Chapter Fifteen
Turkeys in Wheelchairs
I got no sex life. My dog keeps watching me in the bedroom. He wants to learn how to beg. He taught my wife how to roll over and play dead.
I’ve met a lot of funny people in my life, but to me and for those who knew him, the funniest guy going was my friend Joe Ancis. A lot of people say Lenny Bruce was influenced by Joe’s comedic genius.
You’ve probably never heard of Joe because he wasn’t famous. He had no desire to get up on a stage or be in show business in any way.
I knew Joe for over fifty years. In fact, he lived with me for eighteen of them. He died while I was writing this book, and I can’t believe he’s gone, because we always talked about how I would be the one to go first. I was the wild man, the drinker, the smoker. Joe was extremely careful, probably too careful.
Most of Joe’s best stuff was of the “you had to be there” variety, but I’ll try to lay some of his things on you.
When Joe lived with me, I had a miniature poodle named Keno. One time I was talking to Joe, but I was distracted because I noticed that the dog kept looking at me.
After a few minutes, I said to Joe, “What’s with the dog? He keeps staring at me.”
Joe said, “Man, you’re a star.”
One day Joe said, “How’s the weather outside?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Go out on the terrace.”
“No, they’ll want speeches,” he said.
Back in the fifties, Joe and I worked together in the siding business in Englewood, New Jersey. He was a salesman—a very good one—but like me, he never got up early, which was actually okay because one of the biggest advantages of both the siding business and show business is that you can sleep late. So we never made appointments in the morning—we always got up late and went to work late. Sometimes, though, a client or a prospective customer would try to schedule an appointment in the morning.
I heard Joe deal with that situation on the phone once. Joe said to his customer, “Tomorrow morning? Uh, let me see…” He pretended to check his date book. “Well, tomorrow morning I’m all tied up,” Joe said, then put his hand over the phone, looked at me, and said, “In my pajamas.”
Another time Joe and I were watching a boxing match on TV. Joe said, “If only one of them would just say, ‘I’m sorry.”
One of my favorite things to eat is a turkey leg, and I have that all the time, at home or in restaurants. One night Joe saw me eating a turkey leg. “Man,” he said, “you’ve put more turkeys in wheelchairs…”
Joe was paranoid about germs, so he had his own way of using public restrooms. He would get into a stall, lock the door, then stand on top of the toilet seat, take all his clothes off—except for his shoes—and squat over the toilet. (He told me he had to be very careful when doing this because he didn’t want any splashes.)
One time Joe went into the stall but forgot to lock the door. He was right in the middle of his routine—standing on the toilet seat, naked, facing the door—when some guy looks under the door, sees no feet, and figures the stall is empty.
This guy opens the door, sees Joe—now seven and a half feet tall, and naked—screams, and runs out of the men’s room.
Germs weren’t the only thing Joe was afraid of. His parents made him fear many things. When Joe was a kid, his father told him, “Never fly on an airplane. They explode in the air.” That was just one of many nutty things Joe was told growing up. Joe wasn’t much for dating because his mother once told him, “If you break up with a girl, be very careful. They throw acid in your face.”
Joe would never sleep with the window open because he was afraid a pigeon would get in and peck him in the eye.
The following could only happen to Joe with his head full of fear. It happened forty-five years ago.
Joe was very much into music and singers. So one night he went to see Nancy Wilson in concert in New York. Halfway through her act, he noticed some empty seats way up front. During the applause for Nancy’s next song, he walked to the front, around the third row, and took one of the empty seats.
Then his head went to work.
Joe started thinking, What if someone shoots Nancy Wilson? They’ll think I did it. I’m the only white guy in the place. They’ll say, “It’s him! He even changed his seat to be close and get a better shot. He wasn’t even applauding for Nancy.”
For the rest of the performance, Joe sweated it out, hoping that Nancy didn’t get shot. Joe kept applauding heavily for Nancy and making sure people sitting near him would see him smiling. That was Joe’s head. It was tough for him to relax.
One day I was in a bank with Joe when he wanted to cash a check. The woman behind the cage looked at Joe and said, “How do I know you’re Joe Ancis?”
Joe said to her, “How do I know you’re Next Window Please?”
I went to buy a suit. I told the salesman “I wanna see something cheap”…he told me to look in the mirror.
Joe Ancis, my best friend, was the funniest guy I ever knew.
Courtesy of the collection of Rodney Dangerfield.
Joe and I understood each other, and we had the same kind of dark thoughts, so we got along great. But unlike me, Joe never wanted to meet people. He used to say, “I’m not lookin’ to make new friends—I’d like to lose the ones I got.” Me, I love communicating with people. I’d rather be in Secaucus with somebody I can talk to than be in Paris alone.
People always wanted to meet Joe, though. He was famous among the hipsters and comedians, who’d heard so much about him, but he didn’t want to meet them.
Dave Goldes, who wrote for Carson and for me, was always bugging me, saying he wanted to meet Joe. I’d say, “What can I tell ya? He’s not lookin’ to meet you.”
One night Joe and I were eating at the Stage Deli when Dave walked in. Dave spotted us and immediately headed our way, thinking this was his big chance to meet Joe. I saw Dave coming, so I said to Joe, “Look, man, here comes Dave Goldes. You’ve heard me talk about him. He’s a great guy. How ’bout letting him sit with us for a minute, okay?”
Joe said nothing.
When Dave got to our table, I said, “Joe, say hello to Dave.”
Joe’s first words to Dave were: “Your mother sucks midgets.”
Dave had heard so much about Joe that he broke up laughing. I thought it was funny, too, but the midgets at the next table dropped their corned-beef sandwiches in shock.
A few weeks ago I did a show. The whole audience was midgets. I got a standing ovation and I didn’t even know it.
One day Joe and I went to the beach. As we were getting our stuff out of the car, a cop said, “Hey, Rodney, how ya doing? Did you come for the nude beach?”
“Nude beach?” I said. “Where?”
The cop said, “Right over there.”
So Joe and I took a walk on the nude beach. We didn’t have to get naked, but everyone else there was, which was fine by us.
We were strolling along the water’s edge, pretending to mind our own business, when we saw this man walking toward us, like he was in a hurry. He looked to be about sixty years old, gray hair, very mature, with his dick swinging back and forth.
Joe looked at me and said, “Monday morning in the bank, that same guy turns you down for a loan.”
Last week, I had a bad experience. I went to a nude beach. They kicked me out. They told me it’s impolite to point.
Forty years ago, I was feeling really depressed, even more than I usually do, so Joe recommended a famous psychologist to me. I went to see this guy many times, and he was very helpful. I still remember two things he told me: “People are all fucking crazy and most are unethical.” Like I said, a smart guy.
Joe had a similar take, but he put it brilliantly. He said, “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know too well.”
I know I’m getting old. When I whack off I get tired holding up the magazine.