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All along I’ve been wondering if HE commenter “James Woods” might be the Real McCoy. Well, he’s not, and that’s from the horse’s mouth. The imposter is hereby requested to change his handle immediately. If he doesn’t, I’ll cancel his ticket. He can call himself “Little Jimmy” or something in that vein. Fair warning.

I was sharing a boozy thought with Treat Williams around 1 am. It was the fall of ’82 or thereabouts, and we were sitting at a table of rowdy actors at Cafe Central, which was the hip bar at the time. John Heard and Cher were also at the table, and I heard the next day that they went home together.

The problem was that I’d had one or two too many and was slurring my words. Not making much sense. “What?” Williams asked, a bit irritated. I blurted it out again, whatever my Jack Daniels-soaked brain had managed to formulate and discharge. “I don’t getcha,” he said, and that was it.

Detective Stern: What did you say your name was?
Daniel Ciello: Ciello.
Detective Stern: Are you the Detective Ciello?
Daniel Ciello: I’m Detective Ciello.
Detective Stern: I don’t think I have anything to learn from you.

For no reason pic.twitter.com/BR1E7Hvwsh

— Treat Williams (@Rtreatwilliams) March 30, 2020

Great quote: “Because I know what I might think about. And what I won’t think about. But you’re a great interviewer, by the way.”

Chris Cuomo: “With all of this adulation that you’re getting for doing your job, are you thinking about running for president? Tell the audience.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “No, no.”

CC: “No you won’t answer?”

AC: “No, I answered. The answer’s no. It’s just one word. I said no.” pic.twitter.com/afFkPd4FyU

— The Hill (@thehill) March 31, 2020

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Earlier today Brian and Eddie Krassenstein posted a Medium piece that casts an unfavorable light upon Alexandra Tara Reade, the 50ish woman who recently accused Joe Biden of having sexually assaulted her back in ’93, when she was working for him.

The basic thrust: “While the allegations made by Reade are impossible to prove or disprove, examining Reade’s actions over the years and other evidence that has been archived on the internet, brings her honesty and integrity into question.”

The Krassensteins appears to have done their homework as far as Reade’s online postings are concerned, not to mention her name changes.

Seven hours of strain and focus, brushes and rollers, 60 minutes of clean-up. Full disclosure: (a) Painting the place was Tatyana’s idea — I was initially terrified of the inevitable chaos (everything off the walls, drop cloths, moving stuff around) but the reality wasn’t so bad; (b) I suggested the Coral Gables color and she agreed; (c) We painted the place together; (d) Anya provided emotional support start to finish. The place looks great. We’ll finish the job tomorrow.

The population of South Korea’s capital city is actually 9,733,509.

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Yes, I’m aware that the Joe Biden enthusiasm levels on the liberal-progressive side aren’t as strong as those among Trump supporters. Obviously that’s worrisome. Plus the cognitive issues mentioned the other day by Joe Rogan [after the jump].

I naturally want Biden to win, but the truth is that I devoutly wish that somehow or some way New York State governor Andrew Cuomo could just step in and become the Democratic nominee.

In her 3.27 column titled “Tough Love For Andrew Cuomo,” Maureen Dowd quotes Bill Maher: “I see Cuomo as the Democratic nominee this year. If we could switch Biden out for him, that’s the winner. He’s unlikable, which I really like.”

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Initially posted on 9.4.15 but revised: I took part in a paintball game when I was working at Cannon Films in the summer of ’87. What happened was hugely embarassing, certainly from my vantage point

As we all know the basic objective in any paintball game is for somebody on your home team to steal the opposing team’s flag and make it back to your side without getting killed.

I had suggested a bold kamikaze strategy to my fellow warriors. Instead of individual skirmishing and taking cover behind trees and bushes while trying to “kill” guys on the other team, I suggested winning the battle in less than three or four minutes.

The idea was for nine or ten of us to charge into enemy territory as a tight group — a Toshiro Mifune-style flying wedge. Three guys on both sides (6), one guy in the lead forward-thrust position, another guy in the rear-center position, and a guy in the middle. We come out guns blazing and just go for it.

Shock and surprise on the part of the enemy, I was thinking. Five or six of us might get killed right away, but in the process they could also shoot back and kill some of the enemy. Hold the formation, hold the formation. There might be only four or five of us left when we grab their flag, but at least we’d have it and could run right the hell back.

I was basically suggesting an Inchon invasion strategy. Nobody plays paintball with this kind of Douglas MacArthur-style determination. If we do it immediately when the whistle sounds, the enemy will be so surprised and off-balance they won’t be able to kill us all. Perhaps half or even two thirds, but they wouldn’t get all of us and we could definitely inflict harm on them while capturing their banner.

Alas, my flying wedge idea wasn’t unanimously supported. It couldn’t work unless we were all on the same gung-ho page, so that was that.

Plus when you actually get out there with your paintball gun in that sticky and sweltering Los Angeles heat and you’re dealing with dust and sweat and the sobering fact that you’re not exactly Steve McQueen in Hell Is For Heroes, things are a little different.

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Trump’s Freudian slip arrives at the 7:10 mark. He meant to say “I don’t have to call” but instead revealed his smug egoistic mindset. The implication is that calling this or that Democratic governor or official would be, in his mind, a form of submission. Me me me me me me…”Be nice.”

A day or two ago David Ehrenstein complained that Bob Dylan‘s “Murder Most Foul”, a 17-minute long meditation about the brutal murder of the nation’s 35th president, was “mind-bogglingly banal.”

Not Dylan’s vocal performance or the musicianship, I presume he meant, but the lyrics. Lines and passages that are flush with familiar cliches and rueful reflections, well-baked recollections, ’60s pop-culture references, etc.

Ehrenstein is missing the forest for the trees. The lyrics aren’t as important, I feel, as the tired and resigned way in which Dylan half-sings and half-mutters them, and more particularly why he’s released the song now.

I don’t know when “Murder Most Foul” was written and recorded but deep down I don’t think it’s about JFK’s last day on the planet as much as Dylan’s contemplation of his own mortality, and how he’s evolved into a wizened old coot who regards the gift of life with absolute reverence (age does that to you).

Simplistic as it sounds, he’s basically horrified by the idea of conspirators abruptly destroying everything that JFK had been and could be. Horror magnified in his mind. Along with the sadness. Dylan’s sense of his own mortality is undercurrent #1.

In late ’63 or early ’64 Dylan, then 22, said something about partly understanding where Lee Harvey Oswald was coming from, not to the point of agreeing with what he’d done but in terms of sensing his underlying despair. Dylan reportedly walked that statement back fairly quickly, but it was exactly the sort of thing that a brilliant iconoclast in his early 20s might’ve passed along.

Now Dylan is 78, and he sees things differently. The point of the song (one of them anyway) is that JFK’s murder, like that of Tom Dooley or Fred Hampton or Martin Luther King or any illustrious victim of a ruthless political agenda, was at root an act of terrible cruelty, and Dylan is simply saying that this particular act of malice has burned deep, and that 56 years later the after-shocks still register from to time, and that he can feel them more today than he did in the fall of ’63. Or something like that.

Above and beyond the lyrics, the song is basically a meditation about the horror of suddenly becoming lifeless tissue, at any age.

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