20 Hard-Learned Lessons On Successful Living

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Living successfully means keeping your principles few and simple so that you may refer to them quickly in an emergency. The following 20 truths will never steer you wrong – ignore them at your peril!

 

 

1 Plausible deniability is the best policy.

2 The unexamined life isn’t worth living – but it does get you drunk faster.

3 Health is wealth. So is coming up with Google.

4 No man is an island. (Although Orson Welles came pretty damn close toward the end).

5 Keep regular hours. You’ll notice that at 5 a.m. there are only two types of people awake: health nuts and alcoholics (HINT: one of them is wearing a tux).

6 Make reminders for yourself. For example, I now wear a rubber band on my wrist. Each time I am tempted to snap it, I have a cigarette instead.

7 Be faithful to your spouse. If you’re a married man, for the love of God be prudent. Remember, it’s a very fine line between “innocent flirting” and “paying for sex”.  I used to do my taxes at coffee shops but it made me such a chick magnet I had to stop. Many women simply don’t see the wedding ring so I had to start wearing a fanny pack to make my marital status crystal clear. Nothing says “Player” like a guy with a fanny pack, right? On some level it reminds the ladies of 007 – dinner jacket, cigarette case, fanny pack.

8 Marry well. I can’t overstate how important this is. If I could marry my wife all over again, I would do so in a heartbeat. I might tweak the pre-nup here and there, but that’s a separate issue.

9 Drink moderately or not at all. This one strikes a personal chord with me. For a while there I had more than a little Captain Morgan in me. I thought of myself as a social drinker but at some point my drinking stopped being funny and started being downright hilarious. You don’t want to get to that point. I thought things were under control but I now realize that I would subconsciously invite myself to social gatherings in which you were practically expected to be drunk – weddings, cocktail parties, PTA meetings, etc. And then there’s all the lies you tell yourself. I would go a couple of days without a drink and then tell myself “What could be more harmless than a couple of drinks to relax, unwind and stop my hands from shaking?” If you have any doubts if you are overdoing, better to quit altogether.

10 Some things are easier done than said, like “disassociation”.

11 Enrich your life with books. I devour self-improvement literature. For example, I’m currently reading a book on how to be more assertive (if that’s okay with you). Here are three titles to get you started:

Health and fitness – “Cough Your Way To Rock-Hard Abs”.

Self-image – “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Self-Esteem”.

History: “Facetious – The Greek Goddess Of Sarcasm”

Language: “German Made Merely Difficult”

12 Be Humble. Despite all of my success, I’ve never forgotten where I come from (Malibu, California).

13 Act appropriately. Different environments call for different behavior. On long-haul flights, for example, it is okay to press the flight attendant call button to request water or a blanket but not simply because the taser scene in “The Hangover” is about to come on.

14 Avoid brutal honesty. “Ribbed For Her Pleasure” is much better than “Ribbed For His Ego”.

15 Adopt a baby. Few things in life are more beautiful than adopting a baby – unless the kid turns out to be big boned.

16 Look forward, regret nothing. The past is the past. My wife and I got married in “I’m With Stoopid” t-shirts. Sure, we no longer place our wedding album where visitors to our home can readily access it, but do you think we lose any sleep over it? Live in the moment!

17 Accept that there will always be setbacks. When I was a kid, I tried digging to China. After a long and exhausting effort, I ended up hitting my head on The Great Wall. You talk about disappointment! Such experiences strengthened my resolve, however, and served me well in the future.

18 Accept that which you cannot change. My wife is from Germany and when you marry a German, there’s a certain symmetry. For example, I don’t laugh at jokes in her language and she doesn’t laugh at jokes in her language. Accept it and move on!

19 Think on your feet. When my dad can’t think of the word “website” he says “internet shingle”. Good for him!

20 Exceed expectations. When it comes to a successful business, under-promise and over-deliver. Consider this Turkish barber I solicited for a simple haircut.

Do you have ideas for living a successful life? Share them in the comment section below!

 

Blog About My Wife Insists On Being About My Dentist

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I was alone at home and the phone rang. It was my wife. “I’ll be home for exactly twenty minutes”, she said. “Have a cappuccino ready for me.” It wasn’t that long ago when “I’ll be home for twenty minutes” meant something very different.

Even the best marriage reaches a comfortable room temperature after a few years. But it’s amazing how fast it seems to happen. One minute you’re her knight in shining armor and the next thing you know she insists that you step outside to floss…

“But it’s ten below with winds from the north” I protested.

“Outside!”

Standing on the lawn, flossing under the brilliant night sky, I ran into my next-door neighbor Bob. “You too?” I said. “Yep” he said, his mouth in a snarle as he attempted to reach one of those hard-to-reach space between the molars.  Bob was an unwaxed guy while I was strictly a waxed man, cinnamon in the winter and mint in the summer months.

Bob was a friendly guy. After I fulfilled my lifelong dream of appearing on The Tonight Show, my wife and I had a celebratory dinner with Bob and his wife. He broke out a 20-year old bottle of Scope – the green kind, not the cheap clear stuff you see in stores today –  and we gargled a toast to my success. He gave a very moving speech about my future as a comedian and the importance of brushing with only the softest bristles. “Don’t be fooled by bristles labeled ‘Sensitive’. Even they are too rough on your gums. Only ‘Ultra-Sensitive’ will do.” My wife wiped a tear from her eye.

I was so naive about good oral hygiene in those days. I didn’t realize that those little plastic swords with the handle made of dental floss were nothing but a gimmick. ”You bet they are,” my dentist solemnly informed me. “They were invented by a drunk orthodontist at The Fez over there on 7th. His first prototype was a martini pick.” “Orthos…” he sniffed, seemingly wrapped up in his own thoughts. “But traditional floss hurts my fingers” I protested. They turn bright red and sometimes I lose all feeling in the tips for days on end.” He flashed me a look that suggested I might as well hold my brush at a 90-degree angle to my gums. “I understand,” I said, although I would continue to use the little sword floss when things were stressful at work.

 

Nude Cruise!

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My agent recently booked me to perform on a nude cruise. All of the passengers were naked throughout the ship: in the audience, at the buffet, in the casino. That’s right – the casino. God knows where they put their winnings.

 

About the best thing I can say about a nude cruise is this: it teaches you to make eye contact.

What I really loved were these bald guys who’d walk around completely naked but with the “comb-over” haircut: as if to say “God forbid someone should see my bald head.”

I actually ran into an acquaintance onboard. We were getting ready to sail and I his bright green Hawaiian shirt caught my eye (clothes were required until 30 minutes out to sea). “David? David Deeble?” he said. “Oh hey!” I said lamely, immediately indicating that I couldn’t place him. He quickly ascertained that I was performing on the ship and invited me to meet him and his wife for a drink later on in the cruise. Wonderful, I say. He gives me a big hug and walks away. I then saw that he wasn’t wearing pants. I returned to my cabin in a daze and wept quietly on the floor of my shower for thirty minutes.

Like everyone else in the history of the world, I don’t think of myself as a prude. I understand why someone might like to lay in the sun and not worry about tan lines – I married a European, for crying out loud. But who thinks “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna play blackjack with my pants on”?

Just as on any other cruise, there were signs throughout the ship that said “Please do not sit on chairs in wet bathing suits.” Frankly, that would have been an improvement. And unless you can be sure that they’re always laying down the same side of the towel, what’s the point? You might as well have someone stand up, turn their underwear inside out then sit down again.

I’ll tell you who enjoyed the nude cruise themost: the guys who work down in the laundry. They were basically on vacation for two weeks.

Not everyone onboard was a nudist. There was also a breed of person I did not know existed: the spouse-of-nudist. You’d see them – usually the wife – dressed nicely playing cards or socializing over a few drinks with her naked husband and his new naked buddies. Apparently taking a spinning class with your coin purse there for all to see is now considered a hobby that your wife is expected to put up with. And I thought selling my wife on fantasy baseball would be a heavy lift.

In some ways the cruise was just like any other. There were the usual pool games, for example: water volleyball, belly flop contest, etc. Although I have to say that the ring toss was not I had come to expect up to that point.

My Agent

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I called my agent, something I rarely do. I was nervous.

“Nice Try Productions. This is Charlie.”

“Hi Charlie. It’s me, David.”

“Who?”

“David Deeble.” There was a pause. “Comedian.” Then, impulsively, “You’re my agent.”

“Oh, right! Hey Dave! May I call you ‘Dave’? What’s up?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot, actually. That’s why I’m calling.”

“You know I’m workin’ my tail off for ya, babe!”

Earlier in the afternoon I had run into a club owner who I hadn’t worked for in years. After some friendly chitchat, I asked point-blank if he had spoken to Charlie lately. “You mean your agent Charlie?” he said. “I haven’t spoken to Charlie in years…”

Charlie was the kind of agent that’s constantly trying – and failing – to stroke the ego of his clients. During a previous dry spell he tried to console me: “Those who like your act really, really love your act. Having said that, no one likes your act”.

Things were “slow”, he explained in the way all agents do, as if for the first time in the history of the world people decided they didn’t want to pay other people to make them laugh. I told him that word on the street was that his other acts – like the guy who folds paperclips into roman numerals suggested by the audience – seemed to be turning down gigs, they were so busy.

“Can you hold on a minute? I’ve got a call on the other line.” There was then a suspect-sounding click sound meant to suggest that I was on hold but I could still hear the ambient noise of his office fan and the hyper-deliberate shuffling of papers. Then there was the phony click again. “Dave! I think I’ve got something for you!”

He then proceeded to divulge everything he could, leaving out details such as the location, date and pay lest I go behind is back and secure the gig myself. I told him I’d think about it and hung up, immediately called him again, and accepted the gig.

The Pyongyang Hilton is located in a blocky, Soviet-era building. It’s façade is barely visible from across the street due to the massive tangle of electric streetcar wires that hover above the broad, car-less avenue. It’s an easy gig – dark Sunday through Friday – and I’m welcome to all the tree bark I can eat.

My agent's personal assistant, Lexi (this photo in no way meant to lure readers to my blog).

Duke’s Midlife Crisis

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Duke was the last person in the world one would expect to experience an existential crisis. But there he was, sitting on the edge of his bed night after night, asking the same question that had been plaguing him for months: “Why do people waste money on edible underwear when they can boil their own and drink the broth?”

His marriage was on the rocks. He was sober about love. He knew that even in the best marriage that there comes a point when foreplay goes from tossing clothes on the floor to picking them up. But still, life goes just going by too fast. 

He loved drinking but was nonetheless cautious. Between his non-stop crisscrossing of the country and his fondness for gin, Duke had learned the importance of writing down what city he was in before going to bed each night.

He was, by nature, a humble man. Despite his unparalleled success in his career, he never forgot where he came from: a particularly plush section of Beverly Hills.

A lifetime non-smoker, he had become, during this crisis, to be addicted to nicotine patches. He would apply the patch to his shoulder at every idle moment: during work breaks, stepping off a plane, after making love… He finally weaned himself from the patches completely by smoking three packs of Marlboro reds a day.

He began taking long walks after work and on weekends. Passing through downtown, he noticed that the Occupy Wall Street crowd had apparently disbanded. “Where did they go?” he thought. “Maybe they’re back to being good old-fashioned homeless again” he thought.

During a business trip to Europe Duke had a 6-hour layover in Amsterdam: well within what he called his “trouble window”. His mind racing, he quickly placed his carry-on bag in an airport locker, took the train into the city and did a little window shopping or, as they call it in the red light district, “soliciting a prostitute”.

Duke lay in bed with the tall blonde, starring at the ceiling. “Patch?” he asked. Although he had weaned himself from the patch he nonetheless kept the leftover ones to offer beautiful women in the cafes and bars. “No, thanks” she said with a thick Dutch accent that sounded like German on Heineken.

He tried to crowd out these meaningless thoughts with women and drink but they persisted. “Why does the world ‘lisp’ have to have an ‘s’ in it? It seems so cruel.” He paused on a bridge above the canal as a boat passed beneath him. “For that matter, why does the word ‘titillating’ have to be a little, well, titillating?” He resumed his walk.

Duke’s thoughts turned to his father’s father. His grandfather passed away when he was only seven years old, but he still remembered his “Gramps’” last words: “I’m pretty sure this isn’t a supporting wall”.

Duke decided that what he need was new scenery. He needed to go someplace exotic, a place unlike anywhere or anything he had experienced. Then it hit him resounding clarity: “Bombay”.

Walking the streets of Bombay, now called “Mumbai” for reasons that were clear to no one, Duke was astonished to see entire families living in filth on the streets. He read a tourist guide given to him by the hotel concierge: “Bombay was known under colonial rule as ‘The Queen’s Necklace’.” If that’s the case, thought Duke, then clearly the king did not go to Jared.

He recalled the time he and his wife had read the Kama Sutra. It was so complicated they had to call Bombay to get technical support. “Thank God for speakerphones” he thought.

My Checkered Past

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I grew up in the deepest jungles of Brazil. A rebellious teenager, one day I came home from school without the ritualistic bone in my nose. My father was furious and really let me have it: “As long as you’re living in my thatched hut you’ll wear a bone in your nose! We’re having our family picture taken today so take off that ridiculous suit and tie and strap a leaf between your legs. You look ridiculous!”

In college I majored in advertising and soon was able to land a job with a small firm in the heart of the Amazon. It was fun at first, dreaming up winning campaigns for dreamers, mostly smalltime entrepreneurs. But then we landed a big fish – Viagra – and all the creative joy was gone. The couple sitting in bathtubs on the beach sharing a bottle of champagne? That was mine. I was desperate to come up with an idea that would get me fired but nothing seemed beyond the pale as far as Viagra was concerned. I was finally fired after developing a two-page pop-up ad. I exited the building with a severance package that consisted of two weeks’ salary and a piece of biscotti and never looked back.

With my father’s help I landed a job as wine critic for Popular Mechanics magazine. I was utterly unqualified – to this day I am unable to distinguish a red from a white. I did, however, learn to appreciate any wine with possessing notes of buttered toast, an aftertaste of pomegranate and the ability to get me drunk in under 20 minutes.

From there I landed a job at a men’s big-and-tall clothing store. At 5’5″, I was hired, in my bosses’ words, to loiter around the store and “make customers feel big and tall”. A kind and gentle man, he would nonetheless point me out to customers and say “Hey look – Pinoccio is a real boy!” I quit when I realized I was unable to trigger the electronic eye above the urinal in the break room. I tried everything to make that damn thing flush: stand on my toes, wave my arms above my head, jump up and down – the whole shebang. Ultimately I had to ask help from my co-workers: “Hey Bob, would you give me a hand over here? Hey! Where are you going?! Come back – you didn’t wash your hands!”

Most of the jobs I’ve been worth a nickel at tend to exploit my diminutive physique. I’ve been a jockey, a chimney sweep and once, in Cleveland, I was used to prop up the short leg of stool. When times were hard I always found work assembling those sailboats inside the those little bottles.

I was happy just dime dancing around the country. Then I up and married my landlord. That my wife not only continued to charge me rent but refused to replace the squeaky hinge on the screen door was no small source of friction between us. One night, feeling frisky, I was put a move on her in bed and she said “It’s that time of the month”. Given that she was both my landlord and my wife, this was fraught with meaning. But what did it mean? I decided that the safest way to proceed was to give her a thousand bucks in cash and slowly back out of the room. She still writes me every Arbor Day.

It was exhilarating to be single again. For a while there seemed to be sex available around every corner and even, sometimes, at the end of long hallways. In Denver I fell in love with a beautiful prostitute, Helen, whose innate modesty caused her to rebuff my sexual advances “until we’re married”. I thought about paying for it but it was just too degrading. One night we got into a screaming match over the proper use of “suffice” – she insisting that “suffice to say” was correct while I knew from my days in advertising that the correct use is “suffice it to say”. She calls me each year on my birthday, although to this day she stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that I was right.

 

My Wife Has A Few Days Off

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My wife has five days off. She kicked it off by backing the car over my Kindle. I had just put the baby into the car seat then waited outside the garage for her to pull out. When she did, there was my Kindle on the floor of the garage with cartoon-like tire tracks on it. My best guess is that I was holding it under my arm and with my winter coat on I forgot it was there. While haphazardly strapping the baby into the car seat, it probably fell silently (I keep it in a vinyl case) to the ground. In any event, she crushed a couple hundred books.

I couldn’t blame her and felt no impulse to do so. When I removed the Kindle I was kind of surprised to see that the casing was perfectly intact – like new. When I attempted to turn it on, of course, it displayed the Kindle equivalent of a severe neurological problem.

The baby was dressed like a dragon for Karnival this morning. It was a beautiful costume, thoughtfully modified by our friend Annalie who surgically sewed on a tail in such a place that he could sit in perfect comfort. When I think about the thoughtful little things adults do for children I tend to get weepy.

Several Germans asked me this morning if we have Karneval in the U.S. and I said that the closest thing we have is Mardi Gras but that it’s hardly a kid-friendly celebration. It’s not even family-friendly. Who am I kidding: I’d be reluctant to bring my wife to Marci Gras.

It was downright exhilarating to spend the day with Sabine, just she and I. After dropping off Lucas at our friend’s we drove to Marcus who is, I think it’s called, an “Osteopath”. At any rate, he gave Sabine and I treatments which feel great but whose effectiveness I have very little faith.

In his right had Lukey holds a green tube lovingly tacked to nylon ribbons to suggest a fire-breathing dragonSabine explains to me that my lack of faith is what prevents it from being effective. It’s a chicken-and-egg thing.

Leaving Marcus’ we headed directly to the Zentrale Cafe. The food was good and we talked about Sabine’s plans to work part-time next year and I expressed my wholehearted support. I felt grateful that a simple trip to a cafe with my wife felt like the adult equivalent of Christmas morning.

Then we went and bought me a new tie and pocket square and a couple of small toys for Lucas.

On the drive home I wrote a joke about my ignorance about wine which then became two jokes about my ignorance about wine and seemed to quickly develop into a full-fledged “bit” about my ignorance about wine. Note to husbands: do not expect your wife to share your enthusiasm about your new bit about your ignorance about wine.

Once home, Sabine and I watched “Julie and Julia”, Nora Ephron’s homage to Julia Child. For this, I figure Sabine now owes me big time. Actually I enjoyed it, at least until one of the two main characters is hauled into her boss’ office, is warned that the success of her new blog is compromising her work and told, in effect, to shape up. The scene concludes with her boss adding, gratuitously, “A Republican would have fired you”. Nora Ephron’s conceit is staggering…

Random Thoughts

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Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum strikes me as the kind of guy whose idea of “kinky” is having sex with his wife in a hotel room.

Ethanol Subsidies

Setting food on fire while millions in the Third World go hungry? Subsidizing ethanol is an idea so bad that even Newt Gingrich supports it.

Newt Gingrich

The more I familiarize myself with this cat the more amazed I am that he’s only been married three times.

Elisabeth Taylor

Speaking of serial monogamists, a word about Elisabeth Taylor. Like most of us, Ms. Taylor didn’t have it easy: always a bride, never a bridesmaid. With 16 marriages between them, how is it that she and Larry King never managed to cross paths at the altar?

Jerry Sandusky

I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that the ideal number of “alternative narratives” your lawyer should put forth should number no more than one. Sandusky’s lawyers have put forth at least two, one plausible and one implausible.

The plausible one is that Sandusky is a grown man with the emotional maturity of a 10-year old and that showering with boys is, to their client, an act as unselfconscious as it is free of any sexual overtones (the Michael Jackson Defense). The second narrative has the distinction of being both implausible and a non-sequitir: that many of the boys who Sandusky mentored come from underprivileged backgrounds and as such they lack knowledge of basic hygiene techniques – showering with these boys afforded them an opportunity to learn these elusive skills from an old pro.

I’ve never known of anyone who had so many good reasons to shower with children. If convicted, I suspect that Sandusky will learn in prison the same “basic hygiene techniques” he taught his alleged victims.

Audiences On Crystal Cruises

Having made my debut on Crystal Cruises recently, I have to say that they are the first audiences I’ve encountered for whom building a rapport requires a zoning permit.

Disneyland

Each time I park at Disneyland I think “If I turn back now, I’m only out fifteen bucks.” Look for my book, “Disneyland on $275 A Day”, on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Stupid Book Titles

I read a lot of self-help books. I’m currently reading a book about how to be more assertive – if that’s okay with you.

But the titles given to some of them by publishers are ridiculous. “The Complete Idiots Guide To Self-Esteem”? Please.

San Francisco

The Golden Gate Bridge Authority has a suicide hotline and a sign next to it stating that jumping from the Golden Gate is “always fatal”. If you want to discourage suicides, perhaps you should suggest that jumping from the bridge is NOT always fatal.

I recently visited San Francisco with my family and, well, let’s just say that things have changed since it’s hey day in the 60′s. Haight-Ashbury’s new slogan, for example, is “Don’t Trust Anyone Under 60″.

Chinatown

It doesn’t matter what city I’m in, I don’t recognize half the things on sale in Chinatown. Strolling past the shops with my young son, he would point at various objects and I didn’t know whether to cover his eyes or buy him one.

Oakland

Oakland can occupy my crotch.

Unintended Compliments

Unintended compliments are the ones I cherish most, like the guy I overheard recently at The Magic Castle who described me as “A low-class bar act.”

Window Shopping

I did some post-Christmas window shopping in Amsterdam last week. Of course in Amsterdam it’s called “soliciting a prostitute.”

Thanks for reading. If you’re interested in learning how I came up with my act, please visit my mom’s website, nevershakeababy.com…

An American In Germany

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There’s a joke going around these days. A Spaniard, an Italian and a Greek walk into a bar. Who pays for the drinks? A German.

This joke well-illustrates a fundamentally different attitude between Germans and Americans. As an American, I don’t want to be taxed to provide for my own retirement. Germans, on the other hand, are content to be heavily taxed so that Mediterranean types can paint the town red.

Americans come from a long tradition of “live and let live”. You can pretty much do what you please provided you don’t trample on my rights. On the other hand, no word produces that warm, fuzzy feeling in a German quite like “verboten”. And the list of things that are verboten is long. At the top of the list? Spontaneity. Telling a German to “wing it” is like telling your dog about your day.

The German language is particularly exasperating to learn, which is why if you’re going to tackle it as a second language you’ve got to maintain your sense of humor. Of course if it’s your native language then it’s just the opposite (I was doing a show recently for a mix of Brits and Germans and while onstage I was mentally trying to determine who was British and who was German. I noticed one woman in the front row and thought “Well, she’s definitely German”. Then she laughed and I thought “Wrong again”.

My wife is from Germany and we were told that if my wife only speaks German to our young son and I only speak to him in English, then he will eventually learn both languages fluently. Well, Lucas is now 3-years old and he speaks only Dutch. (Dutch is a particularly loopy-sounding language. It’s much more comprehensible if you think of it as German on Heineken).

Actually, Lucas speaks German and English quite well, although sometimes he mixes up the two. For example, he’ll say things like “Airplane haben” or “Lass uns outside gehen”. Sure, it’s cute now – but what about when he gets to college and is saying things like “C’mon boys, let’s go get hammerschubend!”

Much of the German I speak I learned from Lucas. Gentle reader – you haven’t lived until you’ve been chastised by a bilingual 3-year old over your inability to properly conjugate “schleichen”.

We keep a foot in the U.S. and Germany and each home is representative of our respective countries. For example, our place in America has that homey, lived-in feel and our place in Germany is sufficiently dust-free to manufacture microprocessors.

Please know that I’m not generalizing about Europeans – I’m generalizing about Germans which, apparently, is fine with everybody. Take my wife (please!). As a German woman, Sabine is on the opposite end of the temperament spectrum from Italian women. She would never throw a shoe at me in anger, for example – she would do it with cold-blooded precision.

I won’t deny it – there is a cultural tension in our marriage. Sabine always wants the baby playing with wooden toys hand-made in Germany and as an American I think he should be playing with plastic toys mass-produced in China. (I was in Beijing once – boy, I thought San Francisco had a big Chinatown: those people are everywhere out there. It’s authentic, too – you can order cat right off the menu).

I sense I’m losing the ladies so I’m going to wrap this up.

Istanbul, Turkey

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My critics say that performing my music while painted in a thick coat of silver is just a gimmick. Where do they get such crazy ideas? After all, if I was merely silver and played no music, would I get any notice? All right, maybe I would. But the truth is, the silver compliments the music, it’s not just there in order to make pedestrians pause long enough to toss a euro into my box (which is also silver). Such a crazy idea would never have occurred to me!