead is comprised of two peninsulas that stick out into Massachusetts Bay, about a half an hour north of Boston. I would ride my bicycle around its perimeter most days after high school. That took a little over an hour. It’s tiny. But it’s beautiful, has lots of trees and beaches, and is filled with white people.

  I knew a microwave oven was dangerous, in theory, and that you weren’t supposed to put certain things in it. I knew, for example, that metal did not belong in the microwave. But what about an egg? It seemed like you really probably shouldn’t put one in there, what with the fact that an egg is totally sealed and is soft and wet in the middle and hard on the outside.

  One day, after school, I decided to put an egg in the microwave and see what happened. I ceremoniously placed the egg in the center of the microwave, closed the door, and punched in one minute. Then I watched intently as a fair amount of nothing happened. I didn’t want to tempt fate, so I took the apparently unchanged egg out of the microwave, set it on the counter, and tried to dream up another experiment. Then I heard a quiet humming. It was coming from the egg. The egg was humming at a very high pitch, higher than human vocal cords can replicate, like a tiny little egg-kettle. I bent down to examine the egg and listen more closely to its song. “Eggs shouldn’t hum,” I thought. “Is it in pain?” Was this a fertilized egg and had I unknowingly tortured a chick and it was now screaming for death’s release in its tiny prison?

  I took a butter knife from a drawer and held it over the egg. I gently tapped the egg. It immediately exploded with a loud WHOMP. An amazing volume of foul-smelling scrambled egg sprayed out. Much more foulness than one solitary egg should hold. It was all over the walls and the cupboards and the ceiling. Bits of scrambled egg stuck to my face, burning me. I brushed the egg bits off, horrified and injured. I was wide-eyed and in shock at what I had wrought.