Congratulations to Drew Friedman, the distinctive and distinctively hilarious illustrator whose new book More Old Jewish Comedians which will be published in April, got a tremendous bookwarming at the Friars Club last night. Drew’s “Private Lives of Public Figures” was a fixture at Spy, where I was intermittently part of the delegation that helped think …
The Writing Center of Marymount Manhattan College is marking its 15th anniversary, and I was very flattered that I was invited to the dinner celebrating this milestone that was held at Doubles in the Sherry Netherland Hotel on Wednesday night. I was delighted to see former Spy colleagues Roy Blount Jr. and Patty Marx, and …
Is life is imitating The Coup? With the publication of a story in The New York Times about John McCain‘s relationship with a comely female lobbyist, we’re certainly in the neighborhood. A presidential candidate and a female lobbyist have some kind of relationship–is it sex? Is it a flirtation? Is it an older guy just …
Richard Zoglin, a former colleague of mine at Time magazine, has written an excellent piece of history of entertainment history called Comedy At The Edge, about stand-up comedy in the 1970s. Not only has Richard been a longtime observer of the stand-up scene, but he is a top-notch reporter, and the book captures the broad …
Clinton supporters spent the weekend accusing Obama of plaugerism. Obama supporters are already huffily warning superdelegates not to upset the will of the voters, as though Obama’s narrow lead at the two-thirds mark of the campaign is proof of what that will is. Both sides need to chill out and remind themselves that as tempting …
Listen to Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham rail against John McCain. Listen, and enjoy. It is the sound of the conservative crack-up. The great, long ,pro-market, anti-government, pro-military conservative run begun by Ronald Reagan has been bankrupted by George W. Bush, and these commentators are slowly realizing that they’ll very soon be part …
Schooled in football in Baltimore during the era of the peerless Unitas, I am properly reverential towards the special attributes of the great quarterbacks. And yet, over the years, it has been defensive players that I have found especially exciting–Rick Volk and Bobby Boyd, Mike Curtis, Jack Lambert and Jack Ham, Ronnie Lott, and the …
Here’s a little item that appeared earlier today on The Huffington Post: “In April 2005, police swarmed the U.S. Capitol to confront an erratic Australian man, carrying two suitcases, who they feared was a suicide bomber. After blowing up one of the bags, officers realized he was harmless. The police never noticed the two nervous …
Sometimes good things happen to good people. For a couple of years in the early nineties it was my good luck to work at Spy magazine and to sit in a cubicle located between cubicles occupied by two wonderful people, Joanne Gruber to the east, and Jim Collins to the west. Jim–funny, smart, unflinchingly decent, …
Had a lovely time today talking to Matthew Weiner, the Executive Producer of Mad Men, the most excellent AMC series. I was talking to Weiner for USA Weekend about The Apartment, the Billy Wilder classic now in a Collectors’ Edition DVD. Weiner was so smart and articulate about the film, and very generous with his …