skippy the bush kangaroo

And lesbians didn't exist at all. So we certainly would not let our children know about them, or have them appear on something called "Teen Age Music International"

They would have no immortality.**

And then there were the Sixties, where people discovered gays existed, but we try to forget about that. By the late Seventies and early 1980s, Americans hated gays again. Indeed, the only people they hated more were Iranians.

So the last thing they would ever have done is made a gay Iranian into a multi-platinum recording artist who still gets treated as if he were a G-d today. Most especially, we would never use his song at Manly Sporting Events.

Or headlining—and stealing the show—at the worldwide broadcast of a concert for hope, charity, and food.***

By the Nineties, of course, the rise of rap music to the point where white kids were listening to it—and especially "Gangsta Rap"—just reaffirmed that there is no place for gays—and especially not gay men—in music.

And certainly even if there were gay men allowed near rap, they would have no lasting influence.

I hope it's clear from the above that ignoring gays throughout history will not at all negatively impact one's understanding of American popular music.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods is playing at Shakespeare in the Park this year, and I have to find a way to see it. Though I may first have to check what Alex Ross says about it in The New Yorker.

*Oops. Full disclosure: the relative who is generally finishing a stint of indentured servitude at UCLJSD is currently out of the country.

**I would have written this entire post just to get this one in. It's still one of my favorite recordings, and I can't bloody find a copy either.

***Or on movie soundtracks as possibly the greatest karaoke song of all time, even down to its use of bismillah in the lyrics. Or as the creator of a love song the rest of the world likes much more than I do. Devotees are offered the full twenty-plus minutes here:

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forget "let them eat cake"...the banksters want spain to wear "handmedowns"

with spain on the brink of bankruptcy, its olympic committee decided to save money this year. it got its olympic uniforms for free, from the russian designer bosco, which also provided kit for the russian and ukrainian teams.

but several spanish athletes have taken to twitter to express their distaste for the freebie clothes they're required to wear. after an outcry over u.s. olympic outfits made in china, spain's olympians have a different gripe about their uniforms: they're just plain ugly.- npr

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It's been five days, and so far nothing is working. So I'm going to throw up a fun ditty and leave it to the Blogtopia(tm, Skippy) Readership to find the post chez DeLong and the original quote. For extra credit, explain that the reason for the editing is that it's judicious, not malfeasance.*

Meanwhile, have some fun with this possibly-irrelevant tune.

*I haven't seen anyone else mention it directly, but I've been offline much of the past week. So probably I'm wrong.

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While I can't find the most famous sketch he wrote, here's Jacques Pepin explaining the real-life version of it:

And here's my wife's old friend, Stephanie, sharing stories about Julia. (Stories about Tom's old writing and performing partner are ongoing, as he—unlike David Bowie in Todd Haynes's imagination—really did become a Statesman.)

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There is the most famous, Utopia. Greek for “No place,” made famous in English by Sir Thomas More, now generally used to refer to any place in the word’s homeland that was not given to the Jerrys for tupence in honor of the latest “bail-out” of the Fourth Reich’s bankers.

The above is borderline a violation of Godwin’s Law.  Which I think of as a blogsphere coinage,though it probably goes back to some geeky fandom.

There is “Eutopia.”  Good place.  Poul Anderson isn’t so famous as Sir Thomas More—never had an English muffin named after him, I guess—but he used that as the title of a story published in 1967 that apparently was the first time genre readers discovered that homosexuals exist.  Or something like that.

A Good Place.  Not where everybody knows your name—well, at least not unless you think “Every Breath You Take” is a song about Romance—but where you can always find something to do, and generally something that is interesting.

The rule of a Successful Blog—unless you’re someone with a built-in audience, such as a private-school educated Liberal who writes about how society cannot afford to keep the common weal even relatively healthy and how everything would be just great if there were vouchers instead of public education—is, first and foremost, that you write something worth publishing every day.  That’s generally in addition to your day job.  Or jobs.

Speaking strictly for me, I’ve written over 20,000 words in the past week. Blogging on top of it?  A rare occurrence.

And then there is Blogtopia:  “Blog Place.”  Sounds like a street name in Desperate Housewives or Weeds.

The coiner of that coinage runs this blog, and packs quite a kick.  Skippy started this blog before either of the above referenced television shows came on the air; one is now gone, and it looks as if the other might be wrapping up.

Ten years ago, the ugly domed stadium my train just passed—the one that may well bankrupt the city of Harrison, New Jersey—didn’t exist.  George W. Bush was still pretending he might not be determined to go to war for the second time, the first President in U.S. history to be so fiscally irresponsible as not to pay for the upfront cost—let alone the precious Human Capital associated with it—so that spending about $1,000,000 a year for each soldier would not burden the schools, the fire stations, the police stations, the roadways, or the power grid that soldier is supposed to be fighting to protect.

Ten years ago, the people who believe others shouldn’t have the right to vote were at least polite enough not to say so loudly and publicly to the New York Times.

Ten years ago, no one would have believed that the primary contender for the Republican Vice Presidential slot would be someone who would seriously propose that we need to cut medical benefits so we can give the rich another tax cut. (Far too many still do not.)

Ten years ago, I only had one daughter, my property taxes were half of what they are now (for the same house), and anyone who told you people would pay $80 or more a month for internet access (figure $30 for the home, $30 more for the mobile, $20 for the tethering—all plus taxes) would have been looked at as if they were insane. Now, people who don’t do it get looks of pity from their peers.

I wrote maybe a thousand words today that no one will read who does not have to.  Blogtopia is the place where you write, and read, what you want to, not what you have to.

Skippy has made the world a better place, and I am happy to be a(n infrequent) contributor.  I’ll try to do better.

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to cheer for the bulls in pamplona?

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a 20 minute show....over in 20 seconds...but an awesome epic fail. 

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