News Flash: Alex Baldwin Still an Asshole

I had intended to get to this earlier, but was reminded Wombat-sochos "Live at 5: 05.14.14" today.

Alec Baldwin, star of 30 Rock and more, has long been noted for his volatile behavior, ranging from humiliating his 12 (or was it 11; he wasn't sure) year old daughter for leaving her phone off, to homophobic rants on twitter or the street directed at a reporter for criticizing his wife (in addition to numerous other homophobic twitter rants, and street rants), physically threatened another reporter (on camera), finally losing his "coveted" MSNBC anchor spot for calling a member of the paparazzi a "cock sucking faggot."

Now, admittedly, he probably doesn't need the MSNBC bucks, but you think that might have learned a bit about self control.

Nope. This week he managed to get himself arrested after being stopped by Tom Selleck's New York's finest for bicycling the wrong way down a one way street:

From the cover of a magazine this year, the actor Alec Baldwin threatened to leave New York City. The place has changed, he said.

As he discovered on Tuesday, for instance, some police officers no longer recognize him. Or if the two young officers did, it did not deter them from writing him up for riding his bicycle the wrong way on Fifth Avenue near 16th Street, or from taking him to the precinct station house when he could not provide identification.

The police said Mr. Baldwin became belligerent with the officers, who soon placed him in handcuffs and charged him with disorderly conduct. At the 13th Precinct station house, the commander confirmed his identity, the police said, based on Mr. Baldwin’s “prior police contacts.”

He was apparently really pissed that the cop didn't recognize him straight away, and bow to his membership in the elite.

What elevated a simple traffic summons to handcuffs was Mr. Baldwin’s lack of identification and his reaction, which the police termed disorderly. Though New Yorkers are not required to carry identification, a police officer can demand it when writing a summons. If none is provided, the person receiving the summons can be taken to the station house until his identity is established.

Arguing with the police, they said, does not help.

Bwahaahaa!

He was released before noon, with two Criminal Court summonses, whereupon he took to Twitter to denounce the city as “a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign.”

While it's hard to disagree with that in the abstract, I would not necessarily conclude it from the arrest of someone being arrested for driving the wrong way on a one way street and then arguing with the cops and resisting arrest.