Naked Pictures of Famous People

by Jon Stewart

  NAKED

  PICTURES

  OF

  FAMOUS

  PEOPLE

  This is a work of parody. Although reference is made to real persons and events, the dialogue, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only.

  Illustrations in "Da Vinci: The Lost Notebook" by Diane Dwyer

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by William Morrow and Company, Inc.

  NAKED PICTURES OF FAMOUS PEOPLE. Copyright © 1998 by Busboy Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1.0 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

  HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

  Reprinted in Perennial 2001.

  Designed by Leah S. Carlson

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Stewart, Jon.

  Naked pictures of famous people / Jon Stewart.—1st ed. p. cm.

  ISBN 0-688-15530-8 I. Title

  PN6162.S845 1998 98-38999

  814'.54—dc21

  ISBN 0-688-17162-I (pbk.)

  07 WBC / QW 30 29 28

  For my loves—Tracey, Stan, and Shamsky. No offense, Sportscenter.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The following people contributed love, inspiration, support, advice, therapy, friendship, research, money, criticism, pressure, name-calling, threats of physical violence or genetic material. The book could not have been completed without them, and yet, even with them, I still missed deadlines.

  Marian Leibowitz, Donald Leibowitz, Larry, Shelly, Benjamin and Abbey Leibowitz, Nathan Laskin, Bob and Mary Spiegel, James Dixon, Jimmy Miller, Lee Stollman, Jeff Garlin, Matt Labov, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, Adam Resnick, Michael Shore, Kyle Heller, Paul Nelson, Bobby Cohen, Michael Klein, Denis Leary, Diane Dwyer, Chris McShane, Jill Liederman and Dan Strone.

  Special mention of thanks to my editor, Rob Weisbach. Without his skilled and persistent knowledge I never would have developed gastrointestinal problems.

  Tracey, I cannot express how much your love and support have meant. All I can do is promise not to wake you at three in the morning to try.

  CONTENTS

  1. BREAKFAST AT KENNEDY'S

  2. A VERY HANSON CHRISTMAS, 1996-1999

  3. LACK OF POWER: THE FORD TAPES

  4. MARTHA STEWART'S VAGINA

  5. THE NEW JUDAISM

  6. PEN PALS

  7. LOCAL NEWS

  8. THE LAST SUPPER, OR THE DEAD WAITER

  9. DA VINCI: THE LOST NOTEBOOK

  10. THE CULT

  11. FIVE UNDER FIVE

  12. THE RECIPE

  13. THE DEVIL AND WILLIAM GATES

  14. VINCENT AND THEO ON AOL

  15. REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD

  16. ADOLF HITLER: THE LARRY KING INTERVIEW

  17. LENNY BRUCE: THE MAKING OF A SITCOM

  18. MICROSOFT WORD '98 SUGGESTED SPELLING AND USAGE

  BREAKFAST AT KENNEDY'S

  DURING THE SPRING of 1935 I had the good fortune of making as my close acquaintance none other than John F. (Jack) Kennedy. Jack and his roommate Lemoyne Billings (LeMoan, Jack would say with an impish grin) were sixth-formers at the prestigious boarding school Choate, where I was a struggling fourth-former. Jack was top dog at the school, much beloved for his lightning wit and easy way with the ladies, but one sensed a sadness about him. A sadness that came from being an outcast, the only Catholic at an all-Protestant boarding school. That's where Jack and I bonded. I was the only Jew. My father ran the commissary so I was allowed to attend school there. My room, or the Yeshiva, as Jack called it (he really wasn't prejudiced and would often defend me to the others as a "terrific yid"), was a meeting place and a hotbed for hatching great pranks ... I'm sure the ample supply of brisket and whitefish from Dad helped. Whatever it was, Jack and I bonded and that spring break he invited Lem and me to visit with his family in Hyannis. Lem, because he was Jack's best friend. "Big, ugly, retarded, chicken-shit Lem," Jack would winningly prod. And me—I guess because of our outcast bond ... and our similar views on family and politics ... and I had a car.

  I'm glad I kept this journal. I hope it gives the reader some sense of... not President Kennedy, not Camelot, but the happy-go-lucky boy we knew—Jack.

  APRIL 9, 1935

  Trip gets off to a rocky start. I argued terribly with Father over the use of the family's Hudson. It's our only car and my father felt he might need it to rush my younger brother to the doctor. He recently contracted a form of typhus and the hospital is a good ten miles from campus. The argument was quite heated. A "kikefight," Jack would expertly chide. Although my father forbade me to take the car, Jack showed me how to start it without the keys and off we went. Any ambivalent feelings I had were assuaged when Jack put his arm around me and said he admired my pluck. "The Zippy Zionist," he would say, smartly using alliteration.

  Hyannis is worth the trouble, though. I can't believe only one family lives here, but, oh, what a family. There must be hundreds of them. It's like a Catholic Oz. Mr. and Mrs. K weren't there to greet us, but I could've sworn I saw Ava Gardner in the back kitchen cleaning fish.

  I also experienced my first Kennedy family tradition!!! They tell me it's a welcoming ritual given to all first timers called a "clogging." Jack initiates the festivity with a high-pitched Gaelic cry and then the brood is on you. It's great fun, and although it appears young Bobby broke my nose with his knee and there are some bite marks on my kidneys from the girls, Dr. Salk said there is no internal bleeding. I hope not. Jack says there's a sailing race scheduled in the morning and I don't want to miss it.

  P.S. The place is so big I've been given virtually an entire wing of the house. Jack spontaneously dubbed it Dachau, and the whole gang joined in the fun, saying if I so much as wandered into their end of the compound I would be castrated.

  APRIL 10

  Whatta day!! Where to start?! Woken up at 6:30 A.M. by the maid, a beautiful woman who I swear looks just like Fay Wray but insisted I refer to her as "Number 3." Thought I was the first one up but it turns out I'd already missed the boat race as well as a bake off, boxing match and aeronautics seminar given by none other than Lindy himself. This crowd gets things done. Jack took one glance at my late arrival and keenly dubbed me "one lazy cock-sucker." Hearing the rib, Mr. K parried that he "could make a million dollars in the time it took me to take a shit!!" Algonquin, table for two, please!!

  One fly in today's whirlwind ointment: Apparently two Kennedy boys drowned during the sailing race: Phil, twelve, and Boris, eight. But Mrs. K gave birth while attending morning church services so everyone's considering the day a wash. (She went into labor during the sermon and had the baby in time for its first communion.) Jack says that's no great shakes. One time Mrs. K took a flight from New York to Miami, got pregnant during beverage service and had the baby before the dinner had been cleared. She's hearty!! The baby's name is Sean and Mr. K gave him to Lindy in appreciation for the exciting flights around Nantucket Bay. Smarts and generosity!!!

  Feel bad for three-year-old Teddy. Not only did he lose the boxing match and was forced to sit naked on a block of ice, but it appears his adult-like head is too large for his preschool body. As he walks, he takes to dragging his head on the ground behind him, like an exhausted Santa Claus with the last of his toys. Mr. K had
a training wheel apparatus constructed to keep Teddy's head aloft while he walks, but it appears to cause him some discomfort.

  I'm looking forward to tonight. Kitty Brookstone, Muffy Aldridge and Vagina Johnson are in town (one for each of us!) and Jack's throwing a costume ball. The theme is the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera and I'm going as a guy who goes to the opera. My costume's perfect, right down to the shoes!! Even little Teddy's got a date. He's got a thing going with an older woman (a six-year-old, har-har). He looked so cute as he went to pick her up on his chauffeured tricycle. Mothers, lock up your daughters!!!!

  Well, I better get crackin'. They say it's my turn to help put in the irrigation system for the south fields of the Hyannis compound. "Arbeiten sind Freiheit," says Mr. K. I want to be sure I have time to be done and cleaned up before dinner. Mrs. K is a stickler for tidiness and, although she doesn't eat or speak with the family, I'm told it's unwise to cross her rules.

  APRIL 11

  Oh well, you know what Steinbeck says about the best laid plans ... Apparently I missed quite an evening last night. Word is the costume party was a grand success and the ladies were every bit the temptresses. Of course positioning for their affections would have been useless, as they all fell quite hard for our boy Jack—who went as Harpo no less!!!! He bagged three luscious coeds without uttering a word. When I complimented him on the feat he retorted enchantingly, "What choice did they have? This grotesque, Neanderthal, shit stain, open sore of a man"—pointing to Lem—"or moi?" Lem and I laughed so hard we nearly choked.

  I hadn't been able to attend the party, after badly miscalculating the time needed for an irrigation project of that scope, as well as the temperament of my fellow workers. (Note: The Chinese are well mannered but don't care if in fact you do know the price of tea in their country or that Jewish families traditionally eat their foods every Christmas Eve.) I passed out before they could remove the pickax from beneath my shoulder blades, but I'm told very little structural damage was done. Although I did overhear some amazement at how so little a man could contain so much blood. Jack was kind enough to wander over to the infirmary to check on my condition. He kept the nursing staff in stitches by reaching into the wound and pretending to feel around for a watch he lost. It was a real picker upper!!

  Jack and Lem are just now leaving to get ready for tonight's Hyannis event, a costume ball with a New Deal theme. Lem's going as the Tennessee Valley Authority and Jack as a wheelchair. Mr. K is fixing all the boys Penicillin Martinis in expectation. Optimists all. All except young Bobby, who has been holding his hand over an open flame since Wednesday night as penance for incorrectly answering his father's query "Who is the finance minister of Japan?" Bobby thought Keisuko Okada when it is apparently Korekiyo Takahashi (Okada being prime minister). An innocent schoolboy mistake, but Bobby's quite hard on himself.

  One down note. The girl Teddy took out last night is missing and Teddy himself showed up only this morning, covered in seaweed and looking quite bedraggled. Teddy remembers drinking some fermented lemonade the night before and little else; meanwhile they continue to drag the bay looking for his tricycle (an antique from Florence, Italy!!).

  All is forgiven. Although Teddy was punished for missing the morning's whittling contest by having his head glued to a tugboat's hull as it made its morning rounds. P.S. Joe Jr. won the contest by whittling a life-size replica of Bruno Hauptmann in the electric chair ... out of soap ... AND IT WORKED!!! Rupert Kennedy, fourteen, was killed during the demonstration but Mrs. K gave birth to triplets at her afternoon canasta game. One of the triplets had webbed feet and was whisked away. I guess for some physical therapy. Mr. K joked that he wouldn't tolerate imperfection and put an exclamation point on the gag by punching Lem in the face.

  Oh well, that's all for now as my arm and back are throbbing a bit and I see my sponge bath has arrived. My nurse is a large man with sad eyes who bears an uncanny resemblance to Herbert Hoover but insists I call him "Pete." If I permit myself one complaint in an otherwise glorious stay... I've been here almost three days and have yet to have something to eat...

  APRIL 12

  (Editor's note: This entry is scrawled on a piece of dilapidated cardboard in what appears to be blood.)

  It is near midnight and I fear this may be my last entry—ever. I have committed a terrible transgression and if I am to die because of it, perhaps it is justified. If only I weren't so damned selfish. My injuries had left me in a somewhat weakened state and rather than tough it out, which is unfortunately not my nature (as Jack once aptly quipped at me while delivering a winning address in front of the student body, "Shut up, you big pussy!"), I went in search of food. Unwilling to abandon a search that had given no yield, I entered an area of the house which was obviously not meant for guests. It was a darkened bunker beneath the stairs leading up to the servants' quarters. Having lifted the heavy metal lever locking the doors and setting in motion the large mechanical winch which keeps them closed (no easy task with only one good arm), I ventured in, doors creaking closed behind me. What I see now is a nightmare appealing only to the most hardened Coney Island carny. A huddled mass of moaning and dilapidated "humanity." To my left vicious Siamese twins nip at my clothes; an elephant man with a demonic Irish twinkle in his eye bellows in my face; and on my right a corpulent mass with what appears to be an ass for a face threatens to drown me in its secretions. Incredibly, these ghouls all angrily claim to be full-blooded members of the family living upon these luxurious grounds, the Kennedys. They don't recognize the dementia of this statement or Mr. K's charity in assuming their custody. Although there are a few lost souls here whose only deformity appears to be a receding hairline, lazy eye or perhaps a weak chin, I think it best not to challenge their assertion as it appears to antagonize them. I must go. I'll need my good arm to deflect the attention of three approaching dwarf-like lobster people who, with agitated movement of their fins, have taken a sudden interest in my activities... Please tell my fami—

  APRIL 18

  HALLELUJAH!!! Salvation is mine. This morning the doors creaked open and a bald German man who claimed to be the director Erich von Stroheim, but is obviously just a man Friday for the Kennedys, came to caretake the ward. I was able to sneak past him, as the powerful fire-hose he was wielding proved a convenient distraction. Further good news. One of the servants had mistakenly placed the unfortunate webbed triplet in with the bunker miscreants. In the confusion of my escape I was able to wrest her from the smothering attention of an eight-breasted wolf woman.

  Blessings to Mr. K. He is willing to not involve the authorities in my careless trespassing in exchange for my father's company. He even gave me the little pixie I pulled from the hellish pit that almost claimed my life. I am hoping the introduction of this little cherub will ease the blow of my younger brother's passing. He died on mile seven of the ten-mile walk to the hospital.

  Back at school now, where Lem and Jack made quite a fuss over my return. Understandably fearing the worst, Jack had sold my possessions and bought shoes with the proceeds. He had planned on including them in a time capsule to memorialize me. My eyes fill just thinking about it.

  I'm still a bit tired and there has been a bit of damage done to my appendages (the incessant gnawing of my recent company) but doctors say it's nothing sulfur treatments and some long-sleeved shirts and knickers won't hide. Jack caught sight of the damage and bewitchingly dubbed me "the kosher hors d'oeuvre." It's been a helluva vacation. Here's to Palm Beach in winter!!! I can't wait!!!

  A VERY HANSON CHRISTMAS, 1996-1999

  December 15, 1996

  HEY Y'ALL!

  Greetings and happy tidings to all, in this the beautiful season to celebrate the Savior's birth. The tree is up and the Christmas Ham is awaiting my apricot glaze, so once again it's time to check in for our yearly Hanson Family update. A promise from the heart to keep this year's newsletter as brief as possible (I hear you sighing, Uncle Jack! Just kidding, I can't hear you!). It's hard to believe
that a year has passed since my last correspondence. Time sure flies when Jesus is flying the plane! It's a crisp afternoon here in Sooner Country. Gary and the boys are off hunting snow rabbits so the girls and I broke out the old Smith-Corona to fill everyone in. Don't worry, Peg, there's a Pumpkin Pie waiting for my men when they return—hopefully with a fresh kill.

  We're awaiting a wonderful Christmas. As is our family tradition, no gifts are exchanged but all the children will prepare a drawing, poem or play. This year's theme is Genesis. The girls are painting a beautiful mural of God's creation of man, using only the juices of fruit they grew themselves. Isaac and Taylor are preparing a heartwarming skit on the Garden of Eden (Taylor makes a beautifully innocent Eve) and little Zach, well, let's just say shouting "Let there be light" and Clapping the Clapper on and off doesn't show great inspiration. It doesn't matter. We love all our children equally, and still believe greatly in last year's Christmas theme, "Abortion Is Murder."

  Some Hanson Highlights: Gary's working on a book about our methods of teaching the children called All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, at Home with My. Parents, Who Taught Me Better Than Any Government-Run Public School That Denies Prayer Could. The girls once again won the yearly Hanson Home School Science Fair, They devised a method for testing the bacterial content of foods using only Litmus Paper, Paper Clips and a homemade Centrifuge. These girls are going places! The boys did well too. They built a mobile depicting the fallacy of evolution. As for Zach, well, let's just say sneaking something into our dinner and waiting to see if anyone would eat it and become ill didn't impress these judges. But we love all our children equally and hope one day Zach will tell us what it was, and why I can no longer hold down solid foods.