Until I was about four, I thought my first name was "Shuddup."

No kidding, and what's worse . . .  I learned to like it.

I'll never forget the sound of kids laughing at me at a Los Angeles playground when I told them 'Shuddup' was my name.

And this was just after I performed  a standup routine I copied by Rodney Dangerfield on top of the monkey bars. The thanks I get!

Let's just say I felt a kinship with Rodney as I too got no respect.

The joke of his I most represent is, "I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous, everyone hasn't met me yet."

As a Japanese-Jew growing up in an all Jewish neigborhood, life was no platter of lox and bagels or sushi.

Just picture a little girl who looked Asian but was stuck  inside the body of an older male Jewish comedian.

Not so appealing, is it? 

I ran from the playground crying and kvetching all the way home and asked my sister if my name really was "Shuddup".

I somehow hoped she would kindly whisper into my ear a different name I was sometimes called. And I don't mean "GetOut."

Instead she yelled, "You're name is Shuddup . . . alright already? And if you don't believe me, just ask mom and dad when they get home!"

Now I was really confused.

Was my full legal name "Shuddup Alright Allready?"  

I was beginning to feel like I was in the "Who's on First" sketch by Abbot and Costello. 

When my parents got home, I ran into their arms, hoping to get a different answer than my happy-go-luck sister gave me. 

Only after my father poured himself a martini and my mother started the rice, did I get my answer when they both told me to "Shut up."

I did for about five minutes, but then ignored my name's meaning and proceeded to become Woody Allen in "Take the Money and Run."

Acting like Jewish comedians is what helped me deal with my own angst as a child. And what's more important is that it  "really really" annoyed my family.

The scene I most like to torture my family with was when Allen could not even successfully rob a bank in which the bank tellers insisted the note he handed them said that he had "gub" in his pocket and not a "gub."

For this scene I stole my brothers bibi gun, my father's suit for props and various things from both my sisters and my mother just to make the "annoyance factor" more appealing.

After that I proceeded to sing "Springtime for Hitler" from the movie The Producers by Mel Brooks to my entire family while they yelled my name in unison "Shuddup Checka!" Checka was the other name I was referring to.

Let's just say that if I had been raised by wolves I would have gotten more attention. But then again, in the "old days",  no one got solo attention as everyone was just too busy trying to get by.

Either that or everyone was getting stoned.

So I said to myself, "Self . . . perhaps it is up to you to bring some joy and laughter into this fam damily, even if you are told to shut up in the process."

And yes I was that philosophical as a small child. So sue me and get in line.

That's how comics are born, usually from a sheer place of sheer madness and a pure need for survival. We make fun of ourselves  in order to beat the crowd who is already trying to beat us to it and sometimes to beat us down.

In my case I was simply trying to make myself laugh and everyone else in the process because life was  more tolerable that way and a heck of a lot more fun.

Forward to "now" and and you can be rest assured that during family weddings, funerals and meals, I am still called "Shuddup", and I still don't. 

Just last week at a Chinese restaurant in which my Japanese mother and Jewish father were arguing with my Movie Director sister about which noodles to order, I proceeded with my latest shtick about my life's goals.

Realizing that no one was listening to me anyway, I aptly quoted Groucho Marx who once said, "If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again."

At least two of my siblings and one of my parents proceeded to tell me to "Shuddup", just as I heard out my name first spoken quite lively as a wee little child.

A more lovelier name was never given.