Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#21- My Dad

• David Walton • Season 1 • Episode 21

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David mines his relationship with his dad for material. He also shares a few tips from Gary Gulman's 366 Comedy Tips. 

https://www.vulture.com/article/gary-gulman-comedy-tips.html

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Speaker 1:

Hey, welcome to Starting Stand-Up. My name is David Walton and I'm so happy you're here. This podcast, if you've just stumbled on it, is an audio chronicle of my quest to learn and master from scratch the most terrifying, exciting art form on earth stand-up comedy. I've been doing it for a little bit, some months now, and it's going slowly. But we're making progress and in this episode I try to make progress by milking my relationship with my father. So we're gonna dive into it and see what comedy can be gleaned from a man they call Golden Toe. Oh man, that's rubbish. That's rubbish, that's rubbish.

Speaker 1:

I'm reading gary goldman's 366 bits of wisdom, advice and encouragement. Gary goldman is a great stand-up guy who's been around and he did 366 of these tips and I've read them all. They're so overwhelming because you're kind of not doing a lot of them so they're having that backfire where I want to quit. I'm going to quit the whole thing. This is it. I'm quitting Bye. A couple ones that stand out. Tip number 102 from Gary Goldman it will take, between three parentheses, unlikely and 15 years likely, to feel like you know what you're doing. Write as if you only have six months. This one he stole from Bruce Springsteen. This is what Gary thinks it takes to improve steadily Believe that you are the baddest ass in town and that you suck. It keeps you honest. That's Bruce. Thank you, bruce. That resonates. Thank you, bruce. That resonates with me. Bruce Springsteen, thank you. And finally, a third tip. I'm not going to overwhelm you with tips there's 366 of them but this one also hit me. When I believe quote that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, then I'm at peace and I'm productive. Thinking about what, who or where I should be mostly brought anxiety, regret and despair. Take a deep breath and say I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. It's funny that I just read that where reading his 366 tips made me despair and gave me anxiety and regret that I hadn't applied all 366 simultaneously to everything I'd done. So yeah, this is it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that little taste of wisdom from the great Gary Goldman, if you have. If you don't know Gary Goldman, go Google him tonight when you're taking a dump and watch little Gary Goldman on the on the can.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about my dad, my dad, old Jay-Z Walton Golden Toe Walton, the old man feeling a lot of tenderness for my dad. He's in an old folks home. Now Every time I talk to him he's saying, david, I'm losing my mind and uh, he is. He's got uh dementia and he knows who he is and he knows stuff. But it's just this sort of big, powerful man who is, um, just slowly, you know, wasting away. He lies in bed all day. I try to tell him what to watch.

Speaker 1:

We had a funny. He loved love golf. We bonded over golf our whole life, um, and the other day I was like dad. We just hung for like 15 minutes on the phone watching, uh, the Genesis open which is at Torrey Pines. Usually he's in LA but because of the fires it was at Torrey Pines. They did a great but anyway, so we watch it. I get him watching it and the next day I'm like dad, there's, it's the back nine, it's a beautiful day you gotta watch. He's like I am watching it. I just watched Freddie Couples tee off and I was like, oh shit, he's watching like a taped senior open tournament on the golf channel when the Genesis Open was on NBC. So he'd been watching like some rerun of Senior Open or maybe it was live, but either way it was the wrong golf tournament and he was just mesmerized, but that made me laugh.

Speaker 1:

I don't know why. There's something about dementia that's just very funny. You know, it's dark, obviously, and sad and for those who've gone through it, but I think there's going to be a lot of uh, fun and beautiful ways to kind of, you know, process the passing of my father, um, the inevitable, uh, through comedy. And I'm obsessed, like I think I've been writing his eulogy in my head for like 10 years, even though he, you know, he's been healthy most of his life. Healthy is a very loose term and man enjoyed dessert. But you know, I don't know if anyone else has this, but there's just I'm constantly just thinking of how do I, how am I going to honor him? What would I say?

Speaker 1:

You know, a father son relationship is obviously so unique. Each and every one of you, I'm sure, has unique. Each and every one of you, I'm sure has it's. It's incredibly profound, even if somehow your relationship is stilted or on the surface, doesn't? You? Don't go very deep. I'm always trying to go deep with my dad and I sort of given up in the sense that he's capable of it, but I'm always looking for some like deep wisdom or philosophy that he's been living by and I'm not finding a ton.

Speaker 1:

Um, that's not to say that he wasn't a very, you know, complicated guy who uh, just sort of wore his, who wears his faults and temper and humanness on his sleeve, which I have a ton of respect for, especially in the sort of modern age where everyone's like pretending to be much more dealt with than they are. Um, and he just, he just was who he is and he didn't hide much, uh, from people and he was probably his own. He is his own harshest critic, which always breaks my heart because he was very hard on himself. And so there's this bit forming in my mind, um, because you know, I think for a lot of us, the voice in our head is actually the voice of our parents, you know. And so today I was doing a lot of exploration and writing about what is the, what is this voice in my head? That's hard on myself and and if you've listened, you know, let's say, me just ripping on myself after listening to a, a stand set. In many ways that voice is the energy of my dad and I'm sure his voice is the energy of his parents. It's sort of like the minute you start blaming your parent for your problem, you basically have to blame your entire lineage back to like a stoned ape. It's like no one's fault, right? So no one person's fault and it really isn't anybody's fault. So anyway, I've been exploring that.

Speaker 1:

I made a little list of facts. Val from the Comedy Cellar told me to just don't underestimate what the power of just facts and listing facts about yourself or about whatever topic you're going for and if the topic is my dad, and you'll bear with me, I'm going to just list you some facts about my dad. He grew up in New Jersey, born 1940. He's a real estate broker. His best friend stole his first wife, which, as a little kid you're like dad. Your best friend stole your first wife right, like with your friends, you like waddle into his room. You've told your five-year-old friend it's a horrifically heartbreaking fact, but it's just like I remember even my mom. My mom lost her first baby, you know, when it was three days old and it was. You know, she was like 23. And I remember, at six you're just completely oblivious to the tragedy. You're like like, yeah, my mom her first baby died and then she had, you know, like it's just little kids, it's very funny. But anyway, my dad, um, his speaking of his younger brother who I'm named after, died when my dad was 38. Uncle David, my namesake, was, I think, 31. He died of leg cancer.

Speaker 1:

My dad was ambitious. My grandfather was not so much, but my dad definitely wanted to be rich and was ready to make it happen what I found from my friends. He was very trusty. He was a gentleman businessman it was a different time but handshakes really did mean everything and he did things with honor and integrity. He was old school, kind of the complete opposite of Trump, um, and he loved golf but he sucked. He was never better than a 16 handicap.

Speaker 1:

Uh, he really liked to buy nice things, as he's pared down and were like auctioning off stuff. You know, you look around and he he it. It was like you know, you know you look around and he he it. It was like you know, it wasn't a sort of look at me, he just he just had an eye for nice things and wanted them and he wanted them enough and it's like that sort of male thing that seems to be almost going like. It seems like everyone's buying nice stuff now to like, like, just pose, and there was something very just, true and organic about the stuff he collected. There was dare I say it was soulful what he surrounded himself with, the objects that he surrounded himself with, including little figurines of naked women which are fun to find. I guess he really appreciated the female figure. He never wore jeans but he was a big bespoke suit from London kind of guy, from Henry Poole, loved vacation and his whole thing. He was voted in high school laziest and thinks he's the best looking, which I just found out. She killed me. He really thought.

Speaker 1:

I think he thinks the most important thing in life is to be a member of a good country club and that's hilarious. I think it would be like good club, good job, do a job where the top 10% of the people make a lot of money. So if you're good, you'll make a lot of money. And then third was marriage, in that order Um, he had a big shaking laugh. As I said, he doesn't like hugging. He doesn't like to say he loves you, never said. I've never heard him say I love you to another guy. We just started saying I just start dropping I love you, dad. Now, after calls and it's's. He said it once back, I think once, which was sweet, but he's a real sweetheart. He really is.

Speaker 1:

He's a caring guy, let's see, yeah, he was used to like you know, most of his faults or things you complain about is just that he had that like executive used to getting what you want. He had an old school secretary, joanne, who just did what he wanted. So he'd that like executive used to getting what you want. He had an old school secretary, joanne, who just did what he wanted. So he'd be like honey, clear out the house we're moving. And he'd like sell the house without talking to his wife, my mom, honey, I sold the house, let's move out. Like that kind of vibe. Um, there's funny things like he, you know, I think with six kids he wasn't getting a ton of action. So I remember he would kick me out of. There was one TV in the second floor growing up and all the kids would go and watch there and one time, you know he would. Sometimes we'd watch Ask Jeeves together, that great British.

Speaker 1:

He was a real Anglophile, loved British culture, but sometimes he liked French culture and what I mean is he would be like David, it's time for you to leave, and he would press play on this very European film with some. It was definitely an erotic, like art house erotic film. He was just feeling it and I'd be like eight. I'd be like, all right, dad, see you later. And then I'd be like, and clearly he just, you know, needed it. He knew what he needed. He was a vodka guy. He'd always have one vod after work and then go Jan plan, but I never seen him drunk. But yeah, he was a real self-loather, you know, like really hard on himself. All his friends would make fat jokes about him and he would just chuckle. He never seemed to get offended.

Speaker 1:

He was about 240, 250, 63, pretty much my whole life. I look at old pictures of him and yeah, it was like that time in the late seventies, early eighties, like no one was doing fitness videos. One time I held his feet for him to do sit-ups and I remember it very clearly, like why are you doing sit-ups? This isn't doing anything, dad. He was super impressed with college education credentials. You know he was a real, he was a real slut for like Ivy league credentials and uh, his kids have been working ironically all went to Ivy league schools but have been working, working hard for him to not just, uh, overvalue people's, you know resume type stuff, um, to see the human behind the credentials.

Speaker 1:

Um, what else? Yeah, he uh, uh, he really loves history. I mean, he's read so many history books but at the same time he was he's so pissed about his bad memory like this is before dementia, like he just always was really hard on himself that he didn't have a good memory. And if someone had a good memory he thought it was the most amazing thing. I remember we would go eat dinner it'd be like table for nine and the whole family would go to Charlie's at the Chester Hill mall in Boston and he would. There was this waiter there, we all remember it and she took the order the nine person order, without writing it down, and my dad was like good God, and he was like, let me tell you something that is. And he gave her his card. He was like come work for me. I thought that was kind of fun. Um, yeah, he paid for over a hundred years of private school education, so that's pretty impressive. Um, he kind of waddles when he walks.

Speaker 1:

There's some other stuff that's a little more personal, but that was kind of like the sort of the basic architecture of him. I, you know, it's I. I can list all those things and if you've never met him and you don't know him uh, for many of you that's not, that is the case I I'm very curious about what, what picture that paints in your head. Um, I don't know if I'll ever find out, but you know, it's always when you're close to the trees it's hard, to hard to know, even in a description or in stating those things, what, what you see, and I imagine it's probably not really close to what he is. But but he was a handsome guy. I you know he was. He definitely thought maybe he's handsomer, but you know he was a big boy. Maybe I'll post a picture one of these days, but anyway.

Speaker 1:

So I listed those facts and now, you know, as I try to sort of develop standup material about him, you know, without, you know, you know I really do want it to be filled with with love. You know the love I have for him, but at the same time, you know, get revenge for all the ways in which he's destroyed me. No, but you know, there was some of the things like. One thing that stood out is like I was always been felt shame for looking in the mirror. I was always been felt shame for looking in the mirror and there was this very specific moment when I was like I probably nine or 10.

Speaker 1:

And I just I had this crush on this girl named Heather Burke and she was my first crush. I was like dreaming about her, you know, like where you think you're together and then you wake up and you're not together. And it's like your first taste of like real sadness, because in the dream you were with her and that was like 10 and Heather, she's like your first taste of like real sadness, because in the dream you were with her and I was like 10 and Heather she's like 13 and anyway, um, I remember like looking in the mirror and just being like, oh man, I think I might see Heather today. So like, let's get this hair tight. And you know, you look at a picture of me when I'm 10. It's just a disaster. But, um, you know getting getting the hair tight. And then he looked by and he goes David, let me tell you. But you know getting the hair tight. And then he looked by and he goes David.

Speaker 1:

Let me tell you a story. You know what they say a Princeton man is so insecure that he stops every time he sees a mirror. He has to stop and make sure he looks okay. A Yale man doesn't want anyone to know that he's insecure about how he looks, so he steals a glance at the mirror and make sure he looks okay. And a Harvard man David, a Harvard man knows he looks good, so he doesn't look at the mirror, he just walks on by. And so I hear this story and I don't know that it's just such a cringe story and just you know, as a little kid, you're like okay, uh, all right, so I guess I should be a Harvard man. Um, and so I.

Speaker 1:

But to this day there's like a pang of if I'm in like a airport bathroom and I take a piss and I go to the sink, like I'll like not look in the mirror if other people are in the bathroom, like it's just even, and then I'll again. It's just like I know I'm doing it, but it's like that feeling. It's like the vibration is in there of embarrassment. It's crazy. I'm 46 years old and still. And then the irony is I just absolutely love looking in the mirror. Now, well, it's like we have mirrors in our house or my kids are just like dancing in front of the mirror and it's just like you know, there's mirrors everywhere and still embarrassed in in in person, so there's some work there to to make that into a joke for a stage.

Speaker 1:

Um, there's an irony with my dad because he was very generous in the sense that whatever I wanted to do, he would pay for. If I wanted to play saxophone, I got a saxophone. There was no resistance to me becoming an actor, even though he had no comprehension or understanding of what it was about, and still doesn't. After 20 years. I'll still be like dad, I got a pilot. And he'll be like when can I see it? And you're like that's not how pilots work. Pilots aren't on the air until we got to get picked up for series and then just get like a blank look. Um, so I've given up on trying to get him to understand anything about the entertainment industry. However his sort of view, I still have his eyes in my head, essentially, and so there's a very interesting dichotomy I was just talking to a friend about this that you have this conservative father and then my life choices have been, you know, very different than his, and I was in acting school in New York and there's a popular warm up for your voice where you get on the ground and you stick your legs in the air and now if I do this on stage, I'll do it, and you and you let your legs start to shake.

Speaker 1:

It kind of looks like you're having an epileptic seizure while giving birth and you're moaning because you're trying to open up your voice. So you're like and you have like 19 people all on the ground moaning with their legs in the air. And I remember doing this when I was like 20. And I just I just saw my dad all of a sudden like looking at me, being like I'm paying two grand for what? For this? And it was extremely it just I lost. I got a cry, laughed already because it was so absurd.

Speaker 1:

But I got that perspective of like my must be, like what have I done? How have I raised a son who is enjoying and pursuing this kind of nonsense? And I do remember getting my first show. It was a Mike White who is the creator of White Lotus, among many other things. It was. His show was called Cracking. It was my first break.

Speaker 1:

Cracking Up was Molly Shannon, jason Schwartzman, chris McDonald and he visits set it's my first set is like the most amazing fun thing and he kind of wanders around. He sees how much I'm waiting around, he sees for the first time how television works and he's like what are you going to do to have some gravitas in your life? That was his literal question. After seeing it all, he's like you gonna really do? And I was like no, no, I made it. And so it was like this very funny kind of I don't know, just a just a complete lack of understanding.

Speaker 1:

Uh, and so, weirdly, my entire life, anytime I would announce something very fun or something very exciting, like, oh, dad, I got a show. You knew he was, you knew he was like huh, and but it was like always like well, how much are you making? Who's in it and can you? When's it? How long does this money have to? Last was basically what all he cared about, and so, or seemingly to me. But you know, look, all I'm doing is constantly trying to frame anything that good happens to me so that I can win his love. That's it, that's all it is. So I'll just lie to him. I'll be like oh, you know, double what I'm getting paid to see if he'll love me more. And then nothing. I say it's like I'm getting 10 million an episode and Steven Spielberg is directing every episode, and I think his response would be well, how long is that money gonna have to last?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I'm excited to explore getting on my back and reenacting the shaking of my legs on stage. I think that will be fun. I'm gonna do that at my next open mic and, um, I've got to find a way to make the my dad's attitude towards me comical, because it is, and there's a way to do it, and I just need to get the lines like just the joke, the things he would say, um, that are disapproving. And then I think I can make my reaction to his disapproval funny by, like it just churns me to like, keep trying to win his approval. I, I'm just gonna battle for his love on stage. I think there's some juice there and I think I can. I can, I can act out. You know being ashamed of looking in mirrors and I think there's some jokes there.

Speaker 1:

So I'm hoping that, whatever my next podcast episode where you hear another open mic or a performance, that there will be some satisfaction for you for hearing this version of it and then to see what ends up happening. If I did more podcast episodes, I'd probably take you through the nuts and bolts of it. But you know, I think I've just got to really focus on the actual work of getting on stage. I'm really feeling good as an update. I'm really feeling good that I'm really matching the work I want to do for the ultimate goal, which is to get a really good 10 minute performance together. And whereas this podcast used to take away and I feel like it was like a completely different project, it's starting to merge and I hope that's interesting to you.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, and if not, go fuck yourself. No, but I love you. I'm going to leave you with a little song. I did some weird stuff today. Maybe I'll throw a couple of these weirdnesses in just at the end, if you're feeling it. Anyway, see you next week. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Here's a few experimental ideas, please enjoy. How are you? How's things? You had a good week, nice, yeah, it was good. It was a good week. Uh, it's been kind of nice weather, a little milder, snow starting to melt, you know. Yeah, the kids are great. Yeah, the kids are doing well. Seventh and fifth grade, they're fine. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

No plans to travel. Um, heading to, uh, new York and LA probably, but don't have it set yet. Yeah, how about you? Oh, that's cool, that'll be fun. Nice, oh yeah, I haven't been there, but I've heard it's nice. Yeah, okay, you're going for the whole whole vacation? Yeah, well, you'll. You're going for the whole vacation? Yeah well, you'll need a vacation from the vacation. That's right. Yeah, it is hard. Today's episode is sponsored by Hill's Prescription Diet Urinary Care Chicken and Vegetable Stew for cats who shit stones. Use code starting standup for 0 percent off. This veterinarian recommended hills prescription diet wet food. Hills for when you need to spend 140 on cat food for an imaginary illness. What the world needs now is a love making, sweet lovemaking. It's the only thing that gets me off. Thank you.