Director Funny Quotes

The more you talk about it, rehash it, rethink it, cross analyze it, debate it, respond to it, get paranoid about it, compete with it, complain about it, immortalize it, cry over it, kick it, defame it, stalk it, gossip about it, pray over it, put it down or dissect its motives it continues to rot in your brain. It is dead. It is over. It is gone. It is done. It is time to bury it because it is smelling up your life and no one wants to be near your rotted corpse of memories and decaying attitude. Be the funeral director of your life and bury that thing!

Imagine this: You’re driving. The sky’s bright. You look great. In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie, you’re the star. so smile for the camera, it’s your big scene, you know your lines. I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter. I have a megaphone and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have. Imagine this: You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting. You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along. Imagine: Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it. You didn’t think you’d feel this way. There’s a gun in your hand. It feels hot. It feels oily. I’m the director and i’m screaming at you, I’m waving my arms in the sky, and everyone’s watching, everyone’s curious, everyone’s holding their breath. 'Planet of Love

In some cases, you can tell how somebody is being treated by their own boss from the way they are treating someone to whom they are a boss.

If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.

My Funeral Director Dresses Me Funny

Here’s what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn’t let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn’t make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things—and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We’ve taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven’t quite taken to the “break” in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our “work” to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us.

I hope I'm not disturbing anything," he said with a smile. "Just considering what birthday games Whyborne will be missing out on thanks to this wretched idea of the director's," she replied cheerfully. "I've gotten to Blind Man's Duff." Griffin laughed. "How about Pin the Tail on -" "Would you two stop?

Her philosophy was, if it had a pulse, it could be killed. I didn’t really have a philosophy, but I could see how talking with the school director would be difficult for her. If he said something she didn’t like, chopping him to tiny pieces wouldn’t exactly help me get into the school.

I AM WRITING IN A time of great anxiety in my country. I understand the anxiety, but also believe America is going to be fine. I choose to see opportunity as well as danger. Donald Trump’s presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation. We all bear responsibility for the deeply flawed choices put before voters during the 2016 election, and our country is paying a high price: this president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty. We are fortunate some ethical leaders have chosen to serve and to stay at senior levels of government, but they cannot prevent all of the damage from the forest fire that is the Trump presidency. Their task is to try to contain it. I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while deemphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and morally wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I’ve said this earlier but it’s worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, “I hope you will let it go,” about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to almost be darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay.

I had some good friends - really funny ones. My best friend was a guy called Apolo Nsibambi. We shared an office at the Extra Mural Department at Makerere, and then I got a promotion - became Acting Director - and I was his boss! I used to tease him for calling himself “Doctor” - he had a Ph. D. in political science. I mocked him for wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase and being pompous. I went to his wedding. He came to my wedding. And then I completely lost touch with him. I wonder what happened to him.’ ‘Doctor Nsibambi is the Prime Minister of Uganda.

   The sky’s bright. You look great. In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie, you’re the star. So smile for the camera, it’s your big scene, you know your lines.   I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter. I have a megaphone and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have.       Imagine this: You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting. You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along.       Imagine: Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it. You didn’t think you’d feel this way. There’s a gun in your hand. It feels hot. It feels oily. I’m the director and i’m screaming at you, I’m waving my arms in the sky, and everyone’s watching, everyone’s curious, everyone’s holding their breath. - 'Planet of Love

We think of memory as if it were a hard drive, he said, and in some ways that’s what it’s like, but it’s like something altogether different, too. It’s a stage and a director, and over time the play changes, the characters are changed, but it’s a funny play because we lose sight of what those characters once were to us. Memory is not static but a thing in motion, and because we are passengers without a frame of reference, the motion is imperceptible, so that at any given point in time, all we have is a set of memories, a thing of the instantaneous present and not of the past. I read somewhere, some researcher explaining that every time we recall something, our future memory of it changes, as if we rewrite or overwrite the memory with a new memory after each use in an ongoing palimpsest. Which, it strikes me, must make it hard to lose the memory of something whose memory you dearly wish to lose, which is to say that if memory serves us well, sometimes some things are blessedly forgotten.

Where do the biggest movie star of his generation and a revered director (and great actor in his own right) stay when they are visiting someone? Would you believe the local Holiday Inn? Hoping to forge a better connection to Chris, Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper came to see me and the rest of the family in early spring of 2014, before they started filming American Sniper. The unpretentiousness of their visit and their genuine goodwill floored me. It was a great omen for the movie. Bubba and I picked them up at the local airport and brought them home; within minutes Bubba had Bradley out in the back playing soccer. Meanwhile, Clint and I talked inside. He reminded me of my grandfather with his courtly manners and gracious ways. He was very funny, with a quiet, quick wit and dry sense of humor. After dinner--it was an oryx Chris had killed shortly before he died--Bradley took Bubba to the Dairy Queen for dessert. Even in small-town Texas, he couldn’t quite get away without being recognized, and when someone asked for his photo, he stepped aside to pose. Bubba folded his arms across his chest and scanned the area much as his dad would have: on overwatch. I guess I didn’t really understand how unusual the situation was until later, when I dropped them off at the Holiday Inn. I watched them walk into the lobby and disappear. That’s Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper! Awesome!

I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while de-emphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I've said this earlier but it's worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, 'I hope you will let it go,' about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to be almost darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay. Whatever your politics, it is wrong to dismiss the damage to the norms and traditions that have guided the presidency and our public life for decades or, in many cases, since the republic was founded. It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president so brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check...without these checks on our leaders, without those institutions vigorously standing against abuses of power, our country cannot sustain itself as a functioning democracy. I know there are men and women of good conscience in the United States Congress on both sides of the aisle who understand this. But not enough of them are speaking out. They must ask themselves to what, or to whom, they hold a higher loyalty: to partisan interests or to the pillars of democracy? Their silence is complicity - it is a choice - and somewhere deep down they must know that. Policies come and go. Supreme Court justices come and go. But the core of our nation is our commitment to a set of shared values that began with George Washington - to restraint and integrity and balance and transparency and truth. If that slides away from us, only a fool would be consoled by a tax cut or different immigration policy.

A school bus is many things. A school bus is a substitute for a limousine. More class. A school bus is a classroom with a substitute teacher. A school bus is the students' version of a teachers' lounge. A school bus is the principal's desk. A school bus is the nurse's cot. A school bus is an office with all the phones ringing. A school bus is a command center. A school bus is a pillow fort that rolls. A school bus is a tank reshaped- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a science lab- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone. A school bus is a concert hall. A school bus is a food court. A school bus is a court of law, all judges, all jury. A school bus is a magic show full of disappearing acts. Saw someone in half. Pick a card, any card. Pass it on to the person next to you. He like you. She like you. K-i-s-s-i . . . s-s-i-p-p-i is only funny on a school bus. A school bus is a stage. A school bus is a stage play. A school bus is a spelling bee. A speaking bee. A get your hand out of my face bee. A your breath smell like sour turnips bee. A you don't even know what a turnip bee is. A maybe not, but I know what a turn up is and your breath smell all the way turnt up bee. A school bus is a bumblebee, buzzing around with a bunch of stingers on the inside of it. Windows for wings that flutter up and down like the windows inside Chinese restaurants and post offices in neighborhoods where school bus is a book of stamps. Passing mail through windows. Notes in the form of candy wrappers telling the street something sweet came by. Notes in the form of sneaky middle fingers. Notes in the form of fingers pointing at the world zooming by. A school bus is a paintbrush painting the world a blurry brushstroke. A school bus is also wet paint. Good for adding an extra coat, but it will dirty you if you lean against it, if you get too comfortable. A school bus is a reclining chair. In the kitchen. Nothing cool about it but makes perfect sense. A school bus is a dirty fridge. A school bus is cheese. A school bus is a ketchup packet with a tiny hole in it. Left on the seat. A plastic fork-knife-spoon. A paper tube around a straw. That straw will puncture the lid on things, make the world drink something with some fizz and fight. Something delightful and uncomfortable. Something that will stain. And cause gas. A school bus is a fast food joint with extra value and no food. Order taken. Take a number. Send a text to the person sitting next to you. There is so much trouble to get into. Have you ever thought about opening the back door? My mother not home till five thirty. I can't. I got dance practice at four. A school bus is a talent show. I got dance practice right now. On this bus. A school bus is a microphone. A beat machine. A recording booth. A school bus is a horn section. A rhythm section. An orchestra pit. A balcony to shot paper ball three-pointers from. A school bus is a basketball court. A football stadium. A soccer field. Sometimes a boxing ring. A school bus is a movie set. Actors, directors, producers, script. Scenes. Settings. Motivations. Action! Cut. Your fake tears look real. These are real tears. But I thought we were making a comedy. A school bus is a misunderstanding. A school bus is a masterpiece that everyone pretends to understand. A school bus is the mountain range behind Mona Lisa. The Sphinx's nose. An unknown wonder of the world. An unknown wonder to Canton Post, who heard bus riders talk about their journeys to and from school. But to Canton, a school bus is also a cannonball. A thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless.

Cantor began a practice, long associated with Vallee, of introducing new talent via radio. Gracie Allen made her first radio appearance with Cantor: Burns and Allen would occasionally be mentioned, only half-jokingly, as a Cantor “discovery,” but George Burns had his own grim version of that affair (see BURNS AND ALLEN). A more legitimate discovery was Harry Einstein. Cantor was in Boston in 1934 when he happened to hear, on a local radio station, a man doing a funny Greek dialect. Einstein was then the advertising director of Boston’s Kane Furniture Company. He had been dabbling radio for years and had created a character named Nick Parkyakakas, a comedy candidate for mayor who could be heard on WNAC Mondays and Fridays at 10:30. Cantor thought it the funniest Greek impersonation he had ever heard: by wire, he offered Einstein a slot on NBC, and the following Sunday Parkyakakas played to the nation for the first time.

LIZ.  Very funny.  What has Betty Grable got that I haven’t got? Or Lana Turner. GEORGE.  Nothing, dear.  In fact, you have something they haven’t got. LIZ.  (Pleased.) I have? What? GEORGE.  Me.  Well, see you later, dear.  If you want me, I’ll be at the bank. (Sound.  Door open and close—telephone dialing.) LIZ.  Hello, Ann? Liz.  I just spoke to George about being in the play.  Yes, he put his foot down.  Absolutely no.  He was really definite about it.  What time are we going to the tryouts? Of course I am.  It’s a challenge now.  If I get the part think how surprised George will be on opening night.  To say nothing of that Hollywood director. Who, me?  Don’t be silly.  A Hollywood contract is the last thing in the world I want—I’d just like to show George I could get one if I wanted to.  Goodbye, Ann. SOUND.  (Hang up phone)

THE SECOND CITY MANAGES to accomplish three things to accelerate its performers’ growth: (1) it gives them rapid feedback; (2) it depersonalizes the feedback; and (3) it lowers the stakes and pressure, so students take risks that force them to improve. For the first year, Leonard explains, The Second City’s goal is to get students used to anticipating negative feedback and to get them out of their own heads. This is about building confidence and creating a “safe” environment in which it’s OK to screw up. Then, second-year classes ratchet up the feedback, putting actors in a succession of situations where they will fail small in front of live crowds. It’s one thing for your coactor or director to tell you a joke is funny, but it’s entirely another to hear the pins drop when a live audience disagrees. Or conversely to hear wild cackling from the crowd at something that may have seemed like a bad idea on paper. Every laugh or lack thereof becomes a data point that the actors can use to better themselves. By embracing all these tiny failures, there is no actual failure.* In contrast, a typical acting class might spend an entire semester building up to a single performance. Students practice together in class, but they don’t know if the audience will like their show until the final day. And if the audience hates it, there’s nothing students can do.

About 41 percent of mothers are primary breadwinners and earn the majority of their family’s income. Another 23 percent of mothers are co-breadwinners, contributing at least a quarter of the family’s earnings.30 The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly; between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from one in ten to one in five.31 These numbers are dramatically higher in Hispanic and African-American families. Twenty-seven percent of Latino children and 51 percent of African-American children are being raised by a single mother.32 Our country lags considerably behind others in efforts to help parents take care of their children and stay in the workforce. Of all the industrialized nations in the world, the United States is the only one without a paid maternity leave policy.33 As Ellen Bravo, director of the Family Values @ Work consortium, observed, most “women are not thinking about ‘having it all,’ they’re worried about losing it all—their jobs, their children’s health, their families’ financial stability—because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent.”34 For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst. Women are surrounded by headlines and stories warning them that they cannot be committed to both their families and careers. They are told over and over again that they have to choose, because if they try to do too much, they’ll be harried and unhappy. Framing the issue as “work-life balance”—as if the two were diametrically opposed—practically ensures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life? The good news is that not only can women have both families and careers, they can thrive while doing so. In 2009, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober published Getting to 50/50, a comprehensive review of governmental, social science, and original research that led them to conclude that children, parents, and marriages can all flourish when both parents have full careers. The data plainly reveal that sharing financial and child-care responsibilities leads to less guilty moms, more involved dads, and thriving children.35 Professor Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University did a comprehensive review of studies on work-life balance and found that women who participate in multiple roles actually have lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of mental well-being.36 Employed women reap rewards including greater financial security, more stable marriages, better health, and, in general, increased life satisfaction.37 It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality. We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers—or even happy professionals and competent mothers. The current negative images may make us laugh, but they also make women unnecessarily fearful by presenting life’s challenges as insurmountable. Our culture remains baffled: I don’t know how she does it. Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

In Walked Jim September 2013: Entering his first morning staff meeting as FBI director, Jim Comey loped to the head of the table, put down his briefing books, and lowered his six-foot-eight-inch, shirtsleeved self into a huge leather chair. He leaned the chair so far back on its hind legs that he lay practically flat, testing gravity. Then he sat up, stretched like a big cat, pushed the briefing books to the side, and said, as if he were talking to a friend, I don’t want to talk about these today. I’d rather talk about some other things first. He talked about how effective leaders immediately make their expectations clear and proceeded to do just that for us. Said he would expect us to love our jobs, expect us to take care of ourselves … I remember less of what he said than the easygoing way he spoke and the absolute clarity of his day-one priority: building relationships with each member of his senior team. Comey continually reminded the FBI leadership that strong relationships with one another were critical to the institution’s functioning. One day, after we reviewed the briefing books, he said, Okay, now I want to go around the room, and I want you all to say one thing about yourselves that no one else here knows about you. One hard-ass from the criminal division stunned the room to silence when he said, My wife and I, we really love Disney characters, and all our vacation time we spend in the Magic Kingdom. Another guy, formerly a member of the hostage-rescue team, who carefully tended his persona as a dead-eyed meathead—I thought his aesthetic tastes ran the gamut from YouTube videos of snipers in Afghanistan to YouTube videos of Bigfoot sightings—turned out to be an art lover. I really like the old masters, he said, but my favorite is abstract expressionism. This hokey parlor game had the effect Comey intended. It gave people an opportunity to be interesting and funny with colleagues in a way that most had rarely been before. Years later, I remember it like yesterday. That was Jim’s effect on almost everyone he worked with. I observed how he treated people. Tell me your story, he would say, then listen as if there were only the two of you in the whole world. You were, of course, being carefully assessed at the same time that you were being appreciated and accepted. He once told me that people’s responses to that opening helped him gauge their ability to communicate. Over the next few years I would sit in on hundreds of meetings with him. All kinds of individuals and organizations would come to Comey with their issues. No matter how hostile they were when they walked in the door, they would always walk out on a cloud of Comey goodness. Sometimes, after the door had closed, he would look at me and say, That was a mess. Jim has the same judgmental impulse that everyone has. He is complicated, with many different sides, and he is so good at showing his best side—which is better than most people’s—that his bad side, which is not as bad as most people’s, can seem more shocking on the rare moments when it flashes to the surface.

They [La Prensa] accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it. —Nelba Blandón, Interior Ministry Director of Censorship, quoted in The New York Times, 1984

Both Bob and Suzanne would ask me questions during shoots, and I’d answer them. I impressed them because I was right more than I was wrong. I learned another valuable lesson: Take a stand. I could say, “Bob, do this; I think it’s going to be funny.” If an actor ever asks you which version of a take will be funnier, don’t say, “I don’t care.” Pick one. Pick one even if you don’t know. If you’re wrong, say, “Jesus! I was wrong. Let’s try the other one.” The minute you equivocate or are perceived as someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, no actor will walk the comedic plank or take any risks for you.

I need to find out if they can defend their material without being defensive about it. I don’t want to work with someone who says, “No, it’s funny, do it.” If I make suggestions that they don’t think will improve the script and they can articulate why, I will never be upset by it. If they can’t explain why, I won’t work with them.

Being on the other side of the glass is a very funny position-- you're the traffic director of another person's soul.

Richard the director was talking to the cameraman and soundman so I thought that this was a good time to get out my toilet that I had taken with me. I say ‘toilet’; it was a camping chair that I had cut a hole into where I could place a bin bag. I went to my tent to get it to discover it wasn’t there. I went mad at Richard telling him that it wasn’t funny and wanted to know who had taken it. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. I asked Wilder and he acted the same way. I then went and looked in every tent but couldn’t find it. I asked Wilder again and said if the others had told him to hide it he must tell me where as I had gone to a lot of trouble buying, altering and carrying it to the jungle. He took me into the woods where a path had already been cut and the chair set up. I thought he had done it especially for me until I noticed a small M&S bag next to the chair. Someone had already used it. I thought it may have been a joke and that the bag just contained soil so picked it up to check. I hadn’t even undone the knot fully when the stench hit me. Someone had used it.

The funny thing about social media is that the general principle is that nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd,” says Du Linh Tu, director of the digital media program at Columbia Journalism School.

10 Ideas For Transforming Advertising 1. No cranberry bagels at meetings. No exceptions. 2. While on duty, copywriters required to wear those Peruvian knit hats with the funny earflaps. 3. Reinstatement of the three martini lunch. After a 6-month trial period, optional upgrade to four. 4. Confiscate all computers and baseball caps from art directors. 5. Use of the following terms will be considered justifiable cause for termination: ecosystem, conversation, engagement, landscape, seared ahi tuna, and quirky. 6. When making presentations, account planners must dress up as pirates and hop around on one foot. 7. Breakthrough idea for tv spots: Animals that talk! 8. Criminalize all products containing pomegranates or acai berries. 9.  Increase touch points from 360 degrees to 380 degrees. 10. Require Sir Martin Sorrell to walk around with his weenie out.

as they marched out on their way to band practice to get fitted for new hats to hide foam rollers in, as the athletic director was very against the band members having smooth fascia and demanded they have sore muscles while the football team played.

I had a case once where a woman had been going to Responsivist meetings for only two weeks when her husband became concerned and hired me. She ended up leaving him and is now the secretary to the director of their Greek retreat where you rescued your son. Pattie Ogdenburg. Funny how you remember the names of your failures but never those of your successes.” Max and Eddie nodded in unison. They had shared many of each together.

John woke up after the annual office Christmas party with a pounding headache, cotton-mouthed and utterly unable to recall the events of the preceding evening. After a trip to the bathroom, he made his way downstairs, where his wife put some coffee in front of him. "Louise," he moaned, "tell me what happened last night. Was it as bad as I think?" "Even worse," she said, her voice oozing scorn. "You made a complete ass of yourself. You succeeded in antagonizing the entire board of directors and you insulted the president of the company, right to his face." "He's an “asshole," John said. "Piss on him." "You did," came the reply. "And he fired you." "Well, screw him!" said John. "I did. You're back at work on Monday

Until Get Shorty, Elmore’s novels that were made into movies were critical and financial failures, which was why the rights to the novel were still available. Many books by successful authors are optioned before they’re even published, which I hope is the case with Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother. I gave Elmore and his agent, Michael Siegel, my thoughts about comedy, which is that no one on the show should think they’re working on one. The formula for a successful comedy is to have an absurd situation, or an absurd character, played for reality. If the situation is funny, the scene will be funny, but only if it’s played totally real. If the cinematographer knows it’s a comedy, it will be too bright. If the film lab knows, it will be even brighter. If the wardrobe department knows, it will be colorful. If the composer thinks it’s a comedy, there’ll be slide whistles and triangles. The worst, of course, is if the actors or director decide they’re making a comedy. I promised Elmore our show would be funny, because it would be real.

ALAN TAYLOR (Director) I wasn't going to mention that because I got in trouble the last time I mentioned it. We didn't have enough heads. We had to use every head we had. [Bush's head] had been made for some comedy. Se we had to use it. I remember making some not-very-brilliant joke at the time, like, "You go to production with the heads you have, not the heads you want"--paraphrasing [Bush's secretary of defense] Donald Rumsfeld--because I was pretty angry at Bush and Rumsfeld at the time. I thought it was funny. Since then I've realized if someone made a joke like that about a president I believed in, I would have been offended too. I think I've probably mellowed a bit, though if you gave me the chance to use [Trump's] head I'd probably jump at it.

What happens to a man who loses more than half of himself? Ron Lester has searched for the answer since December 2000, when he underwent Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery with a duodenal switch.1 Since he realized in the third grade that his massive girth could draw laughs, Lester knew his fate was as the funny fat guy. When he moved to Hollywood — a town where funny fat guys can become millionaires — he was an overnight success. There was one problem, though: His moneymaker was slowly killing him. With a family history of heart problems, the 500-pound Lester wasn’t long for this world. Surgery saved his life. It also ended his career. A shrinking man with loose skin greeted casting directors expecting the funny fat guy, and Lester struggled to score roles post-op. Now living in Dallas nearly 15 years after his glory days, he is left to ponder whether choosing life was the right decision. “Am I alive? Yes. Am I happy? No. Did I throw away my career to be skinny? Yes,” he says. “I wouldn’t do [the surgery] again. I would much rather have died happy, rich, and kept my status and gone out on top.

they look back at me, giggling to themselves. I turn to Louis. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a dream. Something to live or die by. Do you think it’s funny to distract girls? To get in their way?” Louis’s mouth drops open. “I never stopped you from doing anything you wanted to do.” “But you lied to me.” He shakes his head. “Maybe I didn’t tell you everything about my past, but—” “Stop!” “No! I’m not stopping. I want you to succeed, Mia. I want you to get picked by the ABT director, even if it means I’ll never see you again.” He seems on edge himself, vulnerable even, but I don’t trust anything coming from him anymore. His words just glide over me, my anger stripping them of any meaning.

In fact, the horror show that is our mental health care system today makes Rosenhan’s critiques seem obsolete. “It shows just how quaint the study is—and how misguided it is in a funny way… Psychiatry [was seen] as the arm of the state, when in fact [it is] just as much of a victim of the larger relationships of power,” said psychiatrist and historian Joel Braslow during an interview. “It’s on the other end of the spectrum today,” added Dr. Thomas Insel, former director of the NIMH. “You have people who really do need help who don’t get it because there’s no place for them to go.