(Some photoshopped images on MySpace are so ridiculously inspiring, they deserve their own backstory. So here it is, the latest entrant into Rick’s pantheon of funny. Enjoy. p.s. It helps if you’ve seen “Being John Malkovich.” If you haven’t, I highly recommend it.)

Craig Schwartz and Maxine are preparing to wind down another profitable day at “Being Glenn Danzig Enterprises”, their new, post-Malkovich startup. Maxine is counting the money. Craig is staring at Mexine legs lustfully. All of a sudden, a belch echoes through the hallway of the 7 1/2 floor. And who else but the man himself, Tony Danza, stumbles into the office.

He puts his arm around Craig and says “Look, Schwartz, I know you know who I am.” His breath stinks of vino. “And I’ve gotten word of your little business. Malkovich is a good friend of mine. But let’s not mince words here, capiche? I’ll give it to you straight, Craig.”

Danza looks at the floor and says, “I’m a washed up sitcom actor.”

“200 dollars” Maxine says, pointing at the register.

Craig nods empathetically. “Are you looking to escape for a while, Mr. Danza? We all need an escape sometimes. God knows I do. And, you know, this guy, Danzig, he’s a rockstar, he’s really buff. He works out at the East St. Y. He’s got that whole Satanic thing going. The women love that.”

Danza continues. “Yeah, I dunno what has happened lately, but my career has just gone down the toilet. First i flipped my go-kart while racing Rusty Wallace. Some guy put in on Youtube. and everybody had a laugh at my expense. Then, my show was friggin’ cancelled. Then, well, I showed up on that bitch Rachel Ray’s show — in MY old time slot — and told it like it is. Anyway, the whole story ended up on Letterman. Then on Youtube, again. Fucking YouTube. ….. so embarrassing.”

Maxine turns her head up again. “I saw that! hahahah.” She lifts a pretend wine glass and slurs, “‘Ziti my ass!!’ They made you sound like a total lush, hahah!”

“Uh yeah, thanks.” says Danza, shaking his head. He turns again to Craig. “So, yeah, I’d, like, give anything to be someone else for just a little while right now.”

Craig smiles and says “we can arrange that.” Danza pays Maxine the money and crawls into the trapdoor and down the chute. Fade out.

Fade into Danzig onstage, surrounded in dry ice, looking ultra-menacing, in his fishnet tank top, which gives his pecs and biceps maximum exposure. He belts out the lyrics to “Mother” in his signature black snake moan.

“Mothaaaaa … tell your children not to walk mah way …. tell your children not to read my words, what they mean what they say … mothaaa …. ”

Danzig tilts his head back. As he barks the line “and if ya wanna find hell with me” he starts to twitch, his eyes bug out, and he starts to shake uncontrollably. The audience thinks it’s all part of the act, until the man onstage, unidentifiable at this point, spins his head rapid-fire and all of a sudden, in a quantum leap, he faces the audience and wails.

“MOOONNNNAAAA!!!!!!!”

The guitarist stops mid-riff. The drummer drops his sticks and the audience is silent. All is heard is the faint squeal of feedback from the speakers. Tony Danza has taken over the room.

He grabs the mike again. With a big shit-eating grin on his face, rivalling that of a Glaswegian standup act, he screams,

“Who’s the boss now, motherfucker?”

At the very same moment, Glenn Danzig gets expelled like a bad egg out onto the Jersey turnpike. Craig Schwartz is there. Danzig grabs Craig by the nuts, and says “for god’s sake, shut it down.” Craig shakes his head “It’s my portal” Glenn says Malkovich style “It’s my HEAAADDD, Schwartz. It’s My HEADDDD!!!” He clenches a bit harder, and whispers as if into space, incredulously, “Tony Danza, Craig? Tony DANZA?! How could you?! My career is finished!”

Fear the Danza.

A couple months ago I went to the dentist — something I’ve been dreading for years as my last memory of such was of my last dentist. A Father Wonka type, extracting from my mouth very painfully, and with maximum guilt-tripping remarks about my dental hygeine, a medieval torture device called a bionator. This followed shortly thereafter by root canal.

This time, I specifically sought out the woman, acting off a years-old referral from a friend, in the hopes that I’d get someone who could deliver what I knew to be very bad news (that my teeth were literally falling apart) with empathy and compassion. And she was great. Not that she had to talk much. She spoke softly, and all the while flashing pics of cavity after cavity in front of my eyes like photos of bombed-out buildings. In the end, she told me that she’d help me rebuild the Sarajevo in my mouth, I said thanks, and she handed me over to the financial guy to sort out the details.

Depressoid after that. For about a month, I couldn’t even look at a Mountain Dew without cringing. This shit, this ubiquitous fucking caramelized, high-fructose crap that pumps fake energy through my near-diabetic frame, keeps me fat, nervous as hell, fucks with my self-image and rots out my teeth, and I’m hopelessly addicted. And it fucking has to stop.

All this being said, Tourette’s style, on a hiking trail in Delaware. Along with the typical through-the-teeth ranting about work, Washington, poilitics, superficial assholes, humanity, the scourge of technology even as it lures you in (and don’t look now, you’re soaking in it), and all the other work-week accumulation, scattering vitriol like animal droppings along the trail, up the hill, around the creek, down the hill … the droppings decrease … around a bend near a birdwatching stand, around the disc golf course … the seething chatter dissipating into the wind … and up out of the forest into a field, surrounded by flowers and butterflies, and all the fake energy, gone, replaced by a different kind.

As the weeks pass, the fructose, yellow #5, and gum arabic-fueled anxiety gradually makes way for a bug spray and sun block, cap, boots, daypack and walking sticks-fueled summer shimmering sun. And the pasty fat around the perimeter starts to give way and the muscles that laid dormant, open their eyes for the first time, like Han Solo coming out of the carbon freezing. That’s kind of how I feel as a whole right now.

A painted lady is pretty easily distinguishable from a monarch butterfly, when I was a kid I could recognize the difference in a second, but then again I was a bit closer to nature back then. They call painted ladies the thistle butterfly. As I started my hike yesterday, I was out in the field with my camera and I caught one, feeding away at the thistle’s nectar. I was so stoked. Slave to the nectar, ha ha, these painted ladies. Water for me, thanks.