News Features

Beck and Call

By CHRIS FARAONE | August 31, 2010

Looking back from a barstool in DuPont Circle, remembering the part of Zaitchik's book where Beck is sniffing coke in his DeLorean, I can't help but think that my dreamy romp with his flag-clad minions was similar to when Marty McFly tells Doc Brown in Back to the Future that the Gipper is president of the United States in 1985. "Ronald Reagan — the actor?" the inventor laughs, retiring his geodesic headgear. "Then who's vice-president? Jerry Lewis? ... I've had enough jokes for one evening. Good night, Future Boy."

It's dismayingly surreal to escape my modern Boston bubble and discover that Beck is not merely a "fabulist thespian," as I once painted him, but rather a full-fledged Biff Tannen cult leader pining for Hill Valley nostalgia. As for the vice-president of his movement, which filled and spilled beyond the National Mall for "Restoring Honor" — let's just say she's no Jerry Lewis.

Chris Faraone can be reached at cfaraone[a]phx.com.

< prev 1 | 2 | 3 |

Topics: News Features , Politics, Fox News, Martin Luther King Jr., More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY CHRIS FARAONE

THE TRIALS OF NADIA NAFFE | March 04, 2013
Young, attractive, ambitious, conservative, and black, Nadia Naffe should have been a right-wing operative’s dream.

HIP-HOP TRIVIA GROWS UP | February 26, 2013
In their fourth year of operation, the Hip-Hop Trivia squad is finally taking the night (somewhat) seriously.

OCCUPY DENIED DAY IN COURT | February 22, 2013
It took more than a year for Suffolk County prosecutors to come to their senses.

CZARFACE SOARS ABOVE THE CLOUDS | February 11, 2013
This week 7LES and Inspectah Deck drop Czarface , a full-length work of adventurous genius revolving around a metal-clad protagonist who feeds on destruction.

THE BPD ADDS INSULT TO INJURY | February 05, 2013
At times, this kind of decision makes you wonder whether the BPD is saving its best awards for officers who've been involved in the death of civilians.