for 27 January 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Hit & Run Thanks for the ideas for almost-famous comedian bios, but the Freddy Prinze bio has officially BEEN DONE! It was a made-for-TV epic done in the late seventies called Can You Hear the Laughter? I never made myself watch it, though, as it looked screamingly unfunny (like just about every other comedian bio ever made). Keep up the good work, Andrew Bettridge <andrewbett@optusnet.com.au> Screamingly unfunny can be good, because it shows the pain and suffering behind every comedian's lighthearted laughter. Didn't you see Punchline? You have to have real problems to exert a lot of energy telling jokes for most of your life. Anyone who's cracking jokes — particularly people who're cracking really good jokes — is doing a hell of a lot of hard work to cover up some more serious issues. And people who just can't stop cracking jokes? Whoa. Step around those motherfuckers, they are time bombs! Tick, tick, tick, tick ... the Sucksters  A quick question: If I was not born in America, but then moved there and became a citizen, stayed there for 14-plus years and was over 35 years of age, would I be eligible for the position of president of the United States of America? The reason for this question will be disclosed if you are willing to give an answer. Clue: It has something to do with the movie titled, Pumping Iron. I've checked out http://www.law.emory.edu/ FEDERAL/usconst /art-2.html. However, I wasn't happy with the information. I would like a definitive answer. Regards, Craig <greenbulbs@primus.com.au> If you were not born in the United States of America, you can never be president. That "14-plus years" business is just a red herring. Only natural-born citizens can become president. Cut from presidential cloth, the Sucksters Vending Machine Shakedown What's the big deal? When I worked at a gas station in the early '80s, it took us about 30 seconds to jack up the price on our Coke machine ... and we didn't even wait for the weather to get hot. Who the hell needs a computer to do that? Warm regards, Paul Clark Shandon, California <gandpclark@thegrid.net> I should have realized that even the most advanced corporate machinery could never eclipse the cunning of shrewd, young gas station attendants. Ding, ding. the Camel Dear Alice the Camel, Great article. I'd suggest you've got the business smarts of an MBA, but then you might find that insulting. That's the best argument I've ever seen for keeping a company techno-stupid. Ever consider working for General Motors? Unless they're sitting before computers, customers are wedged in the corporeal world of (temporal and spatial) location, location, location. I suppose next they'll arm consumers with wireless browsers and auction agents, then put products and services in vans. So there! Nyah! Wedged, SqueakToy2000 PS Oh yeah? Well my car has an ejection seat and JATO rockets. PPS I think I'd like your take on libertarianism. Squeaky, I lost you somewhere around the thing about an ejection seat, but I'm glad you liked the article. I'd be all about libertarianism except I have a severe addiction to government cheese. As for GM, I'd rather not relocate to a heavily polluted, free-trade zone on the northern rim of Mexico, thank you very much. l8er, the Camel Filler: Irrelevance Dear Polly, Classic Filler! Irrelevance with flair! I hope that one day, when I read your bio in Parade's "Keeping up with ..." column, I will learn that your life is the antithesis of the pathetic and petty persona you project. Because I do read your work as a double espresso of bitter irony with an underlayer of resilient mental health. Faithfully sharing your obscurity vicariously, as I reflect on my own, I. R. Relevant Mellow planter and former pants-crapper slave Oh, ha ha ha. Yes. I exist on a higher plane of consciousness than most mortal folk, and it is from these great heights that I can peer down and observe the pathetic and petty people in their little ant-farm-type lives below. Oh, how they amuse and excite me with their dippy misunderstandings and emotional fumblings. As I sip my double espresso of bitter irony (oh, but the espresso itself is never bitter, I assure you — naturally I'm proactive and self-actualized enough to have learned the tricks of smooth, tasty espresso making), I wonder what it's like to struggle and stumble and miscalculate and misinterpret and say stupid shit. Ah, but I can only wonder. At the peak of mental health, Polly Oh Polly, I feel your pain. I just don't care. I have to read my case book now so I can get a good grade in law school. That way I can afford to send my kid to military school and take vacations in Hawaii on a regular basis. Irrelevantly yours, TomB <tbernardi@pcolor.com> W-W-What do you mean, you don't care? I don't get it. How can you say that? Don't you know that you're hurting my feelings? You care more about your stupid case book than you do my feelings, don't you? You always put law school before me! It's not fair! OK, now I'm really upset. I'm gonna sit here and wait until you send me an apologetic email. I'm waiting. You'd better send it, buddy, or you are in big, big trouble, I'm serious. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Still completely mentally healthy, damn it, Polly Quit whining. At least people read your crap. <Smilg.Larry@orbital.com> Hey, no one said that I was irrelevant. I was talking about you guys. Mildly delusional, but overall still relatively sane, Polly Subject: And the beat goes on Hi there, Polly. Have you actually ever set Steve up with a date, or is his presence in Filler purely a means for you to belittle his desperate loneliness? I'm up for the challenge, if you will. I'm a little saucy, and I'm sure I could take Steve on. I live on Bainbridge Island, but regularly go to Seattle to get drunk with my friends at any establishment that has a buffalo head hanging above the bar. I'm 23, attractive enough that all of my male friends have tried to pull some stunt or another with me, and intelligent enough to read Celine but not Goethe. Hey, we could even bring a tape recorder on the date so that you could document the initial fumblings of two pale-skinned and bitter alcoholics! You could write a column about it with minimal thinking! Hey, all of these exclamation points makes it look like I'm shouting! Yup, Amy Hmm. You're young, really hot, smart, and you drink a lot? No, I can't set you up with Steve. He'd be too happy and that would really, really annoy me. Unchartably emotionally screwed up and pathologically selfish, Polly Hit & Run I'm so glad that Time Warner and AOL have merged. Now we've taken one more glorious step toward a world where every single thing that we can see, read, or hear will be, thank GOD, in-SANITIZED for our protection. I had one of those nasty, almost-original thoughts creep into my head the other day, and it made me feel dirty and un-American. Decent, sexy, successful, gigantic, professional-looking, predigested images and "ideas" are a heck of a lot better than the lonely, ineffective, little, impotent dribble that you guys put out. If you come to your senses, get an attitude adjustment, get on the fast track, accept Jesus, and start dressing for success and going to the gym more often and a few of you (you know who you are) might still be able to get a real job with a top-notch "firm" that has a good chance of being acquired by a multinational information-based corporation that's really going somewhere! Oops, I gotta go! Meds-wagon's comin' around! Later ... Tucson John <jargent@earthlink.net> Your email reminds me of that Chris Farley speech where he air-quotes all the key phrases: "So I'm not 'classically handsome.' I don't have 'washboard abs.' My breath isn't 'fresh.' I don't 'shower often.' I can't 'see' my 'penis.'" And so on. Yr pal, Tim Sucksters: While I enjoyed your review of the coming-to- a-mall- screen-near-you biopics of misunderstood comedians, I feel you overlooked an obvious candidate: Michael O'Donoghue. True, his biographer has a vested interest in seeing his life dramatized; but I believe O'Donoghue's story works well as a post-Man on the Moon project. He was the guiding spirit of the original National Lampoon, establishing the cut-and-slash style of humor that lesser writers milked for the better part of a decade. He also set the early, aggressive tone of Saturday Night Live before it became the recurring character cash cow so derided by cosmopolitan types like yourselves. Basic Story: Small-town boy comes to New York to write plays, falls in with a bohemian crowd, and soon becomes their Byron. Hooks up with a few Harvard boys and teaches them the finer art of comic assault. Brings this style of humor to network television, which leads to a Hollywood contract, a cameo in Woody Allen's Manhattan, and torrid affairs with Margot Kidder and Carrie Fisher. Tragedy: Was edged out of SNL for being "too dark," a complaint later echoed by Hollywood producers who wanted O'Donoghue's heat but not the hassle. Other than Scrooged, a film he disowned, O'Donoghue's screenplays gathered dust, and before long he couldn't even get a Fox TV pilot off the ground. He then died of a massive brain hemorrhage on the floor of his Manhattan brownstone. Taxi-style "Look, I'm Successful" Montage: Playing the sinister recurring character Mr. Mike on SNL; doing drugs with John Belushi; throwing tantrums in the Lampoon and SNL offices, destroying phones, knocking over file cabinets, kicking holes in walls; dining at Reno Sweeney's with girlfriend Anne Beatts; falling off a cliff while tripping on acid in Mexico. Show Biz Entity Razzed: Lorne Michaels, for not appreciating O'Donoghue's dark genius (although he got him out of numerous financial holes); Hollywood types who O'Donoghue detested; Chevy Chase. Casting: As with Bill Hicks, either Norton or Spacey would do, especially Spacey. Speaking of casting, you surely know that Campbell Scott played Robert Benchley in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. Too soon for a reprise? Dennis Perrin <bauerperrin@mindspring.com> OK, OK, OK, Dennis. Let's stick to one thing at a time, here. How do you know so cotton-pickin' much about Michael O'Donoghue, anyway? Is this a pitch? Have you already plowed through the first act of this thing? You know, don't you, that the second act isn't going to be nearly as easy? You know that the scene where O'Donoghue is dining at Reno Sweeney's with girlfriend Anne Beatts is going to have to be cut in half, right? You're realistic about these things, right, man? You also know that in the file cabinet scenes, someone, we're not sure who yet, is going to have to get seriously injured? You're aware of the basic requirements here, correct? You're not thinking arty, indie no-stars, are you, because that's career suicide, you got it? You got that? Dennis, baby, we're losing you. Are you with us? Your loyal agents until someone hotter comes along, the Sucksters |
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