First off, let me say that David Liebe Hart and James Quall are two very sweet, very nice guys. I like them very much. But neither one of them ever shuts up. They just talk and talk and talk. When we were on tour with Tim and Eric, I rode with Liebe Hart and Quall. On the first day of the 2009 tour we were picked up and taken to the airport. My job was to get these two through the airport and on to the plane. It was like herding cats! They kept trying to go to the shops and whatnot even though everything was closed. Then they wanted to search for a restroom. “Guys, you spent so long looking at things that we’re going to miss the plane. COME ON!”
“But I’ve got to pee.”
“We’re going to miss the plane. You can pee on the plane!” When I got off the plane in Seattle, I found Tim and Eric and said, “You guys owe me a drink. Tim, you owe me a drink, and Eric, you owe me a drink.” At one point I said to them, “I know I’m crazy and I’m still one of the sanest people around here.” When we got to Seattle, they gave everyone a per diem, or daily pay, which is traditional. You’re supposed to give performers a per diem which they are to eat on. They gave us $50.00 which I thought was wildly generous. So what does Liebe Hart do? He goes to this autograph thing with Tim and Eric and spends his on a “Nova Special” CD. The money he’s supposed to eat with. So they ended up giving him his money in small amounts at a time so he wouldn’t spend it all at once. There was one bright note, we stayed in this luxurious hotel. I had a room to myself with two queen sized beds in it. Beautiful.
However, the last time they had taken Quall and Liebe Hart on tour something had happened and so they basically forced them to be roommates in order to keep any damages slated to one room not two. Liebe Hart then complained about Quall having gas. He said, “If I’m going to have to share a room with him, then you’re going to have to buy me some air freshener.” For three days these two complained about the airlines taking away Liebe Hart’s shampoo and Quall’s mouthwash. Three days! “Guys! It’s 2009. Didn’t you hear about that little problem we had a few years ago? And
about how you can no longer take this thing and that thing on an airplane?”
Then, neither one of them had driver’s licenses, so Tim and Eric had to actually pay for passports for them. They paid for them to get instant passports which cost, like, six to seven hundred dollars, but they had to get them so Quall and Liebe Hart could fly to do the tour. We drove down to Portland. It was the second or third time I had to share the van with
Liebe Hart and Quall. I remember they put me in this seat and I couldn’t get the seat belt to work, so I just had it over my shoulder. Well a cop saw us and pulled us over. So I explained about the seat and he said, “Well, you should have put something else there.” He didn’t understand that Quall and Liebe Hart’s stuff were more important to them. Their stuff had to be strapped in. I could break my neck or go through a windshield, but their luggage gets strapped. Luckily there was no ticket or anything.
When we got to Portland, we had difficulty finding the theater since there are two theaters in the area with the same name and style. The Alhambra, I think. It was a beautiful, Moorish looking theater... with Chinese lights. It didn’t quite work, but I let it go.
The morning we were leaving for San Francisco, everyone got up, ate breakfast and got ready to go. Everybody except Liebe Hart and Quall.
“Come on guys. We need to go.”
“But you haven’t given us breakfast yet.”
“It’s not our job to get you breakfast. You’re supposed to get your own.”
“Okay, we’ll go get breakfast.”
“No. We’re leaving NOW. You should have gotten up earlier.” At the same time, Pierre was having a go round with John Luger because of an adult video. “I don’t know what happened. I was just changing channels when all of a sudden I accidentally ordered an adult video. I didn’t watch it so you should get them to take it off.”
“No. You did it, so you pay for it. We told you not to touch anything. Not the mini bar, not the television because if you did you’re responsible.”
“But I didn’t watch it.”
When we arrived in San Francisco, the first thing that came to mind was that I wanted to get some sourdough bread to take home. San Francisco has the best sourdough bread in the world. It is also a city where people do not like to give directions. The people there act as if you are going to mug them or something. Anyway, I go to the theater and realize that I had been buying Whitney little presents from each town we had performed in. I had gotten him chocolate covered coffee beans in Seattle, some kind of specialty jam exclusive to Portland and now I wanted to get him something from San Francisco. Now, as I’m walking towards this one place, a few people saw me and were like “Oh my God, it’s you! We can’t wait to see you.” and all that. Then all of a sudden this guy turns around and says “I thought I told you to get out of my fucking town.” “Uh... I will.” Whitney got a little toy cable car.
The next morning, I was trying to find the best bakery to get my sourdough bread from. Everyone at the hotel kept saying “Go to Fisherman’s Wharf.” “I don’t want to go to Fisherman’s Wharf. I don’t have time. Isn’t there a bakery anywhere nearby?” Well, they gave me these somewhat complicated directions to this one bakery and as I’m going, trying to find this place, I started trying to ask people for directions. I say “I
started to” because as I went up to people and started to say “Can you tell me---”, They would go “AAAHHH!” and take off. One woman actually grabbed herself as if she were having a heart attack. Finally I found this one guy and said, “Please don’t freak out on me. Can you please just tell me where this place is?”
“Yeah. You go to the corner and turn left.”
“THANK YOU!”
Once I got my bread and a croissant, I went back to the hotel, packed up my stuff and headed out to the van. What happens? Quall and Liebe Hart haven’t had breakfast. At that point I went to Clark Reinking’s driver and said “Please. Please. Please! Get me into the other car.” Finally, Tim and Eric let me ride in their van, saving me from having to hear any more Cary Grant impersonations. When we did Awesome Con that year, of course everyone wanted me to sit on their laps. So I’m sitting and doing all these poses while it takes these people 30-40 seconds each to get these pictures right. After two days of this, I was waddling like a duck. I think I sat on over 400 people that weekend, a personal best!
Ti Ti Our Teenage Boy Cat
(the one that fetches)
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Q: Is there anything you wouldn’t do on screen?
A: I don’t know. To me, if you are doing something you don’t want to do but can still make it believable, that is the biggest challenge. Fortunately, no one has asked me to do full nudity, but my butt has been all over the place.
Chapter 5 Lines and Kids and Dogs, Oh My!
Every actor knows you should never work with kids and animals. We’ve thrown in a couple of flubbed lines as well in order to make the title of this chapter work.
Let’s start with flubbed lines, shall we? There are two that come to mind right away. The first one was in an episode of Nip/Tuck which was directed by Glee creator Ryan Murphy, in which I played a character called “Nigel the Director”. In this episode I was doing my most posh British dialect but there was one word I just couldn’t get out. If I remember correctly, the word was supposed to be “prison”, but I kept saying “jail”. Ryan was really nice about it, he just kept coming down and telling me “This is the line.” The fourth time I saw him coming towards me, I said in my poshest accent “Prison. Prison. Prison. Bloody hell, it’s prison!” The crew completely cracked up. Most of them thought I was a real Brit!
Another time, I was doing the play Dial M for Murder, and I was playing the English inspector. The line I couldn’t get out was about a clue that is in a sewing basket. When they gave me the cue all I could get out was “Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
SEWING BASKET! SEWING BASKET!” “Oh, you mean there’s something in the sewing basket?” “YES!”
And then I’d get the scissors or whatever it was. I just could not get that line out for the life of me. All I could do was go “ack ack ack”. Ron Rezac, one of the other actors I was working with, is an absolutely wonderful person, but he comes in completely memorized. It doesn’t matter what the play is, from day one he’s off book. Wonderful, wonderful man, but when you screw up, he’ll sometimes let you screw up and make you suffer for it. He’ll leave you hanging and make it clear that “It wasn’t me, it was him.” I don’t think he did it on purpose that time, but he couldn’t rescue me. So those were the two times I can remember having the damnedest time with lines.
As for dogs, I’ve just completed a movie about these kids who find a stray dog and keep hiding it in and around the school. It’s a wonderful, family friendly movie. The dog they hired for the job was a beautiful little beagle that actually was a stray and had been picked up off the street. Her owner had just gotten her and had only had her for nine days before they started filming. Just a beautiful little dog. Now, I’m a cat person, but even I was thinking “God, I’d love to have this animal.” She was an absolute doll.
And then there were the kids... I swear they were all on a sugar high. My God, they were constantly bouncing off the walls. It was exhausting! On my last night of shooting I kept saying, “Well I think I’ll give the kids Red Bulls.” They had put down marker tape with each kid’s name on it so that when they would go into a room they knew where to stand when they walked into the screen. Under each kid’s individual name they had to put “Pay attention!” They would be talking directly one of the kids, yelling at them to pay attention and the kids were still off going “Blah blah blah blah...”“ISABELLE! We can see you! You’re looking out the window! Don’t do that!”, and she’s still talking away. Finally, someone had to go tap her on the shoulder just to get her attention. I also resented the fact that most of these 11-year-old kids were practically taller than me. Not fair! I shouldn’t complain though. The actor on Kickin’ It who plays the sensei is, like, in his 30s. He’s been playing a teenager on Hannah Montana, her older brother, for around 8 years and he comes to my chin! Oh dear... and here I thought I had it bad! I look them in the nipples, but he looks me in the crotch! Poor guy. When they asked me about my height, I was thinking “Oh God, maybe they need someone taller than me.” But as it turned out, no. It was one of those things where you’ve got to be in camera range. I discovered that one of the main characters in the movie is a huge Tim and Eric fan. I mean HUGE! The kid’s 13 and he knows every skit. Every line in every skit. And he’s quoting them at me, expecting me to know them all! And it’s like, “I just worked there.” But he was just this big fan, so I promised to talk to Clark R., who’s working in casting for them now, and forward his information to him, because he just loves them. Just worships them. I brought the Sit On You costume and I took a picture of me sitting on him. He posted it on his Facebook and I guess all these friends of his brother, who are about 17 or so are like, “No way! That’s not him. Oh! You’re so lucky!” There were three pages of this.
One of the kids I worked with was from Park City, Utah and the first thing out of his mouth when we met was “I’m from Park City, Utah and I’m not Mormon.” I, of course, responded with “Yes. I’m from Salt Lake City and I’m not Mormon.” You learn to say that you’re not Mormon early on, otherwise, people will ask you about your wives. It’s like... you know Mormons don’t really do that. There are sects, but... I did know a guy who was part of a polygamist family. I went to the compound once and it was a really nice place. There were like three separate houses, one for every two wives, I guess. I don’t know. I started living with this girl... a lesbian room mate, and it turns out that she had been raised in a polygamist cult down in Guatemala. Her uncle blew up my mother’s chiropractor because he was from a rival polygamist cult and “God had called him to kill this other polygamist”. Oh my God! Such a small world.
Cee Cee Our Own Basement Kitty
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Q: What type of role would you love to do?
A: I would love to play a college professor in a sit com. Or the nasty neighbor. I would love to get on The Big Bang Theory and be the neighbor who cuts Sheldon to ribbons.
Chapter 6 Games People Play
I did another game show called The Extreme Gong Show. It was a revival of the mid to late 70s The Gong Show This time I was hired to play a fake contestant because they didn’t have enough real contestants. For some reason, they assumed I was hairy when they cast me. Probably because my agent assured them I was. Uh, no... My chest is but
not my back. The whole premise was that I was supposed to be singing “Camptown Races” while ripping duct tape off my back. Since I didn’t have hair on my back, they had this makeup artist glue individual hairs on me. That didn’t work, so what he finally did was take this can of spray glue, sprayed my arms and back with it and then placed hair over the glue. They then decided that I wouldn’t sing the whole song. Just “Camptown ladies sing this song, doo-da, doo-da.” over and over again, while pulling off the tape. I knew the whole song, but they wouldn’t let me finish it.
I was also on Win Ben Stein’s Money. In that one, they had a gangster’s theme going and I needed to dress like a gangster. I had several costumers say they would help me, but when I had only three days to get it all together, wouldn’t you know it, not one of them had the time. Now, I was never a clothes horse. That was Whitney’s thing. Nowadays I have three
times the clothes he has because it’s necessary for me to have pirate shirts, corduroy jackets, ties I never wanted to wear, all this stuff so I can put a costume together if needed. Anyway, I ended up gathering up some stuff and taking it down there and I said “Look, I’ve got this and I’ve got this and I’ve got this”, which all worked out pretty good since I had this white shirt with a button collar and wide tie that I had gotten at Goodwill. Funnily, the costumer had forgotten to get a white shirt for Jimmy Kimmel, so they ended up using my white shirt for him and he didn’t know it. He was upset white shirt for him and he didn’t know it. He was upset because it had a button collar. He didn’t want to wear it at first because he kept saying it wasn’t historically accurate. Ben Stein had to assure him that it was. When we started the game, this high school science teacher got the first question, so he kept picking these science questions which, of course, he knew. Naturally he had the answers just like that. When we get to the commercial break someone came up to me and the other contestant and said “In case there’s a tie between the two of you (which meant we hadn’t scored a question) we’re going to have a run off.” It wasn’t necessary, though. The science teacher finally made a mistake and we got into something more social, and I was able to get the question and take it away from him, which meant I went to the next round with Ben Stein. Now, this was the first game of the day. They try to do three or four a day. During the first game, Ben Stein is usually right on so you pray to be on the second or third, but no, we were on the first. Of course, he is just nailing everything. Finally something happened and I clicked in right before he did. He turned to me and said. “God, you’re fast!” I had to be. I was up against Ben Stein. Anyway, at the very end, this question came up and it was “This play is about a saint who was
murdered in the cathedral.” Ben answers it with Thomas a Becket. Wrong. I had actually done the play in high school. I played the Pope. So I answered Becket. Not Thomas a Becket. Becket. And Ben just stands there with his jaw hanging down. I won just enough to edge out the science teacher who congratulated me. He had just been talking about using the money for a vacation and everything and I’m thinking “God, if I win this, I can make my rent.” We then came down to the round where it’s me against Ben and they roll out this safe. On the safe are two martinis and a bottle of gin. He asks me if I want a drink. I
said sure, figuring it was water. I tossed it back. It was straight tequila. Believe me, I needed it at that point. They then asked me if I wanted another and I said sure. I grabbed Ben’s and they handed me the bottle. He ended up beating me nine to seven. But I got Becket right and he didn’t. I thought I was going to be disqualified because they asked how many syllables there are in a haiku. I said five-seven-five seventeen. Ben didn’t know, so they let me have it. But he beat me. They then asked me if I’d do the Charleston if I won the $5000.00. I said alright. I’ll make an ass out of myself for $5000.00. I’ve made an ass out of myself for a lot less. I will say, Ben was really nice. He offered to set me up with his agent, so I sent him my stuff, but I never did hear from them. It’s interesting to note that Ben was told what subjects would be covered during the season and he’d go and get books and study up on them. It wasn’t cheating, but he was prepared. As for how the money worked, there was a budget set up each season to pay the winners. If there was any money left over at the end of the season, it was paid to Ben Stein as a sort of bonus to his regular salary (he wasn’t working for free, of course.) So you really were winning Ben Stein’s money.
I was also on the daytime version of The Weakest Link (so there were only six contestants), and it was hosted by George Grey, who had also hosted The Extreme Gong Show. He didn’t remember me. The funny thing is that, on the set, there is the dais. Standing next to me was a guy that was taller than me, so that the camera wouldn’t have to go up and down each time it switched from me and the other, shorter, people to him. They had these clear plastic boxes they put us on so that our eye line was a little more even Now, when we played the first round, we did beautifully. This one person on the end got his question right, but when they came to this woman, she didn’t bank it. So, trying to keep it going, I answered. They went to this guy next to me... and he blew it. So we went back down. At the end it was a tie between him and this woman for being the weakest link. I was the strongest link in that round so they asked me who I wanted to keep. I said I wanted to keep the woman because the guy got the first question wrong and he didn’t bank, so we lost all this money. So they said “Well, look at him and think about it. He’s going to be waiting for you in the parking lot after this show is over.” There were so many difficulties filming that show. It usually takes 2 ½ to 3 hours to film a half hour game show, but this one took 8 ½ hours because they were constantly having breakdowns. They even had to change audiences. Game shows can be tough and stressful, but I keep on trying for them because I enjoy them so much.
Sitting My Way Through Life Page 3