Kornheiser on Theismann

Joe Theismann has been replaced on ESPN's Monday Night Football by Ron Jaworski. I interviewed Theismann's MNF boothmate Tony Kornheiser last September, at the beginning of his first season on the program. The Q&A was killed for space by New York Magazine and never ran anywhere.

An excerpt:

Kois: Does Joe Theismann like the Penguin Dance?

Kornhesier: I don’t think he’s ever seen the Penguin Dance. I don’t think that’s ever come up on his radar. (Laughs.) The thing about that relationship -- and I have no idea where it's going to go -- but when I started at the Washington Post, I covered Joe Theismann as a player. Joe has told me that he feels that I ripped him unmercifully, whereas I look back on it and I think I treated him great. I had some laughs at his expense, but I always found him to be somewhat charming.

Kois: Theismann seems kind of like the perfect straight man. Has anyone told him that most of the things you say are, like, jokes?

Kornheiser: (Long pause.) That's a good line. (Laughs.) I can't answer that.

The Crossover Dribble

In his memo to the LA Times' staff about the Andres Martinez/Brian Grazer fiasco, editor James O'Shea writes:

The suggestion that I make decisions simply to curry favor with the staff is also simply untrue. We face hard times. If I have to make decisions that are unpopular with the staff but in the best long-term interest of this newspaper, I will not hesitate to do make them. That is what leadership is about. I've said that openly from the day that I walked into this newsroom.

Am I the only one who finds it awesome that -- given all that Tribune management have put the staff of the LA Times through, and how disparagingly I have heard LA Times staffers openly discuss the Tribune Company -- the paper's new, Tribune-installed editor has managed to turn this into an argument about whether he curries favor with his staff? I am sure that all those employees will greet O'Shea's revelation that he is willing to make unpopular decisions with great relief.

Jackson Pollock in Inwood

Two days ago a mysterious and striking piece of public artwork appeared on Park Terrace East in Inwood, my neighborhood in New York City. Propped up in the plastered-over doorway of an adandoned nunnery that's now owned by a Seventh-Day Adventist high school is a wooden frame, maybe nine feet by ten feet, with a black-and-white photo printed on it.

Upon closer inspection, the photo seems to be of Jackson Pollock working in his studio.

The image is printed on what appear to be a hundred-plus pages of an advanced mathematics text, carefully pasted up to assemble the photograph.

It's a fascinating piece, made more fascinating by its size and mystery. How did this immense collage get here? Why Inwood, a neighborhood not particularly known for its visual arts scene? Why did the artist choose to prop up his or her work underneath a dripping overhang with no protection from the elements? How long will it last before it's removed by the school, or trashed by the Department of Sanitation, or vandalized by neighborhood kids or the high schoolers who pass by in packs every morning and afternoon?

And who the hell made it?

Facing Future

Much to my surprise, my book proposal for Continuum's 33 1/3 series has been accepted, and I'll be writing a book for them to be published sometime in late 2008. My book is about Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 1993 album Facing Future.





The entire list of accepted submissions is pretty impressive. For instance, my own book isn't even close to being the one I'm most excited about reading. That book is, naturally, the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle writing about Black Fucking Sabbath.

Here's an excerpt from my book proposal:

When he died on June 26, 1997, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole weighed almost 800 pounds. He'd just won the Nā Hōkū Hawaiian music awards for Entertainer of the Year and Album of the Year, and had watched the ceremony from his Honolulu hospital room. After IZ's death, from respiratory failure, the flags on state government buildings flew at half-staff and 20,000 people a day came to view his body, lying in state in the state capitol building. (He was the first non-politician in Hawaiian history to be afforded this honor.)

He was without a doubt the most popular and beloved singer in Hawai'i. His popularity stemmed not only from his music but from his outspokenness on issues of native Hawaiian sovereignty. IZ's transformation from feckless, apolitical youth to politically engaged maturity is a familiar story, but his engaging personality -- plus his almost-literally larger-than-life stature -- made IZ a folk hero in a state struggling like no other with the weight and responsibility of its native heritage.

In that light, Facing Future represents, to most locals and especially to Native Hawaiians, the shining apex of a brilliant career and a crucial artifact of local culture. It's an everyday treasure, an album everyone owns and plays constantly, and two versions of "Hawai'i '78" -- a song first popularized by IZ's brother in the group they formed together, the Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau -- bookend the album. Over a lush wash of ukulele, synthesized strings and throbbing drums, IZ bemoans what the old kings and queens of Hawai'i would think if they saw what their great land has become in these modern times.

But to fans outside Hawai'i, "Hawai'i '78" isn't the album's standout track; for most, it's IZ's delicate cover medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World." His unique vocals, applied to a pair of deeply familiar songs, have made the track a licensing bonanza for IZ's label, Mountain Apple Records; the tune has appeared in ads (for eToys and Sony), films (50 First Dates, Finding Forrester and Snakes on a Plane) and TV shows (like Anthony Edwards' final episode of "ER"). That's how most Mainlanders first became acquainted with IZ, and it's that track that has made Facing Future the most commercially successful Hawaiian album ever.

I would guess that most Mainlanders who own Facing Future don't own many other "world music" albums, and I'd guess most listen to very little on the record other than "Over the Rainbow." "Hawai'i '78," to these listeners, is one of a series of nice but unfamiliar songs that exist mostly to be skipped over when they come up on an iPod's random play. To Mainlanders, the album is something of a curio, or kitsch -- a touch of the unthreatening unfamiliar in an otherwise staid record collection.

That disparity -- between a curio and a treasure -- is the starting point for my book for 33 1/3.

So the future that I'm facing is an awful lot of research, writing and editing, though it certainly doesn't hurt that some of that research will happen in Hawai'i. My book is something of an anomaly on the list of accepted proposals -- at the very least, it's certainly the one book among 21 whose title will make a lot of readers say, "Huh?" I'm very pleased and excited that the editors of the series have decided to take a chance on my idea.

The Inarticulate Narrator

I got in an argument recently with a friend about lyric-writing. That friend is an actual musician and songwriter, so it was a pretty one-sided argument, but I remain convinced I made a valid point.

The argument focused on a song by the band Fountains of Wayne called "Hackensack." The song is sung from the point of view of a sad sack stuck in his hometown in New Jersey, remembering the beautiful girl from high school who went on to become a star in Hollywood.

My friend was annoyed by the song, because he felt as though the lyrics were hokey and inarticulate, particularly this verse:

I used to work in a record store
Now I work for my Dad
Stripping the paint off of hardwood floors
The hours are pretty bad

"That's the rhyme they came up with?" my friend asked indignantly. He was particularly upset because Fountains of Wayne songs often have quite clever lyrics, and he felt as though the band wasn't even trying on this one -- that they'd come up with a nice melody and that the band's lyric-writer had spent maybe five minutes on the words.

I disagreed, and tried inarticulately to make a case for the use of the inarticulate narrator in first-person songwriting. Most songs are written in the first person, though in many cases the character narrating the song isn't a character at all -- he or she is the singer, or someone just like the singer, or perhaps a personification of teenage angst or lust. But certain songwriters write songs in the voices of characters quite different from themselves -- Bruce Springsteen comes to mind, or John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats.

Like those writers, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger writes a lot of songs in which he adopts a narrative voice different from his own. Sometimes that character is clever, overly so in fact, as in the somewhat fussy lyrics for the band's song "No Better Place," in which a lovelorn Mahattanite describes himself as being "Awake and trying not to be, wrapped around my pillow like a prawn." But sometimes that character is kind of dull-witted. The narrator of "Hackensack" isn't exactly stupid, but he is self-deluding and beaten-down. The plaintive chorus, delivered, remember, by a random dude in Jersey to a TV star who surely doesn't even remember his name, a girl he only knew from sitting together with her in one high-school class, goes:

And I will wait for you
As long as I need to
And if you ever get back to Hackensack
I'll be here for you

In light of how badly this character's been trampled by his life, I argued to my friend, it makes perfect sense that his description of his current job -- refinishing hardwood floors for his dad's company -- would be halting and half-assed. If you were that guy, what would you be able to find to say about that job while singing to the girl of your dreams?

My friend disagreed. If I read his argument correctly, he felt that a songwriter has an obligation to put great care into his lyrics and make them worthwhile regardless of the level of articulation his narrator possesses. It's up to a songwriter to take a character's feelings and make them artful, whether the character would relate them artfully or not.

To me, the pleasures of "Hackensack" lie in the tension between the gorgeous melody and the clumsiness of the narrator's voice. To my friend, the gorgeous melody is undercut by the clumsiness of the narrator's voice. Who is right? Listen and decide for yourself.

Another song that uses inarticulate narration in an interesting way is by a band called the Hold Steady. It's called "Chillout Tent," and tells the story of a guy and a girl who meet cute while coming down from bad drug trips in a music festival's recovery tent. The majority of the song is told by a third-person limited-omniscient narrator, whose voice is pretty similar to the voice in almost all of the songs written by the Hold Steady's Craig Finn. Finn, like fellow Minnesotan Bob Dylan, has an instantly recognizable narrative voice, as well as a set of recurring images and tropes marking nearly every song he's written (as memorably spoofed on the music blog Idolator).

The third-person narration in this song is a little different than most Hold Steady songs, though. Mostly lacking Finn's typical verbosity, the narrator tells the story of how the girl got into the chillout tent:

She drove down from Bowdoin with a carload of girlfriends
To meet some boys and maybe eat some mushrooms
And she did and she got sick
Now she's feeling way too shaky
She doesn't want to tell the doctor
Everything she's taking...

The narrator explains, similarly straightforwardly, the story of the boy:

It was his first day off in forever, man
And the festival seemed like a pretty good plan --
Cruise some chicks and get a suntan.

Bored, the guy takes more hits of acid than recommended, and with a wry bit of affection for his foolhardy character, the narrator tells what happens next:

So now my man he ain't that bored anyways
When the paramedics found him he was shaking on the side of the stage.

This narration is interrupted periodically by two different voices -- those of the boy and girl themselves, sung not by Finn but by a male and female singer, who sing in perfectly plain English their own versions of the story. "I got really high and then I came to in the chillout tent," she sings. "Everything was spinning and I came to in the chillout tent," he sings. They both add an observant detail: "They gave me oranges and cigarettes."

Finn's third-person narrator explains that the couple hooks up. The song ends with the two lovers singing the stories they'll tell their friends later. "He was kind of cute, we kinda kicked it in the chillout tent," she sings. "And I never saw that boy again." He sings, "She was pretty cool, we kinda kicked it in the chillout tent. And I never saw that girl again."

Unlike the narrator of "Hackensack," you get the feeling that these kids might have the words to express how they truly feel, but they choose not to use them -- they're inarticulate by choice. Instead, they downplay the day's significance, but the grandeur of the music and the echoes of each one's words in the other's give their offhand explanations an unexpected sadness.


Fountains of Wayne: Hackensack"
from Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)

The Hold Steady: "Chillout Tent"
from Boys and Girls in America (2006)

Opting Out?

The Washington Post's Leslie Morgan Steiner's blog today led me to an excellent article in the Columbia Journalism Review, which in turn led me to this even more excellent research study (PDF) from the Center for WorkLife Law at UC-Hastings. All these items deal specifically with an issue our family has talked about quite a bit: the "Opt-Out" story so popular in newspapers, especially the New York Times.

This kind of story frames the charged issue that so many families face -- how to balance a family's economic needs, childcare needs, and career needs -- as a matter of whether working women choose to "opt out" of their careers in favor of staying home with their children. In recent years, the highest-profile such story was Lisa Belkin's 2003 cover story for the Times Magazine, "The Opt Out Revolution." Another Times piece that garnered a lot of attention was Louise Story's front-page piece in 2005, "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood."

These kinds of stories drive my wife completely crazy. And it was my wife who forwarded me Steiner's blog this morning, with the subject line "Yay!", because finally someone had written about why these stories are so odious. It's not just that, as Jack Shafer noted about Story's piece in 2005, these kinds of trend pieces rarely reflect actual trends but are instead mishmashes of anecdote and assumption -- one could say the same about almost any trend piece written in the past ten years.

No, what makes "Opt-Out" stories so infuriating is the simple fact that for most women, whether or not to leave the workplace is not and will never be a "choice." Financial realities force my wife to work, not her refusal to make the "choice" to stay at home with our daughter. She has a job she likes and is good at and that pays well enough for us to have a small apartment in New York. Notably, it pays far better than, say, any job her husband has ever had. And like millions of mothers out there -- mothers whose husbands make less than them, or single mothers, or mothers who live in expensive cities -- the "choice" between working and staying at home is a false one, and every article that frames the debate that way bears little resemblance to reality.

The UC-Hastings research behind both the Post blog and the CJR piece covers a number of fascinating topics and really drives home how totally insane the environment for workers is in the United States. In a recent survey of 168 countries, the US was one of only five that does not require companies to offer paid maternity leave; the other four hotbeds of socially responsible corporate policy were Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland. While the Family and Medical Leave Act requires companies to offer parental leave to its employees, such leave is unpaid -- and anyways, companies with under 50 employees are exempt from the law. (When my wife was pregnant, I had to argue with my previous employer for four months in order to secure a generous two weeks of unpaid leave.)

We all work longer hours at more inflexible jobs than ever before. Mothers whose family life interferes in any way with their work life are frequently resented, mocked, or passed over for promotion. Fathers who express a desire to lessen their workload in order to participate more fully in their children's lives are viewed with suspicion. Women who leave the workplace to raise children find their career and earnings potentials severely limited upon their return. It's in this environment that articles about wealthy, married women who can quit their jobs to hang out with their kids grate on the nerves, to say the least.

As E.J. Graff at the CJR so adroitly puts it:

Here’s why this matters: if journalism repeatedly frames the wrong problem, then the folks who make public policy may very well deliver the wrong solution. If women are happily choosing to stay home with their babies, that’s a private decision. But it’s a public policy issue if most women (and men) need to work to support their families, and if the economy needs women’s skills to remain competitive. It’s a public policy issue if schools, jobs, and other American institutions are structured in ways that make it frustratingly difficult, and sometimes impossible, for parents to manage both their jobs and family responsibilities.

Does my wife wish she could quit her job and take care of our daughter full-time? I don't think she knows the answer, because it's never been a reasonable question for our family, just as it isn't for many, many families. My guess is that she enjoys the important work she does enough -- at a company that, for the record, is exceptional in its field for its family-friendliness -- that she would want to continue to work. But what does it matter? The only way such an idea would ever be possible for our family is if I wrote a buzzy novel that sold for a lot of money. Or, you know, if American culture evolved (or was legislatively forced into) a conscience about allowing its employees to balance work and family.

Guess I better start buying those lottery tickets!

33 1/3

I am a big fan of the 33 1/3 series of books, and I'm especially a fan of the extremely public submissions procedure the series has maintained. Run by Continuum Press in New York, the series consists of 50+ short, smart paperbacks, each on a single seminal album. The series has ranged from straightforward histories of an album's recording (Springsteen's Born in the USA, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) to in-depth interviews with artists (DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...) to fanciful compendia of detail and data (The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs) to fiction inspired by an album (PJ Harvey's Rid of Me).

Over on their blog, the editors of the 33 1/3 series recently issued a call for submissions for the next two years' worth of titles. About 450 writers answered the call, swamping the editors with proposals on albums by 276 different artists, from AC/DC to the Osmonds to ZZ Top.

As the editors make their decisions, a bunch of writers have posted their proposals, and it's a fascinating look at what makes a person a fan of an album, and what makes them want to write on it. They're all very interesting, and they make me feel as if you could write a really good book on, seriously, any album at all. They also make me feel as though the editors at Continuum must have had a pretty fucking tough month.

Psychocandy by the Jesus & Mary Chain

I See a Darkness by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Live at the Star Club, Hamburg by Jerry Lee Lewis

Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell

Buffalo Springfield Again by Buffalo Springfield

Fevers and Mirrors by Bright Eyes

Shaft by Isaac Hayes

Chips From the Chocolate Fireball by the Dukes of Stratosphear

Hail to the Commonwealth

Upset Watch: The 5-12 Games

For the past six consecutive NCAA Tournaments, a #12 seed has upset a #5 seed. While this is, of course, a coincidence, that won't stop many pool entrants from picking one of these upsets to occur this year. Of the four 5-12 matchups, which one holds the best possibility of an upset?

One way to analyze the possibilities is to see which of the 5 seeds seems to have an overly generous seeding, and which of the 12 seeds feels underrated.

The 5 seeds:

Butler. With one of the best defenses in the country (57.2 PPG), Butler certainly can stop its opponents. But its slow-paced game leaves it open to opponents sticking close until game's end. Butler has beaten almost every tournament-caliber team it's faced this year, but did lose twice to Wright State (a 14 seed) as well as a few teams not in the tournament. Overall, Butler's seed seems a bit generous, and the team seems more like a 6 seed than a 5.

Viginia Tech. The Hokies can beat a high-quality team (for instance, they swept UNC in the ACC regular season), but they're also prone to lose to inferior teams. This year they lost to Western Michigan, Marshall, and NC State -- three times! They're 2-3 in their last five games. A 5 seed seems a little high.

USC. The Trojans can shoot -- they're leading the 5 seeds with a .403 3-point percentage. But they're 2-3 in their last five games, and have a lot of losses to mediocre opponents, including South Carolina, Kansas State, Arizona State, and Washington. Given chances to beat excellent teams like Kansas and UCLA, USC has fallen short every time. They're right on the line between a 5 seed and a 6.

Tennessee. 4-1 over their last five games, with a potent offense (79.7 PPG) and fantastic wins against three of the top teams in the tournament -- Memphis, Texas and Florida -- Tennessee seems undervalued by the selection committee. Though their defense is lousy (74.4 PPG), they still seem more like a 4 seed than a 5.

The 12 seeds:

Old Dominion. They're 4-1 in their last five but were bounced from the CAA tournament by a less-than-stellar George Mason team. They've lost to a couple of bad teams but do have the biggest marquee win of all the 12 seeds -- a 13-point victory at Georgetown. They're a solid 12.

Illinois. The Fighting Illini don't have any amazing wins but they don't have any embarrassing losses, either. They were one of the last teams in but seem appropriately seeded at 12.

Arkansas. The Razorbacks' win against Southern Illinois is a nice one, but their losses to Missouri and Mississippi State aren't too exciting. Overall Arkansas seems pretty mediocre, perhaps a 13 seed in a world with fewer spot-filling upsets in conference tournaments.

Long Beach State. They've barely played anyone -- they lost to the three good teams they played this year, Air Force, USC and UCLA, by an average of 16 points. While they score a lot (80.3 PPG), their uptempo game means they give up points by the bushel (73.8). They are 5-0 in their last five games, but it's hard to imagine this team as better than a 14 seed.

So looking at the matchups...

Butler (6) vs. ODU (12)
Virginia Tech (6) vs. Illinois (12)
USC (low 5) vs. Arkansas (13)
Tennessee (4) vs. Long Beach St. (14)

...it seems as though no one game matches up an overseeded 5 against an underseeded 12. If one 12 could surprise, it's probably ODU, but I'm predicting the 5-12 games will be devoid of upsets in 2007.

March Radness

I mean, clearly UNC is going to win, but Texas scares the crap out of me. How are they a 4 seed?