Caution: contains spoilers for numerous recent gangster pictures.
Why wouldn't I make a very good, goodfella?
Well, I'd end up the guy getting stabbed in the neck with a pen.  I'd be the guy who tells a goombah he's funny and then have to explain why he was funny.  Funny like a clown?  Funny strange?  I'd be the lackey who gets lackey whacked because he looked at some wiseguy the wrong way.  I'd end up being buried in the basement of the Italian-American lodge because I got Louie Two-Fingers his two fingers in a high-ball instead of a low-ball.  

I just watched The Irishman the other night.  Marty Scorsese's most recent gangster epic.  It was great.  Perhaps Marty's Mafioso masterpiece.  I went in not expecting much (I mean, how much more could Marty possibly have to say about Italian mobsters?) but was amazed at how good it was.  The three-and-a-half hours flew by (over the course of three nights).  I like Mafia movies, for the most part.  I loved Goodfellas.  I went to see it three times at the movies back when it came out.  Not so much for the subject matter but for the cinematic storytelling genius of Mr. Scorsese.  The Irishman, as good as it was, required some base level suspension of disbelief.  Why?  Well, the actors were all too old for their parts.  Just because Marty wanted to work again with his stable of favorite performers doesn't mean he should have.  He was kind of shoe-horning De Niro and Pesci into roles that should've been given to some goodfellas about thirty years younger.  Somehow, Al Pacino managed to steal the entire movie.  And it was kind of a shock to think he'd never been in a Scorsese movie before.  But then, Al sort of invented the modern gangster hero, didn't he?  Back in the early 70's; Pacino was subtle.  Even with his late career scenery chewing; Pacino effortlessly walks off with The Irishman.  And by the way; why in this day and age, with all the politically correct casting, does Italiano Bobby D. get to play an Irish person?  He's part Irish, and I don't really care either way.  But mightn't this have been the career defining role for Colin Farrell?  He'd of been perfect for it.  And he never disappoints, even when he's in not so good movies.  Colin can handle it! Colin will carry your picture! 
​BTW: somebody should develop a movie franchise or deluxe HBO fantasy series built around Colin.  It's set in Ireland and Colin is...The King of the Leprechauns!  But, he's human sized with the magical abilities to change size, form, sex(!); whatever!  And he can time travel. I love this!  And Colin will need no prosthetics or gimmicky make-up.  He's already elfin.  But like HOT elfin.  His costumes are like, loin cloths, puffy shirts unbuttoned to his navel, green suede lederhosen, those leather Alpine suspenders, unbelted robes that are always falling open, chain-mail cod-pieces; that sort of thing.  That is, when he's actually dressed.  This show will be known for its full-frontal (and backal) nudity and NC-17 "love" scenes.  The show also has banshees, fairies, Fomorians etc. (did you know Irish folk-lore has all kinds of creepy creatures?  Ones you never heard of that will make this show fresh!)  I may have to stop right here and develop this myself.  Colin, if you're reading this, call me! (540-520-1974)!

But I digressed...
​Pacino (in the hands of Coppola, of course) may have been the originator; but it's probably Scorsese who has shaped the images of the Mafia archetypes more than anyone in the collective consciousness.  So much so, that much of what was original in his work is now cliche.  I was never into the TV show The Sopranos; but I did recently see the weird movie prequel: The Many Saints of Newark (a Sopranos Story). Is that last bit officially part of the title?  Remember that stupid title "Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire" and how they actually expected people to use that full title during awards season? 
​The Sopranos movie was bad.  I'm sorry; but it was bad.  It was an extremely well-made "bad" movie.  So, the main character (spoilers ahead) not only commits fratricide (no, wait...it was his own father! Patricide) and gets away with it; but then he drowns his wife on a public beach in broad daylight and gets away with that too?

So in the above photo, the answer to the question he's asking her is, "Gee whiz, I feel guilty about having screwed your drug dealer rival 'til the cows came home and I want a clean slate."
Really?  She'd already been pushed down the stairs by his father, her first husband, for air-drying her douche-bag.  She has the morals of an alley-cat which has been well established by this point in the picture.  She knows hubs has a volatile temper and an itchy trigger finger; so now she's driven by guilt to confess this one night stand?  I don't think so.  Why is she suddenly that incredibly stupid at this point in the movie?  Well, so we can have the shock scene of what comes next; which I'll give the filmmakers.  It was an incredible, shocking and startling scene.  A scene we've never seen before.  But it cheated.  So Alessandro Nivola playing the protagonist of the movie (Dickie Moltisanti) drowns his beautiful young wife in the roiling surf, both of them formally dressed and the last shot of the sequence is of the wife floating in the waves.  Cut to: some time later.  Wait a second. How in hell did Dickie clean-up this spontaneous killing?  Broad daylight, on a New Jersey beach, fully clothed and sopping wet with a sopping wet corpse and a two-seat sports car.  Show me how he dealt with that, movie.  But they didn't.  They completely glossed over it, with nary another mention of the wife.  Sorry, life doesn't work like that; even in the movies.
Mr. Nivola was quite excellent in his role.  I do, however, think he was miscast.  A character who is so hot headed that he can kill his father by blunt force trauma requires an actor who seems like he might, somewhere deep inside, be capable of that.  You know, one of those creepy actors who sometimes you don't know if they're acting or just being; like James Woods. Or Jack Nicholson. Or Walken. Or a non-creepy actor who can tap into creepiness, like, say, Jon Hamm or Kyle MacLachlan.  Those types.  Mr. Nivola just doesn't have that demented, crazy gleam in his eyes.  Some actors don't.  There's nothing wrong with that.  I think he'd make a better all-around action hero type.  He just doesn't seem like he has a single mean bone in his body.  But he is a Masshole, so he gets a pass (and probably does have that mean bone somewhere).

​The Many Saints of Newark's second protagonist was, of course, Tony Soprano; played by the son of the man who played Tony on the TV show.  I'm not sure what to say here.  Sure, he looks like his dad...but...so?  I didn't see a lot going on with the performance.  I mean, was young Tony Soprano brain-dead?  Was young Michael Gandolfini directed to play him that way?  Am I missing something?  Maybe it was brilliant.  Like I said, I never watched the TV show.  But the whole thing struck me as a piece of macabre stunt casting.  And the movie was just two hours of irredeemable, reprehensible, unlikable people doing nasty things to one another.  Not even the brilliant Vera Farmiga (who was brilliant here as well) could acquit herself from the proceedings.  She played the "classic" Mafia wife.  Why are Mafia wives always homemakers?  They never seem to have any interest other than making meatballs, smoking two packs a day and yelling at their kids out of windows.  I mean, do Mafia wives ever have careers?  I guess not.  Their husbands must not like it.  I mean Dickie drug his feet forever over his moll's beauty parlor and then she was literally sleeping with the fishes before she could even do her first perm.

And why does the lifestyle of these criminal folks warrant and/or sustain an entire sub-industry within show-business?  What's the appeal?  The Godfather movies aside, organized crime families (in movies and on TV) never seem to rise above lower-middle-Middle class.  They top out with a Lincoln Town car, never a Rolls-Royce.  I mean, if your earnings were soaked in blood, wouldn't you just go for the top of the line?  As mentioned, the wives are always chained to a stove and when they aren't, they get taken out to some lousy two-star Italian restaurant in New Jersey.  The men hang out in dingy back rooms at some lodge, somewhere.  Or the back of an appliance store.  Or a greasy garage.  Or the loading dock of a run-down factory.  I mean, how do they keep their suits clean?  And why are they always wearing suits?  I mean, they don't go to an office, so why bother?
But the worst thing about their lifestyle is, I would think, the constant fear of being whacked. Again, I'm talking only about fictional mobsters (I mean, heh-heh, I've heard some very nice things about the mob. I know someone who knew John Gotti and she had nothing but nice things to say! And also, I went to a mostly Italian Catholic high school in East Boston: Saint Dominic Savio; and I have nothing but nice things to say! Gulp.)
Shot in the back of the head at any given moment--I mean, based on movies and the amount of in-murdering--it's a wonder there are any goodfellas at all; I mean at the rate that showbiz shows us that they knock one another off.  Why are these guys always getting in the front passenger seats of cars?  Haven't they seen mobster movies? 

I recently saw Steven Spielberg's re-do of West Side Story.  That's kind of a mobster movie, right?  I mean, it's about gangs so it's kind of the same thing.  I loved it!  When it was announced that Spielberg was going to make the picture--a musical--there was a big hue and cry.  "Oh, he's going to wreck it...blah, blah, blah..."  But I knew it was going to be amazing.  One of my favorite scenes in all of filmdom is the U.S.O. dance contest from 1941.

​The school dance scene in WSS '21 is almost a reimagining of the 1941 sequence. That's Dianne Kay playing the blonde.  Whatever happened to her? I thought she was terrific. Why didn't she become a star? And (bonus points) this flick also had Nancy Allen! And how about the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?  That should've been given an Oscar just for the opening credits!

You probably couldn't film that sequence today, right?  I guess it's all kinds of culturally wrong; but it's still amazing; and I guess it too is kind of a mob movie.  You've got the Chinese mobsters and then later a death cult (and if that's not a mob, what is?).
Of course WSS '21 is all kinds of culturally right.  Or at least it's trying.  Spielberg's version of the material is a million times better than Robert Wise's.  Robert Wise's movies were burnished to such a high sheen they cancelled themselves out.  Even as a kid, watching that ponderous musical monster for what seemed an entire day, I was never convinced by the lead Jet.  He looked like he'd wandered over from the Leave It To Beaver set. And Tony was a drip.  And the voices coming out of the leads never seemed right.  I don't know why the first version is so revered.  It's not really all that great.  So why did Steven S. feel a need to remake it?  Who knows?  I mean, it had some truly amazing sequences.  The "Gee, Officer Krupke" sequence should get it's own short film Oscar.  And as good as it was, it was still West Side Story.  We've seen West Side Story; who wants another version even if it's a better version?  Apparently no one.  Why didn't Steven use his clout (let's face it, he can do whatever he wants) and make an original musical?  Say, like, the making of the 1961 version with just the best songs from it.  Or, like, something that's really old and obscure, like, say, 42nd Street.  Or why didn't he take on Wicked?  Everyone wants a movie of that!  Or how about he teamed up with Brian De Palma and they did the movie version of Carrie the Musical?  Or a remake of Carrie with all new songs?  Or what about a musical version of E.T.?  Or Hook!  No, wait, maybe not that.  Or Jaws!  Now who wouldn't want to see a musical version of Jaws?  Richard Dreyfuss could play Quint! Adrien Brody is Sheriff Brody (that was meant to be!). Hooper is Seth Rogen. And Mrs. Brody is Gwyneth Paltrow.  Tom Hanks is the Mayor: He sings "Not On My Beach, You Don't!"
​The shark even has a number: "When You're A Shark."

When you're a shark
You're a shark all the way!
From your first baby seal 
To surfboard take-away!
When you're a shark
You're the bitin'ist fish
Little fish you're a shark
Not a shark? Yeah you wish!

What is a school of fish, if not a mob?

But back to the Mafia, proper.
Probably the major reason I wouldn't make a good goodfella is because I'm gay.  Apparently, being a gay mafioso is verboten to the point of death.  Or at least it used to be.  It seems that even the mob is becoming more inclusive of gays.  And I have nothing but nice things to say about it.

Now there's your movie musical!  Guys and Guys.
​Mr. Spielberg...we're waiting.

And yes, Adrien can sing.  At least I think so...

P.S.
Dear Mr. Scorsese,
Please put any upcoming "mobster" themed projects on the back-burner.  I mean, they're great and all; but when you do something entirely different like King of Comedy or After Hours or The Aviator; you tend to make a brilliant classic.  I mean, your version of Cape Fear was one of the most unsettling movies ever made.  But you always unsettle.  Let's say, some time, you settle.  Settle down Marty.  I would love to see you try your hand at a Rom-com; or better yet, a bedroom comedy.  How about a remake of Something's Gotta Give?  Or how about being unsettling and settling at the same time?  Here's the pitch: your version of Something's Gotta Give is about the final weeks of Marilyn Monroe's life.  And here we can definitely get some mobsters involved and Frank Sinatra!  The story revolves around the filming of SGG; but the movie within the movie is actually completed; so we cross-cut between the scenes from the bedroom romp to the parallel storyline of what's happening with Marilyn.  Then we can work in a plot-twist that 20th Century Fox destroyed the footage of SGG to claim it a write-off.  "Something" like that.
Oh, and might I suggest Liza Minnelli as Mrs. Murray, the sneaky house-keeper?
Thank You,
Most Sincerely,
​Chris

Bread and circuses.
Give the people what they want, right?
What, me pander?
Hey, I'm no saint.

So, when I write these blogs about mean show business people, my "ratings" seem to spike.  I mean, people love to hear about people who aren't so nice and the things that they do.  I'm the same.  I love to grab the Enquirer's issue on "The Meanest People in Hollywood!" or "Hollywood's Most Hated Stars!" or "The Hate List of Hollywood's Most Hated Haters!"

Say it ain't so Marie!
Also, is Tucker Carson really a "Hollywood Star"?  Doesn't he live in New York?  Or do they mean that he's a "star" who Hollywood hates?
Do I hate Tucker?  Hate is a very strong word; but then, it isn't.  I mean, "I hate onions on my burger" and "I hate your motherlovin' guts" contain that same word; but have very different meanings.  I severely dislike him and everyone else he works with, for reasons anyone with a brain can see.  But hate him and his Fox and Friends?  No.  They're not worthy of my most extreme emotions.  They'll get their mysterious ways-payback-bitch-slaps; and oh, won't that be nice to watch.
But, let's shake that off, because I wanna keep this fun.  The following events actually happened to me but the names have been changed to protect enjoyment.  Knowing specifically who the perp in this story is would kill the fun.  It's more interesting to try to figure out a "blind item."  If you've been reading my blogs, it's probably pretty obvious who it was; but I'll never tell...

Once upon a time there was TV show host and a Paramount Studios page.
I was the page.  A page is an underling who wears a monkey suit and directs the audience where to sit.  An usher, basically.  There are lots of other duties; but mostly it comes down to ushering.
The host might've been a high profile one at Paramount or maybe not.  Maybe it was John Tesh, who had a show in the 90's. Maybe it was Jay Leno (Paramount Pages were sometimes loaned out to other studios).  Maybe it was Chevy Chase (so much for this blind item...I'm giving you all the names!).  Perhaps it was Dr. Phil.  Maybe it was Keenan Ivory Wayans.  Or Dennis Miller... or fill in the blank.  Like, who didn't have a talk-show at some point?  Okay, it was actually Leeza Gibbons.  No, it wasn't.  She was wicked nice.
Let's make up a name.  A real corny sounding, old-school Hollywood sounding TV show host name.  How about "Jackie P. Freeling"?  I like that.  Heeeeeeeerrrrrrreeeeee'ssssss, Jackie P.!

Actually, that's a picture of the last person I should've picked.  Mike Douglas was probably the best talk show host ever.  Truly kind, interested and open-minded.  So of course, he's the most underrated.  I mean, I don't know if he was mean.  Maybe he was.  But I highly doubt it.  He actually listened to people when they talked; unlike say, Mr. X or Miss Z who are just waiting for a gap so they can hear their own voice.

At the Jackie P. Freeling Show there was a live audience.  We've all seen the basic talk show set and how it seats an audience.  Stadium seating, two aisles, around two hundred seats, maybe more.

Jackie P. Freeling would sometimes go up into the audience to do a "bit."  You know, like an audience interview or some other hilarious shenanigan(s).  But one fine day, during a commercial break, an audience member got up out of their seat, sauntered down the aisle with something in their hand, walked onto the stage and right up to Jackie's couch to hand him their script.  I don't know if they were removed from the premises by security; but Jackie was apoplectic afterwards.  It seemed as though he blamed the pages for this incident, even though it is not in a page's duties to try and stop ballsy and/or psycho people.  A page's job during the taping is to take anyone who needs to go, to the bathroom.
But Jackie was not happy.  Oh, no.  He wasn't at all.  That's when the velvet ropes got put up.

​So, where the aisles met the floor, which had previously been an unimpeded egress/access to the stage, little red velvet ropes were put up and pages were posted at the ready on either side of the stage.  Pages had heretofore not been posted to these positions; but now they were.  They were called "The Rope Pages." Duh.  And during Jackie's monologue, when he might or might not spontaneously shoost up the aisle for some shenanigans, the page had to crouch down next to the rope and be ready to lower it.  And then, raise it again when Jackie returned to the stage.  The rope was only like, a foot off the floor.  And there was no set distance regarding how close Jackie got to the rope before the page lowered it; but the rope had to be down if he got to certain point.  It was a guessing game for the page.  And a game of cat and mouse for Jackie.  Which I found out the day I was first assigned to be The Rope Page.  

"I'll tear youse meeces to pieces!!!"

I'm the meece in this scenario.
Now, I'm an amicable person.  Amiable too.  I am not, however, particularly obsequious.  And if I find myself in the presence of someone I feel thinks I should be obsequious, I become even less so.  I'm egaltarian.  I don't believe in all this "you have to pay your dues" bullshit.  If you're a good worker and talented and kind, I think you should be fast-tracked as quickly as the next person.  Many people do not agree with me.  Many people try to hold other people back.  Many people want to keep other people down.  Why?  Insecurity probably.  I think Jackie P. might've been insecure.  Also, jealous.  Why would a big deal talk show host be jealous of a humble page?  I don't know.  But it's a vibe I got, as I crouched by that rope, waiting for Jackie P. to approach.  And he did.  So, I lowered the rope.  Then he backed up a little, so I put the rope back up.  Then he frowned at me: this quick-silver, only perceptible to me, frown.  Why was he frowning at me?  This was my very first interaction with him. I was clearly trying to do my job and facilitate his needs; needs I was trying to assess on the fly.
This word is thrown around a lot and I can understand why some people would call "bullshit." But I'm rather empathic.  I do not refer to myself as such; but it's a fact.  I naturally intuit people's emotions rather instantaneously.  I feel what someone is feeling when they're feeling it.

Consequently, it causes me to put up walls to a certain degree.  I have often been told that people's first impressions of me were that I was "aloof."  And I can't say that's not true.  But it's not aloofness born of indifference.  It's actually a kind of shyness; and those protective walls from other people's emotions, which can overwhelm.
So anyways, back to the ropes.
I'm picking up this intense negative vibe from Jackie P.; almost like he hates me for some reason.  So now I know he is purposely moving back and forth in front of the rope to see what I do.  Not to test me; but to (and let's just be blunt here), fuck with me.  Why is he doing that?  What have I ever done to him to deserve this kind of treatment.  So, I go into laser focus mode, which requires me to more or less ignore him and concentrate on his feet and the rope, which seems to enrage him even more.  All this while he's delivering what is supposed to be a lighthearted and fun interaction with the audience.  Talk about compartmentalizing.

Have you ever had a bully?  If you did, did you wonder why they picked you out of the crowd?  Like, why you?  Or, why me?  When you did nothing to deserve the bully's wrath?  Well, let's be logical about it.  You caught their attention for some reason.  They noticed you.  You registered on their field of interest.  Ergo, they are interested in you.  So, why are they so interested in you?  Because you have something they want.  Or that they lack.  Or perhaps, they're positively attracted to you but they can't admit it due to some psychological and/or sociological circumstance.  So, the interest/attraction can only be expressed in negative terms. Like a wedgie. It's like when little boys run up to little girls they're attracted to and hit them; because for whatever reason they can't express the positive attraction.  Maybe, on some level, Jackie P. was attracted to me.  Like physically and/or romantically. THE HOTS. Call it what you want. Yes, I got that vibe too.  I mean, there were some intense vibes coming off that man directed at me.  Why?  I can't answer that.  But they were there.

Back to the rope.
The game went on.  Up with the rope, down with the rope: up, down-down-up-down-down-down-up.  Then one last up and I sat back on my haunches.  He steps over the raised rope, giving me the stink eye to end all stink eyes.  He'd won, I'd supposed.  And then he goes and talks to someone in the audience like he's Mister Nice Guy.  Mr. Laffs.  Mr. Funn!  Boy, did he have them fooled.  I lowered the rope and then he pointedly went down the other aisle.

Here was another set of rules at The Jackie P. Freeling Show: NO ONE FROM THE GENERAL STUDIO AUDIENCE WHO IS A V.I.P GUEST OF MR. FREELING'S WILL BE ALLOWED ON TO THE STAGE FROM THE SEATING AREA.  ALL GUESTS OF MR. FREELING MUST REPORT TO THE SOUNDSTAGE DOOR TO BE ALLOWED ADMITTANCE.
Guess whose job it was to enforce this inviolable rule?...you got it...the Rope Page.

Now, the Rope Page was not necessarily stationed at the rope when the taping wrapped.  Generally yes, but possibly someone else.  I'm not sure if my disastrous stint at the rope was the same day as the V.I.P. "event."  I don't think it was...
Anyways, I was at the bottom of the stairs on the aisle, house left.  I had a list of everyone who was a guest and was able to go backstage to visit Jackie P.  Oftentimes, these people would've watched the show from the general audience area and then come to the lip of the stage, where, as per policy, they would be instructed to exit with everyone else and then report to the soundstage main entrance where they then would be escorted backstage.  This rule was iron-clad and immovable, supposedly, since the "take a look at my script" event.  So, on this given day, a group of people approached me.  They were VIP friends of Jackie.  They were on the list.  I checked.  But they were not allowed to go backstage via the route they were attempting.  I informed them of this.  I politely explained what they needed to do.  Someone in the group shouted to Jackie and waved.
"Hey MOTHERFUCKER (meaning yours truly) let them through, stupid!"  He was on a hot mic.  The audience was mostly still there.  What he said went over the loudspeakers.  I sighed and let them through.  I could feel his stink-eye on the back of my head.  Everyone was staring at me like I was some kind of monster.

Strangely, I was not really all that embarrassed or mortified.  Jackie was the one who came across as the monster.  A good two hundred people saw the real Jackie that day.  He was obviously someone you couldn't please or "win" with.  Having grown up with someone who used elliptical logic as a way to get his way had prepared me for this sort of situation.  In retrospect, I suspect that Jackie was (and is) a true narcissist.  Narcissists are never happy, even when they attain everything they want.  They need to destroy what they get because deep down they are so insecure they feel they don't deserve it.  It's self-sabotage.  And when they sabotage their own lives, they get to blame everyone else.  It's truly pernicious.

I wonder if the statute of limitations still stands on this incident.  I mean, could I like, call Paramount Human Resources and report the incident, almost 30 years later?  You know, "Oh, I suffered intense PTSD from this hate-speech and can only now bring it into the light..."  Could I successfully sue?  Settle out of court?  What would be the going rate for being called a "motherfucker" in public?  Let's make some lemonade out of this fucker, Mother!

Well, how about I put this anecdote in my pot-boiler tell-all: I, A Page: Confessions from the Hollywood Gen-X List. ?
This book is going to rip the lid off the the habits of Hollywood habitues!  Those habits being primarily shopping and golf-cart etiquette.

Which brings us to the real question: why do we love people who do hateful things?  Why do we love to hate them?  Or hate to love them.  Why do the activities and attitudes of awful people seem so much more compelling than those of people who are kind, constructive and gentle? Like, we can binge watch entire blocks of shows featuring people doing the most horrible things, like murder, and watch it all day.  But if a FRONTLINE episode about Mother Teresa airs, we start getting fidgety and reaching for the remote about fifteen minutes in.

Is it because most of us are good; or at least try to be good and when we see other people being bad and benefitting from it we wonder if we should too?  Maybe.  But I don't know the answer.
Maybe Alexis Carrington does. Remember how obsessed the country was with her?  "TV's Favorite Woman You Love to Hate!"

Ironically, Joan Collins, who played Alexis, seems like she is a very nice person.  But it's all relative I suppose.  I'm sure Jackie P. Freeling was nice from time to time.  But leopards don't often change their spots.  They can, however extend and retract their claws, depending on the mood.  And the meeces.  And I washed that dude right out of my hair long ago...right?

Ciao for now.

A haiku for Ms. Farrah Fawcett:

Golden hair so fine
Lady Cortez on your feet
Taken by sunset

Oh Farrah, we love you.
And we miss you.
But this blog isn't about you.  It's about the shoes you're wearing.  That pair of Lady Cortez, nylon with suede trim.
Wait, what's that Farrah?  Why do I want to talk about your shoes?  Why don't I want to talk about you?  I will talk about you Farrah, in another blog.  I promise.  But right now I'm talking about your sneakers.
"But Chris," Farrah asks, "why do you want to talk about my feet?  Do you have a foot fetish?"
"Well," I say, "I wouldn't exactly call it a fetish..."
"A thing for women's feet?"
"Well, if anything, men's feet..."
"What's the difference?"
"Night and day."
"But a foot is a foot.  You know, like, toes, an arch, the heel...the ball..."
"Farrah, we're getting off track.  Why don't you study this chart and we'll talk later?"
"Fine.  Be that way.  I have a hair appointment anyway."
"Dont' be mad Farrah--"
But Farrah's gone, to that great beauty parlor in the sky.

This really is about the sneakers.  The classic Nike Cortez shoe and how it came in and out of my life, often on the feet of one young woman in particular.  Let's call her Maria.  She was Italian.  Picture a mash-up of Cara Delevingne, Mila Kunis and Sophia Loren.  Yes her name was Maria Pecorino (but it wasn't).  She first came into my life in either the third or fourth grade.  Probably fourth.  She rather looked liked this young lady:

I mean, she didn't dress like a Sicilian peasant; but she was nearly that exotic.  She moved to my hometown from East Boston in the early 70's.  East Boston is heavily Italian (I went to high school there: Saint Dominic Savio Boy's Preparatory).  Dom Savio's favorite expression was "Death Before Sin."  

The goody-two-shoes to end all goody-two-shoes.
However, Maria Pecorino was no goody-two-shoes.  And it was Maria Pecorino who delivered some extremely immediate life lessons to me.  I think she was put in my life for just that reason.  To teach me some lessons.  But our lives over-lapped.  Maybe I taught her some things too.  What they might've been escapes me; but it's possible.
Kids can be mean.  Shit, they can be downright sadistic.

I'm sorry to say, I had my moments of childhood cruelty.
When Maria first arrived in our class, she was the "new kid."  Actually, she was our first "new kid."  I think we all know that the welcome wagon isn't generally wheeled out or the red carpet unfurled when kids encounter a new (read: strange) kid.  The New Kid usually has to go through some kind of hazing or shunning before being let into the status quo, elementary school social-strata.  Maria got raked over the coals for being from East Boston.  She was a dirty city kid.  Why didn't she go back to her smoke stacks and concrete wasteland?  I actually said that to her; the part about the smoke stacks.  Maybe I wouldn't have said anything at all if I'd known at that time that my own mother had lived there when she was a little girl.  Or that I would be the New Kid at my high school in East Boston and be the initial object of scorn.  I still feel ashamed of myself over that.  Actually, I did at the time.  But the other kids were doing it, and I wanted to fit in.  However, Maria leveled the playing field a few years later. 

Our classrooms at Lynnhurst Elementary school had water fountains, kind of like the above.  I recall them being built into a countertop.  Is that unusual for a classroom to have a water fountain?  I don't know; but that's neither here nor there.  It's what happened at the water fountain that's important here.  I don't remember a lot of the specifics, but the teacher was out of the room and we were "self policing."  Maria and I both happened to head for the water fountain at the same time.  We were now both in sixth grade.  Two years at that age generates huge shifts in everything.  The differences between a nine year-old and an eleven year-old are astronomical.  Especially an eleven year-old girl.
I don't recall what was said or exactly why what happened, happened; but Maria went first and when she raised up from the fountain, she stared me in the face and then full-on slapped me across it.  Hard.  It was the kind of blow that could've gotten her expelled. It was a true bitch slap. But I didn't say anything.  Nobody seemed to witness the event.  I returned to my desk and sat with the burning sting for the rest of the afternoon.  Was it her answer for me, when two years earlier I had asked her why she didn't just go back to the dirty city?

​Maria got bitten by the disco bug before anyone else.  I remember one day when we were having an end of the year party in class, she brought in the soundtrack album to Thank God It's Friday.  And maybe the Carwash and Saturday Night Fever LPs as well.  I remember the Thank God It's Friday record had like three discs in it and tons of artwork.  I pored over every inch of those record sleeves: Thank God It's Friday had decidedly adult themes and I sniffed out every one of them.  Maria's love for disco only grew.  By the time we were in junior high school, she was known for being "into" disco. Some even called her "Disco Maria." But she was swimming upstream.  Most of the little shits at Belmonte Jr. High School were into hard rock.  Or claimed to be.  The boys anyways.  And wasn't it the boys who decided what was cool and what wasn't and what someone should be made fun of for?  Girls too.  But girls were open to more musical styles.  And then one day, Maria came to school wearing a pair of these:

It was love at first sight.  I HAD TO HAVE A PAIR.
That is a pair, of course, of the classic Nike Cortez shoe, first introduced in 1972.  I didn't gaze on it until 1978 when Maria strutted down the hallway.  The shoe, in white with red and royal blue trim was officially deemed "The Disco Nike." So, if you wore them, you were "Disco."  I loved disco; but I also loved a lot of other musical genres.  The shoe spoke more to my aesthetic tastes than my musical ones.  I don't know what it was about them.  They were some kind of perfect storm of design, fashion and culture.  I must've not been alone in my love of these kicks, 'cuz if ever there was a cult around a certain shoe: the Cortez cult was it.  They cost $40.00 in 1978.  That's like $170 dollars in today's money.  Which is kind of shocking.  How I was able to acquire a pair, in retrospect, seems miraculous.  I reeeeeaaaallly wanted those shoes and must've struck a bargain with the devil to get them.  I mean, we weren't poor; but we didn't have that kind of money to throw around on sneakers.  But I got them and I was kind of obsessed with them.  I remember ritualistically cleaning them with saddle soap once a week.
What you wore on your feet at school was of the utmost importance.  No, it was more than that.  What you wore on your feet could make or break you, socially.  I can remember agonizing over certain shoe choices, including the Cortez.  Did I want to officially be identified as "disco?" Disco Chris.  Disco Chrisco.  Go Disco Chrisco Go!  I remember the first song I danced to in public.  It was "Le Freak" by Chic.  Karen Champalillo pulled me onto the floor and showed me the moves.

Luckily, mastering The Freak was not difficult (and I have two left feet).  I think Maria was at that dance.  She had to have been.
Here's another moment when Maria set me straight (so to speak).  And it's another moment of shame.  One I'm not proud of.  And one I've never forgotten. So, I will share it with you. We were in the same homeroom.  Our desks were next to one another.  Since we had gone down decidedly different social paths since grammar school, we didn't really talk.  But one day we did.  Maria told me I had "perfect" eyebrows.  I thanked her.  You see, Maria knew about eyebrows.  She had a pair that would've made Brooke Shields look over-plucked.  Maria's were thick and lustrous and meticulously groomed.  I had never given a second thought to my eyebrows.  It just wasn't something boys thought about back then.  Not even gay boys (unless you had a unibrow, which some girl would inevitably try and vanquish).  I said, "Oh, really?  Thanks..."  Then she said, "You have really nice lips too..."  And then I said something.  I remember weighing in my mind whether I should say it or not.  Sage advice: if you're having that thought, the answer is always "NO."  I grew up in a casually racist environment.  There were no black people in my class.  I don't know if I said this because I wanted to seem "cool" or that it would give me some street cred; and I knew it was wrong even before it was coming out of my mouth.  "I have N-word lips." But I used the actual word.  An unexpected aggregate of micro-emotions passed over her blank face.  She sat back in her chair.  I tried to back-pedal: "Well, someone said that to me once--"
"I think black people have beautiful lips."  And then she cast her gaze elsewhere.  The conversation was over.  And I had been schooled once again.  The thing is, the sad and ironic thing, is that I wasn't really racist.  Not in my core, anyways.  I had been bitch slapped again.  And deserved it again.

In ninth grade, I found myself next to Maria in a study class.  She had a Trapper Keeper.  It was green.

She had graffitied on it, like most kids are wont to do.  One of the slogans was: "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick."
"What's a rhythm stick?" I asked.
"It's from a song."
"What song?"
"'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.'"
"Who sings that?"
"Ian Dury and the Blockheads."
"What else do they sing?"
"Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3."
"I don't know that--"
"Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll?"
"That I've heard."
She shook her head.  Clearly Maria had some eclectic and sophisticated musical tastes.  In a way, this was another lesson, because I sought out the songs.

She demonstrated to me that just because you were into one thing, didn't mean you couldn't be into something (or many things) else.  So, I'd have to say Maria sparked my interest in alternative music.  Ian Dury and the Blockheads were then and still remain somewhat obscure and underrated.  I often wonder how Maria came across them.  Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3?  Maybe.  It's sorta disco.  But it's also rock.  And it's even kind of rap.
My mother worked at a department store that was a small Northeastern chain.  Caldor.  Caldor was kind of like a cross between Woolworth's and Sears.

Caldor had very distinctive signage and entrance design in the 70's.  I found out later that hookers used to work behind the building (fyi). Maria got a job there (inside, not behind the building!) and she and my mom became friends.  I mean, like, not hang-out friends; but friendly.
And then, many more years later, Maria married a guy from my high school class.  I mean, what are the odds of that?  There were only about 90 guys in my whole class.
When my sister and her kids came to visit the States some time ago, my nephew, Jack (who was around seven or so) wanted to go to "Hungry Jacks," which is what they call Burger King down-under.  While we were there, we were at a table in the front of the dining room, the order counter behind us.  Now, the building had four entrances, one on each corner.  You'd think someone coming to get food would go in to the place through one of the doors closest to the counter.  Right?
So, we're sitting there, eating our burgers and a woman comes striding up towards the door which we were right next to.  I was facing the door.  Guess who it was.  Maria Pecorino.  It was like the Universe marched her right up to our table.  We were adults now.  Pleasantries and brief chit-chat were exchanged.  Warm smiles, sincere ones, were given on both sides.  I was happy to see that Maria's eyebrows were as magnificent as ever.

We're Facebook friends now.  However, I almost never see her posts, for whatever reason. Whatever the funky algorithm on Facebook is up to.  But as I was writing this, the other day she popped up in my feed (she'd changed her profile picture).  Again, odd.  I mean, I changed her name for this piece.  Coincidence?  Surely.  But was it?  
I wonder if Maria still has her Disco Nikes.  I do.  Not my first pair.  But the pair I bought right after Forrest Gump came out and Nike brought the shoe back.  Again, I had to have them.  And I paid full price.  Again, I couldn't really afford them.  I blame Tom Hanks.  Oh no Chris, not Tom Hanks again!  Yes, damn it.  Tom Hanks.

You know, I actually dressed up once as Forrest Gump when I worked at Paramount.  It was right after I bought my new pair of Disco Nikes and right after the movie came out. It's gotta be one of the easiest costumes to put together, as long as you have the shoes.  Yeah, I wore it to work.  And it wasn't Halloween.  I quickly felt like an idiot; but I wore the outfit all day. 
I wonder if Tom and Maria have ever met?
So, what's our take-away here?  Well, we opened with a haiku, so let's close with an aphorism:

"Do not judge someone until you have danced in their Disco Nikes."

Sounds like sage advice to me.

So, here's the "final" script.  But no script is ever final, is it?  It's the one broth that every cook wants to season to taste.  Anywhoose.  I think I cleaned up all the typos.  And of course, I tweaked some of the lines.  Hopefully it made things funnier.  This show is definitely Not Ready For Primetime, playah.  And of that, I'm happy.
​Call me!

Do I have a...oh, do I even dare say it out loud...a DIRTY MIND?

​I'm afraid the answer to that is yes.  But is that a bad thing?  There's a little needle-point sampler on the wall of my office that one of my husband's high school girlfriends made for him.  It says: "A Dirty Mind is a Joy Forever."  I have to say, I agree with that.  But don't we all have dirty minds, really?  I mean most of us.  Sex is what makes the world turn.  It's what creates the human race.  It's our driving force, so to speak.  No wonder we're so obsessed with it.  And people who claim they aren't, tend to think that sex is dirty; so doesn't that mean they have a dirty mind too?
So, yes, I guess I do have a dirty mind.  And I'm no Spring chicken anymore.  Does that make me a "Dirty Old Man"?  No, I think there's a difference.  Dirty Old Men want to impose their dirty old mind (the dirty bastards!) on people, often physically.  Like public weenie-wagging.  Flashers.  Subway gropers. The Roger Aisles' of the world. I mean, I would never impose my lewdness on anyone who didn't ask first.  And if my writing is a little too blue for you, then you certainly have the choice not to read it.

But comparatively speaking, I don't think even the bluest of my blue work is anything but light blue.  I mean, blue comedy goes back to Ancient Greece.  The Marquis DeSade was penning his pitch blue comedy two hundred and thirty years ago (so there's nothing new under the sun). Is DeSade comedy?  I think anything that extreme is meant to be comical.  I mean, it's not really my cup of tea...
I mean, sex is funny.  To me, anyways.  Always has been.  I mean, yes, I appreciate erotica.  I can go down a porno rabbit-hole as deep as the next guy.  But when I come out of it, I can't help but think how silly going down there was. 

I recall one time when I was a child, I drew a crude picture of a woman's breasts and wrote the word "sexy" on it.  I showed it to one of my cousins who laughed and then immediately ratted me out to the adults.  Of course, my mother had to scold me.  Perhaps I realized right then the power that words and images had; especially in the context of sex.  And the possibilities of sex to amuse.  When I was in junior high school (eighth grade, I think it was) and my drawing skills had reached a certain point beyond crude, to perhaps primitive, my best friend asked me to draw a man and woman having intercourse.  I rendered the drawing fairly quickly.  I can see now that I was influenced by Japanese erotic art known as "Shunga."  It's too graphic to put here; but I can say that the gents in the artwork usually have members that would make a male moose envious.  The fellow in my drawing had a Shunga-like member.  And the lady had breasts that would make Chesty Morgan blush.  But the thing that I spent the most time rendering was the pair of Nike Cortez running shoes the man was wearing.  Why was he wearing them?  I'm not sure.  I guess it pushed the drawing into some kind of absurdity that made it funny, to me.  The sneakers somehow kept if from the realm of simply being an extremely pornographic drawing to being a funny pornographic drawing.  When my pal told me he'd taken it to school and showed it around, I turned white.  When he said the vice-principal confiscated it, I nearly pooped my pants.  "Just kidding!" he laughed.  Kids, right?

Illustration by Michael Craddock

​

I'm sure you've heard of The Ashton-Drake Galleries.  They specialize in dolls.  Commemorative celebrity dolls and cloying, sugary baby dolls.  Baby dolls for grown-ups(?):

I'm sure you've seen the ads in magazines like TV Guide and Reader's Digest.  Here's a typical one from the early 90's: 

These dolls were not made for or meant to be played with by children.  They were for grown persons to collect and then, I suppose, display them.  I mean, I find it weird; but who I am to say anything?  I still play with dolls.  They make great actors.  They do exactly what you want and don't talk back.  So, there was this one Ashton-Drake ad I came across.  It was for a doll.  That's all I'll say.  One day I was bored at my bartending job and I was flipping through a magazine.  I came across an Ashton-Drake doll ad called "Clean As a Whistle."  I proceeded to vandalize the ad with pen and pencil eraser.  When we were quite young, my brothers and sister and I discovered you could use a pencil eraser on images printed on glossy magazine paper.  LIke, you could white out the eyes and then fill in your own eyes on say, Shelley Hack for Revlon or whatever.  Try it.  It's fun.  Needless to say, you can alter an image to your own personal satisfaction.  Which is what I did with "Clean As a Whistle."  Except, when I was done, "Clean as a Whistle" was no longer clean. It was pretty dirty.  I will spare you the details; but it was pretty obscene.  But it was funny.  The dichotomy between the original stomach churning cutesiness and the now entirely inappropriate obscenity at just the right balance was, I thought, a laugh riot.  One of my friends thought so too, after I mailed it to him (he still has it to this day).  In fact, one day he told me that he had showed it to his 70something mom.  No, "just kidding!" this time.  "You didn't..." I gasped into the phone.  "I did."  "What did she say?" I asked.  Now his mother was going to think I was some kind of pervert.  "She was highly amused," he said.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Thinking on this, I've come to realize that perhaps women may actually have more of an appreciation of the bluer comedy styles.  Certainly, women can get away with supplying it more than men.  For example, this funny lady:

Of course, she's best remembered as "Aunt Esther" on Sanford and Son; but have you ever seen her stand-up work?  It's pretty damn raunchy.  And she was doing it well into her golden years.  And yet, she was never branded a "Dirty Old Lady."  Even most actual dirty old ladies rarely get branded as "Dirty Old Ladies," whereas even relatively young, older men get the "Dirty" branding if they so much as wistfully smile at the cover of Sports Illustrated's swim-suit issue or tune in the Victoria's Secret undies parade.

Rusty Warren was not so much raunchy as she was naughty.  She's perhaps best remembered for her night-club hit: "Knockers Up!" which is exactly what you think it's about. 

This was during the early to mid-60's when things were just starting to "swing."  But people have been "swinging" since time immemorial.  And I bet when Rusty told the ladies in the room to get their "Knockers Up!" she didn't have to do much to get them to do just that.  I picture bee-hived and bouffanted babes in slinky sheaths over bullet bras, proudly parading their knockers in a distaff conga line.  And maybe even a mid-century nip-slip or two.

Now, I asked earlier if in middle-age and dirty minded did I qualify as a "Dirty Old Man." Sarah Jessica Parker and I are the same age; and she's still getting her Sex and the City on.  So does she qualify as a "Dirty Old Lady"?  All Carrie Bradshaw did with her life was screw guys and then write about it.  Does Carrie Bradshaw qualify?  You know, for all her supposed "liberation," it seemed that all Carrie really wanted was to be married and buy things.  She was reverse-sexist.  She treated guys like Kleenex.  Actually, she was kind of a reprehensible character.  Get over yourself Carrie.  I'll take Patty Greene over you any day:

Older "dirty" women have another advantage over older "dirty" men.  They get support.  They have a cute name: "Cougars."  I mean Carrie's best friend was the poster lady for "cougars."  She even did a commercial where she wanted to get gang-banged by an entire football team.  I mean, this is either cute, or filthy; but Kim got away with it.  Maybe the only actress at that time who could've.

I mean, let's reverse the scenario.  Let's have say, the leading male sex symbol of 2001; how about People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive 2001, Pierce Brosnan?  Same exact scenario, except it's the "Bears" cheerleader's locker room.  Pierce is pawing through the ladies lockers, slurping all over their soda cans.  The ladies return and Pierce utters the same dialogue from a shower stall.  Even though it's Pierce Brosnan, I still don't think it would play.  It would come across as skeezy and wrong.  But, oh, what I'd give to see that commercial!

So, it seems there's a double standard for "Dirty Old" people.  Advantage, ladies.  But it's gotta be a lady with a certain je nais cest quoi.  A certain confidence, which Kim had by the bucketful.  I mean, picture that Pepsi commercial with say, Cynthia Nixon or Kristin Davis.  Would've been an entirely different experience, right?

But deep down, maybe I'm not that "blue."  Because, I think you'd have to have a truly "dirty" mind if you attempted to tell the "Aristocrats" joke.  As I'm sure you know, "The Aristocrats" joke is considered to be the filthiest joke ever told.  But the thing with that joke is that the blue material should be extemporaneously supplied by the person telling it.  There's even a documentary called "The Aristocrats" that's a deep-dive into the joke.  I haven't seen it.  I've never heard anyone tell their version of the joke.  And I don't want to.  The point of the joke is to make the blue part as filthy, disgusting and dirty--sick, really--as you possibly can.  I have an impressionable mind.  I don't want that stuff having a permanent home in my brain.  That's also my quandary with horror movies.  I love them but if the imagery is too much, I will regret having seen them.

Truly Tasteless Jokes was a wildly popular book in the early 80's that went on to spawn a whole series.  I think one was more than enough.  A friend of mine had the book and I recall not only being shocked by some of them but physically sickened.  But I guess that's what a "sick joke" is meant to do.  I mean, when your book has a chapter devoted to "dead baby jokes" you're committed.  I guess the "sick joke" is the nasty cousin to the "dirty joke."  Which makes me ask why? Why sick jokes?  I mean, I get why there are dirty jokes; but why sick ones?  I guess it's a way to process, through humor, unspeakable things.  The unspeakable atrocities that humans are capable of.  And we're capable of some bad shit.  Maybe sick jokes are a way to deal with the deepest, darkest most frightening aspects of ourselves.  I hope that's what it is.  Otherwise, we're really in trouble.
But, I don't want to end this on a bummer note.  So, here's a picture of La Wanda page from early in her career:

And here's a joke she might've told.  Caution: it's blue.

Loueffie and her friend Morene were in the break room, sitting and having a cup of coffee.  Loueffie, deep in thought finally turned to Morene and asked: "Morene, have you ever been picked up by the fuzz?"  Morene put her cup down and said, "Yes I have, Loueffie.  And it hurt like hell!"

For Adults Only...

"Put your hands on either side of your head," she orders.
I obey immediately.
"Why am I doing this Sean?" she asks.
"Because I rolled my eyes at you," I can barely speak.
"Do you think that's polite?"
"No."
"Will you do it again?"
"No."
"I will spank you each time you do it, do you understand?"
Very slowly, Miss Laura the Victorian Spankstress pulls down my sweatpants.  Oh, how demeaning is this? Demeaning and scary and hot.  She's making such a meal of this. My heart is in my mouth. I can barely breathe. Shit, is this going to hurt?
Laura places her hand on my naked behind, softly fondling me, stroking around and around with her flat palm.  And then her hand is no longer there...and she hits me--hard. Ow!  My eyes spring open in response to the pain, and I try to rise, but her hand moves between my shoulder blades, keeping me down.  She caresses me again where she's hit me. and her breathing's changed--it's louder, harsher.  Laura hits me again and again, quickly in succession.  Holy f*** it hurts. I make no sound, my face screwed up against the pain. I try to wriggle away from the blows--spurred on by adrenaline spiking and coursing through my body.
​"Keep still," she growls, "or I'll spank you for longer."
She's rubbing me now, and the blow follows.  A rhythmic pattern emerges: caress, fondle, hard slap.  I have to concentrate to handle this pain.
"Aargh!" I cry out on the tenth slap--and I'm unaware that I have been mentally counting the blows.
"I'm just getting warmed up."
Miss Laura the Victorian Spankstress hits me again, then she strokes me softly.  The combination of the hard stinging blow and her gentle caress is so mind-numbing.  She hits me again...this is getting hard to take.  My face hurts, it's screwed up so tight. She strokes me gently and then the blow comes.  I cry out again.
"No one to hear you,  Sean baby, just me."
And Laura hits me again and again.  From somewhere deep inside, I want to beg her to stop.  But I don't. I don't want to give her the satisfaction.  She continues the unrelenting rhythm.  I cry out six more times.  Eighteen slaps in total.  My body is singing, singing from this merciless assault.
"Enough," Laura breathes hoarsely. "Well done, Sean.  Now I'm going to f*** you."


Too much?

This remains parody, stupidity and satire of the work of E L James; work which I have no right to reproduce legitimately.  Or, probably, illegitimately.  Also, any similarities between the characters depicted and actual living person(s) is entirely coincidental.

Also, if you enjoyed this, you might want to print it, 'cuz WebMaster may command it be taken down. He might just spank me.

So, I'm sorry.  I don't want to come across as a nag or anything.  Or as a paranoid schizophrenic; but I simply just have to say this. For my own peace of mind. I just have to put this out there.  No, I've already "put it out there" in many of these blogs.  I'm just gonna tell you what I did and what I saw.  Hmmm, I Saw What You Did.  That's an old Joan Crawford movie.

I can't believe Joan approved that picture.  Also, what the heck is "uxoricide"?
So, anyways...
Yeah, so, like in a recent series of blogs, I took you, dear reader, through the process of creating a sitcom out of nothing.*  If you read along at home, you may recall there was a scene in Cheeseheads which involved one of the characters "gifting" her sister-in-law with a Hermes silk scarf (an Hermes silk scarf?).  The gift recipient shows it to her husband who notices the price-tag and its exorbitant digits. He then expresses his sheer disbelief re: the price.

In this weeks episode of The Neighborhood (Season 4 Episode 8 "Welcome to the Family Business") there was a scene where Calvin and his wife Tina have a lengthy discussion (lengthy by sitcom standards, anyways) about Hermes "Birkin" bags.  Their exorbitant price-tags.  Their insane unaffordability for most humans.
And just like that, I have to ask...is this a coincidence? 
I also have to ask, if it's not; what is the probability that this similarity between two sitcom scripts could be so incredibly similar?  I mean, we're talking about not just the prices of Hermes products; but in the context of gift-giving.

​Okay.  I know how things work.  Sometimes, in life, two--maybe three--people have the same idea.  How else can you explain Dante's Peak and Volcano and their nearly simultaneous releases?  That kind of thing happens more than you would think.  But that's subject matter.  That is not scene specific.
I mean, okay, I get it.  Two TV shows might (and often do) have extremely similar plot points.  Just watch a block of ABC sitcoms and you'll see.  But again, I must ask, what are the odds of a TV show that's on the air and a TV show that's still on the page would both have scenes revolving around Hermes products?  I have mentioned before that I loathe "product placement."  But in writing the character of Taft Schmidt, I wanted to show that she has extremely high-end taste and has the money to acquire it.  I could've made up fake luxury brands (which is fun!  How about The House of Arivvaducci?).  But I wanted to make her luxury life-style more "real" so I chose a real brand.  I also, in the interests of fair play (or not wanting to seem that I was endorsing Hermes (more on that later) mention several other deluxe brand names in the pilot.  I mean, it's touchy, right?  If you want realism, you need to mention "real" things in your script.  Neiman Marcus, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Fendi and Hermes are all "real" things.  Things many of us long to (and do) acquire.  But that's rather beside the point.
We're not really talking about high-end designer brands here (but we are).  We're talking about how and why my sitcom script and an episode of a successful CBS sitcom both have Hermes references?  Can you infer what I'm implying?

Or is it just me?
Maybe I'm crazy and this is just a random coincidence.  Maybe.
By the way, did you know why the Hermes "Birkin" bag is called a "Birkin" bag?  Well, I'll tell ya.

Jane Birkin, 60's "It Girl," was on a plane and trying to load her straw bag into the overhead compartment.  It spilled all over the CEO of Hermes, who she happened to be sitting next to.  They got to talking and she explained she had the straw bag because she couldn't find a leather weekend bag that she liked.  The rest is history.  He designed the Birkin Bag and she became the sort of de facto mascot.  Jane must've really been attached to that straw bag.  She's carrying it in nearly 75% of the photos of her from that era.  I mean, who would pair a straw basket with a see-through mini-dress?  Jane Birkin, that's who!  She started carrying the Birkin bag and then two became one.  However, when the company started producing the bag in exotic skins, such as crocodile (with prices in the mid six figures); Jane politely asked them not to put her name on those products.  Good on her!  Now if Anna Wintour would only follow her example.  Oh, here's Jane singing one of the sexiest songs ever, with her then boyfriend, Serge Gainsbourg.

Jane was sort of the Paris Hilton of her day, British style.  That is: without the American crassness.  I mean, not many women could pull off that little black dress.  Maybe only a British girl, for some reason.  Like, Elizabeth Hurley, perhaps.  Or Julie Christie.  Jane was...what was Jane?  A model?  An actress? A singer? All those things but none of those things.  Someone famous for being famous?  I only recall her being in a single American movie: Evil Under the Sun. She has one of the greatest costume moments in cinema history in that movie.  Jane is known for her international "boho" chic.  She may have invented it.  I just had the thought that she's a Sagittarius.  Let me check...
Yep. December 21.  She recently had a stroke.  I'll say a prayer tonight. 

​And then this happened...

So, like, literally right after I posted the video of Jane, I retired from my keyboard to go and watch the Wednesday night line-up of sitcoms on ABC.  I like The Goldbergs.  It's a show that actually makes me laugh.  The reboot of The Wonder Years? Meh.  I wasn't much of a fan of the first version.  And by the way, ABC, what's up with all the narration on your sitcoms.  It's like three out of every four sitcoms you produce have narration.  Come on ABC, we're not morons.  We can follow along quite nicely without Patton Oswalt's help.  Or Topher Grace's (I'll get to him in a minute).  The Connors?
God help us.  That show has to be the first "slit-com"; as in, slit your wrists.  Why does every last character on that show have to be so grindingly pessimistic or annoyingly sanctimonious.  We get it, Connors: you're poor.  You don't have to remind us every ten seconds.
Which brings us to Home Economics, which I've been following from the start.  I grow to like it more and more with each episode.  The cast chemistry is really starting to click.  The show has a heart.  Which was why I was a little disheartened myself as I watched tonight's episode: Season 2, Episode 9 "Secret Santa Gift, $25 Limit."
That title tells you pretty much all you need to know.  But here's the thing: the major plot point revolved around a luxury gift.  A very expensive luxury gift.  A very expensive luxury gift of a ladies handbag.  A very expensive luxury gift of a ladies handbag that clearly was a stand-in for a Hermes Birkin bag.  Go ahead.  Tell me I'm wrong.  There it is in the above photo.  Clearly Disney didn't want to give Hermes free advertising.  Disney wants their scratch up front.
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But Chris, you say, Chris, Chris, Chris...you poor little dunderhead.  You sad, envious, mistaken little numbskull.  That's called a coincidence.  Don't you remember when Turner and Hooch and K-9 came out at the same time?

You're just jealous.  Do you really think seasoned pros on major sitcoms on two separate networks are taking...inspiration and ideas...from your little pilot script?
Yes, little voice in my head.  Yes I do. 
But I don't care. 
I knew that putting that up in a public forum might do some "inspiring."  I just didn't think it would happen that fast.  That is, if it's happened.
Because, there is every chance that this "luxury gift" story thread is just floating through the zeitgeist right now.  
So, I am asking anyone out there who is a sitcom writer and may have been inspired by my script or knows another sitcom writer who may have been inspired.  Send me a sign.  I just need to know for my own mental health.  You can just send an image to my phone.  Text me.  Text me at 540-520-1974. Text it from a burner phone. Email it from a library computer to [email protected]. Text me a picture of a Goblin shark (or the weird fish of your choice). If I receive an anonymous picture of a Goblin shark or some other weird fish, I will know you read this and had the kindheartedness to help soothe my feverish brow.

So, I got all that off my chest.
Speaking of chests...when did Topher Grace get so hot?  Where was I?  He had a shirtless scene on his show tonight.  You got it going on, Toph!  Also, I think you've finally found the perfect role for yourself.  I kind of hated That 70's Show (I can't even "hate watch" the reruns).  You've got a new fan!  I hope the show has a long and happy run.  I'll say a prayer tonight.

*Anyone Can Make a Sitcom! Parts 1-3