I Am the New Black Part 5

I have only really learned to take care of myself properly recently, over a decade after I first found out about my condition. I spent too many years thinking I knew best, paying attention to my mind and not my body. The symptoms of my disease had been there long before I was diagnosed; I'd just gotten used to them. I'd get tired, I'd get moody, I had pains in my legs and headaches-but wasn't that normal for someone living the life of a stand-up comedian? I never thought drinking was a problem because I didn't bother to learn how much sugar was in vodka and champagne and beer. Ask any doctor or any diabetic; drinking was the worst thing I could have been doing. All that liquor put my blood sugar on a roller-coaster and seriously stressed my organs. I'm telling you, a couple of vodkas and juice to a diabetic is like freebasing c.o.ke to a normal person. It really sends you up and down. At the time I liked the feeling, I was wiling out. I just thought that's what everybody felt when they were drunk. What I've realized since is that I probably had no problems with the disease as a young man because I was an athlete. If drinking is one of the worst things a diabetic can do besides eating a whole jar of honey or drinking a bottle of maple syrup, then regular, vigorous exercise is the best thing he can do. All that training kept my condition from hurting me, until I stopped. Then the symptoms started to creep into my life.

During those three or four years after I left The Tracy Morgan Show, I almost slipped into a diabetic coma twice-I got real close. What I didn't know is that most people who go into a diabetic coma never come out. I don't remember much of those days because I was so sick that I had to be hospitalized and stabilized with IV medications for several days. By that point I had started to give myself insulin injections every day, and I'd throw in a few extra shots when I'd start to feel sick. Since I was drinking every night, a lot of times I couldn't keep track; I'd pa.s.s out and be in pretty bad shape in terms of blood sugar by the time I woke up. I thought all I needed to do was be regular with my shots, but as I know now, it just doesn't work that way.

It really caught up to me in 2007, during the second season of 30 Rock. That was the first time I ever took my health seriously. I came clean to the doctors about my drinking and how I'd been using the shots, and they were amazed that I was even alive. Once I understood what I'd been doing, I was amazed too. I wasn't malnourished in the traditional, Red Cross sense, but the way I was living, I was starving my body on the inside. During the last half of that season I got worse and worse, until my immune system broke down and I ended up with pneumonia. I had a high fever and I could hardly breathe. I finally went to the hospital, where my doctors found that the A1C level in my hemoglobin was 18 percent and had been for some time. A normal person's is typically between 4 and 6 percent; acceptable levels for a diabetic are between 6 and 8. My level was so high I should have been dead. I'll tell you how I managed to stay alive: adrenaline. It couldn't last forever, but like a soldier in battle, it kept me going during my touring years and especially once we started 30 Rock.

Getting that sick was a sign from G.o.d that I had to get my health together-and I listened. I'm just glad it wasn't too late. I also understood that I had to change my behavior. You're probably aware that I got into trouble for a few DUIs during those years. I did it right-I got fitted with an ankle bracelet and everything. They call it a SCRAM, which is pretty funny, because you ain't going nowhere with that thing on. My first DUI happened in Los Angeles in December 2005, and that incident got me strapped with probation. I went to this hot karaoke night with my boy Strong and got really f.u.c.ked up because karaoke is just my thing. You've got to hear me, I'm telling you, I've got soul. I'm Jimmy Morgan's son-what do you expect? I do everything when I karaoke: throw on some Prince, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson-I'll kill you with my voice. So I had myself a good time until they closed-which, being L.A., was too d.a.m.n early anyway-and I got ready to head home.

"Tray," my boy said, "let me drive you home."

"I got it, dude," I said. "I got it."

"I'm telling you, man, this is L.A. Let me drive you home."

"What you talkin' about, man? I know where I am."

"I'm telling you, dude, this is not New York. Don't f.u.c.k around. Let me drive you home."

"Nah, man, I got this."

I got into my Jaguar and got the f.u.c.k out of there, and as I drove home, the police started following me, probably right out of the parking lot. I wouldn't have known because I was enjoying my music and trying to keep the car on the road. When they pulled me over, they got me out of the car-I'm sure I smelled like a one-man club-and asked me to take a sobriety test.

"Please walk along the line, sir."

"Okay, Officer. I'm happy to."

I saw two lines, so I did what I thought was right: I walked both of them, one right after the other.

"Sir, what are you doing?"

"You ain't going to trick me! I'm walking both of these motherf.u.c.kers. I know how you ask those trick questions."

"Sir, will you consent to a Breathalyzer test?"

"h.e.l.l yeah I will. I only had one beer like two hours ago."

They brought that thing over to me and I blew on it and sparks flew out the motherf.u.c.ker. That's how drunk I was. They took me in, and when I got out I went right to the airport and got on the first plane out of there. By the time I was halfway across the country that s.h.i.t was all over the news. Like I said, I ended up getting probation for that incident.

Probation didn't slow me down any, nor did it quiet my enthusiasm for either drinking or driving, which are two great appet.i.tes that don't go great together. I got back to New York and kept living out loud like I'd been doing. I definitely drove after having a few drinks, which was stupid, but I didn't have any problems again until November 2006, when I was arrested in New York for another DUI. That night I went to New York Giant Michael Strahan's birthday party. I was separated from Sabina by then, and I'd taken this Italian girl to the party with me, but she got on my nerves because she thought she was all that. So I barked on her at the party for acting that way, and she left. I'm convinced that she called the cops on me and told them that I was drinking and driving. I left there with my cousin and got on the West Side Highway, where they followed me from 27th Street all the way to 150th Street, where I was going to drop my boy off-and that's when they pulled me over. They weren't even in a cop car; they were in an undercover car disguised like a yellow cab. I wasn't even sure what was happening when they put those red and blue lights on behind me.

"What's this s.h.i.t?" I said. "We got Starsky and Hutch behind us."

Once I realized the gravity of the situation, I hoped there was some way out of it, because another DUI when you're already on probation-that's a whole lot of trouble. Since the officers recognized me, I hoped that they were fans and that there was some way out.

"Officer, I'm going to be honest," I said to the guy. "I was drinking beer at a club, but I'm fine and I'm almost home. Can you give me a pa.s.s this time?"

"We can't do that, Mr. Morgan. Step out of the car, please."

By the time they got me to the precinct to book me it was already on TMZ.

I could have been sent to jail in L.A. for violating my probation in New York, but I was lucky enough to have a relatively clean record and a good lawyer. By the time we were through with all of the court appearances, I ended up pleading guilty to a DUI misdemeanor charge and agreed to undergo supervised treatment by a doctor and stay out of legal trouble for six months. I had to do community service too, and wear one of those alcohol-sniffing ankle bracelets.

But I wasn't going to let it bring my work schedule to a halt. I shot all of First Sunday with Ice Cube with that bracelet on, and went back to do most of the second season of 30 Rock with it on too. As I said, this was the year that my health really hit rock bottom. One side effect of diabetes is that flesh wounds, like cuts and bruises, do not heal well. Cuts don't close up, and if they're not kept covered and treated right, they get infected and can become really dangerous. Diabetics have inefficient blood flow and an imbalance of the components that make up healthy blood, so something like a heavy bracelet on the ankle can do all kinds of damage, which it did to me. I started to develop a wound underneath it almost right away, and it got worse over time. My ankle swelled, and since the circulation was cut off by the bracelet, I could have developed gangrene in my foot-another hazard for diabetics. If the gangrene gets out of control, it can do so much damage that the foot may have to be amputated. This happens to diabetics more often than you'd think, and my ankle was definitely heading in that direction.

I tried to play it off as much as I could. I made jokes about the ankle bracelet, saying I was getting it blinged out by Jacob the Jeweler. And I made lots of public appearances during that time, at clubs, on Letterman and everything. It was a crazy thing to do because the way those bracelets work is that if you have alcohol vapors on your skin, a signal is sent to the police station and you get arrested. I'd be out at a club, not drinking, just hanging out, telling everyone in my booth to step off with their apple martinis so I wouldn't end up downtown. I was sitting on the couch one day, trying to put some ointment behind the bracelet to help protect my open wound. My son Tracy sat down and just stared at me like I was stupid.

"What's up, Tray?" I asked him.

"This is not cool, Dad," he said.

"You mean this cut I got back there? No, it's not."

"That's not what I mean, Dad. What if I start drinking and driving just like you? What happens if I get into an accident and get killed or kill some other people? What happens then? I'm going to be seventeen soon, you know."

That did it, right there, right then. Two DUIs and the threat of jail didn't do it and ten years of diabetes so bad that I might have lost my foot weren't enough either. But my son looking at me, disappointed, and drawing a very clear line between my lack of leadership as a parent and the effect it could have on him as a son got right through my thick skull. I cut drinking out of my life-first gradually, and then, after my health deteriorated later that year, altogether, forever. It really wasn't hard for me physically or mentally once I decided to do it. I didn't have to go to rehab because I never had a drinking problem in the first place. You might laugh when you read that, but it's true. Like I said, I knew it then and I know it now-I'm not addicted to alcohol. How can I say this? Because I never drank at home. I only drank socially. I'd go out and I'd want to get liquored up because everyone else was liquored up. That's the thing about me; I reflect whatever I see back at the world. If someone comes at me crooked, my reaction is to come back at him crooked. If I was in a room where everyone was drunk, I was going to get drunk too. When I was on SNL, I drank big every Sat.u.r.day night because that was how we did it. Those after parties turned me into a social alcoholic, and I didn't even know it.

Sabina was great to hang in there and deal with most of my wild times, but those legal troubles pushed our relationship over the edge. I'd been misbehaving for too long, and that drinking s.h.i.t on top of it would have been too much for anybody. Even Mother Teresa would have kicked my a.s.s out of the house by then. I was always in the papers for doing crazy s.h.i.t during those few bad years, and Sabina got real tired of hearing about it. She couldn't help me either because it was my trip to deal with-just like Martin had warned me-and I usually wasn't home under her watch when I was getting into trouble. She stood by me, but Sabina's no doormat. She eventually got fed up, and once a woman is fed up, there's nothing you can do to regain her love. If she hates you, that's fine, you've still got a chance. f.u.c.k that; if she hates you, you're still in! But when she's fed up, it's over, because indifference is something else. Once that love turns, believe me, you're done. I know this from watching my mother and my father. When a good woman's love goes cold, it never comes back. That's when you've really got something to cry about.

You want to know the hardest part about finding love? When you get it, you want it to last so bad that you try to hold on to it even when you both know it's over. No one is to blame. It's the same reason you still root for a team that won the championship when you were a kid, even if since then they've sucked year after year after year. That's why New York still has Knicks fans, and why I'm one of them. I will always love the Knicks; I don't care if they don't see the playoffs again until 2026. When they do, I'll be courtside.

When we humans find something that makes us feel whole and connected, we don't want to let that s.h.i.t go, no matter what it is. Even when everything is telling us we're wrong, even when everything in the relationship is pain, we hold out in the hope that we'll get that feeling back one more time. That's us, that's human. That's love.

Sabina and I got together in 1987 and we raised three kids. We were beyond best friends and lovers-we were each other's everything. It hadn't been bad all along; we hadn't been fooling ourselves. But things did start to go bad around 2003, and we separated in 2007. That break-up-and-make-up s.h.i.t? We'd had four years of that. If you think about it, after twenty years together, that's the least we could do. So after being apart for a year, we tried it out again, but it didn't work. We finalized our split for good in 2008.

I'm gonna say something to all you people in relationships. Listen to me: If you feel like something is wrong, do not bother holding on-break up now. Don't expect anything to get better and don't expect people to change. If you're broken up, there's a reason for it and you should stay that way. If you get back together, there's a d.a.m.n good chance it's just because you're having a hard time saying goodbye. If you don't have kids or some other reason to stay together, get out and move on with your lives.

I had to do it, but I sure as h.e.l.l didn't want to. I had to give Sabina her life back. Like I said, it took us about four years to finally let each other go. At the time of this writing, we've only been apart officially for one year, unofficially for two. Up until the moment I signed those papers, I wasn't sure it was even going to happen. But that's love, and without it we humans are nothing.

All this talk about love and drama reminds me of someone from my past: Monique, my girlfriend for three years who lived out in Brooklyn when I was a kid. I was seventeen, and she was my first love, my puppy love. She was older than me, and she taught me things. Man, me and Mo ... we had some times. Until she left me for an older guy whose f.u.c.king name I can't remember. That's enough about Mo. I mention her only because she truly broke my heart and taught me that nothing is forever. What did Mo get, a few lines in my book? Yeah, that's a few too many.

Looking back on this period, I wish I could fix some of the damage that was done to my relationship with my three sons. I wish I could have been home more, earning money locally so I would have been around for them. Before I got into show business, when my boys were little, I would take them to the park every day and do everything a dad should do. Once I got on the road I wasn't there every afternoon playing baseball or basketball with them like I used to, and they were old enough to realize I wasn't the dad they'd had when they were younger. I tried to make up for it when I got home, but that wasn't often enough.

Once I got busy, I got busy. I provided for them like never before and managed to keep them out of the kind of life I barely survived, but I don't know if they'll ever understand it. To them I'm sure it came down to this: Our dad is not around. I hope that they know how much I love them and that the only reason I wasn't around was because I had to provide. I'm sorry for all those days I didn't spend with them. I can never get them back, and no one besides my sons realizes that more than me. Maybe someday soon or when they're a bit older we'll be able to talk about it all and they'll see it differently than they do now. In the meantime, I wish we were closer. It's harder now that I'm separated from their mother.

My wife and my sons were my whole world for my entire adult life. That's why, even once I knew it was done between Sabina and me, I still didn't really understand all that I was losing. I had let alcohol rule my life, and I paid the price: I nearly destroyed my health and I drove my family away. I was the kind of drunk who was a completely different man than he was when he was sober.

Everyone knew it, and that guy I turned into had a name: Chico Divine. Chico was a motherf.u.c.ker who came out of the depths of my mind and took over my body after about three drinks. He was definitely my dark side, and he was 100 percent hood. Chico was a wild card-you never knew what you were gonna get when he came out, you just knew it was going to be a party. It might be the kind of party where everyone cried and Chico was the only one who had fun, but it was a party regardless. When Chico came out, somebody might get hurt and there was a good chance someone's sister might get pregnant too. Chico could be verbally abusive and was always loud and obnoxious, but he was also wild, fun, and likeable-even lovable to some. Chico was the kind of guy who had to take his shirt off when he danced because he couldn't find the rhythm of the music trapped in all them clothes. Chico was that crazy dude you see hanging from the rafters at the club on, like, Wednesday at six o'clock in the morning.

After a while, I realized it was either him or me, because there was no way the two of us could share one body peacefully. So I had to figure out what to do with Chico. He wouldn't move out, because he lived in here too, so I had to put that G to work for me. He could stay if he earned his keep, so I started to bring that Chico energy out onstage, and now he's my vehicle in the club. Now he drives me to and through my stand-up. But back then, he just drove me crazy. In my last few years at Sat.u.r.day Night Live, Chico showed up every week at the after party. He definitely became the president of my fan club and my road manager during those years. When I went out on the road, Chico always did a late-night set, no matter what town we were in or what room we were in. And once we'd made it back to our hotel, Chico would usually stay around to work out new material even if I was the only one still awake! Chico would go out with at least thirty people, and he made sure that every single one of them got f.u.c.ked up. One time Chico got so drunk he threw up in the club Suede in New York, right there in his booth-I think that one made Page Six. My boys had to carry me out. And I had to be on Wendy Williams's radio show four hours after that! The best or worst part of that story was that Chico threw up right on the foot of the lady who was the William Morris Agency's publicity director. There she was, this tall, well-dressed white lady, and Chico just threw up right on her shoes.

I somehow got through Wendy Williams's show, but it all got worse when I got home. I walked in my house and went right to the cat's litter box and took a s.h.i.t and p.i.s.sed all over the motherf.u.c.ker. My ex-wife woke up and found me there, still drunk, trying to squat in that thing so I didn't make a mess. She just shook her head. She was laughing, but she just shook her head. And it wasn't the last time I got caught like that! Man, that used to be a problem. I'd get drunk and the litter box would seem more appealing than the G.o.dd.a.m.ned bathroom. Chico did all kinds of s.h.i.t.

Then there was one night in 2004 when Chico ended up at Prince's house. It was the night before the Grammy Awards and my joke writer Bradley Lewis and I were going to Clive Davis's famous black-tie pre-Grammy party. We decided to start with some pregame partying at about five o'clock. We ended up running into Method Man, Redman, and the RZA, and we started going hard, drinking and smoking and having a good time. Sometime during that pre-party, Chico came out, and he decided to start calling Redman by his government name, Reggie n.o.ble. All of a sudden, Red goes from getting high and having a good time to staring at me, all tense in the face. He stayed like that for about ten minutes as I dug myself out. All those nights I'd spent in front of tough audiences came in handy-I did whatever I could to soothe his aggression. I reminded him that he'd called himself Reggie n.o.ble in one of his songs, and then I just ga.s.sed him up real good until we were boys again. I had to do that because Redman is one big dude and even Chico didn't want to get into it with him.

The next stop was Clive's party, but on the way we got pulled over by the cops because, to be honest, we should not have been driving. The cop was black, though, and somehow he just let us go. He recognized me and all that, but as I can tell you from experience, that does not mean s.h.i.t. Man, where was that guy when I really needed him? Clive's party was held in a banquet room at the Beverly Hills Hotel and was all formal, with finely dressed people and well-appointed tables. We rolled in drunk as h.e.l.l. I said hi to Robin Williams, who was sitting behind us. And then, during Fantasia's performance, I went to the bathroom, and in the hallway outside, Chaka Khan tried to tongue-kiss me. I'm serious-Chaka just leaned in and went for it, and her breath smelled like Bacardi and franks. My boys didn't believe me, so when she came back from the bathroom I pointed at her and said, "See! There she is! She just tried to kiss me!" After that I remember going over and saying hi to Jay-Z and Beyonce and running into Stephen Belafonte, who is married to Mel B from the Spice Girls. Stephen told us about this party up at Prince's house, and he rolled with us up there.

We showed up at Prince's place in the Pacific Palisades and rolled through the front gate with the huge Prince symbol above it. The doors opened and there's Prince, in silver and red silk pajamas, no shoes, playing with his band on a stage by the pool. He's got his pool packed end to end with purple roses floating on top of the water-looked like a carpet of motherf.u.c.king roses over the motherf.u.c.ker. Prince is jumping from instrument to instrument; he's got a full band, all of that. I ended up playing pool with Mekhi Phifer and a whole bunch of guys and everyone was having a great time. We're at a house party and a Prince concert at the same time! Can you think of anything better than that?

At one point I walked outside to find Damon Dash just destroying Paris Hilton, which I thought was really funny. Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched, because he was laying into her like I think so many people wanted to do right about then, in 2004. He was in her face, saying, "You don't do s.h.i.t! What the f.u.c.k you do, anyway? What are you famous for?" He was crushing her, just grilling her in the head. Dame had just had enough of her being everywhere he looked, and for no good reason at all. Everybody had to love Dame right then for doing that. It was much deserved. She put her little dog in her purse and stormed the f.u.c.k out of there real quick.

This party went on all night-booze was flowing, liquor was good, and the music was off the meat rack! Before you know it, it's six-thirty or seven the next morning and everyone's gone. The only guests left are me, my boy Bradley, and these two girls we were talking to. We were sitting, chilling on a couch, just the four of us, and I looked up and Prince was standing there at the front door with his wife.

"Tracy, excuse me," he said. "You have to leave. The party is over."

He walked us to the door, and then I grabbed him by the back of his neck, pulled his face close to mine, looked him right in the eye, and said, "I have to tell you something, man. My father loved 'Condition of the Heart.'"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Prince said. "Motherf.u.c.ker, get out."

"Thank you, man," I said.

Bradley and I were both lit, but we decided that he was going to drive us home. We had room for one more blunt before we took off. So we rolled one in Prince's driveway and left cigar residue and everything all over the ground. As the sun was coming up, we smoked some weed, sitting at the top of the Palisades, looking out. It was nice, man. It was life at the top. Then we went down the hill, took that left turn on the 405, and cruised all the way home with the workday traffic. And on the way we dropped Stephen Belafonte off because we'd found him sleeping in the front seat of our car! We left him off by the Four Seasons, holding a huge bottle of Grey Goose, just standing there in his suit, talking on the phone, by the curb.

Chico didn't let it end there, though. The next night he got me banned from the Viper Room. He got me banned everywhere in L.A. I even got banned from Barney's Beanery. That place is an old s.h.i.thole where rockers and everyone else have done everything. The Who used to do heroin in there, and they were kicking me out for bad behavior? I decided to pick a fight with somebody while my boys were in the bathroom, and it got racial real quick. We were drinking pitchers of beer to try to feel better after the night before, because we were hurting. My boy left and I had some words with some dude and before I knew it I was surrounded by ten huge white dudes. So I did the only thing that made sense: I went up to the biggest one and said "f.u.c.k you!" right in his face. They were calling me n.i.g.g.e.r and s.h.i.t, and as I'm getting into this with them, I look at the IHOP across the street and I see these cardboard boxes moving toward us. I realized it was a homeless guy who'd been listening and decided to come over and back me up. He wasn't having this s.h.i.t at all. This guy looked like Smokey from the PJ's, and he comes out of his boxes while the white dudes are screaming "You f.u.c.king n.i.g.g.e.r!" at me. The homeless dude comes over real quiet and says, "What did you f.u.c.king say?"

Then he just hits this white boy straight out, knocks him right down. And then the white guy's friends start chasing the guy, and real quick this scene becomes something out of The Benny Hill Show. They're chasing this homeless guy around the parking lot and he's running away from them, ducking between cars, evading them for like ten minutes! It was ridiculous. At one point the homeless dude stopped and looked at them and did the Road Runner-"Meep Meep!" My boy and I were dying! We gave the guy some money for cracking that d.i.c.khead in the face for us. Good times, I tell you.

You can probably see why all my friends, my girlfriends, and my wife hated me when I was Chico Divine. And you can probably guess that Chico didn't give a s.h.i.t and came around anyway. Chico was like a cousin who knows you have money and only shows up around the holidays. If I was hot anywhere during those years, you could be sure Chico would show his face-and you never knew where he'd end up by dawn. He's seen the inside of a few sewers and the back rooms of many strip clubs-he's had all kinds of times. Chico led a life, people. He's done some crazy s.h.i.t. He did not give a f.u.c.k about anything, and that's why I had to put him in his place. I had to bury him. And he didn't die easy. For a while there, I had to fight hard to keep him in the ground.

All of that drinking and nonsense is in the past for me now, I'm happy to report. Now I get to see the whole day, from 9 A.M. to 10 P.M. Getting Chico under control didn't mean losing my edge, it just made me better at my job. Even at my worst, when that mic goes on, I go to work. I forget everything except what I'm doing in that moment. That is the real rush-performance-not drinking or drugs. Richard Pryor taught me that. In his autobiography, written not too long before he died, he said he realized that none of the drugs were worth it, that he didn't have to do any of it to be funny. He finally realized, much too late, that he was naturally funny. Once you depend on a substance to make your funny, that's when you're really dead.

Doing stand-up for those years before 30 Rock ruined my home life, but it also did something important for me. It brought me back to my roots. At SNL I had access to the mainstream, so I tried to market myself to everyone. I had the chance to expand my audience beyond black or white-I had the chance to reach everyone in America at once. That had never been an option for me before. By year seven, I had developed a cast of characters to play that got all kinds of people laughing.

But I'd lost sight of my roots. When I hit the road after my sitcom fell apart, I got back in touch with black stand-up. It was like coming home-I'd missed my people. Getting back on that circuit kept my spirits high and allowed me to develop into the comic I am today. I brought that universal appeal I'd developed at SNL back to the black comedy tradition that is at the heart of what I do. Bringing those two sides of myself together made me funnier than ever; it gave me the flavor that most of you reading this know me for.

I was also pushing my acting career whenever I could, and once I started to feel that change in my stand-up and in myself, I started to get called back for auditions. I appeared in The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, playing a prison cross-dresser and cheerleader, and I played Damon Wayans's sidekick, Percy, in Little Man. I did some voice work In Are We There Yet? and a few smaller roles here and there. But even if I had nothing but a few minutes and a few lines in anything, my goal was always the same: Steal the f.u.c.king scene. I didn't care who was in it with me, I was taking it home. It could have been all of my heroes, I still would have shot for the hoop without pa.s.sing the ball.

At every audition, no matter what it's for, I give 150 percent. I've seen people go into auditions worried about who else is there and how they did, and all the worrying kills them before they even read for the part. I always walked into auditions like the part was already mine. Now people pitch movies to me. I've got a stack of them sitting right here, and I'll tell you something-you should see what I'm doing next.

That show and that whole world were born out of Eddie's Delirious and Raw. Def Comedy Jam took young black comics from the New York scene and put them on TV and allowed to be who they were. Suddenly there was a whole new possibility in black comedy. Eddie started it, and then Def Comedy Jam made it an inst.i.tution. Comics wore what motherf.u.c.kers in hip-hop clubs were wearing. That show did for comedy what Run-DMC did for hip-hop: It allowed the whole world to hear the kinds of jokes we told-jokes about crackheads, jokes about weed, jokes about getting arrested by the cops. Word spread across the nation. Thanks to Def Comedy Jam, black comics no longer had to be generic.

There's one thing you've got to understand: I love Tina Fey so much, you people don't even know, man. I love her, I love her husband, Jeff, and I love their daughter, Alice. I love her like she is my own blood-no, I love her even more than that. She's my sister, Tina Fey. I'm convinced that we were brother and sister in a past life-I really feel that way-because Tina understands who I am as a person and what my strengths are as an actor and a comedian more than anyone I've ever met. I don't hide who I am, but at the same time, I'm not someone who explains myself-Tracy Morgan don't come with Cliffs Notes. Tina was a rare person in my life; she needed no explanation of who I was. She knew how to relate to me, and she got to know me on a personal level. She saw my untapped potential.

Tina and I had a connection from the first time we started talking about life and comedy, and it's done nothing but grow stronger all these years. Maybe it was because we were both underdogs at Sat.u.r.day Night Live. She was coming up through the ranks as a young female writer, and I was the only black guy in the cast. Because Tina really seemed to know who I was, she understood how I could really shine in scripted comedy.

I still can't believe that I'm the first person she called when she started casting 30 Rock. It's the truth: Tina called me before Alec Baldwin, before anyone. That means the world to me because at that time I had failed-my big network show got canceled without even getting through one season. It didn't matter to Tina. She handed me a second chance. It was like a dream come true when Tina called.

"I have a character for you, Tray," she said.

"You do?" I said. "What is it? Tell me."

"It's you. It's just you doing you."

As all of you who have read this far know by now, I've had a lot of people come along and help me in my career, and I'm thankful to them all and I'd never say anything to minimize what they did for me. But I have to give it up for Tina. She was the one who realized that you've got to let Tracy Morgan be f.u.c.king Tracy Morgan. That's because Tina knows who and what I am: I'm not evil, I'm not diabolical, I'm just a funny motherf.u.c.ker. So she created a character that gave that to the world, a character who says, "Here is Tracy Morgan's beauty."

Television shows don't happen overnight, and 30 Rock was no exception. Tina had the concept for the show two years before it became a reality, but the moment she pitched it to me, I was in. Then as things began to take shape I got even more excited. I ran into Alec Baldwin when he was hosting Sat.u.r.day Night Live around 2004, and he told me he was definitely going to do Tina's show.

The genius of 30 Rock is that from day one, Tina and the writers had every character clearly defined. From Jenna to Kenneth to Jack, every single character was fully 3-D and extremely well cast. From the moment I read that first script, I knew what Tracy Jordan was about: a famous black actor who endured some embarra.s.sment and public scandals and who fell from grace a little bit. Tracy Jordan just went a little crazy, that's all. At that point in time, in the real world, we'd seen Dave Chappelle go through some madness and Martin go through his thing. I'm really cool with those guys, and I'm especially tight with Martin. I didn't want to offend him, so I was concerned about some of the aspects of being Tracy Jordan. People thought of Martin right away when they saw the character and when the media started writing about the show. Sure, there are similarities, but Tracy Jordan is not based on Martin because Martin didn't corner the market on buggin' out. Still, I felt bad when the media started to make Martin comparisons, but Tina set me straight. She reminded me that Martin publicly made fun of himself about the trouble he'd gotten in, so I shouldn't feel like I was mocking him or airing his dirty laundry. If you all haven't seen it, you should go buy his stand-up DVD Runteldat-he makes more fun of all the stuff he did than anybody else ever could.

Tracy Jordan is based on everybody that ever wigged out, myself included. To tell you the truth, my inspiration for Tracy Jordan doesn't come from any of those guys or even my own personality. People close to me have struggled with all kinds of mental instability. All the paranoia and delusion and imagination that you see in Tracy Jordan is my interpretation of them. They acted crazier on a regular basis than Dave, Martin, and I put together.

I guess that people relate to my character because the s.h.i.t he's going through is the same s.h.i.t they read about from my life in the headlines. Also, Tracy Jordan is more familiar to people than some of the other characters on the show. Look at it this way: How many people who watch 30 Rock are friends with top network executives? Not many. How many are friends with female head writers of comedy shows? Not many. How many people know crazy black motherf.u.c.kers? A lot! I added multiple examples of bad behavior to Tracy Jordan's repertoire during Season 1 because at that point I was still partying like it was 1999. I was still ignoring my diabetes and hitting the clubs. Things were looking good professionally: I was on a show with an amazing cast and great writers, and it looked like we had a hit on our hands. That was enough for me to ignore my personal issues. I was so energized by the show that it carried me through. I was caught up in my madness at that point, still living out loud, drinking and putting on a Tracy Morgan show whenever I went out in public. Once the show started airing, once it was critically acclaimed, I rode an even greater high, which to me meant I had no reason to stop doing what I was doing.

My life on and off the camera became strangely similar there for a while. I was going out and partying all night, being crazy, and then showing up the next morning at Silvercup Studios in Queens to shoot 30 Rock and portray a guy who acted crazy all the time. I was usually hungover but capable enough that it didn't affect my work.

Don't think for a minute that I was method acting, though. I didn't become Tracy Jordan, and Tracy Jordan isn't just Tracy Morgan with a different name. If you have any doubt about that, consider this: Our last, most successful season of the show, Season 3, I did entirely sober. I worked out as much as I could during that season, and I ate right for the first time in my life. To me, that was Tracy Jordan's best season; it was the one where he acted crazier than ever and I think my performances were the best I've ever done. And so does the Academy, people. I've just been nominated for an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy!

I don't have to be drinking and partying to play someone like that-it's called acting. And now that I've got myself together, I can really point at the divide between what I do and who I am. Put it this way: Superman can't walk around all f.u.c.king day with his cape and suit on. He's got to go back to being Clark Kent, a mild-mannered motherf.u.c.ker, sometimes. If he spent the day in his cape and tights around the Daily Planet, he'd get paper clips thrown at the back of his head. All of his co-workers would talk about him around the water cooler. Superman needed two ident.i.ties, and so do I-my personal life and my professional life.

I kept up that confusing charade pretty well during the first season, but by the time we got around to the second season, it was a whole different ball game. I really hit the wall and got very, very sick with complications of my diabetes. It all came on the tail end of my troubles with the law and the crumbling of my marriage. By the end of our shooting schedule in spring 2007 I was in such bad health that I would shoot at the studio all day and spend the night in the hospital. I wasn't going to miss a day of work-and I didn't-but my condition had gotten so out of control that after a long day of shooting I needed comprehensive medical attention. I would go straight from the set to a room in the hospital where I'd be put on an IV to regulate my blood sugar. That's where I'd spend the night, and the next day I'd go back and shoot my scenes. It was the only way I could get through those last few weeks. My condition was so bad that the doctors thought they'd have to amputate my foot because of the infection from my court-ordered ankle bracelet. My A1C level was 18 percent and had been for some time. My doctors told me over and over again that they had no idea how I was still living with a count like that. I had let a diet full of starch and liquor alter my blood chemistry for years, and as I said, I think the only reason I'm alive is that the adrenaline boost I get from entertaining saw me through.

One thing was for sure: I wasn't going to let my bad decisions ruin everything good that was going for me. I'd come too far to f.u.c.k up on 30 Rock, even if it meant sleeping in a hospital bed with needles in my arms every night for three weeks. I wasn't going to let Tina down, I wasn't going to let the cast and crew down, and I wasn't going to let myself down either. So I did what I had to do.

One night when I was in that hospital room all alone, I resolved to change. I couldn't allow this wake-up call to get by me, and I couldn't just rely on modern medicine to be my Band-Aid once again. For over ten years I'd looked at my health as just another hurdle that I needed to jump over when I came to a crisis, and I never looked back. I couldn't keep living like that. I wouldn't keep living like that. I finally realized that when it came to my health, I was still in ghetto survival mode: I took care of things only when I had to, and I never thought of the future because I didn't expect to have one. That night, it all became clear to me: I should have been dead already. It was 3 A.M. and I was all alone in a dark room. I had a view from the window that looked out over the FDR Drive. I could almost see the Silvercup sign where we shoot the show. And I felt like I'd been hit by a truck-my body was sore, swollen, and retaining water where it shouldn't have been. My mind was spinning. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't quiet my head. I thought back on all I'd done in my life-the good, the bad, and everything that was going on in the now. I'd taken care of my wife and my children the best I could, and I was finally truly proud of what I was doing. And that's when I started to cry because I was afraid-afraid of losing my foot, afraid of losing my life, afraid I might not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of my labors. The tears started rolling down my cheeks and wouldn't stop. I just lay there, alone, being more honest with myself than I'd ever been. I stared out the window with the scenes of my life playing before my eyes.

My tears kept coming, but I felt them clearing my vision. I finally began to see things as they were and knew that I had to change right away, no excuses. There was only one way to enjoy everything I'd struggled so hard to have-and that was to live a happy and healthy life. Not to limp through life the way I'd been doing for years, but to do whatever it took to walk tall, proud, and strong. If I lost my foot because of my own ignorance, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror. If I lived less than the best life I could live, I would be a failure. If I died before my time and let my kids grow up without a father, I would be a failure. I would leave them no better off than I'd been, and to my mind every generation is supposed to do better. I could not get that simple idea out of my head-I had to do better. I tried not to worry too much about how and why I'd gotten lost; through my tears I told myself to concentrate only on how quickly I was going to be found.

Thank G.o.d I had Taneisha in my life; she is my angel and my heart and my blessing from G.o.d. When she came into my world, all the drinking and the bad eating stopped and all the working out and being healthy began. She was my inspiration because she leads by example. I had resisted here and there because I don't like being told what to do any more than the next man, but that night in the hospital I decided to put my health in her hands and embrace that change with everything I had. That night I thought about all the beautiful things I had lost and all that I had neglected because I got caught up being this Tracy Morgan motherf.u.c.ker. I didn't even know who that guy was anymore-I just knew who he wasn't.

That night I realized something else: I couldn't blame Sabina for leaving me. She got tired of the roller-coaster, and I don't blame her. I was in the newspaper for embarra.s.sing s.h.i.t all the time-it was years of that-until she finally said, "I've got to move on, I've got to go. You're not growing up." There was no other road for me, though, because after my father died I was given no guidance. I had no one to turn to and very few people aside from friends like Martin to talk to about the kinds of pressure I was going through. I was too proud anyway, and I didn't like to rely on anybody. There was only one way for Tracy Morgan to learn his lessons, and that was the hard way. I had to earn my maturity the same way I had to earn my success. It didn't happen soon enough, but thank G.o.d I saw the writing on the wall in time. I could have lost it all, but I turned it around and grew up. I feel like I've just come into my manhood in the past three or four years. That dark night in the hospital was like making that last turn on the track before the home stretch in a race: It took me where I needed to be.

What I was doing in my personal life was also burning me in my professional life because I hadn't learned to take that f.u.c.king Superman suit off. I wore that s.h.i.t to bed, I wore it to work, and I never sent it to the cleaners. That was all fine and good when I was out there doing my own thing, but when I got into legal trouble during the first and second seasons of 30 Rock, I felt terrible because on top of it all, I was letting Tina Fey down. Who was to blame? No one but me, myself, and I. Let's face it, there are a lot of funny black comics out there; Tina could have gotten anybody to play Tracy Jordan. But she put her faith in me and relied on me to make that character what he is. The last thing I wanted to do was repay her by bringing negative publicity to the show or jeopardize the shooting schedule in any way.

That is why I never had a problem with the writers taking anything from my personal life and using it for plotlines. I don't live with regret-I use my mistakes every way I can. We call that "having your dues up." It was something we did at SNL. You expose your flaws so the writers have something to inspire them and you have material you can really identify with. When I was in the headlines and wearing ankle bracelets, Tina never had to ask me if it was okay to use all that for the show. She already knew it was okay-I gave all of that to them because it was common knowledge. It's different for me than for some of the other members of the cast. I'm a comedian-everything in my life is material. I turn tragedy into funny for a living, and our writers know that. Think of Alec Baldwin's situation with his daughter, for example. They could have made fun of that, but I'm not so sure Alec would have gone for it. He might be the lead actor in a TV sitcom, but Alec Baldwin is one of the greatest dramatic actors of our time. He's definitely not a comedian. His personal life is not the source material he turns to for laughs; it belongs to him and exists outside of his career.

Me, I'm another story. The writers couldn't write a Tracy Morgan character on their own because the s.h.i.t in my life is so twisted it has to be real. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that most of the s.h.i.t on the show came from my f.u.c.king headlines. Tina knows Sabina; she knows my kids. My kids were raised around Sat.u.r.day Night Live, and Sabina was around the studio all the years I was there. Tina knew all of the drama we went through in our relationship. s.h.i.t, she even knew that I keep exotic pets like piranhas, snakes, and lizards. It made sense to use all of that as material to create Tracy Jordan. Why waste it? I wouldn't have it any other way. Listen, my idol is Richard Pryor, and if there's one thing I learned from him, it's that your entire life should be up for grabs. Anything you do or live through should be fodder for your comedy. He doc.u.mented everything in his life through his characters and his stand-up. He had no shame and no pride about it-even when he lit himself on fire trying to freebase cocaine and nearly died, he made a hilarious routine out of it. Because that is what true comics do.

Of all of the episodes that came from my personal life, one of the funniest ones for me is the one in which Tracy Jordan is convinced that his sons want to kill him. I think all children of celebrities, or even kids whose parents have very demanding jobs, feel neglected at times and want to get at their parents for that. If you're a parent who is away from home a lot, there will come a point when your kids will be angry at you for it, and in some way they're going to let you know. The way it played out on the show was entirely the product of the writers' imaginations because my kids never wanted to kill me. My kids love me. But in that episode Tracy is convinced that his boys are going to "Menendez" him, when all they're trying to do is get his attention and spend some time with him. I can relate to that because my kids are teenagers now and they're definitely at that point where they're acting up. They're getting attention from girls at school, they're playing football, and they think they can take the old man. I went through it, we all go through it. Just like Will Smith once rapped, "Parents just don't understand." The Tracy Jordan version of that, of course, is that they're going to kill him.

Thanks to my work on 30 Rock, I've learned about timing, I've learned about chemistry, and I've learned how to play off of my cast mates more than I have on any other project I've ever done. The funny is my gift-that just don't get better-but through doing table reads and running lines as much as we do on the show, I've polished my abilities, and I think it shows.

The schedule on the show would make a professional out of anyone because it is very rigorous. Sat.u.r.day Night Live was one thing-it was tiring and there was always the uncertainty of whether or not your skits were going to see airtime. But there was a rhythm to it that you got used to after a while. 30 Rock is completely different. If SNL is like running a one-hundred-yard dash, 30 Rock is more like cross-country-it's a longer and more irregular course. It's up to you to pace yourself and find the inner reserves to carry you through.

Usually we shoot two episodes a week. We work at Silvercup Studios, which has several soundstages, so we'll have two sets going at once on two adjoining stages, with two completely different camera crews, usually shooting two entirely different shows. And at some point during that week-we never know exactly when-we'll have a table read for the next episode. There's no live taping and no studio audience to perform for, so we keep our own schedule. And the following week we do two more episodes. That's how it goes, five days a week, fifteen to eighteen hours a day, for about six months of the year. It's not for the faint of heart. And with the caliber of talent we have, every actor-no matter if you're a regular or you just have a cameo-has to bring her A game.

Our cast is great and we have a lot of fun, but we all have our own s.p.a.ce and do our own thing. I don't hang out in Tina Fey's dressing room, and she doesn't hang out in mine. We're all professionals and adults. People think that we hang out all day long just being funny, like we're in college. I'm sorry to burst that bubble. We spend most of our waking hours on the set five days a week. No matter how much you like someone you work with, after working those kinds of hours, you've seen enough of them. I don't bother Alec between scenes-the man doesn't want me in his dressing room making jokes all day long. TV is hard f.u.c.king work! It's long hours and many days away from your family. So we love each other and we do enjoy what we do, but when we're working, we're working. You don't get to the top by bulls.h.i.tting around.

Obviously we're not bulls.h.i.tting at all, because you don't sweep the prime-time Emmys like we did in 2008 without trying. At this point I can't even count how many nominations we've gotten since our first season. And this year, 2009, we've just racked up another twenty-two! The best thing about all of these awards we've won isn't the bragging rights, it's that every time we win something else, the network puts a bigger TV in my dressing room. I've now got a sixty-four-inch LCD in there, which means that Mitsubishi had better invent something new because we don't plan on losing awards anytime soon. The TV is nice, but what I really want is another zero at the end of my check. My producers know that because I remind them all the time.

I think they're going to have to honor that request after that speech I made on behalf of the show at the Golden Globe Awards in January 2009. Tina and I put that speech together, and I'd say it came off pretty well, wouldn't you? That is where the t.i.tle of this book came from, because I laid it out. I said that we had a black president and that I was the voice of postracial America-which I am! That was the room to be in that night: Ron Howard was there clapping and laughing. I saw Clint Eastwood off to the side smiling like Dirty Harry just before he shoots another punk. That room was full of powerful people who probably didn't even know I existed until 30 Rock won the award and I got up there. The moon and the stars had really lined up-Obama won, we won, it was perfect. There was just no way I couldn't mention Obama. No one had mentioned him in their speeches all night long-I couldn't believe that! I guess it took a young black motherf.u.c.ker from the Bronx and Brooklyn to come out and say some fly s.h.i.t like that to make everybody take notice. For a minute I wondered if it was the right thing to do. Must have been, because f.u.c.k it, now I'm making movies.

In the first three seasons of 30 Rock I had some great times amidst some hard times. I have memories I'll never forget and scars that have healed but won't go away. One of the best times took place in 2007, on my birthday. We were shooting an episode in which Gladys Knight had a cameo. During one of the breaks I was called out of my dressing room, and there was the cast and crew, and there was Gladys Knight singing me "Happy Birthday." That was Gladys Knight, dude! Singing to me, a kid from the ghetto. I'll never forget that. I'll also never forget having Salma Hayek on set last season. That was incredible and almost distracting. If I had to choose one, I'd say she is my favorite guest star ever. I asked Tina if we could have a subplot where Salma has a very explicit p.o.r.nographic affair with Tracy Jordan. She didn't go for it, but I'm hoping we can revisit that idea in the future. I'm telling you, whenever Salma came around, it was just me and her. She is my baby. If she gave me just a little time, I would make her the Octomom.

The last thing I want to say is that there's one simple reason why 30 Rock is so important to me. It's because we're number one and I've never been number one at anything. When I was born, I was number two. When I met my wife, she already had two kids, so I could never be number one in her life. During Season 3 of the show, my relationship with Taneisha became deeper and that's when I became number one to her. She makes me feel like that every day. She tells me all the time, "I've got brothers that I love, I've got nephews that I love, but you're number one to me." Well, actually, to Taneisha, G.o.d is number one, but behind Him I'm second to none.

As far as my professional life goes, 30 Rock is number one to me. I've never had a number one movie at the box office, but being on the top show of 2008 and 2009, that's everything to me. Anyone who wants the belt has got to come get it from us. It's everything I've worked so hard for in this business. And now I'm enjoying it with a clear head. All in the Family, Seinfeld, Good Times, Martin, The Cosby Show-they were all number one. And now it's our turn.

When hip-hop and comedy met on shows like Def Comedy Jam, Uptown Comedy Club, and more, a whole lot of talent emerged: Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence, Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, and me, Tracy Morgan. Bernie Mac worked as a comic for years, waiting for this moment to happen. And once it did, all of us got on. This movement was born in the nineties and made stars out of us. Pat yourselves on the back, motherf.u.c.kers, because we made it happen.

There's one thing people have to understand: Comics are not happy clowns. They are dark people, all of them, no matter how they grew up or what color they are. Anyone who has devoted his life to comedy and making people laugh wants to see that joy reflected back at him by rooms full of people because he's never seen that kind of happiness anywhere else. Comedians are comedians because they need that laughter and joy; it fills a hole in them. Some of them will never get that hole filled either. For some comics, no amount of success and no amount of laughter is enough-that pain can never be relieved, that emptiness can never be satisfied.