Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture (38 page)

On my show, I always name a Jackhole of the Day, or Week, someone who’s done something particularly stupid or egregious, and that night I gave myself the distinction. I didn’t even make excuses for myself. I just apologized to the kids and reiterated that I’d gone to public school, too, and that I felt awful about the whole incident. I really did. It killed me that reporters were still going to these fifth graders and repeating the nasty stuff that I’d said. Before it happened, those kids knew as little about me as I did about them, and now they not only knew who I was, but thought I was a big fat jerk.

But the damage was done. The next day the
New York Post
blared, “Oscar Grouch Trashes SI Kids.” Perez Hilton posted an item and scrawled, “Shame on You!” on a picture of me (which I realize is still better than an ejaculating cartoon penis, which is what he usually draws on people), and the
New York Times
headline read
DID P.S. 22 SINGERS RUIN OSCARS?
Even worse, the
Times
called me “curmudgeonly.” Me, curmudgeonly!

No one printed any part of my apology, and the stories rolled out all week. I was the ultimate elitist and a self-righteous tool—the
Housewives
dude who would dare trash a wholesome public school choir. The
Times
“Week in Review” put my quote between one from Gadhafi saying “All my people love me” and John Galliano’s “I love Hitler” anti-Semitic rant. Oh, and in the same edition an op-ed repeated my “whore” line regarding Charlie Sheen’s “goddesses,” making my
Morning Joe
appearance a twofer in terms of ill-advised commentary.

When I think about it today, I have to laugh, albeit ruefully: The Oscars, “Over the Rainbow,” a kids’ choir, bad outfits, and me, all wrapped in an Oz-themed tornado that made me wish a house would fall from the sky and smoosh me.
Could there possibly be a gayer scandal?

For days, my Twitter feed was an endless stream of now ex-fans telling me they saw me for the arrogant prick that I truly was. Wendy Williams went after me on her show, and I’m sure Carole from Mississippi was upset that she’d wasted her foundation on my cheek. Bette Midler tweeted, wondering what I could’ve been thinking.
Bette Midler!
If only
she’d
sung the damn song at the Oscars, none of this would’ve happened. I dared to venture out to a New York Knicks game and a huge mountain of a guy came up to me, got two inches from my face, and yelled, “STATEN ISLAND RULES!!!!” I told him I agreed, but of course I thought he was going to punch my lights out. The longer it went, the more frustrated I became and the worse I felt. But no one felt worse than my mom.

“ENOUGH ALREADY,” she yelled to me over the phone. “This is RIDICULOUS! When is it going to END!? Do you have any idea the PROBLEMS that are going on in the WORLD right now? People are mentioning this to me at SCHNUCKS!” (If people were talking about this at Schnucks supermarket in Missouri, then I was in even worse trouble than I’d thought.) “Why does anyone
give a damn
what you said?” She told me—for the five thousandth time in my life—to “
WATCH. YOUR. MOUTH
.” Oh, and she said to “MAKE IT STOP!” Like I had the power to do that all along and I was just letting it go on because I didn’t realize I just had to click my heels together three times. (Although if anyone in the world could have made it happen, it was not me, but Evelyn Cohen.)

Since my public apology on my show was completely ineffective, I contemplated a new course of action. I felt like I should know a thing or two about what
not
to do in a situation like this, having been a human shield between countless warring women on numerous reunion shows. Housewives’ apologies are often like dinner parties—in that they usually go horribly wrong. The aggrieved only becomes
more
aggrieved, and everything is misinterpreted and relations are worse than they were to begin with. But here I was, walking in the shoes of women who’d stuck feet in their filler-plumped mouths and paid the price. And, sister, I did not like those Louboutins. When Patti Stanger went two steps too far two feet from me on
Watch What Happens Live
(calling gays incapable of monogamy and Jewish men liars), I watched as she made it right. The advice I’d always given the Housewives was to own their words and to say sorry and mean it, but I’d done that already and it made no difference whatsoever. After a lifetime of overtalkative slipups that had been smoothed over by everyone from my mom to my bosses, now it was up to me to clean up my own mess.

Not that Evelyn didn’t have ideas. She suggested going to the school and apologizing in person. I told her I was worried that that would generate more attention. I wanted the kids to know I was sincere and not just doing it for appearances. Dave suggested that I donate instruments to the school, which seemed to me like a blatant bid for mercy in the press. And besides, the kids were a chorus, not a band.

I finally just wrote a note directly to the choir director. I told him that adults say stupid things sometimes and that I wished the kids nothing but success. It was, in my opinion, an honest and humble apology delivered the right way.

A couple days later (well over a week after Oscar night), Perez Hilton reported that I had “finally” apologized to the kids and that they were responding. He posted a YouTube video of the choir director reading my note aloud to the kids, who clapped at the end. At that moment, I felt so relieved—the kids, it seemed, had forgiven me, which was all that really mattered. But then the choir director told them that I could’ve sent a longer note and that I could’ve shown up in person, but that he guessed it was okay. I thought it was kind of crappy that he was telling the kids all the things I
didn’t
do—was that a good lesson on the importance of being gracious? Then I noticed that the whole scene was being filmed by a documentary crew. Oh joy! I could look forward to reliving the whole incident with myself as Ebenezer Scrooge in the eventual big-screen Hollywood version of their story,
Staten Island Fairy Tale
.

The director proceeded to lead the kids in a rousing rendition of the song “Apologize” by One Republic. You know, the one with the chorus:
It’s too late to apologize
 …
Too laaaaate!
This seemed like a bitchy way to “accept” my apology. At least as bitchy as my comments, if you ask me—but thankfully, nobody did. There
is
such a thing as bad publicity, and I was happy to be ignored for the first time in weeks.

Still, the story would not die. The press posted and re-posted the video, but it wasn’t just to gush about how great the kids were. Some said what I was thinking, that this song didn’t seem like the adult way to accept an apology. Then people at home started posting comments online saying that the choir director should be ashamed of how he’d handled the apology in front of the kids and maybe what he really cared about was being in the spotlight himself. (I know what you’re thinking, and none of the comments were from me. And to the best of my knowledge, my mom does not have a YouTube account.)

Was I happy? Not really. If anyone can understand doing something dumb in the heat of the moment, it’s me. We’d all learned valuable lessons, but the last thing I wanted was for this guy to go through anything even remotely similar to what I’d just put myself through, especially at the expense of these kids, so I was happy when I heard that he’d apparently pulled the clip down from YouTube. But you know what’s still up there, though? Diana Ross singing “Over the Rainbow.” I know because I just watched it fifteen more times.

L
IFE LESSONS FROM THE GUY WHO PUBLICLY INSULTS SINGING SCHOOLKIDS

Never say never—I am the king of proclamations that I later retract. “I will NEVER tweet.” “I will NEVER wear one of those polo shirts with a huge polo logo.” “I will never write a book.”

Don’t poo at work. If you absolutely have to, go to another floor to do it. Or a restaurant nearby!

Listen to people when they speak to you, especially if you’re interviewing them. Then you can ask a follow-up question.

Try to remember people. I’m the very worst at this, so maybe I’m writing this here as a reminder to myself.

Don’t fuck with kangaroos. I was in Australia for
48 Hours
and a nasty—but cute—piece of work knocked one of my contact lenses right out of my eye! Same goes for swans—nasty in a pretty package.

My foolproof overnight flight combo is an Ambien with a glass or two of wine. Works like a charm. Speaking of flying, the overnight to London isn’t long enough for a good sleep—the day flight is the way to go. Leave New York at 9 a.m., work the whole flight, and land at 8 p.m., just in time for a late dinner with heavy cocktails and you’ll be ready for bed and on GMT without any hassle.