My Point...And I Do Have One

open for the Pointer Sisters or Dolly Parton or Smokey Robinson. And the audience would just be waiting for them. So, while I was on, people would be eating or talking or turned around or just still being seated right in front of me. And I’d be onstage trying to do my act.
    “The worst gig was the first time I played a casino. It was in Atlantic City. I opened for Lola Falana. Most of the people in the audience were between seventy and eighty. I walked out, and, needless to say, my stuff was not going over at all. I was supposed to do twenty minutes. There were no laughs and I was going faster and faster, trying to fill in the dead air. I did about ten minutes, then I walked offstage. The union guys were screaming at me, ‘We have this timed so that the curtain goes up when Lola comes out. You’ve got to go back out there.’
    “ ‘I can’t get back out there. There’s nothing else for me to say. That was the safest stuff, the easiest stuff I have.’ It was a huge fight and I almost got fired. But the next day, over a pot of tea and some scones, the union guys convinced me to come back and find a way to do twenty minutes.
    “So that night I had to talk slower and stall. I used this whole analogy of how, when you order the barbecued chicken entrée at a restaurant, you’re choosing it because you really want the barbecued chicken. But the waitress tells you, ‘Well, you know, cole slaw comes with thatbarbecued chicken.’ And you say, ‘Well, I’m not interested in the cole slaw. I just want the barbecued chicken.
    “I told the second-night audience, ‘This is sort of what I am. I’m the cole slaw. Maybe you didn’t really want the cole slaw, but I come with the barbecued chicken. Lola Falana is the barbecued chicken, I’m the cole slaw. If you taste the cole slaw, you may enjoy it. I know you don’t-really want it. And you can have your barbecue, it’s not like you’re not going to have your chicken. But just taste the cole slaw and see if you enjoy it. And even if you don’t enjoy it, its on the plate. It’s gotta be there.’
    “And that would take up a little bit of time; nobody would laugh, but it would take up time. People would sometimes yell out, ‘Is it the type of cole slaw with mayonnaise or the vinegar kind? Because I’m allergic to mayonnaise.’
    “ ‘Well then maybe you’re allergic to me, ma’am. Or, maybe I don’t have to be cole slaw. I could be baked beans. What wouldn’t you mind so much?’
    “ ‘I don’t know. Hon,’ she says, turning to her husband, ‘when we’re at the Kentucky Fried Chicken, what do we usually get with the chicken?’
    “ ‘Cole slaw.’
    “ ‘No, I’m allergic to cole slaw!’
    “ ‘Beans?’
    “Everybody broke into conversations.
    “ ‘I don’t like cole slaw.’
    “ ‘Well, she’s not saying she’s cole slaw, she’s saying she’s something else made out of cabbage. Like, for instance … cole slaw.’
    “And I’m going, ‘Now wait a minute. Everybody listen to me. I’m just making an analogy. I’m not really cole slaw.’
    “And the audience went, ‘Ohhhhh,’ then after a beat, ‘We want Lola! We want Lola!’
    “It’s really scary when you have a whole room full ofpeople seventy years old chanting, ‘We want Lola.’ Oh yes, I can’t think of anything scarier. So, my little friends,” I addressed the moon-eyed children looking up at me, “was that a scary story or what?”
    The children looked at each other, then they started to chant, “We want Lola! We want Lola! We want Lola!”
    And they wouldn’t be quiet until I called Lola Falana and had her come over and entertain us.
    But that’s a story for another day.

the plane
truth
or

dem ain’t goobers, dem’s peanuts!

    I know that experts say you’re more likely to get hurt crossing the street than you are flying (these, of course, would be the street-crossing experts), but that doesn’t make me feel any less frightened of flying. If anything, it makes me more afraid of crossing the street. As soon as the light turns green, I run across the street as fast as I can, screaming like a madwoman. I arrive on the other side out of breath, wheezing, and clutching my stomach (or if I’m in a whimsical mood, the stomach of the person standing next to me).
    So, to conquer my fear of flying, I decided to write down my feelings on a recent trip. I kept an in-flight journal (which is like an in-flight movie—but without anyone standing up in