"Manny Lamawitz" is my fictional, obnoxiously stereotypical Hollywood agent who handles gurus, and is guaranteed to offend everybody. Those who know me have heard me "do" imaginary conversations between Manny Lamawitz and the chairman of the board of Buddha, Incorporated many times -- and sure enough, everybody gets offended. I like to amuse myself thinking about made-up nonsense, I'm on vacation, and it makes the rabbits happy.
Manny Sez: "The D.L.? Since the Congressional Medal, he can sit wherever he wants."Today, Manny is talking to H.E. Ersatz Tulku, who after 30 years of trying, finally got a visa to visit America. He's here to raise $27 million dollars to build a school-monastery-nunnery-hospital someplace in India nobody can pronounce, and he only has six weeks before the visa expires.
Manny Sez: "This Karmapa is the kid to watch. He's started drafting on the D.L.,but he needs better handlers. Get over this whole 'which one?' and earn!"
"Buddhala...," says Manny. "Let me do for you a favor like you was my own son. I'm going to do for you what in this town doesn't ever get done. I'm going to tell you the truth, so now I am doing the talking and you are doing the listening."
Manny Sez: "Numbers don't lie. We put D.L. in Oz doing a Secret PurpleAvalokitesvara Empowerment we walk away with 2 maybe 3 mill, easy!"
Manny takes a polite sip of his sparkling water, belches behind his manicured hand, and stabs the air with an unlit, fair trade, organic cigar, made sustainably in a worker-owned factory with day-care.
Manny Sez: "Mahakala is flattening, but wrathful still has share." "You came to the wrong place at the wrong time. The action is back in Asia, and for Asia, you got to deal with the millionaire's tai-tai. To get into his pocket, you got to go through her ego, and for that, you got to have a number. I'm not talking the New York Aunties here. What are you Buddhala? The Ninth incarnation? The Tenth incarnation? The ones you want to meet start at Twelve and work their way up. And that reminds me... what are you? An Eminence or a Holiness? Big difference. Big, big difference. Big, big, big difference! With a Holiness I got a back end. With an Eminence? With an Eminence I got... oh, what's the use?"
Manny glances at his Ulysees Nardin, his eyes pausing on the engraving: 'M.L. from D.L.'
"You got to have an entourage, Buddhala, and I'm not talking those schmucks from Shambala with the uniforms and the lapel pins! The private army thing is over! The secret service thing is over! I'm talking bald heads and movie stars! Tai-tai keeps the Holiness for herself and she passes out the bald heads to her girlfriends. She says, 'Oh, my house isn't big enough for all of H.H.'s monks and nuns! You have to help me!' She says, 'Can you put up Richard Gere? Don't worry... he's stopped drinking. Just don't put him up with that Keanu Reeves.' "
It goes on and on.
Manny Sez: "We're not charting pretty. This Kali Yuga is a god damn bear!""You think the Vatican doesn't watch numbers? You think the Pope doesn't get a report every morning on his breakfast tray? You think the cardinals don't get the trends on their Jesus Phones? Wake up and smell the incense!"
Manny Sez: "You don't book East Coast tours when your numbers scream Pacific Rim!""Its a tough business, Buddhala... but you're a tough guy. Tell you what... come back when you got a CD, and maybe we can talk Pleasanton, California... thirty Chinese housewives, eight gray boomers... you do a Dzambala Empowerment... you walk away with maybe $300 bucks."
Manny pauses....
"But, you understand... while you're earning your chops, this agency will have to refer you."
His eyes sparkle like obsidian.
"Unless, of course, you can help me help you by bringing in King Khyentse... "
Manny Sez: "This Khyentse is a multimedia torpedo. I want in."Manny's secretary interrupts: "Mr. Lamawitz, its Sakyong Mipham on the phone again. He says it will only take a minute."
Manny rolls his eyes and shakes his head... his secretary departs.
Manny rolls his eyes and shakes his head... his secretary departs.
Manny Sez: "Kingdom Schmingdom... why is today different from every other day?"Manny sighs....
"So smart, but none of them get it. The kid, Gesar... he almost got it, but wham... in one ear and out the other..."
"It isn't about tulkus who make movies. Its about movies that make tulkus."
"Tibet, and you people never heard of Rocky?"
(This is a work of fiction by a fictional person about fictional activities of fictional people. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead or henceforth reincarnated, irrespective of their actuality or lack thereof, is completely unintentional and strictly coincidental, interdependent arising notwithstanding. All rights reserved. The worldwide box office earnings of the six "Rocky" films is one billion, one hundred and twenty-six million, three hundred and fifty thousand, five hundred and three United States dollars. The number of people who have paid money to watch actors pretend to beat each other to a predictable outcome, is greater than the total number of adherents to the Buddhist faith over the last two thousand five hundred years. When Richard Gere stood up the Oscar broadcast and spoke out for Tibet, he reached over sixty million people at one shot: to this day, the largest single human audience to a Buddhist-inspired message in the history of mankind. Somebody needs to have a serious chat with Steven Seagal.)
Keywords: Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhists, Buddhism, Pleasanton, California, Melbourne, Australia, Portland, Oregon, Singapore, Seattle, Washington, Perth, San Francisco, Brisbane, Sydney, Denver, Colorado, New Zealand, Vermont, Hawaii, New Mexico, Arizona, Massachusetts.
4 reader comments:
You sure get to take a lot of vacations.
How can I meet this Manny Lamawitz? I should tell you, I knew this Oisatz Tulku long before he did! I can tell you a thing or two about him, believe me! For one, there's more than one of him. There's him, and then there's his evil Twin Brother. His evil twin has an evil twin brother too, and it don't stop there. Believe me, he needs a guy like me woikin for him, soitin out the Oisatz from the real McCoy.
I got the dope on Seagal! You'll never believe this. I'm eating lunch on his pool patio, in the company of non-Oisatz Tulku who brought me there to discuss a benefit Blues concert with Seagal. I'm eating my corned beef sandwich and Seagal hocks a big green lugue right on the cement while I'm eating. Lemme tell you, this character makes Ego look like Dolly the Lama!
And I got the inside dope on Seagal's Tulku schtick also. He wanted Cussim Lingpermann, may G-D rest his soul, to promote him up the big time for seventy-five big ones. I got this on foist-hand information right? Cause Seagal don't realize that Lingpermann's translator's got ears. Well Lingpermann blew it, cause he said not, that ain't enough dough, I got mouths to feed and you may be a tulku and all that jazz, but it's a gamble promotin your cause for so little. So Seagal he goes to Penn Orinpochayowitz, may G-D rest his soul also, and tries to cut the same deal, right? So Orinpochayowitz, he calls Tibet an gets Lingpermann on the line, cause Lingpermann got the dope on anybody and everything in the triple woild. And so Lingpermann sez, yeah Seagal's a tulku, but he ain't my problem. He ain't woith it cause he's pain in the fucking ass. So Orinpochayowitz, he takes the seventy-five grand, and bam, the rest is tabloid fare.
And then there's Seagal's former neighbor up the street on Mangleville Cannon drive. You know, the broad woikin for Field Commander Cohen, Wassername. You know what? You'll never believe this. Little Caeser of Ling you mention here, was Wassername's boy toy when he was only fifteen. Now this lady, she specializes in taking Tulkus down a notch, for every one she takes down she puts another notch in her shower coitin rod, an believe me there's a lot of notches there, so's you run your toothbrush along it an it sounds like an old brass zipper. So Little Caeser, he's her boy toy back when. Nowadays, fifteen years old, boy vey, that's Callyfornication, that'll get you arrested in California. But they got Wassername anyway on civil fraud so now she's doin professional seat-warming on a sidewalk grate in Boulder, promoting paranoid conspiracy theories instead of Canadian crooners.
And then there's Wassername's business partner Schlemiel Greenboig, of the Boulder-based Facile Group, he's a rich fucking bastid and plus, he's the Sack Young's golfing partner, see? Greenboig ain't doin' much better, cause he hitched his fund management cart to Madoff's Ponzi-horse. The poor bastid, and I mean that literally. He lost 900 million fucking dollars, and most of that woint even his own money.
Oh yeah, I got stories for ya, I got branding too! Tell Ersatz Tulku the next big wave's gonna be, Ersatz Five Nectar granules and hygiene spray. Easy to make, recyclable, uses ready-made materials! Sprinkle on your cereal even! I got brands coming out of my ears, nose and asshole, I got so many. Almost as many as there are Tulkus now.
How can I meet this Manny Lamawitz? I should tell you, I knew this Oisatz Tulku long before he did! I can tell you a thing or two about him, believe me! For one, there's more than one of him. There's him, and then there's his evil Twin Brother. His evil twin has an evil twin brother too, and it don't stop there. Believe me, he needs a guy like me woikin for him, soitin out the Oisatz from the real McCoy.
I got the dope on Seagal! You'll never believe this. I'm eating lunch on his pool patio, in the company of non-Oisatz Tulku who brought me there to discuss a benefit Blues concert with Seagal. I'm eating my corned beef sandwich and Seagal hocks a big green lugue right on the cement while I'm eating. Lemme tell you, this character makes Ego look like Dolly the Lama!
And I got the inside dope on Seagal's Tulku schtick also. He wanted Cussim Lingpermann, may G-D rest his soul, to promote him up the big time for seventy-five big ones. I got this on foist-hand information right? Cause Seagal don't realize that Lingpermann's translator's got ears. Well Lingpermann blew it, cause he said not, that ain't enough dough, I got mouths to feed and you may be a tulku and all that jazz, but it's a gamble promotin your cause for so little. So Seagal he goes to Penn Orinpochayowitz, may G-D rest his soul also, and tries to cut the same deal, right? So Orinpochayowitz, he calls Tibet an gets Lingpermann on the line, cause Lingpermann got the dope on anybody and everything in the triple woild. And so Lingpermann sez, yeah Seagal's a tulku, but he ain't my problem. He ain't woith it cause he's pain in the fucking ass. So Orinpochayowitz, he takes the seventy-five grand, and bam, the rest is tabloid fare.
And then there's Seagal's former neighbor up the street on Mangleville Cannon drive. You know, the broad woikin for Field Commander Cohen, Wassername. You know what? You'll never believe this. Little Caeser of Ling you mention here, was Wassername's boy toy when he was only fifteen. Now this lady, she specializes in taking Tulkus down a notch, for every one she takes down she puts another notch in her shower coitin rod, an believe me there's a lot of notches there, so's you run your toothbrush along it an it sounds like an old brass zipper. So Little Caeser, he's her boy toy back when. Nowadays, fifteen years old, boy vey, that's Callyfornication, that'll get you arrested in California. But they got Wassername anyway on civil fraud so now she's doin professional seat-warming on a sidewalk grate in Boulder, promoting paranoid conspiracy theories instead of Canadian crooners.
And then there's Wassername's business partner Schlemiel Greenboig, of the Boulder-based Facile Group, he's a rich fucking bastid and plus, he's the Sack Young's golfing partner, see? Greenboig ain't doin' much better, cause he hitched his fund management cart to Madoff's Ponzi-horse. The poor bastid, and I mean that literally. He lost 900 million fucking dollars, and most of that woint even his own money.
Oh yeah, I got stories for ya, I got branding too! Tell Ersatz Tulku the next big wave's gonna be, Ersatz Five Nectar granules and hygiene spray. Easy to make, recyclable, uses ready-made materials! Sprinkle on your cereal even! I got brands coming out of my ears, nose and asshole, I got so many. Almost as many as there are Tulkus now.
Dear "Other" Anonymous from New York. I liked what you wrote very much and I wish you would write to me directly. I didn't publish it here because it is (1) completely true, and (2) the demons you name will hunt you down and tear your nose off if you ever hint at exposing their mischief. Still -- that story needs to get out, and the question is "what is the best way?"
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