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It seems that everyone in New
York is sitting around staring at each other. Since those
of us who find ourselves held against our will in Los Angeles
are terribly sensitive about feeling left out of any East
Coast fun, I thought it prudent to import a diluted, West
Coast version of the hipster-ironic Stare-Off competition
to LA. Beer-pong, it seemed, never really got a foothold out
here.
I invited my good friend Christopher Walken (and about thirty
percent of the current Hollywood B-List to observe the throw-down)
to a locked-gaze duel. Chris and I had first met at a "Get
Unexpectedly Struck in the Hindquarters" Party that he
threw at his mansion in the Hills, when he quite stealthily
managed to smite me with an aluminum replica of a fraternity
paddle that he'd had custom-made for the event. It made a
"ping" sound similar to a baseball being hit in
a Little League game by a Dominican kid lying about his age
when he cranked me across my rump while I was whispering something
filthy in Elizabeth Shue's ear. Once I'd stopped vomiting
from the pain and surprise, we played some eight-ball (he's
a shark, naturally) and became fast friends while getting
shitcanned on mojitos and ketamine.
I returned to Walken's house as he graciously offered to host
our contest. We sat cross-legged across from each other on
the floor of his living room as the other guests circled us.
Michael Bay had volunteered to direct an eye-popping, CGI-enhanced
production where our contest would be projected on the walls
around us and simultaneously on the Diamondvision at Dodger
Stadium, but Chris and I are nothing if not old school. We
eschewed the Hollywood foofaraw in favor of a bare-knuckles
version that inexplicably required that I wear a Hello Kitty
thong ("House rules," he explained -- but I wouldn't
be cowed by bush-league mind games). Our ground rules: first
one to break the gaze or smile loses. The room started to
quiet down as we were ready to engage each other in a stare
that couldn't be broken, but soon the chatter around us started
to take on an uncomfortable Thunderdome quality. Walken slashed
a finger across his throat and the hum was instantly silenced.
Somewhere, an egg timer jangled. Game on.
Looking into Walken's eyes on an ordinary day is not an exercise
for the squeamish. His stare, intense and barely concealing
the Rube Goldberg clockwork of his mind, has been known to
cause incontinence in rookie directors. But in a staring contest,
his eyes are a literal weapon. When first we joined our gaze
I felt a sensation in my lower abdomen that I somewhat hysterically
believed to be my testicles liquefying.
Some say his eyes are dead. They are wrong. You can't know
this until you sit across from him joined in competition.
I did not look away.
After a minute or so of uninterrupted staring, Walken made
the first move. He raised a hand to his mouth and simulated
fellatio, his tongue poking at the inside of a taut cheek
as an invisible cock readied to drop its salty payload in
"The King of New York" star's throat.
No reaction from me. I wasn't going out like a punk on some
feeble blowjob pantomime. I counterattacked with an admittedly
weak move where I pretended to pull an invisible piece of
string through my ears. I just needed to get my stare-legs
under me.
Walken snapped his fingers. Verne Troyer waddled just to the
side of our sight-line, wearing a tiny grass skirt and a Carmen
Miranda fruit basket hat. I felt a twinge at the corner of
my mouth, the birthing of a smile. But I swallowed it down
as I wondered if the Mini-Me move was even legal.
My countermove was no move at all. I was going to take him
on with the bored stare of a starlet bent over the desk of
a producer who promises a shot at a SAG card.
We sat there for an eternity. He was content to fight back
with the slumped eyes of a disappointed parent. Damn him for
being so brilliant, I thought.
Then he made a move. Using only the muscles around those crazed,
yet supremely expressive, eyes and some carefully considered
body language, he managed to convey to me the thought of Kathy
Bates in a carrot-eating contest.
I was floored, a glass-jawed victim of Mike Tyson in his prime.
My eyes wildly panned across the faces in the rapt crowd,
all of whom looked away as if I had just splatted on the sidewalk
smoking area outside their office's high-rise.
"Walken wins", someone shouted, "Walken wins".
I stood up and started toward him with an outstretched hand,
the gracious loser approaching the net.
"You never stood a fucking chance," his left eye
said. "Show yourself the door, pussy," said the
right.
We smiled and I headed for the door, still disoriented enough
to forget that I was wearing skimpy underwear with a cute
Japanese cat stretched across my package.
I spent the rest of the night bobbing slowly on the edge of
my bed, clutching a handheld mirror, practicing the arched
eyebrow of Jack Nicholson after going down on a woman thirty
years his junior.
I'll be back, Walken.
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Photo: Walken has crazy eyes.
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