Tom Shales is DEAD to us

Great journalist.

I liked Tom Shales. He had the misfortune to look like an adult member of 'Our Gang,' but wrote well and often thoughtfully.

I just read that he was fired from the Washington Post sacked him in 2010. Idiots.

From his WaPo obit:

[quote]Mr. Shales took particular glee in bashing [Kathy Lee] Gifford’s Christmas specials during the 1990s.

[quote]“That ghastly Gifford grin, ear to ear and back again, seems steeped in self-esteem and almost blinding in its showbiz phoniness,” he wrote in a review of “Kathie Lee: Home for Christmas,” which included her two “mercilessly exploited” children and her husband, retired football great Frank Gifford. He compared the special to Soviet torture techniques and directed his sympathy toward her offspring

[quote]The cause was complications from covid and renal failure

If he was still fat, that would have also been a contributing cause with covid. Covid is a very important reason for fat people, especially with other risk factors like being old, to lose that weight.

Tom Shales always struck me as a grandfather of the Incel movement. Bette Midler once said he was a miserable prick with a brain who couldn't get laid. Then she said take out that part about him with a brain.

[quote] Bette Midler once said he was a miserable prick with a brain who couldn't get laid. Then she said take out that part about him with a brain.

I'm sure his review of her performance in "Gypsy" was quite flattering.

His annual Kathie Lee evisceration was cuntery worthy of DL. Farewell, fat prince.

I'm crying as I smirk.

[quote]I just read that he was fired from the Washington Post

He was laid off, not fired.

He was a good writer, every time I saw one of his stories come across the wire it was worth reading.

Did he have kidney disease before getting Covid?

[quote]He was laid off, not fired.

"You say tomato..."

If only he had taken Ozempic.

Do people still die from Covid ?

[quote]Do people still die from Covid ?

Fat old people, yes.

Was he vaccinated?

Grew up with his writing and loved it. Helped me become a discerning consumer of TV.

No immediate survivors? Never married, no children?

Was he one of DL's fat whores?

[quote] Do people still die from Covid ?

Still a disproportionate number of Red Staters. Covid, doing its thing.

I had Covid about 3 weeks ago and I'm still coughing-up chunks of yellow mucous. I can imagine how this could just overwhelm an elderly person. And I've had all the shots and boosters, as well as Covid itself several times.

Mrs. Christmas "Kathie Lee" seems to have reinvented herself:

"Gifford's paternal grandfather was a Russian Jew from Saint Petersburg... After seeing the Billy Graham-produced film The Restless Ones at age 12, Gifford became a born-again Christian. She told interviewer Larry King, "I was raised with many Jewish traditions and raised to be very grateful for my Jewish heritage."

He was a great big fat person.

He could be very mean-spirited. Kathie Lee Gifford Christmas specials were for the kind of people who watch Kathie Lee Gifford Christmas specials. I'm certainly not one of them, but the malicious glee he took in eviscerating her was pretty hateful.

Tom Shales was fun to be with and a joy to read.

And yes, R15, he was one of our own.

R8…”one of his stories coming across the wires”. What technology format do you use to get news? Morse code? Or do you take the horse and buggy to a newsstand?

The full review of Kathie Lee’s holiday special…brutally funny.😆

[quote]What technology format do you use to get news?

I was working at a newspaper and we had wire services. If I saw his byline, I knew the story would be worth reading even if it was on a show I didn't care about.

R21, I'm sorry for your loss and I wish we could have had you pass on our admiration to him before he died. But I'm glad to know someone so talented was family.

The WaPo obit seems kinda mean in parts!

For all the gregariousness of his writing style and his deep well of industry sources, Mr. Shales did not consider the newsroom a welcoming place and mostly kept a social distance from colleagues. He once described himself as an M&Ms addict, and he struggled with his weight for much of his life. He never married and had no immediate survivors.

He lasted a long time for a fattie!

[quote]he struggled with his weight

That's unnecessarily bitchy for an obit. But the WaPo, like most former greats, is not what it used to be.

[quote]Do people still die from Covid ?

More than 200 Americans died of Covid each day in December.

Gifford's rolling in cash and just spent the holidays surrounded by a huge extended family. Meanwhile, Shales died bitter, fat and alone – a sad ending awaiting most of us here on DL.

Who?

The obit suggests he was a cunt who was hated by his colleagues. In fact, it just about states that.

[quote]Gifford's rolling in cash and just spent the holidays surrounded by a huge extended family. Meanwhile, Shales died bitter, fat and alone – a sad ending awaiting most of us here on DL.

Alone, yes. Fat, yes. But bitter? Where do you see any indication that he was bitter?

A critic has to lay out his opinion with some clarity, to be a critic whose reviews are read, he has to measure praise and barbs both. A critic who likes everything or hates everything isn't.

[quote]The obit suggests he was a cunt who was hated by his colleagues. In fact, it just about states that.

Again, what source did you read that indicates anything of the kind? "Shales did not consider the newsroom a welcoming place and mostly kept a social distance from colleagues" doesn't mean he was a cunt, or that he was hated by his colleagues.

[quote]"Shales did not consider the newsroom a welcoming place and mostly kept a social distance from colleagues"

This is true of many writers, especially those who have been around for a long time. I've only known a very few writers who preferred to work in the newsroom.

r29 = Kathie Lee Gifford

[quote]The WaPo obit seems kinda mean in parts!

Well, WaPo did can his fat ass, something it has done more than once to writers who won a Pulitzer while working there.

In one of KLG’s Christmas specials, the deaf Miss America danced to Do You Hear What I Hear? You can’t make this shit up.

I used to love watching them. High camp.

One year, she and Frank (and this was a few years removed from him being revealed to be a cheater) were sitting with Amy Grant and her husband talking about how Christmas is more special for pious Christians like them. Frank looked miserable. Yeah, that’s the good Christian hubby, out fucking flight attendants.

His positively scathing review of The Facts of Life, from 1979....which turned out to be NBC's (then) longest-running sitcom when it went off the air in 1988. (later eclipsed by Cheers & Fraiser, of course)

He was gay, for the record.

Shared much in common with Roger Ebert.

Like what r39?

Did he ever come out or was he a lifelong closet case?

Similar looks, build, both bitchy critics, R40.

[quote]He once described himself as an M&Ms addict

At least he was a honest fat whore.

[quote]His positively scathing review of The Facts of Life, from 1979....which turned out to be NBC's (then) longest-running sitcom when it went off the air in 1988

Shales' review of The Facts of Life was rather kind, I thought, especially after the set up if R37. Shales' was wrong in presuming (wishing?) a short life upon the series, but he was dead right about the quality. It was always a shit show.

Loved his reviews as a gayling in the DC area.

RIP.

R42 And both were winners of Pulitzer Prizes.

I don’t know that he came out per se but lived his life authentically and it sounds like most knew.

[quote] He was laid off, not fired.

There's no difference, practically, Only the corporation "laying off" thinks differently.

There's a big difference when it comes to filling for unemployment. And newspapers were laying off EVERYBODY, especially people who had been on staff for decades.

It's not the same thing as being fired for cause.

[quote]He was laid off, not fired.

Shales actually accepted a buyout offer in 2006 but then stayed on another four years, working under contract. In 2010, the Post decided to save a big chunk of money by not renewing his contract, effectively edging him out.

I agree that he looked like Ebert; came here to say so, in fact.

He really was a grumpy DLer.

Did anyone at all come to the funeral?

Is there a correlation: Bitchy critic=homely?

What do you think R54?

John Simon was the bitchiest and also the homeliest.

One assumes Tom Shales was about the homosex.

The flags at alt.showbiz.gossip will be flown at half-mast through the weekend.