John sent me a link the other day that really pissed me off.
I’ve been putting off writing about, since it’s the kind of thing that I can spend a whole day on, and frankly, I don’t have that kind of time. These Judge Matthis episodes aren’t going to watch themselves.
But the longer I wait, the more irritated I get. So now I have no choice but to take to my blog, and politely ask Jamie Lee Curtis to shut the fuck up.
It started with a post she made over at Huffpo, entitled, “A Fish Called Denial”.
I’m already annoyed.
It gets worse. Within the first paragraph, she references Buddha, Aristotle, The London Underground and manages to drop in the fact that she knows John Cleese. It’s a fine start.
But to what? That’s really the question. Because I have no fucking idea, and I’ve read the thing three times.
At first, it appears to be a piece about A Rod and steroids, but it quickly turns into a diatribe about Madoff. The connection is not apparent to me, since he can’t even go to a Duane Reed with that ankle bracelet, much less a ball game.
But I don’t have to struggle long, since she abruptly turns the corner into mortgage lenders and corporate greed, and how we’re all to blame for everything because we have credit cards.
Now let me be clear. I have no problem with her writing about any of this. These are important issues, and she has as much right to be heard as John Cusack and Steven Weber and all the other self-important Hollywood gasbags polluting the pages of Huffpo with their nonsense.
What annoys me is that there’s nothing thoughtful about what she’s written. It’s just impulsive, scattershot venting of hot button issues, with no answers or point of view. It reads like political Madlibs, and every space is asking for a cause.
When she finally starts writing about the Oscars, I relax a little. She may not be qualified to speak on other topics, but she is arguably an expert in the industry, and I’m expecting some real insight.
Instead, we get this:
I am so happy to celebrate great works of art and this year there are plenty of examples . . . but the machine behind it all, the sickening amount of money spent to create this delusion, in this very real time of difficulty seems so misguided.
Misguided? Really?
To do a show that employs thousands of people? To have an event event afterward that is catered and staffed by vendors who count this as their most important job of the year?
How many people keep their jobs at the Kodak Theatre because events like this are held there? How many people keep their jobs at ABC because advertisers pay a premium to be seen during the broadcast? What about the limo companies, the make-up artists, the couriers, the photographers and the thousands of other behind the scenes people who make their living from events like these?
So . . . what? We don’t have the Oscars if the economy is bad? Okay! Let’s cut out all those jobs and just have it at her house. I’m sure it’s big enough.
Besides, people in a struggling economy don’t want entertainment. We certainly don’t want our spirits lifted by seeing ecstatic Indian children having the night of their lives, or be moved by a heterosexual actor calling for the legalization of gay marriage.
No, we want to sit around at the table and look at our bills all night.
Hey, here’s an idea. How about Jamie gives up her internet connection and sends that $29.95 a month to an unemployed auto worker in Detroit? I mean hell, having an internet connection when people are out of work seems so misguided.
But I think this is where I lost all patience:
Actors have been turned into models, flaunting their borrowed clothes, jewels and faces; some are even paid large sums of money simply to wear a dress or diamond. This isn’t glamour. This is advertising.
And some are paid large sums of money simply to hold up a container of yogurt that makes you shit.
You know, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t live in a mansion and preach about conservation. You can’t have implants and rail against plastic surgery. And you can’t make millions of dollars hawking Activia and complain about the evils of advertising.
And why would you want to? Doesn’t advertising create an awareness and demand for a product or service? Isn’t that kind of the whole fucking point, to create demand in the marketplace so people start spending money? Or is that only for yogurt?
Glamour is internal. The rest is window dressing.
The same can be said for intelligence. You aren’t Jeffrey Sachs because you stopped dying your hair.
Now go have the nanny bring the Prius around. You’re late for Pilates.
39 responses so far ↓
1 vanderm // Feb 23, 2009 at 1:27 pm
And some are paid large sums of money simply to hold up a container of yogurt that makes you shit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Truly an excellent line. One of the funniest things I’ve read in quite a while.
2 Knavish Rogue // Feb 23, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Cheer up Jamie. Don’t be bitter. There’s still time. Hell, Jessica Tandy was almost 81 before she got her Oscar. Maybe do a holocaust film? I hear those things get Oscars coming out of their bloody ass.
3 Mavis // Feb 23, 2009 at 2:11 pm
She should go make another Halloween movie, “Michael Myers on Activia.” Kill two birds with one stone.
4 Knavish Rogue // Feb 23, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Maybe that’s why he went on that killing spree! He was all backed up!
5 goshea // Feb 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Where can I get me some $29.95 internets?
‘political madlibs’ – I’m using that one today … and it won’t be hard.
6 Andre // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Hey, that article was still far better than her crappy kid’s books.
7 pal Jacky // Feb 23, 2009 at 3:48 pm
hey, as a yogurt believer myself, activia is shit. really, don’t go for it. Lifeway is the place to be when you want that kind of action. A pint of lifeway once a day and you’ll thank me for not going into the details. It is onlyrt coming out of my pores.
8 clevelandphil // Feb 23, 2009 at 8:15 pm
She can play a lesbian in an overrated movie. Then play the poor (wo) man’s version of Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt in the next Dark Knight movie, OD on sleeping pills and have rabid fans of the movie in which she played the lesbian, campagn for her Oscar for the Catwoman role. It worked before.
9 joshpincusiscrying // Feb 23, 2009 at 9:13 pm
It’s about time someone told those out-of-touch ac-TORS to shut up. Bravo, April!
(By the way, I admit I had to google “Jeffrey Sachs” because I’m an idiot.)
10 Doug // Feb 23, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Damn, I can remember when Jamie was actually HOT. Now she looks like a withered old crone…what happened to aging gracefully? She’s actually scary to look at now. Sad.
11 Nusa // Feb 24, 2009 at 5:49 am
How much do you get for selling eggs? You get 12 of them!
12 Bitsey // Feb 24, 2009 at 10:49 am
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
~whistle~
*applause*
Thank God somebody in Hollywood gets it.
13 pal Jacky // Feb 24, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Not a withered old bitch, she looks like an old gay man.
14 Gunner13 // Feb 24, 2009 at 7:08 pm
My read:
1. Incoherent, pious, pseudo-philosophical CRAP! Which means it’s the usual Hollyweird junk.
2. She actually looks better WITH the duct tape – it’s the only thing grayer than she is!
3. A waste is a terrible thing to mind.
15 clevelandphil // Feb 24, 2009 at 7:16 pm
She scares Michael Myers.
16 John Foley // Feb 24, 2009 at 8:30 pm
People in show business who act like they’re NOT people in show business are really tiresome. This is the same woman who saw fit to appear in “Halloween: Resurrection” AKA the EIGHTH freaking movie in the series. That took conviction?
17 SpicyD // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Well thank God Jamie Lee is stepping in to fill Sean Penn’s shoes. His admission to how annoying he can be was far more moving than renouncing Prop 8.
Jamie you are so brave to tell people that they should be judged on what is on the inside. Because you know you were
wait…
you were in True Lies.
Shut up.
18 SpicyD // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:36 pm
and another thing.
The only people more infuriating than people like Anne Coulter are people like Jamie Lee Curtis. You get the sense that Anne knows she out out to shock and offend. But Jamie Lee Curtis writes like she believes she actually has something to say.
19 adorisday // Feb 25, 2009 at 3:31 am
On a more thoughtful note, the reason April is upset with the inanity of JLC is because there is one job that entertainers, particularly comedians, have. They have to filter out the truth from lies of the culture and make humor based on what we know to be true about ourselves.
As deep down we all understand our American culture is in violent transition, Curtis’s rant is emblematic of those who don’t understand their true “jobs” as entertainers. Whether or not JLC deserves her celebrity, was just born into it, isn’t the point. As a gifted comedian, April is bugged at the Huffpo space given to such inanity.
For me, I could give a crap what JLC says or doesn’t say. I’m worried about what I need to say as our culture melts down before our very eyes. The studios are depressed, because they realize their true “jobs” as storytellers is now completely threatened. They need to have people who, like April, have slogged through the ups and downs of this American Babylon and can tell us the truth about ourselves in an artful manner.
Yeah, I know this is a waxing philosophical. Someone’s got to be thinking things through in this town and I hope April keeps slogging for us.
20 EJthecomic // Feb 25, 2009 at 7:55 am
April, I don’t know who you are, but I love you. Really I do. Someone sent me the Obama audiobook link and I’ve been surfing around. Great stuff! Really. Hope you don’t mind if I link you up from my blog: http://www.erinjackson.net/blog. Sorry I’d have e-mailed you if I could find your address… I’m sure it’s somewhere right in front of me. All the best!!! You’ve got a new reader in me!
21 Gunner13 // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:34 am
adorisday // Feb 25, 2009 at 3:31 am
“For me, I could give a crap what JLC says or doesn’t say.”
No dear, I think you meant you DON’T give a crap what JLC says or doesn’t say. Saying the way you did is like saying “I could care less”, which implies that you do care, at least a tiny bit.
As for me, I could NOT care less about what JLC, Sean Penn or any of the other Celebutards (great word!) say about anything.
Most of them are poorly educated, have NEVER held a real job (and as a result have a very unreal view of the world), are deeply stupid or all of the above.
I do agree about your assessment of April however : )
22 pal Jacky // Feb 25, 2009 at 2:43 pm
i never made it past ‘halloween 3′. To tell you haw bad that film was, I’m the guy who has seen all the ’saw’ movies opening day and really thinks the whole series blows chunks and is looking foward to ’saw v1′.
They are remaking ‘last house on the left’. I’ve sat through all these remakes(except ‘the fog’ when the first film so horrible the best thing in it as adrianne barbeau, one can only wonder), and with the exception of ‘dawn of the dead’ all have been god awful. Okay Rob Zombies’s ‘halloween’ had its moments. But
The only thing worse are these little neophites who have only seen the originals in VHS rentals, screaming how the remakes are really much better. Jessica biels vs. Marilyn burns? No wonder the Jonas brothers are so popular.
23 pal Jacky // Feb 25, 2009 at 3:03 pm
get your tivos ready.
KTLA morning news is interviewing Christopher titus tomorrow. He is actually worse than Mencia or dane cook, but because of his lack of success, he slips silently into the background.
It is a banner week for them, yesterday they had Tom Leykis and they all commiserated with his unemployment. That is how retarded the KTLA morning staff is. The best news is that Leykis has ballooned up to Jerry Lewis proportions and doesn’t even look human at all.
24 socalfrank // Feb 25, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Don’t knock our precious Jaimie Lee Cullingulus for she, like Saint Ed Begly Jr. is triumphing the environment in a most public way by being one of the 1st people to drive a fuel cell car! The $600/month Honda Clarity lease. http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/08/06/jamie-lee-curtis-receives-her-honda-fcx-clarity/
25 Gunner13 // Feb 25, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Dear socalfrank: Sure I can knock her! Just as you are free to knock me. Free society last I looked.
Anyway frank, good catch and thanks for the link. I’m sure that everyone will be glad to know that JLC’s wrinkled butt will be swaddled in the lap of fuel cell luxury (and I quote from the article here):
So, what does Curtis think of her newfound Clarity? “I really wasn’t expecting it to be so luxurious,” said Curtis. “It’s luxurious, luxurious, luxurious! I love the interior layout, design and access to controls. It is user-friendly and very modern.”
Yeah, never mind being all green and friendly to Mother Earth, what REALLY counts are those modern deluxe features!
Phony, thy name is JLC.
26 Andre // Feb 25, 2009 at 7:47 pm
EJthecomic – Just look at the right side of the website for the postage stamp. Wah-lah! April’s e-mail.
27 chrisbcritter // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:03 am
It’s “Voila” (sorry Andre – once a proofreader, always a proofreader).
Bravo April for this story – Moments of dead air on your show are more eloquent than anything JLC has to say.
Sean Penn – ugh. He made a short film about 9/11 that climaxed with the flowers in Ernest Borgnine’s window box coming to life after the towers fell because those bad old buildings had been casting a shadow on his window. Thanks loads.
Besides that, in high school shop class, he took my friend Ray Gonzales’s plastics project and destroyed it in a bench grinder.
28 Stretch99 // Feb 26, 2009 at 9:40 am
Wah-lah
Wal Mart
Wall-E
wait for it…wait for it…
I GOT NUTHIN!
29 Stretch99 // Feb 26, 2009 at 9:42 am
STRETCH’S TWITTER;
Cant wait to see Octo-Moms porn movie
30 Ryland // Feb 26, 2009 at 11:32 am
This is off topic, but “You’re late for Pilates” reminds me of when I first heard of Pilates. I was working at my last (as in previous, but also as in final) dotcom job, and every day on my commute, I passed by a strip mall where one of the signs read, “Paolo’s Pilates,” and I kept thinking, I should go there for lunch some day, I’ve never had pilates before. They didn’t have a drive-through, though, so I never got around to trying a pilate.
31 Stretch99 // Feb 26, 2009 at 1:56 pm
THE NEW OCTOMOM SPECIAL AT DENNY’S
comes with 8 eggs – NO SAUSAGE –
and the person at the next table has to pay for it…
32 April // Feb 26, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Ryland – I went to my sister’s gym a few months ago, and they had a Pilates studio there called . . . PILATE-DAH.
It wasn’t right.
33 Stretch99 // Feb 26, 2009 at 5:16 pm
HEY APRIL!!
Here’s hopin your latest commercials are REAL CHEESY
34 Andre // Feb 26, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Yes, crisbcritter, I know how to spell “voila”. I do have a French name, after all. I was just trying (and failing) to be quirky.
Stretch; I’m waiting for the inevitable porn film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Butthole”.
35 Mellotron // Feb 26, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“And some are paid large sums of money simply to hold up a container of yogurt that makes you shit.” <—-Best sentence ever!!!!!!111111
36 bob_tomato // Feb 27, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Just an FYI – in that opening paragraph, JLC is quoting her character “Wanda” in A Fish Called Wanda; it’s something Wanda says out of exasperation to a pompous idiot played by Kevin Kline (insert obvious joke here, please).
Since JLC seems to have forgotten to put the quote into some sort of context in this piece, I am left to wonder if she often quotes that bit each and everytime she’s feeling particularly flustered with something… yikes.
37 April // Feb 27, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Yes, I found that out later. But I still hate her.
38 clevelandphil // Feb 27, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Sean Penn is a heterosexual?
39 mademoiselle gramophone // Feb 27, 2009 at 4:19 pm
How cool that you have a blog. I used to listen to you on KFI.
JLC is a nice woman, and smart but I don’t think she ever had to really worry about paying the bills which doesn’t mean she’s to scorned, it just means that her thoughts only go so deep.
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