Kevin Sampsell

Hey friends,

Just a quick update to let you know that I’ve got some teaching action coming up. If you want to hang out and listen to me jabber a little and do some writing and stuff like that, please sign up!

First off, I’m doing this flash memoir class at the Crow Arts Manor (bottom of the page) on Saturday, August 13th. We’re gonna do it outside if it’s not raining, so it won’t be like you’re wasting a Saturday afternoon behind a desk! C’mon–it’ll be fun!

At the end of September, I’ll be doing a special weekend stay for the Oregon Writers Colony. I’ll be having 1-on-1 meetings with writers and sharing meals and hopefully enjoying the beach a little too.

In November, I am reading at Hugo House and will be doing a workshop there the next day as well. Check out the sweet poster for the reading.

In other news, I watched the movie version of The Men’s Club tonight with my friend Santi. Like me, he’s a big Leonard Michaels fan and we’d been talking about seeing the movie for a while now. It’s on Netflix Instant and it stars some great talent like Roy Scheider, Harvey Keitel, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The book was probably my favorite blast-from-the-past discovery of last year (it was published in 1981) but I’ve heard rumors that the movie was terrible. And well, it pretty much is. For starters, the beginning music and titles are like something you’d see and hear on a cheesy 80s TV series. Santi and I just looked at each other and laughed.

Some of Michaels’s great dialogue is preserved but something is lost in the translation to film. Maybe reading funny quaint sexual euphemisms like “We made it” are better read in your head than spoken aloud.

About halfway through the film, the dudes go to a whorehouse and spend the rest of the movie there. For about the fifth time in our viewing, Santi and I laughed and said, This wasn’t in the book! But those scenes did have some of the best lines, especially as Jennifer Jason Leigh breaks down Frank Langella’s comically uptight character.

But man–the MUSIC! It was uncomfortable. At the end we found out that this guy was to blame. I mean, the dude should really be ashamed.

The point is this: Go out and read some Leonard Michaels books (ESPECIALLY The Men’s Club) but avoid the movie, unless you just want some curious and cringey chuckles.