ANDY KAUFMAN’S AFTERLIFE | RUSSELL BRAND, UNHINGED!
THE HUFFINGTON POST MAGAZINE
JUNE 16, 2013
“FAME CAN BECOME VERY ADDICTIVE. I’VE HAD ALL THE FAME A MAN COULD WANT.” INTERVIEW BY JON WARD
ON THE COVER: PLATON/TRUNK ARCHIVE; THIS PAGE FROM TOP: LAYNE MURDOCH/COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER; RON TOM/NBCU PHOTO BANK/GETTY IMAGES
06.16.13 #53 CONTENTS
Enter POINTERS: Our Latest Whistleblower ... Tonys Go ‘Kinky’ JASON LINKINS: Looking Forward in Angst DATA: Kings and Queens of the Hill Q&A: Russell Brand HEADLINES MOVING IMAGE
Voices DREW MAGARY: All I Ever Want As a Parent
TRAILING 43 My three-day ride-along with the former president. BY JON WARD
DAVID BLAINE: Holding My Breath for 17 Minutes Doesn’t Scare Me ... This Does QUOTED
Exit 25Q: Is This the Most Effed-Up Movie of the Year? STRESS LESS: On Anxiety TASTE TEST: If You Must Drink Your Yogurt, Choose Wisely
WHERE IS ANDY KAUFMAN? A maddeningly weird afterlife story. BY MALLIKA RAO
TFU FROM THE EDITOR: Second Life
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
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Second Life N THIS WEEK’S issue, Jon Ward tags along with George W. Bush on the former president’s annual mountain bike ride at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Bush invites military veterans to join him on the three-day ride, known as Warrior 100K. Seventyfive riders, including 13 veterans, participated this year, trailing the man who initiated the wars that left many of them physically and psychologically wounded. As Ward writes, “It’s a ritual of thanks and bonding that might seem fraught from the outside, but that everyone who takes part seems to enjoy.” The story, in many ways, provides a familiar glimpse of Bush. There’s the same competitive spirit
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(“he takes great pleasure in smoking riders who think they can hang with him”), and the penchant for doling out nicknames. Yet we also see a more reflective side. “I don’t long for [fame],” he says. “Nor do I long for power. I’ve come to realize that power can be corrosive if you’ve had it for too long.” As he rides through his 1,500acre ranch — along winding trails, beside ridges overlooking deep gorges — with some of the men he ordered into combat, does he feel responsible for their injuries? Does he second-guess the decisions that led to the war in Iraq? “Every one of these men were
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
volunteers,” he says. “None of them are angry. They themselves don’t blame anybody. And so I believe strongly that the decisions I made were the right decisions, you know? I knew going in that there were bad consequences to war. That’s why, if people study my decision, they would recognize I tried to solve the problems diplomatically.” Elsewhere in the issue, Mallika Rao looks at a subset of fans of Andy Kaufman who believe the comedian faked his death. These fans, who refer to themselves as “the disciples,” are willing to look past certain things, including Kaufman’s death certificate, dated May 16, 1984. Gathering in person, and online — at AndyKaufmanLives.com — they work through various conspiracy theories, rooted in the belief that a man so dedicated to upending expectations could not, and would not, have gone quietly. Even among this community of death-hoax conspiracy theorists, there are those who acknowledge that the possibility that Andy Kaufman is alive out there somewhere, plotting a glorious return, is slim. Like Bob Pagani, who
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says, “I know people at the wake in Long Island literally leaned over the casket and said, ‘Andy, if you’re faking, please stop.’ I wish he had been faking, but I just don’t think it’s possible.”
Does he feel responsible for their injuries? Does he second-guess the decisions that led to the war in Iraq?” Still, for many, the way Kaufman lived makes an ordinary, un-theatrical death seem somehow implausible. As Mallika writes, “Even a reasonable fan might have seen in the scope of Kaufman’s lunacy a promise that he’d someday try the ultimate prank.” Finally, as part of our ongoing effort to put the spotlight on the destructive effects of stress, we tap into the wisdom of elderly Americans to learn about how they view the things that stressed them out in hindsight.
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THE GUARDIAN VIA GETTY IMAGES
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALED 1 Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former CIA employee, disclosed on Sunday that he was the source behind The Guardian’s and Washington Post’s bombshell stories on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. “I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity,” he told The Guardian in the article revealing his identity. Snowden was living in Hawaii with his girlfriend, but fled to Hong Kong. Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian reporter behind the paper’s groundbreaking articles, said Tuesday that there are more “significant revelations” to come based on information Snowden has given him.
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‘HISTORIC MOMENT FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH’
The Obama administration complied with a judge’s order this week to stop trying to set an age limit on getting the emergency contraception Plan B One-Step without a prescription. Obama has argued for age restrictions and, speaking “as the father of two daughters,” supported Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in 2011 when she overruled the FDA’s decision to allow unrestricted access to the pill. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards called the order “a historic moment for women’s health and equity; a director at the Family Research Council said “the government [caved] to political pressure.”
THE SEARCH FOR JURORS
George Zimmerman returned to court this week to stand trial for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in a case that has captured the nation’s attention. Zimmerman admitted to killing Martin when the 17-year-old was walking back to the home of his father’s fiancée, in February of last year. The former neighborhood watch volunteer says he acted in self defense, while prosecutors say Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder. There are about 500 potential jurors in the pool, and the trial is expected to last more than a month.
TONYS GO ‘KINKY’
At the 67th annual Tony Awards on Sunday, Kinky Boots took home six awards, including the biggest one of the night for best musical. Matilda proved to be a fierce competitor, winning four Tonys, among them the best book of a musical and best featured actor in a musical. Pippin also took home four Tonys, including best revival of a musical. Neil Patrick Harris hosted the show for his fourth time, delivering a performance that, as promised in his opening number, was “bigger ... bigger ... bigger.”
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PRINCE OF A HERO
In a new book, Out In The Army, a former fellow trooper of Prince Harry says the prince saved him in 2008 when he thought he was going to be “murdered by the infantry” because he is gay. James Wharton says that the prince confronted the soldiers bullying him and told them to “f**k off.” In recalling the episode to The Daily Mail this week, Wharton said, “I will always be grateful to Harry and I will never forget what happened ... I was on track for a battering.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined the rest of her family on Twitter Monday, fueling more speculation that she may run for president. The former secretary of state, using the handle @HillaryClinton, describes herself as “wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD...” Bill Clinton, who joined the social media site in April, welcomed his wife, tweeting, “Does @Twitter have a family share plan? ... Looking forward to #tweetsfromhillary.”
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6 THE FAMILY THAT TWEETS TOGETHER ... THAT’S VIRAL DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE GRADUATION DRESS CODE
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A selection of the week’s most talked-about stories. HEADLINES TO VIEW FULL STORIES
CRISIS. AVERTED.
WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS ABOUT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
FBI ANONYMOUS RAID LINKED TO STEUBENVILLE RAPE CASE
1 FATHER, 14 WOMEN, 22 KIDS
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LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST
JASON LINKINS
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AP PHOTO/CHARLES DHARAPAK, POOL
GOP OBSTINACY MAKES ‘BOTH PARTIES STUPID’ MAGINE IF YOU will, two wrestlers, of roughly equal size and ability, locked in a match with one another. Typically, what will happen in such a contest is that one of the wrestlers will demonstrate su-
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perior strategy and technique, and slowly overcome his rival to win. In repeated match-ups, the formerly vanquished rival might make important strategic adjustments to regain the upper hand. And so on and so forth. Repeatedly viewing this hypothetical pair of wrestlers might, for the viewer, instill an appreciation for the merits that both
House Speaker John Boehner listens as President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Feb. 12, 2013.
Enter competitors bring to the game. But what happens when one of the wrestlers, mid-clutch, abruptly relents, disengages and steps away? His rival, unprepared for the sudden disappearance of equal pressure, might well stumble forward and sprawl all over the ring in embarrassing fashion. The referee might disqualify the wrestler who quit, giving the stumblebum athlete the “win” by forfeit, but both wrestlers end up looking pathetic and weird. That’s the image I think about when I read Josh Barro’s Business Insider piece on how the GOP managed to make “both parties stupid on infrastructure.” Barro’s argument is that with Republicans all but refusing to engage in the debate on infrastructure, the “optimal policy” is not being realized, and Democrats are left “fear[ing] that if they don’t defend wasteful, ill-conceived rail projects, they won’t get any at all.” Per Barro: Republicans ought to be providing a healthy skepticism about government projects — attention to cost-effectiveness,
LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST
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awareness of opportunity cost, recognition that sometimes government actions produce unintended consequences. But a healthy skeptic sometimes conducts those evaluations and still says “yes” — which is why people take him seriously
The obvious preference is to have a debate between two responsible, intelligent parties, operating in good faith opposition.” when he says “no.” Republicans have shifted from skepticism to pure obstinacy, fighting at every turn against government solutions, which is why their (somwetimes perfectly valid) critiques of government action lack credibility. Barro notes that “this dynamic is not limited to infrastructure.” In turn, I’ll point out that this observation is not limited to Barro. Let’s recall Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, writing last April for the Washington Post, providing a better sports metaphor than mine:
Enter The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post. In other words, they’ve quit the field, and in so doing, have hampered the quality of policymaking. It’s really, really easy to win arguments against Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), but what muscles are you working by doing so? Unfortunately, there’s really no way for the Democrats to will the GOP back onto the field. (And the news this week is that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), after taking on the job of being the public face of comprehensive immigration reform, may be heading to the sidelines himself, which will hurt just about everybody.) I give credit to President Barack
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Obama for offering enticements. The Affordable Care Act contained a lot of Republican ideas, for instance. He’s offered up chained CPI as a Social Security reform. Even when Obama could have gotten the Bush-era tax cuts rolled back on everyone making more than $250,000 a year, he relented in the 11th hour and settled on repealing the tax cut on earners making $400,000 a year. That’s just free
It’s really, really easy to win arguments against Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), but what muscles are you working by doing so?” stuff he’s giving away, in the hopes that Republicans will come play. (I think that it’s arguable that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would prefer to not work this way, either.) I agree with Barro that the obvious preference is to have a debate between two responsible, intelligent parties, operating in good faith opposition. Please, please, please understand this is not the same thing as having “bipartisanship.”
Q&A
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DAVE HOGAN/GETTY IMAGES;
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Russell Brand Talks Sex, Monogamy, and Teases Our Host (Unbuttoning Josh’s shirt): “Look at those nipples! He could lactate at any moment.”
Above: Brand poses for portraits to promote his set in support of Comic Relief in January 2013. Below: Brand performs during the Comic Relief show on March 6, 2013.
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Kings and Queens of the Hill What makes a movie star a movie star? Judging by results in 2013, it’s no longer just their name; so far this year, movies led by Melissa McCarthy and Ethan Hawke have performed better than those led by Vince Vaughn and Will Smith. The landscape for leading men and women is changing, but one thing has remained consistent over the last decade: Money
is still money, and $200 million is a lot of money. In an effort to suss out which movie stars are still kings and queens of the hill, HuffPost has compiled global box office data from the past decade for a group Hollywood’s biggest names. Which star has the most films with more than $200 million in ticket sales worldwide? Well, not Ethan Hawke. — Christopher Rosen
BANKABLE STARS, 2003-2013 $750M $725M $700M $675M $650M $625M $600M $575M $550M $525M $500M $475M $450M $425M $400M $375M $350M $325M $300M $275M $250M $225M $200M
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HEADLINES
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The Week That Was
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DREW MAGARY
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All I Ever Want As a Parent
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REW MAGARY’S NEW parenting memoir, Someone Could Get Hurt, is wickedly funny. But the Deadspin and GQ writer’s humor is balanced with honest expressions of frustration, anxiety, self-doubt and intense introspection. In the following adapted excerpt, Magary asks himself a question many moms and dads will find familiar: When will I finally feel like I’m doing this right?
Voices WHEN I WAS SINGLE and saw parents losing it with their kids, I used to frown at them. I’ll never be like that, I promised myself. But single people are pathetically naive. They don’t know what it’s like to spend fourteen consecutive hours with a child. They don’t understand how that massive span of time allows for every single possible human emotion to be bared: anger, fear, jealousy, love... all of it. More to the point, they don’t realize what little assholes kids can be. They have no idea. When I was in middle school, they brought in a lady who had traveled to the South Pole to speak to us. She told us that, at one point during the trip, she became so cold and so desperate for food that she ate an entire stick of butter. We all were disgusted. But she was like, “Yeah, well, if you had been at the South Pole, you would have had butter for dinner too.” Parenting is similar in that you end up acting in ways that your younger self would have found repellent because the circumstances overwhelm you. What I’m basically saying is that having kids is like being stuck in Antarctica. I’m not sure any group of parents has ever been subjected to as much widespread derision as the current
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generation of American parents. We are told, constantly, how badly we are f*cking our kids up. There are scores of books being sold every day that demonstrate how much better parents are in China, and in France, and in the Amazon River Basin. I keep waiting for a New York Times article about how leaders of the Cali drug cartel excel at teaching their children self-reliance. And it’s not just books shitting on us. We hear it from our own parents, who go to pathological lengths to remind us that we hover too much, or that we let the kids watch too much TV, or that we’re letting our kids eat too much processed dogshit. We’re SOFT. That’s the stereotype. We’re soft parents, and our kids will grow up to be free-range terrorists because of it. We see the stereotype in movies and ads and TV shows and on the news, in study after study that says our kids are getting dumber and fatter and angrier. We’ve ruined everything. Collectively, all this empirical evidence of our shittiness is destroying our confidence, our ability to handle our kids with any measure of assuredness. The funny thing is that I think the evidence is probably wrong. Fifty years ago, spanking and other
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Excerpted from Someone Could Get Hurt by Drew Magary. Copyright (c) 2013 by Drew Magary. Reprinted by arrangement with Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Voices forms of corporal punishment were far more widespread. Fathers were distant and uncommunicative. Everyone smoked in front of their kids. Seat belts were for pussies. And if parents had any kind of problem with their child, they didn’t have the Internet on hand to help find a solution, or at least a sympathetic ear. We have that now, and it makes us better. No parents I know suffer a kid’s shitty eating habits for long. They’re willing to look for help right away, and they can find it, and that matters. That counts for something. We’re not that bad, I swear. But the stereotype shrouds all of that. We even hear the stereotype from fellow parents. We’re constantly judging and grading other parents, just to make sure that they aren’t any better than us. I’m as guilty as anyone. I see some lady hand her kid a Nintendo DS at the supermarket and I instantly downgrade that lady to Shitty Parent status. I feel pressure to live up to a parental ideal that no one probably has ever achieved. I feel pressure to raise a group of human beings that will help America kick the shit out of Finland and South Korea in the world math rankings. I feel pressure to shield my kids from
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the trillion pages of hentai donkey porn out there on the Internet. I feel pressure to make the insane amounts of money needed for a supposedly “middle-class” upbringing for the kids, an upbringing that includes a house and college tuition and health care and so many other expenses that you have to be a multimillionaire to afford it. PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE. And the worst part is that none of those external forces can begin to match the pressure I bring to bear on myself. Every time I have a fight with my kids, I feel like I have to start from scratch. I feel like I’ve tumbled back down the mountain, as if all the good effort I’ve put in before has gone to waste and I’ve f*cked everything up permanently. All I want are streaks — little runs of good parenting days. I have a vision in my head of a never-ending streak — a time when I have a perfect relationship with my children that involves mutual respect and lots of outward affection. I don’t know if that’s a real thing or just some pipe dream that only adds to the pressure. After a particularly difficult incident, I composed myself and swore I would never again throw gas on
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Voices the fire to escalate the conflict. All I had to do was walk away from my daughter and the fight would have been over before all this horrible shit happened, but I didn’t. My wife came through the door and I shuddered to tell her everything that had happened. I didn’t want her to know any of it. But I have a big mouth. Nothing stays inside this vault for very long. “Everything okay?” she asked. “She hit her brother and I lost my shit,” I said. “It’s all right.” “I spanked her. I’m so f*cking sorry.” “It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ve spanked her too.” “You have?” “Oh, yeah,” she said. “It does nothing.” “Why doesn’t it do anything? I want it to WORK.” “I know! I wish it would.” “Why don’t they listen to us?” “I dunno. Just don’t spank her again. It makes everything worse.” “I made it so much worse, you have no idea.” “It’s all right.” My daughter came down the stairs and there was no more screaming or evil laughter. She had been replaced with an actual
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girl, the one I’d kill for. She didn’t seem to have any hard feelings about our power struggle. Kids affect a kind of multiple personality disorder — they become entirely different people for a bit and then have no recollection of that identity once the storm has passed. “Can I get you something to eat?” I asked her. “Shells and cheese,” she said. A sincere answer. That is all I ever want. Plain, mature sincerity. I hugged her and told her I loved her and she pushed me away with a laugh. A nice laugh. “Dad, ew.” She went to go draw a picture and I began climbing the mountain all over again, hoping to string together enough good days of parenting until I got to the point where there were no more bad days, until the day when I could stand proud in front of stern newscasters and judgmental foreigners and overbearing grandparents and anyone else who thought I sucked at this and tell them that I was a good father and have them believe it. Drew Magary is a writer for Deadspin and GQ. His new parenting memoir, Someone Could Get Hurt, is out now.
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DAVID BLAINE
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ENTERTAINMENT
COURTESY OF TED
Holding My Breath for 17 Minutes Doesn’t Scare Me … But This Does I NEVER FEARED HEIGHTS, sharks, being shot, drowning, starvation, or even death. A couple of years ago, I was faced with the one thing that
actually did intimidate me — speaking at the TED Conference in front of some of the greatest minds in the world, people whom I have always admired. For years I would attend the conference, do magic to all of the speakers, and then get blown
David Blaine holds his breath for 17 minutes during a live telecast of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2008.
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away by their talks. When I watched these amazing people on stage presenting world-changing ideas, I almost found it funny that they would even consider asking me to speak. Learning to hold my breath for 17 minutes was an exciting challenge, but here, there was no block of ice, or coffin lid, or even a deck of cards separating me from the crowd. Standing on stage for 20 minutes to talk
DAVID BLAINE
about the experience was terrifying, and I spent most of my time leading up to it locked in my
TED and The Huffington Post are excited to bring you TEDWeekends, a curated weekend program that introduces a powerful “idea worth spreading” every Friday, anchored in an exceptional TEDTalk. This week’s TEDTalk is accompanied by an original blog post from the featured speaker, along with new op-eds, thoughts and responses from the HuffPost community. Watch the talk above, read the blog post and tell us your thoughts below. Become part of the conversation!
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Blaine withstands one million volts of electricity at a 2012 show in New York.
hotel room, obsessively writing and re-writing my notes on playing cards. Pushing myself comes naturally to me. When I’m doing something like learning how to hold my breath for the world record, I suddenly have no distractions, everything becomes clear to me, and I am completely focused. I cannot easily explain it because I don’t really understand it myself. I just know that in that place I feel like I have a purpose. Maybe it’s because I was born with my feet turned in, and wore leg braces until I was five years old. I also had asthma and no distinct physical advantages. As a result, I wanted to prove to myself that I could compete with the most athletic kids. That led me to constantly challenge myself, and eventually I learned how to hold my breath longer and swim faster than other kids who didn’t have the same physical setbacks I did.
MORE ON TED WEEKENDS MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE
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DAVID BLAINE
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TREATING FEAR IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Learning to hold my breath for 17 minutes was an exciting challenge, but here, there was no block of ice, or coffin lid, or even a deck of cards separating me from the crowd.” I love performing magic, sleight of hand, logic puzzles . . . but what drives me is pushing past my limits to accomplish a goal that should be impossible. Speaking at TED was an amazing opportunity to share my story, but beyond that, being able to overcome my fear of public speaking in front of my heroes made it one of the most memorable experiences of my life. David Blaine is an American illusionist and endurance artist.
A selection of the week’s related blogs HEADLINES TO VIEW BLOGS ABOUT THIS WEEK’S THEME
ONE CARD AT A TIME
I WANT TO BELIEVE
THE KEY TO EXCEPTIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
QUOTED
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“ I don’t know what you do. Do you put out an announcement in the trades? I’M DATING!” CLOCKWISE FROMTOP LEFT: RANDY HOLMES/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES; JONATHAN LEIBSON/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES; AP PHOTO/COURTESY CARMEL HIGH SCHOOL; MICHAEL STEWART/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES
– Will Arnett
“ It’s been almost, like, two decades since I had a movie that wasn’t number one!” – Will Smith
discussed his separation from Amy Poehler, his wife of nine years, in an interview with Details
on Jimmy Kimmel Live! talking about After Earth’s poor box-office showing
“ We’re not the place for that.”
– MSNBC President Phil Griffin
said in an interview with The New York Times that viewers were right to go somewhere else for breaking news
“ I never in a million years would’ve believed that 2 redheads would be accepted by their fellow classmates.”
– HuffPost commenter Patrick_ Bateman_NYC,
on a gay pair being named a high school’s “cutest couple”
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: OZAN KOSE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; SLAVEN VLASIC/GETTY IMAGES; NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; MICHAEL BUCKNER/GETTY IMAGES FOR SXSW
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QUOTED
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“Social media scares the hell out of the merger-of-stateand-corporate-power crowd.”
- HuffPost commenter freeSpeakr, on the ongoing protests in Turkey
“ What is it with white people not knowing their own history?”
- HuffPost commenter Seattle_Noir, on Donald Trump blaming crime on blacks and Hispanics
“ Why isn’t he in jail? Oh yeah... Rich people don’t go to jail unless they steal other rich people’s money.”
- HuffPost commenter Steven_Shepard,
on Sean Parker building a movie-setlike wedding site in an ecologically sensitive area without the proper permits
“ In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden’s release of NSA material — and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago.”
— Daniel Ellsberg,
who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971
06.16.13 #53 FEATURES BUSH AT PEACE
SHEALAH CRAIGHEAD/THE BUSH CENTER
DEAD OR ALIVE
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Bush at Peace
The 43rd President Reflects on Fame, Power and the Consequences of His Decisions BY JON WARD
CRAWFORD, Texas —
George W. Bush had been riding his mountain bike for almost four hours, and he was out of gas. I was 12 riders behind the former president as we cycled, single file, along a winding trail cut through Bush’s 1,500-acre ranch. We had been riding almost nonstop, in 90-degree heat, for 30 miles, over terrain that was at times technical, challenging and potentially hazardous. Rocky sections delivered a pounding to both bike and rider. Roots threatened to upend us. At one point, a narrow path along a ridge line dropped off steeply to the right, 50 to 75 feet to the gorge below. Bush had called the section “hairy.”
It was the second day of Bush’s third annual Warrior 100K, a three-day mountain bike ride that he has hosted at different locations since leaving the White House, to which he invites military veterans, many of whom had been seriously wounded in the wars he initiated. It’s a ritual of thanks and bonding that might seem fraught from the outside, but that everyone who takes part seems to enjoy. This year, 75 riders participated in the event over Memorial Day weekend, 13 of them veterans wounded physically or psychologically, or both. The rest of the peloton was made up of a few
guests of the veterans, Secret Service agents, mechanics, medics, an assortment of people who have ridden with Bush over the past several years, and a few odds and ends, like me, the only reporter along for the entire ride. There are 41 miles of mountain bike trail on Bush’s property, and ranch staff, along with volunteers, had created 21 miles of those trails in the six weeks or so leading up to this event, his ranch manager told me. We saw most of them that day, and rode another 14 miles the day before and then 21 miles the day after. Bush, who always rides at the front, pushed the pace, yelling and cajoling his fellow cyclists. At 66, he takes great pleasure in smoking riders who think they can hang
LAYNE MURDOCH/COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER
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with him. “Get moving, Stork!” he shouted at Ed Lazear, using the nickname he had given his former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. At rest stops, Bush was impatient to get going again. He’d pause, drink some Gatorade, chat, grin, bask in the endorphin rush, make a few jokes, and then hop back on his carbon frame Trek Superfly 100 Elite. “Yah, baby!” he’d exclaim. By the end, however, he was exhausted. “I was gassed,” Bush admitted to me the next day. “Thirty miles is a long way on a mountain bike. I was tired.” Over the last hour of the second day’s ride, as we traveled along a singletrack trail that wound through mostly flat, open fields, Bush downshifted to one of his easiest gears, and the pace slowed to a glacial crawl. Riders began to bunch
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“ What does it mean when you’re seeing triple? Ultra zen.” up on each other, wheel to wheel. I heard a little grumbling about the stops and starts. But as was the case all three days, no one dared ride ahead of the former president. “Did we reach Zen out there?” I asked him after the ride, referencing a conversation he had years ago with an Associated Press reporter who rode with him. Since taking up mountain biking in 2004, Bush has embraced riding hard as a way to leave his cares behind, if only for an hour or two. “I’m beyond that,” he replied, a little groggily. “What does it mean when you’re seeing triple?” He answered the question himself: “Ultra Zen.” Over an hour later, Bush was still standing around, mingling with the other riders and vol-
Former President George W. Bush leads a pack of 75 riders participating in the Warrior 100K at his ranch near Crawford, Texas.
LAYNE MURDOCH/COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER
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unteers, taking pictures, signing autographs, but mostly just hanging out. When he talks with folks, Bush still sways his chin back and forth like it’s doing a jig. And he still stands with his legs spread apart and his arms out from his sides, like he’s getting ready to draw on you. As he talked to a group of two or three people, he saw Mark McKinnon, the veteran Texas ad maker who worked on his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, walking by. McKinnon is a big supporter of the ride and started mountain biking around the same time as Bush did, often together with the
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president. He rode all three days with Bush and the veterans. “MKat, how you feeling?” Bush hollered, using the nickname he long ago bestowed on McKinnon. McKinnon did a little raise-theroof gesture. “No, no,” Bush said with faux disapproval. McKinnon drooped his shoulders and acted like he was staggering. “Yeah,” Bush said approvingly, smiling. No one was allowed to be less tired than 43. A LOT OF PEOPLE are mystified that Bush has withdrawn from public life so dramatically since leaving the White House. But he
Bush navigates his mountain bike through a rocky corridor as more riders follow closely behind.
PAUL MORSE/ COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER
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described being out of the spotlight, and out of power, as something of a cleansing experience. “Fame can become very addictive. And I’ve had all the fame a man could want,” he said. I asked him if he had enjoyed the fame. “Yeah, to a certain extent. I mean, it wasn’t my life. It wasn’t the center of my life. But I mean, when you’re — let me rephrase that. I enjoyed being president. And when you’re president, you’re famous. Now whether I enjoyed fame itself, I just, you know, you’d have to get the psychoanalyst on me,” he said. Bush has been loath to talk about himself since leaving of-
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“ I don’t feel sorry for [wounded veterans], because they don’t feel sorry for themselves.” fice and has often mocked questions about his motivations as “navel-gazing.” Even out of office, it’s difficult to get him to admit weakness, because he is not second-guessing the decisions he made and doesn’t want to give the impression that he is. But on his home turf, after three days of cycling, he offered a rare glimpse into how he felt the presidency had changed him and why he is glad he’s no longer in office. “I don’t long for [fame]. Nor do I long for power. I’ve come to real-
Of the 75 riders at the Warrior 100K, 13 were veterans who had been seriously wounded during their military service.
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ize that power can be corrosive if you’ve had it for too long,” Bush said. “It can dim your vision. And so I came to the conclusion that, you know, I don’t long for fame. And really, gonna shy away from it. Not shy away from it. Avoid it. I’m not very shy. Avoid it.” It was a classic Rorschach moment. Those who hate Bush will say it shows he was an arrogant president whose power went to his head and he’s just realizing it. Those who love him will say it shows a self-awareness and humility for which he was never given credit. Each side will probably be grasping different sides of the same complex soul. He certainly has almost disappeared from public view since leaving office, especially compared to the way that former President Bill Clinton has stayed in the limelight. Clinton has been equal parts politician and philanthropist. But Bush shows no inclination to stay in the political game. He said he prefers to view events “not from the political side of things, although obviously almost everything is political.” “I tend to look at it from a historical perspective,” he said. So far his post-presidency
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“ Rubio’s articulate. I met him once, maybe twice. My brother likes him, so I like him.” seems to be on a track more like that of Jimmy Carter, who has largely focused on a few issues dear to his heart, only occasionally making news. Carter has worked on humanitarian causes like Habitat for Humanity and more geopolitical ones like the Middle East peace process. Bush, for his part, has focused on caring for veterans and eradicating HIV/ AIDS and other diseases in Africa. Though he hinted that he may not stay as off the radar in the future, “it’s certainly what I feel like now,” Bush said. He revealed that “there’s a frustration at the Bush Institute,” a public policy think tank he founded in 2009, with his reluctance to speak in public on issues of the day. He said people will tell him, “You need to get out and you need to be out there, you know, opining about this and telling people about that.” “And I don’t want to do that,” he said. Bush also said he didn’t want to criticize President Barack Obama
“ I don’t long for [fame]. Nor do I long for power. I’ve come to realize that power can be corrosive if you’ve had it for too long. It can dim your vision.”
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Bush boards Air Force One after a Republican fundraiser in St. Louis, Mo., a month before the 2008 elections.
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or the Republican Party. He said he saw Obama’s second-term struggles as a result of cyclical forces in any two-term presidency. “I’m not surprised the president is having a difficult go,” Bush said. “It’s just amazing how history repeats itself.” He had not watched Obama’s recent speech on national security, drones and Guantanamo at the National Defense University, he said, but he had read a summary of it. “He’s charting a course that he is comfortable with,” Bush said. Despite his desire not to criticize the GOP, Bush did have a warning about the party’s mad dash for immigration reform. “I think the atmosphere, unlike when I tried it, is better, maybe for the wrong reason,” Bush said. “The right reason is it’s important to reform a broken system. I’m not sure a right reason is that in so doing we win votes. I mean when you do the right thing, I think you win votes, as opposed to doing something that’s the right thing to win votes. Maybe there’s no difference there. It seems like there is to me though.” I asked Bush what he thought of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has put his reputation on the line with
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“ The soldiers in our society, the wounded warriors, become the dead goat in this game between the left and the right.”
— Army Maj. Dan Gade
the immigration bill and is seen as a likely frontrunner if he seeks the GOP nomination for president in 2016. Bush, who has said he wants his brother Jeb, the former Florida governor, to run, didn’t have a lot to say about Rubio. “Rubio’s articulate. I met him once, maybe twice. My brother likes him, so I like him,” Bush said. WHEN HIS PRESIDENTIAL library opened in April, Bush told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he wants to live life to the fullest and “sprint into the grave.” Sometimes when he is mountain biking, it might seem like he means that literally. But life is a lot slower for Bush these days, and while he enjoys not having the pressures of the presidency, he has talked about a drive to continue improving himself and growing as a person. He rides one or two times a week, and has three small tribes
GRANT MILLER/ COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER
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of Texas cyclists — in Dallas, where he and his wife, Laura, have a house; in Waco, near the ranch in Crawford; and in Austin — who are willing to ride with him whenever he wants. The riders receive an email, usually a day ahead of time, letting them know where Bush will be riding. Bush rides for 90 minutes to two hours nonstop, some of the riders who go with him said, and then greets members of the public, who have been showing up in the parking lot with increasing frequency. Bush and his fellow cyclists refer to their riding groups as Peloton One.
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Bush picked up mountain biking in 2004 when his knees started to go south. Prior to that, he had been an avid runner. “I wasn’t a mountain biker when we bought [the ranch]. I was a runner,” Bush said at a press conference before the start of the second day of the Warrior 100K. “I know this is going to irritate some running folks, but I ran myself into premature arthritis.” Trek CEO John Burke gave Bush a mountain bike, and one day, one of his daughters told him to go outside and take the bike for a ride because he was “a little irritable.” “I’ve been biking ever since,” he said. “Mountain biking is awesome. It gets you outside. It gets
FROM LEFT: President Barack Obama and former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter arrive at the dedication ceremony for the George W. Bush Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas, on April 25, 2013.
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you involved with nature. And we built a lot of trails here, and in so doing preserved the land, made the land better.” Bush is also playing a lot of golf, and will often golf and bike in the same day. He has, quite famously, taken up painting. He told CBS News’ Charlie Rose that he paints almost every day for two to three hours. He told me he has been reading Dan Brown’s Inferno (“It was a vacation book. Just ripped through it,” he said), as well as a recently released book on Calvin Coolidge by historian Amity Shlaes, who is currently working at the Bush Institute. And on the day that we rode 30 miles, he went back to his ranch house and “took a good nap” before hosting the 13 vets for dinner. “Felt like a million bucks,” he said. Things are much quieter in Crawford, too. The Crawford Coffee Station and the Yellow Rose souvenir shop across the street (“Bush gifts,” “Western gifts,” as well as guns and ammo sold there) were both hubs of activity when Bush was president. Now both shops are closed. The back roads to Bush’s ranch, after you pass Waco, go on for
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“ I believe strongly that the decisions I made were the right decisions, you know?” some time, cutting through miles of open farmland. It feels like the middle of nowhere, because it is. I had hitched a ride with a Warrior 100K volunteer, Jack Sparkes, on the ride’s first day. In the predawn twilight, he steered his truck through the one-stoplight downtown and off Route 317. A firefly veered toward the windshield as we rounded a bend. A few minutes later, we drove past the triangle of grass where antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan had protested against Bush after her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in action outside Baghdad, Iraq, in 2004. The memory of Sheehan’s protest was as fresh as anything else that made Crawford hop whenever Bush vacationed here during his eight-year presidency. Sparkes mentioned it, as did McKinnon when I rode past the spot with him the next day. And for Bush himself, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain fresh memories. They were, of course, the reason he was hosting the ride.
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I asked Bush if he felt responsible for the injuries suffered by the men he was hosting and riding with. “Well, to a certain extent you can’t help it, because had I not made decisions I made, they wouldn’t have been in combat,” Bush said. “On the other hand, every one of these men were volunteers. None of them are angry. They themselves don’t blame anybody. And so I believe strongly that the decisions I made were the right decisions, you know? I knew going in that there were bad consequences to war. That’s why, if people study my decision, they
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would recognize I tried to solve the problems diplomatically.” That last is, of course, a controversial view. Many believe Bush made up his mind to go to war after the 9/11 attacks and simply went through the motions of building a coalition and bringing the matter to the United Nations to pacify critics. But it is clear that Bush is relaxed and at peace in his postpresidency, not haunted by demons of self-doubt or driven by an urge to endlessly litigate his most controversial choices. There is a slight defensive crouch to his 2010 book, Decision Points, and to his library, which lays out the information he had as he confronted
Bush hands out treats to children outside a health center in Kabwe, Zambia, in July 2012.
PAUL MORSE/COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER
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different challenges and asks visitors to make their own decisions. He seems to mean it, however, when he says that people will reach their own conclusions and that he doesn’t mind if they still disagree with him. Bush still searched for a few more words when it came to the individual men and women who had suffered often gruesome injuries in the two wars. “You know, I don’t feel sorry for them, because they don’t feel sorry for themselves,” he said.
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OUT ON THE MOUNTAIN bike trail, I found myself behind Dan Gade, a 38-year-old Army major who lost his right leg up to the hip when he was hit by an improvised explosive device in Ramadi, Iraq, on Jan. 10, 2005. As the riders ahead of us got tangled on an uphill section, bringing the peloton to a halt, Gade grumbled about stopping on an incline. He didn’t complain often, but for someone riding with one leg, getting held up on a climb was a challenge. The group ahead moved on, and soon Gade scooted off ahead of me, bouncing up and over bumps and ridges and around
Army Sgt. First Class Billy Costello, 31, rides along a mountain bike trail on Bush’s ranch. Costello lost his right leg above the knee when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan in 2011.
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the bend, pedaling with only his left leg. Gade is a dominating figure, both on and off the bike. His wounds were the most visibly dramatic of any rider in the group, and his intellect and eloquence stood out as well. Gade earned his master’s and his Ph.D. in public policy and public administration after he was wounded, and now teaches political science and public policy at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. He was almost bursting to talk and expressed his ideas clearly and colorfully — as when he compared the debate between right and left over the military to an Afghan game played on horseback, in which a dead goat is, in essence, a football, and each team tries to get it across the other’s goal line. “They carry it on horseback, and then somebody else will run their horse into that guy, and he falls off and drops the goat. It’s actually a real thing,” he said. “But the soldiers in our society, the wounded warriors, become the dead goat in this game between the left and the right. The left has a natural inclination to view them as victims, like,
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“ I think the atmosphere [for immigration reform], unlike when I tried it, is better, maybe for the wrong reason.” ‘Oh, you poor thing, you got sent to war against your will and now you’re maimed, and so because you’re maimed, society should take care of you forever and you’re a victim.’ And that’s dead wrong. “On the other hand, the right has the same problem, where they say, ‘Oh, because you served, in whatever capacity, in whatever job, whether you were a file clerk or an infantryman, because you served, because you put on your uniform, a uniform, you’re a hero.’ And the problem with that isn’t that it honors people who served, because that’s great,” Gade said. “Look, I mean, if you’re a file clerk, you’re serving your country and that’s super. But the term ‘hero’ should be applied very carefully, selectively, to people who are truly heroes. “So for instance, with respect to myself and my very serious injuries, I don’t use the term ‘hero,’ and I don’t like it when others do. Because I was a soldier doing a
“ I’m not surprised the president is having a difficult go. It’s just amazing how history repeats itself.”
CHARLES OMMANNEY/GETTY IMAGES
Bush works in some brush on his ranch during an August 2007 vacation.
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hard job, but for which I volunteered, knowing the consequences and knowing the potential consequences, and I went and did my job, and I got seriously injured. But being seriously injured doesn’t make me a hero any more than it makes me a victim,” Gade said. “And so I just think that it’d be great if both sides could take a step back — you know, put the dead goat down — and say, ‘Let’s treat these people for who they are, for what they are. And let’s not pretend that everybody’s a hero. And let’s certainly not pretend that everybody’s a victim, because neither is true. They’re both caricatures.’” For Bush, riding mountain bikes with the veterans is sharing with them what has been, for him, an important escape from burdens and concerns. But helping veterans readjust to civilian life is also one of the top priorities for the former president and his institute. Gade said he once heard thenPresident Bush tell a group of injured veterans, “I personally made the decision that got you in your lives to where you are today, and my government is going to do everything it can to make it right.” Bush is aiming to push veterans
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“ I enjoyed being president. And when you’re president, you’re famous. Now whether I enjoyed fame itself, I just, you know, you’d have to get the psychoanalyst on me.” aid efforts away from a focus solely on sending money to those in pain, toward a goal of helping as many as possible stand on their own two feet, be they flesh or metal. An undercurrent flowing through remarks by Bush and others during the three days was a concern that returning veterans not be turned into charity cases, whether injured in the body or the spirit. During a press conference, the former president said the Bush Institute’s “first focus is on helping vets find jobs.” “I mean, after all, these men and women have shown incredible courage, they’ve understood what it means to accomplish a task, and they’ll be great employees,” Bush said, the 13 wounded warriors standing on either side of him. “And so that’s what we’re doing at the Bush Center. It’s all aiming to make sure that the outpouring
LAYNE MURDOCH/COURTESY OF THE BUSH CENTER
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of support that is pretty predominant in our country is channeled in a way that is effective.” I asked him about that comment the next day when we spoke. “Yeah, see here, one of my concerns at the Bush Institute is that the outpouring of support for our vets, while impressive, could be misguided,” he said. He talked for a moment about making sure that financial donations go to organizations that are spending money on veterans, not
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overhead, and that are having a real impact. Then he talked about post-traumatic stress disorder. “If you talk to some of these vets, if they level with ya, they’ll say one of our biggest concerns is that PTSD is viewed as a disability and employers don’t want to hire a disabled person. So one of the things we’re going to try to do is help destigmatize the injury,” Bush told me. Of the 13 veterans invited to the ride, only four of them had visible wounds (Gade, who also rode last year, was not one of the designated veteran riders for 2013). A
Bush shakes hands with retired U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Joshua M. Krueger after completing the first day’s ride at the Warrior 100K.
JOSEPH MWENDA/AFP/GETTYIMAGES
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number of others listed PTSD as an official diagnosis. Army Sgt. 1st Class Manuel Colon, 39, was out on patrol with an Afghan Army unit in Lwara, Afghanistan, in 2004 when improvised explosive devices injured several of the Afghan soldiers. “When you’re talking about coming back and trying to figure out body parts to specific people that are still alive, they’re yelling and all this stuff, and putting them all down and trying to figure out what was going on. The burning of the skin, the smell, the
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blood,” Colon said. “That one specific thing just kind of sticks to my mind over and over again.” “Can PTSD be treated? I believe possibly,” Colon said. “I’m not a doctor. But it all depends on the individual themselves … How much did they endure? How much was implanted in their mind that just can’t be erased? And some of us are dealing with it better, and some of us are not dealing with it that well.” AT A DINNER IN WACO with the veterans and all the other riders the evening of the first day, Bush was in rare form. As he ran through the list of sponsors and donors who helped fund the
Bush speaks at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, during a ceremony on July 4, 2012.
THOMAS NSAMA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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event, he stopped at the mention of Emergent BioSolutions, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Rockville, Md. “I was trying to figure out what Emergent BioSolutions are. I wonder if that’s the stuff you put on your rear before you ride,” Bush said, to laughs. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.” Then each of the 13 veterans said a few words. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Morabito talked about returning from Iraq, after suffering “severe
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burns” and spinal cord injury during an attack in Ramadi in 2004, for which he received the Purple Heart. As with others I had heard discuss being wounded, the most poignant moment came when he described how his own children viewed him as he tried to overcome his injuries. “I went down a dark road. But my wife and my kids pulled me out,” Morabito told the group inside the banquet hall. “My kids were always looking at pictures of Daddy being active, Daddy doing this. And it was one of those days, ‘Hey, Dad, how come you’re not doing this with me?’”
Bush shakes hands with Zambian girls in Lusaka, Zambia, in December 2011.
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His voice trembled. “We went and bought some bikes, started riding, and the rest is history. And that’s what brought us here this weekend.” A few minutes earlier, another veteran had come to tears when I asked him how he had lost his right leg below the knee. He told me the toughest part of his recovery was “crawling across the floor in front of my kids” soon after coming home from the hospital. In a video from last year’s bike ride, Gade told the story of his then-3-year-old daughter asking him to play Legos with her soon after he returned home, when he was in a wheelchair. He said he couldn’t, and his little girl turned and said under her breath, “My daddy can’t do anything.” Gade got down right then and played with her. After the veterans spoke, Bush stood up and thanked them. “So here’s what strikes me: not one ounce of self-pity,” he said declaratively. “What an interesting lesson ... No self-pity, just courage and a desire to move on. So we thank you very much for your stories. Thank you for sharing.” Then he added, “Looking forward to kicking your ass tomorrow.” The room broke up in laughter.
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Bush introduced the night’s entertainment, Texas country singer Pat Green, who sang for about a half hour. Green ended with his hit “Wave on Wave.” “Mile upon mile, got no direction, We’re all playing the same game, We’re all looking for redemption, We’re just afraid to say the name.” The lyrics held meaning for veterans seeking to overcome their own fears, memories and past struggles. There was also something for a onetime-alcoholic expresident looking to make good on his promise to help the men and women who, when he said go, went and then came back maimed. I looked over at Bush. He was nodding his head vigorously to the beat. Jon Ward is a senior political reporter for The Huffington Post.
HuffPost reporter Jon Ward discusses how Bush sees veterans. Tap here for the full interview on HuffPost Live.
Did Andy Kaufman Pull Off the Ultimate Prank?
BY MALLIKA RAO
PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK
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Depending on whom you ask,
Andy Kaufman either died 29 years ago, or he sure fooled us. As evidence for the latter, they’ll point to his career. Not the obvious one — his Taxi gig or his quickflaming stint on Saturday Night Live (which ended with the audience voting him off the show as part of a stunt he suggested, not thinking it would go that way). Even at the height of his success, Kaufman told any reporter who’d listen that all that flashy stuff was just to support his real work: his high-concept live act.
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PREVIOUS PAGE: JIM BRITT/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES
Christopher Lloyd (left) and Andy Kaufman appear on an episode of Taxi in 1981.
It’s a long and sublimely silly list. Take the times Kaufman read The Great Gatsby aloud until the audience hissed and booed. “Would you rather listen to a tape?” he’d ask (they always said yes). But the tape simply turned out to be a recording of him reading The Great Gatsby. There was his Carnegie Hall special, after which he invited the entire audience — all 2,800 of them, includ-
ing Andy Warhol — to a meticulously planned snack of milk and cookies. Even a reasonable fan might have seen in the scope of Kaufman’s lunacy a promise that he’d someday try the ultimate prank. Today, there’s evidence to the contrary. A death certificate, for one. For those who can’t make it to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to see the document in person, the Smoking Gun posted an image online in 1999 to counteract a flurry of rumors the
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Most of the people ... who claim to
be dead celebrities are usually scam artists.” website ascribed to “guerrilla marketing” for the release of the Milos Forman biopic, Man on the Moon, which stars Jim Carrey as Kaufman. “In this case,” admonished the writer, “it seems rather cynical, since Kaufman most certainly died on May 16, 1984 in Cedars Sinai Hospital, as this copy of his death certificate shows.” So there lies Kaufman, for all intents and purposes. (As well as under a “slab of granite” described by the Village Voice in a 1999 dispatch from Section One-4 of Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, N.Y.) Still, a subset of fans remain convinced that Kaufman faked his death. These few, who refer to themselves as “the disciples,” await their hero with the grim determination of Pentecostals counting down the days until rapture. They’ve kept the faith even after moments of supposed return came and went. Their mythology is murky, and their methods are questionable. Step one foot into their world and the floor collapses into a rabbit hole. Kaufman, if he were (is?) alive, would surely approve.
ACTS OF GENEROSITY The disciples meet less regularly these days than they once did. But the point of contact hasn’t changed. The clubhouse is online, at AndyKaufmanLives.com, the highest-trafficked Kaufman conspiracy website, registered since 2003 to a Stephen D. Maddox of Greenwood, Ind. The original community was small but diverse. “There was this girl from Croatia, a guy from the Netherlands, a guy from Gibraltar,” said Frank Edward Nora, the host of talk radio podcast, The Overnightscape. Nora, who runs the podcast from his house in New Jersey, says he was “drawn in briefly” to the site out of journalistic curiosity, long enough to become a disciple. Posters shared one thing in common, he said. “They’d all made this almost supernatural connection with Andy Kaufman, for whatever reason.” Talk to the disciples though, and you’ll find they fixate on someone else equally. That’s Maddox, the site’s founder and bestower of the title “disciple,” an enigmatic figure who claims to be a descendant of Kaufman’s, and who some disciples believe is closer than that. Jack Bristow, a 27-year-old writer in Albuquerque, N.M., starts off his Maddox story in the site’s early days in 2003. Back then, Bristow was a skeptic.
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Kaufman appeared regularly on Van Dyke and Company from 1975-1976.
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AP PHOTO/DOUGLAS HEALEY
DEAD OR ALIVE
He’d question the death hoax theory on the site’s forum, which was moderated by a woman with the punny, fake-sounding name of Claire Channel. “Some of the posters seemed to get a bit angry,” Bristow wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. But “Claire would never get mad.” In 2004, Kaufman’s longtime partnerin-crime Bob Zmuda organized a tribute night at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. The event piqued the interest of everyone at AKLives. Kaufman reportedly once teased that, if he died, he would return 20 years later. And Zmuda’s show, Andy Kaufman: Dead Or Alive, was scheduled for May 16 — 20 years to the day since Kaufman left. Bristow wanted to go but didn’t have the cash. Then came an email from Channel, asking if he was attending. When Bristow wrote back, he says she returned with an offer: “I have a few spare tickets lying around.” Overjoyed, Bristow started packing. He says he later found out his two $175 tickets weren’t Channel’s only gift; she apparently also covered tickets, airfare and hotel rooms for others who posted to the site. About a year later, Bristow got another email from Channel, a confession “that she was not a girl at all, but that she was, in fact, Stephen Maddox.” The ruse, coupled with Maddox’s generosity, struck him as meaningful.
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Alan Abel, a professional hoaxer who once faked his death in The New York Times, met Kaufman in 1981.
“Most of the people ... who claim to be dead celebrities are usually scam artists,” Bristow wrote. “But Maddox has never asked anybody for money, as far as I know. Instead, he spends money generously on Andy Kaufman fans. And Andy was famously generous with his fans.” That the dead celebrity in question
DEAD OR ALIVE
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I had my own
obituary in The New York Times. I got eight inches of space, which is two more than the guy who invented the six-pack got. Only he actually died that day.” was a no-show in L.A. didn’t shake Bristow’s new faith. Kaufman wasn’t dead after all, he reasoned. He was living in Indiana, running a website. HOW TO FAKE YOUR DEATH In 1981, not long before his death, the real Andy Kaufman met Alan Abel, a professional hoaxer who’d managed the impossible the year before. “I had my own obituary in The New York Times,” Abel, now 82, told The Huffington Post by phone from his home in Connecticut. “I got eight inches of space, which is two more than the guy who invented the six-pack got. Only he actually died that day.” The meeting of Kaufman and Abel capped off of one of those series of events so guided by chance, those involved call it fate. On the streets of New York, Kaufman was approached by the host of a public-access TV show on the martial arts. He wanted Kaufman to make a cameo, but on a Saturday rather
than Thursday, when the episode would be overrun by serious martial artists who wouldn’t like hijinks. Naturally, Kaufman took the warning as reason to come on Thursday. In the building was Bob Pagani, a hoaxer and Kaufman acolyte who happened to have just mailed a letter — a shot in the dark, as he described it — asking the comic to appear on his show, which filmed in the same studio, that week (Pagani said Kaufman insisted he never saw the letter). After introducing himself, Pagani asked Kaufman to do double duty; Kaufman said yes, with the caveat that his parents join the bit, too. The sequence — in which a pair of actors play a moralizing couple railing at Kaufman for ruining America — is now required watching for diehard fans. “More people have seen that silly show in the last few years than ever saw it when it aired on public access in Manhattan,” Pagani claims. Afterward, Pagani said he told Kaufman about Abel and the latest hoax in a career that stretched back to the ’50s: bamboozling the normally infallible Grey Lady into proclaiming him dead.
DEAD OR ALIVE
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STEPHEN SHUGERMAN/GETTY IMAGES
Bob Zmuda, Kaufman’s former partnerin-crime, performs at a Kaufman tribute show in 2004.
“[Kaufman] was incredibly open for a celebrity,” Pagani said. “He gave me his number. I called Alan and said, ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ He said, ‘Nothing.’ I said, ‘We’re meeting Andy Kaufman.’” The trio met in the plush lobby of the Hilton on 53rd Street, where Kaufman was staying. By Pagani’s account, Kaufman was “extremely interested” in Abel’s death hoax. “He was asking Alan all about how he did it.” Abel said he told Kaufman everything, that day and during the friendship that followed: how he put his “team” to work, setting up a fake funeral home
in a trailer in Orem, Utah, and reserving All Souls Church in Manhattan for the funeral. Then there was the critical dispatch — an actress friend with a gift for weeping on cue, who arrived at The Times office an hour before deadline, and that too, on a Sunday, when the second stringers were in charge. “She could shed tears at the sight of a bumblebee falling down dead from the sky onto the sidewalk,” Abel said of the actress, who pretended to be his widow. The disciples treat the meeting between Abel and Kaufman as an origin story. The bulk of it, they learned directly from the source. Curt Eric Clendenin, a longtime AKLives poster and former child actor
DENICE NORA/COURTESY OF FRANK NORA
DEAD OR ALIVE
(he played an orphan in The Blues Brothers), says he hunted like “freaking Sherlock Holmes” for the two hoax artists. “I got an email out of the blue from [Clendenin] telling me that he’s been following the stuff I’ve done over the years, that he’s a big fan,” Pagani recalled, in the bemused tone of someone who doesn’t hear that often. “I was like ... okay!” Pagani recited everything he remembered about that day, and the two struck up an online friendship. But Pagani can’t bring himself to accept Clendenin’s premise. The conspiracy theory, Pagani said, betrays not just his better judgment but that of most of Kaufman’s nearest and dearest. “I know people at the wake in Long Island literally leaned over the casket and said, ‘Andy, if you’re faking, please stop,’” he said. “I wish he had been faking, but I just don’t think it’s possible.” “Unless he, Elvis and Jim Morrison are all giggling up their sleeves somewhere,” there’s no reason to believe he’s still alive, says Merle Kessler, a hoaxer who guest-starred on a variety show with Kaufman in 1976. “What would be the point of it?” A LIVING LEGACY The point, the disciples claim, is that Kaufman wanted less fame, not more.
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Kaufman “disciple” Frank Nora hosted the “Andy Kaufman Press Conference,” a 2008 event staged by Maddox.
To understand why and how he did what they insist he did, they’ll tell you to first understand Maddox. In 2008, Kaufman was again supposed to surface. This time it would be at an “Andy Kaufman Press Conference” in a hotel in Jersey. Maddox, who planned the conference, asked Nora, the podcaster, if he would host. A few invites went out to the press (to those on the “weird” news beat, Nora said). Before the proceedings, someone knocked on Nora’s room door. A man
I know people at the wake in
JIM BRITT/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES
Long Island literally leaned over the casket and said, ‘Andy, if you’re faking, please stop.’”
DEAD OR ALIVE
walked in wearing a monster mask. He introduced himself as Maddox. “He didn’t want anyone to see his face,” Nora said. The masked man led Nora into the conference room. The conference itself, which can be viewed online, went as bizarrely as you might expect, with a puppet show mixed in with the playing of unintelligible audio tapes. For most of the viewers, the scene was simply live comedy. (Fittingly, the reporter there for Weird New Jersey, Chris Gethard, later landed his own Comedy Central show, Big Lake.) But for the disciples and their ilk, the stakes were high. “People were accusing me of being in on things,” Nora said. “This was all being watched on the Internet by a small group of dedicated people.” Once again, no Kaufman. After the event, the AKLives members seemed to lose hope. The forum turned less wild, focused on Kaufman’s legacy in creating a “trickster archetype,” as Nora puts it, with little debate about whether the man was actually alive or dead. Then Maddox re-emerged. In an email, he told the disciples he wanted to explain everything. According to several disciples who said they were on the call, he gathered them over the phone and unwound a far-fetched story now repeated as gospel: that he is Andy
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He isn’t answering his
emails. What I thought was his phone number is not accepting calls.”
Kaufman’s son, that his mother and Kaufman were teenagers when he was born, and that his maternal grandparents raised him as his parents. In Maddox’s telling, in the ’80s, when Kaufman’s career declined and his devotion to Transcendental Meditation reached new highs, he wended his way back to the woman who’d had his first child. What Maddox said happened next is straight out of a fairy tale, or a thriller: Kaufman was fed up with his life and so he swapped identities with the man to whom Maddox’s biological mother was married. That man, who was ill at the time, made use of Kaufman’s bank account to pay for his health care, Maddox told the disciples. Meanwhile, Kaufman got a second life with a woman he loved. In this story, the cancer-ridden body in the casket, which mourners whis-
DEAD OR ALIVE
pered pleas to at the wake, was not Kaufman’s, but that of the husband of Maddox’s mother. Both families — the Kaufmans and the Maddoxes — were supposedly in on the plot. As for AKLives, Maddox said he’d designed the website as a beacon to lead Kaufman back to him. Maddox told the disciples he’d only just learned all the details from his family. After the press conference, he said, a relative gave him Kaufman’s current address, leading to an apartment complex in New Mexico. No one at the other end of the line asked for proof of any kind. The story, Clendenin told HuffPost, simply made sense. When asked how he could judge its veracity, he said, “Steve Maddox told me that Kaufman is still alive. In fact, he told me where he is.” If there’s anything close to an objective party, it may be Nora, who mined his experience as a disciple for his talk show without getting emotionally tied to Kaufman’s state of being. And yet, while Nora agrees that all of it — the website, the lurid backstory, the monster mask — seems to point to Maddox as some Kaufman fan gone haywire, he said he remains perplexed. Maddox didn’t seem to be “doing this for a lark,” in Nora’s estimation. He nurtured the website for too long and with too much devotion. Neither did he seem unhinged. “He was
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mostly just sad,” Nora said. After the phone call, Maddox more or less vanished. He occasionally tweeted or emailed provocative updates: that he’d moved to the complex where Kaufman lived in Albuquerque. That Kaufman admitted everything. That he took the name Lynne (which happens to be the first name of Kaufman’s last girlfriend, Lynne Margulis) and works the cash register in a convenience store, and has a second family. That Kaufman, or Lynne, wants nothing to do with Maddox. But even those sporadic missives have died of late, and Maddox seems to have made himself unavailable. “He isn’t answering his emails,” Clendenin said. “What I thought was his phone number is not accepting calls.” Emails sent to several possible addresses obtained by The Huffington Post went unanswered. For now, Nora entertains two possibilities, and neither involve Maddox pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes. Maddox sincerely believes in a fantasy, or the fantasy is true. Or, the disciples were duped, in which case, one point stands: Kaufman seems to have something like an heir. Mallika Rao is an arts and entertainment reporter at The Huffington Post.
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25 QUESTIONS
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Is This the Most Effed-Up Movie of the Year? (AND 24 OTHER URGENT QUESTIONS)
I02 PREVIOUS PAGE AND THIS PAGE: © 2013 COLUMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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25 QUESTIONS
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N THIS IS THE END we are introduced to six friends by the names of Seth Rogen (Seth Rogen), James Franco (James Franco), Jonah Hill (Jonah Hill), Craig Robinson (Craig Robinson), Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) and Danny McBride (Danny McBride), who attempt to stay alive while the world ends. As always, we answer every question that you could possibly have about This Is the End. — Mike Ryan
01
Is there any chance that I will like This Is the End? Yes. There are a lot of chances, actually. How is This Is the End not one big circle jerk? While it’s true that there is plenty of literal masturbation in This is the End, it’s also the case that, metaphorically, the film does a surprisingly good job of appearing to exist for the lone purpose of satisfying its stars’ egos.
03
To what “end” does the title This Is the End refer? The apocalypse as described in the Book of Revelation.
04 05
So if I am a devout Christian, I will love This Is the End? Ha.
06
Why are all of these characters hanging out together during the apocalypse? They are attending a party thrown by James Franco (James Franco) when the apocalypse begins.
Is everyone having a good time at the party? Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is not having a good time.
07
Why not? Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is basically our point-of-view character. Even though Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is a fairly famous actor, he only knows Franco (James Franco), Craig Robinson (Craig Robin-
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25 QUESTIONS
08
son) and Jonah Hill (Jonah Hill) through his longtime friend, Seth Rogen (Seth Rogen), and he feels like an outcast when he is around all of them. Is there any real-life basis for this dynamic? I have no idea and don’t particularly care. It’s a movie.
09
When does the apocalypse occur? On the night of the
party, the good people are taken to heaven while the rest have to fend for themselves in a horrifying landscape of volcanoes, earthquakes and roaming demon beasts.
10
Where does an idea like this even come from? It’s based on Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel’s short film, Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse.
Do we see a lot of celebrity deaths in This Is the End? Yes.
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Michael Cera, as Michael Cera, in This Is the End.
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25 QUESTIONS
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Which character does the most with a small amount of screen time in This Is the End? Michael Cera (Michael Cera).
13
Which character does the most with a moderate amount of screen time? Emma Watson (Emma Watson).
14
Wait, how does Danny McBride fit into all of this? Danny McBride (Danny McBride) comes to the party uninvited, then sleeps through the beginning of the apocalypse. Regardless, he joins the other five holed up at James Franco’s house.
© 2013 COLUMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
16 15
I don’t understand what this movie is about. It’s probably for the best. Is each actor portraying himself or herself as how he or she actually is in real life? Though they all are playing themselves — and I’m sure there are some overlapping tropes — the actors definitely play exaggerated versions of themselves. For example, I’m sure in real life Danny McBride has uttered a funny insult, but it’s doubtful that he has an appetite for human flesh. (That
said, I have no inside information regarding either of those two assumptions.)
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What are these famous actors doing while just sitting around James Franco’s house? As mentioned before, there is masturbation. And there are a lot of references to James Franco’s lesser movies. But, eventually, the group starts to run out of food and water, forcing them to leave the relatively safe confines of James Franco’s house.
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How many references are made about James Franco portrayal of the Green Goblin in Spider-Man 3? Two.
If I am a fan of Pineapple Express, will I like This is the End? A lot.
Emma Watson (left), Jonah Hill (center) and Seth Rogen (right) freak out as the apocalypse rages in the background.
© 2013 COLUMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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20
How in the world are you telling me that this is a good movie? Honestly, I don’t know, but I laughed a lot. It’s the funniest movie of 2013 so far (to be fair, there hasn’t been a lot of competition for that title) and by far the most fucked-up movie of 2013. Is there a chance that This Is the End is too insidery? It’s possible, but I honestly don’t think so. Though a working knowledge of each actor’s past work probably would help.
25 QUESTIONS
22
What’s the best thing you overheard about This Is the End on the way out of the theater? Someone said, “Jonah Hill gets raped by the devil, and that’s like the sixth-most-fucked-up thing that happens.”
23 24
Wait, what? Yeah.
What’s the fifth-most-fuckedup thing that happens? Without giving too much away, it involves the Devil’s penis.
If you could choose what quote to put on the This Is the End movie poster, what would it be? “Jonah Hill gets raped by the devil, and that’s like the sixth-most-fucked-up thing that happens.”
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James Franco (left), Danny McBride (center) and Craig Robinson (right) stare down a pit.
STRESS Exit LESS
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On Anxiety BY KATY HALL
HEN THE CORNELL Legacy Project asked elderly Americans about their biggest regrets, an overwhelming number said that they wished they hadn’t wasted so much time worrying. People described years lost to all-consuming thoughts about outcomes beyond their control. Quieting the noise in the back of your head may require meditation, therapy or other life changes, but here are some knowing words about letting go of anxiety to make room for everything else.
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KURT HUTTON/PICTURE POST/GETTY IMAGES
W
“ Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” – Albert Camus
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: MICHAEL KOVAC/FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID LEVENSON/GETTY IMAGES; UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
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HUFFINGTON 06.16.13
STRESS LESS
“ Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.”
“ If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” – Dalai Lama XIV
“ Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” – Benjamin Franklin
– Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
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STRESS LESS
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“ Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”
PHOTOMONIER/GAMMA-RAPHO LOUIS OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT VIA TKGETTY IMAGES
– Anais Nin
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: GETTY IMAGES/LONELY PLANET IMAGES; DEAGOSTINI/GETTY IMAGES; UNITED STATES PUBLIC DOMAIN
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STRESS LESS
“ If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?” – Confucius
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“ Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
- Søren Kierkegaard
“ The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
– Elbert Hubbard
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TASTE TEST
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If You Must Drink Your Yogurt, Choose Wisely BY KRISTEN AIKEN
RINKING YOGURT has always been a mystery to us. Don’t get us wrong, we’re yogurt lovers here — but we’re perfectly happy eating it with a spoon. Unsurprisingly, convenience is important to Americans, and thus it’s become increasingly omnipresent on supermarket shelves as of late. So in true taste test fashion, we put our liquid-yogurt-pants on and sorted the good from the bad. When you’re shopping for drinkable yogurt, you’ll find two types of products: yogurt and kefir. What’s the difference? Not much, flavor-
D
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAMON DAHLEN
wise. But the health benefits do differ when it comes to probiotics. Here’s the deal: Yogurt is milk that’s been fermented with bacteria. Kefir (pronounced ke-feer) is also milk that’s been fermented with bacteria, but a specific type of bacteria from kefir grains, which produce more probiotics than yogurt. In simple terms, yogurt keeps the digestive system clean, and kefir can actually help digest your food and keep your colon healthy. But on to the tasting. Drinking yogurts come in about every flavor imaginable and range from runny to viscous, sour to overwhelmingly saccharine. We found 16 different flavors and brands and ranked them.
As always, this taste test is in no way influenced or sponsored by the brands included.
TASTE TEST
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TAP ON EACH YOGURT FOR THE TASTERS’ VERDICTS
6
#
TIED
TRADER JOE’S
Wildberry Probiotic Smoothie
“Fake berry flavor, SO watery, but somehow not unpleasant.”
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“Chalky, runny, yogurt juice. Tastes like kids’ medicine.”
“FLAVORED MILK, A GOOD WAY.”RONNYBROOK TRADER JOE’S AND NOT IN LIFEWAY STRAWBERRY PROBIOTIC STRAWBERRY KEFIR STRAWBERRY
LIFEWAY GREEK STYLE STRAWBERRY KEFIR
SMOOTHIE
DRINKABLE YOGURT
THE GREEK GODS HONEY KEFIR
TRADER JOE’S WILDBERRY PROBIOTIC SMOOTHIE
STONYFIELD WILD BERRY SUPER SMOOTHIE
RONNYBROOK MANGO DRINKABLE YOGURT
GREEN VALLEY BLUEBERRY POM ACAI KEFIR
TRADER JOE’S STRAWBERRY KEFIR
SIGGI’S POMEGRANATE & PASSION FRUIT
TRADERSPOINT WILDBERRY YOGURT
TRADER JOE’S POMEGRANATE KEFIR
EVOLVE PEACH KEFIR
LIFEWAY RASPBERRY ORGANIC KEFIR
LATTA RUSSIAN KEFIR, COFFEE
TFU
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HUFFINGTON 06.16.13
DANIEL LAFLOR/ GETTY IMAGES (YOGA); DON BAYLEY/ GETTY IMAGES (ESCORT); AP PHOTO/CARLO ALLEGRI; GETTY IMAGES/FSTOP; JIM KRUGER/ GETTY IMAGES (WOLF)
Virginia GOP Candidate: Practicing Yoga Leaves You Vulnerable to Satanic Possession
2
Texas: It’s OK to Shoot an Escort If She Won’t Have Sex With You
3
PAULA DEEN DEBUTS BUTTER LINE AMID HEALTH KICK
4
N.Y. State Senate Approves Bill Making It a Felony to ‘Annoy’ a Cop
05
Obama Administration Plans to End Protection for Gray Wolves (Ending Four Decades of Recovery Efforts)
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HUFFINGTON 06.16.13
TFU
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES (WHOLE FOODS); LOLLYPHILE.COM (BREAST MILK LOLLIPOPS); MARILYN WANN (CHILD OBESITY AD); GETTY IMAGES/FLICKR RF (RAPE)
Student Refused Entry to Prom Because of Her Chest Size
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Whole Foods Suspends Workers for Complaining About SpanishSpeaking Ban
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BREAST MILK LOLLIPOPS CAN BE YOURS
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California Government Agency Photoshops Little Girl to Look Fat for Child Obesity Ad
Israeli Judge: ‘Some Girls Enjoy Being Raped’
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