... Kurtz mistakenly accused Collins of leaving out “one detail” in Collins’s Sports Illustrated essay disclosing his homosexuality. The detail, Kurtz said, was that Collins “was engaged. To be married. To a woman.”...IN THE COMMENTS: Bill said:
Kurtz initially amended his Daily Beast story, saying Collins “downplayed” the engagement and “didn’t dwell on it.” But the Daily Beast retracted the story entirely after the mistake and subsequent amendments drew heavy criticism from several Web sites.
But Collins did attempt to obscure his engagement. This is what he wrote: "When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged."I agree, and you put that so much better than Kurtz did in his correction. This is an important basis for criticism of Collins, who's being hailed as a hero. Giving up on living a lie is a good idea, but it's not heroic. Maybe 30 years ago, it was heroic to be openly gay, but even back then, if you chose to keep your sexual orientation quiet, it was still wrong to delude another person to the extent that Collins apparently did. Collins graduated from Stanford in 2001, and it's just ridiculous that someone who lived in that environment at that time — he roomed with Joe Kennedy and was friends with Chelsea Clinton — would be seriously burdened with backward ideas about sexual orientation. I'll refrain from lambasting the man for his deceit and cowardice, but extolling him as a hero is absurd. I think that's what Kurtz might have wanted to say, but he botched his attack.
That sure sounds like someone who got engaged young, not someone who cancelled a wedding at the age of about 30 after an eight year relationship. While his statement was technically true (everything in our past was when we were younger), it had to have been intentionally misleading, especially coming from a Stanford grad.
It would be interesting to know which powerful Democrats, if any, interacted with Tina Brown over the downfall of Howard Kurtz.
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245 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 245 of 245I take it its... incomplete?
Palladian: I'm listening but I'm on the phone.
@Palladian: I hope that's not just a simple gripe list. If so, I'm prepared to defend the following
No, it's just the list of every recording of "MacArthur Park" that I currently have in my collection, no quality judgements implied, except of the song. Some of them are actually quite good (except for the song).
Sinatra sings only the bridge, as does Liza Minelli, and they're both great. Waylon Jennings version is pretty good too. The Beggar's Opera one is a favorite. Sammy Davis Jr makes a valiant effort, but you get the feeling he couldn't bring himself to pull "striped pair of pants" off with any conviction.
Is that the song where they leave a cake out in the rain and they took so long to bake it and they really did try to make it and he'll never have the recipe again, oh nooooooo?" I hate that part because every time I'm all, "Fuck your cake."
Lem, I sort of hope to get one hundred versions. I'm up to 73.
Many of them are really, really boring, a lot of piano & orchestra instrumental arrangements that just go on and on and on, and all sound the same.
The Gita Haening version is fun, it's translated (or transliterated?) into German!
For a supposedly not well received song.... what if the opposite had been true?
Let me speculate...
The song was not copyright protected.
I think Steve Lee was in Whitesnake. Or maybe it was Poison.
You brought up Steve Lee the other night, and it seemed completely random. It still does.
Or maybe I've got the wrong name. I COULD go back and read 800+ comments again, but I'm not going to.
I don't know how this happened, but I think might I have just smoked some marijuana. I'm listening to this trumpet solo, well make up your own mind. Skatalites - Guns of Navarone
Sammy Davis Jr makes a valiant effort, but you get the feeling he couldn't bring himself to pull "striped pair of pants" off with any conviction.
It depends on the pants. Some stripped pants are easy on the convictions, others not so much. For example, it is hard to show conviction wearing pants with alternating wide strips of white and Carolina blue - it just doesn't happen very often, not in this universe.
Without Ska, there is no Skatalites, there is no reggae, there is no Bob Marley.
Here it is!
Comment from the other day: "My moisturized leather handbag is named Steve Lee. I think yours is named Inga... "
So I ask again: Who the fuck is Steve Lee? And DON'T tell me he was in Whitesnake or Poison! And don't tell me it's your moisturized leather handbag either.
It's these little things that are driving me batshit crazy, like the chessboards in movies and TV shows being set up incorrectly about 95% of the time....
And Palladian, how is it that "Spinning Wheel" isn't on your list of Worst Songs Ever?
When it comes to terrible songs, nothing and I mean nothing comes close to "Stupid Hoe" by Nicki Minaj. NSFW!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6j4f8cHBIM
If you have not heard/seen this, I am truly sorry for inflicting this upon you. They should use this in Gitmo to stop the hunger strike. They would eat their own ears.
Palladian: Thanks for the reply. I never want to discourge people from their gut reactions to art, yet, I must ask: if so many serious, sincere performers invested a portion of their careers to covering MacArthur Park, how truly awful can it be? Flawed, sure -- but absolutely the worst song ever?
Like I say, it's not the pop equivalent of "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which was obviously incompetent, incoherent, and terrible.
I can't explain "the fevered iron like a striped pair of pants" lyric but I couldn't tell you what Paul McCartney had in mind with "The movement you need is on your shoulder" either. Nonetheless "Hey Jude" survives as a song.
The rest of MacArthur is over-wrought, hopelessly maudlin, but understandable. The few times I've been in LOVE and it blew up, I wasn't much better.
When I first start looking at modern art with a painter friend (actually my football hero friend further down the line), he told me that if a large number of people start paying attention to some artist or kind of art, you can't just write it off as terrible. It may not be great art ultimately, but it is doing something.
For what it's worth I've collected versions of:
Louie, Louie (The Kingsmen)
Sweet Jane (The Velvet Underground)
The Weight (The Band)
Though not to 73 versions and not because I thought they were monumentally bad songs.
There is something odd about these three songs which fascinates me. They can't be pinned down and they achieve an iconic quality that allows for a wide range of interpretation, but damn if I know what makes them work.
I'd put Maynard Ferguson's version of Macarthur Park up there with the best of them. It's from Ferguson's earlier years, when he still played strictly jazz.
Best comedic version is Dave Thomas (as Richard Harris) on "SCTV". ("CAN SOMEONE PLEASE GET ME A BLOODY TOWEL!!")
By the way, put me down as someone who doesn't buy Collins' story. Don't be surprised if he "evolves" his position to be "bisexual" sometime in the next few months. All it'll take is for someone to see him in a hotel with some hot chick, and he'll be forced to admit that he's not 100% queer.
And then what will happen with the media?
Interesting times.
You sure you are not talking about Victor Victoria
That only works if Jason Collins is actually a woman. A 7 foot tall woman.
Collins graduated from Stanford in 2001, and it's just ridiculous for someone who lived in that environment at that time — he roomed with Joe Kennedy and was friends with Chelsea Clinton — would be seriously burdened with backward ideas about sexual orientation.
The way things are going, Althouse may be writing the same thing about pedophiles in ten years. After all, when sex is just jacking off into someone else's receptacle, where does the moral slide stop?
(Did I write "moral"? Oops. I'm a bigot.
Louie, Louie by Richard Berry - The Kingsmen were just another cover band. My favorite version of that song (OTHER than the Kingsmen version, of course) is by Motorhead. Motorhead did the first version I ever heard where I could understand the lyrics. Plus, Lemmy Kilmister!
Hey, media accountability-ish. How quaint.
This is such a great hero story. Collins is a true role model for my children. I want them to know that they should follow their feelings and not to let others stand in the way of what they want to be, or do with their life.
I wonder what other mistakes Kurtz has made in his reporting that have been allowed to stand/let slide and why this one was not.
That phrase ... start a conversation ... does not mean what you think it means Howie.
you get the feeling he couldn't bring himself to pull "striped pair of pants" off with any conviction.
Only because he hasn't met you, Palladian!
Garage, you've posted that Rob Brozman before. I remember it because of his cool looking guitar. And the fact that it's really good.
I'll refrain from lambasting the man for his deceit and cowardice, but extolling him as a hero is absurd.
NYT sez he received back-to-back phone calls from Oprah Winfrey and President Obama.
So he must be a hero!!!!!!!
I'll refrain from lambasting the man for his deceit and cowardice, but extolling him as a hero is absurd.
I won't.
Was his girlfriend of 8 years merely a prop to him so everyone thought he was normal? She says she had no idea he was gay, and she has been pulled off the market for many years.
Maybe she will never be able to have children, which is a primary imperative for people.
Lying to people is execrable. And this is a lie.
Gotta love the PC attitude. Chris Brousard gets a walk, but Kurtz has to leave his employment. The difference, one condemned homosexuality as a sin, but he is black, so that's OK. The other, well, who knows what happened. But, he's white.
Ins other non-distraction news.
President Obama announced Thursday that Penny Pritzker, an ex-national finance chair for the Obama campaign, will lead the Commerce Department. If confirmed, she will be the richest cabinet secretary in U.S. history. The president already skipped over her for the nod once.
The New York Times said of Pritzker in 2008, "Ms. Pritzker's family is renowned for finding ways to avoid paying taxes on its wealth. The Pritzkers were pioneers in using tax loopholes to shelter their holdings from the internal revenue service, and many of their dealings have never been made public."
Forward.
Icepick: Yes, I know that The Kingsmen did not write Louie, Louie, but I was going by the iconic first hit. If I had written --
Louie, Louie (Richard Berry)
-- I suspect I would have confused some people.
AprilA. Penny Pritzker will be a very good SoC. in contrast to every single other member of the Cabinet she knows something about what she is supposed to do and has the background.
Wow, the gay mafia's influence is even more powerful than thought:
In the wake of that decision, CNN also announced that Kurtz’s longtime weekend media criticism show, “Reliable Sources,” was under review.
I would buy that compilation.
" Marshal said...
Greg Hlatky said...
I'm waiting for the hosannas and presidential phone calls when a Berkeley humanities professors comes out as a conservative.
Gays in Iran will come out first."
And more safely.
Better late than never I suppose....
garage mahal said...
This gay NBA gay superhero story isn't adding up.
I think that's why I don't give a crap. I wish Collins well, he may or may not being doing this to enhance a career...no way for me to know that. It remains true, however, that I don't even consider an athlete's sexual orientation up front...never comes to mind unless said athlete mentions it or the press does some weird Snoopy dance over it. Yeah, yeah, I know, I've been told that makes be a creep. Tough.
Also, I do think the scenarios @ Palladian described about coming out in high school to be far more courageous on a personal level.
I'm also inclined to think a bit like @ BDNYC ...that this story as told is creepy.
Yes, I know that The Kingsmen did not write Louie, Louie, but I was going by the iconic first hit.
Fair enough, and since you had put together a compilation it seemed you most likely knew that.
I think part of the congratulations being offered this guy is based on the fact that if an athlete of some fame comes out, that will make it easier for others to do so. I'm not sure that one of the more marginal players in the league will make much difference, but what do I know?
I haven't been following this closely, but I remember reading this article a few weeks ago. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/gay-athlete-millions-endorsements_n_3085500.html My brother tells me this hasn't been an issue? Nike offers basically a bounty for someone to come out, someone does, and he's heroic? That seems weird.
It's true that most gay people only come out of the closet for the money.
I think this is the SCTV bit on MacArthur Park mentioned earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQIJUC2DYrg
Was his girlfriend of 8 years merely a prop to him so everyone thought he was normal? She says she had no idea he was gay, and she has been pulled off the market for many years.
Dante: Who knows? At this point the politics and careerism behind the Collins story make it impossible to take anyone's account at face value.
For all we know, the girlfriend isn't telling a straight story either. Maybe she was his knowing beard all these years and she speaks up now to preserve Collins' heartrending story of suffering in the closet. Maybe she's even a lesbian and he was her beard, and she's got the gay agenda going too. Maybe she's straight and she's been paid off not to make waves. She seems remarkably non-bitter for a dumped fiancee who's been treated to eight years of deceit.
Who knows?
How about 'House of the Rising Sun'. I have several versions on my Ipod. It seems to have been written about a woman who became a prostitute. How did it become a hit by the Animals, a male singing group?
I have a great-uncle who is gay and has probably been with the same partner for longer than I've been alive. However, when he was about 20 during the mid to late 1960s he was engaged to a woman, but I think it was very brief. However, society and especially the left has changed a lot on the issue of homosexuality in those 50 years.
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