Born To Run
Born To Run, the Bruce Springsteen autobiography, is due back at the library. When PG requested it, there were 96 people ahead of him in line. Renewing a book this popular is not permitted. PG is on page 420, after the funeral of Frank Sinatra. It is time to write the book report.
Amazon has lots of Bruce product for sale. One suggested item is Bruce Springsteen: The Coloring Book: A Tribute to the Rock & Roll Boss Born to Run. One star reviewer Kevin P. said: “Sorry, but this is the creepiest thing ever.”
The story begins in New Jersey. Bruce lives in a lively neighborhood, with a troubled father. At some point Bruce starts to play guitar. His bands find success on the Jersey shore. They play a lot of shows, and many stories could be told.
Some how, they get a new years eve gig in California. Driving in shifts through the night, the two vehicles get separated. Bruce is forced to drive. This is a problem, since he never learned how. Somehow, the truck makes it to Big Sur in one piece.
The story goes on. Bruce signs a management contract with Mike Appel. This works well for a few years. Then Born to run, the album, comes out. Bruce is a superstar, but has little money to show for it. After spending a few years suing Mike Appel, Bruce is free to make more albums, and become a super duper star. Somwhow, Bruce made it work.
We should note at this point PG’s ambivalence about Bruce Springsteen, inc. The man has written some good songs, and is reported to give good concert performances. PG has long since gotten over seeing Bruce on the covers of Time, and Newsweek, at the same time. Bruce Springsteen puts his New Jersey britches on one leg at a time.
One of the problems of autobiography is the tendency of authors to put them self in the best possible light. Bruce does that, but still mentions that he sees a shrink, got divorced, and can be a ego happy control freak. It is lonely at the top.
If you are a fan, you will probably enjoy the book. It is better than most self help stories, and will probably motivate you just as well. It is not the greatest thing PG ever read, nor is it the worst. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The Iggy Pop Story
Speaking of Iggy Pop, and music merchandising, he has a collection of music for sale. Included in this package is a show he did at Richards, across the street from Grady Stadium. One night Iggy was singing at Richards, when Elton John appeared onstage wearing a gorilla suit.
The greatest achievement of Mr. Pop is living so long. (He was born April 21, 1947). He has done heroin by the kilo, jumps off stage into crowds of punk rock fans, and is a general mess. He still has a great smile, although it is not known how many of those teeth are his own.
One night in 1980, PG saw a performance by Iggy Pop. The site was the 688 club, a storefront on Spring Street, across the expressway from Georgia Tech. 688 Spring Street had been the site of Roses Cantina, where PG had seen George Thorogood. Some other blues band did Amphetamine Annie with the original lyrics…instead of speed kills, they said love gun.
Roses was a cool place, a long narrow space with the performers in the middle, and a pool table behind the stage. Nightclubs are a tough business for capitalists, and Roses shut down.
At any rate, by the time PG got back from Seattle, some brave investors decided to have a punk rock club at 688 Spring Street. Soon, Iggy Pop was playing a week there. In the seventies, the bands would play for five days at the great southeast music hall or the electric ballroom, two shows a night, and if you were really cool you would go on a weeknight before it got too crowded. Soon after that, it was one night in town only, and you either saw it or you didn’t.
PG had a friend at the Martinique apartments on Buford Hiway. There was someone living in the complex known as ZenDen, who sold acid. You would go to his place, wade through the living room full of grown men listening to Suzi Quatro, and purchase the commodity.
On to the the 23 Oglethorpe bus, and downtown to 688 Spring Street. Before anyone knew it, the band was on the stage. A veteran of the Patti Smith Group, named Ivan Kral, was playing bass. Mr. Kral sneezed, and a huge white booger fell across his face. He was not playing when the show ended.
There was a white wall next to the stage, and someone wrote the song list on that wall. That list of songs stayed on the wall as long as 688 was open. “I want to be your dog” was on the list, as well as the number where Iggy pulled his pants off and performed in his underwear. Supposedly, in New York the drawers came off, but the TMI police were off duty that night.
The show was loud and long, and had the feel of an endurance event…either you go or the band does. Finally, the show was over, and PG got on the 23 Oglethorpe bus to go home. You got the northbound bus on West Peachtree Street. You could look down the street and see the Coca Cola sign downtown.
Thirty years later,PG, like Iggy Pop, has a full head of teeth, which, in PG’s case are his own. PG has a full head of white hair, as apparently does Mr. Pop, although he does appear to touch up his hair. Maybe he really is a blond. This post should be over, but if there are 37 more words then we will have 688. The space on Spring Street is still standing, which is pretty good for Atlanta. It is now an emergency room, or something.
This is a repost. The original was posted seven years ago. Iggy is still alive. So is PG. 688 Spring Street stands. 23 Oglethorpe is the answer to a trivia question. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Stupid Questions
display of a link here does not indicate approval of content ~ Sixteen Mind-Blowing Facts About Who Really Killed John F. Kennedy ~ Christians: More Like Jesus or Pharisees? ~ #NotAllWhitePeople, The Quiz ~ Why don’t the Palestinians have their own country? ~ Sophia Loren Finally Tells the Story Behind That Infamous Jayne Mansfield Photo ~ Censorship, Not the Painting, Must Go: On Dana Schutz’s Image of Emmett Till ~ Stop Portraying White Millennials as Less Racist Than Their Votes and Poll Responses Suggest ~ Why Do We Assume Good Musicians Are Good People? ~ After 12 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes ~ Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’ ~ Democrats edited anti-capitalist, pro-socialist message out of photo in promo image ~ The 9 Russian Words That Explain KremlinGate ~ RuPaul Has Some Choice Words About Bachelorette Parties In Gay Bars ~ An elaborate hoax ~ Beware The False Temptations Of The Russia Story ~ What Neil Gorsuch Won’t Say About Abortion ~ Murder, robbery suspects arrested ~ Maybe the translators and scribes got it wrong. Maybe Jesus did not say to love your enemy. Maybe what Jesus said was to show kindness to everyone. This is a practice thing, rather than a belief thing. It is not as much fun to be nice to someone, as it is to scream about life after death. Kindness does not need to be justified by a quote from a magic book. You just need to do it. ~ https ~ How to set up a VPN in 10 minutes for free (and why you urgently need one) ~ Silence U: Is the University Killing Free Speech and Open Debate? | We the Internet Documentary ~ Black Lives Matter Disavows Atlanta ‘President’ Sir Maejor ~ This Road Is Closed For Domestic Terrorism ~ stown music ~ American survivors tell the inside story ~ Charles Bukowski Rails Against 9-to-5 Jobs in a Brutally Honest Letter (1986) ~ Sanders defends Trump voters: I don’t think they’re racists, sexists or homophobes ~ woke aryeh @tweetertation ~ “‘Til the swear jar’s full”: Penances, pennies, and profanities ~ While looking through my archives, I found a 2015 post. Somebody had compared Mike Pence to Lester Maddox. There is this line: “Getting back to Lester, it is ironic that he is this famous forty four years after his term in office ended. There is no shortage of bad things to say about Mr. Maddox. However, Georgia survived having both him, and smiling Jimmy, as Governor. It is highly unlikely that anyone will know who this Pence person is in forty four years.” As usual, the pictures are better than the text. ~ Trending topics one and four are #LasVegasRaiders and #JohnnyRotten ~ The space where the Cherokee Plaza Theater was is now the produce section at Kroger. The space where the Broadview Plaza GSEMH operated is now the parking lot for a Home Depot. ~ Hair is either fine, or coarse. If you are found guilty, and owe the court money, they call it a fine. ~ @ConnerHabib You are allowed to ask questions. Even ones people say are stupid/you should be ashamed of. Even forbidden ones. Especially forbidden ones. @chamblee54 what about forbidden twos? ~ Can you publish this transcript? I would like to comment on this monolog, but my transcription skills are not what they should be… maybe I am a cis-scriber. ~ @EricaJong What is the context of that quote? When and where did you say it? What is a metaphor for a meme graphic quote without a source? ~ @AryehCW trump grammar twitter, this is a sentence fragment, haiku middle line ~ Separation of church and state is a sweet deal for the church. Let the government do the messy, though necessary, job of making the country work. Let the church do what it does. The government does as good a job of nourishing the soul as the church does of picking up garbage. ~ KimKierkegaardashian @KimKierkegaard I feel forsaken by God. He’s just not that into me ~ I had always heard that Tattletales was a hot club. ~ This video is unlisted. Be considerate and think twice before sharing. ~ with listening to music and birds singing i can’t keep up with the handful of podcasts i already follow then #stown came along… ~ From the comments: AJ Garcia • Sorry for the loss but I just wanted to be known that a rainbow flag doesn’t represent me as a gay person it stereotypes me and I don’t like it Stryka Pose Will someone find a flag with an asshole on it so AJ can be respectfully represented? ~ Good morning my friend. I am thinking about the April Heart Circle at my house. A while back I believe you posted information about heart circles. As part of the opening ritual would you share some of that history and information with those of us who are gathered. ~ I am not sure what I would say. I am also not sure that is a good idea. To me, the concept of the heart circle is simplicity. One person speaks, and the others listen. The talisman/talking stick is held by the person who speaks, and given to the next person to speak. Only the person holding the stick can speak. The stick can either go around the room, or can go to the middle, to be picked up by the next to speak. As for history… I really don’t know the history. ~ there is a lovely quote, which i cannot find easily but will try to recreate: a heart circle is a faerie technology. It is a cross between a quaker meeting, a room temperature sweat lodge, and the collective experience of cruising Christopher Street in 1972 ~ I don’t recall doing that. I really don’t know about the origins. I know when i was first going to faerie events, they would have a check in, where everyone said something in turn. At gatherings, they would have a morning circle, with announcements and check in. I never heard the phrase heart circle until the nineties, when I was reading about California gatherings of something called the billy club ~ Marta expansion would have had little to do with the i85 collapse. Ironically, the fire was across the street from Marta’s rail car storage yard. ~ @ScienceAndJokes Two atoms are walking along. One of them says: “Oh, no, I think I lost an electron.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m positive.” ~ I don’t know about the newspaper, but DJT seems to be recycling Nixon ~ The democratic obsession with racism helped get Mr. Trump elected. They knew the entire litany of problems with the orange haired idiot, and chose to focus on his racial attitudes. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians paid the Democrats to run this clueless, racism obsessed campaign. It helped get their stooge elected. ~ the choice was between a sexual predator and the enabling wife of a sexual predator ~ After you sonnetize, give it an acrostic retrofit. Especially if you name has 14 letters. …. the spell check suggestion for sonnetize is monetize…. good luck. ~ Thank you for posting this. Getting past I85 is going to be difficult for the next few months. ~ Know the difference between having your soul on fire, and your pants ~ This page is currently offline. However, because the site uses Cloudflare’s Always Online™ technology you can continue to surf a snapshot of the site. We will keep checking in the background and, as soon as the site comes back, you will automatically be served the live version ~ the irony of a “lay elder” discussing the “billy graham rule” about proper behavior ~ pictures are from The Library of Congress. Dorothea Lange took the pictures in June 1937, in Texas ~ selah
Mike Pence And Lester Maddox
This is a repost from 2015. In the two years following the original publication, Mike Pence has been elected 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.
We have gotten to the place where prejudice against perceived racists is enthusiastically accepted. It is the new McCarthyism. Shadowy accusers promote guilt by association. In an ironic touch, the Pence crusade is connected with homophobia. Here is a thought about that from a previous post.
Homophobia is compared to anti-racism. In both cases, the accuser has a set of standards. If the accused does not meet those standards, then the accused is considered fair game for abuse. The accused, and the accuser, may not agree on these standards. That does not matter. If someone wants to make the accusation, then they will. The accuser will feel righteous about doing so.
It is frequently speculated that the homophobe is secretly gay. The need to be heard badmouthing gays stems from a perceived need to prove heterosexuality. Could this be the case with the anti racist? Maybe the anti-racist is secretly afraid that they might be a racist. The “calling out” of others, for perceived racism, is an effort to overcompensate for their own shortcomings.
Getting back to Lester, it is ironic that he is this famous forty four years after his term in office ended. There is no shortage of bad things to say about Mr. Maddox. However, Georgia survived having both him, 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 2017, it seems incredible that civil rights legislation was needed 53 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.
There is a youtube video of the appearance of Lester on the Joe Pyne show. (Another guest that night was Culius Jeezer, who claimed to be 2000 years old). A video of the time Lester was on the Dick Cavett show has not emerged. Another guest that night 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”.
S-Town
SPOILER ALERT The first time PG had to pause S-Town was some time in #1. There is a break in the weirdness for a blue apron commercial The commercial is an announcement, in a meeting or classroom. The announcement was a pitch for Blue Apron. For some reason, this struck PG as funny… this yuppie food delivery outfit, advertising on a show about Shit Town, Alabama.
S-Town is an NPR podcast. Some earnest young reporter leaves his wife behind in New Yuck, or some other place where npr-sters like to stay, and goes to Alabama. Supposedly, there has been a murder in Bibb County, Alabama. John B. McLemore lives in the county, and is showing the reporter around. (The spell check suggestion for McLemore is Memorable.) The southern accents, and southern gothic ambience, is no doubt amusing to the latte sipping trendsters who like to binge listen.
The second time PG has to pause the show… maybe there are more, but you don’t want to think about this too much … is at 8:11 of episode #2. There is a conversation. “It is racist, and non-nonsensical, and has multiple uses of a terrible word.” Let the hand wringing begin. After a minute of so of this… the man is saying something about paying taxes to support young ladies on welfare… the reporter mentions that his girlfriend then/wife now is black. This rantlette has little to do with the rest of the story. It may have been included as a bit of picturesque racism, for the pearl clutching enjoyment of the listening audience.
John B. McLemore is a piece of work. He is skilled at repairing antique clocks, a horologist. He built a hedge maze on his land, with 64 gates to change the course at will. John B. has a lot of opinions, which he generously shares in profanity seasoned offerings. John B. is forty nine years old, single, and lives with his aging mother. There is an assumption about men like this, which is covered, in a bit more detail than required, in episode #6.
The second show ends with news of a suicide. John, the rural eccentric, has killed himself. There are five more episodes to the story, so this is not the end of the story. Meanwhile, PG is constructing a graphic poem. The idea of internet meme poems…. this time with photographs of railroad grafitti in the background … is something else that a southerner does.
The next pause-the-show moment is at 36:11 of episode #5. John is dead. Some cousins appear out of nowhere. People start to fight over John’s assets. It is getting ugly. Rita, the Florida cousin, wants John’s nipple ring. She can’t understand how someone can do an autopsy, “you’ve cut him from neck to private, and you can’t get a nipple ring off? Cut his nipple off, he’s dead.”
Episode #5 and episode#6 come and go. The town sucks, the town isn’t so bad. John had friends, and possibly lovers, but drove them off. Then, in episode #7, we learn that the local rich family has bought John’s property. At 24:24, PG needs to cut off the show, and make a note. Before he does this, PG exports the changes he made to a picture he is editing. There is no point in getting mad, and closing the file, with the changes unsaved. The fact that the picture is the black family, of a West Virginia coal miner… that is an ironic touch.
The new property owner has a lumber yard, K3 Lumber. KyKenKee, Inc. got it’s name honestly. “In 1980, after having been in business many years as I.L. Burt and Sons, the family decided to change the name. Having named us, Kyle, Keefe and Kendall, she took the first syllables of each name and rearranged them until they fit just right, Ky Ken Kee.”
This is not good enough for Brian Reed. “I did get a chance to ask him, if there is a double entendre with a certain white supremacy group?””I’m assuming you’re one of those left wingers we upset with the election.” “He said he doesn’t have a problem with the name K3.” Mr. Reed does not mention the origin of the name. It might be a joke, that is not a joke. The Burt family probably knew what it was doing. The spell check suggestion for KyKenKee is Yankee.
The show ends with episode#7. Outside of a few upcoming court dates, there is not much left to report. In the end, there are few sympathetic characters in the story. Life in small town Alabama goes on. Meanwhile, in booming Atlanta, the main interstate through the northeast part of town has been shut down indefinitely. We are screwed. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the pictures in West Virginia in September, 1938.
RuPaul
PG often does not fit into pigeonholes. Liberal or conservative. Ally or enemy. Racist or whatever. After a while, it becomes apparent that labels are part of the packaging, and usually have little to do with the product inside the box.
Then a facebook friend (a person who PG likes, and respects, in real life) put up a link to a RuPaul interview, Real Talk With RuPaul. The FBF is over RuPaul. PG read the interview, and found many things that he agreed with. Is it possible to be a conservative because you like RuPaul?
The Vulture feature is similar to the WTF podcast that RuPaul did. Chamblee54 wrote about that interview. The Vulture chat is better for bloggers, since it is a copy friendly text affair. When you see quotes, you can include them verbatim.
RuPaul has a talent for snappy sayings, to be remembered for later use. An example would be “I’d rather have an enema than have an Emmy.” Some unkind people say that if you were to give RuPaul an enema, you could bury her in a shoebox.
A persistent theme of RuPaul’s moving lips is “the matrix.” “Because you get to a point where if you’re smart and you’re sensitive, you see how this all works on this planet. It’s like when Dorothy looks behind the curtain. Like, “Wait a minute. You’re the wizard?” And you figure out the hoax. That this is all an illusion. There’s only a few areas you can go. First, you get angry that you’ve been hoaxed and you get bitter. But then, take more steps beyond the bitterness and you realize, “Oh, I get it. Let’s have fun with it. It’s all a joke.”
The Bosslady of “RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is an African American. Duh. In the Vulture piece, there are 4355 words. Racism/racist is not included. Could it be that America’s obsession with other people’s racial attitudes is part of the illusion? “Derogatory slurs are ALWAYS an outward projection of a person’s own poisonous self-loathing.”
RuPaul is not always politically correct. She supports Shirley Q. Liquor. RPDR was instrumental in the rise to fame, (or descent into the abyss), of Sharon Needles. “But if you are trigger-happy and you’re looking for a reason to reinforce your own victimhood, your own perception of yourself as a victim, you’ll look for anything that will reinforce that.”
This feature has gone on past the attention span of many internet denizens. It is time to wrap it up, and move on to the pictures. These images, of Georgia Tech football players in 1938, are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Before that, there are two more quotes from the Vulture.
“Regular, straight pop culture has liberally lifted things from gay culture as long as I can remember. And that’s fine, because guess what? We have so much more where that comes from. Take it!”
“Do you think it’s important for the younger generation to learn it?”” I don’t know. I don’t really care about them. The truth is, they’re on their own. They’ll figure it out. There’s nothing we can do to force them to say, “Look, this is important.” Humans don’t learn that way.”
People are getting tired of talking about #transracial, or whatever that hairdo challenged woman is claiming to be today. An interview with RuPaul is usually more entertaining. Especially when a *possessive pronoun disputed* reality show is going to be shown in Great Britain, and needs promotion.The result: RuPaul: ‘Drag is dangerous. We are making fun of everything’
The article is about what you would expect. There was a comment about not wanting to drop “she-mail” from RPDR. This bit of language whimsy had the PC police on red alert. If you want to be old fashioned and read the article, just follow the link. The real fun starts in the comments. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Celtiberico Rebel who dressed like “boy who fell to Earth” Is Illuminati lizardmen conspiracy true?
The article Celtiberico links to is full of zesty quotes. “Drag Race is a brutal look at the underground world of radical homosexuality. Hosted by a lanky female serpent by the name of RuPaul … Drag Race is much more than a Gay Agenda plot to lure the heterosexual population into hardcore sodomy. By assaulting patriotic Christendom with seductively sensual transgenderism … It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that RuPaul ends each show with the ancient Freemasonic incantations of “Shan-te” and “Sa-che,” both of which are prayers spoken in the original Coptic and meant to invoke the Illuminati god of enchantment, Isis. … This unassailable evidence seems to suggest that Drag Race is an attempt to infect the media with viral images of shape-shifting sex vixens to make complete alien domination more comprehensible for the human race.”
BeckyP Although RuPaul has striven to make a positive contribution, and remains an excellent role model, the same cannot be said of Bruce Jenner..and yet Bruce Jenner appears on the front cover of Vanity Fair. Astonishing. Blythe Freeman Striven is a past participle, please rephrase. whood I strive. They strived. We are striving. They have striven. calm yourself down. RoyalSuperiority Aren’t both ‘has strived’ and ‘has striven’ equally acceptable here? Mihangelap “we strove” equally acceptable Pollik RuPaul? Positive role model? To whom? (Clue: it is not the trans community)
snecko Why not spend time being angry with people who disagree with you? I’d be willing to bet that, by and large, people involved in drag would share 99% of your worldview. I just don’t get this obsession of nitpicking at the habits of people who are essentially your comrades when there are actual bigots still out there. Drag’s ‘transmisogyny’ and racism, if it exists, is obviously not the intended message or the guiding values of the movement. To me, it seems to be about being who you want to be in a non-judgemental and loving atmosphere, which should be pretty groovy to anyone remotely on the left. I just don’t get why you would attempt to shit all over it for accidental transgressions which are debatable …
Pixles Counted Yep. The dress and all the makeup in the world cannot take all the chauvinism away from this kind of masculinist ideology. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, Rupaul. You don’t have to follow the same cycle of abuse, you can choose to break the chains of violence. We are strong, and we don’t need your paternalistic neoliberal self-help philosophies to get us through the day. We have before you and we will after you. Step out of the way. georges1 Sorry, but who is this ‘we’? ArundelXVI Yeesh. Did RuPaul kick your dog or something?
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bcnteacher Love Ru Paul but I am my own role model.
Toomuchstupidhere No, drag is boring and predictable – yesterday’s news. Trans is much more thought provoking. sUgadee I know this is the guardian, where British ignorance is highly valued and accepted, but the show has had a few trans contestants.
Sceptic101 I’m confused. The Guardian seems to habitually refer to transvestites, transsexuals, etc as ‘she’. Is this a new and realistic policy? chickenlover4 Either Ru specified to use the pronoun “he” or I think it’s a “he” because in the interview he is not in drag. If you’re in drag it would be “she” or “they”. I think pronouns are subjective to each individual and you just have to exercise sensitivity. People will forgive you for not using the correct pronoun. (PG is recovering from a run in with the pronoun police. *They* do not forgive.)
pineapplesage exhibitionist nihilism xesolor Self-gratifying troll.
Magnolia La Manga If drag is embarrassing these self-respecting gays (whatever that means), I think it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to…
HelloKittyFanClub I had to scroll to the top of the page for a moment to check if I was on the Daily Mail comments section. Some of you seriously need to get over yourselves; between the veiled and not so veiled homophobic comments and the negative know-it-alls you sure know how to drag (ho-ho) down a show that is all about fun, entertainment, light and love.
Years ago, PG worked with someone who liked to say “and a ru hu hu.” This was shortened to ru, and was usually said very loud. Ru became a greeting.
About this time, Ru Paul was living in Atlanta. Many people remember her (“RuPaul Andre Charles, best known mononymously as RuPaul”) as a spectacular self promoter. Ru Paul would sit in an apartment balcony, and wave at cars passing by. Posters for her band, Wee Wee Pole, were on telephone poles up and down Ponce de Leon Avenue.
One night, Ru Paul was working as a gogo dancer in a club called Weekends. During a break, PG went over to talk to her. The use of ru as a greeting was mentioned. Soon, some people came over, and PG started to leave. Before PG could get away, Ru Paul turned to PG, lifted her index finger, and said “Keep on saying my name.”
Ru Paul went on to become famous. Weekends was torn down, and is the site of the Federal Reserve Bank. PG is PG, with occasional excursions into R and NC17. PG does not watch much TV, and has never seen an episode of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race.” This is a TV show about a TV.
There is a recent controversy about RPDR. It seems that the phrase shemale has been used. Some people are offended by this. The expression is no longer used on the show.
PG has only one trans person friend. Sashia is the first person that PG heard use the expression shemale. PG does not know if Sashia still uses this expression. It has been a while since PG learned this expression, and ideas about language do change. Spell check suggestion for Sashia: Hashish.
The use of offensive language is to be avoided. If you know something is going to hurt people, then you should avoid saying it. There is a good possibility that Ru Paul knew what she was doing, and just didn’t care. The problem comes when you haven’t received the latest update from the language authorities. Keeping up with with is cool to say can be a full time job. Is it still ok to say ru?
This is a double repost. Pictures from The Library of Congress. The images are of women, training to be bus drivers and taxi drivers. This was in Washington DC, November 1942. The photographer was Andreas Feininger, working for the Office of War Information. The picture of a dipstick demonstration is #8d36666.
RuPaul is no stranger to attention being thought strange. The latest bit of publicity… there is no bad publicity, and they spell the name right … is an article in the eyeball grabbing HuffPo, RuPaul Responds To Controversy Over The Word ‘Tranny’. (Spell check suggestion: Granny) PG gave into temptation, and clicked on the link. It seems as though there was an appearance on the WTF podcast. Why settle for a sensational sample, when you can hear the entire show?
If you have an hour and twenty four minutes to spare, listen to this show. If you like, you can skip the first thirteen minutes, which is host Mark Maron talking about himself. The show is highly entertaining. A theme is that the world is the matrix, a fake construction. Some people look behind the curtain and see the wizard. Some people believe the matrix is reality. You should already know which side RuPaul takes. He was not born blonde.
The quote about the T-word comes toward the end of the show. PG has mixed feelings about the whole affair, and does not completely agree with RuPaul. However, this human being is entitled to an opinion. Even if he wasn’t, he is going to share it anyway. RuPaul does not suffer from false modesty.
For a show that gets attention about language, it is a bit strange at times. While describing his career trajectory, RuPaul says he went through a phase of “gender f-word.” The show is called WTF. Twice a week, the host says fuck a dozen times in the first sixty seconds. And RuPaul said “gender f-word.”
Even more amazingly, RuPaul said that things were “n-word rigged”. RuPaul did break down and say the ultimate dirty word. When his mother saw his act on television, she said “N****** you crazy.”
RuPaul has had quite a career. He mentions that he has been sober for fifteen years, and had some therapy to get there. This was not the case when he lived in Atlanta. Many stories from those days are in the show. The bs detector went off a couple of times. PG saw the Now Explosion, and did not remember seeing a tall black guy.
This is a rich seventy five minutes. Like saying that Madonna is a curator, that most fashion designers don’t know how to sew. The part that is getting the attention is towards the end of the show, and is just a small part. It is all part of the matrix.
Agnotology
Agnotology is the study of ignorance. It is not connected to Agnetha Fältskog, the Abba G-ddess. One messenger of this noun says “Today I learned the word “agnotology,” or the study of why we do not know what we do not know. These are the “unknown unknowns,” the questions we don’t even know to ask.” This exploration of etymological ignorance is a repost.
PG found the messenger’s blog through a google search for the phrase “G-d is a concept through which we measure our pain”. The resulting post was about the death of John Lennon. The embedded video has a guest appearance by Howard Cosell, a well known scholar of ignorance.
There is a book, Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. A two star review hits on a cause of ignorance, the inability to communicate knowledge.
Bartolo interesting, but beware, if you value good writing June 11, 2011
… It is the level of writing that is atrocious. Maybe I should have waited for the Bill Bryson version, or for anyone who could use these materials to fashion a book that doesn’t insult the language and waste one’s time. These writers, to a person, are academics, and almost all should be soundly thrashed with a hardbound copy of Strunk & White. This is a compendium of every fault scholarly writing is heir to: wordiness, redundancy, needless complexity of sentence structure (often designed to mask or extend mundane observations), pointless jargon, infelicitous phraseology, obscurantism, even lame humor (as per the double entendres in the essay on the clitoris, by a feminist no less!) that probably plays better in the senior seminar than in a book intended for mature adults. These scholars write as though being paid by the word–and for a nonexistent editor. The book could have been half its length with no sacrifice whatever to the content.
A facility called ResearchGate offers an article about agnotology. You need to pay to see the article. The disclaimer is free. “Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal’s impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher’s actual policy … may be applicable.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This feature is written like H. P. Lovecraft.
You Don’t Have Permission
display of a link on this page does not indicate approval of content ~ Brazil meat scandal deepens with EU barring some imports The European Union’s spokesman in Brazil says the union is temporarily halting some imports of Brazilian meat amid an investigation into sales of rotten products. … Authorities say the companies used chemicals to improve the appearance and smell of expired meats. ~ A Temple of the Holy Ghost Mary’s Little Oh, and PLEAS make more videos! ^^ I’m Catholic too, if you didn’t figure that out already by my name. XD Haha!~ Mary’s Little I want to thank you for this video! :) I have dyslexia and needed to read this story for an English paper. I read it throw once on my own but wanted to hear it read to me so I could understand better. I will be listening to this video over and over the next three or four days. :) Once again, thank you SOOO MUCH! ^^ ~ Vanish ~ Adventures of Zach and B This channel contains content that is too gay and offensive. 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Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. ~ You should know that a person, whose lips are moving, is telling a lie. Especially when the moving lips say “I wasn’t talking.” ~ this is the story of two young ladies They go to visit a friend of their mother’s They go to a convent school nearby The host finds them dates to go to the fair The dates are two young men Their intent is to be church of g-d ministers, because you don’t have to know anything to do that. I have listened to this story twice, and have suffered irreversible brain damage. Today is national poetry day. In honor of the occasion, I took a sonnet that I wrote, and retro fitted it with the initials of my name. Luther Mckinnon has fourteen letters, and is thus ideal for acrosticizing a sonnet. The results are on twitter now, @chamblee54 It will be on my blog sooner or later. Acrostics are reality. 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You will receive an email in the next 15 minutes with your memory results, along with tools you can use to keep your memory and brain health optimal.In the meantime, please take a moment to watch Dr. Gary Small in the video below discuss how you improve memory radically – and in just a matter of weeks! As head of UCLA’s Longevity Center, Dr. Small is one of America’s foremost experts on the brain and aging.He is author of the bestselling new book “2 Weeks to a Younger Brain.” ~ @adudeinaplace2 >Wikipedia Why didn’t you just use The Onion instead? ~ Anita Aretha and Elton ~ Graphics is a subject that everyone encounters everyday. It is easy to have opinions. Ho ~ @WernerTwertzog My cat does not care for food that is not preceded by murder. ~ “literally every story i hear is … ” Maybe you should look for stories somewhere else. Not all stories are about evil people. ~ Nothing came up for that search, which is a little weird. Maybe check what you searched for and try again. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Gordon Parks took the pictures in Washington DC, November 1942 ~ selah
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