I’ve got it let’s invade Iraq!
The Stupid 365 Project, Day 53: Loose Bits November 22nd, 2010
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- The first time I ever went to the Philippines
- When I was nine and living in Washington, DC
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The Stupid 365 Project, Day 53: Loose Bits November 22nd, 2010 
Just some disconnected pieces. The worst night’s sleep of my life was in a hut on the Krueger Game Reserve in South Africa. I was working on a television show called “Scientific American Frontiers” with Alan Alda, with whom I was sharing the hut. It had thick whitewashed walls and a thatched roof and looked just fine by daylight. At night, however, the 124 trillion occupants of the thatch directly above us– things with more legs than there are stars in the sky — began to rain down upon us in an orchestrated effort either to eat us alive or else to scare us to death and then eat us. We wound up under tents of suspended sheets, listening to the little aliens hit the cotton, until the sky began to pale, at which time we were outside in less time than it takes to decide not to buy broccoli. I have to say, if I ever again have to be trapped in a verminous tent with a star, I hope it’s Alan Alda. An amazing guy. The first time I ever went to the Philippines — working on the worst movie ever made, and that includes “Showgirls” — I was just dropping off to sleep in my hotel room when I heard something hit the floor in the bathroom with a sound like a palm slapping a wall. I went in, and ambitiously trying to get over the lip of the shower stall was a centipede eight inches long. I could actually hear its 13 zillion legs scraping on the rough-tiled floor. I called down to the front desk, and they sent up an armed guard who looked at it, looked at me as if I were the wuss of the world, and then pulled out his enormous pistol and pointed it at the centipede. Then he laughed uproariously, releasing into the air the hearty fumes of a fine Scotch. Ultimately, he stepped on it, making a sound I will carry to my grave, grabbed some toilet paper, and flushed it. Not much sleep that night, either. But enough about vermin. When I was nine and living in Washington, DC, I was on a Saturday-morning TV show called (anyone who rags me about this is roadkill) “Ask It Basket.” It was hosted by a very nice woman whom I retroactively realize was a vigorously out lesbian and produced by her partner. This was pretty early for lesbians to be totally and comfortably out. Anyway, I was one of four unendurable little smart-asses on a panel, and every week they’d bring in an expert of some kind who would answer five minutes’ worth of questions from the host — just enough to prime the four little camera-hogs in the corner, and then we’d ask questions. In one corner of the set was a big basket with one of those bubble machines in it and once or twice each show they’d turn on the bubbles and the station announcer, who was up really early for a Saturday, would ask a question — as the basket, you see. Have I lost anyone? See, the bubbles would start and the voice — the announcer’s voice would seem to come out of the basket. Okay? Good. Forget it. One morning we had an actual rocket scientist as a guest and he was talking about super-cold environments, and the basket (the announcer, remember?) asked him something about something, God only knows what. The important thing is that he answered by taking a carnation and dipping it into some liquid nitrogen and then knocking it against the edge of the demonstration table, and it shattered with what seemed to me like the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard in my life. I wanted to hear it every morning forever. This could go on forever, but I won’t let it.
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