Make Mischief

So, the new season of Entourage started up last night and it was eggggcellent - even funnier than last season. The boys have returned from filming in New York and lament the loss of good pizza and bagels now that they have returned to Hell-A. In a nutshell - Eric has adapted to his roll as Vince's official manager, Vince does not want to be Aquaman, but can't get any other offers, Jonny is typically ridiculous, and Turtle can't get no respect. And Ari, oh Ari. Where would this show be without Jeremy Piven?

Other good stuff from the world of media this weekend - All Things Considered interviewed Maurice Sendak, of Where the Wild Things Are fame. He's 76 now, working on a new book, and utterly fascinating. I don't think I realized how important Where the Wild Things Are was in its time in terms of changing the tone and drawing of children's books. Mo also had the best quote I've heard in weeks - he was apparently a huge Mickey Mouse fan as a child. Mickey is what got him into illustrating in the first place. But, as he put it, "I adored him as a child. Of course, I don't now because he's a fat whore." Yeah, he called Mickey Mouse a fat whore. Awesome.

And Mahwah's own Les Paul was interviewed on Weekend Edition: Saturday. The reason he became so obsessed with making a layered electrical sound? So that his mother would recognize his music when it was on the radio. It's amazing to me that he still plays in New York every week at the age of almost 90.

Lastly, Lynn and I caught Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room on Saturday night at Roberts Wellmont theater in Montclair. It was enraging, disturbing, insightful and attempted to be as clear as it could be. But there are so many layers of fraud and scheming in Enron's downfall that it becomes difficult to follow exactly what who was doing when at some points in the film. Still, the exceeding greed and hubris comes across loud and clear. It's ironic that the company's catchphrase was "Ask why" and no one - from Arthur Anderson, to the financial analysts, to the lawyers, to the execs, was asking why. Still, I walked out understand a lot more about the massive downfall than I did before. And while the filmmaker has a point of view (hard not to when you see these narcissists making millions of dollars while their company is sinking and their employees lose billions in pension funds), he doesn't demonize Skilling or Lay.

I also ate at an Ethiopian restaurant in Montclair - more on that later.