L.A. Weekly Profiles Breitbart
Dozens of the fallen provocateur’s media friends gathered for a monthly party at an elegant home in Santa Monica Canyon last Friday. Contrary to posthumous attacks by adversaries who proclaimed him “a douche” and “a piece of scum,” they talked of a loving husband, an inspirational father to his four young children and an L.A. spirit who fought for the sheer fun of it.
I was there at the elegant home, and indeed, people spoke all night about the sharp contrast between the fun-loving guy who made us all laugh and the portrait painted by the left of an angry man who hated the left. I talked to leftists who said he had argued politics with them, passionately, and then would hug them afterwards.
And it wasn’t just friends. I talked to someone last night who said that he would work with people who talked about how they hated Breitbart. When this person told Andrew about these people, he would say: “Invite them to dinner!” And Andrew would go out and eat with the haters. And the haters would inevitably say, afterwards: “I wanted to hate him. I came prepared to hate him. But he’s a heck of a charming, funny guy.”
Yup.
One iconic image of Breitbart was taken for Time in 2010 It showed him balancing his laptop above his bubble bath, SoCal sunlight streaming into his upstairs bathroom. Journalist Steve Oney wrote in the accompanying story of holding tight to Breitbart’s passenger seat as the rising star raced home “via the sort of shortcuts only native Angelenos know.” In that moment, Breitbart said to him, “I feel very alive.”
Looking back, Oney now says, “It was phenomenal to be with him as he drove in his Range Rover, zipping along, with the 405 in complete gridlock. It seems a metaphor for the way he lived. There was an improbable speed to Andrew’s rise, and to Andrew’s untimely death.”
I attended the funeral yesterday — and the reception, and a get-together afterwards (I didn’t get home until after 1 a.m.) — and I think I understood Andrew more fully, seeing the amazing group of people he surrounded himself with. I had met many of these people before, but met many of them for the first time: people like Adam Baldwin, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Loesch, Mike Flynn . . . the list goes on and on.
One of the people speaking at the reception talked about the way Andrew would often end a phone call. He would be talking on and on, and when it was time to go, he would say, suddenly: “Okay, bye!” Boom. And he’d be gone.
And whoever it was who pointed that out (I can’t remember who it was), they made the point that he died the same way.
Okay, bye!
And he was gone.
‘Contrary to posthumous attacks by adversaries who proclaimed him “a douche” and “a piece of scum,”’
Sounds like some of that famous lefty civility I’m always hearing about.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/7/2012 @ 10:11 pmWaiting for the left to put their foot in their mouth, so the next video can be released. Brietbart was genius at that.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 3/7/2012 @ 10:45 pmthink I don’t live right homie you dead wrong submarine sandwich I’m just saying my bread long
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 3/7/2012 @ 10:49 pmmmmmmeanwhilst….
this is what passes for journalism on National Soros Radio:
National Soros Radio wants you to ask that fundamental question.
So you bes be axin it.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 3/7/2012 @ 10:54 pm“Rubio: Latino or Tea Partino?“
Well, it ain’t exactly “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NFL Is gonna win!”
I think they had snappier mindless, lefty chants back in the 60s.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 3/7/2012 @ 11:02 pmMaybe the right should use illegal voters.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 3/7/2012 @ 11:03 pmThis was another nice post about Andrew.
Someone on the Red Eye tribute talked about his sudden goodbyes on phones.
Noodles (3681c4) — 3/7/2012 @ 11:09 pmfirst Andrew, then Lex.
to absent comrades.
redc1c4 (403dff) — 3/8/2012 @ 12:05 amThanks for this report. Sláinte.
Beldar (bdfdef) — 3/8/2012 @ 12:44 amWhat I wanna know is, how come we keep losing Good People — Julian Simon, Andrew Breitbart, Michael Crichton, John Boyd….
But assholes like Bill Ayers, Ralph Nader, Al Gore, and Paul Ehrlich keep going on?
It’d like there was a conspiracy, or something.
I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of The Easy Solution... (8e2a3d) — 3/8/2012 @ 3:50 am😀
Early, untimely death of those you love and/or respect reinforces the importance of sharing your feelings with them and of cherishing each “moment”, if for nothing more than your own well being.
Colonel Haiku (b0c693) — 3/8/2012 @ 5:30 amThat’s isn’t even proper Spanish, some bizarre spanglish hodgepodge dialect.
narciso (87e966) — 3/8/2012 @ 5:38 amIt does seem that way, the best of us, have gone away, and the ‘worst full of passionate intensity’ seem to linger,
narciso (87e966) — 3/8/2012 @ 5:44 amThank you, Patterico.
I Got Bupkis, you can add Cathy Seipp to the list of the good folks who died too young. There is a symmetry, because Breitbart was a friend of Cathy’s and spoke at a tribute to her shortly before she died in 2007.
Cathy’s style of fighting the left differed from his. While Breitbart delighted in slashing attacks, Cathy used a light touch of ridicule.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fe5f37) — 3/8/2012 @ 5:48 amI hope Breitbart really is here. I’ve heard so many people week indulge in outlandishly ugly and uncharming things as if that is fighting the “Breitbart way”. I think he would have had a better way.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 3/8/2012 @ 6:58 amThink of all the talent he encouraged, the voices and faces Andrew assembled like power rangers. All of them together can’t be Andrew, but it’s one awesome laser-shooting megazord.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 3/8/2012 @ 7:11 amI never met the man, or spoke to him, or so much as shook his hand, but he had a way of speaking and writing that would make me forget that I was watching a video, or reading an article. I’d suddenly be yelling my approval to an empty room before remembering that, oh yeah, he’s not in the room with me. Every time I watched a video of him speaking, I felt like I was right there in the audience, front row, and likewise, in my living room, my fist would fly in the air while I scream “F**k yeah, Breitbart! Fight the power!”
If I’m feeling a sense of loss over someone I’ve never met, I can’t imagine what those who knew him are going through.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 3/8/2012 @ 7:37 amBreitbart was relentless, moving from one goal to the next with fierce determination. Just imagine if we all lived our entire lives that way? What we could accomplish!
Lesson learned: Be like Breitbart.
Book (5b3f1d) — 3/8/2012 @ 12:37 pmI have to believe Breitbart knew he was short on time and that he had to put together many who would continue the fight and all couldn’t go at once.
Notice how they are mostly all young and not just old crotchety regressive conservatives as the left hopes to outlive.
On another note, even if you have to download a copy of kindle for the pc like I did to read it get the free book written about 10 years ago available on Amazon called ‘Enemies Foreign and Domestic’ it talked well to the point of a subgroup inside the BATFE going all sorts of extra constitutional to reach their goals.
The book leaves a lot of ends untied when it finishes but that should not diminish the message it has very well put forth as to how people with power can have power over people as long as they are willing and eager to do whatever it takes.
CommentGuy (ea6549) — 3/8/2012 @ 1:10 pmIt sounds like the funeral was exactly what his community needed, and I am happy that you were able to have it.
aphrael (d46bb0) — 3/9/2012 @ 3:02 pm