Thursday, May 29, 2008
Your insensitive, politically incorrect Id at work
Had a dream the other night and it went like this. I was in the front of my house and a young black man passed by and stopped, nicely dressed in a casual way. Maybe new in town, kinda quiet and we just had a decent snowfall so to break the ice and be a friendly sort I suggest we build a snowman. Still kind of aloof so I try some humor and go "maybe we can stick a crackpipe in his mouth". Now many people still don't get this, humor in general, and the better comics will tell you it's not your intent to perpetuate stereotypes but to make fun of those very same stereotypes kinda like your Muslim friend you see on his cell phone and you say "what? do you have OBL on speed-dial?" It's whole purpose is to take the sting out of it and sometimes they laugh and sometimes they don't (more often it's the latter these days). It's humor, it need not come with a set of Monarch Notes, and you trust people to know what a NUANCE is. Anyways in my dream-sequence I'm like OH NO! the guy ain't laughing, he looks a little angry and that was kind of the end of it, off to another dream but I think the whole moral of the dream is that some jokes are best left in your head. Oh no, did I just blog about this?
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Lee Kington ain't reading this, is he?
ReplyDeleteYou'll know tomorrow if Lee is reading it if you get banned from your own blog.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a lot of gaffes as of late, perhaps too many thoughts that should remain in people's heads are escaping.
As Dave Matthews sings "open up my head and let me out, little baby!"
ReplyDeleteI'm only guessing here but you probably would run afoul of the Sheriff over at Hannityland for even posting this, not sure though but what is certain is that someone would rat you out at tttm, probably before you could percolate a cup of coffee. Might have a little trouble promoting this blog over there even though most people see blogging as a freer art form than posting at some political forum where sensitivities are high. As someone told you at your own blog recently Beth when you blog you should be writing for yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe only benefit in Hannityland is exposure, but yes you do need to follow their rules, you are Mr. Hannity's guest, yada yada.
ReplyDeleteI think another point of my dream is that it is so easy to be misunderstood, to have things taken out of context and that maybe we need to be more compassionate or at least wait for an explanation. Yeah, you are Mr. Hannity's guest over there and one gets the impression it's a rather stuffy affair, white shirt and tie, watch your language, watch the jokes, we have security you know. At least at my blog you can really rap, say what you need to say.
ReplyDeleteI'm rather jealous that you have dreams with meaning, I suppose I might but I hardly remember them.
ReplyDeleteTo be building a blog even while you're dreaming, my mind must be on overdrive or something. Alot of dreams are just mundane though, driving somewhere in the country or performing some task at work. Sometimes in your dream you're in a building just looking for a place to go to the bathroom,
ReplyDeletehey, just like in Real Life!
Well I do think you are more creative than the average person, why you should write a book, imo.
ReplyDeleteI've heard it said that books will someday, perhaps sooner than we think, become obsolete and everything will be online. My blog is my book for the moment.
ReplyDeleteWorks for me, but then there wouldn't be national book tours and book signings anymore, that would be a shame. And how are you going to get paid for this work of art blog you write?
ReplyDeleteYou wonder when people write books and otherwise make comments in general they're really being totally honest or holding back. My book would be too honest, there'd be no holding back and there'd be controversy, no doubt about it. Now if blogging ever became a paid career it'd be heaven on earth.
ReplyDeleteI also have a feeling that you could write some very good fiction, you always come up with great imagery in your writings here. Then if you are writing fictiously, your honestly could still shine through but nobody would take it personally, lol.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be as long as Ayn Rand though. Now I'm over 500 pages through and the whole Dagny and Hank Rearden thing and I think we kinda know by now they have something going on but Rand has to keep reminding us with rather vivid descriptions and I'm like just get on with it already. I mean don't these two ever not have sex? Isn't at least one of them not in the mood at least sometimes? People like Hank who throw themselves into their work should never get married in the first place. Overall the book is still good but it gets sidetracked from time to time and like I have to go to work already.
ReplyDeleteWow, it took me 8 months to read Atlas, at this rate it will take you less than 8 weeks! You must be using your Sunday blogging time to read, huh?
ReplyDeleteWell, not only that I don't take the time to look big words up in the dictionary anymore, I just read straight on through. I'm actually amazed I made it this far. You know I have more than a little sympathy for Rearden's wife Lillian, it ain't a perfect marriage by any stretch but it's like Hank doesn't have any feelings. What's your take?
ReplyDeleteI don't want to give anything away, but Hank ended up being my favorite character in the end.
ReplyDeleteThat's good to know because at the moment he acts like he wants to kill either Franciso d'Anconia or Lillian or both and I keep thinking what if he finds out Dagny's first love was Francisco? I hear the John Galt guy doesn't surface until the last 1/3 of the book.
ReplyDeleteYeah, did you read that in the intro? See, his actual existence was a surprise to me.
ReplyDeleteI know I judged characters throughout the book, and sometimes my opinion changed as more information came to light. I suppose as in real Life, things are not always as they seem.
ReplyDeleteI did read the intro first and was clued into John Galt's existence. I'm at the part where the government, that Wesley Mouch creep and his gang, put the screws on Hank to get his business and he's walking home alone and meets that infamous pirate Ragnar Danneskjold who gives him a bar of gold and discourses quite intelligently on the whole Robin Hood theme and how it's contemptible and he has a bank account all set up for Hank and others like him whose businesses were taken away by the looters...
ReplyDeleteHow much do you think the current political climate is becoming like Atlas?
ReplyDeleteWith Obama it's spot on! It's amazing the book was published in 1957, if you didn't know any better or who Ayn Rand was you'd think it was written yesterday.
ReplyDeleteScary, ain't it?
ReplyDeleteThe best novels were always prophetic, George Orwell's "1984", Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". All three envision different futuristic scenarios but all share the same thread of man's loss of individual freedom. Now the actual year 1984 has come and passed and people just shrugged it off as not being all that true or is it? In "Brave New World" you have the issue of cloning and "Atlas Shrugged" depicts the nightmare of a planned economy. I'm almost up to the point now where John Galt makes his grand debut, just read the part this morning about that horrible train wreck in the tunnel. There certainly is enough here for a decent movie, I would imagine it'd be at least 3 hours.
ReplyDeleteSoapie says that a movie is in the works, did you know that? Angelina Jolie as Dagny. Will be interesting to see how Hollywood spins it.
ReplyDeleteI remember him saying that and with Angelina Jolie they're definitely gonna sex it up. How Hollywood spins it? well maybe they can get Mel Gibson to direct it, lol.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, the movie will have to cut many parts so its not too too long, but probably they won't cut the sex parts.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's what got Hollywood interested in the first place. BTW I started an Ayn Rand blog today so we can collect everything in one place.
ReplyDelete