Ten days before he died, I met Robert Altman at a party in New York for his friend Gore Vidal’s new book. I was on a couch and he was in an armchair when a friend started telling him how much Nashville had meant, how it had defined the spirit of that era. Altman looked at her and nodded once, but didn’t want to play. He was too wise, or ironical. He wanted to talk about real stuff now, about having to go to the doctor 15 times a week and about the big problem with old age being to figure out what to do with yourself. When I said he could chase girls, he said, “Oh you can do that, but the only problem is what if you catch one.”
He had a wry smile and I got to teasing him. “How often have you gone to a party and met someone and said, ‘I really like that guy’s energy, I got to have him in my next film?’”
“Never.”
“Come on Bob, work with me. Where do you want the sideburns? Here or here?”
He laughed. “I got something for you—you can be a driver.”
Now when I read the obits I see the guy I met that night, someone natural and warm and sly, who didn’t take himself too seriously.
It seems to me that on the rare occasions when little Phil strays from his usual discourse on the evil machinations of Israel specifically and World Jewry in general his columns raise putrid, turgid, pathetic,writing to a whole new level. And I don't think that this is in dispute. It's only when he recycles his columns from the IHR, ISM, and Al Jazeera that he raises things up to the level of Der Strumer. But at lerast that's fun to read on a whole new level of pathetic discourse
Mr. Pearlman, on-line you are pathetic on every occasion and hence no doubt in real life. This is an ad-hominem remark.
Phil
Your comments to Altman are sly and funny–"Come on Bob, work with me."
Good stuff.
Robert Hume, tell me where I'm wrong. Give me one Phil ( I like to lick the boots of the Arabs and thank them afterwards ) Weiss literary gem that is not some level of the Elders of Zion mixed up with the Merchant of Venice. When he gets off that these columns are an amazing compilation of inane discourse. At least when he is on the Jews and Israel kick he has a point of view, destory Israel and leave the Jews at the mercy of the Jihad which means a second holocaust. But at least everybody understands that. What about the rest of these writings
Mr. Weiss,
In effect you're being stalked. I think you should have a word with your webmaster – see if it isn't possible to get the cyberspace equivalent of a court order – to keep him away from this website. I.E., there must be a technical solution. Perhaps one whereby his comments appear on his screen when he pulls in your website, but none of the rest of us have to see them. Sort of like putting the phone down – putting it down but not hanging up – when a telemarketer phones. Leaving him to blab away to no one at all. With the meter running on his phone bill and his time "bill". The which is a public service because it means he's got less time to cold call other people. It's a win win win. Except for the stalker.
Mr. Weiss,
In effect you're being stalked. I think you should have a word with your webmaster – see if it isn't possible to get the cyberspace equivalent of a court order – to keep him away from this website. I.E., there must be a technical solution. Perhaps one whereby his comments appear on his screen when he pulls in your website, but none of the rest of us have to see them. Sort of like putting the phone down – putting it down but not hanging up – when a telemarketer phones. Leaving him to blab away to no one at all. With the meter running on his phone bill and his time "bill". The which is a public service because it means he's got less time to cold call other people. It's a win win win. Except for the stalker.
there are many ways to stop McCarthys. One is a question:
Have you got any decency left?
We can laugh hard at the bitter desparate mental terrorists on both sides of the divide.
Steve, one word: Venona.
A day will come when someone will receive the mission of cleansing the american government of it's israeli operatives. Will you laugh hard at him?
Weiss is a crappy journalist, the bloggers are letting him know this.
Craig, you're like the Phil Weiss of technology- blabbing away about things that you don't know about…
Bob: Weiss is a crappy journalist, the bloggers are letting him know this.
Weiss is a far more sophisticated writer than his ideological critics. That's why they cann't understand him. Their Israel-first ideology has made them blind to the truth and oblivious to sophisticated cultural commentary. Culturally speaking, Phil's critics are tone deaf and color-blind.
Gene,
couldn't agree more. I would also argue that their tactics are self-defeating.
Here is some food for thought for them:
Real friends to a man are only those who are willing to stand up to him and criticize him when he goes too far. Real friends are not the ones who always tell one how great he is and how he can never err. And this is the case with Israel today. All those who give their unconditional support to Israel trying to suppress any good-willed criticism are not doing Israel any favor. They forget that there can't be a future for Israel when the policies it follows bring so much hatred around it and at the same time isolate it in the international community. Israel cannot live in a vacuum, in a fishbowl all by itself; it has to find a way to live peacefully on this planet as a nation among nations. And that means that first and foremost, it has to deal with the religious fanatics in its midst and the secular fanatics in the US, otherwise their shortsightedness will be its downfall.
"Give me one Phil ( I like to lick the boots of the Arabs and thank them afterwards ) Weiss literary gem that is not some level of the Elders of Zion mixed up with the Merchant of Venice"
Yup, you got it right. Everytime I come here, the first thing I say is, wow, is this guy channeling Shakespeare and the Okhrana or what?
Put down the bong, Pearlman.
interesting.
the pink broadsheet gave michener the altman piece.
little philly weiss got the blog.