Author: guy

“My death, is it possible?” asked the late philosopher Jacques Derrida in his book Aporias.
As one wag put it yesterday upon hearing of Derrida’s death, “I guess that answers THAT question.” (Thanks, Sarah)

I had the pleasure of interviewing Rodney Dangerfield two years ago. He was a great guy, a little out of it, but still as funny and nasty as you could hope for.
I met Rodney in his Westwood apartment, where he lounged in a loosely held bathrobe – that night I saw more of Rodney Dangerfield than I expected, a softer, more fleshy, less circumcised side. I also met his wife, who was beautiful, blonde and half his age (placing her somewhere around fifty), but she was surprisingly sharp and impossibly nice.
Rodney was in show business for more than sixty years and worked every gig imaginable, from singing waiter to The Dean Martin Show. He discovered Kinison and Hicks and countless others. In many ways Back to School is to blame for my own sub-par performance in college. And how many times can you wring your collar and declare “No respect” before it gets tired? Never.
What follows are excerpts from the interview or the transcript.
On Overcoming Depression:
“When you’re smart,” Rodney says, “you’ve got no one to talk to. I’ve done everything for it, including forty-eight Austrians, OK? It’s not easy.”
“I have no idea what that means” is the best I can come up with.
“I keep myself dumb, I make plenty of friends that way. It’s easier to get a chick when you’re dumb.”
OK, but thers thers got to be more. Does he take anti-depressants?
“Nothing.”
What about the alcohol cure?
“No, I hardly touch it. I smoke pot,” he says, “I smoke a lot of pot.”
On Romance:
“Listen man,” he offers, “You can always find a chick with a nice ass. You find a chick who’ll actually listen to you, and you can bring yourself to listen to? That’s what you hold on to. If she has a nice ass too, that’s not so bad either.”
I like Rodney’s advice – it seems honest – but this comes only minutes after he’s said, “I told my wife she’s awful in bed. So she went out and got a second opinion. And then she got a third opinion, and a fourth opinion.”
And the inevitable follow-up, “My wife, she likes to talk during sex. The other night she called me from a motel.”

What exactly happened on that PT Boat? Only Lt. Cmdr. McHale knows for sure.

For those interested in learning more about America’s greatest civil rights triumph since the march from Selma, aka Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, you might want to check out co-writer Jon Hurwitz’s Friendster profile.
Among his nine testimonials, there is the Asian Harold who offers:

And then there’s his Indian Friendster Raza who writes:

Is it possible that we have located the ur-Harold and Kumar? Could this prove the Rosetta Stone to unlocking the secrets of this milestone film? Yeah, whatever.
[Thanks Carone!]

Highly anticipated disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow opens the day after tomorrow.
On Friday, the day after tomorrow, when The Day After Tomorrow opens, the day after tomorrow will be Sunday.

Your Diet Is Driving Me Crazy, by the unfortunately named Cynthia Sass, hits retailers this week; the book is designed to help couples and families cope with the trauma of having a dieter in their midst. And so it has finally arrived – the meta-self-helper – a title intended to solve the problems that arise when someone else has chosen to solve their own problems. But Your Diet shouldn’t come as much surprise – in our endlessly bootstrapping culture, it’s more shocking that noone has thought of the meta-self-helper before.
Imagine the endless opportunities to piggyback on the endless procession of self-help literature: (I Don’t Want to) Go to South Beach, or, Why Should I Care About the Color of Your Parachute?, or, for the kids, Why Doesn’t Daddy Sweat the Small Stuff?. And let’s not forget the chance for talk show topics like “Dr. Phil Is Ruining Our Marriage,” “How Could You Possibly Watch LoveLine?” or, “If Men Are from Mars and Women from Venus, Then Where Do I Belong?”
Yes, Your Diet has ushered in a brave new era for dubiously-licensed and syntactically-challenged physicians everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before societal ills, unhappy marriages, unsightly fatties and the concerns about those concerns, are a thing of the past.

From Reuters, “Shrek Finds More Beauty in Being Ugly in ‘Shrek 2′”:
“Shrek 2” zeros in on a cultural obsession with image, and there’s no better place to do that than in Hollywood.
From The Sun, “Diaz Sends for Zit Squad”:
Beauty Cameron Diaz sent an SOS after bursting out in zits before the Cannes premiere of Shrek 2.

Has Steve Coogan’s young and promising film career already jumped the shark? After turning in a near-perfect performance in the near-perfect 24 Hour Party People, what is Coogan’s next move? Appearing opposite Jackie Chan, of course, in Disney’s summer release Around the World in 80 Days.
Coogan will star as the eccentric Phileas Fogg and Chan will play his French manservant Passepartout (at least if the film remains true to Verne). In other words, it’s the same surefire comic dyad that has served us so well in Rush Hours 1, 2, and yes, 3; Shanghai Noon and Knights; The Medallion; and The Tuxedo.
Before managing to effectively raze Clare Forlani’s and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s careers into the ground, Jackie Chan transformed the occasionally funny (and occasionally irritating) Chris Tucker into an unfathomably execrable onscreen presence. But not content to stop there, Chan went on to reveal that the potentially annoying Owen Wilson is, in fact, the intolerable wet blanket we suspected all along.
And so we beg you Mr. Chan, don’t take Steve Coogan down with you. What about David Cross or Hank Azaria? You can have them, they’re all yours – just not Coogan.

Alternately: U Bulbous Mass, Gorge Away, Gigantic.