It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

The holidays are here.

I hate the holidays. They're phony and annoying and for God's sakes, hasn't anyone written a new Christmas song in fifty years?

The cheap store gifts get more lame every year.

Yesterday at the drug store I saw a Talking Fly Swatter while waiting in line to buy some heroin. I didn't have time to peruse the box to see exactly WHEN this fly swatter talked. As it approached the fly? "Here I come, fucker."

As it was slamming the fly into a wall? "Gotcha, fucker."

Or maybe after it killed the fly? "Take THAT, fucker."

I once owned a toilet paper dispenser that played Elvis Presley songs when you rolled the paper. Now that was a great idea since that's where Elvis was found, dead on the loo. Of course people who came over thought I was crazy because they didn't know their Elvis history, which I found sacrilegious and unacceptable.

But a Talking Fly Swatter? If the world blows up tomorrow and aliens find a Talking Fly Swatter clutched in my hands I'm going to be so embarrassed. Dead, but embarrassed.

And I'm not going to say Happy Holidays to anyone. I'll be saying Merry Christmas. I've never had a black person say Happy Kwanzaa to me. No Jews have wished me a Happy Hanukkah and WHEN are the Jewish people going to agree on a spelling of that word?

If my Jewish friends wish me a Merry Christmas and I wish them a Happy Chanukah (see what I mean about the spelling?) then everything gets all messed up and I'm probably going to have to be circumcised. That's why I wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I can spell it and keep my penis intact.

For all the talk of living green, Christmas is not 'green.' All that wrapping paper, all those boxes. I don't live entirely green, like hardly at all really, unless you count leaving cans outside the dumpster for the homeless to pick up. But it hurts me that others aren't picking up my slack.

Why do parents keep buying their kids new phones? Where do the old phones go? Why do people keep buying themselves new phones? Where do their old ones go?

Why do you need a cell phone to know what time the movie starts? It's the only cinema in your neighborhood and they haven't changed the times since 1976. Do you really need to find the nearest sushi restaurant even though there is only an Applebees and an IHOP in your neck of the woods?

And what's with the sudden need for a GPS system on your phone? Why do you need directions to go to the Wal Mart in your own town? You've been there a gillion times; it's where you first had sex with the oboe player in the band. And then the rest of the band. You could be buried there and your family would know exactly where to put the headstone.

God I hate the holidays.

I'm buying everyone a Talking Fly Swatter.

End of chat.

R.I.P. Ken Ober

Two days ago, a comic, the host of MTV's once insane show Remote Control, died at 52. Ken Ober was always funny and the first of our NY group to make it out to Hollywood and get a show. No one was surprised because he was fast on his feet and turned adlibbing into an art form. I knew him from the club scene in NY and the last time I saw him was at The Comedy Awards here in Hollywood. He was always nice and not one of those comics who took himself or his good fortune too seriously. He was kind to everyone.

He complained of headaches, chest pains and flu-like symptoms. These are things that always freak me out when I read them. How many times have any of us had symptoms and brushed them off?

My theory that female comics have more testosterone than normal women makes me act like a man and not want to go to the doctor. I'm sure there are some men who gallop to the internist but in general, they're not the first ones in the waiting room. And if you're one of those men, great. The rest of you? Please don't write me.

Of course I also believe that when it's your time to go, it's your time to go. I'll quote Woody Allen here, "I'm not afraid of dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

The Ghosts Are Back

The bizarre and the unusual will happen to me two times. When the TV in the bedroom first turned itself on in the middle of the night, I freaked out. By the time it happened again I just turned over and went back to sleep. I started calling these events The Twos.

These strange occurrences happened for many years but I never told anyone. Who would believe me? Even when I ran them privately through my head they sounded insane. I didn't feel crazy but I didn't know what crazy felt like. Maybe I was losing it.

One day at a party I struck up a conversation with a guy and I asked him what was going on in his life and he replied, "The Twos." He hesitantly started to explain it to me and when he was done I said, "You're not the only one; it happens to me too." He looked relieved.

Last week I got the pictures of me and my dog Kiko, sent by Paul, the photographer who had tested with me back in NY. Less than a week later I got the video from Mack that I linked on Friday, and there was my dog again.

After Kiko died and I moved to L.A. a year later, he started walking on my bed. I would feel his little paws stepping over me and pacing back and forth. The first time it happened I was so incredulous I lay in bed and felt the paws go over my body and around the bed. At first I was afraid to acknowledge it but I finally sat up and ran my hands over the bed. No dog. It happened on and off for years. Once I had to go to an emergency room in Santa Monica and they checked me in overnight. As I lay there trying to go to sleep, the little paws started walking all over me again. The paws were always little. I knew it was him. I sat up and felt the covers. Still no dog.

I was in therapy then and shared these stories with my shrink, who didn't seem surprised. I asked her why not and she calmly replied, "Similar things have happened to me." Then Kiko stopped walking on the bed and I've never felt him since. There have been nights when I've missed those paws. Like a lot of things in life, you only miss it when it's gone.

So when Kiko recently appeared twice in one week, once by video and once in a picture, I immediately thought it was a coincidence, although there's no such thing. I didn't realize it was a precursor.

Friday night I had the air-conditioning on because Los Angeles cannot decide what weather to wear to the prom. At 5:30 a.m. I was lying in bed, stuck to the sheets like tongue on metal, and knew I had to turn off the a.c. I got up, walked to the living room and turned it off. I went back to bed.

The next morning I noticed the stereo was on. My stereo has a flap that pops up and then turns a rainbow of colors. If you read this blog, you know this has already happened twice before.

I sat at my desk staring at the stereo opposite me and knew someone had turned it on and it wasn't me. It hadn't been on at 5:30 when I got up to turn the air conditioner off.

I looked for the stereo remote. I kept it in a basket, on a shelf a foot down from the computer. I took the basket out and fished around for it. There was nothing heavy sitting on it. So I pressed power and the stereo didn't turn off. I put it level with the stereo and pushed power again and it didn't turn off. I have a Chinese screen about 8 inches taller than my desk sitting directly in front of me so I had to pick up the remote, lift it over my head, angle it down and then push power.

The stereo went off. And then immediately turned itself back on. I turned it off again and this time it stayed off. There was no way I had done all that without remembering it.

I'm not sure why these things follow me around and have for so many years, going on 20 now. I am open to them but I have no ability to interpret their meanings. So when they happen, and you can click on the label below this post to read about the other experiences, I know I have visitors.

I just don't know what they want.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Over at the Bloggers Choice Awards I'm now in 13th place so thanks for voting and keeping me in the top ten like I asked.

You know how I make fun of people who post and then write Enjoy! after whatever it is they've posted?

Anyway, I never noticed this before but I made some microwave popcorn the other day and usually I just reach in and grab the bag because I'm too busy doing cranial surgery with my other free hand but this time I glanced at the machine only to discover the HUBRIS of Sharp by exploding my popcorn and then flashing ENJOY! when it was done. SO I PURPOSELY DID NOT ENJOY IT.

Do you know the artist Georgia O'Keeffe?
Yes, THAT Georgia O'Keeffe. She lived until she was 98 and painted until the day she died which I find exhausting even to read. The Whitney in NYC is giving a retrospective of her work and in an article in NY Magazine, they excerpt this from her journal, from a letter she wrote to her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz:

"...on my back - wanting to be spread wide apart."

So my deepest fear is realized. I have journals, mostly written when life did not run smoothly. So there are millions of them. There are parts that are very sexual and a few years ago I tried to edit them by tearing out all the sexual parts but eventually gave up because I'm apparently some kind of sex perv when it comes to documenting what various men liked and didn't like. Reading them back, especially the ones from the 90's, gave me a mini heart attack.

I will die and they will be read. Or I will never die and then I'm golden.

Tomorrow my episode of Seinfeld is on (Sat. Nov. 14 5:30 PM TBS) I think it's Pacific Time but I'm not sure.

And how weird is it that I got this video from my friend Mack Dryden of the hilarious Mack and Jamie comedy team? They're probably sick of hearing it but their version of Desperado is better than the original. Them boys is funny and can sing.

It's a funny video. Wait until the end and then watch the credits carefully and tell me THAT is not coincidental with what I posted yesterday. Mack didn't even warn me and I know he doesn't read my blog because THAT'S WHY I'M IN 13TH PLACE.

End of chat.

Why The Internet Doesn't Always Suck

I got an email from a guy in NY who said I had tested with him a long time ago and no Paul you can't tell anyone WHEN. He asked me if I remembered him and the session, which was for his photography portfolio.

I didn't.

So he sent me the photos and contact sheets, and in the interim I thought he was the guy who took pictures of me rollerskating. But no, no roller skating photos.

I bought that hat somewhere at some time and in some city and even though I no longer have it, I have a better one in black and white. I am quite the hat freak. Maybe I don't have to add the word "hat" to that sentence.

I was posing with my Yorkie who was an absolute terror and once went into a neighbor's apartment, grabbed their bird by the wing and was dragging him down the hallway amidst the screams of my friends.

In my dog's defense, who lets a bird walk around the fucking FLOOR and leaves their door open? I screamed at Kiko to drop it but he picked up steam and started trotting, like a horse, until I caught him by the neck. The bird was okay and when I got my dog home I discovered a blueish-green feather on his snout. I framed it with a picture of him. Every time I see it I laugh.

Kiko hated one of my boyfriends so much that we were up late playing LPs yo, and the next morning discovered one little poop on each album we'd left out. Some were in jagged piles and he climbed the piles just to make a higher-up poop.

That's commitment.

The point of all this and YES I HAVE ONE is that in some moments of our lives, when we feel we look like shit? Turns out all we need is a good photographer. And a funny dog.

End of chat.

Marilyn Monroe

Years ago I got a job at a Paris nightclub and at the contract signing they asked me what I wanted on the marquee. At the time I was calling myself Suzy Cue. So I said it in French and all the men burst out laughing. 'Cue' translates to the slang word for 'asshole' in French. You'd think I would have known that going in as I had called quite a few people that up until then.

So the nightclub told me to change it. I had just finished reading a book that said a lot of famous people throughout history had a name that ended in an O sound. Picasso, Groucho, Paltrow, Monroe etc. I was obsessed with Marilyn at the time to I changed my last name to end in an O sound. Whether I'm no longer an asshole is debatable. And you can see for yourself the stellar heights of fame I've reached.

"Suzy!!"
"Yes Mr. Clooney."
"Where's my coffee?"

I bought the Milton Greene lithograph below in Paris. I own 9/300, the 9th printing of a series of 300. Milton Greene is dead now and his son plastered his father's work all over everything, thus diminishing its worth. Nowadays they print lithographs with a 2 or a 3 next to it, like 9/300/2, to inform the buyer that they're not really buying an original, but a second printing of the original 300. I'm an artist too, I get it, we make little money. I have certainly whored myself out for a 2. Once I did a TV show for $50. What's that? A 4?

My favorite picture of Marilyn is the one below mine, which I don't own. You can find other fabulous Marilyn pics as well as unbelievable photos of Liz Taylor over at Blonde Episodes. Her photos make today's skinny girls look embarrassing, ridiculous and definitely not sexy. And her blog is great too. She loves the 1940's and after you see the photos, you will too.


End of chat.

As You Can See I'm Not Very Religious

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

Remember when I posted that calling someone a 'douche' was not an insult because anyone who took high school French knows douche means 'shower?' No of course you don't because I can't remember anything I write so why should you?

But in case you have forgotten, look at this below. Now you'll never be able to call someone that name again without wondering if the person who heard it isn't thinking:

"She thinks I need to take a shower? Now, in the middle of the day while working on my power point presentation? Okay then, bye everybody! Sorry I was dirty. See you tomorrow."
You want to piss someone off? ADD THE BAG.

How Many People Can I Offend With This Post?

As I drove Martha Jane to LAX yesterday she mentioned she had gone to Loehmann's. Martha is almost 6 feet tall, so she has to buy XL, XXL etc. so tops cover her butt and as she puts it, "It doesn't look like I'm wading in flood waters." She was told Loehmann's no longer sold those sizes. So Martha replied: "Enjoy Chapter 11."

And when Rosie O's favorite designer of three years, Eileen Fisher, stopped making XLs as well, saying she didn't want to attract that kind of clientele, Rosie spoke out against her.

I asked Martha why she thought Loehmann's stopped selling plus sizes and she gave me an answer that never occurred to me. They did not want to turn into the kind of store that catered to overweight Blacks and Mexicans. This was a guess of course but one third, 100 million, people in our country are obese, including Caucasians. I'm guessing Loehmann's does not want to turn into Ross, where navigating the isles really should be an Olympic sport.

So we started scanning the streets looking for Fat Offenders and of course only found skinny ones. (I got this picture off Google images.)

I know we're not supposed to use the "Fat" word and this may be part of the problem. Rosie won't allow the word to be used in her home. At Costco, once skinny Asians are no longer skinny. I guess Kimchi got old after you've had a Big Mac. If no one tells you you're fat, maybe you just keep eating. I had a producer tell me at an important meeting that one of my teeth was too crooked for TV.

I was completely mortified and ashamed since no one had ever mentioned it before, even my agent, former agents and managers. AND MY FAMILY WHO WANT ME TO FAIL AND SEND ME TO AMISH COUNTRY.

I got the tooth fixed.

End of chat.

Mammaries...From The Corners Of My Bra

After I announced my ankle surgery last year, a fellow comedian, Brad Slaight, photoshopped my head onto this scooter. This is why you need to have comedians as friends. They're funny and demented and mock you out of your whiny little self and make you realize you're not on your deathbed.

Anyway, I had put on some poundage due to the fact that I couldn't walk without crying. I was in so much pain that Vicodin laughed in my face.

I couldn't walk properly for almost 2 years before last year's surgery because I was recuperating from another surgery so I was up to 139. Now it's a year and a half after the last surgery and I'm finally back to my original weight, 128.

Sidebar: Just so you know, I didn't understand that explanation either.

I've been staring at my clothes for years, wondering if I could ever fit into them again. After 4 years, I started referring to them as vintage.

Today I had lunch with MJ at iCugini, on the Pacific Ocean, before I took her to LAX for her trip back to Hawaii. The valet was $7.00, which is twice my rent.

While I was getting dressed I put on a pair of jeans I hadn't worn in 4 years. They fit perfectly. They were even slightly too big. Problem?

They're low cut.

I was overweight for so long I went out of style.

End of chat.

It Gets Dark At Noon. GREAT.

Daylight Savings. Such a pleasure, no?

Has everyone seen the slide show on my sidebar? I've added some pictures others have taken of me or painted of me. I've also put in all the awards I've received from you and was supposed to redistribute but haven't. Please, I don't even vacuum because it's spelled with two U's in the middle, which annoys me. And don't get me started on ironing.

Send me a small jpg and by small I have no idea what that means. Just not big.

So if you have children and want to showcase the little Picassos, make them do it. Or if you're bored and don't want to vacuum either, do it yourself. Include the first name of the child or your fake/real blogger name so I can put it in the slideshow.

And people say I don't have a life. I do and it's all about ME.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday! I Mean Saturday!

I'm all lunched out. Three lunches this week and another one I missed because I didn't like the people. How do you turn down a lunch without lying?

"I can't go to lunch because I had my jaw wired shut. How can I talk on the phone? Well honestly I didn't think of that when I answered it because I'm not a spontaneous liar."

My sister and I are not spontaneous. I once told Maman that and she said, "Oh my Goddddddd, zat's horrrrrrrrrrrrrreebul." I was afraid to ask why.

My sister and I are planners, list makers, people who dust the day before company arrives as opposed to the day of. This is a picture of the 3 spontaneous ones in our family and our mother, who probably threw on that dress while the photographer was setting up.

Notice everyone in the picture is smiling but me. On the positive side, I now have no lines around my eyes. On the negative side, when I was a waitress customers complained that I was always in a bad mood.

We used to go to France every summer, except for my Dad, who stayed behind to work. My mother was a teacher with summers off.

When the ocean liners were making the crossings from New York to Cherbourg, France, we would drive up to NY from D.C. and get on the ship.

My sister and I were packed weeks in advance so as not to miss one precious item which, once we got to Paris, never touched because France had cooler shit.

My mother found it more convenient to pack the day we left and had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. The first and second summers we nearly missed the ship. Every year Dad lost 6 pounds via his sweat glands. He and my mother never fought in 27 years but I'm pretty sure they finally got a divorce based on those trips to New York.

Mom thinks "Everybody ready?" means "Time for a snack." She thinks "IT'S TIME TO GO, HONEY" means to check every spigot in the house to make sure nothing was leaking even though my father was still going to be there while we were gone."

The third time my father made us go the day before and spend the night in a NY hotel so as the three of us would not have a heart attack. We still arrived at the docks late because my mother was doing God knows what. Restocking the maid's cart? Slipping newspapers under doors? Checking in new guests?

The 4th summer he made us take the plane.

End of chat.

Just To Prove I Have A Big Mouth

One of the nicest people I have ever known in my entire life. Excluding me, of course.

Stop Having Sex

Recently I have been woken up by people having sex. Talking, yelling sex.

Two weeks ago it was a man going "Noooooooooo, no, noooooooooooooooooo." I lay there wondering what was happening. Bondage gone wrong? Didn't remember the safe word? Refusing to talk to his mother on the phone during sex? WHAT WAS HE DOING?

Last week it was a woman yelling Yesssssssssssssssssssssssss. That one was easy. Another faked orgasm.

A few days ago I heard two kittens having kitten sex. Not cat sex, which is loud and embarrassing not to mention a little disturbing, but kitten sex. I sat up. Silence.

I lay back down and heard a repetitive raspy sound that sounded like panting. Someone was panting on my pillow. Which by the way would make a great title for a Country and Western song or the book title for Jenna Jameson's memoirs.

Then I realized it was coming from me. All of it was just me.

I have asthma.

Between the Santa Ana winds blowing and all the fires, it has really made it harder for me to breathe at night.

I have talents I'm not even using properly.

End of chat.

It's Everybody Can Bite Me Friday!

I am obsessed with cheating men this week because I recently found out that a celebrity couple I know divorced. They separated in 2005 and divorced 3 years later. The shock of this divorce hit me because I remembered a Thanksgiving at an SNLers' house a long time ago. This same married couple were sitting in front of the fire and he was telling us a story about his wife, lounging two feet away on a couch. He ended it with "I know in my heart and my soul that my mission in life was to take care of this woman. I felt that God sent me to her to protect her. All the rest doesn't matter."

My sister and I exchanged a glance and made the Awwwwwwwwwww face together. We're mental, I know.

Out of this same group of people, two are dead, another couple divorced and another one cheated on his wife, in their NY apartment, in their New York bed with the daughter of a famous clothing designer. That last couple stayed together, moved out of LA and NY and his cheating was never mentioned. We used to sit around and wonder how his wife never blabbed about it. To any of us. We all knew but in deference to her never brought it up. And it never made the press, like Dave Letterman, John Edwards, Rudy Guiliani, Sanford, Spitzer et alia. And it should have, based on his fame.

Like a lot of women, I'm watching The Good Wife with Juliana Marguiles and Chris Noth. He cheated and abused his power in office and went to jail. The wife luckily got a job in a law firm and also weighs about 120 pounds and is easy on the eye. How many women could leave their cheating spouses and ease into her life?

Sidebar: And talk about your photoshopping. New York Magazine took away her upper arms, upper left thigh, her butt and lengthened her neck. Marguiles looks DEMENTED.

My parents were not happily married and they should have divorced. Their decision affected my life. I tend to stay with people who make me unhappy. I don't have the courage to leave. I replay my parents' madness over and over.

Many bloggers confess their cheating to me. I think it's because I remind them of Mother Theresa with my lack of judgments and frequent trips to countries where I bless the poor.

We had family friends a long time ago. The husband was your typical charismatic narcissist, a prime suspect for cheating. And he was a lawyer so you know how tricky they are.

When she discovered he was cheating on her she tried to kill herself and then went to a plastic surgeon and had a full face lift.

The irony was that he came back to her and turned into a raging drunk. He then died while she went on to date another man. His best friend.

If you're unhappy, leave.

End of chat.