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Having a column that runs Monday/Tuesday means I’m forever doomed to post the evening before/day of elections.

And today? You’re on edge. Everyone is.

So I’ll take my cue from Sting, January 19, 1991. He had the unenviable task of hosting SNL right as the Desert Storm ground offensive began (America’s first large-scale war since ’nam). Leftists had been scaring the feces outta everyone with apocalyptic predictions that the war would lead to endless fighting and massive American casualties (they were only off by twelve years and one Bush). Sting walked on stage and said, “We’re all really nervous and worked up tonight, so let’s just sing a song” (that it was “All This Time,” the only Sting song I’ve ever liked, made the moment even better).

In that spirit let’s do something fun, to take your mind off the madness till the results come in.

How’s about a few tales from my days in casting? No salacious “casting couch” anecdotes, because it’s a myth that such things happen during the casting process. The unethical, prurient stuff is more likely to occur outside the office, over drinks with directors or producers, not casting professionals.

So no sex, but perhaps you’ll find my stories amusing all the same.

Softcore and Saucerhead
1999, I was casting some stupid horror film. My secretary sends up the next actress, an attractive blonde from small-town PA named Beverly Lynne Hübscher.

In German, “hübscher” means prettier, often used as a put-down (hübscher als du—“prettier than you”). Beverly was attractive to be sure, but I’d seen better.

During the audition she told me she was about to get into the exciting world of softcore porn (for my Franciscan monk readers, “softcore” is nudity without penetration), so I put her photo in the outbox (not the “putting out” box…though that might‘ve been appropriate too). As was my habit, I escorted her down the stairs to the lobby (Casting Director Dave was a gentleman), and there waiting for her was…a young yarmulke-headed Jew. He and Lynn embraced, and she excitedly told me that Moishe was the one getting her into porn.

And all I could do was fantasize about killing him. “You fucking kike, you‘re reinforcing every ugly stereotype about us, that we waylay countrified blondes and sell them into the skin trade. By God if I had a gas chamber, you’d be coughin’ up blood” (sadly, it was 1999, and Amazon was not yet offering same-day delivery of gas chambers via Prime. Primitive times indeed).

Jews must treasure their shiksas, not corrupt ’em like a Streicher caricature.

These days you can easily find Beverly Lynne clips online, to decide for yourself if she’s truly hübscher.

My Biggest Fan
In the 1980s it was damn near impossible to fill a room with Asian actors. There just weren’t that many. It was a career frowned upon by Korean, Chinese, and Japanese families. Zero job security, no degree required. Asian parents didn’t see it as “real” work. And indeed, to whatever extent you did find Asian actors, it was always women, because, being smart enough to understand that white dudes find them hübscher, they knew they could trade on their looks for a few easy bucks.

Circa 1992 I auditioned a Eurasian chick named Candace Bender (aka Candace Kita), and we became quick friends as we’d both just done episodes of The Montel Williams Show (her as the “other woman” in a domestic dispute, me as the other Hitler in a WWII dispute). At the time, Candace had the best scam ever (the kind of thing you could only do pre-internet): She was doing softcore for Cinemax while also playing a mom on a Disney-produced sitcom for the Fox Kids Network.

Eurasians…the deviousness of FDR and Tojo all rolled into one.

Candace, though pretty, was not outstandingly talented. But in ’96 I auditioned an Asian actor named Roger Fan. I had very dense sides for the actors to read (“sides” are the segment of a script used at an audition): four paragraphs of monologue. Roger looked at the sides one time only, then proceeded to do the monologue perfectly, from memory, in five different acting styles.

What made this rare was that sure, some people have photographic memories like Rain Man, and sure, some actors are skilled enough to read the same lines multiple ways. But those talents never converge. Or at least I thought they didn’t. After Fan left, I immediately called the producer and said, “If you don’t hire this guy, I’m quitting.”

Because I knew Roger would do really well in the biz, and he has.

Bald-Faced Lyre
Sometimes I’d enjoy an audition so much, I’d forget I was on the clock. An example of that was Buddy Daniels, whom I auditioned in 1988 for something or another. Buddy had been born with a condition that prevents hair from growing anywhere on his head, face, or body. He’d recently done a made-for-video flick about mythical goddesses boxing each other (don’t ask…he played a creepy lyre-playing trainer), and it turned out I knew one of the Amazon boxers, six-foot-tall Albertan beauty Katrin Bowen; I’d cut her first acting reel—gratis, of course—and she’d promised me a steak dinner as thanks. Then she got deported back to Canada.

Thanks, Biden.

Daniels was the funniest guy in the world. He came to the audition with his eyebrows in a box, because “sometimes you casting dickheads get freaked out by a guy with no eyebrows.” And he had such a great natural comic persona—head-to-toe bald guy who purposely makes you uncomfortable until he literally forces you to laugh along with him at his condition—I didn’t want the audition to end, even though I knew he was wrong for the part.

He still works frequently; it always displeased me that our paths never crossed again.

Bad Trip
2000, a two-story office in Century City. I walked down to the lobby to see if the waiting room was full (that’s how casting directors gauge whether there’s time to shoot the shit, or if it’s get ’em in/get ’em out). The room was packed, so I asked the next actor to quickly follow me up. It was a fat bald white dude, and as we were walking up the stairs, he asked me how the casting’s going (actors, never ask that; you’ll come off as intrusive). So I said something generic like “Not bad, still seein’ lots of folks,” and he replied with confidence, “Well, the BEST is yet to come.” And the moment the word “come” exited his mouth as he excitedly trotted to the top of the staircase, his foot caught on the last step and he went airborne, somersaulting into the room, landing with a deafening thud and rolling past me like the Indiana Jones boulder, coming to rest on his back like a fleshy tortoise.

And it took everything I had not to blurt out, “You called that right, you clumsy asshole.”

As he caught his breath and sat down, I couldn’t stop wanting to laugh at his misfortune. But I had to hold it in out of professionalism. I silently prayed that his audition piece would be comedic, to give me a release for the laughter building up inside me. But no—he’d chosen a deadly serious monologue, something about “my father never told me he loved me, and then he died, and I’ll never be able to tell him”…and I’m trying to listen, but all I see is the image of him flying into the room as if a Scotsman had caber-tossed a giant bag of lard and sadness.

The moment he left, I laughed for five minutes straight…lobby overcrowding be damned.

Fat guys are hilarious…though not always on purpose.

Yasser Ara-Fiat
2001: a one-day job, which meant a long-day job, seeing actors nonstop from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. At every audition there’s always a no-show (usually a female), and this one was an Arab actress from NYC. Her headshot indicated strong Arabic features, and her cover letter claimed she’d just screen-tested for the role of Mel Gibson’s daughter in an upcoming film. And I thought to myself, “In that movie does Mel screw a toucan or something?”

I’d later find out from Mel’s people that the screen-test claim was false.

Anyway, A-lie Akbar never showed, destroying her chances of being cast while wasting a slot that could’ve gone to another actress (bitch literally suicide-bombed an audition). It was 8:30 p.m. and I was starved. I headed home.

I’m in my kitchen deciding what to throw in the oven (where’s Moishe when you need him?), and I get a call. It’s the Ay-rab, and she’s crying about how sorry she is, how it’s her first audition in L.A., how she’s still getting used to driving the freeways, how she got lost and ended up on the opposite side of town, how she’d give anything if I could still see her.

And I’m like, “I’m home. Audition’s over. I’m tired and hungry.”

She plaintively wailed, “Please, please, I’ll come get you and buy you dinner, if you’ll just let me audition!”

Truth be told, I liked the idea of an Arab giving a Jew free food. Forget Camp David; I prefer comp David. I gave her my address, and waited…only to be alerted to her arrival by the sound of a car plowing through my trash cans, Cannonball Run-style.

Turns out this chick had never driven before (like many New Yorkers). Didn’t even have a license; she’d borrowed a friend’s car. So I chose a restaurant that was close, as I was already quite nervous in her vehicle. But even the brief drive up to Wilshire was a nightmare, as she swerved all over the road, making Hasidics dive for cover, chasing elderly couples down the sidewalk as they ran from her step-on-the-gas-van (“Oy! It’s a Dachaudi”).

When we pulled up to the restaurant—I’d chosen a place with valet because Lord knows I didn’t want to see her try to park—she ran right over the foot of the beaner valet kid, who screamed ¡AY DIOS MIO! as the Proph-foot Mo’harmed drove off in a panic, fleeing the scene as I comforted myself that at least she’s not just targeting Jews…she’s a menace to all living things.

Which, in a way, is very Arab.

We parked at a seafood place. She took up two spaces, but I wasn’t complaining—at least we weren’t moving anymore. At dinner she did a monologue for me, which was unimpressive, and I walked home because I enjoy having a concussion-free brain.

I did get a free meal out of it, though. So for me, that was the true end of the Yom Kippur War.

Because I had kippers, and they were yum, and an Arab paid the price.

Though I almost got killed.

Casting giveth, casting taketh away.

Okay, hopefully I’ve distracted you long enough. Go check on wacklemore vs. cacklemore.

Good luck, everyone.