VIDEO VAULT THURSDAY!
(because exclamation points make all the difference)

Today we are taking a step into the WayBack machine and going way, way back to that ancient period almost three decades ago!

The year is 1979!

Nickelodeon launches, Jimmy Carter is president, the Ayatollah returns to Iran, Margaret Thatcher becomes prime minister, Morning Edition begins on NPR and the Soviets invade Afghanistan.

There isn’t even an MTV!

However, the nascent beginnings of the music video revolution are beginning to take root and early music videos are being broadcast. This week’s video is one of them!


This actually was a favorite of mine at the time and I still have the single (in the jacket pictured below)!

The single was bolstered by a promotional video that was well received in its day; the clip featured Scott as a DJ singing into a microphone from behind an exaggerated turntable setup, at times flanked by two women who sang and danced in a robotic manner. One of the sight gags in the video depicted a rather plain-looking woman actually recording the backup vocals, which are then mimed by the female models, something that seems to foreshadow a number of incidents that occurred much later in the music industry with groups such as Milli Vanilli, C&C Music Factory, and Black Box.

Four color musings.

The ugly truth is, I kicked the habit and joined the unhooked generation.

What it means is 7 months into 2008, I’ve stuck to one of my New Year’s resolutions. The resolution to kick the weekly comic book fix. Funny thing is, today, comics are more a part of the mainstream than probably any time since the forties or the mid sixties.

The big difference?

When I first started buying comics, their cover price was 10¢. While, I’m sounding like one of those guys I used to hear growing up... ‘Back when I was a kid blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ today a comic book starts at a cover price of $2.99 and climbs from there. When I was six or thereabouts, had a dollar gave me the incredible booty of 10 comics - the same haul today would set me back almost $30.00. It’s a big change!

In addition, I’m finding even though a lot of good material is out there, I find myself less attached to old favorites as time goes on.

Maybe the events in comics are a reflection of what happens in our world at large. I know the world is a smaller place than it was when I was a kid but, I don’t think of it being a darker place. Somehow though, comics have become much, much darker than they were when I was a youngster.

I was going to put the blame at the feet of this generation of writers but, I can’t say that is entirely the case. Some writers in the field ‘get it’ and manage to tell a story without going for the lowest common denominator for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, those scribes number among a select few and the remainder are pretenders at best. Maybe that’s because this generation grew up reading comics and little else and it shows.

Looking back, there was a time when comics were about science, math or exploration. Nowadays, they seem to be more about violence alone. I can’t say that it’s a good thing either. Comics have taken on characteristics I just don’t find appealing.

Back on Free Comic Book Day I started to write a post:

I might’ve posted this image once before, I can’t really tell if I did or not and I’m not going to spend the time going back to look.

Anyway, I scanned this in awhile back because sometimes over on the StatueForum sculptors will ask for reference images of characters they are planning to sculpt. Randy Bowen was getting ready to do an Ultron statue.

...and I just petered out because when Free Comic Book Day rolled around even that was no longer enough to get me to set foot in the local store and that’s a bad thing.

The industry wide event that I used to spread word about doesn’t even garner the slightest bit of excitement for me. While it brings to mind the quote from Paul of Tarsus there is something more than that to it. I never considered Comics childish but something in them has become banal (for lack of a better word).

I even went to this year’s NY Comicon and started writing about that too:

The Comicon wrap-up.

Rather than make life sound like all gloom and doom, I should say aside from the stuff with the cat I had a really terrific weekend at NYCC a few weeks back, something I needed desperately.

I managed to spend a little bit of time at the NY Comicon on both Saturday and Sunday. Sat in on a few panels. Saw and met bunches of people.

Got a chance to thank Erik Larsen in person for the wonderful columns he’s written of late up on CBR, especially the one about taking the time out to appreciate people while you can.

Finally met Steve Rude in person! After years of communicating with him and the ever-gracious Gino via email. All I came away thinking was how the phrase gentle giant really applies to the man. What was also kind of funny was watching him get as much fanboy as anyone else over Joe Sinnott who was part of a panel Steve and I had attended.

I had a long chat with Kevin McGuire and got pointed over to the great comedic films he has been working on. I will never forget the moment when one anxious fan came up to him during the course of our conversation and said to him, ‘I never got a chance to see your stuff when you were big!’ Sideways compliment to say the least handled with grace by the aforementioned Mr. McGuire.

I finally got a chance to see Keith Williams! I think it was the first time in almost 20 years! Keith is someone who worked the stacks at Barnes and Noble many, many years ago. Funny thing is he was working almost side by side with later DC editor Joey Cavalieri.

Met and had a good long chat with Bob Almond

Finally met Dave Simons who I had heard a lot about.

It was fun but...

I have to say I can see where these things are well into the point of getting played out. New York Comicon is a good thing for the industry without a doubt but, the thing I was reminded of was how just by no longer indulging in that weekly fix since January I had grown entirely disconnected from the world of comics. It happened that fast.

You would think it would take a lot longer but, it didn’t.

I just didn’t have the excitement within me about the latest news regarding character Z.

The pros I chatted with are entirely another matter.

In large part because my view of them is dramatically different than it once was. These are guys who struggle to get by. Not a few of them either. Taking a walk down Artist’s Alley is a reminder of just how tough a business comics really is.

The odd thing is that while it’s good for the pros to get that kind of feedback, it leads to odd moments on the part of both pro and fan alike.

Comics are so very insular in some ways as an industry and also as an art form. The convention was a big reminder of that for me and while I continue to want to write something in the field, I no longer have the need or compulsion to read stuff the way I once did. Nobody is more surprised than I am by that development.

Cherry really is da bomb!

I have a whole interesting slew of links along the sidebar there. Those blogs I read on a regular basis. I updated the links a little bit of time back and I was surprised to see I dropped a blog without realizing it, maybe a subconscious move on my part stemming from irritation towards the blog’s owner.

I wish some of the people I’ve linked to would reciprocate and link here as well but, it doesn’t seem right to directly ask them to do so. It‘s an amazing dislpay of humility on my part considering all the other ways I can be brazen about promotion.

One of the few people who does link back to me is Cherry Bomb. Cherry is someone whose blog I have read over the years and through her blog I have found a bunch of other blogs I read regularly. She is a burlesque dancer and a good writer too. Recently, she wrote something and gave a reading of it at RKB’s In The Flesh series. She posted the text only to later take it down due either to second thoughts or backlash over what she had written.

It’s a boldly personal piece she wrote though and I found a link to the reading she gave of it. She was wonderful! Take a look for yourself:

Perfect for a hot summer day.

I wrote this way back in December and never got around to posting it. After the heat wave we had last week and considering it was nice and toasty warm yesterday it seems only fitting to run it now if only to break the heat:

I hate snow.

I know there are a lot of people who just love it when the world gets draped in white. There is something clean I imagine about a landscape garnished with snow. Nights are brighter when there is a coating of snow on the ground. Even acknowledging these benefits though, I still find I hate the cold weather and the form of precipitation takes at the turn of the year.

I didn’t go out of the house today.

Now, that’s not all that unusual because I can easily hole up in the house for a prolonged period of time. I’m one of those people that is perfectly content and who can find innumerable ways to amuse myself alone.

The only thing is the cold weather makes it all the more likely for me to hole up if only not to expose myself to the cold. I just don’t like cold. Hot is okay but, cold can be unbearable at times.

It snowed this week on Thursday and I dutifully went out and spent the several hours shoveling the driveway to make everything nice and clear - when it’s warmer and it rains, shoveling is never a concern. The end result of my efforts was a tidy pile of snow about 7 feet high and 10 feet wide at the base. A snow tepee if you will.

Today when it snowed and then sleeted and then rained, while my neighbors were out attacking the build up I stayed ensconced in my fortress of solitude and made a big cauldron of beef stew. I’ve been meaning to cook up a bunch of food for a while now. January food, food that will be consumed in the New Year. The storm just gave me an excuse to focus my efforts in the kitchen. I still have to make up a whole batch of Chicken Sorrentino (something that may happen in the wee hours of the morning today).

I spend hours prepping and making up big batches of food and then freezing it in individual portions for later consumption. The stew came out good.

There’s still a whole bunch of holiday stuff to take care of too. Shopping, cards, things like that but I find myself not entirely motivated to get it done.

And that was December... coming up on the anniversary of the departure of the EYOC and leading into a January that was unsettling health wise for me and the beginning of a long downward spiral for kitty. I still hate the cold and even though it is warm I can remain holed up in the Fortress of Solitude but, the one thing I would be less inclined to do in cold weather is to take long scooter rides and there is no denying the joy that those rides bring!

* note to self - time to get started on the Christmas cards!

A great meme.

I came across this great meme on Jamelah’s blog a little while ago and couldn’t resist it:

• Put your mp3 player or music player on your computer on random.
• Post the first four lines from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song (Skip repeat artists).
• Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.

Leave your guesses in the comments. Some will be super easy, but try not to cheat by Googling.

1. When I met you I should’ve been warned
   Ooh I could see you change from day to day
   But you kept me guessing
   Playing for fun


2. Ahhhh...
   The Lord is a monkey
   Thanksgiving’s coming on the Fourth of July
   In the form of a girl with a needle in her eye


3. Everything is catching
   Yes, everything is catching on fire
   (Everything’s catching on fire)
   Everything is catching on fire (everything’s catching on fire)


4. Stuck inside these four walls
   Sent inside forever
   Never seeing no one nice again like you
   Mama you, mama you


5. Summertime and the livin’s easy,
   and bradley’s on the microphone with ras m.g.
   All the people in the dance will agree
   that we’re well qualified


6. Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’, that’s all you seem to do
   Messin’ around, every guy in town
   Puttin’ me down for thinkin’ of someone new
   Always the same, playin’ your game


7. You’re always dancing down the street
   With your suede blue eyes
   And every new boy that you meet
   He doesn’t know the real surprise


8. We got somethin’, we both know it, we don’t talk too much about it
   Ain't no real big secret, all the same, somehow we get around it
   Listen, it don’t really matter to me baby
   You believe what you want to believe, you see


9. People keep on learnin’
   Soldiers keep on warrin’
   World keep on turnin’
   Cause it won't be too long


10. Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand
    Hey Joe, I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand
    I'm goin’ down to shoot my ol’ lady
    You know I caught her messin’ ‘round with another man


11. You know if you break my heart I’ll go, but I’ll be back
    Again, ’cause I told you once before goodbye, but I came back again.
    I love you so oh I’m the one who wants you, yes, I'm the one
    Who wants you, oh ho, oh ho, oh


12. I saw a man get the beat down
    Took his money and his wallet left him dead on the ground
    I saw them gather celebrate the crime
    Teaching us the laughter another lesson of mankind


13. Deep in the back of my mind is an unrealized sound
    Every feeling I get from the street says it soon could be found
    When I hear the cold lies of the pusher, I know it exists
    It’s confirmed in the eyes of the kids, emphasized with their fist


14. Move aside,
    and let the man go through.
    Let the man go through.
    Move aside,


15. We’re in the basement, learning to print
    All of it’s hot!
    10-20-30 million ready to be spent
    We’re stackin’ ’em against the wall


16. Funny how secrets travel
    I’d start to believe if I were to bleed
    Thin skies, the man chains his hands held high
    Cruise me blond


17. The city streets are empty now THE LIGHTS DON’T SHINE NO MORE
    and so the songs are way down low TURNING TURNING TURNING
    A sound that flows into my mind THE ECHOES OF THE DAYLIGHT
    of everything that is alive IN MY BLUE WORLD


18. I saw you standing on the corner, you looked so big and fine.
    I really wanted to go out with you, so when you smiled - I laid my heart on the line.
    You read me my rights and then you said “Let’s go” and nothing more.
    I thought of my nights, and how they were.


19. When will we get the time to be just friends
    It’s never safe for us not even in the evening
    ’cos I've been drinking
    Not in the morning where your shit works


20. Hey God, why are you doing this to me?
    Am I not living up to what I'm supposed to be?
    Why am I seething with this animosity?
    Hey God, I think you owe me a great big apology

Posting roulette.

Blogger has this neat feature now in that you can write a post and schedule when it will wind up being published.

I love this!

Some of the things I write about aren’t really topical at all and this gives me the ability to get something written when the mood strikes me and to keep a steady stream of content as well.

As it stands, I’ve started writing some things for way, way out. The reason I call if posting roulette is because some of those things have the capacity to set off bombs. In particular, I have been enormously restrained in writing about a particular topic. Without going into specifics, there is a person I long ago decided to no longer have contact with but, it hasn’t stopped them from nosing about. So, I have my own version of a ticking timebomb just waiting for them... think along the lines of ‘set it and forget it.’

FRIDAY PHOTO FUNNIES!

Reliving past glory of a misspent youth.


Again, foto funnies are posted as a historical analysis of the changing face of humor in our country of the last 25 or so years. They do not present the viewpoint or opinion of the blog owner. Often they are wildly politically incorrect and offensive - if you are offended by the material in a foto funny, you either need to develop a sense of humor or surf elsewhere.

For more fun, check out The National Lampoon site, the originators of the Photo Funny.

VIDEO VAULT THURSDAY!
(because exclamation points make all the difference)

Whenever I think back to the 90’s, I think about all the great music that was created around that time. Over the course of my lifetime, the 60’s are well remembered even if I was a kid at the time, the 70’s were the era where I came of age but the 80’s were like a desert for the most part where music was concerned. Sure there was the occasional oasis, a bright spot of an album, band or song that I liked but for the most part it was a long, arid decade.

Right at the end of the decade though, grunge started to come to prominence and a flood of wonderful new music seemed to issue forth from all corners of the globe.

This week’s video is from 1992 and to me is emblematic of the period.


The video dovetails into the mood of the song and does a good job of speaking to the issue of alienation.

The video, directed by Samuel Bayer, stars Heather DeLoach as the “Bee Girl” — a young tap dancer wearing a homemade bee costume and large glasses, modeled after the Blind Melon album’s cover: a family picture of Georgia Graham, younger sister of drummer Glen Graham. The Bee Girl’s story is interspersed with footage of Blind Melon performing in a field against a clear blue sky.
It opens on the girl’s tap routine; the audience responds with laughter, and the girl runs off stage in tears. As the song plays, she wanders through a city, stopping to perform her dance for whoever will watch. Ultimately — at the point in the song where the word “escape” is repeated — she peeks through a gate, astonished, then runs through it to join a group of “bee people” of all shapes and sizes dancing joyfully in a green field.
As a result of the video, DeLoach appeared on the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, and reprised her Bee Girl dance (in full costume) in the video for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s song “Bedrock Anthem.”
VH1 ranked the “No Rain” video 83nd on its “100 Greatest Videos of All Time” list; the song was also No. 99 on the channel’s “100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders” list.

The sh**ty artist.

A bunch of days back, in my unending quest to rid myself of as much clutter as I can to live a life that is free from the burden of items I don’t need, I came across a sketch book from, must be from about, 26 years ago. I thumbed through it just to see what was in it. Threw out most of it but saved and scanned the ten items in this post.

26 years is a long time, I can hardly believe so much time has passed. Looking at these drawings though, reminded me of what was going on in my life at the time, the things that were important to me and the people around me.


I went to college and studied Illustration. That is to say, in my abortive college career I went to a lot of classes that involved me drawing. I like drawing. Drawing was something I always had fun with and even today as I read the paper or when I’m at work, I’ll be sketching something in the margins.

I always considered myself to have some ability, better than most but certainly not as good as others. I’ve seen people who have devoted their lifetimes to art and am both amazed and envious of their abilities at times. If you look through the sidebar, you’ll see Vinnie’s blog, Vinnie really has f%#$ing chops, he draws in a bunch of different mediums and styles. Gerry Acerno whose stuff I put up from time to time can really draw too, his work harkens back to a golden age of comics. I respect and admire them because they have given themselves over to that lifelong avocation.

Whenever an artist is asked about the process, it’s a difficult to describe to someone who doesn’t create art but, talk to a fellow artist and they will all agree about how, in many instances, what is put down on paper is the realization of the image an artist sees in his mind first. It’s very hard work.

I was never entirely happy with the results I got. I got better over time but, I still didn’t approach the kind of results or expectations I had for myself. The good thing is I long ago reconciled with that, I don’t suffer sleepless nights over it so when I got the following comment some time back: you'll ALWAYS be a SHITTY ARTIST.... now you're just a MIDDLE of the road production artist who CAN"T draw... I laughed.

See, I embraced that a long. long time ago. I can live with the ability I have, get my enjoyment from the things I do. At least unlike my anonymous commenter, I’m not a hack.

Does anyone even notice?!

I go through phases in life where the daily ritual changes. Some periods I’ll find myself listening to a lot of radio and then others where the thing isn’t on at all. The New York city public radio station is WNYC and depending on the time of day or just the way I’m living life it will be on in the background. Sometimes I find I really like it and other times it is just unlistenable because of reasons that escape me - usually this is between the hours of 10 and 2 although both the Brian Lehrer Show and the Leonard Lopate Show both can be very entertaining.

One unsettling thing I’ve noticed though and I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else, is how WNYC uses Apple’s voice technology to do its between show and promotional announcements. No reason to hire a person and to go through the motion of repeated takes and verbal gaffes, just type it in and it’s ready to go!

It’s just a sign of the times and a cost saving measure for a station that relies heavily on accounting for every dollar but I still think it’s not a good thing for radio.

TELEVISION TUESDAY.

So, what were people up to before they were famous? This week for Television Tuesday, we get the treat of seeing a short that Jay Leno made when he was still a vagabond comic, long before his stint as a guest host (and ultimately regular host) of the Tonight Show:

The show was a mix of music videos (by both himself and others) mixed in with comedy sketches, commercial parodies, and general silliness. It was hosted by Nesmith himself, who also participated in many of the sketches. Television Parts also featured guest appearances by a number of comedians, including Martin Mull, Whoopi Goldberg, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Martin, The Funny Boys and Garry Shandling, whose appearance on the show was the seed for It's Garry Shandling’s Show. Michael Nesmith produced humorous skits, songs and commercial parodies in this video.

Hand wringing.

I don’t know who he is but on one level he’s my new hero: Dan McFan STRIKES!

It’s funny because all he did was post an image and suddenly a veritable sh*tstorm arose over nothing. I imagine it just illustrates once again there are people on the internet who will fight about anything. This had me laughing my ass off, just amazing how some people are so desperate to make something out of nothing.

Here’s a good test for you.

I was writing a note to someone and I wanted to use an analogy that had me searching around the internet for the specific wording. I don’t even remember what the note was about now but, during the course of searching I came across this test. I scored 20 out of 20 (thankfully) but, I have to wonder how many people won’t do as well.

You’re an American?

A citizen of these United States?

Well, test your knowledge!

* I’m kind of curious how people do so post your scores in the comments section... IF YOU DARE!

I can’t wait.

New York baseball fans can be the most loyal fans in the world or they can be the most brutal. Believe me I’ve seen it time and time again, guys can be beloved or despised. Up until recently, for Mets fans at Shea stadium the one visiting player who was most likely to be designated for raucous booing was (Larry) Chipper Jones. However, after last week’s Home Run Hitting contest at the All Star game at Yankee stadium I believe there is a player who will usurp that special mantle from Atlanta’s third baseman. Here’s the reason why:



and knowing NY fans the way I do, I am sure they’ll come up with some very creative ways to get their message across!

Grammar junkies.

If you’re a grammar junkie like I am (and I am even though I cleave my way through the English language like a barbarian) you’ll enjoy the newly added blog in the sidebar. Over the coming weeks there will be some updating and modifying of the sidebar but, this blog is just “plain” fun.

I give you The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

Why don’t we all just carry guns?

The other day I had posted about how RKB also known as the Lusty Lady had some fool bothering her. In the comments section of her blog I was really amazed that some people advocated shooting the guy. Not just shooting him but, killing him.

Roll that over in your head for a second.

Here‘s the rub... the people advocating shooting the guy would best be described as liberal:

Trixie Fontaine said...
That is fuuuuuuuuuuucked. And if he has already contacted you three or more times since you told him not to, it might not be a bad idea to call the cops already.

Sex writing might be part of what's fueled his plan to stalk you, but just plain delusional thought is where it starts and there's no behavior of yours that can change the kind of rationale that thinks having simply seen your myspace page constitutes the forging of a real "friendship".

With movies, etc. continuing to teach people that certain behaviors are not stalking, it's endearing persistence that leads to marriage, having the cops warn him off might let him know he's not going to break down your resistance to what he thinks are his charms, but will lead to a restraining order and possible jail time.

---

jessica said...
that is some crazy shit - and good call trixie, on movies romanticizing this kind of behavior.

it's amazing what people think they can get away with when addressing and/or dealing with women who do what they want with their own sexuality. hateful comments, badgering comments, waaaaaay over-the-line comments...fuck this guy, and it took balls (ovaries?) for you to post about it instead of just letting it fester.

---

MeiLin Miranda said...
We deal with this at Casa de Miranda by being armed. Seriously.

I'm going for my concealed carry permit soon, and Sir already has one. I gots a 12-gauge shotgun named Zoe and a .22 rifle named Martha, and I'm getting a larger caliber Sig Sauer handgun to carry. Sir has his own .38 special named Wash.

Women are not as strong as men. Projection of force evens the odds, and I have zero qualms about shooting a stalker or anyone else who's trying to hurt me or my children.

We're not scary people; we have never drawn on anyone, we store our guns properly, and Sir is a better shot than most cops (I'm working on it). If we ever do draw it will be because we really think we need to shoot someone to save our lives. But we find that people just knowing we're armed cuts down on the bullshit dramatically.

---

Trixie Fontaine said...
I'm sure Rachel knows this/won't do these things, but contacting his employer and/or potentially putting him in danger by outing his personal information (which is also breaking the law) are pretty bad ideas. Because they're illegal. Because they're ineffectual, unfair things that could set him off and/or be perceived as justification for continuing the "relationship" he imagines, like it's just a bad breakup. Really doing things the legal way getting things documented herself, like she's doing, and with the cops then leading to a restraining order if necessary are the best ways to do it without opening herself up to litigation.

But yeah, being ready to shoot to kill is also an option I love. I can't imagine Rachel doing it, but yeah -- shoot to KILL so he can never testify against you in court. That's my motto.

---

Trixie Fontaine said...
After the big guys beat him up, she's still just as vulnerable of a target as a woman as she was before unless said big guys are walking around with her 24/7, only now the guy has an additional reason to really hate and resent her and try to feel big and strong and forcibly desirable (if that's the kind of guy he is).

As someone who said (among other things) "shoot to kill" (in response to something someone else said, I didn't bring it up initially) who is also a self-avowed liberal, I stand by it: if you're going to shoot someone who is trying to hurt you (I don't think anyone is saying she should go hunt him down right now and pop a cap in his ass at this point) it will just be much cleaner to end his ability to fuck with you at all, ever again.

I don't know why you would think beating the shit out of him NOW is an option worth championing to "send him a message" and is the liberal thing to do but that shooting him if he steps up his stalking and actually threatens her is not.

Reading the comments quickly, so maybe I missed something/misinterpreted things. . . I did say the shoot to kill thing off the cuff (and twice on accident, or maybe for the sheer pleasure of it).

---

Trixie Fontaine said...
Oh, my mistake. Your advice is to simply THREATEN him right now with bodily harm. Big swinging dicks instead of a concealed weapon.

Now, I posted a comment in the thread and two other people posted comments in the thread that didn’t once mention shooting someone but I love the fact that the people advocating shooting as a solution (and not just shooting but killing someone) were women. How f#%$ing ironic is that!

Projection of force? I like that phrase.

I’ve never been one to carry a gun and I have friends who do and have. Thing is, if you have a gun and you pull it out you kinda have to use it. If the person your dealing with also has a gun, well things can get very messy, very quickly and escalate to the point where people who are not involved in the slightest with what is happening, get hurt (these are usually called innocent bystanders or alternately collateral damage).

You might think I’m talking out of my a** on this one too but, I’ve had guns drawn on me twice (at least that I can remember). Once someone was trying to rob me and the other time by several over-zealous sheriffs on the West Coast.

The guy trying to rob me got squat and the cops were just a matter of cooperating but things could have been very different if I had a gun.

Also, while I can’t say I condone the miscreant’s behavior, what we’re talking about is akin to using an elephant gun instead of a fly swatter. Again, is it that f&$#ing hard to just say, ‘NO, I’M NOT INTERESTED!’ and then take things up level by level if and when they escalate?

I posted this here because I’ve gotten beyond the point where I’m inclined to have comment wars with people I consider idiots. The level of stupidity on the internet just amazes me sometimes though particularly when people who advocate the harshest response under one set of circumstances would pillory another if they followed that same course of action in a different set of circumstances.

Better still is the big, swinging dicks comment - penis envy? (LOL) People talk about projection of force and then totally fail to recognize that force is only effective when applied judiciously. Believe me, there’s tons of people in this world saying things I find offensive, hurtful, demeaning, the list goes on and on... but shooting them is not the answer.

You have to be pretty smart,

to be this stupid:


This is the cover to the July 21 issue of the New Yorker magazine. I don’t read the New Yorker regularly, as a matter of fact I can’t say I’ve ever bought an issue.

I always think of the New Yorker as targeted towards a very literate, highbrow and liberal audience. I just can’t say I fit that demographic. Not that there isn’t stuff in there for me to read, it’s just one of those things I never went out of my way to seek out.

Madame X used to subscribe to Harper’s (and Mother Jones) and I would read an article in those from time to time but again, not my thing (and before anyone gets too up in arms I realize Mother Jones is not in the same vein as Harper’s or New Yorker - the comparison was meant between the latter two magazines).

Over the coming days though, I have to imagine you’ll be hearing more about this cover.

Why?

Well, because even a moron like me realizes it is in horribly bad taste. The people at the New Yorker want people to believe that this was a commentary on satire, they even go as far as to show examples of the artist’s previous satirical work for the magazine. However, looking through the other images there is nothing remotely close to this in terms of bigotry... plus it is one of those things that will be used to reinforce a fallacy (Obama being a Muslim).


The same image if it had been the cover of a right-wing, conservative publication would have been pilloried for their lack of editorial scruples and rightfully so. Like I said, you have to be pretty smart to be this stupid, what were they thinking?

FRIDAY PHOTO FUNNIES!

Reliving past glory of a misspent youth.



Again, foto funnies are posted as a historical analysis of the changing face of humor in our country of the last 25 or so years. They do not present the viewpoint or opinion of the blog owner. Often they are wildly politically incorrect and offensive - if you are offended by the material in a foto funny, you either need to develop a sense of humor or surf elsewhere.

For more fun, check out The National Lampoon site, the originators of the Photo Funny.

VIDEO VAULT THURSDAY!
(because exclamation points make all the difference)

AND THEY REALLY DO MAKE THE DIFFERENCE ALONG WITH WRITING A SENTENCE ALL IN UPPERCASE!

So, if you’re not looking at the videos posted each week in Video Vault Thursdays! The question is why not?!?!

This week, we are taking a trip back to 1993, how can it be that 1993 is fifteen years gone!? Where does the time go, all too fast as the days pass, I’ll say!

...the song was inspired by “Camille’s vaginal flower theory,” most likely referring to the American social critic Camille Paglia, of whom he was a fan. In Paglia’s 1990 book Sexual Personae, she explores the prevalence of female genitals being perceived as wounds — often manifesting in diseased flower imagery — in psychoanalytic literature. She cites the ailing flower in William Blake’s “The Sick Rose,” the “poisonous genital flowers” in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ À rebours, and a description by Tennessee Williams comparing a vagina to “a dyin’ orchid.”

This is a video that stands out because of both the song and the imagery it is married to. While the song is a great piece of music, the video undoubtedly had a hand in popularizing it the song even further. It’s an instance where the whole is indeed greater than the sum of the parts. The director, Anton Corbijin is no small part of that feat:

Corbijn tends to eschew traditional glamour photography, instead favoring a rawer look, often in black-and-white. His subjects appear to be calm and far removed from everyday life. His photographs show raw emotion. His influential style of black and white imagery with stark contrasts on grainy film (sometimes referred to as “overcooked”) has been imitated and copied in such extent that it has become a rock cliché and a vital part of the visual language in the 1990s

I can be a bit of a sexist...

...but, I’m not a creep.

At the very least I work really, really hard in life not to be the subject of that story that each woman seems to have. Women will know all too well what I’m talking about. Each women I’ve ever met has the story of that one guy, the guy who wouldn’t take the hint.

Men are really bad at hints ladies.

I’m not using that to excuse bad behavior because there isn’t an excuse for it but the whole mating dance is so complicated there is bound to be confusion. Confusion though doesn’t excuse being a creep.

Most of my old girlfriends who want nothing to do with me just ignore me. That works for me in a sense. I mean, I’d like to think you could remain friends with the people you swapped bodily fluids with but all too often that just isn’t the case. I may drop someone an email from time to time or a card for their birthday or something but I won’t show up on someone’s doorstep unannounced.

I never liked that kind of drama and as time has gone on I find I like drama of any kind less and less.

So, today I got around to reading one of the blogs in the sidebar. Sometimes, with some blogs I’ll just go and scan a little bit and not really read them thoroughly. RKB’s blog is like that but I saw something today that gave me pause.

Apparently she has some kind of ‘stalker,’

Maybe the guy’s not a stalker. Maybe he’s just one of those incredibly socially inept people who doesn’t know how to interact with others in any semblance of normalcy. Certainly he isn’t aware that calling the cell phone of someone you’ve had little to do with is a big invasion of someone’s privacy. My hope is that is all that it is.

RKB writes about sex... big whoop.

I’m not casting aspersions on her writing but, what I’m saying is that certain assumptions shouldn’t be made just because of the subject matter she writes about. Like... I don’t know, maybe like because a woman writes about sex that maybe she’ll just spread her legs for anyone.

I mean... honestly!

So, I’m reading the stuff she got from stalker dude and it kinda looks like he doesn’t see the difference.

One part of me is like, ‘OH GREAT! ANOTHER AS*$&LE GIVING MY GENDER A BAD NAME’

Seriously.

And then another part of me is thinking, ‘Time for someone to get a good a##-whoopin.’

Some of the people in the comments section of her blog were talking about guns, under the circumstances it sounded a bit like a nuclear option to swat a fly. Guns are a bit of a touchy subject, shot someone and you’re creating a mess. A good a##-whoopin however can be handled much more discretely and still manage to get it’s message across in a very direct and clear manner without all the mess.

How do I know?

Umm... I’ve done it.

It’s not something I’m proud of and I won’t go into the gory details but on more than one occasion if necessary I’ve taken the steps necessary to stop onerous behavior by other members of my gender. You’d be surprised at how easily it works.

Why?

Well, guys like that are usually bullies. They count on bullying people who they think they are bigger and stronger than. In those cases as much as I hate to say it, the easiest way to solve the situation is to respond in kind.