Brendan Bernhard

Patriot Games

Brendan Bernhard
"NATIONS," SAID ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN, "are the wealth of mankind. They are its generalized personalities: The smallest of them has its own particular colors and embodies a particular facet of God's design." Solzhenitsyn might seem an odd way to introduce the World Cup, but no sporting event puts national character on......

Clean and Sober

Brendan Bernhard
IN THE MIDST OF A PARTICULARLY FUTILE WRITING session -- the kind that proceeds at the rate of about three words an hour, usually misspelled -- I decided to do something useful and clean the bathroom. It was beginning to reek and appeared to be covered in a mysterious gray......

Yukking Like Rabbits

Brendan Bernhard
There’s an old racist joke that goes something like this: ”What‘s the difference between an ’X‘ and a ’Y‘ who pisses in the sink? ’X‘ takes the dishes out first.“ I was reminded of it while watching Greg the Bunny, the nasty-but-clever new sitcom (Fox, Wednesdays) about the life of......

Behind The Shield

Brendan Bernhard
MICHAEL CHIKLIS IS LOOKING GOOD, LIKE A GUY who's not only working out all the time, but thinking about working out even when he's hoisting nothing heavier than his chunky wristwatch. Dressed in a form-fitting blue T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, the actor who plays Detective Vic Mackey in FX's acclaimed......

Smut Factory

Brendan Bernhard
I ENJOY WATCHING BILL O'REILLY, BUT HE COMES off better on his own show, The O'Reilly Factor, than he does when he's let loose on the world at large -- or at least on a different program. He was an awkward guest on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show recently, and......

London Calling

Brendan Bernhard
Interviewed for A&E‘s two-hour documentary valentine to the Big Apple, New York at the Movies, director Peter Bogdanovich (doing a fair imitation of Alfred Hitchcock) noted that the Master was a firm believer in putting tourist sites in films. If you’re going to film New York, his thinking went, make......
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Pure Pleasure

Brendan Bernhard
There was a problem with my television all last week. Or rather, there was a problem with me: I didn‘t want to watch it. It’s strange to feel guilty about not watching enough television, but guilt comes in many forms, and I‘m no longer surprised when a new one shows......

The Healing Games

Brendan Bernhard
The best way to watch the Winter Olympics, I discovered while out for a walk one evening, is through someone else’s living-room window. That way you avoid the inane commentary, and if you time it right you can catch five minutes of action before the floodgates open for commercials. A......

Today, on a Vicious Blue Planet

Brendan Bernhard
Generally, I only get up early enough to watch morning TV when the World Trade Center collapses, and the fourth of February was no exception. But thanks to the miracle of digital recording, I was able to turn on the Today show at noon. By then, if you factored in......
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Sensation

Brendan Bernhard
Matthew Sweet is a writer on a mission. The Victorians -- those uptight, bowler-hatted, cane-twirling 19th-century snobs we love to hate -- were, he insists, much less uptight and snobbish than we think, even if they did wear bowler hats. In fact, argues Sweet, we may have deliberately misread their......