The monologues.

Caught part of the Joan Rivers roast on Comedy Central the other night. To paraphrase Philip Roth: Never have I heard the word vagina spoken so much in one evening, and I am a woman who has heard the word vagina spoken.

Joan’s vagina, we heard, is old, dry, old, stretched, old, foul-smelling, old, well-traveled and I’m probably forgetting something else, but you get the gist. When they weren’t talking about her vagina they were talking about her face, which is fair game when someone has had as much plastic surgery as she has. I never know how the roastee is supposed to react at those things; I guess you’re pretty much required to be a good sport, but Rivers’ face work made it hard to tell — her expression was the same smile throughout, even when they were joking about her late husband, a suicide.

But mostly the talk was about vaginas. When did we decide “vagina” was not only OK to say on television, but funny? It’s not a funny word. It sounds too medical, like pancreas. When I was a girl and first encountered the word in print — because that was a time before people spoke it aloud outside of a doctor’s office — I thought it was pronounced va-GEE-na, and as far as I’m concerned it should be. It was years before I met that hostile long-I sound, and I disliked it immediately. Saying vagina the way it’s correctly pronounced makes you open your mouth just a tad too wide. Like Joan Rivers’ vagina! See, I can be a roaster, too.

“Vagina” isn’t funny. The body part’s other euphemisms? Funny. Kitty, poontang, ya ya — all funny. “Muffin” — very funny. And the roasters were, in general, not funny, or not funny enough. If you’re going to work that blue, you better be funny, but after the first few vaginas, it just got dull. Gilbert Gottfried livened things up with a long, long vagina riff that actually was funny; it took on the surreal colors of his Aristocrats joke at the Hugh Hefner roast. It was the line about the unicorn peeking out that cracked me up. Gottfried isn’t afraid to walk right up to the abyss and lean way out; in this sense he distinguishes himself from the other no-names or never-wases on the stage. (See this classic account of the Hugh Hefner event, just weeks after 9/11, at which Gottfried brought the house down, and even Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t bad.)

I don’t know how to wrap this up, so how about if I just repeat a Gilbert Gottfried line: Joan Rivers’ vagina has tested positive for dust.

And then go to the bloggage:

The poster for the new “Mad Men” series was not Photoshopped:

I sat in a giant tank of water for a solid Saturday, and it was kind of fun, actually. I mean, once you’re wet, you’re wet. You don’t get any more wet. So you’re just kind of like, “All right, here we are.” And it was a bunch of crewmembers and waiters and an incredibly skillfully constructed set, and I think a pretty cool image that they got out of it as well. I’m sure they could have done some kind of photo trickery, but this makes for a better story, and it’s way cooler to go build it and do it for reals. I think online, there’s a time-lapse image of it filling up, too.

Santorum in 2012! No, I’m not kidding.

Well, shut my mouth: Turns out Rove was involved in the U.S. attorney firings after all.

This is cool: Vote for your favorite song from Woodstock. I’m down with “Soul Sacrifice,” but as usual, I’m in the minority.

Posted at 8:35 am in Popculch |
 

63 responses to “The monologues.”

  1. PatMP said on August 12, 2009 at 8:53 am

    An episode of Rescue Me, several weeks ago, used the V-word repeatedly throughout the show. Must be the word of the month.

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  2. Julie Robinson said on August 12, 2009 at 9:32 am

    “I thought it was pronounced va-GEE-na.” The classic mistake of someone reading beyond her years.

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  3. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 12, 2009 at 9:36 am

    Not to stick with the word of the month, but for the many fans of reading hereabouts, a link to an LA Times article that’s worth look — http://is.gd/2dx0x

    Haven’t heard that William James quote in too long: “My experience is what i agree to attend to.”

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  4. Jeff Borden said on August 12, 2009 at 9:38 am

    Rick Santorum for President? Boy howdy. He’ll be lucky to pull Ghouliani numbers. What kind of sucker would contribute to his campaign?

    My favorite Woodstock song was “I Want to Take You Higher” by Sly and the Family Stone. I’ve always been a sucker for a horn section, but when it’s showcased against the night sky and photographed by real pros, it’s even better.

    Perhaps it’s my advanced age, but I think of the old Dean Martin-hosted roasts as the epitome of this particular kind of humor. And they didn’t need to say vagina or penis over and over to get a laugh. I’m about as far away from prudish as you can get, but it sounds like the Rivers roast was a showcase for the laziest and simplest of humor, the adult version of a toddler running around yelling poo poo.

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  5. Mindy said on August 12, 2009 at 9:58 am

    My dear old mum went to school with some poor farm girl named Vagina Clemmons. I didn’t believe this and actually dug around the attic to find her high school yearbook for proof. Sadly, I got it. As mum recalls, the girl’s parents thought it was a pretty word.

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  6. mark said on August 12, 2009 at 9:58 am

    I’m no fan of Karl Rove, and he may have been involved in the AG firings or even the mastermind behind them. But you couldn’t prove it from the NYT article linked by the hostess.

    Are headlines supposed to have some rational, factual relationship to the story to which they are attached? Do editors check this kind of thing?

    When I see a headline “E-Mail Reveals Rove’s Key Role in ’06 Dismissal”, I kind of expect to read about an e-mail authored by Mr. Rove. Or perhaps e-mail received by him. Or maybe an e-mail between third parties that describes his “key role.” Possibly an e-mail that mentions his name or position in connection with the firings.

    Instead, I get old news about testimony that Rove bitched to H. Meiers, with no clear statement what role she had. And no indication of how Rove’s role was key.

    Very much looking forward to the new season of Mad Men.

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  7. ROgirl said on August 12, 2009 at 10:04 am

    Mindy, that sounds like a name from the National Lampoon yearbook that I still remember: Anna Maria Spermatazoa.

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  8. John said on August 12, 2009 at 10:05 am

    I heard the Got­tfried comment years ago in reference to the Queen Mother:
    “She’s so old that instead of shitting, she farts dust!”

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  9. coozledad said on August 12, 2009 at 10:10 am

    I remember hearing a vagina joke that was almost funny, but I can’t remember it well enough to tell it. It involved some guy getting lost in one and trying to catch a cab out.
    The problem with this material is the unintentional analog of “small dick” stories. My wife inevitably points this out when I try to tell “big pussy” jokes.

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  10. brian stouder said on August 12, 2009 at 10:11 am

    Didn’t read the Santorum thing, but nonetheless I already knew it. Watching Rachel or Keith, at the commercials I’ll pop over to the cluster-Fox (as KO says) and see who’s frothing at the mouth over there, and recently ol’ bestial Ricky has been the purple-passion guy. Before that, the Newt was constantly haunting Greta’s set (when Uncle Rush wasn’t there), but his enthusiastic embrace of Sarah’s Death Panel probably euthanized his (already bed-ridden) chances.

    Didn’t Woodie do Alice’s Restaurant at Woodstock? If so, I vote for him.

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  11. ROgirl said on August 12, 2009 at 10:20 am

    That was Arlo at Woodstock.

    I’m kind of leaning towards Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner.

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  12. Jeff Borden said on August 12, 2009 at 10:22 am

    Brian,

    Interesting insight into Newt. He’s someone I have never quite figured out. I certainly don’t like him and think he has the morals of a rabid bat, politically and personally. Yet he is clearly an intelligent man and reportedly quite a student of history. To see him echoing the deranged thoughts of the Wasilla snowbilly queen on Obamacare “death panels” puzzles me since it will so clearly terrify the moderates and independents critical to winning any kind of national political race.

    He must know this. So, why repeat these ludicrous claims? Why give cover to Queen Iquitarod? It doesn’t pencil out for me.

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  13. coozledad said on August 12, 2009 at 10:25 am

    I’d have to go with the guitar break from the Who’s Pinball Wizard.

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  14. Dorothy said on August 12, 2009 at 10:33 am

    I know without clicking on the link that Soul Sacrifice is Santana’s song and I’m with you on that vote. I love Santana – old and new. It’s one of the best groups to put on the CD player when I’m cleaning. “Everybody’s Everything”, “Dance Sister Dance”, “Adouma”, “Oye Como Va”, their version of “She’s Not There” live on the Moonstruck album, “The Game of Love”, “Maria Maria”, “Let the Children Play”. and my very favorite: “Say It Again”!!

    And PatMP – is it just me or is Rescue Me extremely tiresome this year? I gave up on it a few weeks ago. It’s still on our DVR list but I might just tell Mike to watch the back episodes and delete them. It’s a case of same old/same old on that show now.

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  15. Connie said on August 12, 2009 at 10:35 am

    I’m going to say Richie Havens is what sticks with me from Woodstock. Somewhere downstairs is that vinyl album. And also songs by Janis Joplin, CSNY, and CCR.

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  16. moe99 said on August 12, 2009 at 10:38 am

    When my younger brother (the one who went to Spencer School with Alan) was doing his anesthesia residency at George Washington Univ. in D.C., he was on ob duty and one of the patients he was administering the anesthesia to decided to name her baby girl, Placenta, because she’d heard the word used in the operating room and it sounded so pretty.

    Oh, and TPM had more on Rove’s lies yesterday, mark, that go beyond any emails to Miers. I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up:
    http://tinyurl.com/r2627h
    But you’re on your own as far as finding the original emails.

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  17. derwood said on August 12, 2009 at 10:41 am

    My vote went for Amazing Journey.

    My mom was from South Carolina and had 12 sisters. She told us once that her sisters referred to the “area” as their Twitchet. We use to threaten her that we would ask one of her very religous southern baptist sisters how their twitchet was doing.

    In other vagina news…when my wife’s grandma (bitch grandma was how we referred to her…she was a mean mean woman) fell and broke her hip, we got hours of laughter speculating about what blew out of her vagina when she fell.

    I digress…

    daron

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  18. coozledad said on August 12, 2009 at 10:44 am

    Moe99: A physician acquaintance tells me there’s a woman wandering around somewhere named “Formica Dinette” for similar reasons.

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  19. 4dbirds said on August 12, 2009 at 10:46 am

    My vote for Richie Havens. I saw the Joan Rivers roast also. Make fun of her face, okay I get that, but why is it a crime to get old?

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  20. Joe Kobiela said on August 12, 2009 at 10:52 am

    Rosanne once made a remark about the size of Tom Arnolds member.
    His reply was,even a 747 looks small flying inside the grand canyon.
    Pilot Joe

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  21. LAMary said on August 12, 2009 at 11:02 am

    In the days preceding the Joan Rivers roast, Comedy Central was showing previous roasts. I walked into the living room a few days ago to hear some woman going on about vaginas and penises and Jewish Princesses or something. It just sounded lame and although I’m far from being a prude, I told the fifteen year old to change the channel. There’s funny dirty and there’s just stupid dirty.

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  22. Jason T. said on August 12, 2009 at 11:06 am

    Pilot Joe in the upper left-hand square for the win!

    I once had to meet with someone named “Regina.” Before the meeting, I asked — I thought very reasonably — if this lady pronounced her name “Rej-EEna” (like the vacuum cleaner) or “Rej-EYEna” (like the city in Canada).

    Oh, there were gales of laughter all around the office that day, at my expense.

    But gee whiz, I still think it’s a reasonable question.

    Or maybe her name was Delores?

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  23. brian stouder said on August 12, 2009 at 11:06 am

    named “Formica Dinette”

    I think this is the same impulse as the native Americans (et al) who supposedly have with those poetic names drawn from their surroundings, like ‘soaring eagle’ or ‘sitting bull’. My name could be ‘porcelain convenience’ or ‘cold pop’.

    why is it a crime to get old?

    It’s not! But as the Wizard of Oz explains to Dorothy, when she asks if he was frightened, when his balloon blew away from the State Fair:

    http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0088707/quotes

    Frightened? Child, you’re talking to a man who’s laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe… I was petrified.

    edit: re “Delores” – the BEST Seinfeld! And an example of Mary’s ‘funny dirty’ that wasn’t even dirty

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  24. Jason T. said on August 12, 2009 at 11:20 am

    Just saw this on Mark Evanier’s News from ME … it’s about Carl Reiner and that Comedy Central roast:

    After the event, I overheard someone compliment him on his performance at the Comedy Central Roast of Joan Rivers which aired this past weekend. Mr. Reiner winced and told the man — and enough surrounding people that I feel it’s okay to report it here — that it was maybe the most humiliating show of his life. He hadn’t realized what he was agreeing to appear on and felt totally out of place. Given that, it’s amazing he was as charming and funny on it as he was. (If you haven’t seen it, don’t…or at least, don’t watch any part of it except for Carl Reiner.)

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  25. Hexdecimal said on August 12, 2009 at 11:20 am

    Country Joe and the Fish – Gimme an F! An anthem for a whole generation.

    http://www.well.com/~cjfish/game.htm#cheer

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  26. Dorothy said on August 12, 2009 at 11:23 am

    Carl Reiner is a class act. He was hilarious when he played Alan Brady on the Dick Van Dyke show. I am surprised he agreed to be on that show, though. Joan Rivers is a washed up old lady who can’t come to grips with aging. She hasn’t been funny in decades.

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  27. Connie said on August 12, 2009 at 11:24 am

    I think it is Julie Smith’s Talba Wallis New Orleans PI series in which a character’s real name is Vagina or something similar. A white resident – in the doctor sense – suggested it to the black mother as a lovely choice for her daughter’s name. Talba considers it to have been an evil racist action.

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  28. moe99 said on August 12, 2009 at 11:25 am

    Jason T–my actual name is Regina and I cannot tell you the number of times folks in Seattle pronounce it like it rhymes w/ vagina. That’s because Regina, Saskatchewan is pronounced that way. The German pronunciation (which is where my name comes from–my maternal grandmother whose folks hailed from Alsace Lorraine)is different–the ‘g’ is a hard ‘g,’ but at least the ‘i’ is short.

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  29. Connie said on August 12, 2009 at 11:27 am

    I’ve known two Reginas, both pronounced with hard g and more of a long e. One of them had a brother names Giles, also pronounced with a hard g and long i.

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  30. ROgirl said on August 12, 2009 at 11:38 am

    This is a treat.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HbvtNNGBMk

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  31. coozledad said on August 12, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    I was reading Will Self’s recollections of J.G. Ballard last night, and this caught my attention:
    “…ninety percent of the spending on healthcare in any given English individual’s life takes place in their last six weeks. Up until then welfare provision may have been patchy, but a citizen’s demise is invariably full-board and en suite – assuming, that is, express checkout.”

    What. No death panels?

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  32. beb said on August 12, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    At least they weren’t using the “T” word for vagina. Roast, like our whole nation discourse has been painfully coarsened.

    I suspict that what’s so upsetting about Joan Rivers’ Roast was that the sum total of their jokes was that “Joan Rivers is a woman — nuff said!” Forgotten in all this is that Rivers had a long and respectable career, was a frequent guest on Carson and a frequent substitute host. The woman is not a joke. But men tend to always put woman down if and when they start to challenge men.

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  33. nancy said on August 12, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    To be sure, beb, a classic comedians’ roast is not the time for a loving end-of-career tribute. In fact, I always understood that they were held for the showbiz community alone, and were a place for real high-wire acts, and, needless to say, very blue. It’s only been recently that they’ve been open to public consumption via cable TV. With that has come the appropriation of the term “roast” for any Rotary Club geezer who just collected his gold watch. You make one weak joke about golf games and frat-house pranks and then move on to the ass-kissing. I’ll take the genitalia jokes and the Friars, thanks very much.

    Speaking of which, here’s a joke about Rob Reiner told at his roast: He’s so hairy his dick looks like a button on a fur coat. Now that’s funny.

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  34. mark said on August 12, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    Thanks for the link moe, but I was commenting on the NYT’s failure to deliver anything at all supportive of the headline (and photo)that accompany the article. And the article does not mention any e-mails between Rove and Miers.

    You might want to get a nap before more lawyering. Missing the issue and screwing up the facts don’t bode well.

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  35. moe99 said on August 12, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    oh, mark, bless your heart. If and when I want or need advice about lawyering, I’ll ask for it. Elsewhere.

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  36. Dorothy said on August 12, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    My mother’s sister was given the name Anne Elizabeth when she was born. She became a nun with the Sisters of St. Joseph and took the name Regina, pronounced Re-jean-ah.

    And moe you cracked me up with that comment to mark. When I lived in South Carolina it was explained to me by my Southern friends that “bless your heart” was synonymous with many expressions, including “go fuck yourself.”

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  37. Dexter said on August 12, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    After years of appreciating all that Woodstock means (yes, still, to this day it is recognized as the standard of all festivals) I can’t vote in The Times’s poll because my fave performance was Joe Cocker covering The Beatles’s “With a Little Help from my Friends”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQYDvQ1HH-E
    It still sends spine tingles if I don’t watch it for a few months and then plug it in.
    I loved it all, though…especially Country Joe MacDonald, Janis, Richie Havens, Santana, and Jefferson Airplane, and of course Arlo singing “…coming into Los Ann-gell-eese, bringin’ in a couple of ki s…”
    Someday I will take a trip to Bethel and check out the museum and the grounds; I didn’t hear about Woodstock until it was well under way…but at age 19, hanging around home for the last few days before my military draft reporting day, I would have gone there in a minute if I had been aware.

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  38. basset said on August 12, 2009 at 2:51 pm

    ROGirl, I believe that was Maria Teresa Spermatozoa… and one of her classmates was Amana Swansdown Pepperidge.

    Working entirely from memory here – I can’t remember the names of people I met last week, but a lot of the Lampoon material sticks with me for some reason.

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  39. adrianne said on August 12, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    I’m at ground zero for Woodstock anniversary coverage (Bethel, N.Y., not the pretender town of Woodstock!) and it’s unbelievable. The nice couple on the album cover, the Ercolines, who still live here in the Hudson Valley, are so tired of the attention that they’ve decamped for a cruise to Alaska.

    That said, my vote: “I want to take you higher” by Sly and the Family Stone. Righteous!

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  40. Dexter said on August 12, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    My fave group of all time deserves its own posting…csny , at Woodstock…raw video, the real thing.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYGVzzoJfC4

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  41. LAMary said on August 12, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    I was told you can say anything nasty you want to about a person if you add bless his/her/your heart.

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  42. ROgirl said on August 12, 2009 at 3:15 pm

    Basset, Mandy Pepperidge ended up being a character in Animal House. And Larry Kroger, too.

    Another Southern euphemism: Isn’t that nice?

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  43. Dexter said on August 12, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    adrianne…are you Tweeting from Bethel?

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  44. Danny said on August 12, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    Mary, I’ve heard that you can make sense of any fortune cookie saying by adding the words, “in bed.”

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  45. coozledad said on August 12, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    The phrases that remain alien to me, even though I grew up in the South, are “What you know good?” and “Why don’t you come with me home?” I’m still a little taken aback when I hear them.

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  46. Danny said on August 12, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    Speaking of tweeting, I had bookmarked Lance Armstrong’s twitter during the recent Tour and happened to look at it yesterday. What is St. Lance up to? Well, drinking beer, spending a little time with his newborn and girlfriend, riding dirt bikes and remarking that the passing of Eunice Kennedy was sad.

    Now which one of these things does not fit with the others? I’m guessing that St. Lance will someday grace us with a run for political office and he is getting his ducks in a row. Just a guess…

    I bet he doesn’t bother starting with a state office either, unless it’s a governorship. He’s probably thinking Senate as his first office.

    Bless his heart!

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  47. Danny said on August 12, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    Nancy, speaking of Lance, in light of his recent Tour performance any ruminations from you as to his cleanliness from performance enhancing drugs over the years?

    EDIT: I just looked at my post and want to assure you that “ruminations” was not meant in the bovine sense!

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  48. Dorothy said on August 12, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    How timely:

    http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09224/990227-122.stm

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  49. brian stouder said on August 12, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    Danny, a few weeks ago we did the “in bed” addition to our fortune cookie fortunes, and it was indeed quite funny!

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  50. moe99 said on August 12, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    we used to add “under the sheets” when reading the titles of the songs on the jukebox. After a few beers, they were hilarious. That rather dates me….

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  51. Danny said on August 12, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    No, but if you said your dog was the one on Victrola, now that would date you.

    Say, Moe, what’s up with you and mark? You two dating yet?

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  52. Dexter said on August 12, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Danny… I don’t understand the attack on Lance Armstrong. Four days ago he won at Snowmass http://www.velonews.com/article/96488 and is now the Colorado champion. He Tweets like a regular guy and showed us his wine choice, yes, but so what? After tdf he took a few days with his family to vacation in the islands then went to Colorado and dominated. The Enduro stuff was recreation…big deal…his Tweets are fun to read.

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  53. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 12, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    Try sitting in church, passing the hymnal and a note to your sibling suggesting that they open the hymnbook at random and read the titles on the two facing pages, adding “between the sheets” to each one.

    Then watch them get smacked for giggling during the pastoral prayer.

    (It works with CCM titles up on the projection screen, too, sometimes even better.)

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  54. alex said on August 12, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    I was too young for Woodstock, but the song that holds the greatest memory for me is “Somebody to Love.”

    And my favorite hymn is Humbly I Adore Thee Between the Sheets.

    (Don’t really know hymns all that well, except for a few learned during my stint in Episcopalian boarding school, which turned me into an intractable atheist. I once wrote a piece in the school paper which contained the phrase “by God,” and both the j-teacher and I got called on the carpet and berated for “promulgating obscenity.” And this is a church that thirty years later is on the progressive side of the culture wars. Go figure.)

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  55. LA Mary said on August 12, 2009 at 10:06 pm

    Be Still My Soul Between the Sheets?
    How Great Thou Art Between the Sheets?
    Have Thine Own Way Between the Sheets?

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  56. Connie said on August 12, 2009 at 10:45 pm

    Up From the Grave He Arose Between the Sheets?

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  57. brian stouder said on August 12, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    Well, and aside from the in-the-sack-religious (so to speak) puns, don’t forget the Chinese Fortune Cookie fun with the phrase “in bed”

    http://www.chinese-fortune-cookie.com/fortune-cookie-quotes.html

    Just copy/pasting the first 5 on the list, we get:

    There is a true and sincere friendship between you and your friends in bed

    You find beauty in ordinary things, do not lose this ability in bed

    Ideas are like children; there are none so wonderful as your own in bed

    It takes more than good memory to have good memories in bed

    A thrilling time is in your immediate future in bed

    I’m thinkin’ I’d love me some Moo Goo Gai Pan, tomorrow! Anyway, that list goes on and on – here’s another sampling:

    Excitement and intrigue follow you closely wherever you go!in bed

    A pleasant surprise is in store for you. in bed

    May life throw you a pleasant curve. in bed

    As the purse is emptied the heart is filled.in bed

    Be mischievous and you will not be lonesome. in bed

    You have a deep appreciation of the arts and music. in bed

    Your flair for the creative takes an important place in your life. in bed

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  58. Linda said on August 13, 2009 at 5:27 am

    beb:
    I sus­pict that what’s so upset­ting about Joan Rivers’ Roast was that the sum total of their jokes was that “Joan Rivers is a woman — nuff said!” For­got­ten in all this is that Rivers had a long and respectable career, was a fre­quent guest on Car­son and a fre­quent sub­sti­tute host. The woman is not a joke. But men tend to always put woman down if and when they start to chal­lenge men.

    “Worse” yet, she was a pioneer in that she turned her humor outward. Until Joan, women who cracked jokes (think of Phyllis Diller and Totie Fields) largely made themselves the butt of the joke. Free Press columnist Bob Talbert once admitted, “I thought she was a lot funnier when she made fun of herself.” Nuff said.

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  59. John said on August 13, 2009 at 8:32 am

    I watched the roast and didn’t get the sense that Joan was put down because she is a woman. All the roasters said outrageous things (that being the nature of this style roast), but closed with comments praising Joan’s abilities and achievements.

    I liked the Shatner and Flavor Flav roasts better.

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  60. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 13, 2009 at 9:20 am

    Looks like a trip to Danny territory is in order – http://is.gd/2faxL

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  61. LA Mary said on August 13, 2009 at 9:42 am

    I have a Self Realization Fellowship garden up the street from my house. The SRF folks are very generous about sharing their space. Their Motherhouse is here on San Rafael Avenue in an old gracious hotel from the silent movie era, maybe a little earlier.

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  62. Danny said on August 13, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Indeed, Jeff. The beach right in front of the Self Realization Fellowship is appropriately called, Swami’s, and is famous for surfers. I used to live in Leucadia, back in my college days. We were going to eat at the Pizza Port Brewery (mentioned in the article) last weekend, but opted for the other place I showed you guys last weekend, here in comment 95

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  63. Scout said on August 14, 2009 at 1:05 am

    That is so cool that some of you are familiar with SRF – I attend the Temple here in Phx.

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