1) The fact that ABC news took James Lipton’s biography, read about the man’s entire life, his hopes and dreams, his accomplishments and tragedies, and took away from it one single fact which was deemed newsworthy. Quote: “James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors’ Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France.”
2) The fact that James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors’ Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France. If the Lipton of youth was at all similar to the Lipton of age, these must have been some of the most hysterically tumescent and malapropos transactions in the history of prostitution.
3) The fact that no matter what we make of our lives, no matter the peaks we climb, no matter our achievements, in the quiet hours, or in the twilight, we look back on the reckless and depraved things we’ve done, the things mothers immemorial have assured us we should be ashamed of, with such a smirking swell of romantic pride… that we act as if the person we once were, the one who did all those “stupid” things and who made all those crazy “mistakes,” were a dead ancestor who through sheer force of nostalgic time-refracted longing remains more alive than we the living… or that we cherish so sweetly the dead pimps inside of ourselves.
Just because typing the word “whores,” provides a slight humor, number two is pretty funny. Just thinking about Lipton’s whores and what they looked like gives me a mild case of the chuckles. And imagining his conversations with them? “What would you say is your favorite position?” Or, “If God were your trick, what would you like to hear him ask for?” “Have you ever performed for free?” “With whom?”
And what if he had to be “mean” to his troupe? What would the punishments be? Listening to a monologue? Seeing a bad play in French? Doing impromtu in a back alley?
Oh, the miles of smiles that could provide in my imaginary world. Ha! Might make for another book altogether.
VR/