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'Late Late' comedian turns darts on himself

By THOMAS FRENCH
Published February 23, 2007

It would have been so easy to open fire on Britney and her newly shaved scalp. But this past Monday night, during his monologue on The Late Late Show, host Craig Ferguson decided to get serious.

As the studio audience obviously tried to follow along, unsure how they were supposed to react, the Scottish comedian talked about different forms of addiction - to alcohol, to cheap laughs, to our desire to entertain ourselves with the public humiliation of celebrities.

Here's what Ferguson had to say.

Thomas French, Times staff writer

- - -

I want to talk about something tonight that's been bothering me for a little while now. . . . If you've ever seen this show before, you know that I make fun of people on this show. I make fun of a lot of people on this show.

Now a couple months ago, Kevin Costner got himself into some kind of bother, and I made fun of him in the monologue. And then, a couple of weeks later, I meet him at this event, and I could tell he was, he was angry at me. . . . He's a very polite man, and a gentleman, and I could see in his eyes he made a decision to not go after me, just to be polite and nice and stuff. And that kind of freaked me out. . . .

It was the look in his eye that bothered me. And I began to think, at what price am I doing this stuff? And I started to think about the effect it was having on real people, and it's been needling at me a little bit ever since.

I'm as guilty as sin about this. I mean, I made fun of the lady astronaut wearing the diapers when she was driving.

A round of laughter from the audience.

That is clearly funny, that is clearly a funny thing. But at the same time, then the mug shot comes in, and I go, this woman's in trouble, she needs help. And then I'm thinking, I don't know how good I feel about this. And I need to do stuff that I feel comfortable with. I want to be able to be funny, but I want to be able to get some sleep. . . .

I kind of had similar feelings when I used to watch America's Funniest Home Videos. You know, you'd be laughing at the kid falling over, and then you go, "Wait a minute, put down the damn camera and help your kid. What the hell is wrong with you?" And I think we're kind of holding the cam - and people are falling apart. People are dying. That Anna Nicole Smith woman, she died.

Another smattering of audience laughter. Ferguson reaches toward them with his hands, imploring.

No, it's not a joke. You know? It stops being funny. . . . She's got a 6-week-old kid, or a 6-month-old kid. What the hell is that, you know?

And I'm starting to feel uncomfortable about making fun of these people. And for me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it. It should be about, about always attacking the powerful people - attacking the politicians, and the Trumps, and the blowhards - go after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable people.

This is totally a mea culpa. This is just for me. I think my aim's been off a bit recently. I want to change it a bit. So tonight, no Britney Spears jokes. And here's why. Here's exactly why. Britney Spears -

Uproarious laughter. Ferguson stops, shakes his head.

No, no, it's the truth. Wait . . .

He tries to get them to stop.

The kind of weekend she had, she was checking in and out of rehab, she was shaving her head, getting tattoos. . . .

This Sunday I was 15 years sober.

Finally, the audience is silent.

So I looked at her weekend, and I looked at my own weekend, and I thought, you know, I'd rather have my weekend. But what she is going through reminds me of what I was doing . . . where I was 15 years ago, when I was living like that.

Now I'm not saying Britney Spears is an alcoholic; I don't know if she is an alcoholic or not. But she clearly needs help. . . .

When I got sober, I was a bit older than Britney. I was 29. And Christmas morning before I got sober, I had been on an all-night bender, and I woke up in a room above a bar. . . . I woke up on Christmas morning, and you know, I was soaked in my own urine. At least I think it was mine. I can't be certain. . . . I thought, you know, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to kill myself today. . . .

On the way out of the bar, you know, Tommy the barman, that I'd been drinking with, you know, he was kind of playing around at the bar, he was getting drinks together at the bar in the morning. . . .

He was an Irish fellow, Tommy, and he said to me, "Where are you going?" I didn't want to cause a fuss . . . so I said, "I'm going home."

And he said, "To Scotland?

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Well, there's no transport. It's Christmas; you can't get a bus. The planes aren't running, there's no, you can't go anywhere."

And I said, "Just let me go, Tommy, will ya?"

And he said, "Well, before you go, have a glass of sherry for Christmas morning."

And I said, "Oh, all right, all right."

So he poured me the type of glass of sherry that only an alcoholic would pour you. A Venti sherry they would call it in Starbucks.

The audience, encouraged, is starting to respond again.

And I had my glass of sherry, and you know, one thing led to another, and I forgot to kill myself that day. . . .

The rounds of laughter are growing in intensity.

Certain types of people can't drink. I'm one of them. I threw in the towel with alcoholism 15 years ago, and I've been trying for the last 15 years to get little bits of it back.

And it looks to me a little bit that Britney Spears has a similar problem going on with alcohol. This woman has two kids. She's 25 years old. She's a baby herself. She's a baby, you know.

And the thing is, you can embarrass somebody to death. It is embarrassing to admit you're an alcoholic. It's embarrassing to wake up in your pee or someone else's pee. It doesn't really matter. It's embarrassing.

Now I'm not absolving this woman of her behavior. I'm not. You have to be responsible for your actions, sick or well. . . .

I have found this. You can't beat it with money. If you could beat this rap with money, rich people wouldn't die. You can't. . . .

I have found that the only way I could deal with it is find other people who had similar experiences and talk to them. It doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost a thing.

And they're very, very easy to find. They're very near the front of the telephone book.

Times staff writer Thomas French can be reached at 727 893-8486 or french@sptimes.com.

Word for Word is an occasional feature excerpting passages of interest from television, books, magazines, Web sites and other sources. The text may be edited for space, but the original spelling, grammar and punctuation are unchanged.

ON THE WEB

A mea culpa

To see Craig Ferguson's complete monologue, go to www.cbs.com/latenight/latelate/comedy and click on Feb. 19, 2007.

[Last modified February 22, 2007, 10:37:41]