The Meatballs of Yesterday

To my recollection, four things happened yesterday. 1. I got a text from Laraine Newman! She told me that the New York Times (or a newsletter thereof, to be precise) had some nice things to say about MYSTERY CUDDLERS, the pilot I co-created with Pendleton Ward. They say it has a "bright, appealing oddness," if that's the sort of thing you enjoy. 2. A package arrived from my brother! It contained a giant cookie jar in the shape of an owl. The owl is wearing a straw boater and a bow tie, of course. And the hat cleverly serves as the lid of the cookie jar. Thanks, Will! I stare at this cookie jar a lot! I would put a photo of it here, but I feel my masterful description could not be improved upon. Oh, you know what? Screw it! Pardon my rough he-man language of the dirty streets! 3. A cat sneezed all over me. If you have a cat, one day it will sneeze all over you, a fact taken from real life that we worked into episode one of season one of ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE. I felt the need to change my shirt, which bore tangible evidence of the cat sneeze. So I broke in a shirt that Ace Atkins brought me as a souvenir of his recent trip to New York City. It says "Daddy's Little Meatball" on it. Ace didn't know this, but I once read a New York Times article about such a shirt, which I recall because I put it into one of my many unpublished novels (and subsequently deleted - the detail, not the novel, though I should probably delete the novel). 4. After I "blogged" about Julian Barnes yesterday, I thought of my childhood friend Henry Barnes (no relation, I assume), who dove into the bayou to retrieve a softball once. That was his excuse, anyway. Boy, did Sister Lois chew him out about that! It was 7th grade, the year I went to Catholic school, because Mom had a job there. The school was right there on the bayou. What was Henry supposed to do? NOT dive into the bayou, which was right there? My brother attended the same school and became an altar boy, even though we were Southern Baptists. How did that happen? That has to be against the rules. I hope the Pope doesn't read this! How many masses did my little brother invalidate with his non-Catholic subterfuge? I hate to say it, but there may be any number of souls sitting around in Purgatory to this day, all thanks to my brother. But the point is, Henry grew up to be the mayor of Bayou La Batre, which I believe he still is! I'll have to ask Mom. I haven't seen him in about half a century (see also).

Sitting

I've been sitting on this for a while. Yes, yes, checking my records, I see that on August 2 of this year, I became fascinated by wombats for a couple of hours. As a result, I "tweeted" on the subject, to which someone responded with the fact that Dante Gabriel Rossetti (pictured) kept wombats as pets. Naturally, I scurried around the "internet," seeking corroboration, which I found immediately, via a scholarly article, which quoted a poem about wombats by Mr. Rossetti. In the poem, Mr. Rossetti compares wombats favorably with owls and bats (two creatures often linked in literature, as we have seen, though seldom in the company of wombats). As you well know, I no longer "blog," although I am required by state law to maintain my famous list of books with owls in them. However! The article had no footnotes, as I recall, and now I am much too tired to check. So I have no way of knowing if the wombat poem (which appeared in a letter) was ever published, either in a book of Rossetti's poetry or in a book of his correspondence, or whether the author of the article was just rummaging around in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's things, looking for wombat information, a quest to which his life is no doubt devoted.

McNeil Month By Month: The Return

As you well know, and have told your children, I stopped "blogging" on April 27, 2016, the day our TV blew up. Oh, sure, I dipped in a toe from time to time, just to be sure the site wasn't hijacked by crooks selling counterfeit vitamins. And then, of course, we had our big fat worldwide crisis and I ratcheted up the "blogging" a little to keep you, the people of the world, cheerful and happy. All of this is to explain why I missed celebrating McNeil's birthday on the "blog" last year. Shamefully, all I "blogged" about in the October of 2019 was the novel DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT and a slang term that Dr. Theresa and I heard on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. What I had forgotten, specifically, was my yearly update of everything that McNeil has done since 2006. Now, in the old days, each thing that McNeil had done was accompanied by a "hyperlink," by the "clicking on" of which you could further educate yourself about McNeil. As my "blogging" came to the shocking end described above, I continued to print the facts of what McNeil did every month, but without the helpful "hyperlinks," so you just had to trust my sources. The latter sort of entry I marked with an asterisk for your convenience. And now we find ourselves a year behind in research! Did this mean extra trouble for the team? Let me answer that by saying that no amount of trouble is significant when it comes to wishing McNeil a happy birthday by telling you everything he has done since late 2006. Here then we bring you our most vigorously updated installment ever of MCNEIL MONTH BY MONTH, with two years of new material! September 2006: McNeil contends that he does not enjoy the "Little Dot" comic book. October 2006: McNeil furnishes a memorable quotation. November 2006: McNeil recalls playing Aerosmith on a jukebox. December 2006: First appearance of "McNeil's Movie Korner." January 2007: McNeil's system for winning at craps. February 2007: McNeil doesn't see what's so hard about reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich at the same time. March 2007: McNeil and I are talking about Bob Denver when HE SUDDENLY APPEARS ON TELEVISION! April 2007: Wild turkeys roam McNeil's neighborhood. May 2007: McNeil gets in touch with an Australian reporter regarding a historical chimp. June 2007: First McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival announced. July 2007: Medicine changes McNeil's taste buds. August 2007: McNeil's trees not producing apples. September 2007: McNeil pinpoints a problem with the "blog." October 2007: McNeil presents a video entitled "Jerry's pre-defecation chills." November 2007: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy. December 2007: What is McNeil's favorite movie? January 2008: McNeil explains why the wind blows. February 2008: McNeil admires the paintings of Gerhard Richter. March 2008: McNeil comes up with an idea for a Lifetime TV movie. April 2008: McNeil's shirt. May 2008: McNeil's apple tree doing better (see August 2007). June 2008: McNeil is troubled by a man who wants to make clouds in the shape of logos. July 2008: McNeil's apples are doing great. August 2008: McNeil refuses to acknowledge that Goofy wears a hat no matter what I say. September 2008: McNeil's grocery store is permanently out of his favorite margarine. October 2008: McNeil on the space elevator. November 2008: McNeil comes across an incomplete episode guide to HELLO, LARRY. December 2008: McNeil thinks the human hand should have more fingers. January 2009: McNeil discovers that gin and raisins cure arthritis. February 2009: McNeil gets a big bruise on his arm. March 2009: McNeil wants a job on a cruise ship. April 2009: McNeil attempts to rescue a wayward balloon. May 2009: McNeil visits the Frogtown Fair. June 2009: McNeil dreams he is watching an endless production number from LI'L ABNER. July 2009: McNeil sends text messages from his cell phone while watching a Frank Sinatra movie. August 2009: McNeil disagrees philosophically with a comic book cover that shows a mad scientist putting a gorilla's brain in a superhero's body. September 2009: McNeil resembles famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach. October 2009: McNeil wears a surgical mask. November 2009: McNeil reports that a bird broke the large hadron collider by dropping a bread crumb on it. December 2009: McNeil advises me to like the universe or lump it. January 2010: McNeil eats soup. February 2010: McNeil tells of the hidden civilizations living deep beneath the surface of the earth. March 2010: McNeil recalls a carpet of his youth. April 2010: McNeil starts wearing a necktie. May 2010: McNeil's DNA sample fails to yield results. June 2010: McNeil thinks up some improvements for the movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. July 2010: McNeil reads to me from I, THE JURY. August 2010: McNeil finds a hair in his crab cake. September 2010: McNeil has a cold. October 2010: McNeil sends a nine-minute clip of a nice old man speaking at a UFO banquet. November 2010: McNeil sits in his car and looks at pictures of Jennifer Jones. December 2010: McNeil fears a ball of fire in the sky. January 2011: McNeil watches DYNASTY. February 2011: McNeil sees clouds that look like guys on horseback. March 2011: McNeil composes a "still life" photograph. April 2011: McNeil is upset when I interrupt his viewing of MATCH GAME. May 2011: McNeil pines for some old curtains. June 2011: McNeil eats Lucky Charms brand breakfast cereal. July 2011: McNeil investigates the history of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain. August 2011: McNeil compares Dean Moriarty to Dean Martin. September 2011: McNeil learns a lesson about pork and beans. October 2011: McNeil finds an article describing Robert Mitchum as "Bing Crosby supersaturated with barbiturates." November 2011: McNeil did nothing in November. December 2011: McNeil discovers scientists creating rainbows in a laboratory. January 2012: McNeil impersonates Paul Lynde. February 2012: McNeil dreams of matches. March 2012: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy (see November 2007, above) used to chart the influence of Jerry Lewis on Carson McCullers. April 2012: McNeil disturbed by the art in his hotel room. May 2012: McNeil considers grave robbing. June 2012: McNeil's idea for "music television." July 2012: McNeil holds his negative feelings in check out of respect when the man who invented electric football dies. August 2012: McNeil reads me an old obituary of Charlie Callas over the phone. September 2012: McNeil concerned about T.J. Hooker's big meaty hands. October 2012: McNeil eats lunch at Target. November 2012: McNeil loves it when Bob Hope slips on a banana peel. December 2012: McNeil sees rocks that look like squirrels. January 2013: McNeil looks at an old, faded photo of a dog gazing into a Bath and Tile Emporium. February 2013: McNeil watches a video in which a hooded figure talks about "our criminal overlords." March 2013: McNeil wakes up at 6:40 in the evening, momentarily thinks it is 6:40 in the morning. April 2013: McNeil sees a singer who looks just like Bill Clinton. May 2013: McNeil is ashamed of himself for not realizing that Ida Lupino directed some episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. June 2013: McNeil mails a cashew tree. July 2013: McNeil watches GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN. August 2013: McNeil recalls being rosy-cheeked. September 2013: A fairyland goes on in McNeil's head. October 2013: McNeil recalls tucking in his t-shirt. November 2013: The cover of a book McNeil buys says it is about Jerry Lewis, but on the inside the book is about Willie Stargell! December 2013: McNeil wants to visit an orgone box factory. January 2014: McNeil did nothing in January. February 2014: McNeil wonders whether Tom Franklin puts his hair in curlers. March 2014: McNeil takes a nap in the car. April 2014: The subject of McNeil pops up in an interview. May 2014: McNeil's emails on the "hollow earth" recalled (see February 2010, above). June 2014: McNeil looks forward to getting drunk and making insensitive remarks as I lie on my deathbed. July 2014: McNeil watches Jim and Henny Backus play themselves in DON'T MAKE WAVES. August 2014: McNeil tells about Robert Mitchum's hangover cure. September 2014: McNeil exaggerates the fate of some owls. October 2014: McNeil is incensed that a candy apple costs eight dollars at the airport. November 2014: McNeil's heart overflows with joy. December 2014: McNeil continues his 7-year chimp investigation (see May 2007, above). January 2015: McNeil listens to a conspiracy theorist who says Jimmy Carter was replaced by a series of robots. February 2015: McNeil recalls doing a report about matches in the eighth grade. March 2015: McNeil takes to bed with the flu! April 2015: McNeil and I establish an amazing psychic link. May 2015: McNeil bitterly recalls the time he brought a John Wayne movie to my apartment and we never watched it. June 2015: McNeil dreams about a bearded Dean Martin. July 2015: McNeil has a disappointing encounter with the Grand Canyon. August 2015: McNeil sees a squirrel holding a stick. September 2015: McNeil is saddened by the news of Dean Jones's death. October 2015: McNeil watches STARFLIGHT: THE PLANE THAT COULDN'T LAND. November 2015: McNeil sends video of Joe Namath making and eating a sandwich. December 2015: A coincidence of the type McNeil especially loves. January 2016: McNeil is in a grocery store and they start playing "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea" over the speakers! February 2016: McNeil watches Don Rickles eat in a bathroom. March 2016: McNeil is duly thrilled when Megan Abbott goes to see CRACKING UP on the big screen. April 2016: McNeil swallows a gnat. May 2016: McNeil recalls the details of a screenplay we wrote in our twenties. June 2016: Destruction comes to McNeil's apple tree! July 2016: McNeil spots Dabney Coleman in an I DREAM OF JEANNIE rerun. August 2016: McNeil points out that Dean Martin had granddaughters named Pepper, Montana, and Rio. September 2016: McNeil is called a "filthy troglodyte." October 2016: McNeil advises me on what to do now that ADVENTURE TIME has been canceled. "I say take it easy for a while... just pretend to write when Theresa's around and then sleep or watch movies when she leaves. Oh hell, you know how to work it," writes McNeil.* November 2016: McNeil sees an owl while walking his dog at midnight. December 2016: McNeil finds an Airbnb listing by "eccentric millionaires" for a treehouse featuring "whimsical taxidermy."* January 2017: McNeil notices that there are lots of ants in his writing.* February 2017: McNeil roots for the guy who stole a bucket full of gold flakes.* March 2017: McNeil reads an article suggesting that all the gold on Earth came from the collision of dead stars and says, "Let's go get us some of this!" seemingly suggesting a trip to outer space.* April 2017: McNeil recalls that he was washing dishes in 2015 when the thought of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine came into his head. Then he discovered that Gene Gene the Dancing Machine had just died!* May 2017: McNeil watches ISLAND IN THE SKY with his dog.* June 2017: McNeil is happy to see a movie with rotary phones and "people looking up stuff in a filing cabinet for a change."* July 2017: McNeil begins alerting me to weather situations in my area like he's my mother.* August 2017: McNeil connects heavenly signs and portents with the death of Jerry Lewis. September 2017: A critique by McNeil inspires a choice of airplane reading material. October 2017: McNeil cruelly but fairly shuts down my scheme of crossbreeding an apple with a lemon. November 2017: "Death knows my weak spot!" McNeil exclaims.* December 2017: McNeil leafs through CARIBOU TRAVELER. January 2018: McNeil catches a cold and stays in bed watching old game shows, writing from his sickbed: "Bobby Van looks so healthy...but would be dead only 5 years later... GATHER YE ROSEBUDS!"* February 2018: McNeil gives me a good idea about how to win a coupla sawbucks from likely suckers. March 2018: McNeil's complaint about sleeping: "I dream way too much."* April 2018: McNeil watches a movie in which Dean Martin claims to "make a hell of an owl stew."* May 2018: I ask McNeil what lightning is for (see January 2008) and he explains it to me.* June 2018: McNeil's mom stumbles on an old book about the comical dog Marmaduke from McNeil's younger days and is excited to deliver it to him.* July 2018: While walking his dog, McNeil sees a bone fall out of the sky. August 2018: Having made it to season five, McNeil, though a stalwart fan, watches what he considers to be the worst episode of BEWITCHED so far.* September 2018: McNeil finds one page of a history skit we did in ninth grade. October 2018: McNeil emails a still from the silent movie BILLY WHISKERS, the subject of an innocuous, decades-long inside joke. Using me as an intermediary, he also consults Ace Atkins about the little-known film version of DARKER THAN AMBER... set in Florida but filmed, as Ace explains, mostly in Germany!* November 2018: McNeil asks me whether Jack Lemmon was left handed. I don't know.* December 2018: McNeil tells me about deluxe reissues of two Paul McCartney albums I've never heard of.* January 2019: McNeil says he only ever bought one cassette tape in his life. (It was Bruce Springsteen's "The River.")* February 2019: McNeil watches IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and finds it difficult to believe a hardware store would close that long for lunch.* March 2019: McNeil tells me about a used car dealer in his town who secretly dealt drugs and would use his commercials to let people know a shipment had come in. If this guy's dog was on the hood of his car in the commercial, he was ready to deal some drugs!* April 2019: McNeil is thinking about the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.* May 2019: McNeil follows up on an email from 2015.* June 2019: Working on a secret project with McNeil. It never comes to fruition. July 2019: McNeil sees a guy in a parking lot trying unsuccessfully to fit a rolled-up rug in his car.* August 2019: McNeil cuts down his apple tree. September 2019: McNeil remarks that Brendan Gleeson should play Donald Trump... a prediction that recently came true!* October 2019: McNeil is at the dentist's office, where the muted cartoon on the television provides the caption "frightened quacking."* November 2019: McNeil is shirt shopping when he realizes that the age of some of his old shirts makes it likely that any new shirt he buys might be the last shirt he will ever need.* December 2019: McNeil watches the old Frosty the Snowman cartoon (see illustration above) and is disappointed that Frosty lets himself get trapped in the hothouse again.* January 2020: There's a new vending machine at McNeil's workplace. It dispenses "gloves, knee pads, safety vests - even socks."* February 2020: A comic book cover McNeil likes. March 2020: McNeil ponders inventing "powdered meat." April 2020: McNeil misremembers an idea we discussed in 2005. May 2020: Something McNeil and I noticed in 2014 comes up. June 2020: McNeil gets seven shots of novacaine.* July 2020: McNeil begins noticing obelisks. August 2020: McNeil goes fishing with Dean Martin in the realm of dreams. September 2020: McNeil finds an article that his grandmother clipped from a newspaper... on the back is an intriguing but incomplete item about murder among circus performers.* October 2020: McNeil tells me about a fusion reactor in France.* You know, McNeil's birthday doesn't arrive until tomorrow, but I'm going to "post" this now because I worked on it all morning, and I'm afraid it will disappear and I'll have to do it all again. Which would be an honor!

Graham Ogden

Last night I was watching the movie version of UNDER THE VOLCANO and Albert Finney had this awful neighbor who made me think of the character actor Grady Sutton. But he didn't really look like Grady Sutton, nor did he behave in the usual sweet and befuddled Grady Sutton manner. Something about him made me think of Grady Sutton, though. I knew he couldn't be Grady Sutton. I figured Grady Sutton was certainly dead by the time of UNDER THE VOLCANO. [Wrong! Grady Sutton died in 1995, if you can believe it. - ed.] But the point is, I couldn't think of Grady Sutton's name. It was driving me crazy. "Is this the beginning of the end?" I asked myself. I kept thinking, "What is that guy's name? Graham Ogden? Graham Ogden? It's something like Graham Ogden." It's all over for me. But I did get up this morning and check the "internet": a professor at a school of dentistry, a real estate agent, an Old Testament scholar... these are just a few of the many Graham Ogdens in the world, to my surprise.

I know I should have led off with a photograph of Grady Sutton but I was too mesmerized by the shot of Jacqueline Bisset in UNDER THE VOLCANO, standing between an orange (?) wall and an aquamarine (?) armoire (?), a color move which should have made me think of Jerry Lewis, but didn't.

Chandelier Hat

I was kissing everybody on the cheek. Everybody in town! I kissed Bill Taft on the cheek. "Punk rock!" he exclaimed in response. (I finally understood the time Barry Mills kissed everybody in New York City, did I ever tell you about that? I think he wrote a song about it that went "Come here, girl, I'm gonna kiss you/ Hey there, boy, I'll kiss you too") Indulge me. Or don't. I'm just trying to remember why I was so happy for the past few days. This "blog" now works as my substitute memory. You're free to go. Bill and Caroline and Will came to town. Look! Bill Boyle took this picture of Bill and Will playing at the Powerhouse while Caroline sits ready to spring to the poetry podium and read some poetry. Caroline read some poems about the time the awful tornado tore through Cabbagetown. And guess what? Shana came all the way from Atlanta just to hear it. And guess what else! Last time Shana visited we were sitting on the balcony of City Grocery Bar and she started getting a million texts because THAT WAS THE NIGHT THE AWFUL TORNADO TORE THROUGH CABBAGETOWN.

Shana came back for some of that emotion recollected in tranquility you always hear about. Here's Caroline laying down some poetry on the people, photo by Kevin from the Isom Center. Caroline! A benevolent being who appears whenever she is needed! Whether you know it or not! Why, she appeared in Ohio (was it Ohio?) in a hotel room with Bill Taft and Kelly Hogan and me and the band They Might Be Giants. Did I know Caroline at all? In any case, my extensive knowledge of THE BRADY BUNCH (much to the annoyance of They Might Be Giants, as Caroline and I choose to remember it) stuck in her mind and led Caroline, eventually, to get me my first job that a human adult would have. And she has led me from milestone to milestone ever since... introducing me to Dr. Theresa, for example, as I have repeated several times. IT BEARS REPEATING. (Late addendum: I just now recalled - I think - that the very first time I met Caroline, she was Kelly Hogan's next-door neighbor and Kelly and I were out in the gravelly yard drinking wine from her grandmother's red Jell-O glasses; Caroline and her boyfriend were returning - why do I remember this? - from some unwanted and socially enforced visit to a gimmicky restaurant owned by some reactionary Georgia politician, can that be true?) The night before the music and poetry show, Dr. Theresa and I took Bill and Will and Caroline out to dinner and the restaurant was dark and everybody was holding up the menus to their eyes and moving the atmospheric candle around because we're all old now and Caroline had the idea for a chandelier that is also a hat. Or a hat that is also a chandelier? It sounded like a great idea at the time. Before the Powerhouse show Bill and Will played on the Thacker Mountain Radio show, our live local weekly fun fest. Introducing one song, Bill said that when he read Hamlet as a youngster he thought Hamlet was a real cool guy, but now that he's a dad, he really understands Claudius! "A middle-aged man trying to get things done," Bill said, but not exactly. Bill said it better. I sat next to Melissa Ginsburg! SHE HAD JUST SOLD HER FIRST NOVEL THAT VERY DAY. It's a thriller! I think this is okay to "announce." I think everybody knows. Melissa can write poetry AND thrillers! An enchantress she is! She liked Bill so much she wanted me to make her a mix tape of the awesome Atlanta music of my callow young adulthood. Okay, I was in my 30s. I was a late bloomer for callow young adulthood. Melissa and I slipped out and had a drink to celebrate. A twin celebration! Because also on that very same day I had sent off my cigarette lighter book to my editor.

Finished! Until I get notes. NO MORE THINKING ABOUT CIGARETTE LIGHTERS ALL DAY EVERY DAY. After the poetry and music it was back to City Grocery Bar. Shana came along with her friend Kerri, who has an extremely detailed tattoo of Burt Reynolds on her arm! Needless to say, we became fast friends. The next morning I was sitting with Bill and Will at Big Bad Breakfast and Jill, who runs the place, came up to say hello, and there was a nice "Bill and Will this is Jill" moment. Then Shana and Kerri popped in! Will's macaroni and cheese looked so good they had to get a couple of side orders. Kerri told me about how she developed her first-ever crush, and it was Burt Reynolds,

and it happened when she was four years old and saw SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. Then she had a dream, the first dream she can ever remember having, and in the dream Burt Reynolds kidnapped her in the car from THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. But it was pleasant! In the dream. Sadly, Bill and Will had to hit the road (Caroline had vanished like a dewdrop - yes, let's say dewdrop! - early in the morning) but Shana and Kerri were up for anything! I took them across the parking lot to that used book stall I like. Below is a "selfie" of Shana and Kerri. Shana found an old red-and-white checked cookbook with a recipe for "Cinnamon Prunes"! And the previous owner had left little scraps of papers in the book with notes written on them.

Always a bonus! Shana and Bill and Caroline are the kind of friends that are FRIENDS FOR LIFE, even though I never keep in touch with anybody because I'm the worst. I mean, you see them, and all the love in your heart comes flooding out. I'm not leaving Will out! We never hung out with him quite as much, though he is fine and good and endlessly creative and interesting and someone we love knowing. He keeps his own counsel. Or maybe we do! Somebody's keeping it somewhere. SIDENOTE: I realize that I romanticize the past. My friends are unbelievably tough people who weathered unbelievably tough times. END SIDENOTE. Will walked through the woods near Faulkner's house holding a bowl of lima beans from the Oxford Canteen and made up a funny story we almost believed about a bear being attracted by the aroma. I found this used book:

As you can see, the front and back covers must have come off at some point, so they are held in place by silver tape. But other than that, the book is in fine condition. It has that severe polite formality I so enjoy: "When the President fell into the arms of Detective Geary he coolly asked: 'Am I shot?'" Geary unbuttoned the President's vest, and, seeing blood, replied: 'I fear you are, Mr. President.'" The book is, as the title page promises, "Superbly Illustrated." Here are some lovely photos of Mrs. McKinley, the former Ida Saxton. Now I'm not saying she's any Frances Cleveland! But in the bottom right photo, doesn't she look like Gaby Hoffman's character on GIRLS?

And of course the book is filled with fascinating, uh, what's the word for it? When you reveal stuff without meaning to, like a Browning character? For example, the bodyguards pay no attention to the actual assassin because they are busy checking out an "Italian, whose dark, shaggy brows and black mustache caused the professional protectors to regard him with suspicion." Talk about profiling! Eyebrow profiling! And see where that gets you. After the books, Shana and Kerri and I went to The End of All Music, which they were more than taken with. They were ecstatic! They kept saying, "We should move here!" Lots of people say that. Dr. Theresa and I used to say it. I'd be happy if Bill and Caroline and Will and Shana and Kerri moved here. But then what? You have to ask yourself. What happens to the magic? And just yesterday the dopes who can do such things suddenly dumped our fine, progressive university chancellor for their own shady reasons. What if Shana and Kerri and Bill and Caroline and Will come back and have to search for us in a dystopian wasteland?

Couldn't Sit Still

Hey look at this pic I nabbed from Anthony Bourdain's "blog." You can see Mr. Bourdain and Tom Franklin and Chris Offutt with his cascading silver locks, and the back of Wright Thompson's head and the back of Ace Atkins's head and if you look carefully, Megan Abbott's ever-thoughtful nose and mouth. Back behind the camera, that glamorous "extra" is Dr. Theresa, talking to some dude in a vest. (Dr. Theresa says that's Drew! My old eyes are going.) See that empty chair next to Anthony Bourdain? That's my chair! I kept getting up for more drinks. Yes, we were having a high old time that night at the City Grocery Bar. Many of us were out of our minds! "Because that's the reality," as Richard E. Grant says in THE PLAYER. I wish I could say it like Richard E. Grant. However the show came out I just hope I don't embarrass my poor old mother, that's all I ask, Lord. Why didn't someone stand behind me constantly whispering in my ear that I was on national TV? The next day - a luncheon at the Lamar Lounge - I was gently asked by the production team not to jump up and wiggle around so much. You know, for continuity. I'm a perpetual rube! It was exciting having Anthony Bourdain in town to shoot his show PARTS UNKNOWN, which is coming on CNN tonight. That's why I couldn't sit still!

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.

"Blog"trospective 11: Monkeys Riding Dogs

Tom Franklin! Phil Oppenheim! Movies! The Moon! Sandwiches! The United States of America! The Beach Boys! Arnold Stang! Books with Owls in Them! Gelatin! What do all these people and things have in common? That's right: each has been the subject of one of our famous "blog"trospectives. And now we begin our archive of every monkey riding a dog that has ever appeared on the "blog." Use it for your research purposes! complicated emotions provoked by---do not seem to appear in this big book about Hinduism, though monkeys and dogs do appear separately---during a Cincinnati Bengals half-time show---Durkee, Lee, uncovers a trove of information on Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey---Gombrowicz, Witold, nearly imagines a monkey riding a dog---in chapter of my "cat book"---in film version of THE THREE MUSKETEERS---in THE FORSAKEN by Ace Atkins---in THE LOST ONES by Ace Atkins---in the Martin and Lewis vehicle THREE RING CIRCUS---likelihood of occurring in solace-based menageries---marriages destroyed by---may not appear in the works of Olga Tokarczuk---maybe the monkey likes it---mistakenly thought to be part of a kingly procession in 1158---monkeys ride vicuñas, which are not dogs---specifically, monkeys in fringed, neon riding vests, riding on sheepdogs.

Neon Monkey Dreams

You know I would never want to see a monkey riding a dog, though I love reading about monkeys riding dogs and writing about monkeys riding dogs. I'm a complicated person! (See also.) I am happy to say that my old buddies Anya and Elizabeth have an essay up ("click" here) on therumpus.net and it contains this quotation: "I was born in 1962. All my life it was my dream to own a monkey" and these sentences: "Three sheepdogs run out. On their backs bounce tiny monkeys in neon, fringed riding vests."

Something Wild

SOMETHING WILD has the best closing credits ever. Plus that band "The Feelies" appears in SOMETHING WILD. I bought a Feelies LP in the 80s and played it about twice. Like, "Huh?" Like, "Whatever." Like, "At least I got my discount because I work at the record store wearing this stupid vest." Well, I just listened to it again and it's good! Was I stupid back then? I guess I was stupid back then.

What the Butler Knew

Did you know that in Chapter 20, Mack Sennett's autobiography suddenly turns into a real-life murder mystery? Neither did I! I am guessing that other members of the Doomed Book Club (the majority of whom are "crime writers") knew about this going in, but it took me by surprise, yes sir. Chapter 20 contains such phrases as "and in his vest pocket a platinum watch which had stopped at precisely 7:21" and "Peavey, the butler, went on to tell what he knew."

Your Gray Vest Is Stained With Tears

Gosh, there is so much to tell you. Like, some magazines came in the mail! I didn't say the "much to tell" was interesting. Maybe some of it is. Let's find out! Oh, well, I have been concerned that maybe you think I made up "The National Clean Up Paint Up Fix Up Bureau" (which I mentioned yesterday) because it sounds so fake. "Click" here, then, for a catalog description from the time Christie's famed auction house was selling a letter from President Johnson to the Director of the National Clean Up Paint Up Fix Up Bureau. Okay? Yes, so, as I was saying, my copies of OXFORD AMERICAN and THE BELIEVER arrived in the mail yesterday. I haven't yet had time to inspect them thoroughly but I have already noticed lots of great things. For example, Michael Kupperman is in the OA. What? Somehow I didn't expect that! It was an unexpected delight! Plus there is a wonderful new short story by Jim Whorton. Best of all, Mr. Whorton's "author bio" at the front announces that he has a new novel coming out next year! That is something to look forward to. John T. Edge contributes another masterful column that will make you hungry, this time on the subject of Buford Highway in Atlanta, where, at "a bare Korean restaurant in a strip mall," John T. has "black goat soup with watercress and green onions" and slurps "raw crab with a wobbly texture and a briny finish that gave me the shivers." It is a tale of Korean barbecue and Vietnamese fried catfish in which John T. sees the evolution of the South and Southern cooking. Buford Highway is where Caroline and Dr. Theresa and I used to go and get a whole huge karaoke room to ourselves! And I think maybe some chicken wings and some bottles of wine. Those were the days. I mention them because I am elderly and filled with mawkish sentiment for times gone by. Near the end of his article, John T. justly and soundly and roundly mocks creepy "Southern fabulists, whose misplaced affections for the region are informed by xenophobic tendencies and Neo-Confederate sympathies." So it is weird to see a recent segment about him on the ABC news show NIGHTLINE introduced by an anchor who stupidly invokes "Spanish moss and plantation houses," which is sort of the opposite of what John T. is about. Some guy in a newsroom cubicle must have said, "Quick! I need something about the South!" And the guy in the next cubicle yelled back, "Spanish moss and plantation houses!" And the first guy said, "Perfect!" and hit "print." And then the reporter in the segment actually has a voiceover praising John T.'s "Rhett Butler charm." WHAT? John T. has a lot of work cut out for him. I don't mean in the charm department, because he has plenty of that. But, you know, two steps forward and three steps back. The segment itself is terrific, especially when John T. rhapsodizes about this and that. You can watch it by "clicking" here. It won't take you to the piece directly. You may have to do a site search for "barbecue." Wow! This is getting long. And I don't care! I know you stopped reading a long time ago. So you will never see how smoothly I went from OA to NIGHTLINE to THE BELIEVER by keeping the focus on food. So far my favorite thing in THE BELIEVER, and maybe my favorite thing ever, is an intricate two-page collage of "the great sandwiches of English literature." There are five sandwiches from the works of Donald Barthelme alone, including "Your gray vest is stained with tears. Let me make you a ham and cheese sandwich." And there are four or five sandwiches by J.D. Salinger, too. I am not doing it justice, this thing. It is set up to look like a menu. Oh, just go get a copy, you need to see it for yourself. It really makes for hours of fun! You will never tire of it, I tell you. A sandwich from PNIN! A Flann O'Brien sandwich ("They give you a beef sandwich with no beef in it...") and so on. Two butter and sugar sandwiches are represented! "Blog" readers will certainly recall the butter and sugar sandwiches that the aforementioned Jim Whorton used to take with him to school, as mentioned here almost four years ago. See how I am helping this mammoth "post" hang together? (Also, we discussed one President Johnson above and Whorton once wrote a novel involving the ANOTHER President Johnson!) The butter and sugar sandwiches on the BELIEVER chart come from Toni Morrison and Harper Lee. And now gently take my hand and we shall speak again of Jerry Lewis. Oh, wait, let me connect it, because I can! Through the power of sandwiches! There is a fascinating section of DEAN & ME in which Dean and Jerry spend hours in a deli with Marilyn Monroe. So right after that I am reading the part where Dean and Jerry go to visit Frank Sinatra on the set of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM. And you know who else was in that movie, don't you? Arnold Stang! So I got very excited. Like, "Maybe I will be able to write a 'post' entitled 'Lewis On Stang,' all about a great meeting of the minds between Jerry Lewis and Arnold Stang." But Jerry does not mention Arnold Stang and it all remains a glorious dream.

I Was Thinking About Superman Villains

I think I can use Bizarro Superman to debunk handily what Jonathan Rosenbaum has called the "irrational denial that [Jerry Lewis] was all that popular to begin with." This is what I do with my life! In the previous "post" I "linked" to a comic book cover on which, if you look closely, a Bizarro Superman is proclaiming, "Ha! What Halloween fun we have with my super-dog, Krypto! Us Bizarros scare him with horrible masks of Earth people like President Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Jerry Lewis!" Now, if you know anything about Bizarro Supermen, they are the opposite of regular people. They say "hello!" when they mean "goodbye!" for example. They think ugly things are pretty and pretty things are ugly. Get it? So what we are clearly seeing here is that the desirable physical beauty of Jerry Lewis easily rivaled that of JFK and Marilyn. All right. That's settled. You know, the other day I was thinking about the Superman villain Solomon Grundy for some reason. The way I remembered him from childhood, Solomon Grundy wore a raggedy vest or something, exhibited great strength, had a problem speaking proper English, and was monochromatic. "How very like the Incredible Hulk!" I reflected as I lounged about in my cork-lined boudoir like Marcel Proust. Solomon Grundy and the Hulk would really get along, and they both need a pal. We need to get these two together! In my mind's eye, I even saw Solomon Grundy in purple, the Hulk's favorite sartorial choice, though the old pictures of Mr. Grundy on the "internet" show him to favor black or gray - perhaps misprinted as purplish in the cheap comic books of my lost youth? (That's right, blame it on the ink, old man.) He did dress in rags, though that has changed in our strange modern times, according to "Blog" Buddy and comic book villain expert Justin Riley, who reports: "Nowadays, SG rocks a tailored black suit straight from the ill-fated swing revival of the 1990s." I trust Mr. Riley in this matter as his most recent "blog" contribution was about the fashion sense of the Lizard. I think I will put up a picture of Solomon Grundy for you, in defiance of my self-imposed "rules." A quick glance at the "internet" tells me I am the ten-millionth person to waste his life "blogging" about the compatibility of the Hulk and Solomon Grundy but don't forget, there is nothing new on the "internet," as Solomon (NOT Grundy!) told us.

Literary Matters

I can't believe myself. Here I am with two more "Literary Matters." I didn't even realize they were literary matters until I finished typing them up. But I can't lie to myself. I apologize for inflicting more literary matters on you so soon. I'm a monster! 1) I have been looking through A NEW LITERARY HISTORY OF AMERICA, co-edited by Greil Marcus, who may disapprove of me. My favorite part so far, by leaps and bounds, is the article on Hank Williams (he's from Alabama!), and it appears that Maud Newton feels the same way. She includes a lengthy excerpt on her "blog." And as a bonus, it turns out that she loves Roger Miller, one of my favorite singer-songwriters. (Please recall our shared affection for Peter De Vries and Charles Willeford.) My favorite part of the excerpt (and the original article) is Harlan Howard's analysis of the first verse of "Cold, Cold Heart," which is "invisibly held together by fifteen internal r phonemes." Observes Mr. Howard, "Once these words are put together this way, they don’t come apart.” A nice goal for a writer in there. 2) Speaking of which, I am reading REPETITION by Kierkegaard, and the plot is a lot like a THREE'S COMPANY episode, no kidding. This guy wants to break up with his girlfriend, but he wants it to be HER idea, so the narrator (Kierkegaard's stand-in) hires a seamstress to PRETEND (for a year!) to be the guy's other, secret girlfriend to make the real girlfriend jealous. Hilarity ensues when Kierkegaard's friend chickens out. Or philosophy ensues, I guess. At one point, the Kierkegaardian narrator explains why he is keeping his descriptions short, why he is not bringing in "a mass of unrelated things, parlours and dress and beautiful scenery, relatives and friends." He says, "I like lettuce, but I eat only the heart; the leaves, it seems to me, are for pigs." So think about that, too. (This "post" cries out for a brand new illustration - or two! - of Don Knotts as Mr. Furley. I don't know how much longer I can keep up my big artsy "random picture" idea.)