GOD SAID HA!

After I left SNL and the “It’s Pat” movie bombed, I was pulled out of my funk about show business by some seriously horrific developing personal problems that were so much worse! My concern was focused on my brother, Mike, and his diagnosis of stage four non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He had no health insurance. I, along with many of Mike’s friends and my own family members, began to help care for Michael. My parents drove down from Spokane, Washington to Los Angeles and moved in with me. It was a sad, frustrating, paralyzing, loving, laughing, emotionally heightened time.

Oh yeah. That’s when I was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

My friend Kathy Griffin had gotten me to do her alternative-comedy night at the Groundlings called “Hot Cup of Talk.” From there I started doing material at “The Uncabaret”. Beth Lapides was (and is) the host of the Uncab. This wasn’t the usual type of stand up comedy being done at the time – there’s weren’t any jokes (or at least pa-dum-pum jokes.) The rules for this type of comedy were that whatever you said had to be absolutely true and never told on stage before. It ended up becoming a type of group confessional therapy done by really funny people like Margaret Cho, Janeane Garafalo, Patton Oswalt, Cindy Chupak, Andy Kindler, Merrill Markoe, Tim Bagley, Mike McDonald, Laura Kightlinger, and so many more. Memories of doing that show over the years (cathartic, fun, painful and exhilarating simultaneously) and hanging out with such hilarious and talented performers, was truly one of the highlights of my life. Eventually the material about me and my brother having cancer was shaped into my first monologue, “God Said Ha!”

I performed “God Said Ha!” in theater runs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater in New York. Quentin Tarantino produced a film version of the monologue and I directed it. It got lots of nice reviews, including this one from The New York Times.

You can read more about the show and purchase it here:
AMAZON

Or you can get the book, here:
AMAZON

Or you can rent it from Netflix here:
NETFLIX

Or you can listen to the audio version here:
AUDIBLE