It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Doubling Down? So I take it you guys are the fried chicken breasts, and the movies are bacon and cheese?
Hey this dude looks younger than me.
In fact, he looks pretty much like me in every way except 40lbs. lighter.
How does this dude write for USA Today and my job is transcribing pornography?
Why is NETWORKING so difficult? Also when DP or Wells have asked me to do things, I usually find an excuse not to do them. But talking to people is HARD.
I enjoyed it well enough but this dude is a TOTAL LEXG RIPOFF only with better hair and some sort of ring. Enough about me it’s a fun idea, but what was so wrong with SUPER MOVIE FRIENDS?
I liked that incarnation of this idea. Especially when it had KIM MORGAN.
Does anyone know if KIM MORGAN has an opinion on LexG?
HEY POLAND Can you do one of these with me and Wells and I’ll wear a FINAL OPTION-style ski mask so no one can bag on my hair loss and drunken mug?
This dude is a STRAIGHT-UP LEXG WANNABE.
Or a JASON RITTER WANNABE.
Speaking of rip-off, I just browsed through an old AICN review by one Neill Cumpston — who Lex clearly owes something to:
TWO COOL THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AND ONE THING I DIDN
I seem to remember hearing that Neill Cumpston = Patton Oswalt.
I think that was just a false meme. Maybe Drew can correct me…
And if so, then no wonder Lex hates Patton.
I don’t owe shit to Neill Cumpston, whose stuff I never saw ever. I haven’t read AICN on any kind of regular basis for at least a half-decade, and rarely ever commented there, at least not since like 2001… And, yes, I’ve heard tell of this and that it was that UNFUNNY hack LEAD SINGER OF ACCEPT lookalike Patton Oswalt.
I’d say it’s a case of “great minds think alike,” except that midget is a TOTAL TOOL and RUDE and it used to eat me up how beloved that fucker is in the comedy world. When I did standup way back when, seems I’d more than once work up some awesome bit of my very own about pop culture or movies or metal or some celebrity, and I’d go to open mike with it and it would just fall FLAT. And I’d be like, what the hell? That’s some funny stuff, why’s everyone looking at me funny?
Then like two weeks later I’d see Douchewalt on some talk show doing a very similar riff. And I swear to fuck I wasn’t ripping the guy off and NEVER WOULD, especially someone who’s such a dick… But we must have the same frame of reference or sensibility on some level. It’s uncanny…
Like one time they had some reality show about “Make Me Look Like a Celebrity” or something, where people would get plastic surgery to look like their idols. And people would get made over to look like J. Lo or some megastar. And I worked up this to-me-hilarious “what if” bit about “what if they had this when we were growing?” and imagining some dude back in the day wanting to have plastic surgery to look like Matthew Modine. I went up with swagger and confidence and launched into this bit to absolute crickets and groans, like I shot someone or something…. Three days later I put on TV and there’s Oswalt running the exact same scenario only with Steve Guttenberg instead of Modine, and the bit is just slaying.
And I never saw him do it ever, and in fact, would go out of my way to never, ever have to see the guy… Just seemed like every riff and reference I’d ever come up with, there’s fucking Oswalt beating me to it. Fuck standup, anyway.
But Lex, you are kinda like Oswalt. Well, okay, his character in Big Fan.
You’re not in the game. Get in the game. When DP or Wells ask you to do something, f**ckin’ DO IT! Then at least you’ll be in the box.
Who cares what people say about your appearance? DP takes all kinds of good-natured ribbing about his mane of chest hair and the sympathy pounds he gained during his wife’s pregnancy.
You give people shit for not living in Los Angeles, but you know what? Better to be in the game in a minor market like Portland or Baltimore than sitting on the sidelines.
Go to boot camp, relocate, write something brilliant and GET IN THE GAME! Then quitchyur bitchin’ about everyone else.
Jenna…
I don’t like talking to people, especially on the telephone. It makes me nervous. I have severe OCD that prevents me from doing a LOT of things, but any sort of drugs or therapy is AGAINST MY PERSONAL BELIEFS, which are of the CRUISE VARIETY.
Also: Are you in LA? I know you’re a MILF but I’d take a go at it if you’re down.
On topic: THIS DUDE WRITES FOR USA TODAY and he’s like 23?
Also, isn’t Kristopher Tapley like 26? Mendelson’s like 28? How do you guys all get these gigs, and how come you don’t have to work transcription jobs?
Anyway, Jennab, I did some shorts and some acting classes this past winter, but not much came of it. My hair loss is too weird to ever have a headshot taken, and if I shave my head I have moles.
I wish I had a BUOYANT COIF like this USA Today dude.
Going bald is SERIOUSLY depressing, and along with lack of sex, the #2 instigator for all my suicidal thoughts.
I’ve been losing my hair slowly but surely since 1995, and it’s going in a way so visually repulsive I know not only will I ever get cast in a real movie with it, it will absolutely prevent me from having sex again so long as I live.
I look like I survived a fucking New Mexican Fat Man and Little Boy blast site, all sickly and limp and horrible. But I can’t shave it bald because a) I don’t want to be a bald guy, and b) I don’t have the skull for it. Namely, again, my scalp is riddled with weird bumps and moles and marks. Plus BALD = REPULSIVE.
How does Poland have such nice hair?
Shitgoddam! My cover is blown. It is I, Jason Ritter, posing as LexG!
With respect, Lex, you’re job is *transcribing* pornography? Is that, like … for the blind?
Gaah! Blew the joke with a typo. “Your” not “you’re.” Jesus. Back to journalism school for me …
Things I like about the video.
1. David’s Dad unmoving schlump posture. Man little ones mess with your sleep.
2. Anthony brushing his hair away from his forehead (indoors) like a Pantene commercial.
Lex the Carlos Mencia of talkbackers?
I’d tend to think if my personal beliefs were destroying my entire life and making me hate myself, I might change my beliefs.
Boam’s Doctor: No, because Mencia is a(n alleged) joke thief… I never ripped off Oswalt, and the dude never saw me go up, ever, to the best of my knowledge.
Through some sheer stroke of cosmic commonality, two or three times I’d work up some bit entirely of my own creation, and what do you know, THE WORST COMIC IN AMERICA somehow had a similar routine, and similar references. Fucker even did a NICK NOLTE imitation based almost entirely on his Jack Cates character, something I’d been imitating since high school.
Don’t know what it says that the comic I most dislike in the world of standup has like 40% of the same frame of reference that I do.
Oh, that’s right, I hate myself too.
And yet here’s this schlubby, stocky, badly-dressed dude and he’s going on Conan and the place goes apeshit and now he’s in big movies and TV. He’s probably the exact age as me too.
FUCK. LIFE SUCKS.
And then check out Andrei Breschnev here in this video with his FULL HEAD OF HAIR.
Do you guys actually have THICK HAIR on top that’s the same as it was in 1980?
Like, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? It seems like only 10% of men go bald before 40… All the men in my family look like JAMES BROLIN IN HOTEL well into their 70s…. where the fuck did I get this TED DANSON-ASS SHIT on my scalp?
VOYNAR can tell you, I have THE WORST HAIR ON PLANET EARTH. THE WORST.
But a HAIR TRANSPLANT so I can look like Anthony Barejkovic would cost **20,000 DOLLARS.***
Plus there’s the psychological disappointment of knowing it’s NOT YOUR REAL HAIR.
They should take every STUPID TAX DOLLAR they waste on THE POOR and THE HOMELESS– both of whom should be shot or arrested anyway– and put those BILLIONS into CURING BALDNESS.
Fuck, cut the military budget while you’re at it, too. I don’t give a fuck. I just want my goddamn hair back.
So what happened to Super Movie Friends anyway, David? I miss the melon salads…