Maybe because I was wearing my Johnny Cash shirt, but something got into me today. I met with this acclaimed film director to talk about a project. THe hour or so went really well, then we segued into the small talk before parting. We discovered that we both loved Blue Valentine and Ryan Gosling’s broken man thing. I ventured that I love Mark Ruffalo’s broken man thing even more. She totally agreed — so I started yammering about his other movies like You Can Count on Me and Eternal Spotless Sunshine and she said, no, wait, it’s that other movie that he’s so great in. I guess Zodiac, and she says no, no, the one with Meg Ryan. I knew exactly what she meant but instead of saying In the Cut, I say you want me to eat your pussy in my best Mark Ruffalo impression. She rears back, like what the fuck! Idiotically, I say it again, only this time more emphatically and trying to pooch up my lip like Ruffalo’s, you want me to eat your pussy.
What are you looking at?
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It’s the Jon Stewart hour after a long Monday. I have a stack of manuscripts that still need reading and a 378 page Restoration Hardware catalogue. It is the mother of all RH catalogues. There’s a also a Garnett Hill and Eddie Bauer, but they seem lame compared to this tome from RH. I realized some time ago that home decor catalogues were almost as good as Valium and twice as addictive. I tell myself to read at least one more proposal. But I just want one little peak inside the catalogue. One little peek at the nickel finishes, the “antique” sconces or the generously proportioned mirror recalling the shape of Moorish windows — a zinc finish lends the wood molding an aged patina. I wonder if I could do mash up of Pride and Predge with Restoration Hardware? Maybe I could do a mash up of my ass and my face.
I’ve been so preoccupied with my heating pad that I’ve completely forgotten to make arrangements for next week when I’m on vacation. I have no guest bloggers lined up and these things don’t write themselves.
A lot of people ask me why I, Betsy Lerner, read Daily Variety. Excuse me? I’m a baller. Do the words executive producer mean anything to you? Have you understood nothing, that I would gladly wrap my legs around a television and fuck it to death. And here’s another reason: the announcement of new pilot orders. I think my favorite this season might be the one where Amanda Peet stars as a recently divorced mother who tries not to fall for her surfer-dude contractor. I have one word for the casting director: Keanu. Another one that sounds really spooky involves a family recovering from a brutal murder who move to an island off Maine where they discover a mystical doorway. We had one of those in the house where I grew up only it led to a Polish pogrom. I also like the pilot where two young, smart female detectives who are bff’s can “discuss fashion while solving crimes.” I know it sounds good, a little like Legally Blonde. But hey, there’s nothing new under the sun lamp. I would kill to have my show listed in Variery and while I couldn’t really opine on hemlines, I could fall for Keanu and remind both of us while we’re making love in a dental chair that when God closes one door, that door is closed.
This could still be the oxy talking, but I’m fed up with the whole blogging mishegos. People are mean, the stats go up. I clean up my act, the stats plummet. Are stats all you care about? Yes, motherfucker. I can’t see the forest, the trees, the leaves, the vein in the leaves. Am I really working on my “other projects?” Is Vince Passaro really commenting about the asking of questions. Vince, there is only one question. You told me years ago. Plastics. Rosebud. Mergers and Acquisitions. And that angel Al Desetta with the Robert Lowell hairline and the Buddy Holly glasses and the Levis that fit like love in a bottle limned with luminous sex. O Dear Heating Pad! O Beautiful Books! O darling young writer with beauty and gifts beyond reason, long may you wave. You could be doing anything but you are doing this: this.
Whenever I was set up on a date or about to meet a boy, I always imagined it was IT. You know, the Big Love. The station wagon with a blue peg and a pink peg and a golden retriever if I weren’t allergic to dogs. We wouldn’t be like anyone we were, flawed and ugly and twisted with shame. We wouldn’t have terrible secrets, or the calloused hands of others all over our bodies. We would be like the stiff spine of a new bank book, a virgin passport, something to swipe for the first time. We would be the first man to ever touch a woman there, the first woman to slip beneath a wave of pleasure. With french fries dragged through thick ketchup, your fingers in my mouth, fat thumb!
The Hose and I sent out our script to two more readers for notes and they were excellent. One had the forest in mind, forcing us to take a closer look at our main character.The second reader saw the trees. Like a dowser, he picked up every piece of dialogue that was off, every bit of illogic, and stuff that simply could and should be better. He also, without knowing who had written which sections, praised all of the Hose’s writing, while mine were meh.


