Category Archives: Celebs and Media

Where Deadrobot brushes up against celebrities

iSick

Celebs and Media

I’m at home with intermittent headaches from my shitty glasses and sinus cold. I’ve already watched my fill of SpongeBob and Pokemon.

When I was a kid, staying home from school was a gentle see saw of actually being sick and pretending to be sick so you could watch The Price Is Right, The $10,000 Pyramid and countless befuddling soap operas. But I think kids today have it harder – you can’t fake it a lot or you’ll wind up being medicated for ADD or something. They’d probably squander their free home time on Xbox360 or something because there isn’t anything great to watch on daytime TV these days other than half crazy chat show ladies that discuss serious social issues. Like supermodels in fat suits. No, back when I was staying home, I recall Match Game and re-runs of Hollywood Squares where B and C list celebrities pushed the daytime TV envelope with racy jokes:

Blarg my nose is running again and is raw from wiping. I need Puffs Plus.

Hello Bomb? Are You With Me?

Celebs and Media

darkstarDoolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
Bomb #20: Of course.
Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm… well… I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That’s good. That’s very good. But how do you know that anything else exists?
Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun.

Alien is my favorite movie for so many reasons, but I feel that Dan O’Bannon really stomped his foot down with Dark Star. The movie itself is plagued with technical, student film sluggishness but the writing shines through past the big tomato coloured beach ball alien.

Thanks Dan. You’ll be missed.

Finally Famous

Art, Celebs and Media, Personal Bits

You all may know my brother writes plays for a living.

Stop laughing. Obviously he’s doing well… he owns, not rents.

He’s prepped to release his next play called Courageous and before he started his press scrum, he emailed a copy to myself and my other gay, legally married brother with this question:

I’m about to open an new play here and will be doing inevitable interviews about it. It’s about the charter of rights and freedoms, and in the course of it, there’s a gay couple who are denied the opportunity to get married at city hall. Are you guys okay if I mention that both my gay sibs got married here in Toronto, one at city hall?

Bless his heart. I stealthily read the play at work and I’m suitably impressed (I’m sure I missed a few symbolic nuances by Alt-Tabbing between my screens when my boss walked by). I’m not going to go all Richard Ouzounian about the play (it is good, he’ll hate it) but I do have to mention one particular exchange between Todd who is confronting George, a refugee to Canada, and Lisa, his wife’s best friend, about their dinner choices:

TODD

I know, right?

LISA

Good one. You all set?

GEORGE

Yes.

TODD

What’s …?

LISA

George and I are going out for dinner.

TODD

Really?

(To George)

Really?

GEORGE

Really. We are going for pan…

LISA

Panzarotti.

GEORGE

Panzarotti. Baked or fried.

LISA

How do you like that, asslick?

A beat, Todd is thrown

Let me explain why this is significant.

Over my brother’s career I have made great efforts to see myself in any shard, sliver or crumb of his writing. When he started to publish work, I would tear through his pages looking for some reference of me: some slight nod to my existence so that would I live on in his work. I’d analyze and and all comments made by his characters and lay them across my life, my experiences with my brother, to see if they fit, like some scientist sequencing DNA from a horse and jamming it into a monkey.  With similar results:

Me: So when the Secretary in Plan B enters, crosses and places that file on the desk and blows everyone away with this beau geste, that was like… me… back when I was 15 and you borrowed Mom’s car without her knowing and I said I was responsible for the missing map in the glove compartment, right?

Michael: Uh. No.

And so it goes.

Back to Courageous. The above exchange filled me with such pride and glee when I read it because SharkBoy and I constantly order baked panzarotti when we dine at Olympic Pizza 76 (Yonge and College, possibly the most reliable restaurant in Toronto, but that’s another post). We’ve been going there for years and like Chip and Dale come to life, we always ask each other if we will be getting baked or fried panzarotti (SharkBoy: fried, me: baked)! Michael obviously picked up on our display of food fussing and placed it lovingly, like a baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling words*, in his current play.

Finally! I’m there. I’ve arrived! You may touch my sleeve.

*Xmas reference! Happy holidays!