Hollywood has lots of famous families, but I think the most interesting are the Baldwins. Elder statesman Alec paved the way for his less talented siblings, and like a roll of Life Savers, you get a different flavor each time you move along. Stephen is a straight up Jesus freak now, which is awesome since he used to be the wild, partying brother of the bunch. Bio-Dome to Celebrity Fit Club…dude, you rule! Daniel picked up his slack with a Ronnie Dobbs-like rap sheet of drugged up behavior and narco arrests. That’s irony or something because he was on CSI:Law & Order. William quietly made some movies and spends most of his time banging remaining hotness out of Chyna Phillips. There’s maybe 6 years left according to scientific studies. But Alec, he’s got enough career and visibility to be a set of brothers onto himself.When not offering steak knives or combating the Republican empire, his main activity seems to be antagonizing his ex-wife Kim Basinger. To me, she’ll always be Nadine, the drunkard from Blind Date (lots of guys point to her sex scenes in 9 ½ Weeks, but I had no interest in seeing anyone crawling all over Mickey Rourke, so I what I have seen isn’t so tantalizing). The latest chapter in their saga is a protracted custody battle over their 11 year old daughter, and his antagonism has strangely turned on her. This is the audio and transcript from a gnarly voice mail he left her.
A transcript: "Hey I wanna tell you something okay, and I wanna leave a message for you right now because again its 10:30 here in New York on a Wednesday and once again I've made an ass of myself trying to get to a phone to call you at a specific time. When the time comes for me to make the phone call I stop whatever I'm doing and I go and I make that phone call at eleven-o-clock in the morning in New York and if you don't pick up the phone at ten-o-clock at night and you don't even have that god damn phone turned on. I want you to know something okay, I'm tired of playing this game with you. I'm leaving this message with you to tell you, you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me, you don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being, I don't give a damn if you're 12-years-old, or 11-years-old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass, who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned, you have humiliated me for the last time with this phone, and when I come out there next week, I'm gonna fly out there for the day just to straighten you out on this issue, I'm gonna let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again. You have made me feel like shit and you have made me feel like a fool over and over and over again, and this crap you pull on me with this god damn phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother and you do it to me constantly, and over and over again. I am gonna get on a plane or I am gonna come out there for the day and I'm gonna straighten your ass out when I see you, do you understand me? I'm gonna really make sure you get it. Then I'm gonna get on a plane and I'm gonna turn around and I'm gonna come home. So you better be ready Friday, the 20th, to meet with me so I'm gonna let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude thoughtless little pig, okay."
That’ll be part of the nominations for Parent Of The Year. Dina Lohan, looks like you’ve got some competition now!
Now, I’m not going to pile on quite yet, but damn, that was pretty intense – When Actors Attack! I don’t know what the context was, but that kid sure as hell pissed off her dad, and now we all know what happens when you get Alec Baldwin mad. He’s one of a few actors who just scare me -- if I was ever to have an altercation, I would avoid him, James Caan, and Robert De Niro. I don’t know why but they intimidate me, even though they’re all old and I think Jimmy C has a fake hip – they are just intense. Hollywood has had it’s share of tantrums (David O. Russell, Brian Grazer, anyone?), but this is a nice little mommy dearest moment that is causing a major backlash against Baldwin as a parent and painting him as a grade-A dick…not that I’m going to disagree, either.
I’m taking this post in a different direction than you’re probably expecting because it was this whole incident that got me thinking about the point I am going to make.
Kids these days are assholes. Parents these days have no business having children.
In the last 15 years, I’ve seen an awful new crop of children being raised that have no manners, no discipline, and no respect for adults. In this era of two-income families and an over 50% divorce rate, children and step-children are multiplying at an alarming rate, and many of them are spoiled, obnoxious brats. Having spent many years working in restaurants, I saw firsthand the wild, undisciplined behavior and lack of parenting that spawned it. Go to any public place and you’re likely to see the tandem of shitty parent and out-of-control child.
I think that in the modern, politically correct era adults have lost their fangs. We can’t yell at children. We can’t spank children. We can’t punish children. Everything is geared towards not damaging their fragile little psyches. If I talked back to my parents the way some of these kids do I’d have woken up with a sore jaw and a hand print on my cheek. There’s no fear anymore. If I was told “wait until I tell your father”, I was in a state of panic. Not anymore with these kids. And how do you punish a kid by sending them to their room when it’s full of awesome toys and gadgets? It was no joy seeing the teens from the movie Kids, because it was the harbinger of this era’s youthful lack of restraint or proper upbringing.
If you’re planning to have children, or worse -- already have them, you owe it to society to pay attention to their upbringing, to mold them and shape them properly into good, conscious people. Shitty children come from shitty parents, so do your part and the kids will turn out half decent. And if you can’t do that, don’t have kids.
That’ll be part of the nominations for Parent Of The Year. Dina Lohan, looks like you’ve got some competition now!
Now, I’m not going to pile on quite yet, but damn, that was pretty intense – When Actors Attack! I don’t know what the context was, but that kid sure as hell pissed off her dad, and now we all know what happens when you get Alec Baldwin mad. He’s one of a few actors who just scare me -- if I was ever to have an altercation, I would avoid him, James Caan, and Robert De Niro. I don’t know why but they intimidate me, even though they’re all old and I think Jimmy C has a fake hip – they are just intense. Hollywood has had it’s share of tantrums (David O. Russell, Brian Grazer, anyone?), but this is a nice little mommy dearest moment that is causing a major backlash against Baldwin as a parent and painting him as a grade-A dick…not that I’m going to disagree, either.
I’m taking this post in a different direction than you’re probably expecting because it was this whole incident that got me thinking about the point I am going to make.
Kids these days are assholes. Parents these days have no business having children.
In the last 15 years, I’ve seen an awful new crop of children being raised that have no manners, no discipline, and no respect for adults. In this era of two-income families and an over 50% divorce rate, children and step-children are multiplying at an alarming rate, and many of them are spoiled, obnoxious brats. Having spent many years working in restaurants, I saw firsthand the wild, undisciplined behavior and lack of parenting that spawned it. Go to any public place and you’re likely to see the tandem of shitty parent and out-of-control child.
I think that in the modern, politically correct era adults have lost their fangs. We can’t yell at children. We can’t spank children. We can’t punish children. Everything is geared towards not damaging their fragile little psyches. If I talked back to my parents the way some of these kids do I’d have woken up with a sore jaw and a hand print on my cheek. There’s no fear anymore. If I was told “wait until I tell your father”, I was in a state of panic. Not anymore with these kids. And how do you punish a kid by sending them to their room when it’s full of awesome toys and gadgets? It was no joy seeing the teens from the movie Kids, because it was the harbinger of this era’s youthful lack of restraint or proper upbringing.
If you’re planning to have children, or worse -- already have them, you owe it to society to pay attention to their upbringing, to mold them and shape them properly into good, conscious people. Shitty children come from shitty parents, so do your part and the kids will turn out half decent. And if you can’t do that, don’t have kids.
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