Brian Jay Jones's Blog

A Capitol Draft and a Capitol Backstory

And hello again. It’s been a while since I provided any kind of update of the Current Project, but there’s finally some news to tell you. As of Friday afternoon, this happened:

Yeah, it’s been a long time coming, I know.

I initially pitched the idea for Capitol: An American Biography to my agent in the months after January 6, 2021 for one simple reason: the building is really important to me, and January 6 hit me hard. As I think I’ve talked about here before, I was a staffer in the U.S. Senate for nearly ten years, spending plenty of time in the Capitol building–and this was in the years before 9/11, when access to the building was much looser, especially for staff, than it has been over the last 25 years.

Nearly every evening, I rode my bike from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and back again–always stopping on the way to get a drink at the drinking fountains in the grotto on the Capitol’s northwest lawn, home to the coldest drinking fountains in DC. In the days when you could still do so, I’d ride along the western terrace and just look out over the Mall. I was always trying not to take that view for granted.

As a Congressional staffer, your ID card could get you nearly anywhere in the building–and I’d always make the most of it, giving myself my own guided tour of the building, ducking under ropes to access areas tourists couldn’t go. I loved how I could feel the wear in the marble steps as I walked up them, and I would almost always stop in the Old Senate Chamber and try to imagine what it was like to sit in the chamber and listen to Daniel Webster–or imagine the chaos of the day when Senator Charles Sumner was severely caned by Congressman Preston Brooks. Or I’d stand in the Old House Chamber, now Statuary Hall, and try to picture the grandeur of the place as it was when painted by artist Samuel F.B. Morse (yes, that Samuel Morse) in 1822

Samuel F.B. Morse’s painting of the House in a night session, 1820 or so.

Some weekends, if the Congress was in session and I didn’t have a bill to worry about it, I’d walk up to the Capitol from the house I rented with two other Senate staffers at 6th and C Street NE. I’d walk up those gigantic stairs at the East Front, head for the north wing, and then sit in the staff gallery above the floor and just watch. Working in the Senate was my job, yeah, but I never stopped appreciating how special it was to work in, and just be in, that building.

And any time a bill you were staffing was coming up for consideration–in my case, that meant it probably came out of the Labor & Human Resources Committee (now Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, a name change that came along right about the time I was leaving the Hill)–well, that meant you got to head over to the Senate floor to provide any needed staffing. As a Congressional staffer, you lived for those moments–or, at least, I know *I* did.

I loved everything about going to the floor: the subway ride over, taking the elevators up from the subway level to the main level, checking in with the floor clerk, entering through the cloakroom, and then . . . almost like curtains parting to reveal a gigantic theater set, you would push open the doors of the cloakroom and find yourself on the Senate floor, all dressed in blue and mahogany and marble. The space has been modernized and updated over the last 150 years or so, but it’s still the same room they’ve been using since 1859. This is a room where a lot of stuff has happened.

The floor of the United States Senate. The doors you see at the front don’t lead to the cloakrooms, but onto a really nice suite of meeting rooms. As a staffer, you enter from the cloakrooms at the rear of the chamber. In this photo, you’re overlooking the Republican side of the floor.

As a staffer, you would then generally proceed to take a seat on the benches behind the railings lining the outer edge of the room–that’s where staff sits when they’re not assisting their members. You had to speak to each other in hushed tones–anything louder than a stage whisper would get you a quick admonishment from a floor staffer we all called The Floor Nazi. And if you needed to make a call back to your office–at least in the 1990s era when I was there–you had to go back into the cloakroom and slide inside one of the phone booths that had a folding door you pulled shut behind you. (Six times out of ten, as I entered the phone booth, I would say, with my voice dropping an octave over the course of the sentence, “This . . . looks like a job for . . . Superman!” The clerks had no idea what to make of me.)

And when it was finally time to staff your boss . . . you’d get that little wave and you’d tuck your fat accordion folder stuffed with papers under your arm, walk slowly down the center aisle, then cross over to take your seat–and your seat was a chair which would be brought over to you by a Senate page (my first time on the floor, I sat down in a member’s chair, not knowing how it worked, and HOO BOY that was not good). And you’d sit there with your notebook in your lap and a pen in your hand and your accordion folder at your feet and try not to make eye contact with the C-SPAN cameras, or arch your eyebrows in response to a comment, or even scratch an itchy nose–you didn’t want to do anything to call attention to yourself. Every once in a while, you might nod your head if your boss looked back at you to make sure a fact was correct, or hand up a hastily-scribbled note with a relevant fact or point you wanted to be made. Your job is to be indispensable, but invisible.

So, as you can imagine, the events of that January 6 really, REALLY affected me. I was sitting at my desk that day, watching things unspool on the television in my home office, and I remember standing up at one point and screaming “YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!” when someone plunked down in the Vice President’s chair in the Senate chamber. My phone rang constantly with calls from one old Senate colleague after another–and every call started the same way: Oh my god can you believe this? And no, I couldn’t. It was too surreal. I only knew I felt awful. I felt awful for me. I felt awful for us as a nation. And I felt terrible for that building.

It sounds funny, I know, but after that day, I wanted to do something, to say something, that might do right by that building. In 2021, it had been two years since my last book (Becoming Dr. Seuss, still available at fine booksellers everywhere) and, ever since hunkering down for COVID (remember those days?), I had been looking for another subject to write about. In the Spring of 2021, I started a conversation with my agent about taking on the Capitol as a possible subject–but I was nervous about it, because, hey, I’m a biographer and this sort of thing feels more like history.

“Then treat it like a biography,” my agent said. “Think of the building as your main character and work from there.”

Whoa. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. But as I started to put the proposal together around June–which entailed several months of a lot of reading, a lot of research, and a lot of poring through articles on newspapers.com–I was pretty sure I knew how this could work. By the first week of August 2021, I had a proposal I was happy enough with to let my agent take it to my amazing editor–my same editor for George Lucas and Becoming Dr. Seuss–who quickly said yes, let’s do it. And then . . . I had a horrific case of writer’s block for nearly two years.

Fortunately, one of the nice things about writing non-fiction is that you can keep researching even when you’re not writing–research is actually the fun part–so I just kept researching and reading and looking stuff up, even as I continued to not get a word written. Eventually, the words started coming, albeit slowly — but thanks to the prodding and enthusiasm of another fantastic and very patient editor (I’ll tell that story at another time, but it’s amazing) as well as the support and cheerleading of friends and family . . . well, here we are, three years and nine months after a yes to the proposal with the completed first draft.

Now it’s in my editor’s hands, and together we’re shooting for a publication date of June 2026–and I so appreciated all of you who kept kindly asking when is the book coming out? when all I could say was: soon because oof, I still had no idea when I was gonna finish.

We’re on a fast enough track, too, that I should soon have a cover to show you, along with a title change. Yeah, Capitol: A Biography was the title I pitched it under, and the title that kept me in the proper mindset while writing–but now it’s having its title changed and I know what it is and I love it. But that’ll all have to wait.

For now, I wanted to let you know that everything is moving along, and I appreciate you patiently waiting me out these past few years. It’s gonna be worth it, I promise.

Commencement Speaker Season

Oh, you lucky Terps.

Exciting news out of the University of Maryland the other day, as they announced their commencement speaker for the ceremonies for the Spring Class of 2025. Here’s the video–and they’re gonna make you wait until the end, of course, for the big reveal:

Yup, it’s Kermit the Frog, who, I suppose, could technically be said to be an alum of UMD, since he’s the creation of a graduate of the Class of 1960, Jim Henson. (Kermit’s attendance at the University of Maryland is not yet canon, you nerds.)

(I can’t help wondering, too, who’s gonna write the speech for Kermit to deliver. Commencement speeches are famously tough to get right, and my hat is off to whoever’s been assigned the task of writing this one. Heck, maybe they’ve been lucky enough to co-opt Muppet/Henson fan Brad Meltzer, who knows a thing or two about how to do these things.)

Believe it or not, in his lifetime, Jim Henson never delivered a commencement speech–not at the University of Maryland, not anywhere. He did receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from his alma mater in 1978, and carefully instructed the university that he wanted his name to be printed as “Jim” and not “James,” which was on his 1960 diploma.

Here’s the page from the commencement program that year that featured Jim’s bio . . .

. . . and finally, here’s a fantastic picture of Jim Henson himself, all decked out in his mortarboard and robe to receive his honorary degree. Jim had been working in London on The Muppet Show almost right up to the last minute, and his assistant sent a telex to the Henson company’s New York offices with Jim’s hat size, so they could inform UMD. “Jim’s head measures 22 ½”, said the telex, “which our wardrobe says is about size 6 7/8.” They seem to have gotten everything right, because he looks terrific.

Almost Unreal Yet It’s Too Soon To Feel Yet

Sad word from Walt Disney World this morning as the reliable folks at ToughPigs report that Muppet*Vision 3D, and indeed the entire Muppets courtyard at Disney Hollywood Studios, will be closed down in 2025, to make way for a Monsters, Inc.-themed corner of the park.

And that’s a shame. Muppet*Vision 3D is one of the last projects to have a bit of Jim Henson’s DNA embedded in it, as it was (mostly) completed shortly before his death in May 1990, even as he was still negotiating the sale of his company to Disney. (In fact, as you can read in Jim Henson: The Biography, Jim and the Muppet crew were hard at work on the attraction without any kind of formalized agreement in place, beyond a handshake between Jim and Disney CEO Michael Eisner–a remarkable show of good faith that got bogged down in details such as Jim’s fee for directing the film for the attraction.) With Jim’s passing, and the deal with Disney ultimately scuttled, plans were abandoned for a Muppet-themed corner of the park, which would have included restaurants and a dark ride called “The Great Muppet Movie Ride”, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of classic movies in which all the information was wrong–a concept that made Jim Henson howl with laughter.

After finally acquiring the Muppets in the early 2000s, Disney kept promising it would take good care of the franchise in the park, but only half-heartedly tinkered with the area over the next two decades. Ultimately, it seemed Disney’s heart was never quite in it–and lacking a certified, gigantic, breakaway Muppets big screen hit, I’m disappointed, but not surprised that Disney has opted to hand a prime piece of park real estate over to a bigger franchise. That means packing up the Muppets and all their accoutrements, including the iconic Miss Piggy fountain at the center of the Muppets Pavilion.

What’s truly sad is that Jim Henson himself had such high hopes for the Muppets at Disney, a company he admired and trusted. “I really like the idea of my characters living on in the Disney parks,” he wrote. “It’s a wonderful future for these characters. It is as close to an eternal life as a little green frog can get.” He had big plans for the Muppets at Walt Disney World, and had loved working with the Disney Imagineers, who usually responded to his crazy ideas with when do you need it? and rarely with no.

Is all lost? Not quite yet. Disney also announced that it’ll be re-theming the fantastically fun, but lamely themed, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster Starring Aerosmith (which, let’s face it, was barely cool thematically when it opened in 1999). Based on the gorgeous concept art, it looks to be focusing on the Electric Mayhem, which makes sense and could be the set up for a seriously wacky experience. And as others have pointed out, the coaster also has its own dedicated merchandise shop as you step off of the ride, which would make a nice home for Muppet stuff in the park.

What else? There are also rumors that Disney is trying to find a home for Muppet*Vision 3D and the Miss Piggy Fountain (hey, how about giving the Muppet Theater a spot on Main Street? Its vaudevillian, old school vibe would be right at home….) Also, remember that quote up there just above: Jim Henson himself said that he liked the idea of his characters living on in the Disney theme parks. Under the new arrangement, the characters are still living on in the parks; we’ll just have to get used to seeing them some place different, trying something new. Which was pretty much one of Jim Henson’s mantras: try something new.

We’ll miss Muppet*Vision 3D, just as we miss what might’ve been in the Muppet pavilion. But we’re gonna try something new.

And That’s That for the (Former) Bird App

….and that’s gonna be it for Twitter/X. If you see anyone posting over there as me, it ain’t me.

Where You Can Find Me

Those of you who’ve followed me on social media in the past know I got off of The App Formerly Known as Twitter more than a year ago when it was acquired by a billionaire who decided to completely screw up its functionality–I leapt away when he made account verification meaningless–even as he took it full-on White supremacist. So I moved my account to private–that means if you weren’t following me before, you can’t read any of my posts–but left it active in hopes that I might come back to it some day. And, uh, I don’t think that day’s coming, so I’m likely gonna delete it entirely.

That makes me sad, because I really did enjoy Twitter–in fact, I got to know a lot of you guys there, including some who have become good friends away from the keyboard. But I can no longer in good conscience invest my time, attention, and blood pressure in a place that’s gone so fully and dangerously off the rails and into the hands of the trolls.*

What’s that you say? Engage with them because otherwise you’re conceding the space? Oh dear me . . . they’re not there to engage meaningfully, and never have been; they’re there simply to be an absolute force of chaos, gleefully sucking the joy out of everyone else’s good time. In short, it’s just no fun any more.

I’m struggling similarly with Facebook, both in my personal and public profiles. While I have a well-curated account, I’m seeing more and more MAGA strutting into conversations and spraying their blunderbuss of bullshit into what had, up to that point, been a completely normal conversation about the Muppets or movies or classic television or The Beatles. At this point, those are headaches I don’t need. (What’s that you say? Engage with them? See above, ad infinitum. This is why we can’t have nice things.) So, for the moment, I’ve taken those accounts down, too. Not deleted, but let’s call it sleeping.

So where am I? Around the same time I got off of Twitter in Fall 2023, I moved over to Bluesky, where the vibe is much more chill, and dare I say much more Twitter circa 2008-2012ish. Post-election, there’s been an upswell in the Bluesky ranks since users begin fleeing Twitter/X en masse for more reasonable, more fun, and markedly less fashy environments.

So, if you’ve missed reading me running my mouth on Twitter/X, you can find me doing the same thing over on Bluesky at this account. (Or just search for me on the app at brianjayjones). As always, I’ll keep talking Jim Henson, Muppets, George Lucas, Star Wars, Dr. Seuss, Washington Irving, politics, pop culture, biography, Lobo basketball, and–when there’s news to report–updates on the Latest Project. I’m also on Instagram–yes, also at brianjayjones–where I remain absolutely terrible about posting interesting photos. But I’m trying.

I similarly tried out Threads, but I find the platform clunky, and engagement difficult. So while I still have an account there, it, too, has gone dormant.

Oh, and you might even see me back in this space more often, too. So keep watching.

Thanks, as always, for reading, and look out for each other, okay?

* This is not me telling you how to social media; you do you, no harm, no foul.

So This Is How Liberty Dies….

As I noted in George Lucas: A Life, it’s about as prescient a line as Lucas ever wrote.

Grieve and get angry–Lord knows I am–but look out for each other, folks. I suspect we’re gonna need to have each other’s backs.

The Streak Is Over

And there we have it. After four years of staying COVID free, I finally came down with it over the weekend.

Fortunately, I’m vaxxed and boosted, so it seems that, so far, I’ve escaped with just a very minor case: aching neck and shoulders, an annoying cough, but not much else. I think I’ve had it since Friday, as I woke up that day feeling just slightly . . . off. But heck, I wouldn’t even have thought I had COVID–just a bad cold–if someone hadn’t described their first brush with it as “malaise,” which pretty much summed up how I felt, and prompted me to test.

Several days later, I’m feeling much better, and planning on staying away from everyone and everything until late in the week, at which point I’ll only venture out masked for a while. But my status as a NOVID has come to an end, thank you, and I will be taking no questions.

Coming Soon: Jim Henson: Idea Man

Well, there you go. The Ron Howard helmed documentary we’ve been waiting for since . . . what, 2022? finally arrives on Disney+ on May 31, and it’s got a title: Jim Henson: Idea Man. Vanity Fair has a pretty good sneak preview you can see here, and I’m hoping we’ll get a video trailer sometime here soon.

And for those who have kindly asked: no, I had no involvement in this project at all, apart from clearing a smidge of audio for their use (it’s not me talking, but the voice of someone I interviewed, so you’ll get to hear their voice in the documentary, which I love. I’m just hoping they can use some of the newfangled Peter Jackson audio wizardry that they used in Get Back to clear it up a bit). Anyway, this will be as shiny and new and exciting to me as it is to you, which is a great feeling for us to have as fans.

Talking Jim Henson at Our American Stories

It was a delight to sit down with Madisyn at the Our American Stories podcast to talk Jim Henson, the joy of performing, the benefit of time, and how two Muppets doing terrible things to each other sold an awful lot of Wilkins Coffee. Added bonus: Good grief! The comedian’s a bear!

You can listen here.

A Decade of Gratitude

I haven’t been at the desk much today, but I wanted to take a moment to note two things.

First, it’s Jim Henson’s 87th birthday. As I say every year, go celebrate by doing something silly. Jim Henson would want you to.

And second . . . it’s the tenth anniversary of the publication of Jim Henson: The Biography.

I’m can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to all of you who have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, reading the biography. I love hearing from readers who were moved or inspired by Jim’s story–and while I so appreciate the kind words, I’m just the messenger, man! It’s Jim who moved and inspired you. I think he’d love knowing that, 33 years after his death, new generations of creatives, weirdos, lovers, and dreamers have found him and love him not only for his enormous output of amazing work, but for the person he was and aspired to be.

A decade after publication of the biography, I’m constantly inspired by all of YOU, too–whether you’re fans, performers, writers, artists, musicians, puppetmakers, or just want to razz me about the word “Muppeteer” . . . know that I love ALL of you. The Muppet family is the BEST, and I’m so proud to be a part of the Muppet fan community, which, generally speaking, is one of the most positive around.

I’m also enormously grateful to the entire Muppet and Henson organization, who let me into their homes, and their hearts, to tell Jim Henson’s story. It’s a privilege to be a part of the Amphibian Alumni, no matter how peripheral, and I’m privileged (there’s that word again) to still be in touch with many of you fine folks today. Thanks for letting me in. And sometimes even feeding me.

Anyway, I’m fairly certain that the first words of my obituary will be, “Jim Henson biographer Brian Jay Jones . . .” And really, I am just SO okay with and proud of that.

Thank you again, all of you, for reading Jim’s biography, and learning, laughing, and crying along with it. I’m grateful to all of you for reading. And I wanted you to know that.