Wednesday, 25 August 1999

SECOND ANNIVERSARY RANT

The first Hot Button appeared at roughcut.com two years ago today. Well, something like today. You see, neither I nor roughcut.com has been able to come up with an exact date for the first Hot Button. But I know from the first mention of it in The Whole Picture that it was some time in late August 1997. And so, as with so much of rewritten history, the anniversary for The Hot Button is now August 25 a.k.a. my sister's birthday. Easy for me to remember. Of course, nothing about starting The Hot Button was easy. There was no money in the roughcut.com budget for a daily column when I decided one was necessary. So I started one. Our then editor, Andy Jones, was willing to allow me to do a daily column. As long as it wasn't over 250 words. I was able to take some grammatical license. But no ellipses, no symbols and no inexact uses of movie titles allowed. Of course, back then, I was allowed to write f**k as often as I liked. You gives, you gets.

Even when I was caught short because of budget concerns and wasn't paid for The Whole Picture during extra off weeks taken by the site for the holiday season, The Hot Button kept on coming. There are few things that I am as proud of as the fact that for more than two years, I haven't missed a day of this column. And of course, as you know, it's a little more than 250 words a day now. I managed to slide it into about 500 words a day within a few months of its start and was told that the design of the site precluded it being any longer. I still don't believe that one. But when the site redesign launched in early 1998, the column had its own page and room to grow. Soon it was 800 words a day. Then 1000. And 1200. 1500. 1800. And now, split over two pages every day, it's usually a little over 2000 words a day. Plus an extra 350 or so each Friday for Box Office Extra. Thinking about those numbers takes me back to Russell Baker's exit column from The New York Times late last year. I loved reading Baker, and in that last column, he wrote about the three million words he had published in the paper over 27 years. The Hot Button count is now at about 750,000 words. It will take me, approximately, another three and a half years at this rate to hit the three million word mark. Welcome to the Internet. (FYI, I don't expect The Hot Button to ever grow much fatter than 2000 words a day. Sorry and you're welcome, depending on your point of view.)

There are a lot of memories over two years of doing this column. And scarily, some already fade into the background. The big fights, not surprisingly, came over the biggest movies. I could never say anything nice enough about Titanic for some people and got bashed for "hating" it over and over again despite recommending the film. I still believe, for the record, that there was some box office gamesmanship in the first two weekends and that the wave took after that. For that matter, I still stick by my theories about Disney and Armageddon and for that matter, Miramax and Shakespeare in Love. It is naive for people to believe that in a culture where box office has become such an important component of marketing that it is not as occasionally abused a tool as any other. The more popular the column becomes, the more quiet and violent the fights become. But I'm still game.

This column has given away eyeballs from The Beyond, posters from Mighty Peking Man and various crap from various films but has always been slow to get to the post office. If you've been wondering why I don't offer stuff up anymore, that is the reason. I feel guilty making you wait so long. (Though if someone really wants this windbreaker from Double Jeopardy, I'd be happy to cough it up.) Likewise, I've pretty much given up on ripping other Internet writers because it's boring after a while. (Though you can expect a Candygram For Mongo re: the stupid and misleading reporting on Ain't It Cool News by The Hollywood Reporter yesterday.)

The box office writing still generates a certain amount of mail from people who want more or less. That's how it became segregated into Box Office Extra on Fridays. Sorry, I can't avoid weekend numbers, folks. But 86ed from the Monday/Friday routine was Two Movies Equal, a feature Andy Jones loved and you, the readers, hated. After all, how funny is The Runaway Witch Project, which has Julia Roberts, Richard Gere and Hector Elizondo lost in the woods together, waking up and finding hair gel and toothpaste outside their makeshift camp each morning?

One of the true joys of doing this column has been your mail. No joke. There are those of you who write every day. There are those of you who never write in. But you are never forgotten. It is still one of the more bizarre moments in this column's history that just as I was being considered for the KABC-790 radio show that George Pennacchio and I now host every Saturday, a number of readers started - after almost never getting this before - opening e-mails with "Long time reader, first time writer" as though we were on the radio. And equally oddly, this flow has now stopped. Last October, when I did an early Oscar® piece, a sudden rash of angry mail started. People think I am lying when I say that I get very little angry mail. It's true. People disagree, but for whatever reasons, the arguments tend to be respectful. Well, not that time. And it was intense. So intense, I tracked the mail back to one source. There is an Oscar-loving discussion group out there and all these people were from the same group. Someone was reporting what I said to them, riling up the room and they were all sending off missives based on what that person claimed I said. The same thing happened with Val Kilmer last November when one sentence of a button took a mild jab at Kilmer and his bad reputation. Not only did I get angry mail by the ton, but my employers started receiving demands for my dismissal. And it didn't stop for a month. Fortunately, a few members of that group were a bit less blinded by rage and real communication began. And I count those folks as Hot Button readers to this day.

Sure, I love getting the ego stroke of people who agree with me. It's comforting. But I must admit that the folks who disagree are the ones who get more play in the column. They get ROTD slots because I want to offer some balance from my rather dogmatic opinions. And they get my personal attention because they are rare and because my ego wants to spin them to my side. I know, bad form. But what can I do? I'm a lunatic. Late last year, two angry readers stuck around after the Oscar rage. They both showed up around the same time and they both have about the same opinion. And I still believe that both of them may be Jeff Wells under a pseudonym. (One offers up a name and even a business address in New York and the other will not give up his/her anonymity under any circumstance, which I consider cowardly if it isn't Jeff, but I think it is.)

Which brings me to some of my most important readers in terms of my career. Jeff Wells, who first showed up in my e-mail under a pseudonym, has been a true supporter of this column and I appreciate it enormously, even if he and I disagree on an unlimited number of issues. Likewise, Rod Lurie found the column around the same time as Jeff and his championing of the column went from mentions on his radio show to my appearance on his radio show to my hosting, with George, his radio show. Publicists have a habit of not wanting to be made into column fodder, so I won't mention any names here, but there are a number of you who have been incredibly loyal readers and generous word spreaders for The Hot Button. My enormous thanks. Those of you at Entertainment Weekly and the trades who read me even though I am not much liked in your corporate offices these days, my thanks.

Perhaps my most important reader at this stage is Roger Ebert and the staff over at "Siskel & Ebert". Roger has been kind enough to say nice things about this column in his Yahoo Internet Life column and in real life. And now, he and S&E Executive Producer Stuart Cleland and Producer Andrea Gronvall have been kind enough to invite me to be on the show next month. So, between Telluride and Toronto, I will be making a stop in Chicago to sit in the balcony with Roger. I am honored to be given the opportunity. And I look forward to the challenge of getting out from behind the keyboard. So, from now on, for me, the second anniversary is the "Siskel & Ebert" anniversary. More on my actual appearance later.

In any case, I'm happy to be going back to Chicago. I spent part of my college career at Northwestern, my sister Stacey still lives on the south side (today is Amy's birthday, not Stacey's) and Chicago is where my little journalistic adventure began. I had the unmitigated arrogance to pitch to The Chicago Tribune a weekly column much like what The Hot Button has become. That was my first attempt at journalism. That led to some normal story assignments and the start of this part of my life. Various people affected me along the way. Linda Hasert, at the Philadelphia Inquirer, showed me what an editor's attitude should be even though we just did a few pieces together. Paula Parisi at The Hollywood Reporter pushed me into reconsidering my brief "retirement" from journalism after a great story went unpublished and she got me in touch with then exiting Hollywood Reporter star reporter Anita Busch who pushed me to sell a little story I had to Entertainment Weekly instead of The Reporter. (Busch has since ended up as editor of The Hollywood Reporter. The circle of life.)

It was at EW that I really learned the ropes. My thanks to Cable Neuhaus for bringing me along. And my love to my long lost friend Cindy Grisolia, my constant editor in News & Notes and an ally I would have fought any war with or for. And over that time, I learned what I wanted to be and what I didn't want to be. I learned about the battle of politics vs. prose. And I learned that I didn't want to be part of that battle. Andy Jones gave me an out by inviting me to write a weekly column for roughcut.com. Little did he know that a daily column he never really wanted would become the site's 800 pound gorilla. But my sincere thanks to him as well and my good wishes as his journey continues on to E! Online.

Anyway, when I decided to write this column for today, I was thinking of a kind of "Best of The Hot Button's First Two Years" thing. I'm a little embarrassed that what I ended up writing seems a bit more like a self-indulgent memoir. I promise not to get this self-reflective again until I hit that three million word mark. But since I am already here, please allow me this one last indulgence.

The column took root a little less than two months after my father's death. He would be thrilled to simply know that I have been able to find a place in the world that brings me joy and pays my rent. He would prefer that I also have a wife and three kids, but hey, so would I. But what he really wanted for me was that I have a place in this world. And right now, this is that place. And you are my extended family. Of course, dad never would have read the column. Getting him to find a byline in Entertainment Weekly was a huge challenge, even with a subscription. He would have called me up and tried to get me to help him surf the 'Net and find roughcut.com, but the print would have been too small and he could care less about why The Thin Red Line was being sunk. But he would have been happy to see me so passionate about the fight. And he would have loved to see me on "Siskel & Ebert". That he would explain to his brother and sister. That he could videotape.

My father taught me the lessons I most needed to know. He taught me to live in joy and not to wallow in misery. You may know that I was adopted. Nature gave me a certain intellect and with it, a certain toughness and cynicism. I'm glad I have those traits. They've served me well. But my dad nurtured my heart. And whatever compassion and kindness I muster comes from him. And so, in his memory, I started writing a column that allows me to live in the joy that the freedom to tell my truth brings me. Tough and tender, cruel and kind, generous and demanding. I hope to be all of those things. As a man and as a columnist. For years to come. Thanks, Pop.

And thanks again to all of you for coming along for the ride. I wouldn't be here without you.

E ME: No, really, you can take the day off.