I think the questioner shot himself in the foot on this one, if he truly wanted Cecil to investigate. “Also, could you personally investigate his claims? (I think he’s a fraud, but I don’t have the time to investigate myself.)” As if his time is more important than Cecil’s.
Now, is George Gray also a CIA hitman?
I’m not surprised that Cecil didn’t treat it seriously… I’m surprised that Cecil treated it at all. I mean, heaping justified verbal abuse on the witless is part of Cecil’s job, but then, so is eradicating ignorance. And I’m sure that there are plenty of questions waiting in his inbox which would have allowed him to do both at once.
You know, as ridiculous as the claim is, some of us actually would like to see refutation. I know I certainly wanted something to confirm or deny it. Not that I’ve read the book or seen the movie.
Cecil manages to take the time to refute claims that I find equally if not more ridiculous. Is Barris being a CIA hit man somehow less likely than the alien autopsy being genuine? How about the moon landing being a hoax?
If he thinks a subject is to stupid to take the time factually check it out, then he shouldn’t bother choosing it for the column, IMO.
Well, while I agree with you that the alien autopsy and moon landing hoax were just as ridiculous, the [strike]idiots[/strike] world at large did not. Lots of people believed the alien autopsy and moon landing hoax - what was the percentage of people in a poll who thought they never went to the moon - something around 5 or 10%?
I absolutely agree that he shouldn’t write a column about something which he doesn’t think requires an answer. He could have included this in a week where he answers more than one question - with just two of his sentences as his answer (“Of course not, silly man. A fraud is somebody who expects people to believe his crazy bullshit.”).
Good point bup, I think you are correct that more people believe my two examples even though they are just as stupid, which would warrant a better response.
Perhaps Cecil himself might deign to make some comments on the criticism of this column. This one was well below the standards of excellence we have come to expect. How about it Mr. Adams, care to comment?
Isn’t it obvious? Isn’t it obvious?
Isn’t it OBVIOUS?
The whole CIA thing is a ploy. It’s subterfuge. Chuck Barris was NOT a spy for the U.S.
Barris was a double-agent.
“Dangerous Mind” was excellent when it was about his believable life and his years with “The Dating Game” and especially “The Gong Show”. It also seemed to me that Barris did a lot of cocaine during those years. If you go to jupptheshark.com, and look up “Gong Show” you will read other comments like mine.
The CIA part was stupid and not real.Cocaine makes the mind highly delusional and fantasy and reality clash in one another. Coke is also a mind expander, you see things in the dark, and at a delusional state. Paranoia is also a side effect of cocaine abuse. So how far the stretch between his phycosis and the CIA stories? There are many people in nut houses claiming to be in, or running from the Central Intellegence Agency.
I love ya Chuckie Baby! You and Fred Sanford (another cokehead) were my late 70s TV heroes.
SENOR
Thanks, Senor, for actually responding to my original post. Thanks for suggesting the ‘jumptheshark.com’ website. Alot of the posts there confirmed my recollection of CB being impaired alot of the time, and of it getting worse over the lifetime of the show.
[QUOTE]
No one who really has read Cecil all this time would have expected any other answer.
[QUOTE]
Beg to differ. Been reading Cecil since the early 80’s and I CERTAINLY expected something different. I have to echo the sentiment that if he wasn’t going to do anything beyond a textual version of the eye-roll smiley (which seems to be getting quite the workout in this thread), why’d he pick the question?
It’s obvious why he picked this question, it’s just a little odd how he responded. Usually when he’s insulting, he does it in a different manner, and takes less time.
(The more interesting question is why Barris claimed to be a spy, and I think I’ve figured that out. In 1984, he was smarting over critical abuse of his programs. He left the claim alone in the late '80’s and early '90’s, when he was doing well in life. In the past few years, however, he has divorced, lost his only child, and nearly died. THerefore, he’s going to his past claims, where he feels better about himself.)
Changing the subject a little, does anyone have information on Jaye P Morgan’s son, Paul, or as to who the father might be?
I saw the movie last weekend with my girlfriend, who had not read any of the publicity associated with it, and didn’t know anything about Barris except what you learn in the trailers. She thought it was clear that Barris didn’t actually do all that CIA stuff, but was equally obvious that he believed that he did and was either schizophrenic or too strung out to be in touch with reality. If you see all the publicity hoopla, it’s clear that Barris is funning with us, being a lucid guy and all. But the movie as a stand-alone document wouldn’t necessarily lead you to that conclusion.
Chronos writes:
Come now. This was a classic Straight Dope question in the sense that it had a high WTF factor - that is, the premise was outrageous, but couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Barris is a well-known figure in the entertainment business. His book had been made into a feature film. Early reviews I saw reserved judgment on whether he’d actually been a CIA hit man. So I read the book. It was obvious from the first few pages that it was a put-on. Should I then have discarded the question? Not at all - the world being what it is, you’d have millions of people believing that a Hollywood producer was actually a paid killer. How then to get to the bottom of things? Collect ritual denials from Barris and the CIA? Spend weeks trying to trace Barris’s movements 30 years ago? Feh. It was sufficient simply to recount the absurdities of the plot. Having read the column, you’re now in a position to say: (1) What a silly book! (2) What a waste of Cecil’s time! Statement #1 was the intended result. Statement #2 was a small price to pay.
I have nothing to add here; I just wanted to 1) acknowledge the official definition of “a classic Straight Dope question”, 2) post directly below Cecil, and 3) pad my post count.
Another Cecil post?!?
He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!
What was the difference between this, and say, the UFO Roswell column which got a more thorough treatment? It wasn’t time passed, Roswell was 50 or so years ago. Was it mainly what bup mentioned, that more people fell for Roswell? Or was it simply more feasible to collect data on the Roswell incident?
Revtim asks:
In the case of Roswell there was more to the story. Mysterious debris really was discovered. The screwballs who ran the Roswell air base really did claim they’d found the remains of a flying saucer. The Air Force really did cover something up, intentionally misleading the public with claims that the thing was a weather balloon. There was that goofy “alien autopsy” flick, plus the movie Roswell. It wasn’t until 50 years after the fact that the AF 'fessed up to the truth about Project Mogul. In contrast, the CIA-assassin story came strictly out of Barris’s head - there weren’t any independent elements suggesting there was some truth to it. I suspected as much from the outset, of course, but didn’t know for sure until I read the book.
Heh. As you might suspect, I’m putting off doing something else.
I see, that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to reply, even though it’s to put off doing something else… 