Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell - The Plagiarists of Art?

I thought it was pretty funny when Joni Mitchell went on a rant about Bob Dylan the plagiarist.

For some reason, she thought it was terrible for Robert Zimmerman to become Bob Dylan, but not Roberta Anderson to become Joni Mitchell, etc.

Why do I bring this up now? We all know that Bob has often ("in the folk tradition") adapted old folk songs into new ones ("Blowin' in the Wind" is an oft-cited example), that he borrowed Dave Van Ronk's version of "House of the Rising Sun," and has often peppered his lyrics with movie quotes (which some think are original) and even lines from some guy's novel.

I bring it up NOW, because in tossing stacks of National Geographics and tons of accumulated paper, I finally found the photo that "inspired" Joni Mitchell's cover for "Hissing of Summer Lawns." You remember that cover? Most figured in composition, it was a brilliant bit of Mitchell minimalism.

A bunch of natives carrying a big snake...and generic civilization in the background....

Did Joni just invent that snake and those natives out of her head, as you figure artists do? Or did she go down to South America and ask a bunch of natives to pose for her carrying a snake, so she could render her lifelike image?

Actually, she took it from a photo she saw in National Geographic.

The photo appeared in National Geographic in February 1975. The album was released in November 1975.

Plagiarism?

Well, HELL YES, if you follow the same screamers who grumbled about Bob Dylan's art exhibit a few years ago. Bob displayed his paintings at a NYC gallery (one that had guards in every room telling people to put their cellphone cameras away). The price Bob wanted for the paintings was astronomical, and lithographs were so high priced they probably were only framed and hung in the offices of hip dentists and hedge fund weasels.

Look what that awful Bob Dylan did! He worked from PHOTOGRAPHS. (Same as JONI MITCHELL). For example:

Bob would tell you that what he did was to create a different style and feel. He could've globbed the paint more like Van Gogh, or gone for pointellism ala Seurat, but he made it, well, Dylanesque. Hey, it's not like he put the photo into Photoshop.

Likewise, Joni would argue that she created a whole new artwork by sticking her snake-carriers into the foreground of the big city. And just imagine...snakes accounting for the "hissing of summer lawns," when you thought it might just be water sprinklers!

Bottom line, to the former Robert (Zimmerman) and Roberta (Anderson) ...you're both mighty original in your own ways, and we don't need to shout "PLAGIARISM!!" when, once in a while, you borrow here and there to fulfill your vision.

Mack Beggs begs the question - can HE be allowed to beat a SHE? Semantics 101

Let's ignore the obvious issues of whether somebody on steroids, or testosterone, or on DRUGS in general, should be allowed to play sports.

Let's discuss the journalistic aspect of the MACK BEGGS story. What do you notice about the write-up?

You see that MACK BEGGS (male name) who looks very much like a MAN, is referred to as HE.

"HE beat Chelsea Sanchez - who HE beat for the title in 2017."

So tell me, Associated Press, if you are referring to MACK BEGGS as HE, what the hell is HE doing wrestling a SHE?

It would make sense for MACK to be wrestling males who LOOK LIKE HIM. What's the argument, when MACK is called HE? MACK's penis or lack of same, should not be an issue, should it? This isn't arm wrestling. It certainly isn't penis wrestling. It's about HIS muscular arms and legs.

What if a male wrestler had an unfortunate accident involving an egg beater, or very hot soup or something? Would HE announce he was now only going to wrestle GIRLS?

It's a bit strange how we choose when and how to be liberal. Remember Rachel Dolezal? She "identified as black." Now she identifies as unemployed. And yet, if she "identifies as male," she can walk into a men's room most anywhere.

So MACK BEGGS identifies as a girl when HE wants to win a trophy.

Congrats, MACK. Most bullies are male. Beating up a girl; now you qualify.

The Kinks - Everybody's in Porno...

The Kinks, some remember, was a rock group. Not what you Google.

Oh, yes, thank you Great God Google, who allows every copyright law to be broken on its blogs, who resists intellectual property complaints on YouTube and lets 10 year-olds view gangbangs. What stands in the way?

Right, right, if any of the billionaires over at Google have ANY morality, they figure THIS takes care of it. "Hey, they ticked a box. How do WE know if they're under 18 or not? We're JUST A VENUE, Nyaa Nyaaa. Oh, and if you want to complain about contact, jump through dozens of hoops on our "find hoops to jump through to report anything" page. PS, nobody knows anybody's names who works at Google. Sort of like it is at Scientology or the Kremlin."

But why pick on Google when there's also Twitter? Another cute name. In the old days, if some bean-brained "reality star" leaked a porn video, you might actually have to do a Google search and click around for a while to find a DOWNLOAD or a STREAM (pornographic terms, both).

When the Blac Chyna porn video leaked, there it was, on TWITTER.

For those who don't know, "Blac Chyna" is not shoddy dishwear from Asia you get at the 99 cent shop. It's the name of a shoddy, gruesome "reality star," who shot to fame by having sex with Rob Kardashian. Yes, the dickhead member of the Kardashian cart trashians. She's since become adored for all the reasons mindless Millennials adore idiots like this...trowel makeup fashions, grotesque rear end, tasteless jewelry, and the complete lack of talent that has people fantasizing, "gee, I could be JUST like HER...let me follow her every move to see what I can learn to become somebody the London Daily Mail and NY Post can't stop writing about."

TWITTER inspired this rant for another, far more sad and sinister reason. The COMMENTS about the Blac Chyna video. In the old days (oh, when Paris Hilton raised her beak), people expressed shock. How could hardcore porn be on the Internet? Why isn't invasion of privacy against the law? Now? Everybody's in porno, everybody uses their camcorders to make their own, and...a jaded audience just LAUGHS over her POOR TECHNIQUE. Believe it or...read:

Yes, three batches of comments, taken at random, and we have a nation of DeSades, Sacher-Masochs, Sodoms and Gomorrahs all bragging about their own cocksucking skills, the much better porn they've watched, and how easy it is to instantly see somebody's hacked or leaked videos. Who leaked it and why aren't even questions anymore. IT'S ALL GOOD. AND FREE.

The reason that mainstream men's magazines collapsed is the Internet. Anyone can GOOGLE pictures of bare naked ladies (and hopefully not get a bad rock group instead). Not that long ago, designated "red light" districts in major cities, and peculiar mail order companies written up in SCREW, were the places for getting freakish photos or hardcore movies. Now? Any topic, even the most improbable, is a few itchy finger-taps away thanks to various x-rated versions of YouTube and enterprises such as clips4sale:

"EVERYBODY'S IN PORNO." Because...websites like this offer anyone the chance to make money being perverted. Just say you're 18 and you can look at anything. Any enterprising 12 year-old can buy, but hey, much of what is on this site, and all the porn sites, is available FREEEEEE via the torrents. The torrents (which offer every new movie, music album, TV show or app) don't mind if anyone of any age downloads plenty o' porn. It all puts them pennies into their Putin bank accounts.

Don't think Russia just rigged an election. They rig erections. Torrents and blogs in the Communist world are happily fucking over American businesses, including American pornographers, and a vast army of happy perverts say to the lawmakers "don't spoil our fun!" Don't worry, Senator Leahy and Senator Schumer and the others, are quite impotent in putting through ANY laws about the Internet, because Internet giants (Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, WikiLeaks) rule the world now. Soon most TV networks and movie studios and newspapers will be swallowed up as divisions of Internet giants. Isn't that true, Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post?

You might remember that old song "Kicks" (not by The Kinks, but around the same 60's era). Them KICKS just keep gettin' harder to find. Indeed, many viewers can't get no satisfaction from simple porn. Topics that actually did NOT exist in porn shops years ago, are now routine viewing. Let's say "double anal" and "bukkake" and stop. It's a tragedy that school kids are being shot before they have had a chance to graduate high school...but they HAVE had a chance to fill their cell phones up with "double anal" and "bukkake" and shrug about it, the way the NRA shrugs about silly things like keeping assault weapons away from anyone.

There was a time when porn's allure was that it was forbidden. Hard to find. For "adults only." Now porn isn't even alluring, it's something for people to joke about on Twitter.

Bottom line, FREEEEE porn kids can watch on the Net, leaked sex videos, eBay having an "adult section" to hide the sale of fake nudes on actresses and "revenge porn" on anyone...none of this is helpful. It desensitizes people to morality, and when that happens...when romance movies are unknown to a generation that does own all the leaked Blac Chyna, Kardashian and Paris Hilton footage instead...the result is spiritually deadly.

"LOST" comedy clips get found - and you're told GET LOST

Every now and then, Laurel and Hardy fans (the ones who constantly tell you "you know, they really loved each other"), get excited.

Somebody finds a "LOST" film clip on Stan or Babe (as true Laurel and Hardy fans like to call Ollie).

Why, here's one that just turned up. Isn't that swell?

Funny thing. People who find and digitize lost public domain films don't really want to "share" them with the public. THEY EXPECT TO BE PAID.

Generally, I agree. But that's if it's an actual FILM, and not a CLIP.

The lost CLIP was apparently censored from a Stan Laurel solo short called "Departed." In the scene, poor Stan is sent to the gallows, but, ha ha, the rope literally stretches his neck instead of breaking it.

Some festival is making a big HOO HA over this, and the grand 10 seconds will be "premiered" with admission charges and speeches made. And then...it will most likely disappear until somebody puts out yet another DVD boxed set, and will use it to make people buy what they otherwise already have.

"This new edition has the lost Stan Laurel clip!" Anything else? "Commentary tracks from some asshole who has a blog and blabbers on and on about Laurel and Hardy, and wants to prove his speaking voice is as dull as his prose." Anything else, "Added commentary tracks from some humorless Nazi who teaches a film course in the Midwest somewhere, and has, yeah, written tedious books that have a print run of 100 and still aren't sold out."

Will the clip just turn up on YOUTUBE? Not if there's a wallet to be squeezed.

This also happened with "found" footage from "Battle of the Century," a L&H short infamous for the pie-fight scene. "Hey, great news, another minute or two from that short has been found..." "Bad news...nobody is going to actually see it. Various film professors are just going to say how important it is. Maybe TMC will run it during some tedious "Laurel and Hardy Week" and slip it in after a ponderous monologue by a film buff."

Finders keepers...

Here's another goodie. No, not The Goodies, actually. It's the oh-so-beloved team of wise Ernie Wise, and the comically obnoxious Eric Morecambe. And no, unlike Stan and Ollie, they didn't "really love each other." They did have a good working relationship, which should be enough for anyone but latent homosexuals and complete lunkheads.

What's all this then?

Somebody found a rotted reel of film, and miraculously used strange laser technology to ferret through it WITHOUT unrolling it. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the result is hardly worth looking at. It may be of historical value to somebody, but so is the Zapruder film, and neither one is very funny.

Happily, this thing IS on YouTube, because the point is not to crow about what's actually ON the film (two dead comedians flogging lifeless patter). The point is to let everyone know that if grants are made, funds set aside, and movie film and TV video tape acknowledged to be valuable, somebody might discover and restore something WORTH discovering and restoring.

But generally, if a film clip that is lost is worth seeing, you'll be told to GET LOST...or pay up.

EVERYBODY'S A COMEDIAN - it's just that hardly anyone gets paid for it

It's not a surprise that MAD Magazine is now quarterly, and trembling toward extinction. Who wants to BUY a MAGAZINE? Download a free pirated copy, maybe.

The New Yorker, which once considered its cartoons to be some form of gold, are now giving them away. Subscribe to some email or other, and you get a cartoon every day, and you can get most of the week's cartoons free online, too. There's a desperation like never before, because...there are SCABS like never before.

It used to be that professional comedy writers got paid, and you saw the result in those long Jay Leno monologues on "The Tonight Show." Jay even allowed freelancers. If you were funny, and could be trusted, you'd get his fax number so you could send in some gags. That's how much Jay valued a top monologue.

Thanks to the Internet, EVERYBODY'S A COMEDIAN. People can't stop tossing jokes, quotes and memes all over social media. Yes, if you were a jokes editor, you'd throw most of them out, but if you're the average moron, you're laughing and passing them on.

Comedians trying to drum up business or show off their topical talents routinely GIVE AWAY jokes on Twitter. Wiseguys galore rush to Twitter to toss out their latest Trump insult, or make fun of something a celebrity did. And there are games.

It seems every day on Twitter there's going to be a hashtag that trends in which YOU are supposed to JOIN THE FUN, and become a gag writer. FREEEEEEEE. One of today's games was "Make a Rock Band Healthier." You know what, given the number of out-of-work gag writers, people trying to impress their friends, and clever dicks just dicking around with nothing better to do, the humor wasn't bad at all.

Here, unedited, are a few sets of Tweets, and really, there isn't a clinker in the bunch:

Is it a surprise that Jimmy Fallon quickly put people to work with a weekly hashtag contribution feature? Newspapers now routinely rush to Twitter and look for ordinary quotes to add color and humor to just about any article. Letterman used to mock "network time killers," and how people would watch dumb non-comedy because "this is all that's on CBS right now!" Now, scabs and silly amateurs are eager to contribute to the general waste of time that we call the Internet.

Bored at work? Go check Twitter for a fun hashtag and read a whole bunch of amusing gags. When this material is so easily available, why look elsewhere, like TV (where few late night comedians have long monologues of gags, since they'd better get right to a Kardashian lumbering onto the stage for an interview...or say "Hey, did you see the funny video on YouTube" and show THAT item, which somebody uploaded for FREEEEE.)

Some online "magazines" have "Top Ten" features of one kind or another, but don't pay much for them, if anything. The way things are with the "lawless" Internet, most any list could easily have been stolen or creatively plagiarized from somebody else. "Fair use!" Who needs a lawsuit? If you didn't pay the writer, or didn't pay much, you don't have much to lose.

So, how does a humor writer make any money? SORRY I HAVEN'T A CLUE.

That's the title of a long running British radio series. Every show has what you might now call a "hashtag" feature. The panel is told to have a round of "Hairy Movies" or "Bird Songs" -- ie, re-write a famous movie or song so that it might interest somebody hirsute, or somebody who likes birds. Round they go, contributing and trying to top one another.

"I'll ask the teams to suggest to songs likely to appeal to an audience of bread lovers!"

The panel: "Another one bits the crust!" "Where has all the flour gone." "Shake shake shake yer butty." "Stand by your naan." "Do nut leave me this way." "Achey bakey tart..."

Well, why make a point of trying to dial up the show when you can get that concept free every day on Twitter?

How lovely it is to get so much entertainment FREE. It's just that nobody, except the CEO's of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook perhaps, are laughing all the way to the bank.

You kids have some rap albums, I have TOM RAPP albums

Tom Rapp died the other day at 70.

I didn't notice a lot of tributes to him online, or mentions of how cool his indie-cult group was: Pearls Before Swine." Several friends gave me a blank look. "Who? Never heard of him."

I pulled out an old Tom Rapp album. You see it above, left. There he was, looking like something Tolkien might've invented. Maybe if you wondered what Woody Allen would be like if he tried to be a hipster musician...it would've been Tom Rapp. And if Woody tried to sing, he'd come out with the same tremulous, nasal tones as Tom. Tom, it's alleged, once entered a contest with a fellow named Bobby Zimmerman. Chances are, the audience wondered, "something's happening, and we don't know what it is. THIS is SINGING?"

Actually, some critics still had that opinion of Tom Rapp. When I bought the Pearls Before Swine album "City Of Gold" (dually billed as a Pearls Before Swine AND a "Thos Rapp" album) I thought there were some good tracks. Surely, he and his group (three hirsute fellows at this point, no females) would get a free good reviews. Well, he had the temerity to cover the Brel-McKuen song "Seasons in the Sun."

A review in a November 1971 magazine, probably High Fidelity or Stereo Review, went like this: PERFORMANCE: Disgusting
RECORDING; Fair

And from there, it got a bit negative: "At first I thought this junk must be somebody's idea of a sick joke, something like Jo Stafford and Paul Weston's funny Jonathan and Darlene Edwards records. Unfortunately, the mournful wailing contained on this disc is really the way Tom Rapp sounds...he has the gall to include a soiled arrangement of Jacques Brel's "Seasons in the Sun" with his sick mongrel screeching. Instead of "Adieu Emile, my trusted friend," we hear "Eh-dooo Eeemeal, ma trsuted free-and...." Rapp swallows most of his words like lumps...Rapp is a horrendously vulgar no-talent whose very presence on records gives me pause about the rock-bottom tastes and motives of the talent scouts at Reprise Records. Hang your heads, gentlemen."

The review was credit to "R.R."

I know, it's a bit odd to quote all that in an obituary, but this isn't an obit, it' a memoir. A meditation. Something like that. Because the death of Rapp (on top of the rise of rap music, which is worse) had me recalling the days when "mongrel" vocalists were threatening to take over the airwaves. At least the FM airwaves. Negative reviews, perhaps even as mean as the one quoted above, greeted the vocals of Dylan, Ochs, Neil Young, Ron Nagle and others that I happened to play on college radio.

Yeah, I played Pearls Before Swine tracks, and know what, quite a few still hold up beautifully, even if Rapp's sobbing, lispy voice does take a moment to get used to.

Sometimes Pearls Before Swine is categorized as "acid folk" or "psych folk," which only goes to show what that hipsters can be as annoying and clueless as reviewers for Stereo Review or High Fidelity. Deliberately putting on albums and taking some drugs and nodding about how this is some good "acid folk," is in its own way, another form of insensitivity and ignorance.

Like The Fugs, Pearls Before Swine first turned up on albums on the E.S.P. label. How nice that the hipster record company discovered such acts. Did the artists get paid? Well, Tom recalled that he never made a penny. Somehow, the owner of the label had lots of excuses for this.

Fortunately, Reprise, a major but strange label at the time, was signing all kinds of unusual acts. They had Fanny, Ron Nagle, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, and to add to their list of artists without hit singles, The Fugs and Pearls Before Swine. Rapp's group was duly promoted via the Warner "loss leader" dollar compilation discs, and people got a chance to hear some of his best songs: "The Jeweler" and "Rocket Man" from "The Use of Ashes" album.

I hate using the word "zeitgeist," but Pearls Before Swine were very much part of the arty, somewhat pretentious and mystical world of hippie seriousness in the late 60's and early 70's. George Harrison wasn't the only guy to sing "All Things Must Pass." On the album "These Things Too," Tom entoned, "There was a Persian king who wanted to know what he could say on every occasion that always would be so..."

You know what's coming: "These things too must pass." But before Tom gets to it, he offers a melancholy dip into hipness:

"Illusions. Circles in changes. Illusions. Always changes. Like the wind and the rain. Like the wind and the rain."

This incarnation of Pearls Before Swine included the enigmatic "Elizabeth" (no last name) who was listed as a co-author on some tracks. Another track had W.H. Auden as a co-author.

Well, this kind of thing fit in perfectly on my midnight radio show. Oh, I might start the evening with eccentric rock (Ron Nagle's "61 Clay," Judy Henske's "Farewell Aldebaran" or Fanny's "Seven Roads." I might veer into Frank Zappa, Procol Harum and even Yoko Ono territory. The later it got, the more introspective, for anyone lonely and listening. Tom Rapp's pensive "The Jeweler" was about the sensitive old coin dealer who polished old coins late at night, and, heavy, "worships God with ashes."

Unlike some of my eccentric favorites, like Ron Nagle (one album) and Henske (one album with Yester, one with her group Rosebud), Tom Rapp actually put out several albums for Warner/Reprise. He even got signed to Blue Thumb as a solo artist.

By 1973, he was back in college, studying to be a lawyer. Apparently he used his skills in civil rights cases and represented the needy more than the greedy. It was hard to tell, because the elusive Mr. Rapp was even more invisible after his retirement from music. He resisted interviews, and I recall that when somebody posted some information on where he was living, and how one might write him an email, he quickly shut down any communication.

Perhaps befitting his new work as a "radical" lawyer, or simply having the creative urge to perform, Rapp turned up in some small clubs now and then. Displaying a dash of Phil Ochs humor, circa 1998 he sang a song imagining Abraham Lincoln visiting Washington again. Punchline, he opens the door to Newt Gingrich's office and throws up.

In 1999, seemingly out of nowhere, he put out a solo album that was very much a return to the arty areas of mystical folk, including an a capella opening number that would try the patience of even Peggy Seeger-type folk fans. It was called "A Journal of the Plague Year," and included an awareness of the current scene (one song called "The Swimmer (For Kurt Cobain)."). Other cuts on this obscurity from Woronzow Records (and available streaming, with or without permission, on YouTube) include "Hopelessly Romantic" and "Just Let the Grass Grow."

Today, there may be very few who would know that "Pearls Before Swine" was the somewhat cheeky (are they making fun of us in the audience) folk-rock group. But Rapp was one of the poetic singer-songwriters who helped change what IS or ISN'T considered "Rapp "horrendously vulgar" and "rock-bottom" in the world of music.

It turns out, there's room for the voices of imperfect singer-poets, from Leonard Cohen (once the subject of nasty reviews over his monotone) and Tom Rapp. Oh. In case you didn't get the reviewer's reference to Jonathan and Darlene Edwards...back around 1958 or so, big band guy Paul Weston and vocalist Jo Stafford put out a series of deliberately off-key novelty albums. The big joke was to sneak one of their records on the turntable, and watch heads turn in discomfort, as the Mantovani-type arrangements were turned askew by the vocalist who was sometimes just a tad sharp or flat. Nothing too obvious (like Spike Jones or Mrs. Miller) but just enough to have people say, "Who put that on the record player? Haven't you got Patti Page? Rosemary Clooney?"

So it is, that almost nobody now knows Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, or Paul Weston, or even Jo Stafford. And not Tom Rapp either. Bless and preserve the vinyl on all of them, that somebody might still find it, and be amused by it or touched by it. And thanks, Reprise...the guys still alive who signed and promoted Pearls Before Swine. No reason to "hang your heads" gentlemen, except to bow them for a moment, to acknowledge the passing of a worthy singer-songwriter, Tom Rapp.

They spelled RYNE and GRBA right

As we wait for the start of spring training, let's remember that while today's Internet websites are loaded with errors, proofreading wasn't always great in "the good old days."

Yes, TOPPS did manage to spell ELI GRBA and RYNE DUREN correctly. But these former Yankees, now on the West Coast, didn't exactly look alike.

Pun 9 From Outer Space

NY POST notes AMAZON's special hell for WRITERS

Yes, people just LOVE their GOOGLE (which owns Blogspot, where this blog appears). It's a cute name. It can "search" for all the dirt on your friends, and all the pirated music, movies and books you want, and all that free porn you need.

People LOVE Facebook. Who knew you had SO MANY FRIENDS? You can depend on ALL OF THEM...unless you ask for money. But hell, there's GoFUNDMe for that.

Please LOVE Amazon, too. They have the best prices. Don't they? And APPLE. Easy to use items that last and last. Don't they?

The NEW YORK POST headlined an article on how nefarious ALL of these companies really are.

In the midst of the article was a special mention of what the Internet has done to creative people in the entertainment world: pauperize many. Put many out of business. Cause widespread despair and depression.

Read it for yourself, if you'd like. This is the portion that notes that musicians can barely get a PENNY a song from streaming, and that authors are in purgatory. Put it this way, if Dante was writing today, he'd call the Devil by his proper name: BEZOS.

It's hard to pick out which company or CEO is the worst villain. Bezos is probably on the top of the list. His Mussolini-like dick-headed ambition to control the world is well known.

A dark horse would be the guy who runs EBAY, who makes pimp-money off some of the most questionable crap on the planet. Let's put it this way, JEFF BEZOS does not let anyone sell SMELLY SHOES and SMELLY PANTYHOSE on Amazon. He does not allow anyone to sell "revenge porn" photos, faked pictures of nude female celebrities, or images hacked and stolen off the computers of female celebrities.

You'll find all that crap on eBay, much of it in plain sight. Type in a variety of terms, from USED and WORN panties, pantyhose, shoes, etc. to dildo, porn, sex doll, etc., and EBAY sells it. A hunt for photos of famous women will often turn up "censor dot" nude images and fake nudes. If there's somebody you missed, just go to their "everything else...adult" category, and you'll find rude fakes on even Barbara Eden and Tina Louise...as well as "my girlfriend" pictures, and sellers who simply download 5,000 or more images from the Internet, with NO model release of age and consent, and grind them through their printers. This includes photos of women clearly underage, in bondage, passed out with their eyes closed, and obviously being humiliated and degraded against their will.

But who expects morality on the Internet? Politicians don't even try to regulate it, do they? Anti-trust legislation, copyright legislation, blocking rogue websites...nah. It is, to use the title of an Andy Pratt song, all "FUN IN THE FIRST WORLD."

Time to drag DRAG back into the closet

Women are marching around demanding respect...by wearing pussy hats and squealing the lyrics to Helen Reddy's "I am Woman."

They want to be taken seriously.

They'll tell you that patting a woman's ass is just as bad as rape. Bill Maher mentioned this last week, and how Matt Damon was excoriated for suggesting the two were not equal offenses, and one of them might NOT be ground for a man being forced to resign his job.

What IS considered respectful?

DRAG.

Dressing up in a PARODY of womanhood.

Recently the NY Post ran a happy series of "Transformation" pictures from the RuPaul "Drag Race" Show. Oooh, how marvelous, these men in their clownish DRAG:

So where were the liberated ladies to say that impersonating a woman is offensive?

What is the point of drag? It's to make fun of women, just as minstrel shows made fun of blacks, and stereotypes in early films were to humiliate immigrants who couldn't assimilate. Ha ha, look at the way they talk and dress.

So, look at how drag queens make fun of the way women talk and dress.

The other aspect is to show that with make-up, hair and wardrobe, a MAN can be a WOMAN.

Interesting, isn't it, that some women are offended by transsexuals, and the notion that an operation is what makes a woman. Transsexuals aren't doing it for laughs. Drag queens are.

It's a mockery.

Minstrels shows were once defended as a "tradition." There are no more minstrel shows. But there are drag shows, and they dare to be on national television, not confined to peculiar little nightclubs.

The other day, Major League Baseball announced that the Cleveland Indians would no longer be allowed to use a stereotype mascot on their uniforms.

A few months back, an uproar greeted the news that a white actor was going to play Michael Jackson on a British TV show. This was the later day Michael Jackson, when he looked white. NOPE, not allowed.

Not too long ago, Johnny Depp was seriously questioned about playing TONTO in a movie, and a woman named Rachel Dolezal lost her job because she "identified" as black, but wasn't.

Blacks found Dolezal OFFENSIVE.

Women don't find DRAG offensive? The deliberate and grotesque parodying of stereotypical female traits?

Remember when Ted Danson was under attack for appearing in blackface? His girlfriend at the time, Whoopi Goldberg, thought it was funny. NOBODY ELSE DID.

Charlie Chan movies are not shown on TV anymore because the actors, Warner Oland and Sidney Toler, were wearing what is now called "YELLOW FACE."

Nobody mentions Al Jolson, once considered "The World's Greatest Entertainer," because he wore blackface and sang songs in sympathy of the Black plight in the South. He wasn't making fun of Blacks, the way DRAG QUEENS do with women. He sang "Old Black Joe" and "My Mammy" with sincerity. Even so, it was determined this was "politically incorrect."

Not outrageous drag.

Isn't it one thing for an actor to play a woman in a film that makes a point, such as "Tootsie?" Isn't it one thing for a genuine artist to impersonate females, such as Charles Pierce?

Charles Pierce NEVER called himself a "drag queen."

Maybe it's time that NOBODY uses the term "drag queen," and DQ is disqualified, the same way white actors can't do "Yellow Face" or play "redskins" or imitate blacks.

Anyone remember Abner Dean?

To miss somebody, you must remember them.

How would the late Abner Dean get attention? Some blog mentions him? That seems about it, at this point. Maybe somebody does a compilation of Great Cartoonists of the 20th Century, and if copyright allows, and payment is made, he'll be in there?

Comedy in book form, be it cartoons or essays, is pretty fragile. People don't even read Will Rogers, much less (very much less) the established stars from years ago such as H. Allen Smith and novelist Thorne Smith.

Abner Epstein (March 18 1910 – June 30 1982) seemed to arrive at his unusual style a little after Steig. It was a time when cartoonists (especially in The New Yorker) seemed to be influenced by Dali and the avant garde. Why be old fashioned or saucy, when one could be satiric and artistic?

I asked Lee Lorenz, who compiled a book on Steig, if Steig had a rivalry going with this Abner Dean guy. Lee said no, Steig didn't seem to be irked by Abner Dean. Steig was more irritated by Syd Hoff. Hoff borrowed Steig's style of doing homely tenement characters, as opposed to Steig's other style, which involved odd, symbolic cartoons.

Both Steig and Dean put out collections of cartoons with intellectual titles. Steig published "The Lonely Ones" in 1942 and "Agony in the Kindergarten," among others. Abner Dean offered "It's a Long Way to Heaven" (1945) and "What am I Doing Here" 1947). As for the latter title, how existentialist could you get? That book was reprinted in 2016, intended I guess to push new interest in Mr. Dean. You didn't know it was reprinted, did you?

Abner Dean and William Steig both drew cartoons for The New Yorker that were not intended to get a laugh. That's a bit different from the cartoons you see currently in that magazine...which are supposed to be funny and aren't. They won't be missed.