THE VODKA AD
Let me start at the very beginning. I did a vodka ad, that's the first important thing. A big vodka company wanted to do a prestige ad, and they wanted to get Noël Coward originally for it. He was not available, he had aquired the rights to My Fair Lady, and he was removing the music and lyrics, make it back into Pygmalion. They tried to get Laurence Olivier, and Howdy [Mokey?] - they finally got me to do it. I'll tell you how they got my name, it was on a list in Eichmann's pocket, when they picked him up. And I'm sitting home, and I'm watching television. I'm wathcing a special version of Peter Pan on television, starring Kate Smith, and they are having trouble flying her, 'cause the chains keep breaking all the time, y'know. And the phone rings and a voice on the other end says "How would you like to be this years vodka man?", and I say "No. I'm an artist, I do not do commercials. I don't pander. I don't drink vodka and if I did, I would not drink your product." He said "Too bad. It pays fifty thousand dollars." and I said "Hold on. I'll put Mr. Allen on the phone."
And I was caught here in an ethical crisis. Should I advertise a product that I don't actually use? It's a problem 'cause I'm not a drinker, my body won't tolerate...eh...spirits, really. I had two martinis new years eve and I tried to hi-jack an elevator and fly it to Cuba. In the past whenever I had any sort of...eh...emotional problem, I used to consult with my analyst all the time. This is public knowledge, I was in analysis for years, 'cause of a traumatic childhood I had. Remember I was breastfed from falsies. It scarred me emotionally, y'know. I was in a strict freudian analysis for a long time. My analyst died two years ago, and I never realized it, and now, whenever I have any sort of problem, I consult with my spiritual counselor, who in my case is my rabbi. I called him on the phone and laid the proposition on him, and he said "Don't do it, 'cause it's illegal and immoral to advertise a product that you don't use, just for the money." And I said "Okay", and I passed the ad up and I must say, that it took great courage at the time, 'cause I needed the money, I was writing and I needed to be free, creative. I was working on a non-fiction version of the Warren report.
I'd just passed the ad up and a month later I'm leafing through a Life magazine, and I see a photograph of Monique van Vooren in a slim bikini bathing suit, and she is on the beach in Jamaica, and there, next to her, with a cool vodka in his hand, is my rabbi. So I call him up on the phone, y'know, and he puts me on hold. What happened is, that he wanted to go into showbusiness - he had done a late night prayer on television. He was in the middle of the twentythird song and he tried to ad-lib, y'know, tried to name the ten commandments, couldn't think of them quickly and instead he named the Seven Dwarfs. He's got a discoteque now in his college, with topless rabbis, y'know, no scullcap on.
Vegas
I addition to my vodka ad, I also played Las Vegas for the first time. Y'see I'm not a gambler, you should know that about me. I went to the racetrack once in my life and I bet on a horse called Battle Gun, and when all the horses come out, mine is the only horse in the race with training wheels. You have to believe me when I say, that there is something seductive about me, when I shoot crap. And I'm at the crap table, I'm...dicing. A very provocative woman comes up to me, and she begins to...size me up...and I take her upstairs to my hotel room. Shut the door. Remove my glasses. Show her no mercy. I unbutton my shirt, and she unbuttons her shirt. And I smile. She smiles. I remove my shirt and she removes her shirt. And I wink and she winks. And I remove my pants. She removes her pants. And I realize I'm looking into a mirror.
