Black Is The New White Part 7

That's what he and I set out to do over the next few years: conquer Hollywood on our own terms. Our first step is to turn our backs on it entirely and make our Motown drive north in a blue Buick convertible, heading for the wilds of Berkeley.

CHAPTER 14.

The stretch in Berkeley is Richard's time in the wilderness. He's like Jesus, going out into the desert and meeting the devil. For Richard, the devil takes the form of a white powder from Bolivia. And unlike Jesus, Richard doesn't conquer his devil. He makes friends with it.

Richard cannot stay in Berkeley if it's a dry town. Luckily for him, the Bay Area is a big port of entry, with freighters docking every day, many of them with kilos of cocaine hidden in their holds. He finds it just as easy to score in Berkeley as he did in L.A. In that sense, at least, all is right with Richard's world.

He holes up in a s.h.i.+tty little studio apartment on the west side, near the marina. The interstate pounds by within shouting distance. He loves it. It's like he's denying himself for the sake of his art. His job, as he sees it, is to find a way out of the box that white people want to keep him in.

The fundamental truth about Richard during his year in the Berkeley wilderness is that he's sick to death of white folks, white jive, white culture. He feels like it's killing him. He has to get out from under it just to survive as a man. It's his "f.u.c.k it all" period.

I bring him by to meet Mama. He loves the fact that she steadfastly remains at 18th Street, in the middle of the Oakland ghetto. Mama likes Richard. She fixes him my favorite dish, neck bones and b.u.t.ter beans.

"Those are the best neck bones I ever ate," he says.

Mama thinks he's fooling with her, but he's not. That meal isn't the first beef neck bones Richard eats in his life. His grandfather, just like Daddy Preston, is a hunter. He and I are raised by our grandparents in similar households, but in totally different circ.u.mstances.

As a child, Richard has a much harder time of it. He's not in a warm, protected environment of family, like I am. He gets molested when he's five years old. He's got all the brothel bulls.h.i.+t to put up with.

But he chows down on possum, rabbit, whistle pig, fat-back, garden greens, and chitterlings like the best of us. Black folks develop a taste for food like this in slave times. The ma.s.sa always takes the choice cuts for himself. We are left with the snouts, ears, neck bones, feet, r.e.c.t.u.ms, and intestines. But we make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The discarded cuts turn out to be the best eating.

Richard recognizes Mama and Daddy instantly. From his childhood, they are familiar figures to him. He grows up along the Chicago River, a tributary on one end of the Mississippi River, just like I grow up along the Red River, a tributary on the other end. It's like we are twins from different families.

The main difference is Richard needs more love than I do. He needs a.s.surance. He's vulnerable. I get so much love from Mama growing up that I am set for life. So I don't need to look for approval so much. I am self-contained. Richard isn't, and that's the source of a lot of trouble and a lot of good at the same time.

I hold on to who I am. When you know who you are, it's harder for people to f.u.c.k with you. Hollywood is dangerous because the great hobby they have in that town is f.u.c.king with other people. Building you up, knocking you down, until finally you are destroyed. They all want to create you and mold you.

Richard and I talk about Frankenstein Frankenstein all the time. We are always riffing on the old movie, because we know that Hollywood has the Frankenstein syndrome. Just like Dr. Frankenstein, producers want to st.i.tch together body parts and build their own stars, their own monsters. If you don't watch out in this town, you wind up with someone else's d.i.c.k attached to your crotch. all the time. We are always riffing on the old movie, because we know that Hollywood has the Frankenstein syndrome. Just like Dr. Frankenstein, producers want to st.i.tch together body parts and build their own stars, their own monsters. If you don't watch out in this town, you wind up with someone else's d.i.c.k attached to your crotch.

But just like in the Frankenstein story, the monster always hates the doctor. In the black-and-white original Frankenstein Frankenstein movie, the one with Boris Karloff as the monster, the doctor has all the dialogue: "Now I know what it feels like to be G.o.d! ... The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands!" movie, the one with Boris Karloff as the monster, the doctor has all the dialogue: "Now I know what it feels like to be G.o.d! ... The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands!"

Dr. Frankenstein talks throughout the whole movie. The monster says only one thing: "Aaaah!" But less is more.

I always thought of Frankenstein's monster as a black man. All the white people are always chasing him. "Get him! Get him!" That crowd of cracker-a.s.s villagers with torches is a lynch mob. The monster runs exactly like the caricature of a black man running from a mob, wild-eyed, grunting like an animal.

"Aaaah!"

The villagers are terrified of him, just like crackers are terrified of the black man ("What's that? Who's out there? n.i.g.g.e.rstein! Is it him?") And when they catch him, he whups villager a.s.s, just like a black man. He throws motherf.u.c.kers all over the place.

"Aaaah!"

The thing is, in the movie, all you remember is the monster. Who remembers the doctor? Karloff becomes a big star. But Colin Clive? He stays a n.o.body.

Hollywood is the Frankenstein story blown up into a whole industry-the movie business.

On the drive up to Berkeley, in between hollering out those Motown songs, Richard tells me that the people around him sometimes appear to him as devils.

"I'm in a meeting down in motherf.u.c.king Hollywood, Mr. Mooney, and I ain't kidding, all I see is horns and tails! Really! All these folks around me got cloven feet and forked tongues!"

So while he's in Berkeley, Richard is a Frankenstein's monster who becomes a hermit. Richard goes into that rat hole of an apartment and doesn't come out for a few weeks. He does some surgery on his own a.s.s, cutting off the body parts that Dr. Hollywood grafted onto him.

He's got two things to sustain him-Marvin Gaye and Malcolm X. All he does is listen to music and read Malcolm all day long. That's the winter of "What's Going On," Marvin's masterpiece. Richard has it on his turntable and puts it on repeat. "Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying."

The song is something new out of Motown. It talks about the here and now. I know Marvin really does have a brother in Vietnam. Plus he's sick over the death of Tammi Terrell, the sweet little Philly soul singer who used to hang out at our bungalow on Sunset, gone at age twenty-four. If she'd lived, she'd have been bigger than Whitney, a super-star.

So out of all this pain comes a work of genius. I hear "What's Going On" everywhere, coming out of car radios and stereo speakers. Number one on the R&B charts, of course, but when I look at the pop charts, it's stuck at number two behind this pop number by Three Dog Night called "Joy to the World."

I think, yeah, that figures. "Joy to the World" is catchier than h.e.l.l, but it ignores what's going on around me on the streets. "Joy to the World" is like everything that Richard is trying to get away from by hiding out in Berkeley. Mindless white-world pop froth. "What's Going On" is everything he's moving toward; genius and keeping it real. But the wider Billboard Billboard pop-chart world ain't ready to embrace it. pop-chart world ain't ready to embrace it.

It's maddening. Vegas gatekeepers don't want to hear bulls.h.i.+t bulls.h.i.+t and and a.s.s a.s.s spoken out loud from their stages, much less spoken out loud from their stages, much less n.i.g.g.e.r n.i.g.g.e.r and and motherf.u.c.ker motherf.u.c.ker. This is what they want: "Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea/Joy to you and me."

Like I said, catchy song. But it just ain't where our heads are at right at the moment.

I'm staying at Mama's on 18th Street. I go up to Berkeley to check in with Richard every once in a while, make sure he's all right, hasn't lit himself on fire with a base pipe. For a few weeks I'm the only human being he sees outside of food-delivery boys.

"I got to go back to L.A.," I say. Richard is so over L.A. at that moment, he looks at me like I'm saying I have to go visit the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, brush up on my evil.

"You all right?" I ask.

He bristles. "Yeah, man, sure, I'm all right. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just asking," I say, and I leave Richard in the wilderness and drive down to L.A. I figure my goal now is just to get known. That's how you do it in Hollywood-you get known first and succeed later.

CHAPTER 15.

All the while Richard is up north taking his mental-health break from the business, I am going back and forth between Oakland and L.A. Yvonne and I have a house in Hanc.o.c.k Park, an old Los Angeles neighborhood where all the rich people live, only she and I are the exceptions. She's dancing at a strip club for bread, waitressing at the Candy Store, picking up any old job to make the rent. I'm dancing as fast as I can, doing anything for a paycheck.

Everyone falls in love with Yvonne. It's embarra.s.sing. Men see her and trip head over heels for her. It doesn't matter that I'm standing right there, her husband. They still lose their minds.

The first time it happens is with Peter Boyle, my Second City improv partner.

"Hey, honey, what do you do?" Boyle says, practically drooling. "Are you in the movies? You want to be in the movies?"

A time-honored Hollywood opening line. I gently tell Peter that Yvonne is my wife. "I know that!" he snaps at me. "What's you point?" Being funny.

Warren Beatty sees Yvonne at the Candy Store and chats her up. George Peppard, Elizabeth Ashley's husband, flips over her, sending her roses again and again. He tracks her down at the club where she works. John Barrymore, Jr., Drew's father, follows Yvonne around like a puppy dog. It's like I have to walk around with a stick, just to beat them away.

My cousin Alice, too. She is so pretty it gets her into trouble. Garry Marshall, the director, seems smitten by her. Mickey Rooney bothers her constantly at the Candy Store. "If you won't go out on a date with me, will you at least marry me?" he asks. Alice isn't sure if he's joking, but she's not about to be wife number 1,803 for Mickey Rooney.

"I like to get married early in the morning," Rooney says. "That way, if it doesn't work out, I haven't wasted the whole day."

Alice, Yvonne, Carol, Carol B., Diane DeMarko-we are all doing anything and everything we can to earn money. My agent gets me an audition for a Steve McQueen movie, The Reivers, The Reivers, which is based on a William Faulkner novel. which is based on a William Faulkner novel. Reiver Reiver is a Southern word I haven't heard since Shreveport. It means what we today would call a player. is a Southern word I haven't heard since Shreveport. It means what we today would call a player.

They like me in the audition, and I think I'm going to get the role of Ned, a sidekick. I'm young and naive. I don't realize yet that the real business of Hollywood isn't making movies. It's breaking hearts.

They give the part of Ned to a TV actor named Rupert Crosse. He gets nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor. He loses to Gig Young in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I'm so disappointed over not getting the part of Ned, I wish somebody'd shoot I'm so disappointed over not getting the part of Ned, I wish somebody'd shoot me me. I know if I acted in that movie, I'd get nominated, too. But the difference between me and Rupert is I'd win the motherf.u.c.king Oscar.

I go on the ABC afternoon show The Dating Game, The Dating Game, because even though I am married, the producers pay scale. It's okay, because everyone is doing it. Half the people on the show are married or living together. It should be called because even though I am married, the producers pay scale. It's okay, because everyone is doing it. Half the people on the show are married or living together. It should be called The Adultery Game The Adultery Game. When I go on, Yvonne is already pregnant with Shane.

The program's gimmick has a girl asking questions of three guys, who are hidden behind a screen. After she listens to their answers and decides what she thinks of them, she picks the one she wants to date. Tom Selleck goes on The Dating Game The Dating Game twice and doesn't get picked either time. Later on, people like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Richards do the show before they are stars. A white-bread DJ named Jim Lange is the host, but the real genius behind twice and doesn't get picked either time. Later on, people like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Richards do the show before they are stars. A white-bread DJ named Jim Lange is the host, but the real genius behind The Dating Game The Dating Game is Chuck Barris, the same producer who comes up with the ideas for is Chuck Barris, the same producer who comes up with the ideas for The Gong Show The Gong Show and and The Newlywed Game The Newlywed Game.

After I appear on the program (I get picked, but the bach-elorette and I decide to take the prize money in cash instead of going on a date), I tell Alice she should go on, too. Alice does, has a good time, and gets paid. She's choosing between three black men. Suddenly, when the show airs, Chuck Barris gets a call from an outraged viewer. It's Howard Hughes.

"Why in the h.e.l.l do you have a white girl on with a bunch of n.i.g.g.e.rs?" Howard screams into the phone.

Barris gently tells Hughes that Alice is black. "She's Creole," Barris says. The world's richest man then meekly does his best Gilda RadnerasEmily Litella impression: "Never mind."

Howard Hughes shouldn't feel too badly. He's not the first person to get tripped up by Alice, my beautiful cousin who can pa.s.s. It can happen to any racist cracker a.s.shole.

The best gig we all get is like a grown-up version of Dance Party Dance Party. Hugh Hefner syndicates a show he calls Playboy After Dark Playboy After Dark, which is him showing off his lifestyle. He sits around the Playboy Mansion in his satin smoking jacket, smoking a pipe.

Hef has a celebrity on, they talk, the celebrity performs, Bunnies walk on and walk off. It's like a talk show with t.i.ts, and they need a lot of pretty people to make the Mansion look less like a mausoleum. I'm a regular, and I bring Alice on with me every once in a while.The best part of Playboy After Dark Playboy After Dark is meeting all the talent, people like Linda Ronstadt, Billy Eckstein, Ike and Tina, and Sonny and Cher. There is nowhere else you can find odd-couple pairings like Ronstadt and Billy "Mr. B" Eckstein doing a duet of Billie Holiday's "G.o.d Bless the Child." is meeting all the talent, people like Linda Ronstadt, Billy Eckstein, Ike and Tina, and Sonny and Cher. There is nowhere else you can find odd-couple pairings like Ronstadt and Billy "Mr. B" Eckstein doing a duet of Billie Holiday's "G.o.d Bless the Child."

Meeting talent and dancing. That's what I am there for. I'm stylin' once again. For one set of the show I wear a green knit tunic and a black patent-leather belt. I look like one of Robin Hood's merry men. I bust some moves in front of the biggest acts of the day.

Rock groups such as Canned Heat and Joe c.o.c.ker and the Grease Band jam for us in Hefner's "Romper Room." It's like we're in a small, private nightclub. There's a lot funkier music going down at the time, but Hefner's tastes run to the middle of the road, even though he styles himself a hipster.

Hef is a smooth, hepcat presence throughout the taping, with his girlfriend Barbi Benton surgically grafted to his side. Behind her back, everyone calls her "b.o.o.bie Benton." With her bubbly att.i.tude, brunette bangs, and glistening lips, she's white-girl s.e.xy. Playboy Playboy s.e.xy. Girl-next-door s.e.xy. She loves me. Off camera, she seeks me out. She likes me because I tease her and make her laugh. She's the boss man's lady, but I don't care. I catch Hefner watching us, a gleam in his eye, and I think, s.e.xy. Girl-next-door s.e.xy. She loves me. Off camera, she seeks me out. She likes me because I tease her and make her laugh. She's the boss man's lady, but I don't care. I catch Hefner watching us, a gleam in his eye, and I think, That cat would like to watch us do more than just flirt That cat would like to watch us do more than just flirt.

Hefner's taste in comics runs to the middle of the road, too. He has on Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, and F Troop F Troop's Larry Storch. The great Mort Sahl does an incomprehensible blackboard bit about politics. Hefner also favors the comic d.i.c.k Shawn, who is famous from the ensemble comedy movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World. Shawn's act is pretty bland, but it's got some freaky touches. In his stage act, he doesn't come in from the wings, he emerges from a pile of bricks.

The most memorable thing about d.i.c.k Shawn's career is how he left it, dying of a heart attack onstage in San Diego. A real comedian's death. The audience thinks it's part of the act. They don't leave, even after the paramedics take the body away. Sometimes I die onstage with my act, too, but never to that degree.

Once again, on Playboy After Dark, Playboy After Dark, I'm wallpaper. Dancing and hanging out. But I do get to hang out at the Playboy Mansion whenever I want. I swim in the grotto. Play pool with Jimmy Caan. Hef runs the place like a club. You can sit down day or night at the dining room table, and a waiter gives you a menu from which you can order. I'm wallpaper. Dancing and hanging out. But I do get to hang out at the Playboy Mansion whenever I want. I swim in the grotto. Play pool with Jimmy Caan. Hef runs the place like a club. You can sit down day or night at the dining room table, and a waiter gives you a menu from which you can order.

One time, by mistake, I open the wrong door off a hallway near the dining room. It's a closet filled with Tampax and Kotex and every kind of feminine hygiene product imaginable. The Mansion isn't a house, it's a harem. The women walking around are all brick-s.h.i.+thouse knockouts.

Some of the same group of celebrities that I know from the Candy Store show up at the Mansion. These people are always seeing me around, so they get the idea that I'm in the mix. Even if I'm on Playboy After Dark Playboy After Dark just as a kind of male eye candy, I figure that it's good to get known. Meanwhile, I'm trying to make a name for myself as a comedian. Being part of an improv group like the Yankee Doodle Bedbugs or Second City is one thing. Getting up onstage and flying solo as a stand-up act is another. Improv is great for timing and thinking on your feet. But you're still protected by the other members of the troupe. If you flop, they can step up and cover for you. just as a kind of male eye candy, I figure that it's good to get known. Meanwhile, I'm trying to make a name for myself as a comedian. Being part of an improv group like the Yankee Doodle Bedbugs or Second City is one thing. Getting up onstage and flying solo as a stand-up act is another. Improv is great for timing and thinking on your feet. But you're still protected by the other members of the troupe. If you flop, they can step up and cover for you.

I'm born as a stand-up comic in 1970 on the stage of Ye Little Club, Joan Rivers's joint in Beverly Hills. Joan opens the place so she and her comedian friends have a place to try out material. It's small, casual, intimate, a jazz club for jazz people.

The great big-band vocalist Anita O'Day headlines at Ye Little Club. The house singer is my old friend Ann Dee from Ann's 440 Club in San Francisco, where I first see Lenny Bruce. Almost in spite of herself, Joan breaks some big acts. Trini Lopez starts out at Ye Little Club, as does the folk singer Barry McGuire, the "Eve of Destruction" guy.

Getting born ain't a pretty spectacle. It's b.l.o.o.d.y and messy and there's a lot of screaming and bawling. That's the way it is for me on the stage of Ye Little Club. What's great is that Joan Rivers understands. She has me back again and again. I'm trying out my routines, seeing what works and what doesn't.

My comedy is a nuclear bomb inside my mind. It's a weapon that's never been tested. It just blows up and flattens everybody. I start out talking about the funniest s.h.i.+t I know, which is race.

Thank G.o.d, Paul Revere was white, because if he was black, they'd have shot his a.s.s. "He done stole that horse, let's kill him! Kill him!" And who do they say sewed the flag, what's her name? Betsy Ross? Now, come on-they had slaves back then. Betsy Ross was asleep at six. You know some big black mama was up all night sewing that flag! "Honey, oh, Lawd, have mercy, I'm just up so late sewing this flag, I'm seeing stars!" And she's thinking about the stripes on her back, from the whip. So there we get it, the stars and stripes. But as soon as the white men got there, the white lady Betsy Ross jumped up, "See what I did?" mercy, I'm just up so late sewing this flag, I'm seeing stars!" And she's thinking about the stripes on her back, from the whip. So there we get it, the stars and stripes. But as soon as the white men got there, the white lady Betsy Ross jumped up, "See what I did?"

Right away, I notice something. The black people in the audience react to me way differently than the white people. Like in this routine. White people like the killing of the black horse-thief. They like the c.o.o.n talk of the slave woman.

But the white folks get tight-faced and nervous when I start making fun of the white lady Betsy Ross. I know they like history. White people like going back in time, which is always a problem for me. I can go back only so far. Any farther and my black a.s.s is in chains.

At Ye Little Club, I always drop some history into my act. It's knowledge. There's always a message in my comedy. But it's like a time bomb. The audiences might not get it right away. But they get it later that night, the next day, a week later. Then they understand.

I start to study white audiences. I see their reactions. I get my first walkouts. A lot of white people remind me of scared rabbits. When the wolf comes out, they run. They twitch their little pink noses and haul a.s.s out of there.

When I imitate middle-cla.s.s white speech, I see a flicker of unease cross the faces of the white people in the audience. Then, when I go into ghetto riff, the smiles return. They're fine as long as I am making fun of the same kind of people they make fun of, c.h.i.n.ks and spics and n.i.g.g.e.rs. But as soon as I start talking about them, I can clear a room.

My favorite is La.s.sie. Is that dog smart? G.o.dd.a.m.n that dog is smart. They talk to La.s.sie like La.s.sie is a person. "La.s.sie, hey, La.s.sie, how's your mom? I love you! Call me in an hour!" I saw one episode, Grandpa has a heart attack? La.s.sie drove him to the hospital. And made a left turn. I said, G.o.dd.a.m.n, La.s.sie, this is a smart dog. La.s.sie got other dogs killed. Little ghetto boy, hits his dog with a hammer, trying to get his dog to do what La.s.sie does. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, you better talk to me like La.s.sie! You don't, I'm going to give you to the Vietnamese family!" "La.s.sie, hey, La.s.sie, how's your mom? I love you! Call me in an hour!" I saw one episode, Grandpa has a heart attack? La.s.sie drove him to the hospital. And made a left turn. I said, G.o.dd.a.m.n, La.s.sie, this is a smart dog. La.s.sie got other dogs killed. Little ghetto boy, hits his dog with a hammer, trying to get his dog to do what La.s.sie does. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, you better talk to me like La.s.sie! You don't, I'm going to give you to the Vietnamese family!"

When I'm up onstage, I'm watching the audience like a hawk. I'm a.n.a.lyzing little tics, tells, and reactions they don't even know they are having. I study them. I have jungle eyes, I don't miss a thing.

I start to get so I can orchestrate my act. Some nights I feel like I'm Quincy Jones, like I'm playing the white audience like an instrument. That That line'll make 'em nervous, but line'll make 'em nervous, but this this line'll bring 'em back. I tease it to the edge. line'll bring 'em back. I tease it to the edge.

It's funny, isn't it? Most of the white folks at Ye Little Club laugh about everyone else, but when I talk about them, they suddenly lose their sense of humor. They freeze up like an engine out of oil. If I do it enough, if I push it too far for them, they get up and leave.

So I think, f.u.c.k them f.u.c.k them. I do it more than enough and I push it too far. Some nights I'm not happy until I provoke a walkout.

That's when I first find my true audience. Black people, who are always with me, and brave white people. The non-rabbits of the bunch. The ones who can laugh at themselves.

What I like about Ye Little Club is n.o.body ever tells me to tone it down. I have to give props to Marshal Edgel, who runs the place, and to Joan Rivers for that. Joan has comedy in her bones. She knows never to f.u.c.k with anyone else's act. Ye Little Club is a free-fire zone. It's like this little oasis of free speech in the middle of the 1970 culture wars. It's not celebrity heavy like the Candy Store. Only the hip people know about it. The wife of the chief of police of Beverly Hills used to be a regular. She was one of my first fans. She used to howl at my routines.

But in those days, no one pays club comics anything. There are a lot of places where comics can go to do stand-up. The Etc. Club, Paradise Gardens, the Gypsy Club, the Bla-Bla Cafe in Studio City, the Improv on Melrose. But all over, it's the same. You play for no pay. Owners are doing you a favor. The att.i.tude is "Get on television, then come back and we'll talk about paying you."

I'm not on TV yet, except for an uncredited walk-on in one of Richard's projects, a made-for-TV thing called Carter's Army Carter's Army. A cracker redneck sergeant commands a platoon of black soldiers. Richard is great as a medic who is scared of his own shadow. I'm one of the soldiers. The gig pays me scale for a few days, and that's worth it for me.

Through James Watson, an actor-comic I grew up with, I get involved in an antiwar improv group that Jane Fonda puts together. It's like a traveling carnival show with politics, organized by a peace activist named Fred Gardner. A folksinger named Len Chandler performs, plus a lesbian singer and actress named Holly Near. We put up a stage near military bases, like the one in South Bay at San Pedro, and play to the troops. There's a lot of antiwar sentiment among the soldiers, so we're a hit. We call ourselves FTA-f.u.c.k the Army.

My life is crazy. I'm working at make-the-rent jobs during the day, gigging at Ye Little Club at night, and then every weekend going out and f.u.c.king with the army alongside Jane Fonda. It's funny to work with Jane Fonda, doing antiwar theater during the day, and then see her old man come into the Candy Store at night with his Hollywood pals. The actor Donald Sutherland joins the FTA troupe. He's a big name now because he's coming off his breakout role in the Robert Altman hit movie M*A*S*H M*A*S*H.

f.u.c.k the Army: Me onstage in the antiwar improv troupe FTA If anyone among the bra.s.s asks us, we say that FTA FTA means "Free the Army." But everyone in the ranks knows the truth. I know it myself from my hitch in West Germany. Whenever you are an enlisted man, the abbreviation means "Free the Army." But everyone in the ranks knows the truth. I know it myself from my hitch in West Germany. Whenever you are an enlisted man, the abbreviation FTA FTA is always on your lips-if you are not actually coming right out and saying the words. The officers may not know what it means, but the grunts surely do. is always on your lips-if you are not actually coming right out and saying the words. The officers may not know what it means, but the grunts surely do.

You have to understand that it isn't the hippies against the soldiers back then. Thousands of people who are in the military are antiwar. They know better than anyone else that Vietnam is f.u.c.ked up. There is an antiwar pet.i.tion, and a thousand sailors on the aircraft carrier Coral Sea Coral Sea sign it. sign it.

The military freaks out. The bra.s.s are terrified about insurrection in the ranks. In the Vietnam war zone, there's a new word-fragging. It's when an enlisted guy tosses a grenade into the tent of a gung-ho officer who is determined to get everyone in his outfit killed. Instead, the officer is the one blown sky-high.

This s.h.i.+t is heavy. This s.h.i.+t is too much. It's the Pentagon's worst nightmare. They want their soldiers dumb and docile, ready to go into battle like sheep to slaughter. They don't want them thinking about it.

And they definitely don't want anyone telling jokes about it. In 1971, we hatch a plan to take the FTA show on the road. We want to go to Vietnam to entertain and enlighten the troops there, but of course the Pentagon prohibits that.

So we chart a two-week tour of the Asian Rim, Hawaii, Okinawa, and the Philippines, winding up in j.a.pan. It's supposed to be me, Peter Boyle, Donald Sutherland, Jane Fonda, and two or three folk singers. Folk singers all around, to the left and right, but mostly to the left. I feel like I am back in Joe and Eddie territory.

Peter Boyle drops out at the last minute. We want to get Faye Dunaway. She's a big star because of Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde and I am absolutely nuts about her. I'm in love with Faye Dunaway. She's right behind Elizabeth Taylor in s.e.xiness. and I am absolutely nuts about her. I'm in love with Faye Dunaway. She's right behind Elizabeth Taylor in s.e.xiness.

When Jane Fonda says we have to go to Faye's house and ask her to come on our tour, I freak. "What do I say to her?" I ask Jane. "What can I possibly say to Faye Dunaway?"