I’ve become perversely fascinated over the past few days by Pat Dollard, after accidentally looking over a profile Vanity Fair ran a few years ago.
The short course — well, first of all, lets be clear: this is a man who is prone to fanaticism in more or less every sector of his existence. His drug proclivities rival those of Hunter S. Thompson, he has shifted ideologies and religions more times than you’d care to count, and he burns through wives like they’re going out of style.
Lately, he has a website about murdering Iraqis and liberals and so forth. Oh, yeah, did I mention that? Dude’s a conservative. Today’s particularly classy headline, on the death of Howard Zinn: “Howard Zinn Goes to Hell”.
He wasn’t always this way. He was raised in a liberal Irish-Catholic household, politically active parents and siblings, moved on to become a baller Hollywood agent representing Steven Soderbergh and others, was a player in a bunch of notable films, and pretty much lived that narrative until one day, on a dime, he made a political 180. It would be shocking, if we were talking about someone else.
But that’s just how Dollard do. And as unclassy as he might be (Anecdote: A link on his homepage takes you to a website where one can purchase t-shirts with slogans such as “Will Kill for Oil” and “Jihadi killer” on them. I had to use my iPhone to read that site, because the network I’m on at my office blocks it. Their reason? “Racism and Hate”), the guy is no dummy. These days, hes taken it upon himself to become a sort of bad boy of the right, targeting disaffected conservative youth, military types, Coors-guzzling mid-Americans. The type of people who’ll be talking for the rest of their lives about that one time, in high school, they shook the defense and ran 67 yards for a touchdown. On homecoming day. The young Republicans who aren’t Young Republicans, in the card-carrying, blue-blazer-and-slacks, kind of way.
Apparently there are a lot of those, enough to start a cottage t-shirt industry anyway. He also made a film:
A montage of violent clips slides past—an Arab fighter being shot to death by American soldiers; a Marine rifleman dancing and clutching his groin, then firing a machine gun into an Iraqi town; the minaret of a mosque being blown to pieces. The violence is intercut with iconic images from American pop culture—the smiling face of Jackass prince Johnny Knoxville, college kids dancing at an MTV beach party, anti-war rallies, the faces of arch-liberals Jane Fonda and Michael Moore. The soundtrack is provided by Boston hard-core punk band Blood for Blood. Their song “Ain’t Like You (Wasted Youth II),” with its chorus of “Fuck you, I ain’t like you,” becomes the refrain of the troops as they blow away insurgents and give the finger to anti-war activists and kids at home enjoying the fruits of America’s mindless civilian culture.
There is evidence of a possible war crime in the trailer: a Marine clutches the head of a dead Iraqi and raises it in front of the camera like a jack-o’-lantern.
I think there’s a good reason they don’t give Johnny Knoxville a gun. Unfortunately, just about any Knoxville knockoff CAN get one, and Dollard lives in celebration of that.
Its right around here that stuff gets a little creepy. I can’t think of any person I know who would (admit to) enjoying a feature film in which Iraqis get their heads severed to a grindcore soundtrack. But they exist in scads. And now they have a leader. Leaders give people voice.
But is voice really something these types sought after? Is it possible that this coalition, for lack of a better word, is setting itself up to be manipulated? For those who believe that power is half showing up, what happens when you make a movement of people who don’t even have to show up? The impression I get is that a lot of these folks, aside from a hazy awareness of the fact that we’re in a war against… some darker skinned foreigners, are largely apolitical. Forgive the bourgeois sentiment, but sometimes there’s reason for that. You’ll see what I mean, I think, when mainline Republicans realize this forgotten constituency and start running ads with killing and hardcore.
For what its worth
The short course — well, first of all, lets be clear: this is a man who is prone to fanaticism in more or less every sector of his existence. His drug proclivities rival those of Hunter S. Thompson, he has shifted ideologies and religions more times than you’d care to count, and he burns through wives like they’re going out of style.
Lately, he has a website about murdering Iraqis and liberals and so forth. Oh, yeah, did I mention that? Dude’s a conservative. Today’s particularly classy headline, on the death of Howard Zinn: “Howard Zinn Goes to Hell”.
He wasn’t always this way. He was raised in a liberal Irish-Catholic household, politically active parents and siblings, moved on to become a baller Hollywood agent representing Steven Soderbergh and others, was a player in a bunch of notable films, and pretty much lived that narrative until one day, on a dime, he made a political 180. It would be shocking, if we were talking about someone else.
But that’s just how Dollard do. And as unclassy as he might be (Anecdote: A link on his homepage takes you to a website where one can purchase t-shirts with slogans such as “Will Kill for Oil” and “Jihadi killer” on them. I had to use my iPhone to read that site, because the network I’m on at my office blocks it. Their reason? “Racism and Hate”), the guy is no dummy. These days, hes taken it upon himself to become a sort of bad boy of the right, targeting disaffected conservative youth, military types, Coors-guzzling mid-Americans. The type of people who’ll be talking for the rest of their lives about that one time, in high school, they shook the defense and ran 67 yards for a touchdown. On homecoming day. The young Republicans who aren’t Young Republicans, in the card-carrying, blue-blazer-and-slacks, kind of way.
Apparently there are a lot of those, enough to start a cottage t-shirt industry anyway. He also made a film:
I think there’s a good reason they don’t give Johnny Knoxville a gun. Unfortunately, just about any Knoxville knockoff CAN get one, and Dollard lives in celebration of that.
Its right around here that stuff gets a little creepy. I can’t think of any person I know who would (admit to) enjoying a feature film in which Iraqis get their heads severed to a grindcore soundtrack. But they exist in scads. And now they have a leader. Leaders give people voice.
But is voice really something these types sought after? Is it possible that this coalition, for lack of a better word, is setting itself up to be manipulated? For those who believe that power is half showing up, what happens when you make a movement of people who don’t even have to show up? The impression I get is that a lot of these folks, aside from a hazy awareness of the fact that we’re in a war against… some darker skinned foreigners, are largely apolitical. Forgive the bourgeois sentiment, but sometimes there’s reason for that. You’ll see what I mean, I think, when mainline Republicans realize this forgotten constituency and start running ads with killing and hardcore.