L.K. Peterson's Site of Writings, Random Thoughts & Doodles
Interesting! Provocative!
Well Seasoned!
"I'm just hoping it isn't a double album," says Alwyn, "We were together for six years so, she's got a ton of material."
Arthur II: Tipsy Turvey
Arthur III: The Hangover (copyright litigation pending)
Arthur IV: Rehab Daze
Arthur V: Pickled Tink
Arthur VI: Traffic School Confidential
Arthur VII: Drunk & Drunkerer
Arthur VIII: Back in Rehab 3-D
Arthur IX: My Big Fat Enlarged Liver
Arthur X: Last Call - Four Failed Marriages & a Funeral
"Together, These Two Trainwrecks Could Bring Down the Whole Damn Country"
WASHINGTON, DC (AFA NewsWire) During an impassioned speech in which she warned of "Devastating consequences," Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano today urged congress to take swift action to ensure that actor Charlie Sheen and director Julie Taymor are never in the same place at the same time.
"Individually, each is a walking catastrophe," Napolitano intoned gravely, "And have displayed reckless disregard and disdain for the consequences of their actions, wreaking havoc and costing millions in collateral damage," she continued, "Now that they've both gone rogue; what could happen if they ever joined forces is..." Napolitano paused, visibly shaken by the thought, "Unthinkable."
"However remote, any possibility of their being in close enough proximity to combine their destructive powers into a single malevolent force constitutes a clear and present danger," Napolitano insisted, "We must take every step and pay any price to ensure that this is never allowed to happen."
The bill would make it a Federal crime for Sheen and Taymor to both be in the same or even adjacent zip codes and also make illegal any communication between them.
Asked if celebrity driven catastrophes weren't already covered in the Ishtar Act of 1987, Napolitano explained that while that law has successfully prevented further collaborations between Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, "It just doesn't go nearly far enough for something like this."
"There is no time to lose. Right this minute," suggested Napolitano ominously, "Sheen could be boarding a train in Los Angeles, heading east at 60 mph, and at the same moment Taymor could be getting on a train in New York heading west at 62 miles an hour... do you want the time and place to meet to be in your state?"
Keith Olbermann! Who Wants That Kind of Headache? Say Show's Producers
HOLLYWOOD (AFA NewsWire) To quell the wild rumors of Keith Olbermann replacing Charlie Sheen while the Two-and-a-Half Men star goes through rehab, CBS has officially announced that the remainder of this season's episodes will consist entirely of cast members performing dramatic readings of Chuck Lorre vanity cards.
Traditionally a studio or production company logo — such as the MGM Lion, Fox's Searchlight, Ubu Productions' "Sit, Ubu, Sit" clip — that appears briefly after the closing credits, Lorre's vanity cards feature instead an offbeat essay or witty observation in tiny typewriter print.
"Everybody loves Chuck's wacky vanity cards," says Bryce Boyd, CBS vice president of programming, "But they go by so fast you can't read the whole thing," adding, "Unless, of course, you go to Lorre's website where they're all posted, but nobody ever does that."
Boyd admits that temporarily replacing Sheen, then building a story arc (arrival of long-lost uncle/cousin/guy who once saved Charlie's life) that could be ejected as soon as Sheen returned was discussed, and that casting the Dos Equis Most-Interesting-Man-in-the-World guy was seriously considered, but casting Olbermann was not. "That suggestion," says Boyd, "Came out of a room full of comedy writers terrified that they'd now have to go out and get real jobs."
One of the solutions they will own up to was for different actors from the 80s Brat Pack to successively play Sheen's character over the remaining episodes, in the style of Todd Haynes' film I'm Not There in which six performers — men and women — each portrayed Bob Dylan. Unfortunately, what the producers saw as an "homage," Mr. Haynes' lawyers saw as "actionable."
Instead, Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones, Holland Taylor, Marin Hinkle and Conchata Ferrell will read the vanity cards to a studio audience from the Two and a Half Men set.
"It was the cheapest of the proposed solutions," explains Boyd, "And," he added, "Considering the likely drop in ad revenue after the first one of these airs, the only one we could afford to sign off on."
"You Want Bat-Shit Insane? We'll Give You Bat-Shit Insane!" is Voter Message
WASHINGTON DC (AFA NewsWire) In a surprise twist in Tuesday's mid-term elections, actor and raving lunatic Randy Quaid (National Lampoon's Vacation, Independence Day, Kingpin) was simultaneously elected to seats in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives from Alaska, Delaware and Nevada.
After a bizarre campaign season involving candidates most voters found nothing short of embarrassing, a spontaneous last-minute write-in vote in all three states has swept the once-accomplished actor and felonious wack-job into office.
"I mean, why not?" asked, Lee Odivinsky of Dover, Delaware, "If being bat-shit insane is the qualification for office and congress is gonna be full of loonies, we want our guy to be the bull-goose looniest of them all," adding, in what seems the prevailing sentiment, "Given our options, it wasn't a hard choice; besides, he was really good in that movie with the spaceships."
While highly irregular, it isn't clear that Mr. Quaid can be prevented from holding and serving all three positions at once. "The results are still being tallied up," said Robert Campin of the Federal Election Commission, "But even with the counting unfinished, he's won by such a huge landslide it'd be hard to overturn."
Asked about the logistical difficulties of having one person represent three separate states in both houses of congress, Campin replied, "We're not sure if one of his diagnoses is multiple personality disorder, but it would certainly help."
Reached for comment from inside the "fort" he and his wife had built out of the bedsheets in their Vancouver, British Columbia hotel room, Quaid issued a press release stating, "Gabba gowacka, ek, ek, arooooooh, ek, gowaka!"
Quaid's agent, Syd Hollenbeck, cautioned against moving forward too quickly, "Whoa, hey, before my client goes anywhere we gotta talk salary, per diem, accommodations, points on the back end, residuals, merchandising, time served. . . have those states' people call me, then we'll talk."
Before Rand Paul was even a twinkle in Ron Paul's eye (much less a bong-toting frat boy), men — famous, important, successful men — were part of a select, semi-secret possibly even ancient brotherhood of those who sought the guidance and wisdom of the Aqua Buddha. Men of such caliber* as Burgess Meredith, Norman Rockwell and Major George Fielding Eliot.** They, as so many before them and not much more than a handful since, have followed the Aqua Buddha's path to roused circulation and braced skin, the kind everyone enjoys looking at.
*.38.
** Look him up in wikipedia; do I have to do everything?
HOLLYWOOD (AFA NewsWire) Between Mel Gibson's expletive-filled ravings, Jennifer Aniston using the R-word on Live! with Regis & Kelly and Dr. Laura Schlessinger's N-word radio rant, the number of letters that offensive words start with and can be recognizably abbreviated down to now stands at a mere seven.
Along with the N- and R-words, the A-word, B-word, C-word, D-word, F-word/bomb, H-word, J-word, K-word, L-word, M/F-word, P-word, Q-word, S-word, T-word, V-word, W-word and Z-word (although, "Zionist" is probably too anachronistic to be very insulting) have all been deployed by one or other prominent media personage.
With 19 letters of the alphabet's 26 already spoken for, only e, g, i, o, u, x and sometimes y are still available for use in eruptions of bigoted, anger-fueled scatological insult or thoughtless offhand remarks.
The situation constitutes a crisis for celebrity loose cannons eager to make their mark. "These seven letters don't leave much to work with," acknowledges Dr. Verne Bose, chairman of the UCLA English Department, "I mean "e"? What are you supposed to do with that? It'll take some real creativity to wring much originality and shock value out of this bunch." Bose, however, reassures those worried that Mel Gibson will finish off the alphabet first through frequency and volume alone, "He does seem bent on breaking some sort of record, but he generally sticks with the classics."
Although Swank's spokespeople could not be reached for comment, her resemblance to Bieber and previous portrayals of teenaged boys make her the front runner. Some, however, insist that Swank's looks are simply "too boyish" to convincingly play Justin.
Set to open on Valentine's Day 2011, the movie is as yet untitled, but is likely to share the name of Bieber's forthcoming memoir, First Step 2 Forever: My Story. The chapter on how he finds 'spelling and stuff' to be, "Like, really hard" is expected to provide the film's emotional core.
Whether the home video of Justin's birth will be included is up to the director. Rumors that Bieber's parents have and will allow use of footage of his conception are unconfirmed.
LOS ANGELES (AFA Infotainment NewsWire) The wives of Bravo's Real Housewives of... creators are the focus of the latest entry in that reality show franchise.
The Real Housewives of Real Housewives will document the daily routines and sometimes outrageous antics of the spouses of the reality shows creators and producers.
"After filming those women from New Jersey, New York, Orange County, Beverly Hills and Atlanta," says series co-creator Saul Less, "We got to wondering what the hell our wives were doing while we were at work."
The answer to that question, judging by an episode screened for critics, involves botox and collagen injections, shopping, berating the household staff, cavorting with pool boys and personal trainers, and long lunches at which they complain endlessly about their husbands, each other and express feeling unjustly snubbed by the wives of prime-time network television shows' producers.
"I'm betting this show lasts longer than some of these marriages will," noted one critic.
Less denies allegations that the show is merely a ruse to gather incriminating evidence for his and other producers' impending divorce cases.
Other new Bravo reality shows currently in development include The Real Mistresses of Park Avenue and Trophy Wives of Beverly Hills.
LOS ANGELES (AFA NewsWire) In the effort to stem both the flow of its oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and the tide of bad publicity surrounding it, BP has hired Hollywood star Kevin Costner to aid with damage control.
Costner, whose company invented a device that separates oil from seawater, has been offering his clean-up services since the crisis began.
A BP spokesman acknowledged, however, that the company's true motive in hiring the Academy Award-winner is to have him direct and star in a movie — tentatively titled Waterwhirled — about the Gulf spill that they feel confident will be so overblown, ponderous, overly-long and hard to follow that everyone will forget all about any oil-soaked pelicans.
"It's the perfect solution," says BP spokesman Mark Evally, "Nobody likes disasters, but everyone likes disaster movies," adding, "Even bad ones. Plus, we'll save a bundle on special effects."
Evally would neither confirm or deny that Bruce Willis had also been signed on to the project.
Woody Allen Speaks Out in Defense of Roman Polanski.
"It's simply the best new drama NBC's produced since ER went off the air," said Berne Bocken, spokesman for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, adding, "It has been tremendously entertaining and we think it deserves to be recognized and hope for more like it."
Although many consider it long overdue, this new category, "Best Drama Caused by a Programming or Scheduling Fiasco," was hastily thrown together at the last minute so the awards ceremony broadcast could make the most of it while the Conan-Leno tumult is still a hot topic.
While showbiz wags have already dubbed the prize "The Tempestuous Teapot" and "Best Drama Queenery," it isn't yet clear whether this new category will be a perennial or just get handed out on special occasions like the Oscars' Lifetime Achievement Award.
Legal stuff so I don't get sued:The Ant Farmer's Almanac has obtained a copy of what we believe to be a possible cover design for Sarah Palin's forthcoming memoir Going Rogue: An American Life. While this may not be the cover that gets used, we have been assured that it was near the top of the pile on the art director's desk.