Delaney Rob - Rob Delaney: mother, wife, sister, human, warrior, falcon, yardstick, turban, cabbage

This is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.

Copyright 2013 by Rob Delaney

New introduction and chapter copyright 2014 by Rob Delaney

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company.

S PIEGEL & G RAU and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Some of the material in this work was originally published in different form as part of Rob Delaneys Take a Stroll weekly column on VICE.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Delaney, Rob
Rob Delaney : mother, wife, sister, human, warrior, falcon, yardstick, turban, cabbage / Rob Delaney.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8129-9308-0
eBook ISBN 978-0-679-64461-3
1. Delaney, Rob. 2. ComediansUnited StatesBiography. 3. ActorsUnited StatesBiography. 4. Authors, American21st centuryBiography. I. Title.
PN2287.D363A3 2013
792.7028092dc23 [B] 2013016757

www.spiegelandgrau.com

246897531

Cover design: Ben Wiseman
Art direction: Greg Mollica
Cover images: Clay Patrick McBride (Rob), Joel Sartore (deer)

v3.1_r1

A heart that hurts is a heart that works.

Juliana Hatfield

Well, my book came out and was a wild success. I remember holding the first hardcover copy in my hands and just being in shock. Years of work, of life, set down in black ink on white paper in a slim volume that anyone, even a homosexual, could buy at an airport or a Walmart. I couldnt believe it. Over time, though, I began to believe it. The effusive reviews began to pour in, the book quickly went into multiple printings, and I could barely go out in public without being accosted by rabid women and men tripping over themselves to thank me for changing their lives. I became a darling of the talk show circuit and began rubbing elbows with the global power elite. I even had sex* with a woman at a Travelodge in Blacksburg, Virginia. Im not going to lie to youit was pretty great. But much like a beautiful, muscular comet rocketing across the sky, I burned out. I went through my publishers advance quickly, massive as it was. I began butt-chugging large quantities of Robitussin to calm my nerves. I forbade my family to make eye contact with me, even while crying. A mere three months after the books release, I found myself living in my neighbor Karens backyard in a refrigerator box covered in aluminum foil swastikas Id affixed to it to protect me from the gamma rays that I believed were being emitted from Derek Jeters vagina.

After emerging from the box one Saturday morning to find a medallion I was convinced could heal the fibromyalgia Id received from Julia Roberts in a dream, I found something even better. You guessed it: a copy of the book youre holding right now. I sat down Indian style (on a pile of piping-hot chicken tandoori) and reread the book God had directed me to write so many months before. And fuck my dirty little stink winker, it was good. Real good. I felt awash in gratitude as I read the words that had brought joy and given purpose to so many millions of people around the globe. As I finished, my body shuddered in a powerful orgasm that I dont doubt would have killed most men. My ejaculate knocked a mounted police officer off of his horse. His name is Sergeant Sean Donovan, and hes a hell of a cop. At the time of this writing, hes learning to walk again, courtesy of the amazing staff of the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. I decided to pay for his childrens college education, even though he begged me not to; naturally, hes a fan.

I find the word hero tiresome, as I hear it a lot. The truth is, I just do the right thing. And I learned to do the right thing by reading the Right Book. Its the book youre holding right now. I invite you to take a journey with me, into the light. Andsurprise!Im parked out front in a blue Miata. Tell Mom you wont be home for dinner.

Rob Delaney
Salt Lake City
July 27, 2014

In early 2009 I was in a hotel outside of Minneapolis where Id just performed at the Joke Joint comedy club. I was on Facebook and saw that Louis C.K. had announced hed 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 Louies 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. Its 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 Ive seen maybe two hundred times. Whats funny is that we were married a few yards away from where the photo was taken, so it was doubly sad. Naturally, many people dont like that picture and they often ask me to change it. I wont.

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 year to headline), I figured, Fuck it. Ill 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, Id 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 thatpoor etiquette asidethe guy was funny and he wouldve been on TV with or without my joke. I also realized that if I couldnt immediately write several more jokes to replace it, then I wasnt 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 Id be proud of a good joke, but I knew that I just had to continue producing material.