IMDb can be so cruel

You probably don't have to tell Michael Emerson that he's creepy looking. He's making a nice little career in Hollywood out of his "unconventinal look," playing everything from the icky guy on "Saw" to the yucky guy on "Lost." Emerson, who looks a little like Rob Schneider if he got his head caught in an elevator door, is cornering the market on unsavory.

Still, how would like it if you looked yourself up on IMDb (and you know all actors do this), only to find the following headline in the very first post of comments section:

ugliest man ever

You'd click on it, wouldn't you? You'd have to. And this is what you'd find:

"Im sorry to say this but i think this man is soooo hideous. he gave me nightmares after seeing him in SAW. im not kidding either. he looks like he could be some kind of gross pedophile. he also sort of reminds me of steve buscemi!"

I don't care how evolved you are, that would have to hurt.

The comment is a treasure trove of illiterate insults, beginning with a false apology and ending with a added insult against Steve Buscemi. It's a homemade nail-bomb, wounding everything within a 15-foot radius. Terribly written, yet it acheives a sort of brutal perfection. I have to break this down.

"Im sorry to say this"
A bitchy pre-apology that is so overused it's lost its original meaning and now simply announces the coming of an insult.

"but i think this man is sooo hideous."
He doesn't look hideous. He doesn't act hideous. He simply IS hideous.

"he gave me nightmares after seeing him in SAW."
Not because of his brilliant performance, mind you. He's just hideous.

"im not kidding either."
You thought I was being satirical? Ha!

"he looks like he could be some kind of gross pedophile."
The worst kind.

"he also sort of reminds me of steve buscemi!"
Best ending to a comment EVER.

Nick waves goodbye.

Meet Nick Ito. Now you see him. Now you don't.

A week ago or so he up and left this fine DM shop, gathering a few meager possessions and personal effects into a couple cardboard boxes. He's had enough for now, thank you. No more, please.

Ito said Finito.

Now he's preparing to go on an extended trip to Panama/Costa Rica. So when I say he's probably home waxing his surfboard, I am for once not speaking euphemistically.

As many of you thousands of loyal readers know, Ito was my Art Director. He's a very creative fellow, much more serious about work than his dude-ish facade might suggest. He was always very good at steering my unschooled impulses into a direction more resembling actual creative.

We shared many adventures over the years here at this DM wonderland. There were incidents. Shennanigans. Moments of disbelief, flashes of anger, spells of drunkeness and peals of evil laughter snaking through the beige corridors. Ask me about the magic 8-ball concept. Or the time we pitched a commercial to a roomful of ad clichés, who kept barking: "Michel Gondry! Michel Gondry!"

Now the cube next to me is empty. Empty like my heart, you ask? Of course not. Don't be stupid. But it is a bit lonelier around here. There are no more sudden eruptions of hall-filling laughter, for example. On the bright side, there aren't any startling eruptions of cube-filling flatulence either. (He always liked his burritos.)

Anyway, let's all wave goodbye to Mr. Ito as he leaves us for a better place. A warm, happy place filled with waves and sand and weed and cheap beer.

So long, good sir.

And F-U for leaving me with this shit!

Just kidding.


Seriously though.

Chuck

Great pic of Bronson in front of the Brooklyn Bridge, probably shot during the filming of Death Wish -- 1973-74.

I like to think that Vincent Gardenia is standing just off camera, maybe to Chuck's left, eating a hot dog.