(one.) Observation: Kenny Rogers has his ghetto-pass stamped, and he wears it as a laminate around his neck. I know this because I ventured to one of my co-worker's party for her fifty-second birthday. It was at the bar across from the back of our building, in a fairly well urban [sic] neighborhood. That is, it is black-owned, -operated, and -attended (I saw one other, non-employee pale-face there), and the jukebox is suitably larded with r n' b (Patti Labelle, James Brown, Commodores) and blues (John Lee Hooker... and, others; I don't recall, nor do I know much blues apart R.L. Burnside, anyway). But, amongst the afrocentrica, there it was: Kenny Rogers's Greatest Hits.
Now, I know the Fifth Dimension (?) song featured on the soundtrack for Big Lebowski was inflected with touches of r n' b, but, looking at his later work, I don't think Kenny Rogers would qualify, straight-up, as a proto-Beck, proto-Nikka (as in Costa... if you're nasty).
Nor do I think the ownership of the bar would be that influenced by Wyclef -- whose Ecleftic, of course, features "Kenny Rogers-Pharaoh Mench Dub Plate".
So, apparently as the Japanese have gravitated to Alyssa Milano's musical output, and as the Latinos have replaced the gays/gheys as the Smiths's principal audience, so too does KR have (many?) fans in an unexpected place: black America.
... The question, was Wyclef on to something, though unrelated to older Milwaukee blacks' appreciation of Kenny?
(two.) Saw George Carlin play the Pabst -- my first time seeing him, and only my second stand-up performance (theatre, club, or other). He proved acerbic, as expected, and the riffing... Dennis Miller in his prime, which, sadly, is passed and never to be duplicated, would have nothing on a sixty-seven (?) years old Carlin.
That said, the routine seemed a bit morbid, though maybe to be expected as the comedian has just gotten out of self-selected rehab (for wine and vicodin misuse) and is still coming off the death of his wife (of probably thirty-five years) from breast cancer a coupla years ago.
Tastefully, though, in his extended close about why he loves natural disasters, he omitted tsunami from the litany of potential "means by which nature can strike back at humanity, and give the underdog, itself, a chance". He had "tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, famines (who doesn't love a good famine -- and sometimes, they'll go for three or four generations, which means a few hundred thousand dead)", but no tsunami.
And, untastefully, he spent a considerable length in the opening discussing queef, and a bit after that, donor pussy. Now, typically, I would have NO problem with such motif, but pronounced by a man in his mid- to late-sixties... And even though I will be that man someday... I don't know, it just seemed -- not skeevy, nor immoral; no such thing as those... It was just a little jarring, for the first time hearing it from someone so wizened.
It would have been easier to take had "El Gran Profesor" or the Stillman spoke of it, or even (better) Yindra, the alcoholic calculus teach, while in high-school. They would be about Carlin's age now, and a lecture cum routine (no. pun. intended... it's spelled come anyway, same as the innocuous verb used in reference to travel)) on queef then, seven, eight years ago, would have served well for tonite's show at the Pabst.
(three.) I think a woman with whom I had been set up on a double-blind basis, and with whom I have been communicating for nigh a month, may be blowing me off. Or may be (quite) interested, and, REALLY, just with a full weekend calendar the next two weekends. It is difficult for me to know, with even half certitude, in these situations.
As is, I called her tonite for the first time -- prior, we had been conversing via email, with a week's hiatus in the middle of the month during her trip to Eire -- and while she picked up the phone following the first ring, and knew directly who I was (as I gave her my number a good bit back, and she must have programmed it into her contacts... or so she indicates, and it must be true... or how would she have known?) but she seemed frazzled, as though I had to be gotten off the phone straightaway. She and a gaggle (girlfriends, boys, both?) were to be en route to Comet, which would keep her from being available for half-and-half flipping (with me) for the whole of the weekend, and next she has an anthropologic conference... Of course, I too had no plan to offer to finally meet this weekend, as I had the Carlin show tonite, have to work tomorrow in the evening at the cineplex, and have a rotisserie baseball draft Sunday afternoon into evening (yes, I am that much a gleek... further, I have been in the same league since eighth grade ('94 season)... my uncle, who offered to cover my first year's entry fee by half (he's in the league too) started me young).
But, still... She did pick up the phone after one ring, and knew from whom the call came -- AND, she didn't strike as at all scurred that I actually did call by the third day from when I said I would call (I offered, I'll call in a day or three, last Tuesday into Wednesday) -- but the hurry to get away. I called while she was with friends, yes, but... I am also thinking she didn't let it ring more than once because she didn't want a call from an annoying boy -- pointedly, boy -- to interrupt her repartee and spring questions in her friends, i.e. Who is calling? (A: A boy I don't know personally, but with whom a (good) friend wants to set me up.).
(Man, am I insecure, perchance bipolar, to the max.)
(four.) Thank Got I have that appt Mon. evening. I won't describe the gory detail, but I believe the fella with whom I will be speaking should help me clear my head, get me past some of my fracasos e inseguridades.
(five.) Also Mon., after my appt. and 24, I shall go for broke and suggest to the early-twenties aged cashier at the local grocery and with whom I attempt coquettry (neologism?) that perchance we could deign to speak with each other over Miller High Life sometime. I don't think she actually more than likes that I can make idle chit-chat with her when she's at work and I am a customer, making the store-client exchange a bit less impersonal, but... The last time I was there, as I walked away from the check-out and to my auto, I got that smile that (a (very) few) girls have thrown me. Broad, breck-shiny, and accompanied by an ocular gleam, she was attempting to compel....
Got-damn, I don't know. But, some girls, the Tosa native Beloit College coed from Johnny V's that I met over Thanksgiving Holiday '01, the Polish au paire from Barnes n' Nobley in Nov '03, Shawna W. -- they appreciate my ease in chattering, moving from topic to topic, and usually with an half-comic segue. Or, maybe the better way to put it, they don't so much appreciate my (unexpected, to me) grace in small-group or one-on-one discussion not in a classroom (where my throat would dry and my words would be lost), and the apparent wont on my part to neither be there for a one-nite stand nor a relationship (think of this usage in the pejorative sense with which my old high-school running crew (Mike, Dave, Jerry, et. al.) imbued it; I don't have anywhere nigh so much a bad impression of "relationships" as they), but just me being someone with whom to share a few moments of cooing, touching, and, if fate should allow it, shocking, as our vessels pass in the good nite of young adulthood/pre-yuppie suburban homelife, i.e. marriage at twenty-six to a man/woman in a suit, pregnancy by twenty-nine, home in Brookfield or Whitefish Bay by thirty-five.
So, too, I think "Meghan" is (momentarily) enchanted by my interpersonal habits, which are neither like those of the traditional male nor metrosexual nor ghey; she is taken with them, just as the married, mother of four waitress at J's 5 was, so too the unmarried, stay-at-home, living with the baby-father woman of twenty-seven who was a patron at aforementioned restaurant a different nite. She didn't need to dignify our chatter by wishing me a good nite AND rubbing (briefly) my mid-back as she left, but she did... Why? Why touch a man (or woman, for that matter) you barely know?? Is it that he induced your loins to semi-gird, but, damned if you can't disrupt your relationship nor break your marriage vow?
... Whatever. It is that I have the kavorka. I shall attempt to see if "Meg" has fallen under its rapture.
Selah.
Now, I know the Fifth Dimension (?) song featured on the soundtrack for Big Lebowski was inflected with touches of r n' b, but, looking at his later work, I don't think Kenny Rogers would qualify, straight-up, as a proto-Beck, proto-Nikka (as in Costa... if you're nasty).
Nor do I think the ownership of the bar would be that influenced by Wyclef -- whose Ecleftic, of course, features "Kenny Rogers-Pharaoh Mench Dub Plate".
So, apparently as the Japanese have gravitated to Alyssa Milano's musical output, and as the Latinos have replaced the gays/gheys as the Smiths's principal audience, so too does KR have (many?) fans in an unexpected place: black America.
... The question, was Wyclef on to something, though unrelated to older Milwaukee blacks' appreciation of Kenny?
(two.) Saw George Carlin play the Pabst -- my first time seeing him, and only my second stand-up performance (theatre, club, or other). He proved acerbic, as expected, and the riffing... Dennis Miller in his prime, which, sadly, is passed and never to be duplicated, would have nothing on a sixty-seven (?) years old Carlin.
That said, the routine seemed a bit morbid, though maybe to be expected as the comedian has just gotten out of self-selected rehab (for wine and vicodin misuse) and is still coming off the death of his wife (of probably thirty-five years) from breast cancer a coupla years ago.
Tastefully, though, in his extended close about why he loves natural disasters, he omitted tsunami from the litany of potential "means by which nature can strike back at humanity, and give the underdog, itself, a chance". He had "tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, famines (who doesn't love a good famine -- and sometimes, they'll go for three or four generations, which means a few hundred thousand dead)", but no tsunami.
And, untastefully, he spent a considerable length in the opening discussing queef, and a bit after that, donor pussy. Now, typically, I would have NO problem with such motif, but pronounced by a man in his mid- to late-sixties... And even though I will be that man someday... I don't know, it just seemed -- not skeevy, nor immoral; no such thing as those... It was just a little jarring, for the first time hearing it from someone so wizened.
It would have been easier to take had "El Gran Profesor" or the Stillman spoke of it, or even (better) Yindra, the alcoholic calculus teach, while in high-school. They would be about Carlin's age now, and a lecture cum routine (no. pun. intended... it's spelled come anyway, same as the innocuous verb used in reference to travel)) on queef then, seven, eight years ago, would have served well for tonite's show at the Pabst.
(three.) I think a woman with whom I had been set up on a double-blind basis, and with whom I have been communicating for nigh a month, may be blowing me off. Or may be (quite) interested, and, REALLY, just with a full weekend calendar the next two weekends. It is difficult for me to know, with even half certitude, in these situations.
As is, I called her tonite for the first time -- prior, we had been conversing via email, with a week's hiatus in the middle of the month during her trip to Eire -- and while she picked up the phone following the first ring, and knew directly who I was (as I gave her my number a good bit back, and she must have programmed it into her contacts... or so she indicates, and it must be true... or how would she have known?) but she seemed frazzled, as though I had to be gotten off the phone straightaway. She and a gaggle (girlfriends, boys, both?) were to be en route to Comet, which would keep her from being available for half-and-half flipping (with me) for the whole of the weekend, and next she has an anthropologic conference... Of course, I too had no plan to offer to finally meet this weekend, as I had the Carlin show tonite, have to work tomorrow in the evening at the cineplex, and have a rotisserie baseball draft Sunday afternoon into evening (yes, I am that much a gleek... further, I have been in the same league since eighth grade ('94 season)... my uncle, who offered to cover my first year's entry fee by half (he's in the league too) started me young).
But, still... She did pick up the phone after one ring, and knew from whom the call came -- AND, she didn't strike as at all scurred that I actually did call by the third day from when I said I would call (I offered, I'll call in a day or three, last Tuesday into Wednesday) -- but the hurry to get away. I called while she was with friends, yes, but... I am also thinking she didn't let it ring more than once because she didn't want a call from an annoying boy -- pointedly, boy -- to interrupt her repartee and spring questions in her friends, i.e. Who is calling? (A: A boy I don't know personally, but with whom a (good) friend wants to set me up.).
(Man, am I insecure, perchance bipolar, to the max.)
(four.) Thank Got I have that appt Mon. evening. I won't describe the gory detail, but I believe the fella with whom I will be speaking should help me clear my head, get me past some of my fracasos e inseguridades.
(five.) Also Mon., after my appt. and 24, I shall go for broke and suggest to the early-twenties aged cashier at the local grocery and with whom I attempt coquettry (neologism?) that perchance we could deign to speak with each other over Miller High Life sometime. I don't think she actually more than likes that I can make idle chit-chat with her when she's at work and I am a customer, making the store-client exchange a bit less impersonal, but... The last time I was there, as I walked away from the check-out and to my auto, I got that smile that (a (very) few) girls have thrown me. Broad, breck-shiny, and accompanied by an ocular gleam, she was attempting to compel....
Got-damn, I don't know. But, some girls, the Tosa native Beloit College coed from Johnny V's that I met over Thanksgiving Holiday '01, the Polish au paire from Barnes n' Nobley in Nov '03, Shawna W. -- they appreciate my ease in chattering, moving from topic to topic, and usually with an half-comic segue. Or, maybe the better way to put it, they don't so much appreciate my (unexpected, to me) grace in small-group or one-on-one discussion not in a classroom (where my throat would dry and my words would be lost), and the apparent wont on my part to neither be there for a one-nite stand nor a relationship (think of this usage in the pejorative sense with which my old high-school running crew (Mike, Dave, Jerry, et. al.) imbued it; I don't have anywhere nigh so much a bad impression of "relationships" as they), but just me being someone with whom to share a few moments of cooing, touching, and, if fate should allow it, shocking, as our vessels pass in the good nite of young adulthood/pre-yuppie suburban homelife, i.e. marriage at twenty-six to a man/woman in a suit, pregnancy by twenty-nine, home in Brookfield or Whitefish Bay by thirty-five.
So, too, I think "Meghan" is (momentarily) enchanted by my interpersonal habits, which are neither like those of the traditional male nor metrosexual nor ghey; she is taken with them, just as the married, mother of four waitress at J's 5 was, so too the unmarried, stay-at-home, living with the baby-father woman of twenty-seven who was a patron at aforementioned restaurant a different nite. She didn't need to dignify our chatter by wishing me a good nite AND rubbing (briefly) my mid-back as she left, but she did... Why? Why touch a man (or woman, for that matter) you barely know?? Is it that he induced your loins to semi-gird, but, damned if you can't disrupt your relationship nor break your marriage vow?
... Whatever. It is that I have the kavorka. I shall attempt to see if "Meg" has fallen under its rapture.
Selah.
hope it works out with Meg