Child Star for Hire

Let the word come down from the Mountaintops, which is Red Bagel's nickname for the commune offices: Clarissa Coleman needs work. Sure, anyone who knows me knows I want work, but now I need work. My legal troubles are finished now, you may have seen the segment on Court TV or read about the out-of-court settlement in the paper, or The Guinness Book of World Records, the page on outrageous payoffs. Damn Jerry Nascar, that's all I'm saying. As for you-know-who, the nice lady who filed the lawsuit, I'm not legally allowed to mention her name ever again. So let's pretend I'm referring to someone else whenever I use the word Skankabitch.

Getting back to work, which is what I'm here for, let's just say the settlement is bad enough, but I've got legal fees by the buttload. Before all this, work was just some way to have fun and a shortcut to fame. Now it's do-or-die. I'm not having luck finding too many high-profile film and television roles to pay the bills—of course, that was the story before Skankabitch sued. So now I have to shorten the list of stuff I won't do even more. It's a talent clearance sale—every one must go.

It's a great sale for producers of weird shows. C.S.I., you listening? I'll even play a dead body. Bullets fly through my head, shatter brain and bone and crap—it looks like it hurts, but I'll try anything once. Any shows where I have to wear a prosthetic piece or a mask or anything, I'll do it. Put me in a gorilla suit, who cares? I don't even need any speaking lines. I'm eager to work. None of it can be any more humiliating than playing the ukelele with Taco on Conan O'Brien.

I turned down a reality series last year, before this bullshit came along. If you're one of those producers of Help! I'm a Celebrity, Don't Give Me a Sexually-Transmitted Disease I'm ready to talk contract terms now. Maybe you'll get on the air this year if you get bigger star power than Willie Tyler and Lester. So put me on the show. I'll call house meetings and everything, pretend like my feelings are hurt and stuff. I watch all those freak shows.

Not everybody's a producer, I know. Some people aren't involved with the wonderland that is television, not officially, but that shouldn't stop you. You want to make a funny home video? Have your kid swing a croquet hammer, hit me in the nuts—I don't have nuts, of course, but for a good-size paycheck I'll act like I have nuts. Rig a house to fall in, I'll make it look like it all happened by accident, I'll even make the funny noise so the video people don't have to do that. Or we'll sing some duet like Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, I'll make them really believe you don't bring me flowers no more. Hell, I'm not picky. Don't send the video in, let's just make it for your own entertainment, you and your friends. We'll recreate all your favorite episodes of Who's Your Daddy?.

It's not limited to shows either. I can do the stage. We'll put on a burlesque act, like they used to do in France when it was classy and cool, or like they do now in Alabama. I do tame shit, too. I'll sing the Fabulous Thunderbirds at your daughter's Bat Mitzvah. I can do birthday parties, private Labor Day telethons, whatever your big deal is. Have a friend who's in the hospital and think it would be funny for a celebrity to visit them? Let's do it. Let's make it happen.

What I'm trying to say is, I need money, and I'm not picky. Just in case I didn't make it obvious. And just to save anybody else the troubles I've gone through, don't ever hire Jerry Nascar as an attorney. He knows dick about the law, like the judge says, and his "Thirty Minutes or it's Not Free" offer is trickier than it sounds.

I have to go over to Nascar's office right now. I'm doing a commercial for him to help pay off the legal bills.

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