Brushes with Fame
My friendships with Beck and Andy Dick before they made it
Background
Umberto Eco accurately described America as “hyper-historical” in the sense that we compensate for our relatively short history with grossly exaggerated fetishes, including our obsession with celebrities. Devoid of genuine royalty, we bestow divinity upon entertainment and media stars with the enthusiasm of a people desperate for a hint of transcendence.
Even the biggest cynic must admit to a sort of magic that surrounds random celebrity sightings. Unlike a live performance where we see Someone Famous a few feet or a hundred yards away on stage, space compresses and time stops for an instant when surprise-surprise, there sits Mark Ruffalo or Emma Stone at the NYC coffee shop table next to yours.
The sudden convergence of their shared timeline with our private ones can be breathtaking, but etiquette forbids an audible gasp, let alone the request for an autograph. We go on with our meal, pretending they’re just reg’lar folks just like us — as we sneak a glance, and heaven forbid try for a furtive, obliquely angled, smartphone edging selfie. We can’t wait to tell everyone.
The almost spiritual aspect of this frivolously monumental experience is how different Famous People look and often act in person, alongside the realization that the flesh and blood human you’re now sharing oxygen and sidelong glances with is known by a billion other humans. Their avatars might pervade the world, but in this fleeting instant, they are all yours.
Magnify this ultimately meaningless interaction a thousand times by imagining such a passing encounter morphing into months of close friendship — then add a few more zeroes by winding back the clock prior to them Making It, and voila, you have the two stories shared here: Beck many years before “I”m a Loser, Baby,” and Andy Dick before Newsradio.
“I knew them when…” is an old and tacky hero archetype, but still interesting because it ties them to you, and by extension, those bothering to listen to you with the celebrities our whole society can’t help but keep talking about. As Joyce observed, we’re born “earwickers,” our instinct to gossip and talk shit about our fellows the vital social glue keeping our tribes together.
At the core is the satisfaction we receive by exposing the vulnerabilities of the invincible: Celebrities are human, all-too human after all, and in that Nietzschean sense we can feel better about our own banal, everyday lives. As you’ll see below I learned many other lessons, too, even if in retrospect all anyone has suggested is I should have saved mementos for sale on ebay.
Here’s goes…
“Hi. I’m Beck, and I’m Going to Be Famous!”
How faking it until making it can actually work
North Hollywood, California: Spring of 1986
A rebel with countless futile causes, I put myself through senior year of college by ghost writing research papers and working in a pizzeria on Reseda Boulevard in the Valley. The joint got robbed once a month, employees locked in the storage room at gunpoint; we snorted lines of coke off the countertops while making calzones; the assistant manager was a bull dyke named Ava.
“Meet my daughter, Dana,” she’d announce, introducing a brunette woman roughly her same age who was as feminine and voluptuous as Ava was boyish and slim. “Daughter?” I’d ask, native Midwesterner that I was and still rather naive. “They’re lesbians, dickhead,” said my coke snorting, calzone rolling colleague Dwayne, a Hell’s Angel when he wasn’t restocking the salad bar.
Despite being clueless and likely because of it, Ava, Dana, and I became fast friends. We started with idle chit chat that rapidly accelerated to exhilarating Saturday nights in West Hollywood. The gals did their best to thoroughly corrupt me, and they thoroughly succeeded. My reward was an invitation to become their roommate in a condo sublet off the 101 Freeway. I accepted.
Ava’s motivation was companionship and help with the rent. Dana’s agenda proved more sinistral, but as the saying goes, you can’t rape the willing. Obsessed with becoming a mother, having endured several failed in vitro attempts, she sought a qualified sperm donor. “Aside from your bad vision and flat feet, you seem like a good specimen,” she joked early on, not joking at all.
A week after I turned their second bedroom into a rock ‘n roll man cave, Dana “made herself available” — bathroom doors left ajar, bra-less jammie scamperings in the kitchen, dildos on the living room table as telltale signs. Not taking the not-so subtle hints, I finally figured it out when she blew me in her car, told me I was the only dude since high school she wanted to fuck.
I felt bad for her wife, I really did. Dana further assuaged my guilt when she mentioned Ava had suggested a 3-way. “I talked her out of it,” Dana added. “You’re our roommate, that would complicate things.” “You mean,” I looked at her quizzically, “like you banging me every night after Ava falls asleep doesn’t?” An adroit bedroom hopper, Dana was on a mission, made possible.
The “broken condom” made it actual. In retrospect, I was too stupid even for a college student at Cal State Northridge. “I’m pregnant,” she told me on a call as I almost fell out of the phone booth. Dana talked me into keeping the baby and keeping it secret from Ava, in case of miscarriage. “I’ve had issues,” she sighed, her caution warranted as a nerve racking month later she lost the kid.
Ostensibly the biggest relief of my life didn’t sit so well for hers. Her goal thwarted, biological clock still ticking, I instantly morphed from young, dumb, and full of come Tool to pointless and annoying Third Wheel. Around that time Dana was deciding whether to throw me out of their apartment or start having sex with me again for another whirl at baby making, I met Beck.
“I’m A Loser Baby, So Why Don’t You Thrill Me?”
The connection began one weekday afternoon when I was playing a Jimi Hendrix medley loud enugh to irritate the neighbors and a few guys walking by, who minutes later knocked on our front door. “You the one jammin’?” asked the tallest and slickest of the trio. “You good, especially for a white boy. You mind if we come in and listen to more of your licks? You play jazzzzz?”
Turned out they lived in another apartment within the complex, one I’d seen before and deemed the Squatters’ Den: bare mattresses strewn on the filthy floor, zero furniture, at least a dozen sketchy teens to twenty-somethings circulating in and out throughout the day and night. “We wanna start a band, man,” he continued. “You can play with us if you down wearing a nice suit.”
Their vision, far as I could comprehend it, was an eccentric combination of George Clinton, Billy Ocean, and Bon Jovi. “Can you shred some Richie Sambora?” My rendition of “Runaway” sealed the deal. “That bad. You cool. We live with another white boy who wants to be manager, but think he don’t know shit. We send him over, you talk truth, Ruth. Let’s start giggin’, bruh.”
We shook hands, they vanished. A week later I had just recorded the guitar part to an original song on a Tascam 16-track unit — a pre-digital clunker that used cassette tape — when I heard another knock on our door. “Hi,” said this sixteen-year-old lanky kid with wispy blond hair, wearing a tacky suit over a t-shirt and ripped jeans. “I’m Beck, and I’m going to be famous!” “Rad,“ I said.
Within thirty seconds we both decided band management wasn’t for him. “I’m a singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, lyricist, critic, artist, showman, poet, politician, environmentalist, and scientist,” said Beck without a hint of irony or self-reflection. “I wrote a song,” I said, gesturing to the tape machine and a piece of notebook paper with hand scrawled lyrics. “Wanna give it a try?”
I scatted the words to suggest timing and flavor, then gave Beck a pair of headphones and hit RECORD. My song was a ripoff of Led Zeppelin’s ripoff of Willie Dixon, with unintentionally syncopated funk guitar, fake bass, and overly complicated drum machine tracks sloppily laid on top. Beck scanned the lyrics, then did what would become his signature hippy rapper shtick.
After two measures I thought he sucked. Beck couldn’t have cared less, tediously carrying on until the end with flailing arms, out of key falsetto, random Dr. Seuss lyrics, and other weird shit that made me think this guy was batshit crazy. “Pretty cool,” I lied, quickly taking my headphones back so he couldn’t walk out with them. “Yeah, catchy groove,” Beck lied, shrugging.
We agreed to play together, of course never did. The fateful cassette with the Beckified version of my rock ‘n roll song got thoughtlessly tossed into a desk drawer. The master tape was soon lost — or recorded over by another singer I liked much better, but one who subsequently wouldn’t sell 50 million albums worldwide, defeat Beyonce for a Grammy win, or befriend David Bowie.
Free Tacos, Unknown Geniuses, and Saying Goodbye
The Parliament-Billy Ocean-Bon Jovi hybrid band members I never saw again, but Beck stuck around. Even though we hated each other’s music, we somehow enjoyed hanging out. I was six years older than him, which made our friendship strange but not too creepy, especially for LA. I never visited him at the Squatter’s Den, or even sought him out; he just randomly showed up.
On one such occasion, Beck skulked into our apartment without bothering to knock. “Who the hell are you?” asked Dana, seated at the kitchen table, still wrecked by the loss of her baby, still annoyed that she didn’t know what to do with me. “Hi. I’m Beck,” said Beck, standing there flailing his arms around again. “I’m going to be famous!” Dana smirked at me, at him, sighed deeply.
“Should have known,” she said. “Our very own freak magnet drags in another weirdo.” “What’s up, Beck?” I asked, trying to tweak Dana’s shitty mood. “I just got back from the MTV Music Awards,” said Beck, “where I sat a few seats from Michael Jackson!” “You know,” added Dana, squinting a thinly painted eyebrow. “Young clueless punks like you wind up getting fucked in the ass.”
Her slam was caustic but in character, so I wasn’t fazed. Neither was Beck, who took the hit in stride like a homeless Tai Chi master by absorbing then hurling it back with indifference. Millions of people say they’re going to make it, many even try to fake it, but few go all the way. Believing in yourself despite the odds won’t ensure success, but victory is impossible unless you do.
Far more important than ability is grit. I thought Beck had no talent whatsoever, yet I instantly recognized that this kid right out of the gate saw himself for what he would eventually and perhaps inevitably become: world famous. Beck’s greatest asset and arguably the #1 prerequisite for fame he had in droves: relentless determination, and seemingly endless resilience.
Another strength was buying his own bullshit. “What’s your standard for greatness?” I asked him while we waited for tacos in a dive off Venice Beach. “Number of records sold,” Beck answered, without hesitation. “Get outta here,” I scowled. “How many losers make it? How many unknown geniuses never do? Creating great music and selling yourself are two different skills.”
Several examples of Top 10 garbage and under-rated suicides later, Beck still wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t buying the tacos, either, again my treat and another hint as to why he chose to hang out with me. Two blocks down the beach I realized I’d forgotten my wallet at the restaurant — rushing back I miraculously found it, but the cash was gone. Symbol of a missed opportunity.
“I’ll pay you back,” Beck would say. Not that he would have, but I never gave him the chance since by the end of that summer the gals suddenly kicked me out. Seems Dana finally ‘fessed up to the pregnancy, and along with it our affair. “Pack your stuff up and leave immediately,” she advised as I almost fell out of the same phone booth. “Ava knows everything, and wants to kill you.”
Chicago, Illinois: Fall of 1997
Affairs usually end badly, and ours was no exception. I fled before Ava’s wrath could manifest in my painful death — good for me, not so much for Dana, who had some explaining to do. But like most long-term couples they had already put each other through several episodes of Hell, and all was eventually forgiven. Dana and I even tried “being friends” — deservedly doomed to fail.
Ava and I were close before I clandestinely impregnated her wife, shady enough without having all sorts of fun along the way. Closure offers relief that’s well deserved if you’re the one slighted, but rarely if you happen to be the transgressor — so I was surprised and taken aback when years later, riding a scooter down Melrose Avenue, I rolled right by Ava, who recognized me.
At first she frowned, made a sudden move as if for a semiautomatic weapon. An instant later, though, I saw a half-smile, then a subtle wink and head nod, which I translated as: “I justifiably wanted to murder your ass for fucking my partner. But she’s hot, in your shoes I would have done her, too, and yes, I asked her for that 3-way just so I could watch.” I saluted, and zoomed off.
Despite her positive spin, Ava might have gotten her revenge after all. Looking back and given what happened to Beck, I often wondered what if I had remained in that condo, what if the future multiplatinum artist and I had stayed friends? The Universe and Ava’s spirit seemed to answer my questions a decade later and across the country, as I sat with another lesbian friend:
Her wife at work, Mara had invited me over to their place to play cards and watch TV. “I like being married,” she told me after winning another round of Uno, then gazing at me forlornly. “But sometimes I really miss having some dick…” Oh, oh, not that again. “Let’s watch Letterman,” I interrupted, grabbing a remote control and frantically surfing to change Mara’s channel.
“Our next guest is a most interesting new talent,” announced David. “His current CD is called ‘Odelay’.. and he’s making his network television debut with us. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s — Beck!” Indeed, there he was. For the first time in my entire life, my jaw literally dropped. “What’s the matter?” asked Mara. “Pussy got your tongue?” I could distinctly hear Ava laughing.
“There’s a destination a little up the road,” sang Beck in front of 20 million people. “From the habitations and the towns we know…” OMFG, the same tacky suit, the same awkward seizure-like dance moves, the same hippy rapping, the same boyish looks, the same fake-it-’til-ya-make-it and now still-faking-it-after-making-it performing style. I had no idea. I was the loser, baby.
Truth be told, Beck and I were pals for a few months yet never hit it off musically. To this day, I think he’s still that sixteen-year-old kid with infinitesimal talent and infinite ambition. But what do I know? I didn’t even have the sense to save that 16-track cassette tape with him ruining my faux Led Zeppelin song. Life is full of opportunities, and most of them we miss.
And only a couple years after first meeting Beck…
An Up & Coming Dick
The story of my friendship with Andy Dick before he moved to LA
The Stand Up & The Heckler
Chicago, 1988: Andy Dick, never known for his patience, was very mad at me. “When you press the buzzer, it buzzes,” he scowled, demonstrating how his front door bell worked. “And when it buzzes, it buzzes loud, and we fucking hear it the first fucking time. So you don’t have to keep buzzing the buzzer” — frantically pressing the button to make his point — “because buzzing the buzzer a hundred fucking times wakes up the fucking baby. OK? OK?! OK?!?”
As if on cue, his three-month-old son Lucas started crying from his crib. “See what you did? This is your fault.” “You’re the one making a racket now, Andy,” I pointed out. “Yeah?” Andy snapped back. “My baby doesn’t know you’re an idiot, but I sure as hell do. I just did the world a favor by letting him know, too. Maybe next time try knocking on our goddamn door instead?” Staring at me through his big, bulging, beady blue eyes, he showed me how: Knock, knock.
Andy and I lived a few blocks from each other in Edgewater, a once-grand and then-sketchy lake front area. Introduced that spring by a woman we both lusted after, Andy and I and became fast friends, creating an instant Abbott & Costello, Lucy & Desie rapport. I often visited the cluttered apartment he shared with his Polish wife Ivone and their new born, after which we’d crash parties for free booze and food, talk about how Andy could become famous.
A favorite destination was The Roxy comedy club on Fullerton Avenue, about five too-broke-for-even-bus-fare miles away. Andy’s pal Dino sometimes gave us a ride in his vintage wheels, but usually we had to walk. Film critic Roger Ebert frequented the joint, and that same night we brushed past him and his sycophantic argyle sweater-vest clad minions seated at the bar on our way to the stage area. Open Mic was Andy’s weekly calling, few at the time listening.
“About a minute in, start heckling me,” riffed Andy, his natural peroxide-blond hair exploding in tufts above his enormous, baby-like bobblehead. “I’m going to plow through my set, just keep ramping up the noise.” “We need a code word,” I suggested, a fast learner. “Right!” said Andy, as if every idea were his. “Soon as I say ‘sluttier than Madonna’ rush the stage and pick a fight. Push me around a couple times like you really mean it, and then I’ll actually deck you.”
The set up came easily to me, because I thought Andy’s standup was horrible. Most of the sparse crowd thought so, too, and seemed to welcome my rude yet on point interruptions. “You suck, Dick!” I yelled, hands cupped around my mouth to amplify the derision. A few laughed for the first time, some clapped. According to plan, Andy rattled on, seemingly oblivious. After several more heckles, Andy finally said “…and that’s when I felt sluttier than Madonna…”
Activated, I leaped out of my chair and lunged toward the stage. Andy reflexively fell into a faux fighting stance, back arched forward, fists raised, feet spread. If going into a fetal position were feasible while standing, Andy somehow did it. I’m 6'2" to Andy’s 5'10", and he was at least fifty pounds lighter, spontaneously generating the desired Slavering Bulldog vs Helpless Chihuahua effect. “Come and get me, you fucking asshole,” Andy shouted.
With infinite exaggeration and zero effort, I “attacked” him. Andy absorbed the impact like a guy in a King Kong costume hit by a bottle rocket. I went at him again, Andy recoiling with his already characteristic mixture of shock and disdain. The nonplussed crowd took slight interest, sprouted a few of their own hecklers, these genuine. “Hit him!” one shouted. “Hit him again!” Not sure whom he was referring to, Andy took it upon himself to knock me out.
Although not in our official plan, his right fist slammed into my left cheek with surprising accuracy and force. Next thing I knew, Andy was dragging me offstage by my feet. “Get this trash outta here!” he demanded. We made it about halfway through the concentric rows of cocktail tables and folding chairs before the house manager rushed over, a perplexed woman wagging an inquisitive index finger. “Oh, my, God! What’s going on? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” said Andy, winking a blond caterpillar eyebrow. “So’s this bozo,” he added, dropping my feet and brushing himself off. Taking the hint to get up and out of character, I awkwardly stood and rubbed my swollen jaw. Within a few confused seconds the manager figured it out, and angrily chastised both of us. “Why didn’t you tell me about this stunt?” Classic Andy, his cringe ripped open every scene, forced his audience to pick up all the pieces. He ran.
The Heckler & The Goddess
Andy was all about Andy all the time, obvious to everyone, especially Andy. He didn’t care what other people actually thought about him, as long as they thought about him. Beat me, bore me, just don’t ignore me was his mantra, practiced every instant of every day on his way to the inevitable yet still elusive stardom he felt the world owed him, simply for Andy being Andy. The only glitch was his insecurity, the asphyxiating jet fuel for his relentless drive.
Andy once told me how as a toddler he got pissed at his parents, and rubbed shit all over the wall above his crib. That first performance wasn’t merely a seminal moment in his childhood development, but the dawn of his creativity, eventually becoming the signature of his comedic brand. Andy synonymized violation with attention, outrageous behavior propelled by his cynical blend of outrage, narcissism, and whimsy. Yes, his parents couldn’t help but laugh.
Kathy C., who introduced us, also laughed, but for different reasons. An alluring freak magnet, she attracted a menagerie of weirdos like Andy and I, who gleefully used any excuse to hang out with such a stunningly beautiful young woman. Imagine a Grecian Jamie Lee Curtis: Hellenic short cropped hair, long narrow face with chiseled nose and pronounced cheekbones, androgynous features and mannerisms, and a breathtaking hourglass figure.
Thirty-six, twenty-four, hips about thirty, sang Frank Zappa in Wonderful Wino. I saw a pretty lady, and I started talkin’ dirty… Usually the big mouth, at that moment stone cold sober, I was speechless at our first contact. “Hi,” she said at our lobby door, holding groceries in one arm while fumbling for keys with the other. Where were we? Who was I? She tilted her statuesque head and squinted at me through 50s-style cat glasses like a near-sighted old lady.
“Hi,” she repeated, sensing my shock and awe-induced shyness. A brunette Marlene Dietrich in James Dean drag, she wore a tight-fitting white cut-off t-shirt, and even tighter bleached and torn black jeans. “You… live… here?” I finally responded. “Fourth floor, in the back,” she revealed, which despite my Incel-like paralysis I naively interpreted as an invitation to visit. “Third floor, in the front,” I lewdly gawked, gesturing a clumsy offer to carry her groceries.
“I got this,” she said, finding her keys. “Thank you, though.” Did I see a sly, Mona Lisa-esque smile? Dorks tend to think a hot chick’s desire for them is inversely proportional to their awkwardness and fear, while douchebags couldn’t care less and get laid anyway, likely thanks to their arrogance and proclivity for treating women like shit. The quintessential Nice Jewish Boy, I once in a while got lucky despite my clueless ineptitude and good intentions.
I imagined myself a believer in what the French call amor fati, the love of fate. Another way of saying “shit happens,” the phrase is basically a fancy philosophical justification for being lazy in life, and even lazier in love. Since everything that can happen eventually does, and does so an infinite number of times, such Nietzschean eternal recurrence gets you off the hook for doing any hard work, or taking any personal responsibility for your actions.
Devoid of any realistic life goals or practical plans for accomplishing them, my dorky obsessions with literature and science were lame cover for not doing anything at all. I was twenty-four, a college dropout, estranged from my tiny, toxic Holocaust-surviving family, and completely on my own without even the remote inkling of a clue. Recklessly plunging into and plummeting out of random jobs and relationships kept me in comfortably familiar purgatory.
Since I didn’t ask for anything, I often got what I didn’t deserve, including finding love in all the wrong places with all the wrong people. This time the wheels were set in motion a week or so later when I was awakened to a bang, bang, bang on my studio apartment door. “Mike! Mike! Mike!” a voice that was unmistakeably Kathy’s shouted. “Maurice hustled me! I got played! He took all my money and bought shoes!” Bang, bang, bang. “Mike! Mike! Mike!”
The proverbial Damsel in Distress has induced erections for millennia, so I had to quickly sit down after letting her in. “Want some coffee?” I offered, not knowing what else to say. Electrified with manic energy that had nowhere to go but explode all over my one-room artist-in-decadence pad, Kathy paced frantically like a big game cat stuck inside a soiled zoo cage. “He stole all my cash, Mike,” she pleaded, as if I could do something about it. “Help me.”
The Goddess & The Hustler
Truly getting to know someone can take years, sometimes decades. Yet those first interactions often reveal the essence of the relationship for however long you’ll be together. In our case, Katherine barrelled into my universe enduring a wrong, and expecting me to make it right again. That theme dictated our dynamic throughout the short time we ended up sharing: Ms. C. the performance artist acting out, Mr. S. the enabler fanning her flames.
After calming her down with nervous smiles, five espressos, and the focused attention she always craved, I eventually got the gist of what had happened: A semi-homeless neighborhood personality had convinced her to participate in what was ostensibly construed as a ponzi scheme with a local car dealer. “You gimme tree hundert dolla,” West Side Maurice suggested to her. “I give it to da Jew, an’ den he give back six hundert dolla in a week! Ya see? Totally legit.”
The obvious absurdity of the proposal heightened its embrace, similar to how the most outrageous conspiracy theories gain the most traction. At first blush Kathy seemed the opposite type of person to fall for such a patently ridiculous scam, a charismatic, talented, and attractive woman with the world as her beckoning oyster. Yet deep down she was gravely wounded, her self-inflicted catastrophies an unconscious playing out of unresolved childhood traumas.
So Kathy scrambled together her waitressing tips, and actually gave this shady character her hard earned coins. One week passed, then two. Maurice floated into Edgewater then vanished back out again, spontaneously and sporadically resurfacing like a sinistral and unpredictable Urban Flying Dutchman. “This morning I finally tracked him down,” Kathy gasped. “When I asked him about my money, he showed me two identical pairs of brand new Nike Air Jordans.”
“Did you hear about Kathy getting ripped off?” Andy asked as we sat later that day in a cafe on Sheridan Road. I nodded, watching Andy impulsively arrange then rearrange the silverware he wasn’t using. Andy squinted then turned his head to one side, as if he were trying to shake water out of his ear. “You want to fuck her, don’t you?” Andy loved to ask questions he already knew the answers for, his way of being empathetic, provocative, and always annoying.
“Who doesn’t?” I deflected, Andy suspicious of my sexuality, and his own. “I know she wants me,” he elaborated, bored with his knives and forks fire drill, now folding an origami napkin into a paper dildo. “Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, multitasking. “I want to fuck her, she wants to fuck me, too, but we can’t make love because, well, I’m a married man.” I rolled my eyes, calling bullshit on a master bullshitter. “And when has that ever stopped you?”
Answer: Always — at least until he moved to LA. Fast forward to fame, and Andy will oscillate in and out of rehab, try to fuck anything remotely humanoid, and flaunt his flirtations with bisexuality. Back in ’88, though, far as I could ever tell Andy was a steadfast teetolaler, doting husband, and responsible father. “The condom broke!” he shouted at me when I asked him once, gesturing to his unexpected but now welcome first born. “Not my fault.”
Truth was that Kathy and Andy didn’t bang because Kathy found Andy more amusing than fuckable. Andy was also a colleague of sorts, an artistic frenemy trying to make it in the same hotly competitive Chicago comedy scene. Bottom line, at the time Andy D. had nothing to offer Kathy C. — and neither did I, until she was kicked out of her boyfriend’s place, forced to let go of one vine only to lunge for the next one before falling into the teeming jungle below.
Similar to most things that happened to her, Kathy quickened her trajectory into homelessness by triggering everyone around her. For our first “date,” she suggested we drink a bottle of wine on the rocks by the lake. True to form, Kathy forgot to mention — either to me or to her boyfriend — that this would be a double-date, only without another woman. “Jimmy,” she pointed. “This is Mike.” “Hi, Jimmy,” I tried to shake his hand. “I’m outta here!” he stormed off.
A few days later Maurice was in my place sporting his new Nike Air Jordans, laying on the same hustle. “Gimme tree hundert dolla’, Jew give you six!” When that didn’t work, he tried to sell me his extra pair of shoes, still in their box. When that didn’t work, he pointed to a mountain of Army & Navy surplus strewn across my floor. “Heard she movin’ in,” Maurice taunted. How did he know? “She a fine bitch,” he added. “But stay real, white boy. She rip you.”
The Hustler & The Lovers
Decades later, I don’t remember if Kathy and I hit it before or after she moved in. What I unequivocally do recall, though, is that our sex was almost as horrible as Andy’s stand up, and even less satisfying. On the one hand her Olympian beauty drove me insane with desire; but on the other, her emotional distance and unabashed opportunism drained the passion and eventually all the energy out of what could have been the world’s greatest lay.
Despite that, and maybe because of it, we meaningfully connected in other ways, many of them memorable. Devotees of coffee shops, we bullshitted for hours on end about art, music, philosophy, culture, and our dysfunctional families. As if to demonstrate, late one afternoon she took me to her parents’ apartment in Ukrainian Village where her equally gorgeous mother greeted us with baklava. She was thrilled Kathy finally seemed to be “settling down.”
Her emigre father, in contrast, gave zero fucks. Short, heavy-set, and on the brink of a shuddering myocardial, he sat all day in a bedroom adjacent to the kitchen. Wearing a Stanley Kowalski wife-beater, chain smoking filterless cigarettes, and watching soccer, he threw shit at the TV every time an opposing team scored. During penalties and half-time he yelled at us to STFU, bring more snacks, and empty his ashtray. “I hate that bastard,” Kathy sighed.
For reasons mysterious to my lovers and myself, I rocked such Meet-the-Parents moments. Commitment phobic, I thought my mission was just getting laid — yet I must have yearned for more significant relationships because my partners, regardless of background or gender, kept introducing me to their moms and dads. Kathy’s lovely mother was no exception, candidly confiding in me with whispers when her daughter went out onto the deck for a smoke.
“I’m worried about her,” she opened up. “Katherine is amazing,” I said, “she’ll figure it all out.” We made eye contact for an intense instant, and I felt her fear. “Please take care of my daughter…” Grrrrrreat, I thought, now I had to rescue her mother, too — but from what, I didn’t have the slightest clue. Less than three weeks since we met, two weeks living together, I had inherited a geeky performance artist and her Greek parents. Andy laughed his ass off.
“Does her pussy taste like tzatziki sauce?” he asked back at the Roxy, all apparently forgotten and forgiven, his bright blue eyes bouncing naturally dilated pupils the size of beach balls. Not one to kiss and tell, especially an Andy Dick, I said “we’re just roommates.” “Yeah, right.” Although a lie, I wished that were the truth because as I got more attached, Kathy detached. She was gone most of the time, and I suspected she was seeing other dudes.
Kathy used me for my apartment, and Andy used me for my fanboy support. “The only reason I hang out with you,” he ‘fessed up later that night, “is because you’re the only one I know who actually believes I’m going to be a star.” “You will be, Andy,” I agreed, “I can sense it.” “Why? What do you see that nobody else does?” “Well, whenever we walk into any crowded place,” I elaborated, “people stop, turn, point at you, and ask: ‘Who is that asshole?’”
The Andy Dick you’ve seen on television and in the movies is exactly the same Andy Dick I hung out with in Chicago in 1988. Similar things have been said about Madonna, George Clooney, and Henry Kissinger: What you see is what the world has always gotten, their everyday corporeal selves identical to their endlessly multiplied on-screen avatars. In Andy’s case, he’s exactly the same goofy, slapstick, and childish weirdo in real life as he was on NewsRadio.
At the time, though, Andy was desperate to make it, and desperately clutched any idea he thought accelerated his journey to stardom. “I need to change my name, my look, and my attitude,” Andy often declared. “Who’d hire a guy named ‘Dick’?” “Don’t change a thing,” I insisted, providing him exactly the right advice at that point. “You’re a dick, Dick. Keep it all: your natural blond crazy hair, small round glasses, and utterly obnoxious, spoiled brat behavior.”
A first generation Hungarian-American, I was labeled a taknyos kölyök — literally “snot-nosed punk.” Andy and I had that brashness and immaturity in droves, both of us class clowns sent daily to the principal’s office. Where we differed, though, was in how Andy channeled that zany egocentricity into an amazing career. Like the singer Beck whom I befriended in LA a couple years before, Andy knew exactly what he wanted to be when he didn’t grow up.
The Lovers & The Attack
Honeymoon phase couples act like kids, generating exuberant energy and illuminating the streets they frolick through. Kathy seemed into me for maybe a couple weeks at most, our nanosecond of pure joy wreaking havoc on our commitment-resistant selves, and the nosy gapers within a few square blocks around the Thorndale train station. Individually already news worthy, as a couple we generated gossipy buzz up and down our Sesame Street in Hell.
Chicago has always been notorious for its systemic racism and chronic segregation, their acute expression played out daily in our sketchy Edgewater ‘hood. Routine scene: I’d walk up North Kenmore Avenue, two African-American guys head toward me on the sidewalk. One second before we cross paths they loudly gargle up a huge hocker of phlegm, chah! — and one second after we pass they launch a frothy wad that flies inches behind my back, ptui!
The spitting ritual flavored every day in that part of town, each vile exchange a normal and expected form of greeting. Another example: below the L tracks lurked a convenience store, the service you received contingent on whom you were, whether the clerk was white or black. Yet another: customers in local restaurants and bars divided themselves based on melanin levels, self-evident whenever you looked inside, revealing who was welcome, who was not.
Kathy and I fit into the “pretty white trash” category. She spoke with a heavy Midwestern working class accent, dressed like a truck driver with a pack of Marlboros wrapped into the shoulder of her cutoff t-shirt. A similar fashion faux pas, I wore wrinkled polos, cargo shorts, and Converse Hi-Tops. A freaky couple, people wanted what we were having, and for a short while we were having each other. Our chemistry often drew the wrong kind of attention.
One night before we knew what was happening, several determined guys formed a human wall and pushed us off the sidewalk and into the no man’s land underneath the train platform. Another half a dozen appeared, all together forming an encroaching circle around us, less and less room to move, no place left to run, “She smokin’,” said one. “Let’s take whitey out first,” suggested another. I felt Katherine’s raw fear, making me even more afraid.
“She’s really hot, right?” I heard myself saying, smiling and pointing. “You guys want her? Take her! This crazy bitch is all yours…” Several gang members laughed, the one who suggested they murder me before raping her mumbling “What, the, fuck?” The ominous spell broken, or perhaps a new one cast, I quickly took Kathy’s hand and walked her slowly through the circle that now presented us no resistance. About a hundred feet away we burst into a sprint.
Safely back at my apartment, Kathy was furious with me, chain smoking and ashing all over the floor. Her feelings for me already a chaotic and complicated mess, she couldn’t figure out whether I had just saved her ass, or thrown her to the wolves and failed. Emotional avoider types of epic magnitude, both of us were suddenly forced to grapple with our shared vulnerabilities — and for the first time, we hugged closely and affectionately.
“You know, Mike,” she whispered in my ear, tears rolling off her cheek and onto my shoulder. “I think that was really close…” We could bullshit for hours, went to the best shows, were fun at parties, fucked infrequently and badly, but up to now had never been truly intimate. I shuddered more at that realization than the terrifying reality that we’d just avoided a physical assault, and maybe horrors much, much worse. Too emo for comfort, she broke free.
I felt even more relieved than she did. In retrospect, my brash move rescued both of us. This paradoxical self-defense technique of non-resistance and fake solidarity with an attacker is commonly taught. I knew nothing about that, acted entirely on instinct. Maybe my risky and counter-intuitive ruse was easier because I knew I didn’t mean that much to her? That losing her, even in such a violent manner, wouldn’t amount to that much of an emotional hit?
“Way to go, Obi Wan Mooknobi,” Andy said hours later, his only compliment, ever. How did he always know? “Next time I get gang banged, I’ll be sure and try your Jedi mind trick…” Despite his usual cynicsm, I could tell this latest incident deeply moved him. Problems, even dire ones, seemed to hold simple, hidden solutions. All it took was rapid reflexes, creativity, and balls. Becoming famous was Andy’s biggest and most elusive goal. He was paying attention.
The Attack & The Clap
Love stinks, especially when the object of your desire and affection is desiring and being affectionate with others. Kathy and I never affixed any rules to our romance, and I knew how to deal with open relationships, so being jelly wasn’t it. After all, she invited her boyfriend to our first date, so only a moron would expect any loyalty, especially when she was given a free place to stay with a sympathetic, adoring partner who imagined her as Athena incarnate.
No, what bothered me was the feeling of being taken advantage of, her crass opportunism in exchange for occasional sex that started poorly and only got worse to the point of ceasing altogether. The vexing irony was that I dug her for the same reasons she was driving me crazy: her manic impulsiveness, bizarre eccentricities, and feverish independence. So when I awoke one morning singing another Frank Zappa song, I knew our quick end was near.
Why does it hurt, when I pee? went the classic lament from Joe’s Garage. I don’t want no doctor, to stick no needle in me… “You know you deserved it,” Andy beamed, absolutely ecstatic that when penetrated the Greek Goddess transformed into a Siren of Anthemusa, hurling my beleaguered cock into the Aegean rocks. How did he find out? “Remind me to not blow you tonight,” he joked, blowing a faux kiss as he always did before we split. What a tease, jeez.
Insult to injury, my roommate came and went as she pleased, banged other guys, and gifted an STD. Displaying my own maturity, instead of confronting Kathy and asking her to get tested, I ran over to the Berlin night club on Belmont and told one of the bouncers whom I suspected of being in Kathy’s Man Harem that our shared gal was carrying cooties. Expecting a fist fight, he instead nodded, thanked me for the heads up, and waived my cover charge.
“I spent the whole night drinking malt liquor with black people,” Kathy scowled at me the following morning, hearing about my newsflash from the bouncer. “I was concerned for his safety,” I actually said, diminishing my own creds to negative numbers lower than the ph value of her tzatziki sauce. Needless to say, my radioactive penis didn’t do fresh wonders for our sex life, nor did it motivate us to try and fix what was intractably broken all along.
“I can’t believe you threw her out,” Andy frowned, surprisingly disappointed in me. He was preparing for another turgid Open Mic night, wondering how to continuously adapt his flailing routine with zingers from our stillborn romance. “What do you think is wrong with her?” Kathy’s mother asked me the following day as I carried her daughter’s things to their car. “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” I suggested, aligned with the new DSM-III.
We were all nuts, our carburetors having an idle set to at least a hundred miles per, leading to an endless series of one-car personal and professional wrecks. Driving Ms. Crazy, my infatuation with Kathy predictably crashed and burned, totalling my self-esteem long enough for Andy to celebrate. “You really fucked that up,” he cheered. Hard work was tough, playing games more fun. We wanted the big wins with least effort, heartbreak a small price to pay.
Back in the late 80s the whole country was reeling through the Reagan years, a conservative backlash to Jimmy Carter’s liberal backlash to Tricky Dick’s Watergate scandals. Within this freshly post-Cold War world, communications were limited to landline telephones, fax machines, fledgling computers, and near-zero Internet — the entertainment industry entirely driven by Broadcast TV, traditional movie theatres, live shows, and the first stirrings of cable.
That incendiary combination of political, cultural, and technological transformation was disorienting, especially for young people already marginalized by their own ambition, hedonism, and — in rare instances — actual talent. Nowadays anyone can be a few posts away from social media stardom, celebrities striving to come across as regular folks, all-too-human influencers skyrocketing to celebrity status. In 1988, Andy had to hustle.
Our Kathy evicted and pissed off, my connection with Andy began to fade, too. Only after she was gone did I realize how connected the three of us were, and how much I enjoyed having them around. “Put yer hands on yer head, boy,” the local quack advised me before he inserted a sterile needle into my urethra. “Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed, grabbing the tip of my burning cock. “Take yer hands off yer dick,” he chastised me, “and put ’em back on yer head.”
The Clap & The Forum
Before my antibiotic treatment cycle ran out, Andy and I also lost touch. Plugged into the Chicago comedy scene through them, my status changed from Andy’s sidekick and Kathy’s BF back to a mid-20s dreamer adrift inside his own make-believe universe. Not requiring an audience, I had nobody to please; laughing at my own jokes, I never felt judged; and with a rare mixture of introverted and extraverted traits, I seamlessly turned inside myself.
“It’s lonely at the top,” said Ron Silver as Charlie Fox in Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow on Broadway that year, “but it’s not crowded.” I initially felt liberated, yet slipped inexorably into despair. My one-room, 250 square foot studio apartment shrank smaller and smaller… Isolation gave me the time and focus to write, but emptied my soul of the passion that made its output meaningful. Kathy didn’t love me, and Andy hardly liked me, yet I missed them both.
Months, often years must pass before you can understand and maybe even learn something from a breakup. But with these two I immediately marveled at how our power dynamics flipped: Andy ended up heckling me throughout my relationship with Kathy, while Kathy did everything she could to torpedo the help I for whatever reason was so eager to offer her. Andy eventually making it big came as no surprise to me, as did Kathy’s ongoing struggle.
At one point Andy had introduced me to his buddy Dino Stamatopoulos, then a sombre motherfucker who wore tacky suits and kept telling everyone he wanted to be an agent. I remember us meeting him on a train platform, then riding in his car, everyone making farting sounds. Andy thought the world of Dino, laughed at his jokes, asked me for my opinion. “He’s OK,” I said. In college Dino played a ventriloquist, Andy his dummy wasted on downers.
Although Andy seemed to be the one who eventually got Dino onto The Ben Stiller Show, I heard from another friend that Dino was the one who trailblazed their move to Hollywood. Either way and anyway, a couple months after I helped pack Kathy’s shit into her mom’s car I got a rando phone call from Andy. “Hello?” I said. “You’re the only one who believes in me!” Andy yelled, as if we were still at the Roxy, or figuring it out again in a coffee shop.
“Andy? How the hell are ya?” “Listen — ” he interrupted, “ — I’m going to LA next week, so this weekend I’m doing everything I can possibly do to prepare myself for whatever it takes for me to become famous when I get there.” Oh, Andy. I was annoyed yet missed him all over again. “Don’t worry,” I assured him, both of us snapping immediately back into character. “You’re going to make it.” “You see! See? I knew you were the one I had to call before I go.”
You get only one guess as to why Andy called me. Ready? Give it a try: He wanted to borrow some money? Correct! I hope that makes you feel better after reading this whole story and likely being disappointed that it’s devoid of anything truly scandalous about Andy Dick, instead mostly about an unrequited love story and missed career opportunities… Anyway, yes, he called to ask me for money to pay for a weekend of inspiration at The Forum.
“Since you’re the only one who believes in me,” Andy repeated, even more out of breath. “You should be the one who gives me four hundred and fifty dollars so I can realize my full potential.” “What?” “You told me that I’d make it in a few years,” he gasped, “but I don’t want to wait. I want to be famous now. And for four hundred fifty dollars I can learn everything I need to know to make it all happen now, not later. You’re a smart guy. Consider this an investment.”
He then explained that The Forum, which has since evolved into Landmark, was a self-actualization workshop of sorts. “Come on, Andy,” I said. “You don’t need that shit.” “I want it all now, and this is how I’m going to get it. Are you in? You going to give me the money? Yes, or no?” “No.” “Fuck you!” Click. That was it, the last time I spoke to Andy. I don’t know if he ever got the money from anyone else, but if he did, then it clearly worked — look him up on IMDB.
I sometimes wonder “What if…” we had stayed friends, I had lent him the money, gone with him to LA? Watching his career, I see that toddler covering our TV and theatre screens with his shit. He’s made it big, sure, but might he have been mightier with this heckler and confidant at his side? Kathy got her 15 minutes and a Wikipedia page with a movie of her doing various things while naked across the USA. She’s the only one who ever called me “Mike.”
Hope you enjoyed these. Far as celebrity encounters go, you might also be curious as to…
