The Amazing True Story of a Man and His Robot
January 24, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
December 2008
…
Believe it or not, there is a man in Boulder named Sam Kent who lives with an 8-foot-tall robot named Gort. At first glance, Sam and Gort do not seem to have much in common to base a friendship on. Sam is small. Gort is humungous. Sam wears round, bookish spectacles, brown corduroys and Velcro shoes. Gort wears a helmet with a visor and is the color of a shiny new dime. Sam is witty and gregarious and has a mischievous twinkle in his eye at all times. Gort is more of the strong, silent type and—well, he doesn’t really have eyes, much less ones that twinkle. However, despite their many differences, these two companions share a modest, two-story house near the downtown area. “He’s not much for conversation,” said Sam during a recent interview. “But he’s a great listener. Besides, I probably do enough talking for the both of us.” Gort had no comment.
If you are ever invited to Sam’s house, the first thing you will probably notice is that the doorbell plays an odd tune when you ring it. Instead of the usual ding-dong, you will hear the theme song to Steven Spielberg’s famous extraterrestrial movie Close Encounters. The second thing you’ll probably notice is Gort standing motionless no less than five feet inside the front entrance. Gort is a life-sized replica of a character from the classic sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Sam found him at an auction in Newport Beach—where Gort was hanging out with other replicas of other famous Hollywood robots, such as Robbie from Forbidden Planet and Dave from Lost in Space—and decided a faceless, silver automaton would be the perfect addition to his foyer. Sam admits that it might be slightly unnerving for some visitors to be greeted by an enormous creature from outer space when they cross the threshold of his house, but he can’t do anything about it. “That’s is the only spot where the ceiling is tall enough,” Sam explained. “He won’t fit anywhere else.”
It’s difficult to tell what the next thing is you’ll notice after entering Sam’s house. It might be the framed, wall-length poster in the dining room commemorating a movie called The Island of Dr. Mareau, or perhaps the incredibly realistic Frankenstein head in the work room, or the rotary phone in the kitchen shaped like Mickey Mouse, or the rare scale model of Captain Nemo’s submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But one thing is certain: you won’t have a problem finding something to notice.
Sam’s passion for movies started when he was a child growing up in Chicago. “I had about 12,000 cousins living nearby at the time,” he said, “and when we all became too obnoxious for our parents to handle, my older brother would take us to the movie theater around the corner. I was particularly fond of monster movies and the old, animated Disney films. I can’t really explain why. Perhaps it was an escapist technique, although I’m not sure what I would have been trying to escape from at the age of six. I’ll give you my therapist’s number, and you can ask him.”
Not content to be just another voyeur in the audience, Sam was bitten by the performance bug at an early age. When he was 9 years old, he began frequenting magic shops, and would often entertain his family by pulling quarters out of their ears and producing floral arrangements from empty hats. “Is this your card?” became a common phrase in the Kent household.
In high school, he found a place amongst the quirky, melodramatic teenagers known as “theater nerds,” and this social outlet eventually developed into a bachelor’s degree in the performing arts from the University of Colorado. Since that time, Sam has remained a fixture in the local arts and entertainment scene, albeit often in unorthodox ways.
“People sometimes have limited perceptions of art. They think if you’re not dressed in tights performing Hamlet in the park, then you’re not an entertainer. I don’t like that. I say an entertainer is anyone who entertains you.”
After graduating from college, Sam worked his way through a variety of jobs connected to the entertainment industry. He spent time booking shows at the Boulder Theater, attempted to broaden the public’s awareness of Dracula movies at the Video Station, operated a movie-poster store in Denver, and even returned to his childhood fascination with magic for a brief period.
“For a few years, I owned a magic store in Boulder,” said Sam. “It was really great. I had all kinds of neat things in there.”
Like what?
“Like trick knives and handcuffs and playing cards. I also had some white rabbits and some doves that I would let loose from time to time.”
You let animals loose in the store?
“Oh, yeah. I think a magic shop should be magical, don’t you? I think it should be more than just a place to buy things. It should be its own little world. It should be an experience.”
Creating new worlds is another one of Sam’s passions. He is a firm believer that reality is what you make of it, and Sam likes to make his reality as imaginative and whimsical as possible. In his house, Sam has created a tiny, carefully organized universe filled with all of the things he loves: model airplanes and boats and monsters and aliens and amusement park rides and anthropomorphized cartoon animals. Many of the items are rare or one-of-a-kind, almost everything appears to be vintage. Sam has no idea what his entire collection is worth, and what’s more, he doesn’t care. “I’m never going to sell any of this stuff,” he said. “So I guess that makes it all worthless.”
Sam does not look like the type of passionate eccentric who would own such an unusual assortment of pop culture bric-a-brac. In fact, he looks more like a landlord. In fact, he is a landlord. Currently, he makes a living collecting money from a number of tenants, who rent space in various buildings that he owns. However, Sam has a restless nature and seldom sticks with any job for more than five years or so. He’s the type of man who is prone to flights of fancy, and recently he developed a new obsession that might soon lead him down yet another track: trains.
“There’s something very romantic about trains,” said Sam, holding up a caboose that he’s been working on for some time. “Historically, they represent innovation and connection. The United States is a big country, and railroads helped unify the nation—you know, back before we had the Internet. I think the sight and sound of a locomotive will always be an exciting experience.”
How many times has Sam been on a train? Twice. But that’s not really the point. Once again, it’s all about inventing your own little world and finding new opportunities to entertain the public. Serious train modelers don’t just build railroads; they create an entire landscape for the train to travel through, complete with cities and cars and people. In other words, they reconstruct our world, only smaller and hopefully with fewer lawyers.
This time, Sam wants to go public with his vision. “I would like to create a complete scale model of Boulder in the 1950s. That’s when I first moved here as a kid. It was a different city back then. There weren’t so many trendy restaurants and shops; it was just a town near the mountains. I would give tours and answer questions—I think people would really enjoy it. The thing is, I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready to settle down. I want to find a career that combines all of my interests and dedicate myself to it. I’d also like to get married some day. I’m really an old-fashioned kind of guy at heart.”
Sam glanced over at the large shadow near the front door and grinned. “Of course, I’d have to talk it over with Gort first.”
Britney Spears and George W. Bush
January 21, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
2006
…
Last week, two monumental events occurred that rocked the very fabric of this great nation: 1) In the midterm elections, George Bush and the GOP got beat like red-headed stepchildren by the Democrats, and 2) Britney totally broke up with K-Fed.
It was a low point in the careers of two American anti-icons. On the surface, these incidents seem completely unrelated. It’s doubtful that Bush has ever downloaded “Toxic” onto his iPod, or that Spears keeps up with the latest polling results out of Virginia. However, Bush and Britney have a lot more in common than meets the eye. They are both cultural pariahs who have achieved unlikely success despite the fact that the general public considers them to be idiots.
But what does this say about a society that elected Bush as its president (not just once but twice) and purchased Britney’s mediocre pop albums by the millions? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to analyze the correlation between the leader of the free world and the leader of the pop world. (As far as we know, this has never been attempted before, so bear with us.)
In 1994, Bush kicked off his political career by defeating incumbent Democrat Ann Richards to become the governor of Texas, and Britney took to the stage as a squeaky clean performer for the Mickey Mouse Club. These were seminal years for both subjects. George made a name for himself as a hard-line conservative by giving tax cuts to the wealthy and executing more criminals than any other governor in U.S. history. Britney learned that innocence and purity can be powerful tools, especially when combined with underage sexual innuendo.
At this time, our subjects were newbies in their respective fields, and their success had less to do their God-given talents than it did with parental influence. However, they both learned from their surroundings and continued to ascend the proverbial ladder. They applied their newfound knowledge in 1998, when Bush earned a second term in the Governor’s Mansion and Britney released her debut album, …Baby One More Time. Bush’s political savvy combined with his father’s good name caused the Washington cronies to sit up and take notice—as did Britney’s plaid skirts and kneehigh socks. Our subjects were teetering on the edge of glory, and they could both taste victory just around the corner. (In case you didn’t know, victory tastes a lot like those Chicken in a Biscuit crackers).
The Millennium was a mixed blessing for the dynamic duo. Oops!…I Did It Again debuted at No. 1 in the U.S. in 2000 and cemented Spears as the new queen of the airwaves. But the critics were not necessarily in concordance with public opinion, and in 2001 Spears was passed over at the Grammys for a second year in a row. Despite numerous semantic blunders and startling geopolitical ignorance, Bush managed to take over the most powerful office on the planet. However, his victory was overshadowed by a voting mishap in Florida and accusations of foul play.
In order to solidify themselves in the history books, Bush and Britney both needed a traumatic event to garner public support. When the terrorists attacks occurred on Sept. 11, Bush went from a stuttering puppet president with a daddy complex to a John Wayne-like avenger almost overnight. Sympathies were also showered upon Britney by countless devastated teeny-boppers less than five months later when she broke up with N-Sync über-hunk Justin Timberlake amidst allegations that he’d been unfaithful. After these catastrophic episodes, the media turned our subjects into martyrs that could do no wrong.
Riding a tide of confidence, Bush and Britney were informed by their respective advisors that they needed to make bold moves to prove to the world that they could overcome the obstacles set before them. In March 2003, Bush answered his critics once and for all by declaring war on Iraq and bombing Baghdad back to the Stone Age. Britney’s choice was less violent but just as symbolic. At the MTV Video Music Awards in August, she took the stage with Madonna and French kissed the pop music empress in front of the entire world. These events marked the passing of a torch from one generation to the next. For George, Jr., it was an opportunity to redeem his father’s failed attempt to capture the notorious Saddam Hussein. For Britney, it was an acknowledgment that she was now a full-blown sex idol.
But fame can sometimes be a fickle mistress. Our subjects started to believe their own hype and thought they could do no wrong. They forgot that there is only one thing the media loves more than a martyr, and that’s a fallen saint. After the whipping the Republicans gave to the Democrats in the 2004 election, Bush thought he had a mandate from the voters to act like a self-serving ass. He refused to alter his “Stay the course” rhetoric in Iraq and began shoving his religious beliefs in the public’s face. Meanwhile, the formerly image-conscious Britney dyed her signature blonde hair black and started marrying every redneck she could find.
Their popularity waned in 2005 when Bush overstepped his authority by interfering in the Terri Schiavo case and Britney introduced us to her new hubby via the failed reality show Chaotic (where she told the world that she thought time travel, as described in the movie Back to the Future, was real).
Which brings us to 2006.
Currently, it appears that our subjects have learned from past mistakes. After all, Britney finally did kick K-Fed to the curb, a move that seems to indicate she will shape up and stop acting like Elly May Clampett. And Bush has graciously extended an olive branch to the Democrats now that they have the power to impeach him (which is the political equivalent of an atomic wedgie).
But the real question is whether or not the American public will learn from these mistakes. Will we continue to idolize underage “entertainers” and megalomaniacal politicians, or will we start supporting talented artists and pragmatic intellectuals? At the moment, it’s too early to tell. Barack Obama and The Black Keys give us a modicum of hope, but Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Duff are just waiting in the wings.
Doll Phobia?
January 20, 2012
Today I received the strangest publishing request ever:
Dear Mr. Bridges,
I publish a not-for-profit e-zine called PEA GREEN BOAT distributed free via the web (http://www.scribd.com/doc/62300924/PGB-Center-Summer-2011). The theme of our next issue is ‘Uncanny’ In this instance, uncanny is in reference to the psychological concept Das Unheimliche, that is, an occurrence or object which is familiar, yet repulsive at the same time. Part of that will be the phobia of dolls and, of course, Cabbage Patch Madness. I would like permission to reprint a selection out of your blog “All dolls go to heaven”
Sincerely,
Cathy Reed Weber
Seriously, how does one respond to that?
Bugs Bunny on Broadway
January 20, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
January 2008
…
It’s another sweltering day on the desert. The sun is relentless. The ground is hard and cracked. The cacti stand at attention like rigid soldiers on a barren battlefield. There is no sign of life on this godforsaken land.
Or is there?
In the distance, a faint cloud of dust rises on an abandoned dirt road, accompanied by the far-off cry of, “Beep! Beep!”
A lone Coyote (Carnivorous Vulgaris) perks his ears. Has he heard correctly? Is the Road Runner (Accelleratii Incredibus) coming his way? Quickly, the Coyote equips himself with his latest purchase from the ACME Corporation — a pair of roller skates, a helmet and a giant, red rocket tied to his back. ACME has let him down in the past (untrustworthy explosive devices, bat suits with faulty wings, earthquake pills that mysteriously do not affect road runners), but the Coyote is certain they will come through this time. After all, American ingenuity always triumphs in the end.
ZOOM! The Road Runner zips through the canyon with incredible ease. He is sleek and confident, that fleetfooted fowl, tearing up the desert like a feathered Mad Max.
Undaunted, the Coyote lights a match and applies the flame to the wick of his rocket. BLAM! The Coyote is blasted forward. At first, he has difficulty maintaining his equilibrium on those tricky roller skates — he slips, he slides — but soon he finds his balance. What a rush! Is it possible? Could he actually be gaining on the Road Runner?
The Coyote closes in — he can practically taste the Road Runner stew on his tongue. He reaches out with a desperate paw… and then… AND THEN…
The Road Runner stops dead in his tracks.
Apparently, there are no breaks on ACME rockets. Bewildered, the Coyote shoots past his prey and slams headfirst into a canyon wall. His body folds into the shape of an undignified accordion. Foiled again.
* * *
Arguably the most ingenious aspect of the Warner Bros. cartoons and the Tex Avery/Chuck Jones style of animation that was perfected in the 1950s and ’60s was the attempt to condense the complexities of modern civilization to its most basic elements. The formula for the original Road Runner and Coyote films never changed: 1) Road Runner is too fast for Coyote to catch; 2) Coyote must rely on modern technology via the ACME Corporation to achieve his goals; 3) for a brief moment, the technology appears to work — however, it always fails in the end, usually backfiring in such a way that it winds up destroying its most faithful consumer.
This happens over and over again with the same results. It is the story of Man struggling against Nature, and it is as old as Plato’s allegorical cave. The fact that Jones was able to simplify this timeless morality tale into six-minute action sequences between two anthropomorphized animals projected onto a flat screen is, somewhat paradoxically, an amazing testament to human ingenuity.
One of the secrets of creating art that appears to be very simple is to connect it to something that is actually quite complex. When you consider the fact that the early Road Runner and Coyote cartoons had no verbal discourse aside from the occasional, acerbic “Beep! Beep!” of that sadistic bird, you realize the importance music can play as a plot device in storytelling. In fact, the Looney Tunes productions of that period are remarkable examples of melodic sophistication and ingenuity that have stood the test of time.
The classical compositions that accompany the Road Runner and Coyote cartoons are anything but simple for George Daugherty, who has been conducting the live concert production of Bugs Bunny On Broadway for more than 18 years.
“For starters,” says Daugherty, “the Coyote and Road Runner never utter a single word of dialogue. The music becomes their conversation, but it’s incredibly frenetic. That is Carl Stalling — who is the composer — at his absolute most crazy. So you have these classical music pieces like ‘Dance of the Comedians’ from The Bartered Bride, which they always use when the Coyote chases the Road Runner. And that piece of music in a normal concert is so fast that it’s almost impossible to play — but in the cartoon, we take it four times faster, so the musicians are practically flying off their chairs. At the same time, you have these sound effects that we have to play of trains and planes and buses. It’s the only time a classical symphony orchestra member will hear a conductor say, ‘That solo should be with a jackhammer.’”
Bugs Bunny On Broadway is an artistic collaboration that combines the on-screen animation of the Looney Tunes with the live performance of a classically trained symphony orchestra. This is particularly difficult for the orchestra and its conductor, because they must keep up with the cartoon at all costs. Small mistakes often go unnoticed during a regular concert, but they can be catastrophic in Bugs Bunny On Broadway.
“In a normal concert, you can improvise and go with the music,” says Daugherty. “But the cartoons don’t wait for anything. They just keep charging ahead no matter what. God forbid somebody should come in a measure late and the whole orchestra follow them. The action on the screen would be completely out of sync with the music, and the story would be ruined.”
While conducting the orchestra, Daugherty watches the screen above his head intensely, listens to the guide track in his ear, and attempts to synchronize the two through the orchestra in front of him. If he or one of the orchestra members loses focus for even a moment, the entire audience will know immediately. The performance is like being pulled down the street by a runaway horse: you can either try to keep up or get dragged behind, but either way you’re going wherever that horse takes you.
In many ways, without even realizing it, Daugherty has become an honorary member of the Looney Tunes family — he’s now another desperate Coyote forever trying to catch up to that elusive Road Runner.
* * *
As a cinematic icon, Bugs Bunny has had somewhat of a problematic relationship with classical music. Animation has never really been taken seriously as an art form, and therefore, many critics and “artistes” tend to look down their noses at cartoons. Classical music has always been considered part of “high culture,” while Bugs and his friends definitely rank amongst the “low culture” (sometimes kindly referred to as “popular culture”).
And while it’s not in Bugs’ nature to pick a fight, he certainly never backed down from one, either. In the ’50s and ’60s, Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tunes cohorts wreaked satirical havoc on the world of classical music and opera in brilliant films such as The Rabbit of Seville, Corny Concerto, Baton Bunny, What’s Opera, Doc? and Long-Haired Hare. This was a period in American history when classical music was still very much in the public consciousness. Leonard Bernstein’s orchestra had a regular spot on prime-time television, and Ed Sullivan often featured opera singers and classical musicians on his popular show. The media had not yet been completely overrun by Elvis’s infamous pelvis or Beatlemania, and classical music was still, in a way, classic.
The artists at Warner Bros. were also fans of classical music. After all, they kept an 80-piece orchestra and two excellent composers, Carl Stalling and Milt Fanklyn, on their payroll.
In the documentary Chuck Jones: Extremes and in Betweens, a Life in Animation, Jones states that the reason why he chose to use classical music almost exclusively was because “it’s the best kind of music, and it’s the most appropriate for an animated cartoon.”
On the other hand, there was something about the pomp and circumstance of the genre that rubbed the Warner Bros. artists the wrong way. It’s possible that their ire stemmed from the fact that they were kind of considered the redheaded stepchildren of the industry. Warner Bros. Animation was a low-budget project run out of a tumbledown structure on Sunset Boulevard that was known to its employees as the “Termite Terrace.” Wages were low, but creative freedom was high. Disney, of course, was the upper crust of animation. The Disney style — which was conceived by visionary artist Ub Iwerks in the 1920s and has continued, at least philosophically, to this day — was sincere and elaborate. Disney always strove for ornate realism, while Warner Bros. favored the abstract. Disney animation represented patriotism and industry, while Warner Bros. animation championed American individualism.
The differences can be seen in the stars that represent each company. Mickey Mouse is a good-natured, softspoken Everyman who prefers to go with the flow whenever possible. He is an innocent (although not necessarily a dupe). In the true Protestant tradition, Mickey works hard and expects good things in return. When faced with controversy, his first reaction is avoidance, followed closely by diplomacy, but he rarely becomes aggressive.
Bugs Bunny, on the other hand, is the anti-Mickey. Irreverent and bombastic, he struts through life with a mischievous grin and a waggling eyebrow. Although he seldom initiates hostility, he always goes cheerfully into battle (usually with the trademark line “Of course you know, this means war!” which was taken from the Marx Brothers). And he will do almost anything to come out victorious, even if it means dressing up as the femme and emasculating his opponent with seduction.
Mickey Mouse is a product of 1930s wholesomeness and fortitude. Bugs Bunny is the precursor to the 1960s’ counter-culture. Mickey Mouse talks like a Midwestern eunuch. Bugs Bunny’s accent falls somewhere between Brooklyn and the Bronx. For all intents and purposes, they are arch-enemies.
Mickey’s desperate earnestness was just begging to be made fun of, and Bugs was only too happy to oblige. When Disney produced Fantasia in 1940 under the direction of Leopold Stokowski, it was a grandiose, almost-religious homage to classical music. In keeping with their style, Disney created a larger-than-life production that was designed to impress the audience by its sheer magnitude. With a wink and a nudge, Warner Bros. created Corny Concerto, which cleverly satirized both classical music and Disney’s worshipful portrayal of it. They produced cartoon after cartoon that mocked high culture and the Boy Scout image portrayed by Disney.
Only history will tell which animated alter-ego America will embrace in the end. Mickey’s diligence and sincerity have turned him into a global icon, yet many now see him as an outdated cliché and an unwelcome colonizer. Bugs Bunny is still culturally relevant, but he has never received the proper recognition.
However, Daugherty seems to be breathing new life into both classical music and the Bugs Bunny mystique all at the same time. In many ways, classical music has dropped out of the public eye. Although symphonies and orchestras are still prominent in America, they do not receive the attention in the mainstream media that they once did. By joining forces with Bugs Bunny, Daugherty has made classical music recognizable to the American public without compromising the integrity of its art.
“A large percentage of those who attend Bugs Bunny On Broadway have never set foot in a concert hall before,” says Daugherty. “We have an opportunity to introduce them to an entire world of music. And it seems to be working, because our statistics show that an unbelievable number of people who see Bugs Bunny On Broadway are coming back for more traditional concerts. We are creating future music-lovers.”
And it’s not a one-sided affair. Thanks to Daugherty, the artists who created the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons are also being recognized for their outstanding work. Bugs Bunny has now been enjoyed by audiences all over the world. He has played to packed auditoriums in London and Moscow. His antics have been seen by children in Montreal, San Francisco and Denver. Bugs Bunny has even graced the halls of the famous Sydney Opera House in Australia.
Now if he could only remember to take that left turn at Albuquerque.
* * *
Daugherty’s illustrious career has spanned more than 25 years. He has written, produced and directed movies and television shows, and he has won an Emmy. However, one of the greatest thrills of the conductor’s life has been collaborating with the incomparable Chuck Jones.
After Warner Bros. Animation closed down in 1962, Jones had many opportunities to work as an illustrator and director in Hollywood. He spent some time at MGM, where he created new episodes of Tom & Jerry. He directed the Academy Award-winning film The Dot and the Line, and he brought Dr. Seuss to life with the animated adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. However, Jones never strayed far from the characters he had created early in his career. He had developed them and cared for them for so many years, he told friends, that it felt wrong to abandon them completely. As he once said in an interview, “Everybody wants to be rich — except me. All I ever wanted to do was to have enough money to live comfortably and do what I enjoy doing. As it turns out, that’s what my life has been pretty much about.”
When Daugherty approached Jones about Bugs Bunny On Broadway, the animator was more than willing assist with the project. It was the beginning of a 10-year artistic and personal relationship that continued until Jones’ death in 2002. “Chuck became like a second father to me,” says Daugherty. “There was truly something very special about him.”
When asked about his favorite memory of Chuck Jones, Daugherty speaks briefly of having intense conversations with Jones at four-star restaurants, during which Jones would often take out a Sharpie and draw pictures of Bugs and Daffy on the tablecloth to illustrate a point. Anyone else would have gotten immediately kicked out for such unorthodox behavior, but not Chuck Jones — the wait staff just stood back and watched, quietly arguing amongst themselves over who would get to keep the tablecloth once the meal was finished.
But there is one memory that stands out above all others. “Opening night on Broadway was probably the most thrilling night of my life,” says Daugherty. “I’ve been very fortunate in my career and I’ve had so many wonderful opportunities, but nothing compares to that. “This was not a star-studded audience of industry insiders; these were all people who stood in line to buy tickets. These were his fans. I have conducted for Baryshnikov in his prime; I’ve conducted for Pavarotti; I’ve conducted for Bocelli; I’ve conducted for Julie Andrews… but I have never heard anything like this audience when that man walked out on stage. It was like an explosion. I wasn’t sure the Gershwin Theatre was going to stay in place. And he was so moved.
“When he got up in front of that audience and began to talk about how he created these cartoons, you realized that Bugs and Daffy and all the rest were his children. They weren’t just cartoons — they were totally real to him.”
(Almost) Interviewing Zach Galifianakis
January 20, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
November 2007
…
I have been heterosexual for as long as I can remember. Yes, it’s true that I once screamed “I love you, Adam!” in the passion of the moment at a Counting Crows concert, and when I was in junior high, I made out with a girl from Greece whose Magnum P.I. mustache put my own hairless upper lip to shame. But aside from these inconsequential experiments, I have never participated in “the love that dare not speak its name.” (Church camp doesn’t count, of course.)
Therefore, I was a bit surprised when I first watched Late World with Zach on VH1, and I got a tingling feeling in my sin spot. I’d never had a man-crush before, and it was a frightening experience. I quickly called my friend, Paul, who has been in love with John Elway his entire life. Paul calmly explained that, in America, you can be heterosexual and in love with another dude as long as you drive a very large truck and constantly talk about how much you like vaginas.
“On the other hand,” Paul said, “it’s possible that you’re just very very gay.”
Over the years, my man-crush on Zach Galifianakis has grown into full-blown man-love. I love his shaggy beard and his wild hair and his fat Buddha belly. But mostly I love how he makes me laugh.
Just like Sarah Silverman, Eugene Mirman, David Cross and every other comedian who doesn’t artistically masturbate on a derivative sitcom, Hollywood will never figure out what to do with Galifianakis. [Future Me: Um, yeah, I was a little bit off with that prediction.] He’s too smart for them. And while that’s probably frustrating for his agent, it’s incredibly reassuring for those of us who truly love comedy as an art form.
Like an evil succubus draining the souls of unwitting sailors, Hollywood has been slowly sucking the life out of comedians for years. For example, Galifianakis and Silverman both have minor roles in the 2001 movie Heartbreakers, and it’s an interesting exercise in cultural devolution to watch two of the funniest people on the planet sit quietly in the background while Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sigourney Weaver and Gene Hackman attempt to provide the comedic drive to this femme-fatale revision of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
This type of thing has been happening for a long time, and it goes a long way in explaining the popularity of shows like Everybody Loves Raymond. Therefore, in order to comprehend the intelligent, yet anti-intellectual humor of Galifianakis, it’s necessary to put his art in perspective.
Think of it like this: If Woody Allen impregnated Lenny Bruce, who consequently birthed a bi-polar Yeti and then abandoned that freak child at the doorstep of Charles Bukowski, who turned him into a raging alcoholic before introducing him to Tom Waits and Chuck Klosterman, who later sold him acid at a party in SoHo where he managed to get involved in a three-way with Joan Didion and Daniel Johnston, who in turn gave birth to another hairy, deranged infant… that child would be Zach Galifianakis.
When I found out that Zach was coming to the Boulder Theater, I got so excited that I actually rented every season of Tru Calling, just to watch my man on a prime-time television show. Now that’s tru love!
At first, I offered to fly out on my own dime and interview him in California for this article. When that didn’t work out, I asked if I could chat with him on the phone. And after he rejected me a second time, I finally convinced him to answer my questions via e-mail. I waited. And waited. And waited.
When I just couldn’t take the suspense anymore, I wrote him another e-mail… and then I contacted his agent… and then I wrote him a message on MySpace with a smiley-face emoticon at the end of it… What was wrong? Did Zach like me or did he like me like me? I had to know.
Finally, mere hours before my deadline, I got an e-mail from his webmaster, a meddling bitch with the unlikely, Seussian name of Carnie Cacarnis. She said that Zach had done a lot of interviews lately, and he might have gotten “confused.” Unfortunately, he couldn’t talk to me now because he was “in the middle of the woods and out of Internet range.”
It was obvious to me what was happening: Carnie was trying to keep us apart. She probably had him trapped in a cabin deep in the forest, where she forced him to look at her stupid family photo albums all day, and if he tried to escape, she wedged a two-by-four between his legs and broke his ankles, à la Kathy Bates in Misery.
In any case, it was clear that I wasn’t going to get an interview. Fortunately, I think I know Zacharius pretty well by now. We’ve bonded throughout the course of this process, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I wrote about what the interview would have been like if Crazy Carnie hadn’t stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong. I’m fairly certain that it would have gone something like this:
Zach Galifianakis lounges on his couch at his home in Venice Beach. He’s wearing a pair of loose khakis, house slippers and a silk shirt that’s open at the collar, allowing his curly chest hairs to dance in the breeze. There’s a bowl of grapes on the coffee table between us, and he periodically plucks one from the pile and puts it gently between his lips. It’s been a long day and he’s exhausted.
Dream Zach Galifianakis: You know, Dale, sometimes it’s difficult to be funny. People expect me to be a clown. Did you know that? They expect me to dance around like an idiot all day. Well, I have news for you, America. I’m not a clown; I’m an artist.
Dale Bridges: Do you know what else you are, Zach?
DZG: What’s that?
DB: You’re a human being.
DZG: That’s right, damnit! I’m not just some ridiculous monkey that entertains children at birthday parties. I’m a real person. Sometimes, I think you’re the only one in this world who truly understands me.
DB: What about Carnie?
DZG: Don’t make me laugh. It’s over between Carnie and me. I hope I never see that crazy webmaster again.
DB: Oh, you don’t mean that.
DZG: Yes, I do. After the stunt she tried to pull in the woods, she’s lucky I don’t press charges.
DB: Let’s not talk about Carnie right now, OK?
DZG: You’re right. This is our time. I’m sorry about all this confusion. Is there any way I can make it up to you?
DB: You can give me one of those grapes.
DZG: Oh, you…
We laughed and fed each other grapes and talked deep into the night. And then Zach lifted up my shirt and blew zurberts on my tummy. It was a magical, manly bonding experience between two manly men. Of course, like all manly things, eventually it had to come to an end. We were both sad when we parted ways, but we knew that we would always, always have MySpace.
Thank you, fly-fishing
January 19, 2012
Several years ago, when I was just starting out as a freelance journalist, I sold a feature story to a local magazine for $1,000. At the time, this was an astonishing sum of money for me, and it paid my rent for two months. The article was titled “Against the Stream: A Story of Obsession, Rebellion, and Fly-Fishing.”
The story was about a local fly-fishing writer named John Gierach, who is an international celebrity in the angler subculture but is almost completely unknown to the residents of Colorado. It started out as a simple profile. I convinced Mr. Gierach to take me fly-fishing, and I interviewed him in those brief moments when I wasn’t making a complete fool of myself on the lake.
I planned to write something short and fun, but Mr. Gierach turned out to be such a fascinating character that it took me an entire year to complete the story. In 2009, it was published in Denver Magazine, after a particularly sadistic editor (you know who you are) decided to hack it to pieces.
The article included some extremely important information about local environmentalism and the impending water crisis in Colorado, and I hoped it would cause a public stir. It did not. As near as I can tell, the article was published, a few people mentioned that they enjoyed it, and then it was forgotten.
I forgot about it, as well, until I put it on my website about a week ago. Originally, I considered not posting it at all because it is very long and blog readers have notoriously short attention spans. However, in the end, I decided it couldn’t hurt. I’d spent hundreds of hours working on the damn thing, might as well have it on my website.
Yesterday, I received the highest number of views on my site since I created it in 2010. I was shocked. When I looked at my stats, I discovered that more than 600 people had suddenly decided to read this very long article about a grouchy fly-fishing environmentalist living in the Rocky Mountains. Most of these readers were referred to my article by a website called Moldy Chum, which appears to be composed of a group of fly-fishing geeks and writers. I have no idea if anyone who reads my blog is also a fly-fisherman, but if so, please check out Moldy Chum. They seem like good guys, and they’ve revived a piece of writing that I thought was long dead. Thanks, fellas.
An Interview with Bill Maher
January 17, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
April 2009
…
“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” -Mark Twain
“I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws.” -Bill Maher
The great thing about doing an interview with Bill Maher is that I can pretty much write whatever I want in this introduction and people will read it. There are limits, of course. For instance, if I start to pontificate on the chemical properties of earwax or the mating habits of the majestic manatee, readers might decide to skip the intro altogether and jump straight to the Q&A section. But as long as I keep the discussion more or less on topic, I can take the scenic route to our destination. That’s one of the advantages of writing about popular culture — it’s popular.
Maher is an intelligent iconoclast who inspires controversy and attracts a diverse audience; everyone from Thoreauvian political activists to Pabst-guzzling frat boys find something interesting about this guy. He has been a humorist for more than 30 years, and in that time, he has starred in movies, hosted national television shows and toured the world with his unique brand of comedic skepticism. He walks a shaky tightrope between social criticism and entertainment, and that balancing act intrigues people. That’s why you’re reading this sentence, and it’s why I wanted to interview Maher in the first place.
Many would argue that the art form of stand-up comedy started with the “take my wife, please” vaudevillian performers of the early 1900s, and while this assessment wouldn’t be completely false, it’s also not completely true. Telling jokes is one thing, but engaging in subversive satirical art is something entirely different.
It is my contention that modern humorists such as Bill Maher owe their careers to a man named James W. Paige, who was not a comedian at all; he was a scientist. Specifically, he was an inventor.
Now, don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this Paige fellow, because most people haven’t. He lived a fairly innocuous existence in the 1800s, went completely bankrupt toward the end of that century, and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave after he died. The invention he is most famous for is the Paige Compositor, which was an automatic-typesetting machine that weighed more than three tons and had approximately 18,000 working parts. Paige filed for the patent on his Compositor during the height of the technological age, when inventors were considered folk heroes on par with Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone. But for every Thomas Edison and Charles Westinghouse, there were thousands of over-zealous young men who could not turn their “Eureka!” moments into viable business models. Paige was one of those men.
An unrealistic perfectionist and an obsessive tinkerer, Paige fiddled with the details of his infernal typesetting machine for two decades before he discovered that it had no practical use in the newspaper industry, for which it was originally intended. However, Paige was blessed with unrestrained optimism and a silver tongue, and while he was working on his Compositor, he was able to convince various wealthy individuals to invest enormous sums of money in his hopeless contraption, always promising profits in the future. One of those investors was a man named Samuel Clemens.
Most people knew Clemens by his penname, Mark Twain, under which he wrote some of the greatest works of fiction in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Pudd’nhead Wilson. He was one of the most successful and beloved writers of his time.
However, in the 1880s, Clemens was no longer a precocious, young artist. He was an elderly husband and a father of four. Tired of struggling to pay his bills as a writer, he set his sights on becoming, of all things, a businessman. You’d think a skilled storyteller like Clemens would be able to recognize a smooth-talking dreamer like Paige a mile away, but Clemens was blinded by greed and his own overactive imagination. As a writer, he was clearly a genius, but he did not have a practical mind. Clemens ended up investing more than $300,000 (this would be about $7 million today) in the Paige Compositor, and he lost it all. This combined with the demise of his publishing company forced Clemens to declare bankruptcy in 1895. He lost almost everything.
However, Clemens was a proud man and announced publicly that he was going to pay back his debts before he died. That was a tall order considering he was flat broke and owed more than $200,000 to various entities around the country. In an effort to recover his good name, he embarked on an ambitious lecture tour that consisted of nearly 150 appearances on five continents. This would have been grueling campaign for anyone, but for a man who was penniless and about to turn 60, it was particularly harrowing. As a young man, Clemens had gone on lecture tours to support his writing, and he had not enjoyed the experience. He stated that he would never put himself through that kind of torture again. But these were desperate times. He had no choice.
Clemens’ lectures were a combination of well-timed jokes, small-town anecdotes, readings from his popular novels and biting social satire. They were more successful than he could have ever hoped. Audiences around the world crowded into theaters to see this mumbling, wild-haired American with the droopy mustache and spidery eyebrows. Somehow he managed to entertain them with nothing more than a raspy drawl and a trusty cigar. The lectures were always amusing, of course, but it wasn’t just about getting laughs. Clemens used humor as a cultural weapon. He poked fun at the political tyrants of the day and openly advocated shocking social change, such as women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery. He criticized Christians, Jews and Muslims alike. No one was safe from his rapier wit. He combined literary storytelling and social commentary with live performance in a way that no one else had ever seen before. By the time Clemens returned from the lecture circuit, he had paid off every cent of his debt and emerged as one of pop culture’s first international celebrities.
This was the birth of the American humorist as a populist advocate for social conscience, and it paved the way for an art form that eventually became known as stand-up comedy. One man, one spotlight, and the only rule was that you had to leave ’em laughing.
It would be misleading to say that Bill Maher is the modern embodiment of Samuel Clemens. If any living comedian deserves that honor, it’s probably Jon Stewart. However, Maher does carry on a tradition that has become essential to the notions of liberty and individualism that we often take for granted in America. Comedy is a truth-telling ritual, and in tumultuous times, one can gauge the level of personal freedom in a society by how far its humorists are allowed to push the envelope. Maher is one of the few comedians who refuses to placate his audience and constantly pushes the intellectual and ethical boundaries of our culture. Like Clemens, Maher insists on attacking the most powerful people and ideas in this country, and it’s important that he continues to do so. If the Twains and Mahers of the world are ever restricted from expressing themselves, we’ll know America is in real trouble. We don’t always have to agree with him — in fact, I’m fairly certain Maher would be the first to suggest that we aggressively challenge his opinions — but it’s good to know he’s out there, fighting for the right to offend us.
If we can still laugh at ourselves, there is hope. When the laughter stops, that’s when the real trouble begins.
It seems like your comedy and your personal views have gone through an evolution over the years. How would you describe your current political and social ideology?
Wow, it sounds like I’m trying to get into college. Well, primarily I’d describe it as “funny,” because if I stop being funny, then I’m out of a job, and in this economy nobody wants to be out of a job. That’s my number one goal, to be extremely funny, so when I get off the stage, people feel like, “Wow, I spent money on him in the recession and it was worth it.”
But it is a pleasure to have a whole new act. I mean, six months ago it was all about Bush and war, and now it’s Obama and the economy and lots of other subjects. It’s really been fun. I just got back from Tulsa and St. Louis and Kansas City, and people are just hungry to hear about this new world… and to make fun of it. People need to laugh.
You’re often accused of coming down hard on conservatives, but you’re also critical of liberals, which I think is important.
Yes, yes. It’s funny; I was trying to get my friend Dennis Miller to come back on the show, and he said, “Last time I was on I got booed by your crowd” — you know, because he’s more conservative now. And I said, “Dennis, they boo me every week and it’s my show.” I think unless you’re getting booed you’re wimping out. You’re just preaching to the converted. You have to once in a while unsettle people’s opinions if you think they’re being complacent about their beliefs.
You know, Obama is not some infallible chocolate Jesus… that’s Kanye West. We like him and I think he’s doing great and he’s sprayed the country with a big can of Bush-Be-Gone, which I think is terrific, but there’s a whole world to talk about.
In your documentary, Religulous, you say you’re preaching a message of doubt. Why do you think doubt is important to America?
Certitude is the hallmark of those who are not very bright. If you think you know for sure, you don’t. It bugs me to no end when people talk about the theory of evolution as if it’s just another religion. No, there’s a very fundamental difference between science and religion. Science is always looking to disprove. Evolution is simply the best evidence we have right now. And by the way, for the first 50 years after the theory of evolution was printed by Darwin, scientists didn’t come onboard. But over time, there was a tipping point where they came to understand the theory and test it out, but it was always a theory they were trying to disprove. That’s not what Christians say — or Jews or Muslims. They don’t say, “Show me better evidence.” They are absolutely 100-percent certain.
One of the criticisms I got for Religulous was, “Oh, Bill, you’re such a big meanie. What does religion hurt? It gives people comfort. Why are you bursting their bubble?” And I really feel like perhaps my purpose in life is to make that connection of how religion is actually hurting people. You can start with the idea that 61 percent of Americans say they think religion solves all or most of their problems. Which is great — except that it doesn’t. So if you think you can pray away global warming, you can’t. And 25 percent of Americans think Jesus is going to come back in their lifetime. You know, before they cancel Ugly Betty, Jesus will be here and save the day. So if you ask me: Do you think there’s a connection between why this country hasn’t moved more on an issue like climate change and religion? Yes, I do. I think there’s an absolute connection. And then the other problem: People who think their comic-book hero is going to come back and save the day are much less likely to try to fix things, and we desperately need to fix things right now.
Do you think faith is always bad?
Well, it depends on how you define faith. Yes, I think it’s bad if it’s defined the way religion defines it, which is the willing and purposeful suspension of critical thinking. Yes, that is bad. If you mean: Do I have faith in something that has earned my faith?… Do I have faith that when I have breakfast at Denny’s, the eggs will be to my liking? Yes, I do, because I’ve done that before so my faith has been rewarded. Do I have faith that the new Bruce Springsteen album will be good? Yes, because I liked the other ones. But faith as a replacement for thinking… that’s the George Bush-style faith. That is not good.
If you could snap your fingers and rid the world of religion, would you do it?
Yup.
In Religulous, you pounded on the Muslims, Christians and Jews quite a bit, but you didn’t mention much about the fashionable liberal religions, like Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. I was wondering if there was a reason you didn’t get into that.
Yes. Time. Originally, we had talked about getting into Hinduism. We even thought about going to India, which would have been a focal point for Hinduism, Buddhism and Shinto. But the truth is there was just no time. So we made the decision to do the religions that are familiar to the Western world. The big three: Christian, Muslim and Jew. Of course, we included Scientology and Mormons because they’re sort of in the American camp. But it would have been too much explaining. I don’t think Americans know very much to begin with about those religions. It would have been a three-hour movie.
Why do you think Religulous was passed over at the Oscars?
Well, I think because of the subject matter. The Oscars are not known (chuckling) for wanting to break new ground, so I guess we should have seen that coming. But I think it does serve to help make [the Best Documentary] category more and more irrelevant. I mean, [Religulous] is the sixth-highest grossing documentary of all time. By any yardstick you want to use for why a doc should have gotten nominated — putting aside the fact that people actually saw this one as opposed to the other ones — it was something that challenged people. It was a topic that hadn’t been done before. There’s no reason they had for snubbing it, except that religious people are everywhere. Religious people sit on those boards. And they were just not going to have it. They were just going to do what they could to get back at it, and that’s one lever of power they had: just try to ignore it. But they can’t, and it will be around forever.
You’ve been criticized for being anti-American, but you actually have a lot of positive things to say about the United States. What types of things make you feel patriotic?
Well, right now, we’re undoing a lot of things that made me feel ashamed of my country. We’re closing Guantanamo Bay, and we’re stopping torturing people, and we can have stem cell research again, and we’re rejoining the world in trying to deal with climate change, and we’re not raiding marijuana clubs anymore, and we can talk to other countries without the dreaded preconditions. We’re even thinking about talking to Cuba.
We can’t change everything overnight, but we can at least try to get the smell of stupid out of the furniture. It’s so great to have an adult… Man, when you see Obama attacked by the Right with these stupid things… I mean, they’ve got nothing, but they constantly come up with some new thing to attack him for. “He’s buying a new helicopter… grrrrrrrrr.” “Michele is showing too much arm… oh, no.” “Hugo Chavez handed him a book!” And he just brushes it all off and gives you an adult response. We got so used to government being run by a clown posse; it’s astounding how good it feels when a man just handles the job like an adult and talks to us like we’re adults. You know, he quoted Voltaire. An American president quoting Voltaire! I felt like a hockey mom at the state fair when Jesus appears in the cotton candy.
Aside from religion, what do you think is the most dangerous problem we’re facing as modern humans?
Environment. That stuff is getting so scary and so dire that it might be too late already. This year, we’ve had so many discouraging reports from all these scientists concerning the glaciers melting and oceans warming. No one knows for sure what will happen when the glaciers melt, because they have always been essential to our survival. They reflect the sun’s heat back into the atmosphere like a giant mirror. So I guess we’re going to have to build a giant mirror.
Do you know who Ward Churchill is here in Boulder?
Yes, I had him on my show a few years ago. Now, what? He won his case?
Yes, he won, but they only awarded him one dollar.
(Chuckling) One dollar? Always the backhanded compliment of the one dollar. Well, I think this is a very conformist country. I think that’s one of our problems. People have said to me many times, because of my tribulations, “Do you think we have free speech?” Absolutely, we have free speech. I’m not worried about free speech. Like many other things, you have to fight for it sometimes, but even the Bush administration couldn’t touch free speech. What I’m more worried about is free thought — people on their own accord just not thinking outside the box. So I applaud anybody who is outside the box, and he certainly is.
We need more people who say things that make everybody else go, “Oh my God, I can’t believe you said that!” Yeah, well, just think about it then. At least the idea is out there. We can reject it. We can say he’s wrong about certain things. But at least he’s saying “the things that you’re not supposed to say.” This is such an “Oh my God you can’t say that” kind of country, and if someone says one thing that makes you a little bit uncomfortable, you have to go away for all time. Well, that’s not really what this country was founded as. So, yes, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I’m glad there are people like that speaking out.
A lot of your commentary deals with criticism of people following various leaders like sheep. As you become more popular as a media figure, does that ever worry you—people blindly listening to what you say without challenging your opinions?
I think it is always a problem when you have people who like you. But I think of all the people who might have that problem, I’ve got to be close to the bottom of the list, because my audience is primarily composed of free thinkers. Especially the people who come for the live stand-up shows. They really understand where I’m coming from, I think, and they understand what free thinking means. I notice this year that I get booed a lot in the studio by my own audience. And that’s OK. That tells me that we haven’t sold out, and we’re unsettling people’s opinions, which is something you should do. You shouldn’t just tell them what they want to hear.
You also talk about gender issues a lot in your comedy. Do you think humans are naturally monogamous?
Some. There are some people who are naturally monogamous… they’re called women.
I’m kidding. You know, people think I’m anti-marriage; I’m definitely not anti-marriage. I know many people — okay, well, I don’t know many people, but I know some people who are very happily married. They’ve found that person who makes them laugh and makes them happy, and they are infinitely more happy having that person in their life every day. That’s terrific. I’m not against marriage. What I’m against is the judgment that so many in our society make against people who choose the other path, who don’t choose to pair up with someone eternally. Because the viewpoint that is so often expressed, passively or not, is that this is somehow a failing. People have often used the world commitmentphobic about me. As if not wanting to commit to someone forever is a disease. And that’s what I object to. It’s not a phobia; it’s just a choice. It’s like, I don’t like sushi either, but I’m not sushiphobic. I’m not afraid of sushi; I just don’t like it. So that’s all I’m trying to say.
Why won’t you consider running for political office?
(Snorts) Well, you try to start a campaign with the slogan, “Drugs are good and religion is bad.” Please, I don’t get up before noon. There are press conferences, and you have to change your life, and I’m not married, and I go out with girls… there are a million reasons I could never get near elected office. I don’t think that’s my destiny. I was drawn to be a truth-teller and politics is anything but telling the truth.
We’ll Always Have Paris Hilton
January 17, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
May 2008
…
“I hate Paris Hilton,” he said, while chewing on a mouthful of Corn Nuts. “She has absolutely no redeeming qualities, and if there is a hell, I hope she burns there for all eternity after dying in a painful knife-juggling accident.”
I was on a bus to the airport when the man sitting next to me made that statement. We’d been talking about a wide range of topics: professional tennis, Billie Holiday, reality television and serial killers, just to name a few. I forget the man’s name (it was one of those three-letter monikers: Dan or Jim or Tom), but I do remember that his favorite serial killer was Jeffrey Dahmer. This stuck out in my mind because we talked about his interest in Dahmer less than five minutes before he declared his hatred for Paris Hilton. His demeanor had been affable and somewhat excited when talking about a notorious murderer who killed 17 people and made their skulls into ashtrays, but his voice dripped with venom when he began to discuss a blonde hotel heiress who hangs out with two yappy, annoying bitches (her Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, and Nicole Richie). Cannibalism he could understand, but The Simple Life was unforgivable.
I would estimate that about 73 percent of America currently shares Dan’s/Jim’s/Tom’s feelings toward Paris Hilton (if not his affinity for crunchy, high-sodium snacks and postmodern psychopaths), and I would never try to dissuade them. In fact, I can’t think of a single reason to like her. By all accounts, she appears to be a completely vapid human being, contributing absolutely nothing positive to the world whatsoever aside from pornographic fast food commercials and the occasional beaver shot.
On the other hand, I can’t really think of a reason to hate Paris Hilton, either. She has never done anything harmful to me personally (e.g. kicked me in the testicles) or to society in general (e.g. passed a law legalizing testicle-kicking). She hasn’t advised little girls to join the KKK or expressed a desire to punch newborn kittens. In fact, aside from a few traffic violations, the worst she can be accused of is pathological narcissism and bad manners, both of which are essentially endemic in Hollywood. Therefore, it would seem logical that we as a society would have no feelings about Paris Hilton at all.
But that’s not the case. Not since Yoko Ono yodeled her way into the zeitgeist has there been such a despised celebrity icon in Western culture. This is because there is absolutely no guilt involved in hating Paris Hilton. As Dan/Jim/Tom suggests, she has no redeeming qualities; hence, there is no glass ceiling on how much we are allowed to loath her.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that Jeffrey Dahmer has no redeeming qualities either. However, hating serial killers does not serve a purpose in our culture. We are not expected to glorify or idolize serial killers (which, of course, is (at least partially) why we often do); senseless murders are considered evil by definition. Celebrities, on the other hand, are constantly demanding our adoration. They flood our radio stations and dominate our televisions. They have perfect skin and perfect bodies. They are talented. They are charming. They are everywhere, all the time, and they are supposedly better than us in every way.
Except for Paris.
She is none of these things. She can’t sing. She has a lousy personality. Unless you’re into freakishly tan anorexic women, she is not very attractive. And she is such a horrible actress that even her homemade porn movies are stick-a-fork-in-your-eye boring.
It’s not just that we like to hate Paris Hilton; it’s that we need to hate her. She represents everything we secretly despise about celebrity culture but are not allowed to express.
If you want proof of America’s dysfunctional, passive-aggressive relationship with celebrities, look no further than the check-out line at your local supermarket. Every King Soopers and Safeway in the country has the same collection of entertainment magazines near the cash register. Half of them have covers that display beautiful, air-brushed photos of Cameron Diaz and Vince Vaughn aside gushing, pseudo-clever headlines, such as “Just Diazzling” or “InVINCEable!” and the other half are out-of-focus, unflattering tabloid photos of the exact same celebrities passed out on the sand in California like beached manatees. Sometimes, I see middle-aged mothers acquiring both types of periodicals at the same time, and I’m always amazed by their schizophrenic aesthetics. Do they a) adore Cameron Diaz, or b) detest Cameron Diaz?
Of course, the answer is really c) all of the above.
We want celebrities to be inhumanly attractive and glamorous, but we also need to know that they’re fat, disgusting sluts just like the rest of us. However, it’s difficult to properly express hatred for the very same people you’ve been socialized to admire. For instance, even if you can’t stand Tom Cruise’s smarmy smile, it’s impossible to completely separate him from the romantic, devil-may-care pilot in Top Gun or the pants-less teenager who won our hearts in Risky Business. To over-simplify the point, Tom Cruise symbolizes something more than Tom Cruise.
That’s why Paris Hilton is the most important celebrity in the world at the moment. She has never established an identity beyond the spoiled, vain media whore that she appears to embody; therefore, she serves as a type of resentment lightening rod for the general public. Instead of denouncing her as the bane of American culture, we should be thanking her for providing an invaluable service to a celebrity-saturated generation. She’s kind of like the pop culture version of Che Guevara. (I have no idea what that means, but I still think it might be true.)
Of course, not everyone agrees with my brilliant cultural analyses. When I finished explaining my theory to Dan/Jim/Tom at the departures gate at DIA, he threw away his empty Corn Nuts bag and smiled at me. “I understand what you mean, and it all makes sense,” he replied. “But nothing you just said changes this one, simple fact: I hate Paris Hilton.” And then he boarded a plane to Dallas, and I never saw him again.
America’s Fortress of Solitude
January 16, 2012
Originally published in Boulder Weekly
May 2008
…
When I was eight years old, I punched my best friend, Ray Bledsoe, in the head because he said that Lois Lane didn’t really love Superman. In retrospect, I think I might have overreacted slightly, but at the time, I felt my actions were justified.
It might seem kind of strange to some readers that the only thing Ray found unbelievable about Superman was his personal relationship with his coworker. After all, this is a dude who shoots laser beams out of his eyes and fights crime wearing red boots and blue tights. However, Ray had a point. In the comic book world, Superman’s extraordinary abilities and fashion sense are completely understandable. He gained his powers when the radiation from Earth’s yellow sun mutated his alien DNA (duh). And as for his costume: try kicking the crap out of super villains while wearing blue jeans and Birkenstocks sometime. I think you’ll find it’s a lot harder than it looks.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to believe that an intelligent woman like Lois — who is a newspaper reporter, for the love of God — would be fooled by Superman’s lame Clark Kent disguise: a blue suit and a pair of dorky glasses. Ray’s argument was actually fairly sophisticated for a kid that slept with a Scooby-Doo night light. Ray believed that a woman who is truly in love with a man should notice certain details about him — such as the fact that he is the same goddamn person she sees at work every goddamn day. At best, their relationship is dysfunctional. At worst, it is a sham.
Of course, Superman and Lois have always been a bit of a mismatch. Superman was raised in Smallville, Kan., by his foster parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, while Lois is a city girl, hailing from the appropriately named Metropolis. He’s the conservative boy scout-type; she’s a blue-state feminist. At the very least, they need to watch a few episodes of Dr. Phil and work on their communication skills before they start apartment hunting.
And when you think about it, as a boyfriend, Superman/Clark is emotionally distant and a bit passive/aggressive. He keeps secrets. He won’t talk about his real parents. He can see through walls and hear conversations that are happening two miles away, which is bound to feel a tad invasive after a while. But Lois is no prize, either. For starters, the woman is workaholic and kind of a narcissist. She’s always blowing Clark off to go on some assignment for the Daily Planet. She never has time for anyone else. And she’s horribly superficial. She drools all over Clark when he’s dressed up as the athletic, handsome Superman, but she won’t even give him the time of day when he puts on a pair of glasses.
In many ways, Lois and Clark represent the ultimate paradox of modern American gender roles. Lois has to work twice as hard to prove that a woman can succeed in a man’s world, but at the end of the day, she ignores opportunities to engage in an emotionally satisfying relationship and instead falls for the hunky, tough guy who can come to her rescue in an emergency. Clark tries to be passive and non-confrontational whenever possible, but society is constantly demanding that he assert himself through violence and authoritative behavior (America doesn’t just want men; it wants super men).
In short, Lois and Clark are my parents. And they’re probably your parents, too.
In the same year that I punched Ray Bledsoe in the head, I began to notice a change in my parents’ relationship. They were never the type of couple to make-out in public or call each other pet names like “Pumpkin” and “Sugar Britches,” but now they seemed to actively resent one another. My dad started spending all his time in front of the TV, and my mom became an exercise nut. They divided the house into occupational zones. At night, while my dad watched the Broncos game in the living room, my mom angrily lifted weights in the basement. The kitchen was the Gaza Strip.
And while my parents were fighting over psychological boundaries throughout the house, I was retreating into the fantasy worlds of sci-fi and comic books in my room. I chose Superman because he represented unconditional idealism. Unlike Batman, the Incredible Hulk and other comic book heroes with complicated motives, there was no ambiguity with the Man of Steel. Superman was always good, and he never failed. Therefore, when Ray Bledsoe suggested that Superman and Lois might not be as happy as they appear on the surface, I kind of flipped out, because on some level I knew he was talking about my parents.
There’s a reason why the Baby Boomers have such a high divorce rate. They were the first generation that had to deal with the knowledge that America (and, by extension, the American family) wasn’t perfect. And while scholars will probably point to Vietnam and Nixon to explain this, I will always think about Superman at the North Pole, locked away in his Fortress of Solitude. He and Lois can’t talk about their problems, because if they do their universe will implode, so they just sit there, ignoring one another, waiting for Lex Luthor to blow something up.
The Errand
January 15, 2012
Originally published in Out of the Gutter
Spring 2007
…
Honey, Sugar Pie, Deadbeat:
If you can manage to wake up before the crack of noon today, I have a few errands for you to run.
1) Take out the trash. (It’s in the bin underneath the sink, in case you forgot.)
2) Take the cat to the vet.
3) Stop at the store and pick up some butter and some margarine.
4) Kill Gran.
5) Pick up the dry cleaning.
Love,
Maureen
p.s. Don’t stop at Tony’s on the way home, you goddamn boozer.
This is the note that I find on the refrigerator when I stumble downstairs for my first cup of coffee.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: That’s a pretty strange errand to ask someone to run on a Thursday afternoon. And you’re right. To tell you the truth, I don’t know about it. I just don’t know. It’s an enigma, that’s what it is, a goddamn mystery for the ages.
Butter and margarine taste exactly the same to me, too, but somehow Maureen swears there’s a difference between the two and she won’t listen to reason. You can even test her on it if you want. Go ahead. Try. I’ve done it about a thousand times. I’ve slathered her bread with margarine on many occasions just to prove to her that she can’t tell the difference, but she gets me every time. It’s uncanny. You’d have to see it to believe it. She likes butter on her bread but she insists on cooking with margarine. Go figure. Must be a woman thing.
She’s a sweet kid, that Maureen. She really is. I know that she sounds like a bitch and all – and I guess she’s that too – but she’s a honey of a girl once you get to know her. She’s a certified genius. Most people don’t know that about her because she works down at the Gas N Sip and, frankly, she looks kinda like a retarded Carol Burnett, but it’s true. They tested her in high school and her IQ topped out at 143. Goddamn genius. Just don’t cross her. If I had one piece of advice to give you, that would be it. Don’t set up camp opposite that woman or you’re liable to find that your ass has swapped zip codes with your face.
One time, she told me to do the goddamn dishes because they were filling up the goddamn sink and I forgot because I was watching my goddamn Soaps. Oh, Jesus please-us, did I catch hell! Yowzah! She beat me six ways to Sunday. But I’ll tell you what; I never forgot to do the goddamn dishes again after that.
Inside the refrigerator, there is an egg salad sandwich with a note on top that says, Not that you deserve it, but here’s your fucking lunch. What did I tell you? Isn’t she great? A queen, an absolute queen.
I wolf down the sandwich on the way to the car, happy as a clam to be helping out around the house for a change. It’s nice to feel needed. I’m not really a deadbeat, you know; I’m an artist, a distinction that Maureen can’t seem to make. “When you get paid for something, then you’ll be an artist,” she says. “Until then, you’re a goddamn weight around my neck.” Hard to argue with that kind of logic.
When I crawl into the driver’s side, there’s another note on the steering wheel. Hey, Fuckface, it says. You forgot to take out the trash. And how the hell do you expect to take the cat to the vet if you don’t put him in the car? You really are hopeless.
Well, she’s right. I mean, I’d like to debate the issue, but that’s pretty tough to do, all things considered. She knows me too damn well. I run back into the house, grab the trash, and haul it out front just in time to catch the garbage truck. Nice guys on those garbage trucks. Real down to earth, if you know what I mean, but I guess they have to be.
Of course, when I go back in the house, I can’t locate Jesus anywhere. I look in his bed and under the stairs where he likes to hide out, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“Here Jesus,” I call. “Here kitty-kitty-kitty. Tsss-tsss-tsss. Come here you hairy little bag of shit.” Nothing. That cat hates me as sure as the moon is round. He hates everyone – except Maureen, of course. Those two are kindred spirits. They’re connected on what you might call a psychic level. I know how that sounds, but you tell me what it means when a cat craps in your shoes whenever you have sex with another woman. I swear to God. It’s like clockwork. If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’.
Finally, I track the little bastard upstairs, where he’s holed up under Gran’s bed. He knows how I hate sick people, so he hides out in Gran’s room all afternoon until Maureen comes home. That suits me fine most days because I don’t want any more to do with him than he does with me. But today isn’t most days.
I put on some oven mitts to keep from being scratched all to hell and then I dig Jesus out from under the bed. “C’mere you old fur ball. Take it like a man, for christsake.” He yowls something awful when I get a hold of him. You’d think I was skinning him alive instead of taking him to the vet for his yearly tune up. Gran’s practically a vegetable, so she doesn’t mind any of it. She just lays there in her bed like a boiled potato, about a zillion plastic tubes sticking out of her nose to make sure she doesn’t kick off without proper notice. The nurse that comes around to check up on her once in a blue moon keeps yapping about how we need to get a backup generator in the house, so that if there’s some kind of power failure all of Gran’s gadgets and do-hickies won’t shut down at once. “Gross negligence” is what she calls it. Maureen says that’s a load of horse hockey. And besides, we don’t exactly have extra money to spend on things like backup generators.
Maureen’s a good woman but she’s starting to get a bit impatient with Gran, and I don’t blame her. She’s sleeping at the moment so there are no theatrics, but you should hear the old bat when she’s awake. She’s a screamer, Gran. Day and night, night and day, she yells two words over and over again. “Do it! Do it!” Sometimes she’ll mix it up with a swear in there, but that’s about it. “Do it, Asshole!” or “Do it, Shit for Brains!” That’s about as much variety as we get around here. No one knows what the hell she’s talking about. She’s eighty-fucking-five years old, for the love of beans. She’s probably answering a question someone asked her fifteen years ago.
After I get Jesus in his carrying case, it’s straight downtown for us. Jesus’ vet is a fat man, but not one of the mean ones. In my experience, fat people can be either mean or jolly, and Doc Hester is on the jolly list.
“How’s the old lady?” he asks when we get to his office. “Beautiful woman, your wife. Very persuasive.”
I have no idea what this crackpot is talking about half the goddamn time. “Yeah, she’s a regular Miss America,” I say. “Va-va-voom.”
“What about you? How long has it been since you va-va-voomed?”
“What’s that?”
“You know what I mean. You need a refill?”
I shake my head. “Nah, it’s just the cat today.”
Hester laughs, an act that requires the cooperation of his entire body. It’s kind of gross, to be honest with you. That jolly-fat-guy thing is nice in theory, but it looks pretty perverse up close. “Sure,” he says. “The cat. You’re wife said you needed to pick up his medication.” He winks and elbows me in the gut, as though the word “medication” is some inside joke between us. “We’ll get to that in a minute. You look a little stressed out. Working too hard I’ll bet. You artist types are all the same. You need a little pick me up to get the creative juices flowing. Am I right? I’ve got almost two hours before my next appointment. What’ll it be? I’ve got some Goose Steppers in the back and some Green Goblins. I got Vicodin, Lortab, Percocet, Ritalin, Methadone. I just got in a batch of those little yellow ones you like, too. What do you say?”
I can’t watch Hester when he gets excited. He’s like a sweaty Mr. Potato Head with curly hairs growing out of his flabby puss. Instead, I stare at a poster on the wall of a beagle that has been severed in half, displaying all of his shiny innards.
“Seriously, Hester,” I say. “It’s just the cat this time. Honest.”
“Sure. The cat. He looks good. Fine cat. What else?”
Finally, I agree to drop a couple of OxyContin with him just to get the guy off my case. Doctors have the best stuff, man. I’m telling you. Actually, just make friends with anyone in the medical industry and you’re golden. They’re all users and they hate to abuse the system alone. Hippocratic oath and all that, you know. Vets are pretty bad, but dentists are the worst. They have a Daddy-Didn’t-Love-Me complex or something, so they’re pretty much bombed out of their heads 24/7. Show me a square dentist and I’ll eat my hat. Right down to the brim.
I’m supposed to stay off the drugs and booze. It was one of the conditions on the contract that our relationship counselor made me sign before Maureen let me back in the house. Other conditions included getting a real job and a haircut. She didn’t specify a time frame on those last two however.
“I like animals,” Hester tells me after the pills kick in. “You know why I like animals?”
“No,” I say. And that’s the God’s honest truth, because I really don’t. I hate animals. They make me feel superior––but not in a good way.
“I like animals because they’re soft,” he says. “Have you ever dropped E and then spent some time with a rabbit. Oh, Jesus. You’re missing out. You really are. It’s like sex but without the sex…if you know what I mean.”
Of course, I know what he means. Does he think I’m an idiot or something?
“What about the lizards?” I say just for fun. I am really starting to feel it now, and when I really start to feel it I like to give people hell. Who knows why.
“What’s that?”
“The lizards. Jesus. Listen up, man. Lizards aren’t soft. They’re scaly and dry and…and they’re like tiny fucking dinosaurs, man. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life? Surrounded by microscopic dinosaurs that can get inside your bloodstream and hunt down your white blood cells? Jesus. That’s no way to live. Little raptors snaking through your veins all day long. Did you even see Jurassic Park? That shit scared the shit out of me. Fucking Steven Spielberg and his goddamn Jewish head games. I’m just saying that I couldn’t live like that, man. That’s all I’m saying. Jesus.”
When I started out, I was just kind of fucking with good ole Hester, you know, but as is always the case in this type of situation, I end up fucking with myself. Now, I’m thinking about the lizards and the dinosaurs and I’m feeling a bit creepy. Itchy, too, goddamnit.
“Well, I never thought of that,” Hester says.
“Well…well…well,” I mimic him while I scratch my arm. “Of course, you never thought of it, you burn out. No one’s ever thought of it. That’s the problem with everyone these days. No one thinks outside the fucking box anymore, man. It’s a problem. It’s society and it’s
a problem. Trust me. Let me have one of those blue ones.”
Hester pops the bottle and shakes out a couple of pills into my palm that look like Skittles.
“You’re a good man, Doc. Even if you got lizards in your piss, I won’t tell a soul. You can trust me.”
“Why would they be in my piss?”
“Will you try to keep up?” I cuff him on the back of his jiggly head. Not too hard, you know, just enough to get his attention. “If they’re in your blood, they’re going to find a way into your piss eventually, aren’t they? You ever get blood in your urine? How does that get in there? Nobody knows, right? It just does. You’re a doctor, for the love of pete. Did you flunk biology or something?”
He shakes his head. “You’re right. You’re right. What do you think I should do?”
I pocket the rest of the pills while Hester unzips his pants and looks down at his pecker to see if he can spot the lizards in there. The problem is that he can’t see his pecker because he’s too fat. I try not to watch while he attempts to push his hairy, distended belly to one side so he can snatch a peek at the shrunken little snail between his legs. God, this is horrible.
“What do you do?” I finally respond. “You do nothing. That’s the God’s honest truth. Just drink plenty of water and see if you can’t piss those suckers right out. That’s the only way. And maybe go on a diet, too, because you’re pretty goddamn fat. Anyhow, I have to go. Good luck with…you know…that lizard thing. Where’s my cat, man?”
After a brief search, I locate Jesus sitting in the corner, still in his carrying case, and start for the door.
“Don’t forget your medication,” Hester screams.
“What?”
“For the cat.” Hester hiccups and then giggles hysterically for no apparent reason.
“Now, don’t you go taking any of these pills on your own.”
“Why the hell would I take cat medication?” I say.
“You wouldn’t. No one would. That’s…like…insane.” He pauses to scratch his bulbous ass. “But if you did it could be fatal––especially if you were over 85 years old and had a heart condition. Capice?”
“Huh? Sure, man. No cat medication when I get old. I understand. Jesus. Can I go now?”
I feel better when I get outside, but I’m still itchy as hell. Damn that Hester and his free pills. When I climb in the front seat of the car, there’s a note on the dashboard. I swear to God that it wasn’t there before. It says, You forgot the dry cleaning, you fool. Go get it. And don’t forget to crack the window so the cat can breathe, for the love of Christ. I roll down the window a smidgen, hop out of the car, and run across the street to grab the dry cleaning. The lady behind the counter speaks horrible English and keeps trying to give me Doc Hester’s clothes instead of my own, and I keep trying to tell her that it should be obvious that I’m no veterinarian. I hate animals. And I don’t weigh four hundred goddamn pounds either. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, do I look like I have a size seventy-two waist?
After a few minutes, I calm down and realize that for some reason I’ve been giving her Hester’s name this whole time instead of my own. I try to explain it all to her in an ironic way, but her English is pretty shitty, so she doesn’t get the joke. Either that or the Chinese just don’t have a sense of humor at all, which I’ve always suspected.
The blue pills kick in right about the time I leave the dry cleaners and I am in no shape to drive home. I slip the plastic-covered suits and dresses into the trunk and look around for a place to hang out while I come down. I’m in a pretty shitty part of town. Just strip malls and beauty salons with pseudo-clever names hand-painted on their windows, such as Shear Ecstasy and Hair’s Looking At You. The only bar within walking distance is Tony’s, so I head off in that
direction.
I sit at the bar and chew the fat with good ole Tony while the drugs take their toll. Something is nagging at me though, and I can’t really enjoy myself. I’m forgetting something very important that I was supposed to do today. Damn. What is it? There will be hell to pay if I come home without finishing my errands.
“What was I supposed to do today?” I ask Tony.
He shrugs. “What do I look like? The psychic hotline? Knowing your wife, you were probably supposed to drop your balls off at the grocery store.”
I smack myself in the forehead. “That’s it. That’s exactly it. Tony, you’re a goddamn genius. Don’t let me go home without picking up some butter, okay?”
Tony shrugs. “Sure. Whatever.”
I go back to my drink, but the nagging feeling hasn’t gone away. I’m supposed to pick up some butter and some margarine and… Something else. There was something else I was supposed to do. Hells bells. Oh, well, it’ll come to me. Just about the time the pills ware off is when the four JDs on the rocks kick in, and now I’ve got a whole new problem. I order up another drink and try to figure out how I’m going to solve this one. It’s not going to be easy. I’m in a bar and I can’t really think in a bar unless I have a drink. However, the problem here is that I am drunk and I need to find a way to sober up so I can drive home. In order to solve that problem, I need to think about it, and I can’t really think in a bar unless I have a drink. It’s like that Buddhist thing where the snake eats its own
tail. One of those Catch 22s. It’s deep like that.
“You okay?” Tony asks after I’ve been thinking for a while. “You don’t look so swell.”
“Damnit, Tony. I almost had it. I was this close to figuring it all out and then you had to open your yap and break my concentration.”
Tony gives me that hurt, puppy dog look. Jeez, for a bartender he sure does have thin skin. The man can dish it out but he can’t take it.
“Sorry,” he says, emotion welling up in his big brown peepers.
“Ah, cut that out,” I say, feeling bad now. “It’s no big deal. Just pour me another one, will ya? I need to think this through.”
Finally, I just give up and drive home drunk. I mean, who am I kidding? I’m no Sherlock Holmes. By the time I make it back to the house, it’s dark of course and the windows are all blackened out. Gran’s screaming like a banshee upstairs and there’s no sign of Maureen anywhere. I set the dry cleaning on the kitchen table and let Jesus out of his carrying case. He bolts upstairs straight away like a fur ball shot out of a cannon, and I go to the refrigerator to see if Maureen saved me anything for supper.
Guess what’s on the refrigerator. You got it. Another note. This one says:
Hey, Genius:
Did you forget to do something today? Yes? No? Don’t knock yourself out. Just sit down for a minute and see if you can figure it out. Take your time. But let me warn you: Don’t you dare come to bed before you’ve finished all your errands. You got that? If you do, so help me God, I’ll brain you in your sleep. You know I’ll do it.
Love,
Maureen
Oh, she’d do it, too. That’s how Maureen is. She wouldn’t care about prison or the death penalty or nothing. She’d figure all that stuff out later. In the mean time, it would be all worth it to see my head busted open like an Easter egg.
I pull out one of the chairs at the kitchen table and sit down to have myself a think. I hate it when Maureen does this. It would be a lot easier if she just came out and told me what it was that I forgot, but she doesn’t want it to be easy. Nope. She wants me to learn a lesson. “I’m not your goddamn mother,” she always says. “You’re a grown man. I shouldn’t have to remind you to wipe your ass when you get off the toilet.” I suppose she has a point. I try to go back in my mind and picture the list of errands that Maureen put on the refrigerator this morning. What was it that she wanted me to do? Let’s see, I took out the trash, I drove the cat to the vet, I picked up the dry cleaning…
“Do it, Pea Brain! Do it! Do it, you Cock Sucker!”
“Shut up, Gran!” I yell. “I’m trying to think!”
Jesus, that hag can really get on your nerves. Eighty-five is pretty damn old, if you ask me. I never want to live that long. The body shuts down, they hook you up to a bunch of ugly machines, you have to wear diapers for Christ’s sweet sake. God, that’s terrible. There’s something poking me in my pocket, so I reach down there and fish out the medication that Doc Hester gave me. Jesus, I forgot to give it to Jesus.
“Do it, Moron! Do it!”
“Will you shut up, Old Woman! I’m trying to think down here! It’s important!”
“Do it, Jack-Off! Piss-Ant! Pecker Wood! Dickweed! Do it!”
“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to come up there and…”
Aha! That’s it! That’s what I forgot to do. Jesus, it was right there under my nose this entire time. No wonder Maureen is always calling me an idiot. It’s because I’m a damn idiot. Jesus. Well, she’s going to be so proud of me tomorrow when she discovers that I’ve finished all my errands. I’ll tell you that much. She’ll have to eat her words for once in her goddamn life. That’ll be worth it, by God. It sure will.
I stand up, feeling pretty good about myself, and I prepare to head out to the store to pick up a pack of butter and a pack of margarine. Oh, I can’t wait to see the look on Maureen’s face tomorrow when she wakes up and finds out that I finished everything on her stupid little list. It’s going to be priceless.
But first I should go upstairs and kill Gran
dale bridges writing 