Some Resources, Some Advice, and Some Fucking Morons Online
Nappoholics Anonymous is a weekly column featuring twelve random thoughts by actor Tony Nappo. Some are funny, some are poignant, some bother him, and some make him weep from sadness while others make him weep for joy. Here are his thoughts: unfiltered, uncensored, and only occasionally unsafe for work.
1. Canadian Parliament is an essential service like McDonald’s is an essential part of a healthy diet.
2. COVID Tip of the Week (thanks, Vicki Papavs)
3. Resource of the Week:
For any white folks looking to listen and learn more about black experiences and where we sit in all of it, here is a fantastic link. Thank you, Joanne Eli for directing me to it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/mobilebasic
4. Story Button of the Week:
5. Fuck Yeah of the Week:
The first ever Canadian Screen Award for Stunt Co-Ordination goes to two women. These two women, to be specific. Congrats Ange and Tally!!!! And, of course, to all the other CSA winners as well.
6. You know how you are in a bar sometimes and you sense some real quiet weird little fucker staring at you. He looks kinda nuts and like he might really fuck you up. And then you hear from some solid sources that he has already fucked a lot of people up quite badly and he has also killed some people but significantly fewer people than he has just fucked up.
Then the fucker goes outside and doesn’t come back in and you are relieved as shit that you didn’t need to find out how tough he actually was or wasn’t. But you still would rather not run into him outside if you don’t have to—so you keep drinking and eating and watching sports and chatting with friends and surfing your social media pages. Basically, you stay inside the bar until closing time when you have to go back home. By the time you do leave—it has been a long, long, long night—you’re really tired and have a lot on your mind and are trying to figure out the best way to get home at this hour, in terms of time and money, and you’re maybe just not in the best overall headspace or condition to properly defend yourself. The whole night has been super costly and stressful and taken a real toll. You finally do get outside and realize that motherfucker has been doing push ups and shadow boxing in the parking lot the whole time and he is just as strong as he was earlier when he walked out the door—if not stronger. He’s just been waiting for you to walk out the whole time. But you’re more focused at this point in the night on getting back home than on how dangerous this fucking guy can potentially be to you.
That guy is this fucking virus. He doesn’t give a fuck how tired you are or that you thought he had left. He’s gonna take your ass down because that’s what he does. Because that’s all that he came for. Because that’s his sole purpose for existing.
Just be careful is all I’m saying.
7. Artist of the Week:
Liane Balaban is a wonderful actor. I’ve always admired her work, partly because she is a very beautiful woman who seems to have avoided playing parts that require no more from her than that qualification, those decorative roles that seem tacked on to most films. She seems to seek out women of substance to play—or perhaps sometimes it’s her own substance I’m seeing her bring to a given role that elevates it.
I saw this painting she did of George Harrison and loved it—it didn’t surprise me that her favorite Beatle would be the one who was perceived as the “the quiet one” and in many ways, the most serious and substantial one.
My own interpretation of the painting is that George and nature are one. The blurred colours seem almost forest-like behind him, or perhaps like a rushing waterfall—these are the first two images elicited, in my mind—and the colours, most specifically the greens, seem to suggest that the subject is merely an extension of an extension of the beauty of nature itself. There is a merging of sorts taking place. At the very least, they seem to be feeding off of each other.
Liane says, “I’ve been making art my whole life. I paint primarily in acrylic or watercolour. I’ve been obsessed with portraiture since I was seventeen, when I first saw Elizabeth Peyton’s work in Surface Magazine. My George painting was born of this obsession, and also my curiosity around the female experience of male beauty, which as of now, is still a woefully under-represented perspective. Another early influence on me was Canadian painter Eliza Griffiths, whose men are always an unforgettable mix of toughness and femininity. Other idols include Toronto artists Kris Knight and Laura Dawe, figurative painters who are so inventive, and use colour so beautifully, and whose work just speaks to me in a really visceral way. I tend to agree with artist Katherine Bradford who says that painting is “the preservation of an inner life” in the midst of the 24-hour-a-day negative-news-cycle. For me, painting is absolutely sacred but also totally light, with opportunities for absurdity or drama. It’s a therapeutic space where time stops, and you have some respite from the crushing pace of contemporary life. A few months before COVID, I had started painting nightly, to replace my former evening habit of mindless iPhone scrolling, but now with more parenting on my plate, I must use that time for screenwriting—a totally different artform from painting because of its innate fusion with the world of commerce, but that’s another conversation.”
This piece is not typical of the majority of her work. A lot of her other pieces are far more stripped down, almost childlike in their simpleness and fearless use of colour. Efficient in their ability to communicate the core of human essence through portraits that favour communicating the inner emotional life of the subject over their exterior selves. You can see more of her paintings on her Instagram page, @liane.balaban.
8. Father of the Week:
9. Guest Post of the Week:
10. Hey, random guy arguing with me on the internet. It’s not the fact that you have a different opinion than me that compels me to call you a fucking moron.
It’s your completely unsubstantiated and misinformed opinion that does.
11. Advice to my daughter:
Listen to the people who know shit. Not the people who talk shit.
12. These two women are friends of mine. If you don’t share their sadness and exhaustion, you’re part of what’s wrong with the world. It’s really that simple.
Tony Nappo
Tony is Italian, he’s from Scarborough, he’s an actor, he’s a father, he’s a really good house painter, and he doesn’t believe that most things matter, ultimately, at all.
LEARN MORE
Paintings, Pornos, and Broken Countries
Every single fucking time there is a mass shooting, we all give the speeches, and we all share the memes (to each other, who are all mostly already in agreement), but nothing changes.
Gottfried, Strays, and Easter Eggs
Dogs rarely have a hidden agenda when they meet people or other dogs: they're either wagging that shit or they aren’t.
Slapping People, ACTRA Meetings, and Dog Shit
At one point, I was sleeping with so many actresses that they used to just hold ACTRA meetings in my bedroom.
Birthdays, Cranes, and Judd Apatow
If the Freedom Convoy has answered one question for every Canadian, I think it's this: whatever happened to that dumb kid in my class?
Scorsese, Dentists, and Dying Alone
If waving a Fuck Trudeau flag is a legit way to get a meeting with him, I’m gonna start waving my Fuck Scorsese flag wherever I go and keep my fingers crossed.
Truckers, Porndle, and Bad Boys
In these newly woke times in the entertainment industry, it’s slightly amazing to me that nobody has protested the fact that Denzel Washington isn’t actually Scottish yet.
Paintings, Pornos, and Broken Countries
Every single fucking time there is a mass shooting, we all give the speeches, and we all share the memes (to each other, who are all mostly already in agreement), but nothing changes.
Gottfried, Strays, and Easter Eggs
Dogs rarely have a hidden agenda when they meet people or other dogs: they're either wagging that shit or they aren’t.
Slapping People, ACTRA Meetings, and Dog Shit
At one point, I was sleeping with so many actresses that they used to just hold ACTRA meetings in my bedroom.
Birthdays, Cranes, and Judd Apatow
If the Freedom Convoy has answered one question for every Canadian, I think it's this: whatever happened to that dumb kid in my class?
Scorsese, Dentists, and Dying Alone
If waving a Fuck Trudeau flag is a legit way to get a meeting with him, I’m gonna start waving my Fuck Scorsese flag wherever I go and keep my fingers crossed.
Truckers, Porndle, and Bad Boys
In these newly woke times in the entertainment industry, it’s slightly amazing to me that nobody has protested the fact that Denzel Washington isn’t actually Scottish yet.
Comments