A Shock You’ll Enjoy
By James Patterson
If you love horror films – especially those made during the 1970s – you’ll enjoy Jason Zinoman’s Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror (Penguin, $25.95, 274 pages).
Though many fine horror films were made in the 1960s – such as Night of the Living Dead – according to Zinoman “horror was stuck in the past,” with directors William Castle and Roger Corman, among others, who relied on veteran stars, such as Boris Karloff, to chill drive-in theater audiences. The 1970s became the era of the New Horror, says Zinoman.
It took a new breed of director to push the limits of the horror film into mainstream success. Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets, made in 1968, foretold the demise of traditional horror films, with guys in rubber monster suits. Films about serial killers soon became the rage.
Independent directors like Wes Craven – The Last House on the Left – and Tobe Hooper – The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – used young unknown actors and subjected them to such horrors as on-screen rape and cannibalism. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which introduced audiences to Leatherface, was a mainstream success that moved from drive-in theaters to the Museum of Modern Art, thanks to a mob-connected, New York film distributor flush with cash from the porn classic Deep Throat.
Throughout the ‘70s other directors, like John Carpenter and Ridley Scott, copied Craven and Hooper and produced such memorable films as Halloween, which introduced audiences to serial killer Michael Myers, and Alien, a sci-fi classic with a particularly nasty creature.
This Halloween indulge yourself with Shock Value. It’s a quick, enjoyable, and spooky read.
James Patterson can be reached at jimjptt@aol.com.
(c) 2011 James Patterson
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Is it "He or "She"?
When using pronouns, always remember these Writer's Digest guidelines on two of the more troublesome ones.
Pronoun Problems: "He/She," "He or She," or Just Plain "He"?
Q: Is there a special rule regarding which pronoun to use when talking about a non-specific gender ("he/she," "he or she," "he") or is it completely the writer’s choice? —Jarrett Z.
A: For years, the masculine pronouns (he, his, him) graced most literary work when referring to a non-specific gender. It was an unspoken rule that was sexist and one-sided, but it stood in place for a long time. Being the equal-opportunity pronoun nation that we are today, that rule has changed—or, more precisely, completely disappeared.
Both male and female pro-nouns are acceptable to use when the sex isn’t specified. Therefore it’s OK to write “he/she,” “he or she” or declare one gender to use throughout an article. Many writers will stick with their own biological genes—men tend to use the pronoun “he” while women generally use “she.” Both ways are perfectly fine. The preference lies in the hands of the writer.
Many magazines, including the one you’re reading (Writer's Digest), take a different approach. Writing “his or her” or “his/her” can start to look clunky, and No. 1 on the Writer’s Digest 10 Commandments list states: “Thou shalt avoid clunkiness at all costs.” Our rule is to alternate pro-nouns: If we say “he” in one paragraph referencing a non-specified gender, the next time an example comes up in the article we’ll use “she.” And so on. Switching back and forth is easy to do, gets rid of the clutter and keeps readers from calling you unwanted names.
Pronoun Problems: "He/She," "He or She," or Just Plain "He"?
Q: Is there a special rule regarding which pronoun to use when talking about a non-specific gender ("he/she," "he or she," "he") or is it completely the writer’s choice? —Jarrett Z.
A: For years, the masculine pronouns (he, his, him) graced most literary work when referring to a non-specific gender. It was an unspoken rule that was sexist and one-sided, but it stood in place for a long time. Being the equal-opportunity pronoun nation that we are today, that rule has changed—or, more precisely, completely disappeared.
Both male and female pro-nouns are acceptable to use when the sex isn’t specified. Therefore it’s OK to write “he/she,” “he or she” or declare one gender to use throughout an article. Many writers will stick with their own biological genes—men tend to use the pronoun “he” while women generally use “she.” Both ways are perfectly fine. The preference lies in the hands of the writer.
Many magazines, including the one you’re reading (Writer's Digest), take a different approach. Writing “his or her” or “his/her” can start to look clunky, and No. 1 on the Writer’s Digest 10 Commandments list states: “Thou shalt avoid clunkiness at all costs.” Our rule is to alternate pro-nouns: If we say “he” in one paragraph referencing a non-specified gender, the next time an example comes up in the article we’ll use “she.” And so on. Switching back and forth is easy to do, gets rid of the clutter and keeps readers from calling you unwanted names.
Fewer and Less: Some Guidance from WD
If you've ever been stumped on whether to use "fewer" or "Less," here is guidance from Writer's Digest.
Q: I always thought “fewer” and “less” meant the same thing, but a friend told me I was wrong. What’s the difference?—Anonymous
A: Many people believe “fewer” and “less” are interchangeable, but that’s not true. While both words signify a smaller quantity of something, each has a more specific use.
“Fewer” emphasizes number and modifies plural nouns, as in a smaller number of persons or individual items. Fewer than 20 parents attended last night’s PTA meeting. I have fewer strikeouts than anyone on my softball team.
“Less” focuses on matters of degree, bulk or quantity. It often modifies collective nouns, mass nouns and nouns denoting an abstract whole. I asked our former managing editor, Maria Witte, for an example, and she said, “The more you bug me, Brian, the less respect I have for you.” Respect is measured in degrees, so “less” fits.
When examining a sentence, think of it in terms of individual items vs. quantity. I had less than $20 in my wallet (a quantity). I had fewer than 20 one-dollar bills in my wallet (individual items). Once you understand the definitions, you’ll waste less time and have fewer problems with the issue (Hey, that's a good mnemonic device to remember the difference!).
Pet peeve alert: Never, under any circumstances, use “fewer in number” or “fewer number of people.” It’s redundant and unnecessary. “Fewer people” works just fine.
Q: I always thought “fewer” and “less” meant the same thing, but a friend told me I was wrong. What’s the difference?—Anonymous
A: Many people believe “fewer” and “less” are interchangeable, but that’s not true. While both words signify a smaller quantity of something, each has a more specific use.
“Fewer” emphasizes number and modifies plural nouns, as in a smaller number of persons or individual items. Fewer than 20 parents attended last night’s PTA meeting. I have fewer strikeouts than anyone on my softball team.
“Less” focuses on matters of degree, bulk or quantity. It often modifies collective nouns, mass nouns and nouns denoting an abstract whole. I asked our former managing editor, Maria Witte, for an example, and she said, “The more you bug me, Brian, the less respect I have for you.” Respect is measured in degrees, so “less” fits.
When examining a sentence, think of it in terms of individual items vs. quantity. I had less than $20 in my wallet (a quantity). I had fewer than 20 one-dollar bills in my wallet (individual items). Once you understand the definitions, you’ll waste less time and have fewer problems with the issue (Hey, that's a good mnemonic device to remember the difference!).
Pet peeve alert: Never, under any circumstances, use “fewer in number” or “fewer number of people.” It’s redundant and unnecessary. “Fewer people” works just fine.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Gerald Ford and History
Write It When I’m Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford
By Thomas M. DeFrank
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Price: $25.95
Pages: 258
Year: 2007
Gerald Ford was a remarkable politician and president. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 for income tax evasion and other criminal acts he committed while Maryland governor, President Richard Nixon selected House Minority leader Ford to serve out the balance of Agnew’s term. Ford became the first unelected vice president after he was confirmed by Congress.
In August 1974, Nixon resigned over his role in the Watergate scandal and Ford became the first unelected president. He quickly selected Nelson A. Rockefeller as his vice president.
Ford met DeFrank while he was serving as Vice President. One day Ford reflected on his role as Vice President and his poor treatment by Nixon’s White House staff. “They’re angry and they’re bitter because they know Nixon is finished,” DeFrank told Ford. “It’s over. He (Nixon) can’t survive, and you’re gonna be president.”
“You’re right,” Ford said. “But when the pages of history are written, nobody can say I contributed to it.”
After this conversation, DeFrank promised Ford not to print the conversation until after Ford died. The two men began a friendship that lasted until Ford’s death in 2006. They met on and off over the years to discuss Ford’s presidency, the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Ford felt more in common with Carter than Reagan. “There was a bond because they both felt they had been defeated by Reagan,” Ford biographer James Cannon said. Ford held harsh judgment of Reagan because he refused to campaign for Ford in 1976. Ford considered Reagan “lazy,” “naïve” and “inexperienced.”
The most surprising revelation in the book concerns the relationship between Ford and Bill Clinton. As Clinton was being impeached by the House of Representatives, Ford and Carter wrote an op/ed piece for the New York Times in which they said Clinton’s Oval Office affair with an intern did not constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
During the impeachment hearings, Clinton asked Ford to lobby House Republicans on his behalf and to try and end the impeachment process and spare himself embarrassment. Ford said he would help if Clinton admitted lying under oath. Clinton refused to do that and Ford didn’t lobby for an end of the impeachment process.
Later, Ford told DeFrank that Clinton was a “sex addict.” “Betty and I have talked about this a lot. He’s (Clinton’s) sick—he’s got an addiction. He needs treatment. He’s sick.”
Still, Clinton praised Ford on many occasions. In 1999, Clinton awarded Ford the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony.
Throughout the book, Ford comes across as an able and intelligent politician. He was not a rigid ideologue, but a man who believed in compromise. Ford performed admirably, in the White House and as a private citizen, when history called on him. No other politician has gone through the political ordeal Ford managed with grit and courage. Gerald Ford was a remarkable man.
-30-
Jim Patterson, an economist and journalist, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He worked for President Ford at the 1976 GOP convention in Kansas City.
By Thomas M. DeFrank
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Price: $25.95
Pages: 258
Year: 2007
Gerald Ford was a remarkable politician and president. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 for income tax evasion and other criminal acts he committed while Maryland governor, President Richard Nixon selected House Minority leader Ford to serve out the balance of Agnew’s term. Ford became the first unelected vice president after he was confirmed by Congress.
In August 1974, Nixon resigned over his role in the Watergate scandal and Ford became the first unelected president. He quickly selected Nelson A. Rockefeller as his vice president.
Ford met DeFrank while he was serving as Vice President. One day Ford reflected on his role as Vice President and his poor treatment by Nixon’s White House staff. “They’re angry and they’re bitter because they know Nixon is finished,” DeFrank told Ford. “It’s over. He (Nixon) can’t survive, and you’re gonna be president.”
“You’re right,” Ford said. “But when the pages of history are written, nobody can say I contributed to it.”
After this conversation, DeFrank promised Ford not to print the conversation until after Ford died. The two men began a friendship that lasted until Ford’s death in 2006. They met on and off over the years to discuss Ford’s presidency, the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Ford felt more in common with Carter than Reagan. “There was a bond because they both felt they had been defeated by Reagan,” Ford biographer James Cannon said. Ford held harsh judgment of Reagan because he refused to campaign for Ford in 1976. Ford considered Reagan “lazy,” “naïve” and “inexperienced.”
The most surprising revelation in the book concerns the relationship between Ford and Bill Clinton. As Clinton was being impeached by the House of Representatives, Ford and Carter wrote an op/ed piece for the New York Times in which they said Clinton’s Oval Office affair with an intern did not constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
During the impeachment hearings, Clinton asked Ford to lobby House Republicans on his behalf and to try and end the impeachment process and spare himself embarrassment. Ford said he would help if Clinton admitted lying under oath. Clinton refused to do that and Ford didn’t lobby for an end of the impeachment process.
Later, Ford told DeFrank that Clinton was a “sex addict.” “Betty and I have talked about this a lot. He’s (Clinton’s) sick—he’s got an addiction. He needs treatment. He’s sick.”
Still, Clinton praised Ford on many occasions. In 1999, Clinton awarded Ford the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony.
Throughout the book, Ford comes across as an able and intelligent politician. He was not a rigid ideologue, but a man who believed in compromise. Ford performed admirably, in the White House and as a private citizen, when history called on him. No other politician has gone through the political ordeal Ford managed with grit and courage. Gerald Ford was a remarkable man.
-30-
Jim Patterson, an economist and journalist, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He worked for President Ford at the 1976 GOP convention in Kansas City.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Journalism's Finest Hour
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
Authors: Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
Publisher: Knopf
Pages: 518
Year: 2006
Price $30
Book Review:
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Knopf) by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff is a history of race journalism in America.
During the segregation era, national newspapers assigned reporters to report on black issues in the South. The Emmett Till murder, integration at the University of Mississippi, and peaceful civil rights demonstrations led by Dr. Martin Luther King were big news events but most southern newspapers either refused to report on them or reported biased accounts of the events.
After the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954, reporters flocked to the South to cover integration and resistance to it. Some states voluntarily integrated; Mississippi and Alabama refused. When Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett to integrate schools, Barnett said, “There is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide.”
Alabama Gov. George Wallace was equally defiant. When ordered to integrate the University of Alabama, Wallace stood in the doorway of the registrar’s office to prevent two black students from enrolling. He stepped aside after federal officials read him a statement from Attorney General Kennedy.
“Reporters were drawn to [Wallace] like biologists are drawn to the unexpected emergencies of an old virus they believed had been exterminated,” the authors write.
Roberts and Klibanoff hold the view that civil rights victories in the South were a joint effort by Dr. King and other leaders and the reporters who covered the speeches, marches and killings. They prove their view in this excellent book.
-30-
Jim Patterson, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, is an award-winning journalist based in San Francisco.
Authors: Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
Publisher: Knopf
Pages: 518
Year: 2006
Price $30
Book Review:
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Knopf) by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff is a history of race journalism in America.
During the segregation era, national newspapers assigned reporters to report on black issues in the South. The Emmett Till murder, integration at the University of Mississippi, and peaceful civil rights demonstrations led by Dr. Martin Luther King were big news events but most southern newspapers either refused to report on them or reported biased accounts of the events.
After the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954, reporters flocked to the South to cover integration and resistance to it. Some states voluntarily integrated; Mississippi and Alabama refused. When Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett to integrate schools, Barnett said, “There is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide.”
Alabama Gov. George Wallace was equally defiant. When ordered to integrate the University of Alabama, Wallace stood in the doorway of the registrar’s office to prevent two black students from enrolling. He stepped aside after federal officials read him a statement from Attorney General Kennedy.
“Reporters were drawn to [Wallace] like biologists are drawn to the unexpected emergencies of an old virus they believed had been exterminated,” the authors write.
Roberts and Klibanoff hold the view that civil rights victories in the South were a joint effort by Dr. King and other leaders and the reporters who covered the speeches, marches and killings. They prove their view in this excellent book.
-30-
Jim Patterson, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, is an award-winning journalist based in San Francisco.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Fame! Fame! Fame!
Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truth Behind America’s Favorite Addition
Author: Jake Halpern
Published: 2007
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Fame Junkies is the book the fame industry doesn’t want you to read. At times funny, other times sad, Jake Halpern, author of Braving Home, has written an excellent critical account of what it means to be famous in America.
There are many striking examples of what passes for fame in America today. Halpern starts off with hip-hop star J-Kwon, who had a six-inch long bar code tattooed on his forearm. Why? “I got the bar code because I knew that someday I’d be a product,” he told Halpern. J-Kwon has earned some fame in the hip-hop world and the respect of countless other hip-hop wannabes.
Our culture of celebrity got its start, Halpern says, from the long ago television program Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Today Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and American Idol feed society’s young, and not so young, with visions of instant fame and wealth. American Idol, Halpern tells us, “has more viewers than the nightly news on the three major networks combined.”
Magazines like People, Teen People and US Weekly, as well as the supermarket tabloids, keep us informed about the every movement of Brad and Jen, Nick and Jessica, Britney and Kevin, Paris and Nicole and all the rest. We have a 24/7 cycle of celebrity. Enquiring minds want to know who is with whom and for how long and what the breakup was about.
These TV programs and magazines have brainwashed legions of kids into thinking they too can be famous. Halpern introduces us to Personal Best, a small town fame school for kids wanting to be stars of commercials, billboards or, the ultimate, a national television program.
The school, conveniently for Halpern, is located in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Jessica White is a Personal Best graduate. You might have seen a lot of her in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
A former beauty queen, also a local TV “movie lady,” manages Personal Best for kids of varying ages who want to learn acting and modeling so they can go to Los Angeles and be famous. Halpern meets one young lady who immediately tells him, “You can ask anyone in my family or any of my friends, and they will tell you that what I want more than anything is to be famous.” It is a desire she shares with others at the school.
Instead of memorizing poetry or historical speeches, kids at Personal Best memorize mouthwash commercials in hopes it will lead to fame and fortune. And their parents pay good money for them to get this “training.” As the reader gradually learns, when dreams of fame are at stake, no expense is too great.
Students at Personal Best are trained to go to the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) convention in New York City. Many of Buffalo’s budding young talents have never been to New York City and, in some cases families can barely afford the trip and the convention fees, which Halpern estimates at $10,000. Since West Coast agents will attend the convention, families intent on fame find the money to attend.
Throughout the book, Halpern interviewed psychologists and educators who study fame and celebrity. It helps readers understand some of the illogical behaviors of the fame seekers.
One psychologist says, “The danger is that if these adolescents don’t curb all this daydreaming with a healthy dose of reality, they could end up in relationships that are manipulative or exploitive.” This seems excellent advice for the many young girls intent on fame at any cost.
From New York, Halpern takes us to the IMTA convention in Los Angeles. It is here that Ashton Kutcher and Elijah Wood were discovered. Equipped with a press badge, Halpern is besieged by kids wanting to give him their “head shots” along with a speech on why they want to be famous. After one young boy delivers his speech, a veteran of the conventions tells Halpern “it takes balls to do what that kid is doing.”
Halpern leaves the convention to visit a colony of young would be stars and starlets at Oakwood Toluca Hills, just outside Hollywood. Built in 1971, the gated community has 1,151 apartments. Some of the kids live with a parent or guardian while older kids room together.
Hilary Swank and Jamie Foxx passed though Oakwood. Sadly, many parents finance their kids’ stay at Oakwood with money that would have been used to finance college. Alas, economics and life are all about choices.
For those who don’t have the confidence to become a celebrity, there is still fame to be found in the Association of Celebrity Personal Assistants. I found this the saddest chapter. One guy works as a personal assistant to Tiffani Thiesen, a star of the 1990s show Beverly Hills 90210.
The show may be defunct, but we learn from “celebrities” like Thiesen, and the guy who assists her, that once granted celebrity status is permanent. The average celebrity personal assistant earns $56,000 annually, but psychologists suggest they also get satisfaction from the reflected glory of being near a celebrity.
Halpern learns from an academic that teen participants in a survey preferred dinner with Paris Hilton and 50 Cent rather than Jesus Christ. Halpern also informs us that teens prefer celebrity status by a wide margin over careers as political or corporate leaders. Dismal news? At least one academic suggests teen minds will likely change with maturity.
The author condenses celebrity craziness to a single person: Marcy Braunstein, a Pittsburg housewife who idolizes rock star Rod Stewart. She has a “Rod Room” in her house with such items as a glass he drank from. She travels around the world to see his performances.
Why does she love Rod Stewart? “It’s the whole package—the hair, the raspy tenor of the voice, the high cheekbones—it just drives me crazy,” Braunstein tells Halpern. When she learns Stewart has no star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she takes this on with a personal zeal that astounds.
Braunstein succeeds and gets Rod his star. She even gets to give a speech when it is unveiled in a high profile Hollywood ceremony. Stewart is appreciative, but not overly affectionate to the obsessed Braunstein.
Halpern ends his critical look at fame at The Fund, a Woodland Hills, California, retirement home, where he meets some of Hollywood’s octogenarian stars. They manage to keep their spirits high by waiting, hoping and praying for a comeback and an Academy Award.
“Ultimately, our obsession with celebrities isn’t about them; it’s about us and our needs,” Halpern writes. “We love them, or hate them, or pity them, or profess not to care but secretly do. In one way or another we use them. And when they grow old and lose the traits that once made them noteworthy--when they become frail, aged mortals like the residents of The Fund--we conveniently forget them, because they no longer serve our needs.”
Fame Junkies is an excellent critical appraisal of the American love affair with celebrity and fame. After reading this book, I suspect readers will think beyond the smiling faces on TV and magazine covers to the kids who spent everything and got nothing in return. This book is an instant classic of our times.
-30-Jim Patterson, an economist and freelance journalist, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. A former Washingtonian, he now writes from San Francisco.
Author: Jake Halpern
Published: 2007
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Fame Junkies is the book the fame industry doesn’t want you to read. At times funny, other times sad, Jake Halpern, author of Braving Home, has written an excellent critical account of what it means to be famous in America.
There are many striking examples of what passes for fame in America today. Halpern starts off with hip-hop star J-Kwon, who had a six-inch long bar code tattooed on his forearm. Why? “I got the bar code because I knew that someday I’d be a product,” he told Halpern. J-Kwon has earned some fame in the hip-hop world and the respect of countless other hip-hop wannabes.
Our culture of celebrity got its start, Halpern says, from the long ago television program Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Today Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and American Idol feed society’s young, and not so young, with visions of instant fame and wealth. American Idol, Halpern tells us, “has more viewers than the nightly news on the three major networks combined.”
Magazines like People, Teen People and US Weekly, as well as the supermarket tabloids, keep us informed about the every movement of Brad and Jen, Nick and Jessica, Britney and Kevin, Paris and Nicole and all the rest. We have a 24/7 cycle of celebrity. Enquiring minds want to know who is with whom and for how long and what the breakup was about.
These TV programs and magazines have brainwashed legions of kids into thinking they too can be famous. Halpern introduces us to Personal Best, a small town fame school for kids wanting to be stars of commercials, billboards or, the ultimate, a national television program.
The school, conveniently for Halpern, is located in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Jessica White is a Personal Best graduate. You might have seen a lot of her in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
A former beauty queen, also a local TV “movie lady,” manages Personal Best for kids of varying ages who want to learn acting and modeling so they can go to Los Angeles and be famous. Halpern meets one young lady who immediately tells him, “You can ask anyone in my family or any of my friends, and they will tell you that what I want more than anything is to be famous.” It is a desire she shares with others at the school.
Instead of memorizing poetry or historical speeches, kids at Personal Best memorize mouthwash commercials in hopes it will lead to fame and fortune. And their parents pay good money for them to get this “training.” As the reader gradually learns, when dreams of fame are at stake, no expense is too great.
Students at Personal Best are trained to go to the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) convention in New York City. Many of Buffalo’s budding young talents have never been to New York City and, in some cases families can barely afford the trip and the convention fees, which Halpern estimates at $10,000. Since West Coast agents will attend the convention, families intent on fame find the money to attend.
Throughout the book, Halpern interviewed psychologists and educators who study fame and celebrity. It helps readers understand some of the illogical behaviors of the fame seekers.
One psychologist says, “The danger is that if these adolescents don’t curb all this daydreaming with a healthy dose of reality, they could end up in relationships that are manipulative or exploitive.” This seems excellent advice for the many young girls intent on fame at any cost.
From New York, Halpern takes us to the IMTA convention in Los Angeles. It is here that Ashton Kutcher and Elijah Wood were discovered. Equipped with a press badge, Halpern is besieged by kids wanting to give him their “head shots” along with a speech on why they want to be famous. After one young boy delivers his speech, a veteran of the conventions tells Halpern “it takes balls to do what that kid is doing.”
Halpern leaves the convention to visit a colony of young would be stars and starlets at Oakwood Toluca Hills, just outside Hollywood. Built in 1971, the gated community has 1,151 apartments. Some of the kids live with a parent or guardian while older kids room together.
Hilary Swank and Jamie Foxx passed though Oakwood. Sadly, many parents finance their kids’ stay at Oakwood with money that would have been used to finance college. Alas, economics and life are all about choices.
For those who don’t have the confidence to become a celebrity, there is still fame to be found in the Association of Celebrity Personal Assistants. I found this the saddest chapter. One guy works as a personal assistant to Tiffani Thiesen, a star of the 1990s show Beverly Hills 90210.
The show may be defunct, but we learn from “celebrities” like Thiesen, and the guy who assists her, that once granted celebrity status is permanent. The average celebrity personal assistant earns $56,000 annually, but psychologists suggest they also get satisfaction from the reflected glory of being near a celebrity.
Halpern learns from an academic that teen participants in a survey preferred dinner with Paris Hilton and 50 Cent rather than Jesus Christ. Halpern also informs us that teens prefer celebrity status by a wide margin over careers as political or corporate leaders. Dismal news? At least one academic suggests teen minds will likely change with maturity.
The author condenses celebrity craziness to a single person: Marcy Braunstein, a Pittsburg housewife who idolizes rock star Rod Stewart. She has a “Rod Room” in her house with such items as a glass he drank from. She travels around the world to see his performances.
Why does she love Rod Stewart? “It’s the whole package—the hair, the raspy tenor of the voice, the high cheekbones—it just drives me crazy,” Braunstein tells Halpern. When she learns Stewart has no star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she takes this on with a personal zeal that astounds.
Braunstein succeeds and gets Rod his star. She even gets to give a speech when it is unveiled in a high profile Hollywood ceremony. Stewart is appreciative, but not overly affectionate to the obsessed Braunstein.
Halpern ends his critical look at fame at The Fund, a Woodland Hills, California, retirement home, where he meets some of Hollywood’s octogenarian stars. They manage to keep their spirits high by waiting, hoping and praying for a comeback and an Academy Award.
“Ultimately, our obsession with celebrities isn’t about them; it’s about us and our needs,” Halpern writes. “We love them, or hate them, or pity them, or profess not to care but secretly do. In one way or another we use them. And when they grow old and lose the traits that once made them noteworthy--when they become frail, aged mortals like the residents of The Fund--we conveniently forget them, because they no longer serve our needs.”
Fame Junkies is an excellent critical appraisal of the American love affair with celebrity and fame. After reading this book, I suspect readers will think beyond the smiling faces on TV and magazine covers to the kids who spent everything and got nothing in return. This book is an instant classic of our times.
-30-Jim Patterson, an economist and freelance journalist, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. A former Washingtonian, he now writes from San Francisco.
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