by Greg Gutfeld
Another question to ask: How do you think this cool pose is viewed by folks who escaped the real, authentic horror of dictatorships from hellholes in Africa or the entirety of Cuba?
How do you explain the praise heaped upon a man like Chávez, who controlled the media, banned free expression, and imprisoned those who spoke out against him? Do you think Penn, who loved to visit the despot, thought it was simply too rude to say something when he was there? As an invited VIP guest, he didn’t want to upset a famous friend? Do you think he knew those trips were prepared for him? These primitive attempts at Potemkin villages, where potholes and rocks were painted over to create a joyful facade over the country’s decrepitude? Do you think Penn knows what a Potemkin village is? He probably thinks it’s a retirement community in Florida (where Madonna is living).
Why do we have champions of tolerance asking that we tolerate those who traffic in intolerance? Wouldn’t it make more sense to salute those who challenge a man who attempts to monopolize the media, while nationalizing every industry he can get his grimy paws on? Isn’t that speaking truth to power? If Bush had done what Chávez had done, how quickly would these cool creeps be handcuffing themselves to the White House fence, spray painting their torsos with theater blood, the cocaine still searing the lining of their sinuses?
In truth, these apologists for evil are far from cool. They are losers, shams, frauds. Worst of all, they are predictable. The obvious hole in their respective souls drives them to embrace the world’s worst ghouls. If only to mask an unhappy reality: that they’re all just boring sacks of aging bones and irrelevant beliefs. As we all are. But at least most of us don’t fall in love with dictators.
At Hugo’s funeral, you saw Iran’s hirsute hothead Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shoulder to shoulder with our own Secretary of Stupid Sean Penn. Jesse Jackson also paid a visit, which seems odd, priority-wise, given the state of his family. But they all hit the same red carpet (fitting that it is red—as a tribute to the country’s murder rate). Maybe this will turn out to be an adult moment for America, when we stop and wonder if following the cool is the right thing to do. This naive embracing of anti-American bullies seems purely adolescent—a desire to thumb your nose at evil Daddy.
But while being callously cool means mourning the death of thugs and fraternizing with our country’s enemies, it also requires celebrating the death of someone great. Just weeks after Chávez, Margaret Thatcher died. Before the news sank in, the ghouls were already in the streets celebrating, in force. Impromptu street parties popped up in Glasgow and London, with drunken yobs stumbling through the streets, holding all kinds of sinister signs, rejoicing in the death of Maggie as they shat their pants. On Twitter, as always, the ghoulishness is amplified, because it’s anonymous and easy. When a British celebrity (a Spice Girl whose name escapes me, and probably her) expressed sorrow over Lady Thatcher’s demise, she was met with vile slurs (all of which rhymed with the word “bunt”). The second-most trending topic on Twitter was “no state funeral.” Amazing. From the very people who want the state to pay for everything else. If Churchill were alive, he’d slap somebody. Probably everybody.
But because the left thinks the right is evil, and they believe the prime minister is a monster, their vileness is sanctioned. Their ghoulishness is coolishness. Their celebration mimicked those in Libya after Gaddafi croaked. But the Bedouins had better hygiene.
When I looked at all the footage of the partiers in the streets, I could not help but notice that they were young. They had zits. And iPhones. These dolts were way too young to remember Thatcher, who was less a “warmonger” than the Austin Powers lookalike who came after her. All this vitriol was emanating from students—all stuck in that Hacky Sack socialist mind-set. The Daily Mail reported on the National Union of Students conference in Sheffield, where some delegates actually cheered when told of Thatcher’s death. I’m sure they were cheered, in turn, for their cheering. Then they went back to reading the Guardian in their underpants, listening to Moroccan Dubstep, and waiting for “Mum” to serve beans on toast.
So why such hate, from people who only knew Thatcher by grainy pictures of her in the paper? Well, if you swim in the sewer, you’re going to come out stinky.
And that’s your typical product of academia these days, soaking in a scholastic cesspool where the coolest thing you can do is crap all over the West and its glorious achievements. An anti-West relativism—that banal evil that infects every corner of your average campus—makes it totally acceptable to view Thatcher as just another Hitler. And to believe the West is no better than its enemies. For a cool student, hating America makes them cooler. It’s like saying you’re with the band. A shitty band. Think Maroon 5 with a better singer.
A MAGAZINE FOR MURDERERS
If only bin Laden had been younger and hotter. If only he’d had abs. Then Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, who put the Boston Bomber on the cover of his rag, might have done him first. But the Boston Bomber cover proved my book’s premise: The moral bankruptcy of the cool culture makes evil attractive and decency boring.
The cover featured the bomber as a delightful, doe-eyed ragamuffin. It was a shocking cover, in that you were shocked as to why a once-venerable publication would choose that picture—one that mocks the dead and their suffering families. I don’t think that’s the kind of “shock value” Wenner had in mind. For shock to have any “value,” it has to contain some truth. This was shock for shock’s sake—and its message seemed to be, “Look how cute this kid is. He can’t be that bad, can he?” If you didn’t read the article and just went by your gut response to the cover (revulsion), you’d be right and save yourself an hour.
But I read it anyway.
I do not subscribe to Rolling Stone, for I find it a sad, laughable shell of its original being. I used to adore the rag. The beautiful cover of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash adorned my teenage bedroom wall for years, until it evaporated into a desiccated shroud. When a favorite band made the cover, you were happy for the band and for yourself—because your tastes were validated. I felt the same way when they put Cheap Trick on the cover. But not when President Obama appeared. (I had no idea he was in a band!)
More recently, I would buy the magazine when I needed something to read on a flight. When zonked out on Xanax and a glass of wine, forking over five bucks for some inane editorial seemed entirely appropriate. The writing was as mushy as my brain matter. The magazine is so incredibly stupid that I need to be stupid to absorb it.
Now, however, I cannot look at the magazine without sensing a corpse. A dead, lifeless product. As I write this, Bob Dylan is on the cover. I cannot even look at it. And he’s a great man, with decades of great achievements behind him. He’s also a smart man, and I’d like to read what he’s thinking. The man loved Barry Goldwater for Chrissakes! But it doesn’t matter. I can’t get that bomber cover out of my head. And it’s not Bob’s fault. It’s Rolling Stone’s. I compare it to food poisoning. I used to love lamb kabobs. I’d get them before taping my late-night show. Then one night I got sick to my stomach. It might not have been the kabob’s fault. It could have been the quart of cough syrup. But I threw up so many times I could have qualified for Fashion Week. Once I recovered, I never had lamb again. That’s how it is with RS. They poisoned me once. Never again.
I am not saying I decided to boycott the mag. I hate boycotts. I stopped buying Rolling Stone because I decided I no longer wanted to contribute to an engine that elevates evil. Placing the bomber on the cover gave his fans something to frame. It awarded him the pinnacle of fame desired by so many losers today.
Which leads me to another reason why I no longer buy RS. They don’t want me to buy it. This is no epiphany, just a reminder that liberal magazine editors hate America. They think the rest of us are stupid, narrow-minded idiots who don’t understand the injustices of life. So if they put a bomber on the cover, and we don’t like it, it’s obviously our problem. They might express some regret over the fallou
t (and the millions of dollars lost from fleeing advertisers), but secretly that cover was a “fuck you” to everyone who doesn’t live on a coast or who thinks Sarah Palin is probably a decent chick.
The bomber cover, in all its glossy, curly-haired adorability, validated doorbell-ditch terror as an alternative path to stardom. To be a different kind of rock star. You can truly rock the world, with explosives. It used to be bad to “bomb” as an artist. Now the artist is the bomb. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an explosive talent, the kind that costs an arm and a leg.
For the purposes of a Five monologue, I read the entire cover story as research. And afterward, I threw up. But also, I sensed that those who defended the cover were way behind the times.
Their only real point was to show that terrorists no longer have to look like terrorists—they can look like members of One Direction, the latest incarnation of the ubiquitous, adored-by-millions boy band. (If you aren’t familiar with the band, they’re toothy lollipops with hairpieces.)
This idea—that evil can be elegant—was apparently a revelation for the magazine’s lame editorial staff. For the rest of us, it was old news. Come on. We’ve known since we were kids in Sunday school that bad can be beautiful. Many of Josef Mengele’s surviving victims described him as “handsome” and “distinguished.” It’s old news—evil comes in many forms. Including Rolling Stone.
Isn’t that the point of the whole Adam and Eve story? Eve chose a fruit, not a rutabaga. Had any of the RS editors heard of Pretty Boy Floyd? He had that name for a reason. He was pretty and boyish. Like an old-school Lena Dunham with a five o’clock shadow. And what of Ted Bundy? His aesthetically pleasing visage enabled him to rape and mutilate countless females. The idea that evil is always ugly is held only by the profoundly naive.
Perhaps the writer assumed all terrorists are homely. That seems a tad bigoted. Maybe it’s that prejudice that causes average-looking men to become terrorists!
Or maybe Middle Easterners just aren’t the writer’s type, but this Chechen bomber is. Perhaps she thought she might have a shot with him. He is single after all, and being in prison for the rest of his life means you’ll always know where he is. Not a bad catch for most RS editors (Jann included).
The real epiphany: By placing the bomber in a flattering light on their cover, they had inserted sickening evil into the clichéd “bad boy” mold. This “guy who makes your dad nervous” stereotype is the backbone for all stories on renegade rock stars and “unstable” actors and pop stars. We’ve seen this, from Brando to Bieber. Now, the pretty boy is a bomber. That’s what I would call a shift.
The RS piece on this punk broke less ground than a rubber shovel. The template for such pieces is this: [Insert name of artist] is so dark, so mysterious, so “other” … yet he’s also irresistibly sexy. His darkness invites you to know more about his secret torment, and his boyish good looks plead for your desire to connect. Maybe you could change him!
On The Five, I ran through a list of actual descriptors of the bomber, from the article. They included:
beautiful
tousle-haired
a gentle demeanor
soulful brown eyes
smooth
a golden person
pillow-soft
a great three-point shot
a diligent student
just superchill … really humble
girls went a little crazy over him
“so sweet. He was too sweet …”
Christ, this reads like the notes left from classmates in your freshman yearbook: “Jasmine, like U were so cool!!! XOXOXOX! Super meeting ya & can’t wait till we hook up over Summer! Let’s chill!”
When you run through those attributes, the article becomes more than a fantasy confessional. It was a pathetic plea for easy compassion from people who had little connection to the actual tragedy.
In sum, the writer devoted thousands upon thousands of words on a mass murderer. Because, in the hearts and minds of editors, he’s just more interesting than his victims. What can you say about the victims, other than, “It’s horrible they are dead”? But with the killer, you can go on, for, like, ever. More words have been devoted to the John Wayne Gacys of the world than the victims of such monsters. They’re cooler, editorially speaking. No wonder the networks are flooded with shows about brooding, complicated serial killers. They’re so … deep.
Which is why this article will generate more marriage proposals from women than a seventy-five-year-old chain-smoker winning the lottery.
I wonder if she would have described the bomber in similar terms if he had been a member of the Tea Party. (The profound idiot David Sirota actually pleaded for the bomber to be a white right-winger. I felt bad for his therapist when it didn’t happen.)
If Tsarnaev had been a Tea Partier, you can bet Cher’s tapeworm that the story would have been treated differently. Instead of being about the bomber, it would have been about how this right-wing bomber represents a greater, more destructive movement growing within America. But because he’s actually an Islamist, he’s treated like an anomaly, a mysterious aberration one must analyze with thought and feeling. If he had been a Tea Partier, though, he would have been a symbol of so many like him that lurk in every Walmart aisle. He would represent the Republican Party, the viewers of Fox News, or anyone who didn’t vote for Barack Obama. He would be me, after four drinks.
Some people admired the detail (which passes for journalism these days at Rolling Stone) found in the piece, and I don’t deny its meticulous devotion to adjectives. But it camouflaged the real point of the article: how modern corrosive pop culture can soften evil through the easy prism of cool. Good versus evil becomes irrelevant as long as you master the look of cool. If you’re cute and dangerous, those evil deeds you perform become secondary. Blown limbs are no match for blown hair. Too bad Nidal Hasan didn’t look like Russell Brand. Jann would have done a centerfold. Even more, if you’re a mediocre musician with no buzz but great cheekbones, maybe terror beats giving guitar lessons to middle-aged accountants in your rented basement apartment.
This kind of thinking survives as long as the cool’s own, comfy survival is not under threat. If the Rolling Stone offices had been the target of bombing, would they have put such an adoring photo on their cover? If a majority of their staff had lost their arms and legs, would they still have had the heart to do such a thing? Something tells me the cover would have been a graphic depiction of their blown-out, blood-spattered offices. But since they were not targeted, they embraced the lilting, longing look of the perpetrator and his troubling dissatisfaction with life in America. You could never do that if your underlings—those employees required to put out the rag—were currently being fitted for prosthetics.
Lucky for editors of pop culture rags, terrorists never target their admirers. They know better. Even evil knows the negative value of bad PR.
And it is that knowledge that allows evil, in all its forms, to persist. Cool, by definition, exists as opposition to the boring, an antidote to the traditional things we’ve been instructed by the superficial coolies are laughable. It’s something Rolling Stone has trafficked in for decades. It’s better to be bad and cool than good and uncool.
And in the case of the Boston Bomber, they revealed such ideology for all to see. It diminishes the impact of suffering of others, in the service of succulent novelty. The cool does not provide an excuse for evil; it gives it a bistro to relax and execute its plans.
When you have enablers of evil like RS willingly playing the dupe, you realize how far the cool have come in pushing for our own, inevitable demise.
Rolling Stone has shown us that the philosophy of cool is no longer cool. We have found them out. We’re on to their game and are tired of a scam that sees suffering as a collateral prop for a vacuous ideology. We are no longer suckers for a nice picture. And we have better things to do with our money than spend it on a rag that seeks to explain away evil.
Me, I’m getting a subscri
ption to Cat Fancy. When was the last time a cat blew up anything?
But Rolling Stone isn’t the only guilty party that romanticizes evil. Turn the page, and you’ll find enough to fill a marathon. (That’s called a tease, people.)
SONNETS FOR TSARNAEV
It is the terror that dares you not to speak its name. Yet radical Islam screams it, over and over and over again, often before open firing. It’s just that our media, our academics, our politicians refuse to hear it. To the cowardly cool, terror is just two words: Timothy McVeigh.
Who commits most acts of terror these days? Better not ask that, for you will find the answer to who bombed Boston faster than anyone else (certainly faster than the FBI). And be labeled a bigot faster than Phil Robertson at a GLAAD rally. Better to speculate about everything but the radical Muslim elephant in the room.
When terror struck the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, the cool sentiment from the cool jackasses in the media and beyond spewed forth like raw sewage—linking the attack to anything but the most obvious truths. Their initial response to terror: to go after people you disagree with politically.
We saw that on April 15, when a slew of journalists, among them Chris Matthews and Nicholas Kristof, did exactly that. (Kristof at least apologized for initially blaming Republicans for the bombing; maybe his bosses at the New York Times thought that was too much even for them.) One anchor named after a wild canine initially linked the bombing to Tax Day; a fat celebrity snidely put it on the Tea Party. And there were those who openly prayed that the killers would be white Americans. At a certain point, even if you get paid to pontificate, you might want to just hold your tongue for maybe a day or so. Or better, a decade or two.