My Old Man

it's today. My father died in nineteen eighty five. Look at that? Is that twenty years exactly? Yeah, forty years exactly to the day, almost to the hour. He died at seven fifteen pm. But I'll get to that. Actually I'm recording this at six fifteen pm, so I'll get to that later in the show. But first by you missed a great dinner last night. I posted some pictures

on the Facebook podcast obsess page. You know, we always like to make I like to make dungeness crabs and a really hot sauce adabiata sauce which means angry in Italian adabiata And it's not hard to make them all. It's just something I love to prepare. And Rosalie has one hundred staple dishes and this is one of mine. So she was shopping and she couldn't find crabs. It's out of season, and she had an inkling. There's that esp again. Let me just go to Costco and check again.

And three days ago there were no crabs, and the guy said, we're gonna get them in April. She went again. Two days ago there they were. So she's like texting all of us, what should I do? I said, let's have him for the weekend. I sent. I sent her money by the you know, buy three packets fifteen crabs. She goes, Joey's working the next seven days. He's only off tonight. He says, okay, we'll make him tonight. This is like two o'clock in the afterno so everybody's rushing around.

And you don't even need a pen for this. To know the recipe. It's simple. Just take the crabs typically with this top shell off, and just a crab without the top shell. You can break them in half to make two halves. Whatever's easier for you. I like to bend the legs and crack them a little bit so the sauce can seep in when it's cooking. Well, stick a knife for the big claws in the front, so they get sauce that seeps in. But it's really simple. You put them in a tin pan, you know, two

or three tin pins. I cut up a whole head of garlic. We're talking twenty some odd clothes. I love it. I chop them up real fine, so the garlic is stronger and more potent, which is a terrific way to eat it. And you throw the crabs in the pan and you make your sauce. However, you make your sauce, making them out and out of sauce. No meat sauce obviously, So whoever you make your sauce, even if you want to be lazy and get jars, if you do that, then get the good brands, get the rails, get the uh.

There's so many good brands of sauce out there now. They're usually eight dollars up. If you want to go that route, that's fine because it's quick and it's easy. And if you make your homemade sauce even better. But you throw your sauce on top of the crabs, throw the garlic in there, Throw a bunch of basil in it, salt, pepper, some garlic, salt. Well, I don't know because there's so much garlic, but it just feels good spreading garlic salt

on on top. And that's it. You put them in the other The crabs are typically already cooked when you buy them. They're boiled, you know what I mean. So you're getting a crab that's cooked. So you just got to put them in the oven at four hundred degrees for about forty minutes. So the sauce cooks real good and it gets involved in the in the meat of the crab. That's it. You're done. Then spread some newspaper out on your table if you want to, and just have at it. Crack those crabs and have a ball.

Let me just leave this message for Andrea. Hold On, can't stop, Okay, taping now, Okay, So yeah, it's thrific driven now Rosalie Days. Oh you know what I'm thinking? In addition to crabs, should we make a salad? Now? We don't need a salad. It took tears much salad with crab. We're gonna be hunched overall plates, devouring crabs. We don't need a salad. Oh, I feel like we

need something else. Bro. We have last night's Scullotta fuzzle, which is you know, white canaloni beans, an escarol in a chicken stock or garlic and salt and peppin whole thing. We make a soup like that. I love scullotta fuzzle with a lot of beans and a lot of garlic and some garlic bread with that. It's a home run. We still had that left over for the night before she goes. I want to make these beef ribs. What

are you doing? And Joey's like, ma, what the fuck beef rib We got crab can I just want to meet them surfing turf. I said, it's not really sot in terf row. It's not lobs from steak. It's beef ribs and crabs. Okay, man aco and of course the nieces ate some cas. He loves crab Ave is a little more finicky, but it was delicious. I had another

crab this afternoon for lunch, and that was a Wednesday. Oh. We also sent I sent Joey home with not a doggie bag, but a doggie box, a box of a whole tray of cooked crabs if we didn't touch, and a big tup of wam scored a fuzzul and some beef rips. So he's working the next seven days, he'll have that for lunch, he says, or when he gets home from work early in the morning. Believe it or not, I think crabs can go for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I'm not a crab snob at all. Seafood is the

way to go. Also, throw some oregano in your crab sauce fresh basil. Do not cut the basil on a cutting board because you're losing all the flavor to your knife and the cutting board. Rip it up with your fingers. Always you can smell the aroma in your hands as you do it. But you can use dried oregano on top. Always use a regano. Fish. Don't use a regano for meat. I don't. To me, is a fish thing not a

meat thing. Anyhow, On to today's stories, My goodness, David Hasselhoff's wife, his ex wife, put a bullet in her head the other day and died. Obviously, before she died, they were on good terms. His wife, his ex wife, Pamela Bach, man. She was a beauty. Do not sleep on Pamela Bach in the late eighties, My goodness. But they had a rough marriage. There was good for a while. He was high in the hog. It was after night Rider and during Baywatch. He couldn't get a bigger star

than David Hasseloff. As we know, he was a huge star in Germany where he sang, which I've heard. I don't know why the Germans thickets so great. But before before she died, when the divorce kicked into effect, this couple that everybody loved and talked about and actually wanted to be. There was some real Laura d tales in

their life, especially during their divorce. It got slopped because some reason, somehow personal stuff that was in their divorce papers got entered into the public and their kids were young, and the kids could see this and read about it was awful. It was a sixty six page filing by Hasselhoff's lawyers, and in those filings, his lawyers said that his ex wife Pamela tested positive for cocaine during their marriage. She was always drunk. She was even intoxicated at their

daughter Taylor's sweet sixteen party. The documents also included allegations of infidelity committed by Hasseloff, as well as alcohol, drug and physical abuse by him against her across their sixteen years of marriage. Tough stuff, tough stuff, but it got personal. There was one point where some disturbing details came out, and one was that he broke her nose during a fight, during a drunken fight, and he countered back, the only person who broke my wife's nose was her plastic surgeon.

She did develop a typical Beverly Hill's face. You know, obviously got too much work done. And I've been watching girls on Instagram and TikTok, mostly Instagram girls who got pretty through botox and filler and you know, procedures, and when they cry, Like I don't know about you, I've had girlfriends who when they cry, they look so beautiful. It breaks your heart even more. I hope you don't have a wife for a girlfriend who's a bad crier

and an ugly crier. That's not good. But if you ever have a wife for a girlfriend that could just cry without making a face and the tears jumped out of her eyeballs, oh my god, you feel twenty times worse than what you felt without her crying. It's the worst thing, but you can still look and go what a beautiful crier she is makes you want to stay with her. These girls on Instagram, even let's stop with

Kim Kardashian. They can't cry right. Their face doesn't have the typical creases in the woman's face when they cry, so their face looks like it's full of cement when they cry. It's an ugly, ugly cry, and that's going to make a man want to leave even more even quicker. I don't know if women feel a way about men crying, but uh, I don't think I looked that bad when I cry. I know I'm a messy crier, but I

don't have cement in my face either way. These two had a tough marriage, and you gotta wonder if all that stuff didn't put her over the edge eventually. I mean, they broke up and she lived alone and their daughters are in their thirties now, but they were both damaged. I mean twenties somewhdd years ago after Baywatch. Remember how what a mess Hasseloff was, Remember those of him being drunk, and well she was there to pick him up by

his bootstraps. There was a story where Hasseloff was slumped in front of an empty mini bar in some hotel, and you know, she she got in the phone him and managed to concentrate and have him, you know, get better and get on his feet and stop drinking. But it was bad, you know. He called and said, I'm drunk and I think I'm dying. Then the phone went dead. That's a horrible phone call to get. I got that phone call when I was first working there Mysteries and Scandals,

and I was in town with Chico. He was living with me at the time in this tiny room, but he'd stay at Uncle Vinie's house. And this is when Chico's drinking really kicked off a lot. And I wasn't hardly drink. I was drinking maybe a couple of drinks at night, but that's it. But Chico was so depressed and I was the only one who would be there to help him because he didn't know anybody in California.

So one night I'm working on Mysteries and Scandals Onlly with Boulevard and the E. The E executives, my producers had a cell phone that they had to have on set. I didn't have mine because I just wasn't a phone person as much. But if I needed the phone, they would hand it to me. But I kept getting phone calls from Chico because he was in peril. And one night I get a phone call. He was what does the night before two nights before doing another episode, and

everybody loved him. She goes, the best, he's the best. He got crazy. He peed on some stars Walk of Fame. I forget what star he peed on, but he had a nice suit on. He took himself out of his pants and peed on the star with his back to everybody. They thought he was nuts and crazy. What she is? They never met him, they heard about stories. Now they see him in the in real life. They couldn't believe it. Two nights later, he's calling me, telling me he just

drank everything out of the hotel Minibo. He checked into a hotel. So she goes, what do you mean? I drank everything in the minival arm and the bathtub. Now I'm gonna slice my wrist. I don't want to live anymore. Now you know he tried to kill himself when I was married. When I first got divorced in whatever, nineteen ninety here we are whatever. Six seven years later, he's doing it again. It's too much, so I'm like, I

gotta keep talking. I gotta talk him down from the ledge and they go to ay J, we got a shoe come on, and like, I really pissed off. They would not understand that. They thought ordering pizzas was more important than my friend trying to kill himself. So I took the phone. I smashed it against the wall. They told me I was gonna have to pay for I said, the fuck out here, not paying for my friend's gonna die.

Pay for a fucking phone. Where's your heart? They dropped it anyhow, crazy time, So I understand what the Pamela Hassloff must have felt getting that phone call. But this was around the same time that Hassloff was putting his wife for hill. You know, she had dropped him off two days before to Beverly Betty Ford that Betty pot sent him in Palm Springs because at the years of drinking, he finally had to admit he had a problem, and he agreed to go to rehab, which was a big

relief for everybody. But then the phone call comes and he apparently checked out obviously she had to get him. She had to get a private plane that flew to from La to Palms. It's like a two hour drive, but with plane. When a plane, it's fast. She chartes a jet gets down there and he was at a local hospital. Didn't know which one she gets in the taxi. He went to every hospital in town till she I think the three hospitals out there until she found him

drank the hole anymore. Like you said, a maid found him unconscious, half naked on the floor. Cops were cold. But you know, he was the most bankable TV star in the world at the time, and her contention was that she was the person who propped him up, who kept the band going without divulging his nasty drinking habit. And by the way, it's easy to laugh how cheesy Baywatch was, but you gotta remember what a big show

that was. I mean, the Guinness Book the World Records I looked it up, says it's the watched TV show in history, with one point one billion viewers in one hundred and forty countries. Look helped that Pam Ands and other hot girls were jogging in one piece bathing suits, but that was you know, back then. I got her back then. It makes me think of that was what everybody wanted to come to, la It was such a

dream place. Now it's probably the last destination in America anybody wants to go to, outside of people who still think they're gonna be a star. But either way, so his wife, you know, like I said, a beautiful woman. She's living with a fall down drunk and she's covering for him for years because you know, alcoholism, as many of you know, doesn't matter if you're a regular guy or a biggest, biggest TV star on the planet, it

doesn't matter. It destroys you either way. Remember that awful video of him trying to eat a cheeseburger when he massively intoxicated, trying to a hamburger on the floor and he could hardly get his balance, and one of his daughters is filming him pleading with him to stop drinking. When your kids are pleading with you and videotaping it, you have gone way overboard. And then she said, the drink, it just got worse. He would drink socially, and he

would drink so much that you got sick. And that's the thing about alcoholics. You never know, and I can speak on this firsthand. You don't know if it's gonna be one glass or two, or it's gonna turn into a bottle. You know. It's that kind of I hate to say disease. It's that kind of illness situation. I don't like the word disease to me. Cancer, heart disease, epilepsy, diabetes, take your pit. I don't include alcoholism as a disease, but it's certainly something that people suffer from. I'll call

it a horrible illness that you bring upon yourself. But you know, she didn't look. She kept a lot of secrets for a long time. But then something happened that would really change their marriage and make his drinking even more commonplace. Big motorcycle accident back in two thousand and three changed everything in their relationship. Why because he was drunk while the bike crashed and she was also on the bike. Did he escaped with scratches and bruises, no

big deal. But she woke up in the hospital, stayed there for two months, had seventeen operations, two steel rods, twenty seven screws in her left leg. My wife had about six screws in her right ankle when she broke her femur and tibula horribly and it changed her life and it changed our marriage. Believe me. Six months of her in bed with her foot up, and then three months without walking, and then two months with that little scooter with your leg one knees on top of your

and then crutches. She still hasn't run ever again since that day. It's life altering, some kind of injuries like that, and it changed our marriage, she really did. So of course what happened. She's in the hospital. She gets pain pills naturally, but all the shit she went through. She spends a year in bed, she's popping pain pills. She becomes less of the wife she used to be. And that's when hasselofa'sides, I want a divorce because he says,

now she's a drug addict. A real shitty thing to do when she was protecting him and propping him up to be the big star on TV. But that's what he did. Tried to be supportive, but he got bored real quick of her being sick and both of them needed to be looked after. You can imagine what those kids went through, and you know, just terrible. This is

how quickly things can change. If you're with somebody who drinks too much and the other person in the marriage, who is very helpful, gets hurt, and then that person needs your help and you can't provide the help because busy with the bottle. It's so nasty. Oh we gotta we gotta get happy because People magazine is doing a cover shoot. So you splash water on your face, You get the kids, you take that nice picture. As soon as photographers leave, you're back to drink, and she's back

to popping pills and those it's just the poor kids. Man. But you know, she left and she moved into her own house in the Hollywood Hills. And uh, a woman like her who's had a man, a strong man, a very popular man for so many years to all of a sudden have no man in the house. Little things go unchecked. Paint needs to paint needs to be walls need to be painted. This is happening. The boiler broke down without a man around, it can be very expensive and a paint of the ass. And I'm sure she

went through that for a long time. But they had a rough time. And as said as that sounds, uh, that's the way things shook out for her, and it ended for Pamela house lot and the bedroom of her small house in the Hollywood Hills with a single bullet to her head. I hate to say it because I find myself saying it a lot these last seven and a half years. But in Hollywood, where your life is all about looks and image, it's very hard to deal

with aging, especially for women. You know. You think about Phil Hartman and his wife Brynn, who I told you about many times, who had expressed an interest in me. And I said to my friend who was trying to hook us up, she's married to Phil Harmon. Yeah, but they're not really together together. They're gonna separate. I'm like, ah, I don't really want to do that. Bang. Two months later, she shoots him and kills herself. Christ that I dodge a bullet. Anyhow, this story just gets me the more.

Matthew Perry to me was always a slob, dressed like a slob, acted like a slob. Not on friends, but post friends. I always considered him a snobby, slobby guy, never dressed right, always out of shape, never lifted a his arms have no musculature, a potbelly, got dresses like my ass doesn't tee his shoelaces. The guys Worth Millions didn't give a shit anyhow. Ione Sky, who was once a very cuteie pie actress, she wrote a book called

Say Everything. Remember that movie Say Anything where John Cusack shows up with the stereo over his head with Peter Gabriel's song in your beautiful, beautiful moment, beautiful cinematic moment. And that was for her in that movie. But she read a book and she said she met Matthew Perry. Speaking of Matthew Perry in nineteen eighty six during a comedy called A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reard, and I saw a picture. They looked so young too.

By the way, did you see the picture last week of Kathy Griffin, the ugly, redheaded bitchy comic when she was dating Jack Black? Oh my god, whoever knew those two dated. They were all over each other in this picture. They were absolutely an item. My boyfriend and girlfriend. Yikes. Anyhow, So I only Sky and matt Perry. They meet. She's got a crush on him, but actually she really really interested in him because she wanted more to be with

the film star River Phoenix. She had a kissing scene with him, and she was you know, River was a cute kid, smart guy, funny guy. But he was dating Martha Plimpton, who I don't know why. She has never been somebody in the good Looks department. Matter of fact, when I was doing Mysteries and Scandals, she's friends with Alice and Martine, my producer, and she came down to a few shoots and a little crush on me, and I'm like, Alison, I hope it's not for me, because

I don't it's not reciprocated. No, she just likes to watch the shoot. Okay, anyhow, good actress, but not the kind of one you're gonna hang the moon on. So he's dating Martha Plimpton. So he and Ione's guy never kissed off camera. But twenty years later, she's single. She gets a phone call out of the blue from Matthew Perry. Now get this, inviting her over for a sober drink. I never heard of this. Is this the way sober celebrities do it? How you get someone to come home

all of them a sober drink? I don't know, but she said, I have to think about it for approximately fifteen seconds. I don't accept booty calls normally, but you know, this was Matthew Perry, she wrote in her book. And they shared a bubbly water, shared a cigarette, and they quickly pretended to watch a movie in his bedroom before hopping into bed and creasing the sheets. She says, the sex with Perry was perfectly pleasant. I don't want that's a shitty review to get. Don't e thget. Guys, if

you get that review, pick up your game. Perfectly pleasant. But she said he seemed far away because neither of them gave it there all okay. When they were done, Perry said, hey, that was fun. We should do it again. Sometimes, you see what I mean. I knew he was a prick. I always knew he was a prick with girls. So she says, hey, I'm going to return the next week in the hopes that have would become a great romance. She did come back, and it went exactly the same way.

A single cigarette in the kitchen, some banter, bubbly water, watch a movie, emotionally distant sex, another cigarette. She goes home just very weird. You know, I'm reading this book, and then she says, Matthew Perry years go by, and they hadn't seen each other for a long time, and years go by. Before he died. He wrote her and say, hey, hope you well. I was meditating. I meditate now and in your eyes started playing and I instantly thought of you and how beautiful you are. I hope you're healthy

and happy. That's a nice thing to send somebody. But uh no, nothing happened. This book is chocked full of her having sex with different stars. The book should have been called I'll Do Anything, not I'll say anything. But listen, they've grown ups. They can do what they want. But Matthew Perry, you know, when I first got La, I met this girl named Leilani Filipino Spanish girl, beautiful girl.

I was embarrassed to ask around because at the time we just drove here, me and Chico from New York City in a U hole and all my furniture was obviously taken out of you, but we still had the uo. We hadn't returned yet because neither one of us had cars yet, So we drove the U hole around for about a week, and one night we went to Skyball, the big fancy club at the Monitrat Hotel and sunset. Blulavardh. You know what it's like, the valet a U hole. No one does that. We did it, like this is

what we do. His ten bucks valet at extra tip. We go to the club, have a good time. We're leaving now and there's this knockout in a white BMW with a girlfriend. Girlfriend not that cute, but the girl. He was a stunner, and I'm looking. I go, look at that girl. Jesus Christ. She goes like, ask her. I said, I'm in a fucking U haul. I can't. She'd a BMW. I'm gonna U hole. No, I can't. I'll see her again. I just got there, like, come on, stop this. He jumps out of the hall, what are

you doing? Let me alone. He goes over to a car, and I see her looking at him, and he's talking and animated talking, and she's like sodden to laugh and puts her hands in her face like oh my god, like just being like a little surprised. And apparently he told her, look, my friend thinks she'd guard this. He wants to go out with you, but he's embarrassed because the U haul we just drove for me, he said.

The whole story. She thought it was sweet. She gives him her number and I called the next few days and we ended up having a fun time for a few months and fucking that night that I dated her Friends was huge the TV show. And we're on a date at a place called Birds in Hollywood, and she goes, I can't believe what she has her cell phone. My ex just keeps ringing me. He's such as was he saying? You have no idea what he's saying. David is such a he gets so mean. He's such a sweet guy,

but when he gets angry, he's so mean. When you hear the message, let me hear it. She plays me the message and this guy is going ape shit, the fuck are you you fucking this? And that he threw the sea word in there. It was bad. I go, you can never see this guy again, I know, but he's still hung up on me. David. Do I know him? I don't know. I just got to la Who is he? David Swimmer? Wait, that's the guy from Friends? He talks like that. Yeah, I can't. I can't believe this. It's

such a facade. Hollywood speaking of I only Sky, Matthew Perry and Hasselhoffs. Everybody's full of shit, you know. Anyhow, Like I said, today is a little bit of an off day for me. I do get a little despondent when my mother's death date rolls on on Christmas Day, and of course March seventh, I don't really feel great. I've had the low grade chills all day. And that sounds gay, but chills all day. Something affects me when it comes to my family's deaths and stuff, especially on

the anniversary of their deaths. I'm soft like that, but I want to take you back to that day. March seventh, nineteen eighty five, exactly forty years ago today, the Great al Benza died after suffering through an incurable cancer journey for over ten years. In the last six months of his life, we're in a hospital bed where he faded away. You know. I've often said it's a very tough thing to watch your hero just fade away. But a lot of us have to do it. A lot of us

should feel honored to do it. It doesn't make it any easier to be there in a front row seat, but you can't abandon them. They were there for you. It is that you're a baby, you take care of him until they act like a baby. And that's what I did for the both of them, not just me, Rosalie, Lorraine,

you know, all of us did. But we don't need to go over what it was like as he was trying to deal with this horrible illness, because I've let you in and all those home remedies we tried, in addition to all the hospitals and doctors who pushed chemotherapy, radiation, some kind of mustard guess. I mean, they was shit they were pulling out that. It was like, where's this from World War One? What are you put in his body? Now?

I had to stop doctors after a while, because once a person becomes once they know he's had an incurable form of cancer, then they all swarm in. Because North through Community Hospital had been Hassett, Long Island was a teaching hospital, a tremendous hospital, like five star, one of the best, maybe the best on Long Island, fifteen miles from New York City where Sloan Kettering is the big one, but North Shull was a big one. And you know

it's just, uh, it's got what I was saying. Once the person is so sick, with an incurible form of cancer. They become a guinea pig. And all these doctors learning, teaching hospital, they come in with their different methods of let's try this, let's take out here. In the last few times he was giving blood, my father wasn't even awake, but he would grimace when the needle they were taking blood from his from his groin area and putting it

through this long tube of skinny skinny too. I was like, enough enough, he's done enough, But he's not a fucking pincushion. Take a walk, thank you, But no thank you. You know you gotta be like a as I've often said, more of a century than a son. You gotta protect him sometimes. So he went through all sorts of things, even trial basis medications. Nothing worked. We knew it was incredable, we knew he was gonna die. For man, he were

just waiting for it to happen. But what I want to focus on the day with my father's life began to unravel, and me, as his twenty one year old son at the time, I did all I could to help him to ease his pain, and U not worry as much, et cetera. But about a year before his cancer really slammed him down. I remember I come home

from college one Thursday. I know it was a Thursday because Thursday was always his day off and he was off, and I came home from college early to spend time on the maybe do some gardening, whatever the hell it was, and just to be around him in the house. He usually cooked on Thursdays. He'd make a pot rows, his pizzas clam shot, and he had his signature dishes as well.

And I'm walk in the kitchen, no one's home, and there's about two hundred pills scattered on the kitchen floor and about twelve fifteen different medicine bottles, orange prescription bottles. I'm like, what the I knew right away he was in trouble. He had a heart attack a few weeks before that, or a stress test that he failed. The doctor prescribed natrol glysperm pills, which typically we would put in the medicine cabinet in the kitchen to the left

above the phone. He must have went looking for them because his heart hurt. He couldn't find him. That's why the pills were everywhere. So I'd get my call, go right to good Samaritan Hospital, five blocks away, not even a half mile from our house. I'm running through the hospital. I get to the ice I barged through the er. Sorry going fuck yo, I'm looking thro all the curtains. I find him finally, and I see him in the bed,

his eyes, you know, kind of half masked. There's a vomit bucket at his feet on the bed, balancing at the edge of the bed. And I walked and he must have felt the wind when he had walked in, and go da, what the fuck happened? And he opened his eyes and he smiled, and he pointed to his chest. He goes, they said, I had two heart attacks. I just remember one though, but I had two. I said, okay,

what are you? Then he closed his eyes immediately turned his head dramatically to his left, and he kicked the pail off the bed, and I got worried. I'm like that, what the fuck? You're right? And he laughed and he said, don't you know, I just kicked the bucket. He got it. He kicked the bucket. I don't know if he set that up or if that's really where the nurse put the bucket, but it was funny. The tension was broke.

We all laughed, just as my mother and Rosalie walk in and my brother in law, Frankie come in with worried faces. My father calmly says to my mother Lily, what the fuck are the nitro glyshrian pills? Oh? During my pocketbook? He goes, how the up is that supposed to help me? So I know he was back to normal. She goes, oh, you told me to hold on to them because you'd lose them. This typical calamity at my

mother and father. But he was looking for them, and it's a very That's why when I heard about Gene Hackman's wife dead with a bunch of pills on the floor around her and pill bottles, I'm like, oh god, I've seen that now. My father wasn't trying to kill himself, but I think she was, and she was successful at it, but that's a horrible sight to see. Thank god, I was only four or five blocks from the hospital to

go see him. But anyhow, he recovers. They send them home with some huge heart monitor that hung around is I'm talking about. This was as big as a laptop and about six inches thick. Some archaic nineteen eighty something thing we put around your neck to monitor your vibe, those et cetera. And the docs told to look, stay off your feet, rest for a week before you go back to work. Don't be silly, Okay, I will, I will. My mother ow Lily, I will, I'll rest Rosalie, Daddy,

I will. Don't worry. We get home. He goes right in the garage, get the lawnmower, pull, starts it and starts mowing the back a lawn, as if I don't do that every weekend, but now he's gonna do it in front of me with the fucking heart mine, and I hang it off his chest. I go, dad, what what do you doing? I'm fine, I'm fine with a cigarette in his mouth. This is the old I mean, you have all men like this in your life, all stubborn men who are just gonna live the way they

live until they keel over. So stubborn. But let me back up for a second. My father never ever acted worried, even in the face of incurable cancer. When it became a real big problem. Then he got a little more solemn, but never worried, never said why me, never wondered how could this be? Just took it on the chin. My mother was the same way. He just always tried to be funny. That was his only emotion he wanted to be. He still told jokes, he laughed all the right things.

He had a lot of fun with his nurses. By the way, there was a nurse, a wonderful black nurse named Roberta. She loved him and she was great, and all the nurses were great. And I remember north Strow Community Hospital. I still remember. His room was on the fourth floor in the BoA's Marx Pavilion. His doctor was Stephen Cohen and the other one was named Get this Willie Christ hri st. I said, Daddy's being treated by a guy named Christ. How could he lose? But he lost?

But those nurses were so great with him. They would come in his room and well, first of all, there was a son on his door. This is a scary thing. I've told you guys that in the eighties I went to so many hospitals with my father. That it was during the AIDS crisis, and I saw so many homosexual men in lobbies and waiting rooms and weeping in hallways. I had that gaunt look where you lose weight in your temples and your cheeks, and I'm like, oh God, they're next. I could see it was all around me.

And my father was on the aid's floor because he had this condition on his skin that looked like Carl Parsi's sarcoma, those bruises and marks that the HIV people get. It wasn't that, but it looked that way, so they had him on that floor. So I had many, many weeks and months, but a bunch of gay guys all commiserating in the hallways and the waiting rooms and getting water and making jokes. Even though it's a horrible time for everybody. You were kind of saves you. You know.

There was a sign on his daughter you had to wear gloves when you entered. I never wore gloves. I would refuse to wear gloves to take care of my father. Clean his face, clean his ears, just anything to make him look good in case anybody wanted to visit. After a while, I said, there's no more visitors or daddy. I don't want people seeing him like this. I'm done with it, you know. But my college is only fifteen twelve to fifteen minutes away, so I always went to

see him after school. And I did this every single day for six months until he died. And you know, I would sit next to him, feed him whatever shit the hospital kitchen put out. The nurses were, I remember everything. I wrote them a letter every year on his death day for about six years before I stopped. I'd send flowers every year to the Boasmark Pavilion and in his name, thanking them for what they did for There was Sandy,

a redhead short, redheaded pixie lady. She was the head nurse Alison Nancy VICKI who I dated after he passed. She called me when she found out she was off thirty when he died and she called me. She read the papers and he was at Frederick J. Frederick Chappie's funeral home in West Issa. She called the funeral Paula and my friend Chappie Doug. Chappie's family owned the place. In ag You get a phone call from a Vicky. I A Vicky. I get to the phone and she's crying.

The nurse A jambs so sorry. I wasn't in. I loved your dad, I said me. I liked her a lot. I really did, and my father knew he'd kicked me. Like look look at it, look at it, look at it. He'd make him. He'd make motion with his hands by her chest because she was like she had a nice rack. He did all that shit, you know, I I know, I know, I know. And eventually we made a date. We went out after the funeral. Just crazy times. But they had the smoking bed. Roberta, the black nurse, was

the best. And this big black nurse, Roberta was so fun and she would have him try and stand up and she would bathe him and he didn't like doing that. So when she said, al Alfred Benza, it's time to bathe your ass, he would say, don't give me no flack. Roberta, get it, Roberta fleck. He had all them and stitches. They loved him. When he died, they all cried. But there was so many days when the whole lot of them would gather in his room and they would see

us in there. Rosalie, Jack, my nephews, you name it, and uh Tina turned his song What's Love got to do with There was a big hit back then, and they would all dance. I have it on video, I'll never find it. It was the first my father's on one video and it's at the very end of his life when the nurses were dancing to what Love Got to Do with It? And he told his famous Scottish joke with the brogue that he always told. Jack said, pop, tell you a Scottish joke, and he remembered it and

told it brilliantly. And I had it on tape. Jack had the big VCR on his hip and the camera on his shoulder, you know, the first models that came out. I'll never find that tape. That's the only thing I could see where I could see my father again, but we'll never find it. My mother's on. My mother's on two videotapes, one at my wedding, my first wedding, which I found on VHS and storage. I'm gonna get that

to DVD so I can see her again. And she's on the tail end of a stickball tape where she comes to the door to scream that dinner is ready. Come on, guys, what the fuck dinner's getting cold, and we're all going, all right, calm down, one more out so perfect. You know how lucky you are you have your parents on videotape. That's a major thing. Your kids and their kids can see what Grandma, great grandma and great grandpa looked like, sounded like My kids never will

and their kids won't even know who Alan will were. Well, I'm trying my best to keep them in people's memories, but you know, time marches on and people forget. But for a man who prided himself on pulling food from the bay and the ocean right in his backyard garden, it's very tough watching him eat or try and eat this tasteless meat loaf for overly salted soup, cold eggs, all that shit do you get? I mean, after a while,

the hospital food smells like the hospital. Even when you get home, you can't eat because it smells like the hospital. So I would bring Carvell milkshakes to him. He loved Carvel and milkshakes. And back then my father's brother, uncle Larry knew. We put him in touch with my father's doctor, Willie Christ, who I believe was Scottish or Norwegian something

like that. He had a nice accent and he was an older man with white Hey look at Santa Claus and the medicine my father needed, which would have made possibly his cancer better or going to remission. It wasn't approved by the FDA. It was called cyclosts sporin. Now it's used for the simplest things you can't even imagine. I used to buy it. I used to get go to the vet together for my dog, Cezarey, who's had had tear dug problems, and I'd give him drops of

cyclists born to clear up his tear drops. It could have saved my father. I forgot to him early. But my uncle Larry got on the phone with this doctor Willie Christ and somehow he convinced this guy to send it to him. And Uncle Larry then came to Long Island and gave me a bunch of the vials. What have you. I'd not have to inject it at my father. Uncle Arry said, just put them in something that you can drink, and I said, okay, I'm gonna put it his milkshakes. So I always made it a point taking

a milkshake every day at Carvell. My friend John Samedi's sister me as Amedi worked at Carvel, and I used to date the girl whose family owned it, Heidi hol Goosh. Her mother worked there. They owned it, and they always gave me free milkshakes. To my father. Fun the people you know, and a school in high school, they come to help you. It's an amazing thing. Little towns, you know. So I put that shit in his milkshake, and suddenly

his skin began to clear up. Because his cancer was a cancer of the organs, all right, everything, every organ in his body was being affected by this cancer. And your skin is your largest organ. So on his skin, as I've told you many times, was bruises and welts and holes in his skin that were just cracked and broke. And you could see inside of his knee. Just awful. How this guy walked around with pants on him was

a carpet salesman. I can't even imagine. So his skin began to clear up, and the doctors knew he's not gonna make it. But now that he looks okay, he really did. Mustache grew bad, his skin cleared up. They said, let's let's send him home have some fun. The summer's coming. And you know something, he didn't scratch his body anymore, no more itching, which we'd seen him go mad over

for thirteen years. He looked so good, right, And there was that one summer that he had this remission, and I remember that there was just great times with him on the boat. And there was one particular day we all went to fire out Robert moses Field too, with Jackie and Joey and Me and Rosie, oh family, my mother, everybody went to the beach. My father had a little Jacques custodecap on his head. Of course he had the

pot thought and it wasn't gonna go away. But he looked so happy playing with Jackie and Joey in the sand, and we all thought for a minute, maybe this is gonna work out, but we knew it wouldn't. But you know, your mind placed tricks on you, right, eventually it thought of getting bad again. He was home and he got really sick, and Mommy was working, so I was with him all day. You know, I see him from college. I actually stopped going college. It's a miracle. I got

a degree because I stopped going to school. Literally my senior year I stopped. I did not go to biology. I just stopped. And I still got the plomba in the mail and I went to graduation. He went. He saw me graduate college. But I don't know how I did it because I stopped going to earn money to help pay for the mortgage and everything else around the house. So cancer picked up again. And I remember he was

in the house. We had a wheelchair in the house, and he was very uncomfortable sleeping, so he sat in the chair and he was this is hard to say, but he couldn't he couldn't go to the bathroom. He was he was blocked up, and he was taking men and musal at the time in a glass of water in a kitchen, you know. But he got so bad that nothing was working that I remember one day I took him to the downstairs bathroom, the small bathroom, and

I would clean him up. But he went to the bath that was you know, what what a son does, Rosie did if my mother, I did it my father. And he was so pissed off about being blocked up. And I walked to the bathroom and he was. He was eating the men of musil out of the plastic jarw no water, just swallowing powder. That's how frustrated he got.

And he took him away from the bathroom, got him in his wheelchair, cleaned them up, and I brought up to the dining room window where the pool was and Beyond the pool was the canal in Rosie's house, and he said, I thought I could beat this. I thought I could beat it. It's the last thing he said back in the hospital. And on that late afternoon, early evening of March seventh, nineteen eighty five, I go to the hospital and he is just he is talking a

mile a minute, not really making much sense. And I go to the nice Sandy He goes aj He's been like this whole day, but at least he's up and talking. He's not complaining, but he wasn't making sense. I've said this before. It sounded like an entry machine on your phone, the old answer machines when they re wine and you start to hear all the old messages from years before. My father was telling me stories about running track at the Utric High School in Brooklyn, being in World War

Two in Antwerp, Belgium. He talked about throwing ammunitions off a burning ship in Brooklyn Harbor. He talked about. The last thing he talked about was money. He put somewhere seventy five thousand dollars. It wasn't seventy it was seventy five dollars in a winter coat somewhere, but his mind was crazy. And I said that, Dad, you're okay, I'm okay, okay, And it was just a tape winding backwards. He was talking about how many square yards this woman's house has

for carpet. It's a ten by twelve room. These are actual things that he talked about in his life. They all came back to him. Well. I got the chills. I watched both my parents die. It's not as well. Thankfully, it wasn't as ugly and horrible as I thought it would be looking back down. They both died in a in a nice way. Dare I say so? I kissing the bar, Dad, I gotta go. I love you, and he said I love you too, very quickly. And I left and I'm driving home in the le my mother.

I called my mother before I left. I said, no, he's not doing well. He's just talking nonsense. Gibberis all right, well, come home. We got food, we got this and that, okay, and May is here, Aleen's here all right. I'm driving on the lie that's four exits away, not even two exits away, and I go under a street light. LA has got a bunch of streetlight very well lit highway, two street lights above me. As I'm driving fast, go out, think, think, and I go, what the fuck that's a sign. There's

no way. I get off the highway, make the UI, go back, head west on the Lee. Get back to the hospital. Run up the steps. It's past visiting now. They always let me in. I was AJ. They know who al Benz was. I get up the steps. Sandy, Sandy, he's fine, AJ. And we look in the room and she comes out and she says he's gone. He was just fine. We looked at him in the door five minutes ago. Excuse me, guys, I said, I knew it. I said, I knew it. The lights went out on

the expressway. I felt that was a sign. I just felt it. I'm so sorry, you know, but it wasn't her fault. Nothing we could do. So then I drove home and I told my mother. As I walked in, I had my face she could see and she just said, oh no, yeah, muh. And we all hogged and kissed. And now here's the sick part. Before he went to the hospital, he left some jewelry at the house, his wristwatch.

He wore a shark's tooth, a fossilized shark tooth. He wore a gold little medallion that had his three children's names on it. Rose through the rain in aj and he left up behind before he went to the hospital, and we had this little shelf in the kitchen above the toaster of it. I can still see in my mind. He died at seven thirty five PM on March seventh, nineteen eighty five. And I remember a day or two later when the dust had cleared and the weight had

d probably four or five days. The wakes of all the road is leave. No more bringing food to the house, no more playing music in the dining room, no more crying and hugging. The reality sets in. He's gone. Life has to move on. I'm grabbing his jewelry, which later I got fucking stolen out of my room. I'll tell you that story. All I have was his rope ring, his gold rope ring. But anyhow, I grab his wristwatch, not a fancy watch, a black diver's watch kind of thing,

you know. And the watch is stopped to date says seven and the time says seven thirty five. And this is like five six days later. That watch, if it was wound, should have said the twelfth to thirteenth, Why did it continue to roll over and do the dates and then stop at the exact moment and the day he left us. Don't tell me that's a coincidence. That's two crazy things in one. Not to mention the street lights going out above the lie. So I know I've said a lot to you guys, and you guys have

asked me questions for Rosalie. One of you said, I ask, does Rosie have any of those stories? And I said, have you not been listening? She's got a bunch of them. I've told those stories about Rosalie's psychicability, but this one just beats the band and it made me feel really good. It made me feel like, holy shit, there's some other entity out there. You know. A year or so before that, I was so angry at God that I've told you the story where somebody came to my house where there's

those religious people. They come in a van. They just they jump out of the van and go all over the neighbor and try to get you to convert or just be more Catholic, go to church, spread the gospel. I couldn't stand those people. My father was not religious. At all. In fact, he was anti religion, so I was anti religion. And when these people came to my door or to my lawmos was I was mowing the law and they wanted to talk to me, and I'm pissed off. Jackson the hospital At this point, my father

just died. And it comes to I, ass oh, hi, can I have a moment? Son, I don't have time right now. You know, I got a lot of shit going on. Well just take a moment. I said, listen, my father's dead, my brother's in the hospital. It's not a good time. And I was big back and I had worked out, I was, I had a good physique. I was mowing the lawn with no shirt on. You know, no what that thirty two inch waist, forget about sixteen inch arms. That was a bit of a little beast.

If I may say, I'm like, this guy doesn't fucking get it. I'm gonna run his feet over the lama, And sure enough, he kept coming. I stopped the moa and I press it down so the blade is facing him and I start to run at his feet. But the I was gonna drop the blade on his fucking feet. He runs away. You're crazy I said, yeah, I'm crazy, Get the fuck out of here. If God's so good? It was my father dead, wat was my brother in the hospital? What the fuck is your God doing? You know?

Just I don't. I'm not proud I said that, but that's who I was back then. And then you look back on life and you realize the signs that are sent and maybe the times that God gives you to be with the people you love, how do you those are signs of God. And since then I've had five hundred thousand more signs in my life of loved ones of God existing. But back then, you couldn't tell me nothing, and I don't think I don't think many of you would have been different had you gone through. We all

just went through. But that was forty years ago. A lot has happened in those forty years. I read the Bible. I read passages of the Bible. The Great Catherine Stewart sends me every day, maybe not the Bible, but passages that I find really helpful and wonderful and calming because I'm still a savage beast, even though my waist isn't thirty two and my arms aren't sixty years anymore. I'm

still a crazy bastard. But anyhow, I couldn't let this day go without cave your a little story about the old man, because he was something else and he would have been my first guest on this show had he still been here, and he would have laughed your head off at his stories. You think I'm a good storyteller? Who do you think I got it from al Benza? That's true, I'm aj Benza. That's all. That was your Daily? What's it called again? On edited? I forget? What's the show?

Could your Daily? Uncensored? I can't remember? What's wrong with me? I said this for seven and a half years. Either way, you know the show. I'm crazy, I'm uncensored. It's Daily unfiltered. There we go, Thank you, Thank you God. Talk to you guys. Have a good weekend. Listen to politics a bitch. We're going crazy out here with Trump and all the shit going on with the people who can't stand him. We're trying to block his way. Just do not miss

p I a b It's all we got in this country. Now, this is what This is the most enjoyable, entertaining aspect of our country. Better than TV network TV. I've seen everything on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Fuck it, turn on Trump, talk to these Monday