Read Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation Online
Authors: Aisha Tyler
“If you’re the type of sicko who enjoys a hilariously talented person debasing herself
for your amusement, then
Self-Inflicted Wounds
is the book for you.”
—Andy Richter, comedian, actor, writer, announcer, man Friday on
Conan
“Aisha Tyler’s book
Self-Inflicted Wounds
is an uplifting, hilarious trek through her life of insults, agonies, and failures.
Each story is not only painfully funny, but it’s also thoughtful and stunningly candid.
I really do love this book.”
—Jay Chandrasekhar, director of
Super Troopers
,
Beerfest
, and
The Babymakers
“We all do stupid stuff, sometimes on purpose. But rarely do we ever talk about it,
let alone publish an in-depth retelling—leave it to Aisha Tyler to help us all feel
a little less dumb and a little more connected.”
—Seth Green, comedian, actor, creator/writer/director of
Robot Chicken
“Aisha Tyler is queen of the blerd nation and living proof that for nerdy little outsiders
things really do get better. But in her case, before they got better they got a whole
lot worse. It’s impossible not to laugh while reading
Self-Inflicted Wounds
, stories of one epic fail after another. It’s also impossible not to worry about
Aisha’s mental health.”
—Touré, author, critic, host of MSNBC’s
The Cycle
“What Aisha says about embracing your fear and using mistakes to forge character is
beautiful. What she says about Oprah is unforgivable.”
—Baratunde Thurston,
New York Times
bestselling author of
How to Be Black
, CEO/cofounder of Cultivated Wit
“Aisha Tyler’s incredibly vivid stories of going for big air only to land flat on
her face (or possibly a rusty spike) are a unique combination of cringe-worthy and
inspiring. That she shares these stories makes me love her all the more.”
—Bill Burr, comedian, actor, host of
Monday Morning Podcast
“Self-inflicted wounds. We all have them, but no one exploits their own pain for the
funny like Aisha Tyler.”
—Wayne Brady, comedian, actor, star of
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
, host of
Let’s Make a Deal
“Aisha Tyler’s brain moves faster than a shock spell from the hands of a lightning
mage. She is hilarious and hyper-articulate, and will kick your ass in Call of Duty.
She is the life of the LAN party.”
—Chris Hardwick, comedian, host of
Talking Dead
and
Nerdist
Cover design by Amanda Kain
Cover photograph © Joey L
SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS
. Copyright © 2013 by Aisha Tyler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the
nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen.
No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered,
or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any
form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented,
without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tyler, Aisha.
Self-inflicted wounds : heartwarming tales of epic humiliation / Aisha Tyler.—First
edition.
pages cm
Summary: “On the wildly popular podcast ‘Girl on Guy,’ comedian and actress Aisha
Tyler asks her guests to recount moments from their lives when they’ve done something
boneheaded, ill-conceived, dangerous, or just plain stupid . . . to themselves. In
Self-Inflicted Wounds
, Aisha turns the lens on herself—recounting her most egregious mistakes—to hilarious
result. Laugh-out-loud funny and totally relatable,
Self-Inflicted Wounds
highlights a new comedic voice on the rise”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-222377-7 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-06-222378-4 (paperback) 1. Tyler, Aisha—Anecdotes.
2. Women comedians—United States—Anecdotes. 3. Podcasters—United States—Anecdotes.
I. Title.
PN2287.T89A3 2013
792.7’6—dc23 2013013538
EPub Edition July 2013 ISBN 9780062223791
13 14 15 16 17
DIX
/
RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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1
This book
may
help you figure out where my yellow banana-seat cruiser is. If you find it, please
let me know. I
really
miss that bike.
1
Other than H.N.I.C, which is a
very
easy degree to get.
2
It’s not that I don’t like talking to strangers, I just prefer to do it on a stage
where they have assembled into a group and are visibly intoxicated. One-on-one interaction?
Ick
.
3
Resistance is futile.
4
A wholly unscientific method first successfully pioneered by Oprah.
5
Tyler’s Razor
felt a bit derivative.
6
Or more relevant, “I know I was caught tickling another man’s foot with my pants
down in a bathroom notorious for being the locale of homosexual trysts, but I just
have a wide stance and a twitchy extremity.
I was in no way soliciting gay sex
!”
1
This is more like a thought and a feeling smashed together. A
theeling
. A
fought
? No, a
theeling
. Definitely a
theeling
.
1
People have called me a lot of things, but one word they have never used is depressed.
I am, fortunately or not, depending on your perspective, nauseatingly upbeat, disgustingly
cheery. Please, withhold your disdain. This is a genetic condition. Much like synesthetes
or people who love musical theater, this is just how I was born.
2
Along with kids riding the bus, doing their homework without parental “assistance”
(read: “doing it for them”), using a kitchen knife or an open flame before the age
of seventeen, or anything else that builds character, instills mental toughness or
makes kids into actual people.
3
I was a five-year-old girl. I still had a “chest.” If you think it was inappropriate,
you need therapy. Also, you may need to look out your front window and see if Chris
Hansen from
To Catch a Predator
is lurking in your bushes waiting to strike.
4
And needing desperately to show a certain neighborhood boy who was fond of picking
up dried poo and throwing it at me that I wasn’t afraid of anything, not dogs or alleys
or least of all, poos. Yes, that is the plural of poo.
Poos
.
5
This did absolutely nothing to diminish the appeal of this toy to us, but made it
feel like we were riding some kind of death metal narwhal. The fact that it made the
thing potentially deadly was just an added level of awesome.
6
No fair cutting! I wasn’t done!
7
Fun, back then, as now, is a powerful enticement. It is why we jump out of planes,
drink too much, drive too fast, fake illness to skip work, wake up in bed woozy and
pants-less next to people we have just met. And no matter how mature or responsible
we become, fun is always there, just out of sight, trying to lure us from our responsibilities—a
nude and voluptuous siren holding a bottleful of bourbon and two tickets to Vegas,
reeking of jasmine blossoms and cookie dough and doom. She is a foxy evil bitch queen,
that Fun. She is not to be toyed with.
1
The loss of this Mustang is one of the great stinging regrets of my life. This car
was powder blue. It had pleather bench seats. It had an 8-track inside, in which a
cassette of Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s
Ahh . . . The Name Is Bootsy, Baby!
was permanently lodged. This was not a problem. This made the car perpetually funky.
Riding in this vehicle to and from Montessori made me feel like a tiny, brown, female
Bullitt.
I do not know where this Mustang finally came to rest—my mom eventually traded it
in on a much more practical and family-friendly powder blue Volkswagen Rabbit. Thinking
of it being slowly crushed into scrap makes me die a little inside. In my fantasies,
it is living on a farm, gamboling in green pastures alongside the cars from
Streets of San Francisco
and
Christine
.
2
Hostage negotiators would be driven screaming from the dinner table of a family in
the throes of divorce. There is nothing as frostily off-putting as two adults trying
to act as if things are fine for the sake of their kids, who in all probability can
totally sense the complete bullshit being slung across the dinner table. Kids aren’t
stupid, and their bullshit meters are much more highly calibrated than adults’. Grownups
aren’t fooling anybody.
3
When you are a kid, you don’t really have a sense of what adult happiness looks like.
As a result, you kind of don’t care. As long as they aren’t yelling and you get stuff
like money and toys, shit is good.
4
This is the first of the primary and immutable truths about kids, followed by 2)
they never want to go to sleep, and 3) some part of a child will always be sticky.
5
Maybe the potatoes.
6
But
especially
while engaging in fire- and/or grease-related activities.
7
I don’t know why. Sometimes a girl gotsta get her floss on. And yes, I do immediately
regret writing that.
8
“Forgotten. Who forgets money in the pockets of their clothes?” scoffed the six-year-old
me. “Obviously this woman is extremely wealthy and profligate enough to cast good
money after bad without regard. It is also abundantly clear that her admonitions about
‘money not growing on trees’ are a pile of lies she peddles to get out of sharing
her immense fortune with me. This woman is not to be obeyed or trusted. On the bright
side, this is just enough for a Popsicle shaped like Ms. Pac-Man and four packs of
Now and Laters, so the lady can’t be
all
bad.”
9
It puts the lotion in the basket.
10
Smoke! Dude.
Smoking grease.
If I saw a seven-year-old doing this now, I would put them in a straitjacket and
call the authorities. Looking back, I was clearly out of control from the first grade
onward.
11
Remember those? Yeah, neither do I.
12
This rule probably has larger metaphorical implications, but even taken literally,
it is still pretty good advice.
13
And also probably chip a tooth. What’re you gonna do? That’s what veneers are for.
1
Because somehow movie weirdos are still socially adept enough to have an actual group
of friends, one of whom is hot enough to have sex with. If they are female, she wears
colored tights and dances on the lawn at night without shoes. If they are male, he
is emotionally tortured and rides his bike through the city in the pouring rain. These
people are not real.
2
Not my nails. Nail biting is for amateurs. Cuticle biting is where you draw real
blood. That’s what separates the simply odd from the truly and desperately compulsive.
3
I don’t know
why
I am using words like “podia” and “librarian.” And “books.” Like anyone’s ever heard
of that stuff nowadays. If you are struggling with these concepts, just imagine the
Internet was really heavy and you had to carry the whole thing around in your hands
and there wasn’t any porn or videos of cats in toilets inside it, just words and a
few scant illustrations. That’s what going to the library was like.
4
It’s hard enough being a minority in the regular world, without actively choosing
to be a minority within an even tinier minority of people who danced around airports
asking for money. Way to self-isolate!
5
Oh, who am I kidding? I was standing by the fence biting my cuticles and reading
The Left Hand of Darkness.
6
In real life, Sujata was a pretty awesome chick. She brought the Buddha a bowl of
milk rice when he was starving to death after six years of extreme austerity. In doing
so, she helped him distill the concept of “The Middle Way,” which is a pretty important
principle among Buddhists to this day. So I suppose there’s that.