Paul Rudnick

I’ve just seen August:Osage County and I thought it was wonderful, and not only because the movie justifies all of my most irrational prejudices about gentiles. Although according to this film, they all enjoy drinking, taking pills and sassing their mothers, who certainly deserve to be sassed. While some people will claim that August:Osage County is a soap opera, I disagree. It’s at least ten soap operas, which makes the whole thing even more fun, and a perfect Yuletide treat for families who consider chain-smoking, slapping and incest to be holiday traditions.

It’s especially great to watch that supreme actress, Meryl Streep, face off with that supreme movie star, Julia Roberts, who plays Meryl’s daughter. Of course, Meryl can demolish all of the scenery for miles around, with just the flick of an eyelash, but Julia’s got her haggard goddess glamour, which is equally powerful. Meryl’s character has cancer, so she gets to lurch around with either a scraggly scalp or a curly dark wig, while Julia responds with gritted teeth and peasant tops. It’s sort of like watching a high-stakes poker game, which begins when everyone slams their Oscars onto the table.

The rest of the cast is perfect as well, with Margo Martindale and Chuck Cooper supplying midwestern realness, and Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch as visiting ambassadors to the land of drawl. When everyone, including Julianne Nicholson, Abigail Breslin, Dermot Mulroney and Juliette Lewis, sits down for a post-funeral dinner, the food flies. Everyone behaves terribly, and I kept thinking that if this was my family, we’d add phrases like, “Well, you’re welcome to have your opinion, even if it’s stupid”, “I hear what you’re saying, and now I understand why you went to a state school”, and “Let’s all just please keep our voices down, because the neighbors don’t need to know that we’re disgusting.”

Movies like August:Osage County remind us that you don’t need hobbits and CGI space capsules to have a good time, and that Meryl smirking behind her huge sunglasses is a terrifying special effect. The movie’s producers have seemed nervous, and the TV ads are trying to sell the film as if it’s a cross between Steel Magnolias and A Madea Christmas. The movie’s based on the terrific Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and the director makes a few half-hearted attempts at opening things up, by adding some longshots of the open prairie and a symbolic flock of birds, flying off. But I think that America will love watching Meryl and Julia wrestling on the floor, and maybe the ads should just use the tagline, “A Movie for Anyone Who’s Ever Wanted to Strangle Their Mom.” I think they might also add, “The Only Holiday Blockbuster That Isn’t At Least 45 Minutes Too Long.”

So please, because it’s Christmas Eve, I’d just like to remind everyone to drive safely and punch their parents. I just saw that footage of Pope Francis visiting with the retired Pope Benedict, and they were wearing matching white-and-gold outfits, like Siegfried and Roy. And I’m pretty sure they were chatting about world peace, and whether Meryl and Julia got along in real life, if you ask me.

I wrote a book called I’ll Take It, which was a tribute to my mother, her sisters, and their inspiring gift for shopping. They taught me that shopping is not a frivolous or shameful activity, but a celebration of both the human spirit, and the human spirit’s reverence for tchotkes, factory seconds, and the difference between true sale items and the crap they manufacture directly for those bogus “outlet” stores.

I’ve just read that Barneys is re-claiming its original store on 7th Avenue and 17th Street, now that Loehmann’s, the current tenant, is going out of business. This is a bittersweet moment, because while Barneys’ return to its ancestral home has a Lord of the Rings-scale resonance, we must all take a moment to mourn the passing of Loehmann’s, for what it once was.

The original Loehmann’s, founded in 1921, was housed in Brooklyn, and it was a true discount nirvana, where manufacturers would discreetly send their unsold, often high-end goods. Mrs. Frieda Loehmann lived over the store, and she would stand watch, making change, using the bills tucked within her ancient black dresses. She was a figure from Edgar Allen Poe, if Poe had understood the orgasm of a silk St. Laurent blouse, maybe missing a button, but still 80% off what you’d pay at Bergdorf’s.

Loehmann’s was considered a sacred and secret destination; you had to know about it. It was famous for its large, open, proudly democratic dressing room. There were no individual changing areas, so all the women would stand in their underwear, trying things on and freely offering advice to strangers: “That looks marvelous on you.” “It’s hitching up in the back.” “Frankly, it’s a little young.”

Husbands and sons were not welcome at Loehmann’s; their job was to stand uncomfortably off in a corner, holding a wife’s or a mother’s purse, so that the women’s hands would be free, to shop.

Years later, after Loehmann’s had been sold to a conglomerate, it became a nationwide chain, and lost its legendary luster. There were too many stores, and too few genuine finds, the racks filled with what could only be termed “a whole lot of polyester nothing.” Or as my aunts liked to say, while holding up a shirtwaist, “This is from those sisters, Polly and Esther.”

Of course, part of the Loehmann’s experience involved patiently pawing through chrome racks filled with junk, and then coming upon a gem, and gasping. The branch on 7th Avenue had a basement filled with menswear, and I’d occasionally find a true bargain, on something from last season. But it wasn’t the old Loehmann’s; it was just a slightly more sophisticated Daffy’s.

So maybe it was time for Loehmann’s to go, and for Barneys to rediscover its downtown roots. There was once a memorable TV ad for Barneys, where a bunch of kids sat on a New York stoop, discussing what they wanted to be when they grew up. One kid wanted to be a lawyer, another wanted to be a fireman, and a third aimed to become president. The group turned to a schnooky kid and someone asked, “So Barney, what’re you gonna be?” Young Barney replied, thoughtfully, “Well, you’re all gonna need clothes…”

After I’ll Take It was first published, it was widely read among my Aunt Lil’s friends in South Florida, who knew a thing or two about shopping. Of course, to save money, there was basically only one copy of the book in the entire state, and it would circulate among hundreds of women, many of whom would tell me, “I’m next.” While this wasn’t good for sales, I couldn’t complain.

My mother liked to buy used copies of I’ll Take It from Amazon, and give them as gifts. There’s a poetry to that.

I’d like to remake this as a feature film:

1. If you’d like to create an especially original tablescape for your Christmas Day family dinner, you have too much free time.

2. If you’re puzzled over how to dispose of a difficult item, such as a battery, a light bulb or an old cell phone, simply select any recycling bin and hide the item underneath whatever else is in there.

3. To eliminate a tricky stain, such as blood, red wine or grease, first thoroughly soak the area in white vinegar. Then place the fabric between two sheets of clean paper towels and press lightly with an iron set on a medium heat. Then roll the fabric in a white linen dishtowel and leave it in a cool, dark place overnight. Then throw it out.

4. If your young children grow fidgety during a long car trip, bring along a small duffel filled with books, games and snacks. Then leave the children at any police station or firehouse and never look back.

5. If you’d like to express your holiday gratitude to a special teacher, give them a colorfully wrapped tin of home-baked treats, and a hand-written note which says, “You’d be making more money at Arby’s.”

6. To create a memorable Yuletide eggnog, fill a punchbowl with eggnog, cinnamon sticks, tiny marshmallows and a human hand.

7. To preserve each year’s supply of Christmas cards from loved ones, ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”

8. If your holiday season is being spoiled by endless family debates over the Duck Dynasty situation, just sigh, smile thoughtfully and remember that wise adage, “If ducks had guns…”

Because the reading of my play yesterday went well I’m in the holiday spirit.
This is what I’ve done to my fingernails:

I’ve also created a punchbowl that looks as if it’s having a lobotomy,
and I didn’t forget my refrigerator:

Here’s the results of a jolly Xmas lynch mob:

This is how they celebrate Christmas at Pottery Barn.
It’s called “If Santa Had Taste”:

This is what happens when you Google
Disgusting Christmas Ornaments. It’s called
“Toothy Sack ‘O Flesh”:

These are ornaments shaped like silvery hand grenades,
for all the tiny terrorists on your list:

This final image truly reflects the spirit of
the holidays, in a Disney Nativity. It also shows
what would happen if Mickey and Minnie had a child:

As we should all remember to say to non-Christians, happy holidays!
And as we should say to atheists, happy Wednesday!

There’s going to be a reading of my new play today, which makes me suitably nervous, since I’ve never heard the play out loud before. This situation has also made me think about New York and Tom Eyen.

I met Tom shortly after I’d first moved to the city. New Yorkers always call it “the city” because they sincerely believe that no other cities exist. I was at the New York Health&Racquet Club, a gym which is astoundingly still there, on East 13th Street, just off Fifth Avenue. Tom had written such off-broadway hits as The White Whore and the Bit Player and Women Behind Bars; he’d also written many episodes of the TV series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, as well as the book and lyrics for Dreamgirls. I always think of Tom whenever I see a 12-year-old belting out “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” on a TV singing competition. And when it’s a 12-year-old I also wonder, where is that kid not going? On a field trip?

Tom had a wicked tongue and a comprehensive knowledge of New York real estate. If you were apartment hunting, he would tell you exactly which buildings to investigate, which apartments were available and their square footage. Anyway, I was at the gym and a not particularly pleasant man was haranguing me. Tom appeared and pretended that he and I were best friends, and the unpleasant guy wandered off. Tom wasn’t hitting on me; he was rescuing me. We started chatting and I told him that I wanted to be a writer. He talked about working hard and about ignoring what other people thought and most especially, about sticking with it. He said, “Because I intend to have career longevity.” Then he strolled a few yards away and stepped onto a narrow cast-iron circular staircase. He turned, in his t-shirt and gym shorts, and said, quite grandly, “Like Marlene.”

Here are some of the things which have happened near 13th Street and Fifth Avenue since then: there was a disco called Ozma which closed rapidly. There was a gallery which had a photography show of celebrity portraits, where all of the stars were wearing red shoes. There was a Texas-themed restaurant called The Lone Star Cafe, which had a Chevrolet-sized statue of an iguana on the roof. And one day an elderly driver lost control of her car and plowed into Washington Square Park, killing several people and injuring others, which accounts for the stanchions which have been permanently placed near the arch.

There’s also a branch of Cohens Fashion Optical on Fifth and 14th, where I bought my glasses. I once left them in the back seat of a cab, where a kind passenger found them and tracked me down, using the receipt from Cohens, which was in my eyeglass case. He refused any sort of reward, so I gave him a box of cookies which were frosted to look like bright yellow taxis.

A huge new building has just gone up across from Cohens, housing The New School. This building has aggressively assymetrical architecture and zigzag windows; it’s not quite finished, but it already looks dated.

New York can make you feel desperately old or eternally young, because it keeps changing.

So today I get to hear my play, which I’m very excited about. And very nervous about. And I’m so glad this is all happening in New York.

1. Give me 100 million dollars so I won’t come to your house and kill you.

2. Give me 20 million dollars so I can make a searingly honest, deeply personal, five hour independant black-and-white film about my suburban childhood and how everyone was mean to me.

3. Give me 70 million dollars to not make you watch the movie I just described.

4. Give me 58 million dollars to not press all the buttons in the elevator.

5. Give me $2.48 to kill the child who just pressed all the buttons in the elevator. The $2.48 is to buy paper towels to clean the blood off my hands.

6. Give me 80 million dollars to call you once an hour and tell you that everyone else is wrong about you.

7. Give me 72 million dollars to create a multi-part, multi-media dance/theater tone poem about the relationship between quantum physics, celebrity culture and global warming. This piece will be hugely acclaimed in France.

8. Give me enough money to declare war on France.

9. Give me 58,000 dollars to not tell you how your favorite cable series, which you’ve DVR’ed but haven’t found time to watch yet, ends.

10. Give me 8 million dollars to design a truly flattering downfilled piece of clothing.

11. Give me $5 to turn to the person in the theater whose cell phone has just gone off during the performance and tell them, “Everyone hates you. Not just because of your cell phone. They just hate you.”

12. Give me 18 billion dollars to see Blue is the Warmest Color again.

13. Give me 20,000 dollars to grab the smelly food off the lap of the person eating it in the movie theater and dump it on their head. I’ll need the money to pay for my hospitalization after that person beats me up. But it will have been worth it.

14. Give me $1 to buy a Snickers bar from a newsstand. Then give me $10 to buy the same Snickers bar in the lobby of a not-for-profit theater,

15. Give me 30,000 dollars to call your Mom and tell her that you really did have a doctor’s appointment.

16. Give me 50,000 dollars to call your therapist and tell him that you killed yourself and that he should blame himself.

17. Give me 78 million dollars to bring you toilet paper after you’ve gotten home, put on your sweatpants and then remembered that you’re out of toilet paper. And paper napkins. And Kleenex. And wrapping paper.

18. Give me $20 and I swear I’ll pay you back as soon as I can find a cash machine.

I have never bought anything on any of the home shopping channels and I never will, but I find these programs mesmerizing. First, because they represent shopping in its purest and most American form; these channels are shopping porn. But beyond that, I salute the hosts on these shows, because they are never allowed to stop talking, for hours at a stretch, because a second of dead air might allow a viewer to realize that maybe she doesn’t really need that hand-tooled western-style shoulderbag air-brushed with butterflies and zebras.
The hosts therefore can become giddy and desperate, as they struggle to find one more way of describing a space heater disguised to look like a flickering fireplace, or Waterford candleholders in the shape of seahorses. Sometimes I wait for a host to exclaim, “My cousin had polio, but after she purchased this piece of abstract wrought-iron wall art, at our one-time-only low, low price, well, the next day she was out in the yard playing touch football!”
One of my favorite moments occured deep into a segment offering what is always referred to, maybe for legal reasons, as “Tiffany-style lighting.” The hosts encourage shoppers to fill their homes with colorful lamps, sconces, chandeliers and ceiling fans, and they always mention that, “This piece is created from over 876 individual pieces of stained glass. Can you imagine?”
The host that day was a heartfelt guy, and I don’t know for sure if he was gay, but he was a home shopping host in a red turtleneck sweater selling Tiffany-style lamps. He was insisting that these lamps are perfect for any home, and he said that both of his brothers owned Tiffany-style lamps, and that the brothers were all very different. “My younger brother is a math wiz,” he said, “even when he was a baby, he could solve any problem lickety-split, and today he’s a math professor at a major university. And my older brother was an athlete, he was the star quarterback on his high school and college teams, and he even played a few seasons of pro football. And as for me, well..”
He took a long, almost tearful pause, as his mind considered every possible choice of words. Finally he finished his thought:
“And as for me, well…I was…creative and emotional.”
At that moment I loved that host so much that I almost bought a lamp.

1. There are no rules.

2. Everyone will expect you to be properly somber or distraught or devestated: ignore them. It’s one of the priveleges of grief: no one can tell you how to behave.

3. People will approach you and try to say exactly the right thing, as if there is a right thing. I read that, after her husband died, someone asked Dorothy Parker if there was anything they could do. She answered, “You can bring my husband back.” When the person looked stunned, Parker continued, “And if you can’t do that, then I’d like a ham sandwich.”

4. As for God and faith, the author and screenwriter William Goldman said the perfect thing. He was talking about Hollywood, but his words apply to religion as well: “Nobody knows anything.” Despite centuries of dogma and parchment and churches and mosques and synagogues: no one knows anything. Your guess is as good as mine.

5. Funerals are never fun, because they’re orgies of respectability. Memorials are usually better, because they reflect the personality of the deceased. I went to a memorial at the Public Theater for Ed Kleban, who wrote the lyrics for A Chorus Line, and who’d been an appealing if eccentric character. One of Ed’s closest friends got up and began her remarks by saying, “God knows, Ed was cheap.” Everyone laughed, because the woman was right, and because she’d clearly known and loved Ed. Ed had also loved sheep, although not in any erotic way, but when I’d gone to his apartment, he’d had many issues of a magazine called Sheep! fanned out on his coffee table.
When I met Ed he’d made a fortune from A Chorus Line, and I was just out of college and living in a studio apartment hellhole with cockroaches. One morning Ed called me and asked, quite seriously, “Paul, I want your opinion. Should I have a car and driver on call 24 hours a day?” I was furious, but I finally sputtered, “EVERYONE should have a car and driver on call 24 hours a day!”

6.When my mother was in her apartment, but undergoing hospice care, a very nice social worker appeared and asked if my Mom would like to speak with a rabbi. I asked my Mom, and she said no. Then my Mom summoned me back to her bedside and said, cackling with laughter, “Tell that social worker to tell the rabbi that God is dead!” I repeated this to the social worker, who murmured, “I don’t think I can tell him that.”

7. During the peak years of the American AIDS crisis, memorials were so common that people would compare and rank them. This was an entirely human response to chaos.

8. When I see those mountains of cheap flowers, heart-shaped helium balloons and stuffed animals which appear following shootings and other tragedies, I think all sorts of things. First, I remember those Egyptian tombs where the pharoahs are surrounded by the luxury goods which they’ll use in the next world. Then I wonder about the people who’ll eventually have to dispose of the rotting flowers and the rain-soaked teddy bears. Then I get over myself and know that if creating those memorials helps people to express their grief, then those teddy bears have served a purpose. When it comes to grief, good taste is beside the point.

9. A dear friend of mine is from the South, where grief can become gleefully competitive. As he once told me, “It’s not really a funeral unless someone falls into the open grave.”

Question: Since the governments of India, Australia and Russia have all banned gay marriage and in some cases, criminalized gay lives, has it become possible to hate an entire country?

Answer: No, since obviously many of these countries’ citizens strongly disagree with their governments’ policies. It’s possible, however, to irrationally hate Germany, for other reasons, pretty much forever.

Question: If little girls, despite so many preferable female role models, still insist on wanting to become princesses, what should a responsible parent do?

Answer: The parent should declare the child an official Princess, and then force her to marry a royal creep like Prince Albert of Monaco.Then the child should be required to be polite and charming at all times, and to pretend a sincere interest in the lives of all of her boring subjects. Then the child should have to wear a slim-fitting gown and high heels, and stand perfectly still and wave, for several hours every day. Finally, everyone in the neighborhood should scream insults at her, tell her that royalty is an archaic institution, and demand that she produce an heir.

Question: What about gun control?

Answer: If someone wants to purchase a firearm, they should be required by law to be photographed holding the gun, naked.

Question: If your comb accidentally falls into the toilet, even if that toilet is sparkling clean and has been recently flushed, once you fish the comb out of the toilet and submerge it in boiling water to sterilize it, is it ever possible to still use that comb?

Answer: Only if you want poop hair.

Because we’re discussing morality, I’m including photos from a current production of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by the wonderful Uptown Players in Dallas. In a battle between the fundamentalist protestors and the cast of the show, the winners are clear. Because those actors are seriously cute.

Teenage boys sincerely believe that body sprays are a substitute for bathing. Why are teenage boys always wrong about everything?

I’m sure that at some point, everyone has been trapped in an elevator with a woman who’s doused herself with an entire bottle of perfume. The polite response is to start by making choking noises, and then you should fall to the floor while moaning, “Cheap…Chanel Number Five…knockoff…” Then, with your last breath, you should say, “You win…microfilm is in the…the…” And then pretend to die.

Rock crystal deodorants do not work. Using them is like chanting to eliminate body odor.

When that Orthodox Jewish man, wearing many layers of clothing, starts working out next to me at the gym, would it be okay for me to tell him that the Messiah has just returned, way, way over by the basketball courts?

In the first Ron Burgundy movie, Paul Rudd used an aftershave called Sex Panther, which made women vomit. I once met Paul Rudd and he was incredibly nice and he never suggested that there was only room on the planet for one of us.

While I’m waiting for a train at Penn Station, I always like to go into KMart and sniff all of the latest Martha Stewart candles. They have names like Nantucket Breeze and Fresh Linen and Clean Rain. I wish that Martha would really go for it, and add candles called White Supremacy and April Indictment and Hostile Takeover.

Scented fabric softener is just Axe body spray for your towels.

Real estate agents will often advise clients to bake cookies, just before the open house, so that the apartment will smell inviting. The aroma of freshly baked cookies is just Axe body spray for a cramped one-bedroom.

There is actually a Glade air freshener scent called Pure Vanilla Joy. I love the Glade commercials where a homemaker proudly places her plastic vase-shaped Glade air freshener dispenser on her sideboard, because it’s too attractive to hide. I want her to turn to the camera and confide, “Now no one will know that it’s a crack house.”

Doesn’t the Glade dispenser in the photo above look like a diagram for a strange new birth control device?

I like it when manufacturers prey on consumer paranoia, inventing new products to fill imaginary needs. I once saw an ad for a mens personal deodorant called Cocksure. There was also a seperate conditioner for pubic hair called Pubaire.

If I had a child, I would name it Febreze.

As a rule, I should see you before I smell you.

On so many HGTV house-hunting shows, the newlywed couples yearn for a home that looks like “a boutique hotel.” This usually means dark wood floors, vaguely mid-century modern furniture, framed black and white photos of the Chrysler Building, and maybe a mint on each bedroom pillow.
I at least partially understand this dream, because I love staying in hotels. I just got back from a business trip to LA, where I stayed at a very nice place. I love hotels because they’re luxurious, impersonal and vaguely erotic, like upscale crime scenes. Staying in a nice hotel can feel like a time-out from the rest of your life, or as if you’re on the run from impressively ominous forces. Hotels don’t promise re-invention; they promise anonymous escape. The sheets are luxurious, the towels are replaced every day, and there’s a choice of hangers, from quilted satin to hardwood. In LA, my room overlooked the huge, glossy signage for Barneys and Louis Vuitton; I was clearly a high-end embezzler or an international jewel thief.
At hotels, someone else is responsible for everything, and the smiling staff behind the front desk are obviously CIA trainees. At my hotel, one evening the lobby was packed with gaudy young women in spike heels and the skimpiest sequinned mini-dresses; at first I wondered if they were all hookers, but then I realized that they were fifteen-year-olds attending a Beverly Hills prom. Remember that scene in Pretty Woman, where the clerks at an exclusive Rodeo Drive shop sneer at the streetwalking Julia Roberts? This scene never made much sense, because on the real Rodeo Drive, everyone would assume that Julia was a Russian oil heiress.