Drinking with a star

We finished shooting last night at ten and the male lead, not Ashton Kutcher, asked me if I wanted to grab a drink on the way home. We stopped at Noir Bar in Maison 140 on Lasky Drive, and by the time I returned from the bathroom, nAshton had two attractive UCLA premed students lounging back on those red cushions in front of the lacquered wall panels. Anne and Carole. I sat down next to nAshton and he introduced me to them and told me that he’d ordered champagne and did I mind? I didn’t.

When the bottle arrived, he immediately ordered another and we emptied the first before the second got there. The talk was small. In fact, it wasn’t talk, it was banter. Then, nAshton’s phone played a little tune, he answered, he spoke, he snapped the phone shut, apologized, and was gone.

“I’ve never met a star before,” Anne said. “Not to talk to, even though I grew up in Woodland Hills.”

“I shook Don Knotts’ hand,” Carole said, “but he was old and unwell.”

“Isn’t nAshton in a relationship?” Anne asked me.

I shrugged.

“That wouldn’t stop him,” I said.

“I was already dreading the moment he made his move,” she said.

“It would have been painless,” I said. “You with several more glasses in you.”

They put down their  flutes and eyed me.

“I’m older than your fathers,” I said. “I’m here for a drink.”

“What’s it like, working with the stars?” Carole said. “Are they different from the rest of us?”

“Probably not,” I said, “but I’m different when I’m with them. Sitting here with you, I feel almost normal.”

“So you were going to say no?” Carole said to Anne.

“Absolutely. Well, maybe take it one step further, but no more.”

“One step further and you’re in his house,” Carole said.

“Even so.”

“Once you’re in his house, it’s hard to say no,” Carole said.

“He’s done this a hundred times,” I said. “Probably more. There is never a good moment to say no.”

“Then I guess we dodged a bullet,” Anne said. “Whew.”

We finished the second bottle and I ended up inviting them over to the lot to watch a scene being shot.

“The only thing is,” I said, “you’re both remarkably attractive, not to mention bright. If nAshton sees you there, he’s liable to ask you to do this again.”

“We’ll say no,” Anne said.

“He’ll be in costume. Made up. A very, very impressive guy on set.”

“We might go for a drink with him” Anne said., “but that’s it.”

The Pre-pregnancy Amendment

Mississippi and South Dakota are considering amendments to their state constitutions that would define the beginning of life, protected by all state laws, rules, and regulations, to occur at the point of pre-pregnancy. Improper termination of the life of an ovum or spermatazoon would be defined as murder. The state constitutions are thus to be made more clearly pro-life, not pro-choice (pro-murder).

For example, suppose that you are a young nerd with absolutely no hope of “getting next to” a woman. Then spilling your seed on barren ground, such as your bed sheets or the bottom of your shower stall, is ok. But woe betide you if you try that with a potentially fertile wife in the house! Do not tell the court that she “wasn’t in the mood,” or that you snuck some ‘zoons into her with your finger after she fell asleep. The sin of Onan kills off countless, literally countless, potential babies, even African-American ones.

The good news is that if you’re sent to jail for murder, you won’t be raped there, because of course that wouldn’t be legal either, like it is now. There would also be prison-prisons for those prisoners who do go ahead and rape you and need to be imprisioned, but are imprisioned already.

What about ovulation? In Mississippi at least, when ovulation occurs, a tiny little tasteful bell will tinkle on the front of your dress. Get that ovum fertilized asap and there won’t be any trouble.

All contraception, whether it prevents the joining of ‘zoon and ovum, or kills off the ovum after the fact, is murder. Condums are defined as concealed weapons. Erections more than one length of the member away from your wife is attempted murder.

Of course, anything kinky, like adultry, homosexuality, bestiality, incest, three-ways, foursomes and moresomes, bondage, lap dances, phone sex, or sex at a picnic, are unconstitutional, and murder.

I become a presidential caucus delegate

I was contacted recently and recruited to the state presidential caucus. Amazing! My vote, on one single night, will help determine who runs for President of the United States next year. What a responsibility!

Of course I knew when I got the call that I was being mistaken for another, real political guy with my same name, who lives about $10 million down the block from me. No car up on blocks in his front yard! (If he has a front yard, down at the end of that winding drive behind those stone walls.)

The candidate campaigns began contacting me immediately and I soon had met a number of famous people:

Somebody Cain (I forget his first name. Starts with an H) – As soon as this guy grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him, staring into my eyes, I knew that he could make me buy a car or vacuum cleaner, or anything else he wanted. I pray that he never knocks on my door right after I’ve got paid on a Friday. How come there are more Cains than Ables around?

Rush Limbaugh – I’m pretty sure he’s not running for anything. That’s a good thing because he don’t look healthy to me. Fat, red faced, sweaty, big cigar in his mouth, cute little thing hanging on his arm. If he hasn’t had a heart attack already, he’s due, and if he has, he’s due for another.

Somebody Bachmann – This woman is wound tighter than a $2 watch. I was afraid for a second that she wasn’t going to let go of my hand until I promised her something I’d regret.

Sarah Palin – Yes, I met her. Shook her hand. She looked into my eyes and I saw something hard come over her face. I felt like one of those wolves running on the tundra with her helicopter gaining on me from behind.

Rick Perry – He was made up a little, not like a woman but like a TV news reporter. He was lively. Jovial. His handler told me that he got like that before an execution. So it happened a lot.

Mitt Romney – I was a little drunk when I met Mr. Romney. He opened his mouth and I said, “Don’t even start, Mr. Romney. I can tell you’re going to lie like a rug before you even start.” Of course I regretted that later.

I never met Newt, who they tell me is still running. Newt. Newt. What the hell were his parents thinking? Unless they’re named Salamander and Gecko, that is.

Eventually, the caucus folks discovered their mistake, but not before I had attended many a cocktail party and rubbed elbows, or shoulders, or whatever you rub, with the rich and famous. I guess it was my 15 minutes of fame.

The Purple diet

I’ve been asked, “If I go on the Purple diet, will I turn purple?”

No. You will turn purple when you die; or at least, your bottom half will. It’s called lividity. But you probably already know that, what with Law and Order and CSI, so forth.

The purpose of the Purple diet is to help you live longer, not to die. This should be obvious.

Note: there are some folks who do look purple, or have a purplish tinge to their complexion, especially after a hard night at the pub or in the factory sewing leather strips together, or, among the very darkest-skinned Africans, when sweaty, in bright moonlight. This is not related directly to diet, any more than a yellow complexion implies that you eat a lot of overcooked corn. Many yellow-skinned folks have never seen corn, or perhaps know only of popcorn, a top American export to cineplexes around the world.

Why eat purple? To not eat non-purple. Have you ever seen a purple doughnut? You have? Don’t eat it. Have you ever seen a purple porterhouse or purple fries? Seriously, don’t eat them if you have, particularly if you fished them out of a dumpster.

What about purple coloring additives? If you go this route, just maintain your current diet and color everything purple. You’ll hate yourself for cheating in this way, and eat less. Or more.

Purple food suggestions: blue/purple potatoes, eggplant, blue/purple beans, berry sorbet, blueberries, some blue corn, purple cabbage, dried plums/prunes, raisins, lavender ice cream, purple peppers, beets, Kalamata viniagrette, purple kale, grape jello, radiccio, purple pole beans, purple cauliflower, Purple Jesus, purple yam cake, cranberry sauce, purple carrots, blue corn meal, taro, purple basil, blueberry catsup, purple asparagus.

Questions: What if my specimens of the above are not quite purple, but more reddish or blueish? What if the vegetable turns green with steaming? Answer: What is color, anyway? Who’s to say that you and I see the same color when we look at something? My left and right eyes see slightly different colors. Listen. Get something purple, cook it if necessary, and then eat it! This is not religion, where you fret about every little commandment. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not lusteth after the babe next door, who does not need the Purple diet. What she needs is a steady diet, alright, a steady diet of… aw, forget it.

Celebrities who might have tried the Purple diet: Oprah. Kirstie Alley. John Goodman. Al Gore. Gabourey Sidibe.

Do diets work? Not to be a buzz kill and go dark, but if the Purple diet fails you, rest assured that at some point in the future, the ultimate diet – death – will work like a charm.

Guest blogger: Emily Dickinson

Hello everybody.

Warning: I won’t be including any new poems here. Those of you who know something about me know that I keep my poems to myself. Out of 1,800, I’ve published fewer than a dozen. In fact, perhaps I won’t publish this bit of prose, either.

joem18b volunteers here at the Union Psychiatric Facility, which is how I met him. Strangely enough, he teaches a class in basket weaving. Basket weaving used to be the principal activity with which mental patients in asylums passed the time, but it has become a lost art in the padded cells of America. I specialize in the use of soft spaghetti and other noodles. This sounds crazy, I know, but that’s par for the course here on the ward. At least I don’t use human excrement!

Of course I am a woman suffering from the pathological delusion that I am an historically famous poetess, dead these 125 years. If I work hard, hard enough, I can recover a reality beyond these, my own personal confusions.

I earn my current permissions level here on the ward by repeating those two sentences to staff whenever appropriate. Naturally I include the statements here in my post. I believe them to be true. Really.

Having said that, let me answer the question most often put to me: How can I be so placid when I am locked in a secure building with no option to leave? My answer: I never went out anyway. I’m perfectly agoraphobic. This is the ideal situation for me. I write new poems every day. I’m allowed to wear a white dress.

My boyfriend is Napoleon. Stereotypical? Not so. There are virtually no Napoleons left in American mental institutions. The emperor is out of favor. Or perhaps the current level of historical ignorance in this country has turned him into an unknown. But this instantiation of him, my Napoleon, has sold me. Ask him a question and his answer is either true when you check it out on Google, or there is no answer available online.

Why Napoleon? If you know anything about the man, you know that he can’t keep it in his pants. That is in no way a problem for me. I’ve been taking care of myself my whole life. My relationship with Nappy, as I call him, is not based upon physical considerations. And please don’t bother googling “Emily Dickinson” and “lesbian” together. The poems that you’ll find referenced there came to me on exceptionally hot and muggy days, when wearing my usual starched garments became unbearable.

Anyway, my father was an extremely erudite man. I believe that is why I am attacted to Napoleon. We can sit and gab about history for hours.

I’m looking out the window now, and I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a pine tree, or is that a juniper? Kilmer stole the line from me, by the way.

Guest blogger: my mom

You don’t phone. You don’t write.

Ha Ha. Just kidding.

Move out of the house.

So this is where you spend all your time. The crumbs in this keyboard! No wonder we have rats.

They aren’t squirrels. They’re roof rats. Google it.

Hello, everybody. I’m glad to meet you.

To the shiksha who my son has been hanging out with online: Invite him over. If you live at home like he does, that’s ok. He can sleep on the couch. Don’t feed him pork. Have some protection handy, although to tell you the truth, I don’t think he knows much about that side of life yet.

To the boys who my son plays games with online: If the shiksha don’t invite him over, you invite him over. He can sleep on the floor.

Who do I have to screw to get this kid a job?

Son, if you don’t go down and apply at Carl’s Junior this afternoon, you’re dead to me, although I will keep doing your laundry and ironing, including your sheets and underwear.

could the anti-christ be china?

“could the anti-christ be china?”

This is a search question that was used to reach my blog today. I think that it deserves an answer.

First of all, I know a Chinaman. He serves me a plate of pan-fried noodles every Friday evening at Woo’s. I don’t know whether he speaks English or not. All I’ve heard him say is “You likee?” He wears a short-sleeved white shirt and black trousers. Could he be the Anti-Christ? Perhaps. I can’t just come out and ask him, because the Anti-Christ is apt to lie. Let’s keep this guy in the back of our minds for now.

There are one billion Chinese in China. That’s 1,000 million. We can deal with them million by million and then we’ll only have to do it 1,000 times. Half are female, so we can eliminate them. Or, wait. Has it ever been proven for sure that Christ was a guy? Maybe we better not rule out the females just yet. And anyway, with all the transgender, sex-changing activity going on (End of Days!), it’s a moving target anyway.

So, first of all, the Anti-Christ will come all friendly like. The checkout woman over at Pay And Go did not get the memo. Very crabby. Maybe she’s Japanese. I read an article where a whole crowd of folks, white, brown, yellow, and black, were given a test: they were all shown pictures of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. Nobody could tell the difference. So that checkout woman, if the Anti-Christ is Chinese, is not Chinese. She failed the friendly test. That’s how we know that the Japanese are not the Anti-Christ. Pearl Harbor.

What about all those different Chinese languages? You could get 20 Chinese in a room and none might know what any of the others are talking about. Is the Anti-Christ that tricky? What about Taiwan? Is everybody on the island just pretending to dislike the mainland?

If the Chinese are the Anti-Christ, they sure fooled Pearl Buck. And they’ve wasted a humongous amount of time, incense, and gongs on Buddist ceremonies.

Wait a minute! Lucy Liu. I love Lucy Liu. No way she’s the Anti-Christ. But she’s seductive, so seductive. Could she come to me sometime, like a thief in the night? No, that’s Jesus who will do that. It’ll be spooky when he does, too.

My time as a monk

When I was in my 20s, I renounced the materialism of the Western world. I got a job on a freighter after obtaining my seaman’s ticket, and worked on the high seas until taking my accumulated pay and debarking for good at the port of Chittagong. I could have lived like a king for a year in Bangladesh but instead I secreted my money on my person and made my way north on foot, depending upon the kindness of strangers for my biryani and llish.

In time, I passed through the hills of Meghalaya (the Scotland of India) and crossed into Assam. I endured rain, sat and watched the one-horned Indian rhinoceros, and eventually progressed into Bhutan. Here, in the deep valleys, as I approached the mighty Himalayas, I began sitting with the Vajrayana monks whom I encountered. Finally, in the company of these monks, I began the long, long tramp to Cona in Tibet, at 14,000 feet, and eventually, as the seasons passed,  to Gonggar. I was tempted to apply for membership in the Sakyapa school of Tibetan Buddhism at the Gonggar Dzong or the Gonggar Choede Monastery, but I craved to leave the valleys and trek up into the wild and rocky Himalaya hinterlands, which I did, feet wrapped in burlap. I could feel myself leaving the world behind and approaching true understanding on the edge of the great voids of thin air that fill the spaces between the mountain peaks up there.

I arrived finally in a small and nameless village on the stoney gray flank of a gigantic mountain. A woman, Chomo-Lung-Ma (Godess Mother of the Universe), took me in. There were no monks in the village but she explained by gesture that this was a good thing – that I could best advance my own personal monkhood in solitary fashion.

It developed that she had six children. She kept me busy with chores, which seemed good for a newbie monk. I never figured out where the village’s food came from. The goats would wander off over the flinty slopes; they must have found something to eat somewhere back there because they came back sated. Chomo-Lung-Ma gave me sustenance sufficient to keep me alive and able to work, no more.

When Spring arrived, she gathered the family’s meager belongings and the kids and prodded me out onto the track through the village. It seemed as if we walked for months after that. Walked and walked. In fact, we did walk for months. We walked until we arrived on the ocean shore at the harbor of Beihai in Guangxi province. Chomo-Lung-Ma took my money stash, which had remained intact since my final day on the freighter, and she and I and her children crossed the Pacific and were smuggled ashore south of L.A. We caught a succession of buses north to a furnished bungalow in Canoga Park. Five bedrooms, three baths, red-tile roof, full landscaping. We took up residence as a happy, middle-class married couple. She worked with a gang smuggling Far Eastern drugs; I was in charge of the kids, the pets we acquired, and the Escalade. Two housemaids came in on Tuesdays and Fridays.

I would have done some yard work, but a Mexican crew showed up every Thursday to take care of that.

I join the 1%

I was moaning and groaning about money and how I didn’t have any and how unfair it was.

“Go see that young fellow David Dollhouse. He’s rich as Croesus. Maybe he’ll share,” my mom said.

I had first met David Dollhouse (of the Rhode Island Dollhouses) out in the woods. Money’s no good in the woods. Me and David were equals in the woods and we got along fine, because I was always careful to recognize his special interest. David believed (and still believes)  that every insect used to be a human being.

He’s a member of the 1%, or even the 0.1% or 0.01%. He lives in a room in a Motel 6 on the outskirts – the outer outskirts – of Curtoe, Oklahoma. He spends most of his time out in the fields behind his room.

“See that ant?” he would say to me. “That ant was a Jew. See him scurry around like that? It’s pathetic.”

He told me I could share his room. He gave me a credit card and told me to use it for anything I needed in Curtoe. The first time I went into town, I had to walk. I checked the credit limit on the card at the local bank. There was no limit. I drove back to the motel in a spanking new used Honda Civic that I bought outright from a lot in town. It had a good AM/FM radio and new retreads.

“I want to introduce you to a snake,” David said to me. “She used to be my piano teacher – the one who charged a lot and put her hand in my fly to bribe me into practicing Hanon, which I hated. So now she’s a snake.”

“Snakes aren’t bugs,” I said.

David snorted.

“Snakes are bugs,” he said. “You have a lot to learn, Grasshopper. There are people who are bugs.”

“Confusing,” I said.

“This snake tried to crawl into my fly. That’s how I know it’s Mrs. O’Dowd. Never trust an Irish piano teacher.”

The next time I was in town, I bought a Boeing 777. They told me that it was impossible to ride it back to the motel. It turns out, no matter how rich you are, there are some things you can’t buy.

“You can’t buy happiness,” said Mrs. Smith, who ran the motel, but she seemed pretty happy. Once David had moved in, she closed all the other rooms.  She doubled the cleaning staff, though, mostly family members, all for David’s room. He tipped with his credit card. The maids put bugs in his bed.

I helped David organized a bug parade on Veteran’s Day. Then I went into town to test Mrs. Smith’s theory. First, I needed to be unhappy, so I went into the hardware store and hit my thumb with a hammer. It hurt like the dickins. I was unhappy. I complained to Mr. Jones, the owner. He told me that I had only myself to blame.

“Oh, yeah?” I said, and I bought the store, lock, stock, and barrel on the spot. Mr. Jones and his clerks and bookkeeper all left and the next thing I knew, customers were pestering me to find items and check them out at the register, wanting to return purchases, wanting gift wrap, and me with a sore thumb. A sore right thumb. I didn’t have the sense to hit my left one instead. So Mrs. Smith proved right. Money could not buy happiness.

My idyll with the rich came to an abrupt end when David caught me with a bucket of KFC. He claimed that chickens were bugs and I was in fact a cannibal, and I was out on my ear. My new Civic pooped out before I reached the state line and when I tried to get it fixed, my credit card had expired.

My big break as a reporter

Folks ask me how I became successful in the field of newspaper reporting. Hard work, I answer. However, I did get one big break.

I was just starting out as a cub reporter on the Parings Journal in northern Mississippi. I was walking down Main Street one evening at dusk and I came to John Brown lounging outside Parings Drug Store, smoking a cigarette. John wasn’t no older than me, but he was already sheriff, because his daddy was mayor. I asked him if he had anything newsworthy to report.

“Just that I’m busting up a robbery,” he said, gesturing toward the darkened drug store.

“Who’s in there?”

“Lanny Smith. Stealing drugs.”

I pulled out my notepad.

“How come you’re out here then?” I said.

“I called WREB over in Leesville. They’re dispatching a crew with a camera. I’m going to be on the news tonight.”

“Who’s around back?”

“Billy, of course. We’ve got Lanny surrounded.”

Billy Brown was John’s little brother. He was a bigger hothead than John, but not half as smart.

“You think Billy will wait for the news crew?” I said. “What’s your plan when they get here?”

“Once they get all set up, I’m going to go in there and shoot Lanny.”

“His daddy won’t like that,” I said.

John gave that some thought. Lanny’s daddy was not a man to trifle with.

“I’ll shoot him in the foot,” John said. “I’ve got to shoot him somewhere.”

“Can I go in first and interview him?” I said.

“No, I don’t want you rocking the boat. Go around back and tell Billy to be patient. I don’t want the little piss ant messing things up.”

“I’ll go tell Billy, if I can get my interview.”

John nodded and I hurried around to the back of the store. Billy was just reaching for the handle of the screen door. He had his gun in his hand. He and John both carried those old long-barreled Colt Peacemakers.

“Hold on, Billy” I said. “John told me I could go in and get an interview. He says you should be patient.”

“He don’t always get his own way. Let him be patient if he wants.”

“I know, Billy, but you want to be wrote up in the newspaper, don’t you? I can’t do it if you shoot Lanny before I talk to him. Hold off and I’ll put your picture on the front page.”

Billy pulled open the screen door and held it for me. I opened the back door and stepped in.

“Lanny,” I said. “I’ve come to interview you for the Parings Journal.”

“Come on in, then,” he said from the gloom.

Billy and I went in and found Lanny sitting on a stool behind the register at the pharmacy counter. He was drinking a coke.

“What have you stole so far?” Billy said.

“Let me ask the questions, if you please,” I said.

“You little piss ant,” Billy said.

“That’s what your brother just called you,” I said.

I had to grab Billy then to keep him from stepping out front and shooting his brother on the spot.

“Calm down,” I told him. “You’re an officer of the law, Billy. Now Lanny, what have you stole?”

Lanny gestured back at the shelves full of pill bottles and lotion bottles and bottles of powders that lined the walls.

“Nobody told me they’d be so many,” he said. “How am I supposed to know what to steal?”

“What have you got there?” I said. He had a big brown bottle of capsules in front of him.

“They’re bright yellow,” Lanny said. “What do you think?”

“I think they’ll speed you up,” I said.

“Well, hell, I’ll take some of that,” Billy said.

He stuck his gun in his belt, opened the jar, and pulled out a handful of capsules, which he stuffed into his mouth and chewed and swallowed.

“If these work,” he said, “I’m going out there and punch Mr. Big Britches right in his damned eye.”

We did not have long to wait before Billy’s pupils shrank down to the point of invisability. His face hardened up in a peculiar way and he began to speak slowly and thoughtfully in a language that Lanny and I could not understand. He walked to the front door of the store, gun in hand. I heard the news van pull up outside.

“Go on home now,” I told Lanny. “I’ll leave your name out of my story. Mostly it won’t be about you, anyway.”