David Cross

David Cross’ new album was recorded in January of 2004, during a four night, eight show stand in Washington, DC. It’s called It’s Not Funny. Except, it is. Funny. It is also the follow-up to his 2002, Grammy Award Losing album, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby! (the winner? Yep, Weird Al’s Poodle Hat!) and the 2003 DVD tour diary release, Let America Laugh. In an effort to provide some insight on the real David Cross, a glimpse at the man behind the laughter, something perhaps a bit more telling than the countless unauthorized biographies and sensationalized tabloid fodder, the following from acclaimed and beloved author Dave Eggers.

I don't know why David Cross acts like such a bad man. Onstage, he pretends to be an angry guy, a dangerous person. He 'tells it like it is,' and 'puts people in their place.' But I know a different David. A David who not only took his name from the Old Testament -- his real name is Ashley -- but who lives by the rules laid out in that good book. Simply put, David Cross is the gentlest, kindest, and most sanitary man I have ever met.

We met in 1996, while both volunteering for the Partners for Peaceful Peace, a nonprofit organization based in Gainesville, Florida, and dedicated both to promoting alternate solutions to conflict, and to wearing convincing looks of empathy when confronted by a wide range of humanitarian issues. We were both assigned to Turkmenistan, and I first encountered David my first day there. I was just off the plane, still wearing my civvies, when I was called to the field, where I found David applying a tourniquet to a small bunny who had stepped on a mine -- a small mine specifically planted to do harm to Turkmenistani bunnies. The horrors of war indeed.

I was amazed at David's dedication, and was greatly moved by how deeply he seemed to be moved. He was doing a fine job with the tourniquet, but I could tell it was getting to him, the cruelty of a world where bunny-mines were not only a part of warfare, but were common -- not just in Turkmenistan but also Burkistan -- and were maiming bunnies at a rate of at least two a year. As he worked, David's face was the very face of anguish, in terms of how it looked facially. But damned if he didn't save the left-back paw of that bunny. That day, David Cross became my hero.

A few years down the road, I caught David's "stand-up" show, at some two-bit dive in Nashville. I was initially upset, because some lunatic had removed all the tables in front, preventing me from having some chicken fingers while watching his act, but whatever. I stood in the back, near the bar, eating my delicious fingers and watching David do his thing. He was prattling on about the crimes of our president, and about other issues political and social and racial and economic. I couldn't honestly make out just what he was saying through all of the cursing and vitriol. He seemed so frustrated, so exasperated, and I wondered why. I walked out mid-way through, after finishing my meal, and did some gun-shopping around the corner.

What happened to the cool-headed healer I saw saving that Turkmenistani bunny’s paw? I wondered. After the show, I returned to the club and encountered David in his dressing room. I asked him this question: What happened to you? Why don't you love people and animals anymore? Why must you be so "edgy" and "hep"? I asked these questions, and I asked them again. And then once more. Then I got a sandwich and came back and asked them one more time. But David wasn't listening. He was drinking Zima. It was the part of his rider he was proudest of and he didn't want any outsiders interfering with it.

I left the club that night awash in thoughts, and smelling of the patchouli oil that David likes to wear and which contractually permeated every corner of David's dressing room. As I walked out into the night air, I tried to remember the David Cross I once knew, the man who was my hero and who also -- I forgot to tell you this story -- once carried an entire family of Turkmenis to the drug store, because they wanted some Ace bandages and didn't have a car, and didn't like to shop alone, and preferred not to walk. That man was the man I wanted to be, but this new David Cross was someone else, a man perhaps on narcotics or diet pills.

Only later did I find out that he was incontinent. At that point I expected to feel bad for being so disappointed in him, and for hiring a man to kill him, but strangely, I didn't. I hope you enjoy this CD.

- Dave Eggers