Please Stop Hugging Me

I'm not a fan of the hug. What happened to just nodding vaguely in the direction of the other person while muttering hateful things under your breath?

I see people lurch towards me with outstretched arms, like some Frankenstein off his meds, and try to grasp me in a claw-like embrace that, were I anorexic, would kill me. Although once they've got me in their clutches, I want to be killed.

Some of the worst offenders of the hug:

The Mom Hugger:

Please take your snot filled sweater and your poop-stained hair and walk away. Keep going. No, further, I can still smell your diaper genie.



The Drunk Hugger:

Please breathe on me harder because I have a cold sore I need disintegrated.



The I've Never Met You Hugger:

I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU, PSYCHO.



The Lonely Hugger:

Yes, I can tell you have no friends because now my 34 C's are 32 A's. Let go. No seriously, LET GO.



The Uncle Hugger:

"Uncle" means Sex Offender. Look it up on the Internet. God knows you spend enough time there.



Female Celebrity Huggers Hugging Other Female Celebrities:


Not interesting unless they both have very big breasts.



My Mother Hugger:

You have me confused with your other daughter, the one you love.



When I got hired to do Seinfeld I was told it was a No Hugging Set. I thought they were geniuses.

L.A. Sign Of The Times #89

I get pedicures 3 blocks from my house. On the way there I took a picture of this building, which is on my street, because I thought only in L.A. do people name their buildings after luxury cars.

In the chair next to me were two women who were obviously friends. One was from Nova Scotia and the other lived up the street from me. The Canadian flew in one week a month to take lessons from the woman who lived on my street who teaches some kind of mind boggling body-mind-exercise-wouldprobablykillme kind of classes, for which she's known all over California.

I was glad I was wearing a baggy dress. And yes, Nova Scotia is part of Canada.

She asked if I lived in the grey building that had just been renovated. Not connecting the grey building with the picture I'd just taken, I replied that I didn't but did she? She said her Dad owned it.

In other news, Blogger spell check thinks "Scotia" is spelled wrong. Because Blogger? Has not traveled much.

After Everyone Has Talked About BlogHer, I Get Around To It

When I went to BlogHer in the beginning of August, I didn't really go to BlogHer. If you know me at all, I'm not much of a joiner or a follower. I'm kind of a loner which is, I believe, how serial killers get started.

So I made up something called BlogHer Adjacent. A send-up of what people who live heartbeats away from Beverly Hills call where they live, Beverly Hills Adjacent. They made up that name rather than admit they didn't make the cutoff to 90210.

So I tweeted that I'd be in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel from 2 pm until late that evening on the Saturday of BlogHer and asked people to DM me their cell phone numbers. And they did. Poor bastards didn't even see it coming.

I met some of my favorite people, bloggers I'm sure you know and love. Well, at least know.

Like these people and these people and her and these people (plus the back of Jenn's head which I forgot to note in the original picture. She was also my gracious host on Friday night and let me sleep in her guest room). I also met her and these people. And this duo, one of whom I picked up at LAX the Tuesday before BlogHer. Don't you hate people who link like this? People tell me not to do it this way because it drives traffic away from my site. Please, there are plenty of things that drive traffic away from my site without obnoxious linking.

This photo was taken at the table I commandeered in front of the Marriott Starbucks. I looked up to see someone crossing the lobby wearing my tee shirt and couldn't believe it. Then I recognized her from her blog.

When I asked her why she was wearing my shirt she replied that everything else was dirty. SO FLATTERED.

She bought a tee shirt a long time ago and never sent me a picture of herself wearing it. Turns out she didn't realize the upside to buying a shirt was a link on my sidebar and the opportunity to be seen by tens of people.

Since I've been so late posting this, I decided to leave her picture and link to her blog up until I sell another shirt, or get a few of the people who already have shirts to send in their pictures.

Cough cough Vodkamom.

Her blog is funny. You should read it. She free-associates like no one else.

L.A. Sign Of The Times #88

This is the view from my balcony, of Paramount Pictures. Paramount is the last major film studio located in Hollywood. It was home to Bob Hope, Mae West and the Marx Brothers as well as the studio that made The Godfather, Saturday Night Fever and Chinatown, to name a few.


I often pretend I own it.

(click on label below to see all the other pictures in this series.)

This Is How Stupid Blogger And Google Are

Because I accidentally posted something before it was SUPPOSED to be posted, Google won't list my most recent post.

So I have to post this so you can see the post that didn't get posted.

Read below to see the post that blogger and Google fucked up.

Assholes.

The Man Who Built The Truck For 9/11

As I've posted before, I was at LAX on September 11, 2001. I was getting ready to board a plane headed for St. Petersburg, Florida. My Dad had died in January of that year and I was trying to sell his two condos and dispose of all his personal items. My stepmother had died 3 years earlier but many of her things were still in one of the apartments. Plus they had a storage unit. It eventually took me until 2003 to unload it all. I told my mother to not ever die because if she thought I was going to fly to Paris and take 3 years to unload her 2 apartments plus the garage she owned, she could rethink that.

She agreed never to die. It wasn't so much a promise as a threat.

I watched on September 11 as a crowd gathered around a bar at LAX while the wounded World Trade Center still stood. A flight was called to its gate. People picked up their magazines, carry-ons and books and casually walked away from the lounge area. I thought they were all crazy. Didn't they see what was happening on TV?

There was a pregnant woman standing next to me and I told her we had to leave but she said she had nowhere to go. I suggested she get a hotel at the airport but she just stared at me. I stared back and then ran. I knew it was time to get the hell out of one of the major airports in the United States. And then Delta announced that all luggage was being returned. Their personnel flooded baggage claim. I remember a man found my bags in about 10 seconds. He threw them at my feet and said, "Now go."

Just so you know, a cab from LAX to wherever you live in LA is about a million dollars, maybe 2 if you have luggage. You either take a shuttle service or call a friend. I stood in the long line for cabs.

And I was one of the last taxis out before they shut LAX down.

I used to live in Manhattan. For 13 years. I'd had lunch at Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, twice. Once you're a New Yorker, you're never anything else no matter where you live. It's a hard town to crack but if you manage, you wear the badge of *New Yorker* proudly. And I still did, even though I'd been gone for ten years.

On September 12 I called a high-ranking friend of mine in Washington and asked if Los Angeles had any reason to be alarmed. And if so I needed to know so I could grab my sister and our friends and get the hell out.

I received this message in return: "Beware the target an icon makes. And be careful."

Did she mean Disneyland? The Golden Gate? Or was it merely speculation from Washington? I'll never know. We've never discussed that message because it can't be discussed. Obviously.

I first heard of this truck last year. You might think I live in a cave if I'd never heard of something so large. And that tours the U.S. But I didn't. Mainly because I rarely open my cave windows.

The Rolling Memorial is painted with a mural intended to honor the victims of the 9/11 attacks. The whole story about the man who made it here.

And now, the truck:

(click on pictures to enlarge)

I read someone's blog where they dismissed people who mourned 9/11 as if it was their own personal tragedy, even though they'd not lost a friend or even lived in NY. Please.  9/11 is every American's personal tragedy. It's the world's personal tragedy because not just Americans were lost that day.

Because it changed the way we live.

Forever.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

The most ridiculous thing I've seen online in a while:

A sink. Although in a pinch it could double for a toilet seat. Or if you want to rinse out your thimble collection, this would be a good place to do it.

Things currently on my Shit List:

1. Stop turning down the page corners of books. It hurts the book and I can hear it cry when I open it.

2. Stop bad writing like: "A grin tickled my lips" or any variation of how a smile appears on your face except for "I smiled" or "I grinned." F. Scott Fitzgerald thanks you and has stopped rolling over in his grave.

3. If I'm watching a movie with you and you talk during it? You will die.

4. Enough with the PC. Why do these bullies think that what THEY believe is what we all should believe? Yes, I called them bullies.

EXAMPLE: Bette Midler has been performing dressed as a mermaid rolling around in a wheel chair since the 1980's. Recently Lady Gaga did the same thing in Australia.

Gaga got into all kinds of PC trouble for it. "Insulting to people in wheelchairs!" Bette Midler never got in any kind of PC trouble for it because it was the 1980's, when people dressed badly, had really awful hairdos but were otherwise sane and tolerant individuals who could tell the difference between a show and reality. Not to mention parody and cruelty.

5. Stop answering your own comments in your blogs to boost numbers. Once I saw someone had 68 comments and I started to read the post. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how it got 68 comments until I started to read them and every other one was from the blog owner. We know it's a numbers booster and that you're not anymore popular than the rest of us.

6. After years and years of publicly eschewing social media like Facebook and Twitter, I readily jumped on board the Google+ train. They had 25 million new users in under a month. It took Facebook and Twitter two years to achieve those numbers. If you want an invitation, email me and I'll send you one. That's the only way you can join but since each member gets 150 invites, they've seen the future and the future is Google+.

If Google+ is not the future, I reserve the right to blame Facebook. Which always gets my Bite Me Award of the Century:

End of chat.

I've Got Klout I Didn't Even Know About

If you're on Twitter you know about Klout.com. It measures your influence on the Internet. The higher the score the more fake important you are.

Hot Comes To Die - 58
Dooce - 68
President Obama - 89
Lady Gaga - 92
Justin Bieber - 100

I thought the scores only went up to 100 but there's a level 120. I think they had to add that for Bieber.

Sidebar: Don't ever make the mistake of smelling the perfume JB put on the market. It will kill you dead.

In my case, my fake importance surprises me. I'm not saying I don't get a lot of RT's on Twitter. That's when some people decide you said something smart or funny or stupid and all of Twitter needs to hear it. And they RT it, or Re-tweet it. So your stupid tweet goes out to even more people than your own followers. And like that annoying Joe Namath commercial from the 70's "and so on and so on and so on." You're worldwide stupid!

But when I saw this I was doubtful. 1000 RT's of ONE of my tweets? Seriously?

But this one is even better. I've had 500 unique mentions on Facebook? I'm not even on Facebook. Some people think I said something clever enough to transfer over there? That would imply that I'm not clever at all because it's FACEBOOK. Where all my high school friends and comedians I wouldn't sleep with congregate. Which is why I'm not on it.

And yet I'm on it.

And more importantly? I'm now black.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

When I first began blogging I used to get a lot of these emails: "I'm sorry I didn't leave a funny comment."

It appeared that because I was a comedian, some people felt an obligation to be funny. Of course I hadn't even noticed. I don't grade people's comments although I might start now.

Suddenly everyone wants to be funny over everything else. Not smart, not even attractive trumps this juggernaut of a personality trait. We used to want people with a sense of humor. I haven't heard that expression in years. Now everyone wants someone who's funny.

And that's just not possible.

Mainly because very few people are funny. I see a lot of blog headers and Twitter bios of people claiming they're funny. If you have to announce that? I'm not sure you are. It's like telling a woman you're going to sleep with that you have a big dick. It can be proved wrong, eventually.

A recent convert to Twitter told me months ago that she didn't want to go on Twitter because she'd be constantly trying to think up one-liners. That's a job best left to comedians because good one liners are hard to write. The going rate on The Tonight Show used to be $100 per joke. Someone waiting on a big gig just offered me $5,000 to write ten new minutes for her if she got the job. As much as I would love the money? That ten minutes, approximately 30 jokes, is not going to be written in an afternoon. I only knew one person who could do that and he now writes for Joan Rivers. And the other person who can crank them out is head writer for The Oscars. And they're both brilliant at it.

So go on Twitter and be interesting. Believe me, that's hard enough.

Why is it so important to be funny?

Funny is subjective. Look no further than sitcoms, romantic comedies and books. The Liar's Club, by Mary Karr, has this notation on the back of the book: "The choice in the book is between howling misery and howling laughter, and the reader veers towards laughter." And the back cover also proclaims "A wickedly funny account of an apocalyptic childhood."

I'm a huge fan of Ms. Karr and that book is an apocalyptic tale, but funny? No. But I'm sure there's someone reading this who will violently disagree with my assessment of the laughter quotient in that book. And like those blog and Twitter headers and bios, you set yourself up to judgement if you say something is funny. Say humorous (completely different than funny) or amusing (also different) but don't say funny unless you want people to pick you apart like a King Crab leg.

Which brings me to dying. One person I talked about a lot in the beginning of this blog has died. I heard it third hand a few weeks ago. I referred to him as The Impotentate in this blog and he once told me the reason he was first attracted to me was because I was funny. That may have been what he thought was the reason but the real reason was that he thought HE was funny. Maybe he thought I could get him on TV? In the movies? Who knows. But I do remember this story.

One night he told me one of the oldest jokes in the history of joke writing:

A father walks into his son's room and sees the son is masturbating. He tells the son that if he keeps doing that he's going to go blind and the son replies, "Over here, Dad."

I didn't laugh. And he got mad.

For starters, comedians don't laugh at jokes. Usually not when a civilian tells it. They'll leave out a word, or their timing is off or they forget the punchline. Or the joke sucks. Comics barely laugh at each other. If I say to you, "That's funny," that's as big as it's going to get.  Comedians know too much about the business of joke construction. We can pinpoint with alarming NASA like accuracy where that punchline will land. Occupational hazard.

I like to point out when something is funny. I'm not threatened by someone else's success in this area. If you wrote a funny book, told a funny speech and it made me laugh, I'll tell you. I'm not insecure about who I am in that regard. And you not telling me when I'm funny makes me think YOU might be insecure and think you're funnier than me, or that I'm not funny at all, but that's another day and our hour is almost up.

NOT FUNNY AT ALL WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUT?

So The Impotentate and I broke up many, many times and on one of our reconciliations, we were driving up north. I had a gig and we were going to spend the night at a nearby hotel. On the way up he told me the SAME masturbating joke he had told me years earlier. I realized he had no recollection of telling me the joke in the first place.

But this time I laughed. Because he was trying so hard to impress me with this lame joke. That he thought was funny.

Was it wrong that I laughed? Does it diminish the time I told you that you said something funny? Will you ever trust a compliment from me again?

Let's not forget The Impotentate was a man. Their egos don't allow them to believe they're not funny. I'm sure Albert Schweitzer thought he was a laugh riot.

So the Bite Me Award of the Week goes to everyone who thinks they're funny. But really aren't.

End of chat.

To Say I Love Clarins Is An Understatement

I also like old metal signs.

The Smart People Who Put Me In Their Book

So it's 6 months until this book comes out. My motto is IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY TO BEAT PEOPLE OVER THE HEAD WITH SELF PROMOTION.



I have an essay in this book and I'll be blogging/tweeting/tumblring/google plussing it until it's actual publishing date.  How annoying is THAT going to be?

My advice to you is just buy it because it's funny funny funny.

And not just because I'm in it. But mainly because I'm in it.

Earthquakes And Rough Sex

This is the living room in my old apartment. You can't see the 20 year old carpet that the landlords refused to change, or the cracks in the walls from all the earthquakes and or rough sex I had.


This is the living room in my new apartment:

 I'm praying for an earthquake and or rough sex to get this shit TOGETHER.

(click on pictures to enlarge)