A View From a Broad by Bette Midler

foreboding and advice. But such was not to be. Perhaps it was the aroma of rotting cod wafting up from the Fish and Chips shop below, or the fact that such a large part of the populace was considerate enough to speak in English. Whatever the reasons, if London contained any failures of the human spirit, Miss Frank forgave them all and flourished like a rose in Paddington.
    How I hated to leave the town where things—on the whole—had gone so well for me. But as it often does just when I’m enjoying myself, Duty called, and before I even had a chance to say But-isn’t-Brighton-in-Brooklyn? I was packed again and wending my way south toward the rocky shores of the English Channel.

• BRIGHTON •

A nd now, Ladies and Germs, would you please give a rousing welcome to three prime examples of why drugs are not the answer. Just back from the Brighton Pier, where they are one of the rides, please say hello to the Staggering Harlettes!!!!!



“It’s the best . . .”
    — Sir Walter Raleigh

    Q UEEN A RMS H OTEL
    LONDON SW 14 ENGLAND
    Dear Peter:
    Darling, don’t worry about the car. At least you didn’t kill anyone! You know how they drive. If you live in Beverly Hills they don’t put blinkers in your car. They figure if you’re that rich you don’t have to tell people where you’re going. It’s not driving anymore, honey, it’s primal therapy. In the three years we’ve been together in that land of billboards and burritos I haven’t honked my horn once—I just stick my head out the window and scream.
    I received your letters in Lund. I’m still not sure where it is. Do you think in years to come when people in show business want to know the mettle of their material they’ll ask, “Yes, but will it play in Lund?” Lund, my god. “Friends, Romans, and Countrymen—Lund me your ears.”
    There! You see what’s happening to me? With Virtue guarding my mind, and Miss Frank guarding my door, I miss you more than ever.
    Your everlovin’
sometimes blondie

• CHOPPED HERRING •
    “I eat, therefore I am . . .”
    DIVINE REVELATIONS, Chapter 1: Verse 1

• CHOPPED HERRING •
    N ana was just about to receive the “Golden Fly” award when Flight 54 nose-dived through the clouds and suddenly there was Sweden. My first impression was that the pilot had defected to the East and we were about to land in Siberia. Every city girl’s vision of ultimate wilderness lay spread out below me: nothing but row upon row of the darkest, most perfectly triangular pines marching relentlessly off to the horizon, their green undulations broken here and there by small black lakes and racing rivers. Not a road, not a farm, not even a Howard Johnson’s to indicate that man had ever been there or ever planned to be. It was beautiful but disturbing, for as we headed down for a landing I couldn’t help wondering where the six thousand people I was supposed to play for that night were going to come from. Still, this was my Arrival on the Continent, and I refused to allow the fact that we seemed to be landing in some remote time-forgotten wilderness to dampen my excitement. Instead, I let my soul swell with the pioneer spirit, and trying desperately to remember if I knew any jokes about lumber or canoeing, I lifted up my satchel and my chin and disembarked.
    The airport was a shock. As modern and civilized as any I’d ever seen: poured concrete and recessed lighting, the latest in contemporary graphics, an architectural non sequitur delightful in its total inappropriateness to its surroundings. Actually, theairport did have one thing in common with its environment: there was not a human being in sight. Maybe the promoter had said I was going to play for six thousand raccoons; maybe this was all a gigantic mistake, due, no doubt, to some faulty transatlantic cable or the lilting peculiarities of the Swedish accent. Discouraged, but still determined, I kicked a possum off my luggage and walked through towering blue spruces to the