The "I" is Alec Baldwin. The "proof" is the evidence of his calling some guy "faggot," which he denies saying, in this impressive rant about how sick he is of the way the world works these days. You say one thing wrong — or you don't even say it, but some guy gets video of you somehow saying it — and everything else you've ever done is overshadowed. No one remembers all your many pro-gay efforts, and you are just the man who got mad at a guy and the word that popped out of you was "faggot."
I probably have to move out of New York. I just can’t live in New York anymore. Everything I hated about L.A. I’m beginning to crave. L.A. is a place where you live behind a gate, you get in a car, your interaction with the public is minimal. I used to hate that....
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62 comments:
Who?
There is a valid point that if you take enough pictures, you can always find one that is less than flattering if not downright hideous. Likewise, take enough video and you'll find an embarrassing moment.
However, if you are an asshole, the odds of finding those hideous and/or embarrassing moments is much higher. Assholes also tend to take the greatest offense at this, especially when of the narcissistic variety.
"pay attention to me"
I read an article a while back after Mel Gibson had his melt down when he was arrested for drunk driving.
The author speculated that Mel's problem was that he was rich and famous and had been for quite some time. Therefore, he was surrounded by enablers. That is, unlike most people, he did not have anyone around him to tell him that he was full of it or acting like a jerk.
Because, anyone who did so would be fired and he no longer had friends, just sycophants.
So over time he became more and more detached from reality and acceptable behavior. Much like Charlie Sheen.
I suspect Baldwin has a similar issue.
Cause when you claim that using the f....t word is OK cause of all the pro-gay stuff you have done, then you are suffering from cranial-recto insertion syndrome.
cranial-rectal insertion syndrome
The paparazzi knows he's got a very short fuse. They know all it takes is some mild antagonization to provoke a ridiculous, disproportionate response. It's instant entertainment and therefore instant money for them.
Baldwin has to understand that, yet he seems dumb enough to play into their hands over and over again.
At his age.
speculated that Mel's problem was that he was rich and famous and had been for quite some time. Therefore, he was surrounded by enablers.
I think that that is the problem with a lot of celebrities who engage in bad or bizarre behavior. I've always said that that (combined with true mental illness and a truly screwed up childhood) was what made Michael Jackson the way he was.
He is a great actor. But there is just no that much demand for intelligent, straight, white, aggressive male actors in the new gay culture. Christian Bale gets a pass by seeming to be slightly insane.
Alec Baldwin is the epitome of the saying 'All your dysfunctional relationships have one thing in common, you'
He is in his own little bubble as noted above, there is little he does that doesn't seem insulting and self absorbed.
I only pray that he truly is never heard from again. Good riddance.
These lefties getting swallowed by their own stupid politics. Great to watch the bewilderment.
These lefties getting swallowed by their own stupid politics. Great to watch the bewilderment.
Well, on the one hand Baldwin is far from being seen sympathetically on this. Everyone's going to be saying "boo-hoo" about his rant, and that's justified: He's certainly earned his share of derision over the years.
On the other, I grudgingly admit that he's got a legit point about how events and details of events too often get twisted when under public discussion. And his point is separable from his persona, which anyone has a free shot at. I can't even begin to list all the times something has been slanted, skewed, or just outright distorted merely because it's gone through the media/public meatgrinder interface, and that takes a lot away from being able to deal with a topic rationally and dispassionately. It becomes all about agenda, offense, and emotion instead of thoughtful consideration and rational discourse. And it's disgusting. Despite my personally held faint regard for Baldwin, I have to admit that I agree with him on that element of his rant. Too often public nattering gets toxic. And it's tiring to see this abrogation of social decorum committed by self-important loudmouths (above and beyond Baldwin; he doesn't escape from this, and as I said, my regard for him is faint). Freely ejecting etiquette out of a self-important notion that the topic being discussed is Just That Serious is not only tiresome, it's corrosive. You respond in kind, else you get viewed as either being soft or a pushover, nevermind the fact that a reasoned reply is better than an emotional one.
What do you do when you agree with the cause but dislike the standard bearer? Well, in my case, it's to point out the merits of the argument separate from the man embodying it. That's legit. But that said, I do wish this were embodied by someone I liked better.
I completely disagree with his politics, but I've always found him entertaining as an actor and comedy performer.
I think he would've been good for MSNBC, probably more entertaining than the collection of deranged mental patients they currently have as hosts. At the very least he could've provided plenty of fodder for conservatives (look at what crazy thing Baldwin said on he's show this time!).
Upon first read this morning impressive is what I first thought as well. But then this is Alec Baldwin, and despite his defense there's plenty of evidence what's happening to him is deserved in the 'to-a-nicer-guy' way.
You say one thing wrong — or you don't even say it, but some guy gets video of you somehow saying it — and everything else you've ever done is overshadowed
Now you know what it's like to be Mitt Romney.
His MSNBC riff is funny. They're a liberal bitchfest Alec, what possible excuse do you have for not knowing that?
Bill de Blasio, who apparently gets his news from TMZ, too, distanced himself from me.
Losing de Blasio is the kiss of death for a NYC limo lib. Might as well pack it in.
I probably have to move out of New York. I just can’t live in New York anymore.
...and there it is. Is he genuinely upset over a change in New York City culture, or is he setting the stage for a NYC tax dodge disguised as a graceful exit?
I like the guy, personally. He's a funny actor.
His politics are pretty obnoxious, and the reason that he is a target for saying "faggot" is because all of his friends at MSNBC would and will go apeshit whenever anybody with right-leaning politics says "faggot."
No comment on Dan Savage. Why bother?
Alec Baldwin is just paying the price for being a New Yorker and a papparazi target; and also for the left's incessant policing of speech. It's blowback. He should become a Republican and move to Columbus, Ohio or Chattanooga, Tennessee or Boise, Idaho. And not care anymore about the New York press.
I listen frequently to the radio broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic. I can't believe that Alec Baldwin is still the radio host of their broadcasts. He's not terribly good at it. He's just an actor reading scripts that he clearly isn't qualified to write himself.
Baldwin made the choice to have a very high-profile public persona. One of the downsides of choosing to be a public figure is that... you're a public figure.
But there is just no that much demand for intelligent, straight, white, aggressive male actors in the new gay culture
Russell Crowe, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr, Mark Wahlberg, Daniel Craig, Liam Neeson...
speculated that Mel's problem was that he was rich and famous and had been for quite some time. Therefore, he was surrounded by enablers.
Mel's problem was that they really were out to get him. Rahm Emanuel's brother said as much.
Everyone is Baldwins industry liked, coddled and protected him. It was the outsiders he didnt approve of. In Gibson's case he had his industry rooting for his failure and insiders leaking tapes to the media.
"L.A. is a place..."
If you're rich and want to choose to live like that.
if he doesn't leave, how can we miss him?
To anyone who's ever caught her eye-rolling, undisguised mortification-over-all-things-conservative act on "Morning Joe" the ABSOLUTE gem of a take-away was when Alec described Mika B. as "...the Margaret Dumont of cable news." Oh so VERY true! ROTFLMAO!!!
Some of us who are incredibly talented have chosen not to become celebrities.
Mel's problem was that they really were out to get him.
So they kidnapped him, poured a bottle of vodka down his gullet, and then tricked him into thinking he was on the set of a new film where he would star as a fictional Jew-hating celebrity. Got it.
Not the best time to be an Irish-American rageaholic in the public eye, that's for sure.
It's my opinion that this is what celebrities truly get paid the big $$$ for, not their "art". IOW, they are paid well primarily to be public figures, draw attention/clicks for themselves and various media outlets, go through the attendant projection/abuse, and fulfill basically psychologically unhealthy needs for a mass audience.
That's the deal.
What Revenant said.
Mel Gibson "got" himself.
A little off topic I suppose, but I don't appreciate pejorative words being banned because they are pejorative. Makes no sense as it is the usage of the word and not the word itself. That's so gay.
faggot (n.1) Look up faggot at Dictionary.comlate 13c., "bundle of twigs bound up," from Old French fagot "bundle of sticks" (13c.), of uncertain origin, probably from Italian faggotto, diminutive of Vulgar Latin *facus, from Latin fascis "bundle of wood" (see fasces).
Online Etymology Dictionary:
Especially used for burning heretics (emblematic of this from 1550s), so that phrase fire and faggot was used to indicate "punishment of a heretic." Heretics who recanted were required to wear an embroidered figure of a faggot on their sleeve, as an emblem and reminder of what they deserved.faggot (n.2) Look up faggot at Dictionary.com"male homosexual," 1914, American English slang (shortened form fag is from 1921), probably from earlier contemptuous term for "woman" (1590s), especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot (n.1) "bundle of sticks," as something awkward that has to be carried (cf. baggage "worthless woman," 1590s). It may also be reinforced by Yiddish faygele "homosexual," literally "little bird." It also may have roots in British public school slang fag "a junior who does certain duties for a senior" (1785), with suggestions of "catamite," from fag (v.). This also was used as a verb.
He [the prefect] used to fag me to blow the chapel organ for him. ["Boy's Own Paper," 1889]
Other obsolete senses of faggot were "man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster" (1700) and "vote manufactured for party purposes" (1817).
The oft-reprinted assertion that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use. It was used in this sense in early 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others.
If one started calling homosexual men by "bundle of sticks" as an insult, would we have to ban the phrase?
It's too long.
(This is the guy who found it unseemly that Dylan Farrow publicly aired her grievances? lol.)
If only he could substitute "asshole" for "faggot" and "cocksucker" he would be ok. The voice-mail he left for his teenage daughter was pretty brutal, but forgivable. But calling someone a "faggot" is downright un-American.
Bets on how quickly Baldwin becomes a Republican?
The voice-mail he left for his teenage daughter was pretty brutal, but forgivable.
What was really unforgivable was his bitch wife leaking that voicemail to the public.
So they kidnapped him, poured a bottle of vodka down his gullet, and then tricked him into thinking he was on the set of a new film where he would star as a fictional Jew-hating celebrity. Got it.
The establishment was launching personal attacks on Gibson in 2004 when The Passion came out and they saw a literal filming of a biblical gospel as anti-Semitic.
The DUI was in 2006. A couple of years of behind the scenes machinations clearly took a toll on Gibson. Since when does a traffic stop, especially in celeb friendly LA, make it into the newspapers? What state does Mel have to be in to suspect the cop of being jewish?
Conversely Baldwin has never been under pressure from his industry. It was 1999 when Kim Bassinger said that Baldwin was going to drag her out of the country if Bush won and Hollywood was fine with that.
In Vino Veritas
Never heard of that until the Gibson DWI.
He'll never become an R. It's clear from this article his contempt for R's is not effected one iota -- he's preening and whining about that mid-article -- so plaintively letting his letting audience know he thinks R's are just as contemptible as they do. As though this shouldn't be happening to him, because he's not really evil.
So he called someone a faggot. Big deal. We don't even know if he meant is as a gay slur or just a generic turn for ahole. But even if he did, weigh his use of the word against his actions. Does he really strike people as a complete homophobe?
People need to lighten up.
How bout "Stick boy"?
Alcibiades said...It's clear from this article his contempt for R's is not effected one iota...
Did you mean to write 'is not affected on iota'?
Yeah, I read the whole thing. He eventually gets down to blaming Fox News and Roger Ailes for what's wrong with the world and why he is treated so bad.
Nevah gonna happen. Wasn't he going to leave the US when BUSH!!!!!1!!1!1! bot elected?
They had a good run exploiting diversity, but now it's time to pay for the dysfunction. I'm surprised that Baldwin did not foresee this inevitable conclusion.
Progress is monotonic change. However, from a broader perspective, it is chaotic. Either way, he is losing pace. With every passing day, every passing generation, a progressive discovers a conservative (i.e. stable) state.
Now get off my lawn!
The establishment was launching personal attacks on Gibson in 2004 when The Passion came out and they saw a literal filming of a biblical gospel as anti-Semitic.
The DUI was in 2006. A couple of years of behind the scenes machinations clearly took a toll on Gibson.
That's the paranoid conspiracy theory version.
The non-conspiratorial version is that a lot of people saw "The Passion" and thought it was anti-Jew. They suspected Gibson himself might be a Jew-hater. They were right.
Since when does a traffic stop, especially in celeb friendly LA, make it into the newspapers?
Since the 1950s or so. Seriously, what planet have you been living on? There are entire websites and television shows devoted to celebrity run-ins with the law.
What state does Mel have to be in to suspect the cop of being jewish?
Let me put it to you this way: I have been drunk off my ass on many occasions throughout my life, and have never once started blaming my problems on Jews, blacks, gays, Presbyterians, redheads, or any other group of people.
Booze doesn't make people assholes. It just prevents assholes from keeping their traps shut.
To be honest, I always liked much of Baldwin's work, and comedic touch. I may not agree with his politics, but I get the sense he'd be worth having a beer with.
There's enough Irish Catholic in there to be un-PC and irreverent enough to tell some wicked jokes and stories.
Unknown,
You left out the bassoonists! "Fagotto" is Italian for bassoon, probably because to an artistic eye it does look like a "bundle of sticks."
Also, in ordinary UK English, a "fag" is just a cigarette. One of many of the linguistic differences between the US and UK that are potentially awkward. "Fanny," for example, means a quite different body part there from here. When I was living in London, my flatmate told me that so-and-so had "called," and I ran downstairs in my pajamas to answer the phone, only to find that he was, of course, there in person. The "first floor" isn't the ground floor, but what we'd call the second story. &c.
How can you feel sorry for these people? Baldwin, Gibson. They chose a career in the public eye. They lived for publicity. They knew they were being watched. If they were rational at all they wanted to be watched.
And then they went out in public and misbehaved. What the Hell did they expect? That Susan Rice would cover for them? Do they think they're THAT important?
Bigoted jerky things don't accidentally slip out the mouth in moments of weakness unless they are already bouncing around inside the head looking for the oral escape.
Revenant said...
Russell Crowe, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr, Mark Wahlberg,
Downey and Wahlberg are a stretch in this context.
as those who had a problem with some of his statements have pointed out, he may have a history of showing up at p.c. events but, when agitated and angry (which is often), his go-to pejoratives are ususally of the anti-gay variety. he could have had a moment of introspection and considered why this is true for him but, instead, his narcisssm overwhelms and he flips out and lashes out at those who dared to question his wonderfulness.
Downey and Wahlberg are a stretch in this context.
Please, Downey earned something like a billion dollars at the box office playing the epitome of intelligent aggressive heterosexual male characters.
And Wahlberg's roles in "The Departed" and "Lone Survivor" certainly qualify.
I welcome this. Alec Baldwin is, in my opinion, a great actor but quite possibly a terrible person. I would like to see more acting on his part and absolutely nothing else from him.
forget the gay stuff for a minute and, instead, consider his shia labeouf story. labeouf was annoyed by the fact that his co-star didn't know any of his lines. so is baldwin humbled and determined to show up at the next rehearsal fully prepared? nope...he runs whining to the director, 'pulls rank', and gets labeouf fired. baldwin feels so justified in his actions that he chooses to relate the story in print as proof of--what exactly??
that labeouf is the asshole for being professional or, once again, as an example of some punk who had the audacity to question baldwin's wonderfulness which gives him the right to act as a bully? sheesh. this guy is a piece of work.
how will he react now if most folks who read his rant just shrug, say 'whatever, dude', and carry on with their own lives instead of begging him to stay because life could never be the same without the greatness that is alec baldwin?
Here's the thing. This guy really is a great actor. Read what people who work with him think. I do think he has a bad temper - is sick of being targeted..and is someone who has completely internalized the liberal viewpoint...but agree that our current culture is completely hostile..unfortunately he is not recognizing his part in that. Perhaps he will.
The Margaret Dumont of cable news.
That there line elevates Baldwin to extreme heights in my esteem. Of course 90% of the prig progs will never get it cuz they have no sense of humor or specific knowledge of Karl's great grandson Groucho.
Don't worry about Baldwin his buddy Lorne Michaels is bucking to be the next head of NBC. And he just might do it if Fallon can con an audience.
Alec Baldwin is, in my opinion, a great actor but quite possibly a terrible person. I would like to see more acting on his part and absolutely nothing else from him.
Exactly. Shut up and sing.
Very few care what your politics are, and the few that do know you have only adopted your latest "cause" for the PR value it gives your brand.
Its gotten so bad that it damages your appeal as an actor. There are several I no longer watch (Fonda, Glover, Baldwin) because their obnoxious political remarks overshadow whatever character they are playing at the moment.
Downey
Downey is in 2 big franchise film series that have made a lot of people a lot of money.
He certainly qualifies.
That there line elevates Baldwin to extreme heights in my esteem.
He also wants to decentralize schools and lower NYC's obscene tax burden!
Apparently Baldwin has a volatile personality if you go by "infotainment" news. Not an uncommon condition for artists of all stripes. I think most agree that he is a talented actor. Over the years I've seen many movies he has been in and I've never been disappointed by any of his performances. As for his politics: unsurprising and par for the course for Hollywood types.
But I actually feel sorry for most well-known actors. They may make a lot of money but on the other hand they sacrifice their privacy. Being a celebrity means no more anonymity. And you become a target. Your life is no longer your own. Just getting around becomes an ordeal. Most restaurants are off limits. Other people have to shop for you – walking into Macy's like any normal person would cause a commotion – hell, just walking down the street causes a paroxysm of paparazzi. Everything is minutely scrutinized.
Anonymity is a form of freedom. Celebrity-hood is kind of like being incarcerated in a public relations prison.
Dagnabbit, it looks like I got to this post late. What was the deal with the twitter tempest-in-a-teapot about Baldwin using the term "tranny". Is that a thing now or what was going on ...
Alec - kiss my kneecap. both punk. Bold One Knot Ale 400 Spit. Down Low Roy Cohn's best chicken right Alec Baldwin?
mafia kicks for you Alec. Czech your rib cage. full of hummingbirds. sweet sound hollow
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