I missed this in yesterday’s papers, until it came up in my evening searches for health-care news: Cisco executive slain in Detroit is remembered as gifted techie, dedicated family man. Well, shit, one thinks. Another black eye for the city. I’m wondering why didn’t I see this in the local dailies, and start to read:
Ben Goldman updated his Facebook page that Monday night, writing that he was having a great time in downtown Detroit … yes, that was Ben, his family said, always able to squeeze joy from everything he did, even a 24-hour business trip to the gritty Midwest metropolis. And then the 42-year-old Los Gatos family man and up-and-coming Silicon Valley executive just disappeared.
Detroit police found his body the next day, Aug. 19. He had been shot to death, left in a vacant lot after apparently spending time at the Penthouse Club. It took them a few days to identify him. He had no wallet, no photographs of his wife and two young daughters, no Cisco ID badge, nothing to connect him to Silicon Valley. Benjamin Goldman, 42, was the victim of an unsolved homicide in a high-crime area known there as 8 Mile.
Eight Mile is, of course, 8 Mile Road, approximately 7.5 miles from tourist-friendly downtown Detroit. The Penthouse Club, as you might imagine, is not a place a nice family man posts to his Facebook page about visiting, although it’s a venue many men might find worthy of squeezing joy from. So to speak. While in no way blaming Goldman for any part of what happened to him, a commenter on the Freep story put it succinctly:
A nice Jewish boy from California running around Eight Mile in a tie looking for a little action. I would rather be in the mountains of Afghanistan. There can’t be any more dangerous place on earth.
Yup. And considering Detroit’s after-dark criminal culture is no secret, even in California, you wonder what might have gone wrong. The Penthouse Club is a brand-name titty bar, and I have to assume it has at least some parking-lot security, although there are plenty of places nearby that don’t. Rest in peace, Ben Goldman. I’ll think of you as I struggle with an issue every urban parent must face: How to teach street smarts.
It’s a balancing act, to be sure. I firmly believe that overprotection — of yourself or your kids — isn’t a good idea. When Lenore Skenazy allowed her 9-year-old to make his own way home on the New York City subway system, she was both vilified and praised — the story received national attention — but I was in the latter camp. Learning when to be careful starts with not being afraid all the time, and confidence, the most important invisible armor you carry, comes with accomplishment. Most people on the street, even on 8 Mile Road, aren’t out to kill you, hurt you or even rob you. But some are. Knowing how to tell the difference, and when to be extra-careful, isn’t easy. I go places in Detroit lots of people won’t, and someday I might pay the price for it, but at least no one can say I didn’t drink deeply from the stream along the way. I have the advantage of not having a penis, that unreliable point man that leads so many men to their doom, but I also have an appetite, and I sometimes wonder if I’ll end up dumped in a vacant lot because I went looking for the wrong authentic gumbo or pizza or whatever.
Still. Life is most interesting when you leave the strip-mall districts behind. I try to teach this to my child. Fortunately, she doesn’t have a penis, either.
I heard an interview with David Simon during the publicity tsunami for “The Wire,” and he talked a little bit about safety in the city. “This isn’t Beirut,” he said of Baltimore, by way of explaining his decision to travel even its worst neighborhoods armed only with a notebook. Of course you have to be smart about where you go and when you get out of the car. But you can’t be afraid all the time, either.
I’ve been carjacked twice and mugged once, and in all three situations was asked “what’r ya doin’ here?” My answer didn’t keep me from losing some cash or driving a load of guys where i wasn’t planning on going, but the fact that i was delivering car seats or meals got a different attitude. If i’d been a guiltily stammering fellow who was looking for a score or a trick or a party, it would have gone less well.
Which is to say, it isn’t an absolute guarantee, but if you’re not out being a moron, fewer moronic things will happen to you. Bad things happen to nice people trying to help others, but those are the rare exceptions (and i prefer the solvents of daylight, staying where others can see you, and knowing that others know where i am and when i’m coming back, whether camping in a state park or delivering a stack of baby items downtown).
The overwhelming majority of bad things happen to people involved with bad stuff, and a little caution covers much of the remainder. That’s what i teach the Little Guy (10 right now), and he’s been through and around edgy neighborhoods enough to know Dad is careful, but not wacky cautious, and just keep smiling and nodding your head while the officer is telling you stuff that you don’t want to hear.
If he were a she, the conversations would no doubt be a bit different in many ways, but i think as many people get into trouble by overcompensating for fear and minimizing the thinking as they find trouble by breezily walking into it. That happens, but to live as if that’s the default mode means squeezing most of the joy out of life, IMO.
I can’t imagine putting a nine-year-old alone on a New York subway. As most point out, the statistical chance that an adult predator will strike are minimal. But have you thought about what would happen if most parents let their children ride the city buses/subways without supervision? Talk to a school bus driver regarding the effort it takes to maintain discipline! The kids are confined to a small area with nothing to do.
First of all, many older children would bully the younger ones. Or they would force homage like sharing candy or money. Some children would tease just to cause a commotion. Many children would be so distracted by what is going on in the bus they would miss their stop. Objects would be thrown through the air and loud childish voices would fill the area, causing many adults to become angry. What would the adults do?
If a child were touched inappropriately, even by another child, there could be many fearful moments for weeks. Would the bus driver/adults riding the subway be expected to maintain order? If so, what is the liability?
I’m sure there are some short trips that could be studied for safety and then used by mature children. But the route Lenore Skenazy chose for her son even included changes along the way. What would she do if he called for help via his cell phone, but he was miles away? And even she does not plan for this to be a common occurrence, showing her acknowledgment it would not be wise.
if they’re going to build a titty bar that caters to software engineers, they need to locate it properly, and install the necessary ramps and safety padding. The Chuck E. Cheese corporation is probably adept at demographic-appropriate site selection and landscaping, and this is a likely avenue of diversification for them.
Honestly, though. I can only imagine how sad you have to be to visit a titty bar unless it’s some theater of cruelty cast party, or they serve liquor in quart jars. Someone pointed out awhile back in a story I was reading about nude restaurants or catering, that he would be deeply suspicious of any fudge desserts. I share that apprehension.
I’m a horrible mom who has been putting my kids on public transportation for a few years. We’ve had two “incidents.” One time younger son got on the right bus but went in the wrong direction and ended up in some distant suburb. He called me at work and told me he could see a mini mall with a Domino’s pizza across the street, and gave me the street name. I determined where he was with the Domino’s website, then got him on the right bus using the metro transit website. It all worked out fine. Second incident was about two weeks ago. Same son, now 14, was waiting for a bus in Chinatown when a kid maybe two years older came up to him and demanded his money. My son told him he didn’t have anything but his bus token, and moved a few feet away into the middle of a group of people. The would be mugger took off. In the many trips my kids have taken on mass transit, only the attempted mugging scared me, but to be truthful older son had worse threats to his well being in his suburban middle school locker room. He had a little extortionist working him for a few weeks before he told me and I talked to the school.
I rode buses around Paterson, NJ, not a very nice place, when I was a kid and never had anything nasty happen. My kids have made gone on buses and trains to concerts, friends’ houses, their dad’s house (although the mass transit in Malibu is sparse) and except for one attempted robbery, nothing really bad ever happened. We’ve lived in a funky part of town their whole lives, their friends vary a lot in economic situation, family situation, languages spoken. My sons speak some Spanish, a little Cantonese, and one has a little bit of Belize patois. They’re not tough kids at all, not fighters, but they pay attention to their surroundings, they don’t try to be cool or tough, and they don’t walk into bad shit blindly. I hope our good luck continues.
I think back to some of my adventures in murder err… motor city and I still experience the occasional flash of fear for my personal safety years after the event.
That fear was notably absent at the time so perhaps this is one of those things you make up for as you get older.
Don’t avoid situations, but have your radar out. I think it’s something kids have to learn. If they don’t they may avoid interesting but not very risky situations, or they may fail to avoid dangers that are obvious.
Great topic. I am country boy who was fearless as a young man , venturing wherever I wanted to go into US cities, and was pickpocketed once and mugged once, in Chicago and Macon, Georgia respectively.
We reared three daughters and all I ever told them was to stay in groups and be careful when they visited placed like Chicago and Washington on school trips.
My daughter lets her kids, ages 13 and 14, fly back alone to visit us a couple times a year from their Las Vegas home. I always worry when they are travelling alone…so far, so good.
The 14 year old boy has been known to ride city buses all over Vegas, get lost, call home and then get grounded for a month.
Years ago I read where all kids in Finland carry cell phones to school and everywhere…no one would even think of sending their kid out the door without his cell.
I believe in this…and was truly pissed off when the Las Vegas step dad punished the older, 18 year old by taking away her cell phone. She is a senior in HS this year, she works at a K-Mart, evening shift, and drives home at midnight. What kind of fucking moron would want his step daughter out on the Las Vegas streets without a cell phone?
What a sad story for the family, who lost not only their husband and father but also their innocence and their privacy.
Moved to SE Washington DC on my own after college and took plenty of wrong turns into questionable neighborhoods. Had to step past plenty of tranny hookers and crack dealers to get to all of the “in” clubs. Then moved to South Africa, which makes Detroit look like Lincoln, Nebraska, in terms of violent crime. Never had a problem, either place.
Certainly, some of it was random good luck. But maybe a bit of it was due to my parents never telling me, when I was a kid, that I couldn’t go somewhere. Instead, they would talk to me about contingency plans, strategies for dealing with various situations, and the benefits of being aware of your surroundings.
I think most of the inappropriate touching of kids that goes on is by people who know them or are in positions of trust. Priests, relatives, parent’s boyfriends, stepfathers, neighbors. A neighbor’s daughter was being molested by her older stepbrother for two years.
Most of the humans on this planet don’t have any reason to bother any other humans, and we all should be looking out for each other. I remember being on a very crowded subway in NYC, standing up, holding the pole. A creep was trying to get a little touchy with me, and a stranger, seeing what was going on, moved himself to a position that prevented the creepy guy from being too friendly. Just a step. I thanked him.
Judith: In London and elsewhere in the UK, almost all schoolchildren take public transportation to school. Without parental escort. They looked ages 8-16. The kids did just fine sharing the bus with commuters. I observed general horseplay, but nothing out of hand.
LA Mary is correct, based on the data and any CPS caseworker you talk to anywhere, all 50 states and most time zones. Stranger Danger is a ratings-generated beast, rare in the wild and hard to spot even in captivity.
I think it’s sad if we let all the “what ifs” paralyze us. it makes for fearful children who think the world is a bad and scary place and anything not suburbia is “sketchy”. I also think children are a lot smarter and more capable than many parents let them be.
I would much sooner let my 13 year old take public transportation than to ride his bike in my SUV Warthog From Hell obsessed neighborhood.
I told the story about my daughter falling asleep on an SF Muni bus in a comment when the Ms. Skenazy story first emerged. I go with Mary and Nance. Today my daughter is confident and capable and strongly self-sufficient. She also has well developed self preservation instincts and lots of common sense. I be proud. She’s doing a pretty good job of raising the next generation too.
I loved your post a few years ago about Bloody Gourge. Children need to wander and explore and build self confidence.
Our one-and-only roamed the cul de sacs of Southwest Fort Wayne from the time she was 4 years old. She had freedom in her early childhood there that I didn’t think possible in this era.
She was 7 when we moved to rock ’em, sock ’em South Florida. I felt like I couldn’t let her out of my sight.
Then, go work in a newsroom that serves up a daily menu of horror stories about children – and get to learn the details that never make the papers.
I don’t know what changed, maybe it was her, maybe it was exhaustion, but I started noticing that she could hold her own with anyone.
Maybe it was sports. A brief career in gymnastics led to her development of the “death stare” that I see her resort to in a bully situation. She’s much tougher than I am – which I admire.
Been telling my 18-year-old son for several years… walk like a man, not a victim. Makes a difference.
And, of course, be aware of where you are and what’s around you, and if it doesn’t feel right, get the hell out of there.
As I may have mentioned about a million times before, I like to take a little midweek me-time at a bar near Kate’s Wednesday-night activity. I drop her off for three hours of musical instruction, and I go to the Park Bar for a wrap and two beers. I take my iPad. I read, I write (rarely), I people-watch.
This week was the first time I’d stopped by since Opening Day. Today’s was an afternoon game, but a few hardy souls were still pounding shots and being incredibly loud when I arrived at 6. One woman had tucked her shot glass into her cleavage and telling her friends that she was ABOUT TO BE FORTY-THREE, AND GODDAMNIT, I THINK I’M BETTER THAN EVER.
It was sort of annoying, and then I reflected that the library doesn’t serve Stella Artois and I was the odd one out.
Hoosiers, is it true? Is it true Dick Lugar isn’t long for this world? He was always the Republican I never minded voting for, and not because he’s some flaming liberal. You couldn’t help but respect his intellect, which informed his positions, more than you can say for most politicians, especially more contemporary ones.
Mitt Romney informs us that the raid that took out Osama bin Laden one year ago was no big deal, because “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” …Jimmy Carter is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who spent ten years in the uniformed service of his country. As far as I can tell, this is ten years more than the cumulative service of all members of the Romney clan.
Well, “even Jimmy Carter” would have given that order, but acting president Donald Rumsfeld refused the opportunity in 2005:
Musharraf had the Republicans by their tiny, tiny balls. And flight suit boy was completely out of the loop.
The Salon piece says the public behavior of Lugar’s challenger, unlike that of the Tea Party senatorial candidates the last time around, hasn’t branded him as a kook. Funny, everything that comes out of Richard Mourdock’s pie hole is the same shit that came out of Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell. The difference is that it doesn’t shock anymore, and he exhibits a dour face instead of a smirk and crazy eyes.
I was going to go support Lugar next week, along with a local politician, John McGauley. That was until I saw McGauley endorsing Mourdock. I think I’ll just stay home now and let the GOP go fuck itself in the ass.
Nancy, I’m curious now why you don’t want to have an opinion about the Obama Vanity Fair piece? I found it fascinating.
I got hooked on the band “Bowling for Soup” because of their song “1985.” It has great lines like “whose that singing with Van Halen” and “when did Motley Crue become classic rock?” The title refers when she got married, had children, etc. It’s a nice compliment to Mellencamp but a little more down-beat.
The “even Jimmy Carter” line really ought to be rolled up like a dunce hat and stuck on Romney’s head for the rest of the campaign. How can anyone forget that Carter did, or that “W” didn’t.
Dick Lugar became a senator shortly before a moved to Detroit. So I only had the one chance to vote against him. And did. I could never vote for him because he was to reactionary. That he is being attacked from the right tells you how far the Republican party has gone off the edge.
I dunno, Deborah. I guess I want the guy to have a little privacy in his life, and reading about his Brut and sweat-smell felt kinda skeevy.
Brut? Why that’s more embarrassing than a love child. When did Vanity Fair become a secret organ of the right?
Lugar is being punished because he wouldn’t bow down to Grover Norquist and has made the occasional foray into bipartisanship. I have great respect for the Nixon-goes-to-China work he did to get nukes out of Russia 10-12 years ago. But, have you ever heard him speak? Zzzzzzz.
I can’t imagine what it would be like, as Atrios says, to have your old girlfriends dishing on you. Publicly anyway.
He took me to what he glibly referred to as an “American Charcuterie”. There was a statue of a man in dungarees holding a hamburger. “That’s Bob” he told me. “He is the head of a powerful moon cult that has forsaken most vegetables.” I knew he was lying, but I was starving.
The crepes were thick and unwieldy. I heaped my plate with potatoes, believing they were safe…”Can all Americans be this cheap?” I asked myself…
Thank you, Nancy, for CHANGES COME AROUND REAL SOON MAKE _US WOMEN AND MEN._ Every Mellencamp hit is a tangle of misheard lyrics for me, up there with Mick Jagger, and all these years I had the changes he sang about make us “swimmin’ somethin’-somethin’.” I still don’t know what Jack wanted to do behind a shady tree, (Drooble off those body bookbags?) but I wasn’t far off: DRIBBLE OFF THOSE BOBBY BROOKS, LET ME DO WHAT I PLEASE.
It’s Bobbie Brooks, Hank, a clothing line that was once ubiquitous in teen girls’ closets but seems to have had a comedown. Dollar General? The sub-basement of Wal-Mart?
…I can’t imagine what it would be like, as Atrios says, to have your old girlfriends dishing on you. Publicly anyway.
You know – not to commit an “internet over-share”, but I will say that when I was in my lower 20’s, I became involved with a woman who personified the word “insatiable”; and I will plainly confess – I could not keep up with her (although I tried mightily, for a year or two).
If she wanted to dish on me (if she remembers me at all!) I’d be an absurd little footnote, in what must otherwise by now be a genuinely astounding narrative.
Sen. Lugar is a trustee for Denison University, and I had to sleep with someone to learn more about him. Anyhow, my wife says a) his staff is the most friendly AND professional of any of the muckety-mucks she works with (there are more friendly staffs, and more professional staffs, but the combo is a tricky one), and in her experience, individuals, whatever their actual or imputed power, are wonderfully reflected in their staff choices and the teamwork they exhibit. And b) when you’re dealing with him (I’ve only had two conversations with him myself, both standing up, in general group event settings, so fwiw), he’s dangerously close to self-effacing for a US Senator. Sherrod Brown is hands down my favorite politician to talk to, especially when Connie Schultz is standing there with him, but Dick Lugar is friendly, very knowledgable, but totally without any hint of “and I know SO much stuff I can’t talk about” which he surely does. Then he asks if he can get you another cup of coffee or glass of punch . . . and does.
He’s just so atypical a national pol . . . but the fact that he didn’t maintain a figleaf residence in Indiana baffles me. It’s why he will lose, if he does. This is so simple, so politically obvious: except I really believe he just couldn’t bring himself to create a fake residence. It’s the only reasonable explanation, and it makes me like him even more in a way — flying back and forth every week is a young person’s game, and I can see why he just stopped. But I’d have kept a small homestead on one of the family farms, which he actually can talk about as a farmer, but since he hasn’t been on a tractor for thirty years, he just didn’t put himself through that kind of subterfuge.
The good thing about his losing, and it’s minuscule, is that he’s likely to spend more time here in Granville, OH if he does. But I think the Senate and Indiana and the country benefit from him being in the Capitol.
As to knowing what it would be like to have your old girlfriends dishing on you…. I am reading “Triggers” the new book by Robert J. Sawyer, award winning science fiction writer and author of “Flash Forward”. An odd combination of circumstances gives several people access to someone else’s memories, including the President. The President finds himself experiencing someone else’s Iraq War flashback. Others remember being molested or having great sex. A secret service agent assigned to watch over the elderly Mississippi woman who now has the President’s memories has access to her memories and realizes she thinks of him as “that n****r”. And a lawyer find he has the best sex ever with the woman who has his memories.
Recently someone on this list commented on the lack of tulips this year at Holland’s Tulip Time. Tulip Time just posted the following on their facebook page. Stem Fest!
Although our tulips are still with us (Centennial Park is GORGEOUS), we’re anticipating their early departure with our Stem Fest 2012 T-Shirts. They’re in a limited quantity and they’re already flying off the shelves. Get yours today before they’re gone! https://www.tuliptime.com/stem-fest-2012-t-shirt
“I can’t imagine what it would be like, as Atrios says, to have your old girlfriends dishing on you. Publicly anyway.”
“Hold on to sixteen”? I’ve spent the last forty years trying to forget sixteen, or heal up a little anyway.
Mellencamp came into my mother’s office at the Bloomington street department once, wanting a street closed temporarily for some event or another. Everyone else in the building was peeking around doors and getting all excited, she didn’t know who he was but said he was “nice.”
Alex, I’m still going to go vote to vote against Mourdock, although I’m afraid it may be a futile gesture. I, too, was going to support McGauley, didn’t know he’d endorsed Mourdock. So much for that. I really dislike Mourdock. I was pleased to see that the Tea Party Express bus that went through here Sunday only drew about 300 people, from accounts I read.
Sue: One of the reasons I use a pseudonym is I’m deeply afraid of waking some of the ghosts of my past. The worst would be the woman who was convinced I gave her diarrhea through telekinesis.
I tried to assure her my powers are limited to hiding things from myself, or suspending the laws of physics to enhance the perception that I never know what I am doing, but she wouldn’t hear any of it. To her, I will always be the guy who used his mind to give her the shits.
At a cursory glance: psychobabble that reaches the level of “Kenyan anti-colonial”. And I still don’t get that anti-colonial shit. Isn’t that the single greatest foundational American attitude?
Horribly pedestrian book title. Given the author’s name, how did somebody at the publishing house not come up with “Honey, I Shrunk the President”?
Sad, but it sounds from what y’all are saying that had Lugar kept a room on C Street and pretended an association with the Fellowship (of Unspeakable Evil), this Morlock guy would be a nonentity. As it is, he’s fairly obviously destined to be the next Sen. Demented, the bane of South Carolina’s existence. At least we’ve got Linsay Graham, who is a paragon of standing for the courage of his convictions, when it isn’t inconvenient.
My favorite Mellencamp malapropism is in Little Pink Houses (aka Morning in America), where the reminiscing old narrator is telling his beloved how he remembers when her face “could stop a clock”. Was that supposed to be romantic.
I always wished Bobby Fuller woulld sue Mr. Cougar for plagiarism. Swapping out “law” for “authority” is transparent, and leaving out the bopbopbopbopbopbop six gun is no defense.
Dave, I may still go out and vote on Tuesday but McGauley’s endorsement really put me off. Perhaps endorsing Mourdock has simply become pro forma, like kissing Cathie Humbarger’s ring, for those who hope to have any chance of being elected to office in Allen County.
(For those who don’t know Humbarger, she’s a local anti-abortion zealot who has successfully positioned herself as a kingmaker. Pols fall all over themselves trying to make her believe they’re at least as fanatical as she is.)
Our only hope is that normal people will recognize the folly of Lugar being trounced by someone so vastly inferior and will get their asses out to vote next Tuesday.
Pros, you must wonder, as have I, what kind of career Bobby Fuller could have had. Now, you’ve gone and stuck both of those songs in my head.
My youngest met John Mellencamp at some sort of an affair in Indy, in which his son was taking part. He didn’t find him at all friendly but then, sometimes, I wonder how those folks put up with the thing they wanted after they get it, that being money and fame, and the bothers that come with it.
We saw him once in a Bob Evans (yes, Bob Evans) in Columbus, IN, nobody bothered him but the Bob Evans assistant manager, who appeared to have some slight connection to him. I say some slight connection because of the overheard conversation, they were in the next booth.
I know the person who came up with the title, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” Same person came up with “Field of Dreams.”
I never thought much about Mellencamp one way or another until I began dating my future wife, who’s a big Mellencamp fan. Even then, I was kind of “meh” until I saw him in concert two years ago.
He destroyed the place. He absolutely “tore the roof off of the dump” for more than two hours, with only one five minute break. It was just one raw number after another — his new stuff and his “greatest hits,” plus vintage blues and rockabilly. And he’s what, 60 now?
The man works like he still has something to prove — like his songs aren’t ubiquitous on classic rock radio. I seriously dig that.
I heard on the radio this morning that the anti-gay legislation in North Carolina is winning by 14% with the vote next Tuesday. The same report said the legislation was so badly written and so vague that it would have significant impact on ANY kind of civil union, so it’s clear the brightest minds in the N.C. legislature wrote it.
The same program ran a clip of some dipshit named Pastor Sean Harris of Fayetteville, N.C., who told his congregation that if a son seems effeminate go ahead and hit him. Here’s the transcript:
“Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? ‘You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male.’ ”
I’m not picking on the Tar Heel State, but that’s an ugly one-two punch in one morning. Or maybe I just need more coffee.
The President is in good company with the ex-girlfriend biographical sourcing. Suze Rotolo did the same thing to Bob Dylan a couple of years back.
Jeff, “Pastor” Harris made an official policy to “any Christians he might have offended.” And the creepiest thing the guy said was telling parents to tell their “too butch” daughters to “smell like girls”. Guy sounds like Olivia and Elliot need to knock him around an interview room. Lawrence O’Donnell took the pervert apart on his show last night:
Borden: If the pro amendment creeps win, it’s because the right wing churches were whoring for it. The wife of the dead motherfucker who introduced the amendment said the purpose of the bill was “to save the caucasian race”.
What the Republicans and blue dog trash have done here is get the pastors Bush bought off with his faith-based palm grease riled up again. One of them, Byrd Blackwell, showed up the Person County Democratic convention and started whining about how “failure to pass amendment one would effectively prohibit him from preaching from Romans”. That “Christians are being persecuted everywhere you look, and the law of god outweighs the law of man (I presume he meant the Constitution here). Instead of just calling him out as the cash hunting piece of human garbage he is, I suggested he was just an unwitting tool of Art Pope, which went directly over his head (or he hadn’t prepared his grift fully).
I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, they need to tax that trash back out on the street, where they can learn to panhandle with a little bit more dignity.
How did we go from revealing salacious information to Mellencamp? I saw him rehearsing for some outdoor gig at Daley Plaza a couple of years ago. I thought he was awfully good looking for a man of his age.
edit: I just got my computer at work all upgraded and had Chrome downloaded which I’m using right now, and nn.c asked me to input my name and e-mail again. Hope this works.
I’ve mentioned this before but I saw Mellencamp perform in his early Johnny Cougar days, during orientation at IU in 1974, on Dunn Meadow. He was wearing some kind of animal print stretchy pants and didn’t show much promise during the brief time I listened.
Sheppard Smith has been Nooz Corpse last tenuous link to reality for a long time, but Newt’s campaign suspension and RMoney’s reaction have driven the poor guy around the bend. He does manage to point out that these bastards “suspend” their campaigns because that allows them to continue to collect contributions.
Thanks Prospero — was going to post that. “Weird.” long pause. “And creepy.” long pause. “And completely divorced from reality.”
I’ve sort of had a soft spot for him ever since he lost his shit after Katrina (in the best way). Apparently Rachel Maddow played the clip and commented, but I don’t have cable anymore and haven’t gone to look it up online …
In his definitive bio of Joe McCarthy, Richard Rovere discussed this phenomenon, in the context of McCarthy’s first Senate win, over Robert LaFollette. He said something to the effect of, many Senators find themselves dealing with very important issues and people, nationally and internationally, and they lose their appetite for glad-handling down-home politics. Eventually some opponent comes along, not necessarily a McCarthy, but in all probability someone of limited perspectives, and accuses them of being an out-of-touch elitist Washington insider.
Let’s hope this ends better for Lugar than it did for LaFollette, who ended up killing himself after McCarthy beat him. I can never understand why losing an election should be such a shattering tragedy for a high-level pol, whose service should leave him or her with enough connections to ensure a comfortable life.
Prospero – I think the anti-Colonial thing is a suggestive of the idea that Africans and non-whites are better or more civilized under the firm hand of the British monarchy whereas us white folks in the USA can handle our own affairs. I may be reading way too much into that though.
I’ve basing some of that on the current dialog out of Jamaica where their prime minister Portia Simpson Miller is seeking to seperate from the Brits entirely and many of the older generation don’t think that’s a good thing. Prince Harry recently visited on the Queen’s behalf and was pretty charming and handled that debate with class. I’ve been hooked on reading the Jamaica Gleaner and Jamaica Observer for a few years because the mix of great AP Style and patois is a joy.
Beb – “who’s the other guy singing in Van Halen?” Given when the song was released I don’t think that was a dig at Sammy Hager but the short lived and not-too-memorable tenure of Gary Cherone.
I guess I wouldn’t mind if my old girlfriends told all. State of the world as it is, we could all use a good laugh.
“I can never understand why losing an election should be such a shattering tragedy for a high-level pol, whose service should leave him or her with enough connections to ensure a comfortable life.”
Bitter Scribe, I always think that most politcal people are extremely self-involved. Reading Obama’s early letters to his girlfriends shows that he certainly was wrapped up in himself (at least back then). It must be very, very hard for them to lose, especially after having won so many for so long.
JW: That exact slant hadn’t occurred to me, though the white man’s burden/racist appeal of the implied MauMau connection is painfully obvious.
No matter how you look at it, Sammy Hagar is twice as obnoxious as Diamond Dave at his worst; I can’t drive 55 is lamer than I fight authority, authority always wins, and that’s so lame you need to crack that wrist, give ’em a good punch, and tell ’em to smell like a girl.
For what’s it worth I spent a large chunk of the 80s and 90s living in Seymour, John Mellencamp’s home town. In fact you get a quick glimpse of my library at the beginning of the “Small Town” video. I never met John, though my husband did and said John just wanted to chat about his (Tom’s) big lawn tractor. John bought the local skating rink in order to save it, and it was run by his brother. One Sunday afternoon my friend took her daughter skating and the only other people in the rink where John and his daughter. Very exciting for friend. He also provides assistance to the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts in Seymour, which sells posters of two of his paintings. http://www.soinart.com/mellencamp.html. Paintings for which I fail to see the appeal.
My lovely wife always liked Mellencamp, and she and I attended one of his shows* at what used to be called Deer Creek – an outdoor theater just north of Indy.
There is nothing at all like a Mellencamp show nestled in an Indiana cornfield on a July evening – it was as superb as Jason T says.
And a non-sequitur (sort of); the sweetest senior-citizen-woman-who-lives-across-the- street; a woman who might be 4′ 6″ tall and who genuinely reminds me of Piglet (and I truly do mean that as a sincere compliment), and who is a dyed in the wool Democrat and who supports President Obama as firmly as I do, says she used to cross-over to vote for Lugar (in November) but won’t anymore, “because he doesn’t live here”.
So, bonus points to Jeff tmmo; I think he points to something that doesn’t matter to me at all, but which may well be decisive
*The opening act was Blind Mellon. I think their one big hit was still somewhat fresh, but they.were.absolutely.completely.irretrievably.TERRIBLE!!
JW from NJ: Given that the song “1985” talks about the changes in the world since 1985 I’m pretty sure it was a reference to (but not a dig at) Sammy Hager.
The phrase “Kenyan anti-colonial” has to read as one unit, from what I recall reading about this when it was first run out. There was something about the Kenyans fighting for freedom, but I don’t recall what it was.
I realize that John Mellencamp is not really responsible for that Johnny Cougar crap, and he seems like a very solid citizen with admirable instincts and beliefs, who accepts the responsibilities of being a citizen. It’s just that I think his music is derivative mostly, and the lyrics generally are sadly banal, and frequently clumsy. Still, blind pigs and truffles:
and went right out and snapped up the Stone Temple Pilots album that contained it. I love Pearl Jam; always have. I thought – Pearl Jam is grunge/Seattle/new stuff, and STP is, too, right? and Eddie Vedder referred to those guys a time or two, and so how could it miss?
Usually, if I like a song then I’ll like the album; and STP is the exception that proved the rule. (I still own the album, and still love this song. And the odd video is strangely affecting)
Sue, I have to wonder about those folks’ survival instincts. Big’uns eat the litl’uns, fight or flight, run away, run away.
This asshole is flat out nuts. It’s hard to recall anything I have ever heard that is more offensive.
Also, I was busier than ever and had to leave the Cubs-Redlegs game broadcast in the bottom of the eighth with the Cubs sailing along and the Redlegs just about dead. Later I heard the Cubs rallied to tie and won on a Scott Rolen sac-fly in the tenth.
Dex: I think you mean the Reds rallied to tie and win in extra innings. The Cub’s closer (Marmol) walked in the tying runs. There is a huge hue and cry about why the Cub’s manager didn’t pull him after he walked the first two batters. Mrs. Bill called it when Marmol came on in the bottom of the ninth. Damn Cubs!