Author: Mark Morford

ISBN: 978-0-9842997-0-6

Publisher: Rapture Machine Inc

Click Here To Purchase Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism

To be honest, before I read The Daring Spectacle, I never heard of its author Mark Morford or read any of his essays and I guess this is my loss and not his.

Morford is a longtime columnist and culture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and the SFGate. In the introduction to The Daring Spectacle, we are informed that he was the lead writer and editor at the SFGate and its site's main pages, and he also created a hit underground email newsletter, called the Morning Fix, described as “irreverent/sexualized/opinionated voice of which served as the inspiration for the very columns you are about to read.”

Morford considers his writings as being blasphemous, inspiring, lickable, inimitable, transgressive and terribly verboise, self-aggrandizing bullshit-often all in the same sentence. And after reading some of his “masterpieces,” I have to agree that this just about sums up The Daring Spectacle with its mixed bag of themes such as sex and the schoolteacher, which nearly got him fired, a question of dripping women, which was rejected by the SF Chronicle and SFGate, and my favorite, which has also been the favorite of many of Morford's readers, Why do you work so hard?

Quite noteworthy about these entries are their jolting haphazardness that makes the reader feel privy to Morford's most honest and sometimes cynical reflections on a wide variety of issues-some of which you will probably applaud and others, well, lets keep that to ourselves. The writings are witty and lucid with bang-on plucky commentary that even if you don't agree with, at least it will keep you awake.

This is particularly in evidence when you read Morford's accurate, (although some may not agree), analysis of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ where he is flabbergasted as to “why millions of people flocked to see a movie that he describes as being bizarre, ultraviolent, blood-drenched, revisionist flick, and so many actually believe its story to be absolutely true.” He then goes onto list nine points of spiritual contention and a reflection of Gibson's sad and deeply tormented ego.

Most hilarious are some of the lambasting emails Morford has received over the years in response to his articles. One called him an utter tool and the writer hopes people such as himself stay in the disgusting liberal pit, called San Francisco. Another tries to convince him that sex before marriage is a sin and God is going to deny him his blessing. Another one says that his problem is that he stayed in college too long and his profs in Cali do not have a clue what they are talking about in “la la land.” And then there is the one that believes that the reason Morford is so naive about the state of the Union is due to all the sex, R&R and drugs he has done in his life to escape reality. I guess for some readers, Morford is the angry, cynical guy, who is in the wrong political camp. As the French say, chacun à son goût (each to his or her own taste).

Click Here To Purchase Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism