This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
MY POINT . . . AND I DO HAVE ONE
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published October 1995
Bantam paperback edition / October 1996
Grateful acknowledgment is made to quote from the following songs: “Joy to the World” © 1970 Irving Music, Inc. (BMJ). All rights reserved. International © secured. Used by permission. “Respect” © 1965, Renewed 1993, Irving Music, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. International © secured. Used by permission. “Movin’ On Up”—Jeff Barry & Janet Dubois. Copyright © 1975 (Renewed 1981) by Belfast Music. All rights administered by EMI Music Publishing (Publishing) and Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc. (Print). All rights reserved. “Day-O”—words and music by Irving Burgie and William Attaway. Copyright © 1955; Renewed 1983 by Lord Burgess Music Publishing Company (ASCAP)/Cherry Lane Music Publishing, Inc. (ASCAP). Worldwide rights for Lord Burgess Music Publishing Company administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. “I’m A Little Teapot”—Written by Clarence Kelley and George Sanders. Copyright © 1939 Kelman Music Corporation. Copyright renewed 1967 by Marilyn Sanders O’Bradovich. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995 by Crazy Monkey, Inc.
Illustrations copyright © 1995 by Susan Rose.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-34084.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-76562-8
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
A Note from the Author
Thanks for No Memory
A Letter to My Friend
or
A Frog in a Sombrero Does Not a Party Make
Daily Affirmations
or
A Cup of Pudding a Day Is the Way to Stay O.K.
Ellen DeGeneres: Road Warrior
or
Sometimes You Need a Map,
Sometimes You Need a Globe,
Sometimes You Need a Map and a Globe
—but Not Very Often
The Plane Truth
or
Dem Ain’t Goobers, Dem’s Peanuts!
Ellen’s New Hobby
Ellenvision
I Went to a Psychic
or
Baloney Is Just Salami with an Inferiority Complex
How to Explain Sex to a Child
or
Where There’s a Corn Chip, There’s Bound to Be Hot Sauce
In the Kitchen with Ellen
or
As Tasty as Poison and Just as Deadlye
Things That Sound Like a Good Idea at First, but Really Aren’t
Ellen DeGeneres Is a Man!
or
Ellen DeGeneres Is a Man!
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
The Scariest Thing
The Time Ellen DeGeneres Had an Emergency!
One Step Closer to God
or
One Step Back, You Do the Hokey-Pokey and You Turn Yourself Around
The Ellie-Gellie
Things to Do If You’re Stuck in an Elevator to Help You Pass the Time
Ellen’s Wild Kingdom
or
You Can Put High Heels on a Poodle, but That Won’t Make It a Hooker
Ask Ellen
or
It Might Look Like Honey, It Might Taste Like Honey, and Bless My Corns, It Might Even Be Honey
Crazy Superstitions That Really Work!
The Benefits of Being a Celebrity by Ellen DeGeneres, Big Enormous Star
Your Own Fantasy Conversation with Ellen DeGeneres
Experiments in Human Behavior
Ellen’s Sure-Fire Cures for the Things That Ail Ye
The Last Chapter
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank a few people for their support and love, which are two of the most important things in my life: Betty DeGeneres, Elliott DeGeneres (or Mom and Dad), Vance DeGeneres, Arthur Imparato, Rob Weisbach, Alex Herschlag, Sue Rose, Lisa Phillips, J. J. Harris, Jeremy Zimmer, Ted Harbert, Stu Bloomberg, Renee Kurtz, Michael Eisner, Rich Frank, Dean Valentine, Jan Nash, Karen Kawahara, and Eric Bilardi. And all of the people who come up to me on the street and tell me nice things. Thank you.
A Note from the Author
Hello and welcome to my book (and now yours). Thank you for your interest in my thoughts, my words of wisdom, and my recipe for French toast. Throughout the year it took me to write this, I wrote in solitude, recording my thoughts as they came to me, digging up old memories, pouring out my heart and soul. Then, at the end of the process, I hoped and prayed to God that there were a few people out there who would enjoy it.
As you may have noticed, my mind does not work the same as most. That is to say, I’m sort of, well—different—and yet it seems to have worked for me. So as you read this, I hope it does what I intended it to do when I decided to write it. I hope it entertains you, inspires you, makes you laugh, makes you think, makes you smile, makes you feel better about yourself, makes you more aware of your feelings, makes you love your brothers and sisters, makes you more successful in life, makes you wealthier, makes you exercise more, makes you eat healthier, makes you stop smoking, makes you taller, thinner, more beautiful, more fluent in Spanish! Or at least makes you not regret buying it.
Ellen DeGeneres
June 1995
thanks for no
memory
Who am I? How did I get to be me? If I wasn’t me, who would I be? How can you mend a broken heart? These are all good questions. Well, almost all good questions—I’m pretty sure the last one is just a Bee Gees song.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is who I am now is what I was then, plus all the stuff in between, minus a few years during the seventies. Actually, that might not be what I’m trying to say. Here’s what I really mean: When you start to write a book, you begin at the beginning; when you start to examine your life, you begin with childhood.
I try to work on my memory. A few things come back to me when I concentrate. Like, I’m now pretty sure I had parents. I have these two old people who are my parents now, and they say they were also my parents then. I’m thirty-six. I was a little girl. I know because my parents say I was.
I was born in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, at Ochsner Hospital, January 26, 1958. I lived in a house on Haring Road in Metairie until I was … oh, let’s say eight or nine—maybe ten … could’ve been seven or six, I don’t know.
I don’t think I remember my first memory. Actually, I suppose I would have to remember my first memory. If I didn’t remember my first memory, then it couldn’t in all honesty be my first memory. It could, however, be the first thing that I forgot. Do I recall the first thing that I forgot? I don’t remember. Maybe.
I am amazed when people tell me that they remember things like lying in their cribs or getting their diapers changed (
these are things they remember doing as infants not as adults—that would be an entirely different story and probably not a very pleasant one). Some people even remember learning how to walk, which I find especially surprising since I just barely remember learning how to drive.
Sometimes my lack of memory (or, to put a positive spin on it, my surplus of forgetfulness) worries me, especially since it’s not limited to my early childhood. I don’t remember huge portions of my life. Maybe something big (i.e., an anvil or France) fell on my head and gave me a slight form of amnesia. Maybe a lot of things have fallen on my head. I just don’t know.
My parents have tried to help me out, but they remember even less about me than I do. They hardly took any pictures of me. But my brother—who was four years older than me (and still is, as a matter of fact)—they took so many pictures of him that you can flip through his photos and it’s like one of those animation books; it looks like a movie where he’s walking and riding a tricycle and running around. They must have taken a picture of him every ten seconds.
After four years of that, my parents must have gotten tired. I came along and they said, “We don’t have to take any pictures. We’ll remember.” But they don’t. It was ridiculous. There were statues of my brother around the house, but nothing of me. They tried to fool me and show me pictures they said were of me. But I’d say, “That’s not me. Those are pictures you cut out of a magazine. I know, because I’m neither Elizabeth Taylor nor a member of England’s royal family.”
So I decided to do something to fill in these great gaps in my memory. I set out to interview people who knew me through various stages of my life. Most of those I interviewed didn’t look familiar, but I’m sure they were telling me the truth. Otherwise they wouldn’t have answered the ads or accepted the money I gave them. What follows are the transcripts of some of those interviews.
My Investigation Notes:
I was born, bred, and lightly sautéed in and around New Orleans, a city steeped in tradition and marinated in history. During those formative years, a trusted family friend and neighbor was Miss Selma Clanque (pronounced Klan-kay), a woman who earned her living making decorative jewelry out of crawdads.
I interviewed Miss Selma, now a feisty spitfire in her early seventies, on the fire escape of her apartment (which she insisted we call a lanai). Throughout, she chainsmoked clove cigarettes and drank a mixture of Ovaltine and vodka, a cocktail she calls chocolate thunder.
What do you remember most about me as a baby?
You were fat. Oh lordy, were you fat! You didn’t walk for the longest time, ’cause you were so fat. They just rolled you wherever they wanted you to go.
Anything besides that?
I think your parents just kept feeding you. They were happy you weren’t walking. They already had your brother, a very handsome boy—no fat on him—so they figured, might as well let you take your time.
Do you remember anything not having to do with my being fat?
Well … you had a big old head, too, and not a lick of hair on it. Bless my corns, you were one ugly baby. Now you know that Miss Selma Clanque’s mother didn’t raise her to say nothing mean about no one. But your mama dressed you in the most hideous clothes—flowery frocks and bonnets and the like. Now when you’ve got a bone ugly child, you don’t want to bring more attention to it. Am I right?
Let’s move on. Do you have any memories of me from when I was in grade school?
I recall you coming home all upset because there was a cloakroom in your class and you didn’t own a cloak. In fact, none of the little boys or girls had a cloak. I don’t think any of them even knew what a cloak was. For some reason this scared you.
Do you remember my being good at anything?
You would nap better than anybody else, and your parents would brag on you being good at recess. You were quite a good tetherball player, probably because you were so aggressive.
I remember tetherball. A ball would be attached to a pole by a rope and you’d try to whack the ball hard enough to wrap the rope around the pole. It was violent. You’d either hurt your hand on the metal thingee holding the rope and ball together or you’d be on defense, standing in front of the ball, and get hit in the face. Somebody would always end up crying.
Well, crying’s good. It prepares you for life. The more often I see children crying, the more often I think, “That’s gonna be a healthy adult.” That’s what life is all about. There’s a lot of crying involved. So you’d better cry now and get used to it.
Well, it’s nice to know that I was good at something. Oh my, yes! You were so good at tetherball that I bet someone $100 cash that you would become a professional tetherball player.
I guess you had to pay up?
Why? You ain’t dead yet. There’s still time. Everybody’s always trying to get Miss Selma Clanque to give them $100, just like it grew on trees. Look at me, I ain’t Rockefeller, am I?
No, you’re not. Thanks for the time. I’ve got to go.
I moved to Atlanta, Texas, in my second year of high school. When Columbus came to the New World, he thought he was in India so he referred to the people he met as Indians. When the first settlers came to Texas, they thought they were in Georgia, so they called the place Atlanta. It was a culture shock moving from New Orleans (The French Quarter, jazz, great restaurants) to such a small town as Atlanta (Dairy Queen). So, I learned a different way of life.
My high school guidance counselor in Atlanta was Mr. Bowden Lamar, a man rumored to have a wonderfully infectious laugh; rumored, because no one living had actually ever heard him laugh. We spoke in his office at Atlanta High where, though he appeared to be somewhere in his early hundreds, he still doles out advice as a guidance counselor.
Mr. Lamar, was I a good student here?
Well, the teachers here remember you very fondly. They all say you were very bright.
Why, thank you. I guess that’s …
But they’re just saying that because you’re famous now. I know because I’ve seen your records.
What do those records say?
That the only reason you passed any class was because your teachers gave you very broad clues. For instance, if the answer to a question was Thomas Jefferson, your teacher would say, “The answer to that rhymes with Bhomas Hefferson.” If you still couldn’t guess, she’d start singing, “ ‘Movin’ on up, to the East Side. We finally got a piece of the pie.’ ”
The theme from “The Jeffersons”?
Exactly. Sooner or later—usually later—you’d end up getting the answer.
Was I good at anything?
Athletics, I suppose. You were on the tennis team. And you started the girls golf team. You were the only one on the team, playing every day by yourself. You would whack the ball very aggressively then acknowledge the applause of a crowd that only existed in your mind. Very strange and more than slightly disturbing.
Do you remember what I looked like?
Well, you were a little hefty. Yup, you were a little hefty girl who’d drive to school each day in a canary yellow Vega. But then again, everybody here is a little hefty. That’s because the only kind of food you can get around here is chicken-fried. Chicken-fried steak, chicken-fried broccoli, chicken-fried sushi, chicken-fried whatever.
What sort of career do your records say I was best suited for?
Let me see. Oh here it is. “Ellen DeGeneres might be good at making caramel candies of some kind, either chewy or hard. Not the wrapping, just the candy.”
Just one last question. How come this school didn’t have a drama department?
Oh, we had a drama department. We all just thought it was best for everybody involved that you never knew about it. Whenever we wanted to put on a play, we’d just send you golfing somewhere. Ha, ha, it’s kind of funny, isn’t it?
Yeah, hilarious.
As soon as I graduated from high school, I moved back to New Orleans. I had no plans to go to college and no idea what I was going to do, but I don’t rememb
er caring either. After all, it was the 1970s, and the country was tapping its platform shoes to the sounds of K.C. and the Sunshine Band.
I worked at a series of places including a restaurant (where I shucked oysters) and a law firm (where I shucked lawyers). A friend of mine during that time was Rita Bangs, an aspiring coffee importer. I interviewed Rita at a Renaissance Faire called “Ye Olden Dress Up in Funny Clothes Thymes” where she was employed as a wench.
When you think of me in New Orleans during the 1970s, what comes most to mind?
Your older sister was prettier than you and a lot more popular. But you were smarter.
I don’t have an older sister. I have an older brother.
Whatever. Anyway, your father took your family on a trip to a resort. You were his favorite. He always called you Baby.
Really?
Oh yes. The waiters at the resort were all these good-looking college guys. But you fell in love with the dance instructor, even though your father hated him because he thought he got some girl pregnant. But your father ended up liking him when he saw the two of you dance at the big show at the resort.
That’s not my life. That’s the movie Dirty Dancing.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s your life.
Really?
No. But it was a good movie.
Do you even know me?
Not in so many words. But I’m a big fan. Do you know how I can meet Patrick Swayze?
No. Thanks for meeting with me. You were no help at all. You’re welcome.
The last person I spoke to was Dr. Max Fenetre. He wouldn’t say how I knew him but assured me he could supply a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is my life. We spoke at his Beverly Hills office once he was assured that I had health insurance.
So, what would you like to tell me about myself?
I’ll tell you, but only if I can be the person in italics.
No. The person who asks the questions is in italics. That’s how it’s done.