This Confidence is Simplifying – Part 1

Just home from Wed night Laugh Factory Show.  Once again, sweet crowd and awesome, patient comics.  I needed to share my weekend wedding details with my friends (the crowd, the comics, the wait staff).  Hope they didn’t mind.  Might be bummed at me but they all really like Ashley, so I’m sure they’ll forgive.

At sundown last Saturday, Ashley and I got married in Maui and it was perfect, of course (it’s hard to screw up Maui, but if anyone could do it, I’m your man).  Ashley’s family and friends are crazy about her and my friends continue to blow me away with their love and support.  We could’ve made some sort of deal with a magazine to pay for the wedding but that would’ve required an intimate, post vows interview but I’m very aware of the fact it was my fourth and Ashley’s first.

I understand why people would be skeptical about me but didn’t want to do anything that might lesson the intimacy of Ashley’s big day (actually, it was more mine but…) or to intrude on our guests.  I wanted it to be as normal as any fourth time, illogically famous but definitely not beloved, man’s nuptials to a wonderful, perfectly beautiful new civilian bride could be.  So Ashley, who understands that the photographers have to make a living too, picked one she trusted (she talked him out of printing a picture of her knight in shining armor taking a leak in the bushes adjacent to the world’s classiest and  #1 rated beach and gave him a couple pre-approved by her, wedding shots with the proceeds going to The Special Olympics in honor of my hero, Eunice Shriver, which didn’t save her parents any money but saved the attendees, including my best Best Man, Dax Shepard and his beloved, Kristen Bell, as well as the other famous friends the typical beach front, post wedding, paparazzi scrum.  Everyone could just soak up the Maui sunset behind them, the full moon simultaneously rising from over the Western mountains, monster waves and infectious love in God’s backyard.  Normal as any Redneck Wedding could be.  The Best Damn Wedding, Period.  (I just inserted more silly show titles than Arnold at  a campaign fundraiser…which is not easy.)

The bride was beautiful (The Superstar) and the groom (a glorified extra) was there and he was and is more happy, relieved and grateful than he’s EVER felt.  We had a Buddhist (spiritual) ceremony to honor our hosts (Shep and Renee Gordon) but the Sunday before, we had a Rabbi (Borovitz).  He runs Beit T’Shuvah, a 120-bed rehab-synagogue that takes in addicts of all denominations in LA.  You can also wear jean’s to his High Holy Days Service’s, which is so SWEET.  He performed an abbreviated but heartfelt version of the non-traditional Jewish ceremony in our house, surrounded by loved ones who couldn’t make the long, Thanksgiving weekend trip.  All of bases were covered, heaven-wise.

I’ve always said if any couple would just follow their vows there wouldn’t be many divorces so between Buddhist prayers, which I didn’t understand nor need to because they sounded like very good blessings, Ashley and I spoke our own vows.  I let her go first, assuming that my prose would blow her out of the water but as she began I gave a look to Dax saying “Crap!  She’s killing with this material.  Gonna be tough to follow her.”  (And it wasn’t the first time she’s out witted The Master.)  I’m so glad I let Dax edit down my original text 2 minutes before kickoff.  All I really needed to hear was that Ashley was going to continue to be the girl I fell in love with.  The one whose eyes reflect a better man than the one I see in the mirror.  The one who believes in me, especially when I don’t (she sees handsome, smart, kind, talented fellow…I agree, it’s crazy), but because I love and respect her so much, I’ll take her word over mine and all others.  I believe in her 100% so if she believes in me I guess I have to, right?  I also needed to hear, in front of God, a very small, bald by choice, Asian dude, our family and friends including my three favorite lawyers, that she would in fact, stay with me no matter what.  Like forever.  I know it’s a lot to ask but if I keep up my end of the bargain, she has to stay.  We made a deal.  Unconditional love.  Until my death, which will be many years away if her dietary and physical fitness plans are utilized.  (She never says I’m fat.  She just says “Are you sure you want to eat the whole 72 ounce Porterhouse AND the fried shrimp appetizer because we’re going to have children and I need you around for a long time… so smart, genius Machiavellian but so smart!)

She agreed and I have to say, for the first time since I was 4 and my mother left the house and didn’t come back, I completely trusted a woman’s word.  Thinking back, my dad, a very good man, probably should’ve explained her sudden absence to us but those were different times and after scouring the streets of Ottumwa Iowa for a couple years, I figured it all out.  Sorta.