"I don't think I've ever called anybody a genius, except sarcastically."

I just said, to Meade, after he misread the title of the last post as something I'd written, when it was a quote from a Wall Street Journal editorial. (Not that the Wall Street Journal was calling anybody a genius. It was characterizing what other people were saying about John Roberts, and, in my view overstating it.)

I decided to check my impulsive assertion. Have I ever called anybody a "genius" (without sarcasm)?

On February 15, 2008, I called Jane Fonda "some kind of media genius... a media genius — a media whore." And I called Eve Ensler "genius" for thinking up a play — "The Vagina Monogues" — that's so completely easy to produce and perform — "3 women sit on stools and get to read their lines off index cards."

On June 28, 2001, Howard Kurtz had called Mitt Romney a "boring genius," and I restated that as "a genius at being boring."

On March 14, 2012, I called Rush Limbaugh a "media genius," but not "enough of a genius" to have deliberately set off the Sandra Fluke flap for publicity purposes.

On December 30, 2011, I said "The guy's a genius!" about James Franco, but that was complete sarcasm.

October 14, 2011, I say this about Steve Jobs: "Here we are, mourning our loss of a genius, and the genius (apparently) fell for the monumental stupidity of 'alternative' medicine." I'm only referring to his reputation as a genius, and I'm calling him stupid.

June 14, 2011: I say "The idiot is a genius!" about Sarah Palin.

January 24, 2008: I refer to Dolly Parton as a "pop culture genius."

I see I need to amend my original quote: I don't think I've ever called anybody a genius, except sarcastically or in the specific category of genius: media genius.

ADDED: Contemplate the possibility that John Roberts is a genius — a media genius.

Jane Fonda: "My biggest regret is..."

Guess!
"I never got to f*** Che Guevara."

"Should a two-time Oscar-winner like Jane Fonda really be making a spectacle out of the fact that she wanted to appear on a home-shopping channel?"

Asks Big Hollywood, noting Jane's plaint:

I was to have been on QVC today to introduce my book, “Prime Time,” about aging and the life cycle....

The network said they got a lot of calls yesterday criticizing me for my opposition to the Vietnam War and threatening to boycott the show if I was allowed to appear.

Bottom line, this has gone on far too long, this spreading of lies about me! None of it is true. NONE OF IT! I love my country. I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us.

Big Hollywood has a few quibbles with some of those assertions.

Poor Jane! Getting old... and just wants to sell her book about getting old. We're all getting old, and Jane has always been about capturing — and purveying — the spirit of whatever time she happened to be in. With that mindset, it's hard to understand the depth of feeling some people have about the past.

Remember 80s Jane?

"You were my heart throb"/"What am I now, chopped liver?... It must have been 'Barbarella', right?"/And he typed out "yes."

When Jane Fonda met Stephen Hawking.

Photographs by/of Dennis Hopper.

Hopper took some cool photographs in the 1960s — cool not just because he had access to some of the celebrities of that era (Paul Newman, Jane Fonda, Bill Cosby, Brian Jones, Tuesday Weld, Andy Warhol, etc.).

And Terry Richardson did a nice cigar-smoking sequence of Hopper.

Via Metafilter, which highlights the great photoblog Chasing Light.

Update on women I've talked about recently.

1. Heather Mills gets a mere £55 million. And she binds herself to never tell the story of what went on between her and Paul McCartney. It's a settlement of the case, and Mills was proceeding without a lawyer. As you can see from the previous post, Mills had already received a £55 offer and asking for £70 million to £80 million. I speculated that she was going for more money and representing herself to make the movie story of her life juicier with that confrontation in court — remember Angela Bassett telling off Laurence Fishburne in divorce court? — but the secrecy deal rules that out.



2. Jane Fonda apologized. After I lauded her for that deliberate enunciation of the word "cunt" on "The Today Show."

"She didn't say it to be shocking. She was just quoting the title of her scene in 'The Vagina Monologues,'" said Fonda's flack Pat Kingsley. "She didn't come up with the word."

Kingsley said the "Barbarella" actress, who was scheduled to perform the play last night at Madison Square Garden, regretted using the word, insisting "it was a slip."

"She certainly meant no disrespect," Kingsley said.

Oh, bullshit. But kudos to The Daily News. "Flack" — great word. And: "the 'Barbarella' actress." Ha ha. That's not pristine journalism, but so what? Fonda saying "cunt" is not really news.

Congratulations to Jane Fonda!

She's got herself in the news again. You've got to give that woman credit for finding a way — one way or another — to make herself newsworthy decade after decade. The lady is 70. She's some kind of media genius, right? She goes on the "Today" show on Valentine's Day with Eve Ensler, and they're promoting that tired old theater piece that gets reeled out every year to put a damper on Valentine's Day enthusiasm, and they know this means they can say "vagina, vagina, vagina," because it's the name of the play. And then clear as day, knowing absolutely what she's doing, Jane Fonda says "I was asked to do a monologue called 'Cunt.'"

Here's the NSFW video, which includes Meredith Vieira's instant apology: "It was a slip and obviously she apologizes, and so do we. We would do nothing to offend the audience." But it wasn't a slip, and by what authority does Vieira apologize on behalf of Fonda? Let her apologize for NBC, but recognize that Jane Fonda has a mind, the mind of a media genius — a media whore. (I think that's a fair expression.) She did what she wanted to do: Sit there on the couch, looking prim and protesting that she lives in Georgia — as if she's channeling deep-rooted Georgian values — and then crisply enunciating the word "cunt."

And everyone talks about her. Some will tsk. Some will spew. Some will preen with a ridiculous air of superiority and offer a tedious lecture about how "Cunt" actually is the name of a monologue in the play that is all about saying the word "cunt" over and over to transform us through the catharsis of theater into enlightened beings who don't mind anymore if someone says "cunt." So if you had only seen the play — if you weren't so illiterate — you would know that you look terribly ignorant to people in the know who have seen "The Vagina Monologues."

Well, I've seen "The Vagina Monogues." Who hasn't? It plays everywhere, since it says things a lot of people want said and it's so easy to produce and perform — 3 women sit on stools and get to read their lines off index cards. Ensler is a theater genius for thinking it up, and I congratulate her for devising such a brilliantly successful money-making writing project. But it not a very good play, and no one needs to feel inferior for passing it up. It's not like never having seen "Hamlet." And anyone watching "The Today Show" clip can easily see that Fonda is saying the name of her monologue in the play. That's all beside the point. She said the baddest bad word, and she planned to say it. She's not out of control. She did exactly what she wanted to do, and she's got your rapt attention — something she's done for 5 decades.

Object to the content all you want, but give her credit. She's a first-class media genius. For purporting to apologize for her, Meredith Vieira owes Jane Fonda an apology.