After a few minutes, we told them we were actually Red Sox fans. Then, one of the guys leaned over and said, “Wow, that’s really good to hear. So are we. We drove from Vermont just to see the game and we’ve never been to Yankee Stadium before.” We were very confused.
“Did you get these tickets from Scott Van Pelt?” I joked.
David asked them, “Why are you all dressed like that, then?”
The guy leaned in very conspiratorial, “We figured that as Red Sox fans, we would have to somehow find a way to blend in, so we went to the Yankees store and bought all this stuff to camouflage us.”
“Wait, so you spent hundreds of dollars on Yankees gear because you thought you were going to get savaged by Yankees fans?”
“Yeah, like we said, we’ve never been to Yankee Stadium before. We heard it can get really bad for us. That’s why we got the special seats. So we could be doubly protected.”
This was some high level of conspiracy these Vermonters were pushing, a perfect companion piece to our seating woes. Of course the only other people in this area would be a group of people convinced they would be killed if they sat among regular folks in the stadium because they were rooting for the opposing team. Are baseball fans from Vermont really so cloistered from society that they believe Yankee Stadium was some sort of Thunderdome? Oh, Vermont.
After a few more innings, the Red Sox were way up, and my friend suggested we move into the stadium and sit in some open seats left by fans who left early. We said our goodbyes to the delusional folks from Vermont and watched the last two innings in pretty decent seats and left the stadium with the shared feeling that he and not I should provide any future tickets received for free.
Failed Presidential Pets
Thomas Jefferson’s Dog Buzzy
This briard, brought back from France, was, according to Jefferson, “one of the finest breeds” of farm dogs and was put to use as a sheepherder on Jefferson’s farm. As a herder, Buzzy was responsible for wrangling the sheep, preventing them from straying outside the grazing area. Yet rumors of Buzzy having long-term sexual liaisons with one of the sheep were brought forward by some of the other sheepdogs. One dog claimed, “Buzzy would have relations with the sheep behind a tree while the other sheepdogs worked.” Buzzy’s litter did expose several puppies with extraordinarily fluffy fur, “not like a dog, but more like a sheep.” Of course, there was a great deal of hemmings and hawings over Buzzy’s indiscretion.
James Madison’s Macaw
Madison, America’s fourth president, was one of the founding fathers and architects of the Bill of Rights. But at the same time, Madison was a dedicated slave owner who kept hundreds of slaves at his Virginia plantation and proposed the three-fifths compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning representatives based on population. One anecdote from the Madison White House was that the parrot would be brought out to events on the shoulder of Madison’s wife, Dolly, to proudly display the bird’s ability to repeat phrases. But every time when asked, “Does Polly want a cracker?” The parrot would only reply with, “Yes, Polly wants a . . . ,” unable to say cracker. This would cause much consternation for Madison and the guests, who all wanted the phrase to be repeated in full. After much debate and in some cases, heated arguments, a compromise was finally reached where they would stop asking Polly for the whole phrase and accepted her response as is. It became known as the three-fifths macawmpromise.
Andrew Jackson’s Parrot, Poll
This parrot, an African gray, was brought to the White House as a gift for Jackson’s wife and, unlike Madison’s bird, had a real gift for mimicry. After Poll’s introduction to the White House, many staff noticed that several of the indigenous birds on the grounds were being systematically exterminated. Bird after bird found dead, the bird bodies piling up, until there were no birds on White House grounds except for Poll. It was a mystery that confounded the president and the staff, until, one day, one of the White House groundskeepers claimed to have seen Poll fly out of the executive residence window and brutally drive a family of finches off the property with a stick, then fly over and viciously beat a wren, then fly back through the window, maniacally laughing. Amos Kendall, the postmaster, overheard Jackson and Poll talking one day, as Poll ruthlessly made her infamous statement when describing her slaughter of a bevy of doves: “This is what it sounds like when doves die.”
James Buchanan’s Dog, Lara
This Newfoundland was a constant companion to President Buchanan, as he was and remains to this day the only bachelor president in the White House. But President Buchanan could be suffocating, and this had detrimental effects on Lara’s mood. On a two-week trip up north, Buchanan was readying for the trip back to Washington and Lara apparently refused to board the train. Buchanan ordered her to heel, but she just sat on the tracks. Many of the people gathered around found it curious, as did the president. It was inferred that this was a sign that Lara wanted to stay in Illinois without her owner, but Buchanan stated that dogs have “no rights which man was bound to respect.”
Lara looked at him, like “I’m not moving, asshole.”
Buchanan kneeled down and looked Lara straight in the eyes and said, “In my opinion, Lara, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of species who had been imported . . . nor their descendants, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument . . . They had . . . been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with people, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which man was bound to respect; and that . . . might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”
Lara stood her ground.
“Do you want a civil war?” Buchanan barked.
Lara, shaken by his tone, resigned and boarded the train. From that point forward, though, Lara knew a change needed to come.
Rutherford B. Hayes’s Mastiff, Duke, and His Cat, Siam
In the beginnings of American industrialization, Hayes oversaw a great deal of infrastructure expansion during his tenure as president. His dog Duke was no stranger to that. Being a British mastiff, Duke was accustomed to a high standard. As Duke aged, he became larger and more phlegmatic, and was increasingly frustrated by the length of the walk from the solarium, where he used to lounge in the day, to the kitchen, where he was fed his ground lamb giblets. He loved his ground lamb giblets. In fact, he loved them so much, Duke added a meal between breakfast and lunch so as to eat more, but the added walk was affecting his mood. Along with John “Jack” Casement, chief engineer of the Union Pacific railroad, he designed tracks that would run from the solarium through the center hall, down the stairs next to the music room, through the basement hall to the kitchen. Once the plan was completed, Duke approached Siam, who had just arrived at the White House via Hong Kong.
“Despite your slight and slender constitution, you are to build me this railway track, so I am less taxed to receive my feedings,” Duke told Siam.
Siam asked, “What’s in it for me?”
Duke replied, “Nothing.”
Siam reluctantly built the tracks, and the first trans–White House railway was completed.
Warren Harding’s Dog, Laddie Boy
The Gilded Age is remembered by many as a time of extravagant wealth and a willful disregard of the underclass. Laddie Boy knew this dynamic all too well but was loyal to his master. He came from modest means but turned his back on this upon getting a taste of the sweet life. And that went for his sexual appetites as well. As he used to say, when asked about the poor of the country, “Mine is not to reason why, mine is just to ‘eat that pie.’” Yes, Laddie Boy was quite the lothario, and his exploits were known throughout Washington. He took many lovers, as did Harding, and
together, they were a rakish duo. Harding referred to Laddie Boy as his “wingdog” and together they were known to hold infamous sex orgies in what was called the “Dog House,” which also happened to be the actual White House doghouse. Much effort was given to maintain the secrecy of these illicit affairs, which was why Harding and Laddie Boy insisted on all participants, dogs and women, to wear masks and enter with a password (Fido-lio). It has been estimated that Laddie Boy slept with more than twenty thousand dogs and some ten women in his lifetime.
Herbert Hoover’s Dog, King Tut
Hoover was known as a fair-minded bureaucrat, but his administration was quickly saddled with the crippling economic devastation that was the Great Depression. Families were devastated, unemployment was at an all-time high, and people all over were desperate. Also, Prohibition ruled the land. Hoover called Prohibition “a noble experiment.” But it caused a huge surge in organized crime, and not everyone believed in the experiment. King Tut was squarely in that camp. Much of the illegal activity during Prohibition involved bootlegging or rum-running, but King Tut got involved early in “pant-legging” or “leg-humping,” which many dogs were recruited into at the time. Pant-legging was a diversionary tactic used by bootleggers. Dogs would be dispatched to hump the legs of the Bureau of Prohibition agents while the liquor deliveries were made. King Tut was the head of a particularly effective group of dogs known as the Touchables, who were aggressive in their tactics and made it possible for the smuggling of millions of gallons of illegal liquor to speakeasies up and down the East Coast.
Harry Truman’s Dog, Feller
Truman is attributed as saying, “If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.” Well, he didn’t, but one was sent to him as a gift: a cocker spaniel named Feller. But Truman was not a dog lover and never really wanted Feller around. There was much discussion of whether to get rid of Feller or keep him. Truman believed that getting rid of him would send a message that the acquisition of future dogs would be strongly discouraged. But some felt that it would be more humane to just keep him and deal with the repercussions. Truman felt getting rid of him, even though many would suffer, was a demonstrable show of force the likes of which no one had ever seen before. Instead of hearing from more dog lovers, Truman put Feller in a box labeled LITTLE DOG in the dead of night, flew him six hours away, and air-dropped him so that it would be too far for Feller to find his way back. Many felt that what Truman did was wrong, but no dogs ever returned to the Truman White House.
CHAPTER 18
Buying a Motorcycle (and How I Failed to Ride It)
I’ve had a long, failed history with transportation. My mother brags that I learned to walk very early, but on the whole, most of my other forays into different modes of transportation have been problematic. When I turned sixteen, my father bought me my first car. It was nice of him. It was a bumblebee-yellow MG Midget. I don’t remember asking for it. Maybe it was one of those gifts that was really more for him than for me. Not that I didn’t like it, but it was a bit much, in that cars are sometimes outward expressions of the personalities of the people who drive them. For example, if you drive a huge pickup truck with big-ass exhaust pipes jutting up from the cab and bumper stickers that read WHITE LIVES MATTER and JESUS HATES OBAMA, you just might be a redneck, or a really lazy liberal who bought a used pickup. You don’t want to stand in opposition to the aura of your vehicle or contraindicate. It’s too confusing.
Most people respect these norms and have a car that suits their personality. But many people overcompensate and overreach. Some people who lack self-confidence will buy big, fancy vehicles as a proxy for their lack of inner self-worth. Or big motorcycles, or big dogs, or big coats.
I’ve always wanted to make enough money to buy the world’s biggest boat, just so I could name it—Overboard. But most overcompensations are small-scale efforts, like that time I wore a puka-shell necklace when I was fourteen for about a year and pretended that I was into surfing. But in the case of the MG, despite the fact that it was a tiny car, I could barely see over the wheel and it attracted a ton of attention, which was anathema to my personality. My inner car was more of a Plymouth Horizon, or, at best, a Honda Accord—one that doesn’t attract gawkers.
Driving an MG compels the driver to conform to the notion that he or she is the kind of person who drives an MG. That kind of person is probably a college history professor or an ex–British MP, not a Jewish kid in high school. But like I said, sometimes you overreach or you’re forced to.
About ten years ago, I bought an old dirt bike on eBay. It was one of those impulse buys. I thought a dirt bike would be a useful thing to have in New York City, because I often have to travel from the West Village to the East Village to go to bars, and this would make the trip far more convenient and exponentially less safe.
I don’t want to pass the buck, but Amy also had something to do with it. She obsessively bid on stuff on eBay—vintage clothing, area rugs, and, once, a pencil drawing by an eleven-year-old girl of Lance Bass lying in a field with a pony. (She won it for $12, and it’s disturbing and beautiful.) So, in a way, she was my conduit to eBay.
I found an old Kawasaki that looked nice and won a bidding war that escalated the price to something like $900. When it comes to financial transactions, I have a hard time with confrontation, so if I walk into a store—let’s say a furniture store—and I’m looking at a chair and a salesperson casually approaches, I immediately buy the chair, almost before they even speak. It’s the “I’ll take it” theory of economics. Or “laissez-faire carelessness.” It’s why I have close to 5,000 chairs. This goes for eBay, a terrible milieu for my condition, which involves almost unconscious clicking to bid more.
This problem with having no sense of financial limits has bled into my comedy life. Early in my career, I performed at this small venue on the Lower East Side in a show called Eating It. It was a showcase show, with a bunch of stand-ups performing short sets for $20. I was not exactly rich at the time. I mean, I could pay my rent, but $20 wasn’t meaningless. I used to perform in a duo with a comedian named Mike Lee and our performing moniker was, cleverly, “Mike and Jon.” But this partnership right away cut my $20 take by half. For one particular show, we decided that we would hire male escorts to perform live sex acts in our place. It was one of those ideas that I knew would make four to six people in the audience very happy and the rest very uncomfortable.
So the host would introduce Mike and Jon, and then, in lieu of us, two male erotic dancers in T-shirts, one reading “Mike” and the other reading “Jon,” would go on stage and perform sex acts to music. Surprise! Arguably not comedy, but certainly not devoid of value, until you enter into, as it turns out, the very complicated world of gay escorts.
I started with a gay escort agency pulled off the back of the Village Voice. From there, I secured two men who were interested in the gig, for the fee of $300, plus an additional “manager” fee. So far, so good. I believed it was worth it, even for a show in the back room of a bar, for, at most, fifty unsuspecting people. I gave out the information, and Tony, the manager at the agency, told me they would contact me with the details once they secured the dancers.
After a few hours, I received a call from a guy named Frank. He said he was one of the dancers Tony called about the comedy-show gig. Frank asked me if I was interested in working independent of the agency because Tony takes a huge cut of the gig money. If agreed, he told me to call the agency and cancel the gig. I’m a democratic socialist, so I am always in favor of labor over usurious management practices. I told Frank that I was good with his plan.
A few hours passed, and then I got a call from a guy named Luan, who sounded Brazilian. He asked if I was the one who spoke to Frank after talking to Tony about booking two dancers. I was getting the sense that I was about to be enmeshed in a very complicated arrangement, admittedly one that I should have known might have happened when dealing with the world of low-end adult entertainment
. Luan told me that he spoke to Tony about the gig, but he was curious why Frank called directly. He figured he should call Tony at the agency, because he was suspicious that Frank, who, according to Luan, was prone to erratic behavior, was trying to scam the agency. Classic good gay escort/bad gay escort. I told him I didn’t want to get between them and would maybe try another agency.
Then Tony called. He had talked to Luan, and Luan tipped him off to Frank’s chicanery. My main interest was to not talk to any more gay escorts or gay escort agents, and Tony was very mad at me. He told me that Frank couldn’t work outside the agency, making it clear to me that Luan had flipped on Frank. Tony said he was trying to run a good, clean operation, and that Frank was compromising that by getting client info from the agency, then contacting the client directly and telling them to cancel with the agency. I explained that all I wanted was a couple guys to perform gay sex acts on stage for five minutes, and any way that could come to fruition, I was on board. Lots of serious shit going down at Gay Apple Escorts.
The night of the show, we were to meet Frank and Luan at a bar across from the venue to go over the plan for the show. Luan showed up, but Frank was late. Luan was tall, lean, and buttery-brown complexioned with straightened black hair, like second-album Prince. Frank was a wild card based on the phone calls, as you know, so we were worried that he wouldn’t show, but he did. He was not what I expected: very plain-looking, almost suburban, like Joe Piscopo. As I started describing the bit, telling them they would both enter the stage after we were introduced and then they could just start playing out their gay sex act, Frank quickly spoke up.
Failure Is an Option Page 12