Booty Call for Emerz

Emerz' eyes are bleary and his phone is running on empty. We're squeezing grapefruits and the shrill tones of his ring call out and he trudges to the charger, asks to call her back on the land line. Land lines are appropriate: homey and wintry, a solid footing for a time of transitions. Kim needs Emerz now more than ever. She didn't like New Orleans. She couldn't stand the smell of the astroturf, the winking cheerleaders with pneumatic everythings, the low-lying skyline, the above-ground tombs, the carnies, the trannies, the Sandusky gentlemen. The mini-lobsters ("crawfish," mouths Emerz), the costume jewelery, the Sarajevo hangovers, inevitably waking to see the city bombed-out and splattered, neon lights cackling in the wet heat of midday. There was no ocean, only an earth-toned gurgling brook that hummed like radio static.

And Reggie would always leave the TV on in his cream-colored condo so she would wake at 5 am to a blaring repetition, the DVD Menu of Blue Streak or The Players Club or Booty Call and once, bizarrely, she thought, The Woodsman. She watched part of that, she loved Footloose growing up, but all she got were jittery nightmares, strangers lurking in shadows in seasonally inappropriate overcoats whispering things through tall chainlink fences.

And she missed home, that set where they all live, where Brody has a key, he's probably making a sandwich right now, his head deep in the fridge, a towel wrapped like a snake around his neck, water dripping from the hems of his trunks.

It wasn't all bad, says Emerz. Reggie had the hands of a baker, kneading and kneading until the ripples ran smooth. But New Orleans was too pleased with its imperfections, Kim told him. Where are their values? Where are their eyebrow threaders? And they can't throw a funeral worth a goddamn. What can she say? There was a carousel, but all the horses ran away.

Toni's Blog: FOUND!

It's like Al Capone's vault: Just because it's empty doesn't mean it's not important.

http://idontreadyourbloganymore.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-dont-read-your-blog-anymore.html

The rest of the posts are less literate, but no less Toni. And Emerz will thank you not to refer to Vanderbilt as "clown college."

Game, Set, Match to Stifler

So, all that's left to decide is who gets LeeLee and who gets Helen Hunt? I'm going to say...Stifler goes with LeeLee, because he's always throwing stones at Glass Houses, and Roddick plunks down with Helen, because, for an American tennis player, that might be as good as it gets. Or maybe he's mad about her. Or...maybe he's simply playing it forward, hoping a good deed will net him (intended), I don't know, Khloe Kardashian, or Jessica Simpson's old assistant, good ole what's-her-name (he does resemble a badly burned Kevin Spacey).

Emerz Returns

Arbitration is on the way. A furious flutter of text messages and closed-door board meetings and salsa-stained inter-offfice memos have decided the fate of Emerz, the erstwhile summer intern at Fleck, Kuehnle, Potter and Potter. The final straw may have come when Emerz handed in his first report to the partners dressed as Tilda Swinton. Or it may have come earlier, when Toni's father (once an erstwhile summer intern himself, now fully grown into a Westhampton slum lord and one-time co-owner of a short-lived gourmet sandwich truck with Nora Ephron) caught wind of Emerz' black mail scheme (involving shenanigans reported to have taken place on a Milbrook squash team's bus restroom) and called a higher power, most likely, his father-in-law. He sails boats, Toni sinks them. He opens doors, Emerz closes them. So...now what?

Good thing it's summer in Connecticut, home of SlugFest, or what's left of it these days. Emerz playing "Around the World" with July renters is something most of us thought we'd never see again, but there's Emerz in the Ad court, Mrs. Price up at the net, her skin tanned nearly dark enough to disguise the vericose veins running up and up and up. And there's Mrs. Ford watching from the bench off of Court One, sipping water from a thin paper cup. She has those little balls on the back of her socks. Well now,what do you know, if it isn't Emerz' Achilles' Heel.

Emerz Quotes Music and Lyrics, The Wasteland All In One Day

And then there is Cora Corman (Haley Bennett): mystic, siren, faith healer. She no longer thinks, she just exists. Same goes for Emerz. He, like, started that. Bennett's turn in Music and Lyrics and the resulting sexual chemistry between her and, uh, the audience, makes Emerz wonder how much longer Drew Barrymore can coast off her Playboy spread circa '98, or her topless Goldilocks meltdown in Boys on the Road. As we speed up towards whatever comes next all children will start partying at 7, hit rehab by 10, marry a Canadian by 13. What will we talk about when the girls of summer are gone? Oh, shanti shanti.

Ex Machina, Says Emerz

Emerz' dorm room looks a lot like Shia LaBeouf's dorm room in Transformers II: the Bad Boys posters, the Mountain Dew vending machines, the blinking towers of hacker gear. There was even the time that Isabel Lucas came over to hang. She was forceful, vibrant, filled with a steely resolve. Of course, in the end it turned out she was a Decepticon. "Aren't they all," says Emerz.

Emerz' Double Vision