Jonny's Enemies List

Luise Rainer in “The Good Earth”

1. Luise Rainer. Yesterday’s listing about my goddess Olivia de Havilland got me to thinking about Ms. Rainer, who (having turned 100 in January) is the oldest living Best Actress Oscar-winner. She was also the first performer to win back-to-back statuettes for her awkward and ineffective turn as the first wife of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld in the interminable The Great Ziegfeld. in 1936 and for her deeply moving depiction of a Chinese peasant in the still-powerful The Good Earth in 1937. The fact that the Viennese Ms. Rainer won Oscars for playing a French singer and an Asian social climber made me think how free and easy Hollywood has been in regards to casting actors outside of their ethnicity, especially for Asian characters. Boris Karloff as Dr. Fu Manchu, Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto, Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, Marlon Brando in Teahouse of the August Moon and Warner Oland, Sidney Toler and Peter Sellers as Charlie Chan are just a few examples of the studios taping up the eyes of non-Asian actors rather than trying to develop some ethnically-correct performers to play the parts, with the nadir of the practice being John Wayne as Ghengis Khan and Mickey Rooney in the appallingly racist depiction of a Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffanys (which is as offensive as anything in Birth of a Nation). We compliment ourselves that we are above such practices now, but the reality is that the only Asian performers who have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor or Best Actress are Yul Brynner, Ben Kingsley and Merle Oberon, actors who primarily played non-Asian roles. As for Ms. Rainer, she made only six more feature films of diminishing quality after her back-to-back Oscars and faded into relative oblivion, never to know (unlike Olivia de Havilland) what it’s like for me to get hammered on Vodka on a Friday night and fantasize about her lustfully. Looking at it that way, I’m sure she considers hers to be a life well-lived.
[click to continue…]

Glenn Beck and his supporters

1. Glenn Beck, who led a massive rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday calling for a “Religious Rebirth” in America. The truth is that I don’t know much about Glenn Beck except for what I’ve seen of him on the (possibly skewed) reports about his television program on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. From what I have seen, he appears to be ripe fodder for mockery and I don’t understand how anyone could take him seriously but obviously from the crowds who came to his rally, someone does. But whether or not I like or dislike Glenn Beck isn’t the point of this listing. What offends me is when a person or a group makes a call for their followers and interested fence riders to get behind their narrow agenda in the name of Religion. What Beck and Sarah Palin (who I do know something about and who offends me to the core of my being) are saying is that because they are on the side of “Religion” that they speak for God and therefore have divine providence on their side in pushing what they have to sell (which, let’s face it, is the promotion and enrichment of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin). The reality is that it’s not possible to get back to religion because religion has always been at the forefront of our lives. And by “religion”, I mean every individual human being’s (and that includes you, me, and – yes – Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin) relationship with God. But here’s the monkey wrench in Beck’s deus ex machina: every individual human being has a different definition of what that relationship is. Let’s use the sexist stereotype of God, the Father: we have a family of three brothers, one of whom thinks Dad is great, one of whom thinks Dad is okay but a little overbearing, and one of whom thinks Dad is an asshole. We all know families like that, and many of us are an active participant in one. Each of the brothers has accepted Dad into their lives, but each has a very different perspective of what he represents. Does the brother who has a great relationship with Dad (let’s call him Glenn, for lack of a better name) have the right to say to the other brothers “I think Dad is terrific, so I expect you to feel the same way about him and honor him as I do and if you don’t, you’re evil ingrates.” That is the kind of thinking that tears families apart, and it is the kind of divisiveness that has been tearing the human family apart since the Crusades. To truly “get back to God”, we need to accept the idea that the very concept of God is a deeply personal one and that He, She, or It is not in the business of endorsing political or social agendas. And that’s the Gospel Truth.
[click to continue…]

1. The Most Interesting Man in The World from those Dos Equis ads. Yesterday, a compadré of mine posted on his Facebook wall “In a fight, The Most Interesting Man in the World would beat the Old Spice Guy. And then drink his blood. Stay thirsty, my friends.” I found that amusing, and responded ‎”I don’t always drink blood but when I do, I prefer AB+.” The point of this Algonquin Round Table-like wit is that I love the Most Interesting Man in The World commercials but, like any ad campaign that I consider to be clever, I am observing it with a considerable amount of caution because I know that it’s only a matter of time before it’s beaten into the ground. This is especially true of beer commercials, which I learned the hard way from Budweiser’s Great American Heroes ads that I loved when they first came out but that I would yank the upholstery out of my car seat to stick in my ears when I heard worn-out variations of the same theme still be played on the radio ten years later. So I’m begging Dos Equis to retire the Most Interesting Man in The World commercials before they suffer the same fate. It won’t be long before The Most Interesting Man in The World isn’t interesting any more. [click to continue…]

1. My iPod, which is out to destroy me. It is one of my Great Little Pleasures to drive to work with the top down, my iPod hooked up to the car stereo blaring out one of the 1,372 songs currently loaded on it. But I’ve come to notice that when the songs are shuffled and one of those 1,372 is played to me, I sometimes am serenaded with a recording that I not only have no idea how it made it into my digitally encoded audio vault but it might very well be a song that I personally can’t stand, such as Did I Shave My Legs For This? or Torn Between Two Lovers. And even when I reorganize my iTunes, the objectionable songs make their way back to the playlist. That’s when it dawned on me that the iPod was trying to impose its musical tastes on me. It all came to a head yesterday, when I gave the thing a stern talking to (instructing it that it was the servant and I was the master) and then plugged it into the car radio for my drive over Coldwater Canyon. But when I set it to shuffle, nothing played. I inspected the device and saw that it now had zero songs loaded on it. I had no time to resync the iPod to my iTunes, so I had to drive to work listening to commercial radio as the iPod lay in the seat beside me, cruelly mocking me. I have now resynced the iPod and the songs are now reloaded, but which songs? I won’t find out until the drive to work if the iPod will allow me a few of my own selections or (now that it has displayed its dominance over me) if I must now listen to whatever song it chooses to play. Of course, when I think of some of my own selections – I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany, Straight Up by Paula Abdul – maybe it’s for the best. [click to continue…]

Steven Stanley and his nemesis Steven Stanley

1. Legendary critic Steven Stanley, whose web site StageSceneLA is celebrating its third anniversary of covering the theatre scene in Los Angeles. To comemorate the event, Mr. Stanley has put out a call for quotes from local theatre professionals about the site to be posted in a press release that will be sent to Los Angeles media outlets. Since StageSceneLA is a Los Angeles media outlet it will then print the press release, only leaving out key factoids that will make the article subtly insulting to Mr. Stanley who will then threaten a lawsuit against himself if he doesn’t print a retraction. Since Mr. Stanley won’t buckle into threats, he will tell himself to go to hell and will respond by suing himself for every penny he’s got. He will win the case in court (or lose it, depending on which Steven Stanley you ask about it) and will be forced to pay out a hefty settlement to himself which he will then use to finance massive improvements to StageSceneLA which will gain Steven Stanley even more renown as Steven Stanley fades bitterly into obscurity, sorry that he ever went up against so awesome a force as Steven Stanley. [click to continue…]

1. Enemies List favorite Mara Marini, who expressed some frustration when she was served a subpoena yesterday to appear in court today. My sick mind immediately went to fantasies of strip searches and shower fights, but innocent Mara is merely being called to testify against some scofflaw and I have no doubt that the ner’do well will do serious time after Mara has her say. I have no idea what he’s being charged with or what kind of testimony Mara will offer, but I know that if I was on a jury and Mara wanted me to vote a certain way, I’d do it no matter what the circumstances were. I realize that I would probably end up on charges myself for treating my jury service so casually but since I have a thing for strip searches and shower fights, I figure everybody wins. [click to continue…]

Kelie preparing to distribute
a bitch slap

1. Officially-designated hottest chick on the Enemies List Kelie McIver. I attended an improvisation competition with Ms. McIver on Saturday night, and because of her forceful personality it is always my policy when in her presence to speak as little as possible and to do what I’m told. Yet despite these rigorously-followed oaths of submission, the few times that I did open my mouth were met by a threat that she would respond by “bitch slapping” me. She actually followed through on this warning several times as I drove us to the theatre, and if you have ever heard this phrase and wondered what it actually entailed, let me illustrate it for you. The “bitch” (in this case, me) sits in a chair (or in this situation, the driver’s seat of a Toyota convertible), as the “bitch-slapper” (Ms. McIver) sits immediately behind said bitch (an out-of-town visitor sitting to the right of the bitch, Ms. McIver’s usual station where she has a better vantage point to verbally correct the bitch’s choices in navigating said Toyota). Whenever the bitch opens his mouth to vocalize a statement of more than three words, the bitch-slapper will strike the bitch on the right shoulder with her open palm, inflicting little pain but motivating the bitch to make smart-ass statements of longer and longer duration until the bitch-slapper has given up and blocks out everything that the bitch says, focusing all of her attention on the out-of-town visitor. And that’s “bitch slapping”. [click to continue…]

1. Glenn T. “Piece of Shit” Simon. The latest leader board for Jonny’s Enemies List is scheduled to come out this morning and Simon is beside himself because he expects to pass God in the tally. Since “Piece of Shit” is going to Seattle for his class reunion this weekend and I pity him because his life turned out the way it did, I’m giving him a mercy listing today so that he’ll have bragging rights to at least say that he is more annoying than Jehovah. It may not seem like much to you, but I’m hoping it will be the difference that keeps him from jumping out of a tenth story window from the Mt. Rainier Holiday Inn after spending an evening with a bunch of attorneys and vascular surgeons who tipped their parking valet more than Simon’s annual income. Hang in there Glenn, and remember that you’re only a failure if YOU think that you are. [click to continue…]

1. Academy Award winner Ernest Borgnine, who was recently named the winner of the Screen Actor’s Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. Last year’s winner was Betty White and I found her to be so hot (even at the age of 88) that I vowed to make every future winner of the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award my fantasy girlfriend for the day. I obviously didn’t think ahead, so rather than reneg on my promise I’ll be drinking a lot of vodka leading up to the days of Mr. Borgnine’s award and I’ll be studying a photograph of him when he played a tough army general in The Dirty Dozen. I have a fetish for uniforms, so I might just be able to get through this thing. [click to continue…]