Hey Mom Page 12

  What do you think?

  I bet the phones wouldn’t stop ringing.

  I’m not saying that tens of millions of healthy-size women are watching Baskets. But the same thing that our viewers respond to would be true for people who’ve never even heard of the show. (Some people come up to me and say, “I love you in Buckets.” I never correct them.)

  After the pilot, when we got picked up for Season 1, I went through the wardrobe and helped the costume people select clothes. “My mom would wear this . . . My sisters would love that . . .” I tried them all on. If it was something you or the girls would wear, I picked it out. Really colorful clothes, lots of prints and floral. Essentially, what a person who doesn’t have a lot of money thinks is really fancy. Is that not a nice thing to say? I don’t mean it that way. I see Christine as a real American, a big American woman, and that’s how she dresses. I remember how soft your clothes were. I think your fashion sense was ahead of its time. You wore pantsuits. And I liked your appreciation when you had on the right thing. “I look so good in it,” you sometimes said. Because you did.

  I slowly disappear when I go into the makeup and hair trailer. (I’m not used to slowly disappearing, ever.) When the makeup and wig go on, I become Christine. And once I’m transformed, I see clothes as Christine would see them. The people who dress me, each of them has an incredible eye, whether it’s for the caftans or the Easter bonnet or the jewelry. And I become more sure (and demanding? yes, demanding!) of my fashion wants and needs. Give me some pockets! Wait, this is see-through! You’ll see right through that! I appreciate a great find, just like you did. Don’t you love a good bathrobe? Ooh, how about these pajamas? They’re so Christine. I understand about women lending jewelry to each other. Comparing outfits with other women on the show.

  Whoa. “Other women.” I have to remember I’m not a woman. I mean “comparing outfits with women.” Full stop.

  Sometimes I can get almost cranky about it. Once, I was given some great pajamas, big and comfy, and then somehow they got altered and suddenly they were too small, and there was no waistband, and the crotch was not right (do women talk like that?), it shouldn’t go straight like that . . . but I told myself I wasn’t going to complain. I didn’t want to be a diva.

  Christine Baskets as diva. Well, she has a little bit of that in her. And I think I have a little bit of that in me.

  I see my transformation into Christine and think of what the great Divine did, or what Jeffrey Tambor has done in Transparent. Mom, I’m just trying to make myself completely disappear, and make you appear. More and more, when I’m turning into Christine, I look in the mirror and I can’t take my eyes off of you, like the song says. And when I’ve seen clips of me, I see that I’ve completely disappeared in the part and—can I say this?—I’m sort of mesmerized.

  I don’t kid myself that I, Louie, am such a dreamboat, even though Ken on the show is clearly and believably attracted to Christine. I mean, in my wig, I look a bit like I’m with the Mormons. And I certainly perspire a lot in my makeup.

  But sometimes you can’t take your eyes off of her.

  I wanted the editors to splice together clips of Christine, in slo-mo and wearing different outfits and busy at different activities, set to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Frankie Valli. I used to open for Frankie in Vegas, such a great, sweet guy, and can he still sing. I thought I could convince him to do it for me. You know the clip would go viral. (A different application of “viral,” Mom, but similar idea.)

  Don’t you think I should do a line of Christine’s clothes? I truly think she’s as legitimate a fashion icon as anyone out there.

  In the meantime, Mom, they have a great leopard jacket for me this season.

  Just call the number at the bottom of the screen. Operators are standing by . . .

  Dressing smartly,

  Louie

  Older

  Hey Mom,

  I need a new knee.

  I tweaked it on set today—not too bad but they gave me some ice for it. It happened in a scene with Zach, where we’re sitting across from each other at the dining room table, and after it was over, I just stood up wrong. I joked with the crew that Zach kicked me, and you all saw it, right? Fact is, lately when I walk, the knee bothers me a little bit. There are twenty-one steps leading up to the front door of my house in Vegas. And a couple years ago, after working on a show, I slipped in the restaurant kitchen, on the greasy floor. I sued. They settled. But I need a new knee. The doctor told me this one’s pretty much bone on bone, no cartilage, not even butter, maybe the other one, too. It’s not surprising. These knees were made for a smaller model. They did not plan for this. I need ones made of titanium. Though first I need to lose at least fifty pounds so the rehab won’t be so difficult. I need to avoid Craft Services. I’ve been pretty good about that, actually.

  I could say all the bad things about getting old . . . er. First, we just try to hide it, as if it’s not really happening to us, and to everyone, every second of every day. When I was fifty-eight years old, I liked to say that I just turned fifty, eight years ago. Well, now I’m sixty-three years old, Mom, so I just turned fifty, eight years ago, five years ago! I remember when you turned fifty, Mom, and Tommy and I just stared at you. What? Dad was fifty-one when I was born.

  When you hit fifty, time moves faster. It does. And every body part starts clicking.

  I try to focus on the good parts of aging. When you pass fifty, you say things like, “This is the best bowl of soup I’ve ever had in my life! Can I have a gallon of soup to take home?”

  Why am I talking about what it’s like to hit fifty when I’m in my sixties? Denial.

  Then again, who wants to live forever? If you lived to one thousand, you wouldn’t be able to retire until you were seven hundred.

  When you’re young, you do drugs that could kill you. When you get old, you just want drugs that can keep you alive.

  Full circle, baby.

  Mom, I don’t know which is the most important thing about age: what age you are or how old or young you feel in relation to those around you. Do we feel old because we feel old? Or because everyone around us suddenly looks so young that, God, do you feel old. I feel so lucky to be working at age sixty-three, on a great TV show. I’m surrounded by twentysomethings and thirtysomethings and they still talk to me.

  Sometimes I feel as if we’re just way too focused on younger people (I doubt I ever would have argued that when I was one of them). I mean, there are millions and millions of people out there who are my age, who have money, and who want to buy things—but most of the movies and TV shows are not made for them.

  It’s trite to say but, at any age, we only want one thing, ever, just one: human connection. (And a decent cup of coffee.) Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t get what’s really behind whatever else they’re seeking—money, power, sex, bigger boobs, a nice Gustav Stickley 1905 lunch table, whatever. I think of an old lady who meant a lot to me when I was a young man. It was the first apartment building I lived in in Los Angeles, in North Hollywood, after moving out there from Minneapolis. I knew I had to be in L.A. if I wanted a real shot at making it in comedy and show business. And I befriended a very old woman named Sylvia who lived in the apartment next door to mine. I had just started to get a little bit of success, and I had had my first appearance on The Tonight Show. Sylvia had early-stage Alzheimer’s, and very often when I would leave my apartment to go to the elevator, or get off the elevator to return to my apartment, Sylvia would hear me and open her door.

  “Who are you?” she would ask.

  “I’m Louie, your neighbor.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “I was out working.”

  “Working where?”

  “I’m in show business.”

  “My husband was in show business. The motion picture business.”

  “Really? I bet he was terrific.”

  “He was. Would you like to come in and I can show you scrapb
ooks? I have some hard candy.”

  It was the old ribbon candy, in the crinkly plastic that’s twisted at both ends, and even though they were wrapped, they still stuck to the crystal glass bowl. They’d probably been there since the late 1700s. I should have resisted but, being a food addict, I would always pry a piece or two free and think, Jeez, for two hundred years old, these candies aren’t bad. Sylvia would sit beside me on the couch, then move a little forward, and point to the door of the bathroom. Her live-in nurse often spent long stretches in there. Sylvia would whisper to me, “She’s using all the hot water.” Sylvia would never get around to showing me the scrapbook.

  Each encounter of ours was a repeat of this, often verbatim, and I loved it. I mean, of course I felt for her—but what was I feeling? Sorrow? She seemed happy, at peace—something that I, and so, so many of us, have rarely known. Sylvia had yet to develop that constant look of fear worn by people who suffer from later-stage dementia or Alzheimer’s, that scared-rabbit look—Who am I? Who are you? Where am I? What are you doing here?—and I never blew her off. I hugged her at the end of each visit. Did she remember those hugs, those visits? Did they mean something to her? She must have. They must have. When Sylvia died and her family came to dismantle the apartment, they knocked on my door to tell me how much my visits had meant to her, and by extension to them.

  Hey Mom, I gotta go: one of the many twenty-year-olds I now work for is anxious to have me go over my lines.

  Love,

  Louie

  Full Moon

  Hey Mom,

  It’s a full moon tonight. And I think my acting today was the best it’s been maybe . . . ever? Everyone on set felt it. Everyone was doing great work today, not just me—the other actors, the whole crew. It just felt aligned.

  And I’m wondering: Could it be the full moon?

  I’m not the first person to think that’s true, and I believe in that kind of stuff—amazing energy permeating, for some reason, and maybe the reason is right in front of us, or maybe it’s the white circle a quarter million miles above us.

  I believe in karma. Good and bad. Bad is when Dad comes to see me perform comedy for the first time ever, at Mickey Finn’s in Minneapolis, and the next morning has a stroke.

  This morning, still dark, I woke up in a really positive state. Normally, I would have just lain in bed, summoning the energy. But I felt great, and I said my prayers, and I got up and shaved and everything was in tune.

  Then, during the day of shooting, all these things that often happen—misplacing my bifocals and my phone charger and my headphones—they just weren’t happening. Everything seemed clear, unified. Food tasted even better than usual. I didn’t overeat. And we were all so productive.

  And it turned out there was a full beautiful white disk beaming down on us.

  Really, Louie? The moon? It’s the moon that’s causing all of this?

  Hey Mom, have you ever heard the expression “waxing gibbous”? I just heard it. It means more than a half-moon but less than a full moon, and it’s “waxing,” or moving, toward a full moon. Why am I bringing it up now?

  Just because I was talking about the moon. And I think it’s a funny expression.

  A little bit loony and a little bit lune-y,

  Louie

  Life Is a Performance, Old Chum

  Hey Mom,

  1122 Hazelwood was your theater, your children were your audience, and you were a great actress. The parts you played varied greatly, from young wife and mother to abused wife to fearless hen protecting her brood to confidante and great listener and advice giver and hope infuser to the many who needed that so they could go on. You played young, you played middle-aged, you played classy, proud, older mother of a headstrong young comedian who thought he knew it all. But you never wavered in your love for that boy and his many, many siblings, and somehow you had an equal amount left over for neighbors, friends, even complete strangers.

  You could make anything or anyone seem interesting, even beautiful. I cherish the nuances I learned from you. You never left any of those who witnessed your life performances empty-handed or empty-hearted. And you always left your audience with a very full stomach!

  Hold her up to the light and you see me and all her children, their children, and their children . . . in this way, she lives forever.

  Love,

  Louie

  Seduce, Exploit, Abandon

  Hey Mom,

  I flew home from North Carolina, where I had performed several shows, which makes over fifty dates for the year, down from previous years but that’s because I now have months where I’m filming Baskets plus a new game show. I love working and honestly it’s not like work at all. I feel wonderfully blessed and so lucky to be able to make people laugh. It’s the best feeling. You know that you could make people laugh, right? So I had one parent who could make me laugh and the other who could make me cry. (Dad could be funny, too.)

  Anyway, when I landed at McCarran Airport and got off the plane, I did what I usually do—stop first in the men’s bathroom between Gate 36 and Gate 32 because we’re still so far from baggage claim. I have my favorite stall where I can regroup and get it together before I trudge through the airport, one of the busiest in the world.

  But this time, when I got in the stall and closed the door, I saw this sign:

  GET HELP

  If you are a victim of human trafficking, call this number

  1-888-373-7888

  www.TraffickingResourceCenter.org

  Is there anything more inhumane than human trafficking? What kind of world is this? I once watched a special on it and lots of times these victims don’t even know they’re in it until it’s too late. Sometimes families sell their children to traffickers because they’re so poor they need money. This is the end of the world for many of these victims. Or guys hang out in places like bus stations and malls, where they see young girls and boys, they don’t care how young, and take them and sell them, and don’t give a thought to what they’re a part of. The sadness and terror and brutality of it. It’s beyond belief, yet it’s happening to a sickening degree.

  “Seduce, exploit, abandon.” That’s the phrase my friend James Gitar uses to describe what our larger society does. It seduces us into doing things and buying things and consuming things and drinking things we don’t really need or that are more bad for us than good. Then it exploits us by charging us more than we need to pay or can pay for these products and services (let’s be honest, we know we’re spending a lot more on so many consumer goods and other things than is truly necessary, because of status seeking, peer pressure, fear, etc.). Finally, when we’re broke, and we lack the resources, looks, talent, youth, etc., society abandons us and moves on to a new round of suckers . . . to be seduced and exploited.

  Capitalism at its finest! The Hollywood wheel!

  The phrase “seduce, exploit, abandon” applies perfectly to human trafficking, too.

  One of the saddest things about human trafficking is how many people must be involved to make it work. It can’t be just one person. Usually it takes literally dozens of human beings to keep up the seduction and exploitation and abandonment of innocent young people, to set up these elaborate situations where this can happen.

  What can we do to help, to make a difference, Mom? What should I do? Will it ever stop?

  We should start by being honest with ourselves that it exists. I’m glad they put that sign on the bathroom stall door. I hope it’s on doors in airports and bus stations and malls all over the place, and hopefully some people will be saved because of this awareness. In fact, Mom, I think the sign should be replaced with a button that you can push. You don’t even have to make a call, which may be risky. Put these buttons all over the place. You never know who will see it or need it.

  I pray for all the people who are involved in trafficking because to do it, you have to be really broken.

  For those to whom it’s being done, I feel so sorry and sad. We should put way m
ore money into this effort because when we succeed, we are purely and simply saving lives, one by one.

  To the people who are doing it: STOP.

  Shaking my head in disbelief and sadness,

  Louie

  Human Trafficking Services for Survivors (U.S. Department of Justice):

  ojjdp.gov/programs/human-trafficking-services.html

  Blue Campaign: One Voice. One Mission. End Human Trafficking (U.S. Department of Homeland Security):

  dhs.gov/blue-campaign/resources-available-victims

  National Human Trafficking Hotline:

  polarisproject.org/get-assistance/national-human-trafficking-hotline

  — 2017 —

  Jesus Calling

  Hey Mom,

  I need some faith to get through.

  A psychic in Minnesota once told me I was Fatty Arbuckle reincarnated. Apparently Fatty came back through me so that I could right the wrong done to him.

  Now, I don’t know if that was just a psychic taking advantage of a physically big, fat guy just starting out in show business, a clever thing to say to build up that susceptible young guy’s ego—okay, yeah, probably; after all, I gave her money for the reading—but somehow the general notion resonated with me. I’ve always been open to ideas, new ideas. Isn’t it good to be open to new beliefs? Is it good to be open to the idea of reincarnation, that life is everlasting? It’s a much better thought than that everything just goes black and we’re done for. I gotta believe that. I’ve seen things and felt things and I want to believe that there are people from my life that have passed on from this world into the next. I want to believe in God. I want Him to show up and make everything better. I want so much to have faith but when such bad things happen out there it’s really hard to keep the faith going. When people say that life started only two thousand years ago, we have rich scientific evidence to refute that. What I mostly get out of all this is that it’s good to have faith. You’re fortunate if you have it. Because faith helps people make it through the day. And if faith is what it takes to help people get through the day, as long as they’re not harming anyone, or forcing it on anyone else, it’s really no one’s business. Your belief is your belief, whether you believe as a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Christian, or anything else. Everyone should believe what they want. I just don’t think we should encroach our beliefs onto others. Or judge others because their beliefs aren’t ours.