Month: February 2004

(MOSTLY) WHITE PRIDE:Vanity Fair‘s “Hollywood 2004” cover. (Not pictured: Black Actresses)
While the cover may lack diversity (yes, I am aware that Salma Hayek and Lucy Lui Liu aren’t white, but that and a token will get ya’ a ride on the subway), the magazine is positively bursting (like a dried up cactus) with African Americans.
Aside from some ads that feature Black models (Naomi Campbell and Tyson Beckford are still workin’ it after all these years!) or deeply-tanned white ones, there’s Brett Brooks, the DJ at Fred Segal (and Winona Ryder‘s old roommate—he works at a deparment store, she loves department stores, together, they’re a sitcom!) on page 192, Jamie Foxx done-up as Ray Charles on page 220, a caricature of Rudy Ray Moore, aka, Dolemite on page 332, Janet Jackson as Lena Horne on pages 322-323 (Black performers dressed as older Black performers= hot!), and Janet’s beloved and besieged brother, Michael (save your jokes: Michael Jackson is Black), is featured in several photos (one even show’s him wearing a trucker hat that appears to say “Black Man”) accompanying Maureen Orth’s examination of his child molestation charges beginning on page 384.
But by far, the part of the magazine that reflects the greatest diversity is Graydon Carter’s editor’s letter in which he lists the names of every U.S. armed forces member to die in Iraq. Of the 502 people listed, I’m betting a large percentage were African American.
Well, that’s one way to slip some Black folks into the “mix.”

Dennis Miller showing those lightning fast reflexes with Moe, the chimp, Feb. 4, 2004

Susanna Hoffs and Donald Rumsfeld
Foreign types with the hookah pipes say
Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh
Walk like an egyptian

The publicist for Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon—the Case Against Celebrity deserves a raise for landing his or her clients, authors (and “veteran journalists” pace The Post) Mark Ebner and Andrew Breitbart in Page Six and Rush & Molloy today.
But perhaps pitching this book as a no-holds-barred slaughter of Hollywood sacred cows is a tad hyperbolic. Judging from the names bold-faced by the Page Six crew, the targets read more like slow-moving fish in a very small barrel: Robert Evans? Dude was a punchline before he was even a joke. Courtney Love? Any moron can squeeze a laugh out of her. Michael Ovitz? The guys who sell star maps on the side of the road have more juice in Hollywood than him nowadays. Heidi Fleiss? C’mon, fellas, try a little harder. It almost makes you respect the courage and conviction of Joe Eszterhas.
What I’m really looking forward to is the brave, bold chapter that eviscerates Michael Cimino: boy, is he too big for his britches, or what? And Joan Crawford: I hear she’s like, a total bitch-on-wheels.
Kenneth Anger, watch your back!

I had only the vaguest recollection of Tanner ’88 before getting reacquainted with it this week on The Sundance Channel. (The series reruns Tuesdays at 9PM EST through April 13.) I’ve always been a great admirer of Robert Altman‘s films (I loved Popeye as a kid) and while I’ve never really gotten into Doonesbury (despite entreaties from several friends who’ve loved the strip for a decade), I had high hopes for the show. Even at its worst, I like the blurring of reality and fiction in film and TV (as readers of low culture‘s more boring content know, I even sorta liked K Street) and Tanner ’88 is often cited as a forerunner of the genre.
I’ve read a bunch of reviews of Tanner ’88 from Emily Nussbaum in The New York Times to Joy Press in The Village Voice, and “Dana Stevens” in Slate, but none of them pointed out the most interesting thing I saw in the first episode: the name Sidney Blumenthal in the credits as “political consultant.”
Sid is the journalist-turned-Clinton Warrior-turned-pundit loved and hated in equal degree among Washington journalists and power brokers. Actually, who am I kidding? Sid is mostly hated.
He’s clashed with Matt Drudge (admittedly not a hard thing to do: I’m sure even Matt’s dry cleaner hates him, probably for all the egg yolk stains), he’s fallen out big time with old pal Christopher Hitchens over whether or not he floated out the “Monica Lewinsky as stalker” story over lunch, and has in many ways lived up to the nasty nickname given to him by the Right: “Sid Vicious.”
What Sid is, more than anything, is a Democratic berserker, especially in his current writing for Salon and The Guardian. (Should Sid succeed in helming a U.S. edition of The Guardian, we can expect some very muscular prose in defense of the Dems: Expect asses kicked and names taken weekly.)
That’s why it’s not entirely surprising to see Sid pop up as part of Jack Tanner’s dream team in ’88. Tanner (played by Michael Murphy) is the ultimate baby boomer wish-fulfillment candidate: handsome, modest, able to speak with equal passion about public service and his favorite Beatle (John, of course). He was a Democrat who would feel perfectly at home discussing policy in The New Republic and the impact of Woodstock in Rolling Stone. In other words: He’s Bill Clinton.
I can’t imagine how excited Sid must’ve been when Clinton emerged just a few years after Jack Tanner’s “Presidential run” ended, but he must have felt that exhilarating, confusing mix of emotions we sometimes—too rarely!—feel when our dreams come true. All of Jack Tanner’s speechifying, very human foibles, and striving for integrity were suddenly, thrillingly manifest in that smart, sincere, ever so slightly louche sax-playing Southern good ol’ boy from a town called “Hope” (well, Hot Springs, actually).
It reminds me of the famous conversation between anchorman Tom Gurnick (William Hurt) and writer Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) in Broadcast News:

Tom Grunnick: What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?
Aaron Altman: Keep it to yourself!

Meatball: One of a kind.
I’ve never been a big Adam Sandler fan, but I loved his dog, Meatball.
The photos and videos of Adam and Meat on Adamsandler.com used to be one of my favorite internet time wasters. They’re a genuinely touching glimpse inside the human/companion animal relationship. The videos show Meatball as Adam’s constant companion: a gently rapacious, deadpan presence on Sandler’s film sets (he appeared on screen in Anger Management and Little Nicky), in his house, and even, in one clip, on an airplane. Meat loved food. Meat loved basketball. Meat loved kittens. Meat loved sleeping. Meat loved Adam most of all.
How can you not love Meatball’s regal, ugly mug and his snorting, mucous-y breathing and lumbering gait? Meatball is such a beautiful, goofy, honorable mutt.
Meatball died the other day, and I’m sure Adam and his wife and friends are grieving deeply. The human-dog thing is some profound shit (just ask Harvard professor and dog lover Marge Garber) and, as a dog owner myself, I can’t yet begin to imagine what it would be like to bury one. Even when I can’t stand my dog—which is often—I still know that her need for me is total, and my reliance on her is deeper than I can articulate.
If you have some free time on your hands a good enough internet connection, I recommend you look at some of the great Meatball videos on the site. Some are completely ridiculous. Others are more serious. One was even directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and co-stars Luis Guzman. (Guzman staring-down Meatball with his goofily intense eyes and Meatball returning the stare is a small comic gem.) Meatball was born to be a star, not least of all because he attempts to literally chew the scenery in almost every clip.
Watch a few and I’m sure you’ll become a Meat lover, too.