Speaker 1: Fame. He'd liked to be walked on a leash and
Speaker 1: play really dirty, kinky sex games. Is the guy put
Speaker 1: the cock in the Peacock Network. Okay, bitch, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: aj Benzi here with fame as a bitch. This is
Speaker 1: your free show. I'm actually recording his show on Friday
Speaker 1: afternoon because it's now September thirteenth, where two days passed,
Speaker 1: that awful day of remembrance from nine to eleven, and
Speaker 1: I was really searching for something I wrote for a
Speaker 1: magazine named Razor Magazine back in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: which was about me and my buddy Neil Gumpel driving
Speaker 1: cross country an hour or two after we watched the
Speaker 1: towers come down, and we jumped in his rental car
Speaker 1: and drove to New York. For the next three and
Speaker 1: a half days, there were no rental cars to get.
Speaker 1: Everybody already rented them. There was nothing to do. Thank
Speaker 1: god he had one. My car was vintage. It could
Speaker 1: not have it couldn't have made the ride all the
Speaker 1: way to New York. And I had a nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: fourth Fleetwood Cadillac. I would never drive that across country.
Speaker 1: But Neil had this small car so it's him, him
Speaker 1: and me, him and I, I should say, and my
Speaker 1: little dog cesaree my Yorkie. It was like a son
Speaker 1: to me. And we taped God Bless America on a
Speaker 1: back windshield and we set out to drive, not before
Speaker 1: we bought enough liquor and cocaine and some fun pain
Speaker 1: pills and muscle relaxes to fuel us to drive across
Speaker 1: country and also to even understand the extent to which
Speaker 1: we were all facing, possibly World War three, the end
Speaker 1: of New York, the end of America. Who the hell knew?
Speaker 1: But I want to read the audicle, I wrote back,
Speaker 1: and I think it was November or December of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, because I'd written for Razor before I wrote
Speaker 1: how It's During an article, and a couple of others,
Speaker 1: I believe. But that was when freelance magazine writing was great.
Speaker 1: I was making a lot of money writing for Playboy, Razor, Penthouse,
Speaker 1: other magazines, Maxim. I wrote for a lot of them,
Speaker 1: and that was in the day when a guy like
Speaker 1: me was getting two or three dollars a word per article.
Speaker 1: Write a four thousand word article, do the myth. It
Speaker 1: was good money and I had all those guys on
Speaker 1: speed dial. They all knew me, and whenever I called
Speaker 1: and gave an idea, typically they jumped for it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they called me and today you got anything. We're a
Speaker 1: little light for our July issue. What do you got?
Speaker 1: I'd sit down and go, yeah, I got something, and
Speaker 1: I always did, and that's what an editor likes from
Speaker 1: a writer. So look, I'm gonna read this to you.
Speaker 1: If you could put yourself back to that day. And
Speaker 1: I know we just did this a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: so it might not be so easier. Maybe it's going
Speaker 1: to be more painful. But I don't want to wait
Speaker 1: another year to do this. I want to do it
Speaker 1: now because God knows, with all the shit that's going
Speaker 1: on right now in this world and even the possibility
Speaker 1: of World War three and not knowing how our next
Speaker 1: president will be and how will fare, I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: this to you now. Let me know if you like it.
Speaker 1: It was somewhere on the edge of Zion National Park,
Speaker 1: with four hundred miles of Utah ahead of us, when
Speaker 1: the percocets finally kicked in. It was only twenty hours
Speaker 1: earlier when my bedroom door was kicked open by my
Speaker 1: screenwriting partner Neil Gumpel. He had just driven all night,
Speaker 1: as he usually did from his home in Oakland, California.
Speaker 1: He walked into my unlocked house, turned on the TV
Speaker 1: when he arrived, and saw the surreal footage of the
Speaker 1: first twin towers blown to pieces. Jesus fucked. I heard
Speaker 1: Neil scream as he came into my bedroom and told
Speaker 1: me what was going on. It wasn't even ten minutes
Speaker 1: since the first coward flew the hijacked jet into taro Ian,
Speaker 1: and my cell phone's mailbox was already at its capacity.
Speaker 1: I wiped asleep from my eyes, kissed my girlfriend awake,
Speaker 1: and punched my messages on. Neil and my girlfriend Bessie
Speaker 1: did the same thing, and there we were in the
Speaker 1: pitiful position too many of us transplanted New Yorkers found
Speaker 1: ourselves in that day. We all sat in the bed
Speaker 1: and listened to the terror filled and trembling voices of
Speaker 1: our friends and family back home in New York City
Speaker 1: or Boston. Fans were literally running from the smoke and horror.
Speaker 1: A next girlfriend calledby, screaming as she ran to a
Speaker 1: West Village elementary school to pick up her seven year
Speaker 1: old son, the same kid I held to my chest
Speaker 1: at night through his terrible twos and watched Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: some four hundred times. There was even a quivering message
Speaker 1: from my ex wife and childhood sweetheart, wondering aloud if
Speaker 1: I was in the city that day, before telling me
Speaker 1: she loved me, as she signed off with a heavy sigh.
Speaker 1: I finally lost it when my friend Jamie called from
Speaker 1: Virginia and cried that she hadn't heard from her husband
Speaker 1: John that day. And that's not like our boy John.
Speaker 1: John's a pilot for American Airlines. That's all he ever
Speaker 1: wanted to be. He'd been saying it since he was fifteen,
Speaker 1: when we had to stand on tippy toes to spy
Speaker 1: on Jamie through the high gymnasium windows, and she would
Speaker 1: flirt with him during her balance beam routine while Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Mac sang dreams, and suddenly Stevie Nick's lyrics rang hauntingly
Speaker 1: true to me. In the stillness of remembering what you
Speaker 1: had and what you lost and what you lost, it
Speaker 1: was the most pivotal, painful moment of truth in our lives,
Speaker 1: none of us knowing what would fail next or fall next.
Speaker 1: How many more would die, how many more breaths each
Speaker 1: of us had left? And really I just sat there
Speaker 1: remembering what we all had, and at the same time
Speaker 1: I couldn' yet understand what we'd lost. Meanwhile, Neil couldn't
Speaker 1: get through to any of his three daughters in New York. Emily,
Speaker 1: his middle is a New York college student, and Neil
Speaker 1: was convinced he wanted her to quit college for a year,
Speaker 1: anything than risk her life by walking the war torn
Speaker 1: city streets another day. Now you have to understand my
Speaker 1: pal Neil. He already lives with the anger of a
Speaker 1: bit of divorce and a great writing ability that brought
Speaker 1: him to a town called Hollywood filled with bullshitters and backstabbers.
Speaker 1: All Neil ever wanted to do was make a pile
Speaker 1: of fuck you money and head back East to spoil
Speaker 1: us little girls rotten to think of it, all I
Speaker 1: ever wanted to do was stay in New York City
Speaker 1: and be a calumnist for the New York Daily News.
Speaker 1: But the earth spins, shit happens, and wham, I'll become
Speaker 1: a TV star. But truthfully, I've never enjoyed anything more
Speaker 1: in my career than watching someone on the subway open
Speaker 1: up my column and smile because I was a voice
Speaker 1: in New York, had a loft in Greenwich Village and
Speaker 1: a view of the towers from my living room. Now
Speaker 1: I was just another talking head in Los Angeles without
Speaker 1: knowing each other. At the time, Neil was working at
Speaker 1: a fish markt and did some bookmaking on the side
Speaker 1: to make ends meet. Our backgrounds don't matter, but Neil's
Speaker 1: in my life because he's a survivor with the same
Speaker 1: gypsy heart that beats in me, and he's from pain,
Speaker 1: and now he finally had a huge ache in common.
Speaker 1: So here we were watching New York City die, crying
Speaker 1: from our ringside seats to what was essentially a castration
Speaker 1: of the toughest city in the world. Neil and I
Speaker 1: didn't go to Columbia journalism school. We are fighters who
Speaker 1: can write equally dangerous with both pen and sword. And
Speaker 1: now there was no one to throw a punch at
Speaker 1: an invisible enemy amongst us in three thousand miles, separating
Speaker 1: us from getting home again to the fight, to the
Speaker 1: fear to family. What followed over the next several hours
Speaker 1: was something out of taxi driver. I made the appropriate
Speaker 1: calls to my agent, manager and network, and through cry
Speaker 1: baby tears, I wailed that I was getting in a
Speaker 1: car and getting the fuck out of here. I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about work. The hell with TV.
Speaker 1: I'm gone. I'm done. I'll call you when I get back. Inexplictedly.
Speaker 1: Neil and I shaved our heads, bold hopped in this
Speaker 1: midsize rental car, taped God Bless America across the back window,
Speaker 1: and headed for the road. The highways that split our
Speaker 1: country straight down the middle of filled with towns of
Speaker 1: families who were sons that go off to war and die.
Speaker 1: The way we saw it, there was no better, more
Speaker 1: sentimental way to see the heartland. At the last second,
Speaker 1: I scooped up my little Yorkie, Cessaret, and brought him
Speaker 1: along for the ride. I knew that would make the
Speaker 1: ride a bit longer, with his peepee stops and feeding
Speaker 1: the little guy, but I needed everything and everyone I
Speaker 1: loved around me. I never saw myself so goddamn soft.
Speaker 1: We hired, tailed out of California through the kitschy neon
Speaker 1: lights of Nevada and rolled into Utah. Spent and still
Speaker 1: spinning from the initial shock of the previous day's news.
Speaker 1: We just driven seven hundred miles and were ready to
Speaker 1: dive into the gin olives and vermouth. That Neil insisted,
Speaker 1: We're going to be necessary as the gas and the
Speaker 1: fuel tank, and he was never more right. Let me
Speaker 1: put it to you this way, when the Pentagon is
Speaker 1: on fire, the twin towers are gone, and the president
Speaker 1: is missing for half the day, I say valium should
Speaker 1: spill from every gumball machine in the country. Cocaine dealers
Speaker 1: ought to be allowed to hang a shingle on their doors,
Speaker 1: and friends should insist that their friends drive drunk. The
Speaker 1: world was coming to an end, God damn it, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to be numb and out of pain until
Speaker 1: it was all over. In other words, shell gasoline was
Speaker 1: not the only fuel that we had in the car.
Speaker 1: Now I realized that two go tea wearing baldies with
Speaker 1: a Yorky between them aren't exactly reservation material at finer
Speaker 1: dining establishments. So that meant there was going to be
Speaker 1: grabbing run when it came to filling our bellies on
Speaker 1: the trip, and we were ready to live off the
Speaker 1: fast food chains that line the route, And looking back,
Speaker 1: we'd like to thank Subway for being there. For us
Speaker 1: along the way. I gotta be honest, Neil and I
Speaker 1: always thought we were too good for a sandwich chain,
Speaker 1: and with good reason. Neil tends to be a bit
Speaker 1: of a food snob due to two years of culinary experience,
Speaker 1: and my sister Rosalie lays out Italian Sunday feast that
Speaker 1: would make you cry, and she taught me how to cook.
Speaker 1: But when you're in the middle of ass Wife Montana
Speaker 1: at eleven PM and your stomach is screaming for food,
Speaker 1: believe me, Subway is consistent. And may I say, decent
Speaker 1: sandwiches are like a mirage and a sweltering desert. Even
Speaker 1: Chezi was given a few slices of roast beef and
Speaker 1: general salami by kind hearted managers of the chain and
Speaker 1: guys who were sympathetic to our cause. That's a far
Speaker 1: cry from those fucks at Starbucks who charged New York
Speaker 1: City's walking wounded as they begged to clean the blood,
Speaker 1: death and tears from the disbelieving eyes and bottled water
Speaker 1: they wanted. Bottled water Starbucks said no, if someone ever
Speaker 1: sets foot or sees me set foot in that coffee
Speaker 1: chain again, please beat me senseless with one of those
Speaker 1: gay latte machines they worship. I can't say a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot for the cell phone service that me
Speaker 1: and Neil used after Las Vegas. You might as well
Speaker 1: throw the goddamn phone in your trunk until you see
Speaker 1: signs for the Jersey Turnpike. The following morning, we crawled
Speaker 1: out of bed and took a look at this beautiful state,
Speaker 1: and we felt a bit at home. We saw the
Speaker 1: American flags flying on every car in business. The people
Speaker 1: of Utah, with other holier than now Mormon ways, had
Speaker 1: the same look of pain on their faces as we did.
Speaker 1: Utah's good people. Our plan was to head north on
Speaker 1: Root fifteen and cut across Route eighty, but after we
Speaker 1: through Utah, we got antsy and decided to cut over
Speaker 1: to Colorado on Route seventy. We're both a bit nutty
Speaker 1: because there was no real news coming out of New York.
Speaker 1: It had only been two days since the attack, and
Speaker 1: already the images of the towers were dwindling away. Why
Speaker 1: weren't we seeing the videos and eyewitness accounts constantly replaying
Speaker 1: the way the networks feed us. They feed us snippets
Speaker 1: of other news items. Why wasn't this the same thing.
Speaker 1: I started thinking about how videos are shoved down our
Speaker 1: throats over and over for months on end when it
Speaker 1: comes to police wrongdoing and other popular topics. But for
Speaker 1: fuck's sake, we're just attacked on our own soil, and
Speaker 1: the preliminary numbers on fatalities were telling us that the
Speaker 1: loss of life was far beyond what we lost in
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. If Michael Bay had pitched this as a
Speaker 1: movie to Hollywood Studios, nobody would have green lit the thing.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't at pitch, so who the hell was
Speaker 1: at the wheel of the machine. The perfect TV haircuts
Speaker 1: and perky network news buddies were telling us stay calm,
Speaker 1: but also to remain at a level of high alert.
Speaker 1: The next minute, they were stressing that we keep shopping
Speaker 1: at moles and that we keep visiting parks and museums.
Speaker 1: But the kicker was to always remain on a high alert.
Speaker 1: What does that exactly mean? Do I stay home on
Speaker 1: a ladder wearing an old pair of platform shoes to
Speaker 1: costco know? Neil and I finally agreed that we would
Speaker 1: alert each other when we weren't feeling high enough. Neil
Speaker 1: was a talk radio freak, jumped around the am dial
Speaker 1: like mad. The only people who voiced my thoughts were
Speaker 1: a bit to the right of what I was normally
Speaker 1: comfortable with. They made perfect sense all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: I mean, for Christ's sake, when our grandparents came over
Speaker 1: here from the Native lands, they had to learn English
Speaker 1: real quick or else they'd starve. They did just that,
Speaker 1: and they couldn't wait to take up arms to protect
Speaker 1: their new home. The problem is an immigration. The country
Speaker 1: was founded on the principle of open immigration. The problem
Speaker 1: is that we're taking in people over here is suck
Speaker 1: astrid with no intention of blending into our system, and
Speaker 1: no intention of learning our language and history and culture.
Speaker 1: Get the hint. Already the pledge of allegiance is already
Speaker 1: gone from California classrooms. This ain't the way it was
Speaker 1: supposed to ago when the big meeting took place two
Speaker 1: undred and twenty six years ago. Anyhow, Neil couldn't shut
Speaker 1: up about Colorado. He'd been there before, and he told
Speaker 1: me it would be the highlight of our trip. Wrong.
Speaker 1: I hate the find fault, but there was an obvious
Speaker 1: decline in the outward signs of unity when we crossed
Speaker 1: Colorado's border. Utah and Nevada had signs out of their
Speaker 1: asses and motorists constantly flashing his thumbs up to our
Speaker 1: God Bless America sign. There was a definite indifference to
Speaker 1: the horror that was still smoldering out on the East coast,
Speaker 1: and it didn't go unnoticed by us and other travelers
Speaker 1: who were en route. The real clincher was when we
Speaker 1: tried to get a room late one night in Ski
Speaker 1: country and an obviously empty hotel. The middle aged woman
Speaker 1: behind the desk where Laura Ashley type get up with
Speaker 1: one of those ugly cameos around a grizzled deck. She
Speaker 1: gave us both the ones and told us there were
Speaker 1: no rooms available. I guess my olive skin clashed with
Speaker 1: the new powder that had just dropped that afternoon. Our
Speaker 1: story about heading to New York City to see family
Speaker 1: didn't move her elitist ass either. She should be so
Speaker 1: lucky if her issue of Country Living crosses at the
Speaker 1: bail with the magazine. With this story, writer's note, remember
Speaker 1: to pitch a remake of Clockwork Orange set at a
Speaker 1: ski hotel, and Asmen suggests, Neil and I write Direct
Speaker 1: and Star. After finding a more sympathetic hotel owner an
Speaker 1: hour out of self entitlement Colorado. I was starting to
Speaker 1: get crumbs of information about missing neighbors and childhood friends. Now,
Speaker 1: thank god, my buddy John was alive and merely rerouted
Speaker 1: to Canada during the hijacks. So Neil and I headed
Speaker 1: north and had a quick pass through the lower corner
Speaker 1: of Wyoming. I got to tell you, when we take
Speaker 1: our next trip under better circumstances, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: that state a closer look. I want to see Yellowstone
Speaker 1: in the fall. I want to see a grizzly bear
Speaker 1: leading my car, or a moose run across the road
Speaker 1: in front of my car, things I never imagine happening.
Speaker 1: While my father sent me on my first driving list
Speaker 1: on the Brooklyn's Merciless Belt Parkway, entering Nebraska was a
Speaker 1: mine blower. Despite our ignorant and preconceived notions about toothless
Speaker 1: farmers and banjo playing retards, we suddenly had our car
Speaker 1: radio blasting classic jazz and priceless oldies from Sinatra, Bennett,
Speaker 1: count Basie, and the folks there were even better. You've
Speaker 1: heard about the corn fed beauties that trickle out of
Speaker 1: La on a turnip truck well, now we're finally observing
Speaker 1: them on their own turf. Tall, good looking people look
Speaker 1: you with the eye and shake your hand like they
Speaker 1: meet it. There were flags flying and sincere nods from
Speaker 1: other cars as they passed us by. While Nina was
Speaker 1: in one of the truck stops, I was walking chesray
Speaker 1: off in the corner of a that went on forever,
Speaker 1: and one barrel chested trucker with a handlebar mustache sat
Speaker 1: beside me as I walked past his truck. Suddenly my
Speaker 1: hoop earrings made me feel like I stood out or
Speaker 1: I stood a worst chance at survival of Ned Beatty
Speaker 1: in Deliverance. This guy had to be six foot six
Speaker 1: with a voice that rolled like thunder. Ain't you de
Speaker 1: fancy TV guy? I knowdded yes and thought, great, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be raped by a gain Nebraskan starfucker. But
Speaker 1: I was way off. Boy was I wrong. The trucker
Speaker 1: extended his hand and told me that he was headed
Speaker 1: out to Fresno, California with a low of something. And
Speaker 1: when I told him we were gone, he just shook
Speaker 1: his head and said, God be with those families, and
Speaker 1: I know he meant it. The words were simple to
Speaker 1: the point, and a lifetime of preconceived image of misconceived
Speaker 1: images of country Christians went out the window. I felt
Speaker 1: like I was with a real man. He quoted something
Speaker 1: from somewhere, but it was his final words that hit
Speaker 1: me like an elephant gun. To this day, I think
Speaker 1: about what he said. You keep up the TV th
Speaker 1: because you're good at it, boy, but don't stay out
Speaker 1: there too long, or else she might start thinking all
Speaker 1: that Hollywood bullshit is important. Then he stepped high into
Speaker 1: his truck and disappeared behind his tinted windows. Nebraskt is
Speaker 1: flat and looking off in all directions. You can see
Speaker 1: nothing but corn feels it's beautiful. I understand that most
Speaker 1: people would think that could be boring as hell, but
Speaker 1: it was just what we needed, and we go in spurts.
Speaker 1: We'd have fits of laughter and tears for hours, just
Speaker 1: as quickly spend several hours saying nothing to each other,
Speaker 1: but the silence held more weight than any words we
Speaker 1: could stream together. I felt like calling up every great
Speaker 1: woman I've ever known and proposed I wanted to have
Speaker 1: six kids and raise them on that farm over there. No,
Speaker 1: that farm over there, Damn God, shed a lot of
Speaker 1: grace on Nebraska. Without even knowing, I found myself turning
Speaker 1: the dial to country music. Those people know how to
Speaker 1: sing and write songs. I had lumps in my throat
Speaker 1: the size of golf balls at times. I never knew it,
Speaker 1: but those lyrics were saying the things that I always
Speaker 1: wanted to say to someone that I loved or no
Speaker 1: longer loved. And O'Neil slept in the back seat. I
Speaker 1: found myself pulling into truck stops at two AM for
Speaker 1: a six pack of high Life, the cassettes of Dwight Yoakum,
Speaker 1: Garth Brooks, and old Don Williams. At one point I
Speaker 1: played Glenn Campbell's Gentle on My Mind fifteen times in
Speaker 1: a row. Now believe me, I love two Packshakur as
Speaker 1: much as the next guy. But if Campbell doesn't move
Speaker 1: you in that crazy song, do the world a favor
Speaker 1: and light your head on fire. The corn Fierals started
Speaker 1: the roll like giant waves. As we left Nebraska and
Speaker 1: entered Iowa. It was Friday now, and my sister Rose
Speaker 1: they just told us to expect an early dinner on Sunday.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the few times that Neil
Speaker 1: and I had to duke it out. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to rush, but now I wanted to be there. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be home. I was desperate to help out
Speaker 1: a ground zero, and the images of good strong men
Speaker 1: standing online for Alice to help out made me green
Speaker 1: with envy in a weird way. I was jealous that
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. It made me yearn to see a
Speaker 1: Red Sox hat chatting up a Yankee cat, Guys with
Speaker 1: jet jerseys and giant jerseys throwing their arms around each other.
Speaker 1: The fact that I had inkling that all volunteers would
Speaker 1: be turning away by the time I got home made
Speaker 1: me taste bile on my throat because I got to
Speaker 1: tell you this summer before. I showed up at my
Speaker 1: twenty year high school reunion in leather pants and a
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars shirt and six hundred dollars shoes. I
Speaker 1: even signed autographs for my friend's sons and daughters. It
Speaker 1: was nice, but the world shouldn't work that way. I'm
Speaker 1: glad New York City cops and firemen will forever be heroes,
Speaker 1: that their reunions from now on, what they do is
Speaker 1: a little more important and harder than reading a teleprompter
Speaker 1: on the streets of Hollywood. As we headed further east,
Speaker 1: we saw more flags and signs hanging from bridges and overpasses.
Speaker 1: We didn't feel alone on our anger anymore. I had
Speaker 1: the same feeling I felt years earlier when I walked
Speaker 1: up the sidewalk to the funeral of my parents. Boy
Speaker 1: that hurt India. I'm sorry Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: they were sure no sights to speak of in miles
Speaker 1: They go so goddamn slow. It wasn't fun day, or so.
Speaker 1: Neil got real quiet on me. We were headed into
Speaker 1: the mouth of the Dragon. The final day of driving
Speaker 1: across Pennsylvania and Jersey was flat out scary. We could
Speaker 1: literally see the smoke cloud and smell the carnage as
Speaker 1: we headed toward the Hudson. It was mid Sunday afternoon
Speaker 1: when we finally arrived at the George Washington Bridge, and
Speaker 1: I turned my head at our skyline of heartache and
Speaker 1: was akin to the months I'd spent carefully staring at
Speaker 1: my slowly dying father in the hospital bed when I
Speaker 1: was twenty two. There were better things to do with
Speaker 1: my time, but there were certain things you have to
Speaker 1: do out of duty and respect for the only way.
Speaker 1: Sometimes our heroes leave us. Men generally don't want to
Speaker 1: be seen crying in front of other men, but there
Speaker 1: was no holding back to tears for myself and Neil,
Speaker 1: and some tears were mixed with bursts of unanswerable questions
Speaker 1: even laughter. What spineless asshole thinks there's nobility in killing
Speaker 1: thousands of hard working people headed to work the night before.
Speaker 1: Those terrorists had shown shoved bills and the crotches of
Speaker 1: young strippers, and did it all so that they could
Speaker 1: get the hell off this earth, where they could finally
Speaker 1: get laid in whorehouses with a fistful of fifties. That
Speaker 1: also made me wonder what kind of a man fights
Speaker 1: religious wars. Imagine an enemy that never tucks the picture
Speaker 1: of his wife and kids into his boot or sock
Speaker 1: or turban for that matter. These fuckers packed their wives
Speaker 1: on their head, leave their dirt cave, and never tell
Speaker 1: little Mohammed that that Daddy's going off to die. I
Speaker 1: don't think that the number one dad gold chains ever
Speaker 1: flew off the shelves at the bazaars and cobble. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you our ugly long islan On Expressway never
Speaker 1: looks so damn beautiful. By the time he got home,
Speaker 1: my nephew Joey met us on the front lawn and
Speaker 1: gave us two Gin Martinis, dry, dirty, four olives, and
Speaker 1: just a rumor of removeth. I hugged the shit out
Speaker 1: of him, and later that day Kneel went off to
Speaker 1: see Heather, Emily and Alison with a belly full of
Speaker 1: my sister's pesto sauce. Well it's one year later now,
Speaker 1: and our guy in the White House has risen to
Speaker 1: the occasion. Though I would have liked to have seen
Speaker 1: Osama bin Laden dead, and quite frankly, I would have
Speaker 1: preferred a nuclear bombing campaign that would have made Fred
Speaker 1: Finstone look like he lived in modern times. Why do
Speaker 1: people still think they can fuck with America? The last
Speaker 1: time ass Kicking School was in session, the people of
Speaker 1: Japan heard the loudest noise in their lives, and only
Speaker 1: they quit fucking with us and go on to make
Speaker 1: us toys in great sushi. Isn't there something our enemies
Speaker 1: in the Middle East can aspired to after we turned
Speaker 1: several of their cities into parking lots. I say it's
Speaker 1: worth the shot. Our heartbreaking trek across this fruited plane
Speaker 1: of ours made me realize that the people of the
Speaker 1: US of A are the tops. And nowhere along our
Speaker 1: trip did we feel that the need to lock the
Speaker 1: doors or watch our backs when we were paranoid. It
Speaker 1: was because we had some nutty ideas planted in our
Speaker 1: heads by some more on who probably never left the
Speaker 1: East or West Coast. I remember pulling to a gas
Speaker 1: station where along the second part of our trip and
Speaker 1: seeing the six foot tall knockout pumping gas and salt
Speaker 1: Lake City. I started talking to her, and I was
Speaker 1: amazed to find out that she was the owner and
Speaker 1: operator of that station, along with his thirty room motel.
Speaker 1: I asked her why I should have packed up her
Speaker 1: snap on tools and headed to any of the big
Speaker 1: cities for work as a top model. She gave me
Speaker 1: a smirk and shook her head. Why would I want
Speaker 1: to do that, she said, And then she went out
Speaker 1: to tell me about a lake nearby where she goes
Speaker 1: water skiing on her days off, and how all of
Speaker 1: her friends have never left home. She fills the hotel
Speaker 1: most of the year and does a booming business at
Speaker 1: the pumps. I started to think right before her eyes
Speaker 1: as she drove a point home with an estimate of
Speaker 1: how much she's making a year and how great she
Speaker 1: feels every day when she wakes up. And when I
Speaker 1: got back to the car, I told Neil to just
Speaker 1: shut up and drive, and we did. And it's only
Speaker 1: this week that I'm finally sharing this story with him.
Speaker 1: I throw him through the photos from time to time
Speaker 1: and watch the videotapes of us along the way. That's
Speaker 1: not the same. You need to smell the rivers that
Speaker 1: run down from the mountains in America. You got to
Speaker 1: stop the car alongside an empty highway to watch a
Speaker 1: herd of deer if they bounce across a prairie. Maybe
Speaker 1: see chesray square off with a big bull behind a
Speaker 1: highway fence. Neil and I just know we're gonna make
Speaker 1: this trip again next year. Joey won't have us do
Speaker 1: it without him. I want to stop and take it
Speaker 1: all in. Well, I'm not out of my mind. I
Speaker 1: may even check out some real estate somewhere someday so
Speaker 1: that I years to come, I can get out of
Speaker 1: LA before I start to believe that it's real. That's
Speaker 1: what I wrote a long time ago, and then the
Speaker 1: PostScript is A. J. Benser is the author of Faman
Speaker 1: and a Bitch Confessions of a Reformed Gossip commas. After
Speaker 1: during loads of bullshit, Neil Gumple is finally seeing three
Speaker 1: of his script set to go together. Bens and Gumple
Speaker 1: have just completed three screenplays of their own. They also
Speaker 1: haven't forgotten about pitching the remake of a Clockwork Orange
Speaker 1: set in that Staddie Aspin Ski Hotel. Well, guys, that's
Speaker 1: what was going through my mind and what I was
Speaker 1: doing on nine to eleven twenty three years ago. We
Speaker 1: all have a story, and I wanted to get that
Speaker 1: to you before it became old news, which I fear
Speaker 1: is happening too much about nine to eleven. It's amazing
Speaker 1: how people just tend to forget move on some things.
Speaker 1: You can't forget somethings you'll always have to remember, even
Speaker 1: though that damn slogan never forget doesn't seem to apply anymore.
Speaker 1: Maybe things like this, podcasts like this, articles like that,
Speaker 1: talks like this will change people and make us get
Speaker 1: back and remember what we have and what we lost
Speaker 1: and maybe how we can get back. I'm aj Benson
Speaker 1: that was famous. Bitch your free show. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: whate that's gonna run, but today is Friday thirteenth, so
Speaker 1: you get this in the next day or so and
Speaker 1: we'll talk during the week. Thank you for listening. Fame
Speaker 1: as a Bitch is an AJ Benza Workhouse Connect production
Speaker 1: featuring the endless wisdom, insightful commentary, and sometimes fucked up
Speaker 1: perspective of AJ Benza. Executive producer Mike Agavino