Mere Words

Until Further Notice...

chidder@livejournal.com — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:52:06 GMT

I don't post here anymore. I may again one day, but for now all of my online musings may be found at either kevin_avery, where I'll continue to blog about my book, Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, or on my Facebook page.

About my book: it will be published by Feral House in the fall of 2010 and will feature a beautiful foreword by the incomparable and uncompromising Nick Tosches.

You're also welcome to become a fan of my company, Mere Words Media Relations, at its Facebook fan page. If you don't belong to Facebook and don't want to join, you can check out what we have to offer at http://www.merewordsmedia.com.

Stay well.

Kevin

Unsung No More

chidder@livejournal.com — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:20:23 GMT

On Tuesday I had the pleasure of being interviewed on The Publicity Show. A weekly radio program that's broadcast out of Atlanta, Georgia, it's devoted to those "unsung professionals who usually spend their time in the background helping their clients get on the air."

Not only did the hosts, Elizabeth Gordon and Lee Kantor, want to know all about what Mere Words Media Relations has to offer, they were kind enough to let me talk about my book, Everything Is an Afterthought.

Feel free to listen in by clicking on the radio to the left. It may take a few seconds to load, but, hey, what d'ya want? It's an old-time radio.

Willy Vlautin

chidder@livejournal.com — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:26:36 GMT

One should never meet an artist whose work one admires; the artist is always so much less than the work.

—HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC

Last evening at WORD, a splendid little bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Deb and I attended a reading by Willy Vlautin, whose first two novels, The Motel Life and Northline, are two of the best books I've read in years. In a blurb advertising the event, Time Out New York called Northline a "bleak novel... about a pregnant woman who, in moments of deep trauma, speaks with her idol, Paul Newman." Reducing the book to these two plot points is as wrongheaded as describing John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath as a "road movie about a family that can't get work."

In between playing a couple of songs on his guitar (he's also the lead singer of Richmond Fontaine, a fine band that's been around since '94 and have ten or so CDs to their name), Vlautin read a passage from Northline, introducing it as a "story about weakness, about the bad things you do when you're feeling weak, the sideways moves you do. You get out of one bad situation and you feel good that you've made a brave step. But then you're so worn out that you end up making the same exact mistake."

Both of Vlautin's books are in the literary tradition of Raymond Carver and Charles Bukowski. His spartan prose perfectly reflects the people about whom he writes: spare on the surface but ultimately strong enough to bear up under the lives they have made for themselves. Readers, like Vlautin's own characters, may be surprised to discover just how strong.

After the reading, we had an opportunity to meet Vlautin and have him sign our copies of his books. He and I both spent a chunk of our lives working in trucking out West (we were employed by competing companies), and we spent a few minutes talking about Reno and Portland and Salt Lake, about the Nugget Casino, and a legendary hamburger called the "Awful Awful." Deb and I left the bookstore with the feeling that—Toulouse-Lautrec be damned—Vlautin in person appeared to be as genuine and wryly funny as Vlautin the writer. It was a good night.

Willy Vlautin reads from Northline.

Delirious Revisited

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:51:41 GMT

Last August, Deb and I had the opportunity to attend a special screening of director Tom DiCillo's Delirious. I wrote about the film the next day (which, if you check out the comments, generated a response from DiCillo himself). In subsequent weeks, due to lousy distribution (think Katrina-relief-effort lousy) and despite a rave review from Roger Ebert, Delirious came and went, lasting only a month in New York, a week in Los Angeles, and appearing on less than two-dozen screens in the entire U.S.

Last week Delirious was released on DVD. I encourage you to run out and buy, rent, or steal a copy immediately. You won't be disappointed (especially if you're a fan of the great character-study films of the Seventies). Rewatching the film today, I was once again blown away. Not only does it boast fantastic performances (by Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, and Gina Gershon, to name the obvious few), it's also a stunning piece of cinema.

Fortunately, the DVD transfer captures the movie's rich colors; scenes like the one where the Pitt character, walking through the streets of New York and realizing he's in love, are nothing short of visual poetry. Plus, there's a great commentary track by DiCillo, who has crafted a film, despite all third-party efforts to the contrary, worth remembering.

A Night on the Town

chidder@livejournal.com — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:57:47 GMT

Okay, this is ridiculously lame, I know, but I post so seldom these days that I'm compelled to point out that I did pen a fairly lengthy post to my Everything Is an Afterthought blog about my meeting with Rod Stewart Thursday evening. You can read all about it by clicking on the image below:

Live from New York . . .

chidder@livejournal.com — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:36:04 GMT

The opening skit of last night's Saturday Night Live was a takeoff on a C-SPAN Senate Foreign Relations Hearing broadcast. The show managed to capture that C-SPAN "ambience" perfectly.

More importantly, do you see that guy sitting directly behind the comedian playing General Petraeus--on the right-hand side of the screen? That's my talented brother-in-law Bobby Allen. Not only did he accumulate tons of face time on NBC, they even gave him a line to speak. True, it's no "These pretzels are making me thirsty!" but he did a damn fine job nonetheless.

We're proud of you, Bobby!

What the Hell?

chidder@livejournal.com — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:10:14 GMT

This morning, in The New York Sun, there's an article about how Manhattan's Anthology Film Archives (according to its website, "the first museum devoted to film as an art form") is reviving the early movies of Albert Brooks; specifically, his first two features, the wonderful and exquisite Real Life and Modern Love (the former, made in 1979, an extremely prescient commentary on reality television, the latter taking neurotic romanticism to heights even Woody Allen never dreamed possible).

Regarding Brooks's third movie, Lost in America, the article mentions that "'there's no print of it anywhere.' An apparent victim of indifference on the part of Warner Bros., which owns the film, Lost in America has fallen through the distribution cracks."

No print of it anywhere?! It's not unusual in this day of film restoration awareness (thanks to the efforts of directors like Martin Scorsese) to hear how 90 percent of American silent movies have been lost, as well as half of all the films made in the U.S. before 1950. But we're talking about a movie that was made in 1985, for Chrissake! As well, Lost in America took in more at the box office than Brooks's first two films combined. And nobody thought to preserve a single print?

I don't know about you, but that really grinds my gears.

Imagining the Sale

chidder@livejournal.com — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:38:19 GMT

In upper management in Corporate America, it was constantly instilled in us, so that we could constantly instill it in those with whom we worked, that everybody's job--whether we resided in accounting or payroll or rates or worked on the dock--that whatever one's title happened to be, we were all in sales.

Yes, we had a designated sales team whose responsibility it was to go out and deal directly with, and generate revenue from, our customers; but we also knew that any contact the rest of us might have with these customers, either on the phone or by mail or via the Internet, also impacted their perception of doing business with our company. Call it politeness, call it common decency, call it do-unto-others, what it truly came down to was: we were all in sales.

The irony is, though sales and I clashed often through the years (since my department was in the position of establishing the pricing levels that sales would in turn have to sell to the customers, we were automatically diametrically opposed: our making sure the company made a profit versus their desire to present something economically attractive to the customer), what I learned from sales has better equipped me for my "new life" (i.e., self-employed) than any other skill I took away with me from C.A.

Until this morning, it hadn't occurred to me that this wisdom applies to writing, as well. This "miniphany" came to me in the midst of a four-and-a-half hour power outage that enabled me to catch up on my reading. According to Richard Ford's existential realtor Frank Bascombe in Independence Day :

The art of the sale first demands imagining the sale.

It suddenly dawned on me that, as writers, if we're doing our jobs correctly, we're selling our readers that, fiction or nonfiction, fantasy or science fiction, self-help book or expansive volume on the sex life of the tsetse fly, every word we've written is true. That what we say happened really happened. As writers, we're telling our readers that, if they trust us, we'll deliver.

But we can't do that unless we ourselves also believe what we're saying. And in order to do that, we have to imagine the sale.

Dave Stevens, 1955-2008

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:31:15 GMT

Dave Stevens, the illustrator and comics artist responsible for creating The Rocketeer, died the day before yesterday following a long battle with leukemia.

Stevens, whose highly idealized images of women made him heir apparent to Frank Frazetta's throne, was also singlehandedly responsible for spawning the revival that propelled pin-up model Bettie Page back to the forefront of popular culture. Just as his talent enabled him to make modern that which was not (his Rocketeer looked at once retro and futuristic), he managed to make Page, the fetish and bondage queen of the Fifties, respectable.

He was 52.

Michael Clayton

chidder@livejournal.com — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:38:11 GMT

Having never seen a single episode of E.R., I came late to the George Clooney Appreciation Society. But ever since his amazing line reading of "Goddamn, that was intense!" in 1996's From Dusk Till Dawn, I've been a fan. And not just of his acting. For a star of his magnitude, his willingness to get behind--and within--risky, noncommercial projects (especially as producer/director of HBO's under-appreciated, oft-maligned miniseries Unscripted) is equally impressive.

Which brings us to Michael Clayton, an intelligent thriller that manages to be mainstream without ever condescending to its audience. Clooney is great as the lawyer who once had everything going for him (good looks, intelligence, career) but is painfully aware that he's already pissed most of it away. Writer/director Tony Gilroy handles it all expertly--right up to and through the brilliant two-minute-plus shot of Clooney that ends the film, wherein we watch as Michael Clayton not only looks back on what's happened but, we hope, looks ahead.

. . . Pants on Fire

chidder@livejournal.com — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:30:22 GMT

Last week yet another memoirist was outed (this time by her sister no less!) as nothing more than a lowly fiction writer; once again begging the question: why didn't they just publish their works as fiction in the first place?

Ego and greed, probably.

Not discounting these writers' duplicity in dealing with their publishers, what's truly troubling when these contretemps raise their ugly little heads is the press's haughty shock and awe that any half-truths (or quarter- or third-truths) should have wormed their way into the sanctity of somebody's memoir. Literary and social critics alike thump their thesauri and behave as if, pre-James Frey coming along and embarrassing Oprah with his million little lies, every memoir published was letter-perfect when it came to factual matters--that no details were added or enhanced (or omitted), that no dialog was fabricated, that nothing was tweaked to make the piece better (or at least readable).

By its selective nature, a memoir is not journalism; it is subject to the tricks our memories play on us; how and why events took place are filtered, consciously or unconsciously, by our prejudices, belief systems, etc. Plus, let's face it, folks: life, by and large, is boring. Even fascinating people have plenty of downtime where nothing of much interest happens. Knowing what to emphasize and what to ignore, where a chapter--let alone the real story--begins and ends (in reality, most people's lives have very few--and very long--chapters), is the writer's job.

And while we're talking about it, the very journalists looking down their collective nose at these memoirists are prone to the same refractions they're pillorying; they shouldn't be, but they are. The truth is never more malleable than in the hands of a writer.

What Ever Happened to John Lydon?

chidder@livejournal.com — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:03:58 GMT

Driving down Flatbush with Deb a few weeks ago, we discovered the answer . . .

The Waiting Game, Part 2

chidder@livejournal.com — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:33:11 GMT

A line from Woody Allen's masterful 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is airing on TCM as I write this, reminded me that the subject of yesterday's post is nothing new:

Show business is dog-eat-dog. It's worse than dog-eat-dog: it's dog-doesn't-return-other-dog's-phone-calls.

The Internet has just taught an old dog new tricks.

The Waiting Game

chidder@livejournal.com — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:06:03 GMT

Yesterday morning an old friend called from Los Angeles and recounted how earlier this month he and his band had their first real meeting with a bona fide record label. By all indications, the encounter went well and ended on a positive note with the record executive saying all good things about their music and hinting toward a time when they, record company and band, would share in a relationship both symbiotic and copacetic. He said he'd be in touch. Two weeks down the road, however, there's been no word; nor is aforementioned executive returning any of my friend's phone messages or e-mails. Seemingly a case of "Don't call us, we won't call you."

I told my friend that things are not necessary what they seem.

The thing is, he and I used to work in the service industry--transportation--where every aspect of our company's performance was measured daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly; this data was then shared with our customers so that they could better decide whether to use our services or our competition's. The idea of not returning a phone call or not replying to an e-mail is as unconscionable to him as it is to me. Except . . .

For the most part, that's not the way things work in entertainment--music, books, movies, whatever--where unreturned calls and unanswered e-mails are more the norm than the exception. Which is really ironic, if you think about it, given an industry whose ultimate goal is to please its customers.

But therein lies the answer: When we--musicians, writers, filmmakers, artists one and all--are doing our best to interest them in our wares, we're not their customers but rather their suppliers. Or at least we hope to be. Until they actually put a contract in front of us and we sign on the dotted line (which, come to think of it, is never dotted, at least not on the contracts I've seen and signed), we're nothing more than the unwanted call from the telephone company, the knock on the door from the missionaries, or the takeout menu left in our mailbox by the new sushi restaurant around the block.

What I told my friend was this: "Don't forget that right now, as we speak, there are probably hundreds, nay, thousands of guys around L.A. in bands who are wondering, What the hell's up with that guy at the record company? What you need to hang onto, in the midst of your completely understandable frustration, is that if the record executive were to reply to all of his phone calls and e-mails, he probably wouldn't have enough time left in his day to do what you're hoping he'll do in the first place: sign you and your band to a record contract."

Is it frustrating? Yes. Is it fair (to say nothing of good business or in the realms of politeness)? Of course not. I had a magazine editor tell me once, after expressing displeasure because I continued to follow up on a pitch after not having received a response in more than six months: "If we were interested, clearly we would have gotten back to you." "No," I wanted to reply, "if you weren't interested, clearly you should have told me so." Unfortunately, this is not uncommon; the delete button has become the answer to many a busy editor and agent's overburdened calendar and workload. Even enclosing an SASE with snail-mail queries no longer guarantees a response.

Could it be handled differently? Sure--and often it is. When I first submitted my short-story collection to the man who became my agent, he immediately e-mailed me to say that he'd received it and cautioned me that he was going to be out of the office for a while. "Therefore, if you don't hear from me for a week to ten days, it has nothing to do with my response to your writing."

But, then, he's a gentleman.

As for my friend, the days when a Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen can walk into John Hammond's office, play their songs, and almost literally walk out with a recording contract are sadly gone. Long gone. And so he waits.

It's how he's having to wait that's the problem.

Once You Go BlackBerry . . .

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:29:29 GMT

An e-mail this morning from my nephew Tim, wildlife photographer and web-designer extraordinaire, got me thinking . . .

When I said goodbye to Corporate America back in 2005, among the many benefits I forsook were a company car (along with its requisite fuel and insurance), an expense account, a laptop, and wi-fi. Looking back, though, there was only one perk that I truly missed, that I found myself pining for and which, when I saw it in the hands of another, filled my heart with envy.

Which brings me back to Tim's e-mail. Boasting the kind of simple, declarative statement for which hand-held technology (and the Ramones) was made, it said: "I just got my blackberry."

As much as I wanted one of my own, I could never justify it. But last year my business grew, and I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, my desire to reestablish my BlackBerry connection had passed from a nagging extravagance to an honest-to-goodness need. And then Deborah gave me one for Christmas.

I love having my 771 contacts always within reach--with room enough to also accommodate hours upon hours of my favorite music, a variety of videos lifted (thanks to TubeSock) from YouTube. And did I mention the GPS?

Yes, I've heard the "CrackBerry" jokes and have read the headlines that proclaim "BlackBerry Addiction 'Similar to Drugs'" (talk about your declarative sentences!). Even Laura good-naturedly sent me a "Life has become a major distraction from my BlackBerry" bumper sticker on Facebook. But I'm not overly concerned.

My BlackBerry "addiction" is a good thing. When an opportunity for, or a question from, one of my clients arises, I can respond immediately--regardless of where I might be. If I'm stuck in a doctor's waiting room or I arrive early for a meeting, I can make use of the time reading a manuscript which I downloaded. Or if I'm out and about and can't remember the name of that short guy from Laugh-In who was in Magnolia (Henry Gibson), or I'm crashing on the couch reading Richard Ford's Independence Day and come across a word whose meaning I think I know but not exactly (tintinnabulation: the ringing or sounding of bells; or a jingling or tinkling sound as if of bells), the answers are all right at my fingertips. And if I'm in traffic and think of a line I want to use in the book, or an idea for a new story, I simply dictate it into the voice recorder and get it on paper later. No more coming home with pockets overflowing with scrap paper and Post-it Notes!

I never thought I'd find myself quoting Tom Clancy, but he really hit the nail on the head when he said:

There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.

My BlackBerry is like my own personal HAL 9000--sans the attitude.

Cancel the Bigger Boat

chidder@livejournal.com — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:55:26 GMT

Roy Scheider died yesterday. Damn. He was one of those actors who was often much better than the material he was given (a curse that followed him from his first screen credit: TV's The Edge of Night).

But all that's moot, because he appeared in one of the most entertaining films ever made (Jaws, where he ad-libbed the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat"), one of the most exciting (his reaction shots behind Gene Hackman lent humanity to the often cold and heartless French Connection), and two of the most daring (David Cronenberg's version of Naked Lunch and his narration for Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters). Most importantly, he starred in (and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for) Bob Fosse's brilliant All that Jazz, which is just flat-out one of the best movies ever made.

Roy Scheider was a classic example of one of those actors, like Bogart, who always, regardless of circumstance, rose to the occasion; so that, in those those few-and-far-between instances when the occasions rose to him, he was ready.

He is already missed.

Woody

chidder@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:58:38 GMT

[T]he only thing standing between me and greatness is me . . . . I've been given more opportunities than anybody. I've been given the money and freedom for thirty-five years now to make whatever I wanted: A musical? Okay. A detective story? Fine. A drama? Absolutely. Another drama, even though the first one failed? Go ahead. Whatever you want.

—WOODY ALLEN, Spring 2005

Eric Lax's new biography, Conversations with Woody Allen, reveals a Woody not unlike the one we've been assured (usually by the filmmaker himself) has been there all along: unpretentious, lazy, dismissive of the value of his work while at the same time passionate about the process itself ("the real fun was in doing it—the planning and the execution and the busywork"), an artist for whom the best choice isn't necessarily as much a matter of aesthetics as it is convenience.

Lax began interviewing Allen in 1971 and kept coming back—for 36 years. The result is a hefty document that focuses, as the book's subtitle promises, on "His films, the movies, and moviemaking," touching on Allen's personal life only as it pertains to his professional one. Neatly divvied up into eight chapters ("The Idea," "Writing It," "Casting, Actors, and Acting," "Shooting, Sets, Locations, "Directing," "Editing," "Scoring," and "The Career"), what emerges is the portrait of a writer/director whose talents are largely instinctual, who only waxes cerebral about his films after they're in the can, and for whom fame and posterity mean nothing.

"If you can't divorce yourself from hearing about yourself and your work," Allen says, "which is not all that hard to do, then I'd advise you not to believe the compliments and the good things said about you. A good portion of them are insincere, a good portion are wrong—which leaves a very small portion to get excited over. Most hype about your work is show business flattery."

If there's a complaint with the book, it occasionally suffers from presenting too much of the same information over and over again. Lax, or his editor, should have had more faith in his readers. Still, Conversations with Woody Allen provides a fascinating look at (despite what Allen himself thinks) one of our most important filmmakers.

Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:30:35 GMT

A week ago yesterday morning, while I was working on the introduction to Paul Nelson's essay about Jackson Browne's The Pretender, wherein Paul wrote with stark exquisiteness about the 1976 suicide of Browne's newlywed wife, I received a call from my best friend telling me that, the night before, he had come home from work to discover that his wife of only a few weeks had taken her own life.

Since then, I've made several passes at writing something here that would in some way express how I feel, acknowledging how this terrible event has forever changed the landscape of my friend's life. But the words just aren't there.

Latest Life Lessons

chidder@livejournal.com — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:32:55 GMT

If we're fortunate, we return from every journey (each of which constitutes one more leg in the overall journey that is our life) knowing a little bit more than we did upon our departure. Such was the case with our week-long trip to Salt Lake City, which equipped me to enter the new year with the following knowledge—some of which I already knew but had forgotten:

Driving towards Manhattan on the BQE, there's a point where the Empire State Building appears to be balanced smack-dab in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge and, if you look off to your left, the Statue of Liberty beckons from New York Harbor. It's a breathtaking view, but it's no more magnificent than once again seeing the Salt Lake City skyline set against the Wasatch Mountains. (And you can't go snowmobiling in Manhattan [well, you could, but not without dodging taxis instead of quaking aspen]).

Sometimes you need to return from whence you came to realize that it's no longer home.

Driving in New York City—Manhattan in particular—may be exhilarating, but it sadly lacks the endorphin-rush that comes from the God-given right to make a right turn on a red light.

Family + distance = appreciation.

There’s nothing like getting together with old friends and being reminded why they're your friends in the first place.

Forgiveness is not an eraser. Apparently it's a handy weapon to be used for whacking away any olive branches being proffered.

Nothing is forever. Deb and Laura wanted to go shopping, so I directed them downtown to the Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls—both of which had, unbeknownst to me, been completely demolished many months before. Calling me on her cell phone, Deb said, "It looks like Ground Zero."

Just because some places aren't where you remember them as being doesn't mean that they've moved. The memory is not a good map.

Life is like getting onto I-80 West at 1300 East in SLC and discovering that, in a stroke of Cosmo Kramer-like genius, the white lines separating the lanes suddenly disappear: you use your best judgment and keep moving forward.

There’s nothing like coming home—your real home—but there's really nothing like coming home in first class.

Happy New Year!

1 + 1 = 2

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:37:08 GMT

It's been over three months since I last contributed anything to these pages and, what with my two-year anniversary in New York only two days away, it seems as good a time as any to return to the fold.

On the upside, the time away from here has been well spent--not just writing and working with my publicity clients, but enjoying family life and everything NYC has to offer. There was also a great trip to Long Beach, CA, a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco (with a Citizen Kane-inspired visit to San Simeon along the way), then over to Reno and Salt Lake before returning home. And my nephew Tim came to New York and visited us for a week, during which time he educated us as to the feather and fowl we'd been taking for granted.

Friday not only marks my first two years as a resident of this great city, it also commemorates my independence from Corporate America and the nine-to-five world (which, towards the end, was closer to the seven-to-six world) and my first two years living the life I'd always dreamed of: that of a writer.

On that front, I came across the following quote from Werner Herzog, which now finds itself pinned to the corkboard above my desk:

If I find one person who walks out of a cinema of 300 people after watching one of my films and does not feel alone any more, then I have achieved everything I have set out to achieve.

Because being creative is often a solitary act, both selfish and selfless at the same time, I can't think of a better reminder--especially this time of year--of why we write (or paint or compose or, in Herzog's case, make movies).

Happy holidays.

A California Gull, the Utah state bird, at home in New York City.

"It's showtime, folks!"

chidder@livejournal.com — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:29:18 GMT

Today on CBS Sunday Morning, in a segment devoted to interviews with five prominent octogenarians (including entertainer Elaine Stritch, White House correspondent and resident thorn-in-the-side Helen Thomas, Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post/Watergate/Woodward and Bernstein fame, and Playboy incarnate Hugh Hefner), TV producer Norman Lear was asked if he had any advice for writers: "Write," he said.

And Lear's secret for living healthily and happily beyond eighty?

"Every day's a production," he said. "You produce."

Fear, Dread, and Anxiety

chidder@livejournal.com — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:46:00 GMT

First things first, I hereby swear not to do any more YouTube-related posts for at least thirty days. I've whiled away much too much time over at that copyright-infringing, time-sucking, Stuckey's-on-the-Web (though, I must admit, I did enjoy seeing again, for the first time in years, "The Contest Nobody Could Win" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati).

Second things second, this clip from Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick's often brilliant thirtysomething epitomizes what it's like not only to be self-employed, where you're dancing as fast as you can to pay next month's rent, but also what it's like to work in a creative field (in this instance, an ad agency), where you're only as good as your next idea.

In this scene, Ken Olin's Michael and Timothy Busfield's Elliot perfectly portray the battle constantly waging within the creative psyche: each of them anxious to welcome, then almost automatically dismiss, whatever idea, no matter how good, they come up with.

As Elliot concludes: "Mike, you gotta relax. It's just fear, dread, and anxiety. I mean, we're gonna deal with this on every job."

"Radio Nowhere"

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:45:31 GMT

When I interviewed Bruce Springsteen a few weeks back for my book, among the many fond memories he shared of his friendship with Paul Nelson was how, in Paul's review of The River, he had correctly identified the influence that London Calling had had on that album. Springsteen told me about the great affinity he'd always had for not just the Clash but punk rock as a whole. "I felt a deep connection to those things," he said, "and it kinda runs right through [The River]."

It's a connection that continues, as demonstrated by the recent release of the first single from Springsteen's upcoming album, Magic. Following in the tradition of great radio songs like the Clash's "Capitol Radio" and "Radio Clash," Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio," and Van Morrison's "Wavelength," "Radio Nowhere" is an all-out rock & roller that best describes itself:

I just wanna hear some rhythm
I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices
Speaking in tongues

Flat out, "Radio Nowhere" is the best thing to hit the airwaves in years.

DiCillo's Dilemma

chidder@livejournal.com — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:20:54 GMT

I don't think it's funny no more.
—NICK LOWE,
"Crackin' Up"

In his latest blog post, director Tom DiCillo reports this disheartening news about his new film, which opened last week: "Delirious has just been pulled from its two original screens in NY and and moved to a different single theater. The same thing has happened in LA."

Using his shoestring advertising budget as a theme and a launching pad, DiCillo produced a series of amusing YouTube videos that, in retrospect, are probably more sadly prophetic than they are funny. Delirious is a gem of a movie that deserves to be seen.

DiCillo's dilemma, as is every artist's, remains just that: finding a way to get his work in front of his intended audience.

Delirious Marketing Meeting

Buscemi DiCillo Fight

Gina Gershon Sex Tape

Casting Michael Pitt

Seek out Delirious. You won't be sorry.

Hot Diggity!

chidder@livejournal.com — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:14:22 GMT

Yesterday, Tom DiCillo kindly reviewed my review of his terrific new film Delirious. Check out "gracias" in the Comments section.

In doing so, he inadvertently addressed a question I raise again and again in my book: beyond providing a guide for the consumer, does criticism in any way serve the artist?

DiCillo's response echoes what Jackson Browne told me about Paul Nelson's writing: "it made me feel that I was being received, that I was being heard, by people who really got it."

Also, be sure to look in on DiCillo's own online journal, Delirious: The Director's Blog, for more trenchant, and often very funny, commentary.