Help! My Wife Is Trying To Keep Me Alive! (Updated)

The comedian turned actor Denis Leary used to tell a joke about busy-bodies complaining he smoked too much. They would tell him, “You’re taking 10 years off your life,” and he would respond, “Yeah, but they’re the worst 10 years.”

In a way, that’s how I feel. Mrs. Laz, with good intention, has been quietly and regularly replacing food that is bad for me with food that is good for me.

First it was the salt. She poured out all that tasty Morton Salt, good for meat curing, with sea salt or some other light salt that requires three times the amount just to get the tongue tingling. From there she purchased something called egg substitutes to replace all the cholesterol I was getting in regular eggs. Do they make chicken substitutes?

Butter was too good for me and soon it was replaced by margarine and then light margarine, which was replaced by canola margarine and then something that only shared the color yellow with the original butter. I just have my toast dry now since the supposedly good stuff doesn’t melt or spread too well.

Next she read somewhere that we need fiber in our diet. Now everything in our house has enough fiber in it to back up the average elephant for months. Wheat tortillas, wheat hot dog buns, wheat spaghetti noodles, wheat flour, 400 grain sprouted wheat bread and even extra high fiber wheat oatmeal – sugar free of course. All these foods may have a ton of fiber but they taste like cardboard which, I assume, has plenty of fiber too.

She has even tried to fool me on the sweets she hides. She's switched out the delicious milk chocolate M&Ms with less tasty, but better for me, dark chocolate M&Ms and it's gotten to the point where I don't even want to search her hiding places anymore (but the bag is on the last shelf of the nook cabinets).

I asked the obvious, “Can we eat like we used to and just take vitamins?” No, we have to eat food that is good for us and I’m afraid I will end up having to live out those last ten, crummy years after all.

UPDATE: I found the new hiding place for the crummy M&Ms. They were in the second oven that we never use; although we could have. Anyway, many are in my tummy now making a harmonious yummmmmm sound. Also, I forgot to mention cheese. Mrs. Laz buys low-fat cheese for me and that pretty much removes the reason to have cheese in the first place. Cheese is basically mucus anyway, but it shouldn't taste like that. Thought you would all like to know.

What To Do

Talk about your mixed messages. President Bush takes a stand to oust Saddam Hussein, in part on sketchy intelligence and in part on removing a homicidal madman before he kills more innocents. Six months before the president decides to rid Iraq of Hussein, he follows the wishes of Congress and gets a vote to authorize regime change, which was really a re-authorization from a 1998 vote giving President Clinton the authority to do the same. Congress caught a whiff of public sentiment in late 2002 – just before the election, very cruel – and voted overwhelmingly to pass the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution.”

One would guess President Bush took Congress seriously back then, if for no other reason than the resolution passed 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate. From that point on, the debate has raged on a number of issues such as the quality of the intelligence, the number of troops that were used and the presence of a real plan for occupation following Saddam’s removal. This debate has become pointless and stale unless you’re running for higher office. However, the debate is instructional for what a future president should do when faced with the changing whim of the public and the predictable change in mood from politicians seeking their votes.

Case in point is the situation in Darfur. To get a good feel for this, look at this website imploring President Bush to stop the killing. It essentially asks him to do what we did in Iraq in 1992, including the not-so-well hidden request for armed troops. This is rich. To many, President Bush in particular and America in general represents much of what is evil in the world. This because we are occupiers, bullies and are intent on policing the world; or, put another way, just what the do-gooders are requesting we do to save those in need in Darfur.

Boiled down, what is happening in Darfur is what is occurring in Iraq: sectarian violence between different religious groups. Unless I am confused, the current attitude is that we are all against interfering or causing an increase in sectarian violence and putting our men and women in harms way to attempt to put an end to it.

We tried to help out in Somalia based in large part by a series of CNN news reports about petty warlords stealing food from starving refugees caught up in sectarian violence. The humanitarian crisis was in our living rooms so much that President Bush (41) decided to send troops to help distribute the food. Shortly thereafter, something quite different was broadcast into our living rooms by CNN; that of dead American troops being carried through the streets of Mogadishu. Public opinion was high to save the starving but reached rock bottom when the public learned there was a price to pay for our doing so. President Clinton, always driven by polls on major decisions, removed the troops, which also removed the last doubt by Osama bin Laden that the U.S. was nothing more than a Paper Tiger.

And now Darfur. What should President Bush do? What should a future president do since it is unlikely the warring factions will have gone through all 2.5 million people of Darfur by 2008? Inquiring minds and arm-chair quarterbacks are waiting.

A Short, But Eventful, Comedy Career

So I was going to finish regaling you all on my brief moment as a comedic genius. In 1977 I was a pretty big deal in the world of unpaid comedy writers. I had sheets and sheets of worthless and unwanted jokes. But, you know, I was writing ahead of my time and for future appreciation. Besides, my jokes always got a few yucks from my mother.

While I was doing the sketch comedy work for the Laughing Stock Company (see below) I placed an ad in the Daily Variety offering my irreverent comedy writing for A List stand-up comics. Days, weeks and then months went by with no calls from the A List, soon followed by the B and C Lists. Just as I was getting discouraged I got a call from someone on the D+ List, which just happened to be my college grade point average at the time, a curious bit of symmetry, wouldn’t you say?

The caller had just been released from the hospital and wanted some new material to re-launch his fading career. I was just the guy to do it and, as he told me, was also the most economical in my pricing at $100 per minute. I know what you’re thinking; $100 per minute seems like a lot. But it’s $100 per minute of joke telling or, to put it in perspective, one double-spaced typed sheet of paper. It’s not really that easy to write original funny stuff and this guy wanted three minutes.

We met at a really, really nice McDonalds in a seedy side of Hollywood. He was, to put it nicely, a bit strange. He made crude comments, loudly, about the anatomy of the minimum wage staff behind the counter and seemed to lack a sense of humor, which, as it happens, is an unhelpful attribute for a comedian. I was given the type of comedy he preferred and it was a bit broad for my taste. He simply said, “Write me something funny.”

I went back to my dorm room where I would write comedy amidst the four-month-old pizza crusts and sweat socks that had not been washed during an entire semester. As a quick aside, my roommate and I won a dorm award for filthiest room, with a lot of competition I might add.

I toiled and paced and lay awake at night rolling jokes around in my head instead of remembering I had a Biology of Cancer mid-term the next day. Of course who needs to fulfill a life science requirement when you’re helping a guy re-launch a fading career?

Several days later I felt I had enough material to present to my new client. Also it looked like I was going to be asked to leave UCLA and never return so I needed a career alternative. I met the comedian at the same McDonalds and I noticed he had brought with him a pair of scissors and a ruler. He carefully went through my work and did not so much as smile as he read. A bad sign, I thought.

After reading, he pulled out the scissors and began to meticulously cut sentences and paragraphs out of what I had written and placed the remainder on a separate page. He did this for each of the three and a half pages I had given him. When he was done, he measured what was left and it came to something like 2.45 pages, or minutes, and offered me $245 for my remaining work. He then invited me to watch him perform my material the following Saturday, which I excitedly accepted.

The club that would be the scene of his career re-launch was called Jon’s Place in Hollywood and was literally owned by a Safeway baggage clerk. Apparently Jon was doing better bagging groceries than he was as a club owner or comic. Jon didn’t pay any of the comedians so it became known as a place to safely try out new material instead of a top-notch comedy club.

I remember the first act. A guy was dressed in a too-small gray suit and red bow tie and was with a girl who looked like an adult Raggedy Ann Doll. Their entire act was taking things out of a trunk, holding them in the air, and screaming. To this day, I swear the guy in the bow tie was Pee Wee Herman, but who knows?

Soon my guy came on stage. He was given three minutes to perform as Jon kept a pretty tight schedule. He had taken an egg timer with him and placed it on the stool in front of him. This got a few chuckles as he explained the purpose. He begins on my first joke and he is delivering the lines perfectly; just as they were written. “Yes!” I was thinking to myself, you don’t just “tell” a joke, you “sell” a joke.

I was beaming with pride as he was re-launching his career and launching me, a rising star in the world of comedy. The punchline was just around the corner when he stumbled and then stopped. He scratched his head, shrugged and said, “I forgot the punchline.” The audience, which likely included other baggage clerks and Jon’s mother, got a laugh out of this. I guess it’s pretty funny to get close to the punch lunch and then forget it. That is, if part of the joke is forgetting the punchline. The good news was, however, that only my soon-to-be-re-fading comic and I knew there was supposed to be a punchline.

He then went into the next joke and was moving along pretty well with it until he stumbled, scratched his head and then told the audience he had once again forgotten the punchline. This admission got no laughs. In fact it got Jon off his feet to put an end to the act. I guess two people dressed like idiots, grabbing things out of a trunk and yelling at them isn’t offensive, but a forgetful comic is.

I was beginning to bury my head in my hands when the comic decided to announce that his writer was in the audience and pointed directly at me. I was outed as the bad joke writer right in the middle of other fading comics and union super market workers. There was no place to hide and all I could do was wave at the hostile audience.

I decided it was best to leave and nodded for the comic to follow me out the door and back into obscurity. I asked what happened, how could he forget the punchlines? At that moment I learned I should have asked him why he was in the hospital. It turns out he had undergone surgery to remove brain tumors and one of the byproducts of such surgery is memory loss. I wish I had asked earlier because I could have done a bit about a forgetful comedian. Now that would have been funny!

I've Been Replaced!

Woody Allen used to tell a story about his father becoming “technologically unemployed.” The company he worked for created a machine that could do everything he could do, only better. The sad part was, his wife bought one too.

That pretty much sums up how I feel. I made the mistake of buying Mrs. Laz a little puppy named Missy as a Christmas present, and now I have been replaced. And not just replaced in the essential areas of love and affection, but the damned little four-pound home-wrecker sleeps where I used to.

I like cute puppies and cute kittens, I really do. But answer these questions: can the dog take you out for dinner, keep a job, fulfill the warmer moments of human compassion, not be afraid of vacuum cleaners, or do things that require opposable thumbs? I think not.

I am thinking larcenous thoughts about the both of them. As the Wicked Witch screeched: “The last to go will see the first three go before her. And her little dog too.”

The Power Of Positive Drinking

I had most of a good bottle of wine the other day and, along with reading and viewing supplied by Mrs. Laz, The Boy and my CFO, I have decided to ad another New Year’s resolution. To whit: I resolve to think positively about my life, to embrace the good that has come my way and to ask for and expect more nifty things in the future. I realize that I have been far too negative and pouty about a number of frivolous things and it’s far better to shake the negative thoughts than to dwell on them. Just thought you all should know. And I think I should also resolve to go to bed sooner as it's 2:39 a.m. as of this post.

An Old Part Of Me

Have you ever had something akin to “missing time” with certain friends; some blank space when you and your friend were on different tracks? Talking to Italiphil over the New Year, I realized there was almost a decade when we were not as close, didn’t speak as often and therefore lost track of important parts of each of our lives. I wish I had been there with him because, if anything, I am a curious person and just want to fill in the gaps of what I know about him.

I have been out visiting our Virginia estates and was telling a story to an old friend and it occurred to me that there are perhaps equal mysteries of my past to my friends both old and new. So here is a chunk of my life you may not be aware of.

When I went to the “Other College in Los Angeles” I had a huge interest in being a writer of anything – films, books and especially sketch comedy. Saturday Night Live was in its second season and the writers were really engaged in breakthrough comedy. Like any aspiring Hollywood-type I bought the Daily Variety and constantly read the help wanted section, searching in vain for that one ad seeking a network president, no experience necessary.

One day I saw an ad seeking writers for a comedy group and I immediately called and got an appointment with the director of the group named Ernie. Ernie was an old NBC vice president and had earned his stripes producing Martin and Lewis movies including the Nutty Professor. He had recently left NBC after producing the short-lived second incarnation of Laugh-In in which he discovered Robin Williams who had been a member of the group I was trying to get in.

Ernie told me the position was more of a writing school than a paying job, but if I wrote well and the group could book some shows, I could share in the revenue. Oh, and in the meantime, I could pay him $15 per week for his writing advice. It still sounded good to me so I gave him some writing samples and he particularly liked one that was influenced by Woody Allen, my favorite comedian at the time. Since Ernie favored old Catskill-style comedy, he decided to “take a risk on me” but said, “Don’t give me any of that Saturday Night Live stuff.”

I wrote a number of sketches that I really only remember the titles of now: “For The Halibut,” “Close Luncheon Counters of the Third Kind” and one called “The Detestable Debutante” which was about a snotty rose who looked down on the weeds around her until she was yanked out of the ground and sold to a debutante – it was a real think piece.

We were constantly approached by comedians that Ernie knew to write stand-up material and some came to our weekly sessions to brainstorm. One who came was a very young Gary Shandling who brought a guy named Teddy Bergman with him. Bergman was impressive because he was the producer of Three’s Company at the time, and Shandling looked the part of the future star with perfect Seventies no-pocket pants, coifed hair and a leather clutch purse. We tried to dazzle him but apparently to no avail.

Another comedian we pitched was Bob Saget who was only 20-years-old at the time. Despite the fact he sold out later and did America’s Funniest Home Videos and Full House, Saget was one of the funniest comics I had every seen. He used to pick on his audience in such a clever way, and I remember a bit in which he played “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on his guitar that was, well, weeping, as he had rigged water to drop off. Perhaps you had to be there to find that one funny.

Our group was called the Laughing Stock Company and we did do several shows and I even got paid more than $25 a few times. Ernie later organized a group of older comics called Go Like Sixty and it enjoyed pretty good success doing Catskill comedy until Ernie died a few years later.

Ernie was a part of old Hollywood that dined at the Brown Derby and somehow kept their undergarments on while getting out of cars. He knew all the old stars in town and had numerous stories and maybe I will do another post about them someday. Ernie’s connection to these “stars” drew the curiosity of one of my co-writers. Eventually the co-writer became my co-conspirator and we would take turns asking for a bathroom break. Instead of following through on our original intent, we snuck into Ernie’s office, opened up his address book and wrote down private numbers of stars like Bob Hope, Jonathan Winters, Jerry Lewis, and Dick Martin. We never called any of them but we felt pretty cool having them in our own address book.

I should take that last part back. I did use Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis as references on a job application to be a waiter, figuring they would never have the guts to call these guys. However, I overestimated the intelligence of an assistant manager at a Bob’s Big Boy who never made the connection to the people he had on the other line who were wondering who this Mike guy was. I got the job, though, once again further demonstrating the level of intelligence of my new boss.

This is getting a bit long so I will write another post about my Big Time entry into the world of comedy writing on another day. Maybe some of you could share some old secrets about yourself too.

Sympathy For The Devil

There must be something inherently human about feeling uncomfortable to witness the death of anyone. And so it is entirely justifiable for many of us to have felt trepidation about the execution of Saddam Hussein. This isn’t to say a majority of people don’t believe he got what he deserved; it’s just that we don’t want our Humanity to get lost in the impulse for revenge.

This may surprise a few, but I don’t believe in the death penalty. It’s based on the notion that planning an execution is a cousin to a planned murder. Most people believe the Ten Commandments include the principle, “Thou shalt not kill,” but it actually says, “Thou shalt not murder” and I have trouble getting around the idea that mankind arranging for the killing of another isn’t a violation of the founding tenets of our society.

Having said that (or, better, written that), Saddam was not executed based on Western values, but on Islamic law and the Iraqi society. I have less trouble with Saddam’s demise based on who carried it out and the reasons for it. There were few despots more brutal to his own people than Saddam. In modern terms, Saddam gets a seat at the same table with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao. He may have been moving toward the head seat if his regime had not been stopped.

Americans generated a certain amount of sympathy for Saddam as he walked his final steps, but Americans didn’t live under his terror and state-sponsored murder. The Iraqis did, however, and it’s doubtful our sensitivity to capital punishment means much to the Kurds who were bombed with mustard and sarin gas or the Shiites in the south of Iraq who were systematically rounded up, murdered and shoved into mass graves – all by his orders and approval. By most estimates, more than 1 million Iraqis were killed under Saddam and another 1 million in his war with Iran. To the surviving families and friends of the disappeared, Saddam’s public execution was naturally welcomed, Western concerns notwithstanding.

Another Trip Around The Sun

When he was younger, the Boy used to call the lies we tell ourselves we will accomplish in the upcoming year, “New Year’s Revolutions.” In a way he was accurate. The New Year represents a revolution around the sun, or, as Big Gus says, “Another trip around the sun.”

I used to keep my revolutions simple like, “I resolve to fly on my own,” or “I will date Diane Lane” -- things that have no chance of happening. By making such impossible goals, I knew I would fall short and be less disappointed going into the year, thereby lessening my disenchantment with more realistic hoped for accomplishments.

It’s another New Year and to keep the up the façade for yet another year, I will endeavor to share with you my revolutions for 2007. Please feel free to add your own or ridicule mine.

1. I resolve to lose 50 pounds. I have succeeded at this only once, but it always tops my list. This also means I will have to swim more or pick up a different exercise regiment.

2. I resolve to be more decisive. I think.

3. I resolve to travel less unless for fun and relaxation, although I am leaving for DC on Saturday.

4. I resolve to date Diane Lane. Why should this be considered such a difficult task?

5. I resolve to creatively beg for forgiveness from Mrs. Laz for the last comment.

6. I resolve to resolve where we should live without regard to who it upsets or makes happy.

7. I resolve to finish my novel or, in the interim, to write a new one since I am so tired of the old one.

8. It would be nifty if I could learn to speak French more fluently – something beyond first year high school French.

9. I have key business decisions to make early in the year and I resolve to make them using impassionate calculation rather than through indecision.

10. I hope to resolve all the unresolved issues in my life and to stop sweating all the small stuff.

Well, that’s it; neither really imaginative nor aggressive. It should be fun to look back at this next year and determine my grade. I always got Cs in the past, let’s see how I do.