The mental image of your “panniers” has me chuckling! That sort of thing is exactly why I stay in big cities.... because you can pull shit like that and nobody bats an eyelash. You could’ve sailed the SS Menstruation down the street on roller-skates while wearing strobe-light antennae and your best inflatable purple…

I should add that I’m a gay man and had never previously bought tampons, so the Director wrote out very specific directions. I would buy eight boxes and the cashier would use packing tape to tape up two bundles of four and create a little handle. As I sailed down the streets of lower Manhattan like the S. S.…

My best friend responded with “ewww, tmi” once when I mentioned I had cramps. I gave him an earful. He has been supportive, understanding and awesome about it since – he told me he felt obligated to act grossed out because that’s what he was “supposed” to do, but realized how dumb and juvenile it was when I called him…

I wouldn’t say that he just dropped off the radar.
He was still involved with other films.
Almost all his major design decisions were kept in. Smaug having four limbs, the specific dwarf designs.