And he expects the same waterproof attitude from his real estate partners.

“Right now, I’m dealing with this friend of mine who’s a very serious motherfucker,” said the imposing 6-foot, 250-pound nightlife impresario, as he headed out from his midtown apartment one stormy Friday afternoon last month. “The guy’s hard-core. He’s like me. So we’re going walking. In the rain, we’re going to go walking around Brooklyn. I don’t think either one of us has an umbrella, either.”

Still living on the edge, it seems, even without his edgy bar, which shuttered in 2007, the illustrious 51-year-old actor, bouncer and entrepreneur has spent much of the past summer scouring the city in search of a suitable site for his next den of debauchery.

“I found one space that’s absolutely gorgeous,” he recently told The Observer. “I mean, it’s not gorgeous—it’s a shithole! But the location is perfect and everything else.”

Indeed, the ideal space probably would have to be somewhat squalid, enough so to absorb all the rampant bottle breaking and other general anarchy that has reportedly taken place inside Mr. Westmoreland’s previous graffiti-clad locations.

Yet, much to the chagrin of such self-professed Siberia regulars as the celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and the comedian Jimmy Fallon—not to mention a slew of media professionals, including various Observer reporters over the years—Mr. Westmoreland has yet to sign a lease, although he seems to take great pleasure in the process. “I think there’s a great bit of drama in the hunt,” he said.

Real estate has long been a passion of sorts for the eccentric Mr. Westmoreland, dating back to the time he chained up his wife, his kids, his priest and himself in protest of his landlord’s yearlong effort to evict him from the original Siberia location, tucked away inside the subway station at 50th Street and Broadway.

It took the next landlord even longer to dislodge Mr. Westmoreland. Orj Properties, owner of the second Siberia space, at 356 West 40th Street, ultimately charged the charismatic bar owner with owing upward of $292,182 in rent, dating back to 2002—an amount Mr. Westmoreland vigorously disputed, arguing that payment was contingent on the owner’s fixing of various alleged building violations, according to court papers.

After two years of legal wrangling, the landlord eventually agreed to pay Mr. Westmoreland $40,000 to settle the claims and to force Siberia to close in April 2007.

His current quest for a new landlord, though, has managed to actually uproot the longtime Manhattan stalwart from his usual environs in Hell’s Kitchen, where both prior Siberia incarnations were located, and shift his focus to the city’s hinterlands—beyond even the ever-expanding boundaries of bourgeois bohemia.

“I’m interested—and this is going to sound crazy—I’m interested in Crown Heights,” Mr. Westmoreland said recently, referring to the gritty central Brooklyn neighborhood perhaps best known for the violent race riot that lasted a full three days back in the early 1990s. The area, like much of the borough, has slowly started to gentrify in recent years—albeit, to this point, much less so than other, now rather fashionable nabes.

“Williamsburg is fucking over,” Mr. Westmoreland said. “It’s time to break new ground.”

HE'S NOT LOOKING for a ton of space. The original Siberia measured a mere 9 feet wide, he said.

Nor does he demand much in the way of amenities. The more recent location even lacked such basic bar staples as beer taps.

“What I do is organic,” Mr. Westmoreland explained, noting that the various artifacts that adorned the previous bars’ shabby chic interiors were often brought in by patrons. “People come in and put their love into it,” he said. “Let’s say it’s a voodoo bar. … I’ll have guys coming in saying, ‘Hey man, I’ve got this shrunken head.’”

His recent interest in the borough of Kings comes down to simple economics. “Brooklyn is a better choice because the rents are low,” he said. “You can still charge the same amount of money. And I’m not worried about the crowd. People will come, man. I’m not worried about that.”

And yet, with the market softening in recent weeks, new opportunities have also arisen elsewhere, including in Siberia’s ancestral home of Hell’s Kitchen.

“I found a place in the city where they want $5,000 a month,” said Mr. Westmoreland. That’s even cheaper than the $6,000 monthly rate on Siberia’s prior lease, signed in 2001. He added that the venue in question, which he declined to identify, even included an existing liquor license. “Dude, it’s off the hook!”

It’s a deal Mr. Westmoreland is eager to strike, just as soon as his silent partner gives the go-ahead. “I’ve got to see if I can convince him to do it,” Mr. Westmoreland said. “If he says yes, I’ll open immediately.”

That’s not to say, however, that the charismatic barman has entirely turned his back on the outer boroughs. “Then, in the next six months,” he added, “I want to open places in Brooklyn all over the place.”

He further suggested that various celebrity friends may even be enlisted as investors and partners in the future locations.

“I know a lot of people,” Mr. Westmoreland said. “I know Tony Bourdain, guys like that, and they could open places, or their friends could open places.

“With what I know, and a few dollars, we can open clubs everywhere,” he added.

Well, maybe not everywhere.

Turns out, there are some places in Brooklyn that even the operator of a notoriously dank shithole like Siberia won’t go—Gowanus, for instance, Mr. Westmoreland said: “I don’t like the smell.”

cshott@observer.com

Tracy Westmoreland, the actor and former operator of shuttered Hell’s Kitchen watering hole Siberia, called us to chat about his rumored return to Fox’s Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld on Thursday, Feb. 14. (Today, Page Six printed the possible reunion in their “We Hear…” item.)

As Mr. Westmoreland explained it, he recently ran into Red Eye's Greg Gutfeld, panelist Bill Schultz and ombudsman Andy Levy. “We were talking about how I sorta fell through the cracks,” said the bar guru, who was once a regular fixture on the show as its official Nightlife Contributor. “I explained it to them like this: ‘It’s Valentine’s Day; I’m going to send out some love.’ So I’m sending love and happiness out to the people. It’s going to be good,” he said, before adding: “Everything is groovy and it’s all good.”

Though apparently excited about the return visit, Mr. Westmoreland did not seem to know in what capacity he would be appearing. “I don’t know exactly why I’m going back, but I hope it’s the nightlife [beat], because that’s what I do best,” he told us.

We had not forgotten that he called us back in November to announce that Siberia would be reopening soon. And when asked for an update, Mr. Westmoreland would say only that Siberia’s reincarnation was “imminent.

“Here’s the story with that: we’re talking to four different landlords—we got the money—we’re dancing around the whole thing,” he said. “As soon as we hand him the check and we sign the papers, it could happen very soon.”

“Siberia has been the engine of all my good luck, so we’re going to restart the engine,” said Mr. Westmoreland today. He also told us that he thinks the club will remain in the same dank, subterranean space on 40^th Street and Ninth Ave., but whatever happens, it will definitely be in Hell’s Kitchen. “We’re not straying from our roots. Siberia’s always been in Hell’s Kitchen and it works. There have been some shit holes in Hell’s Kitchen, and that’s basically what we’re looking for.”

Since the nightspot—which over the years reportedly hosted people like Ed Koch, David Dinkins, Robert Morgenthau, Matt Dillon, Julia Stiles, Jimmy Fallon, Heather Graham, Lou Dobbs and Winona Ryder— closed last winter, Mr. Westmoreland has been keeping very busy. He said he now works as a bouncer at The Ritz, the well-known gay bar on 46^th Street. (This gig is, of course, somewhat old-hat for Mr. Westmoreland, who was once the director of security for Studio 54.) Aside from a few awkward run-ins with old friends who mistakenly think he’s been locked in the closet all these years, he said that the job is pretty great. “It’s fucking slammed, and everybody’s really, really nice. The worst thing that’s happened was there was a pocket book fight once,” he chuckled.

Mr. Westmoreland hasn’t forgotten about his acting career, either. He’s been in a few recent films, namely, Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe; he also has a role in a forthcoming feature called Never Down, which curiously co-stars the late writer Kurt Vonnegut. It was filmed a few months before his death last April. What’s more, he’s appeared on Fox News a few times as the “nightlife commentator” for Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show, Red Eye. (Click here to see a clip.)

The idea to re-open Siberia, Mr. Westmoreland told The Daily Transom, came to him during a recent conversation with Scott Talbot, the New York proprietor who has hired him to be the “minister of propaganda” for his new concept nightclub-restaurant, which will occupy the space vacated by BED, to be called Charity. (Apparently, when paying the bill, customers will be able to donate to various charities, which will be listed on a menu.)

“People would come to me and say, ‘Siberia was the best thing on earth, the greatest thing since apple pie,’” he recalled. “And I never really considered it, because it was open for eleven years straight. And now, I can’t find a place I want to drink in, because they’re all trying to be like Houlihan’s—they’re all trying to be corporate; they’re all too clean. There’s none of the freak stuff,” he said with apparent regret, before mentioning the naughty act New York performer Mangina would come to do in his nightclub.

After the Siberia documentary made by Jack Bryan—the son of Anna Wintour’s beaux, Shelby Bryan—is released, Mr. Westmoreland plans to publish a book, which he might call Siberia Confidential, out of respect, he said, for celebrity chef Tony Bourdain, a onetime regular at his club and the host of the show Kitchen Confidential. (“I could never do a tell-all, because I’m not a rat,” he said of the book. “But I can do a tell-some!”)

Asked if he thinks Siberia will still be a hit after it re-opens, the bearded bouncer said: “All the things people come to New York for—all that love, all that impromptu entertainment, that fuckin’ creative stuff—they don’t allow in bars anymore. They’re trying to make money, so bad that nothing ever happens.”

Whether you're a bitter media blogger, or a celebrity private intellectual, or a noted 43rd Street plagiarist, or an ex of Parker Posey, or an employee of Salon who is questioning the meaning of feminism, or even Village Voice nightlife sex dwarf Tricia Romano, the time of the Yule can only mean one thing. It is a time when we celebrate the crucified death and rebirth of our favorite vending places of alcohol. And so now please enjoy this Christmas message of cheer from the owner of Siberia, Mr. Tracy Westmoreland.

The soul of Siberia raised its swollen, beautiful head in alarmed satisfaction this weekend, happy to see all the Siberians who came by to drink. The bar will stay open another week thanks to your thirsts. Where are you drinking tonight? Good.

I am not even going to start about the landlord because I shouldn't. At least not here. Or yet. But there's a battle for Siberia to win.

Once again the proprietor of the building wants us out, just like one did six years ago in the subway. During that fight, I took the toilet from that bar as carry-on luggage to chain it to the doors of the landlord's headquarters in Tokyo. We don't lose, Comrades, not in these battles.

Now we fight to keep Siberia from becoming a chain steakhouse. There will not be a down and dirty rock venue in the basement of the steakhouse--that will be a kitchen. Now that can't be good.

The people who have come out to pledge their support are kinder and sweeter than I ever imagined. One neighborhood woman walking by extended a ten dollar bill, which she likely needed, in a gesture that, I have to tell you, made me cry a little. Midtown business people, neighborhood folks, chefs, bartenders, and the writers--we'll never forget the writers--have been by, wishing to see the bar stay. Thanks to the twelve rugged dock-workers who came by over the weekend and offered me a job down on the docks. It's a sweet gesture, guys, thanks.

The way it's working out is that we're fighting a war every week to stay alive. This Wednesday Thursday, Friday and Saturday we will definitely be open. Each week is a new battle. The best thing people can do to save Siberia is simply come here and drink. that's the best way they can show their support.

Even if the phone doesn't work, we'll be there. If you'd like to help, but can't come to the bar, have a drink and dial in our website at Siberia3. The 3 signifies the third life of Siberia.

We all thought Siberia was going to close last weekend. Last weekend was the best weekend in the history of Siberia. To keep it open, bring your friends and drink at the bar. And have a good time. That's why we're here, after all.

Rock on, Comrades!

Tracy Westmoreland
Minister of Propaganda

"My demise has been greatly exaggerated," quoted the barman. "We are still open. We will be open tomorrow."

Tomorrow, yes. But. Mr. Westmoreland confirmed that the situation between tenant and landlord--blogged yesterday by Transom drinking pal Ben Smith--is dire. "I have a landlord who uses four separate names and has five signatures," he said. "The fight is ongoing."

Mr. Westmoreland said he's calling on friends high (Jim McManus, Hillary Clinton) and low (the list is endless) for support.

"I want all the people who've been rockin' it with us for the last 10 years to come down this week," he said. "Come help in the fight against the evil landlord and help Siberia stay alive."
— Spencer Morgan

The six-story former brownstone on West 57th Street, wedged between Carnegie Tower and Metropolitan Tower, was purchased in 2004 for a reported $19 million by the RTR Funding Group, headed by Manhattan realtor Gerald Lieblich—the fourth owner in just over a decade. While the new proprietors declared they hoped to revive the storied icon as a serious restaurant and celebrity roost, I had my doubts.

My long and patchy courtship with the R.T.R. dates to the mid-1980’s, the twilight of its so-called golden era, when the glimmering main dining room served as a canteen for marquee names in the entertainment business—agents, playwrights, actors, musicians, producers. It was one of my first, albeit involuntary, outings when I moved to town.

“You have never been to the Russian Tea Room?” my new boss, Arthur Gelb, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, asked with incredulity.

“No,” I confessed, confirming my status as a rube—especially so considering that I had recently been hired as a lifestyle and food reporter.

The following day, we were seated in the R.T.R.’s ground-floor dining room, second banquette on the right—Mr. Gelb’s table. Before I had a chance to crack a breadstick, he was in badinage mode with a couple on our left, who turned out to be the actress Ruth Gordon and her droll husband, the writer and director Garson Kanin. A moment later, another thespian couple stopped by: the seemingly ageless Jessica Tandy and her husband, Hume Cronyn. They lingered for some time, no doubt obscuring my view of other luminary traffic—although I did spot, sitting alone and looking rather dyspeptic, super-agent Sam Cohn.

It wasn’t until that evening, while recounting the experience to my wife, that I gave much thought to the restaurant’s food.

“How was the lunch?” she inquired.

“The blinis and caviar were great,” I said. “The rest pretty much sucked.”

My ensuing visits, some two years hence, were in the capacity as The Times’ restaurant critic. This meant I had to try everything on the menu, some of it twice. In the end, I awarded the Russian Tea Room one star.

That first review earned me a phone call from the owner, one Faith Stewart-Gordon, who graciously conceded some of the kitchen’s inadequacies, then added: “But, Mr. Miller, the Russian Tea Room nourishes more than just the body!”

Ms. Stewart-Gordon took possession of the restaurant in 1967 after the passing of her husband, Sidney Kaye, an outgoing man of Russian descent who presided over its halcyon days in the 1950’s and 1960’s. (It was opened in 1927 as a chocolate shop and tea emporium by former dancers from the Imperial Russian Ballet.)

During much of her tenure, it continued to attract notables from Broadway, Carnegie Hall and, later, Hollywood. In those dark years of the Cold War, when so much of actual Russian life was marked by mirthless uniformity, the Russian Tea Room celebrated its culture in a setting of anarchic abandon: music and Champagne, red leather banquettes and pine green walls adorned with a riotous collection of art, tinsel-lined chandeliers, glittering Christmas-tree ornaments, burnished brass samovars, and tunic-clad “Russian” waiters donning nametags like “Salvador” and “Raoul.”

Ms. Stewart-Gordon, who for decades had snubbed lucrative offers from developers who wanted to bulldoze the joint and put up a high-rise, sold the property in 1995, for $6.5 million, to Warner LeRoy, the puckish, bigger-than-life impresario behind Tavern on the Green and, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the country’s seminal (no pun intended) singles’ bar, Maxwell’s Plum. Mr. LeRoy passed away in 2001, and a little over a year later, so did the Russian Tea Room, which wound up in bankruptcy proceedings.

The building was picked up for $16 million by a most unlikely patron, the United States Golf Association, but the expensive project never got off the first tee and the association passed it on to the unromantic-sounding RTR Funding Group.

This means that, for the first time, the valuable air rights on both 56th and 57th streets are held by a builder.

When I arrived at the restaurant last week for dinner, the place looked familiar, if somewhat subdued. The new leather banquettes were a less garish red, and the walls appeared darker green. Gone was the holiday tinsel, and there didn’t seem to be as many Christmas-tree balls hanging about. The Doctor Zhivago–esque background music was reassuring.

The new chef, Gary Robins, has been around the city’s gastronomic billiard table, and has been widely lauded as a deft fusion-style cook at a place called Aja and, most recently, at the Biltmore Room, north of Chelsea (now closed). He might seem like an improbable choice for a Russian restaurant, but judging from the dishes I had a chance to sample, he could well succeed where others have failed: crafting a contemporary, challenging and lighter R.T.R. menu while paying obeisance to the bone-warming classics.

One stellar example is his foie-gras-stuffed pelmeni (like ravioli) in an intense, limpid broth holding root vegetables, chanterelles and truffles. Another is the cider-glazed quail offset by salty duck prosciutto and spiced Champagne grapes.

“We haven’t yet put on the menu some of the classics, like chicken à la Kiev and stroganoff,” explained Mr. Robins, a lanky, soft-spoken fellow who clearly has high aspirations for the place. “We want to see how things go in the early days and get a feel for what customers want.” He plans to go after the power-breakfast crowd as well—blinis with caviar and orange juice?

The airy double-height second-floor dining room—the original restaurant Siberia—will hold à la carte customers, while the third and fourth are for private functions.

The past two weeks have been somewhat of a nostalgia-fest for certain curious ghosts of parties past, like 83-year-old Mary Elizabeth Culhane, of Stamford, Conn., whom I encountered outside of the restaurant on the rainy evening that I stopped in to make a reservation. She was reading the posted menu, quizzically.

“Are you coming inside?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I should,” she replied. “My husband and I came here for lunch every Friday for nearly 20 years. Mr. Kaye was wonderful. We met Burt Lancaster here, and Mary Martin, too, who was very nice.”

“Really? How was the food?”

“We always told friends, ‘Do the triple C’s and you can’t go wrong—Champagne, caviar and chicken Kiev.’ The stroganoff was not very tasty.”

HILLY: Nothing.

DR. SELMAN: Last time you were here, Hilly was about to go to Rome.

HILLY: It was fun! It wasn’t anything like when we went to Rome, because George wasn’t there and I was with work people, and the first couple nights we were actually outside of the city on this golf course. It was kind of a dump. But it was fun. Then, well, there was a little squabble because I was supposed to come back to New York and go straight to East Hampton to meet George. What happened is, I sent him a text message—

GEORGE: No, first you drank a bottle of Château Haut-Brion and overslept and missed the train.

HILLY: That was the next day.

GEORGE: Oh, right!

HILLY: I left you a voice mail from Italy saying maybe you should go out to East Hampton on your own, because I might be really tired when I get back and I have all this luggage, so I’m probably going to want to go back to the apartment and I’d come out Saturday morning. I don’t know if you misinterpreted the message—

GEORGE: I didn’t get the message. But I got your text from the airport that said, “You go now,” and I think the agreement before had been that you would take the car service from the airport and I would meet you in East Hampton. Anyway, so I went out on the train and I got mad at you when I found out you were at the apartment. But then you stayed up late and you missed the train, and then it all worked out.

DR. SELMAN: Why mention this particular episode?

GEORGE: I just thought we had this agreement. It’s fine.

HILLY: And then last week, there were a couple days when I was really busy at work—my boss was in town from Italy, we had a big event—and George got really mad at me, because a couple of nights I came home and I was really tired and just wanted to go to sleep, and he would yell at me and launch into this whole tirade: “I can’t live like this!” So, Saturday we were in East Hampton. I come back to the city Sunday night, really late. He comes back on Monday. Monday night, at like 3 o’clock in the morning, he gets up and yells, “I can’t sleep like this! I can’t breathe!” So I said, “Well, George, do you want to sleep in the cubby instead?” So I went down to sleep in his room and he slept in the cubby. And he went right to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep in his room because it was messy. I had to clean it up, and I only got two hours of sleep. And the next night he was mad at me and yelling because I couldn’t stay up.

GEORGE: Yeah.

DR. SELMAN: When you say these things—“I can’t sleep like this! I can’t take it like this!”—what is “like this”? What do you mean by that?

GEORGE: There are a number of factors. We’re working out the apartment situation in the next few days. We’re getting an air conditioner in my room. There’s the big main room, and then there’s the little closet masquerading as a bedroom. That’s where she is now. The cubby is in the main room, up high by the ceiling. I can sleep there, because my cat hasn’t ever been up there. We’re going to take everything out, get everything dry-cleaned, throw out the bed, and so on. And I am going to sleep there from now on, because if I’m in there, I can shut the door and Hilly can do whatever she wants in the morning. I won’t hear her.

DR. SELMAN: I have a question: Why did you accommodate him like that? He basically threw you out of bed, and then you had to sleep in his bed, and you couldn’t sleep. Why not just say no?

HILLY: Because I love him.

GEORGE: I was threatening to go to Kent, Conn., for a few days, stay in a bed-and-breakfast. I was like, “I gotta get out of here, I can’t breathe!” The apartment is more like a storage space right now—so much stuff in there. It’s also just living with someone. What Hilly was away in Italy, I was really relaxed. I didn’t do anything for the first three days, just reading and e-mailing. Stayed in at night. Detoxed. Exercised.

DR. SELMAN: Detoxed?

GEORGE: Just not drinking and exercising, eating right. And then, on the fourth day, I realized that Hilly was away and this was my free period and I should be going out. So I went out. One night I left the apartment at 12:30 a.m., it was this friend of mine’s birthday, and I went over to her friend’s amazingly lavish apartment on East 57th Street. My friend was flying on wine and Percocets; I felt like I was at Huntington Hartford’s pad circa ’73. The hostess was really entertaining, hilarious, going around belting out “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and “Golllld-fin-ger!” And she was showing me pictures of her baby and her estranged husband and everything was going fine, having a normal time, and then her husband shows up. This guy is pure evil. He looked like James Spader in Pretty in Pink. He comes in and he’s very drunk and he looks around and says, “I’m gonna kick the ass of every fucking homosexual gay guy in here”—and I think that he was referring to me and his cousin. She called the cops to get him out of the apartment. And then he called the cops and said, “My wife has 14 homosexuals in the apartment.” I think he went to Buckley. I went to St. Bernard’s, which is more intellectual and civilized. At Buckley, they instill these Wall Street money-and-power values in their students. Guy’s a total scumbag. So his soon-to-be-ex-wife calls the police, and I think someone had also called a drug dealer—so a drug dealer’s coming over, and the cops are coming over. I’m like, “I gotta get out of here now.”

DR. SELMAN: So did you leave?

GEORGE: I left. Went straight to Siberia. Much more civilized. Two of the party guests followed me. They told me that two fleets from the local precinct showed up and the guy started hurling racial epithets at them. My point is, I wouldn’t have gotten into that situation had Hilly been at home. One night, I came home with two girls and a guy who were like 20 years old.

HILLY: You brought them back to the apartment? They smoked my Yves St. Laurent cigarettes.

GEORGE: Yeah, sorry.

HILLY: I hate that, the thought of these little vagrants with all of my stuff out.

GEORGE: You got one of these people a job. They’re friends of ours.

HILLY: I don’t want them or anyone in my house.

DR. SELMAN: So you’re not too happy about this?

HILLY: No! It’s embarrassing.

DR. SELMAN: This is the first time you’re hearing of this?

HILLY: Yeah!

GEORGE: They were there for about 20 minutes. I don’t think they were very impressed. I put on the Spinal Tap special-edition DVD, then I tried Casablanca. They were basically out the door in 20 minutes.

DR. SELMAN: What are you thinking, Hilly?

HILLY: It just makes me mad that they were there.

DR. SELMAN: Hilly, you look very tense.

HILLY: Ha ha ha. I don’t know—I just don’t like that.

GEORGE: I was keeping my eye on them. They were fine! Preppy Upper East Side kids!

DR. SELMAN: Is there something missing?

HILLY: Well, two packs of cigarettes is all I’ve noticed. Which I don’t care about—

GEORGE: I think you’ve gone to Bungalow 8 and sat at their table and drunk their vodka.

HILLY: Of course, of course. But if I knew that people were going to be over—

DR. SELMAN: That’s an interesting concept. If one of you is away, should the other be able to bring strangers over?

HILLY: Do you know the full names of these people? Like, how well do you know them?

DR. SELMAN: Good question.

GEORGE: I think we’re in the realm of the absurd now.

DR. SELMAN: Why is that an absurd—

GEORGE: It’s not like they moved in for a few days.

DR. SELMAN: She asked if you knew their first and last names, and you didn’t answer. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

GEORGE: O.K., Alix, Alexa and Paul.

DR. SELMAN: You’re 50 percent there.

GEORGE: I don’t know their last names. Anyway, so now that we got that settled—

DR. SELMAN: I don’t know—is that settled, Hilly? It doesn’t sound to me like anything’s been settled.

GEORGE: How about a new rule? When you’re away, I can’t have anyone over. I can live with that. No one comes over—ever. It’s kind of nice when we have some guests.

HILLY: If people come over to my house, I’d like it to be in a nice state. I don’t want there to be dried puke on the floor and stacks of old newspapers and big dust bunnies and cat hair and pubes blowing around like tumbleweeds. And your used Breathe Right strips stuck to the walls—which, by the way, you can find everywhere in the building, even downstairs in the basement. And then he eats his Omega-3 fatty fish oils, they’re gel caps, and he sucks the fish oil out of them, then throws the gel caps all over the place.

GEORGE: O.K., come on now.

HILLY: These visitors you had over are maybe people I kind of know through work, so now they’re probably saying, “Oh God, that weird Hilly—talk about Grey Gardens!”

GEORGE: So you’re saying it reflects badly on you?

HILLY: Yes! At least give me an opportunity to clean up.

GEORGE: They were all 20 years old.

HILLY: I’m 32! If I were 20 and I were on their level, it would be one thing, but I feel like they’re going to look at me and be like, “She’s 32 and she lives in cat puke?”

DR. SELMAN: There is something I have to point out to you: You’re 32 and you live in cat puke. Ha!

GEORGE: I don’t think it’s that big a deal. But I won’t have people over from now on.

HILLY: It’s not that I don’t want to have people over. I just think that we should be more respectful of the space we live in.

GEORGE: The other day, I was looking around the apartment and it was unrecognizable—there were flowers and candles and girly stuff. I think what I do is, I want to hold onto something from the apartment’s bachelor-pad days.

HILLY: Then I had this kind of hormonal fit of rage one night last week. George went out, and I woke up and went to work. I was about to leave around 7:15 a.m. I called him because I couldn’t find my keys.

DR. SELMAN: He wasn’t back?

HILLY: He wasn’t back. I couldn’t find my keys; it was PMS or something. It was this wave of emotion and rage, and I just got so angry—and I started throwing things around because I was looking for my keys. There was a bowl of change, and I picked it up and I kind of like tossed it and knocked a couple other things off the table. Anyway, so then later on—

GEORGE: Wait, can we stop for a second?

HILLY: When I got home that night after a work event, he made me clean all that stuff up immediately.

GEORGE: Can I add one or two things? I got a voice mail from you at like 7 a.m. I was at a party at a friend’s place. You said, “Where are my keys? Oh, you’re probably with some slut!”

HILLY: Whore.

GEORGE: Not true. I mean, yeah, there may have been sluts around, but—

DR. SELMAN: Hilly, do you think you might have had some feelings about him being out all night?

HILLY: Welllll, yeah, because I just hate that feeling of waking up in the morning. I was sitting there thinking, “Well, what if he’s dead? What do I do?” In any other situation, I would be calling the authorities. I wish we could come up with some kind of rule—if you’re going to stay out past 4 o’clock in the morning, leave me a text message that you’re still alive.

GEORGE: So I got home and the place was completely trashed—

HILLY: This is—

GEORGE: Let me finish! Her explanation—I’d love to forward you the e-mails—“I’m sorry, Scoopie, I had PMS, Aunt Flow came to visit.” It was more like Keith Moon came to visit. It was trashed.

HILLY: Oh my God. It still looked cleaner than the apartment normally does.

GEORGE: The keys were in the couch. I found them 10 minutes after I got home.

DR. SELMAN: George was missing, right? George was not there. The keys were there.

GEORGE: Right, I should’ve sent you a text at 4 in the morning.

DR. SELMAN: Why not just come home?

GEORGE: Yeeeeah, well. The night began—

DR. SELMAN: She’s been gone for two weeks, she comes back, and then you’re out overnight?

GEORGE: I knew this was going to be a late night, and didn’t I get you flowers before I went out? Didn’t you say that the cat looked at you like you were a “crazy bitch”? I was worried that you’d hurt Baba when you’re throwing stuff around the room.

DR. SELMAN: How does the cat have an expression on its face?

GEORGE: She told me that.

DR. SELMAN: It must be a very imposing cat.

GEORGE: I’m sure Baba was terrified. Did you put her in the bathroom when you were hurling stuff?

DR. SELMAN: Is anything damaged?

HILLY: Absolutely not. There was a mix in this bowl—some coins, some matches, some old chewed pieces of Nicorette gum, some lint, some fuzz, some shreds of paper—and big stacks of magazines and papers from God knows when, and dirty socks and some underwear, you know, all this stuff around. Basically, what I did—because I was frustrated, because I couldn’t find my keys and there’s all this crap everywhere, so I just started going like that [HILLY makes a violent sweeping motion] to a couple places.

DR. SELMAN: How did you even notice, George?

HILLY: That’s what I was actually wondering.

GEORGE: O.K., um, so all right, enough about that. So last weekend, you came out to the Hamptons on Saturday, right? Remember anything?

HILLY: I think we sat by the pool. We watched movies.

DR. SELMAN: You know, we really haven’t resolved anything. There were two issues: what do we do about bringing people back to the apartment, and whether or not you should be out all night. You said that you thought he was with floozies?

HILLY: I didn’t know if you were dead or with whores somewhere—I think that’s what I said in my agitated state of mind. I guess those are the two scariest things that immediately come to mind when I wake up and he’s not there. God forbid he’s either dead or with some whores.

DR. SELMAN: Which would be worse?

HILLY: Him being dead.

[To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles:

George and Hilly published 07/31/06
George and Hilly published 07/24/06
George and Hilly published 07/17/06
George and Hilly published 06/26/06
George and Hilly published 06/19/06
George and Hilly published 05/29/06
George and Hilly published 05/15/06
George and Hilly published 05/08/06
George and Hilly published 05/01/06
George and Hilly published 04/17/06
George and Hilly published 04/03/06
George and Hilly published 03/20/06
George and Hilly published 02/6/06
George and Hilly published 01/23/06
George and Hilly published 01/16/06
George and Hilly published 12/26/05
George and Hilly published 11/14/05
George and Hilly published 11/07/05
George and Hilly published 10/24/05
George and Hilly published 10/17/05
George and Hilly published 10/10/05
George and Hilly published 10/03/05
George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05
But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05
But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05
Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05

GEORGE: So the rent check bounced. We had a little bit of a problem with the rent. Hilly paid a fifth of it. Last night, she actually paid the second fifth and the first fifth for August. So I had to get some help to cover the rent.

DR. SELMAN: I’m confused. You were living in this apartment and paying the rent before she moved in. So theoretically you could just pay the rent by yourself, couldn’t you?

GEORGE: Well, sure—but one of the perks of having your girlfriend move in with you is then you guys split the rent and you get to spend more money elsewhere.

DR. SELMAN: Well, George, why wouldn’t you just pay the rent?

GEORGE: Pay the rent on my own?

DR. SELMAN: Why not?

GEORGE: I think it’s more fair if we split it or she at least pays two-fifths. And then I pay for everything else.

DR. SELMAN: Well, how does the check bounce?

GEORGE: Actually, the bank covered it. It was a close call.

DR. SELMAN: You’re complaining that Hilly’s not paying her share of the rent.

GEORGE: Wait, I don’t understand. This is a totally legitimate complaint, but it’s being turned around on me like I have no business bringing it up.

DR. SELMAN: Well, you’re not putting it in a clear way.

GEORGE [ to HILLY]: You agreed to pay half the rent, right? And?

DR. SELMAN: You guys do not communicate!

GEORGE: I asked you four or five times for the second fifth of the rent. And I asked that you return those Blockbuster videos you rented about five times.

HILLY: O.K., now that’s another thing. So I got back from Kansas City whenever that was, Monday night, and he got back the following day, and I rented four movies, and two of them I actually rented that night, because I thought we would want to watch them. Anyway, we didn’t, and they were sitting around. We ended up going away to East Hampton last weekend—

GEORGE: And wasn’t that a great—

HILLY: It was fantastic. Anyway, so you asked me a couple times, “When’re you going to return the movies?” And I said, “As soon as I have a chance.” So we got back Sunday. Monday night, I ended up going out with a friend, so I didn’t get home until about 9, and I was tired. And the next night, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. And then Tuesday I went out with Alex, got home, and then you were out all night. Wednesday, same thing—I had a few appointments for work and didn’t get home until 9:30. So it was late; it was hot outside. Meanwhile, all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, George was at home. And then he kind of threw a little bit of a bitch fit about the Blockbuster movies.

GEORGE: I thought we were getting charged extra.

HILLY: O.K., hello, you’re at home all day long and Blockbuster is a couple blocks away? I’m at work and—

GEORGE: Making money so you can pay half the rent?

HILLY: The thing is, it’s exactly what Dr. Selman says—we’re not communicating.

GEORGE: This is perfect. You kept saying you’re going to return them, and every day I’d see them on the floor. And I was like, “What’s going on here?” Then today you said, “Oh, could you please return them for me?” And I was like, “Yes.” So I need instruction. I did it, I returned them, and there was no charge—no late fee!

DR. SELMAN: You know, why wouldn’t you just return them anyway on your own? Just take the initiative.

GEORGE: Once again, it’s all turned back on me. I mean, come on. Jeez. Hilly told me she had a dream about having sex with the devil and liking it.

HILLY: That was a couple years ago, though.

GEORGE: We had sex a couple hours ago, right after she told me that.

DR. SELMAN: You know, there’s more than one right answer to these things. You seem to think that it always comes down to you—it’s not always you. It’s her, too. She didn’t ask you to take the tapes back, and she’s not forthright in saying to you, “Look, George, it’s really a hassle for me to meet you at home—I’m really annoyed by that.” She doesn’t say that; she doesn’t say anything.

GEORGE: Everything worked out. You came home, you had a cocktail.

DR. SELMAN: The point is that neither one of you are necessarily communicating. It’s not just you.

GEORGE: What was that thing your mother said, about your relative who was really into starch?

[ Silence.]

HILLY: I don’t want to talk about it. I mean, I’ll talk about your toes.

GEORGE: All right, go ahead—go for it.

HILLY: George has this really weird thing about his toes. He’s really—I’ve almost never seen anyone get as upset about anything. He can be in the best mood ever, and the second I even look at one of his toes or touch them, he gets so angry and almost violent.

GEORGE: Don’t say I get violent.

HILLY: Not like physically violent.

GEORGE: This is a perfect example of her doing something to purposely annoy me. And it’s infantilizing me. You know, it’s “This little piggy went to the market, this little piggy stayed home—”

DR. SELMAN: You do that to annoy him?

HILLY: So why do you take bubble baths?

GEORGE: I also don’t like her to touch my belly button. I’m a big boy. Now tell the story about the starch and your relative and how your mother warned you.

HILLY: Well, my granny has this thing: She’s kind of crazy. She’s so sweet and stuff. She and my grandfather divorced when my father was in high school, and she’s been pretty much alone ever since. My mom has always thought that she is really crazy—a spinster living alone and with a cat, and she’s really, really anal retentive about overstarching her clothes and linens. She uses a ton. And she always says, “Oh, I have my starched white shirt on today. Oh, how I like to wear a starched white shirt.” And she just repeats herself and goes on and on.

GEORGE: And your mom said—

HILLY: My mom has been warning me, basically since the day I moved to New York, that I am ultimately going to be her, my granny, and that I am going to be alone in a studio apartment with a bunch of cats and a stack of old New Yorkers.

DR. SELMAN: This is what your mother tells you?

HILLY: And wearing starched shirts.

GEORGE: Because you have a tendency to drive people a little crazy? Is that it?

HILLY: Yes.

GEORGE [ to DR. SELMAN]: Now you see there’s some basis to this, and it’s not just—and I’m not complaining exactly, I’m just saying it’s a two-way street. Speaking of moms, after I told my mom that Hilly hadn’t paid her share of the rent, you threatened to tell her about the mold in the bathroom, the dirty dishes—

HILLY: I was being facetious.

GEORGE: And how I’d tricked you into having sex during Inside Deep Throat. [ To DR. SELMAN] Did you see that documentary?

DR. SELMAN: I don’t know how I missed it.

GEORGE: No great loss—bunch of geezer warhorses claiming to have invented blowjobs. Did you see Deep Throat?

DR. SELMAN: I actually saw it in a movie theater when it first came out.

GEORGE: Wow. Wow. Awesome. I don’t know why, the documentary turned me on. Maybe it was a very angry Gloria Steinem glowering and insisting that Linda Lovelace had been forced to be in the movie. No, it was Camille Paglia that really got me excited. Love her. But I tricked you into having sex, right?

[ Silence.]

GEORGE: You don’t want to talk about “the trick”?

HILLY: No, I don’t feel comfortable talking about “the trick.”

DR. SELMAN: What is the deal with the rent?

GEORGE: I think she would prefer if I paid all of the rent so she could spend her money on pedicures and her hair and various other things.

DR. SELMAN: Do you have a problem with that?

GEORGE: She makes more money than I do. She has a fancy job—and I also pay for everything else. Con Ed. Phone bill.

HILLY: I don’t use the phone!

GEORGE: Well, whatever. I buy the Puffs Plus. The paper towels. The kitty litter. The light bulbs. The food.

HILLY: I buy paper towels!

GEORGE: I pay for 95 percent of everything.

DR. SELMAN: Well, how do you feel about that? She makes more than you and you pay most of the expenses? What are you getting in return?

GEORGE: I don’t lose sleep over it exactly, but it’s a mild irritant. And it sometimes makes me paranoid—worried that, you know, this is a pretty good deal for her, or someone like that. I have these thoughts that maybe you’re hoping I’ll forget about asking you for your share of the rent. And I thought we had an agreement: You don’t have to pay half the rent, but almost half, or what you were paying before you moved in with me—something like that would be nice.

DR. SELMAN [ to HILLY]: Would that crimp your lifestyle?

GEORGE: I’ve also taken her out to dinner hundreds of times, and she’s paid for it twice.

DR. SELMAN: What you’re saying is that you’re basically supporting her even though she makes more money than you, and she spends all her money on manis and pedis and her hair?

GEORGE: That’s maybe an exaggeration, but it does sometimes feel like she’s my daughter.

DR. SELMAN: She’s your daughter?

GEORGE: Sometimes.

HILLY: First of all, it may sound really archaic and ridiculous and hard to believe, but I just am of the school of thought that the man is in charge of finances. If you’re not making as much, then take over mine. Deal with it. I’d gladly hand over all of my finances to him if he would manage them for me. I would love that. Then the other thing, I’ve always been really bad with money my entire life. I’ve just been horrible—I’m sorry! And, you know, whatever.

GEORGE: I’m still bringing my wallet into my bedroom every night, hiding it, because I don’t like leaving it on the coffee table. I think she’s going to get in there in the morning and take out $20.

DR. SELMAN: Why would she take your money if she’s making more money than you?

GEORGE: She’s done it before. Listen, it’s not so bad. It would be nice if I could leave my wallet out, not have to stash it.

HILLY: Part of who I am requires money. I don’t just look like this because people hand me free Gucci shoes when I walk down the street. People don’t like automatically say, “Oh, you look great—here are some extra highlights.” Or, “Maybe you want to get your teeth whitened? That would be great.” I have to pay for all this stuff, and that’s what girls have to do, and it’s expensive and it’s maintenance, but that’s what being a girl is. And if you want to date a big, fat, ugly chick like that slut at Siberia—

[GEORGE answers his cell phone.]

GEORGE: Hey, Kurtis, I’m in therapy right now. You’re on speakerphone.

[HILLY gets up and leaves the room.]

KURTIS: Hilly is the best thing that ever happened to George! All right, bye.

GEORGE [ to DR. SELMAN]: Friend of mine from high school. Sorry. Oh, boy. No more mushrooms.

[ To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles: George and Hilly published 07/24/06 George and Hilly published 07/17/06 George and Hilly published 06/26/06 George and Hilly published 06/19/06 George and Hilly published 05/29/06 George and Hilly published 05/15/06 George and Hilly published 05/08/06 George and Hilly published 05/01/06 George and Hilly published 04/17/06 George and Hilly published 04/03/06 George and Hilly published 03/20/06 George and Hilly published 02/6/06 George and Hilly published 01/23/06 George and Hilly published 01/16/06 George and Hilly published 12/26/05 George and Hilly published 11/14/05 George and Hilly published 11/07/05 George and Hilly published 10/24/05 George and Hilly published 10/17/05 George and Hilly published 10/10/05 George and Hilly published 10/03/05 George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05 But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05 But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05 Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05