Contact:

CONTACT:
Harris Spylios
Davis/Spylios Management
212-581-5767
dspylios@verizon.net
Performance Reel
ELI JAMES is an actor, writer, songwriter and standup in New York.

His Broadway credits include the National Theatre of Great Britain's "One Man, Two Guvnors," directed by Nicholas Hytner, and Alex Timbers's and Michael Friedman's "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson." His solo show "William and the Tradesmen" has been performed at Ars Nova, La Mama, and The Drilling Company. Further stage credits include "Rutherford and Son" and "Temporal Powers" at The Mint, "The Four of Us" at Manhattan Theatre Club, "Becky Shaw" at Boston’s Huntington Theater, and the world premiere of Jason Grote’s "Maria/Stuart," directed by Pam McKinnon. His TV credits include "Gossip Girl," "Lights Out," and "Murder in Manhattan." He co-founded, wrote and performed with the sketch comedy group Quiet Library at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and currently performs with improv team Pleading Softly. His essay "Finding the Beat" was published in the Random House collection "Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers," a Boston Globe Bestseller.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

This man doesn't deserve a kitchen.


Peanut butter sandwich and a glass of wine.

Leftover tri-color pasta with cold jar sauce, followed by Ben and Jerry's.

Two peanut butter sandwiches and a beer.


Yes, these are all things I've dared to call dinner during my adult life. My adult life is everything from college up to 10:45 today.

I think that if I were to describe my lifelong consistent eating habits to a dietitian over the phone, he or she would render into a sketch pad a portrait of me that would include the following qualities:

Fat.
Bad skin.
Thinning hair.
Poor gums.
Bowel irregularity.
(though I'm not sure how this would be drawn in a portrait)
Dodgy breath
.(again, hard to sketch realistically, but may be indicated as necessary with stink lines.)
Subpar eyesight.
Poor muscle tone.
Scoliosis.
Bulging ankles.
Under-eye puffiness.
Premature deafness.
Some skull shrinkage.
Receding penis.


Lord knows how I've gotten away with looking as polite as I currently do. I give it a year, tops, before all - not just some - of the above conditions come to light upon this vessel God made out of healthy Semitic sex cells, fertilized in love, not anger, only a few decades ago.

Soon I won't be able to make it up a flight of stairs without pausing to collect one or more teeth on the lino.

I will breathe like a hippo. I will buy Cuban shirts by the crate.

I will transform. It's coming.

It's coming.

For, this I vowed long ago: that I will learn how to play Major 7th chords and how to do a Liverpool accent and how to get in touch with long suppressed memories for the benefit of a paying audience - but I will never, ever learn to take care of myself.

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