No Vidal Signs
(Props to Monty)
Gore Vidal, the cranky old bastard who haughtily deigned to pass judgment over the end of the American Empire, nay, of American civilization itself, has died of pneumonia at the age of 86. In pointing out the inferiority of everyone and everything around him, he was Andy Rooney with a better vocabulary and greater control over his eyebrows. His condescension is particularly galling given his obsession with celebrity and his life as a public figure. By his own admission, the only two things he never passed up an opportunity for were sex and appearing on television. For most, he is best known for his TV appearances, including a verbal tussle with Norman Mailer on The Dick Cavett Show and a series of brouhahas with “crypto-Nazi” William F. Buckley, who could only muster “you queer” in his response. He hated contemporary writers who dared to try to capture the stage he claimed as his own. At a party, a few months after Vidal compared him to Charles Manson in an essay, Mailer head butted Vidal, prompting Vidal to reply, “At a loss for words again, Norman?” He called the death of fellow writer/fame whore Truman Capote “a good career move.” Despite his firmly held belief that there was no human problem that could not be solved if people did as he said, the voters of New York and California disagreed, denying him a Congressional seat in 1960 and a Senate seat in 1982, respectively. He finally held semi-elected office, playing a Democratic Pennsylvania Senator who got the Karl Rove treatment in Bob Roberts. The academic equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain, Vidal claimed to have had 1,000 sexual encounters with both men and women by the age of 25, but he said he never slept with Howard Austen, his live-in companion of 53 years, which may explain his dour outlook on everything. While convinced of his own infallibility, the causes and people he championed – Ralph Nader, Timothy McVeigh, Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists, Dennis Kucinich – suggest a man more in love with controversy and contrarianism than a crusader for the truth.
Gore Vidal, the cranky old bastard who haughtily deigned to pass judgment over the end of the American Empire, nay, of American civilization itself, has died of pneumonia at the age of 86. In pointing out the inferiority of everyone and everything around him, he was Andy Rooney with a better vocabulary and greater control over his eyebrows. His condescension is particularly galling given his obsession with celebrity and his life as a public figure. By his own admission, the only two things he never passed up an opportunity for were sex and appearing on television. For most, he is best known for his TV appearances, including a verbal tussle with Norman Mailer on The Dick Cavett Show and a series of brouhahas with “crypto-Nazi” William F. Buckley, who could only muster “you queer” in his response. He hated contemporary writers who dared to try to capture the stage he claimed as his own. At a party, a few months after Vidal compared him to Charles Manson in an essay, Mailer head butted Vidal, prompting Vidal to reply, “At a loss for words again, Norman?” He called the death of fellow writer/fame whore Truman Capote “a good career move.” Despite his firmly held belief that there was no human problem that could not be solved if people did as he said, the voters of New York and California disagreed, denying him a Congressional seat in 1960 and a Senate seat in 1982, respectively. He finally held semi-elected office, playing a Democratic Pennsylvania Senator who got the Karl Rove treatment in Bob Roberts. The academic equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain, Vidal claimed to have had 1,000 sexual encounters with both men and women by the age of 25, but he said he never slept with Howard Austen, his live-in companion of 53 years, which may explain his dour outlook on everything. While convinced of his own infallibility, the causes and people he championed – Ralph Nader, Timothy McVeigh, Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists, Dennis Kucinich – suggest a man more in love with controversy and contrarianism than a crusader for the truth.
posted by The Grim Reaper at 10:18 PM
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