Lunch I don’t eat. Not here, anyway. If I didn’t work through lunch I could never afford dinner - at least not in Cortina, where I intend to be eating before long. But first I have to go to New York.
No offense, but I keep a place in the city. You don’t think my wife would have married me if she only saw this place, do you? She never set foot in this place until it was too late. She just thought I had money. Some girls are like that. They don’t ask questions. You either have money or you don’t, like big feet.
Believe it or not, Philly is where my wife’s sainted grandmother was born - way out on the main line. The grandmother met the grandfather on the grand tour, back in 1901. She saw Naples and that was the end. She died a rich widow in Posillipo and Philly became a fairy tale for the girl I married. When we met, I knew I was going to get laid the minute I said Philadelphia.
New York is a good place to spend most major holidays, since you have the place to yourself. That’s when I really love New York – Labor Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving. This year it’s Christmas, which I usually spend in Naples with my in-laws. But since the kid is on ice upstate, we’ll be sticking around these parts in case he makes like Santa with the snow.
I hope to do a lot of swimming, which I do at the JCC. That’s going be the title of my autobiography - Swimming With The Jews. The Jews are the only ones who really know how to celebrate Christmas. It’s the one day of the year when they’re not feeling guilty about having a good time. For the Christians, it’s the only day they’re feeling guilty. That’s why they go to the movies, so they can get their mind off their conscience. The Jews go out for Chinese food, where they make jokes and laugh a lot. I have reservations over at Sung Lin.
I meet a lot of famous people at the JCC. Actors, mostly. They swim when I do, which is when the pool is least crowded, which is usually during the early-bird special at the diner around the corner. That’s how I met a certain very famous comedian, who I won’t mention since I only know him nude. You can’t change the channel without finding him. He’s over 85 and he’s still working, otherwise he’d be at the diner around the corner. The man is a national treasure and I told him so, naked myself. Now we’re pals, so I have to be discreet, which is the way we are in New York. But I will tell you this; the man has the strangest ass in show business.
But that’s not what I love about him. What I love is how delicate a creature he is, and I don’t mean decrepit. Here he is, all over TV, playing an angry old Jewish guy, a regular riot, and he’s just as insecure as the rest of us. First time we met, he was on the phone in his underwear, talking to somebody who was organizing some kind of interview. They were going over the questions and the poor guy was in pain over the ordeal. Like a little kid, he was, all worried that they get the story straight, make the people understand, wondering if they’ll actually like him. This is something you learn about famous people, especially actors. They’re like little kids. They just want you to like them, unless they’re having a tantrum about not getting what they want.
My wife says that all the holidays here in America are about gluttony, which is a sin. I call Christmas the feast of ruined expectations. Nobody gets what they want, and if they do, it turns out not to be what they thought it was. Even if they get a million dollars it destroys them somehow. As for you, I’m not turning on the grill, but there’s hot coffee and the rolls are fresh.
