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!

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.

Do I Even Need To Explain This One?

Thanks Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. THANKS BAILOUT MONEY. Thanks U.S government. Great job!! And I especially want to thank The Impotentate, one of my exes who profited GREATLY as a mortgage broker and became a multimillionaire.
AFTER I DUMPED HIM BECAUSE FOR 7 YEARS I GOT TIRED OF HIM NEVER EVEN PAYING FOR A GLASS OF TAP WATER.

I'm a leeeeeetle off topic (ya think?) BUT did I mention I spent 4 years dealing with his impotency and never complained or belittled him? Did I mention that? HUH? DID I? DID I? Go catch up on us by clicking on the label below. ESPECIALLY IF YOU WANT TO FEEL SUPERIOR TO ME AND FRANKLY, WHO DOESN'T WANT THAT?

Did I mention he's a multimillionaire? Did I mention I'm not?

God I am SUCH an asshole.

More Shout Outs To Our Soldiers

I once had a 7 year relationship with a man who was impotent for the first 4. He refused to talk about it so we broke up and got back together about 900 times. After one of those separations we reunited and he was not impotent for the last 3 years. This is why I refer to him in my blog as The Impotentate. My friend Mike used to call him Dick Al Dente. So even after we broke up and remained in touch, he refused to talk about why he was impotent during those 4 years. When we dated he was broke; now he's a multimillionaire. Natch.

Which brings me to the picture below. This is the Army K-9 unit of Osan, South Korea. They are holding a pair of The Impotentate's briefs. Even though he was never a jealous guy, he hated it when I went overseas to entertain the boys. So one day before I left for Asia, he gave me a pair of his briefs with this written on them: "Don't forget me. I love you. Please don't be a whore." Actually I have no idea what it really said but I remember he wrote it in green magic marker and put a heart in red with an arrow through it. During the entire 7 years I wasted with this individual that is the nicest thing he ever did for me. I know; I'm a retard. But not a whore.
Below are some very serious German Shepherds. Civilians weren't even allowed to stand next to the gate. We watched a presentation they made for us, where the dogs rushed a guy and ripped his protected arm to shreds. Sometimes I fantasize that it was The Impotentate's arm. A MULTI-millionaire, in case you read that first paragraph too quickly.

Below are some of my most treasured possessions. Every Army unit is issued a coin. You must carry the coin on you AT ALL TIMES. If you don't and someone yells out Coin Check then you have to hold up your coin. If you don't have it on you, then you have to buy everyone drinks. I was persuaded to yell out Coin Check before one of the shows and the moment I said it I realized they all knew someone didn't have a coin. And he didn't. To this day I feel bad that I fell for that. It's an honor if a soldier gives you a coin and you can't ask for it, you need to be singled out for them.
The first coin in the top left hand corner is from the 1st Battalion 506th Infantry. In the middle it says Stands Alone and at the bottom North of the River. On the back it says Bushmasters. Hmmmmmm. I got this one at the post at the DMZ, which separates North and South Korea. I remember the officer took us aside and made a little presentation of the coins.

The coin underneath it has the map of North and South Korea and is from the same outfit. They both say Currahee on them.

The one with the black shield says No Slack and Warrior Main. It's from C Company, 702D, MSB. How butch does Warrior Main sound? And how many of you wives out there are married to No Slack? That's what I thought.

One of our trips took us to Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, 717 nautical miles west-southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Nautical Mile is Spanish for Far Away.

It's 2 miles long by 3/4 miles at its widest point. It's the home of the operational chemical weapon demilitarization point. In English? This is where they stash the leftover Mustard Gas and Agent Orange from previous wars. You are issued a gas mask upon arrival and a kit full of antidote. You are shown a movie where they demonstrate how to plunge the hypodermic into your thigh in case the alarm goes off. If you cross a certain point of the island you must have your gas mask on you or you have to turn back. The indoctrination takes over an hour. They want to be clear that you understand what's going on. Below is a picture of me in my gas mask with my medical clearance certificate. And the first person who says I look better this way can bite me.
We woke up every morning to the loudest motherfucking siren in the Universe. I spent most of the shows making fun of the guy who ran that siren. Then I started talking about those hypodermics and everyone began laughing. I asked one specialist from the south why it was so funny and he replied, "Ma'am, by the time the Mustard Gas hits the air? You'd have no time to get that hypodermic out of its bag 'cause you'd be dead." Well then.

The people at Johnston get a really bad case of cabin fever since there's nowhere to go and they have to serve a tour there, sometimes 2 years, which they are financially well compensated for due to the extreme situation. They drink a lot. Once some of them get so drunk they jumped into the waters and were sliced to shreds by the coral reefs. One died.

As you can probably tell from this blog, I documented my career in a very meticulous manner. Pictures, mementos, scrapbooks, postcards. Because I figured someone as single-mindedly ambitious as me would forget to marry and have children and I wanted to account for all that time. And I was right. I forgot to marry and have children. A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, yo.

End of chat.

Bushmasters Currahee 1st Battalion 506th Infantry C Company, 702D, MSB Warrior Main Stands alone

Johnston Atoll Osan Korea South Korea MWR K-9 Units War In Iraq Military Coins

Why We Stare At Hot People

I took this off AOL. Why didn't I link it? Too lazy. See you at the bottom of the quote. I'll be the one lying on the couch doing nothing.

"If we're interested in finding a mate, our attention gets automatically stuck on attractive members of the opposite sex, but if we're jealous and worried about our partner cheating on us, attention gets automatically stuck on attractive people of our own sex because they are our competitors."

\_______________/<----That's my couch without me on it because I can't photoshop. Okay, the rest of the story. I was dating The Impotentate, a tall, handsome Marlboro Man Look-A-Like. I wasted seven years of my life with him because there is apparently something wrong with me. I had met his ex-wife and she was very pretty. I also knew he had dated a Miss World and a Miss Hawaiian Tropic but I never felt threatened in any way. Then one day we went to Marina Del Rey to spend the day on one of his friends' boat. I showed up late and as I was being introduced around, a tall, drop-dead gorgeous blonde named Charlotte caught my eye. No I'm not gay in case you think that's what is wrong with me. Please don't comment that being gay is wrong. Gay is fine. Not understanding humor is wrong. Anyway, Charlotte was stunning in the way that only home-grown California girls are stunning. Beautiful tan, perfectly toned body and sun-kissed hair. I started stuttering in Japanese or maybe I started puking. All I could think about was that if this chick was coming on the boat with us, I would have to throw her, or myself, off the port bow. And she was wearing a bikini. What kind of psycho wears a bikini to go boating? In California? In the summer? An area rug and rubber boots would have been perfectly acceptable but nooooooo, someone wanted to show off her little whore's body.

I couldn't stop staring at her and I forgot all about The Impotentate. When I finally looked his way, planning to catch him OBVIOUSLY staring at her and mentally fondling her breasts, I was surprised to see that he was looking at me instead. Probably because my head was on fire and he was trying to decide how to put it out.

Then he said these magic words. Words that only the man you're dating and temporarily in love with could say. Words that would change that day for all time.

"Charlotte's not coming."

"Oh really? Charlotte, you can't come? Gee, that's too bad."
"Welllllll, I might be able to get out of this thing and then....."
"Well, if you can't, you can't. Off you go."

End of chat.

The Sorostine Prophecy

I always hear David Byrne's voice in my head. 'How did I get here?'

Just like in The Celestine Prophecy, I believe everyone we meet and everything we do has purpose. Even if the person or the situation is making us suicidal, as it often does, if we look hard and put down the gun, we can find a chain reaction of reasons that lead us to our next obvious point in time. Even though in that moment we have no idea that it's so obvious.

'Water flowing underground.'

1. I was engaged to be married to a guy I met in Paris, France but who was from San Francisco.
2. We broke up.
3. So I decided to move to San Francisco on the off chance that we might get back together.
4. We did not.
5. While in S.F. I had a relationship with another man who turned out to be a junkie and a felon.
6. We broke up.
7. So I moved back to Paris.
8. I stayed there for 3 years during which time I starred in a musical review.
9. When that ended I couldn’t find another job.
10. So I moved to New York.
11. I started doing standup in New York.
12. I got engaged again.
13. We broke up.
14. So I moved to Los Angeles.
15. I got 6 television shows my first year in L.A.
16. I started my road show, Single, Married & Divorced, and we toured the U.S. for 8 years.
17. I entertained the troops overseas in 6 different countries for three years.
18. During all of this was the Seven Years of Stupid with The Impotentate.
19. We broke up.
20. I then met Elvis, the love of my life.
21. We broke up.
22. So based on the only good sex I’d ever had, with him, I wrote a novel called All the Bad Sex I’ve had, a very, very, very long book.
23. Then I got hired to write for a website.
24. The editor was insane and I wanted to quit after a month.
25. Baby on Bored told me to forget the website and start a blog.
26. I had sworn I would never do a blog.
27. So I quit the website.
28. And started a blog.

So everything that looked like a bump in the road was just a ladder to the next….bump in the road. Would any of those incidents have occurred in a vacuum? Or did one knowingly lead to the next?

'Letting the days go by.'

Most of my bumps were about men. Even though I regret many of those hook-ups, they moved me along to the creative life I was supposed to lead. Since I was 15 years old and fronted my own band, I’ve always been all about my career. And all those failed relationships kept shoving me back onto the yellow brick road. So yes, I know how I got here.

End of Talking Heads chat.

Hello Buuuuddddddddddd

I bought the new Razr cell phone including the ear bud and car charger, the holy trinity package of communication, all in metallic pink because I guess I think I’m Paris Hilton. Every two years I head to Verizon to update my phone. I’ve had two Motorola’s and one LG and one I can’t remember because it was the first one I bought and that was in 1997, when I was still having regular sex and drinking. Now I’m doing neither. Great.

I was so out of the whole cell phone culture loop that I didn’t even upgrade the first one so I had it for almost four years before the laughter and derision got to this Luddite and I went in for an upgrade. Seriously, only my couch was larger than that phone.

I was one of those people who didn’t think I needed a cell phone. Honestly, how important was it to field calls at the supermarket from men you refuse to sleep with?

But that all changed in 1997. I had taken the 101 N to go meet The Impotentate for dinner in the San Fernando Valley. The Valley is over the hills, on the other side of Los Angeles, home of the Valley Girl. My car started making a clicking sound and I pulled over to the side of the road next to one of the 16,000 yellow call boxes located on California freeways. I opened the little door of the box and picked up the phone.

“Highway Patrol, may I help you?” (Actually, I have no idea what she said. I remember it was a woman but for all I know she said, “Stop playing with the roadside phones you dick.”)
“I need a tow truck.”
“Okay.”
“But I don’t really know where I am.”
“We do, this phone box is your location. Who do you want us to call?” I SO wanted to say Can You Prank Call George Bush? but I replied AAA. You can’t live in LA and not have it; if you don’t have AAA, it’s like you’re asking to break down and get killed by the Nightstalker. (If he's not dead or not in prison, don't tell me)

The next day I bought a cell phone.

So here it is 2007 and I opted for the newest technology because the pressure to keep up in LA is as great as it was in NY. It’s why I love big cities and ultimately why everyone else hates them.

I got the Bluetooth with the ear bud because in some part of my brain I thought, how hard could it be to work this thing? I bought the metallic pink one and was all pleased with myself until I saw a picture of Sharon Stone and her gold Razr and called McLoserstene.

“There’s a GOLD Razr?”
“Yeah, Dolce and Gabbana makes it.”
“You knew about this and you let me buy the stupid fucking ugly ass pink metallic one?”
“Yes Paris, I forced you to buy the pink one while I was sitting in my apartment watching TV not knowing you'd even gone to Verizon." She can be so mean sometimes.

Okay, so the gold D&G cost $400. The metallic pink one is actually kind of nice, you know?

The ear bud requires two actions. After you sync it up to your cell you strap the little bugger over your ear and all you have to do is Tap and Press. I can tap. I can press. Done.

Reading from the instructions:

Reject a call: Press and hold the Call Button until you hear a beep.

Redial last call: Press and hold the Call Button until you hear a beep.

Answering a second incoming call: Press and hold the Call Button until you hear a beep.

Put an active call on hold or resume a call on hold: Press and hold the Call Button until you hear a beep.

I now look back at that picture of Sharon Stone and notice she isn't using an ear bud. I understand.

End of ....hello? Hello? Are you there?

The Tenth Card Of Christmas

This was one of the Christmas cards that Leslie Norris and I used for our group Single, Married & Divorced. We toured the U.S. for eight years and Leslie played Married and I played Divorced. Even though I’d never been married and was dating The Impotentate, that relationship supplied me with enough bitter material about men to fake it, something I became an expert at during those seven miserable years. Please don’t ask me why I stayed with him. I clearly had a brain tumor that was developing slowly.

Leslie and I used many people over the years to tour as the Single girl, five I think, and every one of them was borderline psycho. I won’t tell you which category the one in the picture fell into but two were mean drunks, one was a stripper, oh excuse me, show girl, one was an opera singer who had no punch lines and one had a terrible case of OCD. She could not go onstage unless she touched the top of her head a certain amount of times. Not a deal breaker if she went out on her own, but as a group we opened with a song and a sketch and filed out in a line. Leslie first, then Her OCDness and then me. So Leslie would hear the music cue and strut out and I would stand there waiting for the head tapping to end. I could never figure out how many taps needed to be completed because like a small child mesmerized by shiny things, I would lapse into a trance and lose count. More often than not, the tapping didn’t end and I had to push her out onstage.

The baby that Leslie is holding is her first born, John. This was the last time we used him in our photos because not only had he gotten too big but he was constantly squirming around, as you can see in the picture. We did all our group photos at Sears because they had the best lighting for multiples and they were a lot cheaper than Los Angeles photographers, who really didn’t know how to take photos of a group in under seven hours. Plus Sears had the cheese factor, always important to those of us who take ourselves way too seriously.

The following year we were back at Sears desperately trying to get John to calm down when we spotted a Chinese woman standing in line with a sleeping newborn and begged her to let us use him in the picture. She did.

Sidebar: I want more than life itself to write Single, Married, Divorced & Ching Chong but that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

That year Leslie and I agreed to send the Improv on Melrose a card. At their Christmas party we found all the cards from comics and industry taped on a large wall of the club and discovered that we had each sent one. We were horrified, what kind of ass-kissers card bombed a comedy club? We waited until everyone was drunk (ten minutes after the party started); and stole one of them back. No sycophants, we.

End of chat.

I'd Rather Sniff Armpits

There comes a moment every fall when I first see a mutilated pumpkin, a twinkling Jesus in a window or a nude blue Spruce waiting forlornly for an abusive owner who will forget to water it, and something inside of me dies. My soul. I'm pretty sure that the grand gesture that was expected of the human race each Christmas did not start at a Best Buy sale.

And for that reason, I'd rather sniff armpits for a living than go through the protracted agony of the holidays. For starters, I have a standing rule that I don’t accept gifts at this time of year. I have enough crap and you have bad taste. While we’re on the topic, doesn’t Totes make anything the rest of the year? If you know anyone over the age of twelve who has given someone a Chia Pet, drop them immediately. The Clapper has survived five U.S. Presidents and eight terms of office. It will be around after a global nuclear holocaust. Someone somewhere will clap their hands and a generator in Slovenia will turn on.

I hear you. But what about the children? Fuck the children. How many presents do you have to give them until they have high self-esteem? What about getting together with the family? Fuck the family. Families fight more at the holidays than at any other time of the year. What about the extra days you get off from work because of the holidays? Interestingly enough, I embrace that one.

The famous Secret Santa of Kansas City, Missouri has outed himself this year so I decided to out myself as well. For me it started in the early 90’s with the boyfriend who couldn’t get it up, otherwise known as The Impotentate. On Christmas day he had not invited me to his family’s celebration. Lonely and bored, I drove around my neighborhood in my 1990 gray Ford Festiva and decided to hand out money to the homeless. Even if they were getting high, I wanted them to be smoking The Christmas Crack. When I was down to a dollar I decided to pack it in. On the way home, I saw one last guy trudging up a hill and stopped my car.
“I’m really sorry; I only have a dollar to give you.” What was anyone going to do with a dollar in Los Angeles? (Don’t say the 99 cent store you miserable fucks)
“You know,” he said, “This morning I asked God to help me and now I got a dollar!” (I’m not God, right?)

I never looked back.

Some years I make mistakes, some years I hit a home run but generally I just wish I was as rich as the Secret Santa of Kansas City. One homeless man was camped out under the awning at Big Lots. I handed him a five-dollar bill but he wouldn’t take it. He wanted a meal from McDonalds, which was right next door. I asked him what I could get him and he said some combo-name I didn’t recognize and believe me, I’ve done hard time at McDonalds. I went into the restaurant and scanned the list. I finally found what he wanted; it was the most expensive breakfast McDonalds had. $3.85.

One time I gave money to a guy who looked at my car and said, “I think you need this more than me.” Fool. Another year I saw a real bad case, a man who looked like he wasn’t going to make it to the end of the day. I gave him ten dollars and asked him what had happened to him. He said he had been living on the streets after being thrown off the Planet Nebutron and sent to Earth in a time capsule to repopulate Wyoming. And I thought to myself, ‘Good Lord. How am I going to get my ten dollars back?’

Another year I gave money to two guys walking down the street with an empty supermarket cart. They took the money but looked at me strangely. Something was not right. So I drove around a few blocks and when I came back, they had collected another cart. They worked for a supermarket, which I would have realized had I looked at the backs of their jackets, which said Ralph’s.

Two years ago I saw a man and a woman living out of their car. They had parked in a deserted lot and taken a few of their possessions out to rearrange. I stopped and buzzed down the window of my car (the Festiva was long gone). The woman looked at me with the most stricken look on her face and yes I was wearing makeup. I waved two five-dollar bills and she came running over.
“Here, this is for you and your friend.”
“Oh my God! ThankYouThankYouThankYou, can I hug you?”

Before I had time to answer she had reached inside my car and gathered me up in a giant bear hug. And the entire time all I could think about was, ‘Dear God let her not steal my Nicole Miller purse.’

End of chat.

How Can I Break Up With Gym?

Before I bought a scale I used to walk to the gym, weigh myself and then hike the three blocks home. In my defense, the walk back was uphill. So a few years ago I decided to get serious and hire one of the trainers at Bally's. I chose Nasto. He had been Mr. Bulgaria twice, Mr. Northern California in the early 90’s and he had written three fitness books, which was three more than I had written. I liked him. His business card was an unevenly scissored piece of Xerox paper. He was earnest and committed and I just knew he had a family waiting in a cramped one-bedroom apartment somewhere in Korea Town expecting him to put borsch on the table. He had that sad, vacant look that people who do not ever expect to catch up with life have. If I didn’t break up with The Impotentate, a man who couldn't get it up for five of the seven years we went out, there was no way I was going to break up with Mr. Bulgaria.

Sidebar: No, this is not a picture of Nasto, but of my best friend ever, Clark Henley, the first person I knew to die of AIDS.

I hate working out but I hate eating even more. I don’t like food. Hand me a pill called LUNCH and leave me alone. I refuse to cook. I’ll eat out, I’ll take out, shit, I’ll put out, but I’m not cooking. When I get my dream house I’m going to have them put a McDonalds in on the ground floor. If you don’t want to impress me, invite me out for dinner and then ask me where we should go, what we should eat and what we should order. Then as we’re eating, ask me how my Sea Bass is, or if I want to try your carpaccio or split a dessert. Just so we’re clear, I don’t like to discuss food, shop for food or try out the food at the new restaurant in Who Cares, New Jersey. I can hardly wait until I’m rich enough to have Emeril move in. It’s the only reason I’m still breathing in and out.

When I think back on it, I only kept going to the gym because there were cute guys there. But sometime in the last year my gym became a meeting place for old Chinese women. Mr. Bulgaria deftly escorts me through them as if he's afraid I will suddenly stop and spontaneously break into a mah-jongg game.

The gym rat in our family is my sister, who once graced the cover of Muscle & Fitness magazine. She goes around spewing communist propaganda like, “I’m really craving an apple.” Please, Johnny Appleseed didn’t crave an apple. If you’re at her house and want something fattening to eat, you have to lick the grease off her stove. She’s the kind of person who you will ask, “How do I look in this bathing suit?” and she’ll say, “You look fabulous.” Then ten days later she sees you in shorts and says, “Gee, you really look great; not like you did in that bathing suit.” She got so addicted to exercise that she had to join a 12-step program. I don’t think it worked because now she’s up to 27 steps. As for the rest of our family, we would rather die with a stent in our hearts than a deltoid on our wherever-the-fuck the deltoid goes.

I went to World Gym in Venice with her one day many years ago. Arnold Schwarzenegger owned it then and Stallone hung out there a lot. I was having a rough time in the business and my sister, who was friendly with both Arnold and Sly, had told them about my struggle. Sly was there that day and when she introduced me to him, he had that crooked half-smile going on and came towards me with his arms outstretched. “Aaaayyy, somebody needs a hug.” His bodyguards surrounded us and Sly hugged me like I owed him money. I knew he had had a rough ride in Hollywood before Rocky hit and I knew he understood where I was in my slide into artistic hell, or as I to refer to it now, a big agent who thought he could do something with me and was wrong. “Aaaayyy, don’t give up, it can happen to you,” he continued.

Sly and his body guards left and my sister and I began to work out in earnest. (She did, I was staring into space and wondering if Sly noticed that I hadn’t plucked my eyebrows) My reverie was finally broken as I watched my sister admire her calves. She inspected them as if they had USDA stamped on them and were going to market in a refrigerated truck. A line formed. Now other people were inspecting her calves. Suddenly one of these voyeurs took time out from his busy schedule of ogling her and eyed me suspiciously.
“What’s that on the back of your arm?” he asked.
“A triceps?”
“Well,” he continued, “have a doctor look at it; it might be cancer.”

End of chat.