Merrill Markoe's Blog, page 6

Well, now that we've made it through Valentine's Day, the excitement as we head in to President's Day is palpable. So many holidays, one after another. It can be overwhelming.

But obviously we humans love our holidays. In ancient Rome they had 159 publicly funded holidays a year. Three a week!  The ancient Romans were so busy packing and unpacking decorations and lights and preparing special meals for family that they forgot to notice their empire was crumbling. Maybe we like holidays so much because we rely on them for a formal excuse for celebration. As if there weren't a million reasons to celebrate anyway! And I can think of no better example than this  catalog I got in the mail yesterday;  a perfect reminder not to overlook the simple, mundane things in life that bring us joy. Like bras. Because a woman grows up wearing one every day from about age 11 on,  it becomes so routine, she can forget about all the merriment.

So kudos to the genius who put this catalog together. He or she had the soul and the heart to remind us how nothing is more fun than a bra!  Why, you no sooner put one on then you get so giddy, you just start clowning! Next thing you know, you've made yourself a bowl of cereal so enormous, there's nothing to do but throw it in the air!  Then you eat two popsicles at the same time and follow it up with two cannolis! Why? Because one thing about hanging out in your bra: You don't feel self conscious at all about your belly fat. Part of the magic of a bra is the way it makes you want to sit down and eat a stack of 17 pancakes (after you examine someone else's fork full, since none of yours have been started yet) Or order a bucket of chicken designed for a family of 12. Then you start spearing fruit! Yep! That's what a great bra will do for you: energize you so much you turn in to a fruit ninja!  Before you know it,  you've got a book on your head and you're using cup cakes for glasses!                                                           So…thank you bras…for all the years of wacky hilarity.

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PS: Perhaps you would like to buy my new book! Here: Read review.

For sale wherever fine books are sold. And other kinds of books.

Westminster is happening this week. By which I mean the big Westminster Kennel Club Show at Madison Square Garden.  Every year I watch that show and have the same thought about how impossible it would be to be a human being leaping around the ring with those pure bred dogs.  Year before last I finally did a piece about just the women participants, after watching it in my head for  the past 15 years.

Last year I did one about just the guys.

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P.S.

I have a new book out. You can read reviews for it under BOOKS on this very website. AND you can buy it here. You should so totally buy it.

If this blog has a yearly tradition it is my ongoing efforts at photographing Bob Dylan's Christmas Decorations. Not everyone thinks of Bob Dylan as a Christmassy sort of guy. I know I didn't. But I do now.

It started because I like to inspect the neighborhood Christmas decorations every year and Mr. Dylan has a house in my neighborhood.  I grew up worshipping Mr. Dylan. Not too many artists had more impact on my development than he did. And now I believe the same holds true for his Christmas decorating style. Let us examine his approach. There is much to learn.

Of all the outdoor decorating styles on display in my neighborhood, year after year Mr. Dylan's is  the most low key. It appears casual to the point of almost seeming unplanned. At first glance it may look thrown together without much forethought. Yet when we examine his efforts in years past,his astonishing consistency reveals the stylings of a very specific Christmas artist at work.

First: a brief trip down memory lane.

Here is Mr. Dylan's decor in 2009.

Here is Mr. Dylan's Christmas offering in 2010.

And now behold, The Dylan Christmas of 2011:

This year we see a variation on last year's theme as he repeats his signature lack of formality. He has again hung the lights in what can now be referred to as a prototypical Dylanesque style.There is resistence to symmetry, the avoidance of an obvious pattern or design.  In the detail below we see the return of a classic Dylan touch: the low hanging loop, which some call 'Dylan's Necktie'. Others prefer to call it 'The Crutch'.

Also this year the lights are higher up on the bushes than  in previous years, perhaps indicating  a more spiritual intention. Then again, they may be providing a comment about  the hopes of the common man in an economic downturn.

As with all of Dylan's best work, ultimately we are left with more questions than answers.

Yet tears well up and there is a quiet joy. Or something.

Happy Holidays everyone. From me. And from Bob.

PS: No matter what the copy on the page reads, my new book is in stock again now. They just restocked them. Buy one, won't you?

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

So this is a little PR wrap up of a few my recent book promotional attempts…at least the ones that I thought went well.  If you have come to this site looking for current data on me, this stuff might be it.

First, here's the WTF podcast I did with Marc Maron. I f you're not familiar with WTF, you should google it. Marc does absolutely great interviews with people who work in, around, and near comedy. Marc is a brilliant comedian himself and he is one of a kind.

Then I went on The Daily Show. That was fun.Me on The Daily Show

Then I wrote a post about it on Regretsy.

So…that a lot of stuff! Think I'll quit while we're both ahead.

But first let me update you on the book. The Daily Show appearance kicked sales in to a gear that the book company was apparently not prepared for. They sold out of the first printing but they tell me there will be more books next week some time.(Despite the fact that Amazon has a disparaging note that sounds like you will never receive a book in this or any other lifetime.) So if you order it, you will too get it by Christmas! While you are waiting, you can re-enjoy this video I made of my dogs fetching the book out of the pool. One other hilarious bi-product of this whole brouhaha is visible today (Dec.7) on Amazon. Although I am told there might be new books for sale AT REGULAR PRICES there tomorrow, the used book market vultures have already made a desperate attempt. Check out these bargain prices. At least they're supposed to be in pretty good shape. HAA!

So this is a little PR wrap up of a few my recent book promotional attempts…at least the ones that I thought went well.  If you have come to this site looking for current data on me, this stuff might be it.

First, here's the WTF podcast I did with Marc Maron. I f you're not familiar with WTF, you should google it. Marc does absolutely great interviews with people who work in, around, and near comedy. Marc is a brilliant comedian himself and he is one of a kind.

Then I went on The Daily Show. That was fun.Me on The Daily Show

Then I wrote a post about it on Regretsy.

So…that a lot of stuff! Think I'll quit while we're both ahead.

But first let me update you on the book. The Daily Show appearance kicked sales in to a gear that the book company was apparently not prepared for. They sold out of the first printing but they tell me there will be more books next week some time.(Despite the fact that Amazon has a disparaging note that sounds like you will never receive a book in this or any other lifetime.) So if you order it, you will too get it by Christmas! While you are waiting, you can re-enjoy this video I made of my dogs fetching the book out of the pool.

I made myself a book promo. Because I have a book coming out in a month.

I realize that this promo does not offer a lot of information about the book. But it DOES have TWO endings, both involving pretty fancy footwork on the part of my dogs. I am at work on ANOTHER promo that will offer more information. But come on. I had to post this one. TWO pieces of reasonably good dog action, from MY dogs. That's a lot, considering the cast.

So there is a piece in the new RollingStone about year one of the Letterman show. (If you use the link, check under the area labeled 'features' ). As a lot of you may know, this is not a piece of my past that I revisit much. For a lot of reasons, among them the fact that whatever  the opposite of nostalgic is, I am that. But when the writer of the piece, David Browne, contacted me, I decided I'd play along. Because…you know… why not?  And in the course of playing along, the art director asked me if I had any photos. As it turned out, I did.  I made jpegs out of a bunch of them but for whatever reason, they never made it in to the magazine.   Which brings us to this blog post. Since I went to the trouble of making the damn jpegs , I thought maybe fans of the early Letterman show might enjoy seeing them.  Lets get ME over with first. Here I am when the show first launched. The important writer shirt was a sarcastic souvenir from my days of being a struggling writer at large, newly moved to Hollywood. Which, at that point, was just a few weeks before this.  I thought it was a very funny thing to have on a shirt. That, in a nutshell, was me then.

I'm going in chronological order…This is a picture of the set during a rehearsal of Dave's MORNING show…which preceded the night show. It was on the air live 90 minutes a day at 10 in the morning on NBC for 19 weeks before it got cancelled.It was a lot like the night show but, if you can imagine it, even weirder. It had "a family"…many of them funny cerebral comedian character writer/performers.(The brilliant hilarious Valri Bromfield, Edie McClurg and Rich Hall, to name 3). The guy sitting with Dave is comedian Bob Sarlotte, who was supposed to be a kind of a side kick. He moved all the way to NYC, only to have the whole show up end in just a few months. When the show was cancelled two good things happened. We won an Emmy. And we got this cool telegram from Martin Scorcese. That was certainly very nice of him!

Here is what the host and one of his guests looked like during year one of the night show.  By the way, in case it is not obvious to you…that guest is Mr. Leno.

And this is what my assistant Chris Elliot , who was about 13 at the time, looked like. I had to get his mother's permission to take this picture. No No. I am kidding. But he was about 19. The photo beneathe this one is what he looked like playing a LifeGuard in a 'fun in the summer' special.

Now for some writers. This is a scrapbook page I didn't want to dissemble. Starting top left, the young Steve O'Donnel,(who went on to headwrite the show for many years)  then Jim Downey talking to  "not sure"…who MIGHT be Sandy Frank. (but still not sure.) They are in Tom Gammill's office, as you can see by the signature Gammill painting on the wall. Tom has a cartoon strip called The Doozies. (Google it, sit back, pour yourself a beverage and make an evening of them.)  Below on the right is my dear pal George Meyer,(more recently of The Simpsons). In this photo he is pretty much right out of college. He is on the site of a science fair that we covered for the show. Unless he was one of the exhibitors. And below on the left is the always funny and fantastic Hal Gurnee, who was our director. Here is the young Tom Gammill on the cover of an in-house news letter he and his partner Max Pross were writing and distributing to the staff.

Next is my old friend Gerry Mulligan, who stayed at the show until a couple of years ago when he retired! But this photo is taken of him when the show first started.And ladies and gentlemen, the hilarious Andy Breckman, who later in life became the creator of MONK.

Here is Paul  Shaffer holding a photograph of Hal Gurnee's dog Burt. For reasons of his own, Mr. Gurnee was obsessively photographing everyone who came on to the show holding this picture. Somewhere there are HUNDREDS of these. Not sure why I have this one.

And here I am in a segment for the first anniversary show called Stupid Writer's Tricks. I am doing a scene from a theoretical sit-com I wrote for myself called My Little Merrill. In the scene, my husband has told me that the boss is coming for dinner. But oops. Darn. In my hurry to get everything perfect I dropped a 100 lb. weight on  the dining room table and broke it in half.

This certainly proves I haven't changed as much as I thought.

Which brings us to Dave and the Grateful Dead. And with that we conclude this portion of the jpeg assortment. But wait…wait…one more thing.

A word from our sponsor. We hope you enjoyed this pointless trip down memory lane. We (and by we I mean ..uh…you know…) are so hopeful that we (I) would like to take this opportunity to (coughing fit. Excuse me.I'm sorry. I can't stop coughing. Oh. Where was I again? Ah yes.) Ahem. I have a new book coming out November first. It's a book of funny personal essays. Its called Cool Calm and Contentious and if there is any chance you can be talked in to pre-ordering one, you can do it HERE (amazon) or HERE (Barnes and Noble.) Thank you. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Not that there is any.

So there is a piece in the new RollingStone about year one of the Letterman show. (If you use the link, check under the area labeled ‘features’  And if the link says something about how you need to be a subscriber, just google Rollingstone,Current issue. And it will appear. Then look for features.). As a lot of you may know, this is not a piece of my past that I revisit much. For a lot of reasons, among them the fact that whatever  the opposite of nostalgic is, I am that. But when the writer of the piece, David Browne, contacted me, I decided I’d play along. Because…you know… why not?  And in the course of playing along, the art director asked me if I had any photos. As it turned out, I did.  I made jpegs out of a bunch of them but for whatever reason, they never made it in to the magazine.   Which brings us to this blog post. Since I went to the trouble of making the damn jpegs , I thought maybe fans of the early Letterman show might enjoy seeing them.  Lets get ME over with first. Here I am when the show first launched. The important writer shirt was a sarcastic souvenir from my days of being a struggling writer at large, newly moved to Hollywood. Which, at that point, was just a few weeks before this.  I thought it was a very funny thing to have on a shirt. That, in a nutshell, was me then.

I’m going in chronological order…This is a picture of the set during a rehearsal of Dave’s MORNING show…which preceded the night show. It was on the air live 90 minutes a day at 10 in the morning on NBC for 19 weeks before it got cancelled.It was a lot like the night show but, if you can imagine it, even weirder. It had “a family”…many of them funny cerebral comedian character writer/performers.(The brilliant hilarious Valri Bromfield, Edie McClurg, Wil Shriner and Rich Hall, to name 4). The guy sitting with Dave is comedian Bob Sarlotte, who was supposed to be a kind of a side kick. He moved all the way to NYC, only to have the whole show up end in just a few months. When the show was cancelled two good things happened. We won an Emmy. And we got this cool telegram from Martin Scorcese. That was certainly very nice of him!

Here is what the host and one of his guests looked like during year one of the night show.  By the way, in case it is not obvious to you…that guest is Mr. Leno.

And this is what my assistant Chris Elliot , who was about 13 at the time, looked like. I had to get his mother’s permission to take this picture. No No. I am kidding. But he was about 19. The photo beneathe this one is what he looked like playing a LifeGuard in a ‘fun in the summer’ special.

Now for some writers. This is a scrapbook page I didn’t want to dissemble. Starting top left, the young Steve O’Donnel,(who went on to headwrite the show for many years)  then Jim Downey talking to  “not sure”…who MIGHT be Sandy Frank. (but still not sure.) They are in Tom Gammill’s office, as you can see by the signature Gammill painting on the wall. Tom has a cartoon strip called The Doozies. (Google it, sit back, pour yourself a beverage and make an evening of them.)  Below on the right is my dear pal George Meyer,(more recently of The Simpsons). In this photo he is pretty much right out of college. He is on the site of a science fair that we covered for the show. Unless he was one of the exhibitors. And below on the left is the always funny and fantastic Hal Gurnee, who was our director. Here is the young Tom Gammill on the cover of an in-house news letter he and his partner Max Pross were writing and distributing to the staff.

Next is my old friend Gerry Mulligan, who stayed at the show until a couple of years ago when he retired! But this photo is taken of him when the show first started.And ladies and gentlemen, the hilarious Andy Breckman, who later in life became the creator of MONK.

Here is Paul  Shaffer holding a photograph of Hal Gurnee’s dog Burt. For reasons of his own, Mr. Gurnee was obsessively photographing everyone who came on to the show holding this picture. Somewhere there are HUNDREDS of these. Not sure why I have this one.

And here I am in a segment for the first anniversary show called Stupid Writer’s Tricks. I am doing a scene from a theoretical sit-com I wrote for myself called My Little Merrill. In the scene, my husband has told me that the boss is coming for dinner. But oops. Darn. In my hurry to get everything perfect I dropped a 100 lb. weight on  the dining room table and broke it in half.

This certainly proves I haven’t changed as much as I thought.

Which brings us to Dave and the Grateful Dead. And with that we conclude this portion of the jpeg assortment. But wait…wait…one more thing.

A word from our sponsor. We hope you enjoyed this pointless trip down memory lane. We (and by we I mean ..uh…you know…) are so hopeful that we (I) would like to take this opportunity to (coughing fit. Excuse me.I’m sorry. I can’t stop coughing. Oh. Where was I again? Ah yes.) Ahem. I have a new book coming out November first. It’s a book of funny personal essays. Its called Cool Calm and Contentious and if there is any chance you can be talked in to pre-ordering one, you can do it HERE (amazon) or HERE (Barnes and Noble.) Thank you. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Not that there is any.

Yes, we all know that we are in the throes of a world wide global economic crisis. But sometimes it takes something dire and international to help us to really SEE.   Today my new Anthropologie catalog arrived with exactly that kind of very special fashion reminder.  FALL 2011 has a message for us. And it is this. Nothing shows off a great new outfit like PEASANTS!

Maybe its the simplicity of their life styles or their primitive old-world mismatched clothing choices. Maybe its the way they're so cooperative even if you only have a few dollars budgeted to pay them. Whatever it is, peasants are a memo from another time and place where money still means a lot. (Though I doubt they need as much of it as we do because look at how they live and all!)

The important thing to remember is that peasants make the rest of us look elegant yet sensible this fall! And they're so much shorter and heavier than we are, which helps show us off to our best advantage.Plus they have scarves and chickens and buckets and weird hats, which are all like totally amazing! So when you think it about it, what better accessories for confusing times like these (when big salaries and gigantic bonuses are not fashionable) than PEASANTS? PS:

I…um…(clearing throat)have a new book coming out in November. You can pre-order it at(coughing) Amazon or Barnes and Noble or maybe somewhere else that you like better but I didn't think of. Thank you. Plus I will send you a handwritten thank you card.You never get that kind of thing from the vampire people.

I'm having trouble deciding whose facial expression is more frightening: Michele Bachmann's Precious:

or Rick Perry's Anton Chigurh.

Luckily we have a year to figure it out.

P.S.Sorry to be a pest but um, uh…on an unrelated topic…I realize Its not til November but if you're the kind of person who pre-orders books…(spasmodic coughing) Also Barnes and Noble[image error]