Tag Archives: Lindsay Lohan

AI OR DOPPELGANGER

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We live in a frenetic and fragmented world. More than ever before our attention is being pulled in so many different directions, and what we have bandwidth for is shrinking every day. But I can’t hold with that excuse, not when I have a responsibility to my readers, especially those readers who feel like they’re not being heard.

And cloning seems so ok boomer, amiright?

Which is why I’m setting up an alternative means of communication for those of you trying to reach me who don’t enjoy the hold music (which is baffling, I know, “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” is very soothing). Starting August 1, I’m offering a tiered pricing model for a quicker direct connection between subscriber and…….me-adjacent.

TIER 1 – For only 5 cents a minute, enjoy a lively back and forth with “Hello My Name Is BryanChatty,” an AI approximation of me developed over a series of visits to a deprivation tank facility in Silicon Valley.

TIER 2 – For the modest price of a withered bird claw and sack of pig entrails every other blood moon, engage in a terse but uncomfortably pleasant exchange with my doppelganger who recently relocated to Los Angeles from a secluded village deep in the shadows of the Carpathian Mountains to haunt my waking life.

Each tier basically offers the subscriber an “Ask Me Anything” format but the beta testing has shown participants are most eager to: 1) discuss their relationships; 2) exchange financial advice; and 3) just need a platform in which to express their existential fears.

To get you excited about your own conversations, here’s a sampling of responses generated by our test audience’s queries:

BryanChatty: How many bad dates will it take for you to finally realize you should be running home in the rain on New Year’s Eve to your Nintendo Switch?

My Doppelganger: Desirability as a mate increases sevenfold with seven streaks on your door made from the dung of the three-eared yak of the Kodeszicu Valley. Not six streaks, seven. Six streaks will only increase by sixfold your inability to pass a bilestone.  

BryanChatty: Would Lindsay Lohan be shilling for cryptocurrency if weren’t a smart decision?

My Doppelganger: For your satchel of dried and spiced fowl meat, I will barter with this string of molars pried from the neck mouth of Crcyxix, Swampstress of Sighemuunta, removed of course after blinding her eyes by summoning a solar eclipse and confusing her mind with rumors of foxes laying with rabbits in their warrens. Final offer.

BryanChatty: You’re paying to communicate with an artificially intelligent simulation of a human being. I think we’ve jumped the shark on “existential,” don’t you?

My Doppelganger: I know you’re in your bed, Bryan. Why don’t you answer to my scratchings at the window?

Okay, well, needless to say, we are a social species/hybrid-technology and I needed to respond accordingly. So make your choice or connect with them both and let the reasonably-priced oversharing begin!

What If? – Hollywood Directors And Their Fussy Stars

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Norma Desmond - Sunset Boulevard

Norma Desmond – Sunset Boulevard

An article in last Sunday’s LA Times Calendar Section detailed the tumultuous production of Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis’s new psychosexual neo-noir film “The Canyons.” Starring the ever reliable Lindsay Lohan, I was amused/disturbed to read that in order to coax his shy starlet to go through with a nude scene, Mr. Schrader himself bared all on the set.

Okay, then. I think plenty of actresses would appreciate the gesture, and you have to admire Schrader’s commitment to…the craft, yes, the CRAFT. Don’t you? Well it doesn’t matter if you don’t because Lohan eventually did, and the results are there for everyone to see (you know you want to) on VOD now and in selected cities this Friday.

Anyway, this story prompted me to wonder if other directors of other films of dubious merit this year experienced anything similar with their stars. So let’s play What If? – Hollywood Directors and Their Fussy Stars.

What if you’re director Dennis Dugan on the set of “Grownups 2” and David Spade is refusing to do the scene where he gets whacked in the groin seven times by a kid with a bucket over his head wielding a golf club. Do you:

a) Replace him with Rob Schneider but then surgically alter Schneider’s face to resemble Spade’s so as not to lose money on any pre-printed promotional material;

b) Replace him with Rob Schneider but only for the groin-whacking scenes, and then return Schneider to the secret island paradise he owns with Chris Kattan.

c) Wake up inside your trailer and laugh that it was all a dream because Spade has never balked at sacrificing his scrotum for a cheap laugh; or

d) Wake up on the set and realize it’s not just a dream because Paul Schrader’s next to you naked and pounding himself in the gonads to inspire confidence in your waffling actor.

What if you’re director Raja Gosnell on the set of “Smurfs 2” and Jayma Mays has taken craft services hostage because she’s fed up acting scenes with the tennis ball dangling from a string that will later be digitized as Handy/Grouchy/Vanity/Clumsy Smurf. Do you:

a) Shut down the whole smurfing production until the actual Handy/Grouchy/Vanity/Clumsy Smurfs can be smurfing located;

b) Wish Jayma and the old craft services well and replace them with Rob Schneider and his secret island paradise craft services team;

c) Enlist Neil Patrick Harris to distract cast and crew members with close-up magic while French special forces snipers end the standoff; or

d) Bring Paul Schrader on set to get naked and painted blue to read lines like he was George C. Scott’s character from “Hardcore.”

What if you’re director Gore Verbinski on the set of “The Lone Ranger” and Johnny Depp is refusing to play Tonto as an embarrassing Native American stereotype as written in the script and approved by your Disney overlords. Do you:

a) Remind him that this whole freaking disaster was his idea in the first place;

b) Show him the market research proving it was his lack of being an embarrassing Native American stereotype that led to the box office bombs “Dark Shadows,” “The Tourist,” and “Public Enemies”‘;

c) Rewrite the entire movie replacing Tonto with Jack Sparrow, because no one seems to be offended by an embarrassing pirate stereotype; or

d) Send Depp to one-on-one insensitivity training with Paul Schrader who’s wearing nothing but the crow headdress and the Washington Redskins mascot tattooed on his chest.

Thanks for playing, everybody. Let me know how you came down on these.