Everybody Curses, I Swear!

by Carrie Keagan

  W-T-C! (What the Cunt!) I love that they were so excited and giddy. I mean, who doesn’t want to be the hero of the moment? But the irony was not lost on me or Kourosh, who just happened to be there that day waiting in the hospitality suite. And apparently, the euphoria had reached the suite well before I got there. We both just smirked at each other in unison. It was the same me, doing the same thing I’d always done. Except now I was a professional superspy of obscenity with a license to “cunt.”

  Times had definitely changed. Nothing seems to be as exciting as it sounds anymore. That’s probably why everyone is already having anal sex in ninth grade. I mean, let’s face it, even the Mormons are soaking. I remember when I first started, studios were nervous when I pushed the envelope, and now they ask me to go there and help lick it! Nobody was doing that before me, and I’m pretty sure nobody’s doing it now. The cunt trade is a highly specialized field. You really have to know your cunt, and you absolutely cannot be one. Now, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but you try pushing a cunt up a steep and slippery slope for ten fucking years! So … TOOT-FUCKIN’-TOOT!!

  By the way, that was, officially, the first time I’ve ever blown myself.

  I’m not doing anything differently now that I wasn’t doing then; it’s just that my career trajectory has changed the reactions I get from the same words I’ve been using the entire time. If my greatest accomplishment in life is getting people to rid themselves of their hang-ups on swear words, or just words in general, I would consider that a huge success. That and having all the Muppets over to my place for a sleepover.

  So my crusade for the cunt had come full circle. A decade earlier, I was the genital wart of the junket world for drawing out one measly C-word. Now, I was a hero. An innovator, a vaginal virtuoso, a mastermind of the muff! Silly me for underestimating the power of the cunt. Let’s turn my mistakes into a teachable moment. For the pussy always prevails, my friends!

  Always.

  14

  THE SILENT FUCK

  Never use a big word when a little filthy one will do.

  —Johnny Carson

  If you really think about it, and I have, life is essentially a random collection of experiences, advice, and memories. If you’re smart enough to learn from your experiences and humble enough to allow good advice to inform your choices, maybe, just maybe, you won’t end up drowning in memories of sucking dick for meth in a blind alley behind the neighborhood Supercuts. And if by some misfortune that’s exactly what you’re doing right now, I have two things to say to you. First, wow … (golf clap) … fellatio and reading a book at the same time … I’m impressed. You are indeed a Renaissance man or woman and really need to put those multitasking talents to work elsewhere. Secondly, and more importantly, trust me when I tell you it’s never too late to put the dick down and make a change. The beautiful thing about memories is that every single day is an opportunity to make new ones … better ones. We all come from somewhere, good, bad, or ugly, but all that really matters is where we’re going. The rest? Who gives a fuck! The journey’s the thing (stepping off soapbox).

  Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I want to talk to you about a great piece of advice I picked up along the way to here called “the 7 P’s.” It’s a huge part of who I am and how I go about my professional life, if you can call it that. Those of you who have served in the U.S. Marine Corps or the British Army, you already know what the fuck I’m talking about, and my hat’s off to you. For those of you that haven’t, as Gene Simmons would always say in that rich deep voice of his, “This is my gift to you.” “Proper planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.” Now, say that ten times fast!!

  It’s an amazing mantra, but just like everything in life, it’s not about the knowledge; it’s about the application. That’s where experience comes and creates balance. The road to balance will always have more than its fair share of funny teachable moments, and for me, none was more poignant than when I came face-to-face with the phantom menace known as the silent fuck. (And before all of you original trilogy fans start a shit-storm, let me just say that it is possible to not dig a film but still think it had a great title.)

  “Fuck is the prince of swear words. It’s always there for you. You know? You just put your hand out and there’s a fuck!”

  —Paul Bettany

  As I’ve mentioned, I’m pretty anal about getting ready for interviews. But is there such a thing as being too prepared? Sometimes you’re so worried about how things will turn out that you forget to be present in the moment at all. I know a lot of you are thinking, That sounds like every single one of my birthday parties until I was twenty-eight years old. Mine, too.

  Let’s face it: Anything you anticipate for a while is in danger of not living up to your daily imagination. Shit, every time I buy a lottery ticket, I’ve spent that money before I leave the fucking parking lot. (If you’re curious, 50 percent to charity, travel for a year straight, start Keagan Irish Whiskey, and then get back to work.) Friends of mine who get married always say, “I wish I had sat back and enjoyed the moment,” all of the time. It’s natural, but in the workplace, in can be dangerous. In my line of work, where the entire interview is based on me being present, it can be a disaster.

  I did that during what I thought was the most important interview of my life. It was at a time in my career when I was really starting to feel good about what I was doing and how I was doing it. I was actually being asked to interview people—as opposed to Kourosh and me hustling our way into functions. More importantly, the people I was interviewing were also asking for me. Things were going very well until Kourosh called me into his office one day.

  “I’ve got a big one,” he said. Get your minds out of the gutter, please. Or don’t—what do I care at this point!

  Kourosh is never one to get too excited about an interview, so I knew this had to be good.

  “Let me guess!” I exclaimed.

  I love this game. Always have, always will. It drives people crazy, but I will keep guessing until I get it right or you tell me to shut the fuck up.

  “Uh … Ozzy Osbourne? No, wait, Bon Jovi? Is it Bon Jovi? Please tell me it’s Bon Jovi!”

  “No, it’s not fucking Bon Jovi!” he said. “I got you an interview with Colin Farrell!”

  Shut. The. Front. Door.

  Colin “fucking” Farrell? He breaks rules, I break rules. He likes to have a good time, I like to have a good time. He swears in every interview, I swear in every interview. We’re perfect for each other! We’re going to be best friends. This was going to be THE BEST interview anyone had ever done in the history of interviews! I’d interviewed big stars before, but for most of them, it took a little time to get them out of their shells, and by the time they were out, the interview was over. Colin Farrell has never been in his shell. Colin Farrell takes a shot, throws up the bird, and pisses on shells. When he was born, he didn’t cry; he slapped the nurse, lit a cigarette, and said, “Where’s the fucking party?” He was perfect.

  Let’s return to the days of yesteryear for a second, shall we? At this time, not only was Colin Farrell the “it” guy in Hollywood, the star of fucking S.W.A.T., but he was also Hollywood’s bad boy. He was talking about having anal sex with Britney Spears and swearing on national TV, but people loved it. For whatever reason they embraced him, incredibly sexy warts and all. If people who were trying to control him in interviews couldn’t get him to stop swearing, my interview with him was going to be like if Tony Montana was talking with Quentin Tarantino. Unstoppable. FYI, they frown on cocaine at these functions.

  I knew since the interview was going to be perfect that everything else had to be perfect, too, and that started with me. It was almost like getting ready for prom. I had always wanted to have a prom do-over, and I was finally getting that chance. Hold on one second, please. Just imagining taking Colin Farrell to prom and … I’m back.

  In my mind, my quest for perfection was a three-step process:

 
Step One: Get a crisp, new, tight, white, button-down shirt. I wanted to look professional but still sexy and the button-down was perfect for that. It didn’t show any skin so I wasn’t screaming desperate, but it was still tight enough around the girls where it was whispering, “Oh, these old things?”

  Step Two: I had to get my “hairs did.” The heavy metal part of me wanted to go back to total Tawny Kitaen sprawled on the hood of a car from the Whitesnake music video, but I thought I’d be sending the wrong message. Side note: It was actually the right message, but not the socially acceptable one. I decided on something in between bridesmaid and businesswoman. Something that said, “I’m here to interview you, but there’s a chance I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  Step Three: Get a Mystic Tan. I am Irish. Need I say more? Let’s just say, for most of my people, getting a “suntan” is when our burn finally fades from a dark red to a light pink. I wanted a little color to offset my new white shirt, so I thought I would get a spray tan. The only thing I knew about spray tans was what I learned from the cast of Jersey Shore, and those colors varied from dark brown to a fucking pumpkin.

  I was sure that these three things, coupled with my interview style, were going to make us lifelong friends. Yes, I was putting in a lot of work here, but so we’re clear: I wasn’t trying to throw myself at him (minus the whole prom hallucination). I just needed him to realize that every interview from now until the end of time was boring, except of course, the ones he did with me. That’s actually my goal with every interview.

  In order to get step one out of the way I had to go to the mall, and I hate the fucking mall. Why not shop online, you ask? Great question. The answer is melons. Mega-melons. To be more specific, the quarts of love that are attached to my body. See, the clothing companies fuck with us women in a big, bad way. A medium in one brand is a small in another. “Oh, honey, that’s a large, but it runs small, so it’s like a medium.” So, let’s just call it a fucking medium! Anyway, I make my way into Macy’s, I grab a rack of questionably appropriate white button-down shirts, and I head into the dressing room. I just want to make this as quick and painless as possible. After trying on about six shirts that ran the gamut from muumuu to “schoolgirl top for a stripper costume,” I hear a knock on the dressing room door.

  “Excuse me, please?” I hear a woman say with a heavy Armenian accent.

  “Yes?”

  “How are things in there?” she asks.

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “Can you open door? I might be able to help.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was to have some pushy saleswoman tell me what shirt I “needed” to get, but I wasn’t having any luck finding one myself so I thought, Why not? and opened the door.

  Standing in front of me was a short woman, probably about sixty years old, and she had THE BIGGEST cannonballs I had ever seen. “I notice you walking around and I figure I can help,” she says. “You know, with those.” And she poked my right babaloo with her index finger.

  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

  “I’m sorry?” I said, a little shocked.

  “Honey, don’t be shy. We are in the same club,” she said as she shook her mogambos back and forth. “They are good for the men but not so great for us, am I right? Come.” Then she grabbed my hand and walked me back out to the clothes. I had never felt such immediate kinship. With my new BFF in tow, it took me less than ten minutes to find the right white shirt, professional but still sexy, and I was gone.

  Step one … success.

  Next up, taming the rat’s nest. Back in the pre-stylist days I was a little challenged in the hair-ea (that’s hair area). If this was like my grown-up prom, I had to do something a little special.

  Today, I seriously would never even think about letting someone else touch my hair, but back then? I was one step up from Fantastic Sams. I remember sitting down in the chair with all of my notes for the interview, showing the woman a picture of what I wanted my hair to look like, drifting off in my work, and then being jolted back into reality by a sharp pain and the ever-so-wonderfully aromatic smell of burning flesh.

  “My bad,” the stylist said, wrinkling her nose and shrugging her shoulders as she was removing the curling iron from the top of my ear. “Must have gone too low.”

  I’m sorry, what the fuck did you just say? My bad. My fucking bad?! DON’T YOU KNOW I’M GOING TO PROM WITH COLIN FARRELL?! You just scarred me before the most important moment of my life, and all you can say is, “My bad”? Can we all agree that, from now on, “my bad” should be reserved for things a little more casual, like taking someone’s parking spot or farting while doing a sit-up? It definitely should not be used when you alter somebody’s life! I looked in the mirror and there was a GIANT red mark on my ear. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! I guess we’re not going to prom after all, just straight to my own personal hell. Straighten this mop out so it covers the bloodred hematoma forming on the top quarter of my ear, please.

  Step two … not great.

  Which brings us to the cherry on top of my shit sundae: Mystic Tan. The day before the interview I went to get a spray tan.

  So believe it or not, fake-n-bake’s never really been my thing. I know I live in Hollywood and everyone does it out here, but not me. I’ve always loved being a pasty, Irish-pale creature of the shadows. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to change it up for this interview, but I had convinced myself that it had to be done. Since I was an uneducated, pasty noob, I asked my friend where I should go, and she recommended a spot where she promised, “They won’t turn you orange like the Landlady from Kingpin.” Sounds perfect.

  There are a few things someone should tell you when you spray tan for the first time. They could start with, “Hey, probably not a great idea to wear super-tight clothes because when you put them back on afterward you’re going to rub off a bunch of the tan.” Not only that, but putting on sticky, tight jeans might be in my top five of most hated feelings. Another thing someone might want to tell you is that when you are getting a spray tan … close your mouth. And then, if you don’t close your mouth and happen to ingest a gallon of whatever the fuck they are spraying you with, DO NOT open your eyes to see what is going on. So to wrap up, dress comfortably and stand like a coordinated human being who can function with eyes and mouth closed at the same time without falling over. I guess some of us just aren’t made for Mystic.

  Regardless of my clearly graceful experience, I walked out of there head held high with a fresh orange paint job. I had the confidence of a superhero in spray-tan armor. No one could stop me now.

  The day of the interview was a blur. I don’t remember a thing leading up to when we arrived at the junket. I do remember waiting to go into the room to interview Colin when the magnitude of the situation hit me. Wait, what if I can’t get him to swear? What if this is supposed to be my wheelhouse and I can’t deliver? All of a sudden, this was turning from the perfect interview into the beginning of the end of my career. Fuck a duck! My mind was racing, and I was thinking about how I was going to have to move back in with my parents and that I guess I could open a pet shop in Buffalo because I’ve always like pets and then … I started to sweat. A lot. FAN-FUCKIN-TASTIC!

  “I just want to put fuck in front of everything so I can actually say it!”

  —Hayden Panettiere

  That’s when my director came over and told me that he could see orange stains on my brand-new fancy white shirt. No way! I looked down and I could see my skin secret starting to make its own horrifically timed debut. There was no way my Armenian BFF could have seen this coming. I looked to see if there were stains anywhere else, and sure enough there was some major damage in the pit area. Mental note: Do not give Colin a high five. The next thing I thought about? Honestly? This shirt was tight enough to where if my mammaroonies started sweating it might look like I was lactating chocolate milk.

  “Five minutes,” I heard.

  I was panicked. An interview that, in my mind, could make my compa
ny and me a household name was happening in five minutes, and I have spots developing that would worry a caretaker at a leprosy colony.

  “Three minutes.”

  The next thing I knew, the interview was over, and I was on my way to pick up my tapes. To be completely honest, I don’t remember a thing. It was a complete blur. I remember sitting in front of Colin and someone saying, “Okay, your time is up,” and I walked out. I remember walking down the hallway, a sweaty orange mess, thinking, How could I have fucked that up so badly? That was the worst interview I have ever done. I’ve had blackouts before, but those were the fun kind. This was not one of those.

  To this day I don’t remember what happened in the room, but I vividly remember talking to myself, saying, He never swore. Not once. On the way back to the office, all I could think about was how I was going to tell the people at my company that we’re through. If I couldn’t make the potty mouth of Hollywood swear, I needed to quit and sell my company for two chickens and a goat. I came back to the office, threw the tapes on Kourosh’s desk, walked into my office, and looked at flights to Buffalo. I was planning on starting a nice bender, picking up thirty boxes of Triple Double Oreo cookies, and heading straight to the airport. Just the Triple Double Oreo cookies and me. I was leaving all of my clothes, my furniture, everything, and I was moving home. An hour later Kourosh came into my office. “What’s your problem?” he said.

  “What’s my problem? That was the worst interview,” I said.

  He said he’d watched the tape, and then he asked what I thought had happened.

  “What happened? What happened? He didn’t swear!”

  “Carrie, he said fuck about twelve times in four minutes.”

  What? How could I not have heard that? Because I wasn’t present, that’s how. I was so busy sweating and worrying about the future, I didn’t allow myself to be in the room.

  Here is what actually happened: Colin sat in a chair, drinking a beer.

  Colin: How are you doing, man?