Part 6 (1/2)

You know what you'll find in a lot of comedians' darkness? Anger. Lots and lots of anger. And we're not the only performers that entertain you out of anger either. Michael Jackson danced out of anger. He didn't have a good home life; he was ordered around by his dad and made to work like a slave. I'm no slave, but otherwise I'm no different from Michael Jackson when I'm onstage: When I'm out there I am f.u.c.king angry. I talk about the s.h.i.+t in life that p.i.s.ses me off. When is the last time you heard a comedian take the stage and talk about the happy parts of his marriage? Never! All you hear comedians talk about is the f.u.c.ked-up s.h.i.+t. I'll tell you why that is-because it's funnier!

As someone who has spent time on the stage and in the audience, I can tell you from both sides of the coin that when a comedian makes an honest connection with an audience, something happens to the room. If you're onstage talking about your life and people in your audience have similar issues and can relate, you establish contact. That was something I was told to look for and try to do back in the workshop all those years ago at the Uptown Comedy Club. If you establish contact, you've built a bridge from your act to your audience through your story-it's like you've called them on the phone and now you're talking. You've managed to relate to them by sharing your story and allowed them to relate to you-and you've got them laughing their a.s.ses off. It's the best thing you can do to keep them engaged in your act. Instead of having them laugh at you, which they'd do if you just got up there and blew farts for thirty minutes, they are laughing with you. They hear your story and say, ”Yo! I am going through the same s.h.i.+t! That guy up there is just like me.”

When I first started out doing stand-up, I thought I had to take people to some crazy place to make them laugh. I thought I had to impress them with my imagination, to take them on a wild ride to a made-up world, and once we were all there together, I could tell them about myself and my life through the cast of characters I'd created. That worked for me as a younger, less experienced comic, but as I got older and wiser, I realized that reality contains the most powerful material of all. Sure, I can make up a guy who represents something I think or something I've been through, but I'm much funnier without that mask. When my audience hears a story and I'm right there, as me, acting it out and telling every detail, that's powerful. That's bigger funny because that's me bringing the honesty. My comedy today isn't based on a figment of my imagination-it's all real. It's like a giant turkey that I cook onstage, keeping it nice and moist by basting it in reality.

That turkey is my heart and soul, and I've got to protect it. When you're young, you take your skills for granted because you think you're Superman. But experience teaches you that you have to look after the things you value. I value the gift of comedy that G.o.d gave me. That don't mean I keep it in a vault, it just means that now I treat it right. I take it out and romance it, I get its oil changed, you know what I'm saying? I nurture my funny-I tell it bedtime stories, I send it flowers and buy it presents-because I'd be dead without it. Even if I wasn't a comedian, I'd need it just to get through life. If I wasn't able to make people around me laugh and if I wasn't able to laugh at my own life, I'd have been dead a long time ago.

When Sabina and I were splitting up, n.o.body knew how hard it was on me. I was a professional; I wasn't going to let anyone know that my world was falling apart. When I got onstage or in front of the camera, I did what I had to do-I took my pain and used it however I could. It wasn't as easy to be funny, it took more effort and more energy, but I threw myself into it. I asked G.o.d to help me, and He saw me through. My faith is strong. G.o.d did not bring me this far to see me fall-I truly believe that. All the loved ones I've lost in the game and in life-my father, my grandmother, my uncles, and my boys Allen and Spoon-they are all looking out for me. I feel their presence around me all the time, more and more every day.

I don't think I'm on a mission from G.o.d or that I've been chosen-nothing like that-but my faith in G.o.d has been repaid. But faith alone isn't enough. You can't just have faith and wait-you've got to prove your faith and prove you're worthy. I almost died because of my negligence, but I'm not going to make those mistakes again; I'm going to keep my faith strong and pay it respect. I know now when I get onstage that no matter what happens, even if thirty thousand people boo me, I will live. And life cannot be taken for granted.

G.o.d's mercy is why I'm here today. You've read this far, so you're probably wondering how I could feel that way with all of the hard times I've seen. My father had the same faith. Surviving Vietnam? That had to be a work of G.o.d. The odds were against him living through that, especially with his addiction blurring his mind and eating away at his strength. A soldier on heroin is vulnerable. That soldier is an easy target because he's walking wounded. The only way my father got home was G.o.d.

One of my father's greatest accomplishments was dying at peace. When he died much too young, at age forty, he wasn't angry. He was angry when he first learned he'd contracted AIDS from sharing needles, but he used his faith to work through that anger. He grew weak, his body began to give out, and in no time he became a shadow of himself. But as he wasted away physically, he grew larger spiritually. His faith never wavered, straight up to the end, long after a lot of good men would have been cursing G.o.d and pitying themselves. When it was his time to go, he was truly at peace. I used to have anxiety that I was going to be a failure. Now that I'm his age and I'm healthy, that weight is off me. My father never got to meet his grandkids; that's the next step for me.

My father saw it like this: The Lord knew what he'd done in Vietnam and was making him pay the price. My father thought it was his bill to pay. He'd killed men, like every soldier does to survive at war. But that's not what my father was talking about. To him, choosing the dope was his failure. He was weak, he'd shot dope into his arms, and the dope took him over. He lost his judgment, he shared needles, and once he was out of the jungle and off the dope, happy with his life, it was time to pay the price-with his life.

But like I said, he was at peace with it by the end. He didn't blame it on the war or the government; he laid it on himself, and his faith helped him find a way to forgive himself. That is what it means to be a man. He couldn't have taught me that lesson any other way. In the years I had with him, he taught me many things by the way he lived, but he could have only taught me this lesson by the way he died. It was hard for me when my dad first got sick, because I was a pigheaded teenager who was still mad that he'd left me the first time. Once I knew I was going to lose him again, I was angrier than ever because this time was forever. I blamed him for it, and I also hated that he had AIDS because of what people would say when they found out. It made our last few months together definitely not what they should have been. I stayed away from him for a while, and I was full of anger when I saw him. But as he got sicker, I realized that I was pus.h.i.+ng him away and I tried to change that. I tried to talk to him and see him and spend as much time as I could with him. During one of the long talks we had in the hospital, he said to me, ”Tray, I'm at peace.” And I'm glad he told me that. It didn't make losing him easier, but it makes it easier looking back on his pa.s.sing now.

I miss him every day, but I know he's with me. He's in this room with me as I write these words. And when I'm onstage, I know he's right there next to me, laughing sometimes. I'm completely serious. I've felt him there more than a few times. It makes me happy when I get that sensation because I want him right beside me, enjoying the same view. And no matter how raunchy I get, I know he's not leaving because Jimmy Morgan always spoke the truth. He hears all those words I use in my act that disgust some people and send them out the door early-I see you, brand-new white, blond, blue-eyed 30 Rock fans! My dad knows the truth about those words: They come from the same place as the beautiful words, because everything in this world is connected. G.o.d gave me those words, so I've got no shame. I don't care what people say. If they can't take it, they should get out of the f.u.c.king room and let the rest of us communicate. When I'm onstage, I'm talking about what I know, not what you think I know or what you want to hear. Anybody can be Ray Romano, anybody can be Seinfeld. It's easy to find the middle of the road when the highway is eight lanes wide. I didn't grow up on that s.h.i.+t; I grew up on Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, and f.u.c.king Eddie Murphy. That's where I'm from, that's how I am, and that's how it is. I got to keep it gully.

I've changed a lot in the last few years, and I'm not just talking about breaking out with 30 Rock and landing roles in movies that I'd never have gotten five years ago. I'm talking about looking back on my entire life for the first time. Now that I know I've climbed a mountain, I'm taking in the view before I hike up the next peak.

It's like I'm in the box seats at the Tracy Morgan Theater watching the Muppets on Ice doing the story of my life for my birthday. Yo, Gonzo, holla at me! I'm up here! This point in my life is like the end of the second act. It's not the end, because I'm far from over. If my life was the Star Wars trilogy, which is really a sixilogy, we'd just be getting going. Right now the Ewoks would be dancing.

I'm experiencing a rebirth. Being born is painful-even when you do it again! You get this new life that you don't know what to do with. When my wife and I split, it was painful. That relations.h.i.+p was all I knew of trust. When I was on the road, when I was drinking, when I was having my legal troubles, those were dark days. None of my family reached out to me. It didn't take much to see that I was in trouble-all they had to do was read the closest newspaper. f.u.c.k that, all they had to do was open a window, because when someone like me, a guy from the neighborhood who is on TV, gets popped for a DUI, every single motherf.u.c.ker on the block is gonna be talking about it. Trust me, my family knew what was happening with me.

There was a lot of darkness. My wife wasn't around, my family didn't support me, I was always traveling to pay the bills, and I drank to drown my pain. Suicide and crazy thoughts come when people feel truly alone. That's when the devil gets in your head and fills you with doubt.

Either I was going to let loneliness drown me, or I was gonna learn to swim on my own. It wasn't like the clouds parted and light shone down on my face through my dirty hotel window one morning and a vision from heaven told me I would be fine. What happened was much more down-to-earth: I felt terrible and alone for weeks on end. I was also at a real physical low point, suffering from my own neglect. And when you are in that kind of a state, you do get to a point where you have an internal dialogue; you ask yourself if you're going to give up or go on. I'm a survivor, so there was only one answer for me, but I had to hear it inside before I could start pulling myself together. Somewhere during those dark days, I realized something that I had never considered before: It was okay to be alone. Maybe it was because I was finally letting go of what I knew was already gone-Sabina-or letting go of some other idea of what my life was supposed to be. Whatever it was, I knew I had G.o.d with me, so I was never going to be totally alone. But other than Him, all I needed was me.

I learned what everyone needs to know: Some solitude is good for you, no matter who you are. Before a show, I need solitude to get my head right because I've got to clear my mind and focus. The bigger you get, the harder it is to find some quiet because people don't want to give you s.p.a.ce. There's a long line of people who want some of your time, and they will take every last minute you have to give if you let them. You know what? Looking back, I'd like to think that's what my family was doing during my hard times-giving me my s.p.a.ce. They never said that's what they were doing, but I'm going to choose to believe they were giving me room to grow. I'd like to thank them for that because grow I did. It's all good now.

I've got a new relations.h.i.+p in my life these days, which is something I wasn't looking for and didn't count on happening again. In the movie A Bronx Tale, the narrator says that you get one, maybe two good ones in your life. Well, she is my second good one, that Taneisha. It took a lot of understanding to see me through my split from my family. She was right there when she didn't have to be, and that's what I love about her. She's younger than me but she's wise; she knew I had to heal on my own terms, and that meant I needed time and s.p.a.ce. She's a strong woman, so she was able to give me that.

Still, I tested Taneisha. How could I not? People say a lonely man is the most bitter man you'll meet. That's bulls.h.i.+t-the most bitter man in the world is a man who's getting divorced. Bitter as a f.u.c.king lemon. Early in our relations.h.i.+p, I would take Taneisha to functions and put her in the room with some bigwig motherf.u.c.kers-folks way more high-profile, way more rich, and way further up the food chain than me. I'd make the rounds and keep an eye on her to see what she'd do. The girl never got distracted. She kept her eyes on me and never wavered. That's when I knew it was good: when I'd look in her eyes and see no one else but me. After she pa.s.sed a few tests I could finally say to myself, ”Okay, she's good. She's the truth. She's the real deal.” It was only then that I could begin to open up my heart a little bit.

I'm telling you, I was hard to deal with, which some people might find crazy, because she's hot as h.e.l.l too! And this is a recession! Which means that I'd better not push her away, because the minute things get better out there, she might fly the coop for some banker whose portfolio just rebounded. Don't matter to me at all-hot is only on the outside and looks don't last forever. I do not believe in finding a good woman anymore; I believe you've got to mold one to your liking. It's up to you to let a woman know that you don't like olives in your salad, and it's up to her to remember that.

Seriously, what Taneisha and I have is real; I know it in my heart. Even if I lost everything, I believe she'd stay with me. She wouldn't blame me for it, she wouldn't give a f.u.c.k. That's what I love about her. I can always make her laugh-even if she's crying. I hope I'll never make her cry, but I can't change the one thing that comes with being with me: Falling in love with a professional entertainer is inviting pain and heartache to your f.u.c.king front doorstep.

If you're with an entertainer, you have to share him with his public. Taneisha has learned that she's got to let me be with my public. I've seen how other women handle their men being approached by fans, and I can tell you, my lady is a gracious, graceful swan. Female fans often ask to have their picture taken with me. They move in for a hug and say, ”Your girl ain't gonna get mad?” I've watched friends of mine go from signing autographs to breaking up fights. Their girls will be like, ”Don't you be hugging my man in no picture, b.i.t.c.h! You can't take no picture with him.” Taneisha has never done that. She never gets mad, because she knows she's got me. Nothing to get mad at if you ain't insecure. Taneisha is pure grace, just like a deer. When she smiles she lights up the room and makes my day better. I keep telling her that when we have a baby girl, we are going to name her Grace.

Taneisha also knows she has to let me run the street sometimes with my boys because that is where I get my information. I've got to stay connected to the real world and keep my ear to the ground if I'm going to stay real in my comedy. I can't write comedy bits up in my luxury apartment-that's where I live now, but that's not where I'm from.

My love affair with comedy is strong. Taneisha understands something very important: That love affair ain't going nowhere. She can get into bed with me and comedy and have a three-way because that's the way it is. She's a good girl-she didn't think she'd like that kinky s.h.i.+t until she tried it. I invite her into bed with me and comedy all the time, and most of the time she consents. She's laughing at me saying this right now, so me and comedy are going to get her in bed once again! We bad, comedy and me.

One of the many pieces of wisdom my dad impressed upon me is from the Bible, and too many people forget it: This too shall pa.s.s. All the good, all the bad, all of this earth around us-it all pa.s.ses in time. If you get a slice on your arm, it will hurt that day and it will hurt the next day too. That cut will bleed. But in a month it will be nothing but a scar. Some of us get through life with small scars and some of us end up with Christmas trees on our backs, just like Denzel in Glory.

I'm a survivor. That's the legacy of the ghetto: If you get out, nothing else in the world can take you down except your own bad decisions. I can deal with whatever comes, whatever life throws at me, because I've already walked through worse. This is why I feel sorry for suckers like Paris Hilton. That b.i.t.c.h wouldn't know what to do if she had to work for a living or face some real struggle. She's got everything, and she's still bored. What is her career? She's got no talent-I've seen that p.o.r.n video. She used her money to force her way into being famous, and when she got what she bought, it was suddenly a big problem for her. I feel sorry for her because she's just pathetic.

I've made mistakes in my life that had nothing to do with G.o.d or the devil. They were all me. I take all of the blame for the stupid s.h.i.+t I've done, just like I take the credit for removing all of the negative s.h.i.+t from my life. I'm through with people who drain my soul and my bank account, and I'm only devoting my love and energy to my children and to people who prove that they care about me. Back when I was in my party mode and everything was coming apart, I made a list of everything going on in my life. The good was on one side and the bad was on the other-and the bad list was a lot longer. It took me a few years to cut that side down because bad things don't die easy. But today that list is short. Once I dropped that drinking lifestyle, everything changed quick, because all of the negative people around me dropped off quick too. And I don't miss n.o.body.

Today I'm just maintaining, holding my head up and enjoying life. I'm not worried about the things I can't control. I'm staying natural and looking out for trickinology. Trickinology is when those closest to you play the f.u.c.king game in which they try to take from you and take you down. It's a mental game and you've got to be ready for it.

I was lost, but now I'm found. And I'm riding. I'm wandering too, learning what I can, just like I did when I was a kid. One of my greatest memories was the day I got lost at the Bronx Zoo when I was nine years old. I saw all of the animals I wanted, just going from one cage to another. I was so caught up that it took me hours to realize I was lost; I had wandered away from my family. That's what happens when I'm following my mind wherever it will take me-I end up in places I didn't expect to go.

I still like to wander because it's the best way to learn about the world. You'll be surprised what you'll find! I'll go explore parts of New York City and find them as segregated as the zoo. You don't see white people getting lost on purpose in the Bronx, just like you don't see black people doing that in Bensonhurst. It's too bad that motherf.u.c.kers here are so colonized, man, but that's the way it is. If you want to find black people, go to Brooklyn. If you're looking for Jamaicans, go to Flatbush. If you're looking for Dominicans, go to Was.h.i.+ngton Heights. Head to the South Bronx to meet Puerto Ricans, and go to Riverdale to hang with Jewish people. Personally I don't pay attention to boundaries. I go wherever the f.u.c.k I want to go and I hang out with whomever I like. I don't care what color you are-if you're a good brother or sister, you're cool with me. I know some straight, solid white people who've done right by me just like I know some black people who are devils. My father taught me to see what was on the inside.

A reporter recently asked me what I'd do if I was given the superpower of invisibility. I told him, ”I already have that superpower. I'm black.” That is how black motherf.u.c.kers feel-invisible. White people don't see black people in America unless they have to. I was used to that, but now that I've got all of these white people recognizing me, saying they love me, black people have been giving me looks like I'm letting them down. I look at my fans' hearts, not their color. But if I judge you, I'm going to judge you righteously. If you are not right, then you are not right. How are you going to win when you ain't right within? I understand why some of my black brothers and sisters feel that way. Yeah, okay, there's not a lot of black people on NBC, but I'm trying to reach a broader audience and no one should be mad about that. There's no better way to do that than by being one of the stars of the best sitcom on television, in a prime-time slot, on a major network. Of course, I'm open to suggestions if any of you have them. Holler them out when you see me on the street walking my dogs, y'all. I'm serious.

One thing about me: I may be out of the ghetto, but I'm always going to have my black rage. That's me and that's my edge. At the same time, that rage is why I can't hang out in the hood no more. The truth is that I'm not much different from everyone else in the hood. All I had was one great idea-comedy-and that's why I'm here. I worked hard and I'm happy to say it paid off.

My dad gave me the middle name Amado. As in ”A'm a do” for me, all right? You do you, and Amado me. I have the words ME, MYSELF & I tattooed on my back. I do not feel peer pressure. I turned forty last year. When I feel like leaving a club, I leave. When I feel like getting in my car, I do that. I do like my man Jay-Z says: ”I need the freedom to say whatever I like, to write whatever I like.” There it is, simple and plain-I'm a full-grown man.

I don't understand the squeaky-clean s.h.i.+t in comedy. To me, you're not funny unless you can say motherf.u.c.ker three different ways-and mean it. It's a verb, it's a noun, it's a predicate nominative. If I ever do Inside the Actors Studio and James Lipton asks me my favorite word? It's motherf.u.c.ker. I don't care who you are, everybody got to learn to say motherf.u.c.ker. Obama gonna say it one of these days. I don't know who is gonna make him do it-might be North Korea, might be China, but somebody is gonna p.i.s.s him off and he'll be sitting there thinking about it in his little black dress socks and he's just gonna turn around and say, ”Motherf.u.c.ker! G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Mich.e.l.le, where is that f.u.c.king nuke b.u.t.ton at?” I think it's gonna be either North Korea or his mother-in-law.

What else can I say about myself before you and I go our separate ways? Let me see. Every day I thank G.o.d for what I have because I'm lucky to be alive. That is a simple habit that I've gotten into lately, something I should have started doing years ago. I thank G.o.d for my gift of funny, because every time I check I've got big bags of it that I haven't even opened yet. I'm at an age where I'm mature enough to reflect on where I've been and to realize that I've come very far, against all odds. By forty, my father had raised his children, survived a war, and beaten a heroin addiction, but he was dying of AIDS. My son Tracy junior is the same age I was when my father died, and I am the same age that my father was when he pa.s.sed away. I think about that all the time. You never know what life is going to hand you, so you've got to live right.

I'm doing the best I can as a father, and I hope that's good enough. I lost my father in 1987, and I wish I'd had him around to ask him, man to man, a few things about raising a child. Now that I'm an adult, I would have liked to have heard his perspective. My dad did say one thing to me that's always made sense: Life don't come with instructions. As a teenager I heard him but I didn't listen. Now I know how right he was.

I've learned to expect good things and to reflect on the positivity in my life, but to tell you the truth, sometimes I'm still surprised when things go well for me. I'm getting used to it, but I've had to overcome years of things going wrong and every day offering nothing but another set of mountains to climb. When you expect struggle every day, it's a little bit strange when you have smooth sailing for a change. Being part of an award-winning show is more than I ever dreamed of; it still feels like Christmas to me every time we take home another trophy.

One thing that comes with success is the money to spend on your lifestyle. I've always liked exotic pets, and now I can afford to fill my luxury apartment with them. I've got a thirty-thousand-dollar jellyfish tank, tarantulas, bird-eating spiders, eels, snakes, dogs, piranha, and sharks. I'm like Michael Jackson! I once asked my wife why she thought Michael liked to walk around with a f.u.c.king diaper-wearing monkey named Bubbles. Know what she said? ”Because he's a genius.” Having jellyfish makes me a genius because it keeps me from watching TV. I can learn more from watching fish swim in circles all day than watching Kim Kardas.h.i.+an talk about herself.

Another great thing that still has my head spinning was returning to Sat.u.r.day Night Live on March 14, 2009-this time as the host. When you're a cast member, you have one point of view-you live and die by one, two, maybe three sketches a week. When you're the host, you have the pressure of the monologue and at least three or four sketches. I'd watched so many great people run through that routine during my seven years there. I always thought about what it would be like to host, and I most definitely dreamed about doing it one day.

None of those dreams were close to how it went down for me. The night I hosted, I was in every single sketch! That was a first in SNL history-no host before me had ever appeared in every sketch. I was even in the filmed sketch that was the introduction to the show. The only portions of the show I wasn't in were the musical numbers-and I would have shaken my a.s.s or hit a tambourine with Kelly Clarkson if she'd asked me to.

It was a sweet victory for me to come back to SNL like that. I'd started out as ”the black guy” on the show back in 1996. I was the lowest man on the totem pole and seen as a token by a lot of black comics. Over my years there I proved myself and became one of the top guys on the show, but to return and host the way I did was beyond great.

That night was the pinnacle for me-the best moment of my career so far. I felt like I was standing on the top of another mountain. I'd come back and hosted after being a cast member, and there are only twenty-five of us who have ever done that in thirty-four years! I'm up there with greats like Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Damon Wayans, Mike Myers, and Chevy Chase.

I broke down and cried when I got the call to come host; it came just after my Golden Globes speech, because, let's face it, they had to let me host after that. I had a dilemma though. After I got the call I was so excited that I called my son Tracy junior and told him right away. He told my ex-wife about it, and of course Sabina wanted to be there. To her it brought back old times, and she felt that since she was there for the struggles back in the day, she had to be there when I hosted-and I agreed. She was right, she'd been part of it. But things had changed, so I let my ex-wife and my kids come to the dress rehearsal and then let Taneisha come to the live show.