Tod Goldberg

An April Fools Day Special: 5 Music Videos I Used To Love But Which Now Make Me Look Like A Fool

I've had a lot of writing and a tremendous amount of student work to read lately which means I've had a inordinate amount of time to procrastinate, which is what Al Gore must have had in mind when he built this here Information Super Highway. Since I work from home, one would think I'd be more directly drawn to the darker reaches of the internet for my entertainment -- and I'll admit that I do occasionally read my mother's blog, it's true -- but when I'm really avoiding work and don't wish to be beaten by my friend Peter's teenage daughter in online games of Scrabble, I head over to YouTube and investigate things I thought were awesome when I was a kid and which, invariably, suck so irrevocably that I have a hard time understanding how I ever thought they were cool in the first place.

Case in point, music videos. When MTV first came along, I was but a wee little sprite who, through the magic of television, grew into a moody teenager who looked a lot like the keyboard player from The Cure. This is because, I suspect, I was drugged by my own hormones and thus susceptible to images flashed on the television screen. I suppose things could have been worse, though not much. At any rate, these five videos were, for a time, the coolest shit I'd ever seen in my life.

1. Gimme All Your Lovin'  by ZZ Top.

I was pretty sure that my first sexual experience was going to be with one of the women who rolled out of the Eliminator. That it actually was is another story all together.

2. Silent Running by Mike & The Mechanics

The song is all post-apocalyptic angst. The video is like, you know, a movie. An incomprehensible movie from the 80s, with holograms, and space suits, and intuitive little children named Tommy who can save the planet. I remember watching this on Night Flight and really, you know, feeling the power of the words and the message and thinking, yeah, Mike & The Mechanics know some shit.

3. Somebody by Depeche Mode

See, here's the thing: if you had that haircut, as I did, you'd think Martin Gore was actually speaking for you in this video, his plaintive eyes, his fucked up teeth, his subjugation of David Gahan into shadow, all that would mean something to you, to the point that maybe you'd cry a little when this would come on TV. Things like this, they make me sick, but in case like this, I'll get away with it...preach it, Marty...

4. Can You Feel It by The Jacksons

I remember seeing this for the first time on an Easter Seals telethon and thinking, my god, the Jacksons will save the world! Now, it just sort of looks like they were prepping shots that would later be used in Xanadu, Tron and the old circle vision attraction at Disneyland. I still want a gold satin suit from which stars erupt out of the sleeves, but that might just be a personal thing.

5. Nemesis by Shriekback

This was back when bands tried to scare you with just how weird they were. Now, don't misunderstand me: I LOVED Shriekback, but when I saw this video for the first time, I decided I would love them even though I wasn't sure what the hell they were singing about, except for that bit about centaurs and monkeys clustering around them, which, you know, sounded like a pretty cool thing to have happen, if, you know, you happened to play a little D&D in your spare time. Seeing it now -- especially with the weird preamble to the video that is in this clip -- I think: these guys were fucktards. I mean, really, just pick up your guitar and play the song, dude, don't bother with the calisthenics in the background.

Honorable Rick Springfield Mention: I know I put up the video for Human Touch the other day, but upon looking at his videos as a body of work, I cannot tell you how uniformly awful they all are and how uniformly awesome I thought they were. But if you thought "Human Touch" was bad, you missed out on the utter tragedy that is "Souls":

Rick had a couple of core moves. The fist pump was big. The bend of the knees and shake both fists move was epic. The shake your head angrily bit was hot. The pensive look up. The show my band wearing sleeveless shirts and shaking their fists. This was my sister Linda's favorite video for years, as I recall, probably because she always liked Rick in that white suit.

Things I've Been Meaning To Say, But Instead Spent My Time Writing The Sentence "When You're A Spy..."

Over the course of the last week, I've had several things I wanted to talk about here, but was unable to do so because I was busy chasing bad guys through the streets of Miami, metaphorically speaking. So, now that I am unencumbered by a deadline:

1. My friend (and editor) Gina Frangello has written two fascinating essays on the forging of a small press -- and the pitfalls and successes therein, of which I'm probably responsible for more than a few of on both sides of the ledger -- and a third installment is still to come.

2. The Wire came to an end and it was good. Not good that it came to an end, but a good ending, satisfying, emotional, eloquent, upsetting. I am still somewhat disappointed by the media angle, because I felt the consequences, comparative to all the other stories alive in The Wire, were relatively small. This might also be an issue of characterization -- namely that the people at the paper were the most unexciting and least dimensional of the characters to grace The Wire's scenes -- and that the bad guys won, well, we knew that was coming. I think it was only fitting that McNulty and Lester took death over irrelevance -- and by that I mean that it would have been hard to see McNulty back at the harbor again and Lester back on pawn shop duty, since they were, as they say, natural police. Dukie and Prez was a heartbreaker. Michael taking the Omar mantle was a nice touch. Marlo going back to the streets and tasting his own blood was poetic. And the final montage was...well...I could have lived without the touching court scene between Daniels and the DA-turned-Judge, though nice that conflict of interest is alive and well in the future, too, but I was happy to see that, above all else the game goes on. There's no happy ending, just another chapter. I've seen many articles about the greatest moments from  The Wire and for some reason, this has always been mine (apart from the fuck scene, of course):

I've got an article about The Wire coming out soon, which I'll put up a link to shortly.

3. Publishers Weekly has, generally, regarded me as a piece of shit over the years, so imagine my surprise this week when I saw a positive review with my name in it from PW:

Las Vegas Noir Edited by Jarret Keene and Todd James Pierce. Akashic, $15.95 paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-933354-49-1

Just because mystery fans will be unfamiliar with many of the 16 contributors to Akashic’s latest entry in its acclaimed noir series (Brooklyn Noir, etc.) doesn’t mean the quality isn’t up to volumes boasting bigger names. The late John O’Brien, best known for his novel-turned-film, Leaving Las Vegas, offers a typically warped and nihilistic vision of the city with “The Tik,” about a thrill-killing duo, narrated by the male half, whose indifference to his prey is chilling. Columnist Tod Goldberg’s “Mitzvah” makes good use of the Las Vegas myth that people come to the city to bury their past identities and reinvent themselves. His antihero, mobster Sal Cuperine, has for years posed as Rabbi David Cohen, managing to handle the demands of the pulpit until the strain of his charade becomes too much to bear. While some readers might regret that no tale other than Janet Berliner’s “The Road to Rachel” explores Las Vegas’s past, this anthology does a fine job of illuminating the dark underbelly of Sin City. (May)

4. If you're interested in taking a class from someone PW normally thinks is a piece of shit, the good folks at UCLA have extended deadlines for my novel 4 and MFA prep courses, both online. If you're interested in more info, contact Corey Campbell at 310-825-0107.

5. Oh, yeah, I finished that fucking book. By the numbers:

Actual days of work on the novel: 64 (I think this is accurate -- I believe I worked on the book for 20 days in December, 7 days in January [I was at Bennington for two weeks and then really sick for about two weeks in January, so this is approximate...it might be less]. 27 days in February, 10 days in March.)

Health of Prostate After Drinking 23 gallons of coffee a day for 64 days in a row: About a five.

Number of pages: 310

Longest previous book, in pages: 192 (probably 225 in manuscript form)

Time it took to write previously long book: 2 years

Times I said "I gotta go do some spy shit" to Wendy in order to get out of doing dishes, walking dog, putting seat down: 340

Main source of procrastination: Scabulous

Record in Scrabulous for the month of February: 2 wins, 11 losses.

Number of famous authors who beat me in Scrabulous during this period: three, showing that all writers now play Scrabulous instead of writing.

Number of times I thought, Man, Lee is fucking insane: about twice a day.

Times I changed my font face in December when it felt like I might need some psychological help in terms of my page count: 4. [Garamond, Times New Roman, Arial and then that fat bitch Courier New made me feel productive]

Last conversation I had with Wendy about said book:

Me: So, yeah, feel like I'm finally done.

Wendy: You said that last week.

Me: I wasn't even close last week.

Wendy: Then why did you say you were?

Me: You know, motivation. That sort of thing.

Wendy: Who did you think you were motivating?

Me: Well, I thought if I told you I was almost done, you might be like, okay, let me buy you a cake, and then I'd be like, Oh, shit, she bought me a cake. I better get this thing done.

Wendy:

Me: Not that I need cake, per se, to write. But if there was a cake in the fridge, maybe with a custard center, yeah, I'd be in a place to get shit done before the custard spoiled.

Wendy:

Me: But, yeah, I just ended up writing more anyway. Deadline. All that. So, yeah, if you get a cake now, I mean, I'd eat it, but, you know, it wouldn't be the same.

Wendy: You're an idiot.

The Twelve Days of Lists: 10 Reasons I Need To Stop Making Lists And Just, You Know, Finish This Fucking Book

Unlike other members of my family, I've never written a book outside the era of Amazon, which is to say I've always had Amazon to remind me that, uhm, yeah, people are expecting a book from you sometime soon. In the old days, I guess books just showed up in stores and people bought them with no real forewarning. Weird, huh? At any rate, for my last list of my twelve days of lists (and I didn't quite get all 12 days in...a boy needs to Christmas shop, never mind prepare a bomb-ass kugel for Wendy's non-Jew family to eat...and then there's the, uh, writing), I present the ten reasons this is my last list of the season:

1. 0

2. 4

3. 5

4. 1

5. 2

6. 2

7. 5

8. 5

9. 4

10. 6

The Twelve Days Of Lists: The Fuckards Of The Year

I don't just call anyone a fucktard -- you have to really earn it. Over the years, plenty of other blogs and websites have announced their own fucktards of the year, but rarely do they fully embrace the hate like I do; it's more trivial for other folks, for me, it's a way of life. After much thought and deliberation, here my picks for the biggest fucktards to grace these pages in 2007.

1. Prospero's, the bookstore which held a book burning to, uh, make note of, uh, what was it? Oh, yeah: "This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," was what it was all about. The first time they did it, the world stood up and took notice and, generally, called them a bunch of fucktards. The second time they did it, no one gave a fuck and thought died.

2. Lori Drew...not the one who made the fake Myspace that led to a girl's suicide, because fucktard just isn't suitable -- a whole new slur would need to be created. No, this is the woman who decided that When I Was A Loser was corrupting her daughter's life, though she apparently had such a poor grasp of what she read that she didn't even realize it wasn't advocating dog fucking, which would seem like, you know, a significant thing to not realize.

3. Parade Magazine. This, of course, is a gimme. Every week for the last three years, I've detailed just how fucktarded Parade is, but 2007 was a landmark for fucktardery. Who can forget Barbaro's return from the dead or Lindsay Lohan's return to sobriety? Who can forget the weeks they made up questions, made up answers, published incoherent sentimentality by Mitch Albom , and managed to publish simply horrid essays written by the bottom of our collective gene pool.

The Twelve Days Of Lists: 10 Truly Awful Songs I Inexplicably Downloaded This Year

1. "Mother's Little Helper" by Tesla. I'd like to think that this was inadvertent, that I was looking for the original and accidentally downloaded Tesla's version from their Five Man Acoustical Jam album, except that I remember going to download their version of "Signs" (which rules) and thinking, Oh, fuck yeah, that sounds hot...and now I own it forever.

2. "Because of You" by Kelly Clarkson. I think this was that week where I decided, after reading an interview with her in Blender, that I'd listen to some Kelly Clarkson before deciding if I hated her. I already sort of liked that "Since U Been Gone" song, but this one, well, it's like the greatest Meatloaf song he never recorded.

3. "The Heart of Rock-n-Roll" by Huey Lewis. I know how this got downloaded. Wendy walked into my office one afternoon and said, "Will you download Huey Lewis' Greatest Hits and burn me a CD?" I said I would, never did, and now I have about a dozen Huey Lewis songs on my computer, but it's this one that always plays.

4. "Please Come To Boston" by Lee Hazelwood. I am an unabashed lover of story songs and I tend to download every version of a particular song ever recorded. In this case, I downloaded Lee Hazelwood singing "Please Come to Boston" and know that if I delete it I will later re-download it.

5. "Never Surrender" by Corey Hart. I'm pretty sure that I saw the video for this one night on VH1 classic and determined that I had to have it in order for my life to be complete.

6. "Theme from the Greatest American Hero" by Joey Scarbury. Look at what's happening to me...I can't believe it myself...

7."Another Love Song" by the Insane Clown Posse. ICP are truly repugnant...but, uhm, yeah, sometimes Shaggy 2 Dope speaks to me. This song, however, even turns on my moral turpitude alarm.

8. "Control" by Puddle of Mudd. I think Fred Durst broke into my house and downloaded this craptastic song, because I surely do not recall doing it.

9. "Run Runaway" by Slade. For a time I'll call fifth grade, this was my favorite song. Alas, it hasn't held up. Some thing about trying to empathize with a chameleon who is all things to everyone I now find difficult.

10. "Jukebox Hero" by Soul Asylum. I'm not what you'd call a big Foreigner fan, but I was a big Soul Asylum fan back in the day and I recalled having this on some old bootleg back from when they were still on Twin Tone so when I discovered this online, well, I had to have it. Turns out it's just a crappy Foreigner song sung by Soul Asylum, and not very well.

The Twelve Days Of Lists: 10 Songs I LIstened To The Most While Writing...& My Favorite Christmas Song

Not all of these songs came out this year, but they were the ones in heaviest rotation on my iRiver as I cranked out 15 new short stories...

1. Palm Springs/White Wedding (live) by Jay Ray. If you've never heard of Jay Ray you're missing out. He's a singer-songwriter that fits somewhere in between Matthew Ryan and Grant Lee Phillips. This song, which appears on his live CD -- which isn't actually out yet, I don't think -- segues from his wonderfully sad ode of losing it all in a Palm Springs casino to a rollicking acoustic version of Billy Idol's classic. The album version of Palm Springs is available on his excellent album Near Disasters/Sweet Hereafters.

2. Are You Alright? by Lucinda Williams. I'm a huge Lucinda Williams fan and this track, the first on her album West, was my favorite song to listen to while driving in the desert at night, trying to work stories out in my head. Sometimes I'd just hit repeat and let it go over and over again.

3. Alcohol and Pills by Todd Snider. Apparently this is an old song by some very scary redneck fellow, but I encountered it one night listening to some channel on Sirius and became absolutely obsessed with it.

4. Wish You Were Here by Bob Forrest. Forrest is the former lead singer of Thelonious Monster and his cover of the Pink Floyd classic is so filled with sadness and regret and emotion that it gives the song a whole new flavor from the original. Since I can't find a video of it, however, you get to listen to Bob singing his song "Cereal" instead, which is also constantly being played.

5. Darklands by the Jesus and Mary Chain. The album Darklands is one of my all time favorites and this song, in particular, is one that always gets me in the mood to write.

6. Punks In the Beer Light by the Silver Jews. This might have been my favorite song of 2005 and I've probably listened to it 34 million times, but something about it always makes me a little gleeful.

7. Pearls by Antje Duvekot. Steve Almond turned me onto this Boston-based singer a few years ago and I've been addicted to this song ever since. She's not a household name, but she should be. I found this gem of an acoustic performance on YouTube:

8. Up That Wrinkled Street by Stewboss. I've loved these guys for years (I actually loved these guys before they were these guys, back when the lead singer was the guitarist in Coal) and this song has been part of the soundtrack of my short story writing this year, since many of the stories have focused on people looking at their homes, then and now.

9. Yell Fire by Michael Franti. Revolution never comes with a warning...

10. Brilliant Disguise by Bruce Springsteen. This certainly didn't come out this year, but for some reason it always opens up thoughts in my head.

And the Christmas Special: Merry Christmas, I Don't Want To Fight Tonight by the Ramones.

The Twelve Days of Lists: Two Conversations I Had With My Wife That Ended With Her Calling Me An Idiot

1. On a Sunday, watching Tiger Woods win a golf tournament.

Me: You know what I wonder?

Wendy: There's no telling.

Me: Well, I wonder if, when I was young, if someone put a golf club in my hand and really taught me the game if I could have been, you know, Tiger Woods.

Wendy: You don't even play golf now.

Me: Right, right, but, what I'm saying is, what if I had this talent and I never knew because when I was a kid no one took me out and taught me the game.

Wendy: You don't have any athletic ability.

Me: Well, I wouldn't say that. I mean, you know, I played a little soccer in my time.

Wendy: Your time was 6th grade.

Me: Yes, but, say instead of playing soccer in 6th grade, I was out chipping golf balls.

Wendy:

Me: And, you know, getting that hole in one and putting thing down.

Wendy:

Me: Plus, I've always wanted to be one of those guys who can wear a sleeveless vest and look cool, though I contend that very few people look good in those, but, given the chance, yeah, I could make that work.

Wendy:

Me: Anyway, my point being, I could have been Tiger Woods, probably.

Wendy: You're an idiot.

2. While watching TV one evening.

Me: I don't like that midget show.

Wendy: Little People, Big World?

Me: Yeah. I find something creepy about the father.

Wendy: He seems like he really loves his kids.

Me: Yeah, I don't trust that.

Wendy: You don't trust that because your dad was an ass.

Me: No, I don't trust that because he's creepy. He's always, like, doing creepy stuff.

Wendy: Why don't you just admit that you're creeped out by little people?

Me: I'm not creeped out by little people.

Wendy: Name one little person on television or otherwise that you don't get creeped out by.

Me: I liked that midget chick on the Amazing Race.

Wendy: No you didn't.

Me: Sure I did. I was always rooting for her.

Wendy: You didn't root for her. You always asked when she'd take off all of clothes and have sex with whatever Amazing Race slutty chick you liked.

Me: That's not technically true.

Wendy:

Me: Technically, I wanted her to have something cool happen on the Race since she was clearly going to lose.

Wendy:

Me: Because, technically, there's a lot of stuff you can't do on the Amazing Race when you're a creepy super athletic midget.

Wendy:

Me:

Wendy:

Me: Well, anyway, if she and those beauty queens had had a little threesome action, that would have been cool.

Wendy: You're an idiot.

The Twelve Days of Lists: The Books You Must Read According To A Bunch Of People I Know...And The Director's Cut

One of the cool things about being an award losing midlist author is the opportunity one gets to be paid for doing things one would do for free...such as asking a bunch of your friends about their favorite books. The good people at E! kindly allowed me to entertain this very notion and today they posted the responses from over 30 authors who responded to my query in their Cool Stuff blog, where I regularly write about books and video games and Jessica Alba movies. Here's a snippet:

Mark Haskell Smith:  My favorite novel this year is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, 'cause it rocks cover to cover. Most underappreciated, besides my own scandalously overlooked novels, would be Yes, Yes Cherries by Mary Otis.

Mark Haskell Smith is the author of several novels, including, most recently, Salty.

Janet Fitch:  My favorite book this year is Dead Boys, a collection of rough-grained contemporary stories by Los Angeles author Richard Lange. This book uncaps some very keen insights about the lives of contemporary men, things that struck a pure chord of recognition when I saw them on the page. From Dead Boys I learned:

1. Men have secrets.

2.  Men want things to have been decided. They want to “get it over with.”

3.  Men want to feel real.

4.  Men overlook love.

5.  Men profoundly feel the tenuousness of family.

6.  Men's loneliness is a bind—they feel the imperative for self-control and self-containment yet yearn for truth, communication and tenderness.

7.  Men hope that everything will turn out all right. Stoicism and hope are the twin poles of their existence.

Janet Fitch is the author of the novels White Oleander and Paint It Black.

Victor Gischler:  Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks expresses humanity's potential for obsession and desperation, and sentence by sentence, Hendrick's prose leaps from the page and burns itself into your brain.

Victor Gischler's latest novel, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, will be released in 2008.

Steve Almond:  I'm gonna recommend The Expeditions by Karl Iagnemma. His new novel is a historical fiction set in Detroit and the Upper Peninsula after the Civil War. He's one of those writers who simply doesn't write any sentences that don't sing. It's an enthralling and deeply humbling book.

Steve Almond has authored books of fiction and nonfiction, including the essay collection (Not That You Asked).

As all of the people in this article are writers, their responses were long and interesting and digressive and funny and...ended up about 3000 words longer than the average E! reader's attention span. So, for those interested in the Director's Cut, after the jump I'll post all 5,000 words of book recommendations, which includes even more picks than those shown in the article...and all the requisite typos, too.

The Twelve Days Of Lists: The Most Fucktarded Letters To Parade

Although there are still a few weeks left in the year, I'm confident that this compendium of the most fucktarded questions posed in Parade will stand as the definitive list:

1. The fucktard: Elizabeth Testerman. The charge: Not quite getting the whole "outsourcing" of jobs debate.The fucktardery: "People complain about immigrants taking jobs away from us but don't utter a peep about all of the Brits playing Americans on TV, like Hugh Laurie on House. Why do producers hire them?"

2. The fucktard: J.L. The charge: Voted Republican in 2000 and 2004, still supports Bush 100%, can't figure out why Dewey never took office. The fucktardery: "Before his execution last year, did Sadaam Hussein explain why the US never found Iraq's weapons of mass destruction?"

3. The fucktard: J.P. The charge: Can't discern between the real world and the glowing box in the middle of his living room. The fucktardery: "Eric Braeden uses a seizure-alert dog on the Young & the Restless. Is the soap-opera star epileptic?"

4. The fucktard: Alice Sherman. The charge: An inability to use Google. The fucktardery: "Where did the word "blog" originate?"

5. The fucktard: R.C. Troup. The charge: Can't tell the difference between real cops and those played by actors.  Watches FOX. The fucktardery: "I love Fox's COPS. Are the episodes real? If so, how are they done? And who is the show's creator?"

6. The fucktard: K.W. The charge: Thinks Walter Scott, a fictional creation, might have any idea how Jennifer feels about anything. The fucktardery: "In your opinion, which breakup hurt Jennifer Aniston more: the one with Brad Pitt or Vince Vaughn?"

The Twelve Days Of Lists: 5 People/Groups/Space Aliens Who Think My Brother Is A Dick

My brother Lee pisses a lot of people off, which is endlessly entertaining for me. Here are five people who think Lee is a dick.

1. Ed Champion, in discussing the Saga Of The Edgar Awards That Won't Be Given To Charles Ardai Or Tolstoy on Sarah Weinman's blog:  "[E]ither Goldberg really thinks his readers are morons or he just can't write." Ed goes on to accuse Lee of helping Terry Gross erase entire episodes of Fresh Air that implicate Jonathan Franzen in a plot to ignore him on Facebook, assisting Ron Hogan in flying somewhere and doing something unethical that will help the terrorists win and, I think, being the seed money behind n+1.

2. Cathy Young, in Reason Magazine, in a long response to a long essay that prompted a long response from Lee, about fan fiction: "He constantly engages in gross generalizations." Cathy went on to note that Lee also manages to engage in "blog posts that infuriate 14 year old all over the country" and that he "didn't bother look at the canon of fan fic when he took over Seaquest...that dolphin had feelings and levels and he disregarded them all!"

3. Lori Prokop. I don't have clear evidence that Lori hates Lee or believes he's a dick, but she does indicate that an organized mob of bloggers tried to discredit her "tv show" Book Millionaire: "I have observed some disparaging comments about the Book Millionaire show and me. It has come to our attention — through communications from others — this may be in connection with a group of bloggers who are allegedly blogging false, inaccurate information against about 100+ companies and projects in the publishing industry." Hmm...I think she was talking about this.

4. Languatron. Apparently, Languatron is/was a fan of the original Battlestar Galactica and didn't like Lee making fun of the Colonial Fan Force (who really hate Lee). But I found this comment the most enticing: "Here is another idiot who should be "boiled in oil" right next to Universal Studios executives." I admit to being a little jealous. No one ever wants to boil me in oil.

5. Fandom Wank. I love the folks at Fandom Wank. They are enormously funny and have creative ways of calling Lee a dick. It's nice that some of them hate me, too, in that I feel like less the little brother and more the metaphorical equal in dickness. But, alas, they know from dicks like they're Jenna Jameson over there and so they've got wikis on him and everything. It used to be that when people thought Lee was a dick they'd just sort of pull me aside and say, "Look, no offense? But your brother is a dick." Now they've got wikis! The Internet improves everything.