Memories, COVID Coverage, and The Clash
Nappoholics Anonymous is a weekly column featuring twelve random thoughts by actor Tony Nappo. Some are funny, some are poignant, some bother him, and some make him weep from sadness while others make him weep for joy. Here are his thoughts: unfiltered, uncensored, and only occasionally unsafe for work.
1. All Time Greatest Toronto Theatre Post:
2. One good thing I have to say about this worldwide pandemic: with everyone being forced to stay home, my social life has the appearance of being way less fucking lame than it actually is.
3. Instagram Post of the Week: (fucking do it!!!)
4. Top 5 Self-Isolating Songs by The Clash
5. Should I stay IN or should I go OUT
4. No-one Calling
3. Charlie Don’t Have A Job Anymore So Now He Actually Does Surf Just for Something to Do
2. Justin’s Been Workin’ With the Doug Squad
1. I’m So Bored with the CBC
5. Art Project of the Week:
These are unprecedented times and many of us are stuck at home—trying not to let the news consume our lives, trying to keep positive, and trying not to freak out. Toronto artist Nina Okens’ Toronto Shines project may provide a much-needed distraction. She is collecting happy memories that have taken place in Toronto, which she will then commemorate on a large-scale mosaic map. The map is going to be full of stories that happened to people and where they happened. If you’re not familiar with her work, she makes mosaics out of expired TTC metropasses. They’re fucking brilliant.
There’s no limit to how many memories you can share, they just have to have happened in Toronto. I’m going to send a story about how I was down to my last twenty dollar bill so I tried to buy a pack of cigarettes at the 7/11 on Dundas at Dovercourt using a credit card and as I was praying that the card would be approved, I received a call from my agent that I had booked the lead role in the new animated series Fugget About It. 13 episodes. I won’t ever forget that call or the wave of relief that went over me knowing it was all gonna temporarily be okay again—somehow.
You can submit your own happy memory here: http://ninaokens.com/toronto-
You can follow her progress on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/
6. Ella spent all week with me last week and started to get a bit bored towards the end of the week—missing seeing her friends and all of the things a teen misses while being sequestered with her father. I live in a sublet where an older woman had lived, and lots of her stuff is still in the apartment.
Me: Wanna play a game or something? The woman who lived here was an older lady. Maybe she has a game laying around here somewhere.
Ella: OR maybe not. Maybe she was a COOL old lady.
7. Parenting Advice of the Week:
8. Tragedy of the Week:
9. Guest Post of the Week:
10. Meme of the Week:
11. I can’t fucking stand the local media coverage of this virus outside of the updates. First of all, why the fuck are they out looking for stories, anyway? They are risking spreading this virus further to report stuff like—and I shit you not—“many people believe Covid-19 is hurting business.” That’s a direct quote. And this one particular story was centred around the Gags and Giggles novelty store in Niagara Falls. The whole thing was framed like it was a fucking Shakespearean tragedy. That a joke store is having a hard time during a worldwide pandemic. That’s fucking news? If they’d simply reported that a novelty store in Niagara Falls existed and nothing else, I probably could have guessed that it wasn’t doing great business these days.
But the worst bit is after all the fear mongering around toilet paper and hand cleaners, or businesses suffering, or people going to the beach on spring break and how we’re all gonna die because of them, or people not being able to pay their bills or mortgages (which are all legitimate concerns but aren’t people stressed enough without being reminded of these things hourly—some of which only MAY happen but haven’t actually happened yet)—after all the fist shaking and fear mongering, they turn around at press conferences and start asking why the government isn’t doing more in terms of restrictions and shut downs for public safety. They’re stoking the fire from both fucking sides. This only serves to upset, worry, and anger the public for the measures that have been taken, as well as for the ones that have not yet been taken, which—if and when they are taken—they’ll just turn around and bitch about with more manipulative stories about how people are suffering.
Listen, it’s a fucking shit sandwich but we’re all eating it. If you don’t actually have the virus or haven’t died from the virus, or don’t know someone who does or has, you’re not suffering more than anyone else is in this particular moment. Not in terms of the virus, anyway.
This whole thing is difficult enough on people without sensationalizing or manipulating all of it. The story is big enough. There’s no need to pile shit on top of it. Just report the fucking thing.
12. With this health risk shit going on, I have been taking the extra precautionary step of wearing latex gloves when I have my “special alone time” lately. I mean, who knows where THAT THING has been?
We’re doing something a little different this week. At 10am EST on March 24, we’re breaking our not-so-strict anonymity agreement and bringing you Tony Nappo “Live”—Facebook live, that is. Tony will be streaming live from the Intermission Facebook page, answering your questions. To join the conversation, head to our Facebook or click here.
Tony Nappo
Tony is Italian, he’s from Scarborough, he’s an actor, he’s a father, he’s a really good house painter, and he doesn’t believe that most things matter, ultimately, at all.
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Paintings, Pornos, and Broken Countries
Every single fucking time there is a mass shooting, we all give the speeches, and we all share the memes (to each other, who are all mostly already in agreement), but nothing changes.
Gottfried, Strays, and Easter Eggs
Dogs rarely have a hidden agenda when they meet people or other dogs: they're either wagging that shit or they aren’t.
Slapping People, ACTRA Meetings, and Dog Shit
At one point, I was sleeping with so many actresses that they used to just hold ACTRA meetings in my bedroom.
Birthdays, Cranes, and Judd Apatow
If the Freedom Convoy has answered one question for every Canadian, I think it's this: whatever happened to that dumb kid in my class?
Scorsese, Dentists, and Dying Alone
If waving a Fuck Trudeau flag is a legit way to get a meeting with him, I’m gonna start waving my Fuck Scorsese flag wherever I go and keep my fingers crossed.
Truckers, Porndle, and Bad Boys
In these newly woke times in the entertainment industry, it’s slightly amazing to me that nobody has protested the fact that Denzel Washington isn’t actually Scottish yet.
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