Let me throw another couple of reasons on the fire:
[ul][li]He used to work in a related field, where there is celebrity crossover (see also theater; some Hollywood actors go do theater in between film projects).[]He now lives, or used to live, in a town where celebrity-spotting was common (see also: Los Angeles, New York).[]He began with one famous friend, who became his “gateway friend” to other famous people.[/ul][/li]I could go on all day. But apparently you’re still stuck trying to figure out how one becomes an expert on movies by working in a video store.
Hand to God, I once knew a waiter at a high-end restaurant and he ate a lot of what some would consider gourmet food. It was positively absurd.
More seriously, I don’t get why people in general (and Justin_Bailey in particular) have such a hard-on against lissener. I joined the board four months after he did, which means, except for one span of time, I’ve been exposed to pretty much had 8 years of his posts and various thoughts and criticisms. In that time, I’ve come to realize he’s…a normal guy who happens to be passionate about movies and doesn’t feel the need to couch each opinion in terms that won’t offend every random person’s sensibilities. Big fucking deal. Get the fuck over it. Ignore him if you absolutely can’t deal with what you perceive to be assholishness–I personally don’t think he’s an asshole, but I don’t have tender feelings that are crushed every time somebody disagrees with me on issues of entertainment. For example, I like Keanu Reeves. A lot. People list him as one of the worst actors ever. Somehow, some way, I pick up the pieces.
And even if he is rude and dismissive about others opinions, so? He’s one voice out of many on this board. A lot of people are rude and dismissive. And if you’re annoyed with him just because he claims to know people–well, allow me to join the chorus of posters that say “so the fuck what?” I know people, too! And I live in Utah, for Christ’s sake. I’m one person removed from some very famous people because I have friends in music and in television. I also know several authors whose names might even impress people.
And amazing how none of them are the crappy type of stars that I’m sure he hates and wouldn’t even bother speaking to. You know, the types that “plebes, pobes, and sheep” would like.
-Joe
He seems to hate Henry Rollins.
Here’s some Justin_Bailey logic for your entertainment, along the same lines as this thread:
“McCain’s a Senator. How the hell does he know anything about the military? He shouldn’t spend his time in Congress all day reading books on the military!!”
“Your grandfather is a geologist! How the hell does he know anything about fishing in Alaska? Does he study fishing books when he’s supposed to be on his geology job? Obviously he must, because there’s no other way for him to have acquired that information — it is impossible to imagine he acquired that information in any other venue!! Geology and oil — they have nothing in common with Alaska and fishing!!”
“A barista? What the hell do they know about coffee? Jeez, a barista is supposed to be making coffee, not drinking it! Besides, everybody knows that baristas are soulless drones who push buttons and take my cash, how much could they possibly know about coffee? I call shenanigans!”
I just saw this post.
Yep, you’re right, and I apologise. I didn’t see the thread where he spelled Tartt’s name with one t, or I would have corrected him. We all had mutual friends who knew her before she got famous (though I’ve never met her myself) so he should have known better. I did correct him on Lene’s name in the thread where he mentioned her.
Well, she’s cute and all, and I love her to pieces, but I’m not gay.
If you say " Ferris Bueller" you lose a testicle.
Yes, at the moment he is interacting with a customer. During the preparation phase, he needs to drive many different types of cars so he can know from experience what words like, ‘Stabilitrack’, mean.
There aren’t always customers to cater to, and you don’t have to be watching a movie intently to be absorbing it in the background.
Unless of course he has already seen the movie all the way through once, and watched it in fragments like that about 80 times.
Yeah, thanks for cutting to the heart of the matter for us.
You are not just a douchebag. You are not just a stupid douchebag. You are a spectacularly stupid douchebag.
When I read Lissener’s post in the coming out thread, I pictured/heard Quentin Tarrantino (foremer video store clerk and all) doing it in his sneering “I don’t need you to tell me how good the coffee is, I’m the one who buys it” voice and it came out pretty funny.
I can’t believe how some people get all emotional over a message board. I don’t really give two shits & a fuck if anyone here calls me a liar or an asshole. It’s not like I’m trying to get in your pants, or we have to work together.
If you’re talking about me, I do care about being called a liar (or having it implied). I’ve been around the SDMB for several years and I can’t ever recall my honesty being put in question. That does bother me. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does.
(bolding mine)
Wait…so if it’s not you…:dubious:
Whose hand is that? :eek:
Sorry, just looking for a lighter.
A lighter what?
I’m another long-time, real-life friend of Lissener, and can back up a number of his connections to famous/semi-famous people. David Sedaris is just a guy from Chicago who started telling stories on Public radio, and Lissener met him long before he had gotten any national attention. Two gay guys in Chicago knew each other - damn, what are the odds of that happening?
Lissener is genuinely talented in a number of areas. And if he was ambitious, he could run a business in any number of those areas. But, if life in America has shown me one truth, ambition and talent have no connection whatever. You’ll go much further as an ambitious mediocrity.
He’s happy working as a video store clerk. Why not? The work is easy enough, and you get to talk about something you love. Some folks have a grasp on the idea that happiness is not all about the size of your house.
Please, try to find a better reason to pit him.
I used to work with a male nurse who talked with a thick “good ol’ boy” drawl. He was a Vietnam vet who’d suffered from/been hospitalized for PTSD and alcohol abuse. Nice guy though.
One day while discussing religion one day he casually mentioned “I’m Southern Baptist, b’long to the same church my mama and daddy got married in. My grandmama was Catholic though, and she was always embarrassed by us being Baptist cause her brother was the Pope.”
Sure he was… we thought. As mentioned this was a guy who’d been hospitalized for Vietnam flashbacks and in a “drunk tank” so we assumed “it’s happening again”. He grew up in Notasulga, Alabama after all, a place as big and metropolitan and Italophilic as it sounds.
Notasulga was also where his grandfather was living when he was drafted in World War I, and to which he brought back the bride he married in the war, a girl from a huge impoverished family of Italian sharecroppers and who maintained a correspondence with her big brother, Angelo Roncalli, from the time she married her GI husband until he became a cardinal until he became Pope John XXIII. She was flown to see him a couple of times and had articles written about her in local papers (“Pope’s sister just your average central Alabama farm wife”). Looked it up- it was all completely true.
I spent most of my adult life in Montgomery and I’ve met many celebrities, made a few laugh really hard even, and saw Tony Randall’s child bride in her teddy among other things. I’ve no problem believing Lissener has met these people. (Would love to hear about Sedaris.) The strangest stories people tell are usually true.
Ah, I wonder what this board with be like without completely pointless, utterly non-contributing, only said to stir shit and join the pile-on posts like this? Oh yeah, it’d be a lot better. That’s what.
Lissener knows Sedaris?
Does Lissener ever show up in any of his writing? Can we get Sedaris to post here?
I’ve moved all over the US and lived outside the US for 5 or 6 years, and I’ve met maybe half a dozen folks you could call celebrities outside of Georgia, and none of them on a first-name speaking basis, either. I wouldn’t have a clue about their ideas that haven’t been expressed in public. I really, seriously wonder how lissiner does. It’s one thing to meet someone famous, it’s another to get into a heart-to-heart with them about who they’re sleeping with (the level of knowledge that lissiner was claiming for himself and his friends).
So, yah, I’m cynical about his claims. Do you know the sexual liaisons of the celebrities you have met? I mean, firsthand. Lissiner’s second-hand reports of friends who claim this and that are … second hand, at best. I had a relative once who claimed to have been close friends with the Queen of India.