Look, what are we doing here?  I’m supposed to be wishing you a happy birthday?  Why?  You’ve turned 90—big fucking deal.  See that’s the problem, people turn 90, they think they deserve a big fucking party.  They want a goddamn medal like they’ve just split the atom.  But do you know what, Dad, father of mine, Bernard, you prick, do you know what?  Ten million other fucking people have already split the atom, and you ain’t the first person to turn 90.  But you’ve always been a follower, a company man.  Toe the line, everything falls into place, am I right?  The only language you speak is nine to five and a pension.  I have been brought here to tell you to fuck that.  You want your goddamn medal?  Live, Bernie boy.  Screw a black chick, sniff out an opium den, strap on a many-colored parachute and jump out a fucking plane.  You don’t think you can do that, you bitch about your hips?  Your hips are weak?  Your fucking hips are weak?  Guess what—you’re weak.  Love to Mom.

The following is excerpted from Jack Albertson’s out-of-print 1975 memoir, Not Your Average Grandpa Joe.

Time was you could kill a drifter and nobody’d bother you.  From the years 1925 to 1927, when I was living on the IRT in winter and Central Park in the summer, I subsisted entirely on hobo meat.  We had a saying: “Nothing’s as sweet as hobo meat.”  And that’s the God’s honest truth.  Even when I was flush later on, in those Dancing Verselle Sisters days, I would still occasionally steal off to Central Park and under the cloak of darkness I’d kill and flambé some baseborn hobo.

Reader, I’ll let you in on a little Hollywood gossip—and this should really tickle the bobby soxers out there!  How many of you know that Martin Sheen, leading man of screen and stage, is not only a xenophobic, pugnacious tippler, but he also induldges in the hobo meat?  That’s right!  I could hardly believe it myself.  During rehearsals for The Subject Was Roses, Mr. Sheen came up to me and whispered in my ear, “Sally Boy”—for reasons unknown, that’s what he took to calling me—”Sally Boy, I hear you flambé a mean hobo.”  I told him those days were behind me, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and one Friday night we set off to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.  When we encountered a hobo we chloroformed him, dragged him behind a bush, and slit his neck. Then Mr. Sheen fired up a portable grill and produced a bottle of cognac.  Reader, we dined like kings.

Ah, the salad days!

Sometimes, I’ve noticed, he wakes up in the morning with balled fists.

Other times he wakes up looking like a still from an Italian neorealism movie.  “You look like Lamberto Maggiorani,” I say when he opens his eyes.  “I feel like him sometimes,” he says, letting the morning sun caress his face like the time I caressed his face a few mornings ago.  “Caress me,” he says.  But when I go to caress him he turns away, sits up, and reaches for his cigarettes.  His back to me, he lights a cigarette and coughs like a crosstown bus.  I press my ear to the small of his back.  Sometimes I think I can hear his blood moving, can feel it moving, slowly, the exact same speed as my very own blood.  “What’s wrong?” I ask in a sweet voice.  “Nothing,” he says, “I just worry that when your book comes out you’ll forget all about me and my Italian neorealist face—you being the voice of our generation and all.”  He’s never wounded like this, he’s always so confident and stoic.  He usually caresses his masculinity.  “Of course I won’t forget you,” I say to him, kissing him on the back of the neck.  “I need you for material,” I add.  He laughs.  “I’m serious,” I say, and he looks into my eyes.  We’re terrified and we both start crying.  “It’s hard being so important,” I confess between sobs, and he squeezes me into his chisled chest, which is much nicer than my pathetic ex-boyfriend’s.  He doesn’t say anything more, but I know what he’s thinking, and I almost add, “It’s hard being omniscient too.”  He finishes his cigarette and says it’s time for wrestling practice.  Then he disappears into the dark hallway like a person turning into a ghost because it’s dark in the hallway.  And I’m sad, because you can’t see ghosts—no matter how hard you try, you just can’t.

Well did I tell you about when Maya spilled the tomato juice? Oh my, you’ll love this. You know my friend Maya, she’s the cute little blonde girl who wears those bejeweled capris. Yes, I do know her from episode 32 of How I Met Your Mother, titled “Single Stamina,” in which Barney invites his gay, black brother James, played by me, to “liven” up the gang’s life since everyone else has been “coupled” off and Barney is alone, and I am an exact duplicate of Barney, except gay, and it’s soon revealed that I am going to marry my partner Tom. That’s exactly right, how did you remember that?

Well anyway, Maya and I were in my trailer macraméing a Thanksgiving sweater. I know, I love Thanksgiving sweaters too! So Maya and I were drinking tomato juice and Maya set hers down on the coffee table. I said to her, “Careful, Maya, that’s real close to the edge!” and she went, “Wayne, don’t be such a nervous Wayney!” I just rolled my eyes and went on macraméing. Oh, such macraméing you’ve never seen! My sweater had an owl and a dreamcatcher! We were just drinking our tomato juice and listening to Jodi Picoult audiobooks and macraméing the night away! And guess what! Maya spilled her tomato juice on my sweater because she’d left her glass too close to the edge of the table, just like I’d warned! I was sad but then I had to do my scene and I was still sad but now I’m okay. I can’t drink tomato juice anymore but I can still macramé like my job is someone who macremés great sweaters.

My father lives in my garage. It’s not weird. It’s not. From my understanding, plenty of parents live next to their kids’ cars. I don’t mind. Though one time I got sort of pissed at him. My best friend John Mahoney was over. Dad has trouble understanding that when people do something onscreen they aren’t doing it in real life. When I was banging Ali MacGraw—I really like old people—Dad got very confused because he thought she died in Love Story. I had to explain. So when I took John out to the garage to show him my new Alfa Romeo, Dad was in there curing some venison. He hunts with a crossbow. When he saw John he just flipped out. “Get that crook out of here!” You know? “Fraud! Fraud!” He thought John was stealing money from the nursing home because he’d just watched Say Anything. Dad threw a piece of venison at John. John’s glasses got smashed. It was terrifying and now John doesn’t answer my calls. I miss John. There are good days and bad. But I like having Dad in the garage. It’s not weird. It’s not.

Hooooooly shit where did you get this it’s good stuff huh actually it’s amazing when I was in Paper Moon Randy Quaid was toooootally there the whole time like he was just hanging out and he was doing this stuff and I was like Wow when I grow up I wanna be just like Randy Quaid like what did you say about Love Story did someone just say Love Story my dad loved that movie he was in it and everything so if you want I will totally call my guy okay i’m calling okay he’s not answering he usually comes around in a pizza van with this Gregorian chant music and you drive around the block so okay if he doesn’t call me back in like five minutes I’ll just go down to Clinton and get some I wish the pizza van guy with the Gregorian chant music would answer already it’s been like ten minutes okay three whatever i’ll just go to Clinton and be like Yo homeless guy you got any stuff I was in Basquiat were you in Basquiat did you go Yo duckman can i get two ducks man and he’ll be like Whoa you were in Basquiat you must be doing some research okay fine take this stuff it’s good stuff damn I wish the guy in the pizza van with the Gregorian chant music would just call me baaaaaack fuck it I’m going!

After I saw Balaban do that thing with the spur-winged goose I puked into my turtleneck. I was totally blown away. It reminded me of that Steve Coogan thing. That was on Sideways. One night Coogan dropped by with a jug of the moonshine and Alex Payne challenged Tom Church to a little drinking contest. Well, you can imagine—after round two Payne fell over onto his back like a dog, with all his limbs straight up in the air. Then Coogan stepped in and went ten rounds with Church. They got totally plastered and went over to Jim Taylor, who was playing poker with the grips, and they just beat the ever-loving daylights out of him. Jim was crying but he looked sort of happy too. I didn’t get it. I puked in my turleneck.

I need to make any situation an extremely sexual one. That’s sort of what I’m known for. On the set of Lady in the Water I said, “Let’s make my role more sexual,” and it was so. There’s a scene, I think it ended up on the cutting room floor, where Henry, my character, does an extremely naughty thing with Jeffrey Wright and an ailing spur-winged goose. I won’t be so indiscreet as to go into details, but let’s just say M. Night Shyamalan wept for the best part of an hour. Whether they were tears of joy or of horror, that wasn’t quite clear. They might have been tears of discovery: I didn’t know that sort of thing was possible with a spur-winged goose either. With a Hartlaub’s duck, of course, or a ruddy shelduck, fine, but with a spur-winged…I just need to make any situation extremely sexual.

A couple of years ago Henry bought me a raspberry clafoutis from this little bakery in Greenpoint. He was over at his friend Fernando’s apartment watching “Project Gayway” and he’d left the clafoutis next to my laptop with a note that said, “Here’s a raspberry clafoutis for my little Strawberry Clafoutis.” (Strawberry Clafoutis was one of his nicknames for me—a year later he would endearingly call me Sour Cherry Strudel, two months later I was Blueberry Flognarde, and then until the end I was always Danish Remoulade with Capers.)

I was touched by Henry’s thoughtfulness and I smiled as I ripped into the raspberry clafoutis. But it was dry and tasted oddly like kielbasa—nothing like the clafoutis from Balthazar. How could I tell Henry that his gesture, while sweet, left a bad taste in my mouth? I decided to call Ruth, who advised me to tell Henry that I loved the clafoutis. So when Henry came home, that’s exactly what I did: I said, “Henry, it was a wonderful clafoutis.” Henry smiled and said, “I’m glad you liked it—mine tasted a little bit like kielbasa.”

After Henry fell asleep that night I crept over to my computer and posted on Emily Magazine. I cried as I wrote about the clafoutis, and how I’d lied to Henry about liking it, and how being dishonest could ruin a relationship. In the morning I knew he’d read it along with hundreds of other people. But I didn’t care. My relationship with Henry was important but not as important as letting people know about it.

All right kids, you cornered me. Happy with yourselves? Man can’t buy a pantry pack of marshmallow Fluff without the whole damn media goin’ apey. I ’spose you wanna ask me about that Stephen Root sex tape been floatin’ around the World Wide. Well folks, I’m not gonna talk about it. No siree. Not gonna. I’m sure as hell not gonna talk about the Inverted Assayer, that filthy…act Ms. Lewis invented—gee whiz, what that woman can do with a jar of Fluff and a freckled duck is pure poetry. Mind-blowing. I mean, the logistics of it are just…anyway folks, sorry, ain’t gonna talk about that today. If you’ll excuse me please I’m off to the duck pond.