Wednesday, November 28, 2012
In his triumvirate/kinda top-three
Well there’s Bob and there’s Neil and there’s me
–Loudon Wainwright III “My Biggest Fan”
Shot. Wrecked. Like oil sizzling in a pan. Bob Dylan’s voice has drawn unflattering description in recent years but it’s not like they were ever comparing him to Johnny Mathis anyway. Last week was the second time I’d seen him perform in my neighborhood and he spoke even less. Four years ago at the Bandshell in Prospect Park he paused momentarily halfway through a two hour set, noting “gee I wish the Dodgers still played in Brooklyn” .. and that was it. Not exactly the social commentary some of the older hippies in attendance were hoping for. This time it was all in the songs, and you had to listen carefully if you were going to catch it. It isn’t the rasped tone of Dylan’s voice that strikes me most but the staccato inflection he forces upon each chopped verse. On the recordings he’s pushed to forefront, undeniably rough but clear. Live he takes on a more desperate quality accentuating both his age and the time in his career. You have to squint to make him out, too. He’s illuminated on stage by what appears to be a few yellow-tinged 45-watt bulbs and no spotlight. A few medium-sized framed mirrors are haphazardly arranged and leaned audience-facing and floor-level here and there. It’s as though he’s made a last minute stop at Bed, Bath and Beyond after deciding “let them look at themselves ..”
It’s the manner in which Bob’s recent efforts hit me that indicates how he’s holding up. Tempest was an impulse buy along with a couple of other CDs. I gave it a few spins and decided it was OK despite its featuring a fourteen-minute song about the Titanic. A few weeks later I found myself at altitude in the California Sierras, circling the block at four in the morning .. staying up late and making amends, as it were. “Scarlet Town” (track #6) was playing, forever jamming itself in my head. Up on a hill where the chilly wind blows fighting my father’s foes. You’ve got legs / that can drive men mad / lot of things we didn’t do / that I wish we had. The boy can flat-out write. You heard it here first.
I followed up Dylan this week with Neil Young and Crazy Horse at Madison Square Garden. Call me Mr. Rock & Roll (just don’t call me late for dinner.) Neil, at a spry 67, is Bob’s junior by four years and still takes the white hot spotlight directly on him, its searing shine serving to obliterate fine details and outline him in grunge god purity. The New Yorker calls Crazy Horse “the most elemental of all Young’s musical vehicles” and I’d go along with that description. He’s been coming back to this ensemble – Ralph, Billy and Poncho – for over forty years and once described them as the “third best garage band in the world.” It’s a hell of a trick turning the Garden in to your personal garage but he’d pulled it off about five minutes in to the soaring opener, Love and Only Love. They work new songs within the songs and this time I was almost certain I could hear “Smoke on the Water” jammed in between Neil’s over-driven leads. Something eternally refreshing about a 67 year-old dude who can breathe new irony-free life in to a tune called “(Why Do I Keep) Fuckin’ Up”. The picture above was self-snapped at West 30th and 7th Avenue, a block or two from the gig and at an exclusive little bistro that goes by The New Pizza Town II. Sausage rolls and Crazy Horse .. long live New York City.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
I just finished reading Cormack McCarthy’s Suttree, a novel he wrote over a span of thirty years and that is so rich in vocabulary and description it occasionally makes the reader want to shower. It’s been compared to Joyce’s Ulysses, a book I’ve personally avoided because my friend Paul, who makes a point to finish every book he starts, never finished it. Suttree reminded me vaguely of Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude and most of what I’ve read by Charles Bukowski. I read ‘Solitude‘ toward the end of my first stint in Manhattan, shacked up with the flu in a tiny West 81st Street apartment. Perhaps the flu link brought Lethem’s book to mind while reading Suttree, whose protagonist of the same name is gripped by hallucinatory typhoid fever at the end of the novel. Both books are also possessed of a particular sprawling ambition that made me think the author set out to write his magnum opus and resigned to not finishing until he got all this shit out of him. That said I’d recommend either, though The Great Gatsby or a Raymond Carver short they are not.
Cornelius Suttree foresakes a life of privilege to live on a dilapidated houseboat and fish catfish on the polluted Tennessee River. He drinks, screws, goes to jail, keeps company with assorted marginal outcasts and survives dime to dime on his wits. It’s the sort of existence that begs the question “why live this way?” – particularly if one has options. I suspect it isn’t an entirely unseen phenomenon, persons of potential means choosing to cut strings and exist on the fringes. I’ve known a few who have tried then eventually come in from the cold. No man is an island, after all, and the romanticism of turning up one’s proverbial collar and walking headlong in to the bitter wind loses some of its punch when you realize nobody gives a shit. Old bitterness is replaced with new and the cycle continues. Suttree himself isn’t bitter though and the novel survives on this premise. Why live this way? Why live any way?
I did some quick math and determined McCarthy was sixteen years old when he started writing Suttree and well in to his forties by the time he finished. This may account for the difficulty I had in pinpointing the protagonist’s age, which I took to be somewhere between thirty and fifty. Perhaps it’s in there if I went back and read it again but it’s the kind of book you have to forge ahead with if you have any intention of finishing. The other McCarthy book I’ve read, The Road, was published twenty-seven years after this one and contains some of the same rich, descriptive writing. But the narrative is linear and easily comprehended; almost as if he learned from his early work that less is more. I for one can’t fathom sticking with something thirty years to completion let alone finishing another nine novels. In the Wikipedia article on McCarthy it’s noted that his Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter, a machine he’d bought for $50 in a Knoxville pawn shop, kept for forty-six years and typed some five million words on, was auctioned in 2009 at Christie’s. They figured it would fetch as much as $20,000 and it sold for $254,500. I’m guessing that it wasn’t some Cornelius Suttree type who bought it but he may have gotten his money’s worth anyway.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Hives are gone, lost my bees
Chickens are sleepin’ in the willow trees
– J Cash
Odd few days here in NYC, and this may be the greatest understatement since Noah told the Mrs “looks like rain..” It began last Friday with an epic three-state Skype session with my pals Miller and Myers, segued in to the ridiculous spoils of a second Giants World Series victory in three years and culminated with the largest Atlantic hurricane on record. This global warming crap – or ‘the warming of the globe‘ as Will Ferrell impersonated George Bush proclaiming – is developing in to one large pain in the ass. I have personally reduced my carbon footprint in recent years by moving to a city that stresses public transportation over cars and good pizza over decent burritos. But given recent developments and where one sides on the man-made argument, this might not be enough. The power was still out as of mid-week in much of Manhattan and the stock exchange just fixing to re-open. Subways are flooded and closed. Many are reconsidering whether the Indians got the better of that twenty-four dollar deal for what is and will always be an island, isolated and vulnerable to shifting tides.
As is guiltily typical in these events, I escaped relatively unscathed save a harrowing six hour period when the cable was down and my Pawn Stars marathon interrupted. My personal sacrifice extended to potentially never knowing what became of the dust-up between Chumlee and the Old Man over some misplaced ’72 Sizzlers cars. Local bars and restaurants were packed with affluent, youngish, uppwardly-mobile white people in full hurricane mode, comparing notes on how their brownstone facades held up. Just a mile away in Red Hook an entire neighborhood was displaced and more than a hundred homes burned down in the seaside community of Breezy Point. There’s nothing like a natural disaster to put a fine point on the real estate mantra “location, location, location ..”
Meanwhile back in San Francisco (As Van Morrison sang on his epic. globe-spanning ’72 cut ‘St Dominic’s Preview’) they were celebrating a second Giants’ World Series victory in three seasons and holding another parade just two years after the last one. They’re becoming rather adept at these parades and despite the new mayor mispronouncing Madison Bumgarner’s name (“Bumgarden”) the affair was well-organized and attended, closing with Tony Bennett singing his trademark song. What’s there to say about a team you’ve followed through mediocrity most of your life suddenly reaching unimaginable levels of success? You get used to it in a hurry. I had a similar experience back in the 80’s when the 49ers went from joke to dynasty, seemingly overnight. Some of the poetic waxing from the first championship inevitably falls by the wayside but the appreciation remains largely intact. And while it might seem odd that the Giants have come together as I’ve thrown myself to the bi-coastal wind and become a transplanted east coaster, it’s strangely fitting too. They did used to play here and I’ve always been a strong believer in the link between distance and appreciative perspective.
The same can be said of my friendship with the aforementioned Miller and Myers. As I’ve noted before you can’t make new old friends. The phrase itself is fitting, borrowed from someone I used to know but no longer do. There are no guarantees in life and people tend to drift, die or move away. You figure you’ll know them forever but you won’t. Some stay in touch but change into new versions of their old self that don’t jibe with your stubbornly un-evolutionary ways. None of this artificial Facebook bullshit changes anything. When it’s looked back upon by subsequent generations it will be credited with achieving the opposite of its professed intent and having made us less connected. That’s why the stock is tanking. There’s something intrinsically depressing about the whole deal. But not so with Myers and Miller, who have remained a pleasant constant and, in an increasingly fragmented world, allowed me to feel less isolated. Enough on that though — as I said, poetic waxing is best reserved for maiden championships and these guys didn’t win the World Series. Here’s to continued friendships and receding water.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
When you ain’t got nothin, you got nothin’ to lose – Dylan
The San Francisco Giants are going to the World Series for the second time in three seasons and I’m reminded of a lunch my father had a long time ago with his banker Chad Ertola and a story Mel Brooks told on The Tonight Show about meeting Cary Grant. To quote Chad: “I was having lunch with Rich,” (as those from the old neighborhood call my father) “and he was particularly anxious .. even by his standards. Being a close friend I knew that all was well with his family and being his banker I knew that his financial situation was equally secure. So I asked him what was wrong and he told me … ‘Everything’s going too good.’ ” The Mel Brooks story (available via the link I’ve provided) is similar but with a twist. Brooks is a young writer who’s come to Hollywood to write a movie and is bowled over upon seeing Cary Grant at the Universal Studios commissary. He’s further awed when the screen legend invites him to lunch not once but repeatedly over the following weeks where they run the gamut of polite conversation from favorite sports to party games. The next Friday when Grant calls Brooks’ office to ask him to lunch Brooks emphatically instructs “I’m not in! ..”
While I’m in for the Giants games and have anxiously followed their tortuously successful progression to this point, this embarrassment of recent riches has me feeling a bit like one of those twenty-six year-old frat boy Yankees fans I’ve run in to on this coast. They go around bragging on twenty-seven world titles even though they’ve only been alive for five of them. The difference here is that the Giants have only won one World Series in their fifty-three seasons in San Francisco and I saw it happen. Now they have another shot with Season 54. Some faces from 2010 remain but the narrative has shifted. Shut-down ace Tim Lincecum isn’t quite so shut-down this season and bearded closer and Beach Boy namesake Brian Wilson hasn’t closed anything since early April. Marina Triangle area bars are devoid of now retired legendary swordsman Pat Burrell. His buddy Aubrey Huff is still on the roster but prone to disability with every ground ball legged or panic attack suffered. New story lines have emerged including that of a thirty-six year-old Venezuelan second baseman acquired late-season from the Colorado Rockies. Marco Scutaro is the latest in a string of normal-sized sensations including Lincecum and Sergio Romo who remind us that in baseball you don’t need a head the size of Barry Bonds’ to do spectacular things. (With deference of course to Bruce Bochy, whose natural-grown bean makes even Bonds look like a pinhead.) Center fielder Angel Pagan, taken from the Mets, has (as my buddy Tom Myers points out) one of the great “duality-of-man” names of all time and even looks like a Satan worshiper. Shortstop Brandon Crawford’s facial hair is reminiscent of Michael J Fox mid-transition in Teen Wolf. And crazy-eyed right fielder Hunter Pence, while capable of making the play, possesses a fluidity of motion that makes Jerry Lewis look like Usain Bolt running the hundred meter dash.
But as they say in baseball, just get there and anything can happen. The Giants have a single day of rest to recover from the six elimination games they encountered in the playoffs and get ready for the latest Greatest Pitcher of All-Time, Detroit’s Justin Verlander. The Tigers clinched early enough playing the Yankees to take a cruise, get their Christmas shopping done, and play a half-dozen inter-squad practice games. It’s looking like Barry Zito will be taking the hill for San Francisco after the Giants used their two strongest bets in Vogelsong and Cain to close out the St Louis series. Zito signed a $126 million contract in December of 2006 that has become synonymous with poorly-conceived executive decisions and that led to managing partner Peter MacGowan stepping down from his post. He redeemed himself somewhat in 2012 but lasted only a few innings in his first playoff start against the Reds. Then something peculiar happened last Friday with the Giants down three games to one in St Louis. The handsome but often beleaguered Zito, looking slightly fuller-faced and older, got out of an impossibly tight jam with no outs and runners on second and third in the second inning. He then proceeded to pitch in to the eighth, painting the corners with a masterful selection of balls varying in both speed and movement. He won the game and, with Vogelsong, set the stage for last night and the Giants celebrating their second pennant since 2010 in a joyous late-October San Francisco downpour. It would seem enough to instill one with that rarest and most elusive of perspectives, hope. Or you could conclude that things are going too good and stop taking phone calls from Cary Grant. Regardless of chosen outlooks two facts remain: there’s more baseball to be played and it’s a welcome distraction from the ongoing and off-putting political circus. Go Giants.
Monday, September 24, 2012
I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s film “The Master” over the weekend and am still working it out. That it merits this consideration is no small victory. I went in under nearly ideal circumstances having forgotten whatever hype I’d read or who the actors were. When Philip Seymour Hoffman appeared about a third in it was a nice surprise – one of those “oh yeah, this guy’s in it” moments. I might have recalled his billing had Joaquin Phoenix not been so gripping from the onset, a purely disturbing performance that confused and held me from beginning to end. (On a side note, somebody should grab Phoenix before he shakes his current state and start shooting “The Neal Cassady Story” stat. )
The film follows the immediate post World War II experiences of Freddie Quell (Phoenix), a shell-shocked naval vet harboring both a damaged psyche and soul. How much of his affliction is attributable to the war is unclear but it’s established that he was already well on his way before shipping out. He’s alcoholic but this description also falls short. More accurate to say he’s propelled by self-mixed concoctions of both paint thinner and torpedo fuel. After a series of chaotic episodes trying to keep a job he stows away aboard a yacht led by Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), the leader of a philosophical movement named “The Cause.” The film follows the relationship between the two men, each seeming to possess some integral part missing in the other. Any definitive interpretation beyond this would be speculation but suffice to say there’s some beautiful pain going on.
Some have argued that the film falls short on a narrative level and fails because it leaves the viewer guessing. They have a point. I can’t defend “The Master” arguing its narrative structure or claim to have fully understood it. I saw it as running parallel to Dodd’s “Cause” – a tumultuous bag of violence and repressed memory that, stirred with mumbo-jumbo, offers a similar post-ingestion calm to Freddie’s rocket fuel. Freddie Quell runs at breakneck speed, simultaneously in opposite directions. Dodd is a frantic sort also, guised in the calm of a modern day answer-holder. He’s the Dalai Lama at your local tavern; meditative, trashed and confidently asserting “I’m a man .. a hopelessly inquisitive man just like you.” That’s what I got, anyway. We’re all in the same slow boat to China, alone together, scratching our heads and wondering ‘what the fuck?’ As religions go it’s probably as good as any.
Friday, September 21, 2012
work on harmony and diction, play your banjo well
and if you have political conviction, keep ’em to yourself – J Cash
I hate this time of year, every four years. It’s worse in the wake of ‘social networking,’ which becomes a euphemism for mass polarization. People who would normally reserve opinion on subjects as benign as their preference for a sports team are more than willing to spout political idealism and derision. It’s distasteful and ignores the reality that political choice on a national level always involves compromise. Yet it’s broken down daily by these acutely insightful sorts to siding with the heartless or the caring; the pragmatic or the careless. You’re either an anti-American freeloader or a clinic-bombing billionaire. As always, I prefer the ambiguity of song lyrics and titles (regardless of the leanings of those who wrote them) and in this case would point to Springsteen and Zappa, respectively:
you may think the world’s black and white
and you’re dirty or you’re clean
you better watch out you don’t slip
through them spaces in between
.. Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
What’s the deal with San Francisco? Such an undeniably beautiful place yet it can get on top of you in a big hurry. Perhaps as Spinal Tap’s David St Hubbins remarked about the “authorities'” take on the mysterious death of his group’s drummer, it’s one of those things ‘best left unsolved.’ The place is an enigma to be certain; Tony Bennett left his heart there yet didn’t see fit to explain why he had to get out in the first place. Carmen McCrae sang about being drunk there – out of her mind, in fact – despite her total abstinence from alcohol. Perhaps it was best summed up in the words of a USC fraternity brother of mine (yes that’s ‘USC’ and ‘fraternity’, two factual points to be included in my biography no less puzzling than being blotto in the absence of drink.) We were sitting in a bar having come up for the Cal game and he looked outside to a passing cable car and remarked “Dude, this place is like one big Disneyland.” And as anyone who has ever been to Disneyland can attest, even the Happiest Place on Earth can wear a little thin at the edges after encountering your umpteenth obese visitor in mouse ears munching on a cheeseburger at the Tommorowland Plaza.
Anyway, I was there and now I’m back. Returning east, I did the only reasonable thing one looking to decompress can do – I went to see ZZ Top at the Beacon Theater. ZZ Top are from Texas, as was my Uncle Marvin. Marvin visited San Francisco once in the late sixties after starting a family with my mom’s sister. When my dad drove him through Haight-Ashbury, then the free-love center of the universe, Marvin looked around and commented “Dick, these people are fucking insane.” I miss the guy. ZZ Top are much like Marvin was; you get what you expect with very little ambiguity. This held true for their show at the Beacon. They had the beards and wore the hats and the shades. They brought out the furry guitars. They did the simultaneous ‘turn to the left, turn to the right’ move and once, during ‘Sharp Dressed Man’, crossed their legs and touched their knees. And they played the shit out of every lick they’ve been playing the same way for forty years. Free-love my ass. After the show I found myself at 72nd and Broadway munching on a chili dog and noting that I was officially back in New York City, imperfectly perfect as it’s been for me since 2003.
Underground, 53rd & Lexington
–Seger
Been slogging through another New York City summer. I realized I was in the middle of it yesterday when I started out for a run and passed two guys working construction on my Brooklyn street. “They got restaurants on Court?” asked the one. “Yeah they do,” the other answered. “But more on Smith – all up an’ down the motherfucker.” This made me smile which caused the first guy to acknowledge me. “Big man .. you gonna run in this heat?” The entire exchange lasted all of thirty seconds but put an official stamp on my summer. I can now carry on to fall, knowing that I was here.
I get a lot of ‘big mans’ in this city though by my estimation there are many bigger. I got two in one day the other week walking through Times Square to the library. There was some kind of world record setting yoga sit-in going on with hundreds of earnest looking practitioners locked in to various asanas atop non-slip mats in the ninety-degree heat. I can think of far more yoga-like places than Times Square but perhaps that was the point. Still, they didn’t look so comfortable; a whole flock of muscularly emaciated types red-faced and sweating bullets in the afternoon neon while an instructor advised on their next contortion via microphone. I could use a few good asanas, specifically for achilles and lower leg pain and general anxiety. Would also take one for insomnia and hair loss if they’re passing them out. And yet I push on unenlightened and not even properly stretched, taking my ‘big mans’ where I can get them.
I said a long time ago that all one really needs to understand this city is a subway pass. Like much of my writing it was an over-simplification but one of my better ones. I believe the subway is the Great New York Equalizer. Feeling old, lonely or unattractive? Or perhaps you’re on a strong, beautiful and superior kick. It’s all there – the middle aged across from the decrepit and the disengaged next to the abandoned. The odd beside the truly weird, attractive abreast the stunning. Worried about the young ass-kicker who just boarded at Penn Station? Fear not, as there’s bound to be an ass-kicker’s ass- kicker joining the car at 42nd. The subway is like Perspective Theater, lending proper place and context to all. It’s a great place to remind yourself that you’re neither exceptional nor unworthy; just another denizen holding out for a temperature change.
I’ll be getting a temperature change at month’s end when I travel back to Northern California and San Francisco. I’d make an argument for this above most other annual American city-swaps. It’s difficult to espouse the charms (or flaws) of one place over the other but being allowed regular access to both is a privilege. I was working on a piece covering this topic (the Brooklyn/North Beach neighborhood shift) for a small San Francisco magazine and asked my mother for editorial and grammatical input when I finished. You could choose worse for an editor; her education as a Scottish schoolgirl included Latin. They didn’t mess around with the few they deemed suitable for higher-education in that country. She pointed out, gently, that I tend to use too many commas. Easily the solidest bit of advice I’ve gotten in the last several years. Now, if I can only make it through, the rest of this summer.
I was thinking about Tim Lincecum recently, the Giants’ two time Cy Young winner, all-star, and World Series champion. He’s been struggling in spectacular fashion for the first half of this season and has the worst earned run average in baseball. He’s getting his first start of the second half tonight, and depending on how he does could be sent down to the minors to regroup. He isn’t injured and is still only twenty-eight years old, so the speculation regarding his precipitous decline has been rampant. Some have pointed to a dramatic drop in his weight, but he’s never been a big guy and has pitched well in the past regardless of how he filled out his uniform. Adding to the frustration is the fact that he’s looked like his old self in parts of most games he’s pitched, having shut-down innings with untouchable stuff. But these have typically alternated with equally abysmal innings where he can’t find the plate, walks batters, and leaves pitches up in the strike zone.
Lincecum himself has been forthright about his struggles and attributed them on more than one occasion to over-thinking. Having some early experience with pitching myself, I tend to favor this theory over most others. I was no Tim Lincecum to be certain, and wasn’t an elite athlete, but there were stretches when I definitely possessed more ability than I brought to the mound. It was frustrating for those who watched me pitch outside of game situations. One kid from my block who was an exceptional player asked “how come you didn’t throw like this before?” when I smoked fastballs by him during a pickup game at a local high school. I couldn’t really answer, though I suspected (and still suspect) it had something to do with what I was thinking when I went out to pitch; who, specifically, I was pitching for. They drill in to you from an early age that baseball is about the team, but the truth is, when you’re standing out there on the mound all alone, it’s about you. Once the ball is put in play the other eight guys come in to the picture, but they’re really just a supporting cast. You can be concerned about letting your teammates down, but on another level it helps to not give a shit and allow yourself to just do what comes naturally.
The photo above is of my brother’s kid Peyton, playing for his San Francisco team in a recent all-star tournament in Marin County. You can’t determine everything from one photograph, but having followed the game all my life certain things are apparent. He’s got a decent swing, keeps the bat head level, and probably most importantly, has his eye on the ball. Three simple-sounding concepts that elude most kids when it comes to putting them in to practice. Peyton’s a decent athlete, with his number one sport being soccer. My brother plays down whatever personal satisfaction he derives from having a son who is good at sports, but it is implicit in his every comment and action. ( It’s hard to fault him when considering the case of Tim Lincecum’s dad, who hovers over the career of his own $18 million a year adult son like a typically over-involved Little League father.) Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that at this early stage Peyton seems innately capable of playing for himself and having fun with the game. There is, after all, a reason they call it that. Whether he’s able to maintain this perspective and successfully extend his athletic career remains to be seen. But for now he’s a kid with a good cut, and for that there’s something to be said.
Young Roger Ebert (right) and Russ Meyer
I’ve been reading Roger Ebert’s memoir “Life Itself“ on my Kindle. The Kindle is a device I was slow to embrace. I purchased it for the same reason I buy most electronic crap: it looked cool and those using it on the subway appeared to have their act together. It hasn’t helped me get my act together but I’ve been reading a bit more and made a habit of finishing one book before downloading the next. The device represents another step down the internet road of removing human contact. Way back when I’d go to a bookstore to purchase something to read. Then I started ordering books through the mail on Amazon. Still, I ran the risk of running into my mailman or UPS guy. Now I press a button and word, page and chapter are stored in the internal workings of a slim device. No warehouse worker putting my book in a box with name and address on it. This is just slightly less offensive than emails replacing actual letters or Facebook as artificial means of sustaining friendships. The words are all there, minus physical pages, covers and sleeves. I was made aware of the cynical nature of modern publishing while working briefly for a literary agency. A pretty face on the inside flap now matches the importance of competent writing. This is particularly true in the “chick lit” genre. On a singular positive note, the Kindle may be a way of circumventing this fluff.
Roger Ebert’s face isn’t so pretty these days. He’s had multiple surgeries for cancer of the salivary gland and to restore his appearance. The cancer treatments have been successful although his particular ailment can never be completely eradicated and he reckons that it will eventually kill him. But the attempts to make him look ‘normal’ again have not worked. He notes matter-of-factly that he’s come to resemble the Phantom of the Opera. Ebert was never a matinee idol type to begin with and his appearance befit his role as the nation’s most celebrated film critic. His weight and speech inflection suggested intellectual superiority. His writing is concise with a straight-forward approach that shuns flowery prose. He doesn’t hide behind his vocabulary or obscure point with delivery. This same eloquent, plain-spoken manner helps in taking on subjects others might avoid. The surgeries also left him without the ability to talk or eat and there are fond memories of meals and restaurants from his past. As a corpulent critic his appearance could encourage cruel humor. Critics judge the work and society judges the fat. But he’s no longer fat and his physical deformities are no fault of his own. Previous assumptions about his self-discipline morphed into admiration for his courage and resilience. Still, there’s something amusing about all the references to Steak & Shake restaurant in the book.
Ebert faces other difficult truths bravely, including his lack of courage in standing up to his dominating mother. Her influence on his personal relationships shaped the better part of his life. The chapter on Gene Siskel, his long-time partner and rival, is particularly good. Ebert recounts their relationship and competitive barbs (Siskel once famously described Ebert as resembling a ‘mudslide’ when he wore a brown sweater.) But there is also affection and genuine connection. Backstage at Jay Leno’s show, an anxious Ebert asks Siskel if he looks O.K. Siskel replies: “Roger, when I need to amuse myself, I stroll down the sidewalk reflecting that every person I pass thought they looked just great when they walked out of their house that morning.” The two could rip the shit out of each other but still be there unfailingly when the other needed assurance. Siskel died in 1999 from a brain tumor and the loss has obviously affected Ebert. Sometimes our greatest antagonists eclipse the importance of most supporters. It’s a lesson that even the folks at Steak and Shake should take to heart.