Craig Mazin, terrible human being and proud of it…
The short description of a fick would be “public asshole, and proud of it.” That’s a fair description of the indecent Craig Mazin, a Hollywood writer and producer who has decided to ostentatiously violate the Kantian, Golden Rule, common sense-based ethics of being a college roommate to embarrass Senator Ted Cruz as he runs for President.
I write about a lot of awful people, and often have to explain what’s awful about them. If you don’t immediately see what’s awful about what Mazin is doing, I’m not sure there is much hope for you. There is no hope for him.
Mazin roomed with Cruz during their freshman years at Princeton University, from 1988-1989. Cruz was 18 at the time. This week, apparently spurred by Twitter followers, Mazin began spewing contempt and insults about Cruz, using his “inside” experiences as material and justification. This, of course, attracted media attention, magnifying the harm to Cruz, although anyone who thinks that conduct by an 18-year-old is a fair or meaningful way to attack the 46-year-old U.S. Senator he grows into is a per se dim wit. The reporters doing this don’t think that, of course. Most of them, probably all of them, also know that telling tales out of school about roommates is spectacularly unethical, and that if their roo mates did that to them, they would feel betrayed. No, journalists are, and will continue, giving Mazin’s hate-fest more attention than it deserves–Fair headline: Liberal Hollywood Writer Responsible For The Two “The Hangover” Sequels (that is to say, the unfunny installments of the franchise) Hates Ted Cruz—because they hate Ted Cruz.
Yup. Mazin figured out how to capitalize on his old roomie’s success and get 15 minutes of cheap fame, all right. What an asshole. What a shameless, vile, vicious, unprincipled, mean-spirited, jealous jerk. College roommates are thrown together, often in complete disregard for their compatibility (my college had a policy of pairing pair un-likes—maybe it still does). Unless it is a monastery college, and probably even then, both roommates will misbehave, reveal their juvenile flaws, and engage in conduct that will mortify then for the rest of their lives even if it is only memorialized in their own skulls.
You don’t relate this privileged information to others with an intent to humiliate; you definitely don’t do it four decades later, when your roommate (though in this case, not his room mate) has grown up. I guarantee Ted Cruz isn’t going to retaliate against this fick by telling the world about his behavior, and it is reasonable to assume that anyone who wrote “The Hangover III” engaged in conduct that will freeze a more civilized soul’s face in a rictus of horror just to hear about it. Why? It’s not because Ted Cruz is a noble sort, but because he is not the lowest wretch that ever crawled out of the primordial ooze…you know, like Mazin. Who uses college experiences to harm the reputation of a former roommate? This creep, and other horrible people. And he thinks it’s hilarious and cool!
Fick. Uber -fick. Fick for the Ages.
I don’t think “What happens in college stays in college” is even an unwritten rule, because it is so obvious it never had to be a rule. You trust your roommate; you have to—you have no choice. Most people, even the worst of them, understand that intuitively with whatever crumbs of ethical comprehension they may have at 18. Using private experiences to harm a college room mate is even worse than revealing embarrassing conduct by a lover. If your defense of Mazin is “Well, but Ted Cruz deserves it,” go get an ethics audit quick. You are in trouble. Your values ran out of your ear while you were sleeping.
I had seven college room mates at various times. All saw me at my worst, and I saw them at their worst…I hope. One of them planted shit in my bed. (Oh, yes, don’t deny it. I know it was you!) I would no more make our mutual missteps on the way to maturity and adulthood public than I would castrate myself in Lafayette Square. Who does this? Who is so beyond redemption and willfully defiant of basic principles of human interaction that they would think doing this is justifiable, even if their roommate urinated on the walls, left a drunk date in a shopping cart, or put shit in his bed?
Craig Mazin.
I’m not defending Ted Cruz. There is plenty to criticize Ted Cruz about based on what he has done and said recently, like, say, in the last 25 years. I’m defending ancient, obvious, important human ethics that roommates have respected and understood for centuries. Craig Mazin has been telling everyone that Ted Cruz was an asshole in 1988.
Craig Mazin, in doing so, proves that he is a virulent asshole now.
__________________________
Sources: Washington Post, The Blaze
Ethics Alarms 
That sums it up nicely.
Craig Mazin would rightfully cry foul if one of his college friends publicly smeared him by revealing his immaturity at 18; the guy is a hypocritical asshole.
I was an asshole at 18, I was an asshole while I was in the Army, my children would probably say I was an asshole to them sometimes, and there are probably a few people in the world that would say I’m an asshole today; big f’ing deal, you can’t please everyone! The point is that everyone is an asshole it all depends on the how others perceive you regardless of what you do.
Cruz should own it and laugh it off; this kind of immature smearing from an old college roommate just makes that old roommate look like a current day asshole. Cruz should state it very simply; “So some people think I was an a’hole as an immature 18 year old, big deal, at least I didn’t continue to be an a’hole after I matured”, using very purposeful emphasis on the word “I”!
Then state very clearly that “Everyone can be an asshole to someone whether they are trying to be one or not, it all depends on how others perceive you.”
Most politicians are considered assholes by their opposition regardless if it’s true or not.
I’m probably being an asshole for writing this now and I’m ok with that. 🙂
Cruz should ignore it and not get in a pissing match. This guy’s nobody, and making it out that he matters is just giving him more publicity.
Make no mistake: Ted Cruz is an asshole, but what he did in college has no relevance to anything.
Really good points.
You’re correct, a “reply” or non-reply from Cruz should be appropriately different than mine.
My reply is me being an asshole yet again. 😉
Your roommate warned me about you…
It’s all true, every bit of it.
Apparently, Cruz HAS ignored it. I get his email feeds and a lot of other political news, besides, and have never heard of this guy. But then again, I don’t subscribe to the Daily Kos! I suppose that any right wing candidate who is dangerously popular in leftist eyes is going to be subjected to this. There’s precious little about Obama in his own college days!
Frankly there are few candidates running this time who don’t have asshole elements, but it’s too easy to just throw out an insult we typically use on drivers who cut us off and dismiss someone.
Oh, he is a complete fick and he’s probably doing this partially because he didn’t see too much of Ted after they graduated and didn’t see him grow up the rest of the way. To him, his college roommate is still the guy who said stupid stuff while drunk, told hate-based jokes, and locked him out of the room one night while he was getting some action. I know I wouldn’t want a videotape of everything I did and said in college played now, and I studiously avoid reunions because people revert back to the old cliques and old behavior. I have my 25th coming up, and I have to say, I’m not sorry I didn’t make it to my 20th, because I later heard accounts of 42 year olds fighting over seating, trying to hook up (in the case of the singles and the divorced), drinking like fish and vomiting their guts out on Easy Street at 3 AM, just like it was Friday night during welcome back week or spring weekend. I don’t grasp the value of reminding one another of the arguments over stupid stuff, the attempts for dates that we got rudely shot down on, the conversations that went on way too long and ended in a drunken haze, etc. Yet that’s exactly what we’d do, and we all know it, despite the fact that the captain of the football team has now been fired twice for fighting, the beauty queen has now been divorced for years after she gained 15 pounds with each kid, etc. That’s why they get fewer than half the class to come back typically. Screw college acquaintances generally, and screw this asshole HARD.
I don’t think anybody but liberal ficks will pay much attention to this jerk’s twitter tweets. A screenwriter of forgettable movies, my suspicion is that this nasty behavior stems from envy of Cruz’s career in politics which has gone a lot farther than his.
Someone planted shit on your bed? Talk about burying the lead…
Haha, someone where I went, who shall remain nameless, took a load on the RA’s doorknob.
You owe me a keyboard. Very funny.
Mazin might be a fick, but he didn’t start his anti-Ted Cruz campaign this week, it’s been going on for quite a while, at least since 2012.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/ted-cruz-has-been-riduculed-years-his-former-college-roommate-who-turned-successful
This guy really loathes him some Ted Cruz. I didn’t room with Cruz, but I understand Mazin’s feelings.
1. There’s no “might be” about it.
2. Doing this in a Presidential campaign is materially different from doing it in 2012.
3. How can you understand his feelings? Based on what we know, he’s the mega-asshole. Mazin could be making it all up. Why would you trust the accounts of this kind of jerk? Maybe Cruz turned him in for cheating. Maybe he propositioned Cruz and Cruz spurned him. We literally know nothing at all.
“2. Doing this in a Presidential campaign is materially different from doing it in 2012.”
There was a presidential campaign in 2012. (I agree with the rest of what you wrote, though.)
Now now…as we are talking about Cruz and only Cruz, there was no Presidential campaign involving Ted Cruz. so as far as this specific topic is concerned, there was no campaign. Short-hand for “Calling Ted Cruz an asshole when he’s not running for national office is materially different from doing it when he is.”
You know, this is just the sort of stuff Ted did to Mezin in college…
This guy wrote TWO, not one but TWO sequels to … “The Hangover?” And he admits it? And takes pride in it? Doesn’t that render him terminally unethical in and of itself?
He also wrote Identity Thief, what I think is one of the most shockingly unfunny and unethical comedies of the last decade. The fact that he wrote that movie and thought it was funny is what put him on my personal “shit list.”
Mazin just tweeted:
“Dear followers (loving and otherwise): sign up to be a Bone Marrow donor. Free, easy and you just might save a life. https://bethematch.org”
I think that means that people on Twitter are giving him the business and he’s trying to get people off his back.
Tweeting that was a good thing, but he’s still a jerk. I almost violated my personal rule to never use Twitter to antagonize people to tweet something like, “That’s a good thing you just did. You’re still being unfair to Cruz. And Identity Thief is the worst mainstream comedy of the decade.”
I decided against it. What good would it do?
What’s amazing to watch is the Cruz-haters who take this as gospel. Tweets from desperately unfunny and likely horrible human being (how else does one explain taking the one decent human character in Hangover – Stu, I think it was – and humiliating him with the post-credits of HOII showing him getting buggered by a Thai tranny? I tell you, Noel Coward is kicking himself in his grave for not having thought of that one) are proof, proof I tell you! that Cruz is the Spawn of a Conservative Satan.
Yet, before the 2008 when we had some hapless drug addict go on camera and report doing blow with Barry and admitting to copping Obama’s joint, offering dates and times and suggestions to check phone records…well, that was just beyond the pale and clearly evidence of the racist plot to defeat A Black Man.
Sheesh, these people are scum.
You’re making the assumption that everyone misbehaves in college.
Not everyone does.
None of my college friends have spectacularly embarrassing stories about each other. The worst is that one of them got drunk once and hit his head on the way back to his room. And indeed, everyone made fun of that friend for drinking irresponsibly EVEN THEN.
Not everyone has embarrassing college stories that reflect poorly on them.
I would imagine that people who have lots of personally embarrassing stories from college are going to be much more interested in this unwritten “roommate code” than those who do not for entirely obvious reasons.
Incidentally, I’ve never heard of any such rule – funny college stories seem to be something of a thing, honestly.
That said, calling someone an “asshole” is not exactly the most convincing argument. Nothing quoted in that article was anything other than the guy giving his opinion of Cruz. He seems a bit… obsessive, judging by his Twitter feed.
Seriously, it has been over 20 years. I have a hard time imagining how any roommate experience warrants complaining about him several times a day 20 years later.
TBH he seems a bit unhinged.
You do not believe that a college room mate who goes out of his way to gratuitously tell personal, private stories that embarrass a man (and in truth have NO character significance whatsoever) as he is running for President of the United states is despicable behavior? Good to know. Hands, everybody! Who understands why this is rotten behavior?
Telling funny college stories is fine—although you apparently know lot of people who don’t have any—publicizing them to potential employers, primary voters and fiancees is not. That is called a material difference. The latter is a betrayal.
I’m also not certain you know what your own point is. A relationship of trust is only a relationship of trust if the trust becomes necessary? Wrong. A lawyer whose client is innocent and has nothing to hide is just as bound by confidentiality as the lawyer for Jack the Ripper, or Bill Clinton. Families, lovers, and those forced to share intimate details of their lives with others—like college roommates—have mutual duties of trust and confidentiality. It’s not an unwritten rule. It’s called fairness, respect, decency, and the Golden Rule. Values. Ethics. I’ll write them down for you if you like.
Saying a roommate who does this is an asshole isn’t an argument. I made a substantive argument. It’s a diagnosis.
This titanium dragon fellow may be just the kneejerk left wing loyalist to fill the role that this blog has currently had vacant as all other contenders have learned it isn’t a fun position to be in.
So far I haven’t read anything he’s written that would cause me to believe he’s a thinking man.
I think he’s sincere. He’s articulate. It is tragic to see someone who has adopted not only talking point, but the factual distortions and rationalizations required to believe them. Open borders don’t threaten sovereignty…raising the minimum wage doesn’t affect employment…Obama had no choice but to act unilaterally with executive answers…and my personal favorite…that Bush’s “war crimes” not being prosecuted means that Hillary’s breaches of security so she could maneuver in secrecy, and my personal favorite, that Iran has acted “in good faith”..these are either unthinking or dishonest. Impressive total in one night, though.
‘Saying a roommate who does this is an asshole isn’t an argument. I made a substantive argument. It’s a diagnosis.’
I damn near fell off my chair laughing!
And thanks for the description of a ‘fick’, if you posted it before I’ve missed it. I’ve attempted to find the definition before and it never made sense to me with how you used the word.
The most current meaning per Urban Dictionary involves sexual acts with a plant – I’m sure you can understand my confusion . . .
I do not regard the Urban Dictionary as reliable authority. Look up “Jack Marshallize.” Meanwhile, my definition of “fick” is useful, and theirs is silly and useless.
‘Jack Marshallize’ doesn’t bring up anything that makes sense, what am I missing?
Maybe they took it down. Too bad. I was honored.
Challenge accepted!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jackmarshallize
And along the way I found out that Brian Tannebaum is not your friend and Third Tier Reality is no fan either. Their loss!
Oh, good. I’m glad my immortality survives. There are plenty more. I am happy to be judged by the character of my detractors.