Born Standing Up

Surprise! Another book review.

Way back in the late 70's, around when I hit double digits, Steve Martin was the funniest person I'd ever heard. His act, unlike say Richard Pryor, wasn't too blue for someone my age to listen to. Or at least that's how my parents felt. I listened to "Let's Get Small" and "Wild and Crazy Guy" and died laughing. When I got older, I snatched them from my parents for my own collection, where they still are today (Sorry Mom and Dad!). I would then try to relate his act to my friends, mercilessly butchering it of course. I roared at his appearances on Saturday Night Live and I think I may have even caught his HBO special. Steve Martin was the comic hero of my pre-teens and his transition to movies ("The Jerk", "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", "The Man With Two Brains") kept it going (except for that horrendous drama "Pennies From Heaven") for several more years. But by the late 80's/early 90's, his sense of humor and mine had diverged. His films were no longer "must see" but rather a coin toss as to whether or not they were cringe-worthy. I've passed on all but two ("Bowfinger" and "Novocaine") of Martin's two dozen or so works since 1991's "L.A. Story." "Cheaper by the Dozen"? Don't think so.

While visiting my parents this month, my mother loaned me a copy of "Born Standing Up." It's a memoir about why Martin got into stand up comedy, and why he left it.

The book opens with his early performances as the opening act at the "Coffee and Confusion" club in San Francisco in 1965. Unfortunately, the club was typically empty when he went on stage and, despite his protests, he had to perform anyway.

From there, we're introduced to his unhappy childhood, salvation at Disneyland, mixing magic and comedy, getting caught up in the 60's, paying his dues on Berry Farm, an impressionable young man dating Mitzi Trumbo, the daughter of Dalton Trumbo, writing for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, appearing on the Tonight Show, the meteoric rise of his popularity, the loneliness of touring, and the absurd benefits of fame. And when the man is at his peak, he recognizes it for what it is and stops.

Sprinkled throughout the book are pieces of his act and how they originated. Poetry reading got tossed once he realized flower power ran out of gas. The banjo appeared early and not always for humor. "Grandmother's Song" and "flair pens" go way back. Stage props were always there. His look even changed. He started out clean cut, grew a beard and his hair to blend in with the times (pictures provided) and went back to clean cut and put on a suit all by 1972. The white suit didn't come about until years later when his success had gathered him audiences of 2,000+. He was worried about being visible from the back because so much of his act was visual.

All along the way, Martin shares humorous and humbling anecdotes from his life. He relates advice he received that he stuck with ("look better than they do") and some he ignored ("Lose the arrow through the head"). During the darker memories, he doesn't wallow around in self-pity. It's more like he brings us to these nadirs not because he wants to, but because he has to. It's part of the story. His story. But he doesn't dwell there. He shows us and moves on.

This is a book that I highly recommend for all fans of Steve Martin's stand up years. I really enjoyed reading about how it all came together. I might even see if the turntable still works and throw on one of his old albums. If you still have fond memories of him from that time (and you're not completely put off by his movie choices today), then check it out.

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A Dreamcatcher in Spook Country

Two book reviews.

In Dreamcatcher, four men, friends since childhood, are out hunting in the woods of Maine. A lone hunter stumbles upon their cabin sputtering nonsense about mysterious "lights in the sky" while being plagued with the worst case of gas ever imaginable. It's Stephen King so you know what's coming.

The first third of the book is great. King hooks us right in and then beats a frantic pace: a snowmobile barreling through the woods with the reader being dragged gleefully through the snow. We can't help but stay up late turning those pages to find out what happens next. He seems merciful when he idles down the pace for the middle third so that we can catch our breath and brush off some of that snow.

But it dawns on me that some of this landscape seems familiar. We're given backstory on the protagonists, a group of men who've been friends since childhood, albeit a bit more distant (It). We get the long-winded side trip flashback, a King staple, where the boys confronted an evil back then (though it was a different evil) and now, as adults, face an evil alien threat in the woods (Tommyknockers). And then there's the psychotic government agent who becomes obsessed with one of the protagonists (Firestarter) and starts to hunt him down. Stephen King is one of the most prolific writers of our age. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that he began re-using some elements of past stories. But I was willing to let all this slide if the book ended well.

The final chase consumes the last third of the book, but it drags. And when the crisis is resolved, it felt anti-climactic. Although King doesn't use the old "it was all a dream" cliche, the ending, for me at least, was just as insulting. I had to re-read it a couple times just to make sure I was reading it right. Maybe this was some kind of catharsis for King. He wrote this story while recovering from an accident where he was struck by a minivan (which is paralleled by one of the characters here). I haven't read any other of his post-accident works and after reading this I'm not sure when I will. Dreamcatcher rates 2 out of 5 stars.

After reading Pattern Recognition (I'd give it 5 out of 5 stars), I couldn't wait to read Spook Country.

Hollis Henry, a former member of a 90's alternative rock band, is trying out a second career as a journalist. She's been sent out by Node, a magazine that she isn't sure exists, to do a piece on "locative art" (think geocaching meets VR). One of these artists introduces her to Bobby Chombo, the man who runs the servers where said art is hosted. The problem is he's extremely paranoid and her boss insists she find out why.

There's also Tito, a runner for a really small organized crime family. And he's being tracked by a guy named Brown, who's a covert operative of some kind with a strong sense of nationalism. But rather than get in Brown's head, we get his prisoner, Milgrim, an Ativan addict who speaks Russian. We meet other characters along the way, but the story focuses on Hollis, Tito, and Milgrim.

The story starts out slow. It took about 100 pages before it picked up. There wasn't any sense of danger looming over the characters nor was I able to determine what they were after that was so important. The three main characters are mild. Hollis seems capable of some decent snark but Gibson never really lets her loose. Tito's utilization of his Santeria faith is compelling when there's action, but it's sorely underutilized. He's a mushroom most of the time. Milgrim's Atvian experiences are intriguing but his objective seems to be avoiding a beating from Brown.

There are some minor characters which try to save us from these mild mannered and mellow trio. Chombo isn't one of them. He's annoying. But most of the characters in the novel get along so well that there's hardly any conflict.

We do find out what everyone is after. It's partly based on reality. I remember reading about the item in question in the news, but it never really seemed to garner the attention it deserved. I don't want to spoil it, but it concerns the Iraq War. The premise is believable, and what the characters set out to do seems cool but there's never any real danger. The plan is so well executed that when the story's climax comes along, I was left saying, "Oh, that was it."

William Gibson founded the cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction, but there's really nothing in this novel that comes across as sci-fi. It's been said that the world has caught up with Gibson's vision and I have to agree. There's nothing here to chase away sci-fi phobic readers. But will they want to read it? Gibson's prose continues to be efficiently rendered, sparse yet beautiful. But as it's presented here it amounts to an ornately decorated cardboard box. I give it 3 out of 5 stars. A middle of the road Gibson novel is still better than most of the schlock out there.

One thing that really bugs me is that if I, or any other unpublished writer, submitted this manuscript to an agent we'd be rejected because there's no hook to draw in the reader. I had a character die from gunfire in the first chapter of my novel and a publisher (who read just the first 3 chapters) said it was too slow! Gibson, a successful author, gets away with it.

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Chuck Hagel on The Daily Show

Chuck Hagel, another Vietnam Veteran serving in the Senate as a Republican, was on The Daily Show Monday night to promote his new book, America: Our Next Chapter.



It's a shame that Senator Hagel has opted not to run for re-election. While Democrats may be chomping at the bit to get his seat, there's no guarantee that they'll get it. Senator Hagel hails from Nebraska, not the bluest of states. While Nebraska's other senator is a Democrat, he's been described as one of the most conservative of Democrats and has been slow in coming around to Hagel's POV on Iraq.

Hagel's opposition to the war in Iraq is probably the most prominent issue that got him into the national spotlight. He refuses to toe the party line and has called the Iraq War one of the greatest blunders in US history (see video). For a Republican to take a stand against the Iraq war in this political climate is nothing short of brave. We've seen the depths of depravity this administration can resort to when reality-based dissent is uttered.

It is this courage, to pick conscience over politics, that will be sorely missed. It's something sorely lacking in the Republican party these days. If the party is to save itself from the three headed hydra of the fundamentalist Christian agenda, corporate profiteering, and neoconservative imperialism, it needs people willing to stand up to these groups and say, "No!"

The Democrats need more Republicans like him. Yes, Hagel gets along fine with W on other issues and he gets high marks from the American Conservative Union. Democrats may think that they'll be enjoying politically brighter times come November, but complacency has undone them before. The shouldn't forget the 90's, when people got fed up with Democrats and voted in Newt Gingrich and his "Contract With America." The Karl Rove era followed and, well, you know the rest. Democrats need sane opponents, not a party so consumed with partisan rancor that it's willing to destroy the Constitution and the country in order to achieve its goals.

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