Little Casino

Stars of the silver screen

SO, HERE ARE A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU dopes — losers all — in the candy store, or, for all I care, in a contemporary facsimile of same.

Why are not those glittering stars of the silver screen at home, fixing a tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat with lettuce and mayo, and a cold beer?

Why aren’t they learning to read and write?

Is it possible that they are neglecting this golden opportunity, away from the rigors of the set, to shine their many pairs of extremely expensive shoes?

Why don’t they use just a jot of the varied and profound expertise gained in preparing for their many and diverse roles — and playing them well enough to be remembered, one hopes, at “Oscar time”—to prove that the light of bowling alleys is romantic?

Don’t they have anything better to do with their time than fix breakfast for the children, hurry them off to school, and then buckle down to seemingly endless domestic chores, not to mention shopping?

Why don’t they trust the housekeeper or the maids or the gardeners or the chauffeurs or secretaries or valets or personal assistants, or personal trainers, tennis pros, golf pros, swimming instructors, gurus of mystical bent, and sundry astrologers and pool boys to sweep the floors, at least?

Why are they forever comfortable and really swell and relaxed in their old T-shirts and ripped, faded jeans?

Why don’t they learn, for Christ’s sake, to write a decent string quartet for once?

Why don’t they find out where Parkside Avenue is? Or Ridge Crest Terrace? Or Charles Lane?

Why do they refuse to recognize that Scientology was, originally, a card game, something like Casino?

Why don’t they lay off the goddamned cream of tomato soup?

Why do so many of them retreat to the sanctuary of the Zen rock garden in the Bel Air place whenever the “blow-job theory” as it pertains to inexplicable success, is mentioned?

Why don’t they go home to Ashtabula?

Why, to borrow Raymond Chandler’s phrase, are “all their brains in their faces?”

Why do they think that Raymond Chandler is a cocaine connection?

Why can’t they spell “cocaine”?

Or, for that matter, “connection”?

Or, for that matter, “ MGM”?

How come they can’t shoot pool?

Why don’t they like the notion of themselves as “overnight successes”?

Does it have anything to do with the “blow-job theory”?

Why don’t they learn how to open clams? Why do they hate to be recognized?

Why do they think that they “work hard” for their money?

Why do they wish they could “just walk down the street” like “anybody else”?

Why do they rarely, if ever, really hurt themselves on skis or in boats, planes, and cars?

Why do they seem to live on and on?

Does it have anything to do with the money that they work so terribly, terribly hard for?

Why are they always in and out of one clinic or another?

Why don’t they stop throwing up on people?

Why do they think that fashion designers are artists?

Why do they think that they themselves are artists?

Why are they eternally honing their fucking craft?

Why don’t they know the words to “Prisoner of Love”?

Why must they have recently learned to “appreciate” jazz?

Why can’t they make a decent marinara sauce?

Why don’t they stop sucking on that bottled water?

Why do they drive such dumb cars?

Why do they think that they can write?

Why do they think that they can write poems?

Why do they all go to the same restaurants and then go to the same restaurants and then go to the same restaurants and then go to the same new restaurant?

Why do they eat egg-white omelets?

Is it true that they will hump anything that will stand still?

Why don’t they get rid of their grand pianos?

Their acoustic guitars?

Their “outsider” art?

Why are they such glorious marks for fake paintings, fake antiques, and fake first editions?

Should they drop dead already en masse, or one at a time?

Belatedly, Bromo Eddie queries: “Why don’t they go fuck themselves?” What a serious and well-informed citizen and consumer Eddie is!

What, precisely, is the “blow-job theory” of inexplicable success, and is it germane to occupations other than the movie business?

Eddie reminds his chums that he prefers the term “film business.”

Did many of these basically regular folks have gals and fellas back home in, say, ah, Moline?

What is the joke which bears this punch line? “Well, how about ten dollars’ worth?”

Can one actually “fix” a cold beer?