Wishful Drinking (2 page)

“Hello and welcome to Carrie’s voice mail. Due to recent electroconvulsive therapy, please pay close attention to the following options. Leave your name, number, and a brief history as to how Carrie knows you, and she’ll get back to you if this jogs what’s left of her memory. Thank you for calling and have a great day.”

Each night I do a show where I entertain with tales of my dysfunction. I’ve done the same show dozens of times in an assortment of cities, yet somehow—depending on the audience—it’s always a little different. Adding myself to the dearth of damaged celebrities that seem compelled to share their tales of their time spent circling the drain.

Wishful Drinking—both the show and the book—chronicles my all too eventful and by necessity amusing, Leia-laden life. I tell this story, partly as a means to reclaim whatever I can of my former life. What hasn’t been eaten by electroconvulsive therapy—and partly because I heard someone once say that we’re only as sick as our secrets.

If that’s true, then this book will go a long way to rendering me amazingly well.

SHORES OF EXPERIENCE BOTH DARK AND UNFRIENDLY

I have to start by telling you that my entire existence could be summed up in one phrase. And that is: If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.

What that really means, other than what it sounds like, is, let’s say something happens and from a certain slant maybe it’s tragic, even a little bit shocking. Then time passes and you go to the funny slant, and now that very same thing can no longer do you any harm.

So what we’re really talking about then is: location, location, location.

An example of the tragic and shocking might be: A few years ago a friend of mine died in my house, but not content to simply die in my house, he also died in my bed. So he didn’t just die in his sleep, he died in mine.

Greg was one of my best friends. He wasn’t my boyfriend or anything. Meaning he didn’t die in the saddle, which would have made me the saddle.

No, Greg was gay. Which might turn out to be something of a theme in this book.

Now, if you entertain, like I do, try to alert your guests not to do this. For two reasons, really: a) They’ll end up dead, and I don’t care how religious you are, that can’t be that big of a blast, and b) it tends to throw the hostess off her game. Like for a year or three.

Now I assume there might be some curiosity about this fairly exotic experience, and I realize we don’t know each other that well yet, but I promise you that’s going to change drastically until you might actually feel the need to divorce me, and for that reason there are lawyers standing by (but I promise you you’re not getting a dime). Or maybe you’re not curious about this because you’ve woken up next to a corpse and therefore already know a lot more than anyone could possibly ever want to about it. That or maybe you don’t want to know what it’s like. It sounds unsavory and distasteful enough without the details. So why dig deeper?

But actually, I’ve found that a lot of people are curious about this whole business of a man dying in my bed. One of my favorite questions an audience member asked was, “How did you dispose of the body?” As if I dug a hole, put Greg in a bag, dragged him outside, and

well, you get the overall gist of my drift.

Another favorite question is, “Were you naked?” I haven’t been naked in fifteen years! I haven’t even gone sleeveless in twenty!

Of course, sometimes people ask sensible questions, like, “What was he doing in your bed?” Then I get to say, “Not much.” But when they phrase it the other way like, “Why was he in your bed?” I’m forced to reply honestly. I tell them that it was Oscar time in Los Angeles (which is sort of like New Year’s Eve for the vapid). And as my home is one of the centers of vapidity on the West Coast, Greg had flown out to LA to accompany me to the parties. He’d flown in from Bosnia—where he’d been running a presidential campaign. Because that’s what Greg did. He ran presidential campaigns in unstable countries—like Republicans like to do. So he and his assistant Judy flew in to stay with me. Judy slept in my guest house, and I had another female friend, who was gay, also staying with us. So I had a choice—sleep with the gay male friend or the gay female friend. I picked the gay male friend, and I was punished for it. I’ll never do that again.

I’ve also been asked what the hell I was doing in bed with a Republican. And in order to demonstrate my loyalty to the Democratic party, I tell people that I may have slept with a Republican, but I’ve actually had sex with a Democratic senator.

Of course I’m then asked which senator, to which I reply, “Chris Dodd.”

And the only reason I feel at liberty to blab about this indiscretion is that Senator Dodd spoke of our “courtship” that we engaged in those many thousands of years ago during his bid for the presidency some years back when Paul Simon (now a resident of Connecticut) helped him by supporting his campaign.

When asked to elaborate on our courtship, Senator Dodd coyly replied, “It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

”

I believe that it was largely this comment that was responsible for his failure to win the nomination.

You also might be wondering what caused Greg’s death, so I’ll tell you. He died from a combination of sleep apnea (you know where maybe you’re a little over-weight and sleeping on your back and snoring and you suddenly stop breathing; you know, it’s kind of like you drown) and Oxycontin use. If you don’t know what Oxycontin is—it’s a very strong painkiller that has the nickname oxycoffin.

But Greg wasn’t a Republican like a person who votes to the right. No, he was a Republican like I was Princess Leia. He was a Republican by profession. Because how many gay Republican drug users do you know?

Oh that’s right, lots and lots. But Greg was really in on the ground floor of the whole gay Republican movement that’s so prevalent in Washington today.

The fact of the matter is, Greg was a lot of fun—especially for a Republican, and he had great stories. I mean, this is a guy who had shared an office with Bush. But a long time ago. When Dubya was just George Sr.’s son. So they shared this little office and Greg once told me, “You know what Bush has as one of his many gifts? He can fart on command (in keeping with his jolly-college-good-old-frat-boy persona.)” And Greg said that what Bush used to do—when Greg would be expecting people for a meeting—W. would come in and fart in the office and then run, leaving Greg in the midst of it. Like someone in a cloud of marijuana smoke. And then the people Greg was meeting with would come in and, of course, they would find Greg surrounded by this awful smell.

It’s not dissimilar to what President Bush has done to the country.

At the time of Greg’s death, my friend Dave said to me, “Honey, I know this is a pain in the ass.”

And I said, “If I could isolate the pain just to my ass, it would be awesome.”

And Dave said, “Well, that’s the meditation then.”

You know what’s funny about death? I mean other than absolutely nothing at all? You’d think we could remember finding out we weren’t immortal. Sometimes I see children sobbing in airports and I think, “Aww. They’ve just been told.”

But no, we somehow gradually just seem to be able to absorb the blow. Blow not being the operative word. Greg did do quite a bit of that—just not on this particular evening.

But enough about death, I just wanted to get that bummer story out of the way at the beginning of the book because all the rest of my stories are just fun and laughs and skipping!

SCANDAL OUTSHINING CELEBRITY

So now, will you come on a journey with me? We’re going to start at death, but then we’re going to double back and go all the way through an emergency room (where they know me), through Watergate, back through Vietnam to birth. My birth.

I was born on October 21, 1956. This makes me quite old—half a century and change. I was born in Burbank, California

to simple folk. People of the land. No, actually my father was a famous singer, and you wanna hear something really cool? My mother is a movie star. She’s an icon. A gay icon, but you take your iconic stature where you can. His name is Eddie Fisher, and her name is Debbie Reynolds. My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like with muscle and blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents’ attention, an audience. People like you. You know who you are.

My father had many big songs, but perhaps the one he’s best remembered for was “Oh! My Papa,” which I like to call “Oh! My Faux Pas.” And my mother, well, she did tons and tons of films, but I think the one she’s best remembered for is the classic film Singin’ in the Rain. But she was also nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown but tragically, she lost to Julie Andrews, for her stunning, layered, and moving portrait of Mary Poppins. Ibsen’s Mary Poppins, of course.

My mother was also in another film called Tammy, which was also a hit song—which pissed off my father because that was really his area. She was actually pregnant with me when she filmed Tammy. So if you look very carefully, there’s a scene where she and Leslie Nielsen are in the garden trying to save some prize tomatoes in a rainstorm (like they do in old movies). Well, I am the bulge in the side of her abdomen. It’s some of my best screen work; I urge you to see it. Oh, and she was also pregnant with me in yet another film called A Bundle of Joy, costarring the marvelous method actor—Eddie Fisher.

When I was born, my mother was given anesthesia because in those days they didn’t have epidurals. (I always thought that they should make an epidural that works from the neck up, which was a condition I aspired to for most of what I laughingly refer to as my adult life.) Anyway, so my mother was unconscious. Now my mother is a beautiful woman—she’s beautiful today in her 70’s so at 24 she looked like a Christmas morning. So all the doctors were all buzzing around her pretty head, saying “Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep—how pretty.” And my father, upon seeing me start to come through—crown with all the placenta and everything else (ugh)—my father fainted dead away. So now all the nurses ran over to him, saying “Oh look, there’s Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground! Let’s go look at him!” So when I arrived, I was virtually unattended! And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since. Even this book is a pathetic bid for the attention I lacked as a newborn.

My father was best friends with a very charismatic producer named Mike Todd, who produced a movie called Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Oscar for Best Picture.

So my father and mother and Mike Todd and his fiancée, who happened to be Elizabeth Taylor, went everywhere together—they went to nightclubs, on cruises—well, they literally traveled the world! So when Mike and Elizabeth got married, my father was Mike Todd’s best man and my mother was Elizabeth’s matron of honor! She even washed her hair on her wedding day. Now later I heard my mother mumble that she wished she washed it with Nair. But she’s not a bitter woman.

Anyway, I was about two when my brother was born, and my father so adored Mike Todd that my brother, Todd, was named for him.

Now, perhaps my father didn’t realize that in the Jewish faith, it is considered bad luck to name a child after someone who is still living—a silly superstition—or so they thought!

Because about a year later, Mike Todd took off in a private plane in a rainstorm, and the following morning Elizabeth was a widow. Well, naturally, my father flew to Elizabeth’s side, gradually making his way slowly to her front. He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her with his penis. Now this made marriage to my mother awkward, so he was gone within the week. And as far as I know he has not returned. Up to this very day. But you know what? I have high hopes because I think one night they are both going to come see my show on the same night, run into each other, get that old feeling, get back together, and raise me right!

You might be thinking, well, that explains it! She’s the product of Hollywood inbreeding. That’s why my skull isn’t entirely grown together at the back.

Recently, my daughter, Billie, who is sixteen now, had a flirtation with Mike Todd and Elizabeth’s grandson Rhys. When they first met, they were trying to work out how it all fit together and if they were related in some way. So I thought about it. And when I think, I need an enormous chalkboard with a chart to hold my thoughts

because I have so many zooming this way and that and then it’s helpful if I can have some pictures and a pen so I can organize the insanity that is my thought process.

Welcome, class, to Hollywood 101. Thank you so much for enrolling.

Photo identifications on page 163.

Alright, so up at the top left of the chart, we have Eddie and Debbie. In the ’50s they were known as “America’s Sweethearts.” Now if you are too young to relate to any of this, try and think of it this way: think of Eddie as Brad Pitt and Debbie as Jennifer Aniston and Elizabeth as Angelina Jolie. Does that help?

All right, so Eddie consoles Elizabeth with his penis, Elizabeth takes a movie in Rome—a big budget film called Cleopatra and she meets her costar Richard Burton, so goodbye, Eddie, hello, Richard.

These two hit it off like gangbusters (whatever that means) and they met and married and had a wild, passionate relationship with violet eyes and Welsh accents and acting and diamonds and drinking, dancing and sex and joy and love. But ultimately, you know, with passionate relationships, they can become stormy, and then what do you think happens? That’s right

they get divorced

but they have good memories of one another, so what do they do then? They remarry, that’s right. Now, keep that in mind, because it might come up again.

All right, now let’s go to Debbie. Now Debbie does not want to marry another man who will run off, so she marries someone very, very old who can’t run—nope, Harry Karl can’t run at all. All he does is sit in a chair and smoke and drink and read the paper, and after about thirteen years, he loses all his money, and then he takes all of hers. Fun! And so that marriage ends. And she was alone for a while, but then fate intervened and brought her this sociopath—Richard Hamlett. He has some money issues, too. Her money.