Paul Rudnick

I’m working on I Shudder, a pilot for TV Land, with the wonderful producer Dan Jinks. With the help of the superb casting director Bernie Telsey and his associate Conrad Woolfe, we’ve been assembling a sensational cast, including Hamish Linklater, Megan Hilty, Geneva Carr, John Behlmann and ten-year-old Brooklyn Shuck. I’ve been feeling very spoiled, as you can tell by all the superlatives in the previous sentences.

The show is inspired by the Elyot Vionnet stories from my collection also called I Shudder. Elyot is a very special guy, who lives in what he calls his “perfect studio apartment which almost overlooks Gramercy Park.” Elyot is apalled by indecent behavior and he resolves to help the world become a better, more compassionate and more stylish place. As he does this, through no fault of Elyot’s, people occasionally die. Elyot has perfect taste and he’s not afraid to use it.

The pilot will be shot in New York in October.

This has been everywhere, but it’s still fun to watch on a Monday morning. It’s from an art installation in Toledo:

Both Josh Duggar and Sam Rader, a creep with a Christian vlog, have been caught with accounts on Ashley Madison, the website designed to promote extra-marital affairs. Both Josh and Sam have manfully admitted their transgressions, claimed that everyone’s a sinner, and they’ve asked the Lord’s forgiveness. The wives of both of these men have reportedly forgiven them. Here’s my question: what wouldn’t these decent Christian ladies forgive?

If their husbands cheated with women from a Jewish website called Rachel Melissa.

If their husbands publicly stated, “I hate my wife’s bangs.”

If their husbands cheated with men from a gay website called Chad Brice.

If their husbands publicly stated, “I love online porn much more than my wife’s mac and cheese.”

If their husbands not only cheated, but forgot to walk the dog and the dog peed on the wife’s favorite ribbed, slimming polyester cardigan, the one she likes to wear in the videos where the couple talks about how gay marriage threatens their freedom of religion.

If the wife suddenly realized why their 15th baby was named Ashley Madison.

The ability to re-open subway doors, with my mind.

The ability to remember that George Pataki is still a possible presidential candidate.

The ability to fly, in business class.

The ability to always get a window seat, in any vehicle, and to repel strangers from sitting next to me.

The ability to eat the pillow-size bags of trail mix, without gaining weight or getting stomach cramps.

The ability to finish reading, and understand, any article on the Greek financial crisis.

The ability to believably pretend to listen.

I’ve been watching the new show Difficult People on Hulu, and it’s completely wonderful. It was created by Julie Klausner, and stars Julie and the terrific Billy Eichner as two frustrated, opinionated show business obsessives, lurking around the fringes of fame. In the course of the early episodes, the pair has managed to gloriously insult child understudies, Blue Ivy, PBS and so many other worthy targets. The cast is packed with people like Andrea Martin, Cole Escola, James Urbaniak, Gabourey Sidibe, Martin Short and Andy Cohen, all having a blast. The show is smart, fearless and always goes just a bit farther than you think it will. The first three episodes are now available, but I’m kind of glad that Hulu didn’t air the entire series all at once, so now I have something to look forward to every week. I’ve also watched and adored the full first season of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix. Both of these shows are addictively pleasureable.

Ever since I was little, I’ve never been able to instantly remember which was my left foot and which was my right. In gym class I’d sometimes use a Bic pen to scrawl a large R and L on the tips of my sneakers. If someone said, “Raise your right hand”, I’d have to think about it, and try to recall which hand I wrote with, and I’d often second-guess myself. Don’t get me started on trying to figure out stage-right and stage-left.

According to the NY Times, “roughly 15 percent of the population suffer from profound left-right confusion.” The Times also notes that this syndrome doesn’t matter very much, unless you’re, for example, a surgeon who has to decide which leg or arm of a patient to operate on. Mistakes have occured in these situations, which is why most hospitals now require the doctor to clearly mark the limb in question, by writing THIS LEG, IF YOU WANT TO AVOID A MAJOR LAWSUIT on the patient with a thick magic marker.

I feel much better now that my condition has been named, which will make it easier to hold Profound Left-Right Confusion fund-raising events, including triathalons where half the competitors will run in the wrong direction. I also want to develop a line of merchandise, with gloves knitted with R and L, which of course I’ll try to shove onto the wrong hands, and t-shirts reading NO, YOUR OTHER RIGHT HAND. I’m also pleased to suffer from a profound disorder, rather than something more shallow.

I will file this entire post under More Good Reasons Why I Don’t Drive.

Use one of those cylindrical foam rollers to massage every part of your body on a mat at the gym. Especially if you moan.

Wear any garment with writing on it. Especially if the writing is on your butt.

Talk to your friend really loudly on the subway about how Shauna is a TOTAL SKANK I MEAN LOOK AT HER LEGS THEY’RE LIKE HAMS WHY IS JORDAN GOING OUT WITH HER?

Shave any part of your body while standing naked in a locker room.

Blow-dry any part of your body while standing naked in a locker room.

Jog wearing spandex while pushing an aerodynamically-designed stroller.

Walk along a crowded sidewalk with your arm draped around your loved one (any couple who does this will break up within a week.)

Stand in front of a painting at a museum and make little noises, as if you’re considering buying it.

Getting to the store just before it closes and buying the last of whatever item you’re looking for.

Realizing that you’ve accidentally made your computer do something you have no idea how to do.

Skimming the last pages of a book you hate.

Deciding that you didn’t need to watch the Republican debate, and you don’t need to read any of the recaps. Were there ever going to be any surprises?

Knowing that since you haven’t showered, it’s fine to wear a less-than-clean shirt. In other words, fully accepting that you’re a slovenly pig.

Remembering that it’s Saturday, so you have an entire additional day to remain a slovenly pig.

To earn a certain sort of street cred, people will say things like, “I once killed a man with my bare hands” or “I just got back from my third tour of duty” or “I changed a flat tire.” Writers are a different breed, and to establish writers cred, you need to say things like:

“I once copy-edited my manuscript and removed over 314 semi-colons. From the first two chapters.”

“Real writers don’t use quotation marks.”

“Do you know the difference between capitol and capital? Do ya, punk?”

“Sometimes I don’t indent paragraphs. That’s right, baby.”

“I footnote my footnotes. Because that’s who I am.”

“My editor asked me to make my book’s chronology coherent. I just laughed.”

“Sure, I could Google the information about actual events. I just don’t want to.”

“Yeah, maybe the phrase Writers Cred needs an apostrophe somewhere. Do I look like I care?”

When a book, play or movie receives near-universal acclaim, it’s almost mandatory to approach that work with a chip on one’s shoulder, or maybe even a plank. Here are some possible responses to such a work:

“I’ll read it/go see it once the hype dies down.”
“I could tell from the reviews that I would hate it.”
“I saw the author on Charlie Rose and he was such a dick.”
“I’ve read so much about it that I feel like I’ve already seen/read it.”
“Do I have to?”

But sometimes the work lives up to the acclaim, and you just have to get over yourself. Te-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me has been greeted with rapturous reviews, magazine covers and endless op-ed pieces, and it deserves every bit of this attention. It’s an extraordinary book. It’s written as a letter to the author’s son, and it’s about being black, being white, the American Dream and a million other things. It’s not a chore or a diatribe; it’s so well-written, and so essential, that it can be devoured in an afternoon.

Whenever I Skype someone, I always feel like I’m watching the live feed from one of those cameras which perverts hide in public restrooms.

I prefer drones to people on bicycles.

All of those people who say, “I like Trump because he speaks his mind” really mean, “I like Trump because he’s openly racist.”

The new Mission Impossible movie is heavenly, especially because it includes my favorite Mission Impossible moment: when a character pulls off his or her face, having fooled the bad guys with a rubber mask. This device should be used in more movies, especially serious period films set in the English countryside.

Those Tate’s chocolate chip cookies, which usually arrive as a bag full of crumbling pieces, are dangerous. They do what only truly great, crappy cookies can do: they prove that I am weak and powerless, and will betray any friend, loved one or nation, if I can have just one more.

1. Congratulate yourself on deciding to make a list.
2. Find a scrap of paper – I like to steal the notepads from hotel rooms for just this purpose. I will also sometimes use notepads which I inherited from my mother, with the letterheads from companies she worked at thirty years ago. The backs of envelopes are also good, especially tiny little envelopes.
3. Find a non-working ballpoint pen. Scribble furiously, trying to make the ink flow. Throw the pen away, wondering if pens should be recycled in some way. Find a working pen.
4. Title the list in capital letters. Underline the title many times. You’re on your way!
5. List the first item. For a moment, be unable to think of any additional items (this counts for lists of party guests, office supplies, books you want to read, or a To-Do list for activities like renewing your passport, getting a haircut and buying toilet paper.) Ponder if a list with a single item even counts as a list.
6. Making a list is like writing a novel – just plunge in, and ideas will start to flow. No, I’m wrong – making a list is much more practical and satisfying than writing a novel. Although of course, nowadays many film and cable companies are happy to option the lists compiled by celebrities, or their ghost-listers.
7. Rank the items on your list in terms of importance, using an improvised, incoherent system of stars and checkmarks.
8. Because your list is handwritten, you realize that you can’t read your own handwriting. Go over the list and spell out the most important items in big block letters.
9. By this point, your list should look so haphazard that it could be used as evidence at a competency hearing, and not in your favor.
10. Stare at your list, especially if it’s written on a paper napkin, and decide that if you were Picasso, that napkin would be worth millions at auction.
11. Fold your list into a tiny, grimy little square.
12. Lose your list.
13. Find your list months or years later, and feel good because either A) You’d accomplished everything on the list or B) You accomplished nothing on the list and it’s too late to do anything about it now.
14. Turn the list over and start making a new list on the back.