Category: television

Karma Chameleon

I had some seriously strange dreams last night. The first was a nightmare involving reptile and snakes–that’s all I remember of it–but Paul had to wake me up because I was crying out in terror in my sleep. (Thanks for the rescue.) In the second, more benign but also scary dream that I remember, I was teaching a creative writing class, focusing on short stories. I suppose the subliminal message my mind is telling me is how terrified I am of writing short stories, and I have any number of them on deck that need to be written, and time is rapidly running out before they are due. Heavy heaving sigh. Maybe in the first dream the snakes and reptiles symbolized the deadlines.

Stupid short stories anyway.

We’ve finished watching season 2 of Freakish, and alas, it’s not as good as Season 1. We’ll probably watch the third season, if there is was, to see if it recovers its lost promise; but yeah, jumped the shark and went off the rails in the second season. Plus, it has The Walking Dead problem; to up the ante they have to  keep killing off characters and introducing new ones. The problem (spoiler!)is they keep killing off ones we like and keeping the unlikable, stupid ones…and adding more unlikable, stupid ones. In the first season, part of its charm was that Breakfast Club thing of kids who have nothing in common and are from completely different social circles, for the most part, having to work together and come together and bond to survive. That was lost in the second season; which is a shame as it was one of the show’s strengths; the developing relationships and bonds between the characters.

We’ve also started watching Mindhunter on Netflix, which is fucking amazing. The first episode was a trifle slow, but still interesting; episode 2 really gets the ball moving and when it was finished, I was really disappointed we didn’t have time to stay up and watch another episode. It really is terrific–and the guy who plays the Co-ed Killer should win an Emmy for Best Guest Star. He was absolutely riveting. They also have done a remarkably good job of capturing the late 1970’s; as I said to Paul last night, ‘wow, I had no idea or memory that the late 1970’s were so aesthetically ugly; colors and designs and so forth. Blech.’ Can’t wait to get home tonight and watch another.

I read another chapter of Alafair Burke’s marvelous The Wife last night, and that story is also really starting to pick up. One of the great things about Burke’s writing is her attention to little details that make the story and characters seem absolutely real and authentic.

I also–speaking of short stories and so forth–got some revising of early Scotty chapters in the new book done, and realized that a scene in Chapter Three is eerily reminiscent of one in a short story I am writing. Ah, well, I guess there’s no harm in slightly plagiarizing yourself, is there?

The weather was weird yesterday; it appears to be more of the same out there outside my windows this morning. Heavy heaving sigh. At least today I know to take a Claritin before i leave the house.

And now, back to the spice mines. Here’s a Throwback Thursday hunk for you, Constant Reader, actor/model Gordon Scott:

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When Doves Cry

We finished watching Stranger Things last night, and were sorry to see it end; it was quite a lot of fun, and Episode 8 was a non-stop adrenaline rush from beginning to end. The last thirty minutes of the season was absolutely charming; those kids are just so damned appealing, and Winona Ryder was much better in this season than she was in the first. I also got much further along in Hell House; I should finish it today to end my official month of Halloween Horror reading. Some great crime novels have stacked up while I devoted myself to horror this month; can’t wait to start digging into crime again.

I finished outlining Jackson Square Jazz last night, and am going to start work on the Scotty concordance/Bible this week while I also work on Crescent City Charade. I’m still not completely sold on that title, let me say that right now; it’s very likely going to change before I turn it into the publisher. It’s been fun rereading (or rather, skimming) Jackson Square Jazz preparatory for doing the outline; I feel much more connected to Scotty than I was. The amazing thing to me is how many continuity mistakes I’ve made over the years. The lovely thing is that I can now go back to the original books and fix the errors–there’s nothing i can do about them in the later books. In fairness to myself, I don’t really remember much of anything I wrote pre-Katrina, but I could have–should have–gone back and reread the originals, and the Bible/concordance is way overdue.

It’s also amazing how much I did forget. The plot of Jackson Square Jazz was almost a complete mystery to me, and it was a much better book and story than I remembered it being. Ah, memory is such a strange thing, isn’t it?

I really do need to be better organized. The kitchen is a mess this morning, and I need to make another to-do list. I’ve got some laundry going and I need to do the dishes and make chili for the crockpot to cook all day. And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines.

Here’s a Halloween hunk for you:

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Far from Over

Monday morning. I am very tired this morning; I worked Condom Outreach yesterday at the Halloween New Orleans Tea Dance at Crescent Park, which was fun, tiring and entertaining on many levels. Lots of pretty boys to look at, lots of alcohol/drug related sloppiness, and the weather was bizarre. It was hot and humid when we walked over there, than a nasty storm rolled in for a while, and after the storm moved on it was very cool the rest of the time. It’s still cool now; I suspect the heat and humidity have finally broken, thank the Lord.

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I have to say, Crescent Park is beautiful; the view of the river there is spectacular. I also took some terrific panorama shots:

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Gorgeous, right?

Last night we watched the premiere of The Walking Dead, and I have to say, finally. Last season Paul and I wearied of the show; primarily because Rick and the gang basically turned into wimps over and over again. It was awesome last night seeing them kicking ass and not bothering to take names. Huzzah!

I also started my reread of The Haunting of Hill House, and am reading it more slowly than I usually do; trying to savor it as well as thinking about its influence on other novels about ‘the bad place.’ I’ve already seen it’s direct influence, in the earliest chapters, on Burnt Offerings; Eleanor’s drive to Hill House is very similar to the drive taken by the family to the house in Burnt Offerings. The writing is so lyrical, and whimsical, almost like a fairy tale in its use of language and imagery; and Eleanor, poor Eleanor…also of note–Eleanor is selected by Dr. Montague for the Hill House expedition because when she was a young girl, stones rained down on her family home from the sky for several days without explanation; there’s mention of the same phenomenon happening to the Whites in Stephen King’s Carrie.

And that opening!

Lord, if I could only write an opening that sublime and beautiful and haunting.

 

Human Nature

I slept well again last night–which keeps the streak of good sleep alive at five nights and counting. I don’t have to work today, which is lovely; I am hopefully having lunch with a friend and running a couple of errands before coming home to clean, edit, revise, and hopefully do some writing.

The Lost Apartment is also a mess, so part of my day will be taken up with cleaning. It really is tragic how messy this apartment can become over the course of a week, and I haven’t done the floors in forever. The windows are also pretty nasty; this lovely cool weather we are enjoying will be most helpful in that regard, since I know I won’t be drenched in sweat the moment I go outside. I need to make a grocery list, and I also want to read some more of Anna Dressed in Blood, which started kind of slow but is starting to pick up a little. I also want to start rereading The Haunting of Hill House this weekend, which means I need to finish reading Anna.

I got caught up on Riverdale last night, and I have to say the first two episodes of this season are pretty damned dark. There were three murders in the second episode of this season (SPOILER), and now that they’ve recast Reggie, he’s front and center–and a drug dealer. Wow, didn’t see that coming. The young cast continues to get better, and are incredibly appealing, and apparently the ratings are really up, which is terrific. Now we need to get caught up on The Exorcist, and maybe give the reboot of Dynasty a whirl. I’m not sure how I feel about Dynasty being rebooted; I guess they decided, since the Dallas sequel never really caught fire, to just start over with the tale of the Carringtons and the Colbys, which I guess I can understand…but I also don’t want them to follow the original storylines, either. From everything I’ve read so far, they aren’t doing that…and it looks like Steven’s homosexuality isn’t going to be so “is-he-or-isn’t-he” as it was back in the 80’s, when it was hugely controversial (and the show completely ignored HIV/AIDS) to have a gay character in the first place.

A story I’d sent out for submission was rejected yesterday, which I was expecting. My short story game isn’t as strong as I’d like it to be, and while I love this story, it doesn’t really fit in well with the theme of crime, you know? I also wasn’t pleased with how it ended, which means that the ending wasn’t set up properly, so I am going to let it sit for a while before rereading it and figuring out how to tweak that ending to make it work properly. It clearly didn’t work the way it’s currently written. But it’s a story I want to tell…and even last night, as I mourned in the usual way I do when rejected (even when I’m pretty sure the submission will be rejected) it did occur to me that I might know a way to make it better already. So I need to make that note and shove it into the folder.

Onward and upward, as they say.

And here’s a hunk to slide you into the weekend:

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All This Love

Monday, and in two days I’ll be jetting off for Toronto. Huzzah! Needless to say, this is a very exciting thing for me; Bouchercon has become one of my favorite times of the year.

In other exciting news, I discovered an electronic final copy of Jackson Square Jazz yesterday. It was there the whole time, but I didn’t think it was the final copy because the first chapter, every time I opened the file, was only like 3300 words and I thought, no, that’s not it because it’s not long enough…and then I looked at it again yesterday, saw how many actual chapters there were, pulled them all into one document and realized that yes, indeed, this actually was the version I turned in. So, it’s not copy edited, which means I’ll need to copy edit it and it won;t be the same version, ultimately, as the print version when the book goes live…but I don’t have to retype the entire thing.

I’d much rather do a final polish than retype almost a hundred thousand words, believe you me.

Another horror novel bit the dust last night, not surviving the fifty-page test. (For those of you who are wondering that that is, I give a book fifty pages to engage me in some way. If by page fifty I don’t care about the book in any way, or it has annoyed me in some way, into the donation pile it goes.)  Likewise, I try to give a television show at least three episodes before giving up on it. I’m also trying to break the habit of watching shows that I once enjoyed once they’ve run out of steam. Much as I hate to say it, Paul and I have abandoned a lot of the superhero shows currently airing because they’ve either run out of steam or just gone off the rails. I loved Flash, but seriously–how many times do you go back in time and alter the timeline and fuck up everything before you decide “hey, maybe this is a bad idea”?

For the record, it should have only taken one.

So much to do before I leave for Bouchercon on Wednesday! I’ve made my packing list, still need to put together a to-do list, and figure out if it’s a stupid idea to take things with me to work on (since I never work on anything at these things, but of course, you know the one time I don’t take anything with I’ll not only have the time but will want to work on something and be enormously frustrated I didn’t bring anything); decide what books to take along to read (remember: I am only reading horror for October–I am thinking about reading Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco next), and get the suitcase started.

But I have to get through this week first. Two days at the office. Heavy heaving sigh. And I need to send out some more queries this morning.

C’est la vie.

And now, back to the spice mines. Here’s a hunk for you, to get your morning rolling.

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Come Dancing

Tuesday!

Being off yesterday was kind of nice. I started a project I’ve been meaning to start all year (it was one of my goals set on the first of the year) and went to my storage unit. The goal is to clean a lot out of it, as well as get some more copies of my books out to replenish the supply in the Lost Apartment. I was actually worried that the boxes of my books were in the absolute back, but they weren’t. I was able to assemble three boxes of books to donate, found the copies of my own books I needed (hello, Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz!) and now that I’ve actually done it–it’s not as intimidating as I thought it would be. I’ve also always kept my papers–manuscript drafts, notes, etc–in manuscript boxes or small boxes that approximate a manuscript box; those don’t end up stacking well and you can only imagine how many of those there are. I’ve decided that the smart thing to do is get rid of those small, collapsing, not-so-sturdy boxes and assemble file boxes, and move the papers in there, labelling the new boxes appropriately. That way they’ll stack better, and will most likely create more room. And when I am moving all that stuff around, I can drag out other boxes of stored books to donate. So, yes, I am feeling inordinately proud of myself.

I started reading Eric Ambler’s Background to Danger, which I believe may be his first novel. It’s really quite good; Mr. Ambler certainly knew how to turn a phrase: One sunny morning in July, Mr. Joseph Bhaltergren’s blue Rolls-Royce oozed silently away from the pavement in Berkeley Square, slid across Piccadilly into St. James’, and sped softly eastward towards the City of London.

I so wish I’d written that sentence. While it’s ostensibly about the car and the drive into London, it also tells you everything you need to know about the passenger. That’s pretty masterful.

After taking the weekend off (from writing) I managed to get back to work. I intend to get the reread of the WIP finished over this week, and then the adjustments to the manuscript that need to be made done this weekend, as well as writing the query letter. I also hope to get some of the new Scotty written this week; Chapter Six is sucking big time.

Ah, well. I don’t have to go into the office until later today, so I should be able to get some work on it finished. We are greatly enjoying Harlan Coben’s The Five on Netflix; we’re about four or five episodes in, so about halfway finished. I have an excessively long day tomorrow, but that’s cool.

All right, I’ve got things to do this morning.

Here’s a Tuesday morning hunk for you:

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How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?

I got up at five yesterday morning for the NO/AIDS Walk; which I worked for five hours. I also worked Saturday, so I gloriously have today off, and don’t have to go in until later tomorrow. I intend to go to the storage unit and retrieve some copies of the first two Scotty books, Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz, because I don’t have any copies in the Lost Apartment, and every once in a while people ask for copies, or I might be able to sell some, or something. In either case, it sucks not having copies on hand. I am a little worried they may be buried in the back of the unit, but I also need to start getting rid of the stuff stored in there anyway. I’m not going to get rid of it all, but obviously, there are things in there I don’t need to keep.

After I came home yesterday I was delighted to watch the Saints win, and we also finished watching Atypical, which is really a charming and funny show you can binge-watch on Netflix, and we also started watching Harlan Coben’s The Five, which is also very well done and interesting.

I also finished reading Linda Joffe Hull’s Eternally 21.

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I didn’t think things could get much more for worse than the night my husband came home looking like his usual tall, dark, and handsome self but wearing a very unusual shade of  I’m-really-sorry-but-I-lost-everything-in-a-Ponzi-scheme. Suffice it to say, the news was shocking, distressing, mortifying, terrifying, and any number of other disaster-relating –ings. Given my husband happens to be Channel Three’s wealth-management guru, it was also potentially career ending.

After all, who would watch his show, Frank Finance, if Frank “Finance” Michaels was broke?

I needed to help make ends meet, but there was no out-of-the-way bar where I could cocktail waitress in guaranteed anonymity. Not one where I was sure my husband’s face wouldn’t appear on the corner TV. Beside, Frank had to let his personal assistant go, so I stepped in at a salary of hopefully we’ll be able to keep the house.

Under strict gag orders about our financial bind and obligated to keep up the appearance of what was suddenly our former lifestyle, I did was any resourceful, close to middle-age, stay-at-home mom with a computer would do–after I finished crying and had consumed all the Rocky Road, Doritos, and Girl Scout cookies in the house: Welcome to http://www.mrsfrugalicious.com, the website devoted to all things savings!

Four months had passed since I posted those words and I, Mrs. Frugalicious, AKA Mrs. Frank Finance, AKA Maddie Michaels–still felt a little thrill.

Okay, a big thrill.

In that remarkably skillful opening, Linda Joffe Hull sets up her series: Maddie Michaels is our erstwhile heroine; she runs a website devoted to tips saving money; and she explains not only who she is, but why she runs that website. This is also an incredibly, incredibly clever opening, and a mini-master class is defining character: because you see exactly how Maddie sees herself–she is a wife and mother and partner first and foremost, a person second. She even lists, towards the end there, how she sees herself, in order–Mrs. Frugalicious, Mrs. Frank Finance, Maddie Michaels. She herself doesn’t even realize how important being Mrs. Frugalicious is to her; it’s a career and persona she has created herself, by herself, for herself; her second most important identity is as the wife of a television personality, and lastly, herself. And as you turn each addictive page, the real story of Eternally 21 isn’t necessarily the murder mystery itself, but the story of a woman who has long subsumed herself in the identity of being supportive wife and loving mother, slowly coming to terms with, and accepting, her own power.

This isn’t to say that the murder mystery–a horrible store manager at the local mall Maddie frequents dies right in front of her–isn’t interesting and compelling, full of twists and turns, with some big surprises at the end I frankly didn’t see coming. It’s very deftly plotted, and of course, the most important part of any amateur sleuth novel is coming up with a believable way for the amateur to get involved in the case, and want to try to solve it.  And as she solves the mystery, struggles to keep her secret identity secret, continues to be the glue holding her family and household together, and pull off keeping her website going, it quickly becomes clear that Maddie Michaels is a force to be reckoned with. Maddie is someone the reader can identify with and root for, and her twin sons are also incredibly likable…and you begin to wonder why, precisely, she puts up with her narcissistic husband.

It’s a lot of fun. Published by Midnight Ink, an excellent press primarily focused on crime fiction–they also publish Jess Lourey and Catriona MacPherson’s terrific stand-alones and R. Jean Reid’s (J. M. Redmann’s pseudonym) new series–the book is compelling and a lot of fun; there are times when I smiled, others when I laughed out loud.

I do look forward to reading more in this series.

 

Gloria

Tuesday! I have a long day of testing facing me, capped off with bar testing tonight at Good Friends. I have my morning free, at least before I have to run my errands, so I am going to try to get some writing done. I did finish Chapter 5 yesterday, and am trying to get the next five chapters outlined before I get moving on Chapter 6. I think I know what’s going to happen next; but everything’s kind of amorphous and I really want to sit and think it all through before I try writing. Some of the stuff in the first five chapters is going to need to be redone–there’s some stuff that I might have to cut out entirely–and I am going to seriously consider that before just trying to make it all work together.

I printed out another, trimmed copy of the WIP, which is now 276 pages instead of 340. That was some serious editing I did there. I am going to wait until this weekend to read it again; although I have lots of notes about what needs to be done with it.

I also started writing another short story yesterday, “The White Knuckler.” Not sure how it turns out, but right now in my head it’s just another variation on my theme of ‘running into someone from your past on a vehicle of mass transportation,” like my story “A Streetcar Named Death.” I do seem to return to the same themes, or variations on the same type of story, an awful lot. So, I am just going to rough draft it out, and then try to figure out how not to make it just another variation on a theme. I don’t want to be reductive.

Short stories are hard.

Lisa Unger’s In the Blood continues to enthrall. We are also watching a Netflix original series, Atypical, which is about a highly functional autistic teenager and his family. His parents are played by Michael Rappaport and Jennifer Jason Leigh (of whom I’ve been a fan since Fast Times at Ridgemont High); Sam the teen is played by Keir Gilchrist, who played the gay son on United States of Tara. It’s actually a very sweet show, with strong characters played by actors very good in the roles; its focus is that Sam is now ready to start dating, or rather, thinks he should start dating. The show is both funny and touching, and we are enjoying it quite a bit.

So, this morning I am going to sign out of here, do some filing, and basically figure out what I need to do (in other words, get organized), and perhaps curl up in the easy chair with some more Lisa Unger to get inspired, as I always am by brilliantly talented people.

Here’s a Tuesday hunk for you:

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Dirty Laundry

Wednesday! I have my biannual doctor visit this morning, so won’t be going into the office until later; I am doing bar testing this evening as well. I hope to get more edits put in–seriously, passing the halfway point made such a mental difference; each page I finish it like another step down the other side of the mountain. I am really looking forward to finishing; I know exactly what I have to do with this in the final draft, and am really really excited about finally finishing and getting it out there.

Huzzah! Yay, me!

So, Paul had dinner with a friend last night, and while I was waiting for him to come home (I’m not enjoying the book I’m reading and may put it aside), I decided to watch a documentary on HBO: Bolshoi Babylon.

Wow.

Over the last few years I’ve become obsessively interested in ballet; but most ballet stories are generally about women–understandably so; the men are primarily there, for the most part, to show off the women and their skills–but male ballet dancers are fascinating to me. For one thing, their bodies are amazing, and for another, what they can make their bodies do is even more amazing. It’s rare for a male ballet dancer to outshine his female counterparts; but when they do, they become big stars. (Nureyev, Baryshnikov, etc.) The world of ballet also seems very dark to me, very noir; the way the dancers torture their bodies to make beauty and art, the fragility of the egos, the constant need for approval–and of course, as dark as it is, it can get even darker.

Bolshoi Babylon is about the acid attack on ballet director Sergei Fimin several years ago; I remember when it happened. Fimin was a star of the ballet, became the artistic director, and then was viciously attacked, acid thrown in his face, and a long, painful recovery from the attack followed–he eventually got the sight back in one eye, but remained blind in the other. A male dancer in the company was behind the attack; Fimin had passed over his girlfriend for a lead, and he wanted revenge for his love. (I was very much reminded of the Tonya-Nancy figure skating drama; ballet and figure skating also have a lot in common.) But the documentary simply uses the attack as a launching point for an examination of the world of the Bolshoi; its internal and external politics, and also focuses on some of the dancers and what their lives are like.

It was riveting.

I’ve long wanted to write a noir about figure skating, and another about ballet. Watching Bolshoi Babylon only emphasized that desire; alas, I have this manuscript to complete, a Scotty to write, and I am also toying with that horror novel. But I think I shall continue my researches into both figure skating and ballet; Paul got home and watched the end of the documentary, and he agreed that it would be interesting to go to the New Orleans Ballet.

I also have been crushing on Italian ballet dancer Roberto Bolle for years now; thank you, Sarah Hilary, for bringing him to my attention!

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I also got involved in an interesting discussion on a friend’s Facebook thread about author Louise Penny, whom I’ve not read, and who was just here in New Orleans to accept the Pinckney Prize, as this year’s recipient. I had to miss the event, as it was last week. But I do have a copy of her first novel, and I will try to read it before Bouchercon.

So much to read before Bouchercon! I can’t believe I have homework.

Truly

Tuesday! I made it through Monday. I also managed to get a big hunk of edits input into the manuscript, which means I am on the downward slope to getting that finished. I am most likely going to put aside working on Scotty until the edits are finished, now that I’m in a groove, and am very pleased, I must say. I would love to have this done by the weekend, so I can let it sit for another week while I work on Scotty; but I don’t know; that’s going to depend on two things: motivation and energy.

We’ll see how that turns out, won’t we?

Heavy sigh.

I am debating on whether I want to reread It. I bought it the day it was released, back in 1986 (as I have done with everything Stephen King has published since Different Seasons,  and I read it over the course of two days. (I binge-read King’s novels back then; each as they came out, on the day they were released; a habit I have sadly fallen out of.) I also used to reread King novels many times; I can’t count how many times I’ve reread, for example, The Stand, The Dead Zone, ‘salem’s Lot, etc. I still will reread one of those earlier novels on occasion; but I’ve never reread It, though, and I’m not sure why. I think I got out of the habit of rereading King sometime in the mid-1990’s; and what I wouldn’t give for the time to sit down and reread them all, beginning with Carrie and working my way through the most recent. But now that a new film version of It is out, and breaking records, and getting much critical acclaim; it may be time to reread the Big Novel. I loved It the first time, cherishing the characters more so than the story, which did terrify me; but I vaguely remember not liking the ending; which was a first for me with King.

I do love Stephen King, both as a person and as a writer; granted, what I know of him as a person is confined to news reports of things he does, and his Twitter account; plus, I did get to meet him at the Edgars several years ago, which was one of the biggest thrills of my life. It’s hard to describe what King’s work has meant to me; how it’s inspired me as a writer, and pushed me to not only find my own voice as a writer but made me want to figure out how to create characters that, no matter how bad they might be or how awful the things they do, the reader can find some sympathy for. His On Writing is the book I always recommend to beginning writers as a place to start learning to write, and ‘salem’s Lot (with Needful Things running right behind it) is one of the best novels about a small town, and small town life, I’ve ever read. “The Body” is one of my favorite novellas, if not the favorite; and of course the film version, Stand by Me, is one of my favorite films. His uncanny eye for human behavior, his insights into character that are so honest and real and true, are what make the books so damned brilliant for me.

We watched the first episode of American Horror Story: Cult last night as well; it was an excellent start to the season. But that doesn’t mean the show won’t go off the rails as it continues to unfold; it seems like it almost always does. And without the anchor of Jessica Lange giving a balls-out performance at the center, the post-Jessica seasons tend to lose my interest along the way. We never finished watching Hotel, but we did finish the mess that was Roanoke. As Halloween approaches–it’s certainly has felt more like fall around here since Labor Day, with temperatures in the low seventies and no humidity–my mind is turning more and more to reading horror; it’s almost time for my annual Halloween reread of The Haunting of Hill House, and I do have some other horror in my TBR pile I’d like to get through. I promised Katrina Holm I’d read Michael MacDowell’s The Elementals before Bouchercon so we could drink martinis and discuss it; I’ve got some unread Nick Cutter on my shelves, as well as some other things from ChiZine Press (which never disappoints), and there are some Stephen King novels in my collection I’ve yet to read. I also want to reread Peter Straub’s Ghost Story and Floating Dragon; as I said the other day, a horror novel I’ve been thinking about for about thirty years has been percolating in my frontal lobes the last week or so–I finally realized where I could set it, where it would make sense, as opposed to where I’d stubbornly been wanting to set it, where it wouldn’t work so I’ve never been able to write it–and I may start sketching some ideas for it.

And on that note, these edits aren’t going to input themselves.

Here’s a hunk for you, Constant Reader, Eddie Cibrian, in his underwear:

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