The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz (52 page)

* Months later, the condom-only policy was no longer in effect.

* That line probably comes from Milton “Mr. TV” Berle, also known for having a big one. I’m happy to have met him before he passed away. I’ve also used another great line attributed to him. Whenever a guy wants to compare penis sizes, I’ll say, “I’ll just pull out enough to win.”

* George Tenet, the former head of the CIA and a close friend of George W. Bush, was also a student at Cardozo. We both played soccer, and while I didn’t know him that well, we said our hellos. Years later, my cousin (who works for the government) asked me to Xerox a few pages of our yearbook to show his coworkers. It was
implied
that George Tenet himself wanted to see it because he’d lost his copy.

** This production also starred Reginald VelJohnson (another Cardozo student), who became a big Hollywood actor (
Die Hard
and
Family Matters
).

* I finished my thirty-two credits of graduate school to fulfill the master’s degree. I never got the actual certificate because I left for the West Coast. But I did get a permanent license to teach in New York State. I did my master’s thesis on psychodrama, using role-playing to help discipline children from acting out.

* Years later, Fred Durst asked me to introduce his band Limp Bizkit at Woodstock ’99. With almost a quarter-million people in the audience, it would be my biggest crowd yet. But just before I left for the show, I got a call that Mini-Me was going to introduce the band instead. I was heartbroken. When Dennis Hof heard about it, he had the girls from the Bunny Ranch call and tease me about it. “I can’t wait to fuck your brains out,” they’d say. “Oh wait, Mini-Me is here. I gotta go!” (click). I later met Mini-Me at a show in Hawaii and told him the story. He loved it and apologized for taking my place. And as a courtesy, he likes to be referred to by his real name, Verne Troyer.

* He also guessed that I was a Pisces (which I am).

** When Grossinger’s went out of business, Mark went to work as Donald Trump’s right-hand man. Twenty or so years later, I went to Atlantic City with Sam Kinison, Bill Gazzarri and Mark Saginor (Hugh Hefner’s doctor) to see my friend Frank Stallone sing at one of Trump’s hotels. I decided to pay Etess a visit. I talked to an employee at his hotel and said, “When Mark finds out that I’m here, he’s going to
die
.” The employee’s exact words were: “He already has.” She told me that Mark had been killed in the highly publicized Trump helicopter crash years earlier. I was stunned. RIP, Mark Etess…old friend.

* Years later, I appeared in the magazine a few more times.

* Which, by the way, is against the law in parts of Virginia and Oklahoma. Which is kinda funny, if you think about it. Commit sodomy in these states and they’ll throw you in jail, where you’ll get…sodomized!

* Years later, I directed
Deep Throat
,
Parts 4
,
5
, and
6
for Arrow Films. I had the girls try the Little Oral Annie technique, and it
worked
!

* Joel went on to direct
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
.

* Of course, you wouldn’t see porn stars in movies meant for a children’s audience, or in most TV commercials.

* For a movie starring Cicciolina, a popular porn star from Italy and a member of the Italian Parliament, believe it or not.

* Both Caroline and Mario Salieri, the director, thanked me for a job well done.

** I was good friends with Althea, and when I saw Courtney Love at Larry Flynt’s wedding, I got a chance to tell her what a great job she did portraying Althea in
The People vs. Larry Flynt
.

*** By the way, this shoot was one of the first
Hustler
centerfolds to feature a man
and
a woman. And to this very day, I have always appreciated the fine treatment
Hustler
and the Flynt family have always given me.

* They have since discontinued this type of surgery for Parkinson’s.

** Almost everybody in my family served in the U.S. military. My father was a sergeant, fighting in the Philippines and designing and building radar towers. (He was a scientist even back then.) All of my uncles fought in World War II, and all of my great uncles and grandfathers fought in World War I.

* Many, many years later at the St. James Hotel in Los Angeles, I spoke with Janet Reno, the former attorney general, about the current state of Parkinson’s. Ms. Reno said she appreciated my mother’s participation in the now-defunct cryogenic surgery, as it paved the way for more successful types of treatment. I also told her that my dad predicted twenty years ago that the real cure would be found through stem-cell research.

* However, Linda backed down a little on her claims that Traynor beat her and made physical threats. When she modeled for a
Legs
magazine centerfold shortly before her death, she recounted many of the stories to my friend Diane Hanson, who was in charge of the shoot and told me about it. She told Diane that some of the antipornographic feminists used her for their agenda. And she actually felt a little exploited by
them
.

* Less than a year later, Bo and I recreated that scene in front of a video camera, to be used in a Mark Carriere movie for Leisure Time Entertainment.

* I heard rumors that Dreyfuss talked with Larry about doing a movie about Plato’s. Apparently, Dreyfuss was considering playing Larry in the film. (It never happened, of course.)

* Keep in mind, however, that this method is not foolproof. The best way to completely protect yourself is by using condoms. My technique is by no means a guarantee that you won’t contract an STD-again, the only way to do that is with a condom. Get it?

* I am kidding, of course. I don’t really want an STD.

* I never quite understood his attitude toward women. But despite how he sometimes treated them, women loved Jamie. He was even the longtime boyfriend of the famous
New York Times
food critic Gayle Green.

* And just for the record, his eighteenth pop shot was on a photo of Al Goldstein’s face.

* It was the one featuring Burt Reynolds on the cover.

* But I probably saw more drugs on mainstream sets.

* Coincidentally, I had a speaking part in the film
54
, starring Mike Myers. And, yes, my scene took place in the coat-check room.

** Years later, it became Rodney Dangerfield’s comedy club.

* A famous mainstream director was on the set, and was allowed to leave. You’ll learn more about this later.

** The judge didn’t hear her, but my lawyer did. “If this goes to trial,” he told me, “I’ll use that line against her.”

* Our family is distantly related to Barney Greengrass, the sturgeon king of the Upper West Side New York City deli. We’re also related to Ken Greengrass, former manager for Julius LaRosa, Florence Henderson, and Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

** These kinds of meetings were portrayed in the film
Analyze That
.

* A great club run by Lonnie Hanover, now the manager of Scores in New York.

* Coincidentally, the show also starred Jack Gilford, whom my dad knew as a kid.

* As months went on, I introduced Robin to Al Goldstein, Althea Flynt, and my sister, Sue. Robin gave Sue and her husband free tickets to his show in Atlantic City, months later, VIP all the way.

** We were both friends with Lenny Schultz, the Catskills comic best known for his “Bionic Chicken” routine on
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.

* I asked Mr. Hasselhoff about this story, many, many years later, at the Playboy mansion, Summer 2006. Believe it or not, he verified it.

* In a strange coincidence, actor Corey Feldman was originally hired to be in the video, as the defendant in a court case (Sam was his lawyer). But Corey was having his own problems, with the law and couldn’t make it to the shoot. His role eventually went to David Faustino from
Married with Children
. The video starred Ozzy Osborne and Dweezil Zappa.

* At Sam’s funeral, Carl LaBove delivered one of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard about Sam’s chronic lateness and “no-show” reputation. “Well,” Carl said to the huge crowd, “this night is like all the rest. I’m going to introduce Sam, and he’s not going to show up.”

* The film would also have starred a very young and still unknown actor named Ben Affleck.

** My sister and I watched the entire show from the greenroom with John Travolta, who happened to be hanging out at the live show.

* Sam had been responsible for many car accidents, to which he openly admitted. It’s ironic that the one time he was totally innocent, the accident cost him his life.

** Just for the record, this story has been told and retold by Bill Kinison (Sam’s brother) and Carl LaBove (Sam’s best friend and frequent opening act).

* Years later, when telling that story during an interview on Tom Leykis’s radio show, he claimed that I was the one driving the car, just to bust my balls. Al Goldstein and John Clark (Lynn Redgrave’s husband at the time), who were also guests on the show, believed Sam’s version and started insulting my driving abilities. Sam thought this was hilarious, but just for the record, I was
not
driving, and the only passenger was CC DeVille of Poison.

* Pauly was always a good guy. He mentioned me on his comedy album
Pink Diggly Diggly
. “Sam Kinison was my comedy mentor,” he said, “but Ron Jeremy was my sex mentor.” (Plus, he had me do a joke on that album as well.)

* Dennis Hof, the owner of the Bunny Ranch, was there as well.

* For me to list all the additional routines where comics have mentioned me on TV, or in their acts would take another chapter, so here’s a partial list of the comics themselves: Dave Chapelle, Jay Leno, Pauly Shore, Sam Kinison, Greg Kinnear, Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, Bob Saget, Rodney Dangerfield, Bobby Slayton, Carlos Mencia, Robin Williams, Conan O’Brien, Penn Jillette, Arsenio Hall, and Jim Norton.

* Once, when pulling off the glove, one finger at a time, Hal inserted a fart noise for a blooper tape. Very funny.

* Anabolic Video used Harley-Davidson motorcycles in one of their movies. It wasn’t a problem. But when the Harley logo was crystal clear on the box cover, the motorcycle company made Anabolic Video change the cover.

* Years later, my lawyer Stu Goldfarb told this dream to officer Como, and both had a good laugh.

* The films were called
Hawaii Vice, Parts 1–8
, starring Kascha and François Papillon.

* Thanks to Bunny Bleu. I liked how my nails looked so much that I decided to leave them like that for two weeks.

* I was a consultant on the film, and I helped her get a role as Porn Show Girl. She received $3,000 for the job and a SAG card.

* For the record, the fire marshals
loved
these jobs.

* Tony told me some amazing stories about Marilyn Monroe. He claimed that she had problems with drinking and pills for years, so it wasn’t unusual for Marilyn to overdose and call for help. The person she usually called was Peter Lawford. On the night of her death Peter didn’t get there in time, so he didn’t believe that there was any conspiracy involved in her death.

** Coincidentally, I
have
met Brad Pitt, and he gave me a big hug.

*** I knew him from various clubs, and we’d both worked on Sam Kinison’s
Under My Thumb
video.

* She also, supposedly, sang gospel music with Bette Midler.

* I actually told this story to Katey’s son (or it might have been her brother, I’m not sure). He thought it was kind of funny, although he understood how I felt.

** This took place at the premiere of the movie
Spun
, and Brittany Murphy, Ashton’s girlfriend at the time, also seemed to side with me.

* He produced two films that I was in.

** Now, Mick Jagger
was
at the party. We did say hello. But I’m not sure if the guy who told me this was really his bodyguard.

* Many years later, Lynn went on to appear in my music video
Freak of the Week
. As for John, he performed with me in two cute B movies,
Lords of Magick
and, more recently,
Charlie’s Death Wish
. The latter also starred a handful of rock stars.

* Kid Rock once said the same thing.

** Years later, I saw Courtney again at a Hole concert in L.A. Drew Barrymore, who was dating Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson at the time, was also at the show, and she interviewed me for a cable-access show. Drew asked me some questions, and her boyfriend kept walking by and teasing her about asking dirtier questions. “Come on,” he said to her. “Ask him about anal sex.”