Oy vey, Mel...

[Signe]

So he IS just make believe, then!

[tazelbain]

Mel Brooks should kick his ass.

[Sky]

Hey, we still use imperial measurement in the US! Centiwha? Milliwho?

[Tale]

I don't think Mel became Australian until he was a teen-ager or something.  He also seems to be made up.

Born in NY state, he never gave up his American nationality, though he did grow up with the colonists who learned how to correctly spell and drive on roads.

He got his acting lessons at NIDA, which he talks about here.

He was a proper Aussie in Peter Weir's Gallipoli (see it, awesome film) and Mad Max, but became all-American again in the days of Lethal Weapon.

[WayAbvPar]

More shocking Mel Gibson news.

[naum]

Another take on Gibson:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/08/martyrdom-of-mel.html

A closer look at Gibson's apologies, moreover, reveals one big component missing: What about Mel's dad?

Now, the question here isn't about how Mel feels about his 86-year-old father, nor is this an attempt to drive a wedge between him and his father. (Indeed, it has been by pretending that this is the case that Gibson has so far evaded any serious attempt to answer the very serious questions that linger regarding his associations with anti-Semitic beliefs.)

Rather, it is a question about Gibson's own beliefs: What does he believe about the size and scope of the Holocaust? What does he believe about the role of the Jews in world affairs, both historically and currently? Does he in fact believe in the kinds of conspiracy theories that his DUI rant suggested?

This is largely because of what Gibson has said in the past, particularly when compared to what his father has written and said.

Take, for instance, his 1995 interview in Playboy:

    PLAYBOY: How do you feel about Bill Clinton?

    GIBSON: He's a low-level opportunist. Somebody's telling him what to do.

    PLAYBOY: Who?

    GIBSON: The guy who's in charge isn't going to be the front man, ever. If I were going to be calling the shots I wouldn't make an appearance. Would you? You'd end up losing your head. It happens all the time. All those monarchs. Ifhe's the leader, he's getting shafted. What's keeping him in there? Why would you stay for that kind of abuse? Except that he has to stay for some reason. He was meant to be the president 30 years ago, if you ask me.

    PLAYBOY: He was just 18 then.

    GIBSON: Somebody knew then that he would be president now.

    PLAYBOY: You really believe that?

    GIBSON: I really believe that. He was a Rhodes scholar, right? Just like Bob Hawke. Do you know what a Rhodes scholar is? Cecil Rhodes established the Rhodes scholarship for those young men and women who want to strive for a new world order. Have you heard that before? George Bush? CIA? Really, it's Marxism, but it just doesn't want to call itself that. Karl had the right idea, but he was too forward about saying what it was. Get power but don't admit to it. Do it by stealth. There's a whole trend of Rhodes scholars who will be politicians around the world.

    PLAYBOY: This certainly sounds like a paranoid sense of world history. You must be quite an assassination buff.

    GIBSON: Oh, fuck. A lot of those guys pulled a boner. There's something to do with the Federal Reserve that Lincoln did, Kennedy did and Reagan tried. I can't remember what it was, my dad told me about it. Everyone who did this particular thing that would have fixed the economy got undone. Anyway, I'll end up dead if I keep talking shit.

...

Then, after the furor erupted over The Passion, he gave an interview with Peggy Noonan that included evasive answers about Holocaust denial:

    "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."

...

Of course, these are all organizations with whom Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson, has direct and open associations. He gives speeches before them and writes for their various publishing organs. Hutton Gibson speaks at Holocaust denial conferences and has continuing significant associations with such anti-Semites as Frederick Toben of the Adelaide Institute.

Even before The Passion was released, he made headlines by telling the New York Times that 9/11 was actually a Jewish plot:

    The actor's father, Hutton Gibson, told The New York Times he flatly rejected that the terrorist group led by Usama bin Laden had any role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11.

    "Anybody can put out a passenger list," the elder Gibson told The Times.

    "So what happened? They were crashed by remote control."

    He and the actor's mother, Joye Gibson, also told The Times that the Holocaust was a fabrication manufactured to hide an arrangement between Adolf Hitler and "financiers" to move Jews out of Germany to the Middle East to fight Arabs.

    "Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body," Hutton Gibson told The Times. "It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now six million?"

    Said Joye Gibson: "That weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe."


Just as the film was being released, Hutton Gibson gave an interview that included this gem:

    To a Jew a Christian commits idolatry every time he looks at a crucifix and says a prayer. You know there in control and they're going to get in control the way things are going. Because they get all of our people...They killed several generations of us Americans (referring to WWWI, WWII)...The Jews weren't in the army much in WWI that because they were fomenting a revolt in Russia. America had no right to fight in foreign wars (in reference to WWI and WWII).


Gee, sounds rather like people who claim that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," doesn't it?

Ah, but what does Mel Gibson think about all this? In the same interview with Noonan, he makes clear that he believes everything his pop says:

    "My dad taught me my faith, and I believe what he taught me. The man never lied to me in his life."

[Kenrick]

[bhodi]

We all know what Mel's dad has been up to, he's part of that book club with Stephen Colbert, Louis Farrakhan, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

[Der Helm]

My favourite Mel Gibson film was Lethal Weapon. 

Oh shit.

So there will be no more Lethal Weapon movies ? Somehow I completely forgot that it was good ol' Mel who co-starred in those movies.

 

[Typhon]

Even if it IS 'just the booze.' [...]

I've banged girls while drunk that I still like to believe I didn't bang.

I've said goofy things, hateful things, bald-faced lies, "I love you brother!", and depressingly inane shit while drunk that I just had to put my face in my hands and wonder what the fuck I was thinking.

I've watched my brother and father periodically turn into serious pricks whenever they had whiskey (Irish + whiskey = jackoff). Paranoid, aggressive, angry,... and that way after just a drink or two.

Given all that experience, I'd have to say you're flat out wrong, ... the booze, it doesn't work the way you think it works.

I'm not being an apologist for Mel.  I really don't care one way or the other.  I'm just chiming in to say that if you don't know someone that alcohol effects in weird ways, you don't know what you're talking about.

[stray]

I'm a cool drunk. I've turned many random strangers into friends that way.

Then again, I don't drink a lot -- And it's mostly wine anyways.

On the flipside of that, I have a couple of friends who are the coolest, most level headed people I know. I mean, literally "cool". The type of people who are friendly and don't talk much. And when they do talk, it's always compliment, a nod in agreement, or something generally useful.

But when they're drunk, it's a totally different story. I hate to say this, but I kind of expect one of them to get his throat sliced in a bar someday. He's just that bad. The other guy, when he's drunk, is the type that starts rambling loudly in public about his dad and starts thrashing and destroying any inanimate object he can find. Could probably get his throat sliced too though.

[lamaros]

I turn a lot more extroverted when drunk, but I know i'm a repressed extrovert.

I've never "banged" anyone I regret while drunk, nor turned into a prick to my friends, nor done anything antisocial.

However I do know some people who are pricks who become huge pricks when drunk, people who are violent who become more violent, people who promiscious who become more so, people who are unthinking who say bigoted things, etc.

I'm sorry if you think that alcohol changes people in ways beyond themselves, but I disagree. Alcohol just lowers inhibitions and self control; you might do thing you regret because you didn't control yourself as carefully as you usually do, but it was still you doing them.

Of course, if you are a really self controled person then you ar emore likely to change when drunk, but that doesn't make you a different person, it's just a release of thoe tendancies you rigidly manage normally.

Now it might be that that self control you do on purpose - eg: beause you know you can be violent and desperatly don't want to be - and it doesn't mean you are a deliberatly violent person if you act like that when drunk, but it's still you.

[stray]

I'm sorry if you think that alcohol changes people in ways beyond themselves, but I disagree.

There isn't even a debate here. I've known those two guys I mentioned for almost 15 years. I know as much as a friend can know about them without actually being inside their heads. And the other guy who posted before me offered up a story about his own family members.

Lol, you "disagree"....

I'm telling you (not suggesting to you) that when they get drunk, it's exactly like Bruce Banner changing into the fucking Hulk. Completely different behavior. One day, they could be as chilled out as a couple of Eskimos. On a drunk day, don't even tell them a joke. Don't even tell them a joke that isn't even about them. Don't even give them a friendly glance. They'll just think you're mad dogging.

No one is saying that alcohol effects everyone in this way, just that it does for some people. Hell, there wouldn't even be so many guilt ridden alcoholics trying to kick their habit, just for the sake of it, if that wasn't the case.

[Der Helm]

I'm telling you (not suggesting to you) that when they get drunk, it's exactly like Bruce Banner changing into the fucking Hulk. Completely different behavior.

I know what you are talking about ... 



... the guy to the left is me  :-D

[lamaros]

No one is saying that alcohol effects everyone in this way, just that it does for some people. Hell, there wouldn't even be so many guilt ridden alcoholics trying to kick their habit, just for the sake of it, if that wasn't the case.

I've never met anyone like that, which is why I'm a bit sceptical, but I don't deny it's possible. I therefore think that it's quite rare, and that a lot of people try to use it as an excuse for personality defects that are just exacerbated by alcohol.

[stray]

Oh man, that's some funny shit, Helm.  :-D

[Der Helm]

Oh man, that's some funny shit, Helm.  :-D

When visiting metal festivals, I like to stick out ... :-D

[HaemishM]

Do you also like to get beaten up and have your head tossed in a toilet? Because at a metal fest, I'm thinking that's what happens when you show up as Joseph's Gay Technicolor Rainbow.

As for me, I only get dancey when drunk. As in I dance, a sight which should not be viewed through sober eyes.

[Righ]

Which probably looks something like this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-679089585035130394

[Signe]

You're dressed up like Noddy, right? 

[Der Helm]

Do you also like to get beaten up and have your head tossed in a toilet? Because at a metal fest, I'm thinking that's what happens when you show up as Joseph's Gay Technicolor Rainbow.

The picture was taken at this years Wacken Open Air.

No problems with being beaten up. But the paparazzi were annoying. :-D

[Signe]

No problems with being beaten up. But the paparazzi were annoying. :-D

That's because they thought you were Noddy!

[Der Helm]

That's because they thought you were Noddy!

I am Noddy.


Wait. Who is Noddy.

I am confused.

Where is my booze ?

[Righ]

http://www.noddyholder.com/

[Signe]

It's just your clothing and hair that makes me think of Noddy.  Your face reminds me so much of Matt Lucas who stars in Little Britain... at least the expression on it in that picture.  Matt Lucas makes me laugh and laugh and laugh!

[Der Helm]

Matt Lucas makes me laugh and laugh and laugh!

Yep. Thats me ... :-D

[HaemishM]

Which probably looks something like this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-679089585035130394

I swear I didn't know the camera was on.