“John Leguizamo’s Sexaholix: A Love Story” [ ]
Saturday at 10 p.m. on HBO
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JOHN Leguizamo is a tough act to follow – not in the usual sense, but in the sense that if you’re not a fan and not on his wavelength, it’s tough to follow the guy.
I’ve seen more than one person walk out of his shows scratching their heads mumbling “What the hell was that? What did I just see?” I wish I could answer that, but I can’t. I just know I laugh like crazy.
He’s completely insane, or maybe he just happens to be the only person on earth who has no shame whatsoever when it comes to his family.
I mean, did you ever think you’d laugh over somebody’s stories of being beat up by his father? What about laughing over his grandfather’s stroke? How can you laugh at old people who can only talk from one side of their face? I did.
And you probably will too if you watch Saturday night’s HBO special, “John Leguizamo’s Sexaholix . . . A Love Story.” Maybe it’s because he manages to say out loud all the stuff we think but never have the nerve to say that makes him so out of control funny.
Or maybe it’s because no matter how horrible a memory of his abusive childhood he drags out, he makes it funny because he’s a grown-up.
While his horrible childhood formed the guy, he somehow understands that it’s just the way it was, and now let’s move on. He still loves his family – even if they’re more dysfunctional than a roomful of Jerry Springer guests.
To his persona of street kid, Latino loverboy, son, comic, performance artist, he’s now added daddy. And it’s the only part of the show that doesn’t work. I mean, if a woman got up and did mommy stuff, she’d be booed off the stage.
This show is based partly on his sex life – Sexaholics was the name of the “gang” he and his loser friends formed when they were kids and never got any sex.
He does a thing about his first real affair with an older woman named Penny that made me laugh so hard I thought I’d have to be hospitalized. Me? I’d kill myself before I admitted half these things to a therapist, let alone a theater full of strangers.
For example, when Penny got pregnant and decided to have an abortion, he got upset and said, “But Penny – this is my baby too! Shouldn’t I have a say in it?” To which he says Penny replied, “You’re right. It’s not fair to kill the fetus and let the father live.”
Then there’s the poker games with his miserable grandmother and dying grandfather who can only talk our of one side of his mouth. I know this is tragic, I know, but I was on the floor laughing. If you are suffering from any form of political correctness, please stay away. This is not what you need right now. You might get a stroke from being so upset – and then he’d make fun of you, too.


