Monday, October 17, 2011
William Buckley Jr. & Hugh Hefner Interview - by Richard
William Buckley Jr. was always known for his conservative beliefs, patrician voice, and WASP style. He wore OCBDs shirts, and again, spoke with such elegance. He was born a WASP.
Hugh Hefner embraced the Ivy League style, and masterfully made selling photographs of nude women classy. He dressed as if he walked off the campus of Princeton, and he was photographed with his pipe in hand for more than 20 years. Sure, I would not call Hefner a role model, actually, he was nothing more than a smut peddler. Regardless, both men had class (well at least Buckley) and style.
I just wish that Buckley had in fact smashed Gore Vidal in the face (different interview)! Classic, just classic.......
(The entire interview can be viewed at www.youtube.com)
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32 comments:
Are you truly so ignorant of your subject matter that you think Buckley was born a WASP? Do you even know what the acronym stands for??
Buckley was not born a WASP. He was born --and remained-- Catholic.
Go back an read my very first post, and some of the most WASPy men were Catholic. And yes, I know what the "P" stands for. This blog focuses on the style!
Are you drunk?
Apropos WASP style and puritanical perspective...
Ever the elegant dresser, Hef did a lot to advance 1st Amendment rights, perhaps more than anybody in the 60s and 70s. And 'smut' is hardly a term I'd use for tasteful nudes. There were magazines more 'smutty' than Playboy ever was!
Nowadays Hef's publications would be considered pretty tame. Think about most (certainly not all) of the photography on certain sites publishing nudes without sexual content (Kind Girls, for example). That's hardly pornography.
And please! Let's define our terms. I knew a college-educated, 30-something Catholic mother of three in the American Midwest who considered the Sistine Chapel frescos pornographic, though she didn't use that term because it would have sounded silly and she new it. And she had never been to Europe.
Let's make distinctions where and when they're warranted.
Richard,
So Heffner made nude pictures classy, but he was nothing more than a smut peddler? Heffner and Buckley were classy, but not Heffner? You argue with yourself.
Buckley was a devout Roman Catholic, and was often criticized by the WASP establishment. He was no WASP. He was a great writer, thinker,a wealthy intellectual and tirelessly social.
Buckley read Playboy and once actually referenced an article he'd read therein during a Firing Line segment. I don't regard Playboy as smut any more than soldiers during WWII would have regarded pinups of Betty Grable as smut. Larry Flynt, perhaps, put out smut, which is defined as obscenity. I don't think Playboy pinup nudes are in any way obscene, unless you are homosexual, the exact response Buckley gave when one of his guests, a prominent Catholic clergyman, reacted with disdain at the magazine's mention.
Anon. 8:59: So what if Richard's a homosexual? Homosexuals can be WASPs, too. Don't be so closed minded.
As a Buckley admirer, I must disagree about the Vidal incident. Buckley, tugging compulsively at his ear and his voice unsteady, came off as a nervous schoolgirl the whole time. If you can't keep your cool when faced with the possibility of a fight with Gore Vidal, it says quite a bit about your confidence in your fighting prowess.
Also, I watched Firing Line for many, many years. Buckley was not much of an "OCBD" wearer, as you suggest. Occasionally, perhaps. But I remember him more (when I think of his dress at all) for the rather floppy little collars he would wear most of the time.
Finally, I agree with the others that it's not at all clear what you mean to say about Hefner. One sentence he's bringing class into the world of nude pictures, the next he's just a classless "smut peddler." Get your thoughts straight!
I don't think much of Hefner, but I had the highest respect for Buckley (and I am not all that conservative). Buckley was a gentleman, a patrician, a scholar, a good writer, and a first-rank public intellectual, whether I agreed with him or not. He's going to be a hard act to replace.
Bill Buckley was an ardent Irish Catholic who frequently and vociferously decried many policy decisions of the Church of England and related Protestant sects. Hardly a WASP in even in the most liberal definition of Digby Baltzell's acronym.
Per your retort Richie, I guess style counts more than subtance and integrity
Unlike his more civilized moderate Republican peers - William Scranton, George Romney, Peter Wilson, Mark O. Hatfield, Charles Percy and Nelson Rockefeller, Buckley repeatedly opposed federal civil rights legislation and curiously supported a litany of brutal dictators during the 1950s through 1990s.
Had a chance to meet WFB over the years, was always bewildered by his rumpled suits and Brooks Brothers blazers, heavily worn OCBD collars, heavy dose of dandruff on his shoulders and his freakish looking lime green teeth.
Nevertheless, he was an important opinion leader in modern conservative political thought, an accomplished sailor, friend of Evan Galbraith and harpsichord performer par excellence.
I can assure you that I am not homosexual!
Really? Then how do you explain your beard?
Richard,
You miss the point. No one cares if you are a homosexual. The mainly constructive criticism comes from your post. Don't fall into the trap of declaring your heterosexuality too often via exclamations, vulgar stories, or photos of women. It will only make you appear as a deep in the closet homosexual overcompensating to make sure the world sees you as a ladies' man.
I'd love to a read an interesting debate on WFB and the King of Smut.
Look, the question of Richard's sexuality is beside the point. The point is that homosexuality has always been central to WASP culture. Anyone who knows their history (or went to a private school) knows this beyond a doubt. You don't get the clubby culture of white-shoe firms or Wall Street without first having the sodomy of Andover. Anyone who denies it just has their head in the sand.
I concur with many of the above posts....Heffner was hardly a "smut-peddler" and it is simply adburd to say he was in this post....particularly when you state that he made photos of nude women classy in the same paragraph. Hoinestly, do you put much thought at all into the content here. Perhaps you should stick to showing off your suits, sport coats and shoes. That is, unless you want to give us some stories about shooting pheasants and deer.
Blast, Richard! Which is he? Smut peddler or classy ol' bloke?
On every level Buckley was a paradigm of Wasp virtues. As for clothese he had a world-class collection of Lacoste shirts -- probably with the longer tails -- and hired a tailor to make appropriate width ties during the unpleasant period when they were not available. Oh, and his politics were impeccable.
I think you should rename your blog. Wasp as mentioned numereous times before refers to type of protestant ; your error becomes more glaring when you pick Catholics to represent ideal wasps. Catholics aren't wasps nor do we care to be refered to as such. William Buckley was an ardent Catholic and would have punched you in the nose for referring to him as a wasp.
neither very in to fashion......probably both nwould laugh at all this discussion.
I thought you were more at home with the Tea Party rabble than the thoughtful conservatism of WFB.
I had no intention of implying you were homosexual, Richard. My apologies. Nor was I referencing the Gore Vidal incident, as another poster suggested. The incident I was referring to happened in the '80s. I have nothing against homosexuals, at any rate. I was merely pointing out that it's a stretch equating Hefner's pinups with obscenity.
Woooo
Anonymous is my favorite commenter on this blog.
When I use the term "WASP", I am referring to the style brought to use from the protestant elite families of the northeast. These families adopted the style from the upper crust of England's elite, and incorporated their tweaks.
Also, I should have said Hugh made it acceptable to sell pictures of naked women. He did so by injecting a classy image into his magazine, but at the end of the day, he was and still is peddling smut just like Flynt. Sure, Playboy has images displaying more class (no spread eagle, etc.), but they are still naked and how classy can that be?
"they are still naked and how classy can that be?"
How classy can the nude human body be? You don't go to many art museums, do you?
Anon. 9:06: I appreciate your comments too.
With ideas such as yours about images of the nude female body....you might as well have the P in WASP stand for Puritan.
What is this "spread eagle" of which you speak?
"When I use the term "WASP", I am referring to the style brought to use from the protestant elite families of the northeast. These families adopted the style from the upper crust of England's elite, and incorporated their tweaks."
Well, that explains a lot of what appears on your blog. The "upper crust" of the norheast were/are nothing more than bitter and boring puritain busy-bodies. When they "adopted" the style of England's elite, it was nothing more than a poor, self-conscious imitation--provincial in the fullest sense of the word. For a good example, find the story when the genteel Henry James met GK Chesterton and Hilaire Beloc in England. The New England WASPs are the descendants of the very low church and lower class English of East Anglia. They were all petit bourgeoisie and Calvinist to the hilt: roundheads not cavaliers. If your looking for aristocratic traditions in America, look to the South. I'm not saying that the New England WASP totally lacks good qualities, I only think your blog is a good example of the yankee "WASP" psychosis.
Couldn't stand Buckley, though at first I thought he was some sort of right-wing rebel. Hardly, it turns out.
Buckley was simply a useful mouthpiece for the military-industrial complex and the anti-Communist movement, which in its later years was dominated by mostly Jewish Neocons to whom Buckley and his cohorts sucked up.
Once Communism faded (at least in the East), his views became decidely softer and more liberal, especially on the key issues related to race, immigration, and culture.
What, exactly, did Buckley and his fellow "conservatives" conserve? Tell me, I'd like to know.
I used to see Buckley on occasion at Mass at St Catherine of Siena in Riverside (Greenwich). He affected what I took to be a calculated rumpled look, like Boris Johnson does today.
LBF--I agree entirely. By the way, your blog is the best one out there. With your comments on Buckley, and what I've seen from you blog, I think you'd like Chronicles Magazine. Check it out at: www.chroniclesmagazine.org
Don't forget the Salisbury review either.
Actually, I agree that LBF is the best blogger out there. He is perhaps the best writer I have ever read.
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