Jell-o, Mrs. America, and Semi-Automatic Assault Ovens
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. I decided to start counting my steps, just out of curiosity. I know it’s not a competition and I honestly am not trying to brag or intimidate anyone, but I came pretty damned close to breaking 100 steps this week.
2. Meme of the Week:
3. Whenever this fucking COVID thing ends, the acronyms A.C. and B.C. will have an entirely different meaning. Eg. “I haven’t seen a live musical since 2019 B.C.”
4. WT-actual-F of the Week:
5. Regarding the idea that criminals are still going to seek guns whether they are banned or not: if you ban ovens, people who want to bake are probably still gonna find a way to bake—but it’s gonna be a fuck of a lot harder for them to do so successfully.
6. Guest Post of the Week:
7. The word on the street is that there is no way that any kind of live performances are going to start happening again this year at all. I mean, I have never really depended on doing live theatre alone to pay my bills—but without my lap dancing tips, I could be looking at a SERIOUS fuckin’ drought here.
8. Anniversary of the Week:
9. I watched the first five episodes of Mrs. America starring Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne, which was shot here in Toronto. It’s a magnificent television show. Hard to watch some of it because it is just so ugly—but equally inspiring as well. Hard the way watching Chernobyl was hard. Fucking intense. Maddening. Frustrating. Still: a magnificent production. I was speaking to a female friend who said even though it is set 50 years ago, not all that much has changed really in regard to the shit women have to face constantly. Which I’m sure is a big part of the ugliness of the experience of watching it and why it was even produced. Blanchett is brilliant as a woman who you admire for her drive, determination, intelligence, and composure even though she is constantly masking her desperation in the face of the gender oppression that she is simultaneously suffering from and feeding.
But you know what else was hard to watch about it? As a Toronto actor watching a show shot in Toronto? I don’t pretend to know every single actor in Canada, or even in Toronto, but I do know a shit ton of them—and I did see a lot of familiar faces on screen, which always legitimately delights me. BUT I didn’t see any of those faces for very long. In a cast of 177 actors (according to IMDb), I didn’t see one Canadian actor playing any of the leads or supporting leads, or even any of the meatier principal parts (outside of maybe one or two you could make a legitimate argument for).
I mean, I’m happy for the crew, background, stand ins, drivers, caterers, all the folks who work in the office, and whoever else got to work on it and make some money (including my peers). But where the fuck is our union at when a show rolls into town and casts 177 roles and all we get are the fucking table scraps? It’s total bullshit from a local actor’s standpoint. This is OUR fucking town. I get that you need name actors because that’s what draws people to watch the show—but that thing was packed full of actors who I have never heard of, who had to be flown in, put up at a hotel, paid more, and given a per diem to do the exact same job that any 50 fucking local actors could have done in their sleep. They’re actually spending more money to NOT hire us, more money to hire no name actors just because they AREN’T us. They’re not even doing it to save money.
Let’s try to do a lot fucking better than that going forward. What the fuck is a union there for if it isn’t looking out for us? This shit has got to change.
10. Neighbour of the Week:
11. Housekeeping Tip of the Week:
All I’m saying is if you are going to eat a box of Jell-o with your finger, you should probably vacuum AFTER you do that.
12. Tony Nappo of the Week (and it’s not me):
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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