THE BIZ

Hollywood, where true love is harder to find than an Oscar on Bo Derek’s mantel.” Comedian Monica Piper wrote the line for her Showtime special, “No Monica . . . Just You,” but a few years ago, it also applied in her own life. And her maternal urges were growing more and more insistent.

So Piper, “40-ish,” who lives in Venice but is often on the road, decided to take matters into her own hands. Still single, she now jets off to club gigs with adopted 5-month-old son Jake Finn Piper in tow. “Clubs have been great,” Piper says. “Big, huge bouncers say, ‘It’s my turn to hold him.’ Or I say to the opening act, ‘Here, watch him for a minute.’ My big problem will be if I find an opening act who’s a good sitter and a lousy comic.”

It took a few years for Piper to achieve single-motherhood; the logistics weren’t easy. Two male pals offered to play biological dad, but Piper felt it could get emotionally messy. Artificial insemination didn’t take, so she chose adoption. She was advised to find the birth mother herself. “If I’d gone to an agency and said, ‘Hi, I’m single and a comic and I want to adopt a baby,’ I’m sure I’d have been on the bottom of their list.” She put ads in newspapers in several Bible Belt states. She soon connected with a pregnant 20-year-old Tennessee woman. Piper flew the woman to Los Angeles, put her up for a month and was with her at the birth. “We got very close. I spoke to the baby each day,” Piper says. “When he was born, he knew my voice.”

Like any true comedian, Piper has turned her new status into material: “People have asked, ‘How can you raise him with no father around?’ ” she says. “But Jake has so many needs, I can’t imagine having someone else to take care of right now.” Mostly, she’s relishing her new role as Mamacita. “In L.A., everything’s the industry, it’s so me oriented,” she says. “It’s all about looking right for the part, selling yourself. Suddenly my priorities have totally changed. It’s such a joy to be focused on someone besides myself.”