The B.E.E. Podcast - 8/9/18 - Alex Israel - SILVER
Added 2018-08-09 12:49:50 +0000 UTCArtist Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis discuss the firing of James Gunn, being a brand, the dreamlike genius of The Hills and the function of art criticism.
Comments
Great episode, Real. Clear. Non-politics. Just clear thinking common sense. What’s the bumper music, is that FOW? What song? Thanks!
Jim Weaver
2020-09-21 18:39:46 +0000 UTCThis was my favorite podcast for like two years.. then it disappeared from my free app and I was sad. BUT this is my first episode since discovering it's on patreon and I am fucking glad to be back. You cannot beat these 40 minute intros which serve as take-downs of the Snowflakes of the Month and whoever else is crippling the arts.
Nathan Cross
2018-10-21 03:36:58 +0000 UTCThis show is worth EVERY penny. I wish he was on for 3 hours 5 days per week. He also NEEDS to bring in Camile Paglia. I LOVE his politics too.
Michael Bronspigel
2018-09-01 03:50:43 +0000 UTCI tune in for the politics, I stay for the culture.
Michael Bronspigel
2018-09-01 03:48:46 +0000 UTCGreat opening monologue. Those who say that BEE keeps banging the same drum haven’t yet felt the moral straitjackets from the corporations I guess, trying to turn artists into a submissive circus monkeys. Small note: BEE wishes that Duplass didn’t apologize for his tweet. I wish that BEE didn’t compare Trump to a cockroach. I was so much more comfortable on the fringes of it all. Is the pressure that unbearable?
Jasper
2018-08-31 18:48:57 +0000 UTCI see a lot of you complaining about "Bret's politics" which isn't an accurate description of his efforts, it's about his analysis of the particular current climate of sheer nonsense. Lay off the fluoride. ANYWAY, does anyone want to talk about the guest, Alex Israel? Or is art just so far from the basic outrage culture that no one wants to bother? I've been in the art world for about 15 years and I'm happy Bret took to Israel, but it's more an honored follow up to a collab of California-looking expensive art objects the produced a few years back. Sold out though, props. Anyway, I like Alex's work, but this is sort of kind of why artists sort of kind of shouldn't sort of like talk about their own career to this extent. For a writer, I can't imagine Bret was thrilled to hear Isreal imbue his side of the convo with the incessant "sort ofs" and "kind ofs". It's a very non-commital way to talk about art and describe one's ideas, that forever maintains an escape hatch to avoid sheer accountability. It just got annoying about halfway through this episode, because in this industry, for some reason maybe five or six years ago, everyone suddenly kind of started sort of talking like this to sound kind of intellectual but sort of mysterious. Or something. I just hope Alex is reading this, honestly, so he can kind of definitely check how he sounds, because it dilutes his otherwise straightforward and well-intended work. Of course Israel is a white male son of a successful developer so no one should be looking at his work anyway right now ;)
Kevin
2018-08-25 17:13:04 +0000 UTCDo you ever post transcripts of your opening monologue? This one is gold. I wish I could share it!
Kitten Holiday
2018-08-24 19:12:15 +0000 UTCWalter Kirn wrote about the leftist hypocrisy in his latest article for Harpers. It’s so great to see the writers I admire exposing this. It’s been so hard to build something creative in this environment. <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2018/08/illiberal-values/." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://harpers.org/archive/2018/08/illiberal-values/.</a> Great stuff. Thank you.
Kitten Holiday
2018-08-24 01:05:11 +0000 UTCIt's another fucking political monologue where he drives home the same fucking point he's been making for months. I tend to agree with him about most things, but for the name of baby Jesus Christ , stop it with the same old shit.
Doug Coronel
2018-08-23 14:51:17 +0000 UTCI've had it with the political monologues. There are many options I can tune if I want something like that. I wanted to hear Bret talk about movies or, God forbid, fucking books. I don't give a shit about trump country or the sentimental narrative at this point, you're beating a stinking dead horse, Bret. Unsubscribing now.
Doug Coronel
2018-08-23 14:47:37 +0000 UTCIs this a political ep or does he talk film at all
Kyle Ferrer
2018-08-22 12:49:28 +0000 UTCAnybody else find themselves forwarding through the start? Then the school yard spat about Twitter stuff too? Am I expecting too much of this now?
Paul b
2018-08-16 17:48:29 +0000 UTC1) Don Jr. clearly posted a doctored image on instagram, a quick google search would prove that to you. 2) Polls had Trump within the margin of error, so polls weren’t wrong as much as pollsters. 3) Trump lost the popular vote
Sebastian ospina
2018-08-15 00:26:36 +0000 UTCJesus all the comments on here are cringe.
keagan Afonso
2018-08-14 23:11:52 +0000 UTC"Safest offenses"? In which parallel universe do you reside? And I'm sure you're someone who shields himself from news that doesn't fit his narrative, so I'm assuming you haven't read up on the countless examples of "anti-fascist" groups perpetrating destruction and violence around the country
Klintorious
2018-08-14 22:54:09 +0000 UTCI guess the plethora of polls suggesting Trump had absolutely no chance of winning the electoral college were "doctored" as well?
Klintorious
2018-08-14 22:49:38 +0000 UTCAnd also, if you say stuff like this, be prepared for the backlash. Just something your mother should have taught you when you were in diapers.
Louis Bruno
2018-08-14 22:02:53 +0000 UTCDon't fund him if you don't like what he says. It sounds like you get all your news from the lying media. Please realize that this post is not helping anyone, and you are making yourself into a dingleberry and anustart all at the same time. I support your right to free speech, but you better learn that before you post something like this on a podcast most people enjoy. Rant over. Goodbye. No response necessary.
Louis Bruno
2018-08-14 22:01:54 +0000 UTC5 minutes in and you already fell for Don Jrs doctored 50% approval rating image...and calling the left “puritanical” with no sense of irony...why not speak about what you are actually informed about?
Sebastian ospina
2018-08-14 13:44:51 +0000 UTCIts unfathonable to me that Brett would look at today's political landscape and feel the need to gravitate towards identifying "The Left" as the fascist political actors. He consistently asserts that their desire to shout down and shame people is some egregious watermark in Trump's America. While the Republican Party has literal fascists, multiple elected self-descried neo-nazis and publically identified white supremacists who sig heil on the RNC convention stage. The idea that today's pertinent dangers to civility and unity in our nation, are celebrities and twitter users screaming "shut it down" to those who voice defense for perpetrators and enablers of actual violence on the right, is disturbingly laughable . I can't help but think that this speaks to BEE's desire to pull his "Neo-liberal moderate Left" back to his perceived "respectable" center and his intellectual failure, if not inability to recognize or empathize with the real pain of families being torn apart on the border, the dislocation of those targeted and isolated based on their country of origin, those demonized for their non-white skin tones and others who are forced to pay the salary of notable and proud white supremacists in our government. BEE feigns some the safest offenses(people critiquing other's twitter usage and dinner party discussions) in his wealthy LA strata, while never even alluding to knowledge or concern for the millions of central and mexican americans who live but miles and who routinely fall victim to the dehumanizing treatment of the local police and ICE at the direction of our President. This strang priority of fixations speaks to a vapid misguidance, liken to that found in the fictionalized pages of Less Than Zero. All the while, unironically arguing the left is acting out the angst of high school teenager. It is a shame such a beautiful mind can continually apply itself to such a shallow and near-sighted niche of some of the most unimportant facets of modern american society but this our beloved writer of Glamorama.
SGT. Apone
2018-08-14 12:45:49 +0000 UTCSpare you? Are you defending these deplorable imbeciles?
John Plante
2018-08-14 00:07:50 +0000 UTCOh, spare me
Klintorious
2018-08-14 00:00:49 +0000 UTCMilo Yiannopoulos would be a fantastic guest
Klintorious
2018-08-13 23:59:51 +0000 UTCI didn’t care for that guest or this particular podcast episode at all. Additionally, James Gunn and Roseanne Barr are slime and deserve what they got. And for what it’s worth, I’m a strong Trump supporter.
John Plante
2018-08-13 22:08:03 +0000 UTCAlso Sergio De La Pava would be great on the show. "The novel" is basically dead now but there are still a tiny few who are still actually reading, and his work is fucking solid. Would be interested in hearing BEE's thoughts.
Larry
2018-08-13 17:16:36 +0000 UTCBTW, my dream guest for this show is Ottessa Moshfegh. I know BEE tweeted about her fiction awhile ago and he's a fan. She also cites him as an influence here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If63KUUMKD0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If63KUUMKD0</a> One of the last few authors left actually worth reading.
Larry
2018-08-13 17:14:48 +0000 UTCThis is the only podcast I would actually pay for. I'm 26 and broke as fuck and this is fucking worth it.
Larry
2018-08-13 17:13:48 +0000 UTCBEE is the psychologist I wish I had
Gloie
2018-08-12 17:28:18 +0000 UTCThere's a comedian in the UK called Paul Merton who said social media is like taking the worlds worst heckler home in your pocket every night and I totally agree with that.
Andrew manning
2018-08-12 14:17:45 +0000 UTCThis whole James Gunn issue has me afraid to share my fiction with people at work despite them being sincerely interested. I'm seriously scared they'll report me to HR
Joey
2018-08-11 21:10:40 +0000 UTCYou have my undying gratitude for this podcast. Keep up the great work.
James Hancock
2018-08-11 20:32:10 +0000 UTCFor your consideration: Future interview recommendation - LA artist Alex Gross (www.alexgross.com).
Dave
2018-08-10 23:12:27 +0000 UTCBret's comments about politics make perfect sense to me, especially in a podcast about pop culture and movies. As this latest episode shows, politics has become a part of Hollywood to the point where directors are losing their jobs. Free speech, art, identity politics, Trump -- they're all related now, and artists are under attack. I'm grateful that Bret is defending the artist. And defending people's rights to say stupid things. It's not realistic to expect everyone to go through life behaving perfectly. And people should be allowed to have different opinions -- that's kind of the whole point of democracy. I don't think you can have a podcast about art and NOT talk about politics. I get why some listeners might be annoyed -- maybe they're just sick of politics popping up everywhere. I for one appreciate the analysis and opinions.
Kelly Morris
2018-08-10 21:33:00 +0000 UTCI originally listened to the BEE podcasts for its engaging interviews with directors and to learn about artists I may not have previously been aware. Increasingly, though, I look forward to BEE’s opening monologue and his interpretations of where we’re at with the culture. I have the sense that we’re living in extraordinary times - BEE puts form to the feeling. This week’s interview was interesting on two levels - I hadn’t been exposed to Alex Israel before, it was an engaging discussion - and Israel made a comment toward the end of the interview about the role of the artist being on a different vector than the left and the right, intensely focused on the culture. Those later comments reflected not only Israel’s own work, but the quality of BEE’s earlier observations on the culture. Keep up the good work.
Dave
2018-08-10 15:40:35 +0000 UTCHonestly, I don't care much about how Bret feels about politics. I suspect he doesn't care much either since all he does it's talk about reactions to politics and never about politics itself. Please, please Bret just give us the good stuff like the 2001 episode, the novels episode, the body double/boogie nights episode... Who cares about any of this reactions to reactions shit? Just my two cents, keep up the great work.
Carlos Cuba
2018-08-10 15:08:17 +0000 UTCHe should upload his excerpts to YouTube. There's a lot of discovery there, and his message will probably reach more people.
Harrison Bergeron
2018-08-10 07:11:56 +0000 UTCThat was good
Erick
2018-08-09 18:48:38 +0000 UTCThanks for another great podcast. Wish your comments on politics and the media would start entering the mainstream.
Kelly Morris
2018-08-09 17:48:19 +0000 UTCI love this podcast so much, every time I get a notification telling me that a new one is up it genuinely makes my day brighter. Thanks so much!
MJD
2018-08-09 16:48:01 +0000 UTC'choke on your chai latte' LMFAO
LeRoi
2018-08-09 16:36:47 +0000 UTCAwesome, thanks!
Troy Conner
2018-08-09 15:23:19 +0000 UTC
