Remembering Political Satirist P.J. O’Rourke

BroadandLiberty.com published my piece on the late P. J. O’Rourke, a clever conservative satirist.

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys,” the late P.J. O’Rourke wrote.

O’Rourke was a humorist, journalist and author who John Podhoretz at the New York Post called “America’s greatest satirist and coolest conservative.” He died on Feb. 15 at his home Sharon, New Hampshire. He was 74..

I’ve been reading and enjoying P. J. O’Rourke’s work since his days as a writer and editor for National Lampoon. He contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers, and he wrote more than twenty books on a variety of subjects. I’ve liked all of his books, especially “Parliament of Whores” and “Give War a Chance.” 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Paul Davis: Remembering political satirist P.J. O’Rourke (broadandliberty.com) 

The Trouble Begins At Eight: Hal Holbrook Has Been Portraying Mark Twain For Over 60 Years, And He’s Still Going Strong

I first saw Hal Holbrook portray Mark Twain on TV, and as Mark Twain is one of my favorite writers, I'm thankful that I later saw Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight! live on stage in Philadelphia.

Hal Holbrook is still performing as America's great humorist and LA Magazine reports on his latest show.

If you have seen the Oscar-nominated film The Big Short, you might remember that the film opens with a quote from Mark Twain. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” One person who knows Mark Twain and his quotes well is actor Hal Holbrook. For more than 60 years he’s been performing his always-evolving one-man show, Mark Twain Tonight! Holbrook brings the show to the Broad Stage in Santa Monica tomorrow night as a benefit for The Actors Fund.

“What [Twain] has taught me is he’s the only one I know who really tells the truth about who we are, how we behave and all the disruptions we practice as people,” Holbrook says. “I don’t know anybody I’ve ever read, and I read a lot, who tells the truth as simply and directly and as understandably as he does. We live in a world today which is riddled with lies. The act of lying, the habit of lying, I could say, has become acceptable.”

Holbrook, who turns 91 a week after this performance, is best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Into the Wild, along with roles in Lincoln and Water for Elephants. He memorably played Deep Throat in All the President’s Men.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/563298/

Note; You can purchase Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight! from Amazon via the below link:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=Hol+Holbrook+Mark+Twain+Tonight%21

And although the 1944 film The Adventures of Mark Twain was, like most Hollywood films, historically inaccurate, I liked Frederic March's portrayal of Mark Twain.

You can purchase the film from Amazon via the below link:

http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Mark-Twain-Fredric-March/dp/B00TPN7ESE/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1455177791&sr=1-1&keywords=the+adventures+of+mark+twain+1944  

Val Kilmer Performs Mark Twain's Famous 70th Birthday Speech

Joe Williams at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers a video of actor Val Kilmer (seen in the above photo) performing Mark Twain's famous 70th birthday speech.

"The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation, and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach - unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right.

"...I will now teach, offering my way of life to whomsoever desires to commit suicide by scheme which has enabled me to beat the doctor and the hangman for seventy years. Some of the details may sound untrue, but they are not. I am not here to deceive. I am here to teach.

You can watch the video via the below link:

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/movies/joe-williams/val-kilmer-performs-mark-twain-s-famous-th-birthday-speech/youtube_8fd3b05a-895c-11e1-826e-0019bb30f31a.html

Former War Correspondent P.J. O'Rourke Braves Family Vacation

Conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke was interviewed on Fox News about his new book  Holidays in Heck.

You can watch the video via the below link:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1275799328001/pj-orourkes-holidays-in-heck/?playlist_id=163192

Hal Holbrook On Mark Twain: No Updating Necessary

Kara Patterson at The Post-Crescent in Wisconsin offers a Q & A with actor Hal Holbrook, who is performing his one-man Mark Twain Tonight show.

I saw Holbrook's Mark Twain show in Philadelphia a few years back and I truly enjoyed it. Mark Twain is one of my favorite writers and Holbrook made the great writer and humorist come alive.

You can read the Q & A with Holbrook via the below link:

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20110424/APC0506/110422094/Hal-Holbrook-Mark-Twain-No-updating-necessary

You can watch the 1st of 10 video clips of Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight on Youtube.com via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNql_eRsWJo

P.J. O'Rourke is the 72-Hour Expert: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Afgahnistan

Humorist P.J. O'Rourke wrote an amusing and insightful piece on Afghanistan for The Weekly Standard.

If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama. I called my wife. She said, no, she certainly is not vacationing at government expense in some jet-set hot spot with scads of her BFFs. Looks like I’m not President Obama. But I am a reporter, fresh from Kabul. What do you want to know about Afghanistan, past, present, or future? Ask me anything.

As all good reporters do, I prepared for my assignment with extensive research. I went to an Afghan restaurant in Prague. Getting a foretaste—as it were—of my subject, I asked the restaurant’s owner (an actual Afghan), “So what’s up with Afghanistan?”

You can read the rest of his piece via the below link:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/72-hour-expert