Talk about the gift that keeps on giving — here’s crool sophisticate NYMag once again mocking Facebook billionaire Sean Parker’s “Tolkien inspired” wedding:
Mean Bloggers Forced Sean Parker to Cancel His Honeymoon
Tech billionaire Sean Parker’s massive, medieval-themed wedding earlier this summer — about which the world’s longest blog post has already been written — was a resplendent festival of dorkishness. According to a new photo spread in Vanity Fair, the wedding — which was attended by the likes of Girls star Allison Williams, Square founder Jack Dorsey, and Metallica drummer (and former Parker nemesis) Lars Ulrich — featured an impromptu performance by Sting, a “feast pavilion,” a nine-foot-tall wedding cake, and a lounge area with beds covered in fur pelts….
Also per Vanity Fair, for extra schadenfreude:
For the first dance, the groom serenaded the bride with a song from The Little Mermaid: “Look at this trove, treasures untold / How many wonders can one cavern hold?” Sean Parker, the billionaire Internet wizard who helped create Napster and Facebook, knew the lyrics by heart…
…In the end, the couple canceled their honeymoon to do damage control….
While Parker is said to claim both Tolkien and steampunk as inspiration, if the VF photos are to be believed, the actual production seems to have been a bastardization of late-1880s Aesthetic design as reimagined by Herb Ritts. Just imagine Oscar Wilde ‘dipping his pen in acid’ to write up the event…
The Other Chuck
Rich guy spends a lot of cash on tacky wedding. Truly this is the greatest crisis mankind has faced. No, we don’t need seriousness all the time, but the entertainment value of this has long expired.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Other Chuck: Then again it never hurts to be reminded the money can’t buy (good) taste.
PeakVT
…and a lounge area with beds covered in fur pelts….
What’s the message here – celebrate my wedding by sleeping in public?
Anyway, I hope the fucker goes galt at his earliest opportunity.
Tone in DC
He serenaded her with a song from “The Little Mermaid”?
I have heard plenty of songs at weddings and such that were egregiously, gratuitously corny/cheesy/downright upchuck inducing. This makes that old Whitesnake song sound appropriate by comparison.
Ronnie Pudding
Yeah, grooms who choose to serenade their brides often take the time to memorize the lyrics.
celticdragonchick
Why the fuck is anybody even remotely concerned about a wedding that they did not even attend? Hell, I’m glad he spent the money. That means it was going to goods and services where people here could use it instead of some offshore haven.
Corner Stone
There seems to be a lot of this kind of petty cruelty going around. I, for one, loathe that kind of gauche mentality.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: Primarily due to the fact that he basically bulldozed sections of a park to stage the thing.
Watusie
I this an open open thread? Because I would like to draw attention to something: Erik Erikson’s top helper is dying of liver failure and is uninsured and is reduced to rattling a tin cup. Well, since he is in a hospital, incapacitated, Erikson is rattling it for him. In between penning screeds about Obamacare. And I don’t doubt that if this guy somehow gets a transplant and recovers, he’ll go back to penning them, too.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/31/1228070/-RedState-s-Chief-Blogger-in-Critical-Condition-in-NC-No-Insurance
Ronnie Pudding
I’d say, entirely due to the fact that he bulldozed sections of a park to stage the thing.
He broke the rules and paid a pittance in fines to do so.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ronnie Pudding: The fun of mocking plays a part.
Violet
@celticdragonchick: I don’t think anyone would care if he had done this on his own property. He did it on public property, destroyed it and didn’t pay much of a fine.
Eric U.
most rich people can’t get enough mocking, I’m glad this one seems hurt by it. Can’t believe he canceled his honeymoon over it.
Corner Stone
@Violet:
What’s wrong with that? JPM conspired to artificially inflate energy prices, made untold billions and then agreed to pay $400M as a fine.
It’s an American tradition. Can’t blame a guy in love for giving his bride all the best.
Corner Stone
@Eric U.:
It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? How they seem to demand not only every benefit out of the public common good but also our gratitude for them taking it from the rest of us.
I always thought these guys were all about the “eating cake” mentality.
Yatsuno
@celticdragonchick: It had more to do with him tearing up part of a pristine forest to hold the wedding really. Otherwise noreal interest in it other than douchebag being douchebag.
Gian
@Violet:
In Big Sir where the odds are he took down trees older than the declaration of independence and owned by the state for his one day of super vanity
Short Bus Bully
Good to know that this douchebag now has to face the reality that not everyone on the planet thinks he is a GENIUS or a TECHWIZARD or the living embodiment of John Galt. Most people in fact just consider him an asshole.
After being surrounded by toadies for most of his life I’m sure this is a horrifying realization.
It’s a step in the right direction but I’m pretty sure that it won’t crack hard shell of narcissism.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Sean Parker could have just let his buddies in the 1% finish taking us back to the medieval era and then gotten married in the real deal instead of spending all this money and winding up with cake all over his face.
gbear
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep, When he felt compelled to write a 9,500 word rant against the people who thought it was wrong to despoil an old-growth site for a vanity production of a wedding, he pretty much self-posted a sign on his back that says KICK ME HARD.
Ripley
He should defect to Russia, where tree bulldoze you.
Gian
S u r. Not s I r… auto correct… sorry
kbsuttle
Hey Anne,
Sorry if this has already come up on an earlier thread, but just thought you’d want to know that Doghouse Riley passed away a few days ago. Pierce wrote in from vacation to share the news and offer condolences. A real loss. Sorry.
MattF
Very tacky. I was going to suggest Pre-Raphaelite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood
but the pelts on the chairs are just… inconceivable.
shell
Oh, Sting. You should know better
p.a.
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: possibly his fiancee didn’t want to wait the extra 6 months.
gogol's wife
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
I love the new “Thought Leader” subtitle. In Russian that’s властитель дум.
kc
@The Other Chuck:
Aw, it never gets old.
kc
@Watusie:
What was it that a GOP debate audience shouted in response to a hypothetical about a dying man who had no health insurance?
Betsy
Geez. I’ll take the old WASP guard over the new rich-techie assholes, I guess.
ranchandsyrup
Jake Tapper gives some mouth to mouth to BENGHAZI!
http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/
Intimidation!
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@gogol’s wife: I figured after 10000 hours blogcommenting, it was time to go professional and start influencing policy and steering the national discourse.
mclaren
@MattF:
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Warren Terra
Nobody gives a crap that his nuptials were pricey and tacky; people care that he ordered significant alterations to a public park (and protected wilderness, if I recall) without permits.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: How’s that workin’ out for ya?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Warren Terra: And then proceeded to whine about the negative reactions.
Just Some Fuckhead
@BillinGlendaleCA: Just started officially yesterday so it’s a little early to be making pronouncements.
Just One More Canuck
@Tone in DC: At least he didn’t go with “Highway to Hell” or “Too Drunk to Fuck”
gbear
@Just One More Canuck: He should have gone with ‘Kingdom Of Love‘ by The Soft Boys. It’s got kind of medieval bent to it.
eyelessgame
My reaction to the wedding itself was just to roll my eyes and think about how screwed up our economy is. But the defensive 10k-word missive makes me say things like “douchecanoe” out loud. You have a billion dollars. Buy yourself thicker skin, dude.
BillinGlendaleCA
@eyelessgame: Or chainmail.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Just Some Fuckhead: Good to hear, let us know how it goes. You know as always you have our full support. Just don’t become a ‘thought leader’ like Jake Tapper, you’ve already got the fuckhead part.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just One More Canuck: The Nouvelle Vague version of TDTF is quite romantic.
dance around in your bones
The whole thing just seems stupid. Rich people do stupid things, just because they can. Fucked up about the destruction of public property, though.
I’m watching The Big Sleep, which seems like a better way to spend my time.
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones: Hey, dance! O/T, but did you see last night that Yatsy (Yutsy as was) wants us to write our respective (if hardly respectable) memoirs? I said we’d do it if we could get Sarah P&T to do the editing. You in?
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne:
I did happen to see that and was gratified that someone thinks my offbeat stories are worthy. And yes, mine are hardly respectable – I’m sure yours are much more cultured (from what I have read).
I have people tell me all the time that I should write my memoirs but I have this weird reluctance to spill the beans, as it were, but maybe I should get over that.
If SP&T edited my memoirs I think they’d come out even MORE disreputable, if that’s even possible, haha!
Maybe we should give it a shot :)
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones:
Like yoghourt.
You are the one who had Adventures. I am merely Old. But I would definitely read your memoirs, with or without SP&T’s editorial oversight.
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ok, here’s a story – my soon-to-be-husband and I were traveling overland from India to Kathmandu on an overcrowded bus…..soon-to-be-husband had to get the driver to stop the bus so he could attend to intestinal business out in the fields, and somehow he lost his Moroccan leather pouch that contained all our documents and money. He told me to go on to Kathmandu while he went back to find the pouch, and he’d find me later.
I got to Kathmandu (remember, I was just about 17 at this time?) and checked into a hotel with friends. In the middle of the night I woke up to hear someone shouting my name but I thought I was dreaming. The next day I went to the local post office (because Poste Restante was where everyone picked up their mail from all over the world whilst traveling) and there I found my boyfriend. He knew I’d show up there at some point – and, yes, it was him who had been shouting my name in the night.
He swore that we conceived our kid in a Tibetan graveyard just before we left Nepal, though I have no memory of that. I’ll just take his word for it.
SG
If you listened closely, you would have heard the low rumble of Treebeard’s snorts of contempt.
Seriously, more money than brains? Check. Taste all in their mouth? Check. I hope those two clowns spend the rest of their married lives doing damage control. How long does anyone think that will be?
Josie
@dance around in your bones: Does it ever occur to you that there are stories (memories) that you just can’t tell? One of my grown sons was asking me about some of the travels I enjoyed with his father in our early years (before children) and it dawned on me that there is much that I still can’t tell them about. I’m thinking about writing it down so they can find it much later when I don’t care anymore.
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones: Now see, that’s a great story all on its own. But you know what Sarah P and T would do with it….
mai naem
What I don’t understand is why he didn’t just rent a place like the Clintons did for Chelsea’s wedding and do it with coniferous trees. Nobody would have cared. I totally get wanting to do it at Big Sur, but, hell, they didn’t even do it near the ocean.The whole point of Big Sur is doing it near the damn ocean. I have to believe there’s a private property with a bunch of coniferous trees in Northern CA, Colorado, Oregon or WA where nobody would have cared if he’d bulldozed a road or whatever. What a dumbass and all the people involved in the planning who didn’t tell him to do it differently.
elftx
I checked out the pix, meh
But the photo of Sean Lennon just caught me by surprise..looks like his dad in it.
dance around in your bones
@Josie: Well, yes – that’s a big concern of mine. I keep getting urged to tell stories but I think …..be careful what you wish for!
You don’t have any idea what you might get. I always said maybe I’d write my memoirs when I’m 80+ and not so paranoid about possible repercussions. Maybe the best thing is to write the stories down and leave them in a mysterious locked chest until after I’m gone.
No worries then, mate!
Josie
@dance around in your bones: Exactly!
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones:
You couldn’t do your memoirs as a roman à clef? Give all the key players pseudonyms, disguise the settings ever so slightly, and bingo! Plausible deniability!
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, I always thought if the guy who wrote Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts) could get away with it, I could too.
But his book is so much better than mine would be, I think. I always talk myself out of things because I can’t be perfect.
goblue72
@Violet: It was not a park nor was it public property. The Parker Fiasco Wedding was held on privately owned land, at a private inn facility (which included a former private campground that the Inn closed well before Parker came along). The former campground included asphalt covered areas and may have at one point served as an RV park in decades past. There are a number of these privately owned outdoor event / lodge / campground facilities with redwood trees and old growth trees and the like all along coastal California. (I happen to know as I had my wedding at one such place. We did not – however – bulldoze anything. We were happy to use the facility we rented – a former lumber mill turned former nudist resort turned former girl scout camp – as is.) Welcome to California. Please leave your square state assumptions at the door.
However, the private campground where the Parking Fiasco Wedding was held – even though privately owned – was subject to California Coastal Commission regulations – whose favorite activity is flexing its muscle. And that’s where he got into trouble.
I think the guy is a rich douche who acted like a rich douche (and should have just slinked away quietly instead of getting into a flame war with the press). But fair is fair, and the guy is being accused of a number of things he just didn’t do.