Why We Suck (13 page)

        Can I get pierced ears?

        Can I watch The Sopranos?

        Can I have a sweet sixteen party like they have on MTV when I grow up?

        Can I be home-schooled?

    

    That's right-DO NOT HOME SCHOOL YOUR KID!

    I don't wanna hear your justifications but I'm sure they include many or all of these unique reasons: my kid is special / my kid doesn't get along with all the other kids / my kid is smarter blah blubbedy blip.

    Your kid needs to be in a building full of other kids so that your kid can figure out how to socialize and play and get beaten up by bullies.

    Staying home with mommy full-time is like living in a bubble where there is no crime no tension no sex no fear no trouble no pressure.

    Not being on TV or the movies means being a real kid.

    Being a real kid means long stretches of homework interspersed with trying to avoid the mean kids or become one of them.

    Your job is to drop your kid off into the belly of the beast every morning and then pick them up and take them home and fill 'em up with food and some advice before starting the whole process all over again the very next day.

    No home-schooling, no protective bubble, no red carpet.

    Will your kid hate you? Yup. And here's a little headline for you: your kids are SUPPOSED to hate you. YOUR KID IS YOUR KID-NOT YOUR GODDAM BEST FRIEND.

    Believe me-they may hate your fat ass now but they will thank you immensely later on.

    Seven million kids have been thrown into the star-making machine and how many made it out?

    Two.

    Jodie Foster and Ron Howard.

    Once known as the twelve-year-old hooker from Taxi Driver and fucking Opie.

    Now known as two bright and shiny Oscar winners.

    That's it. Everyone else died or got arrested or sits in jail or found Jesus or is smoking a big fat bowl of crack while you are reading this and STILL vowing revenge on their filthy, money-grubbing parents.

    They don't talk to their moms anymore because they blame their mothers for not protecting them. For not making them stay in the nest.

    If a bird mom lets a baby bird leave the nest before it's old enough, it crashes to the ground and gets eaten by:

        a. A cat.

        b. A snake.

        c. One of the Culkin kids who skipped the court case bullshit, emancipated himself and now just lives in the woods on his own.

    

    Have you noticed a dearth of sparrows in and around Manhattan ever since Macaulay divorced his dad?

    Coincidence? Me thinks not.

    

    

    Bird moms keep the babies in the nest until their biological clocks tell them it's time to kick them out and let them fly away and start their own families.

    That's what Dr. Full should be saying on his show-instead of trying to sneak Britney Spears out of the nuthouse and onto his cheap studio sofa in order to spike his ratings. Where did parents who play with a full deck of cards disappear to?

    I called my mom just now-literally, I hung up the phone and started typing the words you are currently reading-because I have some expertise in the area of kids and showbiz. My career began when I was eleven. A nun grabbed me in the hallway at school and told me to show up that night at an audition for the high school musical-there were twelve grades in my school-St. Peter's. So I went home and asked my mom and walked back that night and did a little singing and dancing and some acting as well and the nun said thank you and I headed home. I got the part and it sparked an interest in being onstage or in front of the camera that never went away.

    I called my mom to ask if there was ever any discussion about me going into showbiz at that point-real showbiz-and giving up school etcetera etcetera. This is what my mom said:

    Hello.

    Ma?

    Denis?

    Hey.

    How are you?

    Good. Listen, Ma Sheila Turbody has bad cancer of the face-it spread all down her neck and into her throat and into her brain.

    What?

    The doctors say she should never have been spending all that time out in the sun without a hat or sunscreen or anything at all plus she was smoking and Ma-who is Sheila Turbody?

    You know who Sheila Turbody is. She lived around the corner all her kids got straight A's? Remember?

    Oh. Those kids-yeah. Nobody liked them.

    Listen, Brian-you had better stop that smoking and wear some sunscreen and It's Denis, Ma.

    Don't change the subject.

    Ma-listen. When I was doing that first play I did-Mame-when I was like eleven or whatever I was-was there ever any talk-did I come and ask you guys maybe about leaving school and trying to make it as a kid in showbiz or any-

    Good God no, Denis-are you crazy? You were good but you weren't THAT good. We were happy to have you in the show and we went to see them and all but then it was right back to school. Show business. Where did you get that idea?

    I was just wondering if I ever asked you if I could leave school and become Oh no no no-we would never've put up with that kinda-no one around here knew anything about that. Why?

    I'm just writing this section of my book and What book?

    I'm writing a book about You better watch out what you put in that book.

    Okay-I gotta go.

    (warning-type tone) Denis.

    (mocking her warning-type tone) Ma.

    What kind of book?

    It's funny.

    Are they paying you for it?

    Yes.

    What happened to the TV shows and the movies?

    I'm still doing those, I'm just None of us thought you'd be doing all this kinda stuff-we didn't know what was going to happen to you. All the cadology and the blighyarding-the vicious blighyarding you would get up to.

    Ma-what does blighyarding mean?

    You know exactly what it means.

    Well-if it is what I think it is-they pay me to do it now.

    Well-that's what's great about this country. What's the name of the book?

    Never mind.

    (with great gravity) Denis.

    (mocking her gravity) Ma.

    Don't put me in that book.

    I gotta go.

    Did you go to Mass this week?

    No.

    You know it's Ash Wednesday?

    Really? I just thought people suddenly decided to start putting cigarettes out on their foreheads.

    That's not funny.

    Yes it is.

    Don't you put that in your book.

    Okay-I won't. See you on Easter, Ma.

    Okay. Thanks for calling, honey. I love you and I'm so proud of you, honey.

    CLICK.

    

    (Note-Blighyarding [my spelling]. This one I looked up everywhere once again-INCLUDING World Wide Goddam Words. I could have Googled Galaxy Wide Words and Infinity Wide Words. It absolutely does not exist outside of my mom, my Aunt Bridie and my Aunt Margaret. So my mom and only the two sisters who followed her here to America somehow came up with a term that-as far as I can tell-refers to causing trouble. So we can assume that blighyarding means cursing, pretending to eat horrible overboiled food when in fact you are feeding it to the dog under the table-because even my mom's cats wouldn't eat the stuff-and other minor crimes committed inside or around the house. Vicious blighyarding would seem to mean egging other people's houses and windshields [especially in the winter when the eggs would splatter and freeze], breaking streetlights with rocks, stealing priests' wallets, drinking the holy wine, five-finger discounting booze and baseball cards and making fun of the Mass DURING Mass and ridiculing the nuns and priests behind their backs. In general-just being a wiseass and a troublemaker. I guess I should be proud of the fact that my brother Johnny, my cousins Jerry and Noreen and the New York cousins Terrence and Denis were so off the charts that they had to invent a word to describe our behavior. Anyways-back to why I didn't end up overdosing on heroin when I was fifteen years old.)

    I didn't go from a high school production of the musical Mame right out to Hollywood to become a giant kid star because of two key words: my parents. I didn't overdose on blow or smack or a combination of both before I was old enough to vote because my stupid mom wouldn't let me.

    I was allowed to go hang out with older kids and a nun every night after school for several months and sing and dance and ogle. That's right-I said ogle.

    Let me explain:

        1. When I walked into the hallway outside the room where the audition was-even though I was only eleven-I remember a bevy of beautiful girls-high school girls (translation: they had tits)-who were NOT dressed in their school uniforms but in tight jeans and tops. Man.

        2. When I was auditioning-once inside the room-I looked up to realize all eyes were on me. And when I say all eyes-I should say all female eyes-since the room was jampacked full of the girls from the hallway. All staring at moi. And moi liked it. Girls girls girls. Lips hair hips asses ankles nipples-you name it.

    

    Long story short I got the part of Patrick Dennis-Auntie Mame's nephew-and got my first laugh ever onstage on opening night when I made my entrance and said my line (which wasn't supposed to be funny) and the audience went crazy. When I came offstage, the nun grabbed me and said "No wonder! Zip up your fly!" And something clicked in my head. Every night after that-right before I made my entrance-I made sure to unzip my fly. I got one big laugh when I walked out and another big laugh when I pretended to realize and nervously zipped it up.

    What I remember about rehearsals for that play was watching all the high school boys being COMMANDED by the nun to grab the girls by the ass and hold them up in the air-grab the girls around the waist and hold them tight-grab the girls grab the girls. These guys were not only allowed to touch these girls all over their bodies-it was completely and totally allowed. PLUS backstage when there were furious costume changes going on, every once in awhile you'd get to see a girl slip right out of one dress and then climb into another-which meant UNDERWEAR! VAGINA OUTLINES IN PANTIES! GLIMPSES OF TITS! NIPPLE SLIPS! I made many mental notes about all of these things and shared them with all my guy friends-by the time we hit high school every guy I knew was volunteering to be in the fall musical the spring musical and every single fashion and/or dance show in between. It was a perfectly legal chance for an ass grab or a tit rub or a combination of both. Not to mention the occasional free-floating chick undressing and redressing right there in front of you.

    When I was doing Mame all kindsa high school girls paid attention to me-they hugged me, kissed me, tweaked my cheek, laughed at my jokes-I was surrounded by girls with big tits, small tits, round asses, tight asses-blue eyes, brown eyes-you name it. I even ended up going to the senior prom that year because one of the girls had a boyfriend who was over in Vietnam and she took me instead of another guy. I went to a couple of parties after the prom and got an eyeful of guys french kissing and feeling girls up-funny how I can still remember that almost minute by minute, tongue after tongue and stroke by stroke but I can't make my way through a Hail Mary anymore.

    But the reason I bring this up now is to illustrate the fact that kids should be FORCED to stay kids as long as they can.

    I saw booze and tits and cigarettes and tongues and other things I wanted to sip, savor, lick, grab and smoke that night and if my mom had let me drop out of school I would've been chasing them 24/7. As it came to be I was smoking and drinking beer within a couple of years anyways but I was also doing my homework and washing dishes in a diner after school and on weekends and hoping desperately to somehow get into college.

    My mom always kept our feet nailed hard and fast to the ground. She told us no when we wanted to hear yes and my dad was right there to back her up.

    You should not be making money off of your kids, your kids should not be leaving school to act or dance or traipse up and down the runway stages of beauty pageants.

    They should be coloring and running and crying and sleeping and feeling safe and warm and fuzzy and all the other things we all know to be what's right for them.

    INCLUDING learning how to lose.

    AND how to deal with bullies.

    You will hear mom after mom and father after father say but she/he WANTS to be in the movies/in a band/on a stage. Hey-join the fucking club. It's all kid code for I don't wanna go to school. I wanna dance and sing and hang around with famous people-who the fuck doesn't? If I could have been singing with The Dave Clark Five on The Ed Sullivan Show instead of getting slapped by frustrated lesbians dressed up in religious gear when I was ten I would've done it in a heartbeat. Shit-I'd do it with Cyndi Lauper on VH1 right now.

    You choose to be a mom it means you choose to be at home. You choose to be a dad and mom is staying at home? You choose to work and make the money to pay for what mom needs to feed, clothe and shelter the kids. You choose either job? You better pay attention to what the kids do say dream wish puke piss fart think et al.

    You don't want the kids watching certain things on TV-watch your kids while they watch TV. I know-SpongeBob's good but most of the other shows really suck and you wanna watch The Big Game/Your Show/ anything that's not a kid show. Tough shit. Don't call the Parents Half-Baked Godforsaken TV Council group so they can legislate shows like Rescue Me and The Sopranos out of existence-change the fucking channel. WE are not in charge of raising your kids THE NANNY is not in charge of raising your kids THE PRESIDENT WHO GOT A BLOW JOB is not in charge of raising your kids BARRY BONDS is not in charge of raising your kids JANET JACKSON'S LEFT NIPPLE is not in charge of raising your kids-YOU ARE. You wonder why kids have such low self-esteem? Because they have spent enough time around their parents to realize that mommy hates herself and daddy hates her and they both hate each other and it's everyone else's goddam fault.

    Ask yourself an honest question: why the fuck did you have the kids in the first place?

    Famed Rolling Stone magazine and celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz had her first child at age fifty-one after sticking a turkey baster full of donated semen between her legs because she and her lesbian lover decided they finally wanted kids. Leibovitz claimed the reason it took her so long to consider being a mom was because she "forgot to have children."

    Wow.

    She forgot to have children.

    She didn't forget to travel the world for five decades photographing the rich and the famous.

    She didn't forget to put out giant, gorgeous coffee table-sized books full to overflowing with her incredible celebrity portraits.

    She didn't forget to become the photo editor for Vanity Fair-the magazine for which she shot the controversial cover featuring Demi Moore naked and pregnant in 1991.

    She set-dressed, supervised the body makeup for and ultimately captured the beauty of the fully expressed female body in its ultimate state of motherhood and still-somehow-she didn't think it might be nice to have a kid of her own.

    Not for another goddam decade.

    Sorry, Annie.

    I ain't buyin' it.

    I think you are a genius with a camera in hand-and I'm sure that as I write this I am forfeiting what little chance I ever had of getting my picture taken by you-but you didn't forget to have a family. You just decided-like a lot of women-that you wanted to do what you wanted to do. A lot. For a really long time.

    Then-once you did all the fun stuff-you wanted a kid.

    And once you wanted that kid-Mother Nature and the natural course of sexual events and the kid's own best interests should be tossed aside in favor of your "Things To Do At 51" birthday party Post-it note.

    Having a kid at forty is considered a dangerous proposition by every available medical expert. After forty it becomes a roll of the baby dice. But fifty? That not only desperately increases the health risk to mother AND child, but also the chances they will both be wearing diapers at exactly the same time.

    The reasons nature wants a woman to have her children between the ages of twenty and thirty-five are absolute and incredibly logical: