The Will Leitch Experience

Also, Jim Cooke’s art makes me so happy. I think I want...

Fri, 25 May 2012 08:25:56 -0400

Also, Jim Cooke’s art makes me so happy. I think I want this on my wall.

Cardinals streakers are the best streakers. (Jeff Passan wrote a...

Fri, 25 May 2012 06:24:00 -0400

Cardinals streakers are the best streakers.

(Jeff Passan wrote a great piece about this guy at Busch last night.)

"Writer shows little flair for characterization or dialogue and a near-total ignorance of structure...."

Tue, 22 May 2012 07:59:00 -0400

“Writer shows little flair for characterization or dialogue and a near-total ignorance of structure. Captain Kirk is killed in the cold open and is immediately replaced by Ensign Kinsey, a “rakishly handsome genius/seeker whom Kirk had been secretly grooming as his successor for years, unbeknownst to the rest of the Enterprise staff,” an unbelievable breech of Starfleet protocol. A graphically described orgy in the captain’s quarters involving Kinsey, Uhura, Sulu, and the seven-breasted, five-vaginated Negron escapee certainly violates all conceivable network standards of decency. The sudden appearance of Batman in Act 10 is unmotivated and absurd, as is his unexplained use of heat vision to incinerate a Kakazaan lizard-guard. At one point Ensign Kinsey shows his penis to Spock for no discernible reason.”

- Good Lord, did Mark Lisanti’s “analysis” of Paul Kinsey’s “The Negron Complex” fake “Star Trek” script on “Mad Men” this week make me laugh and laugh and laugh.

theawl: skidder: AdWeek requires you to share certain stories...

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:07:57 -0400

theawl:

skidder:

AdWeek requires you to share certain stories in order to finish reading them. Why would I want to share something I can’t read? And is there anything more desperate a publisher can do? Gross.

I want to talk to the evil stupid-genius that invented this.

Ha. Honestly, I would rather PAY to finish the story.

As pointed out by Lindsay Robertson, Michael Ginsburg’s...

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:36:00 -0400

As pointed out by Lindsay Robertson, Michael Ginsburg’s folder SHIT I GOTTA DO on last night’s “Mad Men” is frighteningly similar to my infamous SHIT TO GIT DUN list I’ve been updating three or four times a day for about 10 years now, so that the world does not spin off into chaos and madness. His list is cleaner, but I have more shit to do. You’re on alert, Ginsburg.

Happy Mother’s Day to Sally Leitch, David Letterman...

Sun, 13 May 2012 15:40:00 -0400

Happy Mother’s Day to Sally Leitch, David Letterman fill-in host last year, and my awesome mom.

(For that matter, a happy Mother’s Day to Alexa Stevenson, who is celebrating her first Mother’s Day as a mom, thanks to this messy rugrat. Alexa used to look like this.)

So here’s the best thing you will see today, via Mike...

Sat, 12 May 2012 15:57:00 -0400

So here’s the best thing you will see today, via Mike D’Angelo.

(This is sort of the literal version of what the release of “Nevermind” did for me metaphorically in high school.)

Yeah, what does your dog do? (The stuff you find when...

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:42:00 -0400

Yeah, what does your dog do?

(The stuff you find when you’re cleaning out your home for a move is really quite fantastic.)

Man, Tony, you drove me crazy, but couldn’t be happier for...

Fri, 11 May 2012 20:18:25 -0400

Man, Tony, you drove me crazy, but couldn’t be happier for you. It was all so, so worth it.

julieklausner: Get the new episode of my podcast from iTunes or...

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:48:56 -0400

julieklausner:

Get the new episode of my podcast from iTunes or download/stream it directly here!

How Was Your Week: Episode 62
“The Front of a Crocodile: Will Leitch, Sara Schaefer”

Oh boy, oh boy! This episode of How Was Your Week is so good, it will curl your pretty lashes.

First and foremost, Julie went with Billy Eichner to see Rita Wilson perform at Joe’s Pub last night, and there is an extensive recap at the top of the show of that blessed and sacred evening of song and magic. Nora Ephron and Wendi Deng were both in the audience? I mean. I can’t.

And then, there are the guests. The guests! And what guests! In time for Mothers’ Day, the charming and attractive SARA SCHAEFER (You Had To Be There) is here to tell a touching, funny and insane story about the time her mom invited a homeless man to live with her family for 6 months. Learn about chicken strips, Christmas Eve and Rwanda through the prism of a man named Harold.

Then, wonderful gentleman writer WILL LEITCH (New York Magazine, Gawker, Deadspin) joins Julie for the latest installation of How Was Your Week Movie Club. This week, we discuss the sublime Fargo. Subtopics of our fun, fascinating chat include:

>Whether Tarantino’s ’90s blood legacy holds up with the woodchipper gag (and it IS a gag, right?)
>If Harve Presnell was indeed Fargo’s high-status stand-in for the “bellowing heavy” in the Coen Bros’ cabinet of archetypes
>What Lt. Columbo and Marge Gunderson have in common
>A theory about how Walter White, Carl Showalter and Jerry Lundegaard are the trinity of failed virility
>Mike Yanagita, Mike Yanagita, Mike Yanagita

Also, more details are revealed about Jimmy Jazz, including some extremely intimate details about his intimacy parts! Julie accepts her Comedy Awards defeat graciously, then goes on to renew her vow to crush absolutely everybody on her way to where she—and we—need to be! Sean Bean is discovered and considered for who he is and not who he could be! And Julie watches, then recaps, Duck Dynasty and Tanked, because there is nothing better than never leaving the house.

A show that is so wonderful, even Rita Wilson would stop singing “Angel in the Morning” to complement it!

*** Reblog! Retweet! Be sweet! ***

Julie Klausner is one of those human beings who makes the world a better place every time she walks through it. (Which is daily, one would presume.) ‘Twas a dandy-darned honor to be on the show. Listen! (To her. Mute me.)

Been quiet about this so far this year to make sure I...

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:41:47 -0400

Been quiet about this so far this year to make sure I don’t mess with it … but I’m don’t think there’s been a month-and-a-half start to a Cardinals season I’ve enjoyed this much in the last 20 years. Shhhh.

Progress, followed immediately by something decidedly less than...

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:18:00 -0400

Progress, followed immediately by something decidedly less than that.

mcnallyjackson: Atria’s concerns with the hardcover jacket...

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:20:20 -0400

mcnallyjackson:

Atria’s concerns with the hardcover jacket design for Jennifer Weiner’s Then Came You:

Skirt color

Hair style

Ugly desk

Things about which they are blithely unconcerned:

The terrifying geometries of their stock photography, making it seem as if the floor of this office lies at a forty-five degree angle to the surface of the earth. Or is she in a plummeting aircraft? Maybe it’s the future, and she is actually in the interior of a spun up asteroid, and those are screens meant to ease claustrophobia. Which explains the Future Desk. And the blouse. Nobody wears green on X-371, lest they be targeted by the security wasps, obviously.

Ha. “Is she in a plummeting aircraft?”

peterfeld: Beastie Boys and Elvis Costello, “Radio Radio”

Sat, 05 May 2012 12:59:32 -0400

peterfeld:

Beastie Boys and Elvis Costello, “Radio Radio”

Mikhail Gorbachev, Buzzsaw fan.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:56:51 -0400

Mikhail Gorbachev, Buzzsaw fan.

I posted this a year ago — thanks, Timehop! — and I...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:11:06 -0400

I posted this a year ago — thanks, Timehop! — and I still can’t believe it exists. (And here are some more.)

My Derrick Rose story has inspired a grammatically questionable...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:57:00 -0400

My Derrick Rose story has inspired a grammatically questionable Bleacher Report poll. Check that one off the bucket list.

It is, as they say, a bit dusty in here.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:20:47 -0400

It is, as they say, a bit dusty in here.

For the cover of GQ this month, I wrote about Chicago Bulls...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:42:00 -0400

For the cover of GQ this month, I wrote about Chicago Bulls superstar point guard Derrick Rose. I found him smart and self-aware and intelligent and more than a little sad; he has essentially lived in the public eye, but under private protection from anything scary in the world, since he was five years old. I think he’s still adjusting to that, and what kind of person he is as an adult. All superstar athletes deal with this in one way or another, this extended adolescence. Some turn into dicks, some cower under the glare, some grasp at any sort of control over their life they can. Rose, it seems to me, is still trying to figure it out.

(This intense psychological profile brought to you by a guy with no advanced degrees and no professional expertise in any sort of analytical field, in addition to no life experience that could possibly give him any sort of perspective on the world inhabited by his subject … but hey, I did talk to the guy for a few hours while holding a tape recorder. SO DO NOT QUESTION MY THEORIES I KNOW HIM DAMMIT.)

Pretty mesmerizing, honestly. Would be strangely OK if they did...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:30:45 -0400

Pretty mesmerizing, honestly. Would be strangely OK if they did this with Kurt, but just once.