Norman Mailer vs. Big Media

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hey, it's an article by Eddie Dean.

There was an article in the Washington City Paper about a month ago that reminded me of the articles they used to run thirty years ago.

The article was about Fort Reno {not Fort Dupont; sheesh} in the old days, and how it has changed. It was thorough. I meant to email the paper to add my compliments. I never did get around to that. I'll post a link to it in another thread.

Anyway, thirty years ago, the main article of the week went on for page after page. Those old articles were worth saving. I still have some of them filed away, there not having been any such a thing as the interwebz back then.

Many of those old articles were written by Eddie Dean. I thought he was a good writer. I haven't seen his byline in the Washington City Paper for years -- until now.

Norman Mailer vs. Big Media

Fifty years ago in D.C., a drunk Norman Mailer declared war on mainstream media for not taking a stand against the war in Vietnam.

Eddie Dean
Nov 17, 2017 10 AM

Back in the days when famous writers were rock stars, nobody rocked harder than Norman Mailer. From the 1960s on, he was a familiar figure on TV talk shows, from high-brow (William F. Buckley) to middle-brow (Dick Cavett) to low-middle-brow (Merv Griffin). He could be a charming raconteur or a petulant crank depending on his mood and who was in the room. “Norman Mailer is one of the leading spectator sports in America,” said Merv, introducing the author on a 1968 show that included a ventriloquist. ... Mailer’s TV appearances were sparring matches where he settled scores with old enemies like Gore Vidal. He was as unpredictable as the exotic animals clawing Johnny Carson’s suit, and just as prickly. He mixed brilliant insights and petty insults. He reveled in controversy.

It’s fitting that what may have been Mailer’s greatest writer-as-rock-star performance happened live onstage in October 1967 at a D.C. rock ’n’ roll venue, the Ambassador Theater. The concert hall in Adams Morgan was a short-lived beacon of District counterculture, known for its psychedelic light shows and the Washington debut of Jimi Hendrix, who set his guitar on fire for an audience that included Pete Townshend.
....

{Articles in big media outlets that covered the event} contrast with Mailer’s recollection. And now City Paper has unearthed two additional accounts that reveal how sharp and credible Mailer’s memory of the event was. Behind the barrage of f-bombs was a clear-cut strategy to exhort his troops and engage his enemy—the representatives of mainstream media—on the big stage.

The most striking evidence is from a little-seen, rarely screened 1968 documentary, Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up?, a staple on public TV in the ’70s. Directed by British filmmaker Dick Fontaine, the cinema verite film follows Mailer in various public roles (novelist, citizen, actor, celebrity) before, during, and after the march. The second source is an article about the evening from an underground newspaper, Washington Free Press.
....

Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up? is part of the National Education Television Collection at the Library of Congress, and the Washington Free Press is being digitized as part of the DC Public Library’s archival project, DIG DC.

I was thinking, as I read the article, that the DC Library is digitizing old alternative newspapers from back then, and maybe he should hear about that. I don't have to email him, as he already knows. More about that project:

DC Public Library: Unicorn Times and Quicksilver Times Digitized

Thanks, Eddie. It's great seeing one of your articles again.

[elleng]

1. 'a drunk Norman Mailer declared war on mainstream media for not taking a stand against

the war in Vietnam.'