Hello. I’m Gavin Edwards, the public speaker and the New York Times-bestselling author of The Tao of Bill Murray, the ’Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy series, and Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever. If you’re interested in hiring me, click here for more information.
I traded tweets earlier today with a very cool graphic artist, Craig Robinson, author of the excellent and witty baseball infographic collection Flip Flop Fly Ball. The spur: he recently compiled his own single-disc version of the Beatles’ White Album, which reminded me of the time I did my version.
We’re not the only ones, of course. You might check out Beatles blogger Megan, the commenters at the Beatles Bible website, or the good people of Mojo magazine. Reading through a bunch of these, I’m struck by how many people want to keep beginning the album with “Back in the U.S.S.R.” My leadoff choice of “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” is, er, a minority taste, but I stand behind it: the song sounds groovy and modern to me, with a wide range of sounds that hints at the vast palette of the White Album (even a truncated one-disc version). And I’ve seen Baryshnikov get down to it.
I’m not a big fan of “gee, sorry this site hasn’t been so active lately, I promise I’ll do better” posts, which are basically net kudzu, but since it’s a new year, it seems like a good time for a quick update: I have segued directly from working on the VJ book (out in May) to writing a biography of the late, great River Phoenix. This is all excellent, of course, but it’s left me with vanishingly little time for the upkeep of Rule Forty-Two. So for the next few months, updates will continue on an irregular schedule. I do have some posts almost ready to go, including the next installment of the 1988 countdown, so check in now and then (or get the RSS feed so you don’t miss anything).
Speaking of the countdown, you may not have thought about entry #43, Information Society’s “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy),” since it was posted in May 2011. But you might want to check out the entry again, given that the comments have now been graced by the presence of James Cassidy, who played bass and keyboards for Information Society. (He actually posted his reply in November, but I fell behind on approving new commenters–my apologies.) My breakdown of the clip boiled down to “pretty good song, shame about the video,” which apparently did not gibe with his point of view. (Let’s just hope that this site is never discovered by Steve Winwood, Chicago, or Diane Keaton.)
This was a cool surprise: Apparently the Da Capo anthology Best Music Writing 2011, guest-edited by the estimable Alex Ross, includes 32 essays on music published in 2010. I didn’t make that cut, but I appear to be represented in the “Other Notable Music Writing” list at the back, for my profile of producer Dr. Luke (you know, the one where he says “How can it be a hit without lasers and cymbals?”). Admittedly, there’s 128 other pieces of writing on that list, but I am nevertheless honored and chuffed. Now I have to buy the book!
Rolling Stone has published another of my series of articles where I interview famous people about their Twitter feeds: last year it was Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, but this week it’s the lovely and talented Mindy Kaling, creator and star of the charming new sitcom The Mindy Project. For maximum self-referentiality, tweet about it! Or if you just want to follow either of us on Twitter, she’s @mindykaling and I’m @mrgavinedwards — good times await for all.
This Sunday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine is “The Inspiration Issue,” featuring a collection of articles about how creativity works. I contributed two pieces: a short one where I got Andre Braugher to share the reading list that served as his preparation for playing a submarine captain on the very enjoyable new ABC drama Last Resort (debuting tonight!), and a somewhat longer one where Quentin Tarantino laid out how his love for the ultraviolent spaghetti westerns of Sergio Corbucci fueled his next movie, Django Unchained (due at Christmas). As David Byrne once advised, it’s okay to be afraid when the blue spark hits your brain.
My apologies for the grain: this was taken from my car and then cropped down, but I thought the license plate was remarkable.
In case it’s not clear, that’s a BMW featuring the vanity license plate HAMLET, with the A replaced by a star symbol. For me, that sums up a lot of life in L.A.: art and show-biz and money rubbing up against each other, sometimes with very odd results. Is it Mel Gibson’s car? Liev Schreiber’s? Ethan Hawke’s?
You may have noticed that posting here at R42 HQ has been lighter in the past year than in the past, for which I apologize. Aside from the generic huggermugger of a busy life getting in the way of my Quality Blogging Time, I’ve had a specific big project I’ve been working on, called VJ. It’s the memoirs of the original MTV VJs (Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn–not, alas, the late J.J. Jackson) and I can’t wait for you to read it. But book publishing being what it is, I’ll have to–until May 7, 2013, anyway. Until then, you can read about it here and pre-order a copy here.
With the book in the hands of the good people at Atria / Simon and Schuster, I am no longer soaking in all things MTV–which means that I hope to resume the 1988 countdown soon, since it will no longer feel like a busman’s holiday.
