Joe Queenan apologizes

February 24, 2002 2:40 PM

Joe Queenan apologizes for being "an irredeemably horrible human being." Unfortunately, he doesn't apologize for the annoying pop-ups and banners on his Geocities website, but I do.
posted by MrBaliHai (14 comments total)

destined for deletion, just moments after the geocities site shuts down due to excessive bandwidth (10 pageviews or so...)
posted by quonsar at 2:44 PM on February 24, 2002

It's a one page site with no graphics -- trythe Google cache.
posted by rcade at 2:47 PM on February 24, 2002

WHO THE HELL IS JOE QUEENAN?! And, more importantly, why do we care?
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:10 PM on February 24, 2002

Dark Messiah: We don't.
posted by tsumo at 3:19 PM on February 24, 2002

joe queenan is dum. (incorrect spelling for emphasis)
posted by Satapher at 3:23 PM on February 24, 2002

Joe Queenan is a freelance journalist, mostly in film, who took it upon himslef, once to attempt make a film for less money than Robert Rodreguez. The resulting book: "The Unkindest Cut: How a Hatchet-Man Critic Made His Own $7,000 Movie and Put It All on His Credit Card" is a fantastic little adventure and well worth that current used price at Amazon...
posted by feelinglistless at 3:34 PM on February 24, 2002

Actually, Joe Queenan is a fairly famous, good writer who has written for several publications, including GQ, Esquire, Premiere, TV Guide, and he's written several books as well. Funny guy.

A note though: that web site is a few years old and I don't think he updates it anymore.
posted by sassone at 3:36 PM on February 24, 2002

He put this site up for his book My Goodness : A Cynic's Short-Lived Search for Sainthood which is also pretty good. My favourite of his, though, is Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler : Celluloid Tirades and Escapades -- there's a section where he's in front of a theatre questions about who wrote / directed films they've just seen, and despite the fact the posters advertising the films are right in front of them, nobody can tell him who directed "Dave".
posted by John Shaft at 4:21 PM on February 24, 2002

Joe Queenan is a laugh riot.
His best appearance, outside of his own work, was on the PBS documentary "People Like Us", where he'd wander though a Williams-Sonoma picking apart the uselessness of upper middle class lifestyle toys, for example a double-edged mezzaluna(?).
posted by dong_resin at 4:55 PM on February 24, 2002

Queenan mentions the website in this Salon interview from last July:

"But, I thought, I've been doing this for all of these years, maybe I should try being nice for a change. Who wants to be evil and hated? So, I tried to be a good person for six months. One of the things I did was set up a Web site where I apologized to all of the people that I've been really mean to. Though I must say that I went out of my way to reaffirm my dislike of certain people. You would never apologize to Geraldo for anything.

"So, I set up that Web site and shortly after that, I decided that I didn't want to be a nice person anymore."
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 4:58 PM on February 24, 2002

Joe Queenan=very funny. If --that is-- you are into elitist snobbishness and smirking cynicism. Which I am, by the way. "Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon" is another extremely funny book. Even when he's trashing things I hold dear.

And a piece he wrote for Movieline (amusinglyly snarky magazine) years ago about the sway that their hairdos have over modern movie actors makes me laugh just recollecting it.
posted by umberto at 5:58 PM on February 24, 2002

Dark Messiah, you really ought to get out more often.

Queenan's books are hilarious, and his fairly regular writing in GQ is reason alone to subscribe (well, Quennan *and* David Kamp and Glenn O'Brien).

Umberto, "RLWTATBL" is one of his best. I love the story where his family to Red Lobster to find the answer to the question "How bad can it be?" They show up in shorts and t-shirts and get nothing but nasty looks from the folks who are there for haute cuisine. Ha.
posted by dack at 9:21 PM on February 24, 2002

I guess he really did get tired of being a nice guy. I’m reading “Balsalmic Dreams” right now; he trashed a lot of those folks over again. I thought the website must have been a scam, reading over it
posted by allpaws at 6:28 AM on February 25, 2002

Plus, he's a Philly boy, not like that punk Kobe.
posted by coolgeek at 12:43 PM on February 25, 2002