hollywood, interrupted: insanity chic in babylon--the case against celebrity / too weird for ziggy

[August 18th, 2004]

^hollywood, interrupted: insanity chic in babylon--the case against celebrity

By Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner
(John Wiley and Sons, 416 pages, $27.95)

As an admitted celebrity-gossip enthusiast who is both entranced and repelled by the behavior of Hollywood's finest, I saw Hollywood, Interrupted as an enticing reading opportunity--a chance to join its authors in gleefully deriding the vagaries of our most celebrated entertainers. At times the book satisfies this voyeuristic need, but at others it resounds of the "virtuous" William Bennett, appearing as no more than a self-serious morality tale.

When commenting on the amusingly harmless HBO comedy Sex and the City, authors Breitbart and Ebner ascribe rather nefarious societal effects to the show: "Sex and the City, a pox on Sarah Jessica's house, will have long-lasting deleterious effects on those women who bought into the hype, thinking that living as successful working women leading promiscuous sex lives well into their thirties will ensure a happy ending."

The authors also find time to denounce the outspokenness of some celebrities, blasting them as "unelected representatives sending messages to the world through the entertainment media, decrying the very system that affords them their opportunities." In a country where Linda Ronstadt can be physically removed from a Las Vegas hotel merely for dedicating a song to Michael Moore, it's a shame that Breitbart and Ebner could make no allowances for the First Amendment.

It should be noted that co-author Andrew Breitbart, a "conservative news junkie," is the online sidekick to Matt Drudge, while his partner, "bleeding-heart investigative journalist" Mark Ebner, is of the Salon and Spin variety of social commentators. This may help explain the overbearing polemical tone. Lisa Warner

^too weird for ziggy

By Sylvie Simmons
(Grove, 208 pages, $12)

Real-life rock journalism is often a lot less glamorous than one might think. Idolized and respected musicians often turn out to be nasally old guys, boring businessmen or monosyllabic thugs. VIP passes mean little more than having free rein to gorge on stale donuts. While rock stars usually turn out to be run-of-the-mill, there are still those moments that make rock journalism a job worth starving for. In real life, Shane MacGowan vomits behind a green-room sofa without taking a break in signing autographs. George Clinton asks if he can smoke and then whips out a crack pipe.

Noted U.K. rock scribe Sylvie Simmons turns a fictional eye to the profession of rock writer in Too Weird for Ziggy, a collection of loosely interconnected short stories that draw from her time as a contributor to glossy mags like Mojo, Q and Rolling Stone.

Simmons, in her years as a writer, has accrued enough bizarre rock-writer moments to fill a book, or so you'd think. Instead, Simmons offers the reader a collection of VH1 docudrama treatments of the stereotypical country star, the decadent rock band, and a Jim Morrison impersonator. As an added bonus, Simmons herself appears in the stories in sweeping moments of self-aggrandizement.

Too Weird For Ziggy would have been barely tolerable if it were actual pieces of reportage. The fact that it is fiction just leaves us with one more paperweight in the world. Richard Shirk