It's So Hard To Type With A Gun In My Mouth (28 page)

We get to the club, not a single person in line. The club had a stoop, a flight of stairs to get to the entrance and we climbed it where there is this very well dressed man at the door with hair on his knuckles. I walk up to him, "Two please" and he looks me up and down like I was wearing a suit made from shit. "No." is all he said. "No?" I repeat. And he says, "No" and with the back of his hand waves me off like he was dismissing a servant. I looked at Susan.    Susan was a native New Yorker, born on 65th street and raised in the city. She was a hustler and is to this day... a wheeler and dealer, a finagler.  She pushes me aside. "We would like a table for two."  And he just shakes his head no. "What do you mean no! Do you know who my father is?"  And the guy raises one eyebrow. "We would like a table for two or tomorrow you'll find your building condemned."  She was out and out bluffing. All he said was, "I live in New Jersey."

At that very moment Susan looks across the street and her eyes focus on a man walking. She was like one of those jet fighters with night vision. "Look" is all she said. Huh? "LOOK!!!." She left the gorilla from New Jersey and she crosses the street without looking both ways to approach a man in a white linen suit. I follow.  "Miracle in the rain. Miracle in the rain." The man stops and looks back and it's then I see she's actually following Van Johnson.  He stops. "My dear you are much to young to know who I am." To which Susan says, "Are you kidding I've seen every movie you’ve ever made. I'm your biggest fan. I adore you." "Aren't you sweet." I'm watching all this like it's on TV. "What are you adorable children doing out this late?" "We're tying to get into Hippopotamus but they won't let us in."  "Well we'll just see about that."  And he crosses the street and yells to the guy at the top of the stairs "You there at the door. Let my friends in, will ya?" "Certainly, Mr. Johnson."  He turns to Susan, "There you go young lady. Have a wonderful evening."  And he walks on down the street, a five-minute encounter, a lifetime of memories.

Susan takes my hand and climbs the stairs to the club. The guy drops the velvet rope and lets us in. He's suddenly warm and gracious.  I cannot tell you the awe I was feeling. I'm this kid from a small town and I have just witnessed New York moxie and Hollywood pull. Susan is acting like this happens all the time. Maybe it does but not to me.   We get inside to find we are the only people in the club. It is completely empty.  We sit at a table that we had to tip to get and I turn to Susan, "This place sucks. I'm not paying cover to sit here with YOU." And she agrees. We get up before the waitress returns. As we pass the guy at the door he says, "Come back, won't you." And I, who has said almost nothing the whole time, say. "If you weren't so effing picky you could get some people into this shit hole."   And we walk up 52nd to Second Ave and disappear into the bowels of New York.

FLASH CUT THREE YEARS LATER

I'm working a club in New York. This was before comedy clubs so it wasn't a comedy club but it was a real nightclub. I just can't remember where it was but I had to take an elevator to get there... it was either the Rainbow Room or the Playboy Club but it must have been an important gig because my manager sent in one of his flunkies to be with me for the opening; Flunky, a manager in training.

The opening did not go well. It was right after the divorce and I was emotionally not stable. I was off my game and was really angry that my managers had allowed the press in for the first show. I had asked them to arrange one night grace so I cold get my feet wet before the press came in. I was having a screaming fit in my dressing room when the flunky says, "Do you want to go to Studio 54?" A sudden hush comes over the room. "Can you get us in?" " I can get us in anywhere."  He makes a few phone calls and next thing I know there is a stretch limo waiting outside the club and we're heading downtown to Studio 54. Now this was at the height of Studio 54 when it was the hottest spot not only in New York but also in the world. We are in the back of the limo doing drugs and smoking grass. It was the early 70's what good would a limo be if we didn't do those things.

We arrive at the club and the door swings open. My manager steps out first and I follow. I remember hearing someone in the crowd saying, "Wow. A real linen suit." He was referring to me and my Zeidler and Zeidler  $89.00 suit which I got on sale. It's all done with mirrors and wizardry. We get to the door and we are let in with no problem. I had arrived. We are ushered into the main dance floor where I was to see the most magnificent disco I have ever seen in my life. It was easy to see why this place was so popular. The music was blasting; it was filled with clouds of mist, which made it look like you were dancing in heaven. Beautiful people were everywhere. EVERYWHERE. It was a collection of beautiful people and freaks and I remember fitting right in. Don't ask me with which group.

Ya want to know what my clearest memory was of that night: The light poles that dropped down from the ceiling. There were three or four vertical poles that dropped down from a fly space above. They looked like light covered totem poles with all kinds of theatrical lighting creating visual effects.  And, at the top, was a rotating light, which sent a beam of light traveling all over the room.  I wondered why people weren't impaled as the poles dropped down but it seemed to miss everyone, every time. I sat there that night feeling a part of something very special, something that would remain with me forever. And I thought how strange it was that if Van Johnson wanted to come in here tonight... I could get HIM in and we'd both sit in our linen suits taking it all in.  It was the strangest moment of my life because at that moment I was feeling like I had actually succeeded. I had actually become somebody.  It was one or two days later that my whole world came tumbling down.

I was waiting to go on stage and the phone rang in my dressing room. It was my manager in Los Angeles, the big one not the flunky. The flunky reported back to Los Angeles about my behavior after the opening... and the reports were not good. I was not easy to deal with, the show had not gone well, etc etc etc.  The fact that I was losing my mind because of the divorce and finding out I was not the father of my son made no matter to them. This was business. And so, "We're letting you go for your own good."  Five minutes before I go on stage they call to let me go. I was in total shock. I had lost my family and now I was losing my career.   It was a roller coaster I was on that week and it finally came off the track and came crashing to the ground. It was the beginning of a four-year self-destructive streak that would take almost 15 years to repair.  But in those 15 years I learned so much about self importance or lack there of.

Remember the story I told about the TV show that stiffed me for me with a bounced check but gave me a limo for the day. Well on that trip I remember sitting in the back of the Limo at 57th street and 3rd avenue and seeing two women huddled over the heated exhaust pipe of a huge apartment building. They were trying to keep warm in the midst of a biting New York winter. I remember feeling very guilty that I was in a limo and they were in the street. It was the very first time I had considered others over my own hedonistic lifestyle and it was the beginning of the new me, a me that tried to do for others and tried to care about the world more than myself. It was a great eye opener that night and it all happened in New York around the corner from my one room apartment and just up the street from where Van Johnson had gotten us in to the disco. There's a reason New York has a special place in my heart. It helped form it.

AUGUST 2, 2006, -
THE FREEZER

I was reading some old entries last night and was disgusted with all the typos. I want you all to know that I proof read these things about 40 times before I post them... but my dyslexia has the better of me and I just don't see the errors.

And now this...

It was my first home in the suburbs, my
very first home. I had sold my Condo, for a very nice profit, and was moving on to my first, single-family home ever.  This one was a fixer upper, as are all my homes, but it had a swimming pool and a huge garden with a gigantic covered patio. I was working on a sit-com at the time and proudly announced where I had bought a house, "Hey guys, I bought my first house." The head writer asked where it was. I told him and he said, "That neighborhood is so conservative the Girl Scouts sell Nazi Bundt Cookies."  Ha-ha, we all laughed. Little did I know he was right. I had moved into red neck central. But it would take me years to figure this out and right now I was living under the delusion that I had finally bought my dream home in the burbs.

The only role model I had for burb living was my Aunt and Uncle on Long Island. They were the ideal family, in the ideal home, in the ideal location... or so I was told.  They were the model to which I was to aspire, that is until their marriage went on the rocks, but I digress.  This Aunt was the happy homemaker. Her house was always spotless and there was always an apple pie baking or a brisket cooking. To me this represented happiness and since my childhood had made "Ripley's Believe It or Not"  (page 127, upper left hand corner) I decided to copy everything "the perfect family" had done so I too would have the perfect home. What a schmuck I was.

The one thing I did remember about my Aunt's house was that they had a freeze in the garage. It was for back up food. Jews back up food. We don't just buy one steak; if it's on sale...we buy the cow.  A red-letter day in my house was when tuna went on sale for 28 cents a can. I can remember the cases coming in like we were a receiving center for Star-Kist. 

But the image of my Aunt's freezer was solid in my mind and so I set out to buy a freezer of my own for my own happy home. Somebody slap me, will ya? I scoured the newspapers and finally there it was at J C Penny. I drove almost 45 minutes to nearest Penny's and proudly announced. "I would like to purchase this freezer. Does it have a light inside?"  But alas, it did not; it was the smallest, cheapest freezer Penny's made. However, the next size up, the 16 cubic foot did have a light inside. "I'll take it."  The man goes to the register and says, "Ya know, the 28 cubic foot freezer is on sale. It's cheaper than the 16 cubic foot. " Did he say "cheaper?" It was to be delivered in two days.

Two days later I'm waiting for my freezer delivery and I see this huge truck pull up in front of my house. I think, "Who's getting airplane parts?" That's how big this truck was. It had one of the little three wheeled vehicles hanging off the back like a dingy.  And I'm watching the driver as he maneuvers the truck on the street and appalled as he pulls up in front of my house and walks up the driveway. He doesn't even have to ring the bell because I'm standing there watching the circus come to town on my doorstep. Small children have started to gather around the truck like they do in African Villages when a strange jeep drives through.  They're setting up lemonade stands; they're pulling out lawn chairs... it's like a 4th of July celebration. THE BIG TRUCK IS HERE. THE BIG TRUCK IS HERE.

The driver says, "Your freezer is here. Do you own a restaurant?" And this is the first indication I have that I have purchased the Spruce Goose of freezers. He starts looking at my front door and pulls out a measuring tape. "This will have to come off."  "No! It's going in the garage."  "Oh. You'll have to move your car?" Move my car! What have I bought, a barge?

I pull my car into the street and look back as the driver is opening the truck. And there, seated at the back of the truck, is this box... it's not so much a box as it is a small town in Indiana. This fucker had it's own zip code. It had time zones and tidal patterns. The thing had two moons and was affecting the polarity of the earth. "JESUS CHRIST. I bought a universe"

The little dingy truck gets lowered and it lifts the carton off the truck. It swings around and takes the top off my pepper tree. Peppercorns are flying everywhere and the neighbors are rushing to get them like pigeons after popcorn. The dingy goes up the driveway and like a choreographed ballet drops the box exactly where I told him to put it.  "Are you going to take it out of the box?"  "We don't do that." Is all he said as he lifted the dingy back into its nest on the truck. He gives me the paperwork to sign and he's out of there like that bird who deposits it's eggs in other birds nests and then flees to let the host bird raise its young.

The crowd breaks up and it's me and my next door neighbor, Vern, and the box from hell. I start cutting and snipping. I'm chopping and hacking. I'm pulling and tugging.  The plastic bands that keep the box together begin to give way. Styrofoam and reinforced cardboard sections begin to part; plastic sheeting and bubble wrap encase the sarcophagus. I'm ripping and pulling for twenty minutes. I've filled two recycling bins and there's still more to come. And then, there it is, my new freezer.  I could put wheels on it and it could pass as a PT Cruiser.  To this day when I see a PT Cruiser, I see freezer frost. I plug in the freezer and the motor starts up like the Martian Space Ship in War of the Worlds. The lights dim in the garage for a second as the motor cranks up, something I learned would happen every time it turned itself on.

I lift the lid and look in side... as a joke I sing... "I'm wishing. (I'm wishing) For someone to love (to love) To find me. (to find me) Today. TODAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" Vern laughs and asks me what I'm going to put in this thing. This is the first time anyone had asked me this. I respond "food?". And I run inside and take all the food out of the inside freezer and bring it into the garage. I carefully lay it all out. Two chickens and a half eaten pizza. It was like trying to empty the Pacific Ocean with a thimble. The two chickens rolled around on the bottom of the freezer like it was bowling alley. I NEED MORE FOOD.