Fat Or Racist
@jimchines Could we just stop with the use of “fat” as an insult already? You’re trying to hit the person you’re insulting, but you’re hurting a lot of other people in the process. Grow the hell up. @jimchines Yeah, Shakespeare also made his share of fat jokes/insults too, unfortunately. Do better. Get creative, and scrub that particular tired, lazy insult from your repertoire.
@chamblee54 What about the use of anything as an insult. I would start with racist.
@jimchines Racism is something we can choose to support, or we can choose to push back against. Too many people simply choose to ignore it. Which means accepting it. Don’t want to be described as racist? Stop doing/supporting/accepting racist shit. Seems simple enough to me. @jimchines Usually when I see people saying “racist” is an insult, all they’re trying to do is shut down criticism and silence conversation about race and racism. It’s tiresome.
@chamblee54 “Don’t want to be described as racist? Stop doing/supporting/accepting racist shit.” That is a lie. Even if you do quit being racist, how will your haters know? That lie is used to justify prejudice. Out of respect for our mental health, this thread should end now.
@jimchines Consider it ended. But in the future, perhaps don’t stir up conversations you’re unable or unwilling to have.
@chamblee54 Point taken. That was not my intention, however. Unfortunately, that is how it turned out. Fat compares to racist, in the third party conception that it is something the insultee has control over. In the case of fat, the change is measurable and apparent.
As twitterspats go, this was mercifully brief. One could go on about the relative merits of using fat, or racist, as weapons of verbal destruction. Both epithets usually have elements of bullying, and hypocrisy, in their use. Many language custodians, who would be appalled by fat, feel virtuous in calling someone racist. It would be better to retire both insults. That probably is not going to happen.
What makes this episode noteworthy is the connection between @jimchines and @chamblee54. There is a third party, who we will call @duh. This is not his name, but does incorporate his initials.
@chamblee54 and @duh quit communicating in 2008, after quarreling at @duh’s LiveJournal. @chamblee54 developed a distaste for online combat, and has tried, with varying degrees of success, to stay out of trouble. @duh, otoh, seems to glory in digital feuds. If a person goes to his facebook feed, they will see many examples of this.
One of these disputes included @jimchines. If you have a lot of free time, you can read about it. (one two three four) The beginning, and end, of one @jimchines post says a great deal. “Well, this has been quite the week. … My thanks to everyone for their patience while I worked through this.”
What makes yesterday’s episode ironic is that @duh is an aggressive pro-black pundit. He will call someone RACIST at the slightest provocation. To see the target of white-shaming defend the use of racist is quite the spectacle.
FWIW, @chamblee54, who sports an old man”s pot-belly, has only seen face pictures of @jimchines. @duh is flamboyantly skinny. @chamblee54 has never met either gentleman irl. Judgements about waistlines, or racial attitudes, are not appropriate.
While finishing this, a tweet turned up. @melaninbarbie “being fat matters. The violence that young fat Black girls experience contributed to her death and if you don’t understand why, y’all need to start cracking open some fucking books on fatphobia.” Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The men are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States. This is a repost.
Tim Curry
Timothy James Curry was born seventy six years ago today. It would be quite a while before April 19 was known as got a minute day. Mr. Curry is an actor, singer, and all around phenomenon. The role that made him a star was Frank-n-Furter in ” The Rocky Horror Show”.
Mr. Curry is best known for playing a flamboyant transvestite. His wikipedia page does not discuss his personal life. If you go to google, and type “is tim curry” the top five results are gay, married, dead, alive, died. A visit to some of the sites listed gave no definite answers. One of the sites tried to slip a *trojan horse* into this machine. Some things are better left a mystery.
After Dr. Furter went back to Transylvania, Mr. Curry made rock and roll albums. In 1978, a tour was put together to promote his vinyl debut. The first show in the United States was at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta GA. PG was in the audience.
Riding into town on the 23 Ogelthorpe bus, PG got to talk to some ladies who were in town for a conference. They were worried about the crime. PG tried to reassure them by telling a recent news story. This lady was having breakfast in a downtown hotel, when she put her purse down on the floor. A handgun her husband had given her went off when the handbag hit the ground. The ladies breakfast companion was hit and killed.
Mr. Curry walked onstage eating a banana, grabbed a stool and turned it upside down. He appeared to be a bit tipsy. This did not affect his performance. Mr. Curry did most of the songs on his album, along with “Celluoid Heroes” by the Kinks. The latter song featured a Garbo impersonation.
Whoever put the band together for this tour had a lot of money. The guitar player played with Lou Reed on “Rock and Roll Animal”. The keyboard player, and musical director, was Micheal Kamen, formerly of the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble. (A song on the Curry album, “Sloe Gin”, was a NYRRE song, “Fields of Joy”, with new lyrics.)
The only song from “Rocky Horror” that Mr. Curry did was “I’m Going Home”. A few people were upset that he did not do “Sweet Transvestite.” He played another Agora show a couple of years later, and reportedly did perform “Sweet Transvestite.”
Tom Waits was scheduled to perform at the Agora the next night. PG was wandering through the balcony between shows, and saw Mr. Waits sitting at a table. A bodyguard was standing by, who said that it was just someone who looked like Tom Waits.
After the show was over, PG went to a nearby bar, and was talking to a friend about the show. A lady who was with the friend stood in front of him and screamed “What color are your eyes? They are brown, because you are so full of shit”.
Pictures for this repost are from The Library of Congress. Photographs of Cornell Fresh. 8 and Cornell 2d Varsity, 1914 are from the George Grantham Bain Collection
Dystopian Gendercide
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Germany has ended a century-long debate over a missing letter in its alphabet
Is It Time to Do Away With the Dystopian ‘Gendercide’ Story? … “gender plague” novel.
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Flutterwave: The African Unicorn Built On Quicksand Fraud, … perjury, insider trading? …
Warning: Thomas Jefferson makes racially offensive remarks in the passages below …
Medical school student discovers cadaver assigned to her for dissection is her relative
a woman who was infested with shrimp after masturbating with a lobster
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The Planets Gustav Holst; Leopold Stokowski; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra …
Gutter Snob Books Literature for the discerning degenerate
Why is the Great American Poem So Hard to Write? Apr 9
Bach Cantata BWV 4 Easter «Christ lag in Todes Banden» John Eliot Gardiner
refractory rhyme ~ capital grille ~ hhaddendum ~ mandela effect ~ walt whitman
oscar wilde ~ 41% ~ john derek ~ portals press ~ gutter snob
double ~ repost ~ Jacob Christian Muse ~ pedagogy ~ braves
racism ~ repost ~ joe walsh ~ daniels ~ collard pests
collard pests ~ mactation ~ path fdn ~ nancy creek trail ~ walking trails
peachtree ~ roland martin ~ maher ~ bill maher ~ pushin
bitterkarella ~ manhunt ~ @scumbelievable ~ pulchritude ~ k thor jenson
photoromero ~ em dash ~ syllabication ~ german alt codes ~ ß
eszett ~ irispresents ~ @scumbelievable ~ @jessesingal ~ @bitterkarella
Gretchen Felker-Martin@scumbelievable You’re blocked You can’t follow or see @scumbelievable’s Tweets. Learn more ~ @jessesingal 4/ If I cannot have a good-faith disagreement with “Lesbian Death Bed: The Bed that Eats Pussy,” then truly Debate and Civility are lost causes… ~ @bitterkarella Lesbian Death Bed: The Bed that Eats Pussy – Cartoonist & text game guy, founder of the Midnight Society @midnight_pals Genderfluid transvestite goblin: 30% anima, 30% animus, 40% shadow. He/Him, She/Her ~ @Tbone7219 Does anyone know how to get a dick out of a blood pressure cuff ? Also I’m not allowed at this Walgreens anymore ~ “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” … The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. . . . They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning.” ~ From Notes on the State of Virginia (1784) Thomas Jefferson ~ @pooroldkilgore dumb when people want to refer to god as a woman, women already have a lot of bad stereotypes associated with us, we don’t need to be associated with god’s terrible characteristics ~ i just walked up to lowes there was a train sitting on the tracks many of the cars had festive grafitti, and i got a lot of pictures ~ with all due respect to those people i’m not sure their discussion is going to teach us something we haven’t heard before ~ I forget what the circumstances were but she and I were asking about a black American Scholar who was going to come speak a young black Americans color another was himself and I said what or is he going to be exaggerating and Lena talking about racism is if it’s an obstacle to his success at cetera to me that sounds so diagonal because we see that black guy with making that kind of noise is exhibiting some kind of Pride but she just she and I had a conversation with every background on Saturday I don’t remember because we’re talkin about almost thirty years ago but she’s probably from Nigeria Nigeria today I was talking to that same kind of person another this was a scholar from these are actually and quite unbidden she had the exact same it’s about and I didn’t ask her but she saw it she doesn’t talk about it too loudly it’s actually like them self and I frankly agree and you know those are the same people who think that word self-heating know if you need to feel indignant to the point that you massage event you don’t like yourself because you don’t know what it’s like to actually like yourself because you’ve only known liking yourself on the basis of that instead of on the basis of being an individual with your own free choice in your own tendencies in your own talents and your own units they don’t they don’t get that I feel so sorry for that the only thing you think of yourself as most worthy an interesting 4 is exaggerating about something in a theatrical way and resisting evidence that you might not be right about these things ~ @chamblee54 Replying to @jessesingal was @realchrisrufo appearance with @JoyAnnReid a set up? It got tons of publicity for both parties ~ todays pictures are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Bonsai Kitten
The original ten words are buffalo, clump, dribble, morsel, people, rattle, shampoo, smock, wasps, wool. The comments add blog, canker, Cool Whip, duty, gesundheit, forehead, goiter, machete, problem, scissors, soap, trouser and umbrella. In the case of wasps and goiter, the word may be funny, but the reality is not. As obituary readers know, many dead people have funny sounding names. It is considered rude to laugh.
Maybe the results will be better with a different phrase on google, like “sealing anus with super glue”. (408k choices). The top result is Bonsai Kitten. These charming people confine small cats to rigid vessels, so that they will grow to be the shape of that vessel. “The kitten essentially grows into the shape of the vessel! Once the cat is fully developed, it is removed (or the vessel broken to remove it!), producing the lovable, furry pet you’ve always wanted, but it remains in the shape you’ve always dreamed of! There is virtually no limit to the eventual shape of your pet.”
However, there are a few technical issues, where modern chemistry comes in handy. “Waste Removal. Left to its own devices, the kitten would quickly fill its vessel with its own urine and feces, leading to certain sickness and death, not to mention the inevitably unpleasant appearance and odor. The best solution is to seal the kitten’s anus with Super Glue prior to insertion, and then insert a waste tube through a third whole in the vessel. As the kitten’s body is still developing, a natural rectal diverticulum will soon form around the tube, which can be drained in any convenient fashion. It’s just like a kitty colostomy bag!.” This is a double repost.
Critical Becky Studies
Becky is a generic insult for *some* white women. If you don’t know what a Becky is, you might not understand the feature below. Chad is the equivalent expression for *some* white men. He is not important enough to be studied critically. This is a repost.
It started out with a tweet, about a symposium, Critical Becky Studies: Critical Explorations of Gender, Race, and the Pedagogies of Whiteness. Soon, PG was googling CBS. The paywall protected Wall Street Journal had an article on CBS. The seminal article was at City Journal, Racial Resentment As Pedagogy. The CBS flap originated at 2019 AERA Annual Meeting, sponsored by American Educational Research Association.
@chamblee54 @CityJournal @maxeden99 There was no link to this event in your article. I suspect this is a hoax. Please provide a link to the location on the event guide, for “critical becky studies.” The AERA conference guide is a confusing academic labyrinth. After a while, PG clicked on the correct link, and found a way to search for whiteness pedagogy.
CBS is real. “In the tradition of speculative fiction, parable, and counterstorytelling within critical race theory, this session aims to problematize the characterization of “Becky,” a term specific to white women who engage whiteness, often in gendered ways. This characterization is relevant to education by critically examining who is Becky and how she is characterized, her positionality in education, and how the hope for diversity, inclusion, equity, and racial justice within the P-20 educational pipeline is impacted by Becky. … tied to the gendered and raced mechanisms of whiteness enacted by Becky. ”
The symposium featured the presentation of several papers. If, after reading this feature, you want to learn more about these papers, you can follow the links.
This Ain’t No “Wizard of Oz,” Becky “The chapter is a parable in the spirit of speculative fiction, about the fictional (mis)adventures of Becky in the land of Ny as she faces obstacles that she can only overcome by grappling with her own whiteness.”
Two Woke Beckys? “Although both Sheila and Erika slip into different whiteness performances during their conversation, including passive aggressiveness and tone policing, white innocence, and white saviority, they check each other and delve into how they each have and are employing whiteness, despite their desires to rid themselves of whiteness, albeit through different means. …”
Love in the Time of Beckyism “… a particular white heterofeminine citizen-subject popularly known as “Becky,” … Despite “progressive” commitments such as equality, and social justice; and sentimental responses to historical atrocities and current social events, these (conditional) protestations made by Becky serve as a hedonistic mechanism for image management that hinges on the exploitation and social death of people of color. …” How can a teacher preparation program work to rethink the episteme and ethos that socializes Beckyism?”
Book Club Becky: White Racial Bonding in the Living Room “Many liberal white women gather monthly for book clubs … This paper reveals the more insidious workings of these spaces, as they are places where white women bond in order to maintain their place in white patriarchy, what Christine Sleeter named white racial bonding. The conversations that take place, the women who are included as “educated,” and the spaces where they meet are laced with white supremacy and surveillance.”
Border Becky “… why white women still invest in whiteness. Using the term “Becky” establishes an academic backing that can be applied and analyzed when researching the pathology of whiteness. … whiteness manifests in classrooms riddled with white women seeking to prove how they are not like other racist white people. Becky in the counterstories demonstrates the character-like roles white women play in a white supremacist folklore.”
It was a busy weekend for whiteness pedagogy. Ekemini Uwan shocked a Christian conference with her remarks about whiteness. “So then when we talk about white identity, then we have to talk about what whiteness is. Well, the reality is that whiteness is rooted in plunder, in theft, in slavery, in enslavement of Africans, genocide of Native Americans, … It’s a power structure, that is what whiteness is, and so that the thing for white women to do is you have to divest from whiteness because what happened was that your ancestors actually made a deliberate choice to rid themselves of their ethnic identity and by doing so they actually stripped Africans in America of their ethnic identity. … Because we have to understand something – whiteness is wicked. It is wicked. It’s rooted in violence, it’s rooted in theft, it’s rooted in plunder, it’s rooted in power, in privilege … ”
Today’s images are from The Library of Congress. We do not know if any of these ladies were named Becky. UPDATE @chamblee54 I found the link. My apologies for doubting you. @maxeden99 No worries. I couldn’t have made it up if I tried :)
Nine Rules For Driving
What follows is a repost from a few years ago. The thoughts are current. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Esther Bubley took the pictures in April, 1943. “Washington, D.C. Jitterbugs at an Elk’s Club dance, the “cleanest dance in town””
This is written as the Sunday morning worship hour winds down. In church facilities across America, preachers scream about sin. Very few will consider the sin of dangerous driving. And yet, this is the sin that can change, or end, your life in an instant.
There is a lot of label mongering in public spaces. Liberal, conservative, and racist are three of the most popular. None of these labels deals with driving courtesy. Democrats and Republicans are united in their lack of concern about safe driving. With that in mind, here is the top nine.
1- Find another way to show how bad you are. This is mostly a masculinity thing, but it just might apply to a few ladies. Driving hard and fast is the easy way to prove your toughness. All you do is push the gas pedal. You don’t have to go to the gym, have lots of sex, or go into battle. Just drive fast, and with no concern for your neighbor.
2- Slow down. There is no need to go so fast. When you go somewhere, allow yourself enough time to get there. The faster you drive, the less reaction time you have in an emergency.
3- Stay far enough behind the car ahead of you to stop in an emergency. This will be less stressful for the person in front of you.
4- Pay attention to the road. This is where cell phones, and texting, becomes a problem. You should be focused on the road ahead of you, and not what your phone mate is telling you. Your minutes will be just as good when you get to your destination. Are people really brainless enough to text and drive?
5- The three rules of the workplace apply here…. show up, stay awake, and don’t kill anyone.
6- Keep your car in good condition. The tires and brakes are key items, but also keep the engine running smoothly. Sometimes you need to accelerate.
7- Keep your temper. Driving while angry is a cause of many accidents, especially when combined with alcohol or religion.
8- Use your turn signals.
9- Show concern for the well being of your neighbor. Use common sense.
Mike Pence And Lester Maddox
This is a repost from 2015. In the seven years after, Mike Pence has served as Vice President of the United States. In the post was this sentence: “It is highly unlikely that anyone will know who this Pence person is in forty four years.” Political predictions are risky.
Salon posted a festive piece the other day. The headline: “Indiana’s Mike Pence is starting to look like Lester Maddox — without the spine.” What about the Governor’s breast, thigh, and wing?
Mr. Pence is the media punching bag of the moment. In a few days, someone else will screw up, and the nabbering classes can pick on someone else. The riffraff law will be lawyered out in the courts.
The question here is the connection to the former Georgia Governor. It turns out to be a rhetorical gimmick. In the first paragraph, author Joan Walsh essentially repeats the headline. “… even before Pence began to look like a 21st century Lester Maddox — without the spine.” This is the last time Lester is mentioned. He is used as a bald headed Honey Boo Boo.
It is ironic that Lester is this famous forty four years later. There are many bad things you can say about Mr. Maddox. However, Georgia survived both Lester, and smiling Jimmy, as Governor. It is highly unlikely that anyone will know who this Pence person is in forty four years.
The second part of this feature is a previously published piece about Lester Maddox. PG was twelve when Lester was elected, and has many memories of the four years that followed. The post goes into some of the mixed feelings, and tells a couple of stories. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
There has never been a politician like Lester Garfield Maddox. He was elected Governor of Georgia (with help of a quirk in the state constitution) in 1966. PG was 12 at the time, and saw the spectacle of the next four years with amazement.
Before we get started on this, we should remember a couple of things. Lester Maddox became notorious when he shut down his restaurant, The Pickrick, rather than serve a black customer. He was a segregationist, which means he did not want Black people to have the same rights as White people. Looking back from 2022, it seems incredible that civil rights legislation was needed, 58 years ago, so that 30% of Georgia could eat in a restaurant. PG does not condone the actions, and attitudes, of Lester Maddox, or the people who supported him.
There is style, and there is substance. While the substance of Lester may have been horrible, the style was a sight to behold. He could ride a bicycle backwards, and did so whenever a crowd was there to watch. (PG saw this at halftime of the Peach Bowl.) Lester was on The Joe Pyne Show and The Dick Cavett Show, and walked off of both.
This section from a previous post tells one story. The Governor was speaking to a group of reporters. He was announcing the appointment of a Black man to a Selective Service Board.. The reporter said it was the first Black man to serve on a draft board since reconstruction. What did the Governor think about this? The Governor said “Gee”
The screen returned to the Channel Five newsroom. The men at the desks were all laughing. The weatherman looked up at the camera and said “That’s a tough act to follow”
Whatever you might say about Lester Maddox … and there is no shortage of bad things to say … there has never been a public official that entertaining. As for being a tough act to follow, the next Governor was Jimmy Carter. As for the weatherman, PG saw him in a parking lot once. It was raining heavily. The “Gray Ghost” looked at PG with an ironic smile, as if to say “I am sorry”. The weatherman, Guy Sharpe, is on the right in the picture below this post. He is signing a book.
In 1970, the Governor of Georgia could not succeed himself. Lester ran for Lt. Governor, and spent the next four years feuding with Governor Jimmy Carter. Lester ran for a second term in 1974, and was trounced by George Busbee. (The slogan: “Elect a work horse, not a show horse.”) When Jimmy ran for President in 1976, Lester made a point of badmouthing Jimmy. In his own way, Lester Maddox helped Jimmy Carter get elected President.
Lester appeared on the Joe Pyne show. Lester was later on the Dick Cavett show. Another Cavett guest was Truman Capote. After Lester walked off the show, Mr. Capote said, in his own inimitable way, “I ate at his restaurant one time, and all I have to say is, it was not finger licking good”.
Anne LaMott
PG was working on a graphic poem. This is done on the computer, with the temptation of the internet forever lurking nearby. At one point, the urge to connect was too strong, and facebook was drawn in.
A bit of text from Anne LaMott was posted. PG has never read her work, but has heard good things about it. The people saying these good things are people whose opinions PG cares about.
Ms. LaMott is going to have a 61th birthday soon. PG will have a 61th birthday in a few weeks. Ms. LaMott makes a list of the things she has learned in her three score and one. This is the sort of thing her public gets off on. Since she is so well regarded, PG decides to take a look. This illustrates point A. A When you read something on the internet, you are not working on your project.
The Anne Lamott stuff is a mixed bag. She is a Christian, of some sort or another, and inevitably brings G-d and Jesus into the conversation. PG has had problems with G-d and Jesus. Opinions about them can be “triggering.” While Ms. LaMott means well, this is going to be tough to overcome.
Meanwhile, the graphic poem is not producing itself. The text is whipped into shape. The word count for the writing contest is verified. The colors are chosen for the text, then changed, then changed again, and finally the first colors tried are the ones that are going to be used. This is something that you need to do wrong before you do right. This working things out is not going to happen while reading the wisdom of the lady writer. Multi tasking has its limits.
The thoughts of the piece will not leave PG alone, and he decides to go back and finish reading the piece. This brings us to point B. B If you read something interesting on the internet, and have to leave, copy the link. If you depend on memory, you will never see it again.
As was mentioned above, Ms. LaMott and PG are products of 1954. This is probably the tail end of the baby boom. For young men in the USA, you were too young to go to Vietnam. Now you are becoming old fogies. You make lists of things you have learned, and post them on facebook. Pictures for this repost are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Social Justice Dogpile Part Two
“Hey RISK!; we all know what Luther is about now. The man is an unapologetic racist. … I don’t believe hate speech like what Luther propagates needs any more of a platform then the presidency. … his agenda is more than obvious. He is not a casual listener of the show wishing to take part in meaningful discussion. He wishes to spill vile and venom and spread his racist ideology …”
This comment was in a facebook thread about the RISK! podcast. There was a story about a White man, dating a Black woman. Things went well, until a third party told the Black woman that the White man used the N-word. I suggested that there might be things about this story that we do not know, and that it is not fair to trash the young man because of this incident. Since this was a boy-girl story, it has two sides. There is usually more to the story.
There is one thing certain. I did not say anything derogatory about people of color. Racism has an elastic definition. Being called racist is not the same thing as being racist. Many people are trying to fight racism with name-calling and character assassination. There is a lot of collateral damage in social justice warfare. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I recently reposted the story of this conversation. While reviewing the notes, I saw the comment above. Who would make a comment like that, based on a few comments in a thread? I looked for his facebook page, to see what I could see. The young man’s name will not be used today. In another chamblee54 post, the young man was known as Man03; this is the name we will use today.
Within a few posts, the facebook page lets you know that Man03 passed away in July 2020. If you read between the lines, you see that Man03 had some troubles, which may have led to his demise. If you scroll back in his timeline, you see that his wife died in 2018. Man03 seemed to be into Rave/Burner communities, and his wife had been a major animal lover.
On May 25, 2018, I attended a live RISK! show in Underground Atlanta. The last storyteller was a young man, talking about the tragic death of his wife. I saw that Man03, who told that story, was the same person who called me an “unapologetic racist.” The story starts at 51:55 of this episode.
When a stranger attacks you online, there is often trouble in that person’s life. There is no way to know what was happening with Man03 when he attacked me. I have always been more puzzled than angry, at the wrath of strangers. Now I feel sadness, that another human being was feeling so much pain. Maybe Man03 is in a better place now. Pictures from The Library of Congress.
UPDATE: The risk fans discussion group posted a comment by the Black woman. She had been in touch with the White man, who apologized for his bad behavior. I made a comment, along with a link to this feature. The comment was deleted, and I was blocked by the group.
Cary Grant Took LSD
There is a nifty article about Cary Grant and LSD on the web now. It seems Mr. Grant, the onetime Archibald Leach, had a few issues. Duh. Married five times. Widely rumored to the the bf of Randolph Scott. A talented actor, but a mess in the real world.
In 1956, Mr. Grant was with third wife Betsy Drake, who had a tough summer. “It was an open secret between cast and crew alike that the married Cary Grant was sleeping with Sophia Loren during their filming of The Pride and The Passion. Drake had flown to Italy to be by her husband’s side during the shoot only to find Grant ignoring her. Distraught, she fled on what was to be a quiet voyage on the SS Andrea Doria. On July 25, 1956 her quiescent journey turned into a nightmare. The ship collided with a Swedish ocean liner off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, sinking to the bottom of the Sea and claiming fifty-one lives.2 Betsy survived but was traumatized. The incident, coupled with the estrangement of her husband, haunted her in her sleep.”
Betsy Drake had a friend named Sally Brophy, an actress. Miss Brophy also received help from a psychiatrist, which included taking LSD. Eventually, Cary Grant started to go see this doctor.
Taking a legal trip, in a Hollywood doctor’s office, is not like going to a rave. It was seen as therapy, a way of learning how to deal with your problems. According to Cary Grant, it worked very well. He talked about it to a reporter, and then confirmed that he wanted this to go out to the public.
“The shock of each revelation brings with it an anguish of sadness for what was not known before in the wasted years of ignorance and, at the same time, an ecstasy of joy at being freed from the shackles of such ignorance … I learned many things in the quiet of that room … I learned that everything is or becomes its own opposite … it releases inhibition. You know, we are all unconsciously holding our anus. In one LSD dream I shit all over the rug and shit all over the floor. Another time I imagined myself as a giant penis launching off from earth like a spaceship … I seemed to be in a world of healthy, chubby little babies’ legs and diapers, smeared blood, a sort of general menstrual activity taking place … As a philosopher once said, you cannot judge the day until the night ..”
The only problem was, Mr. Grant had a movie coming out, “Operation Petticoat”. The studio “tripped out” when it heard the star of the show was praising LSD in the press. Mr. Grant had a share in the profits of the film, and was persuaded to call the reporter and recant on the interview.
Not everyone was impressed by the doctors that Mr. Grant used. “Aldous Huxley had encountered the clinic prior to his death, but had sought his LSD experiences from the parallel practice of Dr. Oscar Janiger, the other acid doctor to the stars. Huxley witnessed Chandler and Hartman’s work and was unnerved by their approach. “We met two Beverly Hills psychiatrists the other day,” he wrote, “who specialise in LSD therapy at $100 a shot – and, really, I have seldom met people of lower sensitivity, more vulgar mind! To think of people made vulnerable by LSD being exposed to such people is profoundly disturbing.”
In any event, LSD became criminalized, Doctors Chandler and Hartman got in trouble, and Cary Grant got married two more times. While Grant never renounced LSD, he refused to use any other illegal drug, even marijuana. He was a conservative old fogey.
Maureen Donaldson was the lover of Cary Grant in the seventies, and was a friend of Alice Cooper. She finally persuaded Mr. Grant to go to an Alice Cooper concert with her. He wore sunglasses, gold chains, and dressed like a “seedy agent”. He sat through the entire show, wearing earplugs, hating every minute of it.
As Miss Donaldson recalled the evening “Driving back to Los Angeles, I congratulated Cary for being such a good sport … He’d made an extraordinary effort to please me … [I asked him] ‘You really hated it, didn’t you?’ ‘It’s…’ he said, struggling for words, ‘you know what it’s like? Remember I told you about the time I took LSD in my doctor’s office and shat all over his rug and floor?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well now I know how that poor doctor felt.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
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