Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Anti-Semitic, Misogynist Trevor Noah was Hired Because He's BLACK

Let's be FUNNY. As funny as THIS TWEET:

Yo, Ha Ha Ha, y'all.

Now imagine a white comedian saying: "I was hanging my laundry in my back yard and accidentally a black man nearly got strangled by a pair of my pants hanging on the line. What if it had been one of my white sheets?"

Now here's another hilarious Trevor Noah joke. Remember, this is a COMEDIAN and THIS is a JOKE:

Hmmm. What if, after "Blade Runner" shot his girlfriend, or former heavyweight contender Corrie Sanders was killed, a white comedian wrote:

"Israelis know how to recycle like South Africans know not to shoot innocent people."

I think it's pretty obvious that Trevor Noah was picked to replace Jon Stewart because he's black. The demographic is right. We've had a black president for quite a while now, and here's a handsome Barack for the comedy world, right?

Why deny the obvious, child? (I'm quoting Paul Simon, who promoted African music and replaced a Jew named Garfunkel with a multi-racial band of singers and players). There's nothing wrong with the truth. A lot of blacks, gays, women, and even Jews, are hired because people feel sorry or guilty or, now and then, simply think they've hired the best person for the job.

People are always screaming if there aren't enough black nominees for the Oscars, and how every late night host is "LILY WHITE" (not a derogatory expression).

It made sense to hire the black guy. Especially if the alternative was a woman. Named Chelsea Handler.

Noah's a young guy. Maybe, despite the movie "Selma," he doesn't know that Liberal Jews marched with Dr. King, and some didn't come back to Jew York afterward because they were killed. That it was the Liberal Jew writers and directors who made those Sidney Poitier movies and helped everyone from Lena Horne to James Earl Jones. But Trevor Noah does seem to believe the old stereotype that Jews control all the money in America.

"See what I did?" I'm sure Trev would use that cliche that comedians love to use these days. "See what I did?"

Yeah, hacky, I see. You stooped to a pun, "Beats by Dre-del." I know exactly how it worked. You came up with that pun-chline first, then tried to work a straight line in front of it. So you picked an offensive, familiar line about how rich Jews control everything.

Nevermind that Dr. Dre made more money last year than anyone in the music world, with Beyonce second. That with the exception of old fat Harvey Weinstein, most every entertainment company in the world is run by Gentiles now. That the biggest banks are run by Gentiles now. That Muslim terrorist groups can raise billions of dollars a day to fund their murders because, for some reason, Jews don't actually have the money-making savvy people think they do. (Or is it that the Jews do have all the money, but are too cheap to spend it on those orange jumpsuits ISIS prisoners wear? Although the garment district isn't too Jewish these days either).

Jews? Fuck the Jews. Years ago, a very strong percentage of comedians were Jewish. Then things changed.

I remember talking to the late Joan Rivers about our proud Jewish history of humor. "Why are so many comedians Jewish?" I asked Joan, expecting some noble remark about Jewish suffering being turned inside out.

"Jewish comedians?" she asked. "You mean, like Steve Martin and Robin Williams? You mean Eddie Murphy and Bill Murray?"

The Jews were losing their grip, and frankly, Joan didn't give a damn. That Dave and Jimmy and Jimmy aren't Jewish isn't a big deal. That Jews in comedy petered out with Seinfeld and Larry David isn't a big deal. That Jon Stewart changed his name (and isn't, in my opinion, funny) isn't a big deal. That Bill Maher is only half-Jewish and the last angry comic with any vague ties to the old Jews Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce is no big deal.

Being black and anti-Semitic? Is.

It's a big deal because Jews are once again literally under fire. From little Jewish kids terrorized on a bus in Australia to shopkeepers victimized in France, it's bad enough that anything that goes on between Israel and Palestine suddenly creates incidents in far off parts of the world. It's bad enough that right after Charlie Hebdo, the next attack was at a kosher market. Casual put-downs of Jews, especially ones that are insults and not even jokes, can be poisonously lethal.

I've used the defense "It's only a joke" many times. But, as Poe said, and as Steve Allen agreed, "there are subjects of which no jest can be made." Steve amended it. He told me, "Yes, you can joke on any topic, but that doesn't mean you should say it out loud and hurt people."

Comedians work the edge. Inhibiting them is rarely a good idea. Humor is a safety valve. But I think even the late Lenny Bruce and Sam Kinison believed in boundaries. I remember the late Robert Schimmel talking about how his comedy changed after the birth of his child. The twat jokes stopped "because that's the baby place."

I do think that if you want to play rough, let people know ahead of time. Paul Mooney would be a good example of that. A black comedian wants to take it to a white audience and say "nigger till you get a 'nigger headache'" fine. He's not hosting a late night talk show and pretending to be mainstream and inoffensive.

Chris Rock is notorious for opening his yap and being tasteless about most anything, even the death of his friend Richard Jeni. You come to expect that certain comics, including Gilbert Gottfried are going to be asked to be top themselves in crudity every time. Jeff Ross, literally the other day, had a joke censored from a Comedy Central roast. A ROAST. It was too tasteless...but that was his job

Thing is, nobody's suggesting Jeff Ross replace Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart's tweets are not like the racist ones from Trevor Noah. Let's amend that to "specific racist" ones, as I doubt you'll find anything quite so nasty on Asians, Native Americans or Muslims.

Noah has also been accused of being a misogynist. He's certainly played with the stereotype of the black man with a fondness for huge white asses. Call it the Kanye Syndrome. It drew the ire of a formerly fat woman with a huge white butt.

So hopefully as he takes the place of one of the most annoying comedians of our time (I'm talking about Jon's revolting facial expressions and his inability to tell a joke without over-acting), Trevor Noah will pick his shots a little better. Without inhibiting himself too much he should be mindful that aside from blacks, things are not all that swell for women, for gays, for Jews, or for those who have what Warren Zevon simply called "the awful awful diseases." The point of comedy isn't necessarily to blitz and destroy everyone and everything. "Comedian" isn't a synonym for "iconoclast." Sometimes comedy is just a silliness, and escape from the problems of the day, and if it's going for the jugular, then say so on the package. The old Pearl Williams and George Carlin albums had stickers suggesting there was "strong language" or "adults only" content.

No, Comedy Central didn't hire this guy because they thought, "that last name...ah, he's a Jew." They hired Noah because he's black, and it's one of the minority groups that is rising in numbers (isn't NYC now mostly black and Latino, not white?) OK. Fair enough. But with power comes responsibility.

Let's not forget that Jews are a minority as well. Their numbers are not rising. They are being targeted all over the world. Israel is routinely being threatened with extinction by Hamas and by Iran (and most everyone else).

If Comedy Central's top late night shows are no longer about politicians, and if the new direction is anti-Semitism and misogyny, just put up a caveat before the shows begin: "If you're a kike or a cunt, laugh at yourself, because WE are going to be doing just that." It might not be politically correct, or moral, or right, but neither is porn, or violent movies. Mostly this stuff is a safety valve that lets off ugly steam. Maybe there's a place for "redneck" humor, sick jokes, bad-taste ethnic humor and the rest of it, as long as it is so-labeled. People know what they're getting with Rush Limbaugh, too. They don't expect common sense or mainstream comments, any more than they expect Bill Maher to stop promoting pot and atheism.

Trevor Noah may simply be taking Comedy Central in a different direction. It could mean that Jews won't be tuning in. It would be nice if that's out of choice, not out of extinction.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Fun with Christina Freundlich

Aw, these clueless "Millennials."

The other day, the local papers were outraged at people taking selfies at the scene of the East Village explosion/fire.

One of the most glaring examples was an Instagram post from an Iowa Democratic Party worker, Christina Freundlich, who somehow decided to pose at the scene SMILING, and waving the peace symbol.

Huh? Even Ringo, in alcoholic delerium, wouldn't have done that.

But maybe this is her proud hobby. Christina travels the globe to take pix at disaster sites, and to rush to scenes of breaking news.

After snapping the photo at 7th Street...

And other items from her happy photo album...

Barely Remembered Nostalgia

More Photoshop phun.

I happened to see a vintage ad just after reading about the latest salmonella recall from the FDA.

(Blue Bonnet leaped out, and a different phrase leaped in.)

Typo Positive - Sign in the Window

Sign in the Window, 78th and 1st Avenue

I didn't have my camera with me when I first noticed it.

Fortunately, it was still there the next day. A person like this is hard to find.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Funny Names MARCH MADNESS begins: Swindly Lint, Dallas Ennema, Gladstone Dainty, Littice Bacon-Blood....

An antidote to March Madness (glandular freaks in underwear running back and forth on a basketball court) emerged today.

The "brackets" were announced for the "Funny Name of the Year."

In the "sane" world you're supposed to root for colleges you didn't attend, in towns you've never been to, because...why? You like the sound of Villanova? You have nothing better to do than join some idiotic office pool on whether Kentucky will defeat Baylor?

Villanova's got nothing on Dr. Wallop Promthong.

Ghenghis Muskox.

Zeke Faux or Beethoven Bong or Tuns van Peenen.

Being a plain ol' Smith (at least, that's the name grandfather got on Ellis Island), I've always been fascinated by strange names. Some 30 years ago, or more, an article was written on a guy who collected 3x5 cards on which he stored his finds. The piece was called "It all Started with Olney Nicewonger."

The hobby of name-collecting seemed ultimately legitimized when John Train published his illustrated "Remarkable Names" book series. He was sure, in his research, that these were birth names, and not pseudonyms.

I congratulated John Train on his fine work, and gave him a bit of trivia he didn't know: that Phil Ochs spent some of his last year using the name "John Train."

And yes, I did check if there's ever been someone actually named March Madness. The closest I could find, in a death index, were:

Yetta Medney, Mabel Mednis, Abel Mad and Lucy Mad Plume.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Bill Murray "ROCKS" a dress on Kimmel's show

The most over-used verb among today's illiterates, is "rock."

Since illiterates are interns or low-paid slugs at newspaper websites, "rock" is used more often in describing things, than it is in articles about Chris Rock.

So after I rocked my slippers and bathrobe, and rocked some milk into my morning coffee, and after I rocked a shower, I rocked the Internet and noticed an article on how Bill Murray ROCKED a dress on Kimmel's show.

This is news?

This rocks??

There was a time when you either watched Carson or Leno or you didn't. Whatever they did was almost NEVER in the morning newspaper, because celebrity news was NOT NEWS.

Last night, thanks to "March Madness" pre-empting Letterman, I did happen to see Kimmel and his pudgy un-PC pal Guillermo the Stereotype do tequila shots as they wandered into Austin, Texas pinata shops. Then Bill Murray made his grand entrance wearing some kind of frock with a sweater over it. So? Bill Murray is creepy. He's always been creepy. He's comedy's leading sociopath, one who can inspire fear and loathing until, somehow, he makes people laugh. The man looks dangerous and prides himself on having few boundaries (as was proven when his wife sued for divorce on the grounds of serial adultery.)

It can be funny when Bill fixes his cock-eyed stare on even a veteran talk show host, reducing that person to helpless giggles. Bill might choose to deliberately answer questions with no concern or interest, or literally walk out and let the cameras chase him as he takes off down the street (as he did with Letterman one night).

So Murray just happened to decide he'd wear a dress. He didn't explain it. He just did it, ha ha.

On this isn't news. And he didn't "rock" it.

Few people "rock" anything, and that includes rock music these days. But some DUDE with a limited vocabulary, thought Bill Murray ROCKED wearing a dress, and this, not the massacre in Tunisia, or the Israeli elections, or even the latest inane APP, was of mammoth importance this morning for the world to know.

Jesus, there wasn't some slutty celebrity out there who didn't ROCK a dress in some nightclub last night? Isn't that the usual news of the world?

It seems that now and then, like a sudden pimple, an ugly word turns up and will not go away. Believe me, it's a BUMMER when that happens. It might even keep me from FAPPING, even though I'm a HIPSTER. REALLY. REALLY?? REALLY!

Sometimes people tell me I rocked some topic or other, but I tend to stop communicating with people who tell me that.

These are usually the same people who address me as DUDE.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber: Let's NOT upset LUDACRIS

If there's one sacred rule in comedy, it's to censor any joke that offends a guy named LUDACRIS.

This especially applies to an event billed as a "no holds barred roast."

According to the NY Post, the producers of the Justin Bieber promotion (he's SUCH a mensch) are going to carefully pick out jokes that offended LUDACRIS.

Is this so surprising? Not really, not in an age where Lindsay Lohan can get called a "racist" for Tweeting the title of the song she just heard Kanye West perform.

There's a bigger double-standard in the media than Rosie O'Donnell's double chin. If Edward G. Robinson was still alive, he'd be grimacing, "So, they can dish it out, but they can't take it."

If somebody is NOT a friend of LUDACRIS, then it's ok to laugh. It reminds me of Don Rickles' mock-nervous remark, "Is he laughing? Take a look." Is there a balance here? Like, if LUDACRIS wasn't laughing, but SHAQUILLE was, is it ok? What if FLAVA-FLAV and GILBERT GOTTFRIED laughed? Do those two equal one LUDACRIS, or do you have to throw in a playa to be named later?

How about this: if the joke bombed, and the audience was silent, isn't that enough of a statement? Leave the joke in. Funny (!) Jeff Ross and Pete Davidson weren't fretting afterward, "Oh Weezus, Oh WEEZUS, please, please CENSOR ANY JOKE I DID THAT BOMBED...you don't know how it hurts MY FEELINGS to have people think that everything I say isn't hilarious."

But we're dealing with the great LUDACRIS.

Rolling Stone, in hyping the March 30th broadcast, duly noted that HYPE was what the evening was all about:

"This felt more like than a networking opportunity for the participants (did you know you can buy Ludacris' new album, Ludaversal, the day after the show airs, on March 30th? You do now!)"

Right, let's not offend the man who might take out a few ads on Comedy Central promoting that album.

Rolling Stone and many other mags and newspapers made sure to copy down and repeat what they considered the best and worst jokes, smugly pointing out that the reader should be glad to get this info, because a lot of this material "won't make it to air."

Natasha Leggero "suggested that the pop star honed his dance moves by dodging coat hangers in his teen mother's womb. This was the closest anyone came to "losing" the crowd," Rolling Stone reported. Comedy Central is concerned that it might lose Wal-Mart, seller of coat hangers? Or offend the anti-abortion Hobby Lobby, who were considering taking out an ad?

Rolling Stone noted that "three jokes about the deceased Paul Walker fell flat" but didn't suggest they be removed. "Chris D'Elia," the magazine reported, "was staggeringly tasteless, touching on: rape; ISIS beheadings; Eric Garner and the NYPD; Kevin Hart killing his ex-wife; Bill Cosby's alleged sexual assaults (twice); slavery; Bruce Jenner's gender reassignment; and, finally, one last ISIS joke, for which Bieber stood to enthusiastically applaud." Take a look, did LUDACRIS stand and applaud, too? That might be crucial to how much of D'Elia's material makes the final cut.

Will Comedy Central package the DVD version of this thing with "20 extra minutes of material the censors left out"? Will we also be witnessing the usual baffling censorship that cable TV offers, such as "shit" is ok but "fuck" is not, and that NOBODY can EVER say "god damn it" because it offends ludicrous religious fanatics?

I hope at the end, the Comedy Central censor takes a bow, explaining, "I saved you all from having to hear a few shitty jokes that were (BLEEP)ed up. I stand for the average citizen who is just like LUDACRIS, when it comes to what is or isn't offensive. And I will remain in my exalted fetal position as THE arbiter of bad taste!"

Monday, March 16, 2015

Howie Mandel's waste of toilet paper and Natarsha Belling's blouse. OH, GROW UP

This is adulthood?

Two of the most moronic "news" stories hit the Internet today. I'm not sure which is more insulting or ridiculous.

Natarsha Belling, who was probably unknown to most of the world, became a "sensation" to children everywhere, and adults who think like 12 year-olds.

Guffaw, guffaw, "YOU CAN'T UNSEE IT!" Har Har. "You can't make this stuff up! It happened! LOL!"

PS, any guy out there who has a black tip on his penis should see a doctor right away.

Meanwhile in California, Howie Mandel called attention to himself by happily showing off some hack comic's "prank" on him, which involved spending money for the worthless gag of dumping toilet paper on his home. How much paper was wasted on a stunt that 12 year-olds have pulled every Halloween for decades?

To use a cliche punchline, "This is why American's are hated all over the world." Wasn't it Sheryl Crow who got LOTS of laughs by promoting the use of "one square of toilet paper" in order to help the environment?

Social-disease media began to pop pimples over this, and it seemed every drive-time radio station website, every TMZ-type Facebook page picked up on it breathlessly. Yeah? As if this was something original? Witty?

By this standard, Howie Mandel really missed out by not crashing Lesley Gore's funeral, and telling his HILARIOUS old 1988 joke about the little kid who was discovered sitting on his potty, with tears rolling down his face.

"You shouldn't be acting that way."

Punchline: "It's MY POTTY and I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO!"

The mourners would all burst into hysterical laughter and give Howie a standing ovation, right? No? He'd be standing there, his right hand awkwardly extended, palm upward, doing his trademark nasal whine of incredulity, "What? What?"

What will he do to "top" his prankster friend? Get a gigantic rubber glove and have a helicopter lower it over the guy's house?

While Piers Morgan might disagree, there actually IS a place for a frisky Peter Pan like Howie Mandel, and "pranking" (as Mandel used to do when he first mounted a comeback via Leno's "Tonight Show") can be good, silly fun. But not this toilet paper-the house crap.

What's the best thing you can say about this idiocy? For one day, a dumb dick joke replaced a remark from a dumb dickhead politician, and a load of toilet paper knocked Kardashian's ass off the front page.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Gordon Lightfoot, wrong. Gaye's estate, Petty and Taylor Swift: right.

"It's bad for business. It's bad all around."

That's what the answer should be for filing lawsuits and DMCA (take down) notices. Ignoring copyright abuse is like putting writers in the same position as Kitty Genovese. But it doesn't seem to interest everybody. Just a small circle of people who do the right thing.

That includes Marvin Gaye's estate. That includes Taylor Swift. Also Tom Petty.

Obviously, Gaye's estate saw dollar signs. MILLIONS of them. So they went after Pharrell and Robin Thicke. Petty, more congenial, pretended that it wasn't him, but oh, his managers, or his songwriting agency that decided to tap sensitive Sam Smith on the shoulder and ask for some money. Taylor Swift? Her problem was Spotify, which ignorant fools think is the answer to piracy. The problem? Spotify pays mere pennies while keeping the dollars, so she withdrew her music from their "service."

The hippie-dippie element in the music business has, too often, been "oh, man, like, live and let live." It's all good. Somebody steals from you, just let it be. Take the high road. It probably wasn't intentional, and you don't want to get the reputation for being a killjoy. (After all, Prince, Gene Simmons and others have been attacked by hackers and by "fans" for going after bootleg dealers and Internet pirates. The outcry: "Don't ruin our fun" and "Music should be free!").

One of the excuses these "Freedom" fighters give for chanting "copyright is COPY WRONG," is, aside from a misplaced love of Communism, the notion that "you should give the music away, and make money touring and selling t-shirts." This usually comes from some drone with a dull government office job. This worthy, who gets a pension, huffs at the thought of royalties "for work done long ago." Suggest, "go to work free, and take home some paper clips and paper, and make a few phone calls on office time," and you'd get an indignant, "I should be PAID for MY work."

Not everybody can tour and/or humiliate themselves by manning a little table afterward to sell t-shirts, by the way. One of the fortunate ones who still has a voice and some kind of audience, is Gordon Lightfoot. He recently mounted a new tour, and even did the miserable "spend time doing interviews" routine. One question he got was about the Tom Petty/Sam Smith legal action. He admitted that, yes, he too had been plagiarized. But did he file? No. Why? Because he didn't want to hurt pretty Whitney Houston's feelings.

The interview was with Matt Wake. Let's give credit where it's due, and yes, this IS "fair use," while uploading copyrighted songs to YouTube and taking YouTube monetization money isn't.

An irony is that elsewhere in the interview, Lightfoot mentioned how grateful he was for ROYALTIES. If he was starting out now, maybe he wouldn't be able to support his kids on the ROYALTIES he got from cover versions of his songs. Maybe he wouldn't even be in the business at all, seeing how "pay for play" has dominated the few remaining music venues, and that there are fewer record labels and more people getting mere pennies from Spotify, Amazon and iTunes while piracy remains rampant.

The sad fact is that pirates go after the BIG stars first, then the Gordon Lightfoot types, and lastly, if they can get a promo copy, some truly struggling indie artist. That's what's going on with the blogs, forums and torrents. The BIG stars, with few exceptions (like Taylor Swift) are making so much money, they a) don't want to seem greedy and b) often are so protected they don't even know how much abuse is out there.

If more of them put their clout into convincing lawmakers to strengthen laws that would block pirate websites and force sites such as Google and Ebay to permanently ban repeat offenders, it would benefit everyone. An indie artist asking for a takedown means almost nothing, and often the perps "re-up" and dare that small-timer to spend money on a lawyer to prosecute a case.

Lightfoot should've filed against Whitney Houston's management, if not Houston herself. Who's to say that she didn't know her song was close to his, but shrugged and figured, "I can get away with it," like George Harrison did when told "My Sweet Lord" was too much like "He's So Fine?" Arrogance should not be rewarded, and intentional or not, some deal should be reached when there's an abuse of copyright.

Being hippie-dippie about it, and "the good guy," and easygoing, is bad for business. It's bad all around. The message we see constantly on the Internet is that it's ok to break the rules, and that it's even cool. It's cool to have a dopey name, and run a blog where you daily give away entire albums of music and say "support the artists." It's ok on YouTube for uploaders to shrug and say "I don't own copyright, all rights are with the owner" while taking over the right to give that item away. Ebay routinely allows sellers to state, "sold collector to collector," when such a term should be a red flag.

Lightfoot may have been doing a lot better then than now. In fact, I'd be very surprised if that wasn't the case. Maybe NOW, he'd do the right thing and file if Robin Thicke borrowed too much from one of his songs.

Bad guy? Good guy? That's not the issue. The issue is "it's bad for business. It's bad all around."

"Don't call me Shirley." "Call me Nutty." Dead Jews were Once Nasty Christians: Shirley MacLaine

Irma la Douche is at it again.

If she didn't have a back catalog of cute film roles, if she didn't still look very adorable, she might not be forgiven for her rationalization that holocaust victims deserved it.

Quoth the karma chameleon:

Speaking of anti-Semitism, the legendary Jew-hater and Israel-basher Stephen Hawking gets no sympathy from Shirley. She asks, "Did he create the disease that has crippled him in order to learn to be dependent on caregivers...so that he could free his entire mind to the pursuit of knowledge?"

A dash of religious fanaticism is added by that amazing MacLaine: "If Jesus chose to die in a state of martyrdom, when Stephen Hawking could just as easily..." er, uh, hmmm...and Lou Gherig figured his consecutive game streak had gone on long enough, so he willed himself into having the disease that benched him and then took his life.

It's logical. So is thinking that Shirley MacLaine was a first baseman's mitt in a previous life.

Farcebook: Dicking Smothers

I'm not sure which is sadder, being on Facebook and asking to be "liked," or...

...discovering that your "fans" are idiots who toss your catch-phrase back in your face for the millionth time, or compliment you by telling you that you're a has-been. I mean, you couldn't be Dick's enemy and dick him much worse than those two lame remarks of faint praise.

On the positive side, if you do care about the guy, (one of the finest straight men of all time) you'll find that he's proudly showing off a pretty buff 70 year-old frame, and talking about his gym workout. It seems that for some people, the balance of using Facebook as a "favorite waste of time," tips higher than the downside of spam, insincerity, clueless remarks and the queasy realization you're spending too much time on Facebook.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Happy Birthday Marty Ingels, Your PR Guy is Using Facebook

OK, celebrities of a certain age, or certain level, go on Facebook, try to get a few thousand "friends" to care, and then they promote whatever it is they want to promote.

Usually it's just that they're still alive.

Sometimes it's a memorabilia signing event. Or a bit part in a movie. Or, coup of all coups, a radio interview OR...(drum roll) a PODCAST appearance. Maybe even some kid with a camcorder throwing five minutes on YouTube.

It turns out Marty Ingels actually has a public relations guy. Who does...what?

Yes, tosses a "Happy Birthday" to Marty, which offers a hot link to his website.

In other words, the "Happy Birthday" to Marty is actually more of a promotion for the PR guy.

Whatever his eccentricities, most people in my age group fondly remember his 60's sitcom work, and most especially "I'm Dickens He's Fenster," which has finally been released as a DVD set. His wacky relationship with Shirley Jones does get him into the tabloids once in a while.

And I hope he's not paying much to a PR guy whose idea of promotion is to go on Facebook, say "Happy Birthday" and promote his other clients.

I did check to see what this mover-and-shaker was up to, and there on the client list page were some pretty amazing names.

Yes, yes, Ruben Studdard, who won "American Idol" nearly a decade ago and dropped off the face of the Earth.

Ah, Dennis Cole, actor, entertainer, "realtor." You can't expect to stay in show biz full time without ace representation.

A former wife of Billy Bob Thornton? Oh, not THAT one.

A stuntman. A movie producer. And...

FOUR DEAD PEOPLE.

Red Buttons, Rudy Vallee, Persis Khambatta and Lana Clarkson.

It takes a special kind of PR guy to arrange an interview with dead people.

And why is it that it's so very rare that anyone on the planet has ever heard of any Public Relations genius? Shouldn't they be so fantastic that their names are on the tips of every tongue?

This is especially surprising since THIS guy uses that dynamic tool unavailable to others...FACEBOOK.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Hey, Kanye, anyone singing along to a Vocoder Rap? Got a message, Miley? Why FOLK should still matter

This evening, I happened to channel surf to a documentary on Peter Paul and Mary.

It's being used as a fundraiser for PBS. Obviously, the effort is to reach affluent white people with more than "spare change," man.

How interesting that the music of slaves ("Jimmy Crack Corn") and of the poor in Ireland, Scotland and England, and of Africa ("Wimoweh") and of people such as Bob Dylan who were influenced by Lead Belly among others, is considered "white" music, and for older white people, at that.

Peter Paul and Mary, memorably, sang "Blowin' in the Wind" at the great civil rights rally in Washington, D.C. in 1963. Blacks and whites all sang. They sang "We Shall Overcome" and "We Shall Not Be Moved." And as I watched the special, and songs like "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," which people were singing along to, I wondered...where has folk music gone? And why isn't there anything to take its place?

There are few songs of conscience such as "Ballad of Tim Evans" and "Ballad of Springhill" today, and what few might be around, are done by Kanye via vocoder and a "beats," or by some avant synth group somewhere...and neither are saying "won't you sing along?"

Joan Baez, Judy Collins...and most certainly more traditional artists such as Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie, welcomed other voices. Didn't it make for a better experience? If you could sing along, didn't that make the songs matter even more?

Way back when, Peter Paul and Mary played to coffee house hipsters and to school kids. In 1963 they had three albums in the Top Ten, which were listened to by a wide range demographic. Years laer, I remember seeing them in upstate New York, playing to a vast audience of all ages. A few years ago, now only Peter and Paul, they also played to everyone from 8 to 80...and they encouraged everyone to sing along on several songs.

There was once, now pretty much forgotten, a "Sing Along" show on TV, hosted by Mitch Miller. Miller even put out a "Sing Along to Folk Music" album.

There isn't much of a folk tradition left.

When there's a disaster, when there's some sort of "happening" in Central Park, people getting together will still sing "Blowin' in the Wind" or "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," but more likely, they'll stay mute while ex-folkie Paul Simon sings "Sounds of Silence" to silence. Another Paul, Mr. McCartney, might want people to sing along to a never-ending chorus of "Hey Jude," but that's not a message, that's two words.

As we get more fragmented politically, racially and socially, there is less and less folk music to be heard, and nothing to take its place. We have become mute. When we see current singer/songwriters, we let them do all the singing.

As for the heavily vocoder-ized music favored by most rappers? Or the dance music from teen idols like Miley or Bieber? Or whatever it is an Iggy Azalea does? Or whatever is left of rock (Coldplay? U2? Some new group that has a hit and disbands by the time a third album arrives?) Nobody's singing along.

Which is why folk music shouldn't be as dead as it is. It should be encouraged. In its simplicity of melody and lyric, it is a pure art form. Granted, nobody really wants to sit around singing "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie," but there's a vibrancy to everything from "Lily of the West" to "Farewell to Nova Scotia." There's a joy in even the nonsense chorus for "Whiskey in the Jar." Is it really that corny, in the 21st Century, to get together and sing? Was it really so long ago, that a satisfying evening might include foreign language folk ("Kumbaya" and "Guantanemera" and "Wimoweh") as well as moving ballads of love?

"Remember folk music?" Martin Mull used to ask. Then he'd deadpan: "That garbage nearly caught on!"

There was a folk boom when Pete Seeger and "The Weavers" arrived. It was re-ignited with The Kingston Trio, and again when new folk songs began to be written, and Peter Paul and Mary stood up to sing them. The earthy era of Woodstock and hippies renewed our interest in the folk tradition, and there were the protest songs of Phil Ochs, and then the men and women who simply carried a guitar, from James Taylor to Joni Mitchell. Kanye and Miley represent an improvement??

Music now is nothing but escape at best, and insults and a sex soundtrack at worst. Nobody's singing together. Where's the "joyful noise?" Is the idea to just blast eardrums with dance beats or headbanging rock? Music that has no lyrics anyone cares abou? This is a dangerous age, and yet, there is about 1% of the protest songs as there were when there was no ISIS in our lives.

Perhaps it's naive to say that folk music should matter. Perhaps today's generation, raised on vocoders and beats, can't accept the purity of a folk song, and doesn't have the patience for one person with a guitar, and doesn't want to be part of a group sing. I had nostalgia watching that Peter Paul and Mary special, but that's not all that I wanted. I wanted to think something besides "Was that a time," which was, of course, the name of a previous PBS special on "The Weavers." I wanted to think, "This music IS timeless. Folk music still matters."

But I'm not so sure. The answer my friend, is...

Fish-faced supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis to Daily News: Let's Have a Sale

John Catsimatidis was looking sad.

He wasn't sure what his next financial move might be. It sure as hell wouldn't be running sales at his chain of Gristedes, one of the more over-priced of the shabby supermarkets in Manhattan.

"Johnny Cats" (the name of a cat litter as well) ran for mayor, losing to a load called Lhota, who in turn lost to political hack Bill De Blah-blah-blah.

The formerly sad sack of shiskebab has perked up at the notion of buying one of the three major newspapers in town.

These days The Daily News is just about as classy as Catsimatidis (who might classily call himself "Cats On My Titties.")

You know the Daily News. William Shatner didn't fly back to California fast enough, so they headlined him: "A Shat Head."

And, speaking of "Shat," this is the same newspaper that Photoshopped a picture of Paul Vallone with horse shit on him. That's keepin' it classy, isn't it?

Mort Zuckerman is losing some $20 million a year on The Daily News. I wonder if that figure has gone up since he stopped being concerned with important issues, and instead left the front page to the Kardashians, William Shatner, and a pathological interest in keeping carriage horses plodding through Central Park.

At one time, Morty at least knocked out a fiery editorial in support of Israel, and a few of his reporters covered something besides Miley Virus's uncovered twerk-zone.

Now that people seem to only buy The Daily News to have something for the bottom of the bird cage, in comes bottom feeder Catsimatidis.

Who knows what would become of The Daily News if this power-mad oaf took over. The voters said no to a guy who can't sell a can of tuna at a reasonable price. The voters didn't think the city bureaucracy would be helped by bringing in a guy who wouldn't sell a bottle of seltzer on sale without making customers sign up for a plastic courtesy card first.

"Cats On My Titties" now wants to control one of the newspapers. Just because The Daily News is only good for wrapping fish heads is no reason for THIS tugboat to barge in.