MARK STEYN: LAST LAUGHS
http://www.steynonline.com/6997/last-laughs
Toward the end of my book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn (personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available, etc, etc), there’s a section called “Last Laughs” – because in the future there will be no jokes. I’m glad to see the bigshots are catching up to it. From The Hollywood Reporter:
Jerry Seinfeld: Political Correctness Will Kill Comedy
Not sure about his tense there. It’s already killed off a not insignificant chunk of it. Mr Seinfeld’s generation can still raise a titter at carefully selected comedic material, but among the pajama boys and safe-space snowflakes jokes are micro-aggressions and punchlines need trigger warnings:
“I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC,'” said Seinfeld.
He continued, “I’ll give you an example: My daughter’s 14. My wife says to her, ‘Well, you know, in the next couple years, I think maybe you’re going to want to be hanging around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys.’ You know what my daughter says? She says, ‘That’s sexist.'”
Jon Gabriel comments:
Tell a joke to a liberal. Between your punchline and his laughter, there is a Progressive Comedy Pause. In this second or two, the liberal will process the joke to make sure he is allowed to laugh.
I mentioned while guest-hosting for Rush on Monday that Spike TV – which is supposed to be Guy TV, Bloke TV, the Man-Cave Network – has some “Guys’ Choice” Awards, supposedly for the shows men like. But, of course, like every other network, it’s run by craven metrosexual eunuchs. So, on the awards night, Clint Eastwood made a Caitlyn Jenner crack – and it was cut from the broadcast.
The pajama boys should be grateful to Republicans. If it weren’t for Jon Stewart et al’s cheap sneers at the right, there’d be nothing safe to laugh at at all.
~One of the reasons why the above is so pathetic is because the left doesn’t even take seriously the things it gets so shrieky and queeny over. You don’t have to decode Jerry Seinfeld’s jests to find evidence of, say, “homophobia” or “the war against women”. They’re staring you in the face if you’d just raise your gaze from your navel once in a while. Via Scaramouche, you want “homophobia”?
ISIS Throws Gay Men Off Buildings Under Guise of Sharia Law
As Scaramouche points out, it’s not “under guise of Sharia law”; it is Sharia law. But don’t worry, on the way down, I’m sure they were complaining that there’s an evangelical bakery in Des Moines that won’t take their funeral-cake order.
How about that “war on women”?
Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria are being sold in slave markets “for as little as a pack of cigarettes”, the UN envoy on sexual violence said yesterday.
Zainab Bangura visited Iraq and Syria in April, and has since been working on an action plan to address the horrific sexual violence being waged by Islamic State fighters.
“This is a war that is being fought on the bodies of women,” Ms Bangura said in an interview.
But enough of these peripheral fripperies, let’s get back to the important stuff: Across America, municipalities are divided on whether to rename Bruce Jenner Lane “Caitlyn Jenner Lane”.
~Apropos our latest Sinatra Century song, Dan Hollombe writes to chide me for not naming the rhythm players on “Somethin’ Stupid” – and he’s right. I should have credited them, because Nancy always does:
Hello Mark,
The musicians in the left-hand speaker of “Something Stupid” are certainly worthy of individual mention. That “jangly guitar intro” was courtesy of wrecking crewers Al Casey strumming the steel strings and Tommy Tedesco picking the nylon strings. The great Hal Blaine on drums and Carole Kaye on bass completed the rhythm section.
For me, the highlight of the record has always been that cool augmented dominant chord that comes in at the end of the bridge (after the words, “right before”). It’s a common Brill Building trick that Lennon & McCartney put to good use on Bad To Me, the hit they wrote for Billy J. Kramer in 1963.
People tend to think of the spring of 1967 as being dominated by psychedelia, but the reality of the matter is, M.O.R. tunes like “Something Stupid” were very much the default setting of the period, and “Strawberry Fields Forever” the anomaly. Also popular around that time was “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” “Release Me,” “Up Up And Away” and “Music To Watch Girls By” (both the instrumental by Bob Crewe and the vocal version by Andy Williams). Of course, that would all change by the summer and fall, when psychedelia really did begin to dominate…”Incense & Peppermint” “White Rabbit” “Reflections” and of course, “Heroes & Villains,” featuring lyrics by Carson Parks’ more famous younger brother (who is a very prolific Tweeter these days. Quite an erudite avuncular fellow, and worth following).
Dan Hollombe
On that last point, those Sixties MOR hits Dan lists are all ones I have an affection for (well, except maybe “Release Me”) – and I even took a crack at one of ’em. I’m not big on oldies stations generally, because I don’t like to live in that precise a past, but part of why I find “Sixties On Six”, “Seventies On Seven” et al such dully programmed channels is because there are whole swathes of the sound of those years that they ignore. One reason why Jessica and I did “Sweet Gingerbread Man” is because it’s one of those songs that was everywhere for 20 minutes and then never heard again. Songs like “Sweet Gingerbread” and “Music To Watch Girls By” fall in the hole between the oldies station and the standards station and get ignored by both. Maybe I’ll see if Caitlyn would be interested in having me sing “Music To Watch TransGirls By”.
~Anthony Watts has a post worth reading just to find out how thoroughly he justifies the headline:
Oh, Mann, That’s Gotta Hurt
It’s on the respective sales performances of Climate Change: The Facts and Michael E Mann’s dire book – I mean, Michael E Mann’s Dire Predictions book. One of the few Big Climate honchos still prepared to tack his colors to Mann’s stick, Bob Ward, tries not to let his bitterness show:
It just goes to show that a climate change ‘sceptic’ and his money are soon parted.
To which I replied:
Don’t worry, Bob. Once NOAA “adjust” @MichaelEMann’s figures, his book will be a bestseller.
Anthony Watts and I and various of our Climate Change: The Facts co-authors will be in Washington, DC tomorrow and Friday for the Heartland Institute’s big Denierpalooza. The conference is sold out, I’m afraid, but I believe some of it will be “livestreamed” and also broadcast on cable – so look out for me on a computer or telly screen near you Friday morning at 8.30 Eastern.
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