I read it every morning. I like hearing what’s going on with him, even though our politics don’t align, and seeing the amusing daily stuff he scans in and comments on.
He’s going through a very rough patch. Earlier in the year his paper paid him to get out, to which he has been adjusting. And he’s writing now that he returned from a solo trip to England to find that his wife wants a divorce. He doesn’t elaborate on why, but does state that he’s still in love with his wife and he loves his home and now he’s going to have to sell his place and learn how to batch it at nearly 70 years old. It sounds pretty doggone miserable.
I stopped intentionally following James Lileks when he came out as a Trumper and election denier, and then when I saw that he was whinging about Elon Musk being called out as a fascist just because he made a Nazi salute (twice) at Trump’s inauguration and vigorously supported far-right political parties and candidates in Germany and Great Britain, I’ve actively avoided anything to do with him. So, assuming his wife leaving him probably has something to do with the fact that he’s become a raging asshole a la Scott Adams, fuck that guy.
Don’t follow his blog, but I loved the “Institute of Official Cheer” and especially the “Gallery of Regrettable Food” subsection. I still think it’s great stuff, but it was very rarely updated, even before his personal troubles began. The captions evidence a great sense of observational humour.
It’s so unfortunate that he turned out to be a raging Trumpist. I would have classed Lileks as a harmless, introverted journalist with a delightful sense of humour.
I stopped following Lileks umpteen years ago when he got too repetitive to pay close attention to. Big fan until then, though. I probably read every page on his site.
So I know nothing about his current condition and it’s sad in almost every way.
I think we have his bad cooking book, his bad 70s interior design book, and his bad parenting book, all really funny. I devoured The Bleat back in the 00s. Lileks wasn’t alone in letting the Obama presidency set him firmly on the path of right-wing crankitide, and it’s a real shame, he was a master at strip-mining the mid 20th century for comedy purposes.
As I said when Al Franken resigned from the senate, there’s no greater tragedy than when a 67-year-old white humorist from Minnesota is forced to retire.
I used to love his snark from old catalogs and recipe books but hadn’t read any of his content in probably over ten years. For some reason I thought he was much younger. I’m very disappointed that he went so far off the rails politically.
I have two of his books. I even have a couple belatophony songs in itunes. I liked his style. Seemed to really mesh with my sensibilities. (Except for Dorcas. that just…didn’t work.)
Then 9/11 happened. He became a scared reactionary long before trump came along. Reading his blog about 2002-03 is when it started, Guy became scared of his own shadow.
I quit and never looked back. Also sad to hear he’s a MAGAnut.
I’ve known he was a right winger for some time. He’s perhaps the first example I’ve seen of someone who doesn’t take the past too seriously but still manages to be a reactionary. You’d think that they’d take the past that they yearn to return to in more deadly earnestness. Of course there have been quite a few more of these in the intervening years such as the unending waves of right wing trolls who are sometimes also not above self-parody.
Another concrete example is Ariel Pink, a musician in a similar vein to Ween who delves deep into the musical styles of the past to create things that are in between a style parody and a loving homage (in addition to some other weird stuff). But it turns out that he’s also in the bag for Trump and was even in the capital on January 6 but I don’t know if that was as a participant or not.
So, is he a troll? “I’d like to be seen as a normal, attractive person with good values,” he replies, tucking into a plate of meaty pasta. So why say you love the Westboro Baptist Church? “Because they’re free-speech advocates.” You said you loved paedophiles… “Yes, like Jesus loved paedophiles. I don’t love them specifically. Does it make me a paedophile to love paedophiles?” He’s being glib, of course. There’s mischief in his grey eyes, as if he’s testing me, seeing if I’m going to be Bill Grundy to his Johnny Rotten.
I, too, used to read his blog and website voraciously. I got to know him a bit, via email, but that was probably 20 years ago now.
When his conservative views started to come to the forefront, I started reading his stuff less often, and I don’t think I’d visited any of his pages in a few years. It makes me sad to learn that he’s now gone full-on MAGA.