-- "Thunderhead", written by Blackie Lawless & Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P's "The Headless Children" (1989)
His eyes held mine, he snarled something fierce, and he went right back down to those hot dogs. . . . . juice dripping all down his red hairy chin and splattering onto his black, 3XL "Free Winona" shirt. All he needed was "war paint" to complete the picture!
I turned away and shook my pixie-hairstyled head in denial, a hand up to my forehead in disgust, but he was my last hope for anything approaching a triumphant comeback.
Things weren't like how they used to be, that's for certain. Epochs in movie-making come and go, roughly on a cycle of every 3-5 years, and perhaps I was a dinosaur left behind by the so-called "evolution" of cinema which has been on a down-dumbed downgrade for quite some time. The answer seemed to be increasing "heaviness" to clutch after something resembling "significance", but eventually the jaded crowd loses interest. Which is why "Girl, Interrupted" ended up in the $4.99 DVD bin at Walmart. My ghost-writer informed me of this in hoarse grunts, hopping up and down on the hams of his legs and waving his arms in the air in some semblance of intelligent speech. He was definitely smarter than he looked. . . . .
I drove him back to my mansion for a long series of interviews, and he sprawled himself out on my expensive designer leather couch. . . . . lighting his foul-smelling cigar with one of my fan-mails and slavering to himself. Just then, the doorbell rang.
********************
Chapter 2: No Autographs, Please!
I
only sign autographs for children.
If a child runs up to me and tugs on my sleeve, staring upward at their "big sister" who made good in the world, I don't feel as if I'm one to rob them of their sweet, magical moment. But adults who come up to you and ask for an autograph-- usually with big, glittering eyes that shine hot and desperate like a weasel's-- should know better than to buy into the Hollywood myth that we actors and actresses are fundamentally different than anyone else on this reeking planet, the ass-crud and hooting bums of "The Sunset Strip".
My public may think "she's too good for us", the crestfallen hordes alongside fame's red carpet path shouting foul epithets and baying like dogs, but it's just "one of those things". To wit: are you more into me or my celebrity? The idea that I have been abstracted into this electronic excitement of media "buzz" that the public desperately wants a piece of, like grubby Medieval peasants going into groveling religious ecstasy before a piece of the "True Cross", which in all odds, is just some random god-damned splinter put up on a blown-up electronic altar.
Put Natalie Portman up there, staring around with her half-closed aquarium-like expression while I sneak out back for a smoke, none to be the wiser!
-- Natalie Portman in the "Cult of Celebrity"
I don't feel divinely important, like some actors and actresses do. My meteoric rise has more to do with some nimrod being in the right time, at the right place, who happened-- for whatever reason-- to have the right look, the right glint in her eye when she was discovered by a casting agent as a young teenager. Before it happened, I would have never suspected what lay in wait. . . . . no one would have either. My life was a weaving course of desperation and woe, like a sailor on deck tacking through a storm. Many times I was afraid that I'd get washed overboard into the deep, black, infernal sea. But strangely enough, the rough times went away (-- for the most part) and I prospered beyond my wildest dreams. But even so, success has its own liabilities and pitfalls, as this narrative shall demonstrate. . . . . and this is written for you, for all you fuck-head's who ever thought this is one big magical party raging somewhere in the night where all the smart, intelligent, hip, beautiful people gather, where lines are delivered just like in a movie, and everything turns out just like a Hollywood ending you'd diddle your clit to while eating popcorn. Or even for those who write me a breathless fan-mail, all you intense, lonely guys who like your girls nice n' geeky. Like Sarah Jessica Parker, long before she sold her soul. . . . . for cash and a mink stole. Lyrical, ain't it? Fuck you, I'm learning!
CHAPTER GOES ON INTO AN EXPOSITORY ESSAY
ABOUT WINONA'S HUMBLE UPBRINGING
THEN
CIRCLES BACK AROUND TO
THIS FINAL THOUGHT:
So yes, that's the run-down and why you'd have to be crazy to jump up and down on the side of the road with a cardboard sign that reads, "PICK ME! PICK ME!".
But tell that to the little scamp back in 1985. . . . .
(TO BE CONTINUED. . . . .)
**
BONUS FRUIT**
You know you're one of my fans
if. . . . .
-- You've seen "Square Dance" (1987)
You know I won't sign your autograph. . . . .
-- If you OWN "Square Dance" (-- Get a life!)
DIDJA EVER NOTICE. . . . .
That one continuity error in "Heathers" when Christian Slater & I are concocting a poison to kill the lead "Heather" and the bottle appears far away on the table with its cap off, and then later it's shown close up with the cap mysteriously back on?
Me neither. . . . . GET A LIFE, YOU BASTARDS!
It's also an uncanny fact that as my career gets smaller my fans get more rabid in an inversely proportional relationship. . . . . .
I wonder if it's a function of our darkening economy or merely our decline on the world stage. Hmmmm. . . . . . have to get back to you on that one! But until then, I only sign autographs for children! And no, "big kids" don't count!
("NOT EVEN YOU!")
("Or you boys of the 'Jackass' Generation!")
Judging from the "quality of
life" on the outside, in all the subdivisions and bonded growth across
the fruited plain, I'm probably going to have to "shelve" my dreams of
Academy Award ambition and star in "Dog Fucker" to bring in
receipts. But instead, you're reading
this literary effort that "tells it like it is". What would you prefer-- the
ditzy, dithering
autobiography of Nancy Cartwright?!
My ghostwriter could pull
a better gag out of his ass. . . . . but hey, what am I talking about?
This all comes from the heart, and a world without standards is going to be a
very miserable world indeed. If you love everyone and hold them to nothing, then
essentially you love no one and let your society "turn to shit" when
nobody is held accountable as a great deal of us carry on like "The Teletubbies"
in complete world-denial of how matters really play out. So pick yourself up,
man-- autograph hounding degrades us all. It's like you're collecting a used
Kleenex and fetishizing it. So begs the question. . . . . I damn well know I'm
special but I ain't FUCKIN' EXALTED. You don't see celebrities marketing
used shit-paper, now do you? Even the obsequious world of celebrity journalism
would have to turn their heads with a hoarse "Oh, god!".
Real is real, and even "a fag-hag" like me has to shove those lisping, pink flamingos away just so I can get a clear view on things, even as half of them turn gray and drop dead of AIDS. I think of "The Decadent Movement" at the turn of the century (20th) when Oscar Wilde and the rest led incredibly flamboyant, destructive lives. Was it terrible beauty, or an inability to face facts that led them to their destruction? With hope, now I can perhaps see a little bit more lucidly. . . . .
(-- "TO BE CONTINUED?")
Only Mara Buxbaum-- her publicist-- knows for sure!
(She essentially told me to go take a flyin' fuck at a rollin' doughnut. . . . .)
I GUESS THAT MEANS THAT I DON'T GET AN AUTOGRAPH!
*******************
"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Rheeee of Crickets)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
("I heard that, Missy!")
© 2008 by Insufferable Industries
Drop "The Bard" a line at
michaeladams_s@yahoo.com