Jew Eat Yet?

New Year's Eve Scoop!

Good lord, my sister just called from New York where her husband is headlining tonight at Madison Square Garden for New Year’s Eve but they can’t get near the stadium (even though the concert is starting right now) because some lunatic sniper is holed up in the building across the street from Madison Square Garden and is threatening to kill his family members! Sue and Jeff were going to take the subway there because the streets are blocked by millions of revelers but now they’ve closed down the Penn Station subway station because of this incident. I’m sure all will be resolved soon but Jesus, what is happening in this country? Is everyone just a few beats away from grabbing a gun and shooting people indiscriminately? I’ve no doubt that other countries have similar levels of rage and mental illness but what they DON’T have is a system that makes it so easy for deranged people to get their hands on a gun.

I just saw the very depressing film “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” about a real-life guy (beautifully played by Sean Penn) who tried to hijack a plane in 1974 and fly it into the White House. His plan was foiled but he did manage to kill a few people (including himself) on the plane in the process. Oops, sorry if I just gave that away but it’s pretty clear from the beginning of the film that this is what’s going to happen—it’s more about watching his process of transformation from an average schmoe with three kids to an unhinged and hopeless nutcase who is willing to kill innocent people to get on the news. Perhaps 2005 will see us paying more attention to the levels of violence and rage in this country and less to things like Janet Jackson’s left breast. I can’t believe that one NOTHING moment at last year’s Super Bowl caused more consternation than Bush’s disinformation campaign that enabled the war in Iraq. HELP, we are living in crazy times! And yet even though I would never engage in any violent action I can sometimes understand how rage can build up in a person in insidious ways. Even while watching this dark portrayal of increasingly crazed Sam Bicke, I found my own levels of annoyance going off the chart in the movie theatre. This guy in front of me had a large popcorn and a salt shaker (that he “borrowed” from the refreshment stand) and once every minute or so he would salt his popcorn and then loudly shake his bucket for about 15 seconds to mix it in. AAARGH! Recently at the movies a woman behind me got a call on her cell phone in the middle of the film and then TOOK the call, talking to her friend in a perfectly normal voice! Kendall and I turned around and gave her our patented “death stare” but it did no good and when we asked her to hang up or take the call outside the theatre she started yelling at us as if we were depriving her of her civil rights. Serves me right for letting Kendall convince me into seeing a mainstream commercial film.

I didn’t plan on ending my blog posts for the year on such a depressing note! So I'll tell you that the home page of the Wilco site is asking fans to donate to the Indian Ocean Relief Fund (is this the new name of the tragedy?). Wilco fans are famous for being very generous—when the band was giving away free MP3 tracks of "A Ghost Is Born" on their site before the CD was released the fans donated many thousands of dollars they would have spent buying it on various charities. So there is hope for the world after all! Happy New Year to everyone!

In Praise of Sigourney Weaver

I saw this great movie “Imaginary Heroes” the other day starring Sigourney Weaver and thought she was extraordinary. It was another extremely dysfunctional family drama along the lines of “The Ice Storm” and “Ordinary People.” Oh, how I love movies that expose the hideous underbelly of family life even when everything on the surface looks all warm and cozy. Hmm, how interesting then that I still hold such fascination for the purely superficial/always harmonious pop culture families like Andy Hardy’s or the Waltons which I was obsessed with in the 1970s (starting just when my parents were getting a divorce—hello? is there a psychoanalyst in the house?). I even wrote and received letters from Olivia Walton and three of the Walton kids back then. But today I’m only interested in stories where the calm veneer of serene family life is ripped away with a jagged butcher knife and that’s what “Imaginary Heroes” is like. It’s also very funny. Not a perfect film, by any means, except for Sigourney’s performance which in a way is almost like a continuation of her Janey character from “The Ice Storm.” The movie has a period feel like the “Ice Storm” and I thought it was supposed to be the 1970s until I saw the cars and people talking on cell phones. Bottom line is that I’d walk through hot coals to see anything that Sigourney Weaver was in, she is one of the most intelligent actresses around. Why doesn’t she make more movies? Because she’s 55 which is 120 in female movie star years?

One of my all-time favorite exchanges occurs towards the end of the movie between Jeff Daniels’ hapless husband Ben Travis and Sigourney’s Sandy Travis—

Ben: I love you.
Sandy: (beat) You gotta be kidding me.

Brilliance! One of my other favorite movie lines that I quote constantly is from another Sigourney Weaver film when she keeps repeating to anyone who will listen, “I’m trying to have a nervous breakdown but no one is letting me!”

Speaking of family strife, Kendall and I got into a big fight tonight but out of what’s left of any semblance of privacy and human decency I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that while the top-level content had something to do with leftovers from our Christmas Eve party, the real content swirled around issues of fear and trust and control on both of our parts. And yes, this blogger is fully capable of the occasional passive aggressive act when he’s residing in the land of fear and panic. I’m also still learning how to live with another adult human being which is near impossible according to my relationship mentor Katharine Hepburn. But I don’t want to give you the impression that Kendall and I fight a lot. Nothing could be further from the truth and yet I keep talking about the reasons Kendall is mad at me. Is this entire blog one giant act of passive aggression? Probably. Kendall and I are also still learning that we can hate each other for a while and that doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. It’s always helpful to go through the difficult stuff even though part of me at those times wants to hop a freight car to Walton’s Mountain, Virginia. My biggest lesson in this lifetime is to learn to just open my mouth when I’m uncomfortable about something instead of feeling that I have no right to share my feelings.

Blogs: Relationship Savior or Destroyer?

Kendall now insists on reading my blog every night but she can’t figure out how to do it on her ancient computer with her dreaded AOL access so she makes me show it to her after I spend 10 minutes saying “It’s REALLY not worth booting up for!” Of course my computer takes only a few seconds to boot up while you could read the first chapter of “David Copperfield” slower than Melanie Wilkes does in “Gone With the Wind” waiting for Kendall’s computer to get past the smiling Mac icon. System 9 is dead to me now, I can’t even look at Macs that aren’t on OS X.

Kendall thinks she’s going to learn something new about me from reading my blog while I fear she’ll discover just how shallow I really am. But she’s given me carte blanche to spill all about our relationship like the fact that we had a bona fide fight this morning about that ridiculous NASA story about the meteor hitting Earth in 2029. For some reason this information truly terrified her and she claims I wasn’t being sensitive to that. Okay, I did mention it to her about six times after she asked me to stop, but hey, I didn’t tell her that NASA upped the odds from 1 in 300 to 1 in 37 before they decided today to rescind the damn warning altogether. Why are our government agencies hell-bent on causing havoc in my marriage?

I just did a quick google search of Kendall and she is still all over the Internet. Some guy named Bill named her his Best Autodidact. She also appears on a million home-schooling sites because of her book even though that is not really what the book promotes. Oh, Kendall is also mad at me for telling her about the one negative review of her book on Amazon even though I also told her in much greater detail about the other rave reviews. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Kendall simply does not want to know about anything remotely negative whereas I NEED to know all the ugly/frightening stuff before I can even hear the good stuff. Something about the evil eye, I think. If I KNOW everything horrible that might happen, I can somehow control it, right? While Kendall thinks that if she hears something bad, it WILL happen.

Well, maybe I should go talk to Kendall instead of writing about her. On the other hand, in Kendall’s family, writing about a loved one was a far greater compliment than actually paying attention to them in real life. Her father was a playwright who wrote about the family in most of his plays while her mom wrote about the family in her novels. So if the printed word carries more weight than human interaction maybe we'd be smarter to do all our communicating through my blog?

Kill a Tree, Become an Author!

As I mentioned on my links at left, I am an editor for Heinemann, the world’s coolest publisher of progressive, intelligent, and accessible books for K-12 educators. Take a look at our offerings and learn how to bring some glimmer of hope back into the classroom and combat the screwed-up All Children Left Behind policies coming out of Washington these days. In addition to pursuing normal channels, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to put out a blog-appeal to any educators who may have something important to say and would like to consider writing a proposal for us. Heinemann is based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire although I work out of my home here in Los Angeles. I’m especially interested in developing our line of great social studies books, but I also acquire books in other content areas, as do our other fabulous acquisitions editors. If you want to discuss any ideas you have, just click on the email link at right and tell me what you’re thinking about. You can also check out our submission guidelines if you’re ready to write up a proposal. More than ever teachers at all levels need great resources and Heinemann is the place to get them!

And the 2016 Tony Award Goes to...

Leah had such a blast at her surprise party tonight. I think it's the first surprise party I've ever been involved in where the recipient truly had no idea. The look on Leah's face when she walked into Sophie's house and started following the clues to find all her different friends was priceless. The guests were mostly her theatre pals and boy, what a bunch! If some of those kids don't end up winning Tony Awards, I'll eat my Ethel Merman soundtracks! How did ten years pass so quickly? While nothing gives me greater pleasure than watching Leah grow and change and mature, I also feel that there's a bit of grieving that I go through each day as I am constantly saying good-bye to the Leah that was and getting to know the Leah that is.

In one of my most neurotic moments ever, I was driving home from Leah's school the other day when I was suddenly gripped with the fear, "What if the Earth were suddenly to spin off its axis?" I then realized what an insane thought that was. So now I hear today that the earthquake/tsunami in Asia this weekend was so strong that the Earth DID noticeably jiggle in its axis! The reports out of Asia are more horrific with every passing hour, and I've been riveted to the ghastly first-person accounts of people being hurled every which way without a moment's warning. The death toll now is almost 60,000 and they say it's going to go much higher. I don't think there's ever been a natural disaster this huge, certainly not in my lifetime.

And now did you hear about NASA upgrading the risk factor to the highest level ever (1 in 300 chance) of a huge meteor decimating our planet on April 13, 2029?? They still say it's unlikely and that this number will continue to change, but OY, why do we need to know this? As Leah would say when I'm obsessing: "Dad, it's in the future, there's nothing we can do about it now." I'm really not THAT worried about 2029, but it's just such a bizarre, specific date. Kendall is less than pleased that I brought this to her attention. Oh well, at least I'll be 70—but Leah will only be 35. Stop it, Danny, NOTHING is going to happen! Don't we have enough to worry about right here in 2004? I also learned today that tsunamis ARE possible on the west coast and that of all the Pacific states, California is the least prepared. There's good news. Just breathe...

Happy 10th Birthday Leah!

Leah Miller as Peter Quince in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Leah forever leaves behind the single digits today. It seems like a minute ago that she was born on the 7th floor of Cedars-Sinai hospital. Just a few hours before Leah's birth we were at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood watching "The Lion King." Sophie was swallowing nasty gulps of cod liver oil to try to get things going, a recommendation of a nurse midwife we had spoken to that morning. Back at home, Sophie's water broke at about 10:30 pm during a backgammon game. We got to the birthing room a little after 11, and were told that Sophie was barely dilated and it would probably be about nine hours or so until Leah was born but we could stay if we wanted. I was just about to go out to the lobby to tell Sophie's parents who were visiting from Paris when Dr. Crane suddenly shouted, "Hold it! She's coming!" In a scene straight out of "ER," Crane flung off his jacket, knocking down a cart in the process, and rushed to Sophie's bed. One contraction later (in which Sophie went from 2 to 10 centimeters—ouch?) out comes Leah. Her hair was so long and so RED that I first thought it was the blood! And then when just her head was out, she paused and actually looked around the room! A few moments later, at 11:36 pm, on her due date, Leah Anita Rachelle Miller was born. Was there ever a better day than that?

Are Blogs the New Narcissism?

Does having a blog mean you have no life? I hope not, because I’m trying really hard to have one! And there are some amazing blogs out there even though I’d never read one until a few days ago. It’s fun to look at the ones that pop up on random lists and get a feel for what people are thinking about out there. Sometimes I find the extremely banal ones the most fascinating to read even though I wouldn’t necessarily want to sit next to those people at a party. I accidentally came upon a great blog written by Wil Wheaton (from “Stand By Me” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). What a great writer he is—who knew? And I’m not even a Trekkie! My sister is addicted to several blogs written by people she’s never met. Then she starts perusing the blogs that these strangers recommend and gets addicted to those! It’s a wonder she has time to brush her teeth. And my nephew Spencer has the coolest blog ever written by a nine year old! His band “The Blisters” is featured in this week’s Spin magazine. They just had a very successful gig at the Second City Benefit in Chicago and sold an autographed copy of the Spin article for hundreds of dollars!

Jesus, I can’t believe more than 22,000 people were killed in that tsunami yesterday. Since it's happening in south Asia, I wonder if it won't register with some Americans until it’s made into a TV-movie starring Ming-Na as the angry Asian World Health Organization official whose warnings no one would listen to and Tea Leoni as the spoiled American tourist in Thailand who gets a new lease on life after surviving the disaster. And the death toll keeps climbing. Truly frightening. I can't believe I first heard about it on a blog I was reading! Oy, time to put the blogs away and start plowing through the manuscripts on my desk...

Cate Blanchett Is Yar

Speaking of sounding gay (see previous post), can I take a moment to say how fantastic Cate Blanchett's performance is as Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator?" I was completely skeptical that anyone could pull this off without becoming just a caricature (especially since the real Katharine Hepburn was practically a caricature of herself!) but Blanchett nailed it! I've never seen anyone inhabit the role of a real person so completely. And how cool that within a year of Hepburn's death, someone might win an Oscar for playing her on film. Blanchett's performance was way more than an impersonation, although she does master the accent and mannerisms. She is the main reason I'd sit through that film again. Kate Beckinsale is also good as Ava Gardner, although I still prefer Marcia Gay Harden's depiction (I can't even remember what movie that was in). And DiCaprio exceeds expectations as Howard Hughes. The scene where Hughes visits the Hepburns at their Connecticut estate is worth the price of admission. Frances Conroy is great as Katharine Hepburn's mother—you don't even think of her Ruth Fisher character once (or the fact that she's probably very close in age to Cate Blanchett!). Was there any family more fascinating, intelligent, and irritating as the Hepburns?

My favorite Katharine Hepburn movie, of course, is "The Philadelphia Story." I was surprised they didn't mention in "The Aviator" that Howard Hughes bought the film rights to the play for Hepburn, which she then sold to MGM on the condition that she play Tracy Lord. If Hughes hadn't done this, Hepburn would never have been able to star in the film version since that was around the time she was insanely labelled "box-office poison." Here are two of my favorite Katharine Hepburn quotations: "Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four," and "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." To her credit, I think Hepburn always realized what a pain in the ass she was in real life.

Is there any better scene in movie history than when Tracy Lord first meets Macauley Connor and Liz Imbrie?

Tracy: You're a kind of, um, writer, aren't you, Mr. Connor?

Mike: Sort of.

Tracy: A book?

Mike: Yes.

Tracy: Under what name do you publish?

Mike: My own. Macauley Connor.

Tracy: What's the 'Macauley' for?

Mike: Well, my father taught English History. I'm, I'm Mike to my friends.

Tracy: Of whom you have many, I'm sure. English History - it's always fascinated me. Cromwell, Robin Hood, Jack the Ripper. Where did he teach? I mean your father -

Mike: In a little high school in South Bend, Indiana.

Tracy: South Bend! It sounds like dancing, doesn't it? You must have had a most happy childhood there.

Mike: Yeah, it was terrific.

Tracy: I'm so glad.

Mike: No, I didn't mean it that way.

Tracy: I'm so sorry. Why?

Mike: Uh, well, lack of where-with-all I guess.

And then Virginia Weidler's Dinah Lord bursts in ("My real name is Diana but my sister changed it."). The best! But don't even get me started on the horrific Grace Kelly version, "High Society."

Le Gaspillage de Noel

In what I swear is my last anti-Christmas comment of the season, I keep wondering how many landfills need to be created for just that one single day’s worth of wrapping paper. Think of the countless TONS of giftwrap that was manufactured for yesterday and then in a blink of an eye was entirely turned into garbage! Really amazing. It reminds me of the Lily Tomlin story about when she went to a store to buy a trash can, asked them to put it in a bag for her, and then when she got home a few minutes later took it out of the bag and threw the bag away in the new trash can.

That’s one of the reasons why I am determined to start a compost heap in 2005—it’s just nuts not to use all that perfectly good organic material we toss out every day. Of course if Kendall is reading this (and as of last night she knows about my secret blog so I’m no longer safe), she will probably be choking on her Venti Decaf Soy No-Whip Mocha Valenzia since she knows how often I make fun of her commitment to recycling. Let me stress that I am all for recycling and I truly admire Kendall’s efforts but sometimes they are so extreme they practically beg for ridicule. Like when she goes into a near panic when a one-millimeter shred of a ripped up receipt wafts away in the breeze and will chase it down two city blocks, jumping in front of speeding cars in the street so she can grab it for her recycling bin. Not to mention the fact that I’m convinced that half the stuff we put in our blue recycling can doesn’t actually get recycled at all but is just thrown into the same landfill with the rest of our crap. I need to go on Leah’s next field trip to a recycling plant and see for myself how it works. In fact, Leah’s wonderful science teacher, Bruce Flint, who died last summer, was responsible for setting up much of L.A.’s recycling system and I do think of him often when Kendall’s recycling obsession makes me want to do a passive-aggressive pendulum swing and throw away everything in sight while spewing, “If you really want to help the planet, stop buying $5.00 cups of coffee at Starbucks!” Luckily, she usually ignores me at that point since I have no idea how boycotting Starbuck’s would help the planet in any way. Don’t they use child labor or something? Maybe not…

My charming sister, Sue Miller, the former “doyenne of the Chicago music scene,” told me yesterday that no one could read my blog and not think I’m gay. Why, because I’m not writing about football scores and deer hunting? Wait, let me scan my few posts…Andy Hardy, Broadway musicals, old movies, Lily Tomlin…okay, maybe I do sound a little gay! Oh well…just don’t call me metrosexual, I hate that manufactured term and God knows I don’t dress well enough to be gay OR metrosexual!

It Doesn't Snow in Bethlehem

There’s not a single thing about Christmas that is “real,” is there? Don’t historians say that the man we think of as Jesus Christ (if he even existed as ONE person, which I doubt) was born during a summer month some time around 6 B.C.? Why do we even try to associate all the pagan rituals, European customs, and orgy of consumerism with the birth of Christ? Why don’t we just start a new non-denominational holiday called “Happy Day” where everyone runs out and props up the world economy by jettisoning billions of dollars into plastic gifts? Not that this makes anyone Happy in the long or short run. The scale of the mass hypnosis that is Christmas is truly astounding.

On the other hand, although I am a card-carrying LIBERAL, I have no patience this year for the lunacy about not being allowed to say “Merry Christmas” in a public setting for fear you’re going to traumatize someone. What crap. Since I heard about those complaints (and despite my suspicions that Bill O'Reilly made up the whole controversy just to make liberals look bad) I have dropped “Happy Holidays” from my vocabulary and I’m sticking with Christmas all the way, even though the whole season gives me the willies and does make we wonder about our alleged separation of church of state. AND YET, there are a lot of things about Christmas that I do love! As I proved at our Christmas Eve party last night (yes, hosted by this Jew and his converted Jew wife), it’s always the Jews who want to hear the very religious songs, not the dumb secular carols. And we always know them way better than the Christians (see my old essay about what led to this oddity). I had to keep BEGGING for more Jesus last night as our mostly goy crowd kept droning on about Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, and other decidedly un-Christian characters dreamed up by advertising agencies.

I certainly have nothing against gift-giving, I always enjoy giving and receiving presents EXCEPT when it turns into the hellish let-me-just-grab-that-piece-of-crap-for-Uncle-Joe-cause-I-need-something-by-tomorrow OR the how-much-did-she-spend-on-me-oh-shit-I-have-to-get-something-better OR the I’m-completely-broke-but-I’ll-get-three-new-credit-cards-for-the-holidays-because-I-have-to-and-I’ll-just-make-the-minimum-payments-all-year Stinkin’ Thinkin’! I just couldn’t bring myself to participate in that this year—I’d rather spend that cash having people over for home-cooked dinners throughout the year.

So despite my mixed feelings about the holiday (and I could watch the good versions of “A Christmas Carol” and “Miracle on 34th Street” over and over again), I want to go on record saying that I am NOT a Scrooge just because I don’t want to burst a blood vessel trying to park at the Grove!

And now I will begin our day of Christmas party-hopping and feeling guilty that I DON’T have a million gifts for everyone I know. Oy, it’s hell being a conflicted Jew this time of year.