To his thoughts on NYC today:
Ellis finds current-day New York a bit unsettling: “I ate last night at the Ace Hotel and it was like a hipster museum. Dinner was incredibly expensive and I was the oldest person there; everyone was dressed in their artisanal finery and going home to watch ‘Girls.’
“New York once seemed to be a place for adults. You went knowing that it was going to be about sex and grit and drugs. Now New York seems childproof, like a moated, gated community for tourists and rich people.”
But do they like Huey Lewis and the News?
“New York once seemed to be a place for adults. You went knowing that it was going to be about sex and grit and drugs. Now New York seems childproof, like a moated, gated community for tourists and rich people.”
ReplyDeleteI hope this are not the only two options, because they both sound like hell.
- East Villager
Yet, he praises the shit out of "Girls" on his Twitter.
ReplyDeleteI love it. The more childproof the environment the better. I have no use for Ellis' copulatory, zitty, moist activities -- nor does any civilized man.
ReplyDeleteHey Bret your La La Land is way more childproof than NYC. Take your Randy Newman "Hate New York city...it's cold and it's damp...and all the people are dressed like...monkeys" shit back to LA.
ReplyDeleteI love it - the guy from the land of decadence talking shit on NYC, but fact is, he wouldn't have a literary career without NYC nor would the book he milks the most "American Psycho" exist without NYC as the catalyst and backdrop for it. Spare me "the '80s" inspired the book because American Psycho wouldn't have been as potent if it was set in Chicago, IL, sorry (and I LOVE Chicago another city I'm sure he thinks is dead.) NYC was the epicenter of psychological, social and economic pathos in America back then, and Patrick Bateman could not have existed without it.
I find it hypocritical that BEE is running his mouth about NYC tourists when he is cheapening his art/expression by having it be a Broadway or Off-Broadway musical catering to mostly tourists who will be the majority of the attendees.
He can forever shut up about "rich people" when he recently did a commercial (or video) where he was hawking sunglasses for the rich and many years before contributed to the gentrification of the city by paying high rent on his pad on E.13th Street I doubt he went below unless it was to some upscale restaurant or club. And the only people he interviews on his podcasts are rich people (or at least "famous" ones - heaven forbid he ever interviews -people who are not or fellow writers.)
Fact is BEE doesn't care about the cultural life of NYC - never did, never will. He was a rich LA kid who attended an expensive school in New England or wherever who only came to NYC when he "made it". I seriously doubt he ever made pre-made it treks down to the city or he rubbed elbows with 99% of East Villagers when he lived here. I know I never saw his face anywhere in the EV and while I didn't live there, I was there almost all the time.
That said I like his work but he's an insufferable ass when it comes to NYC.
Another thing - hipster museum? So why go there? Why not have dinner somewhere which isn't one? Too lowbrow for him I guess. He's the classic "I want to have my cake and eat it too" guy: he laments the sterilization of NYC which implies he wants it to be gritty again yet he dines at Ace Hotel among hipsters and Girls fans, and btw FUCK "GIRLS" which is nothing more than the updated hipster version of "Sex In The City".
ReplyDeleteGrab a hamburger, fries, and a coke at Star On 18 or some other diner, Bret - you need it.
a zit is a zit is a ?
ReplyDeletepost pimple logic ??
next course food porno
I think its been a long time since anyone claimed this guy was an important writer.
ReplyDeleteBret Easton Ellis loves Kanye. Case closed. The dude went full wanker, and has lost it.
ReplyDeleteHey Brett, the 1980s called, it wants you to send back that pretentious middle name you won't stop using.
ReplyDeleteOk so go back to LA. We got enough duchey problems here as is. And stay out.
ReplyDelete@Geovvani
ReplyDeleteLOL That is funny!
@6:11 - Yes 'Star on 18'!
ReplyDeleteNow there is a classic diner.
My squeeze and I used to go there, and feel it was a little diner car about to float into space on our love.
Bret, who is by all accounts a dick, should THANK HIS LUCKY STARS that director Mary Harron and screenwriter Guinevere Turner turned that godawful American Psycho into a movie that is approximately one bazillion times better than the book. (It's at the top of the movie-is-better list, along with The Godfather.) The movie actually feels like a joke on Bret, turning his dumb, woman-hating and I'M-SO-NAUGHTY-AND-SHOCKING book into both a feminist comedy and a truly upsetting, coherent and scary fever dream.
ReplyDelete(I loathe Bret Easton Ellis. Can you tell?)
5:26pm, 6:11pm here and I have to say as insufferable as BEE is re: NYC, you're way outta line.
ReplyDeleteTry the other way around. Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner should thank their lucky stars they had American Psycho to make into a movie considering neither has done anything noteworthy ever since (the last sixteen years.) They did a GREAT job with it but let's get real: it would've been made into a movie if they didn't get the nod. I don't think anyone else would've done a better job but that's a whole other story but I'm sure it would've been interesting. Michael Mann comes to mind as someone who could've made it interesting.
Harron and Turner haven't exactly set the world on fire after American Psycho. 'Matter of fact, they have had pretty shitty bodies of work after it like this:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366004/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0877587/
Now you can ask me "What has BEE done since, as good as, or better than American Psycho?" fair enough, but I'll tell you four more books (with a fifth one on the way one day whenever) and he is wayyyy more likely to put out something interesting than Harron and Turner who merely adapted BEE's work to the screen.
I would LOVE to see BEE remake American Psycho where HE writes the screenplay and an unknown plays Patrick Bateman so there is some mystery to it. Christian Bale wasn't an unknown but he wasn't very well known before AS, more like a good character actor.
3:43pm, 6:11pm here again.
ReplyDeleteStar On 18 is still around and serving up greasy goodness :)