The Henna with Gomez

"Y'know, Harry, I'm really really pissed with you about this whole Wendy thing," Gomez said while clipping his toenails in his kitchen.

"And I'm pissed with you for clipping your toenails in front of me, so we're even," Harry said while pulling on a hangnail.

"Give me a fucking break, Harry." A toenail clipping went flying into a fruit bowl on the kitchen counter.

"Three points for the LA Toe Clippers! You are a vile man, Gomez."

"And you're just an asshole, Harry."

Maybe, but at least he didn't clip his toenails in the kitchen in front of guests. Revolting, revolting. So tough shit on Gomez if he was pissed about Wendy.

"Look, the animal thing was getting too weird. The final straw was when I woke up one morning with her puss--her cat sleeping on my face."

"You were sleeping with her, Harry...Y'think I don't know?"

Actually, yes. Harry had no idea.

"Y'think I care?"

Which wasn't true. Wendy was a dark and dirty secret Harry wanted to bury.

"No, but you should."

"Look, she started it, I was lonely, shit happens."

"Meanwhile now I look like the shithead who brought you two together." Gomez clipped a toenail too close to the skin. "Fuuuuck!" He rubbed the injured toe.

"So I left. Big deal."

"At least pay her what you owe..."

"Don't worry, I'll pay her...something. It's just that I had to move into a hotel and it's double my budget."

"Still, you owe her what you owe her. Anyhow, now that"s your problem."

Gomez finished clipping his toenails and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He looked outside the kitchen window into the courtyard where tangerine and orange trees grew under the canopy of the blue sky. Santa Monica was the most gorgeous place he ever visited. And here he sat, the slimeball who stiffed the landlord he slept with, watching Gomez clip his toenails. Another juxtaposition on the tableau of life.

Gomez rubbed his freshly manicured toes with foot lotion. He wouldn't admit it, but he was relieved that Harry left Wendy's house. He knew that he had blown one of the cardinal rules of chronic bullshitters: Keep all your friends apart from each other, lest they expose your bullshit when they get together and compare notes. So Harry knew that Wendy was never his girlfriend, big shit. Bullshit artists inevitably get caught along the way. Call it the cost of doing business.

"So are you ready for this henna party, Harry? I hear they're wild."

"What exactly is a henna party anyways?"

"Some kind of traditional party the Moroccan Jews throw a few nights before the wedding. At one point in the night they bring out this tub of henna and people rub the crap into their hands. It's supposed to bring good luck. At least that's what Regine says."

Regine, the sister of the bride who invited Gomez to the party, happened to be the toe-clipper's latest pretend girlfriend. They'd been seeing each other for about a month.

Seeing each other -- A term used by bullshit artists alluding to a non-platonic relationship, while semantically giving the bullshitter enough lattitude and vagueness to deny their own insinuation of engagement in a casual non-platonic relationship that could at any time develop into a full-blown relationship if only both parties could "commit."

The henna party crap intriguied Harry, it seemed to be ridiculous enough of a concept to check it out for the laughsake of it. Then again, how could it hurt to rub some of that good-luck-muck between the palms. Nail down destiny while the stars were aligned for the Big Break. What better place for it to happen then at a henna party and all that fucking good-luck-muck.

"Y'think there'll be some TV people there?"

"I doubt that, Harry. There'll be mainly Moroccan Jews. Most are in the schemata business. I think the father of the groom owns What? jeans," Gomez said while slipping a pair of argyle socks over his creamy feet. He gave Harry an approving once-over. "Don't we look pretty slick tonight, Harry. You'll do okay."

Indeed, as long as they don't think we're a couple, Harry thought. Who knows what Gomez ran around saying to who-knows-who?


"So Gomez brought along his boyfriend," Regine thought when Harry and Gomez entered the hall. She approached them and gave Gomez a chaste peck on the cheek.

Girlfriend, Harry thought while working hard to keep from smirking. At times, he could get so bitchy.

"Bingo -- a kiss." thought Gomez. "Bet that Harry believes she's my girlfriend." Perfect evidence that bullshit artists are just as deluded about themselves as with the lies they tell.

Everyone was thinking.

Pussy Face Panics

There's pussy and there's pussy.

Harry woke up with Wendy's pussy on his face. Gwynnie the Siamese to be precise. He coughed up a fur ball, wiped his mouth in disgust and flung the feline off his face.

How to explain sleeping with Wendy every other night? Strange city, new kid in town?

"I'm two thousand miles away from home. Boo hoo, boo hoo, I'm lonely."

Sit on my face.

Apparently Gwynnie wasn't the only critter in the bed. Harry turned around to behold Pudge the pug licking Wendy's lips with canine hunger...Or lust?

Harry and Wendy and Pudge and Gwynnie.

But the topper was the line of army ants marching to and fro Wendy's discarded panties festooned on the floor. Harry gagged and gasped for air. His heart throbbed so wildly, he thought he'd throw it up, that or burst.

Then Harry had his California meltdown. He leaped out of bed, dashed off to his room, stuffed his clothes in his suitcase and drove off. Where - he didn't know. Just away from Wendy.

"You owe me four hundred bucks in rent, you schmuck," Wendy yelled from her bedroom window.

And Wendy has feral eyes
That spook even lonely guys
Who leave her without good byes
From her place where some escape
From her place where some escape

Bada Bing, Bada Boom!

"So I'm dating this nympho...Brandi...She's absolutely wild...wild. The kind of girl you don't take home to mom, which wasn't really a problem in my case, since it was mom who gave birth to her..."

The studio audience groaned and hollered while Teddy Slutsky warmed them up before the taping of the late night cable hit, Tooters. Teddy Slutsky, a comedic double-threat; still doing stand up, climbing his way to the peak of inane sitcom humor with the creation of his new show, I.P. Pudel, Pet Shrink.

"Relax, relax, I'm joking, the nymph IS NOT my sister..." Teddy beamed.

"Quite thick, isn't he?" Nigel whispered to Harry, who nodded in agreement.

The audience, packed with time-of-their-life motivated spring-breakers, cackled like geese. Nigel jabbed Harry in the ribs when Teddy suddenly directed his attention towards them. Attuned to his surroundings like a jungle cat, Nigel guffawed on cue and Harry, ever the improv actor, followed in tow. Close call. Don't piss off the guy potentially holding a big-break card.

Nigel flashed Teddy a thumbs-up of approval and mouthed, "Teddy."

When Teddy turned away from them towards another part of the audience, Nigel elbowed Harry in the ribs again, rolled his eyes and whispered in his ear, "Thicker than molasses."

"Mom was always the one who couldn't get enough," Teddy cracked.

The expected sophomoric hooting and hollering ensued.

Teddy shot back a smarmy smirk.

"No, seriously, my new girlfriend, Brandi, who by the way is not a family member...which is lucky 'cause my family would not have been supportive of her sex change operation...Something they just would not understand...After all, Grandma's mustache is 100% natural......Unlike her penis......That developed or rather, mutated after one of her VACATION DEALS......an all-inclusive to Chernobyl."

Harry cracked up, the one physical feature he recalled about Teddy's mother was the black hair sprouting from the mole on her cheek. Nigel chuckled, figuring that the joke was edgy. A group of frat boys sitting in the front row, ate it up and howled like werewolves. Teddy approached them and pointed his finger at the pack leader, a college cave boy wearing a T-shirt with the name, "MARKY" printed in bold lettering.

"Anyhow Brandi came clean to me about her past...Yeah, she's been around...In  fact she told me all about the gang bang at the frat house with you guys..."

Holler, holler. Whistle, whistle. Yeee-hawww!

"...But no hard feelings, Marky..." Teddy said while approaching him closer. "She remembers you fondly...You were the last dude she did when she was still a guy."

Whooooo...Holler, holler. Whistle, whistle.

"But seriously guys...For the record, Brandi was born female...like MARKY..."

The beauty of stand-up; where else could a guy like Teddy beat up on a Marky without getting pummeled?

Ooooo...Marky fleetingly considered punching Teddy out, but that would land him in the clink and his daddy's get-out-of-jail-free passes were only good in his county back home in Louisiana. Better to laugh with clenched teeth.

"So Brandi gives me this ultimatum: Take Viagra, or she's leaving. And while I can't let this absolutely sexy, stunning girl leave me, I have this phobia about swallowing pills...Hey Marky, I bet you swallow..."

Marky clenched his fists and vowed to himself that someday when he would become klan wizard, (a family tradition), he'd hunt down Teddy Slutsky the Jew and lynch him for Thanksgiving.

"Meanwhile, Brandi says it's not a problem. She'll crush up the pill--"

"In her asshole!" Marky shouted, setting the beefy security guards in motion, but Teddy waved them off. Marky had become part of his act.

Marky took a deep breath, closed his eyes and blessed the Lord. Had he not been arrested for beating up that cretin umpire, then he would've never benefitted from the anger management course imposed on him by the judge.

"So Brandi crushes the Viagra pill and drops it in my coffee...which is a good idea 'cause when we're not in bed playing doctor, we're drinking coffee at Starbucks...We LOOOVE coffee...Espresso, cappuccino, frappacino - any of those drinks I can only afford to buy when I sell some stock...Anyhow after a week of taking Viagra and going at it like love-monkeys, I ask Brandi how she likes this Viagra thing..."

"'It's terrible,' she says. 'Just terrible. a disaster. This Viagra is the worst thing that ever happened to me..."

"Whaddaya mean? I said. What about all that great, amazing sex we had?"

"'Yes, yes,' she says. 'It was the best sex I had in my life. A fantasy come true...but I'll never be able again to show my face at Starbucks again!'"

Bada Bing!

"Anyhow folks, that does it for me for the night. We want you all to sit back in your seats and enjoy this week's live taping of Tooters with a very special and curvaceous guest star...Pamela Anderson...Yeah!"

"Baruch HaShem," Nigel whispered to Harry. Praised be God. Words that gave Nigel the atheist, instant credibility among fellow Jews.

Teddy motioned to Nigel and Harry to come down to the side of the stage to talk to him.

Nigel patted Teddy on the butt. Harry was taken aback.

"Teddy, Teddy, still love your act."

"That's 'cause you're into nostalgia. It's the same act I've been doing since we first met years ago..."

"So Teddy, I believe you already know my new client, Harry Starr, from your old football coaching days..."

Teddy sheepishly shook Harry's hand. "Man, that was ages ago...Harry Starr, quarterback, yeah, I remember you."

"Yeah, it's great to see you again, coach."

Teddy shook his head in disbelief. "Coach...man, that was before I got convicting for flashing in public."

Nigel and Harry faked hearty laughter.

"So Teddy, where do we meet after the show?"

"Oh yeah, we're supposed to meet. Right...Umm, drop by my office after the show. It's just across the street. Another late night, we're shooting the Pudel promos tomorrow."

"Yeah, right," Teddy said before disappearing behind the set.

"I can see that Teddy hasn't changed," Nigel said. "Always stingy with his time."

" ? " Harry grimaced, unsure what to make of the reunion.

"Sounds good, Teddy. Looking forward."

And that was all there was to it. After the taping, when Nigel and Harry visited Teddy's office, a curt production assistant passed them a message. "Teddy apologizes, he had to cancel your meeting, because he'll be working all night on the Pudel promos."

The phone rang and the production assistant answered. " All right, all right."

"Sorry guys, that was Teddy. I gotta run."

Bada Boom!

That's Funny

"Teddy loves Teddy," Nigel Horatio said in his Oxford english. Harry understood the subtext; Teddy Slutsky was still a putz.

A Slutsky montage flashed through his head:

Teddy as Harry's football coach, pacing the sidelines doing his Bear Bryant schtick on eleven year olds with delicatessen love-handles.

Teddy, the stand-up vulgarian on stage at McChuckles keeling over in hysterics at his own (pilfered) borscht belt jokes.

Teddy as the fu manchued disco king of Coco's boogying to the beat in his Versace shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, two-tone platform shoes and white polyester crotch-riders advertising his mighty manhood.

O how Teddy loved Teddy!

And now Harry and Teddy's paths had crossed again. Nigel Horatio, Harry's new agent, Teddy Slutsky's former agent, was the connection. It's a small world after all. It's a small, small world.

Harry nodded in agreement.

"I can't wait to meet with Teddy next week after the taping. Hope he remembers our old football days. We went undefeated one year."

"No doubt. I'm hoping he'll ask you to pitch some episode ideas for his new show, I.P. Pudel, Pet Shrink."

No worries, thought Harry. If Teddy didn't pan out, then something else would. He was not alone anymore, Harry had an agent, a real agent from a respected mid-size agency, in a glitzy building on Beverly Drive, with a roster of working clients, including Mel Brooks' cousin, Murray Lipschitz, creator of the hit series, The Harlem Zaydie. With the right agent, you were made. Too bad for the other agents who passed on Harry.

Like Mike Winikoff's agent, Shel Pollack who was, "Looking for edgier stuff now. Writing that makes them wince."

Like what, Shel Pollack? Like your clients working on comedic gems such as The Jensen Twins and House Fulla Bakers, penning punchy punchlines like, "Daddy did it!" and "Wud' you say, fat boy?" God bless the laugh track, Shel Pollack, arbiter of edgy writing. And even if Shel Pollack, agent extraordinaire, already had the home in Beverly Hills, the season tickets to the Lakers, the Porsche Douche Bag 911, he would inevitably rue the day he tossed Harry Starr's Feldman spec script in the recycle bin of shredded dreams.

"I know comedy when I see it," Nigel told Harry while flipping through the pages of the Feldman spec script. He randomly stopped at one page, "Take this Gary - Herb bathtub bit: Ha-lar-i-ous! Brilliant!"

Thus spoketh the agent, Nigel Horatio neé Nachum Horowitz, the British born son of Lithuanian herring merchants who escaped an impending pogrom by stowing way in a giant vat of smoked kippers bound for London. Nigel nee Nachum, the one-semester Oxford thesp - (kicked out for plagiarizing Stanilslavsky on a term paper entitled, Method Acting for Mimes) - was in the mood to perform...Nigel neé Nachum was always in the mood to perform. The ersatz Englishman rose from his Herman Miller chair, cleared his throat and in his impeccable American accent, read from the script:

" 'What about last week when your mummy gave you a sponge-bath?

   Low blow. You know I had tendinitis in my shoulder.
   I was practically disabled.

   But did she actually have to be in the tub with you?'"

Nigel neé Nachum screeched with laughter and applauded his crowd-pleasing
performance. Of course Harry was an easy audience to please. It was the first time that the fledgling sitcom writer heard his bon mots performed and he was smitten. Not just with Nigel, but with the whole package, with his own brilliance, with the chase, with the world. After eight long gut-wrenching weeks posturing as a scriptwriter in every Starbucks in Santa Monica, wondering, worrying, hoping, and praying for success, there was finally a pay-off. Recognition at last. Portrait of the artist as a young man, a kindred spirit with James Joyce.

And Nigel proclaimed, "That's funny!"

And Harry believed.

"Brilliant, positively brilliant, Harry. When I read your script, I said to myself that I wasn't going to let another wonderful new writer slip through my fingers." Nigel reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a script and dropped it on his desk.

"I passed on this chap when he sent me his spec script and I vowed that I would never let it happen again."

Harry opened the script and read the cover page.

                                                       SUDS WISER

                                 "THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEER"

                                                                 by

                                                         Mike Winikoff

"Harry Starr, you are my next Mike Winikoff."

Mikey Likes It

Mike Winikoff called. Mike Winikoff called. All Harry could think of that day was, Mike Winikoff called. Getting back to Harry with Feldman script notes. A day of reckoning.

And that disturbed him. The world had changed. The old boys bolted out of the starting gate like juiced-up thoroughbreds catapulted from a canon. Some like Mike were galloping towards a Triple Crown, others like Finkie, wiped out during the first leg of the race. The dynamics of friendship changed without notice and veiled behind self interest. Connections or rivals, scores kept fastiduously. A new world order.

Too late to rekindle old an friendship. Now there was a subtext to Harry's relationship with Mike and it made him uneasy. Would he have called Mike had it not been for the script? No. Did Mike blow him off? No. Would Mike help him? Maybe. But Mike Winikoff didn't owe Harry shit; that was understood. Harry would have to ingratiate himself with Mike, with grubby Mike who once laughed at his stories. And now he just felt like a ball-licker.

What did Harry know about scriptwriting? His mentor had gone schizo and Harry was an inexperienced neophyte. What chutzpah to call on Mike after all these years. Fucking Harry Starr, just another dilettante with pipe-dreams knock-knock-knockin' on Mikey's door.

But it opened a crack.

"It needs a little punching up and I'd rework the ending, but really, it's pretty good...It's funny. I love the idea of Gary and Herb dating twins. One thing about you, Harry, you were always funny."

Wow. Mikey likes it.

"Another draft and it will be ready to go out to an agent. You can try mine first."

Harry was heady with joy. Funny, agent, TV, Hollywood. "Hello world, here I come!"

"Why don't you stay for dinner, Harry?" Mike's wife, Brenda asked.

Brenda. Harry fixated on her. Not exactly a Hollywood wife, too real too nice. A real Brenda, a Rhoda's sister type. Bubbly, bovine and brunette-- almost attractive undrer the right light, a little dim. With the right clothes. If she lost a few pounds, if she put herself together better. A great soccer mom, a van driver, the kind of multi-talented gal who could unclog the kitchen drain and blow you at the same time. A Brenda, a Mother Earth and now an unwitting ally. The longer Harry stayed, the more the door would open. O Brenda, O Brenda.

"Sure, I'd love to...if it's not an imposition of course."

Harry tried to read Mike on the invitation. Was this his idea or a Brenda-generated instead? But Mike just smiled. Mikey likes it again.

Brenda giggled. One of those types that giggle after almost everything. "The sun is shining, ha ha ha." "Gotta pick up the kids at school, or I'll be late. Ha ha ha." "Now that I got you all alone. Ha ha ha." What a good way to be.

"Great, Harry. Mike's friend, George will be joining us. We're having a barbecue."

Baby. A barbecue and possibly another Hollywood connection. Maybe this George guy was a somebody, even if he had a name like George.

But he was nothing like a standard George, more like a Boy George.

"Harry, this is George, he's the set director on my show."

" ."

And judging by the way George milked hid gayness into the conversation, he was not only queer but proud. It was painful enough for Harry to play a movie word game, but this George made his spine crawl.

"F...Fletch. I love Chevy Chase's dimple on his chin."

Mike lapped it up, not so much the campy comments, but the fact that he successfully engineered himself into an unabashed liberal. This never would've worked if he never left his hometown.

"G...ahhh...Giant...Harry, your turn, H..."

"H...Himalayas."

"I never heard of that movie," George whined.

"Yeah, Himalayas, with Peter O'Toole. He discovers Shangri-La."

"Peter O'Toole has the most gorgeous blue eyes," George said, then bit his lip and let out a sigh.

"But he never was in a movie called, Himalayas. Harry, you're thinking of Frank Capra's movie, Lost Horizon." George obviously knew his stuff.

"Oh yeah, well it happened in the Himalayas."

"Good try, Harry. Try again, H," Mike said.

"H - Hamsters. Y'know that Mel Brooks spoof on Williard, but with Hamsters and starring Dom DeLuise."

"Hamsters? You've gotta be kidding...Unless you're talking about what's up Richard Gere's ass," George giggled.

"Good one Harry, but you're so full of shit. Funny, but still full of shit. Do you see a lot of movies?"

What was that supposed to mean?

"A few," Harry mumbled. Better get back into this stupid game. "Okay, okay...Halloween."

Fortunately Mike had enough and Harry was spared another round.

"Anybody into smoking a joint?" Mike asked. "Brenda just put Jaxon to bed."

Good idea.

Comfortably buzzed, sitting like a Buddha with a bellyful of beef, Harry sunk into oblivion, listening to the crickets sing. And that's all he wanted to do.

Big Night Out

"Irwin's is depressed, " Wendy said to Harry, who was also depressed. No one had called him back yet. Not Mike Winikoff for the script review. Not Mathew Spitz, not Carla Weisel, not Teddy Slutsky. Not no one.

"Irwin?"

"Yeah, Gretta's pug."

"No wonder. Irwin probably wishes he were a collie, a good-looking breed."

"Well I think pugs are cute. And so does Gretta. She wants me to talk to him."


"Who are you, Dr. Doolittle?"

"I understand dogs, I have six of them, remember?"

"I remember stepping in some crap this morning."

Wendy blushed and giggled nervously.

"Make all the jokes you want, Harry, but I've healed a lot of dogs."

Hence the dinner invitation to the Sheza, Amazon Warrior star, Gretta Bismarck's house. But it was a stretch. And while Harry agreed to go along as Wendy's date, he wasn't convinced that it all wasn't but a ruse to go out with him. Wendy told fantastical tales all the times. Yesterday she claimed Bill Clinton pardoned her father, the week before she confessed to sleeping with O.J., and before that something about a PhD in Astro Psychology -- (whatever that was) -- from "somewhere in Europe."

In any case, Harry brought along a copy of his Feldman spec script just in case, not that he could imagine himself writing for an audience of love-starved humpy adolescents and middle-aged postmen still living with their mothers. Where was the dignity in writing for a show like that? Meanwhile if Wendy told him at the last minute that Gretta cancelled, and that they might as well go for dinner once they were already out, he wouldn't be surprised.

"Gretta is mad about her pets. Mad, mad."

"Madder than you?" Harry blurted.

"Way. She hired this guy just to take care of this parrot aviary she built inside her house. She thinks it inspires her for her part."

"Madder than you."

"Haaaarry. You're so mean." Wendy giggled. 

Harry scanned Wendy while she drove. "Rather tasty when she gets dressed up and out of her kennel. Cute face, tight little body." Harry thought. He sniffed the air. "Perfume! Eau de kennel?"

"You are such an asshole, Harry...Why do I love bad boys?"

That was a strange remark to hear, Harry never thought of himself as anything remotely near a bad boy like One-Ball Spiegel, Mr. Matricide," or Kenny Frick who dipped a finger or two inside Tracey Gordon's jeans in the back of the 292 bus. That stuff was bad.

"Just watch what you say around Gretta. She's actually quite educated and sophisticated, I think she has a Masters degree in Art History. There's nothing Hollywood star about her or her new boyfriend, this British billionaire guy, Chester Goodfriend, who's kind of a Lord or something."

"Do you mean Chester Goodfriend, heir to the Goodfriend cosmetics empire?"

Harry ears pricked up. Bullshit or should he be impressed?

"Yeah, that's him. After his family bought the studio, Chester started hanging out on the set. Now they're kind of together. So be on your best behavior, Harry."

Harry felt like a shit for all his disparaging thoughts and remarks about Wendy. Take her outside of her kennel and she was actually pretty cool. And upon reflection, Harry realized that this could be a Big Night. Dinner with a legitimate TV star, albeit cable and cultish, and her billionaire boyfriend who owned a studio. 

"We're almost there now, Harry. She lives next door to the pink villa with the turquoise statue of Zeus and Apollo at the entrance."

"So where's our sad little Amos?" Wendy asked Gretta after the round of greetings and introductions. Instinctively Harry clutched his cell phone to call Finkie...then he let go. He pained for his fallen comrade. How much better this surreal Hollywood moment would have been with Finkie.

"He's lying there in front of the aviary. All he does is lie there, watching the parrots all day," Trudy said.

Harry was adjusting to the normality of the situation. Someone just talking about their pet. Didn't seem like a TV star, could be just another attractive brunette who goes to the gym a lot. She also seemed a lot smaller and thinner than she appeared on TV. And Chester the lanky, fair-haired billionaire heir, reminded Harry of an unassuming college professor. Over the top, but ultimately nothing more than a get together with a couple of new friends.

California Dreamin'

Every night that week the same dream.

Walking down Sunset Boulevard between Mike Winikoff and Gary Feldman. Harry looks up and realizes that both men tower over him. As if he's a two year old. Mike Winikoff looks down at Harry and says,
"You have beautiful brown eyes," and then laughs hysterically.

Gary Feldman looks down at Harry and pats him on the head.

"Beautiful brown eyes, Harry, but you're too short to write on my show."

Gary and Mike laugh maniacally.

The threesome walks past an office building and stops to look at the graffiti sprayed on the wall. Harry reads it, "I'm tall." the graffiti grows taller along with Harry until they are both as high as the building.

Harry looks down to see that he is still in between Mike and Gary, only now, he towers above them both.

"I've always been tall," Harry says as they nod in agreement.

The graffiti vanishes and is replaced by a giant video clip of a brown eye winking at the three.

Gary says, "That's one beautiful eye."

SFX - SITCOM LAUGH TRACK FOLLOWED BY CLAPPING.

FADE OUT OF DREAM