Emerz Lights Out For The Territory, My Place

Anna Faris leaves the Playboy Mansion, and settles down in a loose, closer-to-life version of the reality she has just escaped. Isn't that what we want? To become our best selves? Somewhere between the glossy and the grimy? Between Saturday night and Sunday morning? Say, Saturday at 10:35? When the momentum is palpable but not yet the scraping undertow it will soon become? Emerz fixes me a vodka and wheat grass. Its called a lawnmower, says Emerz, pulling tight the belt of his robe. Emerz refuses to manage his dreams in this way. Emerz invests in Powerball tickets and Valtrex, in eHarmony and bomb shelters. The grip of home, that at once critical and forgiving place, the place we run towards and hide from, is squarely in Emerz' rear view mirror. Who knows how long the gas cards will work? So we're at my place. Emerz looks around. Sniffs. We watch The House Bunny, eat Papa Johns, fight over the last jalapeno. Rumer Willis wears a back brace, but still manages to show off her burgeoning chest. The lead singer of The All-American Rejects courts the black-eyed girl from Superbad. Katherine McPhee wears a prosthetic pregnant belly. Has anyone seen Sydney White? I mean, besides the writers of The House Bunny? Anna Faris/Amanda Bynes cage match, says Emerz. His breathing quickens slightly. We discuss our own Greek lives. Emerz' frat got thrown off campus, mostly because they let him in. I left mine after Mardi Gras was over and dues were due. I told Emerz about running into a few of my old brothers at a bar in a forgotten city I no longer call home. You're okay with us, McGrath, they said. Yeah, yeah. There was a chorus of yeahs. I noticed a recent Real World alum in the corner, chatting up someone who was drinking something I had just bought her. Yeah yeah, they said. We don't care what they say about you. They talk about me? I said. It was vaguely flattering even though I knew where it was headed. Oh yeah, they said. You're the warning, the alternative. The rest of the world. Like, if we're slacking on our push-ups. That's me, I say. The one who doesn't want it enough. Next to most naked people we see, the Playboy bunnies are relics, shiny statues with mindboggling birth dates and banal interests, unreasonable chests held up by sturdy forearms. Where's the gynecological details? Where's the degradation? Where's the cup? So now do we need The House Bunny? The feelgood story of an expelled Playmate who finds a slightly less judgmental place to live, with even less nudity? Playboy is 6:45 on a Tuesday, over at a friend's house across the street, working to look cool, working to cover your lap. The House Bunny is 2:45 on a Sunday, over at your grandparents, soup and sandwiches, oh now what is this says your grandmother, walking back in, mildly embarrassed, after fetching seconds.

Emerz on Jason Biggs

Emerz says Jason Biggs is underrated. He says he might just be his favorite actor. There's a vulnerability to Biggs that Emerz identifies with. A slender sorrow slackens his face. In My Best Friend's Girl, Biggs and Dane Cook are fighting tooth and nail over the heart of Kate Hudson. No matter who wins, we all lose.

"I mean, have you seen Saving Silverman?" asks Emerz, incredulous. "Saving Silverman? Hello? The sequel to Schindler's List?!"

Oh. Right, I say. That one.

Emerz Goes to Thailand, Struggles For Relevance

"It's like, the balder Nic Cage gets, the more hair he has?"

Emerz is confused, struggling over this paradox while watching Bangkok Dangerous. Nicholas Cage looks more and more like Alan Rickman every day, I tell Emerz.

Emerz always references celebrities in a casual shorthand, like how he saw Bobby de Niro at a sushi restaurant, or Angie Jolie at a toy store. It's something you get used to, or you don't spend much time with Emerz. The villain in Bangkok Dangerous is Thai. You know he's bad because he has blond hair, says Emerz.

I find it increasingly hard to take Cage seriously, but Emerz still holds him dear. "You have to respect a man that takes his fetishes that seriously," says Emerz. He lists them on his fingers. Lisa Marie Presley. A 19-year-old Japanese wife. "Someone say passion project?" says Emerz lowly, widening his eyes and biting his bottom lip. Like, wink wink. Nudge nudge.

Emerz coddles his fetishes with similar vigor. Coyote Ugly, for one thing. That's still going on. Ladies tennis. Something involving ladies tennis and belts, actually. Pregnant women. Pregnant women smoking. I won't say what Emerz wants them to smoke. Emerz is a veritable piggy bank of web site passwords. His doorstep is often home to plain brown packages. He sees a kindred spirit in Nicholas Cage. Even the craggy, marrow-deficient Cage of Bangkok Dangerous, the one who looks ridiculous in leather. The one who looks wobbly on a motorcycle. The one who breaks all his own rules and dates a deaf Thai woman who works at a pharmacy. The hit man with the heart of gold. We've seen it before. His life is a paradox. The balder he gets, the more hair he has.

Emerz' So-Called Life Continues Unabated

Emerz is watching My So-Called Life. Well, re-watching it. The high school dynamic is foreign to Emerz. He went to boarding school. Well, he went to school in Brooklyn, but he did spend one cold summer in Newport. Emerz went to school with Susan Sarandon's daughter, but he didn't put two and two together until he saw The Banger Sisters. Well, saw it again.

Flannel aside, Emerz is slightly disturbed that he identifies more with Ricky than with Jordan this time around. He swears he remembers high school from a distinctly Jordanesque perspective. We all do, I tell him. It's important to hold onto that. It is important to keep Emerz' delusions straight.

Emerz almost stopped watching after the mother got her severe haircut. Or when the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood: Men in Tights showed up as an inspiring substitute teacher. Or when that knowing bass line kicks in during the opening credits, the one that makes Emerz automatically cock his head and place a hand on his hip and smile like hey, it's crazy, but it just might be enough. Like, bless this mess.

Emerz Debra Messes Himself

Emerz has a stomach ache, stress-related, he says, Real World: Brooklyn-related, he says. He has barely touched his Applebee's Curbside.

"In the year 2009 people are getting open," says Emerz.

Recently Emerz has been surrounded by a chorus of criers, from the Bromance contestants to his parents. All he sees these days is shaking shoulders, he swears. He's buying stock in Maybelline, figuring people will be reapplying their make-up a lot more often. He personally is buying concealer by the gallon, hoping it might work to mask more than just his T-zone. He's thinking of coating his life in the forgiving goo.

"It's 2009," says Emerz, "no jokes are funny."

He's living life tightly. There's little room for error, but is there ever?

It's ladies night at Emerz' house, which means we watch Lifetime, which means we watch Frasier and Will and Grace. We all hate Grace. Something about Debra Messing makes Emerz crinkle his nose. He describes her as acrid. Whenever he sees her, he says, he smells urinal cakes. Her sculpted red mane pops onto the screen. "Ugh," says Emerz. "She might be one of those people, places and things they tell you about." I tell him to consider himself lucky. She's easy to avoid.

In a rare showing of artificial intelligence, the television tests Emerz' theory. The Wedding Date is playing on TNT. Messing offers Dermot Mulroney 6K to pretend to be her bf. "I'll give you six grand to change the channel," says Emerz. "Bon mot Mulroney," says Emerz, I assume self-referentially.

Emerz on Bush

"I've been thinking a lot about Bush," says Emerz. "Transitions," I say. "You're a clean, articulate guy, Emerz," I say. "This must be an exciting time for you." And Emerz is surprisingly political, or at least he was up until someone mistook him for Gov. Bill Richardson at a fundraiser. Fucking liberals, says Emerz ever since. "Sophia Bush," he says. "And Lauren Bush to a lesser extent. Sophia Bush, hello? House of Wax, The Hitcher? Doe-eyed brunette?" I look into Emerz' dough eyes. "Ex-fiance of Chad Michael Murray," I say. "That's the one," says Emerz.

Reflections on Emerz

We were watching the Golden Globes, critiquing. The Tina Fey backlash is a large presence in Emerz' house. Fuck, it may have been born in Emerz' house. There's an ad for Kiefer Sutherland's Mirrors DVD. We watch as that handsome face is stretched and distorted gruesomely.

"Oh big deal," says Emerz. "I never like what I see either."

I remind him of Teen Wolf, of a twinkish J. Fox staring at a mirror in his high school's bathroom and begging his reflection, "Please don't change, please don't change, please don't change..."

"That's right," says Emerz. "That's after he runs out of class, when he goes to the blackboard and notices his fingernails start to darken. That always reminded me of nervous math-class boners."

"I think that's intentional," I say. "It's a metaphor for hormones."

"Maybe," says Emerz. "I'm just happy I don't have to worry about those anymore."

"About what?" I say.

"The math class boners," says Emerz.

"Why? Because you dropped out of school or because you don't get boners anymore?"

"Both," says Emerz.

He goes upstairs and comes down with the Teen Wolf DVD. We are reminded again of the high school formula. Loser has a rapid social ascent, and then, Icarus-like, plummets, generally in front of a large, formerly adoring crowd. We are reminded of Can't Buy me Love. Emerz puts on his white leather jacket. We cheer during the choreographed prom dance. We cheer as Fox's friend Styles surfs the suburban streets of California aboard his van. We cheer as the Wolf spins the basketball on his index finger, wondering what everyone is staring at. When the resident hot chick seduces J.Fox in the drama department dressing room, we howl.