Tuesday, August 04, 2009

You Keep Samin' When You Ought To Be Changin'


Fashion is a funny kind of thing. Take the navel: banned from public view in the USA until the mid-to-late 1960s; still banned from view in some places. Nancy Sinatra's Sugar (1966/1967) album cover was banned in Boston for indecency when it came out. But napalming villages in Vietnam was a-okay at the time.

I'm not suggesting the mores of society are entirely hypocritical, just noting they're bizarre and inconsistent. Personally, I'd rather navel gaze than watch a village razed.

Which reminds me of what Kurtz says in Apocalypse Now! (1979): "We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene!"



Jeannie C. Riley sings Tom T. Hall's "Harper Valley PTA" (1968).

Today's Rune: Signals.

7 comments:

Johnny Yen said...

Funny coincidence-- Nancy Sinatra had an editorial in the New York Times today, regarding royalties for songs played on radio.

Sidney said...

Hypocrisy seems to be evergreen.

jodi said...

Erik, Sex will always scare some more than violence, which is absurd. I had the Nancy boots back in the day and I adore "Harper Valley PTA" still now. Jeanne called those suckers OUT!

the walking man said...

The more the days progress the more culture stays the same, we just put different shades of paint over it.

the walking man said...

Erik...You got at least one write in vote for the Detroit Public School board of Education.

ivan@creativewriting.ca said...

Not bad enought somebody stole my Jane Fonda exercise videos, but I no longer have the VCR.
It was fun doing my exercises right along with her.

YogaforCynics said...

The navel is by far the most underrated boy part...and Apocalypse Now just has so many lines that say it all...not to mention the best rock video ever (at the beginning and end...with the rest of the movie in between)....