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year, weighing in at a wispy 114 pounds; it was exactly like the movie Lucas . . . except not everyone liked me and clapped for me. I got pounded. I even had the balls to go out for basketball, just for something to do. The worst thing about that was when I got the ball in our practice games, the other team wouldn’t even try to block my shots, and they would just sit back and yell, “Let him shoot!” This was even more humiliating because they knew that with absolutely no interference I would still miss. And I did. Every time. Obviously I got cut from all three teams, but at least I tried out. By the way, the freaks were restricted to only weed. It wasn’t like today. We had no molly, no acid, no moon rocks, no crack, no coke, no special K, no codeine cough syrup, no Vicodin, no Xanax, no Adderall, no Klonopin. Nope, just booze and weed. Very basic. Like Kicking Wing in Joe Dirt . Snakes and sparklers. Not a big assortment.
    I’m always asked if I was the class clown. I have to say no. I was sort of funny but I would whisper all my jokes to people in class. I wasn’t the loud attention-getter. I think that’s why the movies with Chris Farley seemed to work, because he was the typical loud class-clown type and I was quietly commenting on what was happening. That combo felt like it had a groove to it. It was a good pairing. I got that style by lack of confidence in my jokes. I felt if I said them quietly and with no spin on them, then it didn’t count if I didn’t get a laugh. I would just say that wasn’t a joke, I wasn’t trying, I was just stating something. Because if you really lean on a joke and it whiffs, you look like an asshole and it counts as a strike on your stats. I was more like the guy running for mayor. I was very social at this point, mixing it up with as many people as I could. Shaking hands, kissing babies. You know the drill. Hey, I’d been socially starved my whole life. Now I was experiencing a microlevel of fame. I’d been plucked from grade school obscurity to having folks know who I was. My mom was pissed about my report card shitting the bed, and Andy was annoyed that I was riding his cool-cred coattails, but I didn’t care. I always knew if things got bad I could easily turn into the skid and bust out a 4.0 overnight. Not a problem.
    Turns out, it was a problem. My acceptance into Mensa got sidetracked by the idea of doing comedy. It was my sophomore year when I decided that I would try to be funny, not quietly at lunch but onstage.
    In my Scottsdale, Arizona high school, one of the offered electives was a motivational speaking class. This was a pretty easy one for me, because it was a perfect way to show off. A lot of the class was learning how to give a speech in front of a group, which terrifies most people, but I seemed to like it (gross). A very sweet but stern older woman named Mrs. Nack taught the class. She was very good at getting the most out of you, and she didn’t make things easy on us. I remember there was an “Ah” meter. Someone hit a bell every time you said “Ah” or “Um” during a speech, which was great training because you would never guess how many times you say that in a conversation and how stupid it sounds. I wish there was a “Like” meter in every bar in Los Angeles. Maybe even an “Amazing” meter for whenever a girl talks for more than five seconds.
    This class was also my introduction to “the Light.” The light is the famous red light on the back wall they flick on at the end of your stand-up routine. It means you have about two minutes to wrap it up. And I have learned through my stand-up career that a lot of places are not fucking around when they give you the light. I have gotten screamed at, and even fired on the road for not getting the fuck offstage when the light came on. Comics get bad reps for going over their time. So back to the speech class . . . If you had a five-minute speech, it was like a traffic light in the back: green