Jeremy Renner's Golden Globes boob joke

(776 words)

My wife and I are catching up on “Fargo,” so we didn’t watch the Golden Globes.

I’m resisting “Fargo” because every character is either a coward, a bully or a bore. I don’t like having to sit down and have lunch with cowards, bullies or bores, so why would I want to watch a show about their cruel little lives?

But “Fargo” is growing on me because “Fargo” is very violent and the victims of that sensational slaughter are uniformly cowards, bullies and bores. And that’s at least more entertaining than watching cheerful people getting stuffed down augered  holes in frozen lakes.

But I read all the news about the Golden Globes and parts of it make me sorry I missed it. I would have loved to have seen Michael Keaton’s acceptance speech. I hear it’d make me proud to be a Pittsburgher, one who shook Keaton’s hand in a toilet at the old Three Rivers Stadium (link below).

The only way that story could have been more perfectly Pittsburgh was if we were in that dank stall sharing a Primanti Bros. sandwich.

But I’m mostly sorry I missed it because I missed Jeremy Renner’s boob joke.

I love a good boob joke and Renner delivered a dandy.

Renner and Jennifer Lopez were presenting the award for Best Actor in a Television Mini-Series. The winner, by the way, was Billy Bob Thornton from  . . . “Fargo!”

He’s great in it, yes, but that still doesn’t mean I’d want to have lunch with his character. It’d be like dining with Satan.

Anyway, Renner was looking dapper in his tux and Lopez was looking luscious in a what one observer described as a “stunning Zuhair Murad gown with plunging neckline.”

I know nothing about Zuhair Murad, but now I’m instantly curious. First, I’d like to know if his name is pronounced ZOO-hair, which might go a long way in explaining why he designs dresses rather than coifs hair.

From my observations, Murad must be from what I call the “Look-At-My-Tits” school of dress design. In fact, the dress was within an inch of being from the “Look-At-My-Navel” school of dress design.

Heck, had their been an sudden updraft on the stage, the dress would have been within a whisker of being from the scandalous “Look-At-My-Whoops!” school.

In fact, there was really very little dress there at all. It was mostly all Lopez.

And it was magnificent. She’s beautiful. Plus, she seems fun and friendly and I admire that in pretty people because, as we’ve all seen, they can be mean and stupid and we’ll still adore them and shower them with riches and fame.

So Renner and Lopez read their artificial blah-blah cue card banter and then Renner surprised the world with a rare burst of authentic wit.

He handed the winning Golden Globe envelope to Lopez for her to open. She said, “You want me to do it? I have the nails.”

To which Renner ad libbed: “You’ve got the globes, too.”

The only way it could have been more perfect is if Renner had delivered the line with a Groucho Marx leer.

This, according to news reports, set the Twittersphere on fire. Renner was called a creep and a pervert. It got so bad, Renner posted a defensive tweet: “A reminder not to take this shit so seriously,” he wrote. “Thanks, Jennifer. You’re a gem.”

Lopez, to her credit, laughed like she thought it was funny, too.

The whole episode dismays me because great wit should never be holstered. It should be at liberty to soar at even the most slight provocation, whether silly or risque.

Renner, 44, is an interesting guy. We loved him in the third “Mission Impossible” and especially in “American Hustle” and “The Town,” the great ’10 Ben Affleck flick about career bank robbers. 

Now, it turns out his greatest role may have been that he’s been acting like a heterosexual. His wife, Sonni Pacheco, is divorcing him on the suspicious-sounding grounds of “fraud,” and now National Enquirer is outing him as gay, something that’s been rumored for years.

It’s surprising because he’s an actor in Hollywood. Being known as gay there hasn’t exactly been an historic hindrance to career advancement.

So I hope he works it all out and enjoys a long and interesting career and that he feels free to pop off with a witty zinger anytime one sails into his noodle.

Because the guy’s funny.

It’s as plain as the nose on my face.

Or as plain as the globes on J-Lo when she’s dressed in nothing but Zuhair.

I on Monday attempted to set the Twittersphere on fire with an 8days2Amish boob joke of my own: “Fashion experts who work to ensure ample bosoms fit snugly in frilly brassieres are rack-contours.” It fizzled. My failed attempts to set the Twittersphere on fire have failed so many times I’m beginning to suspect fate keeps peeing on the fuse.

Related . . .

How real men like Michael Keaton (and me) shake hands

Hilary Swank & all my neighborhood nipples

Breast facts, by the book

On chicken fingers, chicken breasts & chicken nipples

Mom’s hip nipples & Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Should have been a sandbagger

The year 2008 proved a tremendous boost in my life-long ambition to die broke. I’ve always hoped that I'd spend whatever I'd earn in life and cash out on zero. Ideally, I’d like my last check to be to some fabulous resort and I’d like that check to bounce.

I’d hoped to squander a fortune, but it’s not looking like that’ll be the case.

If things keep going like that did in 2008, I should be able to hit that check-bouncing target by about June 20 so maybe it’s time to start thinking about booking an extravagant cruise, chain smoking and gorging on too much red meat.

I didn’t know last May when I christened my home blog, “www.EightDaysToAmish.com,” that within six months I’d be about three days to Amish and that the rest of the world would be dashing to get there with me.

I’ve never been so broke. I’m just wrapping up my taxes and it looks like 2008 was the worst year I’ve ever had as a wage-earning adult.

In fact, it’s looking like one of the worst years I’ve had since I was a wage-earning teenager. And it’s looking only slightly better than some of the years I had as a prepubescent wage-earning paper boy (for readers under 25, a paper boy was someone who delivered the historic artifacts known as newspapers, not a lad composed of the material people used to write upon before they’d did things ike Tweet).

I’m writing it off -- that’s what writers do -- as a transitional year. I’m trying to move away from getting paid next to nothing for writing magazine articles to getting paid next to nothing for writing books.

I’m spending all my time polishing my manuscript and trying to find an agent. At night I lay awake and wonder if I could be doing more to get published or if I should try and devote more time to earning money in more conventional ways like hoping one of my basketball pools hits.

I worry my professional life has been one big mistake.

I had a friendly exchange with my man down at the post office and walked away thinking, “Now, how come some fancy college guidance counselor never advised me to go to work for the post office? I’ll bet he never lies awake thinking, ‘I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I try sell Rodell the duck stamps instead of the Liberty Bells?’”

He just does his job, collects a steady pay check and goes home and turns on the hockey game. To me, that’s starting to sound like a slice of couch potato heaven.

The day I finished the taxes I had to run into the woods with my chainsaw to cut some timber to clear my mind of the math and the misery. It’s true work with a tangible reward -- a warm home in winter. If I was independently wealthy, I’d probably just stack wood for old people.

I’d like to do something physical for a living that would help my neighbors.

That’s why I’m hoping we get some big flood threat near my home.

I want to be a sandbagger, a word that has two meanings. One is an expert golfer who wins large amounts of money by pretending he’s no good and fooling opponents into wagering large sums they lose when he confounds them with winning shots when the big dough’s on the line. He plies his nimble con at posh country clubs and on sunny fairways around the world among the playgrounds of the rich.

The more newsworthy definition involves more than 2,000 heroic volunteers bagging and stacking sand on the banks of the rising Red River near Fargo, North Dakota.

I read about English teacher Renae Czeczok who said she and 15 of her students drove a couple hours from Pillager, Minnesota, to get to the riverbank to help out. “It’s continuous hard labor,” she says. “But we want to help. We’re doing everything we can.”

Resident Sean Padden, 29, says, “This is one heckuva town. It’s a hardy community. People are banning together. It’ll take the entire community, but we’ll get through it.”

I’d love to be a part of that. I just imagine the hours of backbreaking labor as the waters rise, the real sense of mission, camaraderie and, let’s pray, the shared euphoria they’ll feel as they watch the waters begin to recede inches before they breech the bags

They’ll have been a part of something great. They’ll have have saved a town.

Yes, I wish I was one of the world’s best sandbaggers, an anonymous hero waging kindred battle against the forces of nature’s menace.

Or I’d settle for being the fancy suntanned golfing kind.

Either one’s got to beat what I’m doing these days.