The Greeks Had a Word for It, Dept.

 
"CHORUS: So that one should wait to see the final day and should call none among mortals fortunate, till he has crossed the bourne of life without suffering grief."
Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus (Hugh Scott-Jones, trans., screenshot Loeb Classical Library edition) © 1994 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.


In reading about the death of Joe Paterno, I saw someone posted the short version of the preceding, "Count no man happy until he is dead," which is Herodotus, from his Histories (I.32)  And very much so in Paterno's case.  Never thought twice about him till the paedo story broke.  Discussing this yesterday, I was hard-pressed to think of someone who went from the top of his or her profession to disgrace then death in such a short period of time.  Not even Michael Jackson, who was, after all, acquitted, even though the stink of suspicion lingered in the nostrils of those who weren't his devout fans.

We take the ancient Greek word "hubris" to mean a downfall following arrogance, particularly by the powerful.  The original, according to the hive mind at Wikipedia, referred to the gravest of crimes in Greek society and included "sexual crimes ranging from rape of women or children to consensual but improper activity, in particular anal sex with a free man or with an unconsenting and/or under-aged boy."

A bespoke term could not have been better crafted than "hubris" in its multiplicity of meanings to describe the rise and fall of Joe Paterno.

The Fruit a Short Distance from the Tree,  or I Pee, You Pee, We All Pee for IP, Dept.

Shuggie Otis, Freedom Flight

Johnny Otis, the Greek-American bandleader, singer, musician and silver-eared A&R man, the "godfather of R&B," who died two days before one of his greatest discoveries, Etta James, wrote "Willie and the Hand Jive," some good video of which is on YT here.  He was also the father of Shuggie Otis.  Who wrote, sang and played an orchestra of instruments on this his second album, best known for the later Brothers Johnson smash "Strawberry Letter 23."  Which he recorded when he was 17.  Justin Bieber would have to demonstrate an ability to understand human speech universally or outline a convincing unified field theory that succeeds where Einstein fell short, to even be allowed in the same room with him.  Shuggie Otis isn't as well known as he should be.  Nor, among most Americans, are his late father and the first-tier musicians his father promoted or employed and with whom Shuggie played hot blues guitar as an adolescent.

Go to MOG or Spotify or whichever service you frequent, and check out this album if you're unfamiliar with it.  The Johnny Otis talent tree stretches through his progeny to the many stars he first boosted.  Little Esther Phillips. Big Jay McNeely. The aforementioned Miss Etta James. Jackie Wilson. Hank Ballard. Little Willie John.  And it's all out there.



Oh, and you'll pry my Internet out of my cold, dead hands.  If SOPA and PIPA can even potentially threaten my ability to link to someone else's intellectual property in a way that honors and promotes the original work, then they and their lineal descendents in Congress must be attacked by wolverines with migraines.  The people whose work I enjoy on Tumblr, for example, thrive on access to other people's intellectual property, as well as work in the public domain, to create recontextualized worlds.  Worlds that use the words and works of other to express an individual sensibility, personal and private, serious or giddy.  It would take a narrow view indeed to view the survival of an outmoded business model as more important than the public's ability to freely display consumable copies--that horrible word--of cultural artifacts.  Not to profit from the act, but to share the work in a way that introduces others to one's passions and inspires them to learn more about a thinker or artist or relief worker or honest politician.  I can't count the number of bands, films, strips, books, poets I've been introduced to in the course of years on the Internet.  Many of whose work I've then obtained at my own expense.

How is this not considered valuable and real for an industry, compared to the imaginary billions claimed to be lost that never existed in the first place?  If you tell someone, here's a dump of a new album by band X, free, and that person says, sure whatever and listens to it or not, it's not at all the same as that person counting as a lost sale.  Were it not free, most people would not be filling their hard drives with five thousand songs they'll never hear.  It's the opportunity, not the desire.  Yes, some artists lose money because of their popularity.  That's unavoidable.  But the others cannot be counted as lost sales.  To legislate on the basis of those imaginary economics is disingenuous beyond the horizon line.

So, yes.  Fuck that noise.  Keep the Internet free.  Keep its users free to reshape the notion of "intellectual property" into as-yet-unknown formats that will honor creator and empower consumer at the same time.

Baby First, THEN Bathwater, Dept.

SOPA/PIPA?  Fuck that noise.  I believe in intellectual property rights and would not want my shit being peddled for fi' dolla' by a Nigerian on Canal Street either.  That said, the Congress is--mirabile dictu--entirely wrongheaded in its approach to piracy prevention.  Break the Internet rather than have the entertainment industry adopt a 21st-century business model?  Well, heck yeah!  I mean, Sen. Patrick Leahy can't yawn without us seeing Hollywood's waggling fingers (three of his top five contributors? Time Warner, Walt Disney Co., Vivendi).

Call your senator or representative and tell them to pull their snouts out of the trough and do so some serious thinking about legislation that protects IP rights without shutting down the principal medium of dissemination for the same assholes who are serving them their slop.


Here are Google's talking points, and here's the Electronic Frontier Foundation's info on the 1/18 blackout and other topics.

The Domino Theory, Dept.

And hot on the heels of my report of Melody Records' imminent closing, your sobsister learned this morning that the last decent Barnes and Noble in town closed over the weekend.

Me, I'm not generally a fan of B&N.  The stores tend to stock the obvious and not very much of anything else.  The difference between B&N and the late, lamented Borders always seemed to hinge on selection.  Both had wi-fi and coffee bars and a high degree of tolerance for people with ample leisure time and little inclination to pay cash money for their reading material.  But only Borders seemed to take time and care in its selection, going beyond the lazy man's "five Shakespeares and a Mamet and call it a theater section" to offer what FM radio calls "deep cuts."  With the exception of the Georgetown B&N.  Motivated perhaps by its proximity to the university and by its literate, affluent neighborhood clientele, the Georgetown store stocked its three floors thoughtfully, so that poetry and essays and theology and all the other categories that don't have a Stephen King or Nora Roberts to keep the pot boiling weren't shunted off to a corner with a few lonely specimens to represent them.

So, D.C. is now down to one-and-a-half B&Ns for its chain bookstores (and, no, I don't count "Books-A-Million"--which offers a selection that crosses the county line from "Pathetic" to "Insulting"--unless you're a real big fan of the "Left Behind" series, in which case you're shittin' in tall cotton, cousin!) and one decent indie bookstore, Politics and Prose.  Oh, and good luck if you don't live in Northwest D.C., hon.

But the upside?  We've got more cupcake and frozen yogurt outlets than the Duggars have neglected children!  Sometimes you can even buy them both in the same store!  Can you stuff froyo inside a cupcake?  Dibs, I thought of it first!  Excuse me, what's that now...? Books? Music?  We're talking about never having to walk more than two blocks in any direction for froyo!!  Honestly...

The Day the Music Died, Dept.



D.C. is diminished now, in a way that speaks to unwelcome but, perhaps, inevitable change.


The last good record store in this minor-league town is closing.  Melody Record Shop, just north of Dupont Circle, is shutting its doors after 34 years as a family-run business.  And as they say on their Web site and on a sign at the store, which I passed today, "While we wish that we could continue indefinitely, technology, the internet and the economy has taken its toll, and we have concluded, unfortunately, that it is not possible to survive in this environment."

A few years back, I started shopping at Melody after a long hiatus shopping, first, at Tower Records, during its years here, then online and in second-hand stores and shows.  I was working in the neighborhood and had a bit of extra change for an occasional CD buy.  I was instantly reminded of the serendipity of the well-curated record store.  How you might find this that you'd been looking for, but then see that that you'd read about in a music magazine or online, oh, and I didn't know this compilation existed...

It's just not the same online, and I don't know if some upcoming online retailer will be able to provide as satisfying an experience as a good record or book store visit.  I can't imagine that, outside a holodeck, one ever could.  Sure, you can have predictive algorithms that guess, based on your buying/viewing patterns and those of others with the same taste/income/location as you, similar but yet slightly different selections that you might find enjoyable and why don't you just click through and prove us right, okay?  But it's not at all like walking into, say, a good book store and feeling the cool weight of all those fresh pages behind crisp covers in a slight mantling of seasonally appropriate indoor temperature and maybe some inobtrusive-but-really-cool music playing in the background.  Scent of well-brewed coffee optional.  The preceding hits the customer on so many different cognitive and sensory levels, that she or he wants to embrace the book store experience and is lubed to look for something to take home.  Compared to the customer sitting on her living room couch staring at a screen, maybe the same screen she stared at for nine hours at work.  Not even vaguely comparable, even if Jesus crafts your online customer environment.

But I can see why Melody Records will close, probably by the beginning of February.  I use MOG and Spotify to listen to almost anything I want.  I have to really need the physical package or its superior sound before I'll buy the CD.  And I'm a minor collector, at least for certain artists and styles.  So, there aren't that many classical music shoppers in D.C., I guess, or of show and film music or of international music, to name three of Melody's strengths, to support a store.  And the store has always had good buyers.  If I saw something in MOJO, there's a decent chance that Melody might've had it.  Or, of course, they'd've ordered it.

I'm not one to say that it's the customers' "fault" that a store like Melody fails.  Not enough people saw the benefit of what it offered, despite the store's efforts.  It was hit hard after the world markets crisis, or so it seemed to me, as it appeared to resist carrying any kind of inventory despite its shelves looking a bit bare.  But it built back up in the intervening three years, if inventory is any measure.  It expanded its vinyl selection considerably, to where, any given week, they had a fine and sizeable selection of new and catalog discs.  I guess there just isn't that much disposable income out there.

Or maybe its time has simply come and gone.  Vinyl and box sets will be available in a smaller marketplace, direct order or boutique retail, but the broad-gauged music store may really be on the downward slope to extinction.  To join "software stores" and "virtual reality arcades" as business environments of a bygone era.  The publishing industry might've gone this way, except there was never a big enough market or an easy enough system of content extraction to have a Napster of novels, besides even short stories aren't singles.

In 1982, I saw my first CD, a Fleetwood Mac disc, in a longbox, on a small display with some other titles, visible as I walked into Melody, then half a block south.  I'd heard, maybe read, about CDs, but this was the first time I'd seen one.  I picked up the longbox, turned it around, saw its price (expensive) and put it back down.  Interesting but by no means compelling enough as a concept to carry me to inquire regarding this new format and its players.  But like most of the unfortunate crewmen aboard the Nostromo, Melody Records already carried within it the thing that would eventually destroy it.

And, so, adieu to this minor D.C. institution.  I'll miss that blind date with serendipity that was every visit to the store.  A Miles set I'd never heard about or that Nigerian compilation I saw advertised in The Wire or a Busby Berkeley DVD set.  The tangible has its charm.  To lose the tactile pleasure of possession is an unfortunate and incidental cost of our progress.

PSA, Dept.

In writing a friend to offer her my New Year’s greetings, I used a phrase along the lines of wishing you a happy '12 that I slowly realized is perilously close to wishing you a happy 12”.

So, please, as you send out your New Year’s messages, particularly to older relatives, members of the clergy and prospective employers, double-check to ensure that you are not wishing any of them a happy/enjoyable/fruitful twelve inches.  Unless that is, in fact, your intent.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Dragging Charlie over the Cold Cuts, Dept.

A new year, and the opportunity to walk down Memory Lane.  Hey, who remembers Plato's Retreat?  C'mon now...New York City's leading on-premises (hetero) sex club in the late '70s?  No?

Well, as a wee child, I remember two things about Plato's Retreat, a place that vanished after the city closed down sex clubs post-AIDS: (i) their TV commercial (below), which I can only imagine aired late at night on one of the local channels in the middle of '30s musicals and Japanese monster movies (my staples) and (ii) the fact that they served a hot and cold buffet.

As you view the commercial, tell me you would even vaguely consider eating in a place like that.  "Hey, cocktail franks! Whoops, sorry, buddy..."  There is so much about that place that fascinated/repelled me then and now.  Netflix carries a documentary titled American Swing that chronicles the rise and fall of Plato's.  Should I watch it, I will report on my findings.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Dept.

Christopher Hitchens has died. Pneumonia resulting from the esophageal cancer he fought.

One quote, from his explanation for his strong and immediate defense of Salman Rushdie against the fatwa issued in 1989 by the Ayatollah Khomeini, speaks eloquently to his Weltanschauung and speaks very strongly to me in current-day America:

“It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual and the defense of free expression.”

ave atque vale, Mr. Hitchens.

Pillocks of the Community, Dept.

Hey, so, Herman "Where the white women at?!" Cain is out of the race because of "the continued distraction, the continued hurt to me and my family" related to his reported penchant for forcing women's heads down onto his groin.  Separately, megachurch idiot-fleecer "Bishop" Eddie "You can't spell 'Eddie Long' without 'D.L.'" Long is taking time off to "focus on his family" after his wife filed for divorce, reportedly because he took advantage of his wealth and spiritual authority to lure four young men into sexual relationships.  He settled the cases, as did Spermin' Herman, and neither man admitted wrongdoing, despite that head-scratching bit about giving accusers money when their accusations are a pack of lies.

Oh, America!  Oh, religion!  Oh, politics!  Did you take the dictionary page containing "shame" and tear it out of your Funk & Wagnalls?

I mean--putting aside for the moment why, given his absolute zero experience in governance, anyone--ANYone--would think that this pizza-hustling pussy pirate could ever begin to approach the minimum requirements even to be mayor of a one-horse town somewhere in the trackless wastes of Flyoverstan, much less president of what is, for now, still the most powerful nation on Earth--on what planet is the farrago of bullshit, half-truths, non-truths, lies, spin and blather that this second coming of George Jefferson and his repellent mouthpiece spewed after allegations popped up like boners at a prom dance that he liked to dip his wick everywhere but in his long-suffering and almost entirely silent wife anything but risible? 

But, no, actual sentient lifeforms with U.S. citizenships and driver's licenses that allow them to pilot two-ton vehicles at 65 miles per hour were lining up to support his pretend tax plan, to defend him against what were surely baseless charges by vindictive golddiggers, to pledge their sacred votes to see him elected to the highest office in this land.  His now-defunct campaign even started a Web site "Women for Herman Cain" that, contrary to appearances, is not a sign-up sheet for women who want to be basted in his baby juice, but, instead, a place for representatives of the gentler sex from states whose shape and capitals we on the coasts are hard-put to remember to testify about their ardent luv for the pizza-makin', booty-shakin', liberties-with-the-truth takin' political n00b.

Take, for example, "Robin Haraway" of Millington, TN--apparently a real person--who writes, "Sir, I firmly believe that you were sent to our nation through Divine Providence and I believe that you are the man to preserve our Republic for our children."

Or "Debbie Stevens-Paulsen" of Tulsa, OK who writes, "I want you to know that I fully support you! I've sent $9.99 several times, and will continue to do so every chance I get. I wish I could do more! I'm "reassessing" my Christmas List... instead of buying misc $10 gifts for people I barely know anyway, I'm sending all that money to you. YOU are who this country needs. Please don't let the opposition win, they are vile liars and will face God for what they've done to you. "

Really?

Really really?

I mean, "Robin Haraway," though somewhat bereft of fashion sense, appears to be an Average American, one who does not live in a tree or communicate only in wolf language.  How the flying fuck would this person--who, apparently, has held a job (as an elementary schoolteacher, dear God!) and perhaps even voted previously--ever think that the so-aptly named "Herm" was sent to our nation by anything other than a trickster deity with a grudge against American exceptionalism?

We're definitely at the horses-made-consuls-by-deranged-emperors stage of the Roman American Empire.  Look for the barbarians at the gates in 3...2...

Flame On! This Huge Fucking Spliff!, Dept.

A comic book hero "conceived by Ziggy Marley," the musician and bearer of irie genetic code.

Haven't seen any story from this yet.  Can't imagine who his archenemy might be.  Doctor Doesn't Corner the Bowl?

The Proud, The Few, Dept.

Having ragged on the Apple Store and its substandard help, I have to take a moment here and give a shout-out to people who do it right.

I visited The Sound Garden in Bawlmurr today, as I generally do when in Charm City.  (I should say, "Bawlmurr, hon" just to keep the branding consistent.)  And those folks never fail to satisfy.

• They always have the latest chart releases at great sale prices.  Which would be more meaningful to your sobsister if most of the music on the charts didn't suck massive donkey cock, but, hey, chacun à son goût.
• Other recent releases are priced near or better than Amazon's prices.  Which is huge.  What killed the big record stores/Borders/vaudeville is the fact that they were selling CDs at list price, even as Amazon was selling them for, on average, 20-30% less.
• Their buyer(s) rock(s).  I invariably find either things I've only seen in Brit music mags such as The Wire or MOJO--and not at no ripoff, margin-stretching markup--or stuff I didn't know existed that I suddenly realize I have to have.
• They have tons of used CDs 4 cheep.

Now, when streaming music (i) fills out its catalogs (why no Joanna Newsom, MOG?) and (ii) gets with the CD-quality sound. then, really, the day of the great CD store will be over, save for those of us who need the accompanying 125-page hardbound book of liner notes replete with previously unpublished pix of the band.  Which may be why the few that are still in business are stocking up vinyl like hoarders buying Wonder bread and milk before a snowstorm.  

But, for now, shopping the great CD store is a lovely experience, thanks to convenience and, more importantly, serendipity.  I went in looking for one CD and came out with three and could've come out with 10.  That's not something I'll do online because of how the information is arranged.  And, no, "if you like Amy Grant, you'll like Revolting Cocks" doesn't make me click through to your typical online vendor's suggestion.


So, enjoy your well-curated CD/LP stores while they last.  Sound Garden is the best one between Philly and at least as far south as Richmond.  It's even on Rolling Stone's list of the 30 best record stores in the contiguous 48, for those as still consider RS to be an arbiter of taste.  I gave up when its coverage started being driven by what it thought its audience wanted to read rather than what it thought its audience should start hearing.  Or maybe when it became People magazine with rolling paper ads in the back.  But that's a story for another day.

So, The Sound Garden.  Vote with your wallets, kids, early and often.

An Educated Consumer Is Our Most Annoyed Customer, Dept.

Right, so I call the Apple Store today and ask which styluses/styli they carry for the iPad. 

The salesperson on the other end says, "We have a couple of silver ones.  Oh, you mean the brand name?  I don't know that.  I can find out, but it'll take a while."

And so, on this brilliant blue fall morning, I feel compelled to ask: are you fucking shitting me?  "A couple of silver ones"??  If you worked in a wine store, would you answer, "We have some white ones and some red ones, and they're in glass bottles"?


Uncle Steve is looking down from Heaven and wishing he could assume corporeal form for only a few minutes just to rip this putz a new rectum.

Slowly I Turned, Step by Step*, Dept.

The Times (New York's, of course; Washington's I wouldn't insult a puppy's ass with) had an interesting article this week concerning a condition whose existence was unknown to me: misophonia, which the paper describes as being sent "into an instantaneous, blood-boiling rage" by "[t]he sounds of other people eating—chewing, chomping, slurping, gurgling."

This.

I mention it both because it's interesting and because (here I stand up, introduce myself to the group and acknowledge) I cannot stand to watch or hear people eating.  Now, it's not quite clobberin' time if I do happen to find myself in, say, a restaurant or even, God forbid, a food court.  But there are times when I would gladly push a large-caliber bullet into a diner's forehead with my hand rather than have to watch him—and it's most often a "him"—chew his cud.

Case in point: I'm in a dumpling house yesterday, waiting to enjoy a plate of pan-fried dumplings.  Because the kitchen forgot my order, I find myself without food for a long time in a smallish room that holds four other occupied tables.  Two of them are occupied by Asian-Americans, whom, the law of averages holding, are likely Chinese-born.  I lean on the law of averages in this case because their table manners were very reminiscent of those I saw exhibited by Chinese nationals during my time in the PRC, i.e., they manifested the relish with which they ate by (i) shoveling food into one's mouth as if trying to beat an off-stage timer and (ii) chewing in an open-mouthed style that produced a smacking sound like a wet towel hitting a bathroom wall.

Now, sensitive to multiculturalism as your sobsister is, I did not fling my unused chopsticks at either party (or, cooler, at both simultaneously) with sufficient force to pin his gobblin' hand to the nearest wall.  But the thought crossed my mind.  Along with that of a 16-ton Terry Gilliam-brand weight dropping on each of them.  Call me bourgeois if you must, but there are a few things of which I should be unaware unless I'm rightnexttoyou.  One is the smell of your perfume, another is the sound of your chewing.  I would add to that list the sight/sound of people sucking the nonexistent contents of an empty cup through a straw and scraping the nonexistent contents of an empty yogurt container with a plastic spoon.  Not unreasonable by any yardstick.

So, yes, misophonia.  Stand up and proudly own your disorder.  I have.  And if you happen to be in an eating establishment, and an otherwise-mild-mannered person is lunging, Wolverine-style, at a patron who's rendering the 1812 Overture with only his spoon, his mouth and a bowl of soup, please come over and introduce yourself.  I'll need someone to post my bail.

*If you've never had the pleasure of seeing the "Slowly I Turn" bit, feast your eyes on Lou Costello and Sid Fields or Lucille Ball or Moe, Curly and Larry working it.

Irrefutable Assertions, Dept.

Right, so, today, as a result of the quite tarsome rain we've been enduring or perhaps of the strong winds accompanying same, a Very Large Crane (not the flying variety) crashed down at the National Cathedral.  It had been transporting supplies to the top of the cathedral as part of the repair effort necessitated by the earthquake that shook Choc City a few weeks ago.  In the WaPo's words, the "crane toppled...sending its operator to the hospital, damaging two out-buildings and crushing four vehicles that belonged to contractors."

Pretty brutal, right?  The cathedral had sustained fairly serious structural and external damage as a result of the quake, to begin with, so this would seem the proverbial insult atop the the proverbial injury.  But here's another take on it:

"The Rev. Simon Bautista, canon for Latino Ministries for the diocese...[s]uddenly] heard a sound that was like “thunder,” Bautista said. “My office started shaking.”
When he looked out and saw the yellow crane sprawled on the ground, he said his first thought was that people must be hurt. When he learned that no one had died or was seriously injured, Bautista called that miraculous.
'You can see that this was a divine hand that kept something else from happening,' Bautista said."

Well, one could see it from that angle.  Or one might ask, "Gee, God, why are you toppling a crane that's helping to rebuild your house of worship?"

But kudos to the good padre.  Talk about a spinmeister!  When asked about the Black Plague that killed roughly half of everyone from Constantinople to Stockholm by the end of the 14th century, Bautista noted, "Truly a wonder!  Clearly, it was the hand of God that prevented Europe from being entirely depopulated."

'Cause there's those as drink the Kool-Aid and those as pour it down your gullet.

That sticky sauce of buttermilk and Clorox*, Dept.

"...as a result, the king said fellatio did not count as sex, and the youth of the realm set at it with a renewed vigor that even the Spanish ambassador found remarkable."

I swear, I did not know Foxe's Book of Martyrs was so entertaining. Because the title's a bit of a buzzkill, right?

I joke, of course—the preceding is not from Foxe's Martyrs, but from the somewhat-better-known Pilgrim's Progress by John "I gotcher Slough of Despond right'ere!" Bunyan.

But, taking just a moment to expound on fellatio (from the Latin fellare, "to do something that, really, is quite reasonable and shouldn't have to be requested, like Baked Alaska, accompanied by ample notification and much occasion"), why is one of the great divides in American society—a polity already riven by any number of polarizing dualities—spit versus swallow?

Your sobsister's experience working the business end of the membrum virile is limited. And by "limited," I mean "nonexistent." So, I cannot in all honesty judge—harshly, generously or at all—those who will not take the bitter draught in its full and fertile flow, though I have met women who would screw up their faces in a startling grimace at the prospect of gargling some groin grog.

That said, then, let's look at the numbers. The human male ejaculates, on average, 4 milliters of seminal fluid, with maximal levels of 10-11 ml recorded, according to the Internet, which has never, if rarely, let me down. By comparison, a teaspoon is equivalent to 5 ml. So, really, this entire debate, which has engulfed generations of Americans and generated more angry and tearful arguments than the question of Ann Coulter's birth gender, centers around individuals' unwillingness to down a teaspoon of viscous fluid when people drink entire cans of Coke Zero without batting an eye. I mean, really? Really really? You'll eat a Twinkie or a Hot Pocket or one of those horrible cheezy peanut butter cracker sandwiches they sell out of men's room vending machines, but you won't down a teaspoon of spooge? What are you, a fucking Communist?!

So, come on, America, he ejaculated, suck it up! A source of high-quality protein, low in fat and calories, rich in flavor.

Semen: It's Not Just for Prostitutes Any More™.

*A tip o' the topper to Philip Roth for that memorable description.

Dulles As Dull Does, Dept.

Here's a Sobsister Tip®: If you're a germophobe, do not hang around the international arrivals area of a large airport for an hour and a half.  Because that's like Mayo Makeup!: Best Bukkake #17 for germs of every description.  As I could not slather myself in Purell like a Channel swimmer in grease, I held my breath for the better part of those 90 minutes and breathed through my skin as the dancing dots before my eyes bulged into topographical spheres.

I stood in said area and watched a number of planes' disease-vectoring human cargo stagger out to meet rushing hugging family; impassive Africans with little white signs bearing passenger names; or no one.  A few observations--

• Qatar Airways hostesses get to wear smart burgundy outfits topped with hats that look like gnocchi.
• Some people vacation with more clothing than I have in my closet, chest of drawers and, possibly, attic.
• French exchange studentesses are invariably cute.  I'm extrapolating from the one I saw being met by her new host family, but I'm pretty confident about my calculations.
• Many women arrive in the United States wearing Sharia-compliant clothing.  Like the cute 20-something whose hijab was perfectly modest, thereby allowing the gaze to slip down to the v. large T-shirted rack popping out of her gown.
• The difference in facial expression between arriving flight crews and tween travellers is like that between a cathouse madam and a honeymoon bride.
• Grandmothers of all nations have the same cheek-pinch reflex, like a primordial muscle memory or a twitch of the collective unconscious.
• If one young woman meets another who's arriving and says, "Oh my God, I totally want to murder you!," they're probably related.
• Lufthansa crews look like Mad Men in the air.  I expect the pilots still playfully swat the stewardess' asses and demand Johnny Walker, rocks, while puffing on Luckys.

So, yes, air travel.  It brings us together: humanity and the microbes.  Were there justice or even intelligent design, we would infect the little bastards with intestinal catarrh or the like.  Instead, we rely on Panthanatos: ethyl alcohol in a 62% solution sweetened by aloe or Vitamin E.  We are America battling imported insurgencies.  From some of the same countries from which these tired and grateful visitors travelled or fled.

Circle of Life! *jazz hands*

 

4:20 Mumbai Time, Dept.

Right, so your sobsister loves me some Kronos Quartet.  Point the first.  I'm also all about the Bollywood soundtracks.  Point the second.  So, some time ago, when I picked up legendary playback singer Asha Bhosle's collaboration with Kronos, You've Stolen My Heart - Songs from R. D. Burman's Bollywood, I was grabbed by the leadoff cut, "Dum Mara Dum," which is translated as "Take Another Toke."

The lyrics, according to the Mother Box, are:

Dum maro dum
Mit jaaye gham
Bolo subah shaam
Hare Krishna, hare Ram

[Take a toke
Let the pain be erased
Say all day and night
Hare Krishna, hare Ram]

Now, as you might've guessed, this piqued my interest.  So, today, I thought to find the original, also sung by Ms. Bhosle, on YouTube and, sho' nuff, here it is.  Very much of its time, i.e., fab.

From 1971's Hare Ram, Hare Krishna:

Man, those guys are working those chillums.

Then, I found a remade version that's very modern, i.e., BET moves and aerobicized abs on actress Deepika Padukone.  Interesting, but very not Asha:

So, to make up for that tawdry display, I'll finish off this segment with the version that got this thing started.  Asha Bhosle, about a quarter-century after the original, and the Kronos krewe:

And remember, kids: "ganja" is the Hindi word for "how late do they have that all-you-can-eat buffet at Udupi Palace?"

Independence Day CCXXXV: Where's Your Precious Will Smith Now?, Dept.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!  Join me in celebrating that joyful day 235 years ago when Jesus first charged his power ring and created the blessed corporatocracy in which we now live.  (Wait, did I spell that correctly...? c-o-p-r-o-c-r-a-c-y...)

If you can't join me, well, then, join Latino Superstar Jimmy "my name doesn't end in a vowel, cabrón" Smits for A Capitol Fourth.  Smitty will introduce such renowned musical acts as that girl who won Idol a few years ago and Josh Groban, whom my mother used to like.  Inspiring marches and such will be played to remind us of the American Empire's salad days.  Hey, remember when we kicked Spain's ass?! Aww, yeah, that was wicked cool!

So, yes, America's birthday.  Canada may have a better national anthem and health care system, but we made Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, so IN YOUR FACE, you poutine-eating, Triumph-listening posers!!

U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!  U.S.A!

Quoted for Truth, Dept.

From the landing page for the Welspun Group, an Indian steel and textiles manufacturer:

"With a participative approach towards social development, the company is guided by the three ‘E's - Education, Empowerment and Health."

Umm...is that the famous Hindi silent "h"?

My Cousin Kenny, Dept.

This political season is so absurdly rich in sociopaths at whom we laugh, but who hold stature in the eyes of a non-trivial segment of the population, that satire becomes journalism with more Buffy references.  Sure, some of them--Bachmann, Santorum, Palin--are so bizarre, repellent and unavoidable in their attempts at self-aggrandizement through manipulation of the basest instincts in what I hope is a largely ignorant, perhaps cave-dwelling, population that they invite, if not demand, comment in a way that, say, Steve Forbes never did and never will unless he releases photographs of himself coupling with a manatee cow.

Amongthem?notyet, but you have to credit his arriviste spunkiness is Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a feller who's making a name for himself by saying and doing shit that others might think openhandedly indulged a penchant for persecution of one's culture war enemies except for the fact that Cuccinelli's pronouncements are so inappropriate for someone representing all of the laws of the state--not just the ones that fuck up the Opposition--that they cease resembling rational speech and morph into the midway bark of a Tod Browning carnival.  Challenging gay rights, challenging environmental legislation, challenging the constitutionality of the health care law, challenging academic freedom--he's one challenged guy.  And on his short bus, he believes homosexuality is wrong, abstinence-only sex education is the way to go and the Second Amendment pretty much gives anyone the right to bear arms in as concealed a manner as that individual deems appropriate.

Now, by this point, you might think that "Cuccinelli" is Italian for "deranged right-wing twunt."  And it might be; my Italian is rustier than Condoleezza Rice's sense of shame.  But in the interests of bipartisanship and open dialogue, I've invited "Cooch," as I call him, to answer questions from readers, in a segment I call "Talk to the Cooch...'Cause the Face Don't Care!"

Our first question comes from Lerman Griswold of Nacogdoches, TX
Q: Hey, Cooch, It seems funny that Virginia still has anti-sodomy laws on the books, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v Texas.  Could you clarify?
A: "I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

Great, thanks, Cooch.  Our next question is from Tamneesha Brown of Chicago, IL
Q: Dear Cooch, I understand that you gave your staff lapel pins that had a modified version of the current Virginia state seal.  In your version, the Roman goddess' bare breast was covered, and the design came from a Confederate seal used during Civil War.  So, are you a racist or scared of women's bodies or both?
A: "Give yourself a hand, right across your fucking mouth."

Interesting, interesting.  Alright, we have time from one more question.  This one's from Rogelio Ignacio Villacruz of Pomona, CA
Q: ¡Hola, Cooch! Me pareces ser un imbecil comemierda maricón infeliz, y yo y mi mara nos cagamos en la concha de la putamadre que te pario.  ¿Que te parece eso?
A: "How do you cook your grits? Do you like them regular, creamy or al dente?"

Nicely put.  With that, we bring this first edition of "Talk to the Cooch...'Cause the Face Don't Care!" to a close.  Please send in your questions, and we'll try to get to as many as we can in future editions.

Until then...keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the...what? well, I don't care...is Casey Kasem my mother?...well, I don't have another sign-off, OK?...what?...that doesn't even make sense...I don't care if she's not using...what?...OK, fine...

Hm.  Until then, everyone, wubba wubba wubba!

Gah.

In the Valley of the Cretin, the Half-Wit is King, Dept.

As some of you might know, I have a hate/hate relationship with those Bunyanesque twins, Willful Ignorance and Self-Inflicted Stupidity.  And, from daily exposure to their misshapen brood--in this episode, as you'll see, I encounter Cluelessness--I wear their stink like a '20s frat boy wore a beaver coat.

An example?  Certainly.  I arrive at a local medical facility for an appointment.  At the elevator bank, I press the "up" button.  Soon enough, the elevator arrives with a chiming tone and the illumination of a white and upwards-pointing arrow.  The door slides open.  Inside are two young women in their twenties.  They stare at me, but make no motion to exit.  I enter the elevator and press "4," the button for my floor, then share with them my view that this elevator is now going up.  "Naw, it's goin' down," I'm told.

The elevator door closes, and, to my non-surprise, it heads up.  The two women are confused.  They were apparently heading for the garage.  For which reason, I deduce from their few words to each other, they had pressed the starred "G" button, perhaps unaware of the convention whereby "G" stands for "Ground Floor," and of the one whereby a star beside the floor alphanumeric indicates that it is the principal exit floor.

The elevator, of its own volition, stops at 1.  This floor is handsomely appointed, wood-grain trim above and below, tastefully matched to the paint, other nice touches.  They overcome their apparent reluctance to leave the safe haven of the elevator, step out, look around and exclaim, "Where the hell we at?!" and "How we gettin' outta here?!" before the door slides back shut, sparing me the sight of their descent into madness.

So. 
Q: If they thought--perhaps not unreasonably--that "G" stood for "Garage," then why didn't they get out of the elevator when it arrived at that floor, particularly as they hadn't pressed any other buttons? 
A: Possibly because it didn't look like a garage floor might look.
Q: And the fancy-schmancy wood-paneled floor looked like the garage?
A: Yeah, I'd love to answer that, but I can't.

Q: At any rate, why insist, after I board the elevator, that it's going down, if they hadn't pushed any other buttons?
A: The topic of today's sermon:  Cluelessness.

Another?  My pleasure.  Casa Sobsister has a shabby little black metal mailbox that may, at one point, have been attached to the house.  It now leans against the house, its flappy door resting in the "closed" position.  So, some time back, in anticipation of a Thanksgiving trip out of town, I submitted a request to the USPS to hold our mail until we returned.  Off we go, back we come five days later.  Well, not only had my "hold mail" request not been heeded, but the brain trust that comprises the mail carrier corps of my local post office had kept wedging the mail into the narrow little mailbox, despite the fact that, oddly enough, the residents were not retrieving their mail.  As a consequence, then, of having a week's worth of mail (including magazines and a book) shoved into it, the mailbox stood with its flappy door forced open and skyward during a period when it rained quite heavily.  Did any of the fucktards from my local post office regard the situation and think, "Hmm...this customer's mailbox is entirely full, possibly as a consequence of not retrieving the mail due to absence.  Perhaps I should check to see if he has filed a 'hold mail' request."?  Short answer: no.  Somewhat-longer answer: no, because the radioactivity to which the postal drone in question exposes him- or herself while hanging onto a cell phone for the entirety of his or her shift renders him or her Clueless.  And that is the kindest of the explanations I've been able to devise.  Otherwise, why would I always get my next-door neighbors' mail?  Why would I get the mail for the lady one block over who has the same house number?  Why, despite the very large sign pasted to the shabby little mailbox that reads, "PLEASE KEEP CLOSED," do the mail carriers leave the flappy door w-i-d-e o-p-e-n?  It's Cluelessness, plain and simple.  Irremediable without a strong and conscious effort, which these shitwits are extremely unlikely to make as they slouch down the street, head and shoulder sandwiching a celly: "Mm-hmm.  Mm-hmm.  You know that's right.  Mm-hmm."

So.
Q: What, are they retarded?
A: No, because the retarded make an effort.  These minus-quam-sub-geniuses don't.

I occasionally despair for the species.  And by "occasionally," I mean "every time I go outside."  And by "every time I go outside," I mean "I have to go outside because I don't trust the USPS to deliver my magazines without jamming them into my mailbox in the rain and leaving the flappy door open."

The 420 Steps, Dept.

So, last year on this date, I riffed on the cannabine associations of April 20.  Sophomoric prattle, really; terms like "rolling a fatty" and "torching a tenement tiki" being bandied about like a teenager's first pair of breasts.  And, certainly, there was a reference to a certain Austrian paperhanger's natal day.  How could there not have been?  But, the tone, I felt, was a low one.

So, instead, I thought today to honor the day with a bit of poetry.  Not my own, mind you.  That's so elevated in tone, it would bleach the tabs on either side of me in your browser.  No, something a bit more traditional.  Folk poetry, perhaps?  There's something invariably noble and grounded about the people's creative product, isn't there?  Well, let's see...what would be nice...?  Oh!  Yes.  This'll do.  This'll do nicely.

And so, without further ado, I offer for your delectation that family favorite, "The Ball of Inverness":

The Ball of Inverness

Four and twenty virgins,
Came down from Inverness,
And when the ball was over,
There were four and twenty less.

*Chorus*
Singing balls to your father,
Your arse against the wall,
If you've never been fucked on a Saturday night,
You'll never be fucked at all.

Four and twenty prostitutes,
Came up from Gloccamore,
And only one went home that night,
And she was double-bore.
(Chorus)

The village plumber he was there,
He felt an awful fool,
He'd come eleven leagues or more,
And forgot to bring his tool.
(Chorus)

Sandy McPherson he came along,
It was a bloody shame.
He fucked a lassie forty times,
And wouldna take her haim.
(Chorus)

Mrs. O'Malley she was there,
She had the crowd in fits,
A-jumping off the mantelpiece,
And landing on her tits.
(Chorus)

The minister's wife was at the ball,
A-sitting in the front,
A wreath of flowers 'round her ass,
A carrot up her cunt.
(Chorus)

Father Feeney he was there,
And in the corner he sat,
Amusing himself, abusing himself
And catching it in his hat.
(Chorus)

The Parson's daughter she was there,
The cunning little runt,
With poison ivy up her arse,
And thistle up her cunt.
(Chorus)

The Vicar's wife she drank beer,
Back up against the wall,
"Put your money on the table boys,
I'm fit to do ye all".
(Chorus)

The Vicar and his lovely wife,
Were having lots of fun,
The Parson had his finger,
Up another lady's bum.
(Chorus)

The vicar's daughter she was there,
Getting very merry,
Swinging from the chandelier
And peeing in the sherry
(Chorus)

The Queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey,
The King was in the chambermaid,
And she was in the money.
(Chorus)

First lady forward,
Second lady back,
Third lady's finger,
Up the fourth lady's crack.
(Chorus)

The bride was in the kitchen,
Explaining to the groom.
The vagina, not the rectum,
Is the entrance to the womb.
(Chorus)

The groom was in the parlor,
Explaining to his bride.
The penis, not the scrotum,
Is the part that goes inside.
(Chorus)

The village magician he was there,
Doing his favorite trick,
Pulling his foreskin over his head,
And vanishing up his dick.
(Chorus)

The village cripple he was there,
He wasn't up too much,
He lined them up against the wall
And fucked them with his crutch.
(Chorus)

Now farmer Giles he was there,
His sickle in his hand,
And when he swung the blade around,
He circumcised the band.
(Chorus)

Giles he played a dirty trick,
We cannot let it pass,
He showed his lass his mighty prick,
Then shoved it up her ass.
(Chorus)

Farmer Brown he was there,
A' jumping on his hat,
For half an acre of his corn
Was fairly fucking flat.
(Chorus)

Officer O'Malley he was there,
The pride of all the force.
They found him in the stable,
Wanking off his horse.
(Chorus)

The chimney sweep he was there,
They had to throw him out,
For every time he farted,
The room was filled with soot,
(Chorus)

The village builder he was there,
He brought his bag of tricks,
He poured cement in all the holes,
And blunted all the pricks.
(Chorus)

Little Jimmy he was there,
The leader of the choir,
He hit the balls of all the boys,
To make their voices higher.
(Chorus)

Little Tommy he was there,
He was only eight,
He was too small for the women,
So he had to masturbate.
(Chorus)

The village doctor he was there,
He had his bag of tricks,
And in between the dances,
He was sterilizing pricks.
(Chorus)

The doctor's daughter she was there,
She went to gather sticks.
She couldna find a blade of grass,
For cunts and standing dicks.
(Chorus)

The village postman he was there,
The poor man had the pox,
He couldna fuck the lassies,
So he fucked the letter box.
(Chorus)

The village shepherd he was there,
And he began to weep,
All these willing women,
And not a single sheep.
(Chorus)

The local harlot she was there,
A lay'in on the floor,
And every time she spread her legs,
The vacuum shut the door.
(Chorus)

There was fucking in the haystacks,
Fucking in the ricks,
You couldna hear the music,
for the rustling of the pricks.
(Chorus)

And when the ball was over,
Everyone confessed,
They all enjoyed the dancing,
But the fucking was the best.

American Hystery, Dept.

Your sobsister rides the subway to work.  Here in Choc City, the subway is called a "Metro," the sound of which conjures up Parisian romance, even as the experience conjures up Dantean expiation of what must have been horrible, horrible sins on Earth.  If Washington has been described as a city of southern efficiency and northern charm, the Metro is a transportation system of Nigerian efficiency and North Korean charm.  While the frisson of sudden and unexpected death by incompetence does shake the previous night's sleep from passengers each morning, it is not, on the whole, a pleasant experience.  And, by ironic understatement, I mean to say everyone associated with Metro--and here I'm looking at the person who let out the contract for installation and maintenance of the system's escalators--should be horsewhipped, if not daily, at least weekly.  At least weekly.  Maybe thrice a fortnight.  Which is pronounced "Cholmondley."

Anyhoo.  Every day, I wait for the Metro homebound, and I stare across at the facing platform, on which there is a backlit sign for a new show at Ford's Theatre.  The venue will likely be familiar to you as the place where Abraham Lincoln took in most of Our American Cousin.  And currently the theater is presenting a musical titled Liberty Smith.

Now, I don't claim to have psychic powers, you know, since the cease-and-desist, but, one look at that ad triggered what might be latent mutant tendencies.  The poster transparency shows the title character, a fellow, affable in appearance, seated with a colonial American flag in his lap.  I looked at the image, looked at the name of the production and intuited a show wherein the aformentioned Liberty Smith "happened" to have been comically present at key moments in revolutionary-era America.  Maybe he told Betsy Ross that concentric circles wouldn't work as well as stars and stripes.  Maybe he told Thomas Jefferson that once he went black, he would not, in fact, go back.  Something along those lines, all whimsical and juvenile and easily digestible.

So, today, after a few weeks of staring at that ad while waiting for the train, I went to the Ford's Theatre Web site and read the synopsis of Liberty Smith.  And it goes something like this:

Ford’s Theatre presents the world premiere of Liberty Smith, a madcap musical romp through Revolutionary America. A childhood friend of George Washington, apprentice to Benjamin Franklin and linked to Paul Revere’s remarkable ride, the elusive Liberty Smith weaves his way through familiar tales of a young nation.

As they say, nothing but net.  Madcap net.


Now, you may ask, will I find love or who will win the Stanley Cup or when will a cure for cancer be found?  My nascent powers, I believe, confer upon me a sacred trust to use them wisely, sparingly and well.  Further, regarding the Stanley Cup, I think I'd rather inventory the earthworms in my back yard than devote a scintilla of thought to the most pointless of the generally pointless array of professional sports.  But were you to ask: How is Liberty Smith?  As two teams of wild horses would be woefully inadequate to drag me down to the theater, I'll supply a few choice quotes from the Washington Post's reviewer: "this energetic if flavor-deprived waltz through American revolutionary history...[is] a harmless riff on what spills out of every elementary school history text...The predicaments seem inspired by lame skits from long-ago TV variety shows."  Funnily enough, none of this is quoted in the ad, which someone very carefully crafted from the handful of phrases in the review that didn't damn with faint meh.

So, yes, Liberty Smith.  Exactly what out-of-towners expect of a Washington show and about what they deserve.  I keep wanting to call it "Liberty Jones," except that would be the title for a Bing Crosby musical number of my imagining, circa 1940, featuring a goggle-eyed pickaninny shoeshine boy who dreams of being elected to a White House surrounded by cotton fields and watermelon patches, with a Secretary of Fried Chicken and a federal tap dancing holiday.  "Liberty (Liberty!) His momma named him Liberty (Liberty!), 'Cause he'll set all the dark people free."

At any rate, pastiche pool's closed, kids.  It's time to retire for the evening to face down another day tomorrow.  And so, as another blogger once wrote, to bed.