Name Recognition

This is quite possibly my favorite story all year... Josh Perlman is a comic friend of mine from Chicago, now in L.A.. He was in Vegas at the bar in the Rio hotel where he stumbled upon a hooker, as one is prone to do in that city. He strikes up conversation and, I’m betting, rambled aimlessly until she finally tried to close the deal.

She told him it would be two hundred dollars if he wanted her to come up to his room and “dance” for him. He said that he didn’t want someone to “just dance and asked specifically what he’d get for his money. She paused suspiciously and then asked “Are you a cop?”. He said “No, I’m a comic”. She said “Really? Do you know Doug Stanhope?”

It turns out that it was the ex-wife of a long time friend from Massachusetts. I was the best man at their wedding. I had sex with her shortly after their divorce and it was disappointing for free. I can’t imagine the shame of the man that pays for it but, then again, I guess I can.

I remember she talked all through it, in a bland monotone as though she was reading copy of a seedy porn flick. “ Oh ya, fuck that pussy, baby. Make that big hard cock come for me.” It was embarrassing mostly because we were friends and I’d never be able to look at her the same way again. She ended up telling Josh that it would cost $500 to bone her, adding that he needed to “make up your pretty soon, because I have to pick up my boyfriend at the dentist.”, a selling technique unprecedented in the field of prostitution. I’m assuming that since Josh can rarely buy his own beer, he probably didn’t fork over 500 clams, even with those high pressure sales methods. And although I’m not by any means a household name, it’s good to know I’ve got a following in the hooker community.