Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/11/dan-mallory-bullshit-artist.html
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Dear fellow SWM:
House of Cards was not a blueprint.
Mad Men was also not a blueprint.
Francis Urquhart and Don Draper are the fucking villains.
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Asshole artist, more like.
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The problem was the story wasn’t true. Mallory’s mother did have cancer at one point, but she was certainly not dead, just living on Long Island.
That reminds me of a Utah Phillips/Ani D ditty about Eddie Balchowsky:
“Hell, dead, or in Chicago … its all the same to me, fella.”
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It’s crap like this that even makes it difficult for writers who draw from life but don’t claim their work to be fully autobiographical. My friend George Veltri had a novella primed for a screenplay when James Frey’s b.s. killed the heroin genre, as if stuff like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Basketball Diaries blubbering didn’t already push it down the stairs.
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Here is the New Yorker profile that exposed him:
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middling in talent, white of skin and surburban of origin
In addition to lying to shill books, option B is get elected to rhe GOP.:
Christ, what assholes.
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James Frey, I believe you meant, because I just looked them up and the spelling you gave is some unrelated person but also a writer, so figured I’d clarify in case others were confused.
One of the top inspirational writers for me was William Burroughs, so I guess I’m not going to knock anything about heroin other than to say: heroin is really stupid but at least it has led to some great art.
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Yeah, can’t believe I spaced on that. I agree. Heroin isn’t what makes a writer great, but it can certainly be a catalyst for a great writer.
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Burroughs wrote great art??
I like that Thanksgiving poem, but I’ve never read anything else by him that didn’t strike me as monomaniacal, emetic drivel.
What do you like about anything by him?
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You might very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
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I rewatched that about a year ago. It’s remarkable how much story they packed into four hours. Sir Ian Richardson was amazing.
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Could one perhaps enlighten the cinematically impaired as to the title of this piece de resistance?? 
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“House of Cards” was a 4-hour BBC drama about Francis Urquhart, the Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, who plots to take power after the end of the Thatcher years. I think it was made in 1990 or so. It’s all plotting and backstabbing and a charming anti-hero. Obviously the inspiration for the Netflix version, but far better, IMHO.
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Agreed. I know “the British version is superior” almost qualifies as a cliché at this point, but in this case the BBC miniseries really is vastly superior to the American spin-off.
As I understand it, Michael Dobbs, the author of the novels off which the original miniseries (and in turn the Netflix series) was based, was a notable political operative in Thatcher’s government. They’re on my reading list, but I strongly advise seeking out the BBC miniseries.
Okay, derail is mea culpa, but let’s return to topic. 
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So, he’s like a method author. He gets so into creating fiction and he chooses to just keep it on all the time.
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It’s kinda hallucinatory and can be deeply funny. That last is more noticeable when you’ve heard him read it out loud. Saw him twice and got all my books (except Naked Lunch, oddly) autographed.
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I’m a huge fan of Ian Richardson (check him out as Soviet spy and Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, Anthony Blunt in the film of Sir Alan Bennett’s “A Question of Attribution”) and his FU was perfectly confident and correctly evil. I loved all three seasons, especially “To Play The King”, which was a wonderfully savage take on the Charles and Diana mythos. On the other hand, visually it looks dated and some of the other acting is overblown.
But then I really enjoyed the remake as well, even though didn’t last the distance. Robin Wright in particular was fantastic, but jeez, the whole series just crashed and fizzled out.
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Another candidate for the “Glass Floor” treatment. White middle-class-plus males who are invested in to this degree by the powers-that-be aren’t allowed to fail. They’re given chance after chance after chance to suceed after they get caught lying or plagiarising. See also Jonah Lehrer, Stephen Glass, James Frey, etc.
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