Brian Jay Jones's Blog, page 22

RIP Bil Keane (1922-2011)

See that kindly face over there? You've probably seen his name and work a thousand times in your life, but you likely don't know the face.  That's Bil Keane, who brought the single-panel comic Family Circus to your local newspaper pretty much every day since 1960. Keane died earlier this week at age 89, and you can read all about him in The Washington Post obituary right here.

While I was never a hard-core Family Circus fan in the way I was absolutely devoted to Charles Schulz's Peanuts, Keane's strip was one of those that my entire family read. In particular, we loved the paperback book collections. Visiting our cousins in Kansas usually meant getting an armful of new Family Circus paperbacks to take along on the car ride — and when we got there, we would ransack our cousins' own collection, trading paperbacks back and forth until, between us, we'd read them all. They were a quick and easy read, drawn in Keane's accessible style, with punchlines that even a seven-year-old could understand. I liked the sequences featuring the ghosts "Not Me!" and "Ida Know!" (our Mom would take those jokes and run with them, in fact) while my brother loved the panels that followed characters with a dotted line as they made their way to school, a garage sale, or around the back yard.

People often criticized Keane's cartoon for being too dated, too lost in an idealized past or family structure. For that reason, it was an easy target for satire — but no one laughed harder at the parodies of the strip than Keane himself. Keane, in fact, was much funnier than he let on in his strip; he would apparently knock 'em dead each year as the host of  National Cartoonists Society's annual banquet. But his own inherent sweetness was the real strength behind Family Circus—and Keane also made it look way too easy. "But allow me to point out the obvious," said Dilbert's Scott Adams. "If other cartoonists could make a family-oriented comic that was as popular as 'Family Circus,' they would have done it."

No one did, and likely never will do it as well as Bil Keane.

Autumn Leaves

It's fall, the publishing industry is back in full swing, and that means there are plenty of great new books to choose from.  Let's see. . .

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the book launch for American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America, by my  colleague David O. Stewart. Stewart views Burr's tale as both an adventure story and a political/legal thriller, and why not? Imagine a novel in which a sitting Vice President is charged for murder in two states, plans an elaborate military coup to overthrow the U.S. government (and have himself installed as the head of the new upstart government installed in its place), is indicted for treason, and is put on trial — and acquitted! — before the Chief Justice of the United States. A tale too unbelievable to be true? You bet — and yet it is.  Stewart's book is available now—and getting spectacular reviews—so go get it (and look for a cameo appearance by Washington Irving, who made sure he had a good seat in the courthouse every day of Burr's trial in Richmond).

The book currently sitting on my nightstand is Walter Issacson's biography Steve Jobs, which is already kicking ass and taking names on numerous bestseller lists. Those of us who were keeping tabs on Issacson's book for the past year (and who rolled our eyes when it was rumored, probably falsely, that the book was going to called either The Book of Jobs or iJobs) watched with interest as it was updated and revised after the manuscript was already completed to reflect Jobs's resignation from Apple due to health reasons — and then revised again immediately following his death. That gives Issacson's book the wonderful weight of immediacy—though it's not like most us weren't chomping at the bit to get our hands on this one anyway.

[image error]Coming up next week is the long-awaited And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by my pal (and fellow BIO member) Charles J. Shields, who pulls back the curtain on the enigmatic writer whose Slaughterhouse Five has been picked up by countless high school students who thought they were reading a horror novel.  Ahem.

I'm anxious to get my mitts on this one as well, though I'll admit to having some inside information: namely, I know how hard Shields worked not only on the book itself, but on getting Vonnegut to allow him to write the story in the first place.  You can read that story and more  over on Shields' way-cool blog  Writing Kurt Vonnegut, where you'll learn all about his adventures as Vonnegut's biographer — as well as beer, kid's TV, and writing in general. Go. Now.

Over the past decade or so, I've largely given up fiction—but I'm still a sucker for Stephen King (yeah, guh head, make the face!) and I've gotta admit to being psyched for his newest, the massive, 960-page 11/22/63: A Novel[image error]. I had to fling aside the review in today's Washington Post, which seemed too eager to commit the major foul of Giving Too Much Away.

And finally, I just read this afternoon that the fourth — but not yet final! — book in Robert A.  Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson comes out next May.

What are you looking forward to reading this fall? You don't have to post it here, just talk amongst yuhselves.

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Remembering Kay

If you're lucky, every once in a while someone comes into your life who makes your life better and more interesting just by being so wonderfully, unfailingly, unapologetically human.

Kay Davies, center, along with some of the others whose lives she touched -- including yours truly, in the back row on the right.

Kay Davies was that way for me. She was my boss for most of my twenties, when she came into the office of Senator Domenici as the new Legislative Director in late 1990. Kay had worked for the Senator before, in the early 1970s, and had then gone on to a distinguished career working in the State Department for President Reagan—her favorite story, and one she re-enacted for us frequently, was striding into her empty State Department office with her boxes under her arm on the morning Reagan was sworn in, and answering the ringing telephone only to be told that the Iranian hostages were being released at that very moment.

Kay was loud and brassy and opinionated, and when she walked into our little suite of offices in 1990, she scared the hell out of almost all of us. But she was also wonderfully open minded—and when she came into an organization where most of its senior staff had moved on to other jobs after the 1990 election, Kay did something that, knowing her now, was typical of her: she put her faith in all of us snot-nosed twentysomethings, letting us slide into those empty chairs and take on the responsibilities of senior legislative staffers.

Some might disagree, but I'd say it was a good investment—and over the next seven years, I learned a lot. Almost immediately, Kay and I were working together, poring over a proposed revision to the sacred Civil Rights Act. It was an important but highly technical change, steeped in obscure legal precedent—and since neither of us had a legal background, we would sit in her cramped office reading through policy papers, calling the Justice Department on speakerphone, arguing over language, and drafting statements (she would always insist on typing, pounding away on her computer keyboard as I paced the narrow room behind her talking my way through a paragraph). She would lose her patience on the phone when she thought White House staffers were trying to brush her off, snapping a pencil angrily in her hand with an audible POW! And always, always there was a cigarette burning, slowly filling her office with a gauzy gray-blue haze.

She could manage a meeting like no one else. She always came prepared, usually with an accordion folder bursting open under her arm, and she had little time or patience for pat answers—she would call bullshit on anyone the moment she caught the first whiff of it and ask them firmly to start over and try again. And she was smart; she was the first person I ever met who could read through a lengthy document and summarize it in four sentences or less—an unbelievably important skill in politics—and she could always come up with a really good, real-life example to illustrate her point. She was passionate about policy and politics, her voice rising higher and louder and she made her case. But she wasn't extreme in either direction; she was mostly merely practical—and you if would walk by her office when she had the Senate floor playing on her small television, you would hear her griping at any grandstanding, regardless of which side of the aisle was carrying on.

She was tough and gruff and worked us hard — but at the end of each work week, she ensured that the office fridge was filled with beer and soda. At 6:00 p.m. on Fridays, she would crack open a beer (it was always Miller Lite), light up a cigarette, and sit down to gossip and laugh with the rest of us. In short, she was a dynamo, a whirlwind, and I loved her. I think we all did.

She was the first person I'd met who wasn't afraid to be herself. She wore brightly colored scarves, carried huge but expensive handbags, and never held back her opinion. When she was in a hurry, she'd take these long, pounding steps that practically broadcast her mood.  She loved calamari, but she loved pizza even more. She could laugh loud, and cuss even louder.  Yet, even with her famously potty mouth, the worst thing she would ever call anyone was "dodo bird"—and if you made the dodo bird list, believe me, brother, you were in big trouble.

She was a mentor to me not only in politics, policy, and the world in general, but she also shaped the way I wrote. While I always marveled at her ability to write these concise policy analyses, she never considered herself a great writer—she called her style 'bang bang bang'—but she was a fantastically brutal editor. She had no patience for overly purple prose (she'd let some creep in—it was politics, after all) and she was a strict adherent to Strunk & White's directive to "omit meaningless words," something I'd always struggled with. Consequently, my speeches would come back with phrases—sometimes paragraphs—crossed out so stridently that her black pen left divots in the page. Other times, the intercom on my desk would ring and she'd say—loudly, of course—"Beautiful. I sent it in." Those moments made my day.

I still have a tendency to lean purple—but because of Kay and her black pen, I quickly (and early on) overcame the so-called Golden Word syndrome, where I was convinced every word on the page was beautiful and perfect. I didn't always like it when some of the bits I had slaved over or was proud of because I thought they were so clever came back with a black slash through them. But I trusted her judgment and I could always see her point—a mentality that proved invaluable the first time I ever had a completed manuscript in front of a book editor. (An entire chapter had to go? Fine.)

A little more than a decade ago, Kay was diagnosed with cancer. The outlook even then was bleak—she was always being told she had less than a year to live. Yet, she kept hanging on, never losing her sense of humor, her sense of self, or her sense of her own place in the universe. She made it to my wedding—a sweltering hot July day—walking through the woods in Williamsburg by herself.  We traded e-mails regularly, and I would stop by every once in a while—though not as much as I would have liked—to talk with her, move furniture, or help her with her "goddamn computer."

She loved history and biography—she was a big fan of David McCullough and read anything on the Romanovs—and collected and framed historic prints and documents (she had, for example, a commission for an army officer signed by James Madison). We would talk for hours about books and history—her knowledge of the Civil War could be staggering—and she was genuinely proud of me when my Washington Irving biography was published in 2008. It couldn't have happened without her—and I told her so. In fact, I told her everything she had done for me, and how much I loved her.  It embarrassed her a bit—she was defiantly unsentimental (I don't even have a photo of us together!)—but I meant every word.

Over the last few months, as Kay's health deteriorated, she refused to let anyone feel sorry for her, and rebuked suggestions that she retire to a hospice. She wanted to be at home, with her books and her piano and her cat. I went to visit her several times, and she didn't appear to be dying so much as she looked to be simply fading away, as if she were being slowly erased from within. Her voice, once so loud and firm, was quiet and higher-pitched, from the cancer pressing against her vocal cords. But there was still a bit of fire behind her eyes as she laughed at familiar stories or discussed something she'd read in the newspaper that morning. She was, as my pal Marron put it, "grit and determination all the way to the end."

Kay passed away earlier this week. She was at home, just as she wanted. And typically, she insisted on no service, no obituary, and no fuss—very much like her. But I wanted to make sure she didn't pass away without the universe taking just a bit of notice of an extraordinary woman who was once so alive, so loud, and so human—and who meant so very much to me. I'll miss her. A lot.

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Washington Irving, His Kith and Kindle…

Once again, when I wasn't looking, Washington Irving went galloping into yet another format.  It's now available as an e-book in the Kindle format—so you can read it on your iPad, so long as you have the Kindle app—and you can download it for a mere $9.99 right here.

If you're one of those folks like me who still lives the analog life and prefers a physical book you can hold in your hands, the paperback version will be available on November 15.

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Lost Genius

In Memory of Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

A Sixteenth Century Sid Vicious…

My review of Andrew Graham-Dixon's new biography Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane is the lead review over at the Washington Independent Review of Books, at least for today.  Go have a look, if you want. Better yet, read Graham-Dixon's book.

Celebrate 75 Years of Making The World "A Bit Better For Having Been Here"

Happy 75th Birthday, Jim Henson.

A Sure Sign Of Fall

School must be back in session, because the terms "cliff notes legend of sleepy hollow" are driving people here in droves.

It's not Cliff's Notes, but I did talk a bit about Irving's story right here. But really, just go read Irving's story.  It's short (Irving's called the Father of the American short story for a reason). And if you base your paper on the Johnny Depp movie, you're in big trouble. Just sayin'.

Gonzo Scheduling

The Great Gonzo.

When I left for Los Angeles two weeks ago, my original schedule—as I think I reported in these pages a few entries back —was going to be a bit of a whirlwind: I would be arriving at LAX at 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, which gave me just enough time to rent a car, check into my hotel and grab a bite to eat before I headed over to the Jim Henson Company to meet with Lisa Henson in the afternoon. Early Wednesday morning, I was going to drive to Burbank to meet with Muppet performer Dave Goelz, who had been scheduled to work all Tuesday evening on a Muppet-related project, but had graciously offered to give me a few hours the next morning before he caught an early flight back home. I would then drive back to LAX, return my rental car, and catch my 3 p.m. flight back to Baltimore. That was the way it was supposed to work, at least.

That didn't happen.  And yet, things couldn't have gone any better.

The even greater Dave Goelz.

After checking into my hotel, I did what most of us do the moment we settle into the room: I plugged in the laptop, grumbled a bit about having to pay for wireless service, then logged in to check my e-mail.  There I found waiting for me a message Dave Goelz had sent while I was still on the plane that morning, apologizing that he had run into an unexpected schedule change. "Tuesday we expect to shoot until about 2 a.m.," he wrote, and explained that he was concerned he would be too sleep-deprived to participate in a worthwhile interview the next morning.  However, he continued, "I'd love it if you could come to the studio to do the interview. We're shooting a music video with OK Go…" Attached at the bottom of the message was a map to Delfino Studios in Sylmar.  "Hope you can make it." Dave said.

Make it? Are you kidding?

As it turns out, the band OK Go had recorded a version of the theme from The Muppet Show for The Green Album, a new collection of Muppet-related covers—and the Muppets, naturally, would be a major part of their music video. The Muppets and the video-savvy OK Go together? There was no way it couldn't be a lot of fun.  Knowing he was already at the studio working and therefore unable to check e-mail, I tapped out a text message to Dave telling him that I would love the chance to watch him work, and asked if I could meet him at 7 p.m., after I finished my meeting over at Henson Studios. Dave responded almost immediately: "Xlent."

I kept my appointment with Lisa Henson—who was as warm and gracious and thoughtful as always—then as the clock neared 6 p.m., I pointed my Kia Soul (what the heck?) in the direction of Burbank. A little after 7 p.m., I pulled up at Delfino Studios, a compound of several connected warehouses just outside of the city.  I managed to luck into finding a producer on a break out in the parking lot, who kindly steered me through a maze of outer rooms and into one of Delfino's dark, cavernous main studios.  There, in the middle of the room, under an enormous glare of lights, the members of the band OK Go were patiently resting their heads on the top of a long board, waiting for the music to begin as the crew buzzed around them.

Trying to stay out of the way as much as possible, I climbed into a canvas chair in a cozy seating area that had been set up off to one side, an assortment of chairs and sofas arranged around several flatscreen monitors where we could easily see exactly what the cameras were filming. As playback began over the studio speakers, the band began to lipsynch to themselves singing The Muppet Show theme—and as they finished the verse, up popped Marvin Suggs to pound on their heads with his Muppaphone mallets.  My mouth hung open. "OMG," I texted to my wife, "I JUST SAW MARVIN SUGGS!" (Her response: "MODULATE!" I do love having a pop culture-savvy spouse…)

After another hour of filming—where I watched lead singer Damian Kulash repeatedly smash into, then peel his face off of, a piece of plexiglass as he and the Muppet performers attempted to get the timing just right on a series of quick head turns—Dave Goelz climbed off a ladder where he had been performing Gonzo and we were finally able to grab some time to speak in a quiet side office.

An hour later, a technician came in to call Dave back to the set. Dave cheerily pointed a finger at me. "Let's keep talking!" he said. "Don't go anywhere!" Believe me, there was no chance that was happening.  For another hour I stood to one side as Dave laid on a rolling cart with Gonzo, reacting goofily as a Muppaphone mallet was thrown into a pyramid of inverted trash cans, sending a bucket swinging toward the camera.  As it struck a Muppet chicken, a blast of compressed air blew a handful of feathers skyward.  ("Whoopeee!!" cheered Gonzo in several takes.) The director finally decided everyone had nailed it, and back Dave and I went to talking, taking a slight break to eat dinner on the set around 11 p.m.

The genuinely nice Steve Whitmire.

At one point, Steve Whitmire—who's performed Kermit the Frog since 1990, and who I had the pleasure of speaking with in Atlanta earlier this year—circled around us several times, then came over, smiling, to shake my hand. "I thought I recognized you!" he said as he clapped me on the shoulder.  Man, the Muppet performers are all such genuinely nice people.

Well into the early hours of Wednesday morning, Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire sat just out of the camera's eye, performing Statler and Waldorf, first with Kulash, and then by themselves. They worked without a script, preferring to ad lib their dialogue, cracking each other up, and laughing in character. After one particular take, director Kirk Thatcher laughed out loud. "That was great!" he called out, "Let's cut!"

"No, it wasn't great," Whitmire said.  "We need something else."

"I got it! I got it!" said Goelz, and as cameras rolled again, the two of them worked their way through several more jokes until both were happy with it.

As I watched these two old friends work together—two men who had known each other for nearly thirty-five years, and who knew each other's rhythms so well they could hit all the beats of an ad-libbed routine perfectly— I was struck by just how fortunate I am to be a part of their world, if only for a moment.  To call it awe inspiring doesn't even begin to do it justice.

I closed my night–or morning, rather, for at this point, it was approaching 3 a.m.—listening to Dave speak fondly of friends and coworkers, many of whom are long since gone. After we finished, as I got up to go, he took my hand in both of his and shook it warmly. "Thank you for letting me talk about Jim," he said. "It's been a real privilege." That choked me up; as I said earlier, the Muppet performers are all such warm and generous people. It was all I could do to stammer that the privilege was all mine.

And it truly was.

And now, here's the video I had the thrill of watching Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, OK Go, and the rest of the talented Muppet performers make in that warehouse studio in Burbank:

(My thanks to Dave Goelz for inviting me to the set — and to the members of OK Go who graciously permitted me to stay there.)

Trip Report? Well . . . okay. Go.

I haven't posted anything about my trip out to Los Angeles back on August 9 — but that was because I got to see something really extraordinary that I couldn't talk about until things were officially Official.

They're official now, and they have to do with this:

Click here for the video (I'd embed it, only WordPress Hates Vevo). More later.