Hey, truth be told, paranoia is no longer a psychological condition but rather a keen perception of one's surroundings. If you have ever expressed an opinion, or possibly fit the profile of a subversive troublemaker, then you can be reasonably assured that your phone is probably more tapped than Toni Braxton's checking account. Hell, my phone line has more clicks than a Ubangi marital spat.
And as the last guy to sneak into the celebrity chamber just before the watertight door slammed shut, I realize I have to adjust my expectations of privacy to the situation. If you see me in some public setting, fine. Approach me, I won't bite. But when you see me at a Star Trek convention talking about "The Squire of Gothos" episode with Leonard Nimoy, back off. I'm not there for you, I'm there for me.
But we are not just talking about celebrities anymore. It is the average person whose privacy is being invaded by technology. You feel like a number? Well, take a number.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Style vs. Substance
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but style is whupping up on substance like a drill sergeant on a tubby recruit with a sexually ambiguous first name.
As a culture we're becoming so superficial it wouldn't surprise me if the E! Channel now qualified to receive federal funding. We're so fixated on the sprig of parsley and frilly toothpick garnishing the daily special of our mass consciousness, it's completely escaped our notice that all those trimmings are doing is dressing up a plate that's emptier than a NOW benefit where the guest speaker is Tommy Lee.
Style can probably best be described as substance abuse. Because usually substance suffers when style takes the wheel. Except, of course, in the case of Joan and Melissa Rivers. Nobody, and I mean nobody, brings more depth and import to the subject of celebrity clothes, hair, and makeup.
Kudos to you, Joan and Missy, you have tackled a subject that could be misconstrued as frivolous and you make those five hours before the Annual Blockbuster Awards as meaningful as the show itself.
Substance is a support beam, and style is the mirror ball hanging from it. In many cases, style is simply substance displaced. A Humvee squeezing through the jungle of Borneo is a tool. A Humvee squeezing into a parking space on Rodeo Drive is being driven by a tool.
You know, folks, all the money in the world can't buy you substance. Donald Trump has been trying to buy it for years. Sorry, Donny, but when you go that far out of your way to advertise the fact that you're a billionaire, well, you're obviously bankrupt in all the ways that really matter. And by the way, trim those goddamn eyebrows. They're like a sod farm for Paula Cole's armpits.
You know, because we're so entranced by outside appearances, we easily fall for imitations. For example, there's this guy right now who's becoming pretty successful doing what is essentially a pale imitation of me. He's stolen all my moves, he sounds like me, he even looks remarkably like I do, and people are going wild about him. Damn you, Leonardo DiCaprio! Damn you to Hell!
In no other arena does style triumph over substance more than in politics. Now, there was a time when politicians spoke in sound bites. Now they think in them.
In politics, the most blatant deceptions can be perpetrated and then explained away with smooth rhetoric and careful misdirection that leave the American citizens feeling as if nothing happened in the first place. Politicians know that it's better to be good at looking good than it is to actually be good.
Hey, you don't have to look any further than the Oval Orifice to find a man who is more interested in looking good than doing right. That's why President Clinton polls the American people before every major decision, that's why he's more changeable than a colicky baby. Christ, the only time he'd buck the polls is if a majority of the American people told him to do so.
And all this superficiality at the top trickles down and infects the herd. We're so wrapped up in image and style these days, even walking the walk requires special $450 "Walk-the-walk" shoes.
Every decade thinks its clothing styles have substance. But, here's a good rule of thumb. One era's ultimate fashion statement will someday be another era's kitschy Halloween costume.
And it appears much of today's music is also right off the rack. Is it just me or are the Spice Girls one of the biblical signs of Armageddon? Four Carnaby Street pop tarts with a beefedup karaoke machine who make Milli Vanilli look like Pink Floyd. Can't wait for their Unplugged special, huh?
In the style over substance war, Los Angeles is ground zero. You know, there are people in L.A. who've had so many face-lifts they can't attend auctions anymore because every time they smile their arm goes up.
Hey, there are those who would argue that this country was built on dreams, and so illusion is its legacy. Okay, but can't we just split the difference between style and substance? We have to stop living life as if it were a cross between a photo-op and a free-for-all scramble for cheap Mardi Gras beads. Let's launch an all-out campaign to eliminate pretension wherever and whenever we see it. Let's take stun guns to people who use more than six words to order their coffee, okay? ... Let's suffocate the motherfucker who insists the wine needs to breathe . .. Let's slap down pompous comedians who trick an audience into laughing by gratuitous use of the word "motherfucker". .. And finally, let's—let's hog-tie Martha Stewart and force-feed her Fatburgers.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Money & Greed
You know, folks, Don King is the poster child for greed in this culture, but if you look closely, you can see all of our names listed in the fine print.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but ever since Midas first discovered that a golden touch precludes masturbation, greed has driven more people than a Bombay bus driver during the opening weekend of Six Flags Over Ganges.
Anyway, with the physical dangers inherent in other forms of excess, greed is the last safe vice. And as we get farther away from the permissiveness of the sixties and seventies, we've become way more interested in mutual funds than we are in mutual orgasms.
Look, I'm just as guilty as the next guy. While looking at the video monitor during my last colonoscopy, I asked the doctor if he could run the Dow Jones ticker across the bottom of the screen.
Money in one form or another has always been around, and so have the less-than-noble feelings that money seems to engender. I'm sure the guy doing abstract expressionist smears of pterodactyl dung on his cave wall was pissed off because the guy in the other cave doing schlocky drawings of mastodons playing poker was driving a Jaguar... An actual jaguar.
Look, I've gotta tell ya, I like money. It's neat and tidy and clean. It's fun to fold and stack and smell and look at. It comes in denominations that are easy to keep track of— fives, tens, twenties, hundreds. It's just plain fun to count money and I often do it in a loud falsetto while wearing nothing but a captain's hat and a coin changer.
All right, maybe that's just me, but the point is, it's not what the money represents or what it can buy, it's the money itself I like. The harmony of a five, the balance of a ten, the cute toughness of a nickel, those plucky pennies ... I just like money. As a matter of fact, I've got a roll of dimes up my ass as you read this. Not a whole roll... Just about, yeah, a dollar ten.
Look, let's face facts. Greed is a by-product of a capitalist system. This is the land of possibilities, and we are all free to partake of the many possibilities that are open to us. You can want to live well and still hang on to some principles. Why, take me, for instance. HBO pays me a handsome salary and gives me an absolutely open forum to discuss whatever
I want, week after week. They have no agenda to advance. Sure, HBO could make me its puppet to disseminate whatever ideas they want, along with the high-quality programming and first-rate entertainment that you've come to expect from HBO. But they won't do that. HBO has too much integrity and too much class to do that. So remember, it's not TV. It's HBO.
Given that money is a national obsession, I think we nee
d to take our head out of our assets once in a while and share the wealth. Now, people show their philanthropy in different ways. Ted Turner once gave $1 billion to the United Nations. And last week I donated an Entertainment 2000 coupon book to my kid's school. But not the half-price carnuba wax ticket. Oh, no, that's for Daddy.
And folks, why not give your money away? Not only does it make you feel good, but trying to accumulate the most cash is futile because the game's over, people. Bill Gates has won. Don't even try and beat him. You can't do it. Bill Gates is a white Persian cat and a monocle away from being a villain in a James Bond movie. I mean, the man is worth $90 billion! Apparently a good haircut costs $91 billion.
Hey, look, the general consensus is that what moves man the most is the quest for money. But I happen to believe that man is also moved by a deep sense of honor, and an even deeper sense of doing good.
And once you've achieved that selfless dedication to your fellow man, that cognizance of the fact that we are all interdependent members of the same grand family, well then, then you can hit the lecture circuit and start raking in the cash like a clean whore in Saigon.
Anyway, here are some signs that you might be a little too obsessed with money:
1. You refer to intercourse as "the Horizontal Audit."
2. When in the midst of a dire emergency, you call 911 collect.
3. During a private audience with the Pope, all you can think is "I wonder what this cat's pullin' down?"
And finally, your net worth has more zeros in it than a Star Trek convention.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The Oscars
As originally aired on 3/20/98
Well, it's T-minus-sixty-or-so hours and counting and then all of our Academy Award questions will be answered. Oh, sure, some things are a given. Billy Crystal will joke about the iceberg in Titanic changing its name to something less Jewish. Nicholson might show up shitfaced. And if Gloria Stuart wins for her role as the Titanic survivor, she'll no doubt get down on the ground and do ten one-armed push-ups.
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but the Oscars are a cruel reminder that, like the lifeboats on the Titanic, if there were enough for everybody there'd be no story. Sure, billions of people watch each year to see the stars and the gowns and to hear the scripted presenter banter that's got all the sparkle and wit of an eye chart, but come on, the real reason the average viewer tunes in is to see rich, beautiful, famous people react to not winning in unflinching close-up. That, my friends, is when you really see some Oscar-caliber acting.
And Monday night is just the culmination of Oscar season. For one full month before the actual date, you can't turn on the TV without hearing the word "Oscar" more frequently than Felix Unger's psychotherapist.
Now, I love the Oscars. The glamour, the suspense, the corny speeches—it's a celebration of everything that made me go into showbiz, and I love everything about it. Love, love it, love it, love it, love it. If the Oscars were a hamburger, I'd eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If the Oscars were a woman, they would now be Mrs. Oscar Miller. In fact, before I have sex with my wife, I paint my entire body gold, and I make her give an acceptance speech, and then if she doesn't climax within thirty seconds, the orchestra starts playing her off.
The fact is that only 5,371 individuals vote on Oscar, and in order to do so you have to be a member of the Academy. What exactly is this Academy we hear so much about? Well, it is a safe and trusting lyceum where acolytes wear white togas and laurel wreaths and are schooled in the subtle nuances of filmmaking and art for art's sake, because, really, in the end, isn't that what Hollywood is all about? Knowwhat-I-mean, Vern?
And everybody knows that the voting procedure to determine who wins makes the electoral process in Cuba look evenhanded. The criteria for judging what is best are about as objective and rational as Jack Paar on ecstasy. But certain roles are a mortal lock. You want to win an Oscar? Get yourself a part as an alcoholic handicapped hooker on a big ship.
But every year there are incredible films that just somehow get overlooked by the Oscars. This year it was an amazing independent film called Eve's Bayou, about a middle-class black family in Louisiana. Hands down, it's one of the best films of the year. But not a single nomination. In past years, it's been movies like Murder at 1600, Bordello of Blood, Disclosure, The Net, they were denied. And you know what? There's a common reason why all these films got shafted. Racism.
Seriously, is it just me or are all the nominees this year whiter than an albino mime? I mean, is it not incredible that the sole actor nominated from Steven Spielberg's epic about black slavery Amistad is Caucasian? I mean, the only thing that bugs me more than Spike Lee is Spike Lee when he's right.
Anyway, let's review this year's combatants.
L.A. Confidential. Great screenplay, but hey, how can you go wrong when you're working off James Ellroy's classic noir novel. Let's face it, when it comes to authors I've been meaning to read, Ellroy tops them all.
The Full Monty. Hey, if I want to see five fat British asses, I can rent The Spice Girls Movie, okay? I'm shithead spice. Now I don't want to give the last scene of The Full Monty away, but it would have been nice to see some dick at the very end. I thought it was hypocritical that the actors were willing to show it, but the director felt we didn't deserve it. You see, that's why I liked Boogie Nights. We got to see the dick. It's not like I'm dick crazy or anything, trust me, I've seen my share of dicks in locker rooms, in The Crying Game, when I interviewed for a White House internship, so my dick passport has been stamped, but I reiterate, if the dick is integral to the movie, as I believe it was in The Full Monty, then we should be treated to an extreme closeup of some bangers and mash. Or don't make the movie at all. So yeah, The Full Monty, loved it. I just needed to see the dick.
Goodwill Hunting. Where do these two little fresh-faced motherfuckers get off being this brilliant this early? Huh? I wonder what their dicks look like.
Titanic. Deserved every nomination it got, except for maybe the special effects thing. And what in the hell is the Academy thinking not nominating Leonardo DiCaprio? In the eighteen times I've been to see this movie, he has got nothing but better. He is a genius. He is a God. Leo, paint me like one of your French girls. I love you, Leo.
As Good As It Gets. Too much gay stuff.
Well, who knows what the 70th Academy Awards will hold. But I'll guarantee you this. If you're looking for justice at the Oscars, you're probably not going to find it.
Because if this were a just world, before the show even started Monday night, the tungsten-steel C-clamp holding the loose skin on the back of Joan Rivers's skull would suddenly blow out and she'd instantaneously unravel into a yapping shar-pei scooting her Vera Wang hind end across the red carpet to hump on Jack Valenti's leg.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I'd like to thank the Academy.
Going Bald
Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but in our culture, there is no greater cause of agony, insecurity, or Porsche 911 sales than baldness.
What genetic squirting flower is it that determines which of us ends up looking like Robert Plant and which of us ends up looking like Mel Cooley?
Come on, guys, you know how it works. One day you are standing in front of a mirror with a full head of hair and the next you're trying to get the "most coverage" out of the few hairs you have left, like the guy spreading crushed gravel on your driveway.
There are certain telltale signs that you might be losing your hair that you should be aware of.
If you find yourself actually wondering what baseball cap is appropriate for a funeral.
If you notice your barber just making the clicking noise with the scissors without actually touching your hair.
And if your nickname at work is "Dickhead" and you're a nice guy.
Entire careers have been built on having hair. I'll say it right now. Had I been bald, I never would have gotten this far in show
business. I would have had to write for somebody with hair. In fact, that's really what separates the performers from the writers in Hollywood—hair. My entire writing staff is completely hairless. They hate me. But I don't care because they're a bunch of pathetic, bald losers.
But I realize my head gravy days are numbered. The once-bustling downtown of my abundantly populated scalp is becoming a wasteland of burned-out storefronts and boarded-up windows as the occupants move to the outlying suburbs of my neck, ears, and back.
You can try to compensate for your loss in other areas, but the truth is no amount of money or fame will change the fact that you look like the guy who takes the youth group to sing at the nursing home.
When you think about it, hair is all we men have got. We don't have the option of using makeup to hide the flaws in our appearance or enhance our good traits. Once the hair goes, that's it. And then we're faced with the distasteful task of having to cultivate other attributes to make ourselves attractive. And frankly, who's got the time? I mean, I've got a wife, two kids, and golf. My dance card's full enough without my having to go out and get a fucking personality. Okay?
Women will tell you that bald guys are sexy. But they also claim that size doesn't matter. Well, I can assure you that there are very few supermodels out there looking for a bald guy with a tiny dick. Unless, of course, he has coke.
But some women actually don't mind baldness. Some women dig it. See, when a woman is in a relationship with a bald guy, she derives security from his insecurity. She knows he's so grateful to her for putting up with what he perceives as his gross defect that he'll never cheat on her. To a woman, her lover's bald spot is like a cattle brand, all right? It's his special mark guaranteeing that if he ever accidentally wanders off the trail, he'll be returned to her for immediate castration.
Now, there are many different ways to soften the blow of nature's defoliating wrath.
I Rant Therefore I Am Page 2
