Saturday, June 29, 2019

The New Yorker Cartoons go Blackface

It's a form of diversity.

Let's have more cartoon figures "of color" in the magazine. Just tint the sullen faces.

You may have noticed, if you go sit in an affluent dentist's waiting room a lot, that cartoons in The New Yorker now feature a lot more Buppies. That's "Black Urban Professionals," a term that was invented around the time Arthur Ashe was playing tennis. It also became obsolete after he retired. But what would The New Yorker know about things going obsolete, when they still insist on publishing?

The New Yorker's attempting to lose their image as the place where elderly effete people check classical concert listings and mail order places that sell pipes and tweed hats. For a while, they had Woody Allen imitating S.J. Perelman, which brought a slight amount of new blood to their readership.

Since the legendary New Yorker cartoonists are all dead (Chas Addams, Wm Steig, Peter Arno, etc.) why not be adventurous and...offer DIVERSITY?

Even at the risk of being called pandering racists. Remember that white woman who "identified" as black and lost her job? It's JUST POSSIBLE, that cartoonists named STEINBERG and SCHWARTZ might find themselves in big trouble for doing BLACKFACE. "Hey, you are Jewish, why are you blacking up your cartoon characters??"

Like so:

Insidious racist bastards, these white cartoonists using blackface!

They are painfully and obviously blacking up white cartoon characters and it comes off as limp and pretentious pandering.

In the 1960's, when Playboy hired a black cartoonist, Buck Brown, they allowed him to draw some racial cartoons and be himself, not copy what Dempsey, Wilson or Kliban did. There's something creepy about The New Yorker's white cartoonists blacking up images that, a year ago, they would've drawn as white. What next, insert "Y'all" in the opening sentence of the caption?

By way of honesty, The New Yorker should only allow black cartoonists to draw black characters. This will shield them against the abomination of being mentioned in the same breath as Rachel Dolezal, a vile, offensive pretender. Ya know, one who ain't "the real deal." And it is what it is, y'all.

The fact remains that "diversity" painfully eludes the New Yorker cartoon world. Diversity? When maybe ONE cartoon in THIRTY is laugh out loud funny?

Funny New Yorker cartoons remain a very, very small minority group.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

What Has Two Dickheads? NEW YORK

Just a typical page of THE NEW YORK POST today, pointing out what our erected officials have done:

Yes, our erected officials...a pair of pricks.

De Blasio (aka De Lousio) the guy who changed his last name, continues to change New York City for the worse. WHO would suggest looking the other way when delinquents smoke pot in school? Big Bill, friend to the felonious.

De Blasio played the race card to get elected and pretty much vowed that nobody "of color" would be frisked, squinted at, detained, followed, or arrested. The result? Repeat offenders exposing themselves on the subways, pulling the emergency brakes for the fun of it, panhandling and scaring the crap out of people. That's just underground, where nobody can hear you scream. That's in addition to the delays, crowds, rats and filth.

Above ground? Anything goes. Cops even admit it. I pointed out some illegal activity, and the cop nodded and said one word: "DE BLASIO." I said, "You mean if Giuliani was mayor, you'd do something?" The cop smiled.

Meanwhile the other dick, Cuomo, who has never gotten along with De Blasio, is aping him in spineless stupidity.

What ARE you thinking, Andy Boy, in giving privileges to ILLEGAL ALIENS?

In the country illegally? Not paying taxes? Not following our rules? Not even speaking English? Here's your DRIVER'S LICENSE. ENJOY!

It's Democrats like this Dickhead Duo that make Trump so popular. Trump's attitude, and certainly the attitude of his longtime pal Giuliani, is to take a strong stand AGAINST quality of life violations. Giuliani believed in the "broken windows theory." If your neighborhood looks crappy, with abandoned buildings and broken windows, nobody will have pride. Things will get worse. A lawless environment breeds crime. Simple?

Probably the one thing that got Trump elected was his promise "to build a wall." Why? Out of racism? No, out of justified anger that people want to not only push their way in, as if entitled, but once in, expect welfare, food stamps, and a refusal to even speak English.

People rightly say that previous generations of immigrants were GLAD to come here, and worked long hours and made sure to learn English as FAST as possible.

Guess what, that's STILL true of MOST immigrants. The ones who come from India, Korea, Pakistan etc. work together to support each other. New York City has Korean grocery stores, Indian-run newsstands, Pakistani cab drivers, etc. They speak English or make sure to be with somebody who can help. You don't pick up a phone and hear: "For Korean, press 2, for Hindu, press 3."

Democrats are bending over, like the assholes they are, and saying, "Come on, take advantage." Is that what the party is? The personification of the jackass? Franklin Roosevelt. Harry Truman. John F. Kennedy. Now? De Blasio and Cuomo? "Darwin was Wrong."

ABC: Iran Didn't Intend to Hit Big Papi and Biden wont apologize for it!

Hey, ABC NEWS, is that all ONE story?

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Beatles gimmick film YESTERDAY? Yes, Turd Day

What?

Richard Curtis, probably best known for writing for Rowan Atkinson, is considered some kind of genius in England. So, all hail his latest film, "Yesterday." The brilliant idea?

What if an Indian guy falls off his bicycle, breaks a tooth, and...ALL REFERENCE TO THE BEATLES MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR?

As opposed to all references to Kardashians. Spice Girls. Rap.

Our hero sits around strumming his guitar and sings "Yesterday," and everyone is AMAZED. What an ORIGINAL SONG!

Our hero will fill up the rest of the movie with the hilarious problem of whether to take full credit for every Beatles song he remembers, or somehow try and get the world to understand that there really, REALLY were four lads from Liverpool who made all the music. You know, and one of them was shot repeatedly in the back and killed, and one of them was stabbed and nearly killed but died of cancer...

The photo above is from a clip that was shown on Graham Norton's show. The bubbly host oohed and ahhed about this brilliant concept for a film, and how brilliant Richard Curtis is (and how one of the stars in the movie grew up loving The Spice Girls, as The Beatles were SO much before her time).

Didn't Richard Curtis see a tedious six-season TV show called "Goodnight Sweetheart?"

Didn't he know that one of the big gags of that movie was having Nicholas Lyndhurst, time traveller, sing Beatles songs to surprised people in the 1940's, who thought HE wrote them?

Oh. Well.

Err. Ahh. Two different concepts here. In one, a guy is taking credit for writing Beatles songs because of some dumb science-fiction quirk that can't be explained, and in the other, a guy is taking credit for writing Beatles songs because of some dumb science-fiction quirk that can't be explained.

The important thing is, what, that 20somethings and 30somethings are going to hear Beatles music for the first time? That people over 50 are going to be happy that somebody remembers The Beatles and doesn't think the world began with Coldplay?

Funny, none of this seems very funny or entertaining.

And in the end the film you make isn't even equal to the TV show you take the idea from.

HOWL: Cynthia Lennon was the FIFTH BEATLE?

It was a surprise to see Julian Lennon on FACEBOOK doing something besides showing off his tourist snapshots.

What?

Julian, Mother Nature's Son, has every right to be proud of his oft-married mum, who was a nice looking bird back in the day, but wha IS this? She took the stage in Hamburg? SHE managed them and recorded them? SHE wrote the "tit tit tit tit" lines in "Girl?"

As it turns out, the tabloid is hawking a Howl play. Who Howl?

"Howl" was what, a beat poem wasn't it, where a son managed to toss in a line about his mother's "bearded vagina."

Now, to the delight of her son, some guy named Howl, hunting up a Beatles angle to exploit, is offering a play based on the life of Cynthia Lennon, THE FIFTH BEATLE.

Right. Not enough that she herself wrote several books about herself, but didn't have the audacity to make that claim. It's anything for publicity. It's re-writing history. It's spin doctoring.

And having written an entire tome myself on John Lennon, a nationally distributed tribute magazine back in 1980, I think I can throw my tuppence into this and express a slight bit of surprise.

YEAH YEAH YEAH.

Revisionism at its finest. Without Cynthia's love John would've gone "off the rails." You mean the four Beatles were NOT whoring around like mad? NOT banging babes when they weren't bashing about on stage? John was chased but chaste? OK, we'll let that one go.

How about how Cynthia was let go when The Beatles made their way to India? Cynthia was left behind. She was, after all, the girl who got preggers which is why John married her. But she's the Fifth Beatle?

By this logic, how about Jane Asher? She was in the picture with Paul for quite a long time.

Let's not forget Murray the K. Murray Kaufman, who I think was the first to self-proclaim himself "The Fifth Beatle" and popularize this idiot idea, had a lot to do with the hoopla surrounding "The British Invasion." When it came to beating the drum, he did more than Ringo! Murray was carrying on hour after hour for WINS radio. Ringo drummed for a few songs on "The Ed Sullivan Show." (Cynthia died in 2015 and her estate is probably controlled by Julian, who has no reason NOT to be thrilled with an entire play about mum.)

Ah. Mr. Howl could have claimed Ed Sullivan was the Fifth Beatle, but the feisty Sullivan estate would want MONEY.

Quoth Mr. Howl:

“I was told lots of lovely stories, including how Cynthia went out to Hamburg to visit as a naive teenager. The first half of the play is snapshot moments from their lives together, with some original songs. There is a scene in which John is working on the song You’re Gonna Lose that Girl in their home and Cynthia joins him to sing it.”

Ah. There we have it. Joined him to sing it. Surprising she didn't get credit for that on the record label? Lennon-Lennon-McCartney?

Now, what woman's voice was the first to appear on a Beatles album? Oh, Yoko. What woman was actually IN the studio during the making of an entire Beatles album? Oh, Yoko.

Yoko never called herself The Fifth Beatle. I read both of Cynthia's books, and I don't recall her ever making that claim either, or promoting herself that way. Her first book, "Twist of Lennon," made sure to let people know her new married name was TWIST. (She had two other husbands as well, Roberto Bassolini after Lennon, and Noel Charles after Twist).

Even without a "Fifth Beatle" claim, any time Cynthia opened her mouth to an interviewer John was liable to be irked. In 1976, after reading yet another load from her, John sent an "open letter" to her AND to People Magazine, which read in part:

“As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of L.S.D. or Yoko Ono ... and that's reality!
“Your memory is impaired to say the least.
“Your version of our first L.S.D. trip is rather vague, and you seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether!
“You also seem to have forgotten that only two years ago, while I was separated from Yoko, you suddenly brought Julian to see me in Los Angeles after three years of silence.
“During this visit, you hardly allowed me to be alone with him for one moment.
“You even asked me to remarry you and/or give you another child, 'for Julian's sake'! “I politely told you no, and that, anyway, I was still in love with Yoko, (which I thought was very 'down to earth').
“Finally, I don't blame you for wanting to get away from your 'Beatle' past.
“But if you are serious about it, you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers!
“We did have some good years, so dwell on them for a change, and, as Dylan says, it was 'A Simple Twist of Fate!'
“Love & good luck to the three of you, from the three of us.”

Two years later, and Cynthia was hawking her autobiography, "A Twist of Lennon." But not claiming she was influential in the success of The Beatles.

Mr. Howl boasts that his research includes tracking down one of Cynthia's close friends from her days in Liverpool: Helen Anderson. You MUST know that name? Helen, she'll tell you and any historian, was a "designer" and "recalled making Lennon’s famous cap."

Again, Mr. Howl: “She would have been 80 this year, and I feel she must take her place in the Beatles story now." As long as he has no other bright ideas.

"We got over your adulation
we got over the thought recall
we got over "A TWIST OF LENNON"
I don't want more of the same again...

"Memory Lane" (by the late Mark Kjeldsen, recorded by The Sinceros)

Friday, June 14, 2019

POPE THROWER defeats JIZYAH SHORTS - the finals of the "Name of the Year" 2019

Yes, there IS somebody named JIZYAH SHORTS. It's a woman.

Not a Photoshop job hoax.

Each year, "Name of the Year" (now hosted on Deadspin) runs a kind of March Madness tournament to see who has the most amusing name.

She lost to...POPE THROWER.

Yes, another real name. Pope Thrower is a US embassy spokesman in Hanoi. At least, last time I checked.

Checking up on funny names is important, as there are cheaters. There are people who get their name changed JUST to call attention to themselves. They should be (but usually aren't) DISQUALIFIED.

Here's the full bracket. Some highly delightful names were voted out early.

POPE THROWER wins? REALLY?

Back in the days when novelty books actually got published, John Train offered a few volumes of "Remarkable Names of Real People," complete with imagined drawings of them.

I mentioned to the author that he too, had an interesting name and that Phil Ochs used it as a rather scary alias in his last days.

The real John Train was impressed.

An article in the Times once profiled a man who collected strange names. The headline was: "It all began with Olney Nicewonger."

Then again, there are some people who change their name from something wacky to something mundane.

I get this all the time: "Is SMITH your real name??"

That's a question that could've been asked of my grandfather...

"HORROR STARS ON RADIO" (by Ronald L. Smith) 25% through the month of JUNE!

It's always nice to get a good review. Five stars on AMAZON:

AND...it's always nice when there's a sale.

The publisher of this tome is having a sale this month:

That's MCFARLAND BOOKS Really? Only ONE left in stock? Time for a reprinting!

Thursday, June 13, 2019

URBAN RELIGIOUS FANATICS - What CENTURY is this? Vaccines are...unGodly??

Sometimes you forget that religious fanatics aren't ankle-deep in sand and camel dung.

They aren't just slashing each other's heads off in some swamp or jungle because of some minor difference in how they babble to their Invisible Friend.

They can be right in the heart of the most sophisticated cities in the world...bringing with them backward assholery that should've been debunked at the turn of the 20th Century. Yet, in the 21st, their idiot superstitions and their brainless faith in utter idiocy continue. This, to the point of DANGER.

If you want to NOT use electricity, and think God is staring at you from a cloud and will smite you if you turn on a lightbulb, fine. You are just making YOURSELF miserable.

But to endanger your children, and OTHER people by being part of a measles outbreak?

It is beyond STUPID that people in the 21st Century think there's a God who gives a shit about what beanie you wear, how low your hemline is, or whether you tear a piece of toilet paper on Saturday.

Whether it's washing your feet a dozen times a day, reciting gibberish, lighting candles, or refusing to eat something others enjoy, it's ALL one big load of LOONY. That people also KILL in the name of somebody who has never spoken to them (one assumes) is even MORE LOONY.

New York State, the scene of death threats hurled by idiots:

It's more than damn embarrassing. It's GOD DAMN embarrassing. And don't get me started on TV networks that still censor the word "God" when somebody on TV in a movie or on a talk show says "God damn it."

Oooh, don't take the name of THE LORD in vain...

Yeah? Why not let GOD take care of it? Who made YOU his fucking deputy?

There are a lot of kids dead from a curable disease, or seriously screwed up, because some Orthodox Jew, some Christian Scientist, some wacko from some other religion or other, thought GOD was handling it.

No, the Lord helps those who HELP THEMSELVES. Christ, is that too difficult to understand? Holy Moses. Allah Kazam!

A bunch of wackos in the balcony want a separation of church and state...and they want it to mean that simple health laws should be flaunted? How NUTS is that? The NY Post offered some mild quotes from Governor Cuomo on what a "shame" it was that religious fanatics were threatening elected officials.

The notion that we should respect peoples' "beliefs" goes only so far. People believed the Earth was flat. People believe that some races are inferior to others. People believe all kinds of crap. As long as they are not harming others, just boring them, they can talk about UFO's all they want, and read from some fairy tale book and somehow interpret dress code (despite the lack of photos in the holy book) and what to eat and how to think. If they think at all.

But when the religion preaches bigotry and hate and violence, and when it declares some crackpot notion about vaccines that cure people being evil, these nutjobs should just board up their houses and live on survivalist chow until they DROP DEAD.

Was "vaccination" mentioned in The Bible? The Koran? Poor Richard's Almanac? No. Some halvah-brain interpreted something, and it's led to an epidemic. If you don't believe in science, find yourself an island or a leper colony where you can have it your way and NOT bother anyone else. Kill your goats, screw your cousins, wear whatever ludicrous outfit you want, and face anywhere you think your Invisible Friend might be. Leave the HEALTHY people alone.

Easy Jokes on Sleazy Folks #890253

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Oh shit! It's another DAILY FAIL from the London Daily Mail

Poofreaders?

Who kneads them?

Not the notorious London Daily Mail, aka the DAILY FAIL.

Read the caption. The third sentence should make you stop, roll your eyes, and re-focus to see if you were seeing a word that didn't belong.

There's a Sucker for a meme EVERY MINUTE - gullible goofballs & a Peter Lorre story

Among the INTERNET PLAGUES, there's the Facebook/Twitter/Instagram asshole who posts memes he's found.

We can find this crap if we want it. There are entire websites and forums FULL of it.

The only thing more obnoxious than the memes is the obnoxious response when you tell the pest: "That's a fake quote" or "That's a PHOTOSHOP JOB."

Or to quote from the Weird Al Yankovic song:

"Your quotes from George Carlin aren't really George Carlin.
Mr. Rogers never fought the Viet Cong...
And Bill Gates is never gonna give me something for nothing.
And I highly doubt some dead girl's gonna kill me if I don't pass your letter along...
Wacky, badly Photoshopped billboards were never that amusing to me...
I have high hopes, someone'll point you towards Snopes
And debunk that crazy junk you're spewing constantly...
STOP FORWARDING THAT CRAP TO ME..."

P.S. there are so many bad novelty songs on YOUTUBE attributed to Weird Al that he could write an entire song about it. There are also some good novelty songs that DON'T get a "that's by Bob Rivers" or "that was on the Bob & Tom CD" because some moron writes: "It's WEIRD AL!!"

The Groucho quote? Does anyone in their right mind imagine Groucho saying that?

The author of that one is Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, 2nd Baronet, CBE (25 June 1875 – 17 January 1954).

The Netflix job isn't even worth more comment, except to say it's ALSO obnoxious when idiots post obviously fake "bloopers" they found on YouTube. Right, right, somebody with a camera just HAPPENED to be there when...

Stupid people don't understand what's wrong with lying and fakery.

An EX-Facebook friend got grumpy with me (for the last time) when I pointed out that, yes, "your quotes from George Carlin aren't really George Carlin."

Under my comment he wrote: "So? They're funny. What's the big deal?"

I replied, "Carlin had a website page specifically de-bunking quotes and routines that were NOT his. He took pride in what he created. He didn't want "credit" for stuff he didn't write."

The reply: "That's his problem. Besides, he's dead."

This is the kind of guy who probably thinks typos are no big deal, and why not say "ain't," and if she takes a douche after it's ok if the wife sleeps around. But park on HIS line in the parking garage and he's gonna grab the baseball bat out of the trunk and go to war.

It seems like these days it's hard to insult anyone's intelligence. Everybody's too dumbed down.

I guess the tabloids and gossip writers started this trend of substituting "entertainment" for acts.

On page 241 of James Bacon's book "Hollywood Is a Four Letter Town," the syndicated "journalist" confided, "When Bela Lugosi died, I met Peter Lorre for a few drinks before going to the funeral. At the funeral we met Boris Karloff. At the conclusion of the services, the mourners were invited to view the body of Count Dracula.

"Boris, Peter and I were together in the line. As I watched Boris and Peter looking down on Bela's remains— and what a picture that would have made— I heard Peter say "Come now, Bela, quit putting us on."

Various fanboys have re-told this story, sometimes with Karloff the quipper, saying, "You're putting us on, aren't you, Bela?"

The phrase "you're putting us on" wasn't exactly hip and popular back in 1956 when Lugosi died.

How could anyone trust anything James Bacon wrote when the truth is that he, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff were NOT at Lugosi's funeral?

The only horror guy who bothered to show up was Tor Johnson.

James Bacon was pretty convincing, wasn't he? Do you call that entertainment or do you feel like you've been had?

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

White Guys Can't Jump...Or get their books reviewed in AM/New York?

What's this, a full page of book reviews.

Who would't want to find out what's best in SUMMER READING.

According to Melissa Kravitz, it's books by Daniela, Roselle, Kristen, Nicole, Jennifer and Uzma.

ALL WOMEN.

But let's not start getting all PC about it. At least ONE of them is a "woman of color." Right? Writes Ms. Kravitz:

"Every summer needs at least one solid Jane Austen classic retelling..." and Uzma's "retelling of "Pride and Predjucide" set in Toronto delivers. Poet Ayesha Shamsi fights the traditions of her Muslim family, unwilling to be place in an arranged marriage..."

Yes, that's certainly "SUBWAY BOOK CLUB" reading.

All you ladies on the D-train, shout your opinions over the noise and the panhandlers and the "watch the closing doors" announcements."

Give Melissa Kravitz credit for considering a book about Muslim traditions one of the "great escapes" of the summer.

"Patsy" by Nicole Dennis-Benn, in case you are a little tired of reading about Muslims every day in the newspaper, is about a woman who gets to "leave her native Jamaica and emigrate to America." That's subway reading, although you could just ask the person next to you on the train to Queens how she enjoyed Jamaica and emigrating to America.

Want some other ethnic diversity? Roselle's book is about a girl who "after her agoraphobic mothers' death...wants to reopen her grandmother's legendary restaurant and help save the Chinatown of her youth before gentrification completely obliterates the neighborhood." Yes, those damn white people. Who needs their diversity in Chinatown?

Melissa also has picked out the "debut novel of Florida-based librarian, writer and ravioli tweeter Kristen Arnett." Yes, "RAVIOLI TWEETER." Her book "takes readers to the hot and sticky climate of Florida." Who wouldn't want that?

Another book is a "coming of age" saga...as if that's anything special and...but why go on?

The IMPORTANT thing is that a full page is devoted solely to WOMEN. This is ok. Very PC. Because, well, MEN were dominating the literary world for too long, from Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald to John Steinbeck and Herman Wouk. Women could only get in there if they wrote trashy crap for other women..."Peyton Place" and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." There's been a great shortage of women writers, if you forget about Agatha Christie, P.D. James and all the Feehan and Robb types who turn out several books a year. You can also forget about J.K. Rowling and pudgy E.L. James. If you can. Their books are stacked pretty high at Barnes & Noble.

Oddly, the page you see in AM/NewYork doesn't say "CHIC LIT" on the top, it just says BOOKS, which implies that a reviewer MIGHT want to have something for everyone, even a guy looking for the next Philip Roth, Ross Macdonald or Jim Carroll. But no, those are all white guys, and besides, we know the stereotype. White guys can't jump, and they don't reach for a book when they can reach for a beer. White guys. There should be a bounty on 'em. Somebody (female) should write a book about how awful white guys are. Melissa Kravitz might review it.

How Much is that Doggie...gonna change the minds of insane Jesus and Allah freaks? Frozen Wolf Fun

They're calling it the "hound from hell."

One newspaper headline: "Severed 16-inch head of a giant Ice Age wolf - nearly TWICE the size of its modern-day descendants - is found amazingly preserved in Siberian permafrost after 40,000 years."

What a lovely, chilling little horror story. Imagine Adam and Eve coming across THIS thing?

Oh.

No, no, Adam and Eve, they were in the GARDEN of EDEN, which wouldn't have such a snarling beast.

How about NOAH? Did he bring a pair of these Ice Age wolves aboard?

Maybe he stopped after ordinary wolves and the dreaded wolverine. And the Tasmanian devil. And the mosquito and the flea.

What about Jesus and Allah? Were they safe from the dreaded Ice Age wolf?

Of course, they lived in the Middle East somewhere.

But gosh, O Great Religious Leaders, RIDDLE ME THIS: if GOD created the ICE AGE WOLF 40,000 years ago, and also them DINOSAURS, how come he only appointed Jesus and/or Allah as his spokesmen 2,000 years ago, or so?

When DID God create this whole ball of wax, and why did he wait SO long to create some guys that religious fanatics could point to and say "He told me to KILL, KILL, KILL."

Odd isn't it, that fanatics don't worship the ICE AGE wolf, or worship the dinosaurs and pray that they return. No, they figure THE MESSIAH is coming back, and all those who wear a specific beanie, or schmatta, or have their cloak a certain distance, or wear a trinket, will be saved.

Do you think any of the pinhead religious fanatics out there are thinking?

They're NOT thinking. Some of them don't believe in electricity, so they aren't following this story on the Internet. Some are women who are not ALLOWED to do anything except have sex and make babies. Some are too busy washing their feet. The rest of the nutjobs might glance at the photos and say HOAX.

Because "faith" is another word for "comfortably believing in your superiority over somebody else's choice of imaginary friend, thinking you'll come back from the dead and be YOU again in your prime, and that God woke up about 2,000 years ago and thought he needed a spokesman on Earth to tell people what to do, because he couldn't be bothered programming it into anyone's brain or getting on a megaphone and telling everyone himself. Or herself. Or itself.

"It's ONLY a MOVIE" - But Linda Fairstein gets the witch hunt and her publisher STINKS

Linda Fairstein was a respected prosecutor, and a best selling author.

Now she's considered a bigot, and her kneejerk publishing company was among the first to stab her in the back.

People thought McCarthyism ended in the 50's?

Did Linda Fairtein tell Antron McCray, one of the "Central Park Five" to confess, because if he did, he might go home? No, that was his FATHER. When you're own father thinks you're no angel, and it's better to cop a plea, then something is wrong. McCray's mother also felt her son should fess up: “I didn't know what was going on. I was screaming and crying all the time.” The parents both seemed to know that their teenage son had NO business being in Central Park where "wilding" was the fun.

Strange isn't it, that with all the newspaper and magazine articles on "The Central Park Five" (that's not a pop group, that's a bunch of kids out "wilding"), Fairstein's books and reputation remained intact.

Till a MOVIE came out.

Helmed by Ava Duvernay, a young attractive "woman of color," the film was instantly taken as absolute fact. A white woman now old, wrinkly and heavy-set? Who needs HER?

Every film based on "actual events and characters" usually has a caveat buried in the final credits, indicating that for the sake of drama, some elements are fictionalized.

So it is, that the most important thing is to make a villainess out of Linda Fairstein, who wasn't one of the cops interrogating these boys, and wasn't one of their parents figuring confession by a teen who couldn't be tried as an adult, wouldn't be a bad way to cop a deal.

Lost in all this is the very real outrage citizens felt about a 28 year-old woman who was in a coma for several weeks following the brutal rape and beating that drained 75% of the blood from her body.

Is it such a surprise that people would have figured that a "wilding" bunch of gang-rapists would have done this, and that no one person could have inflicted so much damage?

The facts is that a black detective who arrested two of the very adult-looking 14 year-olds, and heard their confessions, heard them point the finger at others in the gang. Forensic evidence of semen on underwear, mud on clothes, and vivid bruises resembling fingerprints on the woman's thighs, proved that these guys were at the scene, pried her legs apart, and inflicted damage. A sixth person escaped detection for years; he either started the attack or finished it when the boys ran, but nobody's ever exonerated the "FIVE" until this movie came out, spinning them as totally innocent and also as having been beaten into confessions (when photos of them leaving interrogation showed no such bruises).

Ava Duvernay had a movie to make...in FOUR parts, because that would be much more money. You can't tell the story in a few hours. It's not like "Dog Day Afternoon" or some other NYC crime story.

So it's FOUR parts and it's all the PURE GOSPEL. EVERY frame?

People want heroes, they can have heroes. Dr. King was a womanizer, just like JFK. People are letting that go. Malcolm? The great Malcolm? He was one of the worst bigots America has ever seen. Go back and read some of Malcolm X's crackpot speeches loaded with garbled religious fanaticism and blue-eyed white-devil racism. Does that mean he wasn't a powerful force in civil rights? He sure was. As Bob Dylan sang it, "this world is ruled by violence, but that's better left unsaid."

Malcolm X pretty much said it. He advocated it. He was a scary bastard. But that's what the country needed. Dr. King and his non-violence may have evoked pity, but Malcolm X evoked fear.

FEAR is what gripped New York City when a fad called "wilding" erupted.

It involved everything from the Puerto Rican Day parade turning into a nightmare, to chaos in the streets, "Son of Sam," and ghetto kids coming down from the slum edge of Central Park to the center where the rich white people jogged.

The white Wall Streeter who blissfully went jogging around the reservoir either didn't read the newspapers, or chose to think she was some kind of gazelle who could outrun a cheetah. Or a pack of jackals. She couldn't.

Fairstein was not a cop. She was a prosecutor. Her role was to prosecute. What's next, go after EVERY prosecutor who got a conviction that turned out to be unjust? Go after the jury, too?

The case against the five was very convincing, and these were not innocent kids throwing a frisbee around. That's not why they went into Central Park.

Fairstein, seeing the blood in the water and the Twitters become a ROAR, immediately resigned from the CHARITIES she was involved in. At 72, she seemed to be ok with that.

If that would stop her being compared to the "we were just following orders" Nazis of World War 2, fine. Saying, "I was just doing my job" should be enough but sometimes, not.

Fairstein has become more well known as a prolific author. She's one of the few women around who churns out detective/cop procedurals rather than overripe romance paperbacks. She figured her intelligent and Liberal publisher would ignore the witch hunt.

She was wrong.

As the Twitter bullies jeered "ban her books" and "burn her books," and libraries and bookstores simply ignored this, her PUBLISHER knee jerked an announcement that Linda Fairstein was THROUGH.

And that may have been when Linda decided to fight back. She wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, a publication brave enough to NOT care if some asshole on Twitter shows a face-palm meme and adds "They be RACIST."

Fairstein dared to state that even though the rape conviction was eventually overturned because a one-man wrecking crew confessed years later, "there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges.”

This case was so convincing that there were convictions. Why not blame the defense attorney for putting up a lousy defense?

According to reports, there were several packs who were "wilding" and many other people robbed or assaulted, most of it very racist. Estimates were that 30 kids were roaming around, going after easy target whites in the middle of the park at 59th Street and not go after blacks with no money who were closer to 110th Street.

But it's just not PC to mention that, in this era of reverse-racism and spin-doctoring and witch hunts.

Fortunately, the "Five" were able to sue and settle for over $40 million, but let's throw in the white lady. Make sure she can't raise money for charity, can't sell another book, and is tainted as a racist for trying to get a conviction on a woman nearly killed in Central Park.

Fairstein is now being made the scapegoat for everything negative that happened. Not the cops who questioned the boys, not the tabloids who were screaming about "wilding" and a city gone rotten, and not the parents who let those kids roam in the park when they should have been home and under control.

It's all just black and white, isn't it?

Saturday, June 8, 2019

WENDY JAMES - KICKED TO THE CURB by a Pledge - "Find another PARADIGM" honey

Oh how the hottie has fallen.

You remember WENDY JAMES? Transvision Vamp? The woman Elvis Costello wrote an entire album for in about an hour or two?

THIS cover girl?

Thanks to piracy, once-famous women (Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, etc.) couldn't get major label deals. As for indie artists such as WENDY JAMES, the indie route has gotten them kicked to the curb.

For a decade now, FANS OF FREE (ie, the upload and download pirates) have sneered, "the music industry is BAD, major labels are BAD, so what artists should do is GET A NEW PARADIGM."

What this PARADIGM might be? Nobody knows. Some bloggers insist, "I am giving away music for fun! If an artist objects they can tell me." Right, Wendy James or Carly's manager must go Googling all day long to find the latest pop-up blogs run by assholes, then leave a NICE comment, and hope the asshole doesn't say "I don't believe you. Prove you are Wendy or represent Carly."

The new PARADIGM was "Music should be free. Support the artist when she tours. Or buy a t-shirt." How easy is it for an indie artist such as Wendy to lug equipment around, take flights, book hotels, find venues, and make it worthwhile? How easy is it for Stagefright Carly to even get on stage if one is available?"

Another PARADIGM idea: "You keep making albums, and put them on the "new radio" sites like Spotify and Pandora. You can make streaming money. Meanwhile we'll continue to offer free downloads because, er, it's good publicity for you!" Except Spotify and Pandora pay pennies per THOUSAND hits.

ANOTHER Paradigm? Wendy James thought she was into something good with a thing called PLEDGE. Like Kickstarter and GoFundMe, PLEDGE was basically a begging bowl. Pass the hat. Make the average slob plumber or garbage man or retired pensioner feel good about tossing a fiver or a tenner at you. But be nice, network on Social Media, and make fans your FRIENDS. Answer their questions. Endure their idiocy. Then beg for spare change so you can make another album.

Jill Sobule, among other indies, opted for Kickstarter, and a prize for giving her a certain amount of money, was that she would stick your name in "The Donors Song," a clever 3 minute tune that just happened to have room to fit in some of the bigger spenders. Wendy chose PLEDGE where fans paid up front, PLEDGING to buy her new album. And...

Yes, on her FACEBOOK page, she explained that PLEDGE is now in bankruptcy. Gosh. Those mean nasty record labels of the old days have been replaced by mean nasty outfits like PLEDGE, and mean nasty streaming sites like Spotify and Pandora, and by blogger assholes who want to be disc jockeys and stars and become "famous" for having a free BLOG where they give away music.

Face the music: unless you're Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, who have idiot young fans who will buy a CD just for the photo on the booklet, the odds of making money from an album are almost NIL. The great leveler, CD BABY, is an outfit where older artists who were once on Mercury or Warner Bros. (Gunhill Road and Ron Nagle) sit next to indie artists who are almost unknown (that would be ME and my album "Ha Ha Halloween.") CD BABY distributes our music to iTunes, Spotify, etc. etc., and we're lucky if a few hundred people listen for FREE, and if the few hundred lead to maybe a few thousand, which means lunch money for one day after a year or two.

Wendy James, like so many who ONCE were on a major label, maintains a website, a SOCIAL MEDIA presence, clings to fan support, and hopes for the best.

Friday, June 7, 2019

The Gays might BAN YOUTUBE from marching in their PARADE - Whoops, Dear! What a PROTEST

It should be known by now: YouTube does not give a SHIT about anyone or anything.

The proof of it was when a woman, disgruntled over being demonetized, went into a YouTube office and fired a bunch of shots. Eh. Meh.

So what. GOOGLE owns YouTube and they can get all the employees they want. Besides, none of their employees was killed. The shooter turned the gun on herself and committed suicide.

Ha ha. So what. YouTube actually has a dozen lampoons of the woman, using her own content to mock her. Since she's not alive to file a DMCA on her own material, let's all laugh.

As previously mentioned, YouTube has a conservative blow-hard who has FOUR MILLION subscribers. Face it, if you're a Rush Limbaugh type, and spend your life sitting on your fat ass and bullying everybody, you can easily find millions of brainless redneck welfare cases to follow you and nod their heads over every pro-gun rant and holocaust denial.

The odd thing is that YouTube supposedly does NOT monetize channels that MIGHT get them bad publicity, or might get them in trouble with advertisers. Supposedly the big companies who advertise on YouTube don't want to alienate any customers. So WHICH ADVERTISERS ARE SPONSORING A CONSERVATIVE HATE MONGERER? The same ones who still sponsor various radio jackasses??

Thousands of good channels were demonetized for no reason anyone can figure out. One theorist believes it's because they don't want to bother paying a $100 or $500 to a thousand different people, when they can pay $10,000 a month to some blowhard being a junior Don Rickles and a major racist and sexist.

The gay community is riled up. So...listen you meanies, we might NOT let you MARCH in your PARADE! So THERE!

YouTube caved, slightly, by announcing that his bonehead bully was no longer being monetized. He would be spewing his hatred just for his own fame. Maybe giving links to where he might sell hate books, hate t-shirts, or a "Donate to Me With Paypal" button or a GOFUNDME link.

YouTube does not have straightforward policies. Like it's bastard mother, GOOGLE, it's "guess what we mean" and "hope we don't find a rule we think you've broken" and "we can make or break any rule and do anything we please."

Typical in their monetization game is to claim that the violation was some nebulous term that hasn't been defined.

Huh? What? Many sellers have gone to forums to declare "ALL my content is original. Can't they see that? How do I appeal? How can I get somebody to REALLY look at my channel?" Others say, "Most of my content is original. I have uploaded some public domain TV clips but mine are much sharper and clearer than any already on YouTube. Don't they see this? And what can I do if others instantly copy mine and upload to THEIR channel without me even knowing it?

This form email has been sent to thousands upon thousands of bewildered uploaders, some with 5,000 or 10,000 or more subscribers. The message is "keep uploading for free while WE monetize and put ads on your channel. We won't have an employee tell you which uploads are in violation. Our higher-up employees are all too busy getting front row concert tickets thanks to our six figure salaries, doing drugs and consorting with whores to care about you."

YouTube and GOOGLE have as twisted a view of "Freedom of Speech" as Julian Assange, or the jerks who pirate every movie, TV show and music album.

Even in the REAL WORLD "Freedom of Speech" has its limits. You can't stand on a soapbox and start shouting the N-word. It's disturbing the peace. Your fucking "Freedom of Speech" ends with everyone else's eyes and ears.

Private companies giving some asshole a platform to spew dangerous rhetoric aimed specifically at tormenting a specific ethnic or sexual group is just plain wrong. GOOGLE's CEO's really have only one defense to it: they are greedy swine who would rather take drugs and bring whores onto their yachts than spend that same money on hiring five or six minimum wagers who'd respond to red-flags on obviously illegal content and hate speech that could get someone killed.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

YouTube "Does Nothing" about Homophobic Hate Posts? Or Sluts. Or Copyright Abusers. Or....

What a surprise. Not.

Today's headlines involve a right wing ranter with his own YOUTUBE channel, who decided it was ok to call someone a "lispy queer," etc.

While Twitter and Facebook often suspend users who are hateful and abusive, YOUTUBE (owned by GOOGLE) can play the "freedom of speech" game.

What gets a user suspended? Who knows.

YOUTUBE's "guidelines" are utterly confusing. There's no phone support or email support. It's impossible to predict if somebody's channel will get taken down or demonetized. Nobody knows who is getting paid to rant or whore on YouTube and who isn't.

Supposedly "monetization" only goes to uploaders who won't embarrass YouTube with content a sponsor might get complaints about. Uploaders who probably aren't monetized including girls who advertise that they have used underwear for sale.

EBAY doesn't allow this, but YOUTUBE does.

YOUTUBE probably doesn't monetize these women (ie, give them money for the number of hits they get) because General Mills or Toyota or whoever advertises on YOUTUBE wouldn't want to risk a boycott on their products. BUT...these uploaders make money by using YOUTUBE for free ads ala Craigslist, and others whine for Paypal donations.

YOUTUBE also allows people to post copyrighted music, TV shows and movies, and under the guise of "we're JUST a venue," don't demand that these uploaders show proof that they have permission. Uploaders routinely offer idiotic caveats like, "I don't own copyright, I just like this" or "This is fair use." It's up to copyright owners to send in DMCA complaints.

THIS controversy? In the REAL world, if somebody said "lispy queer" to Elton John on a talk show, that guest or host would never work again.

What is or isn't PC is very different in the real world and Google's wonderful world of YOUTUBE and blogs.

Once in a while, a high profile "YOUTUBE STAR" gets taken off for reckless posts or heartless comments, but most often, NO.

Google is notorious for doing as they please. Not even potential DEATH stops them.

Yes, potential DEATH of their employees. You might remember THIS woman?

Nasim managed to get past security at YOUTUBE and fire off a few shots at their employees. She didn't kill anyone. In a fit of despair, she turned the gun on herself.

She died. Ha ha ha.

Yes, HA HA HA, because there are a dozen or more lampoons of her, like this one, where clever YouTubers take her clips out of context and make fun of her. She was an eccentric who gave lectures and demonstrations of New Age lifestyle ideas. For no particular reason, she was demonetized. She needed the money, got no answer on why her channel was no longer getting ad money, and shot up the YOUTUBE office.

Obviously, her death did not change YOUTUBE opinion on being cruel, capricious and silent in dealing with uploaders or complaints.

The woman would be alive today, and a few YOUTUBE employees would not have bullet scars, if somebody had either explained to her why her channel was no longer eligible, or simply let her stay monetized and be just one of a million other YOUTUBE crackpots getting lunch money for their work.

There's a lot of confusion over what IS or IS NOT "Freedom of Speech." Those who insist everything is "Freedom of Speech" are told, "what about shouting FIRE in a crowded theater?"

There are gray areas, but GOOGLE is the BILLION DOLLAR company that is making too much GREEN to care.

Sorry, lispy queer. If Stephen Colbert said it about James Corden, he'd be fired. But if you say it on GOOGLE, it's ok.

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Unfair to Linda Fairstein - Tweet-head Bullies, Mob Rule and the NY POST's flip flop backstab

Ah, let's take a look at our brave media. The NY POST.

One day, they run a NICE photo of Linda Fairstein, sympathetic to the moronic McCarthyism of this stupid finger-pointing witch-hunt-loving world of social media.

Nice photo of Linda. But once she was forced to resign due to a Twitterstorm, the NY POST finds a picture where she looks...GUILTY AS HELL.

Fairstein, a long time city prosecutor and also the author of many books, had a very good reputation until a movie decided she'd be the perfect villainess for a re-write of history.

Apparently the infamous "Central Park Jogger" case, where a white woman was bashed on the head, nearly killed, and most definitely raped, was all about racism.

At the time, "wilding" was going on in lawless Central Park. Kids were out of control, most of them delinquents from bad neighborhoods, and some ethnic parades were turning into brawls as well. The city was on edge. As usual. A bunch of black kids who were up to no good in Central Park were questioned, and some confessed, giving vivid accounts of gangbanging the jogger.

Years passed. A convicted creep confessed that he, alone, attacked the jogger. The black boys were innocent. So that meant that their confessions were coerced, and prosecutor Fairstein? She a racist!

The movie's slant, for these times, is to give the world yet another example of how horrible white people are in general, and Linda Fairstein in particular. In a resignation to one of the many charities she leant her name to, she wrote:

“I do not want to become a lightning rod to inflict damage on this organization, because of those now attacking my record of fighting for social justice for more than 45 years."

Fighting for injustice. Nobody on Twitter wants to hear that shit. All they know is they saw a movie. A drama. An actress (Felicity Huffman, who has her own scandals these days) playing a mean woman who should NEVER show her face in public again.

In resigning from one of the charities, "Safe Horizon," Fairstein underlined her record: “I know the terrible inequities of race, gender, and class that have been a tragically pervasive part of our American criminal justice system for centuries. I have dedicated my career, and my professional and personal passion, to fighting against injustice — and much of that fight has been conducted for and on behalf of the staff and directors at Safe Horizon."

Yeah? Be lucky you aren't lynched. Just sit in limbo like Senator Al Franken and some of the other targets. Odd isn't it, that Liberals scream at the Right Wing for having no heart. But when it comes to tossing one of their own under the infamous bus, the Liberals show no mercy. Should Al Franken really resign for patting a few fannies? The fabulous Senator Jellybrain said YES and pushed him. Should Linda Fairstein resign from CHARITIES she raised money for, because a bunch of gullible Twitter hooligans did a hashtag on her?

YES. Because it wouldn't look good to be tolerant, or understand her point of view, or look at the facts. The mob RULES.

What a bitch, this Fairstein, working for "The Joyful Heart Foundation," "God;s Love We Deliver," and other positive groups.

She has to go underground, especially when The New York Post helps slant things with an unflattering photo of the now-disgraced city official and author. At least they tossed her a teeny-tiny life saver:

"Former federal prosecutor Michael Armstrong, who helped re-investigate the Central Park Five case for the NYPD in 2003, called the backlash against Fairstein “entirely unjustified.”
“The idea she did anything to be criticized for is absurd,” he said.
Armstrong, who was chief counsel to the anti-police corruption Knapp Commission in the 1970s, also said it was wrong to treat the dramatized series like evidence, adding that “in my day we used to call that McCarthyism.”

Today MOB RULE is disguised as CHANGE.ORG. A sanctimonious bunch of finger-pointers decided to gather signatures and DEMAND that bookstores and libraries no longer stock Fairstein's books. How about the stock they already have? Anyone for a BOOK BURNING?

These books may be informative and entertaining and have gotten good reviews but...SHE A RACIST!

Somehow the climate in this country now is for some illiterates with no jobs to howl about forcing somebody else to be unemployed.

The combination of ignorance and jealousy yields raised pitchforks and a gleeful demand that somebody high on the food chain get kicked into the mud.

Fairstein had in front of her a set of mug shots of "children?" Do they look like "Children" to YOU?

Any story can be slanted and dramatized to suit an agenda. The facts at the time were that "wilding" was going on in Central Park, and scumbags from uptown, downtown, other boroughs, were coming into the park for no other reason than to cause trouble. That could be mugging, bullying, raping, or any other anti-social activities. The job of the police involved finding the culprits. The newspapers at the time printed vivid confessions that didn't seem coerced or made up; a bunch of delinquents looking for trouble found a jogger alone and attacked her.

Let's also remember that from her injuries, which nearly killed her, it seemed like five guys attacked her, not one (as it turned out). But Fairstein's job was to take the police information and prosecute a case.

In this weird PC world, you never know who is going to be the next sacrificial lamb. An old white woman IS a perfect and defenseless target when it comes to showing how you sympathize with young men "of color." On the other hand, a guy named Tyson Fury, who can make millions of dollars amusing people by fighting, is excused for shouting that Jews control all the banks. Michael Jackson imitators are being booked all over the world, because, hey, seeing some jerk do a moonwalk and wear a white glove is so much fun, there's no point in grumbling about a few kids who were sexually molested. Donald Trump of course, shouted "grab 'em by the pussy," but Jellybrain (Gillibrand) didn't scream that he should resign...it had to be that fanny-patter Al Franken. We all know Trump is corrupt, she seems to be saying, but let me show you how I can self-righteously shove one of my own...a guy who is ahead of me as a much more valued and competent member of the United States Senate.

And so it goes, as Mr. Vonnegut would say. Jews who said "Never Again" have witnessed holocaust denial and the continued abuse of tombstones overturned, random violence, and BDS sanction demands. And people who vowed "Never again" to McCarthyism and blacklisting are now seeing people scared out of their minds that they'll be the next to be accused and condemned in the same sentence.

In a sane society, people who think Fairstein did something wrong would be entitled to their opinion, and she'd be entitled to sell her books to anyone who wants them, and to use her celebrity to bring donations to worthy causes. But not even George Orwell, who may have predicted there would be a Big Brother named GOOGLE, and even politicians such as Putin and Trump, could not conceive of a monster called Social Media.

Monday, June 3, 2019

WHY didn't the news leak LONG AGO on when JAMES HOLZHAUER would LOSE on JEOPARDY?

Mayday, Mayday....

Every day in May became more and more tiresome as professional gambler and trivia savant James Holzhauer kept on winning.

The novelty of his strategy (choose the most expensive clues first, and bet high on Daily Doubles) wore off. So did the wonder at how often he seemed to know the answer to so many pointless questions. (He mentioned that he boned up by reading children's books that offered succinct explanations of science, history, geography, etc).

After a while, it was just irritating to see that cheesy tooth-baring smile of victory.

It seems there's no shortage of annoying Jeopardy champions. Most of them get on the nerves of fans because they mug for the camera or do idiotic mime gestures, or say smug things during the brief interview moment with Trebek each time. James simply kept winning, and the more he won, breaking records for most money won in a single game and then zooming past a million bucks, the more some viewers rolled their eyes and wished him gone.

As Yankees haters can tell you, NOBODY likes to see a winner keep winning and winning.

The recent loss by heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua on June 1st, was greeted with cheers by many who simply didn't like a nice, smiling guy having a perfect winning record.

It’s an irony that the Internet, which does "spoilers" for every movie, and regularly leaks nude images of famous stars, and was the birthplace for Wikileaks, had NOBODY spilling the beans on James Holzhauer.

Why couldn't anyone tell fans when it was safe to watch JEOPARDY again and NOT see GOMER winning and smirking?

Once Holzhauer surged past a million bucks, heading for TWO million and possibly breaking the Ken Jennings record of about 2.5 million, a few articles in the media began to appear:

WHY HASN'T THERE BEEN IN A LEAK ON WHEN HE LOSES??

Today's game, his LOSS, June 3rd, was actually recorded back on March 12th.

The leak didn't happen until this weekend, when TV stations around the country got the new weeks' worth of tapes and station employees could view them all.

Hundreds of people knew what had happened back on March 12th, including the staff and the studio audience.

Jeopardy producers would not reveal what measures were taken to keep the news secret, and lamely suggested that the studio audience, consisting of fans, loved the game too much to ruin it. Nobody in the audience mentioned that James lost...to anyone? Not to some blabbermouth Lucy?

Here's the reason why there was no leak.

Blab the news on social media, and all you'd get is the murderous hatred of die-hard Jeopardy fans.

Steal a celebrity's nude images and you can make money. People sell copies in eBay's secret "adults only" section, of Jennifer Lawrence's wet-faced cellphone porn images and Britney Spears exit from a limo sans underwear, and hundreds of Photoshop fakes. There are websites that do nothing but show such images and make a fortune in banner ads.

As for Assange, he wasn't Robin Hood. Fame and fortune was why he made sure to steal American secrets, and not risk being poisoned by Putin for giving away anything on Russia. Unlike the guy who leaked the Pentagon Papers, Assange made it his business, literally. He made himself fearsome and a superstar and made Wikileaks a thriving enterprise.

So, the real reason the Holzhauer story wasn't liked is: MONEY.

As James Holzhauer grew closer and closer to two and a half million, and breaking the Ken Jennings record…telling the world if he beat Jennings' record or not wasn’t worth a dime.

Suffering Succatash: SEPHORA in the running for KNEEJERK OF THE YEAR AWARD - shuts stores for a day

On June 5th, ladies who drive to the mall to visit Sephora will have wasted their gasoline.

STORE CLOSED.

Women rushing on their lunch break to a Sephora in any city location? TOO BAD. Come back tomorrow.

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS will be lost. Sephora is rich enough to take the massive loss of a FULL DAY'S SALES in EVERY STORE.

An irony is that the cause for all this is Sephora's investment in loss prevention!

Sephora pays for security in every store, and that includes people keeping an eye on suspicious characters. BUT...one woman "of color," as we say, felt that she was being racially profiled.

Is it possible she was simply being checked out because she had a big purse on the counter, or had on a scarf or sloppy clothing that could easily conceal some concealer or lipstick?

The woman in question, a rapper named SZA, posted about the incident, and seemed to laugh it off as just a minor annoyance.

It wasn't like...she was in a mall and suddenly ATTACKED AND TOSSED 40 FEET down, by someone of another race, causing multiple fractures of her face, arm and leg, and the removal of her spleen.

THAT happened, and the famous "Mall of America" did not close down as a solemn show of sympathy and support.

Yes, SZA merely TWEETED about the store incident:

"...We had a long talk. U have a blessed day..."

In other words, the sister took care of business. She let the store manager, or the security guard, know that she was not shoplifting, and that they made a mistake. Was it also racial profiling? Stats would prove that security guards know exactly who the most likely criminals are. If she fit the description, too bad.

Either way, an incident in ONE store involving ONE person, with no violence, no "N-word" shouts, and no disruption to other customers, should not lead to...

EVERY STORE CLOSING! EVERY EMPLOYEE TO UNDERGO DIVERSITY TRAINING!

Sephora actually Tweeted an apology to SZA but figured it couldn't possibly be enough. What? A mere apology? Not an offer of $1000 in free cosmetics? CLOSE EVERY STORE IN AMERICA and INCONVENIENCE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, black and white and brown and any other color??

IDIOCY.

First off, most of Sephora's employees having nothing to do with security. They are drones who shelve shit, cashier crap, and leave security to the security guards.

Secondly, some kind of scolding will have no effect on any actual racists who work at Sephora, and it also doesn't address OTHER forms of abuse. For example...snubbing old people, being snotty to a teenager who isn't going to be making a huge purchase, or giving the skunk-eye to a drag queen.

Does SZA know for a fact she was profiled? Does she also know that security guards may go after anyone with a large purse, or a big shopping bag that things can be dropped into? Does she know the security business well enough to realize that quite often, it's the RICH LOOKING person who is profiled and followed because professional shoplifters costume themselves to look rich and above suspicion??

What IS your idea of DIVERSITY, oh suffering SEPHORA? You hired a truly trained psychiatrist or therapist to go to EACH store and lecture? To lecture ONLY on women "of color" and not others who are often marginalized by busy sales personnel, or eyed with suspicion by security?

Does Security profile an old pensioner on a fixed budget, who might be likely to swipe some pancake make-up? Sephora made headlines in NYC when they arrested the daughter of an ex-mayor. She was not "of color." But she was eyed, and caught. What kind of profiling was THAT?

Now let's come around to what shutting down a chain store does.

It tells the public, "We at SEPHORA are morbidly shocked, upset, in a tizzy, and shuddering and shaking and wringing our little hands over one incident in one store. So anyone who feels racially profiled should start shouting and making a scene. And please, please, PLEASE understand that one day of diversity training will cure everything, even though we hire and fire dozens and dozens every week. Any employee who came in AFTER the day's diversity training, surely will know not to give more than a polite glance to anyone "of color" no matter how suspicious they may be acting..."

But what about a very obvious case of racial profiling that nearly caused a young boy's death at the fabulous MALL OF AMERICA?

Minnesota is becoming quite the place for reverse racism. The was the Somali-born cop who shot a white woman dead for no reason. You didn't see any white football player taking a knee over that.

Then there's the guy who, angry about his sex life, decided he wanted to kill somebody.

Did he pick a black woman? NO. He picked a five year-old white boy.

NOBODY has suggested racial profiling. NOBODY has suggested this was a hate crime. NOBODY asked why it was that this black man singled out a white boy to throw over a railing and nearly murder.

MALL OF AMERICA didn't shut down for a day, and, like Martin Luther King JR. Day, declare somberly, "We remember that racism is not dead, and we stand against it."

What's the deal on Martin Luther King Jr. Day? "Hey, a black man was shot by a white guy, so you don't get any mail today."

Sephora is telling its customers, "A black woman was dissed in ONE of our stores, so NOBODY gets to shop at ALL on June 5th."

But MALL OF AMERICA is saying, "What, a 5 year-old kid got traumatized, nearly killed, and is suffering tremendous pain and agony? Might be disfigured? Might not be able to play like any normal kid ever? WE ain't shuttin' down for THAT!"

Every day, Jews, Native Americans, Old people, Asians, and others who suffer in silence, get abused. You can bet if any of them had an incident in Sephora with a rude clerk or a nasty security guard, NOTHING would happen. But a minor rapper "of color?" Case CLOSED. ALL STORES CLOSED.

Somebody dressed shabby walks into a Sephora, and gets followed. Profiled. Is Sephora going to shut down for a day and tell its employees not to be suspicious of someone who doesn't look like they can afford to buy a lot? Is Sephora going to remind its employees that sometimes eccentric people have a lot of money, or maybe buy gifts for others while not caring how they themselves look? Anyone telling a Sephora employee that the old lady they are ignoring, or following as a potential shoplifter, might have a crisp $100 bill and a grand daughter she does on?

Is it not possible that a Sephora employee ever made a racial slur to a Jewish woman? Maybe "If you are going to powder your NOSE, you'll need the LARGEST SIZE box of powder we have..." Fact is, that woman could have a cellphone video of that remark, and post it on YouTube, and Sephora would merely say "We're sorry, we fired the employee" and NOT close every store down.

How many incidents are on police blotters about Sephora every week? Incidents of disorderly conduct, false arrest, tossing some elderly woman out of the shop, etc. etc. But one woman "of color" who happens to be a rapper who plays a few festivals, and it's WE MUST SHUT DOWN EVERY STORE!!

Not all minorities are treated equally. In some cases, there's a kneejerk, and a bendover backward. In other cases, there's blindness.

The black guy who nearly murdered the white boy? For a crime that nobody considered racially motivated, he was sentenced so mildly he could be paroled in a dozen years. Yes, by the time he's 36, he could be out, and even angrier than before. He will be sprung loose only a few years later, no matter what. Nearly KILLED somebody, certainly involving more racial profiling than a security guard's actions in a beauty shop, but MALL OF AMERICA didn't close, and nobody suggested this maniac be put away for life or sent to the looney bin. Pretty...crazy.

There's a difference between suffering...and Sephora-ing. One gets an entire chain of stores shut for the day, and the other gets no reaction from the Mall where the incident took place.

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Southampton College: My Part In Its Downfall

Excuse me paraphrasing one of Spike Milligan's book titles. (That would be "Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall." Spike would later write a sequel, "Mussolini, His Part In My Downfall" and "Monty: His Part In My Victory.")

Now I'll reference Tom Lehrer and his song "Bright College Days." You might remember these lines, sung drunkenly by seniors:

Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life
But as we go our sordid sep'rate ways
We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days...

Let us drink a toast to all we love the best
We will sleep through all the lectures
And cheat on the exams
And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest

Without my college days, I might not have had the chance to write books that included Lehrer and Milligan, or had the chance to interview Tom or correspond with Spike.

I did learn some of my craft from being an English major at Southampton College, with a magna cum laude average. I spent all four years with the "underground" newspaper, the last three as the editor.

As it turns out, a sure sign of not being "forgotten with the rest" is to be immortalized in a book.

I thought maybe, on some Facebook group or at a reunion, somebody might bring up The Camel, and its funny and fearsome articles about the professors and the administration, along with its short stories, poems, and cartoons. But...to be part of a historical book??

The book is “Running on Empty,” which does have a subtitle to let you know it's about the rise and fall of Southampton College.

Southampton College had a traditional newspaper called The Windmill, cleverly named for the actual windmill that was a campus landmark. It wasn't functional, but instead served as the guest quarters for visiting lecturers and big shots.

The campus also had an "underground" newspaper, mimeographed and stapled together, using legal size paper. The paper eventually took ads, so that "electronic stencils" could be made for some pages, and photos could be added.

As you'd expect, the "underground" paper was anti-establishment, and that included the college administration.

I was influenced by the newly solo and political John Lennon (I would one day edit an entire magazine about him), along with cult favorite authors (Ginsberg, Mailer, etc., who I'd eventually meet in person) as well as the ghost of Lenny Bruce and the living presence of Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory and George Carlin.

Mort once edited an Army newspaper called "Poop from the Group," which landed him on continuous KP duty. THIS underground newspaper, which did have some rude content, could not be stopped, even if the administration sometimes tried.

After all, aside from tweaking the nose of the college president, a fiery editorial would sometimes get everyone pretty riled. As in: "they rioted and had a food fight in the cafeteria because of what YOU wrote in your paper!"

Rise and Fall of Southampton College? I can't take the blame there! While it flirted with financial problems (which the paper duly mentioned), it survived long after my cum laude graduation. No doubt, the campus was quite sedate before "The Camel" arrived. That was what everyone called the underground newspaper that was fully titled "A Christmas Camel."

Professor Strong, on page 123:

"Student protest...turned from vocal public demonstrations to caustic satire directed at those in authority...The movement found expression a bit later on the Southampton campus. Ronald Smith told a reporter for the Windmill about the origin of Southampton's first and longest surviving underground paper The Christmas Camel....he and his friend Peter Schilling decided that there should be an alternative to the Windmill. Peter got the name, Christmas Camel, from an old Procol Harum song. "He never really came up with a reason one can put on paper," said Smith. "It's a song about insanity reaching limits."

For those out of town, "The Windmill" was the official college newspaper, edited by the late Merrill Plaskow, who was more interested in the theater program. He was in several school plays, and actually got a bit part in a revival of "Fiddler on the Roof" on Broadway, and a brief scene in a phone booth in the film "Marathon Man." There was, indeed, a windmill on campus, and it was used as the guest quarters for visiting lecturers and big shots.

Merrill appointed me as the Windmill's movie critic, and did profile me in the paper once, just to show that there was no overt rivalry between Windmill and Camel. Professor Strong continues:

"Schilling and Smith had a small staff, but they did a great deal of the work on the paper themselves. They knew that as long as they did the editing, typing, stapling, and distributing of the paper themselves they could remain relatively independent from the administration."

"The issues in the first year printed poems by students, serious comments on campus issues, and enough four-letter words to upset Frank Gambacorta, the coordinator of student services...The administration backed off, probably because they knew that any attempt at censorship was unenforceable." "...The Camel now turned to satirizing the faculty and the administration, particularly the food service, with irreverent, often unfair, sometimes insightful, but always interesting commentary. Smith and Schilling and their staff went after both liberals and conservatives with their pointed barbs. They even wrote letters attacking themselves.

"Ronald Smith complained that the administration was purposely trying to undermine the paper...The administration denied the charges...it was certainly true, however, that the administration would have liked very much for the Camel to go away. Dean Burke once banned the Camel from being distributed in Southampton Hall during Parents Weekend where visitors to the admissions office might see a copy...

"After Schilling and Smith graduated, the paper struggled to survive...the paper now printed cartoons featuring genitalia along with scatological poems and letters and the standard Camel fare...The Camel was clearly on the decline...(and) appelaed to the student body for support with a message in capital letters warning that the paper "will cease to come out unless we get more support from our fellow students." There was little response...the last issue hthat has survived in the campus archievs is dated February 27, 1978...The last page of the last issue featured a caustic satire on selected faculty and administrators replete with four letter words under a cartoon showing a nude female..."

I suppose it would not have been a surprise to faculty members that the editor of The Camel in its glory years, would break into the magazine world via short stories published in such magazines as Dude, Jaguar and Hustler. BUT, a few years later, and I was the editor of ROCKET, a rock magazine and moving on to be a music editor and writer for other national publications. I even got the chance to interview and photograph members of the rock group that recorded "A Christmas Camel." A went out for beers with the lead guitarist, and the organist dropped by the apartment and I'm still in contact with him to this day.

If I could do footnotes here, I'd add as a footnote, that while editing The Camel during my Sophomore, Junior and Senior year, I was also the host of the late night radio show on the college radio station WSCR. In fact, I closed the station down each night. "The Manic Depressive Hour" could stretch for two or even three hours, depending on my mood, and the fare varied pretty crazily between Lenny Bruce routines, Frank Zappa and Yoko Ono to the slightly more normal Jethro Tull, Fanny, Kinks, Good Rats and Procol songs. One day, literally, I held a "Comedy Marathon," playing nothing but comedy records from 10am to 10am. I had never stayed up for 24 hours before, but for some reason I thought I could do it. I never did that again.

And yes, I did take a course with Professor Strong, a history teacher, but I didn’t complete my final exam. I would actually have recurrent dreams about this for several years. In my dream I'd be wondering if I had graduated, and if I was supposed to take a test in Strong’s class, but not knowing when it was going to be or how I’d get to the campus.

What happened to make me miss the test was embarrassing, because it looked like an elaborate excuse…the kind not beyond the imagination of a rebellious wiseguy underground newspaper editor. I showed up for the test with a bandage around my right hand. I said that it was impossible for me to hold a pen and write anything. Professor Strong accepted this without checking with the infirmary nurse (who would’ve backed up my story). I didn’t have to take the test at some future date, which still confuses me, and obviously led to the recurrent dream of “oh my God, I haven’t taken the final exam…did I graduate or NOT?” The reason for the bandage? I was in a bad mood over something or other, probably something gone wrong with the projection of the “movie of the week” (I was by now also head of the film committee). As I stormed up the steps to the dorm, I pushed open the door with my palm — not realizing I had hit one of the four glass panes in the door, and not the wood. My hand went right through the glass pane, with the sound of shattered glass.

This drew a mocking cheer of “Yeah!” from somebody upstairs. I think it was in extricating my hand that I did more damage, slicing my wrist on a protruding shard at the bottom of the broken pane.

The situation did nothing for my mood, and I decided I’d had enough of college life. At least, for the evening. Wrapping something or other around my wrist, I took myself, and my “Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe” for a walk down the road to the Shinnecock Motel. The owner of the place didn’t seem to question why I had no luggage, or why I signed in with a bandage on my hand. It was off-season, after all. My hand oozed blood through the night.

It was not any better in the morning, so a friend of mine advised me to visit the infirmary, where, in a state of goldfish-bowl shock, voices getting fainter and fainter, the young nurse picked at the heel of my palm, checked out some other scratches, and applied the bandages that mummified my hand.

The keloid scar would be very evident for five or ten years, but gradually flattened out with time.

And so did Southampton College, which became an ever more distant part of Long Island University, eventually being degraded to "Southampton Campus," and then to nothing at all.

I did go back a few times, the last time to deliver a lecture on the art of writing a biography, having had some success with books on Bill Cosby and Johnny Carson. The worst part was meeting with one of my old English professors, who always seemed to have some grim news that I hadn't heard about. That included a girl who wrote poetry for The Camel and who "got killed in that stupid, stupid car accident in Italy."

I suppose surviving issues of The Camel, formerly in the college library, are in some archive at L.I.U. now. The only items from my college days that the general public might have seen, were the food poems that appeared in local newspapers including the Southampton Summer Day. As I previously mentioned in an earlier blog piece, guest professor Dan Rattiner taught a class once, liked my work, and suggested I write articles and poems for the newspapers he owned. Having written a weekly food poem for several months, it dawned on me (about six years after graduation) to try and write more, and get together enough for an entire book. That turned into "Let Peas Be With You," which got published, and got some praise from Julia Child, Yoko Ono and Vincent Price.

It's a little weird when stuff you did in college actually becomes in any way, "history." But let's be a bit realistic here...the book in question is a history of a college's demise!