If you’ll excuse a snooty generalization, promoting dialogue among artists is a good thing. That said, we’ve got to come up with something better than the proverbial Q&A.
If you’ve ever stuck around after an advance showing of a film or play, you probably know what I’m talking about. Some writer, director or actor sits on a stool while the least intelligent people in the room hurl inane questions. The typical Q&A is arranged like a firing squad and about as comfortable to watch.
The most obnoxious moments occur when some misdirected soul begs the artist to read their script or give them an audition. The rest of us squirm in our seats and resent the questioner’s lack of tact and the fact that we all want to ask the same thing. Other moments transcend awkward to reach the level of theater of the absurd. During a Q&A with Oliver Stone at the University of Iowa, one student asked the director: Did he like Ween? Did Woody Harelson like Ween? Does the director have any plans to work with Ween? This line of questioning continued until the student’s microphone was turned off.
Just as out of place, though less entertaining, are those whose "questions" are just grandstanding to show off how much they know. These questions generally last several minutes and include references to things like mis ‘en scene, lesser-known films by Goddard and recent New Yorker articles. When the question finally ends, there are a few moments of silence before the person on the stool asks, "I’m sorry, what was your question?"
But the assholes aren’t only to be found in the crowd – many times they sit on the stool. I certainly understand that sitting up there and suffering the questions of what are often fools is no pleasant task. But if you’re going to bother to show up it should be for some higher purpose than to convince a roomful of fans what a cocky jerk you are.
On the other end of the spectrum is the guy on the stool who nobody wants to talk to. I think the best way to avoid that is not to overestimate your intellectual cache. I’ve been to uber amateur 10-minute plays that ended with a Q&A. Why? Did these well-meaning folks honestly believe that my mind would be so blown in those ten minutes that I would want to discuss it for an hour? Often, these type of events are organized by people who think too highly of themselves and have produced a steaming pile of crap. And I feel it would be poor etiquette to ask "why was your film/play/whatever so terrible?"
In fact, etiquette is the rope that binds me to these events in the first place. Somewhere in my polite Midwestern circuitry, I’m hard wired to believe it would be rude to just get up and leave. Instead, I remain in my seat with teeth and fists clenched praying for it all to be over.
And the truth is, for all the banality of the Q&A, there is almost always at least one insightful comment, be it from the artist or the gallery. At one recent event, playwright Craig Lucas said he never allows anyone to loiter around the stage/set unless they are watching the actors. He feels they throw off the energy of the performances. That clicked with me – something I’ve been aware of but never crystalized into thought. That is a Q&A at its best. Unfortunately, those moments tend to be few and far between.
The spirit of the Q&A is right on, but I just don’t think it plays out in practice. I’ve been to sessions with artists I greatly admire, but I don’t have anything to ask them. I’m not so baffled by the minutia of their technique as I am dazzled by the whole of their achievement. If you actually had the chance to sit down with Bob Dylan, what would you really ask except "how come you’re so fucking good?"
I don’t know what the alternative is, so let’s just look for a way to connect artists and aspiring artists that doesn’t involve a stool.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
After writing with glee when the Cardinals pulled within one game of the NL Championship, several folks have been kind enough to ask my thoughts now that they're out of it and that team from Houston is in.
The truth is this: I am not happy about it.
I am a Cardinal loyalist, and I believe in following that to its logical extension - being a National League loyalist. I root for the NL in the All-Star Game and in the World Series. After all, what's good for the league is good for the team, etc., etc. Not to mention the whole Designated Hitter thing, which taints the AL like an assault conviction on a preschool teacher.
But I am also a petty, petty man. Therefore, I find myself pulling for the White Sox and reveling in the Astros recent disasters. In a month, or maybe even two weeks, I think I'd be cheering for the 'Stros. But the wound is so fresh that I want to see those punks get their asses flogged.
It has been pointed out to me that an Astros win would look better for the Cardinals. It would mean that they were only beaten by the very best team in baseball. I accept this logic but refuse to follow it. The power of reason cannot satiate my thirst for revenge.
Enjoy the World Series ... unless you're an Astros fan.
The truth is this: I am not happy about it.
I am a Cardinal loyalist, and I believe in following that to its logical extension - being a National League loyalist. I root for the NL in the All-Star Game and in the World Series. After all, what's good for the league is good for the team, etc., etc. Not to mention the whole Designated Hitter thing, which taints the AL like an assault conviction on a preschool teacher.
But I am also a petty, petty man. Therefore, I find myself pulling for the White Sox and reveling in the Astros recent disasters. In a month, or maybe even two weeks, I think I'd be cheering for the 'Stros. But the wound is so fresh that I want to see those punks get their asses flogged.
It has been pointed out to me that an Astros win would look better for the Cardinals. It would mean that they were only beaten by the very best team in baseball. I accept this logic but refuse to follow it. The power of reason cannot satiate my thirst for revenge.
Enjoy the World Series ... unless you're an Astros fan.
The Great Pujols
Monday was the kind of a night that makes being a team fanatic worthwhile.
The evening began with my beloved Cardinals (a.k.a. The Greatest Team in America) trailing 3 games to 1 to some punk team from George W. Bush's home state. I slumped into my couch with a beer and a sense of impending doom.
Just before the game began, the phone rang. It was my parents calling to remind me that baseball is just a game and not worth causing damage to my heart, mind and soul. I appreciated their concern, though it made me realize my fanatacism must reach the realm of addiction to cause such an intervention. I also suspected they had spoken to my wife.
Maybe it was the phone call, but I watched Game 5 with much less passion than the first part of the series. When the Astros went ahead 1-0, and then again 4-2, I didn't cuss with a ferocity that caused the cat to hide in the bedroom and my neighbors to consider calling the police. The Astros success seemed like more of a foregone conclusion at that point. Call it a defense mechanism.
I stayed passive when David Eckstein punched out a base hit with two strikes and two outs in the ninth. When Jim Edmonds stepped to the plate, I didn't pray for a homerun. I just watched each pitch as intensely as I could, expecting every one to be the last of the season. Every honest Cardinal fan will tell you they saw Jim Edmonds striking out as clearly as if it happened - but it didn't.
Few times are fans rewarded with something as mythic, as perfect as Albert Pujols titanic homerun. It wasn't a fly ball that carried into the seats. This thing was epic. I swear it was still rising when it hit the plexiglass windows on the other side of the train tracks.
That's the flip-side of true fan devotion. For suffering countless moments of rage, humiliation, frustration, despair, not to mention the concerned intervention of loved ones, the true fan is rewarded with moments of unchecked euphoria. It's like mainlining adrenaline.
It's a common justification of abusive relationships to say you need the lowest lows to feel the highest highs, but at least in baseball it is true. And don't try to tell me Albert Pujols isn't the greatest player you've ever seen.
The Worst of LA: The Best of LA
The stacks of what look like phone books at every bus stop can mean only one thing: LA Weekly's annual "Best of LA" issue has hit the news stands. Some of the southland's hippest writers have indexed what's what in the City of Angels - now if I could only understand what the hell they're talking about.
Simply dividing the gargantuan issue into sections like "restaurants" or "bars" apparently wouldn't have been hip enough. Instead, the issue is marked with headings like "encounters" and "terrain" - each chapter sounding like the name of a shitty bar. I've got nothing against a little creative design, I just don't want to flip through 200 pages of porno ads to find where to get a cheeseburger.
But it's not just the spine of the issue that lacks coherence. Rather than highlighting the best spot to take a hike, or the best taco stand, each entry is a stream-of-conscious rant only tangentially associated with some person, place or thing in LA. It's like reading a AAA Guide written by Jack Kerouac - or rather, a AAA Guide written by twentysomethings who won't shut up about Jack Kerouac.
Every entry seems to be a navel-gazing first-person essay on the beautiful pain of being artistic, poor and underappreciated ... oh yeah, and in Los Angeles. Here's my favorite opening line: "Distraught, displaced, dispossessed individuals walk in a zombie-like daze." See what I mean?
I realize that I'm just a hopeless square for failing to see the beauty of this "Best of LA" issue. Can't I see that the truly great things about LA are the little moments we pass by every day, like a paper bag blowing in the wind? No, what I'm advocating is just another boring "Best of" list. I can't deny that the five pounds of pulp I hold in my hand is more inventive than that. But if the editors wanted to publish a 400-page undergraduate literary journal, why call it the LA Weekly's "Best of LA 2005"?
I enjoy reading Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe, but not every written word can be gonzo. If someone writes down directions for me, I hope to God they don't start with "It was already midnight and the mescaline was beginning to wear off."
Lord knows there's a lot wrong with the mainstream press. So I often turn to the alternative press in hopes of finding something better, but sadly, I rarely do. If they take on issues the mainstream rags won't touch, I say thank God. If they want to blend in more literary approach, I say fine. But the tone and content tend to be so self-congratulatory, so smugly "alternative," that the information often boils down to nothing but "we're hip, are you?"
If only the alternative press would dazzle us by being plugged-in, not aloof, with sharp observation instead of vague musing, with plain-spoken truths instead of abstract cliche. That might be a phone book worth picking up - porno ads and all.
Simply dividing the gargantuan issue into sections like "restaurants" or "bars" apparently wouldn't have been hip enough. Instead, the issue is marked with headings like "encounters" and "terrain" - each chapter sounding like the name of a shitty bar. I've got nothing against a little creative design, I just don't want to flip through 200 pages of porno ads to find where to get a cheeseburger.
But it's not just the spine of the issue that lacks coherence. Rather than highlighting the best spot to take a hike, or the best taco stand, each entry is a stream-of-conscious rant only tangentially associated with some person, place or thing in LA. It's like reading a AAA Guide written by Jack Kerouac - or rather, a AAA Guide written by twentysomethings who won't shut up about Jack Kerouac.
Every entry seems to be a navel-gazing first-person essay on the beautiful pain of being artistic, poor and underappreciated ... oh yeah, and in Los Angeles. Here's my favorite opening line: "Distraught, displaced, dispossessed individuals walk in a zombie-like daze." See what I mean?
I realize that I'm just a hopeless square for failing to see the beauty of this "Best of LA" issue. Can't I see that the truly great things about LA are the little moments we pass by every day, like a paper bag blowing in the wind? No, what I'm advocating is just another boring "Best of" list. I can't deny that the five pounds of pulp I hold in my hand is more inventive than that. But if the editors wanted to publish a 400-page undergraduate literary journal, why call it the LA Weekly's "Best of LA 2005"?
I enjoy reading Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe, but not every written word can be gonzo. If someone writes down directions for me, I hope to God they don't start with "It was already midnight and the mescaline was beginning to wear off."
Lord knows there's a lot wrong with the mainstream press. So I often turn to the alternative press in hopes of finding something better, but sadly, I rarely do. If they take on issues the mainstream rags won't touch, I say thank God. If they want to blend in more literary approach, I say fine. But the tone and content tend to be so self-congratulatory, so smugly "alternative," that the information often boils down to nothing but "we're hip, are you?"
If only the alternative press would dazzle us by being plugged-in, not aloof, with sharp observation instead of vague musing, with plain-spoken truths instead of abstract cliche. That might be a phone book worth picking up - porno ads and all.
Sportscaster Correction #153979
Sportscasting has somehow become the one bastion of journalism where it is completely acceptable at all times to make observations and statements of fact that have no basis in reality whatsoever.
Before Game 3 of the ALDS Friday night, Joe Morgan (among others) remarked that Yankee's Starter Randy Johnson is a "big game pitcher." For the record, Johnson's post-season record is 7-8, and his ERA in division series is well over 4.00. Those numbers are not particularly impressive, but because Johnson is a big-time superstar pitcher, he must also be a "big game pitcher," right? After Johnson gave up five runs in less than three innings, of course the talk was that this was a very unusual outing for Mr. Reliable.
An incident during Thursday's Cardinals/Padres game was even more wince-enducing. The Cards went to the bullpen for a left-hander late in the game, with Tony LaRussa going to Randy Flores instead of his usual guy, Ray King. Steve Phillips and the others in the ESPN booth spent about the next five minutes talking about how Ray King must have fallen out of favor with LaRussa, and how a manager can't worry about hurting a player's feelings. Then, after the game it was learned that Ray King's father died the night before the game. So I suppose that could have been the reason Tony LaRussa didn't ask him to pitch, but screw the facts, let's just do some more speculatin'!
Before Game 3 of the ALDS Friday night, Joe Morgan (among others) remarked that Yankee's Starter Randy Johnson is a "big game pitcher." For the record, Johnson's post-season record is 7-8, and his ERA in division series is well over 4.00. Those numbers are not particularly impressive, but because Johnson is a big-time superstar pitcher, he must also be a "big game pitcher," right? After Johnson gave up five runs in less than three innings, of course the talk was that this was a very unusual outing for Mr. Reliable.
An incident during Thursday's Cardinals/Padres game was even more wince-enducing. The Cards went to the bullpen for a left-hander late in the game, with Tony LaRussa going to Randy Flores instead of his usual guy, Ray King. Steve Phillips and the others in the ESPN booth spent about the next five minutes talking about how Ray King must have fallen out of favor with LaRussa, and how a manager can't worry about hurting a player's feelings. Then, after the game it was learned that Ray King's father died the night before the game. So I suppose that could have been the reason Tony LaRussa didn't ask him to pitch, but screw the facts, let's just do some more speculatin'!
Saturday Night Dead
For at least as long as I've been watching Saturday Night Live, people have complained that the show isn't as good as it used to be. Some of the complaints can be chalked up to simple nostalgia, but in the last few years it has grown impossible to deny that the flagship of sketch comedy is sinking.
As a true believer in the beauty of sketch, I take offense at the standards of writing and performance that air Saturday nights at 11:30. I've done my tour in the bush leagues of sketch and have friends who are still cutting their teeth at the Groundlings and elsewhere. So, am I a pro? No. But I do know what good sketch comedy looks like.
Most sketches are either character or concept pieces. A few years ago, SNL became obsessed with trying to turn concept sketches into character sketches. Take the cheerleader sketch Will Ferrel and Cheri Oteri - a funny one-off concept sketch. But because the bit hit once, they did a dozen or so more variations of exactly the same skit. Same jokes, same setup, same everything. Goth Talk, Mango, The Lovers - it's tough to recall a funny concept that didn't turn into a never-ending loop of the same damn thing.
But the days of repetition gave way to something even worse. The dominant structure for recent sketches seems to be to come up with a zany character and then just have them clown around. What the hell is supposed to be funny about Tracy Morgan's Brian Fellows character, or Maya Rudolph's Donatella Versace, or anything performed by Horatio Sanz? These skits have all the comic sophistication of one of the fraternity brothers putting on a wig and a skirt.
There will always be skits that bomb, or concepts that look better on paper, but in many recent SNL sketches it's impossible to tell what the joke is even supposed to be. If you watch closely, you'll notice a few seconds of pause between when the sketch ends and when the crowd applauds. Why? Because the sketches are so directionless, so lacking in structure, so wholly unsatisfying that it's hard to know when they're over.
I know what most of you are thinking - if SNL is so lousy, why don't you just stop watching? You're right and I wish I could. But as bad as it gets, I keep coming back for more. I'm in an abusive relationship with SNL. I just wish the writers and performers would go to counseling so things would be like they used to be.
As a true believer in the beauty of sketch, I take offense at the standards of writing and performance that air Saturday nights at 11:30. I've done my tour in the bush leagues of sketch and have friends who are still cutting their teeth at the Groundlings and elsewhere. So, am I a pro? No. But I do know what good sketch comedy looks like.
Most sketches are either character or concept pieces. A few years ago, SNL became obsessed with trying to turn concept sketches into character sketches. Take the cheerleader sketch Will Ferrel and Cheri Oteri - a funny one-off concept sketch. But because the bit hit once, they did a dozen or so more variations of exactly the same skit. Same jokes, same setup, same everything. Goth Talk, Mango, The Lovers - it's tough to recall a funny concept that didn't turn into a never-ending loop of the same damn thing.
But the days of repetition gave way to something even worse. The dominant structure for recent sketches seems to be to come up with a zany character and then just have them clown around. What the hell is supposed to be funny about Tracy Morgan's Brian Fellows character, or Maya Rudolph's Donatella Versace, or anything performed by Horatio Sanz? These skits have all the comic sophistication of one of the fraternity brothers putting on a wig and a skirt.
There will always be skits that bomb, or concepts that look better on paper, but in many recent SNL sketches it's impossible to tell what the joke is even supposed to be. If you watch closely, you'll notice a few seconds of pause between when the sketch ends and when the crowd applauds. Why? Because the sketches are so directionless, so lacking in structure, so wholly unsatisfying that it's hard to know when they're over.
I know what most of you are thinking - if SNL is so lousy, why don't you just stop watching? You're right and I wish I could. But as bad as it gets, I keep coming back for more. I'm in an abusive relationship with SNL. I just wish the writers and performers would go to counseling so things would be like they used to be.
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