THE LORNE AND BALDWIN ROAD

Lorne is the only person in the world who would
look grumpy standing next to a Beatle.

Say what you want about Lorne Michaels, no one is more loyal to his friends, as the funnier-than-expected Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary extravaganza proved. For not only did he invite every living ex-cast member and host to the three-and-half hour party, Lorne also gave a sweet solo spot to one of the most homophobic, misogynistic, violent, and endlessly angry show business figures this side of Mel Gibson. Ladies and gentlemen, Alec Baldwin!

This uncured ham of an actor vanished from his semi-regular SNL gig the moment he shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the filming of Rust. Once the prosecution screwed up their case, Michaels rolled out the red carpet once more to cheers and applause, proving that hating Donald Trump more than makes up for the negatives that would have put any other celebrity's career on show business' official Do Not Resuscitate list. 

Oh God, another generation of annoying
Baldwins.

Still, I couldn't have been the only person viewer shocked to see Killer Alec on the anniversary show, smirking his way through an (admittedly) amusing piece, practically daring viewers to turn away in revulsion. If this appearance and the promos for The Baldwins series on TLC is any indication, Alec is as delusional as his American wife with her mysterious Spanish accent. How much irony is too much when The Baldwins is described as a "reality" series? 

Shooting a cinematographer is OK. Telling jokes
about a murderer isn't.

Yes, Lorne Michaels -- who refused to stand by the late, great Norm MacDonald when network suits wanted him fired; claimed some years ago that he couldn't find a single funny black woman in New York to hire for SNL; for years allowed the show to devolve into an immature  boys club at the expense of the women in front of and behind the camera; who allowed Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian to host -- was more than delighted to bring back Alec Baldwin despite his terrible, self-pitying behavior. When Lorne says SNL is "too crass and opportunistic" to ban certain people from the show, he's not kidding.

Damn, I wish he was my friend.

                                                               ****************

MEMO TO NEW MEXICO STATE PROSECUTORS

1) Hiding evidence is never a good idea. Especially when you want to win a case. 

2) Be sure to fire whoever was responsible, rather than underling who said, "Wait, why are we hiding evidence?" before being forced to do so under threat of job termination.

3) Baldwin defenders hated you from the beginning. Baldwin haters hate you now. You are in what is known legally as a lose-lose situation.

4) You wanted to make a name for yourself with this case. Too bad it was "Idiots."

5) A total of four prosecutors quit or were forced off the Baldwin case. That seems like a signal something was going wrong from the beginning.

6) Thanks to you, Baldwin fans -- and maybe Baldwin himself -- will henceforth confuse "exoneration" with "acquittal". 

7) The heatwave coming your way next week will be the wrath of God you'll be feeling.

8) On the bright side, now that Bruce Willis is officially retired, you've given opportunities to moviemakers looking for a name to bring attention to what would otherwise be ignored, straight-to-streaming mediocrity.

9) You wouldn't know it, but just because Alec Baldwin is a violent, homophobic, misogynistic, egocentric, ugly-on-the-inside, sociopathic ogre didn't mean I want to see him stewing behind bars for no good reason. I wanted it to be for an honest-to-gosh legal reason. Even for riding his bike on the sidewalk. It's more fun that way.

10) You've done the impossible: turned Alec Baldwin into a martyr. New Yorkers will never forgive you.

                                                                    ******

INTERACTIVE JUSTICE

 

Headline on Deadline.com, 7/10/24:

How To Watch Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ 

Trial   

Any of the following choices will work:

1) With a large bowl of buttered popcorn sprinkled with paprika and parmesan.

2) While double-checking the spelling of "schadenfreude".

3) On a brand new 75-inch 4K HDTV to catch every moment Baldwin curses the prosecutor under his breath.

4) Taking a shot of Jack Daniels each time Baldwin uncannily resembles Donald Trump.

5) Fantasizing Lorne Michael and Tina Fey have blocking Baldwin's calls and emails. 

6) Hoping he resorts to the Baldwin we all know and love by referring to the witnesses "a cocksucking fag" and "toxic queen", and asking his "followers" to "straighten out this little bitch", whoever it is.

7) Shouting "Ole!" when his wife starts talking to the press in her phony Spanish accent.

8) Standing outside the courtroom posing as a reporter so as he walks by you can shout, "Mr. Baldwin, wasn't that taking the phrase 'movie shoot' a little too literally?"

9) Posing as a fan so you can shout, "We love you, Alec! Go in there with guns blazing!"

10) Serene in the belief that Baldwin's entire life was leading to this point.

                                                               *************

SHOOT THE WORKS

Alec Baldwin waits for the cue to end his career.

 All of you have busy lives, so you might not be keeping up with the Hannah
Gutierrez-Reed trial -- otherwise as the known as the one involving the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer of Rust. Gutierrez-Reed and Rust star Alec Baldwin are charged with manslaughter. Baldwin's trial is scheduled for a June start, which is a good excuse for his kids not to have grumpy ol' Dad around the house during summer break.

The details are as dense as the defendants, so I'll simplify them: Gutierrez-Reed, the person in charge of guns and ammo on set, says Hutchins's death wasn't her fault. Baldwin, who pulled the trigger, says it wasn't his fault. If you think something doesn't quite add up here, the problem is not with your calculator. I can tell you, though, who definitely isn't guilty: the people making Rust who had already quit because of safety issues on the set.

HGR on police bodycam minutes after the
shooting, pretending to be sober and awake.

HGR, as we'll call her just to save copy-and-paste time, was also charged with tampering with evidence -- the evidence being cocaine, which she tried to hide after being questioned by the police. There's also evidence of her smoking grass and knocking back a drink or six after work each evening, and coming to set hungover -- just the kind of person you want handling firearms.

You might wonder how an amateur armorer got hired for an eight-million-dollar movie. It's because it was an eight-million-dollar movie. That kind of dough sounds good to us, but for a feature, it's strictly straight-to-video. The producers, who include Alec Baldwin, were too cheap to hire a real armorer who focused only on guns and ammo, and not to double as prop master as HGR was required to do. Oh, and did I mention that Baldwin -- who, y'know, was required to fire a gun in the movie -- missed his first firearm training session, and spent most of his time on his phone during the second?

Let's recap: A movie star/ producer too cheap to pay a professional

Groucho probably had more
training than Baldwin.

armorer instead hired a hard-drinking, coke-sniffing, joint-puffing nobody because she came cheap, and was willing to be distracted from her main job due to handling props like saddles... and because her dad is a movie armorer. Nepo babies may be dangerous to your health.

Once in a while, I work on TV shows where some of the extras play cops. Before we go to set (usually an exterior location), a production assistant calls for attention and holds up two of the prop guns being used on the scene. The spiel, which I first heard years before the Rust shooting, goes something like this: 

These guns are not real. They're made of wood. It's impossible to load them with bullets. But they are NOT to be pointed at ANYBODY at ANY time. Keep them in your holsters when you're not using them in the scene. When you hear "Cut", put them back in the holsters. Again, do NOT point them at ANYBODY. If you do, you will be sent home. 

Put the budget toward souvenir chairs
rather than hiring competent people --
that's the ticket (to prison).

It's mysterious indeed how there are more safety regulations for wooden guns on Law & Order: SVU or The FBI than that of a movie using real guns where real ammo somehow made its way onto the set. That's what happens when the producer hires someone who spends more time dying her hair yellow and purple than paying attention to her job. Cool chair, though!

                        *******************           

This episode of the Australian version of 60 Minutes goes into more detail about the Rust shooting than any American news program:

(14) What really happened on the deadly film set of Alec Baldwin's Rust? | 60 Minutes Australia - YouTube

NOT-SO SUPER NOVAS

 I try to avoid news that makes me upset. That's why I try ticking to stuff that makes me feel better than whom I'm reading about. And that usually involves stupid show business figures or their fans. 

She was late because she had
to use a bicycle pump to blow
up the mouth.

Michael Fellowes and Jonathan Hadden are suing Madonna for her recent concert in Brooklyn. Not for lip-synching, but starting the show at 10:30 p.m., two hours later than it was supposed to. They were, in their words, "left stranded in the middle of the night" with limited public transportation and higher Uber fares. The disgruntled fans are looking for a class action suit for her previous late appearances on her current tour, despite Madonna having previously won similar suits.

So let's get this straight. Madonna makes it a habit of showing up two hours late -- on work nights! -- and yet these two fans bought overpriced tickets this time around, believing... that she'd make an exception for them? Please. Anybody who shells out good money to see this geriatric, 21st-century Mae West wannabe not only deserves what's coming to them, but anything else that makes them mad.

It's been a while since Alec Baldwin has appeared on my radar, but he recently made it twice in two weeks. First, in an effort to sell his Amagansett mansion that's been on the market for two years, he recently posted a video letting his fans know that he's knocked $10-million off the sale price; now it's only $19 mill. It was probably Baldwin's most watched screen appearance since 30 Rock.

Trading his big house for the Big House.

I wondered why he was so desperate to sink to an even lower level than the B-movie junk he's been turning out for years. But a week later came the news that he was being indicted by a New Mexico grand jury for involuntary manslaughter on that movie set killing a couple of years ago. 

Aha! Maybe Baldwin had the inside skinny that he was going to face the music, and realized that lawyers don't come cheap. Yet those lawyers are actually spinning the indictment as good news, telling reporters, "We look forward to our day in court." Oh, really? Like Baldwin prefers a manslaughter trial, possibly leading 18 months in the slammer, than being a free man? Yeah, I'm sure Baldwin is rubbing his tubby hands with glee. His lawyers are right up there with Trump's in trying to spin feces into gold.

How did he tell them apart? Or
maybe that was the point.

Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself by Crystal Harris is yet
another (likely) ghostwritten memoir by a former centerfold who found life as Mrs. Hugh Hefner to be "traumatic". The details are the same as the other books -- you can Google the details -- and I admit life in the mansion wasn't what I'd want for my daughter.

I wonder, however, why the then-26-year-old Harris married a guy 60 years older than her. Why did she, or the others, stick around? This was not a prison; they weren't chained in the dungeon video game room; they were free to leave at any time. In fact, they never had to live there to begin with. 

What was the lure? The idea of wild sex with a guy born when Calvin Freakin' Cooldige was president? Luxuriating in a household that hadn't been updated since the mid-1970s? Scraping mold off the bathroom wall? Or -- and this is just a wild guess -- marching to Hefner's office every Friday to get paid $1000 cash to put up with this lifestyle? Don't say they're callgirls, though -- they were requested in person to get paid for lousy sex.

Let's face it. These bunnies weren't good looking enough to be regular models or smart enough to be cashiers, yet wanted the good life anyway. By willingly putting up with Pac-Man machines, old movies on Friday nights, and group sex involving a man nearly a century old -- who used so much Viagra he went deaf in one ear -- they cheapen the lives of real wives and girlfriends who have no way out of bad relationships, and often wind up dead at the hands of psychos. When Crystal Harris asks herself, "How did I end up there?", the answer is, You found it preferable to marrying an ordinary but dependable guy and living in a two-bedroom house. And who's not going half-deaf any time soon, either.

Hey, did you read the Oscar nominations? No matter, they're pointless to anyone outside the industry. Of course, not everyone got the Academy's laurel and hearty handshake. In the old days, such a thing was referred to Way it goes. But now, your favorite actor or movie not getting the nod is now called a "snub".  Like Greta Gerwig snubbed for Director. Leonardo DiCaprio snubbed for Supporting Actor.  Margot Robbie snubbed for Actress. Origins snubbed for Best Movie.

Not enough to go around.

Snubbed? How about, maybe, perhaps, the Academy voters didn't think any of them deserved it? OK, so fans did. They're disappointed -- but why is their happiness dependent on multi-millionaires getting another trophy? The same people who groan about how pointless the Oscars are suddenly riled up when their favorites aren't in the running. 

You know what's better than an Oscar? Directing and producing the highest-grossing Warner Brothers movie in its 100-year existence, as Gerwig and Robbie respectively did for Barbie. Gold-plated awards mean nothing compared to green cash flowing to the box office. Gerwig and Robbie are going to do just fine, as will DiCaprio and everyone else who made hit movies. We should be so snubbed.

                                                        *************

WHAT NEWS?

Avoiding the news whenever I can is a marvelous thing. No longer do I deliberately put myself through the misery of listening to the blathering of those on the right who remind us that Jesus wouldn't have been crucified if he'd had an AK-47, or those on the left warning that any parent questioning the necessity of Drag Queen Reading Hour is a card-carrying member of the Fox News fan club. 

I'd fallen prey to those who forever promised that any day now Matt Gaetz would be in an orange jumpsuit for his crimes of... what were his crimes again? Sex with teens? I don't remember.  The fact that Gaetz is alive and (physically) well contradicts all those laptop jockeys and YouTubers who gleefully stated that he had been DESTROYED by Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel last night. And the night before that. And the night before that.

But there's a difference between avoiding news and living entirely off the grid. So, yes, there are major stories that somehow get on my radar. For me to explore them beyond the headline, I need to ask myself one question: Will reading the details of this event improve my life, mood, or overall wellbeing? The answer tends to be no.

So when I found out that the latest mass shooter was an Asian who killed Asians, I didn't know for sure if he would have been charged with a hate crime had he lived. And if he wouldn't have been, well, why not? Killing 10 Asians sure sounds like hate, right? Hey, he killed himself -- that makes 11 times the hate!

Then there's the SNAFU regarding classified documents found in the possession of Joe Biden outside the White House. Did he or his minions say with a straight face that any concern over security issues were unnecessary because they were in his garage next to his beloved Corvette? Were they able to suppress a chuckle when bragging that Biden ordered the Justice Department to search his home(s) to discover any more top secrets? That's like me telling the Feds, Gee, can you search the box in my closet labeled "B-Movie Posters" to find out if I have any B-movie posters? And if you do, I'm not going to rest until I find out just how they got there!

But the best story -- the one I kinda poked around in because I feel an emotional connection to it -- concerns Alec "Not My Trigger Finger" Baldwin being charged with two charges of involuntary manslaughter on the Rust set -- an incident that happened a year and a half ago. (Would you have been free to do your thing for 18 months following that crime?) 

I'm convinced that had big-mouth Baldwin just kept quiet rather than claim he didn't pull the trigger AND continued to post wacky photos of him and his ever-growing family of travelling misfits AND show the same remorse a shark does who's just chowed down on a Cape Cod swimmer, he might be in a better position in the eyes of both the law and the public. It just doesn't help your cause when you claim to be the victim when a woman is dead and a man is severely wounded from a gun that you were holding.

No doubt the likes of Greg Gutfeld and Laura Inghram have loudly started the countdown clock until Baldwin's imprisonment, even as deep down inside they know that his lawyers are already trying to figure out a way to keep their client out of the New Mexico prison system, such as convincing him to plead nolo contendre  and paying a fine. But as with those on the left, their audience will forget all the promises their favorite talking heads have made. It helps their life, mood, and overall well-being.

                                        ******************

CREATIVE GUNPLAY

Let's throw "dead eyes" into the mix, too.

 If publishers of dictionaries were smart, they'd put an unflattering photo of Alec Baldwin next to the word "clueless" -- as well as "smarmy", "self-pitying", and "tone-deaf". For just as you think the chunky B-movie actor couldn't get any lower, he treats himself to a shiny new shovel. 

The FBI recently decided -- after a year long investigation! -- that guns just don't go and fire themselves. This pokes a rather obvious hole in Baldwin's claim that his gun did just that when it sent a fatal bullet into Halyna Hutchins while filing Rust. 

You knew that wouldn't go down well with Alec. But instead of just shutting up and letting the lawyers do the extenuating on his behalf, the hapless ham decided to take matters into his own grubby paws, braying in an interview. "I know that every single person on the set of the film knows what happened, and the people who are talking loudest about what happened or speculating about what happened were not on the set of the film." 

You'd trust these people, right?

Who could Baldwin be talking about? His wife, the phony Spaniard Hilaria? She sure was flapping her gums in the weeks following the shooting. Or could it be Halyna Hutchins's widowed husband Matthew? Maybe the lab boys at the FBI or the gun experts who have said (in so many words) that Baldwin lies like a ratty Persian carpet?  (In another bad move, Baldwin gave the interview to Chris "I Was Just Helping My Brother" Cuomo -- another celebrity not exactly on handshaking terms with the truth.)

Perhaps not satisfied that he was enough of a moron, Baldwin went on Cuomo's former employer CNN to state that the "stress" of the shooting has "taken years off my life." If Halyna Hutchins could speak, she would likely say that she understood a shooting can do that to a person. She might also feel some empathy when he claims that he's "lost five jobs" in the last year because of the shooting. 

I'm not sure what's more shocking -- that he's surprised by losing jobs, or that there were five people willing to work with this human box-office bomb. Good Lord, is there anything Baldwin could say to make himself sound more oblivious, more insensitive, more indifferent to the fact that he shot and killed a woman who was just doing her job? 

If he wanted to be more accurate, shouldn't he
be pointing at the woman?

Please. Do you need an answer? Oh, OK, how about professing to be "nervous" about being shot himself by Trump supporters? Yup, he pulled the same ragged card used by Harvey Weinstein when he was credibly accused to sexual violence against women: deflect by dropping the name of Donald Trump! Hey, remember, I hate that guy as much as you do! That should take care of things, right?

In the end, Alec Baldwin isn't worried about being found criminally responsible for Hutchins's death, nor will he be found civilly liable. Sure, he was a producer of Rust, but not like the people who really are responsible -- the "managerial producers" who hire the crew. He, as he told CNN, was a "creative" producer.

True. When it comes to assigning blame for a death that he caused, you can't get any more creative than Alec Baldwin.

                                                                         ***************

EXPERT TEXPERT

They really loved me on March 8.

I'm not the smartest guy on the block. If I were, I wouldn't be writing a blog that most of my "readers" likely send straight to the trash. But I am smart enough to know that the sudden spike of hits that my blog receives at 3:00 a.m. is from bots rather than 225 insomniacs.

Yet somehow, I'm smarter than the professional newspaper columnists and former military folks -- the people who are paid to give their opinions because they know more than you -- who never thought Russia would invade Ukraine. 

Maybe they thought it was a parking lot.

This, despite the thousands of tanks moseying up to the border over the course of at least two months. 

What do you think these scribblers for well-respected magazines and the like -- the people who said You're misconstruing Putin's words! -- would have thought if they spent half the winter watching Russian tanks approach their neighborhood? It's not like Russia has enough rubles to waste on what these smarty-pants swore was just an off-season vacation for the military. What part of military build-up on the Ukranian border didn't they understand? 

I get the idea Dr. D'Arenzio
spends more time on his hair
than his patients.

It isn't just politics that catch "experts" by surprise. A shrink named Dr. Justin D'Arienzo went on the highly regarded therapeutic site TikTok to warn us  
of the five warnings that your relationship is in trouble: 

• A lack of desire for physical and emotional intimacy 
• Preferring to be alone
• Conversations always lead to conflict
• You judge everything your partner does
• You don't care about your partner or what they do.

God almighty! You need a "professional" to tell you that these things spell doom to your relationship? Hey, come to me with your problems! I'll charge half of what this quack does, and even throw in coffee. Maybe a danish, too. By the way, if you're listening to a psychiatrist who has a website known for teenagers inhaling cinnamon then you deserve to drop $200 an hour every week.

Is this what they thought was going on in these places?

Closer to home, I recently saw a headline referring to my neighborhood: Secret Brothels Run Out of Upper East Side Spas. My first thought was, If I caught hookers in my place of business, I'd run them out of there, too.

It was only on second look I realized what the headline really meant. And that when I mentally screamed, How the hell was this a secret?  Johnny Carson was getting cheap laughs out of the phrase "massage parlors" in 1967. When these spas' websites promise HOT BODY 2 BODY, they're not talking saunas. 

My advice to people trying to figure out problems: Skip the experts and go for the obvious answers. They tend to be the right ones.

(On third reading of the massage parlor headline, it could also mean brothels were running out of places to set up shop. This is why copy editors are more important than we realize.)

                                                                ***********

WHICH WAY TO THE BOTTOM?

Is that all?

Headlines like the one seen here, while chilling most of the world, actually provide a little comfort for people who would otherwise be closer to the top of the newsfeeds. 

People like, say, two actors whose personal reputations were never cuddly to begin with. Reputations that have curdled even further, like milk that's been left out of the Amana way too long. 

One of these actors is in the strange position of being lucky to be dead. The other is less lucky to be alive and well (physically if not psychologically). Let's start with the guy who still walks the earth.

He'd rather break Baldwin's neck.

Five months after, alas, only temporarily derailing his career, Alec Baldwin has been sued by Matt Hutchins, the husband of the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. 

It must be a shock to Baldwin, since he confided to us, Trump-style, that many people in the legal world were sure he was in the clear. Even the Santa Fe District Attorney appears to be coming around to his side, which seems to be a strange thing for a D.A. to say before the investigation is completed. But I'm not lawyer, so what do I know?

If you didn't know who they were,
you'd run in the opposite
direction. Come to think of it,
you'd run knowing who they were.

I'll tell you what I know! That Baldwin likely increased the chances of being sued by
weeping to George Stephanopoulos that he wasn't responsible for Hutchins's death despite holding the gun. And then he and his wacky wife doubled down by posting pictures and home movies on Instagram as if nothing happened. 

The Baldwins weren't just rubbing it into the faces of Matt Hutchins and his eight-year-old son. They were slapping, smacking, smiting, and thwacking it, then went trick-or-treating just for kicks and giggles. 

In an interview on Today, Hutchins said, "Watching him I just felt so angry. I was just so angry to see him talk about her death so publicly in such a detailed way and then to not accept any responsibility after having just described killing her." That's what happens when you're up against a sociopath.

OK, thousandth-and-first.

Actor #2 in this week's "any news is bad news" section is Jerry Lewis. Despite having gone to that great telethon in the sky almost five years ago, Jerry was back the other day, and not to shove a drinking glass clear into his mouth for the thousandth time. 

Thanks to a scathing report in Vanity Fair, America's favorite funnyman (at least until 1963 or thereabouts) was exposed as a sexual harasser and assaulter of some of his female costars. And unlike others who have gone through the same thing in recent years, most of these women have names familiar to us (and by us, I mean over age 60). 

Renee Taylor, Lanie Kazan, Jill St. John -- they might not have necessarily been A-list by today's standards, but they were far from the extras, up-and-comers and almost-somebodies that fell victim to the likes of Harvey Weinstein.  Which is not to say their words count more; it just makes one re-think their movies with Jerry.

Not what you expect to see at the beginning of
a Jerry Lewis documentary.

You know the story's bad when the accompanying video carries a warning. I'm not going to recount the women's experiences, other than that one of them describes an incident that Louis CK made famous in his encounters. Weinstein, too, now that I think of it. What is it with not-so-good-looking guys and what they think chicks want to see?

That's what he thinks.

As I've written before, my feelings about Jerry are mixed. There is no taking away his talent, both in front of and behind the camera. Just like there is no ignoring his often ham-fisted, obnoxious humor and personality. Too, his dislike of most contemporary female comedians who aren't named Ball or Burnett has been on the record for years. 

The latter could be put down to There goes Grandpa again. Just ignore him, he'll be OK in a few minutes -- at least to people who grew up watching him. Subsequent generations weren't having any of it, though, and likely vomited at the kind words spoken at his passing. 

Not every woman who worked with Jerry has horror stories. Connie Stevens was never mistreated on the set of The Nutty Professor. Sylvia Lewis (no relation), a dancer in The Ladies Man, even said, "he was always very kind and respectful to me. In fact, I can say during my Hollywood years I was never treated better by anyone." 

Which one would you rather meet?

Maybe it's a simple case of Jekyll & Hyde -- or in Jerry's case, Julius Kelp & Buddy Love. Whatever it is, the reaction to what's described as Jerry's "dark side" should be interesting to see. 

Will the celebrities who mourned his death feel compelled to take it back? And the baby-boomers who grew up loving Jerry -- will they feel icky the next time The Disorderly Orderly airs on TCM? Will TCM even air his movies again?

But pity must be given to the younger generations -- how can they cancel somebody who was really cancelled in 2017 at the age of 91? 

                                                      *****************

My obituary of Jerry Lewis can be found here.

THE SHADOW OF YOUR SNARL

Yup, there's a resemblance.

You might not have noticed, but there's a similarity between Alec Baldwin and groundhogs. Every February 2, the rodent comes out of his den. If he sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of winter. 

When the other rodent opens his mouth, it means six more weeks of bad press. And since Baldwin Day happens whenever he deems necessary, it's essentially bad press year-round. This week was no different.

Baldwin posted an Instagram video on Monday from England, where, believe it or not, he reported for duty on yet another low budget, straight-to-streaming B-movie nobody asked for. He called the experience "strange". 

Yeah, I'd say "strange" is a good way of putting it, since nobody expected him within a mile of a movie set so soon after he appeared to have ended his acting career literally with a bang. Desperate indie moviemakers will do whatever it takes to have their dreams come true, especially when they can find a star who isn't in any position to haggle over money. 

Being a philosopher at heart, Baldwin took the time to share his feelings about the business we call show, confiding to his fans, "We had our first day today, which is always tricky. I don't work as much as I used to." You don't say! It couldn't be because you're such a ham you should be covered in brown sugar.

The Master Thespian continued, "I said this before maybe, but you go to work and you forget what you're supposed to do. I just was like, 'Oh god, what do you do? What is acting, or any of this nonsense that I've ended up doing?'"

Baldwin's got the experience.

Good Lord, is there any actor alive who complains so much about being an actor? At least when Marlon Brando pulled that stunt, he had the talent to back up his ho-hum attitude. Baldwin thinks he's the logical successor to Brando when he's actually the illogical successor to Broderick Crawford, only not nearly as entertaining. 

Although I have to admit that the idea of Alec Baldwin starring in a reboot of Highway Patrol is appealing. Especially if he barked his closing statements regarding driving safety the same way, like Remember, leave your blood in the blood bank and not on the highway! Or, in Baldwin's case, the director and cinematographer's blood on the set.

"Hi folks, meet my wife! She's beautiful, talented,
and definitely not a Christ-killer!"

Well, if Kevin Spacey can return to acting -- first in Italy, then Croatia -- I guess Alec Baldwin has earned redemption. And Mel Gibson -- Mr. Rightwing Misogynist Homophobe Antisemite himself -- has a movie set for release by Sony Pictures (his first studio movie in years) on Easter Sunday. Maybe it helps that Gibson's wife -- 25 years his junior, naturally -- is the writer and director.

Come to think of it, Baldwin's negatives aren't much different than those of Mel "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" Gibson. And I bet if you dig deep enough, you just know Baldwin has said something similar -- and while sober.

So mazel tov, Alec. You're working again. Just make sure the gun's not loaded this time, OK? 

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NO SOUNDS OF SILENCE

A fan thanks Alec for not
physically assaulting her.

In our previous chapter of What's Up with Alec?, I speculated that the actor-turned-not-so-sharp-shooter appears to do something to win sympathy in order to deflect from yet another negative news story featuring his name in the headline -- a news story, it must be emphasized, that he himself caused. 

This week, we learned that Baldwin was at the wrong end of another lawsuit, although, surprisingly, not connected to a death he caused. You can read the details here. 

But if you're one of the TLDR crowd, it boils down to this: Baldwin posted the name and photo of an Afghan war widow who was in Washington the day of the 2021 riot but didn't take part in the violence. She and her sister -- who wasn't even there, but whom Baldwin identified as an insurrectionist -- were then subjected to harassing and threatening emails from his 2.4 million Instagram strangers. 

Six hundred pages worth of emails. Things like “Get raped and die, worthless cunt. Your brother got what he deserved.” Sounds like something Baldwin would say. And if you don' believe me, Baldwin then followed the sender on Instagram. You know, like a fan. 

I carry no water for anybody who took part in the violence. But the woman was cleared by the FBI. So, it's rather interesting that Baldwin -- who, in his favor, had earlier donated $5,000 to the widow and her yet-unborn child -- had, from a crowd of 10,000, focused on one woman. Or should I say "aimed"?

Hey where's your mask, Alec? Oh I know, you want
the photographer to recognize you!

That was Monday. On Tuesday, good ol' family man Alexander Rae Baldwin III was photographed taking the wife and kids for an afternoon at the Musuem of Natural History.... only to discover that it was closed. 

So what was a professional celebrity paparazzo doing outside a closed museum? I mean, I see these guys prowling the city, scouting around for a money shot. But what are the odds he happened to be at a museum that wasn't even open just as the Baldwin clan arrives without a heads-up? (And another thing: don't these kids ever go to school?)

Who knew that Caesarstone Quartz
could be so spiritual?

Then this morning, Alec posted a photo of what appears to be the top of a closet in his bathroom where an artificial rainbow had appeared. You must read its accompanying missive -- and, as you do, try to hear it in your head in Baldwin's softer voice, as if he were shilling for Rolex:

The Beauty in Silence

My favorite part of the day is early in the morning when I get up before anyone else and the house is totally silent. I spend that time with God, and I find that the silence strengthens me and helps me get focused for the day. I spend some time just sitting and enjoying it.

Our world today is very noisy, busy, and at times very stressful. When you feel stressed or frustrated, go somewhere that is silent and just enjoy if for a few minutes; I believe you will find that your soul begins to calm down. Inner peace and quiet are vital for hearing from God or sensing the direction He wants us to take.

Outer silence helps promote inner silence. Learn to love ❤️ silence and you will be more inclined to hear the still, small voice of God. At a time when Elijah desperately needed to receive direction from God, he had to wait until all noise passed , and only when he was in a gentle stillness did he hear the still, small voice of God speaking to him

Always be closing your mouth.

To quote Bugs Bunny, Oh, buh-RUH-ther! Since when has Alec Baldwin ever
enjoyed silence? It's no coincidence that Baldwin's single greatest performance is his scene in Glengarry Glen Ross where he does nothing but threaten the real estate agents for five straight minutes. He wasn't acting.

"Outer silence helps promote inner silence" -- true dat, Alec. So shut up already!

No, don't. You're the greatest muse a two-bit blogger could ever have. Well, your wacky wife's pretty good, too. Now get your kids in school! 

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