Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

19 March 2008

Rickles the Softie

I didn't bother to watch John Landis' made-for-HBO documentary about Don Rickles, which (strangely) premiered at the New York Film Festival, but I was curious about the way several news articles and a few reviews seemed delighted to discover that Rickles is actually a gentle soul with a rough exterior. ("What becomes clear in Landis' film is that Rickles is really a softie, a guy who loves humanity and life," said David Wiegand in the San Francisco Chronicle. "The guy they still call Mr. Warmth really is, and that's apparently the worst-kept secret in show business." And Marc Weingarten wrote in the New York Times, "Perhaps the most revealing insight to be gleaned from Mr. Warmth is the fact that for a man that has made a living spewing good-natured venom, Mr. Rickles is remarkably well adjusted.")

These are strange reactions because Rickles' soft side isn't a secret that's been revealed by the film; it's a decades-old part of his act, a part of the carefully crafted image that is Don Rickles. It may be genuine, too — I don't know — but his two personalities helpfully play on the natural appeal of peeking behind a performer's persona. I'm curious about this sort of thing because it's useful not only for making a crude facade more palatable but also for poking holes in an opponent's; witness the recent dust-up over comments made by Barack Obama's pastor, as if they're a window into Obama's secret hatred of America, or, more subtly, a glimpse of the calculating politician within.

My favorite piece of commentary on Rickles is also a commentary on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, and it's a great example of satire, mostly because I'm not entirely sure how it works.

Before they were better known as Spinal Tap (or Lenny & Squiggy), Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, David Lander, and Richard Beebe performed original comedy skits on a Pasadena radio station as The Credibility Gap. "Where's Johnny" is their 1973 audio recreation of the Tonight Show, a parody so precise that it's hard to locate the edge of the knife, even as it begins to turn. Maybe it's in the unusually frank subject matter, but I think it's actually in the compression. When you boil an entire show down to just 14 minutes, the innuendo, chauvinism, homophobia, and Rickles' odd duality bubble to the top.

You can hear "Where's Johnny" free via Rhapsody (requires a quick install). Famed rock critic Robert Christgau called it "the ultimate exposé of a subject you thought didn't need it."

(And while you're at it, here is the group's authorized, rock-n-roll variation of "Who's On First," which requires Real Player. It's a hoot. Via harryshearer.com.)

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Reader Comments

March 19, 2008, 10:12 AM

Maya

That's a great line: "a parody so precise that it's hard to locate the edge of the knife, even as it begins to turn."

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