Tom Moran profile picture

Tom Moran

Patriotism used to be the last refuge of a scoundrel. Now it's law school.

About Me

I was born in New York City, a few minutes after noon on St. Patrick's Day, accompanied by my twin sister. I am the penultimate child of five siblings, four of whom are twins. I grew up in Queens, NY and went to college in Annapolis, MD, where I read the Great Books and studied Ancient Greek as well as similar recondite subjects (such as -- and I'm not kidding -- Ptolemaic astronomy) that turn out to be terribly useful in later life. After that I studied film and philosophy at The New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village. I've held many jobs, including late-night concierge, office temp, movie usher and extra in a Woody Allen movie (blink during "Bullets Over Broadway" and you'll miss me). Currently I'm a freelance writer living (and starving) in New York's East Village while attending Hunter College in an attempt to acquire the bachelor's degree that eluded me during the Reagan Administration. I've worked on the editorial staffs of Time and Newsweek magazines, written for Good Morning America and World News Now and freelanced widely -- including at Opera News, Opera Monthly, Soap Opera Weekly, Theater Week, In Theater, ABC News, The New York Sun and Condé Nast. I've also guest lectured on film at The City University of New York. You can read my blog (in which I pontificate about everything under the sun) at http://celticprogressive.blogspot.com. At the moment I'm working on acquiring a new agent, since my old one couldn't sell a condom in a whorehouse during Fleet Week. If you really want to get a sense of what I'm interested in and what I'm about, check out my gargantuan Wish List on Amazon.com, either under my name or my e-mail address ([email protected]). It has more than 3,000 items on it -- and it's growing every day. It will tell you far more than you (or probably anyone else) would ever want to know about me.

My Interests

Film, Theater, Opera, Literature. If you really want to get a sense of what I'm interested in and what I'm about, check out my gargantuan Wish List on Amazon.com, either under my name or my e-mail address ([email protected]). It has more than 2,800 items on it -- and it's growing every day. It will tell you far more than you or probably anyone else would ever want to know about me. And let's hear it for the new Broadway musical "Legally Blonde," which just opened at the Palace Theater:

I'd like to meet:

Smart, literate, confident women who are as attractive as they are intelligent. Women who don't think Paris Hilton is a role model or that The Fountainhead is great literature. Who don't spend their lives with their fingers down their throat. Who like films shot in black and white and who will actively seek out such films at venues such as MOMA or the Film Forum. Women who are willing to go to the opera one night and a baseball game the next, and will enjoy both equally. Are any such women out there? And could they look like Kelly Monaco, please? Or possibly Victoria Sinclair, Jennifer Connelly, Kate Beckinsale, Corina Ungureanu, Eva Green or Dita Von Teese. After all, it's not like I'm picky or anything.

Music:



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Movies:



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Television:

Veronica Mars, Two and a Half Men, The Class, How I Met Your Mother, Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, What About Brian?, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, Men in Trees, Boston Legal, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose.

Books:



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Heroes:

In no particular order: Charlie Chaplin, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward de Vere (I'm what they call an Oxfordian), Orson Welles, Preston Sturges, Buster Keaton, Bob Fosse, Erich von Stroheim, Yasujiro Ozu, Bob Clampett, Lenny Bruce, Billy Wilder, Henry James, Jean Cocteau, D.W. Griffith, James Agee, Eugene O'Neill, Honore de Balzac, Christopher Marlowe, Natsume Soseki, Anthony Trollope, Francois Rabelais, Edward Gibbon, Edmund Wilson. And Ron Jeremy, of course.

My Blog

Top Friends

Have you noticed how people's Top Friends lists tends to very quickly get into a rut? They post them and they just stay there.  And they don't move.  They don't change. I just had a bit...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sun, 04 May 2008 05:37:00 PST

Looking for Netflix Friends

Are you on Netflix? Interested in what's in my queue? Interested in having me see what's in your queue? Become a Netflix friend of mine. Just check out this link to do it. http://www.netflix.com/BeMyF...
Posted by Tom Moran on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:21:00 PST

Random Musings

At the beginning of one of my film classes, an elderly woman who's auditing the class came up to me and said: "I want to know your name, because it's going to be famous some day." People have been say...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:27:00 PST

Splendors and Miseries of Netflix

Four days ago, more or less on a whim, I decided to join Netflix. It had a little something to do with the fact that they were offering a free month.  I figured, what the hell.  I’ll j...
Posted by Tom Moran on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:22:00 PST

Friends in Common

Lately I've had sort of a fetish about looking up different My Space friends and seeing how many friends we have in common.  It's something that I do when I'm bored. Anyway, it turns out that the...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:36:00 PST

A Book is a Book is a Book

Made another literary purchase the other day. Okay, it was a remainder (from Dalkey Archives), so it didn't cost that much.  I also bought three other books at the same time, but I'm only going t...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:50:00 PST

I Think I Have A Problem

I bought a complete edition of Shakespeare the other day.  It was a nice, four-volume set in a slipcase.  Very pretty. There's only one problem.  I already have three sets of Shakespear...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:14:00 PST

How to Lose Weight in 2008

Tomorrow it will be New Year's Eve and all the people who packed on the pounds over the holidays will be making resolutions to take off the weight in the new year. Most of them won't. They won't, not ...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:56:00 PST

Another One Bites the Dust

Last year it was Tower Records.  This year it's Barnes and Noble (the one on Astor Place, anyway).  In February of 2009 it's going to be the Virgin Megastore in Union Square.  All closi...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 04:10:00 PST

Kerouac

I think it's probably because of the 50th anniversary of "On the Road" but I've been reading a lot about Kerouac lately.  Joan Haverty's book, Edie Parker's book, "Jack's Book" and now "Memory Ba...
Posted by Tom Moran on Sat, 01 Dec 2007 03:33:00 PST