Jonny's Enemies List

Lindsay Lohan feels that these babies using her first name in a commercial is worth a hundred million dollar payday.

1. Lindsay Lohan, who is suing E-Trade for a hundred million dollars because of a commercial depicting two babies hawking the online trading company that refer to an offscreen infant as “milkaholic Lindsay”. I have seen the commercial-in-question a few times and thought it was kind of cute, but the idea that they were referring to Lohan never entered my mind until she filed the lawsuit which claimed that she was one of those celebrities who was so famous for the one name (like Madonna) that the commercial could only be referring to her. It’s funny, but while I can think of only one Madonna, I can think of a number of famous Lindsays (actress Lindsay Wagner, Australian author Joan Lindsay, rocker Lindsey Buckingham, Senator Lindsey Graham, Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn, former New York Mayor John Lindsey) so I’m not sure why Lohan feels like she owns the copyright on the name, or how an online trading company making a reference to said name in a commercial makes her due a hundred million dollars in damages (I can’t recall ever having heard her referred to as simply “Lindsay” in any professional context). It brings to mind the time that director Spike Lee tried to sue Spike TV for using his name, and his fellow director Spike Jonze had to point out that there was more than one Spike that was capable of being nailed into the ground. All I know is that I’m keeping a close eye of how this case develops, and if Lohan wins I’m coming down hard on Johnny Depp, Johnny Bench and the estate of the late Johnny Cash. [click to continue…]

The aftermath of two 16-year old idiots racing in Sherman Oaks.

1. The two sixteen year olds who were racing a Range Rover and a Mercedes Benz in front of Bro Joe and Courtney’s house. The photograph pretty much tells the whole story of how these two noodnicks decided to play Mario Andretti and plowed into a concrete power pole and a wooden light pole, severely injuring a family who were crossing the street. After they had committed this act of carnage, they reportedly tried to intimidate the family and all the witnesses by screaming at them. I always thought 16 was too young an age to be eligible for a driver’s license (I didn’t get one until I was 18), and these two maniacs would seem to be poster boys for that cause. I only hope that the family that they incapacitated wins a hefty settlement from their youthful stupidity (and perhaps the lads should receive some guidance from the county authority as well) so that maybe their Mumsies and Dadsies will realize that they aren’t nearly ready to be screeching through the streets in expensive cars that they aren’t even close to being ready to handle. I’ve never known anyone to commit this kind of mayhem sitting on a Metrolink Bus, and that’s the most glamorous transportation they should be taking for quite a while. [click to continue…]

1. Roy Ashburn, the notoriously anti-gay senator who came out of the closet and announced his homosexuality after he was arrested on a DUI after leaving a gay nightclub. A website called RightPundits.com posted an article by Suzanne Venker titled “Roy Ashburn, Anti Gay-Rights CA State Senator, Is Gay: Does It Matter?” in which Venker states “Not all gay people want to be married, and not all gay people think gay marriage should be legal. What does this make them? A traitor to their cause?… You can absolutely be gay and not support gay rights.” This is a perfectly defensible position and Venker makes a very valid point that just because Ashburn was a closeted homosexual doesn’t necessarily mean that he was selling out his personal ideology by voting a straight anti-gay rights agenda – an agenda that I don’t agree with, but I am open to the concept that does have some plausible rationale behind it. But the fact of the matter is that while Ashburn lied to his wife and possibly himself in his rise to power, he also lied to his anti-gay constituents by pretending to be a heterosexual family man when he was really anything but. Would the people who supported his political career as a standard bearer for anti-gay rights have done so if they had known the truth about him? I am inclined to think that in Ashburn’s case, where his lack of support for the gay agenda was a major area of his personal political manifesto, it does matter and that he should resign for selling the voters a false bill of goods. And that’s a damned shame, because someone coming out of the closet of anything should be a cause for celebration. But when you lie about what you are as a means of getting ahead, there should be repercussions for it. [click to continue…]

Sandra Bullock collecting her Razzie.

1. Sandra Bullock, who won a major film award this weekend. I am, of course, referring to the Golden Raspberry Award she received as Worst Actress for her irritating characterization in All About Steve. The Razzies are handed out at a big do in a Hollywood theatre every year in front of a packed, smirking audience – inevitably to a list of no-shows who have no interest in having their work being publicly mocked. Bullock was a rarity in the Razzie annals when she came to accept her award (Halle Berry and, to a far lesser degree, Tom Green are the only famous names to appear at the event to collect the plastic, spray-painted trophy in the past), receiving a standing ovation from the audience, of which I was a member. Sandra arrived with a wagon-full of DVDs of All About Steve to distribute to the Razzie membership because she was convinced that no one who voted had actually seen the film and once they did, she would be asked to come back next year to return it. I am a Razzie voter who actually saw All About Steve before voting for her performance and can say with confidence that she should hold on to the trophy. But to be fair it was a light year for laughably bad films (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was named Worst Picture) and while I thought Sandra was the best choice for the category this year, she wasn’t on the level of Madonna in Swept Away or Mariah Carey in Glitter (two truly appalling Razzie-winning performances) and was only moderately less irritating than she was in The Blind Side for which she inexplicably won the Academy Award the following night. This made her the first performer to be named as both the best and the worst in the same year, although for different films (James Coco and Amy Irving received Oscar and Razzie nominations for the same performance, although they didn’t wind up actually winning any of the awards). To be fair, Sandra is a better actress than Beyoncé Knowles and Megan Fox (both of whom she beat out for the Razzie), but she’s not remotely in the same class as Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren (who were also nominated for the Oscar), so everything evens out in the end. I do want to thank her for the DVD of All About Steve though – it was a gracious move on her part, and it will make a great coaster. [click to continue…]

Roy Ashburn

1. Roy Ashburn, the notoriously anti-gay rights senator from Bakersfield who was arrested on a DUI with a dude in his passenger seat after allegedly coming from a gay bar. And now the openly gay mayor of West Sacramento says that he’s spotted Ashburn at gay clubs a number of times. I don’t know if Ashburn is a closet gay or if he’s just been researching the lifestyle so that he can be even-handed when he makes his policy decisions about gay rights – after all, everybody knows that Eddie Murphy was just being a humanitarian by giving a lift to that transvestite prostitute a few years ago. And just because Murphy’s stand-up comedy act was viciously homophobic the same way that Ashburn’s political stance is doesn’t necessarily mean that they were trying to tip the public perception away from them as closet homosexuals. But there’s a big difference here: whatever their personal sexuality is (and I really don’t give a rat’s ass either way), Murphy is just an entertainer whose actions don’t affect anyone but himself and his family (which is none of my business). Ashburn is a lawmaker whose choices affect people’s lives. If it turns out that he is a closet gay who was making policy decisions to deflect detection of his sexuality, he was grotesquely irresponsible and should resign from his position in disgrace. Murphy should just hang it up because he makes terrible movies. [click to continue…]

Julie and me after
I got her attention again.

1. My high school friend Julie Caruthers, with whom I had dinner last night. I hadn’t seen Julie in quite a while, and even though I find her to be exceedingly annoying on Facebook I figured that she looked so good that being with her face-to-face might be a step up. What I didn’t take into account was that both Julie and I have theatrically trained voices that travel wide distances, in this case five tables down to a woman who was eating by herself. She became so fascinated with what Julie and I were talking about that she joined in the conversation, and it wasn’t long before we knew her work situation (attorney), the sexual orientation of her son (gay) and the details of her love life (recently divorced, and not for the first time). What made this lonely diner hijacking our conversation doubly irritating for me was that it was soon apparent that Julie preferred her company to mine, and it wasn’t until I made up some stories of sexual liaisons in high school that I was able to get Julie’s attention again. It was all just fiction but if my math teacher Miss Abramson ever reads this, if you ever bump into Julie and she starts asking you about some after-school tutoring you gave me in 12th grade, just shoot her a faraway look and say you’d rather not talk about it. It will keep her from being disappointed and save me an awkward confrontation the next time I see her. If she presses for details, do me a favor and say it was huge and that you gave up men aftewards because you knew no one else could ever satisfy you like that again. I do have a reputation to maintain, after all. [click to continue…]

Señor José Mullich,
one lucky bastard.

1. Bro Joe, who earns his living as a freelance writer, which means that he has to scratch out a meager existence desperately hacking out a few hundred words on whatever topic he can con someone into throwing a few shekels at him to pFargo out in order to stave off starvation for a few more days. This week, he is whoring himself out by being flown to Puerto Vallarta to write a travel piece about what the bottom of a tequila glass looks like. If it sounds like I’m jealous because Joe will be getting paid to lie on a sun-baked beach while I’m sitting in a gray cubicle, you couldn’t be more wrong. The USA is the greatest country in the world, and if you think I’d even consider leaving the land of the free and the home of the brave for the superficial lure of a 4-star resort, you might as well set me up with a subscription to The Daily Worker. But what really upsets me is that he’s selling his soul to write about the “jet set” for a princely fee and a sizable per diem. It used to be about the writing, man. About pouring your soul into the Great American Novel that you would burn before anyone could read it so that your art wouldn’t be compromised. Think about that while you’re choking back complimentary Margueritas at your hedonistic press junket parties. I only hope you can still live with yourself when you do. [click to continue…]

A self portrait that Renoir painted when he was crippled with arthritis. Some people will do ANYTHING to try and show me up.

1. I went to an exhibition of the later works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir on Saturday which included some brief silent footage of him painting at the end of his life. By that point, his hands were so gnarled by arthritis that the brush literally had to be tied to his wrist so that he could use it, yet he continued to paint some extraordinary canvasses with the affliction. I can’t even begin to tell you how annoyed that made me, since I will use even the most trivial or imagined malady as an excuse to worm my way out of tasks as variant as taking the garbage out (which has been piling up since November) to paying my 1997 taxes. Later on when I listened to the audio presentation that went with the exhibition and heard that when Renoir was asked about the agonizing pain he painted in, he responded, “pain is temporary but beauty is forever.” As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that is forever is my anger at some old fossil trying to make me feel guilty about stalling on yet another project that will finally give me my due as the greatest genius of the 21st century because my foot itches too much to get started. I’ve had it with you making me look bad, Renoir. If you were still alive, I’d duct tape some boxing gloves on you and we’d duke it out in the ring like men. [click to continue…]

Birthmonth boy Kenny Veranos

1. My financial advisor Kenny Veranos, MBA, who celebrates a birthday today. Kenny’s attitude towards birthday observance is that the celebrant is entitled to receive birthday tributes beginning on the actual anniversary of birth and continuing through until the end of the calendar month that said birthday falls upon; a ritual that he has spent a great deal of effort in attempting to be internationally recognized as the official birthday etiquette. What inevitably causes everyone who has ever been confronted by this philosophy to mockingly dismiss it is the fact that Kenny’s birthday conveniently falls on the first day of the calendar month and his scheme would allow him all of March to be wined and dined like the Sultan of Brunei. Not only that, but Kenny bamboozled those of us who have been sucked into his dark inner circle to begin the festivities this year at the end of February, extending his moment in the spotlight even longer. Don’t think I’m not wise to what you’re up to, Veranos: it’s your plan to ultimately stretch the accolades into “The Year of Kenny” so that you have an entire twelve months to collect swag and have your rapidly aging face stuffed on someone else’s dime. I see right through your scam and I intend to publicly out you just as soon as you’re finished celebrating. After all, it wouldn’t be right to make trouble for somebody on their birthday. [click to continue…]