Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Tony, take a chill
Are you following the final season of the “Sopranos.”? Man is it dark and depressing. One character died of cancer in prison, Tony is going broke, Uncle Junior is going senile in a mental hospital. It makes you long for a good old fashioned uplifting whacking.

Since you asked:
Yes, the rumors out there in the literary world are true, I am looking for a new literary agent. (What does that mean? He has an agent and he wants a different one? Or he doesn’t have an agent and he is trying to sound cute because a first agent would qualify as new agent while making it sound like he has an old agent even if he doesn’t have an old agent)

Exactly.

This recent groveling foray into an aspect of Hollywood and the entertainment industry only reminds me of just how full of crap big shot movie stars are who have agents and get jobs.

Honest to god, Kirsten Dunst- who may be very talented but who I can’t figure out for the life of me why she is a huge actress – was on Letterman whining about making and doing the press for “Spidy 3” (When Dave asked if there would be a “Spidy 4” Kirsten was so shaken up at the mere thought, she actually welled up with tears and wouldn’t talk about it)

It seems the poor thing, after filming the movie, had to go to Stockholm, London, Madrid, Rome, Moscow, Berlin. Oh, and she had to appear on “The Today Show” this morning, Letterman at night and then attend her premier later that same night, all on the poor girl’s birthday. What sadistic people those “Spidy” producers must be. Poor, poor girl.

Kristen, for all the pain you have had to endure, will you please let me give you a big steaming piece of birthday “shut your pie-hole and stop complaining about being a movie star” cake?

Let’s say I do land a big shot agent, which would be pretty lucky by itself. If he called me tomorrow and said;

“Lex, I need to you take some time to go to Hollywood – of course we’ll put you up in the Bel Air hotel – and do some writing for a movie. And then we are going to fly you to Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Sidney and other great cities - of course we will put you up in luxury hotels and you can bring your family - to promote the movie.

“What do you have to do to promote it? Oh, you sit in a luxury suite and sip expensive tea while journalists toss softball questions at you about you and your work. And then, on the day it opens in the US in New York, we need you to go on “The Today Show” “Letterman” and to the premiere itself.”

After asking which one of my a-hole friends was playing this cruel joke on me, I would say sure, I would be glad to all of that but how much is all this going to cost me? It sounds like a fortune.

When the agent then says;

“What do you mean cost you? The studio pays for everything and, in addition, in the process, you will personally make many many millions of dollars.”

I would then say;

“This is some friend of Will isn’t it? How much did he put up to get you to mess with me?”

What sane person wouldn’t die to do any one of those things, let alone all of them, and, oh, by the way, get rich while doing it? Especially on your birthday.

That is why I like the young Shia LaBeouf. I was a fan of HBO’s project “Green Light” a few years ago when I first saw an inside look at Shia making a movie. He had a blast the whole time. At the premiere Shia actually said out loud what a normal person would say at a movie premiere. As the cameras flashed and pretty young girls screamed his name, Shia said:

“Wow, I love this. Are you telling me movie stars actually complain about this? This is great.”

Would somebody please punch Russell Crowe in the face?

Why Lex is through trying jokes out for friends and family

That’s it. I am officially done trying to test out the jokes I write that day on friends and family. First of all, I know if a joke is good or not.

Second of all, yes, they usually laugh. But when they do laugh it is never enough. And then, even if they do laugh, I wonder if they are faking it to be nice.

And then when they don’t laugh, I die a little bit inside.

But the worst by far, and this has happened more than I care to even think about, is when I try a joke out on them that I have labored long and hard to hone, and they actually say;

“Hey, that’s not bad. You should try and make a joke with that.”