Crash and Burn Read online

  “Listen Ted, you probably think I’m crazy, but I didn’t give him the full nine-digit zip code for my address in Hoboken. I hate to do this to you, but I’ve lost checks—I’ve lost a lot of checks—and I really don’t want that to happen anymore. Would you mind running that guy down and making sure he’s got the full nine-digit zip on that address? I’m sure you don’t feel like doing it, but it’s better to handle it now.”

  That kept him occupied for another half hour, by which point, when he finally came back saying he couldn’t find the guy (who was probably hiding from Teddy by then if he wasn’t being blown by an overweight mother of eight), I decided it was time to go. It was one of the worst gigs I’ve ever done at one of the top places I’ve always wanted to play. That’s life, though, isn’t it? You can sit around thinking that some place is the Taj Mahal, but when you finally get there, you realize it’s shit. Who knows, if I didn’t care so much about drugs and money I might have managed to have a good time and maybe even do a good set. I was so in my head that when it started to go wrong up there, the paranoia, the false perception, and the lessened ability that comes with drug abuse defined what happened next. And the only thing that made it go away? Complete obliteration via puke-covered Percocet. Oh yeah, speaking of those, once I got back to my suite at the Park Hyatt in Century City that night I realized I’d left those at the scene of the crime: they were in my ripped-up pants, deep inside a hedgerow at the Playboy Mansion. Tell you the truth, I hope they’re still there. That would be the type of mark I’d be proud of leaving on the Mansion.

  Without a fix of Percocet to get me through the day, my flight home was going to be more of a living hell than my set had been, times ten. I was in first class and Teddy wasn’t, so the only joy I got was laughing at him as he shuffled his lazy ass back to coach. He was hungover and I knew it, and in reality that was all I had (aside from the obvious): ways to feel superior to him.

  “See ya later, loser!” I shouted as he shuffled by. “Maybe I’ll bring you something to eat, jerk-off. I’ll let you know how the warm brownie and ice cream taste. Hey, do they give you champagne when you first enter coach? Ted, don’t worry, I’ll come see you after I watch my favorite episode of Taxi.”

  “Yeah, really funny.”

  I could make fun of him all I wanted, but it didn’t matter; I was the one who was truly fucked. No amount of alcohol could soothe the raging, toxic headache brewing in my brain. Fifteen minutes into the flight I got the sweats because my withdrawals had set in. As soon as the seat belt light went off I was pacing up and down the aisles, asking for more scotch, praying that the anxiety and sweats and itch would go away, and knowing that they wouldn’t. I’d planned it wrong, I’d not brought enough stuff to get me back to my home base in one piece. But all was not lost; I knew that I just had to get through the flight to be able to get myself shipshape again. Luckily I was met by a very, shall we say, “understanding” driver whom I had ridden with before. He picked me up at the airport that day, took one long look at me, and said: “Where we goin’, man? I don’t think you’re goin’ home just yet.”

  “No, man, I’m not,” I said. “I’m in bad shape.”

  I borrowed a few hundred dollars off him (I told you he was amazingly understanding), and I won’t tell you where we went to score, but I can tell you it rhymes with Shmarlem. That night we got me about two hundred Vicodin, and this guy was wise—I’d have to pay him that cash back with ten percent interest. That’s how it was, and I considered it normal. Ah, fuck it, I don’t even know if I thought it was normal. I didn’t give a fuck what it was anymore. It was my life.

  CHAPTER 3

  SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY

  If you’re still with me by now, even if you weren’t there the first go-round, you probably realize that 2008 was a banner year for me. My first book, Too Fat to Fish, debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list and remained a bestseller for nearly two months. When it went into paperback a year later, it hit the list again—the thing just didn’t let up, because it somehow crossed over from interested people who knew me from stand-up or were just die-hard Stern fans to becoming its own entity, a collection of autobiographical stories that touched people. Making the Times list and the media that came along with it piqued the curiosity of people who didn’t know who I was, but I guess they wanted to know what this weird book with the stupid title at number one was all about. I hope they found it to be entertaining, or at least purely disgusting—at the best I hope they found it enlightening. I’ll also settle for educational, in the way that any video preceded by a don’t-try-this-at-home disclaimer can be educational. That book is one of my proudest achievements, no matter what other heights I manage to scale, God willing.

  Anyway, my stand-up schedule was as busy and lucrative as it had ever been and between the Stern Show, invites to Comedy Central roasts, and a few small acting roles, I’d tapped into everything I’d always wanted from show business besides banging Angie Dickinson and playing Jean Valjean in the Broadway production of Les Misérables. I also received the opportunity to give back to our country, which is something I’d always wanted to do. That year I went to Afghanistan with the USO to entertain our troops—a milestone for me—but I couldn’t let myself enjoy it completely and had to fuck it up by scoring fifteen Valium at the airport in Kyrgyzstan while waiting for our Armed Forces transport flight out of that hellhole. I got so out of my mind that I had to be driven back to the US Army base to sleep it off for thirteen hours because I was deemed unfit to fly. This was the army, by the way, so they had the authority to strap me into a seat as if I were a box of emergency rations, but they chose not to—I was that bad. If I was what might be called “mildly ill behaved” at the airport, once they got me back on the base I really put on a show, because all fifteen of those black-market Valium, about 150 milligrams’ worth because they were the biggest-sized generic pills—really kicked in. When they let me out of the car I proceeded to run around like a crazy man, until the top dog sergeant in charge caught up with me and told me in no uncertain terms that I was either going to bed or getting locked up in a cell by him personally. There’s one thing I can say about me, which is that I rebel all I can to the furthest degree, always to my own detriment, but when true authority knocks and real trouble is at my door, I answer and at least try to fly right.

  Sometimes it literally takes an army, though. I got the message and allowed them to escort me to my bunk, where I realized that I was more exhausted than I’d thought and had no more fight in me, because, despite my tolerance and stature, I’d snacked on enough Middle Eastern Valium to put down a horse. Still, I had enough wiseass in me to pop off and keep everyone within earshot awake for another hour, because I’d convinced myself that my misery was all their fault and so they deserved to be insulted. I’ve come to realize that I should just stay home.

  After my USO tour I was reeling from drug use, living in a fantasy land, because like I’ve said, in Amsterdam I made this almost proud, conscious decision to let go and didn’t give a shit about myself anymore. I didn’t even try to pretend that I was attempting to slow down anymore, which, ironically, was the most honest I’d been with myself in years. I don’t know if this will make sense to anybody else but me, but it was as if I’d gone to confession and I was the priest: I’d admitted my sin, and I forgave me. My self-appointed salvation was to keep heading on down that road without looking back. I was free; I really didn’t care what happened to me anymore.

  People started to slip out of my life, some quickly, some slowly: everyone from Dana to my best childhood friends, to family like my cousin Jeff, whom I’d never in a million years thought I’d ever lose touch with. I remember him telling me at that time that he hardly knew me anymore and that he only learned what I was doing by listening to the Stern Show. Jeff had always been an older brother to me, I’d always shared everything with him, ever since we were kids, and he’d been reduced to knowing as much about me as any given stranger with a Sirius su
bscription.

  I saw all of this happening in slow motion, and I really didn’t give a shit. I was too happily preoccupied with the money I was making and all the drugs it took to get me through the night. The affirmation I felt onstage some nights, when the people cheered, was a bonus. I refused to see that as anything real. The same went for friendships: whomever was or wasn’t my friend was about as important to me as following women’s college lacrosse.

  Just getting through my professional engagements took all of my energy, so what most people concern themselves with, all of those things that make up what anyone considers an average, functional life, were annoying to me. I was like a hair metal band in the ’80s demanding a straight line from the limo to the backstage door: my line went from the Stern Show to my weekend moneymakers to my drugs to my bed, wherever that bed may be. Anything else was a problem, anything else got in the way, and I hated anything else. If I ever got lonely or horny I called a whore, but between my six-a.m.-to-eleven-a.m. on air schedule during the week and my nocturnal stand-up and opiate weekend netherworld, I barely had the time or taste for them anymore.

  I was in the worst health I’d ever been, just a drug addict limping through life, yet somehow I got more done in 2008 than in any other year I’ve spent in show business. All of my achievements came with a price, though. I was nodding off on the air, which is fine if your radio show is being heard by twenty-five people in Ossining, New York, at three a.m., but I was one of the main players on the Howard Stern Show, where six million people listened to me snore every time I “dozed” off (which was a hell of a lot). That wasn’t enough for me either, so I stayed on the comedy circuit, playing Vegas, Atlantic City, and all points that paid well in between, raking in the cash and snorting up the drugs in places far enough away that I could evade the eyes of those watching me back at home. I had it all worked out, and even when I saw it was a sham, I kept pushing until it all fell apart.

  It was perfect timing too, because I’d finally gotten my close-up, thank you, Mr. DeMille. The success of the book earned me repeated spots on Letterman, Conan, Kimmel, too many live radio shows to name, and just about every local TV entertainment show in America that I cared to do. I’d have the publisher organize book signings and press wherever I did stand-up, meaning that every single hour of my weekends away from Stern was occupied. I’d do press in person or on the phone when I got to wherever I was playing and after I got offstage I’d sign books at a bookstore or at the comedy club until every single person who showed up had bought one, gotten their photo op, and had me sign their copy. Some nights I’d be at a table in some bookstore after a gig until four a.m., and so long as I was kept well lubricated and was allowed to smoke, I would have stayed there signing and greeting my fans until I passed out.

  Take a look at any picture taken of me during my book tour—I look near death. My skin was gray, I was heavier than usual, I was smoking and drinking like there was no tomorrow, and I wore the same clothes every day. If I had to describe myself I’d say I looked like a guy whose skin was uncomfortable with having him in it. And I wouldn’t be wrong, because my body was starting to give out. You know you’re not healthy when your face matches the yellowish-gray stack of newspapers in the corner of your apartment.

  As I wrote in the paperback edition of my first book, I completely short-circuited the day I was scheduled to participate in Comedy Central’s roast of Bob Saget because I’d been playing Russian roulette with my opiate addiction and I’d finally chambered the bullet. I was sick, going through serious heroin withdrawal because I’d been abusing a drug called Subutex to get me from my weekend benders into my somewhat “sober” workweeks. The drug isn’t meant to be used that way, and if you use it incorrectly you’ll end up very, very ill, as I did.

  I tried to plead the flu, but they wanted me to be a part of this thing so badly that Comedy Central was ready to hire a private jet to fly me to LA, complete with a doctor on board to get me well enough to perform. My cover was blown and for once there was no way I was getting away with it, so I had no choice but to admit that I was drug sick. I told my lawyer, Jared Levine, the truth, and he did his best to handle it. You know it’s bad when you can’t even get yourself onto a private jet with a doctor waiting to fix you up. It’s pretty sad but the truth is, nothing could get me out of bed that day, physically or mentally—and I didn’t care. I’d hit the wall head-on at full speed, like a fly slamming into the radiator grille of an eighteen-wheeler doing seventy-five on I-95. It was the end of the road, and like that fly, my asshole slammed through my brain, turning me into an unrecognizable stain.

  The roast was taped in August, and my missing it was a big red flag for my friend Colin Quinn, who had been talking to me regularly for months about getting help. He saw this slipup as the tipping point—it was going to be life or death for me from here. This is when he and my sister, Stacey, began talking regularly, trying to come up with a plan to save my life.

  They were right, of course, but I managed to keep them at bay for a while, until my next major public slipup in November, when I appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. I love Conan dearly and he and his show have always been incredibly gracious and kind to me. This marked something like my twenty-fifth appearance on the show, which is a milestone. Unfortunately I have no recollection of it whatsoever—it’s another trophy in my hall of blackout. I’m not kidding; I’ve watched the footage many times, each time hoping that something I see triggers even the slightest degree of recall. Let me try again right now. . . . Yeah, sorry, I’ve got nothing. I did a major television appearance in a complete blackout. I know there is some stoner out there who thinks this is really cool, who is probably the kind of guy who shouts “play ‘Free Bird’!” at the end of every concert no matter what band is on stage. I’m glad I’m your hero, tough guy, but it’s for all the wrong reasons.

  The Conan people have been more than kind to me over the years when I’ve been less than sober, but this was the last straw for them because being buzzed or on drugs is one thing, but disrespecting Conan and the show is something else and it’s not forgivable. And I couldn’t have been more obvious: every single joke I told was drug related. I was clearly so tired of my own shit or just so bold, feeling so untouchable—or not caring—that I was like a serial killer trying to get caught. When I wasn’t making blatant drug references I kept cutting Conan off midsentence with lines that made no sense at all. Go YouTube it; you’ll see what I mean. I really couldn’t have been more obvious about being fucked up and I couldn’t have been more insulting to Conan.

  I knew I’d blown it, but I still didn’t think I’d been that bad, because I tried to book another appearance a few months later to continue promoting the paperback version of Too Fat to Fish. Honestly, I was shocked when they refused to book me, for the first time in ten years. They’d had me on when I had nothing going on, but now I had a book that had hit the bestseller list twice and they wouldn’t have me. The producers were very honest with me: they told my manager that they knew I was high the last time I was on the show and that they weren’t willing to risk that kind of train wreck again.

  Despite these repeated fuckups, which continued to grow in scale, I wasn’t willing to admit that professionally I was slipping. I saw these events as setbacks and pains in the ass, something as inconvenient as my new habit of forgetting to shave for three weeks. I just kept on, and to be honest, the holiday season was fucking great for me that year. Each week Too Fat to Fish sold more copies and I was asked to do bigger gigs for more money, so overall my life was good. I had money to burn and no shortage of offers to make more. I’d gone through a bunch of assistants, but it felt like I’d found one in my friend Michelle, whom I flew up from Florida to help me out with all of the things I had to do on my book tour. I sent her back home for the holidays with plans to resume our working relationship after New Year’s.

  As Christmas came around I spent as little time with my family as possible so that I could spend the most t
ime possible doing drugs alone in my apartment. The holidays made me sappy, so I also made an attempt to salvage my relationship with Dana—something I’d realized was a lost and useless cause long before that last stretch of the year between Christmas and New Year’s. The damage had been done, and I was the last to admit it, but understanding that finally made me feel free of Dana. At the same time letting go of the idea that she and I might get back together someday made me feel more alone than I’d ever thought possible. You’d think that I’d want to be with my family when I felt that way, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel like I deserved their love and attention; I deserved to be as alone as possible, so I wallowed in it.

  My mother and sister were understandably distraught over me at this point. I felt like I had an excuse this particular year, but due to drugs or withdrawals I’d missed four Christmases and four Thanksgivings in a row, and in an Italian family, that is equal to treason. I’d just not show up, and I never had a good reason. Some years I didn’t even call to say, “Merry Christmas.” I’d promised them this year would be different, but it wasn’t, and when I didn’t materialize, my mother called me and said something I’ll never forget.

  “Art, do you have any self-respect?” she asked. She was crying too. “Do you really hate yourself this much? This is craziness. Art, you are killing me.”

  She was right, so I did the only thing I could: I got defensive and changed the subject. “Ma, you know if it wasn’t for me you’d be living in a closet somewhere, don’t you?” I said. “Dad left us nothing! I bought you a car, a town house, and I’ve helped you with everything.”