My sister Amber used to be a personal trainer. She worked out of a gym in North Hollywood, and trained most of her clients in the morning.
When she would get to the gym, Harold Greene would already be there, working out. He was anchoring the afternoon news at the time, so he started his day pretty early.
One day, as Harold was on his back doing a bench press, Amber walked by and glanced at him.
His balls were hanging out of his shorts.
* * *
My best friend Mick is a huge fan of tasteless birthday cakes.
There’s a bakery down the street from me called Regal Cake Gallery. They’ll do virtually anything, without raising an eyebrow. At least three or four times a year, Mick will draw some kind of horrible, obscene picture and fax it to the pleasant Korean woman who runs the place. She’ll ask him what flavor, he’ll give her his credit card number, and it’s just another day on Fairfax.
The first cake he ordered from them featured Mickey Mouse jerking off to gay porn.
After he faxed the drawing, he started to worry about the language barrier. The owners speak in broken English, and you don’t want to trust a cake like that to people who may not fully grasp the subtle nuance.
So he called them up.
“Did you get the drawing?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, we get.”
“Do you understand what I–”
“Yes, yes, we understand.”
“But… do you see what the mouse is doing there?”
“Yes, yes, the mouse, he cumming.”
* * *
Amber was horrified. Nobody wants to see Harold Greene’s balls at that hour.
She tried to forget, but the very next day, it happened again. There he was, on his back, with his bright red sack hanging out like Santa.
And it kept happening. Every day, Amber was treated to the sight of those withered goolies spilling out of his gym shorts.
Eventually she had to complain. She went to her manager and politely asked that Mr. Greene be told to put some underpants on before working out.
She never saw Harold Greene’s red nuts again.
* * *
A few weeks before my 30th birthday, Mick started asking me what I hated the most in the world.
I had no idea why he was fishing for that kind of information, but I knew he was up to no good. I tried resisting the topic, but he was relentless. We were working together at the time, and almost every day he would draw me into long conversations about things that drove us both nuts.
Eventually he caught me off guard, and I revealed that I had a deep loathing for Doug Henning (who was still alive at the time). I don’t know what it was, just something about those buck teeth and those stupid T-shirts. He reminded me of Shelly Duvall.
Speaking of which, I used to live in a house that was once owned by Shelly Duvall’s boyfriend. It didn’t mean much to me until one night, I sat up in bed, stricken. I realized that at some point, Shelly Duvall had sex in my bedroom.
In any case, Mick and I were working on a Nissan truck commercial when my birthday finally rolled around. On our dinner break, Mick came over with a birthday cake and lovingly set it down in front of me.
On the cake, were the words, “Have a Magical Birthday!”
And below that was a caricature of Doug Henning, sitting cross legged on a cloud. Much like he is probably doing now.
* * *
A few weeks later, Amber got a letter in the mail. It was from Gloria Allred.
Apparently, Harold Greene was now her client.
And she demanded that Amber stop talking about his balls.
* * *
Tonight my family went to Canters Deli.
There isn’t a whole lot I love more in this life than Canters. It’s just a shit hole, full of surly waitresses, overpriced sandwiches and ancient clientele. You have to love a place that still has a sandwich named after Billy Rose.
I’ve had a lot of good experiences at Canters. We used to go there when I was a kid after my dad taped at CBS, which is just across the street. It’s always felt like show business to me, despite having seen Dane Cook there.
Perhaps my greatest show biz moment at Canters came when my friends took me there to celebrate my 19th birthday. At the end of our meal, the waiter explained that there had been a mix-up, and Dyan Cannon had inadvertently paid our bill. Since she had already left, the waiter asked if we would pay hers. It was easily $50 less than ours, so we jumped at it. I later discovered that Dyan Cannon and I share the same birthday.
So tonight, in what seems like a natural closing of the circle, my family went to Canters to celebrate my sister Amber’s birthday.
My mother bought her some candles and perfume. My sister gave her pink kitchen tools. I gave her an attachment for her new coffeemaker.
39 responses so far ↓
1 John Foley // Dec 3, 2007 at 2:39 am
Nice to see Gloria Allred only takes the really important cases.
2 JohnnyBoy // Dec 3, 2007 at 2:53 am
Parts of the cake I wouldn’t eat, even though I know it’s just icing:
His balls
His armpits
Her fingernails
3 Gunner13 // Dec 3, 2007 at 3:52 am
Was this one supposed to be disjointed or was there an edting problem? Harold Greene needs to get a life (or a girlfriend) - what a sleeze! Gloria Allred is just being a typical lawyer - she will do (almost) anything for $.
I am not sure why anyone would hang out with Mick (or let him bring a cake).
4 Gunner13 // Dec 3, 2007 at 4:02 am
The commercial was very funny - nice one April! You look quite fetching and “Steve Morris” comes across as an actual dimwit news anchor. Lovely.
5 Syr Paine // Dec 3, 2007 at 4:48 am
Oh my GAWD! And I say that on so many different levels!
April! Let me be the first to post on your fantastic commercial spot! I had to play it a couple of times because it made me laugh hard!
When I lived in California, I watched Harold and always thought there was something under(wear)lying in that persona. Now I know why…what a douche!
Mick sure knows how to make lemonade out of asshole situations!
Too early for a drink….damn!
6 bnaivar // Dec 3, 2007 at 5:47 am
Well, anyway, I WAS eating breakfast.
7 steve // Dec 3, 2007 at 6:39 am
It’s never too early for a drink.
8 clevelandphil // Dec 3, 2007 at 10:09 am
So. Amber was the sister who saw Harold’s balls. I didn’t know she was a personal trainer. I can see her and her clients tightening their stomachs in a car outside Robert Blake’s house.
Did she tell Gloria Allred to go fuck herself?
BTW the only complaint about the cake is that they made Gloria look good.
9 jasonthegreat // Dec 3, 2007 at 10:12 am
This wasn’t disjointed–it was complex comedy (two separate strands that slowly entwine together for the big payoff).
I love the commercial.
10 jim // Dec 3, 2007 at 10:38 am
You had news anchor “STEVE MORRIS” as your foil, your sister was exposed to a real one’s fuzzy swingers, & your friend Mick gave each of you a tasteless/disturbing cake — that’s not disjointed at all! Now if Mick WAS a news anchor we’d have us a real Tri-Fecta du jour.
I’d say, unless you can drink in your sleep without gagging on it … awake makes a dandy starting-line. The finish line will lie where it must.
Your sister being legally advised not to refer to someone’s nutsack? Come ON! Even for American jurisprudence … that mystical wonderland that gave humanity “The Twinkie Defence” (for homicide no less) … that just totally sounds like such a big rank steaming load of - of - Gloria Allred? Ohhh, well then. Nothing further, your honor.
11 JohnnyQuest // Dec 3, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Hey, give Harold a break! Look at the picture - I’m sure my nuts would pop out if I tried benching a full TEN POUNDS…
BTW, if you cut that cake just right, you could have a piece with both nuts AND armpits. Yum-o!
12 JohnnyBoy // Dec 3, 2007 at 12:58 pm
They’re testiculicious !
13 steve // Dec 3, 2007 at 1:03 pm
oh yeah, and the commercial is skitastic!
14 JohnnyBoy // Dec 3, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Greene’s Allred NutBalls
(estimated prep time…30 minutes)
1 cup TESTEA’S brand marinated scrotum (chopped)
1/4 cup TSOO (Totally Slutty Olive Oil)
1 tin AnnCoulter brand Anchovies
1 teaspoon Sir Laurence’s Oil of Olivier
1/2 cup Fromunda Cheese (crumbled)
Mix well all ingredients, and form ball shapes by pressing under armpits
BAKE at 375 for a good hour
15 Andre // Dec 3, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I have an idea, April. When it’s Mick’s birthday, perhaps you should get him a cake featuring a nude Pat Boone in the gym locker room.
16 pal Jacky // Dec 3, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Is he still on with Ann Martin on 4:00pm? That poor woman. First Paul Moyer then him. Ann Martin’s psychaitrist.’Most people who drink as much as you do, I would tell to cut down, considering your circumstances I don’t think you drink enough’
17 Stretch // Dec 3, 2007 at 4:54 pm
…similar thing happened to me at a toga party…I didn’t find out until the group picture was printed. I wasn’t embarrassed or anything - just TESTY!!
“Well I’m upper upper class high society
God’s gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I’ve got
The biggest balls of all (thats me aka “The Great Dane”
I’ve got big balls
I’ve got big balls
They’re such big balls
And they’re dirty big balls
And he’s got big balls
And she’s got big balls
(But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all)
And my balls are always bouncing
My ballroom always full
And everybody cums and cums again
If your name is on the guest list
No one can take you higher
Everybody says I’ve got
Great balls of fire”
18 JohnnyBoy // Dec 3, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I think that April should adopt the persona of “Winchell Wray” , and she’ll give you a taste of her hate- mongering haute cuisine !
19 Shannon // Dec 3, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Not only do I now want cake, I really want balls too.
20 coasterboy // Dec 3, 2007 at 10:06 pm
And John was complaining about the level of discourse of my comment on proper fellatio technique….
21 John Foley // Dec 3, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I wasn’t complaining, just observing.
22 xlistnerliz // Dec 4, 2007 at 12:49 am
Looooove the commerical. April, you look A-dorable!! Love the hat. The guy is good too. I’ve been on a steady diet of QVC so I don’t know if I’ll see it “live” so to speak. Tell us when you know any local L.A. channels it will air on, will ya?
23 Gina // Dec 4, 2007 at 12:51 am
I smell balls.
24 JohnnyBoy // Dec 4, 2007 at 6:54 am
“Balls i smell” - Yoda
“I, like, smell balls” - some dude
“I smell like balls” - my balls
“I am balls, hear me smell, I think my balls are really swell” - Helen Reddy
“The only thing we have to fear is smelly balls” - FDR
25 JohnnyBoy // Dec 4, 2007 at 6:58 am
“Hitler, he ’s only got one ball,
Goebbels, has two but theyre quite small
Himmler, has something sim’lr
But Mussolini …ain’t got none..at all”
Actual WW2 song, to the tune of Col. Bogey March from Bridge on the River Kwai…..I learned this in the 1970s in Boy Scouts
26 pal Jacky // Dec 4, 2007 at 2:32 pm
All I learned in boys scouts was knot tying and circle jerking.
27 JohnnyBoy // Dec 4, 2007 at 2:45 pm
i LOVE THAT BAND !
28 Brandex // Dec 4, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Heh, I could see April doing a fake cooking show for laughs. I remember how callers used to think she was Melinda Lee because they sounded alike.
Was the color of Harold’s balls the inspiration for his dye job?
29 haineux // Dec 4, 2007 at 3:59 pm
April, this is the biggest head-explosion moment I have had in YEARS.
First there’s the facts of the matter. Your sister getting a letter from a famous lawyer for discussing a famous person’s, er, anatomy.
Then there’s your boyfriend getting a cake like that.
But on top of all of that, your writing magnifies the explosion-factor of the situation so well.
Thanks. I’ll keep this one tucked away for those “so why exactly should I keep breathing” days.
30 haineux // Dec 4, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Oh, and the commercial:
“Perfect.”
31 socalfrank // Dec 4, 2007 at 7:53 pm
I grew up in a neighborhood called Del Cerro [suburb in San Diego] where Harold Greene also lived.
At the time, he was the bigshot anchor in San Diego.
He was an ass. Nobody liked him. A friend of mine used to babysit his kids….he didn’t tip and thought his kids were too good to play with the neighborhood kids.
Anyway, when he got the “bog break” and moved to the LA market…it was not a sad day for San Diego.
When I moved to the OC and was subjected to his condescending newscasts, all I could do was hope and pray that he would get “promoted” to New York where I would never have to see his freckled face red haired doo again.
32 Farfel // Dec 4, 2007 at 9:21 pm
So, didn’t anybody take pictures of the Mickey Mouse cake?!
33 pal Jacky // Dec 5, 2007 at 12:52 am
I really don’t like watching ‘good’ newscasters at all. I love watching Harold Greene, but my fave is still paul moyer. He’s just gets so exited over things that just don’t matter.
34 Dylan // Dec 5, 2007 at 2:06 am
Oh dear, that cake is too glorious to even eat.
35 JohnnyBoy // Dec 5, 2007 at 7:14 am
My all time favorite was Roger Grimsby, I don’t know if anyone not from NY knows him, but he was in Woody Allen’s Bananas, playing himself.
Almost always played it straight, but would slip in a line or two, like when it was cold, advising people to bring in the brass monkey
36 Titan // Dec 6, 2007 at 2:04 am
God, Harold Greene IS an asshole, isn’t he? And it’s Poetic Justice that Gloria Allred is his Attorney!
Yup, the world’s in pretty good shape!
37 pal Jacky // Dec 6, 2007 at 9:34 pm
for all these years I thought Roger Grimsby was the invention of woody allen.
38 JohnnyBoy // Dec 7, 2007 at 6:53 am
I recall seeing Bananas in the theater and I’ll never forget the audience reaction when Roger Grimsby appeared on screen! Even better received than Cosell
39 Andre // Dec 7, 2007 at 3:08 pm
My parents took me to see “Bananas” on a double bill with “What’s Up Doc?” when I was eight. “What’s Up Doc” is still one of my all-time favorites, but “Bananas” wasn’t running five minutes before Woody Allen was perusing a rack of of skin magazines . My mother gasped and my sister (15 yo and ever the comedienne) whispered “Should we send Andre out for popcorn?” At age eight, the popcorn was more appealing to me than the naked women (funny, that’s still the case). Soon after, my folks grabbed the two of us and left the theatre.
To this day I still haven’t seen “Bananas”.
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