Dying is easy, comedy is hard. (Or, to paraphrase Chris Rock, life is long, not short, if you make the wrong decisions.)

Post-#MeToo, I bet Woody Allen really does regret not being someone else.

And even though Louis CK's FX series, Louie, aired its most recent episode in 2015, it ultimately wasn't up to him whether he kept doing the show or not.

a comedy sketch I wrote for a Second City writing class in 2004 about the Chicago Cubs and failure

For once—and only once—I'm happy to be proven wrong. Congratulations, Cubs.

"FAILURE" by Robert Cass

3/14/04 (version #2)

CAST

Peter Hillman - white, 36

Alex Hillman - Hispanic, 12

(The Hillmans' backyard on an afternoon in April.)

(Peter and Alex are playing catch.)

PETER

You're going to have the best time tomorrow, son.

ALEX

I guess.

PETER

Your first Cubs game. Your first chance to see the legacy up close.

ALEX

I've already been to a Cubs game.

(Alex drops the ball.)

PETER

What?

(Alex picks up the ball and throws it back to Peter.)

ALEX

When I was six. It was Orphan Night at Wrigley Field, so the orphanage took us.

PETER

                     (disappointed)

I didn't realize.

                     (loudly)

Grounder!

(Peter throws a grounder to Alex, who bobbles it.)

ALEX

All of us got our picture taken with Sammy Sosa and the Dominican flag. Nobody seemed to care that we were Puerto Rican, but it was still fun.

                     (pause)

I still want to go tomorrow.

PETER

Okay. Good. Because becoming a Cubs fan isn't just about baseball.  It's about learning how to live with failure.

ALEX

What do you mean?

PETER

The Cubs haven't won the World Series since 1908. They haven't even been in the World Series since 1945, which was almost a century ago.

ALEX

Well, actually, it's 1908 that was almost a century--

PETER

                     (continuing to talk)

Some people would say the Cubs aren't worth the hair that's about to start growing all over your young body, Alex, but those people know nothing about hope. They think it's easy to create a winning team out of thin air, but it's just like bringing a child into this world. It takes perseverance. And lots of money. And maybe even a scientific breakthrough of some sort.

ALEX

The Cubs never give up, huh?

PETER

No, they give up every season sooner or later. But the fans never give up, no matter how many times they're let down. And tomorrow you'll begin to understand what hope really is. Tomorrow you'll begin to see what failure is all about.

ALEX

What if the Cubs win?

PETER

(laughs)

That's my boy!

                     (loudly)

Pop fly!

(Peter throws the ball high up into the air. Alex catches it a few seconds later, then speaks.)

ALEX

Dad?

PETER

Yes?

ALEX

I don't want to play Little League this summer.

PETER

What are you talking about?

ALEX

There's a summer math program at MIT that my teacher told me about. It sounded like fun, so I applied for it.

                          PETER

Well, don't be disappointed if you don't get in, okay? Think of it as a learning experience so you can brace yourself for future disappointments.

                          ALEX

But I got in. The letter came yesterday.

                          (Peter doesn't say anything.)

ALEX (cont'd)

So is it okay with you if I go? Mom said I could.

PETER

Alex, you signed up for Little League last month. You have to honor your contract, just like the Cubs do.

                     (loudly)

Hard grounder!

(Peter throws the ball at Alex's chest.  Alex catches it, then drops it, then picks it up and throws it back.)

ALEX

That wasn't a grounder.

                          PETER

I changed my mind. You've got to stay focused.

ALEX

Okay, but ... see, MIT's practically paying me to go there for the summer. The Stanley's Wash-and-Shine Rangers aren't paying me anything.

PETER

That's not how Mr. Stanley operates.

ALEX

But I don't like playing baseball. I'm not a good athlete.

                     (slight pause; proudly)

I'm a mathlete.

PETER

Alex, remember what we said about not using made-up words in the house? That applies to the backyard too.

ALEX

Sorry. But it's true. I'm never going to be any good at baseball.

PETER

(long sigh)

You're right. You're absolutely right. You're not that valuable to the team.

ALEX

                     (surprised by Peter's honesty)

Well ... yeah, I guess.

PETER

So you admit you're a failure at baseball! See, Alex, you're no better than the Cubs or me!

(Alex holds the ball in his throwing hand and doesn't toss it back to Peter. There's a long pause.)

ALEX

I don't think you're a failure. And I'm not a failure, either. I just know what my strengths and weaknesses are, and I try to concentrate on the strengths the best I can.

PETER

(at the borderline of a breakdown)

Oh, so if I was able to conceive children with your mom, that would be one of my strengths, but since I can only shoot blanks, that's my weakness? Well, I can't control that, my darling little boy! And you can't let the things you can't control control you!

                          (There's another long pause.)

ALEX

I'll just be gone for eight weeks.

PETER

(composes himself)

Sounds good.

                     (pause)

And I'm sorry for that little outburst. I just ... it's just that I sometimes forget you already had a father before I came along.

                          ALEX

But I never even knew him.

                          PETER

I know. But you're his flesh and blood, not mine. You'll never be like me. And I can't change that.

                          ALEX

But you're my dad. I don't have your eyes, or your smile, or your short temper, but I do have everything you've taught me.

(Alex throws the ball back to Peter. They resume playing catch.)

                          PETER

Alex, there's nothing I can teach you that you don't already know. You're a kajillion times smarter than I'll ever be.

                          ALEX

                     (slight pause while he thinks)

But I wouldn't be this good at math if you hadn't asked me to calculate the stats from all those scouting reports during the off-season. 

                          PETER

I won a lot of bets in spring training because of those stats.

                          ALEX

You sure did.

(Peter walks over to Alex and puts his hand on the back of Alex’s head.)

                          PETER

Hey, here's a math problem for you, buddy -- if you add a little brother or sister to our family, how many family members will there be?

ALEX

                     (excitedly)

You're serious?

PETER

I've got to have somebody to take to Cubs games while you're gone. I can't just lay in bed with your mom for eight weeks!

(Blackout.)

"Ambush Bug" was a gateway drug.

Nearly a decade before Deadpool appeared for the first time in a Marvel comic book, DC introduced the similarly self-aware Ambush Bug in the December 1982 issue of DC Comics Presents. Two and a half years later he was given his own "mini-series" of four issues, the last of which I've had in a shoebox for decades now.

ABC's Moonlighting debuted a couple months before the first issue of Ambush Bug was published, but, as far as I can remember, its main characters, Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) and David Addison (Bruce Willis), didn't break the fourth wall or comment on the fact that they were characters on a TV show until the second season, starting in the fall of '85. It was during that second season that I saw reruns of The Monkees, on MTV, for the first time, another series with plenty of "meta" moments.

My ten-year-old self couldn't get enough of that style of humor. Looking back, Ambush Bug may have been the entry point. (I'd watched Looney Tunes characters break the fourth wall years earlier in those cartoons, but I can't say with any certainty that I got the joke.)

As Ambush Bug prepares to face off against the villain Scabbard, a note appears in an otherwise empty panel on the page: it's from Ambush Bug creator Keith Giffen's wife, Ana, informing the comic book's editor, Julius Schwartz, that Keith has a 24-hour virus; their son Kyle drew the following page in order not to miss DC's deadline. (She adds, "P.S. Kyle would like his original page back as soon as possible, so he can sell it at the NY con.")

One page later Scabbard realizes he's in the wrong comic book—he's supposed to be wreaking havoc in Thriller (although, according to Wikipedia, that comic book's run ended in November of '84 after 12 issues)—so he exits, leaving Ambush Bug with dead air to fill.

Unlike Deadpool, Ambush Bug will probably never headline a movie of his own, but his influence on comic-book comedy, not to mention my own appreciation for the silly, the stupid, and the sublime, is worth noting.

an Italian Stallion fairy tale

Once upon a time, Sylvester Stallone made a lot of money for Hollywood by pretending to punch and shoot people, so one day he said to Hollywood, "Yo, I'm funny! How come you don't put me in any comedies?"

Hollywood shuffled its feet and avoided eye contact as much as possible, hoping he'd eventually go away, but of course it couldn't help thinking, "Does this guy not remember Rhinestone? I know I'm supposed to have a short memory, but it's not that short, for Christ's sake."

But Stallone wouldn't take no for an answer, so Hollywood cast him in Oscar, directed by John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Coming to America), in 1991. It bombed, and Hollywood thought that would be the end of it, but Stallone, just like his most famous character, refused to stay down and accept his diagnosis of minor brain damage.

That's when Hollywood came up with a bulletproof idea: "Let's put Stallone in a comedy with one of The Golden Girls and call it Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. There's no way he'll want to do any more comedies after that!" Hollywood's sarcastic nephew had the nerve to say, "If you put Stallone in a movie with Bea Arthur, the audience might mistake him for the female love interest," but after Hollywood slipped him the number to Julia Roberts's car phone, he wasn't a problem anymore.

Luckily for Hollywood, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot was an even bigger bomb than Oscar, so Stallone went back to pretending to punch and shoot people, and all was well — until 2013, that is, when Stallone was invited to lunch by Robert De Niro, who told him, "I just got finished making a movie called Last Vegas that contains lots of jokes about men in their sixties taking Viagra, and since I stopped worrying about 'artistic standards' a long time ago, what do you think about costarring with me in a movie I call 'Rocky Vs. Raging Bull Vs. Even More Viagra Jokes'?"

Stallone said yes, Grudge Match was greenlit, and Hollywood was promptly fired by its nephew, who in 2005 legally changed his name to YouTube.

The end.

I get sick of it too, Larry the Cable Guy.

"I get sick and tired of the Bill Hicks thing. You always see people talking about, 'Well, if Bill Hicks was alive ...' When we first started doing the Blue Collar [Comedy Tour], people would always say, 'Oh, this is so hackneyed! Whatever happened to people like Bill Hicks? If Bill Hicks was alive today ...' Or, 'Bill Hicks must be rolling in his grave ...' You know, I was there the day that Bill Hicks told Jeff Foxworthy he had cancer, in West Palm Beach, in the Comedy Corner. They both hugged each other and cried in each other's arms. Bill Hicks was a fan of Jeff Foxworthy and a friend of Jeff Foxworthy's. Bill Hicks thought Jeff Foxworthy was hilarious. I was there at the Comedy Corner when Bill Hicks went up to Carrot Top and said, 'Look, I don't know how you do these things, I can't do that kind of humor, but some of those things you create are genius. I wish that that's the kind of comedy that I could think of. But I've gone to this ... my comedy's more of a dark type.' [Laughs.] I heard the whole conversation. And not just me. There were other comedians listening, because we all liked Bill Hicks. So people who run their mouth off about people they've never even met, saying, 'This is what he would think,' are way off base. To people like me and Jeff and Bill [Engvall] and Ron [White], we know those things. When they say things about what Bill Hicks would like or wouldn't like, we already know. Because we were there when all those things happened. And it just gets frustrating, but you can't really do anything about it. That's why I don't even bother with it anymore. You've got a life to lead."

—Larry the Cable Guy, in a 2011 interview with Will Harris

If Bill Hicks were alive today, he'd probably have been appearing in mediocre comedy films for the past decade or so, he'd have hosted a mediocre talk show for Comedy Central or another cable network, he'd have been making guest appearances on mediocre sitcoms, and, God forbid, he might've even done some sort of minor endorsement for a mediocre product, thereby taking his own name off "the artistic roll call." (And I say this as someone who owns all of Hicks's stand-up comedy albums.)

To paraphrase Larry the Cable Guy in the aforementioned interview, Hicks would've had to make a living, much like how David Cross, who isn't a fan of Larry the Cable Guy, cashes checks from his supporting role in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies. If interviewed by a proud comedy nerd and reminded of his once rebellious stance and negative attitude toward TV, Hicks would, I hope, be honest and say, "I was an angry young man then, and now I'm an angry middle-aged man who eventually decided he didn't want to play to drunks every night at the Comedy Pouch for the rest of his life." He may have even called up his old hero and mentor, Jay Leno, and said, "Sorry about that Tonight Show bit back in '92. That was a little harsh."

Death helped Hicks become popular in a way he might never have been had he lived. (I also believe John Lennon would've produced a lot of drippy songs about Sean's teenage years and albums like "Rock 'n' Roll, Vol. 7" had he lived.) Whenever I wonder how Andy Kaufman's career would have proceeded if, like Hicks, he hadn't died of cancer in his 30s, I think about Chris Elliott's hit-and-miss resumé after Get a Life ended in 1992. Would Bill Hicks have ended up hosting Fear Factor instead of Hicks acolyte Joe Rogan? You never know.