A month ago I reported that Zak, my three-year-old rag doll, has developed three tiny tumor-like growths on his back, head and rear leg. The Laurel Pet Hospital vet said he’d cut the mini-tumors off and do a biopsy. A 50% chance of cancer, he said, which would mean Zak would have a year or less. Or it might be something else. The assessment cost was $250. This morning I took Zak down for the removal + biopsy, and was told the fee will be $755. I’m sure that the treatment for whatever’s ailing Zak will cost an arm and a leg also. Whatever the situation, pet hospitals have you by the balls.

From “Death and Money“, posted on 6.26.11: “Zak #1, a Siamese born in ’86, died from pancreatic cancer at age 14 or 15. He stopped eating toward the end, prompting me to put Gerber’s baby food on his nose so he would at least lick it off. He was obviously finished. Any country vet would have taken one look and said, “Take him home and make him comfortable, and if you want to put him to sleep towards the end, we’ll do that for you. I’m sorry, but he hasn’t long to live.”

When I took Zak to TLC Animal Hospital in West Hollywood they managed to extract $600 or $700 for observation and stabilization fees before putting him to sleep. Caring shysters like TLC know full well that pet owners want to do something (i.e., spend something) when their pet is dying, and so they always step right up and show love and concern for your pet and offer consolation to the owner[s], and you’d better believe that they get that money. They’re trustworthy professionals, but they know how to vacuum your wallet.

Read more

A producer friend has passed along a Don Rickles story, told by a person who knew Rickles and Frank Sinatra:

“Rickles and Sinatra were playing different rooms at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas one weekend. [Back in the mid ’60s, I’m guessing.] Don caught up with Frank before he went on one night and said, ‘Listen Frank, I’ll be in the audience tonight. I’m bringing a gorgeous girl and it’s a first date and you know I’d really like to impress her.’ Frank said, ‘Sure Don, how can I help?’ Rickles said, ‘Can you come over to the table after the show and say hello and be real friendly? She’ll be really impressed.’ Frank said, ‘Sure, no problem.’

“After the show, Frank made his way over to Rickles’ table and there he was with the girl. Sinatra grins and says, ‘Hey Don! How ya doin?’ Rickles looks up and says, ‘I can’t talk now, Frank…I’m busy.'”

I’ve been doing breakfasts, lunches and business meetings at WeHo’s Le Pain Quotidien (8607 Melrose) for 15 years. I worship the place — fine coffees and breads, healthy dishes, plain-wood interiors, soothing vibes, front porch. Two days ago my heart nearly stopped when I noticed a “for lease” sign. Le Pain Quotidien, the nearby Urth Caffe and another little restaurant across from the Blue Whale are the only people-friendly businesses left in the local area– all the others sell over-priced clothing, furniture, rugs and home furnishings. My Melrose-strip neighborhood (west of La Cienega, east of San Vicente) has become more and more corporate-vibey over the last five to seven years, and less and less human.

Le Pain Quotidien, 8607 Melrose, West Hollywood, CA 90069.

I naturally assumed that with all the new businesses and high-end construction that the local landlord is squeezing Le Pain Quotidien for more rent, and that the Belgian-based owners are saying “fuck that.” My assumption was correct. The details are on the website of Jay Luchs, an exec vp with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, the worldwide real-estate empire, but to be sure I called his office. I was told that Luchs has increased the monthly rent to $34K. (The per-square-foot charge is $16.50 per month.) The Melrose shop had a 15-year lease beginning in ’02. That lease has expired. The restaurant is now paying on a month-to-month basis.

Read more

The once-legendary Don Rickles, king of the insult comics, has passed at at age 90. I loved his mafia material — Frank Sinatra adored him but Rickles really seemed to despise the Vegas goombahs. The first time I tuned into Rickles was when he humiliated Roy Rogers during a late ’60s talk-show encounter. The channelling of petty, middle-class anger, particularly a kind of reverse self-loathing along with various social resentments, was the key to Rickles’ humor. He was the guy who stood at a podium or sat on the Tonight Show couch and said the ugly or mortifying putdowns that people might have muttered to themselves but didn’t dare express.

David Letterman kept having him on the show but Rickles was finished, of course, when political correctness caught on in the early ’90s. By today’s standards Rickles was a bad person — racist, xenophobic, selfish, cruel. Not that he was any of those things, but the fact that he channelled these views and feelings, which perhaps were in Rickles himself to some extent but were certainly out there among the general populace, is what his act was about. Whatever mean currents Rickles may have harbored deep down, they certainly lived and breathed within tens of millions who laughed at his material during the heyday.

Never forget that Rickles was a lifelong Democrat who never converted to Republican thinking, unlike some of his tuxedo-wearing contemporaries when they got older.

But at least the appalling Devin Nunes will no longer head the House Committee investigating Trump-Russia connections.

A letter tapped out to my ex-wife this morning: “Dylan is now 27. I’ve been comparing his present situation to where I was in my late 20s, and where my late brother was at the same point. My life eventually worked out; my brother’s didn’t. The worst feeling in the world is being 27 or thereabouts and coping with the fact that your life isn’t coming together, and that the best way to improve things and maybe move up to the next level is unknown to you, and you really don’t know what the hell to do.

“I finally awoke to the idea of writing and reviewing films at 27; my brother was half-floundering around and not tapping into anything special or strong at that age. Both of us were angry and crusty (childhoods of suburban regimentation coupled with dark mood clouds from our alcoholic dad, mitigated only by our mom’s gracious spirit), but I discovered a path out of all that. You have to fall in love with something outside of yourself and then, if you’re lucky and strong enough, use that to try and transcend things and hopefully alight to other places.

“I know that sometime in our 20s we all have to get past the hurt of childhood and say to ourselves, “Okay, that happened and yes, my parents are far from perfect, but here I am right now.”

“Maybe I could have been a better dad with Dylan, maybe I could have shown more love, but I was a reasonably good one under the haphazard circumstances (seeing them only on vacations, holidays and occasional weekends, and some of this colored by my early to mid ’90s vodka problem) and I was certainly much more affectionate with Dylan than my dad was with me when I was young and in my teens. The ’90s were exciting but turbulent years for me, but I made it through and did my best under the circumstances.

“By my late 20s my dad had gone into AA and was making his apologies for his alcoholic behavior, and we were okay with each other more and more as the years went on.

Read more

I Am Heath Ledger, an affectionate tribute doc featuring rare footage + the usual interviews with family, friends and colleagues, will premiere later at the Tribeca Film Festival. It will also pop in select theaters on 5.3 before airing on the Spike channel on Wednesday, 5.17.

From “If Ledger Had Lived,” posted on 1.4.14: “Ledger, man…I still think about the guy. I was thinking how things might have gone for him if he was alive and crackling today. What films he might have made, what roles he might have stolen from whomever actually played them. He died about two weeks shy of six years ago” — i.e., 9 years and 3 months ago as of 4.5.17.

“I was covering Sundance ’08 but I’d came down with a 48-hour fever. I was my second year at the old “cowboy hat” establishment (i.e, the Star Hotel). Unable to sleep because of muscle ache but unable to relax…lying on a couch in a state of depressed delirium.

“Then the news broke and I knew I had to write something. I couldn’t blow it off. Had to post as soon as possible. I was only able to bang out two or three graphs before collapsing on the couch for a breather, and then another two or three. I could barely think, much less write.

“What kept me going were my feelings of sadness mixed with anger toward the guy. I half-knew him a bit. We’d met in Toronto in ’05. He liked a Brokeback Mountain question I’d asked at the big press conference. I liked him as far as it went. He was always friendly whenever we ran into each other at events. Eye-contact, shoulder pat. And he was gifted. He had ‘it.’ And then he threw it all away because he got sloppy with prescription pills. Brilliant.

Read more

Producer friend: “Of course you know that the original filmed ending of Fatal Attraction had Glenn Close committing suicide and leaving a note behind that framed Michael Douglas for her ‘murder.’ The final scene is Douglas being taken away in handcuffs. The studio didn’t like the way it played and demanded that James Dearden write a new ending where Close is punished and Douglas gets off free. Close was so upset about the change that she refused to reshoot it, resulting in the studio threatening her with a massive lawsuit unless she complied. To this day Close loathes the movie and doesn’t even have it listed in her publicity bios.”

Me: “She really and truly doesn’t have Fatal Attraction listed in her studio bios? That’s ridiculous. That movie, manipulative and cheap as it was in some respects, was a high-impact H-bomb in cultural terms. It totally made her career. If Close hadn’t broken out of her domestic mom persona from The World According to Garp her career would have stalled. On top of which it wasn’t Paramount as much as advance-screening audiences who hated the original — HATED it. They loved it when Anne Archer got on the phone and told Close she’d kill her if she tries to destroy her marriage again. Read Sherry Lansing’s recollection in her new book. Test audiences wanted the witch to be killed.”

Producer friend: “Yes, of course — I know all this. My comments were about Close and how broken up she was about the change.”

Me: “Close needs to get down on her knees every day and thank God that she finally manned up and performed the exploitation ending. If she’d flat-out refused her career would have been toast 30 years ago, and she’d be doing off-Broadway stuff today, maybe, and living in a rent-controlled, one-bedroom Chelsea apartment, if that.”

Producer friend: “Of course I know this too. She was the 30th choice in line to play the part. No one in town wanted to play it. But not the point. My point was understanding why she was so upset. And remember that she got nominated for an Oscar for the role for a reason. Terrific job, total pro.”

Me: “Close was deeply upset because she thought Alex Forrest, however unbalanced, was a half-decent person who had a point…right? Alex Forrest was dangerously unhinged. Harboring a form of insanity. Hostility unbound. AF felt that because she and Michael Douglas ravaged each other over a single weekend that their fates were thereafter eternally intertwined — that their paths would henceforth be one and the same. Togetherness, parenthood…decreed by fate.

Read more