Mushrooms

Last night I watched UN FLIC on Ace Atkins's back porch - just look, there I am standing in front of the projector afterward - and I had a pretty good tweet about UN FLIC that I tweeted when I got home but then I realized that nobody wants to read tweets about UN FLIC, so I deleted my great tweet about UN FLIC, and that's when I realized I'd better "blog" about UN FLIC even though I don't "blog" anymore. That's what the "blog" is, I realized: a big old city dump. You don't want to drive out there to the city dump but sometimes there's some unwieldy thing you have to get rid of. So I was supposed to bring something "French" to Ace's, so I found this mushroom recipe in an old French cookbook, and I used about half a bottle of good white wine in these damn mushrooms - pardon my "French" - ha ha! And then they turn out to be these... mushrooms. Just some mushrooms lying there. Just some cold mushrooms lying wearily on a plate. "Serve very cold," the old French cookbook advised. It didn't help. They were just like... mushrooms. You eat one and you're like, "Yep, that's a mushroom." You know, maybe I was too timid with the coriander! "They can't possibly require THIS MUCH coriander!" I yelled. "These old French people were CRAZY!" Well, who's laughing now? The old dead French people, that's who. The only good thing about them (the mushrooms, not the old dead French people) was Dr. Theresa's suggestion that I bring along Bob Hope's cocktail forks for people to spear and eat them with. I also brought Bob Hope's very own personal (former) glass toothpick holder to hold them in! The cocktail forks, I mean. One of my greatest joys of the evening was seeing Bill Boyle's little girl absolutely murdering a strawberry with one of Bob Hope's cocktail forks. (In case some of you don't know why I have Bob Hope's cocktail forks, I bought them at an auction.) Well, anyway,

I didn't understand UN FLIC. Like, Richard Crenna spent a lot of time combing his hair! Like, I think I got up to pee and came back and Richard Crenna was still combing his hair. That's what my great deleted tweet was about. I can't remember the exact wording of my great deleted tweet, but it was something like, "Critics the world over agree that UN FLIC is the film in which Richard Crenna spends the most time combing his hair." So you can see why I deleted it. It's too specific for the high-pressure world of the on-the-go twitter user of today! This "blogger" I found ("click" here) has a more positive spin on that scene (pictured), which I will now quote: "Once we're inside the train, Melville's sure touch returns... The scene goes on for several minutes, during which we see Crenna carefully adjust his coiffure not once but twice... the meticulous preparations are mesmerizing." The fact that I was just all, "Boy, he is sure is combing his hair a lot!" is my own problem. As Bill Boyle pointed out, the long shot of the adorable little helicopter flying over the tiny train made UN FLIC look briefly like a Wes Anderson movie.

Street Jeers

Remember when buildings used to be shaped like things? I was out in California for ADVENTURE TIME work and Verdell suggested several places for dinner, including somewhere "shaped like a barrel." I needed to hear no more! So we went to the barrel. Verdell said, and I believe I'm paraphrasing okay, that there used to be lots of buildings shaped like funny things in Hollywood, and this barrel is one of the last ones - maybe the last one - still standing. So now it has been taken over and reopened by some enterprising youths or something. Standing outside the barrel, as you can maybe see from the photo Verdell took, was a bearded guy in suspenders, whose sole job was to tell entering customers that the kitchen was closed because it was a "soft opening." But the kitchen was not completely closed! They gave us four deviled eggs in a cast-iron skillet. I have to say I was offended on some philosophical level! Why would deviled eggs be associated with a cast-iron skillet? Perverse! Jay - a new character in our story! - speculated that the bacon crumbled on top of the deviled eggs was the link to the cast-iron skillet. Not good enough! So for actual dinner, Verdell and Jay and I went to the reliable Tam O'Shanter, where we ordered MORE DEVILED EGGS. Hey! I did all that part from memory. Now I must consult my famed book of famed jottings. 1. Before dinner I was down in the hotel lobby and I heard a guy telling his life story at the hotel bar (he almost had a love scene with Bo Derek once) and he turned out to be the guy who plays Squidward. AND he was reading a storyboard based on one of my SpongeBob scripts! Right there at the bar. That was a coincidence! 2. The next day I went to Skylight Books to meet Kent. There was supposed to be an ADVENTURE TIME writers meeting but we had all forgotten that it was President's Day and the office was closed. So I bought some stuff at Skylight while I was waiting for Kent and had it shipped to myself. I can't remember the title of this one book I got, but it was written in 1959 and collected and analyzed the rhymes, jokes, songs and stories that schoolchildren make up and circulate among themselves (I think that's right) and anyway I opened to a section called "Street Jeers" and for some reason I thought, "'Street Jeers'! Megan Abbott would love this book!" 3. Kent and I ate in a French restaurant next door to Skylight. We decided it would be real cute if we went to see 50 SHADES OF GREY, which was playing in the movie theater on the other side of Skylight Books. "It would be 'blog-ready,'" I proclaimed of the potential experience! And in truth there's a lot I could say about 50 SHADES OF GREY, but I just don't feel like it right now, sorry. 4. At the end of 50 SHADES OF GREY, when it cut to black, Kent turned to me and said, "Wanna go get some chicken wings?" Ha ha ha ha! Classic Osborne. We walked a block or two to a place called "Ye Olde Rustic Inn" on the sign, but which I believe Kent referred to colloquially as "The Rustic." It was 3 in the afternoon and pitch-dark inside and everybody in the joint was already sloshed out of their minds. Kent said they had the best chicken wings in Los Angeles and told me about a Christmas Eve he spent there eating chicken wings. Michael Jackson came on the jukebox and Kent and I discussed how sad we had been when Michael Jackson died. 5. We were walking everywhere, well, Kent was pushing his bike.

So as we were walking down Sunset Boulevard we came upon a big bus-stop poster of 50 SHADES OF GREY and Kent wanted to take my picture in front of it. He was disappointed that there was a glare on the slogan "CURIOUS?"... 6. The next day I went to work and had lunch with ADVENTURE TIME coworkers Tom Herpich and Adam Muto and Jesse Moynihan and of course Kent. Jesse said he liked my outfit! He didn't use the word "outfit." Also, we discussed society. Tom had some thoughts about the future of transportation. 7. Back to work! This time with some actors from ADVENTURE TIME: Hynden "Princess Bubblegum" Walch (who was telling Jeremy "Finn" Shada about the meaning of Lent) and Steve Little. You'll probably recognize him from EASTBOUND AND DOWN. Look, here's his picture. He does the voice of Peppermint Butler. You know just the other day I was at Square Books and a young woman who works there (her name is Miracle!) was telling me how Peppermint Butler is her favorite character... AND last time I saw Jimmy he was saying that he identified with Peppermint Butler.

Is there something going on in the zeitgeist with Peppermint Butler? Probably not. 8. Marceline came in. By which I mean Olivia Olson, who plays Marceline. Of all these folks, she was the one I'd never met. Kent forgot to introduce me! So she just breezed into the booth thinking I was probably some old weirdo who was hanging around. 9. A break in the recording session! I walked out and beheld a strange sight. Now, the recording studio is on the first floor of the building, but the windows are high up, and I saw a row of people standing on chairs and other objects in order to peek out the window. Pendleton Ward took this photo of the phenomenon:

There was a big police standoff happening! "Every cop in Burbank is out there," as Kent said. There were SWAT vans and helicopters and everything, massed against some poor soul who had stolen a car, I think. This went on for some hours. 10. But work must continue! Back to the recording booth. Marceline had some more lines. Standing there waiting, Elizabeth Ito (a director on ADVENTURE TIME) mentioned Kent's tweets about 50 SHADES OF GREY, and as I was answering her I realized, oh good, this is my introduction to Marceline, because it was just Elizabeth and Marceline and me hanging out, and Marceline was intently listening as the old weirdo stranger who was standing around earlier talked at great length about 50 SHADES OF GREY. "Uh, I'm Jack," I said, after describing 50 SHADES OF GREY to Marceline for a while. 11. After all the work was done for the day I wanted to go back to the hotel but the standoff was still happening. I couldn't find Kent. I called his cell. "I'm on the roof!" he said. Cole Sanchez offered to take me out the back way and get me an Uber. While we waited for the Uber, Cole told me about a special backpack he carries his dog around in! 12. I went on a terrifying Uber ride with an extremely old man - who knows? maybe he was a terrible driver when he was young, too. But he swerved all over the road and generally behaved like a maniac. And the first thing he asked me was, "How do we get to Burbank?" to which I replied, "Uh, we're in Burbank." It was all downhill from there. 13. Sitting at the bar at Musso & Frank, waiting for some more people show up. I saw a bottle of Plymouth gin, which I've never had, but it's in all the Travis McGee books, so I thought I'd have a Plymouth gin gibson in honor of my pal Ace's hero Travis McGee. Pen showed up and had one too! He told me about the outcome of the police standoff: "They shot him with a beanbag and his pants fell down," said Pen. But when I showed him that I had jotted his sentence in my little jotting book, he added, "Not in that order." 14. While I was having dinner at Musso & Frank, Dr. Theresa was back in Mississippi having dinner with independent producer and actor Maggie Renzi. Maggie Renzi told Dr. Theresa about the movie she and John Sayles want to make next - which I would never reveal, in case it's a secret -

BUT LISTEN TO THIS! In an email on Feb. 3, my brother said he had an idea for a movie: "it's amazing... sad... triumphant... interesting" he wrote about this idea. AND IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME IDEA THAT MAGGIE RENZI TOLD DR. THERESA THE OTHER NIGHT. (Here's a photo of Maggie Renzi speaking to Dr. Theresa's Gender Studies class just hours ago!)

15. Speaking of my brother, he was among the party at Musso & Frank and revealed a fascinating piece of information I can't tell you... YET. 16. Pen took me to his house after dinner and strapped a thing on my head (pictured). It was like 50 SHADES OF GREY, ha ha, not really! It was the latest in virtual reality technology! I seemed to be flying, superhero style, over an old city. When I first started flying, I accidentally swooped toward the ground and shouted "Aaaaaaaaaaah!" exactly like the audiences in 1903 who went to see THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and got scared that the train was going to run over them. (Did that really happen? I am going to say yes.) There was also a virtual reality where you throw a ball to some kitty cats. That was more my speed. 17. McKay mailed me a copy of THE LEOPARD by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. She was thanking me for my recommendation letter because she got accepted into a swank artist colony in Italy. I hate to tell her, but she got in on her own merit. I write the most glowing recommendation letters imaginable but they're just the kiss of death. Nobody gets into anything that I recommend them for! I'm glad McKay proved to be the exception. So I was reading THE LEOPARD on the plane and it is a book with an owl in it: "from the overhanging bell tower came an elfin hoot of owls."

18. On the flight back I had a layover in Minneapolis, and I am almost 100% sure that Lou Ferrigno (who plays Billy on ADVENTURE TIME) was on it! In fact, he broke in front of me in line to get on the plane and even jostled me! I am almost 100% sure I was jostled by Lou Ferrigno! It wasn't on purpose, I am sure. I am no more to Lou Ferrigno than an ant! Nor should I be. When the plane landed, and he stood to retrieve something from the overhead bin, I noticed that the man I took to be Lou Ferrigno had a high-tech looking black gizmo behind his ear. This is anecdotal and rude to boot, but I recalled that Mr. Ferrigno has a hearing impediment, so that small gadget, whatever it was, helped confirm my assumption. Now I am going to look for a current photo of him. Well, yes, by God, it was him!

Bilbo Baggins

Hello! Here is a picture of Norman Mailer in a top hat, leather vest, and denim shorts, snapped by Bill Boyle off of Megan Abbott's TV screen. We were watching Mailer's film MAIDSTONE. Ace was there too, and he thought it was pretty good revenge for the time he made Dr. Theresa and me watch THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK (which I would like to state for the record here is, I think, about twice as long as MAIDSTONE). "He looks like a hobbit," Ace said of Norman Mailer, and other disparaging remarks. To be fair, when I was in a video conference once, I held up the cover of the Norman Mailer bio to the camera, so that Mailer's face filled the screen instead of mine, and Pen cried out "It's Bilbo Baggins!" - not trying to be funny, more in simple recognition. Megan and I argued that Mailer was a good-looking man. Ace remained unconvinced. Megan Abbott owned up that she saw him once and "he was just a little taller than me." (She's tiny!) I found a number of things to enjoy in MAIDSTONE, but we all agreed that by far the best part of the movie is the famous bloody scene at the very end when the actor Rip Torn goes a little bit crazy and hits Norman Mailer in the head with a hammer FOR REAL and then Norman Mailer tries very hard to bite and rip off Rip Torn's ear. "Click" here to see a demonically grinning Rip Torn on Bill Boyle's twitter feed, in the electrically tense aftermath, gracing Mailer with a startling scatological encomium, unsuitable for printing on the "blog." You will note that Megan Abbott had at that point in the film turned on the subtitles for extra musing and study. Below, another example, from the climactic fight, sent to me by Ace this morning. Ace did admit that MAIDSTONE shares a certain sensibility ("group therapy" he called it) with the original BILLY JACK (which we watched and enjoyed very much, as distinct from its sequel, though, as Ace reminded me last night, THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK had some good parts, such as when there is an all-red Billy Jack and an all-blue Billy Jack and they battle for his soul in a cave, encountering a spiritually significant cobra in a scene that made me wonder if Scorsese hadn't lifted from it for THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. I guess I would say that the main problem with THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK is that they gave Billy Jack too much money and he loved helicopter shots so much.) Another common thread between the Billy Jack movies and MAIDSTONE is the dominating personality of the filmmaker, and the film's existence as a stubborn extension of that personality. Ace said that MAIDSTONE was like BILLY JACK "without the karate." And you know, when he said that, I had to admit that Billy Jack knew what he was doing, putting the karate in there and driving the original film with a good, old-fashioned revenge plot.

Broken Heart Spree

There was this little debate in the novel J R by William Gaddis about whether or not the composer Bizet "died of a broken heart," and that made me want to look up Bizet in my MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC, because if there is anything they love in MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC, it is a composer dying of a broken heart. So I looked him up. And to my surprise, I became convinced - and this is speculative, unfounded, and fruitless as a subject, just the way I like it! - that Gaddis must have relied on MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC while writing J R. At the very least, Gaddis and MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC share a certain deadpan attitude toward tragedy. That reminds me of something else nobody cares about! When I was having my wild spree of buying old comic books, I bought the issue of BATMAN that inspired the Donald Barthelme short story "The Joker's Greatest Triumph." I was like, "I can read the comic book and then write an erudite essay comparing it to the short story!" But then I thought: "1) somebody has already done that, I bet; 2) nobody cares anyway; 3) writing is hard." I haven't even cracked the comic book. I can't make myself! That's how lazy I am. Too lazy to read a comic book.

McNeil's Movie Korner

Welcome once again to "McNeil's Movie Korner," the only place on the "internet" to read about movies you don't care anything about. NEWS FLASH! I emailed McNeil after his recent visit to say we should watch CANCEL MY RESERVATION - Bob Hope's final role as a leading man - next time we get together. McNeil replied: "I don't think I've seen it since it was on the NBC movie of the week way back in the 70s. I can still see Bob holding up a jungle-print bra (a la Mrs. Robinson). I think he's climbing out of a cave? And then it burns? Am I dreaming? Am I having an astral projection?" Friends, I went ahead and watched CANCEL MY RESERVATION, and I can tell you that McNeil was only partially dreaming. Eva Marie Saint and Bob Hope are trapped in a cave, and Bob uses Eva Marie Saint's animal-print bra to fashion a makeshift bow, which he uses to shoot a makeshift flaming arrow out of a hole, attracting the attention of Keenan Wynn and Ralph Bellamy, who are flying over in a helicopter... but WHY, you ask, did I watch CANCEL MY RESERVATION without McNeil? Because McNeil went on: "Maybe it's best to save it up until just before I die, that way I have something to look forward to... like, 'Oh boy, I can't wait til I'm almost dead so I can watch CANCEL MY RESERVATION.' A movie which is appropriate for 'deathbed viewing,' and probably not only because of the title. Is deathbed one word? Why did I put that phrase in quotes? I can't believe I'm still typing..." (A sentiment I have often expressed on the "blog" - a sensation, in fact, that I am experiencing RIGHT NOW. And yet there is no end in sight.) NEWS FLASH! The opening credits of CANCEL MY RESERVATION include "With Anne Archer as Crazy." That's right! Anne Archer's character's name is "Crazy." She's a free-spirited young woman of today! (And only a year later Clint Eastwood directed a movie about a free-spirited young woman named... BREEZY.) As "Crazy" explains her name to Eva Marie Saint, "I pinned it on myself. Until we come together inside, we're all a little crazy." Wise words, "Crazy"! I believe Eva Marie Saint even remarks as much, as she and "Crazy" have some real talk about "women's lib" over coffee and toast. A lot of the movie is played really straight... the talks about "women's lib" and relationships, the murder plot... I noticed in the credits that CANCEL MY RESERVATION is based on a novel by Louis L'Amour - which probably doesn't deserve one of these (!) but there it is anyway. In one of my many books by Bob Hope, I read, "I had planned to produce it with another actor as star, but the deal didn't go through. Then Tom Sarnoff of NBC said, 'Why don't you do BROKEN GUN yourself?' Why not? The script was rewritten, and we shot most of the picture in Carefree, Arizona." That (the rewrite) explains a lot. As straight as it's played, you can feel the anxious presence of Bob Hope's gag writers like invisible creatures from another world, occasionally breaking through the membrane of existence Lovecraft style. In one distasteful instance, Bob obviously took the fellas aside and said, "Hey, there should be a gag where I try to give this kid mouth-to-mouth" (talking about Anne Archer) and they gritted their teeth and buckled down and put it in there, though it's absolutely unnecessary, which made me think of of what McNeil said about Hope's love interest in EIGHT ON THE LAM, and the general information about Hope's "love life" that has been funneled to me over the years by Megan Abbott. Another intrusion into the "reality" of CANCEL MY RESERVATION occurs when Bob imagines being hung in front of a jeering mob that includes Bing Crosby, Johnny Carson, John Wayne and Flip Wilson in cameo appearances. Immediately I thought of two other Hope movies that revolve around Hope being executed or nearly executed: by electric chair in MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE and guillotine in CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT. And there must be more. Is there a scholarly paper to written about Bob Hope's recurring nightmare of public execution? No. Though it occurs to me this may be another motif that Woody Allen picked up from Hope... God help me, I just keep typing, don't I? CANCEL MY RESERVATION is one of those late films of which Dave Kehr remarked, "There’s none of the fearful, anti-hippie humor that had come to dominate his television specials; instead, he seems to be doing his best to keep up, adapting the point of view of a concerned, confused but not wholly unsympathetic parent." From the same article: "Funny they are not, but these last efforts are unexpectedly moving. Hope does his unflappably professional best to pick his way through a cultural landscape that had irreversibly shifted beneath his feet." And that's the word I kept thinking, too, as I watched Hope work here: "professional." NEWS FLASH! McNeil watched GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN on TCM yesterday. He reports: "The director of GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN does the same thing Jerry Lewis does in THE LADIES MAN! Gidget tells a woman on a plane a story that happened only 12 minutes earlier in the movie, and the director replays the scene for the audience to relive (with Gidget providing v/o) - just in case we forgot." I recall that Kent Osborne and I once watched the beginning of THE LADIES MAN together, and the odd editorial choice described by McNeil marked a point of no return for Kent. Here's how Chris Fujiwara puts it in his great Jerry monograph: "Lewis unfolds redundancy for its own sake, as redundancy... The repetition discloses nothing new but only confirms the obsessive nature of Herbert's relation to the scene (and, in a wider sense, the obsessional character that all narrative possesses for Lewis)." Okay! (See also. "See also"? Ha ha ha! Pendarvis, you're a riot! I know nobody's reading this. See also.)

Country Guy

Read a New York Times obituary about a guy who started his own country: "drama ensued when a group of Germans with plans to build a luxury casino on the platform tried to take control of Sealand while Mr. Bates and his wife were away. They held [his son] hostage for several days before Roy Bates stormed Sealand and retook it in a dramatic helicopter raid." I like the implied thought: "Hey, that guy and his wife went for groceries. Let's take over their country before they get back."

Invincible Paste Pot

One thing Ace and I did in Memphis was go to a comic book store, the only kind of bookstore we don't have around here. I bought a volume of old Dr. Strange stories. The book includes covers of the original comics from which the stories were taken, which is how I found out about Paste Pot Pete. On one cover we are told that the Human Torch and the Thing are going to team up to "BATTLE THE NEW MENACE OF PASTE POT PETE!" I don't know anything about Paste Pot Pete, but does it really take two guys to battle him? On another cover, the Human Torch is trapped in a cage and some dude is encouraging Paste Pot Pete thusly: "YOU'LL FINISH HIM OFF WITH YOUR INVINCIBLE PASTE-POT GUN!" I don't know how the story comes out because this book has only the Dr. Strange stories in it, but I doubt that Paste Pot Pete finished off the Human Torch with a device that squirts paste. But maybe! There's so much I don't know. Why, I almost went my whole life without knowing who Walter Tetley was (a radio actor who became an adult without achieving puberty, natch). That's why my autumnal years are filled with the excitement of learning. It's never too late! On one cover, the Human Torch is saying "MY FLAMES DON'T AFFECT THE ASBESTOS MAN!!" On another, he's fighting the Eel, who seems to be a super villain who flies around in a helicopter, which doesn't seem like something an eel would do. (See also.)

Hipster Chimp Shoot

Mr. Ward writes to remind me that the time we saw George Hamilton eating lunch we were in Los Angeles for our "hipster chimp shoot." Don't ask. Okay, I will tell you. I think you could win a lot of awful pizza by watching SAVED BY THE BELL. So Mr. Ward and I made this contest spot featuring various tattooed youngsters having a swinging dance party on a helicopter pad on the roof of a downtown office building with their baby chimp sidekick, just like in real life. I forgot to tell you, our main hipster character LIVED on the roof of the building, apparently. He had a couch and a lamp and a TV set up there and everything. We dollied in a hipster angel who threw glitter and I am pretty sure she fell off the dolly and sued TBS. FUN FACT: It is cold and windy on a helicopter pad, and your teeth will chatter and you will shiver and shake, yet the sun will fry and burn your delicate flesh and poison your very blood! They finally had to wrap me in a blanket. It was very sad. Mr. Ward found the George Hamilton photo but he didn't send it in a format I could download here. While we wait, I will just warn you that it is completely disappointing.

Stolen Franks

I cheerfully stole this photo of Mr. Sinatra from Kelly Hogan. She uses it to help explain why she might be coming around on her famous aversion to the man. Read her interesting reflections! Speaking of stolen franks, ha ha! Some kids in Iowa boosted a 400-pound anthropomorphic hot dog statue and drove around with it until they became "'creeped out' by its leer." Read all about that, too! I first came across this news in the "gawker," where some commenters were concerned about the way the hot dog was licking its lips as it applied ketchup to its own head. I argue that the hot dog does not want to consume itself! I think it is merely expressing the effort and determination with which it is engaged in its decorative chore.

Four A.M. Chuck

Also there is an infomercial where Chuck Woolery tells you how to go to sleep and it comes on at four in the morning which is clever when you think about it. At one point Chuck Woolery says, "And now we are going to get into a helicopter and visit a surprising guest who can't sleep!" And his sidekick says, "Why are we getting into a helicopter?" And Chuck Woolery says, "Because this is a show and we have a budget," which seems like a rude answer to a reasonable question, though Chuck Woolery does not invest it with any detectable ill will. In fact, it occurs to me that Chuck may have asked the producer, "Hey, don't we need a line here to explain why we're getting on a helicopter?" and the producer was like, "Just get on the helicopter, Chuck," and Chuck Woolery was like, "I think my fans will want to know why I am flying on a helicopter to meet our special guest who can't sleep, I mean, why can't the guy just meet us at the studio? It feels weird to me," and the producer grudgingly inserted the lines in question almost as an insult to Chuck Woolery! He probably scribbled them onto a script with a magic marker and shoved them in Chuck Woolery's hands and said, "There! Happy now?" I hate to think this!

This Is What I Look Like

This (pictured) is what I look like according to the people at Jamie Allen's "blog." Kind of like Max Von Sydow in one of his more harrowing performances for Ingmar Bergman! The fellow who sketched me also provides a report on my reading last night. It seems more or less accurate, except for the fact that I would ask everyone to "lie down," not "lay down," which is not very grammatical. As for my pronunciation of gazebo, the whole point of that little hiccup was that my brain suddenly went blank. Hasn't that ever happened to you? You see a word you have been saying for your entire life (although I do go for long stretches without saying "gazebo" out loud) and suddenly it seems unfamiliar and strange? Right? As for my exhortation to the "gentlemen" in the audience, I am not sure the reporter makes it clear that there were many women required to stand while men sat at their leisure (I'm looking at you, Phil Oppenheim!). Finally, on the subject of Helicopter Island (another reference in that report on Jamie Allen's "blog"): one attendee believed that my fictional character who mentions Helicopter Island was making an oblique reference to the TV show LOST. Not true! I wrote that story a long time before I had even seen an episode of LOST, perhaps before LOST was even on the air, and certainly before a ********* almost reached the island, which occurred only a few weeks ago. I hope this clears everything up! Thanks to everyone who came out to my reading. I will try to do better in the future!

McNeil Leaves "Blog" to Pursue Other Interests

The "blogging" world suffered a devastating loss today when Jeff McNeil received a digital video recorder. McNeil plans to retire from guest-blogging and devote himself full-time to recording old movies off of the satellite TV and watching them over and over. Experts speculate that given Mr. McNeil's viewing habits, he will be recording such films as UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE, starring Jack Lemmon, Dean Jones, and Paul Lynde, and BACHELOR FLAT, starring Terry-Thomas and Tuesday Weld. "The biggest loss," says Jack Pendarvis, "is Jeff's long planned dispatch from the Fun Factory. It's this place on his route. They service broken pinball machines, mechanical ponies and helicopters, and other novelty gadgets from department stores and arcades. From Jeff's past descriptions, I understand that there are mountains of eerie, unclaimed baby pictures in the Fun Factory. They seem to come from a defunct portrait studio. I'd love to find out more. But McNeil's gone. He was our inside man, and now he's gone." McNeil could not be reached for comment.