"No matter what you think of me, you must accept that no small component of this performance is vanity- mine. I suppose some of the people in this room are my fans. Thank you. The presence of fans does little to mitigate the factors of vanity and caprice in this performance here.
"I abandoned my fans and took to seclusion. Worse, for me, at least, I abandoned my bandmates. I did so out of an exagerrated and mistaken notion of my own brilliance and musical prowess. I did so out of an antisocial desire not merely to be the loudest voice in the room, but the only one. To be honest, it was helpful for me.
"I indeed needed a bit of silence, to remember why I had forsaken a potentially lucrative and fulfilling career in medicine for a life of sleeping in vans and on strangers' couches, of smoke and beer stains, of poseurs and record companies, and of that food of the gods, rock & roll.
"As much as I cringe at the vanity of trying to bring all these back after forsaking them, I hold out hope that you will again welcome me into your hearts and ears. And, as they say every corner of this beautiful world, From Helsinki to Capetown, From Seattle to Taipei, Let's Rock!"
-Peter Rios of Owl
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
More Horse
From Eugene Volokh we get a discussion of Horsemilkgate from a more right of center perspective. I agree with much of what Eugene says. I honestly find nothing wrong with Laura's lame jokes, particularly in light of the denunciations launched by some folks at NRO and by Michelle Malkin, who is quoted in Volokh's post.
I do disagree in that I find nothing wrong with a bit of nasty vulgarism. For example, if Whoopi Goldberg's mentioned remarks employing some sort of vulgar puns on the president's name were funny, then great. Since it's Whoopi, it probably wasn't funny. But still- who cares? Nobody was hurt. It wasn't a public event. The manufacture uproar in its wake was another instance of censorious blue-state conservatives making a mountain out of a molehill, which they certainly excel at.
So, back to Michelle Malkin. In addition to the fact that her outrage seems entirely manufactured, and she writes gushingly about some Heritage foundation jerk delivering an address calling for all the wingnuts in the audience to resist coursening the rhetoric of political discourse (I wonder if Ann Coulter, author of Treason, or Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, were in attendence), she lets forth this gem:
Actually, Michelle should not only lighten up, but grow up as well.
But something about what she wrote made me think about that Michelle Maglalang. Her career owes a fair share of its success to her being perceived as attractive and exotic.
Quite a few right wing female pundits, including Ann Coulter and Malkin, owe some of their popularity to the fact that they are photogenic. I don't find them attractive, but much is certainly made of Coulter's long legs and blond hair. Pundits like Malkin can go out taking potshots at "Hollyweird" or insist that they are G-rated, but it seems odd to do that when half of what they're selling is sex.
There's something beautiful in the contradictions presented by figures like Coulter, Malkin, and, say, Dinesh D'Souza. One of the patterns of right-wing punditocracy of my lifetime is a tendency to play against type.
Coulter writes hateful things about feminism and women, Malkin justifies internment camps, D'Souza gives racism a non-white face. It fits into a category of argument the right uses elsewhere. In the place of even-the-female and even-the-ethnic appeals, we have, of course, even-the-liberal or even-the-Democrat appeals.
Figures like Zell Miller, large chunks of The New Republic magazine, and Ed Koch are frequently used to give cover to ugly and thoroughgoingly conservative arguments and policies.
I honestly don't think that this kind of behavior, whether it comes from Ann Coulter or Ed Koch, has its root in some sort of deep-seated self-loathing. But it strikes me as sad that people would debase themselves to an audience of angry Republican white Christian heterosexual men who would regard them as beneath contempt if they were working any job other than attacking Hillary Clinton for a living.
I do disagree in that I find nothing wrong with a bit of nasty vulgarism. For example, if Whoopi Goldberg's mentioned remarks employing some sort of vulgar puns on the president's name were funny, then great. Since it's Whoopi, it probably wasn't funny. But still- who cares? Nobody was hurt. It wasn't a public event. The manufacture uproar in its wake was another instance of censorious blue-state conservatives making a mountain out of a molehill, which they certainly excel at.
So, back to Michelle Malkin. In addition to the fact that her outrage seems entirely manufactured, and she writes gushingly about some Heritage foundation jerk delivering an address calling for all the wingnuts in the audience to resist coursening the rhetoric of political discourse (I wonder if Ann Coulter, author of Treason, or Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, were in attendence), she lets forth this gem:
Lighten up, you say? No thanks. I'd rather be a G-rated conservative who can only make my kids giggle than a South Park/Desperate Housewives conservative whose goal is getting Richard Gere and Jane Fonda to snicker. Giving the Hollyweird Left the last laugh is not my idea of success. . . .
Actually, Michelle should not only lighten up, but grow up as well.
But something about what she wrote made me think about that Michelle Maglalang. Her career owes a fair share of its success to her being perceived as attractive and exotic.
Quite a few right wing female pundits, including Ann Coulter and Malkin, owe some of their popularity to the fact that they are photogenic. I don't find them attractive, but much is certainly made of Coulter's long legs and blond hair. Pundits like Malkin can go out taking potshots at "Hollyweird" or insist that they are G-rated, but it seems odd to do that when half of what they're selling is sex.
There's something beautiful in the contradictions presented by figures like Coulter, Malkin, and, say, Dinesh D'Souza. One of the patterns of right-wing punditocracy of my lifetime is a tendency to play against type.
Coulter writes hateful things about feminism and women, Malkin justifies internment camps, D'Souza gives racism a non-white face. It fits into a category of argument the right uses elsewhere. In the place of even-the-female and even-the-ethnic appeals, we have, of course, even-the-liberal or even-the-Democrat appeals.
Figures like Zell Miller, large chunks of The New Republic magazine, and Ed Koch are frequently used to give cover to ugly and thoroughgoingly conservative arguments and policies.
I honestly don't think that this kind of behavior, whether it comes from Ann Coulter or Ed Koch, has its root in some sort of deep-seated self-loathing. But it strikes me as sad that people would debase themselves to an audience of angry Republican white Christian heterosexual men who would regard them as beneath contempt if they were working any job other than attacking Hillary Clinton for a living.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Horses
Laura Bush tells a joke about the president masturbating a horse at one of those National Press shindigs.
What does the press do?
Well, I saw the execrable Brian Williams try to historicize Laura's raunchiness (she also talked about the Whitehouse gaggle of old broads, Condi, Karn Hughes, Lynne Cheney and herself going out to see Chippendales dancers, and the underlying theme of her routine was that the President was sexually boring) in the most insincere, unconvincing manner possible. Apparently Laura emasculating her husband on television is as significant as Betty Ford's campaign to remove the taboo in discussing and dealing with substance abuse.
The clip they showed on that show cut off the part about Bush "milking" a horse. Heh.
Bush is no longer a popular president. Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are neither so novel they deserve network anchors pretending they mean something, nor are they so funny they deserve this kind of pass. And there's the obvious double standard. If Hillary had joked about Bill jerking off a horse it would've been treated like she performed a satanic rite on stage involving aborted fetuses.
And of course we have the only editorial columnist for the New York Times dumber than David Brooks, John Tierney, explains the whole thing proves liberals are out of touch. (!) Listen, Laura Bush reading shitty jokes about horse schlongs doesn't make me think about her any differently, and it shouldn't. Laura Bush isn't a prim librarian-she's a politician's husband, one that lacks any sort of personality as far as I can tell (I may be wrong about this, she might just be bad on TV, and that's no crime). And Laura Bush talking about Chippendales doesn't mean shit about fictional red country.
Another note about Tierney: I'm tired of pampered conservative columnists who live in New York City talking about how regular folks feel sneered at by "elites." (A) What would Tierney know about it? And (B) What is with the martyr campaign? In the world of the conservative pundit, being a regular ol' red state schmoe makes one a figure of elite ridicule, a victim of Jon Stewart's terrible gaze of disapproval. In the real world, dumbshit conservatives run the country, "liberal" is a dirty word, and Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are some sort of epic accomplishment, like she came on stage and performed heart surgery.
What does the press do?
Well, I saw the execrable Brian Williams try to historicize Laura's raunchiness (she also talked about the Whitehouse gaggle of old broads, Condi, Karn Hughes, Lynne Cheney and herself going out to see Chippendales dancers, and the underlying theme of her routine was that the President was sexually boring) in the most insincere, unconvincing manner possible. Apparently Laura emasculating her husband on television is as significant as Betty Ford's campaign to remove the taboo in discussing and dealing with substance abuse.
The clip they showed on that show cut off the part about Bush "milking" a horse. Heh.
Bush is no longer a popular president. Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are neither so novel they deserve network anchors pretending they mean something, nor are they so funny they deserve this kind of pass. And there's the obvious double standard. If Hillary had joked about Bill jerking off a horse it would've been treated like she performed a satanic rite on stage involving aborted fetuses.
And of course we have the only editorial columnist for the New York Times dumber than David Brooks, John Tierney, explains the whole thing proves liberals are out of touch. (!) Listen, Laura Bush reading shitty jokes about horse schlongs doesn't make me think about her any differently, and it shouldn't. Laura Bush isn't a prim librarian-she's a politician's husband, one that lacks any sort of personality as far as I can tell (I may be wrong about this, she might just be bad on TV, and that's no crime). And Laura Bush talking about Chippendales doesn't mean shit about fictional red country.
Another note about Tierney: I'm tired of pampered conservative columnists who live in New York City talking about how regular folks feel sneered at by "elites." (A) What would Tierney know about it? And (B) What is with the martyr campaign? In the world of the conservative pundit, being a regular ol' red state schmoe makes one a figure of elite ridicule, a victim of Jon Stewart's terrible gaze of disapproval. In the real world, dumbshit conservatives run the country, "liberal" is a dirty word, and Laura Bush's horse dick jokes are some sort of epic accomplishment, like she came on stage and performed heart surgery.
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