Tags:
Humor,
United States,
General,
Personal Memoirs,
Biography & Autobiography,
20th Century,
Entertainment & Performing Arts,
Biography,
Authors; American,
Women,
Rich & Famous,
Motion Picture Actors and Actresses
Then I became a teenager and thought she was an asshole because lets face itits a teenagers job to find her parent annoying and ridiculousjust ask my daughter. Anyway, after I was finished thinking she was this trippy lunatic, I realized that she was pretty fucking amazing. I mean, shes loyal, shes reliable, shes just totally great. Seriously. Shes also really quick, and she can be really, really witty. She also still performs at the age of seventy-six, and she never misses a showwhether shes tired or her foot hurts; when shes out there onstage, shes radiant. This woman is the consummate performer. Ive watched her for my whole life, and shes got this insanely strong life force. It pours through her veins and her muscles, and her heart. Shes remarkable.
But heres the thingshes also a little eccentric.
Shes always had a lot of unique ideas. For example: She thought it would be a good idea for me to have a child with her last husband because it would have nice eyes! I should probably explain that my mother could no longer have children after having gone through the Change, and Richard didnt have any children of his own and he had nice eyes!
Plus, my womb was free, and were family. Now, my mother didnt bring this up just once or twice like a normal mother would. She brought it up many timesand mostly while I was driving. And when I finally suggested to her that this might be an odd idea, she said, Oh, darling, have you read the Enquirer lately? We live in a very strange world.
Well, when the Enquirer becomes your standard for living, youre in a lot of trouble!
When I told my grandmother about my mothers idea, she said, Well, thats not right. The voice of reason.
My grandmother Maxine is from El Paso, Texas. My mothers entire clan is from Texas. And my fathers clan is from South Philly. So were basically white trash. But because of the celebrity factor, I think of us as blue-blooded white trash.
I bring my grandmother up because when my mother was about seven my grandmother locked her in the closet. You know, for not finishing her dinner or her homework. (My grandmother was the one who told this story, by the way.) Anyway, after my mother had been in the closet for about an hour, she asked my grandmother for a glass of water and my grandmother, naturally, said, Why? And my mother said, Because Ive just spit on all of your dresses and now Ive run out of spit and I want to spit all over your shoes!
These are the people I hail from.
When I asked my grandmother later why she thought this form of discipline was appropriate, she said, Well, we did not have Cosmopolitan magazine in those days so we did not know it was wrong.
Dont you think that my family has a really weird relationship with magazines?
Anyway, my mother and I never did go forward with the plan for me to have the baby with Richard, and I think that has turned out to be a good thing. Aside from the obviousmy sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughtermy mother ended up hating Richard and for good reason. He took all the money she had made since Harry took the first batch!
So she says to me at this point, You know, dear, Eddies starting to look like the good husband.
Eddie, The Good Husband by Anton Chekhov.
What could you say about my father?
My father is beyond likeable. I mean you would just love him. My father also smokes four joints a day. Not for medical reasons. So I call him Puff Daddy. But he is just adorable. Theres a reason he got all that high-quality pussyexcept for the Miss Louisiana thing, but anyone can make one mistake. So, after he wrote hiswell, he called it an autobiography, but I thought of it more as a novel. After he wrote his novel, Been There, Done as I like to call it Been There Done Them Thator as I like to call it, Been There, Done Them because it really was just about the women hed ever slept with and how the sex was and