"Even Blind Cats Find Tony Danza Repulsive"

Nikki calls to tell me they are looking for me on the film set but I’m still in bed writing bad poetry about last nights One Tree Hill, which has left me reeling. I reluctantly crawl from bed, cursing early call times, take one look at my profile and decide I’m "not generally on” today and return to mock-hibernation. Tear drops sprinkle the notebook pages and the ink bleeds together, but I can make out something like
“Moonlight slips through the arms of an oak tree,
like her cold body sliding gently away from me…”

The morning passes and ice is all over the walls. Later on…

I’m doing my best to understand the unlikely marriage between processual-archaeology and post-modernismm within a Marxist paradigm when Bryson walks in from school. He gives me a look that I know all too well and without a single word, we shuffle into the living room, find our respective couches, and eagerly flip to the Tony Danza show. Without fail or deviation, this happens every afternoon at 2:15.

A theory has emerged: Tony starts out each show pretty well. His social skills are top notch and as a conversationalist, he does just fine. But slowly, over the course of an agonizing half hour, the program devolves and spins wildly out of control. In fact, we believe that 85% of guests end up taking out a restraining order on account of his general creepiness.

Today he has on a woman who advocates having MICRO-CHIPS INSERTED INTO YOUR PETS so that they can be found after a natural disaster. It’s only $2,000; a small price to pay for your prissy Russian Bluehair to be safely returned after a tornado. Later on in the show they bring on a bunch of homeless animals from New Orleans, one of which is a blind cat, which unfortunately ends up in the arms of Tony.

He begins purring and nuzzling the cat with his scruffy chin. The other guests grow noticeably uncomfortable when he repeatedly hisses the cats name, which is Lotus. This goes on, uninterrupted, for at least a full minute.

The producer signals an emergency commercial break just as the blind cat wildly jumps from Tony’s arms, takes off running, and immediately crashes into the coffee table, falling over, presumably unconscious.

A composed Tony gives an aww shucks sort of grin and throws his hands into the air, and the audience applauds riotously.

Moments later I notice a new message from Bryson on the house bulletin board: Contrary to popular belief, even blind cats find Tony Danza repulsive.