Larry, if you feel like knocking out 200 pages to go with my revised book jacket cover...
PS. Robert Silverberg also did some fine work for the same publisher, under the name Don Elliott. Check out "Tease," "Love Addict," etc. etc. I think all of the Don Elliott books could be re-written to have the new president as the protagonist...with no change in the actual book titles.
Whatever I do, the website in question finds a new way to put it BACK AGAIN.
So I have to keep the SOUND OFF when I surf, and hit the X in the corner as soon as some moron at a desk starts babbling. Most of the time, the news report is just another politician being stupid, another terrorist with an AK7, or another story about some useless reality-show celebrity.
Here's the news of the day that's worth looking at. But only as long as it's CENSORED.
Same thing. Both are pretty dead.
Hartsdale is sort of like Scarsdale, only without a pulse.
And there's no resident with a pulse at Ferncliff.
Oddly, Ferncliff is a little less dead, now that Judy Garland's gone. I mean, GONE from the cemetery.
Ferncliff doesn't have as many famous celebs as its Bronx cousin, Woodlawn, but does have quite a few.
Now it has one less.
Kind of odd, isn't it, that after nearly 50 years, Liza decided to move mama.
You mean, Ferncliff couldn't have shoved a few urns out of the way, and made a little more room? Couldn't have built a little annex off to the side of one of the buildings and called it Garlandia?
Fact is, who the HELL goes to Hartsdale just to visit a local cemetery there? An attraction like Judy Garland would be the biggest reason. She's the biggest star there. Or, was. They let Judy's ashes slip through their fingers? They couldn't say anything to change Liza's mind? Liza was dead set against any offer??
Judy (and Liza) will get MUCH more visitors via L.A. tourists. That's a consideration, I suppose. It's always nice weather, so visitors will flock all year round.
Too bad Liza has crushed one "super fan" who, irony of ironies, lives in California but went to Ferncliff to buy space next to fabulous Judy. According to the NY Post, a space at Fernwood, especially in a prime location, can go for $15,000. A cemetery manager admitted, "the man...specifically flew in from California because he is a big fan of hers. He purchased a plot near her so when he dies he could be next to her. I don’t know what he is going to do now.”
I visited Ferncliff.
I don't recall seeing Judy Garland. There were quite a few corridors full of urns on display. And, no, there was no rainbow on the floor with an arrow pointing toward Judy's.
The reason I'd gone over to Ferncliff was to see Basil Rathbone. He and his wife are shelved very high on a mausoleum wall. Some people might need to bring along opera glasses to make sure they're looking at the right set of spaces. No, there's no memorable quote etched for either of them.
For the record, ghoulish fans who DO want to take a train or a bus (or both) to Ferncliff, or have a relative or friend living nearby who can drive them, can STILL see Basil and Moms and...quite a few other celebs.
You'll still find, starring in alphabetical order...
Harold Arlen, James Baldwin, Richard Barthelmess, Bela Bartok, Connee Boswell, Cab Calloway, Joan Crawford, Lew Fields (partner with Weber in a vaudeville comedy act), Betty Furess, Oscar Hammerstein II, Annette Hanshaw, Moss and Kitty Carlisle Hart, Karen Horney, Alberta Hunter, Jerome Kern, Marion Lorne, Malcolm X, Thelonius Monk, Paul Robeson, Sig Romberg, Otto Soglow (cartoonist), Preston Sturges, Ed Sullivan, Judy Tyler (vivacious actress killed in a car crash) and Conrad Veidt.
Should HE apologize for seeming to condone the hard-hearted, obnoxious behavior of Republicans, Conservatives and the "tea baggers" and the alt-right? As he would no doubt say, "FUCK NO!"
Mort Sahl used to chuckle at the end of his act and say "Is there any group I haven't offended?"
The man who has become another generation's Mort Sahl, is not even asking that question. Because the people who might say yes are people who don't get or understand iconoclastic humor.
Maher is not like Jon Stewart. He doesn't pull a face to punctuate every sentence. He's not comedy's Lon Chaney, the Man with a Thousand Gruesomely Overdone Expressions of Anger and Chagrin. He rarely deviates from a smirk or a baleful stare.
But here, he did a lot of cry-faces, showing just how ridiculous the "politically correct" brigade have been, in DEMANDING apologies from Steve Martin and others.
Everybody's supposed to apologize for everything, and worse, slink off and sit in a corner until forgiven. IF forgiven. I'm thinking about Katie Rich, the SNL writer who is still suspended.
Bill didn't mention this, but it is worth noting: another trait of the "politically correct," is for the complainant to write as if he was in the 19th Century. You see this in the comments section all the time. The offended party, thinking the computer keyboard is somehow a quill pen, will open with, "You, Sir..."
Being polite and deferential while being offended? You know the two words Bill would have for that. FUCK and OFF.
ATTENTION, ABC NEWS.
WHAT, IF YOU OWN A DICTIONARY, DO YOU CALL A "BABY COW?"
Would that be...CALF?
Oh, but that's SUCH a difficult WORD...
Have you noticed how often you click a link to a news story, and Get NO STORY TO READ?
Instead you get a video. A TV screen. Because in our world of DUMBTH, Internet websites figure you need to SEE and HEAR everything, and can't POSSIBLY READ.
Thank you for the DUMBTH, ABC NEWS.
A line from an Elvis Costello song:
"She said that she was working for the ABC News. It was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use."
Why? Oh, they are a different type of SLAP and TICKLE, and exist on their own.
If you "change your way of thinking," anything horrible he does has a bright side to make you SMILE.
Know what I mean? We're supposed to take the slap in the face, and be tickled by it, because it's actually GOOD.
Trump's building the wall. SLAP. But Mexico will pay for it. TICKLE.
WE will pay that extra 20% when we buy Mexico's tariffed goods. SLAP. But El Presidente de Mexico is pissed off! TICKLE.
Trump is going ahead with the leaky oil pipeline. SLAP. But slobs on motorcycles will have lower gas prices. TICKLE.
Trump is gutting abortion laws. SLAP. But oooh, love your cute baby photo posted on Facebook. Little bastard! TICKLE.
Trump has an anti-climate change asshole lording over the EPA. SLAP. More beach days in February! TICKLE
So...
Let's slap some censorship on the headlines to make them ticklish.
He's bringing back the pipeline. He's "Draining the Swamp" by substituting Exxon moguls, climate change deniers and health care haters and incompetents. He's still Tweeting and using an unsecured Android phone to yell at people. And yes, he's talking about building the wall. Oh...and that HE won the popular vote because 3 million "illegals" voted for Lying Hillary.
It's ALL good, but not good enough to be part of today's CENSORED NEWS.
The Libtards are insisting that Donald and his various Rumps are fair game. He has made fun of handicapped people, and denies climate change (which could harm children) ignores GMO's in food (which could harm children) and is pro life (which adds more obnoxious brats to the world). Libtards also say that iconoclastic jokes are good, and that if Carlin or Maher had told the joke about Herr Barron, nobody would've complained. But it was a WOMAN who did it. An unknown. Who could be bullied. Didn't W.C. Fields kick Baby LeRoy in the ass? People loved it.
The Rednecks insists that every sperm is sacred, even if it grows into a ten year-old snot who already knows his mommy has posed naked and that half the country hates his father AND his animal-killing brothers. They huff in their Aunt Bee voices, "he's just a CHILD." Right. Like Bieber was just a child. Kids grow up fast. Ask 'em what bukkake is. They've seen it on the Internet, along with gore photos, ISIS atrocities, and Kardashian's ugly fat ass.
HOWEVER (I borrowed that from Prof. Irwin Corey)...I post no mention of Bieber Trump in today's assortment of news censorship. Let's leave the Dear Boy alone. There's plenty of other brattiness and childishness from the adults.
NOBODY pays attention to ANYONE who begins a chant with "HEY HEY, HO HO."
The only thing that's "GOT TO GO," in that chant, is YOU idiots, an hour later on the bus.
BUT, there is OTHER news going on, and it does require censorship in order to be seen at all.
Some of my readers might only vaguely know who the former are:
There. A nice photo of them, which probably netted the photographer a minor sum. Or it could be a publicity picture given away free. See, it's too NICE of a photo. And that's what THIS story is about.
It's about how a paparazzo popped a few nasty remarks at Teigen JUST to try and get her to change expression.
Oh, if you don't know who they are: "Johnny Legend" is a rather unfortunately-named pop star I don't find legendary, and his wife is a swimsuit model. They got my attention because Teigen began to Tweet about how a typical "ambushed at the airport" session turned very ugly.
It's a reminder that racism and antisemitism still exist (just in case anyone thinks they don't!)
For me, it's a reminder of why I retired from taking assignments from photo agencies. For a while, I made some good and fairly easy money freelancing for a few of the major operations out there. It was a sideline with me, and I found snapping photos for a few seconds a lot easier than writing for hours at a time.
An agency might call and say, "Go HERE and HERE and HERE..." and it was almost literally like shooting fish in a barrel. In the morning I'd cover a celeb shilling her line of perfume at Macy's. SNAP. In the afternoon, maybe some politician giving a speech. SNAP. And in the evening, a biggie, a bunch of stars standing around at a movie premiere, more than happy to hear "over here, over here," and pose this way and that, before disappearing inside.
There was NO guarantee that a photo of mine would be chosen over my competition, but the odds were decent enough, and it was a novelty. Sometimes, you'd get a free meal if you were covering a particularly ritzy event (like a star choosing the restaurant 21 to announce a big movie deal, or a comedian choosing the Carnegie Deli to brag about putting out a new comedy album).
I found the transit and the waiting boring, but sometimes I'd be photographing somebody I cared about, and it was an adrenaline rush to have only a few seconds to get THE shot. Back then, with no digital cameras, you actually had to have a steady hand, know a little about f-stops and film speeds, and even FOCUS before you snapped the picture.
What bothered me was that my colleagues sometimes switched from "over here" to "this way, Fats!" or "Come on Miss Big Shot." Nothing too rude, but rude enough. They did it in order to get a different expression. If you antagonize a star, and the star looks at you with hatred, or shock...you've got something you can REALLY sell. Everybody else just has the same "smiling" portrait YOU have something the tabloids might buy at a very high price.
One agency lady actually told me to always include shots where a star's eyes are closed, or mouth is open, etc. "The tabloids pay a lot for those!" A wardrobe malfunction could get big bucks at High Society or Hustler. I always pulled any unflattering picture before submitting them.
I detested anything that was actually "paparazzo," and in any way involved aggression. I preferred one-on-one assignments where I accompanied an interviewer and did some shots in the hotel room or nearby street locations, or planned outings were I was on the guest list and I and my colleagues had an agreed on time and place to get what was beneficial for all.
I remember attending a banquet to get a "photo op" with Dustin Hoffman. We photographers were going to be allowed five minutes, as whoever wanted the publicity (the venue, Hoffman, whatever charity or company he was doing something for) didn't care THAT much about us. And why should they? Get in and GET OUT.
Hoffman was seated at a banquet table in the middle of the huge room. Once everyone was seated, and just before the event was about to start, we got the signal. Five or ten of us surged in, with some of the more aggressive ones pushing and shoving to get as close to Hoffman's table as possible. If they needed to sit in somebody's lap to get a better angle, they did.
Hoffman stood up politely, and gave the same smile as he looked left, then center, then right, then back again.
I heard the guests mutter their insults and express their outrage at us "animals," for backing into them in their seats, or bumping them with camera bags. Or just being there, causing a delay.
Some time later, one of my photos got used in a book. It was because I was apparently the only one who bothered taking a photo when Dustin happened to be talking to some guy nobody recognized. It was Steve Ross.
I was annoyed by the intolerance of these rich people begrudging us the chance (and it was only a chance) of making getting paid for our day's work. (The paycheck would also depend on the circulation of the newspaper, the budget of the book company, and the size of the picture on the page.)
But I was more disgusted with my colleagues, for being so aggressive and rude when it wasn't necessary. It's only gotten worse.
I'm glad I got out when I did. Yes, the business is no longer lucrative because EVERYBODY whips out a cellphone and takes celebrity pictures, and these are instantly tossed around the Net regardless of copyright. Yes, I don't really know or care about Teigen, Legend and other people Millennials find fascinating. But most of all, I don't want to be part of a business dominated by idiots and amateurs and driven by unflattering images and invasion of privacy.
Anyone with a camera and an Internet connection knows where the stars are. They know the airport arrivals, the hotels, and all the rest of it. The few outlets that actually pay for photos don't want the posed smiling shots of the star standing in front of a canvas sheet with GOLDEN GLOBE stamped onto it a dozen times. They want that airport shot. That sidewalk picture. The more gruesome the facial expression the better.
The paps are more than ever prone to shout out anything to get a reaction, and since the payment goes to shots where a star's expression is RADICALLY DISTORTED, the best way to get that reaction is to say something obnoxious and outrageous.
Fair? No. "Free speech?" Sure. It's very rare when a celebrity can get a court order to prevent a specific photographer from indulging in "harassment," and being forced to use a telephoto lens at least, and stay 30 or 50 feet away.
How sad that anyone would want a picture of this pleasant looking Christine Teigen (there, I had to correct "Tiger" obsessed spell check again) looking angry, aghast or grieved. Who wants to see an attractive woman looking deathly or distorted? TMZ...Too Many Zombies.
Then you click to see it, regardless of whether you're over 18 or 8.
This is the same fine company that does not find copyright abuse objectionable, and never requires any of their anonymous users to ever provide documentation for obvious piracy via download links, or use of unauthorized photos.
HERE, all problems are anticipated.
HERE are today's headlines, carefully censored.
Jesus.
(I refer to Mylene Farmer's parody video of Michael Jackson being struck down by a crucifix.).
What happened to British BALLS? French lady Mylene had more, and SHE did her Jackson jab while he was still alive.
What happened to the tradition of Private Eye, and Monty Python and Cook and Moore? And even Benny Hill, who blacked up to imitate Shirley Bassey?
OK. Sky Farts had the wind knocked out of them because a little tart named Paris Jackson, whiter than her adopted daddy EVER was, began to bleat on social media.
20 years of Michael Jackson parodies, and a British channel caves because ooooooooh, they couldn't find a BLACK guy who looked the way Michael Jackson did after all those surgeries.
A few days later, and they're smugly strutting around and promoting THIS shit?
Smirk smirk, nudge nudge, SAY NO MORE, PLEASE.
PLEASE. 20 years of Jackson parodies...how about 50 years of Dylan parodies!
You people think this is fresh? Bob hasn't even done anything worth parodying in years. Gonna make fun of his voice? How original! Got some guy proud of himself for wearing shades and a wig?
Some guy smirking because he did a bad Dylan impression. Something is happening and you don't know what it is, DO YOU, Sky Arts?
Picking on Dylan would be a forgettable bit of hackery if this very same bunch of twit-twats hadn't flipped and flopped a few days ago and pulled their little tweak on Michael Jackson.
Look, ladies, if your idea of parody is to make fun of long-dead freaks like Michael Jackson, obese Marlon Brando, and pudgy Liz Taylor, AND to let us know that Dylan is not as hip as YOU are, I've got two words for you.
They are, as Art Garfunkel quaintly referred to them, "The old familiar suggestion."
But don't let me give you any ideas. A Simon and Garfunkel parody? No no, "Not the Nine O'Clock News" did THAT before you idiots were born.
I didn't do it that often, because frankly, TV show tapings are boring and time-consuming. You stand around outside waiting and waiting, and once you're inside you wait some more.
There's usually some idiot doing a "warm-up" and coaching you on how to applaud: "Do it again...come on, I can't hear you..."
There might be technical delays (an "America's Got Talent" stretched to three hours before I literally escaped...they had GUARDS on the doors).
I can't say BEING a guest is that much better. I don't get nervous (I never got to Dave's show but I did turn up opposite Bill O'Reilly) but it's a good amount of stress to figure out what to wear, deal with the make-up room, and then sit and wait to go on. Oh yes, and then to be ignored after the show is over in some kind of odd anti-climax. After all, the staffers do this every day, you do it yourself now and then, and the big deal of being on TV is no big deal at all.
Seeing the Letterman show from the "Green Room" was a little more amusing. It was kind of fun to see how different stars reacted to the upcoming challenge. One actress was prancing and fretting back and forth, asking me (and everyone) if her dress was ok, and if her hair looked good. I also got a thrill when one of the guests shook hands and introduced himself. He was a pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers and I didn't recognize him till he said his name. What a nice, humble guy, but I had to explain that, no, I was NOT a guest, I was just a friend of Brother Theodore, who was in make-up and would be arriving soon.
As to the image below. It references one of the times I was actually in the studio audience.
It was the infamous night (well, afternoon) Farrah Fawcett was allegedly drunk or high.
First off, when you tape around 5pm, you're not likely to be loaded. People get the idea the show is taped late at night, and the guests have been having nightcaps all evening.
What happened, and I was surprised Dave didn't pick up on it, was that Farrah was being distracted by inappropriate campy laughter from a pair of gays seated somewhere near the band. As soon as she sat down, coltish and a little nervous, they began to giggle. Oh that dizzy Farrah, ha ha. Anything she said, and they over-reacted with more guffaws.
Even in the best of times, Farrah, like Goldie Hawn, had that "naturally high" aura about her. Like many who work from a script, Farrah was not always quick with a sharp ad-lib, and if she wasn't focused on questions gone over in advance, she might struggle to express herself.
But here, any natural nerves or confusion was heightened by these two assholes chortling at every word she said. I couldn't quite understand why Dave, just a desk-length away from Farrah, couldn't hear the laughter too, or notice the obvious way Farrah was looking over to her right. She was distracted, not "high," and sudden inappropriate laughter instantly had her looking away from Dave in confusion. A Don Rickles would've shot an insult, while a Meryl Streep might've been poised enough to concentrate and ignore the problem. Farrah was something else.
Dave instinctively went into comic-attack mode, and his wisecracks and clowning produced waves of laughter from the audience. It only made Farrah even more flustered and desperate. Her attempts to change topics or say something brilliant didn't exactly work. The inappropriate snickers from the campy gays were by now drowned out by the reaction now greeting everything she and Dave said.
I felt badly for her, and wrote her a sympathetic letter, which I said she was welcome to share with anyone, including some doubtful booker of a subsequent talk show. I also sent her some rare pix of herself from my files. She returned this one, with a reference to being glad SOMEONE knew the truth of what happened that night.
January 13, 2017. Just a few days ago.
To my surprise, Yuri Foreman got a title shot against Erislandy Lara. Nobody gave him much of a chance. He'd been inactive for a few years and at 36 was well past his prime.
As is always the case with Yuri, the announcers couldn't help but play the Jew-card, and tell the world that this isn't just a white fighter, but "the first Orthodox Jew to hold a title in 70 years."
[That was the WBA title, which he won in 2009 against David Santos by unanimous decision, and lost in his very next fight, against Miguel Cotto, by TKO.]
The announcers added that despite being Orthodox, and in fact, a rabbi, Yuri Foreman was willing to fight on the Sabbath. As I understand it, Friday evening (and Saturday morning) is a time to be in the synagogue for services, and if you're Orthodox, you aren't tearing paper, running a crockpot, or even taking an elevator, much less fighting. Especially when it's your occupation, and you're not defending yourself for being in a changing neighborhood.
Hmmm. Jack Benny didn't broadcast on Yom Kippur. Sandy Koufax refused to play baseball on certain holy days. How does an Orthodox Jewish rabbi make an exception in such a case?
The Jewish Bea Arthur, aka "Maude," had a catchphrase: "God'll get you for that!"
To be fair, while a somewhat lucky fighter to have won, even briefly, any kind of title, Yuri was not considered that great. No expert thought Foreman had a chance against the Cuban fighter, and Landy himself predicted a 6th round KO. Down in Florida, where Cubans are much more numerous than retired Jews, the Cuban flags waved brightly. A few had flags with the Star of David. Yuri was doing fine for three rounds. In the fourth, the light-hitting fighter was winning the round on aggression alone, but in the midst of a flurry, walked right into an uppercut. He was floored. He struggled and desperately tried to "clear the cobwebs" but was counted out.
What I took away from the fight was not that older fighters rarely win a comeback, but something newer "rules change." Even rules on traditional laws. Even sacred ones.
A few days later, in curious Internet-surfing mode, I wondered what the very late Bud Collyer's two religious-poetry books were like. Any online reviews from the distant past, or by a current blogger? Would one or the other be worth buying? Almost as soon as I discovered one of the books was less than $2 (plus $4 shipping) from the usual suspects, I discovered it could be read FREEEEEEE.
"The Open Library" had digitized one of the two books, now over 50 years old. WHO in their right mind would digitize it? Oh, the same ones that digitize old Thomas Hood poetry books and stick them on Archive.org. But Collyer's book isn't really "public domain" yet. His estate or his publisher both have rights to it.
I joined "The Open Library" (no fee, just another website having my email account and password) and began reading Collyer's peculiarly long poems. The 96 page book had only 5, each stretched out over page after page.
Technically, you can read the book online but NOT download it. But, technically, most any tech wizard could probably download it. I simply took a screen capture. And in this Internet age, "fair use" would also mean I could've assembled the entire thing for you, or even put it in a zip file.
"What can they do? Sue you! Ha! "The Open Library" doesn't really OWN any rights, do they? Collyer's been dead nearly 50 years, and his publisher couldn't make money on this thing even if it was floated to Kindle for free, with money coming per download." Nice rationalizations, one and all.
What a lovely thing, how Google often gives you most pages of a book to read FREE, and Amazon often does, too. How nice forums and torrents do it. Bloggers do it. Educated fleas do it.
If you can't get to a library, or your local library is small (or going out of business) how lovely to have an open INTERNET LIBRARY giving you access without leaving your home. Lovely...lovely...
I typed in MY name, and was surprised to see many of my 19 books available for perusal on the site.
Er, uh, why is THAT? None of my books are remotely "public domain."
I understand that a LIBRARY can buy a book of mine, and "share" it with hundreds of strangers. The deal is, they bought the book. Libraries guarantee an author and publisher a certain amount of "break even" sales. The rationale is that "those people who took the book out of the library would NEVER have bought it. But they may buy the next one!"
All right. But WHO gave "The Open Library" permission to COPY my book? To DIGITIZE my book?
In my book contracts, the publisher controls ALL rights for me, from translations to audio versions to any possible electronic version using media not even invented yet.
NOBODY gave "The Open Library" permission to digitize, and in the case below, the listed publisher isn't even mine.
My first novel is technically MY property. I own reprint rights. I could float it up to Kindle or find some company to spread it to all the usual suspects in both EPUB and MOBI versions, for whatever download price and "print on demand" I'd like.
But, like Rebbe Foreman interpreting Orthodox Jewish laws to indicate he could fight on the Sabbath, The Great God Google has a master plan. It's a noble one. EVERY book, EVERY magazine, EVERY newspaper should be available to EVERYONE for FREE. They've FOUGHT for this, and intimidated politicians for it. They, along with Amazon and eBay and other giants who now dwarf NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC or the film studios, do as they please. These Big Brothers know best. And what could be better or nobler than making sure everyone on the Internet has access to everything? With Google, Amazon and eBay (and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Lolcats and on and on) making the money?
Sounds a bit like Communism, doesn't it?
Google's Sergey Brin is another Putin? It's made him one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Brin needs to use MY content to add to his wealth? His precedent is being used by well-meaning sites like "The Open Library" (which, for all I know, is owned by Google?)
I'm supposed to change my way of thinking, look on the bright side, and think, "More people will have heard of me, if my old books are FREEEEEE on the Internet, where some so-called "non profit" company or some VERY profit company is making money off ads, links, or donation money.
SOMEBODY thought it was worth their time to buy my book (even for a buck in a thrift shop), carefully separate the pages from the binding and SCAN them all. Who would do that without being paid? Somebody was paid via a grant, donation money, or because somebody's running a lucrative business and can afford to hire some drones.
What happened to owning your own copyright and having it respected?
It got knocked to its knees in the 21st Century, like Yuri Foreman in the 4th round.
You have no wits or intellect or creativity, have you? Nope. You just BUY the names of any recognizable company, and hope moronic people remember the "name brand" too.
Does it matter if the name is no longer associated with a quality product? Of course not. L.B Evans makes garbage footwear now. How many people realize it till after they buy a shoddy pair? How about "Gold Toe" socks, which YOUR creepy company now owns? How about all the other names, from Polaroid to Kodak, that may or may NOT be run by the original owners, maintain any kind of quality, or even can say they are still made in America?
"American Apparel" was run by a gleeful antisemite who thought it was hilarious to STEAL a photo of Woody Allen in Hasidic garb, pretend it was "fair use" and plaster it on billboards to get attention.
Like this:
Ha ha ha, and take a LOL out of petty cash.
Look at the FUNNY JEW!
Just what the point of the ad was, I don't think anyone but Hitler could explain. Something about inferior, ugly, spindly Orthodox Jews needing American Apparel, maybe. Or not being cool enough to buy them? Or being too cheap?
The "Fashion World" is full of arrogant creeps who are so self-entitled that they think copyright law, or ANY law applies to them. You usually hear about these people after they rape and murder some woman in the "meat packing district" after a party during Fashion Week.
The "Fashion World" is notorious for cruelty and stupidity in the name of hipness. Ask Anna "Killer" Wintour, who still encourages anorexic women to diet down to fit into sexless boy-like garments.
The bitch also thinks it's ok to kill animals for coats. She'll even sit next to a Kardashian if the smell of money wafts up her nostrils.
As for the power of God-awful billboard advertising, ask homoerotic Calvin Klein. This cynical basket-case made a habit out of huge billboards showing the bulging crotches of male models in overpriced underwear.
One part of the American Apparel downfall, was that Woody Allen chose NOT to shrug and overlook the insult of using his image in such an unsavory and obnoxious way. He sued. He won.
The owner of American Apparel was surly in defeat:
"I'm not sorry for expressing myself," said DOV. Really, is that what you call it? You express yourself by taking somebody else's creativity? How else do you express yourself? Taking a dump?
Losing five million was not THAT much of a problem for a company in the "Fashion World." Dov figured to make that back in a few months. Just steal more of somebody else's ideas. Get a celebrity like Brooke Shields or Marky Mark or some other empty-skull to stand around in some of your threads and strike a pose.
Sadly, this inept wreck, like so many coked-up arrogant fops, creepy intellectual property brain-pickers, and Garments mementos, spiraled downward further and further into the lower reaches of hack-hell.
He took hundreds of people with him, as he over-expanded like a goose being fed grain for French poseurs.
Ultimately from a con-like crud named Charney, the company goes to a cheesy chump named Chamandy.
A Canadian is now in charge of American Apparel. Not that he didn't have to fight to get this prestigious name. And Lord knows, a bacon-brain like Glenn Chamandy couldn't think of something else and save some money, eh? EH? "American Apparel!" Wow, sounds SO familiar. Like "Toilet Paper" and "Venereal Disease."
Glenn had to out-bid Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who seemed to want to get his parasitic clutches on the valuable name, too. So did the maggots of "Forever 21," who may or may not be affiliated with "Century 21" or "I.Q. 21" or other forgettable (but to the Fashion Industry, VALUABLE) names.
Jesus, when people routinely come up with idiot names and run with 'em (HULU anyone?) who in their right mind pays for something as un-hip and downright BANAL as "American Apparel?" Or is this Canuck planning on selling to gullible Filipinos? Where in the world is AMERICAN clothing still considered hip? Surely not in Mexico or China where most of it is actually made.
As of May 2017, the famous Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus will be history.
P.T. Barnum's quote, "there's a sucker born every minute," will remain.
An American tradition for nearly 150 years, the circus couldn't survive in the short-attention span world of the Internet, chasing Pokeman crap through the street, staying at home and downloading pirated movies, or Googling porn.
THE BEAUTY PARLOR'S FULL OF SAILORS.
How quaint, the notion of seeing a beautiful lady in tights on a trapeze. Now, it's a transgender woman having an orgy; a free download via the torrents. Make that a "chick with a dick." Make that Gay Bukkake. Whatever. Just make sure it's here, it's queer, it's freaky, and it's lesbian/gay/transgender cool.
"Family values," and a circus? Not in 2017. Better to go to Rotten dot com or Google Donald Trump's sons and see pictures of them holding up a dead elephant's tale or grinning as they stand over a tiger's carcass. See some pictures of a dentist who proudly shot a lion via a very controlled and easy kill.
There are people on Facebook who will happily post the most gruesome animal abuse photos, and laugh and laugh and laugh. How about that vet who proudly showed a picture of the cat she killed, with an arrow through it's head? Once upon a time Steve Martin made the world laugh with a fake arrow in his head. Now it's a real arrow in a cat's head.
Look, times change, and "theres nothing wrong with that." The beauty parlor full of sailors, I mean. Or the Internet so loaded up with violence and circus-like freakishness that the London Daily Mail can routinely run horrific photos of maimed victims of religious fanatics, and nobody cringes.
Hey, the movies are so full of violence, people just laugh. Gorefest horror movies are now rated for the inventive ways women get raped and killed. And we've got MMA now, and even in football, a shrug over the regular concussions. Hell, remember that cool moment in basketball when a player landed "funny" and part of a bone stuck out of his leg? Let's see THAT on YouTube over and over. You expect people to be content watching somebody walk a high wire?
The rest of Dylan's line from "Desolation Row" IS obsolete. The circus used to be in town. Now, officially, NO:
The Feld family (owners of the circus) will tell you that the BIG problem with the circus was the elephants. Animal rights groups protested, and rightly so. But most people going to the circus wanted to see elephants, and a touring circus was the place. Not everyone could visit a zoo, but when the circus came to town...
The expense of BRINGING a circus to town? Obviously, that's difficult, and when families can get downloads FREEEEE, or spend their time looking at FREEEEE stuff on YouTube, or they pay a nominal sum to Netflix, who has the money for the circus? You've got to pay the ticket prices, pay to get there, and pay for refreshments. You also have the pain in the ass problem of being seated with OTHER families, who are most likely more monkey-like than the animals on display.
While Cirque du Soleil has marketed itself to Yuppies and to affluent families seeking "artistic" acrobatic work, the circus clung to the tradition of the trapeze act and the high wire. Boooorrrring.
Oh. One of the most disgusting words in the English language: CLOWNS.
Everybody hates clowns. They are assholes. They aren't funny.
I know a clown. He's retired on a pension. He'll donate his time to annoy kids in schools. He'll go into the park and "practice" on people with his stale jokes and his stupid props. He is an asshole. He is not funny. He spends his vacations in the Philippines paying for whores.
In a way, it's sad that "the circus" has become antiquated. It one time, it may indeed have been "The Greatest Show On Earth." But that was years and years ago, before the Internet.
There was a time when families were reasonably well behaved. People had attention spans and weren't bored by amazing, garish and unusual sights taking place in three different rings. Today's multi-tackers would tell you three different rings is definitely not enough, especially if one has a lion act, another a trapeze, and another a high wire act; you can get your computer or video screen to show you many more cable channels than that, with a running crawl for the stock market quotes.
I remember when I went to the circus, a LIFETIME ago. Aside from the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, and the lions and trapeze artists and the rest of it, you could also wander around and see specialty acts positioned next to the souvenir concessions. The "freak" acts were not too freaky. I remember a giant, wearing a cowboy outfit. He may have been billed as "The World's Tallest Man." Something like that. He seemed especially huge to an 8 year-old or however old I was. He sat in a chair and seemed like a parade float more than a human. He had very pink skin and big eyes, that may have been deliberately unfocused to blur all the grinning faces of the brats. He sat hands resting on the arms of his huge chair, each finger like a plump frankfurter.
Well, quite a few towns have a Ripley's Believe it Or Not, and a Madame Tussaud's and other tourist traps. These take place in compact buildings and can get freakier and freakier as the public gets freakier and freakier. You'll find a a replica of a two-headed goat. You can play laser tag or wander through some frightful and gory display.
Wanna see elephants? There's a zoo in most major cities, partially or completely funded by the city itself, by donations, and by the now standard huge admission fee. Families gather around to throw peanuts at the elephants, yell, scream, make the animals nervous, and yell and scream some more. If you're lucky, you might see some unsupervised brat wander into the gorilla enclosure and then see the gorilla get shot. Or, some nut job screaming about Allah will try and feed himself to a tiger.
Take heart. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey will be gone, but there will STILL be a circus.
No question Bezos, now wanting to be known as the owner of the Washington Post and one of the world's Top 10 BILLIONAIRES, is poised to try for even more power. Maybe the Presidency in 4 years?
Meanwhile, he nickels and dimes dead authors on Amazon.
His book-killing KINDLE has driven bookstores and libraries into the dirt and turned authors into hapless pawns. Many have no alternatives anymore besides selling downloads rather than REAL BOOKS. Even then, forced to use Amazon's own company to hoist the stuff to the site, an author can't even get a sale.
I once asked Dick Gautier if he was related to the writer/poet ("The Mummy's Foot") Theophile Gautier. No, he told me. He added "I wish I was." Me too. Then, like Theophile, I could BUY a copy of one of his books: "No Laughing Matter."
What an appropriate title.
It's no laughing matter that Dick's novel, and thousands of other novels by thousands of other writers, CAN'T BE BOUGHT on Amazon. Not individually. You have make a "deal" with the devil, Mr. Bezos.
Dick died the other day, in assisted living.
Was he even aware that the novel he toiled away to write, would NOT EVEN BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR INDIVIDUAL SALE TO HIS FANS AND FRIENDS?
True. Take a look:
Dick used "Amazon Digital Services" a division of AMAZON, to get his book on AMAZON, and THEY WON'T SELL IT.
You can't pay $3.99 for a download, like you can with Orson Bean's "Safe at Home." Why? Dick made his deal with the devils themselves, and it's a bad one. Orson used an independent company that doesn't make you pay triple the price EVERY MONTH for a "service" you might not even use.
The only way you can read Dick's book is to "subscribe" to Amazon at $12.50 a month.
Cute, huh?
You can imagine if Bezos ran your local newsstand. You ask for a newspaper and he says, "Nope, nope, gimme $12.50 and you can "subscribe" to my newsstand, and then I'll sell you newspapers. Join my club first!"
This is the same Bezos who refused to even allow sales of books from certain publishers he didn't like. This is the same guy who bellowed about price-fixing and is now price-fixing.
Unfortunately, Dick Gautier did what a lot of foolish authors do. He simply let Amazon do whatever they liked, under the vague notion that his book would therefore "be available on the biggest book website in the world." Yes, Ugarte, for a price. An overpriced $12.50 a month rather than a one-time $3.99.
Orson Bean's book is published by Balboa. While there's a $3.99 Kindle edition, you can avoid putting more money in Bezos' pocket, by going over to the Barnes & Noble site, and paying for it THERE. I did that last night. I was hoping to buy Dick's book today, but it looks like Amazon is being Fascistic about it, and I can ONLY read it if I pay 'em $12.50 a month forever, not $3.99 now.
Sorry to hear Dick Gautier has died.
Sorry to know that he, like so many other authors, is the victim of a ruthless businessman who is now, in Dick's case, a grave robber.
Other countries, with a more violent history, have changed the world. But is that a good thing?
Switzerland stood by, holding the coats of every fighting country, saying, "Don't worry, your money is safe with US. Especially you Nazis."
Swiss logic, like its cheese, is full of holes.
Still, why become part of civilization, with all its violence and mixed races? Isn't it better for the intellectuals in the country to put their shifty eyes on their bank vaults, and let the Saudis and Isis and whoever else hide their ill-gotten gains? (Why are the Jews considered the evil money-freaks of the world when the Swiss have made banking a national pastime?)
Isn't it better for the dumbasses of the country to live on farms and raise pigs and cows, or blow into a long penile tube and holler "Ricola!?!?"
Hiding stolen money in bank vaults, exporting pig meat and hamburger and cough drops, and having holy cheese...that's Switzerland.
We very rarely hear anything else about Switzerland. Oh. They had one attractive woman, Martina Hingis, who has retired from singles competition. She was always referred to be sports reporters as "The Swiss Miss," not because she was so proudly Swiss, but because sports reporters love a cliche.
Now, here's the story of a Miss who is NOT SWISS, because the country can DENY CITIZENSHIP if they don't like you.
Yes, Switzerland will refuse to let you be a citizen if your opinions don't match theirs.
You must THINK LIKE THE MAJORITY in Switzerland, ya?
A vegan who speaks out on animal rights has gotten the silent treatment from the meaty masses.
I quote from that freedom-loving website, The N.Y. Post:
Bucolic Switzerland does love its pointless noise. Surely, the lady is wrong, and cows LOVE hearing a monotonous clang every time they move. After all, Adele gives off a monotonous clang every time SHE moves.
Vegans offer the annoying truth that the planet would be doing a lot better if there was less cow farts in the air, and if the water supply was not being wasted on producing hamburger. Go check the statistics on how much it takes to maintain a field of cows vs a field of wheat.
"Freedom of Speech" is not something the so-called "neutral" country of Switzerland believes in. This is something of a surprise, almost as much as the shock that a progressive country like Sweden harbors craven music thieves known as the Pirate Bay.
I am now officially boycotting Swiss cheese.
I will not buy Ricola.
I will not buy Swiss chocolate.
I am, however, flexible and reasonable. I will continue to root for Martina Hingis when she plays doubles matches. I will discourage her countrymen from attending these matches and clanging cowbells.
Let's hear it: "AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW."
Students protested against two of our country's most repellant and unrepentant monsters, and didn't want to hear them speak.
Imagine that, and Trump's election only a week away. Gosh, Hexter seemed to be thinking, isn't the election of Trump an open affirmation that snide right-wing bastards are popular? That evil businessmen and greed heads should be honored?
Lord Jesus the Great, STUDENTS on a COLLEGE CAMPUS actually PROTESTED!
What will they think of next? Hexter put a hex on them for being SO insensitive to a racist and a heartless media whore:
Yes, one jerk just got a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS from Slimin' & Shyster to be Mr. Provocateur and write about his odious life and creepy opinions. The other, oh, he merely raised the price on desperately needed meds (the, at a time when Trump wants to destroy Obamacare and give the poor even less options for health care). After becoming famous for gouging price on medicine, his Shkreli jerk (his name should become a verb for gouging) proudly pulled publicity stunts to accentuate his evil reputation. Ha ha ha, I'm rich, but let me put out a publicity release about how I'll give away money to charity by letting somebody take a poke at me. (Did it ever happen? NO.) Both were banned from Twitter for their warped notion that freedom of speech means harassing people.
The campus "Republican Club," is, what exactly? An independent group that raises money via Pater and Mater, or is it funded by the school?
Did the college, in some way, PAY, by funding the "Republican Club," for these two loudmouth low-life jerks to appear?
These aren't actual Republican elected officials. They are to the government what Dr. Phil is to psychiatry and Judge Judy is to justice. CARTOONS. Ugly, ugly CARTOONS.
And so it was, that the students heckled the fools who wanted to bring these two opinionated pop-culture swine to the campus. No violence. Just words of protest. You know, the same way that Paris Jackson used mere words to get a British TV company to cringe and hide and lose money by shelving a comedy episode that happened to make fun of her insane father along with pudgy Liz Taylor and obese Marlon Brando.
"Freedom of Speech" is being denied to both of these assholes by Twitter. Maybe Hexter should send them an indignant letter.
Italians should only be played by Italians. Blacks should only be played by blacks and the correct color of brown should be observed. And if there's a biography of Roger Waters, the actor should have some affiliation with the Nazi party.
Then I heard that the white actor in question was NOT playing Malcolm X or Jackie Robinson, but Michael Jackson...I thought...and what IS the problem? The latter day Michael Jackson was, let's be honest, was WHITE.
Michael insisted he didn't bleach himself, but suffered a convenient disease that somehow rendered his entire body a brighter shade of pale. It also gave him a dimple on his chin and a pointy nose and long straight hair.
Years before his demise, he endured all the jokes about being "Wacko Jacko," and looking like a white woman. It would not have surprised him at all, if he was portrayed by a Caucasian. Who knows he might've been flattered by it, if the Caucasian was John Travolta.
Still, I could understand the problem, in this oh-so-PC world. A black should always be played by a black.
Here, a white actor was playing a black guy who had turned white.
What an OUTRAGE.
What an INSULT.
It was even a kerfuffle.
Naturally, I have so much Kardashian and Jenner news to digest (via the Ulcerative London Daily Mail among others), I lost track of this important story. Till today.
After the Princess of the World (Michael Jackson's ADOPTED daughter Paris) proclaimed she was NOT amused, the British TV network, government, and pound sterling all collapsed. Good LORD. If PARIS has objected, we surely know that BLANKET will say something negative, too, and we couldn't stand THAT.
Up until I saw the clip, I thought Paris Jackson was angry that her adopted Daddy was being portrayed by a homely white guy in an actual, sincere BIO pic.
Then I saw a promo from the show, which I'd never heard of. It turns out to be a comedy series.
Jackson was NOT being portrayed seriously by Ralph Fiennes.
He was being played FOR LAUGHS by some guy named Joseph Fiennes.
So WHAT exactly is the problem with just another jab at Wacko Jacko for looking like ridiculous white androgyne?
Would Paris Jackson have been happier with a serious drama of Michael Jackson the Pedophile, as long as the star was Denzel Washington?
I now say, to Paris Jackson, Paris Hilton, Blanket Jackson (who needs to change the name to Black-it Jackson)...I fully understand why you are in agony. It's because you have no brains or any sense of humor.
Fer Chrissake, IT WAS A COMEDY. That's all it was. Cartoons, parodies and celebrity tweets always make a celebrity look silly, and come on, Jackson was one SILLY looking creature by the time he was in court on pedophilia charges.
In the clip I saw, some very unpleasant actors aside from Fiennes, did their insulting impersonations of Brando, Dylan and Liz Taylor, among others.
Was the guy who played Brando an ITALIAN? Was the Dylan guy a JEW? Was the Taylor woman actually a woman or some guy in drag?
What next? Thames goes back and re-cuts "The Benny Hill Show" to take out the segments where he impersonated Shirley Bassey?
It's NEVER a good idea to censor COMEDY.
What's the charge here, anyway? COMEDY is supposed to be OFFENSIVE.
There have been jokes about Jackson looking white, and MANY have come from black comedians.
Let's remember that even the mildest comedy is offensive. Is there anything really adorable about hitting somebody with a pie?
How about "take my wife...please."
Sitcom jokes are 90% insult. Characters say rude things about each other and everybody laughs. At least, the canned laughter suggests you're supposed to.
All the sulkers who are picking on THIS silly British comedy show as an example of bigotry, need to LIGHTEN UP. (Get it?)
You people have brain cells? Something called MEMORY?
Then maybe you remember when that horrible racist Jay Leno was telling pedo jokes about your beloved Jacko.
Want more? Hey, PARIS JERKSON, you want MORE jokes about Daddy? Just google "Michael Jackson Jokes" and you'll find dozens of websites full of them. Stuff like...
Where do we draw the line? Jokes about his molestation trial are ok, but not about his turning white?
Revisionist thinking loonies are pointing out Jacko's tearful tale of how he had a rare disease that caused his skin to change color. So he did what, had a plastic surgeon bleach the rest of it to match? Nobody noticed any rare white marks on this guy when he was strutting through "Thriller" or grabbing his crotch on stage every night.
Jackson conveniently insisted his whiteness was not his doing. He also insisted he had no plastic surgery, right? He claimed he MAY have had a little procedure for a deviated septum or something, but the nose being pointy? The chin being sculpted? The hair turning straight?
Well, let's get back to this stale, silly TV show poking fun at long dead stars, including Brando and Liz Taylor.
All this white guy was doing, was playing Michael Jackson as he looked before he leaped into his grave: WHITE. And RIDICULOUS.
"Politically correct" should not determine what's funny. We saw that on SNL, when Fred Armisen, a guy of some kind of mixed race, was no longer allowed to impersonate Obama, who is HALF WHITE. The role went to Jay Pharaoh, who is ALL BLACK.
Never mind that Obama is HALF WHITE. Or that Armisen's complexion was actually closer to Obama's than Jay's.
The Royal Ms. Jackson crowed about her triumph. After all, it was HER anger that finally had the British TV execs cringing and crawling and dropping the show.
Y'all got that?
Did ya, y'all?
Did y'all read the line where Paris Jackson, uses the black vernacular, "y'all?"
She was standing up for her BLACK FATHER, y'all.
Paris Jackson, y'all, writes like a BLACK WOMAN. And does she look like her BLACK FATHER?
So-called singers are all over Instacrap and Twitter-Twatter and, of course, Farcebook, "networking" to have Mommy and Daddy support their vanity project. No, no, not their actual parents, who know better. Mommy and Daddy INTERNET.
Call me old-fashioned (or better yet, order me an Old Fashioned, and make it a double). It used to be: "Put YOUR money where YOUR mouth is."
If you thought your songs were good, or your book worth reading, you offered samples "on spec." Or the whole thing. You rightly figured IF YOU HAD TALENT, you'd be recognized. And if you didn't, you'd get better or shove off.
My late friend Brother Theodore spent all his life savings to book a hall and perform his one man show. Nobody showed up. Nobody reviewed it. He discovered it would take years and years to amass little credits, get bigger ones, and make a living at his craft.
Even now, a classical musician will often pay to rent a hall, pay a publicist to "paper it" with free customers, and hope for a positive review that leads up the ladder a bit. The odds aren't great (listen to "Mr. Tanner," as sung by Harry Chapin) but it beats "networking" on the Internet and relying on the kindness of strangers. Especially when all that happens is the "artist" has a vanity project that sits in the closet, and a few dozen idiots can brag, "Hey I know the completely unknown idiot who made THIS, and look look, I got a credit as a CONTRIBUTING PRODUCER!"
What a ridiculous time-wasting dreamworld the Internet is.
And what an insult it is to established artists who are forced, in this miserable economy, to try and push past the pretenders to get a LEGIT product funded. I'm thinking of Jill Sobule, among the many formerly on a "major label" who didn't ask Mommy and Daddy for money, but asked her legitimate paying customers to simply pay in advance to make things a bit easier.
Now it's anonymous, self-entitled prigs and piglets mincing around with: "hey, guyyyssssss, you want to see ME be a success, don't you? FUND ME, or...or I won't do it at all." Because you don't have that much faith in it? Because you just want to have a CD you can show off while hundreds remain in boxes in your closet? You want to tell the world you're a writer and NOT include the name of a publisher anybody's heard of?
Mommy and Daddy Internet, aka Kickstarter and GoFundMe, are empty venues where, thankfully and inevitably, half-baked projects go to rot. Some that succeed because of constant nagging (er, networking)? Have you EVER heard of a real success as the result? That book? That CD? That film? Did it EVER get reviewed by anyone legitimate, or sell to any significant number besides the jerks who donated?
The image above is one of thousands I could've chosen. I don't want to name and thereby shame the "arrogant toffee-nosed bint" (some astute blogger's opinion on her) by posting more about her, but I'll say this: NOBODY on the planet has bought her FIRST "crowdfunded" album. That doesn't bother her in the slightest. "WISH ME LUCK!"
And what happens when this amateurish awful project fails? You'll clog up YouTube's bandwidth with your awful performances? You'll tell people to download your junk at Bandcamp? You'll start your own PODCAST?
When you think of how many people have won Simon Cowell's "Got Talent" shows, and all those singing contests, the number who EVER made it to a second CD, are pitifully few. You can count on one hand the number of these people who ever made a career out of their luck. Where is Susan Boyle these days? Anyone proud of Jackie Evancho for growing up to sing at Trump's inaugural? Anyone following the musical career of Ruben Stoddard anymore?
Most of the ones that are still performing in Vegas, after an "America's Got Talent" win (such as ventriloquists Paul Zerdin and Terry Fator) were already seasoned performers with dozens of years of experience before they pretended to be needy amateurs asking "for your vote."
Now, everyone's asking for your SUPPORT on Kickstarter and GoFundMe. Well, you might as well be on ASSkicker and GOFUCKYOURSELF, as far as I'm concerned. IF you've got talent, work hard like everyone else has done over the years. Don't cry and beg and be a brat on the Internet, Understand what Steve Martin once said: "Be so good that you cannot be ignored."
