Ms. Cheevious in Hollywood

My Zany Years Spent Working in Tinsel Town

god

When God goes hi-tech

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Yesterday Nuggie and I went out for happy hour. At the beach. On foot.

This is always a situation where we should hire a camera crew to follow us around. I would instruct them ahead of time to strap microphones to us and record EVERY SINGLE word, even when we are not in their view. Lord knows what comedic treasures could come from Nuggie or I talking to ourselves in the bathroom.

As the somewhat sober one of the two, I was talking to a tipsy Nuggie about a friend from a lifetime ago, who is married to a Pastor from my hometown.

You met her! She came to Maven’s funeral. Remember?

   Oh yeah… Was she there by herself, or did I meet her husband too?

No, she was by herself.

   Well, are they still married?

Oh yes… they have been married probably forty or so years!

   Why wasn’t her husband with her? That’s kind of lame…. send your wife to a funeral by herself…

He’s a pastor of a church of like 20,000 or something! He can’t go to every funeral… 

   Wait a minute… the guy’s a PASTOR and he’s not going to go to a funeral with his wife? That doesn’t make SENSE! 

Here is where I gave a laundry list of excuses in defense of my former friend’s life choices, and why it was okay for her to attend a funeral on her own.

She came to support me and my family, I guess… Plus her husband probably was teaching a sermon that evening and couldn’t come. PLUS, even if he could, you have to understand, with such a huge church people are dying and getting married daily… He can really only physically go to the funerals of people he actually knows, I guess.

   He knows you, doesn’t he?

That was years ago. We aren’t friends any more.

 

I should have said, She is an adult, isn’t she? She can decide to go or not on her own, right? But no, I wasn’t clear headed enough to state the obvious. I also got Nuggie’s point, because that is just the kind of guy he is. If I were attending a funeral, he would offer to go at whatever cost, and make it happen if at all possible. End of story. It’s why I love him.

 

But there is something you should also know about Nuggie in order to understand what happened next. He is an actor. He actually works as an actor in pursuit of his career. He’s not a waiter, trying to be a full-time actor. He really is an actor. You’ve probably seen him in something, but you would have to go to his IMDB profile to see his body of work. If you know him, you actually SHOULD go to every one of his films or television shows he has ever been in, find him in the cast, and click on him. Do this MULTIPLE TIMES. This influences his STAR METER.  The lower the star meter, the bigger a star you are.  Someone like Tom Cruise has a Star Meter of about 47, yet someone like Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) has a star meter of 11. 11 to someone for whom I had to provide a list of work he’s done. The reason that is the case is because his most recent Bat Man film got millions of hits on its page, and subsequently his profile. Star Meters are a squirrelly business. They go up and down with the wind. But a high Star Meter gets an actor “stuff” – entry into great events, swag bags, more work, you name it.

INTRODUCING THE ICDB

 

And Nuggie continued…

   They should have a Star Meter for that. If they did, that guy wouldn’t have a great star meter.

What do you mean? 

  Like IMDB. They should do that. They could have the I — (thinking for a second) C–D–B, Internet- (pause)- CHURCH – Database!

OH.MY.GOD. That’s funny! What? Would he be about a fifty?

  FIFTY! No WAY! 

Well he’d be up there, right?

  No. JESUS would be up there!

It sometimes takes me a minute to get what is really at play in the inner recesses of Nuggie’s mind, but I finally understood.

So what? God would be like number one? But then would he be listed as God, AKA Allah? Because you’d have to have them both right! Yeah – that’s good. God a.k.a. Allah. That would be funny.

God-At-His-Computer

  GHANDI – HE’D be at FIFTY.

What do you think Jesus would be? A three? Then you’d have to have Satan – because he’s a player too, you know. He’d probably be like, number five, sadly. 

 

THIS my friends — when God (Jesus, the devil and every other spiritual persona) goes high-tech —  was after I had just ONE cocktail.

I’m not sure why, but you’re welcome.

 

 

 

Taking charge in the car

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I love how my son Graden’s mind works. He’s been brilliant and confident since birth.

We were driving through the desert near Paige Arizona when he was about two, and encountered an incredibly scary and dangerous thunder and lightening storm. You’d have to be acquainted with my ex… the person that he was oh, at least sixteen years ago, to understand why this became more of a “thing” than necessary. Let’s just say that driving fast or with unlimited access in any climate was prerequisite… and never questioned. He owned a four-by-four, gigantic mofo truck with a huge lift kit (the kind I needed a running start to get into), so he believed he was impervious to any climate or environment while driving.  Scale a vertical cliff in the truck? Yup. Drive 70 miles an hour in a monsoon, with zero visibility? You betch-ohhh ass, dad-gummit.

I tried to mask my fear for Graden’s sake, because the alternative was to go bat shit crazy in the car, and that wouldn’t do  anyone any good. I opted to keep my bat shit to myself. I wanted him to believe we were all very safe, and daddy knew what he was doing. NOT. But his peace was most important to me. I couldn’t do anything about the thunder and lightening show, and certainly couldn’t help that we appeared to be driving through the car wash from hell.

When the lightening and subsequent thunderous cracks in the sky drew ever so close, and deafened our ears, it was Graden who said something.

Graden: Mom?

Me:  Yeah honey?

Graden: Can you turn it off?

I knew instantly what he meant. Make the lightening and thunder stop. His dad and I exchanged knowing glances, his dad, finding this extremely amusing.

Me: Oh honey, no, I can’t turn it off.

Graden: Why?

Me: Because honey, only God can turn it off.

There was a pause for a minute, as Graden pondered this, no doubt envisioning a mean old God up in the sky looking down at us, on-off switch nearby, but was he doing anything? No. He was grinning with devious glee as he watched the little people down below cower in fear over his power.

Apparently Graden would have none of it.

Graden:  I’ll turn it off.

Me (sideways glancing at his dad): You will?

Graden: Yeah.

I laughed a bit, and was awed by this kid, sitting peacefully in his car seat, contemplating how he was going to take charge.

Me: Okay, honey. If you can turn it off, then you do that.

There was a long pause… while Graden thought about how and where to do this…

Graden: Where is it?

 

A little boy who's comfortable taking charge in the car

Ya gotta hand it to kids. They really do know what to say to make everything better.