Martin - Andrea Martins lady parts

W hen Steve Martin suggests a title for your book, you listen.

At first, upon hearing the title, I felt uncomfortable, and a little embarrassed. I was one of eight dinner guests at Steves home, and we were all sitting around the table, where an animated conversation about my forthcoming book was as delicious to my ears as his chefs choice of arctic char and aged New York steak was to my palate.

Perky Tits! Steve Martin yelled out. That should be the title of your book. The seven other dinner guestsMarty Short; Eugene Levy and his wife, Deb Divine; Laurie MacDonald and her husband, Walter Parkes; a couple I was meeting for the first time, the distinguished author Frederick Tuten and his partner, Karen Marta, an editor for Vogueall of them began to laugh. Happy for the attention but nevertheless shocked by the description of my private parts, I was intrigued as to why Steve had come up with that title.

Wow, what made you think of that, Steve? I asked, giggling and flattered that he even cared I was writing a book. How could I question the great Steve Martin, whose bestselling books and their titles Shopgirl, Cruel Shoes, and Born Standing Up are genius? But arent all those titles much tamer than Perky Tits? Was he being facetious? Was he just tossing out a funny title to get a laugh?

Believe me, I was grateful and relieved that someone else was suggesting a possible title for my book. I had been fixating on titles for months. It was a fabulous trick I had unconsciously discovered as I convinced myself I was writing my book, when all along I was just procrastinating my perky tits off. Steve and I began to engage in book-title banter, and the rest of the dinner guests weighed in. I threw out a couple of my ideas.

Shes the Best Thing in It.

Silence, mixed with disdain.

TMI: Too Much Information.

Dated, Steve said.

I offered up another. You Look Like Someone.

Too self-deprecating! someone else yelled out.

How about Fake Beaver? I asked timidly as I began to lose my bravura and settle into my comfort zone of low self-esteem. I think its good because it describes my fake status in Canada as a Canadian, when all along I am an American, with immigration status, living in Canada, which is home to the beaver Oh boy, what the hell was I talking about? I started back-pedalling.

No, too vulgar, someone said. Perky Tits is much better.

Yes, yes, another voice chimed in, Perky Tits. I would buy that book. Perky Tits. It describes your personality. Perky Tits. It cuts right through. Theres Tina Feys Bossypants, and Andrea Martins Perky Tits.

Really? I said weakly, slowly doubting myself. It was clear I was an uninspired fraud, not an author. I had no pulse on what would sell. On who I was. I was definitely going to give my advance back to HarperCollins.

Its a part of your past, Steve said. Its relevant.

How did he know my perky tits were a part of my past? I guess hed read Paul Shaffers autobiography, in which one chapter is dedicated to my pert boobies. He would have read that, when I was younger, I wasnt shy about saying the word tits, nor, for that matter, showing them to anyone who was mildly interested. In fact, the chapter in Pauls book is entitled Youve Seen These Havent You? Yes, it is true, during the 70s when I first met Paul and we were both starting out in our careers, I was a freewheeling breast exposer. I must have been fond of my boobies, because I remember flashing them more often than not. But didnt everyone do stuff like that then? And why recall those boob-flashing moments in my life and name a book after them?

Why did perky tits have such negative implications for me, and why was I being so resistant to a title that everyone at the dinner table said would propel them to buy the book?

Perky. I had always hated that word, a word too often used to describe my persona. Is that the only way I came across, cheerful and lively? What was I, a Jack Russell? Where were the other adjectives used to describe the real me: dark, deep, enigmatic, profound, complex, loyal, intelligent? Im a Doberman pinscher, goddamnit. I have Doberman pinscher written all over me. Perky was synonymous with superficial. Vanessa Redgrave is mesmerizing and heartbreaking as Mary Tyrone, in Long Days Journey into Night, and Andrea Martin as her maid, Bea, is perky. Thats the kind of review I was used to. Not that theres a maid called Bea in Long Days Journey, but if there were one and I had been cast in the part, you can bet your perky tits that I would have been called perky.

Years ago, at the height of SCTV, a journalist from Playboy wrote an article on the seven cast members. He described his first impression of each of us. Catherine OHara was enigmatic. John Candy, warm, inclusive. Andrea Martin, he wrote, was perky and accommodating. There is only one word, in my opinion, worse than perky and its accommodating. Whod want to be around that person all the time? Well, me, if she were my maid.