I Am the New Black Part 3

That doesn't happen to me now that I'm established. These days I usually come on to a standing ovation, which I never get tired of, but I've seen my share of booings. The worst for me was probably the second time I played the legendary Apollo Theater in 1992, after I'd been doing comedy for a few years. The first time I played the Apollo, I got up and did a short set and I killed. I had them rolling, got the standing O, all of that. So my manager got me booked there a few weeks later. I made a very serious mistake that time-I let all of the love I got the first time go to my head. I let my ego interfere and thought that since they loved me so much, I'd be fine going out there and trying out new material that I'd never tested before a live audience.

I had a seven-minute set. Seven minutes doesn't sound like a long time. That's about two rap songs or two movie trailers. Seven minutes is about half the amount of commercials you're going to watch during your typical one-hour TV show. It may not seem like a lot, but when you're onstage bombing, it feels like a year. I went out there, and from the first joke I was bombing. I got about two minutes into my routine when I heard this big lady up in the balcony start booing as hard as she could. It spread like a case of herpes, and soon the whole place was yelling for me to get pulled offstage.

For those of you who don't know, since the 1950s the Apollo has employed the Executioner, played by Sandman Sims, a famous tap dancer from back in the old days who'd been dancing at the Apollo since the forties. The Executioner would be at the side of the stage, in the wings, and when an entertainer got booed, he'd come out and chase him off with a toy gun or pull him off with a giant hook. So I'm bombing and I look over and see Sandman stretching, getting ready to come get me. He's picking up his hook and eyeing me and starts to walk onstage. I wasn't going to let him pull me off, so I looked at him and said, "f.u.c.k you!" Then I looked at the audience and said, "And f.u.c.k you!" and I ran off.

There is another custom for amateur talent at the Apollo, this one a good-luck tradition. Positioned to the side of the stage is the Lucky Log, a piece of what was known as Harlem's "Tree of Hope," a large elm that supposedly brought good luck to all who touched it back during the Harlem Renaissance in the twenties and thirties. When the streets of Harlem were widened, the elm was taken down and chunks of it were sold off as souvenirs. The Apollo got a big piece, named it the Lucky Log, and placed it where every amateur performer could touch it before going onstage. Well, I knocked that motherf.u.c.ker right over on my way out. I just knocked it right into the audience. And because of that I was banned from the Apollo for two years.

I got off to a much better start at the Uptown Comedy Club on 133rd Street, not far from the Apollo. That's where everything came together for me.

My boy Mike Greg, who was a friend from around the way, told me about it. He said the place had a weekly open-mic night and a Wednesday-night workshop to help out aspiring comedians. He thought I could get up there and hold my own with anyone he'd seen come through, no problem.

I went to the club with him one Friday night. I was a little bit apprehensive, but I wanted to see what it was all about. There was a twenty-dollar cover charge, which I wasn't willing to pay, so I watched from the door for a minute before the bouncer moved me along. But it was enough time to see one really good comedian, and that was motivation enough for me to go back on Wednesday for the workshop. That place really taught me how to do my job. It was run by Andre Brown, who taught everyone who came through the door the fundamentals. It was the comedy equivalent of playing Little League baseball. I learned how to hold the microphone properly, how to use my environment onstage, how to hit pockets of different energy. I also learned how to segue and how to bring the mood from one subject to another and let the crowd's energy ebb and flow. I liked having someone show me how to take what I was doing more seriously and how to approach it as a craft. I had never even been in a school play or taken a drama course or anything, so this was the first time I was made to think about the fundamentals of performance.

The most important knowledge I took away from there was about commanding the crowd. I still think of a few basic tips when I get nervous about taking the stage. Yes, I still get nervous. I think any good performer, no matter how good, gets nervous. It's healthy to treat every performance like it's your last. Anyway, what I try to remember is to show confidence, to move around, and to stay loose physically. If you tighten up, you look scared, and if you look scared you will lose command of the audience. The second-most important thing to remember is to have fun up there. If you're not having fun, the audience isn't going to have fun. Even if they boo you, you've succeeded, because if they have fun doing that-fine! At least they got their money's worth. You just have to enjoy whatever happens and be ready for it.

I started rocking things at the workshop. Within two weeks I was getting regular spots at the club, and I was killing it there too. There was a real hot scene going on in that place at the time, and a network guy from Fox TV decided to develop the talent he saw into a weekly sketch-comedy show that would be like Live from the Apollo but all comedy. It aired for two years, from 1992 to 1994, and it was responsible for the launch of a few careers, namely, mine and Chris Tucker's.

I have to take a minute to thank the entire Brown family: Andre, Kevin, and their mother, Mrs. Brown. Andre taught me the basic skills I needed to handle myself on a stage. His brother Kevin gave me my first break on television, and shortly thereafter he and Andre became my managers. And most of all Mrs. Brown, who was always rea.s.suring and who signed me up to do my first appearance at the club. Kevin Brown, by the way, plays Dot Com on 30 Rock, so I still work with him. It's great to have that connection.

Uptown Comedy Club aired at the same time as Sat.u.r.day Night Live, which was fine because we were built for a much different audience. Now that I'm more familiar with the language of marketing demographics, I'd label our target audience as nonwhites who own televisions. We did sketches meant for people living in urban America, dealing with all that comes with that. One week, Chris Tucker was supposed to headline the show but his plane from L.A. was late and he wasn't going to make it for the broadcast. I had done a few sketches and was still doing bits in the regular club all week long, so Kevin came backstage and found me.

"Yo, Tray, what's up?"

"What's up, Kev? What's goin' on?"

"I hear you're fire in the club. You're a fan favorite."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"So you got seven minutes? You want to go on?" "I got seven minutes for you." And I never looked back.

I was kinda fat back then, which never hurts n.o.body in comedy, so I used it to my advantage in my act. f.u.c.k s.e.xy, I brought chubby back. It made me even cuter onstage than I already was. If you're fat, you suffer from inflated food bills, bad knees, broken furniture, and heart problems. But in comedy, you're way funnier. I used my extra weight to transform myself into a pouty little kid.

Today my stand-up material is based on observation, but back then I made up bits based on my imagination, my daydreams, and that night I did one that I'd been working on for some time: fat Michael Jackson. I got up onstage and told the audience I was Michael's fifth cousin, the one who'd taught him how to dance and everything else he knew. I pulled out a dirty white sock with a hole in it and wore it on one hand, tucked in my shirt to show off my fat a.s.s, and pulled the white socks on my feet all the way up to my knees. I started dancing and spinning around, then I opened up my shirt and slapped my stomach, grabbed my d.i.c.k, and pointed my toe. I did all that "Hee-hee!" stuff Michael does, and they loved it.

I also brought out my favorite character from the time, one who is still dear to my heart. He's a little boy from the ghetto named Biscuit. Biscuit wears one of those beanie hats with a propeller on it and some shorts, and he's angry at everybody because his daddy left the family. He became real popular on Uptown Comedy Club, so I brought him back a few times. My favorite bit was when Biscuit got so mad about his dad leaving his mom that he beat up Barney. I think people enjoyed seeing that on national television. I knew plenty of parents who were ready to peel Barney's cap themselves after overexposure to that "I Love You" song.

That was my big break. It was the start of Kevin being able to book me gigs outside of New York City, and I took every single one he could get. The only problem was, he wasn't getting me enough. I was hungry, I had a family to feed, and once I felt what it was like to do my thing onstage, I was insatiable. I wanted the next room and the next challenge. I had to push Kevin to get me bookings outside of the Uptown, and even I knew that if a manager believes in his client, the client shouldn't be convincing him to find work. Sabina and I always thought that Kevin wasn't pushing me as much as he was his other clients, and Sabina called a few clubs outside the New York area that Kevin said had turned me down, and they'd never heard of me. Kevin never admitted to that, and we never confronted him about it. It didn't matter anyway-he just wasn't doing his job. I remember when it all came to a head. Sabina and I were at Meineke getting the m.u.f.fler on our car fixed. Times were tough, we had bills, and Kevin wasn't getting me work. Sabina had had enough and she called him up.

"Kevin," she said. "Listen, Tracy has a family and we have bills and he needs to get some work. He will go on anywhere, he's ready to work. Just book him in and tell him where to go. We need the money."

"I'm doing everything I can," he said. "You'll be fine. Are you guys on welfare?"

Sabina was taken aback a bit. "Uh," she said. "Yeah, we are."

"Well, stay on it," Kevin said. "We'll get him work, but stay on welfare. They owe you that."

I didn't talk to Kev for a while after that, but eventually we came back together and reconciled. In fact, we work together these days-he plays Dot Com on 30 Rock. We're all family.

In high school, I was one of those people voted most unlikely-most unlikely to do anything with his life or to be remembered by anybody except his family. People like me were thought of as red slimy slugs crawling around on our stomachs in the dirt. We weren't slugs, we were just caterpillars waiting to transform. The people around us were animals, soaring and running, while we just crawled by, waiting for our time. Sure, some of us got stepped on by mean people or eaten by birds along the way, but those of us who survived found our branches, went quietly into our coc.o.o.ns, and went to work. And now all of us are beautiful b.u.t.terflies. We've had our day.

You know what I love the most about being a beautiful b.u.t.terfly? Seeing the people who knew me when I was a caterpillar. They're so quick to tell me, "I knew it, Tray! Back then I knew it. I knew you'd be a beautiful b.u.t.terfly!" f.u.c.k you, no you didn't. You can't predict the future. If you could, you probably would have been more supportive of all the caterpillars you knew. We could have used your support then, but we sure don't need it now. But that's all right with me. The truth is, no one sees transformation like that coming-not even the caterpillar.

The two sweetest words in comedy: Richard Pryor. The comic's comic. He exposed everything about himself-from the pain of growing up in a wh.o.r.ehouse to revealing his issues with s.e.x and drugs-and didn't care who liked it. It took a big man to talk about getting high and getting thrown out of his house. He lit himself on fire and went right back onstage after that! He's like Slick Rick-Richard lived out his stories like Rick lived out his lyrics. Richard lived it hard and told us all about it afterward. He went on national TV, looked at Barbara Walters, and said, "I was doing some cocaine...." That took a lot in those days, man. It's the blueprint right there.

I set foot on an airplane for the first time in 1993. I was twenty-five years old. By then I had become a regular on Uptown Comedy Club, and because the show had a solid reputation on the comedy circuit, I was able to expand my fan base beyond the New York metropolitan area. It was incredible to show up at a club in Boston or Philly and find audiences who actually knew who I was.

When Uptown Comedy Club went on hiatus, my manager booked as many shows as possible for me, and that's how I ended up on a plane to St. Louis. To me, even a short plane flight like that was like going to Disneyland. I hadn't been there either, but I had heard good things about it. The closest I'd been to a plane was seeing them fly over my neighborhood every day. Vacationing wasn't something people did much in the hood. When they did, it usually involved going somewhere by car or bus, someplace close like Coney Island or just fishing in the Hudson River down under one of the bridges. I had no idea how an airport worked. When I went through security and they asked to see my ID, I put my hands behind my back because I thought I was being arrested. When someone with a badge asks you to empty your pockets, usually you're up against a wall, so I didn't know what was going on. Now I fly all the time and I've gotten used to it, but that first time, when the engines started up and we rolled down the runway, it felt to me like the most unnatural thing in the world.

The gig in St. Louis was in a club called the Bank, which was in a renovated bank, right in the middle of downtown. To a kid from Brooklyn, it was surreal. It really was one of those moments in my life where I felt like I'd done something big. I remember calling Sabina from the hotel room and sharing a "we did it" moment. It was an amazing first-time experience on the road-the gig was great, I killed, and I came home feeling like the king of the world.

Traveling out of town didn't always give me that same high, however. I did one gig in Montreal that was probably the worst bomb I ever dropped. My manager had gotten me on the bill at a comedy festival up there, and I was ready to bring it. I arrived and found out that most of the audience was from Montreal and spoke French. A lot of the comics on the bill did their act in French. And there I was, some motherf.u.c.ker from the projects, going out there onstage doing my little project jokes. I'm up there in the spotlight wearing my beanie with the propeller on it, doing my thing, and it was as quiet as a morgue. I'm listening for any kind of reaction, and hearing nothing. I mean, nothing at all: no booing, no little comments here and there, no talking whatsoever. That's not true, actually; I heard a waitress all the way over at the bar whisper to the bartender that she needed three rum and c.o.kes. I stayed loose and tried to have fun up there, but this was bad. I could hear someone smoking in the back of the room; with every drag I heard the crackle of the cigarette burning down. I'd never been in a room that was so silent. I felt like I was doing my act in a closet with no air.

When I got offstage I was distraught. I had gone up there expecting to take down the whole festival and make a name for myself! A lot of comedians, agents, and film executives were in the audience-just the people I wanted to impress. By the time I got offstage I was crying, just standing there backstage, ashamed and embarra.s.sed, not knowing what to do. Tommy Davidson, who is a great comedian, came up to me and tried to make me feel better.

"I deserved it," I said, trying to stop crying.

"Listen to me, Tracy," he said. "If you're going to become a good surgeon, you're going to lose a few patients. Let it go. You cannot let one show make you or break you."

I've never forgotten that, but at the time it didn't help me. I went to my hotel room and refused to come out for the remaining three days of the festival. It was the first lesson I got in adapting. I had to learn to adapt for every audience I saw. I wasn't just going to be in front of purely urban audiences anymore. I had to learn to keep my style intact but to expand my repertoire. I've learned that a true comedian never forgets who he is and he always remembers where he is.

If you want to make something of yourself in this world, you have to work hard for it. Just going through the motions isn't enough. If it was as easy as an exercise program, anyone could be successful. To make it, you have to put all of your mental energy into achieving your goal, and you need to do it for much longer than you probably think. You need to do it until you don't think you can anymore. You need to keep going, past the point of giving up. And then you need to push yourself some more.

After a while, you'll start to see that effort pay off. It may not even happen to you the way you intended at the start, but if you've really given it your heart, your efforts will be rewarded. It'll be like a s...o...b..ll of greatness, rolling downhill, that will take you with it. That same rule applies to negative energy. If you're a hater and you focus your energy on anger and negativity, all of it will come back at you. I don't think most haters realize that. They think getting hate off their chests means it's gone because they've put it on some other person. They might be rid of it for the moment, but it doesn't disappear. It's out there getting stronger, getting ready to return to its master, bigger and badder than before. Life is simple if you follow one rule of thumb, people: You get what you give. You don't have to believe me, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the truth.

Long before all my bad stuff came back to me, my s...o...b..ll of greatness came rolling down the hill. And not exactly how I expected it to, either. In 1993 I got booked for an appearance on HBO's Def Comedy Jam, which was the top live-television venue for comedians like myself. That night was even more special because it was my wife's birthday. There was no greater gift I could have given her, because my success was hers too. Sabina wasn't the kind of woman who would be backstage saying, "Baby, you're going to be fine, don't worry." Here's what she said: "Motherf.u.c.ker, you better get out there and tear that s.h.i.t down. f.u.c.k all these other comedians. Tear that s.h.i.t DOWN!" She meant it too.

Like I said, the payoff for your hard work doesn't always announce itself. I was happy enough just to make it onto Def Comedy Jam, but that night held more opportunities for me than I knew because that was the night I met Martin Lawrence. From my dressing room, I heard a friend who was writing for Martin coming down the stairs, so I went out to say h.e.l.lo, and there on the stairs was Martin himself. He wasn't my idol, but he was an inspiration to me. Martin was someone who made me think my dreams were possible.

Martin introduced me onstage, and when he handed me the mic, I patted him on the a.s.s and said, "That was a good pa.s.s, man. Good pa.s.s." He watched me do my set and just fell in love with me. "You remind me of me," he said to me backstage. "We have to do something together."

It didn't happen right away, but when it did, everything changed as quick as if someone flipped a lightswitch. After the Uptown Comedy Club got canceled, I kept doing my thing, playing gigs and traveling when the opportunities were there. Then one morning I got a phone call. I was outside at the time, putting my sons on the school bus. When I got back upstairs, Sabina told me that Martin Lawrence had called and that he was going to call back in ten minutes.

"What?" I hollered. "What'd he say?"

"He wants you to come do his show!"

"You're lying, motherf.u.c.ker!"

"No, I'm not! He's gonna call back any minute!"

Then the phone rang.

"h.e.l.lo?" I said.

"Tracy."

"What up?"

"It's Martin."

"Martin! What's happenin', chief?" I said.

"Nothin', man," he said. "Tray, we got a character for you on my show. I want you to come out to L.A. this week. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, I can swing it."

By seven o'clock that evening I was on a plane to L.A. for the first time. We shot my first episode as Hustle Man on Martin the next day. It was the episode where I sold him some ties. I was so intimidated going into the studio! This was Martin Lawrence's show! It was one of the most popular sitcoms on television at the time. What the h.e.l.l was I going to bring to that?

From the first time I met him, I've always been able to make Martin laugh. Nothing's changed either: I recently shot the film Death at a Funeral with Martin and Chris Rock and had them laughing on set the whole time. Martin told me that he had wanted to come up with a character for me on his show, and Hustle Man was it. I can see why too; back then I was hustling my act, always looking for ways to get somewhere better in show business. I was hungry, like that dealer on the corner, like that hustler. In my comedy, I was taking what I found on the streets of the ghetto and selling it to anyone I could, promising them that it was just the thing they were looking for. There wasn't a comedic actor around that could play Hustle Man better than me, because it wasn't much of a stretch. Besides, that catchphrase "What's happenin', chief?"-I'd been saying that for years.

I was nervous on the set, so I did the only thing I could think of to calm down: I drank a little gin and juice, just like Snoop said to. It made sense to me at the time, and being loosened up like that didn't hurt my performance any, I can tell you that. Or maybe it did, but I was too young and dumb to know the difference. Unfortunately, using alcohol to calm myself ended up becoming something-a habit and a problem. I used a crutch to get me through that first door, and it became a tradition. I thought the only way to walk on was to keep using that crutch, because that's how I started.

I had b.u.t.terflies in my stomach on the set that day. Those b.u.t.terflies are your nerves going crazy, reminding you that what you're about to do is important, so you'd better bring your best. People who go onstage for a living learn to use them, and a lot of people say they look forward to that feeling. It's the fire that gets them going. Not me-nerves is nerves. Those b.u.t.terflies are there to make sure I do my best by making me think about when I've done my worst. They don't fuel my fire; they keep me humble. It's been over ten years since that first day on the set of Martin, but the b.u.t.terflies are still with me. I've seen many stages and many sets since then, but no matter what the size of the venue, no matter whether I'm performing live or on tape, those little bugs flying circles inside my stomach keep me real. We've learned to work together; once I'm in the motion of a performance, they go back into their cage. But the truth is, they don't stop fluttering until the camera stops rolling or the curtain goes down. Then their cousins, the worry bugs, take over-they're the ones that make me worry about my next move up the ladder.

Martin was my first time on a real network-TV show, with multi-camera production and lighting, a big- time production crew, and a live studio audience. I'm glad I jumped right into the real thing! Martin was the guy who let me live-he brought me on his show and allowed me to do my thing. He let me improvise because he trusted me. There was a lot of stuff I did that didn't make the show, I can tell you that much. My goal was always to make Martin laugh-because it was his show! Besides, if you're a comedian and you're getting laughs out of someone you look up to, there is no better feeling. Martin Lawrence to me was like the moon barking at the dog. The saying is that it's common for dogs to bark at the moon, but if the moon barks at a dog, that dog is famous. Martin is one of the funniest people on the planet, and at the time he had the hottest and funniest sitcom on the air. Once people saw me making him laugh, they were like, "Oh, s.h.i.t, this guy Tracy Morgan, he's gotta be famous!"

Hustle Man appeared in six episodes of Martin over two of the five years the show was on the air. The audiences liked him. During my time on the show, Martin and I got real tight. I'd hang at his crib when I was in L.A. to shoot, and whenever he came to New York we'd hook up. When Martin was in town, I'd be the one to pick him up a couple of ravioli bags, if you know what I mean (I'm talking about weed), and then we'd head out and hit the clubs. We did it like that, just real life.

We hung out a lot. That was the great thing about Martin: Considering where he was in his career and how much he had achieved, he never talked down to me or lectured like he knew it all, he just gave me knowledge that could help me in my career. Martin never talked to me about the funny; he never tampered with that. That was a gift G.o.d gave me. What Martin did teach me about was the business of show business. He told me about a few battles he'd had to fight to get where he was, and how he learned to pick and choose them as he got more experienced. He really taught me that it was important not to turn every fight into a battle, whether you were working on a TV show or doing a stand-up gig for a promoter who didn't do right by you. Martin was always gracious, which I also saw on his set. He treated the guys who worked for him with respect, and he always had fun with the audiences at his show. He was never above anybody in his mind; he and his audience were the same. It was a blessing for me to be exposed to an artist of his caliber when I was just starting out, because he showed me how to handle myself.

At the time, Martin was going through his own trials and tribulations. He'd had some legal issues surrounding his show that nearly caused it to be canceled before the final season. He'd gotten into drugs a little too much, and they'd brought on some erratic behavior on a movie set. Then he got arrested for going a little crazy with a pistol out on Ventura Boulevard. I listened to him talk about his troubles, but I really couldn't understand what he was going through. I wasn't rich and I wasn't famous. I knew about pressure and stress, but not at his level. I was still just about surviving, which comes with a whole other kind of pressure and stress.

Success and celebrity bring you a lot of money and a lot of good, but they also bring bulls.h.i.t and expectations, and everyone reacts to that differently. When you come from nothing, sometimes you're your own worst enemy. But no matter who you are, when your life becomes bigger than you, trying to explain how you feel and what you're dealing with to someone else is like trying to teach English to a Martian. That was the situation Martin was in, and there was only so much of his language I could understand because I hadn't been to Mars yet. But he did make an impression on me and gave me some advice that I remembered later on when I was going through troubles of my own. Martin told me that the only way to become man enough to deserve everything was to survive it-to do whatever it took to keep everything you'd worked hard for and achieved from getting taken away. For me that meant getting out of survival mode, which is something that most people who come from places like I'm from never do. Survival mode is a self-destructive att.i.tude; you just take everything because you're used to barely getting by and you think it could all go away at any time. When you start to have some success, it's a real shortsighted, ignorant mentality that can keep you from planning your career properly or taking care of your money, and usually it's that kind of att.i.tude that ends up landing newly famous people in jail or on drugs.

All of that was still a long way off for me. Back then I was making about three or four thousand dollars for my cameos on Martin. Once I'd finished taping each appearance and my little visit to Hollywood was over, I'd be right back on a plane to the hood. I was keeping things together and taking care of the family, but it was always a struggle and nothing was ever secure. We were in survival mode. I did club gigs to pay the rent, and being on Martin helped keep the lights on, for sure, but I wanted something regular that could take me to the next level.

I went back to doing stand-up full-time, which had definitely become more lucrative after having my face on a sitcom. I had a good manager by then named Barry Katz, who started to push me to do things that I would never have gone after on my own. I was comfortable in the urban comedy world, in sketches and onstage, and I saw myself as continuing to move up that ladder, into films and other television shows. He had a different target in mind for my evolution as an artist: He got me an audition for Sat.u.r.day Night Live. My reaction was not what he expected.

"You're f.u.c.king crazy, man!" I said. "I can't do it! That's where Eddie came from! I can't go up in Eddie's house. No way, I can't do it. I'm not good enough, man."

"You can do it, Tracy," Barry said. "I wouldn't do that to you if I knew you weren't good enough. And I wouldn't do it to me either-I've got a reputation to uphold. You are good enough. And they're looking for someone like you."

I went home and thought about it long and hard. Sabina and I talked about it all night and all the next day. We went over every angle: What were my chances of making it? What should I do for them in my audition? How would failure feel, and how might it affect my chances of ever getting a job on another show at NBC? If I didn't feel ready, maybe I should wait because you get only one shot at a first impression. In the end, we decided that I had to go for it, because trying and failing is better than never trying at all-and I might never get that chance again.

"You don't want to wake up an old man wondering 'What if?' do you, baby?" Sabina said.

"I don't want to wake up next week wondering 'What if?' I got to do this."

I told myself that I was a boxer in a t.i.tle match; this was my one shot at glory. I was awed just being at the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Center for an audition-something I never expected to do when I set out to be a comedian. Even if I never saw the inside of that building again, I'd be able to say that one time I did.

But I had to push those feelings to the back of my mind; I had to focus. I had decided that the only way I'd be okay with this audition, no matter what happened, was if I went in and was nothing but myself. I had to give them a true representation of who I was, what I was about, and what I could do. I couldn't try to be whatever I thought they wanted. Sabina and I both knew that the only way I'd ever sleep at night was if I knew that they had made their decision based on the real me.

My audition tape is on the Sat.u.r.day Night Live: The Best of Tracy Morgan DVD, by the way. If you check it out, you'll see me as I was back in the day: a lot chubbier, a lot scruffier, just me the way I was. I did a little bit of Biscuit, wearing my beanie hat, and did a few jokes about some people I knew back then, and about my one time getting arrested as a young punk.

What happened was, this man my aunt Brenda was dating was beating on her. She was one of my favorite aunts, and she was overweight and had bad legs and diabetes, and I didn't like that this man was beating on her. So I ran to my cousin's house and got a gun with no clips or bullets, then I went and found this man and threatened him. I pointed that empty gun at his head and told him he'd better stop hitting Aunt Brenda. He called the cops on me and a few hours later they came to pick me up, at around two in the afternoon, in broad daylight, with all my neighbors watching. I was scared to death as they shook me down, cuffed me, and put me in the cop car, so once I was sitting down, I just kept farting. I blew that f.u.c.king squad car up with farts, because the night before I'd had pork and beans and franks. I was farting so bad that they had to stop the car to roll the back windows down because they didn't have electric windows on that motherf.u.c.ker. What can I say? They shouldn't have taken me in. It was like I was taking the cops hostage with my gas-they could not escape.

If you want to see how much I changed once I got comfortable on television, watch the clip of me appearing on Conan that's on the DVD too, where I tell one of the same stories. I'm still me, but I'm a whole different man.

Later on I found out that the casting directors and producers didn't even want to audition me-can you believe that? Had I known, I never would have gone up there! My manager had convinced SNL senior producer Marci Klein to see me even after she said no. What up, Marci! I love you, girl! You know I got love for you! That's Calvin Klein's daughter right there.

Man, I don't know what kind of manager Barry is, but he knew one thing for sure: If he'd been honest with me and told me that at first they didn't want to see me, I would have sooner done a free show for the KKK than go to that audition.

African Americans have so many good reasons to blame society for the things they can't do. For years, the black man has been put down and held back and beaten around in every way. From the time he was a slave to the time he got equal rights to the first time one of his alb.u.ms went triple platinum, he's been asked to be grateful for the disadvantages that have been handed to him. It's a sob story we know all too well. But it's no reason to be a statistic. You've got the right to be predictable, but you've also got the freedom to change history. Just because our forefathers were forced to walk a certain path doesn't mean every black male and female alive today must walk the same one-that's not what our ancestors fought for. Yes, there are still hurdles we've got to jump. The trick is learning how to clear them instead of giving up and sitting on the bench or tripping over them on your way to the finish line. Listen to me, if there's one thing black people can do, it's jump and run. We can win this race if y'all got the courage to get in it.

Too often, past hardships and prejudice are used as excuses. If I wanted to, I could whine about how white comics and actors get better roles than me, but you know what? I never saw it that way! If I did, where's the hope? Why even try? If I saw it that way, I never would have tried. If you feel defeated, you will be defeated. I kept my head in the game, not in the clouds. If you stay focused, whatever happened in the past will not hold you back because only you and I and everyone here right now on earth make the future. That's true talk.

It was easy for me not to lose focus even when I failed because one thing in my life hasn't changed-I love what I do. That's the key to life: Love what you do and take pride in it. Whether you're a garbageman or the leader of the United Nations, you'd better like it or find things you like about it. Some of the happiest people I've ever met work jobs that others might not see the value in. I think the unhappiest people in the world are that way because they either hate what they do or never figured out what it is they love to do. They end up working jobs they hate because they're chasing things like money and trophy wives. They're only in it for what that job can get them and what other people will think of them because of those prizes they have. I've met so many people who only do what they do for the money. You can't do anything just for the money if you want to be happy. I love money, everybody loves money, but if getting it makes you miserable, you won't enjoy those things you can buy half as much as those who work hard at something they enjoy. Even if they make less and can buy less and live by modest means, they'll appreciate what they have so much more. Hating your job and doing it just for the money is like winning a prize on a game show and then finding out you have to pay taxes on it that you can't afford.

I loved what I did the minute I started doing it, and I feel the same way today. I wanted to make money, sure I did; I had a family to support. But I would have been happy with just enough to pay the bills, so long as I could keep entertaining, because I love being in show business. It has never been easy, it has always been a roller-coaster, but I wouldn't trade one of those dips or curves or loop-the-loops for a quiet train ride to the promised land. I'd do it all over again the same way, with all the loss and tears and all.

Show business is no different from living on the streets, and one thing I learned on the streets is that racism is real. You have black people who do not like white people, you have Puerto Ricans who do not like Dominicans, and you have Jamaicans who do not like African Americans. That's America, but it's the same all over the world. Ask Europe! Don't the French hate the British? Don't all of you hate the Germans? I was never like that because my father was never like that either. Being a musician, he knew cats from all kinds of backgrounds who were brought together by their love of music. I also think that the army made him color-blind. He was in the same situation, risking his life, just trying to live another day, with dudes of all races and all walks of life from all around the country. Bullets and land mines don't see skin color-and neither did my dad. But that's not the norm here in this country. Racism is everywhere, even in show business. I look at it like this: Society gave me a ten-foot wall and a five-foot ladder and then sat back to see if I'd get my black a.s.s over that wall. It wasn't impossible, but I had to be creative.

I always try to keep a positive outlook on life and make positive connections with my fellow human beings. But it's gotten harder for me to do that as my career has grown. When you're on television, people think they know you, but they don't. They can read every article ever written about you, but they won't ever know what your life is like at home.

My relationships with my family, my relatives, and my friends who stopped acting like friends once I had something they wanted have been a drama that's taken more out of me than any role I've ever played. All of my past hardships are nothing compared with what has followed my success. That, not the struggle, is what's broken my heart and bruised my spirit. I come from a land of broken dreams and unfulfilled promises, and that is what makes people hate. That desperation can make people hate those closest to them. That has become my reality, and I see it for what it is. It took me a long time to get here, and I almost didn't make it. And it all started with SNL.

Landing a spot as a cast member on Sat.u.r.day Night Live was a gift from G.o.d, but like anyone who has been there can tell you, staying there is something else altogether.

All of you would-be comedians, listen to me: If you can survive on that show, you can survive anything in the world. If you think you know about rejection and criticism, you have no idea until you've walked those halls. A lifetime of audition rejections is like half a season there. How can it not be? That show is an American inst.i.tution with very high standards and a legacy no one can touch. There's only one way to keep that reputation, and that's to be harsh.

There's a lot of compet.i.tion among the cast and the writers-everyone wants to get their skits on the air because they know what that exposure can do for their careers. Sat.u.r.day Night Live can take you to the moon, or it can crash you out into obscurity in just one week. Check it out-the list of cast members who've faded away is much, much longer than the list of those who've gone on to bigger things.

Me? All I want at the end of the day is to have my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I want to leave my mark right there, on the sidewalk, where my grandkids and my great-grandkids can visit. I want them to walk down the street one day long after I'm gone, take a picture by my star, and say, "This one here is my great-grandpop's. He got his star because Grandpop put it in! He put in work." Failure is not an option in my life. I told you already, when opportunity knocked, I pulled out the .44 Mag and said, "Get in the f.u.c.king bas.e.m.e.nt, b.i.t.c.h!" Opportunity's still down there, ball-gagged and duct-taped up. If you listen hard, you can hear him whimper.

Being on Sat.u.r.day Night Live is a grind, and here's how it goes: On Monday, the cast and writers have a pitch meeting in Lorne Michaels's office with that week's host. About fifty people sit around, all over the floor and the couch, and everyone gets to make two pitches. The funnier your pitch, the better the chances that one of the writers will connect with it or that Lorne will connect with it or that the whole room will approve of it. Some of the cast members might come in with a list of notes or a page or two written out, but I was never much of a writer, so at first I never showed up with more than just a rough idea. Sometimes I would have worked on it with one of the writers, sometimes it was just straight from my brain.

A lot of ideas are served up and judged at that meeting, so Mondays are full of rejection all around. But there are no visible tears because no one in that room would be there if they weren't used to rejection. I was no different; it was nothing to me. I'd been booed by the entire Apollo Theater, and I was still getting up onstage and doing it.

Whatever ideas survive the pitch meeting move on to writing day, Tuesday. Tuesday is a long day; the whole cast and writing team stay overnight. We'd take showers in the studio and spend a straight twenty-four hours creating the week's show. It's intense. Sometimes after working hours on a sketch, you start to lose sight of what's funny about it, and sometimes in the middle of those long hauls you get flashes of brilliance. It all plays out. In the meantime, you've got to stay focused.

On Wednesday there's a table reading of every single sketch that was approved and written up the day before. There are stacks and stacks of them, and getting through them all takes about five hours. Once all the sketches have been read, the head writers and the host go into Lorne's office and stay there until they've picked out which ones will make the show. While they're in there figuring it out, the cast is waiting around anxiously. At about 11 P.M., the door to Lorne's office opens and everyone finds out what sketches they're in. If your sketch is cut, you'll never hear a reason why; it just didn't make the cut. That kills a lot of people, but I never bled when it happened to me. I was like Denzel in Glory-I didn't cry, I didn't bleed, I stayed proud. I had a Christmas tree made of scars on my back from all the rejection I'd seen before I even set foot in the NBC studios. Losing a sketch on the show? Please, that was nothing to me. I'll never forget walking into Lorne's office on Thursdays to see the list of what was going to air. There'd be a big board in there with two columns. If a sketch is on the right, it's going to make it to the next stage and most likely see airtime; if it's on the left, it's dead and gone. In the beginning, there were many weeks when all of my sketches were on the left, but that changed as time went on.

Getting on the right side of that board doesn't mean the battle is over, though. Sketches are cut up until the last minutes, even after dress rehearsal. You never get reasons why. Sometimes the sketches that got the most laughs from the cast and writers all the way through get cut at the end, while some of the worst s.h.i.t is kept in. As a cast member you might be in every skit all week long, but by the end of dress rehearsal you're only showing up at the end to say good night. Even if you make it in, you still have to hope your sketch is on before "Weekend Update," because after that, no one is watching. For years, ratings have made it very clear that by that time, people have tuned out. That time slot made people crazy! Motherf.u.c.kers would get distraught over those last few minutes of airtime. That s.h.i.t got tedious.

On Thursday and Friday the cast rehea.r.s.es the show, and then on Sat.u.r.day it's poppin'. There's a dress rehearsal at noon, a full-dress run-through at 8 P.M., and then at 11:30 we do it live, baby. Come what may, whatever happens, it's going out there to millions of homes.

After a whole week of hard work and pressure, there's just one thing to do-party! Those after parties are infamous; I'd heard about them before I even got to SNL, and they lived up to their reputation. When I went to my first few parties, all I could think about was what they must have been like when Eddie was around. During my time, I definitely did my part to make a few of them parties times to remember. Once I got comfortable being on SNL, that was it-I got loose. Real loose.

I'm dropping the brown shark right now.

They don't teach photo composition in the ghetto: me with half a head playing ring bearer at my aunt Pat's wedding.

That's my heart: my dad, Jimmy (holding baby), my great-grandmother Nan, and me.

The Morgans: (top row, left to right) my mother, my uncle Alvin, my father, my aunt Pat, my grandfather Jimmy senior, and my aunt Niecey; (bottom row) my aunt Cynthia, my brother Jim, my great-grandmother Nan, me, my grandmother Rose, and my aunt Lorraine.

Running track in 1985.