Breakfast in America

“Terrible news about Heath Ledger…just a week after that other guy OD’d.” Jacques was concerned alright, but it seemed the little black dot floating around in his tea was more relevant than some distant movie star he’d never known in person.

    “To tell you the truth,” I said while handing him a spoon, “I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him in anything. My niece lent me Brokeback Mountain, but there was nothing about it that I was compelled to see. That DVD must’ve sat on our shelf for six months until she took it back. Plus, I’m not even sure if I know what the guy looked like.”

    “Ah, the curse of the post-1970s movie star,” sighed Jacques. “Yes, things have gone entirely generic, haven’t they? No one looks like Edward G. Robinson or Ernest Borgnine anymore. The new stars just look kind of soft and hazy.”

    I nodded. “If Edward G. Robinson were alive today, they’d keep him locked in the attic and send his food up in a dumbwaiter.”

    Jacques narrowed his eyes as if to focus on the truth. “Hmm, dumbwaiter. I dunno…that seems politically incorrect in so many ways. Dumb meaning mute, we’d have to make it audibly-impaired. Waiter, well that’s now waitperson…audibly-impaired waitperson…”

    “For a box you hoist up in the wall? Forget it. Besides, I hate PC. I’m still trying to figure out ‘Asian.’ Most people use it for what they used to call ‘Oriental,’ Chinese and Japanese and Korean…but doesn’t Russia take up, like, half of Asia? Why aren’t Russians called Asians? And why lump all the, uh, Orientals in one category? That’s like saying Japanese culture is equal to Chinese culture…shit, if anything’s racist, it’s that!”

    “No way am I getting roped into that discussion,” he laughed. “Not with all the blank-eyed, stone-faced cyber cynics who read blogs like yours…they love the whole Asian thing…almost as much as they love those little narrow rectangular eyeglasses they’re all wearing.”

    “Yeah, when did those things become a trend?”

    “Around the time everyone started carrying cell phones. Anyway, about the movie star thing…I just saw Zodiac and the guy who was kind of the lead I thought was Tobey Maguire, but it turns out it was Jake Gyllenhaal. They’re almost interchangeable…that sleepy pedophile look.”

    “Who was the other guy that OD’d last week?”

    “I forget his name. He played a cashier in Ghost World.”

    “Oh, that guy,” I said after fixing a mental picture. “Wow, they’re dropping like flies. Hey, if you owned a movie studio and had someone named Jake Gyllenhaal under contract, would you change his name?”

    “Fifty years ago he’d change his own name before he even applied for a job. Is he related to Maggie Gyllenhaal? Her name kinda sounds like a Nordic Jello dessert. Hey, how do you pronounce Gyllenhaal, anyway?”

    “Beats the shit out of me.”