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Posted on 12/10/2019 4.00 AM

Kosh's Shadow 12/7/2019 11:56:04 AM


Posted by: Kosh's Shadow

buzzsawmonkey 12/10/2019 4:09:35 AM
1

In #21 Kosh's Shadow said: A three video treat Video 1 Video 2 Video 3


The middle video is of Cab Calloway singing "Kicking the Gong Around."  It is the sequel-song to "Minnie the Moocher," which contains the line "He [Smokey Joe] took her down to Chinatown, showed her how to kick that gong around," i.e., got her into drug use.  The rest of the song "Minnie the Moocher" is a drug-addict's fantasy; "She had a dream about the King of Sweden; he gave her things that she was needin'."  "Kicking the Gong Around" starts out with a similar description of drug addicts; "It was down in Chinatown, all the cokies lay around, some were high and some were mighty low.  Countin' millions on the floor..."

"Kicking the gong around" was a euphemism for snorting drugs.  The odd part is that Chinatown would have been the place for opium/heroin, but Smokey Joe is referred to as being "cokie," i.e., a cocaine user.  It appears that "cokie" and "hop-head" were used fairly interchangeably in the early '30s.

Anyway, the interesting thing about Cab's performance is his pantomime of grinding cocaine in the hollow of his hand and sniffing it, and then his heavy-lidded head jerks which simulate the reaction of a junkie snorting the drug.  These things would not have been obvious to someone unfamiliar with that milieu, but are there to be seen if you know what you're looking at.
Syrah 12/10/2019 6:00:30 AM
2

IG Report-  all of the errors and mistakes work in only one direction, but no bias.
Syrah 12/10/2019 6:19:22 AM
3

If the leaders of the House in Nixon’s second term had gone to the podium to announce articles of impeachment, would we have expected all networks, radio and tv, to cut away to carry the announcement live?

at 6am, the local political radio has not cut away, and instead, the morning host is discussing the local crabbing season and uttering curses on crab trap thieves.
Occasional Reader 12/10/2019 6:28:51 AM
4
Things you don't want to see on your morning commute; firefighters coming out of the metro station that you're about to enter. Followed by, mobs of people on the platform and total chaos with the trains. Fortunately I have no morning meetings so I'm just hanging out at a Starbucks until it blows over.
buzzsawmonkey 12/10/2019 6:28:56 AM
5


In #3 Syrah said: crab trap thieves.

"Crab Trap Thieves" sounds like the sequel song to "Cat Scratch Fever."
Occasional Reader 12/10/2019 6:31:27 AM
6

Reply to Syrah in 3:

 It's a show about nothing.
buzzsawmonkey 12/10/2019 6:33:10 AM
7


In #4 Occasional Reader said: I'm just hanging out at a Starbucks

If you're at a Starbuck's, try the Moby Dick---it's an extra-large (you might call it a "white whale") coffee with milk.  They give it to you in a Flask, and if you keep your check-Stubb, you can eventually cash them in, since it becomes Ahab-it.
Syrah 12/10/2019 6:35:58 AM
8

Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 7:

can we ish-mail it in on a pun thread?
Occasional Reader 12/10/2019 6:41:39 AM
9
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed— while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
buzzsawmonkey 12/10/2019 6:48:01 AM
10


In #8 Syrah said: can we ish-mail it in on a pun thread?

The important thing in a pun thread is to come up with replies as Queequegly as possible.
Occasional Reader 12/10/2019 6:49:34 AM
11

Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 10:


pQuod erat demonstrandum
buzzsawmonkey 12/10/2019 6:55:40 AM
12

Speaking of Moby Dick, it is noteworthy that in this pre-abolition novel the skilled craftsmen---the harpooneers, who get higher pay than the mere seamen like Ishmael---are all non-white; an Indian, a South Sea islander, and a free black.

I wonder if Moby Dick is taught as an early "multicultural" text, and as an example of the anti-racism that existed in the US even prior to the Civil War.
buzzsawmonkey 12/10/2019 7:19:32 AM
13
Well, that killed the thread...
lucius septimius 12/10/2019 7:51:50 AM
14


In #12 buzzsawmonkey said: I wonder if Moby Dick is taught as an early "multicultural" text, and as an example of the anti-racism that existed in the US even prior to the Civil War.

Never.  Written by a Person of Palor, so all representations of minorities in it are cultural appropriation, colonialism, enslavement, theft, racism, etc. etc. etc.
lucius septimius 12/10/2019 8:17:50 AM
15
Every time I hit "Refresh" I get a 404 error.  This is getting really annoying.
doppelganglander 12/10/2019 9:24:40 AM
16

Reply to lucius septimius in 14:

James Lindsay, one of the Grievance Studies hoaxers, has an excellent thread (start here) on a garbage physics/Critical Race Theory paper by someone called Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. (She has a dual appointment in physics and women's studies, which tells you all you need to know about her.) She invents something called "white empiricism" and claims that black women are excluded from physics, presumably because facts and evidence are a white male thing. It's very long, and I don't really know much about physics, but he does a glorious job tearing the paper apart.

My favorite tweet in the thread is this: "In example after example in my experience, including explicitly in the critical dietetics book I reviewed, we consistently see a theme of underaccomplishment or professional failure being rationalized as a conspiracy against someone from critical methods."
Occasional Reader 12/10/2019 9:28:30 AM
17


In #15 lucius septimius said: Every time I hit "Refresh" I get a 404 error.  This is getting really annoying.

Is 404 driving you to want to apply Rule .303? 
lucius septimius 12/10/2019 9:40:56 AM
18

Reply to Occasional Reader in 17: 

That is such a great movie.
Occasional Reader 12/10/2019 11:47:12 AM
19

Reply to lucius septimius in 18:


That's one I need to see again; haven't seen it in, literally, decades.
PaladinPhil 12/10/2019 4:28:58 PM
20
Christmas... hell at work, and alcohol at home. Only way me and the wife will be surviving the next couple of weeks. Just got the Squire his presents from Santa. Playmobil Ecto-1A and Slimer hotdog cart. He's been hyperfocused on Ghostbusters for the past month or so. Movies "Real Ghostbusters" cartoon, you name it. Hope in a sense this keeps up until next July.

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