It's So Hard To Type With A Gun In My Mouth (32 page)

So the week goes well. We're having great shows, sold out every night. Kenny's music is incredible and every single show, after my set, I’d run out into the audience and watch Kenny and listen to that incredible music.  Al tells me Sunday is going to be a special show. Sunday we're doing a show for the employees of the hotel. I had heard Liza Minelli did a show like that in Vegas and it was the hottest show in town. I was looking forward to it, I can't tell you how I was looking forward to it.  Just a bunch of hip people and me being able to say whatever I wanted.

Comes Sunday night I'm pacing backstage and I hear the murmur from the other side of the curtain. It wasn't so much a murmur as it was a jet plane taking off. The crowd was at a fever pitch. The lights come down and the crowd starts to scream like at a football game. "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Sahara is proud to present... Kenny Loggins."  And people, the audience begins to roar like I have never heard... ever. The roof comes off the place. The announcers continues... "With the comedy of..." that's all he said and the booing started. It builds and builds and builds. Now they're stamping their feet and pounding on the tables. "Steve Bluestein" and the booing explodes. I want to die and die now!

I walk out on stage and they're still booing only now it's orchestrated like a choir. I begin my set they are booing.  Not so much booing as screaming their boos. I think "Make them stop, God, make them stop." Be careful what you pray for, now they are yelling things, things like. "YOU SUCK." And "GET OFF THE STAGE. WE WANT KENNY. WE WANT KENNY. WE WANT KENNY."  I have to do nineteen minutes and I plod through. Things start flying up and hitting the curtain. I'm dodging napkins and olives, toothpicks, a baby blanket, six bottle caps and here comes the bottle.  At one point I look down and a girl has crawled onto the apron of the stage and is crawling towards me. She is on her hands and knees. I say to her. "You're not invisible ya know." This gets a huge laugh from the crowd. She looks up at me and says, "Get out of my way, asshole."  And I have to move as she continues to crawl toward the wings. Two stagehands come on stage and physically lift her up and drop her back into the audience.  I look at my watch and think, "I've done my nineteen." and I get off. I head for my dressing room, Al is waiting for me. "Congratulations. You just did seven minutes."  Kenny is in his dressing room with one leg in his pants going "He's what?"

Needless to say, I was devastated. Al pulls me into his office and I am expecting to get a lecture. This is what he says to me, "Those people were drunken animals and there was nothing you could have done to save that show. They were here to see Kenny and no one else. My report to the office on this show will be like all the others. "Comedian did fine job. Nineteen minutes."  My eyes filled up and I shook Al's hand. All he said was, " Come on, the stage hands and I are going to grab a bite to eat."

The second show that night went as planned. I felt a lot better about myself. You know, a comedian is only as good as his last show.  Kenny asked me to grab a bite with him and Eva, his wife at the time. We're sitting in a booth talking about the show and Kenny is being very complimentary about my work that week when I hear the couple in the booth next to us say. "Did you hear that comedian... what a piece of shit. He was awful."  And... sitting next to Kenny Loggins... I wanted to thrust the butter knife through my heart. Kenny put down his fork, looked at me and said, "I'll mail you some of my early reviews. You'll feel a lot better."  Nice guy, no?

FRANKIE VALLI

Must have been two months later when I'm back in Tahoe this time opening with Frankie Valli. Al is there to welcome me and shows me my picture on the wall of stars backstage. I can't tell you what that did for me.  Frankie Valli is a singer I grew up with. I knew this music and could not wait to see his show. I was not let down, the music was wonderful, the crowds were great and Frankie was very nice to me. Very. For the most part, with the exception of two headliners, my opening experience has been very positive. The headliners all treated me with respect. I have been very lucky.

The week marches on and we are having great shows. Frankie is a very easy going guy backstage, no ego, and no problems. He comes into my dressing room one night after the second show smoking a joint. "Wanna hit?" And we're off. I start smoking and the more I smoke the funnier I get. Frankie stays in my dressing room till almost 1 a.m. and then says. "Let's get a bite in the coffee shop."  We head down there and are seated at a table for two. The menus in the coffee shop are huge... maybe 24 inches tall. When you open them you block out everything. All you can see is the menu and there was a lot to see. I'm looking over 1800 choices and I've got the munchies. Frankie is doing the same. While we are buried in our menus the waitress approaches. We don't see her; we just hear her... and she has the worst lateral lisp I have ever heard. Every time she gets to the letter "s" she sprays like Sylvester. "Would you like to see our Sunday Special?" I see Frankie's hand reach out and grab for a napkin. I start to laugh. I can't stop myself. I'm laughing and the more she talks, the more I laugh. "A Sundae is always good on a Sunday especially after the show."  I look around my menu at Frankie's menu and all I can see is his hands holding the menu and the menu shaking. This sends me up for another round of laughter. I manage to get out "Can we have a minute". She sprays "Sure" and exits.

Frankie and I let out a scream of laughter and scramble out of the coffee shop. It was one of the moments that would have been fun if you had experienced it with high school buddies but having it with Frankie Valli... just made it that much more special.

I sorely miss those opening act days. Soon after the opening spots in major nightclubs closed up. They began using two headliners to bring in the crowds. I was forced to switch from big clubs to Comedy Clubs and that was the nail in the coffin for my career. I was on the road and out of sight of the industry for over ten years. I made a nice living but was penny wise and pound-foolish.  Oh well, I guess everything happens for a reason.  And look at all the great stories I have.

I have to go now. The doctor says it's time for my medication. (The nurse slips on the straight jacket as the comedian shuffles off to the day room.)

AUGUST 11, 2006 -
THE CHICKEN SUIT

Earlier I mentioned Scoey Mitchlll and the TV pilot, The C.I.A. Report... remember? I was dancing in an alley with machine guns and was almost killed by the LAPD?  Well, on that same show we had a Chicken Little, the sky is falling number... and guess who got to play Chicken Little? Yours truly.

We were on location and again rehearsing in the streets of downtown LA. The number we were doing was about a flower that grew in a crack in the sidewalk. It grows tall and flourishes. What this had to do with The CIA I have no idea but that's what we're rehearsing.  The choreographer didn't have a flower so he sticks a Bic pen in the crack and we begin singing. The words are something like... "COME ON FLOWER YOU CAN DO IT. YOU CAN GROW. BE TALL AND STRONG. COME ON FLOWER GROW RIGHT THROUGH IT ETC, ETC, ETC." I can't find my effing keys but I remember the words to that cockamamie song.

Anyway there were about eighteen of us in the scene... dancers and singers,  Marilyn Michaels and me.  At one point all of us are huddled around the pen in the crack and we are singing our little hearts out. "COME ON FLOWER YOU CAN DO IT."  We're bent over and directing all our attention to the crack and the pen.

Now we're on a Scoey shoot and that means there are no AD's (assistant director) to keep people away. And out of nowhere into the shot walks an old Jewish man. He's bent over with age, wearing filthy grey pinstripe pants, a filthy navy blue suit jacket, a filthy white dress shirt,  a golfer's cap and brown shoes. In each hand is a European style mesh shopping bag loaded with groceries.  He's every Russian Jew you've ever seen on the History Channel. The old man stops and looks at us singing to the pen. Then he looks at the pen in the sidewalk and he looks back at us. Then he looks at the pen and then back at us.  And in the thickest Jewish accent  I've ever heard says, "You're singing to the pen? You got the whole world to sing to and you're singing  to a pen???  Who cares if it grows big and strong? Not me.  The world's gone crazy." And then he looks at me directly. "Mashogina! What are you singing for? It's a pen you idiot. A pen. Ya think it knows you're singing to it?" And he gives me the universally sign for "feh" and shuffles off.

We get hysterical and have to take a break. Every one of us was laughing hard. We tried to figure out a way to get that scene into the show but Scoey would not allow it. Iron fisted bastard that he was!

The chicken suit... the chicken suit... OK. So I'm dressed in a full chicken suit and I'm about to do my line, "THE SKY IS FALLING... THE SKY IS FALLING."   But the cameras go down so the director tells me to take a break and just sit somewhere. A grip comes over with a tall director's chair and puts it in a parking lot away from the rest of the cast.   Now you have to remember I am in a full chicken suit... big yellow feet, huge feathered body, full chicken head with a big red beak and large red plumes on the top of my head.  It's hot and I'm sitting with a fan on the side of the road in downtown LA.  An elderly woman comes over to me. I think she was the wife of the pen guy. She looks me over like I'm dinner and says, "What are they doing here?" and I say, "We're shooting a TV show." To which she says, "Are you in the show?" I say, "No, I'm lunch."  And the woman shrugs and walks away. The make-up girl sprays her coffee.

And that is the chicken suit story in all its glory.

AUGUST 14, 2006
- NANCY WALKER

Jeffery Glassman was a childhood friend. His mother went to school with my mother and they were like two peas in a pod.   Jeff and I grew close because our mothers were close. Jeff was worldly; I was shy. Jeff was curious; I was afraid. Jeff was dull; I was funny. It was the strangest friendship of my childhood.  We were so different and yet so much alike. To give you an idea of what we were like together, Jeff and I went on a double date. We walked into the restaurant and the hostess said to Jeff, "Can I help you, sir." And I said, "Table for four." To which she said, "OK dear."  And that summed up going out in public with Jeff. He was sir; I was dear. He was mature; I was a baby faced caca head. (With doody on the side)

Jeff did things I never even thought of doing or knew existed or thought I should know about doing. My world was encased in   my parents' daily battles in their relationship. I was fighting to stay alive in that household and outside activities were nonexistent.  One day Jeff called and said, "Want to go to the theater?"  And I said, "You mean a movie?"  "NOOOO! The theater... live plays... actors singing and dancing live on stage."  "What's that?"  I had never heard of the theater, had no idea what it was or why it existed. But Jeff explained to me there was this place called Broadway in New York and plays ended up on Broadway... but first they come to Boston to try them out. I thought the whole process was strange but it interested me and so I agreed to go if Jeff would go with me. We bought two tickets to see "Bye Bye Birdie", $3.50 each. Can you imagine?  That's not even the tax today.  We bought two tickets and we went into Boston by MTA.

I can remember walking through the Boston Commons heading for the theater not knowing what I was about to experience but I was curious and excited.  We walked through the magnificent lobby of the Schubert. It was nothing like the Olympia Theater in my hometown of Chelsea... it was massive and ornate. It was gold and black, the Olympia was old and dirty and told of a day when movies were in their heyday. The Schubert was something else. It was alive and pulsing with energy. You could smell the magic in the air.

We sat in our seats, center of the first balcony, and I leaned over the railing to see the hundreds of people below us. My eyes went from detail to detail; the lighting fixtures which hung from an ornate ceiling, the plush velvet seats, the impressive red curtain, those boxes on the side where only four people could sit and the ushers, those strange people in their red and gold uniforms and white gloves. This was definitely not the Olympia.

The house filled rather quickly and I sat there in anticipation. The lights dimmed and the conductor entered the orchestra pit. The spot hit his back. He lifted his baton and the overture started. I remember chills going down my spine. What is this magical place? My toe was tapping from the first note; they had me hook, line and sinker.  And then, the music came to an end and the curtain parted. The audience applauded as Chita Rivera entered. Did I know from Chita Rivera? Soon Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde and a cast of teenagers were dancing and singing and falling in love.  I sat there like I was in a trance. I looked at Jeff and he could see the amazement in my eyes.  "Ssh. Watch the play." is all he said.

The actors transported me to their little town with their little problems and then, they changed my life. It was one of those defining moments. There was a musical number where all the kids were on this jungle gym contraption and they sang a telephone medley. "Hi Margie. Hi Alice. What's the story, morning glory, what's the world humming bird. Have you heard about Hugo and Kim?"  Again... can't find my keys but if you were in the room with me right now I could reenact the entire scene for you.