Paul Rudnick

1. If while you were asleep, Rumplestiltskin crept into your home and wrote your book for you, that would be a wonderful thing. Because it would mean that you were either a retired President of the United States or a has-been TV personality.

2. Some extremely successful self-published authors often ask their many online readers for advice on plot and character development. This is like asking strangers on the subway if you should get a nosejob.

3. All writers deserve legal access to medical marajuana. And medical vodka.

4. I knew a wealthy woman who lived in a 12-room apartment. Her doting husband also bought her an additional studio apartment in the same building, and furnished it at great expense, for use as her designated Writing Room. She also purchased a special writing wardrobe and a writing hat. As far as I know, she never wrote a word.

This may be why Virginia Woolf didn’t call her classic essay A Co-op Of One’s Own.

5. Some people imagine that talent, life experience and ambition are a writer’s fuel. This is incorrect. Snickers bars are a writer’s fuel.

6. The new way of lying about having read an author’s work is to tell them, “I just downloaded you onto my Kindle.”

7. Just as with grief, at the end of a working day a writer passes through several stages: Exhiliration, Exhaustion, Doubt and If I Have to Think About This Book for One More Second I’m Going to Kill Myself Or Even Better, I’m Going to Kill Anyone Who Answers the Phone at Time-Warner Tech Support.

8. Writers have their own cherished versions of urban legends, including:

The classic play that was written in a weekend.

The author who wrote his or her best work while drunk or high.

The notion that having had an abusive childhood will make you a great writer. Or a better parent.

The writer who was struck by inspiration at Starbucks, and instantly scribbled an outline for what would become their massive bestseller on a napkin.

The writer who was struck by inspiration at Starbucks, but didn’t write their idea down because they couldn’t find a pen or a napkin, and died in poverty and disgrace.

All of these legends are TRUE.

Yesterday the New York Times reported on a lengthy legal battle over the many strip clubs in Houston. A stripper named Jolie “said that lap-dancing was sensual but never crossed a legal line. Even the time she re-enacted one man’s favorite scene from a Peter Pan movie, she said it was purely theatrical. ‘I guess that would be considered bizarre,’ she said, ‘But there’s no harm in that.'”

I need to know: which scene from Peter Pan did that guy have in mind? “I’m Flying”? The part where Peter dresses up as a lady to fool Captain Hook? Something with Smee?

It’s a great tribute to a star when strippers use their name; I bet there are a lot of Jolies and Mileys and Taylors out there. It’s also a proud moment, when a porn film is released with a title based on a more mainstream flick, as in Jurassic Pork, Forrest Hump, or the transgendered title You’ve Got Male Genitalia. After I worked on Addams Family Values, I was thrilled to see, on the shelves of my local triple-X boutique, both Madam’s Family Values and Anus Family Values. But my dream was to combine both the higher and lower end markets in a single title, which I accomplished with In & Out.

I loved American Hustle and not just because Christian Bale, as the con man Irving Rosenfeld, is a dead ringer for my Uncle Morty, although instead of using toupee glue, Morty had something called a Hair System which was attached using metal snaps which had been surgically tucked into his scalp. Jennifer Lawrence, as Irving’s unstable wife Rosalyn, is also the twin of my cousin Arlene, except that Arlene always had some lipstick on her teeth and an adhesive beauty mark which looked like those dots on the spines of library books. The movie is very loosely based on the Abscam scandal, but thanks to the hair, makeup and the extensive use of tinted aviators worn indoors, it’s like a fabulous mini-series starring Lee Horsley, Connie Selleca and Linda Blair.

American Hustle doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it doesn’t try to make any huge statements about the American soul, because it’s having too much fun letting Bradley Cooper and Amy Adams boogie down with some major Dance Fever moves at a disco. Bradley is a federal agent, and he’s always great at playing guys who think they’re smarter and sexier than they actually are; when he’s thinking really hard, you can practically smell the English Leather. Amy Adams, as Irving’s ex-stripper mistress, seems a little tentative at first, maybe because Amy’s specialty is playing giddy, blue-eyed innocence in movies like Enchanted. But when she faces off with Jennifer, Amy crimps her hair and sets her jaw for battle, and she gets much harder-edged, maybe because she’s got such a worthy opponent.

I just have to say it: Jennifer Lawrence is a movie star. Whenever she shows up, the audience practically explodes with happiness. Real stars only come along every decade or so, and watching Jennifer is like seeing Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman or Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine; these ladies are all terrific actresses, but they’d be totally justified in scribbling “Movie Star” under Occupation on their tax returns. Jennifer is even great on talk shows, where she seems smart and funny and just a teeny bit loony, which is the ideal movie star cocktail.

American Hustle also doesn’t consider government corruption to be a very big deal, because after all, it’s focusing on corruption in New Jersey, where the state bird is a naugahyde attache case filled with unmarked twenties. Politicians in New Jersey are almost endearing, because they’re always selling out for the high four figures. Maybe Chris Christie would stop seeming like such a bully if he just internalized a simple fact: sooner or later he’s going to jail.

I know that some people are having trouble accepting American Hustle as a great movie, so maybe they should just think of it as a great movie about New Jersey. American Hustle is about what would happen if Dynasty had been filmed in Passaic, at a mid-level mall, if you ask me.

Last night I saw another one of those Coca-Cola commercials featuring a family of polar bears, galloping and sliding and hugging through the snow. As they sip from bottles of Coke, they build a snowman, and give him a bottle of Coke. I find these ads deeply disturbing: where do the polar bears get their bottles of Coke? Have they mauled a team of arctic researchers? How do the bears recycle the bottles? In real life, wouldn’t drinking Coke be unhealthy for polar bears? Why isn’t there at least one unmarried or recently divorced, weight-conscious polar bear sipping Diet Coke?

Here’s a polar bear being introduced to Coke, by an unscrupulous penguin:

Here’s the bear drinking alone, while his family hibernates:

The bear is now hooked, and no longer himself:

The whole family gets involved, in what is clearly polar crack:

A threat, to bears who won’t drink Coke:

Coked out of his mind:

Why aren’t the younger bears in school?

Yeah, that’s right:

This bear is down to his last bottle, and getting desperate:

He’s hit bottom, and is finally ready to fix his life:

His first meeting, to get off the stuff:

Sober:

A blizzard is about to hit much of the US, so just like the bears, be careful out there!

Every year there’s a trending illness: remember hypoglycemia? Or fibromyalgia? Remember the years when everyone had Adult ADD, or decided that they were bipolar? Last year Daryl Hannah announced that as a child, she’d been diagnosed with autism, and Susan Boyle revealed that she had Asperger’s. Psychiatrists have said that recently, many of their patients have been complaining of Generalized Anxiety, and in this spirit, I’d like everyone to start worrying about the following things:

1. Have you ever wondered if your spouse might be a secret sleeper agent for a terrorist organization? Wouldn’t this explain a lot of things, like their odd, prolonged absences, their strange internet habits and the terrible state of their underwear?

2. What if your flu shot was actually filled with radioactive isotopes which have allowed your Mom to track your movements every second of the day, and to know when you’re not wearing enough layers?

3. What if after a few more years of research, it turns out that gluten, peanuts and whole milk are the most powerful cancer-fighting agents ever?

4. What if you’re absolutely right, and late at night, after you’ve fallen asleep, someone does break into your apartment not to steal anything, but to move your keys?

5. What if your parents never told you that you were adopted, and your real parents were warm and loving billionaires who spent their entire lives searching for you, until they died and left all of their money to Unicef? Is there any way you could sue Unicef?

6. What if you don’t just need a great haircut, but you actually have bad hair?

7. What if your favorite color doesn’t look good on you?

8. What if no one will ever love you enough to buy you a private jet?

Because it’s New Year’s Eve, I’d like to pay tribute to maybe the finest TV show ever, which ran on the Discovery Channel from 2009 through 2011, and which was called, gloriously, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. This show told the stories, through documentary interviews and re-enactments, of women who managed to give birth without being aware they were pregnant, and one episode was titled Baby In My Sweatpants.

The women’s stories were often similar: the surprise-Mom was using birth control, she didn’t gain weight, she’d had other children, but she still Didn’t Know. One morning she experiences agonizing stomach cramps, which she blames on either food poisoning or the flu. Then she retreats, most often to the bathroom at McDonalds, where she takes, in the words of one surprise-Mom, “a wicked dump”, followed by a wave of relief: “I mean, I just felt so much better.” Then the toilet starts to wail.

The surprise-Mom is shocked but ultimately delighted and she then informs the surprise-Dad, who says something like, “I didn’t see that coming!” and then welcomes the new addition. My concern is this: someday, that surprise-baby will grow up and most likely watch his or her episode, the way a person might page through a wedding album or graduation photos. Will that now-grown baby be proud to learn that they were not only an accident, but possibly a bad batch of McNuggets?

In the coming year I’d like to see the following new shows: I Sued My Parents For Mental Anguish, I Was A Toilet Baby, and I Still Wear Those Sweatpants. There’s an actual upcoming show called Sex Sent Me to the ER, which includes the story of a 400-pound male virgin who, while having first-time sex with his 100-pound girlfriend, accidentally slams her head through the wall. “My first reaction,” the guy recalls, “was that I killed her. I thought, Jen is dead.” Happily, Jen only has a concussion, and a TV deal.

An early clip from Sex Sent Me to the ER also features a threeway gone wrong, with the two women screaming at each other, as the man, lying on a gurney in a hospital gown, yells, “Shut up! I’m the one with the fractured penis!”

This is a clip of one of the best musical numbers ever, from Grand Hotel, which
was gorgeously staged by Tommy Tune. It stars Michael Jeter
as a timid accountant who’s just checked into the hotel. Brent Barrett, who’s wonderful
as the Baron, had replaced David James Carroll, who would soon die of
complications from HIV/AIDS, as would the extraordinary Mr. Jeter.
The clip is from the 1990 Tony Awards, and there’s a longer version,
which includes an introduction by a sultry Kathleen Turner and
Jeter’s acceptance speech, which is available on Youtube.
If you click on this clip, it should go full screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QUCt4t92Zs

A friend once told me that in the past year he’d been far too nice, and he resolved that in the year ahead he’d become more, as he put it, “cunty.” In this fine American spirit, here are some resolutions I’m considering:

1. In 2014, I’m going to become more petty. I’m going to say to people, “Tell me what you thought of the new Scorsese movie, in detail. So I can stop listening.”

2. In 2014, I’m going to begin criticizing strangers to their faces: “There’s no reason for you to be wearing black tights and high-heeled black suede boots.You’re not in Pippin.” “If you keep kissing that baby, you’ll put a dent in its skull.” “Stop shreik-laughing with all of your friends on the street, or I’ll push you in front of a car.”

3. In 2014, whenever I’m waiting in line for anything, I’m going to make as many exasperated faces and snorting noises as possible, so that everyone around me will understand how superior I am.

4. In 2014, if I can’t get a waiter’s attention, I’m going to tip only 5% and defecate on my chair.

5. In 2014, if it’s raining, I’m going to blame Obamacare.

6. In 2014, if someone is blocking the sidewalk in order to take a photo of their family, I’m going to get in the picture and expose myself.

7. In 2014, if I get a phone call asking for a charitable donation, I’m going to ask the caller, “But how can I be sure that my money will only go to the attractive children?”

8. In 2014, whenever anyone tells me, “Happy New Year!” I’m going to smile secretively and murmur, “Just wait.”

People are always looking for parting-of-the-red-sea, instant-cure miracles, which are hard to come by. I prefer the following truly inexplicable wonders:

1. Flush toilets.

2. Airplanes. As with flush toilets, I know that science can explain how they work, but I will never understand these explanations.

3. Firefighters, doctors and nurses, teachers, police officers and sanitation workers.

4. My partner John, and our three imaginary children, who are away at boarding school and really no trouble at all.

5.The fact that Phil Robertson, the devoutly religious patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan, is obviously going to hell.

6. Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl and activist, who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, because she supported the education of female students. This young woman is both unthinkably brave, and the opposite of Phil Robertson.

7. Whoever designed and built the parks which now almost encircle Manhattan.

8. Good dogs. I’m not going to include cats, just to spite them.

9. Lilac chocolate.

10. President Obama. And yes, I can now imagine so many people, both Democrats and Republicans, sputtering their complaints, which are sometimes valid, about President Obama. Two words: President Romney.

11. Anyone who wears anything with a rainbow on it, at the upcoming Olympics.

12. The fact that I was able to download the picture below, which is captioned “Unicorn Pooping a Rainbow.”

Like most genuinely stylish people, my mother could be quite strict. Elegance, as I believe Coco Chanel once said, is refusal. Here are some of the things my mother would not do:

Wear pants.

Dye her hair.

Wear anything synthetic.

Leave the house without makeup. Never a garish or noticeable amount, but makeup made her feel respectable, attractive, and prepared to face the day.

Wear fur. She didn’t have any great moral objection to wearing fur, but an aesthetic one. Fur could easily become very Miami Beach. When my Aunt Lil once bought a white mink stole, my mother didn’t approve, but she was too afraid of Lil to voice any objections. Lil was an amazing woman, and rather than slouching the stole, she wore it hanging around her neck with the squared-off ends somewhere near her knees; the stole looked like a white mink prayer shawl. If Lil was going to buy a fur, she wanted the world to take a good long look at it.

My mother struggled with her weight her entire life; her own mother had put her on diet pills when she was twelve years old. My mother tried every possible diet, from Atkins to the grapefruit diet to something which involved only popcorn and Diet Coke. One of her dreams, and she kept a file on this, was to create a comprehensive encyclopedia of failed diets. But she’d almost never shop at plus-size stores like Lane Bryant or The Forgotten Woman, because that meant you’d given up, and entered a world of elastic waistbands and way too much black and navy blue stretch fabric.

My mother joined Weight Watchers with her best friend Ann, and they stuck with the program. They bought little metal scales to weigh their food, and they forced themselves to eat the Weight Watchers frozen dinners, which looked like, as my mother put it, “frozen diapers.” Once my mother had lost thirty pounds, she bought herself a wardrobe of beautiful and expensive new dresses. But when the weight came back, she finally gave this wardrobe away. Maintaining her weight loss had been too exhausting.

There was another woman in her Weight Watchers program whom my mother admired because, while she was larger than my Mom, she was always very well-dressed. In her later years, my mother discovered Marimekko dresses, which she loved. These dresses were all-cotton, and imported – the company was based in Finland. The signature Marimekko prints were bold and cheerful, and my mother accessorized them with silk scarves and silver Mexican jewelry, and she looked terrific.

My mother was a publicist, and one of the shows she worked on was an exuberant, anti-apartheid South African musical called Sarafina (and yes, for you musical theater geeks, the show was technically called Sarafina!) The show’s cast was almost entirely teenage South African girls, and these girls thought that my Mom was the best-dressed woman they’d ever seen. The girls were on a budget, so my Mom took them to the Gap and advised them on buying inexpensive but appealing items, and to show their appreciation, the girls gave my Mom one of their signature derbies.

My mother was the Nelson Mandela of retail.

It’s easy to spot a stylish person, at any price point, because they don’t look like anybody else. People like to talk about being comfortable in your own skin; my mother was comfortable in her Marimekkos.

You can pretend that you’re always working, because you’re always thinking. Once in a while, I will catch myself actually thinking about something I’m working on, and I’ll be shocked. And then I’ll award myself bonus points.

You can completely justify eavesdropping, as “research.” A riter can justify anything as “research.” “Your Honor, I only got drunk and ran over a pedestrian because I needed to experience that feeling of reckless abandon, for my new collection of short stories.”

There’s been a lot of Science Section chatter lately, about the dangers of too much sitting. Researchers claim that, especially due to the constant use of tech products, people are sitting more than ever, which can have dire consequences in terms of obesity and heart attacks. I agree with this research wholeheartedly, but increased exercise is not the solution. Lying down is the solution. Riting and prostitution are almost the only professions which can be practiced while lying down. Except of course, prostitutes have dignity.

When you’re riting, and the work is going well, there’s a brief bubble of elation. This bubble can only be sustained by never allowing anyone else to read what you’ve ritten, or by the end of the world. Both are valid options.

I’m always impressed by political prisoners who manage to rite deeply moving, three volume novels on scraps of paper. These scraps are then smuggled out of the barren prison by being placed up another prisoner’s ass. That second prisoner must be grateful that the first prisoner wasn’t using a laptop.

When something I’ve ritten is published in another language, I somehow imagine that I can now speak that language.

1. All gifts would include receipts.

2. It wouldn’t be a question of who’s been naughty or nice, but who voted Democratic.

3. The elves would have their own museum at the North Pole, honoring their culture, and their sacrifice.

4. Many children would receive not just gifts, but scholarships.

5. After coming down every chimney and discovering a glass of milk and a plate of cookies, Santa would sigh and insist, “My doctor is gonna kill me…”

6. Mrs. Claus would have her own interests, including Peruvian folk-dancing and water aerobics.

7. The reindeer would be named Donald, Blintzes, Mrs. Traub, Henny, Tuchis and Pisher.

8. As he approached each home, instead of calling out, “Ho ho ho”, Santa would yell, “It’s just me! Don’t shoot! I’m kidding!”

9. At the end of each Christmas, Santa would moan, “I can’t move!”

10. Children all over the world would send Santa hand-written thank-you notes because, as their mothers would tell them, “We’re not animals.”