Central booking in Bedstuy isn’t the barrel of monkeys everyone says it is. As a matter of fact, it can be borderline terrifying. I know this because I spent some time in that luxurious treatment facility. Why were you in jail, Bill? Fighting? Weed? Chris Hanson from ‘Dateline’ finally caught you?

 

No, I jumped a subway turnstile. True story.

 

It was the 2 year anniversary of living with my ex, Rachel. She wanted to celebrate and go out to a fancy dinner and I wanted to stay in. So we compromised and went out to a fancy dinner. (One day I’ll have the strength to say “no” to a woman).

 

It was Restaurant Week and Rachel was a woman on a mission: “Oh my God! I found this place on Zagat.com and it’s supposed to be amazing! It’s in some remote part of Brooklyn called Killwhiteyton and it’s only a 197 minute subway ride with 3 transfers!”

 

We ate dinner on the veranda of this little French bistro to soak up the scenery, which included thugs conspicuously walking by with TVs and rolled up carpets. And we got drunk; because that’s what happens when a Scotch Mick and a Russian Jew get together.

 

After two bottles of red, we started stumbling home looking for the right subway stop to take us back to Manhattan. When we finally found it, I did the ol’ ‘Shimmy behind and go through at the same time’ turnstile trick that drunk people and retarded children often do. One minute, later – CLICK — a female transit cop had me handcuffed and pushed up against the cold porcelain subway wall tiles.

 

Rachel went home to watch Gilmore Girls on TiVO and I went to the spa known as “Central Booking” in Bedstuy. I don’t know which fate is worse.

 

The entrance alone was horrifying. It was a steep downward descent (how metaphoric), dark and dank, the only light coming from ominous red bulbs overhead. It felt like that film ‘Hostel;’ like I was being led into some cavernous abandoned warehouse where I might be able to carve up some hot American tourist. Rusty, slimy water droplets sporadically splattered on my head as if to taunt, “Haha, you dead, cracka!”

 

The red was suddenly replaced by bright fluorescents as the officer stood me in front of three different cells. He asked me which of the cells I “wanted to be in.” What the bejesus type of question is that? It was like prison Price is Right! “Cell # 3? Oooooh, sorry, Bubba is in that one! You better find a happy place!”

 

I saw one cell with a nebbishly fat Jewish guy in glasses and I figured my odds of getting assaulted first have got to be reduced by at least 65 percent, so I ‘chose’ that one.

 

By the way, you can’t sneak or shimmy into a cell. They make an announcement, pull some medieval lever, and that gate screams the arrival of fresh meat as it scrapes across the floor. You then have to walk in like it’s some perverted prison Fashion Ball: “And here, we have the Fall Ass Rape collection. Now spin around and show them the goods. You better work!”

 

I did my catwalk and instantly turned around and grabbed the bars like innocent people always do in films from the ‘50s. Now, I’m not saying I don’t belong in jail, but I sure as balls don’t fit in. First of all, I was in full metrosexual/ homosexual adjacent garb - tight knit Armani sweater, a DKNY suit jacket, and slacks that came to a nice tapered ankle. Maybe even a hint of lip gloss.

 

Also, I’m white. Not just white. I’m like Golem-translucent-Mayonaisse-the-sun-burns-ants-through-me-white. Irish people look at me and go: “Yer a pale fooker, aren’t ya!”

 

If you’re going to be as pale as me in lockdown in Bedstuy, you should at least be shaved bald – that way someone could at least maybe mistake you as TOUGH. I mean, I’m not gay, but look at my photos! You don’t picture me behind a girl, grabbing her hair like: “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?” You picture me behind a girl, grabbing her hair like: “Who’s your stylist?”

 

Plus, with my baby-soft, Fructis-conditioned strawberry blonde wispy locks… I may as well have been wearing a t-shirt that said “I went to prison to get anally raped and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” or “Insert Penis Here” with an arrow pointing up. (As a survival technique for my time in the clink, my anus sealed shut like a rolly-polly the entire time and for 3 weeks afterwards).

 

Right away the comments start: “You gonna get banged out!” “Leonardo DiCaprio is busted trying to get an eightball.” “Matt Damon is…” “Clay Aiken is…” The fog of my terror lifted temporarily as I thought, “Shit, he thinks I look like Clay Aiken?”

 

Then I heard someone (it may have been Bubba) say: “You know Opie either embezzled millions of dollars… or he killed his entire family.”

 

There I saw my ticket for survival– the old black spiritual anthem: “white people is crazy!” It’s kind of true, right? I mean, whenever you hear a story on the news like: “A MAN WAS ARRESTED TODAY AT JFK WHEN HIS COLLECTION OF EYEBALLS FELL OUT OF HIS SUITCASE. TONIGHT AT 11!” You know that guy’s white! In the movies, it’s always the crazy cracka who says: “I ate her liver with a nice chianti and a side of FAVA BEANS.” You never hear: “I ate her liver with a Colt 45 and a side of COLLARD GREENS, SON!!!” My salvation would lie in my insanity.

 

So I sat on the floor and hung my head. Every few minutes I’d lift my head up, say something like, “Hahahaha! Pickles!” slap myself in the face, and drop my head back down. It worked! Other than a crackhead with open sores trying to spoon me for about 6 hours, I was left alone… For the entire, grueling 29 hours.

 

Finally, before I left, somebody approached me. It was a Haitian with crazy, unblinking eyes and a knife wound on his face, who was in jail for murder. He grabbed my arm and asked me: “What you in here for, mon?”

 

Now pretty much everyone in there other than me was in there for the same crime. It’s apparently an epidemic in Bedstuy. If you ask them, they’ll tell you:

 

“Hey, man, what are you in for?”

 

“Some Buuuullshit!”

 

So I tried to be cool and said “Some buuuullshit.” The guy gave me the crazy and hairy eyeball. I withered. Nervously, I cleared my throat and told him the awful truth: “Fare evasion. I got drunk and jumped a subway turnstile.” I winced, assuming it was rape time.

 

Everyone in the cell heard this and turned to look at me with saucer eyes. Mind you, I’d been in here for almost 28 hours! After a tense few seconds, the Haitian said, very seriously: “Mon, I would have just paid the 2 DOLLARS!”

 

I responded, “You’re saying you’d pay 2 whole American dollars just so you wouldn’t have to be crunched in fetal position on a PEE AND POO SLIMED CELL floor for 28 hours while some JACKED UP 50-CENT WANNABE is screaming “death to whitey” on your right – and on your left, in a doorless stall, a 400 pound gorilla is blowing you kisses while taking a dump that would make Satan PRAY TO JESUS? Really? You sell out!”

 

But, alas, I only said that in my head.

I used to date a New York talent agent for roughly 4 years, or rather, for a rough 4 years. One of her major obsessions in life was ‘swag’ – the little goody bags given away to invitees of the classier industry events. Although she had amassed enough shampoo to smooth the split ends of an army of Fabio clones and enough moisturizer to placate the insecurities of every 30 plus actress in West Hollywood (not all of LA – let’s be realistic), Rachel couldn’t seem to get enough ‘swag’; although sometimes she called it “schwag” if she was feeling exceptionally Jewish.

 

After Rachel dumped me… for being me… I found myself ‘swagless’ for the most part. Every once in a while, I’d get an errant invite to an event that had schwag, but most of the soiree’s I was invited to were of the ghetto variety – I was lucky to get a sample packet of Fructis shampoo and a magazine. Despite my staunch blue collar ideals and hatred of all things posh and pretentious, I found myself desperately missing schwag and the connection it represented to the cooler, inner-er sanctums of the entertainment industry. I decided it was time to get my schwag on…

 

Recently, an awards ceremony was in town. Let’s call them the Wemmy’s. I had heard stories (some of them surely myths) about the cornucopia that existed within Wemmy-party gift bags. Tales of cell phones, watches, PDAs, and thousand dollar gift certificates abounded. It always struck me as one of the greater ironies in life that the world is designed to make sure that rich people get as much shit for free as possible. Traveling with Jamie Kennedy for 4 years, I was always struck by how adamant certain waitresses were that he not pay for his food. “No way, Jamie, your money is no good at Applebee’s!” Hey, I’m the one eating couch pizza; comp me a chicken club, woman!

 

Anyway, I decided that I was going to get into one of the ‘houses’ for the Wemmy’s and get some free shit, so I got a girl friend of mine with a very sexy British accent (for some reason, I find that Americans are instantly cowed by English accents) to call up and demand that they give VIP treatment to their up-and-coming client, Bill Dawes, who was the up-and-coming star of the next Judd Apatow movie and, also, on the coming season of ‘Last Comic Standing.’ My friend, with her Jedi mind tricking posh spice dialect worked all of the publicists into a frothy lather until they practically begged her to let them pamper me at one of their pre-Wemmy spas.

 

I parked my Miata a comfortable distance away (no offense, buddy, but I’m undercover) and walked a couple of blocks to the event/party/spa on Sunset Boulevard. I couldn’t find it at first, but then I saw ropes of red velvet, big black men in suits and little Jewish women with clipboards. Ahhh, surely that was it.

 

I walked up to the entrance as coolly as possible and stated my name. The little publicist looked me up and down with non recognition, possibly disdain, and shook her head flipping pages on her clipboard.

 

“Sorry,” she said, “You’re not on here.”

 

“Oh, okay, well I was told to ask for Pam specifically.”

 

PR lite sighed, turned 90 degrees from me, and whispered into her headset. I noticed that the huge bouncer was looking askance at me, maybe wishing for the opportunity to throw my head into the concrete at 3pm in the afternoon. I pursed my lips and smiled at him, the white man’s way of saying, “I’m a little bitch, please don’t hurt me.”

 

Suddenly, a tall, red-headed woman in a tailored suit came through the door with a big grin on her face, making a bee line for me.

 

“Bill Dawes?” she queried, her eyes and tone filling the vowels and consonants of my name with boundless optimism. The name was said with such joy and respect, I almost looked around to see who she was referring to.

 

“Yeah, hi, that’s me,” I said as I awkwardly extended my arm for a shake. For a brief second, I realized that the cool thing would have been to be texting and only register her presence with an annoyed nod. I was sure I seemed too eager.

 

“It’s okay,” she said to both the bouncer and the mini-Jew, “It’s Bill Dawes, star of the next Judd Apatow movie.”

 

I have the worst poker face on the planet and it took every ounce of self-control not to erupt in a fit of giggles. Everything about the moment was wrong. It was wrong that I was perpetrating such a crazy lie to get some toiletries and a foot rub, and it was wrong that my name only had significance in this world when appended with ’star of the next Judd Apatow movie.’ The little girl nodded and broke into an impossibly wide grin, like we were best friends in high school who lost touch and, now, just bumped into each other.

 

“Oh, of course,” she said, “I totally knew that. Sorry you had to wait, Bill.”

 

I was beet red from embarrassment but somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that this could be confused with a sweet “aw shucks” Michael Cera-style demeanor that might suit my predicament.

 

“It’s okay, you’re just during your job,” I smiled, letting the broadness of my smile absorb and utilize the giddy (and guilty) energy in my voice.

 

Pam led me in – by the hand, no less – into the extravagant pre-show spa and showed me all of the different stations for decadent pampering. I could get a pedicure, a manicure, a massage, a haircut, a glass of Dom, a snack, and more, time permitting. I would have felt awful about lying to get this undeniably luxurious service if it weren’t for the fact that the more ass-kissy people got, the more pissed off I grew towards the whole morally bankrupt, star-f*cking, sycophantic system. “To be… on TV, or not to be… on TV” that is the question of existence in Los Angeles.

 

I remember lying there thinking, “All of a sudden I’m worthy or praise and attention because of a role in a movie… ahhh, right there, a little lower please… I’d been incredibly close to huge roles my whole career but because of the vaguaries of chance and fate… that’s definitely a knot, use the oil to get deeper,,, I don’t ACTUALLY deserve this treatment? That’s why famous people are so goddamn crazy, they have some Divine Right of Kings belief that they are blessed by God because their pilot got picked up or a studio executive took a great shit and decided to greenlight a movie that could have been shelved for another 5 years…… oooooh, I love it when they dig knuckles into the balls of my feet and, man, I love the smell of eucalyptus.”

 

I had to invent about 15 more lies about the Apatow project and the upcoming season of Last Comic Standing as I got wheeled around the spa, ranging from “I’m not really allowed to talk about it” to “Judd is a great guy” to “Seth Rogan actually doesn’t smoke THAT much weed.”

 

Three hours later, with the sun dipping into the sea and spreading a glow of imperial violet across the horizon, I stumbled back to my car. I was half-drunk, muscles of jelly, smelling like a yoga studio, and slightly ashamed of myself…

 

But then I felt the hefty weight of my schwag bag.

Haha. Suckers.

“When you see me out, just walk away like you don’t even know me!” Click.

 

And like that, my ‘first LA girlfriend’ became my ‘first LA ex-girlfriend.’ Thus begins the arduous physical task of deliberately avoiding certain places and the more arduous mental task of sanding down the edges on certain vivid memories so that their facsimiles (i.e. a perch off Kirkwood on the 4th of July) can become, once again, just another neutral location on a map.

 

To make the dumping worse, the ‘break up’ argument was carried in a bad reception area. So we were breaking up… WHILE we were breaking up. I must have looked batguana crazy pacing around Runyon Canyon looking for the satellite sweet spot yelling: “No, no, that’s such BS, I never said that! That’s a bunch of crap!… Hold on, let me climb up on this rock… Can you hear me now? GOOD — SCREW YOU!”

 

Right as I got to the bottom of the canyon, the reception improved and she leveled her zingers, as if they had been lying in wait for the perfect moment of electromagnetic clarity. “Do LA a favor and move back to New York. And if you stay – when you see me out, just walk away like you don’t even know me!”

 

Call ended. Not a ‘disconnect,’ clearly a hang up.

 

I looked at my 8900 Blackberry Curve like it was some cryptex which held answers as to the exact nature of the call and the subsequent hang up. Although, technically, I guess you don’t ‘hang up’ cell phones. I think we need a new phrase like: ‘That bitch red-buttoned me!’

 

I stood at the base of Runyon Canyon and just stared at the placid home screen like if I gazed at it long enough, it would transmogrify and say, “Hey, she’s just hurt and working out childhood issues. She still loves you, dude!”

 

However, I knew that this time was, indeed, the last time I would get ‘red-buttoned’ in this relationship. It was over. I continued my still and silent vigil for several more minutes with my stubborn phone. Runners keeping six-pack shape for their ‘big break’ looked at my crestfallen form and avoided it like the canyon’s ubiquitous dog poop. I was so not in line with ‘The Secret!’ I looked up, vaguely noticing the near full moon and mockingly perfect LA weather (even the gentle breeze seemed to torment me) and thought about my journey since arriving in LA early February…

 

When I first got to LA, I was desperate. The smothering loneliness of the town turned me into a serial (and incredibly impatient) dater. I perfunctorily made out with lots of faces and ran up an impressive credit card debt, at least by Capital-One-no-hassles-credit-rating-of-620 standards. I was becoming convinced LA was just not my town and I would never meet a girlfriend much less (dare I even say it?) a soul mate.

 

Then I met Julianne.

 

From the moment I saw her, I knew I was in trouble. My brain, heart, and penis all huddled together and decided that THIS was the woman I should become retarded for. She was (still is, I’m sure) 6 feet 1 inch tall (when not slouching), auburn hair, amber eyes, porcelain skin, with the hanger angles of a Milan runway model, and the stylish yet slightly muted fashion sense of a young and fresh LA club kid; this all juxtaposed nicely with the mysterious and easy smirk of a woman who had been there and, yes, had done that.

 

One time, a guy came up to her at a club (guys would hit on her in front of me all the time) and said, “Hey beautiful – you’re really tall.” She just looked at the guy coolly and said, “Not really… for a man.” This just made me spiral further into retardation.

 

Despite her obvious appeal, she kind of stood against the grain of my exes of yesteryear. I tended to like dancers and curvy chicks (no, not girls with spina bifida, you freaks!); girls with a little junk in the trunk. Sometimes, I was even okay with junk in the kitchen or junk in the attic. At times, I’ve even been know to be okay with junk in the neighbor’s yard. My philosophy was always ‘the more cushion for the pushin’!’ But Julianne was over 6 feet, under 120 pounds and I was in love, so I had to temporarily change it to ‘the more bone for the bonin’!’

 

I used to joke that she was 120… not 120 pounds, but she only had one 20 in her purse because she never had to pay for shit! And it was true. Everywhere we went, men stared at her like dying carp. One time, a friend came into town and wanted to go to a cool place with an ‘open bar.’ I responded, ‘That’s easy — just take a right down this street here and when you get to the corner turn… into Julianne.’

 

Celebrities like Wilder Dabillderama (spelling?) and Leonardo DiCaprio would hit on her just because it was Tuesday. I took it in stride knowing that we had fallen madly and fervently in love and that all the fliration and BS in the world wouldn’t cockblock the motha effin’ ‘L’ word!

 

As irony would have it, jealousy got the better of her. She dug through my emails, my text messages, my voice messages, my Facebook messages, my MySpace messages, and probably, my skid-marked drawers, until she garnered up enough scraps of quasi-evidence to seal up her leaky ship of suspicion. I guess if you dig long enough and you want to find something specifically, you’ll find it… generally. Although she was a near professional flirt at clubs, apparently virtual flirting convincingly trumps actual flirting. Who knew?

 

And like that, it was done. No face to face. No hug goodbye. No slow dance and fade to black. No leaving on a jetplane. Just her leaving behind some harsh phone calls and flimsy accusations. I was left — metaphorically, and every other kind of –ically — with my dick in my hand.

 

My emotionally stunted friend Don tried to console me by saying, “Well, you got your LA starter girlfriend out of the way! Everyone needs an LA starter girlfriend!” The fact that he told me this as we sipped on iced green teas at Coffee Bean next to guys wearing Ed Hardy shirts made me wanna choke to death on a tapioca ball.

 

I tried to laugh about the ’starter girlfriend’ comment for his sake, but it was cold comfort for the familiar ache in my heart. It was, and is, the same Proustian ache that stretches back over decades and dully throbs whenever I remember how, in third grade, Mike Attilis asked Fay Hanley to ‘go with’ him and she said ‘ok.’ I couldn’t even eat my rectangle pizza in the cafeteria that sad day.

 

Same ache. Years haven’t deadened a single nerve ending.

 

I look at my phone and shake it like it’s Rihanna and I’m Chris. It isn’t giving up shit. The burgeoning breeze rustles through the palm trees, but only manages to go around my body and the ache that is consuming it like a rapid cancer.

 

I delete her as a contact from my phone and put it in my sweat jacket pocket… futilely hoping that the order of the digits in her number hasn’t emblazoned itself on my brain forever.

 

I know it’s time to go home, alone, so I head south from Runyon Canyon onto Fuller Ave.

 

I also know I am unable to feel worse than this. Then I step in the ubiquitous dog shit.

About four years ago, an African-American gentleman who was a patron of the Hollywood Laugh Factory threatened to shoot me in the face with a glock.

 

I know what you’re thinking: that doesn’t sound very gentlemanly.

 

In his defense, I’d only been doing comedy about two years and hadn’t figured out how to handle race jokes with a great deal of finesse yet. I had gone to a predominantly black public school called TC Williams High School outside Washington, D.C., and racial ribbing was as standard as the oily pizza rectangles we had in the cafeteria for lunch. One of the greatest satisfactions I can remember from high school was garnering the following praise from a black guy: “Dat white boy is stupid!” If a black girl conceded: “You know what, dat white boy IS stupid!” I glowed for about a week. My ability to be a ‘stupid’ clown got me through a rough school and was probably the inchoate stages of my life as a standup.

 

But the sensitivity on and surrounding the ‘color line’ is still one of the more delicate lines a comic can walk today. I can do 30 minutes on Asian stereotypes and everyone, even the Asians, are raughing out roud. I can rip on gay clichés for another 20 without one homosexual snapping his fingers in disgust. I can even blast Mexicans for a todos of 30 minutes before I hear the first ‘puta.’ However, jokes about black people and black culture… If you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the collective asshole of the audience pucker.

 

Particularly, if you were like ME three years ago, sans good material and sans a sensitivity chip for deciphering whether or not I went too far…

 

I was onstage at the Hollywood Laugh Factory shortly after Katrina and, like many people, I felt that Kanye West’s ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’ line next to a flummoxed Mike Meyers was the best moment in the history of television. I tried to find a way to put it in my act so I shoehorned it into a very mediocre George Bush impersonation. I guess the whole thing overall is pretty offensive…

 

AND HERE IT GOES! (imagine a spot-on Bus impersonation…okay, now imagine my so-so Bush impersonation):

 

“My fellow Americans, I just want to say Dick Cheney is a great American. Regarding recent events, it’s important to point out that Vice President Cheney did not indiscrimin… indiscriminatively… indiscriminitatively — it’s a word, seriously — SHOOT that person. It was intentional. He thought it was a Mexican.”

 

I got some okay laughs for that one. It’s kind of a lousy joke, so I’d like to think it was because of my awesome W impression. I looked out and saw that one of the people laughing was a black guy in shades, an enormous fur coat, every finger blinged out like a Nelly video. He had a little grin on his face and was nodding. He liked it! I continued:

 

“I’m also deeply concerned people feel like I don’t care about the African-American people. I do. Seriously. As a matter of fact, some of my best friends — some of my cabinet members — Colin Powell, Condaleeza Rice… combined they equal ONE black person.”

 

I looked out and saw that Thug Life was still digging the joke. He even flashed his grill as he smiled. I’m killing him, I thought! Time to bring it home:

 

“As a matter of fact, I grew up with coloreds.

My daddy even let me keep a few in the basement.”

 

If I could give an analogy, it was like the classic record needle being suddenly yanked off a vinyl. No one laughed. Even the silence seemed to be silenter. My face went beet red… probably because I was expecting SOMETHING… at least a laugh-groan – a graugh. It went vulture circling quiet. Then the pimp daddy looking guy said ‘Boo’ and snickered.

 

I looked at him and imitated his snicker. Then I said, “Boo YOU! I should boo you for your fur coat! And I know it’s real fur too. Hey, Kool Moe Dee, what horrible creature had to die in order for you to wear that coat… Hmmm, lemme guess… Your auntie?”

 

At that point he stood up brusquely.

 

Unable to not be a douche, I said: “You don’t want to screw with this cracka! I’m craaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzy!” Then I pulled the bottom of my shirt up through my neckline so I had that sweet Daisy-Duke knot and said: “You want some of this!!!!?”

 

Not my finest moment, I admit. But I was back in high school again! I was trying to get the black guy about to kick my ass to say, “Dat white boy is stupid!” and then hug it out with me.

 

Just then, I noticed two women stand up on either side of him. I said, ‘Alright, peeeeemp, I guess you and your ho’s are leaving. Take care playa!”

 

He stood there for a second, wearing a fur and hide pimp coat made of Kangaroos, Polar Bears, and Honkey Epidermis (that thing must have weighed 250 pounds). Then pointed at me with a bejewelled finger and mimed shooting at me.

 

“Ow, those mimed finger bullets really hurt me, Mr. Cool Jay!”

 

After the fake shooting, he walked out, his ladies in tow.

 

When I finished my set and walked outside, I saw Jamie Masada, the owner, with a very disappointed look on his face.

 

“What’s wrong?” I said.

 

“Since I’ve been here, buddy, there have been only two death threats against comics at this club. One was Andrew Dice Clay.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You are the second one.” (Note to reader: this was almost two years before the Michael Richards debacle)

 

I was shocked. “Oh, come on, was there really a threat against my life?”

 

Jamie said, “He came up to me and said ‘If I wasn’t with my auntie right now, I swear I would have waited for him after the show and shot him!’”

 

I still wasn’t sure if I believed it until Jamie produced the man’s business card, which looked very legit, and informed the reader that he was a producer at the notorious “Death Row Records.”

 

“He was very upset and very serious,” Jamie said. He handed me the card, shook his head at me, and walked away (why was I always disappointing him?).

 

In my defense, what are the chances that I would make a reference to his “auntie” dying while his actual “auntie” was sitting right next to him?

 

I looked at the card and shuddered a bit. There was a red stain on it that looked like blood…

 

However, it could have been barbecue sauce.