I'm Not Dead... Yet! (37 page)

Then he looked up at me and in the most adorable way said, “Now it’s your turn, Daddy!”

“Um… my turn? Well, I didn’t…”

“Don’t you want to look like Michael Jordan, too?”

“Well, seriously, I think I might look more like a white supremacist.”

“What’s that?”

“Well…”

“Please, Daddy.”

Wow, it’s hard to resist a pure young mind that hasn’t been polluted with hate… yet.

“Let’s do it!” And we did.

Even though Zephyr thought we looked like Michael Jordan, in real life, I looked like someone who would want to
harm
Michael Jordan; we looked like extras in
American History X.

It didn’t go over well on all the TV shows I was directing at the time, either. But it worked wonders on the L.A. freeways. Every time someone cut me off or was about to give me the finger, one look at my skinhead and they’d slink away.

Each and every television episode
brought a great deal of excessive stress; it came from the writer/producers, the network and studio executives—and sometimes the actors. I had a guest star tell me she didn’t want to be shot on the left side of her face—“Only shoot my right side.” Even after I explained the mathematics of shooting simultaneously with four cameras, that it was physically impossible, she didn’t waver—“Only shoot my good side!” The stress had a profound affect upon my heart. I felt like someone had my heart in their hand and was just squeezing it like Play-Doh.

In 1997 I was working with Tea Leoni, a tremendous talent, on
The Naked Truth
. I was also lucky enough to work with a comic genius
who did a guest spot on the show
:
Jon Lovitz. No matter what the problem, we couldn’t stop making up bits and laughing until we cried.

Tea Leoni can do drama and comedy. I believe that as good as she is, she still hasn’t even come close to her potential as an actor. But on
The Naked Truth,
it didn’t feel like anyone was writing to her strengths—and she was highly aware of this (she is scary smart.
Mensa
smart). As director,
I knew I was doing the right thing, fighting
for
everyone
on
every
show who needed defending, but it was just too much. I would come home dragging, with no energy to eat, let alone talk about the day and be a good husband and father. All I could do was collapse in a chair and fall asleep.

There was a new breed in Hollywood and they were ruining… err, running the show. It was impossible to get through a day without dealing with absurdities and wild power trips: “I think the marshmallow is too small for the joke to work.”

“The marshmallow joke was cut from the script on Tuesday. By
you
.”

“Really? Oh. Let’s put it back.”

“We’re in front of a live audience and it hasn’t been rehearsed.”

“Maybe the actor will screw up and
that
will be funny.”

It wasn’t so funny anymore. Anxiety, pain, heartache
, fears
—all of these can actually be harnessed and put to good use
—but now it was killing me. Suddenly stress didn’t seem like pop culture bullshit. It felt like my heart was going to explode inside my rib cage.
It was so very important to me to take care of my cast and crew. But I took on responsibility the way a glutton would take on a feast. I guess I was a fool, but I wouldn’t do it differently today. I only know how to do the best job I can possibly do—and if others aren’t ‘on-board’ it’s my job to
get
them on-board.

‘Man is stupid
’—okay, let me
personalize
this so I don’t offend a lot of smart
men—
I am stupid
because this next, moronic story places me on the all-time list of:
The Stupidest Things A Man Can Do, Knowingly.
I cannot blame anyone else. This one falls flat on me.

It had been 13 years since my bovine valve was put into my chest, sewn onto my heart in the aortic position.
Since that time, I had been containing a lot of powerful emotions while working non-stop with practically no sleep (I would dream of better edits, better blocking, better performances, better camera positions… everything—as long as it made a show
funnier
) on shows that are supposed to make people laugh.

One day we were skiing in Park City, Utah. It was during spring break. Little Zephyr, our amazing son, was learning how to ski. I told him—I promised him—“After your lesson I will take you up on the bunny hill.”

While he was
learning, I was skiing my favorite Black Diamond. As I skied, I felt something…
something odd in my chest
… it felt like… maybe my valve…
rip
ped
.

I blacked out.

When I came to, I was still skiing—halfway down the treacherous Black Diamond hill. (And I was skiing better than I had ever skied before—because I was completely relaxed, ‘out on my feet.’) By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, I couldn’t breathe. At all.

I recognized the feeling immediately. I knew: something was terribly wrong. But I had promised my son I would take him up to the bunny hill and ski with him. Is this being a good dad, or a really bad, stupid dad? Or, let me put it in more honest terms: Is this insane? Yes. Is it reasonable for someone who directs for a living? Here is the rub: a director is nothing more than a creative control freak. (Everything that happens in my world, happens in an aspect ratio. For my entire life—since I can remember—I would close my one eye and I’d see the world in my own aspect ratio, and that is my reality.) I control that reality.

A bit twisted, but as a director, things happen when you say they will happen.
And your word should stand for something. I
said
I would take my son to the bunny hill and then ski down with him. Even if I was putting my life at risk (because to others, that is exactly what I was doing) I still had to accomplish what I
said
I was going to do. I could still control that promise. Here was my ‘aspect ratio’: Who could say ‘No’ to him? (He’s an amazing young man.)

So, as I skied with my son down the bunny hill, I found myself internally scheduling my operation and recovery time in my head.