someone you love, you go through all the stages.
Eventually, her illness made me a champion for a disease that strangely enough I had fortuitously become involved with years before she was diagnosed with it. In 1984 I was cold-called by this great lady, Sharon Monsky, the founder of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. She asked me to perform at a benefit with other comedians to help raise money for research. A year earlier, Robin Williams had been the first comedian to ever perform to help the Foundation. I did the benefit a few months later.
At that time, my sister Gay was completely healthy, apart from some asthma that had been with her since childhood—definitely no signs of an autoimmune or vascular disease. But a couple years later, when I performed again at the same benefit, Gay had finally been diagnosed (after many disturbing misdiagnoses) with scleroderma.
Scleroderma is a rare disease that often affects women in the prime of their lives. When I hosted the benefit once more a year later, my sister Gay was actually in the audience and at this point she was deteriorating fast. It was tragic. Then, a year later, at another Foundation event, I announced that Gay had lost her battle with the disease. Since then, I have been involved in every benefit, and in the past ten years I have been a proud member of the SRF, which has raised over thirty million dollars to help fund research supporting those affected by this disease that took my sister.
All right, I know you paid good money to read this book, and now, all of a sudden, I’ve gone to this sorrowful I-lost-my-sisters place, sans humor, with a plug for my cause. Apologies. Shit happens. I think Confucius said that. I believe he also said, “Man who help others with an open heart will be thanked tenfold with much hot pussy.” Again, just wanted to see if you were still reading or just skimming this chapter.
Thanks for bearing with me. Look, they asked if I wanted to write a book and I said, “Sure, I love writing.” Just didn’t know how I would pinch this one out. But I’m glad I did. Everyone should write a book. Or at least a pamphlet. Or a PDF. Or a mimeo. I miss mimeos. There’s so little these days for kids to get high from in school. Oh yeah, except for booze and drugs.
But getting back to my sisters, when Andi was thirty-four she gave me a book on past lives, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul by Jane Roberts and Robert F. Butts. I was immediately drawn in because I misread the title and thought it was about butts. I soon realized it was about something completely different, about reincarnation and how the soul lives on forever. The book set me on a path of discovery that went on for the next ten years. Not more than two weeks after my sister gave me that book, out of nowhere she had a brain aneurysm and passed away. Again, please hold your laughter until the end of the book. It was not a funny time.
I vividly remember getting the call from my mother. I was in Detroit at a club called the Comedy Castle, working for a friend, Mark Ridley, the club owner. You find out who your true friends are when they console you through the hard times. Mark was amazing. And he was a club owner. You can count the number of kind club owners on your penis. That’s not completely true. In my earlier years as a comedian I did become friends with a couple other club owners. However, I can’t print their names here because they are all in prison.
So it was a Saturday night in Detroit and it was a very dark moment. My mom called and said, “Hello, Bob?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Andi, Bob.”
There was a long pause and I said nothing.
“She’s dead, Bob.”
All I recall through the emotion and shock was the gesture of pounding my fist into the air and saying quietly to myself, “You go, Andi—you evolve and go to where you want to go, to be at peace.” She had suffered a lot in her short life. The sweetest, most emotional girl you could ever
Eventually, her illness made me a champion for a disease that strangely enough I had fortuitously become involved with years before she was diagnosed with it. In 1984 I was cold-called by this great lady, Sharon Monsky, the founder of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. She asked me to perform at a benefit with other comedians to help raise money for research. A year earlier, Robin Williams had been the first comedian to ever perform to help the Foundation. I did the benefit a few months later.
At that time, my sister Gay was completely healthy, apart from some asthma that had been with her since childhood—definitely no signs of an autoimmune or vascular disease. But a couple years later, when I performed again at the same benefit, Gay had finally been diagnosed (after many disturbing misdiagnoses) with scleroderma.
Scleroderma is a rare disease that often affects women in the prime of their lives. When I hosted the benefit once more a year later, my sister Gay was actually in the audience and at this point she was deteriorating fast. It was tragic. Then, a year later, at another Foundation event, I announced that Gay had lost her battle with the disease. Since then, I have been involved in every benefit, and in the past ten years I have been a proud member of the SRF, which has raised over thirty million dollars to help fund research supporting those affected by this disease that took my sister.
All right, I know you paid good money to read this book, and now, all of a sudden, I’ve gone to this sorrowful I-lost-my-sisters place, sans humor, with a plug for my cause. Apologies. Shit happens. I think Confucius said that. I believe he also said, “Man who help others with an open heart will be thanked tenfold with much hot pussy.” Again, just wanted to see if you were still reading or just skimming this chapter.
Thanks for bearing with me. Look, they asked if I wanted to write a book and I said, “Sure, I love writing.” Just didn’t know how I would pinch this one out. But I’m glad I did. Everyone should write a book. Or at least a pamphlet. Or a PDF. Or a mimeo. I miss mimeos. There’s so little these days for kids to get high from in school. Oh yeah, except for booze and drugs.
But getting back to my sisters, when Andi was thirty-four she gave me a book on past lives, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul by Jane Roberts and Robert F. Butts. I was immediately drawn in because I misread the title and thought it was about butts. I soon realized it was about something completely different, about reincarnation and how the soul lives on forever. The book set me on a path of discovery that went on for the next ten years. Not more than two weeks after my sister gave me that book, out of nowhere she had a brain aneurysm and passed away. Again, please hold your laughter until the end of the book. It was not a funny time.
I vividly remember getting the call from my mother. I was in Detroit at a club called the Comedy Castle, working for a friend, Mark Ridley, the club owner. You find out who your true friends are when they console you through the hard times. Mark was amazing. And he was a club owner. You can count the number of kind club owners on your penis. That’s not completely true. In my earlier years as a comedian I did become friends with a couple other club owners. However, I can’t print their names here because they are all in prison.
So it was a Saturday night in Detroit and it was a very dark moment. My mom called and said, “Hello, Bob?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Andi, Bob.”
There was a long pause and I said nothing.
“She’s dead, Bob.”
All I recall through the emotion and shock was the gesture of pounding my fist into the air and saying quietly to myself, “You go, Andi—you evolve and go to where you want to go, to be at peace.” She had suffered a lot in her short life. The sweetest, most emotional girl you could ever
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