Visiting Phyllis Diller (Who Brought The Gook?)

Sometimes you gotta just sit back and let the big personalities rule. Which is a funny thing for me to say coz usually I am the bigmouth wisecracking fag hag slash hostess slash idiot savant with no filter for the profane and bizarre running comentary on present action. But This time I brought comedy icons Lisa Ann, Scott Thompson, as well as Pier Carlo, Lance, and Julian, a veritable menagerie of Diller fans slash art world heavy hitters and witty party guests. The last time I went a- Diller art collecting it was a lo key affair, with us gingerly walking through the halls of her incredible Brentwood home looking at her gallery of oils, pastels, watercolor acrylics and mixed media...the extensive collection of work by a prolific artist who clearly LOVES to paint. And super duper cool assistant slash cali-girl with the party vibe Karla showed us the wig room full of wigs and boas, the famous red kitchen and the parlour with the giant portrait of Bobe Hope who was Dillers BFF and the kind of colleague and pal and listener we all dream of having. (You all know who you are.)

I personally am a fan of her portraits and bold brushstrokes. Lance loves the pictures of shoes and faces painted on sheet music. Julian liked the abstracts. My mom bought two of the "prettier" pieces with florals and feminine pastels. After my first visit there, I read her autobiography in one sitting and felt my life like a ball of energ in my hand realizing that the story we will tell the career we will have, the way we serve ourselves and our art cannot be predicted but it can be planned. The Phyllis didnt even set foot on a stage until she was 37. And like me she struggled with finding the right opener. And it struck me that there must have been one of those AHA moments that Oprah puts in the mag, where she just said FUCK IT I am talented I'm just gonna keep on doing this. And then her concert piano career. And now her visual art life. All coming and going from the same place in the heart. And me playwright comic writer actor songwriter singer rapper I suddenly make sense to myself. Having said all that, I gotta tell you, it was Scott and Lisa who kept her interested. Whenever I had gone over it was done in two seconds of autographing and pleasantries where I used my best SAT vocabulary to show her "I get it" "I got art in me too". But my homies had STORIES. About cock fights in the Phillipines, and performing pregnant at the Comic Strip and having lots of wild kids and doing shows with the BIG NAMES. And jokes. They all had jokes. Diller even said to Scott at one point jeez he's funnier than me! Which I will remind him of everytime he may doubt his genius.

Me on the otherhand, I sat back, not unlike the time I met Milton Berle at the Friars club and basically heard him tell me that chicks arent funny and character comedy isnt funny and to keep my day job. He did make a great joke about this stripper i saw in harlem who shot ice cubes out of her ass as part of her act. POOPSICLES he said without even pausing for a thought beat. I also stole my "wrong number" joke from him as payback for him screaming "NOT FUNNY" at every name I threw out (Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Tracey Ullman) and every joke I attempted to tell while sinking deeper and deeper into my seat at the Friars while his assistant who was dressed like some valet from a black and white Jimmy Stewart movie in a high waisted grey suit and spats over his black shoes kept saying in that weird 40s voice "Heya Miltie! Remember that Harold Arlen Song-- that was a ripper huh! Howzabout we get you a copy for the phonograph..."etc. I kept eyeballing him and thinking DUDE, What the hell? You're wearing your pants over your man boobs and Sammy Davis Junior wants his shoes back. Who the hell are you? DO you talk like this when you are hanging out with your friends from college? Do you have friends? It was so weird and sycophantic and like the guy was maybe 30. Who fucks that guy? Gypsy Rose Lee fan club members? Anyhow, back to La Diller. She demonstrated her cock fighting chair by straddling it and opening up the cash and tobacco compartment.
Scott thought she was hitting on him. He said "I think she likes me like a mannnnnn. Like you know the way a woman likes a mannnn" And looked very butch and proud as he said it before giggling. Then she made us all drink Fa-Bu-Lous champagne and best of all me and Lisa were invited in to see her personal wardrobe-- not the wig room, but her actual room full of clothes, gowns, furs, shoes, and a flock of pink hat boxes fluttering above our head like gorgeous exotic birds. Stuff to know about visiting Phyllis Diller: Dont hug or touch her. She dont like the fake air kisses or weird celeb-specific hugging from strangers. Don't bring her a bunch of crap presents. She has an room full of upholstery she bought from a store going out of business and a garage full of art frames which are too enormous for her pictures. Lisa suggested putting them in the attic to which Diller goes : Where would I put the spaghetti? She's a pack rat she says because she had NOTHING when she was a kid. No clothes. No toys. "I played with boxes" she said. "Stuck the cat in there and said you live there."
I sat back and let it all happen, Glad to be amongst my cool friends who can talk and make Phyllis Diller laugh. And even though I felt like that other time with Milton Berle, where the big star American pioneer of comedy was looking at me going "who broght the gook?" or "Do you work for me? Why arent you cleaning something?" "let the funny people talk"...Somehow, even in my self imposed shame spiral of being less talentedcoolwittyworldlyfunnysmartassed than the pros, I was glad to be alive, glad to be mixing french champagne with my wellbutrin, glad that my pals are hilarious, glad that I had enough money to own two Phyllis Diller portraits, glad that Karla is so cool, glad that Scott Thompson was at a cock fight and could talk about how he thinks eating a dog is no different than eating a burger, glad that Lisa knows all the gals from the Comic Strip days and glad that I was there to watch everyone laugh and buy art and crack jokes about Jesus. "he was an annoying Kid," said Diller" I know him and he was always whining..."Note taken.