December 2008
“I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling...”
– Dock Ellis, the only pitcher in baseball history to throw a no-hitter while taking LSD, died this morning at the age of 63. I think someone tossing a no-hitter on acid is one of the 10 most amazing things that have ever happened in baseball, or on earth.
(More Dock Ellis love, via leitch)
R.I.P. Dock Ellis, 1945 - 2008.
It’s very sad: one of my favorite “classic” baseball players (and former one-time Yankee) Dock Ellis passed away on Friday. I’ve made mention of Ellis before in passing, as the guy is a classic example of how baseball is a freak sport: he pitched a no-hitter on LSD when the ball was telling him what pitches to throw, he once attempted to hit every batter in the Reds’...
Snow In Vegas: Not A Dumb Coke Joke →
“Snow,” astutely noted my dad, in an email to me with iPhone photos of our white-covered lawn. In a mostly unprintable obscenity-laden response, I explained to him both my (A) lack of joy with snow, being in New York and (B) that I’m coming home this Saturday to get away from that exact kind of weather. “It better be gone by the time I get there. Melt that shit,” closed out the email. Dad’s...
Yo Yo (Oba)Ma: Inauguration Lineup Set →
Sometimes, if you’re me, you’ll write a few hundred words just so you can publish an excurtiatingly bad headline joke. This was absolutely one of those times. Also, this lede:
It’s the biggest! Cool kids! Party! Since! Coachella! Yes, friends: The talent at President-Elect “Do you smell what Barack is cooking?!” Obama’s inauguration lineup has been set.
...
WatchOur people talked to their people….
More here.
SEEKING BLACKBOOK INTERNS
Do you have anything in common with The Subway Girl, Ryan Adams or Lydia Hearst?
Do you want to work for free, with a company that manages to walk amongst the dead in a failing industry?
Do you want to understand why there’s really nothing funny about a “backend” joke?
Do you need some kind of college credit?
Holler. I need Spring Interns. You’ll be working on the...
“The last 15 years have been boom years for theater — I always expected the...”
– Thing is: she’s absolutely right. The ever-pragmatic Nancy Coyne at Serino gets the last (and best) line in this otherwise totally depressing article. I’m still curious as to know what effects regional, Off, and Off Off Broadway are going to feel in the general depression of the theater...
Our New Intern: Lydia Hearst →
Not pictured, to her right: Foster, on a Monday morning, trying to explain to her how our backend listings system works*. Pictured: my weekend-old cup of tea, still on my desk from Friday. My pack of P-Funks. My sketchy-apothocary looking jar that holds said tea (but looks like it could hold any number of things, including preserved shrunken heads). I’m now going to get blood taken....
BlackBook Liveblog: The B.I.G. Tour Of Brooklyn →
Today, our own Ben Barna was invited on a press tour promoting the new Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious. The junk(et)? Ben gets to sit on a bus with a bunch of other reporters as they take a tour through notable Brooklyn spots relevant to the deceased rapper’s history before making his way to a screening of the film. It gets better: leading the tour, according to the release, will be Mama...
Watching David Chang geek out in a cookbook store is actually quite a bit of fun, as is the rest of the “Obsessives” series. I’d love to see them do a theater-themed one: maybe make Adam Rapp go through the Drama Book Shop, have him start pulling things from the shelves there. Etc.
“It’s like every time I look up, I see a dead monkey or a dead elephant,” a publicist was musing to a bartender at the post-screening cocktail party for the latest installment of CNN’s Anderson Cooper-hosted special, Planet In Peril: Battle Lines, on Tuesday evening. Images from the special were being projected on the flat-screens around the room. “Wonderful. I...
Las Vegas Finally Makes Iconic Sign Kind Of... →
Kudos are in order, however, for Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Scott Wyland, who filed the report. He managed to capture all the ridiculous details of any kind of civic function in Vegas, and the best notes are tucked away deep in the article—first, on the feather-capped showgirls that run around doing ribbon-cuttings with Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman: “Both she and her purple partner, J.P....
BRIAN CASHMAN HAS WEEK IN VEGAS, YANKEES...
This isn’t a sports blog, and I’m not going to try to make a case for my arguement, but really, Brian Cashman? You still can’t close the deal with C.C. and you’re throwing money at Derek Lowe and Ben Sheets, too? Isn’t this just more of the same? I mean, they’d both be nice picks, but jesus, man. That’s not nearly the worst, though.
The worst—really, the...
Puppies save three-year-old boy lost in freezing... →
doree:
PUPPIES.
The best is the “related” story: “Fat dog survives freezing to sidewalk.”
The Mountain Goats - “Game Shows Touch Our Lives”
...
Ryan Adams: My First Day as a Staff Writer at... →
I work in an office with tremendous characters. They are exquisite as well, each one of them with postures Lautrec would certainly know from memory—all of them, bent ballerinas but at the shoulders, concentrating with ease. These misfit Santa’s funky village gang in a sweet office with shared music jamming, old newspaper style, people talking, ease about despite the pressures, and that office...
The Two Movies At Sundance This Year Everyone Will...
Dramatic Competition:
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (Director and Screenwriter: John Krasinski) - When her boyfriend leaves with little explanation, a doctoral candidate in anthropology tries to remedy her heartache by interviewing men about their behavior. Cast: Julianne Nicholson, John Krasinski, Timothy Hutton, Dominic Cooper, Christopher Meloni, Rashida Jones. World Premiere
...
Going Off On Off Off Broadway: Get Your Act... →
In the financial world, when a market shifts to a new equilibrium based on current conditions, it’s called an adjustment. Sam Theilman’s recent Variety filing that Off Off Broadway is getting hit especially hard lately, with a reported 25 percent venue closing rate shouldn’t surprise anybody: that, too, is an unfortunate adjustment.
Off Off has been off for quite a while, now. It should be a...
I Am Sofa King Leotard Head →
The lead singer of Rilo Kiley is “child actress” Jenny Lewis. One of her early roles – in fact, if memory serves, I believe it was her “and introducing…” moment – was as freckle-faced Hannah Nefler in the 1989 cult classic Troop Beverly Hills. I use cult here to refer specifically to my own particular operation of organized brainwash: Brownie Troop #492, Delaware-Raritan chapter. From the years...
Reason I Miss Working In The Entertainment...
CAA: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Endeavor: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Gersh: Dec 19 – Jan 5
UTA: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Management 360: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Overbrook: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Media Talent Group: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Mark Gordon Company: Dec 19 – Jan 5
Cheyenne Enterprises: Dec 20 – Jan 4
Yeah, that’s all paid vacation. A few days after everyone recieves their bonuses.
Aging Hipsters, 101
Old Leslie Arfin:
Wow I’m So Badass I Love To Talk About My Vagina And How Crooked It Is From That Time I Accidently Stabbed It With A Rusty German Carving Knife That My Ex-Felon Boyfriend Was Holding When He Was Doing Me Because We’re Crazy Like That, Also, I Was Huffing Glue At The Time Fuck Yeah Rock And Fucking Roll.
New Leslie Arfin:
“My taste has gotten more mainstream...
SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOE. →
We’re also rolling out a live-action cartoon created by the dudes who did Robot Chicken on Adult Swim. I’ve got a clothing line called Yumms, with my own shoe. Also, in 2009, there’s going to be the Soulja Boy Tell Em video game coming to Xbox 360.
FILE UNDER: Easy jokes.
Small Preview.
FEK: Did you at any point feel with the people you were making (CHE) with, and with your collaborators, that you were almost leading them into battle, in a sense? That at any point you could…
SS: Well it was obviously something that, you had to be. Only a certain person would want to be involved in this in any way, because it was really intense, you know? It was like standing in the exhaust of a jet engine, everyday, all day. And it takes a certain kind of person to do that, and hear the whispered solution when it comes. So...it was interesting to see who could handle that, and there were some people who couldn’t. Some people broke.
FROST/NIXON
Saw it last night. So, so awesome. Frank Langella’s got the Oscar on lock. Something you absolutely must see.
