Tolkien Resistance

Hello darlings. Sorry to have been a week a way, but trust me; a really serious birthday party would have left me unable to communicate for a month, yet here I am, as lucid as I get, barely a week after turning 110. You should look so good at my age. Can you remember back to when you were a mere slip of 110? I didn't think so.



Perhaps the most bizarre gift I received came from one of my surviving friends, young Jeffrey Swanson, who gave me a book! Can you imagine! Have you ever received a book for a gift before? What kind of fantasy world must such a deluded person live in, to walk right past the vodka shelves into a bookstore, and buy me a book, when Jack Daniels is still at large? Incredible!



As for what kind of fantasy world, that was made pretty clear by the book itself, which is The Children of Húrin by J. R. R. Tolkien, his first new novel since The Silmarillion in 1973.



As I grow ever older, I find myself more and more interested in the achievements of The Dead. So many people take Death as an excuse to kick back and do nothing but rot. But not some. The Headless Indian Brave has had more adventures since his death than he ever had as a living person. Instead of living in a tepee and dining on butchered buffalo (admittedly with a head, and able to have sex at the drop of a loincloth with any squaw willing to squat), now he lives in a glamorous movie star mansion, and is routinely splattered with the cream of Hollywood's cream. Oh Death, where is thy sting?



So I gotta admire the literary persistence of JRR Tolkien. The man has been dead for 34 years, and here he has another novel out, and a best seller to boot. What has your dead grandfather turned out lately?



However, it is one thing to admire a man who can write a complex novel despite being dead, but it is still quite another to actually read it. I mean really; taking up valuable drinking time, reading a book? Hey, I'm not dead yet, you know! God, is there a duller way to spend an afternoon than by reading a book? Just ask the guy who read my book, My Lush Life. He will tell you what a grueling experience reading can be. In fact, the reader reviewers on Amazon.com clearly have nothing better to do with their lives at all but complain at length about how much they hated my book. Who forced them to read it?



Some of you may have read a posting I put up on this flog back on Thanksgiving last year, Gratitude Imparting Day. If you haven't read it, click on this link and do so. In it, I list JRR Tolkien as one of the things I'm grateful for, in a blatant attempt to lure fanboy readers in. It was Little Douglas who suggested it. He's actually read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. He has no life. (You knew that.)



I, of course, have not read these overlong tomes, or even their treatments, but then, while I may not have read Tolkien, I have done him, can you say that? Take a look at the shot above. That's darling Reuel and I, the day I inspired him to create the Lady Galadriel. Reuel looked at me and said, "A lady thousands of years old, still beautiful, but, instead of a drunken slut, she's a magical elvin queen! It will work!" Ah Reuelly, you big, curmudgeonly, Ludditish lug, when you thrust your magical talisman deep into my fiery Crack of Doom, You showed me what Fantasy is all about! You were my favorite Bad Hobbit.



But read him? Have you tried recently? I'm told that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are quite readable, and even funny at times. But Reuel darling, your prose style died with the rest of you. Good God, talk about turgid.



And a gigantic disappointment awaits readers when they hit this paragraph in chapter two: The Battle of Unnumbered Tears, a title which describes the poor reader four pages in:



"Then, in the plain of the Anfauglith, on the fourth day of the war, there began the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (You knew that.), all the sorrow of which no tale can contain. Of all that befell in the eastward battle: of the routing of Glaurung the Dragon by the dwarves of Belegost; of the treachery of the Easterlings and the overthrow of the host of Maedhros and the flight of the sons of Fëanor, no more is here said."



Needless to say, at this point I hurled the book at the wall in frustrated fury. It slipped through an open picture window, and plummeted into my hedge labyrinth, The Befuddlement, where it smacked a Japanese hedge trimmer on the head. The poor man had been trying to find his way out of The Befuddlement for three years, so I adjudge the book putting him out of his misery to have been a blessing to the man. If I can only do a Little Good each day, I am happy, as long as I'm also drunk and with my brains freshly screwed out.



But while I simply can not get enough sorrow in my entertainment, honestly, if you'd invested the four days necessary to reach page 56, only to find out that you'd suffered literary bait-and-switch, wouldn't you have hurled your copy at the wall also? To read about the flight of the sons of Fëanor has got to be the reason most people buy the book, isn't it? How do those elf boys fly? Do they sprout wings? Do eagles pick them up? (Reuel's favorite manner of delivering his heroes out of otherwise Certain Death situations.) Are they partly Kryptonian? Have they absorbed the Power of Flight from hugging Adrian Pasdar? (Certainly Little Peter Petrelli forgot he had absorbed the Power of Flight, and could have flown HIMSELF out of New York City, and saved the world and that damned indestructible cheerleader - who doesn't really require much saving, given her recuperative powers - without killing off the adorable Adrian. Slipped his mind in the crush of the season climax, I guess.)




And then there's "The overthrow of the host of Maedhros." I know that, when hostessing myself, I have often overthrown myself, tumbling down stairs, falling into the pool, plummeting off Tumescent Tor. Who needs overthrowing?



But maybe Maedhros is steadier on his feet than I am. In any event, overthrowing your host is the height of rudeness. I'm putting the Easterlings on notice: "Easterlings, you are no longer welcome in Morehead Heights, unless you're really well hung, and ready to put out on the spot. I will not tolerate overthrowing! This is a No Overthrowing Zone. And Maedhros, stop by anytime for a pity shag, you wild, nasty he-elf."



And just who is Maedhros, some of your Tolkien virgins ask? Get an education, dumbos. Any 7 year old kid knows that Maedhros is one of those flighty sons of Fëanor. What? Who is Fëanor? Good grief! Don't they teach you ignoramuses anything in school any more! Fëanor, obviously, was the eldest son of Finwë, and he, as every homeless schizoid on earth knows, was the half-brother of Fingolfin. That's right, THE Fingolfin! I bet you feel fairly foolish now, don't you? And if all that isn't enough, may I remind you that it was none other than Fëanor himself, who created the Silmarils! You look pretty sheepish now, don't you? Forgetting that Fëanor created the Silmarils. I mean honestly, they were the jewels that set the whole Silmarillion in motion. Why are Tolkien's largest works always about jewelry? He writes pretty turgid, macho prose for a man obsessed with bling.



The villain in The Children of Húrin is good old Morgoth, the nasty God-in-mortal-guise who lorded it over everybody in The Silmarillion. Morgoth's name comes from the old saying "The Morgoth, the Merrier," which is not only very similar to the title of my flog, but is also Anne Rice's motto.



Morgoth changed his name when he went into villain business, like you do, from his original given name, Melkor. Well really, Melkor is a lousy star name. Morgoth has so much more pizazz, like "Vicki Lester," "Rock Hudson," "Tab Hunter," or "Englebert Humperdinck." I was lucky. Tallulah Morehead is my born name. Imagine if I'd been named Melkor Morehead. I'd sound like the villain in a porn version of Doctor Who.




Anyway, I discovered when asking around, that Reuel also wrote the treatment that my darling Peter Jackson turned into his epic, Oscar-reaping movie King Kong. What Douglas? Oh. Sorry. It seems that Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings. (Did you know that? You see? You learn so much here.) I wrote King Kong. But he never wrote back. (Oh Kong, Kong. You were the King, Kong, you are the King! Talk about hung! Call me Kongy, I miss you.)




Did you know I was in The Lord of the Rings? I was, but I was cut from the theatrical release version, and from the extended DVD edition, and from the upcoming, super-extended, hyper-long, extra-inclusive DVD version which runs 24 hours. "I just have no room to shove you in." Peter told me, although that's not what I said to him on a certain moonlit night in Aukland, when Peter fell prey to my charms, and I to his. Hobbit sex can be wild!



I was originally cast as Gàlæƒêllåthéöñ, the elvin camp-follower. I am appointed by Elrond (Played by the same actor who impersonated me in his drag act in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He worshipped me!) to accompany the Fellowship of the Ring, assisting the fellows with their Male Needs along the road. Here I am seen accepting the charge of the Ring-Bearer. (Everybody on the set talked this way.)

So in the original cut that no one ever saw (Except one film editor, who begged for the boon of being blinded afterwards. After seeing my performance, he preferred losing his eyes, to their ever seeing lesser sights. The tributes a star receives are strange indeed. I sent him a sweet note on an autographed picture.), I am the tenth member of the fellowship, with tender scenes of relieving each member's member, easing their burdens by taking their loads from them at the end of each day, caressing Gandalf's magic staff (You could probe a Balrog with that rod! Look at the all the virgin boys at their computers, reading that, and typing LOL. LOL. instead of laughing.), restoring Aragorn's "Broken" sword, role-playing as Legolas's personal quiver, being probed for information by the Horn of Boromir, and two minutes each for three of the hobbits (Au revoir, Merry Little Charlie. We'll see Mikhail in hell for drowning you!), and then half an hour for Little Sam Gamgee. Little Sean is a plump hottie.

("What about Gimli the Dwarf?" a few of you virgin fanboys with no life ask. Please! Do I look desperate enough to have sex with a dwarf? I'm only 110, not 1110. Remember the dialogue in the extended DVD version of The Two Towers, when Gimli admits that dwarf women look exactly like dwarf men, and Aragorn adds "It's the beards."? Get a clue boys; Gimli is a GIRL! I may have dabbled in the Valley of Fish, I may even have yodelled in a few, select canyons from time to time, but I have never stooped low enough to do a dwarf, let alone a hairy dwarf lesbo. Yuck! And frankly, when I order a gimlet, I expect something a lot more appetizing to be delivered than John Rhys-Davies on his knees. Besides, I was playing an elf. Elves loathe dwarves!)

But then, along the road, I met HIM! My one great love, the man I felt sure was to be my next, perhaps my final, husband. My dear, darling, passionate Gollum!

Sméagol, Sméagol, my so very precious little ring-bearer. How well I recall our nights of passion out on the Dead Marshes, and shaking our booties all night long in Mordor's hottest night spots. (We never missed "Wet-T-Shirt Night" at Orodruin. Even now, the aroma of Damp Orc makes me damp too.) He may have only worn a ragged little loincloth (Giving one freer access), but underneath it lurked his own, special Barad-Dûr, a Dark Tower that was truly his precious. Bear in mind, he wore Sauron's ring around that magnificent unit for 500 years. It was magic! What a man, or whatever the hell he was!

But, perhaps like all great love affairs must be, ours was not to last. Too soon the shoot was through, and Gollum was off to "other projects," and not returning my calls. And then, every shot of me was removed from the film. (Peter's exact words were "I want every last trace of that filthy woman, even her stench, scrubbed out of my movie! And from my hands! My God, My God, I can still smell her on my hands!!!!" Sadly, he was, like so many before him, intimidated by my magnificence on film, and cut my role rather than risk himself being lost in my corona. Poor, envious man. And it's not like I scarred his son for life. The boy was okay with it.)

Meanwhile a sort of dishy British actor named Andy Sirkis began giving me odd looks on the lot, and avoiding me off set. What was his problem, I ask you? Sure he's cute, but I never really even met him. Why does he act like three of my ex-husbands? If he were gay, instead of a husband and father, I'd be certain he is an ex-husband of mine. Might he be one of my handful of straight ex-husbands? Andy? Were we ever married?

And Gollum, my Gollum. It's like you dropped off a cliff into a volcano. Where are you? I pine for you. I weep unnumbered tears. Sméagol, you are forever my one, my true --- Precious! Your Gàlæƒêllåthéöñ waits ever, yearning for you, as I sail on to Valinor.

Cheers darlings

Happy Birthday to ME!

What a milestone darlings! I'm 110 today! I hope all of you feel this good when you're 110, except for you temperance crusaders! Fuck you, jerkwads! Of course, temperance crusaders don't live to be 110; it just feels that long.

I'm able to take the time to dictate this to Little Dougie, as most of my close friends can't materialize, or rise from their coffins until after Sundown, so the party doesn't really get rolling until then. Isn't it odd that most of my friends are dead? I have an alibi! In fact, I have alibis for all of them, and they number in the hundreds, and if you add lovers, the tens of thousands.

Anyway, the Headless Indian Brave was at his still all last night (and on Memorial Day, a ghost's busiest day short of Halloween. So many gentlemen callers!), making his special brand of firewater, to fire up the celebration. You know you've had a really great birthday party if, when you wake up afterwards (or these days, if you wake up afterwards.), you find you are two years older! A truly memorable birthday party is one you can't remember at all. You know, a second childhood only comes once. Thank heaven for third childhoods.

As to presents: ladies, vodka is always appreciated. Men, a good, hard shag is the best thing to unwrap. Line up, Tarzans. Who's on first?


Bud, Lou, darlings!


Cheers all.

PS. I mentioned in yesterday's flogging that Little Christopher Lee, a babe in arms of 85, was shooting Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Well Little Chris subscribes to this flog, naturally, so he can read each one the instant it's posted. Thus today, I received an urgent she-male from Chris. I assumed that he was letting me know his wife of more than 40 years, Gitte Lee, was finally out of town (He's told me he'd throw me one just as soon as his wife went out of town for a day. That was in 1968, and the possessive bitch hasn't left his side for ten minutes since. At least that's what I'm assuming, since he still hasn't called.), but actually he was she-maling me to say he's been cut from Sweeney Todd. His whole role, as a ghost, has been cut. (The Headless Indian Brave was up for the part, but sadly, he doesn't show up on film, which is a real drawback for a film actor, except for Pauly Shore of course.) Fortunately. it was cut before he wasted any time actually shooting it. So everyone out there, refuse to see Sweeney Todd when it comes out, and let them know it was because they cut Christopher Lee. And then send Little Gitte a telegram telling her she's needed in Dafur immediately. Cheers dears.





PS. Oh, and it's also Little Douglas's birthday. The decrepit old curmudgeon is 57. Send him a birthday greeting if you feel like it, but it's not necessary. You'll only spoil him.

A Very Scary Birthday

Is there something particularly scary about the Zodiac sign Gemini? I should know, as I am one, but this weekend is the horror festival of birthdays. You see that photograph above? Well all of those frightening men are having their birthdays this weekend, two of them today! Yesterday, May 26th, was the 94th birthday of the late great Peter Cushing (Lower right), with whom I appeared in Frankenstein's Reason For Living. Tuesday, May 29th, is the 92nd birthday of my dear old chum, horror icon Guy Thanatos (Lower left), with whom I appeared in East vs. West and Doctor Scary. (I've never before noticed how much Guy looks like Little Douglas would look if Douglas were talented.) And today, May 27th, is the birthdays of both Vincent Price (Upper right), with whom I appeared in The Haunting of Horrible House, and Christopher Lee (Upper left), with whom I appeared in Bats in My Belfry. (Peter Cushing was in that one also.) Were Vincent still alive, he would be 96, while Christopher, the infant of the group, is alive and happily 85 today.

That amazing picture was taken for the one and only movie when all four of these wonderful horror icons appeared together in the same picture. Rather than describe it to you myself, allow me to insert here a couple paragraphs from Guy's forthcoming autobiography, My Gruesome Life, ghost written by Little Douglas himself.

I made one film that year, Habitation of the Hideous, with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and I finally all together, not merely in the same movie, but in the same scenes, demonstrating the chemistry that had kept us apart for decades. In the picture, a young couple, played by Steve Guttenberg and Larraine Newman, during a violent rainstorm, stumble into a spooky old house inhabited by the four of us, in what looks to me like a four-way gay marriage, although I don’t think that’s what the writer, if there was one, had in mind. But I’ll be damned if I know why these three old men and mature-but-perky me are sharing a house.


We stalk about, menacing them for seventy-five minutes, and then morning comes and they leave. There was next to no script, plot or story. There was certainly no budget or point, and my check, when it came, bounced.


One critic who shall be nameless complained that: "This elderly quartet is about as menacing as a newborn kitten. Lee has his resonant voice trying in vain to give a swirl to incredibly flat dialogue, Cushing is supremely unconcerned with the lackadaisical goings on and seems to be floating in his own private world, Price chews the scenery apparently from hunger, and Guy Thanatos hasn’t got enough to do to rise even to his usual level of awful, and is merely bad. Was there really a time we were scared by these grandiose grandfathers?" After begging us for years to make a movie together, our fans responded to our granting their fondest wish by staying home and ignoring this picture. Would you care to explain to me why you skipped it?

As it happens, May 29th is also my birthday, more on that on Tuesday's flogging, and --- What's that Douglas? Tuesday is your birthday too? I know that. But you're not a celebrity, so who gives a bat's fart? As I was saying before Little Douglas made his pathetic bid for attention, that one year, Vinnie, Pete, Chris, and I all celebrated together. (Guy was in England at the time, making a tremendously bad movie.) This picture was taken at that party, right before I shagged the three of them, in the most horrifying orgy since the Emperor Caligula died.

How coincidental is it that Vinnie and Chris have the same birthday? The two men are nothing alike, apart from being immensely tall, tremendously talented, and possessed of magnificent voices. I think this picture shows just how utterly dissimilar they are.

I am sometimes asked if Vincent was gay. To quote a famous woman with a name quite similar to mine: "Well, he never sucked my dick." In his later years, the thrice-married, father of two Vincent was known to have admitted to being bisexual, which I'm sure was a huge shock to any fans who had seen his campy performances, observed his fey personal style, listened to him lecture on art, or watched him in a kitchen, brandishing his whisk. All I know is that when he was rehearsing his famous one-man show as Oscar Wilde, the one suggestion his director and every critic gave him was "Butch up!" But to address that question, here's a photograph that was clearly taken just as Vincent was preparing to give Peter Lorre head. And I know Peter was straight!

In addition to movies, Vinnie did a tremendous amount of TV, by which I mean television, not transvestites, though I wouldn't rule them out either. This lovely picture is of Vincent and Patricia Routledge, in the scariest episode of Keeping Up Appearances ever, which is odd, given that that wonderful series started right around the time Vinnie passed away.

Anyway, Vincent was a wonderful, intelligent, sophisticated man, a great actor, a ham who did it with style and class, and a warm man whom, it was often said, could make friends with anybody. Talk about tolerant, the man even got along with Delores Delgado, and even Will Rogers despised that hateful sow. Oh, and Vinnie was incredibly funny as well.

Hard as it is to believe from his long career playing villains, and mean, cutting, severe, nasty people with short tempers, Christopher Lee is very funny offscreen also. He's particularly known for his amazing impression of Cher. Here are three different pictures taken over the decades, of Lee doing his Cher impersonation. Chris is the scariest tranny on the planet.

Christopher Lee is also one of the smartest men in movies. He speaks 7 languages, and reads several more. Most actors today can barely speak even one. He has actually appeared in more movies than any other big star. Check out his IMDb resume. His film list is almost 300 movies. Over the last decade, he has appeared in Sleepy Hollow, two Star Wars movies, all three Lord of the Rings films, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Corpse Bride. That is eight box office hits in a row! That's better than Harrison Ford in the 1980s. He's the biggest star in the world! And right now, he's shooting the Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet. Did I mention he sings? And not just American Idol pop stuff. Lee is a full-on operatic bass, and has sung in operas all over the world, in those 7 languages he sings. And you should hear him beatbox!

And as if that's not enough, he's also a war hero. During World War II (You may have read about WWII. It was in all the papers, and I think they made a movie about it.) he was a spy for British Intelligence, not a movie spy; the real thing. The man IS James Bond! He risked his life going undercover, behind enemy lines. Most of his war record is still classified. One can imagine how amused he must have been when he played a Bond villain in The Man With the Golden Gun, opposite the pathetic Roger Moore, since Lee is the genuine article. I don't know how he kept a straight face.

Here's another lovely picture of him, from 1980:

Hold on. Douglas, is that you in that picture with Chris? I do wish you'd stop intruding into my postings. How is it that these days, you look a whole lot older and far less attractive than you do in that picture, while Chris, at 85, still looks great? When did you pass him?

No matter. You know, sometimes people think that horror stars aren't really fine actors, like Olivier and Brando and Pauly Shore. But Peter Cushing was a wonderful actor (As Osric, he STEALS the movie of Hamlet away from Olivier completely!), Vincent Price was peerless, and Chris Lee (Who is also in Hamlet by the way.) could teach everyone how it is done.

For that matter, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff were masters as well. German genius playwright Bertolt Brecht said many times that Peter Lorre was his favorite actor in the world, and he wrote A Man's a Man just for him. (What a redundantly titled play. The sequel? More of the Bleeding Obvious.) Boris is one of my ex-husbands, no matter what his family says. (Co-incidentally, Lee has played my third husband, Count Vlad Tepes, in more than ten movies. The man wants me so badly that he keeps playing my tragic ex-hubby just so he can go on pretending he's married to me.) Boris was a terrific actor, and one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild. His SAG card number was a single digit. Where did the idea that horror stars were lousy actors come from?

Oh yes.

This lovely shot is of Bela Lugosi's little known interpretation of Stanley Kowalski in summer stock. I believe that Tennessee Williams suggested they retitle that production, A Streetcar Named Hambone! I toured in Streetcar (The play, not in a streetcar - I think.) in the 1980s, opposite Bob Denver as Stanley, and it was said that next to Lugosi's Stanley, Bob's Stanley was Tony-worthy. (Although, when questioned, they did tend to admit they meant worthy of Toni Tennielle.)

Happy Birthday Chris. And Pete,Vinnie, and Guy, wherever you are, natal felicitations to you too. Thanks for the scares. They don't make 'em like you anymore.

Cheers darlings.

We Have To Give Back!

You know darlings, sometimes my life is just plain weird. Maybe a handful of you remember a Ken Russell science-fiction movie a few decades back called Altered States, in which William Hurt, back when he was sexy (Am I the only person old enough to remember when Hurt was hot? Oh. I am.), took a spiritual journey on hallucinogens, and found himself mutating into odd life forms, much like his career has ever since. Well darlings, the map may say that Morehead Heights is in California, but I assure you that Altered is the state I've been living in for the last century. And I've never taken an hallucinogen gratuitously in my life. How well does LSD or Mescaline mix with vodka, anyway? I can't remember.


But this week has been something else. It was American Idol Finale Week, although this American Idol isn't holding her finale any time soon. On Tuesday evening, I was supposed to attend the finale performance show at the Kodak Theater in order to write a review of it for Little Kent Levine's flog, "By Kent Levine," as he couldn't be bothered, since he was busy taking Sanjaya Maladroit to a Hula Prom on Maui. But I was turned away at the door through some horrible mix-up that I'm sure is all Kent's fault. Nonetheless, professional that I am, I managed to watch the show on a cell phone in the cab coming home, and dictate my review to Little Dougie, who she-maled it to Little Kent, who then posted it under the title AMERICAN IDOL: and then there were two. You can read it by clicking on it's title.

However, I am not in the habit of being turned away like some nonentity (You know, like you.), though I am open to being turned around. More on that below. I was still determined to have my Kodak Theater moment, so on Wednesday evening I showed up there again, but this time at the stage door, claiming to be Paula Abdul. At first, the Crusty Old Stage Manager objected that I looked nothing like Miss Abdul, but I told him how I had tripped over my pet Great Dane, Baskerville (He's so hard to notice), and had landed on the floor face first, so I was completely smashed, and thus unrecognizable. The Crusty Old Stage Manager bought that one, since I had fallen face-first onto the floor no less than three times just while telling him about it, and anyone even casually glancing at me from 100 yards away could see that I was undeniably smashed. "I'm terribly sorry, Miss Abdul," the Crusty Old Stage Manager said, "I didn't realize it was you. You're so much more sober than usual. Gosh; you look much younger in person."

So now, not only was I backstage at the Kodak, but I was being escorted to Paula's dressing room, which in her case, is really an undressing room. I found it's mirror opens up like a door, and when you pass through the looking-glass, it has a secret passage to the male contestant's dressing room. On the wall in the passageway, I found "The Phantom loves Christine" written in lipstick inside a heart in Lon Chaney's handwriting, which is particularly amazing when you consider that the Kodak Theater wasn't built until 70 years after Lon died.

After watching through the one-way mirror as Brandon Rogers changed his underwear, I charged into the room, determined to teach Brandon what pleasuring an American Idol was all about. However, no sooner had I made a flying tackle of young Brandon, than we were hustled out to shoot the above photograph. So I never got rogered by Rogers. "Drat!" as Bill Fields always said when he found I'd polished off his Jack Daniels while he was in the men's room.

Once back in Paula's dressing room, I found some Mormon sugar cubes lying about in plain sight, sewn into the lining of a coat placed in a secret compartment inside a locked drawer in the wall safe. I assume they were Mormon, as they had the initials LDS stamped right on them, I think. I can be a tad dyslexic if my vodka isn't fresh-squeezed. Anyway, I dropped one into my gin and lemon, which was a teensy bit tart, and drank it down.

My old chum Bette Midler dropped by just about then, on her way to sing The Breeze Beneath My Knees, or whatever that ghastly song is. She was drinking a cup of coffee for some reason (WHAT, I ask you, is the appeal of coffee? Not only is it's stench unbearable, not only is it's taste revolting, but the damned devil's brew will sober you up! Just thought I'd warn any coffee virgins out there. One place you will never run into me is a Starbucks.), so I thoughtfully dropped the other cube into her coffee without mentioning it to her, and she went out to sing her number, which may explain a lot about that performance. Who knew coffee could make you sing flat?

But as Bette was out destroying her formerly peerless musical reputation onstage, things grew hazy, and I became dizzy and disoriented. This, in and of itself, isn't alarming. In fact, it's desirable. Clarity is vastly overrated. But as the world whirled around me and I reached out to Brandon for support, I must have blacked out. On the upside, I missed the rest of Bette's song.

When I woke up, I was lying on a tropical beach. I might have been alarmed then, but frankly, this isn't the first time this has happened to me. Read chapter 24 of my semi-best-selling autobiography, My Lush Life, to learn of another occasion when I drifted off in Hollywood, and woke up in Hawaii.

This island paradise was not Hawaii however, even though it looked exactly like our 50th altered state. I knew it wasn't Hawaii, because Little Kent was nowhere to be seen, and there were no hula-dancing Sanjayas either. What was there were tents, a polar bear, and the remains of an airliner. What there was not, was an open wet bar, although everything else was wet. I looked in both of my hands, and they were empty! My drink was --- was --- LOST!

Fortunately, I found the liquor stocks were still intact in the stewardess station in the plane wreckage. What a lifesaver! As it happens, this not being my first disaster, I am more prepared than a Boy Scout. (What a myth that is. Never in all my years, have I found a boy scout to have a condom when needed.) My Joan Crawford "Drill Me" pumps easily convert into flats, the better for staggering about on sand, and the removeable high heels become martini glasses. But still, there were no olives. Reduced to barbarity already! I felt like the Lord of the Flies, only I saw no flies anywhere to unzip and lord it over.

I was just settling in with my third drink, when Dr. Jack Shepherd came running out of the woods (How did I know his name? Another mystery!), being chased by the foulest-tempered column of second hand smoke I've ever seen. If anyone ever tells you that second hand smoke doesn't kill, you tell them to ask Mr. Eko. Jack was hollering something about how "The Others" were coming.

"Well, hold up a minute, Jack," I said, "Give me a second to floss and undress, and we can be coming too."

"No time!" he screamed, although a real man makes time.

"Besides," said Benry, who was tied to a nearby tree, his bloody face bearing testament to the rough sex he'd been indulging in (Not my thing at all.), "If you get pregnant on this island, you'll die."

"Darling," I said to Benry, "If he can get me pregnant, I will die --- of amazement! I'm less than a week away from being 110. My meno hasn't just paused. You can stick your arms and legs outside of the vehicle, because it's come to a complete halt."

"But," Benry replied, tremendously talkative for a man spouting blood from his mouth, "The island heals people. Just ask Locke or Jin."

"Well unlock that gin and break it out, darling." I said, "Get enough gin into me, and I'll do both of you. I'm just kidding. I'll do both of you anyway. But I'm not kidding about unlocking the gin."

"No time," said Jack, "We have to get to the transmitter."

"I have time." said Tom Sawyer, who was whitewashing a nearby fence. Noticing that Sawyer was every bit as yummy as Jack, and actually in better shape, I was only too happy to show him some of my own personal Dharma & Greg Initiative. Sawyer was "Up" for it, in every sense. He pressed my buttons, and our good vibrations could have knocked 20 airliners out of the sky, though that would have hopelessly overcomplicated a plot that's already impossible to follow.

But then my cell phone started jingling the Heat Crazed title song (My first hit record and my personal theme song.), and Jack yelled, "He's done it. The ringbearer's quest is ended. Frodo has cast the ring into the underwater hatch, and we're saved!"

"Fabulous darling," I replied, "Why don't we celebrate with a three-way shag, while Benry just watches?" But before I could lift my heels back into the air, something I can usually do very rapidly, we flashed-forward, and suddenly Jack and I were on a bridge over the Mighty Los Angeles River, where a terrible car wreck was occurring just off-camera, which is the cheapest way to stage an accident. Jack, suddenly unconvincingly bearded, grabbed me by the shoulders and said, "We have to give back!"

Although giving back isn't my usual thing (as opposed to Little Dougie, who lives for nothing else.), I remembered just a few weeks ago, when American Idol Gives Back raised millions of dollars for all the adorable African children waiting to be adopted by American film stars, by giving back on a huge scale. Everyone in Hollywood is into giving back, although Ryan is still denying it. We're naturally generous that way.

For instance, here's a shot from an episode of the lovely TV series Six Feet Under, of some nice Hispanic merest whisper giving back to Ricardo Antonio Chavira, who plays Carlos Solis on Desperate Housewives. Ricardo is, in my humble and always abject opinion, the hottest of the Desperate Husbands.

I can only assume that during American Idol Gives Back, Little Simon Scowell and Extremely Little Ryan Seechest were giving back right and left. And now, here was Dr. Jack telling me "We have to give back." As I said, it's not my preferred way of making ends meet, but on an island where my fried eggs might turn fertile, and pregnancy is always fatal, perhaps it's a good idea. True, we weren't on the island any more, but you never know when one might flashback to it, so why take chances? As Jack requested, I turned around, and reached for my toes.

And suddenly, here I was, back at Morehead Heights again, lying on my chaise, mouth open, empty vodka bottles scattered all around, the TV running, the Headless Indian Brave snoozing on the settee. What had happened? Where had I been? Where is that island? Why are The Others so nasty? How does eye-patch guy always recover from his numerous deaths? (Is he a cheerleader? He's certainly no hero, the hobbit-drowning swine!) How does Hurley stay so plump on an island? How could Melinda not have won? Who's the better lay, Jack or Sawyer? Why did the judges put Sanjaya on the show in the first place? If it's only been a couple weeks, why is Walt suddenly so much bigger? I'm Lost!

One thing I am certain of; this is the last time I get drunk with Hiro Nakamura, even if his father is Mr. Sulu, who has given his fair share of back over the years, I assure you.

Cheers darlings.

Miss Take Liberties

Hello darlings. Do you love the above statue? It's called "Miss Take Liberties" and the plan is to erect it it in Hollywood Harbor, so that when boatloads of poor, immigrant movie stars come to California from far off, third world hellholes like Burma, New Zealand, Catalina Island, and Flagstaff, they'll see The Greatest Star Who Never Lived, and be inspired. The inscription reads: "Give me your tired, your poor, your no-talent movie stars, yearning to take liberties. I lift my martini by my golden doughnut." It always brings a tear to my eye.


And for me, after a lifetime of inspiring and containing large, proud erections, now I will actually be a huge erection myself! A dream come true, once they build the full-size one.

Anyway, I just wanted to leave you a quick note. I'm watching American Idol tonight for Little Kent Levine. Sometime probably after midnight, my comments will be posted on his flog, By Ken Levine. Be sure to click on that link and read it. Kent needs the hits.

Now look at this lovely picture:

That's Little Lord Laurence Olivier and beloved Tallulah-Morehead-wannabe Marilyn Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl, or, as it was originally titled, The Prince and the Slut. Today happens to be both of their birthdays. Marilyn would be 80 today, and Larry would be 100!

Neither are truly favorites of mine. Larry was so overrated. I saw him in Hamlet, and I couldn't understand a word of it. If you're going to do a movie in a foreign language, you should at least include subtitles. And he was married for years to that tramp Vivien Leigh, the bitch who stole Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Dubois from ME! Then Larry won an Oscar for playing Hamlet, a role he only got because he was sleeping with the director. (Look it up on the IMDb; you'll see I'm right.) I grew a little respect for him when he sensibly dumped Viv for Danny Kaye. Did you know Vivien Leigh was the Lust Child of Janet Leigh and Vivien Vance? Absolutely true, as the Headless Indian Brave is my witness.

As for Marilyn; the woman copied me slavishly, right down to the substance abuse. I'd love to see her at 80. I wonder if her world-famous breasts would have the same problem mine have now. I get these bruises on the underside of them which my doctor realized were toe marks. I kick them as I walk. Thank Heaven I'm barely ambulatory these days. Marilyn starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blonds. The title is true, but not the obverse. Blonds Prefer Men Who Are No Gentlemen, and I speak as someone who has been a platinum blond for most of my adult life.

Speaking of birthdays, mine is a week from today. Presents can be sent to me c/o of Morehead Heights. What do you get for the woman who's had everyone? Well, vodka is always the right size.

Now I've got to get to the Kodak Theater. Click on By Ken Levine and read me there, and I'll be back with a longer flogging in a day or two.

Cheers darlings.