Star of the show.

I only watched one song’s worth of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Since we cut the cord, we have to rely on the antenna to get a signal, and as in the old days, sometimes it’s clear as a bell and sometimes the screen is a sea of pixelation, which I’ve been instructed by J.C. to call “packeting out.” Sunday night it was packeting out.

But it’s been interesting hearing you all talk about it. It reminded me of when I bought the original cast recording, the double-album set, back when it was new. I took it over to my friend Julie’s house to listen to, because her mother had forbidden her from buying it herself. A rock opera of the passion of Christ? Blasphemy! (This is the sort of thing mothers worried about then. And still do. One of Kate’s friends surrendered her ticket to some show I was driving them to when they were about 15, because her mother had looked up some lyrics on the internet, and oh my we couldn’t have that. The other day I read an interview with Edie Falco, the actress and also a practicing Buddhist. She said the biggest lesson her faith taught her was: Stop worrying. Good advice, Buddha.)

Anyway, if Julie’s mom stopped at the door to the room where we sat, music at half-volume, heads bent to the speakers, listening to this exotic samizdat, she never let on. JCS made a splash for sure, but I remember it mainly as a few witty lines (If you’d come today you could have reached a whole nation/Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication), a few memorable songs and, well, here’s the new Neil Young record, and let’s listen to that one next.

I never saw a stage production. Never saw the movie. That whole era of early-’70s guitar-mass Christianity was probably the last one I fully participated in, although it was swiftly followed by the Great Cult Scares of the later ’70s. Hare Krishnas, Children of God, all sorts of false-prophet gangs, culminating with the big one – Jonestown.

Which seems like a good transition to recommending you watch “Wild Wild Country” if you’re a Netflix subscriber, a six-part documentary series about the Baghwan Shree Rajneesh and his adherents, who took over a ranch in north-central Oregon and made a big fuss for a few years. (Hey, Charlotte: Is that crazy church up by you still operating? The Church Universal and Triumphant?) It’s pretty fantastic, an absolutely bananas tale of weirdness and guns, and from the social-media reaction I’m seeing from people younger than me, almost entirely forgotten. I remembered the Baghwan as the guru who owned dozens of Rolls-Royces, and would be driven in them around his ranch while his followers lined the roads, clapping and cheering. When the whole thing fell apart, the fleet went where all notorious automobiles go eventually – the Auburn-Cord-Deusenberg Festival in Auburn, Ind., to be auctioned in the multi-day classic-car sale.

Americans don’t have a corner on cults, but we seem to do it weirder than other countries. “Wild Wild Country” doesn’t disappoint.

The first person I heard talking about it was a young man in his early 30s. “They practice some weird yoga there,” he said. “Kun something? Kuna…”

“Cunnilingus yoga,” I said. “It’s famous. Lots of chanting? That’s what you’re thinking of.”

“Yeah! Cunnilingus!” he said.

I was all for letting him carry that around for a while, but the other person at the table took pity.

It’s kundalini yoga. Lots of chanting. I did it once. Wasn’t for me, but I get it.

Anyway, Tom and Lorenzo really liked “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and said:

JCS is a beloved album, film and show, but theatrically, dramatically and at times even musically, it can get downright goofy. In addition, it’s tied very closely to a post-hippy, pre-metal sound and aesthetic that doesn’t always update well.

Yep, that sounds right: Post-hippie, pre-metal. I believe the phrase you’re looking for is “very ’70s.”

Neil Steinberg liked it, too:

“Superstar” tells the Passion story from the point of view of the man who betrayed Jesus, a twist on a classic narrative that would become standard in musical drama in musicals like “Wicked” where the villain gets his (or her) due. So it was in a sense apt that Brandon Victor Dixon was a far more engaging performer as Judas than John Legend was as Jesus. Christ here is a softer role to begin with, but at times Legend seemed half asleep. It was as if they cast Ben Carson in the role. (I later learned that Legend produced the special, which would certainly explain how he landed the role).

Sara Bareilles, an impressive Mary Magdalene, would not be accused of somnambulism. With pre-Raphaelite beauty and a bell-clear voice, she stole the show from the Son of God as she worked through her conflicted feelings toward him (I’m tempted to say “toward Him,” out of respect, but don’t want to pander).

I did watch a clip, afterward, of Bareilles doing Mary Mag’s big number: “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” and he speaks the truth. She has a lovely, lovely voice.

With that, I leave you with one amusing bit of bloggage, with a lesson for the ages: Don’t leave food by the open window of a fancy hotel, especially if there are seagulls in the area.

Wednesday lies ahead, in a week that already feels like…Thursday.

Posted at 8:23 pm in Popculch |
 

46 responses to “Star of the show.”

  1. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 3, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    Sara Bareilles’ intro to Broadway stardom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erjdq6wwRuU

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  2. Julie Robinson said on April 3, 2018 at 10:57 pm

    Bareilles wrote the music for Waitress, the show you linked to, and has played the main character. The other singer was Jessie Mueller, the original star, who also won a Tony for her portrayal of Carole King in Beautiful. That’s a great cast album.

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  3. alex said on April 3, 2018 at 11:43 pm

    I was too young to really grasp Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell but grew up on the music from both. And for some reason I always associated this song with one or the other but was dumbfounded to learn recently that it wasn’t from either, it was just contemporaneous. (And that Laura Nyro and Peggy Lipton had made B-side singles of it in the ’60s before La Streisand took it to the top of the charts in the ’70s.)

    Seems pop culture embraced Jesophile stuff a lot more before the religious right political culture turned it negative.

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  4. Dexter said on April 4, 2018 at 3:39 am

    JCS was performed at FWA’s Scottish Rite Auditorium in late 1971, but I can’t recall which troupe came for us. I was living in the same neighborhood so I and a group of friends, all of us between 18 and 22, copped good seats. It was great, we all were impressed. I watched the TV presentation a few hours ago and I found myself lip-synching to the songs. I thought that it was amazing I recalled all the words but I just remembered I had purchased the vinyl lp and played it many times…I may still have it. Dad, back when the buzz was just a-happening, said the little church he went to and I was baptized in when I was five, was in an uproar after the preacher went ballistic condemning JCS to his tiny congregation. I guess that was common.
    My first trip to LA, in 1970, I parked my car and walked Sunset Boulevard, just to say I had done it. I was sort of accosted by a large group of maybe 40 young people who were what we called “Jesus Freaks”. I was spoken to loudly of the ways of sin and how I should repent and accept …well, you know the routine. They had their say and moved on; I drove on out to Dodger Stadium . During that time period , Hare Krishnas were at every airport. The one thing I remember is the odor-cloud that emanated from a group of them. It reminded me of the stench of the junkies in the army barracks who bought heroin laced with a cocktail of sugar to talc, lidocaine, powdered milk, starch or Ajax cleaner, with a hint of that patchouli fragrance mixed in, topped off by residue from way too much incense.
    Wild Wild Country sucked me in. I have only watched a couple hours so far. I will finish it. I currently am mad at a certain bunch of Indians. Even after I have thrice called my provider to block them from robo-calls harvesting my bank account pathways, they simply call from different area codes with the same moronic requests for my information. When I used Dell computers, I used India-based tech support. Somehow some of their countrymen hacked my info and posed as the Dell real-deal, and wanted my credit card numbers. That took weeks to track down. I’ll not have another Dell, I swear.
    Netflix folks, check out “Babylon Berlin”. Real grown up intrigue, German production, sub-titles, fast-moving plots, set in the 1920s. Great.

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  5. David C. said on April 4, 2018 at 6:17 am

    In blue wave good news, Scott Walker’s WI Supreme Court pick got his ass kicked causing ‘lil Scotty to go on an epic Twitter whine.

    https://www.vox.com/2018/4/3/17195062/wisconsin-supreme-court-election-results

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/3/1754266/-WI-Gov-Scott-Walker-R-Has-A-Pants-S-ing-Meltdown-On-Twitter-About-The-Upcoming-Blue-Wave

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  6. Suzanne said on April 4, 2018 at 7:01 am

    I assume by “far left” Walker is talking about people like me, formerly solid center right who, in the past few years, has been driven wildly left because of politicians like him and his buddy Paul Ryan and our dear former governor My Pants.

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  7. Bitter Scribe said on April 4, 2018 at 10:08 am

    I’m as indifferent to JCS as I am to all musicals, but one thing I never understood about it was: How could you do a musical like that and stop it short of the Resurrection? The Resurrection is the most transcendent, triumphal moment in the Christian mythos (and one of the most triumphal of all religious myths). If anything had the potential for showstopper numbers, that was it.

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  8. Connie said on April 4, 2018 at 10:55 am

    So I DVDs JCS and last night I thought I would watch just a little of the beginning before going to bed. I ended up staying up way too late. The style of the production was very similar to the version in which my brother played Caiaphas a few years ago.

    The first time I saw a (sort of) performance was at a dinner theater in Grand Rapids when I was in high school. It wasn’t so much a stage performance, rather a chorale kind of presentation, where key characters stepped up to a microphone. We had the sound track album and the sheet music. My brother still has that organ, I bet that sheet music is still in the seat. I could play all that music at some point.

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  9. Connie said on April 4, 2018 at 12:26 pm

    Our local county clerk deposed story just gets weirder. She has written an eleven page letter to President Trump and other officials,claiming corruption and other bizarre things. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/macomb-county/2018/04/03/ousted-macomb-county-clerk-seeks-job-back/33520049/

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  10. Connie said on April 4, 2018 at 12:44 pm

    Twitter thread: describe yourself as a male author would. https://electricliterature.com/describe-yourself-like-a-male-author-would-is-the-most-savage-twitter-thread-in-ages-60d145d638d6

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  11. Jeff Borden said on April 4, 2018 at 1:01 pm

    As we mark the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., I wanted to raise a question with the NN.C community, which relates somewhat to the recent passing of Billy Graham. Perhaps Jeff (tmmo), in particular, may have some thoughts.

    What was it that prevented powerful white evangelicals like Billy Graham from bonding with religious civil rights leaders like Dr. King? The fight for civil rights (and the litany of other causes MLK embraced including access to employment, voting rights and opposition to the Vietnam war) was certainly a moral crusade. It was a grassroots effort nurtured in black churches and chapels from the center of New York City to rural Louisiana, certainly something evangelical preachers should’ve appreciated. Can you imagine the power of a coalition between Dr. King and Rev. Graham?

    And yet, it never really happened. I know there were clergy people who marched with Dr. King. I know there were liberal Catholic priests and Jews who were deeply involved with the civil rights movement. The three Freedom Riders killed by the KKK outside Philadelphia, Miss. included a Jewish student.

    Was it MLK’s opposition to Vietnam that put him outside white evangelicals? Was there a fear white parishioners would not accept an alliance with black parishioners? Did powerful evangelicals like Rev. Graham value their access to the powerful –including the president of the United States– over the fight for civil rights?

    Thoughts?

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  12. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 4, 2018 at 1:15 pm

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/february/billy-graham-martin-luther-king-jr-friendship-civil-rights.html

    https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/the-day-martin-luther-luther-king-jr-prayed-at-the-billy-graham-new-york-crusade/

    Sorry to just fling links; just left a friend’s funeral, going to a house where one of our elder emeriti is about to depart.

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  13. Jakash said on April 4, 2018 at 1:38 pm

    Bitter Scribe @ 7,

    Because that wasn’t part of the story that Tim Rice wanted to tell, essentially. According to Wikipedia, citing a “Time” article from 1970: “Tim Rice was quoted as saying ‘It happens that we don’t see Christ as God but simply the right man at the right time at the right place.'”

    A 1973 book about the creation of “JCS” indicates that Andrew Lloyd Webber didn’t even actually agree with that, though:

    “Webber has been quoted as saying that he and Rice had arguments, ‘long arguments, in fact, about the basis of the opera and how it should be treated. We had to decide which events in the life of Jesus we were going to write about – and this was the most difficult area of all in which to find agreement. Eventually we chose the last seven days of His life. Even now, I don’t go along with some of the things that Tim has written in the opera. The lyrics are extremely good for any composer to work with, but I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. I would have liked to have included the resurrection, but it just wouldn’t have been worthwhile. We disagree too much about it.'”

    That was an interesting feature of this NBC version. Without adding any music or lyrics, or even being definitive at all, the moments after the Crucifixion scene left it to the viewer to conclude whether the production’s designers were suggesting the Resurrection, or not.

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  14. Suzanne said on April 4, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    Yes, Jakash. I thought that the bright light at the end signified the resurrection.

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  15. Jakash said on April 4, 2018 at 1:45 pm

    Okay, NN and/or JCB, there may be 3 versions of the above comment (# 13) in moderation, or limbo, or wherever. I kept trying to post it with a link to the site where I got that second quote, and evidently there was something wrong with that. (It took me that many tries to conclude that the link might be the problem and not some other kind of glitch.) Finally, I tried posting it without the link. So, please ignore them! : )

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  16. Deborah said on April 4, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    When King was assassinated I was in high school. I remember that the pastor’s son at my church who was my age said that he was happy that King had been killed. I was flabbergasted that he felt that way, he was not a rebellious kid at all, I got the impression that he wasn’t the only one in his family that had the same opinion. Later I realized that he was a sanctimonious asshat.

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  17. Jolene said on April 4, 2018 at 3:30 pm

    Jeff, PBS has been running a four-part program called Black America since MLK: And Still I Rise. I’ve just begun watching it, but one of the points made in the first of the four segments was that when Stokley Carmichael and others began advocating black power (roughly in the last couple of years of King’s life), the white supporters of the civil rights movement fell away. In this report, that was partly a reaction on the part of whites to the greater militancy of blacks and partly a drawing away from marches and other forms of social protest in favor of a focus on black culture, black pride, and such.

    In a PBS American Experience show called The Road to Memphis, a very young Jesse Jackson is shown saying immediately after King’s death that white America would soon find it had lost its best friend.

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  18. Deborah said on April 4, 2018 at 4:05 pm

    I see that Guilianni and his third wife are getting divorced. Wondering when Melania will file and take spanky to the cleaners.

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  19. FDChief said on April 4, 2018 at 4:29 pm

    The owners of my former soils engineering outfit had the Rajneeshees as a client and worked on the water supply dams out at Rajneeshpuram. One admitted that although the guru’s people were crummy clients they liked the hippie gals at the ashram too much to bail.

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  20. Bitter Scribe said on April 4, 2018 at 5:55 pm

    Nancy mentioned a post or two back that she wants to see “The Death of Stalin.” I urge her and everyone else here to do so. I just went to see it, and it’s great. I’ve always loved black comedy, and it doesn’t get any blacker than this.

    When I heard that Steve Buscemi was playing Khrushchev, I was like, whaaaa? But by the end of the movie, he has you believing that no one else could possibly have played that role. You don’t even mind that he and Jeffrey Tambour, playing Malenkov, Stalin’s spineless second-in-command, are using American accents while everyone else is British.

    I’ve read that the movie has been banned in Russia, and a theater that was showing it was raided. It figures. This is the country Trump is sucking up to.

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  21. Mark P. said on April 4, 2018 at 6:29 pm

    Most white evangelicals (probably few actually identified themselves as such at that time, so let’s just call them conservative Christians), at least in the South, were racists, just like most of their congregations and a huge percentage of the general population. If you had asked them what Jesus would have done, I’m sure they would have found some justification somewhere in their twisted interpretation of the bible to justify continuing the oppression of blacks. The more liberal among them probably would have said that the blacks should be quiet and patient, and one day in some distant future their descendants would have equality and justice.

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  22. Deborah said on April 4, 2018 at 7:22 pm

    Something I always find astounding every time I’m reminded, MLK was 39 when he was assassinated. Thirty nine! Whoa.

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  23. redoubt said on April 4, 2018 at 9:05 pm

    Sorry to interrupt, but FWIW–Dr. King had referred to “the most segregated hour in Christian America” even before the Letter From A Birmingham Jail.

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  24. Suzanne said on April 4, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    Apparently, Rosanne Barr’s tanked in the ratings in week two of the new show.

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  25. basset said on April 4, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    Thirty-seven years ago at about this time of night, Mrs. B and I had just left our wedding reception at a UAW hall in Kalamazoo and headed for the downtown Holiday Inn. Where our room had no towels. Gotta have towels.

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  26. Joe Kobiela said on April 4, 2018 at 11:11 pm

    Basset,
    Congratulations.
    Pilot Joe

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  27. Dexter said on April 5, 2018 at 12:59 am

    Billy Graham was always in bed with presidents, and especially cherished the made-up title as “pastor to presidents”. His message was to pray for presidents and guv-mint in general to lead us to peace, and no matter if war criminal R. Milhous Nixon ordered massive quantities of bombs to be dropped on civilians, that was the perceived road to peace. Dr. King fought with LBJ over many slants and angles of the movement to achieve racial equality. Johnson had his plan, with great motives and results, Dr. King wanted immediate voting rights legislation laws passed, but LBJ was slightly hesitant, wanting time to pass. These differences enhanced by recent movie scripts were way off base to my memory; LBJ and Dr. King were able to work things out with little animosity.

    All the memory-conjuring clips and specials about Vietnam war demonstrators don’t convey a lot of the emotion of the flag-waving NYC construction workers who hijacked the flag for the right, nor the many supporters of the war, “My country, right or wrong”. I think we can assume most of Billy Graham’s followers were white republicans who cared little of reforming racist policies, and it seems inconceivable that bands of Graham-ites would bond with freedom marchers in the south…I’d say it is more likely they were the ones throwing bottles and rocks at Black kids attempting to integrate schools.

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  28. Jolene said on April 5, 2018 at 7:29 am

    Happy anniversary one day late, basset. I wish you more good years together.

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  29. Beobachter said on April 5, 2018 at 7:47 am

    @4, all thumbs up here too for Babylon Berlin.

    Did you watch the dubbed English, or German with English subtitles?

    We found the dubbing awful (it sounded like someone reading a train schedule), and fortunately were able to switch to the original German.

    Also, if anyone has watched JK Simmons’ Counterpart, there are a few actors from Babylon Berlin in some of the later episodes.

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  30. Sherri said on April 5, 2018 at 9:26 am

    Happy anniversary, basset!

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  31. Judybusy said on April 5, 2018 at 9:59 am

    Happy anniversary, Basset!

    Connie @10: That was great. My wife and I recently tried to read a book about a crack team of female spec ops and gave up fairly soon into the book for the focus given to anatomy and their obsession with dating.

    Life here in MN got really sad yesterday. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Next step is to see a surgeon. She has already decided she doesn’t want chemo or radiation treatment, and may not even do the surgery. Cancer is awful enough, but to just let it take its course is going to be dismal road.

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  32. Dorothy said on April 5, 2018 at 10:37 am

    We’ve been without internet at home since about 4:30 Tuesday when a big storm swept through. I’m guessing that’s what messed up our router. But I’m not the house diagnostician. He’s buying a new router tonight. And I’ve been extremely busy at work and had no time to read this at the office (where I am right but just less busy today), so I’m late to comment.

    I was amazed at how fast the words to many of the JCS songs came back to me as I was watching the show on Monday while I was knitting. An older sister bought it when it came out and played it quite a bit, hence my ability to know the words so well. But this made me harken back to the time that the same sister played a Jim Morrison album, and had it really loud, and my dad came storming out of his room (he worked ‘night turn’ at the post office so slept during the day. I think he got up around 3 or 4 on the days he worked) Dad bellowed WHO SAID THAT?! when Jim Morrison was shrieking YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!! It was hilarious but of course no one laughed at the time. After he went to work I”m sure relieved and nervous laughter was bouncing around the house.

    Fifty years ago yesterday one of my older brothers (15 at the time) was with friends shooting some hoops, and some black kids surrounded them, pushed them around a little, threw some punches and stole their basketball. Joe & friends scattered and went home. Just before he walked in the door, the news broke on t.v. about MLK’s asssassination. My mother speculated that it could have turned out much differently if they’d been confronted 30-60 minutes later than they did. Who knows?

    Happy anniversary Basset and Mrs. Basset.

    And I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, Judybusy. My grandmother chose the same course (no treatment) when she had colon cancer in 1970/71. My son’s father-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer late last fall and initially he was going to refuse chemo or radiation. But he changed his mind and wanted to see if he could spend some more time getting to know his new granddaughter (my granddaughter too….). He’s not doing very well. Meg takes Olivia to see him as often as she can. He can’t drive anymore – just too unwell. Seems like every week I hear about another person with cancer.

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  33. Jolene said on April 5, 2018 at 10:53 am

    Sorry to hear about your mom, Judybusy. Do you know what stage her tumor is? Treatment isn’t fun, of course, but, depending on what’s needed, it can be much less onerous than in the past. When I had chemo for my endometrial cancer, I had two or three days of feeling poorly—mainly very severe bodyaches after each treatment—but otherwise felt OK. The radiation was mainly a pain because I had to go every day, but the treatment didn’t produce unpleasant side effects.

    And sorry to hear about Olivia’s other grandpa, Dorothy. Progress against pancreatic cancer is still pretty limited.

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  34. Deborah said on April 5, 2018 at 11:12 am

    Happy anniversary Mr and Mrs Basset.

    So sorry, Judy Busy, cancer is the pits.

    I had 3 beefy guys in my microscopic kitchen this morning, working on taking out the garbage disposal and installing a faucet. I don’t know why it took 3 guys. One was under the sink and the other two were hovering over him. At one point the woman from office management was in there too. I was still in my PJs when they all came, they said they called, but they called my husband who is with his uncle 2 hours away right now and he didn’t let me know because there was a bit of a problem there this morning (he goes every week from Weds night until Fri morning). I slept a little later than usual, because I’m coming down with something, sore throat, coughing a lot, losing my voice. I’m glad they came after I had already gotten out of bed or that would have been embarrassing.

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  35. Jeff Borden said on April 5, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    Thanks for the responses, folks. You’re some smart people.

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  36. Charlotte said on April 5, 2018 at 1:45 pm

    Hey Nancy — CUT still exists, but its much smaller than it was. Once Mary Clare Prophet got alzheimers, the grandiose claims of being in touch with ALL the ascended masters kind of fell apart. One of the central memories a lot of folks around here have is the caravan of single-wide mobile homes coming through town and down the valley that Mary Clare bought from the Rajneeshis when they blew up. I’ve been seeing a lot of knee-jerk enthusiasm for the documentary, but living in the wake of one of those cults is enough to cure one forever. CUT was a huge scam that robbed thousands of people of their life savings, and the ones who are left around here are masters of the small con and the pyramid scheme. The other thing no one talks about is the child abuse … although the CUT people are not as bad as the really patriarchal evangelical cults around here for that — there’s a mean small town north of us that is rife with incest and child abuse. Although if anyone is looking for a second home with a bomb shelter, most of the houses in the Glastonbury and South Glastonbury subdivisions just north of CUT headquarters have them. Handy for storing winter veg …

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  37. Heather said on April 5, 2018 at 1:52 pm

    Never heard of this white supremacist Twitter troll who allegedly had a huge influence on Trump voters, but–surprise!–he’s rich white dude who lives in Manhattan. Can’t get much more elite than that. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-white-nationalist-troll-ricky-vaughn_us_5ac53167e4b09ef3b2432627

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  38. Heather said on April 5, 2018 at 2:20 pm

    And Nancy, you probably already saw this but the Atlantic has fired Kevin Williamson, the guy who wanted women who have abortions to be hanged. The publisher was like, “Oh I guess he really did mean that literally, huh.” https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/981955064515448833

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  39. beb said on April 5, 2018 at 4:02 pm

    I just the news about the firing of Kevin Williamson, too. lefty bloggers have outraged about his hiring at The Atlantic for over a week. I never expected they would have any effect on Williamson’s hiring. But then I couldn’t see why The Atlantic would want to hire away a bomb-thrower from The National Review.

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  40. Bitter Scribe said on April 5, 2018 at 4:33 pm

    The last sentence from the internal memo sent by the Atlantic editor about Williamson’s firing:

    “This is not about Kevin’s views on abortion.” If you say so.

    The schmuck also talked about what a “gifted writer” the guy is. My ass. He’s a fatheaded bomb-thrower and an all-around piece of shit.

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  41. Sherri said on April 5, 2018 at 9:15 pm

    Talking about what a gifted writer Williamson is is sort of like talking about what a gifted marksman a serial killer is.

    I really don’t believe it’s that hard to do what the Williamson types of the world do. You don’t have to actually think to write outrageous things.

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  42. Carter Cleland said on April 5, 2018 at 11:58 pm

    Speaking of Buddha, or The Buddha, he and I share a birthday, which is this Sunday the 8th. Another divine birthday boy is Julian Lennon, exactly 10 years younger than me.

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  43. Dexter said on April 6, 2018 at 1:58 am

    Counterpart: I have faithfully watched every episode but man, the plots are hard to follow , all the characters going back and forth and every one has a doppelganger on the flip-side. I gotta keep asking myself what in the fuck is going on NOW? J.K. Simmons is up for three awards I heard, but didn’t catch which ones they are.

    I didn’t know I could opt for dubbing of Babylon Berlin. I prefer the language it was taped in, as subtitles are just fine with me.

    judybusy, sad news. My 92 year old neighbor told me just a year ago that she also opted out of radiation and chemo and was willing to just let it go. She lasted exactly a year from the dx, and died a month ago. She was in hospice only 2 weeks, she stayed at home until she spent two weeks in a nursing home before final hospice. May your mother’s journey be comfortable….

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  44. Dorothy said on April 6, 2018 at 6:57 am

    Carter – you share a birthday with my son, too! I won’t get to give him a birthday hug, though. He’s currently deployed. Maybe we can FaceTime with him if he has a good internet connection at some point.

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  45. Deborah said on April 6, 2018 at 8:29 am

    Dorothy, I’m wondering if your son has been deployed to the border?

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  46. Deborah said on April 6, 2018 at 9:10 am

    I need to stop getting my mind boggled by all these grifters. I’m going to be permanently brain damaged if it keeps up. Pruitt is one more of the many. Thank God for journalists.

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