AN  EXCERT FROM MY BOOK:

TAKING CARE OF PAULY 1982 

 “Pauly Shore” AKA “The Weasel” This was Pauly's alter ego. Amazingly, this made him famous.  I don’t get it.  But fame is a puzzle, sometimes it makes sense and other times it’s just baffling. One good example, The Kardashian’s. Pauly was Mitzi’s Shores youngest son.   She has four kids, but Pauly was her little prince.  He practically grew up with comedians. Mitzi would bring him to the club when he was a kid and let him hang out.  Every comedian had a Pauly story.  Mitzi had great trust in her comedians and thought of them as family.  A very fucked-up family.   One night I saw Pauly sitting with Richard Pryor having his first drink.  He was 12!  Pauly got to see a lot before he reached drinking age.  His brother Peter was two years older, but a totally different kid.  Peter was not interested in comedy at all, ironically, he is now the manager of the Comedy Store.   But back in the day, Mitzi was grooming Pauly to be a standup.  I didn’t know her kids that well, we just exchanged dirty looks on the hallway of the Comedy Store.  But if you pissed her kids off, suddenly you were not getting any stage time.   Little did I know; my life and Mitzi’s kids were about to collide in a major way.    

     Steve and I had to get a place to live together, so we looked like a real married couple.   We found this little house in North Hollywood that was perfect.   Two bedrooms, low rent and a “good neighborhood” The woman renting bragged about it being an upscale area.  The first thing we saw when we dove up was the neighbors’ two pit bulls sitting on the front porch.  Very upscale!   The house was perfect so what if we live next door to two pit bulls?  The backyard had a small pool and lots of lemon trees.  Then we saw the two huge cages filled with snakes in the neighbors back yard.  I asked the woman renting. “Not sure we can live here. Steve has a cat and I’m afraid of snakes” She laughed “Don’t worry about the snakes they are actually very nice and rarely get loose” What’s a nice snake?  And how often is rarely?   When we told her, the house was not for us, she was insulted.   Well, maybe you should live in Beverly Hills If this neighborhood is not good enough for you” A little foreshadowing of things to come.  Just as we were about to give up, the great and powerful. Mitzi Shore made an offer we could not refuse, but it came with strings. Two big annoying strings!  

     When Mitzi calls for you, it’s like having a meeting with Don Corleone.  You could never refuse her offers.  Mitzi’s office was tucked away on the third floor of the Comedy Store.  You had to walk through the bar then up some dark stairs into a hallway that led to the Belly room, a smaller show room on the third floor.  She had a door bell shaped like of Mae West.  She had a thing for Mae West.  When you stepped into her office, you felt like you were in an 18th century Bordello. Three huge overstuffed chairs.  plush rugs, velvet curtains, and ton of photos lined the walls. Really a history of the Store. A young Jay Leno and David Letterman, Richard Pryor and Sandra Bernhard.  Roseanne on stage for the first time, Mitzi had them all in the beginning of their careers.  One photo sat proudly on the corner of her desk.   You could see this was the one she cherished.  A photo of her “X” husband comedian Sammy Shore with Elvis in front of The Hilton in Vegas.  He opened for Elvis many times in his career.   I plopped down in one of her enormous chairs.  She started off the conversation by greeting me the way she always did “Hello Banana” I guess this was some kind of blond hair reference. But it was always funny that she called me this.  Then, with no sugar coating, she just laid it out.  “I want you and Steve to be legal guardians to Peter and Pauly so they can go to Beverly Hills High School” I just stared at her totally speechless.    Babysitting was bad enough, but legal guardian sounded like a full -time job! Her reason was even more insane.   She wanted her boys to attend Beverly Hills High School, but in order to do this she had to live in the city of Beverly Hills.  Her house was in Los Angeles county.  Mitzi’s house once belonged to the 1940 movies star Dorothy Lamour   It was a prestige address in the Hollywood hills just above Sunset. If it’s a toss-up between your kids’ education and a fabulous house in the hills, the choice is obvious.   So, she rented a small house inside the Beverly Hills City limits.  Not even a mile from her house. Steve and I would live there rent free in exchange for being the boys guardian! It would be like living in paradise but also in hell!   So, the routine was after school the boys would come to the house in Beverly Hills, then later sneak home after they were sure they were not being followed by school truancy officers. I was not confident we would be good parents. There had to other comedians that would be better!! What about letting them live with Richard Pryor he could teach them comedy and how to smoke crack?    She wanted an answer immediately. I wanted to say no, but we needed a place to live and saying no to Mitzi would truly have fucked up my career, I was twenty-three. I didn’t want to be a parent I didn’t even want to take care of a dog at this point in my life.  Pauly was like a wild animal.  And Peter was just a teenager who hated us.  Plus, they both smelled like boys!   I thought about it for five minutes then told Mitzi we would do it!   

      I dragged Steve from the piano to the parking lot to tell him the news.  The parking lot of the Comedy Store saw a lot of action. It was more than just a place to park your car. Almost every kind of drama took place there.  fights, breakups, puking, drugs, arrests, and lots of fucking.  Every week the garbage men would fish out a pile of condoms, women’s underwear, and broken beer bottles. Amazing taking the time to use a condom when you’re fucking someone in a dumpster.   Comedy brings out the best in people.  So, I told Steve about Mitzi’s offer.  I don’t think he understood we had to take care of the boys instead of paying rent he was just excited to live in Beverly Hills and looking forward to someone calling him Daddy!  A few weeks later, we moved into our Beverly Hills house. We were now gay parents to the boss’s kids.  A nightmare in exchange for free rent.  But it was a great place to party.  And that’s what we did.  We were the big out of control gay party parents!!  Party baby!  “Someone pass the poppers” Mitzi’s kids were in good hands. 

      We had very little furniture so Mitzi brought over some wicker chairs. She had a thing for wicker. It was so ugly, but we needed a something to sit on.  By the time we moved out, we had plenty of splinters.  Our first weekend we had a housewarming party.  We invited mostly comedians.  The police came several times. Lucky for us, Jay Leno handled the police by showing off his motorcycle.  The third and fourth time they showed up, the motorcycle fascination wore off and we got fined for making too much noise. Jerry Seinfeld was making burgers.  I wish I had the photo of him dousing the grill with beer trying to put out the fire.  Lots of drunken naked people swimming in the pool.  And drugs galore, which later became Steve’s drag name.  “Ms. Drugs Galore” Pauly was racing around the backyard on a scooter, drinking beer and yelling something dirty.  Peter brought some girls over. But they all looked older than him. Pretty sure they were hookers, I didn’t ask.  The party went on until three in the morning.   The last thing I remember was seeing Pauly throwing up in the pool.  Then Peter disappearing into the guesthouse with two hookers.   After taking care of two teenage boy’s I will never again judge a parent for drinking during the day. Being a parent SUCKS!