Feb

25

Book ‘Em: The Best Medicine.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

February 25, 2008 |

schimmel.jpgOnce, in a discussion about zodiac signs, a friend of mine proudly declared, “I’m a Cancer, the sign of the crab. I’m two diseases nobody wants.” This was hilarious even though, in my experiences with cancer, it’s been really hard to laugh. I’ve been lucky enough to never have cancer (I’ve never had crabs either, but that’s another story) but I’ve lost both close friends and family members to cancer. Cancer has taken some family members I loved more than I can ever say. With more than five-hundred thousand estimated cancer deaths and more than 1.4 million new cases in the United States in 2007 alone, it’s likely that almost everyone reading this has either had cancer or been affected by it. The treatment for cancer is to cut out the malignancy, but when cancer takes someone, it cuts something good out of us; it leaves a scar that will never heal, and the lives of the survivors will forever after be incomplete.

In 2000, the comedian Robert Schimmel was finally getting a taste of success. His first CD, released in 1995, was Robert Schimmel Comes Clean. That was followed by If You Buy This CD I Can Get This Car in 1998. In 1999 he won the award for Best Male Stand-Up Comic at the American Comedy Awards. He had a hit HBO special, released on CD as Unprotected, and he’d just filmed a pilot for a series which had been picked up. Then he was diagnosed with Stage III non-Hodgkins lymphoma (there are only four stages). Facing long hospital stays, huge medical bills, and an uncertain future, his career was effectively over. Eight years later, Schimmel is still alive, still a successful comedian, and has just published his first book, Cancer On $5 A Day* (*chemo not included). Schimmel is more than a survivor: as he explains in the Cancer Info section of his web site, laughter got him through cancer. Warner Brothers Records sent him every comedy CD in their catalogue, and he shared them with fellow patients so everyone could have a laugh. After finishing his treatments, Schimmel went back on the road and started asking people to bring comedy CDs to his performances. He’d buy CD players and donate the players and CDs to local cancer centers. He’s got a worthy ambition: “My goal is to create CD libraries in cancer treatment centers in every city I perform in.” People have also donated music, books on tape, and even video games.

By the way, Robert Schimmel is also, quite possibly, the filthiest comedian you’ll ever hear. He’s been banned from one late night talk show, or at least never invited back, because he made a joke about his dentist telling him, “You’re going to feel a little prick in your mouth.” In his appearances on other shows the producers have sometimes had to stop taping and take him backstage, such as on another late night talk show when he started his act by saying, “I licked the big C…and I beat cancer!” (Reportedly the working title of his book was I Licked The Big C). Not all his material is blue, but everything that happens to him, from a prostate exam to teaching his daughter to drive, is potential material. He’s an easily exasperated anti-hero who couples sharp observation with razor-edged sarcasm:

“I just took my kids to Disneyland and one of these nature marine park places because they have these billboards all over, ‘Come see fish in their natural habitats!’ and then you get there and they have clowns riding on the back of dolphins and whales jumping through fire hoops like this is what you see when you go to the beach.”

Schimmel’s brilliance, though, is that he doesn’t degrade or denigrate others; he’s frequently the object of his own ridicule. He admits he does dumb things, treating the audience as a close confidante. He talks about the time a girl suggested a bizarre sex act. He says he balked at first, but then decided to take a chance since no one would know. After a microscopic pause for effect, he continues, “So I’m in the hospital emergency room…” He talks about going into a gay chat room and being afraid of having an aneurysm, afraid of the embarrassment of his family finding him dead in front of the computer with pictures of penises on the screen. He’s impatient with others but the joke is that he backs down, such as when he bought his daughter a pet:

“I got her a rabbit like Easter time and about three days later it’s actin’ real sick and it’s just layin’ around and my wife goes, Gee, maybe we should take him to the vet. I said, Yeah, why don’t you just let me take him for a drive? I’m not gonna take a five dollar rabbit to the vet. So we’re at the vet…”

Two days later they return to the vet and the rabbit is in an oxygen tent. His immediate response is, “Pull the plug now. I think we’re looking at four potential keychains.”

His fight with cancer was incorporated into his act. Warned by his doctor that his chemotherapy would result in open mouth sores and that he should avoid “oral-anal contact”, his first response was, “Do I look like an ass-eater?” And, in his hilariously neurotic way, he couldn’t help wondering whether every patient was told this or whether, for some reason, the doctor thought he specifically should be told. His honesty and sense of humor make him the perfect person to write about cancer. He explains, though, that the book is a serious exploration of what he went through, a book to give others hope and a little laughter, not a book for fans of his racier humor. Describing the book in an interview for the Las Vegas Sun, he says,

schimmel.jpg“This is not a joke book. I didn’t want it to be like a bunch of chemo jokes, funeral home jokes. That’s not what this is. But for somebody who is a fan of mine, a real fan, I think they will like it because it’s the real me in there. But if it’s someone looking for a lot of scatological humor, they’re going to be in for a disappointment. The thing that made me passionate about doing this is that I know the impact it has on other people. When somebody says, ‘My son just got diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,’ I tell them, ‘You know what? I had the same thing six years ago.’ I really know what that means. I’m not guessing.”

Update: Listen to Robert Schimmel talk about his book on Fresh Air With Terry Gross.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. James on March 6, 2008 9:59 am

    I always thought he had a softer side. Do you recommend this book for someone who is going through cancer right now and is kind of churchy? i.e. is the language in places off putting?

  2. Christopher Waldrop on March 11, 2008 11:40 am

    He does drop the f-bomb a few times, but not often. I’d say that for someone who didn’t mind it here and there this is a great book, especially if they’ve just been diagnosed. It will give them an idea of what to expect (after his third dose of chemo he talks about how it would take him half an hour to put his shoes on) and also, hopefully, help them find some humor in the experience.

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