April 04, 2016

A Cut Above

The very first James Bond movie had Joseph Wiseman playing the heavy.
Dr. No from 1962
The first short-fingered vulgarian?
As you already know, GSL just loves a bit of badinage only now with the powerful Whine Merchants Guild (WMG) mass producing indignation, it's hard to get a sharp word in edgewise. WMG helped make de classe teaching children the enormously beneficial life skills of Sticks & Stones knowing that academic departments, daytime telly talk shows, and political movements would collapse if the victim opportunities market suddenly dried up.
Eunice Gayson as the first Bond Girl, Sylvia Trench. A blogger had to be set straight with her justifiable laments over the usual casting of young ingĂ©nue with much older man by targeting the 007 series. GSL informed her that, in addition to Ms Grayson,  Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) and Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore in Goldfinger) were also older than Sean Connery.

The Den, as you see in the profile description, is "from the school they tore down before they built the Old School" so we will continue to chide, mock, belittle, disparage, slight, scold, slur, jibe, affront, deprecate, and call-out as the situation warrants.  Public debate has deteriorated into an orgy of operatic hissy fits so there is much work to be done. Targets will be chosen with care, salvos well measured, responses proportional, and escalation of force....yearned for.
We don't do snippy.


This is the only setting GSL wishes to see a woman holding a golf club only GSL wouldn't need a gun to bring things to a favorable resolution...and neither did Bond, James Bond.

Today we want to acknowledge two fine examples of our mission by esteemed predecessors.

Canadian born Graydon Carter is Editor of Vanity Fair. GC's hair has always been a source of fascination for GSL. Why do these scanty locks merit so much primp? Does hairdresser require confidentiality agreement? I now admire his zeal in embracing this absurdity after discovering that he and the great Christopher Hitchens were longtime friends.
After Hitch's death, The Den loved how GC & VF paid him due respect.
Back when Graydon Carter was at Spy, he referred to Donald Trump as the "short-fingered vulgarian".
The Den's KGB mole sent us a pic from their Trump file of The Donald before being done up in the morning. Just look at those chubby little fingers.

We have noticed a correlation between under-endowed hands and a quest for global dominance.
American Man of Letters, Public Intellectual, and Feudist par excellence, Gore Vidal.

A young Teddy Kennedy.
Gore Vidal didn't much care for the Kennedys...especially Teddy Kennedy.

The years weren't kind were they. Gore Vidal famously referred to Teddy as "a 300 pound slab of condemned veal".
Leaving a girl to drown in a car you drove off a bridge will bring a future post on this unpunished piece of garbage.
The original 300 pound slab of condemned veal was silent movie star Fatty Arbuckle. Unlike Teddy, this slab had to face justice over a case involving a dead young woman but he was acquitted based on the evidence as apparently the woman died of  a ruptured bladder but Fatty's career was ruined and he had legal bills of over $700,000,,,,quite a sum for 1922.






12 comments:

  1. Great post GSL. Eunice was quite a honey, wasn't she. As someone who has been on the receiving line of your abuse for my love of cropped pants or capris (I do believe I have the leg length required to pull them off, btw), I know just how harsh you can be. I am still bruised by that post. In fact, I think I will *sniff* have a little cry, right into my martini...Shaken, not stirred, of course!x

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    1. My Poor Little Park Slope Street Tough,
      This abuse you snivel over fits in neatly into the category of 'chide' as cited above. This is a much coveted category btw as only GSL's faves are granted entry...however you may be only a '3zy ouch' away from 'mock'.

      We need to have a little talk over these Capri transgressions...over that martini...well shaken.

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  2. One of the delights of the day is dropping in to see GSL bon mot down the various vulgarians, presumptuans and proposterans of the world.

    Eternally fascinated and impressed,

    r

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    1. Thank you my dear Rachel. Your visits here are deeply appreciated.

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    2. THE HOUND lives. There's a quiet grace and gravity to his fierce dispatch of scoundrels. The way he dropped a thunderous knee at the voice of his King at the jousts, and did he plow through those rapely scroggitts to save Sansa, flinging right and left for the greater good, or with neglible reflex, like King Kong flicking away the pesky planes?

      Oh. Yeah. More to do, more to do.

      And covets of a glimpse of that fabulous CHILD mind. If you'd BOTH been in town, I'd have walked up in the snow.

      r

      r

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    3. My Dear Rachel,
      We were on different pages. After a google I see you meant that interesting sounding character from Game of Thrones which I've never seen (no TV) but heard good things about.
      I thought you were referring to The Hound of the Baskervilles.which Holmes & Watson brought to bloody heel.

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  3. The only thing I can think of properly to think of Graydon Carter is that he and Hitchens were such good confidents. Of Hitchens, I must say that he was a straight-up boss, beast, and baller.

    Regarding Gore Vidal, William F. Buckley said it best, “Now listen, you queer— stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered!”

    Finally, I will combine the two big boys, Teddy and Fatty, may they both rest in peace, and may they both answer, as we all must, for the deeds that they have done…

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    1. I'd love to chat up Graydon Carter one night over drinks. He was extremely anti-Bush/anti-Iraq War which nearly all media elites were yet he allowed Hitch a very significant forum to state his case. As you already know, Hitch and Dr. Johnson are my heroes who always spoke their minds with force fueled by a towering intellect and didn't care who they pissed off yet had friends who they had fundamental disagreements with.
      Gore Vidal was interesting and I think a little overrated. I love a good public feud between 2 intellectual heavyweights and Gore had many with Capote, Mailer, Buckley as you cite, and my boy Hitch.
      GF, as a WFB fan, you'd love the debate between Buckley and James Baldwin from the mid '60s at Oxford. It's fascinating to watch with both men giving a great account of themselves. Baldwin spoke first to a very warm and receptive crowd and to see that tiny little black man in this sea of the British upper crust who were pulling for him was unforgettable and then the overdog Buckley faced the impossible task of following the underdog who gave his all yet WFB dazzled speaking extemporaneously without a note (as did Baldwin). Baldwin won their hearts but Buckley won everything else.
      The little reading I did on Fatty suggests he really was innocent and got a bum rap. Teddy was just a piece of shit who made 17 collect calls to the family lawyer/fixer in Spain while that poor woman struggled mightily to fight herself out of that car over 2 hours after walking past a house with front porch light on lest anyone know of his involvement before he could have the evidence hidden.

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    2. Here is the link of that 1965 debate
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPz7kTnEWKE

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  4. Well I have been teased endlessly for my love of bows but no matter, all is fair when discussing frippery and silliness. Don't you love Graydon? Class act he is despite weird hair. Very Canadian too in the best sense, no-nonsense and with a strict allegiance to his own opinion.
    Oh gosh Teddy Kennedy, I always liked him physically because he is the spitting image of my dear Grandma, who recently passed-not kidding. She was Irish American so I always assumed it was genetic somehow. But that horrible night, really and he went on to be so loved in politics. Did he do a few good things at the end? Anything redeeming?
    Short fingered vulgarian- I had forgotten that line! I'll remind MrBP tonight as we watch the results roll in from Wisconsin. XO

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    1. Dani,
      The fabulous writer, Alice McDermott, (with your Irish family you will LOVE her 'Charming Billy') said there are 5 Irish faces and she is so right.
      I have a deep disdain for the Kennedy Men over how they treated women. Teddy in his later years would ask people if they knew any Chappaquiddick jokes. I used to cringe when he was referred to as 'The Lion of the Senate'. When he gave Obama his endorsement back in early 2008, I knew Hillary was toast...the Kennedys and Clintons don't like each other as Bill & Hill helped sabotage Caroline's Senate bid and one reason the NYTimes is anti-Hillary is due to Caroline's 'special relationship' with Mr. Sulzberger.

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    2. I need to throw 'Pack Drill Pammie' a bone with some red meat on it.
      http://www.inquisitr.com/16153/did-caroline-kennedy-withdraw-from-ny-senate-race-due-to-an-affair/

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