Our friend K, who worked with him (and is Jewish BTW), said he was always nice and respectful and warm. But that was a decade ago and he might have gotten more unhinged since then.

Oh Allyson, that guy's anti Beastie's stance has no credibility at all. They've been recognized as one of the most influential groups in rock and rap for decades now. Hence, the hall of fame.

Just on Paul's Boutique alone they could've coasted in.

Here's their writeup at Allmusic which is pretty close to a critical consensus:

As the first white rap group of any importance, the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident hip-hop musicians, both of whom accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore punk group in 1981. But the Beasties weren't pirating -- instead, they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the D.I.Y. aesthetics of hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart. Of course, the exaggerated b-boy and frat-boy parodies of their unexpected hit debut album, Licensed to Ill, didn't help their cause. For much of the mid-'80s, the Beastie Boys were considered macho clowns, and while they dismissed that theory with the ambitious, Dust Brothers-produced second album, Paul's Boutique, it was ignored by both the public and the press at the time.

In retrospect, Paul's Boutique was one of the first albums to predict the genre-bending, self-referential pop kaleidoscope of '90s pop. The Beasties refined their eclectic approach with 1992's Check Your Head, where they played their own instruments. Check Your Head brought the Beasties back to the top of the charts, and within a few years, they were considered one of the most influential and ambitious groups of the '90s, cultivating a musical community not only through their music, but with their record label, Grand Royal, and their magazine of the same name.

Yeah, he and Danny Glover were apparently pretty close during the Lethal Weapon years, and Danny is not the kind of person who would become close with an asshole bigot woman-beater. So I have the feeling that Mel has changed since those days.

I do kind of wonder what happened to him.

Sigourney Weaver had a great relationship with him doing Year of Living Dangerously and spoke about how much she enjoyed working with him.

Ditto for Jodie Foster who obviously tried to help him with The Beaver.

And I think of them as discerning women. And yet...he's gone horribly wrong.

Yeah, I just Googled "Danny Glover and Mel Gibson" to make sure I was remembering right, and Danny still stands by Mel.

Makes me question the sanity of Foster, Glover, and Weaver!

I have nothing to contribute re: Mel Gibson or the RoRHoF.

So, last night's Revenge recap? Still cracktacular. I think a big part of why I enjoy it so much is the way everyone's always escalating - one character releases the hounds, another releases the hounds with bees in their mouth so they shoot bees when they bark, and then someone nobody even thought about releases the kraken, and meanwhile Emily has the whole place wired to blow. It's awesome.

Doggerhosen

You know, I skipped recording the Revenge recap show, but now I'm thinking I should see if it's On Demand.

I had forgotten that quite so much had happened.