Worried about how you’re going to get your zombie fix after the latest season of The Walking Dead is over? Well, fear no more. A double-dose of apocalyptic euphoria is on the way.

The 2012 Cannes Film Festival kicks off May 16, and if you aren’t sinking your soles in the pebbled beaches of the Côte d’Azur with roughly $3000 tucked in your pocket right about now, well, then, you aren’t talking to Brad Pitt. That’s the going rate for a Pitt interview, anyway, as The Globe and Mail reports. Sad? Don’t be. You’ve just saved yourself roughly $3000 worth of awkward silences and habitual lip licking. What you can do (or Cannes do, heh) is watch the trailers for the films in competition this year including David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don DeLilo’s Cosmopolis starring Robert Pattinson:

Word count: 94,794

Page count: 352

Cover price, in USD: 13.99

In Canadian dollars: 15.99

Although I like the way Joel and Ethan Coen try to circumvent the scandal of standing toe to toe with John Wayne’s ghost (might as well be Jesus) by emphasizing that their True Grit isn’t a remake but a literary adaptation of the Charles Portis novel, I’d like to take a crack at measuring the Coens’ 2010 effort against the 1969 True Grit anyway.

I used to be friendly with a movie star (though her career was in a slump at the time I knew her), and once, when we were talking about road rage, she said, “I always feel funny about flipping people off. I think it might be someone who can give me a job.”

For similar reasons, actors tend to be unnaturally upbeat in interviews. What did you think of the director? Oh, he’s great; he’s a genius. And the cast? They were wonderful, all of them; I was in heaven every day on the set.

But actors in private are a different story. I think such-and-such is awful, they’ll tell you; it’s bullshit that he got such great reviews. Of course, it also works the opposite way: actors love as much as they hate, though they might not want their enthusiasms broadcast, knowing how easily they can be misconstrued.

In my head I have a quote I can’t attribute. I want to say it was Faulkner or Fitzgerald. Maybe Steinbeck. It noted (I’m paraphrasing) that we writers don’t compete with our contemporaries; we compete, rather, with the greats.

It’s possible it was Hemingway. Because there is another quote I can attribute to him, from a New Yorker profile of him:

I started out very quiet and I beat Turgenev. Then I tried hard and I beat de Maupassant. I’ve fought two draws with Stendahl, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody’s going to get me in any ring with Tolstoy unless I’m crazy or I keep getting better.

Even besides that profile, the idea of wrestling with the greats sounds like Hemingway, especially considering his running with bulls and hunting on safari and writing hills like white elephants and shooting himself in the face. Hemingway’s always struck me as though he was born smack-dab in the middle of a mid-life crisis he never actually grew out of, only they didn’t have tiny sports cars back then, so he had to over-compensate in other ways.

I got this idea, of rings and fights and competitions, in my head when I read that The Nervous Breakdown’s founder, Brad Listi, will be having a conversation with Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk in mid-May at LA’s Largo at the Coronet Theater.

Fight Club the book was published a week and a half before I started college. I don’t remember hearing much about it until Edward Norton and Brad Pitt signed on to do the movie. Now, this doesn’t mean people weren’t talking about it. I could just be forgetting. I could have missed it for one reason or another (who am I kidding? I was probably studying).

“I want you to hit me as hard as you can.” I’ll not spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet (though, really, it’s been ten years. What’s the statute of limitations on spoilers?), but I think pretty much everyone knows Fight Club‘s story is its title. It’s about a guy who meets a guy who wants to be hit as hard as possible, and I guess it becomes about male dissatisfaction and aggression and coming to terms with the fact that we’re not the rockstar gods we assumed we’d grow up to be.

Or something. There’s a lot of punching. Also some fucking Helena Bonham Carter (in the movie). Also some shit blowing up. Also, Meatloaf (again, movie) and his boobs. Also, a penguin.

***

I think one could make the argument Fight Club is about men dealing with emasculation; I’m not sure I would, but Fight Club is the sort of book—along with The Great Gatsby and American Psycho, for two—that makes me consider the idea of feminist literary theory, and seems to corroborate the necessity for a complementary masculinist theory. I’ve heard it argued that such a thing is not necessary because the male viewpoint, in a patriarchal society, is the default; I’m just not sure of that, and I tend to hesitate in making generalizations.

Still, I wonder if there is some connection between the idea of a fight club and masculinity. That single Y chromosome, despite its diminutive stature, is enough to change a lot, physiologically speaking, and the defining characteristic of male gender is a penis and testicles, the latter of which produce testosterone. So do ovaries and, to a lesser extent, certain adrenal glands, but when it comes down to testosterone, an androgen, a hormone that causes the body to exhibit stereotypically male characteristics—deep voice, hair growth in some places and loss in others—the primary source is the testes. Testosterone also increases protein synthesis in muscle cells, contributing to their growth, which is why bodybuilders use steroids, and bodybuilders’ balls shrink because their bodies suddenly think they have enough testosterone that the testes don’t need to produce anymore.

That increase of testosterone causes many other side effects, one of which is increased aggression—roid rage.

Which brings me back to the central question; not whether Fight Club is a male movie, but rather: who would you fight?

One of the movie’s jokes (among other things, it’s a deeply black comedy; is it really about masculinity, or is it satirizing masculinity? Must the two be mutually exclusive?) is when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton discuss which celebrities they would fight. Pitt, if I recall correctly, cites Lincoln, noting he was tall and probably had good reach.

In perfect deadpan, Norton states, simply, “I’d fight Ghandi.”

***

In finishing coursework to earn an MBA in marketing, I’ve had to write several business plans, and others concerning marketing and international strategy. Most of these documents contain a section that requires me to assess my competition.

Now, when it comes to these assignments, the courses always offer the option of using an already established company as model; some students choose companies like Google or Apple or Microsoft.

Me, I choose myself. I’m a bit of a narcissist like that. But seriously, I’m earning the MBA for the same reason I earned an MPW; for writers, I think knowing how to reach readers is as important as being able to produce something valuable to reach them with, so I think—especially nowadays, with Kindles and iPads and nooks—that writers should know business as well as they know craft.

Problem is, every time I choose to do a business plan concerning me, as an author, I have to write another section about my competition. The results always strike me as inherently wrong; am I really competing with Dan Brown or Timeline or The Time-Traveler’s Wife or The Historian or The Raw Shark Texts? I don’t think so (though that may be why I’m having such a difficult time selling the damned thing).

In a superficial way, the comparison makes sense: shelves, whether in book stores or readers’ homes, are finite, and only so many pages will fit on them. Writers vie with each other for precious shelf space.

But in another way entirely, we don’t. In that entirely other way, we compete not with each other but with ideas, with culture. We compete for attention. The fact that there’s room enough on the Internet for everyone might be both its greatest benefit and disadvantage.

To go back to the idea with which I opened: if we are to compete with anyone, should it not be with the greats?

***

Growing up Catholic, one of the expressions I most commonly heard—besides “You need to put on your God glasses” and “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed”—was a question: what would Jesus do? Now, as my last TNB essay quite obviously demonstrated, when it comes right down to that question, I really don’t have a clue: I figure ride a pony, exonerate an unfaithful wife, have a meal with his friends (it’s worth noting I originally wrote “wife” there, then erased it. Freudian what?), die on a cross, that sort of thing. For me, wondering what he would do is fraught with more uncertainty than the situations during which one might actually ask it.

Still, the idea of role models, of mentors, is always useful, especially when facing a difficult choice.

I faced a difficult choice in 2005, when I decided I wanted to go to graduate school for writing. Articles about How to Choose the Right Writing Program for You tend to make the cover of magazines only writers read; you know both the articles and magazines I mean without my enumerating them. There’s probably an ampersand in the title, and each one tends to have a monthly quota of one article with a list of Ways to Pump Up Your Novel, one concerning How to Structure Your Memoir, one on a group of Agents’ and Editors’ Inside Secrets to Querying and Publishing, and finally one by a Current Best-Seller Encouraging Writers to Follow Their Dreams. We writers read each of the first three because we hope one day to write the last.

Most of the articles on choosing a writing program mention things like residency and financial considerations. Common advice is to choose a program whose faculty has written books you’ve enjoyed, or in the style or genre in which you hope to write and publish, but that just made me think of the writers I’d read: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, JK Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Nick Hornby, TNB’s own Richard Cox. I’m fairly sure none of those writers went to grad school for writing—Crichton went for medicine—and only one, Gaiman, taught (at Clarion West).

I always wanted to be a mega-seller, but none of the faculties seemed to include really popular writers. I fear that dichotomy; if you look at the sorts of books millions of readers read nowadays . . . well, how about we note that the books that earn critical acclaim from prestigious institutions are often not the same as the books that dominate the best-sellers lists? That when New York publishing people start talking about the NBA on Twitter, most readers would probably be surprised they’re not talking about the Knicks?

I remember the relief I felt when I saw USC’s website. While there were a few names I didn’t know, I’d heard of Irvin Kershner; he put my first memory ever onto a screen. I’d also heard of Marc Norman; Shakespeare in Love is one of my favorite movies. I’d also heard of Janet Fitch; I’d loved her novel, which had been chosen for Oprah’s bookclub. I wasn’t yet familiar with Sid Stebel, who became a valuable mentor, but Ray Bradbury said he was great, and Bradbury I knew.

Am I right that it’s a maxim that students are supposed to, ultimately, defeat their masters? As a teacher myself, my aim is for my students to master the techniques I’ve demonstrated to them so they can find their own ways, but I keep thinking of martial arts movies in which the students fight the master to achieve enlightenment. I’m thinking of Christian Bale fighting Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, of Neo fighting Morpheus in bullet-time.

I keep thinking of Fight Club and of Hemingway’s ring.

Truthfully, I never had much time for the greats. Fitzgerald could have used a better editor, Faulkner a POV. Hemingway was a pansy who overcompensated via hypermasculinity, Poe a drunk who married his cousin, Cheever a closeted bisexual who seemed to hate himself and his wife. Dickens wrote like he was paid by the word, and Bukowski should’ve flushed his beer-shit prose. O’Connor’s Catholic guilt bored, while Austen’s propriety grated and Bronte’s melodrama depressed.

So none of them.

No, I’d fight Shakespeare.

When I wonder about role models and mentors, I don’t consider the cross. I always ask myself: what would Shakespeare do?

(I mean besides Anne Hathaway.)

This week marked an anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and christening; he died on April 23rd, and was baptized on April 26th. There is no record of his birth, but custom at the time was quick baptism, so he was probably only a few days old; he might well have died on his 52nd birthday. He was called a lot of things in his time, including an upstart crow, but maybe not a genius. Really, he was just a writer who sat down every day to write words for actors that the great masses of audience would love, and they, by most accounts, loved him for it; his work was as popular as Rowling’s or Brown’s, and we’ll see if their stories last as well.

When I wonder what I should do, I always wonder what he would have done. Mainly because I want to do better.

***

Truthfully, of course, this is all flawed. When it comes right down to it, I think we writers know we’re in the ring alone, and we only ever wrestle ourselves.

In 2008 I began writing letters to famous people because I didn’t have many other things to do at the time.

Some of these letter appeared on my now defunct MySpace blog, and several were used in my final stand-up attempt in early 2009.

Not one of my letters garnered a response.

An Unanswered Letter to Nigel Waterson (MP for Eastbourne)

Dear Nigel (forgive me for dispensing with the formality of including your surname, but I’m sure you must know it by now and I wish this correspondence to be brief),

This letter regards the floral decorations of our great and glorious Eastbourne. I visited the town itself today (for I reside a short train ride away myself) and it really doesn’t look like a town gearing up for victory in the upcoming Sussex in Bloom contest.

In fact things are looking pretty grim— almost as though the town isn’t even aware that such a contest is moving towards us at quite intense speed.

I would like to know exactly what our tactics are for this proud and prestigious botanical bout— even Bexhill-on-Sea has a few cheery hanging baskets adorning it’s otherwise pitiful high street!

If we act fast it will not be too late! With our buds barely blooming, let alone arranged in aesthetically pleasing formations, we have little time, but surely we can throw something together?! I have no ideas myself— I am far from an expert in the field, merely an enthusiastic fan of foliage.

We could of course cheat and use plastic plants; but we must ask ourselves if we really want to be the Michael Jackson of the contemporary flower exhibiting world… I don’t think you need me to tell you that we most certainly do not want that foul infamy!

I wish to see victory (and restoration of local pride) before the imminent death of my poor, world-weary goldfish Colonel Kurtz (named, of course, after Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather).

Whilst we’re on the subject of my goldfish, I wonder if you can assist me in matters of goldfish behaviour. I do not know whether you are anything of an ichthyologist, but I feel it’s worth a shot.

Kurtz is a very mischievous fish. I often tell him that if he doesn’t behave he shall end up sleeping with the fishes, but this only serves to make him more frisky and excitable than before. Have you any idea how I can restore discipline and order to my fishbowl?

Thank you for your time,

James D. Irwin

An Unanswered Letter to Bruce Willis (Voice of Mikey in ‘Look Who’s Talking’)

Dear Mr Willis,

I am not altogether convinced this address is genuine, but if it is, I have a number of questions.

Firstly, I dined at Planet Hollywood last year. Whilst it was great to see the motorcycle/chopper from Pulp Fiction (I do a great impersonation of that entire scene, playing both your role and the part of Fabienne) and although I was also thrilled to find that our hands are exactly the same size, one question could not escape my mind:

Planet Hollywood was set up after the immense (and richly deserved) success of the seminal action film Die Hard, in which you played the main character. Why then, did you not name the restaurant Dine Hard? And since the world has become full of left-wing lunatic hippies who think that meat is murder, the avenue for a vegan outlet named Dine Hard: With a Vegetable was wide open! Just a thought…

Also: I have a suggestion for a new condiment, also along the Die Hard theme. Salt and Pepper are as old hat as Salt-N-Pepa, why not spice things up with a little Yipee-Cayenne-Pepper? The place is film themed, right?!

Also, is The Sixth Sense a sequel to The Fifth Element? Because they are quite similar (i.e. you are in them) but they are also different (i.e. they are clearly two very different films).

Finally, why is the food at Planet Hollywood so expensive? Please don’t tell me it’s because the film roles are drying up, because I do enjoy your films.

Sincerely,

James D. Irwin

P.S. Who would win in a fight between John McClane and Harry Callahan? I mean ’70s era Callahan, because he looks a bit frailer in that last film with Jim Carrey and the exploding remote control car (something sadly lacking in the Die Hard films).

OR

Would you join forces and take on Chuck Norris in a No Rules Cage Fight? I would be willing to pay anything between $6-12 to see it happen.

An Unanswered Letter to Brad Pitt (Star of Seven and Years in Tibet)

Dear Mr Pitt,

I haven’t seen many of your films, but having seen both Seven and Fight Club, as well as the trailers for Ocean’s 11-13, I’m confident you have the talent, gravitas and cache for my latest foray into the world of cinematic excellence.

Admittedly my plans rely heavily on you either knowing somebody with the surname Pendulum, or adopting a Rwandan child and calling it Pendulum.

The film itself would be a screen adaptation of an Edgar Allen Poe classic.

Imagine the bill Brad… PITT and PENDULUM in… THE RAVEN! Catchy, don’t you think?!

The tickets practically sell themselves!

Question: Poe lived in Baltimore. Baltimore’s NFL team is called The Ravens. Is this a coincidence?

I would like to see more of your films before I write the script, what would you recommend? Also, you might want some say in your supporting cast, but I’d very much like to cast Morgan Freeman as the narrator. Isn’t his voice wonderful? It’s the audio equivalent of taking a bath in hot chocolate whilst Kiera Knightley massages your thorax with warm, fresh honey…

Sincerely,

James D. Irwin

P.S. I want you to reply as hard as you can.

P.P.S. That was a Fight Club reference.

An Unanswered Letter to George Clooney (Nepresso Coffee Spokesperson)

Dear Mr Clooney,

Is there going to be another Ocean’s film?

I can’t help but think the number of Ocean’s films is rising rapidly— perhaps too rapidly. I wonder then, if this is a subtle message regarding global warming?

Perhaps your next Ocean’s film could directly address this phenomena… Ocean’s Rising.

The plot would see another casino being built— a gaudy super-casino, which tips the world’s C02 omissions over the edge, triggering a huge climate change and the oceans literally rising and drowning the Netherlands and Norfolk, England.

Then you, Matt Damon and the other ones (except Brad Pitt, who’ll be busy working on an adaptation of ‘The Raven’, which is being narrated by Morgan Freeman) have to save all the Dutch people. You could save all the people in Norfolk, but Dutch girls are very pretty and the good people of Norfolk have something of a reputation for webbed feet and inbreeding…

Please don’t hesitate to tell me what you think. I don’t have anything locked down as yet, and am very open to suggestions and script alterations.

James D. Irwin

An Unanswered Letter to Matt Damon (Popular Youtube sensation)

Dear Mr Damon,

I recently treated myself to a viewing of Team America: World Police. I was saddened to see you, Matt Damon, offer the most wooden performance I have ever seen. You seemed to be little more than the director’s puppet. It was a particular shame given how great you generally are in films and stuff.

I have enjoyed The Talented Mr Ripley countless times, because one can never tire of watching Jude Law being murdered.

Anyway, I digress. This letter regards your future, and presents to you a prospect I think you’ll find hard to turn down (I would say “an offer you can’t refuse”, but quoting Apocalypse Now is becoming rather cliché).

I may not be a big name in Hollywoodland (although I possess far more talent than the cast of Hollywoodland) but I have some big ideas!

As Brad Pitt and I have already begun to collaborate on a new version of Poe’s “The Raven” (to be narrated by Morgan Freeman) you’ll find your role in the new Ocean’s film much expanded. George and I haven’t come to any firm agreements yet, but as it stands the plot revolves around you and The Cloonmeister saving the Dutch from the catastrophic effects of global warming. The final scene will probably involve pretty Dutch girls with unlikely surnames “thanking” you for your heroics (this scene won’t be too graphic however, as we really need a PG-13 certificate to maximise our demographics).

Now we’ve got that out of the way we can turn our attention to the Bourne films. They’ve done remarkably well, considering you look like my friend Dan who has a dodgy heart.

You may be aware that Mr Robert Ludlum has been very inconsiderate in dying, leaving not so much as a partially finished manuscript on which to base another exhilarating caper for everyone’s favourite amnesiac action hero.

However, I have a sure-fire, whizz-bang of a hit under my belt (just ask the ladies!)

Seriously though… After all that killing he’s done and loved ones he’s lost, Jason Bourne is probably at something of a low ebb. He goes to church, confesses all of his sins and becomes a do-goody Christian— a Born Again Christian.

The film would be called ‘Bourne: Again’ and focus largely on character arc and setting up a high-octane sequel. We’d have to be very careful in making sure that the film was not mistaken for popular ABBA tribute act Bjorn Again— but perhaps they could do the soundtrack?

Towards the end of the film Jason Bourne, now the pillar of a small Mid-Western community, is attacked by a group of no-good punk kids. Attempting to open the can of kick-ass moves demonstrated in the first three films he finds he simply cannot: Jason Bourne is unable to defend himself, and as he lies beaten, bruised and bleeding in the street, he finds that God can’t always defend him.

Bourne is then forced to choose between his faith in God and his faith in beating people shitless.

This sets up the sequel we see that you, Jason Bourne, have opted to put your faith in beating people shitless and have begun to train yourself up to battle man’s greatest foe: God (played by Chuck Norris).

In a thrilling climax Bourne confronts God in an epic battle royale in which both men attempt to out-smite each other (working title: Matt Damon Versus God: The Smitening).

I can’t see any flaws, except the (slim chance) that Mr Norris is eviscerated in the upcoming Cage Fight against Bruce Willis and ’70s era Harry Callahan (tickets $6-12).

I would be delighted to hear your thoughts— and I am, of course, open to any of your suggestions. After all, you have written a multiple-MTV Movie Award winning film!

Sincerely,

James D. Irwin

Angelina Jolie has everything—a successful career, a romance with Brad Pitt, a crew of cute kids and millions in the bank—except for the one thing she really needs: friends. “Angelia is hungry for normal moms to be around,” a source close to the star, 34, tells Hot Stuff. “She feels like she lives in a bubble.” She’s also having trouble managing stress, says a second insider, who notes that Jolie “has been overwhelmed lately with the children. She has nannies, but she likes to do it all herself. She’s very hands-on—but she’s exhausted!”

—Us Weekly, January 4, 2010

 

Dear Angelina,

I’m writing today in response to the above-referenced piece in Us Weekly’s “Hot Stuff” section, which I read as a cry for help.

Let me begin by saying that, as a “co-parent” to two lovely children, Dominick, 5, and Prudence, 3, I totally understand what you’re going through. It’s hard enough making friends with other mommies and daddies, but for someone as in the public eye as you are? Wowsers.

Put it this way: if my only option for parental peerage consisted of Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham, I’d live in semi-isolation, too. Who wants to go to all those soccer games?

The truth is, other than your choice of profession—and the movie-star good looks—you have little in common with most Hollywood moms (Kendra and Kourtney? Kome on). Your slender physique and great beauty belie the fact that you are quite the heavy. You’ve got gravitas, girl. And that must take its toll. Between the visits to Third World countries, the U.N. Goodwill Ambassadorship, Beyond Borders, and Notes From My Travels—not to mention a slate of roles in particularly downer films (A Mighty Heart, Changeling)—you, my dear, are desperately in need of a little sunshine.

And I know just the person to provide that sunshine, not to mention the sororial bonding you need from another in-the-trenches mommy: my wife, Stephanie.

I think you and Steph would, like, totally hit it off. I mean, you have a lot in common: You both had reluctant C-sections. You both lost your mother to cancer. You’re both of French-Canadian/Native American stock. You both like Atlas Shrugged. You’re married to two of the sexiest bohunks alive, both of whom are repped by the same film agency. You’re the same age (OK, Steph is a tiny bit older than you, but she’s still way younger than Brad). And you know how you’re a political lefty but your dad voted for McCain? Same with Stephanie!

Because she lived in the East Village for fifteen years, my wife won’t be wowed by your enormous celebrity. She went to school with Taye Diggs, she has friends who write for SNL, her best friend played Marius in Les Mis on Broadway. (Plus, not to toot my own horn here, but she shares a bed with the author of Totally Killer and the senior editor of the hottest literary site on the Web). In fact, other than the time she accosted Matthew Broderick in the health food store and told him she thought he was “the best comedic actor ever” before turning tail and fleeing in shame, Steph is totally chill when it comes to hobnobbing with the rich and famous. She knows that what Us Weekly says about stars is bang-on true—they’re just like us!

What else you might like to know is that Steph is both a talented musician and a graduate student pursuing a masters in mental health counseling. So not only can she serve as a sounding board/therapist and help you manage the stress we read about in said magazine—and frankly, it’s refreshing to hear that movie stars feel stress about their children that doesn’t involve finding discreet babysitters so they can stay out all night with other movie stars—she can also belt out a killer rendition of “Wheels on the Bus.” Plus, she’s really funny, and she does a top notch Scarlett Johansson impression.

Me, you’ve obviously heard of, because of my affiliation with this fine online magazine and because I drew a standing-room-only crowd at my reading with Duke Haney at Book Soup in West Hollywood a few weeks back. What you may not know is, I’ve spent the last five years as a sort-of stay-at-home dad, eking out a living doing freelance work. Sort of like you with Kung Fu Panda, but with a much smaller paycheck. Also, I’m an astrologer, so I can do your chart (assuming the birth time on IMDB is accurate, I already know that you’re a Cancer Rising and that Venus conjuncts your Ascendant, which means, if you will forgive a technical horoscopy term, that you’re hot).

Brangelina, meet Grephanie

We live in New Paltz, a charming and crunchy college town in New York’s Hudson Valley. I know you spent time in Albany while filming your upcoming blockbuster Salt. Let me assure you: this ain’t Albany. Unlike the state capital, New Paltz is a place that tourists actually want to visit. Mohonk Mountain House is here—many movies have been shot there, as you are no doubt aware—plus we have Huguenot Street, the oldest residential street in North America. Brad will like that, because he’s an architecture buff.

You know who else is an architecture buff? Our son, Dominick. He just turned five, and he spent all afternoon reading A Field Guide to American Houses, which American Libraries cleverly calls “the definitive field guide to American homes.” He knows the subtle differences between the Beaux Arts and Second Empire styles, and he really wants to visit Cleveland because of all the lovely historic homes there. More to the point, there’s a girl in his dance class who sort of looks like Zahara, and he really likes her. This bodes well for playdates.

As for our daughter, Prudence and Shiloh are the same age, and they both have awesome names. (Let me take a moment to compliment you on your good taste in that department. Maddox, Zahara, Pax, Shiloh, Knox, Vivienne…not a clunker in the bunch. No Apples, no Moseses, and no Olives, because Olive Pitt doesn’t quite work.) If Shiloh enjoys riding tricycles, belting out tunes at the top of her lungs, and playing non-competitive games of hide-and-seek, she’ll get along with Prue just fine.

While it’s true that New Paltz is quite a distance from Los Angeles, New Orleans, Paris, Berlin, Phnom Penh, Namibia, and other places where we think you might maintain residences—and, while we’re on the topic, might I suggest that, exhilarating as globe-trotting must be, especially under the imprimatur of the United Nations, it might be easier for both you and your children to make friends if you commit to a single locale—we are right down the road from Woodstock, so it’s not like we’ve never seen celebrities before (although so many of our citizens support a mandatory death sentence for television that it’s entirely possible that you could accompany Stephanie to Bacchus for a few Fin du Mondes and TMZ would never be the wiser).

Another thing: Stephanie already has a really great circle of mommy friends. These are ladies you would really dig. Liz, who has four kids—including twins, like you—is really funny and down to earth and has great taste in music. S.L., like you, has lots of tattoos and tastes that run Goth; I don’t think she’d wear her husband’s blood in a vial around her neck, but the idea wouldn’t repulse her. And check this: Elizabeth and her husband Tim have two adoptive children from Guatemala, and next month, they’re getting two more, this time from Rwanda. That’s right—Rwanda. Plus, Tim’s car runs on vegetable oil. I bet even Leo’s car doesn’t do that.

Oh, and there’s this. I’ve heard the rumors that you and Brad occasionally run into conflict because from time to time you like to—how shall I put this?—put the “XX” in sex. (I’m guessing that’s what you meant when you told Das Neue last week that you “doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship.”) Assuming these rumors are legit, and not a feeble attempt by your Foxfire co-star Jenny Shimizu to resuscitate her career, let’s just say that in these parts, we tend to be quite liberal when it comes to that sort of thing. We’re down with bisexual OPP.

True, Stephanie and I have never broached the subject. But say you guys were hanging out, availing yourselves of the drink specials while grooving to the Big Shoe show at Oasis, and one thing led to another…who am I to deny the happiness of the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency?

The point is, you’ll find my wife and I very supportive of your lifestyle choices. Like, we think it’s really cool that you guys won’t get married until marriage is a universal right. In fact, one of the reasons we moved to New Paltz is because our then-mayor, Jason West, performed gay marriages at Village Hall. Like I said, this ain’t Albany.

If you’d rather not relocate from sunny Los Angeles to a place where the winters are cold and slush-filled and the Subarus outnumber the Porsches just to cultivate a friendship with a woman you met by reading a letter her husband wrote on a Web site whose influence, while mighty, was insufficient to convince Janeane Garofalo to boink a handsome and debonair Aussie fifteen years her junior…hey, I understand. I won’t take it personally. But if you’re willing to give it a shot, have “your people” call “our people,” and let’s set up a playdate. You won’t be disappointed.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Greg Olear

PS

We have a jumpy castle.