This guy looks like the guy who invented USB, who stars in a Microsoft ad where he is like an incredible celebrity just slaying his fans as he saunters to go get a coffee.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8233815.stm
Maybe if Microsoft thought it was actually him, they'd darken the sky with airplanes and other resources to find him, using their intellectual and IT and resources prowess.
On a serious note, I sincerely hope he and the others are found alive and well, but I am realistic, it's a very tough area.
Showing posts with label subversive humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label subversive humor. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Torture advocates: please take a vacation
I'm not impugning your patriotism or trying to limit your freedom of speech, but could you please go off and take a vacation for a while and stop whining that 1) "we need torture" but 2) "we didn't torture."
How about setting up a torture fan club and just watching some old episodes of "24" for a while? Or maybe set up some tours of the famous "patriotic" torture spots of the world?
Geez, your fifteen minutes of fame (more like fifteen years, though it seems like fifteen centuries) is over. Give your flapping gums a rest and shut up for a while.
By the way, have you noticed how an unseemly number of women favor torture? So much for the fairer sex, but we've known that since Eve.
How about setting up a torture fan club and just watching some old episodes of "24" for a while? Or maybe set up some tours of the famous "patriotic" torture spots of the world?
Geez, your fifteen minutes of fame (more like fifteen years, though it seems like fifteen centuries) is over. Give your flapping gums a rest and shut up for a while.
By the way, have you noticed how an unseemly number of women favor torture? So much for the fairer sex, but we've known that since Eve.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Maybe a new political party in Israel?
Maybe Mr Mubarak and Ms Rice are planning to run together in Israel's upcoming elections.
Just a thought based on their mind boggling lack of conscience regarding Gaza.
((((((((((((((((((What would they call their new party, I wonder?)))))))))))))))))))))))
PUCG? (Party United to Crush Gazans?)
HNH? (Ham Not Hamas?)
SIG (Silence Is Golden?)
DONJ? (Decades Of No Justice?)
NMNRNP? (No Mercy: No Rockets, No Problem?)
Just a thought based on their mind boggling lack of conscience regarding Gaza.
((((((((((((((((((What would they call their new party, I wonder?)))))))))))))))))))))))
PUCG? (Party United to Crush Gazans?)
HNH? (Ham Not Hamas?)
SIG (Silence Is Golden?)
DONJ? (Decades Of No Justice?)
NMNRNP? (No Mercy: No Rockets, No Problem?)
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Unfortunately, he was "one of us:" Madoff
This article describes what I explained some months ago in this blog, which is concept of a group who fervently hopes that a criminal or highly immoral scandal making person is "not one of us."
Well, the Madoff financial scandal is a larger example of such a fear coming true than I could even imagine. Here is a thoughtful look at the blemish that the Jewish community feels.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/us/24jews.html
Well, the Madoff financial scandal is a larger example of such a fear coming true than I could even imagine. Here is a thoughtful look at the blemish that the Jewish community feels.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/us/24jews.html
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Instant cure for grandiosity and inflation with LOL
Here is a very effective and also humorous cure for feelings of alienation, grandiosity, inflation and feelings of spiritual superiority.
First let me define the terms. Alienation is the feeling that one is suddenly detached from the reality of life, and thus almost looking "down" on what is happening as though it were all unreal, an illusion or a "script." Grandiosity is the sense that one is bigger and better than all the other people, and that you are among them and nice to them only because you are being "generous." Inflation is the belief that you are not just human but have supernatural powers or identity. Feeling of spiritual superiority used to be known as feeling "holier than thou art" until modern times, when people want to be "spiritual" and not holy... and so this term means that you think spiritual goodness and prowess is something that can be measured and that you have more of it than other humans.
When I was a teenager and later in college, I regularly encountered people who had moments of alienation. So I have a long history of prescribing this "treatment" to them, and it is actually part of our family lore.
Go stand in a long line that involves some horribly drawn out bureaucratic procedure.
I'm not joking, this is a very effective cure for the feelings described above. It works because it requires one to be "stuck" within the reality of matter, energy and time. When one is stuck waiting two hours in a line to do some meaningless paperwork, it is enforced mental rootedness. One cannot genuinely detach, inflate or feel superior when one must shuffle as a clock slowly ticks in order to apply a very real pen to a very real paper for very real results or failure.
Now, the flagship for this cure in those days was the Motor Vehicle Bureau. Before the time of computers and even calculators, and way before the time of "service first" and "the customer is always right," going to the Motor Vehicle Bureau was a guaranteed complete day killing torture. There were no convenient "local offices" so one had to drive into the nearest city. Once there one witnessed all forms of human drama and misery (they wait two hours in line and find they have the wrong form, for example). This is where it entered family lore as my mother gave it the nickname "The Divorce Court," as the misery and prolonged drama of the Motor Vehicle Bureau was only matched by a court dedicated to handling divorce cases (which back then was not "no fault" and thus was old fashioned agony at its best).
In this modern era it is harder to find such a bureaucratic and miserable line to stand in, but you can envision and, if you are unlucky, experience some equivalents. Those who have to wait in line for water after a hurricane know exactly what I mean. No one is feeling alienated, grandiose, inflated or superior when you are standing in line, dirty and tired, waiting hours for water in the heat (or the cold) and not even knowing if you will be successful when it is your turn. Miserable as it is, it is a very rooting experience. When one goes through something like that, it's a great cure to slough off any pretensions and affectations of being "above it all" or "not really of this world." Yep, when you have to shuffle off to Buffalo, to use an old saying, to travel a long and inconvenient distance in order to stand in a long line to do one and only one bureaucratic thing, that you may or may not succeed in, and everyone is "in the same boat," it's a great cure.
To this day when we joke in my family about "going to divorce court" that is subversive nickname humor referring to the great miserable equalizer that cures by making one stuck in time and earthly matter, the old Motor Vehicle Bureau.
First let me define the terms. Alienation is the feeling that one is suddenly detached from the reality of life, and thus almost looking "down" on what is happening as though it were all unreal, an illusion or a "script." Grandiosity is the sense that one is bigger and better than all the other people, and that you are among them and nice to them only because you are being "generous." Inflation is the belief that you are not just human but have supernatural powers or identity. Feeling of spiritual superiority used to be known as feeling "holier than thou art" until modern times, when people want to be "spiritual" and not holy... and so this term means that you think spiritual goodness and prowess is something that can be measured and that you have more of it than other humans.
When I was a teenager and later in college, I regularly encountered people who had moments of alienation. So I have a long history of prescribing this "treatment" to them, and it is actually part of our family lore.
Go stand in a long line that involves some horribly drawn out bureaucratic procedure.
I'm not joking, this is a very effective cure for the feelings described above. It works because it requires one to be "stuck" within the reality of matter, energy and time. When one is stuck waiting two hours in a line to do some meaningless paperwork, it is enforced mental rootedness. One cannot genuinely detach, inflate or feel superior when one must shuffle as a clock slowly ticks in order to apply a very real pen to a very real paper for very real results or failure.
Now, the flagship for this cure in those days was the Motor Vehicle Bureau. Before the time of computers and even calculators, and way before the time of "service first" and "the customer is always right," going to the Motor Vehicle Bureau was a guaranteed complete day killing torture. There were no convenient "local offices" so one had to drive into the nearest city. Once there one witnessed all forms of human drama and misery (they wait two hours in line and find they have the wrong form, for example). This is where it entered family lore as my mother gave it the nickname "The Divorce Court," as the misery and prolonged drama of the Motor Vehicle Bureau was only matched by a court dedicated to handling divorce cases (which back then was not "no fault" and thus was old fashioned agony at its best).
In this modern era it is harder to find such a bureaucratic and miserable line to stand in, but you can envision and, if you are unlucky, experience some equivalents. Those who have to wait in line for water after a hurricane know exactly what I mean. No one is feeling alienated, grandiose, inflated or superior when you are standing in line, dirty and tired, waiting hours for water in the heat (or the cold) and not even knowing if you will be successful when it is your turn. Miserable as it is, it is a very rooting experience. When one goes through something like that, it's a great cure to slough off any pretensions and affectations of being "above it all" or "not really of this world." Yep, when you have to shuffle off to Buffalo, to use an old saying, to travel a long and inconvenient distance in order to stand in a long line to do one and only one bureaucratic thing, that you may or may not succeed in, and everyone is "in the same boat," it's a great cure.
So well rooted am I and having spent my share in lines such as this that in the 1980's when I needed my passport renewed and working at a Wall Street bank found that an assistant would take my passport in person and have it renewed for me while I stayed in my office, not having to stand in line I almost fainted. To this day I still retain the habit that I and my cohorts developed which is to always have a paperback book along with you in case you have to stand in a long line.
To this day when we joke in my family about "going to divorce court" that is subversive nickname humor referring to the great miserable equalizer that cures by making one stuck in time and earthly matter, the old Motor Vehicle Bureau.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Case study and reflections on subversive humor
I’ve written before about “subversive humor.” Here is another example of the positive power of subversive humor. It is a mild example, but because millions can hear it used every week, I thought I’d point it out.
I like to listen to conservative talk radio and so in the past few years I’ve listened to Rush Limbaugh. By the way, this is back to my “roots,” since I listened in the 1970’s to Paul Harvey. People need to “monitor” my “behavior” and “tastes” by the decades to actually understand me, if you know what I mean.
On Fridays Rush has “Open Line Friday.” This is where he takes more phone calls from listeners than he does on other days. Actually, the point is that he takes calls from people who wish to discuss topics that are not necessarily what Rush is focusing on that day. For those of you who don’t listen to talk radio, the radio hosts tend to put forth a number of topics in each show, and invite callers about those topics, in order to maintain the discussion. People will hold on the phone for hours, and only a few actually get through on the air, because of the number of calls. So on Friday Rush has his “Open Line Friday” where he expresses willingness to take more calls plus they can be on topics that are not those that Rush is featuring.
This is where Rush is both droll and subversive in his humor. The tag line for Rush’s Open Line Friday is something like, “Friday is when we take your calls, even if we don’t care about the topic, but I will fake it.” It is funny and droll (I’ve discussed the merits of droll humor before on this blog) because he says it in a very expansive and over the top way, as if bestowing his graciousness, which is part of his shtick. (Shtick is a Yiddish word that describes a person’s entertainment routine, either deliberate or inadvertent, but usually deliberate; it is a nuanced form of the expression “do your thing,” where your thing is how you present yourself in an entertaining way). So it is always funny to listen to him when he introduces Open Line Friday, unless you suffer from excessive earnestness and do not understand subversive humor.
Rush is being subversively humorous for a few reasons. One is that there is a form of irony (I’ve discussed irony before) because in truth, obviously still few people get through and on air, and he still, obviously, has topics that motivate the callers. So by necessity of structure and through the use of subversive humor, Open Line Friday hardly results in hundreds of callers waxing eloquent on the merits of collecting postage stamps with butterflies upon them, or the best way to cook lima beans. Rush doesn’t have to “fake it” much because obviously listeners phone in with the topics they are listening to from Rush and that they, in return, want to contribute to. So there is both ironic humor (defined as “sounds good, but doesn’t quite turn out as advertised”) and subversive humor, which is to say something that sounds wrong and unsympathetic to the shallow listener, but is actually in a contrarian way, supportive of even the “aggrieved” person who misunderstands.
So someone who is biased not to like conservative radio and who listens to the Open Line Friday shtick is likely to quiver with outrage, thinking “What a blowhard faker! Rush is saying that he will ‘graciously’ fake listening to every caller’s topic, but he ends up taking calls on the same subjects he is speaking of, and not so many calls anyway!” But that is an example of someone not understanding either ironic humor or the underlying subversive humor.
The subversive humor “joke” is that the entire show, through its gravity, attracts a population that IS calling to discuss the topics that they wish to, all the time, every day, all week. So the “wink” of the subversive humor is that while Rush’s shtick is to “deign” to accept what he describes as calls he may have to fake to listen to, the entire show and success of his enterprise would not exist if he was not already doing that, and doing that without faking. Subversive humor sounds politically incorrect to those who don’t “get it,” and they miss that the very thing that the speaker is kind of mocking is what they are doing all along. Every successful talk radio show, yes, especially the conservative ones, open the trail for all others, because they demonstrate through their success the market share of people who want to listen to those types of topics and participate (even if not all listeners agree with every single thing). So when Rush says he is deigning to grant one show as being “for the callers to talk about whatever they want,” even if he has to “fake it,” he is also being subversively funny, in its positive form, since in the free market, his entire show would not exist unless people were listening to what they want to hear, and calling in to say what they want to say, every day, every show.
So detractors of Rush, let’s say a humorous liberal, would listen to his Open Line Friday shtick and possibly quiver with their self perceived “righteous anger” at his “elitist.” LOL! But look at the success, or rather “not success” of liberal talk show radio shows. The market shows that, in general, no one wants to listen. It’s not like the conservative talk show hosts are kidnapping listeners, or blocking access to liberals’ own shows. In fact, the conservative shows demonstrate a model of how it would work, if anyone actually wanted to listen to it.
Further and more essential to understanding subversive humor, one must understand that the humorist seems to mock the very persons they most value. Rush would not have a talk show if he did not value his listeners. Having a talk show is much more work and preparation than people think, and much energy and sweat goes into it. Rush could not fake it, even for that money, year after year, if he did not genuinely enjoy the audience. I speak from experience because preaching is something that is also based on a foundation of genuine liking, if not effusive love, for one’s entire audience. It really is impossible to generate the energy and sincerity if one does not like one’s audience. It is different from manufacturing, for example, where one can manufacture goods for faceless consumers that one may or may not like… but if you think about it, even that tends to fail if one does not at least understand and respect one’s customer base. So subversive humor often takes the form of sounding like one is being politically incorrect, or even insulting, to one’s own base, and it is only understood as a kind of “inside the family lingo.” Let me give you a variety of examples, some firmly subversive humor and some marginally subversive humor.
I had an older cousin, who was an adult when I was a baby. I hated to be grabbed and kissed by him when I was a toddler, even though I loved him, since I was a very shy and self contained child, so I would hide under the kitchen table when he first arrived to visit, so he could not reach me. He therefore got the nickname of “Kissing Cousin.” LOL. Now, someone all earnest and anal would think that by calling him “Kissing Cousin” we were “glorifying” “child abuse.” But that is classic subversive humor, where you call someone a nickname that seems to glorify something that is wrong, but is actually a family lingo type of thing that expresses not only affection but acknowledgement of an “awkward reality.”
That is why subversive humor is such a powerful political force. Subversive humor is not “taking the wrong side” but bringing into the air, in a shorthand and sound byte form, an awkward reality that is not endorsed by the speaker. Here is an example that blew up in people’s faces. Some Afro-Americans sought to destroy the sting of the “N-word” by using it among themselves as that kind of family lingo. But that never really worked because it was not directed into the general sphere of discourse. In situations like the N-word, one must both stop using it and denounce it completely (what I would recommend) or one must be subversive and use it loud and proud in private or public discourse, in order to rehabilitate it and remove the sting. The singer Patti Smith actually tried to do that with a song that linked the N-word to everyone she considered revolutionary, including Jesus and her grandma. It’s an interesting song from an album of hers that I like, and once in a while the tune runs through my mind. If everyone sought to use that model, then everyone should have been calling everyone else “N-word” in everyday conversation in every topic, until those who did use it for the shaming reason (the genuine bigots) would have been flooded with hearing “N-word” in everything from fashion shows to auto sales rooms, LOL. Then it would have died away as an incredibly overused word of slang. THAT is how subversive humor is defined, and its proper use.
I was married to a secular Jewish man, who belonged to a secular Jewish family, one extremely liberal in their politics. But despite being very liberal, they used two certain Yiddish terms to describe Afro-Americans that were not complimentary. So what did my ex-husband and I do? We used those two terms with glee, among each other and in conversation with his family. It works, let me tell you. It is very enlightening and shaming when one floods the airwaves with a term that is like those I am describing, reflecting it right back to those who use those terms. They stopped using those terms (at least in our presence) much faster than earnest politically correct lecturing would ever have accomplished. We continued to use those terms among ourselves because when one is a culture warrior, one continues to self reference where one comes from and what one has achieved. Those terms, like “Kissing Cousin,” remained affectionate and past success laden family lingo, not denigrating. We used the terms with glee when a wonderful Afro-American family moved across the street from us and our elderly neighbor worried if they would be “clean enough.” Yep, it’s rare that subversive terms ever get a rest and a chance to be shelved, in even these times.
Now, imagine my surprise, hurt and dismay when I found that my private conversations with my ex- were wiretapped and monitored, and the use of subversive humor as a positive for change was willfully misinterpreted and shared with others as “evidence” of our supposed “prejudice” and “past life karma.” When I discovered that this had happened, I left the Civil Rights active roster, because I became pulverized and humiliated, for reasons never given to my face, by the very people I have stood beside throughout it all. What they did to me is just as bad as if they took sound clips of “Kissing Cousin,” and used it to promote infant sex.
So even though it is too late, still I try to educate and correct people in their misperceptions. While the affection is gone, I do not give up in my efforts to get people to see the truth, and abolish the lies of genuine hate and prejudice. That’s why I have had this blogging on my mind for a while, and why I even bother. I hope that you have found this helpful, especially those of you, young people, who are not to blame for this situation.
I like to listen to conservative talk radio and so in the past few years I’ve listened to Rush Limbaugh. By the way, this is back to my “roots,” since I listened in the 1970’s to Paul Harvey. People need to “monitor” my “behavior” and “tastes” by the decades to actually understand me, if you know what I mean.
On Fridays Rush has “Open Line Friday.” This is where he takes more phone calls from listeners than he does on other days. Actually, the point is that he takes calls from people who wish to discuss topics that are not necessarily what Rush is focusing on that day. For those of you who don’t listen to talk radio, the radio hosts tend to put forth a number of topics in each show, and invite callers about those topics, in order to maintain the discussion. People will hold on the phone for hours, and only a few actually get through on the air, because of the number of calls. So on Friday Rush has his “Open Line Friday” where he expresses willingness to take more calls plus they can be on topics that are not those that Rush is featuring.
This is where Rush is both droll and subversive in his humor. The tag line for Rush’s Open Line Friday is something like, “Friday is when we take your calls, even if we don’t care about the topic, but I will fake it.” It is funny and droll (I’ve discussed the merits of droll humor before on this blog) because he says it in a very expansive and over the top way, as if bestowing his graciousness, which is part of his shtick. (Shtick is a Yiddish word that describes a person’s entertainment routine, either deliberate or inadvertent, but usually deliberate; it is a nuanced form of the expression “do your thing,” where your thing is how you present yourself in an entertaining way). So it is always funny to listen to him when he introduces Open Line Friday, unless you suffer from excessive earnestness and do not understand subversive humor.
Rush is being subversively humorous for a few reasons. One is that there is a form of irony (I’ve discussed irony before) because in truth, obviously still few people get through and on air, and he still, obviously, has topics that motivate the callers. So by necessity of structure and through the use of subversive humor, Open Line Friday hardly results in hundreds of callers waxing eloquent on the merits of collecting postage stamps with butterflies upon them, or the best way to cook lima beans. Rush doesn’t have to “fake it” much because obviously listeners phone in with the topics they are listening to from Rush and that they, in return, want to contribute to. So there is both ironic humor (defined as “sounds good, but doesn’t quite turn out as advertised”) and subversive humor, which is to say something that sounds wrong and unsympathetic to the shallow listener, but is actually in a contrarian way, supportive of even the “aggrieved” person who misunderstands.
So someone who is biased not to like conservative radio and who listens to the Open Line Friday shtick is likely to quiver with outrage, thinking “What a blowhard faker! Rush is saying that he will ‘graciously’ fake listening to every caller’s topic, but he ends up taking calls on the same subjects he is speaking of, and not so many calls anyway!” But that is an example of someone not understanding either ironic humor or the underlying subversive humor.
The subversive humor “joke” is that the entire show, through its gravity, attracts a population that IS calling to discuss the topics that they wish to, all the time, every day, all week. So the “wink” of the subversive humor is that while Rush’s shtick is to “deign” to accept what he describes as calls he may have to fake to listen to, the entire show and success of his enterprise would not exist if he was not already doing that, and doing that without faking. Subversive humor sounds politically incorrect to those who don’t “get it,” and they miss that the very thing that the speaker is kind of mocking is what they are doing all along. Every successful talk radio show, yes, especially the conservative ones, open the trail for all others, because they demonstrate through their success the market share of people who want to listen to those types of topics and participate (even if not all listeners agree with every single thing). So when Rush says he is deigning to grant one show as being “for the callers to talk about whatever they want,” even if he has to “fake it,” he is also being subversively funny, in its positive form, since in the free market, his entire show would not exist unless people were listening to what they want to hear, and calling in to say what they want to say, every day, every show.
So detractors of Rush, let’s say a humorous liberal, would listen to his Open Line Friday shtick and possibly quiver with their self perceived “righteous anger” at his “elitist.” LOL! But look at the success, or rather “not success” of liberal talk show radio shows. The market shows that, in general, no one wants to listen. It’s not like the conservative talk show hosts are kidnapping listeners, or blocking access to liberals’ own shows. In fact, the conservative shows demonstrate a model of how it would work, if anyone actually wanted to listen to it.
Further and more essential to understanding subversive humor, one must understand that the humorist seems to mock the very persons they most value. Rush would not have a talk show if he did not value his listeners. Having a talk show is much more work and preparation than people think, and much energy and sweat goes into it. Rush could not fake it, even for that money, year after year, if he did not genuinely enjoy the audience. I speak from experience because preaching is something that is also based on a foundation of genuine liking, if not effusive love, for one’s entire audience. It really is impossible to generate the energy and sincerity if one does not like one’s audience. It is different from manufacturing, for example, where one can manufacture goods for faceless consumers that one may or may not like… but if you think about it, even that tends to fail if one does not at least understand and respect one’s customer base. So subversive humor often takes the form of sounding like one is being politically incorrect, or even insulting, to one’s own base, and it is only understood as a kind of “inside the family lingo.” Let me give you a variety of examples, some firmly subversive humor and some marginally subversive humor.
I had an older cousin, who was an adult when I was a baby. I hated to be grabbed and kissed by him when I was a toddler, even though I loved him, since I was a very shy and self contained child, so I would hide under the kitchen table when he first arrived to visit, so he could not reach me. He therefore got the nickname of “Kissing Cousin.” LOL. Now, someone all earnest and anal would think that by calling him “Kissing Cousin” we were “glorifying” “child abuse.” But that is classic subversive humor, where you call someone a nickname that seems to glorify something that is wrong, but is actually a family lingo type of thing that expresses not only affection but acknowledgement of an “awkward reality.”
That is why subversive humor is such a powerful political force. Subversive humor is not “taking the wrong side” but bringing into the air, in a shorthand and sound byte form, an awkward reality that is not endorsed by the speaker. Here is an example that blew up in people’s faces. Some Afro-Americans sought to destroy the sting of the “N-word” by using it among themselves as that kind of family lingo. But that never really worked because it was not directed into the general sphere of discourse. In situations like the N-word, one must both stop using it and denounce it completely (what I would recommend) or one must be subversive and use it loud and proud in private or public discourse, in order to rehabilitate it and remove the sting. The singer Patti Smith actually tried to do that with a song that linked the N-word to everyone she considered revolutionary, including Jesus and her grandma. It’s an interesting song from an album of hers that I like, and once in a while the tune runs through my mind. If everyone sought to use that model, then everyone should have been calling everyone else “N-word” in everyday conversation in every topic, until those who did use it for the shaming reason (the genuine bigots) would have been flooded with hearing “N-word” in everything from fashion shows to auto sales rooms, LOL. Then it would have died away as an incredibly overused word of slang. THAT is how subversive humor is defined, and its proper use.
I was married to a secular Jewish man, who belonged to a secular Jewish family, one extremely liberal in their politics. But despite being very liberal, they used two certain Yiddish terms to describe Afro-Americans that were not complimentary. So what did my ex-husband and I do? We used those two terms with glee, among each other and in conversation with his family. It works, let me tell you. It is very enlightening and shaming when one floods the airwaves with a term that is like those I am describing, reflecting it right back to those who use those terms. They stopped using those terms (at least in our presence) much faster than earnest politically correct lecturing would ever have accomplished. We continued to use those terms among ourselves because when one is a culture warrior, one continues to self reference where one comes from and what one has achieved. Those terms, like “Kissing Cousin,” remained affectionate and past success laden family lingo, not denigrating. We used the terms with glee when a wonderful Afro-American family moved across the street from us and our elderly neighbor worried if they would be “clean enough.” Yep, it’s rare that subversive terms ever get a rest and a chance to be shelved, in even these times.
Now, imagine my surprise, hurt and dismay when I found that my private conversations with my ex- were wiretapped and monitored, and the use of subversive humor as a positive for change was willfully misinterpreted and shared with others as “evidence” of our supposed “prejudice” and “past life karma.” When I discovered that this had happened, I left the Civil Rights active roster, because I became pulverized and humiliated, for reasons never given to my face, by the very people I have stood beside throughout it all. What they did to me is just as bad as if they took sound clips of “Kissing Cousin,” and used it to promote infant sex.
So even though it is too late, still I try to educate and correct people in their misperceptions. While the affection is gone, I do not give up in my efforts to get people to see the truth, and abolish the lies of genuine hate and prejudice. That’s why I have had this blogging on my mind for a while, and why I even bother. I hope that you have found this helpful, especially those of you, young people, who are not to blame for this situation.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Example of subversive humor, from irony
OK, so now I'm going to give you a "case study" of how one can have subversive humor. I think lawyers and law enforcement people will especially appreciate this one.
Most Americans know that they have a "right to remain silent" when arrested or detained by police. Many who are younger do not know where this came from. This right came from a very important Supreme Court decision in 1966. It resulted from concern that police were using excess force or extreme tactics to "make someone talk." The case was "Miranda v. Arizona" and hence the rights came to be known as "Miranda rights." Police have to read to a suspect their "Miranda rights" to let them know that they have the right to remain silent and the right to obtain counsel (a lawyer).
OK, now here is where the irony comes in. Miranda, the guy convicted of rape etc., due to what his defense claimed was excess police coercion to obtain his confession, had his conviction overturned as a result of the Supreme Court decision. However, since there was sufficient evidence without the confession, they retried him and got a conviction. He served eleven years in jail. According to the Wikipedia account he made a small living after being in stir (slang for jail; I'm just giving you an old fashion term for it, like "the big house") by autographing Miranda rights cards. That's the first small example of irony, where the irony is "against" law enforcement (remember I explained that irony is when the outcome is not quite as funny or satisfying as first promised, in a joke format). So there is an irony that he obtained a living from ironically signing Miranda cards.
But then he is whammed with a second irony, so the irony now swings "against" him. He is killed in a bar fight January 31, 1976, and while police detain a suspect, they never are able to solve the crime because the suspect, yep, you guessed it, exercised his Miranda rights!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona
Now, so we have the setting for some exquisite irony. Remember, no one is laughing at the victim of Miranda's assault, his family's suffering, the police attempt to solve crimes, or Miranda's murder. There is nothing funny in any of the facts at all. However, just to be on the topic of religion for a moment, it shows that something "good" can come out of the worst situations because Miranda rights are a fundamental foundation of goodness and freedom in this country, even when at times crimes go unsolved. I praised the Supremes highly when they rendered the Miranda rights decision (June 13, 1966).
So it is important for you to realize that ironic followed by subversive humor does not indicate sympathy or "siding" with "either party." The person making the humor did not make up the situations or take sides. The irony presents itself through the facts, which I outlined above. So, for example, as the person about to make the subversive humor, I am just observing the facts of what happened and noticing the irony as described in the Wikipedia entry.
Therefore, one can take the fact that irony worked "both ways," in that the guy got a laugh on police by making money signing Miranda cards, but also it then boomeranged against him because his possible killer stayed silent (Miranda rights) as a suspect, and now create the subversive humor.
There is a song by Chicago called "Only the Beginning." It has a line in it, sang plaintively, "Mostly I'm silent, mm, mm, mm, mm, silent...."
LOL! So if you and a friend wanted to joke in code talk between you in a subversive way, you would sing "Mostly I'm silent..... silent.... la la la la...." and you'd be invoking the irony of the Miranda right to remain silent! LOL LOL LOL. It's not being mean or partisan or unsympathetic because it is just a "short hand" way to reference the irony of having to invoke silence in a criminal setting. It's subversive because it's observing that maybe, or maybe not, a lot of people have reason to be "silent," both for good reasons or for bad reasons.
Also, there is a fun "bonus" irony that Chicago, the band name, makes one who remembers history recall that Chicago police at one time had a vigorous interrogation reputation, one that was not very nice.
So if I were sitting here with my ex, with whom I shared lots of subversive humor, while watching a news show or something that has an interrogation scene, one of us might suddenly sing, "Mostly I'm silent, whoa, whoa, whoa, silent, la la la la...." It would be invoking the irony of the whole situation, but not a unsympathetic statement toward the present day news that made us think of the subversive humor.
So there you have it! A real life example I am giving you of the beauty of subversive humor, especially such a gem as this one, having sprung from double progressive irony (the first one small and the second irony HUGE). LOL!
Most Americans know that they have a "right to remain silent" when arrested or detained by police. Many who are younger do not know where this came from. This right came from a very important Supreme Court decision in 1966. It resulted from concern that police were using excess force or extreme tactics to "make someone talk." The case was "Miranda v. Arizona" and hence the rights came to be known as "Miranda rights." Police have to read to a suspect their "Miranda rights" to let them know that they have the right to remain silent and the right to obtain counsel (a lawyer).
OK, now here is where the irony comes in. Miranda, the guy convicted of rape etc., due to what his defense claimed was excess police coercion to obtain his confession, had his conviction overturned as a result of the Supreme Court decision. However, since there was sufficient evidence without the confession, they retried him and got a conviction. He served eleven years in jail. According to the Wikipedia account he made a small living after being in stir (slang for jail; I'm just giving you an old fashion term for it, like "the big house") by autographing Miranda rights cards. That's the first small example of irony, where the irony is "against" law enforcement (remember I explained that irony is when the outcome is not quite as funny or satisfying as first promised, in a joke format). So there is an irony that he obtained a living from ironically signing Miranda cards.
But then he is whammed with a second irony, so the irony now swings "against" him. He is killed in a bar fight January 31, 1976, and while police detain a suspect, they never are able to solve the crime because the suspect, yep, you guessed it, exercised his Miranda rights!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona
Now, so we have the setting for some exquisite irony. Remember, no one is laughing at the victim of Miranda's assault, his family's suffering, the police attempt to solve crimes, or Miranda's murder. There is nothing funny in any of the facts at all. However, just to be on the topic of religion for a moment, it shows that something "good" can come out of the worst situations because Miranda rights are a fundamental foundation of goodness and freedom in this country, even when at times crimes go unsolved. I praised the Supremes highly when they rendered the Miranda rights decision (June 13, 1966).
So it is important for you to realize that ironic followed by subversive humor does not indicate sympathy or "siding" with "either party." The person making the humor did not make up the situations or take sides. The irony presents itself through the facts, which I outlined above. So, for example, as the person about to make the subversive humor, I am just observing the facts of what happened and noticing the irony as described in the Wikipedia entry.
Therefore, one can take the fact that irony worked "both ways," in that the guy got a laugh on police by making money signing Miranda cards, but also it then boomeranged against him because his possible killer stayed silent (Miranda rights) as a suspect, and now create the subversive humor.
There is a song by Chicago called "Only the Beginning." It has a line in it, sang plaintively, "Mostly I'm silent, mm, mm, mm, mm, silent...."
LOL! So if you and a friend wanted to joke in code talk between you in a subversive way, you would sing "Mostly I'm silent..... silent.... la la la la...." and you'd be invoking the irony of the Miranda right to remain silent! LOL LOL LOL. It's not being mean or partisan or unsympathetic because it is just a "short hand" way to reference the irony of having to invoke silence in a criminal setting. It's subversive because it's observing that maybe, or maybe not, a lot of people have reason to be "silent," both for good reasons or for bad reasons.
Also, there is a fun "bonus" irony that Chicago, the band name, makes one who remembers history recall that Chicago police at one time had a vigorous interrogation reputation, one that was not very nice.
So if I were sitting here with my ex, with whom I shared lots of subversive humor, while watching a news show or something that has an interrogation scene, one of us might suddenly sing, "Mostly I'm silent, whoa, whoa, whoa, silent, la la la la...." It would be invoking the irony of the whole situation, but not a unsympathetic statement toward the present day news that made us think of the subversive humor.
So there you have it! A real life example I am giving you of the beauty of subversive humor, especially such a gem as this one, having sprung from double progressive irony (the first one small and the second irony HUGE). LOL!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
10 struck by lightning near Boston, 4 still critical
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view/2008_07_21_Lightning_strikes_10_on_Dorchester_field:_%E2%80%98It_s_a_miracle_that_nobody_died_/srvc=home&position=0
***
The lightning bolt struck around 3:30 PM during a sudden violent storm, hitting spectators at a local soccer game. Two suffered heart attacks. Other news articles report that four remain in critical condition.
Prayers that these people all pull through. They were doing nothing except having good neighborly activity watching their regular Sunday sports. One is a young teenager, again, prayers for full recovery for everyone.
Hmm. Also in Boston area in a totally separate development (I'm sure), on the same day, and probably just a few hours separate from the lightning strike, a lovely Protestant Church hosted a mockery known as "ordination of 'Catholic' women priests." Yes, once again a non-Catholic church has decided to allow heretical women go through an "ordination" to "make them Catholic priests" on their premises. (A synagogue in St. Louis area hosted a similar "ordination of women" some months ago). "Thanks rabbi!"
Um, did you know that the Bible has some very explicit admonitions against undermining someone else's faith? So "fellow Christians," encouraging and sponsoring defiance of these people's faith (no matter how insistent they are) implicates you in the sin. This would be true if you were hosting, let's make up some other religion, say Buddhists doing something sacrilegious in their faith on your premises (since you imply that Jesus is sponsoring any activities in your church). Oh dear! Not so much! Big mistake!
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view/2008_07_21_3_women_in_the_“priesthood____out_of_the_church/
By the way, before anyone gets all outraged, this is another example of "subversive humor." You see, in case you don't recall, some Protestants made a LOT of money from a "Christian" book series called "Left Behind," where they claim that most Catholics and the Pope are tools of the anti-Christ and thus will be "left behind" and better yet.... they push the notion that lightning is under the control of the anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ in fact, in the book, zaps many converted Protestant faithful to death, including the main squeeze of one of the book's "heroes." Sooooo, I am chortling not at the injured (continued prayers for their recovery) but in good subversive humor fashion, I can't help but point out that a big fat lightning bolt hit a record number of people in the same Boston vicinity within hours of a Protestant church hosting a heretical Catholic procedure. I think you see my point now? Careful what you wish for, oh fictional "Christian authors!
Now, continuing the subversive humor thought. What might their reply be? Well, they'd say "See, God's taking sides with 'us' because the lightning struck an ethnic Catholic area! And so obvious God supports the Prots sponsoring 'Catholic women priests'. " Um, wait, run that by me again, as that's a logic problem. If you say the anti-Christ controls lightning, well, surely he must all along because it's not like he "took that power away from God" after the alleged "rapture." So which is it? Is God using lightning in a very mean and, well, anti-Christ way to hurt innocent people at a soccer match, as his way of "applauding" ze wymen pryeests... in which case God doesn't sound very nice, or is this the anti-Christ's work, which means, holy smoke, he must already be here! But hey, readers, why are you reading this instead of being "raptured" and long gone, if the 'anti-Christ' 'is here?'
If one is going to make obsessive compulsive disorder occult assertions, such as what I guess they are called "dispensationalist" Protestants do in the book (and make lots of money off of it) beware when God makes a total fool of you all in front of the world to see.
***
The lightning bolt struck around 3:30 PM during a sudden violent storm, hitting spectators at a local soccer game. Two suffered heart attacks. Other news articles report that four remain in critical condition.
Prayers that these people all pull through. They were doing nothing except having good neighborly activity watching their regular Sunday sports. One is a young teenager, again, prayers for full recovery for everyone.
Hmm. Also in Boston area in a totally separate development (I'm sure), on the same day, and probably just a few hours separate from the lightning strike, a lovely Protestant Church hosted a mockery known as "ordination of 'Catholic' women priests." Yes, once again a non-Catholic church has decided to allow heretical women go through an "ordination" to "make them Catholic priests" on their premises. (A synagogue in St. Louis area hosted a similar "ordination of women" some months ago). "Thanks rabbi!"
Um, did you know that the Bible has some very explicit admonitions against undermining someone else's faith? So "fellow Christians," encouraging and sponsoring defiance of these people's faith (no matter how insistent they are) implicates you in the sin. This would be true if you were hosting, let's make up some other religion, say Buddhists doing something sacrilegious in their faith on your premises (since you imply that Jesus is sponsoring any activities in your church). Oh dear! Not so much! Big mistake!
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view/2008_07_21_3_women_in_the_“priesthood____out_of_the_church/
By the way, before anyone gets all outraged, this is another example of "subversive humor." You see, in case you don't recall, some Protestants made a LOT of money from a "Christian" book series called "Left Behind," where they claim that most Catholics and the Pope are tools of the anti-Christ and thus will be "left behind" and better yet.... they push the notion that lightning is under the control of the anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ in fact, in the book, zaps many converted Protestant faithful to death, including the main squeeze of one of the book's "heroes." Sooooo, I am chortling not at the injured (continued prayers for their recovery) but in good subversive humor fashion, I can't help but point out that a big fat lightning bolt hit a record number of people in the same Boston vicinity within hours of a Protestant church hosting a heretical Catholic procedure. I think you see my point now? Careful what you wish for, oh fictional "Christian authors!
Now, continuing the subversive humor thought. What might their reply be? Well, they'd say "See, God's taking sides with 'us' because the lightning struck an ethnic Catholic area! And so obvious God supports the Prots sponsoring 'Catholic women priests'. " Um, wait, run that by me again, as that's a logic problem. If you say the anti-Christ controls lightning, well, surely he must all along because it's not like he "took that power away from God" after the alleged "rapture." So which is it? Is God using lightning in a very mean and, well, anti-Christ way to hurt innocent people at a soccer match, as his way of "applauding" ze wymen pryeests... in which case God doesn't sound very nice, or is this the anti-Christ's work, which means, holy smoke, he must already be here! But hey, readers, why are you reading this instead of being "raptured" and long gone, if the 'anti-Christ' 'is here?'
If one is going to make obsessive compulsive disorder occult assertions, such as what I guess they are called "dispensationalist" Protestants do in the book (and make lots of money off of it) beware when God makes a total fool of you all in front of the world to see.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Subversive humor: dog songs and dog "history"
Changing the lyrics to songs
Another long lasting and totally harmless and innocent form of subversive humor that my ex- and I enjoyed was to change the lyrics to certain songs. Neither of us had a singing voice, so this was not some “hidden signal” that we “wanted to sing.” Rather it was another product of our generation that grew up with rock and roll being an extremely important form of self expression. So for us and many others of that generation, rock and roll served three purposes: 1) it was good music to listen to 2) it had a role in self and societal expression and 3) it lends itself to short hand code expressions. Again I don’t mean hidden messages, but I mean that with a bit of a tune a married couple with a long history and shared worldview could touchstone and exchange a complicated set of thoughts and feelings, either for a lark and fun, or seriously.
During our time in our marriage it was also the height of the “art” of the advertisement jingle! Jingles used exactly that same principle, to convey among those who are intimate a message very quickly and lightly. So that was another factor in our heavy use of funny and weird changed lyrics among us. Plus we had no children, but were dog owners. Anyone in a similar situation knows that people tend to talk to their pets. So we developed a whole bunch of songs and so forth that we would sing to the dogs, or that we would pretend the dogs were singing as being representative of their feelings. It was all innocent and fun, but subversive because there was an intellectual component to it that, like the example I gave before, was somewhat of a “commentary” on the political or cultural times.
One of the earliest things we did that might have baffled nutty spies was that when we got the two puppies that were brothers, we would bounce them (like bouncing babies who could not yet walk) and give them what we called “Tarantella lessons.” The Tarantella is a vigorous Italian folk tune. Most of you would recognize it if you heard it, as it’s played as the backdrop to lots of traditional Italian weddings. So we would sing the instrumental refrain while bouncing the puppies. How did we come up with that? Remember, the Godfather films had been huge in our generation. So this was simply us using a leitmotif that was a little bit sardonic of much of the pop culture. It certainly wasn’t deeper than that (like oh, for example *struggling to remember Italian past lives* or that the *anagram of Tarantella is, I don’t know, something like “tell Ana tar,” showing that in alien past lives we had an employee named “Ana” who was responsible for using tar to patch holes in our driveway). I wish I was kidding that this is how seriously cultists tried to “interpret” the silly jingles that a married couple did with their puppies dancing on the kitchen floor, but it really was that bad, I found out years later.
So when we would think of “songs” for the dogs we would take traditional songs, but sometimes also pop or rock refrains, and put silly words into them. Rhyming was always a problem so we’d have favorite words that are handy for rhyming that we’d use often (for that reason alone, not anything mysterious, as I already explained.) But being aware intellectuals (but not movers and shakers, obviously), we’d work in some subversive commentary. For example, people were constantly talking about clones, in both science and science fiction fantasy. So we often worked the word “clone” into the dog’s songs. Obviously this was not a confession or endorsement of cloning, morons. It was a social commentary about a hot topic, so we were making it (for laughs) like the dogs had some involvement in this topic. We’d have them sing about their clone heritage, or accuse others of being clones, ha ha. I still smile when I think of it, because those memories have not been ruined, and won’t be.
One of our favorite tunes to use was the old country tune “Get along little dogie.”
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Dogie's-Lament-lyrics-Kingston-Trio/1FE9CCF94F64443D48256BF00023EF75
Doggie is a cowboy term for a young calf. I can’t believe I have to explain the humorous connection, but here it is. “Dogie” as in calf sounds like “doggie” as in dog. Wow. So we would use a cowboy song because it came already with a reference to “dogie” that we could sing to our dogs! I know, it’s evil genius isn’t it? To sing to your dogs a song that has the word doggie in it? So we would often sing, “Get along little doggie… “And then make up silly lines for the rest of the stanza. One of our favorites was to sing “Get along little doggie, with a rag and a bone. Your mother’s a (use something from the news or other current joke) and your father’s a clone.” Both “clone” and “bone” were the rhyming words to take the place of the words “own” and “home” in the original. This was not the hidden alien creed that we were singing. It was a silly song to sing to dogs while playing with them. Our two big dogs loved to play tug (“a rag”) and all dogs love bones (“a bone”), duh. I explained about the clone already, and so all that was left was to plug into the “mother” whatever silly term was on the news or sounded especially funny that day.
Our third dog was adopted when she was older, and had been given up because her elderly owner went into a nursing home, and the son didn’t want her. She had issues, mainly trust of humans and I had to do serious work with her, since she was sickly, scared, a biter and had some pathologies from her past, including deadly fear and rage of her tail being touched and an inability to play. She became a wonderful dog, but one that was never normal. We were heartbroken that we had her only five years or so before she succumbed to cancer. She loved to sit on my lap and watch TV (so long as I did not touch her tail). Obviously she got the nickname “Boo Boo Tail” and had special songs of her own. With her past the songs were a little less lighthearted, but still done for fun and it did make her sometimes “want” to play, even though she never could learn how. As our way of dealing with the world of hurt that she had obviously come from, we developed a joking “history” for her. Here’s an example. Totally unexpectedly she was all gentle and protective of my godson, who was just a baby, when his parents brought him to visit. She just adored him and lay next to him very protectively on the couch (and being a baby he didn’t touch her tail!) So we developed a code word routine about her that made her out to be a “nurse” with a “heart of gold.” That is why we called her “Nurse Sonja.” See, when a couple shares a history and real life events, you don’t go once a day, “Remember the time that baby so and so was here and Sonja was really nice to him?” Duh, obviously we do. So when we referred to her as “Nurse Sonja,” we were using code word to evoke that day and that duality in her of personality, due to her experiences. That’s it; no secret past life hidden ninja UFO religious reason for calling a little dog a nurse. It’s just the way normal people who are intimate talk.
I had a boss who learned (the hard way) to be a helicopter pilot during Vietnam. So we added that into our folklore joke routine and say that “Nurse Sonja” prefers flying a helicopter to get to her patients, swearing all the time (since obviously she’s bad tempered nurse AND sitting on her “boo boo tail”). We would really laugh at that and it was a popular image because, duh, she hated going in the car to the vet and also that involved tail touching. So the helicopter tag line in our joke routine about her became common and remained very funny to us. It was not an endorsement of a color or gender of nurses, of a secret need for a nurse or a “past life” (remember, there is no reincarnation), or an endorsement of the helicopter business or of use of helicopters in the medical field. It was a personal joke, people.
Often our songs would reference the politician Dan Quayle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Quayle
First of all, he has a cool name useful in rhyming. I still favor it for that reason! Second he was an integral part of the political and pop culture. Like the nursing home example, we would reference him to be somewhat subversive. While everyone else mocked his occasional misstatements and perceived lack of intellectual power, we mocked the mockers by mentioning him a lot in our personal songs! It really was, and is, as simple as that. It meets the definition of subversive because even though Dan Quayle’s politics were miles from my ex’s (and appeared to be miles from mine, but was not really since I was keeping my actual political and religious thoughts entirely private), we were very uncomfortable with the continued bashing he took. He was really pretty much the first politician to be mistreated in a way that is now commonplace with both celebrities and politicians, which is to have their every small weakness or error endlessly mocked and racked over the coals by the media. So we did our own little compensation.
I guess I could remember and reminisce about other examples, but I think I’ve made my point.
Another long lasting and totally harmless and innocent form of subversive humor that my ex- and I enjoyed was to change the lyrics to certain songs. Neither of us had a singing voice, so this was not some “hidden signal” that we “wanted to sing.” Rather it was another product of our generation that grew up with rock and roll being an extremely important form of self expression. So for us and many others of that generation, rock and roll served three purposes: 1) it was good music to listen to 2) it had a role in self and societal expression and 3) it lends itself to short hand code expressions. Again I don’t mean hidden messages, but I mean that with a bit of a tune a married couple with a long history and shared worldview could touchstone and exchange a complicated set of thoughts and feelings, either for a lark and fun, or seriously.
During our time in our marriage it was also the height of the “art” of the advertisement jingle! Jingles used exactly that same principle, to convey among those who are intimate a message very quickly and lightly. So that was another factor in our heavy use of funny and weird changed lyrics among us. Plus we had no children, but were dog owners. Anyone in a similar situation knows that people tend to talk to their pets. So we developed a whole bunch of songs and so forth that we would sing to the dogs, or that we would pretend the dogs were singing as being representative of their feelings. It was all innocent and fun, but subversive because there was an intellectual component to it that, like the example I gave before, was somewhat of a “commentary” on the political or cultural times.
One of the earliest things we did that might have baffled nutty spies was that when we got the two puppies that were brothers, we would bounce them (like bouncing babies who could not yet walk) and give them what we called “Tarantella lessons.” The Tarantella is a vigorous Italian folk tune. Most of you would recognize it if you heard it, as it’s played as the backdrop to lots of traditional Italian weddings. So we would sing the instrumental refrain while bouncing the puppies. How did we come up with that? Remember, the Godfather films had been huge in our generation. So this was simply us using a leitmotif that was a little bit sardonic of much of the pop culture. It certainly wasn’t deeper than that (like oh, for example *struggling to remember Italian past lives* or that the *anagram of Tarantella is, I don’t know, something like “tell Ana tar,” showing that in alien past lives we had an employee named “Ana” who was responsible for using tar to patch holes in our driveway). I wish I was kidding that this is how seriously cultists tried to “interpret” the silly jingles that a married couple did with their puppies dancing on the kitchen floor, but it really was that bad, I found out years later.
So when we would think of “songs” for the dogs we would take traditional songs, but sometimes also pop or rock refrains, and put silly words into them. Rhyming was always a problem so we’d have favorite words that are handy for rhyming that we’d use often (for that reason alone, not anything mysterious, as I already explained.) But being aware intellectuals (but not movers and shakers, obviously), we’d work in some subversive commentary. For example, people were constantly talking about clones, in both science and science fiction fantasy. So we often worked the word “clone” into the dog’s songs. Obviously this was not a confession or endorsement of cloning, morons. It was a social commentary about a hot topic, so we were making it (for laughs) like the dogs had some involvement in this topic. We’d have them sing about their clone heritage, or accuse others of being clones, ha ha. I still smile when I think of it, because those memories have not been ruined, and won’t be.
One of our favorite tunes to use was the old country tune “Get along little dogie.”
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Dogie's-Lament-lyrics-Kingston-Trio/1FE9CCF94F64443D48256BF00023EF75
Doggie is a cowboy term for a young calf. I can’t believe I have to explain the humorous connection, but here it is. “Dogie” as in calf sounds like “doggie” as in dog. Wow. So we would use a cowboy song because it came already with a reference to “dogie” that we could sing to our dogs! I know, it’s evil genius isn’t it? To sing to your dogs a song that has the word doggie in it? So we would often sing, “Get along little doggie… “And then make up silly lines for the rest of the stanza. One of our favorites was to sing “Get along little doggie, with a rag and a bone. Your mother’s a (use something from the news or other current joke) and your father’s a clone.” Both “clone” and “bone” were the rhyming words to take the place of the words “own” and “home” in the original. This was not the hidden alien creed that we were singing. It was a silly song to sing to dogs while playing with them. Our two big dogs loved to play tug (“a rag”) and all dogs love bones (“a bone”), duh. I explained about the clone already, and so all that was left was to plug into the “mother” whatever silly term was on the news or sounded especially funny that day.
Our third dog was adopted when she was older, and had been given up because her elderly owner went into a nursing home, and the son didn’t want her. She had issues, mainly trust of humans and I had to do serious work with her, since she was sickly, scared, a biter and had some pathologies from her past, including deadly fear and rage of her tail being touched and an inability to play. She became a wonderful dog, but one that was never normal. We were heartbroken that we had her only five years or so before she succumbed to cancer. She loved to sit on my lap and watch TV (so long as I did not touch her tail). Obviously she got the nickname “Boo Boo Tail” and had special songs of her own. With her past the songs were a little less lighthearted, but still done for fun and it did make her sometimes “want” to play, even though she never could learn how. As our way of dealing with the world of hurt that she had obviously come from, we developed a joking “history” for her. Here’s an example. Totally unexpectedly she was all gentle and protective of my godson, who was just a baby, when his parents brought him to visit. She just adored him and lay next to him very protectively on the couch (and being a baby he didn’t touch her tail!) So we developed a code word routine about her that made her out to be a “nurse” with a “heart of gold.” That is why we called her “Nurse Sonja.” See, when a couple shares a history and real life events, you don’t go once a day, “Remember the time that baby so and so was here and Sonja was really nice to him?” Duh, obviously we do. So when we referred to her as “Nurse Sonja,” we were using code word to evoke that day and that duality in her of personality, due to her experiences. That’s it; no secret past life hidden ninja UFO religious reason for calling a little dog a nurse. It’s just the way normal people who are intimate talk.
I had a boss who learned (the hard way) to be a helicopter pilot during Vietnam. So we added that into our folklore joke routine and say that “Nurse Sonja” prefers flying a helicopter to get to her patients, swearing all the time (since obviously she’s bad tempered nurse AND sitting on her “boo boo tail”). We would really laugh at that and it was a popular image because, duh, she hated going in the car to the vet and also that involved tail touching. So the helicopter tag line in our joke routine about her became common and remained very funny to us. It was not an endorsement of a color or gender of nurses, of a secret need for a nurse or a “past life” (remember, there is no reincarnation), or an endorsement of the helicopter business or of use of helicopters in the medical field. It was a personal joke, people.
Often our songs would reference the politician Dan Quayle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Quayle
First of all, he has a cool name useful in rhyming. I still favor it for that reason! Second he was an integral part of the political and pop culture. Like the nursing home example, we would reference him to be somewhat subversive. While everyone else mocked his occasional misstatements and perceived lack of intellectual power, we mocked the mockers by mentioning him a lot in our personal songs! It really was, and is, as simple as that. It meets the definition of subversive because even though Dan Quayle’s politics were miles from my ex’s (and appeared to be miles from mine, but was not really since I was keeping my actual political and religious thoughts entirely private), we were very uncomfortable with the continued bashing he took. He was really pretty much the first politician to be mistreated in a way that is now commonplace with both celebrities and politicians, which is to have their every small weakness or error endlessly mocked and racked over the coals by the media. So we did our own little compensation.
I guess I could remember and reminisce about other examples, but I think I’ve made my point.
Subversive humor: First example (complete post)
"Thank God he's not one of us" or past tense variation "Thank God he wasn't one of us"
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2000/apr/apr11a_00.html
Snip
Attorney General Spitzer today announced that his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) will commemorate its 25th Anniversary on Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at a reunion reception for several hundred past and present staff members at the Brooklyn Marriott (333 Adams Street) in downtown Brooklyn from 6 – 9 p.m.
The Attorney General’s MFCU is the oldest and largest statewide operation in the nation dedicated exclusively to the investigation and prosecution of health care crime. The 300-member MFCU is responsible for monitoring the more than $25 billion annually spent on Medicaid in New York State – more than 15% of the nation’s total.
Attorney General Spitzer said, "Twenty-five years ago, New Yorkers were shocked by revelations of widespread financial fraud, patient abuse, and official corruption plaguing the State’s nursing home industry. In response, New York became the first state in the nation to establish an office – the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit – to thoroughly investigate those engaged in health care fraud and abuse in order to protect both patients and taxpayers."
Snip
The Unit - originally known as the Office of the New York State Special Prosecutor for Nursing Homes, Health, and Social Services - was created in January 1975 following the revelation of widespread and shocking abuses plaguing the State’s nursing home industry. The exposure of these scandals in late 1974 by the Temporary State Commission on Living Costs and the Economy, and by the media – including several intensive investigative projects by the New York Times, Village Voice and WNEW-TV – drew national attention to the fact that millions of Medicaid dollars earmarked for the care of elderly and indigent patients were instead lining the pockets of greedy and politically influential nursing home owners and operators.
As you can read in the above link, this 25th anniversary commemorative celebration, which took place in the year 2000, pinpoints the time of the scandal that I refer to in this blog posting as being in late 1974. I remember it well because it was so shocking and scandalous on so many levels that it was one of those turning points in the national psyche. Being a New York state resident, I felt it’s local impact too, while being a New York City resident my ex- (who I had not met yet but would soon after this happened) saw it unfold as both a local outrage and also a “Jewish” deep embarrassment because of one of the key figures who had perpetrated and benefited from the abuse of the elderly.
So when my ex- and I met and were married, this scandal was fresh in our minds since it had occurred just in the year before. When people get together, especially married couples, they develop a personal dialogue and lingo very quickly, and I don’t mean calling each other pookie. This was especially true of couples who shared a worldview, and who grew up in the political orientations and events of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The country was rife with prejudice and discrimination, and it was still a very sensitive time for any minority: male, female, any race or any cultural profile, and any religion. People had strong and deeply felt stereotypes and fears. Remember, it was only ten years before that people my age had witnessed, some experiencing first hand, the Civil Rights movement. It was also only twenty years since a Catholic President was a hot issue. Women’s complaints of domestic abuse were routinely dismissed by police, even as they witnessed the actual crime, and men were virtually never charged no matter how heinous the battering. It was a time when any action by one person who belonged to “one group” (“a woman” “a black guy” “a Jew” “a Vietnam vet” etc) was highly likely to inflame existing passions and harden underlying prejudices. Therefore, when a Jew was one of the people responsible for this horrible nursing home scandal, it rocked the Jewish community and there was huge shame and anger.
It’s hard to describe to people who take it all for granted today and think that they have it so hard. Let me tell you, it was a very difficult time for our nation and one that in many ways we never really recovered from, mostly because humans collectively swayed in both extremes. Bad behavior hardened prejudices (one extreme of bad) but they also became, in a weird way, “unspoken truths” if there was a genuine problem In the community but no one wanted to be called “prejudiced” (the other extreme of bad). For example, service people were vilified for years because a number of cases of Vietnam vets coming home addicted and with post traumatic stress disorder (which had not even been diagnosed yet) had gone on killing rampages. It became a caricature of our service people as a whole and was a favorite of the Hollywood liberal crowd. During this horrible time, the crazed evil Vietnam vet was a stock character in many “entertainment” venues.
So imagine how Jews felt when one of the leading nursing home scandals appeared to be “a greedy Jew.” I can not begin to describe to you how that seared the soul. While it’s not like people ran crazy in the street hating on Jews as a result, the Jewish community held their breath every time another scandal broke. The expression “Thank God he wasn’t one of us” became a leitmotif among them at the time. This was adopted by my ex- and I who did not live with such fears, but who certainly understood the feeling. So it became one of the earliest of our code expressions in private talk. It was both sympathetic and subversive humor, since it mocks the mentality of people who draw conclusions about the guilt or stereotypes of entire groups based on one stupid or evil individual. So whenever we used the expression “Thank God he wasn’t one of us” amongst ourselves, it was code words for “Wow, I feel bad for the group that this guy or gal belongs to” and “Aren’t people who are going to draw conclusions from this stupid?” So let’s say we would see something with a Polish guy doing something really bad and scandalous. We’d say “Thank God he wasn’t one of us,” meaning 1) boy do we feel bad for the rest of the Poles and 2) aren’t people sickening who are going to glom onto this as a way to be prejudiced against Poles? Obviously we were never saying that we were happy that the event occurred just because it wasn’t “our dog in the fight” (to use a modern term). Obviously it was quite the opposite; we were being sympathetic of those who might get backlash unfairly AND mocking those who would do so.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2000/apr/apr11a_00.html
Snip
Attorney General Spitzer today announced that his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) will commemorate its 25th Anniversary on Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at a reunion reception for several hundred past and present staff members at the Brooklyn Marriott (333 Adams Street) in downtown Brooklyn from 6 – 9 p.m.
The Attorney General’s MFCU is the oldest and largest statewide operation in the nation dedicated exclusively to the investigation and prosecution of health care crime. The 300-member MFCU is responsible for monitoring the more than $25 billion annually spent on Medicaid in New York State – more than 15% of the nation’s total.
Attorney General Spitzer said, "Twenty-five years ago, New Yorkers were shocked by revelations of widespread financial fraud, patient abuse, and official corruption plaguing the State’s nursing home industry. In response, New York became the first state in the nation to establish an office – the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit – to thoroughly investigate those engaged in health care fraud and abuse in order to protect both patients and taxpayers."
Snip
The Unit - originally known as the Office of the New York State Special Prosecutor for Nursing Homes, Health, and Social Services - was created in January 1975 following the revelation of widespread and shocking abuses plaguing the State’s nursing home industry. The exposure of these scandals in late 1974 by the Temporary State Commission on Living Costs and the Economy, and by the media – including several intensive investigative projects by the New York Times, Village Voice and WNEW-TV – drew national attention to the fact that millions of Medicaid dollars earmarked for the care of elderly and indigent patients were instead lining the pockets of greedy and politically influential nursing home owners and operators.
As you can read in the above link, this 25th anniversary commemorative celebration, which took place in the year 2000, pinpoints the time of the scandal that I refer to in this blog posting as being in late 1974. I remember it well because it was so shocking and scandalous on so many levels that it was one of those turning points in the national psyche. Being a New York state resident, I felt it’s local impact too, while being a New York City resident my ex- (who I had not met yet but would soon after this happened) saw it unfold as both a local outrage and also a “Jewish” deep embarrassment because of one of the key figures who had perpetrated and benefited from the abuse of the elderly.
So when my ex- and I met and were married, this scandal was fresh in our minds since it had occurred just in the year before. When people get together, especially married couples, they develop a personal dialogue and lingo very quickly, and I don’t mean calling each other pookie. This was especially true of couples who shared a worldview, and who grew up in the political orientations and events of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The country was rife with prejudice and discrimination, and it was still a very sensitive time for any minority: male, female, any race or any cultural profile, and any religion. People had strong and deeply felt stereotypes and fears. Remember, it was only ten years before that people my age had witnessed, some experiencing first hand, the Civil Rights movement. It was also only twenty years since a Catholic President was a hot issue. Women’s complaints of domestic abuse were routinely dismissed by police, even as they witnessed the actual crime, and men were virtually never charged no matter how heinous the battering. It was a time when any action by one person who belonged to “one group” (“a woman” “a black guy” “a Jew” “a Vietnam vet” etc) was highly likely to inflame existing passions and harden underlying prejudices. Therefore, when a Jew was one of the people responsible for this horrible nursing home scandal, it rocked the Jewish community and there was huge shame and anger.
It’s hard to describe to people who take it all for granted today and think that they have it so hard. Let me tell you, it was a very difficult time for our nation and one that in many ways we never really recovered from, mostly because humans collectively swayed in both extremes. Bad behavior hardened prejudices (one extreme of bad) but they also became, in a weird way, “unspoken truths” if there was a genuine problem In the community but no one wanted to be called “prejudiced” (the other extreme of bad). For example, service people were vilified for years because a number of cases of Vietnam vets coming home addicted and with post traumatic stress disorder (which had not even been diagnosed yet) had gone on killing rampages. It became a caricature of our service people as a whole and was a favorite of the Hollywood liberal crowd. During this horrible time, the crazed evil Vietnam vet was a stock character in many “entertainment” venues.
So imagine how Jews felt when one of the leading nursing home scandals appeared to be “a greedy Jew.” I can not begin to describe to you how that seared the soul. While it’s not like people ran crazy in the street hating on Jews as a result, the Jewish community held their breath every time another scandal broke. The expression “Thank God he wasn’t one of us” became a leitmotif among them at the time. This was adopted by my ex- and I who did not live with such fears, but who certainly understood the feeling. So it became one of the earliest of our code expressions in private talk. It was both sympathetic and subversive humor, since it mocks the mentality of people who draw conclusions about the guilt or stereotypes of entire groups based on one stupid or evil individual. So whenever we used the expression “Thank God he wasn’t one of us” amongst ourselves, it was code words for “Wow, I feel bad for the group that this guy or gal belongs to” and “Aren’t people who are going to draw conclusions from this stupid?” So let’s say we would see something with a Polish guy doing something really bad and scandalous. We’d say “Thank God he wasn’t one of us,” meaning 1) boy do we feel bad for the rest of the Poles and 2) aren’t people sickening who are going to glom onto this as a way to be prejudiced against Poles? Obviously we were never saying that we were happy that the event occurred just because it wasn’t “our dog in the fight” (to use a modern term). Obviously it was quite the opposite; we were being sympathetic of those who might get backlash unfairly AND mocking those who would do so.
Friday, July 4, 2008
"Do Catholics read the Bible?" you think?
I did not want to interrupt the flow of thought in the previous blog about the Bible reading and commentary about a modern event, so I am going to use that Bible reading to make a separate point here. I am sooooooo tired of certain non-Catholic Christians who accuse the Catholics of “not reading the Bible.” While everyone can, and should, do better in their day to day Bible reading, you must understand that one reason many church going Catholics do not read the Bible more in their personal time is that there are three Bible readings a day in each Catholic Mass. I think it might be helpful to use the previous blog Bible reading as an example.
This Sunday’s Mass has the following as their three Bible readings, as listed in the commentary on Zenit that I linked to in the previous post:
The readings for this Sunday are Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30.
Now, in the previous post I copied from my “Daily Roman Missal,” which is the book used by Mass attending Catholics to follow the liturgy, the entry for Zechariah 9:9-10. So this is what the reader is reading and the parishioners are hearing:
From the Catholic Missal: First Reading
See, your king comes to you humbly.
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Zechariah
Thus says the Lord: Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem. See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; the warrior’s bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Ok, so that is the first reading in the allegedly non Bible reading Catholic Mass. Now I’m going to flip to that passage in my New American Bible, right here on the desk by my left elbow.
Zechariah 9:9-10
Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion,
Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king shall come to you;
A just savior is he,
Meek, and riding on an ass,
On a colt, the foal of an ass.
He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim,
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The warrior’s bow shall be banished,
And he shall proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion shall be from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.
Hmm, well, that sure looks like word for word a Bible reading to me. But wait, I own Protestant Bibles too, even though they leave out a number of “our” chapters. Let me make doubly sure that then thar Katolics are really reading the Bible. *Will now walk to the dining room cabinet where I have my Protestant Bibles.*
OK, I’m back. Here is my New King James version, which I bought because it is a small portable size and has a lovely fuchsia colored cover.
Zechariah 9: 9-10
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion!
Shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you:
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from
Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace of the
nations:
His dominion shall be from sea
to sea.
And from the River to the ends
of the earth.
Um, so what do you think? It looks like us Catholics are reading the Bible to me.
This Sunday’s Mass has the following as their three Bible readings, as listed in the commentary on Zenit that I linked to in the previous post:
The readings for this Sunday are Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30.
Now, in the previous post I copied from my “Daily Roman Missal,” which is the book used by Mass attending Catholics to follow the liturgy, the entry for Zechariah 9:9-10. So this is what the reader is reading and the parishioners are hearing:
From the Catholic Missal: First Reading
See, your king comes to you humbly.
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Zechariah
Thus says the Lord: Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem. See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; the warrior’s bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Ok, so that is the first reading in the allegedly non Bible reading Catholic Mass. Now I’m going to flip to that passage in my New American Bible, right here on the desk by my left elbow.
Zechariah 9:9-10
Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion,
Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king shall come to you;
A just savior is he,
Meek, and riding on an ass,
On a colt, the foal of an ass.
He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim,
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The warrior’s bow shall be banished,
And he shall proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion shall be from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.
Hmm, well, that sure looks like word for word a Bible reading to me. But wait, I own Protestant Bibles too, even though they leave out a number of “our” chapters. Let me make doubly sure that then thar Katolics are really reading the Bible. *Will now walk to the dining room cabinet where I have my Protestant Bibles.*
OK, I’m back. Here is my New King James version, which I bought because it is a small portable size and has a lovely fuchsia colored cover.
Zechariah 9: 9-10
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion!
Shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you:
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from
Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace of the
nations:
His dominion shall be from sea
to sea.
And from the River to the ends
of the earth.
Um, so what do you think? It looks like us Catholics are reading the Bible to me.
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