Month: February 2004

They’re in the Money: The Maloofs and Mark Cuban
This was a great weekend for wealthy, overgrown man-boys in the media. Everywhere you looked, serious, august news organizations were indulging very spoiled, very rich men who’ve built their own Xanadus the same way boys build forts out of sofa cushions and bed sheets.
First up, The New York Times Magazine, which flatteringly profiled the fun-lovin’ Maloof brothers. (The Flying Maloof Brothers by Hugo Lindgren—with photos by Tabitha Soren!) According to Lindgren:

(That ‘lad magazine’ reference inadvertently echoes Julia Chaplin’s A Night Out With: The Maloof Brothers; Boys and Their Toys from The Times ‘Style’ section last November when she said “If FHM or Maxim could invent their dream bachelor, he would no doubt be something like the Maloof brothers.”)
What could be more fun than being a Maloof? They own a casino, a hot nightclub, a sports franchise, and—boo-yah!—they’re friends with Britney Spears (despite the fact that they’re all 15 or more years older than her).
What could be more fun than being a Maloof? Why, being Mark “Cubes” Cuban, of course! Cubes was profiled by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes this weekend. (Self-Made Maverick). Here’s the nut graph:

Now, at 45, he is living out his fantasy. And the best part of being a billionaire, he says, is shooting hoops with NBA stars in his own arena – even though a lot of people thought he was too goofy to be an NBA owner.

Too goofy? This is the man who had the brains and sensitivity to take the Kobe Bryant rape case seriously: “From a business perspective, it’s great for the NBA. It’s reality television. People love train-wreck television…” he told reporters back in August.
We like Gulfstream V-wreck television even better.
I thank god it wasn’t Ed Bradley, my favorite 60 Minutes correspondent, sent to trail around behind the screeching, fine-paying owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Luckily, it was Kroft who played wiffle ball with Cubes in his gaudy McMansion’s chandelier room (fun!), caught him mixing up the word “millions” and “dollars” (endearing!), and visited the converted industrial space that houses the Mavs operations office, which Cubes affectionately described this way: “It’s a sweatshop here and we’re proud of it… You can’t see the chains attached to their ankle[s].” (Witty!)
How disgruntled would you be if your boss said that about you just after appearing on TV in his private jet and mansion? I bet you’d think it was hilarious. (This is the most annoying segment from CBS News since Bob Simon played Waylon Smithers to Felix Dennis’s Monty Burns on 60 Minutes II back in November.)
But the thing that grated the most about Kroft’s Cuban profile was the subject’s high-pitched, smug giggle, which punctuated every statement he made like a rimshot. (Presumably even that Kobe Bryant statement above.) After the fiftieth time hearing that laugh, I finally realized why its jingle, its cymbals’ song sounded so familiar. It was the same sound heard by Nick Carraway in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby when he listened to Daisy Buchanan and concluded “Her voice is full of money.” (But were her legs pinned back ceaselessly like a Safeway chicken?)
Spending so much time with the Maloofs and Cubes—men with bank accounts in the eight digits and emotional maturity in the singles—I was reminded of another Gatsby quote, one that sums up the 21st Century’s billionaire playboys even as it speaks to the early 20th’s:

I’ve got no beef with self-made men, but I wish they’d stop acting like boys and actually become men someday.

Getting your article optioned by a film producer is the goal of any good journalist. Just ask New York Times Magazine writer (and frustrated blogger bugbear) Peter Landesman, whose article, The Girls Next Door has been optioned by Roland Emmerich. What, you didn’t read Landesman’s article? Doesn’t matter, sucka: it’s gonna be made into a movie. (Which you can also not see—but the ads will be everywhere!)
Here’s the trick: make it easy—exceedingly easy—for the low level D-girls who read it to see the film as they read your article. Short of sub-heading your piece “It’s Pretty in Pink meets Set It Off!,” here are some simple tips for getting your article optioned, using Jim Windolf’s great Raiders of the Lost Backyard, the story of three boys and their amazing quest to recreate Raiders of the Lost Ark shot-by-shot from this month’s Vanity Fair:
Make your subjects ‘types’ (or better yet, stereotypes):
“On the surface the two boys were opposites: Chris [Stromopolos], whose parents had divorced when he was three, was a class clown; Eric [Zala] was a quiet, brainy kid who had never been paddled. But they shared that tendency to escape into fantasy.”
Write a funny set-piece that jumps off the page and onto the screen:
“The two of them stayed up way past their bedtimes in Chris’s room, constructing [a giant boulder] out of crisscrossed bamboo stalks from a nearby swamp and cardboard. It seemed almost as large as the original boulder in the original. Too bad they couldn’t get it out the door.”
Create some colorful atmosphere and supporting characters, maybe a role for Henry Gibson:
“The Zalas’ big house remained in disrepair, its cracked plaster and peeling paint telling of its losing battle against the seaside elements. [Eric’s mother] Mary put any extra cash toward maintaining the income-producing cottages in the backyard, home to a revolving cast of eccentric tenants.”
Throw in some teenage romance for the girls:
“Chris and Angela [Rodriguez] took their places on the narrow bed […] Chris, now 13, was jittery. This was going to be not only his first screen kiss but the first real kiss of life.”
Show conflict, the better to create meatier roles:
“Chris admitted he had tried to steal Eric’s girlfriend that time and Eric admitted he had hated Christ for years.”
Make a cameo for a famous person who can also exec. produce the film:
“In February, Chris, Eric, and Jayson each received a letter from the director of Raiders of the Lost Ark himself…”
Toss in an uplifting ending that will make audiences cheer!:
“After the lights went up, Chris, Eric, and Jayson—all three truly shocked that the film they had made over their adolescent summer vacations had found a large audience of strangers—took the stage and basked in a standing ovation…”
It’s Rushmore meets Waiting for Guffman! Too bad those Culkin boys are all old now.
Hey Hollywood, option this story now and let’s see it next summer!

Oxford Univerity Press, Feb. 2004… F.S.G., Jan. 2003
See also: Snead, James A. “On Repetition in Black Culture”, Black American Literature Forum 15/4 (1981): 146-54.
Related: Marcellus Wallace.

Professor Ellis D. Trails asks Jonesy: “Is he cool?”
Reruns columnist Emily Nussbaum does a fine job breaking down the (lack of) appeal of Sid and Marty Krofft and their bizarre menagerie of anthropomorphic felt creatures in The Evil Geniuses of Kiddie Schlock in this week’s Times ‘Arts & Leisure’ section.
Nussbaum calls the Kroffts “TV hucksters” (no argument there) and posits that:

Yep, that’s pretty much it.
Part of me wishes she’d gone a bit further and delved into Sid and Marty’s equally surreal lives, the failed theme park in Atlanta, the treehouses, the illnesses. (It was all covered in H.R. Pufnstuf and the Strange World of Sid and Marty Krofft: The E! True Hollywood Story.) Another part of me knows that these guys, and their dated, schlocky programs don’t deserve it.
What did surprise me, though, was the omission of The Altered States of Druggachusettes, Mr. Show with Bob and David‘s dead-on parody of H.R. Pufnstuf‘s (not-quite) druggy subtext.
Written by Mr. Show‘s own evil genius, Dino Stamatopoulos (who also sang the skit’s theme song) and actor-writer Jay Johnston, it’s a wild journey through the looking glass, just after the looking glass was used to cut some really potent coke (to chase all the LSD and pot, naturally). It’s also, in its own way, the true skeleton key to Sid and Marty Krofft’s insane oeuvre, and well worth the cost of the Mr. Show season 3 DVD.

“Hey, buddy. We’re gonna take you over to the tent now, alright?”
(Sorta) Related: Mayor Bloomstak

Well-Rounded: Potrait of the Artist as a Tit Man
Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day. (What, you forgot? You must be that insensitive clod dating Bridget Harrison. There’s always Duane Reade…)
Anyway, if you’re a straight fella living in New York and you find yourself in that awkward first few weeks of a relationship and you’re concerned about the significance of this Halmarkiest of holidays you’ve got some options. Here’s one you probably hadn’t considered: check out the John Currin exhibition at the Whitney, which is in its last two weeks. (The museum’s open from 11-6 on Saturdays.)
If you’re dating one of those high strung liberal arts college types, she’ll have a ball with Currin’s voluptuous grotesques (or are they grotesque voluptuaries? I never can tell): she’ll also have fun seeing all the other women in the gallery slumping forward slightly, de-emphasizing their busts and shrinking from the male gaze. (If she’s gettin’ up there in the years, she’ll also love his depiction of the elderly.) You’ll have a great time staring at Currin’s painstakingly-realized pin-ups and feeling the awkward sensation of seeing your basest male fantasies writ embarrassingly large. (If you prefer your base male fantasies writ smaller, check out the much less respectable Art Frahm collection over at Lileks.)
The nice thing is that entire show comes pre-ironized for everyone’s protection. How can you take the images to heart when they’re presented as retro-jokes, replete with descriptions that evoke naughty jokes in old issues of Playboy? Take the card next to Girl on a Hill (1995): “[Currin] longs for the golden-hewed grassy hilltops of Northern California.” Now laugh together at the fact that everywhere you look are golden-hewed hills. Then you can laugh at the fact that a good portion of the pieces are held in private collections in Beverly Hills and in the WASP ghettos of Connecticut. (And if you’re extra lucky, maybe you’ll see a woman with crutches staring balefully at this image, like I did last month.)
This is fun! Mounds of it.
Of course, if your special lady is one of those uptight “feminists” who can’t take a joke, well, you’re in the wrong place, pal. You can expect to go home alone tonight, and—how can we put this delicately?—play air guitar to your Strokes CD. (The John Currin catalog only costs $50, but a copy of Juggs will run you, like, $7.) Happy Valentine’s Day.
Sidebar: Speak Mammaries. Tits are big right now. Huge! First came Currin. Then Mary Louise Parker and the other stacked starlets at the Golden Globes, followed closely by Janet Jackson‘s tempest in a C-cup at the Super Bowl. Then there’s the back-channel chatter among bloggers about one of our own that’s crossed the line from ignorable to Orange-alert levels. (Guys, do we need to discuss the difference between fetishizing mostly-underage celebrities who are hidden behind publicists, handlers, and bodyguards and fetishizing a real live person who might find your repeated, and entirely unfunny references to her ‘rack’ off-putting and even frightening? A little respect and we won’t have to resort to Antioch-like rules, okay?) Up next, A Dirty Shame, John Waters‘ next film starring Selma Blair as Caprice Stickles, a head-injury victim endowed with breasts the size of watermelons. It’s only February and it’s the best year Russ Meyer‘s had in a decade.

If you thought Seattle was full of flannel-clad aging grunge rockers and the sexiest person there is Michael Kinsley dressed as Gorton’s fisherman (left), swing on by The Stranger‘s Web site for their annual Valentine’s Day Seattle’s Sex Bombs spread.
As expected in a city where coffee runs hot and cold out of the faucets, there’s Sexiest Baristas (four of ’em), but there’s also a Sexiest Republican who makes Ann Coulter look (even more) like a she-beast. (Equal Time Regulations stipulate that The Stranger show a Sexy Deniac, too.) Then there are the Sexiest Movie Theater Employees, who look like the girls from t.A.T.u., only they weren’t cooked up in a post-Soviet lesbi-teen lab in Siberia. Sexiest Waiter? Someone out there wrote, “I’d like to lick Alfredo sauce off his ass-crack.” Like ’em smart? Check out Sexiest Physics Majors. Sexiest Retail Clerk? Babe check, aisle nine!
You get the idea. Go check ’em all out for yourself. Flights to Seattle can be booked through your travel agent or online.

From The Onion A.V. Club interview with Joe Eszterhas by Nathan Rabin: