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I’ll shove a cucumber up my ass!

It was a light bulb moment. Newton had his apple. I went with the gourd family.

I was 18, new to New York, and drunk on the D train. Drunker than usual. I had been embarrassed that night. There was this comedy group at NYU, and I was its sound guy. It was my job to press the play button on a cassette boom box so that, after the punch line of a sketch, R.E.M. or Fine Young Cannibals would kick in. It was 1989.

In rehearsal that night, I’d fucked up a cue. I’d played “The Humpty Dance” after a sketch meant to end with “Back in Black.” One of the group members said, “Kevin, you don’t know this cue by now?” Then he had started singin

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