Before I forget, a movie recommendation we caught last weekend on On Demand cable. (It sounds strange to write “on On Demand,” but stranger to write, “a movie we demanded to watch last weekend.” How about “a movie we watched via On Demand.” Does that work for everyone?)
Anyway: “The Other F Word,” which I thought we could enjoy as a fam, seeing as how it had cross-generational appeal — a documentary about some of the most notorious punk rockers of the ’80s, now responsible fathers. It was an amusing little trifle, and if it boiled down to, essentially, “one day you’ll have children, and you’ll understand,” it didn’t make it any less charming.
The central through-line was the story of Jim Lindberg, lead singer in Pennywise (I’ve never heard of them, either, although I’m told they were big. Or maybe the pictures got small.). He has one of those double-edged swords — a band that has enough success after a couple of decades to provide him and his quartet of blondes (wife, three adorable daughters) with a comfortable California living, but only if he’s willing to spend three-quarters of every year on the road, screaming into microphones. It’s not exactly a hard-knock life, except it is. He’s a funny guy, and at one point, pausing near the bunk area on the band’s tour bus, notes that the smell is “a mix of farts, ass, feet…and a hint of balls.” I’m sure it sounded like heaven when he was 25, less so today. But what do fathers do? Take care of their families. And so he soldiers on, worrying about father-daughter dances and recitals.
Around him, his fellow punkers do the same, with varying degrees of success. The women are all but invisible, not all the stories charming — it’s depressing to hear how many of these angry men started as angry boys, abandoned by their fathers. But you have to salute their onward-and-upward response of trying to do better by their own children.
Was it worth a night out in the theater? No. Was it worth $5 and a bowl of homemade popcorn on the couch? Sure. Warning: If you choose to do the same, know that the R rating is due to profanity so thick it turns the air blue, but unfortunately isn’t deployed very imaginatively. Lee Ermey, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.
So let’s skip to the bloggage:
A 34-year-old Ann Arbor man was sent to the hospital with a head injury after another man punched him on Saturday during a literary argument, according to police.
Things missing from this story: WHAT THEY WERE ARGUING ABOUT, although there is mention of a condescending remark that led to the fracas.
(A word we should all use more: Fracas.)
I think Prospero/Malvolio could probably riff on that one for a while. Me, I’m off to bed.
MarkH said on March 20, 2012 at 1:50 am
Whatever it takes to displace kerfuffle.
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alex said on March 20, 2012 at 6:47 am
I thought fracas was just another word out of the journo’s thesaurus, pressed into service when melee and altercation have already been spent in the previous grafs.
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Suzanne said on March 20, 2012 at 7:31 am
I love fracas. One of the world’s great words. Kerfuffle another as is falderal. Words we don’t use enough and much better than dropping the f-bomb all the time as some do.
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nancy said on March 20, 2012 at 7:34 am
“Hotbed.”
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coozledad said on March 20, 2012 at 7:56 am
Clusterfracas.
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beb said on March 20, 2012 at 8:01 am
Only in Indiana?
Chinese immigrant woman, seduced and by boyfriend (who was already married) attempts suicide. She survived but 8 month old pregnancy did not. Now the Democratic (!) DA wants to prosecute her for killing her baby. 45 years if convicted.
http://www.americablog.com/2012/03/woman-in-indiana-faces-45-years-in.html
What has this country come to?
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JWfromNJ said on March 20, 2012 at 8:09 am
None of those would fly here except hotbed. I was told I couldn’t say ubiquitous – readers don’t know that word. I had to check to see if it was newspapers in education week and we were talking 4th graders.
Got raked over the coals on yesterday on a story error – thankfully my notes and voice recorder showed I had the numbers correct – copy was confused and mistated the figures. I played it classy and accepted all blame, which is how they like it, and waited for my editor to realize it wasn’t me.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 20, 2012 at 8:17 am
Ah, Lee Ermey. That clip brings back such charming memories (except mine was a Quonset). The sergeants change, the script never does. Thank you, Mr. Kubrick, for getting it on film.
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coozledad said on March 20, 2012 at 8:22 am
What has this country come to?
A crappy medieval backwater populated by gun-loving frauds and junkie Jesus-screamers.
http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-murder-suspect-bales-took-life-savings-says-223934030–abc-news.html
The Republicans have got ’em a potential candidate now, boy: Innovative financial instruments aand a take no shit offen no-one foreign policy!
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brian stouder said on March 20, 2012 at 10:02 am
Words that make me smile include “pleasure” as a verb (suitable for a black and white Health Class movie from 1967 or so); humongous; caterwaul (anytime); frippery; dissemble; extrapolate (but not interpolate); and let’s not forget arrears
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alex said on March 20, 2012 at 10:09 am
Ooh, those arrears. Ba-dunk-a-dunk.
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velvet goldmine said on March 20, 2012 at 10:26 am
I might have said that verbal fisticuffs turned into fisty fisticuffs. About ten years ago “verbal fisticuffs” turned up as a header in our local crap daily. I really thought they’d stepped in it that time, little knowing that the phrase is widespread. It still seems wrong.
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velvet goldmine said on March 20, 2012 at 10:29 am
Brian, the word that aurally pleasures me is “lividity.” It turns up in crime shows all the time and is, of course, part of a gruesome corpse exam. But it still strikes me as a really cool word.
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Suzanne said on March 20, 2012 at 10:41 am
Caterwaul! Yes!
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 10:41 am
Kerfuffle is falderal, but nobady has damaged falderal yet. I call hoohaw. That would already be Badonkadonk, Alex, and zome of them are large in the butt. Something just about nobody ever heard before. Ooh child, cover by Melanie Safka.
Next time Boehner and Mitch launch into paroxysms of concern for the religious freedom of the Catholic bishops, they should be required to explain their positions on this situation. Proselytizing by proxy baptism doesn’t seem remotely kosher, even though the religion behind it was founded by a murderous criminal conman with grotesque delusions of grandeur and a need for church-sponsored multiple open marriage. And what is Mitt’s view on this subject.
Stolen Valor Act. I imagine most supporters of this law saw anything wrong with the bullshit spewed by the Swiftboat liars.
Cooking With Poo and The Great Singapore Penis Panic. Actual book titles.
Needing an editor.
(He has no excuse.)
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 10:51 am
Stolen Valor Act? Howbout Swiftbot, the totally invinvented shit, whilw W went to guard the OClub?
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 10:52 am
GOPers are idiots.
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brian stouder said on March 20, 2012 at 11:03 am
.the word that aurally pleasures me
Thread winner!
(I’m still chortling!)
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Jason T. said on March 20, 2012 at 11:14 am
frac•as (frak’-us), v.i.: What oil and gas companies are currently doing to Pennsylvania residents. Gov. Corbett and the state legislature could enact meaningful controls and taxes on Marcellus shale gas drilling, but they both decided to let the gas companies fracas instead.
Thanks, I’ll be here all week.
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alex said on March 20, 2012 at 11:28 am
Aural pleasures are the best.
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Dorothy said on March 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
Aural of you – stop that right now.
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garmoore2 said on March 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
Imbroglio.
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LAMary said on March 20, 2012 at 11:33 am
Fracas is one of the perfumes on my wish list.
“Fracas is the big tuberose reference of perfumery, and tuberose is the most carnal of the floral notes. It smells like very, very hot flesh after you’ve had sex — that’s the bottom line. It’s very much in fashion just now, but current fragrances don’t use such an incredible concentration of it. While they may nod towards something carnal, Fracas is carnal all the way.”
Roja Dove, The Independent, 12/14/2002
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nancy said on March 20, 2012 at 11:38 am
Wow. A hundred bucks for a quarter-ounce. No wonder it’s only a wish-list item. I once dated a guy whose father was a perfumer at Procter & Gamble, and would get that sort of thing wholesale. At least that’s what he told me when he presented me with an unmarked bottle of Opium. (I think I’ve mentioned this before, in fact. Time to shut down the blog; I’ve run out of stories.)
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Julie Robinson said on March 20, 2012 at 11:44 am
I also dated a guy whose father worked for P&G, who also gave me samples of the product he was working on. He earnestly wanted feedback on his Rely tampons. Awkward!
And if you remember that Rely was taken off the market in 1980 because some users developed toxic shock syndrome, you’re really getting old.
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coozledad said on March 20, 2012 at 11:47 am
Wait just a damn minute. Did anyone else scroll down and see what people who bought Fracas also bought?
For some people, Kong extreme is a ‘dog toy’. For others, it’s a date you don’t have to get liquored up.
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alex said on March 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm
A hundred bucks for a quarter-ounce.
You think that’s extravagant? I know poor people who think nothing of paying that much for weed.
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Michael said on March 20, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I remember Paul Harvey riffing on news copy to the effect “a man was shot in the fracas”. Pass the “Grey’s Anatomy”.
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Heather said on March 20, 2012 at 12:21 pm
My (rather demure) mother used to wear Fracas and I have to say, it never reminded me of hot flesh after sex. Maybe there was more going on there than I realized. If you ask me, Bandit, by the same perfumer (Robert Piguet), is the sexy one.
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kayak woman said on March 20, 2012 at 12:38 pm
(((overheard in Ann Arbor (actually Twitter): C. S. Lewis & Tolkien.)))
No idea if that’s true…
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Jeff Borden said on March 20, 2012 at 12:43 pm
While I continue to despair at the state of journalism and informed commentary, I find myself cheered and refreshed to read Charley Pierce at Esquire. Today, he performs a forensic autopsy on some horseshit column about Frothy Santorum in today’s Wall Street Journal, a screed arguing that a lot of Americans “hunger” for his combination of uber-Catholicism and narrow view of morality.
The fact is Santorum has yet to win a majority of Catholic voters in ANY state. He’s far more palatable to snake-handlers and tongue-speakers than to those who still worship under the One True. Here’s a guy who said yesterday he couldn’t care less abot unemployment. He claims to embrace freedom and liberty, but not when it comes to women and their plumbing.
Can anyone explain to me –maybe Mark will weigh in– how a political party that continually screams about shrinking government is always expanding its reach into private medical matters?
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del said on March 20, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Let’s not conflate aural pleasures with oral pleasures. (They’re aural the same?)
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ROGirl said on March 20, 2012 at 12:58 pm
I was hoping the AA fracas (is that pronounced frack-us or frake-us?) would be about semiotics and structuralism. Badonkadonk is my new favorite word.
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velvet goldmine said on March 20, 2012 at 1:04 pm
About perfume and tuberose: It might comfort those who can’t afford Fracas to remember that the chemical compound in tuberose is indole, which is also the key odor component of feces. Make of that what you will.
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Bitter Scribe said on March 20, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Once I wrote about a local phone-sex service, and my editor wrote a headline about “aural sex.” An outraged lady called when the paper came out, demanding, “Do you know what that sounds like?”
Well, yeah. That was kind of the point.
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alex said on March 20, 2012 at 1:21 pm
velvet goldmine, I thought everyone knew that perfume gets its staying power from pigshit and civet tomcat whiz.
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mark said on March 20, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Jeff B-
I’ll save the larger issue for another day. Santorum, I think, is a zealous busybody. His idea of liberty is giving everybody the fredom to live the way he does. For me, he is the scariest of the four remaining (even scarier than Newt) because he is so damn sincere about his desire to make me better. I’ll vote for Obama rather than have this goofball waste four years wagging his finger about birth control, internet porn, strip clubs, gambling, smoking in the boy’s room…
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DellaDash said on March 20, 2012 at 1:45 pm
It IS that self-righteous sanctimonious Santorvest sincerity that is so impossible to swallow (so to speak)
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coozledad said on March 20, 2012 at 1:51 pm
A primer on critical race theory:
http://gawker.com/5894647/how-to-get-away-with-murder-and-other-things-the-killing-of-unarmed-black-teen-trayvon-martin-teaches-us
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velvet goldmine said on March 20, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Alex — Pig is a new one on me, but yes, the:
Brutal fixatives — severed, desiccated pouches of musk deer,
Perineal secretions of tortured civets,
castor sac beaver resin and
Sea-skimmings of whale sick.
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 2:19 pm
AnnArbor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYzYGDk2lIA
How in the world is pot illegal in an allegedly civilized country?
Bobby Seale, who I named a cat after:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOQJnvMSk7o&feature=related
Crirical race theory is exactly the opposite of what whackjobs on Fux claim. No clue, whatever. Such astounding bullshit.
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 2:24 pm
RO-Girl, I believe it is pronounced Fra-caw in England, per John Steed, and Frack-ass in America. I could be wrong.
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Dorothy said on March 20, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Just heard there was a 7.9 magnitude earthquake east of Acapulco this afternoon. When I told a co-worker about it, she remarked that Malia Obama is in Mexico with school mates on Spring break. This is kind of scary.
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 2:41 pm
It is never a fracas when white cops beat the shit out of a black fat guy, like rodney white.
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Brandon said on March 20, 2012 at 3:02 pm
@prospero: Rodney King.
I know a Newt diehard who thinks he’s “God’s man.”
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brian stouder said on March 20, 2012 at 4:02 pm
And speaking of poli-dicks, Santorum’s ignorance about Puerto Rico’s status within the United States is reflected at Southern Mississippi University
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/20/sport/ncaa-racism/index.html
As Kansas State point guard Angel Rodriguez shot free throws, several people[members of the Southern Miss band] could clearly be heard chanting, “where’s your green card.” The university’s president apologized to Rodriguez, saying the chant wasn’t representative of the university. Rodriguez said Friday, “I heard it. I don’t pay attention to that nonsense, especially because Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, so we don’t need no type of papers.”
The rowdy band members have lost their scholarships, at least at this writing…
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Deborah said on March 20, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Bobby Seale is a great name for a cat.
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Linda said on March 20, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Well, Dorothy, Santorum would have you know that Obama is a rotten father for letting his kid go to that terrible country in the first place. And, if you haven’t read Charles Pierce lately, may I remind you what a colossal dick Santorum is?
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nancy said on March 20, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Apparently these idiots can’t even read. The State Department warnings aren’t for the entire country, but only parts of it, as zillions of winter vacationers can attest. Oaxaca isn’t on the list.
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Dexter said on March 20, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Festus Hagen said “Roo-kuss” for ruckus , as in “Matthew, there’s a ruckus down at the Long Branch.”
Now my man J.B. Smoove has brought “ruckus” back to the vernacular.
http://youtu.be/R0LnNQemUjI
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Oaxaca is where Quetzlatl skis, I believe. And damn fine Dex, and better if you remember the Russkies taking CaliForniya episode of Wild, Wild West, or what the Goobernator called the Mexican Maid. A way better Western, but not Briscoe County, the best Western ever.
If Steed said Fraw-Caw, that is good enough for me. Until Patrick McGoohan tells me otherwise.
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Prospero said on March 20, 2012 at 7:33 pm
GOPers are looney-tunes, voting for Aqua-Buddha.
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Suzanne said on March 20, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Julie @ 25–Heck yes I remember Rely “feminine products”! They were awesome…until they made you sick and/or killed you.
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Sue said on March 20, 2012 at 10:00 pm
My city’s zoning code includes the word “turgid”. That part of the code was written long ago. It’s in the definition section regarding adult uses, part of a surprisingly descriptive couple of sentences.
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alex said on March 20, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Nance’s old ‘hood had the words “people of the Ethiopian race” in its code. Same as was in the codicil where I lived years ago. They didn’t have DNA testing back then so I’m not sure how they singled out that race in court.
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Sue said on March 20, 2012 at 11:02 pm
“Nudity – The showing of human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than a full opaque covering or the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaqued covering of any portion thereof below the top of the areola, or the human male genitals in a discernible turgid state even if completely or opaquely covered.”
As opposed to an un-discernible turgid state, I guess.
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alex said on March 21, 2012 at 12:12 am
Sue, I remember working at a publishing house that promulgated law as it was written on the local books. Louisiana’s dram laws could be the dullest yet the most fascinating. They did nothing but talk about areolas and buttocks and pudenda and pasties and penetration and every iteration of all of it under the sun or the moon and on top of or underneath every sort of edifice or object and the position of greenbacks with respect thereto.
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Sue said on March 21, 2012 at 8:23 am
Wow, alex, we’ll call you when it’s time to rewrite the code.
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Prospero said on March 21, 2012 at 9:52 am
Did y’all know there is a terrific novel about perfume by Tom Robbins (who also wrote Another Roadside Attraction and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues). It’s called Jitterbug Perfume, and the Greek goat-god Pan is a major character. Very enjoyable book.
Alex, it’s the one-drop rule.
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