I’ve been thinking a lot about my death and how I am going to be remembered. I think I have a great idea: a destination funeral. Everybody has destination bachelor parties and destination weddings, so I figure why not let my friends have a blast at my funeral? The only problem I have is when to send out the “Save the Date” cards.

I have a friend who lobbies for Death with Dignity. I’d rather have Death with Disney. When dementia settles in, I want my family to dress me up like Johnny Depp and put me on a boat on the Pirates of Caribbean ride. I’m sure in a couple hours some 9-year-old little shit from New Jersey will stab me with a souvenir plastic sword his parents bought because he’s a little shit. And I’ll stand up and shout “I killed Jack Sparrow!”

Since I got sick, the six words I hate the most are “for the rest of my life.”

As in:  I’ll never drive a car again. For the rest of my life.

I’ll never ride a bike again. For the rest of my life.

I’ll never be able to sneak a box of Ring Dings into my house. For the rest of my life.

The hardest part about this is they don’t tell you when it’s the last time “for the rest of your life.”

If I had known the last time I rode my bicycle would be my last time I would’ve ridden down every street in New York, playing with the cars. I like to ride in traffic in New York City.

If I had known my last time sneaking out to Popeye’s Drive Thru would be my last sneak out, I would’ve had a four piece. 

If I had known my last time having sex would be my last time — well, I probably wouldn’t change anything there.

If I had known my last drive would be my last drive I would’ve driven to Miami or until I ran out of gas.

 I love to drive. My first car was a 1968 VW Beetle. Forest green. It was a great car. It had a Blow Punk radio. I taught myself to drive standard on it. I was 17. It was a hand-me-down from my Dad.

It was my party car. We took it for beer runs and to Jones Beach to the food concession stand where I worked. I’d pull up after hours and the manager would pull up the hood in front of the Beetle and load it up with hot dogs and buns. We’d have parties out on the pier after everything closed.

My first road trip in that first car was from Merrick to Philadelphia to see Peter Frampton in concert. I don’t remember much of the show. I fell in love with the college and ended up going to school there a year later. I only made it through my freshman year.

My second Volkswagen was my coolest. It was white. It was nice. I sold it, though, to pay for my honeymoon in Bermuda.

Later in life, I loved driving down Highway 1 in California from San Francisco to Ventura. The scenery, my kids in the back seat.

And then there was Barney. A purple Plymouth Voyager van. I’d drop my kids’ friends off, have them get out of the van, and I’d drive off with the rolling door open and then slam the brakes to make the door slide forward and shut.

Ironically, my last road trip was to Philadelphia. May 5, 2017. My wife and I had gone to the new Barnes Art Museum and to see the usual Philly stuff. It was two and a half years after my diagnosis. I drove down to Philadelphia in my Honda CR-V just fine, but not coming back. Getting on the bridge to take us back to the turnpike, I had to drive through construction and I felt as if I lost control. I had a death grip on the steering wheel. My wife, the lovely Mary Grace, noticed my impending panic. I pulled over at the next rest stop and handed her the keys.

That was it.

I’m not naturally funny. Whatever sense of humor I have I developed as a self-defense mechanism. 

The first time I remember being consciously aware of making fun of myself was better than waiting for someone else to make fun of me. It was in third grade at Curé of Ars Catholic School in Merrick, Long Island in 1965. I was a scrawny kid; people used to call me The Biafrin. I got picked on, not too much but enough for me to want it to stop.

That year we had a surprise snowstorm in early November. On the playground before school started we all got completely soaked playing in the snow. Snowball fights, wrestling in the snow, you name it. All of the boys pants were totally wet. The nuns, in a surprising show of compassion and concern, were afraid we were going to catch cold. Sister Patricia, the sixth grade teacher, was in charge of Operation Pants Removal. She was the most evil person on the planet. She was squat, and wore her wimple so tight her face was red all the time and made her look permanently angry. She was strong as she was mean. She came up with the bright idea of having the boys take off their pants so they could be brought to the nearby convent to be dried. We would wrap our coats around our waist for cover. 

Out of all the boys in the school, she chose me to be the guinea pig. Sister Patricia dragged me to the boys room and told me to take off my pants and wrap my coat around my waist while she waited outside the door. When I came out of the stall, my Robert Hall Department Store wool coat with a fur collar wrapped around my waist, two fifth grade boys were washing their hands. When they saw me, they broke out in uncontrolled laughing. Sister Patricia barged in to the boys room, slapped both of the fifth graders and told them to get back to their classroom. 

She took my pants and handed them to the novice who was walking by in the hall and commanded her  to bring them to the convent and put them in the dryer. She dragged me back to my classroom. Every kid we passed in the hallway stifled a laugh. Each time Sister Patricia’s face got even redder. By the time we reached my classroom I’m sure she realized what a mistake Operation Pants Removal was. Standing there in my wet socks and shoes, wet underwear and my Robert Hall fur-collared coat wrapped around my waist, I know I certainly did. I knew the whole class was going to laugh at me the rest of the day.

Feeling a little smart and a lot desperate, I wanted to do something to make them laugh before they laughed at me. When the door opened, I ran into the room, jumped up on Susan Leo’s desk and started to dance. I jumped from desk to desk with Sister Patricia trying desperately to catch me. The whole class was in hysterics. Sister Patricia grabbed the pointer and started swinging it at me. I avoided her for three or four swings and she finally caught me in the back of my calves and tripped me. I fell to the floor from the desk. She grabbed me by the collar and dragged me out of class. 

The beating I got hurt—she whipped me with the pointer, boxed my ears and cuffed me with her college ring —  but I returned to class a hero. 

After that day, I realized that if I could make people laugh, I might fit in. People who made others laugh started to become my heroes: W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers – anybody who was funny. I also watched Three Stooges shorts on a TV show hosted by Captain Jack McCarthy on WPIX, a local New York station. 

For the rest of my elementary and high school career,  I read everything I could about my new heroes. I tried to emulate them by doing outrageous things. In sixth grade, we were doing a science project with salt. At lunch time, I opened the window on the stairwell, and as kids went out to the playground for recess I poured salt on them and said “Bless you my child, go forth and sin no more.” Sister Rita Ann, who was generally one of the nicer ones, heard the commotion and came and slapped me on the back of the head.

“Salt costs money!” she snapped. 

I remember looking at the box and seeing that it cost 9 cents. I thought it was worth every penny.

In eighth grade, the day before we were supposed to graduate, our homeroom teacher Sister Mary Joseph let us bring in records to play. I got a little carried away and lip synced to the songs while sitting on Sister’s desk, while using the pointer as a microphone. She had papers on her desk and they were pushed off the desk as I wiggled around singing to the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Grass Roots, and The Archies: “Sugar, Sugar.”  Pretty soon all the papers were on the floor and most of the kids were up on their desks dancing.

When Sister came back in the room she looked around for her pointer, but I had it in my hand for my microphone. She grabbed it from me, gave me a swat and told me to get off her desk and go to the principal’s office. As I walked down the hall, I heard her screaming at the rest of the class, whacking her pointer on the desk. Then she came out and dragged me herself to the principal’s office. To get to the principal’s office we had to walk by her secretary, who told Sister Mary Joseph that the principal had somebody in her office. Sister Mary Joseph didn’t care. She threw open the principal’s door and threw me into the office. Inside there was the pastor, Father Cuddeback, and Father Whalen, associate pastor. Sister Mary Joseph launched into her tirade about what I had done and the principal just stopped. She stood up and took out her paddle. She told me to bend over. Before she hit me, Father Whalen started laughing and said “Leave the poor kid alone. It’s the last day of school.” Father Cuddeback had a smile on his face, too. 

The principal let me go. She told Sister Mary Joseph to make me go back and clean the classroom as my punishment.  Cleaning up the mess was a lot better than the paddle.

The summer after I flunked out of my second college my friend Dave and I rented a house on Lake George. It was the summer of 1977. It was one of three cottages on the west side of the lake across Route 9L.

The first time I got arrested was for stealing the Lake George Post Office sign. It was a wooden sign that had been nailed to the outside wall. It was at night after the bars had closed. I wouldn’t have gotten caught if I hadn’t hitchhiked with it tucked under my arm. I was picked up by the Lake George cops. My two friends took off into the woods when we spotted the cops, but I couldn’t run because I had the sign. It was bulky and about six feet long. I didn’t want to drop it.

The cops took me back into town to the station and asked me what the hell I was doing. They were more amused than angry. I told them we’d been drinking and I thought it was funny. They handcuffed me to a metal chair and let me sleep it off. They took my picture in the morning and drove me to the post office and made me put the sign back up. They gave me a hammer and nails. Because I worked in town, as a bus boy at a local restaurant, they were nicer to me than if I’d been a tourist. I was still wearing my bus boy outfit of black pants, white shirt, black shoes. The bars stayed open later for workers.

As I hammered away, people started coming in and out. I didn’t care. The cops warned me not to do anything stupid.

I was too tired to go home and I had to work again at 4:00 so I stopped in at a friend of mine. She was like a friendly big sister type. She helped me to undress and put me in the shower. While I was in the shower she put my clothes in with a load of hers. After the shower I put on her robe while waiting for my clothes. There I was, hanging out in a flowered robe.

My friends never heard from me until that night when we all showed up for work. I had a good story to tell – after giving them shit for abandoning me. They gave me shit for holding onto the sign.

It was a good summer. Everyone in the village was friends with each other. Our cottage was three miles from town on a hill overlooking a road. The cottage next door had three girls from Vermont. The other cottage had a couple guys from Albany.

I started dating a woman Andrea who waitressed at the Polynesian restaurant, where they wore very short skirts. I waited outside the restaurant for her every night and we headed to John Barleycorn’s, a favorite bar of the service crowd. Afterward sometimes we’d go to her place or sometimes to mine.

This led to a time I should’ve been arrested. I would stand on the front porch and try to throw the kitchen chairs far enough to hit the road. It would’ve been impossible to make it but I kept trying. I’d hold the chair over my head, where my hair grew in a wild Afro, and holler loudly and toss the chair. Unbeknownst to me, the owner of a restaurant across the street, the Lone Bull restaurant, called the cops on me. They didn’t show up until I was back in the cottage, with Andrea on the couch. On a mantel over the fireplace was a bong and half a pound of pot. The cops knocked on the door, and without thinking, I let them in…

We think Dennis and Liza were interrupted by lunch or a milkshake delivery this day before finishing the very end of the story. The Tompkins family will provide amnesty to anyone remembering what happened to the stash, and with knowledge of whether Dennis had a record and was it expunged? Also, there is a $100 reward for anyone with a photo of Dennis in that flowered bathrobe…

My brother Larry just retired from the New York City Fire Department. More about that later in another story. But the day he was sworn in as a firefighter 27 years ago, my three-year-old son Brendan and I drove down to the city, where we were to meet my parents, and then attend the springtime ceremony. My wife stayed home with our month-old daughter.

In order to save money, my father booked one hotel room for the four of us in Tarrytown, about 20 miles outside the city. We would take the train from there, and leave our cars at the Holiday Inn. That night, I got Brendan to sleep and then I lay down by his side. Immediately, my mother started snoring in the bed next to ours. I put a pillow up to my ear and turned away.

My dad kept lifting his legs in the air, a muscle tone exercise he regularly did. I could see the shadows of his legs moving up and down on the wall, and he made a sighing sound with each movement. Up and down, sigh, up and down, sigh, up and down, sigh.

I decided to sleep on the floor in the vanity area just outside the bathroom. It had to be better than this. I dragged the extra blanket from the closet and pillow from the bed and lay down on the carpeted area outside the toilet. I was just about to doze off when I heard this whooshing sound. I sat up and tried to figure out what it was. I listened. I couldn’t figure out what it was. 

I lay down, and got maybe 20 minutes of sleep.

The next morning my father woke me up by accidentally stepping on my ankle on his way to the toilet. When he came out of the bathroom, I asked him what the whooshing noise was. He said “Oh, that must’ve been the coffee maker. I couldn’t get it to work last night. I must’ve left it on.”

We grabbed a bite to eat at the hotel, then left for the train. My brother’s swearing in ceremony was fantastic. It was inside Pace University, and I put a plastic red fire hat on Brendan. He looked pretty damn cute, and all the photographers from the newspapers followed him around, and when he found his Uncle Larry and sat on his lap they all started shooting. The next day my brother and my son were plastered all over the front pages of the Daily News, the Post, and the city edition of Newsday.

After the ceremony, we went out to lunch with Larry. It was sunny, warm, and we were all feeling good. We sat outside at a restaurant near Gramercy Park. This is where I made my biggest mistake.

I ordered fettuccine alfredo for myself, and pasta with butter for Brendan. My wife always warned me about eating creamy sauce without immediate access to a restroom, but I always do that kind of stuff when she’s not around. I like to live on the edge.

After lunch, we said goodbye to my brother and headed to the train. We got back to Tarrytown, I said goodbye to my parents, and buckled Brendan into his car seat in the back seat. About halfway across the Tappan Zee Bridge spanning the Hudson River, I realized I had a situation.

I knew the nearest rest stop was about 15 miles away. I hoped I could make it. I gripped the steering wheel and tightened my sphincter muscles and tried to think about anything and everything else.

When I finally got to the rest stop, I was in a dangerous predicament. I had to move fast. But Brendan had fallen asleep in his car seat. I unbuckled him and carried him, still sleeping, into the restroom. Every step was a challenge.

When I finally entered the men’s room, I found an open stall, carried Brendan inside and locked it. I got my pants down and sat down and just as things started happening, my son woke up. In my arms.

Now, anybody waking up in that situation would probably be a little bit perturbed. When you’re a three-year-old waking up from your nap, it’s an absolute freak out moment. Petrified, Brendan began screaming, “Let me out of here! Let me out of here!”

I tried to calm him down, but he only got more agitated. 

I put him down and he immediately began banging on the stall door, screaming “Let me out of here! Let me out of here!” I cringed. There were plenty of people around to hear him.

But I was in no position to let him out. The fettuccine alfredo was still at work.

Someone asked, “Is everything okay?”

I said yes. Brendan kept pounding on the door.

I was panicked, expecting the State Police to kick the door down at any minute.

At one point, Brendan tried to go underneath the stall door. I had to grab the back of his overalls to keep him inside. He was still crying. 

When I finally finished, somehow maneuvering wiping off and pulling up my pants with one hand while holding him with the other, we left the stall. I wondered when the State Police were coming.

I washed my hands, looking around. It looked like I was in the clear.

Brendan had finally calmed down. We went outside, and I bought him an ice cream cone to celebrate his release from captivity. 

Despite my recent fettuccine incident, I bought myself one too. What can I say? I’m a slow learner.

So I’m at the National Airport in Washington, D.C. getting ready to catch a flight back to Albany, NY. I had spent a few days there helping to run a conference and I was eager to get home. 

I had a huge garment bag that I could fit three suits and three shirts into. It had a lot of pockets, and it was pretty bulky. I was heading to check it in when I realized I had pissed myself. This was the first time this had ever happened since I was diagnosed with atypical Parkinsonism, the angry brother of Parkinson’s. I stood there with my pants soaking wet. I was still in my suit. The place was mobbed.

Carefully, I held the garment bag in front of me and began walking toward the bathroom. My gait was a little marked, as It had been for about a year and a half. My right leg dragged a little. I made it through the crowd and to the men’s room– only banging into three or four people. When I got in the men’s room, still nervous, I grabbed some paper towels and wet a few of them at the sink, all the time carefully holding my garment bag in front of me. The stain ran from my crotch to the crest of my knee. It already smelled.

I made it into one of the stalls. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in one of the stalls at the National Airport, but they are not built to hold a 6’4,”  230-pound guy and his bulky garment bag. I took off my shoes in order to get my pants off, falling several times against the wall in the process. Every move set off the automatic flush. At one point I lost my balance and actually fell down onto the toilet, which hurt like hell.

I was down to my boxers when my phone rang. It was in my pants pocket. I grabbed the wet pants off the floor and took a look to see who it was. It was my 93-year-old mother calling. I figured I’d clean up first and then call her back. 

Finally, I got the pants off. Then, as soon as I got my boxers off, my phone rang again. My mom. I thought it might be an emergency, so I answered it. Now I’m standing in an airport stall, naked, except for my socks. All around me I could hear constant flushing from other stalls. I worried about who would see my pants and shoes on the floor but I answered anyway.

“Hello, Mom, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m at the airport.”

“What airport? What’s all that noise?”

“I’m at the airport, Mom. I’m taking a flight home to Albany tonight.”

“Where are you? What airport?” she asked again.

“I’m in Washington. At the airport.” I had to shout into the phone, because she didn’t have her hearing aids in.

“What are you doing in Washington?”

“I had a conference. It’s over. I’m at the airport. Is something wrong?”

My toilet flushed again as I tried to wipe myself off with a paper towel and talk to my mom at the same time. I glanced at my watch. I still had to repack my bag, check it in, get my boarding pass, and make it to my gate.

“What’s that noise, Dennis?”

“I’m at the airport, mom. What do you need?”

“Why is it so noisy?” she persisted.

“I’m at the airport, it’s a noisy place, what do you need?” At this point, I was struggling to find clean underwear in my garment bag. I was still naked. My wet clothes were still on the floor. As I dug around in the bag for underwear, I accidentally kicked one of my shoes out of the stall, beneath the door.

Now I’m reaching for the shoe under the stall door, talking to my mom, still naked except for my socks, bracing myself on my knees. My toilet flushed again.

Mom: “What’s that noise? Where are you? Why is it so noisy?”

I grabbed my shoe and said “Mom, I have to check in. What do you need?”

“I can’t turn the TV on.”

I’ve been through this a thousand times before. 

“You press the red button, Mom.”

“I pressed the red button and every other button,” she said. “What’s all that  noise?”

I knew from experience that by now my mother had probably turned off the TV and switched everything to DVD due to her button mania. I also knew I could never walk her through the process while on the phone. Naked. In an airport stall.

I said “Mom, I’m at the airport. I’ll stop off and take care of it when I get home tonight.” I had found my clean boxers and then the toilet flushed again.

“What’s all that noise?” she asked.

I dropped my phone while trying to grab at clean pants from the bag.

When I bent down to pick it up, the toilet flushed one more time. 

Me: “Mom, I’m at the airport in Washington, D.C. It’s a noisy, busy place. I have to catch my plane. I will fix your TV as soon as I can.”

Mom: “Are you coming or going?”

Me: “I’m coming home. I’m at the airport in Washington, D.C. It’s a noisy, busy place. I have to catch my plane. I will fix your TV as soon as I get home.”

Mom: “Okay, but what’s all that noise?”

Me: “Bye, Mom, I’ll see you later. Just read the newspaper until I get there.”

Mom: “I can’t find my glasses.”

In my job as Press Secretary for New York State Comptroller Carl McCall, I traveled all over the state, from farm country to big-city functions. I saw a lot of strange things.

Driving to Allegheny County one time, which is kind of nowhere somewhere south of Rochester near Cuba, N.Y., I saw a sign advertising “Used Headstones and Alpaca Fur.” I had to get out of the car and take a picture of that one. 

Our destination was Houghton College, where the students take a pledge of no alcohol, tobacco or sex. It is a four-year Christian college. Carl was giving a speech at a conference there. I was following him in my car from a meeting in Syracuse at an economic symposium. As were leaving that event, the chair called both of us into his office and gave us a flask of maple syrup from his own trees on land he owned in Vermont. It was clear glass, and the amber syrup looked just like bourbon.

When we arrived at Houghton, I saw that the flask had leaked in my briefcase. I picked it up out of the briefcase and the bottom of the flask fell out. The remaining syrup spilled all over the pants of my light gray suit. It looked like I had pissed myself.

I got out of the car, holding the sticky bottle just as a group of female students walked past my car. Did I mention this is a school where students take a pledge not to drink, smoke or have sex? And I staggered out in my syrup-soaked pants, holding a flask and cursing. 

The coeds saw me and laughed. I was a mess.

I had to ask directions to the building where Carl was going to speak. The security guard looked at me kind of funny and asked for ID. I showed him my Comptroller’s ID. He still looked at me kind of funny. I went inside and managed to make my way into the men’s room. I was still holding the flask. I couldn’t find a garbage can. I generated a lot of weird looks as I went in from the few dozen people waiting for the event to start. A lot of people noticed me. It’s kind of hard to slip by unnoticed when you’re 6’4” with a flask in your hand and maple syrup down the front of your pants.

In the men’s room I finally got rid of the damn flask, but I couldn’t do anything about my pants. I tried paper towels and then wet paper towels and then a hand dryer. Shreds of the wet paper towels stuck to the syrup and made it even more noticeable. 

When I walked outside to meet Carl, he gave me his “What did Dennis do now?” look. I tried to tell him what happened, but he just shook his head and said, “Wait in the car.”

I sat out in the car for about an hour. It was very uncomfortable because my pants were damp and the sticky syrup was stiff onto the fabric. 

The smell wasn’t bad.

Later that week we had a trip to Long Island to meet with a local Democratic club. As usual, I followed Carl. Carl’s driver, a former N.Y.P.D. undercover detective, said I drove like a cop. I thought it was the ultimate compliment.

As usual, I did my advance work before Carl came in, making sure the podium was set up, that there was water for him, and greeted the press. Carl gave a great speech about the Long Island economy. I had provided him with notes, but he said it much better than I did. Afterward, he answered every question with authority. It was a good event.

 As the meeting was wrapping up, we were chatting in the back of the room with some of the attendees. 

The organizer of the event approached me off to the side and said that Carl should probably bring a few less African-Americans with him next time.

Carl overheard him. He stepped closer and said “Dennis, the white guy, is my press secretary. The African American woman in the gray skirt is my wife. The African American woman in the flowered dress is my daughter. The African American gentleman at the door is a retired undercover New York City police officer. Why don’t you come to dinner with us, and tell me who I should leave behind next time?”

The guy was flabbergasted. And Carl did not help him out. The guy was trying to spit out an apology. Carl just stood there with his arms folded, waiting. 

Finally, I saved the guy. “Thanks for having us,” I said. And Carl and I walked out.

At dinner later on that night, I asked Carl if he ever got angry when stuff like that happened. Carl said,  “Dennis, if I got angry every time something like that happened, you’d never see me smile.”

Then he waited a beat, looked at me, smiled, and said “But that guy pissed me off.”

Okay, before you read this you have to remember two things: One, is that at the time it happened, Alec Baldwin was still married to Kim Basinger, who was and is an animal rights activist. The other thing you need to know is every word of this is true. I made notes on the incident as soon as it was over.

I’ve been telling this story for 19 years. 

In 1998 my boss Carl McCall was running for re-election as New York State Comptroller. Alec Baldwin—yeah, that Alec Baldwin—was getting slightly involved in politics, hosting fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee, making appearances, helping out candidates, that sort of thing. He had already appeared at a series of events for my boss in Syracuse and Buffalo and other spots around the state. On this day, we had an event on Long Beach on Long Island. It was at a senior citizen center and all the old women had lined up to get their photos taken with Alec after his talk. He knew how to work a room, with his voice, his movie star smile and groomed hair, and his $800 suit, grayish brown. The ladies loved him.

As the event was ending, he mentioned that he needed a ride back into the city for an interview on NYC public radio. My boss volunteered me to drive Alec. 

Together Alec and I walked outside the senior center to my purple Plymouth Voyager minivan. My kids called it the Barney Mobile—and not in a nice way. There was a bag of basketballs in the backseat and lots of Ring Ding wrappers on the floor. As Alec climbed in, he gave me a quick look, brushed off the seat with his hand, and then sat down.

He asked me if I knew where I was going. 

I said yes, and he pulled out his flip phone and started dialing. GPS wasn’t around yet, but I did know where I was going. I’ve always been good with directions. I put it in drive and headed toward MeadowBrook Parkway, pretty excited that a host of Saturday Night Live and film star was sitting in my purple minivan. I was hoping to have an opportunity to talk with him about what I was writing—a comedy screenplay about a group of guys who go to Las Vegas to spread their friend’s ashes around.

Instead, I got a different kind of opportunity.

Alec had his phone to his ear but I could still hear both sides of the conversation.

AB: Hello, this is Alec Baldwin. You’re at my house, getting ready for the fundraiser this weekend?

WOMAN ON THE PHONE: Yes, Mr. Baldwin.

AB: What’s your name?

WOMAN: Diane.

AB: Well, Diane, I just heard that you’re planning on serving foie gras in my house this weekend.

DIANE: Yes, Mr. Baldwin. We’ll be serving it during cocktail hour by the pool.

AB: I don’t care if it’s by the pool, in my garage, or in my hot tub. There’ll be no fucking foie gras served at my house this weekend. Do you know who my wife is?

At this point, his voice had shifted into his Glengarry Glen Ross mode, the part where he says “As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.” I had no idea what foie gras was until that moment.

AB: Do you know how they make fucking foie gras? They shove a tube down the throat of a goose and fatten it up, and then they take out the liver. Are you in charge there?

At this point we were passing JFK Airport and traffic was picking up considerably. A tube down the throat of a goose? Who thought of this, and who ate it?

DIANE: (Hesitation). Um, that would be Susanne.

AB: Put Susanne on the phone.

DIANE: She’s a little busy right now.

AB: (His Glen Garry Glen Ross voice in full force now) Put. Susanne. On the phone.

I heard mumbling. I’m on the Belt Parkway by now. It’s busy as ever. 

SUSANNE: Can I help you, Mr. Baldwin?

AB: Yes, you’re in charge there, Susanne?

SUSANNE: Um, yes.

AB: Are you responsible for putting fucking foie gras on the menu?

SUSANNE: Well, the caterer…

AB: Susanne, let me make this clear: There will be no fucking foi gras served at my house this weekend. If there is any fucking foie gras, I will send everybody home and let them know it was because you, Susanne, had fucking foie gras served in my house. Do you know who’s coming this weekend, Susanne? The president, Susanne. The president and his wife, and virtually every large donor to the DNC. And they’ll go home frustrated because you, Susanne, served fucking foie gras.

I couldn’t stop smiling. I was trying hard not to laugh out loud, and to pretend I wasn’t listening. But I knew I already had a great story.

SUSANNE: I’ll make sure it’s off the menu.

AB: Make sure there’s no fucking foie gras on the menu. Repeat after me: There’ll be no fucking foie gras on the menu this weekend at Mr. Baldwin’s house.

SUSANNE: There’ll be no foie gras served ….

AB: No fucking foie gras

SUSANNE: There’ll be no fucking foie gras on the menu this weekend at Mr. Baldwin’s house.

AB: You understand, Susanne? No fucking foie gras.

SUSANNE: Yes, sir. No fucking foie gras.

Alec clicked the phone shut and looked at me. 

AB: You like that?                                                  

ME: I’ll be telling it.

He opened the phone up again and called his assistant to have her pick up his dry cleaning. I dropped him off at the radio station on Varick Street on the West Side, downtown. He nodded at me, shook my hand before getting out my Barney Mobile, and walked into the building, still on the phone talking about dry cleaning. 

I immediately pulled out a pad and wrote down the whole story. I’ve been telling it ever since. I still have those notes. And I still have never tried fucking foie gras.

The Italian Club that my son Brendan was in was going on a 10-day trip to Italy. He was in 11^th grade, and the club had raised money for years to go on this trip. His cousins Rocco and Ashli were part of the club, and their parents were going, too. My wife Mary Grace was to go as a chaperone. So I figured what the hell, I’d pay for my daughter Michaela and I to go along.

We flew from JFK Airport to Rome. Ashli was terrified of flying, so I sat next to her. I told her to take off her shoes and rub her feet back and forth on the carpet. I held her hand during takeoff and tried to make her laugh by telling jokes from the movie “Airplane” – you know, “Shirley you must be kidding.”

Rome was a blast. But before we hit the city, there was a little trouble on the bus. My nephew Rocco and I had this game we used to play where we stomp, run at each other, holding our hands on our heads like bullhorns, and bump our chests at each other. This is not a game you should play on a bus. When we bumped our chests together, my head hit the overhead rack on the bus and I started to bleed profusely. I quickly put my baseball cap on and told Rocco not to say anything to my wife. I was a little dizzy but I managed to get off the bus and check into our hotel. After a while my wife asked me to take off “that hat” because we were getting ready to tour Rome. When I did and she saw the gash, and the blood, she screamed “What the hell did you do?” I said “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” but she knew I’d done something stupid. I cleaned up as best as I could and went out on the street, hat-less with a headache.

It was April 2004 and it was busy there. We stayed away from the subway cars due to a recent subway bombing in Spain. So there we were, 40 of us, walking down the streets, checking out the Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, the ancient ruins. The kids were well behaved, but at the Coliseum I reenacted my bullfight with my nephew. It felt like the right place to do it, and there was no rack I could hit my head on. Mary Grace yelled at me to cut the shit out.

We took a bus for an overnight trip to Sorrento, a beautiful city on a hill with lemon groves all around. We took a boat to Capri and it was beautiful. The water was the bluest water I’ve ever seen. We took a cable car up a steep hill and on top, we stepped into a huge piazza filled with Italians all talking on their cell phones. We had lunch at a great pizza place where my nephew Rocco tried to stack up eight slices of pizza to fit in his mouth all at once. We egged him on, of course. He almost lost it all on the boat ride back – but he did it.

Meanwhile back in Sorrento my brother-in-law, also named Rocco, was sitting on a bench enjoying the scenery. He had decided not to go to Capri. As he sat on the bench, smoking a cigar, two American girls came up and asked to have their picture taken with him. They thought he was a native. He nodded, and they took about a dozen photos with him, one at a time next to him. He’s a big guy, and they sat on either side of him. He never said a word, since he didn’t speak any Italian at all.

Michaela was three years younger than most of the kids on the trip, so she was having a hard time. She felt left out and was having some reaction to a medication she was on that left her feeling depressed. Before the trip I had promised her I would take her out on a Vespa ride. Little did I know that Vespas aren’t easily available for tourists. While we were in Florence, I had the Italian teacher, Donna Ehhmann, call around to try to find a place to rent one. She finally found a place and, after much discussion and shouting, she got the guy to agree to rent me a Vespa. The place was only two miles from our hotel, so Michaela and I walked there. When we arrived, Michaela, who was semi-fluent in Italian at the time, explained what we were there for. After much discussion, his misgivings were calmed by an off-the books currency exchange.

I tried to put on the helmet, but apparently, Italians have really small heads. I definitely do not. I wedged it on like a funny looking yamaka. Michaela put hers on. We sat on the bike and started the engine. I turned the throttle on the handlebar but nothing happened. I kept turning it further and further and still nothing happened. Finally it caught and we shot forward like a rocket. My left leg flew out and kicked a parked Vespa, which immediately fell over and knocked over an entire row of Vespas like crunchy metal dominoes. The owner didn’t see it because he was in the office, and Michaela shouted “Dad, should we go back and pick them up?” I said “Hell, no” and I kept on driving.

This is before GPS or Google search, so for navigation we were on our own. I circled around for a while. We were cramped: I’m 6’4” and Michaela’s 5’9” so it was tight on the Vespa. Suddenly, Michaela looked up and saw a sign that said Cristoforo Colombo Autostrada, which means Christopher Columbus Highway, or loosely translated, Holy Shit We’re On a Highway. Michaela kept shouting in my ear, “Dad, we’re on a highway! We’re heading to the airport!”  Cars flew by us; Italian drivers are worse than Boston drivers, and no one would let me get over to the right. I kept trying to move over, but everyone was honking at us. Quite a few of them gave me the universal middle finger.

I finally made it over to the right lane and made a desperate turn and managed to turn into a shopping mall parking lot. Then we headed back out onto the highway in the other direction so we could get back to Florence. I kept thinking “Oh my god, Mary Grace is going to kill me. Michaela’s going to die. We’re both going to die.” Michaela kept shouting “Dad, we’re back on the highway again!” but I had to keep going because that was the only way I knew to get back where we started. This time I stayed in the right lane and took the first right turn I could to get off the highway.

But a series of one-way turns put me right back on the Cristoforo Colombo Autostrada. Michaela shouted “Dad, we’re back on the highway again!” as she held on tightly to me. I said “I know we are, Goddammit.”

I kept our speed kind of slow because I was so nervous, and drivers blared their horns at us. We knew we had rented near the Duomo, a major, domed tourist attraction in the center of the city, so I looked for that in the skyline. I kept making a series of turns off the highway, trying to keep the Duomo in sight. I felt like we were completely lost, when I finally turned a corner and saw our entire group from Troy High Italian Club right in front of us. Michaela and I acted normal, as if we had planned this route the whole time. 

Michaela got off the Vespa and my niece Ashli asked for a ride. I figured I could stay away from the highway this time, and I had 30 minutes to return the bike. So Ashli put on Michaela’s helmet and we took off, staying away from the highway, and then returned the Vespa. The owner looked at Ashli kind of funny, since she was a different girl than the one I left with. He didn’t say anything about the toppled Vespa dominoes. I handed him the keys and walked away.

Ashli hadn’t made it to the top of the Duomo yet, and we had 20 minutes before it closed. So we ran, and bought the last two tickets of the day. The Duomo dome has 524 steps inside leading to the top, where you get a view of the whole city and the entire valley for miles. We climbed the steps as fast as we could, leaning into the domed shape, and made it to the top. We did all the viewing in 60 seconds and headed back down again. 

My day in Florence ended with an interesting moment in the men’s room. It seems that Italians build their bathrooms the same way they make their helmets. Once again, I was too big for the situation. I was standing at a urinal and casually looked over to my right and saw a woman seated on a toilet. It seemed the divider between the men’s room and ladies room was built for short Italian men. She saw me looking, so I just flushed and ran.

My mother was the first one to notice. She was 92 at the time. I was 55. It was February 2014. She saw that I was carrying my right arm in a classic Napoleon pose, and that I was shuffling a little bit when I walked. I was pretty dismissive. 

I thought all I needed were some orthotics to support my feet better. I also had my elbow operated on a few months before that to take out some bone spurs, so I thought that was why I was holding my arm funny.

I got my orthotics that spring, but they didn’t seem to make a difference. I had shoes that now squeaked when I walked. I used to sneak up on my office assistant and stand in the doorway and shout her name. It was something I did in every job I had – a shared joke between me and my assistants, Jane, Harriet and Dechelle. Now that joke was over. Dechelle heard me coming every time. My squeak gave me away.

I finally went to the doctor that September. I guess I’m a slow learner. Dr. Bill Carimore has been my primary care physician for 36 years; we’re basketball friends too. I coached against his girl’s team. I always won. He started me on a series of tests. Bloodwork, EKG, reflex, all that stuff. He tested me for Lyme Disease. All negative. Next he sent me to a neurologist at Albany Medical Hospital. More tests. Lots more tests. Cat scans. MRIs. PET scan. One test where they shocked my arm 36 times with pins to test muscle reflex. That was to test for ALS.

I just wanted to find out what was wrong. I wasn’t really nervous.

One diagnostician told me that I didn’t have ALS, and I was lucky. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t lucky, I just wasn’t as unlucky as the guy who had ALS. If I was lucky, my future would have been Popeye chicken for lunch every day, a box of Yodels and a milkshake. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t have had any of this shit. I always get mad when someone tells someone they are lucky they didn’t die in an accident – they weren’t lucky, they just weren’t as unlucky as the person who did die in a crash. 

The way that they diagnose Parkinson’s is to rule out everything else. My daughter Michaela and my wife Mary Grace were with me in December when I got my original diagnosis: Parkinson’s Disease. It was Christmas week. I figured if Michael J. Fox could deal with it, I could, too. 

My feet were starting to swell up and I’d lost some motor control and a little bit of balance.

A top neurologist at Albany Med was to give me treatment. We went there once, and I wasn’t thrilled with him but I thought he’s the best, I’ll go with him. But at work at the State Education Department, Chancellor Merryl Tisch noticed my gait and asked my boss at the time, John King, what was wrong. When he told her, she came to me and asked – in her usual commanding way – who I was seeing for treatment. When I told her I was at Albany Med, she said “You can’t rely on the hicks up here. You’re going to go to New York and see the best person they have.” She actually knew the doctor that I’d be seeing, and she set up the appointment for me. She had her assistant get all my medical records and send them to this doctor.

Before my second visit with the Albany Med doctor, I got a call from Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. I had an appointment. You can’t even get into this place. I drove down with Mary Grace and we met Dr. Naomi Lubarr for the first time. It was love at first sight. She spent almost two hours with us, talking about my case, my symptoms and my treatment plan. At the time, the plan was to have her consult on my case with my doctor back in Albany.

Then we had my second appointment with the Albany doctor. He was patronizing, treating me as if I was 12 years old, and dismissive. He was condescending. He didn’t listen to anything we had to say. At the end of the appointment, he told us he’d see us in six months, despite the fact that my symptoms seemed to be progressing faster than the typical patient with Parkinson’s. I had been doing my homework. 

Walking to our car, we decided we would make Naomi my primary neurologist. We would not go back to that asshole again. We had another appointment with Naomi that month. Now we were into March. On our second visit with her, we got a more specific diagnosis. Naomi believed I had Atypical Parkinsonism, the evil brother of Parkinson’s Disease. We talked about treatment and therapy. She was very aggressive and prescribed strong doses of assorted drugs and also a lot of physical therapy. You can’t slow the progression but you can take steps to cope with the symptoms. We spent another two hours there. She told me I was her most stoic patient. I had known my illness was worse than typical Parkinson’s.

I always deal with stuff by trying to laugh at it. My friends were the same way. They weren’t going to let me go through this without trying to bust my balls. We started to build a list of Parkinson’s jokes. “I’m going to apply for a job at Shake Shack.” “I‘m disappointed that having Parkinson’s didn’t qualify me for the Special Olympics. I would’ve entered boxing.” 

We also started to build a list of all-time Parkinson’s songs. “Shake Your Booty.” “Twist and Shout (Shake it up Baby!)” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC.

I started physical therapy at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Center in Schenectady. I could still drive at the time. My therapists were Lauren Lair for physical and Mary Pfiel for occupational. They were the best. They pushed me hard but I learned so much about my body as I worked on strength, movement and balance. Lauren had this saying, “Exercise is medicine,” and she was right. They had a new form of therapy called Big and Loud. She taught me seven exercises that I still do every day. After awhile I couldn’t get to Sunnyview anymore – it was a 45 minute drive – so I went to some local therapists, but none of them could hold a candle to those two. They were the only therapists who ever got my jokes.