2024 Media Diet - Second Quarter

2024 is half over and in keeping with my 2024 New Years Resolution, I am posting my media diet every quarter. Here is the first quarter of 2024. For the second time in a row I am including Morgan’s rankings for the films we watched together.

This quarter began in April with us finally going on the first family trip in a year to Grand Cayman and staying at a wonderful hotel on the beach. This quarter ends in June with me, away from the family yet again for three months, in a much-less-wonderful hotel outside of Huntsville, Alabama.

With some much moving and displacement, I was surprised to realize I read more books than the first quarter, until I remembered it took two full months to plow through the Power Broker. The closest I came to a Robert Caro-level tome this quarter was David Halberstam’s book, the Best and the Brightest, which I found very engaging in some places, but then a rough slog, often times only a page apart.

What did I give Best and the Brightest? What rabbit holes did I go down? What 1980s movie did Morgan hate? Keep reading to find out!

One new grading wrinkle. I’m adopting the Michelin Star system in addition to the grading system. Anything that gets a star is something I highly recommend. Anything with * is best of the year level. Anything *** is best of the decade level. Enjoy!

PODCASTS:

Lawyers Guns Money Podcast: Jon Cryer and Jack Bryan (B+) The upside is I never understood the intricacies of the Iran-Contra scandal before listening to this podcast. The downside is, after listening, I’m not sure I still do. It tries to be Miami-Vice in its telling, but this is more of a Washington scandal through and through, and I wish someone would explain how Oliver North as a mere lieutenant colonel was supposed to be so powerful.

The Butterfly Effect: Jon Ronson (B): I followed this podcast about the rise of free pornography on the internet and its second and third order effects to the end of its 7 episodes, and yes, there are some terrifying side effects, but it felt like Ronson already had an agenda before he made the podcast to find those side effects.

BOOKS

Military themed: As I am in (yet another!) military course this quarter, I’m dividing my reading up into military and non-military.

Best and Brightest: David Halberstam (B): This is the third or fourth large tome I’ve now read about Vietnam, and I still think David Hackworth’s About Face is the best. If anything, maybe read the first quarter of this book about the entry into Vietnam which is the best part before moving on to David Hackworth’s very un-PC masterpiece.

The Liberator: Alex Kershaw (A -):

Inside the Jihad: Omar Nasiri (A)

Rambo, First Blood: David Morrell (B+) while both the book and the movie are good, I must give the movie the advantage.

Non-Military Books

The Downhill Lie: Carl Hiaasen (B -) I guess I should have known that Hiaasen writing non-fiction on golf is not nearly as interesting as his fiction mystery novels. This is the definition of a vacation book in that it was mildly enjoyable to read over two or three days and immediately forgettable once it was complete.

Double Whammy: Carl Hiaasen (A): Hiaasen is the master of the beach read and I definitely recommend his fiction over his non-fiction above.

The Mansions of Limbo: Dominick Dunne (B+): I’ve been on a high-society/Hollywood of the 70s and 80s kick and between perusing Slim Aaron coffee books and this bed side book which is a collection of Dunne’s stories from Vanity Fair, I really have gotten my fill. If you’ve never read a Dunne article though start with his OJ stuff of the mid-90s where he was widely acknowledged as the most connected writer before doing a deep dive of his articles on Jane Wyman and the Menendez Brothers.

Fatal Charms: Dominick Dunne: The second non-fiction Dominick Dunne book and not nearly as good of articles as Mansions of Limbo.

Dracula: Bram Stroker (A -): For being 120 years old, the format of the book (told through letters/newspaper clippings, court inquiries) seems extremely modern. I did not expect the book to be at all like it was and really enjoyed it. Also, this parody of it below is the best thing I’ve seen online all year.

Darkness at Noon: Arthur Koestler (B -): This reminded me of high school reading, and not in a good way.

The Masters, Golf, Money, and Power in Augusta, Georgia: Curt Sampson (A)

STAND-UP

Jimmie Carr: Natural Born Killer (B), Jimmy Carr’s act is starting to get a little stale.

Ben Palmer (A), Meanwhile, Ben Palmer is showing the next boundary of stand-up comedy combined with social media.

MOVIES

Reversal of Fortune (A): Based on the real murder trials of millionaire Claus Von Bulow, I want to hate this more because it’s an Alan Dershowitz love-fest in part, but the acting is just too good and the procedural legal part moves and is really smart. Morgan liked it too. She gave it an A as well.

Smokey and the Bandit (A): As a kid you think the car and Burt Reynolds are just the coolest. As an adult, you watch Jackie Gleason as Buford T. Justice and laugh all over again. It shouldn’t hold up, but it does.

Too Wong Fu (B-): I do not think Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes make realistic drag queens and they were only cast because they were stars. Morgan has let me know I am wrong and they and this movie are delightful.

Body Double (A): I do think that Brian DePalma is a genius at capturing a certain 1980s mood and the erotic thriller is a criminally underrated film genre. Morgan has let me know I am DEAD wrong and this movie is boring, predictable, and a waste of your time.

ARTICLES I Recommend

Life of a Framer, Oxford American

*Finding Beauty After Loss, NY Times

*Did A British Nurse Kill Seven Babies?, The New Yorker