Haha, it sounds like dialogue from The Californians on SNL. Which is apt because Ellis proudly identifies as Dumb-Californian. Which I’m sure he thought was wittily ironic (“I’m secretly smart!”) but the unironic truth is ge really is just that. Not all Californians are dumb, far from it, but Ellis really is a clich…

That man has played in the shallow end of the public intellectual pool since Bennington College. He wants to be Gore Vidal v.2.0 in the eyes of the public without doing any of the actual work of thinking hard and long on politics and society.

Isaac Chotiner has really been on fire lately with his interviews. It’s like he sees there’s a spot in the market to sop ftaffing and ask people to their faces about dicks statements and behaviors, it’s kind of enjoyable. Like with Donna Brazile (who fended him off, got a bit ruffled at the questions but it ended…

Agree. And watch, the Daily Mail hate-commenters will be furious that she’s keeping the birth private. Just as they’d be furious if she shared the details publicly. She just cannot win with that bunch, they’re unhinged.

It’s long been a class thing, looking down on “ethnic” New York accents. And particularly at the Times, staffed by Ivy grads and many not from NYC, they find an accent like Bernie’s amusing, and it gives them more shallow stupid things to write about. “Forget what he’s saying, that accent is a hoot, I say!”.  It’s…

Please see my larger response in this thread if you wish, expressing how Ken Burns might not be a Southerner, but the greatest propagandist the Confederacy ever had.  

Why does Ken Burns seem to have such gigantic sympathies for the South and the Confederate Cause though? I grew up in NY and had friends who went South and went native there, in the white Southerner sense. But really enjoying smoking pot at all times, plus recreational guns. Which is ok, they were very responsible…

Ha. Documentaries take such big chunks of time and life and it really was a trying, hard and painful and difficult damned thing to do. Aren’t we glad Jenny Livingston did? I sure am. But she created a great thing that captured a moment and social space and time as best as she could. I’m grateful for that.

Ah!  My mistake and mis-remembering.  Apologies, thanks for the correction. 

“(Moss is) right in maintaining that the conversation is a complex one that can’t be distilled down to a single answer during an interview about something entirely separate.”

Because of theis FX show was reading more about Fosse, and didn’t know that his Sweet Charity was such a bomb in 1968. Cost $20 million but only made $8 million back, and Shirley MacLaine replaced Gwen Verdon in the role she originated. The dance sequences by Fosse remain great.

I’ve read that Feud is sort of defunct since Ryan Murphy’s gone to wallow in cash at Netflix. I had the impression that Murphy was involved in this Fosse/Verdon thing, but that seems to be incorrect. Murphy has a real talent for cool topics that interest me, but with everything he does, it goes off the rails more…

Travolta’s almost always turned me off, but with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, you could easily see why he became a star. He had moves.

I had no idea it was shot over 7 years.

Here’s my suggested script: “Claire, if you really insist I take this home with me, how about I’ll keep it unopened until you and Tom come over.

This sounds really great and interesting. A lot of us studied the War of Northern Aggression (LOL and cough and JK and I’m from the Bronx) in school, and not anywhere near enough about the aftermath. A very worthy topic.

Yeah, cool. At least Swalwell has principles, he’s been on TV constantly for the past year about the actual real thing of Russian interference in the 2016 election. No, Barr’s hall pass doesn’t make the Mueller Report go away. And you were dying to say “another white guy”, weren’t you?

Imagine a British comedy sketch with the premise: “wow US Democrats sure do hate Trump’s wall i bet that makes him sad how do they keep their roofs up if they hate walls so much lol”, and you have an idea of how wrongheaded that Theresa May sketch was.

The point of the brief late gentle sketch was imagining how much it must verily fucking suck to be Theresa May right now, from her point of view. That’s all. It doesn’t exonerate her or blame her or get deep in fucking weeds of Brexit because that wasn’t the point of this tiny SNL sketch I thought was reasonably well…

Yes and yes, and I like your thoughts and what you said. this place used to be teeming with smart funny people talking about culture and cool shows or a hundred other odd things, books we read (whatever happened to book review here?) Not necessarily politics, but of course that seeps into everything. And I’m…