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Lifetime Achievement
Jodie Foster, who gave a speech accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that had so many bizarre aspects to it that my head nearly exploded after listening to it. To begin with, Ms. Foster is 50 years old and no 50 year-old has any business being given a lifetime achievement award (even if she did begin her career at the age of 6); especially not when I'm 51 and the closest I'm coming to winning an award is being told that I'm a finalist in the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes. Next, Ms. Foster has had major roles in dozens of motion pictures, only two of which were memorable enough to register points for a lifetime achievement award (I'm talking about Taxi Driver and Silence of the Lambs; she was great in The Accused but without her the thing was a programmer on the Lifetime channel). Most of her movies are unwatchable crap like Contact, Maverick (about which my friend Jerry Winsett said "she should use her talents for good and not evil") and the desperately-needed remake of Anna and the King. And when Robert Downey, Jr. presented her the award (in a smug speech that was more about himself than Ms. Foster), he described her as "one of our most admired directors." Ms. Foster has directed a total of three movies that have been released, Little Man Tate, Home for the Holidays and The Beaver, all of which were came and went without notice (although when she accepted her Oscar for Silence of the Lambs, she curiously behaved as though she was receiving it for Little Man Tate which had been released the same year). But the thing about the Golden Globe presentation which perked the most interest was her rambling acceptance speech where she bitched about how little privacy she enjoyed while teasing the audience with the possibility that she would finally be coming out as gay. I'm behind on reading my Jodie Foster Fan Club Newsletters but I was under the impression that she had come out as gay years ago. Whether she has or hasn't means that I have exactly the same chance of having her find me sexually attractive as I ever did, so it's not really a blip on my radar if she's shacking up with a female kangaroo. I would advise Ms. Foster that if she's so annoyed that people are prying into her private life, she might want to avoid things like going on national television and then working the media into an uproar about finally coming clean on which direction she rolls. I understand that Ms. Foster has a vastly different point of view of such things as I do, being in the public eye since she was a kid and having the unprecedented life experience of having a lunatic try to murder the president just to win her affection. But if you're going to whine about it, I suggest you do it in the safe confines of your lavishly appointed estate to some therapist who charges $200 an hour. Some people have real problems and they're not going on NBC during prime time to complain about them. Those people value their privacy too highly to pull a stunt like that.
Cinephile Maximilian Mastrangelo. I kept a running commentary about the Golden Globes on the social network during the broadcast roundly mocking the winners and presenters, my reward for which was being roundly mocked in the Comments area by anyone who was paying attention. My statement which aroused the largest response came after Homeland won yet another award for Best Dramatic Series, to which I observed that I have tried watching a couple of episodes but could never really get into it and I wondered if this might be another case of the emperor running around naked and waving his tiny dong in our faces. This led to a avalanche of replies; some of whom told me that I was out of my mind and clearly mentally retarded, while others strongly agreed with my assertion in spite of the fact that I was clearly mentally retarded. The strongest response came from Mr. Mastrangelo, who opined "It's the best show ever produced for television.... EVER. The first episode I watched changed my life." I happen to know that Mr. Mastrangelo has seen every frame of film created for mass consumption that has been made since 1917 so I will not dispute his taste in the matter. But it's a bold statement to say that a TV show has changed your life since the most influence any of them has had on me is in determining which station I'll have my cable box set to for a half hour as I drink myself into a state of catatonia. I would venture to say that the only TV series that has strongly affected the manner in which I live out my day-to-day existence was the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, since I have gone on record as admitting that Ms. Tyler Moore was the first celebrity that I ever physically abused myself to the mental image of. In the countless hours of TV-watching that I have done since, no show has has had remotely the same influence on my day-to-day behavior as has my first mental encounter with Mary Richards. But I respect Mr. Mastrangelo's opinion too much not to give Homeland a second chance to see if it can make the same impact on me as The Mary Tyler Moore Show did. That Claire Danes is pretty hot in the right light.
My nemesis Misty LaRue, who posted on her Facebook Wall an online article called Which Book Shaped Who You Are Today? and added the challenge "Any thoughts FB friends?"Her Yenta chums leapt into the fray with such predictable responses as The Artist's Way, Moby Dick and Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weight Solution Cookbook; tomes which I have no doubt none of them so much as cracked the cover on but wanted to come off as erudite and well-read to the other members of the coven. The only person who gave a genuine answer to the question was myself, who submitted The Best of Penthouse Forum Letters #23. That's the one with the letter from the guy who shows up at his blind date's apartment to pick her up and is met at the door by her lingerie model roommate. They start having sex on the living room floor when the blind date (who is also a lingerie model) comes in dripping wet from the shower and catches them. At first she's mad but she gets so turned on by the sight of them that she joins them in a three-way. I don't want to spoil the ending for you (it's a happy one) and I can't say if it was the delicate prose style or the profound philosophical message it imparted but I have never encountered a work of fiction or non-fiction (and I have decided that this falls into the latter category, no matter how many women who tell me that the positions the guy describes simply aren't physically possible) that made such a overpowering impact on me or one that made me want to live out the story as my own personal reality. The closest I've come is having a blind date with a lingerie saleswoman that lived with her Great Dane. That didn't quite match up to the book, although she was pretty pissed off when she came into the living room and found the dog and me having sex on the floor. I never thought that I would be writing an Enemies List entry like this until it actually happened to me.
Josh Helmuth, who supported me when I starred in a production of the musical The Apple Tree in Los Angeles and who recently moved onto a job as a television reporter for a station in Bakersfield. One of the first stories Mr. Helmuth covered was about a rap group that updated the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air by plugging the lyrics into various languages in Google Translate and then changing them back into English for a version that ultimately had little connection to Will Smith's musical masterpiece. Mr. Helmuth ended the segment by joining his on-air cronies in a rendition of the real theme from the show, which resulted in my having to spend the next forty-five minutes cleaning vomit out of my television set. But the story piqued my imagination so I set down my thoughts on Mr. Helmuth and put them into various languages in Google Translate myself. My missive began life as "Josh Helmuth is an annoying man who has brought me nothing but irritation since the day I laid eyes on him. Now that he is a television reporter I wish him well in his ongoing efforts to irritate the world. Good luck, Bakersfield. You're going to need it."This ended up as "Josh Helmuth was a lonely man who brought me nothing but eye irritation in his day. Now, a television journalist, I want every success in their efforts to stimulate the world. Good luck, Bakersfield. Need."You can see how such a statement breaks down after going through the barriers of language, since Mr. Helmuth is unquestionably an attractive young man who has probably never endured a lonely moment and has never brought anyone anything approaching "eye irritation."But after listening to him rap, I am going to need some medication for ear irritation, after which I intend to stick the cotton they put in the top of the bottle into my ears in case the Morning Crew decides to murder any more TV themes. If I get any more puke lodged in my picture tube, I may not be able to watch reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
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