In Which We Get Pre-Engaged

Marry Me!

by Molly Lambert

Alex and I often discuss who we think could best help us carry on our genetic legacy. The obvious choice is one another, but our brains are so similar (owing to our being born on the same day) that making a child would be sort of redundant. Besides, we’d really like to get some strange DNA in the mix, and choose candidates who would add something worthwhile to our empire.

Now that we’ve had to temporarily shut down The Whores Of Mensa (our lucrative escort service), we’ve had more time to focus on these major issues. In order to work through some of our problems, our couples therapist Gabriel Byrne has had us draw up these lists of the top five people we are allowed to cheat/make a baby with within the tenets of our bohemian open poly-partnering.

1. Dylan Moran

To be sure, despite being half-Mick myself, I don’t normally like Irish men. I am completely immune to the charms of Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson. I love Daniel Day-Lewis and Cillian Murphy, but I don’t find them sexually magnetic per se. They’re like beautiful art objects. There can be something wan and underfed about Irish actors. The best example being Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.

That said, I think (Irishman) Dylan Moran is the pinnacle of Hotness. That’s because his show, Black Books, is hilarious. His character Bernard Black, (proprietor of the barely operating used book shop the show is named for) is like a composite of equally beloved misanthropes Alan Rickman, Richard E. Grant, and Larry David. He is “oddly, pointlessly, argumentative” much like all my favorite people (and me). In short, Dylan Moran is perfect.

“Youth leaks from you. It doesn’t leave a note or slam the door. You’re just left there older, with dead spiders for eyes and fire-retardant hair”

Dylan describes his pre-show ritual:

On the day of a show, I rise early to do no more than (but rarely less than) four or five thousand squat thrusts, wearing a yoghurt poultice over my face in a specially adapted bath, before a few rounds of kickboxing with Fnolf, my live-in trainer. Because my family and I live on the Shetland Isles there is always a bracing breeze around our outdoor pool. Fnolf and I generally have a bit of a splash and dive down to the bottom to pick up doubloons with our teeth.

Round about mid-morning, I might get a bit wobbly thinking about the show, so once the kids are strapped into their speedboats by Nong, their nanny, my wife and I like to relax by rolling on piles of banknotes in our giant humidor. Then I see my therapist for a while for Thoughtshare.

After therapy it is best to nap. I often dream I am running from my own eye sockets into a larger head which is also mine and yet not – it can’t be, it isn’t nearly as pretty. Once I get there, I get terribly mad, screaming over and over because I have to live there with substandard room service.

For tea we might just toss up a salad of samphire and sprats. I gargle crème fraiche on the way to the show while Nong and Fnolf blow on my elbows. Once in the dressing room there’s no time to think. A quick skoosh of Playzurre, my own brand perfume. I flex my face in a face-flexing machine. Then I am on. Just like that. I can only do what I do, which is be me at my best without any thought for myself. Hey, it’s probably the same for you!

Three Glorious Series Of Black Books on the BBC.

[Moran] tries to avoid writing ideas down, though. ‘Paper acts as an eraser on the mind, as soon as you look at what you’ve written,’ he says. ‘You can delude yourself that you can capture things in the notebooks and jotters you leave lying around in case you get that 2 am feeling of: “That’s it! That’s it!” Then you wake up and what you’ve jotted is meaningless bollocks: “shed, rabbit, bike.” But, at the time, you laughed yourself back to sleep.’

Dylan Moran Rules: that he does.

See my post here about British Comedy TV and why you should euthanize great shows while they’re young.

Some of the writers from Black Books wrote for classic BBC sitcom Father Ted.

“Being alone is not character-building. You build nothing except a little matchstick cathedral of despair”

Dylan’s matchstick cathedral of despair reminds me of Patton Oswalt’s failure pile in a sadness bowl.

Clips from Black Books on YouTube.

Black Books is a sister show of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Spaced. Dylan played David in Shaun Of The Dead.

“Religion is the yeast of death cakes. It is the most awful agent on a vulnerable mind. It’s the refuge of alienated and lonely people. It’s what people had before television. It yokes people together into an imaginary world. It is just people talking to their imaginary friends, at length. I wouldn’t mind, but some of the people are world leaders.”

“Male genitalia are so depressing to look at: like bagpipes covered with hair.”

“The French are so decadent: they start their day with chocolate bread and by lunchtime they’re fucking everything that moves. Even the word ‘boulangerie’ is fun to say.”

“I don’t do drugs. If I want a rush, I just stand up when I’m not expecting it.”

“Contrary to everything you have ever heard, performing comedy is the easiest job in the world bar none.”

2. Devin The Dude

3. Owen Wilson

4. David Banner (aka Levell Crump)

5. Steve Malkmus

“Love and Affection” – Joan Armatrading (mp3)

Alex’s List

For his top choice of surrogate baby mama Alex chose Baby Mama star and This Recording megacrush, Tina Fey. He has my total blessing, even though I know he just chose her so I’d give him a pass on Rachel Weisz. I like how Darren Aronofbergsteinplatz turned Evan Rachel Wood into a doppelganger of his wife Weisz for his new film The Wrestler. Can’t be worse than The Fountain, right?

1. Tina Fey (he said “post-plastic surgery” but I feel like photoshop is more or less the same thing.)

Fey grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Upper Darby, Pa., the daughter of a college grant writer and a housewife. She was funny from the start. At 7, she drew a picture of two people holding hands and carrying wedges of Swiss cheese, with the caption: “What a friend we have in cheeses.”

Tina on her busy lifestyle:

Fey smiles wearily. “It’s very full,” she says. “But I would be lying if I said there were not tears involved at home occasionally—just occasionally. Last spring, my husband was trying to joke around with me. I was saying, ‘Please stop talking. I’m trying to go to sleep,’ and he kept talking. Out of the blue—he still mentions it, that I had the most terrifying look on my face—I just went, ‘Stop it!!!’ and shoved him across the bed. The life of the working parent is constantly saying, ‘This is impossible,’ and then you just keep doing it.”

2. Eva Mendes (child would be Obama-replica model)

3. Rachel Weisz

4. Leaving Las Vegas period Elisabeth Shue

5. Brittany Murphy (he must just really like the last name Murphy, because I cannot for the life of me explain this one)

alex’s passion for the insane knows no bounds

We might throw some of Danish’s swimmers in there too just for giggles. I asked Danish who his ideal mates were and he gave me this oddly balanced listicle:

Danish’s List

1. Gabrielle Union

2. Huma Abedin

3. Alessandra Ambrosio

4. Naomi

5. Sarah Palin: The Pro Life Alaskan Governor

Molly Lambert is the senior editor of This Recording.

Bernard: I’ve got to get a girlfriend, just for the summer, until this wears off. She’ll be a summery girl. She’ll have hair. She’ll have summery friends who know how to be outside. She’ll play tennis and wear dresses and have bare feet, and in the autumn, I’ll ditch her, because she’s my summer girl!

ENJOY ALL THE OKKERVIL RIVER YOU CAN HANDLE

the stand-ins wiki

“Calling and Not Calling My Ex” – Okkervil River (mp3)

“Lost Coastlines” – Okkervil River (mp3)

“On Tour with Zykos” – Okkervil River (mp3)

“Pop Lie” – Okkervil River (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

The Annotated/Condensed Society Of The Spectacle

Part One: You Know Nothing Of My Work

Part Two: Chew Bubblegum And Kick Ass

Part Three: You Are As Human As The Rest Of Us, If Not More So