I know, I know, I have posted this song twice before. I'll probably post it a million times, if my blog lives long enough.
Because sometimes, as Uncle Dave says, you just need a moment of panic. :)
Ain't Life Grand - Widespread Panic
[via FoxyTunes / Widespread Panic]
I can't restrain myself from this any longer.
Yes, it's the REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA THREAD!
They're my favorite 'franchise' of Real Housewives so far.
Although I love my mindless trash-TV, Tami went and made it all political by alerting me to the fact that some people think the Atlanta housewives are especially low-rent. Hey, now! That IS going to piss me off! I take that as dissing the south, too--not just racist claptrap. (And let us be clear: singling out RHOA as somehow "worse"--IS racist claptrap.)
True Confessions--I've watched every single one of the "Real Housewives" series on the BRAVO network: Orange County, New York City (which earned its own DEAD AIR thread as well!), New Jersey and Atlanta. And I am here to say they are all equally narcissistic, dopey, solipsistic, shallow, silly, loud, screeching, self-centered, etc etc etc. If they weren't (as I said at Tami's), it wouldn't be "Real Housewives"--we tune in to our favorite TV shows for a reliable formula, as reliable as Monday Night Football or Wheel of Fortune. We want our narcissistic, screeching housewives! RHOA is 80% African-American, because Atlanta is.
Tami writes:
To be sure, the women on RHOA are no role models. They are alternately bullying, narcissistic, back-stabbing, money-grubbing, cliquey, disloyal, arrogant, self-involved, willfully ignorant, poorly spoken, wasteful and tackily nouveau riche. The show features street fights, wig tugging, name dropping, pole dancing, sugar daddy-funded goodies, “baller” fetishizing, vanity business projects, cattiness, loud arguments in nice restaurants (and nice offices..and nice homes), and whole lot of “flossing” and faux importance. Whether editing or reality is to blame, the women read like gross caricatures of the bourgie set, garnished with a little Jerry Springer.I don't usually read TV-blogs and forums and therefore didn't know this racialized analysis of RHOA was going on. It just makes we wanna holler. (sigh)
But here’s the thing: These traits are not solely the hallmark of the black housewives of Atlanta. Reality shows are cast and scripted for drama, and the “Real Housewives” franchise serves up plenty of it with each and every season. So I find it curious that these five, black women are singled out as egregiously off-the-hook. Oh, I’m not saying that the white Real Housewives don’t catch hell. Half the thrill of watching all the RH series is snarking on the excess and ignorance afterwards. My problem is HOW the Atlanta wives are criticized.
A foray into online coverage, blogs and TV forums like the ones on Television Without Pity will uncover frequent use of the word “ghetto” and “hood,” references to this or that housewife looking “like a man,” hints that the housewives are high-classed “hos”–promiscuous, scheming she-devils hot on the trail of big money, snark about big booties, talk of how the women are embarrassing black folks. Hmmm…sounds kind of like the type of criticism often thrown at black women, even those who act demurely and properly. (Have you seen the stuff folks say about Michelle Obama and her daughters?) Frankly, I have more problem with this sort of racialized analysis than I do with anything that happens on “Real Housewives of Atlanta.”
Because NeNe reminds me so much of my mother, I did not see her as especially "black"... and was unaware of the criticisms she has received for being the most "ghetto"--which I first realized when one of the women on the show said it. I can find these rather vicious criticisms all over the net; here is an example from one such blog:NeNe Leakes “Ghetto” is the definition of the word. Loud, Country and Tacky! You can tell she hooked up with her guy “Who’s clearly old enough to be her father!” by givin’ up the ghetto head a.s.a.p and getting a baby in there quick! Loud and Obnoxious are the two words that best describe her.And all us Loud, Country and Tacky people really LOVE NeNe, who reminds us our of Loud, Country and Tacky mamas.
I asked in my post about RHOA whether white people were spending time agonizing over the shameful antics of the Bravo brand's white housewives and their families. I doubt it. I don't think white people feel the burden of the Orange County wives' rude, dull and ambitionless adult children. I don't think they read the shallowness of New York City wives as reflective of white culture. I don't think all white people flinched when one New Jersey protagonist expressed the desire to open a chain of car wash/strip clubs. Nor will white people be judged by other white people based on the behavior of a bunch of reality show stars. Black people, of course, are judged by the actions of other random black folks--from Flavor Flav to Marion Barry to Serena Williams to Barack Obama. Our fortunes can rise and fall depending what black person is in the public eye and what they are doing. This is, of course, wrong and unfair. Why then, do black people join in enforcing this unequal standard?I don't think the Real Housewives of Orange County represent me in any way as a white woman, and it would never occur to me to think so. Likewise, can we allow the Real Housewives of Atlanta to be who they are without the accompanying idea that they "represent" anyone but themselves?
Look, I am not naive. I am, unfortunately, evaluated by mainstream America not just on my own merits, but by perceptions of other black people whom I cannot control. The same is true for all people of color. But I feel strongly that the way to combat this problem is to aggressively challenge the biases of the mainstream, not to fold to injustice by playing behavior cop with my brothers and sisters.
At left, the grave of Uncle Pen in Rosine, Kentucky.
In this post, I talked about how our deeds may outlast us in ways we don't expect. And today, I salute Bill Monroe's Uncle Pendleton Vandiver, known as the legendary Uncle Pen.
When Uncle Pen instructed his nephew in his traditional, old-world ways, who knew that he would change the whole direction of American music and that someday, even New Yorkers and Europeans would know his name? I often wonder what the modest Kentucky mountain man would have said about that.
He probably taught his nephew simply because he enjoyed playing with him. He could never have known the far-reaching legacy of his teaching.
In the 60s, America-at-large was introduced to bluegrass music through Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and their famous TV-theme for The Beverly Hillbillies, as well as their boldly shit-kickin rendition of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" (used nicely in the film Bonnie and Clyde).
I can still remember what it was like, as a child, when my family heard the TV-theme. Everyone went quiet, in hushed amazement: They are playing bluegrass on TV! (I imagine it was quite similar for African-Americans when they saw one of their own on TV back then, which hardly ever happened.) It felt strange to have remnants of my culture unexpectedly thrust into the mainstream, particularly regarding a type of music that we kept "to ourselves"--as bluegrass was then considered country music's poor, rural, barefoot cousin, almost an embarrassment. And there it was on prime time!
We were very ambivalent, since of course, The Beverly Hillbillies made us all look pretty stupid. Nonetheless, there we were. And suddenly, kids asked me if my stepfather (well-known country musician in the neighborhood) could play the banjo, too? I took some of my classmates home, and he played bluegrass-style banjo for them. This was way before bluegrass was widely available on records, and they were thoroughly bedazzled to hear the mysterious Flatt/Scruggs music, right in front of them. (You could hear it talk/you could hear it sing.)
And so, on this Feast of St Francis of Assisi, DEAD AIR remembers the important, pioneering work of Uncle Pen. Thank you for teaching your nephew the music of our people. The world was made so much richer by your presence.
~*~
Oh the people would come from far away
They'd dance all night till the break of day
When the caller hollered "do-se-do"
You knew Uncle Pen was ready to go
Late in the evening about sundown
High on the hill and above the town
Uncle Pen played the fiddle
Lord, how it would ring
You could hear it talk
You could hear it sing
He played an old piece he called "Soldier's Joy"
And the one called "The Boston Boy"
The greatest of all was "Jenny Lynn"
To me that's where the fiddle begins
I'll never forget that mournful day
When Uncle Pen was called away
They hung up his fiddle, they hung up his bow
They knew it was time for him to go
~*~
Uncle Pen - Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys (1956)
Mary Ems, photo by Malinda Hartong of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Hmm, would they permit a male sex offender to teach at an all-girl Christian school? Well, they might, now that I think of it. (After this long week of nonstop Polanski-defenses, I guess anything is possible.)
What concerns me is that the student was 18, and isn't that legally an adult? But they charged her anyway:
Not sure how I feel about that. The following story says "pleaded guilty to sex with a minor"--without properly disclosing that he was in fact 18 years old.
Ems originally was arrested for sexual battery, a felony that requires convicts to register as sex offenders.
But because the student refused to cooperate with officials, prosecutors struck a plea deal to ensure a conviction. They allowed Ems to plead guilty to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor – even though the victim was 18 – in exchange for her surrendering her teaching license. Ems benefited from the plea deal because the misdemeanor conviction means she isn’t a convicted felon and she doesn’t have to register as a sex offender.
[...]
An all-boys Christian school is employing a teacher who was fired from a previous teaching job for having sex with a student and who pleaded guilty last month to a sex crime with a minor.
Mary Ems, 44, of Springfield Township, is working at the Union Christian Post Graduate Academy, an uncertified school for males at least age 17.
[Hamilton County's] plea deal also required Ems to give up her certificate to teach in Ohio.No address on the website? Sounds like one of those boot-camp type boarding schools, where they send boys with "discipline problems" ...we have a parcel of them in the south. In fact, one of my daughter's friends was sent to one.
Despite that, Ems is working as a teacher at the all-boys school.
"We will certainly bring that to the court's attention at the time of sentencing," said Julie Wilson, spokesman for the Hamilton County Prosecutor.
"We wanted to make sure she didn't have her teaching certificate because of that (conviction)."
The school is not certified by the Ohio Department of Education because it accepts students who are college age and isn't a public high school.
The school identifies itself on its Web site as having "outstanding faculty and staff, prides itself in developing young men into 'Champions in Christ.'"
The Web site doesn't list a street address for the school, noting only that it is "located in suburban Cincinnati."
"The Union Christian Academy staff believes that its primary purpose is to educate each student to the highest possible level of academic achievement by providing a challenging curriculum in a safe, Christian environment," its Web site notes.
It requires each student to have "personal and institutional accountability, which is characterized by honesty, openness, spiritual and shared ethical standards" and that students "will be taught that making sound choices now will positively impact their future."
It appears to be a boarding school where students can go to improve their grades or athletic abilities - perhaps in hope of earning a college athletic scholarship - before attending college. Its tuition is $4,500 from January through May. Its first day of school this year was Sept. 9.
"Union Christian's Postgraduate football program is a very successful option for most young men. Our goal is to send numerous Postgraduate players to the ranks of many college programs every year," its Web site notes.
The school's Web site is registered to Wilson and a company named Ultimate Preps, both in Missouri City, Texas. Wilson also didn't respond to e-mails.
Ems is to be sentenced Oct. 29 before Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Melba Marsh. She faces up to six months in jail but the judge indicated she'd impose probation.
Starting out our fabulous October at Dead Air with some new music. This is the Sweetback Sisters' version of the legendary Roger Miller's My Uncle Used to Love Me but She Died. Great song, great women, great guitar solo, too.
This was recorded on June 13th of this year at the Roots on the River Festival in Bellows Falls, Vermont.
Apologies to my fellow vegetarians for the fried-chicken reference. But in the late Roger's defense--FRIED does rhyme with DIED, after all...
~*~
My Uncle Used to Love Me but She Died - Sweetback Sisters
