In which our hero confronts himself in Michael Ironside.

LATEST NEWS:  I am a moving space.

Letters: I’d like to apologize to the makers of the original Total Recall film.

FIGHT SCENE.

Jack Nicholson pushes Michael Ironside[1] against the stacked garbage cans in his courtyard, slaps him repeatedly from cheek-to-cheek, and places a pair of large sunglasses on his face. Projectile spurts of saliva shoot from my mouth with bellicose commands. “Be me. Be me!” The sunglasses almost fall off Ironside’s face, but I hammer them against the bridge of his nose with a tough index finger. “Be me.”

I smacked his face with the trashcan lid until no dental records could be detected, and I waited for the plangent gong to fade away.

Is this laughter? Am I laughing?

my own figure coming toward me in a dress which I had never worn, - it was pike-gray, with somewhat of gold. As soon as I shook myself out of this dream, the figure had entirely disappeared. It is strange, however, that, 8 years afterward, I found myself on the very road, to pay one more visit to F., in the dress of which I had dreamed, and which I wore, not from choice, but by accident. However, it may be with matters of this kind generally, this strange illusion in some measure calmed me at the moment of parting. The pain of quitteing for ever noble [Alsace], with all I had gained in it, was softened; and, having at last escaped the excitement of a farewell, I, on a peaceful and quiet journey, pretty well regained my self possession. [2]

A line I remember from an email I cannot find:

> psychiatric unhealthy is just like a problem with your computer:

> it can either be attributed to a software problem or a hardware problem.

For the first time since buying the computer, Jack Nicholson picked up a pencil and let each letter fall to the page like an angel.

Dear Edith,

My name is Michael Ironside. I was born February 12, 1950. I speak fluent Hebrew, German and Russian. I used to pretend to have trouble reading the letters during eye examinations because I wanted glasses. Somehow the eye doctor always knew I was lying. Nowadays I teach drama at a Catholic school beside a park where Jack Nicholson sometimes eats sandwiches.

Love always,

Michael Ironside

Let’s start over: I am Michael Ironside. History might record me as not Jack Nicholson. Let’s start over: I am not famous in any way to anyone. I am a man who eats salami sandwiches. I am an amputated father. I am a haunted uncle. I am a lonely hunter. Or, rather, I am like an uncle. I am avuncular. I am like an uncle once written by Chekhov. I am like Jack Nicholson. Let’s start over.

Interior. Jack Nicholson. If I could make my head explode. If I could peel off my face… If I could take a reddish globule from my brain, pull it out my nostril, and be rid of Michael Ironside, be rid of Jack Nicholson. If I could swing a baseball bat against my own face, crack off my two front teeth, lodge them down my throat – my teeth are already gone. I can see myself pecking at a morsel of cheese, This isn’t me... This isn’t me... I am Jack Nicholson. 

Exterior. Something like watching myself on screen, but not. I can see my face – it is the single visage of a crowd of cinemagoers walking out a movie theatre – a liminal expression between worlds. Will the movie house vanish back into non-existence after the 20^th Century? Do you know who I am? Do people read in the future? Do you know who I am? Are you there? Do you know who I am?  From the book of Holocaust poetry: ‘he that I am forgives him that I was’.[3] Let’s say I am an actor, immured in a role, and now I am ready to step out of character. If I curl my fingers, he curls his; but I can’t get him up. I stand too firm for this to be an out of body experience! He just sits there, waiting for a stroke, waiting for sirens, waiting for his hair and fingernails to grow beneath roses with neither destination nor direction.

NOTE (found written in red on screenplay):

In end, JN must confront JN.

uncertainty if narrator is confronting double from mirror OR if JN is confronting narrator.

All that remains are images collected from my films, BUT those are just characters played.

---

[1] We can say here, “the Ironside character”. As in from Total Recall or Scanners. 

[2] Goethe from his autobiography Truth & Fiction

[3] Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan, from the poem ‘Shroud’ p.71, translated by Michael Hamburger, Persea Books

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.

---

[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.

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.

LATEST NEWS!

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.