What's in a Name?“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” - William Shakespeare.
What is the importance of a name? Why is it that a child having the father's last name is something that has to happen? Why when that child is a boy? Does it really matter that the family name is carried on? Majority of the names now can only go back a few generations anyway? Someone please explain this to me.
Friday night at the movies
Since we all felt better by the end of the week and can now spend several hours in public without having to stop and cough up a lung every 15 minutes, we spent Friday evening in Minneapolis. All four of us. SETU drove, which meant that Leland "Buzz" and I sat in the backseat shrieking and hollering directions and repeatedly stomping our right feet on imaginary brake pedals.
No, I exaggerate. SETU is actually a very good driver. Very steady; very confident; very careful. And I'm sure SYTU will be equally good when he gets his driver's license next year. I have much to be thankful for. Later this weekend I will sacrifice a Gold n Plump three legged fryer from Cub on the altar grill to propitiate the gods.
I really should stop calling them the Surly Elder and Younger Teenaged Units, because they are really not surly very often, if at all anymore. So, what adjective to use instead? They are both taller than their parents, and have been for quite a while now. Their current heights are hovering around the 6'4" mark, more or less, depending on hair length and what degree of teenage slacker slouch they are affecting this week. I think I'll refer to them as the Towering Elder and Younger Teenaged Units -- The Two Towers -- until something better comes along.
They each have their own crowd of peeps, buds, friends, what have you, and their own social lives, so we hardly ever go out to the movies like this anymore - - not all together, and not on a Friday night, but Leland "Buzz" made the admirable suggestion that we go into town and see "National Treasure" at the Riverview, and that sounded like a great idea to all four of us, so that's what we did.
Leland "Buzz" and I saw "The Incredibles" there last month, and I've been raving about the Riverview ever since. It is now officially my Most Favorite Movie Theater of All Time. Click on the link and take the Quicktime virtual tour of the lobby and the auditorium. This is Movie Heaven, imho. The movie-going experience could not possibly get any better than this.
My favorite movie house for many years was the Uptown, because I lived in the neighborhood for a decade, and had so many memorable times there...
In '77 I introduced my sister and brother in law [the ones who are now Limbaugh-tomized and worship at the Church of Dear Leader] to the joys of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Uptown. They hadn't drunk the rethuglican koolaid back then, altho in restrospect I can see why, when it was offered to them, they gulped it down with gusto. My brother-in-law: a straight-arrow, Navy ROTC-bred, decorated Vietnam vet nursing a simmering hatred for all those lazy, undeserving, liberal-coddled welfare cheats and dope-peddling hippie freaks he saw everywhere when he returned home from his tour of duty. And My sister: the classic obedient wife, taking all her cues for social interaction and all her talking points verbatim from her husband.
Oy. I suppose I should be concerned that they're going to read this post, but I know they never will. After all, these are the people who bought a desktop PC a couple years ago and hardly ever turn the thing on, much less read email or surf.
I had been going to RHPS about once a month, with a different friend or group of friends each time, and finally I decided it was time I coaxed my sis and her hub out of their suburban sanctuary and got them to take a little 'walk on the wild side' in funky boho Uptown. Ooooooooh. Jebus. Remember, kids, this was nearly thirty years ago. Anyway, so sis and hub agreed to meet me at the Uptown, and showed up looking exceedingly tense and uncomfortable; sneaking peeks at the black bustier and fishnet stockings- clad Frank N Furters in line; sis clutching hub's arm in the viselike Honey Get Me Outta Here death-grip.
I remember commenting to my boyfriend at the time "Look! Brad and Janet have arrived!" *snigger snigger*.
During the movie I had no idea how sis and hub were faring. They sat stock still and in silence all through the brazenly naughty behavior on display onscreen and in the aisles. Throwing toast in the air!? Zounds, what debauchery! Afterwards, as we walked to the car, brother in law chuckled and then started singing "What a guy. Makes you cry. Unt I did!" and sis asked me, with a tiny hint of lust-tinged tremolo in her voice "So, who is this Tim Curry anyway? Has he been in anything else?" ...And I knew that everything would be OK.
Fast forward several years to New Year's Eve 1981. I had just broken up with a bf whose style was to waltz into my life and remain there intensely for several months, then disappear for the next six months, then re-appear. I got sick of it eventually, and the next time he appeared on my doorstep I sent him packing, never to return. It was the right thing to do, and I kept telling myself how mature and wise I was being, and how my unwillingness to tolerate being jerked around in such a manner demonstrated an admirably high level of self-esteem on my part... But, damn! I was hurting, and feeling very lonely in my bed, and it was New Year's Fucking Eve, and I didn't know what to do with the honking great shitload of pain, and then I got a phone call from another former bf.
[... this being the first big Relationship of my life ... the person I'd lost my virginity to... the guy I'd lived with for 4 years ... the guy who, after 3 years of living together sat down with me and carefully informed me that, altho he loved me, he had another side that he needed to explore and learn about and try to understand, and suddenly I realized why he had started going for walks around nearby Lake Calhoun at three in the AM.]
So. Former bf, to whom I referred always by his initials DAPJ, or just "D", had just been dumped by his lover, the guy he'd been living with for the past two years. He was, like me, feeling lost and hurt and alone. D and I were friends before we were lovers, and when we split up we re-affirmed our eternal friendship and love, and vowed to always be there for each other whenever the need should arise. Now, here it was New Year's Eve 1981, and the need had arisen.
We decided to go eat chicken almond ding and mooshu pork at Port Arthur and then go see the double feature at the Uptown: the 1939 "Lost Horizon" and "It's A Wonderful Life". This was at the time when the craze for "It's a Wonderful Life" was just starting; I remembered reading a New Yorker article about people who were having "It's a Wonderful Life"- viewing parties and I'd never heard of the movie before.
So, first came "Lost Horizon", which was swell. Still eerie after all these years; and still a thrilling moment when Ronald Colman finally makes it back to the pass high in the Himalayas and crosses over to blissfully disappear forever back to Shangri-La. You could hear a collective, satisfied sigh from the Uptown audience. It was a full house, with a palpable feeling of shared joy and camaraderie. It felt like the whole place was filled with like-minded kindred souls, society's orphans on New Year's Eve, banding together for warmth on a cold winter's night.
Then came "It's a Wonderful Life" and it was a revelation; we'd never seen it before. Everybody laughed during Uncle Billy's "I'm all right, I'm AL-L-L RIGHT" and then recognized with delight that Bert the cop and Ernie the cabdriver were, of course, BERT and ERNIE! Many of us wept as Jimmy Stewart stood on the bridge crying "I want to live again! I want to live!"
Afterwards we emerged from the theater to find that a beautiful light snow was falling. As everybody in the audience lived in the neighborhood, there were a couple hundred of us walking home together, on the quiet, snowy sidewalks in the moonlight at 2 AM on New Year's Day. As we walked D and I linked arms with three other people and we all sang:
"Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight,
Won't you come out tonight,
Won't you come out tonight.
Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
A-a-a-a-n-d
Dance by the light of the moon"
We felt whole; we felt healed; we felt bathed in warmth and fellowship and love.
And that's why I'll always love the Uptown. But, here in the year 2005, I'm telling you: if you're in the Twin Cities and you want to go to a movie -- go to the Riverview.
The cost of a ticket at the Riverview is $2 for shows before 6 PM. After 6 the price soars to an astronomical $3. Still, throwing all economy and prudence to the winds, a full house showed up Friday evening for "National Treasure". A lot of diversity: families; little kids; couples on dates; old folks; goths; bikers; people of all gender preferences and orientations and a multitude of ethnicities. Everybody friendly and out for a good time, and that's exactly what was had by all.
Big comfy seats, lots of legroom, state of the art sound system, carefully preserved original 1948 decor -- to quote the immortal Wavy Gravy: "We must be in Heaven, man!"
When the credits started rolling at the end of the movie, the entire audience applauded, and the applause was for having had a couple hours of pretty good entertainment at a great old movie house on a Friday night. When was the last time you experienced that at the local cineplex?
--Tild Dallelie
On Talking Heads and Artificial IntelligenceJeff Gannon on his "The Conservative Guy" circa 2002-2004 website, page titled "Who is CG?", set the stage for his recent show:
In many circles, I have become known as "the conservative guy". Some people don't even remember my name because I am an average type guy. I've been a preppie, a yuppie, blue-collar, green-collar and white-collar. I've served in the military, graduated from college, taught in the public school system, was a union truck driver, a management consultant, a fitness instructor and an entrepreneur. I'm a two-holiday Christian and I usually vote Republican because they most often support conservative positions.
And then, well we all know about Jim Guckert, who peculiarly enough, rather than resurrected with the revelation that he is the legitimate infant and Gannon a Changeling, instead is symbolically buried with Guckert/Gannon briefly disappearing from the web then returning as Gannon at Jeffgannon.com, the changeling given full inheritance rights.
What's odd is Gannon's mockery. Mockery isn't quite the same as a sense of humor and I take his tease, early as 2002, that people don't remember his name, as mockery. But who has he been mocking?
Aside the obvious, what bothers me the most is the absence of and obvious disdain for creativity, imagination or intelligence in whatever proceeds from "Pretty Woman" Gannon, the movie referenced being one I don't like and only mention as it seems someone somewhere begs a comparison be drawn. Yet whoever that someone may be was disturbingly content with the dregs at the bottom of the glass, not even caring to send Guckert to a crash course finishing school so that the absence of meat on the model's bones only meant all the better a showcase for the designer's style. Or maybe that's me missing the point and Guckert/Gannon is the most sterling, crystal-clear reflection of itself the the Bush administration has to offer, this most definitive Pygmalion product.
A Pygmalion which at least on one level seems to be mocking us. The Conservative Guy is adamant that we are all like him. His mission, he says, is to convince us of it. His belief is we are all conservative at the core, none of us exempt. On his website offers us a survey to take, that should convince us the same.
The survey allows for no buts, hows or whys. Only yes or no. Gannon seems to believe that all people who happen on to the same bus for even a moment are there for the same reason, have come from the same place, and all have the same goal.
Now, don't imagine I'm looking to Gannon for any shard of honesty. Take for instance the question of his name. I don't know if he's referring here to the name of Gannon, or alluding to Guckert (I think the subtext is Guckert) but he says his name isn't remembered because he is the penultimate average guy. Elsewhere, he's said that he chose Gannon for a pseudonym as Guckert was hard to remember and difficult to spell, which means he chose Gannon as a memorable name and Guckert is given as unique. Neither meshes with the idea of the Penultimate Conservative Guy who fades into the wallpaper background because he is so ordinary, because he is the Everyman that Gannon states he is.
While insisting he is an ordinary wallflower, Gannon at "The Conservative Guy" demanded confrontation, heckling the liberal reader to dare and write him, to take him on. This is the same personna that at Jeffgannon.com taunts, "I'm back" and chides that the Left is terrified of him which is why it tried to bring him down, but that he will fight the good battle which will be told (of course) in a book. Seems he imagines himself the Hunter Thompson of the Right. "Fear and Loathing in the Press Room," he titles a column (which he calls a blog). One of the symbols he chose to represent himself on "The Conservative Guy" was a gun, the other an SUV. He says he was thought of as a harmless gadfly. Which insinuates he was anything but, biding his time to ask "the question" which burst the cocoon and out pops Super Gannon, Conservative Avenger. Upholder of All That is Right.
I couldn't have cared less about Gannon's personal life. But if one thinks about it, the reason it did come into play, a matter of interest, is his transparency as a "reporter". As has been observed by others, what he did was faxing. What he was handed he turned around and handed out, no filter of scrutiny applied. When there is no content there is nothing left to lack at but the package. Gannon set up today's scene two years ago when he put up his "The Conservative Guy" website. Two years ago, it may have been taken as self-evaluation. Today, it reads as bait, a tease. "Who am I? What's my real name?" And, again, the assertion that the reader is no different than he. Supposedly, he's addressing Liberals, though his website being what it is was most likely to be visited by other conservatives. One could also look at it as an odd sort of calling or business card, his Other ID for those who brushed elbows with him and cared to look him up.
Gannon is in many ways exactly what he professes himself to be, so ordinary, forgettable, that one feels it a perverse waste of time applying any thought to him. It's a role he's playing, of which he's been proud. But he's a bad actor. He couldn't separate himself out of the mix. While he was on stage reading from the book, he'd a billboard up behind sassing, "Who am I?" Unlike Superman, no matter how proud he was of his cover, he perhaps wanted it to be blown. Now that it has been, there's not all that much to sift through. If people are looking for a story, it's because Gannon isn't one, so it's his circumstance which must be, the vehicle that's been getting him around. The man is the ashes to ashes dust to dust that breaks a cold sweat on anyone who faces the void.
His Pygmalian, whatever or whoever it might be, would be much the same. Never mind how he got where he was. Gannon is what the Bush Culture thinks of its constituents. He is Bush Culture. Teasing, mocking, substanceless. A culture in which there is nothing to honor but the machinery of appetite. Hunger and crude oil.
Idyllopus
Will the Real James Guckert Please Drop Trou....It was quite an interesting little spectacle. And it was little. Quite short. Very edited.
I give Campbell Brown some props for having the wearwithall to sit in front of such a pompous fool and press him on the issue of his naked self on the Internet.
And for not cracking up when he insisted that the reason he used the name "Gannon" was because "Guckert" is, according to JG "difficult to pronounce."
JG was pretty uncomfortable being in CB's "hot seat," but that may have had to do with the fact that his shirt collar was so tight on that thick ole neck of his...I was surprised he could breathe.
Funny thing is, though, most people who work in the adult entertainment industry--whether as escorts, dancers, S/m dominants, or porn stars--usually work under pseudonymns. Supposedly "Gannon" is a pseudonymn and "Guckert" is his real last name....
All I can think of is: what a dope.
Perhaps, though, he didn't realize that adult entertainment isn't supposed to be reality. It is entertainment: a performance for someone else's benefit. The entertainer is contracted to act a role--usually a role he/she has personally chosen because he/she believes the role will be easy or because the role specifically does not project his/her true sexual orientation or proclivities.
Yet most people believe that if a sex perfomer chooses a role, than that is who the performer is. Most people cannot imagine performing sex, or something like sex, for money, if there is no interest in the types and kinds of acts one is engaging in.
That, though, is the strange quirk of sex industry work. And the people who are best at it are the people who keep their personal procliviteis to themselves. How may of us may have, at one time or another, met a female dancer who was a lesbian, or a male dancer who was straight.
Why might someone work a role opposed to one's sexuality? Some of that has to do with the very fine line between adult entertainment, lewd acts, and prostitution (the explanation of which is very complicated, and I won't get into here)....and some of it has to do with power. Some women enjoy being a "tease"....and some men enjoy being a "tease" as well.
Gucker's sites claim that he was a "dominant top"...and some men and women who play the role of "dominant top" are not that in real life...
Who really knows if JG is gay, submissive, Republican, or just a really big tease????
Be that as it may, I think there is one true way that we might be able to know whether or not Jeff Gannon is James Guckert...it requires a measuring tape and just a little bit of cooperation from the young man in question...;-)
--Tish G.
Tip: State Court Jury Duty and bored? There's Scrabble and Backgammon in the coat closetThere’s an old joke as to do you really want to be tried by peers not smart enough to get out of jury duty. My take on it is what’s the privilege of jury duty, fulfilling the right of the accused to a jury by one’s peers, when the accused may simply be one of those not protected by any number of those laws which exempts from libablity anyone who earns more money than the judge. Where’s the justice in a country where we say it is stealing when you take someone’s $75 television but call it profit when you can, for instance, pollute to the point of extinction or pirate the pensions of hundreds of thousands. Where’s the justice when we’ll slap a person in prison who is actually endangering their life with certain select self-prescriptions, but legislate protection for corporations that willfully endanger the lives of thousands. And don’t tell me that a corporation holds the same rights as an individual under the law but is an institution and the owners aren't responsible for its actions and that's the way it has to be "because" (kind of just like politicians aren’t liable for anything that they conveniently can’t recollect telling a subordinate to do). When a car-pooling van makes a traffic violation, we don’t call the situation corporate and absolve the driver of responsibility.
If you want to read more of a way too long post about a fairly boring day in a state that appreciates your participation in justice to the tune of $25 a day, no child-care reimbursement or reimbursement on travel expenses, go here. If you live in Fulton County, GA, you'll at least learn a few helpful things like take the fingernail file out of your bag and throw it away because it's not allowed in the court building.
Attacking the Arctic and the AgedSNEAK ATTACK #1.
Right now, the oil industry’s allies in Congress are plotting a sneak attack on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the next two weeks, oil industry allies in the House and Senate will try a backdoor trick to pass the controversial proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge by inserting it into the federal budget bill.
See the website of the Defenders of Wildlife to get a succinct explanation of why drilling for oil in the arctic is not as benign an effort as the oil industry and its flunkies would have you think.
Lend your voice to the those who are trying to stop this sneaky maneuver and save the Arctic Refuge! Click here send a free message to your members of Congress urging them to do everything they can to stop drilling in the Arctic!
And, while you have the Arctic on your mind, check out my Alaskan blogger friend's blog -- Klondike Kate's Aurora
SNEAK ATTACK #2
The lobbying group that orchestrated the Swift Boat guys' misinformation-filled attack on John Kerry is now after the AARP, using the same kind of sleazy tactics and a war chest of $10 million. It's all part of the political ultra-Right's plan to support Bush's intention to privatize Social Security -- an effort that erroneously claims that there is a crisis. But there is no crisis.
(Just like there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction.)
The American Spectator website is running a sleazy and untruthful ad about the AARP in order to discredit its support of maintaining an strengthening the current Social Security system.
Now, I don't always agree with how the AARP sets its positions on issues -- just like I didn't agree with all of Kerry's approaches.
BUT in both cases, I looked at the bigger picture and how close they were to my positions on issues AND I totally resent the evil methods that thr Right uses to launch their attacks on those issues.
Such is the case with AARP and Social Security.
Watch out for that Right Double Cross.
Uncle Duke's LegacyMany of us who keep blogs aren't just journalling for posterity. We write commentary beyond the mundaine and trivial events of our boring lives--commentary that encompasses politics, social issues, media and entertainment--and are, in effect, doing some minor form of Hunter's "gonzo journalism." In our own ways, we report on the world with our personalities rather than with the cold objectivity that was considered the hallmark of journalism (although, today, with the advent of infotainment, objectivity in journalism and in MSM may be debatable).
So, here's to Uncle Duke....whereever he now may be....
--Tish G.
President's Day Fairy Tale
Their families were pleased with the match, and they soon married.
Two years later, their first child was born. It was a girl. When Sally laid eyes on the child, she was certain that a mistake had been made. Sally was accustomed to pale Celtic babies, not this squalling red faced Mediterranean infant with pitch black hair. Eventually she was convinced that, yes, this was their daughter. The young parents had planned to name the child Karen if it was a girl. However, Sally was in a room with a woman who had just named her baby Laura. The potions given to new mothers in those days were potent - and Sally decided that maybe they should call their girl Laura, too. Fortunately, John was able to remind her that Karen was to be the name. And so it was... and so it is.
Happy Birthday to me on Monday. To those of you fortunate enough to have a day off - enjoy it!
And this is why the people in the US are celebrating with a three day weekend. Well, not really - but it's better than Presidents Day to me. I can celebrate the meeting of my parents, their love, their marriage and my birth.
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