Rob Shapiro, twin brother of comedian Rick Shapiro, has been kicked out of so many places he could record an audio walking tour of New York City and its surrounding area. Rick keeps it together much more than Rob, who is chronically homeless but always fun to run into. Rick, whose last job was as an unsavory uncle on the short-lived HBO show Lucky Louie, has a favorite gag about how he manages to maintain: “I don’t have a personality, I have side effects.” Although Rob didn’t feel in top shape, I was able to sit him down at the small bar upstairs in Mo Pitkins, on Avenue A, a place that claims to have been envisioned and created for neighborhood wits such as ourselves, but was probably aiming for a cut above. The Sunday night bartender was pretty nice, though, and I believe most of what Rob says here to be true – albeit slanted towards his own relative blamelessness in many of the incidents and affairs recalled. Who among us doesn’t try for the same retroactive innocence?

86ed: What’s the first place you were kicked out of, that you remember?

Rob: The first place that I got kicked out of that I remember? I had so many kick-outs where I didn’t know I had been ‘til the next day. Guys tell me, “Hey, you got kicked out of that bar last night.” But what did I do? I had thrown a chair out of the front window of the bar and I didn’t know it.

Anyway, the first time that I remember was when I was a freshman in college. I hated college bars and doing the shot games and all of that. I snagged a girl with my friends. They were all dorks. There were these hot little JAP-y college girls and one of ‘em liked me, right? I was shocked, so now I’m sitting with her and she’s making all these JAP-y plans with me, and I actually fit in for a minute with this college ponytail chick, you know what I mean? It felt really good. I get up and go to the bar, like, “Where’s the bartender?” Small bar like this and he’s not there? So I reach over and I grab a bottle of Scotch. All of a sudden I feel this arm around my chest, under it. It was this huge, big Italian bartender. He just carried me out, my legs swinging. I’m looking at the girl and she’s looking like, “ew.” I felt like one inch tall. Then he threw me out. And I’m sitting there going, “What’d I do?” So I go back in. He was like, “Get out. Get out. You never reach over a bar for a bottle.” I had left the bag I always carried that had my money in it –

86ed: There’s always something that you leave!

Rob: Yeah, Going Back In. I was such a cokehead and really tiny and all that. I went and got a cop to walk me back in and get my stuff. I’m such a wimp. (Puts on whiney voice) “There was this really big guy, and I just want my wallet.” That crew of girls never talked to me again. OK, so that’s the wimpy throw-out, that was the first time. 
     I was at Studio 54 when it first opened. My brother and I got in cuz we were twins and we were real small, cute, all that shit. I worked on Wall Street and so did some friends of mine. Their company was producing a Broadway show that this star was in. They said, “That girl there really wants you.” I’m like, “Oh yeah.” They go, “No, Rob…” I’m like, “She looks familiar,” and they go, “It’s Cher.”
     It didn’t look like Cher. Cher’s tall and gorgeous and curvy and all of that. This girl was really petite. She looked like a little Jewish girl. I go over there and we’re talking. We’re making out and dancing and she says, “Do you know who I am?”
     I said, “I don’t really care, we’re making out.”
     She goes, “Good.” Finally she says, “Do you know who I am?”
     I’m like, “Yeah, my friends told me. You’re Cher. You kind of look like her, but you’re not really her. Don’t worry about it, I know the scoop – “
     She starts laughing and says, “I am Cher.” She was in this show on Broadway – Go Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

86ed: Oh right.

Rob:  So, uh, we’re drinking, partying, and in my mind I’m like, “She’s not really Cher. This is a joke. They’re all little spoiled brats, preppy, whatever…”
     So I’m drinking like crazy. We’re snorting up and drinking. All I know is, I woke up in the morning on this huge bed, in a huge, beautiful, mahogany room and it was a white, fur bedspread – mink. I looked over at this girl. I’m like, “Maybe it is Cher.”
     I sit up to look, and all of a sudden I puke, all over the mink thing, all over the floor, I’m just puking, and she wakes up and screams, “Oh my god. Steve, Steve, now.”
     I’m like, “What?” This huge black guy comes in.
     I’m like, “What?’
     And he goes, “Get out.”
     And I’m like, “What?”
     He says, “Get out.”
     I’m like, “I gotta get dressed.”