Conservative activist and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes compared gays wanting the right to marry to a nose-picker wanting the right to eat his boogers in a talk at Spring Arbor University in Michigan on Wednesday, MLive reports:
Keyes said while abortion, same-sex marriage and separation of church and state are not basic human rights there are leaders who are trying to “fabricate” rights.
“People who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court take it among themselves to argue that somehow there should be separation of church and state,” he said. “Nothing in the Constitution requires separation, nor could it because we cannot separate the country from its finding premise without destroying it.”
When arguing what a fundamental right actually is, Keyes gave an offbeat example of a young child who had a habit of “picking in their nostrils and “eating what came out.”
As the child grew up they noticed others were disgusted and did not want to be near him. As an adult the individual argued if others have the right to eat what they want, the individual should be recognized as having the same right.
“How many think that is a fundamental right?” he asked the audience.
In a separate interview with Stan Solomon, Keyes said gay marriage would lead to communism and the "murder of the masses," Right Wing Watch reports:
The aim is not compassion for homosexuals, respect for homosexuals and all of this; the aim in the mind of these hardheaded, calculating, leftist, Communist, totalitarians is to destroy the family and to establish the notion that once you have seized power there is no limit whatsoever to what you can do. If you want to tolerate abuses then those abuses can be imposed upon the people. Once you establish that, the abuses are then not going to be confined to egregious outrages like this; those abuses are going to be committed against the whole society and they will in the end include the murder of the masses as has occurred in all Communist regimes that existed.
"Martin Luther King says that darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can," LL Cool J said. "Hate can't drive out hate, only love can. So what we're talking about is compassion...."
"I'm not advising anyone to truly forget slavery, but what I'm saying is forget the slavery mentality," LL Cool J said. "Forget the bitterness. Don't get bitter, get better."
Brad Paisley backs him up:
"Let's not be victims of things that happened so long ago," Paisley said.
One of the problems with the idea that America needs a "Conversation On Race" is that it presumes that "America" has something intelligent to say about race. All you need do is look at how American history is taught in this country to realize that that is basically impossible. I have had conversations with very well-educated people who, with a straight face, have told me that there are Black Confederates. If you ask a very well educated person how the GI Bill exacerbated the wealth gap, or how New Deal housing policy helped create the ghetto they very likely will not know. And they do not know, not because they are ignorant, stupid, or immoral, they do not know because they are part of country that has decided that "not knowing" is in its interest. There's no room for any sort of serious conversation when the basic facts of history are not accessible. It would be like me demanding a conversation on Vichy France--en Français. So we retreat to mushy, moist talk about who "feelings," "intentions," "good people" and "loving fathers." The great Jay Smooth once said that we need to move from a "what you are" conversation ("you are a racist") to a "what you are doing" conversation. Unfortunately this presumes a groundwork of honesty and good faith. No such good faith exists because we are ignorant, and deep down inside, we know it and are ashamed of it.
Even within those confines, it did not have to be this way. Paisley could have reached out and had a conversation with an artist who might actually challenge his worldview. He could have engaged Mos Def and walked through Brooklyn. He might have engaged Common, walked the South Side and read about the forces that made it so. He might have talked to Kendrick Lamar and walked through Compton. He could have visited the jails and thought about why they are heaving with black men, and wondered what connections that heaving has with the past.
But acts would require a mind interested in something more than being told what it already knows. It would require an artist doing his job and exploring. It would require truly engaging a community, instead of haughtily lecturing it on how, precisely, it should react to great pain. It would require something more than mere reification. It would require something more than absolution. It would require talking to people who may not like you. It would require the rarest of things in this space where everyone wants to write, but no one wants to read--a truly curious mind.
Aaron Hartzler chronicles being a gay man raised in a fundamentalist Christian home:
[W]hen I finally came out, Mom broke her silence on the subject. “It would be easier to go to your funeral than to know you are going to spend the night with that man.” This was the fevered pitch of the bullying, the loudest it ever became. Since then, the noise has subsided along with any meaningful communication between us, buried beneath the shallow serifs of her email italics — cheerful updates about the weather in places I’ve never lived, and people I’ve never met, at churches I’ll never attend.
Growing up means learning to hold two opposing views about the same thing. It’s not that I’ve stopped loving Mom and Dad — I haven’t. It’s just that I’ve accepted the fact that they may be as powerless as I am to change. Turns out unconditional love is a two-way street, so I protect myself with a few well-placed guardrails — one of which is the relative distance of communicating with Mom mainly by text and email.
This new duet between Brad Paisley and LL Cool J, "Accidental Racist," is getting beaten up pretty badly on the intertubes. I confess to doing some of the beating, mostly because of laughable lyrics and the fact that there is actually a Rap Genius entry dedicated to the song. With that said, I think it's worth taking a second to analyze why the lyrics are in fact laughable. I think we can get to the root of this by seriously and directly engaging Brad Paisley and his stated motives for the song. Here is Paisley in his own words:
"At this point, after all these albums and all these hits, I have no interest in phoning it in, and I think that [the song] comes from an honest place in both cases, and that's why it's on there and why I'm so proud of it. This isn't a stunt. This isn't something that I just came up with just to be sort of shocking or anything like that. I knew it would be, but I'm sort of doing it in spite of that, really.
"I'm doing it because it just feels more relevant than it even did a few years ago. I think that we're going through an adolescence in America when it comes to race. You know, it's like we're almost grown up. You have these little moments as a country where it's like, 'Wow things are getting better.' And then you have one where it's like, 'Wow, no they're not.'
"It really came to a boil last year with Lincoln and Django, and there's just a lot of talk about it. It was really obvious to me that we still have issues as a nation with this. There are two little channels in each chorus that really steal the pie. One of them is, 'We're still picking up the pieces, walking on eggshells, fighting over yesterday,' and the other is, 'Paying for the mistakes that a lot of folks made long before we came.' We're all left holding the bag here, left with the burden of these generations. And I think the younger generations are really kind of looking for ways out of this.
"I just think art has a responsibility to lead the way, and I don't know the answers, but I feel like asking the question is the first step, and we're asking the question in a big way. How do I show my Southern pride? What is offensive to you? And he kind of replies, and his summation is really that whole let bygones be bygones and 'If you don't judge my do rag, I won't judge your red flag.' We don't solve anything, but it's two guys that believe in who they are and where they're from very honestly having a conversation and trying to reconcile."
The du-rag/red-flag line Paisley cites at the end belongs to LL Cool J, one of the two guys "that believe in who they are." LL Cool J has enjoyed a kind of longevity with which very few rappers can compete. In the mid-'80s and early '90s, particularly, he was a dynamic MC. (I am still partial to the "I'm Bad"/"Radio"/"Go Cut Creator Go" era.) His career has blossomed beyond the record industry to include music and film. I can understand why an artist like Paisley would be attracted to an artist like LL Cool J. I can't for the life of me understand why he'd choose LL Cool J to begin "a conversation" to reconcile. Rap is overrun with artists who've spent some portion of their career attempting to have "a conversation." There's Chuck D. There's Big Daddy Kane. There's KRS-ONE. There's Talib. There's Mos Def. There's Kendrick Lamar. There's Black Thought. There's Dead Prez. And so on. In an artform distinguished by a critical mass concerned with racism, LL's work is distinguished by its lack of concern. Which is fine. "Pink Cookies" is dope. "Booming System" is dope. "I Shot Ya" is dope. I even rock that "Who Do You Love" joint. But I wouldn't call up Talib Kweli to record a song about gang violence in L.A., and I wouldn't call up KRS-ONE to drop a verse on a love ballad. The only real reason to call up LL is that he is black and thus must have something insightful to say about the Confederate Flag.
The assumption that there is no real difference among black people is exactly what racism is. Our differences, our right to our individuality, is what makes us human. The point of racism is to rob black people of that right. It would be no different than me assuming that Rachel Weisz must necessarily have something to say about black-Jewish relations, or me assuming that Paisley must know something about barbecue because he's Southern.
It is no different than the only black kid in class being asked to explain "race" to white people, or asking the same question of the sole black dude in your office. The entire fight is to get white people to respect the fact that Mos Def holding a microphone is not LL Cool J holding a microphone, that Trayvon Martin is not De'Marquise Elkins, that wearing a hoodie and being black does not make you the same as every other person wearing a hoodie and being black.
Paisley wants to know how he can express his Southern Pride. Here are some ways. He could hold a huge party on Martin Luther King's birthday, to celebrate a Southerner's contribution to the world of democracy. He could rock a T-shirt emblazoned with Faulkner's Light In August, and celebrate the South's immense contribution to American literature. He could preach about the contributions of unknown Southern soldiers like Andrew Jackson Smith. He could tell the world about the original Cassius Clay. He could insist that Tennessee raise a statue to Ida B. Wells.
Every one of these people are Southerners. And every one of them contributed to this great country. But to do that Paisley would have to be more interested in a challenging conversation and less interested in a comforting lecture.
"An article on Saturday about 'Otherwise: Queer Scholarship Into Song,' at the Dixon Place performance space in Manhattan, quoted incorrectly from a comment by Ann Pellegrini, an associate professor at New York University, while she was impersonating the gender theorist Judith Butler and deconstructing the lyrics of 'The Girl From Ipanema.' She said that the lyrics reflect 'the ocularcentrism of the Western episteme,' not the 'oracular-centrism.'"
Ross Douthat gave a little meritocracy 101 in the NYT this weekend: “Our elite’s entire claim to legitimacy rests on theories of equal opportunity and upward mobility, and the promise that ‘merit’ correlates with talents and deserts.”
(In other news, THAT IS NOT A TYPO, I know it shocked me too, but I have EXCLUSIVELY LEARNED that “just desserts” is not and has never been the correct spelling of that phrase, and in fact “deserts” is a wholly different word than “desserts, n. the sweet course eaten at the end of the meal” and also “deserts, n. a dry, barren area of land, esp. one covered with sand.” The phrase “just deserts” instead uses the SECOND DEFINITION, “deserts n. a person’s worthiness or entitlement to reward or punishment.”)
This has been your vocabulary lesson for this day good day to you.
After the recent birth of his daughter, Brian Jay Stanley distills a touching truth about vulnerability:
How can I be dependent on a being who, six months ago, did not exist? I did not need her when I did not have her. But she has entered my life as a nail enters a block of wood, simultaneously creating a hole and filling it. Remove the nail, and the hole remains. Love completes unhappy people, but uncompletes happy people, because love means we can no longer be happy alone.
SNL castmember Nasim Pedrad may be jumping to another NBC show this fall. THR reports that Pedrad has joined the cast of The John Mulaney Show, a high-profile pilot that is being produced by her SNL boss Lorne Michaels and was created by SNL writer/stand-up John Mulaney as a starring vehicle for himself.
If The John Mulaney Show gets picked up for the fall, Nasim Pedrad, who is SNL's longest-serving female castmember with four seasons under her belt, will leave the show, along with Mulaney who's been writing there for the past five seasons. So, unless NBC screws up really bad and doesn't pick up this promising show, it looks like SNL will be losing another cast member in May besides Jason Sudeikis, who is expected to exit, and Seth Meyers, who will likely leave this season or next if he inherits Late Night from Jimmy Fallon.
Here's the complete info on The John Mulaney Show's cast and characters:
John Mulaney as John Mulaney, a naive comedian who writes for a game show and lives with roommates Jane and Seymour.
Elliott Gould as Alfred, Mulaney's tough gay neighbor.
Nasim Pedrad as Mulaney's roommate Jane, "the sweet, intelligent and lazy grade school teacher who doesn't love her job and wants to make changes but she's addicted to procrastinating."
NYC-based stand-up Griffin Newman as Mulaney's other roommate Seymour, "a weird genius in the body of a dustbowl child."
A role that has yet to be cast as a comic name Motif.
Martin Short as Mulaney's boss, a game show host named Lou Cannon who gives him advice.
This movie is amazing. Who wants to come rewatch it?
What a difference 27 years makes, huh? I'm referring to the gap between the 1971 film adaptation of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain and the 1998... whatever that was... of Sphere. I mean, we're mostly going to be talking about Michael Crichton's novels, but to prattle on happily for several paragraphs about Sphere without acknowledging what Barry Levinson did to it would be like not picturing a blue Billy Crudup in your head while re-reading Watchmen. We need to breathe through it, come to acceptance, and move on.
That was a shitty movie. And, to my earlier point about the gap between The Andromeda Strain and Sphere, here is what a team of scientists and hangers-on looked like on-camera in 1971:
And here is what they looked like in 1998:
Which, whatever, there are plenty of sexy scientists in the world (I mean, have you seen Lisa Randall? Rowr!) and Dustin Hoffman is not necessarily having panties thrown at him in recent years, but it legitimately was a time in which sci-fi movies tried to be about sci-fi. And you can say "it's what the people want," but Sphere made back less than half its budget and The Andromeda Strain made... I mean, it was 1971, so enough to pay for Sharon Stone's wet suits on Sphere, probably, but no one was sitting on a $45 million dollar loss. The big ticket item? They spent $300K to build the scientific lab set. PRIORITIES, you know? And it made sense. Literally no human being who watched Sphere without reading the book understood what the hell was going on. Not one. You can tell me you did, but unless it happened in a controlled environment where you were raised in captivity away from Michael Crichton novels and then watched Sphere and answered a series of plot questions of my choosing, I'm going to think you're snowing me. And that scenario would make for a fascinating Michael Crichton novel, would it not?
Speaking of! Let's talk about Michael Crichton. Biography of Michael Crichton: he is now dead, he was super tall (6'9), he wrote well over 12,000 books, he was very smart, he got a little weird in later years, and we should all be worshipping his golden statue for having given us so much pleasure. Do you even know what you owe to Michael Crichton? How many flights he made bearable? How many rainy weekends at your aunt and uncle's cottage where you weren't allowed to flush pee? You may not really understand, let me go on: he gave you George Clooney. Did you know that? Did you know that he created "ER," which gave you George Clooney? Westworld? JURASSIC PARK? CONGO?
(I may be the only one who really liked Congo, but I really really really hate and fear non-human primates other than Koko, and it was nice to have that reinforced a little bit. I know, I know, the humans made them that way to guard the whatever they were guarding. Still.)
Sphere is pretty great. I think, like most Crichton novels, you can see that tension between the Michael Crichton who, like Roman on "Party Down," dreamed of writing hard sci-fi (no dragons!), but also knew that his bread-and-butter was cinematically-appropriate tales of the natural human reactions to an initial sci-fi concept. Which is what Robert J. Sawyer, the superb Canadian sci-fi writer, does as well. You've got the alien sphere, or the spreading contagion, or the rogue androids in Western wear, and what makes it a Crichton novel is making you care about the little band of people who has to deal with it.
To return to the fundamental question of Classic Trash, that we only reference when it seems convenient to the discussion: "is it any good?"
Well, yes. Crichton is not Alice Munro (though we can all fantasize about the end result of their collaboration, in which a young woman grows to adulthood in a small Western Canadian town and then encounters an alien sphere that gives her unconscious mind the power to create any manifestations she chooses) but he has that great talent the snobs lament: making you care what comes next. And then and then and then and then. You can be the purest of the pure sci-fi. You can understand cybernetics. You can create fake but super-plausible looking computer code and warning symbols that look scary and come up with something that makes it seem not-insane that we might reanimate cloned dinosaurs out of New Age jewelry-looking stones, but unless you have the intangible and rare ability to make someone miss their subway stop to figure out how the scientists can manage not to bring the threat back from the ocean in their own minds, you are never going to be able to afford to build a life-size replica of the Parthenon in your back forty. That's just how it is. You think you're better than JK Rowling? Maybe you are! It doesn't mean shit. Give the people what they want, y'know?
We haven't said much about Sphere, really, because who knows if you've read it? This is more about Michael Crichton. But it's also a little bit about the failings of Michael Crichton, such as they are, because he's never quite willing to go scorched-earth. Which is what happens at the end of Sphere. Our heroes need to kill themselves. Anyone could tell you that. And, instead, they use their newfound supernatural powers to choose to forget that they have those powers, rendering everyone safe and happy and innocent and bounding off, like the end of The Langoliers, to live the rest of their lives. And that's why it's a really fun book, and not, maybe, a more artistic book that ends with three dead bodies in a decompression chamber, or an explosion taking out the three survivors and the sphere itself, or a Russian woman woman being run over by a train.
The Plot Questions You Would Be Asked After Seeing Sphere (1998)
Who was Jerry?
What happened to Liev Schreiber?
Were there any aliens?
What year did the ship arrive under the ocean?
What was the sphere?
What does the sphere do?
When they're in their decompression bunker, how exactly do they solve their problem?
What is the mechanism by which that even works?
Why did the sphere shoot into space at the end of the movie?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
No, really, though, aren't you terrified of non-human primates?
Aren't they hideous-looking and scary?
You know that a grown chimpanzee, for example, will eat your eyes and nose and genitals and rip off your arm and then penetrate you with it as soon as look at you?
You don't on some level think they look exactly like your id?
That non-human primates are a physical representation of your most instrinsic and unpleasant primal nature?
I mean, it's not like you don't think they should have some kind of rights.
Like, in Spain, the great apes have legal protection.
That seems about right.
You know who seems like a real asshole?
That Mike Rice guy that Rutgers just fired.
Is there a great work of sci-fi that ends with the annihilation of our heroes?
Should you write one?
What is the absolute best sci-fi?
Discussion Answer: The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin.
Here's the first episode of a brand new web series from the YouTube channel The Picture Show. A collaboration between Tribeca Enterprises and Maker Studios, Remix the Movies takes classic scenes from movies and recreates them with new alternate dialogue. In the first installment, Steven Spielberg toys with kid actors on the set of Jurassic Park. I assume Spielberg ends every scene he directs by saying to himself, "I am so fucking talented."
Tory I can't comment on your share of this? But I'm so angry that they use courier new.
THERE’S SO MUCH GOD DAMN SPINACH in this shit even Popeye can’t hate. Yeah spinach makes you swoll as fuck, we know that. But did you know just one cup of spinach is over 300% of your daily recommended Vitamin A? Sweet fuck. You worried about acne? Wrinkles? Any other skin shit? Spinach to the mother fucking rescue. That shit keeps your skin looking so fresh and so clean, not to mention helping to prevent skin cancer. Spinach has these plant-based compounds called “flavonoids” that not only repair damaged skin but also fight multiple types of cancer. Everybody knows I ain’t even fucking playing when it comes to dick cancer, I gotta have my shit in tact.
IF YOU SMOKE cigarettes (tumblr crew I’m looking at you), DO NOT take any Vitamin A or beta carotene supplements. Studies have shown that combining those supplements with tobacco drastically increases your risk for lung cancer. But then again, smoking drastically increases your risk for lung cancer. So quit that shit.
You want to make this shit at home and tell Jamba Juice they can go fuck themselves by not paying for their high calorie sugary shit? Recipe below for a Thug Kitchen Original:
SPINACH COOLER Ectoplasm free and Dr. Venkman approved
2 handfuls of spinach (about 2 cups)
2 frozen bananas
1 cup chopped and skinned cucumber
4 medium chunks of pineapple
1 cup coconut water or tap
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon flax oil (optional)
6-8 mint leaves (optional, but I dig that shit)
yields ~20 ounces
Toss that shit in a blender and zap it. If you prefer it a little sweeter, add some more pineapple to that shit. DRINK UP, CHAMP.
Seriously though, fuck Jamba Juice. Only they could make smoothies as unhealthy as McDonald’s made oatmeal.
Did you have to consciously put aside your personal reservations about salad to become the designated pecs and abs, as the "Zesty Guy," for Kraft's dressings?
Did you ever think you'd be subjected to gay guys who are TV execs ogling you on-air while you're trying to stick to your agency-approved content delivery stratagems?
Did you ever imagine your first experience with "Good Morning America" would be because you were branded content?
Did you ever think that modeling would finally go 3-D?
Did your agent call a long meeting in which you two discussed if the Kraft family of salad-related brands was good or bad for your brand? How many times did the dude from the Old Spice commercials come up?
Did you have to have a conversation with your various agencies about your real name, Anderson Davis, and them asking if there was enough room in the "Anderson" marketplace for you to continue using your real name?
Can you tell us the name of the dude from the Old Spice commercials?
Isn't it intriguing that you're both former football players?
Did you ever think you'd have to figure out how to deal with answering people on Twitter who are asking if you're gay-friendly in an agency-approved way?
Did you ever think you'd have access to so much Italian dressing? OMG what are you going to do with all that dressing.
Aren't you glad you're not representing Kraft brand Oscar Mayer though?
Do you ever get the Alanis version of "My Humps" stuck in your head late at night and after a while you start inserting "dressing" into the lyrics?
Did you ever think the word "zesty" would start looking so strange? Zesty. Zesty. ZeSTy!!111! Oh my God, what is that word? Is it Arabic? Does anyone have an OED log-in? Oh my God, "zest," right, that is French, that is so freaky. Zesssty. Zzzzessttyyyy. LOL. Are we asleep or are we awake?
At first we started out real cool1
Taking me places I ain’t never been2
But now, you’re getting comfortable
Ain’t doing those things you did no more
You’re slowly making me pay for things
Your money should be handling3
1 According to online apocrypha, Beyoncé acquired her first boyfriend, Lyndell Locke, at age 12. “It was puppy love,” said Locke, now a chef in Houston, in a rare interview in 2009. “I would take her to the movies, or we would eat out. Normal things teenagers do.”
2 As Beyoncé was 16 when she co-wrote “Bills, Bills, Bills,” this line might mean “R-rated movies,” etc.
3 Today, 80% of women and 70% of men state that they desire a financially (and otherwise) egalitarian relationship, although only around 23% of women state that they feel prepared to make major financial decisions.
And now you ask to use my car4
4 Beyoncé did not learn how to drive until 2010, when Jay-Z taught her.
Drive it all day and don’t fill up the tank5
5 Four years before she learned how to drive, Jay-Z bought Beyoncé a 1959 Rolls Royce (est. value $1 million) for her 26th birthday. Filling up a 1959 Rolls Royce in Manhattan would cost around $81.
And you have the audacity
To even come and step to me
Ask to hold some money from me
Until you get your check next week6
6 Perhaps he wished to avoid the exorbitant interest rates charged by payday lenders, who often advertise a simple interest rate (15%) instead of APR (300% or more) on the loans, which are rarely paid off in full within the prescribed two-week period. At a 300% APR, the interest on a payday loan will exceed the principal in 4 months.
You triflin’ good for nothing type of brother7
7 The unemployment rate among black Americans aged 16-19 is 39.3%, nearly double the unemployment rate for white Americans of the same age.
Silly me, why haven’t I found another
A baller, when times get hard
I need someone to help me out
Instead of a scrub like you
Who don’t know what a man’s about8
8 In 1939, a psychologist named George Crane created a merit/demerit chart for husbands and wives to score each other on their marital performance. The first merit to be checked off on the husband’s list is “Gives wife ample allowance or turns over pay-check to her.”
Can you pay my bills?9
9 In mid-2012, tens of thousands of Americans were scammed by criminals who spread a rumor that President Obama would pay their utility bills.
Can you pay my telephone bills?10
10 The average monthly cell phone bill in America is $71.
Can you pay my automo-bills?11
11 The average annual cost of car ownership is $8,946.
If you did then maybe we could chill
I don’t think you do
So, you and me are through12
12 Beyoncé and Lyndell Locke broke up in 2000, the same year that “Bills, Bills, Bills” became a chart-topper and The Writing’s On The Wall sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
Now you’ve been maxing out my cards
Givin’ me bad credit13
13 The average American credit score is 661, which is not super good.
buyin’ gifts with my own name14
14 Beyoncé’s full name is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter. Jay-Z’s full name is Shawn Corey Knowles-Carter.
Haven’t paid the first bill
But you’re steady heading to the mall
Goin’ on shopping sprees 15
15 Beyoncé is known to enjoy a good shopping spree, having dropped $32,000 one afternoon at Harvey Nichols in London, etc, although this behavior is eclipsed by Jay-Z’s $350,000 day at Hermes in 2010.
Perpetrating to your friends that you be ballin’
And then you use my cell phone
Calling whoever you think’s at home
And then when the bill comes
All the sudden you be acting dumb
Don’t know where none of these calls come from
When your mama’s number’s here more than once
You triflin’, good for nothing type of brother16
16 In 2011, Beyoncé ended her business partnership with her father Mathew Knowles, who had managed her career since childhood.
Silly me, why haven’t I found another17
17 Shortly after firing her father, Beyoncé hired a Live Nation representative in his place. Later that year, Mathew filed papers disputing Live Nation’s claims that he embezzled funds from his daughter. Live Nation is the partner company for Jay-Z’s massive entertainment company Roc Nation.
A baller 18
18 “I’m not a businessman/ I’m a business, man” –Jay-Z, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)”
when times get hard
I need someone to help me out
Instead of a scrub like you
Who don’t know what a man’s about19
19 Jay-Z’s net worth is $475 million. Beyoncé’s is $300 million. They are the richest celebrity couple in America.
“some historians think that michelangelo was drawing god in a human brain. very few people knew what one looked like at the time; but michelangelo had dissected cadavers and would have known. it even has the hint of a brain stem. if true this would have been a great “fuck you” to the pope whom he was not friendly with but also would have meant god was in a human brain, or created by man.”
Interesting.
also michelangelo painted a baby angel flipping off the pope
the blond one, you see his right hand? that’s called the fig and it’s an old world european gesture for ‘fuck you” because apparently Pope Juluis II was a total raging asshole and everyone hated him
but nobody ever noticed this little fucker because the ceiling was so high
and then thirty years later they called michelangelo back to paint the wall behind the altar and he wasted no time in painting the gates of hell behind the pope’s chair
“What future commentators write about me (if they write about me at all which I doubt) when I am dead won’t matter much. I will by then be in the hands of a Judge both just and (thankfully) merciful, a world where truth counts. I’m not triumphal about that fact, I suspect we will all be surprised to discover first-hand how dark the sins we justified in this world really are — when our self-imposed veils of ignorance are removed. We’ll see how much we all require mercy. In the meantime let’s love each other as best we can, but always, always in truth,” – Maggie Gallagher, my friend.
What if she wasn’t even their teacher. What if she was just their acid dropping bus driver who would tell them to get in and then they’d dope up and just sit in the parked bus for hours mumbling about science and stuff.
I don't believe this was actually written by Christine Quinn.
From time to time, we offer up this space for everyday New Yorkers with a point of view on the issues of the day.
It's a big week, with gay marriage up before those old fuckfaces in the Supreme Court, with hackers trying to take down our Netflix accounts, and with old straight men confessing their love of high-heeled boots and also apparently doing dudes during their midlife crisis. What an era in which we live! By which I mean, the Cenozoic. But more importantly, weighing heavily on all our minds, is the forthcoming Jurassic Park 4, which is expected to hit theaters next summer, which will be my first summer as mayor of the fine City of New York, or so Mike Bloomberg used to tell me, back when we still talked.
I'll never forget the first Jurassic Park. I'd never been so excited for a movie before. The year was 1993, and I'd been that crazy queen Tom Duane's chief of staff for a couple years. Me and my then-girlfriend Laura went to the Chelsea Clearview on opening night! (We're both huge Laura Dern fans.) I made Laura—my Laura! LOL, not Laura Dern—pack the flasks, and as much as we enjoyed the film and its Spielbergian magic from the back row, getting crunk, still I found the film's message gratifying. You can't fuck around with dinosaurs, everyone learned that day. And in the intervening twenty years—has it really been that long!—people haven't fucked with dinosaurs once. Not once!
And then The Lost World happened in 1997, and it was so-so. Jurassic Park III came out just before 9/11, while I was already on the City Council. That was the one with that Téa Leoni. I hate that stuck-up bitch and her snooty accent. Don't ask. Even though these two movies weren't as great as the first, still, I've seen each of them at least three times, and when I am tucked in my nest of straw and gravel at night, flipping channels alongside my wife, and we come across any of them on TNT or whatever the fuck channels are way up there, of course we're glued to it and we stay up late, giggling and clapping our forearms together.
I related to these movies so much because actually, genetically speaking, I am also part dinosaur. Not a very large part! But it is why I have such piercing eyes, and a long-ranging sense of smell, and why my voice carries so. Of course it also explains my wonderfully armored neckplate.
And now Jurassic Park 4 is breathing down my frill, and I must admit: I'm fucking furious. Some pussy named Colin Trevorrow is directing it. He did some film with that Aubrey Plaza (why does she have that name?) that nobody saw. But worse, it's written by those jackaninnies that did Rise of the Planet of the Apes. If there ever was a movie about a savage animal that failed to capture the nobility and menace of its species, it is that piece of James Franco toilet-scrape. In their envisioning of Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs are likely to be little mushy pantywaists, scraping and bowing before the humans and their horrible stunguns, instead of biting off the heads of adults and ripping the bowels from stupid human children with their delicious and amazing claw-fingers.
Why must this happen. Why must this happen to me?
My makers have made contact, an increasingly rare occurrence, to reassure me that my genetic legacy will survive this torture-by-Hollywood. And yet I despair. I thrash in my basalt-clad office, shrieking obscenities, kicking straw. Why must I suffer all alone these degradations of depiction? It hardly seems fair.
Christine Quinn is the next mayor of New York City, she is pretty sure.
Rosie is someone who I will go to bat for Every. Time.
During the comedy boom of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Rosie O’Donnell was one of the fastest rising stars in the New York standup scene. At the time, there were half-hour comedy shows on just about every cable network, and O’Donnell appeared on just about every one of them. In fact, she would go on to replace comedian Bobby Collins as host for VH1’s foray into the stand-up business, unimaginatively titled Vh1’s Standup Spotlight.
However in the intervening years O’Donnell’s reputation as a comic has receded to a point that younger readers may even be surprised to hear she ever did standup at all. This may be because, except for the odd standup performance at charity functions, O’Donnell doesn’t perform as much as she used to. In the years since her rise through the standup comedy ranks, she has been a movie star, a talk show host (three times!), run her own magazine, and has become a vocal activist for gay rights (specifically advocating for the right of gay parents to adopt).
Throughout this time, O’Donnell has not been shy about voicing her political beliefs, which above all else may account for her diminished reputation in the comedy world. Which is a shame, really. At her best, O’Donnell’s acerbic style of comedy was biting without being off-putting, which is a difficult trick to pull off. Here is a clip from O’Donnell’s heyday:
While that “attitude” style of comedy has largely gone out of style, there is no denying the bit about O’Donnell’s stepmom is as clear and concise as a joke can get and would do well today. This is a small gripe, however, as the set is overall very funny and the force of O’Donnell’s personality completely wins over the audience. For most young comedians, forming a strong, relatable character for the stage is the most difficult step in their evolution as a comic and as we have seen in previous installments of this column, could arguably be more important than the jokes themselves.
Which brings us to the crux of Rosie O’Donnell’s fall from grace as far as her public perception goes and I believe it can best be summed up by this comment from the YouTube video clip presented above.
“Wow. Nice to watch Rosie again – back when I liked her. She was so funny in her early years. Now she takes everything too seriously. I can't believe how mean she's gotten.”
Now, to a certain degree, this anonymous Internet citizen has a point, although misapplied. In that clip, we see a performer who has a sweet side, sure, but we also see someone who lashes out at her stepmom for absolutely no reason. O’Donnell is wise to set up the bit by putting the blame for her histrionic reaction to her stepmother’s request squarely on her own shoulders, but it still isn’t nice. In fact, through most of her brief clip little of what she says is “nice.” Which is fine, comedy isn’t supposed to be nice.
Where the commenter is wrong is that Rosie O’Donnell has never not been mean as a standup comic. However, it was during O’Donnell’s long run as a daytime talk show host that the transition from Rosie O’Donnell as a biting standup comic changed to that of a sweet, friendly Mom who invited friends over during the day to chat about Broadway and Tom Cruise. The transition went over so well that only a year after The Rosie O’Donnell Show’s premiere, Rosie was christened the “Queen of Nice” by Time magazine.
During the show’s run, Rosie helped popularize the Tickle Me Elmo doll, gave out Drake’s confectionary delights to the audience, and gleefully fawned over her guests in a way that makes Jimmy Fallon seem demure and reserved in comparison.
To those whose taste in talk show hosts were weaned on the smart-ass acidity of David Letterman or the cool reserve of Johnny Carson, Rosie’s turn as a daytime talk sensation felt like a betrayal. However, this sweetness was always part of her act, just hidden beneath layers of sarcasm and bravado. Like Jimmy Fallon, Rosie used her good nature and friendly demeanor to provide a warm place for viewers to drop in on after a hard day of work. And there's nothing wrong with that. In its prime, the show was one of the most talked about shows on television, because even if it was not your cup of tea, it was definitely right up the alley of many moms across the country and they could not get enough of Rosie’s frivolous antics.
As happy-go-lucky as Rosie appeared to be in front of the camera, though, rumors swirled around that behind the camera she could be demanding and blunt with the crew. In 1999, just a month after the horrific Columbine shootings the Rosie audience would get a peak behind the genial façade of talk show host and that audience would be left...uncomfortable. It was during her conversation with Tom Selleck, on the show to promote a movie that the public perception of Rosie O’Donnell started to shift.
To those in the comedy community who may have felt betrayed by Rosie’s turn as a daytime talk show host, that betrayal would be nothing compared to the skewering O’Donnell received after this interview aired. Of course, many of the people who lean right on the political spectrum were incensed by Selleck’s interrogation, but those in the middle and even the left voiced anger that Rosie dipped into this line of questioning and due in part to Selleck’s affability and visible discomfort throughout the interview, O’Donnell definitely comes across looking a bit like a bully.
Partly, it is due to the fact that on the show, politics was rarely if ever touched upon at all. The people who watched this show did not do so hoping for an illuminating discussion about gun rights. Of course, the other reason that Rosie’s interview with Selleck was so controversial is a bit more complicated. While other talk show hosts have certainly engaged in heated discussions with their guests, most of them had the distinct advantage of having penises. To the viewer at home watching Rosie O’Donnell dress down no less a totem of male virility and masculinity than Magnum P. freaking I. it must have been like watching a corgi take down a grizzly bear.
It was at this time that public perception of Rosie O’Donnell started to change. Gone was the “Queen of Nice” and in her place was the overbearing, angry lesbian who is seemingly determined to dominate every conversation. It was this perception of O’Donnell that was cemented in the minds of many viewers during her brief tenure on ABC’s morning talk show, The View. It was after the now infamous argument that O’Donnell got into with The View’s conservative co-host and Survivor contestant Elizabeth Hasselback that prompted O’Donnell to leave the show. However, it wasn’t the argument itself that made Rosie leave, as much as the producer’s decision to cut to split screen during the altercation. O’Donnell felt that by doing so, the producers gave the world an image of, in her words “big fat lesbian Rosie attacks innocent, pure, Christian Elizabeth.”
In fact, Rosie O’Donnell has a point. Even before things came to a head on the show, O’Donnell was frequently portrayed in the media as loud, angry, and disrespectful. While it is understandable that people with a conservative point of view feel this was about her, it is puzzling that many in the middle and even on the left often share this notion. Not only does this image of Rosie O’Donnell persist, it also perpetuates the baseline of sexism that is inherent in our society. Bill Maher was lionized for speaking truth to power to the Bush Administration, but O’Donnell was mostly disregarded as a querulous woman.
When I have written about previous comedians in this series, they have been people whose reputations as comedians, for better or for worse, were generally on the money. Does Carrot Top resort to cheap jokes? Of course. Does Larry the Cable Guy sometimes represent the very worst of Southern culture? Yes. I have taken the quixotic task of asking readers to look past those faults and appreciate the comics for the professional performers they are, however with this article, I have found that the perception of Rosie O’Donnell is nothing like her actual comedy.
Granted, she does not perform as much as she used to, but when I watch a clip of her from the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I have to wonder who is the humorless, mean, angry woman that people complain about when Rosie O’Donnell is brought up in a conversation.
There's a double standard when it comes to women in comedy; especially if, like Rosie O’Donnell, you develop an interest in politics and social concerns later in your career rather than starting your career that way. Janeane Garofalo similarly suffered some backlash when she spoke up about the Bush Administration. Yet, male comics like George Carlin and Bill Maher were celebrated when they stopped doing safe material and become more political in their acts.
Is Rosie O’Donnell opinionated, brusque, and difficult to deal with? Like most good comics, she definitely is. Is she a mean and humorless woman looking to stomp over anyone who disagrees with her? Not if the above clip from Curb is any indication. That is a woman who gleefully throws herself into a scene and more than holds her own sparring with one of the great comedy minds of our era. That is a woman who is at her best when playing her worst. That is a woman who deserves our respect, begrudging or otherwise.
JUSTICE SCALIA: When did it become unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage? Was it 1791? 1868?
TED OLSON: When did it become unconstitutional to ban interracial marriage?
JUSTICE SCALIA: Don’t try to answer my question with your own question.
Scalia has nothing. And he knows it. Update from a reader:
Balkin’s paraphrase is deeply misleading. Here’s the whole exchange, from the transcript:
JUSTICE SCALIA: You — you’ve led me right into a question I was going to ask. The California Supreme Court decides what the law is. That’s what we decide, right? We don’t prescribe law for the future. We — we decide what the law is. I’m curious, when - when did — when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted? Sometimes — some time after Baker, where we said it didn’t even raise a substantial Federal question? When — when — when did the law become this?
MR. OLSON: When — may I answer this in the form of a rhetorical question? When did it become unconstitutional to prohibit interracial marriages? When did it become unconstitutional to assign children to separate schools.
JUSTICE SCALIA: It’s an easy question, I think, for that one. At — at the time that the Equal Protection Clause was adopted. That’s absolutely true. But don’t give me a question to my question. (Laughter.)
The argument goes on, that it become unconstitutional when society evolved, making Scalia’s point that there’s no basis in the constitution for this decision. If we value having a written constitution constraining the court’s veto power over our democracy, this could be an ugly precedent.
Did you have to consciously put aside your personal reservations about salad to become the designated pecs and abs, as the "Zesty Guy," for Kraft's dressings?
From time to time, we offer up this space for everyday New Yorkers with a point of view on the issues of the day.
During the comedy boom of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Rosie O’Donnell was one of the fastest rising stars in the New York standup scene. At the time, there were half-hour comedy shows on just about every cable network, and O’Donnell appeared on just about every one of them. In fact, she would go on to replace comedian Bobby Collins as host for VH1’s foray into the stand-up business, unimaginatively titled Vh1’s Standup Spotlight.
