Malick & Me

A lot of my journalism isn't on the Internet, but when people write to ask me for a copy of an article, it's never, say, when I took the Beastie Boys to Graceland. No, what they clamor for-- still -- is a piece I did 25 years ago, that by now has become my equivalent of a defining first hit single that a band never recovers from. But -- as I often tell actors who bemoan being identified with one role -- it's better to have one of those than none, right?

It's a piece I'm proud of -- the 24-year-old me spent six months reporting it, for pittance pay, for a magzine that few read. The reason for its legend is the subject: visionary, esoteric director Terrence Malick, who at the time hadn't made a movie in the seven years since his previous movie, Days of Heaven, a gorgeous big-screen fable which itself was seven years after his peerless low-budget debut, Badlands, a fictionalized version of Charles Starkweather's killing spree -- and had stopped giving interviews even earlier.

Malick's of-necessity cameo in Badlands as a man who
stumbles on the killing spree. He's never acted before or since.

One school year I screened 146 movies here. 

After being obsessed with Malick's films from viewing them repeatedly at the Harvard Square Theater revival house [right], I painstakingly tracked him down

Rethinking Internet "Plagiarism"

In 1998, I published the above Op-Ed in the New York Times. I had found several articles I'd written reprinted on the web -- retyped, really, with several errors -- without permission, payment or recourse, and wondered what this meant for the future of journalism. 

I cited other then-current examples of misappropriation: a Mary Schmich essay that had been circulating as a graduation speech by Kurt Vonnegut; a Tom Tomorrow cartoon and an Ian Frazier piece which had been stripped of authorship. I concluded, "It looks as if the only possible policeman of the Internet may turn out to be the Internet itself." 

I was reminded of that line this weekend when I tried Googling my old Terrence Malick article (to illustrate my previous blog post). 

Instead, Google directed me to a blog by Jeffrey Wells, which told of his Terrence Malick piece that ran a decade after mine -- for the same editor! -- which he admitted "pilfered from" my original piece, whose title he recalled, but not  the author nor publication. 

Annoyed, I wrote to Wells,

Going Home Again...and Again...

Yesterday I was in the neighborhood of my parents' former house and decided to check out what renovations the new owner is doing. I pulled into the driveway and saw this sight.

This reminded me that the first story I ever sold to a national magazine was called "You Can Go Home Again," for the short-lived Newsweek on Campus. It was a somewhat smug piece about my decision after graduating from college not to go to grad school but to move back in with my parents so I could "find myself."

Truth be told, the situation wasn't ideal: I was both crowding my brother Matt during  his senior year of high school, and witnessing my mom coping with some empty-nest midlife issues. To get out of the house I worked at a local farm stand, where several residents regarded me with suspicion, wondering if I was on work-release from prison or rehab.

But living there enabled me to write