It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

This was my entry in this year's Robert Benchley Writing Competition. If you follow that link you'll see some of Benchley's more famous quotes. He was a member of the Algonquin Round Table in New York and is widely recognized as one of the premier humorists in the history of humor. This will not be said about me when I'm dead and buried at my decidedly non star-studded funeral. I'll save you the trouble, I DIDN'T EVEN MAKE TOP 10 AND ARTE I'M A THOUSAND YEARS OLD JOHNSON WAS THE JUDGE. It probably would've helped to familiarize myself more with Benchley's humor but then I wouldn't have had anything to bitch about.


I own a refrigerator. This is dull news unless you’ve never owned one. And I haven’t. Nor have I wanted to. I’m a renter. We look down on owning.

“It was left by the last guy; you wanna buy it?”
“How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Fifty dollars a month on top of the rent?”
“Nah, just a one time thing.”

You can’t buy a toaster for fifty dollars, much less an entire refrigerator with shelves and cubicles and a separate little apartment for the butter. I was suspicious. Had this refrigerator been in prison and couldn’t get a decent job anywhere but in a rental unit? Who was this “last guy” who left it behind? What kind of shady activity was he involved in that required him to take off without a refrigerator?

“How old is it?” I asked the manager, opening the fridge door and expecting to see a family of mold sitting around the crisper knitting.

“Only two, looks pretty good for its age, right?”

Two in rental talk obviously means three. And “looks good for its age” is what people say about women who are aging dubiously.

“It has an ice-maker. It’ll make ice day and night, miss.”

That doesn’t seem like a plus to me. An ice maker that makes money day and night, definitely a plus. But how much ice does one person need?

“It’s a Westinghouse.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes ma’am, made right here in the U S of A.”

The manager switched from calling me miss to ma’am in the course of three seconds. This refrigerator was aging me. And not dubiously.

I bought the four year old refrigerator and moved in a few days later. It hummed quietly in the far corner of my clean white kitchen, next to the window overlooking the pink bougainvillea growing over the roof of my nearest neighbor. I checked the freezer. There was ice.

I invited a friend over. He brought wine and various shades of oohs and ahhs.

“Can you help me turn the microwave right side up?”
“How did it get upside down?”
“The movers were in a hurry.”
“You told them you weren’t going to tip them, didn’t you?”
“The tip is included in the price, like in France.”
“So you only invited me to help move this thing?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the only person I know who works out with weights so you take that corner and I’ll take this corner and easy does it, and flipping, and turning… and down… we… go.”

And I set the microwave down on my left thumb.

“I’m okay. Really, I’m fine, see? These aren’t even real tears.”
“Let me look at…wow, you have a white refrigerator! You really don’t see these anymore since everyone wants stainless. Is yours vintage?”
“No, it’s only five years old.”
“Now let me look at your thumb; you know you’re going to have to keep ice on that day and night.”


So this week's Bite Me Award goes to Arte Johnson and Robert Benchley, even though Benchley died in 1945 and will not likely be reading my blog today:

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.

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.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

If you're not a fan of CAPS lock or Italics, you might want to skip this post.

This week I'm giving the Bite Me Award up front. It will soon be obvious why.

I believe in karma. What purposeful harm you bring upon others will revisit you twenty fold. I've never seen it fail.

The best thing that happened in all this ugliness is that I reconnected with my best friend, who's family to me. Which is great because I've not told my mom all the details of what's going on. She lives 6,000 miles away and was so upset about the little I did tell her that I didn't want to aggravate her high blood pressure. Too late for mine.

I also found love and solace on Twitter. I will always be grateful for the people who talked me off the ledge. (And generously sent me $300, a care package of chocolate and coffee gifts, a Starbucks card and treated me to a night with Joan Rivers. Not to mention the hundreds of DM's and emails wishing me well)

But I let some people down. Bloggers who were in town that I wanted to see? Didn't happen. I've been unable to put on a neutral face about my life because I've been massively depressed. But one of the worst things, besides getting a bleeding ulcer, was seeing that people whose friendship I was on the fence about before did not fail me in that regard this time.

One person who I unloaded last year resurfaced. The reason I dropped them was because they could only handle a phone call if they were the main topic of conversation. Do you have this person in your life? They start a conversation by asking how you are. You respond because you actually believe they want to know how you are. Then the next hour is about them. And if, in The Wide Wide World Of This Is How A Conversation Works, we drift back to me, they hang up! Only I don't know it because there's no click. (Dear Future: BRING BACK THE CLICK) So I would always call them back.

So when I saw their name on my Caller ID a few weeks ago I actually believed they wanted to talk about ME instead of their laundry list of what was wrong with them that p.s. I can't fix no one can because you're a total fucking MESS.
But after tolerating about 15 minutes of my story, THEY HUNG UP ON ME AGAIN. And I called back. Again. I was met with, "I don't know what happened but I'm running out the door." The last time I checked, a cell phone works WHEN YOU'RE GOING OUT THE DOOR.

I always believe people exit and enter your life with lessons to be learned. Here was my lesson: People really are as mental as they appear. GOT IT!

It's been a rough year for the Ring of Fire. Chile, New Zealand and now Japan. If it's going clockwise, California is next. It's been nice knowing you.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

I've been on hiatus from bitching but I'm back so buckle up! And if you're new to this feature? Consider yourselves warned.



Blogs, Blogger, Blogging. When did this all go so horribly wrong?

People ask me why I hate blogs. Let me count the ways:

1. PEOPLE WHO POST EVERY DAY
I'm sure you think your life is fascinating and needs to be published on a daily basis. Really? Have you read you?

2. PEOPLE WHO THINK THEIR KIDS ARE THE CHRIST CHILD
The only cutesy thing I ever want to hear your child say is: "Mom, here's a sitcom contract and a million dollars for Suzy Soro." If, however, your child invents something to replace blogging, please call me at 1-800-WISHINGFORDEATH.

3. TRAVELING HUSBANDS
Where are your husbands traveling to all the time? To the towns where their second families live, that's where. Wake up and smell the alimony.

4. HUSBANDS WHO NEVER TRAVEL
Also boring.

5. YOUR RECIPES
Dear God the recipes! The moment I see the words "2 Teaspoons" I'm off to my Suicide Farm in the South of France. Seriously, if your kids didn't suck the pantry dry you'd be able to have meals out.

6. YOUR DIETS
Stop stuffing your feelings into enchiladas. Take up drug addiction or smoking, both of which are guaranteed to drop 10 pounds in a matter of days. I'll be in rehab if anyone wants me.

7. PICTURES OF YOUR GARDENS
Taking pictures of your heirloom tomatoes and flowers is the first sign of old age. My family did this and I have shelves of 8 millimeter films of roses blowing in a slight breeze with elevator music playing in the background and my sister and I hiding behind potted plants. I've spent entire therapy sessions asking my shrink WHY COULDN'T I JUST BE ADOPTED LIKE NORMAL CHINESE GIRL BABIES?

8. PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY'RE FUNNY
Have you looked up the definition of Funny? Here it is: arousing or provoking laughter. Notice eye rolling is missing from the definition.

9. PEOPLE WHO THINK OTHER BLOGGERS ARE FUNNY
If you tell me that you FELL OUT OF YOUR CHAIR laughing at a site I will demand to see a picture of this event. The last person to fall out of a chair laughing was Jim Carrey and he was paid twenty million dollars to do it. You also did not LMAO at anyone's blog. Because if you had, pictures of you without an ass would have gone viral and you'd be negotiating a deal with Bravo TV for your own reality show, "Just Because You Don't Have An Ass Doesn't Mean You're Not An Asshole."

10. PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY'RE CRAZY
Let me be the first to assure you that you're not crazy. Gary Busey is crazy. Living in Missouri with 2 kids, a cat, 2 dogs and a kooky neighbor is NOT crazy. It's what everyone else is doing. Sadly.

11. STOP THE POOP I WANT TO GET OFF
I never want to read about your kid's swirly poop, your wacky in-laws' disapproving poop, your boss and his executive poop, your divorced-and-fighting-the-prenup poop or the poop that ate Chicago. That I even have to mention this has set me back two years in therapy.


And to wind up Edition Number 107 of Everybody Can Bite Me Friday, I will leave you with this annoying factoid: J.K. Rowling had no middle name and UK publishers were afraid boys wouldn't want to buy the first Harry Potter book if they knew a woman named Joanne had written it. So she borrowed the name of a favorite relative and became J.K. Rowling. Maybe your kid or your heirloom tomato could find a cure for sexism. That would be great, thanks.

So the Bite Me Award of the Week goes to the Unimaginative Blogger. There's a big world out there! Go live it! I'd say I'll be waiting by my Google Reader but we all know I won't be.
End of chat.

***And if you think blogging is still popular or a way to get a book deal or make you famous, better read this first.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

I ran into actress Christina Ricci at Gelson's this week. As I mentioned on Twitter the day I saw her, she's about 3 feet 12" tall and incredibly long-waisted. She avoids eye contact with everyone. Doesn't want to be talked to. Even Patrick Dempsey stopped to talk to me. He knows a non-violent stalker when he sees one. Maybe.

Ricci lives above me in the Hollywood Hills, in a house (see below) designed by Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright's son. Way to pass on the wrong part of your name Papa Wright.

Whoopi Goldberg is an ass and is one of many reasons I no longer watch The View. I'm not going to sit here and defend the Salahi's behavior getting into the White House but after watching the clip of Whoopi appearing stage right to tap Michaele on the arm and TELL HER to keep talking about the incident, as opposed to her new reality show, was really too much. Whoopi is not the boss of the show unless I haven't watched in so long that she is. Once during a Christmas show years ago they paraded out some "Christmas T Shirt Winners" and Whoopi proceeded to screw up her face in disgust at each one. As if to say, "I'm not a part of this bullshit. I'm just here to be taken seriously."

Take a hike Whoopi, because all that weight you lost CAME BACK. So seriously, take a hike. If I wanted to witness condescension and criticism on a regular basis I'd go live with my mother.

See that Humor Medal badge at the top of my sidebar? I received an email from a malcontent who did NOT receive a humor medal. There were 50 winners in each category and it's just a promotional tool for the company that hands them out. It's not a serious award. Although Mr. Disgruntled has a humor blog, he did not win so he served up sour grapes to all who did. He explained that keeping the medal on my sidebar would damage my reputation in Google.

Well, I should hope so.

I still have my partial bridge in. I cannot get myself to the dentist across town because I can't.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

When I was a kid I asked my parents over and over if there was any possibility that we could be Jewish. I have no idea why I asked them but I really wanted to be Jewish. And adopted. Surely these two cretins could not be my biological parents.

Religion was not a big deal in our house. Mom dragged me and Lindy to mass every Sunday where I sat and muttered under my breath how much I hated her church.

She wanted to become a nun when she was 17 and Dad was an alter boy at his church. Although in the above picture he looks like an alter man.

Religion didn't stick on any of us. I left home at 17 and that was the end of all church going activities in our family. Lindy got out of it 2 years earlier THANKS TO ME. Today we can't even sit in a church and listen without eye rolling each other. We wish people got married at bars. Or maybe a nice seafood restaurant down by the beach.

Dad always insisted that his side of the family was Scottish. No Jews.

Our Dad was a notorious pack rat. It took me 3 years to wade through his papers and possessions after he died. I removed this book from the apartment in Florida. It looked old so I figured I should take it. You know, so I could start my own hoarding traditions. The book is called Life of Washington by the Hon. J.T. Headley.

It was published in 1860, the year I was born. Inside is the name Walter Kummerer, neatly and artistically written in black ink. From something called an inkwell, for all you Justin Bieber fans.

After I found the book I asked my mother if she remembered the last name of my grandmother. She replied that it was Kauffman. I said I thought Dad's mom was Scottish but mom insisted on the name Kauffman.

So I went through our family tree and discovered that my great, great, great grandmother was named Kauffman. Her daughter married a Kummerer and their daughter married a Scot.

So my mom was right. Only she got the last name of my grandmother wrong. How did she know the great, great, great grandmother's name but not the immediate grandmother's name?

As everyone who reads me knows by now, I believe in reincarnation. I believe Mom remembered the name because she was part of that family in a former life. There is no other explanation. I'd say she had a great memory but she recently went to Greece and gave me the wrong departure date. And arrival back in Paris date. And then blamed it all on me.

When I was 5 years old I used to say that I wanted to go to California to see Cindy and Cincy. My parents always asked me who they were and I would always reply: Cindy and Cincy. Like my parents were the two dumbest people in the world.

While my Dad was alive I looked over our family tree one evening and discovered that a woman named Cinzie, real name Christina, had been in our family and died in the early 1900's. I clearly met her on the other side. Because who in the hell ever heard of someone named Cinzie?

I dedicate this Friday's Bite Me post to organized religion because I never knew I was part Jewish and I'm sure it's the Pope's fault.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

I haven't done a Bite Me post in a while. I started them in February of 2008 and have written 103 of them. They came about because in 2000, I was dating a man who I've referred to in this blog as Elvis. He didn't live in Los Angeles because to quote my dad, "If there's an easy way to do something and a hard way, you'll always pick the hard way."

One day I was particularly annoyed. The local supermarket had moved the sushi display to the other side of the store without telling me and I had wandered from aisle to aisle looking for the crew from Punk'd. Later I called Elvis and said, "Well, it's everybody can bite me Tuesday!"

He laughed.

When I started this series I changed the day to Friday because Friday just sounds more badass than the sad and sickly Tuesday. So here we go. Number 104.

The drama in my building continues. The manager, the one who turned this complex into an Amphibian Park, was fired two weeks ago. The tenant who complained about her the most went around with a petition that said she was unjustly fired. He bypassed my apartment because he did not want to die young.

We used to have 8 dogs in 6 apartments. Frogs and Lizards, my name for the manager, put in 4 more dogs so after we finally got rid of 4 (2 of which didn't bark at all) we're now at 8 dogs in 5 APARTMENTS. (Did anyone get lost in that math problem?)

Did I mention Frogs and Lizards is partially deaf? Being deaf is not a big deal, but when people in 20 apartments have to talk to you and you can't hear a thing? Kind of a big deal. For 3 months she refused to put her name on the intercom as the manager. Since I had been interim manager for the month of February, my name remained and my doorbell rang constantly. Luckily it's hooked up to the phone and I have caller ID so I never picked up when the front door rang. After I complained for 3 months, during which time Frogs and Lizards accused me of tampering with the intercom code and not telling anyone what the new one was, Upper Management got her to replace my name with hers.

Tampering with the intercom code? Seriously, I know I don't look that busy on any given day but are you kidding me?

If you're one of those individuals who can't leave your house without a phone and must be tethered to it at all times, have you noticed that everyone who lives in my building is an asshole? No? Why? Because you were on the phone.

An iPhone in LA costs $1200 a year to operate. Apple will keep churning out new ones until they have sucked every last penny from your bank account. Along with ATT they're laughing all the way to the bank. They may even own the bank at this point. T w e l v e h u n d r e d d o l l a r s.

Today I was talking to Verizon and they said I was eligible for an upgrade to a DVR. The salesperson launched into all the perks of DVR ownership. Not ownership. LENDERSHIP. It pauses and replays live shows. It tapes shows and all this goodness will only set me back $240 dollars a year, $10 a month for the box and $7.99 a month for the service. So for $240 dollars a year I get to pause and replay a live show. And for an extra $1200 I can call you on my iPhone and tell you about it.

This weekend is always nostalgic for me. July 4th was my parent's wedding anniversary. They were married for 29 years. They should have been married for about 12. Our name means *stubborn* in German. Mom married one more time after Dad and Dad married 2 more times after Mom. Our name also means *unlucky-in-love* in Swedish.

10 years ago this holiday I spent the best 3 day weekend of my life. With Elvis. The best sex, the most love and laughter, the most connected I'd ever been to any man before or since. The next morning, when he asked me if I remembered when he picked me up and threw me on the bed, after we did it on the floor, I looked at him and said in a dreamy voice, "Ummmmmmmm."

"You don't remember that, do you?"

"Not at all."

This week's award goes to Apartment Managers everywhere. For not remembering that the most important part of your job is to keep your tenants happy FIRST. Not to put lizards in the lobby.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Instead of writing I've been adding widgets to my sidebar. I've added the Favorites Twitter Widget. Scroll down the side of the widget and see the jokes I've put on Twitter and the jokes of the people I've RT'd. (re-tweeted) I get to write jokes all day and not blog? I WIN.

Remember when I hated Twitter? Now I think Twitter is Jesus.

I've also been lured into Blog Frog. That's further down on my sidebar. It keeps track of the lying liars who say they don't have time to read me by putting their sorry-ass blog name and avatar on the widget.

I've lightened the load on my blog roll. I'm tired of contributing to other people's blog stats without having them contribute to mine. If you don't know about blog stats you're lucky. But I'm competitive and know about them so if you're off my sidebar it's because I'm off yours. Take THAT, Alexa!

Ever since Gary Coleman fell and then died from the brain hemorrhage resulting from that fall I keep remembering how lucky I am.

After my ankle surgery I fell three times on concrete and three times on my carpeted living room floor. My last fall, face down on a sidewalk, was violent. It's truly a miracle I didn't shatter my jaw, break my nose.

In the back of my mind I always wondered whether any of those falls had started a slow bleed that would only surface 5 minutes before I accepted my Oscar. I obsessed about that possible slow bleed all the time. Especially before I fell asleep because I can't find enough ways to keep the insomnia going. Because of that fall I had to have an MRI and ... there was nothing wrong with my brain.

Faulty equipment!

I've always considered myself lucky. I don't have the career of my dreams, which is the only thing I ever really wanted in life, but still, I think I'm very lucky. I say it often. Especially after Gary Coleman died.

Another one of my mantras is *People always give me things for free.* I don't remember when it started but I'm guessing after someone gave me something for free? So I said it then and say it now and it always works. Unless I go shopping and then...no.

When I first moved to L.A. I rented a fully loaded Chrysler that Enterprise foisted on me for about a dollar a day. Having never driven around Los Angeles I had no idea what a nightmare the parking was. I had just discovered Louise Hay and the magic of affirmations so I repeated *I Always Find Parking* over and over as I navigated the city. I would look at the winding, teeny streets with bumper to bumper parking and repeat the mantra and amazingly, I always found parking.

I eventually went back to NY but years later moved back to Los Angeles. I had parking on my mind, and not the kind where you get lucky up on Mulholland smoking a joint and kissing a stranger.

I was fully engrossed in the affirmation movement by then so on the plane I muttered I always find parking so many times that the man next to me overheard and said, "Dear God, are you in charge of parking the plane?"

So this week's coveted Bite Me award goes to the Queen of The Widget Makers. Me.

Don't groan, I haven't won it since the beginning of April.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Remember that metal lizard behind the birdcage in my building lobby? Well sometimes, just when you think things can't get worse? MAGIC HAPPENS AND IT DOES.

It took steroids. And MOVED! The manager, or as I refer to her, Frogs and Lizards, (because she decorates with reptiles and amphibians) haz her mad metal skilz on.

Lindy just had a birthday. No one in our family has ever made a big deal about birthdays.

"Yes, you were born. And now I have to hear about it once a year for the rest of your life? Because you were so unique that you were BORN?"

However, people on Twitter make a big deal about their birthday.

"My birthday is in 3 days!"

"2 days until my birthday!!!!"

"Today's my birthday!! I'm going to get my drink on!!!!"

"We're at (place you've never heard of in a city you'd never move to) and we'fe geting our drunk goin!!!"

"Oh my god I'm sooo drunkingly!!!!!!"

"I canrt spel an uno y? BECAUS IM DRUNK AN ITS NY NIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!"

This is a picture from my sister's birthday. She did not get her drink on, until later, but which is more sad? That Lindy was boarding dogs on that day or that I was taking a picture of it?

So for all the freaks who have the importance of their birthday confused with the signing of the Declaration of Independence I have this to say:

The Declaration of Independence was signed, wasn't it? Maybe I'm thinking of the Bill of Rights.

I'm pretty sure I didn't do that well in American History. Except for the part about Pocahontas when they discussed what she was wearing. Where do you think bikers got fringe from?

THAT'S RIGHT, Pocafuckinghontas.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

The Doctor, the first boyfriend I had in NY, was on The Real Housewives of New York last night. While I Twittered with the East Coast one person remarked The Doctor wasn't good looking. So Connie, here's what he looked like when we first met. He's 18 years older than I am although I always say 20 because it makes me feel better. He has that Open Collar Chains Around The Neck thing going on and he's not even Italian.

Actually there was one boyfriend in front of him, Peter The Attorney. But it was doomed on the morning at his parent's house in Westhampton when Peter scratched his balls in front of his mother. Hand down the pants, scratching and jiggling as if The Holy Trinity had measles. Next! Peter and me a thousand years ago. I USED TO SMOKE!! And have Vidal Sassoon do my hair!!

All these *me* and *I* words that I have to conjugate correctly. Large groan on toast.

Back to The Doctor. There's nothing quite so infuriating as being in show business and spending enormous amounts of time trying to get back on TV and seeing your millionaire ex with his townhouse in Manhattan and his home in upstate New York appear on a TV show. Rude.

The Doctor was married when I met him. He and The Countess had an open marriage. Sometimes she and her boyfriend and The Doctor and I would double date. The Doctor and The Countess sat up front in their black Mercedes while her boyfriend and I sat in the back, sobbing and looking forward to a free meal.

The Doctor cheated on me. He had lots of girlfriends all over the U.S. and probably Canada. He also raced a Formula Atlantic and owned the car in the above picture. Women love a race car driver so never buy your man a $500,000 car.

Many people think sex addiction is just a phrase that's used as an excuse for bad behavior. And now some neurosurgeons believe the brain can tell whether or not you're predisposed to cheating. So not only does a person have to pass muster in the Car, Shoes and Penis Length department, now he'd better show up with an MRI. One clear of pale red blobs on either side of the temporal lobes.

The Doctor was not only a cheater but a control freak as well. It appears Tiger Woods is also and Jesse James?

The decision to let my wife end our marriage, and continue the adoption of Louis on her own..." James told People.

LET your wife? It's 2010, asshole, not 1959. Sandy, leave the kids and run for your life. Jesse will find another babysitter, I mean stepmother, and then those kids will be out of your life in any event. You are setting them up for a world of hurt by staying in their lives. My Dad had 4 wives, I know what I'm talking about.

Yesterday's Oprah with Rielle Hunter talking about John Edwards unearthed the worst kind of cheater. The cheater who falls in love. If a man is cheating for sex alone yes, it means there's something wrong in the marriage and if you believe in sex addiction, something wrong with the man. But when he falls in love? Just call your attorney and get on with your life.

So to all the men who dare to cheat on movie stars or have the nerve to appear on TV shows before their ex-girlfriend becomes a TV star, I award you the coveted, only not really, Bite Me Award.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

I'm one of the plaintiffs in a $70 million dollar lawsuit. There's a lot of paperwork involved and it has to be turned in by the 13th of this month so of course I waited until the last minute to get it all done because I have it confused with studying for the SAT's. So I went to Kinko's with some of the stacks and stacks of documentation needed and managed to make 44 copies of my driver's license.

And my American Express card.

You know, just in case I need bulk items to hand out as Christmas gifts.

Thankfully the store refunded all my money and took the copies. I left and twenty minutes later realized they had 44 copies of my driver's license.

And my American Express card.

You know, just in case they need bulk items to hand out as Christmas gifts.

I drove back to the store, went through their trash and fished out the discarded papers. And you know what I learned from going through Kinko's trash? People don't throw away anything valuable. EXCEPT ME.

So today's award goes to me which is ironic since when I was a kid if I got mad at my parents I would bite my arms and what is going on with this sentence structure? And what happened to Jenny and Jim splitting up? Maybe I should have just talked about that. End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Just when you thought you might have to take the fat from under your upper arms and have it injected into your ass, along comes the Butt Lifter. This is the kind of thing you'd be wearing on the one day you meet someone you'd actually like to have sex with. Then you'd have to spend an hour in his bathroom taking it off and then you'd remember you left your purse in his living room and so where are you going to hide it and at that point you might as well put it back on and say you think you left your oven on and just leave, hoping he doesn't notice you've stolen his Xanax from the medicine cabinet.

You can get a butt lift from a plastic surgeon but it's a lot more expensive than the butt lifter above. They cut a hole in the top of your head and pull all your skin up about 4 feet. Your butt might now be your new back but hey, it's lifted! As everyone who reads me knows, I've had plastic surgery. And I can spot it from across a sale's rack at Barney's, which is impossible because I never go to a sale at Barney's. Because I admit to it people always ask me if they should have it. They claim they want my honest opinion but they really don't. They want to be told they look perfect and beautiful the way they are and frankly, that gene pool isn't as large as we'd all like to believe. I'm still embarrassed about the one person I lied to back in NYC. A comic who had Alfred Hitchcock's jowls and no chin. I said I didn't think he needed his face done.

The downside of that lie was that everyone in hearing range later suggested I might be going blind.

Rude.

This is a picture of actor Bill Pullman, Meg Ryan's fiancé in Sleepless in Seattle. It was taken after he had a forehead lift. Or maybe he was just wearing the Butt Lifter and his face is contorted because it was pinching The Holy Trinity. Please don't write me and tell me I'm going to hell for that. I'm in show business in fucking Hollywood. I'M ALREADY IN HELL.

OPI named the above nail polish Suzi Says Feng Shui. Besides spelling my name wrong, they also apparently talked to my friends, family and former clients. I've done interior redesign for many, many years. When I walk into people's homes they ask me what I'm going to do and I always say Feng Shui.

So thanks for stealing my life, OPI, and I hope you choke on the profits.

In closing, and I bet you're thanking God right now that I'm at the end, I'd like to empathize with all the people who I know are going through dental hell along with me and my Bridge To Nowhere. The last time I went in they said "You haven't healed yet so you'll have to come back in 3 weeks and before you go could we borrow your credit card for a few minutes?"

So this one's for you Dr. Goebbels and staff:

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

You know the day is starting out on dubious footage when you're on the phone with your bank at 5:39 a.m. I'm up early because very shortly the workmen will be arriving in the downstairs apartment. Did you know that you can't paint an apartment unless a boom box is on hand and turned up to Splitting Headache?

Due to blogging and Twitter I've now figured out why I did so poorly in school. I get bored very quickly. If I read one more tweet about what someone made for dinner, is having for lunch or is ordering at a restaurant I will hunt them down and put them out of my misery with a fork and serrated knife.

And blogging? Well I think we all know what I think about this unfortunate hobby. If I wanted to read your diary I would break into your house and steal it. I can't repeat enough that my respect for long term bloggers goes up every year. Because after almost four years there are just so many stories I can tell without taking a razor to my wrists so that I can hopefully blog about it later.

I should jot this down for year five: Make fun of people who attempt suicide.

So here's a thought. If you can't think of something to post? Then DON'T. I promise you it will not be missed. We ALL promise you it will not be missed. If this is your first year of blogging and you think you're fascinating? WAIT UNTIL YEAR 3 WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU'RE NOT.

I'm still obsessed with the Sandra Bullock story.

Did Bullock's friends see or hear things about Jesse and keep their mouths shut? I just hope they don't come to her now and say they didn't like him or trust him and only kept quiet because she seemed so happy. Because by not saying a thing, she ends up humiliated in front of the entire world. Is it better to risk a friend's ire and tell them what you think or better to wait until it's all over and be an "I KNEW it."

Sidebar: Iknewits not to be confused with the Inuits of North America.

After it was all over with The Impotentate friends swarmed me with their hatred for this man. I felt horrible because I still loved him. And we did get back together for a while but I steered clear of the friends who said they didn't like him. One of those people was my sister and yes, I stayed away from her.

One of the funniest tweets I've read recently came from Web Savvy Mom Deb Thaxton: I think the only one happy about Jesse James' affairs is Tiger Woods.

So to all the friends out there who are not telling the truth about what you think of someone's partner or to the friends who are protecting their friendships by keeping their mouths shut, I award you this.

Either way someone loses.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

As little as I believe in marriage, I was still shocked that Sandra Bullock's might be falling apart. But having been in relationships and worked around men my entire adult life I'm not really as shocked as I pretend. I think women are just incredibly naive about what makes men tick. To quote my friend Joy Behar, "Never marry them, they just take you for granted."

Everyone should walk away from a cheater. When you forgive a cheater you've basically said, "Here's the key to room 1703 at the Motel 6. Please don't get caught this time." And the cheater will oblige. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but they will eventually cheat again because something is wrong in the marriage. To err is human; to forgive is bullshit.

I've been cheated on before.

I've also cheated.

The one and only time I cheated was with The Doctor, a man who was sleeping with half of New York City, so I felt I was *owed.* When I told him I was going to Hong Kong with another man he got dressed in the middle of the night and said he couldn't look at me anymore, didn't want me to touch him and that he had to go home. To his wife.

In my defense, and his too sort of, he and his wife had an open marriage and I was in my 20's and he was rich and powerful and yes I had Daddy issues. I was a really bad Lifetime movie.

Here's a tip ladies, never withhold sex as a weapon. It doesn't work. I know too many men who just went out and got it elsewhere. I work in a male dominated field. I've seen the happiest of married men blithely cheat because they were out of town and some waitress was more than happy to oblige. And? Blow jobs aren't sex!

If I still smoked I would light up right about now.

Sandra Bullock, Halle Berry, Uma Thurman, Reese Witherspoon, all these beautiful women have been cheated on and have walked away, at least I hope Bullock walks away. They are brave women. It takes courage to walk away. It also takes money. But mainly courage.

So to you Jesse James, you who let Sandra get up in front of millions and millions of people world wide and say she was finally happy and doing her best work ever because YOU HAD HER BACK, you my friend, are an asshole. And you're not my friend.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

This week I discovered that the brokerage house I did business with, Morgan Stanley, is really just a front for Legalized Assholes. My broker did not realize that "Close my account and send me the money" really meant Close My Account And Send Me The Money. It turns out they did not close it and left $232. in it so that one day I could make my dream purchase of a box of hair.

What was the most Charles DeGaulling was that they then deducted a penalty fine of $35 quarterly because the amount was too low. So how funny is this, if you have $232 in an account and you deduct $35 from it quarterly, you end up with $97. Believing I had already closed it a year ago March I never looked at the statements because I thought it only contained my retirement account. But they had slipped the closed account statement underneath the retirement statement. And oh yes, DID NOT CLOSE IT. How hilarious is THAT?

That guy who flew his plane into the IRS building? I get it. Had he announced this in advance I'm sure we all would have gotten a fleet or a pod or a pride of planes ready to do the same thing only not the bursting into flames and dying part. If the IRS is reading this then I'm only kidding and don't need to be audited because all I have is a box of hair. Unbraided.

I met with my accountant this week and mentioned that I had trashed Morgan Stanley on Twitter. I'm not sure she knew what Twitter was but after she gave me a bill for $422. she got up and went to see her "manager." Not hard to believe that accountants and car dealers work in the same way. She returned with the bill down to $100. I believe the original bill WAS $100 and they jacked it and then reduced it to make them look like givers. They are the Macy's Sale of Money.

Remember this incident?I left the following comment on Jenny the Bloggess's last post about how she stabbed herself with a chicken and talked her husband Victor out of calling an ambulance. If you're not reading the Bloggess you're not reading the funniest person on the Internet. And since you know I think I'm the funniest person on the Internet you realize how hard it is for me to give out that title without a cash incentive. I've tried hating her for being funnier than me but I couldn't and switched my hatred to people who don't understand English and coincidentally work at Morgan Stanley.

Basic Life Support Treatment with Transport: $712.00
Mileage of 3 miles: $47.25

This is the bill I got from the fire department after they told me not to worry as I lay bleeding on the corner of my street. They said there would be no bill. Apparently No Bill means Joke's On You in Firelandia. They put a band aid on the cut. A band aid is not basic Life Support although I may be wrong about that since I didn't go to Med School like firemen do. I'm pretending I never got the bill because I don't exist. They can't prove I do because NO PICTURES OF ME BLEEDING, suckers.

So in honor of the retards I've lost money to this week, here's this award, the fourth entry in the Bite Me Badge Contest I didn't know I was running, done by illustrator David McGrievey.David is a new reader and yet captured the real me and shut up I can hear you smirking.

End of chat.

To Jim From His Friend Suzy

I've been saying for years that I have the best readers in the world because you've sent me some amazing gifts in the past. And we all know that I'm just shallow enough to equate gifts with friendship.

But what I didn't know was how talented some of you are.

Last Friday I mentioned that it would be nice if I had a badge to award my Friday posts. I got three prototypes so there are tee-shirts going out to each of them, which then makes them eligible to spend a month on my sidebar with a link to their blogs or their facebook page or to Leo DiCaprio's house.

For every Friday I do one of my rants I will put up one of the badges. I love them all equally and have no favorites like YOU DID MOM so no need to choose sides in the comments because otherwise I will get no more free stuff.

Also? I am the perfect example of why people should not use fake names on the Internet. I already blew one link at the beginning of this month because I cannot keep people and their aliases straight. I call some of you Jim because I can't remember who you really are so Jim, if you're reading this, get with the program. Meanwhile, I'm now off to my accountant's where I file using two names, SUZY SORO and my real name GIANT HYPOCRITE.

Created by Spencer L. Casey
Created by Emily Szelestey.

Created by Deb Thaxton.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Can someone make this horrible woman and this horrible commercial go away? And she can take her horrible bumpits with her. The name "Flo" hasn't been used since biblical times and then only to describe the mess Moses made when he parted the Red Sea. And if you believe that story then maybe you're wearing bumpits and your name is Delores.

And what has happened to Grace Slick, one of the all time coolest chicks who ever walked the planet? Fronting the Jefferson Airplane, or the monument, I can never remember which, and flipping the bird at the camera.

She's now 70 and believes rockers older than 50 don't belong on stage. Well Grace, if you look as bad as you do now, yes, you need to stay off stage since rumor has it the kids today don't buy tickets to see their grandmothers sing, unless it's in the bathroom and then they sell tickets for that event to all their germy little friends.

Three words, Grace - Ex er cise.

"Following your curiosity is a good idea, because you don't want to be sitting around at my age going, 'Gee, I was too scared to go for it.'" Apparently she wasn't too scared to go for desserts either.

I got the most retarded coupon from Wells Fargo Banks. If you use your debit card as a credit card for the month of March they will credit you up to 7 dollars that month. SEVEN DOLLARS. You can't go through a drive-thru window for less than seven dollars, even if Grace Slick isn't in your car.

And In The You Can't Win Department: I never look at my brokerage account statements because I'm afraid of the bogey man but I finally looked at the last one. I guess the Internet was broken that day. I discovered that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney was deducting $35 a month because I carried too low a balance. How did it get low? BECAUSE THEY WERE DEDUCTING MONEY FROM IT EVERY MONTH. And this is on a retirement account. They do not want you to retire. Good thing because you CAN'T.

So The Bite Me Award Of The Week goes to Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley. Now if I only had a badge to put into this post. If anyone wants to make me one I will give you a free t-shirt in exchange. Which is nice of me considering I could instead deduct $35.00 from your account or send you $7.00 in the mail.

Grace Slick Jefferson Airplane Wells Fargo Banks Wells Fargo Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

A lot of people have straight jobs. Waitering, catering, officing. And then there are straight jobs that oversee other straight jobs like managing, delegating, vice-presidencing. And then there's the top of this Straight Food Chain called the CEO, the Big Kahuna or The Guy Who Married The Boss's Daughter and then helped give him a fatal heart attack. Then there is the bottom of This Heap, delivery drivers, strippers and sanitation workers.

Yes, take down the stripper pole and stop calling Vegas.

Every job sucks. Because somewhere down the line it seems everyone has turned into an asshole. In my field, show business, we have our share of assholes. We have a very big share. Including, possibly, the percentage of share that your field is supposed to have.

When one of us turns against one of us, our main recourse is to spread the dish as far and fast as possible. If you're treated right you will tell one person but if you're treated poorly you will tell a hundred. That expression fits our business as tightly as one of Lady Gaga's costumes. We can cost you a job simply because you're an asshole. How great is that? Divas last about 10 minutes in Hollywood, unless you're Mariah Carey and no I can't explain that. You can even be an alcoholic or drug addict and can still work if you're a fun guy who is only slightly mental. Hello Tracy Morgan! Hi Andy Dick! Hey You Used To Be David Hasselhoff!

I had forgotten what being disrespected felt like since I haven't worked the comedy club circuit in a while. Those club owners will shred your ass like lettuce, even if you turned their under performing club from an Iceberg Wedge With Mayo into Wolfgang's Chicken Caesar. Yes, I'm talking to you Stardome. And Zanies Nashville.

But that's what happened this week. People disrespected me. People who take themselves way too seriously, which is a by-product of living in Los Angeles. People who think they're more important than they are. So for the last time: the important people are the President of the United States, Mission Control and Dr. House.

I'm sorry it sucks to be you but take a number and get in line. You do not need to beat up on others because you feel bad about where you are in life.

Passive Aggressives meet in the basement of the Lutheran Church every Thursday at 7 pm. Bring dartboards, pictures and snacks so we can eat our rage on toast points. Free parking in the asshole's driveway next door.

I salute those of you who hang in day after day, month after month, year after year. You work hard, take abuse from bosses and co-workers and keep your mouth shut. You're friends with people who routinely put you down or use you up like a free sandwich pass at Subway. But I? Cannot live that way. If you disrespect me in any way I'm outta there. I'd rather starve.

God knows I can afford to drop a pound or ten. (<---hack phrase alert. Sorry.)

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Sent in by Martha Jane.