Author: Marty Aussenberg

For people of my generation, the memory of our parents’ disapproval of our music idols is still somewhat fresh in our minds. I can still remember how my parents reacted to seeing Elvis for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show, and their Yiddishe name for him, “Elvis mit de pelvis.” Don’t even ask what they thought of the Beatles (the words “get a haircut” coming from my dad sound familiar). They were, needless to say, dismissive of Elvis’ and the Beatles’ music, which, they thought, compared quite unfavorably with the music of, say, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra or the Dorsey brothers.

Of course, horrified as we were by our parents’ stuffiness and judgementalism, we all aspired not ever to be as uptight as they were about music, and so it was with a great deal of dismay that I recall my revulsion to rap and hip-hop as being an epiphany that, at least in that way, I had become my parents. I guess it’s the same feeling we have when we realize that, in spite of our best efforts, we’ve adopted some of the less attractive aspects of our parents’ methods of child rearing.

Of course, they were wrong about Elvis and the Beatles. As I watched the Grammy Awards the other night (mostly for the visual rather than the auditory experience), I was, once again, struck by how vastly superior my generation’s music was to what passes for music these days. I asked myself whether Beyonce, Kanye West or The Black Eyed Peas are likely to have their music played thirty or more years from now, the way The Rolling Stones’, Bob Dylan’s or Paul Simon’s still is. Will we remember, fondly, U2, the way we remember the Supremes or the Temptations? Will there be rap retrospectives as fund-raising vehicles on public TV decades from now the way doo-wop is? Will there be pilgrimages to hear Green Day the way there have been for the Grateful Dead? Forgive my skepticism in asking those essentially rhetorical questions, but what passes for music today is, as I saw one commenter on the Grammy say, frozen TV dinners trying to pass as real food.

So, is it fair to judge a musical genre by its ability to stand the test of time, or should we just accept whatever the latest thing in music is as a barometer of current taste? Whatever happened to New Wave and Punk Rock, anyway? Where are the Talking Heads and Devo, now that we need them (not)? Or, for that matter, disco? Were they just a tribute to our musical fickleness? I believe longevity is an absolutely appropriate criterion for quality. If that weren’t so, symphonic music audiences, regardless of their sophistication, would prefer hearing Phillip Glass or Charles Ives to Beethoven or Mozart, which they overwhelmingly don’t.

I’m no musicologist, but what is it about music that gives it a lasting quality? Take a look, or better yet, listen, to the music of the 50’s and 60’s and what you’ll find is that the common thread is tonality. Harmony and ensemble were still important in that era—-not so much, anymore. Many of the singers of my day had something called a voice. The players also had something called musicianship. The singers understood nuance and modulation. Sure, we had some screamers even back then (e.g., Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis), but fewer of them saw the need to compensate for a lack of voice talent by cranking up the volume, as seems to be so prevalent today.

So, are rap and hip-hop the new rock ‘n roll? I doubt it. Music must be, above all, musical, and it takes more than decibel levels, pulsating rhythms and rhyming verse to make music. Yeah, I know; our parents thought (hoped, really) that rock ‘n roll was a passing fancy, just the way some of us feel about today’s music. But, they were wrong, and we’re right.

News flash: holder of record for penis size unemployed.

Yup, it’s true; the guy who supposedly is the proud owner of the world’s
largest male sexual organ (13.5 inches, erect) can’t get a job, and worse still, is living with his mother.

I hadn’t realized how truly dire the unemployment situation in this country was until I read that. I mean, if this guy can’t find a job, what hope is there for the rest of us? Surely, he could get a job as a legal male prostitute, or in the ideally suited porn industry which, I’m given to understand (not that I would know), is populated by men with phenomenally large Johnsons. But no, says this modern day swordsman; he won’t do that because it would destroy his credibility, a concern he apparently didn’t have when he appeared in an HBO documentary about men with large appendages .

In spite of his prior HBO appearance, he couldn’t get the job that, it would appear, was tailor-made for him, the title role in the HBO series Hung, based on a character who turns his prodigious endowment into a money-maker, catering to the needs of sex-starved matrons. The actually hung guy lost this role to the actor who played Mickey Mantle in the TV movie about Roger Maris’ home run record. Strangely, that actor, Thomas Jane , who professes no illusions about his own endowment, utters a line in the movie (supposedly Mantle’s in real life) about how he prefers women with small hands because they make his dick look big.

Surely, this guy isn’t going wanting for a job for a lack of confidence. If anything will or should give a man confidence, it’s knowing his junk is bigger than anyone else’s, right? There’s no scientific study that I know of that supports the assertion that male confidence is directly proportional to male genital size, and yet, who doubts that there’s some correlation?

Wasn’t it always the guy with something to show who took every opportunity to waltz around the locker room in his altogether in high school (and even later)? So, does size matter? It’s of little comfort to someone who may be lacking in that department (a status—-trust me—-I can only relate to vicariously) that surveys indicate the “motion of the ocean” is more important to most sex partners than the “size of the boat.” Yet, when all is said and done, don’t bigger boats cause bigger waves?

This is one area where men have it all over women. For ages, women have suffered the indignity of having two of their two most prominent sex organs be on display. Just ask any woman how often she’s had a man talk to her breasts, instead of to her (an experience Thomas Jane could relate to when, he said, people started talking to his crotch after he got the role in Hung. Imagine if mother nature had engineered things differently, so that women could hide their breast size, but men had to wear their “package” on the outside.

The shift in the balance of power would be monumental. The wage disparity between men and women would pretty much disappear, but more importantly, all the men in history who had to compensate for their lack of penile proportion would suddenly be put in their place. SUV’s might never have been invented, for example. But, more importantly, world history would be different as well.

How would Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte or, for that matter, Adolph Hitler have achieved their awesome power if everyone knew (and could see) how minimal their manhood really was? Hitler was reputed to be underwhelmingly sized, leading to speculation about the inevitable historic consequences.

And who could possibly doubt that George Bush’s appearance on the aircraft carrier in a flight costume prominently embellished with a codpiece was an exercise in over-compensation on his part. I doubt the country would have elected a conspicuously under-sized president. Clinton might have won or lost, depending on which of his former consorts you believe.

All I can say is, thank goodness for the male/female difference, insofar as the manifestation of organ size goes: I wouldn’t want to be president, anyway.

The Gadfly

I have a question for all you cell phone addicts: do you
find yourself shopping for a waterproof cell phone just so you don’t miss any
calls while you’re in the shower? Amazingly, 

there is at least one, though I doubt in-shower use was its motivation.
Surely, my cellulista friends,  you cannot be disconnected from the outside
world for a nanosecond, much less for the time it takes to shampoo your hair or
wash your fanny. Cellphone-itis has gotten so bad, I’ve noticed walkers in my
neighborhood on their phones as they encourage Fido to do his thing. Hey,
“walkie talkies:” why not just invite your indispensable phone buddies to walk
with you. Maybe you could put a leash on them (and pick up their poo) too, while
you’re at it.

Which is to say, my disgust with cell phone ubiquity (and
the insufferableness of its users) is reaching critical mass. For some time I’ve
been tempted to take the unacceptability of cell phone omnipresence into my own
hands. There are a variety of tactics available to deal with the boors who think
the world should revolve around their cell phone conversations, wherever they
happen to be. My favorite tactic was demonstrated by one of my heros, Larry
David (the creator of the iconic “Seinfeld” TV series), on his HBO series, “Curb
Your Enthusiasm.” Confronted with a restaurant patron sitting at the table next
to his,  blabbing
into one of those blue tooth earpieces that make it seem like you’re talking
to yourself, he (Larry) starts talking to himself, as though he’s having a cell
phone conversation. The tactic has the desired effect, with the oblivious phone
monger, annoyed by David’s imaginary conversation (“at least I’m talking to a
real person”), leaving the restaurant in a huff.  I’ve found that it’s even more
effective if you repeat, verbatim and at an even higher decibel level, the
conversation the obnoxious talker is having, in that annoying way children learn
to repeat everything a split second after somone’s said it. Some cell phone
scolds have taken their grievances to a whole new level,  using
the information they glean from loud-mouthed cell fiends against them.

If I had my druthers, though, I wouldn’t leave home without
my trusty cell phone jammer. Yes, for only about a hundred bucks you too can
take back the space in your immediate vicinity by disabling cell phone
communication for several feet in all directions. Even though they’re illegal
(go ahead, arrest me),  jammers
are widely available on the internet<.  Oh, how I’ve fantasized about
carrying one of these little wonders in my pocket when I go into a public place
and am subjected to some inane (and oh-so-important) conversation within
earshot. Just imagine the power this little gizmo gives you to take back your
aural space in public places. Go ahead, cell phoner: make my day!

Cell phones have become a pox on society. And now, of
course, as if talking on them wasn’t obnoxious enough, we’ve had the explosion
of using them to text message, as well as to “tweet.” Don’t get me started on
“tweeting.” Actually,  it’s
too late.   Had an amazing orgasm or an awesome fart? Tweet about it.
Someone’s bound to be interested. I am convinced that civilization, as we know
it, will come to an end, if not by the vast, and increasing, disparity between
the haves and the have-nots, then by our inability to go for minutes at a time
without  “reaching
out and touching” someone. I’m beginning to understand what Greta Garbo had
in mind when she uttered  her
trademark line.

Of course, there’s little doubt using a communication
device while driving is dangerous, estimates being that  cell
phone users are responsible for thousands of injuries (and hundreds of deaths)
each year, the result being that restrictions on texting, and even on
conversing while driving, have become justifiably widespread. “Hang up and
drive” is still very good advice. Unfortunately, cell phone addiction is finding
 even
newer ways to enable it, although, in a hopeful sign, the addicts are
implementing their own  one-step
version of a self-help program.

The ultimate comeuppance for cell phone addicts is the
increasing body of evidence that cell phone usage may be hazardous to health. A 

definitive study on this (which also debunks the industry’s surprising
“findings” to the contrary) has just recently been released.  And, the World
Health Organization is reportedly ready to release the  report
of a long-term study with a similar conclusion.  Of course, the cell phone
manufacturers vehemently deny any causal connection, and though I am one of the
few remaining skeptics who believes that if you condition a lab rat to do
anything (sex?) frequently enough you’ll find it causes cancer, I’m not stupid
enough to deny that some behaviors are unacceptably risky (e.g., texting while
driving). As for the cell phone industry’s denial, remember how vehemently the
tobacco industry denied their product’s link to cancer.  It took nearly 50 years
for the dangers of tobacco to become generally recognized.  The same for many
other environmental toxins, including asbestos. And, don’t think those silly
looking blue tooth ear pieces offer any protection, or even that just

carrying your phone on your hip avoids risks.

So, it appears that Darwinian principles may eventually
kick in when it comes to cell phone users. Meantime, celluslistas: STFU when
you’re around me. Besides, you never know when I might be carrying that jammer.

Well, guess what? Racism (or at least accusations of it) is back in the news, both locally and nationally. Our mayor trotted out that old saw, for the Nth time, because he was pissed off at City Council for actually taking him at his word about “retiring” on July 30th, and passing a resolution declaring the office vacant as of July 31st. The gall of them! Obviously, there’s no other explanation for that than racism. Oh, and he embellished the accusation, this time, by adding the charge that the Council’s action was “perverted.” Who knew that part of the resolution declaring a vacancy in the office apparently was language praising child pornography?

On the national scene, there have been two prominent incidents: the first was the exclusion of a group of black children from an apparently “whites only” swim club in suburban Philadelphia, and the second was when our President entered the fray over the arrest of prominent African American scholar Henry Louis Gates by suggesting this was another example of racial profiling. Imagine—-an African American male suggesting that law enforcement officials occasionally target people of color for “special” treatment. How dare he! It couldn’t possibly be because there’s hardly a black person who’s lived long enough who hasn’t been harassed for the “crime” of being black, could it? But the corporate media, looking for a controversy about this president, when the only other thing on their radar screens was the “birther” goofiness, jumped on Obama’s remarks as if he were channeling Jeremiah Wright.

I’ve been privileged to become friends with a number of African Americans in the last few years as a result of my membership in a predominantly (well, except for me, exclusively) black social organization made up of doctors, lawyers and other professionals. It’s been an enlightening experience to have the shoe be on the other foot, as my black friends have (playfully, I think) referred to me as the “white boy,” or the “slave master,” among other things. Nonetheless, I’ve come to the realization from being around these guys that it is virtually impossible to be a black person in this country, regardless of status or stature, and not have experiences where the color of your skin has been criminalized by law enforcement authorities. “Driving while black,” has become almost a cliché, but, as with most clichés, it has a reality-based origin.

It’s a sad fact that our Mayor’s ubiquitous hurling of the racist accusation has had the effect of inuring us to instances where the charge may actually be meritorious, like the incident in Philadelphia, not unlike the way the villagers in the Aesop fable stopped believing the boy who kept crying “wolf.”

I am the last person to scoff at charges of bigotry or intolerance, being the child of Holocaust survivors, and having had personal experience with anti-Semitism. But, I also have enough life experience to know that just because you are a member of a group that has been historically discriminated against doesn’t mean that everything bad that happens to you is the result of discrimination.

I also know that just because a black person cries “racism” every time something bad happens to them doesn’t mean it isn’t the result of discrimination. The saying is, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean everyone isn’t out to get you. Eventually, even the boy who cried wolf was right, even if, by that point, he couldn’t get anyone to believe him.

There are lessons to be learned in these episodes. For Obama, it’s that discussing issues of race may not always be accepted with open arms, even coming from him. Oh sure, everyone admired his confrontation of race in that memorable campaign speech in Philadelphia. But that was as much because it put distance between himself and someone many white folks saw as a virulent black racist as because it spoke to broader issues of race.

We “palefaces” liked that speech because it made us feel Obama had common cause with us in decrying the kind of racism we’re not used to, the kind that threatens us. But identifying with a prominent black scholar because he may have been the victim of the kind of racism we would prefer to believe is mostly anecdotal? Unh-unh; that was a bridge too far. But the fact is, Obama’s foray into racial profiling may end up having the salutary effect of making us (black and white) realize that we may not have made as much progress towards becoming “post-racial” as the pundits would have us believe.

The lessons in the Herenton episode are harder to glean, if only because his accusations of discrimination have become so indiscriminate. After all, our mayor has enjoyed a record-breaking tenure in his office in no small part because whites, as well as blacks, have repeatedly re-elected him, and because he has been the beneficiary of the white power structure’s largesse.

Nonetheless, the lesson in Herenton’s incessant invocation of the “race card,” especially in juxtaposition with the incident at the Philadelphia swim club, may be that racism is still alive and well in this country, even if the carriers of that message may see that wolf at the door all too often.

I admit it; I’m a snoop. I love to see how other people live their lives, not by peeping through their windows (I draw the line at anything that would land me in jail), but by watching the snippets of their lives they see fit to share with us, the great unwashed masses. Which is one of the reasons I love those “see and be seen” party picture magazines that get published periodically, showing the self-appointed Memphis gliterati in all their splendor. Where else, I ask you, can you see so many boob jobs in one place without being there? That’s just one reason I call these magazines “boobs on parade.”

But, the really interesting tidbits of other people’s lives is on display in the wedding and engagement announcements of the newspaper. Now, I know many of you prefer to read the obituaries, mostly, I suspect, to make sure your name isn’t listed. But I find that to be a bit too ghoulish, and also entirely too reminiscent of my own mortality. But, weddings and engagements? Now, there’s a celebration, and a major slice, of life I can relate to.

I find the announcements that appear in our local paper to be particularly amusing. It used to be, back before every conceivable bit of newspaper content (including the electronic kind) had to be monetized, that weddings and engagements, along with births and deaths, were considered “vital statistics,” which were published as a public service by the newspaper. Hence the term “newspaper of record.” Many newspapers still treat these kinds of announcements that way, to the extent that the New York Times insists, as part of its announcement policy, that each of the blissful couple’s prior divorces be listed. How’s that for throwing a wet rag on the festivities? But not our local paper. They’ve figured out how to treat wedding and death announcements like car ads. Column inches are column dollars, so pretty much whatever you want to submit for publication in the way of wedding/death announcements is OK with them. The result: malapropisms, typos and the occasional elimination of the identity (or even existence) of one of the bride’s (or groom’s) parents. Apparently, quite a few test tube babies get married.

I get a particularly big kick out of the differences between the announcements in our local paper and the ones that appear in the New York Times. To appear in the Times, one or both of the happy couple must have at least one degree (and preferably more) from an Ivy League school, be a doctor, lawyer or investment banker and have at least one parent who’s written the Great American Novel. To appear in our local paper, one or both of the celebrants must have attended Ole Miss and be employed by FedEx or one of our ubiquitous hospitals. And it doesn’t really matter who their parents are, unless, of course, one of them happens to be a preacher. The Times doesn’t care where the couple honeymoon, or where they’re taking up housekeeping, but that information is de rigeur in the local announcements. After all, more info = more column inches.

I’m sorry if that comparison makes me come across like a snob (what can I say?). Either of my marriage announcements, had they been submitted for publication, would have fallen short by the Times’ standards. But the second one would have been worthy (in my opinion), if only for the fact that the wedding “reception” was held at the soda fountain of the Wiles-Smith Drug Store in Midtown. See, I told you I was a snob.

Call me an old fogie, a troglodyte, stuck in the mud or any other term you care to use to describe my resistance to the ever-increasing impingement of technology on our daily lives, but I still won’t succumb to the most recent incarnation of communication known, euphemistically, as social networking. I won’t “tweet” on Twitter, link to LinkedIn, show my face on Facebook, or share my space with MySpace, and I’ll give you fair warning: don’t try to make me. I don’t have, and don’t want, 200 friends. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the handful I already have.

As it is, I do everything in my power to avoid unwanted contact with the outside world. What can I say: I’m a big believer in privacy, something which, in the era of government eavesdropping and multi-million name databases, is all but gone. I have an unpublished phone number (the only effective way to avoid bill collectors, stockbrokers, and the occasional nostalgic ex-girlfriend), and an e-mail address that’s guarded by so many layers of spam protection it sometimes blocks the messages I actually want to receive.

I assume that most of my friends would, as they should, be just as uninterested in the minutiae of my mundane daily life as I am in theirs. So, why, for heaven’s sake, would I subscribe to a service that would enable me, as was reported of one recent “tweet,” to hear from a friend while she was undergoing her gynecological examination? I certainly wouldn’t pain her with the details of my prostate exam (not that I could do it from that position even if I wanted to). Some experiences, I assure you, are not meant to be shared.

And, if you think broadcasting while your nether regions are being palpated is weird, then how about broadcasting those nether regions themselves. Yes, according to an article in the New York Times, one of our local hospitals, right here in River City, is actually “tweeting” (via YouTube) brain operations.

And why are they doing that? Why, for marketing purposes, of course. They’re not getting enough of our overstretched healthcare dollar, apparently, and billboards stopped being graphic enough to gin up a sufficient amount of the cash cow neurosurgery business. What next: breast augmentations (bigger “tweets,” perhaps) and vasectomies? Please, if these procedures are already on YouTube, I don’t want to know about it.

The lie these sites propagate is that, by using them, you are somehow promoting communication, keeping in touch, not being a stranger, etc. The phone company used to have a promotion that encouraged subscribers to “reach out and touch someone.” Well, in the age when the most innocuous or best-intended of comments can find you on the wrong end of a sexual harassment complaint, that may not be such a good idea anymore.

But, more importantly, as we increasingly substitute electronic communication for live, in-person, face-to-face (or telephonic—-remember that quaint technology) conversation, we also increasingly promote a kind of remoteness and disconnectedness that can give rise to many misunderstandings. Who among us hasn’t had the experience of having an e-mail message badly misunderstood simply because we could not, instantaneously, prevent the message’s unintended interpretation?

If I want you to reach me, I’ll give you my phone number, or my triple-Spam-protected e-mail address, and I assume, if you feel the same way, you’ll reciprocate that privilege. And, in so doing, we’ll gladly forego the ability to use those methods to communicate 24/7, as the social networking sites promote. Who needs to communicate 24/7, anyway?

And if you want me to know who your friends are, what music you like to hear, or food you like to eat, I assume you’ll invite me to a party (the original, and still best, form of social networking) where I can meet those friends, listen to some of your favorite music and eat some of your favorite food.

What started out as a mechanism to increase our intimacy has, instead, resulted in increasing our detachment. It’s no accident that the dictionary definition for the term used for a Twitter communication, the “tweet,” is “a weak chirping sound.” See, even the dictionary knows what, apparently, the technology-addicted don’t: tweeting is a weak substitute for meaningful communication.