Joan Defers

Someone’s tumblr just whisked me away to the magical realm of The Internet, Circa 1999.

The title was lit up with animated flames. It had dark and gothic overtures and nicknames ending in -Wolf. There was a yahoo messenger id.

The only thing missing was an animated gif background, rainbow text, and a java reflecting pool.

It didn’t even know you could do that with tumblr.

I swear, Bret Easton Ellis turning himself into (possibly un-self-aware) self-parody is my new favorite show. It’s epic.

Badmouthing Salinger on the day the man died.

The unsuccessful forcing of his new catch phrase, “Empire.” As in The American one. He’s been on twitter forcing things into “Empire” and “Post-Empire.”  Tina Fey? Empire. Girls? Post-empire. Yeah… I don’t know, either.

Now, there’s the kickstarter, for The Canyons (Not The Hills! Get it! POST EMPIRE! HAR DEE HAR!) He’s cast James Deen in a hail mary effort at relevancy.  Deen’s given some seriously ambivalent interviews about it.  And, just… Jesus.

In fact, it was that shorthand that helped him discover Mr. Deen. His producer Braxton Pope—who also worked with Mr. Ellis and Mr. Schrader on the shark horror flick Bait, dead in the water after five years of development (so Empire)—emailed over a couple articles on Mr. Deen. “’So, what do you think of this guy? Empire or post-Empire?” he asked. Mr. Ellis’s reply? “Totally in the top ten of post-Empire!”

You can’t make that up.  It’s like… the snake eating it’s own movie production tail, right? The synopsis: “The Canyons documents five twenty-something’s quest for power, love, sex and success in 2012 Hollywood.”

Yes.  Ellis, 48, and Schrader, 65, are going to tell us about modern “post-Empire” twenty-somethings, using James Deen, all of which sounds about as appealing as erotic fan fic based on I Am Charlotte Simmons. 

I can’t tell if he’s trolling or not. I kind of hope he is, but he seems so earnest, it burns.  Mostly because… is there anything more “Empire” than Ellis himself?  I mean, fucking really?

Anyway, if you’d like to support James Deen’s not-currently-confident attempt at mainstream cross over, or if you just want to watch Ellis earnestly blather about indie film while Braxton Pope’s eyes dart around, go forth.

Need to write, need to write.

A thousand words.

I am afraid this story is going to run long.  They all run long.

And, I am just not flowery.  I dunno.