Joel Frey

Book Review: The Tender Bar

Cypress Walls has crowded my thoughts the past few days. First, Jerry Simmons of INDI Publishing Group, the gentleman who assumed the relatively impossible task of convincing retail outlets that my unknown book was worthy of shelf space after my first partner, Blu Sky Media, went belly up has been a constant in my inbox. A company called Midpoint Trade Books has ceased conducting business with him and, therefore, no longer wants to market and/or warehouse the remaining 392 copies of Cypress Walls in its possession. So those will soon make their way to El Paso and, unfortunately, I have to pay the shipping and handling. Hopefully, I can find 392 future college graduates who will give them homes. The price will be right. On a separate note, I'm contemplating an exhaustive feature story on the pros and cons of self publishing a book.

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer is the other reason why my memoir has been on my mind. I finished reading it this morning though, admittedly, there were many sections that I skimmed. If you're unfamiliar, it chronicles the author's life from age seven to his mid-twenties and how a bar, first known as Dickens and later as Publicans, in his native Manhasset, NY shaped his journey from childhood to manhood.

I have mixed feelings about The Tender Bar. Moehringer is a crafty storyteller and there were parts that held my interest especially his account of being a copyboy at The New York Times in the mid-80s. At its core, however, I found the narrative nothing more than a celebration of drinking and getting drunk on a daily basis.  Had I read it 15 years ago, fresh out of college, disillusioned and swelling with pride, I probably would have loved all of the tales of boozing and brooding with fellow boozers because I was at the stage in my life where frequenting bars, running up ridiculous tabs and figuring out how to get home was highly entertaining. I wrote about several of those mis-adventures in Cypress Walls though the fondness I once held for those memories has faded.

Today, that kind of behavior just doesn't make any sense to me. Whenever Moehringer entered his hallowed grounds, I raced ahead to the next section, lacking the patience to read conversations that I found hard to believe considering how wasted the players were and all of the years that had passed from the time they occurred to the time the book was published.

As a fellow memoirist, that was my biggest point of contention with The Tender Bar. While I don't have any doubt that Moehringer spent a ton of time at Dickens/Publicans and forged unforgettable bonds with a host of interesting characters, it just didn't feel authentic.

When I wrote Cypress Walls, I went to painstaking detail to apply dates to the events I described. Most of the dialogue is pulled directly from letters and other correspondence which I catalogued. There are a few quotes and phrases that I drew from memory, but those are limited. Evidently, Moehringer took note of many of the conversations he had at the bar and then revisited those discussions with the barflies later as he wrote. I appreciated him mentioning this in the epilogue, but it didn't change my opinion of the work feeling sloppy. Had he presented the material as fiction I may feel differently.

Are my opinions tinged with jealously? One could make the argument, but The Tender Bar was marked for success and recognition long before it went to print. Moehringer is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, a Harvard fellow, and a graduate of Yale. He had access to the finest literary minds on the planet as he researched and wrote his book. A major publisher stepped up and backed him with a team of editors and a marketing budget. I don't begrudge him for his good fortune and I have no doubt that he paid his dues. I only wish that after accessing all of those perks, The Tender Bar offered the reader more.

Movie Review: The Tillman Story

For months, I'd wanted to see The Tillman Story. After reading several reviews last summer,  I figured the documentary about the NFL star turned Army Ranger would eventually find its way to El Paso, home of Fort Bliss, the massive U.S. Army post that straddles the Texas-New Mexico border.

I began constantly checking the Flixster app on my Blackberry for local show times, but to no avail. At first, I guessed that El Paso was not big enough to warrant a run of screenings. But then, I wondered if the city's proximity to Fort Bliss was actually a deterrent given the film's unflattering portrayal of one of the U.S. military's most forgettable moments during the War on Terror.

Recently, I was perusing Netflix and The Tillman Story crossed my mind. While it wasn't available until February 1, I added it to our queue, satisfied that I'd finally get the opportunity to watch it.

The Tillman Story is well done and the footage and interviews are compelling, but if you've read Jon Krakauer's "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman," as I had, I don't think you'll take away much new information.

That said, there is one unforgettable sequence from Tillman's memorial service that I didn't remember from the book. At some point, his younger brother, Richard, climbed the stage to say a few words about his fallen brother. With a beer in hand, he called out the previous speakers, including John McCain, who eulogized Pat as one would expect at a religious service.

"He's not religious," he countered. "Thanks for your thoughts, but he's (expletive) dead."

There is so much about Pat Tillman's military career that saddens and disappoints me: his inglorious death, the U.S. government then using the tragedy to market an unpopular war and finally the shameless lies that were told by some of the highest ranking leaders in our country as his family tried to sort through the facts.  As a Christian, however, that scene embodies the most haunting and most hopeless part of all.

 

Cypress Walls news

If you haven't checked lately my book, Two Sides of a Cypress Wall, currently ranks #3,505,574 on Amazon, but a slightly more respectable #246,874 in the Kindle Store. I recently lowered the electronic price to .99 and since then I've had several people tell me that they've added it to their digital collections. Thanks to all of you.

Over the last 14 months Jerry Simmons of the INDI Publishing Group has worked on my behalf to broaden my reach. I received a tiny royalty check last summer, but not too long after that Jerry informed me that he was parting ways with the distribution company he was working with and that meant I'd have to find a new partner as well. Jerry researched several worthwhile options for me, but I decided that it'd be best for me to retake control of the inventory.  Sometime soon, the roughly 450 copies that have been residing in a Kansas City warehouse will be shipped to El Paso.

So in a way, I've come full circle. On August 31, 2007 I received the first of about 300 copies from Gary Johnson at Post Printing in Memphis.  As longtime supporters may recall, I sold those via PayPal on a pro version of this Web site. Thanks to family and friends, those moved fairly quickly, but shortly thereafter the reality of selling 1,000 copies of an unknown book from an unknown author set in. Between the first distributor I signed with, Blu Sky Media, (who went out of business about six months after I signed) and INDI Publishing another 300 or so copies have been sold to a variety of online and offline retailers. Now, I'll have the opportunity to find readers for the stragglers. If you're in a book club, my calendar is open and I don't charge an appearance fee!

 

 

Suffering and editing take two

Yesterday, I attempted to make the point that modern-day filmmaking suffers from insufferable story lines and poor editing. Though my opinion has not changed over the last 24 hours, I did want to offer up an example of a movie that I strongly feel defies these notions.

On March 31, 1981 Robert Redford's "Ordinary People," based on the novel of the same name by Judith Guest, won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Hutton). I mention it briefly in Cypress Walls, writing "I am not sure if I have ever screened a movie so simultaneously powerful, delicate, and unequivocally sad." Given the tough subject matter - a teen's accidental death, his sibling's attempted suicide afterward and the seeming end to their parent's storybook marriage - one could argue that "Ordinary People" is as insufferable as, say, "Leaving Las Vegas."

But it's not for me mainly because the characters in "Ordinary People" are relatable and likable, despite the heartbreaking circumstances engulfing them. It's been a couple of years since I watched it, but I can't think of one scene that I could do without over the course of the two hour runtime. The suburban Chicago setting, a yuppie dinner party, a family Christmas and everyday scenes from high school all have aged gracefully, giving "Ordinary People" timeless qualities that hopefully will appeal to future generations of moviegoers seeking provocative fare with substance to accompany their ten dollar bucket of popcorn and five dollar soda.

While other writers and filmmakers have mimicked the framework of "Ordinary People" with success - think "Good Will Hunting," "American Beauty," and "In the Bedroom" - I maintain that pound-for-pound no other work of character-driven cinema over the last three decades measures up. I am, however, open to suggestions.

 

Let's go Aints!

I used to be a big fan of nostalgia. Over the years, however, my opinion has shifted and I wrote in Cypress Walls that "I doubted that such longing for the past is healthy." I was reminded of this as I read Truck: A Love Story on a business trip to Toronto this week. The book's author, Michael Perry, loves nostalgia and it's a theme that prevails throughout his memoir as he writes about his relationships, his hobbies and his quirks as a single man in his late 30's, wondering if he'll ever find a lifelong partner.

It's not that I don't savor good memories and appreciate what I've learned from the bad ones. Plus, it's impossible not to look back at times, but at this point in my life, I don't want to get bogged down watching "I Love the 80s" reruns on VH-1. There's too much on the horizon...like tomorrow evening's NFC Championship game between the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings.

Perhaps being a lifelong Saints fan subliminally factored into me rethinking this notion. As anyone who shares my affection for the team understands, there really isn't much over the last 43 years that we would want to cherish. Sure, there have been a few good seasons, but generally, the "Aints" have notoriously been the most snake-bitten franchise in the NFL. This, of course, culminated four and half years ago when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Superdome. After being farmed out to Baton Rouge and San Antonio for the 2005 season, I thought the Saints would move to a bigger city far from the Gulf of Mexico.

Thankfully, that didn't happen. With a new coach and a new quarterback the team almost made it to the Super Bowl in 2006. Tomorrow, they will have another shot though this time they will play before 70,000 people screaming "Who Dat?! Who Dat say Gonna Beat dem Saints? Who Dat?!" all night long. We'll be tuned in from El Paso. Heather is going to wear my t-shirt with the big fleur de lis and make a batch of jambalaya for good luck. I'll give Mom and Dad a call in Memphis and, fingers crossed, we will celebrate a Saints victory. Dad and I even might talk about the Monday night game versus the Jets he took me to in 1983 when the Saints blew a 28-17 lead in the last four minutes and he led me out of the Dome, heartbroken. We'll be careful not to let the memories sweep us away. After all, the Super Bowl is only two weeks away.

INDI Publishing Group

Undoubtedly, the road I've taken with Cypress Walls is one that any Beatles fan would appreciate. It's been almost five years since I began writing it, more than two since publishing it and it was this time last year when I had my first conversation with Cissy Tiernan at Blu Sky Media about distribution. A synopsis of events since that phone call with Cissy, too, is full of twists and turns. I signed with Blu Sky in March, sent them books in April, and learned on my birthday that most of them were damaged in shipping. Eventually, those books were given new covers, hand-delivered back to the Blu Sky warehouse and, finally, by mid-summer, copies of Cypress Walls were getting into the hands of retailers. Approximately six weeks later, on September 8th, Blu Sky announced that it would cease operations.

Last month, I circled back with Cissy to see what she was contemplating for her next move. When we spoke, she mentioned Jerry Simmons, an industry veteran who she had collaborated with on several occasions during her career. Jerry recently launched the INDI Publishing Group, a venture whose overarching objective is to become the Focus Features of the publishing world. Aside from helping authors like me manage all of the tedious steps that must be taken when independently publishing a book, Jerry also has connections on the distribution side. Cissy thought Cypress Walls might be a good fit for INDI so I sent Jerry a copy. Shortly thereafter, Cissy sent me a note letting me know that Jerry liked Cypress Walls and wanted to talk.

The three of us had a conference call a couple of weeks ago. Jerry was not only gracious in his praise of my book, but he also wanted to know if I was working on my next one. By the end of the call I felt good about working with Jerry and Cissy and today I signed an agreement with INDI which I'll drop in the mail tomorrow. I have absolutely no idea what will happen next, but in the meantime, I'm going to start outlining thoughts for my second book.

Happy Veterans Day. Thanks to all of you who have sacrificed so much to make our country the envy of the rest of the world.