| punxsutawney swill |

The groundhogs can’t seem to agree on how long winter will last this year. I’m surprised at how many people pay attention to these sheltered creatures disagreeing on something they don’t know anything about. It’s like watching a GOP debate.

| holy bat-star! |

I grew up on a steady diet of classic ‘60s TV show reruns. Syndication deals must have been cheap for those old programs because, as a child of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, I saw more episodes of I Dream Of Jeannie and Bewitched than Charles In Charge or Webster (thank the gods). But by far my favorite of the sixties bunch was the 1966 William Dozier Batman TV series starring Adam West. Several years ago, I hunted down the entire 120-episode series on DVD (bootlegged from Canadian TV Land broadcasts because an official release has never been made; the rights issues are too complicated) and, rewatching it as an adult, I realized that it is one of the funniest shows ever made. Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who was the executive story editor and wrote the pilot as well as the movie, is the comedic genius responsible for the show’s tone. If you haven’t seen Batman since you were a kid, or if you’ve never seen it before, check out this video compilation. People often mistakenly believe the series wasn’t meant to be funny because it’s so camp, but you don’t write a line like: “Let’s go; but inconspicuously—through the window” without expecting to get a laugh from the adults watching. And of course Adam’s delivery is note-perfect.

Ralph Garman, who co-hosts the Hollywood Babble-On podcast with Kevin Smith—and is, like yours truly, a huge 1966 Batman fan—interviewed Adam West in Hollywood last Saturday to a sold-out crowd. For those of us that couldn’t be there, he’s released a 97-minute audio podcast of the entire event. It’s in two parts and only $2 and all the proceeds go to helping Adam pay for his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This has been a bit of a passion project for Ralph who, along with Adam’s daughter, has spent years trying to make it happen. There’s even a documentary in the works about the long process called Starring Adam West. Last year, they finally got word that Adam will be receiving his star in 2012 but as the recipient he has to pay for the installation and associated costs (don’t ask me why) which come out to about $25,000. Since the star was meant as a gift to Adam from his fans, Ralph is donating all the proceeds from the live event and the podcast to help cover the expenses and any remainder will be donated to charity. How cool is that?

So if you’re a 1966 Batman TV series fan like Ralph and me, or just a fan of Adam West’s work in general, consider throwing two bucks to the cause and listen to the caped crusader wax philosophical about life before, during, and after the batcave. If it’s anything like his autobiography, there should be some great stories to hear.

| so this exists |

I was at the store the other day and spotted a new edition of a familiar book:

Oops. I meant to say spoiler alert.

And yes, this is exactly what you think it is: Jesus Christ, the graphic novel (i.e. The Action Bible: God’s Redemptive Story). A 750-page tome of four-color panels depicting every major event of the Old and New Testaments without any of the hideous violence, racism, and sexism found in the original. (This is, after all, being marketed as a children’s book.) How this has existed without my knowledge since 2010 is surely the work of the devil.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some real comic book scripture to read.

| occupied |

Bill Moyers, one of the last great American journalists, offers this insightful video on Occupy Wall Street. It’s easily the most intelligent segment I’ve seen produced on the subject to date. (Moyers also has an extensive video archive on his site that’s worth checking out.)

Too often, I’ll hear or read comments from people who should know better that claim the Occupy protests aren’t working, they’re a giant waste of time, and everyone should go home. I think it’s important to remind these people that it’s only been four months. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted a full year before it achieved desegregation on buses in 1956 (and there was still a lot further to go). The Vietnam protests began in 1964 and didn’t stop until the early ‘70s. Women’s suffrage took decades. Protests don’t change anything overnight. And this is a much more complicated protest than wanting equal rights or a war ended. There isn’t a clear message yet because there isn’t a clear solution. Right now, people are just angry. Bank deregulation led to the 2008 crisis but rising un/underemployment and the widening earnings gap point to a more systemic problem.

This is America. When the government stops working for the people, the people take to the streets. We’ve been doing it for over 200 years and it’s, quite literally, as American as the Fourth of July, a day born out of protest. You don’t have to join the protesters or completely support them, but those that dismiss them as naïve, unpatriotic, or somehow “the real problem” with this country are a worrying sign that too many people are satisfied with a status quo that is obliterating the middle class and fostering in a new Gilded Age. The only “real problems” I’ve seen in the last several months have been the violent reactions from police to these non-violent protests and the vitriol from fellow Americans who seem more interested in supporting a broken system than calling for reform.

It’s telling that the Occupy protests include Americans from all walks of life—students, union workers, veterans, teachers and even former police officers—who have suffered from the effects of a large-scale financial crisis that could have been avoided, political leaders more influenced by lobbyists and special interest groups than voters, and a Supreme Court willing to grant corporations and pseudo-independent political action committees an unlimited financial stake in elections. After a long sleeping spell, it appears the American people are finally waking up to the fact that these events have led to a deck stacked heavily against them and paved the way for a plutocracy where the majority have no voice.

All the great reform movements in American history began as small protests which slowly grew and became widespread. If history is indeed the indicator it’s often claimed to be, then we are on the precipice of another major shift in the relationship between the government and its people—just don’t expect it all to get sorted out in a few short months.

| do not adjust your sets |

I’ll bet your eyes are thanking me.

Welcome to the new site design. And by “new site design” I mean I basically made everything bigger and much easier to read. (A writer you can read? How novel!) When this site first opened in 2006, high resolution screens weren’t as common as they are today so I could get away with having a smaller font size. But after viewing this site on a few different computers over the last two months, I realized that I had to make some changes to improve readability and futureproof things a bit. So with the new look now in place, I can focus on adding new content, something I’ve woefully neglected to do.

To start things off, here’s a short comedy script called “Traditions” which I wrote for a 2010 Christmas-themed stage production.

| electoral predictables |

With primary season in full swing, the process now begins where Republicans across the country cast their votes and finally discover what everyone else figured out months ago—that Mitt Romney will be their 2012 Presidential candidate. That’s not to forget the Nader/Perot of this election, Ron Paul, who’s probably going to go Independent and sap votes from both sides. But, even if Paul decides not to run as a third-party candidate, there’s still plenty of crazy and voter apathy out there to suggest a depressingly narrow victory for Obama. (The latest polling data would seem to agree with me.) At least if it’s anything like 2008, we’ll have some nice speeches to look forward to—surely, Obama’s speechwriter will be getting some notes—and it’ll all put me in the mood to rewatch The West Wing.

| green as a grinch |

Call me green as a Grinch, but maybe fossil fuels wouldn’t be quite so depleted if Santa was less of a smart ass and skipped the annual “coal in your stocking” shtick for millions of kids around the world.

| don’t minchin it |

ITV cut Tim Minchin out of Wossy’s Christmas show this year for singing a hilarious song about Jesus. Thankfully, Minchin posted it online so we could see what all the fuss was about for ourselves. Best line: “Jesus is in more than one place at a time, like an electron or Schrödinger’s feline.” Praise be to Tim Minchin. Be sure to read his blog post about the whole debacle and stick around for the piece at the end where he describes how he approached the Santa question with his daughter. I discovered Minchin’s “White Wine In The Sun” last Christmas and it quickly became one of my favorite holiday tunes—and with none of the dodgy lyrics!

| death and hbo |

HBO cancels Bored To Death proving, once again, that it is a network that continues to make terrible decisions about great television. This season’s Dick Cavett episode was genius. And if you happen to be in Brooklyn tonight, Jonathan Ames will buy you a drink. White wine, please.

| von mausen und menschen |

I’m a month late and we’re nearing a different holiday, but I’ve been trying to find a copy of the old Rankin/Bass cartoon The Mouse On The Mayflower for years. It’s something I watched on TV every November as a child, and a combination of nostalgia and a quirky sense of humor makes me want to revisit it. I thought someone might have posted it online by now so I tried YouTube. No luck. But I did manage to find Die Maus Auf Der Mayflower—a German language version of the 1968 special. Aside from existing solely to frustrate the hell out of me, can someone tell me who the target audience in Germany is for an American cartoon about a singing mouse at the first Thanksgiving? Is this what they cover in history class instead of “the war years”?

| opining on opinions |

“People say, ‘I’m entitled to my opinion.’ No, schmuck, you’re entitled to your informed opinion. Without information, it’s just babble, hot air and farts in the wind.” –Harlan Ellison

| hitched |

Christopher Hitchens has died. I’ve mentioned him here several times before. There were few journalists and essayists as intelligent or amusing, and I owe a great debt to his work. I’m sure there will be countless tributes in the days and weeks to come, but I think a quote by Samuel Clemens says it best, and in true Hitchens fashion: “If there is a god, he is a malign thug.” And indeed, who else but a thug would create such a wasting disease as cancer. We can either accept that disturbing notion or accept that there is no great eye in the sky, no celestial dictator, nothing but our own imagination echoing back at us—and be all the better for it. God is not great, but Hitch certainly was.

| on tact and tactics |

I once wrote a piece about Christmas trees (and the Holocaust and PETA) that was published in a shortened/edited form but never posted online or archived on this site. Since ‘tis the season, I thought it might be fun to revisit. So here it is for the first time in its entirety: Holiday Tact.

| hollywood math |

Here’s the trailer for Men In Black 3. I’m not sharing this because I think you should run out to see the film when it comes out, but for the sake of mathematics. (And for Josh Brolin’s eerie Tommy Lee Jones impression.) In the movie, Will Smith goes back in time to 1969 and meets a young Tommy Lee Jones played by Josh Brolin. Brolin is 43. Jones is 65. And 1969 was 42 years ago. By the movie’s math, either Brolin is trying to pass for half his age (23) or Jones is meant to be somewhere near 80. I understand suspension of disbelief and all, but there are limits to the imagination, and believing Brolin is only a couple of years into being of legal drinking age is one of those limits. Maybe the filmmakers haven’t entirely thought this one through. Or maybe Josh Brolin just has a great fucking agent: “You need someone who’s 23? Brolin can play 23 standing on his head!”

| mac daddy |

I’m in the midst of reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography. It’s 1984 and Jobs is asked what kind of market research he did for the first Mac. Jobs replies, “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?” Snap.

| darwinism |

There’s a book out called What Darwin Got Wrong. It’s 288 pages long. I think a book called What Darwin Got Right would be a lot longer.

| patrice |

Patrice Oneal died last Tuesday. I don’t think it’s overstating it to say he was one of this generation’s comedy greats. Like the best of them (Carlin, Pryor, Bruce), his bits were social commentaries wrapped in humor. I had the good fortune to interview Patrice in 2007 and we talked for nearly an hour, covering everything from comedy to politics to race. He was funny, engaging, honest, insightful and incredibly loud. I loved every ear-splitting minute of it. When I got off the phone with him, I realized I had way more material than I needed so I asked my editor if I could expand the article and she agreed. I didn’t get paid extra for doubling the word count, but I wanted to share as much of our discussion as I could after he was kind enough to give me so much of his time. Thanks for all the laughs, Patrice. You will be missed like a pretty white girl.

| heart of glass |

Philip Glass shows New York how to respond to the Occupy protesters. Lou Reed was there, too.

| spend a wad for w.a.d. |

I’d be remiss not to mention that today is World AIDS Day. So spend a small wad of cash on W.A.D. and buy a friend a bracelet for the holidays—or just because you want to be that awesome friend that gives people gifts for no reason whatsoever. Wouldn’t it be great if you had a friend like that? You could be that friend!

| out of hibernation |

It would appear that only shameless self-promotion could move me to update this webpage after almost two years, but such is the life of a hermetic hubristine (sure, that’s a word).

I was recently interviewed by Daniel Nester about my Poetry Meets Music project for the literary blog We Who Are About To Die. It offers a little history on the whole thing as well as a few videos made by yours truly.

Check it out, and I’ll promise to update this website more often than never.

| happy new year |

In addition to Valentine’s Day, you can celebrate the Chinese new year today. They say it’s the Year of the Tiger; but I know one golfer who might disagree.

| on language |

It must be said: Grammatical Nazism is my least favorite kind of Nazism—after the more famous German variety, that is.

It’s amazing how many people will argue so passionately against intelligent design when it comes to the evolution of a species but so many still refuse to recognize the same process at work in language. Contrary to popular opinion, there is almost no intelligent design behind the modern English language. It evolved into its current state through a series of mistakes, misquotes, and mispronunciations over the centuries and continues to change every time it’s written and spoken.

Some grammatical rules are so nonsensical that one has to wonder how they were arrived at in the first place. Splitting an infinitive, for instance, is a vestigial Latin rule that has no basis in English. Why does it exist and why does it continue to be taught and upheld by some as more than a stylistic preference? English has evolved beyond this silly rule, yet language traditionalists (or “creationists” believing in a grand design) continue to stem the tide.

The same is true for the phrase “begs the question.” This is a personal favorite. I’m forever perplexed by those who take pride in pointing out whenever someone uses the phrase incorrectly: With some rather grandiose flair, they’ll say that this tired cliché does not mean “raises the question” and so should not be used in place of it. These people, annoying as they all may be, are technically correct. In its original definition as coined five centuries ago, “begs the question” means to assume something is true based on nothing more than your own opinion. In other words, if you say jazz music is worthless because you never listen to it, then you’re “begging the question” regarding jazz since there’s no connection between its worth and whether or not you listen to it. However, when people point out this definition, I have to ask them the last time they used the word “begs” in this arcane manner that means “to assume improperly.” In fact, my feeling is if you don’t use this obscure definition of the word “begs” at any other time, then you don’t have permission to criticize people for using “begs the question” in the modern sense. Indeed, using it to mean “raises the question” is its new definition. What you’re witnessing is the evolution of the English language. It’s not wrong and it’s not a sin against the god who created it, but it’s the way language has always adapted to new environments and new uses. Even my joking use of the word “Nazism” in the opening paragraph reflects the way the term has come to mean one who is fanatically dedicated to controlling a specific activity or practice. Words fall in and out of favor; old phrases are recycled and redefined for the modern era. It happens all the time.

Language is an art form like any other, held together by a basic set of rules that will always be in a state of flux. Dragging out dead or dying definitions and insisting language remain unchanged flies in the face of its own nature and denies its evolutionary pedigree.

So quit being such a fucking Nazi about it.