Tuesday, January 31, 2006

another thought about getting trashed

I feel sorry for that schmuck who did the hatchet job on me in the Baltimore City Paper. I'm sure he's going to write something mean in reply to my answer to the piece in their next edition. I know he will probably get the last word, but what a pathetic way to get your paycheck.
I stopped writing bad reviews a long long time ago. I learned that being mean is the easiest way to get noticed. I hurt a lot of people's feelings and I feel bad about that,although I didn't at the time. But, you know, I didn't go after them personally. If I didn't like their music, I didn't attack their character.
And I didn't make up things, or make mistakes about them.
So, I'm sorry I wrote those bad reivews (well, not about Carly Simon), but about the local musicians in Baltimore who's music I didn't like. I still don't like their music, but I learned to say, "If you like (whatever) you'll like this person." I may not have liked (whatever), but people are entitled to like crap.
I haven't written a bad review in decades. It's too easy.
Perhaps that schmuck at the City Paper will learn that, too one day.
You know, except for the period of time when Andy Markowitz ran that paper, it has been a piece of shit from day one. Russ Smith, who founded it (and it was laughingly called "City Squeeze"--one of the dumbest names EVER for a newpaper), and got rich when he sold it, has always run shitty newspapers. He is a no talent snob who poisoned the already foul air of Baltimore.
Oh wait, was that a bad review? Sorry.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Oprah Frey & Me---Hopefully the last word on the subject

Oh Lord, please let this be the last entry in the James Frey/fictitious memoir/Oprah affair.

How could I have been so dumb? I have a book out. I was a guest on Oprah and I told the truth about having lied. Yet the highest it has gotten on Amazon is #1,736.

Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” is still in the top five. Maybe my mistake was that I was on Oprah and confessed to lying before I wrote the book.

My book is called “Rabid Nun Infects Entire Convent and Other Sensational Stories from a Tabloid Writer” (Villard/Random House). It is not a self-help book. Well, it helps me, my wife, my agent and the publisher. And it makes you laugh, so that’s a help, but it is not going to save your soul, make you stop drinking or using drugs or beating your wife or having sex with the dog.

I never said it would.

All I did was write stories for the supermarket tabloid “The Sun” and then go on Oprah, outing myself for having made them up. Suppose I had never done that, and had instead published a book in which I swore that stories like “Woman Goes On High Fiber Diet, Eats Her Clothes” were true?

And suppose millions of people believed these stories and tens of thousands of women had lost a lot of weight eating cheesecloth and making sheet cakes? And Oprah had me on as a guest because of it, thanking me for helping all those women lose so much weight? And I had gone on her show saying that it was all true and hyping my next tabloid story, “The Dustball Diet?”

And then the Smoking Gun had found out that I had made it all up and outed me? Christ, I could be rich and on Larry King.

Is that so far-fetched?

But, no I had to go on Oprah first, blab to her and the world that I made up all the stories and then years later write a book about it. What an idiot! I did it all backwards.

I had a notion that Oprah would have me back on when my book came out, since I based the entire book around my appearance on her show. The first blow to that good idea came from the Random House publicist who told me they shut down production around the time of the launch of my book (November 22). Then this Frey thing happened.

So much for my return to Oprah-land. There isn’t much chance she wants another liar on her show.

I sit and fantasize about Oprah coming to my defense like she did to Frey’s on Larry King, “I rely on the publishers to define the category that a book falls within and also the authenticity of the work.” And having her say not “Whether or not the cars' wheels rolled up on the sidewalk or whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer is irrelevant to me,” as she did on Larry King, but rather “Whether or not the Elvis baby was born singing ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ or ‘Jailhouse Rock’ is irrelevant to me.”

Oh what a couple of weeks I would have had! My book zooming back up the charts! Vindication from Oprah!

But then would she have suckered me back on to kick my ass like she did with Frey? Of course not! I would have already on her show. I would already have confessed! Ain’t I a hero?

God, maybe my agent would answer my emails then!!

And…and it’s me on Larry King being interviewed about my book : D’ANTONI: Larry, I got more laughs on Oprah than Frey ever dreamed of.



LARRY: Yes, Tom your book is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. You’re almost as funny as Rickles, but what about those poor women who ate their clothes?

D’ANTONI: Well, Larry how dumb do you have to be to believe these stories?


I’ll tell you how dumb. I did an afternoon TV talk show to promote my book. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for that appearance because it sold a lot of books, but they picked two of my fake stories and one real story and asked the studio audience to choose which one was real.

The audience picked “The Human Termite: He’s Eating the Neighborhood.” That’s a story about a man who was found eating several of his neighbors’ front porches.

They thought that was real.

I was thrilled.

So you see, it’s ok to lie. Frey was exposed and still got away with it. Even though she eviscerated him (and flip-flopped) when she lured him back to her show, I’ll betcha Oprah still wants you to read his book.

But she never mentioned mine even though I was so honest about my dishonesty.

I won’t make that mistake again, I can tell you that.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Further thoughts on a bad piece

I'd like to thank that schmuck Dechter for my book jumping 60,000 spots on Amazon...so far. Imagine how many more books I could have sold with an honest piece on me. I mean, his piece was in the "Books" section, yet he devoted maybe 10% of the piece to my book...and 90% to trashing me.
If I cared enough (which I don't), I would go back and check all of Dechter's previous articles for the same kinds of innacuracies and outright MISTAKES with which he riddled his poison pen letter to me.
Now there's a project for one of you!
As Allen Toussaint once wrote, "The same people you walk on on the way up/You might meet up/On your way down."
He thinks he knows how to write mean? I haven't even started.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The Dishonest City Paper Story on me

A schmuck named Gadi Dechter has a poorly-written, wildly innacurate and very hateful piece on me in the current issue of the Baltimore City Paper. Before I go into more detail, here's what I wrote to him, the Editor-In-Chief, and the Arts Editor. In case they edit the letter, here's the full text:

I knew I was going to get nailed, but what Gadi Dechter doesn't tell you is that he seriously slanted and cherry-picked the things I told him. He left out the fact that I walk the streets of Portland wearing my Orioles sweatshirt, how I nearly cried when I heard a real Baltimore accent last summer....and there are a lot of other things.
Dechter chooses to leave out a lot of positive things in order to set me up as a straw villain. What else can we expect from an L.A. guy who's aim is to gather as many scalps as he can before he moves on to a larger market. Same as it ever was...Baltimoreans being exploited and victimized by journalists on the way up and who can't wait to get out of town.
By the way, my impression, after talking to him for a couple of hours, is that he hates Baltimore much more than I. He agreed with me on many points.
Here's an example of how he dishonestly skews things. He writes, "He remembers one scene in particular. 'I pick up this black woman and her daughter,' he says. “And for some reason the little girl looks through the sliding glass shield and she says, ‘I love you.’ And I busted out crying right there in the cab. It was such a contrast to what I had to face every day.'
His conclusion: 'People in Baltimore are angry and mean.'"
That story did not make me conclude that people in Baltimore are angry and mean. I think many are, but that was one tender moment in a nightmare of a job.
I told him a lot of things. I told him about the documentary I've just completed on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. I followed a man for two years beginning the day he got the legal lethal dose, through all the twists and turns of the decision-making process as to when to end his life. He died wearing our mic.
Dechter could have included that, but it wouldn't have fit his idea of caricaturing me and his scalp-gathering agenda.
Lucky for me, he can't hurt me, he can only piss me off...unlike poor Mike Olesker, who deserved better.
How does he know I am "hustling for even more publicity?" And is there something wrong with promoting your own book? If he writes a book and it's bought by Random House, is he planning to turn down the promotional opportunities his publicist gives him? I doubt it.
While I'm complaining, the photographer who took that picture was here for an hour on Saturday and most of the pictures he took were of me smiling. You chose to run one where I was frowning.
So when the headline says, "Fuck Us," Dechter isn't including himself in the "us." Believe me. I'm more "us" than he'll ever be.
Baltimore....Gadi Dechter is not on your side.
Before he hung up, he said that he'd like to hang out with me and see how I reacted the next time I came back to Baltimore. Uh, no thanks, dude. I'll stick to Jimmy's and people who know who Jerry Turner was.
By the way, I still yell "O" during the national anthem when I drive up to Seattle to see the Orioles.
Here are some of Dechter's blatant mistakes:

1. I was never a news producer at WJZ-TV. I was a news producer at WMAR-TV and a story producer at WJZ-TV's Evening Magazine. Also, I never told him that Evening was new and hiring producers. It had been on the air for a year and was already a hit when I came to work for them.
I also never told him that I regretted coming back to Baltimore to work for Evening, as he claims. I don't regret a moment of my work at Evening.
2. I said "Baltimore's greatest cultural contribution in the past 50 years is Divine eating dog shit off a sidewalk on Read St." Not “Baltimore’s greatest claim to fame is that Divine ate shit on Read Street,”
3. P.J. O'Rourke was editor of HARRY for a brief period of time (a matter of months). In reality, Michael Carliner, HARRY's original publisher was the editor, followed by O'Rourke for a few months when I was publisher, and then I was editor/publisher.
4. I did not tell him I was a "children's party DJ." I was a wedding reception/party DJ. If he had bothered to check the piece I wrote for the City Paper in 1996 on my brief DJ career, he would have discovered that. Notice how sloppy Dechter is? I sent him my resume with the jobs I've had and the dates I had them. Apparently he did not avail himself of that document.
5. He implies that I took "odd jobs to pay the rent on his Mount Vernon apartment. He penned tabloid articles, created screaming car dealership TV ads, produced features stories for a failed “Trucker TV” network, and worked as a children’s party DJ." Actually, other than the tabloid work, I did all those other things from 1986-1996.

So that was what I wrote to him and his editors yesterday.
I'm just as pisssed off today, but my skin is very thick and guys like Dechter are a dime a dozen.
He calls me a hack for writing jokes for a humor publication. His prose is clunky, not clever, not funny, and just plain mean...but bad mean. Not even clever mean. Just ugly.
Who's the hack here? I think it's that schmuck.
An ugly piece by an ugly writer who is living off his famous name. Isn't that how he got all his gigs, anyway?
More later.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Breathing Easier In Oregon Today

In an astounding show of common sense, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the Oregon Death With Dignity law 6-3. Not many people have had the chance to observe the Oregon law at work, mainly because not many people in Oregon have used the law, only 198 since the law went into effect in 1998, after the voters approved it for the second time in a ballot initiative.
The Christian lobby opposed the law at time, the Catholic
Church being the largest contributor of money to attempt to defeat the law. The pseudo-Christian lobby (a.k.a. Bush administration), pandering to its base of radical right-wing fundamentalists tried several methods of thwarting the will of the Oregon voters.
One of the first was the ridiculously named Pain Relief Promotion Act, pushed by the Christian radicals. It was deftly defeated by Sen. Ron Wyden (D. Oregon) and others by threatening a filibuster and killing the measure after the Republicans could not muster the sixty votes for cloture.
Then came the misnamed “Ashcroft challenge” to the Oregon law, misnamed because it was really a Bush (or Rove) initiative. The challenge was ridiculed in Federal Court in Oregon, where a Justice Department attorney sent to argue the case mispronounced the name “Oregon” several times in his appearance, drawing laughter in the courtroom and a scolding from the judge. The challenge was strongly rebuked and Ashcroft had his butt kicked by the judge’s subsequent opinion.
The Ninth Circuit Court similarly dismissed the Bush-Rove challenge to the law, and now the Supreme Court has finished the job.
Co-Director Greg Bond and I spent two years shooting a documentary on Robert Schwartz, an AIDS patient, beginning the day before he got the lethal dose of drugs, prescribed legally under the Oregon law and ending the afternoon he took them, surrounded by his family and friends. Robert died wearing our microphone.
That documentary, “Robert’s Story: Dying With Dignity” is currently in the marketing phase.
So, this morning, after just having read the news that the people of Oregon have won a great victory in the battle for self-determination, all I can see is Robert’s smiling face. Not the pain and suffering he underwent fighting to keep enough quality of life to stay alive and not have to use the drugs. Not the anger he expressed at the Bush administration who wanted to take the ultimate choice away from other like him. Not even the acceptance and peace of his final decision to end his life.
I see a big smile on Robert’s face.
I remember what he told us on the morning of his death:
“I’m absolutely grateful for the fact that I have this choice and that I can have my family surrounding me today as I get ready to do this, and nobody is risking criminal sanctions because of it.
“You know, Oregon has always been known as a rebel state, an innovative state when it comes to personal issues, particularly. My belief is that given the opportunity, I think this will pass in most other states, if it ever gets allowed to be voted on.
“I think that as people become more aware over time, and become even more sensitized to the fact that we’re losing our rights to zealots. I think that’ll fuel the eventual passage in the other states.”
Later, Robert took communion with those gathered at his house, said his goodbyes, had an anointing service at his bedside, drank a glass of liquid Nembutal, rubbed the head of his partner one last time, closed his eyes and left us…unaware that this morning would come and the right of self-determination would be upheld.
We’re all a little more comfortable with our destiny in Oregon today.

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com

Monday, January 02, 2006

Intercepted Emails Reveal Source of Scalia Humor

Exclusive!!! Progressive surveillance program discovers the trail leads to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The Bush administration is not the only bunch intercepting emails. My 14 year-old nephew is getting pretty good at it too. Here’s something he intercepted after the New York Times ran the story on how funny Justice Antonin Scalia is.

From: ilovethiscrowd@supremes.gov
To: fingernailpuller@undisclosed.com
Subject: funny funny me

hey duck-huntin dickie! J dija see the times on saturday? they named me the funniest dude on the court. pretty fckn good huh? i cuddn’ta done it without the jokes you send me.
the thing that pisses me off is that they only used one of my lines in the times piece:

“…a light bulb in the courtroom’s ceiling exploded during an argument. …’it’s a trick they play on new chief justices all the time,’ chief justice john g. roberts jr. …said.
[laughter]
‘happy halloween,’ justice scalia retorted.
[laughter]”

the really good ones that u sent me didn’t get in, like remember when we were deciding the kansas dept. of revenue v. the potawatomi indians… that thing we settled on dec 5?
i mean the name of those guys is funny enough. fkcn clarence couldn’t hardly keep from busting out loud whenever the clerk called that case. i didn’t even know potawatomi was a real name. i thought it was from a bugs bunny cartoon.
i can’t fckn believe that nimrod from the times didn’t put my joke in. i was gettin bored with the whole thing that day, ya know. And I had a lot of christmas shopping to do and a half a bottle of anisette in my office to finish off. so i just interrupted the potawatomi’s lawyer and said “hey, ya know how get a one-armed indian out of a tree? ya wave to him!!”
lololololol
i thought Clarence was gonna shit his pants.
I’ll never forget when you told me that joke. I think we were duck hunting or something.

REPLY FROM CHENEY:

hey tone!!! hell, u almost dropped the gun and shot my ass off when you heard that one.
lmao
i got another one for ya when the assisted suicide case comes up this term. One of those wimp-assed girlie-man lawyers from oregon is gonna start tellin you about the process for getting those drugs to kill yourself. When he tells you that you have to have a second doctors’ opinion, you stop him and say, “clarence here had to get a second opinion one time. The doctor told him, ‘hey, yer ugly, too!!’
lolololololol

REPLY FROM SCALIA:

roflamao
where do ya come up with these things?
dickie, i dunno wut i’d do without ya.

REPLY FROM CHENEY:

who luvs ya tone? hey btw….i wanna run this by ya. I have a new squad ima send out to iraq, afghanistan and some of the other resorts i’ve set up. we need to toughen up our persuasion techniques. don’t matter what congress says, we know who’s in charge…you and me.
so this squad is gonna lock the bastards up in the dark, i paid fitty a lot of money to write and record his hardest rhymes and we’re gonna play them at ear-bleeding volume for a couple of days and then take the sob’s out, waterboard them, rip their fingernails off, break some bones, burn their hair off, tattoo my picture on their chest, rape their women, cut their fingers off, then their toes. And if they don’t talk by then we’re gonna kill em, chop em up, cook em up and feed em to the other prisoners and THEN tell them what they ate.
so i’m gonna need your help when the time comes. k, dude?

REPLY FROM SCALIA:

awesome. n/p dickie. what are you gonna call that squad?

REPLY FROM CHENEY:

THE ARISTOCRATS!!!!
ROFLMFAO
L8

This also appears on huffingtonpost.com