Viggo Mortensen is one of the finest trained swordsmen in Hollywood.
“If not the Warren Beatty kind of swordsman,” he chuckles softly. “That’s who did this, though, isn’t it? Beatty?”
Rub the rope burns on your gasping throat and nod.
“Next time don’t mention old Pat.” Viggo Mortensen shrugs. “You couldn’t have known. But if you’re still breathing we must be only a few minutes behind him–did you see which way he went?”
Point. It doesn’t matter where.
Viggo Mortensen’s grin is a hungry teenage boy. “Not much longer, old man. Tally ho, Buckethead!”
Buckethead unsheathes his doubleneck and crows.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
You’ve been hunting Maura Tierney for so long that it has reduced you, like balsamic vinegar boiling, to a potent solution with a vigorous scent. And here she is in La Jolla, eating breakfast in front of you: poached egg and salmon over whole wheat toast.
Explain to her that she should kill you.
Ask her if her gun is loaded.
Tell her to tie you to the subway tracks.
Slide your cell phone across the table, already speed-dialed to the number that will explode the tiny bomb next to your heart.
“No,” she’ll say gently, and watch you sob.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
You and Bogie should pick up a couple pandas to keep you company–a relatively tame development at El Morocco tonight. That is, until these two dames waltz over and try to steal them.
“Hey!” Bogie will say. “Don’t bogart the pandas!”
Lunge for yours (which you have named Mao-Chi) and a scuffle, says the press in the morning, will ensue. Confer soberly with Bogie in your unshaven pajamas.
“It’s a feeding frenzy,” he’ll say. “They’ll want a sacrifice.”
Assume you’re it.
“Well, yeah,” he’ll sigh, “this way I get two pandas,” as their carnivorous black eyes turn to you.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Brian Dennehy is preparing to die for your sins.
“I’ve had six other hostage negotiators in here,” he’ll say, muzzle trembling at his temple, BDRI scrawled on his forehead in blood. “You’re not going down like they did. Not this time.”
Remind him that your background is in carpentry.
Brian Dennehy will already be wrapping your fingers around the grip. “Appropriate,” he’ll say. “Carry my beam for me, little Cyrenian?”
Tell him you don’t remember the story going quite this way.
“You will this time,” he’ll say, your finger between his and the trigger. “You’ll pay attention. Attention must be paid.”
Will Ferrell might be here to kill you.
“The alternative,” he’ll explain, “is that you do something funny.”
Cast about; don’t make this complicated. Grab the first thing on the table of your mind. Don’t let yourself speculate, don’t picture yourself as a king’s fool forced to–
Will Ferrell should apply electricity to your genitals. Scream.
“Humor is pain wedded to aesthetic distance,” he’ll say, over you. “Distance is trivially achieved, but what of suffering?”
Sob the joke about Kermit’s finger. You know the one.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Will Ferrell will sigh, and enforce on your body an artist’s discipline.
“But think about it,” says Hedy Lamarr. “Torpedoes you can steer, by radio, immune to jamming–”
“Sure, sure,” says Mr. National Inventors Council.
“It hops frequencies based on player piano rolls! How steampunk awesome is that!”
“Listen, sweetheart, if your husband put your name on the patent too then that’s awful nice of him,” says Mr. National Inventors Council. “But howzabout you put that pretty face to work and do War Bond fund-raiser instead?”
“Dick,” says Hedy Lamarr.
Then she goes out and raises seven million dollars in one night, which in 1941 is supervillain money (seriously, look it up).
1944 and it’s cold in occupied France, cold enough that PFC Jack Kirby spends a night in the mud and ends up with frostbitten legs. The London surgeons have no choice but to amputate and give him cyberprosthetics made of starmetal.
Seriously, look it up.
Between Steranko’s escape artistry and Ditko’s phantom cloak, the three of them are a crack team on the European front. Fists fly; energies crackle; the Axis cowers before them. Soon they stand atop the ruins of the Reichstag, triumphant, titans of the age.
Stan Lee is one of only nine official Army Playwrights, so there’s that.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The year was 1961. Outside the famous Grauman’s Theater in Boston, John Belushi was walking home from rehearsal when he ran into an eager young fan. “Mister Belushi!” he cried. “How can I grow up to be famous like you?”
“Well,” said Belushi, and pulled a shiny quarter from behind his ear. “You know what the writing on the back of this says?”
“Gee, I don’t!”
“In God We Trust,” said John Belushi. “If you remember that, you might just make it in show biz.” The boy dried his eyes and nodded with determination.
That young man’s name? Was Babe Ruth.
Thursday, October 13, 2011