Five David Carr Memories

In the ten years of this blog, there have been more than 300 items referencing the great David Carr. Looking through the FishbowlNY archives this morning, we were struck by the following passages. 1) Kurt Andersen on Carr's Carpetbagger Skill Set: He is preternaturally perfect for the Web — a friendly, wisecracking 50-year-old character with a Minnesota rasp, the very opposite of self-serious. His years at alternative weeklies make him “predisposed to try whatever. ‘Video would be nice,’ they [the Times] said, when the blog started. “And I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound. I said, ‘I’ll go around in Times Square and hop around like an idiot and that should be sufficient.'” His videos are an alt version of the Today show out in Rockefeller Plaza, or as if Tom Waits had Ryan Seacrest’s job. 2) Carr Answering Howard Kurtz's Question About Potential The Night of the Gun Conflicts: "You know, two weeks ago I would have said, Howard, that is a non-issue. Not going to happen. But right now, I’m in the thicket of coverage, and many of the people that I write about are currently writing about me. And it’s created at least a temporary sort of problem for me." 3) Carr on the Modest Virtues of Celebrity Gossip: "While I am a sucker for a Page Six item revealing that Paris Hilton has achieved detente with a former frenemy, I’m not about to pay for that information. Much of the news that News Corporation produces is already a commodity by the time it hits the Web.” 4) Carr, Page One Documentary Movie Star (as Reviewed by Michael Kinsley in His Own Paper): The moviemakers must have felt that they had found their Jimmy Breslin or their Hildy Johnson (the real and fictional archetypes of the crusty, hard-living journalist)... The movie swoons for Mr. Carr. We are told again and again — at least twice by Mr. Carr himself — that he used to be a cocaine addict and a single parent on welfare and has seen some things in his day... The only flaw in this act is his inability to be cynical about his employer. As he freely admits, David Carr loves the New York Times. 5) Carr's First Quick Take on the Late Philip Seymour Hoffman: Hoffman had a belly, but the man was not soft — he gave as good as he got, huffing and puffing the whole time. Somewhere in there, his pants slipped, and he was selling a fair amount of crack. It was not his best feature, but he did not seem to care, instead concentrating on the matter at hand, which was fighting [Rainn] Wilson to a joyous and crowd-pleasing standstill.

Fishbowl

Five David Carr Memories

A small sampling of ten years of FishbowlNY coverage

Richard Horgan

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Richard Horgan