My friend, Jerry Falwell

[Abdul Alhazred]

Guess who has a good word for Jerry. Just guess.

My friend, Jerry Falwell (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-flynt20may20,0,2297247.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail) (Los Angeles Times)

:D

[Listener]

The week after a guy dies is a great time to have a "good word" to say about him!

[Abdul Alhazred]

Not everyone was so forgiving. I know I wasn't.

Maybe it's the "brotherhood" of show-biz?

[inland wave]

That is a very interesting read. Tbanks for sharing.

[The Lone Ranger]

Not everyone was so forgiving. I know I wasn't.

Maybe it's the "brotherhood" of show-biz?

That's the thing. Every now and then you read about "show business" people who, based on their public claims, should despise each other, yet turn out to be friends. For instance, Bill Maher and Ann Coulter are supposedly friends. Based on what they say in public, you'd think they couldn't get within 100 feet of each other without each of them attempting to rip the other's throat out. So how can they be friends?


It seems that a likely explanation is that one or both of them doesn't really believe what (s)he is saying, and that the public persona is just an act. Does Coulter really believe all the idiotic things she says? It seems difficult to believe she could possess enough functioning brain cells to be capable of operating a word processor and yet believe the things she says.

So, it's probably an act on her part. She's just saying things that she knows will get her attention -- and, therefore, money -- and whether what she's saying might be either true or false is utterly irrelevant to her. The point is to get attention and money, not to tell people the truth -- if lying is the most effective way to achieve her goals, then so be it.

So, it's easy to see why someone like Maher could like and respect her as a "fellow artist," even if he vehemently disagrees with her public persona. Maybe they get together for the occasional beer and laugh as they count their money and ask each other, "Does anyone actually believe any of that crap?".


Flynt hinted at something similar when he pointed out that he and Falwell were both selling products. As such, they could respect, even like each other. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Falwell couldn't possibly have cared less about whether or not someone was gay, for example, but ranted about the "Evil Homosexshuls" for no other reason than that he knew it'd get him lots of attention and money.


As such, maybe Flynt and Falwell simply viewed each other as fellow salesmen, each trying to sell his product to a different (in theory, anyway) segment of society. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they'd gotten together to discuss business strategy every so often.



Of course, I'm not sure which is more reprehensible -- that Falwell believed the hateful things he said, or that he was simply saying the things he did in order to cynically manipulate people's baser instincts for his own political and monetary gain.


***

Or perhaps Larry Flynt is really just a class act, who genuinely believes that everyone's basically decent at heart. How he reconciles that with the hateful things Falwell said and did, I don't know -- but maybe he's taking a wider view; after all, it's not like history hasn't provided us with plenty of examples of people doing terrible things in the belief that they were actually doing good.

Maybe Flynt believes that Falwell was basically a decent person, but horribly misguided. Somehow, though, it's hard to believe Flynt is quite that much of a Pollyanna.

Cheers,

Michael

[godfry n. glad]

As such, maybe Flynt and Falwell simply viewed each other as fellow salesmen, each trying to sell his product to a different (in theory, anyway) segment of society. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they'd gotten together to discuss business strategy every so often.

Yeah...This is where I'd go with it. Like the lobbyists that get together for coffee, or drinks, in Thanks For Smoking. They each realize that the other has product which "sells". Professional courtesies of mutual recognition of that fact, as it were. In that bidness, Flynt's bidness, there is no such thing as bad publicity. It worked for Falwell, too.

[Angakuk]

I don't know which would make my skin crawl worse, being called a friend by Jerry Falwell or Larry Flynt. Fortunately, I have never made the acquaintance of either gentleman.

[Dingfod]

So you can still say you've never met a man you didn't like?

[Angakuk]

Unfortunately, no. I can only say that I have never met those two particular men that I don't like.