I love Rodney

Rodney Dangerfield is one of my all-time favorite comedians. I used to love watching his Tonight Show appearances and his ability to shoot off one-liner after one-liner and make it seem effortless.

I finally got around to reading Rodney Dangerfield's book, "It's Not Easy Being Me," which I thought was really great.

The book is full of Rodney's trademark hit-and-run jokes that are placed throughout the book.

Rodney's childhood sucked really bad.

His dad was a serial womanizer and was rarely around the house. Rodney's mother never showed him any affection whatsoever. There was little love in the Dangerfield household.

When Rodney's father and mother were together, they fought viciously. Rodney says, "most kids fall asleep listening to a fairy tale. I fell asleep listening to a guy yelling, 'Enough! I've had enough!'"

Rodney's talent bloomed early.

He got into the comedy scene at a relatively early age, worked hard and went for it whenever an opportunity presented itself. As a result, by his early 20's, he was a regular on the New York comedy scene doing gigs in Manhattan as well as upstate.

During that time, Rodney enjoyed himself like most men his age; he drank a lot and bedded women. Lots of them. And he worked hard on his act. Then one day, he met a woman and married her. He had a child.

Rodney decided to give up comedy to live a real life. He became a salesperson, hawking aluminum siding, which he did for over a decade.

As he endured the grind of a 9-to-5 job and the pressure of coming up with his next sale, he kept notebooks and continued writing jokes.

He did this for almost 15 years. At age 40 he decided he'd had enough.

He ditched the wife and lame sales job and pursued what he knew he was best at: comedy.

He had no problem making crowds laugh and word spread quickly that Rodney was back. He started catching some major breaks and ended up doing his routine on the Ed Sullivan show.

Slowly but surely, Rodney's popularity grew.

Because so little went right in Rodney's personal life, he thought he could make that the basis for his act. At the time, "The Godfather" was at the height of its popularity. Rodney went and saw it, and learned how the concept of respect was important to gangsters.

Rodney took the cue, and that's how the "no respect" joke was born.

Rodney eventually became a famous comic in his own right, opened his own comedy club, appeared on the Tonight Show numerous times and helped launched the careers of dozens of comics including Jim Carrey, Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison.

Throughout his life, Rodney was a habitual pot smoker right into his 80's. The funnyman also battled severe and chronic bouts of depression.

Rodney had a supreme gift of appealing to a huge audience and he gave us many years of laughter. His legacy is one that will be hard to eclipse.