Last night I dreamed I spent about three hours with Dustin Hoffman. In Hermosa Beach. I ran into him at a candy shop, and he took to me when I complimented him on the miniature horse he had sleeping on his shoulder.
He was tall and there was more than a hint of sexual tension, so it was really him more in theory than in practice. He suggested we meet up the next day to watch TV. I woke up and read the plot to Marathon Man, which is to date the only movie my mother has ever even considered walking out on.
I reviewed Sound of My Voice, which I found to be like an unrealized sneeze. It was so taut for so long, then it sputtered out.
I used to use Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to teach ESL. After a round of English Through Film, I realized that non-linear flicks with star power forced conversation. The desire to know what the hell is going on overpowers shyness and even the most timid student will speak up. Kate Winslet’s manic pixie dream schtick, and her colorful hair, kept the class interested.
I asked my class if they would ever consider the Lacuna treatment to remove all memory of a loved one from their minds. Out of 15 students — some Swiss, some Japanese, some Chilean, evenly dispersed gender-wise and in the 19-to-35 range — not a single student said she would. I knew some of them had messy romantic detritus littering their pasts. I could tell just by looking at them.
They asked me if I’d have it done. I was well over a year out of a relationship, about six months beyond a significant disappointment. “Definitely!” I said, “or, at least, I thought so when I saw this movie in the theater.” (It hadn’t come out so very long before.)
Because I’d visited beautiful places populated by pretty strangers with interesting things to say, and I couldn’t remember any of it without dulled acid stomach.
A couple years passed. Relationships became (for the most part) mature and fulfilling, rather than harrowing and earth-scorching.
But.
A few weeks ago I watched a friend have her dog put down. I was attached to him. He had lived with me off and on for a few weeks of my life, and there had been talk of my adopting him. Now certain places (Mount Tabor and Laurelhurst parks, much of Sellwood, the Belmont food carts) have a familiar sting, the ghostly presence of someone unjustly, abruptly absent from my life…which makes me think of another moment at the Lacuna Institute, very blink-and-you’ll-miss-it: a woman sitting in the waiting room holding a box filled with feeding bowls and harnesses and every last effect of a dog who had died before its time. All dogs die early, which is any time short of the moment you die.
In practice, the Lacuna treatment could mean a lot of confusion from mail forwarded from a suddenly unfamiliar address; the vague regret that one hasn’t taken any vacations in a couple years. There would be entire seasons of beloved shows to catch up on, and Netflix suggestions would seem accusatory — how have you never seen that documentary about Enron? About Elmo?. It’s not a weakness in script or concept; Kaufman shows that we’re empty without our memories, even as they force us to choose new watering holes or neighborhoods.
But with the dog, I get it.
It was really, really good…and frightening. We went through a more thorough vetting process prior to adopting a dog from the Humane Society.
But why explain Essex when Essex is only too willing to show itself? (Rather, it’s only too willing to expose itself Jersey Shore-style, minus those meddlesome testimonials because in Essex, there is no need to feign self-awareness.)
We kick off the third season of TOWIE with a hint of the mysterious: Who’s driving a new Ferrari? And to the sweet sounds of Old Blue Eyes? Could it be Mark, the reigning king of new money? Could it be Arg, the perennial wingman who half-assedly aspires to a career of performing tired Rat Pack covers?
The facts these: Sam, the most unsullied face in the TOWIE empire, still owns the clothing shop she named after her vagina. Lovely Lydia and a pregnant-looking Arg are back and better than ever, due in no small part to Lydia’s one-date rebound last season and Arg’s cute habit of fabricating affairs with their mutual friends. Local pin-up Amy Childs has left for her own spin-off.
Ray WinstoneMick, TOWIE’s den-father, is inexplicably plodding through his fallow fields, and that is not a reference to his almost-fling with Tim Burton creation Chloé Sims (hey-oh!). The man is carrying a shotgun, apparently hell-bent on fleshing out his role of resident geezer.
And then: Mystery solved! The unknown Ferrari driver was in fact Mick’s son Kirk, the least compelling pair of pants ever to appear in the show’s opening credits. Kirk is apparently re-gifting the torch (or rather, screen time) to Mick, and much as Mick is a drama queen prat with questionable professional associations, he’s the lesser of these two evils. Anyway, last season’s son-father heart-to-heart, the “stop using champagne as bait and you’ll reel in fewer used-up boots, Dad” talk, is nearly impossible to top. So why try?
But we’re stuck with Kirk for now. He’s forgotten where he parked the Range Rover Mick bought him last year, prompting his ribald pater familias to more or less box his ears. It’s a thing of beauty, Mick’s subtle but complete take-down of his own son: He points out that Kirk has no business sense and he undermines the poor boy’s masculinity. Kirk has a weak argument, saying that a fast car is good for business, but it’s sweet how Kirk (much like acquaintance Mark the “club promoter”) adorably believes himself to have a vocation.
So Mick and Kirk have a James Dean/Raymond Massey moment, except Kirk manages to wring an “I’m proud of you, son” out of Mick. Totally kidding! Mick is not proud of Kirk at all. Still, Mick should take care lest aimlessness prove itself genetic. Pa Mick ‘fesses that his country gentleman trek was little more than a futile attempt to escape an existentialist hell of his own making. He couldn’t hit anything, didn’t even really aim. Ten to one there were blanks in that gun.
But the season doesn’t really start until nearly five minutes in when we’re reunited with TOWIE’s own firehouse mascot, Joey Essex. His long-suffering cousin Chloé is no doubt still reeling over her great season two failure, her inability to convince young Joey that a hair dryer and a blow dryer are in fact synonymous. But she soldiers on, nobly attempting to teach Joey. If not about the world, then about the logistics of functioning in it. Is it foolhardy of her to try to define “vintage” for him? Perhaps. Joey continues undeterred with his one-man arts and crafts hour, creating his own pair of NeverNude cutoffs.
You know what that means: Joey has finally learned to dress himself, although the outcome is debatable. Both his sister and Chloé marvel at his progress, and can mastery of verbal communication be far behind? Ah, but even getting dressed has a steep learning curve, as Joey attempts to launch the tucked-in collar look as a valid trend. Can we blame the young Lord Essex for trying to secure a legacy of some sort? His most promising venture to date has been trying to get some traction for “reem,” his confounding catchphrase.
And the two Laurens are now in cahoots, despite never having spoken directly to each other in the past two seasons. Distinguishing characteristics: Lauren Pope claims to have made a living as a Page Three girl, posing in the altogether, and that’s all I’m going to say about her because despite her toothy charm – she rocks the kind of look that generally hints at a mummified body’s first full year of decomposition – she dated Kirk and thus is a victim. Lauren Goodger, however, resembles a post-Bridget Jones Zellweger detoxing from a mean inhalant addiction. I don’t care who hears me say it. The girl has a heart of darkness and no discernible working life since a vague vanity job at an Essex fashion house headquartered in a church basement supply closet. She spent the entire first season actively screwing over her ex’s girlfriend, the boring but well-intentioned Lucy.
Like LaPope, LaGoodger is newly single. She and ex-fiancé Mark apparently they broke up after she pushed him into a pool while in a rage that he didn’t allow her to come to his “events” – bacchanals to which he literally invited his own grandmother (shout-out to Nan Pat!). And so Essex’s own fairytale romance has come to an end, and like a war with a high body count, it seems impossible to declare a victor.
(I shudder at the inevitable drunk-fumble that lies ahead for the two Laurens, because they literally have nothing else to do. For now they’re talking canine custody battles. LaGoodger remains blissfully unaware of the etiquette of engagement ring disposal, but we can take some guilty pleasure in her complete ignorance of diminished diamond values!)
Meanwhile, a more circumspect Mark is vowing celibacy and guilt-tripping Arg for his less-than-complete devotion to Mark’s misery. It’s really rather manipulative when you consider that Mark brushed off Arg’s angst about life and weight-gain a mere year before. But toying with Arg looks like a lot of fun – the right of every red-blooded Englishman, even. Profound head games between two mates notwithstanding, the producers were justifiably concerned that there simply wasn’t enough homoeroticism this episode. Meet Georgio and Dino, the Grecco-Roman, underwear-modeling hobbit twins. Henceforth I’ll be referring to them as the Brothers Quay because you can just tell they share a bedroom, and they are most definitely taking us to a dark place.
Back to frivolity, with Kirk and Joey discussing their respective rides. Joey drives a white Smart Car, possibly because he is green of mind, but I suspect it has more to do with a swindling car salesman out to unload some inventory. Indeed, if I found out little Joey had been burning up the roads in what he still believes is a Mini Cooper…? Well, it wouldn’t shatter my world view, is all I’m saying. Speaking of car salesmen, Gemma’s back. Her presence on this show has been baffling, almost as if she was filling some “fat friend” quota. Her romantic ideals have always been framed in decade-old pop culture references and her vibe is very “divorced Mom ready to get back out there”; it was a gaping reality plot hole how she went from failing to sell Kirk a car (dear God, how hard is it to sell Kirk a bloody car?) to getting free vejazzles at (dearly departed) Amy Childs’s salon. Gemma’s ongoing full-body attach on Mick’s heart got an embarrassing amount of screen time – and for nothing! When last we saw her, she was crying by a pool. But after a summer of boot camp, she’s a mere Nutrisystem “after” photo of her former self. I’m not fat-shaming here, friends – I think that with the weight she’s lost, she’s gained a better awareness of which hues of rusty tan add ten years to her appearance and are best avoided. Ok, fine: It is a bit like she ate Amy Childs. But it suits her!
All of this culminates in a party thrown by Mark’s sister Jessica, best known for being one-fourth of a girl group signed in season two and subsequently never discussed again. (It’s the Wright family way, really: Mark’s club opened for a glorious Halloween do a year and a half ago, only to burn down and exit TOWIE consciousness in the same night.) Mark’s ex Lucy is going, because she’s inexplicably still on the show despite only existing to be thrown over for other women. Her juicebox boyfriend tries to distract her from going using only his wang, but as we can all see (even if he can’t), it is the wrong wang.
At the party, Joey and Kirk team up to bolster each other’s game, but it all just devolves into Kirk’s dismal attempt to explain Cockney rhyming slang. (We’re not even talking “jimmy riddle” or “apples and pears” here, dear readers – Joey cannot wrap his head around how “Dick” is a shortened form of “Richard,” and Kirk is all tapped out on other ideas for dance floor codespeak.) Mark approaches LaGoodger, who assures him she “gave [the relationship] everyfing.” The Brothers Quay get cornered by Gemma and Maria. Dear Maria! She’s the only one in this carnival of garishness who seems to have any awareness of the Essex aesthetic, defining it as “the racehorse look” even as she counts herself among the region’s beauties. Gemma displays a lack of self-awareness by dissing the twins’ height. We’re reminded that Sam dated Joey Essex in what at the time played out like a contractual obligation on her part (ask me about the “ham and cheese sandwich” picnic debacle, please!), but the passionless duo can’t even manage a halfway compelling argument. Sam herself walks away out of boredom.
And so we leave them all, slightly worse for the wear. The vacuous beauty of Amy Childs was sorely missed, wannit? But I defer to one of her more notorious moments, when she asked (on a date!) where exactly North London was. At the time I assumed that was just a mind-blowing show of willful ignorance, but now I realize: she needn’t have oriented herself. Essex isn’t just a location, it is – as the show’s own title suggests — the only direction worth traveling.
Or sumfink.
As you can see from the photo below, my trip to the Museum of the Rockies was just as poignant as I expected it might be…
Apparently — according to my face-vectors? — my ultimate pet match is a two-year-old lady-lab (er…Staffordshire bull terriere?) in Oz:
