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DECEMBER 29, 2003
 A Real Doll
Has Barbie always seemed like a bleeding heart liberal to you? Between her shallow and overt material need to have a new outfit every time one turns around to her (gay) pink jeep, she is clearly not the kind of role model you envision for your young children. Her emasculating love of career alone — think of how many jobs she's already had that G.I. Joe, returning from service in Iraq, should have gotten, like Senator and Olympic medal-winning ice skater — makes her far too treacherous a gal pal for your little housewives-
to-be.
Finally, in answer to your prayers for a smart, conservative paradigm for your 'Publicans-in-the
-making, there's a new buxom blonde on the partisan playground: the Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. Unlike Barbie, all she wears is a simple black frock and she'll never ask for "dream houses" or ball gowns. In fact she won't ask anything. She will instead, tell. Just press the button on her stomach and she will tell your eight-year old things like:
• "Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race."
• "At least when right-wingers rant, there's a point."
• "Swing voters are more appropriately known as the 'idiot voters' because they have no set of philosophical principles. By the age of fourteen, you're either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster."
• "Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"
• "Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like Liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now."
If your Ann gets lonely sitting on the shelf barking out vitriolic witticisms to uninterested Libertarian Bratz and Green Party-lovin' Malibu Francies, you can also purchase a right-wing companion for her, namely the Dennis Miller Talking Action Figure. If things go well for him, this former Saturday Night Live comedian will soon become a U.S. Senator. Then Barbie (and Barbara Boxer) will have to pack her tailored, gray tweed ensemble, jump into her pink VW Bug and head back to whatever "blue" state she came from to make room for a qualified joker, I mean, legislator. Ann and Dennis are $29.95 each, and that price will seem like a bargain when they finally expose toothy Barbie and Ken for the Kennedys they really are.
Look for soon-to-be-offered accessories for these Action Figures, like tiny packets of "freedom fries," a miniature Joseph McCarthy bust and his and hers, red, white and blue Hummers.
NOVEMBER 27, 2003
Some Last Words
Two people with whom I worked during my 20+ years in publishing died this past week. One was Ruth Newhall, former owner and editor of the "The Signal," the other was Ron Curran who wrote for "LA Weekly," among other publications.
Ruth Newhall was sharp, in every sense of the word. I worked for her and her family at their newspaper from 1978 through 1981. Though she was busy wrangling the writers and I worked in the production dept., it is remarkable that Ruth and I never had a single conversation during the four years I worked for her. Certainly I was too intimidated to approach her. My art department buddy, Randy Wicks (also deceased), had once christened her "Ruthless." It was a nickname that implied that one should keep out of this imposing dowager's way — and I took the message to heart. What might truly have separated her from some of the staff was not her air of formality but the fact of the Newhall family's vast wealth. They were shareholders in the Newhall Land and Farming Company, the company that had taken Valencia from a barren desert and turned it into an upscale city. NLF also owned vast agricultural real estate holdings throughout the state. Even the town in which we worked was named after the Newhalls. So, it was not merely the divisions that exist between managers and employees that separated Ruth from her staff, but instead the more significant chasm that separates owners from workers. Examples of the divide were numerous. For instance, one afternoon when the production back shop was buzzing with talk of unionization, Ruth's husband, Scott Newhall arrived. In a conversational tone, he asked one of the women working there why she would need to make more money. She replied that she, deluded as it might seem, aspired to owning a TV that she didn't have to wallop every time she wanted to tune in a picture. He had no reply to this. On another occasion, Ruth and Scott hosted a company picnic at their Victorian mansion in Piru, CA. As the picnickers entered the house, we were dazzled by a colossal display of fine silver laid out on the massive dining table. It was much like entering a museum, and similarly everyone was told not to touch the goods. Our food was served on paper plates. But there was more to Ruth Newhall — philosophy scholar, brilliant marketer and straight-shooting journalist — than being a rich dilettante. I regret that I was too young and stupid to break through her no-nonsense exterior to hear firsthand about her fascinating life and ideas while I had the chance. Many did, and they remember a kindlier woman than the one I settled for.
RON CURRAN
1960-2003 I worked with Ron Curran for six years at "LA Weekly". He was a serious man with an affable smile — the same winning combination that made him a hard-edged journalist and simultaneously, an unrepentant idealist. At about the same time that I deserted LA for San Francisco, Ron did too. He ended up working at the "Bay Guardian" while I landed at "SF Weekly". Strangely, I ran into him more often in that city than I had when we worked together. Sometimes I'd be waiting for a bus and he'd happen by and keep me company until my ride appeared. More often it would be at a bar or nightclub where I spotted him. In every instance, he always treated me like a pal. He died last week at the age of 43 — my age. Though I can't say we were good friends, it remains sad and shocking to lose a contemporary. Additionally, in a world where so many of my peers are working at worthless jobs just to pay the bills, Ron was engaged in keeping the alternative journalism fires burning with his story service, Pulp Syndicate. Though they were very different people, both Ruth and Ron believed in journalism as a means to tell the truth. Now it is someone else's turn to pick up the standard.
NOVEMBER 8, 2003
 Dicey Dyke's Dilemma Due for Deliberations
The legal dispute between Rosie O'Donnell and the publishers of her magazine, Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing, has been making embarrassing "he-said she-said" headlines throughout the past week. According to Rosie, who walked out on her commitment last September, to the eponymous, "Rosie" — formerly "McCall's" — she had been promised, but did not receive, full creative control of the magazine. According to the publishers, O'Donnell was a pain-in-the-neck, megalomaniac who held up production on a regular basis because she could not make decisions or deliver the celebrity interviews she had promised.
Furthermore, she was foul-mouthed around the office, told a cancer survivor on staff that if she lied her cancer would come back, and suggested inappropriate cover stories for the family-oriented magazine, like profiles of Mike Tyson and Boy George. So far, court testimony has rendered both parties equally unsympathetic. However, if this were a contest to be won by who will be deemed the least unpopular, Rosie would lose, without question.
The real question, which no one seems to be asking, is why Rosie was kept on at all. G+J would have done better to let her go months earlier, when it was first clear that the magazine had no audience, and to resume publishing under the old banner. At that point in her career, Rosie, a second tier, retired Oprah, had already shown that her appeal was waning. She'd also given so many exclusive television interviews in which she "came out" about one-thing-or-another, that there was not much left to wring from her limited, persoanl repertoire.
Furthermore, in a sea of "women's magazines" this one was undistinguished except by its insipid content and the ridiculous cover photos of Rosie posed with various celebrities. The most idiotic cover story during the two years the magazine published was the one about Rosie's staph infection. Here is an excerpt from the story about the aftermath of a cut on her finger:
"On Tuesday night, April 3, my hand started to hurt. A lot. It was an itchy-hot-burning-searing-what-the-hell-is-happening pain.
I took a Percocet, then an hour later, another. They didn't work. At 6 a.m. on Wednesday, April 4, I went to the hospital. I looked like I was in labor, panting, sweating and trying to find a focal point. My doctor was working out in the hospital gym. He met me in the locker room and had me admitted in between squats."
Unfortunately, neither Rosie's prose, nor her working-class "Martha Stewart's Living"-type-of magazine ever found a focal point. For that reason alone, Rosie should have been given the axe. Instead, the publisher held on to her, probably hoping her name would add something besides ignominy to the product. Sadly, it never did. Though Rosie, the person and the magazine, had nothing to offer the reading public that they couldn't find done more effectively elsewhere, it's still a shame we'll never get to see that cover photo with Rosie and convicted rapist, Mike Tyson.
SEPTEMBER 2003
No on the Recall! No on Predators!
What kind of a man serially gropes and publicly humiliates women? It is a relevant question in light of the numerous and consistent allegations being leveled against Arnold Schwarzenegger on the eve of an election that could put him into the governor's chair in California. Further, it is interesting to note that none of the accusations made, so far, are about marital infidelity, or any other kind of consummated sex — unlike those made and proven about Bill Clinton.
No, Arnold doesn't seem to have the nerve to "go all the way." He just wants to grab women's genitals, threaten them with rape, expose their bodies in public and to insinuate nasty, sexual proposals in his sinister, Austrian whisper. This is the behavior of someone who merely wishes to assert dominance towards those who are weaker (and clearly all women are weaker than a steroid-pumped body-builder), not someone who wants to actually have sex.
There are plenty of men who use the sex act to dominate women. But this is a different brand of dominance through sexual force. This behavior is more akin to the guy in the trench coat who exposes himself to a schoolgirl, than it is to the serial rapist. But it is dissimilar as well. The flasher doesn't want to go through with the sexual act either, but at least he feels confident that he's got something to flaunt. Arnold doesn't seem to want to expose himself to the kind of scrutiny that would come from zipping down his own pants.
It is the same behavior he demonstrated by avoiding all the gubernatorial debates except the one in which he was given the questions in advance. He wants control and power, but he doesn't want the probes that accompany them. In each case, one has to wonder, what is he hiding?
This is a dangerous signal from a man who wants to hold the most powerful office in the most powerful state in the US. How will he respond when the public questions his policies? Will he be forthcoming, or will he just perceive any inquiry as a threat and zip up tight? Will those who oppose him in some way be treated as equals with differing opinions, or will he feel compelled to grab them, throw them up against a wall, in private, and threaten them with a spanking?
Whatever one's political beliefs, or even their beliefs about women's place in society, surely electing a man who has shown himself to be a bully and a coward — who consistently picks only on those weaker than he, while making sure he never exposes himself to any threat — is a grave mistake. If you enjoy Teutonic man-eaters, you're still better off with the white tigers in Las Vegas, than with the predator making plans to take over Sacramento. Vote no on recall. Vote no on Arnold.
OCTOBER 14, 2003
1. Looks like Governor Schwarzenegger is going to have a difficult time repealing the "car tax" (as the vehicle registration hike was known during the campaign). He promised!
2. K-Street, the new HBO show, brought to you by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, seems to have been sold by weight, not by volume. There is just too much air in the bag. I keep tuning in because, theoretically, I support innovative ideas like this one (a hybrid of reality and fiction about a political consulting firm in Washington D.C.). I also watch because a friend of mine is the producer and I want it to succeed. However, each installment provides so little sustenance that watching leaves me angry, frustrated and hungering for a story. Hey people, I don't care how many scenes you bathe in that annoying blue light, or how many politicians make self-serving cameo appearances in front of the hand-held camera, without plot or character development, no one cares.
3. Carnivale is another misstep from HBO. This is a sort-of stylish, Twin-Peaks-like drama that takes place during the Depression. The action follows two unsympathetic characters, one a sinister preacher, the other a taciturn dimwit who has the ability to heal, but doesn't want to use his gift. Instead he crosses the dustbowl with a traveling circus, peopled with unappealing, desperate freaks. Even the stylishness of the show is undermined by glaring lighting, and cheap art direction which leaches the creepiness from every scene. And the plot? It seems to have one, but again, by the time they get to it, who will still be watching? Give me Fox's "The OC" any time. At least that show has no pretensions to anything but becoming the new-millenium replacement for "Beverly Hills, 90210" — at task at which it succeeds delightfully.
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Nov. 4, 2003
1. German Engineering. I was involved in an auto accident the other day and was saved from serious injury by the fantastic safety features on the Audi A-4 in which I was a passenger. If I'd been in my own little sports car I would have been in far worse shape.
All I need now is a prescription for Vicodin, and all will be forgotten.
2. The kindness of friends. After the car accident, a very nice couple, who we know, came by to pick up my girlfriend and me, and to make sure we not injured. It is in times of crisis that you know who your friends are. However, it is better not to get into too many crises. Friends can become sympathy fatigued.
3. Cheese Straws. It is very difficult to find these rich, little, cheesy wonders in California. Therefore, whenever I go to New Orleans I try to eat as many as possible. They are m ade from a combination of cheese, butter, flour and spices, which are baked into greasy little strips. I could almost claim that they are better than potato chips. However, nothing is really better than potato chips. Still, last week, in the Crescent City, they were just as delicious as my meal at Antoine's — and that's saying something.
4. Fried Pie is another New Orleans treat. Are these piping hot delights, rolled in confectioner's sugar and served at Bud's Broiler better than cheese straws? No, but since Mc Donald's began baking their hot apple pies (yuck!), there is nothing quite like this to be had in Los Angeles. (Okay, we have the Cobbler Factory in Pasadena, but that's a whole separate taste sensation.) Bud's fried pies come in three flavors, but they had me at peach.
Make Your Own:
CHEESE STRAWS
2 cups (500 mL) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
3/4 cup (175 mL) cold butter
1/3 cup (75 mL) cold water (approx.)
1-1/2 cups (375 mL) shredded old Cheddar cheese
1 egg yolk
1 tsp (5 ml) milk In large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut butter into small pieces; with pastry blender or two knives, cut into flour mixture until resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle with water. Gather dough into ball. Add more water if necessary.
Divide dough in half. Place one half on lightly floured work surface. Roll out to 18- x 10-inch (45 x 25 cm) rectangle. Sprinkle cheese over half the dough; starting at one short end, fold remaining half of dough over top and roll again to 18- x 10-inch (45 x 25 cm) rectangle. Cut into twenty-four 10 inch (25 cm) straws.
Place on lightly greased baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Repeat with remaining pastry and cheese.
Mix egg yolk with milk. Brush over straws. Bake in 425¡F for 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown on top. Makes about 48 straws.
July 2003
MORE THINGS
National Parks Pass. For $50 a year, the US National Parks Service sells a pass that will let you into any National Park for a 12-month period. I used it recently to go to Zion, Grand Teton and Yellowstone, all during a 10-day trip. For nature lovers, the only thing better than this pass is the one they sell to seniors (anyone 62 and older), which costs a mere $10, and allows park access for the rest of the purchaser's life. It's clear that between that and the AARP discounts looming in my future, there is a lot to look forward to in the silver years.
Word of the Day. Often the words chosen by the Merriam-Webster people for the "Word of the Day" are commonplace enough to escape my notice. But when they choose an archaic term like hoity-toity and then use the equally out-of-use word, highfalutin, as a synonym, it warms the cockles of my heart.
June Gloom is a term that refers to the marine layer that covers Los Angeles for most of the month of June each year. The air heating faster than the ocean can catch up causes this weather condition that creates foggy conditions up through the Summer Solstice. Each year this seasonal, atmospheric murk prevents the flip-flop-wearing public from getting a start on casual dressing and, in essence, seems like a real drag — that is until July. By then, Summer is full-blown and every morning dawns with a relentlessly cheery sun that heralds the blast furnace conditions of the days to come. Only then does June Gloom take on the appealing aspects of the cool, intellectual you regret jilting in favor of that hot air-head.
The Clarinex® radio commmercial that warns users that using this allergy medication could cause symptoms similar to those experienced from taking sugar pills. Symptoms such as: sore throat, dry mouth and fatigue. Yeah, just like sugar pills.
Say"no" to in-theater ads
I don't know anyone who does not actively dislike the advertising that precedes the showing of films in movie theaters. Going to the movies costs upwards of $8.50 these days. So, after spending almost $15.00 to watch a film — including the popcorn and Raisinettes – one sits down in the darkened theater only to first be assaulted by a number of commercials.
I'm not talking about previews of coming attractions. They have an entertainment value of their own, though much could be said about the abysmal practice of passing off the six most dramatic plot points as indicative of a movie's entire value, when they are more likely the only six dramatic moments.
No, I'm talking about those ads in the form of short films that tell us to subscribe to the LA Times, or that persuade us to drink Coke. The Laemmle art houses where I go to see my Miramax favorites, show some nauseatingly pretentious flics for local college radio station, KCRW. They are enough to make rethink my attachment to NPR.
Theater chain owners claim they make little money on the films that pay Tom Cruise $13 million, and must make up the difference with concessions and advertising. I say, it is time to boycott forced exposure to advertising — not to mention Tom Cruise.
I'm not sure how to do this, but how about standing conspicuously outside the theater door until the movie begins. When your friends ask you to sit down, tell them you are waiting for the ads to finish, and ask them if they will wait with you. Its small, but it has to begin somewhere.
 Maggie
After months of discussion, false starts and hesitation, we adopted a dog from an animal rescue shelter last week. We had tried for months to get one from a place called The Brittany Foundation. They show dogs at the Studio City Farmer's Market every weekend.
We went religiously, each week, to look at the dogs. However, after putting in an application and requesting a home check in January, we never heard back from them, so we gave up. The woman in charge of the Brittany seemed to be more interested in controlling her dogs' lives than actually placing them in homes. We wonder if she ever places dogs, since the one in which we were interested is still languishing in a cage, four months later.
We adopted our dog, Maggie, from Pet Orphans. They were very responsive to our inquiries. In fact, though the Brittany Foundation never made a house call, after our months of waiting, Pet Orphans sent someone out to see us the day after we called on them.
Maggie is a terrier mix, or, in the common vernacular, a mutt. We were told that she was abused by her original owner, which has left her submissive in the extreme. This is fortunate in that it has rendered her completely uninterested in chasing the cat. It is unfortunate in the way that it has also left her shy and cowering at every benign advance.
Nevertheless, there are signs that she is going to be okay. After four days at our house, she was observed to lift her tail from its customary place, between her legs, and walk around the block with something of a swagger to her step.
Though she needs to be coaxed to eat, and sometimes has "accidents" in the house, she does seem to like movies. She watched "The Red Violin" last night. Tonight we think we might treat her to "Spiderman." I hope it is not too lowbrow for her taste, but we're still getting to know each other likes and dislikes.
 MAD R.I.P.
"Mad" Magazine was the Holy Grail for irreverent pre-teens in the 1970s. It had clever parodies, great cartooning and, most importantly, it could make a 12-year-old feel like they had some kind of sophisticated hold on adult culture — while at the same time allowing them in on the joke that it was all bullshit. Somehow, the creators of the publication were able to achieve this with no advertising, no celebrity tie-ins and no age-inappropriate sexual allusions. No more.
The modern "Mad" magazine is full of the cheap humor one finds on the kind of television sit-coms where children seem to be more sexually sophisticated than their parents (a difficult feat to achieve in a post Baby-Boom world).
The latest issue, featuring a limp Sponge Bob send-up, includes a piece titled "Mad's Field-Tested Tips for Your First Date." It contains lame, sex-specific jokes like "There are many ways to turn the subject around to sex. 'Stupid condom tricks' is not the most effective." "Mad's Genetically-Altered Outtakes from X-2, is illustrated cheaply with low resolution photos from the movie accompanied by "kooky" captions. One reads "Please God let this be one of the movies Halle Berry gets naked in."
While there is nothing wrong with learning a few misguided facts about sex from "Mad," the same way you would, say, from your friends on a street corner, the magazine is rife with this stuff. Most likely, it appeals to pre-adolescent boys, though the girls who once read this magazine must surely be turned-off.
Moreover, it's not even funny. The artwork, too, has devolved from a tradition of great cartooning to a heavy reliance on digitally-modified photography. If the jokes were funnier, maybe the illustrations wouldn't seem so cheap.
The addition of advertising to the modern "Mad," however, is unforgivable. It compromises the whole pretext of the magazine — that of thumbing one's nose at all Holy Cows, including corporations — in the same way that those ADM commercials compromise PBS programming.
If the publication were funnier, as a whole, it might be worth flipping past the ads. But the heart of this contrived comic book, now a part of the AOL Time Warner universe, has been eviscerated. It is "Mad" itself, which has become a sorry parody of what it once was. Alfred E. Newman has always been toothless, and now so is the magazine which bears his mug.
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