Speaker 1: From Workhouse Connect and aj Benze fame Uh he'd liked
Speaker 1: to be walked on a leash and play really dirty,
Speaker 1: kinky sex games. Is uh the guy put the cock
Speaker 1: in the peacock network. Okay, bitch, Hey, everybody AJ Benz
Speaker 1: are here with fame is a bitch. This is your
Speaker 1: daily Unfiltered podcast for November twenty sixth No. Twenty seven
Speaker 1: four two four. Look at that? Look at this? What
Speaker 1: have we got tomorrow? Are you down? Tomorrow's the big day? No, actually,
Speaker 1: Thursday's the big day? Asshole? What's wrong with me? I
Speaker 1: just I just want the holiday to get here sooner.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here waiting for box Spring, mattress and something
Speaker 1: else to be delivered. I'm at the mercy of these
Speaker 1: you know, the people who come with the trucks with
Speaker 1: your shit, and it's so I'm waiting. I'm waiting. So
Speaker 1: I'm landlocked all day. I got to split at like
Speaker 1: six point thirty for Rocos game. Great game last night
Speaker 1: really really brought me back. I'm going to do a
Speaker 1: show on that at some point. But going to his
Speaker 1: high school game last night, watching all the boys play
Speaker 1: and hearing the squeaks of the sneaker and in the
Speaker 1: gym and fans cheering, and man, it just shocked me
Speaker 1: right back to high school. And I love anything that
Speaker 1: puts me in that mood. When I tell Dagavino a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago that Roccos season began, uh, He's
Speaker 1: just like, oh, Bro, I'm gonna miss that. You're going
Speaker 1: I missed that so much. My son Law was a
Speaker 1: terrific basketball player, developed a really good outside shot and
Speaker 1: really made a difference in a lot of games. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how many years ago, let's say three
Speaker 1: years ago. He's playing high school ball and his school
Speaker 1: was good, and they went up against Sierra Canyon, who
Speaker 1: at the time had Lebron James son, Bronnie, who is
Speaker 1: now a pro, even though he's not nearly ready for that,
Speaker 1: but whatever. And I'll tell you I took Rocco to
Speaker 1: the game and we sat with Mike obviously, and his
Speaker 1: son had a good game, and you know, Lebron's son did, okay.
Speaker 1: Lebron came to the game, he was there, a lot
Speaker 1: of people went up to him. We didn't bother him,
Speaker 1: but I think that was a real seminal moment for
Speaker 1: Rocco to see that how great high school ball can be.
Speaker 1: You know, this is COVID, right before COVID hit, and
Speaker 1: things were just moving along so fast. We were playing
Speaker 1: little league football, going undefeated and banged the rug got
Speaker 1: pulled out from under us. I say us, but really
Speaker 1: got pulled out from under So many kids, so many kids,
Speaker 1: high school, little league, no prom, no grudge, no flirting
Speaker 1: with the pretty girl next door, no flirting with Sue
Speaker 1: Andino like daddy did. What a goddamn shame. And these
Speaker 1: kids are going to come out into society without ever
Speaker 1: knowing the feeling of some of those wonderful moments in life.
Speaker 1: But that's why I told you from day one, doctor
Speaker 1: Fauci's a fucking liar, phony bastard, and nobody should listen
Speaker 1: to it. I remember being the only person at grocery
Speaker 1: stores and department stores who would raise a stink with
Speaker 1: some of the rules. I remember waiting online at Ralph's,
Speaker 1: which is our big supermarket chain out here, and I got,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is? It was a line out the
Speaker 1: door at Ralphs with like thirty people long. I was
Speaker 1: going to get ice cream for the wife and kids,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the hell? I gotta wait because
Speaker 1: this is where the ice cream is, and asking Ramas
Speaker 1: is closed because of COVID, So I'll wait. The line's
Speaker 1: going very slow. You enter in one door only when
Speaker 1: people exit the other door thirty yards away, and I'm waiting.
Speaker 1: Two people leave, two people in the three people leave.
Speaker 1: That kind of shit. Once we get in, there's arrows
Speaker 1: pointing what you guys, remember, arrows pointing which way to go,
Speaker 1: little stickers on the ground noting six foot and you can.
Speaker 1: And I'm the only person going, what is this nonsense?
Speaker 1: These masks don't do a fucking thing. I'm six feet
Speaker 1: away from you, but I can be three feet away
Speaker 1: from the cashia. Does this make any sense to anybody?
Speaker 1: How stupid this is? And if I bag my own groceries,
Speaker 1: I'm two feet from m but you don't count. No
Speaker 1: one just sat down and figured out this nonsense of
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it was. I did, and I was always
Speaker 1: the loud guy. I went in to a weed store
Speaker 1: the other day to get some gummies to go to sleep. Right.
Speaker 1: I like this brand. I feel it's called now hide Hyde.
Speaker 1: They're good goo gum used to go to sleep. I
Speaker 1: never take anything during the day that's not my thing.
Speaker 1: But I like nine thirty nine o'clock at night, get
Speaker 1: ready for bed. I love it. He used to go
Speaker 1: out at ten thirty eleven o'clock. Now at nine, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: Even at eight o'clock, I'm ready. Anyhow, I'm at the
Speaker 1: weed store and I'm about to cook for the kids.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm a little bit of rush. You know,
Speaker 1: here's the first hint. Never go into a weed store
Speaker 1: if you're in a rush. People who like marijuana are
Speaker 1: never in a rush. So I get there, there's a
Speaker 1: guy in front of me waiting. I give the guy
Speaker 1: my license. I'm ready to go. He says, okay, you
Speaker 1: just gotta wait until two people exit. I'm looking into
Speaker 1: the place where people are shot. There's three people in there.
Speaker 1: I said, what's the problem. Why can't I can't get it?
Speaker 1: Walk in and make it four people? Well, we only
Speaker 1: have two bud tenders. Bud tenders, not bartenders, bud tenders.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, yeah, there's only two of them, and
Speaker 1: there are three people in there, and they're okay, So
Speaker 1: can I go in there and brow? Actually I know
Speaker 1: what I want. Yeah, I have to wait till one
Speaker 1: person leaves. You got to One person leaves and he's
Speaker 1: looking over his shoulder at the bud tender says, I said, guy,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? He goes, Dude, while are you
Speaker 1: coming to a weed store? You're in a hurry. You
Speaker 1: know you're getting marijuana. I said, look, give a fuck
Speaker 1: what I'm getting. I could be in a hurry and
Speaker 1: still enjoy a gummy at night. That's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: I said, you don't have any kids, you don't cook dinner,
Speaker 1: so what the fuck do you know? I'm like, am
Speaker 1: I going to get bounced out of this marijuana store?
Speaker 1: So I shut my mouth, did my business and left.
Speaker 1: But I can't. The patience I have is as thin
Speaker 1: as the salami. I like when I own a boar's
Speaker 1: head salami. I like, I tell the girl, I like
Speaker 1: it thin. I want to see through it like stained glass. Okay,
Speaker 1: today's a little bit of a different show. I'm going
Speaker 1: to do a couple of things that we normally do,
Speaker 1: but I want to read you a couple of things.
Speaker 1: I know you guys, like the the hate mail, having
Speaker 1: a hate mail for you that I think you're like.
Speaker 1: You'll you'll you'll find out that a lot of my
Speaker 1: hate mail come from came from Michael Jackson fans because
Speaker 1: I broke that story, and boyd they come down on
Speaker 1: me and I honestly scientology, Michael Jackson and the Pope.
Speaker 1: Those three entities you can't fuck with or you get
Speaker 1: you get hate mail. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it's like now, but back then people wrote letters in it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty crazy. But I meanhow the crazy thing today
Speaker 1: and nothing that my Patreon listeners didn't know. I told
Speaker 1: you this a long time ago, years ago. I told
Speaker 1: you this that Wendy Williams her mental health condition is
Speaker 1: so bad it's gotten worse. They say that. According to
Speaker 1: a recent filing from her legal guardian that was submitted
Speaker 1: to a New York court earlier this month. UH this woman,
Speaker 1: the guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, who I believe is her niece,
Speaker 1: says that Wendy's become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated. And
Speaker 1: look that they're obviously blaming it all on the onset
Speaker 1: of this dementia, and she's become cognitively impaired and permanently incapacitated.
Speaker 1: The guardian unsuccessfully also tried to stop that four part
Speaker 1: documentary that series. What about the Wendy Williams series that
Speaker 1: really showed her in an awful light and showed people
Speaker 1: exactly where she is right now, how vulnerable and how sick,
Speaker 1: and she's crying over her finances. She's hiding bottles of
Speaker 1: Vodkol over a room. And of course as the filming
Speaker 1: rap they start to say, oh, she's been diagnosed from
Speaker 1: frontough temporal dementia and ephasia to Bruce Willis illness, and
Speaker 1: that affects her memory loss and causes her the rack
Speaker 1: to act erradically. You know some of these things they're
Speaker 1: saying about Wendy, I don't know. Basically, this chit Morrissey
Speaker 1: is pissed off because she says, Wehndy only got eighty
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars from that series and the producers made
Speaker 1: she thinks millions. I don't believe it was millions, but
Speaker 1: they did better than eighty two grand. But this Morrissey
Speaker 1: has asked the judge that he needs to readat some
Speaker 1: sensitive information out of the case about Wendy's health and
Speaker 1: her finances. I don't know what she's looking to do.
Speaker 1: I think this whole thing comes down to that she's
Speaker 1: mad that she didn't get enough money. I don't think
Speaker 1: she has Wendy's best interests at heart. I know Wendy's
Speaker 1: got a new lawyer who seems to be on the
Speaker 1: up and up and looks to be the kind of
Speaker 1: guy that's gonna protect her from these assholes. But listen
Speaker 1: to me. Here's the thing. This guardian is suing because
Speaker 1: she's mad she didn't get her share, not because Wendy
Speaker 1: was cheated. That's not what she cares about. And by
Speaker 1: the way, this guardian is but under court order since
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, which means that she probably signed off
Speaker 1: on the deal. Actually I know she did, and if
Speaker 1: that's the case, then the lawsuit doesn't mean anything. You
Speaker 1: can wipe your ass with it. But I want to
Speaker 1: submit something that no one has brought up. And you know,
Speaker 1: I like throwing out these far flung ideas or angles
Speaker 1: I have because they often come out to be true.
Speaker 1: But I'm just gonna throw something out here. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this is the cause of her dementia or that
Speaker 1: this might even help her, But can we please have
Speaker 1: a surgeon remove wen these triple H breast implants? Can
Speaker 1: we do that, they're probably leaking poison all throughout our body.
Speaker 1: And I know not many. I know women who had
Speaker 1: their breast implants taken out and felt like they didn't
Speaker 1: know what was wrong with them. They thought they had
Speaker 1: lime disease. They thought they had issues with their you know,
Speaker 1: not being able to what's the word, you know, just
Speaker 1: issues with warding off illnesses and diseases. They just didn't
Speaker 1: know what was wrong. They felt sick forever. They took
Speaker 1: their breast implants out, or they had a doctor do it,
Speaker 1: and they felt remarkably better. I don't like seeing women
Speaker 1: take their breast implants out. I don't like that. I
Speaker 1: like prest implants, and I just do if you have
Speaker 1: a pair of naturally beautiful breast and forget implants. But
Speaker 1: if you don't, and you want to look better and
Speaker 1: you want to feel sexy, then have about it. I
Speaker 1: hate when they take him out, But in this case,
Speaker 1: Wendy's so sick, why keep him in? I didn't like
Speaker 1: there's a man after her. I mean, I don't mean
Speaker 1: that in a chauvinistic way, but she's sitting around with
Speaker 1: these big fun bands on her chest. They can't be
Speaker 1: feeling good. I say take him out, take him out. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, some good news. I love hearing things
Speaker 1: like this. Remember that little spoiled actress Rachel Zegler talked
Speaker 1: about her last week. She plays snow White, right, the
Speaker 1: one who complained about snow White, saying that Prince Charming
Speaker 1: was a stalker and snow White would never have kissed him.
Speaker 1: She even said during a press chunk at that the
Speaker 1: original cartoon came out in nineteen thirty seven, and very
Speaker 1: evidently so because it's a big story, a big focus
Speaker 1: on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her.
Speaker 1: So we didn't We're not gonna do that this time. Okay,
Speaker 1: snow White's not going to be saved by the Prince.
Speaker 1: She's not going to be dreaming about true love. I know. Okay,
Speaker 1: stupid little girl, we all know. But you guys will
Speaker 1: be glad to hear that. I have a source who
Speaker 1: told me that she's not too nice to her crew
Speaker 1: on the Romeo and Juliet project, and they all hate
Speaker 1: coming to work, and they all love the nights when
Speaker 1: her understudy takes over. Good happy to hear that, girl.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say the word of hate. She's
Speaker 1: a very misguided, dumb, little spoiled actress who has no
Speaker 1: idea that she doesn't know shit about the world yet.
Speaker 1: And yet the way we treat these people in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: the way their agents treat them, they tend to think
Speaker 1: they do and they don't, and it just makes me
Speaker 1: fucking insane. They're absolutely little nobody's. If you make the
Speaker 1: studio some money, then suddenly they do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Hate mail time here we go. Hey, this one from
Speaker 1: a woman named Tracy Hanks out of New York. Don't
Speaker 1: have the year here, probably nineteen ninety three or four.
Speaker 1: She opens the letter with something I'm not called too often,
Speaker 1: but she addressed me as dear racist Fastard. Michael Jackson's
Speaker 1: camp Sony Music and Michael zillions of loyal and supportive
Speaker 1: fans around the world should thank all these scumbags, the
Speaker 1: lying money grubbing handlers, the race, this white media, and
Speaker 1: each and every lying low life who attempted but failed
Speaker 1: miserably to bring down that kingnap hop and he brought
Speaker 1: himself down. Should It's it's damn poetic justice that the
Speaker 1: false accusations all the mediaized that millions of dollars spent
Speaker 1: by the sleazy tabloids tablets didn't spend a dime idiot
Speaker 1: have made Michael Jackson the ultimate victim and given his
Speaker 1: career the boost it's needed to elevate the Kingdom Pop
Speaker 1: to a higher level. Didn't know Michael needed a boost? Okay,
Speaker 1: any doubted all that Michael Jackson's next record won't go
Speaker 1: sky high and his concerts instant sellouts around the world,
Speaker 1: creating mass hysteria. Your trip to Las Vegas for the
Speaker 1: Jackson Family Honors was a huge disappointment for you, wasn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. You went there desperately hoping that the crowd
Speaker 1: would rejet Michael, but instead you had to endure a
Speaker 1: LoveFest between michael Is loving and adoring fans. What other
Speaker 1: entertainment on this planet gets an eight and a half
Speaker 1: minute thunderous elevation Only the King of Pop, who's truly
Speaker 1: loved for sweet, loving, caring, kind soul and the fact
Speaker 1: that he did old boys testicles. Well, scumbag Benza, you
Speaker 1: haven't seen anything yet because that love fest she can't
Speaker 1: even spell her words fbss lovefests. That LoveFest in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas just a small fraction of what is awaiting Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson from his loyal public around the world. Last paragraph,
Speaker 1: after the parading, After the parading of you races hate
Speaker 1: mongers on TV and radio to smear Michael Jackson, the
Speaker 1: public still loves and supports Michael, believing in his tole lticens,
Speaker 1: the only thing you you rack Bags accomplish is the
Speaker 1: exposure of your wickedness. Now every time you're seen or
Speaker 1: heard by the public, you're without credibility, and your evil
Speaker 1: and wicked ways or revealed, you are much scorned and pitied.
Speaker 1: You stupid fuck Tracy Hanks New York? Do you have
Speaker 1: Do you feel that way about any celebrity that you
Speaker 1: talked this way? I believe you're the worst type of
Speaker 1: media person you and people like you not even gonna
Speaker 1: call you a journalist because by no means to even
Speaker 1: come close, you're a hypocrite. Pal. You're write about Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson as if you are on some type of moral mission.
Speaker 1: But the fact remains that the parents of Jordan Chandler
Speaker 1: are as responsible as Michael for whatever happened or didn't that,
Speaker 1: And as far as I'm concerned, being thirteen to fourteen
Speaker 1: years old does not automatically indicate you are an innocent
Speaker 1: read your own paper boy and me calling you a hypocrite.
Speaker 1: I seem to remember that you have a what that
Speaker 1: this person know? I didn't have a daughter in the nineties.
Speaker 1: I didn't even see this sentence. I seem to remember,
Speaker 1: you have a daughter. How much would you take for her?
Speaker 1: What's your number? Like? Don't have a daughter. I never
Speaker 1: saw this before. I'm sure it means less than nothing
Speaker 1: to you or your bosses, But as long as you
Speaker 1: write for the Daily News, I'm not buying it anymore.
Speaker 1: That's my small but important to me commercial response. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the News didn't know what to do after
Speaker 1: they lost your fifty cents a day, but thanks for
Speaker 1: doing all you could. Speaking of the Daily News, I
Speaker 1: do want to sometimes I feel like I'm just I
Speaker 1: don't want to get high up my own thoughts and
Speaker 1: I don't want to, you know, read these things and
Speaker 1: act like guys, aren't I great? No, I'm not, clearly,
Speaker 1: But I want to bring attention to you because there
Speaker 1: was a time in my career where it was really
Speaker 1: it was about the blow. I'm talking ninety five. Things
Speaker 1: were just popping, and you know, even I didn't know
Speaker 1: what the hell was going on. Two periodicals were doing
Speaker 1: covering stories on me, one with the New York comes Over,
Speaker 1: a paper we call the Salmon Colored Weekly. He came
Speaker 1: out once a week. It was a good paper about
Speaker 1: New York's city, journalism, real estate. It really it really
Speaker 1: hit some big television, the media. It was a great
Speaker 1: newspaper for a once a week. By they were doing
Speaker 1: a cover story in me. New York Magazine was doing
Speaker 1: a cover story in me. But they were both different
Speaker 1: types of people. You know. New York Magazine, as you know,
Speaker 1: got me in so much trouble, got me beat up
Speaker 1: by Chuck Zeno, got my car burned to the point
Speaker 1: where I couldn't use it. It was burned, my underwear was stolen.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of things happened to me. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this person, Nick palm Garden, was trying to interview
Speaker 1: me for The New York Observer. I was giving him
Speaker 1: such shit, like I have it on tape. You've better
Speaker 1: not fuck me with this article. I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I'll cooperate, but if you say anything wrong, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: fucking you know. I talked to him like I thought,
Speaker 1: who the hell I thought I was at one point,
Speaker 1: I tell him I'm not a I'm not a writer.
Speaker 1: I'm a fighter who can write. And I was just
Speaker 1: pulling shit out of my ass. Turns out this guy
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a nice piece on me. It
Speaker 1: was New York Magazine. That didn't hurt me, but that
Speaker 1: was glossy, that was a cooler periodical. You see, the
Speaker 1: fame was getting to my fucking head. There was an
Speaker 1: old publicist named cy Preston. He is to tug like
Speaker 1: this Benza Preston here, and he'd give you these old items.
Speaker 1: He Syde Preston used to give items to Walter Winchell.
Speaker 1: That's how old he was. And he knew all about
Speaker 1: New York and he represented so many people by the
Speaker 1: time he knew me. He was representing the woman who
Speaker 1: sang chock full of Nuts as the heavenly coffee on
Speaker 1: the commercial for the chalk Ful of Nuts coffee brand.
Speaker 1: He had a restaurant called Nirvana, which was an Indian
Speaker 1: restaurant uptown, and he just had like four or five
Speaker 1: clients and you have to put them in the column
Speaker 1: once in a while, but sometimes Syde Preston had something good.
Speaker 1: So I was really messed up. Back then, and I
Speaker 1: set to side. Do me a favor. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get up early enough to get the New York
Speaker 1: to get the Observer comes out like three o'clock, four
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. Can you do me a favor.
Speaker 1: I was sick in bed, My back was bad. I said,
Speaker 1: get the paper. SI, call me in the morning and
Speaker 1: read it to me. You got it? So he calls me, Hello,
Speaker 1: Preston here. I said, sorry, is it good or not?
Speaker 1: Is it good? It's a blow job, kid, They love you.
Speaker 1: He starts reading it. But here's the way they begin
Speaker 1: this article again. I'm not trying to act like, ah,
Speaker 1: not cool, just want to let you know what was
Speaker 1: swimming in my head for a while and now it
Speaker 1: really did affect me in a bad way. At night,
Speaker 1: aj Ben's a hunts for items at Scores, Flowers, Lemons, Spy,
Speaker 1: Mirage and other nightclubs where he might run into a supermodel,
Speaker 1: Baldwin brother or a New York nick Oh. It's a
Speaker 1: tough life for this thirty four year old wise guy
Speaker 1: from benson Hurst, Brooklyn, but this is what he must
Speaker 1: do to stay on top of things. As gossip reporter
Speaker 1: for the Daily News, and they go about what I
Speaker 1: do for a living, blah blah blah. But unlike others
Speaker 1: who work in the gossip trade, mister Benza isn't content
Speaker 1: to serve as a mere chronicler. He wants his own
Speaker 1: piece of the action. He wants to be a star.
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, it looks like his wish is coming true.
Speaker 1: And they talk about the fact that I got the
Speaker 1: talk show AJ after hours. I'm in ransom. You know,
Speaker 1: he's pumped for the part. AJ was playing it cool
Speaker 1: as he waited for it, you know, just they were
Speaker 1: really blowing me up. I like how they ended it.
Speaker 1: I'm not reading the whole thing. It's long, and it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not trying to act like this is
Speaker 1: nothing special, but this is the way things are gun
Speaker 1: in the nineties. And I just yes, and I did
Speaker 1: say that. I say bow my stupid here and there.
Speaker 1: But the way they end this is really sweet and
Speaker 1: they got me. They really figured it out. It's a
Speaker 1: nice article. Benza stands upart because he's a guy for
Speaker 1: the Burroughs who's crossed the river into a world of
Speaker 1: glitter and Judy bound to share with the cousins back home.
Speaker 1: He often appears part by. He often appears slightly owed
Speaker 1: by celebrities, which some of his colleagues find endearing, others
Speaker 1: final little silly, although it might look like an act.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, as Persona is authentic. The change, the
Speaker 1: tough talk out of Martin Scorsese movies, the concern over
Speaker 1: male pattern boulders, and above all, the obsession with hot
Speaker 1: babes and the men who have made their names for
Speaker 1: themselves in part by pursuing those women, Warren Batty and
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson Rain and mister Benz's stud pantheon. He cares
Speaker 1: little for duty free airesses, but relishes his scooped that
Speaker 1: Vendall left Ford Bottles and that are doing so might
Speaker 1: result on her joining him for intimate breakfast. Okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: This is where it gets ridiculous, and okay, here it goes.
Speaker 1: I can't the irony question. His stick is that he's
Speaker 1: cut the fact that this guy is analyzing me. Is
Speaker 1: a guy named Neil Gabler who's chronicled a lot of journalists.
Speaker 1: He's written books. He wrote a big book, The Definitive
Speaker 1: Book on Walter Winchell. This guy says this about me.
Speaker 1: His stick is that he's kind of low rent. Whereas
Speaker 1: most gossip columnists ultimately identify with the people about whom
Speaker 1: they gossip rather than with their readers. The notion of
Speaker 1: retro's sleeves can be very appealing. That's something he could sell.
Speaker 1: Lionizing Hugh Hefter and Robert Evans is almost a form
Speaker 1: of irony. And then he goes on and this is nice.
Speaker 1: It is indeed irony that mister Benson pulls it off
Speaker 1: without a wink to his readers. In the Downtown column
Speaker 1: on mister Hefter, the columnists called the Playboy magnet the
Speaker 1: king of all non committal men and proudly reported on
Speaker 1: his own nude swim in the man's grotto. So what
Speaker 1: if he made an error when he wrote that mister
Speaker 1: Hefta's six year old son was the first child. Never
Speaker 1: mind that Christy Hefter, the publisher's daughter, is forty three.
Speaker 1: The main thing is he needed to get across was
Speaker 1: the fact that he Aj Benzon from Brooklyn was having
Speaker 1: lunch with hef True Playboy spokeswoman Cindy Rakowitz, who was
Speaker 1: present at the Hefter lunch, explained the way that Christy
Speaker 1: oversize Aj got a little too carried away with the
Speaker 1: whole mansion thing, which is kind of cute, I think.
Speaker 1: And then the final paragraph, mister Benson finds himself in
Speaker 1: the odd position of making a living by getting carried
Speaker 1: away in the land of celebrities. He's a fan with
Speaker 1: a column, a stand in for every Tony Manaro, stuck
Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the river. So if he
Speaker 1: seems to gush now and then, just remember, it's because
Speaker 1: he's almost there. It's this. If this TV thing goes through,
Speaker 1: if the movie roll pans out, he just might end
Speaker 1: up a bona fide celebrity himself. In the same day,
Speaker 1: New York Magazine comes out, and right away I see
Speaker 1: he looks like I call Chuck Zito a rat. It
Speaker 1: was also I never told you this, but the dream
Speaker 1: the writer came to my apartment on Madison Avenue, and
Speaker 1: I had my three Yorkies back then, Marcella, Mercedes and Cheesrat,
Speaker 1: and they were all cute, and I got their haircuts
Speaker 1: every you know, five weeks or so. They had barets
Speaker 1: in their hair. I kept my Yorkies nice and gay,
Speaker 1: so to speak. This girl couldn't believe I had three Yorkies,
Speaker 1: right and Chezray, being the only male, when his mother
Speaker 1: or grandmother was in heat, he would react as animals
Speaker 1: sometimes do, and he would try to mount or he
Speaker 1: would mount them. Nothing ever happened, but you know that's
Speaker 1: what happens to a male dog when the female's at heat.
Speaker 1: And I said to this girl in jest, just this
Speaker 1: is why Linda says, He said, don't let a reporter
Speaker 1: follow you. You have no idea the way you talk.
Speaker 1: She's gonna remember things and write things down and it's
Speaker 1: gonna startle you. Ah, what do you know, Linda, Well,
Speaker 1: she was right. So we're hanging out of my living
Speaker 1: room and Cheesrae's trying to mount his mother. And I
Speaker 1: said to the girl, you see, you see I was
Speaker 1: assholes moved a little bit right there. Look at his
Speaker 1: ass She said, I'm not looking at it. I said,
Speaker 1: just look at his asshole. Do you see I would
Speaker 1: just open and close really quick. She goes yeah. I said,
Speaker 1: that's the way I feel when I see a really
Speaker 1: plea girl that I want to sleep with. It was
Speaker 1: something I said in jess as a funny little throwaway line,
Speaker 1: and it got in the story like it began a
Speaker 1: paragraph a paragraph when aj bens and sees the girl
Speaker 1: he really liked to go to bed with his asshole puckers,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the didn't you? Yeah, that's what happens.
Speaker 1: But I didn't listen to Linda. I said, Linda, this
Speaker 1: is my shot for people to know who the fuck
Speaker 1: I am. I'm taking it. I'm glad I took it,
Speaker 1: but I definitely took some shots on the chin, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. And finally, I want to read something again
Speaker 1: to you. You guys tell me to read hate mail
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and I won't read. Have a
Speaker 1: beautiful letter from my aunt Anna, my mother's sister, who
Speaker 1: was so beautiful, and I wanted to read it, and
Speaker 1: I will at one point because it's so wonderful to
Speaker 1: have somebody like that in your corner when you're young,
Speaker 1: when you're really starting out and you're just trying to
Speaker 1: find your way, trying to punch holes through some wall,
Speaker 1: trying to find the right person, the right contact. Is
Speaker 1: this person going to publish this story? Then? Can I
Speaker 1: move on to the next person, the next editor? Who
Speaker 1: can that person introduce me to? That's your twenties. Your
Speaker 1: twenties are all about finding the right person who can
Speaker 1: hear you, see you, recognize your talent, move you forward,
Speaker 1: contact somebody else. Just get shit rolling. And well I'll
Speaker 1: read it. Because Mayan Anna, my mother's sister. She was
Speaker 1: a wonderful woman. I took her to see Jimmy Rozzelli
Speaker 1: at Westbury Music Fair and we love that she loved
Speaker 1: went backstage, Jimmy hogged her and kissed her. This is
Speaker 1: what a moment for her. So she sends me this letter,
Speaker 1: and we did this. My aunt Anna and I wrote
Speaker 1: to each other quite a bit, My dear a j
Speaker 1: and this is mayn Anna. He used to sit me
Speaker 1: on her lap, and when we put on records where
Speaker 1: the singer only spoke Italian, Jimmy Rosselli, Josefie di Stefano, uh,
Speaker 1: some Louis Prima albums, and Anna was always the one
Speaker 1: who sat me on her lap and translated the words
Speaker 1: with such passion, you know, just the way she spoke
Speaker 1: about Jimmy Roselli talking about there's a song Any sings
Speaker 1: called tatsa cafe a cup of coffee, And in this
Speaker 1: song he talks about how a woman is like a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, a cup of espress. So you don't know.
Speaker 1: You have to stir her for the sugar to come
Speaker 1: up to the top. You have to stir the sugar
Speaker 1: up so she becomes as sweet as she is. You
Speaker 1: know you have to do things for her. Did she
Speaker 1: just translate these things to a little boy? I didn't
Speaker 1: know what the hell they meant? Beautiful? So she writes
Speaker 1: to me, my dear AJ, just a few lines to
Speaker 1: try to express what I feel right now. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to keep a steady hand. Why because I called Nunu,
Speaker 1: my sister, to ask what happened to the pictures we
Speaker 1: took at Jimmy Roselli's show. She forgot and the role
Speaker 1: wasn't developed yet. But she told me about Ron Howard
Speaker 1: complimenting about you and the fact that you got the part. Wow,
Speaker 1: what's one of my favorite actors? That Mel Gibson is
Speaker 1: so handsome and so great and oh my god, what
Speaker 1: if you outshine him? Oh shit, you never know. It's
Speaker 1: in the books. You're going far. You can't miss because
Speaker 1: you got it all so gofrid. I screamed so loud
Speaker 1: and so hard that I lost my voice. Otherwise I
Speaker 1: would have called you you aren't home now, Neu new
Speaker 1: told me you're in Florida with the Trumps. I know
Speaker 1: Donald Trump gave most of his information to Linda Stacy.
Speaker 1: He must like the hot copy column to invite you
Speaker 1: to his to get some gossip. I must admit. While
Speaker 1: now and I spoke, I kept seeing visions of my
Speaker 1: baby sister. That's my mother and your dad's reaction on
Speaker 1: what's going on in your life? How proud, how show
Speaker 1: off you they would feel about their boy. I could
Speaker 1: go on and on, but I think you know how
Speaker 1: I feel, as well as everyone in my family, that
Speaker 1: everything is going on so well for you. God bless you, AJ.
Speaker 1: You deserve it all. Always to proudly sign your aunt Anna.
Speaker 1: Ps I just anam was like five pss per leta
Speaker 1: ps I just spoke to Aunt Jenny. Are you ready
Speaker 1: for this? Who would think my god son can go
Speaker 1: so far and so well known? Did you see him
Speaker 1: on heraldo yesterday? He was good and so handsome. That's
Speaker 1: my mother's other sister, Jenny oh Man, She says to me,
Speaker 1: ajps again on January fifteenth, nineteen eighty three. So I'm three,
Speaker 1: isn't a cop I have this letter from your mother? Quote,
Speaker 1: Dear Anna, here's AJ's essay, I hope you like it.
Speaker 1: I love it because it's so true. He's an acting
Speaker 1: class that chose him for three plays. He made out
Speaker 1: great this term with a three point six grade point average.
Speaker 1: He wants to act now since they told him he's
Speaker 1: very good at it. Then there was a letter on
Speaker 1: December of eighty two. Lily has worked on this without
Speaker 1: a single day of vacation. I wrote about my mother
Speaker 1: working so hard without ever ever having a vacation, never
Speaker 1: going out to dinner, nothing. She loved that. And finally,
Speaker 1: January twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, attached on how Low
Speaker 1: Can You Go? Was a story I wrote. Quote the
Speaker 1: ending of the note she wrote to me. Your mother
Speaker 1: said today in school newsday was going to take pictures
Speaker 1: of the play AJ's in in February. You know, I
Speaker 1: believe even to hear after Ah, this is Maynanna. And
Speaker 1: I know Lily is out there rooting for her favorite son.
Speaker 1: She used to brag about how good you were at acting.
Speaker 1: Now the world can see it. She's proven right. Do
Speaker 1: you agree these old ladies there's such classics they just
Speaker 1: don't have. They didn't exist anymore. And Ali used to
Speaker 1: live across the alley from us in Brooklyn. We were
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty six. She was the dext building and with
Speaker 1: a little kitchen and a window that opened up to
Speaker 1: the alleyway, but across the alley was an Atta's kitchen
Speaker 1: and her husband, uncle Dick, and her daughters Reenie and Terry,
Speaker 1: and her son Richard who became my godfather, the great
Speaker 1: artist Richard Mantia, and we would talk to each other
Speaker 1: through the alley across the windows, and all the Italian
Speaker 1: women with the windows up looking down the street. Those
Speaker 1: were the first gossip columnists because they knew all about
Speaker 1: their neighborhood, whether they're on the stoop or just looking
Speaker 1: out the window. That was the first Facebook, that was
Speaker 1: the first Instagram, and that was certainly the first gossip page.
Speaker 1: And they not really around much anymore. It's sad, but
Speaker 1: eventually we struggled. We put a string up and some
Speaker 1: pulleys from one window to the next, and this way
Speaker 1: an Ana can say, Lily, do you have a CANOPIEZ Lily,
Speaker 1: you know you have a bag of lentils, And we'd
Speaker 1: put things in a bag and zipping across the alley
Speaker 1: on a rope system. No one had money. But why
Speaker 1: do I remember those days as being so fantastic. There
Speaker 1: was a boy at the game last night who had
Speaker 1: a Godzilla toy. He was about three years old. This
Speaker 1: toy was half the sizement, and I had the same
Speaker 1: toy as a kid. Godzilla was my favorite monster and
Speaker 1: I remember it. There aren't more than i'd say ten
Speaker 1: memories I have of living in brit when I was swry.
Speaker 1: I was three, three years old under but I remember
Speaker 1: getting ice cream from the stoop, eating a cream sickle
Speaker 1: with Rosalie and some of the football players. I remember
Speaker 1: the TV had like a blue tint to it, and
Speaker 1: whenever I would go to bed, I would see that
Speaker 1: blue light under the bed, under the doorway, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. They would kind of refract into the
Speaker 1: room a little bit. And finally, I told my sisters
Speaker 1: one day, I remember when my toys were kept. They
Speaker 1: were like where I said. I had a drawer full
Speaker 1: of all my favorite monster's King Kong, god Zellow wolf Man.
Speaker 1: It was in the kitchen in a bureau the bottom
Speaker 1: draw and my sister's went, oh my god, how can
Speaker 1: you remember that? I just do. But I saw that
Speaker 1: kid last night and I said, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: is that's the same toll I had stop me from
Speaker 1: crying and stop the kid from crying too. Finally, and
Speaker 1: this show on a I don't want you to be
Speaker 1: sad about it, but I'm speaking about my mother right now,
Speaker 1: my mother's sister. I talk about my dad incessantly. In fact,
Speaker 1: I never say dad. I say father all the time,
Speaker 1: because he was a father to me. It's different than
Speaker 1: a dad. The word father is more representative of who
Speaker 1: he was to me. And as you know, he is
Speaker 1: a favorite of mine and I take a lot, took
Speaker 1: a lot from him, and he was obviously very important.
Speaker 1: My mother, you know, is an angel, but I didn't
Speaker 1: include her in as many shows as I do with
Speaker 1: my dad. So I wanted to read something I read
Speaker 1: about my mother before she died. It's tough. I might
Speaker 1: sniffle here and there, but I think it's good, especially
Speaker 1: with Thanksgiving a day away. I think those of you
Speaker 1: who hear this and have mothers of your own, and
Speaker 1: if this could make you call them or get closer
Speaker 1: to them during the holidays, that I feel like it's
Speaker 1: worth it. So I wrote this at Newsday at night
Speaker 1: in between taking high school scores over the phone while
Speaker 1: my mother was dying, and it begins. Your mother can't
Speaker 1: walk anymore. The merciless tumor is pressed against the nerve
Speaker 1: and her hip, causing paralysis and her right leg. Your
Speaker 1: mother danced a beautiful peabody with your uncle Nikki at
Speaker 1: their niece's wedding last summer. Good then you took a picture.
Speaker 1: At sixty eight, she told you she was still had
Speaker 1: better looking legs than her daughter's, and she was always right. Now,
Speaker 1: she doesn't say these things too much. Your mother's hands shake,
Speaker 1: her voice quivers, and even simple breathing seems an effort.
Speaker 1: Sometimes at times, you feel that doctors cut out dignity
Speaker 1: along with her kidney. Last January, she was a diaper,
Speaker 1: has no hair in her head, and hasn't looked in
Speaker 1: the mirror close to a year. One day, a nurse
Speaker 1: told her she looked pretty, and your mother cried. Your
Speaker 1: mother tells you that story, and you cry. Your mother
Speaker 1: doesn't call you anymore, doesn't want to be a burden.
Speaker 1: You scold her and tell her she never is any
Speaker 1: trouble and you'll always be there for her. You pour
Speaker 1: her favorite cream soda, switch on TV, and turn the
Speaker 1: pillow to the cool side. You are her hero. You
Speaker 1: go back to work. The nurses says she's not eating
Speaker 1: her meals. At least she knows she hasn't lost her sanity.
Speaker 1: Your mother has come home to die. The final round
Speaker 1: will be fought on her home field, with the lights
Speaker 1: on her family around her, away from the blue and
Speaker 1: white sea of her hospital bed. She's wearing her wig today,
Speaker 1: looking for a piece of the dignity she lost a
Speaker 1: long time ago. But she does look pretty today. Pretty
Speaker 1: is that young girl that used to sweep your father
Speaker 1: into her arms. Your mother lay sick and dying in
Speaker 1: a hostile One day, she came home from work with
Speaker 1: an upset stomach. She hasn't been back since. She winces,
Speaker 1: she gasps, she moans, and squeezes her eyes shut. Sometimes
Speaker 1: she's lucky and sleeps some. Otherwise she's up, eyes fixed
Speaker 1: at the ceiling, awake in her own stool, and urin
Speaker 1: like a dirty baby with nothing to do but crow older.
Speaker 1: Your mother's slept all day today, but you came and
Speaker 1: watched her for a while, her mouth wide open, an
Speaker 1: untouched tray of food to her side. When you watched her,
Speaker 1: you could have sworn. You saw her face twitch with pain.
Speaker 1: You couldn't do anything. You tell yourself that if anything
Speaker 1: else but death, anything had cause her that much pain
Speaker 1: and anguish. You've killed that thing with your bare hands.
Speaker 1: You grab it, shake and punch it, kick the teeth
Speaker 1: from its sinister smirk. But there can be no physical
Speaker 1: fight to an invisible opponent. There's no match there. You
Speaker 1: read her a note instead, until you'll come by later.
Speaker 1: Your mother wants to die. Long ago she decided to
Speaker 1: put down her fist and invite death into a quiet,
Speaker 1: sanitary room. And that's where death stays now, perched upon
Speaker 1: the headboard of her bed, behind her door, leaning on
Speaker 1: one elbow, right there next to her. One gloomy day,
Speaker 1: death sweeps down on her, wipes its feet in her doorway,
Speaker 1: and stays awhile. It's got no rush to leave, it's
Speaker 1: got no trains to catch. That doesn't fight fair. But
Speaker 1: your mother is not running from the fight. That's it.
Speaker 1: I didn't cry. Well. Let that be a lesson to
Speaker 1: all of you. You've got moms out there, and maybe
Speaker 1: you're not doing enough. Maybe she doesn't know what she's
Speaker 1: meant to you, and which still means so don't make
Speaker 1: this holiday about a fucking turkey or a ham or
Speaker 1: my case, stuff shells and chicken cutlet parmesan. Make it
Speaker 1: about your mama period. Make it about your mamma. I'll
Speaker 1: talk to this tomorrow