"The blog has made Glab into a hip town crier, commenting on everything from local politics and cultural happenings to national and international events, all rendered in a colorful, intelligent, working-class vernacular that owes some of its style to Glab’s Chicago-hometown heroes Studs Terkel and Mike Royko." — David Brent Johnson in Bloom Magazine
“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.” — Stephen Hawking
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THE TRADITIONS OF THE LITTLE 500
One of the Boys of Soma, who asked not to be identified, revealed Saturday morning that he did not find any passed-out drunk IU students on his front porch, as he usually does every year during Little 500 weekend.
He did say he found a number of slices of pizza on the lawn, though.
The Delta Gamma sorority won the women’s Little Five on Friday. The Indiana Daily Student reports that three ancient Greek letters won the men’s race Saturday afternoon. The Cyrillic alphabet of the Slavic languages is expected to appeal the result.
Controversy After This Year’s Little 500
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KIDS ASK THE DARNEDEST THINGS
Mark off Tuesday, April 24th, on your calendars. Bloomington’s teenagers that evening will hold the Democratic candidates’ feet to the fire in a debate between the five contenders at Bloomington High School South.
The Kids Take Over
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Students from both South and North will hurl question at Gen. Jonathan George, John Griffin Miller, Col. John Tilford, Robert Winningham, and Shelli Yoder for an hour and a half beginning at 7:00pm.
The Indiana primary will be held Tuesday, May 8th, with the winner among the five Democrats going against first-term Republican Todd Young in November.
The things that make most high school kids annoying should come in quite handy in the debate. Corporate media animals generally ask polite or at least irrelevant questions. The kids, though, being direct and irreverent, ought to pepper the candidates with queries about the schools, the environment, our endless wars, taxes, and other things that, like, y’know, affect us.
Todd Young looks like a good bet to keep his seat in the general election but I can always hope.
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IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD COUNTRY
Gather all the children and bring them indoors. Lock your doors and windows and pull down the shades.
This holy land has officially and incontrovertibly gone mad.
Orly Taitz is running for the United States Senate from California.
Taitz
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Taitz is challenging the Golden State’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, who’s been in office since 1992. California runs a blanket non-partisan primary for statewide elective office. The candidates who finish first and second in the June 5th primary will face each other in the November general election.
I have no idea how this one got past me. Apparently, Taitz has been running since early November, when she told some EPA-hating, Ann Coulter-carrying news aggregator website about her plans. The announcement of her candidacy did not cause the nation’s news media to activate the Emergency Alert System.
I may even have seen a quickie story on her quixotic run but the rational part of my brain reflexively interpreted it as an Onion-style satire.
Really, everything about Taitz seems to be an Onion satire. For instance, when she was considering her run for the Senate back in September, she told the Sacramento Bee that one of the reasons she has a good chance to win is that she speaks Hebrew.
Hebrew?
Perhaps she once watched the Cecil B, DeMille epic “The Ten Commandments” and upon learning it was made in Hollywood, concluded that biblical Israel was really in California.
This Occurred Near Anaheim
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I mean, what else could explain Taitz-ness other than her and her followers’ inability to distinguish between reality and fiction?
Taitz’s claim to fame is her role as “Queen of the Birthers.” She’s certain Barack Obama has falsified his birth certificate, his Social Security number, and his college transcripts, among other nefarious acts, to become the first secret Muslim mole elected president. She believes Obama comes from Kenya, which is fitting because she comes from the moon.
Orly Taitz’s Childhood Home
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Survey USA earlier this month conducted a poll of likely California voters and found that the incumbent Feinstein leads all comers with 51 percent. Taitz in the same poll drew a single percentage point, placing her in a tie for fourth pace with 11 other candidates and above nine candidates who couldn’t even garner one percent of the vote.
Still, some political animals think Taitz could sneak into the second spot based purely on name recognition alone.
Democracy, my friends, can be a very dangerous thing.
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WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?
[Ed.’s Note: Welcome to the next phase of The Electron Pencil’s growth. From here on out, we’ll be running daily events listings in a section we’re naming Go. Many of this weekend’s listings are late because we’re still messing with the layout and design. What you see here now might not be what you see in ten minutes. So consider this installment of Go to be your beta version. Indulge us — we want to see how things look and work. Be here tomorrow, though, for the real thing. Thanks.]
Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc. (alphabetical venue info)
Sunday, April 22, 2012
◗ Kent Farm, IU Research & Teaching Preserve — Bird hike with IU Biology Professors Susan and Jim Hengeveld; 7am
◗ IU Tennis Center — IU Women’s Tennis vs. Northwestern; 11am
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◗ Madame Walker Theatre — Wet Your Pants Comedy Film Fest; 12pm
◗ Sembower Field — IU Baseball vs. Georgie Southern; 1pm
◗ IU Softball Field — IU Softball vs. Northwestern, doubleheader; 2pm
◗ Sweeney Hall — Music & Video Recital, Jeffrey Haas and John Gibson; 2pm
◗ Monroe Lake, Paynetown SRA — Monroe Lake Volunteer Call-Out; 3:30pm
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◗ Player’s Pub — Benefit for the Red Cross; 3-8pm
◗ Max’s Place — Project School Poetry Ready; 3:30pm
◗ The Kinsey Institute — opening reception, exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; 4-7pm
◗ Bub’s Burgers — Poker; 5:30pm
◗ IU Cinema — DW Griffith film, “Orphans of the Storm”; 6:30pm
◗ Bear’s Place — Ryder Film Series: “Chico and Rita”; 7pm
“Sex is like bridge; if you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.” — Mae West
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THIS JUST IN: ORGASM IS “INTERESTING”
Perhaps the best story I’ve ever read in the Indiana Daily Student appeared Friday. The story, I tell you, makes living in a college town all the more worthwhile.
It’s here, after all, that people actually investigate things like the origin of the universe, the inner workings of the cell, the psychological underpinnings of economics, and — even more intellectually compelling than those topics — the human orgasm.
Debra Herbenick — who, I’ve since learned, is a semi-regular visitor to Soma Coffee — is a research scientist and a director of IU’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion. She has released a study indicating that a significant percentage of women who work out at your local gym actually experience orgasm while they’re panting.
Herbenick
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One of the Boys of Soma, Real Estate John, works part-time at the Monroe County YMCA. He usually pulls the Friday night shift. I pointed out the story to him. He read it with great interest. He turned to another Soma Boy who regularly works out at the Y on Friday nights and who also read the piece. Real Estate John said, “I have the perfect candidate.” he mentioned the name of a woman they both were acquainted with.
“Oh yeah!” the other guy said. “No wonder she always has an ecstatic look on her face.”
The woman, the fellows explained, is generally attached to the spinning bike.
That device, according to Herbenick, is one of the exercise machines that lends itself nicely to stimulating certain locales of the female anatomy. “[W]omen,” Herbenick told the IDS, “are moving their genitals in the bike seat.”
Spinning classes are awfully popular with women. Now I may know why. It occurs to me I’ve not met many men who take spinning classes. I wonder if this study will inspire more men to get into that regimen.
“Phew. I Need A Cigarette.”
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Anyway, Herbenick said her study, which indicated that a shade more than one third of women canvassed have experienced the Big O while working out, “reminds people how interesting orgasm is.”
Can’t argue with that.
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SPIES IN THE CLASSROOM OF LOVE
Most of what I learned early on about sex came from a fellow named Dr. David Reuben.
At the age of 14, mine was the most inquiring of minds. Especially about sex.
The book had somehow found its way into our house. I know I didn’t buy it; if I had, it would have been safely stashed in my room somewhere. Under the bed, next to the old liver sausage sandwich, probably — it’s true, for several months there was a liver sausage sandwich under my bed. I recall having made it late one night and, after bringing it back to my room, had promptly fallen asleep without eating it. It wound up under the bed.
Hey, I was 14 — leaving sandwiches under the bed and devouring all printed material pertaining to sex were defining characteristics of the age.
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I know Dad didn’t bring the book into the house. My sisters had flown the coop ten years before and my brother was away at college so it couldn’t have been them. Process of elimination left Ma as the likely culprit.
Makes sense.
The women’s liberation movement and the sexual revolution were in full swing. Now, Ma wasn’t a practicing libber, nor did she sample the pleasures afforded by the newly relaxed attitudes toward sex. She was Ma, after all.
She was, though, eager to be seen as “up on things.” If either Gloria Steinem or Xaviera Hollander, for instance, was to appear on, say, Dick Cavett’s show on a given night, you can bet Ma’d be parked on the sofa, watching. She bought bestsellers like “Love Story,” “Portnoy’s Complaint,” and, I assume, Dr. Reuben’s book.
Gloria Steinem
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Man, as soon as she finished that thing, I snapped it up and started memorizing it.
Reuben described female topography in terms I’d never heard before. He revealed techniques and practices I could only dream of trying out. My time wouldn’t come for another five or six years, though.
Until then, I considered myself the sexual theoretician of my circle. “It says in David Reuben’s book that a man should…,” I’d begin whenever some sexual topic had arisen.
My pals listened raptly. None of them had the slightest patience to read a book — even one about sex — but they still were curious about the purported expertise Reuben offered.
One day I told Tough Marc about Reuben’s assertion that women know secret methods of masturbation in public. Reuben reported that many women liked to cross their legs and squeeze their inner thigh muscles repeatedly, often bringing themselves to orgasm.
“Oh My God, Is She? Do You Think?”
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Now, Tough Marc was a gearhead and he packed a punch that could have been confused with the blow from a sledgehammer, but he was smarter than the rest of my neighborhood pals. He’d confessed he was almost tempted to forgo his long-lasting embargo on books and buy Reuben’s.
Such a concession made him, among my peers, an intellectual. Still, he was able to resist the urge. Last I heard, Tough Marc owned a car wash on the northwest side of Chicago.
Anyway, Tough Marc was fascinated by the revelation that women had ways to stimulate themselves under the table, as it were.
They’d do this on the bus, in the office, in the movie theater, and even standing in line waiting for the next bank teller. The impartial observer, Reuben revealed, could tell when a woman was hard at work in this manner by the swinging of her leg (if she were sitting) and the dreamy look on her face. Tough Marc and I pledged to monitor the legs and face of every woman we might encounter.
In the summer of 1971 both Tough Marc and I found ourselves in summer school taking a make-up course in algebra.
One of our classmates was a girl named Kathy Masterton. We noticed on the first day of class that Kathy Masterton was a champion leg swinger. You couldn’t walk down her aisle for fear of getting kicked in the shin or knee.
Kathy Masterton, too, often stared off into space, her eyes glazed.
Tough Marc and I looked at each other and nodded. After class on that first day we compared notes.
Leg kicks — check. Dreamy look on her face — yup.
Yeah, we concluded, Kathy Masterton confirmed Dr. Reuben’s assertion.
A couple of days later, Tough Marc said he’d come up with a new name for our leg-swinging classmate. “Kathy Masturbant,” he proclaimed, triumphantly. I congratulated him profusely.
As the summer school semester passed, we became transfixed by Kathy Masturbant. We maintained surveillance of her from the bell that signaled the start of class to the one that ended it. She kept up a rhythm with her swinging leg that can only be described as heroic.
Miss Fritz, the algebra teacher, wrote formulas from one end of the blackboard to another but we took no notice of them. Pythagoras, balanced equations, polynomials — none of them meant anything to us. Our focus was on Kathy Masturbant.
“Huh? What? I Dunno.”
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Kathy noticed us staring at her. I became concerned she might suspect we were on to her. Nevertheless, she kept swinging her leg.
Kathy smiled at me one day and I smiled back. Tough Marc and I conferred about this development immediately after class. It was decided I should chat her up and, if I was lucky, get the inside dope on this leg-swinging business. “Good luck,” Tough Marc said, solemnly.
It’s important to note that we didn’t hatch this plan just to embarrass her. Nor was our aim to somehow get sex from her. We were still too far away from that Holy Grail to consider it a reasonable possibility.
No, our goal was knowledge. We wanted to know if Dr. Reuben’s leg-swinging theory could be proved. Ours was a scientific quest.
Oh, on second thought, the idea of having sex with Kathy Masturbant must have crossed my mind. I can’t imagine being 15 and certain a girl I knew was masturbating in public and not think it conceivable she might have sex with me.
Then again, Kathy Masturbant was an exceedingly plain-looking girl, which is a nice way of saying she was a gargoyle. In fact, Tough Marc and I cursed our luck that the most likely public masturbator we’d yet found was so homely.
So, we gamely carried out our scientific pursuit.
The next day during class break, I approached Kathy Masturbant in the school parking lot. She was busy lighting one cigarette off another. We exchanged greetings and engaged in a bit of small talk. She seemed easy enough to talk to, although it must be admitted I was scared to ask her about her swinging leg.
“Go On, Man. Talk To Her.”
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I glanced over at Tough Marc, who was eying us from several cars away. He could sense my resolve was fading. He mouthed the words “Ask her!” at me.
I screwed up my courage and spoke up. “So, uh, y’know, I see you’re always, like, swingin’ your leg. Know what I mean?”
“I do?” she said.
“Um, yeah. You do.”
“Oh,” she said.
“So, uh, what’s that all about?”
Kathy shrugged. “I dunno. I’m nervous I guess. What’s the big deal about it?”
“No big deal,” I said. “I’m just interested.”
Oops. Wrong choice of words. Kathy interpreted that to mean I was interested in her.
Which I wasn’t. I still had a teenaged boy’s arrogance that made me think she was not attractive enough for me.
Kathy became giddy. She started telling me all about her family and friends. She suggested we go to see the movie “Patton” someday soon. I let it slip that I was a Cubs fan and she jumped on that, saying we had to go to a game that weekend. Next thing I knew, she’d invited me over for dinner that coming Friday.
“Y’mean, Like A Date?”
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I hadn’t the heart to turn her down. Plus, there was that little part of me that hoped she, the public masturbator, might let me have sex with her.
That Friday I showed up at her family’s apartment at dinner time. She and her mother had laid out a fancy spread. Clearly, my presence made the affair a special occasion.
After we ate, Kathy’s mother said, “You and your boyfriend go in the living room and watch TV. I’ll do the dishes.”
Boyfriend. My hair stood on end (yes, I had hair.)
We watched “The Brady Bunch” (which I loathed), “Nanny and the Professor” (not only bad, but boring), and “The Partridge Family” (now, that was a good show; Susan Dey inhabited every heterosexual boy’s nocturnal fantasies). For her part, Kathy loved “The Brady Bunch” and was in heaven when “Nanny” came on. “The Partridge Family,” she could take or leave.
Unnnhhh….
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Throughout the hour and a half, Kathy’s leg never stopped swinging. At eight-thirty, her Mom came into the living room and said we’d better call it a night. By that time, Kathy had scootched so close to me that I was squeezed into the corner of the sofa.
Kathy put her arm in mine and walked me to the door. I thanked her Mom for the delicious dinner and was about to say goodbye to Kathy when she ushered me onto the front porch and closed the door behind us. She launched into an itinerary that included “Patton” and the Cubs game and four or five other engagements for the two of us over the next couple of weeks. She held my hand as I leaned toward the front steps — swear to god, had she let go, I’d have fallen down the stairs.
Again, I didn’t have the heart to turn her down (nor did I wish to pass up the chance, however negligible, that she’d let me have sex with her.)
Funny thing was, we had a lot of fun over the next couple of weeks. The next Friday night when we walked home from the Tivoli Theater, we took our shoes off because we fancied ourselves sorta-but-not-quite hippies. When we went to the Cubs game, we sat in the very top row of the upper deck and looked out over the city and Lake Michigan and pointed out landmarks to each other. We went to hear Styx at the high school gym and danced until we were soaked in sweat.
C’mon, Go Easy On Me — I Was A Teenager, Okay?
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One day in class, Kathy stopped swinging her leg long enough to inform me that her mother would be out that evening. I should come over, she suggested, so we could listen to her new “Shaft” album.
When I told Tough Marc about this, it was his turn to congratulate me profusely. And again, he said solemnly, “Good luck.”
“Shaft” was a double album — total running time, 68:50. Oh, the things we could do in that time frame!
I was beginning to like Kathy. And, truth be told, she wasn’t that bad looking really, as long as I ignored her horn-rimmed glasses and slight case of acne. Only now am I strong enough to admit she had to ignore the same things on me.
We were laying on the living room floor, kissing deeply, by the time Track 4, Side 1 came on. “Ellie’s Love Theme.” Kathy’d said, “I’ll show you how to French kiss.” I thought I might pass out.
John Shaft
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By the time Side 2 fell onto the turntable, Kathy pushed me away. “Look here, buster,” she said. “We can do this all night long if you want.”
I nodded enthusiastically; unfortunately there was more.
“But I want to tell you something. I’m a virgin and I’m gonna stay that way! Capeesh?”
I’d never been so relieved in my life. I’d only just learned how to French kiss moments before. Despite reading Dr. David Reuben’s book from cover to cover several times over, I still had no idea what was expected of me had she said tonight’s the night.
Kathy’s Mom came home around 10:30. She looked at us suspiciously. Kathy said, “Mom, we didn’t do anything. We just listened to albums.”
Her Mom looked skeptical. “I don’t want anything going on around here,” she warned.
“Oh no!” I said quickly. “No, no, no, no. Nothing.”
With that I said good night to Kathy and told her Mom how very nice it was to see her again. She nodded but her eyes were narrowed.
Kathy and I lasted about another two weeks, which constituted a committed, long-term relationship at our age. A cosuin had introduced her to a boy who, Kathy told me apologetically, had bedroom eyes. The unspoken question being How could she not start dating him.
I began walking home certain I’d kill myself that night. By the time I’d hit the back door, though, I was over Kathy.
I never did find out if Kathy Masturbant was, well, masturbating when she swung her leg so heroically. In retrospect, I realize I was never cut out to be as accomplished a sex researcher as Debra Herbenick.
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THEME FROM SHAFT
Any song off this double album still makes my legs weak.
“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.” — Criswell
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ROLLING INTO THE 2012 SEASON
Wait, what? You weren’t there Saturday night? Come on, people — what’s the matter with you?
Tools Of The Trade
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The Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls opened their 2012 regular season at the Twin Lakes Recreation Center. The place was packed, I tell you.
Bloomington’s two traveling derby teams, the B-league Code Blue Assassins and the A-league Flatliners faced off against their counterparts from the Ohio Roller Girls. The CBAs staged a thrilling rally in the final three minutes to overtake Gang Green in the opening bout. The Flatliners, though, fell behind early in the first half and, despite mounting a comeback of their own, couldn’t catch Ohio by the final buzzer, losing 115-90.
The BHRG actually has a mascot now and the kids in the crowd loved it. The mascot doesn’t have a name yet so you might just want to get on over to the team’s Facebook page and make a suggestion. And, hey, the Roller Girls’ ads are becoming slick enough to stand up against the best Apple or Ford has to offer. Okay, I exaggerate, but only a bit. Check out this one for Saturday’s bout:
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Wily veteran Truly F Obvious was roaming the roller colosseum Saturday night, natch. She’s retired this year after breaking her arm a couple of times last season. She proudly showed me her scar. She’s got a few bucks’ worth of hardware implanted in her now, holding her radius and ulna together for the rest of her life. Truly made me grasp her forearm, then she twisted it so I could feel the iron. I almost passed out.
Battle Scar
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Bleeding Heartland, now in its sixth season, is getting better every year. They were ranked 16th in the North Central region of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association in 2010 and jumped to 13th last year. Could this be the year they crack the top 10?
Their next home bout is Saturday, March 31st, against the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls of Grand Rapids, Michigan. If I don’t see you there, I’ll assume you’re dead. What kind of flowers should I send?
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PRESIDENT MITCH DANIELS REVEALED TO BE A KOCHOMATON
I’m figuring the GOP will be trying to decide between Chuck Norris, Marco Rubio, and Ivanka Trump for the nomination. The Dems — book it — will be running Chelsea Clinton.
See? You can let yourself get crazy — just like the GOP!
If you think the party that once claimed Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt as standard-bearers is psycho now, just wait. What are they gonna wanna outlaw next, breasts?
GOP 2016 Slogan: “No Mamms!”
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One entrant, Susan Sandberg, worries that the Republicans will run Mitch Daniels in four years. He’ll win, she says, and turn this holy land into a “sexless, artless, colorless, intellectually-starved country.”
Eek.
Bloomington’s own singing sensation Krista Detor submitted her nightmare scenario that builds on Sandberg’s dystopia. Detor writes, “… in 2018, a resistance fighter will be propelled back in time to alert us to the hard truth that Mr. Daniels is actually a cannibalistic automaton, controlled on alternating days by the Koch Bros.” Detor writes a happy ending, though. The resistance fighter will slay Daniels in a light-sabre battle. The Dreamworks people will want to make a movie based on the story and will beg Krista to score it. But our own plucky musical muse will turn them down so she can work for the 2020 presidential campaign of Lucy Lawless.
BTW: Krista Detor coined what might become the most fabulous word in the English language (after the F-bomb, of course.) She calls the android Daniels a Kochomaton.
I hope her vision comes true just so we can use that word regularly.
To enter the contest email me, post it on my Facebook wall, or click on Leave A Comment at the top left of this page.
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SCIENCE AS ART
Here’s what you ought to do Wednesday from 6:30-8:00pm: mad scientists Alex Straiker and Jessica Lucas will host an opening reception for their artwork at Finch’s Brasserie.
Straiker will feature photomicroscopy of stained brain cells. He studies the effects of cannabinoids on the brain at the IU Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. Lucas has taken magnificent photos of teensy botanical structures as part of her work in the IU Biology Department.
Plant Root Hairs
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Science is fun — and gorgeous. Drop by and ogle the art. If you’re not there, we’ll talk about you.
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CHICAGO (THAT TODDLIN’ TOWN)
Man, when I was just starting out in this writing racket, I’d be pounding the Chicago pavement, knocking on doors at the Tribune, the Sun-Times, Chicago mag, the Reader and all the rest, trying to convince any soft-hearted or desperate editor to take a chance on me.
That was back in the mid-80s, before the internet, before the 24-hour news cycle. Dig: I even used a typewriter at the time. Smith-Corona, baby.
Jeez, I’m Old
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At the end of any typical day, after getting thrown out of half the editors’ offices in town, I might need some liquid comfort.
If I wanted to cry in my beer with Jeff the Bartender (who was a fine writer and academician in his own right), I’d do Billy Goat’s Tavern under Michigan Avenue.
Every time the door would open, I’d check to see if the Prince of the Papers, Mike Royko, was coming in. Maybe, just maybe, if he could hear what a whippet-quick wit I was, if I could toss off some devastating bon mot, Royko might pull me aside and say, “Y’know what, kid? You got the stuff.”
Never happened.
Royko
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If I just wanted hear music and hang around lesser media lights and TV anchors, I’d hit Andy’s Jazz Club on Hubbard Street. If I was lucky, Barrett Deems, Louis Armstrong’s old drummer, might be hitting the skins. It’d be too loud for me to display my verbal chops and, besides, I knew enough to know TV people’d never be interested in me. So I just drank my gin and tonics and floated on the sounds.
This version of “Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)” by the Oscar Peterson Trio reminds me of those days downtown. The city was everything I’d dreamed it would be back then. Any door in the world could open up for me if only I kept knocking.
Chicago and I celebrated birthdays yesterday — the Windy City turned 175 and I hit 56. Now I know the best door that ever opened was the one that let me in me here, little old Bloomington, Indiana. Go figure.
The thumbnail moon has been doing a celestial dance with the planets Venus and Jupiter. Man, it’s a fantastic tableau.
Tonight’s Arrangement
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All three orbs are doh-si-doh-ing in the far western sky at sunset and for about an hour and a half thereafter.
Imagine: you can glance up at the clear sky at, say, 7:30pm any evening this week and literally see an object — Jupiter — that’s a hair less than 600 million miles away. Think of it this way, that’s 240,000 times the distance from New York to Los Angeles.
Some Walk
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Or, to put it another way, it’s more than 5200 times the number of miles the average American walks in a lifetime.
It’s a compilation of audio pieces Vonnegut did for Public Radio’s WNYC in New York. The idea being Vonnegut, working with the suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian, repeatedly gets just enough lethal injection medication to bring him to a series of near-death experiences.
Life & Death
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He travels down the bright blue tunnel and meets St. Peter at the gates of heaven and is able to interview various dead folk. He speaks with such luminaries as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Shakespeare, and Clarence Darrow as well as people you wouldn’t expect to have merited entrance to paradise; Vonnegut interviews Adolf Hitler and James Earl Ray, too.
There is no hell in Vonnegut’s conceit, so everybody who dies gets to go to heaven. Hitler, for his part, tells him the world should erect a stone monument to his memory, perhaps at the site of the United Nations in New York. The monument should be inscribed, “Entschuldigen Sie” — I beg your pardon.
Anyway, the quote at the top of this post comes from one of the people Vonnegut meets in heaven. Dr. Philip Strax was the guy who convinced American women and their doctors that mammograms were essential in detecting early, treatable, forms of breast cancer. He and a couple of associates, Sam Shapiro and Dr. Louis Venet, published their ground-breaking study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1966.
No telling how many women’s lives have been saved by the Strax et al paper. Strax’s own wife died of breast cancer at the age of 39 and he devoted the rest of his life to fighting the disease.
One Way To Look At Things
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Check out any magazine and you’ll naturally come to the conclusion that Americans have breasts on their minds from morning until night. Men, in case you didn’t know, even dream about them. At least Phil Strax turned a preoccupation with mammaries into a service to humankind.
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C’MON, LET’S PLAY!
Friday, I put the challenge out there: Let’s play a game wherein we try to guess how outlandish the Republican Party will become by the 2016 presidential race.
After all, things have become so psychotic around POG world headquarters that smart-asses like me can hardly even make jokes about them anymore. The Republican candidates are the joke.
Comedy Competition
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It can only get worse. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone thinks that the Republican attack strategy which has worked so well for more than 30 years has become so pervasive that this year’s nominees have turned on each other. The Republicans, Taibbi implies, have become cannibals.
So, I put out the call for Pencillistas get all creative and try to imagine how psychotic the GOP (oh, right, I forgot — the POG) will become in four years.
The game, which I dubbed the Electron Cool Test, is easily played. Just come up with some nightmarish slogan, a weird candidate, or a bizarre scenario that the Republicans will foist upon us the next time we stage a presidential beauty contest after 2012.
I started things off by suggesting Chuck Norris, Marco Rubio, and Ivanka Trump will be the frontrunners when primary season 2016 commences. They will face none other than Chelsea Clinton in my fever dream.
Commander-in-Chief
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Pencillista Nona Schultz foresees the Republicans gobbling themselves to near-death this year, making them bit players in the political arena for years to come. “This is my delusion and I’m sticking to it,” she writes.
Bloomington City Council member Susan Sandberg pulled a comfy chair up to the keyboard and clacked out a dystopian novella. Running mates Mitch Daniels and Chris Christy will character-assassinate poor young Chelsea (who’ll indeed be 35 by 2016) and squeak past her in the election.
A Heartbeat Away
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Daniels will preside over an economic depression forcing many Americans into bread lines. America under the former Indiana governor will be a “sexless, artless, colorless, intellectually starved country,” Sandberg writes.
Sheez, Susan, way to bum us all out.
It’s on you now, Pencillistas. What do the Republicans have in store for us in four years? Simply type your entry in the Leave A Comment section.
And remember, the winner will get a free specialty drink from Soma Coffee on a Saturday morning of my choosing.
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FORGET THE ELEPHANT
The elephant has been the mascot of the Republican Party for some 140 years.
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That’s a shame because elephants are among my fave critters on Earth. Republicans, not so much.
So I suggest a switch. Follow me, now.
The Party needs an animal mascot that’s native to the United States — the elephant, of course, is not.
The animal must be the largest of its kind. Republicans, like Texans, like things big.
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It can’t be a vegetarian, like the pachyderm. No, it must eat meat (or at least living, moving, noise-making creatures.)
It must have a certain burly quality, perhaps an upper body that’s heavily muscled. Republicans like their idols to be he-men.
Finally, the animal must have a mean disposition and weapons to back it up. After all, what’s a Republican without weapons?
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Therefore, I hereby propose that the animal known by the zoological term Conepatus leoconotus be named the new animal mascot for the Party of God.
Conepati live in such definitively American spots as Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. If that doesn’t scream out GOP, I don’t know what does.
They have strong front legs and shoulders, like Chuck Norris. They have long, thick claws which, in the animal world, are the equivalent of firearms. The NRA should love these guys.
Speaking Of Symbolism
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Finally, Conepati, when annoyed or frightened, spray a foul-smelling substance from a gland located near their anus. What could be more Republican than that?
Conepatus leuconotus is more commonly known as the hog-nosed skunk.
Perfect.
Grand Old Party
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These critters are the whitest among the many varieties of skunks. Republican, right? Oh, and they have a dark underside.
Hey, Newt Gingrich might already be a hog-nosed skunk.
There. I’ve solved the mascot problem for the GOP. Now I’ll get cracking on the Dems — although it’ll be hard to top the jackass as a symbol for that gang.
“Those who, in principle, oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favor of war, pestilence, and famine as permanent features of human life.” — Bertrand Russell
We’re talking cheating on a test or hiring a ringer to write a paper, that sort of thing. Some 366 cases of such enhanced achievement misconduct were adjudicated last year. This year the number of cheaters already is approaching that total, according to the article, even though the spring semester isn’t even half over.
Giraffing
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Using last year’s figure, let’s just assume the actual number of cheaters was three times the official number. That gives us a shade under 1100 future Wall Street icons…, er…, I mean, cheaters. That’s a pretty heartening number, no?
When you consider that some 95,000 aspiring scholars attended classes at the seven Indiana University campuses, you realize that only .0038 percent of students are kinky, to use an old alley cop term for lawbreakers.
“So, Cheating On Your Semester Finals, Eh?”
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Not bad, eh? The pressure on college students to succeed, especially in this Great Recession era, is enormous. When only one in approximately 261 students spits on the academic code, in my hypothetical scenario, I think we can safely say IU crammers by and large are honest souls.
The whole subject reminds me of that great Woody Allen line: “I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”
Balt tries to explain women. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joy to pieces, but now, after reading the essay, I’m more confused than ever about those folks who possess different plumbing than I do.
Then again, perhaps my confusion means I really get it now.
Women are like quantum mechanics. As Richard Feynman reportedly said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.” — Julius Marx
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THE BOYS OF SOMA WAKE UP
Believe it or not, the hairy men who inhabit Soma Coffee occasionally can form full and complete sentences before they’ve even finished their first cups of the life-giving substance.
Videographer Steve Llewellyn told us he lucked into a ducat for the Bourdain/Ripert gabfest last night at the IU Auditorium.
Bourdain
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“I never really knew that much about him but he was hilarious. I had no idea — ‘Some guy’s talking about food, wow’,” Llewellyn says. “He had a lot to say about vegetarians. He said what you ought to do is cook bacon in front of a vegetarian. ‘Bacon is the gateway protein’.”
Tyler Ferguson (a member of the Boys of Soma Women’s Auxiliary) was at the “Good Versus Evil: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert” show as well. “Didja hear when he mentioned Monsanto and people booed? The first person down in front who started the booing? That was me,” she said.
Ripert
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After delivering his report, Llewellyn flipped open the IDS. Computer genius and web developer Boise Tomlin couldn’t help but comment.
Noticing that the news section of the paper carried quite a few column inches of sports-related gibberish, Tomlin opined, “Look at this. This daily newspaper has an entire section dedicated to sports. Half the paper is sports. And yet they still have sports stuff in what should be the news section. That’s ridiculous.”
I’ve been holding my tongue for nearly a week now.
In fact, I bit my tongue so hard on Facebook Sunday that I’m still tasting blood.
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No more.
I was dying to say Sunday that the whole Whitney Houston mourning thing is way over the top, no?
I mean, really, when was the last time any of these people who are so all broken up over her demise actually listened to her music? And if they did listen to her music, didn’t they hear one of the most annoying hit songs ever? That is “I Will Always Love You“?
Honestly, did she not have any other way of conveying emotion in a song other than to up her voice volume to eleven?
All I knew of Whitney Houston was that she sang a lot of boring stuff white people liked and that she had a lot of trouble with substances. Ergo, her untimely death was no surprise to me. How could it have been a surprise to anyone else?
Perhaps it was the timing of her death, coming on the heels of the check-outs of Amy Winehouse and Etta James. People love the idea that things happen in threes (although they don’t — it’s really only our human need to see patterns even when there aren’t any). The Winehouse and James deaths were met with real outpourings of emotion, considering they were, well, true creative artists.
Have you seen this image floating around the interwebs these days?
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So, it’s not that I have anything against Whitney Houston. She was a terrific singer, albeit one I never cared to listen to. But my preferences aren’t the sacred arbiter of what’s art and what’s not.
No, my quibble is with the folks who are trying to elevate her to some kind of weird martyrdom.
That’s all.
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BIG MIKE’S SHELF
We’re trying a little something new down at the Book Corner these days. We’re dedicating a shelf for a week or so to each of our august literary sales drones so they can display their fave tomes.
Well, whaddya know, I’m the first vict…, er, choice. Here are my books for the week (or until somebody feels ambitious enough to put up a new shelf):
Now then. Speaking of the one-of-a-kind Tyler Ferguson, she’s making big plans for the spring.
She’s got this crazy idea that she wants to produce a Bloomington-oriented TV talk show. The host, natch, would be none other than one Tyler Ferguson.
Yup.
It will be modeled after the legendary late-night talk show, “Playboy After Dark,” hosted by Hugh Hefner back in the 1960s.
Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr., Anthony Newley, and your host, Hugh Hefner
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Tyler wants to call her show “Nightcap.”
She plans to tape the pilot in her living room with a live audience comprised of invited friends. The idea, according to the aspiring TV mogul, is the thing’ll be a party and throughout the evening, a lineup of guests will appear. Bloomington, Tyler reasons, is chock full of musicians, authors, poets, singers, comedians, and others. They’ll be interviewed by Tyler in the usual desk-and-couch set-up.
Ferguson already has her video director set up as well as her very own sidekick. And guess who that sidekick will be. Yep, this guy, Big Mike, president and chief executive officer of the international communications colossus, The Electron Pencil.
My Dream Job: Second Banana
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Tyler banged away on her laptop this morning, taking notes on the show idea. The idea’s been floating around in her fertile cranium for a few weeks now. She expects it to run on You Tube and hopes to be able to secure a timeslot on CATS.
This thing just might be for real. Tyler already has set up one sponsor for the show, a start-up brewery that’ll supply the booze for the party.
Look for a late May/early June release of the pilot.
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A WOMAN’S PLACE
Apparently the ideas of women are pretty much irrelevant to the blowhard who’s running Congressional hearings on contraception, religious myth organizations, and the Obama administration’s new rules on health care coverage.
You know, it wasn’t too long ago that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was considered just another loon in the GOP’s (POG’s?) stable of putative primates in Congress. Now, he’s chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“No Girls Allowed!”
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And whaddya expect from the Party O’god? Have you caught the video of that human-impersonator on MSNBC last night who said things were so much simpler back in his day: women simply squeezed an aspirin between their knees to avoid getting pregnant.
This unindicted moral felon, a fellow named Foster Friess, doesn’t like the idea of women having sex. He’s a billionaire, so his “thoughts” carry weight in this holy land.
“Y’see, I’m Obscenely Rich And You’re Not.”
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It occurs to me that these god-groupies who are so freaked over contraception really don’t need women. Females are so troublesome, after all. So I have a solution to all their problems. Here’s a partner that won’t file a paternity suit against you or demand birth control pills or even talk back when you just want to roll over and fall asleep the way the creator intended a man to act.
(I’d have posted a picture of the product here but — here’s a shocker — I thought it might be more prudent not to. You’ll just have to click on the link.)
I propose nominating the above-mentioned product as Mrs. Republican USA for the year 2012 — and for all the years thereafter!
“Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.” — Frank Gifford
Gifford (Recumbent)
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AN L OF A DILEMMA
Anybody who knows me even a little bit knows of my deep and abiding hatred for football.
Ergo, today, for me, is pretty much the most loathsome day of the year.
I quote from that renowned thinker and opinionator, me:
The Super Bowl, of course, is this holy land’s holiest event. I’ve long endorsed the idea that Super Bowl Sunday should be declared a national holiday. Football is a game that is run by men, involves violence, employs strippers disguised as cheerleaders, and rakes in literally billions of dollars a year for teams, television, bookies, athletes, anthem singers, halftime entertainers, orthopedic surgeons, criminal defense attorneys, and many more.
Anyway, Betty Greenwell, a sometimes-lapsed member of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Boys of Soma, reminds me that the statesmen and philosophers who run the NFL are in a quandary these days, what with the fiftieth Super Bowl a mere four years off.
As you know, Super Bowl branding — which was bestowed upon mankind by god — decrees that each Super Bowl be designated by Roman numerals. Today’s sacred rite is number 46, or more properly XLVI.
Number 50 presents a problem, though. The Roman numeral for 50 is, of course, L.
Now, L is the sports equivalent to the the biblical 666. It is the mark of Satan as well as those evil souls who have scored fewer points than the opposition.
The NFL reptilian-brain trust will not have the single most important date in their canonical year be smutted by such a sinister figure.
Super Bowl L? The horror!
BTW: The 30th Super Bowl didn’t seem to ruffle NFL feathers:
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Football and porn — perfect.
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“… FOOTBALL IS A 20TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGICAL STRUGGLE….”
She is Bloomington’s own, though, and she graced the Boys of Soma with her presence this morning. She was wrapping her fluid-swollen right knee as the rest of us were ingesting our first doses of the precious eye-opening substance.
Tough Guy Mac asked her how she injured her knee. Those in the know are aware it could have happened during a roller derby match, a soccer game, from running or spinning or bicycling, or any of the countless physical activities she’s addicted to.
Tyler And Her Late, Lamented Wheels
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Now, when you ask Tyler a question, you’re really asking for a lecture that includes a minimum of a half dozen tangents. It reminds me of the old line: ask her what time it is and she’ll tell you how a watch is made.
Anyway, she explicated a history of the hinge’s traumas and insults until finally, someone (oh, alright, me) suggested she may have kneed an unfortunate soul who’d tried to force his attentions on her and if you think her patella looks bad, you oughtta see various parts of his shattered body.
Which automatically reminded Tyler of a story. Aw, hell, lemme let her tell it:
“Oh my god! (many Tyler stories begin with oh my god!) I took a self-defense course, five years ago, I think.
“They taught us this move, it’s called the buck and roll. It’s for when some guy’s trying to molest you and he’s on top of you, y’know?
“You grab the guy by the lapels, pull him real close, raise your hips for leverage, okay? It’s a last resort type of thing.
“Then, you use your leverage and flip him. It’s very effective for a smaller person who has a larger person, y’know, like a rapist, on top of them.
“I couldn’t wait ’till I got home, I wanted to show Fergie (her husband). So I get home and I say, ‘Dave. Lemme show you this move I just learned. It’s great!’
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“And he goes, ‘Uh uh. No way.’
“And I say, ‘Aw, c’mon! How can it hurt. Look, lay on top of me like you wanna rape me, okay? Don’t worry.’
“So he gets on top of me, I pull him by the lapels, buck my hips up into him, and give him the flip.
“Oh my god, this is true! He must have flown ten feet in the air. Honestly, he was airborne.
“He hit a dresser and he got this enormous bruise on his hip (here, she stands and shows us with her hands the extent of the bruise — it spanned from his waist to halfway down his thigh.) And then all the blood drained down to his foot and he couldn’t walk.
“Poor Punky! He wouldn’t let me touch him for, oh, I don’t know how long.”
To prove Tyler Ferguson isn’t the only one around here who can spin a yarn, her story reminds me of the time I did a big story for the Chicago Reader about the first women boxers in the nation to compete in the Golden Gloves tournament.
One of the boxers, a DePaul University senior named Tracy Desmond, had studied karate before taking up boxing. One night, late, she was walking home in her Little Italy neighborhood when a man who’d been following her yanked her into a gangway.
He picked the wrong chick to mess with. Tracy fought him off, generously bestowing a number of bruises upon his person, and dashed away, seeking refuge in a neighbor’s home.
Tracy Desmond Clocks A Golden Gloves Opponent
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When I first heard Tracy’s story it immediately hit me: why don’t we teach young girls self-defense beginning in their earliest years in elementary school?
I don’t have kids (the world should thank me for that) but I can imagine the horror of learning my daughter had been injured or worse by one of the cousins of pan troglodytes who prowl the streets.
Teaching girls from the earliest age the effectiveness of popping a predator in his nose, throat, or junk seems to me the least we can do for them.
Or is it that we really want the females of our holy land to remain helpless?
Teach Your Daughters
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IF YOU TELL IT, THEY WILL LISTEN
Laura Grover can hold her own with any raconteur. The boss of WFHB’s Bloomington Storytelling Project also showed up this morning at Soma. She’d scheduled a meeting with a person who wanted to record a story for the BSP‘s big February event — its 29 Stories in 29 Days storytelling drive.
Grover
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“If you email us and make a pledge to tell your story any time this month at any location you want, we’ll record you and put your story on the air,” Grover explained. “The first 29 people to do it will get a free mug and an Acoustic Harvest CD. Everybody who participates will get a chance to win prizes from local businesses.”
Those who want to share their stories with the world (or at least Bloomington’s corner of it) can contract Laura Grover at storytelling@wfhb.org.
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GLORIA
Strong woman, strong music. Pound for pound, Patti Smith is tougher than any heavyweight boxer.
“Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.” — Margaret Mead
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THE PENCIL IS THE CUTTING EDGE
Being a long-time alt-journalist, I love it when I can beat the pants off big media.
A month ago I put up a K-pop video featuring a bunch of young zombies called 2NE1. “K-pop,” I wrote, “is evil.”
The music phenomenon from South Korea glorifies showy materialism, its voices are auto-tuned and pitch corrected until they no longer even seem human, and the blatant sexuality of the obviously underaged performers is creepy.
K-pop is soft-core child porn with a cheap, artificial soundtrack.
Young kids, the doc reveals, are being exploited by “South Korea’s unique idol-grooming system” to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for slave-driving impresarios. The hours and physical demands on the kids are nearly unbearable. The training regimen for the genre’s manufactured stars stresses conformity. Potential K-pop idols’ lives are controlled even down to what they eat. The girls are forbidden to have boyfriends.
Kids who sign up for K-pop star training often even have to cut off contact with family and friends. One such star confesses, “I want to meet my family. I want to spend time with them. I want to talk. I want to have dinner with my family. I want to hug my mom. I want to say, ‘Oh Mom, I love you.’ I miss them so much.”
Sounds more like a religious cult than a creative art to me.
The rage for K-pop is being used as a PR tool to goose the South Korean consumer and service industries. Plastic surgeons, for instance, are making gobs of dough slicing up patients’ faces so they can resemble stars.
Yep, I was right. K-pop is evil.
Remember, you heard it here first.
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KID STUFF
Despite a mini-rash of “big-city crimes” a couple of months ago, Bloomington still is, at heart, a small town.
A 19-year-old kid, apparently drunk. left the Steak ‘n Shake on College Mall Road early Thursday morning without paying for his meal. The entry notes that the kid actually returned to the restaurant.
A 14-year-old schoolboy showed a bag of pot to another kid at Tri-North Middle School.
So don’t fret too much about our town going straight to hell.
Plato: “What is happening to our young people?” (4th Century BCE)
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HOW CLOSE IS TOO CLOSE?
Speaking of journalism, its relationship to politicians comes under the scope in this month’s Vanity Fair. Writer Suzanna Andrews profiles Rebekah Brooks, the disgraced former editor and biz bigshot within Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire.
She’d weaseled herself into the good graces of Murdoch, the big boss himself, by employing a deadly combination of striking looks, sheer charisma, ambition, obsequiousness, craven opportunism, and a pinpoint targeting of rivals.
A scant 20 years after hiring on as a secretary within the Murdoch mob, Brooks had risen to the top. She became editor of News of the World at the tender age of 31, editor of The Sun three years later, and CEO of News International six years after that.
In addition to cozying up to Murdoch, Brooks worked her magic on the UK’s biggest pols, including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron.
Love, David
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In fact, Brown and Cameron and their wives attended her 2009 wedding. Andrews claimed that Cameron signed letters to her, “Love, David.”
My hair stood on end as I read all this (Well, at least the hair on my arms did; my scalp has been unencumbered for many years now.) Journalists, I pontificated to myself, should keep a healthy distance from the subjects they cover.
What would Brooks’ take be, for instance, if Blair or Brown were embroiled in a scandal? Would she go soft on them, even subconsciously?
I remember learning that NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell was going to marry grotesque sauropod Alan Greenspan even while he was still Chairman of the Fed.
That, I concluded at the time, was somewhat akin to incest.
So, I’m pure, right?
Not so fast.
It occurs to me I’m on friendly terms with the likes of Pat Murphy, Susan Sandberg, Regina Moore, and Steve Volan, among other government pay-drawers and decision makers. Am I too friendly with any of them?
Too Friendly?
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Earlier this month I called for Amy Gerstman, the Monroe County Auditor, to resign immediately for her actions in the credit card scandal.
From all I hear, Gerstman is a kind and sweet soul who is honest at her core, albeit less than alive to the appearance of the county’s checkbook watchdog using the county’s credit at Kroger.
But what if she and I were big pals? Would I have the stones to demand her ouster?
What if Susan Sandberg had been caught using city-issued credit cards for personal use?
Could I call for her head?
I don’t know.
All I know is, I’m glad I don’t plan on getting married again so I won’t have to decide whether I should invite any of my public official acquaintances to the reception.
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DIANE’S DEATH A SHOCK
Just spoke with a colleague of IU law professor Earl Singleton. This colleague attended last night’s visitation for Singleton’s late wife Diane.
According to the colleague, Diane’s death — and the puzzling circumstances surrounding it — came as a complete surprise to Earl and the couple’s two kids.
“I can’t imagine a more uncomplicated and steady family,” this colleague said.
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BLOOMINGTON’S WATER SHEIK
The Boys of Soma gathered for Day One of their regular weekend confab this morning.
Another one of the Boys, who’s also listed in the H-T salary database, observed that the Caliph’s salary bump was like giving Mitt Romney a 1.5 hike.
Tough Guy Pat merely laughed as he lit his cigar with a crisp fifty.
Loaded
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SHE’S NOT THERE
One of the greatest pop songs of all time, performed by The Zombies. Listen for the complicated harmony and the insistent building of volume and adding of instrumentation up to the final crescendo.
Now, don’t ask me why the You Tube OP chose to pair the song with footage from “The Outer Limits.” No matter, I love both the tune and the show. As a nine-year-old I recall waiting all week for “The Outer Limits” to come on. And more often than not, I’d be driven to dash out of the living room in terror at the sight of certain monsters on the program, only to tip-toe my way back in within moments.
But my screed will have to wait. Just for a moment, mind you, but wait it will.
I purchased my customary pint of life-giving joe (which is really my ever-ready first priority on any given day) and strode purposefully to the cream and sugar bar to make the drug palatable.
There I saw Soma’s Toastmaster General, Smiling Kevin Sears.
“You look like a man who’s got something to do,” he observed.
“Yer damned right,” I said as I sweetened the pint. “Those goddamned Republicans aren’t gonna know what hit ’em.”
“Alright,” he said. “but let me ask you this first.”
“Go ahead,” I said, hoping my tone conveyed my urgency.
“What do people value more,” he asked, “their car or their connectivity?”
This? (The General Lee)
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Suddenly and for the moment, I forgot all about my rage. I honestly didn’t know the answer.
Smiling Kevin explained that he’s wondering what to do about his investment portfolio. Should he continue to sink his dough into oil and transportation stocks or should he transfer at least some of his wealth into telecoms?
So, Smiling Kevin’s finances aside, I put it to you, loyal readers. What’s more important to you — your hot rod or your smart-assed phone?
Remember, I’m from Chicago so I encourage you to vote as often as you like!
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HOLDING ALL THE ACES, WANTING EVEN MORE
Now, then. The Republicans.
Okay, babies, you’ve got your anti-union legislation.
The GOP Has Discovered A Better Way Than This To Crush Unions
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And that’s because you’ve got your Indiana General Assembly.
And you’ve got your Indiana Senate.
And your Indiana governor.
And your two US Senators from the Hoosier State.
Oh, by the way, you’ve got your entire US House of Representatives, too.
So if I hear one more of you sons or daughters of bitches complain about how the liberals or socialists or feminists or Black Panthers or NPR reporters or Sharia Muslims or any other bogeymen that you want to scare the couch potatoes to death with are taking over this holy land, I’m gonna scream.
And I’m gonna do everything I can to get everyone I know to scream.
Book it, babies.
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BOYS IN THE FEST
So Steve Llewellyn didn’t spend all his college days staring out the window or eating lunch. Of course, he was a grown man when he took some Communications and Culture classes at our hometown reformatory. He paid attention when he heard about the Iris Film Festival.
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A few years later, after working on “The Trouble with Boys” as a cinematographer, he nudged director Chris Rall and screenwriter Tony Brewer and told them to enter their video opus.
And so they did. And it was accepted. And, this coming Saturday, TTWB will be screened along with 17 other works of cinematic genius at the IU Cinema.
(l to r) Rall, Brewer, & Llewellyn
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Here (direct from the Iris FB page) is the complete lineup:
“Lester Kannon” by Graham Walsh
“Project Z-6463” by Chris Eller & Sophia Parkinson
“TTWB”
“Petie Stewart, Manny Pacquiao’s Biggest Fan” by Duane Busick
“Black & White” by Sahar Pastel-Daneshgar & Emily Erotas
“Fertility 2.0” by David Ross
“Dance of Souls” by Caz Tanner
“Two Crowded” by Peter Johnson
“Lorelei” by M.C. Madrigal & Ryan Miyake
“A Song for the Undertaker” by Josh Tuthill
“The Single Mother” by Jesse Lacy
“The Woods” by Austin Gardener
“Gloom” by Jackson Van Meter & Ryan Smythe
“The Keeper” by Mark Johnson
“Reflection” by Kevin McClatchey
“DADT: A Film from America” by Kaleb Basey
“Imprints” by Javier Ramirez & Maggie Rossman
“Food Fight” by Laura Caldie
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SPEAKING OF VIDEO BRILLIANCE
Have you heard the Stephen Colbert interview with Maurice Sendak yet? Click on their photos for the link and enjoy.
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Sorry kids, I can’t embed the vid — you know, copyright issues and all. Trust me, though, it’s worth the extra step.
