Emerz as Cerberus, Lording Over the Triborough Bridge

"First they come for your friends, and you say nothing," says Emerz, "and then they come for your city..." He is blasting the squirrels that sixty-nine the bird-feeder with a pellet gun, eating glovefuls of snow. "What?" he asks, "You got a problem with this?"

"Not at all," I say, "as long as you don't start wetting the bed or starting fires." Emerz is, for better or worse, a born and bred New Yorker, who is currently posted up in a tri-state resort community in search of a little breathing room. Whitney Port is doing the opposite, keeping her head amid the skyline, and doing it suspiciously close to how Emerz remembers doing it, one hand busy held aloft, sunglasses the size of apartments, Dinner parties! Eating outside! Coffee! and chanting that untrue refrain, "What a small world, what a small world, what a small world..."

I say the problem with the show is that it takes the vibrancy of NYC and condenses it into banal conversations about manufactured juvenile drama. Instead of talking about art, they talk about art dealers. "Fuck art dealers," says Emerz. "And their kids."

What's cooler, I ask Emerz, the uptown crowd or the downtown crowd?

"How the fuck am I supposed to know," he says. "Downtown like what, 61st St.?"

Whitney seems similarly confused, attending an "uptown" party in Tribeca. "Well, it's a state of mind," says Emerz. "Everyone knows that."

Finally, says Emerz. A show about dating in the big city.

"Does that work?" I wonder aloud after Alex asks Whitney to meet him to discuss her boyfriend. Do girls do that? Listen as other men just blast out a rumour like a cannon ball warning shot? Do men do that? Just assume that eventually a guy with an accent is going to slip up and fall into his place in your elaborately constructed reality? I guess they do, I finally realize, while watching it all unfold across an elaborately constructed reality, taxis swimming uptown like salmon, full disclosure kept in safety deposit boxes. The City within the city, vaguely familiar people and places. It can all be a little much. "I don't want to think about anything," says Whitney. I tell Emerz I would think she'd be tired of that, but who can blame her? After all, who would want this, this exploded life?

"The unexploded life..." says Emerz, stroking the pellet gun across his lap.

So where does this leave us, I ask Emerz. "Eyeing the metropolis from afar? Thinking about people who are not thinking about us?"

"I'm redoubling my efforts to become a doorman," he says.

"A doorman to what?" I ask, "A building? A club? Uptown? Downtown?"

"The city," he says. "I'll be the doorman to the city."

Rooting For The Villain

"This cast is so L.A." says Emerz. We're watching S.W.A.T., just barely too young to remember the show. I ask for clarification. "Oh, come on," he says. "Rosario Dawson? LL Cool J? That guy, that guy, Mr. International, who dates Kylie Minogue? Who directed this? The maitre d at Koi?" "Michelle Rodriguez," I say. "What?" "It's Michelle Rodriguez, not Rosario Dawson." "Oh, that's right," says Emerz. "I wonder if she's out of Hawaiian prison yet." Emerz hates police. He hates the lights, the radio static, the mustaches, the flattened foreheads. He roots for the villain. Always. When we watched Rent he rooted for gentrification. When we watched An Inconvenient Truth he rooted for the truth. When we watched Hook he rooted for Robin Williams' continuing dedication to his work. "Oh, grow up," he said to Peter Panning. "It's a once in a lifetime deal!" The S.W.A.T. villain, Mr. International himself, Mr. One-hundred-million-dollars!, Mr. Kylie Minogue, is as good as anybody to root for. "But he's a wanted terrorist," I tell Emerz. "And he cockholded Richard Gere in Unfaithful," says Emerz. "But...but," Emerz takes a deep breath, massages the bridge of his nose, "I find him irresistible." Emerz is against regulation of any kind. Don't tell him who to root for. And don't regulate his heart. "Do you remember that?" he asks. "That scene on the staircase?" His nose is pinched white under the pressure of his remembrances. "Do you remember that scene on the staircase?" What goes around comes around, I tell Emerz. And, in the end, Hollywood always leaves the villains holding the bag, dead or in jail. Just look at Michelle Rodriguez, I say. Proof positive that life catches up to you. But Emerz isn't hearing it. He's flipping through the movie channels, looking for a team to cheer for. I check the TV Guide. United 93 comes on at 8.

FRIENDSHIP IS RARE, or INNUENDO OVERLOAD

(Image courtesy of Emerz) What should young people do with their lives today?Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.-Kurt Vonnegut Emerz is familiar with loneliness. He knows the cold feeling of a television remote on a Friday night. He knows the clammy spiral of porn sites and the false hope of adultfriendfinder. Emerz knows the thunderous silence of a quiet phone, lying across his bed under the heavy drapes of the canopy, legs crossed behind him, face first into a suffocating pillow. Oh wait, he has it on silent. There. That's better. Brody Jenner should be immune to this affliction, Emerz thinks. The fact that he clearly is not does not have the reassuring effect Emerz was hoping for. It's more like a guffaw, like, Brody's got problems? Like, is there hope for anybody? Here's the thing about Emerz and Brody Jenner. Emerz would consider himself to be friends with Brody. Bromance is something of an insult to Emerz. He wasn't aware Brody felt so alone. A Brody Jenner dating show, Emerz could get behind that. Brody's got needs, Emerz understands this. And any woman would be lucky to land him. It speaks to Jenner's skills that he doesn't need MTV for women. So then, what does Bromance say about him? There was a bad split with Spencer, former BFF. "You're dead to me," Spencer said to Brody, "I'm talking to a dead man right now." How many times have I heard that, thinks Emerz. Variations on a long-running theme, thinks Emerz. Breaking up is hard to do. I don't believe that Spencer and Brody are actually enemies, but Emerz gets fussy if you challenge the reality established by The Hills. So Brody is floating listlessly through Los Angeles without anyone to tell him how good he looks, without anyone to laugh at his jokes or admire the shiny leather of his SUV's interior or stand next to and feel taller, faster, sharper. He has Frankie, but he is more of a succubus than a wingman. More of a hanger-on or package carrier than friend. Emerz is adamant on this point. Of all the teams Emerz is on (Team L.C., Team Aniston, Team Ronson, Team Fez (vs Moore), Team Moore (vs Roddick)) team Not Frankie is Emerz' banner headline, his number one cause, his Rushmore. Emerz doesn't feel too threatened by the competition, as he calls them. He was puzzled by the arrival of an openly gay contestant, until I explained to him that the gay man's purpose was to assure us that all the rest of the bros were not gay. No matter how much time they all spend in the hot tub together ("That's just how Brody rolls," Emerz tells me after I wonder aloud about the hot tub thing). The gay man may have spoken for all of us when he said, "I thought this would be more like an episode of the Hills." It is not, despite Lauren's cameo in later episodes. Say what you want about the denizens of The Hills, but they don't go to Fredrick's of Hollywood parties at Hush. They don't have Boston accents. They don't worship television personalities. They don't drink out of red solo cups. They don't help people, or reconsider, or apologize well. "What are friends for?" I once asked Emerz, rhetorically, while giving him an affectionate slap on the back. "I've got no idea," replied Emerz. With Brody, he thinks he is beginning to understand. Emerz owns the Princes of Malibu Collector's Edition DVD Box Set. He celebrates the entire Jenner catalogue. He bought birthday presents for Brody's half-sisters, the Kardashians. He refused to watch Kim's sex tape ("my most trying hour," says Emerz) out of familial love. Emerz doesn't like to share (see the great six-foot party-sub debacle of '06), but even he has to admit that there is more than enough Brody to go around. He's going to keep his eye on the black guy though. "I don't trust him," he says. "I don't want Brody to get hurt."

There Glows the Neighborhood

Deck The Halls is Emerz' favorite Christmas movie. I hesitate to watch anything with Matthew Broderick--someone once told me that they saw him in East Hampton and yelled "Ferris Bueller!" and Broderick threw one of his shoes at him. What's the lesson here-- you can't escape your past? Or is Matthew Broderick just an asshole? But I DO love Danny Devito. Can he legally drive a car?

Other members of the cast include Kristen Chenowth, Kristen Davis, Maeby from Arrested Development and the twin models from 8th and Ocean (they are the ones that make me feel okay about having a stigmatism. Or an astigmatism). One can start to understand why this is Emerz' favorite movie. One can start to understand why he is embarrassed to stand up when certain parts of the movie are playing. One can understand why Emerz writes erotic tributes and mails them to Davis' agent. Emerz says Davis looks just like his second grade teacher, who he once saw over brunch at Sarabeth's. Emerz was drinking a Bloody Mary and a bottle of Pepto and sent one of each over to Ms. Shanley. But Ms. Shanely was no longer Ms. Shanely, she was Mrs. Alan Levitt. Lesson for Mrs. Levitt? You can't escape your past.

Deck the Halls is a story of suburban consumer competition, of misplaced priorities and unlikely breeding (Devito's daughters must be adopted). Emerz understands this. Every year Emerz has an eggnog drinking competition with his parents neighbor, an older man with a permanent case of the shakes and a much younger wife. I have a hard time describing Emerz' feelings towards this man, but I would say it falls somewhere between admiration and unadorned love. But they don't pull any punches when the eggnog comes around. Emerz just sprinkles an extra helping of nutmeg and goes to work. If the old man wins, Emerz has to wear that pink one-piece bunny pajamas from A Christmas Story. If Emerz wins than the neighbor's wife has to wear it. Them's be the rules, "And they are unflinchingly rigid," says Emerz.

There have been times when it seemed that the Christmas spirit was lost forever, like when Emerz' girlfriend got a nosebleed at a holiday party. He didn't blame himself, but he should have. But when Chenoweth celebrates Devito's emotional maturation and a saved Christmas with a clear-voiced rendition of "Silent Night" there are only a few ways to keep the tears from flowing: Remembering historic days of devastation, remembering friends and opportunities lost forever, and remembering the lump of coal Emerz got last year. Emerz wants to embrace the warm tears of Chenowth, but he is not quite ready yet. Lesson for Emerz, one he already knows too well: You can't escape your past.

Art Imitates Life

Watching "Cruel Intentions" with Emerz is like watching "The Shawshank Redemption" with McGrath.

Sleep over, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

"Fashion show, fashion show, fashion show at lunch!" -Kelly Kapoor Emerz is wasting his life, he says, as we watch the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on DVR. Again. I'm deaf after the thunderous Usher performance (Emerz has an incredible home theater system), thankfully deaf, but I can read Emerz' lips. He has beautifully plump lips, mounds that simply fade into the soft pink pale of his face. He has beautiful lips but that is not why I can read them. I can read them because Emerz has only said two things all night: "Pass the ginger ale" and "I'm wasting my life." Aren't we all, I think, sitting there watching, sitting here, writing. All those toned, glowing and pinched stomachs look like they are built especially for appreciative lovers to rest their heads on, a pit stop on the long trip in either direction, ears down, listening for the faint sounds of human mechanics. After all, there is a chance the woman is a forgery, a robot, a Japanese sex-doll implanted with a (limited) artificial intelligence chip, sent from the future to bring about mass suicides, mini-Jonestowns in every fraternity living room, thereby dooming the human race. I finally say this to Emerz, sounding like I'm screaming underwater. He says this would be preferable to any real future that did not involve carnal knowledge of these women. But that's absurd, I say. There's Puff daddy in the audience, worth hundreds of millions, able to get just about any girl he- And there's P. Diddy, gnawing on his fucking knuckles, says Emerz, triumphantly pouring more ginger ale into the mug. The fizz bubbles up and over onto an old Robb Report we use as a coaster. Well what about the girls themselves, I say. By this logic, their lives are meaningless - they can't be with an appropriate male counterpart. But they can fuck themselves, says Emerz. And each other. I nod. My hearing is returning. But, I say, when you find out a girl will fuck you, even wants to fuck you, even told another girl that she has considered the possibility and even gone so far as to imagine what it might be like, isn't there always a certain part of you, behind the blush and the ego and the flattery, that says, trust me babe, it ain't all that. I continue. And they can't enjoy the novelty of their bodies the way another appreciate lover might be able to, the way another human being can. Even then there are often problems. I can't believe this is happening to me, you think the whole time. You try to remove yourself from the moment, concentrate on the dark shapes in the room, memorizing the scene so you can remember it later, to prove to yourself that it went down this way, just the way you tried to remember it. That's also why there's mirrors on ceilings and nanny cams. Ever see yourself have sex before? I ask Emerz. Did it look the way you remembered it? Pretty much, he says. Well, that right there makes it not worth it, I say, content to let the matter drop and get back to Two and a Half Men. But P. Diddy could fuck those girls, says Emerz. Chewed up hands or not, he could probably pick one out and be in it that night. If not that night, than I guarantee that with a little work he could do it. Flowers, whatever, some Mystery shit. You know how to do that too, I say. You know how to do the work. Yeah, but I don't have fucking 300 million dollars, Emerz says. True, I say. I can hear so painfully clearly now that the bubbles popping in Emerz' Canada Dry sound like pistons in my ears. But your not exactly indigent. You have free time, access to Mystery, access to these girl's autobiographical backgrounds. You say you're wasting your life not fucking these girls than go after it, be like Seal. Well, said Emerz, I'd rather be here alone than be like Seal. We finally retired upstairs. Our twin beds looked remarkably prim and innocent, with their matching blue comforters (duvets, says Emerz) and hospital corners. Emerz flipped through an old yearbook while I thought of the women who have cat-walked through my life, taking wide declarative strides, leaving behind them a wake of longing, confusion and confetti. Then it was lights out. The crisp sheets rustled like autumn leaves in a storm and then there was a collective sharp intake of breath. Then silence. As silent as Jonestown after the sun came up, but before the dogs started barking.

P.S. (See Kelly's greatest moments, Seasons 1-3, by clicking link below.) (Embed it, says Emerz...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDYPI0DaIBw

Ranting and Raving

My friend Emerz just got a new cell phone, a Samsung Rant. It just seemed appropriate.