WGA STRIKE - AN UPDATE

Thanks to the cats at Creative Screenwriting magazine and writer Peter Clines, here's an update on the Writer's Strike.

30 Days of Strike: The Month In Review

By Peter Clines

For many of us, the past month has been a whirlwind of picketing, news reports, and negotiating-room hearsay. With the flood of information available, a fair share of rumors have been treated as fact while other, more relevant stories were all but ignored. As the strike hits the ominous 30-day mark, Creative Screenwriting re-examines some of the major events of the past four weeks, including a few that probably didn't receive all the press they should have.
Monday, Nov. 5-Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) go on strike and begin to picket studios after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) walk out of negotiations the night before, claiming a lack of faith. The picket lines are immediately joined by members of the Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all pledge their support.

Nov. 6-Production shuts down on the hit sitcom The Office after lead actor Steve Carell refuses to cross a picket line. Ellen DeGeneres returns to work on her talk show and receives scathing criticism from the WGA and strike supporters.

Nov. 7-Fox fires many writing assistants and associated staff from struck shows. The network also announces the indefinite postponement of season seven of 24, citing a desire to give the show "its standard uninterrupted run" when it does air. Desperate Housewives and Law & Order: SVU also cease production due to lack of scripts.

Nov. 9-The WGA stages a rally at Fox studios, and over 4,000 writers and supporters show up. Speakers include WGA President Patric Verrone and Family Guy creator/showrunner Seth McFarlane. McFarlane compares the earlier firing of his staff to an abusive parent slapping a helpless child and saying, "Look what you made me do!"

Nov. 10-In New York, Broadway stage hands go on strike, closing over two-dozen theatrical shows, including The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Monday, Nov. 12-The "Voices of Uncertainty" video appears on YouTube, showing news interview clips of Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, and other media moguls proudly announcing how much money they are making and will continue to make off digital revenues. Also on this day, the Producers Guild of America (PGA) sends letters to Variety and Deadline Hollywood asking that the AMPTP not be referred to as "producers" in future reporting. NBC fires the entire staff and crew of The Office.

Nov. 13-David Letterman announces he will pay all WorldWide Pants employees on The Late Show and The Late Late Show out of his own pocket through the rest of the year, even though production has shut down.

Nov. 14-A poll conducted by Pepperdyne University shows that 69% of the public supports the writers. Support for the AMPTP comes in at 4%. A similar poll by SurveyUSA shows writer support at 63%.

Nov. 15-Singer Garth Brooks cancels a scheduled appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show in support of the strike. Production shuts down on The Bionic Woman, one of several shows kept on the air despite sagging ratings.

Nov. 16-Both sides announce that they will resume negotiations after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This same day, production is pushed indefinitely on Ron Howard's Angels & Demons (a prequel to The DaVinci Code) due to script issues. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is on picket lines.

Monday, Nov. 19-Several media buyers (the folks who buy advertising time from television networks) announce the possibility of asking for refunds or renegotiations if the strike continues into the next month and affects the second financial quarter. On this same day, CBS news writers vote to authorize a strike, although one is not called. Production is also pushed indefinitely on Johnny Depp's passion project Shantaram, with a screenplay by Eric Roth, and on the Weinstein Company's Nine, being adapted by Michael Tolkin. Both films claim unresolved script issues as the reason for the delay.

Nov. 20-The WGA stages a march down Hollywood Blvd., starting at Ivar and ending at the legendary Chinese Theatre. Singer Alicia Keys performs at the start of the rally. The screenwriters are joined again by actors and Teamsters, along with members of the Service Employees International Union and the California Nurses Association. Estimates again put attendance at over 4,000.

Nov. 21-Picketing ends for the long holiday weekend. Brad Pitt bows out of Universal's State of Play, claiming the script by Matthew Michael Carnahan is not ready to shoot. Carnahan is unavailable for rewrites because of the strike.

Nov. 22-Thanksgiving Day. The first of the "Speechless" videos appears on the web, a series of public service announcements conceived by director George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) and screenwriter Alan Sereboff (Snowblind), hoping to show the public the vital importance of writers in the creative filmmaking process.

Monday, Nov. 26-Strike talks finally resume under a media blackout. On this same day, NBC announces a deal with Netflix to offer episodes of hit shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and Friday Night Lights the day after they air via the "Watch Now" online service.

Nov. 27-Late-late night talk show host Carson Daly crosses picket lines and returns to work despite harsh criticism from the WGA and supporters. He claims he has supported the strike for three weeks and now must support his staff.

Nov. 28-Democrats cancel a televised presidential debate on CBS, scheduled for December 10th, when the candidates announce they will not cross possible picket lines. At the negotiating table, the WGA presents their latest offer for a contract, complete with an economic breakdown of what it would cost on a per-studio basis.

Nov. 29-Conan O'Brien announces he is paying his staff members out of his own pocket, even though production on Late Night has been shut down. After three days of pushing their pre-strike deal and conditions, the AMPTP finally presents a new set of offers, which the WGA refers to as "a massive rollback."

Nov. 30-The Broadway strike ends after less than three weeks. Theatrical producers stress that the important matter was always reaching a mutually agreeable compromise and getting the shows up and running again as quickly as possible.

Monday, Dec. 3-Twentieth Century Fox prepares to close a deal that will make its films available on iTunes, one of the main conditions being that Apple must raise prices. On this same day, the last new episode of Heroes airs on television with a somewhat truncated ending written before the strike by creator Tim Kring so fans could have some closure. During commercials, as always, NBC urges fans to watch whole episodes online at the network website.

Dec. 4-The summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is released on DVD. If it does as well as Dead Man's Chest (which had almost $5 million in sales its first day on the shelves), long-time Pirates scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio can expect a little less than $6,700 in writing residuals under the current system.

With the holidays closing in fast, it can only be expected that both sides will be even more active in the month to come. And yet, Creative Screenwriting still hopes there will be no need for a second recap at the start of next month.

Read More

AWESOME 'SPEED RACER' PICS LEAKED

Growing up, who didn't watch the anime toon "Speed Racer?" While it's been stuck in development Hell, the Wachowski brothers wanted to bring the project to the screen with Johnny Depp. Never happened. They did, however, invent a whole new look for their upcoming adaptation for Warner Bros. pictures.

USA Today has recently published the first 8 photos from the feature which show off the new film's stunning look. Action producer Joel Silver ("The Matrix," et al.) calls the visual effects of the pic "are beyond belief. "We couldn't have made this movie until right now."

The trailer premieres tonight on "Entertainment Tonight" will hit the 'Net soon after.

Read More

NEW 'IRON MAN' PIC REVEALED

Paramount has officially sent out this uber cool new pic of next summer's "Iron Man." Click on the image to enlarge. The film, starring Robert Downey, Jr. as the hunk of tin, hits theaters on May 2 2008.

Read More

'DARK KNIGHT' TEASER POSTER LEAKED

It's been pretty much Christmas all over the web in the past two weeks when it comes to "The Dark Knight."

Check out the new teaser poster. You like???

Read More

'SWEENEY TODD' JUMPS THE GUN ON BIG BEN

The creative think tank and mad men publicists over at Paramount and DreamWorks just have to be kicking themselves in their collective keesters. In a moody promo shot for the new musical "Sweeney Todd," Johnny Depp sits by an attic skylight, with the Big Ben clock tower visible through the glass. Unfortunately, the film about the demon barber of Fleet Street, is set in the early 19th century - 50 years before the famous tower was even built.

Read More

EVEN MORE NU JOKER SHOTS

In what has proved to be a busy week or so from "The Dark Knight" camp, all sorts of new Joker shots have been popping up online. Check out these new shots - which may or may not be pics for the international toy market. They feature Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as The Joker. Big props to awesome film site /Film.

Read More

EVEL KNIEVEL DEAD AT 69

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) - Evel Knievel, the red-white-and-blue-spangled motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over crazy obstacles including Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho's Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.
Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.

Longtime friend and promoter Billy Rundel said Knievel had trouble breathing at his Clearwater condominium and died before an ambulance could get him to a hospital.

"It's been coming for years, but you just don't expect it. Superman just doesn't die, right?" Rundel said.

Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as "America's Legendary Daredevil," Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

Though Knievel dropped off the pop culture radar in the '80s, the image of the high-flying motorcyclist clad in patriotic, star-studded colors was never erased from public consciousness. He always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years.

His death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel's trademarked image in a popular West music video.

Knievel made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the "Evel Knievel Days" festival, which Rundel organizes.

"They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives," Knievel said. "People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner."

For the tall, thin daredevil, the limelight was always comfortable, the gab glib. To Knievel, there always were mountains to climb, feats to conquer.

"No king or prince has lived a better life," he said in a May 2006 interview with The Associated Press. "You're looking at a guy who's really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved."

He had a knack for outrageous yarns: "Made $60 million, spent 61. ...Lost $250,000 at blackjack once. ... Had $3 million in the bank, though."

He began his daredevil career in 1965 when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel's Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 mph behind dragster race cars.

In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the West and doing everything from driving the trucks, erecting the ramps and promoting the shows. In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps.

He steadily increased the length of the jumps until, on New Year's Day he was nearly killed when he jumped 151 feet across the fountains in front of Caesar's Palace. He cleared the fountains but the crash landing put him in the hospital in a coma for a month.

His son, Robbie, successfully completed the same jump in April 1989.

In the years after the Caesar's crash, the fee for Evel's performances increased to $1 million for his jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London—the crash landing broke his pelvis—to more than $6 million for the Sept. 8, 1974, attempt to clear the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a rocket-powered "Skycycle." The money came from ticket sales, paid sponsors and ABC's "Wide World of Sports."

The parachute malfunctioned and deployed after takeoff. Strong winds blew the cycle into the canyon, landing him close to the swirling river below.

On Oct. 25, 1975, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in Ohio.

Knievel decided to retire after a jump in the winter of 1976 in which he was again seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and broke both arms in an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater. He continued to do smaller exhibitions around the country with his son, Robbie.

Many of his records have been broken by daredevil motorcyclist Bubba Blackwell.

Knievel also dabbled in movies and TV, starring as himself in "Viva Knievel" and with Lindsay Wagner in an episode of the 1980s TV series "Bionic Woman." George Hamilton and Sam Elliott each played Knievel in movies about his life.

Evel Knievel toys accounted for more than $300 million in sales for Ideal and other companies in the 1970s and '80s.

Born Robert Craig Knievel in the copper mining town of Butte on Oct. 17, 1938, Knievel was raised by his grandparents. He traced his career choice back to the time he saw Joey Chitwood's Auto Daredevil Show at age 8.

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School, he went on to win the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men's ski jumping championship in 1957 and played with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959.

He also formed the Butte Bombers semiprofessional hockey team, acting as owner, manager, coach and player.

Knievel also worked in the Montana copper mines, served in the Army, ran his own hunting guide service, sold insurance and ran Honda motorcycle dealerships. As a motorcycle dealer, he drummed up business by offering $100 off the price of a motorcycle to customers who could beat him at arm wrestling.

At various times and in different interviews, Knievel claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker, a holdup man.

Evel Knievel married hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s. They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.

Robbie Knievel followed in his father's footsteps as a daredevil, jumping a moving locomotive in a 200-foot, ramp-to-ramp motorcycle stunt on live television in 2000. He also jumped a 200-foot-wide chasm of the Grand Canyon.

Knievel lived with his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, splitting his time between their Clearwater condo and Butte. They married in 1999 and divorced a few years later but remained together. Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Read More

'NOTHER JOKER PIC LEAKED

Thank the comic book periodical Wizard for this awesome new pic. It appears as part of set visit article and I have to say that Heath is sorta growing on me as the Joker. The issue hits comic book stores on Dec. 5 and mainstream newsstands Dec. 18. As for the flick? "The Dark Knight" hits screens July 18 2008.

Read More

MURDER MOST WIRED

While DNA may be difficult to wash away, computer records and searches may be even more so. Newsweek's fascinating piece delves into a brutal murder in Perugia, Italy where the Orwellian Italy Communications Police track such social networking sites as Facebook, MySpace, using them as virtual crime scenes in regard to this case. When combined with conventional police work, the cyber evidence can place both victim and suspects at specific locations. Spooky enough, this was almost unheard of half a decade ago. YouTube videos are also being used as fodder for probing into the minds of certain suspects and google searches on how to remove bleach leave a chilling path for both cyber cops and conventional detectives.

To read it, click HERE.

Read More

AS WE MOAN...

It's funny how some poems (or stories for that matter) can start with a single image. In this poem's particular case, it's a series of churches engulfed in flames. I started to think about how and why and this is what spewed out. The more I thought about it, the creepier it became to me.

AS WE MOAN
From the peak of the reservation,
I watch the churches burn.
We all do. I stare at maybe
20 or 30 scattered cathedrals
in the distance, as they
smolder into the night.
The carroty sun of dusk
blends into the crimson flames
peppered through the horizon.
No one ever saw this happening.
Not now or here. As the first one
burns through to its frame, the
weeping begins. We weren’t safe
anymore. None of us. Ever.
As they begin to plummet,
the moans grow louder and
louder and then just stops.
Suddenly.

Read More

JOKER MAKES 'NOTHER APPEARANCE

The new issue of Empire Magazine features an exclusive photo of Heath Ledger as The Joker from the "Batman Begins" sequel, "The Dark Knight." It's certainly sinister and quite a departure from Jack Nicholson's cartoonish and campy take on the famed villain.



Ledger talked to SFX Magazine about the Joker's make-up:

"It's made up of three pieces. It's a new technology. It's not a prosthetic. This guy created these silicone pieces and they stamp them on. It's a lot quicker and super flexible. You hardly even know it's on your face. If it were a prosthethic, I'd have to have my whole neck and jaw done."

Read More

SILENCE!! I'LL KEEL YOU!!! (funny video)

Dunno why I find this so friggin' funny ... Maybe it's because I'm shell-shocked from six years of post 9-11 paranoia.

Read More

THE SECRET SOCIETY OF BOURBON DRINKERS

On this day of Thanksgiving, I give everyone this odd, original poem about a little boy and the creation of a future drunk.

THE SECRET SOCIETY
OF BOURBON DRINKERS
Every other night they convened
to talk about whatever.
Be it the Yeti,
price of Gold, horses
or who was on Carson,
they’d yap it up together.
And all over Kentucky’s sweet nectar.
I was about eight or so when I
attended my first gathering.
My uncle snuck me into the back
door of this backwoods juke joint
and plopped me in a torn corner booth
with a folded up Richie Rich comic.
After visiting ‘Ol Phil at the bar
my uncle gave me this sweet red drink.
At the time he called it a “Popeye”
but let’s face facts, I was riding
the Good Ship Lollipop.

After making sure I was settled
he patted me on the head and joined
the fellas. I just stared.
They all seemed so very loud.
One of them kept flicking his
suspenders every time he laughed.
Another didn’t say a word but just
pointed in agreement every time someone
made a point. The leader, or so it
seemed, wore a monocle and every five
minutes or so would look over to me
and nod, making sure I was still with them.
About an hour -- or three Popeyes later,
I was called over to the men. The leader
had me sit on his lap and I looked
for my uncle who was in the two o clock
position. All I really remember now is the smell
of the place – a pungent concoction
of talcum, cigar and tobacco, musk
and bourbon.
Lots of bourbon.
He told me that it was a special night
because I was becoming a special member
of their sacred club. He poured a small
amount into a shot glass and, in an almost
slow motion, slid it over to me.
After the hellfire of the spirit slid
down my young throat all I could think
about was getting another one of those
godforsaken Popeye drinks. But I was now a
member and Phil would have to listen to
me for the rest of my life.

Read More

THOMPSON PIECE IN NEW MEN'S VOGUE

While the new book, "GONZO: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson: An Oral Biography," by Corey Seymour, along with media god and Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner was released on Halloween day, an abridged, albeit extended book jacket version can be found in this month's Men's Vogue in a well-documented piece.

No self-respecting modern journalist hasn’t at least once fancied the notion of chucking the conventional route and just going plain gonzo like the late renegade writer Hunter S. Thompson. Corey Seymour, a senior editor at Men's Vogue magazine, had his first journalism gig at Rolling Stone as the $18,000-a-year handler of Thompson. Seymour recounts his diverse duties included resuscitating the writer from comatose states, buying him inflatable sex dolls, and preventing him from throwing heavy objects out of hotel windows. Ah, the life of a modern would-be handler… A must-read for aspiring gonzo scribes and those interested in modern journalism in relation to the modern journalist celebrity.

To read it, click HERE.

Read More

SECOND 'RAMBO' POSTER

Check out the new poster for January's 'RAMBO," the next installment of the franchise featuring green beret and Vietnam vet John Rambo (Sly Stallone).

For more on the film, check out yesterday's USA TODAY'S interview with Sly. Click HERE.

Read More

STUDIO SUITS PROJECT PROFIT, SANS WRITERS

The dudes at United Hollywood have edited together another incredible video that pretty much hits home as to why the writers are on strike.

The following clip is entitled “The Heartbreaking Voices of Uncertainty”. The videos from United Hollywood that have been released since the strike are a prime example of how creative, clever and crafty the writers are - even under duress.

Read More

WRITERS UNITE!

Check out this bird's eye view of the cluster of office buildings in Century City of the massive Writers Guild demonstration outside Fox studios on Friday.

Hemingway's Lounge wholeheartedly supports the writers strike. If you do as well, click HERE to sign the petition.

Read More

ANOTHER SALT OF THE EARTH SCRIBE GONE

Pulitzer winner Norman Mailer dead at 84
By Richard Pyle, Associated Press

Norman Mailer, the pugnacious prince of American letters who for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with such books as "The Naked and the Dead" and "The Executioner's Song," has died at the age of 84.

Mailer died Saturday of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital, J. Michael Lennon, the author's literary executor and biographer, said.

"He was a great American voice," said a tearful Joan Didion, author of "The Year of Magical Thinking" and other works, struggling for words upon learning of Mailer's death.

From his classic debut novel to such masterworks of literary journalism as "The Armies of the Night," the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner always got credit for insight, passion and originality.



Some of his works were highly praised, some panned, but none was pronounced the Great American Novel that seemed to be his life quest from the time he soared to the top as a brash 25-year-old "enfant terrible."

Mailer built and nurtured an image over the years as bellicose, street-wise and high-living. He drank, fought, smoked pot, married six times and stabbed his second wife, almost fatally, during a drunken party.

He had nine children, made a quixotic bid to become mayor of New York City on a "left conservative" platform, produced five forgettable films, dabbled in journalism, flew gliders, challenged professional boxers, was banned from a Manhattan YWHA for reciting obscene poetry, feuded publicly with writer Gore Vidal and crusaded against women's liberation.

Mailer had numerous minor run-ins with the law, usually for being drunk or disorderly, but was also jailed briefly during the Pentagon protests in the late 1960s. While directing the film "Maidstone" in 1968, the self-described "old club fighter" punched actor Lane Smith, breaking his jaw, and bit actor Rip Torn's ear in another scuffle.

But as Newsweek reviewer Raymond Sokolov said in 1968, "In the end, it is the writing that will count."

Mailer, he wrote, possessed "a superb natural style that does not crack under the pressures he puts upon it, a talent for narrative and characters with real blood streams and nervous systems, a great openness and eagerness for experience, a sense of urgency about the need to test thought and character in the crucible of a difficult era."

Norman Mailer was born Jan. 31, 1923, in Long Branch, N.J. His father, Isaac, a South Africa-born accountant, and mother, Fanny, who ran a housekeeping and nursing agency, soon moved to Brooklyn.

Mailer earned an engineering science degree in 1943 from Harvard University, where he decided to become a writer, and was soon drafted into the Army. Sent to the Philippines as an infantryman, he saw enough of soldiering to provide a basis for his first book, "The Naked and the Dead," published in 1948 while he was a postgraduate student in Paris.

The book became a best seller, and Mailer returned home to find himself anointed the new Hemingway, Dos Passos and Melville.

Buoyed by instant literary celebrity, Mailer embraced the early 1950s counterculture, defining "hip" in his essay "The White Negro," allying himself with Beat Generation gurus Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and writing social and political commentary for the Village Voice, which he helped found. He also churned out two more novels, "Barbary Shore" (1951) and "Deer Park" (1955), neither embraced kindly by readers or critics.

Mailer turned reporter to cover the 1960 Democratic Party convention for Esquire and later claimed, with typical hubris, that his piece, "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," had made the difference in John F. Kennedy's razor-thin margin of victory over Republican Richard M. Nixon.

While Life magazine called his next book, "An American Dream" (1965), "the big comeback of Norman Mailer," the author-journalist was chronicling major events of the day: an anti-war march on Washington, the 1968 political conventions, the Ali-Patterson fight, an Apollo moon shot.

His 1968 account of the peace march on the Pentagon, "The Armies of the Night," won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and was listed in the top 20 on a 1999 New York University survey of 100 examples of the best journalism of the century.

When he covered the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago for Harper's magazine, Mailer was torn between keeping to a tight deadline or joining the anti-war protests that led to a violent police crackdown. "I was in a moral quandary. I didn't know if I was being scared or being professional," he later testified in the trial of the so-called Chicago Seven.

Jorge Herralde, editor of Mailer's Spanish publishers, Anagrama, said Saturday that Mailer was a titan of literature who, like Kafka, was never awarded a Nobel prize. "He surely had too excessive a profile for that award," Herralde said.

Mailer's personal life was as turbulent as the times in which he lived. In 1960, at a party at his Brooklyn Heights home, he stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, with a knife. She declined to press charges, and it was not until 1997 that she revealed in her memoir how close she had come to dying.

His other wives were: Beatrice Silverman, Lady Jeanne Campbell, Beverly Bentley, Carol Stevens and Norris Church. He had five daughters, three sons and a stepson.

"He had such a compendious vision of what it meant to be alive. He had serious opinions on everything there was to have an opinion on, and everything he had was so original," friend William Kennedy, author of "Ironweed."

Mailer's suspicion of technology — "insidious, debilitating and depressing" — was so deep that while most writers used typewriters or computers, he wrote with a pen, some 1,500 words a day. In a 1971 magazine piece about the new women's liberation movement, Mailer equated the dehumanizing effect of technology with what he said was feminists' need to abolish the mystery, romance and "blind, goat-kicking lust" from sex.

Time magazine said the broadside should "earn him a permanent niche in their pantheon of male chauvinist pigs."

"He could do anything he wanted to do — the movie business, writing, theater, politics," author Gay Talese said Saturday. "He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything. He was a courageous person, a great person, fully confident, with a great sense of optimism."

In "Advertisements for Myself" (1959), Mailer promised to write the greatest novel yet, but later conceded he had not. Among other notable works: "Cannibals and Christians" (1966); "Why Are We in Vietnam?" (1967); and "Miami and the Siege of Chicago" (1968).

"The Executioner's Song" (1979), an epic account of the life and death of petty criminal Gary Gilmore, won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. "Ancient Evenings" (1983), a novel of ancient Egypt that took 11 years to complete, was critically panned.

"Tough Guys Don't Dance" (1984) became a 1987 film. Some critics found "Harlot's Ghost" (1991), a novel about the CIA, surprisingly sympathetic, considering Mailer's left-leaning past. In 1997, he came out with "The Gospel According to the Son," a novel told from Jesus Christ's point of view. The following year, he marked his 75th birthday with the epic-length anthology "The Time of Our Time."

Mailer lived for decades in a Brooklyn Heights town house with a view of New York harbor and lower Manhattan from the rooftop "crow's nest," and kept a home in Provincetown, Mass., where he spent increasing time in his later years.

Despite heart surgery, hearing loss and arthritic knees that forced him to walk with canes, Mailer retained his enthusiasm for writing and in early 2007 released "The Castle in the Forest," a novel about Hitler's early years. "On God: An Uncommon Conversation," came out in the fall.

In 2005, Mailer received a gold medal for lifetime achievement at the National Book Awards, where he deplored what he called the "withering" of general interest in the "serious novel." Authors like himself, he said often, had become anachronisms as people focused on television and young writers aspired to screenwriting or journalism.

Lennon said arrangements for a private service and burial for family members and close friends would be announced next week, and a memorial service would be held in New York in the coming months.

___

National Writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.

Read More

THE FULL READING (poem)

In celebrating the Lounge's 200th post, I give you this original poem. Somewhere up there - in that great beyond - I hope that Chuck Buk isn't laughing. While I would in no way fancy myself a poet, I will say that the form itself is a wonderful way to tell a short story. It's slightly abstract and perhaps a tad mystical. I hope everyone enjoys.

THE FULL READING
The mystic told me to stay away
in that cold way they do.
I didn’t know if she truly
did know anything but
shit, she certainly sounded
like it, looking at me
all suspicious and
knowing. Like she had one up.
What a gift, to be able
to see through people
and all of their bullshit.
I wish I had that. I’d know
if I was wasting my time
here or there.
As she spoke, I kept looking at the
ocean, onto the horizon, wondering
how far it went...
But I did hear her.
Stay away, she advised once more.
She kept asking me odd questions as
if I knew what she meant. Then she
asked if I wanted the full reading.
After asking what it entailed, she
broke out a beat-to-shit deck of
tarot cards. I remarked on them
and she told me they were a gift
from her aunt,another mystic.
She dealt my hand and all sorts
of weird shit popped up. I thought
I’d have a better chance inside at
one of the casinos, but what did I
know? I’m the one sitting here.
She told me things I didn’t want or
care to hear. She drudged up
old memories, feelings. Images.
And then I could swear I smelled
the smells of ten years earlier.
I panicked. This was a mistake.
The full reading, I mean.
And then she turned her cards over
and asked me for my fifty dollars.

Read More

DEMONS EXIST - PIC NOT TO BE BELIEVED!

When I can't sleep at night I usually tune into a late-night radio program that leans towards the unusual, paranormal type stuff. With my headphones on, stories of the unexplained usually tuck me in. The other night, though, I heard something that I couldn't believe. A Colorado man kicked the bad habits in his life when an old photo of him surfaced. Read below for more ...

It's a picture you really have to look at, and when you do, you'll notice something is just not normal, in fact it might be... paranormal.

The man, Joe Martinez, reports he was able to kick his drug habit when a picture of him at a relative's anniversary celebration showed what appears a demon on his shoulder.

Joe Martinez told Fox 31 News in Denver that drugs were killing his soul.

Because of the photograph, however, he's now on the road to recovery.

"I look at it and I carry it wherever I go," he told the local TV station. The photo showed a typically smiling couple at a anniversary reception. What it also shows is what Martinez's wife, Patty, describes as "Satan."





"Right away I really thought, I said, 'You're really walking with Satan'," she told the stationm.

The creepy pic was taken at a family anniversary celebration several years ago. It was in an album until just months ago, but Martinez says he won't be without it now because of the reminder it provides.

What appears to be a dog is looking over Joe's shoulder, in a closer view of the anniversary reception photo:



"There's good and evil in life. The good on the right hand side of me, and the evil on the left side of me," Martinez told the station.

The photograph, on closer examination, appears to include the image of a dog peering over Martinez's shoulder.

Brian Bonner of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society said most such cases are explained relatively simply. But for this one, he said, there's not enough evidence to support a conclusion.

A photographic expert, John Davenport of Roach Photo, told the station the picture did not have evidence of tampering.

"It doesn't look like it was double-printed or spliced in," he said. "The grain is uniform."

Martinez admits having battled drugs. "I always prayed to the Lord and told him, 'I can't do it alone,'" he said to the station.

He and his wife credit the appearance of the image in the photo for his recovery from addiction.

"There's not another high left in me," Martinez said.

Read More