Robert Schimmel's Money Shot

One day in New York, the best stand-up comic in the country--no, really--stares at his hand. The look on his face says, Man, I'm a real idiot. "She asked me to touch it and I did," he says. "'Go ahead, feel it.' So I did. I touched a toilet seat. I can't believe it. That's the most unclean thing." He's back in his room at the Rhiga Royal Hotel. Earlier, to kill some time, he conned the concierge into setting up a tour of a penthouse suite. That's when a young hotel manager with an artful smile introduced Robert Schimmel to the ultimate crapper--a heated toilet with perfumed spritzer, blow-drier and padded seat. Does everything but belch when you're done. Now he looks at his hand and starts to freak. "She's probably going, 'Man, I can't believe he played around with a toilet seat just because I told him to,'" Schimmel says.

I can't believe a man who once said he'd suck Mike Tyson's dick for Evander Holyfield's $5 million dollar purse ("Spend $1 million on mouthwash and you still have $4 million") is spazzing over a toilet seat. That the man who once wrote a song called Prison Love ("I never thought size made a difference/Until I spent a couple of nights in jail/It's hard to relax your sphincter when you're crying") worries about germs.

Touch it? He can smell it. The unknown comic is one step away from the world of $3000-a-night suites, one solid move away from the heated toilet seat. On Sunday he flew in from the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, where he killed. As a souvenir, he brought home an invitation to do an HBO Comedy Special. Monday night he was on NBC accepting the American Comedy Award for best stand-up comic. Tuesday night he was on Conan O'Brien. Wednesday morning he has a round of radio interviews. Not so suddenly, two decades of roadwork seem to be paying off. He is 48.

"I think every guy is a closet pervert," he says once he settles into a chair in his hotel room.

"When you get married you don't lose that. But once you have a certain thing with your wife, you can't act out that crazy shit. You can't say to your wife, 'Hey, listen. What if I lie in the tub and jack off and you piss on my face?' She'll go, 'What?' Then it will haunt you forever. Get on her bad side one day, you'll be at some family get-together and she'll say, 'Oh you know him. He wanted me to piss on him while he was jacking off in the tub.'"

Schimmel may not know everything about sex, but he knows what he likes. For him, sex is a common denominator. He has built his act on this slippery foundation. Everyone has the same thoughts, he likes to say, it's just that he has a microphone. But he's an unusually funny guy regardless of the material. He's also stranger than most--he's the guy who put the pee in pervert. Congratulate him on his baby boy and he'll admit he didn't want to make love to his wife late in her pregnancy. "Think about it," he says. "The baby's in there. He actually lives in there. That would be like a stranger sticking his dick in my house. I don't want him coming out and looking at me like, 'Hey, look who's here--Mr. I Couldn't Wait a Few Months.' Now I know how Kirk Douglas got that cleft chin.

"The last time I got a close look at my wife's womanness was when my son was coming out. When you see an eight-pound, 22-inch baby coming out of your wife's vagina, your dick starts feeling real small. I can't believe I ever had the audacity to say, 'Take it all, baby.' Now I know she could have taken that and a carry-on bag at the same time."

He gets up and orders a fruit plate from room service--the better to take his heart meds with. He talks about his recent heart attack, how his wife was crying and his daughter was pleading, "Daddy, don't die." "Don't tell me what to do, little girl," he says now. "Do I need to hear that? Don't die? I was trying to not even think of the word die." Then, he says, a nurse walked in and he immediately thought, Gee, I'd like to fuck her. This is the way it always is with Schimmel--he swerves between his twin obsessions, sex and health, and it's hard to tell which subject will be edgier.

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Who's to say that the nurse didn't want to fuck you?

"Women love to say they're as horny as guys. But take a woman who loves Mel Gibson. If the woman has a happy marriage and Mel walks up to her and says, 'Hey, do you want to go back to my room and fuck?' she'd pass. It's enough to know that the offer was made. She would never jeopardize her marriage, the kids and everything else for a one-hour fuck. On the other hand, a guy would even fuck the girl who restocks the minibar in the hotel room. We don't need Winona Ryder or Ashley Judd--anybody would be good. The fat girl at the grocery store: If she said, 'What are you doing later?' that would be it."

Anybody ever tell you you're oversexed?

"I had prostatitis a long time ago. I went to the urologist and he asked me if I masturbated a lot. I said, 'No.' Then I'm thinking, What's a lot? More than I usually do? My dad went for a prostate check and I went with him. Afterward, the doctor said, 'When did you have yours checked?' I didn't know. He goes, 'Why don't we do it right now? Just drop your pants.' I didn't want to. My dad goes, 'Hey, you think I've never seen you undressed?' Not with someone's hand up my ass, you haven't. That's not the same thing. And he goes, 'Come on, don't be a sissy.' Sissy? I'll tell you what I don't like about the prostate thing. The finger up the ass, that was OK. At least he can reach places I can't. But it's when he's done and he throws you that Kleenex and says, 'Clean yourself up.' I feel like a slut after that, I really do. I don't like that feeling. After a couple of those exams you become compassionate toward women. You don't toss somebody a towel and say, 'See you in the living room.' I told my dad that. Do you know what he said? 'What? Would you rather have the guy wipe you?'

"The whole thing is very uncomfortable. When he hits that spot all I can think of is, Man, I wouldn't want somebody's dick pounding against that organ. Nothing against gay people. I just can't imagine some buff construction worker banging my prostate like that, turning it into a pancake. Just touching it I almost pass out.

"They say they just need to get a little specimen out. Well, why don't they leave the room for five minutes and I'll give them all they want. They don't need to force it out instantly. We trust the doctor. The guy says, 'Listen, I have to stick this up your ass.' He charges you $300 bucks and you just accept it. What if it's a scam?"

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There's no greater triumph in a comedian's life than to tour the country and earn a nice bit of coin in front of hundreds of people each night. Still, there's the TV thing. And the movie thing.

"Here's why I'd like to be on TV," he says. "The thought of making 5 million people laugh amazes me. I went on Conan. More people saw me last night in six minutes than have seen me do stand-up live for the past ten years. The key is to use those minutes and get known not for the jokes but for who you are. I want people to say, "Robert Schimmel--he has a wife, three kids. The guy talks about jacking off the way people talk about eating cereal in the morning. Then he freaks out when his daughter says she's dating some guy. He talks to strangers about whacking it, and in real life he freaks out."

He may soon have 5 million people thinking twice about their cereal. Schimmel was a surprise hit at the 1999 Aspen Comedy Festival, which was mostly about alternative comedy. ("People sit on a couch and snap their fingers while you tell them how you ran out of froth for your cappuccino. I thought that's what a therapist was for.") He shmoozed rival agents from APA, William Morris and CAA--"for three days, it's like Switzerland." Conan was there. Seinfeld came to one of his shows. Larry David, too. Schimmel was asked to perform by Janeane Garofalo, who was hosting a comedy showcase. His first line to an audience restless after an hour of alternative comedy? "I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't have any unfunny stories to tell." Big applause. Even bigger buzz. Next day in the paper there was a full-page article on Schimmel. That night all of the yes- and no-men from LA--the guys who actually make programming and production decisions--arrived to see Schimmel headline.

Four minutes into the act, the lights went out. First the stage lights, then the houselights. Shit. Thousands of performances to get there. Just as many mornings taking it in the teeth from radio guys. Months of his manager calling HBO with the mantra See Robert Schimmel, See Robert Schimmel. And, like out of a crummy Sally Field movie, the lights go out. "Shit," he said to the audience, now squirming in the pitch black. "I can't believe this is fucking happening." He started ad-libbing, which he never does. "Look, you can't see me, I can't see you, so I'm just going to pretend I'm doing the show for Stevie Wonder."

Two days later, Variety ran the following review of the festival: "The performances of comedian Robert Schimmel were what really had tongues wagging. Schimmel was so good that his 45-minute Friday night set at the Aspen Club Lodge left attendees marveling at why the fortysomething comedian isn't a huge star. Even HBO's original programming chief, Chris Albrecht, attended Schimmel's set on Friday. By all accounts, Schimmel ad-libbed himself out of what could have been a catastrophe. And he impressed Albrecht enough to merit stand-up's Holy Grail: his very own HBO Comedy Hour special."

Schimmel knows why he's not a star. "I won the American Comedy Award, I have three CDs out on Warner Bros. Why am I not on a sitcom? If you're a casting agent, it's easier to see somebody else and say, 'OK, this guy can play Joey's father.' Then the agent (continued on page 156)Robert Schimmel ((continued from page 128)) looks at me. I've got my dick in one hand, I've got the cucumber and K-Y jelly in the other. 'Sorry, there isn't a role in this sitcom for a pervert.'"

There's another reason. Though obsessed with asses in his monologs, he's not prone to kissing them. He's famous among people more famous than he for working his mouth. He's learning, though--he's reluctant to talk about how he made fun of alternative comics in Aspen, and he won't tell his Lorne Michaels story. All he says now is, "Yeah, I tried to crack him up with the wrong stuff." But comedy lore has it that Michaels was once interested enough in Schimmel to fly him in for an interview. Unfortunately, Schimmel was forced to cool his heels in Michaels' office for an hour or two. When he was finally ushered into the great man's presence, he said, "Before we start I'd just like to say I thought Three Amigos [Michaels co-produced the film] sucked." Not a great way to land a job. Michaels stammered a bit, then talked about differences he'd had with the director, John Landis. When Schimmel scored a meeting with Landis months later, Landis looked at his watch and said, "You have five minutes." Schimmel replied, "Lorne Michaels says you fucked up Three Amigos. Now how much time do I have?" Suicide.

There's also his Shields and Yarnell story. He loves telling this one--mimes aren't known for their verbal comebacks. "I got called to open for Shields and Yarnell. She [Yarnell] was OK, but he [Shields] was hard to get along with. I get there and learn they're going to get divorced. Nobody knows yet. She told me. They're not even talking to each other. They're in separate dressing rooms. He comes in and says, 'Listen, no cursing, nothing about sex, nothing about drugs.' I'm thinking, Why did they ask me to do this? Later I walk out into the wings. He says, 'Listen, remember when I told you no cursing, none of this, none of that? You also got 45 minutes on the dot. I don't mean 44 or 46. When I say 45, 45!' How can you have fun with a guy like that? So I walked onstage and said, 'Hey, I just heard that Shields and Yarnell are getting divorced! Yeah, apparently he barged into her dressing room and caught her blowing a guy from Mummenschantz."

The day Barry Diller resigned from his post as head of Fox in 1992, Schimmel was set to perform at a showcase for industry people from the major networks and studios. Everybody was there. So Schimmel walks onstage and says, "You know, I have such bad timing in this business. Last night I blew Barry Diller." Big laugh. Huge laugh. The kind of laugh that says, Holy shit! I was there the day Schimmel lit himself on fire in front of everybody. Schimmel's manager was furious. "I told him the joke could only work that day. He said, 'Why Barry Diller? This guy can make a phone call and I won't be able to get a job in LA anymore! I'll be working at a Burger King.' I said, 'Why are you worried? I'm the one blowing him. I beat everyone to the Barry Diller joke!' He said, 'Bob, no one else is going to have a Barry Diller joke! They want to stay in show business. You're going to be exiled to some other world.' Other agents came up to me afterward and said, 'Man, you got balls!' I said, 'Come on, it fucking killed.' It did. It brought the house down."

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Your son died at the age of 11. How did you deal with his illness?

"My son was one of my favorite audiences. He had cancer. He was sick for eight years before he passed away. I would do anything to make him laugh. He taught me to take a chance at the risk of looking stupid. I remember once--he'd just had a colostomy. He had a bag and he hated it. He was 11 years old. It's not something any kid wants at that age. He was so upset about it. He was in the hospital. I took one of the colostomy bags without him seeing me, and I went into the bathroom. I put that bag on and I filled it with Coca-Cola. When I came out I had my shirt out of my pants so he couldn't see it. I was holding my stomach, and I said, 'This is really killing me.' He wanted to know what was wrong. I said, 'My bag's full.' Then I lifted up my shirt. He saw this thing and started laughing so loud. There's a spigot on the bag for draining it. I took a cup and emptied the bag. Then I drank it in front of him. He started pushing the buzzer, calling the nurses, 'Come in, you got to see my dad.'

"That night in the hospital, I actually got him to laugh. And it wasn't a courtesy laugh. It was genuine. For that moment, all the other shit he was going through didn't exist. I really do believe that. I believe it because when I'm making love with my wife there are moments when I forget it happened. Then you come back to reality. This is the first time I've ever admitted it. Because a good father is supposed to never forget. You know, am I cheating on him because I'm not thinking about him or missing him 24 hours a day? Well, I do miss him. But I also have a life. I know it sounds fucked up. It's as honest as I can be. I love my wife, I love my three other children. I owe them everything. I owe them the best that I can be, even more than that I owe myself. If I owe my son anything at this point, it's to not be a negative prick. I saw the worst thing in the world. I have to accept it to see the beautiful things in the world. If I'm negative, it makes my other three children feel like second-class citizens. They feel they can never live up to him, because he's dead. I won't do that to them."

From the start, Schimmel's jokes have been directed inward. Whether he's right in assuming that the inside of your mind is littered with the same empty bottles of lube as his doesn't matter. He was working at a stereo store in Phoenix when he stepped on the stage at the Improv in LA on open mike night and told the crowd he was sexually aroused by heckling. They laughed at him. When he was done, Budd Friedman, the owner of the club and the first of Schimmel's many industry supporters, told him he could work there any night. With that, Schimmel persuaded his wife to move to LA. When they arrived, the first thing they did was drive by the Improv. It had burned down the night before. "The windows and door were boarded up," he says. "The street was still wet from the firehoses. We saw people in cars and thought, Wow, they must be filming something. Yeah. They were filming the end of my fucking life."

These days his biggest fan is the King of All Media. Howard Stern calls him the Brilliant Robert Schimmel. He plays his routines and songs on the air. Even edited or censored, they're hilarious. Stern also went on a campaign and urged his listeners to vote for Schimmel as funniest stand-up comic on the American Comedy Awards ballot.

Howard Stern gave me the ultimate test on the radio," Schimmel says. "He brought up my son the first time I went on his show. I had never met him before and he asked about my son. I had a millisecond to decide what I was going to do. Refuse to talk about it? Get up and walk out? Make a joke? So I told him that the Make-a-Wish Foundation had come to our house. They wanted to make a wish come true for my son. So I told them that my son's wish was to watch Dolly Parton blow me. Stern loved it. He started laughing, and that was it. People from the Make-a-Wish Foundation did come to the house and I did say that. They told me they knew I was under a lot of duress and that they'd come back another time. See, we asked for a trip to see the Pyramids. They told us to wish for something in the continental U.S., so my son thought my Dolly Parton crack was funny. It's not that the Make-a-Wish Foundation doesn't do good work, because it does. So does the Starlight Foundation. They do great things for kids. But say you're an adult and you're terminally ill. You don't get a wish. Our wishes are going to be totally different from a child's. The child wants to hold Snoopy's hand and go down the slide at Knott's Berry Farm. My wish is going to be Ashley Judd and Nicole Kidman in a hot tub. Maybe with a snorkel and a big bottle of Viagra. They're not going to give me that wish. They're going to say, 'We wish you'd never asked for that.'"