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By Vick Mickunas
| Tuesday, May 13, 2008, 12:30 AM
Do you remember James Frey? He was shamed last year when his “memoir,” A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, was exposed as a fiction pretending to be true. Oprah Winfrey had picked the book for her Oprah’s Book Club. When she found out that Frey had made a lot of it up she was not happy. She told him so on her program as he grimaced and took his medicine.
Frey is back. He is calling his new book, BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, a novel. According to this early review in the New York Times, it is a very good book:
click here
Continue reading "the rebirth of James Frey"...
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booms and busts
By Vick Mickunas
| Sunday, May 11, 2008, 05:16 PM
“Audition — A Memoir,” by Barbara Walters (Knopf, 609 pages, $30)
Barbara Walters is a television legend. Her image has been beaming into American living rooms for 44 years and counting. Over the course of her long career she has shattered one glass ceiling after another.
She tells her story in “Audition — A Memoir.”
Her dad made and lost several fortunes, first as a vaudeville promoter, then as the operator of glitzy nightclubs in Boston, New York and Miami. Financial problems and his habitual absenteeism were hard on the family.
Walters had a tough time growing up. She says that “looking back now, I realize that I was never young.”
Her childhood was muted by the strains in her family.
“Audition” traces the steps that led her to the fledgling medium of television. She got her big break on “Today” on NBC when they offered her a 13-week contract. They hired her because “she’ll work cheap.” She stayed for 13 years. “Today” gave her the boost that made her a force in broadcasting, and by the time she left the program she was the first woman co-host of a network news show.
Walters interviewed almost every famous politician and movie star. “Audition” enumerates the amazing circumstances that surrounded some of these interviews. She snagged, for example, a five-hour interview with the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at the site of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The next day he picked her up in a jeep and took her through the mountains of Cuba for six hours. “He drove with one hand, waving his cigar with the other.”
She interviewed Yasser Arafat when he was considered the leading Palestinian terrorist. Walters wasn’t intimidated. But the interview that meant the most to her was the one she had with the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.
Walters’ anecdotes about her guests are marvelous. Mamie Eisenhower told her that the success of her 50 years of marriage to president Dwight Eisenhower was due to the fact that “we have absolutely nothing in common.” Barbra Streisand was such a control freak that Walters never again allowed a guest to dictate conditions for an interview.
When Gilda Radner began doing a characterization of Walters for “Saturday Night Live,” Walters was devastated. She didn’t appreciate the humor of it until she found out that her daughter thought it was hilarious. One of the highlights of the audiobook version of “Audition” is when Walters does her own imitation of Gilda imitating her as “Baba Wawa” from “SNL.”
Walters doesn’t hold back. She describes her love affairs and divorces. Her career has made her personal life a challenge. Relationships have suffered. Her daughter became involved with drugs. Walters admits her failures. “I’m sick of telling you how guilty I feel.”
This is a courageous book.
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audiobook extra
By Vick Mickunas
| Saturday, May 10, 2008, 12:28 PM
Richard Nixon was my favorite president. There were so many aspects of him that I cherish; the way he sweated under the televison lights, the five o’clock shadow, his statement that “I AM NOT A CROOK!”. I could go and on. But I won’t.
Nixon has been the subject of many books. I’m not the only one fascinated by Tricky Dick - I’m excited about reading a new book called NIXONLAND (Scribner) by Rick Perlstein. George Will reviewed it this week for the New York Times:
Continue reading "Nixonland"...
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politicked
By Vick Mickunas
| Friday, May 9, 2008, 09:52 PM
Charles Manson scared us to death 40 years ago. Apparently, that wasn’t the end of the story. This just in from the New York Times:
Ranch to Be Searched for Manson Victims
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
LOS ANGELES — “For those who spend a great deal of time mulling the intricacies and unanswered questions of real-life crimes, a remote area in Death Valley has always been fertile ground.
For years there was speculation that unaccounted-for victims of Charles Manson and his followers were buried at Barker Ranch, where Mr. Manson was captured, and the local authorities say they are going to put the matter to rest at last.
Citing soil testing suggestive of the possible presence of human remains at the ranch, the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office will begin digging for graves later this month.
The area around Barker Ranch, in the southwest area of Death Valley National Park in the Panamint Mountains, will be closed to the public for four days while the digging goes on.
The search was prompted by the findings of a forensic technology team that descended on the ranch in March, armed with special instruments that detect human decomposition, a cadaver-seeking dog and a group of researchers that included the sister of the actress Sharon Tate, who was among seven people murdered by members of the Manson cult.
The sheriff’s office said that the response of dogs and subsequent soil research were inconclusive, and that digging was needed to make conclusive findings.
“I believe the only way to determine once and for all whether there are bodies buried at Barker Ranch from the time of the Manson family,” said Sheriff Bill Lutze in a news release, “is to proceed with limited excavation in a few areas.”
Sheriff Lutze was unavailable Friday to give further details.
The ranch house is where Mr. Manson and his followers were captured after a two-night killing spree in August 1969.
Mr. Manson, who was convicted with four others on multiple counts of murder and other charges, is serving a life sentence at Corcoran State Prison in California.’
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we remember
By Vick Mickunas
| Thursday, May 8, 2008, 08:06 PM
Roger Clemens was walking down the street the other day and smoke was coming out of his trousers. They called the fire department. They couldn’t put out the fire.
It seems that Roger, or is that ROIDger? has a wee truth problem. The former star pitcher for the New York Yankees claims that he never took steroids or human growth hormone. He had no problem tossing his wife Debbie under the bus though. He said it was his wife who took the HGH. Uh huh. Sure, Roger.
Now he has tossed his wife under the bus again. Repeatedly. Apparently ROIDger has not been a very faithful husband. Is he deceitful or merely, dumber than a box of rocks??
Even Roger Clemens’ apology for flaws… is flawed
By Ian O’Connor / The Record (Hackensack N.J.)
“Roger Clemens never has been big on public acts of contrition. He would rather surrender a grand slam to Mike Piazza in Game 7 of a Subway Series than apologize for crashing a fastball against the slugger’s skull.
So it came as no surprise that his stab at expressing sorrow over unnamed misdeeds was as lame as his excuse for throwing Piazza’s shattered bat at the Met (“I thought it was the ball”) a few months after beaning him eight seasons back.
“Like everyone,” Clemens said through a spokesman, “I have flaws.”
Clemens can’t confirm that he’s got flaws, not without reminding the world that you have flaws, too.
He wasn’t apologizing for using steroids and human growth hormone as Rocket fuel, even though a mountain of evidence swears he did just that. In the wake of reports that Clemens carried on extramarital affairs during his playing days (at this point, wouldn’t it be news if a star athlete didn’t carry on extramarital affairs during his playing days?), the greatest pitcher of his day decided it was time to say he is sorry for who knows what.
“Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes,” Clemens said, “I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry.”
Again, Clemens can’t announce that he’s screwed up royally without reminding others that they’ve screwed up royally, too.
“I have apologized to my family,” he continued, “and apologize to my fans. … I have sometimes made choices which have not been right.”
Roger Clemens hasn’t made a single right choice since his former trainer, Brian McNamee, fingered him as a juicer in the Mitchell Report. Back when Clemens was talking in the Yankee clubhouse, struggling to give coherent answers to the simplest news media questions, it appeared he wasn’t the smartest guy who ever picked up a rosin bag.
Now that suspicion has been confirmed in neon lights.
By pursuing a hearing before Congress, and by pursuing a defamation suit against McNamee, Clemens has done more damage to his personal life and professional legacy than the Mitchell Report ever could’ve done on its own.
He talked his way into a federal perjury investigation and, just maybe, into prison. He also sued his way into an examination of his own character that inspired Daily News reports of marital vows left looking like Piazza’s Subway Series bat.
Clemens apparently admitted to cheating on his wife. That would be the same wife, Debbie, whom he acknowledged as an HGH user while denying he even knew how to spell HGH.
“I believe my personal life has nothing to do with the accusations of steroid and HGH use,” Clemens said through his spokesman in a statement first published in the Houston Chronicle. “I have already made clear that I did not use them.”
Testimony from McNamee and Andy Pettitte says Clemens did indeed use performance-enhancing drugs. If McNamee and Pettitte told the truth under oath, and it sure looks like they did, Clemens lied again while apologizing for sins he didn’t name.
His reputation is beyond saving now, even if he didn’t start a sexual relationship with Mindy McCready, country singer-to-be, when she was 15. Nothing good can emerge from the balance of this case, nothing except (hopefully) the death of hero worship as we know it.
Clemens. Barry Bonds. Mark McGwire. Marion Jones. Lionized athletes too often end up exposed as false gods, a trend that spans decades of misplaced adulation on the ballfields.
It’s better to avoid getting too close to your heroes; their warts are generally bigger than their biceps. A friend of mine, Mark Dymond, came to know Mickey Mantle after his playing career - his limo company shepherded Mantle around town. The Mick confessed to Dymond that he was too hung over during some at-bats to even see the fastballs and curves thrown his way.
At a fantasy camp in Florida, Dymond was once walking with Mantle toward an elevator when a boy about 11 years old approached.
“Mr. Mantle, can I have your autograph?” the kid asked.
“(Bleep) off,” the great Mantle responded.
Yankees’ officials will tell you that Clemens didn’t treat fans and minions that way when the cameras were turned off. They will tell you about the small acts of decency behind clubhouse doors, the steak dinners he bought for the low-level staffers, the people who weren’t in any position to help him.
Nobody said Clemens is evil, just that he’s dumb. If Clemens isn’t dumb, he sure does a Hall of Fame impression of someone who is.
Rocket is also the flagbearer of a culture of jock entitlement. He’s had his launching pad kissed for so long, he assumed he could do whatever he pleased and then throw high and tight heat at anyone who dared to call him on it.
“I realize that many people want me to simply confess and apologize for the conduct that I have been accused of,” Clemens said in his statement, “but I cannot confess to, nor apologize for, things I did not do.”
So this act of contrition was a little short on, well, contrition. Roger the Dodger isn’t as sorry about the reported infidelity and drug use as he is about the fact he has to answer to the reported infidelity and drug use.
Clemens and megastars like him aren’t used to answering to anyone about anything. But the Rocket can’t glare his way out of this jam. The walls of his entitled culture are crumbling, exposing his outsized imperfections for all the flawed masses to see.”
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booms and busts
By Vick Mickunas
| Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 09:31 PM
AUDITION, the new memoir by Barbara Walters came out this week. Published by Knopf, AUDITION instantly vaulted into the #1 spot at Amazon.com with a perfectly timed push from Oprah Winfrey. Walters appeared on Oprah’s program and they talked about that big skeleton in Barbara’s closet, her affair with a US Senator.
Walters, the queen of network television, reflected on her 44 years in the business. She also shares some amazing aspects of her private life in this book. Read my review this Sunday in the Dayton Daily News.
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in the Amazone
By Vick Mickunas
| Tuesday, May 6, 2008, 09:21 PM
I have said it before. I’ll say it again: Hillary Clinton is toast. Barack Obama has won the North Carolina Democratic primary. It is time for Senator Clinton to gracefully withdraw from the race.
The New York Times, today, makes it sound rather hopeless, right? She just loaned her campaign another 6 million dollars….
“Clinton advisers acknowledged that the results of the primaries were far less than they had hoped, and said they were likely to face new pleas even from some of their own supporters for her to quit the race. They said they expected fund-raising to become even harder; one adviser said the campaign was essentially broke, and several others refused to say whether Mrs. Clinton had lent the campaign money from her personal account to keep it afloat.”
Hillary, read the handwriting on the wall. Listen to the music.
Give up already. We admire stubborn and obstinate but if it costs your own party the election in November you will start looking a lot like a spoiler - a Ralph Nader. Your quixotic campaign needs to end. Now. Let’s mend the fences. Pick up the pieces. Make nice. It’s over, Hillary. You ran a good campaign but it simply wasn’t enough.
Continue reading "Hillary is toast"...
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