March 27, 2013

The Flight from White: Buzz Bissinger Edition

Bestselling 58-year-old sportswriter Buzz Bissinger, whose 1990 book Friday Night Lights was based on in-depth locker room interviews of half-dressed teenage high school football players, announces in GQ that he has spent $587,000 over the last three years on clothes for himself, both men's and women's, such as thigh-high leather boots with six-inch stiletto heels.
Before I started shopping with [his personal stylist] at Gucci, I could count on one finger the number of compliments I got from strangers on what I was wearing. Now I get dozens, 99 percent of them from women and gays and African-Americans who appreciate go-for-it style. No wonder male heterosexual whites are aimed toward obsolescence, boring the rest of us to death. 

44 comments:

Chosen said...

Yeah, those white guys are obsolete, what have they ever created?

Derb's Mossberg said...

So, according to this nonsense, white guys are disappearing but gays do what? Reproduce like Mexicans?

I guess it never occurred to the flaming genius that blacks and women are patronizing him. They probably recognize that he's a screwed up white guy that buys the Narrative who they can look down on.

No wonder white guys don't comment, he's just a depressing reminder of how the left is screwing the country up. He also fails to recognize that by not commenting, rather than expressing what they REALLY think, they've been extending more civil politeness to him than apparently he extends to them. But I guess according to the Narrative, he's gay, so he must be the one who is good and correct and its the straight white men who are evil.

Matthew C Smallwood said...

Well, they only value this as a cliche conformity to "rebellion". However, it is true that whites in the generic, culturally, have begun to doubt themselves and fallen into boredom or outrageousness. Take away Christ from Europe, then take Europe from the white man, and what is left? Certainly nothing strong enough to dominate the world and hold the dark altars at bay like they did until the Modern Era. When white people rediscover, not their whiteness (which they already are very acutely aware of) but their heritage of honor and courage and noblesse oblige (for unlike other cultures, at least the Ideals were actually pure), then things might change.
http://www.gornahoor.net/

Anonymous said...

I'm from the Philadelphia area and am very familiar with Bissinger's work. For example, he was just recently fired from the legendary 1210 AM radio talk show station due to his crankiness/nuttiness. His show lasted about 7 months.

He openly supported Romney this past Fall.

Sometimes I think he is playing one big gag on the goyim. But then again, he is a certified nut. Or does he just need attention and something to talk about so he makes things up?

Very slick guy. Think about this: He has made a fortune and an entire franchise about a story about a miserable town in West Texas and their passion for scholastic football.

The naïve bastards out in Odessa, TX actually believed that a clever Jew from Philadelphia was going to write a book about their town and give them a fair shake. Bissinger painted them all as backward, racist morons.

The situation reminds me of John Rocker and his interview with Sport Illustrated's Jeff Pearlman or John Feinstein's book "A Season On The Brink" about Indiana Univ Hoosier basketball under Bobby Knight.

Note to all jocks and other assorted gentiles, Buzz Bissinger, Jeff Pearlman, and John Feinstein are not your friends.

Davis said...

The source of his anger is in his comment. He is mad that no white heterosexual men noticed his lip gloss or garish leather pants.

Black people and gays are suckers for conspicuous consumption.

Phalluster said...

Hmm, "Buzz Bissinger", is that perhaps Italian? Scots-Irish?

Anonymous said...

Bissinger is an interesting figure. He's achieved a kind of sportswriter sainthood for Friday Night Lights, which I found to be a hateful and hate-filled book. Anon at 8:04's criticisms are right on: Bissinger has an obvious agenda in FNL -- i.e. to make himself look like a paragon of enlightenment and empathy for downtrodden minority athletes, in comparison to the racist rednecks who run Texas -- and executes it from page 1 onward. It's impossible, therefore, to tell how much of the book is really true, and how much is slathered-on bathos.

But the ongoing presence of FNL is huge on the US sports scene; not only has it spawned a movie and acclaimed TV series, it's a go-to book for other sportswriters and fans to reference when they want to look like Good White People.

On the other hand, Bissinger has been such a nutcase in so many settings (e.g. his bizarre rants against sports bloggers that brought down the wrath of influential sports site Deadspin) that somehow this Gucci and leather thing doesn't come as that big of a surprise.

Anononymous said...

People in the past used to spend more of their income on expensive clothes.

Gayly dressed denizens from the Gay Nineties.

Miners Leaving Pendlebury Colliery (1901)

Steve Sailer said...

I can't recall if I ever read anything by Bissinger. But apparently millions have read his words. Did anybody notice before this that he was drinking a Flaming Moe? It seems like the kind of thing that would give itself away in the prose of somebody so self-involved ...

fish said...

I can't recall if I ever read anything by Bissinger.

....and Steve wins his own blog thread.

Steve Sailer said...

"Bissinger is an interesting figure. He's achieved a kind of sportswriter sainthood for Friday Night Lights, which I found to be a hateful and hate-filled book."

Maybe it's time for a re-reading of FNL with the added perspective of his new revelations of his bisexuality, transvestitism, and leather and BDSM fetishes. Maybe Buzz ain't the most reliable narrator about small town life?

Anonymous said...

I had heard of the TV show Friday Night Lights, but didn't know it was based on a book and had never heard of Bissinger until now. I had assumed the TV show was an innocent HS football drama series. I didn't know there was this weirdness/creepiness or cultural leftism (i.e. sneering at small town Texans) behind it.

Anonymous said...

Does he realize how ridiculous he looks in those clothes?

Also, has GQ always been this gay of a magazine? I've heard that it's gotten gayer over time. It's been around for a while. Was it not gay a long time ago? Is the gayness a recent thing?

agnostic said...

Read or skim the whole article guys, don't just blow it off. Total meltdown. Or like, spontaneous combustion.

Experimented with queers, had a dominatrix girlfriend, wears women's clothes and make-up.... someone who knows Bailey's work better, just where does this guy fit in the grand taxonomy of psycho-sexual fuck-ups?

The saddest thing is that he must be aware of how dorky he looks. He keeps referring to it as an addiction, compulsion, making his wife think he's a hoarder, etc. He doesn't get joy or fun out of the way he dresses, it's just some weird habit of constantly pushing the bar on the food-pellet dispenser. Whether it looks good or not, who cares?

Joy and fun are satiating -- you have your bit of fun, and it's cathartic. You don't feel like doing it a thousand times a day. The emotional regulation system in his brain is beyond broken. Crippled.

No wonder he identifies so much with faggots, another group with universally fucked-up emotional regulation.

This is like the Millennial era version of mid-century Jewish obsessive-compulsiveness about abstract expressionism. The dude has no visual sense, like most Jews. Very little color or color contrasts, no patterns, just a bunch of desaturated jumbled-up junk.

Like, how could he need a personal stylist to tell him what to wear if he had a knack for visually interesting stuff? As he keeps repeating, it's more for some tactile fetish value than for its visual appeal.

And for crying out loud, find another half-million dollars for a nutritionist/trainer and try not to look like such a vile bloated slug. Everything about this guy is gross.

Anonymous said...

Steve (I'm the anon at 8:28), for a taste of Bissinger worship, including plenty of the self-administered variety, read this espn interview: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=questions/bissinger

Money quote from The Savior of Odessa, Texas:

"When I was down in Odessa, it was very gratifying to me. I had lots of people, some of them in high governmental and school positions, saying, "You know what? There was more truth in the book than maybe we were willing to admit. It's hard to look in the mirror, and it has had an impact. I give Odessa a lot of credit for this. I think it's more enlightened in areas of race, in areas of education. (And) there's nowhere near the intensity placed on the football program that there used to be. And I think the book is somewhat responsible for that."

Gah.

countenance said...

Now we know why he wrote FNL, and why he was so interested in high school sports to begin with. He was just fulfilling his own homoeroticism.

Bob Loblaw said...

I guess it never occurred to the flaming genius that blacks and women are patronizing him. They probably recognize that he's a screwed up white guy that buys the Narrative who they can look down on.

They probably recognize that he's a screwed up guy with money.

Anonymous said...

Friday Night Tights.

Anonymous said...

Read or skim the whole article guys, don't just blow it off. Total meltdown. Or like, spontaneous combustion.

Didn't you used to model dance outfits and post them on your blog?

Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Anonymous said...

Didn't you used to model dance outfits and post them on your blog?

The Unconventional Greatness of Dance Outfits

wren said...

I put this comment in the thread below, but maybe it is more appropriate here:

Nice picture of the Wachowskis today at Wired today.

They look as if they are newly engaged or something.

They used to be frauteurs, but I have no idea what they are up to now. Time for a new, new word.

I hope their new show is good, but have low expectations.

I think the picture explains some of the Matrix.

What, exactly, I'm not sure of, however.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't mind wearing a woman's pantsuit from time to time. I have dreams about raiding Hillary Clinton's closet.

That suit she wore on her recent trip to Finland ... nice.

Anonymous said...

Bissinger was on Piers Morgan's show on CNN raging against guns and joking about killing Alex Jones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nn4Ih9BPrU

Anonymous said...

I have dreams about raiding Hillary Clinton's closet.

Why? It probably smells like a fish farm.

Anonymous said...

George Zimmerman's brother Robert Zimmerman Jr. (who looks more "white Hispanic" than George does) interviewed on CNN's Piers Morgan for his "racist" tweets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyv2UwbWCGM

Whiskey said...

That guy is sure a freak. His disdain for normal American culture dripped off the page. And this is a guy who was considered a big deal as an author and commentator.

Freak indeed. And what is even more freaky is that Bissinger surely stood out as a freak, and was lionized and made into a big deal. Likely because he WAS a freak.

There's a word I'm looking for. Decadent.

agnostic said...

"Didn't you used to model dance outfits"

Nice try, dork. Posted some pics of a gray flannel suit with a red and silver kind of paisley tie... about five years ago. Weirdly flattering that you still remember, though.

Dance clothes = jeans, t-shirt with some color. I get thumbs-up remarks from normal straight guys, from jock to nerd, on t-shirts and sweaters if they look cool. Never from gays (thank god), who respond more to the campy/fetish look, as with Bissinger.

Guys these days do dress like schlubs compared to the colorful/patterned preppy look that he describes from the '80s. Unfortunately the ejaculations of a fetishist will give them an easy rationalization to keep wearing baggy cargo shorts, sandals, and billowy shirts. "Well, don't want to go off in *that* direction..."

Anonymous said...

Yes, because the "go-for-it" lifestyle always works out for everyone.

And yes, life is nothing more than getting compliments from women and gays and Africans.

His life must be complete. I'm so jealous.

Anonymous said...

The WASP Establishment's fall from power ended in alcoholism.

The Scotch-Irish Establishment's fall from power is ending in full-blown neurosis and spending sprees at European fashion houses.

I'm loving it. :-)

agnostic said...

"Also, has GQ always been this gay of a magazine? I've heard that it's gotten gayer over time."

I've never read it, but why not judge by its cover? Google image search "gq 1984" -- looks normal to me. Ted Danson, David Letterman... normal smile or looking straight ahead. Typical yuppie and preppy kinds of themes -- "success", "style," "The American spirit," "the sporting life," etc.

Switch to "gq 1994" -- "Was Michael Jackson framed?" with a shot of him with his shirt unbuttoned down to his stomach. A (possibly related?) headline on the same issue reads, "A gay man's risks for love."

Fast-forward to "gq 2004" -- now it looks like a clone of Tiger Beat, with middle school girl crushes on the cover (Ashton Kutcher, Orlando Bloom, Justin Timberlake, etc.).

GQ in 2013 spoke for itself in the Bissinger article.

So sometime in the early-mid-'90s, when the whole culture started turning queer. They probably wrote a tearful, blubbering review of Philadelphia the year before the Michael Jackson issue.

Anonymous said...

OT but you have to wonder if there's a link between unemployment and increased unprotected sex:

"As noted, the number of people working in the U.S. in 2008 declined by about 2.9 million (dropping from 146,273,000 in December 2007 to 143,369,000 in December 2008). The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published historical data on the number of people employed in the U.S. going back to 1948. In no year since then has the U.S. economy created anywhere near the 19.7 million new STIs estimated for 2008."

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-110197000-venereal-infections-us-nation-creating-new-stis-faster-new-jobs-or

Anonymous said...

Weirdly flattering that you still remember, though.

I never saw it. Others did and talked about it. They probably remembered it because it's not something straight people do.

Hail said...

Just sayin':

(A) "Bissinger [...] spoke candidly about growing up as 'just a Jewish kid from New York'." (Yale Daily News)

(B) "Bissinger is the son of Eleanor (née Lebenthal) and Harry Gerard Bissinger II". (Wiki)

DYork said...

Here are some pics from a black sports/hip hop site.

The locals are horrified and amused.

That is one very ugly man regardless of his choice of clothes.

ATBOTL said...

"His disdain for normal American culture dripped off the page."

This is true of most Scotch Irish writers. They crafted the whole "whites are evil" narrative.

Anonymous said...

america the land of free, and equality: where deviants seek normality, and normals seek deviance.

Jocko Homo said...

Good news Steve! Your days of panhandling on iSteve are over!

Who knew that flamboyant cowboy chaps were not just for the Rose Bowl parade anymore? Hire a bunch of out-of-work Vegas showgirl costume designers, have them watch old Cisco Kid episodes for inspiration, then hire some traditional Mexican leatherworkers in a TJ maquiladora to make the things. Badda-boom, you're rich baby!

buzzing in the ear said...

He moved himself & family to Odessa? At first, I thought that meant Russia. I wondered how on earth the Russians in Odessa could be more into cross dressing, anti-whitism, and homosexuality (the women are among the most beautiful anywhere and the men ain't too shabby.) Then I read Odessa, Texas. Odessa, Texas has more SWPL types and worries about "racism." What a relief that I'm not that uninformed about social trends globally. Being an ex-art student, French major female, I don't get out much in the sports world.
Still, if there is a valid point worth taking from this racist drivel, it's that people should try harder to keep in shape and dress with some style. Black men are not any better (maybe even worse) as they age, really, from what I've seen. And as usual, where are the other races? Nobody has ever accused Asians of being overly dashing in their later years. Or hispanics.
Now Italians dress with flair without people questioning their sexual orientation.

Drunk Idiot said...

Would bet the house that most of the women & nearly all of the gays who compliment his style just assume that he's gay (or bisexual).

But after seeing pictures of him, can't believe for one minute that "tha brothaz" (or "tha sistaz", for that matter) actually appreciate his "go for it" style. Some may be "complimenting" him mockingly, though.

So, it's a pretty safe bet that most of the blacks who compliment his style are also gays who, once again, just assume that he's gay (or bisexual).

ben tillman said...

OT but you have to wonder if there's a link between unemployment and increased unprotected sex:

Doubtful, but there's surely a link between immigration and sexually transmitted infections. It's another eexaample of the evolution of virulence through horizontal transmission.

Black Sea said...

"My guess is that the fame that he gains from the book has slowly driven him crazy because he did not have a second act."

I think it's important when discussing any writer's behavior, opinions, or cultural observations, to recognize that a sizeable percentage of writers are semi-functioning nutjobs, and that's when they're not cresting or bottoming out on their bi-polar swings.

BTW, I wonder how many of the compliments he receives on his clothing begin or end with, "You go girl!"

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

I'm not enough of a Bizzinger follow to have known this before seeing Steve's headline. This latest re-invention as a psychotic Beau Brummell is odd indeed; however he has been acting strange lately, like, for the past couple of years

Anonymous said...

GQ's gayness is neither figment of your imagination, nor a phenomenon of recent provenance. Way back when, Bobby Kennedy was heard to refer to it as a "fag rag." I think of that every time I see one, invariably with a preening movie star (male) on the cover.

Anonymous said...

Here's the NYT obit which reveals the no-doubt twisted family tree, on both sides, that led to this. Dad apparently had participated in the battle of Okinawa with the Marines before finding quick success as an original Mad Man, then promptly marrying up. You can see quite logically how all of that ends in furtive e-tail addiction to Jimmy Choo boots...