Sorry to have made it seem that I once again abandoned this blog. After I left Montana, I was on the road for 37-38 days (depending on how you add it up), with a lot of stops along the way. I’m back in D.C. now.

While criss-crossing America, I also went back to my job as TV critic at The Washington Post, filing a heap of TV reviews from hither and yon, mostly yon.

I’m getting ready to authorize a redesign of HankStuever.com, which will include (I hope) a place for visitors to catch up on my latest reviews. There is, of course, already an easy way to do that, on my bio/archive page at the Post. Click here. You can read recent reviews of “The Americans,” the end of “30 Rock,” “House of Cards,” the inauguration, the Golden Globes, “The Following,” “Enlightened” and more …

Coming soon: Random thoughts from the road trip and a BIG book giveaway. Don’t feel neglected.

Monica Hesse and Dan Zak’s 2013 edition of The Washington Post’s annual List is out, and it’s a good one.

This is the 35th year that the Style section has put out an “in/out” List, a tradition begun by Nina Hyde and Jura Koncius in 1978. It was my great pleasure (and huge headache) to pen The List in 2000 and then from 2003-2009. It is my greater pleasure that Dan and Monica are now in charge of doing it. Like anything worthwhile, it’s much harder than it looks.

And now, The List: A Mockumentary, which not only explains the storied tradition of this New Year’s feature, it also gives you a chance to bask in the Dan-ness and Monica-ness of it all. (Unfortunate Skype cameo by yours truly halfway in …)

Cheers, everyone. Here’s to 2013. My goal for this year is to get everyone to call it TWENTY THIRTEEN instead of the dopey two-thousand-thirteen.

On Monday, we finished up critiquing the Nov. 7 scene stories. For my general diagnoses of these stories as a whole, please see the Nov. 19 recap. Meanwhile, here are excerpts from the three stories that I liked best, and why. (I haven’t fixed anything — the copy you’ll read here is exactly as it was filed to me.)

First up is Allison Bye’s report on the ol’ drag show at the Broadway Inn motel’s cocktail lounge. For those of you reading these blog posts far from Montana, there is little in the way of gay social/cultural life here, even in enlightened Missoula, which doesn’t even have a gay bar — at all. (Some other things I think Missoula needs, if anyone’s feeling entrepreneurial: a full-service car wash, a Sonic drive-in, and a Red Lobster — but I digress.)

Allison visited with the folks who oversee the royal court of Montana’s drag scene and did a great job of weaving their personal stories in with the live action on the stage. She balanced detail with character (and found a balance between drag personas and the men under the makeup) and kept the momentum and mood going in a tight structure. Here’s some:

“What kind of originally drew me to (drag) was the political aspect of it and the historical aspect,” Crismore said. “All of the things that it accomplished for the queer community in our history. The first people to really raise money for HIV research and to buy food for HIV-positive people, most of them were drag queens.” The International Court System was started in the ‘60s by Mama Jose, a drag queen in San Francisco, Crismore continued. During a time when sodomy laws were still enforced and it was illegal to be gay, she started doing shows and using the tips to bail out people who had been arrested that night under sodomy laws.

Dynamite Shagwell, dressed in a green halter-top dress and earrings, now takes the stage. Dynamite is in a wheelchair, but she still moves around the dance floor gracefully, and unlike her lip-synching counterparts, belts out Fun.’s “Some Nights” into a microphone. Dollar bills begin piling up on her lap.

“Thank you!” she yells into the microphone to the loudest cheers yet from the bar.

“I love that bitch!” Kiara Drake says as she walks her metallic platform boots out onto the floor again. Spritzer lounges in a suit behind the emcee table, a PBR in hand. At this time, Drake informs the audience it is time for an attitude check.

“Can I get an attitude check?” she yells, then points her microphone at the rest of the bar.

“Fuck you, bitch!” the bar roars back, which is, in fact, the correct response.

* * *

Tom Holm drove 90 miles west to spend a day in the life of the iconic 50,000 Silver Dollar, a tourist-tempting pit stop near the Idaho state line on I-90: it’s got gas, booze, and what we devoted Western road-trippers politely refer to as curios. What this story may lack in technical and structural finesse, it makes up for in vibe and a real sense of being there. If I was the editor on this piece, I’d be delighted to whup it into shape — all the good stuff is here, thanks to Tom. The tone of the piece matches the feel of the place — or, at least, I feel like it took me there. (I will know for sure in about 3-1/2 weeks, when I pack up the car and head west for the holidays and the looong way home via California, and stop to see the 50,000 Silver Dollar for myself.) Take it away, Tom:

Rex Lincoln the owner of the bar, motel, gas station combo that is the 50,000 Silver Dollar complex, hates it when you ask about the swords.

“You heard it from the old fuck,” he said.

He chain-smokes cigarettes, alternating between Marlboro reds and Marlboro lights on the West corner of the bar from about eight to nine-thirty.  Lincoln is a tall, lurching old man with Larry King suspenders and matching pointy shoulders.

“I own the place so I can smoke where I want,” he said.

And has done so for over 50 years.  Lincoln inherited the bar when the original proprietor and Rex’s father, Gerry Lincoln’s health began to fail.  Rex had recently graduated from Montana State University—the original name for the Missoula College—with a business degree and decided to take over.  He married his wife the same year and has seen both the successes and failures of owning the bar.

“We do not really get regular customers,” he said between spitting up a little blood into his hanky. “Regular is a yearly customer from Seattle or Missoula.”

* * *

Now, let me address one thing. You might notice that my three favorite stories have language in them (and scenes) that would give most editors carpal-tunnel from hitting the delete key so much, and certainly wouldn’t see print in a so-called “family” newspaper. I want to say that I didn’t favor these stories only because of their shock value and f-bombs. I liked them because they are the most effectively immersive. The writers took me there with their words and reporting. They didn’t blanch at the exotic or gross. Their details didn’t confuse me. They stepped back and gave the scene context. I’d be just as happy to read this kind of piece on a church service or a grade-school Thanksgiving play.

But it didn’t work out that way this time. We went for the naughty.

Eben Keller made one of my dreams for this class come true: He covered a raucous, blow-out party at someone’s house — some dude’s 24th birthday, but really just an excuse for everyone involved (except Eben!) to get shitfaced. I’ve been begging the class — someone, anyone, everyone — to do this story from day one: After all, what is more quintessentially college than the house party on the edge of a nervous breakdown? Although Eben is his own harshest critic, you can tell that he took down every detail — yes, even the name of the dog and the brand of the beer, as writing coaches everywhere have encouraged reporters to do. Behold, the piss mattress:

The ceiling tiles were stained and sagging, the furniture was nothing worth protecting, shoes were mandatory, and the bathroom was a mattress in the backyard. A “piss mattress,” which still got slept on from time to time.

Five stringed instruments— a banjo, a fiddle, two acoustic guitars and a mandolin— and a single snare drum, were tucked into the corner of the main room, and sat for no more than 15 minutes at a time before being played.

Each time an announcement would be made to the guests that it was time to gather around and enjoy the show.

“If you love music then get in here and shut the fuck up!” shouted a dyed-red haired, freshly tattooed patron from the top of a coffee table.

The band, a country folk punk rock group called “Bird’s Mile Home” played on more than three occasions during the night, separated by the lead singer, 25-year-old Phillip Lear, playing solo or with anybody in the house willing to pick up a guitar and sing along.

A dildo was thrown around and shoved in the face of unsuspecting party-goers. A girl put it in her pants and pulled it out through the zipper, and Neumayer promptly got on his knees and sucked it.

Fast-forwarding to the story’s end. Note how Eben chose to a morning-after epilogue and house lore as the final image…

You can drink until sunrise, drink until your sober, or drink until dialysis, but nothing will ever keep that party from coming to an end.

Those who survived the night woke up to the house in disarray. One of the house-mates woke up and continued drinking before heading to work at the supermarket two blocks away. The stale smell of cigarettes and spilled wine has soaked into every fiber of the already stained, clumpy carpet.

The home is starting to show it’s age after all these years. The water-soaked swollen ceiling in the living room collapsed two weeks after Neumayer’s birthday.

Living next door to the run-down remnant of 5 decades of wild parties, is a supposedly schizophrenic/bi-polar/manic neighbor, who has called the police to complain more times than anyone can count.

After one particularly long night of drinking and playing guitar on the porch, the cops were called again, which forced all porch related conversations indoors.

Once the cops left, however, the neighbor came out of her house and pinned a note on the front door, which still floats around the house to this day, and is responsible for how the house got its name.

“The things I hear coming from your porch are ugly and vulgar and make me sad,” read the note.

* * *

This story and another one from the class (about a karaoke night) got a discussion going:

When should a reporter on assignment — especially about nightlife — join in and have a drink? When should reporters imbibe with sources? Should they ever?

The typical j-school answer is: It depends. I’ve reported stories before where most everyone was drinking heavily and I’m glad that I was NOT. Partly because I want to do my best work. Partly because I don’t want the fact that “the reporter was drinking, too!” to become part of the criticism or complaints (if there are any) after the story runs. With booze (and anything stronger), I think it’s best to avoid it, even when the assignment is a party. Sometimes your subject will insist. Maybe you don’t drink. Maybe you’re in recovery. Maybe you just want to maintain that journalistic line that separates them from you. There are noble reasons not to — the best of which is that you want all your senses about you, sober and sharp. (I realize that j-schools and creative nonfiction departments have always been filled with young men who think they’re the next Hunter S. Thompson. Let me assure you that the world is not asking for it to be you.)

There are also good — sometimes great — reasons to take a (ONE!) drink. It’s almost always about mood and tone. Accepting the offer of a drink sends a subliminal signal of sharing. Most good journalism is on some level and act of sharing — information, details, opinions, secrets. Booze is a social lubricant.

Our friend Gene Weingarten set of a dither at a nonfiction writers’ conference a while back when he described one such situation, only it involved pot. You can read the ethical kerfuffle here.

I spent the first decade of my reporting career convinced that I should never, ever drink while reporting on the scene. (Or while reporting from the newsroom, but company policy made that clear.) There is a whole lot of misplaced nostalgia about journalists and drinking. It’s mostly bullshit.

What about food? Here I suddenly do a 180. I think reporters should always eat what’s offered to them, even if it might be poisoned. You are tasting for ingredient. You are breaking bread with people you don’t know. You are being polite. Food engenders conversation — and takes you into kitchens, where people are themselves. I realize the same argument can be made about bars, but you can get into a bar and do the job on strictly club sodas and cranberry juice. But if you refuse someone’s homemade lasagna, Christmas bizcochitos or backyard barbecue then you have TOTALLY BLOWN IT.

So, after basically saying “Don’t drink while reporting, kids,” I remembered the one Style assignment every year where I drank as much as I liked and came to depend on the hangover as inspiration for the story that I co-wrote the morning after: When Bill Booth (and later Amy Argetsinger) and I teamed up to cover Vanity Fair’s after-party on Oscar nights. To every rule, a glaring exception:

And this of course sends our class off on a celebrity tangent, wherein Gran’pa Hank talks about all the mooooovie stars he “met” back in the day. (The photo above is from VF’s 2009 party. It is the creepiest picture of me ever.)

Enough about me!

No, wait — MORE about me!

For Wednesday, Nov. 28: Your reading assignment is to read three stories, all by meeeeeeee. Like your final, they are mainly scene stories, but they have deeper characterizations and step-backs. One of them might be a profile. One of them might be about a place. They are basically hybrid feature stories with essay-like qualities.

I didn’t pick them because I want to go out on an ego trip. I picked them because they are (possibly) flawed or were filed in situations where I had to zig when I thought I might zag; or the deadline was too tight, or (in one case) not tight enough. Also, they are each within the target word-count zone of your final assignment (2,000 words). I’m using my own stuff this time so that we can hear from the author directly — what worked, what didn’t, why is this story written the way it is? etc. What I want you to do is mark them up and bring questions. Please read:

• “The 24-Karat Party,” a report from a “gold party” in the suburbs, just as the economy was falling apart. (The Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2008)

• “Pilgrims’ Pit Stop,” a story about Maryland House, a popular I-95 rest stop, written and filed on Thanksgiving eve. (The Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2002) This ancient story is behind an archive paywall. Students have printouts.

• “Host with the Most: The Cult of Bob Barker,” a scene piece/mini-profile of the legendary “Price is Right” host as he neared his retirement at 83. (The Washington Post, May 9, 2007)

We’ll spend half the class discussing technique. We’ll spend the other half talking about YOUR STORIES. Bring what you have — ideas, worries, plans, early drafts. You have eight days until it’s due.

We’re delving into scene stories now, and what do I mean by that? It’s a feature that’s not too long, heavy on narrative and vivid detail, that takes a reader into a place they might not normally go, or were too busy to get to, or don’t have the access to. Reporting on a trial is, in a way, a scene story: What happened, but also, what did the courtroom feel like as it happened? What did people say during court recess, in the hallways? What did people wear? How did they react to evidence, testimony, verdicts? And, of course, what is the news?

Is there news? A scene story in the features department must often work from a much more nuanced notion of what is news. (“That’s news to me,” is often a reaction you hope to elicit from your readers– especially when it involves cultural events or subculture scenes that the reader might have only been vaguely aware of, or not at all.)

The Jour494 students must find a local(ish) scene story and file it by Nov. 7, and it must be 1,000-1,300 words. We launched into a terrific brainstorming session for most of Monday’s class period, but first I set forth the following parameters:

• It can’t be a scene you already know too much about or participate in. Never write about your own scene. These pieces should not be personal or involve the vertical pronoun. (“I.”)

• It must have narrative in it. Which, above all, means the reporter needs to go to something that is happening and follow it through from beginning to end. In some cases, what happens in a scene story transpires in a couple of hours — or sometimes less. In other cases, you’re up at dawn and see it all the way through for 12 or 24 hours.

• It should be pegged to an event, but in some cases, it can be a scene that occurs every day, and is therefore more along the “day in the life” (or “night in the life”) genre. Be careful, though, about being too broad. The best scene stories are specific.

• Don’t just show up unannounced. You are not on an undercover mission, you’re a journalist. Pre-reporting is the key to success with a scene story, even if you’re assigned a day-hit, where you only have an hour (or less) to prepare. Before you go out to your scene, interview the people in charge. Get a feel for what’s planned to happen, what the scene is like. Gather sources. READ UP — read everything you can find that’s been written about it before. And make sure that people know you’re coming as a journalist, that you’ll be taking notes. Establish rules ahead of time about permission, on/off-the-record, etc.

• For this class, it must have a popular culture angle, but this can be so broadly defined that almost everything qualifies. Something people do in their spare time for fun. (Or faith? Or belief/politics/devotion?)

• There must be a “step-back.” This is where the writer/narrator steps back and provides broader cultural context. What does this scene mean? What does it represent? Why are we here? Why do people love it? This isn’t an opportunity to be opinionated; it’s an opportunity to be smart. It’s a payoff for the reader. The step-back can usually be accomplished in a perfect paragraph or two. Sometimes it can be done in one amazing sentence. (The reported essay and personal essay assignments were meant to limber the students up for writing step-backs.) If you ever find yourself at odds with an editor who wants to take your “step-back” out of the story, I say it’s probably worth dying on the hill for. Fight for it.

• Find a scene that occurs no later than Nov. 4 or 5, or else you’ll really be pushing deadline. But, having said that, there is Election Night on Nov. 6 — scenes galore. (Bars, political victory/defeat parties, etc.) Some of my favorite scene stories were written in an hour, on a tight deadline. If you feel up to the task, go ahead, but don’t file late.

Brainstorming ideas took off from here. I encouraged the students to give one another feedback and ideas/tips for more angles. It was like a giant story meeting. And fear not — Missoula is a small town, but it has an endless number of scenes. Halloween itself is a gift from the scene story gods. I’m liking what I’m hearing, but get out there and pre-report; make a plan.

For Wednesday, Oct. 17: We’re going to deconstruct five scene stories and see how they worked. I’ve also solicited advice from the authors (one of them is me), asking them what they remember about this particular assignment and how they did it. Read these, mark them up, and come to class ready to talk about reporting techniques and writing mechanics.

• “The Cycles of Fashion,” by Dan Zak — The Washington Post, Nov. 16, 2009.

• “Life of the Party,” by Robin Chotzinoff — Denver Westword, Feb. 14, 1996.

• “In the dark of holiday retail, a scented candle lights the way,” by Michael Kruse — Tampa Bay Times, Nov. 27, 2010.

• “The Koan of Roshambo: You Are Paper. I Rock,” by Hank Stuever — The Washington Post, Aug. 30, 2004.

• “Patiently waiting for the Green light,” by Monica Hesse — The Washington Post, July 16, 2012.

See you then.

Call the midwife! I’ve once again assisted in the birth of another FALL TV ISSUE (would you believe my fourth?). You can read every last bit of it online by going here. But if you’re in Washington, won’t you do us the kindness of buying a paper? This year included reviews of all the new scripted shows, as usual– 22 of them, not technically all if you count that new Scott Baio comedy on cable and other morsels buried deep down on the program grids.

I gave A grades to ABC’s “Nashville,” PBS’s “Call the Midwife” and Fox’s “The Mindy Project.” It’s downhill from there, but not as precipitous a plunge as past seasons. Just a lot of average. (I gave F’s to CBS’s “Made in Jersey,” Fox’s “The Mob Doctor” and ABC’s “Malibu Country.”)

Other pieces (by me) include longer reviews/thoughts on “The Mindy Project,” “Revolution” and “The New Normal”/”Partners.” (Gay shows!) I also wrote an essay about pilot episodes and why they suck so much. And I did a sort of charticle-type thing on how all the men on TV shows look alike now. (To me they do. To you, too?)

Emily Yahr, whose contribution to The Washington Post TV department is immeasurable, filed a great piece about the making of the music in “Nashville.” Emily also put together lists of “What else is on?” this fall and has a handy list of all your favorite returning shows and what night they’re coming back. (We also had welcome contributions from other Sunday Style departments — Deal Hunter and Celebritology.)

Allison Ghaman — known to us as Allie G. — designed the issue this year; she’s a dream to work with, unflappable and patient and never once asked for a trim. The cover and inside typography were illustrated by Zack Davenport. Allie also hired Johanna Goodman to do this fun-yet-disturbing illo (above) for the pilots piece. On the web side, Marie Elizabeth Oliver, Maura Judkis and Katie Parker put it all together for a digital audience.

Not that this an acceptance speech, but, oh well — thanks, as always, to my eds: Joe Heim and Lynn Medford. That was a lot of copy to move. And to the hardworking MPEds (the artists formerly known as copy editors) scattered around the floor above ours. I feel like I know you.

And with this, I go on leave to finish out and really enjoy my semester here at the University of Montana. I have a couple of things running between now and the end of the year, but not much. I’ll be back on the job in January.

Fall TV season! For you it began long ago, when NBC first started airing those endless commercials for “Whitney.” For me it began even longer ago, and involved a two-week press tour in Los Angeles in August. (Rough life, I know — boo hoo.)

But at last I see a light at the end of this tube. At least for a while. Before all the new shows get cancelled, I wanted to post evidence of my efforts and the efforts of my colleagues. For this year’s Fall TV issue of the Washington Post‘s Sunday Style section, I belatedly came up with an organizing principle: For each show, I asked myself if it was better or worse than ABC’s “Pan Am,” which is perfectly, exactly mediocre television. From there, the shows sorted themselves. The talented Mr. Kim Maxwell Vu, who designs Sunday Style, checked in for early priority boarding on the “airport” concept and found a cool artist, Jesse Lenz, to pilot us to safety. Kim managed to bring it all together in less than a week. Here’s the cover:

And here are some other pages, from the section’s center, furthering the theme without going bonkers, arranging the shows into FIRST CLASS, VIP LOUNGE, BAGGAGE CLAIM and AIR SICKNESS. This is the meat of the TV issue: reviews of all the fall shows. (I’ll deal with mid-season shows later, in, duh, the mid-season.)

The print newspaper readers got the real treat of this design, but our online readers aren’t badly served either. All the reviews and everything else can be had here.

For those who like things boiled down …

My five favorite shows this season, in order: “Once Upon a Time” (ABC); “Hell on Wheels” (AMC); “Homeland” (Showtime); “American Horror Story” (FX); and “Up All Night” (NBC). Yes, you need cable if you don’t have it.

Wanted for the crime of bugging the living shit out of me.

My five LEAST favorite this season, in whatever order you care to NOT watch them: “New Girl” (Fox); “How to be a Gentleman” (CBS); “Prime Suspect” (CBS); “Hart of Dixie” (CW) and “Charlie’s Angels” (ABC).

Not that anyone may notice, but I’m trying to break a certain age-old paradigm in the Post‘s approach to TV reviews. This fall, instead of writing a full review for the daily Style section of lots of new shows, I’m letting these capsule reviews from the Sunday package state my critical case for now, which we’re “repurposing,” in even shorter form, next to the daily TV grids on the premiere nights. I’m just not convinced that the world needs 600-plus words on every show on the morning of the night it premieres, when no one’s figured out if they even like or dislike it yet.

I’d rather wait for the wave of cancellations and the revisit a particular show once it gains any sort of traction or triggers something remotely like zeitgeist. Some shows I intend to write fuller reviews on — right now I’m re-watching “Terra Nova,” “Homeland” and “American Horror Story” for further thoughts.

Okay, so: Thank you all for visiting the sausage factory today. Please be sure to enjoy some fresh sausage on your way out and remember to leave your protective eyewear goggles with Sandy at the front desk.

PS: If you missed the TV issue, I wrote a piece on WTF HAPPENED TO WOMEN?! here. Shorter version: I don’t for one minute buy this crap about how “The Playboy Club” and “Whitney” and “Charlie’s Angels” indicate a step forward for women. Zooey Deschanel, in my mind, certainly qualifies as a big step back.) Also, lately: My deadline take on that tragic Emmys show. And Ashton Kutcher joining that dumb sitcom your Nana always watches. Oh, and Anderson Cooper, getting so personal in his daytime show and yet still withholding…

I was trying to figure out why I haven’t blogged in so long (erm, THREE MONTHS) other than the usual excuses, most of them having to do with my undying admiration for what Nancy Nall manages to pull off nearly every weekday morning of the year — while also working her fingers to the bone on other paying gigs. My stuff here definitely remains in the slowest possibble slow-blogging category. And yes, that’s a thing, or once was.

On the upside, I guess, it’s just you and me now. No one comes here anymore.

The One-Man Book Club still exists and has much to discuss, and will soon. I also started and abandoned an epic entry on Newspaper Computer Publishing Systems I Have Known. (I want to finish that one, which is about the dozen or so different and increasingly arcane systems on which I’ve written and edited over the last two decades of newsroom employment — in other words, a rant about what the kids today call CMS. I started in on that entry with the hope that it would be as much fun as my nostalgia trip about newspaper layout. With some tweaking yet, perhaps it shall.)

The truth? Every time I come back here with the intent to update the blog, I see the lovely face of Barbara Kerr Page — and the nearly three dozen lovely comments people left on that item about her death — and I just want to keep her there, uppermost in thought and deed and display. I had a delayed reaction of deep sadness after returning from her memorial service in Albuquerque on May 21; a month-long funk that turned out to be more about me than about her.

But that’s crazy — Barb was a fan of this blog and urged me to file more often. So here we go again.

I’m writing this from Beverly Hills, where I’m learning everything there is to know about the new fall TV season at the annual Television Critics Association press tour. Today is day 10 of a 16-day stay. Tonight we went to the Fox lot to get a special screening of Ryan Murphy’s new horror show on FX. Followed by dinner. It’s a hard life.

While I contend with high temps in the low 80s, many friends and loved ones are on their sixth week of 100-plus temps in the American Elsewhere: Frisco, Texas, home of Tinsel — 110 today; Oklahoma City, der Stuever homeland — 111; Wichita, where my mom lives — 113!

Here in LA, it’s easy-breezy, cover girl. Not to gloat; I feel guilty about it. The other night, at a party the BBC threw on the roof of the London Hotel in West Hollywood, they brought out a troupe of Esther Williams-style bathing beauties in feathered swim caps, who performed a synchronized dance routine in the pool. The debt crisis raged on and yet up there, with LA twinkling below, everything felt (as usual) very fin de siecle.

Esther Williams got me thinking about a story I wrote eight summers ago, about the cultural (in)significance and consumer history of the above-ground pool. (Did you know Esther lent her name to a brand of above-ground pools?) That piece was one of my favorites — or rather, it’s one of my favorite KINDS of stories I used to do, but it’s also one I’d rework a little if I could have it back. It was a candidate for Off Ramp, but didn’t make the cut.

As a way for us all to cool off, I’m reprinting it here. Have a dip and dream of waves, palm trees, inflatable alligators, 7-Eleven Slurpees, or whatever floats your personal boat…

HEAVEN ON EARTH

By Hank Stuever | The Washington Post | Originally published on Aug. 3, 2003

THE ABOVE-GROUND swimming pool, and all that it is not: It is not the pool John Cheever had in mind in his 1964 short story “The Swimmer,” and it is none of the pools Burt Lancaster swam through in the movie version. Not the kind of pool beside which Truman Capote drank and loafed away his unwritten words. Not what David Hockney painted and not what Calvin Klein’s wife took pictures of for her coffee-table book about something so obvious as the beauty of pools. Not kidney-shaped, with no terra cotta tiles. Not what Herb Ritts put Cindy Crawford next to, and not where Dominick Dunne accepts telephone calls. Not the pool of the presidential family photo-op, and therefore not the Reagans, and therefore not California, at least not that part, not that style of California. Not the valley, not the dolls.

Not the Chateau Marmont and not even the Best Western. Not the country club, and not Club Med, and not seen in any of the vacation brochures. It is not the pool that Eddie comes to skim-clean every other Tuesday, taking his time to slowly drag the net across the deep end, only because he wants another look at the daughter who is home from college (and so it is not the pool in which her mother catches them together). Not the kind of pool that inspires you to buy festive new plastic tumblers in which to serve cocktails on the matching tray late in the afternoon. Not where you find cabana boys (or cabanas). Not the kind of pool decorated with candles that flicker on inflatable lily pads at the outdoor wedding reception, where the waiter slips and falls and takes the bride and the cake in with him.

Not the pool where Captain Kirk’s third wife was found floating, accidentally drowned, four summers ago. Not the pool that the Great Gatsby is found dead in, either, or William Holden in “Sunset Boulevard.” Not the pool of death and not the pool of the hereafter. Not the still turquoise rectangle ethereally half-framed by the shadow of a Richard Neutra house out in the desert. Not dreams, not fantasies, not transporting you to any psychic heaven. Not the pool you see in the movies. Not the pool you see on the news (“Toddler who wandered into family’s pool — “).

Not in-the-ground, not as expensive, not as permanent, not as pretty.

And not in this neighborhood, thank you, although the rules permit you to apply for a variance to the ban on above-ground pools. (Basketball hoops, driveway oil changes, parked campers, above-ground pools — we don’t go for that here in Regulated America, as per the homeowner covenants, if you’d please turn to Section 5, Item 3b. You understand — property values and such.) Above-ground pools almost escape the rude detection of cultural discernment, which keeps them far down the list of any possibly loaded statements about suburban class and lifestyles. They exist, except they don’t. Mostly you see them from the train, in all those sprawling back yards near the tracks, between Wilmington, Del., and Metuchen, N.J. To see one is to think of Tallahassee, or Lubbock, or Buffalo, or to recall the first family on your childhood street to get a divorce, before everyone else’s parents got divorced.

When the spirit did not gain easy access to the river of life, above-ground pools became fixtures in Pentecostal churches, for the purposes of baptizing souls.

You see above-ground pools making cameo appearances on reruns of “America’s Funniest Videos.”(Muffin’s climbed all the way up and got in the pool! She thinks she’s people!) (Or remember the one where the pool wall gives way and Momma and all the lawn chairs are swept toward the back fence in a torrent?!) Here is the one marvelous thing about the above-ground pool’s rise over four decades to partial respect and acceptance: It is the ultimate triumph of the have-nots over the haves.

You want a pool?

You can get a pool.

You can get a pool delivered, assembled and filled in a matter of days.

(You want to buy the custom deck to put around it? Let me spec that out for you.) It is the ultimate thing that is not . . . quite . . . the . . . real . . . thing. Of the 8 million or so residential swimming pools in the United States, perhaps as many as 40 percent are above-ground models, according to data from the National Spa and Pool Institute, and the market keeps growing. The more people buy them, the more the pools keep improving. They keep looking more and more like something Celine Dion might wish to own, with faux stone and marble walls and columns, fancier decks, nighttime mood lighting, sprinkling fountains, a halo of shrubs and flowers around the base.

And in each of them someone is having a moment of bliss. Someone is splashing around, and this is what matters most. Happiness, water, the smell of chlorine. This is the above-ground pool industry’s firmest claim: You can spend as little as $3,000 or as much as $50,000 for the pool that is not really a pool — it can be made more real — and it will be every bit as good as the pool of our wildest dreams. You just have to believe in it.

* * *

THEN, LAST MONTH, came the tantalizing notion that the remains of Jimmy Hoffa could possibly be buried deep beneath an above-ground pool in far suburban Detroit.

No. In fact, what the Oakland County, Mich., sheriff’s department was looking for was a briefcase, purported to contain a syringe, which, according to a hyperimaginative prison informant, was used in the Teamsters boss’s supposed murder. So backhoes were brought into the Hampton Township yard of what the Detroit Free Press flatly described as a “one-story brick home . . . in a middle-class, semirural neighborhood.”

The key word here is semirural. This is where you want to put your above-ground pool — someplace in the semirural. The entire uneventful history of above-ground pools occurs in that American elsewhere, where people who wanted to own a pool found a way to own a pool, and the above-ground pool took on a certain panache and permanence. It would also seem like a good place to stash Hoffa. Who looks for crime in something so nondescript, so benign, so long-lasting?

The home was purchased five years ago by Al and Linda Foote. They like it here, they say via a statement from their lawyer to the media, plan to stay — despite recent unpleasantness stemming from a “Dateline NBC” report that led to the discovery in March, in the crawl space under their house, of the body of Robert A. Woods, an autoworker missing since 1974.

Long story short? After eight hours of digging, the mythic former Teamsters boss wasn’t under there, nor was the briefcase. Nothing turned up because nothing ever does, when it comes to 28 years of looking for Hoffa.

A more pressing matter is that one family’s pool has been needlessly destroyed, here in the dead middle of summer: Oakland County promised to replace the Foote family oasis if it could not be repaired.

Paradise not lost. Surely the county could be compelled to throw in a newer, snazzier deck, a better filter pump, a sapphire-colored, terra-cotta-like vinyl liner and matching stepladder for the Footes’ troubles. (Let me spec that out for you . . . )

* * *

CONSIDER THE Mulcahys:

Peter and Margherite Mulcahy have six children, ages 3 to 20. They also have a back yard stretching toward the hilly forever, up and up I-270 into lushest Maryland, a sanctuary in the town of Boyds, beyond Germantown, where most of the rest of the world hasn’t caught up to them yet.

It’s a place where everyone got his or her own bedroom. They left behind a house in Montgomery Village three years ago, where they had easy access to a community pool. Peter, who runs an interior painting business with his wife, thought it a stroke of genius to move farther out here — all the land! a tractor! horses! — until he realized the kids didn’t have as much to do: “I felt bad,” he says, the way a dad feels bad about these things. “I was trying to make it nicer for them, make them happier. So I got this pool.” He bought a 10,000-gallon, oval, above-ground pool used from a guy in Virginia for “around $1,000.”

It wasn’t so easy to get the ground level beneath it.

The oldest son, Joe, 18, came home from football practice that first summer they had it, soaked for a while, got out, and noticed the water level looked slanted relative to the rim of the pool (relative, even, to the tilt of the earth; relative to the eye of God) and water was leaking out the bottom. Some more leveling followed, shoring up the sides with gravel. A new vinyl liner was put in. Then things were okay.

“Dad, did you tell him what happened to the pump?” asks Joe.

Yes, Peter sighs, the reporter has been told about the pump, but let’s go over it one more time: “I knew that you can let the water freeze in [the pool] over the winter, and that was kind of cool. The ice got real hard, and the kids could even get on it,” Peter explains. “But I forgot about water in the pump. Well, really, I kind of knew that. I knew I should get out there and empty it for the winter. But it was one of those things, you know that you keep telling yourself, oh I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow, and well, then it’s too late.” The water froze and the pump cracked.

So the Mulcahys had to buy a new pump this spring.

“So that’s it,” Peter says. “That’s our pool. Not a very exciting story, I guess.”

No, not at all. But you know what? The world has been too exciting lately. Let us now take a moment to slap at bugs and talk about the above-ground pool’s magnificent dullness. How it is both Dad and dada. How much about pure love it is — love that is not about a hole in the ground, love that knows no property values.

Get in, already.

The Mulcahys have just finished the deck that juts into the knoll next to the pool. The neighbor kids over the next hill come over and use it. “I told Matt and what’s his little friend’s name, James? I said, ‘You guys can come over and use the pool whenever you want, but no drowning in my pool,’ ” Peter says. “That’s the last thing we need.” (Another plus: People have a hard time drowning in above-ground pools. The standard wall height is 52 inches, amounting to about four feet of water. Kids can’t easily climb into them, if the ladder is taken away.)

The above-ground pool’s invention coincides, roughly, with the rise of the suburbs in the 1950s. Of course it does. It comes with all the potentially tacky things that set off the alarms of snooty tastemakers. It comes with the pop-up camper, the metal patio chairs, the plastic coolers.

Get in one and you’ve got nowhere to go. You can only float, and look at the sky. Here is the beginning of a path to bliss.

“A pool is, for many of us in the West, a symbol not of affluence but of order, of control over the uncontrollable,” Joan Didion wrote in the ’70s, perhaps during one of her famous Santa Ana migraines. “A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the Western eye.”

Bets are pretty certain that Didion was not ever transfixed by an above-ground pool, but let’s hold out hope that one day she will be. Her point is the same, anyhow: Kept water — any kind of pool — is a passport to a calmer state of being.

All Peter Mulcahy wanted was a more satisfied family. This is what these pools do. They please.

* * *

TOWN OF ISLIP, N.Y., Zoning Board of Appeals, Agenda Item, Thursday, March 23, 2003
Oakdale: Vito and Glynnis Gaeta seek permission to retain a one-story addition to dwelling with side yard and to retain an above-ground pool with insufficient side yard on the west side of Wichard Drive. – Newsday

In a world micromanaged by various zoning boards of appeal, shouldn’t it be the Vitos and Glynnises and their desires for above-ground pools whom we should exalt as modern folk heroes?

Why all the hassle?

Why so many rules?

Why not just fun fun fun fun fun?

* * *

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago, the people who had an above-ground pool in their back yard also used to be the kind of people who had a trampoline in their back yard.

They also had a teenager or two, who always used to drag the trampoline nearer to the pool, for stunts. You could use swear words at this house. They were the first people you ever knew who wired stereo speakers to the outside patio, over which were broadcast songs by the Steve Miller Band or Kenny Rogers. They discovered, and held onto, the elusive idea that the inside and the outside were interchangeable in summer, and therefore had very few rules about shoes or Popsicles or shouting. They were the best family on the block, the best house to go to, if you could deal with the unpredictability of their lives, the sudden shifts to Family DefCon 4, the crisis moments, the screaming, the slamming of the sliding-glass door.

To hang out with the people who owned the above-ground pool (and the monkey bars with the trapeze, and the motorboat that never went anywhere) was both a privilege and a reason to get your tetanus shot.

To the kids in the neighborhood, this home was a fancy-seeming wonderland of thrills and glamour. In the collective doldrums of any cul-de-sac, it was the equivalent of Florida: a buggy, leafy Shangri-La; a slightly lawless realm, with kids addicted to powdered Lik-m-Aid instead of cocaine. It was good so long as you didn’t ask where (or if) the dad worked, or what he did, specifically, to provide such capital bounty. Your mother never wanted you to go over there, which is why you always went over there, to swim in their above-ground pool, to soak in their exotic brew. If enough people climbed in the above-ground pool, and all jogged in the same direction, you could create a swirling, whirlpool effect. This was mesmerizing fun, and lingers in the memory in slow motion, a blissful moment framed with a gauzy, peach-colored sunset. Up and until a fight broke out and everyone was sent home.

* * *

ESTHER WILLIAMS! THE bathing beauty of MGM, surrounded by all her synchronized angels. She lent her name to some of the first mass-produced above-ground swimming pools in the late 1950s, and it may have been her shrewdest business decision. She lives in Beverly Hills and will be 81 in August, and the pools that bear her name are now an industry leader.

Williams has no part in the manufacturing or marketing end of the business, says Ilene Fink, the marketing director of the Delair Group Inc., which makes Esther Williams (and Johnny Weissmuller) pools at its factory in Delair, N.J. “She just allowed them to use her name, and it was a really good way to market them,” Fink says. “At first, people knew who she was, the older generation really responded to it. Now, consumers know ‘Esther Williams’ as a really good swimming pool.”

Here, Fink launches into a reverie on above-ground pools, from the days when “people just thought they were a real eyesore,” to the present aesthetic, the 60-year warranty, the carpet to put on the deck that matches the mosaic liner, and all the many, many customers who can’t brag enough about their aluminum above-ground swimming pools. She has a sales video that she swears leaves people breathless with wonder.

Frank J. O’Connor Sr. owns Hawaiian Pools and Spas on Richmond Highway in Alexandria. (It’s the place next to the Cedar Lodge motel, with the giant above-ground pools and decks kept behind tall chain-link fences topped with barbed wire.) O’Connor is one of Ilene Fink’s favorite Esther Williams dealers. If someone in Wyoming needs to custom order an Esther Williams, Ilene sends him to Frank.

Locally, it’s been a little slower this year than Frank would like — he usually sells around 50 pools in a season. There’s been all this rain. There are too many neighborhoods in Northern Virginia where an above-ground pool breaks all the rules.

* * *

Q: WHAT WILL MY pool look like when I am finished?

A: That is the beauty of the Medallion Above-Ground Pool. It is so versatile we leave it up to you. . . . You can put it partially in ground with a decorative wood deck. And of course, you can install your pool completely above ground and use a wood or vinyl siding to match your house. – Medallion Pools Web site

So much did John Mazza love his children that he dug them a square hole in the ground, 20 by 20, and lined it with cinder blocks a few feet deep. That was the family’s first swimming pool, and his son, John Jr., reckons this would been the summer of 1958.

“That first pool leaked like a sieve,” Mazza says, “I was about 8 years old. You had to keep the garden hose running in it to keep any water in it. But my dad kept trying.”

The elder Mazza saw an ad for potential franchisers with the E-Z Do Pool Co. in a magazine a few years later — “Life or Look, I’m not sure,” Mazza Jr. says — and so the family piled into their ’58 Buick and drove up to Long Island for a look. That’s how the Mazzas started their Medallion Pools company, and how Mazza’s father continued his quest to perfect the above-ground pool, experimenting with steel and other materials, Mazza Jr. recalls. “Till finally we built one that a backhoe couldn’t destroy. We figured that would be a good pool to have.”

Mazza Sr. died in 1990, but Mazza Jr. and his sister still run the business, in Matoaca, south of Richmond, with about 60 employees.

Mazza remembers when above-ground pools were ugly. “I think finally the people in the swimming pool industry realized that [above-ground] was a part of this industry, it wasn’t going anywhere and it was time to start treating them like real swimming pools. I hate putting it this way, but for a long time they made people react a certain way, like it gave you the impression of trailer parks.”

And here he gets a bit Didionesque: “When you enjoy the pool the most, you walk down into it, sit on the stairs, just float. If it’s a good pool, with the right things, if you have an automatic chlorinator, if you have a pump and a filter, it’s a great thing. If you spend more than five minutes a week working on that pool then you’re doing something wrong. That’s not a salesman talking, either; that’s the facts of life.”

* * *

RAMIE HOOKS IS the manager at Playtime Pools & Spas, which sits on a small bluff overlooking Jeff Davis Highway in Woodbridge. There’s a collection of premium Vogue and Strong brand above-ground swimming pools assembled and sparkling blue in the yard next to the store. A sprinkly fountain has been rigged up in the center of one. It could be a resort up here, a pool garden, with views of the Super China Buffet and the Knock On Wood furniture store, the nail salons, multiple 7-Elevens and a place called Mattress For You!

Oh, to be able to swim in the tempting Coliseum, or the Impact, or the Zenith.

Hooks, who is tanned and friendly and spends his days in a store that smells gloriously of pool chemicals and new vinyl, says he used to own an above-ground pool. “The dog liked it more than anything.”

There’s a vacant circle on the lot as well, larger in diameter than the other display pools; the earth beneath it is a light, dead shade of brown. That was the Lexel.

The Lexel is gone, Hooks says. A man just bought it the other day.

It’s the kind of circle that aliens might leave behind, and it inspires yet another summertime fantasy about above-ground pools. Only this time they fly.

For all y’all who’ve spent a lot of this week snowed in …

Washington was spared (this time) but for some reason I was having vague memories about this piece, from February 2003, and I wanted to go back and make sure I wasn’t imagining that I actually wrote it. I remember it was inspired (and suggested) by Frank Ahrens. It’s short. It’s about how guys go all macho when it snows and stomp in to the office unshaven and fleeced out.

Enjoy it all over again, or for the very first time.

BLIZZARD MAN STORMS THE OFFICE, IN BUFFALO PLAID

By Hank Stuever
(c) The Washington Post (originally published Feb. 8, 2003.)

A good five inches of snow falls, and the cubicle landscape is suddenly populated the next day by more manly men, who seem to have hiked in from the backcountry, or driven in on their imaginary snowmobiles.

Gone are the gray suits, the khakis, the software-logo golf shirts and tassled loafers. When it snows, the American office starts to look like Stein Ericksen’s ski lodge, filled with variations on the Brawny man — at least as far as the guys are concerned. This is a good thing, since Office Park Dad spends so much of his life feeling somehow less a man. He is a Shetland wool bonanza — layered, hat-haired, rosy-cheeked. He looks ridiculous and still, remarkably, sexy.

Never mind that the roads were cleared by 8, and that he parked the Jetta in the garage under K Street, barely stepping in a puddle. He’s here, everybody: Eddie Bauer has arrived for his workday.

Nothing completes a winter wonderland downtown like the sight of guys who wear the same thing every day wearing something else. At last you see the too-thick sweaters they got for Christmas, or the outerwear they buy for fun. The Gore-Tex, fleece, and puffy parka factor goes off the chart. All that flannel plaid makes us think of the logging industry or not-so-romantic camping weekends. There’s a certain swagger to cold-weather guys, which may mean: long johns.

They don’t shave (the prep time instead went to shoveling the driveway), and they exude a harmless machismo of self-satisfaction because they made it in, as opposed to those suburban Maryland wussies who decided to stay home with the brats. Lunch tends to run long on a day like this, and it seems like all the guys decide to eat together at pubs and taverns instead of girly-man places like Au Bon Pain or Chicken Out.

After that, it’s time to hit the slopes for the rest of the afternoon, schussing back to the cubicle, ready to chop down the forest. The coat closet by the reception desk smells ripe and woolly. Snow Day Man sits at his desk and waits for the avalanche search-and-rescue distress call that never comes. (He is indifferent to the snickerings over there of Snow Day Woman, wearing that silly pashmina — or worse, tights — and her Incredibly Dumb Hat.) The daylight wanes and he begins to think about his journey home. He can handle whatever Old Man Winter deals him out there on the Beltway frontier, because he’s a lumberjack, and he’s okay.

–30–

My broader analysis of the cultural zombie fixation, vis-a-vis my Walking Dead review on Sunday.

And another nice use of art on the section front (see below), courtesy of illustrator Zohar Lazar. The print edition of the newspaper is still a bargain and a visual treat that the web site just frankly still isn’t. However, with the web version, you get a brief slide show of zombies. In a perfect world, you’d get both the lovely freelance illo AND the web extras. Maybe iPad will somehow deliver on the promise of principled design and neat, new geegaws…

I got into newspapers in high school because I liked the way they look. In college, I chose writing and editing over design, but two decades later I keep wondering if I made the right choice.

We’ve been attempting a bit of visual branding with some of my longer reviews/essays about television in the Style section. This means deeper thoughts (haha) and most of all, Better Art. I’ve been loving these illos that we hired graphic artist Owen Freeman to do for Treme, Betty White, and my piece on mockumentaries. They give off a bit of an Alex Ross graphic novel realism …

What do you think? I think they’re sharp and nicely distant, almost spooky. Anything is better than canned art from wires and network publicity depts. Freeman is 5,000 x better.

This is one of the great benefits of the print product. For a variety of technical issues (and excuses) and freelancer legalese (I think?), these illos don’t ever make it online. I know the iPad age is upon us, so I hope to actually live to see the day when the Washington Post website (or app) is anywhere near as elegant to look at as the newspaper is.