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 illustrations Peat Shaulis 99 Things To Do 1. Become elitist. Wine. Music. Film. People. Whatever. 2. Wear sunglasses – all the time, day and night, indoors and out. 3. You can’t be seen out in public alone now, so start your own entourage. 4. Start by hiring a personal assistant. 5. Distance yourself from old friends (the real you doesn’t know them anymore). 6. Get new friends. Most should be famous and/or powerful. The ones who aren’t famous should be easy. The ones who aren’t easy should be fawning sycophants. Tip: Sycophants can be found at the Ft. Lauderdale film festival. 7. Only keep old friends if they are useful (see #3). They get to bask in your reflected glow, you get to demonstrate to the film crew from E! that you’re still good old _______ from the block. Win-win. 8. Join a group. It can only help you climb the ladder even further. Take your pick: Scientology, gay mafia, AA. The opportunities are endless. 9. Start your own production company. Name it after an obscure character or object from a Russian novel to give you the illusion of intellectual depth. Have your assistant check the spelling. 10. Add to your entourage by hiring your best friend to run your new production company. 11. Arrive late – for everything. People need to wait for you now. You’re worth it. 12. Leave early – from everything. (In fact, it’s a good idea never to stay anywhere, or with anyone, for very long.) 13. Cut everyone off in traffic. 14. Cut everyone off in conversation. 15. Cut everyone off emotionally. You are an island. On the upside, you are a very nice island, with a palm tree and a lagoon and frisky native girls who make a terrific Singapore Sling. 16. Dump your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend of ten years who supported you during your time of struggle. (God, that seems like so long ago now. Doesn’t it?) You deserve someone more “on your level.” 17. Date only actors or models or directors or rock/pop stars. 18. Schedule three fucks a day. Intermingle models and actors when needed or bored. Think of this as cross-training. And feel free to date around. Remember, the old rules about right and wrong no longer apply to you. In fact – 19. Fuck a PA. 20. Fuck your assistant. 21. Fuck anything that moves. Remember our little right-and-wrong talk? 22. Drop the “anything that moves” rider in certain cases. You’ll know. 23. Never skip breakfast. It’s the most important fuck of the day. 24. Get a Hummer. 25. Call someone from #19. 26. Get a hummer. 27. Call someone from #20. 28. Get a hummer in your Hummer.
30. Demand free things like golf clubs, TiVo, anal sex. 31. Add to your entourage by hiring a publicist (you want the world to know the real you). 32. Stop returning phone calls. You have people for that now. Don’t you? 33. Get a new phone number. 34. Have your old phone go straight to voicemail. 35. Have your new phone go straight to voicemail. 36. Talk on your cellphone while driving, when ordering popcorn at the concession counter – whenever you’re in public and, God forbid, alone. 37. Say things like, “Do you know who you’re fucking talking to?” 38. Get indignant for no apparent reason. 39. Get indignant when you don’t get things for free: golf clubs, TiVo, anal sex. 40. Forget old promises you made. That was just talk. This is the new you. 41. Be an asshole. It always works. Always. Plus, your sycophant friends will think you’re funny. 42. Fire your manager/longtime friend. That is, hire someone new to replace your manager/longtime friend. Then fire them. They don’t need a warning or some discussion about how you’re not happy or how your working relationship could be improved. Just fire them. It’s not about them doing things better; it’s about you moving up. Explanations are for people who don’t get recognized at the mall. Reduce them to tears first, though. That way you can have a laugh while handling your business. 43. Go to the mall to get recognized. 44. Get indignant when you go to the mall and get recognized. Why can’t they just leave you alone? 45. Get indignant when your ex-manager/longtime friend doesn’t return your calls. If he doesn’t understand that business is business and an old friendship doesn’t really matter, well… 46. Talk badly about people who use their celebrity to get special treatment at restaurants, heath spas and clubs. 47. Use your celebrity to get special treatment at restaurants, health spas and clubs. 48. Add to your entourage by hiring a groomer to travel with you. You’ve got to look sharp now every time you leave the house. Hey, how about your sister? She needs a job. So what if you’re bald. You don’t have to pay her, the studio or magazines will. 49. Get a dog. Pamper and love him. Now you have someone you can trust. 50. Adapt selective hearing: When they tell you you’re a genius, you’re a genius! When they give you less than adequate coverage, ignore the urge to hunt down and kill the reader. 51. In the unlikely event of a nanosecond of self-doubt, refer to #43. 52. Talk about how shitty all other actors’ and directors’ projects are behind their backs. To their face, say how much you loved their film/performance. 53. End all conversations in the middle. The middle is your end. Just walk away when you’re done. Whatever the other person was going to say, it doesn’t matter. Were you going to say it? No, you weren’t. They should do more listening anyway. To you. 54. Add to your entourage by hiring a bodyguard – or two. 55. Yell at your assistant and reduce him/her to tears. Remember, that’s what he/she is there for. 56. Fire your assistant. Not for what they did wrong, but because they cried. “Listen, if you’re not thick-skinned…” 57. Add to your entourage by hiring a stylist. Get a new wardrobe. You need your own “look” now. 58. Buy a Bentley. It doesn’t matter if you can’t afford one. You’re now on the “list.” The money should just keep flowing, right? Right? 59. Do coke. Sure, you made it through all that high school and college peer pressure. And sure, you might be approaching forty. But so what? This is Hollywood. This is the new, better you. 60. Tell your parents to fuck off. 61. Tell your parents to fuck off while doing coke off your dashboard. 62. Throw temper tantrums. You could have one at any moment. They come from nowhere. You’re on the jet the studio leased to fly you and your friends to Japan to do promo on your new blockbuster. You hear the craft has PlayStation, but after takeoff the damn thing just won’t work. Demand to land the fucker immediately and have it replaced with a jet that has a working PlayStation. Hey, you deserve only the best. 63. Fuck the journalist who’s writing a piece on you for EW – before the interview. 64. Get strange, idiosyncratic habits and dietary needs, and become violently indignant when people don’t remember them. Hey, if they didn’t read the moving piece on you in EW where you disclosed your lactose intolerance, that’s not your fault. But then again, nothing’s your fault. 65. Disband your production company. The world is not ready. 66. Start a band. 67. Demonstrate your deep environmental consciousness by driving your adorable little Prius hybrid car (that you park next to your Porsche, Hummer and Bentley) to LAX to board your private Gulfstream jet – which will whisk you off to Jackson Hole, sucking down more fossil fuel than the USS Nimitz.
69. Whenever you have to do something, ask, “And why do I have to do this?” 70. Talk about yourself. People really want to know – they’re just too in awe of you to ask. Bonus points if you talk about yourself in the third person. 71. Talk badly about people in front of them. Fuck them if they can’t take a totally disparaging comment from someone with both wealth and opportunity. I mean, it wasn’t really a joke. But still. 72. Talk about being “in the room” with “Harvey and Bob.” Loudly. 73. Call your editor at three a.m. and tell him that if he doesn’t get his fucking lazy, worthless ass out of his goddamn bed and come fix this fucking bullshit cut that wouldn’t suck if he didn’t suck, you’re gonna stick your patent-leather Roberto Cavalli boot up his untanned ass. 74. Get drunk and brag about how you called your editor up at three a.m. and told him that if he didn’t get his fucking lazy, worthless ass… 75. Pass on projects just because you can. Who cares if they’re worthy? You think they’re crap. 76. Yell at the people who work for you. Reduce them to tears. Then fire them. Uh-oh. Here come the tears again! 77. Call your new manager to complain about not having any work. So what if you passed on everything that’s been suggested or offered to you. 78. Break up your band. The world is not ready. 79. Whine on the phone to the only person you still talk to about how everyone hates you, and they’re all so jealous of you, and you can’t trust anyone anymore and your band broke up, and do you wanna come over and fuck? 80. Return to “my first love, my muse, my mistress – the theatre” by finagling a role in a revival of The Fantasticks at the Pasadena Playhouse. Insist that all of your entourage buy tickets, but forbid them to actually attend. 81. Watch the videotapes of your sexual conquests with your sycophant friends. 82. Throw another temper tantrum. It’s been a while. Hey, call your manager to complain about the three-picture deal he got the friends you referred. He should only be working for you, dammit. 83. Develop bizarre sexual needs and blame them on your childhood. Not that anyone would dare to ask. 84. Bored? Fuck your new assistant. 85. Then, tell your new assistant to fuck off. 86. Demand an unattainable standard of perfection that will never be satisfied, like Egg McMuffins at five p.m. Is there no good help anywhere? Guess that’s why you invented firing people and reducing them to tears. 87. Get a widescreen TV. If you have to pay for it, fire your agent.
89. Get arrested :. :. 90. Fire your publicist because they can’t keep your mug shot out of the paper. 91. Fire your stylist because you look completely fucked-up in your mug shot. 92. Get therapy. 93. Right after your Botox injections. 94. Compulsively read your reviews and website message boards. 95. Anonymously post messages about how wonderful you are, and how you’re really just misunderstood. Add a testimonial from an unnamed young lady confirming the rumor that you’re hung like a Percheron draft horse. 96. Get married to some actor or director of equal or lesser value and settle down. 97. Cheat on your spouse/significant other in a bathroom at the MTV Movie Awards. 98. Blame your infidelity on your spouse/significant other. They haven’t been attentive enough. You’re a delicate person – an artist. You feel more. 99. Fire the dog. |
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