File Under: Does Anybody Sleep in L.A.?

Commando never makes an appointment to see me. Instead, she waits until she’s in a crisis, then sends up a flare. “I’m desperate, Charles!” she panted into the phone today. “Four of my clients are up for Emmys and I haven’t got a damn thing to wear. What’ll I do?”

This seemed an odd question for a successful agent to ask an acupuncturist. After all, she almost single-handedly (by her own grandiose estimate) keeps the primetime sit-com slate populated. “Why don’t you check with one of those assistants flitting around your office?” I said. “You’ve got quite a natty little group of go-to’s.”

“What, and give those twinks the upper hand?” she said. “No way!”

She had a point. Well-trounced minions must not be given a reason to feel needed. It disrupts the sacred hierarchy of abuse. How, after all, can you hurl your attributed-to-Brancusi bronze at the person who dressed and coifed you for the Emmys? Unfortunately for Commando, I didn’t have the time or talent for a fashion makeover so I sent her to Saks on Wilshire. I knew she wouldn’t be going onstage at the Nokia so she wouldn’t want to overdress, and Saks could be relied on to keep her from appearing overly off-the-rack.

On my way home from the office (where, by the way, I treated one of Commando’s clients, an chronically insomniac actress on an Emmy-likely sitcom. Does anybody sleep in L.A?), Commando called. “Charles,” she said, “guess what? Problem solved! I found the perfect get-up for the Emmys.”

“You went to Saks?” I said.

“Nope. I got in the car and started driving toward Saks but when I saw those mannequins in the window in those frilly-dilly outfits, I said to myself that ain’t my style. I’m not frilly-dilly. So I kept driving and ended up at the Army surplus.”

“At the what??” I said.

“Everything I needed, right there,” she said.

“You what?” I said. “How could you possibly--what do you mean--are you out of your--” Then I remembered. She didn’t find success by batting her eyelashes and swaying her hips. She leaves that to her assistants--her twinks. She’s Commando. Pretty is for pansies. And so, on Sunday evening, if the camera should swing across the Nokia and you glimpse a square jawed woman with a flattop, wearing a tux jacket and camouflage trousers, pushing people out of the way, don’t be too quick to judge. She populates your primetime viewing. And what she lacks in frilly-dilly she makes up for in Emmys.
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(Meet Commando: July 12, 2010 entry)

File Under: Vixen, Vodka, Violence, Etc.

A young vixen from a big-screen, sci-fi three-parter called today for an appointment. After reading this blog she decided I could help with her knee, which had been twisted while skiing.

“I’ll do my best,” I said. “Acupuncture might help.”

“And will you write something wonderful about me afterwards on your blog?” she asked, coyly.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But I don’t use names.”

She said it sounded like fun and could she come right over.  I said yes, which meant that I’d have to forego taking Meryl to “Revenge of Kitty Galore.”

Nanny tells me little Meryl was disappointed that I missed her Show & Tell last week, but Meryl seems fine to me. In fact, when I came home last night the little prodigy recited Katherine Hepburn’s rousing second-act monologue from “Long Day's Journey Into Night,” the one where Mary Tyrone chastises her husband for his thoughtlessness and throws her teacup across the room, only Meryl was holding a glass of milk, so it went flying (another stain on my chinchilla throw!).   Anyway, Nanny thinks I should spend more time with the kid, hence the movie date. What’s more, when I have my meeting next week with Meryl’s teacher, Miss Feather, I need to tell her I’m an attentive parent without it making my eye twitch, which always happens when I exaggerate.

Now I’m going to tell you something I probably shouldn’t which is that I think that I’m an OK dad--despite what anybody thinks--especially considering I didn’t ask for the job and had only seen the kid’s mother in passing (see July 8).  In fact, my caterer Cecile perpetrated a nasty trick if you ask me, leaving the baby in my care after her employee gave birth at my Oscars party. What happened to the kid’s mom, I'd like to know?  Cecile says she probably returned to India but we may never find out. Soon after the baby was left in my care, Cecile sent an Indian nanny for me to interview, and she’s been with us ever since. I’m always mindful that little Meryl's mother might show up and take her back. So why should I get overly attached to someone who could be legally swiped from under my nose?

In the meantime, sci-fi Vixen needed help with her ligaments. “Come right over,” I told her. “I‘ll try to help.” I called Myron and instructed him to take Meryl to the movie.  Myron isn’t busy.  He’s waiting anxiously for his next assignment, which is sure to be a big one, judging by the harrowing test he endured with the fake diamonds (see June 29).  Myron refers to himself as an Investment Specialist to the Film Trade but really, smuggler is more like it.

Vixen said she was nearby and would show up in twenty minutes. Half an hour later, she called to say she was forced to stop at Judith Lieber when a pair of jeweled violet sunglasses in the window practically screamed out, “Take me with you!”

“I simply had to have them!” Vixen gushed. “I’m sure you understand!” She begged me in her well-practiced baby voice to wait another fifteen minutes, which I agreed to do.  Twenty minutes later she called to say she was absolutely famished and had stopped La Scala for a quick vodka penne, where she was deluged with paparazzi.  Could I possibly wait another twenty minutes, “pwitty pwease?”

I was about to suggest we reschedule our appointment when a man’s rough voice came on the line. “Hello?” he said. “Who is this?”

“The acupuncturist,” I said, hoping it wasn't a jealous boyfriend that had grabbed her phone. “We're just making an appointment for--”

“Sir, I’m sorry but she’s in a rehab facility right now and the afternoon therapy group has already started. She’ll have to call you back later.” I could hear Vixen screaming and cursing in the background and then the phone clicked off. I thought to myself, if I hurry home I can get Meryl to the movie in time, but then I remembered that Myron’s got it covered. And anyway: Penne? Vodka? Why not.

File under: Lapdog, Hand That Feeds You, Etc.

A welter of screen writers blew through my office this week, leaving behind a trail of flattened Red Bull cans and the cloying scent of “Why Me?” This wasn’t surprising: patients often move in herds. One week I may treat a half dozen producers from the Paramount lot and the next a swarm of deposed Bulgarian royalty and their jeweled lapdogs. You never know.

But this week it was writers. William the screenwriter pretty much crawled into my Westside treatment studio today, complaining of depression, shoulder pain, wrist pain and an overpowering sense of doom. He set his leather satchel on a chair and climbed onto the treatment table, folding his slender legs into half-lotus. His clothes were so threadbare and his shoes in such despair that I decided to give him his treatment free of charge. 

From under long, dark, curly, unwashed hair, William sent me a bloodshot, hound dog look. “I’m in an abusive relationship,” he said, sipping his energy drink.

“Oh?” I said, sanitizing my hands and opening a box of needles, then sanitizing my hands again.

“That’s right,“ he said. "But that‘s to be expected! Hollywood has always abused writers and it always will. It denigrates us and leaves us feeling worthless. We’re the lowest caste of society."

“So, what happened?” I asked.

“My agent destroyed my script! It was the beautiful story of a young mute girl in an Irish orphanage at the turn of the century, a girl with psychic abilities.”

“How did your agent destroy your work?” I said.

“She had me change the girl to a boy, switch Ireland to a ghetto in Brazil, and made me change her special talent to soccer. And for what?!”

“I understand your frustration,” I said.

“Do you?” he said.

“This kind of crap happens all the time in this town,” I said. “So now, after all your hard work, after all the concessions you’ve made, you’ve got nothing, not even a promise. You toil all day on your writing project, then you go to your waitering job in the evening, barely scratching out a living,

“Not exactly,” he said, sadly. “We sold the script. The movie’s being made. Big names attached. Would you like to see a picture of my new Lexus?”

"You mean you're crying about abuse even though you've sold the script, and probably sold it for a fortune?" I was getting irritated.

He shifted nervously.  "Well, yeah.  But I mean it's about the principle of the thing.  The way I see it, life is over in the barest blink of an eye, so we might as well be appreciated and compensated fairly for our talents, don't you agree?

"Now that you mention it," I said, "I guess you're right." And in the barest blink of an eye, my rate went back up.