New idea

So I'm finally on the internet again and all of this thinking about The New Yorker has given me and idea for this blog: What if, instead of writing every day or every once in a while, what if I posted once a week, say, every Monday, and it was one big post, kind of like a weekly magazine. And each week there'd be a little of everything: a movie review, an article about new songs on the radio or what was good on TV that week, there could be a section on various things to look forward to in the coming week, like books that are coming out or new albums. Like I said before, I don't read The New Yorker. It's a good magazine but it doesn't really interest me. Still, I like the format. I could do an article on some random subject (and then fact-check like crazy) and then I could write a short story or two. I'm not funny but maybe I could draw some cartoons. They just won't be funny. The only thing is, I don't have a scanner so that will make it really hard to add any visual material. This could be a lot of fun. I'm gonna be busy with work over the next couple days and with the storm coming tomorrow I'm gonna be staying at a friend's house overnight so it's gonna be a while before i make these changes, if I do.

Tom Wolfe and William Shawn Hooking Up

My new obsession started in 2004, or at least, it was set in motion then- I was at Ocean State Job Lot looking at their discount books (they have hardcovers for $2 or $3) and in the same section they had books on CD. There weren't many audiobooks there but one looked good: "Hooking Up" by Tom Wolfe. All I knew was "Bonfire of the Vanities" and the white suit, and I had read "The Right Stuff" recently and liked it. Hooking Up was a 6 CD set and it was $2 or $3 so I got it and started listening in my car right away.


The "Hooking Up" CD set is a collection of essays- some read by Wolfe, others by Ron Rifkin- and I was surprised by how interesting they were. Made me wish I had a long car trip to make. There are two essays that I like especially: "Two Young Men Who Went West" (the two young men are Josiah Grinnell, the founder of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa in the 1900s and a later resident of Grinell, Robert Noyce who went on to found Intel) and "My Three Stooges" (the stooges are Norman Mailer, John Updike, and John Irving).



"My Three Stooges" (read by Wolfe; the essays that he reads come across better) was about an event that I didn't hear about at the time but wish I had- though I do remember seeing Wolfe on the cover of Time. "My Three Stooges" tells the story of how Wolfe's second novel "A Man In Full" came out in 1997 or 1998, was well-received (by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek) well publisized (Vanity Fair and that Time cover story), and sold huge amounts of copies (a shitload of books were sold) and not long afterwards Norman Mailer and John Updike reviewed the "A Man In Full" and said that it wasn't real literature, it was entertainment; and Wolfe wasn't a novelist, he was just a reporter. John Irving came out against Wolfe later in a TV interview.


The details of the story are interesting and fun to read and it gets better as Wolfe talks about realistic, fact- based novels vs. literary novels that are abstract and not connected to life in America (or anywhere else). I'm going on too long here and I haven't even gotten to my obsession. Here it comes. The audiobook, I found out years later, doesn't have everything that's in the book "Hooking Up". The book, which I bought before Christmas, also has a novella called "Ambush At Fort Bragg" about a network news show going after three soldiers that they suspect murdered a fellow soldier. The novella had originally been published in Rolling Stone and was meant to be a part of "A Man In Full" but didn't end up fitting in with the rest of the story. But that's not even the good part. At the end of the book the re-print a two-part article that Wolfe wrote for The New York tribune, a parody of The New Yorker and profile of its editor William Shawn.



In the article he says that Shawn, in an effort to keep the magazine exactly as it was under the control of its founder and original editor Harold Ross, has made The New Yorker dull and boring. Wolfe also tells stories about William Shawn and his quiet, cautious manner and says that the main reason that Shawn is so guarded is because he believes that he was an intended target of Leopold and Loeb who considered kidnapping him but instead killed a younger classmate, Bobby Franks. Wolfe's editor sent an advance copy to William Shawn and Shawn wrote to the Tribune's owner to try to convince him to withhold the article. The editor leaked the letter and it all turned into a big news story in Time and Newsweek. So, both parts of the article are re-printed in Hooking Up, plus there are two (too-) short essays- one setting the scene of how the idea for the article came about and how it was researched and written, and another at the end telling about the outcry from various New Yorker writers, including a telegram from JD Salinger.



Anyway, I just got my computer working again so I spent last night looking up info on The New Yorker, William Shawn, Harold Ross, and Lillian Ross (William Shawn's mistress and author of a book about their 40 year affair "Here But Not Here"). The funny thing is, usually, unless there's an essay from David Sedaris inside, I don't even read The New Yorker.

Things from this week

I'm so happy to see that Final Girl is blogging again. For a while it was out of service- no new posts and, even worse, there was some cheap ad banner under the header. I was bored last week and when I feel that way I like to go to the review archives and read or re-read old posts. It always makes me wanna watch movies I haven't seen yet, like Alice Sweet Alice and The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Last night I watched this week's episode of The Newsroom. There are only 2 more episodes coming. If there's one thing I don't like about series on cable it's that their seasons are so short. It feels like The Newsroom just started. And it seems like Nurse Jackie does one month of new episodes and then ends for the year. I understand: they're well-made, well-written, expensive shows. I don't care. I think the seasons should be at least twice as long. This afternoon my friend took me to Burger King and I got a Coke and a Rodeo Burger w/out cheese. This is the first time I've asked them to leave the cheese off and it was so good- just BBQ sauce and onion rings. It was the perfect lunch and because it was so hot out the Coke was soooo good. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed (and I have been) I like to watch something scary to take my mind off things. I went to the FearNet On Demand station and nothing looked good. My only choices were Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer- it's supposed to be good and I heard a lot about it when it came out, but it came out in the late 80s; I figured it was gonna be too dated- or Midnight Meat Train. Just the title alone is pretty upsetting. It was 2am and I figured I'd watch it, go to bed, and then sleep late because I'm off today. I started watching the movie and at first I was worried that it was gonna be too scary and upsetting but then I saw all the CGI special effects and that's what saved me. CGI doesn't scare me at all. It looks so fake that it has no effect on me. So instead of being disturbed by the murder scenes I could just watch and follow the story. I didn't realize that Bradley Cooper was in this movie. I was also surprised to see Brooke Shields. I'm not sure what to say about this movie. Did I like it? I don't know, it was OK. Would I recomend it? I guess- or at least I wouldn't tell someone not to watch it. Was it scary? Yes, it had it's moments. I realized last night that there's probably nothing scarier than having the good guys sneak into the home of the bad guy when he's not there. So it's 5:30pm. I've still got laundry to do and some cleaning so I'm gonna get back to that. Good night.

"The Newsroom"

I've seen every episode of The Newsroom and I like it. It has all the things I like and dislike about Aaron Sorkin projects. I have something to say about this week's episode, "Bullies", and I'm not sure if it's a complaint or just something I noticed... Now, if Sorkin had some ideas that he used on Studio 60, his behind-the-scenes-at-a-late-night-comedy-show that lasted one season on NBC a couple years ago and he wanted to re-visit them on The Newsroom then that would make sense. Not many people saw that show. But Sorkin is copying who episodes of The West Wing and a lot of people are familiar with that show. In the second season of The West Wing, Josh needed to see a psychiatrist. He was very reluctant to tell the guy anything and initially Josh lied to the guy and the guy caught it got pissed. It was revealed that Josh flipped out in the Oval Office and was suffering from PTSD after being shot. The psychiatrist figured out Josh's problem at the very beginning of their conversation and revealed his diognosis at the close of the show. The psychiatrist was no-nonsense and Jewish (Adam Arkin, he's great- I felt so bad when he got killed in Halloween H20). In this week's episode of The Newsroom, Will goes to see his psychiatrist because he's having trouble sleeping (a lot like the West Wing episode "Five Nights"). Here it's revealed that Will's had an angry outburst on the air when he went after a gay Rick Santorum supporter. Will is very reluctant to talk but his no-nonsense Jewish psychiatrist figures out Will's problem at the beginning of their conversation. Like I said, I'm not complaining; it's just something I noticed. This isn't unusual for Sorkin. Before The West Wing he wrote a Michael Douglas movie called The American President. At one point in the movie the US is attacked and Douglas is in the Situation Room with his military team. He doesn't like their plan: a proportional response. In the first season of The West Wing there was a similar scenes- but more fleshed out- in an episode called "A Proportional Response". I read somewhere that a lot of left over storylines from the movie were used for the show.

Ken Levine's blog

One day I was on Wiki reading about Cheers episodes and they mentioned Carla's husband Eddie and the way that he left the show. On Cheers, Eddie was done with hockey and ended up in an ice show. Then he was run over and killed by a Zamboni machine. Wiki had a link to the blog By Ken Levine and on his blog he told the story about how the actor who played Eddie, Jay Thomas, had a radio show at the time and one day a caller asked what was the worst thing about working on Cheers and he answered, "Having to kiss Rhea Perlman". She was listening that day. I liked Levine's blog and I went back and read his older posts from the archive. There are some great tips for TV writers and lots of behind-the-scenes stories about Cheers, MASH, Frasier, and other shows he's worked on. Anyway, on Fridays he answers questions from readers and one guy, ScottyB, mentioned how unfunny and typical childbirth scenes are on TV and in movies. The pregnant woman freaks out and yells at the father and demands drugs. That's so true. Just last month I saw the trailer for some dumb movie called What To Expect When You're Expecting and it had a clip of a woman in labor. MAN: Remember, honey, you said you wanted a natural childbirth? WOMAN: Give me the juice. GIVE ME THE JUICE!!! We've all seen that scene a billion times and it's never funny. Then at the end the father will act all tough and tell the woman that he's going to stay by her side for the whole delivery. A doctor will step up with some scary medical equipment or a huge needle, or the baby starts coming and the man looks under the sheet and he faints. Someone should put together a collection of clips from sitcoms and movies and show all the hysterical women and fainting fathers. That would make a good Youtube video.

"The Newsroom" and "Prometheus"

My friend loves the Alien movies and I love going to the movies, so tonight we went to see Prometheus. I've got a lot of problems with this movie. The main thing is- it doesn't make a lot of sense. No, it's main problem is that it's slow and almost unwatchable. Halfway through, and then especially towards the end, I just wanted it to be over so I could go out and have a cigarette. Prometheus is really two movies: it's a movie that asks questions about where humans came from, and it's also a horror movie about Alien-type creatures attacking people. Here's something that bothered me: during the opening credits I saw "Guy Pearce". I was pretty excited; I like him and haven't seen him since The Rules of Engagement in 2000. He was so good in that. So I watched the movie and forgot all about him. Then during the closing credits I saw his name again. Oh, right- I forgot about Guy. So, who did he play? Then I realized that he was the actor under all the old person make-up. The movies are not good at aging people. I'm thinking about The Godfather Part III and A League of Their Own. The only example of good old-person make-up is Father Merrin in The Exorcist. The funny thing is, now that he really is old, he looks just like Dick Smith made him look in that movie. By the way, this past weekend I saw both the first episode of The Newsroom and Aaron Sorkin on Piers Morgan talking about The Newsroom. The show was exactly the way I expected it to be but I'm not complaining. I don't know if I'm gonna like it as much as The West Wing but I think it will be good. Anyway, Morgan asked Sorkin about acting and good actors and Sorkin said that one thing that actors can't fake is being smart. I agree and there's a good example in Prometheus. I'm not saying that Logan Marshall-Green, the guy who plays Charlie Holloway, is dumb or stupid. He's probably pretty bright. But in this movie he was playing an archaeologist and I didn't believe it for a second. You watch him and you know that he hasn't read a book since he was a senior in high school. It isn't Green's fault; he's just mis-cast. By the way, through the whole movie I was trying to remember where I'd seen Green before. It wouldn't come to me so I looked him up when I got home and then I found it: he played the guy who made it to the end in Devil. Before i started writing this I looked up Prometheus on Wiki cause I was confused about the story. I still don't understand why people (and robots) did the things they did, and I'd like to find out, but I'd like to find out in any way that doesn't involve watching the movie ever again.

Booker T and the MGs

A few weeks ago I bought Elvis Costello's Get Happy again, this time the 2 CD set from Rhino. 50 songs. In the liner notes he mentions that when they were making this record he picked up a bunch of Stax singles and that the bassline for "Temptation" was taken from the Booker T and the MGs song "Time Is Tight", so I really wanted to hear that song. Booker T and the MGs are best known for their instrumental song "Green Onions". You know it. If you've ever gone to the movies and sat through trailers then you've heard it. They always play it to show that a character is cool. Anyway, I've also been obsessed with the movie The Blues Brothers (and 1998's Blues Brothers 2000) and the Blues Brothers Band feaures two MGs: Steve Cropper (who I first heard of when he played on Frank Black's Honeycomb LP) and Donald "Duck" Dunn (Dunn recently died). The Blues Brothers was on last night so I watched it again. The songs are so good, especially Ray Charles doing "Shake A Tail Feather" and Aretha doing "Think". Aretha also has some great lines in the movie and she nails them- "Don't you blaspheme in here! Don't you blaspheme in here!" and "So you can leave without your dry white toast, and without your four fried chickens, and you can leave without Matt "Guitar" Murphey!" The best thing that happened last week is that I was flipping around and one of my movie stations was playing a documentary called Respect Yourself- The Story of Stax. It told the whole story of Stax Records and was narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.