In LA, it seems like every woman I meet is in their post-bananas phase.

 

Apparently, I’m a magnet for recovering drug addicts, alcoholics, and sluts on the mend. I never catch a “girl gone wild” whilst she is in the throes of “going wild.” It seems that I meet them after, like, the first marriage, the second STD, or the third abortion. I’m like a Bizarro world ‘Good Luck Chuck.’

 

My first week in LA, I’m on a date at a restaurant with this girl — let’s give her a nonsensical name like Margaret Nolan. Things were going pretty well. She was very polite and demure, even wearing slick professional slacks and glasses. Suddenly, she dropped THIS bomb: “I went through a really, really slutty phase where my life was all about cocaine and threesomes. That lasted for awhile and ended when… actually, just a few weeks ago. Isn’t that a coincidence?! Now we can date and really get to know each other as people for a few months before we get to be intimate. Ooops! There’s the check. I’m going to the restroom again.” (Okay, I’m paraphrasing here a little bit but that was the gist of it).

 

So, once again, I was stuck with a sphincter-puckering West Hollywood dinner bill, this time from the shi-shi STK. I felt like I was paying off a home equity loan.

 

After dinner, I drove her home, convinced that my night was going to end with me in my tighty whiteys watching Sports Center. I was imagining myself with tortilla chips on my chest, whining, “I wish I had TiVo; I’m sick of these ShamWow commercials!”

 

These thoughts were roiling around in my brain when we reached Maggie’s apartment. But then she dropped bomb number two: “Look, Bill, I really want to sleep together, but not ’sleep’ together.”

 

In other words, she wanted to sleep in the same bed with me but not have sex. Coincidentally, that’s what I wanted to do… except the exact opposite.

 

Despite years of experience telling me it was a bad idea, I decided to come in for a ‘night cap at least.’ Oh pretenses, how I loathe thee. Anyway, within sips we started getting a little friskalicious. Then she started crying.

 

That’s right… crying, with the tears and the head shaking and the sniffles and the hyperventilated speech.

 

Now, most guys have gotten with a woman on the rebound or with a broken heart and have experienced (once things got hot and heavy) the crying jag. It’s not unusual. As a matter of fact, this situation was commonplace — I was completely naked except for my cape, sock puppet, and tube of Crisco – so I knew how to handle it. I got dressed and held her and stroked her hair because I was raised to be a wimp.

 

Unfortunately, my penis and her emotional state were still having a Mexican stand-off. I didn’t want to be a dick and pressure her, but my dick was like: “So what? I AM a DICK. Let’s do this! I don’t have all minute!” She could tell I was frustrated, but trying to be ‘understanding.’

 

“Sorry,” Margaret said.

 

“It’s okay. Just a little case of blue balls,” I responded.

 

“Haha. Blue balls are a myth! Don’t pull that crap!”

 

That’s what she said… so I killed her.

 

ONCE AND FOR ALL: it’s not a myth, ladies. Women who think that it is a fictitious condition are simply wrong. That’s like the misogynist doctor in the 1950’s who was like: “Female orgasm – impossible! Doesn’t exist!” Both happen all the time – and yes – both are faked most of the time (in my unfortunate personal experience), but they do happen!

 

Since I can’t explain the female orgasm, let me explain, ladies, SCIENTIFICALLY, the phenomenon that is BLUE BALLS:

 

1. Little sperm are swimming around in the testes bumping heads, bored, restless, and playing goofy sperm games, like ‘Boogle.’

 

2. SUDDENLY — some juicy couture starts happening upstairs and a SHARP BATTLE ALARUM GOES OFF! Not an alarm, an Alarum! The brain starts sending more and more signals down to the balls, who tell the sperm that it’s on like Donkey Kong.

 

3. The sperm start running around in a panic getting ready. They stretch a little, affix their helmets, and say their last goodbyes to the balls.

 

4. The millions of agitated sperm cells start crowding into the lobby of the vas diferens and wait for the elevator to the urethra to open.

 

5. Some of the sperm are impatient and they start pushing the UP button repeatedly even though they KNOW you only have to push it once! (Why do people and sperm do that?!)

 

6. The retarded spermatazoa (they exist, you know) start causing traffic jams and screaming for their teacher. All the retarded sperm really want is candy. This annoys all the other sperm.

 

7. More fervent brain signals come to the balls, which makes the elevator door to the vas diferens open. The sperm all crowd in like little Tokyo businessmen late for work.

 

8. The crowded elevator is vibrating with a bunch of angry, alternately scared and excited sperm. They’re psyching themselves up waiting to shoot out for their one single mission in life to finally, and ultimately, come to fruition… YES! YES!

 

9. Suddenly, the elevator stops and starts descending back to the lobby.

 

10. When the sperm get unceremoniously dumped back out into the lobby — they are beyond pissed off! Some are literally pissed out. In frustration, they scream and flagellate and punch the balls in protest for the next 4-5 hours like riotous Iranian revolutionaries.*

 

I didn’t have time to explain this to Margaret. Instead, I bit my lip, gave her a hug, and told her I would call her again real soon. I didn’t. Not because ‘he’s not that into you’ science fiction, but because I knew that any 30 year-old woman who thought blue balls was a ‘myth’ was never going to understand men.

 

I wish I did, I would get revenge. I’d give her the equivalent — purple pu$$y or violet vagina or lavender labia or turquoise taco. I would take her to the Beverly Center to go shopping and tell her to get anything she wanted. After she clapped and jumped up and down like a mongoloid spotting a bowl of Jolly Ranchers, I would hand her my credit card.

 

When she went to grab it, I’d quickly pull it back and say “Wait, I think I want to get to know you a little better first…”

 

———————————————————————

 

*I hope this clears up some stuff for the ladies. But, more importantly, guys, it’s important to know that the above explanation will never, ever persuade any woman to alleviate said blue balls.

Maybe it’s because of my Miata convertible (see previous blog) that I’ve had a hard time dating women in LA. The treacherous Sex and the City terrain of Manhattanites is simple compared to the women out here.

 

My first week in LA, I set up a date on an online dating site for emotionally stunted people entitled ‘Facebook.’ We had been messaging back and forth for almost a year before I moved to LA, so there was a great deal of suspense built up for the meeting. She seemed really cool and well-adjusted, although she had admitted that, as a model, she had had a problem with Bulemia for several years. I just thought, “Cool, no gag reflex!”

 

The first sign of trouble was the fact that she looked nothing like her pictures. In the profile photos, she looked like Jennifer Lopez. When she showed up at the restaurant, she looked like George Lopez. To add halitosis to injury, she had awful breath and I spent much of the time at our cozy table using my glass of Chianti as a makeshift gas mask. I assumed it was the result of the Bulemia and the resultant ravaged digestive tract. Even though she had mentioned the eating disorder in our previous year long correspondence, I still didn’t feel comfortable enough to say, “Hey, sweetie, I’m sorry to say this and please don’t take it personally… but is there a corpse rotting inside your mouth? Would you mind dunking your head in a bucket of Listerine for 35-45 minutes?”

 

Sure she was skinny, but it hardly seemed worth it if the trade-off is for corpse-ass breath and whiskers on the chin (side effect of Bulemia – Google it). Actually, she wasn’t just skinny, she was ‘LA skinny,’ which is a brand of skinny that exists only in LA and in a few African countries, where the people are unintentionally starving. The idea of ‘LA skinny’ was something I was struggling with myself upon my arrival on the left coast, considering that the owner of the Laugh Factory told me my ‘gross belly was hanging out’ my first night onstage. I’d never been called ‘fat’ before, but I guess it made sense West Hollywood would be the place I heard it first.

 

On a side note, I don’t really get why people obsess over skinniness. In New York, women let it all hang out. Even if they weigh 320 pounds and it’s winter, they will still wear a half-shirt. Sometimes they will just take a scrunchie from their hair and wrap it around their boobies. And they will wear ’skinny jeans’ without realizing the slightest bit of irony as their flesh rolls above the waistband. All of that succulent natural fat hanging over the jeans like cream cheese squeezing out of a delicious New York bagel… okay, I’m really just talking about Puerto Rican women, but it’s STILL sexy!

 

Speaking of Latina women, back to my date:

 

Cadaver gullet apparently didn’t have either of the Lopez’ bank accounts because when the bill came, she skipped away to the bathroom without showing an ounce of guilt on her face. Unfortunately for HER, I’m a comic, so when she came back I exclaimed ‘Wow, this place is way overpriced!’ Then I handed her the check and said, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t pay it.’ Even though I was smiling broadly, I think she failed to see the humor in my joke because she didn’t return the smile.

 

Actually, I don’t know if she was smiling or not because her face couldn’t really move with all the Botox. It was disturbing. I was starting to realize that in LA, it’s all about not showing ANYTHING! Don’t show fat, wrinkles, saggy boobies, emotions, anything. Women would rather have faces stretched taut like a snare drum then have ONE wrinkle on their forehead, despite the fact that they’re 50 and that fact is given away by honest elbows looking like old, wrinkly NUTSACS hanging off the arm (I like to go up to them and flick it back and forth with my finger and yell “SUPPER!” Oh, how they love it! Actually, I can’t tell if they love it because of the frozen face thing).

 

Anyway, Toxic Tongue just looked at me after I handed her the bill and said, “Are you serious? I’m not paying for this!” as if I gave her a ticket for an illegal left-turn.

 

Needless to say, I ended up getting the bill… And not a second date.

 

Apparently, offering to split the dinner bill with a woman in LA is about as offensive as asking a feminist if she would like to join you at a Chris Brown concert.

 

Clearly, I needed to change my sites for a different cross-section of women. Maybe she was too classy or something. I need to roll with a poor, desperate woman who would just be happy and excited to get out of the trailer. But is there a dating site where I could find a woman like that?

 

That’s right – there is: Craigslist!

In NYC, some people thought I was gay. I don’t know why. I would rollerblade around Manhattan and ponder this fact…

 

That’s not some hacky joke, that was my life in Manhattan. I would strap on my rollerblades almost every day and go about my business. No doubt, people would see me zipping by in my sunglasses listening to my iPod and think, “Wow… what a fag.”

 

I didn’t really care that strangers thought I might hunger for turkeyneck because of my mode of transportation. Hell, subway platforms give me panic attacks and the smell of falafel in taxis makes me feel nauseous. Rollerblading was and is the best way to get around the impossibly crowded island of Manhattan.

 

I never truly got the ROLLERGAY stereotype anyway. Yes, it’s true that sometimes I wore a fashionable tank top and may have been lightly oiled once or twice, but I never understood why my incredibly effective mode of transportation got people so riled up about my sexuality. There are a lot of gayer things that straight guys do, many of them on a daily basis. I mean, does everyone who goes to a gym blow dudes in the steam room? Of course not! I mean, unless you’re counting Crunch Fitness. But I got crap for rollerblading my entire time in New York. Once, a guy with a heavy New Yawk accent literally grabbed my shoulder to stop me on 42nd street.

 

“Hey pal, what’s the hardest part about rollerblading?”

 

He looked sincere, so I started to answer him. “Um, probably learning to stop, that –”

 

“Nawww, it’s telling your dad that you’re gay.”

 

He laughed, high-fived his friend in his best imitation of 1986, and they triumphantly jogged off together. I would have kicked his ass if it weren’t for the fact that I just had my nails done. Kidding!

 

The fact remains I loved it. Some of my favorite memories about Manhattan involve me being on my rollerblades… It’s a sweltering Friday afternoon; an avenue bumper to bumper with traffic that’s vibrating, not moving. Everyone is eager to get home or just away — rich bankers in black town cars, poor people in pickups, tourists in taxis. All stuck, all honking, entwined in a gridlock of glaring glass and metal. The sea of humanity in the city I love…

 

I give ‘em all the finger as I sail past them.

 

Ahhhhhhhh, so satisfying, such sweet redemption.

 

When I moved to LA, I sold my rollerblades on eBay, since they aren’t an effective way to get around. BUT STILL, some people would think I was gay…

 

I don’t know why. Sometimes, I would drive around in my Mazda Miata convertible and ponder this fact…

 

Again, true story.

 

Apparently, although I don’t like men in a sexual way, I am obsessed with the gay man’s means of transportation.

 

Now, I had no idea that an inanimate object could be ‘gay’ but apparently the Miata is the gayest car in history of gay cars. Allegedly, it’s gayer than Tom Cruise dipped in a vat of Kevin Spacey. I have personally never seen my Miata have sex with another male car or try to suck its muffler or something, but JUST LIKE THE ROLLERBLADES, everyone feels the need to inform of the gayness of my vehicle.

 

A fellow comic recently told me upon seeing me pull up to the Laugh Factory in my electric blue Miata: “Bill, you know what: you would look manlier if you oiled yourself with organic KY jelly, put some rollerskates on a rainbow, threw a saddle on it, and hopped on with some buttless chaps.”

 

The truth is I never owned a car and I didn’t realize the implicit gayness of my action when I bought the thing for 2 grand from a girl I hooked up with once after a show. I simply thought: “Chicks dig convertibles! Woooohooooo! I win!” Clearly, I’m out of touch or borderline retarded.

 

Now I can’t drive in West Hollywood without some aging queen in his own Miata giving me a knowing look and flirty smile. Sometimes I even get the gay Miata club secret horn toot.

 

The worst part about my Miata? It makes road rage impossible. Seriously, how am I going to intimidate anybody who cuts me off? I’m the bottom bitch of the 405.

 

Oh well… Anyone reading this, lemme know if you’re thinking about selling a truck.

“I just moved here from Manhattan.”

 

This sentence is, in itself, hacky. For a couple of weeks, it lends the issuer of the aforementioned sentence some sort of quasi-coolness, maybe even enough to get a ‘welcome to LA BJ’ in some 1960’s plywood condo off Fairfax. True story, by the way.

 

However, after that 14 day grace period, that person becomes completely enfolded into the tumor-like growth that is the collective of actor/comic/performer in LA which NOBODY gives the smallest iota of fecal matter about. Nobody cares that you gave up a sweet one-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen that only cost $900 a month because it used to be a shady ‘hood and when you moved there in 1996 crackheads wearing diapers were still trying to shoot you in the face (this is PG – or Pre-Giuliani). And, nobody (particularly an agent or manager) cares that you did a new play off-Broadway to stellar reviews, even from the tough critic at the NEW YORK TIMES! Yawn.

 

The truth is, people just regard you as another coagulant blocking the artery of traffic; a coagulant that makes the commute to work so damn miserable. “So, screw you! And screw your cigarettes and turtlenecks and Obies and acting chops too, Yankee douchebag!”

 

So, after the luster of being a transplant loses it sheen after a week or two, you have to chant Stuart Smalley-style affirmations to remind yourself and the ‘UNIVERSE’ that you’re not a loser. I mean, I don’t do that… because I don’t mind being a loser – that’s where the good stories come from.

 

TO POINT, I went to a swank movie premiere for a swank movie recently (not one starring Hilary Swank, however). I wore my one off-the-rack suit and even performed a rare hair comb before arriving. For some obscure reason that is lost to me now, my ‘presentation’ at the premiere seemed very important. It was my first big industry ‘event’ in LA and despite the pseudo-glamour and glitzy packaging, there was still the palpable undercurrent of ‘Who do I need to impress to get a job in this town?’ Or, as some actresses might put it, ‘who do I need to blow to get a job in this town?’

 

But enough about Andy Dick, this story is about the current under the undercurrent: the sways and fros of the bottom feeders. The ones who don’t know ANYONE but have a weird belief that they’re going to bump into Steven Spielberg eating mini-wieners and segue into a conversation of such compelling charm and charisma that Stevey will literally be throwing 3 hole bound scripts at his or her head before leaving.

 

That’s the LOTTO ticket delusion. And here’s the crapiphany (crappy epiphany) I had while hanging out trying to act cool at the movie’s after party after one hour: I AM, indeed, just a coagulant on the highway. The people in power don’t just NOT care about me, they also hate me because it’s my fault, indirectly, that they’re late for their golf or lunch or mistress.

 

THIS crapiphany at the Hollywood Ballroom premiere party made me angry, annoyed, frustrated, and ultimately, drunk. Suddenly, a great idea burst through the haze of my Hennessey clouds and revealed itself to me — how about I flip my anonymity into anarchy! Hmmmm…

 

I cleared my throat, remembered my Scottish dialect work, and starting talking with an aggressive brogue to anyone who would notice. Sadly, even as a completely over-the-top character, I couldn’t seem to make an impression in this town. So I grabbed a full bottle of PINK vodka from behind one those of little cart bars and begin striding across the ballroom with a roguish swagger.

 

That’s when I saw one of my favorite comic actresses of all time. She was dressed… in a dress… floral and just an inch here and an inch there that whispered scandal. She was staring out alone, arms folded.

 

“AAAAAy, eeeewr a GRAAAAAYT actress! I’m eeewwwwr BEGGEST FAN!” Tone down the brogue, drunk boy, she won’t buy it, I thought.

 

“Excuse me,” the angelic actress said, voice like cotton balls with aloe soothing the skin.

 

“I’m TIM, I’m from GLAS-G0 and I just love your WERK in your films and sech.”

 

She smiled a closed smile. I flashed her a toothy one and she laughed. It was on, as the kids say, like Donkey Kong.

 

Somehow, someway, something clicked and we ended up talking for an hour and a half. We started passing the bottle between us, flirting and talking about God knows what. My accent held, although the drunker I got, the more I was convinced that I was sounding like a Chinese Jewish Cowboy. A couple of times, my Scottish brogue was placed so far in the back of my throat it felt like I was gagging. I’m sure, once or twice, I just sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball.

 

Then, without warning, she informed me that her husband of 15 years – with whom she has two lovely children — has been cheating on her and absconded to Arizona with his secretary for the weekend. I took a swig. Gulp. My moral conscience became crystal clear and loud. It said, ‘Bill, enough with the charade. You’ve made your point. You tricked this poor lady into confessing her heaviest, darkest secrets. Now it’s time to tell her that you were putting the accent on for fun and apologize to her…’

 

So that’s what I said… KIDDING!

 

“LESS GOOO BECK TO EWWWWRR PLACE AND GET REVENGE AND THAT STEEEEEEWPID FECKER!!!”

 

That’s what I ACTUALLY said. Her face looked a little gobsmacked by my utterance. But then it relaxed, she gave me a once over, and she started thinking out loud about the logistics of bringing me back home with her…. “Well, the babysitter is there and I’d have to deal with her, but the kids are asleep. So, I could probably get you in the back door…”

 

A naughty schoolboy in the dark recesses of my mind tittered a ‘tee-hee’ at the double entendre.

 

Then the reality of the situation came crashing upon me, sobering me up like a coffee enema. Am I about to sleep with a famous, married actress? Is she going to cheat on her famous, married producer husband with me? Oh crap, it’s not even ME, it’s Tim from GLASGOW! AM I GONNA HAVE TO SCREW HER LIKE A SCOTSMAN NOW? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? IS SHE GOING TO EXPECT ME TO HAVE PLAID BALLS AND SCREAM ‘FREEDOM’ WHEN I ORGASM?!!!

 

I was panicking but I was also in way too deep; there was no way I was going to back out now. She took out her cell phone to inform the babysitter she was coming home.

 

“Hey Bill, what’s going on? We’re taking off. You need a ride?”

 

Holy butt crap! It was my friend Mark Feuerstein (check out his show ROYAL PAINS on TBS). I had thought he left the party two hours ago, but apparently, he had been milling in a different area.

 

The first problem was that he called me Bill, when, clearly, I was Tim from Glasgow. The second problem was that his question warranted a response and, in real life, I don’t sound like a gagging Chinese Jewish cowboy from Glasgow. I tried to split the difference phonetically so I sounded like Bill to Mark and like Tim to the actress.

 

“Naw, that’s cool. I’m jus gonna hang out here.”

 

I did it! It sounded perfect. The actress didn’t furrow her brow. It was a middle of the road sentence that could sound either way.

 

“Oh, you’re doing the Scottish thing!” Mark laughed.

 

A brief silence ensued that felt like an epoch. My response was a weak giggle and ‘pffft!’ Great improv, huh? Her response was to look ashen. Her face literally dropped. Her mouth hung open and she, for a second, seemed catatonic. I gave Mark my best “eff-off” look so he subtly nodded and walked away, laughing his gravelly New York Jew laugh. It was the most effective cockblock of the 21st century.

 

The actress just stood there, mouth agape, while I tried to dance circles around the event.

 

“Oh, he’s jus tekkin’ the PESS OUTTA MAY! I’M REALLY TIM FROM GLAS-GOOOOOO!”

 

Of course, like a typical guy, even caught red-handed I couldn’t cop to it. Men are absurd that way. We could be going down on a woman and have our girlfriend walk into the room and we’d STILL give some ridiculous BS. “Oh, baby, this isn’t what it look likes. Remember that earring you lost. I thought it might be lost in this girl-I-don’t-know’s vajayjay. I was fishing it out. That’s what I’m doing with my two fingers, that’s a ‘fishing out an earring’ motion I’m doing in her vajayjay!”

 

Don’t believe me that men are like this? Watch ‘To Catch a Predator.’ We suck and are suckers for frozen lemonade too, apparently.

 

The actress suddenly and sharply turned to me and said, “You’re an actor doing character work, aren’t you?…. I just want to say that’s some of the best character work I’ve seen, you should be very proud of yourself.”

 

“No, I’m Tim, I jus –”

 

“Please don’t talk. I’m guessing it was for an audition you’re preparing or something? Well, good luck, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

 

She held out her hand to shake mine. I reluctantly took it, denying it all the while… even on the drunken car ride home by myself.