How to Turn a Mediocre Biography into a Terrible Biography -- Stan: The Life of Stan Laurel

Even the cover sucks.

I'm a huge fan of biographies and autobiographies. One of the best books I've read in the past ten years is The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (seriously, that man was a champ!). Until recently, I don't recall ever being unsatisfied by one*. Obviously, I choose the books based on an interest in the subject, but after reading Stan: The Life of Stan Laurel, it's apparent that an interest in the subject is not all you need.

Stan (the book, as opposed to Stan, the man, who will be referred to as Laurel) is certainly an easy enough read and mildly informative, but the author, Fred Lawrence Guiles writes from the perspective of an uninformed fan. He assures the reader that he has done research, yet there are no foot/endnotes and it isn't apparent he interviewed anyone for the biography (or even culled past interviews if he couldn't get in contact with key characters). Guiles continually asserts that Laurel was nearly as great, if not equal to, Charlie Chaplin** in writing gags, yet gives no insight into how. The reader is told that Laurel was a driving force in his career, yet there is no one there to confirm the claim. Guiles' authority is undermined by his vagueness. Basically, all I got out of Stan was that Laurel had a trouble with women and alcohol. Pretty bland.

If the above represented the worst of the book, that would be fine. I'd put it back on the shelf to be forgotten. An easy, mildly interesting, ultimately fleeting read. Then, the reader begins to get insights into what kind of person Guiles is, culminating with (and this will be a long quote):

Jean Arthur is important to this chronicle of the fortunes of Stan Laurel because she as much as anyone was a transitional figure. She was in some ways as innocent as Stan and Babe. She was daft in ways that were akin to those small madnesses that set Stan apart from Lloyd and even Chaplin. If she had ever appeared as Mrs. Laurel in one of their comedies, she would have seemed almost too much at home. There would have been nothing for Stan to play against, since she was as much not-of-this-world as he. But Jean was attractive, warm and in every way enchanting. Beginning with her role opposite Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), she was the first -- albeit quite innocently -- to bring down the curtain on slapstick as a favourite movie mode. Shortly after word, Irene Dunne joined her with Theodora Goes Wild (1936), and Carold Lombard, whose My Man Godfrey (1936) had come out at about the same time as Theodora.

Laurel and Hardy would survive this female revolution for another two years, but after 1938 it would be downhill for the rest of their careers. Some writers remarked that the movies had "grown up." Actually, as we survey the devastation and loss, the movies suffered a grievous wound that would never heal and audiences a deprivation of incalculable dimensions (emphasis mine).

There's a lot to unpack here, and I'm not sure I'm up to the task, so I'll start with the obvious: how can one possibly claim that women gaining prominence as comedians ruined Laurel and Hardy and CINEMA AS A WHOLE? Guiles leaps to the most extreme conclusion possible ignoring the fact that Laurel and Hardy had been making films as a team ten years by that point and that Laurel had been making movies since 1917. Perhaps they were just running their course and it's meer coincidence that women were making popular, funny movies at the same time. Additionally, Guiles book was published initially in 1980 and released again (with some additional commentary from the author) in 1991. Is the author suggesting that the 1970's, often held up as the greatest decade of filmmaking alongside the 1930's, would have been EVEN BETTER if funny women hadn't become so damn popular? And these lists are by no means comprehensive or even authoritative (as it's all subjective), but is he suggesting that it would be filled with movies of an incomprehensible greatness if only Laurel and Hardy had remained on top?

I've got news for Fred Lawrence Guiles (whose works include not one but TWO biographies of Marilyn Monroe alongside Jane Fonda, Tyrone Power, Marion Davies and Andy Warhol), movies were just fine. Simply because your preferred funny people stopped*** making the funny as funny as you liked and other people's funny was preferred, that doesn't mean cinema broke. And it certainly doesn't mean you get to write stupid things for other people to read in your mediocre book.

Some joy to cleanse the palate:






*As a side discussion, I find that I'm generally satisfied with all the books I read. At least to the extent that I have no qualms finishing them, thought there are some I struggled through ( On the Road and other that I finished simply to claim I finished them (Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day, which, of its 1000+ pages, I remember dirigibles and the Chicago World's Fair. But I finished it!). I chalk it up to knowing that a book can be  a significant time investment so I try to stick with things somewhat in my taste wheelhouse.


**From my perspective, this could easily be true. I find most of Chaplin's work to be fairly dull, overly saccharine, and immensely on-the-nose. The man wasn't subtle. His most interesting film (to me), Monsieur Verdoux, offers many good ideas and he kills them all with a terribly obvious and awkward speech at the end. Give me Buster Keaton any and every day, followed by Laurel and Hardy, then the Marx Brothers, Harold Lloyd, Abbott and Costello...


***Did you know stoppled is a word? It means plugged or clogged. Do with that what you will.

Why Yes, I Am Alive

I've been off the map for going on three weeks now. There's no doubt that you've all been chomping at the bit for more of my patented mind nuggets and I've failed you. This post will do little to quell that hunger aside from assuring you that there is a light on the horizon.

Surprisingly, buying a house and moving into it is a time consuming process. There's the pre-move prep (which I've already touched upon) and an endless list of things you want to do and the things you have to do (hello, home inspection report). The effort to prioritize the fun with the practical is taxing to say the least and that's before trying to decide if we can afford it (I'll give you a hint: no). And we can't forget the projects that crop up all last minute like and jump to the front-burner. It almost feels like in Tetris when you're trying to fill the screen with those blocks but they keep disappearing when you make a completely row*. Our progress keeps disappearing.

Andrea and I still aren't completely moved in even though it's been about a month since we closed. In addition to the odd jobs mentioned above, we've also been unpacking slowly to assess our Stuff. Do we need this much Stuff? Why do we have several of that Stuff? When was the last time we use this Stuff? There's some Stuff I've never even seen before. Toss that into the yard sale/Goodwill/trash pile. Intelligent people would take care of this before they move so they don't pack a bunch of Stuff they don't need. But doing that would take an organizational level that doesn't exist in our lives right now (possibly even before).

Finally, any time I'm at work, Andrea can write her night off. It's her and the baby and the baby hates productivity. It might be his least favorite thing in the world, next to the car seat and getting changed. So one of these days the house will be set up and we'll invite you over and I'll start writing more specifically about the move, the baby, movies, and general rants against humanity. It will all be worth it, I promise.

*That is the point of Tetris, right?

On Painting*

Whether buying or renting, painting the interior of your house always seems like a good idea. It can make a room seem more vibrant and home-y. Best of all, one have lots of fun with the paint choices to add little quirks that perhaps the house doesn't have and to reflect one's personality a bit. Plus, everyone loves painting. It's great. You can write funny things on the wall and paint on your friends. Except, no, painting sucks. The idea of painting is amazing. But painting sucks.

I somehow forget that painting sucks even though I've done it enough to know better. It's like how a woman's body released chemicals to help her forget that childbirth is a taxing and painful experience. Andrea and I just bought a house together (OK, she bought it because I'm a deadbeat with a lot of debt) and the entire thing, inside and out, is white. Just looking at those bare walls filled our minds with possibilities. What colors do we want? Do we want to do an patterns or lines around the room? Should we paint the ceiling? If so, should it be the same color as the walls?

We came up with color ideas for the boy's room first and went to check out swatches. After grabbing more swatches than we would ever need (and spending a good twenty to thirty minutes looking through them) we returned home to mix and match in order to find the colors that best complimented each other (people don't put nearly enough value on whether or not the colors are nice to one another). There were times during this process that it felt like we were planning a heist, taking every contingency into account. "If we use this color, then it we can't use this one, but we can use this one which doesn't go with this one, which I really like. However, if we use this one, then this one, this one, and this one are all in play." It's ridiculous and time consuming and I can totally see why someone might paint their entire house one bland color because it's so much easier. And, of course, all this strategizing come with the knowledge that, while these colors a nice on a small piece of paper, they will look completely different covering a whole wall or even a room.

Now we're ready to buy the paint except we only have a rough idea of how much we need and a solid idea that we don't want to buy too little. We (Andrea) just bought a house and, having done so, just put down a considerable down-payment. Lord knows we don't want to spend too much on this project. We buy what we think we need and head off. The fun and excitement were imminent.

It's not that I forgot that you have to tape along all the areas you don't want to get paint on. It's that I forgot how annoying it is getting the tape to line up perfectly along the corner even though the wall isn't entirely straight across. And we get to do this twice! Because you need to put (at least) two coats on every surface! And since we have a textured wall and ceiling, the tape doesn't sit flat at all points so the paint seeps under slightly which makes the exercise seem vaguely futile. But we do it anyway.

In addition to the taping prep, there's also the patching and sanding of every little whole the previous resident put in the walls. I'm not sure what the son did in his bedroom, but it looked like he was throwing darts at about two feet up from the floor. This process also entails removing the ugly, ugly curtains and their settings which were screwed in in wildly inconsistent and inconvenient manners. Were I not so level headed, I might have just ripped them off the wall out of frustration.

Once things are all taped, there's a sense of relief. Now I can get some real painting done! Just after I get every corner and edge with this small roller/brush. Seriously, but the time you get to the fun, eventful, and efficient painting, you're ready to quit. One hour to prep, one our to corner, fifteen minutes to fill in the rest.

Of course, painting the ceiling is it's own bit a fun. Our ceilings are eight-ish feet tall. Too low to require a ladder and just high enough to put strain on my back. A wrinkle is added with painting the ceiling, too: gravity. I don't really notice the tiny bits of paint that occasionally fly off the roller while painting the walls, but when I'm painting right above my head, I can't help to because the either hit my face, glasses, or my eyes. True, I could be wearing goggles, but who thinks about that when buying paint supplies? And, because I'm an idiot, while I was walking around, looking at the ceiling and painting, I forgot where I was in the room and stepped right into the paint tray. Not only did I make a mess, but it was the last of the paint and I already wasn't sure if we'd have enough to finish the room (after I poured the spillage from the plastic on the floor back into the pan, we did). At least Andrea learned a lesson: if she ever hears me yell "FUCK!" she should always bring the camera with her just in case my shoe is covered in green paint.

By the time the second coat is going on, resignation sets in. The process sucks, but you'll be done after this coat. Except without decent lighting (we don't have decent lighting) it's nearly impossible to see where you've already painted. I spent most of the time with the roller in one hand and my phone-as-flashlight in the other. A situation that isn't ideal for painting a ceiling.

None of this would be remotely as bad if it wasn't for one mitigating factor: we have a two month old baby. If there's anything that crushes productivity, it's a baby (even now, I have to pause my writing to give him some attention). He turns a two person effort into one. I know it's not ideal to have a baby around paint and we do our best to isolate him. Put him in another room with the windows open and a fan on. We're using low VOC paint. But the boy has demands and sometimes those demands take a good forty-five minutes to meet and then ten minutes later, he wants more. Doesn't he realize the faster we get this done, the better it will be for him? Also, yelling "FUCK!" is a sure fire way to wake a sleeping kid up.

We're about a halfway to two-thirds done, and the place is starting to look great. And soon I'll go back to forgetting about how much painting sucks and enjoying my new home. And maybe then we'll tackle the outside.

*Pictures to come later.

My Work Is Now EVEN MORE Famous Than Yours

I already told you about the commercial that was shot in my place of work. Well, now NPR has picked up on a bit of Hollywood Theatre programming: Hecklevision. In conjunction with the Portland Mercury, we show a film that is rife for gentle mocking. Thus far, we've shown the likes of Red Dawn and Commando.

Click here to listen to the Mercury's Erik Henrikson take Robert Siegel to task for his astoundingly wrong opinion of Point Break. While we're taking people to task, it's Hollywood Theatre, not Theater, and I'm sure Erik would like people to know his name is spelled with a "k" and not a "c."

photo by the Portland Mercury

Stupid Headlines

I know that headlines are supposed to grab one's attention so people will want to read an article and if I see one that's particularly outrageous, I kind of appreciate it. But when headlines strive to simply be informative yet they are still ridiculous, that's when I take umbrage. Case in point:

Halfway down, there's a link that I clicked (it is on CNN.com). It says "Paralyzed boy stuns class, walks." Obviously, it's about a paralyzed boy who stunned his class BY walking. However, the headline suggests that the boy somehow hit his glass with some kind of stun gun and walks out. 

You know what? I don't know why I'm complaining. I'm just going to ignore the link and pretend that's exactly what happened.

PARALYZED BOY: Hey jerks! I'm tired of all your sympathetic looks.

ZAP! He fires stun gun.

He gets up from his wheelchair, takes a few steps and turns to the unconscious class.

PB: That's right fuckers. I can walk now.

Puts on sunglasses.

PB: Shocked? 

Turns and leaves.

My Work Is Famous (and so is my coworker)

A few of you have visited me here in Portland and a few more will be visiting this summer. Those who have visited have received the tour of my place of work: the Hollywood Theatre. Those who will be coming, I will push, prod, poke, and pressure to visit the grand old building. It's a  great place to work and is one of the oldest theaters in the city, built in 1926. The entire Hollywood District is named after it. Oh, and it's starring in a motherfucking commercial*!


It should be noted that, due to the prices of corn steadily rising, we've had to adjust the price of the popcorn mentioned in the commercial. There's no word as to whether Progressive has done the same.

Also, that stellar paint job was donated by the Tradesperson of the Year, Joel Hamburg.

*Sorry for cursing, but it's pretty damn rad**.


**There I go again.

My Sister, My Nephew

Most of you who would read this post are probably already aware of the uncanny likeness between my older sister and her son, but I want to share it with everyone. It's remarkable that it was only noticed in the past month. Remarkable and hilarious.

Sam

Mandy, or Sam in drag?