Last month, I paid homage to Alec Baldwin — brilliant character actor, standout SNL guest, even good on politics — but what I just listened to at The Superficial leaves me pretty cold.
Baldwin left a message on his daughter's voicemail, and it made it's way onto YouTube...
It's straight-up fucking child abuse. He might be across the country, and she may not even hear his words as he utters them, but it is abuse nonetheless. She is eleven years old and he lays into her like the salesmen at Mitch and Murray. I actually couldn't listen to the whole thing.
I don't care about the epic custody battles with Kim Basinger, or how pissed you are, there is no excuse for this with your (or any) child. None.
God complex, indeed.
In a week when the Attorney General lied to Congress and the country for a full workday, a psychopath shoots up a college campus snuffing out the lives of 32 people, and an asshat blogger calls those victims pussies — Alec Baldwin sneaks in as the last-minute, upset, dark horse Dick of the Week.
UPDATE: My wife pointed out that I might have been a bit callous in referencing VaTech in this post, I want to make clear that Baldwin's selection as DOW in no way compares to what happened on Monday. Cho Seung-Hui is off the DOW charts — an insane person of historic and infamous proportion. Guys like that are not what DOW is all about, and I should have left him out of the discussion. Derbyshire's comments, on the other hand, put him in the driver's seat for DOW, but I went with Baldwin because as a father of two girls, and as a guy with nieces of the same age as Baldwin's daughter, I was really impacted by what I heard. [NOTE: link fixed, and slight editing of the VaTech portion]
UPDATE 2: If you are not familiar with the Baldwin monologue from Glengarry Glen Ross than you are not going to get half of the references in this post, including the title. Do yourself a favor and watch it. I guess now we know why Baldwin is so good at playing an asshole...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
You're right about how inexcusable Baldwin's outburst is. I thought he was smarter than that.
At the same time, I have to wonder how his daughter's voicemail "found its way" to Youtube. I suspect it had help.
Based on what you've said, I simply can't listen to Baldwin's voicemail. Just can't. Like you, I agree with his politics, and he's a pretty good actor. But based on what I've seen of him on talk shows, etc, I've never liked him. This cements it for me.
Nevertheless, I think Derbyshire HAS to win DOW. I cannot fucking believe he said that. I swear to you, I was enraged while I read it. Enraged!!! I'm not sure I've ever wanted the chance to go one-on-one with an asshat pundit, and beat the shit out of him, more than I do with this guy.
Wow.
Believe me. I thought Derb had it locked up. I cannot believe anybody else could surpass that level of dickitude...
I, too, was enraged. I left feisty commentary at Cole's place, but was actuallly unable to get my head around what to write here about it.
But Derbyshire is an asshole by trade ( he IS a rightie pundit) and the possibility that he was just doing it to be provoocative cannot be dismissed. No excuse, mind you, especially so early on.
I found his comments offensive and personally entaging, but he was just spouting off, albiet in a public forum, about people he didn't know and a situation he clearly knew even less about. (God, the more I type this the more I think I made a mistake). People affected by the tragedy might have been offended, but Derbyshire is an easily dismissed blowhard with no impact on your personal lives.
Baldwin, however, hit closer to home for me. Over the last few weeks I've actually spent time with my neice of the same age and she was vividly in my mind as I listened to Baldwin and it was crystal clear how devastating something like that would be to a growing child to hear that kind of abuse from a parent. Sure there are worse parents and worse abuses in the world, and she is likely numb to that shit from that asshole, but still, no eleven year old should be subject to that, and at the end of the day, Baldwin (and probably Basinger) are ruining the life an innocent girl.
That's worse than Derbshire.
Alec Baldwin was in "Cat in the Hat" goddamnit. He's earned your respect.
Post a Comment