CSotD: Incel-ated from the truth
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I’ve seen about half a dozen Carol Channing obituary cartoons, which sent me to IMBD to find out the last time she worked. Turns out it’s not quite as long ago as this TV Guide cover, which was in 1966.
She did some voice work a quarter century ago and a couple of cameo appearances a little more recently, but I still think that you have to be old enough to remember the Ed Sullivan Show to know who she was, because Ed loooved Carol Channing and had her on often.
His show went off the air 47 years ago, and the current median age in the US is 38.
I rest my case, having not even bothered to state it.
Meanwhile, the Gillette commercial continues to rile the nation, and Pat Bagley contends that there just might be a little too much toxicity in the best of guys, purposely misconstruing the exact concept but getting it right on the overall level.
Which is to say, under the outrageously offensive behavior there is a deep, passive layer of simply not getting it.
I’m not a proponent of divorce for its own sake, but one thing I did learn in my second bachelorhood is that you get major brownie points for showering before coming to the boudoir.
My response to which was, “Wait, there are guys who don’t?”
Apparently. And I gather this is no surprise to women, poor souls.
The guys who are all butt-hurt by the Gillette commercial because (in their minds) it brands all men as nasty toxic bad people seem to be complaining because the shoe fits.
Don’t look at me, pal. I must be one of the ugly stepbrothers.
This is nothing new: Much of what I learned about couth a half century ago I learned by — no joke — reading the articles in Playboy, in which being cool included not just mutual orgasms but simple good manners.
Sometimes that element of coolness was ostentatious — the thing of lighting two cigarettes and handing her one is more than a little outre these days — but mostly it was just knowing how to appreciate a moment.
And a lot of that was stupidly obvious: It’s hard to imagine Jerry Seinfeld being cited as an authority on how to treat another human being, but, yes: It’s like an eclipse. You’re not supposed to stare.
Granted, vintage James Bond often makes me kind of shudder, but at least the man bathed regularly and maintained as gentlemanly an element of discretion with regard to his unofficial exploits as he did with the ones that were classified.
Which is to say, he not only didn’t lie, but he didn’t even gossip. Major part of being cool, which brings us to …
Over at the Nib, Charis JB has a long cartoon called “How “Pick-Up Artists” Morphed Into The Alt-Right,” which seems longer on anger than on research, given the above panel.
But since she invites argument, I would argue that there was, two decades before the late Eighties, a book simply called “How to Pick Up Girls” which was advertised in the classifieds of college papers.
We used to laugh about it, but it continued to be advertised so apparently somebody was making money, and since Ross Jeffries was born in 1958, it wasn’t likely him.
It was a stupid book for stupid people, but marketing to losers can be lucrative.
However, I suspect tracing the alt-right back to would-be pickup artists is a little like tracing heroin addiction back to dope smokers.
Not that clueless guys don’t provide women with plenty of motivation for being pissed off.
Surprised this ad didn’t get everybody’s knickers in a knot.
Dude, she would rather you smelled like Old Spice than the way you smell now.
That’s harsh.
But speaking of pissed-off women …
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes led a search party yesterday to find the elusive Mitch McConnell and hand deliver a request that he do his goddam job, which Scott Stantis memorializes with this cartoon.
It is kind of funny how one party screams for matters to come to a vote when they’re out of power and then sits on their thumbs when they have the majority, innit?
AOC is a fan of the flamboyant gesture and she’s right: Ol’ Mitch is the roadblock here, not Dear Leader. Teasing him for his refusal to do his job probably won’t change his behavior, but it might change the public pressure that could.
There are people saying that his refusal to allow a vote surely means he’s also under Putin’s thumb, but let’s not forget that he blocked Merritt Garland’s nomination for months, long before Trump was elected.
Hm. We may have backtracked to the topic of clueless men who don’t know how bad they smell.
But, as Mike Luckovich notes, AOC isn’t the only uppity woman making trouble in DC. (It also gave him a chance to work in a hamberder gag, which was worth a chuckle.)
What I’ve noted in the comments on Twitter, however, is that, while headline writers make it sound like Pelosi simply asked him to postpone the speech, if you read the actual article, you will find that she uninvited him and wasn’t “asking” at all.
There is no requirement that the President appear before Congress each year for a State of the Union address. The Constitution simply says
He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient
Several presidents, as Pelosi suggested, have just sent written messages.
In any case, while Mitch was simply the target of some naughty freshmen pulling a stunt, the Speaker has quite a bit more leverage and this is an impressive shot across the bow.
If he doesn’t heave to, maybe Lt. McConnell will have to come out of his shell and relieve him of command in order to save the ship.
Or someone else will, if Tom the Dancing Bug has it pegged right.
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