Daniel J. Flynn is the author of A Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008), Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas (Crown Forum, 2004), and Why the Left Hates America (Prima Forum, 2002).
Flynn has been interviewed on “The O'Reilly Factor,” “Hardball,” “Penn & Teller's Bulls***,” “Fox & Friends,” “Donahue,” and numerous other public affairs television programs. His articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Times, The City Journal, The New Criterion, National Review Online, and The American Enterprise, among other publications. In 2004, Dan launched www.flynnfiles.com, which features his blog musings on politics, movies, music, sports, and a variety of interesting topics not addressed in his books.
Dan's introduction to politics came as a five-year-old attendee of Ted Kennedy's Faneuil Hall address announcing his run for the presidency. At eight, he started a five-year stint as a Boston Globe paperboy, which heightened a curiosity in current events. Sergeant Flynn served for many years as a gunner in a light armored reconnaissance unit and was honorably discharged from the Marine Reserves in 2002.
Dan's upbringing in the Bluest part of the Bluest state has aided his anthropological fieldwork among Leftist Americanus. Physically attacked by aging hippie "Free Mumia" supporters, mooned and shouted down by Berkeley book-burners, banned for life from Black Panther reunions, and forced to host a conference in an off-campus park when Columbia administrators succumbed to the heckler's veto, Dan has experienced the Left's "liberating tolerance" firsthand. A frequent campus speaker, he has educated, amused, and annoyed audiences at Princeton, Stanford, Tulane, UC-Santa Cruz, Swarthmore, Smith, Colby, BC, the University of Wisconsin, MIT, UT-Austin, Notre Dame, and scores of other schools.
Dan boasts a 2-1 record as a keg-race captain, sports no tattoos but numerous interesting scars, including one etched above his mouth by the wrong end of a Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle, frequents the most disheveled used bookstores, smokes the cheapest cigars, and crashes at the most malodorous hostels when in Europe. He is interested in The Ray Bradbury Theater, Massachusetts history, the moon, Eric Hoffer, the New England Patriots, and Kings of Leon, but by the time you read this he will harbor new obsessions. Currently at work on a fourth book, Mr. Flynn is a husband and full-time father.
Daniel J. Flynn
‘A Dimension Not Only of Sight and Sound, But of Mind’
by Daniel J. FlynnFifty years ago this month the smartest television show of all time first aired. As a writer, I am a sucker for good writing. “The Twilight Zone,” as Michael Anton recently wrote in his commemoration at National Review Online, is nothing if not a writer’s show. Modern sci-fi fans, caught up in dazzling special effects and action, lose sight of the fact that sci-fi, in its radio incarnations “X Minus One” and “Dimension X,” and its later television offerings such as “The Outer Limits” and “Doctor Who,” is the plaything of nerd scribes with creative imaginations. The megastars and big-budgets would come later. In the beginning, there were wordsmiths.
It’s telling that “The Twilight Zone’s” recurring character is not an A-list hearthrob but the diminutive, gap-toothed, akimbo-eared Rod Serling, the show’s chief writer. Rocky Balboa’s trainer, otherwise known as that bow-legged villian of Gotham, is the closest thing one gets to an actor associated with “The Twilight Zone.” Even the theme music steals the limelight from the actors.
A few years ago, I purchased the 28-disc “complete, definitive collection” spanning all five of the show’s seasons. I’m on season five, and I generally watch late on weekend nights after imbibing. The benefits to this are twofold: first, my imagination is more malleable then and, second, it enables me to enjoy the episodes a second time around without deja vu. (more…)
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Captain Lou Albano, RIP
by Daniel J. FlynnWhen Captain Lou Albano entered the ranks of professional wrestlers in 1953 their “sport” ranked somewhere above pornography and below football betting cards in cultural respectability. When he departed more than three decades later, professional wrestling was a global phenomenon attracting viewers on closed-circuit TV pay per views, MTV, and Saturday morning cartoons.
Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan had something to do with this. So too did the overlooked Captain Lou Albano, who, along with Cyndi Lauper–a live-action cartoon character as unusual as Albano–launched the pop-culture non sequitur ”Rock and Wrestling Connection” that strangely catapulted rather than killed the careers of its participants. (more…)
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Mamas, Papas and Daughters: Acid is a Helluva Drug
by Daniel J. Flynn
I hate getting a song stuck in my head. This is especially true when the song is “I Saw Her Again Last Night” and the reason it’s stuck there is because I just heard the news that Papa John Phillips raped his drugged-out daughter Mackenzie the night before her wedding. The “One Day at a Time” star responded by partaking in a consensual relationship with him. At least that’s Mackenzie Phillips’s twisted story.
As much as one might want to believe that Mackenzie’s drug abuse discredits her story, one is reminded how much Papa John’s drug abuse credits it. If ever a man’s demeanor vindicated Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ admonition, Papa John’s did. When he was sober, he was still stoned. (more…)
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No John Hughes, No 1980s
by Daniel J. Flynn
Without John Hughes, would there have been a 1980s? The filmmaker and screenwriter died of a heart attack while walking Thursday in Manhattan. For the uninitiated, he wrote National Lampoon’s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off–directing several of those films as well.
Memories of Hughes’s films are as likely to be audio as visual: The Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, and Simple Minds were among the acts introduced to a wider audience through Hughes’s sonically-savvy films. (more…)
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When Megastars Die, We Get Old
by Daniel J. Flynn
You are realizing your age today if you grew up in the 1970s or ’80s. Farrah Fawcett, whose iconic image was as ubiquitous on the bedroom walls of American teenage boys as Kim Il Sung’s was in the homes of North Koreans, died of cancer at 62 yesterday. Age is the cruel fate of all sex symbols. In Fawcett’s case, she not only contended with Father Time but with the public’s changing tastes that dated what once symbolized sex. Demographics, and Sir Mix-a-Lot, killed the pin-up girl monopoly of bleach-blond anorexics. But even twenty years after her heyday, ’70s postergirl Fawcett so symbolized sex that her 1995 appearance in Playboy became the bestselling issue of the 1990s. To put this in perspective, an over-the-hill Farah Fawcett beat Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, and Denise Richards in their primes. (more…)
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Margot Tenenbaum Would Not Approve
by Daniel J. Flynn
Should the Motion Picture Association of America retroactively slap an “R” rating upon To Have and Have Not (1944)? After all, the classic film famously depicts silver-screen debutante Lauren Bacall and future husband Humphrey Bogart–gasp!–smoking. The American Medical Association Alliance demands that films featuring smoking characters be given an “R” rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA already takes into consideration the tobacco habits of celluloid characters in determining a film’s rating. The AMAA’s demand would take that consideration from the MPAA, automatically assigning an “R” to any film depicting an ordinary, everyday activity normally conducted in the open when the cameras aren’t rolling. The ACLU hasn’t voiced objection, but what about Margot Tenenbaum? The Smoking Man? The Man with No Name? (more…)
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A Harvey Milk Holiday?
by Daniel J. Flynn
Inspired in part by the Academy Award-winning Milk, California’s senate has passed a bill making slain San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk’s May 22 birthday a Golden State holiday. But the celluloid hero portrayed by Sean Penn bears little resemblance to the genuine article, who lashed out at political opponents as “Nazis,” purportedly staged a hate crime to engender support for a lagging campaign, and promoted Jim Jones to President Carter “as a man of the highest character” just a few months before the Peoples Temple leader orchestrated more than 900 murder-suicides. My City Journal article shows how Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is as real as Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man. Only people so ignorant as to get their history from Hollywood would place the formerly obscure San Francisco city supervisor alongside the likes of Jesus Christ, George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Martin Luther King in celebrating a holiday in his honor.
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When Keeping It Real Gets Real
by Daniel J. Flynn
What does it say about the state of popular music that aspiring acts turn to petty crime rather than singing lessons to establish their musical bonafides? Stephen Gilmore allegedly robbed the Super Stop Food Store last Friday night in Gainesville, Florida, shooting the clerk in the head with a BB gun in the process. An earlier heist at Hungry Howie’s restuarant allegedly netted Gilmore and his confederates $900. But he didn’t rob for the money. His motive was streed cred. You see, Gilmore is an aspiring rapper. And like Vanilla Ice, Akon, and Rick Ross before him, Gilmore gets it that to get over with the crowd that “keeps it real” it’s best to keep things fake.
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Just Smile and Answer ‘World Peace’ Next Time
by Daniel J. FlynnWhy would Perez Hilton be invited to judge a beauty contest? That, rather than the fact that Miss California answers the gay marriage question as the voters of her state did, is the real scandal of last weekend’s Miss USA pageant. Hilton’s subsequent misogynistic rants–calling Miss California Carrie Prejean a “dumb bitch” and saying he regarded her as “the C-word”–should have immediately generated censure from those involved with the contest. Instead, two co-directors of the Miss California event have blasted Miss California.
“I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” Prejean answered Hilton. “No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.” Hilton intolerantly celebrates that the answer cost Prejean the Miss USA crown. “That’s not the kind of woman I want to be Miss USA,” he told MSNBC. “Miss USA should represent all Americans, and with that answer she instantly was divisive.” But Hilton asked the question, and giving a definitive answer–which is what he asked for–inevitably would have alienated some large group of people. And had she answered Hilton’s ideological quiz correctly, how would that not be divisive to somebody out there?
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Kumar Goes to the White House II
by Daniel J. Flynn
Kal Penn’s character killed himself on “House.” Kal Penn didn’t commit career suicide by accepting a job in the Obama administration. Penn is merely taking Tinseltown’s love of politics to another level. While it’s not unprecedented for the stars of B-movies to find themselves in the White House, it certainly is unusual. Political activism didn’t hurt the careers of Oscar winners Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, and George Clooney. Their Oscars might be seen as recognition of that activism. After all, their awards came as a result of performances in rather politicized films. If Kal Penn felt typecast as a player in raunchy college comedies, he should have no such worries after his sojourn in Washington, DC. He will be a celebrity among celebrities. Roles will be there for the taking. Just watch: the critical acclaim that escaped him in ”Van Wilder” will have no trouble finding him, and Harold will be wishing that he had followed Kumar to the White House.
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Politics Plays Hell With Your Poetry
by Daniel J. Flynn
“This class struggle plays hell with your poetry,” John Reed, celebrated in Warren Beatty’s Reds, confessed to friends after jumping from the lighthearted literary Left of Greenwich Village into the world of hardcore Communists. Bono may be thinking the same thing about saving the world. U2’s much-hyped No Line on the Horizon, the band’s first album in nearly five years, might be interpreted by celebrities as a cautionary tale against mixing activism with their art. As I write in my American Spectator review of No Line on the Horizon, the album represents the transformation of U2 from relevant it band to greatest hits act. It is uninspired, leaving diehard fans to wonder if meetings with popes, presidents, and queens, fundraising for debt relief, human rights activists, and AIDS, and writing columns for The New York Times makes U2 an afterthought for Bono.
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The Taxpayers Prize Patrol
by Daniel J. Flynn
Stage Right explains, “There is a problem with the American Theatre.” But American street theatre, if judging from the The Taxpayers Clearing House Prize Patrol, offers no similar cause for concern. No budget? No problem. Conscript Senators Chuck Schumer and Olympia Snowe as unwilling players in your drama. Use AIG’s headquarters and the U.S. Capitol as a set. Rain dollar bills upon the Secretary of the Treasury as if he were a stripper. That’s just what a bunch of twentysomething amateur thesbians did in their hilarious guerrilla theater YouTube short, The Taxpayers Clearing House Prize Patrol.
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Spicoli’s Rant
by Daniel J. Flynn 
Though seeing Sean Penn deliver a “best actor” Academy Awards acceptance speech that was more taunt against political enemies than expression of gratitude toward industry friends made me click off, reading Ben Shapiro’s transcription of Penn’s graceless tirade clicked on a few neurons. “I think it is a good time for those who voted against gay marriage to contemplate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes. We need to have equal rights for everyone.”
Contra Sean Penn, and speaking as a Massachusettsan and not a Californian, I think it is a good time for those who imposed gay marriage to contemplate their great shame and the shame in their grandparents’ eyes. Liberals, perhaps out of contempt for what has come before or an agnosticism in the afterlife, don’t care or think about how they appear to the past. The imaginary future, where Sean Penn’s every view is conventional wisdom, instead serves as the anchor of their morality.
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Jack Valenti’s Sex Life
by Daniel J. Flynn
Before Jack Valenti became president of the Motion Picture Association, he was an aide to President Lyndon Johnson–who investigated his underling’s sex life. The Washington Post report revealing the matter excuses Johnson’s snooping and blames–who else?–J. Edgar Hoover. In my piece at the American Spectator, I detail the familiar narrative of how Democratic Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry Truman to John Kennedy get a pass on civil liberties abuses and these transgressions get blamed on Hoover. It’s as if we are to understand that presidents take their orders from the FBI director, and not the reverse. So don’t blame LBJ for investigating Jack Valenti’s private life. The devil made him do it.
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Don’t Drink the Kool Aid on Harvey Milk
by Daniel J. FlynnHow could Gus Van Sant have made a movie about Harvey Milk without casting an actor to play Jim Jones? The biggest story out of San Francisco in November 1978 was not the murder of Mayor George Moscone and City Councilman Harvey Milk by a crazed Dan White. It was the murder of more than 900 people, most of them former denizens of the Bay area, orchestrated in the jungles of Guyana by Jim Jones, a political ally of Milk and Moscone. Jones provided his robot-like followers as volunteers to San Francisco politicians sharing his left-wing views. In return, they allowed him to conduct his criminal ministry with impunity. Moscone, in fact, had appointed Jones chairman of the city’s housing authority. Milk aided and abetted the communist psychopath by describing Jim Jones to President Jimmy Carter as “a man of the highest character” who had “undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness.” Though Hollywood would rather forget, it is worth remembering that Harvey Milk, before being martyred by Dan White and canonized by Penn’s biopic, shamelessly promoted one of modern American history’s great villains.
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