Tag: johnny depp

“Do I need more mascara?”

No.

“I feel like I need more mascara.”

How old are you?

“55.”

Then you don’t need more mascara.

“Oh, Lord, where are my manners? Can I get you some mascara?”

No, thank you.

“You’d do well with a smoky eye.”

I wouldn’t.

“Do-rag?”

No.

“Royal Air Force soft cap?”

Also no.

“Can I get your clothing embroidered with the names of your loved ones?”

No, Johnny. You don’t have to do anything.

“Well, you know, there’s a lot of rumors going around about me. The spending and whatnot.”

Does “whatnot” include the wife-beating?

“Ah, that. You know, there’s so many sides to a beating. I don’t want to be a ‘both sides’ type here, but you literally cannot beat your wife if you don’t have a wife. So, really, everyone’s to blame. Mostly her. Women don’t understand artists. Hey, you wanna set off some fireworks?”

Maybe later, buddy. Explain what you’re doing here. You playing with your band?

“Oh, yeah. The Hollywood Vampires. We’re rebels.”

Who’s in the band?

“Me, Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, a piss-stained copy of Bukowski’s poetry, and the corpse of Kevin DuBrow.”

From Quiet Riot?

“Underrated. Highly underrated. When he died, I had his spandex trousers sunk in a submarine. Cost me ten million, but that’s the Quiet Riot way.”

Sure.

“Can I offer you some thousand-dollar wine?”

I prefer plonk.

“Yeah, that’s what this is. I wouldn’t give you the good stuff.”

How much is the good stuff?

“Oh, I don’t ask. A couple years ago, I gave the guy at the liquor store my American Express and that was that. Makes life so much easier.”

Uh-huh. Do you know much about wine, Johnny?

“I know I like drinking it.”

Okay.

“It comes in red and white.”

Got it.

“But the white isn’t really white. It’s more yellowish. That’s something you discover along your wine journey. Also: white wine’s for fags,”

Wow. We do not say “fag” anymore, Johnny Depp.

“DON’T PUT LIMITS ON MY ART!”

Jesus. Sorry.

“All of you! You’re all like this! ‘Don’t say fag, Johnny.’ Or ‘You can’t buy Hoover Dam, Johnny.'”

You tried to buy Hoover Dam?

“I did.”

Why?

“I needed it!”

You seem to not know the difference between “need” and “want.”

“I might not, but I have seven or eight chain wallets going simultaneously, so I’m doing pretty well. Can I get you a chain wallet?”

Not unless it comes with a time machine set for 2003.

“Joe Perry told me a great story the other day–”

Oh, God, no.

“–about Steve McQueen. One of my heroes, by the way.”

Are any of your heroes not douchebags?

“See, Steve was at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He was racing his ’63 Porsche and his daughter had an asthma attack. Do you know what he did?”

Selfishly ignored the child and did whatever the fuck he wanted to do?

“Wow, are a you a McQueen scholar?”

I’m not.

“I’m a better father than that, though. As you can see, I’ve got my kid’s name on my jacket.”

You do. Question.

“Shoot.”

Where are your children right now at this instant? Like, their locations?

“With their nannies.”

They still have nannies?

“They’re barely in their twenties! Of course they have nannies!”

I do not like talking to you.

“Several commentators are recommending I join Dead & Company, so I’ll probably be here for a while.”

Dammit.

“Are you sure I can’t buy you a hastily-decided-on tattoo?”

No.

“Ah! They’ve sent another writer. Come in. Join the conversation.”

Goddammit.

“Enter of your own free will, fellow passenger. C’mon, we’ll talk about old jazz musicians, and drink wine, and share underwear.”

How many skull rings are you wearing?

“At least three at all times. Even when completely nude, I am still wearing at least three skull rings. Would you care for a deliberately horrible joint?”

What now?

“The European thing with the hash and the tobacco.”

Oh, fuck off with that shit. Nobody likes that shit. That shit is the clove cigarettes of pot-smoking.

“I lived in France for many years. This is the far more cultured way to do things.”

It tastes yucky.

“Maybe a scarf would calm you down.”

Maybe.

“Take two; they’re gossamer.”

My God, your scarves are so sheer, Johnny Depp.

“Well, it’s important. I must have utterly see-through scarves. It’s about the character. That’s the thing about acting: you get out there, really bare yourself. It wears on you in odd ways. So I need my scarves to be right.”

What about your planes?

“I need all my planes, too.”

How many do you have?”

“Average. I have an average amount of planes.”

The average person has zero planes.

“What about median? In terms of medians, I have an appropriate number of planes. And probably fewer helicopters than I should. There’s a lot of capabilities my fleet is lacking. Like, if I wanted to haul five tons of Hollywood memorabilia, I would need to rent a cargo chopper.”

Sure.

“So, you know: I’m thinking about buying a cargo chopper. Oh, and maybe one of those MASH choppers. With the big glass cockpits? I must have one of those.”

Do you even know how to fly a helicopter?

“I play guitar; I’m pretty sure the skills are transferable.”

They are not.

“I’m going to the bathroom. Read nothing into that.”

MOVIE STAR USING THE BATHROOM SUSPICIOUSLY NOISE

“How is your scarf situation? I’m holding tight at two, plus three bandanas. You do need more bandanas. My apologies. I get overcome with the spirit of friendship and forget my manners. I’m Southern, y’know. Mother tried to kill me weekly. You need more wine and bandanas.”

Forget the wine and bandanas, Johnny Depp.

“Lemme buy you a dairy farm.”

No, thank you.

“They run themselves.”

Nope. Highly labor-intensive.

“What you need to know about this whole money thing is that I had no idea what was happening, but I do know that it was wrong. I’m a lot like, oh, what’s his name? Jimmy Star Wars? He had the magic sword? I’ve never actually seen a Star War, but that’s what this is like. I’m star warring. That’s me.”

What the fuck are you talking about?

“My struggle.”

Don’t call it that.

“I’ve been swindled! Thievery abounds! What these hounds did was to take advantage of my trust, and that’s sacred, man. Trust is a big thing with me.”

Uh-huh. Your advisors were definitely shady. And your family is preying on you. But you and you alone have done the vast majority of the damage.

“How so?”

Are you kidding me? 14 houses?

“I needed them.”

All of them?

“Have you seen them? They’re great houses. Japanese toilets in each one. I’ve been a nut about Japanese toilets for decades. You have one?”

No.

“I’m gonna send you a Japanese toilet.”

Please don’t.

“It’s a sensitive area, and must be treated right! Did you see Ed Wood?”

A classic.

“That was when I discovered the Japanese toilet. It comes through in the performance. The joy and the cheer. That was what fueled the man. You see what I did there? It’s art. That’s acting. That’s character creation. It requires possession of an island.”

It absolutely does not.

“Marlon Brando said it did.”

Marlon Brando was crazy before he was fat and crazy. He is not a man for anyone over the age of 18 to emulate; he’s a tragic figure, and especially in today’s vogue. He was the quintessential Hard-To-Work-With White Guy.

“What about the Oscar thing?”

Sending the Native American lady up to accept the award and read a speech was objectively awesome. I’m not talking about his politics. You don’t need an island.

“Let us share another wretched spliff. In the name of friendship.”

In the name of God, let’s just smoke the hash out of a pipe. Don’t you have any weed?

“I have everything. But I prefer to sit up all night smoking shitty doobies, drinking expensive wine, and watching old concerts on YouTube.”

A lot of people do that. There are worse ways to spend an evening.

“Right. But I do it on my 150-foot yacht.”

Dude, are you allergic to money? Is it a physical malady?

“The 130-footer was puny. It was just puny, man. I had to get the 150. She’s a real shiny machine. Makes a good time. I call her Vajoliroja. The name is a combination of my children’s names.”

My parents sent my brother and me to summer camp regularly.

“Yachting life is incredible. You can talk to other famous people, or ball chicks. Lots of balling on the yacht. I take the girls downstairs, and I stick my fingers right in them. They love it. Something about the waves drives them nuts. The ocean is the mother of arousal. I don’t know if you’re aware of that.”

I wasn’t.

“Either Baba Ram Dass or Ron Wood told me that. I can’t remember much. How many Pirates movies have I done?”

Five.

“Sweet God, that’s too many. Get my agents on the phone, and then sue them.”

You’re suing your agents, too?

“I’m suing everyone’s agents. This is a conspiracy. A Deep Hollywood, if you will.”

I will not.

“Collusion. They lurk, my friend. Outside the window of my creativity. They peck at my earnings and they steal the meat that I have brought home to my children.”

How many children do you have?

“300 million dollar’s worth?”

Dude, I restate my thesis: although you are indeed being sponged off of and skimmed from, you have caused the greater part of your crisis with your spending. You bought, like, half a mountainside.

“I did. It was awesome.”

Why?

“I needed it.”

You didn’t.

“Then I built an underground tunnel linking all the houses. There’s a lot more security up there then you’d notice at first glance. Real tough guys in the woods.”

Is that necessary?

“The situation demands it! The lawyers are sending spies around. Ice Station Depp-o has been infiltrated twice by saboteurs.”

Ice Station Depp-o?

“I own a high-tech scientific outpost in the Arctic. They’re doing incredible work up there. Alice Cooper’s been up, and he’s just blown away, man. Cutting edge science.”

Jesus.

“And a train.”

What?

“A train that’s fancy as fuck. Like in the old days. There’s the engine, and then the restaurant, and the bar, and the sleeping compartment, and the music studio/performance space, and then the gym/sauna, and then the caboose. And it’s just me and whoever and the staff, and we have the track all to ourselves? It’s like yachting, but on the tracks. Similar amounts of balling. That’s what the caboose is for. It’s the fuck-car. Are you familiar with fuck-cars?”

No.

“Before I tell you about them, please let me get you six to eight necklaces, several of which were gifts to me from Iggy Pop. Do you know Jim?”

I don’t. And I don’t need necklaces.

“The fuck-car originated with the Robber Barons who built the railroads. Before trips, they’d have the caboose stocked with fuck-girls. They called them fuck-girls because they were Robber Barons and not very creative. The Barons would eat and relax in the forward cars, and then come to the rear to celebrate capitalism. Over time, fewer and fewer fuck-girls were pitched out the back door of the caboose. It’s to the point where it is positively frowned upon now. That’s something that the #metoo crowd can claim for itself. Fuck-girls stay in the carriage until a stop.”

That’s terrible.

“As you might imagine, there were also fuck-boys. I put a few on the Chemisexe, just to spice things up. I like to entertain on there, and you want to be accommodating. It’s a wonderful voyage, man. You look out the window and see, like, trees. Or now a desert. And wow here are mountains! And something happens. Something happens inside. Where your art lives. And, like, you’re alive and you can go back to work and do wonderful things. And that couldn’t have happened if I didn’t own a personal pleasure railroad train. There’s wants and there’s needs, and that’s a need, man.”

It’s truly not.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom again, and I don’t want you to think it’s because I’m doing cocaine.”

Well, now I will even if I wasn’t going to.

UNREMARKABLE BATHROOM-GOING NOISE

“I’ve had an idea.”

Of course you have.

“I spend my way through this.”

Not your best idea.

“Double Down Depp!”

Not a plan. You need to make the income come in.

“Mortdecai 2  is in pre-production.”

That won’t do it.

“How the fuck long is this dialogue?”

Dude, I’m FASCINATED by you.

Understandable. Lemme buy you an apartment.

“Awesome.”

Burt Reynolds had a great Later Years. His peak (Cannonball Run 1,2, Stroker Ace, Smokey 1, 2) was fun, but Burt’s Later Years were a wild ride: the dinner theater in Florida, the occasional hit sitcom, bankruptcies, Loni Anderson. James Brown’s LY were eruptionific, and phantasmadoodling, and jimmy-jimmy yes. (They were that way because of the PCP.) Barbra Stresiand’s entire career has been her Later Years, and that worked out well for her. Nicolas Cage has been ensconced in the critic-proofing of his Later Years for decades now. Nicolas Cage bought a T-Rex head; people who buy T-Rex heads are inclined to having Later Years. Dolly Parton’s LY’s include a theme park and massive charity operation.

An artist makes of the Later Years what an artist will.

Johnny Depp has entered the Later Years, and I hope they are long and glorious. I want Johnny to open up a supper club in Pasadena: he’ll sit in the corner, and all the patrons will file by and pay their respects.

“Loved you in Donnie Brasco.”

“Thank you, I’m Donnie Brasco.”

“I love you, Jack Sparrow.”

“I love you, too. I’m Jack Sparrow. Yarrgh.”

And later in the evening, Johnny gets up and plays guitar with the band. They do some old Alice Cooper tunes. Very hip.

Go read this delightful piece by Stephen Rodrick on the webpage of the Rolling Stone, in which Mr. Depp invites Mr. Rodrick into (one of his many, many) homes and acts crazy at him. Johnny’s managed to drink away a goodly portion of $300 million. Also: real estate. But not real estate like a human does it, no: Johnny does Movie Star real estate. Shit like buying five houses in a row in the Hollywood Hills and turning the whole lot of them into a Fortress of Greasitude. (The drinking is similarly ludicrous: 30 grand a month for wine. That’s just decadent, man. You can stay plastered for a couple grand a month. There’s some incredible reds in the $20 price range nowadays.)

Johnny also bought two islands–one in the South Pacific named Monkey Penis Mountain, and the other in the Caribbean that he insists on calling Tortuga even though the actual Tortuga keeps asking him to stop doing that–and enough guitars so that if you lined them end to end upon the ground, a passerby might say, “My, what a parade,” and then continue about his business. There was a yacht, too, but I am unaware of whether the yacht could make it between islands. Even if it could, I don’t think Johnny Depp would be on the boat at the time. That sounds perilous. Johnny bought the kind of cars you would assume he would, and he bought them in the quantities you would assume he bought them in. I do not recall whether Johnny owned or owns a castle of any sort. I know Nicolas Cage had at least one castle, but I don’t know about Johnny.

It’s not even the Brewster’s Millions run that Johnny Depp has been on that’s the highlight: it’s–as I said–gone crazy. It’s the failing from the get-go that I so enjoy; I say this as a nocturnal creature myself: once you make the journalist stay up all night rapping with you, you’re done. It’s over right there. Send the teams back in the locker rooms; no need to play the game.

“I demand you join me overnight, so we can smoke Movie Star-sized joints, and discuss Marilyn Manson. He’s a great guy. So smart. Join me in the night, my new best friend Whatyerface, and we will be brothers!”

Johnny Depp doesn’t do a lot of features. There are different levels of official interaction between the media and subject: there’s the print interview, which is over the phone, and those creepy junket videos, and then there are television appearances. Features are their own thing. There’s reporting involved, and the writer meets the subject. (Except when they don’t, like in Gay Telese’s Sinatra profile.) The meeting is key in that unlike every other officially-sanctioned exchange, it is exceedingly difficult to hide crazy in a feature. And Johnny does not even attempt to hide his crazy. At the end of each session with the writer, Johnny would say,

“If you come back tomorrow night, I will continue to be crazy.”

And the writer said that he would come back.

“What about matching tattoos?”

And the writer said he would think about it.

And when the writer came back, Johnny told him about spending half-a-million on suits in Singapore, which is absurd because the whole reason you have suits made in Singapore is because they’re cheap there. He was just trying to spend money at that point. He owned an opera house in Vienna, which is the most expensive place to own an opera house. There were several farms, some of which grew sorghum and horses, and others of which housed cults led by Depp’s cousins.

“Let’s hang out in my dark, scary house watching Aerosmith videos.”

And the writer said he could stand that, he guessed.

“Classic ‘Smith, dude. Texas Jam ’78. The good shit.”

And the writer was noncommittal and polite and all okay whatever.

Johnny has an air force larger than those of 114 nations. Three jets, a helicopter, several cropdusters for the farms, and experimental rocket called the Depptron Heavy. Also in the hangar is a seaplane called the Depp Water: it’s got a propeller and pontoons instead of wheels and looks like it should be landing in Havana in ’57. Nice looking aircraft. One would assume that Johnny could take the helicopter from his house–which had a helipad–to the private airport that’s right next to LAX that famous people don’t like to talk about, and from there he’s in the G6 to Grand Bermuda and into the Depp Water and there he is at his own private island, deposited by the hands of angels. The yacht may or may not be present. So simple. All it takes is solving a massive, transcontinental logistics puzzle. And money. Doing this sort of thing costs scads of money. A plane is like a horse: you buy it, and then you keep paying for it. Gotta house it. Feed it. Hire people to take care of it. And if it breaks down, you take it out back and shoot it. That’s a secret the airline industry doesn’t want you to know.

Returning to my point of Movie Star real estate. Here is Rational Actor real estate: any land owned by an entity not being occupied by said entity should generate income. Barring a vacation place or whatever. A man works hard, he should have a vacation place. But–and this is according to the Rational Actor–if a man owns two houses, then the one he isn’t living in should be rented out. Movie Star real estate disagrees. All homes must be kept fully-staffed and stocked and ready for the master at all times.

Think of the overhead! He’s got five or six different locations in Hollywood and Malibu and New York and France and the islands and maybe Miami and the farms, and all of them are kept in a state of high-alert constantly. A young local is posted outside to keep watch.

You got any clue how much it costs to own a 150-foot yacht? It’s unfathomable. I defend that pun.

“I like you. Let’s wear scarves together.”

And the writer, who was only human, wore scarves with Johnny Depp.

“Wonderful. And now the wine.”

And the writer did drink wine.

I don’t want to spoil any more of it; it’s perfect and hilarious and sad and–best of all-it’s true. Johnny Depp has ferocious lawyers. Rolling Stone had to send the story over to the Depp camp and have it vetted and since no one’s being sued: it must be true. That is a new school of thought I have just invented called jurisprulogical theory. I’m just gonna keep rambling until you go and read the article. Trust me. I have nothing further to say. Gonna keep doing this.

You’re bored.

Yeah. Go read the article.