NOT MY FAULT!
BY MICHAEL O'DONOGHUE
It's always fun to stare at a car wreck.

LIZA WITH AN "F"

"She hates California, It's warm and it's big-- That's why the lady is a pig."

Let's talk about Liza Minnelli for a moment. I wouldn't fuck her with Hitler's dick. Hey, just kidding, Liza! I think you're "one dynamite lady," and I was just pulling your leg the way "put-down artist" Don Rickles used to "zing" you Vegas superstars with a lot of "That's one for the Jew" while pretending to keep score and "Look at Frank--is he laughing?" and then after the show they would all hug and kiss and shout "How's your bird?" and down a few more 7&7s and talk about how their wives play golf together and slap the bellboy and eat bacon and eggs off some hooker's triple-D tits. What a gas! Flippy, baby! Very flippy, indeed! Which reminds me of a joke. What's this?--OCEAN'S 10, OCEAN'S 9, OCEAN'S 8, OCEAN'S 7, OCEAN'S 6,... Answer--the Rat Pack dying! Clutching their chests, their hearts exploding, crashing to the floor, dentures splintering on the parquet, vein-splitting shrieks, blood pours out every hole, the entourage pressing close to catch the last words: "Oh God oh shit wait a minute don't uh-oh fuck." Later, the paramedic pockets the Rolex. Look at Frank--is he laughing?

See, underneath all the insults, Don Rickles was--wouldn't you know it--a "pussycat." And that's me all over. I get a kick out of ribbing these big celebrities but, like Don, I have a teddy bear for a heart. It's all in good fun. An affectionate send-up. A good-natured spoof. Say I make a joke about nailing Geraldo Rivera's tongue to the wall--wishing out loud that I could take a hammer and 200 roofing nails and WHAP-WHAP--better make that 300 just to be on the safe side--WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-OW! Jesus, I hit my thumb! WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP--actually pounding those two-inch steel roofing nails with big, round heads into Geraldo's saucy, pink tongue when he's on some tear about Gay Fathers Who Seduce Their Daughter's Husbands or Nuns With Tourette's Syndrome or Crossdressing Navajos Who've Been Sexually Abused by Medicine Men or whatever desperate and miserable wretches he can drag in front of a camera and say, "Gosh, aren't we glad we're not them." But as for nailing his tongue to a wall, it's just a joke, for Pete's sake. It doesn't mean I really want to take a hammer and...well, okay, maybe that was a bad example but take Oprah. Please. Do you know, incidentally, the key to Oprah's success? ABC figured out what Phil Donahue secretly wishes he was--namely a fat black woman--and then scheduled one against him. See, life is so easy when you understand it.

OCEAN'S 5, OCEAN'S 4,...So Peter Lawford pours another dry martini and says, "Excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"...OCEAN'S 3, OCEAN'S 2,...Then the untimely loss of Sammy Davis, Jr. Sammy with the single peeper. Sammy with more chains around his neck than Kunte Kinte. Sammy who thought that Black Pride was a furniture polish for Negroes. Here's a useful rule of thumb: The more gold a man wears around his neck, the more worthless he thinks himself to be. Obviously, Hammer's self-esteem is down there with the sea slugs....OCEAN'S 1... Followed by Joey Bishop killed in a condo fire, identified only by his medic alert bracelet. Dean passed out in a hot tub and paraboiled. Steve and Edie hacked to death in a dispute over grazing rights. Shirley MacLaine fatally mauled by pit bulls. Henry Silva brained by Skylab debris. Richard Conte buried in a lava flow. Buddy Hackett shot while resisting arrest. And, of course, Rickles, who passed away when a routine operation for a penile implant went terribly wrong. Look at Frank--is he laughing? Frank or the "Chairman of the Board," as I like to call him, although "Chairman of the Morgue" might be more like it. "King of the Worm World."

Who's left? Liza. Freaky, mawkish Liza with those waif-found-stuffed-in-a-drainpipe looks and that paperback version of Judy's voice. Liza, not so much a human being as a walking collection of show business tics. Liza, whose career is based on the belief that you can't overuse the words "special" and "magic." Liza with an "F."

Obviously, on a sane planet, she would be kept in a cage and people would pay a small amount--no more than a quarter--to poke her with a stick. Yet here on Earth, she's a big star. Why, you ask, and rightly so? I'll tell you why. Because her mother, who always looked like she was two seconds from jumping off a high ledge, knew an incredible secret--a secret so dark and twisted that it has never been spoken aloud--a secret any Rosicrucian would give his left nut to possess--forbidden knowledge older than the pyramids unveiled here for the first time--a secret guarded by the rich and powerful for centuries yet I reveal it to you for the price of a rock'n'roll magazine--a dreadful secret that Judy, lying on her death bed, with seconds to live, leaned over and whispered into her daughter's ear:

"The person in the most pain wins."

This simple truth is the basis of all daytime chat shows--
"Notice me, Phil. I'm a woman and my husband beats me."
"Notice me, Sally. I'm a woman and I'm black and my husband beats me and my father sexually abused me."
"Notice me, Ricki. I'm blind--so blind that I don't even know if I'm black or a woman--and somebody--it's so dark it's hard to tell--beats and rapes me and I weigh 850 pounds."
"Notice me, Montel. I'm a woman, I'm handicapped, I'm fat, everybody from the mailman to the parish priest beats and rapes me, my son has Gay Bowel Disease, my daughter was born with pot holders for hands and I'm on fire right now."
"Notice me, world. I'm Liza."

What does it all mean? I don't have a clue. I just write these things. It's not necessary that I understand them. I think Frank Sinatra or "Old Blue Eyes," as I like to call him, said it best just after he was struck by a speeding cement truck: "Oh God oh shit wait a minute don't uh-oh fuck."

And that's the name of that tune, Clyde.