What the WSJ Really Said About Madden

Jeff Bercovici and at least one person at the Wall Street Journal share my feelings about the prospect of hearing John Madden slobber his way through this weekend’s game. The Journal had one of those polite pieces hinting at why the Big Man should retire with some dignity before he gets any more like Pat Summerall, who’s trotted out for a yearly shamefest during Fox’s BCS coverage. (Before anyone jumps my shit, I think both of them were once stellar at their jobs. And Madden’s video games are not only spectacular games, they actually teach you the real-life rules of a very complicated sport.)

Bercovici does the world a service by translating the Journal article from journalismese into regular English.

A sample:

Futterman: “[A]s exalted as his position has become, and as beloved as he is, Mr. Madden has, at times this season, struggled with the facts.”

Translation: John Madden is an old person who forgets things and makes other things up.

NYTimes Is Right: Hedda Gabler Sucked

Went to see Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler a few weeks ago. Awful. I don’t want to completely blame the cast and director here. I think the source material is extremely dated and doesn’t age well — it struck me as the sort of sentiments a 17-year-old Goth Girl would consider so very, very deep.

At any rate, reviewing the play for The New York Times Ben Brantley writes:

How wise of Christopher Shinn, who did this new adaptation of Ibsen’s oft-produced ode to the frustrations of modern womanhood, to substitute “feeling dead” for the more traditional “boring myself to death.”

In one of those reviews that puts into words many of the things that frustrated you about a piece but you were unable to vocalize without sounding like a good, Brantley goes on to STEAL MY BRAIN:

The forever fresh-faced [Mary Louise] Parker, one of our most delightful actresses, has traded in her usual air of easy, quirky spontaneity for the robotic petulance of an I-hate-everybody adolescent in a yearlong sulk. With her hair darkened, her face ghostly pale and her frame skeletal thin, her Hedda brings to mind a valley girl who’s given up cheerleading to be a goth because it’s way cooler and it matches the place her mind’s at now.

‘The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival’

There it is, the name of my first published novel, due in January 2010. My agent, my editor and I met for drinks last night to discuss the title and other book-related things. It was the first time I met my editor, so it was all quite exciting.

Happy Chinese New Year

Since the wife’s family is Thai with a strong dose of Chinese, we’re going out to Queens today to celebrate Lunar New Year, which begins tomorrow. You know the drill, sit around eating pickled ginger chips and chicken feet, watching the Thai College Kickboxing Playoffs on TV and staying up late to see the countdown from a 98-year-old stroke victim before the ball drops: Sip-gao-baht-jet-hohk-hah-see-sahm-song-NEUNG! Yaaayyyyyy!

Ok. Maybe not. We’re just going to sit around and eat. Sadly, the New Year is one time when we’re not treated to Thai flavor sensation. Instead, the traditional dish is this boiled chicken dipped in ginger sauce. The chicken’s fresh (I’m told), but the Asian butcher it in a manner alien to most Americans. Instead of working through the joints, they just bludgeon it with a meat cleaver or something, releasing delicious marrow and bone shards! The only American I ever knew to treat a chicken like that was my grandfather, who had a band-saw in the meat department of his grocery store and didn’t much care which end of the chicken went through first.

But because my wife lacks the tact gene, she told her parents my views on boiled chicken–instead of just letting me sit there and eat it in peace. So now they may serve up a plate of fried chicken with the ginger sauce as well.

Oh, and lobster too.

And, probably, moms-in-law is going to rock some Thai side dishes. And by side dishes, I mean full on meals that would stuff an army.

Anyway, enjoy the year of the Ox. I’m off to eat.

Go Straight Down Butt Hole Road

Guaranteed to rocket to the top of the Most E-mailed stories on The New York Times website is a story about towns with weird place names throughout the U.K., including: Butt Hole Road, Crapstone, Penistone, Spanker Lane, Wetwang and Sluthole.  (Hell, the story is already at the top of the Most E-mailed list.)

Academy Loses Viewers One at a Time

Dead Serious says he won’t be watching the Academy Awards this year. What does it matter? Dead Serious watches movies like other people breathe air. Dude LOVES movies. But he doesn’t love crap. And he doesn’t love to see crap being rewarded. I’d bet a hundred bucks that if the Academy had gone with Dead Serious’ picks over the years they wouldn’t see a huge erosion in ratings — and they wouldn’t have had to sacrifice artistic integrity either.

One Way to Keep the Fires Burning

The Obamas’ do what now!?

The Curious Case of a Stupid Academy (updated)

Wow. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button gets nominated for Best Picture. If this wins, it’s Crash all over again — proof positive that Academy voters are drooling morons. To be clear, Benjamin Button was only mildly annoying — it wasn’t aggresively stupid and bad as Crash was, but it suffered from missing every opportunity to go deeper. And it certainly doesn’t strike me as best picture material. If you’re going to go with special-effects laden movie for the category, why not Dark Knight or Iron Man?

Crash, of course, was much worse — a case where the voters were so easily impressed by supposedly deep themes that they awarded Best Picture to one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, a film so bad that I think someone finally “succeeded” with that 100-chimps-with-100-typewriters experiment. Actually I guess I’m insulting the chimps by comparing them to Paul Haggis.

Be sure to check out The Curious Case of Forrest Gump.

Princess Caroline: You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit

Caroline Kennedy has decided she won’t grace New York’s Senate seat with her ass. Here’s my prediction. Ted Kennedy resigns from his senate seat and Massachusetts moves her right in. Sure, you’re probably thinking “What about rules? What about residency?” Fools. The rules are meant for you, not the Kennedys!

New York Times Discovers ‘Real’ Cajun

Thanks to another fellow Cajun with a not-so Cajun name, Donald Link, The New York Times clues its readers in to the fact that not only is there no decent Cajun food outside of South Louisiana*, but there’s not much of it in New Orleans. Two things of note: 1) Donald Link has his own sausage closet. 2) Note to New York Times: You’d have more credibility when discussing Louisiana food if you spelled crawfish correctly (as it’s pronounced) rather than as crayfish. (Though it’s cute when you pig-headedly hold on to your own style guide rather than AP Style.)

*Except in my kitchen.