Jeff Wells

Yesterday an HE reader named Michael2021, who strikes me as a possible antagonist, suspiciously asked “X-factor (white) guy“…what exactly is this supposed to mean?”

HE reply: I’m white because of my ancestral heritage. As much as I’d like to do something about that (as it would win me points with the fanatics), I can’t. But the X-factor thing…

X-factor people are leftie (or, in the current atmosphere of woke political terror and dread, formerly leftie) iconoclasts who tend to sidestep the usual usual in terms of attitudes and behaviors. Semi-original, in some cases quirky or vaguely oddball types (but not too oddball…think Bill Murray-type weirdos) or against-the-grain thinkers, and in many cases serious creatives.

No age requirements, although there seem to be more over-40 X-factors than under-40s. (Go figure.) X-factor fellows never wear flip-flops and generally despise man-toes as a rule. Luca Guadagnino, Cate Blanchett, Phillip Noyce, Tilda Swinton and Willem Dafoe are X-factor; conspicuously wealthy types like Lizzo, Reese Witherspoon, Kanye, Jennifer Aniston, Will Smith and Kim Kardashian are almost certainly not.

We’re otherwise talking folks who prefer Hotel Paisano in Marfa over Houston’s DoubleTree. Or, if you will, Point Pleasant over Atlantic City, Villas Altas Mismaloya or the Thompson Zihuatanejo over Puerto Vallarta or Acapulco, Prague over Geneva, Caye Caulker over Ambergris Caye. Or a narrow, old-school hotel in Old Town Hanoi over a tourist-friendly Sofitel. And Lauterbrunnen any time of the year.

People who usually prefer to drive classic mid-century Mustangs rather than big fat SUVs with built-in wifi. Or who prefer to wear Italian suede lace-ups or even saddle shoes rather than Gucci loafers or white Converse or Nike footwear. Or who wear cowboy hats instead of Kangol berets and head warmers in the winter. Those who generally march to the beat of a subdued and slightly different drummer. Or (one more travel analogy!) those who tend to avoid the San Marco district when visiting Venice, and tend to stick to Dorsoduro.

I apologize for not having been up on Andrew Schulz, but I am now. Stand-up comedian, 38, actor, TV producer and podcaster. Known for MTV2’s Guy Code, the Flagrant podcast with Akaash Singh, and The Brilliant Idiots podcast.

All ten episodes of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan‘s Netflix series about Jeffrey Dahmer, the infamous serial killer of 17 men and boys during the ’80s, begin streaming on Wednesday, 9.21. Evan Peters plays Dahmer; the costars include Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller (as his parents) and Molly Ringwald (as his sister).

The question for me (and, I suspect, for millions of others) is why isn’t the title simply Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? Why did the producers decide they had to include his last name twice in the same title? Why, in other words, are they calling it Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story? That’s what’s known as a committee title.

The limited series began filming in late winter of 2021, or a year and a half ago. Tatiana landed a non-speaking part as a Dahmer attorney. Sporting conservative attorney hair and straight-laced business attire, she spent two or three days shooting a courtroom scene, sitting the whole time next to Peters. I’ve seen sitting on this casting news for a long time, and can now finally reveal it.

“Jerry! Sandra showed me some your fiction and your awards, and I have to say ‘powerful stuff.’ Almost too powerful. I’m wondering if your mind can function down on our level. I grew up in Pacific Grove, and I started reading…what’s his name?…I started reading Steinbeck when I was nine. [Tossing a script on the table.] Here’s a piece of shit, Jerry. I wrote and re-wrote it, but it ain’t workin’. If you can make it work, you’re on…okay?”

Some of us remember Permanent Midnight (Artisan, 9.16.98), a mild-mannered addiction dramedy in which Ben Stiller played author and screenwriter Jerry Stahl.

I thought this pitch-meeting scene with Fred Willard as the creator of Mr. Chompers was quietly hilarious in a deadpan way, mainly because I didn’t sense an effort on anyone’s part (least of all director-writer David Veloz) to make it feel funny. It just was.

Permanent Midnight opened a quarter century ago, and I’m suddenly thinking I’d like to give it another spin.

I was at People at the time, and in an early draft I happened to pass along that Stiller, who needed to look like an emaciated addict, had lost weight by adhering to Dick Gregory’s Bahamian Diet powder, which Stahl had ironically referred to as the “junkie diet.”

Instantly alarmed by the term, Stiller’s team (including producer Don Murphy and publicist Kelley Bush) ganged up on me during a conference call. I was merely amused by Stahl’s term and thought it was okay to mention considering that Stiller was playing a brilliant opiate addict, etc. The term was deleted, of course.

Has this Permanent Midnight recollection stirred any poignant memories?

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden arrived a little bit late for the Westminster Abbey funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Which was rude — let’s be honest. And so the Bidens had to wait to be seated — understandably.

I realize that over 500 foreign heads of state, monarchs and dignitaries attended the event, and that a certain seating protocol is enforced when it comes to major funerals of this sort. But it still seems a bit odd that the President of the United States would be seated in the 14th row. A slight diminishment or vague insult of some kind. No?

I hate posting about this because Orange Plague made a thing out of it, but let’s imagine a similar fictitious British scenario. It’s June 1962, let’s suppose, and President Kennedy is attending a Westminster Abbey funeral for, let’s say, the recently departed Prime Minister Harold MacMillan (who actually passed in 1986). I somehow can’t accept that JFK would have been seated in the 14th row.

Biden works out and takes care of himself, I realize, but if I were he I would make a greater effort to walk like I’m in my mid ’50s or thereabouts. I would summon all my strength and make a greater effort not to sway ever so slightly and shuffle along like a geezer.

If Don Lemon had been paying closer attention, he would understand that the reparations narrative has taken a hit since promotions for The Woman King began, which in turn inspired closer study of the Dahomey slave trade history.

His face at the end is the payoff. 😂 https://t.co/z7KMdOSDYb

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) September 20, 2022

Read more

A 9.19 Hollywood Reporter article by Rebecca Sun recounts the highlights of Saturday’s (9.17) Academy tribute to Sacheen Littlefeather.

The 75 year-old Native American activist became famous 49 years ago when she conveyed Marlon Brando‘s refusal to accept his Best Actor Godfather Oscar, an act meant as a protest over how negative depictions of Native Americans in Hollywood films.

A portion of the fourth paragraph in Sun’s piece is curiously worded. Saturday’s event “was a nearly two-hour program,” she writes, “attended by a mixed crowd of people indigenous to and originating from lands beyond what is now known as the United States.” Does “beyond what is now known as the United States” mean Canada, Alaska and Mexico? Or, more simply, the North American continent?

Sun seems to basically be saying that the lands and cultures that existed before the United States of Whiteman came along were more spiritually rooted and wholesome.

Littlefeather: “I’m crossing over soon to the spirit world. And you know, I’m not afraid to die. Because we come from a we/us/our society. We don’t come from a me/I/myself society. And we learn to give away from a very young age. When we are honored, we give.”

Littlefeather has the right idea in a sense. We all love the idea of reuniting with deceased loved ones when we pass on, but if there’s one aspect of life that I’ve always understood to be an absolutely solitary journey, it’s dying. Merging with the infinite and the altogether is a glorious notion, of course, but you do have to cross that suspended footbridge all on your lonesome.

A 9.17 IndieWire piece by Samantha Bergeson has attacked Andrew Dominik‘s Blonde (Netflix, 9.28) for being pro-life. I’m presuming that others in the wokester press membrane have had similar concerns. The objection is over a scene in which an unborn fetus talks to Marilyn Monroe / Norma Jean from inside her womb and asks her not to kill again, as she did during a previous abortion.

Excerpt: “The fetus who actually speaks to Monroe while she is gardening and asks if she will ‘do the same’ to it as she did to the other, i.e. terminate her pregnancy — results in a violently bloody miscarriage after Monroe trips over a rock at the beach and collapses in sand.

“Dominik [has] categorized his film as capturing ‘what it’s like to go through the Hollywood meat-grinder’ and [has] bragged that his magnum opus is ‘like Citizen Kane and Raging Bull had a baby daughter’…one who seems to have grown up to be Amy Coney Barrett.”

Industry friendo to HE: “Is Blonde a rightwing pro-life movie? That scene where the unborn fetus asks Merilyn not to kill again? This is a film from one of the most progressive production companies in the business. So I find it very surprising.”

HE argument: “As Blonde is completely absorbed by the mentality and emotions of Marilyn/Norman Jean, it’s reasonable to presume that the talking fetus is from her own imagination…that the guilt-wracked actress is hearing the fetus talk to her and beg for its life…it’s not crazy to interpret this as a reflection of Marilyn’s own thinking and is not as agenda being put forth by Andrew Dominik.”