Looking for Laughs

Like so many comedians, Rodney Carrington tells jokes about genitals and breasts. Offstage, his goal is to be a good husband, friend and dad, and to live a fairly normal life in Tulsa, Okla. These two lifestyles don't have to be in conflict, but they are.

"I go to church on Sundays, and every time I go, I feel like I'm in trouble," Carrington, 40, says. "It's real hard to sing about your pecker on Saturday night and show up at church on Sunday morning and feel that everything's OK. Because it's not. And I know that."

In church, he can feel the glare of other people's judging eyes. Or maybe it's just paranoia.

"I know when the preacher looks over, I get that feeling like, 'Oh (expletive), I know, I know!' It's difficult," he says. "But at least I know that.

"My heart's in the right place; my mind drifts off."

Carrington's wife, Terri, doesn't complain about his boob and penis jokes, he says.

"She's always been my biggest supporter, my wife. She knows what it is," he says. "I'm just trying to make people laugh."

But he does think people should be taught at an early age, like in the seventh grade, about the trouble and commitment that comes with any marriage.

"I've been married for about 15 years, and here's what I know about marriage," he says.

"I'm used to all the (expletive) that I don't like about my wife. That is a huge accomplishment. I don't want to go get used to all the (expletive) that I don't like about somebody else. It took me this long to get used to all the (expletive) that I don't like about the one that I got. You know what I mean?"

Likewise, he says, his wife has accepted the things she doesn't like about him.

"There was a middle part of the marriage where my wife filed for divorce and said, 'I'm leavin'.' I said, 'Well, I'm going with you. You take half my (expletive), I'll get the other half, and we'll follow you till you stop.'"

"I'm in it" to win it, he says.

"And you know what? I'm happy. I know guys that ain't. But I'm happy, because my wife doesn't say, 'You have to do this, you need to do this.' She knows what I need to function. ... It's a give and take. ... You gotta go, 'Yeah, sure -- you do what you do; I'll go do what I do.' "

Plenty of married men his age, certainly celebrities, dump their wives when the going gets rough. But he remembers too well that living the single life "gets old."

"I can remember just before I met my wife -- how (expletive) it was being by yourself," he says.

"I have -- like most people -- a divorce fantasy about every two weeks. But after about 15 minutes of thinking about it, then reality kicks in and goes, 'OK, let's take ourselves past what happens. Lets just say you do leave, it's over, now what? Put all the consequences in there.' And you say, 'Ah (expletive), all right."

So what's life like in Tulsa? The Carringtons raise three kids -- ages 9, 12 and 14 -- and his 16-year-old niece lives with them. They're good kids, he says.

His 12-year-old, Sam, is "the funny one" who wants to be an actor like his dad. But it would be odd if Sam became a famous stand-up. Comedians don't produce heirs for their industry in any kind of abundance, as athletes and actors do.

Carrington says he has no idea why there are almost no famous comedian lineages, but he takes a guess for me.

"Maybe because it's so much to live up to. Comedy is so hard as it is. I've always said the first five years of comedy ... is really about how much humiliation one can stand, and apparently I have a high tolerance for it."

The first time he did stand-up, the club owner asked him if he had a 20-minute set. Carrington lied and said he did, even though he really only had six minutes, plus "one real funny minute." He bombed but got paid $400.

"All I kept thinkin' was he paid me $400, and I was (expletive). I wondered how much he'd pay me if I really got good," he says. "I just started thinkin' my biggest mistake was I lied."

"So from that point on, I just told people, 'I got seven, maybe 10 minutes. If you need anything more than that, you better get a juggler.' "

Doug Elfman's column appears on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 or delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.