Christopher Titus: Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding (2004 TV Special)

Christopher Titus: Self

Quotes 

• [about his mother] 

  Chris Titus : Without her I don't exist. Without her, I wouldn't be doing this for a living. Without her, in four states, it would still be legal to kill a man with a cappuccino machine. She touched a lot of lives. Diagnosed manic depressive schizophreinc. Actually, it was pretty cool as a kid, 'cause I never really knew *who* was coming to dinner. But I was pretty sure they were going to be bummed out. It used to piss my teachers off. All my permission slips had different signatures on them.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : "Okay, Mr. Smart Ass, why don't you stand up? Who's this one supposed to be?"

  [as a whining kid] 

  Chris Titus : "It's my mom."

  [laughs] 

  Chris Titus : "Call her. But let me listen, let me listen, let me listen! I'll bet my lunch money she's Wheezy Jefferson today."

• Chris Titus : My mom's insane. Of course, I don't mean "My mom is insane!" I mean, "We the jury find the defendant." When I was a kid, she was in a mental care facility. Or as dad so eloquently put it, "she's shacked up in the whacko basket!" TSSH.

  [Pantomimes opening a beer] 

  Chris Titus : "Sleep well, boy!" It actually comforts me to know that when I was in kindergarten gluing maccaroni to paper plates, my mom was in therapy gluing maccaroni to paper plates. I used to put her projects on the refrigerator.

  [Nervous laughter from audience] 

  Chris Titus : You'd better lighten the fuck up, 'cause we're going a lot farther than *that* tonight.

• Chris Titus : The cops in my town *KNEW* me. The cops had my dad on speed dial.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : "BRRR. Mr. Titus?"

  Chris Titus : "Yeah?"

  Chris Titus : "Do you have a Federal mailbox in your living room?"

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : "No, we thought so. Just leave the boy out front; we'll be by."

  [laughter] 

• Chris Titus : Don't puss out on me now!

• Chris Titus : My dad never taught me dick my whole life. "Just go do it!" TSSH.

  [pantomimes opening a beer] 

  Chris Titus : "You'll screw it up and sooner or later you'll get it right. Just go do it!" Yeah, well, there are some things that method should not be applied to, though. Like your first brake job.

  [laughter; Titus mocks it] 

  Chris Titus : My first car was a 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88. UGLY car. More ugly on this car than a Rolling Stones group photo. And it was a huge car; it had an optional roof rack/helicopter pad. Fill it up with gas, back out of the driveway, fill it up again. And one day the brakes started making this high-pitched grinding noise. And I was sixteen, so I listed to the noise...

  [pause] 

  Chris Titus : ...for about ten weeks.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : I finally said "Dad, man, the car's making, like, a noise!" TSSH.

  Chris Titus : "Well, then you should, like, fix it." So I back the ass end of the car into the garage, but I leave the front wheels on a twenty-two degree sloped driveway... and I jack up the ass end.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : Yes, I'm about to get a lesson in gravity, aren't I? And I just know my father was standing in the living room window going, "No wait, wait wait."

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : So I'm under the car, trying to make it stop better, when I notice it start to go. And my buttcheeks, thinking quickly, walked me out from under it. And three tons of vehicle went SHH... BOOM! on the garage floor. Now, I ended up on the other side of the car, my dad couldn't see me, but he came running out of the house. "CHRIS! OH MY GOD, CHRIS!" And I thought, you know, I probably should tell him I'm okay. But that little thing in my brain said, "No wait, wait wait."

  [Coughs and hacks] 

  Chris Titus : [weakly]  Daaaad! Oh, God, get it off me!" He went TSSSH. "You ain't dead, get it off yourself!"

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : "And don't forget to put my God damn tools away! And quit being a wussy!" Oh, yeah. I heard that every day of my life. "Quit being a wussy." But my dad didn't mean it like a lot of parents mean it. Your kid hits his head on the coffee table; "quit being a wussy." My father meant... if I got my arm ripped off, by a combine in a cornfield. My father would find the arm, get some duct tape, and strap the arm back on.

  Chris Titus : "All right, go play, quit being a wussy."

  [Hops around the stage with his arm hanging limply by his side] 

  Chris Titus : "Oh, thank you, father, I'm so much better now! Never more wussy shall I be! I can still try out for the soccer team."

  [Glances down at his limp arm] 

  Chris Titus : "Although, not goalie."

• Chris Titus : The Los Angeles Times reported that sixty-three percent of American families are now considered dysfunctional. Good. 'Cause that means when Armageddon *really* happens, thirty-seven percent of this population is going to *lose their minds*. "Oh my God, the world is over!" Us sixty-three percent? We're going to go, "Hey... there's no one watching the Lexus dealership! We're going to the Apocalypse with leather and a CD changer!" You guys have been great. Thank you.

• Chris Titus : I love being from a screwed up family. We have everything in my family: prescription drug abuse, mental illness, one of my uncles is a Mormon.

• [about his abusive ex-girlfriend] 

  Chris Titus : We had a fight Christmas *Eve*, watching Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, where I ended up calling the cops! That earns *me* a WHITE TRASH BLACK BELT!

• Chris Titus : Dad finally had a defribillator implanted in his body. You know, "Clear!" He had a little one right here.

  [He gestures to a small area on the left side of his chest] 

  Chris Titus : Ironically, the size and shape of a cigarette pack, which used to crack me the fuck up, man. 'Cause he smoked for forty years, and now he's got a permanent little square right here. "Hey dad, you got a cigarette?" "Yeah, hold up."

• [Pantomimes grabbing a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, then pauses] 

  Chris Titus : "Is that funny, you little son of a bitch?"

• [after being busted by his father for drunk driving] 

  Chris Titus : He then decided to pull my driver's license for six months of my senior year. Yeah, nothing screams "prom night" more than helping that date down off the handlebars, huh?

  [Pantomimes pedaling a bicycle] 

  Chris Titus : "Whoo hoo! Ching ching! Party!"

  [Pantomimes squeezing the brakes] 

  Chris Titus : "Hold up, guys, my tuxedo is caught in the chain!" And I hated him for that, 'cause he always had beer in the car, man. Ever since I was kid, he had beer in the car. For 30 years, my father had beer *in* the car, sometimes on *tap*!

• Chris Titus : She had just ended an abusive relationship and I had just ended an abusive relationship and now both of us just wanted a relationship where we could make somebody else fucking *pay*!

• Chris Titus : I say we spend some money, clean up some junkies and make them all go work for the Red Cross. You ever give blood to the Red Cross? Little paper hatted trainee kid, just sticking you full of holes. "Golly, jeez, this is way harder than the deep fryer, how does this work?" You get an ex-junkie in there, bap-bap, *he's* gonna find a vein. You're in, you're out, you got sugar cookie and you're happy!

• Chris Titus : My father never missed a drink in his life. Or a joint. Or a party. Or a chance to get laid. He also never missed a day of work, or a house payment, or a car payment. I never went hungry, although he did a couple of times so I wouldn't.

• [about his mother's abusive ex-husband] 

  Chris Titus : My mom had this inate ability. Whatever town my mother moved to, the second she walked into town, she would instantly attract the alpha loser of that town. This guy was not a good guy. This guy was half O.J. Simpson and half O.J. Simpson.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : Scott Peterson sprinkles on the top, a side of Robert Blake. You know, not a good guy.

• Chris Titus : My first car was a 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88. *Ugly* car. More ugly on this car than a Rolling Stones group photo.

• [about the night he fell into a bonfire] 

  Chris Titus : We are *burning* a *telephone pole*. I don't know where we *got* a telephone pole. I do know it's pretty high up there on the Drunk Theft Scale, though.

• Chris Titus : Of course, here's the weird part. After I fought my dad, all of a sudden we're buddies now. Like he's my friend now, we start hanging out. But we're still the same people. So we'd go out on Sunday, you know, and just be hanging out, then he'd, like, pick a guy, and we'd just go beat the crap out of that guy as a team. Memories, huh?

  [nervous laugh] 

  Chris Titus : We kicked ass at the father/son picnic, too. We didn't win the blue ribbon, but... we have it in our possession.

  [laughter] 

• [about a fight with his wife, who was at the time his girlfriend] 

  Chris Titus : This woman took *everything*. I mean, this woman took the "c" word!

  Chris Titus : [off audience response]  I *KNOW*! I was like, "My God!... She's *perfect*!"

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : [after a pause]  We've been married thirteen years.

  [applause] 

• [about fighting with his wife] 

  Chris Titus : Neither of us was smart enough to leave. I know why I stayed: I was raised by Anti-Dad; I'm an insult Navy SEAL.

  [laughter] 

• Chris Titus : People, be proud you're screwed up. But don't be too proud, like me. I got into an argument with a guy in bar; I bet him fifty bucks that I was more dysfunctional than he was. And he raped me.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : So I tipped him.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : I am very competitive.

• Chris Titus : When it comes to drinking and driving my dad is Obi Wan Kenobi. He busted me once for drinking and driving. I woke up, 6 a.m. Saturday morning about 2 months into my senior year. Just hung over, just hammered. I wake up to my father standing over me, wearing a robe, holding a beer.

  Chris Titus : [pantomimes opening a beer can]  HEY! Why don't you get up and explain to my why the car's parked at such an odd angle... on the porch... across the street.

• Chris Titus : If my dad's heart was below a certain beat or above a certain beat, it would zap him. So you could be in mid-sentence with my father, and he'd just go

  [pantomimes getting zapped, and makes a buzzer noise] 

• Chris Titus : My parents' divorce settlement involved a bar tab.

• Chris Titus : They had a big court battle over who got to keep me. Mom won; she made me live with Dad.

• Chris Titus : My father? A hard drinking man from the 70's. We actually have no pictures of my dad where he is *not* holding a beer. Weddings, Funerals, Water Skiing, Parent-Teacher Conference. When I got sick around him as a kid growing up, he'd always warm me up a shot of 100 proof whiskey. Never got sick... that I can remember.

• [about his father] 

  Chris Titus : This is a man who survived *four* heart attacks. Yeah, the doctor revoked his organ donor card. Issued him a "Hazardous Waste" decal. Well, he actually had three heart attacks and a heart "episode."

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : Cause his last heart attack, he was with an HMO.

  [more laughter] 

  Chris Titus : Yes. And it seems that if they write down "heart attack," they have to admit you. But if they write down "heart episode," they can give you Robitussin and send your ass home.

• Chris Titus : First grade show-and-tell, I taught the class to mix Long Island Iced Teas.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : From scratch.

  [more laughter] 

• Chris Titus : Love screwed up people, though. I could hang out with screwed up people forever. Screwed up people are great, 'cause screwed up people have been through some stuff. They know what can happen. They know the problems. 'Cause if you've been through a lot of shit in your life, you know every time you see the shit just about the hit the fan... you step to the side of the fan.

  [laughter and applause] 

  Chris Titus : That's right. But all the poor little normal people? BTTTHHH!

  [blows raspberry] 

  Chris Titus : Hey, you learned something didn't you?

• [about fighting his father] 

  Chris Titus : By the way, great way to fight: arms down, face presented.

• [about a 6:00 A.M. phone call from his mother's lawyer] 

  Chris Titus : By the way, six A.M.? Not a real great time for me; you know, I'm a comic. I get off work at two. Six A.M., I'm a little grumpy. Six A.M., I'm a little P.O.ed. Six A.M., I'm like a vampire with a paper route.

• [at the doctor's office after falling into a bonfire] 

  Chris Titus : He goes "I called your father. He said 'get your ass home, quit being a wussy', and hung up."

• [about his abusive ex-girlfriend] 

  Chris Titus : She had a little QUIRK! A little glitch. We'd get into an argument, I would present *my* side of the argument. Her retort would invariably be to... punch me in the face.

  [laughter] 

  Chris Titus : Twas a sugar imbalance. I started carrying Twix in a holster.

• Chris Titus : You wanna hear the funniest part of that story? Where my mom, y'know, shoots and kills a man?