An Excerpt From My Book, Celebrity sTalker

This is from the chapter on Sly Stallone: No Wonder I Never Wanted An Easy-Bake Oven.

I’m not in great shape. The only time anyone wrote “lots of abs” next to my name was in my attendance report from high school. So I joined a gym. You can’t not join a gym in Los Angeles. The authorities will find out and suddenly you’re on a billboard that says Got Fat?

So I Got Serious and hired a trainer, or rather hired the one that Bally’s Gym assigned to me. He'd been Mr. Bulgaria twice; Mr. Northern California in the early 90s and wrote three fitness books, which was three more than I'd written. I felt sorry for him; his business card was an unevenly sliced-up piece of Xerox paper. He was earnest and committed, probably had a family waiting in a cramped one-bedroom apartment somewhere in Koreatown, expecting him to put borscht on the table. He had that sad, vacant look that people who do not ever expect to catch up with life have. I have the same expression after I’ve had sex.

Mr. Bulgaria loved working out and assumed I did also because why else would I be at the gym?

Sidebar: Cute guys, the smoothie bar and cute guys. Oh yes, and cute guys.

I don’t understand why people love to sweat. “It gets out all the toxins.” If there are toxins leaking out of any part of me it means my alcohol levels are dangerously low so point me in the direction of a martini.

Maybe I’d love working out if I enjoyed eating. Then there would be a goal, to lose weight or keep a steady weight. But I hate eating even more than I hate working out. Hand me a pill marked LUNCH and I’m done until I’m handed a pill marked DINNER. Give me a purple drink like the one in the movie Barbarella. Jane Fonda drinks it when she wakes up from a hundred and fifty-four hour nap. Sounds like a perfect place to live; you drink your meals and get to nap for six days in a row. That movie was made in 1963 so apparently the future has let us down. And by us I mean me.

I don’t like to discuss food, shop for food or try the food at the trendy new restaurant in Who Cares, Connecticut. I lived with a man who used to drive me crazy because while we were eating breakfast he’d ask me what we should do for lunch. At lunch, he’d ask me what we should do for dinner. At dinner, he’d ask me what we should do for breakfast. No, we’re not still together, why do you ask?

When I do manage to eat something I inhale the whole thing and am then surprised to discover that it *serves 4.* Four what, anorexics? I can hardly wait until I’m rich enough to have Ina Garten move in. It’s the only reason I’m still breathing in and out.

The only machine I used regularly at the gym was the water fountain but I kept going because of the cute guys. And the smoothie bar. And oh yes, the cute guys. But sometime in the last few years the cute boys emigrated to marriage and the gym became a meeting place for old Chinese women. Mr. Bulgaria deftly escorts me through them as if he’s afraid I'll stop and spontaneously break into a mah-jongg game.

The gym rat in our family is my sister Lindy, who once graced the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine. Her nickname in college was The Body. My nickname in college was Can You Introduce Me to Your Sister. She goes around spewing communist propaganda like, “I’m really craving an apple.” Please, Johnny Appleseed didn’t crave an apple. If you’re at her house and want something fattening to eat, you have to lick the grease off her stove. She’s always telling me I don’t work out enough, that I don’t do enough aerobics. Like getting up from the couch and lying back down twenty times a night isn’t aerobic. Every time we have an earthquake I grab my Shake Weight so as to maximize the effects of the shifting tectonic plates. If that’s not dedication to exercise then I don’t know what is.

“How do I look in this bathing suit?” I once asked her.

“You look fabulous.” Then ten days later she saw me in shorts and said, “You look terrific; not like you did in that bathing suit.”

As for the rest of our family, we would rather die with a stent in our hearts than a deltoid on our wherever the hell the deltoid goes...

(...continued in book)

The Top Ten Films of 2012

It's that time of the year, when my funny comedian friend - and hardcore cinephile - Gariana Abeyta makes her annual Top 10 Movies List before the Oscars:
"This year I missed a few major releases, which is very rare for me. (I had a serious bike wreck and lost four family members). I’ll catch them eventually and I’m sure I’ll be super pissed as one of them will probably shatter me and I’ll obsess for years about it not having a chance to be fairly included. So, this year’s list for the first time comes with apologies to those filmmakers and my fingers are crossed that your shit sucks so I can feel justified. No, seriously. I’m rooting against you so I don’t look bad.

A very bright spot this year was the launch of Soro’s book Celebrity Stalker, currently on the Kindle Best Seller List in Pop Culture. When I first met her she mentioned that her blog was there for one reason and one reason only. A book deal. You have to admire and address when somebody achieves a huge goal they have set for themselves like that. A very heartfelt congratulations to her and a very huge buy the fucking book to you. --Abeyta

P.S. Love you Soro, and thanks for having me back. These aren’t in any order and you should see everything on the honorable mention list as well."

Zero Dark Thirty – Kathryn Bigelow was the first female director to win the Oscar™ which she accomplished by beating out her ex-husband. You may actually never see a more perfect sentence in the English language.

Holy Motors – “Unless you don’t like angry boners.” This is a perfect example of why nobody has EVER used my reviews for poster blurbs.

The Raid: Redemption – “Unless you don’t like Asians throwing refrigerators at each other.” Example #2

Django Unchained – Seriously, is Quentin Tarantino the only person in Hollywood having any fun at all making movies? I wish I could have been in the room when he told Harvey Weinstein he was going to do a long, slow tracking shot on the bottom of Jamie Fox’s balls. QT is among a very elite handful of directors who can do anything they want and he chose that. Just ponder that for a moment will you…

The Master – I was asked what I thought Paul Thomas Anderson was trying to say with The Master I responded with, I think he was trying to say, “Hi, I’m Paul Thomas Anderson and I make great fucking movies.” Joaquin Phoenix was a lock for best actor until he told the Academy they were bullshit. They should have just told him, “Didn’t you change your name to Leaf Phoenix for awhile? That’s actually bullshit because it’s a verb! Your words don’t hurt Joaquin because it appears you don’t actually understand how they work!”

Argo – So, you ever watch a movie and then about 20 minutes in you really start hoping that nobody has sex? Ben Affleck’s portrayal of the 1970s was so accurate that I started having a panic attack because I just knew somebody was going to take his or her pants off and it was going to be horrible! All hairy and probably like a 90% chance that one of those weird rubbery girdle things would show up. Sorry about that Oscar™ snub Ben, but let’s look at the bright side. You made an incredible film and you were never named Leaf.

Compliance – All of the tension of Argo, with the added bonus of naked jumping jacks! With all of the science and modern grooming techniques of 2012 available! Thank you dear sweet baby Jesus in heaven for allowing the gratuitous nudity to show up in Compliance and not Argo! I loved this film because it made people angry. Apparently, the Sundance Q and A almost ended in a fight. The events of Compliance happened. You are really going to wish they hadn’t, but they did. You are desperately and hopelessly going to wish you were part of a better species, but you aren’t.

The Avengers - Oh, your top ten list has a documentary on the oppression of the rural native tribe of all female trout fishers that were lost when Krakatoa erupted in 1883? Well, good for you! My top 10 has a Hulk!

The Grey - Liam Neeson fist-fighting wolves. If that’s a sentence that doesn’t get you out of the house I hope you already signed up for a medical alert service and have all your affairs in order. You're obviously just counting your days left here and joy can no longer penetrate your cold dead cynical heart.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – You will have to trust me on this one. A stunning film about growing up and finding your place in the world even though you are a misfit. The absolute joy that comes with knowing that even though you are more broken than most there is a place for you in this world and that place is as beautiful as any.

Tout aussi honoré films comprennent:

West of Memphis, Looper, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Cabin in the Woods, Wreck it Ralph, Moonrise Kingdom, Klown, Rust and Bone.

I Made A Best Seller List

Update: This was a little premature. I'm already at #38.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded my book, Celebrity sTalker. Because of you I'm number 45 on Kindle's Top 100 Best Seller list in Pop Culture.

If you look closely at this cut and paste job below - from Amazon's page - I obviously have a lot to learn about re-sizing. The good news is mice can read it.

LA Sign Of The Times #105

If you can find one home in Los Angeles that does not have a statue of the Buddha either inside or in their garden, I'll show you someone who just moved here and has not gotten with the program. We are very pro-Buddha out here. Ask us why and we'll say, "It was on sale."

This is mine, from Cambodia.