You have to feel a little sorry for the King of Pop.
Yeah, I think he's a creep, too. I don't believe for a second that all he did with his bedmates was have milk and cookies and read Dr. Seuss.
But Michael Jackson may, in part, be the victim of "godhood" imposed on him by unparalleled talent, outrageous luck and a mass media machine to make it all happen. When you have a multi-million-dollar bank account, a fairtytale home and the adulation of millions who worship at the Church of Michael, you can pretty much do what you want ... even if that includes hacking your face into a death mask.
Fabulous wealth + worldwide fame = self-destruction. Look at Elvis Presley. At least he stuck with chrome suits and Krispy Kreme as his vices. Nevertheless, he ended up dying on the toilet in his early 40s. Who thinks that Michael Jackson will make it to 60, either in or out of jail?
It's not good to be a god when you're just a human being. Virtually unlimited influence, power and wealth? Elvis couldn't handle it. Michael Jackson couldn't handle it. Who could?
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Friday, May 27, 2005
GGB on hiatus
Unless I can get the home computer back online shortly, the GGB will be on hiatus until Monday the 6th.
Please send only worshipful and fawning comments while I'm offline.
Please send only worshipful and fawning comments while I'm offline.
Yeeeeoooowwwwww!!!!
I can hear the squeals from the arse-smacking that Victor Davis Hanson just delivered to the more-enlightened-than-thou.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
'The business end of a dream deferred'
What a great phrase from Darryl James. Read his experience about being single and over 30.
I hear ya, bro.
(Hat tip: La Shawn Barber)
I hear ya, bro.
(Hat tip: La Shawn Barber)
That effin' documentary
*** READER ADVISORY -- EXPLICIT LANGUAGE ***
In response to my post about a proposed documentary on the f-word, blogger Carol had this pithy comment:
I'm surprised that someone who is so interested in language, writing and behavior would be so skeptical about a documentary like this. While I agree the letter is a bit overblown, it actually sounds like an interesting idea. It's been awfully perplexing to me that at a time when the country is at war, there's still plenty of time for our leaders to help us get our national panties in a twitch over boobs and bad words. Given that, I think a documentary exploring rhetorical hysteria is a great idea.
Touché, Carol. Why not give it documentary treatment? Are bad words just that ... bad words?
Granted, the movie isn't finished, but I'd be willing to bet that when it is, the f-word will be infused with some sort of gravitas. It'll be a mantra of liberation and enlightenment. What was profane will be sacred.
Don't laugh. Stay with me a minute.
Do you remember what the f-word means? Sexual intercourse. At its best, something special. Something sacred as in shared between two and no one else.
But fucking? That's different. Anyone can fuck. Now we fuck around, we fuck off, we tell people to fuck themselves. "Fuck" represents the lowest common denominator of the human sexual act, which is why it is/was considered an obscenity.
Now, I am not necessarily opposed to the word when used as intended. I am opposed, however, to elevating it to sacred mantra.
Same thing has happened to other vulgarities. Do a Google on the word "cunt" and see what I mean. Thanks to Eve Ensler and the Vagina Brigade, I'm being told to embrace the word "cunt." No longer a derogatory term for a woman's sexual organs, it's supposed to represent the power of my feminine sexuality and liberate me from the rigid sexual morés of the past.
In other words, I am my cunt and my cunt is me. Mmmmm, yeeeaaahhhh. Right.
That's what I find boring -- the preoccupation with the crude and the attempt to elevate the common to the divine.
In response to my post about a proposed documentary on the f-word, blogger Carol had this pithy comment:
I'm surprised that someone who is so interested in language, writing and behavior would be so skeptical about a documentary like this. While I agree the letter is a bit overblown, it actually sounds like an interesting idea. It's been awfully perplexing to me that at a time when the country is at war, there's still plenty of time for our leaders to help us get our national panties in a twitch over boobs and bad words. Given that, I think a documentary exploring rhetorical hysteria is a great idea.
Touché, Carol. Why not give it documentary treatment? Are bad words just that ... bad words?
Granted, the movie isn't finished, but I'd be willing to bet that when it is, the f-word will be infused with some sort of gravitas. It'll be a mantra of liberation and enlightenment. What was profane will be sacred.
Don't laugh. Stay with me a minute.
Do you remember what the f-word means? Sexual intercourse. At its best, something special. Something sacred as in shared between two and no one else.
But fucking? That's different. Anyone can fuck. Now we fuck around, we fuck off, we tell people to fuck themselves. "Fuck" represents the lowest common denominator of the human sexual act, which is why it is/was considered an obscenity.
Now, I am not necessarily opposed to the word when used as intended. I am opposed, however, to elevating it to sacred mantra.
Same thing has happened to other vulgarities. Do a Google on the word "cunt" and see what I mean. Thanks to Eve Ensler and the Vagina Brigade, I'm being told to embrace the word "cunt." No longer a derogatory term for a woman's sexual organs, it's supposed to represent the power of my feminine sexuality and liberate me from the rigid sexual morés of the past.
In other words, I am my cunt and my cunt is me. Mmmmm, yeeeaaahhhh. Right.
That's what I find boring -- the preoccupation with the crude and the attempt to elevate the common to the divine.
Monday, May 23, 2005
I wanna be an ad exec
Hey! I've got a great new concept for the next big pharmaceutical advertising campaign:
Have attractive, healthy-looking, upper-middle-class people talk about what a load of crap their lives were before taking ritavectinagra. Show shots of them limping on the playground with their grandkids, barfing into a toilet, having entire limbs fall off, stuff like that. Cut to cool graphics of ritavectinagra entering the bloodstream and making limbs grow back. Cut to peppy music and shots of people hauling surf boards into tsunamis and biking up the side of Mt. Everest. Be sure to include speedy rundown of side effects, which include nausea, hair loss, pimples, ingrown toenails, hives, impotence, major organ failure and coma.
Oh ... what? It's been done already? Shoot.
Have attractive, healthy-looking, upper-middle-class people talk about what a load of crap their lives were before taking ritavectinagra. Show shots of them limping on the playground with their grandkids, barfing into a toilet, having entire limbs fall off, stuff like that. Cut to cool graphics of ritavectinagra entering the bloodstream and making limbs grow back. Cut to peppy music and shots of people hauling surf boards into tsunamis and biking up the side of Mt. Everest. Be sure to include speedy rundown of side effects, which include nausea, hair loss, pimples, ingrown toenails, hives, impotence, major organ failure and coma.
Oh ... what? It's been done already? Shoot.
GGB summer reading list
I seem to be doing my best writing in e-mails to friends. Here's a recent excerpt:
"Loved Snow Crash. [A former boyfriend whose name shall be withheld] actually gave me Cryptonomicon as a gift Christmas before last. (I think it was a guilt offering.)
"Right now I'm trying (again!) to read Diamond Age. Neal Stephenson's prose is very dense, and I've discovered it doesn't make a really good poolside read, which is what I need now because my circuits are so fried, so this weekend I picked up a copy of Mary Higgins Clark's latest."
I think Neal Stephenson is sci fi's answer to Tom Clancy. At least I have a clue what he means when he writes about "buckminsterfullertubes." :D But sometimes all that detail clogs up the pipes of this ADD-addled brain.
"Loved Snow Crash. [A former boyfriend whose name shall be withheld] actually gave me Cryptonomicon as a gift Christmas before last. (I think it was a guilt offering.)
"Right now I'm trying (again!) to read Diamond Age. Neal Stephenson's prose is very dense, and I've discovered it doesn't make a really good poolside read, which is what I need now because my circuits are so fried, so this weekend I picked up a copy of Mary Higgins Clark's latest."
I think Neal Stephenson is sci fi's answer to Tom Clancy. At least I have a clue what he means when he writes about "buckminsterfullertubes." :D But sometimes all that detail clogs up the pipes of this ADD-addled brain.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a ...
Blogger Michelle Malkin recently received an invitation from Napoleon Dynamite casting director Jory Weitz to appear in a documentary about the f-word. (She declined.) Read all about it here.
Just how bored are we as a culture that we think an obscenity deserves documentary treatment? Good grief, you'd think Weitz was talking about global warming or beating baby seals the way he described the earth-shattering implications of the f-word in his letter to Malkin:
Boiler plate - this film will examine the long history of the word, trace its use through time and present all sides of the current and ongoing debate over its use.
OK, I know ... they'll delve into issues such as First Amendment rights, censorship, etc. Yeah, whatever. They also plan to bring in "important personalities" such as Sam Donaldson, Miss Manners and Alanis Morrisette, who I'm sure will be happy to tell us how she liberated female anger when she inserted the f-word in her hit song "You Oughtta Know." I wonder if they'll also interview Beavis and Butthead. ("Huh ... huhuhuhuh ... he said the f-word.")
Let's be honest. Hollywood of late has been delighting in the f-word like a potty-training two-year-old showing us his poo. Or, perhaps I should say like a 13-year-old boy who thinks he's the first one to discover profanity and is gleefully horrifying his parents.
I find it ridiculously boring. Chalk it up to well-fed Westerners to become enraptured with trivia.
Just how bored are we as a culture that we think an obscenity deserves documentary treatment? Good grief, you'd think Weitz was talking about global warming or beating baby seals the way he described the earth-shattering implications of the f-word in his letter to Malkin:
Boiler plate - this film will examine the long history of the word, trace its use through time and present all sides of the current and ongoing debate over its use.
OK, I know ... they'll delve into issues such as First Amendment rights, censorship, etc. Yeah, whatever. They also plan to bring in "important personalities" such as Sam Donaldson, Miss Manners and Alanis Morrisette, who I'm sure will be happy to tell us how she liberated female anger when she inserted the f-word in her hit song "You Oughtta Know." I wonder if they'll also interview Beavis and Butthead. ("Huh ... huhuhuhuh ... he said the f-word.")
Let's be honest. Hollywood of late has been delighting in the f-word like a potty-training two-year-old showing us his poo. Or, perhaps I should say like a 13-year-old boy who thinks he's the first one to discover profanity and is gleefully horrifying his parents.
I find it ridiculously boring. Chalk it up to well-fed Westerners to become enraptured with trivia.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Runaway bride story boon for sloganeers
The Jennifer Wilbanks fiasco has spawned its own cottage industry. Go to www.cafepress.com and do a search on "runaway bride." I though this messenger bag was particularly choice.
My prediction is that to "pull a Wilbanks" will ignobly enter the American lexicon just as "Lewinsky" has become a euphemism for, well, you know.
My prediction is that to "pull a Wilbanks" will ignobly enter the American lexicon just as "Lewinsky" has become a euphemism for, well, you know.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Dangit! Why didn't I think of that?
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/ts/042805missingbridega
Let's see if he actually gets payment. (I thought it was a pretty darn good likeness.)
UPDATE: Whoops. Time to get the butter.
Let's see if he actually gets payment. (I thought it was a pretty darn good likeness.)
UPDATE: Whoops. Time to get the butter.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Some reflections on the American Idol controversy
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz .......................
Monday, May 02, 2005
Please send Jennifer Wilbanks to her room
Note to the news media: Please do not grant Jennifer Wilbanks any more ink or air time. I’m already sick of seeing her face, and she doesn’t deserve it.
If the situation had been reversed, there would be no calls for "understanding" or "compassion" for the runaway groom. He’d be drawn and quartered by now.
Jennifer Wilbanks wimped out. Pure and simple. I’m glad she’s alive, and maybe she needs medication, but she also needs to grow up.
UPDATE:
Note to the WWJD crowd harping about "compassion": I am not condemning Jennifer Wilbanks to anything; I am not making pronouncements on the state of her eternal soul or whether Jesus forgives. (He does.)
I'm only saying that she is not a victim in the true sense of the word and it's ludicrous to characterize her as one. The press should focus its attention elswhere and not give her the satisfaction of notoriety, if that is indeed what she's looking for.
She obviously needs help but she also needs to be held accountable for putting her loved ones through untold anguish, deceiving the public and lying to law enforcement.
I'd be more likely to give her a pass if she were 14, but she's 32. Grownups do not fake their own abductions to get out of unpleasant and stressful situations. The cut hair they found indicates that she wanted people to think she was the victim of a crime, not that she merely skipped town and didn't tell anyone (which is not a crime).
Folks, with all the publicity surrounding the Laci Petersons and Chandra Levys of the world, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. We can't set a bad precedent and let her completely off the hook.
If the situation had been reversed, there would be no calls for "understanding" or "compassion" for the runaway groom. He’d be drawn and quartered by now.
Jennifer Wilbanks wimped out. Pure and simple. I’m glad she’s alive, and maybe she needs medication, but she also needs to grow up.
UPDATE:
Note to the WWJD crowd harping about "compassion": I am not condemning Jennifer Wilbanks to anything; I am not making pronouncements on the state of her eternal soul or whether Jesus forgives. (He does.)
I'm only saying that she is not a victim in the true sense of the word and it's ludicrous to characterize her as one. The press should focus its attention elswhere and not give her the satisfaction of notoriety, if that is indeed what she's looking for.
She obviously needs help but she also needs to be held accountable for putting her loved ones through untold anguish, deceiving the public and lying to law enforcement.
I'd be more likely to give her a pass if she were 14, but she's 32. Grownups do not fake their own abductions to get out of unpleasant and stressful situations. The cut hair they found indicates that she wanted people to think she was the victim of a crime, not that she merely skipped town and didn't tell anyone (which is not a crime).
Folks, with all the publicity surrounding the Laci Petersons and Chandra Levys of the world, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. We can't set a bad precedent and let her completely off the hook.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
File under 'I am not making this up'
The case of the exploding German toads, as reported by Little Green Footballs:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15626&only=yes
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15626&only=yes
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Cuff 'em all, I say!
Several years ago, I spent a particularly forgettable year teaching second-grade Sunday School. It took me and another woman to handle eight kids, including one who was "hyper" and would tell you so … after he got through turning the classroom into something resembling the Baghdad Hilton.
So when I saw the video of the five-year-old who went berserk and wound up in handcuffs, I was filled with secret glee.
Yeah … videos can be misleading, so I won’t make a definitive statement on this particular case. But let it be known: I am sick and tired of seeing kids who beat up on adults and no one does anything about it.
A few years ago, I attended a party of mostly 40-something adults. While noshing in the kitchen, I saw a mother tell her nine- or 10-year-old daughter she couldn’t play outside in the cold. The kid swatted her on the backside; mom did nothing. I nearly dropped my drink.
Later, another woman was calmly – calmly – talking about how her 16-year-old daughter had hit her so hard she’d bruised her arm. Nearly dropped my drink again. I figured the little brat I saw in the kitchen would one day be bruising her mother, too.
Hit my parent? Not unless I wanted to get the worst spanking of my life and be confined to my room for the next decade. It was unthinkable. If you were born in the ‘70s or before, you’re probably nodding your head.
I just don’t get these parents. And don’t tell me I don’t understand because I’m not a mother. I’ve already had to administer the hand-slap to my one-year-old niece when she reached for something she wasn’t supposed to. I will not hesitate to spank her little bottom if she ever strikes Aunt GGB.
And while the moonbat child "experts" complain that I’m "teaching her violence," the kids who aren’t spanked continue to spiral out of control and wind up top story on the evening news.
Or maybe that's the point – to get your 15 minutes of fame via your psycho child?
So when I saw the video of the five-year-old who went berserk and wound up in handcuffs, I was filled with secret glee.
Yeah … videos can be misleading, so I won’t make a definitive statement on this particular case. But let it be known: I am sick and tired of seeing kids who beat up on adults and no one does anything about it.
A few years ago, I attended a party of mostly 40-something adults. While noshing in the kitchen, I saw a mother tell her nine- or 10-year-old daughter she couldn’t play outside in the cold. The kid swatted her on the backside; mom did nothing. I nearly dropped my drink.
Later, another woman was calmly – calmly – talking about how her 16-year-old daughter had hit her so hard she’d bruised her arm. Nearly dropped my drink again. I figured the little brat I saw in the kitchen would one day be bruising her mother, too.
Hit my parent? Not unless I wanted to get the worst spanking of my life and be confined to my room for the next decade. It was unthinkable. If you were born in the ‘70s or before, you’re probably nodding your head.
I just don’t get these parents. And don’t tell me I don’t understand because I’m not a mother. I’ve already had to administer the hand-slap to my one-year-old niece when she reached for something she wasn’t supposed to. I will not hesitate to spank her little bottom if she ever strikes Aunt GGB.
And while the moonbat child "experts" complain that I’m "teaching her violence," the kids who aren’t spanked continue to spiral out of control and wind up top story on the evening news.
Or maybe that's the point – to get your 15 minutes of fame via your psycho child?
New digs
Finally, FINALLY got moved in! Still a lot of boxes to unpack. My home office looks like a warehouse.
My male cat only took a few hours to leave the safe haven of my lingerie drawer, but the female is still hiding under the bed.
More later.
My male cat only took a few hours to leave the safe haven of my lingerie drawer, but the female is still hiding under the bed.
More later.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Random thoughts ... er ... rants
Blogging may continue to be sporadic until the GGB gets her living situation situated. Until then, here are random thoughts (rants) of the day:
Worst thing about moving: Spending money. (On movers, deposits, cleaning services, boxes.)
Best thing about moving: Spending money. (On new curtains, rugs, appliances, etc.)
Dumbest anti-illegal-immigration argument: "We’re a nation of immigrants." No, we are not. For the record, I am not an immigrant. My ancestors arrived in the Carolinas more than 300 years ago, so I think I am safely in the category of "native." Don’t try that argument on me again, or I will not be responsible for my actions.
People’s faces I am sick of seeing: Martha Stewart. Britney Spears. Michael Jackson. I don’t give a rat’s patoot about any of them and it scares me that so many people do.
Dang funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time: Jay Leno’s "Jay Walking" segment on The Tonight Show. You can download clips from the show’s Web site. Hilarious.
Best anti-tax-day rant: The invincible Rachel Lucas at Blue-eyed Infidel strikes again. Makes me feel better that I still haven’t filed my taxes. (Ooops!)
So that’s why I’m still single: http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2005/04/more_women_than.html
If you have time to kill: You must check out one or more of these sites:
http://acme.com/heartmaker
http://www.band-name-generator.net/
http://www.churchsigngenerator.com/
http://george.says-it.com/
http://www.cyborgname.com/
OK. Back to real life. Have a great day.
Worst thing about moving: Spending money. (On movers, deposits, cleaning services, boxes.)
Best thing about moving: Spending money. (On new curtains, rugs, appliances, etc.)
Dumbest anti-illegal-immigration argument: "We’re a nation of immigrants." No, we are not. For the record, I am not an immigrant. My ancestors arrived in the Carolinas more than 300 years ago, so I think I am safely in the category of "native." Don’t try that argument on me again, or I will not be responsible for my actions.
People’s faces I am sick of seeing: Martha Stewart. Britney Spears. Michael Jackson. I don’t give a rat’s patoot about any of them and it scares me that so many people do.
Dang funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time: Jay Leno’s "Jay Walking" segment on The Tonight Show. You can download clips from the show’s Web site. Hilarious.
Best anti-tax-day rant: The invincible Rachel Lucas at Blue-eyed Infidel strikes again. Makes me feel better that I still haven’t filed my taxes. (Ooops!)
So that’s why I’m still single: http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2005/04/more_women_than.html
If you have time to kill: You must check out one or more of these sites:
http://acme.com/heartmaker
http://www.band-name-generator.net/
http://www.churchsigngenerator.com/
http://george.says-it.com/
http://www.cyborgname.com/
OK. Back to real life. Have a great day.
Friday, April 01, 2005
The GGB is tired
I am tired, folks.
Eyes-glazing-over, brain-fuzzed, desperately-need-a-12-hour-nap tired. I'm chugging Coke and snarfing Nutter Butters (I know ... awful but terribly delicious) in a desperate attempt to elevate my blood sugar.
It's been a major week. Between the wrenching dynamics of the Terri Schiavo case and more mundane but also important issues such as my impending change of residence, I am "'bout ready to tump over," as we say in the South. And I'm recovering from the crud.l I'm supposed to have dinner tonight with a friend at our favorite Indian restaurant, and I hope I don't flop face down in the sev betata puri.
Eyes-glazing-over, brain-fuzzed, desperately-need-a-12-hour-nap tired. I'm chugging Coke and snarfing Nutter Butters (I know ... awful but terribly delicious) in a desperate attempt to elevate my blood sugar.
It's been a major week. Between the wrenching dynamics of the Terri Schiavo case and more mundane but also important issues such as my impending change of residence, I am "'bout ready to tump over," as we say in the South. And I'm recovering from the crud.l I'm supposed to have dinner tonight with a friend at our favorite Indian restaurant, and I hope I don't flop face down in the sev betata puri.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Civilized society
I ate lunch today and washed it down with a soda, thus successfully delaying my own death by avoiding starvation and dehydration.
I can feed myself. I can speak, walk and move. I work and pay taxes, which means I am considered a productive member of society and cannot be disposed of.
But I’m being harsh. That Terri Schiavo was lucky. Her husband was merely carrying out her wishes when he denied her the supremely unnatural and heroic intervention of food and water. I’m sure that a man who is living with another woman and has two children by her can be trusted to make life-and-death decisions regarding his helpless wife.
And anyway, Terri Schiavo was given morphine at the end to ease her painless and elegant death. And she was beautiful at the end. I know it’s true because a lawyer said so.
That lucky duck. What a great blessing to have your unfaithful husband and a phalanx of lawyers and judges say to hell with your heartbroken parents and siblings, your husband is boss and if he says you once told him you wouldn’t want to live in this "state," then by golly what he says goes.
We wouldn’t want those pesky Republicans and right-wing Christian zealots possibly interfering with the sanctity of your marriage. No, no, no, we wouldn’t want anyone to further their political career by having the audacity to say that maybe you should be kept alive and given a chance to be rehabilitated rather than warehoused or killed.
After all, who but a knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping IDIOT would want to care for someone like Terri Schiavo?
Excuse me now … I’ve got to go join the protest over serving foie gras in Oregon. No ducks are going to be mistreated on my watch! Hell, no ... we're a civilized society.
I can feed myself. I can speak, walk and move. I work and pay taxes, which means I am considered a productive member of society and cannot be disposed of.
But I’m being harsh. That Terri Schiavo was lucky. Her husband was merely carrying out her wishes when he denied her the supremely unnatural and heroic intervention of food and water. I’m sure that a man who is living with another woman and has two children by her can be trusted to make life-and-death decisions regarding his helpless wife.
And anyway, Terri Schiavo was given morphine at the end to ease her painless and elegant death. And she was beautiful at the end. I know it’s true because a lawyer said so.
That lucky duck. What a great blessing to have your unfaithful husband and a phalanx of lawyers and judges say to hell with your heartbroken parents and siblings, your husband is boss and if he says you once told him you wouldn’t want to live in this "state," then by golly what he says goes.
We wouldn’t want those pesky Republicans and right-wing Christian zealots possibly interfering with the sanctity of your marriage. No, no, no, we wouldn’t want anyone to further their political career by having the audacity to say that maybe you should be kept alive and given a chance to be rehabilitated rather than warehoused or killed.
After all, who but a knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping IDIOT would want to care for someone like Terri Schiavo?
Excuse me now … I’ve got to go join the protest over serving foie gras in Oregon. No ducks are going to be mistreated on my watch! Hell, no ... we're a civilized society.
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