A Boy Named Sue... or Natalie

I have heard this question most of my adult life,

How does an Italian guy from New Jersey get a name like "Murray?”

It’s a good question. Here’s the answer:

I am the youngest of three boys. I have two older brothers; one is seven years older than I am, the other is four years older. Whenever girls hear that, they always say the same thing, “You’re the baby of the family! That is so cute!” Yes, getting wedgied, Indian burned and beaten up on a daily basis was adorable...

But hey, that’s a story for another time.

While my mother was pregnant with me, she decided I was going to be a girl. Let me emphasize here that this decision was based on absolutely nothing.
Not a sonogram, not a doctor’s opinion, not even a psychic prediction. She just figured she had two boys, the third baby HAD to be a girl.

Not only did she decide I was going to be a girl, but her and my father went as far as to paint my bedroom pink and buy me dresses and girl’s onesies. They even picked out a name for me, "Natalie Valeriano."

Well, August rolled around and I popped out... a dude. Which, by the way, was the first of many disappointments I would end up being to my parents.

Again, a story for another time.

Now my parents are screwed. They have a baby boy and no name for him. They figured they couldn’t name me the name they picked out, it was a name for a little girl and not a little boy. Personally, I don’t see what difference that makes. Apparently, I was gonna be sleeping in a pink bedroom and wearing dresses for the first two years of my life, how much more emotional damage would be done?

As luck would have it, my mom was reading a book at the time by a guy named Robert Murray McShane. I don’t know if the book was any good, but my mom liked it enough to name me after the author. So there I was, Robert Murray Valeriano.

But wait, why didn’t they call you Robert? You ask.

Well, I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. We didn’t move to New Jersey until I was older. A very southern thing to do is call your child by their middle name.

From day one, I was called Murray. Nobody ever referred to me as Robert. Actually, they didn’t refer to me as Murray either, they referred to me as the little boy in the dress.

But again, that's a story for another time.

Oscar Party

As a lot of you know my wife Mary worked on "No Country For Old Men." She is the costume designer for the Coen brothers… and mine if you think about it. My wardrobe tends to reflect whatever movie she's working on, because she buys me clothes when she’s out shopping for the movie. It was great when she was designing "No Country," because she bought me a lot of cool cowboy shirts… Man, did I dodge a bullet when she turned down "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert."

"No Country" won a bunch of Oscars this year including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Script. We were fortunate enough to be invited to the after party at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. For those of you who don't know, that's the place where John Belsushi died of a drug overdose, but they cleaned up since then.

Speaking of cleaning up, Mary looked hot in a sexy 70's number and I looked pretty good myself. No tuxedo, but a black Hugo Boss suit with a pocket square… suit provided by Mary – another purchase while working on a movie with a bunch of guys in suits.

A lot of the winners showed up at the party. Joel and Ethan Coen, Tilda Swinton and the guy who won for Best Documentary – about an Afghan taxi driver beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base – Man could that guy party!

Best Supporting actor, Javier Bardem rolled in with his entourage of Spaniards, who relentlessly hit on everything in a dress. They moved from one unsuspecting victim to another. It was like watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I don't know how many women made it out of there alive.

The highlight of the evening was Javier standing on the end of the bar drunk and singing the Rolling Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil" into his Oscar statue. Given the circumstances, I would have done the same, but I probably would have chosen "Brown Sugar."

Sadly, we're not a picture taking family. Mary and I went to Hawaii together and the only picture I took was of Mary throwing up off the side of a catamaran. But if you look close, in the background, you can see a small part of the Na Pali Coast… it's really beautiful.

So we don't have any pictures of the night.

Well, I have one.

I made my friend Jess take it. It's of me and Diane Lane. Diane Lane is older than I am, but I somehow look like I could be her father. I'm looking into botox this week.



And you can see my pocket square.

What you can't see is my fourteenth vodka and cranberry that I'm holding out of frame. Which is how I got the nerve to ask Diane for a picture in the fist place.

In one drunken breath:

"Hey Diane, I'm Murray. Mary and I had a barbeque in Sante Fe. You came. Smile."

CLICK.

She still has no idea who I am.

If you haven't seen "No Country For Old Men" I highly recommend it. I'm glad it won, because it really is the best picture of last year... And if they didn't make it, Mary would have had to take another movie and I could be writing this blog dressed like a fifteen year old pregnant girl.

Spelling

"How can I respect any man who can find only one spelling for a word."

Mark Twane

November's Overbite of the Month

It takes a certain kind of man to get up in front of thousands of people wearing only tight leather pants, red suspenders and high heels. What kind of man is that?

A gay man.

As the lead singer of Queen, Freddy Mercury was one of the greatest front-men to ever grace the rock and roll stage. He brought a theatrical, Broadway-like style to the often one dimensional genre of Rock. Sadly, Freddy died in November of 1991 due to complications from AIDS. What's even more sad is, every member of REO Speedwagon are alive and healthy and touring the State Fair circuit as we speak...

...There is no rock and roll god.

Queen is arguably one of the greatest Rock and Roll bands ever. Their set at the 1985 Live Aid Concert has been voted the Best Live Performance Ever. You can watch it on the link above. I think the stand out song is "Radio Ga Ga." Freddy laments the death of radio in the new age of video - while the fans raise their hands and clap along so precisely you might as well be watching, well, the video.

But, to this blogger/Ambassador of the Overbite, I think Freddy Mercury and Queen's greatest achievement is seen every week in the overly testosteroned world of professional sports. I love the fact that high fiving, face-painted, homophobic douche-bags taunt their rival teams by chanting "We will, we will Rock you!" And, if said team manages to pull off a victory, the same heterosexual men hug and sing "We Are the Champions." Both are words and music written and sung by a man who sites one of his greatest influences as Liza Minnelli.

The whole patting each other on the ass and group shower after a game kinda makes a little more sense.

On November 23, 1991, Freddy released a statement saying that the rumors were true and that he had tested positive for HIV. On November 24, Freddy died. It's a shame, he was a great talent.

And he had an awesome overbite.

My Web Designer Is Stalking Me...

At first it was like any other business relationship. We worked together and got along great. Sure we butted heads once in a while over the structure of my website, but that's to be expected. And then when the site was finished, I wrote her a check and said goodbye. I thought I would never hear from her again...

Boy, was I wrong.

As part of our deal, she designed the website so I would have an easy time updating it. Which is great, because I'm not good at that stuff. Now, I can update and change the website when I want - which I have been planning to do, but I have been really busy and haven't gotten around to it.

At first I got a call here and there saying, "Oh, I see you haven't updated your site. Are you having problems with it? Let me know and I will help." I thought that was really sweet of her. After all, she didn't have to check up on it, her job was done.

But it wasn't sweet at all. The calls got more frequent.

"Hey, what's the deal? I see you still haven't updated your site. What's the matter?"

"Do you think you can just ignore it and not pay any attention to it? You don't care about it, you never cared about it. The only thing you care about is yourself!"

I tried to explain to her that I have been working and that I would be off soon and start updating it... But she wasn't hearing any of that.

"This is ridiculous! I'm gonna take your website down! I know the passwords. I can do it! Try and stop me! I'm serious, try and stop me! The others tried to stop me, they couldn't! And you won't either!

I pleaded with her. I said I would update it. Everything: my stand up dates, my resume, my podcast. I even promised her that I would start blogging on a regular basis.

"Blogging? Really?"

I assured her that I would even start blogging.

And then she held the tears back the best that she could...

"Really? You promise? I'm sorry. I don't know why I get like this sometimes... I just care so much you know? It's hard for me to let go and just walk away like nothing ever happened."

I told her that it wasn't her and that it was all me. I wasn't ready for the kind of commitment that this would take and that I should have known better. I apologized again and told her I was gonna try harder.

We hung up the phone.

That was the last that I've heard from her. I figure as long as I keep my site up to date I don't think I should have any more problems from her.

Uh... Wait.

I think I just saw her drive past my window.