HAIR TRIGGER TEMPER

After the shooting, Alec Baldwin is sick with concern...
that he'll get bad headlines.

It's a tasteless to say, but you're used to that kind of thing on this blog, so I ask: Is it surprising that Alec Baldwin shot two people on a movie set, killing one of them? And that the fatality is a woman?

It was all just a matter of time. I'm not saying it was on purpose. But a guy who's famous for his 14-karat anger attracts bad karma everywhere he turns.

Alec trying his best to reason with a
paparazzo.

From getting arrested for biking on sidewalks, to smashing cameras, and punching out a guy who took "his" parking space, Alec Baldwin is Hot Head #1, the master of malice who's never let a chance to look bad go to waste. He's the living embodiment of the adage If you run into an asshole in the morning, he was the asshole. You keep running into them all day, you're the asshole.

Somehow, Baldwin's well-known violent streak -- verbal, emotional, and physical -- never stopped him from being a well-liked guy in the industry, even if his movie career has sputtered into what's known in Hollywood as "Tier 1" productions (budgets that top out at six million dollars). A three-time Emmy winner, the co-star of 30 Rock for seven years, and, perhaps most famously, portraying fellow lunatic Donald Trump in the cold-open sketch of Saturday Night Live every week for four long years.

Stop the presses! The New York Post
publishes a sympathetic headline about
Alec Baldwin! I think.

All that acclaim, despite Baldwin's C.V. also including openly insulting gay people, his ex-wife, daughter, cops -- pretty much anybody who doesn't recognize what he considers his genius. So the irony is rich that when a death finally happens at his hand, he's portrayed as the victim. Or, as news anchor Gayle King assured her co-hosts on CBS Mornings today, "This was obviously an accident."

Well, no, Gayle, this was not obviously an accident. It was likely an accident. And it isn't your job to pass judgement on a news item while an investigation is barely in progress. Any chance Gayle and Alec are at least passingly acquainted in what they consider real life? 

 

Don't worry, Alec, Gayle's got your back.

King's judgement is known as "covering for your friends", which, when you're supposed to be a neutral journalist -- something she never has been -- should go only as far as commenting how cute their kids are. But this is what happens, when asked what they do for a living, certain people would reply, "Well, I'm a newscaster, but what I really want to be is a celebrity." (Before her CBS gig, King was best known as Oprah's BFF.)

Baldwin's iPhone is likely blowing up with calls and texts from friends (I'm looking at you, Tina Fey) expressing their condolences -- if that's the right word for a guy who shot a woman to death. OK, likely accidentally. Because, in legalese, he "discharged" the gun. And as a publicist for the movie, Rust, told the press, “the safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority.” 

Try telling that to the family and friends of the late Halyna Hutchins and the wounded  Joel Souza -- Rust's cinematographer and director respectively. You can be sure that there are plenty of actors who have been sorely tempted to do the same -- the ones who today are saying, Alec took one for the team!

This isn't Alec's first time at the legal rodeo.

You may find it hard to believe, but I take no joy in Baldwin's predicament. I'd have preferred someone finally got sick of his tough-guy shtick and threw an uppercut that wired his jaw shut for a month. That would have provoked merriment throughout the land. Instead, today it's nothing but "poor Alec." Even when he loses, he wins. 

It's a mystery how a prop gun was loaded with a real bullet that went through two victims. Certainly the people who have the most to answer for -- other than the prop guys -- are the movie's producers... one of whom is named Alec Baldwin. I don't think we're going to be seeing much of him on TV in the near future. Except walking in and out of police stations and courtrooms. No Emmys for that performance in his future.

And for those of you wondering who Baldwin was playing in Rust, it's the grandfather of a 13 year-old boy accused of an accidental killing. Must be in the genes.

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