The Who

I've been a sucker for The Who ever since I was a pre-teen lad and heard "Who Are You?" on the late KKYK 104 FM out of Little Rock. Then, when I came across The Kids Are Alright on Showtime a few years later, my respect for the group solidified.

With their frazzled and sometimes tragic history, I never had a chance to see the group live until last week when they made their first Little Rock appearance. With only Roger Daltrey and Who mastermind Pete Townsend still chugging along as original members, the show was still explosive -- easily one of the top ten concerts I've seen.

Two hours of energetic and LOUD rock at its finest. It made me dig out all of my Who CDs and slap 'em all on my iPod. (Why I haven't done that until now is a mystery...) I also sat down with my nine year old and revisited The Kids Are Alright on DVD. It's an amazing documentary with performances of "Who Are You," "My Generation," "Baba O'Riley," and a frantic, no-holds barred version of "Won't Get Fooled Again" that puts today's breed of rockers to stupefying shame. Every kid who wants to be a rock and roll star should have a copy of this film, and then throw away all their Fall Out Boy CDs.

After watching it, my son was doing windmills on his Guitar Hero guitar...

Limitations

It's a little late, but here is this week's column from Arkansas Weekly. The print version had a few errors; this is the corrected version.

We all have our limits.

Whether it’s attributed to our particular moral code, fear, or plain old common sense, there are millions of things we would not do for a million dollars.

For instance, you would never find me skydiving. Heights make me sweaty and fill me with trembles. Because of our son, I did conquer my fear of going to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, but I was not happy while I was up there. And I certainly was not happy when, on another St. Louis trip, his sister said she wanted to go to the top too.

Any type of body piercing is also out of the question – particularly if it involves my nose, eyebrow, lip, tongue, and more importantly, anything below the neck. I recently had to give myself a series of injections in my belly, and trust me, I’ve had my fill of needles poking through my skin.

Oddly, though, the thought of a tattoo does not bother me -- especially if the tattoo involves the image of Salma Hayek in a string bikini. A tat like that could take up my entire chest if need be.

(Note to my darling wife if she is reading this column: I love you, sweetheart. You’re gorgeous and the rainbow of my heart. Please don’t hit me with a frying pan.)

I would never eat any type of internal organ from any animal. Simple meat is fine with me, thank you. Once, at the urging of my father-in-law, I ate some fried chicken livers, and it took me roughly four months to get the taste out of my mouth.

It’s very possible that I would not be able to handle attending a live taping of American Idol. Every time I pass the television set when our daughter is watching that show, I have the strong urge to point some type of sub-machine gun to the TV screen. Is it me, or do that show’s production numbers -- when all of the jolly contestants are on stage singing some generic pop standard – remind you of a 2007 version of Up With People mixed with The Gong Show? One episode of AI and that equally ghastly Grease audition show is enough to make one long for the glory days of The Captain & Tennille Variety Show.

(Note to reader: I just made a horrific discovery on the web. Up With People still exists! When will this cheesy production, full of Stepford Wives and Clay Aiken clones, stop tormenting cities and towns across America with renditions of “Up, Up and Away” and “Copacabana”?)

(Another note to reader: Did you know Toni Tennille appears on the classic rock concept album, The Wall by Pink Floyd? I found that out online as well. I have an entirely new appreciation for this woman.)

Other things I wouldn’t do for a million dollars: give Mike Tyson a wedgie; embark on a cross country trip in a Mini Cooper with CNN’s Nancy Grace (no relation – thank heavens); participate in a cage fight; volunteer for any type of medical research involving proctology; learn how to play the harp; enter a motorcycle bar wearing nothing but a pair of white briefs, black socks, a red afro wig and a shocking pink cape; and I would never, ever, run in an election for President of the United States – unless I could wear a pair of white briefs, black socks, a red afro wig and a shocking pink cape to each televised debate.

(Note to my wife: I know that’s your favorite special secret costume of mine, but just think how cool I would look delivering my inauguration speech in that get-up.)

This is writing.

Salon has posted a review of Paper Trails. Read here.

And here are my original thoughts on Pete Dexter and his new book.

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Hurdy Gurdy Creepy

Folks -- the new film, Zodiac, is a classic.

This is how you make an intelligent, professional and mature movie. It makes last year's best film, The Departed, look like a made-for-Showtime flick. (Take that to mean The Departed is a good movie, but...there's something missing that could elevate it to being a great movie...or something like that. I say that being an enormous admirer of Martin Scorsese.)

Zodiac, directed by David Fincher, harks back to the Golden Age (for me) of film: the early to mid 1970s (which makes sense, since most of the film takes place during that period). It is almost as if Alan J. Pakula has risen from the grave -- or Sidney Lumet or Sydney Pollack had reverted back to their wonder years. Fincher, a man a few years older than me -- but also a child of `70s cinema, has crafted a chilling, yet involving look at the Zodiac killer that haunted the Bay Area during the late `60s and early `70s.

The movie is not the sensational and gruesome serial killer project one would expect from a major studio these days, but an intense, detailed and paranoid glimpse inside the lives of some of the investigators (both journalistic and official) obsessed with finding the killer.

The acting is exceptional, the mood is creepy and the direction is almost perfect. I should on, but -- get this -- I'm lazy tonight. Just trust me: Zodiac is worth your time. It will stick with you for days, and Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" will never sound the same again.

Rumor has it that Paramount pressured Fincher to cut the film from his preferred three hours plus to its current two and half hours running time. Some production stills even show scenes not in the film. Pitiful. I certainly hope Fincher releases his original cut on DVD, but Paramount should have put that version in cinemas anyway. Regardless, whatever happens, the edited version currently in the theatres is still Best Picture material any day of the week.

(Really, this is lame of me. I am exhausted...not in blogging mode tonight. Also know that the acting -- with Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, the wonderful Robert Downey, Jr. and the spooky John Carroll Lynch as a prime suspect -- is fantastic.)

Forgive me if I have any typos. Yawn. I'm tired. See it when you get a chance.

Next Week's Column

Here's next week's Arkansas Weekly column.

The Statue of Liberty almost became roadkill the other day.

For those of you who haven’t traveled down Batesville’s ultra-hazardous Harrison Street lately, just about every day there is, for some reason, a person dressed up in a Statue of Liberty costume waving to the vehicles zipping down the road. (I believe it's to direct folks into some tax return business.) Lady Liberty stands on the corner of the lot directly across from Burger King. Sometimes Uncle Sam, or I should say another person dressed as Uncle Sam, joins Lady Liberty on the corner. And they smile and wave and smile and wave.

And like I said, the vehicles speed by just a few feet away.

The first day I noticed Lady Liberty, it wasn’t a lady at all. It was a miserable looking man, dressed in full Statue garb, looking as if he just lost a bet. That was the last time I saw him. I assume he took his pay at the end of that afternoon, gave his notice and went to the nearest bar. The next day, someone of the opposite sex was appropriately decked out as Lady Liberty.

Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam, or the different folks who portray them, seem to be as reliable as the U.S. Postal Service. Cold weather doesn’t seem to bother them, and when the snow came last month, there they were waving away while cars and trucks struggled up and down the slippery street.

It’s a wonder a vehicle didn’t slide into these characters that day – or any other day, for that matter. Driving down Harrison Street can boost your blood pressure into perilous levels and noticing these two can also take your eyes and mind off Harrison Street.

Which is a dangerous thing, not only for the Statue of Liberty and Uncle Sam, but for other drivers as well.

The afternoon the Statue of Liberty almost got nailed (please excuse the expression), I was trying to take a left onto Harrison Street from 22nd Street. Like most days, the traffic on Harrison zoomed steadily by in both directions. Down the hill from where I sat, I could see Lady Liberty waving away to the mostly oblivious drivers. One car in the far lane had stopped directly in front of the waving Statue, trying to take a left into Burger King.

Now, as most locals know, there have likely been more car accidents at that particular point of Harrison Street than any other location in Batesville. Drivers zoom down the opposite hills, and many times, smack into other vehicles trying to turn into Burger King or onto the other parking lot where the Statue stands and waves.

This particular day, as I noticed the Statue and the driver trying to get a Whopper, I saw an elderly woman speeding down the hill in the same lane as the car trying to make a left. Not to be mean, but speed and elderly drivers is a combination not unlike a few Jagermiesters and an empty stomach.

Throw in a waving Statue of Liberty standing a few feet from the street, and you have the potential for a bizarre spectacle so bloody and horrific, it’s a Drudge Report headline waiting to happen. (STATUE OF LIBERTY MOWED DOWN IN ARKANSAS BY ELDERLY DRIVER! Developing…)

It was all I could do but watch and pray for this not to happen.

Sure enough, right before the car waiting to turn into Burger King would have been bashed in the rear, the elderly driver swerved to the right, directly toward Lady Liberty. At the last second, the woman seemed to see the Statue and quickly cut back slightly to the left before jumping the curb of the parking lot – just past our Lady.

By now, some drivers had lined up behind me, waiting for me to turn. Harrison was clear both ways, and as I collected myself and relaxed the cheeks of my bottom, I turned and drove by the scene.

The Burger King lady was safely in the drive-thru line. The elderly driver had carefully pulled off the curb. And, the Statue of Liberty was back in her corner of the parking lot, smiling and waving, as if nothing had ever happened.

It is safe to say, however, that had Uncle Sam been with Lady Liberty that day, he would have been toast.

Zach Galifianakis

The last time I saw Zach Galifianakis, he was running down Main Street in Little Rock, Arkansas dressed only in a Little Orphan Annie dress.

This is true, I promise.

This was this past Monday night, and Zach (I have to refer to him on a first name basis -- Galifianakis is just too much trouble to spell this late at night) had just wrapped up a sold out show at Juanita's on Main. For his insanely bizarre close, Zach had stripped down to the dress and lip-synched "Tomorrow" while giving us a Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues" like diatribe on the state of the world. It was late, and I was dreading the 90-minute drive back up to Batesville. As soon as he ended the show, he slipped out the exit door with Juanita's security and fled up Main, and I was heading to my car, looking back at this grown man zipping up the sidewalk in a dress.

"Insanely bizarre" is a very apt description for Zach. A dude that looks as if he's slept for two weeks in the same clothes with scruffy hair and a beard that deserves its own ZIP code, he first came across my radar on, of all places, VH1. There, he hosted one of the most inventive and funny late night talk shows that's ever been on the air: Late World with Zach. The show took pains to not take the world of celebrity gabfests seriously. He interviewed Andy Richter in the back of a convertible, and once spoke with some generic 90210-like actor, all the while letting his bored thoughts play out over the chat. He even played the piano with prosthetic arms -- don't ask.

The show, though fondly remembered by many folks, was yanked by the idiots running VH1 at the time, and Zach went back to occasional Comedy Central appearances, television shots, and of course, the comedy club circuit. (He does appear in the upcoming Sean Penn-directed adaptation of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild.)

When I realized he was coming to Little Rock, I made plans to see him. The show was one of the funniest performances I've ever seen from a comedian. He revels in dry, idiotic observances much like a drunken Steven Wright. (My favorites: "I've gained so much weight...I look like a third grader who's swallowed a panda." "I use Axe Body Spray -- or as it's known by the blacks in my neighborhood -- Ask Body Spray." "The other day, I was in my apartment, and I thought...'That's so Raven.'" And: "I love my girlfriend. She looks a little like Charlize Theron...and a lot like Patrick Ewing.")

But, here's something he said that almost made me forget everything I admired about Zach: "I like to read the Bible in public...and I'll say out loud, 'This is such bullshit.'"

Now -- I'm a Christian. A Methodist, to be technical about it. I'm also a big boy. I understand that not everyone believes in God and the resurrection of Christ. Yet, I also think that ridiculing another's beliefs, whether they be Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, is something that simply is not necessary. (Scientology is an altogether different animal, isn't it? Or, is that hypocritical? Most likely.)

What's frustrating about Zach's joke is he seems to be, based on interviews I've read and heard, an exceptionally bright and sincere guy offstage. Raised Greek Orthodox, he even offers a begrudging curiosity and interest in belief in one interview.

Still, it's frustrating when you respect and admire the genuine talent of an individual, and then they do something that's completely opposite of your views.

Faith is something that will not leave me alone. In other words, it's always there...in my soul. Denying it, for me, is fruitless -- it's in my DNA.

And, I've seen it work too many times...

It's unexplainable to some, and it's hard to rationalize at times -- but that is, in itself, faith. Faith in the unexplainable, the unknowable...that is something I will carry with me until the end of my time.

I'm not blessed with preaching skills, and it's hard to articulate my thoughts on my faith, but I know that it's something that I take very seriously. Ridiculing it seems to be too easy...too hip, even. For someone with the comedic gifts of Zach Galifianakis, poking fun at it seems beneath him. He seems to smart to ignore that for millions of people, faith does work miracles.

And that's disappointing -- because he's brought many smiles to my face.

Of course, I'm teetering on judging this guy. I'll still seek out his work, but I will also hope he comes to a point where faith is as undeniable a force in his life as it is in mine.

And with that...I'm going to beddy-bye.

UPDATE: Galifianakis' Bible joke did get my panties in a wad, I suppose. I'm a bit stuffy about people making fun of faith, but I get the fact that it is completely hypocritical for me to laugh at other things, but if it targets something I hold dear, well...then it's not funny anymore. I get it. I get it. My panties are not in such a tight wad as they were before. (Although Zach will likely go to hell for the joke.) (Kidding.) 07/16/08

This Week's Column

My column from this week's Arkansas Weekly is below. Some slight changes have been made from the printed version.

Dear reader, I usually don’t ask much of you.

Just about every week, you come to this page for a visit. Some of you tell me you look forward to reading my mostly mundane ramblings. Others, I’m sure, might check out this space simply to see what Mr. All About Me is pretentiously writing. Either way, I thank you for your visit. While you’re here, check out our roster of fine sponsors, and support them. And when you visit their establishment, tell them you read about ‘em in Arkansas Weekly.

Now, where was I?

Oh, so I appreciate your readership very much, and as you know, I don’t ask much of you. However, if you will allow me, I do want you to pay very close attention to this particular column. And, I will warn you, this piece concerns a book recommendation.

From the reader comments I receive, I gather that many of you don’t really like the columns where I recommend certain movies, music and books. Heaven knows, I’ve had more than enough people ask me why I raved about films such as The Royal Tenenbaums or Magnolia (“What was the deal with the frogs?” is a consistent question I get regarding the latter flick.).

The book, and it’s really not a book per se – it’s a collection of previously published columns and essays, is by Pete Dexter. Now, some of you may remember that name. I’ve written about Dexter before. He is, I believe, the finest living American writer – period. He didn’t start writing novels until he was 38. Before that he was (in no particular order) an acclaimed columnist, a gas station attendant, occasional barfly, newspaper reporter, construction worker and the victim of a particularly brutal assault.

The assault is somewhat noteworthy. At the time, he was a popular columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. One piece, about a drug deal gone fatally wrong, offended the brother of the victim in the deal. Dexter, being the gentleman he is, went down to a dive in the worst neighborhood in Philadelphia where the brother tended bar to try to mend some fences.

He left the bar with half of his upper teeth missing. So, he decided to go and get a back-up in the form of his buddy, Randall “Tex” Cobb. Cobb, for those of you who don’t know, almost took the WBC World Championship title from Larry Frazier. He’s also an actor most famous for the darkly funny biker from Hell (literally) in Raising Arizona. He is a big, scary man.

When Dexter and Cobb returned to the bar for some payback, the duo was met by 30 or so men with tire irons and baseball bats. As noted in the new book, Cobb turned to Dexter and said, “I hope this is the local softball team.”

It wasn’t, of course. The second time Dexter left the bar, he was not only still missing most of his upper teeth, but he also had a broken back and pelvis. Cobb suffered a broken arm so badly damaged, many say it cost him his boxing career.

Pete Hamill, the legendary journalist, details the Dexter/Cobb melee much better in his forward to Paper Trails: True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a Surprising Number of Which Are Not About Marriage. And this, by now you’ve probably gathered, is the book I want you to buy. Hamill, like me, is an unabashed Dexter fan, but unfortunately, I don’t believe Dexter is as appreciated as he should be.

He did win the National Book Award for Paris Trout, and that title remains his most popular, I’m sure. That’s how I came across Dexter. Looking for a vacation read in San Antonio during the early 1990s, I came across Paris Trout in a bookstore. The odd title, which happens to be the name of the very evil main character, drew my attention, but the novelty wore off as soon as I read the first page. This was writing that stripped away pretension and artifice – it sunk right to the bone. I tore through the book then picked up his previous two, God’s Pocket (it’s out of print, according to Amazon.com) and Deadwood – the latter of which is surprisingly similar to the recent HBO series of the same name. (Dexter wanted to sue, but as he implies in his very funny introduction to Paper Trails, his lawyers told him he’d get nowhere.)

Dexter went on to write a dark gangster novel, Brotherly Love (also currently out of print), and a Florida-set mystery called The Paperboy in 1996. Then, much to my frustration, he disappeared. He wrote an occasional screenplay, but for years, even a Google on Dexter, turned up dead ends. He finally resurfaced in 2003 with Train, a semi-noir novel about a black caddy in 1950s Los Angeles and the bond he forges with a quirky, yet mysterious police detective.

And now, we have the non-fiction Paper Trails, a compilation of 82 newspaper columns and essays Dexter wrote for the Philadelphia Daily News, the Sacramento Bee, Esquire, and other publications. The book is not only a wonderful introduction to the literary talent of which Pete Dexter has been blessed, but it’s also a collection of mesmerizing, heartbreaking and hilarious essays and columns that perfectly exemplify so many facets of living life in this sometimes insane world.

Each piece is a beautifully crafted work. The simple tale of a stray cat that wound up on Dexter’s porch becomes an emotional story about loss and the fear that goes with being a parent. Then you have the yarn of two drunken misfits who decide to start a carpet shampooing business and how one almost ends up dead before the first carpet can be cleaned. Dexter also tells the story of a plane trip he took with a silently crying child sitting next to him and his vain attempts to cheer him up, and his extremely funny article on his fascination with the breast size of his neighbor’s wife is worth the $26 price of the book alone. (You can get a copy for $17 on Amazon – hint, hint.)

Paper Trails is simply superb writing from a guy who deserves to have a more prominent place in our pantheon of respected literary giants. You likely won’t find it in the book section of the neighborhood Wal-Mart or Hasting’s. Instead, of course, you’ll find the latest Danielle Steel or Dr. Phil self-help muck taking up space. My suggestion: head to Amazon, the closest Barnes & Noble, or the fine independent Little Rock Bookstore, Wordsworth & Co.

It’s more than worth the trip or shipping costs.

Support an underappreciated writer and discover one all in one shot by picking up Paper Trails by Pete Dexter. (Ecco, 289 pp., $25.95).

Thank you for your time and attention.