*

I'm on a JetBlue flight back from Boston. I was up at 5 AM (!) to catch my 6 AM Cape Air flight to Boston from P-Town. I know that seems like last-minute, but Cape Air is so Mom and Pop that you can saunter up to the counter to get a boarding pass at 5:45 and there's an "it's all good" attitude. I came up to New England to do two shows with Mario Cantone at the Art House in Provincetown on Saturday and Sunday nights. Mario was great. The show featured him singing and me interviewing him, which was really just me asking a simple question that would launch him into a hilarious ten-minute tirade. One of my favorite things he said was about Paula Deen. He was raging about how everyone turned on her when she got diabetes. He couldn't understand the anger coming towards her. He yelled, "She has diabetes. She didn't give you diabetes!"

He performed in Provincetown only once before, when he was 19 years old, for the summer. But he was traumatized from being heckled and didn't come back 'til now. I asked him what his comedy was back then and he said he did imitations, like Julia Child. He did an amazing version of her voice and her late-in-life bent over body, telling the audience "My hump is actually made of pecorino and parmesan." Then he started miming putting a cheese grater on his back. "Say when!"

"Oh, Tito! I'm so sorry. I'm the worst mother. Tito! I'm so sorry!" Then her eyes widened when she recognized Mario from TV.

"Oh! I remember you…" she said

"You remember me!?!?!" he yelled back. "Remember your child!!!"

He grew up loving musicals but was only interested in seeing the original cast. When he was 12, his sister told him she got them tickets to Chicago.

"And," she said, excited. "Guess who's in it?"

"I know who's in it." he replied. "Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon."

"No!" she said. "Gwen Verdon has been replaced by…Liza Minnelli!"

He glared at her and said, "Then I'm not going!" Seriously! He refused to see it because it wasn't the original cast. I love it!

We talked about him doing "The View" and he told me some hilarious jokes he did on the show about the hosts. He busted Whoopi Goldberg's admitted penchant for pot smoking by imitating her fade out/inability to read the prompter. "We'll be right back after…oh, I don't know." Then he said, "Whoopi. I thought your 'hobby' was supposed to cure glaucoma." Then he busted Barbara Walters for loving Justin Bieber so much. He told her she had no right being obsessed with someone who was born after she received her lifetime achievement award. He continued with, "I know why you're so into him, Barbara. Because he's a compatible donor!" Hi-larious!