This morning I attended a Grauman’s Chinese handprint ceremony for Silver Linings Playbook costar and Best Supporting Actor nominee Robert De Niro. Bobby D is doing all he can to out-promote his main competitor, Lincoln‘s Tommy Lee Jones. (TLJ snagged SAG’s Best Supporting Actor award so watch out.) De Niro’s Analyze This costar Billy Crystal and SLP director-writer David O. Russell offered gracious compliments, and Fandango’s Dave Karger was the emcee.

“Heeyyyy! Wet gunk on my hands! Fuck am I doing here?” Robert De Niro at this morning’s TCL Chinese handprint ceremony — Monday, 2.4, 10:10 am.

De Niro is doing a q & a at Santa Monica’s Aero tonight, and I’ll be at that event also.

Fandango’s Dave Karger deliveriing introductory remarks.

(l to r.) Crystal, DeNiro, DeNiro’s wife Grace Hightower, Silver Linings Playbook director-writer David O. Russell.

Between De Niro’s joke about how “Joe Pesci always told me I’d end up with my feet in cement” and the presence of TCL Chinese co-owners Elie Samaha and Don Kushner, who exude the same kind of flashy ne’er-do-well vibe as Mickey Cohen or Bugsy Siegel but without the class, I was thinking of an old Lenny Bruce routine:

New Jersey guy #1: Say, what happened to your partner?
New Jersey guy #2: He drowned.
New Jersey guy #1: What, in February?
New Jersey guy #2: Yeah.
New Jersey guy #1: What, he couldn’t swim?
New Jersey guy #2: Nah, he couldn’t get out of the car.