Jonny's Enemies List

1. The increasingly annoying Amara Christian, who makes a return to these pages after a long hiatus when I assumed that she was becoming decreasingly annoying but now realize that she was just faking me into letting my guard down. Ms. Christian wins an entry on today’s list for wailing “I miss the innocence of childhood.” I obviously have a longer memory than Ms. Christian (even though I have shorter genitalia, which is a statement about my unfortunate physiology and not hers) because I have vivid memories of childhood (most of which I recall during nightmares that end with my waking up screaming) and there wasn’t anything innocent about it. Today, the closest I come to receiving brutal beatings are the twice-daily poundings I inflict on my afore-mentioned wang; whereas, when I was a young-un, not a day would pass when I couldn’t look forward to having my face scraped against the playground asphalt by some kid a grade or two older than me who had just begun to sprout pubic hair and eyebrow ridges. And what boy hasn’t experienced the innocent ritual of being called to the front of the class by the hot substitute teacher to solve a problem on the blackboard just as his penis had suddenly and inexplicably sprang into an erection hard enough to cut diamonds with? And let’s not forget the innocent charms of being treated by every adult who encountered us with disdainful contempt because they assumed at a glance that we were up to no good (which we usually were, planting in our minds the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy). My advice to anyone who is nostalgic for any phase of their past life should focus on how awful it was, making the terrors of their present that much less hellish than it currently seems. In fact, the one benefit that my childhood had over my current situation is that I was not yet aware of Amara Christian. The day I found out about her existence in the world, I felt a loss of innocence.

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1. A theatre producer of my acquaintance, who intoned “Dear actor I’ve never met emailing me for a job: please enclose a headshot and resume or demo reel. I’m not going to hire you based on the fact that your domain name has the word ‘actor’ in it.” As someone who has been on both sides of the casting couch, I would advise my colleague to not be so quick to dismiss what is contained in the header of an e-mail when determining who he is going to hire. When I am casting one of the many video projects I shoot out of a garage in Van Nuys, let’s assume that I receive two e-mails from people seeking employment. If one is from PizzaDeliveryGuy@
gmail.com and the other is from Actor@gmail.com, the latter is going to have a leg up because of his clever marketing (unless I am casting the role of a pizza delivery guy, which is a character that appears in at least fifty percent of my movies). Even more likely to get my attention is Actress@gmail.com, still more likely is SmokingHotActress@gmail.com, and almost certain to get a part is SmokingHotActressWhoWillHaveSexWithYouIfYouGiveMeAPart@gmail.com. I do agree with my colleague that I will ultimately require seeing a demo reel before the applicant gets the job, but she can usually just supply me a link to Lapdance.com to see her in action. Of course if she does that, her e-mail address is going to be SmokingHotActressWhoWillHaveSex
WithYouIfYouGiveMeAPart@Lapdance.com, in which case there’s no need since I guarantee that I’ve already seen her work and probably have several of her headshots already. I inevitably require a fresh one in any case because the ones currently in my collection are too sticky, but that’s because of my fondness for peanut butter and nothing as sordid as what you perverts probably have in mind. There’s nothing sick about having a fetish for looking at pictures of women covered in peanut butter.

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1. My nemesis Misty LaRue, with whom I visited the famed Huntington Gardens and Art Gallery in San Marino, California. As we sat on a veranda overlooking the stately scenery, each of us had our own ideas on how to improve the grounds. I suggested that the view could only be enhanced by a larger-than-life nude statue of myself towering high above the other sculptures that dotted the landscaping. Ms. LaRue agreed only that the grounds could be enhanced with more nudity, especially if the figures’ pubic regions were sculpted with the lush grass that sprouts from Chia Pets. We finally compromised and I commissioned a twelve foot tall marble effigy of myself in all my nude glory, with my hair, signature goatee and luxuriant thatch of pubic hair all made up of the famous Chia grass found in only the classiest and most sophisticated twelve year old boy’s bedroom. What’s more, the Chia artisans have been challenged to construct an exact replica of my tragically misshapen genitalia fitted with a state of the art hydraulic fountain that emits a geyser of carbonated sugar water every hour on the hour. The curator at the Huntington Gallery has surprisingly not yet returned any of my phone calls inquiring where this magnificent gift will be installed on the grounds, so if I don’t hear anything by end of day Thursday, I’m going to have my operatives (some of whom are stone masons) break into the grounds at midnight and mount the thing in the foundation in front of the gallery while the security staff is having their nightly Miller Lite and hashish brownie break. The plumbing is so complex on the fountain that once it’s in, it will be impossible to remove it without physically tearing down the building, so I hope they like where we’re putting it. They needn’t bother to thank me, though. It’s my gift to the world of art.

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1. Film director Tim Burton. The death of Dark Shadows star Jonathan Frid led to a spirited discussion in the comments area of these pages about Mr. Burton, who (if movie previews are to be believed) directed a film version of the beloved horror soap opera that appears to be cinematic fecal matter at its most corporately mass produced level of appalling crap. From Alice in Wonderland to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to a remake of Planet of the Apes which was so bad that it would have us believe that Marky Mark could knock out a 350 lb. gorilla with a single punch and tried to top the original’s unforgettable finale at the Statue of Liberty with one that was so stupid and inconclusive that it seemed like he realized at the last minute that the script lacked an ending so he reached up his large intestine and pulled out whatever he could grab hold of, Mr. Burton has traded in the youthful promise of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and Edward Scissorhands with heaping upon heaping of self-derivative predictability. It doesn’t help that he inevitably surrounds himself with the same tired repertory company, inevitably headed by the once-interesting actor Johnny Depp in a characterization of tiresome self indulgence. Both Mr. Depp and Mr. Burton need to take a vacation to a location far outside their comfort zones if they ever plan to do interesting work again, although the quarter billion dollars that Dark Shadows is likely to pull in doubtless means that they will content themselves for their next project with a remake of Mad Monster Party or a movie version of the late night horror movie TV show Fright Night. It will feature Mr. Depp as Seymour, Helena Bonham Carter as Vampira, and me playing the part of the bored guy in the audience who feels like he’s seen it all a million times before.

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1. Dark Shadows star Jonathan Frid, who passed away yesterday at the age of 87. I was one of the legions of kids who would rush home after school to have the bejesus scared out of them by the vampire Barnabus Collins and wasn’t surprised to learn, when I used to live with a woman who was once the actor’s personal assistant, that he was just as scary in person (albeit for reasons that I won’t sully his memory with on these pages). What I remember most about Mr. Frid’s personification of Collins was that he never had anything more than a tenuous grasp of his dialogue, and what seemed like a pause for dramatic effect in my preteen viewership was actually the actor desperately trying to remember what his next line was. Fortunately, since Dark Shadows had to pad out ten minutes worth of plot into five half hour episodes a week, the writers would help Mr. Frid out by having the characters repeat statements nine or ten times within the course of a scene so even if he didn’t get it right the first time, he’d be saying the line again a couple of seconds later. But even with Mr. Frid’s shaky recollection of the script, he was always a memorably chilling presence as Barnabus Collins and I mourn his passing along with his legions of fans. In a way, the timing is perfect because he just missed the opening of the new Dark Shadows starring Johnny Depp as Barnabus and Mr. Frid playing a cameo; presumably as a character who has a shaky grasp of his lines. The previews for the thing look embarrassingly awful and I suspect if Mr. Frid had to sit through it, it would have killed him anyway. Not that it mattered; he always did his best work as one of the living dead.

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1. Ann Romney, wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has been playing to the hilt an Obama aide’s poorly-phrased accusation that she “never worked a day in her life.” The propaganda council at Fox News predictably leapt on the statement like a pack of starving feral wombats on the corpse of a homeless street urchin, weeping that Mrs. Romney belongs to that noblest of noble professions, a stay-at-home Mom. Hey, nobody will argue that being a parent isn’t a hell of a lot of work, but it isn’t a vocation that requires you to fill out multiple H.R. and tax withholding forms and figure out how to divest your 401k. To be a successful stay-at-home Mom, you’re either going to need a life partner who financially supports you or else be born into enough wealth that you can hang around the house with the kids so that you don’t have to obsess about the pile of bills filling up the mailbox. Lacking those, you’re going to have to fill a position that requires real stamina: a working Mom (meaning someone who works as much as she has to, not as much as she wants to). The Romneys’ net worth is estimated at well over $200 million, which is a far cry from the earnings of the old woman who lived in the shoe so Mrs. Romney might want to consider sticking her Mother of the Year trophy in the closet and shutting the fuck up about what a noble creature she is for raising a brood of kids in a house full of nannies and upstairs maids. I have never had kids myself and in the immortal words of Butterfly McQueen, I don’t know nothing about birthin’ babies. But before Mrs. Romney moans to the world about how hard she works, she might want to take a peek at some of the other people on the assembly line to determine just how cushy she has it.

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1. The evil genius Lars Fargo and Mimi Goldman, who had one of those “only in L.A.” experiences when they saw a screening of the film Cabaret with original cast members Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey and Michael York seated in the rows in front of them. I have had similar experiences watching Ben Hur a row behind Charlton Heston (my view was partially obstructed by his toupee) and Mr. Fargo and I once saw the god-awful cult film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with director Russ Meyer in the seat behind us giving us our own DVD commentary throughout the screening, which was a lot more entertaining than the mess that was onscreen. The only drawback to seeing a movie with its stars in the audience is that instead of watching the film, you have a tendency to pinch yourself and say “Holy shit! I’m watching a movie with the original stars in the audience!” It can also be a little depressing when the larger than life movie gods and goddesses on the screen are hooked up to respirators in the audience. Fortunately, I was informed that the Cabaret crew all looked fantastic and that Ms. Minnelli looked like she hadn’t aged a day since making the movie. Of course, I’m told she’s taken a lot of drugs since then and that may have contributed to her youthful appearance. If you start embalming procedures forty or fifty years before they’re necessary, it can save you a fortune in Botox. But I’m sure that Mr. Fargo and Ms. Goldman had a fine time looking at the back of Ms. Minnelli’s head during Cabaret. It’s vastly more entertaining than seeing the front of it while watching Lucky Lady or Arthur 2: On the Rocks.

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1. My old college chum Larry Zerner. Today is Friday the 13th in which all manner of unpleasant occurrences happen. The worst thing I inevitably experience on this date is to be reminded of Mr. Zerner’s existence since he starred in the cult slasher film Friday 13th 3-D. I have only a sketchy memory of when the film premiered but I believe it was directed by D.W. Griffith at the dawn of World War I, which means that I have had to endure almost a century of reporters dragging Mr. Zerner out of his crypt on this day to reminisce about the film because the hacks are too lazy to sniff out any real news. If anyone thinks I’m just jealous because Mr. Zerner is getting the attention that should rightfully go to me, I can only respond that you’re damned right about that. Everything is going to even out when my epic romance Monday the 29th is finally produced and I’ll finally have my own date to be at the center of. It’s the story of a paunchy, bespectacled middle-aged man with a goatee (which will be played by myself after an exhaustive casting search that took place in my living room) who is brought together with a gorgeous, 20 year-old lingerie model for a series of anonymous and graphically-filmed sexual encounters they have as a result of their constantly bumping into each other at Monday night screenings of slasher films featuring a Larry Zerner-like horror star. The only thing slowing down its production is that the studio is insisting I cast Mr. Zerner in the role of the horror icon, which is forcing me to rewrite the thing with the new title February 29th. That way, I’ll only have to be annoyed by interviews with him once every four years.

1. Enemies List favorite Mara Marini, who (while shopping at an establishment called Beach Bunny Swimwear) happily exclaimed “Bikini season coming up! Yay! #MyFavoriteTimeOfYear.” I’m sure many of my readers envisioning themselves walking along a lonely beach and encountering Ms. Marini in a two-piece thong would happily agree. But what you haven’t taken into account is that one of my few character flaws is a propensity to place wagers on sporting events that I have neither any knowledge of nor the fiduciary means to pay off if I lose. Fortunately, the bookies with whom I associate are a lively bunch and rather than shattering one of my body joints which I may need if I ever decide to re-up my gym membership, they are content to allow me to pay off their bet by placing me in any number of humiliating predicaments for their amusement. One of their favorites is to have me display my sagging posterior on a crowded beach in a bikini that was intended for someone with the face and figure of Mara Marini. Luckily for me, Beach Bunny Swimwear caters to the West Hollywood transvestite crowd so they have pink butt-floss bikinis in size XXXXL. That means you can look forward this summer to seeing me parade up and down the Venice waterfront looking like a hard-boiled egg with two rubber bands wrapped around it. I still owe money on an ill-advised bet for the Miami Dolphins to win this year’s Super Bowl.

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