My Mom and Dad are New Yorkers who left the tenement streets of the Bronx and came to Los Angeles when West Side Story was real. They have the scars to prove it.

“They used to break bottles on a fence and follow me home. Look where they got me.” Mom’s story of her scars terrified me.

“They?” Who were “they”—and could they find us here at my grandmother’s bungalow in Echo Park, which was often filled with people who had been exiled from many places—Socialists and Communists, violin soloists, and lesbians who had fled Castro’s Cuba.

I tell people that my family absorbed lesbians during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those lesbians were a big part of my childhood, arriving midday wearing military gear and sporting masculine pompadour haircuts. They’d show up with hot bread in thin bags and produce sticks of sweet guava paste while my grandmother poured strong coffee.

Then, the merengue music would begin, and the lesbians would start to dance like Desi Arnaz, taking turns whirling Mom around. She would giggle, the flan would jiggle, and for a Proustian moment all was right in the world.

When I remind my mother about this, she laments, “Why don’t you remember the skiing and the leather jacket we got you? It’s always the lesbians with you!”

Mom was not a butchie; she was boy crazy. During World War II, she worked in a factory that manufactured medals of honor for soldiers. She sat for twelve hours a day attaching the medals to gold braids and ribbons. Then she would place them in blue velvet boxes to be sent overseas. What no one in the factory or the federal government knew was that my mother was writing her name and address on pieces of paper and sticking them into every box. I asked her if she ever met anyone that way, to which she sheepishly replied, “Yes.” The topic was dropped.

Our family business was operateing batting cages. The pitching machine spit out the balls at lightning speed. Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax. Whitey Ford. 50 cents for 12 pitches. Of course my mother ran the place, and I was her slave: selling candy, hosing down the street, and the most dreaded of all jobs, feeding the pitching machine with balls. I call it my black and blue period.

When the counselors at school began to question the black and blue spots all over my upper torso, they asked if there was anything I would like to report. When I told my mom, she went nuts. “Who the hell is going to abuse you? You tell that Vice Principal that if he thinks there is funny business going on in this house, then he should come down here and try loading up that Don Drysdale machine… Hit you?”

We lived happily in a perfect bubble of nonconformity, creativity, and unmistakable honesty and good cheer in spite of the tailspins that we often went through. When the batting cages tanked, my parents got lured into a shady underworld by my uncle Louie, who used the batting cages to fence stolen goods. One week there would be cases of Gerber’s pineapple and tapioca baby food. The next, cartons of Eve Lemon Twist cigarettes stacked floor to ceiling.

Small trucks came and went. I confronted mom. “What’s the big deal? Your Uncle Louie is using the garage for a while, that’s all. We get a check. We keep our mouths shut.”

“But, mom, it’s not the crime, it’s the karma.”

“Karma? If the candy man can, where do you think he gets his candy from? The crime man. And you know the candy man makes everyone happy. Where did Sammy Davis, Jr. get his candy from, huh? Frank Sinatra?”

This was the logic of my youth.

Years later when I was living in in the Hollywood Hills, the city of Los Angeles exploded in riot over the Rodney King verdict. My parents just happened to be visiting. An hour visit turned into a three day horror show as the National Guard prevented anyone from leaving the area.

We peered from my windows, watching gang members cruise by and throw Molotov cocktails at the foundation of my house. After all those years of wondering who “they” were, here they were. We could smell the smoke of the looters’ fires and hear the pops of gun shots.

I said “Let’s go upstairs and hide in the attic like Anne Frank.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Are you nuts? If they set this place on fire, I don’t want to be in the attic of burning house… that’s not for me.”

“Do we know an Anne Frank?” my father asked.

“Anne Frank! The little girl from the Shelley Winters movie,” Mom informed him.

Then, we heard an explosion. A jeep blew up. And then what came out of my mother demonstrated her keen intelligence and innate maternal Darwinian instinct for survival.

“Why don’t we get into giant Hefty bags? We can sit in here, nice and still. If they come into this house, they will just think we’re garbage.”

With the security blanket of the Hefty bags in reach and the sublime logic of my mother, we made it through that night.

Likewise, we’ve made it through life.

My father became the Mayor of Indian Wells, California, a tony desert enclave of rich conservative Republicans. And my lesbian dancing, baseball machine-filling, garbage bag-hiding mother is now the first lady of that town.

Her duties have brought her to shake hands and dine with such people as Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and most recently, Her Royal Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan.

I ask her how it went with Queen Noor.

“She was nice… but boy, did that queen eat… You would not expect a queen to eat so much. She ate every roll… all of the food on her plate. I felt bad for her. I offered her my lamb chop, but she wouldn’t take it.”

I am glad that Her Majesty got to meet my mother and thankful that my mother taught me about the dualistic cosmology of things—a view of the universe as a battleground of contending forces. I’m glad she showed me that kindness has rewards and there is nothing for anyone who wallows in apathy or anger.

I pause to remember and pay my respects to my mother, the woman who, when playing hide and seek with my brothers and me, would fall asleep under laundry, forcing us to look not only in drawers for her, but in bottles of aspirin.

I only wish that all the children of the world had been raised in such an atmosphere of twentieth century optimism and keen encouragment. My mother once looked at my drawing pad filled with watercolors, closed the book, and with great intensity, pointed her finger and said, “I am going to tell you something right now… You are better than Matisse.” And she meant it.

Standup comedian, actor, and writer, Taylor Negron has starred in his own HBO special, appeared on The Tonight Show, films Stuart Little, The Last Boy Scout, Punchline, Angels in the Outfield, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the much-ballyhooed hit The Aristocrats. Recent TV appearances include Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno 911. Taylor is a regular contributor to Jill Solloways "Sit and spin", Hilary Carlip's online magazine "Fresh Yarns", The Huffingtons Post and 236.com www.236.com. He performs regularly across the US and is one of the founding members of the Un-Cabaret dubbed "The Mother show of Alternative Comedy" by the Wall Street Journal Negron is currently touring his show Satellites (a fusion of stories and song) across the USA with singer/songwriter Logan Heltel. For more info, check out www.TaylorNegron.com.

A search warrant authorized troopers to enter the retreat run by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Cougars. They are looking for evidence of marriages between a number of 16- to 18-year-old underwear models and the 49-year-old Jefferson.

Agents searching the sect's small, well kept polygamist compound said they found 25 'Love Cots' in the sect's temple. Prosecutors believe the cots were used for middle-aged women to have sex with their underage "super cute and adorable boys."
There is also evidence that some were married in a ceremony during an episode of "Ryan's Hope."
The compound was raided after authorities spoke to a 16-year-old Asian male, 5'7", 110 pounds, smooth, black hair, brown eyes (disease free, of course), who said he was given "a nasty neck massage and then abused by 5 women who also made him sweep, garden, and can apple preserves."

One officer, who asked to remain anonymous, broke down when he saw the conditions that some of the young men were forced to live in. "Some of these boys were forced to do sit ups all day to an endless loop of the song 'Let's Get Physical.' There were over 11 rusted Bow Flex machines and buckets of cheap hair gel. It looked like an Abercrombie and Fitch photo shoot in Satan's hell."

I spoke with Tang Bang-Cruz, a 31-year-old who whispered into a borrowed cell phone: "I am a very sentimental guy and outgoing. I love smiling and let the world pass me by. This is not how I want to lead a life." I could hear tears in Tang's words. "I feel the Angel Morinha has gone down on me."

When asked how he got involved in the cult, Tang told me he had posted an ad on Craigslist looking for afternoon sex with an older female…or place to get Chinese food. "My post read that a perfect date would be having coffee or enjoying some gelato. It said nothing of sex with the cast of 'The Ya Ya Sisterhood.' I never thought I would end up married to Wilma and then having to share her with 18 other very young, attractive men. After all, I am Catholic from Manila."
I drove through the parched Texas landscape and spoke to Wilma in the visitors' room of a low security prison. I was struck by her Sarah Plain and Tall good looks in her nineteenth-century dress. She bore a striking resemblance to a haggered Olivia Newton-John.

She stood up when I entered, extending a calloused hand that quickly found its way to my crotch. She had been churning butter her whole life, and I was helpless.

The officer who stood by the door rolled his eyes as Wilma said, "I am concerned for my husbands. Why is it that men get to have all the perverted fun on God's Texas Earth? I am taking this all in stride. The Mormon Church has been very supportive and I also have received an edible flower arrangement from Camille Pagilla as well as a movie offer for Mary Steenburgen to play me in my life story.

"Women are no longer just hanging around fixing screen doors. We will have sex with any piece of man ass that crosses our path. Cops. Box boys. Paper boys. We want to do what men have done…we want keep our husbands shirtless, shoeless, and getting us pregnant. Is that so wrong?"
When I informed Wilma that medical workers are being sent to the compound, and law enforcement officers are "preparing for the worst," she was outraged. Wilma slammed her hand on the table and said, "We women can be ganged-banged and still get up and make a salad with pears and Gorgonzola. No sweat. Men can only really enjoy sex maybe three times a day, while a woman can have sex 24 hours a day. She just has to apply our self and relax."

Wilma's manner turned solemn, and I could see clinging to her religious beliefs. She almost whispered, "That's why it's the great WHORE of Babylon, not the great Gigolo of Babylon." Then, Wilma opened a Gideon's Bible and, with a voice of thunder, read from book of Ester, chapter 18, verse 4: "Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king's princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen? Thus shall there arise too much contempt and wrath."

As she closed the Bible, Wilma gave a deep sexy once-over to the cop at the door and whispered, "I get so turned on when I see these guys in action. I love how the bulletproof vest makes them looks buff. I love the cop walk."
Wilma extended her hand and touched mine and pleaded, "Look, I am a horny woman and I want my Husbands back."

Standup comedian, actor, and writer, Taylor Negron has starred in his own HBO special, appeared on The Tonight Show, films Stuart Little, The Last Boy Scout, Punchline, Angels in the Outfield, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the much-ballyhooed hit The Aristocrats. Recent TV appearances include Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno 911. Negron is currently touring his show Satellites, a fusion of stories and song across the US with singer/songwriter Logan Heltel. For more info, visit www.TaylorNegron.com.

The presidential elections have become very water cooler-friendly. People are talking about them with an intensity and concern usually reserved for "The Biggest Loser" or "American Idol." They have become another reality TV show to entertain and distract us 'til Britney Spears bends another fender on the 405. But we are living in a post Jerry Springer era. We want to see to people on TV jumping up and attacking, ripping the hair out of each other's head and calling one another " Bitch." We have become accustomed to spitting in the face and talking to the hand.
In America, we chase our prey down and we don't want our politicians to be rational or well-behaved. After a long hour of "The Hills," we want these candidates to flip out and melt down the way regular people do. But their handlers tell them not to show emotion because if they do, we might figure out who to vote for.
I think in some reptilian-brain way we want these debates to be primal. We want a bum fight, complete with broken glass and phlegm.
Polite backstabbing is very 2000. Today, we want a candidate who will stab you in the chest, cut off your genitals, and sew them in your mouth. Can somebody please give us what we want?
My Friend Orny Adams was on "The Tonight Show" when Barack Obama was one of Jay's guests. Orny told me that shaking hands with Obama was like shaking hands with a teenager. So that makes him my candidate.
Teenagers love to flip out and are capable of some serous antics. If the youthful Obama wins and has a tantrum in the Oval Office, we could be in store some old fashioned fireworks. I would love to see the president push the Secretary of State's head in a toilet and then try to set his pants on fire.
I know what you're thinking: Hillary cried. When I first heard, I expected to see her blubbering Tammy Faye Bakker hysterics. The good stuff. Instead, what we got was less a cry and more like a reaction to a soiled placemat or a foul clam. She wasn't suppressing a tear—she was suppressing a fart. Or a burp.
She should have taken a lesson from America's sweetheart, Ellen DeGeneres who changed the rules on crying. It used to be that there was no crying in baseball or lesbianism, but her breakdown became the ground zero of crying. She's really upped the ante. I wanted to see Hillary crying like Ellen DeGeneres as if she had been forced to send Portia De Rossi back to her rightful owner.
Jackie Kennedy's tears at JFK's funeral cortège would not past muster these days. Standing stoic in her elemental grace—that wouldn't do in our TMZ days. Instead, Jackie would go running down the steps and put a leg-lock on the coffin.
If the candidates want to appeal to the majority of the American voters, then they are going to have to begin to act like real Americans, who are medicated, bipolar, enraged, and a touch obese. Then, if we could identify with them, maybe we could justify voting for them.
If Hillary Clinton is going to get the nomination, then she must give up this tolerant, polite, smart, and evolved woman lawyer thing and try drunkenly crashing an interview with Monica Lewinsky on "Entertainment Tonight" and slur on about health care and explain, again, her vote for the war. And she should do it in a fake British accent.

If Barack Obama really wants to get our attention, he should try shaving his head and wearing just a tube a sock to the VMA awards. For good measure, he could take a wobbly swing at Kathy Griffin. That's campaigning for keeps.
We all know that this is not Jack Parr's America. It's not your grandmother's nervous breakdown. No longer can Jerry Lewis walk out of the spotlight and away from the mic leaving just an empty stool to make a point.
In 2008, we are a post-Dog Chapman, post-wrestle mania world. It's an America hyped up on Starbucks and Red Bull, texting, driving, and U-turning and road-raging. We live in a time when ABC can call a show "Dance Wars" while all but ignoring that another little war that is going on. It's that war the will require the kind of presidential candidates I'm calling for. Because who ever inherits this mess is certainly going need more than one personality to get job done. They will have to get dirty, fight dirty, and get real.
Standup comedian, actor, and writer, Taylor Negron has starred in his own HBO special, appeared on The Tonight Show, films Stuart Little, The Last Boy Scout, Punchline, Angels in the Outfield, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the much-ballyhooed hit The Aristocrats. Recent TV appearances include Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno 911. Taylor is a regular contributor to Jill Solloways "Sit and spin", Hilary Carlip's online magazine "Fresh Yarns", The Huffingtons Post and 236.com www.236.com. He performs regularly across the US and is one of the founding members of the Un-Cabaret dubbed "The Mother show of Alternative Comedy" by the Wall Street Journal Negron is currently touring his show Satellites (a fusion of stories and song) across the USA with singer/songwriter Logan Heltel. For more info, check out www.TaylorNegron.com.

There is something honest about prostitution, but the thing to remember is that we pay whores to leave, not to stay! Sometimes, if we really have a lot money, we pay whores not to talk on television!

On the new Bravo series "The Millionaire Matchmaker," we meet Patti Stanger, founder and CEO of the Millionaire's Club, an exclusive service designed to match successful men to their prospective wives. By wives, I don't mean the successful woman behind every man; I mean whores who will do anything on or off TV to ensure that they never have to work at AT&T or Verizon and instead get to live in a house with cheap aluminum windows and a two-story chandelier in the foyer. (This means YOU HEATHER MILLS.)

Patti is armed with not only an elite pool of millionaire clients, but also a database of women holding some of nature's most coveted characteristics: beauty, brains and rubberized lips, These Posh Spice wannabes are as transparent as day old fruit roll ups and twice as chewy.
Helping her millionaires find true love is Patti's destiny. In the premiere episode, millionaires Dave and Harold are looking for love. Patti arrives at Harold's sprawling, environmentally alienating mansion—the place looks like a waiting room for Saddam Hussein's ball sac—and gets straight to business with the grace of a Russian plumber who is going to clean out your septic tank, but good!

Patti has as what we call here in Los Angeles "Publicity eyes." Half crow, half Minotaur, all Dr.90210. She quickly finds out that Harold is in his early forties, and—spoiler alert!—he desires much younger women who are "hotties." The expression on Pattis face is priceless. She looks a child who finds an Easter egg in a Toilet, or an adult who has found a toilet in an Easter egg. Derailed!

Patti believes this is one of the main reasons Harold is still single. She predicts that after working with her, Harold will start picking age-appropriate women, and find true love.
Yeah, right. If Harold is so rich, can't he have Patti shot, stuffed, and placed over his fake fireplace?

Patti is also working with "Sex Toy" Dave who has made his fortune as an entrepreneur in the adult sex toy industry and has a built-in stripper pole in his living room. Patti tells him that he's sending the wrong signals if he really wants to settle down.
Wrong signals? Hot and cold running Bud Light and glory holes in the kitchen are fine signals, as are the Viagra-filled Christmas stockings. These are signals about what the man wants: a limber stripper who doesn't write screenplays, and who knows how to worship cock.
You pay attention to the signals Patti.

Surprisingly, an open call to find the perfect match for each of her millionaires yields some unsatisfying results. Frustrated, Patti demands that her staff find "the 10s." Then Patti places the women behind one-way glass so that the cocky millionaires can check out the goods. It's just like they do on "Homicide" and "Law and Order: SVU"—and in massage parlors in Bangkok.

Dave chooses a petite brunette with a Harvard education, and Harold chooses a young model. During a romantic dinner, Dave seems to have chemistry with his date. They even pay a visit to his pad, stripper-pole and all, which doesn't seem to bother her. (To a Harvard girl, an in-home lap dance pole is like seeing your face on an AMEX card.)

Harold and his date enjoy a sunset boat cruise, but the age gap between them takes its toll, and they have a hard time connecting in conversation. Plus, he has to have her home by 9:30 or she'll get grounded.
Have I mentioned that Bravo is an arts channel?
Meanwhile, Patti looks into the camera and says, "I am so great at this." It's inspiring to see someone who has found her calling. But I have news for her: I know guy called Desmond Le Baron down in Long Beach who can pimp rings around her.
[Note: Repeated attempts to contact Patti for this article were unsuccessful, despite the fact that I sent her copies of my 2007 tax returns. I did receive a message saying my income bracket was too low to even warrant a conversation with Patti. The message did offer a helpful suggestion—that I should purchase a DVD of "Lars and the Real Girl" and consider myself lucky.]
So it looks like I am stuck back here looking for love at eHarmony.com, which is like a Warren Jeff's Mormon Garage sale for human beings. It will have to do. I just don't have a Million Dollars.
Standup comedian, actor, and writer, Taylor Negron has starred in his own HBO special, appeared on The Tonight Show, films Stuart Little, The Last Boy Scout, Punchline, Angels in the Outfield, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the much-ballyhooed hit The Aristocrats. Recent TV appearances include Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno 911. Taylor is a regular contributor to Jill Solloways "Sit and spin", Hilary Carlip's online magazine "Fresh Yarns", The Huffingtons Post and 236.com www.236.com. He performs regularly across the US and is one of the founding members of the Un-Cabaret dubbed "The Mother show of Alternative Comedy" by the Wall Street Journal Negron is currently touring his show Satellites (a fusion of stories and song) across the USA with singer/songwriter Logan Heltel. For more info, check out www.TaylorNegron.com.

I am old enough to remember two defining political events: Nixon's resignation in the last years of the Vietnam War, and The Flip Wilson Show. As a 10th grader with delusions of anarchy I bore witness to mass moral ambiguities and saw hypocrisy exposed. I also recognized the aesthetic value of well-formed black gams setting off a pink mini-dress.

The Flip Wilson Show ruled. It was brilliant and ahead of its time. In the above clip, with guest Mohammed Ali we get a glimpse of what Barack Obama may have looked like in 1974—The shining presence, strong aura. The winning yet unsure stance when Geraldine requests he go easy on Joe Fraser because "He's one of us."

With the name "Negron," I consider myself an expert on race relations. You see, the name Negron is 5/6th of the "N" word, which is why Barack mentioning www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html the elephant in the room was so important to me.

We are still burdened by issues of race and class that should have been put to rest decades ago. We have not healed the racial wounds in this country; we've merely applied bandage over bandage and some of us are just plain keloid and may never heal. True healing occurs when we open our minds to the experiences and the daily truths of others.

Because of my last name, I was called the "N" word in grade school in the perfumed hills of Pasadena. To this day I remember the tone of the word. I was confused, ashamed. I felt heat in my veins. When I told my father, he confessed that this too happened to him in grade school back in the Bronx. "It comes with being a Negron," he told me reassuringly.

Now, in the formative years of the 21st Century, we may not like hearing the ramblings of a crotchety Reverend or, as Maureen Dowd referred to Wright, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/opinion/23dowd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin "a wack-a-doo minister." But we should not disregard the validity in his words, however "wacky" or caustic, until we have honored his reality. I haven't been referred to as the "N" word since the 80s, but other people have, to their faces and to their backs.

Good for Senator Obama mentioning the elephants www.236.com/blog/w/jim_david/the_black_elephant_in_the_room_5308.php. We have a tendency to ignore them, to our peril. You see, as a person raised in a family of elephants—Black, White, Pink—I can assure you: Elephants never forget...

Standup comedian, actor, and writer, Taylor Negron has starred in his own HBO special, appeared on The Tonight Show, films Stuart Little, The Last Boy Scout, Punchline, Angels in the Outfield, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the much-ballyhooed hit The Aristocrats. Recent TV appearances include Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno 911. Taylor is a regular contributor to Jill Solloways "Sit and spin", Hilary Carlip's online magazine "Fresh Yarns", The Huffingtons Post and 236.com www.236.com. He performs regularly across the US and is one of the founding members of the Un-Cabaret dubbed "The Mother show of Alternative Comedy" by the Wall Street Journal Negron is currently touring his show Satellites (a fusion of stories and song) across the USA with singer/songwriter Logan Heltel. For more info, check out www.TaylorNegron.com.