From my cabaret act when I was 26 years old-- never was enought to sustain my lifestyle but I had some audiences and clapping and very few boos etc.

The multi genre star.


Hello all and Happy, Happy, holidays to you.

I have struggled so long to get this show through.

It ain’t easy being an improving multi genre performer,
Baby
The club owners say I’ve got to find a niche
I say aint no fame a bitch
That’s a nod to my dear A.J Benza
My dear, Frendza .


Growing up in Flushing, Queens, they said that performers were fruits.

I went, actually I escaped, Arggggg, to the big Apple. (Take out apple from pocket and take a big histrionic bite)
I was going to sink these baby whites (smile) into it, even if it killed me in the process.
And gang, it nearly did. I was hooked on the grand life. I took some improv workshops, some movement classes, the whole shabang
Now I am here and its really swell, gang
Tap class: I was pretty good, fast on these light, Barney loafers. Hey and for those of you from (cough, cough) outta town, that’s the exclusive department store not the big Purple children’s dinosaur or whatever.
I am openly gay, by the way. Did you here that Robbie is here to stay. And baby, baby, Robbie is gaaaaaaaay.
I prayed to Judy, got laid with Billy Stritch,
I shot up heroin, prayed to Jesus, hugged my Teddy uh Bear.
And I am still here.
I ran into Whoopee Goldberg at the Met, Brava, she hates AIDS about as much as I do. She was with Celeste Holm (get on floor and do bowing thing) and her dog, her pet
She sat me down and said: It's a tough business, it’s got a lot of sharks in it.
Which reminded this old geezer of that song from Jaws, tries to provoke a sing a long to the Jaws theme—Da DA DA DA DA. Da Da … which started my long-term love of music. John Williams, a dear friend wh has might have since passed away, composed that song.
He told me
“ Don’t let the big fish, eat ya live,
Give them tuneful music, give them jive, use what you learned in Improv class and you will never take the dive, boy”
He isn’t openly gay, I don’t think.
Anyhow, the long trek outta Queens everyday on the Russian Train, I mean the R train with those who wouldn’t know improv or cabaret if it bit them on their size 18 asses. (Mock shame). Las Isla Manhattan, that’s where it was. Instead of émigrés with snow in their hear and greasy skin and those awful hairstyles, you know what I am talking about, people. C’mon you know you think it too.
There was Rockafella center, darlins. It felt that Santa with his roughed cheeks- regal and formidable manner was my daddy and that the reindeer were scratching at my Upper West Side adresses window -- rooting for me, singin,

Get out from the dung
Singin and wrung out
By the pressures you have brung about
Move to the only city
Life can only be pretty
In New Yawk City
Boy
I wasn’t in touch with my sexuality back then,
But unh, I make it my business to touch it every day
And it’s still here.
The little reindeers helped me come out.
Every one know that the reindeers are family. Have you seen Rudolph’s nose, it is lavender, baby.
I say or sing what I want no.
I am a performer and an improviser
I was just built this way, Hey don’t look at my tummy. I put on a lot of weight since I came out and since my Right wing Brother committed suicide.


(sings song with the Bon Jour twins)

Bon Jour twins, dear friends and brilliant lyricists. Blakely Mcall has a wonderful chapter on them in his new book “ Cystalline: lyricists as our new shamans” This seems real apropos to my coming out


Being fat ain’t all that

If you’re gonna be slim inside a closet
Then you are going to get a hanger in your eye
Ever so often
Better to be gay and fat than lying skinny in a coffin
So move away all you suits and sport jackets
This boy is steppin out, out, out and causin a racket
Ties and hats beware
Because I’m still here.

Well this is an odd story, I had to live in Astoria for awhile and there was a Greek man who made his living selling bread and cheese and whatnot. Hey, a man has got to do what a man has got to do. He sold me a big baguette one-day. It was pretty delicious, I must admit. This boy loves freshly baked bread.
It brought about this song deep down in here.

Why don’t water and bread do it?
Give me Zabars cake
Who woulda new it?
That this boy once so afraid
Would take Manhattan by storm
When he thumbed his finger at the “norm”
The Bronx, Brooklyn never had to greet you,
Queens, so long, was good to meet you
Yeah right.
Give me Gotham
Give me class
Give me the met
Give me the Mets,
Uh, I guess not
Thought that third baseman is pretty hot
Give me the home of Zagat's survey
Uh give me the Deegan expressway
No way, oy vay
Give me Whoooopeeeee
Shine on me Magic City
Shine your Tiffany lights on me
Zillions and zillions of them on this boy.

Thank you for coming. I have to attend a wake in about 45 minutes in Indiana, ugh. My right wing brother committed suicide.