This must be clear. Apart from the crooked face, the huge honker, the elephantine ears, I'm a reasonably pleasant-looking fellow. I have brown tousled hair, dimple-filled cheeks, and I'm easy with a laugh. But standing next to an Adonis I'm a frog. A squashed woman with black plastered lacquered hair and a stylish plus-size blouse ushers me through red velvet curtains into the guts of the ratty, tacky club. Smells like bad booze and soiled cigarettes, with a musty undertow of coke, as she leads me to a man who stands in the shadows. "This is..." purrs the round compacted woman with a pearly voice that sounds like she's selling perfume or doing phone sex. "This is David... uh, Scary." I don't correct her. One time a casting director called me David Sterny, and I made the mistake of setting her straight. I never got called back. If this one wants me to be David Scary, I'll be David Scary. 'Cuz the two grand I brought to New York, New York, is now officially gone, and I really need this job. A man spins out of the shadows with the muscular grace of Gene Kelly, eyes sparkling, salted, peppery, perfectly coiffed hair, lovely little leather jacket, and peach silk shirt open at the neck with a gold chain peeking its cocky head out. Tailored, freshly pressed blue jeans, tassel-happy Italian shoes and a 20-gigawatt mile-wide smile beaming in the middle of it all. I really want him to like me. That's the kind of guy he is. But I get the feeling he already hates me. That's the kind of guy I am. "I'm looking for a cross between a baggy-pants comic," he says, smooth as the silk in his peach shirt, "and a Joel Grey, Cabaret-type Master of Ceremonies." 555 Belomorkanal Bond Camel Chesterfield Dallas Davidoff Dunhill Epique Esse Gauloises Karelia Kent L&M Lucky Strike Magna Marlboro Marlboro Mild Seven Monte Carlo More Pall Mall Parliament Peter I R1 Rothmans Russian Style Salem Sobranie Sovereign Viceroy Virginia Slims Vogue West Winston