In which our hero discusses the works of Anton Chekhov and an Easy Rider remake.

Welcome to my blog. Previous readers have expressed confusion as to whether the narrator of this blog – or what Henry James refers to as the center of consciousness – really is Jack Nicholson. All I can tell you is that I, the writer of the blog, am indeed Jack Nicholson
. However, I should mention that the characters in this rather disjointed chronicle are NOT intended to represent any real people, living or dead. And so, I felt this preface necessary.

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Like a doctor attempting to understand another man’s pain, I have plenty of explanations but know very little about love.

Letters:

I would like to formally apologize to fans of Michael Ironside. He really is a wonderful performer whose work is too often compared to my own. It was never my intention to use the blog previous to undermine his very original work. I don’t treat other actors that way. I am Jack Nicholson. 

After reading my previous blog posting, my good friend Danny DeVito telephoned to inquire if it really was me writing this thing.

Some of you have written in, expressing interest in what my screenplay is about and/or why I have decided to undertake the writing of this blog. The notes you read here contain, of course, the unofficial chronicles of my existence – though he still encourages me to write out my thoughts and feelings, my agent has pulled this blog from my official website. During one of our weekly meetings, while I was rehearsing here (in New York) with Marty Scorsese, my agent explained, “Irony is really hipster right now. Every aging talent is doing something self-reflexive these days.” That got me thinking…

“The studio wants to remake Easy Rider as a western,” he revealed. “They’re gonna put Ashton Kutchner and Shia LaBeouf on horses instead of motorcycles! You’re part is being handed down to that kid from Scrubs. I know, I know… This used to be a helluva good movie! I can’t understand what’s going wrong with it. But, get this, they want YOU to play one of them conservative southern guys who shoots down the hippies at the end. It’s supposed to be ironic.” He referenced Bruce Willis. “You know, it’s like your older self is coming back to kill your younger self! Do I ice her? Do I marry her? Which one of these? Ha!” My agent has adopted the habit of poorly impersonating me when trying to push me toward a particular offer. “It’s fan-fucking-tastic!”


The salary for half-a-day’s work encouraged me to think it over. Then I began to feel pretty miserable with myself. I mean, why was I doing it? How much better could I eat? What could I buy that I couldn’t already afford? “Tell me more about that,” says my agent. Well, that’s about the time when the mice began to appear – first, in the form of twins (Dalwhinnie and Balvenie) –and I was about ready to hop on a plane home to Los Angeles, when my agent says I should stay here in New York and write about it. “Whatever comes to mind...”

Research Notes for a Film:

•         9:30am – Michael Ironside leaves his apartment dressed in kimono.
•        10:06am – Honda Civic gets off Westside Highway and stops on 49^th Street. Ironside pantomimes several exaggerated emotions. Good.      
•        10:12am – I imagine slipping in the shower and landing with my asshole around a hot faucet.

[Similar Imaginings: baseball bat smashing me in the face and lodging teeth down my throat, falling teeth-first onto concrete or cement (often a sidewalk), the aftermath of a car accident in which I am helplessly stuck in a position that holds shards of broken windshield along my gums and around my teeth].

•        10:16am – I-side smears white make-up on his face. He exhales deeply, careful not to cry, fearing tears would make him appear more clownish. What memories does he draw on? Memory of sister washing dishes and flashing him from the kitchen?
•         10:17am – I-side exits vehicle. 9^th Avenue. Enters loft apartments. Good pace.
•        10:19am – I-side frames himself in doorway and contorts his kimonoed arms, flamboyantly holding a picturesque pose. “Ironside!” is shouted with pleasurable recognition.
•         10:22am – I-side has extended conversation with Edith. 

Some time has gone by since The Two Jakes, and I suppose that I just got the itch to have another go at making my own film, so I have begun writing a script. “Who is this Michael Ironweed?” asks my agent. “Never heard of the guy!” I am determined to create a character who can reclaim my image from the American family and give me back to the free-spirited, if alienated, American individual. No more family shit. Just shit. I want to write about shit. I want to portray a human piece of shit, but he will remain endearing because he will be played by Jack Nicholson.

•         Why are flies so attracted to the scent of shit? I read somewhere that female fruit flies deprived of the ability to smell food outlive their peers. The study suggested that our sense of smell might be linked to our cellular aging process. 
  
  
  Someone said of Henry James that he wouldn’t know what to do if a bird should happen to shit on one of his characters during an afternoon stroll through the park. The story would have to end there because James was incapable of describing the shit.
  
  I knew it was over when I saw Edith eating sushi with Ironside. He gave me such a scowl, but it was Edith’s downcast eyes that let me know it was over.
  
  Maybe Dalwhinnie and Balvenie weren’t twins at all. Maybe they were a couple, and the other mice have been their offspring. Is it possible that I’ve killed the father and mother, and that I’m now working my way through their progeny?
  
  DeVito reminded me about something I had confided while rehearsing Hoffa. Something about a Chekhov character whom I had once figured I’d end up like. An older country doctor, somebody’s uncle, who finally finds love after years of convincing himself that it either did not exist within the social realms of reality, or that it simply would not play a role in his own life. I questioned if the Chekhov character ever truly found love. Perhaps the elderly uncle was only coming to accept that his time was nearly up, and falling in love seemed to be the remaining thing to do – love as the consequence of man’s acceptance of his own mortality.

Who knows? Perhaps love is an illusion

I cannot bring myself to accept. One I refuse

to go along with. Like the kid who sticks around

to annoy the magician into revealing his tricks

long after the birthday party has ended.

Cordially,

your Mulholland Man in the Village

(or just… jack)

--- edith beaumont wrote:

> dear jack,

> what have the girls you've dated been like?

We had met on an Internet site for adventurous Jewish singles disinterested in lifetime relationships and long periods of dating. I knew that, as an actor, I could participate in sexual role-playing with ease; but I was otherwise unsure what my fetishes might be. This forum presented itself as a good place to explore. For months, nobody responded to my messages. Until one day, SinGal 128 sent a threatening reply, bringing to my attention that my profile had been interpreted as a joke. Admittedly, the thought of Jack Nicholson joining a sex site – a profile explaining his infatuation with soft rather than hardcore porn as not having to do with sexual prudishness, but an erotic attachment to character and plot – seemed absurd. I responded by posting candid images of myself, but visitors to my online profile assessed me a deranged paparazzi. Edith was the only one willing to carry out correspondence.

> I like walks through parks in the

> winter, along beaches

> in the fall, going to the movies

> in the springtime, bicycle rides

> to nowhere on long summer days,

> and having to find my way back

> home in the evening.

>

We were convinced our letters were destined to be read historically, long after our absence from this world – and not because I am Jack Nicholson, which even Edith did not believe, but because the letters justified it with their own elegance.