HE-E-E-E-RE'S JOE BOB!

By Allan R. Andrews
Managing Editor, Pacific Stars and Stripes, Tokyo, Japan.

Originally published July 7, 1996.

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Joe Bob Briggs.

Regular readers know that every week this column shares the page with ``Joe Bob's America.''

Joe Bob writes another popular column called ``Joe Bob's Drive-In,'' which runs in European Stars and Stripes.

I never thought much about Joe Bob, other than to judge him funny, weird and given to capital letters and cowboy hats.

Then I read a favorite little magazine called The Door, a magazine of Christian satire; a bit of a Rolling Stone for Christians, except that many Christians wouldn't put The Door on their coffee table for fear of offending the pious, which is what The Door does best.

The magazine recently sold to a Dallas organization called The Trinity Foundation, and in the first issue published by Trinity a Joe Bob Briggs column stared me in the face.

I discovered Joe Bob Briggs is a pseudonym for John Bloom, a former investigative reporter who writes newspaper columns and movie scripts.

In fact, anyone who's seen the movie ``Casino,'' starring Robert DiNiro, has also seen John Bloom (aka Joe Bob Briggs) on the screen. Joe Bob is a movie star!

I also discovered Joe Bob used to be president of the Trinity Foundation, and he writes a column or two (including an incredible Joe Bob's Bible study) for the six-times-a-year magazine. The story about Trinity's take-over said Joe-Bob had ``rediscovered his Babtist roots.''

I went to work with my computer, modem and New York Times Syndicate connections to wrangle Bloom into an e-mail interview.

Here it is:

Q: When was the last time you sat in a car at the drive-in and watched a movie? What was the flick?

Joe Bob: I have to admit that in the video age I rarely get to the drive-in, because most drive-in-type movies have become direct-to-video specials. The last time I went to the drive-in was about four years ago -- the last night of a drive-in in Haslet, New Jersey, right before it was torn down to make way for a 22-screen multi-cine-concrete-plex abomination. It was the last drive-in in New Jersey, the state where the drive-in was invented in 1932.

Q: Will your rediscovery of your ``Babtist'' roots alter your commentary and reviews in any noticeable way?

Joe Bob: I was just jokin' about rediscovering my Babtist roots. If I were ever to write a horror flick, I would base all the nightmare sequences on things that happened to me in the Babtist church.

Q: What are your Babtist roots? For that matter, what are your non-Baptist roots?

Joe Bob: My parents did their best to be good Southern Babtists. My dad was even ordained into the church, but he gave it up after his own preacher was caught in a homosexual act and drummed out of the ministry. My mom took me and my two sisters to church every Sunday, and sometimes on Wednesday night, at various Babtistcq churches all over Texas and Arkansas, and she scored two-for-three. I had quit the whole business by about age 11, but my two sisters still attend fundamentalist churches, though not Babtist ones. They think the Babtists are too liberal. Needless to say, I don't do the praying over the Thanksgiving turkey. I had a temporary relapse at age 13, went back to Markham Street Babtistcq Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, ``walked the aisle,'' got dunked in the water -- and realized after it was all over that I didn't feel a thing. I think I did it to make my mom happy.

Q: With a career launched in movies, do you continue to see yourself as a writer-journalist?

Joe Bob: As time goes on, I don't see myself as much of anything. I hate it when I get on an airplane and the guy next to me says ``What do you do?'' The reason I do so many things is that, if I didn't, I would be royally bored.

Q: How has Hollywood affected your writing of a newspaper column?

Joe Bob: Living in Hollywood speeds up time. Everything happens faster here. Business deals are faster. Relationships start faster and end faster. Fame comes and goes more quickly. You see extremes of wealth and poverty, and this year's wealth is next year's poverty. So it's not that Hollywood is different from anywhere else. It's just that it's a columnist's dream because everything is revealed in time for your deadline. It's a place of enormous human appetite, and that's always fodder for satire.

Q: Your columns show a great appreciation for classical music and opera. How did this develop? What are your favorites in both genres?

Joe Bob: I'm not sure how it developed, because as a kid I hated to be dragged to classical music and opera. But I was a half-assed musician myself, in the Parkview High School band in Little Rock, Arkansas, and when I was 19 years old I went to a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, and that was the first time I realized, I think, how exciting symphonic music could be. I spent one of my college years in Europe, at the University of Copenhagen, and studied the history of opera under a retired baritone named Axel Scholtz, and he was the first person I ever met who made all those musty old stories come alive for me. There's still a lot of it I can't sit through, though. I'm very particular about what I like.

Q: What would you advise someone planning a career in journalism on the verge of the 21st century?

Joe Bob: The practice of journalism as it has been known in America and England is just about over. I doubt that there will be much call for journalists in another 50 years. Modern journalism started in about 1720, with Addison and Steele, and will probably be over by 2020, and 300 years is not bad. But we're entering an age where all media demand lightning speed, and the journalist is being rapidly replaced by the random pointing of a camera lens. Fewer than 1 per cent of newspapers employ full-time investigative teams. The most celebrated TV news show, ``60 Minutes,'' now has a policy that it won't pursue any story that requires more than five days of research by the staff. You can't even be a smart-ass commentator like me unless you photograph well, or score a high ``Q'' rating. If you look at individual issues of any large American paper in 1920, 1030, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990, you will see a progressive decline in quality of writing, depth of news coverage, and, most important, closeness to its readership. This is a long way of answering the question, but journalism is passing away before our very eyes.

Q: Do you have any history with or personal connection to the U.S. military?

Joe Bob: My only connection is informal. I've received a lot of mail from soldiers over the years, especially during Desert Storm, which was a little odd. I was thinking, ``My God, these guys are living in tents in the desert, dodging Scud missiles, and they still have time to write letters that begin, `Can you tell me who starred in ``Gas Pump Girls''?''' I have a little different relationship with the readers of European Stars & Stripes, because they use the drive-in column only. In the early days of that column, I had a lot of protest from females in the military, but in recent years they seem to have accepted me as one of those familiar evils that can't be eradicated, like smoking.

Q: Do you attend church regularly? If so, where? If so, why? If not, why not?

Joe Bob: The only religious organization I'm affiliated with is Trinity Foundation in Dallas, which is a non-denominational public foundation that functions much like a first-century church. They run a religious-TV ``watchdog'' organization that monitors TV evangelists, catches them when they lie, and tries to get the shysters kicked off the air or put in jail. They also publish The Door, the only magazine of Christian satire. I hate organized religion, though, so you won't find me singing in any Presbyterian choirs.

Q: How would you describe yourself in terms of religion?

Joe Bob: I'm a believer.

Q: What newspapers do you read regularly? What magazines?

Joe Bob: I read whatever newspaper or magazine catches my eye at the newsstand. I no longer subscribe to anything. I'm an eclectic reader -- everything from Femmes Fatales to Foreign Policy. I like the British newspapers, especially The Independent and The Observer.

Q: Is there a Mrs. Joe Bob? A soon-to-be Mrs. Joe Bob? A wish-she-were Mrs. Joe Bob? A has-been Mrs. Joe Bob? Any family of Joe Bobs (or Blooms)?

Joe Bob: This is a very dangerous question. Anything I say will get me in trouble with some woman somewhere, so I decline to answer on Fifth Amendment grounds. I have a major weakness for women. I like women. I have not fathered any children, and if I have, she's lying.

Q: What is the meaning of life?

Joe Bob: I ask the question every week so somebody else will tell ME.

Q: How often are you asked that question via Compuserve?

Joe Bob: Daily. And nobody has a clue.

Q: What would you say to someone who called you ``just another cowboy-hat act''?

Joe Bob: In many ways . . . guilty. In fact, I just wrote a movie in which I play, one of these days, the ultimate ``hat act.'' It's kind of a country-music ``Spinal Tap,'' with ``Blues Brothers'' elements thrown in.

Q: While we're there, what do you think of Willie Nelson? Garth Brooks? Pavarotti? Placido Domingo? Madonna? Hootie and the Blowfish? George Beverly Shea? Amy Grant?

Joe Bob: I love all kinds of music. Amy Krause. Willie Nelson. Cassandra Wilson. Stan Getz. Miles Davis. I'll even admit to the Gipsy Kings.

Q: Is ``Joe Bob's God Stuff'' on video cassette? If not, why not? If so, does God watch it?

Joe Bob: ``Joe Bob's God Stuff'' is a half-hour pilot that I made for $350. It's a weekly satirical review of religious TV, hosted by yours truly. When I show it to TV executives, they say, ``You'll never get this on the air, but could I have a couple extra copies. I wanna show it to my cousin in Indiana.''

Thanks, Allan.

JB.