We love our categories neat and clean in America; if you think it over, you almost have to agree that it’s guns, cheeseburgers, and categories that made this country great (okay, you can throw in the Louisiana Purchase, if you’re of a geographical bent). I realized years ago that I had been categorized as the […]

Let’s get one thing straight, okay? In that strange, vulgar, brightly colored section of the popular culture known as Celebrity World, the paparazzi are the lowest form of human life. I have been touched by them only peripherally, and it’s been years since I really engaged their flea-like attention, yet recalling their exuberant shouts – […]

I’m a fast feeler but a slow thinker, so it took me a while to figure out why the reviews of United 93 left me feeling angry. Especially considering the fact that they were almost entirely positive, and I agreed with them – I think it is a shoo-in for a Best Picture nod at […]

A reader of this column sent me an e-memo the other day, noting that I hadn’t written about books for a while. He found this a bit strange, since writing novels happens to be my day job. The truth is I haven’t read as many books as usual, because I’m editing next year’s Best American […]

Ah, spring! Lawn mowers! Twittering birds! Baseball! Girls in shorts! And summer blockbusters right around the corner, which meant it was high time I called my friend Shane Leonard, also known as The Longhair. Some columnists have fictional friends to trot out when they need to create a dialogue, but The Longhair is real. In […]

So Katie Couric is leaving Today after roughly 40 years on the job (nah, I’m playin’ witcha – she started as coanchor in 1991; it just seems longer). She’s going to CBS, where she’ll become a new star in the network news firmament…or so the Big Eye hopes. I’ll be sorry to see current CBS […]

I wasn’t always like this. For years, I could take TV or leave it…and mostly I left it. What I did with my free time was read books, go to movies, play my guitar, or sometimes – don’t be shocked – I even talked to people. This talking-to-people thing was an arcane social ritual I […]

I know what you’re thinking: You need another column on this year’s Oscars, especially at this late date, about as much as Dick Cheney needs a few more jokes about hunting quail in Texas. But bear with me; this is, after all, the only Oscar postmortem you’ll read from a guy who put The Devil’s […]

This is a sad story about how good you can be in America and still not be quite good enough to make it. It’s about an alt-country band called Diesel Doug and the Long Haul Truckers. Please don’t confuse them with the Drive-By Truckers, a fine alt-country band that’s still going strong; you can only […]

In the 50 years or so since first watching Mike Wallace verbally mousetrap various guests on Night Beat, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an emotionally exhausting hour as Oprah Winfrey’s late-January interview with James Frey on her talk show. I suppose truth was the winner, but it was messy; by the end it […]