so much crap is topsy turvy when it comes to show business ( i love saying "show business', not 'entertainment' as most say now. when i say 'show business' i feel like some prick old vaudeville star with a cigar, bigotry, a bad suit, hair grease and a membership with the Friars). anyway, examples:
- it's actually the upper class big earners that live in trailers
- the families that are most ambitious in the business push their kids into child labor
- often the younger you are (esp chicks), the better your earning potential.
- many women who off camera look like boys (which is hot--just kidding), go on camera and look like 'the most beautiful women in the world"
- some of the best acting isn't even acting: one of the greatest moments in film is the end of City Lights, called by Brando and others as some of the best acting. Chaplin himself said he wasn't even acting, he was just living the moment with his co star.
- L.A is considered a city of glitz, glamour, stars etc, yet most of what they churn out in film, tv, food, culture etc is actually targeted to middle america, like a factory to produce for their tastes or lack of. (NYC by contrast is more of international tastes and culture).
and we all look up to it all eh?
Bullesye on your last point regarding the targeting of middle America. That's true. And middle America eats it up. How else can we explain the unbounded love of Sarah Palin and/or the Tea Party Express? I'm still as happily surprised as anyone that we elected a black President. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteyeah i really did notice that difference between NY AND L.A. i still can't believe a black as pres either. keep in mind by the way the bigotry against him, especially so many (one third of Tea partiers) thinking that he's foreign born).
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ReplyDeleteYes, Ken. The birth certificate thing was such a transparent conduit of veiled racism & bigotry.
ReplyDeletekind of wish you did't remove the other comment about race, comments etc because i agree. i need to write another post: it's interesting that small minds a lot of times automatically think ur a like mind: they make a bigoted comment, they expect that ur a bigot too. Yankee fans expect everyone to be a Yankee fan in NY. etc
ReplyDeleteUgghh...understood. 98% of people coming to my bar like the Dodgers and Dodger Stadium better than Angels. Of course, I like the Angels and am cursed at (almost( when I mention I like to watch games better at Angel Stadium. I removed other race stuff because I thought it was a bit much. Even my wife thinks I make more of it than I should. But I hear this sh** Ken. I'm not making it up.
ReplyDeletewhat is ur bar by the way? i may have been there at a time. i do like Dodger stadium, a classic of its time, but i like the Angels and any other small market team better (since the World series of 94--o yeah it was CANCELLED). felt Angel stadium was a llittle Disneyfied but that was a while ago.
ReplyDeletei didn't think ur race stuff was too much. ur in a "minority" (hate that word) position so i think it's interesting, ur viewpoint. bloggable? i know ur not making it up, that's what makes it worthy.
I work at Parkway Grill. More of a resataurant than a bar. But we get good action in the bar. Serve a lot of dinners to singles or couples. Lounge has 5-6 tables and I sometimes work the tables as well as bartend. I'm humping on some shifts. i move around pretty good for an overweight 45 yr old. Our prices are pretty high, but service is the best in the city. (Of course I'm biased, but many regulars have told me so...and they dine out every night). When I read the race stuff it sounded like me whining. It's tiresome and frustrating that I even have to discuss it.
ReplyDeletewhere is it? don't think i've been there. 45 is nothing. i don't think u sounded like u were whining. remember ur non black with a perspective from someone who's married to someone black so it's one u don't hear often. u have to realize how backwards so many are with race. don't know if u saw my blog entry about how many times I've heard folks that have said "But im not a racist" and would go on to say blatantly racist comments.
ReplyDeleteYes, Ken. Like Dr. Laura trying to use 1st amendment to justify using the "n" word, to a black woman, eleven (11) times in a span of 90 seconds. Yes, you have freedom of speech, Laura, but that doesn't mean we have to like it, or we won't retaliate. I DO realize how backwards people are. It makes me physically ill. (I did read your other referenced post). Hey, when I was 14 and uneducated, being around all white people, mostly Italian & Irish people, I said some things I regret. But then I got educated, thought about it, and realized what the hell was going on. My parents didn't raise me to be prejudiced, but peers can be very powerful. Not that we were this hateful group...but the Italian & Irish didn't hang out with the Asian and Jewish folk. And there were no black people, accept for some Tuckahoe kids on Blue Devils. Going to college didn't garner me a degree, but I learned a lot about the world. And that's what college is for.
ReplyDeleteHey Ken..meant to put this comment after recent 'mosque' post. Don't know what happened.
ReplyDeletewell i hate to say it and i don't think i like her much but im not sure that she got a fair rap on this one. not sure if she was usiing it as a put down. that there should be freedom of speech protected (see Imus as well). that no group should be powerful or sensitive enough to limit speech as some words have been unfairly limited. keep in mind i live in Harlem and many guys especially call each other "nigger" all the time. not really as put downs (e.g. "look at that dumb nigger'), but in the right context ("saw that nigger the other day, he's cool"). but it's discriminatory that non blacks can't also use it in the right context.
ReplyDeleteand actually certain "groups' being segregated wasn't true when i was at school at least. don't mean to be elitist, but in the honors classes etc, you did have a mix: asian, jewish, italian etc. we hung out and it was cool. not many blacks though ur right about that. it amazes me but even people my age back then used the word to describe black folks (e.g. "i was hanging around with all niggers the other day"), without meaning to be bigoted, that's just what they called blacks. shows how backwards it was there and then. so how many times have i used the word now?
I understand the double standard thing that black folk use the word quite often, and it's "OK" between them, but not if we use it. Who am I to say it's a double standard? I'm not black. It's just different when it comes from a white person...and neither of us will EVER understand why because we are white. Did you ever see the movie Soul Man? Not a great movie. But when the actor who was portaying himself as black told the professor he "knows how it feels to be black", James Earl Jones, the professor, says: "No you don't. Because you can change back any time you like". Just one example.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I had with Laura(besides just not liking her,haha) was that she said it 11 times....ELEVEN!!...and I just think that was excessive and unnecessary...like a hammer coming through the phone to that lady. You have freedom of speech, but I don't have to like it or accept it. I'm sure if me,you or Schulman were on the phone we wouldn't like or accept hearing guineas,micks&kikes ELEVEN times in our ear.
again it's discrimination when one group can use a word and everyone else is censored. again in the right context it's cool: even a gay asian guy said it in "Booty call" and it was kind of funny. for the record, blacks don't have a monopoly on suffering. no one does. frankly it pisses me off when e..g the media catagorizes the inequalities of e.g. blacks and hispanics, when the inequality is usually actually socio economic. being poor, i feel like, using another term used famously from a black, an "Invisible man'.
ReplyDeletedon't like Laura either, but she was making a point and again didn't see it as really bigoted. excessive, i can agree with. freedom of speech and freedom of choice: we don't have to pay attention to her.
again if those words are used in the right way it's not so bad. uses of the words, xcuse my language, fags, queers, niggers, guineas (guinea t shirts), etc have been used in not really a mean spirited way.
thanks again for paying attention by the way
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