Queen of the Oddballs

by Hillary Carlip

  “No thanks,” I say, sucking in the fresh air that seeps through the gap. “But I do have to get going soon,” I add as the door closes.

  Damn it. Just last week I stood for twenty minutes on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard in front of the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church dressed as a gorilla. When I was finally led into the church, I sang, danced, and told gorilla-themed jokes for a famous movie star. I really shouldn’t say her name because, well, I was appearing at her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, sent to celebrate her two-year anniversary of “having the gorilla off her back.”

  And a few weeks before that I waited thirty minutes dressed as a fifties-style fan in the back of a soundstage at Paramount Studios as they taped the first episode of the fourth season of Laverne and Shirley in front of a live studio audience. Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams had hired me and my cohort to welcome back the cast, whom we thought we were waiting to greet backstage when the scene was over. Wrong. After a half hour, a producer ran up to us and, without warning, shooed us out onto the stage, where we unexpectedly performed our routine for the entire cast, crew, and studio audience.

  At least during those two incidents, I could breathe. It’s getting pretty damn stuffy in this closet. And I do have a life. In fact, I have a date with Danielle. I’m supposed to meet her at a club at 10:30. That’s in ten minutes. Come on already.

  Finally the door opens. A wrinkled blond woman in her seventies wearing a silver cocktail dress, jumps back. “What the fuck?!” she yelps.

  “Shhhh,” I whisper, “I’m a surprise for the birthday boys.”

  “Ya nearly gave me a motherfuckin’ heart attack.” She is so sloshed, she stumbles inside the closet, and I manage to catch her by the arm before she falls.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “My lipschhhtick,” she slurs, rummaging through the coats. “I left it in my pocket.” This woman can barely stand up straight. How the hell is she going to apply lipstick? Still, I help her search and I find the cool, smooth tube in a leather coat pocket.

  “Thanksssss,” she says as I hand it to her. She staggers out, closing the door on me.

  One time I was sent to Chasen’s restaurant to deliver a singing telegram for Ed McMahon’s birthday. Not only did I have to wait twenty minutes until his guests finished their appetizers, but once I finally started performing, Ed heckled me. I improvised as best I could, working around his obnoxious comments, but he was relentless. Finally one of his guests, the typically even more obnoxious Don Rickles, came to my rescue, shouting, “Ed, shut up and listen!”

  Months earlier, at a party in Coldwater Canyon, I waited for Steve Allen to stop noodling on the piano before I could begin my act. When he didn’t, I dived into my routine anyway, and he kept playing, trying to accompany me. At least I made the guests laugh when, in character, I asked him to please stop. “I work alone,” I said.

  And alone I wait, for another fifteen minutes, in Jack Haley Jr.’s coat closet. Trying to remain cool, I mentally recite a litany of Zen quotes that I recall: “If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.” “The obstacle is the path.” Insightful, but not really relevant to having to wait in a friggin’ closet.

  Finally I hear footsteps. But it sounds like the click of high heels. Again the door opens a crack and this time a buxom caterer dressed in a short black skirt and crisp white hors d’oeuvre-stained shirt thrusts a tray inside. “Potsticker?”

  I decline. “Would you mind telling Mark I have to go?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy in the paisley ascot.”

  “Which one?”

  Figures. I describe Mark’s particular paisley, and she ventures out to find him. Now my future lies in the hands of a stranger whose priority is to deliver rounds of crab cakes. It’s 10:35, and I’m already five minutes late to meet Danielle, and I haven’t even performed yet. And it’s not like I’m getting paid by the hour. I get a set fee for what usually takes ten minutes, and I’ve been here thirty-five minutes already. Who do these people think they are, anyway? Just because they’ve had some success doesn’t mean they can treat others like they’re unimportant. It’s always the celebrities….

  I remember one chilly spring day when I arrived at a lavish estate tucked into Benedict Canyon. I rang the bell, and the large wooden front doors creaked open. There stood Cher. Even dressed in baggy gray sweatpants, a T-shirt, and no makeup, she was striking.

  “Come in,” she said excitedly. “I’ll go get Chas.” She didn’t move—just screamed upstairs. “Chas, come on down, someone’s here for you.”

  In the foyer, assorted kids and adults gathered around me. Cher called upstairs a few more times, but when her daughter, Chastity, didn’t answer, one of the guests, a very tan woman, climbed the stairs.

  Cher talked with her guests while I waited. And waited. Finally, about fifteen minutes later, the tan woman appeared at the top of the stairs with Cher’s eleven-year-old daughter. The birthday girl sauntered downstairs, and I launched into my routine. Everyone laughed and applauded. Except for Chastity, who never cracked a smile.

  As I was leaving, Cher turned to the apathetic birthday girl, “Chas? What do you say?”

  “Thank you,” her daughter uttered, almost inaudibly.

  Not quite the enthusiastic response one would desire after being made to wait.

  At this point even a standing ovation won’t make forty-five minutes in this closet worthwhile. I hear everyone singing “Happy Birthday,” and I feel my lip curling. Okay, I have to draw the line somewhere. How can they be so thoughtless and rude? They think it’s okay to make me wait this long in a dark, tiny coat closet like freakin’ Patty Hearst? Unh-unh. Enough already. My heart’s pounding, muffled under my lace bra; my palms are damp with sweat in my gold lamé gloves. I can hardly breathe. That’s it, I’m outta here.

  Just as I reach for the doorknob, I feel it turn. Mark pokes his head in. “Pllleeeeaaassse forgive me. I am sooooo sorry. It’s just that everyone was still doing dinner, and I knew they wouldn’t focus while they ate, and I just want this to be perfect. We’re finishing up cake right now and I swear it’ll only be five more minutes. I swear.”

  “Look, it’s been almost an hour, and I’m already late for my next appointment.” I try to appear cool, to keep my anger from erupting. He could be an important showbiz connection. But I take a stand and say, “I have to go now.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” he repeats, only this time he reaches into his pocket and takes out two twenty-dollar bills. Damn. What do I do? I need the money for rent this month. I only make twenty-five bucks for delivering the singing telegram, and usually people don’t even tip. I can’t say no to forty more dollars, can I?

  “All right,” I hiss, snatching the bills. “But if it’s not in five minutes, I’m gone.”

  “Thank you so much!” Mark hugs me. I feel his silk ascot brush against my cleavage; some mousse from his hair sticks to my left cheek. The door closes, and once again I’m enfolded in darkness.

  I am still so riled, my heart won’t stop racing. There are a million things I want to do with my life yet I spend so much time waiting. Waiting in lines at the bank and post office, in traffic, and for buses. Waiting for phone calls from lovers, for food to come at restaurants, for planes to take off, for news that I got the job. I’ve waited to say the right thing at the right time, waited for apologies, and waited until the last minute to make a decision. I’ve spent an enormous portion of my life waiting. And what have I done with that time? Grown impatient, antsy, annoyed, insulted, angry, frustrated, exasperated.

  And right there in Jack Haley Jr.’s coat closet, it hits me—just how much energy I’ve wasted. I breathe deeply and calm myself down as I make a decision. I will no longer continue to waste my life while I wait. Instead, I’ll use my time and materials wisely. I will brainstorm and scheme, meditate, contemplate, create. Damn it, from now on, wh
ile I wait, I might even enjoy myself. After all, I do have a choice.

  Before I can put my newfound revelation into practice, the door opens, light pours in, and Mark says, “You’re on!”

  I place my basket back on my arm, pick up my concertina, and pull out its folds, sucking in air. I launch into the cancan song as I march into the living room. Forty guests, all decked out in cocktail dresses and suits, are gathered in the stark, white room with white furniture and white shag carpeting. They gasp and giggle as I enter, and when I finish my song on the concertina, they applaud.

  “Sank you,” I say in a thick French accent. “Sank you. In English, how you say Thank you.” The partygoers laugh. I’m off to a good start.

  “My name is Fifi DeLune and I am looking for zee birthday boys, Jacques and Tony. Where are you?”

  Liza Minnelli and Shelley Winters’s ex-husbands sheepishly raise their hands while their friends point them out. As I perform, the audience stays completely with me. For my finale, I reach into my basket and pull out the long loaf of French bread, the round of Edam cheese, and the apple. I juggle the feast and each time the apple passes my mouth in the pattern, I take bites of it. A real crowd-pleaser. As I finish my act, everyone hoots and hollers, claps and whistles.

  The birthday boys approach me. “Great job,” Jack says. “That was really something,” Tony adds.

  We’re interrupted by guests coming up to say good-night to their hosts. I wave good-bye and move quickly toward the front door. In the hallway, a voice stops me.

  “Fifi!”

  I turn and see Mark. “It was perfect,” he says as he hugs me again.

  “Thanks,” I say, and I head outside to the valet. I can tell I was the party’s finale by the twelve people already standing in line for their cars. The valet in the matching pink vest, bow tie, and cap sees me and calls out, “Sorry, Mamacita, you took longer than fifteen minutes. I had to move your car.”

  I look at the line in front of me and smile. “No problem,” I say. “I don’t mind waiting.”

  1983

  A decade after sweating on the picket line at anti-war demonstrations with Jane Fonda, I sweat with her in the aerobics classes she teaches at her Jane Fonda Workout studio.

  Danielle, my girlfriend of three years, moves in, and for the first time I consider a long-term, monogamous relationship. Meanwhile, in Arizona, a man has long-term, polygamous relationships with 105 wives.

  I go to AIDS marches while the CDC warns blood banks of a possible problem with the blood supply. There are 3,064 cases of AIDS reported in the United States this year, and President Reagan hasn’t yet mentioned the word “AIDS” in public; he will not do so for two more years, when there are 15,948 cases and the death toll exceeds 8,000.

  Several friends of mine are diagnosed as HIV-positive or have contracted AIDS.

  Tom Cruise dances around in his underwear in Risky Business while Jennifer Beals’s dance double dances around in her underwear in Flashdance.

  Jenny Craig launches and competes with other popular diets—Weight Watchers, Pritikin, the Beverly Hills Diet, and Herbalife (“Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How”)—while thirty-two-year-old Karen Carpenter dies of anorexia nervosa.

  Every Thursday night, I gather with six friends for “Knots Night,” where we all watch and comment on our fave show, Knots Landing.

  The Supreme Court reaffirms its Roe v. Wade right to abortion (even though the initial court decision was ten years ago), and Sally Ride becomes the first American woman sent into space (even though the Soviet Union sent a woman into space twenty years ago).

  While I am cast in several films in various “Punk Girl” roles, my parents throw a punk party, and all their suburban friends show up in costume. Dinner is served when a construction site Roach Coach rolls up my parents’ driveway and “caters” the event.

  Anyone Can Be a Rock Star, or How to Be an Imposter

  Begin by continually judging yourself, disliking particular qualities you possess or, more accurately, lack.

  Pick a character—any persona—who is imbued with traits you desire.

  Shrouded in anonymity—an alter ego who is tougher, wiser, more gregarious than you are—know you cannot fail. If you do, it is not you failing but someone with another name, another history, another style, another life.

  Try on “Angel,” a tough-talking, gum-chomping ex-con who served time in the slammer for offenses you never reveal. Simply assure people, “It wasn’t murder or nuthin’.”

  Create your new history—with details of your time served and how you found the light behind bars—not in Jesus or the Bible, but in TV reruns.

  Spread the “good word” of a return to simpler, more innocent times through music. Write songs about reruns—“Beaver Cleaver Fever,” “Ode to Mrs. Kravitz,” and your most controversial, “Buffy Come Back,” a tribute to the sweet, freckled girl with blond pigtails from Family Affair. Anissa Jones, the actress who portrayed the precocious child who went everywhere with her best friend, Mrs. Beasley, the nearsighted doll with square-framed glasses, died at the age of eighteen of a massive drug overdose at a friend’s house in Oceanside, California. Write an anti-drug, cautionary tale with lyrics like:

  Forget Buffy’s drugs that go on and kill us

  Why not get high on Dobie Gillis?

  There’s one other drug that won’t make you puke

  You know I’m talking ’bout Patty Duke.

  Buffy, Buffy come back to me, why’d you have to go and OD, who will watch over Mrs. Beasley?

  Buffy, Buffy come back to me, why’d you have to go and OD, what about Uncle Bill, Jody, and Cissy?

  Ask a brilliant musician friend who has been in bands like Oingo Boingo to help you write the music to your songs and put together an “all-girl, all ex-con band.”

  Find a makeshift recording studio in Miracle Mile, above Ohrbach’s department store. Make sure it’s a small, windowless room painted cactus green, smelling of cigarettes and gardenia air freshener, and crammed with four-track recording equipment, which is almost as old as the saber-toothed tiger bones trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits one block east.

  Meet your new band, some of the best female musicians and backup singers in town—one has played keyboards with Prince, another was in Fanny, one of the first seventies all-girl rock groups. Be impressed. Be grateful.

  While the band sets up, rehearse with your new backup singers. Make it clear that you know your singing sucks, and you don’t begin to think you can sound like they do. Observe as they create elaborate harmonies that are so tightly blended, for the first time you viscerally understand the word harmonious. Instantly bond with your backup singers—joke, laugh, share stories, bare lives. Name them the Reruns. Feel like you belong.

  Since you’ve never done anything like this before, as you’re about to record your vocals, take several deep breaths and try to exhale enormous self-doubt. Jump up and down in place and fling your hands, allowing the nerves to shoot out of your fingertips onto Wilshire Boulevard. Remind yourself it’s Angel singing. Not you. When you hear the band play the intro to the song, be so blown away that you forget your anxiety altogether.

  Finish recording at 2:00 a.m. Shout, applaud, and laugh giddily with everyone as you all listen to both songs, “Buffy Come Back” and “Beaver Cleaver Fever.”

  Say to the band and to your girls, the Reruns, “No matter what it takes, I’m gonna get these songs out into the world.”

  Possessed with determination fueled by the safety net of your masquerade, spend the next six months learning and doing things you’ve never done before: (a) Go to the county recorder to establish a business for your record company; (b) Design graphics for the front and back of the record sleeve as well as the inside label, and get them printed; (c) Take your master tapes to a record plant and listen to countless test pressings on vinyl until the sound is perfectly captured on the black 45 rpm discs; (d) Pick up the finished singles packed in neat cardboard boxes, each stamped with blocky red
letters: ANGEL AND THE RERUNS.

  Do your research. Listen to KROQ, the number-one radio station in L.A., specifically to a show every Sunday night called “Rodney on the ROQ” that features new, alternative music. Find out everything you can about the host, Rodney Bingenheimer—how he was the first to interview and play songs by Blondie, Billy Idol, Duran Duran, the Sex Pistols, and countless other bands whose careers he’s helped launch. Imagine yourself, or more accurately Angel, as his next discovery.

  Dress in a multicolored, bouncy tulle skirt with a brown leather biker vest, bold lines of silver studs on the back spelling out ANGEL. At all times wear Ray-Ban sunglasses, framed by your eighties punk haircut—short on the sides, tall spikes on top. Draw a tattoo on your left arm that says “DAD” in a heart, a halo on your right arm, and your look is complete. Dress your girls, the Reruns, in exotic, patterned fifties sheath dresses and tease their wigs into overdone bouffant hairdos.

  Drive over to the KROQ studios in Pasadena. Inhale the chilly January air that still smells like roses. After parking ask the Reruns in your tough-girl voice, “All right, we all ready to kick some ass?” Have the Reruns answer in unison, “Ready, Angel.” Stick to your story that you all met in the slammer and continue your jailhouse dynamic out on the streets—you are their leader, their daddy; they acquiesce to you and do so in obedient synchronicity.

  Knock on the back door of the studio. When a man with a blue mohawk answers, lie and say, “Rodney’s expecting us.” If you can convince Rodney to play “Buffy Come Back,” tonight could be a huge break. But first you have to get in to see him.

  With Angel’s balls leading the way, push past the man at the door and, despite his protests, walk down the hall to the studio where a light flashes by a sign that reads “DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON.” Boldly push open the door. Have the girls run up to Rodney and kiss him all over his face, leaving red lip prints as souvenirs. Notice why Rodney, thin and boyish though well into his forties, was Davy Jones’s stand-in on the TV show The Monkees. Observe his mop-top bowl haircut and tight, hip-hugging, pin-striped bell-bottoms with mod leather ankle boots. Watch as the girls’ lipstick prints fade into the color his face turns when he blushes.