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I have some really shocking news for you, folks: I'm no longer famous.

Yeah, took me by surprise, too. But you know what? This is going to sound totally out of left field, so un-Clarissa Coleman you'll think I've been replaced by a pod, but… it's actually not too bad not being famous.

I mean, compared to being famous, it's a distant number two. But as for just being what it is, you know, it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

I've been doing some serious soul searching this week and, you know what? I found out. It's always in the last place you look. That was a big surprise. I thought for a while about being famous, 'cause I've been famous ever since I can remember, and then I thought about losing fame. 'Cause I've been a has-been since just after I can remember.

That's right: Has-been. I said it: The dread H-hyphen-B word. I'm not afraid to say it now. All of this comes from that thinking on it that I mentioned. That soul-searching. I can't remember a day in my life when I didn't have a long talk with my agent, my parents, some crazy fan, or a talent scout from a radio show morning crew, and all we ever talked about was getting back to where I was. Getting that fame back. You ever hear about the Holy Grail? It's just like that. I've been searching all my life, and believe me, it hasn't been that long even if it seems like it—looking all my life for that Holy Grail. And then I found it and, like all those archaeologists and shit that went looking for it, I found out it was just some cup Jesus drank out of. All this work for a cup with someone's germs on it.

No matter how many times I get back to the top, it's just another big struggle to stay up there. And for what? So I can get invited over to Tom Cruise's to see some sonogram of his new alien baby? So I can eat some ribs at John Goodman's backyard barbecue? Or so I can wind up at home, boycotting either of those events like Madonna because I couldn't find something to wear. That's a shallow existence, people. I can't believe I ever thought it was worth all the hell they put you through.

You see, I found me a job a couple of weeks ago. It was really just to pay the bills, and I was going to tell everybody that old "just researching for a part I'm after" bullshit if anyone recognized me, but the twist was on me: I like this job. I work in this charity kinda company, helping battered wives and homeless guys find better-paying jobs so they can get out on their own. And I got to see these people up close, and I was more surprised than you to find out they weren't so bad. Just like you and me.

I guess that made me realize, hey, maybe I'm not one of them famous people after all. Maybe I'm just another person in the world. A little bit like them, but I've had some more breaks. I haven't had to worry about money like they have—sure, I can't afford a 2005 model car just yet, but I have it pretty good. I have a place to stay and my family to help me out. Well, my sister to help me out. I don't have it so bad.

What surprised me the most about this crazy new job was that I helped all these people out, but it wasn't making them feel good that made it a decent job. It made me feel good to make them feel good. I've never had one job in Hollywood that made me feel good. And that was something nice.

So bye-bye, Hollywood. For real this time. I have work at last, and it's not what I thought it would be, but it's better than all the sitcoms and movies and walk-on appearances on every talk show there is. How about that? Maybe I'm not a child star no more. Just an adult star… who can still play incredibly young.

º Last Column: In Cognito
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Lately it seems like every-damned-body has been asking me what I'll be doing for Christmas, as if I'm going to say that I'll be attending a Roman Orgy and then invite them along, or that I'm going to slip up and say that I'm taking my doped-up sex zombie out of the closet to beat him with a big rubber tit or something. Then they can act all offended and then say they're not surprised and knew what I was up to all along. I know their game, the bastards. I don't know what gets into people around the holidays, you'd think the eminent threat of an Amtrak train slamming through their living room while they're right in the middle of watching "Furby Christmas Feast" would be plenty of excitement for them, but you'd be surprised. Most still have interest left over to get all up in my shit on a regular basis.

So before I start catching any nosy pricks going through my desk drawers looking for a turkey baster full of heroin, I'm going to set the record straight: I plan on spending this Christmas holed up at the Bricks estate, wrapped around a jug of Mike's Hard Eggnog and watching the Benny Hill marathon with my trusty basset hound, Foghat. And before you start ripping on Benny Hill, know that Foghat doesn't take kindly to such thick-headed slander, and the last fool to attempt such a breech of etiquette discovered later that the "Gravy Train" had made an unscheduled stop in his pennyloafers that night, if you follow my colloquial English here.

Now, I'm sure that the few of you who aren't asking yourselves why you don't own such a top-drawer canine are just itching your britches to ask why I'm spending the holidays alone this year, why I'm not nestled in the heart and hearth of friends and family and all that Hallmark shit. Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm still recovering from last year's Christmas debacle, when I spent the holidays with my friend Jeff who was visiting from Tampa and it damn-near turned me into a Buddhist, or some kind of non-Christmasing religious pain in the ass anyway.

Jeff and I go way back, we met during a spontaneous after-bar barfing contest back in college. We became fast friends after Jeff heaved one on a Hell's Angel and we had to dive into the back of a taxi to get away. It turned out that it wasn't even a taxi, just some dude with a yellow car, and I was in the middle of calming the guy down and explaining the situation when Jeff bjorked on that guy, too, and we had to jump out of the car in the middle of the expressway. Man, those were the days.

After college Jeff moved to Tampa to start a Ponzi scheme and I didn't hear from him for I don't know how many years. Though I was pretty sure I saw him in a security camera clip on "Bonehead TV", taking a digger on the wet tile coming out of a bathroom stall in Miami. Then, out of nowhere he calls me up last December and says we should get together and do something for the holidays. The next thing I knew he was on a plane.

Now, just for old time's sake, I played a little joke on Jeff and sent a bunch of guys dressed up like Klansman to pick him up at the airport. Bad idea. I don't know if he'd already paid for an airport shuttle or what, but he was in a seriously bitchy mood when he got to my house. There was a quick remedy for that at the bottom of a case of Safeway's cheapest beer though, and before long we were having a Christmas Eve for the ages.

In no time at all the hard liquor was out, Benny Hill was on the television and there was a roaring fire in the fireplace. We were all drunker than a couple of southern cops on a Saturday night, except for Foghat, who was lost in a world of Benny Hill's slapstick antics.

At some point in the night I asked Jeff what he'd been up to. I mentioned that whenever I'd asked around about him, I'd heard alternately that he was married to an entire tribe down in Peru or Ecuador or some shit, that he'd taken over the role of Birdie in the McDonaldland commercials, and that he was a door-to-door breast pump salesman in the Midwest. In response, he just stood up, dropped his pants and cut loose with a torrential stream of urine into the fireplace. I'm not sure quite what this meant, probably that they were all true, but before I got a chance to ask for clarification the flames leapt up Jeff's pee-stream and he flew about half-way across the room, screaming like a gopher running from a riding mower. Now opinions may differ on the subject, but I thought it was about the funniest thing that had ever happened in the Bricks living room, but then again it wasn't my Ballpark Frank that was getting plumped.

Before I could think to offer him an icepack or something, or even stop laughing myself, Jeff bolted out the door and into the wintry night, half-naked and still smoking. And I'll be damned if I ever saw that crazy fucker again. I doubt that anyone in my neighborhood will forget that night any time soon. Some say that on certain dark and quiet winter nights, you can still hear his woman-like shriek in the wind.

Personally, I'm getting low on old friends to blow up, so this Christmas Eve it'll just be me and Foghat basking in the warm glow of the television, turned up just loud enough to drown out the shrieking of the wind. Bricks out.

º Last Column: Your Honor, the Whole Damn Vending Machine in the Hall is Out of Order
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