Monday, April 14, 2014

What The Hell Is Wrong With Old Men?

Commenter Lindyhop* asked:
Lindyhop said...
What the hell is wrong with old men? Why are they such insufferable pricks?
April 14, 2014 at 1:26 AM
My starting answer/offer is a Max von Sydow monologue from Woody Allen's "Hannah And Her Sisters" (You can listen to the clip/rant here, but I can't embed it).
You missed a very dull TV show on Auschwitz. More gruesome film clips, and more puzzled intellectuals declaring their mystification over the systematic murder of millions. The reason they can never answer the question ‘How could it possibly happen?’ is that it’s the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is ‘Why doesn’t it happen more often?’
You see the whole culture — Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, talk shows. Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling? But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.
Answer how a man can get like that, and you'll have your answer, Lindyhop.*
______________________
*Is that you, Inga?

80 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Both old women and old men are insufferable pricks.

My 87 year old mother explained this to me quite eloquently:

I can say whatever the hell I want to say! What in the hell are they going to do? Kill me?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I remember those scenes.

He played a painter. - "I don't sell my work by the yard" he said to a wealthy prospective client.

Mumpsimus said...

I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but the Max von Sydow character in that movie was just plain brilliant.

(Woody lifted that line about Jesus throwing up from Holden Caulfield: I said old Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it.)

rcommal said...

Oh, Christ On A Crutch, chickenlittle. I linked that scene years ago, a whole number of times, long ago online, a whole number of times.

Yes, I did.

Now, you find it to be apropos and comforting. And no doubt you also think it a way to separate folks.

I call...

(throwing up)

rcommal said...

I get what you've been saying to the likes of me.

; )

rcommal said...

Still.

MamaM said...

Re: Still

That's one gigantic collar, rcommal!

rcommal said...

If only it were possible to post online a link to the Psychodots' "I See Thru You." But it is not.

Hard to shrug off a collar that's in-homing as well. The thing is, I'm not trying to shrug that off.

rcommal said...

anymore

rcommal said...

helluva thing, innit?

Unknown said...

Only the lonely... can play

Michael Haz said...

Not sure that I understand the subtlety of linking to an infomercial about walk-in bathtubs. Does it mean that walk-in bathtubs are something Mick Jagger is now old enough to need?

I can understand that, as mock is but seven years my senior.

deborah said...

I don't think Inga would bother to speak as a sockpuppet.

Michael Haz said...

That should have been Mick, not mock.

Michael Haz said...

Lindyhop's use of words sounds like AA more than anyone else.

The Dude said...

There you go - that was my first thought, too.

Mock Jagger? Who doesn't?

deborah said...

Would AA lower herself and come here?

"What the hell is wrong with old men? Why are they such insufferable pricks?"

On the other hand, she did call Pogo, who is ten years her junior, an old man. Maybe someone wants us to think it's her.

bagoh20 said...

"What the hell is wrong with old men?"

The same thing you hated about them when they were young. They aren't women.

Aridog said...

Anyone who openned the link to "Lindyhop" saw my answer.

As for whether "she" could be TOP's hostess or Inga...who cares?

I'd be amused to find that either of those 60+ year old women call men
"old."

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Both old women and old men are insufferable pricks.

MOST older people have learned a few things in their lives. Have seen things. Have associated with many kinds of people and been exposed to many different viewpoints over their lives. They have changed from the insufferable little pricks they were when they were younger and have matured into older pricks. People like AA have lived in a bubble for most of their lives and have not experienced much and are living in a delusional world cast in amber.

Old people don't have the time or patience to deal with the idiocy and misplaced idealism of the Occupy types of youths and REALLY don't have the patience or desire to deal kindly with the retarded adults.

So if we come off as pricks.....Well...I agree with ST Mother. What are you going to do. Take away my birthday? When I get to be 87 (I don't want to live that long) I will be even worse than I am now. AND will revel in it.

Unknown said...

Igna likes to collect sock puppets. There was a huge list on one of TOPs comment blocks. (ugh - I wish I would have cut and paste it) So - even if it's not her, the problem is we will think it's her anyway. Esp with the trademark drive by droppings.

I like older men. They are often very sexy.

Aridog said...

DBQ for the thread win!!

OTOH..I of course am becoming more open minded and genteel...bwahahahaha.

chickelit said...

rcommal said...
Oh, Christ On A Crutch, chickenlittle. I linked that scene years ago, a whole number of times, long ago online, a whole number of times.

I'm sorry I didn't find a better version of the clip, r,l. But it did focus on von Sydow in a different way, no?
He's still around, too. He's always seemed really old to me, ever since I can remember. Maybe it was the premature shades of gray.

Michael Haz said...

Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty four?

William said...

I'm an old man. I do nothing but suffer.......Max Von Sydow sounds like a jerk. Deodorant commercials and crooked preachers aren't so bad. People rarely drown in such flotsam. It's artists such as the Sydow character that you have to watch out for.

Michael Haz said...

Whoever lindyhop is, he or she is an ageist.

Therefore, lindyhop must be a liberal, because coexist and so forth.

Michael Haz said...

Of course, if lindyhop meant meade, then everything is cool.

Amartel said...

it's a good bet that lindyhop is an old woman.

Known Unknown said...

I'm an old man. I do nothing but suffer.......Max Von Sydow sounds like a jerk. Deodorant commercials and crooked preachers aren't so bad. People rarely drown in such flotsam. It's artists such as the Sydow character that you have to watch out for.


William won.

ricpic said...

What I see in the old is the child peeping out --
Still peeping out, still wary, still looking for a hug.

deborah said...

Maybe in some, ricpic, but that makes me sad.

Paddy O said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

What I like about the von Sydow quote is his take on human nature.

People forget the important lesson of the French Revolution -- that the left -- out of a sense of retribution -- did terrible things (like cutting off Lavoisier's head).

Who here finds it unthinkable that someone like Crack would not revel in retribution against whites, or that Althouse would justify retribution against "homophobes"?

I'm basing this on their rhetorical stances and methodology, as well as their lack of written record stating otherwise.

chickelit said...

@r,l and April:

I, too, was a Martha Davis fanboy back in the day: link

rcocean said...

Pure Woody Allen aka Pure East Side Manhattan. Von Sydow tries to explain Hitler, and then end up with the crazy statement that the "Worst are the Fundamentalist preachers" and sneering at Jesus.
Absurd.

Thanks for reminding me why i hated "Hannah & her sisters"

As for "old men" causing all the problems. Stalin and most of murderous Bolsheviks were under 40 when they seized power in 1917. As for Hitler, he was 44 in 1933, and Goebbels and Goering were in their 30s. The French Revolutionaries were even younger

ndspinelli said...

Insufferable is an Inga word. She learns new words from reading The Nation and then wears the mofo's out. Her getting attached to "insufferable" is Freudian.

ndspinelli said...

She cannot come out of the closet here or @ TOP because everyone now knows she has lied about her husband, career, education, etc. That bridge is burned.

Trooper York said...

Old men are wise. They were always given respect in other cultures. It is only our culture that ignores the wisdom of old men.

Well us and the eskimo's.

If it were up to the Evil Blogger Lady and the She Wolf of the SS all of us old white guys would be put on an ice flow and sent out to sea.

Trooper York said...

Also lindyhop is definitely who you named. That was the dance they did at her senior prom. Just sayn'

MamaM said...

Lindy Hop: Fast and Loose!

One quick step away from Madison, Ma'am! The place where the bother it takes to speak as a sockpuppet reaps reward.

rcommal said...

I loved Pogo from the start, for good reason. Just sayin'. I see no reason to dilute that for any reason, much less other reasons.

Heh.

rcommal said...

I don't buy some of the embraced here, by the way. I find them suspect, as well I should.

However, every blog is it what it is and the owner/owners get to define it, including anointing commenters. Blogs belong to the owner[s], who gets/get to set and define the standard, standards, rule and rules.

That's how it goes. Yes?

So it goes, regardless.

rcommal said...

I think you all are squishy about that notion, for the record. Squishy.

chickelit said...

rcommal said...
I loved Pogo from the start, for good reason. Just sayin'. I see no reason to dilute that for any reason, much less other reasons.

How does Pogo figure in here? He hasn't commented, and he wasn't mentioned or referenced in the link I gave in the post.

rcommal said...

chickenlittle:

Blogger deborah said...

Would AA lower herself and come here?

"What the hell is wrong with old men? Why are they such insufferable pricks?"

On the other hand, she did call Pogo, who is ten years her junior, an old man. Maybe someone wants us to think it's her.

April 15, 2014 at 10:16 AM

---

Jesus, Chick, do you not even read the threads in your blog? Do you not actually read what your co-bloggers post?

---

Forget it. Don't bother to answer.

---

I already know the the answer.

Shame on you.

chickelit said...

Oh, I see that now. But Pogo wasn't who I was addressing or talking to.

I was addressing the commenter named "Lindyhop."

rcommal said...

You wanna be silly, chickenlittle, I will respect your choices and leave you to your own devices.

Full stop.

chickelit said...

Shame on you.

I'm getting tired of people shaming.

When I confront Crack, it's not shaming. It's confronting and not knuckling under. Same with Althouse.

chickelit said...

@rcommal: Why is it silly to address the commenter "Lindyhop"?

Trooper York said...

Oh boy! This just like Ramona on the Real Housewives of NYC!

rcommal said...

I'm getting tired of people shaming.

Me, too, after having been on the receiving end of it for, oh, I don't know, at least a half-decade to three-quarters of it. Unlike you.

Also, I'm not seeing a"Lindyhop" commenter to whom you're referring in this thread. If this thread is really about another thread, then enlighten me. I'm willing to apologize (even though I don't know what the hell is going on, if that's the case). If you're referring to a commenter who actually at one time was active in *this* thread, all I an say is that I didn't see that. I'm not in charge of commenter-moderation, after all: You all are.

rcommal said...

As for you, Troop, you prefer snark over Christianity as it suits you. And mostly you prefer snark.

Even Ashes of Wednesday, you'd use on line to make a point (and don't say you wouldn't, or didn't).

YOU are the Ramona, Troop, you crazy-eyed guy, you. You are, you know--as well personifying other sorts of the like personalities that you enjoy skewering.

Trooper, you like hitting. You know it, and I know it. As do quite a range of other people.

rcommal said...

Assuming there's an honesty there among quite a range of other people, of course.

rcommal said...

Assuming there's an honesty there among quite a range of other people, of course.

William said...

I think Game of Thrones is giving old men a bad name. There are a couple of wise, kindly graybeards about, but they're just tokens. Most of the old men are more like that prick who plotted the Red Wedding or that other sicko who married his daughters. Such behavior is in no way typical of old men.

JD said...

I lick the handrails at the San Diego Zoo.

JD said...

I pick my scabs and eat them

JD said...

I twist my hair until it breaks off, then I chew it.

JD said...

I love the smell of my farts.

JD said...

I eat my boogers too.

rcommal said...

Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty four?


You bet your ass I will. And so I have done.

---

Specific people here know that I, we, have: We actually did live out the notion of caring for our own, no matter the cost, and it cost it lot. Screw those who know that but won't acknowledge it.

--

Thereafter, we did end up moving back East. Across the street from those whom we also love, and also a quick flight to Florida from those whom we also love. Both.

---

I can imagine a vision in which folks take care of their own. It's easy because of what my own grandparents talked about to me, when I was a very young kid, about their own childhoods, the very landscape of how they were brought up, their experiences from birth and thereafter and beyond.*

---

I miss my grandparents. I wish they were here. I knew them when they were old, and I am so grateful that I got to know them when I was so young.

--

*I also met a great-grandparent (born in the 1880s) on account of her being cared for by a grandma of mine (who cared for 3 of 4 my great-grandparents in their old age).

There's a history, in my family, of doing as opposed to just pontificating, believe it or not. I'm not saying that many haven't pontificated. What am saying is that some did, and still do.

rcommal said...

As opposed to just pontificating..

rcommal said...

How 'bout you?

chickelit said...

Me, too, after having been on the receiving end of it for, oh, I don't know, at least a half-decade to three-quarters of it. Unlike you.

We are talking past each other.

@ndspinelli: Why are you trolling my thread?

chickelit said...

"To pontificate" used to mean "to build bridges." That was part of the infrastructure.

chickelit said...

"To isolate" is the antonym.

The Dude said...

Trooper is not wise enough to know the difference between a "flow" and a "floe".

Trooper York said...

Hey if it is made up of ice what's the big deal?

I only worry about ice when I have to put it in my rocks glass.

Meade said...

"If it were up to the Evil Blogger Lady and the She Wolf of the SS all of us old white [supremacist] guys would be put on an ice flow and sent out to sea."

Trooper York said...

I would guess that most of you are not up to speed on the doings of the Real Housewives of New York so in the interest of clarity I should give you a recap.

Currently there is a big conflict between Aviva Dresher and Carole Radizwill over the authenticity of their respective literary efforts. Aviva has intimated that publishing sources had told her that Radizwill had a ghost writer for her much acclaimed memoir about her widowhood. Carole went batshit crazy and just foamed at the mouth. Her running buddy Heather (of Yummie Tummy shapewear fame) had her back and just was extremely aggressive in cursing out Aviva and everyone in sight.

Speaking of batshit crazy, Ramona Singer came back from an extended vacation to stick her two cents. Without actually being there or knowing what was going on she insisted that everybody get along and let bygones be bygones even though she is a noted grudge carrier and shit stirrer. When Heather declined to invite Aviva to her anniversary party….Ramona and her partner in crime Sonja decide to boycott the party as well. The thing is nobody really cared. The party was just fine without them. Nobody really gave a rat’s ass about crazy Ramona’s opinion because half the time nobody could understand what the fuck she was talking about anyway. She should stick to getting drunk, dancing at turtle time and worrying about her own concerns. The party goes on regardless

rcommal said...

Q.E.D.

rcommal said...

You crack me up, Troop.

Trooper York said...

Glad you enjoyed it.

It's turtle time!

Trooper York said...

By the way I highly recommend Previously TV as the new place to go to for TV recaps and forums on your favorite shows.

Currently I am enjoying eviscerating Carole Radizwill. Good times.

rcommal said...

Color me unsurprised.

rcommal said...

You're a city guy, Trooper. I get that. So you spend time on city hobbies--for example, eviscerating online TV personalities and everyone you've decided to connect up with the such. I get that.

Meanwhile, my husband spends time teaching his son, 13 verging on 14, how to bring back to life a variety of at least 30+ year-old engines in order to accomplish practical, every day things. (For just a starter.)

No doubt you think that's a crappy sort of waste of time, as opposed to what you, as an Everyman Shopkeeper, do.

rcommal said...

Also, you keep a Good Friday silence. For yourself.

rcommal said...

You are more interested in celebrating High Holy Days than embracing why they exist.

rcommal said...

And also with you.

And with Thy Spirit.



rcommal said...

And blessed, all of us, were and are we, by Handel. (For example.)