Some People Are Worth Their Weight In Dogs

When my 5 pound Yorkie Kiko first got sick I took him to the ASPCA and the doctor asked if I wanted to put him down. I said yes and placed him on the examining table.

"No, down. DOWN."

I thought, "Make up your mind buddy; I haven't got all day" and took the dog off the table and put him on the floor.

"Do you want to put him to sleep?" he finally said in the tone of voice reserved for imbeciles.
"KILL HIM?"
"He has diabetes."
"Did anyone put Mary Tyler Moore to sleep when SHE got diabetes?"

It was in New York, 1990 and I was booked for road gigs in Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Princeton, Pittsburgh and a thousand other towns so small the only thing I remember about them is my bar tab.

Mildred was an older woman who worked in the dog grooming shop on our block. She said she would babysit Kiko while I traveled. She knew how to give insulin shots and each time I returned home there were detailed, loving notes about what Kiko had done or not done while I was away.

DONE: Peed on everything
NOT DONE: Refrained from peeing on everything

I had very little money in those days. The most I could pay Mildred was $11 a day. For months this exchange worked out until one day she stopped returning my calls. I think the eleven dollars a day plus the traveling from her home on the upper west side to mine on the upper east side did her in. She was 51 but smoking two packs of cigarettes a day had aged her. She looked 52.

So because I had no choice I started taking the dog, the wee wee pads, the insulin, the hypodermics and ketone strips with me on gigs. I only got kicked off one Greyhound Bus. But once off the bus, the driver took a close look at my little dog, who was by now blind, and let me back on. And yes I was wearing a low cut blouse. And didn't the Ketones used to sing backup for Marvin Gaye?

Eventually the dog died, I moved to Los Angeles and never thought about Mildred again. Ten years later I inherited money when my Dad died. The first person I thought of was Mildred.

I bought a card, wrote that I wanted to send her a check to make up for the pittance I had paid her back in New York and was hoping she was at this same address.

Three weeks later I received the card back in the mail, unopened, with the word "Deceased" written across it. I burst into tears. I could never repay this wonderful woman for all she had done for me. I removed the card and stuck the envelope in that year's journal. I packed it away with all the other journals and never looked at it until this year.

I found the envelope and unfolded it. There it was, "Deceased", written across the top. But this time something caught my eye. Something I hadn't noticed when it was first returned to me. The word looked very familiar. And then it hit me, IT WAS MILDRED'S HANDWRITING.

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.

L.A. Sign Of The Times #70

To see the other 69 photos of Los Angeles taken over the last four years, click on the label at the end of this post. Also? Leave a tip.

Top 10 Movies of 2010

2010's Top Ten List from comedian, film critic and friend Ann (Gariana) Abeyta. She has two first names because she's fancy.

I was chatting with a friend and she pointed out how great the picks were on everyone’s top ten lists. I concurred and I think it’s because it’s one of those rare years where you can easily put together a top twenty-five with no problem. Here’s mine and my hope as always is to bring somebody to a film that they may have never seen or taken a chance on. I love that like Oprah loves free bread sticks.

Thanks, Soro. This is my 5th year back and I’m not sure if that’s because you’re enjoying these or patiently waiting for me to get it right. So, in no particularly order:

1. The American – I like this one because I secretly have always wanted to watch George Clooney sleep with hookers. In fact why wasn’t that on the poster? Just those words in a nice font, people may have actually been trampled to death trying to get in.

2. Black Swan – No blacks! No swans! I call shenanigans! I love that director Darren Aronofsky, when asked how he was going to get men interested in seeing a film about ballet dancers, paused dramatically and said, “Lesbo scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.” Hollywood couldn’t cut him a check fast enough. Aronofsky’s next film is Wolverine and I guarantee that it's going to melt your faces off.

3. The Social Network – Asians were all up in arms about how they were portrayed in this film, my favorite quote I read about it was "it was pretty pathetic that the only examples of Asian women in the film -- and there were many Asian women in the film -- were bimbo maniacs who gave blow jobs in bathrooms and set garbage pails on fire." We should all be so lucky! I'm Mexican and you know how my culture is generally portrayed in films? With headbands, guns, face tattoos and bouncy cars all done up to look more menacing while we rob you! Listen up Asian chicks, if Hollywood points the lens at you and goes with thin and sexy just call it a win and pass me the frijoles on your way out the door. This movie was practically Shakespearean in its scope and dissection of human relationships in the connected world and if you haven't seen it yet, go.

4. Winter’s Bone – A kinder gentler Deliverance.
5. Dogtooth – I loved this film! I loved it because if I even try to explain it to you not only will you think I’m crazy, you’ll try to have me arrested.

6. Inception – I have no idea if it was entirely a dream or not, so don’t even ask. I do know that I really like “beefy” Leonardo DiCaprio. He seems so cuddly and approachable now. I just wanna tickle him till he tells me where he has hidden the beer in the fridge.

7. Never Let Me Go – I’ve never seen anybody as mean as Keira Knightley in this film and I live in Hollywood. I imagined her being what Hannibal Lecter would masturbate to.

8. Toy Story 3 – Only film I cried in all year.

9. True Grit – Classic. Film making. The Coen Brothers are so talented that I could smell Jeff Bridges. It might have been the hobo sitting two seats over, but it really added to the panache of the film. If I ever meet the Coen Brothers I'm going to thank them for consistently writing such beautiful, strong and independent roles for women throughout their storied careers.

10. The Fighter – Here’s all you need to know. Mark Wahlberg is shirtless through 80% of the film. Once again! Why wasn’t that the poster for this film! I may have totally missed my calling because it seems really super easy to market films.

Honorable Mentions:
Somewhere
The King's Speech
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Tangled
Animal Kingdom
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Secret in Their Eyes
The Ghost Writer

Films I saw in 2010 that were released in 2009 that would have made my list if Hollywood wasn’t a stickler for details:
A Prophet
A Town Called Panic

Follow @GarianaAbeyta on Twitter. Or else.

My Favorite Funniest Tweets Of 2010

Many of these went right into my act. And? It's a lot easier to pick jokes from others than to choose your own.



**Never brag that you can get ready in 2 minutes. Someone will see you later and say, What happened, you look like you got ready in 2 minutes.



**MTV has a new reality show called "I Used To Be Fat." I'm going to pitch them my reality show, "I Used To Watch MTV."



**Cops celebrating Christmas at a Mexican restaurant = Police Navidad.



**Today I got up on the wrong side of the floor.



**I've always lied about my age. Even when I was 2 I said I hadn't been born yet.



**My girlfriend lied to me and said she and her new boyfriend hadn't had sex yet. Please, I was driving the car.



**Costco changed their layout. What used to take me an hour to find I'm now just going to learn to live without.



**I'd like to hear the dinner table talk at Chris Martin's house: "Gwyneth, I'm the fucking singer."



**I hate it when you walk into those Spanish language classes and the teacher says Hola! Like we're all supposed to know what that means.



**I was talking to a guy at a bar and used the word germane and he said, “I don’t think the Germans pronounce the e.



**Our family crest is 4 people clutching dead memories and daring the others to let go first.



**I moved far away from my parents because they're annoying. When I meet the person who invented the telephone I will kill them.



**Never keep your flashlight and your vibrator in the same drawer because eventually? One night you're going to be very disappointed.



**I know it's football season but the only thing I know about sports is that OJ was guilty.



**The greatest thing about an earthquake warning is that there's really no reason to dust.



**This month is National Month Awareness Month.



**People think California never suffers from weather but today we're under a DQ Blizzard warning.



**I'm going to lie down and watch movies all day. Not sure the people at the Multiplex are going to be thrilled about that.



**My sister is so addicted to exercise she joined a 12 step program. I don't think it's working because now she's up to 24 steps.



**By the time I get back to a size 4 all the clothes in my closet will be vintage.

My Favorite 10 Funniest Tweets Of 2010 That Are Not Mine

It's more like 17 tweets but a Top 17 List doesn't have the same ring to it. These were the tweets that made me laugh last year. As always, your mileage may vary.



@thezeroboss I hate being ordered around. And yet, I became a parent.



@Carabee I think Justin Bieber's hair is on backwards.



@johnfugelsang As of now BP has failed so many times NBC wants to offer them the 11:30pm slot.



@bortflancrest Is it normal for your right testicle to be larger than your other two?



@DanaJGould I got mugged by a toddler. I was walking down an alley when someone grabbed me by the knee and said, "Don't scweam."



@SamGrittner My wedding will be open casket.



@kellyoxford Justin Bieber just compared himself to Kurt Cobain. When Kurt Cobain finds out, he's totally going to kill himself.



@Neilochka If the Jews really ran CNN, it wouldn't be such a boring channel.



@AnnaLefler: I want to seize the day. I really do. If only the day would come over here by the recliner where I could reach it.



@RobSprance: A Hyundai should not cost $399 a month unless it comes with a BMW.



@CleverTitleTK It's starting to depress me how far I have to scroll back to find my birth year in drop down menus.



@lehmannchris It just seems cruel for California to vote Jerry Brown back in as governor without also legalizing pot.



@AdInsanitum Christian bands: If you didn't suck, you'd be known as "bands".



@badbanana If Santa knows who's being bad, maybe he could have given us a heads-up during the early planning stages of the Holocaust.



@zeldman Overheard: "I didn't mind the pat-down, but then he whispered 'Say my name.'"



@MarinkaNYC I don't want to say that my husband takes a long time to cook dinner, but if he were preparing The Last Supper, Jesus would still be alive.



@Joan_Rivers Jane Fonda sent me a copy of her new exercise DVD. It’s a workout for old people—for cardio you dig your own grave.

Look Like A Model But Only If You Buy My Shirt

This month's Teeshirter is just in time for the New Year's Resolution you're going to try and blow off. To lose weight, start exercising and other 4 letter words.
I've met a handful of bloggers in real life but always with trepidation. Will they lend me money? Will they look good standing next to me? Are they going to steal my essence?

I first met January's Teeshirter when she came down to southern California to audition for Oprah's new network, OWN. During the afternoon we spent together she misplaced her camera, I MISPLACED MY CAR, and she talked herself out of a $300 hair straightening device while being aided and abetted by my very aggressive eye rolling. She found the camera and she found my car and left L.A. with curly hair.

If you're looking for support in losing weight, check out her website and like her on Facebook. She's also on Twitter!

And no, this is not what she looks like.

A Prisoner Of New Year's Eve

Stand-ups always work on New Year’s Eve. It’s one reason I’m not a fan of that day.

Flashbacks. In the 90's I was booked with two male comics to do two New Year's Eve shows at Lompoc Maximum Security Penitentiary north of Los Angeles.

Upon arrival, Paul, (I can’t remember his real name) Bobby and I were ushered through a security check and asked to remove our belts and keys. We also had to surrender our drivers’ licenses. I asked why.

"In case something happens to you in there…we’ll need some sort of identification to uh…”

“...identify the body.” Bobby finished the sentence for him. It's probably important to note that prison guards don't carry guns. And that prisoners were allowed to talk to us.

As we walked through the halls we passed a locked glass-encased bulletin board. Inside were our pictures, all smiley and show bizzy. We were escorted backstage and introduced to our M.C., a prisoner from Cell Block Kill The Comics.

The headliner, Bobby Gaylor, was a very funny guy who wrote for the sitcom Roseanne and was a veteran of prison shows. As first-timers, Paul (John, George, Ringo?) and I asked him if there was any advice he could give us that would make the gig easier. Bobby said nothing could make a prison gig easier.

The M.C. introduced Paul (Pius, Benedict, Boniface?) and he hadn't said two sentences before the cons started heckling him. I stood backstage and prayed for an earthquake. I decided to keep my biker leather jacket on because I had the blonde hair liability going on. During my half hour on stage I heard “show me your tits” more than I’d ever heard it in my entire life and that’s including from my gynecologist.

After my set ended and I went backstage to learn how to breathe again, a prisoner named Ronnie came up to me holding a camera and told me he thought I was funny, which I hoped wasn’t a prelude to shivving me in the neck. He was nice, sweet even, and very shy. We talked for a long time. As Gaylor came backstage after his set a guard motioned for me to follow him. I shot Gaylor a parting glance that said, “Don’t lose me in here, dude. Seriously.”

“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to over there?” The guard asked, motioning towards the prisoner with the camera.
“You mean Ronnie?”
“That’s Bruiser.”
“He said his name was Ronnie.”
“Yeah, on the outside, in here he’s Bruiser and I gotta warn ya; he’s the most dangerous guy in the pen. We have no idea how many people he’s killed.”
“He must have a file; aren’t the numbers in there?”
“No, inside the prison.”

As we waited for the next show to begin, a deafening siren sounded and we were escorted out. Security said they would come and get us when it was safe to go back in. We walked out to the deserted parking lot in a cold, drizzling rain and piled into Bobby’s car. We decided to take off. Fuck the gig. No amount of money was worth dying in a prison riot although we all agreed we could use the press.

Fifteen minutes later security tapped on the car window. There had been a fight but the guards broke it up. YAY, AND NOW MORE COMEDY!

As we walked past that locked glass case, I noticed my picture was missing. I asked a guard what happened to it.

“Probably stolen by a con.”
“But that case was locked with a key, how did they open it?”

“They got tools.”
“Where do they get tools?”
“They make 'em.”

We went backstage and prisoners from the first show were still milling around. One came up to me with a pen and my head shot from the locked case. I asked him how he got it and he just smiled. I signed it and I’m pretty sure that picture ended up with my mouth torn out in the shape of a circle. Bruiser asked me for my address. I gave him my agent’s address. Better that he kill him when he got out instead of me.

A month later my agent called and said there was a package for me from Lompoc, from some guy named Ronnie. I went to pick it up and inside was a little ship inside of a bottle with my name spelled out in calligraphy on one of the sails. I called Bobby Gaylor and told him what Bruiser made for me.

“Made for you? Soro, he had someone make that for you. He’s the head con at Lompoc. He had a camera; no one has a fucking camera in the pen.”**

I still have that ship in the bottle. It reminds me that no man I’ve ever been with has ever bothered to shake down someone into making me a present. Or killed anyone.

End of chat.

*** Ronnie, aka Bruiser, took the picture of me above and another one where I appear to be not scared to death of having the stage rushed by a bunch of convicts.

The 12th Day Of Christmas

Santa Tracking dominates the news. How many 5 year olds are watching the news?

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, an organization made up of the United States and Canada, tracks Santa Claus every year. I can understand why Canada is tracking Santa Claus; they have plenty of free time on their hands. But the United States? People are gunning for us all the time. Shouldn’t we be tracking where Kim Jong Il drops off his plutonium? Or in which cave Osama Bin Laden is reading back issues of How To Kill Americans Digest?

This was the quote of the week from NORAD “I hope Canadians and Americans are assured that NORAD is prepared to respond to threats as they present themselves and to deflect and deter those attacks before they occur.”

Dude, you're tracking Santa Claus, who doesn't exist. I’m not all that assured you’re prepared to deflect and deter attacks from giant killer tomatoes, much less suicide bombers.

This is the NORAD War Room. Thank God we're prepared in case that shifty Santa Claus sends in his Trojan Reindeers and attacks us.

If you want to track Santa with your kids, go here.

And now, the picture I picked as the winner of the 2007 12 Pets of Christmas Contest.
It was the most imaginative. And didn't really make sense. Yet made me laugh. You always get points for that.

The 11th Day Of Christmas

This is the first - and last - Christmas tree I ever bought. I vaguely remember buying a box of blue ornaments and some tinsel. I have no idea where the angel on top of the tree came from. I do remember the day I threw it out.

I must have been very proud of my efforts because I invited people over.

The girl on the left is Celeste. She and I waited tables together at Hobeaus, a fish restaurant in NY that served dead lobsters along with live ones in a two for one sale. Only no one knew about the one dead lobster. Beware of all two for one sales.

The guy next to her is Chris. He and I went to the same university in Paris and his father was the German Ambassador to France. His brother Karl de-virginized me. And broke my heart in a million pieces. Chris now lives in Berlin and is a very successful psychoanalyst. I hope Karl is his patient and discusses how he should be forever punished for breaking my heart. Their mother made me get on birth control pills.

The guy who appears to be leaning into my boobs? I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THAT IS.

I had Christmas trees growing up, of course, but my parents never mentioned the downside to owning one and it's just one more thing I get to blame them for in therapy. Those things leak needles. I found them years later, hiding in the cracks of wooden floor boards, in the cushions of my couch and in my cereal.

When I moved to L.A. 13 years later, I found some under one of my rugs.

The 10th Day Of Christmas

If you've been reading me for a while, you'll remember the Suicidal Bear from the 12 Pets of Christmas Contest of 2007.

I'd only been blogging a little over a year back then and mistakenly thought that I'd get HUNDREDS of entries in this contest.

I was wrong.

So my friend McLoserstene and I desperately cobbled together the teddy bear I got as a kid, Christmas ornaments we both had and McLoserstene's fake gun. The bear is wearing my Chanel eyeglasses. And I never told anyone I made it myself.

This photo? STILL NOT THE WINNER.

The 9th Day Of Christmas

Every year each comedy club in NY gave a Christmas Party. One of the best ones was at Caroline's Comedy Club.

In 1988 they rented a photo booth and this is a picture of Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I together. Obviously, we were drunk.

I love Larry for many reasons, not the least of which is that he put me on his two TV shows. But the main reason is because of something he did for me in the late 80's.

I had auditioned for and made it into Catch A Rising Star, the best comedy club in New York at that time. Not once, but twice. I had been thrown out by one booker but managed to get back in when another booker named Cynthia took over.

Cynthia really liked me and I got lots of stage time. Then she had a stroke. I wish I was making that up, for both her sake and mine.

So the club hired their bartender to take over. HI, WELCOME TO COMEDY!

The bartender didn't like me. And the more I knew he didn't like me, the worse I treated him. I do not recommend this as a career move.

The bartender slash booker, let's call him Hassle, would put me up when there were no other comics hanging around the bar area. In those days, you had to pay dues by hanging out at clubs for hours at a time, every single night. Then the booker would walk up, tap you on the shoulder and say, "You're on next." And you'd better have been prepared because the odds of you getting another chance after bombing were slim.

Because of that, I've never hung out at bars because I'm always waiting for someone to say, "You're on in 5."

Larry and I played a lot of the same clubs and he noticed I didn't get a lot of stage time at Catch. So one night he asked Hassle to put me on more.

Hassle liked Larry. Admired him. Thought he was a genius. And totally ignored his request.

Hassle said he didn't think I was funny. Larry said I didn't work like most comics. I didn't sit down and write jokes. I made up jokes while I was on stage. Which was harder.

Hassle didn't care.

Larry asked him to reconsider. He didn't and still never put me on unless there weren't any other comedians available.

I only heard this story because other comics had been at the club when Larry did this. And they told me.

Because of Larry I can't stay friends with anyone who isn't supportive of my career. So thanks Larry, for saving me from a lot of people like Hassle.

If you add an "o" to the anagram Hassle, you get the word Asshole.