Really, some of my best friends are publicists.

[Rich Engle]

I figure since OL is back up, and I was trolling around for a quick topic, I'd pick on my beloved James Valliant, author of PARC. Today he threw up a rather lengthy blast about the Mel Gibson fiasco, it is here:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/1338

I'm not (yet) going to get into what I find to be his rather, er, broad approach to hermenutics, because it really doesn't cut to the bone as far what it takes to locate motivation. Were he to challenge me, I might, but I am considering a pretty sweet offer I was just pitched to sportswrite boxing matches, and, honestly, that would be more fun than spending time with my online Bible utility just for the sake of tearing him a new asshole.

It could be done, though. Volunteers? I see easy pickin's here, boys and girls, even for convinced atheists.

What's really going on inside Captain V. in this? Simple, really. For one, long ago he announced that his next opus (perhaps his Opus Magnus?) was going to be a blisteringly thorough treatment of the New Testament, so it is no suprise that he uses Mel Gibson's little faux pas as a convenient entree.

Pragmatically speaking, I don't give much of a fuck about what comes out of Hollywood people, because they are, in general, boobies whenever they work outside of their primary job description. Given that mindset, I would never mount a lengthy article about Gibson and how he pisses off Jews. The article would be too short for even a decent paragraph. Here, let's try...

"Mel Gibson is a good actor. He is also a rather over-zealous Catholic. His father is a whack job, and a Jew hater. Unsuprisingly, this carried over, and with latency. Also, Mel Gibson is a big, powerful, rich studly type, and a known drunk. Recently, he fucked up and got caught."

To get into this story, you go there. The other place you go involves talking about how Gibson was street-savvy as Hell when he did The Passion of the Christ, in the form of directing it and marketing it to a large block; namely, Fundamentalist drones and their flocks. That was delivered with amazing flair. Of course, on the other hand, all you had to do was run reverse demographics- find the kinds of a-holes that picket films like "The Excorcist," or anything with fucking in it, and lay in. You could even talk about how it wasn't brave at all to roll out "Brokeback Mountain," because PC behavior overrides homophobia when you're running a marketing matrix.

There, that should do it. I mean, he really lost perspective; he lost the fact that if you get pulled over because you're weaving around like an a-hole, on the whole most good cops will do their job, even if you are Braveheart. Worse still, any seasoned party animal with multiple convictions would know that asking a cop if he is a Jew or not is, perhaps, not the best icebreaker out there. But such is the nature of head-bloated actors, who suddenly become convinced that their skills in front of a camera equal being anything else. Are there exceptions? Of course. Mel Gibson is not, and that's that. Mel Gibson couldn't make an intelligent post on a philosophical forum, for instance, and I'll put money down on that.

But back to Valliant. Valliant is previewing his scary-bad Bible chops, and basically saying that the reason Mel Gibson did an ass-wipe thing is because of the Bible, if not Christianity on the whole.

He hasn't decloaked and thrown down a substantial forum article in months, if ever, and then you have this.

Mel Gibson bad, Bible bad, Christianity bad. Okey dokey. The rest of it is about as meaningful as a Hostess Snowball, washed down with warm, cheap beer.

It will be met with accoloades by the Ortho-rank/file O-curmudgeons, because it is an attack on religion. It always works, just like when a wedding band whips out the Electric Slide when they're on the gig.

And for that, I respect Valliant. I always have in that way because I am in the business of entertaining audiences, I know the easiest ways to get them worked up. At this, Valliant is proficient, just as he is in his endless, shameless self-promotion, and that's a virtue when you're in the business of pulling the string in front of the cat, and shearing the sheep. Valliant is an entertainer of a niche audience, and I'm totally down with his kung fu.

Do I think his startling, revealing, debunking Bible book will mean jack-squat? It doesn't matter! Quite frankly, I don't know why he even bothered with PARC, but I can relate- it was a test flight, it was a puppet show performance before going to live theater.

Edited August 2, 2006 by Rich Engle