PISU Off....

Sad news, the comedian Raffaele Pisu has died. You might recognize the face. Thanks for the laughs, Mr. Pisu.

Who Gets a Wikipedia Death Notice? Only Notable People...and horses

One reason Wikipedia will never get a donation from me:

They list, among people who are politicians, artists, scientists, athletes and scholars...HORSES.

If you're a horse that died of colic, THAT puts you in the company of exalted humans.

A writer or actress who is an international figure...is equal to a German race horse or one that was put out to pasture in Japan and died 10 years after it raced. THAT is WIKIPEDIA.

From newspaper obits all around the world, Wikipedia could only find EIGHT worth noting? And one of them's a HORSE?

Wikipedia encourages the "sport" of horse racing? They could fill the obits every week with the number of animals that break a leg and have to be killed (euthanized) on the track.

I hope that when the jackass who runs Wikipedia dies, he's buried in a pet cemetery.

Let's be a REALIST about it -- PAUL KRASSNER is DEAD (so is DIKSHIT)

Damn. What a day.

First we lose DIKSHIT.

And then THIS shit. Paul Krassner died today (July 21st) in Desert Hot Springs. Hell.

A few old hipsters are pissed off.

It's a bit weird Paul Krassner wasn't better known.

Groucho Marx, after the passing of Lenny Bruce:

"I predict that in time Paul Krassner will wind up as the only live Lenny Bruce."

But George Carlin became the heir to Lenny in the eyes of the public. Even if George said:

"The FBI was right, this man is dangerous – and funny; and necessary."

Kurt Vonnegut took time to praise one of Paul's two-word suggestions, a poster in "THE REALIST" that simply said: "FUCK COMMUNISM."

Quoth Kurt:

"....a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein's e=mc2."

Krassner, considered father of the "underground newspaper," was a clown prince in other media, too, experimenting with stand-up as early as 1961, and creating the "Youth International Party." But other stand-up comics got more attention, and the YIPPIES developed better known celebrities in Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. And by the time "The Merry Pranksters" came long, Paul was just another member of the team.

Paul made a notorious appearance on abrasive conservative talk show host Joe Pyne's syndicated program, and got the better of him, but he still didn't get a lot of media attention.

He was known in a medium that does not usually get you well known: WRITING.

After what you'd expect (editing a cheeky college paper that appalled most teachers and amused most students), Paul began freelancing for MAD magazine (which really didn't out-live Paul). Then he started a humor/satire magazine for adults: "THE REALIST." He also edited Lenny Bruce's book, "How To Talk Dirty and Influence People." Of course, the attention went to Lenny, not the editor.

As editor of "THE REALIST," Paul offered cartoons, interviews with all the right people (Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce) and a place for other humorous odd people with no following (Robert Paul Smith for instance, no relation).

All through the years, "THE REALIST" remained a true underground paper. Even his best efforts didn't really make it expand. One treasured issue had former MAD magazine cartoonist Wally Wood drawing a "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" poster. Another wiseguy trick was not only doing the "Fuck Communism" poster, but sending a copy directly to squinty, block-headed FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover adding "I hope you get a chuckle out of the enclosed..."

No, Krassner did not get that many chuckles or as much notoriety as those he influenced and championed, from Lenny to George and back. Even one of his best examples of bad taste is more a minor legend and not as famous as the "seven words you can't say on TV." This was "That Parts That Were Left Out Of the Kennedy Book."

Krassner imagined that "The Death of a President" (as the best-selling William Manchester tome was called) didn't quite get it right. He wrote about LBJ fucking the hole in Kennedy's neck made by one of the bullets.

"People across the country believed – if only for a moment – that an act of presidential necrophilia had taken place," Paul would later insist. "...what I wrote was a metaphorical truth about LBJ's personality presented in a literary context...it broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men."

What's the deal? Some guys are deliberately NOT made to be martyrs? The Kennedy assassination led to the temporary demise of Mort Sahl. Mort didn't die a Lenny Bruce death, he just got blacklisted. He put out only ONE record during the reign of LBJ. Krassner, for all his attempts at rattling the cage, was a prisoner of "THE REALIST." It faded, and Paul was embraced by the "stroke book" world -- selling articles to Playboy and having a column in Cavalier. (Lenny had briefly written a column for Rogue, so again, Paul was following Lenny's lead, but to nowhere.) He did bring "The Realist" back in the 80's, to the delight of a small circle of friends.

Paul also contributed some strange articles to "High Times" in the 80's, including "My Acid Trip with Groucho," which was later re-published in chap book form. Frankly, by the 80's and into the 90's, there was plenty of competition even in the world of satire magazines. "National Lampoon" was hip for a while. So was "Spy." And while Krassner still did some stand-up, he was no match for an ever-saltier George Carlin, or for the new wave of bad boys that included Sam Kinison and "Dice" Clay. Some fairly saucy political satire was even available in "Tonight Show" monologues.

Chuck Barris wrote a book, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," which, if Jimmy Durante was still alive, would've had the Schnozzola gasping "Everybody's tryin' to get inta da act!"

Paul countered with the 1994 memoir "Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture." There was also a low-selling book "Impolite Interviews" compiling 21 celebrity Q&A from "THE REALIST," including chapters for Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer, Ram Dass, George Lincoln Rockwell, Dick Gregory,Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Timothy Leary, and of course, Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.

With Lenny long gone, sometimes Paul would be called on to talk about him. I remember meeting Paul at some Lenny salute deal, held maybe at Town Hall or some other typical venue, with Kitty Bruce in attendance. It was a nice little slap on the back that probably was promoting a documentary about Lenny.

[Since I stuck a credit on it, I don't mind if the average putz uses this image, sticks it on a blog etc. The credit is mainly so that if some very hip documentary-maker, TV station, author etc. wants to use it, and can actually afford to pay for usage, they'll know how to contact me!]

In 2005, Paul got a Grammy nomination for the album notes to the six CD set "Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware." It sold to the converted. By 2005, people had to be reminded that even if Lenny wasn't funny (to Gen X'rs) and wasn't Carlin, he was still IMPORTANT. Paul did his part, with a High Times article in 2004, "Lenny & the Law, Together Again."

In 2002 and 2004, on Artemis, the label that courageously supported Warren Zevon, Paul issued his last two albums, "Irony Lives" and "The Zen Bastard Rides Again."

2005 was the last year for a Krassner tome: "One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist," which didn't exactly do much even with Harry Shearer and Lewis Black both contributing introductory pieces.

Krassner was proudly a Yippie, a boat rocker, and through the years, a thorn of varying size in the side of American complacency and stupidity.

"Kurt Wearing Me" and "Wendy Wearying Me"

Who put out the album called "Living In the Past?"

You mean it wasn't Wendy?

Ah nostalgia...

"Kurt wearing me." Yes, and someone unkind might ask if he wore you out. Or what form of pearl jam you were wearing thanks to any number of depressed punks who liked loud music and a quickie.

Kurt wore a t-shirt that he might not have even be aware he was wearing. But let's say he actually liked the band's music. That might not be an endorsement for what the woman is doing now.

And just because somebody you like likes something, it doesn't mean you will like it. Like, that's something, huh? How many Eric Clapton fans have every Robert Johnson album? How many John Lennon fans believe "Don't Worry Kyoko" remains "the best rock and roll record ever made?" How many Dylan freaks sit around studying the clues in the lyrics on a Blind Willie McTell record?

What do you hear from air-headed hosts of Emmy, Tony, Grammy and Oscar shows on the red carpet? "WHO are you wearing?"

Well, why not ask a second question: "WHO were you wearing 25 years ago who is now dead?"

Cosplay for Seniors

A t-shirt and a cape. A fine wedding of the common and the pompous. It's a fashion statement to say 1969 was a very good year.

Remember when rock groups had optimistic names like YES and JOURNEY...but most critics said NO and I WON'T GO?

Bad rock groups that were hugely popular still have a following. I know, to quote Mr. Ochs, "like old whores following tired armies."

People wonder why progrock is now considered dead? It was on a pretentious life-support bed for years, one festooned with unicorn horns, wreaths for ailing whales, fool's gold and a roundabout frosting of ice cream castles in the air.

On the bright side, events such as this bring in some money and prevent someone from actually being a homeless man, despite looking like one.

"I Couldn't Have Done It With My Boobs" - Simona Halep? Wimbledon Champ?

Simona Halep's 6-2 6-2 blitz of Serena Williams to win Wimbledon today was a stunner.

What would've capped it, is if Halep had taken the microphone and said, "I couldn't have done it with my boobs. My original boobs, that is."

See, well, actually you DON'T see anymore, Simona went for breast reduction surgery back in 2009, when she was 17.

She said that her boobs were too heavy and they were getting in the way. She also said that even if she wasn't into sports, she would've opted for a less, uh, showy front.

Few remember Halep as anything but a normal 36B (or 34C) since it was only in the last few years that she reached the Top 10 and began to show promise. In fact, it's only since denying Serena Williams a record-tying (with Margaret Court) 24th Grand Slam win, that most people have ever heard of her.

Guys don't have to take dire steps to become champion hurdlers. Jockeys are also not going to make things worse for themselves. Maybe in dreams, somebody might say "I'd give my right arm to...become the world's most famous left-handed baseball player."

Did Halep's breast reduction REALLY make her a CHAMPION player? Maybe. Maybe not. If you look at the before and after pictures, you'll notice something else. Her arms were pretty skimpy back in her zaftig days. You can't go to a doctor and get surgery to add all that muscle. Some things are easy to take off, but others take years to put on.

New Yorker Cartoons - the DIVERSITY gets bigger, the laughs get smaller

I can imagine the scene at The New Yorker. Editors talking:

"We're embracing DIVERSITY with the cartoons. We're telling everyone to shade at least ONE character DARK."

"Just make sure the DARK character isn't the butt of the joke!"

"Of course. But what do you mean, JOKE? Are you saying our cartoons are supposed to be FUNNY?"

"I've got another idea we MUST try. Make the WHITE character the stupid and unsuccessful one!"

"Will it make the cartoon funnier?"

"Funnier...funnier...past tense of funny? Our cartoons were funny in the past..."

See what they did? Crotchety uncool old white guy, and shabbily dressed white guy next to the successful man OF COLOR? The new NEW YORKER. Subscribe today! PS, the white pages would be NOTHING without the black ink.

28 Mort Sahl Viewers Can't Be Wrong...

The last man standing...actually sitting...is STILL on the air. Or in the ether. Or whatever you call it when you're streaming a video.

Ambient lighting might be good for Mort, but ambient sound isn't, but chances are even if his weekly hour of informal talking didn't look like it was done with a Best Buy camcorder on a tripod, few would be viewing.

As so many have discovered, the Internet is vast and most of it is FREE. There's so much on YouTube and Vimeo and other famous platforms, that most don't even stray to lesser known areas such as DailyMotion or Periscope. The latter is where, when is Twitter and Facebook owner bothers to mention it an give a link, is where Mort's show is streamed.

Mort conducts the hour at about 7pm local time, in what looks to be the concession lobby of a local theater. About two dozen chairs are strewn, admission is less than $20, and Mort is now shown already seated and ready to ready to discuss the local news. As well as anecdotes from the past, and perhaps a few audience questions.

A big problem with the Internet is that it's so loaded with attention-seekers, it's hard to get any message through, like "I'm appearing at a club near you" or "You can watch me work for almost nothing, and you can get entertained for FREE, if you can just find me on the Internet..." As Mort found years ago, people got used to getting their topical fix of jokes via Carson, Leno, and now Colbert.

Competition increases. Would be-Morts (who most likely think they are the next Dave or the next Jon Stewart) sit behind a desk and then upload their rants to YouTube, waiting to GO VIRAL. Comedy clubs are no longer in vogue and it's up to obscure restaurants and bars to have "open mike" nights. You can't keep a stand-up down. He might sit, but he's not sitting it out.

R.I.P. Rip Torn, and About Jim Bouton

Two in a row.

What helps is if you've told the person how they've touched you. If you have good memories of them.

I was fortunate that in my freelancing work, I got an assignment to write an article based on two new books on baseball wives, one by the wife of Mike Torrez and the other from Jim Bouton's ex-wife. Neither was exactly a "Ball Four" but both books covered the topic of what it's like to be married to a baseball star.

For rebuttal to balance the story, I got to interview Jim Bouton. Of course in the course of it, I had to mention that I had always been a fan, and that aside from "Ball Four," I admired his feisty work when he was a local New York TV sports caster. He sparred impishly with even the nastiest of them, like the "sportswriter who hasn't had a Young idea in his life." Meaning Dick Young, who had name-called Jim and his co-author Leonard Schecter “social lepers.”

Jim was an easy-going guy to talk to, and as he'd already had plenty of abuse and controversy in his life, he told me, "Don't worry, Ron..." the tell-all on HIM wasn't upsetting him. The ex was entitled to write whatever she wanted. In the meantime, he was busy with his various enterprises, including "Big League Chew" (bubble gum that looked like chewing tobacco) and business cards designed like baseball cards. He even offered to make a free set for me..."Send me your photo." In the spirit of impartial journalism, I declined. I know. Watta dope. I do treasure my signed copy of "Ball Four." And I still remember Harry Chapin's theme song when the book was very briefly made into a sitcom.

I was glad that Bouton was invited back for "Old Timers Day" after years and years of being snubbed. As in, "We can't have him, it would disrespect Mickey Mantle!" Oddly, Joe Pepitone, who wrote a book exposing Mantle for having smoked dope while playing in a baseball game, and striking out while high as a kite, didn't affect HIS invitations. Well, I think it was after Mickey died that Bouton got his invitation, and a rousing cheer from the crowd. The "forgiving" crowd? No, the crowd that admired "Bulldog" for his two excellent years (including an All-Star game) as a winning Yankee pitcher, and for his humorous, counter-culture personality, which many had finally caught up to appreciating.

"Old Timers Day" games can be a little sad. You don't like to see a player being rolled onto the field in a wheelchair, or a robust star now doddering and thin. Jim's final appearance a few years ago was sad. He had spoken about his lapses in comprehension and the other maladies that he was suffering, but here he was, needing to have somebody on his arm in case, who knows, he lost his balance or something. He wasn't the only old timer who needed help, though, and there were also escorts for the widows of Yankee greats. It was no embarrassment. All he heard were cheers. He died yesterday, July 10th of cerebral amyloid angiopathy.

As for Rip Torn, I had known about him as a legendary wildman, and various stars that I knew had casually mentioned him in anecdotes. (Notice how I resisted name-dropping?) Many of his incidents made the papers, or were prominent in memoirs, like his notorious fight with the equally pugnacious Norman Mailer. I met Norman at his Brooklyn townhouse, but I was not expecting to ever get the opportunity to shake hands with Rip Torn. Until an actress friend flew in and we went to a bunch of Broadway shows together.

My friend (wow, I've resisted name dropping AGAIN) always had one request in the choice of shows: "I want to see good acting." A hit show loaded with special effects was of no interest to her. So we ended up seeing a Horton Foote play which starred Rip Torn. Just as we'd enjoyed Christopher Plummer playing Barrymore, we were knocked out by the brilliance of Rip Torn, live on stage. After the show, my actress friend, "Let's go backstage and say hello." I said, "You know Rip Torn?" She said, "No, but that's what you do."

Ah. Well known actress, as a courtesy and as a tribute, goes backstage to congratulate an actor she's never met. OK. Fine with me. We went backstage, and of course, Rip Torn recognized her instantly, as if they were old friends. Then she introduced ME, and he shook my hand with gusto and that big smile. She talked about how much she enjoyed the performance, while I just stood and smiled like an idiot (method acting on my part). But I finally did say something or other about a scene or a moment, just to prove I was there. It was a nice moment, to shake his hand, and to have both of us add to the many compliments he probably received backstage at most every performance.

The obituaries almost all top-lined his work on "The Larry Sanders Show," for which he was Emmy-nominated every year (and won at least once). I suppose it fulfilled an axiom of his — perform drama as comedy, and comedy as drama. He had as much intensity in that role as he'd had some fifty years ago when he was among that pride of lions, including Brando, Dean, Newman, Cassavettes and Gazzara who were doing Tennessee Williams or other classic stuff and changing the acting game forever. Few actors were as imposing in their 60's and 70's as they were when leading men in their 30's. Rip Torn was one of those rare and charismatic men.

Today everybody's got a cellphone with a camera, and everybody takes selfies. Back when I talked to Jim Bouton and Rip Torn, this obnoxious custom didn't exist and was not the "norm." So, no, I do not have my picture with them. In fact, even now that it's the "norm" I almost never do it. Hell, I didn't even ask Rip Torn to sign my Playbill. Although...if my actress friend wasn't impeccable, and had for the sake of novelty, worn a ripped, torn denim skirt...would she have asked to have it signed, like so?

Photoshop is hard to resist. That IS his signature added to a ripped torn skirt. By the way, unlike Rock Hudson or Tab Hunter, Hollywood did NOT give him that first name as a sub for Elmore. All the guys in the Torn family (from Texas) seemed to enjoy having "Rip" as a nickname. And so, "R.I.P." is, for change, appropriate.

Colin Kaepernick is less gutsy than a White Female Figure Skater

Colin Kaepernick?

WHAT A WUSS.

When Tonya Harding took a knee...

Meanwhile, back at reality, I noticed (it's hard NOT to) a whole bunch of MEMES festooning social media. One of them was keyed to the Fourth of July.

Take a look at this one, Colin Kaepernick.

So, tell me, Caper Knickers, Mr. Knickers in a Twist, how do you think British people feel on July 4th?

Surely there are tourists in America on July 4th who feel OFFENDED. Who feel ANGRY because THEIR ANCESTORS WERE KILLED BY AMERICANS.

The July 4th holiday surely offends the U.K.

Now, I know it's an important holiday because we all want to see Joey Chesnut eat over 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes, and prove to the world how Americans are rich enough to make eating a sport.

BUT...July 4th was shameful, and a guy like you must surely agree that it should NEVER happen again. Oh, let's not PREVENT July 4th from existing, and go from July 3rd to July 5th. Just AVOID celebrating it.

Colin Kaepernick decided the Betsy Ross flag offends him, and therefore NOBODY should be allowed to buy a Nike sneaker with that emblem on it?

First off, I'd like to see the day when Colin Kaepernick is offended by Nike in general, and how they bankrupt ghetto kids into thinking overpriced sneakers are important.

But more important, he should get the BIG picture, which is that America as we know it, built itself up by knocking people down and killing them...via the Indian wars and the Revolutionary War.

ARE THERE ANY OFFENDED I HAVEN'T GROUPED?

That's a variation on an old Mort Sahl line, which old Mort Sahl isn't using these days.

What it means is, it's easy to spend a lot of time sulking and being offended, and going on witch hunts, and firing people and censoring stuff.

How easy? You just take a knee and let everybody gasp and nod and give you millions of dollars.

How effective? Not very. Have the number of incidents of police brutality against blacks, or ANY other group such as Latinos or white women gone down thanks to Colin? No. How about incidents of gun violence in general? School massacres? Oh, never mind, Colin didn't take a knee over gun control or school massacres. He has his priorities.

He'll wear his non-Betsy Ross Nike sneakers when he jogs over to watch the Washington REDSKINS play some games. He might cheer the BOSTON PATRIOTS, because, after all, their ancestors shot and killed a lot of British people.

Google Puts its TWO CENTS IN

No, this blog is NOT monetized. I make no money from it.

Isn't it comforting to know that if I did monetize, I would STILL make no money from it?

Why waste a lot of effort?

I know a blogger who figured to goose up the profits by posting a whole bunch of stuff, with tons of pictures, and lots of buzzwords about current events.

This would SURELY put a jump in the profits, right?

Don't give up. Keep networking. Keep building.

Do MORE click bait. Go on social media with wild rumors like Ross Perot leaving his fortune to Trump. MAYBE...you'll be working at the minimum wage of two cents an hour.

MAYBE you'll find at the end of a month that you've earned maybe a dollar and change.

Hey, that could get you a slider at White Castle.

As Warren Zevon said, "Enjoy every sandwich..."

Spend a Penny? Piss Poor Internet Sales for Creative People

Oh, this "new paradigm" of trying to make money on the Internet.

In this digital age, nobody wants to own books, DVDs, CDs, or photos. Better to have it all on an external hard drive that might erase it all. Put it on discs that could scratch or rot.

Creative people are told that they are better off without greedy companies that take a huge percentage and give only a small royalty. Ah yes, powerful monopolies like Google and Amazon are MUCH better. Aren't they?

I know someone who was getting a lot of blog hits and figured "monetization" would make some money. "OK, Google, put a banner ad on my blog and let's see the money roll in..."

Yes, Google spent a penny on him.

Google owns YouTube. On YouTube if an upload goes "viral" and gets 100,000 hits (which is very rare) you might get $50. Depends on algorhythms. You spent hours on the project. Maybe you rehearsed from a script. Maybe you waited all day to record an event. Maybe a lot of editing was required. If you only spent ONE DAY on it, you didn't make minimum wage. Many don't make anything because they do work "on spec," and wait for Google to say, "OK, you have 4,000 subscribers and over 50,000 hits a month on what you've posted. You're eligible for monetization." That can be a long wait. Like, forever. They might NEVER monetize you and will NOT tell you why or what you can do about it. Google is also notorious for DEMONETIZING accounts for no reason. You have NO access to a phone number and if you do have an e-mail contact with an assigned advisor, that person will stop responding to you after sending a form letter.

As for established professional musicians who think streaming will compensate for what they've lost through piracy and the death of CD sales, CNBC recently pointed out the bad news. "The new paradigm" isn't working and it isn't fair:

I know plenty of musicians who have seen their royalties shrink over the years, as vinyl gave way to CD, and CD gave way to mp3 downloads, and then to streaming. Most now agree that not only is climate change real, so is the damage from PIRACY. An ordinary blogger is committing grand larceny with the number of downloads and "hits" from what's posted on Zippyshare or Imagenetz. Some bloggers use Rapidgator (which pays a percentage on 1,000 or more downloads) or Paypal donation banners to actively compete with the artist for royalties. Only these weasels are getting a percentage they are not entitled to. Some singers and songwriters now get a royalty check that might allow for dinner out once a week, or maybe enough to pay the monthly grocery bill...but NOT the RENT.

Photography? Everyone has a cellphone now. Everyone is a paparazzi, seeing a celeb and snapping away. The price goes down because everyone has that shot of the star at the airport, or the star taking out the garbage. Even an upskirt or some other scandalous photo won't get big money because once it appears, everyone copies it and uses it.

Back in the day, a big photo agency would assign you to events and market your images, and keep them in a library. You'd get surprise checks in the mail all the time: Oh, TV Guide bought an image. Oh, a book company is using my photo. Hmm, NBC ran my photo in the background illustrating a piece on a star in the news.

Not anymore. Magazines are dead. TV stations get sent free photos taken with cellphones and all they do is say "we'll give you a photo credit." The world is loaded with unintentional scabs who will happily work for FREE just for the ego of it.

Most photo agencies have gone under, and the big ones on the Internet, like Getty, are notorious for NOT wanting to acquire a photographer's portfolio, and NOT paying much for anything. A typical website admonishment:

The book world is the same. Back when I was an acquisitions editor, I was told to offer the lowest advance possible, because "half of list price goes to the distributor, and from there we have printing costs, office expenses..." So if the author gets two bucks on a $20 book, and the book company itself might get four bucks, things are going WELL? Better than now!

Book stores are disappearing and people only want to spend a few dollars on a download Kindle/Nook version. They can get plenty of books free off torrents, or for a few dollars from eBay bootleggers. So? Most authors keep their day job. They hide in Academia and their students might be impressed with having a digital copy on their cellphone. The line between professional and amateur is blurred...somebody using Amazon's CreateSpace can say "I'm an AUTHOR," the same way off-key amateurs can brag "I'm a musician. You can listen to my songs on Spotify."

As the author of 19 books, a photographer with major credits, a BMI songwriter, someone involved with award winning radio shows and voice-over work, and the editor of three national magazines, I know how difficult things used to be and ARE. I suppose the creative arts I've not been a part of, such as dance, acting or oil painting, are no better. Oh, acting. Yeah, I did get paid once to be a movie extra for a major studio. It was an experience, but not one I felt was worth exploring further. And no, I'm not even visible in the finished film.

People talk about how the minimum wage should go up. For creative people who write books, take photos, make music, act, dance or paint, they have no minimum wage, are mere freelancers, and are told to go find a day job and accept that they are entertaining people for nearly nothing.

Corporations still make all the money. The "viral" YouTube video, the unknown with a hit song, the freak luck of pudgy E.L. James and her badly written drivel...these are very rare exceptions. Creative people get little money, but are supposed to be compensated by bragging rights: "I have a YouTube video that 50,000 people saw." "I have a book you can download on Amazon, so that makes me an AUTHOR." "I'm on iTunes, so instead of streaming Taylor Swift...stream me singing that old classic...PENNIES FROM HEAVEN..."

STAR HEREDITY #28739 Mel Brooks + Anne Bancroft = MAX BROOKS

Also interesting, but a bit more obscure...

Here's MEL BROOKS with his first wife, Florence Baum.

Florence was quite a leggy showgirl!

And here, with her mother's build and her father's face, is NICKY with MEL BROOKS.

New York Post and Ethan Sears BE RACIST? Watch it, Y'all. Be PC!

Uh oh.

Ethan Sears and The New York Post seem to have skated by a charge of racism.

This isn't easy when the PC POLICE are out in force, and NIKE gets stabbed in the back by their very own Colin Kaepernick for using that RACIST Betsy Ross American Flag on their product.

RACIST! RACIST!

RAH RAH RAH!

What an UNFORTUNATE use of the phrase "CARBON COPY" in writing about Coco, the BLACK teenage tennis sensation.

Look at how ETHAN SEARS described Coco, in relation to another black tennis star, Venus Williams!

Oh. One BLACK woman is a CARBON COPY of another.

Ethan, don't you know that the term "CARBON COPY" is now offensive?

What would Colin Kaepernick say?

He'd say that it reminds him of slavery and racial slurs, and that if there was still a company manufacturing carbon paper, he'd go over and take a knee in front of their door.

Hell, you don't even see THIS movie displayed in stores:

OFFENSIVE. It be racist.

Oh, not like the Wayans Bros. doing their movie "White Chicks." Whiteface is HILARIOUS.

Am I being petty and silly here?

Not any more than the PC police, who are being PETTY and DANGEROUS.

Do you remember a guy named Anthony Federico?

He was FIRED by ESPN for writing a RACIST HEADLINE about the Asian basketball player Jeremy Lin.

Federico? HE BE RACIST, y'all.

CHINK in the armor? Young Anthony Federico apologized for not hanging out with bigots, and not watching Archie Bunker on "All in the Family" order "Chink take-out." The kid really had no idea "chink" did NOT merely refer to a "flaw," and that "chink in the armor," like "CARBON COPY," might throw PC knickers into a twist.

Frantic was fired, and his excuse was hotly denied by both Jeremy Lin and by Rep. Judy Chu, a Democrat from California.

We are living in a schizoid world where the President can say racist and sexist things, and do them, but nobody else. It's ok for the KKK and the Nazis to march up and down the street with overt banners of hate and racism, but if Bill Maher makes an N-word joke he's barely saved from being fired as long as a few black guests come on the show and slap him around verbally and make him stutter and turn pale. Paler. Palest.

You got away with it THIS time, New York Post, but really, get yourselves some copy editors. Maybe get the proofreaders who were laid off at the Daily News and the London Daily Mail because "their" vs "they're" is no big deal. (But do not run a photo caption of Khloe when it's Kourtney!)

Will Colin Kaepernick Go After the Racist "NEW YORKER MAGAZINE" next?

'Nick Nixes Nike...

You've heard how NIKE crumbled because Conscience Kapernick says the Betsy Ross flag gives him the willies?

You wonder how much power a washed-up C-list football player has in this world.

I thought his 15 minutes of fame ended when, rather than raise a fist like the Olympics athletes once did, he sorrowfully took a knee because...

Because "The Star Spangled Banner" has a racist stanza nobody's ever heard.

Oh no, that wasn't it. Because the guy who wrote it, HE BE RACIST. Yeah. THAT'S it. Francis Scott Key, he be racist y'all

Oh, no, that turned out to be a bit of a lie. Key defended slaves in his law practice. He wasn't THAT bad.

Oh yes, he took a knee because there's police brutality in America. So forget about how a black man can make obscene amounts of money wearing a panty girdle and running with a pigskin. America be racist.

And the guy who arrived from Somalia, became a cop because it was great DIVERSITY for Minnesota, and then shot an unarmed white woman to death?

Nah, police brutality NEVER happens to anyone but blacks. Not even Latinos.

ANYWAY...

In this PC (PLEASE COLIN) world, let's examine a cartoon given away to everyone on the mailing list of THE NEW YORKER:

That's not funny!

No, I don't mean that it doesn't make anyone laugh out loud. Its a NEW YORKER cartoon fer Chrissake, you barely smirk at them.

It's NOT FUNNY that THE NEW YORKER be RACIST.

How many of their cartoonists are white? Nearly all of them?

How many are now deliberately doing BLACKFACE in their cartoons, and tinting someone for DIVERSITY?

And how many times is that person the BUTT of the JOKE?

OH, that BE RACIST y'all.

Look at it the RIGHT way, from the point of view of political correctness:

WHITE guy be giving a WHITE ice cream cone to SOMEONE OF COLOR, and then demeaning that person!

Does the White Man do this to EVERYONE who buys an ice cream cone?

Or does he only do it to a person of COLOR? A person of COLOR who dared be uppity enough to have a WHITE cone?

KNOW WUTTUM SAYIN'?

If you think WUTTUM SAYIN' is ridiculous, then you haven't been following the PC news lately!

You recall that Kate Smith BE RACIST and her statue is removed. You recall that one the most revered doctors of the 19th century ALSO had his statue removed (from Central Park). You recall that a nobody named Kaepernick became a superstar because he chose to bring politics into football stadiums where people of all colors simply try to forget about the world for a few hours and have some fun. No, an issue had to be raised, and nothing universal like climate change or more money to fight poverty or reduced military spending to avoid more war and more killing and to bring soldiers home from places where they are being sniper-attacked and murdered.

NIKE, which does almost nothing but pander to blacks and promote black athletes and sell overpriced shoes to blacks...be RACIST too...stabbed in the back of their sneaker by their own COLIN KAEPERNICK.

Well, why not. Colin is a slave. A slave to NIKE.

THEY make more money than HE does. They only give him a few crummy millions, right? They keep TOO MUCH for themselves. So C.K. had every right to be O'ffended.

Was there even a Georgia or Alabama when Betsy Ross made that flag? Nevermind. If anyone is OFFENDED, somebody must PAY.

A Minor League baseball team mocked C.K. on Twitter. Oooh ooh. Guess what. They had to A'pologize for that.

How ludicrous does PC get? People crumble and sob because some nitwit decides he doesn't like the Betsy Ross flag?

Hell, doesn't C.K. get upset about the CURRENT American flag? IF he takes a knee about "The Star Spangled Banner" being played, because it reminds him that cops are brutal, then shouldn't the American Flag make his giant nose sniffle too?

Actually if anyone should be upset it should be Native Americans. Betsy Ross and her gang pushed them off land. In fact, before too long, the Red Man was pushed off land from Maine to California, and given internment in reservations on land NOBODY wanted.

Ah, but let's not have HISTORY, let's have REVISIONIST HISTORY.

Let's have it from a guy who nobody seems to know had a white mother.

Let's have it from a guy who nobody seems to know had a black father who hit and ran.

Let's have it from a guy who was ADOPTED by a white man and a white woman, and given all the privileges he could want, including the name COLIN (English) KAEPERNICK (German).

How come this guy isn't calling himself COLIN X? Or C.K. Or Loutish C.K.?

Of course sullen and sulky attempts to make people feel guilty are ONLY for one race of people in America.

The Jew who brings up the Holocaust and points out that his people were enslaved by Pharoah, is told "the Holocaust never happened," and "too bad Dubai bans Jews from tennis tournaments" and "let's all go to a rock concert in Saudi Arabia while we ask that Israel be sanctioned."

Any Latino who asks why Puerto Rico is shunned when it comes to mammoth amounts of aid will hear: "Hey, they aren't even a STATE. Not like the great states in America that are selling guns to everyone, but allowing abortions to nobody, not even a raped woman with a knife scar down the side of her face."

The Korean, The Chinese, the Japanese, they don't say "we are of color, we deserve a break." They just work hard at the fruit store, the restaurant, or in the Math Department or Science Department at a college, and do it while speaking English and not whining that they had to come to America and learn an entirely new-looking alphabet.

Does anyone from India think they can get away with complaining that the English language reminds them of the evil Brits who colonized their country and made them listen to Kipling poems? Damn that guy AND his Jungle Book, which should be banned from every being read to a child again. HE BE RACIST. Nevermind that "you're a better man than I am" shit.

It gets laughable if it wasn't so UNFUNNY.

What, a giant corporation caves because somebody has a bad reaction to Betsy Ross and her flag??

A sports franchise demolishes their statue of Kate Smith (who sang at their games) because some unnamed idiot complained that she sang a "racist" song that Paul Robeson also sang?

And The New Yorker apologizes for their warped, mean-spirited and out of touch attempt at diversity by making fun of a person of COLOR eating a white ice cream cone?

Oh. The New Yorker hasn't apologized. Only because Colin Kaepernick hasn't pointed out the problem yet. He'll get around to it.

Somebody will get around to some more idiotic foolery and whining and race-card gamesmanship, in an attempt to push himself into the spotlight, whether the name is Kaepernick or DeBlasio.

Meanwhile, the only people who really do have a reason to be pissed off at America are the INDIANS (aka Native Americans) and they aren't telling everybody to get the fuck off their lawn.

What's black and white and SHOULD be RED all over? America!

That's a joke, son. Can can anyone STOP taking everything so GOD DAMN SERIOUSLY?

"GOODBYE, NEUMAN!" WHAT? NO MORE MAD MAGAZINE? WE KNOW WHY

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Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival - PC "PRETTY CRUMMY," Melissa DeCordova

When you think of folk music you think of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Judy Collins...people with compassion and conscience. People who believe in JUSTICE.

But the Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival committed a massive injustice by booking...and then kicking out...PETER YARROW.

Yes, PETER YARROW. The "Puff the Magic Dragon" guy, part of the beloved and well remembered PETER PAUL AND MARY trio.

The kindly man who has donated his time and energy to good causes for more than 50 years.

Now, at age 81, an incident from 1970 (he accidentally opened his hotel room door, nude, and a 14 year-old girl saw him) is now BACK in the news. All because a cornball upstate New York festival announced that a few gossipy hens were OFFENDED that he had been booked!

YES, NATIONAL NEWS. Here's the MIAMI HERALD picking up on the ASSOCIATED PRESS story:

Oh. It's the PC age. Melissa DeCordovoa, the sanctimonious social justice warrior told her Facebook fans that Yarrow was being canceled. Congrats, witches, the anonymous ones who were OFFENDED and clucked their hen-tongues about Yarrow got their wish. And hey, look at US, our story got picked up nationally!

Do you believe it? Just when you think it can't get worse than Al Franken hounded out of the Senate, or Kate Smith's statue demolished because the "God Bless America" lady is suddenly a "racist," Peter Yarrow gets haunted by a incident that has some idiots acting like he's another Roman Polanski.

In this finger-pointing witch-hunting idiot era we live in, something a guy did in 1970, for which he got a PRESIDENTIAL PARDON, is being held against him.

What DID he do? It wasn't what Polanski did. It wasn't what Woody allegedly did. At a time when groupies were a big new deal, and Lolita types were flaunting themselves and songs about being "sweet sixteen" or "just seventeen, you know what I mean" were all over, Yarrow got a little too forward with a pair of sisters who came knocking at his hotel door.

He was NOT a pedophile, NOT a predator. This took place at his hotel room and they came to him. Did the 14 year-old sister look 17 or even 18? Who knows. Did she go screaming into the night? No. Was this a major crime? NO.

If it happened in New York it would've been a class B MISDEMEANOR. In Washington D.C., it got him three months in jail, but years later, an official presidential pardon from Jimmy Carter. Why a presidential pardon? Perhaps because Carter didn't want this charge to remain a noose around Peter Yarrow's neck, brought up by spiteful, vindictive, witch-hunting paranoids. Did Yarrow apologize? Yes, over and over. And yes, it was with a girl young enough to have married Jerry Lee Lewis.

And now it returns, when he's 81, and touring a dozen other places in New York, Massachusetts and Maine, and his summer not only has the solo dates, but concerts with Stookey? A few nameless idiots complain and a meaningless cornball festival caves...and it becomes NATIONAL NEWS?

Isn't the point of JUSTICE that people who make a mistake pay for it and move on?

How many vendors at this hokey Arts & Crafts festival, with a few hundred gawkers singing along to folkies, have some kind of arrest record? How about the people ATTENDING?

Did Melissa DeCordova announce that there would be extra security on hand in case some 81 year-old man is taking upskirt images, or brushing up against a boy scout?

Yarrow? I have seen this nice, easy-going man spend time autographing CDs and records and meeting with people, including teenage girls, and being a perfect role model. He and "Paul" (Noel Stookey) have toured the world, singing the classic folk songs of tolerance and good will.

Stookey is a good Christian. He has written and performed solo material on Christian record labels. If HE can stand to work with Peter Yarrow, maybe the Colorectal Chenango Arts Festival needs to put a lid on their boiling hypocrisy.

Most of the people attending this festival weren't even BORN when Yarrow's unfortunate (and ONLY) incident took place. Now it's been dredged up as national news, to bring it all back home. The man has a 12 year-old granddaughter. He's been all over the world working tirelessly for charities and for good will.

Where is this festival, upstate New York or SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS?

It's in Upstate New York, where the hippies of Woodstock once danced around naked. And they were of all ages, and included entire families, and they were unashamed.

Yarrow was to appear at the free festival on September 7th and 8th, the main attraction on a list of nobodies:

Fred Eaglesmith and Tiff Ginn; Runa; Caravan of Thieves; Answer the Muse; Nate Gross and Americana Strings; the Real Time Dixieland Band; Bruce Beadle and Mike O’Connor; the Dovetones; Drumzzone; the Catskill Puppet Theater; juggler Steve Corning; Hilby the German Juggle Boy; guitarist George Anderson; the Meena Conant Singers; the PPD2 dance company; the Claddagh Ring Irish Dancers; and Martha Brower Ballroom Dancing.

The Colorectal Festival should have been GLAD to get Peter Yarrow and to KEEP HIM.

Hopefully the nearest to a famous name at this event, John Gorka, will pull out and tell this bunch of uptight ninnies to shove it. Hopefully NOBODY anybody's heard of will replace Yarrow. They will tell this bunch of suspicious Harper Valley harridans to look in the mirror if they want to see something abhorrent and potentially dangerous.

Take a look at this audience of LITTLE KIDS with their PARENTS.

Who were they listening to? You guessed it. PETER YARROW and his Christian friend NOEL STOOKEY...performing "This Land is Your Land" and "Puff the Magic Dragon" for FREE in 2010. I was there. These are my pictures.

Yes, the kiddies even CAME UP ON STAGE and clustered around Peter (that's Noel tuning up).

THIS is what you're worried about, Melissa? A nice old folkie singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" while dozens and dozens of kids happily sing along?

I watched him sign autographs after this performance and, no, he didn't grab any little girls and run away with them.

You think Bob Dylan would approve of this fake righteousness?

I think Phil Ochs would've written a scathing song about a small group of small-minded nasties like this Colorectal bunch of assholes. Christ, this is why Liberals are laughed at all over the country and why Trump is president. This overboard brand of politically correct sniveling and lunacy, taking JOY away from people at a summer folk festival, is beyond the wetness of the average melting snowflake.

This lamebrain festival nobody's ever heard of, full of arts and crafts and self-congratulating twits, should NOW have the notoriety for being low, pompous, and bigoted. It should be known as being even more intolerant than Trump.

Who in their right mind would fret over a Peter Yarrow incident from nearly 50 years ago?

One last thing. Peter Paul and Mary did not break up in 1970. Paul and Mary did not refuse to let Peter perform with them, nor did they hire security guards to make sure he never even glimpsed a child. They continued to love and respect him, and they even let him sing a rebuttal song that addressed the problem. They sure as hell didn't tell Jimmy Carter not to pardon him, or turn down requests for free concerts from charity events.

We live in a political world, Mr. Dylan sang. It is a world gone mad with fake morality.

Melissa DeCordova, YOU'VE GOT A LOTTA NERVE. Find yourself another country to be part of.

ARTE JOHNSON...."Do you believe in the hereafter?"

ARTE (as Tyrone): "Do you believe in the hereafter?"

RUTH (as Gladys): "OF COURSE I DO!"

ARTE (as Tyrone): "Then you know what I'm here after..."

In these PC times, the antics of "dirty old man" Tyrone would probably not be ALLOWED on television.

Some might even complain that Arte's catch-phrase German soldier, who said "Verrrrry interesting," was probably a Nazi, and should likewise, not be ALLOWED on television.

As he said, way back in 1974, doing ethnic characters or any type of character could get people upset: "If I were doing a Hasidic rabbi, I'd have him speak with an Irish accent. … You take it out of reality and make it cartoon-esque without being denigrating. Because people today are so sensitive, it's the only way of creating humor without offending someone."

Johnson tried acting on Broadway, taking on any role he could find. He was an elderly Frenchman in a bit role for "Genetlemen Prefer Blondes" and offered up a routine as Hamlet (on skates) in Ben Bagley's "Shoestring Revue." He moved to the coast for parts on "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Red Skelton Hour." Still, he often had a day job, including work selling men's clothing at the fashionable Carrol & Co. store.

After years of small parts, the small (5'4") actor became a star thanks to the many characters he played on "Laugh-In."

He won an Emmy for his work on the show but preferred, of course, to be recognized for who he really was. Fans who asked for a signed photo by mail, got Arte Johnson, his hair slicked back, being himself

With very few exceptions (Goldie Hawen and Lily Tomlin), "LAUGH-IN" was the ultimate for members of the cast. They were young, the characters were fresh, and so was the show itself, despite its deep bow to old-time blackout sketch vaudeville and snappy one-liners.

Arte managed a memorable Renfield-like role in "Love At First Bite," but in the past few decades he found regular work as a narrator in the audio book field. This was an irony, as Arthur Johnson began his career at Viking Press, where he was a publicist for John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" in 1952. It took well over a decade for Arte Johnson to become a star, but once he was a star, he remained one. He died the other day at 90.

People still chuckle at "Tyrone" when they watch "Laugh-In" DVDs, and many still use the catch phrase, "Verrrry interesting," for just about anything. Including a description of the life and times of the great little man, Arte Johnson.