Tag Archives: On Assignment

Nick D. Clark is an American actor and writer who was been known to, on occasion, partake in a ‘cleanse’. The range of cleanses he dabbles in as a taxing paying citizen are nearly as vast as those he dives into as an established thespian. Clark is well known for abnegating caffeine, booze[1], jalapenos, and animal products. Once while still a university student, he gave up food, drink, and general merriment for a year and eleven months[2] and subsisted solely on a daily cocktail of lemon juice, honey and a bit of cayenne pepper. Needless to say Clark, as both an abstainer and a glutton, is a force to be reckoned with.

With this in mind, I tracked down Clark at his Los Angeles office located on Grand Avenue in downtown’s Civic Center. When I arrived he was cradling his head in his hands and mumbling something about the residual effects of owning oversized martini glasses and the benefits of pickle juice.

The Neapolitan Mastiff: Why am I here today?

Nick Clark: I see you’ve decided to come out swinging.  Fair enough, Hardball.  I’m gonna call you Hardball from now on.

I smiled as a professional is obliged and took the verbal abuse. He lit a cigarette and a teenager wearing a maroon vest put what looked like a vodka and grapefruit into my hand. I didn’t decline. I tasted and it was unquestionably a greyhound. We raise our glasses because it was 11:00 a.m.

TNM: I heard you once quoted as saying that you enjoyed hanger steak. Is that an acquired taste like malt liquor?

NC: I would argue that neither taste is really “aquired.”  I think if you got a bunch of kids—like little, y’know, innocenty-type kids—together and fed them all hanger steak and malt liquor, and then they were all totally honest with you about it, they’d thank you .

TNM: If you were to —

NC: I’ve decided not to call you Hardball, by the way.

TNM: Haha, thanks… If you were to, say, slaughter a cow and you could only procure a single cut and a single serving at that, would you pick one of the eighty or so pounds of hanger steak that the cow’s carcass has available, or would you opt for a less available cut like filet mignon?

NC: Look, just because something is uncommon doesn’t make it delicious.  The least “available” part of a cow is probably, I dunno, the hypothalamus, or—wait the ballsack… use “ballsack,” edit out that hypothalamus stuff.  “Ballsack” is hilarious.

TNM: Having grown—

NC: I think this is going well, don’t you?

TNM: Having grown up in the Bay Area, which hometown–

NC: That ballsack stuff is good, right?

TNM: Let’s just get through this, man…  Having grown up in the Bay Area, which hometown hero had the greatest impact on you growing up: Andre Nickatina, Danny Glover, Jerry Brown or Jim Jones?

NC: Ooh, that’s hard.  I would say Danny Glover, but that’s only because a friend of mine’s sister once dated a guy who looked exactly like Danny Glover, except that he was white and English—that’s not a joke, that’s true.  But that’s not really… that doesn’t count, does it?  I guess Jerry Brown…  Y’know for years I thought Jerry Brown was black?  I got him mixed up with Willie Brown.   It honestly wasn’t until his resurgence against this Whitman dildo that I realized they were different people—and then I was bummed that he wasn’t Willie!  That woulda been sweet, I always liked Willie Brown.  Could you add Willie Brown to your list?  Because then it’d be Willie Brown.  Yes.  Willie Brown had the greatest impact on me.

TNM: What’s your stance on the carpool lane?

NC: Oooh, look who’s back, Hardball…  I like the carpool lane, but I think it should be 3 people, like it is up in the Bay Area—that might have been Willie Brown’s doing, by the way.

TNM: If you could banish one person from the U.S.A. who would it be?

NC: Banish? Where to would be important…  I would maybe banish Sarah Palin, but only to a place that still had cell service—I derive too much amusement from her Tweets.  If we’re talking banishment to, say, a cage full of bears, it’d have to be Glenn Beck.  I feel like those are really obvious and tellingly liberal answers, but those two are doing an awful lot of damage.

TNM: Did I see you on The Office?

NC: Not if you blinked.

TNM: Did you mean what you said about hanger steak? What about a nice rib eye?

NC: OF COURSE I DIDN’T MEAN THAT!  RIB EYE IS BETTER!  FILET MIGNON IS BETTER!!!  I CAN AFFORD NEITHER! GHAA!!!

TNM: Okay, settle down… What’s the name of that web series that everyone en el mundo should watch until they’ve committed it to memory?

NC: Vicariously.  It can be—sorry about that outburst, man, someone will get you a new greyhound… JARVIS!  I SPILLED HARDBALL’S GREYHOUND, GET HIM ANOTHER!—anyway, the show is called Vicariously, and it can be located on the internet at www.vicariously.tv

TNM: Meg Whitman, Serena Williams and Catherine Heigl: You’ve got to date one, gag one and pick one to replace Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff. Who will do what and why?

NC: Serena Williams is absolutely Chief of Staff.  She’ll throw out more F-bombs than Emanuel did, can you imagine?  I’d gag Heigl–not that anyone is listening anyway—and I’d date Meg Whitman so that I could shit inside of her heart.

Nick Clark is the co-creator and star of the series Vicariously. You can catch him every week slanging cuvee and talking cattle at the L.A. Music Center, but we’d prefer if you just watched him here.

–The Neapolitan Mastiff

[2] The exact amount of time he remained true to the cleanse is debatable.