I don’t know how many people Jerry Stiller has in his fan club, and I don’t want to know. I’d like to believe I’m the only devotee. But that would be selfish. How many others are like me in this category? I would hope it’s around 2.5 million, give or take. I’m not in any clubs; I don’t particularly like clubs. But if there was a non-club, I would be among the top Jerry Stiller fan club members. Even though I never wear Tshirts advertising anything — and I mean anything — I would make an exception and wear a Jerry Stiller Hanes 50-50 if it came in white, black or dark blue. I’m not a red or yellow kind of guy. To go even further, I wouldn’t do any gardening, home repairs, sidewalk patching, sandblasting, automotive adjustments or attic crawling because I’d treasure my Jerry Stiller Tshirt just about as much as my autographed photo of Woody Allen.

It may sound strange to you, this affinity for Ben Stiller’s dad. Especially when there are really big stars like Tony Bennet, Steve Carell and Ed Begley, Jr. To me, Jerry Stiller tops them all. He has what nobody else has. He has that which I long to call the “something else” factor.

If Jerry Stiller was my friend, I would leave him following many a dinner engagement with the words, “Jerry, you’re really something else.” My mother used to say this to me all the time. But it wasn’t necessarily in a good way. It would be more in the context of:

ME: I like the consistency of water. It’s very smooth while at the same time strong enough to keep a fat person afloat for hours on end.
MOM: You know, you’re really something else.

I wonder what Mom meant by that. She was also fond of asking me, “Where are your brains?” I always thought this was a medical quiz, her way of preparing me for med school, until I reached age 18 and realized that she was just commenting on my lack of common sense.

Back to Jerry Stiller. What’s not to like about this guy? I think he’s as brilliant a comedian and comic actor as they come. I used to watch him and Anne Meara when I was a kid. They were on TV all the time doing some funny schtick that involved lots of heated arguing. I like it when he yells. He reminds me of my grandfather, may he rest in peace (my grandfather, that is, not Jerry Stiller). I grew up with a grandfather from Brooklyn who hollered a lot. Not just a lot; excessively. He would even holler the words, “I love you,” which were usually followed by, “Wear your shoes when you go in the gutter, you schmendrick!”

My grandfather was also big on physical threats. He’d say things like, “I oughta knock you on your ear,” or he’d stick his head out of his car window and yell, “You call that driving? A clown can use a horn; what else can you do that’s of any use? What the hell is wrong with you!!!”

My grandfather loved to holler at my grandmother. Grandma screamed back. She’d curse at him at the top of her lungs and in the next breath sweetly ask me if I wanted something to eat. My grandfather would chime in, “I want something to eat! You don’t ask me if I want something to eat!” And Grandma would yell, “You ate an hour ago, you have a basketball for a stomach. I can’t even see your penis anymore.” “You can’t see my penis because you don’t want to!” And back and forth it went until they both went to sleep in each other’s arms.

Jerry Stiller makes me nostalgic for my grandfather. That’s it! It’s a feisty attitude, a lot of noise and a golden heart beneath the stocky, old world exterior.

I’ve met a number of celebrities in my day. I’m no spring chicken. I’ve been around the block. But I would trade a Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks or even a Meryl Streep in a New York minute for a chance to have a dinner some evening with Jerry Stiller. And if Jerry didn’t yell at me at least once, I’d be deeply insulted!

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