Crotchety rambler Andy Rooney has passed away, just one month after his final “60 Minutes” appearance and slightly more than a week after suffering complications from minor surgery. In honor of his passing, I’ll be just as respectful about his death as he was about Kurt Cobain’s.
Rooney was an unremarkable, cranky bore whose bitching about simple annoyances struck a nerve with other aging white people who were frightened by or opposed to change. His view of America was essentially a collection of Rockwell paintings, and he complained about any facet of life that strayed from that impossible vision. When technological developments improved commerce or people’s lives, Rooney only saw the inconvenience of learning something new. In every TV appearance of his that I saw, he came off to me as intellectually incurious, and he happily took a paycheck from CBS for 60 years while brushing away the fans who sent him letters or tried to approach him in public. I don’t understand why people who didn’t know him should stop and mourn a man who never cared for people he didn’t know.
Rest in peace, Andy Rooney. The world has moved on.
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Couldn’t have said it better myself. Fuck Andy Rooney.
No need for cremation, Rooney was just ROASTED.
Whats the difference between an average Marine and Andy Rooney?
People notice that Andy Rooney died. Thanks for your service, vets, and stay the fuck outta Walter Reed. You’re only important to anybody while you can still be useful.
His eyebrows will still haunt me from the grave.
What exactly did Kurt Cobain do to earn a respectful eulogy? He ruined cock rock (for which I will never forgive him) and he is largely responsible for foisting Courtney Love on the world for the last two decades. Oh and Nevermind sucks, it would be a nice if he didn’t sound like he was deepthroating someone while he was singing.
Thanks for telling it straight Andy Rooney. You didn’t give a fuck what other people thought of you, you just said what you wanted. That I can respect in a man. Also, not killing yourself with a shotgun, I respect that too.
I love how on the next page of that book, the following comment appears:
“I hope that on the day your obituary appears, some commentator will correctly describe you as the loud-mouthed, self-important, out-of-touch windbag that you are.”
Bravo, Matt.
What exactly did Kurt Cobain do to earn a respectful eulogy?
Where did you read that I said Cobain deserved a respectful eulogy? My only implication was that I was following Rooney’s example.
It a great big universe and we’re all really puny. We’re just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney
Getting zinged on the internet would’ve meant more to Rooney if he knew what the internet was.
Maybe I assuming too much, but it seemed to me his spots on 60 Minutes were a sarcastic caricature of himself and those that you say he catered too, and a good one at that. That said, the schitck got old twenty years before it ended. As far as Cobain; I can’t even count the times pundits have blamed, derided, etc. people who have committed suicide or overdosed.
“My only implication was that I was following Rooney’s example.” I guess I’d ask if you could rise above that and prove yourself better, but hey, I guess I understand your point.
Personally I’d cut him some slack for the following:
Rooney began his career in newspapers while in the Army when, in 1942, he began writing for Stars and Stripes in London during World War II.
In February 1943, flying with the Eighth Air Force, he was one of six correspondents who flew on the second American bombing raid over Germany. Later, he was one of the first American journalists to visit the Nazi concentration camps near the end of World War II, and one of the first to write about them. During a segment on Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, Rooney confessed that he had been opposed to World War II because he was a pacifist. He recounted that what he saw in those concentration camps made him ashamed that he had opposed the war and permanently changed his opinions about whether “just wars” exist.
Word
A blog berating a fake journalist
I guess I’d ask if you could rise above that and prove yourself better, but hey, I guess I understand your point.
I guess I’d ask you to not expect more from a TV blog written by someone who went to war as more than a reporter.
Seems to me that the losses in the Eighth at the time he flew with them had a much higher casualty rate than most situations since, which should qualify for something.
I do expect your bitterness and vindictiveness and most of the time I enjoy them (especially when it comes to Entourage or Dane Cook). I would even expect a self-righteous superiority to a mere reporter, just sometimes I don’t think it is warranted. But after all, as you say; it is just a TV blog. Thank you for your service.
Moose, you’re pretty much a dick.
This obit of Rooney, and the dialog between Moose and Matt raise many interesting questions: what duty does a reporter (performer?) owe their fans to engage them outside work? When does someone cross the line between character and caricature? And what does service in a war-zone mean for the later career of a reporter (or blogger)? But all of these miss the real point:
LSU-Alabama is on tonight and I am trapped at a wedding.
/the real victim
LSU-Alabama is on tonight and I am trapped at a wedding.
There’s a TV somewhere in the reception hall. Trust me.
I watched Fringe today. Do more fringe posts. i love fringe.
@Otto,
Sadly this wedding is in Philly at the museum of medical oddities, so it will have to be sneaking looks at my phone amongst the elephantiasis infected testes.
Serving and having an impressive war record is an extremely important attribute and should be rightfully celebrated. However, it is not a blank check to be a total ass for the next 60-70 years.
@Kevin Shannon
“Moose, you’re pretty much a dick.”
Comment noted, thank you.
“However, it is not a blank check to be a total ass for the next 60-70 years.” True that; which I assume was Matt’s point.
@Kevin Shannon; I apologize for spoiling any of your fun.
Matt — this is a far more eloquently accurate eulogy than anything else I’ve seen on him.
@JamaalCharlesShreddedKnees; from what I can glean he has been a total BITTER ass from 1977.
On a lighter note: “wedding is in Philly at the museum of medical oddities” has reality show written all over it.
Does anyone not remember Andy Rooney telling his fans to fuck off during his sign off? I don’t mourn his loss because he didn’t want to be mourned. At least that’s the message I got.
paybacks a bitch you old windbag been waiting 15 years since Curts death, and I wasn’t even a big fan…but Nirvana produced happiness for millions …what did you do: ? sexest racest homophobic piece of shit who for some reason the whole world gave a pass to.
Andy Rooney’s kickin’ it with Tupac and Bun B now.
I keep it trill like Pimp and Bun, do hoes bad and leave ‘em on the run
‘Cause I don’t got no love for ‘em but hard dick and bubble gum!
-Andy Rooney
bun b is alive. pimp c is dead
Don’t forget about the homophobia too. Good riddance.
Should one speak truth to (now deceased) power, or should one live by the words “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”? These and other questions are not as important as the fact that instead of seeing a defensive battle royale I instead saw a colon the size of an elephant trunk and a conjoined twin fetus at the wedding, truly nightmare fuel.
This is one of the best things that’s ever been written on the Internet. It has sincerity, insight AND balls.
You know what I like? Taking naps. Funny way to describe a nap, taking. Aren’t we entitled to them? I don’t know about you but it seems wrong to take things. Kids nap all the time but kidnapping is just dirty pool in my book. I’ve been in a dirty pool and I didn’t like it! Dirt doesn’t go well with anything. Except maybe naps. A dirt nap is just another thing to get used to, I suppose.
I think the worst think about all of this is since I never watched 60 minutes I can only think of Frank Caliendo’s impression of him on Fox’s pregame show. So a big Fuck you to Andy for making me think about Frank Caliendo
I thought it was our generation that had no respect, shouldn’t Rooney have lead by example?
One thing I have on this old fuck is empathy. What the fuck do we know about Kurt’s life beside the little bits that made it through the filter? Whether it was drugs or depression, every suicide should be mourned, not taken as an opportunity to boast about how much stronger your generation was.
And just because war is the ultimate stress that one can go through, does not mean that everyone else ceases to be depressed and stressed just because they didn’t share your experience of war. If we were to go by Rooney’s system of doling out empathy then I’d say that he deserves none. He was a lucky man to not only have a career for 60 years, but one that paid well and required about 98% less work than every other job in the world (including that of the soldiers and marines he reported on in WWII). He also died at the age of 92, and likely sunk a small fortune into preventing his “untimely” demise. So, fuck him. He was a rich man who had everything. I’ll save my empathy for people who have it.
He was a miserable cunt that doesn’t deserve the finish of this…
Haha, called it.
I wasn’t aware of the Cobain comments until I read this post, but I’d like a dollar for every letter he must have gotten back then that read, “Dear Andy, Two words: Ernest Hemingway. P.S.: Two more: Fuck you.”
Did you ever wonder why some people die so soon after retiring? Funny word: retire. Makes it sound like you’re getting tired all over again. When I’m tired I nap. Someone said “taking” a nap was a funny way to put it; me, I don’t “take” naps, I just nap. Speaking of naps, I find it interesting that we have naps and napkins. Are napkins the brothers and sisters of naps? Or are they more distant relatives, like cousins? They must be, otherwise they’d be called napsiblings instead of napkins. Speaking of napkins, does anyone have one? I seem to have soiled myself.
—
The Andy Rooney of “60 Minutes” was a complaining old white guy, and I afford him the same level of respect I’d offer any other borderline racist & homophobic curmudgeon who unapologetically did his own thing–that is to say, his WW2 service doesn’t buy him enough credit, to me, to excuse him collecting a healthy paycheck for decades doing nothing but what nursing home folk do as a matter of course in between games of bingo and daytime TV.
What StuScottBooyahs said.
Andy Rooney was kind of a dickhole. I hope the Undertaker turned him into a marionette.
If Andy Rooney were still alive, he’d be complaining about the LSU-Alabama game.
Andy Rooney won a Bronze Star and an Air Medal during the BIG ONE. He won them for bravery in the face of enemy fire. He was not a combatant himself, he was just writing about the conflict. But he was on the front lines with the combatants, and the services did appreciate his efforts in getting the real story out.
While I will not disparage his involvement in WWII, he sucked on TV. He was a cranky old crackpot. I cannot understand why anybody found him amusing or insightful.
Again with the “OMG HE CRITICIZED KURT COBAIN?” As if Nirvana fans were regular viewers of 60 Minutes.
A suicide is a selfish dick move – moreso when you have a child that you’re saddling with the knowledge that her dad decided he’d rather be dead than be there for his kid.
“…both Pat Robertson and Mel Gibson strike me as wackos.”
“President Bush should stand up there in front of us on television and do the hardest thing of all for any president to do. Tell us the truth. He should just say ‘Americans, there’s something I have to tell you. You trusted me to be your leader and I thought I was doing the right thing when we went into Iraq. Well, I hate to admit it but I was wrong. I’m sorry but we never should have gone in and now we should get out.’”
Yeah, Rooney was such a jerk…
Staff Sgt. Rooney, a combat reporter with Stars and Stripes, was dodging mortar rounds alongside members of the 116th Infantry Regiment as they attacked the Nazi stronghold at Saint-Lô in Normandy. After a grueling three-week siege, the 116th and other American outfits were pushing Adolf Hitler’s Third Parachute Division back through Saint-Lô’s decimated streets.
Cut the old fart a little slack.
“Rest in peace, Andy Rooney” is a nice followup to the classy “He could probably bleed out from a paper cut. That’s why I mailed him a ‘get well’ card in the freshest, sharpest envelope I could find.”
Criticizing Cobain’s method of exiting this life isn’t quite equivalent to actively wishing someone dead. Yet you pass judgment on his career and life. Christ – if he was irrelevant to you, him being alive or dead shouldn’t have mattered.
Show us on the doll where some dour old man touched you, and maybe we’ll understand.
“…about 98% less work than every other job in the world (including that of the soldiers and marines he reported on in WWII)”
Helen, he didn’t cover them from a desk – he was in combat with them, armed only with a pencil and notebook. That’s quite a bit ballsier than someone who has the ability to defend himself.
Lothar of the Hill People, I’m a bit rusty, but by the over-analyzing and humor, I’m gonna guess that was Carlin.
I didn’t like Rooney’s shit on 60 Minutes, but I kind of agree with him about Cobain. The “Cobain Lives” buttons on people’s bags in high school drove me nuts, especially since I thought Nirvana was grossly overrated.