I was working in a not-so-good neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago today, and one of my coworkers stepped across the street to get coffee at a greasy spoon called G & N Breakfast.  The older gentleman who said he was the owner asked her nationality, she told him Irish, and he discerned that she is probably a democrat.  Sloppily shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, he then asked if she worked at the school across the street and asked how she can stand working with all those niggers.  She said that's not a word she is okay with, to which he said it should be fine to say that because they call each other that all the time.  Of course, rather than realizing or caring that he had offended his customer, he went on spouting off anti Black statements and said the N in his business' name stood for niggers and the G for some other racial slur (Roughly 70% of his business would be African American on a day-to-day basis).  She was mad, but remaining calm, she just told him that being Greek, he is only a few shades lighter than those he hates so much.  This made him really mad, and he started spitting his hash browns all over the place while he yelling God knows what as she left.

Later I told the Mexican maintenance man (who I call Amigo and he calls me Amigo) at the work site about the exchange, and he said he has known that guy for years and he's a right prick who yells at his staff and calls them idiots all the time in front of customers.  Amigo said he told the guy he would whip his ass if he ever talked to him like that.  Apparently the owner was a Chicago cop who bought the place since 1959 after getting shot in the arm.  Doesn't sound like his world view has changed much since 1959 . . .

So, if you ever want to get in a time machine and meet a real live racist from the days of the Civil Rights movement, go visit him at G & N Breakfast on the West Side of Chicago.  If you would like to bring along some fire hoses and dogs to turn the tides on him, I certainly would not object.

Is Mark Wahlberg an Asshole?

Well, you be the judge. I did a search on google of whether or not he was a jerk or an asshole, and this is what I found. Now if anyone else searches, I hope this post is the first thing they find because I think I put this Asshole Assessment together quite nicely.

Here's a clip of him threatening to beat up a guy interviewing him just because he calls him an action star. He's doing it in jest but it's a little too much - Mark seems like a bully type that's not yet fully grown up.

Here he is saying that with all his boxing training in movies, he could knock out Manny Pacquiao if he could get in a sucker punch. Also, he says that he punched someone recently and fish hooked another guy's eye socket.









According to his biography on IMDB, this is where he came from:

Wahlberg dropped out of high school at age 14 (but later got his GED) to pursue a life of petty crime and drugs. He'd spend his days scamming and stealing, working on the odd drug deal before treating himself to the substances himself. The young man also had a violent streak - one which was often aimed at minorities. At age 16, he was convicted of assault against two Vietnamese men after he had tried to rob them.

Yes! Beating up minorities! I knew he was an asshole, but this extends to straight-up evil.

What got me on this quest was listening to his commentary in "Boogie Nights" where his phone keeps going off loudly and he never bothers to silence it and at another point he takes a call from his travel agent. The director of the film, Paul Thomas Anderson, had great conversations with the other members of the cast, all of them pointing out scenes they liked and elements of the characters, often characters that weren't theirs, that they enjoyed, while Mark Wahlberg just asked when it was over because he had to go, bitching about the movie being too long. With the other cast members, the conversation just flowed, but with Wahlberg, he had to be prompted to say things, and without fail he would let out a big loud yawn and talk through his yawn. Really, Marky Mark? You didn't know how long the movie was going to be, and once there, you couldn't muster up some enthusiasm or turn your damn phone off? Without that movie, he would never be respected as a serious actor the way he is now, just a serious asshole, so the least he could do was act mildly interested.

Then during John C. Riley's, a much more talented actor, let's face it, portion of the commentary, he tells a story about how during the pool party scene, Wahlberg had his whole entourage with him, now made famous by the overrated HBO series, and he was testing everyone, seeing who would put up with his crap and who he could get a rise out of. People were pushing one another into the pool, but Marky Mark would do it to the same person four times just to get under their skin. Riley says that he doesn't have an angry streak, but he had low blood sugar from not eating and was tired of Wahlberg's crap, so when he got hit square in the forehead in front of everyone with a Marky Mark thrown marshmallow, he just lost it and attacked him. Good job, John C. Riley. Someone needed to stand up to the bully, so I'm glad you had that low blood sugar that day (Also, John is from Chicago so that makes him awesome. I really don't like that for his IMDB biography, the first line is "With a homely mug . . .")

I guess I wouldn't have gotten so mad about Mark being such a turd in the commentary if I didn't love this movie so much; "Boogie Nights" is my favorite film of all time, and when I hate the actor, it ruins the character for me. Dirk Diggler, or really Eddie Adams from Torence, was a sweet innocent kid swept up into a world of sex and drugs, latching onto Jack Horner, the director, and one of the female stars like a father and mother, whereas Mark Wahlberg just seems like an outright butthole. Hopefully with time, when I watch the movie, I'll just see him as Dirk and not the a-hole bully. After all, I was worried that all "Seinfeld" reruns would make me just think what a racist dumbass Michael Richards seemed like at the time, but now he's just Kramer.

Anyone have any thoughts on this guy or know of another celebrity being a jerk? How about one who is supposed to be a jerk but you found them quite nice/misunderstood?