Taki Theodoracopulos
Encyclopedia
Taki Theodoracopulos originally named Panagiotis Theodoracopulos is a Greek/American journalist, socialite, and political commentator.
Better known as Taki, diminutive for Panagiotis, he is a Greek
-born journalist and writer living in New York City, London and Switzerland. In addition to his 1991 memoir Nothing to Declare (about his life as a "playboy" and his experience spending three months in jail for drug conviction, during which time he received a bottle of vaseline from a friend of his), his column "High Life" has appeared in The Spectator
since 1977, and he has also written for National Review
, the London Sunday Times
, Esquire
, Vanity Fair
, the New York Press
, and Quest
, among others. In 2002 Taki founded The American Conservative
magazine with Pat Buchanan
and Scott McConnell
. He was also publisher of the British magazine Right Now!. He currently publishes and writes for Taki's Magazine, a Libertarian webzine of "politics and culture", which features contributions from writers such as Steve Sailer
, Paul Gottfried
, Jim Goad
, Gavin McInnes
and Charles Glass
.
in both the media and in professional sports
, has stirred controversy with comments about contemporary immigration policy, supports abortion rights, is strongly pro-American, is a fierce anti-communist, is critical of the new Russian "kleptocrats", and writes dismissively of neo-conservatism. Taki is an outspoken critic of the current Iraq War and lays the blame for the "fiasco", as he calls it, on American neoconservatives, who have "destroyed the legacy of Ronald Reagan
", levying harsh criticism on people like David Frum
, William Kristol
, and John Podhoretz
. He considers war supporter Christopher Hitchens
to be among "the former Trotskyites now masquerading as patriotic Americans".
He was prominent in the campaign to free the former Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet
, whose arrest he considered inconsistent with international law
.
magazine sometimes refers to this by nicknaming him 'Takealotofcokeupthenos'. He documented his prison experiences in a 1992 book.
, in an article criticizing London mayor Boris Johnson for employing him and was investigated by Scotland Yard
for some of his racial comments, although no charges were made. Due to Taki's characterization of himself as a "soi-disant antisemite", coupled with strong criticism of the Israel
i government and its supporters in the United States
, The Spectator
no longer permits him to write about Israel or Jewish affairs. In March 2010 Taki, in an article in Chronicles
magazine, said of the last Lehman Brothers
CEO Richard Fuld that "he's a very homely, simian-looking Jew who couldn't punch his way out of a nursery".
In a follow-up Spectator column, Taki stated that he does not consider himself an anti-Semite and that the term "soi-disant antisemite" was intended to mean "so-called" rather than "self-styled". Taki claims some of his comments are intended "to piss off politically correct journalists" and not to be taken at face value, and that he wasn't bothered himself by ethnic slurs in his youth. "The Italians were called wops, the Jews were called hymies, I was of course a greaseball, and every Hispanic was a spic. Well, we all got along famously! It was rough, but it was fine. Obviously, one doesn't like to be called a greaseball, but you know — Greek, greaseball . . . Now, of course, all that is very, very unacceptable."
He has expressed his admiration of the German Wehrmacht
in his "High Life" column in The Spectator: "And speaking of the Wehrmacht, if I couldn’t have been a German officer in Paris 1940, being an expatriate American there would have suited me fine." ("High Life", The Spectator, Wednesday 1 July 2009) Referring to this in a subsequent column, he said that "I know, I know, too much Wehrmacht makes young Taki a bore, but I do have my obsessions, and Keira Knightley, martial arts, Ashley Judd, classic sailing boats and the deputy editor of The Spectator are some of them, along with the dear old W." ("High Life", The Spectator, Wednesday 29 July 2009)
Fraser Nelson
, the current Editor of the Spectator, publicly endorsed Taki when taking up his post in September 2009: "Ah, Taki! For decades it has been traditional for a new Spectator editor to be inundated with calls to show his commitment to civility by hiring a new High Life columnist. But this time, not a soul has asked for him to be sacked. All I hear is how the old rogue has never been in better form. This won’t please him much, as he prides himself on calls for his resignation. But it’s not that Taki is conforming to the world. The world, I think, is finally conforming to him."
Better known as Taki, diminutive for Panagiotis, he is a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
-born journalist and writer living in New York City, London and Switzerland. In addition to his 1991 memoir Nothing to Declare (about his life as a "playboy" and his experience spending three months in jail for drug conviction, during which time he received a bottle of vaseline from a friend of his), his column "High Life" has appeared in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
since 1977, and he has also written for National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, the London Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, the New York Press
New York Press
New York Press was a free alternative weekly in New York City, that was published from 1988 to 2011. During its lifetime, it was the main competitor to the Village Voice...
, and Quest
Quest (luxury lifestyle monthly)
-History:Quest was founded in 1987 by Heather Cohane as a real estate magazine for "Manhattan Properties & Country Estates". In 1995, Meigher Communications, which already owned Family Health, Garden Design, and Saveur purchased Quest...
, among others. In 2002 Taki founded The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
magazine with Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
and Scott McConnell
Scott McConnell
Scott McConnell is an American journalist best known as a founding editor of The American Conservative.In 1968, as a student at a New Hampshire boarding school, McConnell canvassed for Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. After receiving a Ph.D in history at Columbia University, McConnell returned...
. He was also publisher of the British magazine Right Now!. He currently publishes and writes for Taki's Magazine, a Libertarian webzine of "politics and culture", which features contributions from writers such as Steve Sailer
Steve Sailer
Steven Ernest Sailer is an American journalist and movie critic for The American Conservative, a blogger, a VDARE.com columnist, and a former correspondent for UPI. He writes about race relations, gender issues, politics, immigration, IQ, genetics, movies, and sports.-Personal life:Sailer grew up...
, Paul Gottfried
Paul Gottfried
Paul Edward Gottfried is Horace Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and a Guggenheim recipient...
, Jim Goad
Jim Goad
Jim Goad is an American author and publisher. Goad co-authored and published the cult zine ANSWER Me! and The Redneck Manifesto. Known for his controversial political and socially charged viewpoints, Goad's work has been described as "compelling", "brutally honest" and "original" by author Chuck...
, Gavin McInnes
Gavin McInnes
Gavin Miles McInnes is a Canadian writer, musician, and comedian. Referred to as "The Godfather of hipsterdom" and "the primary architect of hipsterdom" McInnes is often well known in the contemporary hipster movement mostly via Vice Magazine’s “DOs & DON’Ts” column.- Early life :McInnes was born...
and Charles Glass
Charles Glass
Charles Glass is an American author, journalist, and broadcaster specializing in the Middle East. He writes regularly for The Spectator, was ABC News chief Middle East correspondent from 1983–93, and has worked as a correspondent for Newsweek and The Observer...
.
Politics
Although much of Taki's writings concern (satirically) his life among the rich and famous, he is also well known as a conservative political and cultural commentator on both sides of the Atlantic. He professes traditional views about family, values, and religion, but such professions must be taken with a grain of salt given his ubiquitous irony and his "untraditional" lifestyle. His precise political orientation is difficult to categorize, though; for instance, he is a vocal critic of vulgarityVulgarity
Vulgarity is the quality of being common, coarse or unrefined. This judgement may refer to language, visual art, social classes or social climbers...
in both the media and in professional sports
Professional sports
Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...
, has stirred controversy with comments about contemporary immigration policy, supports abortion rights, is strongly pro-American, is a fierce anti-communist, is critical of the new Russian "kleptocrats", and writes dismissively of neo-conservatism. Taki is an outspoken critic of the current Iraq War and lays the blame for the "fiasco", as he calls it, on American neoconservatives, who have "destroyed the legacy of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
", levying harsh criticism on people like David Frum
David Frum
David J. Frum is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...
, William Kristol
William Kristol
William Kristol is an American neoconservative political analyst and commentator. He is the founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard and a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel....
, and John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz is an American neoconservative columnist for the New York Post, the editor of Commentary magazine, the author of several books on politics, and a former presidential speechwriter.-Life and career:...
. He considers war supporter Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
to be among "the former Trotskyites now masquerading as patriotic Americans".
He was prominent in the campaign to free the former Chilean dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
, whose arrest he considered inconsistent with international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
.
Imprisonment
Taki was imprisoned for four months for possession of cocaine.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/a-racist-rant-too-far-police-investigate-taki-the-playboy-pundit-746933.html Private EyePrivate Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
magazine sometimes refers to this by nicknaming him 'Takealotofcokeupthenos'. He documented his prison experiences in a 1992 book.
Controversies
Taki has been accused of using ethnic slurs by The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, in an article criticizing London mayor Boris Johnson for employing him and was investigated by Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
for some of his racial comments, although no charges were made. Due to Taki's characterization of himself as a "soi-disant antisemite", coupled with strong criticism of the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i government and its supporters in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
no longer permits him to write about Israel or Jewish affairs. In March 2010 Taki, in an article in Chronicles
Chronicles (magazine)
Chronicles is a U.S. monthly magazine published by the Rockford Institute. Its full current name is Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The magazine is known for promoting anti-globalism, anti-intervention and anti-immigration stances within conservative politics, and is considered one of...
magazine, said of the last Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial services firm. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth largest investment bank in the USA , doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (former NYSE ticker...
CEO Richard Fuld that "he's a very homely, simian-looking Jew who couldn't punch his way out of a nursery".
In a follow-up Spectator column, Taki stated that he does not consider himself an anti-Semite and that the term "soi-disant antisemite" was intended to mean "so-called" rather than "self-styled". Taki claims some of his comments are intended "to piss off politically correct journalists" and not to be taken at face value, and that he wasn't bothered himself by ethnic slurs in his youth. "The Italians were called wops, the Jews were called hymies, I was of course a greaseball, and every Hispanic was a spic. Well, we all got along famously! It was rough, but it was fine. Obviously, one doesn't like to be called a greaseball, but you know — Greek, greaseball . . . Now, of course, all that is very, very unacceptable."
He has expressed his admiration of the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
in his "High Life" column in The Spectator: "And speaking of the Wehrmacht, if I couldn’t have been a German officer in Paris 1940, being an expatriate American there would have suited me fine." ("High Life", The Spectator, Wednesday 1 July 2009) Referring to this in a subsequent column, he said that "I know, I know, too much Wehrmacht makes young Taki a bore, but I do have my obsessions, and Keira Knightley, martial arts, Ashley Judd, classic sailing boats and the deputy editor of The Spectator are some of them, along with the dear old W." ("High Life", The Spectator, Wednesday 29 July 2009)
Fraser Nelson
Fraser Nelson
Fraser Nelson is a British political journalist and editor of The Spectator magazine.-Early life:Educated at Nairn Academy and Dollar Academy, Nelson went on to study History at the University of Glasgow and Journalism at City University, London....
, the current Editor of the Spectator, publicly endorsed Taki when taking up his post in September 2009: "Ah, Taki! For decades it has been traditional for a new Spectator editor to be inundated with calls to show his commitment to civility by hiring a new High Life columnist. But this time, not a soul has asked for him to be sacked. All I hear is how the old rogue has never been in better form. This won’t please him much, as he prides himself on calls for his resignation. But it’s not that Taki is conforming to the world. The world, I think, is finally conforming to him."
Books
- Taki Theodoracopulos, "The Greek Upheaval." New Rochelle: Caratzas, 1978.
- Taki and Jeffrey BernardJeffrey BernardJeffrey Bernard was a British journalist, best known for his weekly column "Low Life" in the Spectator magazine, and also notorious for a feckless and chaotic career and life of alcohol abuse. He became associated with the louche and bohemian atmosphere that existed in London's Soho district...
, High Life, Low Life, introduction by Richard West, edited by Cosmo Landesman. London: Jay Landseman, 1981. ISBN 0-905150-27-9 - Taki, Princes, Playboys & High-Class Tarts, foreword by Tom Wolfe, illustrations by Blair Drawson. Princeton: Karz-Cohl Publishers, 1984. ISBN 0-943828-61-9
- Taki, High Life, selected by Andrew Cameron, illustrated by Michael Heath. London: Viking, 1989. ISBN 0-670-82956-0
- Taki, Nothing to Declare: Prison Memoirs, London: Penguin, 1992. ISBN 0-14-013256-2
- Glass, Charles (ed.), Taki: The Spectator Columns, 2001-2009, London, Quartet, 2010. ISBN 9780704371927
High Life columns in The Spectator
| Title | Volume / Number | Date | Page(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| In praise of older women | 308 / 9397 | 4 October 2008 | 58 |
External links
- Personal website : Taki's Top Drawer
- The Sunic Journal: Interview with Taki Theodoracopulos on The Voice of Reason Broadcast Network