Roll Over Gutenberg and Tell Your Printers Devil the News!

    Tough about Borders Books, eh. Guess they never should’ve swallowed Brentano’s. That’s a specific New York reference for New Yorkers of certain ages.

    We readers should mourn Borders diminishment. Coupled with vanishing independent bookstores, fewer national outlets will limit variety. Less shelf space means filling what remains with more common titles and crowding out the new, experimental or just plain weird.

    Might Borders’ survival mean selling Glenn Beck coloring books? Given the addled masses lapping up his daily misinformation, and a struggling book chain looking to turn quick, immense, tidy profits, how soon until corporate interests begin offering brain-dead America’s favorite savant’s wigwams and drawings for his audience’s pleasure?

    Naturally with Beck scribbling inside the lines isn’t as important as smoking peyote-infused crayons. Continue reading Roll Over Gutenberg and Tell Your Printers Devil the News!

Temperance? Abstinence? Rehab? Nah!

    Who among us isn’t glad Charlie Sheen will curtail his, uh, convalescence in order to resume taping Two and a Half Men sooner? Certainly the hospitality and adult film industries are grateful, as well as whoever allegedly supplied him with cocaine. 

    My sentiments are fully aligned along the comedy’s crew. They don’t enjoy the same cushion as that show’s creative complement. Van Nuys is nice but it doesn’t compare to Bel Air. 

    Anyone but me notice the expected outrage concerning Charlie’s behavior — drunkenness and suspected drug abuse stirred in with porn actresses — has maybe rated one “tsk” on the “tutt-tutt scale”? 

    Isn’t his reported misconduct the sort which displeases those who despise others having good times? The lack of stratospheric moral dungeon stuns me. Continue reading Temperance? Abstinence? Rehab? Nah!