In which our hero is accosted by a group of pious Jews in the public restroom.

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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“I am seized by two contradictory feelings: there is so much beauty in the world it is incredible we are ever miserable for a moment; there is so much shit in the world that it is incredible we are ever happy for a moment.” (Albert Camus)

Letters:

It has come to my attention from a number of your responses that my previous blog entry may have been interpreted as offensive to some of our wonderful African Blacks of America. Please know that this was never my intention. I only meant to suggest the possibility that reading minds might imply racial superiority. I believe all men equal, be it in our power to read human thought or not.

The scent of stale body odor creeps forward as the smelling salt is withdrawn. “Are you Jewish?” asks the kid Hasid. A fat bearded face beneath a black hat pokes in to confirm, “Both your parents are Jewish?” Pogrom eyes peer above and through the cracks of the toilet stall with unspoken questions. Finally, the elderly Hasid wrinkles his eyes to ask, “And you had a Bar Mitzvah?” Upon verification, the small minyan masks their approving nods with sidelong glances, muttering wise nothings in elevating tones. The fat Hasid rolls up Nicholson’s left shirtsleeve and the young Hasidic skateboarder removes the actor’s watch and ring.

Like a drunken doctor about to perform emergency surgery in a John Ford western, the old Hasid’s palsy shakes are mystically lifted with a strap of black leather attached to a small box that he measurably fixes against Nicholson’s naked bicep. “Repeat after me: Barooch attah…” “Barooch attah…”

After the blessing, the old man tightens the band of leather with immaculate strength, and speedily wraps it around Nicholson’s arm seven times. His yellow-nailed thumb firmly presses another leather box against Nicholson’s forehead (between the eyes) and smoothly traces the roots of our hero’s hairline across the phylactery’s belt. “Barooch shayme –” “Barooch shayme–" “cvode malcootoe – ” “cvode malcootoe –” More Hebrew prayers are repeated, and the event culminates with the old man suddenly switching back to English to forcibly call out: “We want Moshiach now!”

Nicholson’s repeated demand for the coming of the messiah enspirits a circle of Jewish men through which God could vessel the intertwined force of life and love – unfortunately within the tight confines of a public restroom stall, their circle centers a toilet sheltering Jack Nicholson’s unflushed bowel movement. Just as the floating excrement of a three-time Oscar winner seemed a lacuna in the Almighty’s plan for a force of life and love without form, our Devine Creator had not attended to the cleanliness of His most devoted followers. And so, avoiding the frowzy underarms rubbing against both his right and left shoulders, Jack Nicholson had no choice but to push his nose towards the center, where it met smiling beards singing above his shit.

Moshiach, Moshiach, Moshiach! Aye, yaye, yeah, yeah, yaye, yeah…

They serenaded each other the hosanna repeatedly, everyone’s left foot crossing his right, followed by the right foot moving out and the left foot moving in behind the right. Moshiach, Moshiach, Moshiach! Bearded faces slid beneath the lower openings of the stall’s door and walls to harmonize Aye, yaye, yeah, yeah, yaye, yeah. Lifted into the air by other Hasids, who had climbed the neighboring stalls and leaned down on either side of Nicholson, the group resembled a band of circus performers. Once floor space opened, more black-hats sprawled out by his feet, only to be raised just as quickly above the toilet seat – as if crowd-surfing at a rock concert. He who avoided the vertical carousel still had to crawl along the upper deck of the toilet’s back and dance around its rim tauntingly, in order to make room for the next tide of believers. As grips tightened and inched closer to his neck, Nicholson felt compelled to join the vigor with which the Hasidim danced round and round, ever-compressing the circle and crimsoning their faces. Moshiach, Moshiach, Moshiach! Aye, yaye, yeah, yeah, yaye, yeah… The group laughed joyfully and felicitating our hero, the fat Hasid removed a small decorative paper from his prayer book. “If I give you this leaflet that informs you of synagogues in the area, will you go?” 

“Do you like stand-up comedy?” asked the skateboarding Hasid. “I do stand-up on the side.” The young spieler kicked up his skateboard and handed Nicholson a flyer advertising his stand-up show. “If I give you this,” he asked with the same seriousness he heard from the beard of his fat comrade, “Will you come by and check out my act?” Soon enough, all the brethren were passing forward printed advertisements.

“Best bagel this side of 42^nd Street!”

“Take this! These guys are the professional’s source!”

“You go here, and only the floors are crooked!”

“I mean, there’s bagels and then there’s rolls with holes! Am I wrong?”

Just as the skateboarding Hasid prepared his celebrity guest for a comedic comparison between the way Jews and Black people walk, Nicholson was pulled aside by a wizened hand.

“I understand that you are also a performer,” the elderly Hasid pried. “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t watch television.” He put his hand on Nicholson’s shoulder, “Tell me… which characters do you play?”

“Mostly crazies,” the actor responded with some embarrassment.

“Why crazies?”

“I don’t know. I suppose bad guys are just the fun parts for me. More… variation.”

The old Hasid stared at him in silence for an uncomfortable length of time before deciding, “I don’t understand that.” 

When the Hasids left the bathroom to approach the next Jew, they grew quietly concerned about Nicholson lingering in the hallway and refusing to move along. The mitzvah was over. They did not understand what he waited for. “Shalom…” they said for goodbye, but the Hebrew word also meant hello and peace, so this did not put the confusion to rest. “Be well…” they said to him, while packing up their tefillin after winning the blessings of another unobservant Jew. He wished them well too, and everyone shook hands. He knew from their increasingly exaggerated grimaces and hushed orisons that it was time to depart, but he could not break from the group. Things grew more awkward at the elevators because of the stillness involved with waiting. Whenever he attempted his physical exit, the other foot bounced him back toward them. So, instead of walking away, he performed this idiotic jittery boy dance with the misplaced energy remaining from his earlier beseeching of the messiah. He huddled into the elevator with the Hasidic Jews, eager to re-ignite the crowded bathroom stall experience, but when they reached the lobby, the Hasids rushed to the revolving doors – no longer stopping individuals of possible Jewish persuasion.

Outside, Jack Nicholson tried to place his arms around the wise old man and the fat one. He howled out: “Moshiach, Moshiach, Moshiach! Aye, yaye, yeah, yeah, yaye, yeah…” the sough of his shuffling feet unaccompanied against the sidewalk. The sun had set, but our ululating hero remained with the afterglow, leaning against the wall, trying to support the rest of himself with his arm – a straphanger in the midtown flux. His mouth hung open, dangling a string of acidic saliva, and he just stood there, letting it, his immobility a quiet rebellion against his body.

“Are you okay, sir?” asked a mother. Her son ogled the slobber driveling over the movie star’s lips. “Ma, it’s The Joker!”

“I’ll give you fifty bucks if you let your boy go to the bathroom on me.” The boy’s eyes lit up in eager anticipation of what would happen next. Nicholson’s hand pulled out a jittery fifty-dollar bill.

He picked up a dirty newspaper to wipe the vomit off his shoes. Rockports. The headline on the New York Post: SAVED! (and a photograph of two trapeze artists using their skills to rescue a drowning child). 

In which our hero goes to the bathroom.

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.

LATEST NEWS!

I often find the chore of taking a shit much less burdensome than I initially expect. 

Letters:

I’d like to apologize to Kevin Spacey. I think he’s a fantastic actor, and it would be both an honor and a privilege to watch him re-create any of my performances.

INTERIOR. MEN’S ROOM. – MOMENTS FOLLOWING NICHOLSON’S MEETING WITH HIS AGENT (DEPICTED IN MY PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRY).

Someone is in the stall beside mine and I fear that my urine flowing into the toilet is too loud, so I redirect the stream towards the inner porcelain wall of the bowl. I raise my penis further to warm the inner left of my thigh (a secret pleasure). After misfiring onto the backside of my underpants, I firmly hold my penis back in place.

My shit is large and its tip resembles the head of a circumcised penis bobbing in the water. It is long and fat, and I can’t help thinking, “I just had a big boner up my ass.”

Where does the word boner come from? I have a theory: 

The French word bonheur means happiness. I imagine a lanky Frenchman, a troubadour, strutting a medieval palace with an erect penis visible in his tight leggings. He smiles while crooning a princess, and another Frenchman turns toward me, an Anglo Saxon visitor, and says something like, “Il est bonheur!” The Anglo Saxon returns to England misusing the word bonheur, or boner, to describe erect penises. The term catches on.

There is some graffiti scribbled on the leg of the stall:

Tap foot twice for BJ. A stupid joke. I can see my neighbour’s shoes. Rockports. I am also wearing Rockports. His have brogues. I wonder if he also thinks it’s a stupid joke. What if he taps his foot? The idea seems wrong. I am not gay. 

Perhaps there is hidden truth in the jest of the graffiti. If I play along with the joke, will his Rockports kick down the wall that separates us? Will those shoes genuflect their brogued toes against the urine-stained floor while lips and tongue aggressively suck on my dick? Tap foot twice for BJ. A similar scribble behind my head is probably directed at standing urinators: DISCRETELY tap foot for BJ. A thumb of black skin between his sock and cuff. What was meant by discretely? A Black man. Does discretion demand less of a tap? A subtle raise or repositioning of the foot? I am not racist. Perhaps any number of slight movements would be misinterpreted as a discrete tapping of my foot: a toe flex, the shuffling of my heel, leaning on the outer pinky edge of my foot to air its sole. Black, black, black, black, black, black. Wait – is my foot actually following the list of slight physical adjustments? My shitting neighbour – he’s Black – clears his throat and blows his nose. Tap foot twice for BJ. Was the bringing forth of mucous an attempt to signal some sort of ‘discretion’? Tap foot twice for BJ. Is their mucous the same colour as ours? Tap foot twice for BJ.  I loudly think:

HOW CAN STUPID WHITE MEN LIKE ME BE SURE THAT MINDREADING IS NOT A SUPERIOR GIFT OF THE MIGHTY AFRICAN BLACK PEOPLE?

Did I move my foot? Maybe just a blink, but could it have been interpreted as a tap? A discrete tap? Tap foot twice for BJ. Is Black reading it too? Tap foot twice for BJ. Why isn’t there any other graffiti to focus my eyes on? Tap foot twice for BJ. A dirty joke. A phone number. Tap foot twice for BJ. Something racist. Tap foot twice for BJ. HOW CAN STUPID WHITE MEN LIKE ME BE SURE THAT MINDREADING IS NOT A SUPERIOR GIFT OF THE MIGHTY AFRICAN BLACK PEOPLE? HOW CAN STUPID WHITE MEN LIKE ME BE SURE THAT MINDREADING IS NOT A SUPERIOR GIFT OF THE MIGHTY AFRICAN BLACK PEOPLE? Tap foot twice for BJ. In simple bold Sharpe between two pairs of feet – white and black – both dressed in Rockports: Tap foot twice for BJ. Tap foot twice for BJ. Tap foot twice for BJ. I inch my Rockport a touch further from his Rockport and tap my foot two times.

After a pause: the flush of his toilet; his shoes promptly exiting the stall; the men’s room door swinging shut behind them. The faucet is not turned on to provide running water for washing hands and the sensor that ignites the hand dryer is left without a signal for reception. Alone, under the silencing hum of fluorescent lights, my Rockports plant their soles to the cold tiled floor of the locked stall and avoid the random stains of yellow. It helps to tap my foot repeatedly during the long push of shit from my ass.

Cragganmore popped his little head out!! He popped his head out! I’ll kill the bastard.

Fade to BLACK…

The sound of tiny wheels rolling against the tiled flood. A skateboard comes to a halt. The large Star of David sticker on its underside is flipped up in the camera’s lens.

Our hero lays passed out on the bathroom floor.

A young Hasidic Jew dressed in baggy jeans, rod laver sneakers, and a vintage Batman yarmulke spits and looks Jack Nicholson up and down. The bare beginning of a grown out beard and lack of formal black attire affirm that God is a recent discovery for the boy. An older zealot-bearded Hasid slowly raises a container of smelling salt – sitting in his jacket pocket since Yom Kippur – and holds it shakily beneath Nicholson’s nose. The old Jew resembles Cragganmore. “I’m awake. I’m awake.”

In which our hero has a memory of his father.

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. 

Letters:

I would like to formally apologize to both Time and Rolling Stone Magazines. Apparently it was a Rolling Stone reporter who discovered the truth about my sister/mother and not a Time Magazine reporter. 

Tossing aside my script, “Reads like a movie-of-the-God-damn-week!” my agent takes another drink and makes a noise (part-gurgle / part grunt) meant to inquire if I’d also like another drink. “Spacey’s people have expressed interest in the Easy Rider remake.” I roll my eyes. “Hey! It’s a job! And you’re the leading-fuckin’-man! It’s perfect for you. I mean, this guy is a real nut-job!”

He stands up to close the blinds and relaxes his tone. “It’s all about dreams, Jack… The hyper-real… Wish fulfillment… Carl Jung… Dreams… Everybody is doing something about dreams these days… Dreams… Do you dream, Jack? Tell me about your… dreams.”

All that can be heard is the slow rhythm of a metronome’s arm and muffled sirens from the street below. 

“Look at the fire truck, son. You know, it’s not everyday a little boy gets to watch a fire truck pull into the station. Look! Here come the firemen.” Jack Nicholson’s father was becoming increasingly irritated, and our young hero sensed it. A piece of chewing gum stuck to the sidewalk captivated the boy until a smack on the side of his head and a tense shaking of his left arm had freed him. “Now listen to me. If I’m forceful with you it’s only because I need to be in order to get my point across. Most boys your age are fascinated with firemen and fire engines. They even want to be firemen when they grow up. Maybe not all of them. Sure, some would prefer to become fighter pilots… Like your uncle. One thing is certain: any other boy would consider himself lucky to see the scene before you right now. Firemen and their trucks. You know I love you. You’re my son. And I encourage individuality. But if you’re going to grow up to be a normal man, you ought to be fascinated by this. God damn it! It’s enough that your mother gave you a girl’s name. Trust me when I tell you: Everything that happens now will shape the man you will one day become. So, like it or not, we’re going to stand here and watch the show. If it doesn’t entertain you, then pretend. It might upset you now and you might be angry with me today, but when you are older you will thank me. Normal boys like firemen and we’re not leaving this spot until you prove to me that you like firemen.”

One of the only memories I have of my father.

“I gotta take a shit.”

“Good. Okay, I think that’s a good place to stop for today.”

 

In which our hero takes a meeting with his agent.

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There are two types of people in this world: heart attack people and cancer people.

Letters:

I would like to apologize to Adam Sandler, whose image appeared in this blog without my first obtaining his permission. He is in no way affiliated with the words printed here.

Ain’t It Hip: What made you choose to do Bucket List?

Jack Nicholson: Morgan Freeman.

Ain’t It Hip: Really?!

Jack Nicholson: Yes, I was very excited at the opportunity to work with a Black.

Ain’t It Hip: He is a very accomplished actor.

Jack Nicholson: Yeah, Rob Reiner came to me with the script and I wasn’t interested. But when he said that Morgan Freeman was going to be in it, I went hmm… You know, I’d never really worked with an African before… or rather, a Black American.

Ain’t It Hip: Did you see this project as a chance to personally confront getting older?

Jack Nicholson: I saw it as a chance to confront my fear of black people.

Ain’t It Hip: And what about old age? Or maybe, like, death?

Jack Nicholson: They scare me. And I don’t mean that in a racist way. They’re just more frightening than white people. You know, I have trouble relating the people in my own life to black people, or relating black people to the people in my own life. Genetically we have 99 per cent in common with a banana, never mind Morgan Freeman. Or even Adolf Hitler!

Ain’t It Hip: Are you afraid of dying?

A midtown Manhattan office building. Men in grey flannel suits and women resembling Hillary Rodham Clinton – and with names resembling Hillary Rodham Clinton’s – come and go in a ceremonial manner. We have a black president. I am awkwardly alternating between a run and a slow walk because I have to take a shit. A homeless black man once called me a tighty-whitey in Brooklyn because I walked as if I were an uptight white man. He didn’t know that my uptight walk was attributed to holding in a shit.

Moving in past desks of ringing telephones, beneath the buzz of fluorescent lights, we find a closed door inscribed: Mitchell Scapinelli – TALENT. My agent resembles a supporting but recognizable character actor one might find in a Cohen Brothers movie; he adopts mannerisms that are simultaneously absurdities out of nowhere and familiar clichés; he talks fast and brash, wearing the effects of one too many cups of coffee; and he is Jewy, but without God.

I am seated firmly, so as to push back up the shit trying to sneak out my ass. He reads from his ipad, so as to pace his office to better emphasize his frustration. “You say, and I quote: ‘Sometimes when I walk in public, I think black people can read my mind.’ What is that? Like a secret genetic power they keep quiet in fear of a racist backlash? ‘I am very careful about what I think when black people are in close proximity. Even when my internal monologue addresses the possibility of their racial ability to read my thoughts, I try to think about that possibility in a non-racist way.” He hands me the ipad, and as I reach for it, the tip of my shit pushes against my boxer briefs. Calvin Klein. It tickles the cotton, marking it like crayon.

That time in Brooklyn, the shit burst out. I remember the warm mass between my ass and underwear; thinking I’d really have to scrub the back of my thighs in the shower when I got home; wondering if little turds would tear away and drop down my pant leg; deliberating how to subtly abandon the fallen pieces on the street; hoping people around me would assume they belonged to a dog; balancing the mother-load that now shifted on the seat of my underwear, its umbilical cord cut from my asshole.

That must be why people say Oh Shit! when something bad happens, like just before a car accident or when you drop something on the kitchen floor. That’s what I said when I shit myself: “Shit!” And the shit was sitting in my underwear to confirm it. The whole process was: a pain in the ass. Where do these expressions come from? My theory is that they originated with people who shit themselves. Accidents, burdens, grievances: they’re all associated with, described as: shit.

“Nowhere in the interview do you feel it necessary to discuss the actual production of the film! For Christ’s sake, Jack, we’ve talked about this. Do you have any clue how much work it took to twist this thing into: Jack Nicholson is the last honest man in a world gone mad with political correctness? Do I need to be worried about you, Jack? What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin’? Well you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walkin’ around on the streets, and that’s it.” 

An awkward pause follows, in which my agent tries to fill the dead air by making an elbow gesture and a nip-nip noise as if he has just taken a shot of Jim Beam (in reference to my alcoholic lawyer from Easy Rider who will next be portrayed by Zach fucking Braff).

“My advice to you: don’t be hostile to the bottle.” His thumb and index finger reach into the desk drawer to pull out a mickey of prune schnapps – his other fingers extended as if delicately flaunting a cup of tea. “Best godamn drink in the world, dontcha think?” He takes a swig and punches out his elbow, making more nip-nip noises. “I am the motherfucking Easy Riding Nicholson, motherfucker. I AM the motherfucking Nicholson. Now give this man a SLIVOVITZKA!” Drinks are poured.

I learned my sister was really my mother from a Time Magazine researcher who discovered the truth when writing a story about me. She died of cancer – my sister, or mother, not the reporter.

“Your mother never got the irony of calling you a bastard!” jokes my agent. He dims the lights and takes the most recent draft of my screenplay from my hands to read under the warm glow of his desk lamp.

“No, but seriously, tell me more about that. I’m listening.”

My father died of a heart attack a month preceding my Bar Mitzvah. I hadn’t seen the man in eight years.

He fixes us two more drinks, lights a cigar, and encourages me to put my feet up on his leather sofa.