Author Topic: Alec Baldwin unleashed...that ugly guy at MSNBC is a "phony"....  (Read 908 times)

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Offline Chieftain

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Alec Baldwin unleashed...that ugly guy at MSNBC is a "phony"....
« on: February 24, 2014, 02:47:25 am »
http://www.vulture.com/2014/02/alec-baldwin-good-bye-public-life.html

As told to Joe Hagan.

I flew to Hawaii recently to shoot a film, fresh on the heels of being labeled a homophobic bigot by Andrew Sullivan, Anderson Cooper, and others in the Gay Department of Justice. I wanted to speak with a gay-rights group that I had researched and admired, so I called its local Honolulu branch.

The office number turned out to be some guy’s cell phone. I left him a message—I said, “I’m from out of town, I’m visiting Hawaii on business, I’d like to  get some information on your group.” After two or three more calls, he answered the phone. I said, “Yeah, I’m the guy that called about your organization.” And he said, somewhat impatiently, “Okay, well, what did you want?” I said, “Well, let me put it to you this way, Nick. Your name is Nick? Nick, let me begin by asking you a question. Who would you say, by your estimation, is the most homophobic member of the entertainment industry currently in the media?” And he paused for a long count of four and said, “Um … Alec Baldwin?”

And I said, “Ding, ding, ding, ding! Bingo, Nick, bingo! That’s who you’re talking to.”

He said, “C’mon!”

I said, “Nick, I want to come in and talk.”

I met with Nick and others from two LGBT organizations. We talked for a while about the torment of the LGBT life many of them have lived while growing up in traditional Hawaiian families. Macho fathers. Religious mothers. We talked a lot about words and their power, especially in the lives of young people.

One young man, an F-to-M tranny, said, “Are you here to get dry-cleaned, like Brett Ratner?” Meaning I could do some mea culpa, write them a six-figure check, go to a dinner, sob at the table, give a heartfelt speech, beg for forgiveness. I thought to myself: Beg for forgiveness for something I didn’t do?

I said, “No. I don’t want to get dry-cleaned. I don’t want to be decontaminated by you, Karen Silkwood–wise, scrubbed down. I want to learn about what is hurtful speech in your community. I want to participate in some programs about that. Or underwrite one. And then, like you, I just want to be left alone.”

I’ve read where a number of people have felt that 2013 was a shitty year. For me, it was actually a great year, because my wife and I had a baby. But, yeah, everything else was pretty awful. And I find myself bitter, defensive, and more misanthropic than I care to admit. And I’m trying to understand what happened, how an altercation on the street, in which I was accused—wrongly—of using a gay slur, could have cascaded like this. There’s been a shift in my life. And it’s caused me to step back and say, This is happening for a reason.

I’ve had a relatively charmed life. I loved to be out in the city. New York was my town. I’ve had people come up to me and say, “You’re a great New Yorker. You’ve given your time and money to so many New York charities. You’re a great supporter of the arts. I like some of your movies—and some of your movies suck, actually.” (It’s New York, so people give you their unvarnished opinion.) But people in general had been very kind to me for years.

And then, last November, everything changed.

Am I a homophobe? Look, I work in show business. I am awash in gay people, as colleagues and as friends. I’m doing Rock of Ages one day, making out with Russell Brand. Soon after that, I’m advocating with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Cynthia Nixon for marriage equality. I’m officiating at a gay friend’s wedding. I’m not a homophobic person at all. But this is how the world now sees me.

I haven’t changed, but public life has.

It used to be you’d go into a restaurant and the owner would say, “Do you mind if I take a picture of you and put it on my wall?” Sweet and simple. Now, everyone has a camera in their pocket. Add to that predatory photographers and predatory videographers who want to taunt you and catch you doing embarrassing things. (Some proof of which I have provided.) You’re out there in a world where if you do make a mistake, it echoes in a digital canyon forever.

And this isn’t the days of Rona Barrett and Ron Galella, who were viewed as outcasts or peripheral at best. Paparazzi today are part of a network that includes the Huffington Post and, much to my dismay, even NBC News, in their reliance on tabloid reporting.

**SCHNIPP**

Long read but interesting perspective.....

Offline Chieftain

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Re: Alec Baldwin unleashed...that ugly guy at MSNBC is a "phony"....
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2014, 02:48:08 am »
And if anyone sees Alec, get him one of these to fill out.........



 :beer:

Offline Gazoo

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Re: Alec Baldwin unleashed...that ugly guy at MSNBC is a "phony"....
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2014, 03:53:25 am »
And if anyone sees Alec, get him one of these to fill out.........



 :beer:

 :thumbsup2:
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Re: Alec Baldwin unleashed...that ugly guy at MSNBC is a "phony"....
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2014, 01:44:52 pm »
Media-hating Baldwin to play journalist on ‘SVU’
By Michael Starr/NY Post
February 25, 2014 | 6:15pm


Now Alec Baldwin can hate himself.

The blowhard, fresh off his rant in New York magazine about how much he hates the media, is taking hypocrisy to new heights by playing a newspaper columnist in an upcoming episode of “Law & Order: SVU.”

The actor, whose targets in the magazine’s story include his former MSNBC colleagues, will play Jimmy McArthur, “who questions the SVU squad’s motives” during a hate crime-rape investigation, according to NBC’s description of the episode.

It’s called “Criminal Stories” and will air March 19. Series co-star Mariska Hargitay, who directed the episode, noted Baldwin’s “fierce commitment.”

Baldwin, 55, saw his short-lived, little-watched MSNBC talk show axed in November after he allegedly called a photographer camped outside his apartment “a c–ks–king f-g” — though he only copped to calling him a “c–ks–ker.”

And he has a long and volatile history with the media.

The star, who lives in the Village, called a reporter for the British tabloid the Daily Mail a “toxic little queen” last June after it reported that Baldwin’s wife, Hilaria, was tweeting during the celebrity-packed funeral of “The Sopranos” star James Gandolfini.

In New York magazine, Baldwin labeled former MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough “neither eloquent nor funny” and called host Rachel Maddow as “a phony who doesn’t have the same passion for the truth off-camera that she seems to have on the air.”

He also ripped CNN’s Anderson Cooper as “the self-appointed Jack Valenti of gay media culture,” referring to the late head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Baldwin also threatened to move out of New York City — saying that “Everything I hated about LA I’m beginning to crave . . . Manhattan is like Beverly Hills and the soul of New York has moved to Brooklyn, where everything new and exciting seems to be.

“I have to accept that.”
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