I hope you find this as funny as I did:
As you probably guessed, I was laughing hysterically all the way through. But just in case it’s not your cup of tea, here’s another birfday offering:
Hope you’re having a happy one! And congratulations on the upcoming graduation of your wonderful son.
Noted children’s book author has died at age 83.
NPR’s Terry Gross did an interview with Sendak last fall that was so illuminating – I had never read anything about his personal life, or seen or heard him interviewed. He was gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but he wasn’t “out” until recently, and it just brings home again how times have changed for the better – back in the 1960′s, children’s book publishers would not have published a book for children by an openly gay author. He was an atheist, which might be enough to keep children’s book publishers from publishing him today, if he had not already been well-established before the current craziness took root. He never had children of his own. The interview is really touching – Sendak is very emotional in his musings about both his earlier and recent life, and the approaching end of his life.
Much more upbeat was this interview with Stephen Colbert (and since I can’t embed the videos because FYWP, try these):
If both parts aren’t available there – availability has been spotty today, even on the Colbert site – try the direct links below:
grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt–1
grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt–2
I loved this second interview, because among other things, Sendak confesses to a general dislike of people and reveals a very dark and cynical sense of humor, which means that perhaps there is some hope for me after all. But really, go watch both segments – they are well worth the time. Would that we could all be Maurice Sendak, enormously talented and as openly comfortable and unapologetic about being ourselves as he was.
Hey, just be glad it wasn’t goatse!
Hope you have a happy one.
In an effort to move the unpleasantness of the last post further down the page, I’d like to revisit a bizarre childhood memory: The Goat Man.
People I’ve told about the Goat Man in my adult life have tended to be disbelieving, probably for the simple reason that the Goat Man spent most of his time on the east coast, so they probably never saw him when they were kids. But he was a regular fixture in Georgia where I grew up; I remember one time, aged 5 or 6, riding down US 41 and my dad saying, “kids, look – it’s the Goat Man!” Even to a young child, the sight was surreal – a ZZ Top figure in overalls walking alongside a rickety wagon piled with scrap metal, rags, and other detritus, all being pulled by a team of a dozen or more goats, with more goats behind.
I think this photo must have been taken in the late 40′s to mid-50′s, but since the Goat Man pretty much defied progress, the whole tableaux looks about the same as it did when I saw it in the late 60′s – except US 41 in those days had become a very busy road, so the Goat Man kept to the shoulder.
One other time the Goatman had pitched camp on the side of US 41; we begged Dad to stop so we could see the Goat Man, but he refused with some comment about how bad goats smell and something about the Goat Man being crazy. Dad had long familiarity with the Goat Man, who he said had travelled through regularly since he was a kid.
Those are the only two times I remember seeing the Goat Man; I mostly forgot about him until the late 80′s, when I was browsing through a book about southern legends in a bookstore – and there he was, in a chapter devoted to his life and travels. I don’t remember all the details or the name of that particular book, but do remember how surprised I was to learn that he had been married and had a child. According to this account, his wife didn’t like travelling but he found he couldn’t settle down, so she left with the child and he continued on with the goats. One phrase I remember, in a section where he talked about sleeping (in the non-Biblical sense) with his goats, was how he described cold nights as “two-goat nights”, when he would pull two goats on top of himself when he went to sleep. Reading that, I had no problem sympathizing with the former Mrs. Goat Man, who probably had no more love for the smell of goat than any of us do.
Charles "Ches" McCartney, a.k.a. The Goat Man
These days with the fancy internets and all, information about the Goat Man is a bit easier to come by, though much of it, cobbled together from Ches McCartney’s own accounts, seems quite fanciful. The way he told it, he ran away from his home in Iowa in 1915 at age 14, went to New York City, and married a Spanish knife-thrower a decade his senior. Then again, given the circumstances of his last travel, maybe it’s not so unbelievable. In the late 1980′s, he followed the well-trod path of both Jon Lovitz’ “the Liar” character and Pee Wee Herman and went to Los Angeles to woo Morgan Fairchild; once there he was mugged. He never did get to meet Ms. Fairchild – funds were raised to purchase a plane ticket to bring him “home” to Macon, Georgia, and his travels finally drew to a close.
The “goat years” of his travels for which he was known took place from 1930 – 1969, and the wife who briefly travelled with him was his second. He claimed to be an ordained Pentecostal (what else?) minister, and apparently preached whenever a crowd showed up at his camp – which solved for me the riddle of why Dad wouldn’t let us stop to see the Goat Man. From various internet accounts, he also seemed to have some rather novel ideas about other things, like race war, which probably would serve him well in today’s paranoid teabagger crowd. He mostly travelled the east coast between Maryland and Florida, typically going south in the winter and travelling back north the following spring, so any of you old farts reading this who grew up anywhere in the Southeast during that time period might have seen him.
Whatever else he may have been, he was an original, an eccentric throwback to the hobos of the Depression, and clearly someone who managed to live life on his own dirty, smelly, goat-ridden terms.
No one ever forgets their first goatse, though some people (I speak here of my co-bloggers) have had the good fortune to have never been goatse’d in the first place. And I, to my credit, have been good enough not to tell them what goatse is. Now, thanks to this piece in Gawker, Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man Behind the Most Disturbing Internet Meme in History, everyone has a chance to learn what goatse is without being subjected to the indelible image itself.
My feeling about goatse is, well, it’s gross of course, but in a very very sick and twisted way, much much funnier than a Rickroll. Goatse was the original Rickroll, and though it has now faded in popularity, remains one of those things that is so horrible to behold that it must be shared, so that others can share in the pain.
Gawker has covered the ground here quite well, so I’ll leave it at that, except I’ll share this image I found quite a while back but never had reason to post. My thought was that if Animal House was remade and set in the 2000′s, that cake float would instead look something like this:
H/t, or blame, goes to Halloween Jack in comments at alicublog, for bringing the Gawker link to my attention.
Thomas Kinkade, self-described (and trademarked) “Painter of Light” died Friday at his California home of natural causes.
I wasn’t going to post anything about this, until I saw that the screed I posted on Kinkade’s work almost a year and a half back got over 10,000 reads yesterday, a big deal for a small family blog like this one, and that, of course, in the comments there have been a few on the theme of “Leave Britney ALONE!!”
So I’d just like to say, for the record, that even though I found Kinkade’s work trite, I never wished the man dead, or even ill, even though I did find his foibles amusing - mostly because he so openly pandered to religious sentimentality and strove to portray such bucolic innocence in his work. This, you must admit, is very much at odds with whipping it out and pissing on Winnie the Pooh at Disneyland. All of that has to do with his body of work and his public life; of course I did not know the man and so have no insight as to who he was in private, whether he was a really great guy or not, or anything else, and offer condolences to his family and friends.
But I would like to address those who commented on the original post to the effect of “who are you to judge” and “if you don’t like it you shouldn’t critique it.” First of all, I’m not judging anyone’s like or dislike of Kinkade’s work. If you like it, fine. We all have what I like to call “guilty pleasures” – things we like even though we know we should know better. Mine is Duran Duran’s Greatest Hits, which I’ll pull out and actually play once every 3 or 4 years (in my defense, I got it for only a dollar when I worked at the used record store). I know it’s not good music; I know there’s nothing remotely artistic about it, despite all the videos of Simon LeBon cavorting with models. It just is what it is – meaningless pop that I for whatever reason will listen to and enjoy occasionally. That’s the point – there’s nothing wrong with liking Thomas Kinkade’s work – as long as you recognize that it’s not fine art and is not an asset that will appreciate in value.
Why does the distinction matter? Because of stories like this: Thomas Kinkade’s death sparks run on his paintings at West Michigan art gallery. There are several things just wrong with that headline, the primary being that the stuff for sale at Thomas Kinkade and other galleries weren’t paintings – they were prints of original works by Kinkade that had been “enhanced” in a few areas of the image with a few brushstrokes by an assistant. The Hand of the Master touched none of them, and with an estimated 1 in 20 homes in the US owning a Kinkade “painting”, the print runs were in the hundreds of thousands. These things have the same approximate value as commemorative plates from the Franklin Mint; they just aren’t worth anything more than the nominal value of the materials and labor that went into making them, and never will be.
That all deals with the actual value of Kinkade’s work, but the other point is that Kinkade’s work isn’t art because there’s simply nothing behind it other than an idea to paint a pretty picture. Again, if you think the pictures are pretty, fine. But there’s no emotion or idea going on behind it, other than “what will sell?”, which makes it impossible to connect with on anything other than a very superficial level such as “the colors match the sofa.”
Here’s the thing: Thomas Kinkade had technical painting ability. I can’t paint anything like he did (I wouldn’t want to, but that’s beside the point). And this is what he chose to paint. He chose to make a business empire rather than be an artist. That’s ok, again, as long as the people who paid hundreds of dollars or more for prints of his work re-touched with paint by assistants also understood it. I think a lot of them did not. But he most assuredly did, and as evidence, I offer the following:
When Kinkade created or agreed to having his name put on these objets d’crap, you can be certain that he wasn’t thinking of himself as an artist.
So, that’s pretty much it – Thomas Kinkade died, I’m sorry for his family and friends, and I still think his work was dreadful, but you should feel free to like it if you must – just please don’t call it art.
And….just one last thing, because I’m a bad person and can’t help myself, but I’m left wondering if, at the end, the Light Kinkade walked into featured a radioactive glow and lurid colors, and if somewhere, a Hobbit got his Ring.
A few weeks ago, I observed that cat-biting seems to be a favorite turtle activity. Here’s more evidence:
But apparently, cats aren’t the only things turtles like to bite:
I told you turtles were little bastards!
I also found this unrelated, but I thought amazing, series of bald eagles hanging out with cats. I always thought an eagle would eat a cat, but maybe not:
You’ve gotta love the impotent paw swipe at the end.
The eagles seem to hang out with the cats fairly often:
The youtube is full of interesting animal interactions – deer grooming cats, cats nursing rabbits – you name it. I went looking around because I’ve got a squirrel who’s pretty tame and will come up onto the porch when I’m out there to eat birdseed and fetch pecans (I have a bunch of unshelled pecans that are too small to bother shelling). The first time the cat saw the squirrel out there with me, she went out and sat right in the middle of the pecans. So the squirrel comes back after hiding one of the nuts, wants the rest of those pecans, and gets all up in her grill. Eartha quite frankly didn’t know how to handle it – she backed off and went to sit in her chair. That’s how it’s gone pretty much ever since. I think the squirrel is very curious of her – it’s tried a couple of times to get up close enough to the end of her tail to sniff (or bite?) it, and when it gets within a couple of inches, she freaks out and either runs or menaces the squirrel to get it to back off. She’ll still try to chase the squirrel sometimes, and a few days ago actually managed to jump right on top of it before deciding immediately to let it go. I think she knows that squirrels are pretty scrappy, so it unnerves her when one walks right up to where she’s sitting in her chair and puts its face within 6 inches of hers. Maybe at some point I’ll get some photos of them together and put them up.
As if things weren’t already bad enough, what with most people not being able to figure out who he really is, and those who have deciding that they don’t like him and people making fun of him on the internets with things like this:
…now comes word that, after the Bataan Death-March which this year’s GOP nominating contest has become, following a divisive and dispirited convention in which Dog-on-Car battles Man-on-Dog to the preordained Pyrrhic victory, both he and Republicans in general face an astounding 55 point gap* with the President and the Democrats among Hispanic/Latino voters. Add that to the pre-existing gap with women, which has grown into a chasm in the midst of a quixotic national slut-shaming campaign by conservatives (slut = any woman who ever has, or has ever had, sex – or thought about it) and it all adds up to no way this guy can win, probably not even with the assist of the most aggressive attempts to stop the wrong people from voting that we’ve seen since the days of Jim Crow and unlimited superPAC funds.
In a way, you almost have to pity Romney. He seems like he’s not a horrible guy, just one who’s very out-of-touch with the daily realities and concerns of people who aren’t quarter-billionaires. Unfortunately, the only principle he seems to be able to hold firm is that he should be the president, and this opens him to a world of ridicule. There’s just something unseemly about a guy with that much wealth debasing himself with awkward greetings of “Mornin’, y’all” and visibly insincere paens to “cheesy grits” (note, Mitt – they’re cheese grits, not “cheesy” grits).
Even in a Republican party not gone insane, Mitt would still be a less-than-compelling candidate. But he has the misfortune of having his turn come up at a time when the party faithful will accept nothing less than barking lunacy in a candidate, and to his discredit, he’s tried to accomodate – which has earned him a slight plurality in the nomination race. The Beatles were right all those years ago – money can’t buy you love, but it can certainly insulate you from those who don’t love you – if only you’ll let it.
On second thought, maybe Romney’s as crazy as the rest of the bunch – he’s sought this out, when he could just be hanging out around the pool at his 11,000 sf seaside mansion, playing with his grandkids and secure in the knowledge that his fortune will keep them wealthy to the end of their lives. Instead, he spends his time on the road, sleeping in motels and probably eating fairly crappy road food, to pander to people who don’t really like him under the pretense of being a fellow Wal-Mart shopper.
In the larger sense, Romney’s tragedy is the tragedy of the Republican party.** As I noted elsewhere, back in the Reagan era, Evil drove the conservative bus; Stupid just paid for the gas. That’s completely reversed now; Stupid is driving the bus, and it’s being funded by Evil in the form of the Koch brothers and folks like Sheldon Adelson, Gingrich’s pimp daddy. Reagan had to pretend to be smarter than he was to win; Romney has to pretend to be dumber than he is to secure the nomination. I remember thinking back at the beginning of the whole teabagging thing about Churchill’s quote: “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.” I thought then that encouraging the expression of sheer id the party had appealed to for the past 30 years was probably not a very good idea; but encourage it they did. It now appears that the 2012 election will be one where we witness the tigers feeding upon the entrails of their former riders.
One can always hope, anyway.
*This is a Fox News poll, so it doesn’t have any of that icky liberal media bias on it.
**For all values of “tragedy” which fit the Mel Brooks definition (paraphrased): “Comedy is when you fall down a flight of stairs and break your neck. Tragedy is when I stub my toe.”
This comes courtesy of John Cole at Balloon Juice. I don’t recommend watching the whole thing, but there is one bit that’s almost inspired in its lunacy at about 10:30 into the clip. This comes from the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Oklahoma – a state which, I have long averred, would be where God would stick the tube should He decide in His infinite wisdom to give the United States an enema.
Of course, I was reminded of this:
Not surprising that Oklahoma bellies right up to the part of Texas featured in True Stories; folks in more enlightened lands might not have realized it when the movie was made back in the late ’80′s, but it was a very accurate representation of that part of the country. In the 25 years since, the views of the majority of people in this area have not moderated; if anything, they’ve only grown more extreme. Oklahoma and west Texas rival South Carolina for the title of most reactionary area of the country.
Dear Jaffner,
I think I know why you like this picture. It reminds you of the time you set the gutter on fire, doesn’t it? Big flames, satisfied smirk. Was the other weird sister was there, too? It was practically in her yard, at any rate.
Recently, you must have told my own kids about this one. They refuse to believe I didn’t participate in those pyrotechnics. They tell me, as if citing from a rule book, “Well, did you do anything to try to stop it?”
I admit it. I loved that felt beanie.
Or maybe the picture reminds you of our own experience in Girl Scouts. Until recently, I thought we were atypical. How many times did we even make it in the door after our moms dropped us off? On at least one occasion, I remember smoking cigarettes behind the building. I have a vague memory of blaming it on the ugly uniforms, which I suddenly hated after doting on those cute Brownie clothes. Our moms tried to keep us from quitting. Good luck with that.
Now I know that it was Girl Scouting itself that set us on this dark path of independent thinking. I’m sure it’s why our collective closets are packed full of gay and lesbian friends. We’re only fruit flies, after all.
Liberty and justice for all in the land of the free.
Which brings me back to my own boys, who on occasion over the years begged me to let them be Boy Scouts. Each time, I patiently explained to them why they couldn’t. In fact, I think this was probably the opener for their ongoing indoctrination into civil rights for homosexual people. Which, sadly, has now deteriorated into “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” on cue.
We should’ve stuck with that Cub Scout pack we enjoyed so much. In hindsight, my mom probably knew the Boy Scouts wouldn’t let us play once we aged out of her backyard den, Or maybe she sensed that budding feminists, latent Communists like us would never fit in with the more military (would that be Fascist, then?) agenda of boys who had outgrown pine-cone crafts and pond fishing.
Probably a good thing. Those Boy Scout shorts would have made our butts look big.
BDay
lytanorman
jennofark