Queens of the Stone Age – "In My Head" (2005)

Keep on playin' our favorite song

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The subject of the previous 2 or 3 lines was the fictional Hollywood talent agent, Ari Gold, who is my favorite character on the late, great HBO series, Entourage.  

Here's Ari's reaction when he learns that one of his clients had been dating his assistant, but now has broken up with her:

Ari: From now on, ask my permission before you bang my assistant. . . . I could have told you it would end badly.  Now I've gotta fire her so you don't feel weird when you come to my office.

Client: No! Don't fire her!

Ari: All right.  I'll just sexually harass her until she quits.

That exchange may have been a case of art imitating life.

Ari Gold  in action

The fictional Ari Gold was inspired by the very real Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel, who left a large Hollywood agency in 1995 to open up his own shop, which he named Endeavor.  

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times article about Emanuel and Endeavor:

In depositions and court filings . . . Ms. Epstein and other Endeavor employees described office escapades that included rampant pot-smoking, obscene hazing at corporate retreats, sexual frolics on desks, and one agent demanding that his assistants book prostitutes for him.

Mr. Emanuel, the filings said, allowed a friend to operate a pornographic Web site out of the agency’s quarters. Also, according to Ms. Epstein’s filings, Mr. Emanuel made antigay and racist remarks — accusations he disputed at the time.

Ari Emanuel and Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven)

Ms. Epstein said Mr. Emanuel blocked her from sending a script about the Navy SEALs to the actor Wesley Snipes.  “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” the agent was reported in the papers to have said. “Everyone knows that blacks don’t swim.”

Ari Emanuel is the younger brother of Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff who is currently the mayor of Chicago.  Rahm Emanuel – whose nickname is "Rahmbo" – is also a "colorful" (i.e., nasty, profane, and obnoxious) character.

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times story about the Emanuel brothers:

The best Rahm Emanuel story . . . takes place in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the heady days after Bill Clinton was first elected President.

Rahm Emanuel

It was there that Emanuel, then Clinton's chief fund-raiser, repaired with George Stephanopoulos, Mandy Grunwald and other aides to Doe's, the campaign hangout.  Revenge was heavy in the air as the group discussed the enemies – Democrats, Republicans, members of the press – who wronged them during the 1992 campaign.  Clifford Jackson, the ex-friend of the President and peddler of the Clinton draft-dodging stories, was high on the list.  So was William Donald Schaefer, then the Governor of Maryland and a Democrat who endorsed George Bush.  Nathan Landow, the fund-raiser who backed the candidacy of Paul Tsongas, made it, too.

Suddenly Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and . . . shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table. 

''Dead!'' he screamed.

The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ''Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!''

"In My Head" was released in 2005 on the Queens of the Stone Age's fourth studio album, Lullabies to Paralyze.  It was featured in the closing credit sequence of the eighth episode of the third season of Entourage, which was titled "Release."

QOTSA guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen was not happy with the music video for "In My Head":

The video we ended up with for that song is so lame! . . . It was like a f*cking Gap commercial.  It was terrible.  Just terrible.  

Here's that video:

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