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!
2. 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.
