Simon Doonan - Have Glue Gun, Will Travel

 

I suffer from a very strange affliction. I would best describe it as a total lack of credibility. [audience chuckle] No one believes anything out of my mouth. Everything is greeted with an, “Are you sure you heard right?” or “We’ll see about that.” No one believes anything I say. If I wade into serious territory, Ebola, global conflict, climate change, people just start shrieking with laughter and they assume I’m telling jokes. [audience chuckle] My gravitas is totally missing. [audience chuckle] 

 

I have only myself to blame for this problem. It’s all self-inflicted. Four decades ago, I decided to become a window dresser. Yes. Those people that you see scampering around in store windows, up ladders with glue guns, making giant poodles out of feather dusters and [chuckles] dressing mannequins in freaky outfits and making wigs out of twigs and macaroni? I became one of those people four decades ago. I threw myself into it, and I became a famous window dresser, dressing the windows at Barneys and winning awards. I loved it. 

 

It’s one of the most fluffy, ephemeral professions. It’s right up there with being a fluffer in a strip club or [audience laughter] being a ventriloquist or ventriloquist dummy. [audience laughter] It’s like a total joke profession. [audience laughter] So, 2017, I had put down the glue gun. I’d moved away from the glue gun. I had retired. I was looking down the barrel of 65. My mailbox was jammed with AARP brochures. I could hear this clinking sound in my mind and I thought, is that my dentures in a glass [audience chuckle] or is that a cocktail on a patio in Boca Raton? [audience laughter] So, retirement was beckoning. 

 

And the phone rang. The voice on the other end, out of the blue, informed me that I was being considered for a network television show where I would play the role of expert judge, a crafting competition show starring Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. I was going to be auditioning for the role of expert judge. I called my husband Johnny at work, and I said, “Johnny, I’m auditioning for a network television show.” And he said, “Are you sure you heard right?” [audience laughter] That lack of credibility extended to my home life, [audience chuckle] and in addition to which, Jonathan and I have a very a relationship that’s based upon teasing and pranking and practical jokes. I mean, whoopee cushions, everything. We just have a very teasey kind of relationship. 

 

So, I went for my first audition. I did my best to appear bubbly and vivacious and lively and youthful. And they called me back. And then, I was another callback and another callback. And friends and family were anxious to manage my expectations. It is a network show and they are probably meeting with a lot of people. Even my agent was managing my expectations, “We’ll see how this works out.” They didn’t realize that my expectations were already low, low, low [audience chuckle]way down, because who was going to hire me to be an expert judge with my staggering lack of credibility? [audience chuckle] 

 

Over breakfast, Johnny made an astonishing announcement. He said, “Oh, by the way, I got a call yesterday. They want me to come and audition for the expert judge role in Making It.” “Great.” I realized instantly that Johnny had become the front runner. He is, after all, a master craftsman. He makes ceramics and has done so all his life. I, on the other hand, spent my life making penguins out of papier-mâché and throwing glitter at them [audience laughter] and making giant spiders out of discarded pantyhose. [audience laughter] So, I was a carny, and he was the one with all the crafting cred. I thought, nah, he’s going to get it. 

 

In addition to which, Johnny had also previously played an expert judging role on a competition show called Top Design, where he had famously dismissed contestants with the phrase, “See you later, Decorator.” [audience laughter] So, Johnny was a shoe-in, a shoe-in. So, I took on an earnest kind of support role, helping him with his audition outfits and helping him workshops, some little catchphrases. I became Max the chauffeur to his Norma Desmond. [audience chuckle] I became like Mamacita to his Joan Crawford, just trying to be helpful. Then the call came. I got the part. [audience cheer and applause]

 

I rushed outside to tell Johnny. He was outside acquiring a light suntan in preparation for his on-screen performances. [audience laughter] He rose from his sunbed. I said, “Johnny, I got the part.” He said, “Of course. Are you sure you heard right?” [audience laughter] After we got past that, he looked at me through his glamorous Hollywood Ray-Bans and he said, “You’re having a comeback. I’m very happy for you.” [audience laughter] I found this eerie magnanimity. This magnanimity was kind of sinister. I mean, I didn’t trust him. Was he planning some dreadful revenge? Like, how long before the toaster accidentally fell in the bath? Or, he tossed ball bearings on the stairs just as I’m about to descend to greet guests? [audience chuckle] 

 

So, everything went into fast forward at that moment. We had to sign non-disclosure agreements. It was all very hush, hush. And oh, yes, in addition to my concerns about revenge, I also started to have real concerns about the show itself. Like, suddenly, my lack of credibility was going to be unfurled on national television. [audience chuckle] And what if my lack of credibility, and I was playing the role of expert judge, was going to undermine the premise of the whole show? Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler would be just furious at me, because I undermined, torpedoed the whole venture. So, I had other concerns in addition to the revenge from Jonathan. But everything, as I say, went into fast forward and non-disclosure agreements were signed and I flew off to Malibu to do the filming for a month. 

 

The first day, contestants were challenged to make a spirit animal of themselves. [audience chuckle] One young lady made this bulbous fluffy bunny out of mysterious fibers with big googly eyes, and another young lady made this unicorn, a glamrock Ziggy Stardust unicorn out of glitter and fluorescent paper, and then one young man made a pig, this grotesque looking pig out of felt, which had a mullet hairdo, [audience chuckle] a pig with a mullet. I looked at these and I thought, these are my people. [audience laughter] I’m back amongst my people. It was like being back in the windows at Barney’s. I felt so at home. 

 

Not only that, when I started to deliver my critiques, I was actually believed. Not only was I believed, but they were hanging on my every word. I realized when it comes to making giant spiders out of pantyhose, no one has more credibility than me. [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

So, a month of this glorious sensation, and affirmation and before long I found myself flying back to New York, drenched in this new feeling, this exhilaration from finally being believed. When I got back to New York, friends and family came to greet me warmly, “How are you doing?” And I said, “Great. I can’t wait to go back and do it again.” And they said, “Do it again? Why do you want to go to rehab again? You want to go back to rehab?” I realized Jonathan had told everyone that I was in rehab. [audience laughter] When confronted, he was unapologetic. He was like, “Meh, Malibu a month, passages, promises. I didn’t know what else to tell them. We weren’t supposed to talk about the show.” [audience laughter] 

 

To this day, there are people in my orbit who are convinced, who will never not believe that I was not in rehab. [audience laughter] But I don’t care, because I realized that Making It, this show, was a reward for all those years, those decades in the window dressing trenches, a reward for all those glue gun burns [audience chuckle] and all those late-night installations. It was like a Congressional Medal of Honor for window dressers. [audience laughter] I realized that the God of careers had smiled upon me. Thou shalt have fun in thy career for decades, but thou shalt not be taken seriously in the wider world. And I realized that was a pretty good trade off. And haven’t all the most glamorous celebrities been to rehab? Mm-hmm.