Kargman - Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut: Essays and Observations from an Odd Mom Out

Dedicated, with non-stalkerish admiration,

to

Woody Allen,

my hero and the funniest human ever

Contents

The irony is I fucking hate coconut. As in full vomitorious spine chills just thinking about its nasty texture, to say nothing of the chunder-taunting scent that conjures peroxide-y sluts smearing their kini cleaves with Panama Jack tanfastic oil. I might even go so far as to say I dont even trust people who like coconut. But still, despite nightmarish Hawaiian Tropic/ Girls Gone Wild visions and hellacious flashbacks of a bearded Tom Hanks looking not unlike the twentieth hijacker eating coconuts on that island, if I had to identify myself with one advertising campaign, it would be the eighties jingle of Mounds and Almond Joy. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you dont.

For twenty-five years, my father worked for Doyle Dane Bernbach, the legendary Madison Avenue advertising agency that was protoDon Draper, complete with the same martini lunches and genius minds, but the Jewy Jewstein version. When most peeps see commercials, they get up to pee, get another soda, or comment on the program that was just interrupted. Yeah, no. Not in our house. Be quiet, my dad would instruct us through the first decade of my childhood. Guys, shhhh, please, the commercials are on.

He was obsessed, so we were obsessed. Copywriting. Casting. Execution. We raved about great ads and rolled our eyes over the shitty ones. I still do (Dr. Scholls Ya Gellin, anyone?). I started to think of individuals in terms of campaigns. The blow job queen was Bounty (The Quicker Picker-Upper), the geeks who got hazed in high school were Timex (Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking), the virginal church mouse was Ivory soap (99.44% Pure), the hot guy I had a crush on was Bell telephone (Reach Out and Touch Someonei.e., me ).

My brother and I grew up so attuned to branding and media images that when it came time to write my college essay, to, in fact, brand myself, I chose to do so with a slogan. At the time, fall of 1991, HBOs tagline was Simply the Best. AT&Ts was The Right Choice. I could have kissed ass and picked one of those and sold myself in a shining halo of light as the girl upon whose blessed head they should bestow admission. But I am a firm believer in truth in advertising. So while I could have tooted my horn and painted myself as my public persona of well-rounded student, a capella singer, newspaper editor, big brag sheet blah blah blah, the reality wasand still isthat Im a weirdo. Im inappropriate. I laugh when Im not supposed to (actress in a play accidentally falling off the stage, funerals), and I peed my pants a little bit when my poor French waiter tried his damndest to recite the made in de haus ice cream flavors as bitch and apricunt. I laugh all day long, pretty much. I cant not laugh. Humor has been the buoy that keeps my entire family afloat.

My dad did stand-up comedy to put himself through business school and he instilled in us a value system based on good times and cackles aplenty. Not the lets-dance-on-tables-and-snort-lines-of-coke type of good times, but lets laugh our asses off if we can. Were all gonna be dead in eighty years or less, and the ones who live the best obviously arent the ones with the most money or most successful careers; theyre the ones who laugh the most. Who are the most nutty. Not as in wack-job serial killer who makes suits out of fat people, but as in the right kind of bonkers. The goofy kind. The type who giggles and guffaws, even in tricky times.

My idol, Woody Allen, once had a character in one of his films hatch a formula I value above anything Einstein could have cracked: Comedy = Tragedy + Time.

Brilliant, right? The bigger the tragedy, the more time is needed, obviously (remember when everyone went shithouse when the New York Post used Hcaust in a headline to abbreviate Holocaust?!). And obviously big tragedies cant ever become comedic. The little blind panhandling child in Slumdog Millionaire wont sit around at age ninety-two and be like, Ha, wasnt that so funny how those beggar pimps poured acid in my retinas? But in general, my 20/20 hindsight has made me, eventually, absolutely howl at anything on the spectrum, from the ordinary, Seinfeldian banal (Thats gold, Jerry, gold!) to situations that were, at the time, unbearable. Granted, my life is a slice of cheesecake relative to what some endure ( Slumdog Millionaire chemically burnt eyeballs et al.); I was hardly shaking a cup on the corner, Ive never buried parents, and my New Yorker frenzied stress of being a working mom of three was always relative. But I did get cancer at thirty-five. And the surgery gave me scars that make me look not unlike stitched-up Sally from Tim Burtons The Nightmare Before Christmas . But, honestly, in comparison to some past romantic breakups and other previous life drama, the C-word was nada mucho. (BTW, the C-word used to be not cunt but cobbler, a term I detest because its a fruit dessert and someone who fixes shoes; go figure.)

Because Ive trained myself to use nuttiness as a coping mechanism, the surgeons at Sloan-Ket tering were quasi-uncomfy with my O.R. Tumor Humor (So am I totally gonna be Sinad OKargman or what?). But when I e-mailed my friends updates and wisecracks about my wheelchair drag racing, they all said they were happy to see I was still joking around. That I wa s still myself, still a nut. I think in my little abacus of smiles, Im racking up more than most. Im hoping that anyone who may be in a quagmire might recognize themselves in some of these bizarre adventures and know that, in time, as St. Woody of Allen said, they will be mined for comedy. More than comedy. Gold, Jerry, gold.

after party: I do not know what this is. Must be in PJs and zontal by Jon Stewart or eyelids are at half-mast and beeyotch takes on new meaning.

food baby: When you eat such a huge meal you look pregnantbut instead of the tenant being a fetus, its eggplant Parm.

Frederica Bimmel: The size-14 murder victim whose skin Buffalo Bill fashions into a suit in The Silence of the Lambs . As in: OMG, I cant believe we ate those cheese fries at that hour; Im Frederica Bimmel.

godfathering: Having heavy days of your period, i.e., blood everywhere. As in: We can have sex tonight, but Im totally godfathering so the bedsheet will make the Law & Order sound when we finish.

jam-jim: Ladino word my mother uses to mean the sound in a mosque, i.e., silence. For example: We went to this new restaurant that was supposed to be happenin but when we went in, it was totally jam-jim.

kielbasa fingers: When you chow too much MSG and your rings are cutting off circulation. For instance: OMG, we totally feasted at China Fun and this morning I have total kielbasa fingers . Synonym: soy-raped.

maror: Bitter herb in Passover Seder but used colloquially, as in, That girl is always complaining; why is she so fucking maror?

matando moshcas: Ladino expression: killing flies, like when someone has nothing to do. E.g.: Poor department stores in this economic crisis! I walked into Bendels and the salespeople were matando moshcas!

quahog: Giant North Atlantic clam, i.e., megabitch. That girl always looks like she just sucked a lemon; I hear shes a total quahog.

Sistine baby: A little nugget so cute s/he looks chiseled off an Italian frescoed ceiling.

Spitzering: Bangin hos. Oh, sorry, courtesans. Like, They seem like a really cute couple but I hear hes totally Spitzering.