Why You Crying? My Long Hard Look at Life Love and Laughter

from Me and Ernie and Freddie The kid from Home Alone had nothing on me.I didn't know there was a name for children like me until one day I saw a commercial about a latchkey kid letting himself into an empty house after school. Every day, around three, that was me, letting myself in the kitchen door or slipping through an open window.When you're home alone you find love in other forms and faces. Some kids talk to their toys. Some make up imaginary friends. Others live in imaginary worlds populated with people who don't argue or drink, folks who think nothing of giving you a hug or a kiss or a compliment or a smile. The people I interacted with on those lonely afternoons lived in a box. My electronic family -- variety show hosts like Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and Dinah Shore -- were always inviting funny and interesting people over to their place. Jimmie "JJ" Walker, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin were some of my early favorites, guys me and Ernie would sprint home from school to see.Consequently, we got the comedy bug young, and we knew all the comics -- the famous and the not so famous. One day we were cruising Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood, and we passed this car going in the other direction. We both shouted, "That's Johnny Dark!" You have to really know your comics to remember -- much less to have recognized -- Johnny Dark, but he was a fixture at the Comedy Store in the late seventies with the likes of David Letterman, Elayne Boosler, Jay Leno, Steve Landesberg, and Pryor. We whipped a U-turn in the middle of Laurel Canyon and followed Johnny Dark all the way home. I jumped out and approached him in his driveway. "I am George Lopez," I said, "and I want to be a comedian, too." He told us to wait outside, went in his house, came back with two eight-by-tens, autographed one for each of us, and just hung out and talked shop. He was so cool, and it was cool to be in the presence of a professional comedian.It was in that electronic box in the summer of 1974 that I met my new best friend. Over time he would become my guardian angel, the one who watched over my career from above. And today, in the strangest of ways, I have become the keeper of his flame.I was all of thirteen when the promotion came on, a classic sixty-four Chevy with pom-poms and the antenna and the little dog in the back window followed by the words "Coming this fall." From then on I'd sit in front of the TV, watching it like a hawk, waiting, hoping just to see the promo again, to see the kid, this Chico with the bedroom eyes, who wore denim like we did, cool as shit with that droopy mustache, long hair, and lover-boy body.My idol...Freddie Prinze.Think Robin Williams in the eighties or Chris Rock today, and that was Freddie Prinze Sr. in the early 1970s. Words like "creative genius" get tossed around a lot in my business, but they're actually on target when it comes to the comedic talents of one Frederick Karl Pruetzel, born June 22, 1954, to a Puerto Rican mother and E. Karl Pruetzel, the Hungarian taskmaster Freddie never really liked.He grew up up in Washington Heights, New York -- "a slum with trees," he called it -- studied music and karate, and dreamed of fame and fortune. His idol was Lenny Bruce. Eventually Freddie got his break earning stand-up shots at New York landmarks like the Improv and Catch a Rising Star, mesmerizing people with his comedic and imitative talents. Before long he got the call every comedian died for back then -- a guest spot on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Freddie laid Johnny out that night, so much so that he was offered a coveted seat on Carson's couch. That contributed to his meteoric rise and led to an audition in the summer of 1974 that would change -- and eventually help end -- his life. Other Voices -- Ron De Blasio,Freddie Prinze's managerI am on the road with Pryor and we're going to Chicago and weLopez, George is the author of 'Why You Crying? My Long Hard Look at Life Love and Laughter', published 2004 under ISBN 9780743259941 and ISBN 0743259947.