Category: GQ


Our President, the Writer

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October 17, 2009

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At least from early adulthood if not before, Barack Obama was clearly driven to write; to trace that continuing compulsion, from the days when he penned fiction and then memoir to his present speechcraft, is to recognize that writing is anything but a small part of Obama’s life. It’s basic to who he is.

“I think he sees the world through a writer’s eye,” says senior White House adviser and former Chicago journalist David Axelrod. “I’ve always appreciated about him his ability to participate in a scene and also reflect on it. I mean, I remember when we were meeting clandestinely with the guys who were vetting the vice presidential candidates. There was this courtly southern gentleman who was doing the vetting. The president said to me, ‘This whole scene’s right out of a Grisham novel.’ [GQ]

Barack Obama’s Work In Progress

First

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The Writers

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November 18, 2008


GQ’s Men of the Year Issue

An interview with the most important people behind the greatest show on television, The Wire…

A cop show that eschewed “justice always prevails” reassurance. A convoluted all-the-pieces-matter narrative that defied passive consumption and punished latecomers. A “novel for television” with scripts written by world-class novelists like Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, and George Pelecanos. ["Tough Guys of the Year: Baltimore's Finest" Part I]

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Random Articles

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November 3, 2008


N.E.R.D: Writer Joel Stein drolly ponders Barack Obama and the damaging “Urkel Effect.” [Time]

On Sarah Palin and how she got here [New Yorker]

Another piece on the group of Americans who are still mind-bogglingly undecided re: the election. Sigh. [New York Times]

“Will You Be My Black Friend” …That’s enough to make you want to read. [GQ]

It ain’t over til it’s over. Obama supporters are really, very, rightfully (sometimes humorously) paranoid. [New York Times]

Richard Schrader, a senior staff member for a national environmental organization, lives in Amherst, Mass., where politics start liberal and traipse left. He is fairly liberal, but his neighbors worry that he does not worry nearly enough. “They wake up, drink that pot of coffee and hit the polling Web sites,” Mr. Schrader said. “Too much good news has to be a lie.”

Recently he sat down with a friend who was sweating about Minnesota.

“Minnesota?” Mr. Schrader told his friend. “What, are you kidding me? Obama’s up 14 points there.”

The friend shook his head sadly. Take off seven points for hidden racial animus. Subtract another five for polling error. It is down to two points, and that is within the margin of error in sampling, and that could mean Mr. Obama might be behind.

“It was perversely impressive,” Mr. Schrader said.

Another friend worries that every undecided voter will break for Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee. Mr. Schrader said, “I told him: ‘O.K., that will be the first time that has ever happened in American history, but sure.’ ”

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Revenge of the Nerds

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August 31, 2008
“Geek” Martin Starr: I did not know that was the same guy in Knocked Up

Finally finished the Freaks & Geeks six-disc series, a Judd Apatow-produced TV show from 1999. I think I remember watching one episode when it first came out. But lately I’d been reading about the brilliance of the short-lived series in like every single Apatow-related mag article, so I Netflixed. Its depictions of high school kids, and just people, was spot on. About the haves and haves not, socially speaking. And it’s funny. There was one episode where the three so-called geeks (they liked Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars and ohmygod I loved them) were walking down the hall and the jocks came up behind them and knocked their books out of their hands, then ran away laughing…”Why do they think that’s funny?” Bill, played by Martin Starr (above), is my favorite character.

Sam: What’s non-alcoholic beer?
Bill: It’s just like beer, it just doesn’t have that ingredient that makes you drunk.
Neal: …Alcohol?
Bill: Yeah.


One of the former “Freaks,” the smoldering James Franco, is profiled in GQ‘s September issue. Chris Heath, I thought, did a good job of painting who this guy we’ve been seeing everywhere (including the unfunny-to-me Pineapple Express) really is. I learned. And I can relate to Franco’s over-achiever tendencies. Apparently he took the method acting technique way seriously.

“It seems unlikely. Some people seem born to take things too seriously, and if taking things too seriously may sometimes cause needless upset and stain the path behind them, it may also bring them rewards and results rarely sought in this flabby go-with-the-flow, follow-your-dream, find-your-joy era. If you act as though everything you do really matters, with all the time and thought and furrowing of brows that James Franco brings to his endeavors, there’s always the chance that in the end it might.”

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