Alien Night Club - Show 37?
Alien Night Club <the transcripts>
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Show 37!
Hello, hello.
Post-Boxing Day Day. It’s actually post-post Boxing Day day. I think.
Anyway, welcome to the show. Show 37, right?
I am your nonadjectival host Captain Blank and this — this — is the Alien Night Club.
Head exploding, brains on the ceiling emoji.
I had some show notes. But I lost them. Hoping they come back.
One was about cats. Cats versus dogs. And how dogs will lick you a lot. But if a cat licks you, that’s a serious compliment.
It’s economics, really. Supply and demand.
The supply for dog licks is quite high. Demand is therefore naturally quite low.
Cat licks are the opposite. Because, as Joey taught us — nay, SHOWED us — opposite is opposite.
Cats don’t lick you very much. Supply is thus low. Demand is therefore high. They say when a cat licks you, it’s accepting you as one of its own.
How about a live action stroke Pixar movie about a cat who turns humans into cats by licking them?
The other show note was about selling out.
Years ago, Grammarly approached me and asked me to write a blog post to help share their product, which was a SAAS product. Pronounced sass. It is an acronym. It means Software as a Service. My blog was smaller than tiny and I was a nobody from nowhere. Still am. But I’d been blogging my ass off for several years. I did weekly author spotlights in which I interviewed a writer and helped create exposure for their book. I usually did between 1 and 3 per week. I had 50000 followers on Twitter. I have no idea how many actual readers or followers I had. Not that many. Like I said, I was a nobody from nowhere. And still am. Except now I’m on a friggin spaceship. But that’s another matter.
Point being — AHHHHHH!!! – wow, got that one in early today, that they asked me to help spread the word. I wasn’t sure what to think about it. I think they offered me a free month of service or something. Pretty sure it wasn’t money. Remuneration, in bullshit highfallootin legalese designed to obscure the meaning of a word in the hopes of making it less unsavory, less unseemly, less distasteful, more palatable, et cetera. There are other such words and a couple come to mind but I’m not going to talk about those. Because I don’t want to. And trust me, you don’t want to know.
Anyway.
After wrestling with my morals and considering whoredom versus so-called integrity, I wrote the article.
And that was pretty much that.
The contact person emailed back and said thanks and life went on.
Fast forward a couple of years.
I get another email from Grammarly.
Asking me to take down the blog post.
Yes.
Asking me to take down the blog post.
Like….
What the fuck?
I’m not good enough for you anymore, Grammarly?
You’re a calculator for people who refuse to learn basic math. Or who refuse to remember, relearn, and use the math they learned in 6th grade but now take pride in having forgotten. Like Chris Rock says, People say, I don’t know that shit! Keepin it real! Yeah, real dumb.
You’re training wheels for people who’ve convinced themselves that they can’t write.
Whatever.
You can tell it rubbed me the wrong way.
No cliches!
Why the fuck not? We speak in cliches. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any cliches.
Anyway, I often see an ad on YouTube for some guy — Ken Adams, SOME GUY! — sitting at his computer in his bedroom, penning some allowly missive and another dude breaks through the friggin wall and shouts, Wait, DID you download and use Grammarly. And the dude is his identical twin from another dimension or some shit. Who can travel interdimensionally but who can’t use the front door? Did you steal that from Dane and invert it? His Kool-Aid Man bit?
Probably.
Goddamn heartless climbers.
By the way, allowly is the opposite of almighty. Or maybe it should be alweakly. Because opposite is opposite.
So, Grammarly, are you gonna show me my clothes?
I’m not even sure what that means.
I’m on a spaceship anyway so it doesn’t matter.
I recall seeing Trey Parker and Matt Stone and another gentleman, who never spoke, sitting in a jacuzzi — or a Jacuzzi, because that’s the name of the company and it’s their IP, just like Dumpster so remember that the next time you say dumpster fire — and they were discussing the success of South Park and the notion of selling out. And they said their goal was always to sell out. Their goal was to get to Hollywood and sell out as quickly as possible.
The proverbial, existential, intangible Hollywood.
Rather than the actual city.
Because the former is like a club. The latter is simply a place.
You haff to earn your way into the former. You can simply go rent an apartment in the latter. That’s what I did. A long time ago. Before I was shooting spaghetti up my ass in a beyond-desperate quest for approval expressed via the act of people giving me some of their money. AKA remuneration. Compensation. Payment.
Point being — AHHHHH!!! — that they said they wanted to sell out as quickly as possible.
And I’ve always wondered what the process was truly like.
I was an extra in their comedy moviefilm Baseketball, by the way. You can see me a couple of times. Once when one of the guys is flirting with a girl in the stands and I’m in the purple shirt behind her. And again when Trey cuts off his finger with pruning shears and blood goes everywhere and they cut to a nice reaction shot of the fans in the stands going crazy. I didn’t even know the guy standing beside me all day, never even asked for or was given his name, but I grabbed him and shook him and did my best to appear to freak out at the sight of the removal of a human finger for the sake of a mere game of baseketball. But I guess we ought to admire his commitment, his will to win.
There was a professional football player who elected to have the tip of his finger amputated in order to get back on the field sooner. He broke his pinkie in a game. Later, the doctors said they could cast it but he’d be out for 8 weeks. If they amputate the tip, which I guess was the more badly-damaged part, he could be back in 4 weeks.
He said, 4 weeks.
Because he wanted to play.
I played football in high school. 3 years. I bailed senior year. But I never wanted to play that badly. No way, Jose.
There was another scene I was in where we were dancing as the band Phish was playing but the crowd footage got cut. Which was the right call, in my opinion.
That was my one and only job as an extra. It lasted about 6 weeks. Then there was a brief hiatus before I was asked back for another 2 weeks.
It was a lot of fun. I watched a movie getting made. It was shot inside the Memorial Auditorium in downtown L.A. So I sat in the stands every day, watching and often participating as an extra, what they call quote unquote background. I had to be there every morning by 6. I lived in Venice so I had to leave by about 5. Shooting usually went until 9, 10, sometimes 11. Moviemaking is long hours. I got paid minimum wage plus overtime on days they went long, of which there were some. They also had to feed us every so many hours. By law. So one night it was after 11 and everyone was freaking out. The filmmakers were freaking out because they were hemorrhaging money paying a big group of extras time and a half. We were freaking out because we’d been there 17 hours and were hungry and tired and wanted to get home so we could sleep as much as possible before being back the next morning for our 6 am call time. So the catering staff was scrambling to prepare snacks for us. For the sake of compliance.
Imagine some loser motherfucker finding some even bigger loser attorney to sue the production because they didn’t get a sandwich every 4 hours.
There was a scene in which they passed out fake food to us and we had to stand there and hold it. I was given a little serving of nachos served in a red and white checkered paper cardboard boat thing. I was hungry and wanted to eat the chips. But they were glued together. Someone in the props department had had to sit there and glue real tortilla chips together into a pile in this little cardboard tray. Or maybe you can buy those premade and preassembled. I just remember wanting to eat the chips but being afraid to because it was a prop. I wasn’t all that concerned about the glue. It was like when Monica ate the macaroni off the jewelry box she made. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I used to work at a popular Mexican restaurant whose name rhymes with Chevrolet. We were allowed to eat all the chips and salsa and fresh warm tortillas we wanted while working our shift. But I was young and hungry and spent a lot of time at the gym. So when I bussed a table — I was a lowly busser — and I picked up one of those big heavy silver trays on which the sizzling fajitas are served and it still had meat on it and the meat was still arranged in a neat little row of diagonal strips, it meant the person who ordered it hadn’t touched them. So I figured they were safe. I would either shove the meat in my mouth and chew it up and swallow it before anyone saw me or I would go behind the wall where we kept the bus tubs and high chairs and stuff and I would wrap it in a napkin and put it in my apron for later. There was one day when I put 2 fish oil capsules in my pocket for later. But once I got to work, I forgot about them. That night, when I left after working a double, I walked out to the parking lot to my car and reached into the pocket of the very cheap jeans I’d had to buy for that job because they were all I could afford. My car keys felt…slimy. My fingers came out wet. I sniffed them.
Fish.
My keys were wet and oily and fishy, too.
I did my best to wipe them on my black Chevy tee shirt, got in the car, and drove home. In the same car I’d used to drive to downtown L.A. to work on Baseketball, by the way. I had that car for 13 years. A red Chevy Cavalier Z-24 convertible with a white top and black cloth interior. Bose sound system.
I hate Bose! some wannabe audio snob always shouts.
Okay. It was good enough for Chevy to put in a high-quality vehicle but not good enough for you.
I had a lot of good times in that car. Sometimes I wish I still had it.
But sitting around thinking about, pining for, and dreaming of the past is a bad idea. A fool’s errand. A mistake. It’s very sad when you meet someone who is stuck in the past. Still wearing the same clothes. Listening to the same music. Talking about what they used to do. Where they used to go. And who they used to know.
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know….
Thank you, Gotye. And Kimbra. Love that song.
Peeing sitting down.
That’s a name of a song. We’ll hear it in a moment.
Peeing Sitting Down. Sounds lyrical to me. That song writes itself.
I was just thinking: imagine if this became something and I became a…a fuckin…sensation.
Blechyuckpuke no thanks.
And my mug is suddenly everywhere and everyone wants to talk to me and photos of me out and about in everyday life start popping up. And I look REALLY bad.
What would be funny as fuck would to have Captain Blank hold up one of those photographs and have a sign that points to me saying Clown! And that picture winds up everywhere. It’s one of those pics we always see of a celeb and the lighting is shit, their outfit seems mundane, they’re often portrayed walking briskly so they always seem as if they’re in an aloof hurry. An aloof hurry. We are hurrying aloofly. We are hoping there are no you know who out here taking bad pictures of us to sell to media outlets. And we’ve just spent $325 dollars on 2 Bloody Marys, 2 Big Salads, 1 chocolate souffle, and 2 large cappuccinos. And while we ate, we talked all about the immense quantity of plastic surgery our people are trying to get us to do but we don’t want to fucking do any of it. And it’s not because of the money. It is a fuckload of money, it is, in fact, an obscene amount of money to spend on surgery — actual surgery — to make yourself look better. Allegedly. Hopefully. No guarantees. And now we’re hurrying to our car. But we actually also kind of want to get caught and have our photographs taken and sold to as many media outlets as possible. And the reason is because we love buying a copy of all those tabloids that have pictures of us in there. And videos of us. TMZ, all that. And the reason is because we love to talk on the phone with each other while we’re looking at our and each other’s pictures. And the reason why we love doing that is because it’s absolutely hilarious. And all we do is talk about what we look like and how our clothes look and how fuckin fat we’re getting and what the people wrote or said about us. Because it’s all hilarious. I know it sounds narcissistic as fuck. But that’s not why we do it. We don’t give a shit about ourselves like that. We’re not, like, fuckin I dunno…into ourselves. It’s actually kind of the opposite. We love what we do because we love what we do. We love acting with other people, saying lines together to create this play that tells a story. An interesting story. And portraying these characters is an education. That’s the thing people who don’t act don’t understand about actors and why we do what we do and why we always seem so batshit fuckin crazy. It’s not because we’re drug addicts or communists or socialists or Marxists or democrats or liberals or, God forbid, because we’re — gulp! — artists!
Although any or all of those may be true.
But that’s actually not it.
The reason we all seem so fuckin batshit is because we’re always studying and learning. We are studying and learning the person you’re watching us portray. So think about a handful of your favorite movies and a handful of your favorite actors. Do any of them overlap? If so, what was it about that person’s portrayal of that character that moved you so much and spoke to you the way it did? We all have those movies and those actors and or those characters. One of my favorite things to see is for a comedian to do drama. That always blows me away. Liken when Jim Carrey does something serious. Like when Adam Sandler does something serious. Reign on Me? Dear God stroke Gawd that was good. That movie blew my mind. How do you suppose Adam did that? He did that by studying that person. Closely. And figuring out who that person is, where they come from, what their childhood was like, what their family was like, and what crazy stuff are they going through right now? Because that crazy stuff is the reason we’re doing this. It’s the reason this story is being told. Because we all want to discover that story. We all want to learn something. We all want to see a new story. We like seeing things we’ve never seen before. Or new takes on stuff we have seen before. But we’re figuring out the story as we’re making the movie or doing the show or doing the play. The first time you see it or read the book, that’s when you discover it. The writer was the first one to discover it and did so by telling themselves the story as they wrote it. Only after they wrote it did they really figure out what it was. And then they rewrote it a little and changed a few things and maybe took out one or two things and added a couple of things. And it got better. And they kept doing that until they couldn’t see anything else to change. And then they had some friends or colleagues read it. And they got feedback from them. And they rewrote it. And this went on and on up the chain until it got to the money people. And the money people read and said fuck yeah let’s do this. So it was done. It all got set up and cast and greenlit and we all got together and did a table read and WE all discovered the story for the first time. And then we all talked and refined and dug deeper and deeper and deeper still. And time went on and we got to set and we had to actually stand there in our costume and say our lines. And depending on the director, that’s not the best time to stand around talking and trying to figure shit out. You’ve got a lot of people standing around waiting to do their job. And those people are good at what they do. Which means they cost a lot of money every hour to have them there helping us tell this story because we love it so much and we’re so excited to SHARE it with YOU GUYS! That’s why we always seem so fuckin batshit. We’re desperately trying to tell this story the very best way possible. So that it has the absolute maximum impact. So that it is so good that it absolutely wallops you. It hits you so hard you can’t believe what just happened. But it’s a good thing. You enjoy it. You love it. Unless it’s in a genre you despise and therefore never watch. But other than that, that wallop is like a sweet embrace of your heart and soul. Your mind. A sweet embrace of your heart and soul. That’s what it is. I just figured that out now as I was saying it. That’s what it is. We’re trying to give you a hug. And this is the only way we know how. We’re trying to say we love you. And this is the only way we know how. By telling this story and creating this thing that we hope will be a gift to the world. And we want so badly for it to be perfect, or at least as good as can possibly be, that we get a little nuts about how we tell the story. And sometimes we have different opinions. What is usually referred to as creative differences. If I want to portray the character with an accent because she’s from the South but the director doesn’t want me to, we have to have a serious talk about which way to go with that. Accent or no accent? Because those are 2 different movies. Some directors love to invent on the fly. And they love it when you riff. Or when you bring something they weren’t expecting. And then after they cut, you guys stand there and talk about what you just did. And very often that little thing is like a doorway. And that doorway just got opened. And now we can look inside and see the story for the first time. The true, underlying story. The story that is actually what this is about and why this is happening. And that’s our Ah-hah! moment. And it allows us to do what we were hoping to do all along. Which is to create something awesome that you guys are gonna love. And if we didn’t have the freedom to do that, we may have just stuck totally to the script the way we rehearsed it. And there wouldn’t be that moment of insight. And the movie wouldn’t have been as good. It might’ve been good. It probably would’ve. Because movies are so collaborative that the cream usually rises to the top and everyone winds up making something pretty darn cool. But sometimes things click. Really click. Everyone likes each other and likes the script and is happy to be on set and is doing well personally and everything is good and they’re not distracted and they can be totally there in the moment. Present. And committed to the project and to their fellow actors and to everyone involved. It’s like magic. Every day. Every day something happens that’s like magic. Something creepy happens. Some little happenstantial serendipity double-dog dare ya weird shit. Because there’s no way that’s just a coincidence. As people on the shoot start to get to know each other, we all start to discover things about each other and the script that we didn’t know before. And it’s trippy. Like you’ll get a whole bunch of people who all have the same first name. Or people who are all from the same town but never knew each other. Or people who were all in a particular city at the same time but never met. Like they were all there on the same day. Like the same 7 or 8 people were all in Chicago on a Wednesday 9 years ago. And now they’re all here on this movie set together. Together again. All 8 people. That’s weird, right? There’s NO way that is a coincidence. That can’t simply happen. Or here’s another one: on a long shoot, there are always babies born. It’s the best. It’s one of my all-time favorite things in the world when you get to watch a group of women all go through pregnancy and childbirth together. And then when the babies are born, you get to meet them. They all come to set once it’s safe for them to be there and you get to look down at them and see their tiny hands and feet and take a really good look at these tiny little people, these cute and amazing babies, these little miracles. And then once everyone is there and has eaten and is enjoying the coffee, someone goes and gets the jar with the names in it. Because 9 months earlier, someone had the brilliant idea to go to each of the moms to be and ask them if they had a name for the baby. And every single one did. So they had them write them down one by one and they were sealed in this jar. And when you open the jar and read the names, something freaky happens. Say there are 13 babies born. 7 of them will have the same name. 7 of them will have the same name! Think about that. The odds of that are next to impossible. Literally next door. They’re one and the same. Imagine living next door to impossible. What would that be like? So then 2 of the other babies will have the same name, 2 others will have the same name, and the final 2 will be unique first names but they’ll have some other weird relationship. Like they both come to set with their parents having dressed them in gold or something. Something odd. Or both their dads are named Garth or something. This stuff doesn’t just happen. It’s confirmation. It’s confirmation of our actions. It’s a message. A message from God stroke Gawd or the Universe with a capital U that we are doing the right thing. So you see, the reason why we always seem so batshit crazy is because we’re dealing with all of that. And I know it’s not real life like driving truck or nursing or teaching or doing construction or being in corrections or taking somebody’s life in your hands when you do surgery on them or being a parent or caring for a parent. We’re off someplace saying words in front of a camera. Believe me, we get it. But when you take all of that and mash it all up into a giant fucking ball and then you combine it with millions and millions and millions of dollars and the inability to fuck up or make mistakes, it kinda fucks with your head a little. It fucks with your head a lot, actually. Honestly, half the job is staying sane while mostly sober. Sane while mostly sober. That is the true task of an actor. And that career of day to day action is interrupted by and punctuated by acting. Because it’s only when we’re on set and we’re 3 or 4 weeks into a 20 week shoot or 8 to 10 months into an 16 month shoot that we can breathe. That’s when we can finally breathe. We’re in the middle of this and we’re so busy and so focused that there simply isn’t time or room for anything else. If you’ve ever done a proper kickboxing class at a real kickboxing gym, you know. Because when you’re punching and kicking a heavy bag for 3 minutes straight and you’re giving it everything you’ve got and you’re exhausted and your shoulders are on fire and you can barely lift your arms or legs but you don’t stop, you keep going, and you give it everything you’ve got for the entire round, you’re in survival mode. There isn’t room in your mind or your awareness for other things. Like how much they’re paying you for this. Or the fact that your agent, your publicist, and pretty much all of your family and friends you talked to about this project said you should do something else. That this was all wrong for you. Or that this was not the best choice for you right now. Or how your last 3 movies were kind of flops. Not flops but also not that good. Not great. Not like your earlier roles. So this one really needs to be a home run. This one’s gotta get you some Oscar buzz. Otherwise people are going to start to talk. They’re going to start to say that you’re pretty much probably most likely done. You had your time and you did some good work but you were one of those people who burns out after about 7 or 8 years and then fades away. And then does a few commercials for something stupid. Like headache medicine. And you’re in black and white but the pills are in color. And after you swallow the pills and the voice says all the bad shit those pills might but probably won’t do to you, you fade into color, too. So it’s like a visual metaphor for you coming to life. Coming back to life. Because your headache went away. Because you took those pills. That particular brand of pills. And now you can play tennis or join the family on the hike they were going to go on without you. Or you can have cocktails on the beach with your friends while you’re all dressed in fancy tropical clothes that are very beige and flowy. And maybe you even do a sildenafil commercial. We should have every single A lister write, produce, and star in their own 90-second commercial for sildenafil. And then we can have a screening at Bonerfest. And everyone can get high as fuck and watch commercials about boners and fucking. Meryl Streep’s would be epic, I bet. And then we can all vote for the top 10. And then we’ll watch them again and do the top 3. And then we’ll watch those again and rank them 1, 2, and 3. That would be hilarious. Bonerfest. We should make that happen. Anyway, the point is that that’s why we all seem so crazy. We kind of are. You haff to be a little bit in order to be interested in this rather esoteric stuff. All the psychology of experience, reaction, motivation, and action. Shakespeare said, Action is eloquence. So we’re always wanting to be eloquent. In one way or another. And so we’re always looking for and trying to figure out what is the best action we can take in order to do that. And once you add in the insane amounts of money it costs to do this and the fact that if your movie bombs, it gets harder to get to work on another one. And then eventually no one wants you anymore. That’s all there is to it. It’s that simple. You’re like contaminated now. Everyone is afraid to talk to you. And then 8 years later you somehow get offered this amazing role in this tiny movie by someone who also wrote it and has done amazing work in the past. And you’re like, Holy fuck, this person wrote this part for me. So of course you do it. And then it comes out and the movie is a hit and suddenly everyone knows it’s okay to talk to you again. You try going through that. It’s like if you’re a garbage man and you’re a really good garbage man but then you drop 4 or 5 garbage cans on the street and make a huge mess and everyone starts to think something is wrong with you and pretty soon the other garbage men won’t talk to you. And then you get fired and you can’t even be a garbage man anymore. And you’re like, What the fuck, man? Being a garbage man is all I know. What else can I possibly do? And you’re kind of all alone and it sucks. But then one day someone invites you to come be a garbage man again. And you’re freaking out because this is the day you’ve been waiting for. But you also realize this is your final shot at being a garbage man. So you can’t mess it up. It has to go well. And thank God it does. And now all the other garbage men know it’s okay to talk to you again. That’s basically what it’s like. But you were talking about worshipping the work, not the actor.
Totally agree, by the way. I’m nobody from nowhere. Don’t even ask about me. Ask about the work. Let’s celebrate that. Do not be a fan of me; be a fan of the work. Cherish the work. Just the work.
And then I get a photo of Captain Blank holding the pic of me saying Clown! and I put a sign on it that says Dork!
And then that picture is everywhere. And it goes back and forth endlessly.
How many porn stars started out as fluffers? And then they were so good at fluffing that somebody said to put them in the movie. And then BAM they were porn stars.
Insofar as one is a star. A giant nuclear fireball somewhere in space. That is a star. A person who fornicates for the specific purpose of being photographed for the enjoyment of others is what?
What do you call a young woman with a penis so far into her mouth that it’s in her throat? And you can see it in there. And they leave it there. The camera comes close. And everyone ooh’s and ah’s and yes’s. And she looks sideways at the camera, hoping they’re getting the shot, hoping they all drop dead or get run over feet first by a steam roller and their shrieks of pain are surpassed only by the snappity snap snap crunchity crunch crunch of their many bones shattering and being flattened.
Like a squirrel under the tires of a white truck.
By the way, if that, or anything you hear, here or elsewhere, offends you, good. A writer’s job is to challenge you. Your job is to be challenged. And the more upset and pissed off and, dare we say it — triggered! — you become, the more you need to think about why that is. And it’s not extrinsic. It is intrinsic.
Tell that to Hitler, you Nazi fuck!
That.
Is.
Different.
Obviously.
Anyway, is a woman choking and gagging on a penis a star? A quote unquote star?
Will the porn subculture one day eclipse that of mainstream Hollywood?
What would that look like?
A culture in decline.
That’s what.
Says the guy who proposed Bonerfest.
By the way, I still feel bad about giving the one-legged guy with half a face 3 cents.
The other guy, no. Fuck him. I offered. He said no.
I wish I had resources to actually help. I wish we could build apartment complexes or a series of small houses for homeless people to live in. And there could be community and support to help them get clean, get gainful employment, get back to their dignity and self-respect, and get back to living a productive life. I think that would require a facility with chaperones and counselors and people who know how to handle addicts and mentally ill folks who need to be treated with kid gloves. At first, anyway. Because you haff to meet people where they are. You can’t look at a person who lives on the street in a little tent and keeps all their possessions in a shopping cart and tell them to get a job when they ask for help.
They don’t know how to get a job.
I’m several levels above being a homeless addict trying every day to survive on the street and I fucking hate trying to find a job. It’s terrible. Pounding the pavement, literally walking into businesses and trying to have some kind of perfect combination of confidence and humility — and timing, that’s the big one — and saying, Hi, uh, are you guys hiring?
And then you go from there. The person you’re talking to says yes or no and maybe they offer you an application. You fill it out. You ask to speak to the manager. You introduce yourself to them and hand them your application and try to encapsulate your qualifications and why they should hire you in about 20 seconds. It’s the ultimate elevator pitch. And most of the time, it doesn’t go well. And it’s humiliating and defeating. And then we complain about unemployment. A % no one can fucking agree on, by the way. But we have X number of people who want a job and X number of people who need to hire someone. Why is it so difficult for those people to connect?
Ever been to an employment agency? They get a cut of your hourly wage but at least you’re getting something. I had to alphabetize a giant stack of VHS tapes at HBO once. One day I was chatting with someone who actually worked there, a young woman sitting at an actual desk, not a temp like me. For some reason I’ve forgotten I mentioned that Tea Leoni had her own show. And she said, with disdain, Tea Leoni has her own show? And I said, Yeah. I didn’t watch it regularly because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t afford cable in my little studio apartment in Hollywood or because I wasn’t interested, I don’t recall. I hope it was a good show. But that young woman clearly knew Tea Leoni but did not know Tea had her own show. Nor was she supportive. Which I thought was shitty. I still do. I understand professional envy well. Remember that I’m nobody from nowhere. I was shooting spaghetti up my ass and almost drowning in a giant vat of spaghetti because I wasn’t making any money selling books. Seeing the chosen few doing the rounds on all the talk shows and chatting up their latest best seller was equal parts interesting and infuriatingly soul crushing. Because I knew I could do it. I’ve read plenty of work that wasn’t all THAT great. It was okay. But it was for sale in every book store. Every airport. Every grocery store. A cardboard point of sale display at gas stations. Gas stations. Give me 20 on pump 2 and– Oh, DaVinci Code 19…. I’ve been waiting for this. Love that Tom Hanks!
By the way, remember that movie he did about the guy who got stuck living at the airport? Which was a true story, by the way. That guy passed away. At the airport.
You know what that’s called?
Perspective.
Oh, poor me, my books don’t sell, this giant vat of spaghetti is so cold, someone help me.
Mothefucker, try LIVING at the airport for like 20 years.
What kind of society lets a person live in an airport?
You know those sad commercials for pet adoption Sarah McLaughlin used to do? Heart-wrenching, right? Yes, of course.
If you look into the numbers, it’s even more horrifying. I remember reading that about 1.5 million animals are put down every year in the U.S. alone. Do the math. 1.5 million divided by 365. That’s about 4000 a day. Except it’s actually more because of weekends and holidays. That’s a lot.
Back when I used to sell insurance, I called a woman randomly on a cold call — I had to make at least 100 cold calls per day — and she actually was in need of the long-term care insurance I was selling. She told me how she’d gone to visit her elderly mother at the care facility. When she walked in one evening, she found her mother alone in her room naked on her bed with no sheets, no blankets, the window open, a fan in front of the window blowing cold air onto her mother and it was December.
Because they were trying to kill her.
They got paid by the state each time they filled a bed.
Have you ever waited tables? You want people to come in and enjoy their meal, of course, but you don’t exactly like it when they linger for 2 hours. Because it’s all about turnover.
What kind of world is that?
There are only a few things I am aware of that strike me as worse than elder abuse. Nannies who get caught on video hitting toddlers is one of them. Ever seen that video of the little boy standing in his crib in his diaper and the nanny comes over and whacks him on the head with a wooden spoon? The kind you use to cook boxed macaroni and cheese. He starts to cry and she goes back to what she was doing. Then comes over and hits him with the spoon again, right on his little head. And his little hand goes to his head and he looks at her imploringly, his face a wrinkled mass of terror with tears streaming down his face as he cries and cries because he doesn’t understand. And then she comes over and whacks him on the head with the spoon a third time. And he falls down in the crib and he sits there, one hand clutching the white painted slat of his prison, the other hand on his head as he cries alone. Where are his parents? Who is this woman into whose care he was placed? What demons are riding her soul? Taking pleasure in striking a helpless, trusting, innocent child. And what effect will it have upon him as he grows up?
And if you say he probably deserved it and she’s just beating the toxic masculinity out of him, I hope you get run over by the aforementioned steam roller.
And I hope the driver stops somewhere around your knees. And then we’re all going to take turns whacking you on your head with a wooden spoon. The kind you use to cook macaroni and cheese.
By the way, the misguided waste of space twat who was hitting that little boy was arrested, charged, tried, and convicted. Beyond that, it’s her karma. But she probably got the ever-lovin shit beaten out of her — daily — by the other women in her bloc.
Would it be weird — totally different subject, by the way — if you went out with someone one time and it was just okay and maybe you fooled around a little bit but you didn’t have sex and then you had to end the date and you’re planning on going out again but then you’re out somewhere and you bump into them at the mall or something and they’re with one of their parents.
And you and that parent have instant energy. An instant connection. Where you are looking at each other and you’re both disarmed because you find each other so attractive. And you immediately want to bone and date and go out and be together and most likely probably almost definitely have a quote unquote serious relationship. Because you want to FUUUUUUCK. And it’s obvious. To both of you. That both of you want to do that. And it’s there. You feel it. Not just the physical sex part but also a pull, like you’re drawn to this person. And you can tell they’re drawn to you. Like you don’t wanna be stupid or childish or melodramatic but upon a bit of reflection you realize that it may even be love at first sight. But you’re not sure because you’ve never had that before. Where you lay eyes on someone for the first time and your jaw hits the ground. And your first thought is, WHO is THAT??? And you just know that if they reciprocate, it’s on. Dating, moving in together, meeting the parents, figuring out where to get married….
Not if.
Where.
If is fucking irrelevant.
It’s not even part of the conversation.
Where is the question. And when. But mostly where.
Now, here’s the actual question: if that’s you and your date’s parent, would it be wrong to hook up with them and do all the stuff we just described? The wedding and everything?
Could you tell the other person how you feel and that you have the hots for their mom or dad? And assuming their parent is single, too, by the way. They are available. Both of you are available. The only weird thing is that you met them through this person you just went out with.
What do you do?
Do you squash your feelings and never say a word? And then marry that person just so you can be close to their parent you’re secretly in love with and who is secretly in love with you? But you guys never act on it because you’re not that type of people?
Or….
Do you go for it?
You come clean. You confess your feelings. You’re honest. Transparent. People love that stuff when it comes to government, right? But what if your boyfriend says he’s in love with your mom? And your mom says she’s in love with your boyfriend. And they’re both basically going to dump you so that they can be together. What do YOU do? Say, Okay! And try to be happy and go find someone else and let them be together? Isn’t that the mature thing to do?
Remember that song: I’m in love with Stacy’s mom!
And Stacy’s mom is in love with you, dude. Congratulations. Enjoy.
Here’s a story: it’s called Longstem Roses.
You’ve always loved long-stem roses. And you’ve always had this fantasy of going on a blind date and both of you show up with a long-stem rose for the other person. Because you think that’s the most romantic thing you can give to someone. A single, perfect, long-stem rose. Not a dozen. That’s garish and flashy and looks like you’re throwing your money around.
Anyway, after a couple of longterm disasters, you decide to try online dating. You personally know a lot of people who met their someone online. It totally worked out for them. And it has always made sense to you because it provides a really good heretofore nonexistent screening process. You can filter people by interests. It is therefore easy to find someone with your same interests. Tack on a sense of humor, a face you like, and a body you can work with, and you’re homefree.
Plus you’ve always admired your parents’s relationship. They seem like they’re so in love and they’re so cute together and you want that. You’ve always wanted that. Every past relationship you’ve been in was okay, some better than others, but none of them had that.
Online dating it is.
And after a couple of weeks of getting your feet wet, you find a profile you like. And the more you learn, the more you begin to dig this person. So you reach out and say hey. And they say hey back. And immediately you guys are vibing. It’s kinda freaky how you’re into the same stuff. And you haven’t seen pics yet because you want to get to know the person first. So body shots only. But the body shots are good. You can definitely work with that. And they say the same about you. And pretty soon, you guys are having full-on cybersex. Which you’ve maybe kinda sorta done a lot of, or maybe only a little, but it was kind of a long time ago. But this seems different. This is…good.
And pretty soon you guys are chatting almost every day. You seldom go more than 2 to 3 days without meeting online for a chat.
And every day when you shut off your computer and go join your family for dinner, hoping they don’t ask you for the millionth time if you looked at any apartments today, you sit down and kind of haff to stop yourself from smiling. Because your thoughts are with this person. And it’s exciting. Really exciting. You’re excited. You are excited. You are EXCITED. Because you…are…excited. I mean…friggen…ex…ci…ted. You wanna bone right now. Even though you just came with them in the bedroom literally 10 minutes ago.
And this goes on for months.
And it’s great.
You’re in love.
You are definitely in love.
No question.
Like…. You’re ready to go ring shopping.
And they are, too.
It is THAT serious.
This is it. This is IT. Not a freakin clown in the sewer, because nothing’s as great as that, but pretty close.
And, so, finally, after much trepidation and fear of losing this amazing online romance, you guys decide to meet. You set a day. A time. A place.
And you agree to each bring a single long-stemmed red rose.
Because you both love them. But not alone, only as a pair. Because one rose is what is tossed onstage to a ballerina. And she picks it up and smells it and mouths Thank you! and bows. And it’s tragic. A display of beauty and anguish of equal merit. Because for her, to love is to dance. And to dance is to love. And she must not forsake it for another. Dance is her life. She can never bring a rose of her own.
But you can. And you do. The day comes. You’re ready. You’ve been ready for weeks. You’re looking good. Hair is good, clothes are good, face is good, breath is hopefully good, body is definitely good because you’ve been busting your ass getting in shape and it’s starting to show.
You arrive first. And you wait. Rose in hand.
You sit. You wait.
You stand. You pace.
You sit again.
The door opens.
A flash of afternoon sun on the glass blinds you. You see a rose. The long green stem. The thorns have been removed. Just like you did to yours. Common courtesy. You’re already even more in love than you were.
You just need to see their face.
It doesn’t even matter, it doesn’t even matter. You’re doing this. This is happening. It’s so obvious. To both of you. You’re definitely in love. Definitely. For sure. You’ve never had this kind of connection before. With anyone. Ever. EVER.
So yeah. You bet your ass this is happening.
The door swings open and they walk in, rose in hand.
And you’re standing there staring at them. And they’re staring at you. And you’re both holding a rose. A beautiful, perfect, — and expensive — lovely red long-stemmed rose. Sans thorns. Because one rose is tragic. But two roses together form a pair. Two roses suggests something. They set one’s mind to work. They suggest the beginning of a bouquet. Perhaps even a family.
You’re a 26-year old man standing there with a rose in your hand, staring at your mom.
You’re a 26-year old woman standing there with a rose in your hand, staring at your dad.
You’re a 46-year old man standing there with a rose in your hand, staring at your daughter.
You’re a 46-year old woman standing there with a rose in your hand, staring at your son.
You’re a 26 year old gay man who hasn’t come out yet, staring at your dad who hasn’t either.
You’re a 26-year old gay woman who hasn’t come out yet, staring at your mom who hasn’t either.
You’re a
You get the idea.
It’s your mom.
It’s your dad.
Your opposite-sex parent.
Or your child. Your son. Your daughter.
And all you can think about is all those times you sat at the dinner table having just had an orgasm. And it was with the person across the table from you.
2 longstemmed roses.
Indeed.
That’s our show for tonight. Thank you, everyone. Take care. Remember to tip your waitress! And not to accidentally fall in love with a member of your own family. Good night!
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