Archive | June, 2004

The media and F9/11

30 June 2004

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The Village Voice’s Richard Goldstein neatly dissects the mainstream media’s reaction to Michael Moore’s documentary. As Goldstein says, none of Moore’s facts are contested–it’s the spin he puts on them that makes them so mad…But if they came right out and said that, they’d be exposed for the pandering idiots that they are. So instead [...]

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Dennis Miller and what National Lampoon hath wrought…

30 June 2004

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This morning, friend Dennis Perrin forwarded me this link about Dennis Miller making fun of the torture victims at Abu Ghraib. I asked Mr. Perrin–who is the author of an excellent biography of Michael O’Donoghue–if he thought that the work of O’Donoghue and others at the National Lampoon in the early 70s hadn’t opened a [...]

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GO SEE FAHRENHEIT 9/11!

29 June 2004

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Go see it. Now. Call in sick, blow off the chores, do whatever you have to do. I saw it yesterday, and It’s the best, most emotionally involving documentary I’ve ever seen. I really laughed; I really wept. Two things I noticed: for a Monday 4:45 pm screening, the theater was packed. And it was [...]

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Earthquake!

28 June 2004

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Did the Earth move for you? We apparently got a 4.5 this morning–but I didn’t feel a thing. I have been awake during an earthquake, out in Seattle in 1994. I was sitting on my couch and a bowl full of goldfish almost fell on my head. I suspect that the earthquake was the result [...]

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Back from vacation…

24 June 2004

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…and ready to see Fahrenheit 9/11! But first, I had to read David Denby’s irritating review in The New Yorker. The New Yorker has been called a self-satisfied bastion of middle-class smugness. And in the American middle class, thou-shalt-not admit the existence of economic classes; it’s unkind towards those below, and impolite towards those above. [...]

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In New Haven? Go to the…

16 June 2004

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…Pizza Festival. Go for the pizza, which I bet will be pretty good (Sally’s or Pepe’s, anyone?), and go for all those, like myself, who cannot eat pizza any longer. Lactose intolerance is a terrible thing.

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McKinney review on "Fresh Air"

15 June 2004

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Okay, so I’m going through one of my “periods” where everything is about The Beatles. Everybody should probably just sit tight until it passes. Here‘s a great commentary about Devin McKinney’s book Magic Circles on Fresh Air. I don’t much like celebrating birthdays–I think it’s dangerous to pack too much fun into one 24-hour period, [...]

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Well, I’m 35 today…

14 June 2004

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…which means I can now run for President. But I will not, because I don’t want to splinter the vote. My wife, mom and dad are all staunch liberals, and I wouldn’t want to have four more years of Bush on my conscience. (Unlike certain consumer advocates we might name.) Last night, Kate and I [...]

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Book roundup

13 June 2004

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Here’s what’s on my night-table now, in case you care: Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History, by Devin McKinney This book is very hard to describe; it’s one part Beatle history, one part psychological appraisal of the group and its fandom, with plenty of song-by-song appreciation and Sixties history in there, too. The [...]

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Barry Trotter in The Sun!

12 June 2004

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Yesterday my tiny world was rocked by a great article about Barry Trotter in The Sun. Our friend Elaine told Kate that it was next to a page full of breasts, which is only appropriate. My friend Dave Etkin wrote this in response: “Dear Mike, I am compelled to inform you that I am writing [...]

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