Conservative commentator, Tomi Lauren posted an Instagram picture with a gun in the front of her yoga pants. The gun is being treated for frostbite.
There was a huge sewage spill on the field of Dodger Stadium. But they managed to suction the sewage up and ship to be an episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."
NASA announced they have plans to probe Uranus in the future. They're calling it Project Harvey Weinstein.
Ireland is opening its first nude beach in April. And in May, England is opening its first dentist office.
Ireland is opening its first nude beach in April. They do not make enough Irish Spring soap to wash-out the image of pale, naked Irish people in the sand.
What could go wrong with naked, pale Irish people on a beach in chilly April? What is the name, Shrinkage Beach?
Since you asked:
Saw Judd Apatow’s “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling” on HBO.
Really good.
Judd Apatow must have some award for being the most loyal friend in Hollywood to difficult, but talented people. And it shows in this honest, but frank love letter to his mentor, Garry Shandling.
As huge of a fan as I was of “The Larry Sanders Show,” I had no idea Shandling was even more neurotic and touchy than his character, Larry.
Saw some of the excerpts before like when Shandling boxed with Alec Baldwin and it got really weird with both of them. Both are flaky nut-jobs. Shandling is just way funnier.
Also did not realize Shandling was such a talented comedy writer at such an early age for “Sanford and Son,” and “Welcome Back Kotter” and others.
What Shandling did supporting so many comedians was justifiably commendable. The story of how George Carlin helped him and he returned the favor to others is touching.
But what Garry-with-two-R’s did to close friends who worked for him was despicable. Not going to weigh on the the “Two sides to every story,” lawsuit against his agent, Brad Grey. 50% is far too much to be taking by an agent for a show, but how did Larry not know that when he signed? And Grey got him both of his shows.
And there just is not any defense for what he did to his ex-fiancé, Linda Doucett. Firing her after they broke up?
The bodies of close friends who were fired by Sanders as writers, producers, managers is pretty considerable. The close friends he stopped talking too, like Bob Saget, were sad.
Garry Shandling fits every stereotype of messed up comedians and then some. He had a heroically dysfunctional mother and she was crazy after losing her son, Barry, Garry’s older brother to cystic fibrosis.
Shandling was a brilliant comedian. Some of his jokes were genius. As a baby he was born with postpartum depression? He looked at his parents and said, “Oh, no, two Jews.”
At the Emmys he said he shaved one leg so it would feel like he was sleeping with a woman.
Apatow’s loyalty excludes the history Shandling had with misogyny and drug use. Known for healthy eating, basketball and meditating, it seemed odd Shandling died of a heart attack. But the list of proscription drugs in Garry’s system after he died was lengthy.
Someone in the documentary alluded to Shandling's drug use briefly, given Garry’s close friendships with artists known for serous drug use, like Senn Penn and Tom Petty, it is impossible to believe Shandling did not also indulge.
But so did just about everybody in Hollywood.
The aspect of Shandling and his male writer’s misogyny was touched on in “The Larry Sanders Show,” with some hilarity. After he and his writers keep shouting the word pussy, Larry’s long-suffering secretary, Beverly, complains by saying, “My mom was right , I should have worked at a bank.” After she storms out, Larry yells after her,
“Get you some of that drive-through pussy.”
One of the best scenes of "The Larry Sanders Show," depicted the made-in-a-lab Hollywood corny, phony, sidekick, Hank "Hey now" Kingsley - played impeccably by Jeffrey Tambor - lying on his office couch eating frozen yogurt while listing his demands to his hot secretary to host a charity fundraiser.
His demands include a $10, 000 appearance fee, first class flight, a around-the-clock limo meeting him at the plane, a four-star hotel suite with room service included, expensive champagne, a massage, a fruit basket and expensive bath crystals.
Hank then pauses to look up and adds simply oozing with earnest sincerity,
"It feels good to give back to the community."
"The Larry Sanders Show," captured how these insecure stars can live in a world full of fan adoration, hillside or beachside mansions, expensive cars getting detailed each day, tailored suits, huge salaries, gorgeous co-workers, free expansive booze, endless drugs, sex and the finest cuisine, the studio sending lavish gifts, and still feel like they are horribly over-worked while only working 150 days a year.
As big a fan as I was of Garry Shandling, after watching “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling,” I am an even bigger fan. And this is despite reservations of how badly he treated friends and employees. How he overcame his crippling insecurities and demons to be that successful and brilliant is impressive.
And, after all of that endless worry, Garry’s ass was fine.
Rusty, RIP, clearly his best customer
Noreen before she aged
Paul Gleason. Also RIP.
Rusty Staub passed away. As I am not a believer in sugarcoating someone because they died, here is my Rusty Staub story.
To say I hate the Mets is an understatement. This is not just because of what they did to my Cubs in 1969, but I had a bond trader client named Noreen, who was a devoted Mets fan and she insist I take her to a game when the Cubs were in town.
Like all good Cubs fans, I wore my Cubs hat. The amount of verbal and physical abuse I took at Shea Stadium was horrible, name calling and beer throwing, and it forced me to take off the hat. In my mind, all Mets fans look just like Arte Lang, except drunker and fatter.
And louder.
With the exception of two guys I worked with, Jooch and Fideen, you know who you are, all Mets fans to me are awful, including by bond trading client, Noreen.
At the time, Noreen was doing a ton of bond trading business through me, so she insisted I take her to Rusty Staub’s, an expensive white-table cloth restaurant Staub owned and actually ran, on the chance she could meet her idol, Rusty Staub.
(Noreen had a lisp and must have said “Russshtie Shhhhtaub” 1,000 times complete with spittle flying out of her razor-thin, turtle lips)
Going out to dinner with Noreen was one of my least favorite things to do. And not just because she bore an uncanny resemblance to a Galapagos turtle, and had the breath of a vomiting hyaena.
At the time, like I said, Noreen was doing a lot of business through me, but even then I could sense she was traitorous, immoral backstabber, all of which she would soon prove to be. All she talked about was how great a bond trader she was and how awful everyone else trading on Wall Street was.
Sure enough, a few months later, we had a problem on a trade, due to my sleazy area manager, Aldo, screwing up, and Noreen tried for months to have me fired.
A few months after that, Noreen lost so much money for her firm, trading against their orders, they threatened to have her arrested for fraud if she did not agree to use .75% of her salary to pay off the debt she caused.
Back to dinner at Rusty Staub’s.
Noreen was all atwitter because the great man, Rusty Staub, was there himself. She begged me to go up and get his autograph and have him come over to our table and say hello. No big deal, I thought, restaurant owners should get around and say "hi" to their customers.
When I walked up to talk to him, Rusty was having his ear humped by character actor, Paul Gleason, who was most famous for later playing the a-hole A.P. Richard Vernor, in “The Breakfast Club.” He was yammering to Staub about how he had played minor league baseball.
They kept talking while I stood there, which I thought was rude. Finally Gleason stopped his butt-smooching and so I went up to the taller-and-fatter than I thought, Staub and asked him extremely nicely to sign an autograph to Noreen and say hello to her. He looked at me for over a second and said,
“No.”
And then the great Rusty Staub turned around and walked into the kitchen.
Red-faced, I reported the bad news to Noreen who was so upset she decided to drink her sorrows away with incredibly expensive wine. Picture a drunk Galapagos turtle with acid breath whining endlessly about how much she loved Rushhhhty Shhhhhtaub, as I wiped spittle from my face.
Thankfully, the night was coming to an end and I gave our waiter my American Express card.
The minute the manager returned holding the card like it was a dead rat, I know there was trouble in Denmark. He informed me he was told by American Express to cut the card in front of me.
Backstory.
A month before, I had lost my card, someone returned it, but then I was the victim of thousands of dollars of credit card fraud. American Express told me to keep the card open so they could catch the guy. Somebody didn’t give the person handling this charge that message.
Noreen, of course, refused to pay the bill. So I had to talk them into sending the bill, albeit double the price, directly to my company.
The manager of Rusty Staub’s was just as unpleasant as Rusty Staub and he physically escorted us out of the restaurant. For a split second, I thought about screaming about seeing a rat the size of a German Shepard, but I chickened out.
So, my experience meeting Rusty Staub was the worst part of an evening I had spent with a fire-breathing drunk gila lizard spitting on me while my only credit card was cut up in front of me.
Not to brag, which is always what people say before they brag, but between jokes, these two stories, tweets and emails, I wrote over 3,000 words today.
For perspective, 1,000 words is what they recommend novelists write per-day if they want to finish an average sized novel, 250 to 300 pages, in a couple months.
