In which our hero performs misanthropic acts in the midst of a traffic jam.

NEWS: We make our own fate.

LETTERS: I’d like to apologize to Eugene O’Neill, to Anton Chekhov, to William Shakespeare (whom I’ve never had the pleasure of working with) for the things I said and the things I say. Hum, mum, hughm meughm, yum….

He had lost his sunglasses somewhere. That’s why he was late. Where were they? Stolen! No, I lost them. Stolen! I lost ‘em… STOLEN!!!! Lost ‘em! Stolen! Losten! Ha, ha, ha!!! Ho, ho, ho!!!

With an awful smell in his mouth lingering for the third day in a row and without a couple nights’ sleep in my eyes – no fucking sunglasses to hide them – Jack Nicholson poses in a Santa outfit in front of green screen. When asked if he’d like some coffee or tea, he requests “a shot of water."  Then I do the little ‘nip ‘nip Easy Rider thing with my elbow. Those advertising guys love that.

Exterior. Westside Highway. Day. In the midst of a traffic jam, he stood from the piano on the back of the exterminator’s pickup and jumped over the driver’s head, which shrugged our hero off with an eye-rolling grin. Jack stretched his hands out freely, pissing all over the back window of a white Honda Civic, and howled at the wind. The initial force of his flaxen spray ricocheted into the flap-flap October breeze, and golden sprinkles danced towards his face where they were imbibed by pores his sunglasses would have otherwise protected. Safely shielded by the rear window, Ironside’s son was unsure if he should look away or not. Before time allowed the boy reaction, the exterminator honked to warn Nicholson that Michael Ironside had stepped out of the car. [CUE Jerry Goldsmith’s score to Total Recall].

            “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The urine slid down the windshield with perfect smoothness and there was no reason to believe it would leave a stain – perhaps something small, but hidden within the deluged gap demarcating the trunk.

            “That’s my kid, asshole!”

            “Fuck off, Family Man!”

            “If you don’t put that thing away in the next –” 

Upon realizing that the impassioned villain would continue to shout, threaten, preach, Nicholson redirected his piss onto Ironside’s forehead.            

Before he knew it, the Honda Civic reversed into the truck and he was thrown off the roof. Backing into the car behind him, the exterminator positioned his pickup for attack on the Honda Civic. The child went flying into the front seat, and Nicholson did not know who was more worried, Ironside or Edith. He laughed pleasurably and smashed their front window in with a baseball bat. “That’s how you do it!” He screamed at the now dented metal frame. “You see that? That’s how you do it!” He pointed the bat toward Ironside and warned, “A wife and kid is no life for you! You are alone!!” He presented the bat with a devilish grin, and a final trickle of urine sneaked out his flaccid penis and stained his pants. He looked down, pulled a hair from his eyebrow and held it up for the couple to ponder.

The papers described the performance as passionate and enraged but this they had only come to by watching my films. “Perhaps it’s time to step out of the spotlight. Take a break from yourself,” suggested my agent. This is not a confession.

In which our hero finds himself an uninvited guest.

NEWS: I am alone in my own body.

Letters: I’d like to apologize to New York Times columnist A.O. Scott for misappropriating his thoughts on Chinatown.

Sixty-nine years old and cross-legged on the dirty floor of a Hell’s Kitchen loft, brown bag in his fist, our hero makes it abundantly clear to three young men sitting in front of him that his life has not turned out like the Chekhov character’s.[1] Just as they begin to sympathize with the old drunk, he quickly asserts that having never loved before he could not possibly have any regrets because he has never known any other way of living.

He will soon die. Alone, but not lonely.

A mother with blond highlights brusquely lifts her cross-legged child from the floor, and upon being asked to leave by several larger men at the party, Jack Nicholson is at first hurt and at second appalled. One of the men leans down to council, “I assure you, sir. Your presence will not be missed at Lonnie Dreysdale’s birthday party.” 

Tilting his head like a confused dog in order to bring his eyebrow to his finger, he hiccups affectionately at the second woman to pick up one of the young men at his side, and he softly explains, “I have none myself.” To this, his third young friend begins to cry. The child wails out, and Edith and Ironside, who had ignored our hero's presence with desultory talk, cannot avoid the slow turn of his Nicholson eyes – as if in a horror movie. A belligerent point in his fellow thespian’s direction: “Give me your best Eugene O’Neill impression!” Lower lip atremble, Ironside pleads, demands, “Please, leave us alone.”

It was his agent who got him the Dreysdale gig. But is was God-damned humiliating! Dressing up like a sloppy Joker. Birthday parties… Let me see you do Eugene O’Neill, for fuck’s sake! Eugene-fucking-O’Neill.

Under sentry, the scotch proved its strength over his mouth in the feat to determine who would let pass his next words. “Look here,” he waved the pocket-sized bottle. “Am I this? Is this me?” Edith whispered in Ironside’s ear. Attempting to explain that he was the uncle of the young man in the Chekhov play, Jack Nicholson stumbled, “I’m the gabon! Ba-dalup! Balop chop…” Ironside walked outside with a small boy, presumably his son, and Nicholson’s brown bag pursued.

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[1] This refers to an earlier blog post [In which our hero discusses the works of Anton Chekhov ] in which Mr. Nicholson recalls a Chekhov character, an old country doctor who finds love late in life, whom he has often felt he would end up like. It is assumed that he has returned to these thoughts in conversation at the party.