Tony Shalhoub. What do you need, a roadmap?

In the brilliant Coen Bros. film Barton Fink, Barton (John Turturro) asks producer Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub) for advice on getting started on the script he's been hired to write. Geisler takes a beat, then says, "Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a roadmap?"

With apologies to the Coens, I'd paraphrase it to "Tony Shalhoub. Great in everything. What do you need, a roadmap?"

I've been a fan of Shalhoub from the first time I saw him as cab driver Antonio Scarpacci on the sitcom Wings. Like some of the actors I enjoy and admire most—Gene Hackman, Will Patton, J.K. Simmons, Richard Jenkins, Chris Cooper, Tracy Letts, the late great J.T. Walsh and the late great Jon Polito to name a few—Shalhoub is just money in the bank. Regardless of the quality of the material, Shalhoub elevates it.

From Galaxy Quest to The Man Who Wasn't There. Spy Kids to Monk. Men In Black to Nurse Jackie. Big Night to Primary Colors. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to Luigi in Cars, he's simply scene-stealing in every project he's in.

What's so impressive is his range of characters, and level of commitment to them. Nuanced, organic, complete, they're at once interesting, compelling and intelligent—even on rare occasions when they're not written that way.

I suppose with a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale, his intelligence has always been on display. Look at the brain on Tony.

Shalhoub also proved he doesn't need words written by a screenwriter to be funny. He had one of the funniest real-life lines ever when he won one of his Emmys for playing Monk, a detective with an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"To my fellow nominees, whoever they are - I'm not that familiar with their work - I just want to say, there's always next year - except, you know, for Ray Romano."

As the flashy, expensive litigator Reidenschneider in The Man Who Wasn't There, during the trial of Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), Shalhoub is talking to the jury. At one point he says, "He is your reflection."

The same might be said of Tony Shalhoub.

His not so secret identity

He wasn't fooling anyone.

Only someone as quintessentially evil and stupid as Trump would think donning (see what I did there?) a disguise as preposterous as orange skin, yellow hair, fat face and baby hands could hide his true self.

I know I have friends who don't believe in the ongoing battle between good and evil. And if you're one of them, may I direct your attention to the state of the union speech last night.

It was a bunch of cliches that said nothing. A carefully scripted propaganda storm, directed at his base by stoking the fires of racism under the guise of patriotism.

Families who had their children murdered were paraded and exploited to make a false correlation about why the nation is safer without immigrants—by which he meant people of color—from other countries.

A confession of being a man of the people, all people, despite the fact his words and actions for the last year betray that thought, and have sewn nothing but division and invited hate.

Trump, his enabler wife, his idiot children and his oxygen-starved supporters are the embodiment of pure evil.

In this disguise, instead of waving a wand to do his deeds, his tool of choice is a pen to undo all the good his predecessor did. At least for now.

Let's hope Mueller can remove him from office before it's replaced by a button.

Hate of the union

You'll thank me later. I'm going to save you an hour of your life. Because of me, you won't have to watch the orange-faced baboon shithole president drone on in his Big Mac induced stupor as he tries to read off a teleprompter and not go off script. I'll sum it all up for you.

The state of the union is fucked.

Let's review shall we? Regardless of what his press secretary—that condescending, arrogant, lying, daughter of a fake Christian—says, the babyhands administration had everything to do with FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe retiring early. It's part of the systematic degrading of the intelligence and law enforcement community the administration claims to love and support. And it's because they're investigating obvious Russian collusion in the election.

I say obvious because just yesterday, despite rare bipartisan agreement on strengthening sanctions against Russia, Trump refused to do it. Also, Republican lackey Devin Nunes drafted a memo, with carefully curated classified information (I was going to say facts, but then I realized who I was talking about) showing alleged FBI bias in the Russia investigation. It will come as no surprise the House Intelligence Committee has voted along party lines to release the misleading memo, even though the Justice department says that would be damaging to national security. It also won't surprise you the committee refuses to release a Democratic memo answering and debunking theirs.

Let's also not forget the firing of James Comey. Or that Mr. Art Of The Deal has said all 17 intelligence agencies, who agree on Russian involvement with both him and the election, are wrong. There's also the constant accusation the entire investigation is a "witch hunt."

The question isn't what does Russia and Putin have on him. The question is what don't they have on him.

The orange menace is an on-the-record proven racist. Misogynist. Liar. White supremacist. Adulterer. Homophobe. Narcissist. Opportunist. Draft dodger. Thin-skinned baby man. Tax evader. He still has not recanted his statement that Nazis chanting "Jews will not replace us!" are "very fine people." Despite his compulsive tweeting, he hasn't managed to put one out offering condolences to the Kentucky school shooting victims and families, for fear of pissing off (and he knows a little something about pissing) the NRA, a suspected channel for Trump money laundering.

But that's just at home. When you have an assclown as big as the fake president, the vulgarity doesn't stop at our borders.

Remember the wall he talked about during the campaign, the one Mexico was going to pay for? Our dipshit president is now insisting U.S. taxpayers foot the bill. Despite the fact a wall might've been a good idea in the 18th century, with today's surveillance technology, photo drones and increased border patrol agents it's a remarkably primitive and outdated idea. My guess is he's hoping no one tells the Mexicans about ladders.

He has obliterated relationships with virtually every one of our allies, including our longest and most loyal one, Great Britain. He has lowered our standing in the world, to the point of the United States being a laughing stock and punchline for having elected him (which technically we didn't since Hillary got 3 million more votes, but that's for another post). He has the smooth, soothing, reassuring diplomatic skills of sandpaper coated in barbed wire. By shooting off his big piehole about North Korea, and weapons he knows nothing about and has no understanding of—other than thinking they make his puny dick look bigger—he has put us in the very real position of having to live with the threat of nuclear war. He has surrendered our leadership position on attacking climate change by withdrawing us from the Paris Accord. We are the only nation on earth not part of it.

There's just too much bad for one post: his taxpayer-funded golf trips. The Muslim ban. His weakening of clean air regulations (brave taking a position against clean air). Appointing people as uniquely unqualified and with as many conflicts of interest as him to cabinet-level positions. The annihilation of the public school system. Affairs with porn stars. Paying off porn stars not to talk about affairs. Leaving millions without healthcare. Eliminating net neutrality. Privatizing prisons for profit. Trying to privatize the FAA. Twitter outbursts against rap artists, Broadway shows, NFL players and Meryl Streep. Proposing a law saying restaurant owners can keep tips their employees earn. Using tonight's speech to fundraise for his re-election campaign by putting donor names onscreen (true fact).

He is a vengeful, vile, vulgar, vicious, villianous and any other derogatory word starting with "V" little man. His agenda has four missions: wipe out all trace of positive changes from Obama's legacy. Line the pockets of corporations and billionaires at the expense of the middle class. Taking a page right out of Joseph Goebbels playbook, he attempts to demean and diminish the press by calling everything they write about him he doesn't like "fake news." And use the presidency to promote his own businesses.

It is a sad, sobering, depressing time in the history of the nation. Still, if he manages to get through tonight's speech without too much improvisation, the delusional and complicit Republican congress will rattle on about how presidential he was, and how he demonstrated genuine leadership.

Maybe they'll even give him a cookie and let him stay up late.

There is a glimmer of good news. He, along with spineless Paul Ryan and ninja turtle reject Mitch McConnell, have hammered a long overdue nail in the Republican party coffin, which only bodes well for the future. Provided he doesn't get us nuked before it gets here. He has unified America and created a political consciousness that hasn't been this vocal or adamant since the '60's.

And thanks to Robert Mueller, a man Trump once considered for Secretary of State, there's no doubt he'll only be a one-term president. Or with any luck, a half-term one.

So get ready for tonight's lie-fest. The biggest one will be the first, when he comes out, waits for all the boot-licking, ass-kissing, brown-nosing Republicans to stop applauding, and then says the state of our nation is strong.

Fortunately for the country and the world, there's every indication the opposition is stronger.

Spoiler alert

First of all, for some reasons probably having to do with personal vanity and self-image, it's important to me you know this is not the front spoiler on my car. The scrapes and scratches on my front spoiler are much more symmetrical and artistic in their own unique, random way.

Pardon my Seinfeld-ness, but (high-pitched, whiny, East-coast voice) what is it with designing front spoilers so low? Don't they have curbs where these cars come from?

I drive a Lexus ES 350. Despite the fact you see them coming and going it's a nice car, but really nothing more than a Camry dressed up for Saturday night. Still, I like the smooth ride, the burled walnut, the rear-window shade I've never used and the fact it came pre-wired for SiriusXM. Even though it'll never give me the performance thrill my old Audi A6 did, before it caught fire, as far as cars go I file it under things could be worse.

What I don't like about my Lexus is how low the front spoiler is. It scrapes on curbs. Parking space blocks. Driveways that aren't properly angled. Speedbumps. Dips in the road. In other words, almost anything a front spoiler would be in proximity to.

I have a body shop I go to that's inexpensive and does great work. And when I tell them it's out-of-pocket and not through my insurance company, they give me even more of a break. They're located senseless-murder-district adjacent, so the overhead is low (no pun intended) and they can offer great rates. Sadly, they know me there because I've had to have the front spoiler repainted three times since I've owned the car.

I suppose I could choose to not let it bother me, and just go about my day not thinking about it. But in my heart, like I know the sky is blue, every time I'm behind the wheel I can't stop thinking about the fact I'll scrape it again. Probably pulling out of the repair shop driveway.

The Lexus is the latest black car in a series of them I've owned. And the white scrapes, while unavoidable, aren't a good look. I can only take it for so long.

So I've been looking for something higher. A little more off the ground. Which puts me squarely in the crossover/SUV arena. To date I haven't found anything I like and that I can afford. That's mainly because I can't afford anything in life since we remodeled two bathrooms, our living room and gave the kitchen a complete makeover.

If I'd only put a V6 and a steering wheel next to the microwave I'd be set.

But I'm determined not to let it get me down. Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you about my dogged persistence and laser-like focus when I set my mind to doing something.

Unless it's losing weight or vacuuming. Then, you know, screw it.

Anyway, I'll keep scouring AutoTrader and the OEM CPO sites (yeah, I work on car accounts) for something I can fall in love with and afford. Like my high school girlfriend.

Until I do, every time I hear the sound of my spoiler scraping the ground, I'll pretend it's my own personal reminder that the faster I can unload this thing, the sooner I won't have to hear that noise anymore.

Like my high school girlfriend.

How low can you go

In the limbo dance (I'll pause while you all hear "Leembo Leembo Leembo" in your head), the goal is to see how low you can set the bar before you decide you can't go any lower.

Sound familiar?

In advertising unfortunately this is a dance you get invited to on a daily basis. It comes at you from all directions: Client. Budget. Holding companies. People on your own team. And if you say no to the invite, then suddenly you're not a "team player" (as if I ever was), and pegged as difficult, which I may have been called once or twice. Today.

Most creatives I know would wear that label as a badge of honor. We'd all rather fail with quality than succeed with garbage. But it's easy to see just by grabbing the clicker and turning on the TV or radio, opening a magazine or going to a website, that it's not a landscape that supports that point of view very often.

It's not a state secret that in this world of reduced budgets, no AOR/project-based clients and the amount of money being spent on 360 campaigns for everything from running shoes to laundry detergent (how're those Twitter and Facebook engagement numbers for Tide working out?), agencies operate much more fearfully than they ever have.

So I just want to take this opportunity to raise a glass and say thank you to my fellow creatives, creative directors and everyone who keeps pushing to make the work better, tirelessly fighting the powers working against them and managing to turn out work that's as creative, interesting and inspiring as it is results-getting.

Also, thanks for leaving your dancing shoes at home.

The lost art

A long time ago, in a world and time that seems more quaint with each passing minute, people had this thing they used to do with each other. Can you guess what it was?

I'll give you a hint. It didn't involve phones, smart or otherwise. Or glowing screens. Not even fast typing with your thumbs. Give up? People used to talk to each other.

Uninterrupted, interested, interesting, engaging conversations. Even in disagreement, their tongues managed to stay civil. They were receptive to new ideas. And found joy in the camaraderie. Told you it was a quaint time.

The picture above is from a movie that wouldn't stand a chance of getting made today, unless it had commitments from Vin Diesel and Mark Wahlberg. But, you know, neither of them are known for being great talkers. So probably not even then.

The movie was called My Dinner With Andre. Made 37 years ago, it was directed by Louis Malle and starred Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory. The entire film is the two of them sharing a conversation at Café des Artistes in Manhattan. They talk about their lives, their philosophies, the simple pleasures. There are no car crashes, no CGI monsters or superheroes and no phones ringing.

And it is wildly intelligent and entertaining.

What brought on this unexpected nostalgia for a time where a social network was a cocktail party at Tavern On The Green was a conversation I had with my writer friend Eric at work today. We weren't solving any of the world's problems. For that matter we weren't solving any work problems either (Shhhh!). We were just chatting it up about cars, family, movies, This Is Us and how the older our kids get the stupider they think we are.

I enjoyed it immensely. The exchange of viewpoints, the in-the-momentness of it all. Nobody was rushing to answer a call or get back to work.

It's a contradictory world we're living in, what with devices that promise connection yet deliver isolation. Yet without a two-year plan, roaming charges, eye strain or digital chimes we can make a human connection that's so much more entertaining and enjoyable.

As Wallace Shawn in another movie might say, "Inconceivable!"

Guilty Pleasures Part 11: Paddington 2

Okay, okay, okay. Before you start in on me, let me explain.

It's been awhile since I've done a post to my wildly popular, highly quotable and often referenced Guilty Pleasures series. I'm sure you all remember Guilty Pleasures 1 through 10, including such overlooked, underrated and attention-starved films such as the Final Destination movies, Breakdown, The Faculty, Carrie, Devil's Advocate and the ever popular Three Stooges.

Now in a normal world, which I think you'll agree it hasn't been since January 20, 2017, you couldn't drag me into a theater to see Paddington 2. Not that I have anything in particular against animated, British-accented, marmalade-loving bears. It's just not my wheelhouse.

So it begs the question: why did I see it?

Because my film major son recommended it. Highly. I figured okay, I'll check out exactly why I'm paying thousands of dollars for his sensibilities and cinematic taste to be corrupted to the point of him liking Paddington 2.

My review: it was outstanding. And as you can see by the Rotten Tomatoes score below, I'm not the only one who feels that way.

The animation is as beautiful as anything you'll see this year, especially Paddington's trip through the pop-up book which is central to the plot of the movie. Hugh Grant is wonderful and a revelation in ways he hasn't been before. Funny, loose and clearly enjoying himself more than he has in years, his physical comedy and timing are nothing short of masterful. There's a genuine depth and emotion to all the characters, animated or not, and their family feels like yours by the end of the movie.

The unexpected part, besides the fact I forked over ten bucks to see it, is how emotional it gets-not with manufactured, manipulated feelings but with genuine empathy for the characters.

Like the best of Disney's animated movies—The Lion King, Beauty & The Beast or Little Mermaid—I found myself with a tear on deck for a couple things that happen towards the end of the film. With eyes welling up, I was forced to quickly reach for the incredibly thin napkins I got with the $15 dollar hot dog and medium drink combination.

Sally Hawkins plays a lead role in Paddington 2. If you saw her outstanding performance in this year's The Shape Of Water, you'll appreciate a scene at the end of Paddington 2 (one of the emotional ones) that's sort of an unintentional inside joke referencing that other film.

Before the movie, there were five trailers for other animated films that all looked like crap. Chaos, fart jokes, stupid one-liners and characters you couldn't care less about.

A lot like my high school graduating class.

Anyway, if you're in the mood for an entertaining couple of hours, do what I did. Get over yourself, put away the attitude and get ready to have some good laughs and a good cry at Paddington 2.

And don't worry if you haven't seen the first Paddington. You won't have any trouble following along.