Head-Emptying

Swimming upstream, arms straining... 23, 24, 25... paddling strenuously, hands-clenching... 26, 27, 28... then suddenly, like a train changing directions in New Haven, the current is with me and we're lying back on our intertube floating towards Shelter Island for a birthday celebration with wacky-minded people. Adios, Self of our Twenties. Ready to put the load back on Fannie.

Last night on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, John Leguizamo told an anecdote about a "well-known" action star who, just prior to shooting a scene where he gets killed, which happens 20 minutes into the film, got cold feet. He came out of the trailer and told the director: "I can't die." It didn't matter that it was in the script.

The kind of folk hero Rickey Henderson is to baseball, Steven Seagal is to Hollywood. The former personal aikido instructor to Michael Ovitz turned overnight action star married to Kelly LeBrock turned portly Mandarin-jacket wearing eco-warrior turned delusional/savant mob-harassed guitar-strumming Buddhist has established one of the most beautifully tragic careers and lives of a movie star in our lifetime.

Blubox daydreams of writing the script which captures the devastating loss of potential that was within this contradictory man -- a spiritual and socially active Buddhist teacher and at the same time an egotistical, controlling, self-destroying star.

The main protagonist would finally discover a truth that would lead to a final redemption and the movie itself, with it's revelation of a performance by Seagal (think True Grit), would act as final redemption for the actor, whose quest to be taken seriously has led down an adverse path of destruction. Save Seagal, save us all.

Seagal's guitar-playing prowess, described as Claptonesque by a friend, inspires us to put together the rock group -- Kill Or Be Killed -- comprised of fading action stars. Jean-Claude Van Damme on drums (he has a Larry Mullins vibe), Dolph Lundgren on bass, Seagal on guitar, Carl Weathers on Moog, and Bridgitte Nielsen on lead vocals.

Second year attending HC&G Party in the Hamptons (no Patricia Field's Hamptons Sucks t-shirts in our Jansport Backpack). In today's accelerated times, we're already calling it a tradition. Don't worry, we will give Jagger's daughter your regards when she invites us to share in the Cristal at her reserved table, where a gaggle of long legs with trucker caps and friendly smiles await.

Evidently, the reason The Hulk looks so shitty is that Ang Lee - the pick for foreign director to praise while naming off his past films to prove how much you like him and how cool that makes you -- insisted on playing the role of the Hulk himself.

The result: every movement the Hulk makes in the movie is performed by a small Asian man in an electronic-sensor bodysuit, who acts out each scene in a special effects studio.

We don't care how cheezy and lame the movie turns out to be, we think making a pricky Hollywood Studio pay $100 million dollars for you to indulge in a control-freaking fantasy, allowing you to release your aggression by smashing things up on a sound stage with a metal pipe is genius. Angie-boy, you've done it again.

As one of the faceless unemployed in this great country, a patriotic hard-workin' fella who enjoys a good rib barbeque and some cold domestic suds, as in Bud and only Bud, let us just say: God Bless The God Damn U.S of A.. Widemouth, thank you, please.

Signing off from the lovely back garden at Corner Bistro...