Wow, so the 77th annual Academy Awards just wrapped up mere minutes ago, and I thought I'd jot down some quick impressions. Yeah, I thought about doing the "liveblogging" thing but frankly Tom The Dog and others do it much better than I would've anyway, so go read their takes, too.
Besides, the computer and TV are in two different rooms, and I'm a very, very lazy man.

Anyway, the Oscars --
The Good:
• Million Dollar Baby, yeah! A poetic little movie that gets better the more I think about it, and much more polished than a solid but flawed film like "The Aviator" that just screamed "Oscar bait." Great to see Eastwood recognized for his incredibly taut, effective storytelling. Not an ounce of fat on this movie, and it's great to see a relatively small pick beat out an epic. I can't argue with Morgan Freeman as Best Supporting Actor or Best Actress Hilary Swank, who just broke my heart in M$B. (I have to wonder if after the show fellow nominee Annette Bening was waiting for Swank with a lead pipe; this is the second time Bening's lost Best Actress to Swank.)
• Woo hoo, Best Supporting Actress Cate Blanchett! My favorite thing about "The Aviator" (although Leonardo DiCaprio was excellent too), and one of my favorite actresses, great to see her finally get a golden dude. Her Hepburn act in "The Aviator" at first comes off as an awful parody, but then you remember that's how Hepburn really was, and it works. She brought the humanity of Kate to life and did an amazing job, I thought.
• Can't argue with the coronation of Best Actor Jamie Foxx, who blew me away and pretty much everyone else in "Ray." But he also gave the night's finest speech, humble and sweet-natured. It's not his fault all I could think of while watching it was, "This man starred in 'Booty Call' and now he's won an Oscar?"
• I would've loved to see "Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind" get more than two nominations and in the Best Picture arena, but it was still worth it to see screenwriter Charlie Kaufman win an Oscar at last. My favorite script man by far lately, every single movie he's written I've enjoyed (even the oddball "Human Nature"), and "Sunshine" is his best yet.
• Clint Eastwood's mother is still alive! Ye gods!

The just OK:
• Chris Rock was a mixed bag as host. He was frequently hilarious, but too often he was a bit strident, and he kept using his "stand up comic" voice so I felt like he was yelling at me. I did love his "interviewing ordinary black folks" segment and some of his jokes really hit home, but overall I felt he used race a little too much and it didn't have the ease of his stand-up work.

The Bad:
• Good lord, can whomever decided to not give out all the awards the old-fashioned way with nominees walking up to the stage be shot? That was the worst fiasco in Oscaring since Rob Lowe danced with Snow White in 1989. Awful, awful presentation. Having the nominees stay in their seats while a presenter gives them the awards from the aisle just reeked of game show cheesiness ("Who Wants to Be An Oscar Winner?"), and was insulting to the nominees. Even worse was having all the nominees up on stage for a "cattle call" in some categories, so you could watch the poor bastards be humiliated when the other guy wins and then stand around awkwardly. Terrible, terrible decision on the producers' parts, and I can't believe it saved much time at all. I hope next year they go back to the regular way of doing it and treat all nominees equally. Y'know, the Oscars may not be the greatest thing in the universe, but they're usually kinda classy, and snipping that sense of class to save time seems cheap.
• Speaking of saving time, as usual, that middle hour or so just dragggggggged. They always talk about saving time (and this year's show, at just over 3 hours, was pretty quick), so instead of giving out Oscars in the back row, I don't see why they don't relegate some categories like the best live and animated short feature categories to the technical ceremony. Yeah, it's great to honor this work, and I don't think they should be dumped entirely, but you know, 99% of the audience has never seen and will never see any of these short features -- hell, I don't even know where you can see 'em in theaters -- and removing that would certainly cut 15 minutes out of the show, easily.
• Bizarro stage design this year, and the "video floor" looked really awkward.
• Wow, all five of the "Best Song" nominees this year were dull as dishwater. And were they paying Beyonce by the song or what?
• Yo Yo Ma. The man does nothing for me.

In general, I'd give this year's ceremony a "C+," even though I'm pretty happy with most of the winners, this year fell short as entertainment on its own. It felt rushed and inelegant too often, and lacked any of those big surprises that can often make up for a sloppy show. No shocking winners or Michael Moore speeches to talk about the next day. In the end, some great movies were honored, but as a show, this one won't be winning any awards for me. I'd rather watch "Million Dollar Baby" again.

"Now is the winter of our discontent." Richard III Act I, Scene I

So yesterday I finally managed to get down to the world-famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, which was holding a Media Night for its 2005 season and its new production of that tale of treachery and general bad behavior, "Richard III." Yep, it's fun being a media dude sometimes. Another reporter, his wife and I trekked the 2 hours south to Ashland, and enjoyed the play heartily, which features a reptilian, noxious performance by James Newcomb as the titular king (and yeah, that's Laurence Olivier from the 1940s movie above, but I just love the goofy Vulcan-crossed-with-King look he's got going on).

As an appreciator of Shakespeare since my high school days and a frequent visitor to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival when we lived down that way, I always felt vaguely stupid for not having been to Ashland — particularly after we moved to Oregon three years ago. It's only probably the most famous Shakespeare festival in the United States, with a grand Elizabethan recreation theater (unfortunately only open for the summer season, so we saw "Richard III" in a very nice but less historic theater instead) and acclaim far and wide. I've always meant to go to Ashland. In high school my Shakespeare class even took a trip up there and for some inane reason I can't recall 15 years on, I didn't go. Then, once we moved up here Avril and I kept meaning to go, but then she got pregnant and then we had a kid and so on and so forth... Anyway, it felt good to finally check something off the mental checklist by taking the good folks at OSF up on their media day.

"Richard III" isn't my favorite Shakespeare play (that title would go to "The Tempest," "A Midsummers Nights' Dream" or good ol' "Romeo and Juliet," depending on the mood) but it's justly famous for its unsparing portrayal of power gone mad. The play is burdened by too many characters at first, endless factions of royalty skirmishing with each other and palace intrigue galore, but all you really need to know is Richard hates everyone and will stop at nothing to gain power and crush his enemies. It's the kind of play that sinks or fails on the performance of the actor playing Richard, and Newcomb did a great job of it last night. (I particularly liked his use of crutches in playing the deformed king, which gave him a lurching, spider-like appearance.)

The marvelous thing about Shakespeare is that you never quite absorb it all - whenever I see one of the plays I only feel like my brain gets 40%, tops, of the Bard's words. Perhaps those layers of meaning are the reason the dude's still read and seen 500 years after his time.

...So I am deep in my bachelor life, as Avril and Baby Peter have fled to New Zealand until mid-March or so, while I remain behind to pay the bills. It was tough saying goodbye to them Monday. The 13-hour plane right went OK and they are safe and sound in Auckland now. Meanwhile, I keep fretting that Baby Peter will forget who I am in a month's time, and won't let me tickle him anymore.

Of course, there are benefits -- I tore down all the babyproofing in our house, no longer having to trip over gates and barricards everywhere. I can leave books and magazines and drinks wherever I please without worrying about Peter eating them. I can watch "Lost" without having to worry about someone having a crying fit during it! I can eat what I wish, turn up my David Bowie CDs and leave knives on the kitchen floor if I am so inclined.

But all on all, there's more to miss than to savor. It's the first extended solo "Nik time" I've had since Avril and I shacked up in 1998. While I'll dig catching up with reading and movies and playing with the cat, by mid-March I will likely be a nervous, hollow-eyed wreck, eagerly awaiting the chance to change diapers and chase a toddling boy around the sofa. You can't really break the family habit. This is what it's like to be domesticated, I guess, but it really ain't all that bad.

OK, I meant to post this yesterday on the actual Presidents Day, but rather unmanned by the awful death of Hunter S. Thompson and other stuff, it got delayed. Anyway, pretend it's still Presidents Day, let's get historical!

I am a bit of a presidential history buff, and my low opinion of the current yahoo in the Oval Office hasn't dissuaded me of my unnatural interest in the men who've held his job before. I'm less interested in the politics, although that's part of it all, than in the personalities and events each President has dealt with, and have read a few dozen books and biographies of them. So, in honor of the holiday, here's my Presidents Who Fascinate Me and Those Who Don't So Much lists.

Top 10 Presidents Who Fascinate Me:


1. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) An endlessly fascinating personality, cowboy, author, soldier, environmentalist, explorer and adventurer, who manages to be both highly complex and very basic at the same time. He was "larger than life" in a way very few Presidents have managed to be. I highly recommend Edmund Morris' "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," one of the best presidential biographies I've ever read. He brings this thrilling character to life.

2. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) Entire cosmologies have been devoted to Jefferson, yet he still eludes pinning down. Perhaps the smartest man to ever be President, yet clueless in other respects. Endlessly interesting once you get to know him.

3. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) Having just finished the first three books of author Robert A. Caro's megalithic biography of LBJ, I discovered how interesting this highly forceful man was. His is a Shakespearean story -- all his life wanting to be President, rising from dirt-poor poverty to enormous Congressional power. Incredibly arrogant yet immensely talented at dealing with power, he only becomes President when Kennedy is assassinated -- and then loses everything to a little war called Vietnam. Hubris takes a fall, and he's dead by age 63.

4. Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) An abject failure as President, and a truly tragic figure who's always been oddly interesting to me. His son was killed on the way to inauguration day and left him shattered; his wife went insane. He was drafted for the presidency and hung out to dry by his party, baffled by the Civil War looming on the horizon.

5. Bill Clinton (1993-2001) Fifty billion right-wing conspiracy theorists can't be wrong, they love this guy! Besides, whether or not you agree with him politically, Clinton's story of rising from nothing to become President is quintessentially American, and his flaws and appetites even more so.

6. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) Although he's encrusted by the burdens of legend now, underneath it all is a frontier character and a most unlikely president, who ended up being the one man that could save a union torn asunder. Probably the one president I'd most like to meet, given a chance in some mythical time machine.

7. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) Sheer force of will beat the Depression, beat the Nazis and beat polio. Sure, he got more than a little mad with power, and probably shouldn't have run for four terms, but his courage is unforgettable.

8. Richard Nixon (1969-1974) Pure evil is always fascinating.

9. Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) Widely regarded as the worst of our presidents, despite or perhaps because of his failures of character, unsuitability for the office and general incompetence, he remains an interesting case study in "getting in over your head."

10. Andrew Jackson (1828-1837) By many accounts the first bona fide sociopath to become President, Jackson loved killin' Indians in his youth, fought in duels and generally was a wild man. Yet he also was the founder of the modern Democratic party and idolized by zillions in his time.

Our Dullest Presidents


1. William Henry Harrison (1841) Caught pneumonia at his inauguration. Died 30 days later. Borring!

2. Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) The grandson of the other Harrison, his nickname was "the Human Iceberg." Not a people person, then.

3. Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) Yeah, he won World War I and all, but this former president of Princeton and moralist just never quite appealed to me.

4. James K. Polk (1845-1849) Actually a pretty effective president, but deadly dull individual who was so uptight he never vacationed. Claim to fame is having a song by They Might Be Giants about him: "Austere, severe, he held few people dear..."

5. George Bush I and II (1989-1993, 2001-?) If you can't say anything nice...

Still feeling dark clouds about the fatal end of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and what a horrible way to go. As mentioned in my post earlier today, I did have the fortune to meet the man once, and it was a typically Gonzo occasion that inspired this little column I wrote for The Daily Mississippian all the way back on May 2, 1994. (Bizarrely enough, fellow blogger H, who commented below, also happened to be at the same event in New Orleans!)

My weak words don't hold up so well 11 years on, I guess, but for those who are interested, here's the impression I had of my meeting Hunter S. Thompson:


*Note horrible attempt at hip haircut on my part and utter disdain on HST's part.

Fear and Loathing in New Orleans, with apologies.
Well, I finally made it down to the Big Easy weekend before last. And what a wonderful town it was. Went down there with Melanie* for the dreaded “meet-the-parents” ritual (which came off very well, thanks for asking). We went to Jazzfest ‘94, an annual musical extravaganza at the New Orleans fairgrounds — tons of music, people, beer and booths hawking everything from dashikis to handmade jewelry to exotic knives. There was aural candy for any taste, from Boz Scaggs to Dr. John to Jimmy Buffett.
While wandering around the booths, Melanie and I found a little book tent. Exploring the place, I found a notice announcing some of the authors who’d be doing book signings at the tent that day. Among the names was the familiar one of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
The Doctor! Father of the esoteric, reviled and idolized field of Gonzo Journalism! One of my personal literary idols and a true crazy man to boot. I convinced Melanie that it’d be a nifty thing to let me go and meet him, to get the Doc to sign a just-purchased copy of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. I’ve always been a fan of Thompson’s bizarre anything-including-the-kitchen-sink style of reporting, the coverage of events ranging from the history of the Hell’s Angels to the 1972 Presidential campaign — his style so out there that half the time you lose sight of the line between fact and fiction.
So we went to the booth about 2:45 or so for the 3 o’clock signing. There was already a sizeable line for this unpublicized event. Melanie took my camera and got a good spot in the shade while I met a burly gent named Gil who proclaimed that Thompson was “the king of all things Gonzo!”
Melanie enjoyed the shade and met some Canadians while I listened to Gil hold an impromptu belching contest and slowly watched the sun burn me a nice shade of obsidian. Thompson finally showed around 4:30, large bandage wrapped around his left hand and a beer in his right. Enormous beetle-like sunglasses obscured his eyes completely. I crumbled into a pile of charcoal under the sun’s onslaught and the line inched forwards.
At this point, the Jimmy Buffett** show was about to kick off. Thompson signed books at an agonizingly slow pace — rumor had it he was deeply distraught over Richard Nixon’s death that Friday. It seemed odd, that a man who once compared Nixon to Adolph Hitler should be so broken up over his death. His “periodic medical breaks” over his hand — treated by the administration of several strange vials of liquids — slowed things down even more.
There was the wit in line who called out, “Dr. Thompson! How do you feel about Nixon?”
Thompson answered in his trademark indecipherable mumble, “I loved the man.” And that was all he had to say on the subject.
I finally made it to the front of the line, several shades darker than I’d been at the start, and handed over my book for him to sign. In my best fanboy mode, I stammered out to him how much I enjoyed his work.
Thompson shook his head a bit spastically, and muttered something about “bats” and “gummo wedder t’day nahw eh?” He scribbled “to Nick [sic] - HST” with a ballpoint pen, and then immediately afterwards took another extended medical break. The smell of that joint was nearly overpowering.
There’s nothing quite like meeting your idols – if only to discover that they’re just as screwed up as the rest of us. I’m not saying I regretted meeting HST — in fact, I got a rather masochistic joy out of it, sunburn and all. And Melanie, bless her, wasn’t terribly irate about spending two hours indulging her companion’s whims.

*2005 annotation: A former girlfriend who wised up shortly therafter, and I am sure has gone on to wonderful things in her life.
**In hindsight, I really didn't care much for Jimmy Buffett.

Hunter S. Thompson, 1937-2005

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
Hunter S. Thompson

What a terrible piece of news to hear. The suicide of Hunter S. Thompson may be the most shocking public death for me of someone I admired since Kurt Cobain, and has left me and many other fans of the man's writing aghast, and wondering why?

Like many a young punk journalist of the last 25 years or so, Thompson was a huge influence on my way of thinking. His free-wheeling hybrid of fiction, nonfiction and hyperbole was so unique that they had to create a new genre for it -- "Gonzo" journalism. He was a combination reporter, gadfly, lunatic and modern-day H.L. Mencken, and through the 1970s, his talent was white-hot and unassailable. After that, yeah, the quality of his work began dropping off, and frankly little written after 1985 or so is equal to what came before. My own writing's never come within a mile of HST, but I think the thing he taught me the most is the value of unpredictability, in my own work and in the people I edit.

Thompson's "Hell's Angels," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72" and the overlooked but tremendous two books of his collected letters are all required reading for anyone who wants to make their living with words. But I never wanted to hit Las Vegas with a trunk full of ether and guns and be like him; I'm a lightweight self-abuser, and I was happy to be an armchair freak, someone the real Thompson probably would've dismissed with a grunt.

Thompson lived such a crazy life, so full of ridiculous excess that far too many of his fans thought that was the key to his talent rather than hard work. You never knew quite how much of his drug using, gun shooting and insanity was hype, and how much was reality. I never expected Thompson to die quietly in his bed, but at the same time, he made it to his 60s, and we all halfways figured he was immortal. Nothing else could kill him, so he killed himself. What made him do it? Will we ever know? Was it illness, terminal cancer eating at his guts; had he finally gotten so sick of the whole mess of life that he wanted it over? Like Cobain, you're wondering, why did he do this damned stupid thing, what was in his head telling him to pull that trigger? Suicide is the ultimate black, the void that doesn't answer back.

I met him once, briefly, in New Orleans in 1994, and had him sign a copy of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." There's even a goofy picture of me with him somewhere; his head and hand is shrouded in bandages, which seems so utterly HST I couldn't make it up. That strange day was grist for a column I wrote once, one I'll have to put up here sometime this week. It was a day like Thompson himself, unpredictable, rude and a bit disappointing, but I'm glad I met him at least once, to see if the legends were true.

There weren't many like Thompson. He left us in the most violent, brutal way a man can, with questions, anger and strange dark thoughts left behind. We'll scrutinize the tributes, eulogies and pointless investigations that'll follow, trying to find a clue somewhere in there. I don't think we will. The books are left behind to speak to us, and although I won't be able to read them now without a wince of grim feeling at how Hunter's story ended, I'll still read them. They're bigger than the man.

Adios, Raoul Duke, the good doctor, and I'm wishing for a gentler life for you on the other side.

One, two, Quick Comic Reviews!

Batman: The Man Who Laughs
A nice re-telling of the Joker's first appearance and encounter with the Dark Knight way back in 1940's Batman #1, revved up for a gory modern sensibility. I always liked the Joker's very dark first appearance, where he appears from nowhere and starts announcing he'll kill various prominent Gotham City people at midnight. What struck me about that story is that the Joker was truly scary, and didn't even smile in every panel. This isn't quite as classic as that golden oldie, but writer Ed Brubaker puts a good spin on it with great art by Doug Mahnke. It nicely captures Batman's horror at his first real encounter with utter evil, and the Joker's mass murdering malice is well portrayed. Gruesome as heck at parts, and a nice addition to "young Batman" type tales. Yet it doesn't really add anything new to the characters, like the obvious inspiration of Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke." Strip away the modern trappings and it's the same story as Batman #1 was. A decent read, but at $6.95, though, a little inflated for the price, methinks. I still wonder at the end of it, though, considering how many people the Joker has killed in the comics over the years, why didn't Batman just toss him off a cliff and be done with him? Grade: B-

Doom Patrol #9
Why am I still buying this book? Am I the only one? I must be a masochist, and an enormous Doom Patrol fanboy, because it really just ain't very good. It did get a little better after the abysmal first few issues featuring Super-Gay Vampire Man from the JLA storyline introducing the "new" Patrol, but, really, this is more of John Byrne's played-out comic reinventions. I liked the "battle-bots" parody last issue and do enjoy Byrne's penchant for mutilating Robotman in hideous fashions each issue, but this is probably my last issue. It features a guest appearance by Metamorpho, but of course the Doom Patrol here is so stupid it takes them the entire issue to figure out that's who it is. Must break the habit. Grade: C-

Essential Luke Cage, Power Man Volume 1
Hah ha, I had to buy another hefty "Essential" phone book this week. But who can pass up 500 pages of vintage 1970s blacks-ploitation superhero comics starring Luke Cage, suckah? Truth be told, I'm only 10 issues into this book collecting the first 27 issues of "Hero For Hire"/"Power Man," but it's "good bad comics" so far, if that makes any sense. All swagger and guts, Luke Cage is a great character, even if he's written into some godawful sub-"Scooby Doo" type mystery and detective stories here. He also manages to get his shirt torn off in pretty much every single story. The two-issue storyline featuring Dr. Doom (!) vs. Luke Cage is nearly worth the $15 this hefty tome will set you back, if only to see Cage calling Doom a "sucka!" There's some wildly uneven art so far and like I said, not much in the way of great plots or villains (unless you count D-list losers like "Senor Muerte," a man who actually wears a roulette wheel on his chest, or "Black Mariah," who looks like Martin Lawrence in "Big Momma's House"), but gosh darn it, Cage is a fun dude. These "Essential" books are like potato chips for comics fans, I guess. Not very nutritious, but heck, they do the job. (Some truly awesome vintage Luke Cage comics covers can be seen over here at writer Steve Englehart's Web site.)

...Those of you with an aversion to baby photos, zip on ahead to your next Internet page experience today. For it is Baby Peter's first birthday, and there was much rejoicing in our household. Hurray!

So how do you sum up a year of strange and hilarious and heartwarming new experiences? Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and since I could easily write 40 books about what it's been like with the little man in our life and not scratch the surface, I'll let the images do the talking. It's 12 Months With Peter!



Happy birthday, my boy!

It's time to do the video review thing!

‘Metallica: Some Kind of Monster’
I don’t dislike Metallica, but neither am I a huge fan of the venerable heavy-metal band, who have sold nearly 100 million records in their 20-year-plus career.
Yet for 2 1/2 hours, I was steadily fascinated to learn all about their lives.
The warts-and-all documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster” draws you in, with its humane, focused and nonjudgmental look at the world of Metallica.
What’s it like to be a pounding headbanger at age 40-something, still knocking out heavy riffs but balancing being a rocker with your family, as well as leading a multimillion-dollar corporation?
Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky probably didn’t realize what they were getting into when they decided to film a documentary about Metallica in 2001, as they started sessions for their “St. Anger” album.
What they got was a band on the edge of breaking up and a movie that stretches over two years. Longtime bassist Jason Newsted has just been kicked out as the movie begins, and the remaining trio can barely stand each other.
In fact, they’ve even retained their own $40,000-a-month staff psychologist to hold weekly group therapy sessions.
But then lead singer/guitarist James Hetfield goes into rehab, leaving drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist Kirk Hammett reeling and the band’s entire future in doubt. They wonder if they’re even still relevant now that they don’t have to struggle for fame.
It’s all brutally honest, often funny and as good as the best TV reality show — it’s “Metallica: The Real World.” The boys of Metallica treat their home of San Francisco as their own personal playground, yet despite their riches they’re not entirely happy.
Heavy metal is a music based in anger, and we find the band trying to channel into that without being the wild, callous men of their youth. You can feel them struggling to incorporate touchy-feely therapy-speak into their hard-rockin’ lives, like trying to learn a new language.
The movie goes on too long — at nearly 2 1/2 hours, it could’ve used a good half-hour of trimming and focus.
Yet most of it remains fascinating material, as the band comes across as likable if screwed up, and we’re the voyeurs enjoying it all.
The best music documentaries interest you whether or not you’re a fan of the band, and “Some Kind of Monster” definitely does that.
***1/2 of four

I've seen some horrible things in my time. But rarely have I seen anything to compare to this: the new look for Bugs Bunny.

Seriously. Take a look at that image above, with the "old" and "new" looks. This new hellspawn looks like the demonic offspring of Bugs, a Transformer and the creature from "Alien." "What's up, doc," indeed...