In perhaps the least plausible excuse in the history of lies, MikeandSusanSchroedersaid they couldn't come to my birthday party because they had to do something for charity.
For Christianchildren.
Perhaps even orphans and such!
Whatever, Mike and Susan!
But they made it up, as they so often do, with a couple of glasses of $40 Scotch. And now I'm bought and paid for and will never say anything mean about them ever again!
Well, there I was in ChatNoir,having my little birthday drinkie with Mike, the deanofOCevil,when who popped by to say hello? None other than the disgraced former assistant sheriff! No, not disgraced former assistant sheriff DonHaidl!The otherdisgraced former assistant sheriff, GeorgeJaramillo!And George Jaramillo wanted to have a chat.
“Did you set that up as a treat for me?” I asked Schroeder when he returned from their tte–tte. “Wait! Is the Sheriffgoing to jump out of acake?”
Sadly, no.
“You'd better hurry up before Susan gets here,” Schroeder says he said once he and Jaramillo had adjourned to the patio, while I explained to the sweet bartendress all the ins and outs of all the disgraced former assistant sheriffs, not to mention Mike and Susan and the lousy DA. He was referring to his wife, deputy DA SusanKangSchroeder,who knows 17 ways to kill a man slowly, and Jaramillo's not her favorite guy. She gets that cute vomity look on her face when she so much as thinks about him, as if she were smelling fat people or looking at Spitzer.It's the same look she gets when remembering the priest who indoctrinated her into Catholicism (she converted when she married Mike) and whose sole point of dogma was that PeteWilsonwas the Devil. That'sthe Catholic Church I know and love!
“Susan's coming?” Schroeder says Jaramillo said, with that special Jaramillo fuddle. “You mean you and Rebecca aren't . . . ?”
Ho, ho, ho! Everyone thinks I'm a whore!
Suck on that, FrankMickadeit!
Mickadeit, by the way, has a superhot wife. What is happening to our world?
I don't know what's going on with my Mars,but I managed to pick a fight with comedians PattonOswaltand DavidCrossat the tsunami-victims benefit at Detroittwo Sundays ago, about two hours before the last of my seven boyfriends told me it just wasn't gonna work out and fled. Fled like the wind!
David and Patton were sitting behind the velvet rope at Detroit with a closed circle of friends, and I'd just had dinner with Patton—we've known each other for 10 years—and wanted to get introduced to David, whom I'd interviewed as horribly as usual the week before. I stood there. And stood there. And Patton didn't acknowledge I was standing there, and it was just like that time LievSchreiberwouldn't acknowledge I was standing there for a good seven minutes at HeatherGraham'sbirthday party (we'd come with the help), and I'd be goddamned if I slunk away this time.
“Patton, are you gonna introduce me or what?” I asked, obnoxious inafunnyway.
“I was in the middle of a conversation and didn't want to be rude!” Patton answered, with pique.
“I've been standing here for a minute and a half!” I yelled.
“It was a very complex sentence!” he yelled back.
Cross looked scared. I leaned over, hand out, and introduced myself: I was the one who'd interviewed him, I was a friend of Patton's (not that you'd know it), and I was not a stalker. You know: same old, same old. Cross wouldn't make eye contact. I guess he's shy!
I apologized to Patton and called the next day apologizing again. “That's okay,” he said. “No harm, no foul.” But did he say, “That's okay, and I'm sorry I left you standing there like a dick”?
Noooooo!
I think I'm turning into my mother.
For my birthday Friday, my mother took me to Papadakisin San Pedro, where the waiters dance, and the host kisses all the ladies, and there was a belly dancer and a guy in a fedora who tap-danced as we threw him money, and the food was amazing, even three days later because by the time we finished the lemon-and-chicken-and-rice soup, we were already too full for our lamb.
Then my little brother Cakeyboytook me to Hollywood, where he knows all the door guys and never has to wait in a line or pay a cover! We're on the guest list, plus five!
But Concordehad a line of 200, and the bouncer said we all had to pay, and I said to Cakeyboy and his friends, “You guys? Um, I'm old? Can we not go to a club? Can we find, like, a dive bar?” To Cakeyboy and his friends, “dive bar” translated to “Beauty Bar.”Have I taught this boy nothing about the pleasures of drinking with the aged and infirm? Beauty Bar was gorgeous, crowded enough to be fun without that insouciant claustrophobia, and when I told a broad-chested, well-muscled man I liked his Steelersshirt, he said to me, “Thanks. I don'tlike yours.”Yay! A few minutes later, with my little brother in saddened shock from it all, I asked the man to clarify that he'd been joking. “Yeah, I totally was,” he said. “Do you think that's why girls don't talk to me?” Maybe, yes.
My little brother insisted on buying my drinks until he and his friends (very soon) ran out of money. Isn't he just the sweetest thing?
It was mighty white of my neighbors to wait till 11:30 p.m. to call the fuzz on my birthday party Saturday night, considering darling DJAbsolutesimply would not turn it down. (He was 22 and brought his oldfriend so he would know what to play for oldpeople—and they did a fantastic job, quite heavy on the Hall&Oates!)The party was somewhat sparsely attended—I blame you all, each individually—and by the time the cops got there at midnight, the DJ was already carrying his equipment out, there were, like, nineof us standing around looking at my bicycle, the children were upstairs having pillow fights—which the cops could see from the street—and I had drunk almost a bottle of Scotch. “Pillow fights, blah, blah, blah,” said the cop, kinda cute and smart-assily. “If you'd gotten here half an hour ago, you would have seen the children roasting marshmallows!” I told him. “It was outofcontrol!”
After the heat left, we sold the children for crack. For nine people, it was totally rage.
And this Sunday night, LongTallGinaand I wrapped up an already Scotch-soaked birthday weekend by hitting the BreaImprovfor ChristopherTitus.Patton had told me Titus was a hack who does stupid SupportOurTroopsjokes, but I'd seen him a year or two ago, and he was a big, evil lefty, and I lovedhim!
Before the show, Titus was standing at the back, talking to a man, and I came over. What does a polite person do when interrupted by a hanger-on? One looks over within a moment or two, pausing one's conversation and graciously allowing the approaching person to introduce herself. And Christopher Titus DID!
See, Patton? (And Liev Schreiber?) It'snotthathard!
Titus then introduced me to his pretty wife, insisted on personally getting me a better table andtook care of our check.
Which is why it sucked that he wasn't that funny.
Sunday nights are horrible nights for Improv; the comics have done two to three shows per night for three nights, and the audience is a bit tired, and there's no energy off which to feed, and nobody's drunk a whole bottle of Scotch.
The opener wasn't particularly “funny” either, but as a guy who'd served in IraqI(ThePrequel)and was making fun of people who support the troops—not by notbuyingSUVsor upping veterans benefits, but by tellingthe troops they support them—he was saying just the kinds of things I like to hear! Once BillMaherturned left, he became much funnier, yes? It's funny how that works.
So we liked him, and of course we love Titus, but Titus' material has taken a swerve to the palatable-for-Americans middle; before, when he talked about America kicking world ass, the discerning viewer could tell he was making fun of us, but this time (and it may have been flat Sunday timing), he didn't seem so much to mind the whomping. Then he followed in the deep, slushy footprints of RushLimbaughto compare AbuGhraibto RushWeekat DekeHouseor somesuch gentle place, which is stupid, and did a very schmaltzy extended set piece about making the world a better place for his baby girl.
Ditch that shit, Christopher Titus!
Come back to the Dark Side.
I've got the bottle of Scotch, if you're ready to fight.
