I didn't claim everything he's ever said is a lie. He's known to often say "words fail me" which is true but in all fairness to words, he failed them first.
As to why I address him. He has been a smearing me at Duncan Black's blog for more than five years as an anti-Semite, when I've challenged him to quote what I said that is anti-Semitic he can't come up with any actual quotes, he just repeats the lies. There isn't anything he's ever said that is interesting or important so if it weren't for that or other lesser lies he tells about me I'd probably never acknowledge his existence. Or Duncan's. I wasted a lot of time there, though never as much after 2006 as before then. Lots of people had noted that he was going through the motions and the comments were a waste of time even before then. I guess Duncan likes it that way, as long as he makes money off of it.
As to why Simps hates me, don't know, don't care.
Update: I don't know who he was and I don't care. I don't remember Simps going into histrionic paroxysms of feigned grief when Mulgrew Miller died, and he was a lot younger. Not to mention such people as Geri Allen.
Update 2: He's gone all Margaret Dumont over me not knowing some pop musician who died at the age of 68. He's such a cheap ham
Apparently it's not sunk in to Simps that people die. You'd think he might want to think about that at his age. It's pretty funny how the atheists of Eschaton go on about people dying at even extremely old ages as well as those which fall well within the average life span, they're the ones who say we can't face mortality. I learned, when my second nephew died in his thirties that at my age I've got nothing to complain about if I die tonight, this close to three score and ten.
Hey, Simps, people die. I faced that fact when I was 16, sitting in a study hall and I suddenly started laughing because I realized that nothing I did was going to prevent me from dying someday and I should just accept it. Face it. You won't get so bummed out about it when people die from natural causes. It's the ones who don't die of natural causes that are worth getting bummed out over.
Update 3: He's stunned and outraged that I got his age wrong, he died at 71, not 68. The outrage is feigned, the stunned is his natural state.
Update 4: Simps is whining about this non-exchange at Duncan's blog. He was asked why I call him "Simps" by someone who said it was the equivalent of calling Bruce Springsteen "The Boss" - obviously Simps isn't the only simp at Eschaton. Simps answered that I think it makes him look stupid. Oh dear, with a set up like that how can I keep myself from pointing out that he makes himself look stupid by saying stupid stuff. Hey, Simps, when I said you'd gone all Dumont I didn't expect you to prove it by giving me a line like that. Only she understood the comedy she played that role in, you don't
Some of Duncan's regulars call his regular commentators "the brain trust". Yes, they really do. "Brain trust".
ASK HIM ABOUT KENT STATE!
ReplyDelete"she understood the comedy she played that role in"
ReplyDeleteYou're an ignoramus. If you knew anything about film history or the Marx Brothers, you'd know that Margaret Dumont was legendary for never having gotten any of the jokes in their movies. Groucho, who liked her anyway, was very explicit on this subject.
"Legendary" that would be something untrue believed on the basis of conventional assertion, as in the kind of thing that uncritical non-thinkers such as yourself believe comprise wisdom.
DeleteGroucho isn't the most reliable of witnesses on that matter, it is Margaret Dumont, herself, who gave a rather good explanation of her role in delivering the straight lines and intuiting the timing of her responsibility as the straight woman to not talk over the laugh. No one could have done it as well as she did while being as stupid as Groucho claimed she was. She obviously wasn't. She obviously understood what she was doing or it would not have worked.
" No one could have done it as well as she did while being as stupid as Groucho claimed she was"
ReplyDeleteOh. So Groucho is unreliable on the subject of the Marx Brothers movies? Then we can dismiss Darwin's kids similarly.
In any case, you know nothing about acting or actors. As I said, you're an ignoramus.
A. Groucho's reliability on the matter of Margaret Dumont's performance is not as high a Margaret Dumont's. If she had not understood the joke she couldn't have a. given as good an explanation of her performance as she did, b. done it as well as she did.
DeleteDarwin's sons testimony on their father's thoughts and thinking are not as high as Charles Darwin's, himself, but they are higher than the claims of anyone who didn't know them as intimately as they did. The entire, post-WWII St Darwin industry has not got the credibility on that matter that they did, especially as their assertions are backed up by what Darwin, himself, said in On the Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, other, sundry scientific publications and his own letters.
Groucho wasn't nearly as intimately connected with Margaret Dumont as Darwin's children were to him. And by the time I heard him comment on Dumont's awareness his own competence was doubtful. The last interview I heard with him he was still charming and somewhat witty but, I believe, his own son and daughter had doubts about his mental health. No one I've ever encountered - other than some online atheists - ever called Charles Darwin's competence, right up till the time of his death, into question.
For you that wouldn't be an issue as you've obviously never had what you'd need to lose to have that judgement made about you.
The tendency to not believe women is strong...
DeleteAs I said, you know nothing about actors or acting. If you did, you'd know that is quite possible to have natural comic timing and still be thick as a brick and not get the jokes.
ReplyDeleteSimps, I'm a musician, I know more about timing than you ever could.
DeleteNo one could have had the timing and delivery of Margaret Dumont did without understanding the joke. Groucho was not the final word on that, she is.
And I’m a musician and an acting major.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, you know nothing about acting or actors.
You're a failed actor, apparently. I've heard a bit of your music, as a musician you're a failed actor.
DeleteYou're a major example of the folly of peer promotion. I've also seen your idea of thinking, you apparently never tried it.
BTW, I actually played Groucho onstage, so I guarantee I know more about this shit than you ever will.
ReplyDeleteWhat a stupid claim. "I played Groucho". Yeah, that means you know more about Margaret Dumont's acting than she did. Apparently Young Dr. Kildare operated on your brain.
DeleteBTW, where’s that recording of you guesting with the NY Philharmonic? Because as far as we know know, you’re just a piano teacher in the boonies.
ReplyDelete"guesting with the NY Philharmonic"
DeleteAre you really comparing your star turn doing a Groucho Marx imitation in some college production (Who played Margaret Dumont in it, Simps?) to someone playing with the NYP? Your ego must be as Trumpian as Trump's, remembering that "trump" means "fart" in Brit slang.
So it’s true — you’re a piano teacher in the boonies.
ReplyDeleteI.e., a failed musician.
I still get paid to play. When's the last time anyone paid you to act?
DeleteI get paid to write. And have been since 1973. Acting was never my first career choice. You have to hang out with actors.
ReplyDeleteGot paid for playing music a lot, though.
That wasn't your claim, you claimed that you knew that Margaret Dumont didn't understand the jokes she performed as a near perfect straight woman in on the basis of your being a theater major and having done some bogus imitation of Groucho Marx.
ReplyDeleteWell, they pay for crap writing and they pay for crap music, though I doubt you made anywhere near as much as I have from it.
You didn't answer me about who played Margaret Dumont in your star turn. Was there a Margaret Dumont role in it? Of was it that review with just the Marx bros in it? Was it the one that got sued when they produced it on a real stage?
Actually, if you watch some of the early Marx Bros. stuff, she steps on his lines more than you’d expect.
ReplyDeleteGood heavens, Simps, I saw every one of them, most of them several times. She didn't step on a line once. Groucho Marx probably couldn't take that so much of his success depended on a woman who was good enough that she was hired to work with him on about half a dozen movies.
DeleteShe'd had her own career as a comic actress way before she started working with the Marx brothers. And she explained the comic technique behind her playing a straight woman perfectly.
“I’m not a stooge, I’m a straight lady—the best in Hollywood. There is an art to playing the straight role. You must build up your man but never top him, never steal the laughs.” — Margaret Dumont in 1937, discussing A Day at the Races
And as Sister Celluloid put it in her excellent blog post:
"In deriding Dumont as dumb and haughty—even pathetic—Groucho was giving himself full marks as the brains behind their comic chemistry. After all, you can’t get credit for something you don’t know you’re doing. But in comedy, timing and rhythm are everything—and if you don’t get the gags, you’ll be hopeless on both counts. So why would the Marx Brothers use someone so clueless in seven films? And why would just about every other comedian in Hollywood snap her up as well?
Because she knew exactly what she was doing, that’s why. If her character had appeared to get the jokes—if they hit her smack in the face rather than gliding over her carefully coiffured head—they wouldn’t work at all; they’d just seem cruel. (How could we ever root for Groucho if he said something like, “I can see you right now in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove. But I can’t see the stove!” to a woman who knew what he meant?)"
You just don't get women.
What you know about women is what you know about straight guys, the Beatles, standup comedy, Jews, acting and film history, I.e. absolutely zilch.
ReplyDeleteYou keep telling yourself that, Simps, it will make you feel superior and keep you from facing the truth that you're a putz.
DeleteGo tell the women of Eschaton that your knowledge of women is comprehensive.
I wonder what Echidne would think of what you said. You know the woman who asked me to write for her feminist blog.
Says the schmuck who told QL he was the real feminist.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm the guy who never said that and said that if QL said that she's a fucking liar.
DeleteThank you General Kelly.
ReplyDeleteWell, Dopey, we established a long time ago that you're a fucking liar.
DeleteYou saying QL has the cred of Congresswoman Frederica Wilson? Nuh,uh. Not close. No one at Duncan's Den of Mendacity does.