I’m a lucky stiff with my Dick.   What a cast I have.

Last Thursday we had a Press Day in LA for whoever was around and able.   It was a riot.

At the last minute it was almost cancelled because the last of the trampy teenage vampire trilogy was throwing a junket, but we shifted times and lured some of the press away from their feeding frenzy on teenage flesh amongst shark-infested waiters at The Four Seasons.  They would join me, Eddie Izzard, Billy Connolly, Russell Brand and Sophie Winkelman for a few hours in ID PR’s lovely new offices on Hollywood.

We got lucky with Hurricane Sandy as she blew Billy back from fishing in Mexico to LA, instead of a cold, dark apartment with no power in NY.  That’s where Tracey is, Jane was here but working on her TV show, Jim is in London filming and Tim has gone missing.  Not quite sure where he is, but he’s not responding to emails.  I expect he’s in some movie in Africa.  I hope so, as we missed him.

Not that the banter ever stopped.  First up was a Nerdist Podcast with Eddie, Billy, Sophie and me, which seemed to have no formal beginning and threatened never to end.  Eddie and Billy simply continued their stream of consciousness conversation that they were in the middle of as they walked into the Conference room.  Sophie had never done a Press junket before and she was a little shy. They are usually awful events, but this one was a total blast, and she was smart enough to stay fairly quiet in the first Podcast as the two greatest conversational comedians of our day exchanged random thoughts about, well, everything.  I too kept mum.  There was no way to stop this.

After an hour several svelte young ladies entered the room and attempted to give meaningful looks to Chris Hardwick, the host, who looked gleeful and quite unable to understand signals to wind up. By then it was also on video as a crew came in and began shooting, so that the Dick Dialogues, which will do so much to rival Plato’s, will also be a Vodcast.  Did I make that word up?  I think so.  But then I thought I had made up Ass Reading, only to stare in disbelief as someone showed me on Google that Sylvester Stallone’s mother is an Ass Reader.  What does she call herself?   A Rumpologist.   Now I couldn’t have made that up.  Which only goes to show something, but I’m not sure what.

After the Podcast we were chopped up into various groupings: me, Billy and Sophie, then me, Eddie and Sophie.  It felt like a strange wife swapping party.   Or a Manwich as Sophie wittily observed.  In the dark of the TV interview room she became her charming and funny self, though off camera Eddie bullied her mercilessly about her in-laws.  He also revealed his upcoming trip to Katmandu, where he will do stand-up (I kid you not) France (same, but in French) Berlin (in German) and Moscow(dear God not in Russian surely Eddie?)

“It’s not about language” he said, “only the references change when you change country.”  Quite, but you still have to learn them.

After an hour or two Russell joined us, all beads and beard and tats and shiny black hair, long spikey limbs and a massive grin.  He really is a charming man.  Eddie admitted that he was envious of Russell’s loquacity.  “His vocabulary is enormous,” he said with not a nod to innuendo.   (Oo missus, said my inner Frankie Howerd.)  He kept popping into offices being charming and right to the point “So you’re a Gay Lady I hear, I like Gay Ladies, oy ‘ow come you have kids, whose are they, where did the sperm come from then?”  He is like a highly intelligent ten year old, shameless, and irresistible.  I was familiar with some of his methods of direct questioning as I was on his show and watched him in action.  Believe me the questions from the audience made me blush.  “I got a crick in my neck from giving my boyfriend a blowjob” was one he didn’t use.

So the day was hilarious.  You could hear the laughter all over ID PR.  In a conference room they were playing What About Dick? from whence journalists emerged with smiles, and occasionally with fulsome praise, which is always reassuring this early.  As Chris Hardwick kindly wrote afterwards:  “Today was almost illegal amounts of fun. Thank you for your time and generosity, Eric! Hugs, high-fives, platonic cheek kisses followed by 3-second-too-long-stares.”

And as for Lucky Stiff?   Well by an odd coincidence on Sunday I sang the title song to this Indie film of a show by Lynn Ahrens and Steven Flaherty.  It’s a tiny budget and they asked me to sing it, and since I love them, I agreed.  I wrote the Treatment for their Musical Seussical and even played The Cat in The Hat at the first Investors Read-thru and at their feet I have learned much that is hidden about the Musical.

As I emailed Lynn in Hamburg “What are the odds of working on Dick and Lucky Stiff?”

“We’re working on Rocky” she replied.

“Perhaps you should call it Cocky” I suggested.

Don’t forget to make your preparations for Dick Day now.  November 13^th.  Cards, inappropriate gifts, parties, chocolate.  A single entendre like this only comes around once in a Blue Movie…. Moon!

Comments are closed