More Hashtag Nonsense

DECIDER journalism ... is pointing to YouTube (Dana Carvey vs Mike Myers)

Oh, look, the News Aggregates (Google, etc.) are telling me that Dana Carvey is made at Mike Myers.

Except this is pretty old news. And Mike Myers has not, thankfully, made another "Austin Powers" movie in years.

Like creepy NEWSWER, it seems that DECIDER spends most of their money on getting placement with News Aggregates, rather than hiring real journalists.

They hire skilled plagiarists instead. As in: re-write the copy from a REAL newspaper's research. As in: keep your eye on the talk shows, and if anything JUICY comes up, report on it.

How do you get away with this crap?

Easy. Give credit. Say you stole it all from Howard Stern's show, and better yet, link to GOOGLE's beloved YOUTUBE where people can actual see and hear the quotes. Win Win, dude. DECIDER gets traffic, GOOGLE gets traffic.

This is what a journalism major, and English major, is gonna do with her life?

"Guess what Ma, I'm working for DECIDER. I'm a JOURNALIST. What do I do? I watch TV a lot. I watch YOUTUBE a lot. If I see something, then I say something!"

Now even more people know that Dana Carvey was annoyed that Myers swiped his Lorne Michaels impression and pinky-chew, and used it for the "Dr. Evil" character. They also know that Dana was not quite so upset that he ever confronted Mike about it. He probably never will, because obviously the two aren't very close, and hell, Mike can read DECIDER and/or watch the YouTube clip and see Dana brush off being bothered and insist it's all been forgiven anyway.

Hard-hitting knee-jerk journalism.

Knee-jerk journalism is where you see what somebody else has done, and it knee-jerks you into copying it or re-writing it.

These days, it's as profitable, and less stressful than actually being a journalist and finding a story and reporting it.

50 YEARS LATER - Phil Ochs REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT

Depression is anger turned inward. Anger turned outward is the reason why Phil Ochs suddenly began writing new songs.

Almost all of “Rehearsals for Retirement” was written within two weeks. Phil hurried to get A&M to book studio time for him. The result: a masterpiece. "40 Phil Ochs fans can’t be wrong." Well, 20,000 did buy it, but that was an alarmingly small number as far as the record label was concerned.

Yes, as the “50th anniversary” of various albums and bands has produced new product, a “Rock Hall of Fame” vote, or front page tributes, few celebrate Phil, beyond that small circle of discerning critics and friends.

At the time, Phil’s new album, even with the tombstone cover, was considered just another record. It got a few decent reviews and within a surprisingly short time, was remaindered. He played the songs from the new album at a triumphant (non-Gold suit) show at Carnegie Hall, April 11, 1969. At various venues, he explained that this new release was a concept album.

He said the songs were “about the new paranoia, police brutality, the escape into drugs, Chicago itself, people coming to the West - another escape route - thoughts of suicide, thoughts of revolution, and then finally pulling back and saying all this has been our rehearsals for retirement.”

Despite this swirl of emotions on this, his strongest album, it was treated with indifference, pressed in small quantity, and remaindered within months, left for dollar-bin purchases at best. Phil cut short the tour that was supporting the album. He still hoped that at least his small circle of friends would understand that this was his best album. He and Judy Henske had both had been signed to Elektra. Together, they went over to see Elektra producer Paul Rothschild. They accidentally crashed an afternoon party Paul was throwing. Phil had a copy of “Rehearsals,” and went to the stereo to put the record on, hoping for some approval from his former boss.

Rothschild slipped away, pulled a switch, and the lights all went out. He announced that there was a power failure. He turned to Phil and said, “I guess you can’t play your album.”

We still play that album to this day. It endures. Despite the tombstone cover, Phil would return to Chicago for the trial, and it was Old Phil on the witness stand, being fed straight lines by William Kunstler. Kunstler would re-enact it all at the memorial for Phil at the Felt Forum, and got big laughs. Phil’s creativity didn’t stop; he arranged the Allende concert, and got excited about opening a bar called Che. He would offer a new album that would contain “No More Songs.” But for many, “Rehearsals for Retirement” is where it ended.

50 years later, it is still here for us. It offers a wide range of emotions. There are songs of despair and songs of defiance. Though the album contains melancholy waltzes (“The Doll House,” “Doesn’t Lenny Live Here Anymore”) it also rocks out (“I Kill Therefore I am,” “Another Age”). The songs move us to this day. The political tunes are still fresh, because in this country, nothing has changed. You can almost hear Donald Trump doing something horrible and declaring to a cheering throng, “Pretty Smart On My Part.”

Aside from the morbid album cover, “Rehearsals” differs from Phil’s other A&M albums in NOT having the usual long songs of narcotic monotony. Like an hour train ride that has some nice scenery, or like chewing a stick of gum that still manages to retain flavor, Phil’s ardent fans didn’t lose patience with “Joe Hill,’ (7:18) “Jim Dean,” (5:05) “When in Rome” (13:13) or “I’ve Had Her” (8:03). Real fans treated these epic songs as tolerantly as Dylan fans did “Joey” on the “Desire” album. Most of the time, the voyage was worth it, certainly on “Pleasures of the Harbor” (8:05), “The Party” (7:57) and “Crucifixion” (8:45).

This album has only one song clocking in at over five minutes: “Doesn’t Lenny Live Here Anymore.” The album’s shorter tracks didn’t prevent critics from either ignoring the album entirely, or giving it short shrift. Veteran critic-brat Robert Christgau, the guy who “graded” records like a pissy school teacher, offered up a one-liner run-on sentence:

“The arrangements, which Phil is no longer allowed to do, are excellent and work for his voice; contains some predictable bummers but two great flashes, "The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns" and "Another Age." B.”

Contemporary reviewers, knowing the tragic back story of the album, have been more generous. But again, only a few have bothered. Richie Unterberger:

“Rehearsals for Retirement might have been a prophetic title for an album by a major singer-songwriter who, after the 1969 release of this LP, would write and record barely any first-rate compositions, and would soon cease writing songs altogether…Phil Ochs’ writing, singing, and verve remained sharp and vital…”

“…The decrease of risk-taking with the arrangements…guaranteed a consistency of tone that each of those earlier (A&M) LPs lacked. Although Lincoln Mayorga contributed classical-flavored piano (as he had on Pleasures of the Harbor and Tapes from California), he and Phil were also joined by guitarist-bassist Bob Rafkin, who had a more conventional rock orientation than either of his colleagues.”

Although most consider “Rehearsals” an album of disillusion and depression, there are flashes of Phil’s topical songwriting (“Scorpion Departs…”) and tracks so angry and rocking, they’ve been covered my modern punk groups and could easily make a convincing argument for Rock Hall of Fame honors: “Pretty Smart on My Part” and “Another Age.” (Let’s add that Phil’s more conventional songs, “Changes” and “There But for Fortune” have been covered by a wide variety of rock stars, from Cher to Neil Young and back).

Phil would produce one more album of original material, the wryly titled “Greatest Hits,” which would feature “No More Songs.” But this one remains, for many, his greatest success. Biographer Michael Schumacher: “Rehearsals for Retirement is one of the most harrowing recordings ever issued in pop music, as unflinchingly honest as John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band or Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night.”

1. PRETTY SMART ON MY PART.

Phil comes out blazing with rockabilly music and a war of words. The dark humor here goes from tongue in cheek to a full tongue-sticking-out raspberry as he exposes the violence that is so much a part of American culture, in its movies and in the reality of what both cops and soldiers were doing to innocent people.

The small circle of friends was used to this by now. A new song? Anti-war? About “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land” or something? About Civil Rights violations? What’s it this time?

“Remind us of our social responsibility,” Dave Van Ronk shouted to Phil, during a freewheeling (ie, drunk) evening of new song-trading on NYC’s WBAI radio. Dave cackled, “That was a cheap shot,” but it was still a shot, as both he and another guest Patrick Sky were not known for topical songs.

Phil just tuned up and remarked, “Social responsibilities, ay? After that cheap sexual digression, we’re gonna do a song about American sexual paranoia.”

He then strummed “Pretty Smart on My Part,” and each outrageous, sadistic punchline brought chuckles from the small studio audiencce. Yes, even “and then I’m gonna whip her.” In fact, “we’ll assassinate the president and take over the government” got some applause. How many guys besides Phil Ochs would dare offer a line like that?

The line had a weird twist to it, since the lunatic he was portraying in this song was much more likely to be an Ed Gein and commit sexual torture in some rural Mid-American farm house, than a Yippie trying to change the status quo by political violence.

The song was covered by the punk-rock group Bastro. As a rage from violence-for-the-sake-of-violence hard rockers, who bang drums and shout instead of sing, Phil’s message is trivialized by the band’s pro-wrestling glee in being offensive.

Bob Morley’s “Orange Blossom Special” version chugs along quite happily; the guy might as well be covering Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” Covering a song because you like singing it, is not the same as being driven to it to express a new way of presenting it. Morley’s a bland vocalist. Phil has sometimes been underrated as a singer. When you hear some of the cover versions on him out there, you can appreciate the deceptive ease with which he could add irony, humor or pathos.

A horrifyingly inept take comes from somebody named Harlan. I’ll give him credit for sounding like an utter cretin who could molest a woman, but his arrangement is more clumsy than clever, his singing is off key and as he slips to each new chord his guitar squeaks like a seasick hamster. I know, you HAVE to hear it for yourself. Go over to YouTube and cringe.

2. THE DOLL HOUSE

“The Doll House” remains, like so many a psychedelic-tinged song, an enchanting enigma. Especially confusing is why he performed a chorus mimicking Bob Dylan. Joan Baez did this once as well (covering “Simple Twist of Fate” on her “Diamonds and Rust” album, about 2.22 in). Are Dylan imitations by his pals supposed to be good-natured parody, or something more?

One theory here is that Phil’s intentionally showing he can out-Bob his rival in viewing the world through the prism of jewels and binoculars. It could be a quick aside, saying in essence, “If Bob was singing this, you’d all buy it and spend a month trying to figure out this latest bit of genius.”

My own outre theory is he may have wanted to include Bob as another customer in the doll (whore) house. The message: “I’m not alone in tossing around bizarre imagery and symbolism. Look who I brought with me, and he’s just as knocked out and loaded as I am. We are massive poets, who also taken massive mind-expanding drugs and hipping you to what we see.”

Phil certainly had his share of hookers and drugs. One prostitute gave him a social disease in Chile and when he wasn’t attracting groupies in Australia he had a friend point him to the red-light district brothels. If a night wasn’t spent on stage, or enjoying pleasures of hookers, he was sometimes over-doing alcohol or taking mescaline or mushrooms. The use of the latter certainly would explain lyrics far more obscure than anything in the pages of Yeats.

The important thing with dream lyrics that veer in and out of reality, is that they engage the listener and create provocative images. It’s something Keith Reid did well on “Whiter Shade,” and Lennon with “Lucy in the Sky.” Phil sings these lines as if they’re not strange at all:

Lost in the valley of dolls
Fell from the path, it was nobody's fault
That I was alone
Time dripped from the trees
Leapt through a land
I fell to my knees before the throne
And the crown was covered jewels, sparkling schools
The beautiful fauns
The magnificent battle was fought
And Cinderella's soldier fish was caught
Sure. Perfectly understandable. Not.

Any Poetry 101 professor would cringe and cross out “Time dripped from the trees,” but maybe not if the line was about a hallucination caused by scooping up a tab of acid or a combo of pills (dolls does have the twin meaning of whores and of pills). The stanzas give way to this recurring chorus:

And the lady from the lake
Who helped me to escape
Led me to myself at last
Though I danced with the dolls in the doll house
“The lady from the lake,” who might be ghostly, or drowned, at least gave Phil “something” before she turned her whiter shade of pale. Maybe it was love, the kind of love you don’t get when you’ve screwed whores (or, more poetically “danced with the dolls in the doll house.”)

The flower fled from my feet
Tom Sawyer voice through the hole of the key
Landed so gently
Castles cover the cave
I had no choice, the visions were brave
And the phantoms were friendly

And Pirate Jenny was dancing for pennies
The knucklebones tossed in a spin
There were silver songs on her skin
And she wasn't caring when the ship came in
The whore Phil’s chosen finally appears and performs:

My costume dropped to the floor
Naked at last, I couldn't fight any-more
And the service was rendered
Unlike the hooker in “Pleasures of the Harbor,” this one doesn’t seem to be providing comfort to a lonely sailor, but to somebody completely stoned. The lyrics that follow, return to bizarre images that are, if not part of a nightmare landscape, part of a Dali-surreal one. The doll in this doll house has only performed a function on the body, and not the much more troubled mind.

3. I KILL THEREFORE I AM

A companion piece to “Pretty Smart on My Part” (and played back to back by Phil at the April 1969 Carnegie Hall concert), Phil applies the bludgeon to the famous line, “I think therefore I am.” Who is thinking anymore?

The “Pretty Smart” guy marries a woman and then whips her. This guy is just as prone to sudden violence:

“I don’t like the students now. They don’t have no respect. They don’t like to work now. I think I’ll wring their neck.”

Phil Phans know that one of his recurring themes is trouble in paradise; the false nirvana. The hero President is shot. The move Westward from the ugly city becomes its own trap. And here, the song opens with what seems to be the arrival of a life hero, but instead, he’s riding a symbol of destruction:

“Meet the King of Cowboys. He rides a pale pony.”

That line in Revelation 6:8:

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him…”

Unlike Dylan albums of this same era, Ochs albums were loaded with quite an array of arrangements and bits of offbeat production genius. The opening of this gallop finds the German-Jewish Phil Ochs as authentic in his Old West music as the German-Jewish Elmer Bernstein (who wrote “The Magnificent Seven” theme song). Only Bernstein did not have lyrics for his epic, and Phil did.

Phil’s lyrics tellus how often we appoint a savior who turns out to be powerful and corrupt. This authority figure doesn’t provide safety for all of the people all of the time:

“He patrols the highways from the air. He keeps the country safe from long hair.”

Phil knows that anyone from a cowboy sheriff to a cop in Chicago can single out people for less than fair treatment, and there’s always an excuse for it:

“I am the masculine American man. I kill therefore I am.”

Sometimes in concert he changed it to “I am the 20th Century Man.”

You can hear this (and the audience’s spontaneous applause on “we’ve got the police force, they’re the ones that break the law) on this YouTube clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifmQUQrdiDA The Rabid Surf Dogs covered Phil’s song with surf guitar, rudimentary drums and the usual unschooled new wave style of yelp. Nice to know that some Millennials want to vent about Fascism instead of sit around playing Minecraft video games.

PS, adventurers, I have deliberately avoided the “I’m turning my camcorder on, sitting back in my chair, and fucking up a Phil Ochs song” YouTube assholes. Proceed at your OWN risk for those cover versions, and beware, a lot of “cookie monster” punk vocalists who’ve titled a song “I Kill Therefore I Am,” just to get a vicarious thrill out of acting demonic.

4. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS VISITS LINCOLN PARK AND ESCAPES UNSCATHED

During a WBAI broadcast, Phil mentioned one of his favorite poets:

“I was over there in England…I woke up in a strange house and started talking to this girl, and reading poetry all morning. Reading William Butler Yeats….While driving back (to London) it was like being visited by the muse. I was very much artistically aroused by Yeats…so I got this idea for a song, from the aesthetic in the air…”

No, he didn’t start singing THIS song. He started singing “The Song of My Returning.”

THIS song, would come later…on an album where Phil impersonated quite a few people, including a paranoid masculine-American man and an equally crazed “pretty smart” sadist out to “get” a variety of people before they “got” him. So why not also assume the persona (or ghost) of William Butler Yeats? How many out there would recognize a photo of Yeats?

Phil Phans might probably recall that when, in the depths of anger and despair, Phil assumed a new identity in real life, it was John BUTLER Train.

The only full-length song on the album that actually references the trauma of Chicago, it is surprisingly gentle, a beautiful ballad that tends to romanticize the scene of the attack on hippies who came to Lincoln Park and “spread their sheets upon the ground just like a wandering tribe. And the wise men walked in their Robespierre robes…” Yes, hippies did dress like Jesus, and probably a few of the more affluent ones could afford a regal-looking robe of some kind, rather than terry cloth from Marshall Field’s.

One of Phil’s friends scoffed that darkness sets but doesn’t turn. A sunset isn’t called a sunturn, after all. But “Lincoln Park, the dark was turning, turning” is purely poetic. So is the notion of being “blessed by a blood red moon.” Is that a blessing, in reality? Phil’s poetic gaffes are plentiful if one wants to get technical. In “Crucifixion” for example, “mountains are amazed.” No, any high school teacher would sigh, mountains are NOT capable of being amazed.

Romantic poets and composers often explore the theme of “the death of the maiden,” and here, the story opens with “I spied a fair young maiden and a flame was in her eyes. And on her face lay the steel blue skies…” A reflection on a corpse?

The song’s end: “I searched in vain for she stayed behind…” soon followed by “she lies in stone.” Yeats was 30 years dead when Phil wrote the song. It’s an irony, perhaps, that Yeats actually did visit Chicago a few times. The last time was in March of 1920. He told a gathering that he was experimenting with a new art form: “I am trying to create a form of poetical drama played by one company, all of whom could ride in one taxicab and carry their stage property on the roof.”

Yeats expert Geoffrey Johnson on Phil’s song: “Except for the contemporary references, the lyrics—which invoked a blood-red moon, a fair young maiden, and trembling towers—might have sprung directly from Yeats’s ‘Celtic Twilight.’”

As he did with Poe and with Noyes, it’s possible that Phil may have gotten around to adding music for lyrics by Yeats. You can imagine him playing piano to such lines from “Celtic Twilight” as these:

“Time drops in decay
Like a candle burnt out.
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
But, kindly old rout
Of the fire-born moods,
You pass not away.”

Pat Wictor, a veteran of many a Phil Ochs song night, offers a capable version on his album “This is Absolutely Real: Visions and Versions of Phil Ochs.” He’s one of those guys who does try to add something new to his arrangements, which can include altering a few notes and adding his own sensibilities. Here, there’s an odd jazz undercurrent, and…that IS a vibraphone isn’t it? All of this makes the song way too pretty for some tastes, but it deserves points for originality.

5. WHERE WERE YOU IN CHICAGO

If you check the “Rehearsals” lp, you won’t find this song listed.

As was typical for Phil, this schizy mood-ruiner shakes up the space between the exquisite “Yeats” ballad and the even more aching “My Life.” But that’s part of what Ochs did. Wicked humor elbowed horrific lyrics and jaunty melodies sometimes accompanied songs about women being stabbed.

Slipped in, much as “Her Majesty” was tossed onto “Abbey Road,” this neglected half-minute nugget is a pretty good joke. It deflates Phil’s own stance as a SJW (Social Justice Warrior). Finger pointing is fine, but point it at yourself sometimes. And Phil does. The punchline:

“Where were you in Chicago, when the fight was being fought? Where were you in Chicago, when I was in Detroit!”

Michael Schumacher in “There But for Fortune” declared that the album had “virtually no humor in the songs,” but this is pretty humorous.

The song was actually covered by the repulsively named trio “Kind of Like Spitting.” Not exactly inept, the nasal boys aren’t the most polished or interesting of vocalists. Some of us do collect most everything on Phil and always welcome people who care enough to join in. The Spitters offered an entire (but short) album of Ochs songs, with the snotty title “Learn the Songs of Phil Ochs” (as if you haven’t heard of the man) but the effort has earned them a very, very small circle of friends.

On the original “Rehearsals” album, Phil’s little joke leads into…

6. MY LIFE

I defer to “Death of a Rebel” and Marc Eliot on this one: “The song is a Platter-ish “My Prayer”-type ditty…Phil’s reflection on his career, his hopes, his dreams…Thousands of strings were behind him. Lincoln Mayorga’s wrenching piano accompaniment drove Phil to squeeze the song from the very depths of his despair. He left Side One with what was, simply, the greatest performance of his life.”

7. THE SCORPION DEPARTS BUT NEVER RETURNS

Marc Eliot again: “If “My Life” was Phil’s greatest performance, “The Scorpion Departs” was his greatest song. It began with a bit of musical journlism from the pen of the old Phil Ochs, the story of the disappearance of the nuclear submarine…the sailor is safe, aboard ship, away from the horror of the land, the terror of pursuit. But wait. Something is wrong. The ship is sinking…his journey is over, he is dying. It is the creative Death of Phil Ochs, the moment of realization preceding the moment of expiration. I’m not dying, I’m not dying. Tell me I’m not dying…”

Unlike many a marine disaster, the demise of the Scorpion was NOT big news when it happened, and Phil probably knew the depressing reason: nobody could be sure whether it was sunk by the Russians or by a careless accident. Phil doesn’t hazard a guess on the cause of the disaster, just the tragedy of it: the entire crew lost.

Back in February of 1969, all Phil had to go on was a nebulous government statement: "The certain cause of the loss of the Scorpion cannot be ascertained.” Years later, Lt. Lauren Chatmas, a Navy spokeswoman, affirmed: "The disappearance of USS Scorpion is one of the greatest non-wartime tragedies in our Navy's history. We remain deeply saddened by the loss of the 99 sailors, and we honor their sacrifice and the sacrifice of their families. We remember and pay tribute to their courage, their service to our country and their commitment to duty."

Most people with a background on government politics and in law, understand why sometimes a mystery is left to remain unsolved. Had the Navy thoroughly investigated the incident and found human error, 99 families may have demanded millions in compensation. Had the Navy admitted that a Russian sub had attacked the ship, it could have led to war.

Long after Phil died, documents were unsealed and various authors attempted to get to the bottom of why The Scorpion ended up at the bottom.

“All Hands Down” by Kenneth Sewell and Jerome Preisler and another book, “Scorpion Down” by Ed Offley theorize that The Scorpion got into a battle with a Russian sub and lost. It’s possible that the Russian sub fired a torpedo to “scare off” The Scorpion, but it hit the target. Another theory is that this was a deliberate lethal attack launched by the Russians in retaliation for the sinking of Soviet submarine K-129 on March 7, 1968.

It’s also possible some kind of operational flaw sent the mighty ship downward, where it broke up due to the intense pressure of being so far under water. Some don’t discount human error; a torpedo accidentally backfiring, or even firing and then sensing no other target in the area, looping back on the hulking ship.

Phil’s song makes a reference to a “bubble ball.” Scientists could not determine for sure about the lack of a “bubble pulse” noise on the existing recording, one that usually can be heard when there’s an explosion underwater. Was it “hydrogen build-up” that caused the problem? The noises picked up from the distressed ship are apparently inconclusive, like the recordings where people hear more than 3 shots fired in Dallas at President Kennedy.

The Scorpion’s last routine call was May 21st 1968. All was well, and the ship, south of the Azores, was on schedule to return to its port in Norfolk, Virginia in six days. On May 27th, 1968. It was raining. Several family members stood and waited to greet their sailors home from the sea. They continued to wait. Where was The Scorpion?

WHERE WAS THE SCORPION? After a week had passed, on June 5th, the Navy declared the ship “presumed lost.” June turned to July. July to August. August to September. The families waited. And waited.

On Halloween eve, October 31, 1968, The Scorpion was finally detected, resting under 10,000 feet of water 400 miles southwest of the Azores. Photographs taken of the wreck were eerie, alien, but gave no clue as to what happened.

“The Scorpion” was not America’s only famous nuclear submarine. The other was “The Thresher.” It sank on April 10, 1963, during testing off the Massachusetts coast. All 129 aboard were killed. This incident was also the subject of a Phil Ochs song, more straight reporting than the eerie ballad about The Scorpion: “On a cold Wednesday morn
They put her her out to sea
When the waves they were nine feet high.
And they dove beneath the waves
And they dove to their graves
And they never said a last goodbye.
And its deeper and deeper
And deeper they dove
Just to see what their ship could stand.
But the hull gave a moan
And the hull gave a groan
And they plunged to the deepest darkest sand.

When Phil wrote the song, there were those aching lines about how nothing of the humanity was to be seen. Not a cigarette. Not a toothbrush.

In 2011, the wreckage was explored. A few objects were found. Not much.

With some eerie sound effects of machine malfunction, twisted violins and funereal brass, Vic Chesnutt covers the song, taking nearly eight minutes to offer his haunting audio-movie about the ghost ship. The wheelchair-bound singer-songerwiter was, like Phil, a suicide (November 12, 1964 – December 25, 2009).

Most anyone who covers an Ochs song deserves some kind of praise, but the Bob and Carole Pegg version of “Scorpion” is pretty annoying. Bob’s fey, precisely enunciating voice might better be suited to traditional sea chanteys or faux-archaic “songs from the wood” by Ian Anderson. The singing is just too hearty for such a dark, elegiac ballad.

8. THE WORLD BEGAN IN EDEN AND ENDED IN LOS ANGELES

A relative to “Tape from California,” this one declares, “If you have to beg or steal or borrow….welcome to Los Angeles, city of tomorrow!” Anyone really thinking that this is Phil’s advertisement for the promised land is mistaken. Or to quote the title of a Randy Newman album, “Trouble in Paradise.”

‘So this is where the Renaissance has led you. And we will be the only ones who know. So take a drive and breathe the air of ashes. That is, if you need a place to go.”

With mitten-like slaps at the piano, a drum beat that could’ve been on a Gary Puckett song, and the puckery blasts from the Los Angeles if not Tijuana brass (some wondered if A&M co-owner Herb Alpert was on this toot), this song moves at a true Top 40 pop clip. If the lyrics weren’t so sarcastic, and instead sang about going “up up and away” in a beautiful balloon, who knows, this one could’ve been a hit, if not for Phil, than as covered by Spanky & Our Gang or The Fifth Dimension.

9. DOESN’t LENNY LIVE HERE ANYMORE

On first listen, given the era in which Phil was working, one might assume that the song is about Lenny Bruce. William Ruhlmann, in his review for the ALLMUSIC website, flat out states: “ The plaintive "Doesn't Lenny Live Here Anymore" concerns the drug overdose death of comedian Lenny Bruce.”

The death of “comedian Lenny Bruce” was part of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Silent Night” news broadcast segment, but I’m not sure if Phil or even Paul Simon ever actually met Lenny, as opposed to listening to the records. I know Phil met Mort Sahl. I got that first-hand from Mort. Lenny…Phil admired him, most definitely, and somehow managed to get a jacket once worn by the legend himself. Phil is wearing the Lenny Bruce jacket on the cover of ‘Pleasures of the Harbor.’

In Michael Schumacher’s book, there’s an anecdote about Dylan, circa 1971, playing a “Lenny Bruce” song for Phil. Dylanologists aren’t so sure. First off, Bob’s song “Lenny Bruce” didn’t turn up for another decade, and Bob almost always recorded his new songs as soon as he wrote them. 1971 was around the time Bob was singing about George Jackson, and appearing at George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangla Desh.” It’s possible Bob played a song that Phil (or somebody) thought was about Lenny Bruce. Lenny was having a resurgence of popularity thanks to “LENNY” (starring Cliff Gorman) on Broadway, and the re-issue of several albums full of taped material too edgy to have been issued when Lenny was still around.

Phil did reference the comedian in “The Harder They Fall,” singing: “Mother Goose is on the loose, stealing lines from Lenny Bruce.”

“Doesn’t Lenny Live Here Anymore,” which along with “The Doll House” was not written during Phil’s two-week burst of energy, may have been written around the time Lenny died, August 3, 1966. Could there be a subconscious link? Not really, as the “haggard ex-lover” who actually did come to Phil’s door, was asking specifically for a guy named Lenny.

Ben Edmonds, writing the “track by track” notes for “Fantasies and Farewells,” sets the record straight. The song “was based on a real person. Phil had rented an apartment in the Village, and people kept coming by to inquire about the previous tenant. After this had happened often enough, Phil began to acquire a picture of the guy, whose story of heartbreak, loneliness, and suicide this song tells. With those themes it was a natural fit when the “Rehearsasl for Retirement album needed one more song.”

As Phil sometimes did, the song wavers into obscurity, touching on some of his favorite symbols…the flow of time, the secrets of whores, and the undercurrent of violence that is part of everyday life:

“The moon, she shines too soon and simply sadly
You loved your love so much that you'd strangle her gladly
And it's all so slow
Time has ceased to flow
And the whistling whore knows something you don't know…”
Somehow, the scene shifts from a Greenwich Village apartment to what might be an adobe hut in a border town, and the weird ritual masochism of razor blade blood-letting:
“The fat official smiles at the pass on the border
And the hungry broom makes sure that the room is in order
You pull the shade
All the beds are made
As your lips caress the razor of the blade
Of the blade
With Phil, sometimes the melody saves the obscurity of the lyrics, and sometimes the oddness of the lyrics adds enough spice to keep a monotonous melody from losing flavor. Phil, rarely praised for the nuances of his singing, makes the most of the song’s title. You can hear him in your mind, can’t you? “Doesn’t Lenny live here anymore? Are you sure?”

It’s odd to think that Phil chose “Doesn’t Lenny Live Here Anymore” and “The Doll House” from apparently a dozen or more songs that he’d yet to record on an album. When that entire posthumous “Toast to Those that Are Gone” album appeared, I wondered where these songs had been stashed, and why Phil hadn’t even performed them in concert. If Phil needed an extra song or two for the “Rehearsals” album, “The Trial” would’ve been a natural. It’s not only political, and about injustice, but has Phil’s Bosch-nightmare imagery: “Order in the court
People ready for the sport
They squirm and squeak and lick their beaks
And grease their feathers down

10. ANOTHER AGE

In between his usual nervous tuning and re-tuning Phil, in live performance, introduced “Another Age” this way:

“Racing between mysticism and revolution, as we all do these days…if God were a computer, undoubtedly he’d blow up the world. Which would be the answer. If not, it would have to come through a political revolution, unfortunately. In the hopes of saving the world, here’s a modern American revolutionary song.”

The chords are menacingly minor, the same was “That’s The Way It’s Gonna Be.” While that song is actually optimistic, “Another Age” is not:

The younger boys are drowning in a shallow sea
The night belongs to snipers in palm trees
And their sabres flashed like lightning
In the charge of the last brigade
They must have been afraid
….Pray for the aged it's the dawn of another age
Of another age

This “other” age Phil sings about is not going to be any less violent than the previous one. The rockin’ tempo propels this song along so well, one can almost feel some positive energy. But some lines are bitter in blurring the line between good and evil:

“Thomas Paine and Jesse James are old friends.”

Did Phil believe, as Warren Zevon did, that Jesse James was a hero, and therefore Paine and James had something in common? The song has another stark set of contrasting truths:

“Soldiers have their sorrow, the wretched have their rage.” Neither side survives unscathed. Phil finds humanity in seemingly soulless soldiers and points out that helpless victims may actually rise up in rage (and could be as combative as any soldiers).

A lot is going on here.

Propelled by another great Ochs melody, you can’t help thinking “the dawn of another age” has to mean utopia and not dystopia. But you’ll likely be wrong. Still, if you’re tapping your toe to the beat here, things can’t be all bad, can they?

For someone less prolific than Ochs, “Soldiers Have their Sorrow” would’ve been a separate song, and three minutes of somber symbolism. Phil had too much going on his head for that. He was spilling it all out in a fury, as Dylan often did. A poem fails if it sacrifices logic or structure, but not a rock song.

The song was covered by The Shrubs in a well-meaning punk take. As in, “hey, we found a song by this Ochs guy, but without his quirky Orbison-esque bell-like voice and folkie guitar, and sung angry, it’s…relevant, man.” There's an appropriate video on YouTube for it, with the usual images of police brutality and racial tumult. But really, any guy wearing a clown red-nose deserves to be smacked.

The snarly-surly delivery and the cliche of siren-like two-note guitar and thrashing drums reflects the chaos of our age, but the beauty (literally) in Phil Ochs songs and in his smooth, totally UN-punk vibrato, is how gracefully he makes people aware of gracelessness and insensitivity.

John Wesley Harding adds this non-hit on his amusingly titled “Greatest Other People’s Hits.” Talk about fails, Wes’s cover was posted to YouTube on May 17, 2018, and in a year, has gotten less than 70 views. Damn! That’s almost as lousy as the number of hits my songs have gotten! And I’m not out there playing small clubs.

Phans of Phil know of Kim and Reggie Harris. They’ve covered some Ochs songs on albums, and some tunes appear via live performance on YouTube. “Another Age” is one of the latter. Reggie sings lead and he might recall the Belafonte coffee house days when guys stood up and did a “Sing Out!” with sincerity and a strong charisma. In the video you can see Sonny Ochs looking on approvingly.

11. REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT

Ben Edmonds’ simple album notes appraisal on this one: “A song of personal surrender, a public admission of defeat.” I think that line could just as easily be applied to “No More Songs.”

Mark Kemp (liner notes for the “Farewells & Fantasies” CD set): “Despite its difficulty - or perhaps because of it - Rehearsals remains Phil’s strongest, most ambitious album. It is impossible to listen to songs such as “Scorpion,” “My Life” or the title track without identifying with the despair Ochs must have felt las he recorded them. It’s an experience that is at once deeply satisfying and horribly morose.”

Marc Eliot called it “a tape left behind to be played in the event the body is never recovered; a chilling finale to the album and the trilogy. With Lincoln Mayorga’s weeping piano underneath, Phil’s voice sweetly wilted to a fragile moan…he sang in memory of himself.”

The song is so personal, one couldn’t imagine anyone covering it, but yes, it’s been covered by a variety of earnest and sorrowful singers. They lack Phil’s moan and despair, and of course, the back story. Paul Middleton is adequate but his voice is not very expressive, while Marc Eitzel at least tries to offer some downer futility to his arrangement and his voice has a trace of weary haggardness to it.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Phil Ochs had a schizy (but not schizoid) quality to his work. Some horrific lyric might be mated to a beautiful melody. A song that’s basically serious might veer into vaudeville (“Draft Dodger Rag” obviously, but also “Miranda”). Patriotic arrangements can battle against anti-war sentiments (the 45 rpm version of “War is Over”). There can be something humorous in something hideous (“Small Circle of Friends”). Like laughter at a slasher movie, there’s unexpected giggles in a song as gruesome as “Pretty Smart On My Part.”

Musically, Phil matured at A&M to create songs that showed uneasy alliances between folk music and classical, or between country and rock. His singing, which may seem to reflect the urban sensibilities of Greenwich Village, just as Dylan’s brutal “Like a Rolling Stone” does, also shows his country roots as well. If Dylan’s twang at the time had a dash of Woody Guthrie, Phil’s plaintive wail recalls his beloved Faron Young, if not a classic country artist such as Hank Williams.

Country songwriter and singer Curly Putman titled his last album “Write ‘em Sad, Sing ‘em Lonesome.” Putman was doing that all through his career, and so was Phil. It’s probably never been more obvious, yet subtly hidden, than on “Rehearsals for Retirement.” Some songs have a country wail to them that could almost be part of Orbison country. On this track, the woe comes out full on: “Had I known the end would end in laughter.” That’s moanin’ the blues, before the sweet resignation of “I tell my daughter it doesn’t matter.” Also schizy is the very notion that one of the saddest of Phil’s songs implies any kind of laughter at the end, and that his obvious pain “doesn’t matter.”

One of the things that is fascinating, if subtle, in Phil’s work, is his tendency to mix genres and metaphors. “The lights are cold again they dance below me.” Your first thought is that lights have to be hot to flicker like flames, and dance. He sings “cold again” from his broken country heart, but “they dance below me” from the soul of the folk balladeer. Later, there’s the country cowboy imagery: “I take my colors from the stable,” but then there’s the more Elizabethan-folk sensibility of “They lie in tatters by the tournament.” Likewise, “farewell my fancy” is more British than it is El Paso, Texas, the proud birthplace listed on that tombstone.

One hardly thinks of “Rehearsals of Retirement” as a country album, but there’s an element here. It’s also a concept album, an album of ballads, a work of folk-rock, and simply an album by Phil Ochs. A famous quote: “I’m not a comedian, I’m Lenny Bruce.” And in the end, he was not a folkie, a protest singer, a country star, a gold-suit rockabilly, an oldies act, a rocker…he was all of that. He was Phil Ochs.

YOUTUBE - where death exploitation and copyright theft are JUST FINE

CONDOLENCES!

CONDOLENCES TO THE FAMILY!

In other words, don't file a DMCA on our stealing photos of your beloved one.

We only meant this as...a way to get monetization money.

Donald Trump does have a point about FAKE NEWS.

Here, some asshole pretends to be a network of some kind (CBN...isn't that like CNN or something...).

The game is to kneejerk the death of any celebrity into a CONDOLENCES video.

What do grieving fans get? They get a NEWSWER-type plagiarism of Wikipedia or a real obituary. The no-talent jerk then uses a voice program to have the obit robot-spoken, and mated to Googled photos used with NO permission.

If you flagged this hack-work, you'd get nowhere.

The Great God Google has a very specific drop-down menu of things that they'll even bother to have somebody in Pakistan glance at.

Copyright theft ain't there. They expect a photographer to send in a DMCA on a photo abuse. Five or ten days later, after the uploader has made all the money, the video might be pulled.

As for stealing/re-writing a newspaper's obit, the newspaper would have to file, and prove it, and explain the damages. And then get a robot form letter from Google saying "This was not submitted properly. Submit it again."

Any GOOD news here on the BAD news of obits being a YOUTUBE scam?

Well, so many jerks are doing this, that they can only make chump change.

After a major scandal, a major sports event, any kind of death, people type in key words on YouTube and find:

Way too many cut-and-paste robot-voice reports, and WAY too many assholes seated behind a desk in Mommy's Basement giving their OPINION of what happened.

YouTube is only diluting its website with this garbage, and making it difficult for people to find REAL news and entertainment. But...traffic is traffic, and until people STOP bothering and learn to get their information from reliable sources, YouTube will still slap ads on everything uploaded, and The Great God Google will continue to be one of the richest and least moral companies on the Internet.

#WHY I USE CURSE WORDS

ALABAMA, Find Yourself Another Country to be Part Of

Borrowing from Mr. Ochs:

"Here's to the laws you've torn out the heart of
Alabama, find yourself another country to be part of.

Another vintage 60's singer-songwriter, Tom Lehrer, wrote "Who's Next." It was about the USA, Russia, India, Israel and all the other countries getting nuclear weapons. He ended it this way:

"We'll try to act serene and calm — when ALABAMA GETS THE BOMB!"

Anyone who supports abortion has never been on a rush-hour subway train.

Or even a crowded elevator.

You can't argue with religious fanatics, or the logic of Southerners who claim the sanctity of life and that only GOD can take a life...while they cheer the death penalty and shrug when lunatics shoot up schools.

BUT...you can ask:

"Why aren't YOU standing outside the abortion clinic and writing out a personal check? You insist this woman has to keep the baby after she was raped? Are YOU going to pay for this child's food and clothing?"

OR, "After the baby is born, are YOU going to adopt it? Or are you going to doom it to possible poverty and abuse?"

Liberals (or Libtards as they are affectionately called by Internet trolls) will tell you "what we need is more WOMEN in political office. Women are kind, compassionate and will certainly have a sisterhood on women's rights issues."

First off, not all women in power have been kind or compassionate (Eva Peron, Marie Antoinette, Countess Bathroy, Margaret Thatcher...) and the governor of Alabama, a WOMAN, signed the new NO ABORTION FOR ANY REASON law.

Alabama, a state known for its history of segregation, does not have many minorities or women in office. The law was pushed through by twenty five WHITE guys.

Yoko Ono once sang: "If you keep hammering anti-abortion, we'll tell you no more masturbation for men...you're killing living sperm by millions. What do you think about that, brother?"

Oh, oh, a baby becomes a baby ONLY when the sperm fertilizes the egg. And listen, it's up to the woman to be a virgin till she's married and THEN do her duty and spawn every year till she has her own King Family choir to sing "Happy Mother's Day" to her. Guys jerking off aren't sinful or wasteful and do NOT play us Monty Python's tune "Every Sperm is Sacred."

A moron on Twitter (gee, there was only one) insisted that it was "absurd" for a woman to claim she has a right to choose what happens to her body. "You call it a baby, you don't call it a part of your body!" Keeee-rist. I actually bothered to Tweet back, "You also call it a tumor, and not part of your body, and you go to a doctor to have it removed. You don't want some Christian Scientist insisting you keep it in, and if you die, it's God's will."

Perhaps the most pathetic thing about the abortion issue is the way the abortion mob consider every woman who gets one to be some kind of slut. No, accidents happen. People are also foolish, especially young people.

I knew a woman who had an abortion, and she did NOT want to have another one. It's not like having a cyst removed. It's a horrible process physically AND it's terribly wrenching emotionally, too. Make a mistake once, and most are not likely to want it to happen again.

What's next for Alabama, declaring condoms illegal, too?

After World War II the phrase "NEVER AGAIN" became popular. For a while. Now? Trump can easily be another Hitler. So can Putin. We have religious fanatics throwing people off buildings, and murdering people who are of the SAME religion but a different tribute. Oooh, shi'ie vs sunni!

It's nuts out there. Overpopulation IS the most pressing problem. Climate change only worsens because MORE people are polluting the planet. ALABAMA wants more people. Worse, more ALABAMANS. In other words...backward fanatic racists who are uneducated, intolerant, and incapable of feeding and clothing the spawn they already have inflicted on this planet.

Fact: we have too many people on the planet. The answer? TALK TO THE HAND. AND USE IT.

ALOHA KOALA

"No Tigers in 50 years!" William Shatner shouted. He said it on his rap-song "I Can't Get Behind That."

Unfortunately, that song could've been longer than "American Pie" if he listed all the endangered species.

You might not find a live koala anywhere in 50 years. Or less.

Fact is, unlike most species that idiots would be content to see in a zoo as a novelty, the koala does NOT do well in captivity.

It was a very special and brief time when a koala was on exhibit at the Bronx Zoo. Thousands gathered every day to get a glimpse of the "real live teddy bear," which was mostly hidden in from sight in its eucalyptus tree.

Koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves, and they need a LOT of them because these things have almost no nutritional value.

While bears are shot routinely in New Jersey, for DARING to encroach on urban sprawl, Australians are not allowed to even TOUCH a koala should it roam into a nearby town from a small forest of eucalyptus trees.

This noble law isn't helping the koala much. Their territories continue to shrink. Diseases caused by climate change and pollution ravage them. Just why so many have STD's now is baffling many scientists, especially ones who aren't prone toward bestiality.

People deny. People don't care. You could beat koalas with a club and people would shrug (as they do with baby seals). Yes, while nobody much cares about the destruction of whales or sharks or bees, they also don't care about CUTE animals.

Anus-Face ASHLEY GRAHAM and MAMA Anus-Face

Hello everyone!

We could stick out our tongues at you.

But it's even MORE friendly to do ANUS FACE!

Mmmmmmmwaaah!

It isn't enough that women put on lipstick to redden and vaginalize their mouths.

Since butt sex is so common (most any asshole can do it) the idea is to...what...promise ANAL?

WHAT is the deal with a woman impersonating an anus?

It's supposed to show she's up for anything?

The 21st Century has seen strange new concepts in beauty. Like HUGE LIPS.

Here's Meg Ryan before and after her injections.

In the first image, you can imagine sweet whispers of desire.

In the second image, you can almost hear the razzing sound of flatulence.

Here's another example. Media whore, "model" and Cosby accuser Janice Dickinson once had a simply Elvis-type baby doll pout. Then she went to trout:

Fact: you NEVER see glamour photos where a sex symbol makes a grotesque kissy-face. REAL attractive women don't need to do that. Elizabeth Taylor. Carole Lombard. Lauren Bacall. Ava Gardner. Julie Newmar. Marilyn Monroe. Natalie Wood. Name any classic beauty from the 40's through the 70's and you don't see a gruesome anus-face pose like Ashley Graham's.

You don't need the grotesque promise of a kiss to find a woman attractive.

Let's put it this way. If she posed doing an anus-face kissy-pucker, "Mona Lisa" would not be in a museum.

Joan of Arc Beans

This is real.

JOAN OF ARC beans?

What, you serve this with a burned steak?

Hashtag - Odd Things to Say at a Funeral

Photo Caption Phun

Harvard Lampoon & Anne Frank - It's Possible to be OFFENSIVE but not Anti-Semitic

Did you know there's still a Harvard Lampoon?

There's no National Lampoon, is there? Back issues of that mag are $2 on eBay, and eBay bootleggers try to get $8.00 for a DVD-R containing every issue in PDF format.

Mad Magazine has gone from a 2 million circulation monthly to a 250,000 circulation quarterly.

Still, if you do something offensive in the name of "sick humor" or "black humor" or deliberate tastelessness, you WILL get noticed.

The NY Post headlined a piece on the HARVARD LAMPOON:

What the NY Post didn't do was SHOW the image.

How could they, when it was tasteless, and "anti-Semitic," and they'd be accused of making things worse by showing it?

They got around this in a weasel way.

They offered a link to somebody's TWITTER post.

Now that we actually SEE the image, we see that it is NOT anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitism is a term thrown around with the same zeal that we hear "He a Racist" or "We are LATINO not HISPANIC."

After a while, the PC mewling becomes more OFFENSIVE than the offending item.

In England, a veteran comedian named Danny Baker apologized for a dumb photo gag. He had a habit of equating toffs and royalty with chimps, and ran a photo of a chimp, suggesting it was the newborn "royal baby." Ah...he really should've known that the newborn is one-fourth black, the bride being half-black, and that this was not just OFFENSIVE but RACIST.

He apologized instantly but was canned by the BBC anyway. Which only led SOME people to wonder why it is that any and every kneejerk howl of "RACISM" now brings a fiscal death penalty.

Here, the apology from the Harvard Lampoon has apparently been grudgingly accept, the same as the apology from the New York Times for THIS editorial cartoon, depicting a Jew as a dog:

Danny Baker, equating a royal baby with a chimp: FIRE HIM.

The New York Times using the very well known "Jew=Dog" stereotype that was seen all over Nazi Germany? Oh, don't fire ANYONE. Certainly not the editor who OK'd publication or the art director who paid the cartoonist.

I think it's more than fair, and proper, for this badly done collage to be condemned.

But do it as OFFENSIVE and don't go overboard about ANTI-SEMITISM. Same way you can say Danny Baker had a very stupid lapse in taste and was OFFENSIVE, but is not a racist.

A racist implies somebody who automatically avoids a racial group and even works to bully members of the group. Being "offensive" could imply have a screw loose but that, as Mort Sahl liked to say, everyone's a target: "Is there any group I haven't offended?"

What's the real message of the collage? The Latino (not HISPANIC!) creator of this thing probably, in his wise-ass way, was intending a mere SEXIST message: think of all the hot women who died in the Holocaust.

If you're in a bent frame of mind, this could even be a good thing. The stereotype of the Jewish woman is Golda Meir. Judge Judy. Roseanne Barr. People need to know that Lauren Bacall was Jewish. Natalie Portman is Jewish. Bess Myerson was a Jewish Miss America. Even Scarlett Johansson is Jewish.

There was a time when black women were similarly stereotyped. Ethel Waters. Hattie McDaniel. Big fat mammies. It was up to Lenny Bruce to memorably ask, "Would you sleep with a black black woman, or a white white woman? The black woman is Lena Horne. The white woman is Kate Smith! Now...it's not about color is it..."

Lenny was once photographed holding up a joke headline about "SIX MILLION JEWS FOUND ALIVE IN ARGENTINA."

I somehow doubt that Lenny Bruce, Mel "Springtime for Hitler" Brooks, Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, or other Jewish comedians who have been called "sick" and guilty of "poor taste," would cry "anti-Semitism" about the Harvard Lampoon's collage. This, even if the Harvard Lampoon is a WASP-y magazine known more for publishing a George Plimpton or Conan O'Brien than anybody Jewish.

The phrase "too soon" seems to have been coined by comedians telling Lincoln jokes. You know those: "Aside from that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

Starting in the late 50's, "sick humor" became a strong entity on stage, on records, in magazines and comic books. Even "MAD" and "SICK" and "CRACKED" all supposedly aimed at teen kids, were part of this.

"Sick humor" was in part an attempt to fight back against our mad, mad, mad, mad world. To out-Herod Herod. To show that humor was more powerful than evil. To make brutal fun out of the unfunny. Pick your own explanation.

Some people don't like it. No reason they should. If something offends you, speak out. But be careful when it comes to censorship, and let's have a uniform response for the punishment. Why is it the New York Times editor wasn't fired for that Netanyahu cartoon, but Danny Baker was fired for a Tweet? The BBC didn't authorize Danny's Tweet, but they fired him. The Philadelphia Flyers did a kneejerk destruction on Kate Smith's statue for nothing.

The reaction here? By all means, stand up. Demand to be heard. Point out that the Harvard Lampoon is guilty of "poor taste" or "offensive" humor. But don't go overboard with sanctimonious screeches about "anti-Semitism." Save THAT for the bastard who shot up the synagogue in California. Don't trivialize it by throwing it at a collage in a comedy magazine.

This isn't the first time we've seen this "oooh, it's the Holocaust, there's NOTHING funny about it" attitude. It most famously surfaced in complaints about "Hogan's Heroes" being on TV, and "Life is Beautiful" being allowed in movie theaters. NO, Mel Brooks NOTHING is funny about "Springtime for Hitler" either. And yet, millions found nothing wrong with these things. They were made aware that there's a serious issue underneath, but, hey, someone slipping on a banana peel could dislocate a hip and have complications and die. So what's funny about THAT?

I can't speak for Mr. Collage, but I think he was talking to stupid Millennials who COULD be anti-Semitic and who DO trivialize the Holocaust and even say it never happened. By showing Anne Frank is a buxom adult, he was saying, ala Lenny Bruce, "NOW how do you feel? You could've tapped this if you hadn't killed her. Just as you should realize Lena Horne is hotter than Kate Smith even if she's NOT WHITE."

Beauty, and offensiveness, is in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes comedy makes a point by being brutal, sick or offensive. Sometimes it makes a point about human nature.

The Lincoln joke. Isn't it really about human nature? That there would be some Pollyanna assholes who'd ignore one of the greatest tragedies in American history? Was that joke Anti-Lincoln??

How about Monty Python and the guys on the cross who whistle "Always look on the bright side of life?" Is that really an anti-Christian scene, or a statement made about an insane type of optimism?

"Life is Beautiful" used the Holocaust as a setting for a film that offered courage, humor, compassion, and a very sobering ending. It didn't deserve the small-minded shouts of "Anti-Semitism...ban it...don't let it be shown!"

Similarly, we have the "chimp" moment in the film "Cabaret." It was a gorilla, actually. That dance scene of man and gorilla started out hilarious, until the hideous and very anti-Semitic punchline.

Here, I think the message, clumsy as it was, but aimed at dolts mostly, was "hey, do NOT kill. You're killing somebody you might actually want to make love to."

Not every cartoon hits the mark, nor every movie scene. People walk out of nightclubs every night. They write angry letters to the editor. Fine. We need to draw the line on hurling people out of show business, showing no mercy and allowing no apology, and most certainly in blowing up "I'm offended" into a charge of brutality and hatred toward an entire race and a false cry of racism or sexism.

If Lenny Bruce was the editor of the Harvard Lampoon would he have shaken his head and said, "No, that's rejected?" I think not. Would he have calculated that a few people might be offended? Yes. Would he have figured that the message, which is that the Holocaust "sucked" be worth it? Yes.

A gag about a President shot in the head or a girl forced to hide in a narrow space only to be forced out and murdered...we can say "Too Soon" or "bad taste." And we should express our doubts. But perhaps the humorists involved should not be automatically marked as "sickos" or unpatriotic or anti-Semitic. Maybe that too, is "going too far."

Idiotic race card played by Ina Clarke and the Insidious Fur Industry

A few days ago, Lisa L. Colangelo covered the ridiculous "pro-fur" rally at City Hall. A few morons in fur hats BE tellin' the world that their civil rights were being violated. Or something. Because the City Council wants to ban the sale of fur in New York City.

Obviously, this bill is NOT going to pass. People can buy cigarettes in New York City, after all.

The bill is just a way of calling more attention to a cruel industry that most sensible people of ALL colors find pointless. Killing baby seals? Endangered animals? For VANITY?

Colangelo's article pointed up how insidious the fur industry is.

The reporter (yes, there still ARE a few) dug up the fact that some lobbyists hoodwinked a few ignorant blacks into showing up in fur hats. They "promoted a free bus trip to City Hall with a hot boxed lunch and a chance to win a $250 Amex gift card."

Shouldn't sombody be taking a knee on the exploitation of black people, and the stereotype that for a box of fried chicken they'll sell their souls?

"Here, put on this fur hat. Sulk and tell the world that in addition to all the other social ills that you people, and ONLY you people suffer, wearing fur is a BLACK THANG..."

Why, because fat ignorant Aretha Franklin wore huge sheaths of fur to hide her flab? Because she was dumb enough to fall for that status symbol? Bob Barker countered this long ago: "If you want to show people you have money, pin hundred dollar bills to yourself."

Wearing fur as a status symbol is as moronic as smoking a cigar ("which looks like a big black dick," my friend George Carlin memorably declared). You got money to burn? Then burn it. Money burns with less stink than tobacco.

I thought this race card game was done.

Here comes today's Daily News.

An idiot ex-congresswoman (fortunately, EX-congresswoman) has tried, in her ignorant and illogical way, to defend the fur industry for being pro-minority, and specifically, friends to the BLACK COMMUNITY. You could say the same thing about the sweat shops where Jewish women toiled at the turn of the 20th Century. Oh, and Lawdy Lawdy knows, Burger King and KFC are right up there with Dr. King in caring about black people. All those wonderful minimum wage jobs!

A few rich stupid people in furs...very few...and that's supposed to convince us all that a huge percentage of black people find fur-wearing a racial issue. They do it because they're proud of their skin color. Aretha, you bought that hugely expensive dyed orange mink coat because it matches your skin? Really? Or is it because you're just an insecure fatty who wants to hide her blobs and at the same time, show the world you're the QUEEN of soul, and a QUEEN has to be in an expensive coat?

The reverse is more like it. Blacks, knowing the brutality of slavery in the South, and the way they were being considered beasts to be burdened and beaten, would understand that nobody should be treated like an animal. Including animals.

Idiotic Ina is an embarrassment, playing the race card to parrot fur industry propaganda.

I'll meet you after the break. You can read this garbage, or scroll down for my summary and rebuttal.

There you have it, as immortalized by the Daily News. The most remarkable thing about it, is that it has no typos. This IS the Daily News, after all.

Also in the news today: ALABAMA'S NEW LAW THAT OUTLAWS ABORTION.

This came after GEORGIA'S NEW LAW LIMITING ABORTION TO ALMOST NO CASES AT ALL.

The South Will Rise Again, huh?

Where's Idiotic Ina to declare THIS a racial issue? To declare that the most likely people getting abortions would be black women? Black women who have enough kids living in poverty and might want a few less, especially if the Daddy happened to be a drunken rapist.

Nah, don't kill babies, but kill baby seals. That's an issue for black people to get behind.

Briefly, let's knock down this idiot's excuses for killing animals in the name of CIVIL RIGHTS.

I start toward the end, where Ina declares that wearing fur is a "choice" and should always be a "choice."

Yeah? Go down to Georgia and Alabama and talk about a woman's right to choose. About a woman's right to remove a growth from inside her body; one that could affect her health or destroy her life and doom her to poverty. Ina, do you see a bunch of fur-wearing black women standing outside an abortion clinic offering financial help? I don't. Where are these women to say: "I'm so rich, because I have this nice fur coat on, that I'm also rich enough to adopt and pay for your baby after it's born. So don't have an abortion, leave everything to ME, and I've got the thousands of dollars to pay for this child being in the world."

Yes, we should all have a right to choose. And Ina, being part of the corrupt congress for 10 years, should know that this law is just a publicity stunt and that nobody's going to create an impractical law that can be easily circumvented. That's why stores still sell cigarettes and guns.

"I arrived in America from Jamaica in 1958...my first job was at a local fur shop."

So? Somebody else from Jamaica went to work in a whorehouse. Should those be legal?

Other women from Jamaica worked in a variety of menial factories. Burger King wasn't around then, but there were just as miserable minimum wage jobs. That fur shop could've been a cheese shop, a John's Bargain Store or a Times Square penny arcade.

Hey there, Ina, know what I miss? Penny arcades. Pinball. Ski-ball. Why were you sitting on your Jamaican ass when the Times Square arcades began to disappear? A lot of black people worked in those arcades, and a damn lot of them enjoyed playing the games in the arcades, just as I did.

Why is it you didn't give a flying fuck about Bally, and the other companies that employed black people to build pinball machines?

Why is it that you care so much about the white-dominated fashion world, where you're not likely to see a Jamaican woman waiting on fashion models and telling them how lovely that mink coat is?

The truth is, is it not, that blacks who buy fur tend to be like Mike Tyson, and go to some ridiculous all-night place in Harlem? That's where Mike was shopping when he got into a brawl with Mitch Green.

Writes Ina: "Today, the industry still provides jobs to more than 7,500 New Yorkers at hundreds of small businesses across the five boroughs..."

Yeah? How many of those 7,500 are black? FEW. And can't those New Yorkers find another line of work?

"Get another job" is what we're telling all the immigrants from India who used to own newsstands. Newsstands are dying a natural death because people don't buy magazines anymore, or smoke that many cigarettes. Let the fur industry die a natural death, too, abetted by people raising everyone's awareness about CRUELTY.

Just as we tell people not to smoke because it's ugly, stinky and dangerous, we tell people NOT to wear fur.

And YOU make it a racial issue. An issue of pride:

"For many of us, fur is not just a coat. Buying and wearing fur has significant cultural and social meaning, showing that economic attainment and equality is possible."

You can't take pride in owning a Cadillac? That was a huge black stereotype at one time. How about taking pride in flashing a huge diamond ring, or a ton of ridiculous bling on your teeth and dangling from your ears?

You admit that "Instead of wearing real fur...we can wear fake fur..." but your argument against THAT is that "fake fur is made from plastics and chemicals."

Colin Kapernick's helmet was made from plastics and chemicals. Football players abandoned leather helmets several generations ago.

Idiotic Ina has to, of course, snigger about the hypocrites who eat meat and wear leather:

"protecting animals...it’s still okay for New Yorkers to wear leather, which is made from animal skin, and to buy and consume factory-farmed meat, and eggs and dairy from less than humane animal facilities...."

How dumb does it get. NOBODY is eating mink. NOBODY is eating jaguar, raccoon or beaver. These animals are being trapped solely for VANITY. For FUR COATS and silly hats and "trim" on a jacket or decoration on ugly boots.

"As a fur worker all those years ago, I remember the pride on the faces of my customers when they could come in and buy their first fur..."

How about some Harlem whore taking pride that a guy had an orgasm in her mouth?

Fight for legalization of all activities that help the predominantly minority-driven sex worker industry!

Pardon me for being as illogical as you are, Ina. That was a joke. Sort of. Almost. Except a whore is more useful than a fur coat. Warmer, too.

Ina, how about black people working at a factory that makes synthetic down jackets?

"Today I see that look in my own community, where buying and wearing fur symbolizes our rise above poverty and oppression, our attainment of the American Dream. From Beyonce and Cardi B. and Aretha Franklin on the big stage..."

You're talking about witless ignorant people here. Beyonce, Cardi B. and the late Aretha were as ignorant about cruelty as the white bigots who whipped the black slaves.

"Their cries are human."

That's a line from "Island of Lost Souls," and, Soul Sister, the sounds you will hear from an animal caught in a trap would break your heart. If you heard it. You think Beyonce hasn't averted her eyes to a PETA poster? You bet she has. The same way that slave masters didn't care about their cruelty either.

You know who cared? Abraham Lincoln. There are letters we have, in which he described how awful he felt seeing slaves shackled, and hearing their cries. He did something about it. He wasn't another asshole saying, "Well, we have to protect the Southern cotton industry...and black people wear cotton shirts you know..."

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Playing the race card for an excuse makes it all the more odious.

As the PETA posters say, there is no excuse for wearing fur. NONE.