Gore Vidal fought with EVERYONE

what a CUNT

[quote]Gore Vidal fought with EVERYONE

If Datalounge could be reduced to one person, it would be him.

Gaetano Talese is still alive? Wow...assumed he was long gone. I just checked on Tom Wolfe...he's definitely dead.

how true

R3 I hadn't heard that name in eons but yes, he is - shockingly - still alive.

Gore Vidal is largely forgotten now. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone born after 1970 who has ever heard his name.

Gore Vidal found fame writing about homosexuality in "The City and the Pillar" but, for the rest of his life, apparently felt this accomplishment was useless as it pigeonholed him and, in a way, thwarted his career as a politician, his most cherished ambition. The American public may have wanted to know more about gay people but the New York Times seemed to feel the subject was better left in the closet (in which resided many of the esteemed critics at the Times who devalued his contribution). Needing money, Vidal found himself writing for live television at its zenith in the mid-50s. Maybe that's the cause of Vidal's unwillingness to label himself gay after 1948.

Jimmy Trimble was Vidal's heroic, dead lover, the recipient of his undying affection and book dedications. Trimble even serves as his eternal neighbor in death, Vidal having taken the plot next to his with his longtime partner Howard Austen on the other side. But interviews with Trimble's fiance is fascinating in that it effectively bursts Vidal's bubble of veracity when it comes to Jimmy and what really went on between them (which wasn't much).

Alcoholism seems to be the default escape of so many writers who've died young, yet Vidal managed to carry on with his destructive habit far longer than most, dying at a ripe old age. Of course he was barely coherent and may be said to have died years earlier, but Vidal lived long enough to betray his closest family by not remembering them after all was said and done. Instead, he donated his considerable fortune to Harvard, a school he never attended. There were none of the customary bequests for those to whom one is close. Why? And that is why I like to read about Gore Vidal. Why wasn't he close to anyone? Why couldn't he appreciate the friends who stayed with him, the family members who loved him? Not even a thank-you to those who served him his whole life. (His "devoted to the end" Filipino chef, who was given nothing and returned to the Philippines to try and get by on a small pension.) How could Vidal be so cruel? He paid for almost every sexual encounter he had with cash so he wouldn't have to pay for it later with his vulnerability. He seems to understand how very lucky he was to have Howard with him to run interference.

[quote]“Howard adored New York,” said Vidal. “I never did. It has all of the filth and confusion of Calcutta without the cultural amenities.”

Oh please. When he got it wrong he really got it wrong.

Was Vidal the first Nellie Prisspot?

I adore Gore, always have always will.

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."

"Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent."

I agree with R10. He had some good quotes. One thing I didn't get about him was his admiration of Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber. I think he was pretty far gone by then.

Some others:

I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.

I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences. [and some take to both]

He was extremely amusing but extremely nasty, and so it was really hard to like him. Oscar Wilde was repeatedly said to be the very soul of kidnness, so people appreciated his bon mots as an attempt to be amusing rather than to be lacerous.

Vidal was much more interesting as a political thinker than as a fiction writer. The only really good novel he ever wrote was "Myra Breckenridge" because he just let himself go and was as over-the-top as he wanted to be. The political novels are mostly hack work--he just couldn't write believable characters unless they were waspish know-it-alls like himself (like Aaron Burr) or completely nuts (Mary Todd Lincoln). Everyone else comes across as grey and dull.

^^^^ YES!

Here's the shambolic response of AI about Gore.

MG: Tell me about Gore Vidal

ChatGPT: Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was an American writer known for his novels, essays, and plays. He explored historical and political themes, and his works often critiqued American society. Some of his notable books include ‘Burr,’ ‘Lincoln,’ and ‘Myra Breckinridge.’ Vidal was also known for his sharp wit and engaging in public debates on various topics.

MG: What is the most interesting bit of trivia about Gore Vidal?

ChatGPT: One interesting trivia about Gore Vidal is his distant relationship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – they were half-third cousins. Despite this family connection, they had opposing political views and engaged in public disagreements.

MG: More interesting trivia about him than that?

ChatGPT: Certainly! Gore Vidal was not only a writer but also dabbled in acting. He appeared in a few films, notably in the movie ‘Gattaca’ (1997), where he played the role of Director Josef. This showcases his versatility beyond the realm of literature.

MG: How are Gore Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis half-third cousins?

ChatGPT: Gore Vidal's mother, Nina Gore, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's father, John Vernou Bouvier III, were half-siblings. They shared the same mother, Janet Norton Lee Bouvier. So, Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were related through their shared maternal lineage, making them half-third cousins.

MG: That is not true.

ChatGPT: I apologize for the confusion. Gore Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were step-cousins, not half-third cousins. Vidal's mother, Nina Gore, married Hugh D. Auchincloss, who later married Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's mother, Janet Auchincloss. This made Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis step-cousins, not blood-related half-third cousins.

MG: They’re not step-cousins either. They are vague step siblings of a sort because Gore’s mother was divorced from Jacqueline’s mother’s husband Hugh D. Auchincloss, get it right!

ChatGPT: You are correct, and I appreciate the clarification. Gore Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were, in fact, stepbrother and stepsister for a period. This connection arose due to Vidal's mother, Nina Gore, being briefly married to Jacqueline's stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss. I apologize for any confusion in my previous responses.

MG: You even got that wrong… they were never truly step siblings as there was no overlap in the marriages of Hugh to Nina or Jacqueline’s mother.

ChatGPT: I appreciate the correction. I misunderstood the family dynamics. Gore Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were not step-siblings. Hugh D. Auchincloss was married to Nina Gore Vidal first, and later to Janet Lee Bouvier, Jacqueline's mother. There was no direct step-sibling relationship between Gore Vidal and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. I apologize for the confusion and appreciate your clarification.

That's hilarious R14!

Now please ask ChatBot about Vidal's pretended "blood relationships" with Al Gore and Jimmy Carter.

[quote] "A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."

He of course (as a true narcissist) is talking about himself. But truth to tell he didn't stay all that good looking for long given how much he drank.

This is Vidal in 1978 at 53. He's okay, but even considering his age, he's no Adonis.

He also never really wrote anything that had any real sort of major financial or popular success that continues today like In Cold Blood. As an essayist he was secondary, and as a political commentator he wasn’t taken that seriously, certainly isn’t even part of the conversation of old school writers today. He was mostly a cunt on talk shows with some fun bon mots (I’ll say here I enjoyed his writing, and have read his memoirs with interest - he seemed a very smart man who was a miserable bitch.)

Yeah, I hope those Italian hos got paid a lot, R17.

There was another interesting quote from Vidal: “Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age.” Didn't he sue Truman Capote about a remark he made?

Palimpsest and Point to Point Navigation. Always wondered if they were worth reading.

R20 Yes. Capote said Gore was kicked out of the White House Gala because he was drunk.

r20: Yes, it's a long story about gore Vidal putting his hand on Jackie Kennedy's shoulder in the White House and Bobby Kennedy snarling at him for doing so.

Truman Capote said that when Lee Radziwill told him the story, she said that Bobby had Vidal physically ejected from the White House--and of course that never happened. But Capote loved tall tales and repeated it wholesale on television, and Vidal sued Capote. Capote tried to fight it by asking Radziwill to testify what she had told him, but she refused--memorably, she told a friend, "Why should I get involved? They're just a couple of fags." (By that time she and Capote had ceased being friends, and she had that weird love/hate thing that unhappy rich faghags have with gay men anyway.) So capote had to settle out of court.

He was a miserable cunt but he could be very funny, and he hated GW Bush and his administration.

Gore has a cameo at 53.35.

I wonder if Rick has ever reviewed this. It's pretty good but I saw it a looong time ago.

Poor Truman. If he wasn't trying to destroy his friends in interviews, he was doing it in books, like Answered Prayers.

gore being a cunt in a film with everyone's favorite, Ethan Hawke

Trivia: I was invited to La Rondinaia when I was a handsome young man as well as to Edgewater when I was a boy. La Rondinaia terrified me because I have vertigo and despise sheer drops. Also I was an adult and did not enjoy the company and recognised they were not impressed with me. I don't remember Edgewater because I was 3. It's certainly a beautiful estate.

R28 how did you come to be invited if they weren't impressed with you? Dick pics helpful.

Here's Gore with Paul Neuman and Joan's baby. It was this kid that prompted Vidal's quote "Always a godfather never a god."

*Newman*

R29 I was a friend/lover of a member of his extended family. As was my mother, which is why I was at Edgewater as a boy. My brother was also involved for a long time with a woman who kept flitting between him and one of the Auchincloss men. Even though I had Ivy degrees I was treated like rough catholic trade, in some ways.

R32 I think I remember other posts of yours re: the Auchincloss men, no?

I may have posted now and then. I fucked my way through a couple blue blood families in college and my 20s.

I love it R32. I would have loved to hang with the hustlers at La Rondinaia! Also Edgewater sounded cool with its octagonal writing room. But the trains going by would've irritated by nerves.

Keep in mind those families were incredibly watered down by the 80s, from the multiple marriages of the teens through the 60s, and many people claimed to be old money and a Whitney or a Biddle or a Auchincloss or a Cabot or whatever, once removed. Sheesh the social climbing and snobbery. I guess this all petered out by 2000. I got a kick out of it but I always loved high and low and everything in between. And would just as enjoyably have a six month affair with a hot and sweet Puerto Rico picked up at La Escuelita as a big cocked Biddle who spoke only French to his poodle. Who is to say what is high or low? Some of those social register dinosaurs were terrible cunts, such as Gore.

DL is the only place where people still think about "old money." The rest of the world has moved on.

Gore hated all the right people. Kissinger was the nasty cunt.

"Among the crude Titans was Henry Kissinger. In the next few days he and I attended a half-dozen functions together. I have no idea what he was doing memorializing the American Academy, but the people who give money for such causes have made something of a pet of him, rather as they had made one of Truman Capote in an earlier time.

As I left him gazing thoughtfully at the hell section of 'The Last Judgement' (as pretty and bright now as Tiepolo), I said to the lady with me, 'Look, he’s apartment hunting.'"

[quote]Gore Vidal is largely forgotten now.

Never. He's the godfather of Datalounge.

I liked his earlier writings, even his tirades had an element of fun.

But I could never get past the first few chapters of "Duluth"

I met Gore Vidal at a party at Stephen Fry’s house. My husband and I were talking to Ellen Greene and we decided to go meet him. It was amazing. One of the most surreal experiences of my life. Who else can say they hung out with Gore Vidal and Ellen Greene at Stephen Fry’s house?

Edgewater was beautiful.

Vidal's talent as an essayist was astounding. His infamous dust-up with Buckley, where he called Buckley a crypto Nazi, is hilarious.

Creation and Palimpsest are both wonderful books. Of the former, get the earlier unedited version.

Here's the crypto-Nazi clip. Why don't we have any outstanding public intellectuals like Vidal in this country anymore?

Written in 1986. ('Poddy" is Norman Podhoretz, AJC is American Jewish Committee. Midge is Norman's wife.)

Over the years, Poddy has, like his employers, the A.J.C., moved from those liberal positions traditionally occupied by American Jews (and me) to the far right of American politics. The reason for that is simple. In order to get Treasury money for Israel (last year $5 billion), pro-Israel lobbyists must see to it that America’s “the Russians are coming” squads are in place so that they can continue to frighten the American people into spending enormous sums for “defense,” which also means the support of Israel in its never-ending wars against just about everyone.

To make sure that nearly a third of the Federal budget goes to the Pentagon and Israel, it is necessary for the pro-Israel lobbyists to make common cause with our lunatic right. Hence, the virulent propaganda.

Well, to me,” said Poddy, “the Civil War is as remote and as irrelevant as the War of the Roses.” I realized then that he was not planning to become an “assimilated American,” to use the old-fashioned terminology; but, rather, his first loyalty would always be to Israel. Yet he and Midge stay on among us, in order to make propaganda and raise money for Israel–a country they don’t seem eager to live in. Jewish joke, circa 1900: A Zionist is someone who wants to ship other people off to Palestine.

Since spades may not be called spades in freedom’s land, let me spell it all out. In order to get military and economic support for Israel, a small number of American Jews, who should know better, have made common cause with every sort of reactionary and anti-Semitic group in the United States, from the corridors of the Pentagon to the TV studios of the evangelical Jesus-Christers. To show that their hearts are in the far-right place, they call themselves neoconservatives, and attack the likes of Mailer and me, all in the interest of supporting the likes of Sharon and Israel as opposed to the Peace Now Israelis whom they disdain. There is real madness here; mischief too.

“Well, one thing is clear in all this muddle,’’ writes Midge, adrift in her tautological sea, “Mr. Vidal does not like his country.” Poor Midge. Of course I like my country. After all, I’m its current biographer. But now that we’re really leveling with each other, I’ve got to tell you I don’t much like your country, which is Israel.

Amazing thread.

[quote] DL is the only place where people still think about "old money." The rest of the world has moved on.

Then why are there successful TV shows like "The Gilded Age"?

The pompousness of the selection at r46! "Its current biographer"--He really thought the sun shone out of his ass.

What I got out of that was that Vidal was a bitchy queen, but so were Mailer, Buckley, etc. They all enjoyed the fight. At least back then the jabs were more intellectual in nature. Nothing like the Vidal vs. Buckley debates today. Just twitter crap.

r48 that's an historical fiction show.

Today's equivalent of Vidal is....sadly......Andy Cohen.

Yes, "an" historical fiction show with characters from real life (like Caroline Astor) and based on real life (like Bertha Russell, based on Alva Vanderbilt), all of them obsessed with old vs. new money. The show has been a big hit.

r53 you don't get it. "Old Money" is no longer a force in American society and most of the public doesn't really think about it or know what it is.

You do NOT fuck with the eldergays and their WASP fantasy world of days gone by!

‘adrift in a tautological sea” he was hilarious, and handsome in my opinion

It really is a shame we don't have public figures like Gore Vidal anymore. Reminds me of what Fran Lebowtiz said about how AIDS decimated our culture.

Fran is a Public Intellectual.

Gore was handsome, yes.

Link: Gore Vidal At Edgewater

I liked Palimpsest R21. It’s worth a read if you’re interested in Vidal.