The Peculiar Ascent of Bill Murray to Secular Saint
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Every actor/celebrity (indeed, every person in theory) has a right to control what others do with his name, image, and likeness - this is what the law calls the "right of publicity."
So you can't just paste a photo or drawing of a famous person onto mugs, etc. and sell them for profit.
That is, apparently, unless that person is Bill Murray. He certainly could act to stop this but he hasn't.
I guess this fits with his eccentric-oddball persona. Very odd, legally speaking, but a nice way to relate to the people. Don't know the first thing about the man personally but this is the kind of thing that makes me want to know someone who can be so engagingly goofy.
The analogy to Che Guevara seems right. The image has taken on a life of its own, independent of the man. Che's image in the U.S. seems to represent a blank slate revolutionary.
A counter-analogy is MLK. Why are there so many Che shirts but no MLK shirts? In part because the King family will sue you for any use of his image or words without a subsequent payday. This has prevented MLK from being the omnipresent cultural presence he should be.
He's pretty much been in semi-retirement for some time now, as far I know, and doesn't seem to care if people notice him. Just my take - don't follow so closely.
Alright I agree, obfuscating lack of anything interesting to say with attempts at being poetic is pretty fun. That being said, I gather from the fact that you felt you had to post a comment that somewhere in the fog you somehow disagree with some part of my comment. I'd be interested in seeing your second try at expressing what your actual disagreement is.
A little more concretely, because his personality is in many ways the opposite of the Machiavelli [1].
1. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278262615...
The video of the full speech is also on YouTube.
> "I Have An Idea"
>
> I'm super happy to join with you today in what
> will go down as a noteworthy demonstration for
> freedom in the history of our nation. One hundred
> years ago, a great president --his statue is behind
> me-- signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Good
> stuff, that.
>
> I have an idea that one day we'll will rise up
> and live out: "We hold these truths to be
> self-evident, that all men are created equal."
>
> I have an idea today!
>
> Free finally! Free finally!
> Thank the Maker, we're free finally!If this were the same for some other person who sees that money is being possibly taken out of his pocket because of someone else using his likeness without his permission, and he isn't quite set for life money wise the reaction might be understandably quite different.
His lack of an agent and the difficulty of getting him to agree to actually do a film suggests that money is not a motivator for him generally.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2014/09/05/casting...
A friend of mine was at a bar in the LES and Bill Murray got behind the bar and started serving people. No matter what you ordered he'd just make you a gin and tonic.
Another friend of mine was at Bembe in Brooklyn a few years back and Bill Murray came in, skipped the line out front, and came out a few minutes later with two bottles of water and just walked away. My friend asked him if he really went in to just get water and he said "Yes. Your friends will never believe you."
Both are friends I completely trust to not be lying, but Bill Murray was right. I don't believe them.
He doesn't have to "perform for an audience" in parties and social scenarios -- tons of actors don't do any of those things.
(Ironically, that's a common advice people give to parents regarding their kids).
Besides do you know what's REAL melancholy for an "older, divorced dad"?
NOT partying at all, and not having people to love/care for them. Second worse, would be only having boring older people conversations and pass-times. If they can be that relevant that even 20th year olds are OK to hang around with them, more power to them.
What would be indeed be lame would be to TRY/WANT to party with younger people, and them rejecting you. Or partying with younger people but not being able to connect with another person out of "party" scenarios. Which I'd guess is not the case here.
Well, in that case he should still let him live his life.
But besides that, it's not just "fame" that does it. If the person is interesting, that can be enough.
But my favorite story about him is how he calls Kelly Lynch's husband every time Roadhouse is on TV to tell him that she's having sex with Patrick Swayze. Apparently this has gone on for years.
I love that he'd do that to begin with, but that he'd do it for so long without any expectation that it would become public knowledge is awesome.
I'm going to have to Google this. If that's true, it's hilarious.
[0] http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/11/10/bourdain-charleston-...
http://www.avclub.com/article/kelly-lynch-on-imagic-cityi-jo...
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/05/25/a-fan-asked-bill-murr...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25gLcBgduHk#t=12m
This bit was written like 40 years ago.
Humor is subjective, so my opinion really doesn't matter.
I think there are definitely comedic styles/routine/jokes/whatever that might end up being timeless, but there are a lot of things that will become less humorous over time. Half of the sitcoms I grew up watching in the 80's and early 90's don't seem funny at all anymore.
As far as Seinfeld, I've noticed that people my age who grew up with the show in school and college consider it timeless but a lot of younger people don't see the big deal. Not so much that it's not funny (it is) or that it's dated (cultural references and cordless home phones are just window dressing), but that so many subsequent shows have been influenced by Seinfeld that it doesn't seem very new or original to a 17-year-old who just saw a few reruns for the first time.
It's sort of like how people will talk about The Beatles being overrated because people still refer to their relevance when they were still putting out albums, not how their work relates to current rock music. When the Beatles got huge it was relevant as much for the time and place as it was the actual music. But if you're a young listener today and you hear the Beatles at the same time as you hear later artists who were influenced by the Beatles, they don't seem like a big deal.
That's the problem with "timelessness" and something like pop culture that's always changing and building upon itself (not to mention how it favors novelty). It seems like there will always be cultural "enthusiasts" in any medium who appreciate the influence a given artist has on the popular culture but just the same, I find that same general "popular" audience loses sight of what made something big. And since the nature of pop culture is to mirror and cater to "the masses", on some level, that's who really determines relevance.
I absolutely adored his stuff when I first ran into it (admittedly around age 12), and the exchange in My Little Chickadee of, as he and another fellow sit down to play a card game, "Is this a game of chance?" "Not the way I play it, no" I to this day still find sublime.
/end tangent
> At one time there really was a man known as "the World's Greatest Authority." I ran across him in trying to nail down one of the many silly questions that kept coming at me from odd sources. Like this: Set your terminal to "research." Punch parameters in succession "North American culture," "English-speaking," "mid-twentieth century," "comedians,", "the World's Greatest Authority." The answer you can expect is "Professor Irwin Corey." You'll find his routines timeless humor.
I did not find this to be true. Then again, many at the time were also perplexed about his humor.
https://society6.com/product/bill-murray-replaceface_framed-...
I dunno. I just like it. I grew up with his movies and he's simply genius.
As I read more I came to understand that the public, including BM himself, have appropriated his persona and are doing mash-ups with it. Very nice.
This makes listeners feel they have a connection to who the musician actually is.
Actors, by the very core of their occupation, don't have that level of immediate authenticity.
There are movies that have affected me profoundly but I'd have to watch them again in the right circumstances and mood to even hope to be similarly affected a second or third time. But there are songs and albums that I'd argue will always get an emotional reaction from me barring some weird scenario where I had to listen to them on repeat for days until they were worn out.
I'm more just curious how hes managed to come out unscathed. A lot of famous people usually take a big hit when accused of domestic violence.
It's possible that with no further reports, the public are discounting those as legal posturing, to strengthen her negotiating position against a pretty solid pre-nup.