A Very Brady Julie

Last night Mad TV aired a sketch in which Snow White wakes up so set on whistling her happy tune she has no idea she lives in a crack house. Taking to the streets, she directs her clueless euphoria to the he-she hookers and menacing dope pushers of the neighborhood, which I immediately recognize as my neighborhood. My 7-11 overrun by warring street gangs, my Subway cordoned off as a murder scene.

I was comforted by the realization that Mad TV’s soundstages are conveniently located just around the corner, at the Hollywood Center Studios—former home of the Desilu Playhouse, where they shot the first two seasons of I Love Lucy. The Burns & Allen Show also taped there, as well as The Beverly Hillbillies, The Adams Family, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. Still, I couldn’t help remark upon what a seedy-looking place I call home.

I grew up in Woodland Hills, in a house that might have belonged to the Brady Bunch. I even knew one of the Bradys, Peter, an older boy who could be stalked onto the playground, near the handball courts. I figured I’d have a Brady kind of life, some day—only not married to a dad who turned out to be gay while dating my oldest stepson behind the scenes, later forced to shill for Wesson Oil.

In eighth grade, my very pretty best friend Debbie went out with one of the WaltonsBen, I think. He wasn’t much to look at but he had a job and a car. After we grew up, Debbie went into real estate and bought her own Brady Bunch house only blocks away from her parents. I refused to settle down, since I was busy traveling the world before concluding it wasn’t all that interesting. It was Hollywood that fascinated me. When I finally made my way back to pursue screenwriting, I set up residence on the weird side of the hill.

Though mystified by this choice, Debbie might have made the scary journey into the hood more often if my attack dog, Bunny, hadn’t bit her the night before she was to compete on the quiz show Debt. After we’d spent the night in the emergency room, when Wink Martindale appeared on-stage, Debbie had to mime the act of clapping so as not to re-open her bandaged wound. I will always blame myself for her losing after failing to make the correlation between a brass brad and Brad Pitt on some obtuse final question. No matter, Debbie said, as thrilled as I to be standing on Lucy's soundstage, somewhere in the middle of her kitchen, we deduced.

Debbie died a couple of years later, after a long battle with lupus. I heard her parents held onto her house, which remains empty. I have fantasies about heading out to the Valley and buying it from them—although by now it’s probably worth about a million more bucks than I have. Something about it would feel tacky, anyway, as though I were bragging about still having a life, such as it is. Maybe just the fact of being alive should be reason enough to wake up singing—even if I do have to fight off another self-entitled trannie for the last jelly doughnut in the corner shop.