My Birth

Yes, I had a life before I was a mascot for Ted Greenberg, "performer extraordinaire". (The Complete Performer starts the Fringe Encorse Series this Friday August 29 @ 10 PM at the SoHo Playhouse. If you are a gigantic fan of this blog, please try not to go so crazy when you see me. Don't really want the word of the blog getting out to Greenberg.)

According to my "parents" (they died already), I was born on May 5 1965 on a cold potato field in Russia. My real parents were slaves. ABC News came and did an expose on potato-field slavery, then a producer stole me and I ended up in Queens with a brand new mom and dad.

I had a few friends, but some kids in school called me slave baby and beat me up a lot. I always felt like the whole big group of them needed some cheering up. But I didnt know how to do it. Until one beautiful clear October day, Coach Fernandez ran in with the news that the soccer team mascot had broken 19 of his ribs in a horrible bleacher-catapult collision. (We were a Montessori school.)

And they needed an immediate replacement.

Then he showed me HAMMY the Hamster. I put on the mask. Everyone laughed. I might have been 9 years old, and allegedly from a lonely cold potato field, but I knew it was fate.

If anyone knows a book agent looking for a memoir about childhood slavery and redemption, I can vouch for most of the details in this biography without hesitation. Thank you and good luck.