Grab yourself a pussy: NOT!

Windsor Humane Society apologizes for Trump-inspired campaign asking public to ‘grab a pussy’



Dalson Chen, Postmedia News | October 19, 2016 3:59 PM ET





The Windsor/Essex County Humane Society's controversial cat adoption advertisement that made reference to Donald Trump's controversial "pussy" comment. After multiple complaints, the advertisement was deleted - less than three hours after it was posted on Oct. 19, 2016.

If the Windsor/Essex County Humane Society wanted to court Donald Trump levels of controversy with its latest cat adoption ad, they surely got it on Wednesday morning.

The organization received multiple complaints — and hundreds of social media shares — because of an advertisement that made explicit reference to Trump’s infamous “grab ’em by the pussy” comment.

“You don’t have to be a star to grab a pussy… cat,” the ad joked, informing the public that all shelter cats over six months old can be adopted for $50 from Oct. 19 to 23.

Reaction was swift. “Tasteless” and “vulgar” were common responses. Some members of the public decried the ad as perpetuating “rape culture.” Others found it humorous — no different than a joke one would hear from a late night talk show host.

Blogger's Blather. This steaming nugget from the National Post (a. k. a.  "Postmedia", which to me sounds like an obituary for the death of rational journalism) talks about an uh-oh committed by the Windsor Humane Society. Myself, I think it was stupid of them to use Trump's pussy-grabbing remarks as a cheap way to get attention for their cause. It's still too sickening to be funny, as far as I am concerned, and probably always will be.

Besides which: it's damn disrespectful to the cats!

But I was interested to find that prior to this campaign, which has been much reviled and Tweeted to death on social media, PETA did something very similar in its ad campaign for adopting cats.

So what's the difference? some people are saying. Well. . . PETA blows things up, and the Humane Society doesn't. So people are more afraid of PETA. They set up hidden cameras in hog farms and stuff, then get the footage shown on W5. I know they probably do some good, but fanatics of any stripe (even a striped cat like this one) frighten me because they have lost their perspective. Without perspective, the human race is pretty much doomed.

I prefer the PETA ad because it's simple, clean-looking, and has one graphic only, of an adorable kitty. The Humane Society threw everything into the cement mixer, including an obnoxious picture of Trump inside a star (one of those American flag thingies - in fact, the American flag is all over this ugly, garish thing). The cats in it don't look like any cats I would want to adopt, or be in the same room with. They're anxious and paranoid and even angry.

This points up how the same idea can be handled in radically different ways. I don't particularly like what PETA did, but it's OK, I guess, and the other one just isn't. It's loud and jangly and anxiety-provoking - just plug-ugly, is what it is! It gave me a migraine, whereas the other one is just

Wait a minute.

Wait wait wait wait wait.

What's that - image - behind the lettering on GRAB A PUSSY?

Hard to see at first, isn't it? - but it's the American flag! So this thing is hardly neutral. It's almost subliminal in its effects. Sneaky. Is there a microscopic image hidden somewhere of Trump doing that tunnel-mouth thing, or perhaps grabbing someone's . . . cat?

This wasn't the direction this blog post was going to take. At all. Originally, I made the usual mistake of looking at the comments section. The National Post readership sound so right-wing they'd be right at home in the Trump cult. Most of them were delighted with all this pussy-stuff. They thought it was "a scream". Like most National Post fans, they're dull and stupid and don't have the wits to know it.

All I really care about is the cats. I showed this to Bentley, and he turned ass immediately and walked towards the litter box.

Sample Comments (with responses by a friend of mine named Ed):

Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky was not amused, stating she was “profoundly, deeply disappointed and disturbed” by the ad. What a bunch of snowflakes! The ad is funny, but to these idiots that feel unsafe and offended, go to your room. PC morons!

The world is a wonderful place too bad its just overflowing with people looking for something to be offended by. (Ed.: And with people who can't write.)

Farewell humour. It was nice having you around until the brigades of the "progressive" SJW's came streaming forth from their safe spaces in their quest to see who could become more enraged and offended.

Wikileaks, Guccifer, even the FBI has put out a tonne of information this week showing the deep level of corruption surrounding Clinton. This is what rises to the top of NP stories. (Ed.: Bravo! . . . What the hell did it mean?)

Trump troll alert!

What moron would complain about this brilliant, humorous and socially relevant ad campaign? (Ed.: I would.)

If this means a few more homeless cats get a home, I'm for it.

Shows how far the Lefties are out of touch with normal people! (Ed.: this raises the horrifying spectre that "Righties", i.e. Trump enthusiasts, are 'normal people').

It's a joke. It's funny. Have a laugh.

I never did like cats!!!!!

I agree. Delicate flowers for sure if this campaign bothers you. Canadians are smart enough to know that the ad is totally tongue in cheek, tough enough to handle it and intelligent enough to separate out cat adoption from sexual assault. I guess if you are offended by the ad then you should go out and adopt a cat or two so that no advertising is needed to help out homeless cats...

Great! What a scream!

They have a bunch of Pussy's in Washington now! (Ed.: Pussy's WHAT? What belongs to Pussy? Explain it to me!)

Even I would have double checked that thought......

The end of humor brought to you by 'progressives'

Made me laugh!

LOL

Good kitty!

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Blowhard: why Trump looks exactly like Willie the Whale

Robert Frost is a complete NOBODY!

STOPPING BY THE WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING BY DONALD J. TRUMP

BY ROTTINGPOST ON MARCH 25, 2016 • ( 140 COMMENTS )

I have a pretty good idea whose woods these are, believe me.
And let me tell you something, my people say he’s a complete nobody.
This guy lives in the village. So what if he sees me stopping here?
I dare him to sue me! I dare him!

And by the way, this snow is pathetic.
These are by far, the least downy flakes ever!
I hear they had to import them from Canada.
I don’t know. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. We’re looking into it.

My horse – he’s the most incredible horse, seriously,
I have the greatest, the classiest horses –
My horse doesn’t even know what the hell we’re doing here.
The horses love me though. They do.
They’re always shaking their bells at me, it’s very loving.
It’s a beautiful thing.

Let me tell you something, these woods are an embarrassment.
They’re not dark. They’re not deep. They’re nothing. They’re for losers.
And I cannot wait to sue this guy.
I cannot wait to sue this guy.


PLEASE NOTE. This is the way it appeared. You know as well as I do that
the poem is "Stopping BY Woods", not "by THE Woods". I'm sort
of hoping that's part of the satire and not ignorance on the part of Rottingpost.

Presidential Debate: it would've been better if she wasn't there

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (The Borowitz Report)—Plunging the future of the 2016 Presidential debates into doubt, Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday morning that he would not participate in the remaining two debates if Hillary Clinton is there.

Trump blasted the format of Monday night’s debate by claiming that the presence of Clinton was “specifically designed” to distract him from delivering his message to the American people.

“Every time I said something, she would say something back,” he said. “It was rigged.”

He also lambasted the “underhanded tactics” his opponent used during the debate. “She kept on bringing up things I said or did,” he added. “She is a very nasty person.”

Turning to CNN, Trump criticized the network’s use of a split screen showing both him and Clinton throughout the telecast. “It should have been just me,” he said. “That way people could have seen how really good my temperament is.”

The billionaire said that debate organizers had not yet responded to his ultimatum, but he warned that if he does not get assurances in writing that future debates will be “un-rigged, Hillary-wise,” he will not participate.

“I have said time and time again that I would only do these debates if I am treated fairly,” he added. “The only way I can be guaranteed of being treated fairly is if Hillary Clinton is not there.”

(Though this piece was lightly borrowed from The Borowitz Report, a column in The New Yorker which an alarming number of people take seriously and launch lawsuits against - and Trump may soon be one of them - I agree with its sentiments absolutely. Trump made a kind of sense when he initially stuck to what he was artificially programmed to say, then went "off-road" and sunk himself as usual. It was a great day for America.)

BUT SHE WAS.

Giant Head, No Brain: the Donald Trump Easter Island statue

NEWS FLASH: from The Vintage News!

Actually the giant heads of Easter Island, do have bodies, but landslides have covered them up

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Jun 25, 2016

The reason people think they are [only] heads is there are about 150 statues buried up to the shoulders on the slope of a volcano, and these are the most famous, most beautiful and most photographed of all the Easter Island statues.

This is just one of those moments of serendipity that makes me want to do the Dippity-Doo.

I was trying to get through the usual abominable trash on The Vintage News (which for some reason keeps dragging me back, though it's about as well-researched and scholarly as Ripley's Believe it or Not) when I came across the beginning of an article on the famed Easter Island statues that was so horribly written, I burst out laughing. I just had to cut and paste the beginning of it, but then, when I went to look for an illustration. . .

It was just too perfect: a giant head that somehow completely lacked a brain.

The greatest President God ever created

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

Now the trumpet summons us again–not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need–not as a call to battle, though embattled we are–but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”–a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort? In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy

If you want more justice in the justice system, then we’ve all got to vote -- not just for a president, but for mayors, and sheriffs, and state’s attorneys, and state legislators. That's where the criminal law is made. And we’ve got to work with police and protesters until laws and practices are changed. That's how democracy works. If you want to fight climate change, we’ve got to engage not only young people on college campuses, we've got to reach out to the coal miner who’s worried about taking care of his family, the single mom worried about gas prices. If you want to protect our kids and our cops from gun violence, we’ve got to get the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, who agree on things like background checks to be just as vocal and just as determined as the gun lobby that blocks change through every funeral that we hold. That is how change happens.

Barack Obama

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist
and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes,
OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart
—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if,
like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the
smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a
conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's
why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went
there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my
like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but
you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would
have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear
is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the
power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of
what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?),
but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it
used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I
would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because,
you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter
right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about
another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians
are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

When I said that Obama, and of course, I’m being sarcastic. They know that, because after I said that, I said he’s the MVP, he is going to collect his MVP award. So I said Obama is the founder of ISIS, the founder, and these dishonest media people they say did he mean that, and after that, I’d say a lot, in fact, they like him so much because he’s been so weak and so bad. I mean, he let this happen. They had eight states. They had eight countries. They’re now in twenty-eight countries. They’re expanding. So I said the founder of ISIS. Obviously, I was being sarcastic, then, then but not that sarcastic to be honest with you.

That’s one of the nice things. I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich. So if I need $600 million, I can put $600 million myself. That’s a huge advantage. I must tell you, that’s a huge advantage over the other candidates.

I dealt with Gaddafi. I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn’t let him use the land. That’s what we should be doing. I don’t want to use the word ‘screwed’, but I screwed him. That’s what we should be doing.

Washington (CNN)

Donald Trump said Thursday that he meant exactly what he said when he called President Barack Obama the "founder of ISIS" and objected when a conservative radio show host tried to clarify the GOP nominee's position.

Trump was asked by host Hugh Hewitt about the comments Trump made Wednesday night in Florida, and Hewitt said he understood Trump to mean "that he (Obama) created the vacuum, he lost the peace."

Trump objected.

"No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS," Trump said. "I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."


Hewitt pushed back again, saying that Obama is "not sympathetic" to ISIS and "hates" and is "trying to kill them."

"I don't care," Trump said, according to a show transcript. "He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?"

Hewitt and Trump went back and forth after that, with Hewitt warning Trump that his critics would seize on his use of "founder" as more example of Trump being loose with words.

Clinton later hit back on Thursday on Twitter, saying it was Trump who was unfit to be president.

"It can be difficult to muster outrage as frequently as Donald Trump should cause it, but his smear against President Obama requires it," Clinton tweeted. "No, Barack Obama is not the founder of ISIS. ... Anyone willing to sink so low, so often should never be allowed to serve as our Commander-in-Chief."

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Is it real, or is it . . . Meredith?

Oh all right then, the last one was posted by a "fan". But I think it makes a point. With the exception of an extremely blurry profile picture (below), these are all the photos currently posted on Meredith McIver's Facebook page. I mean, all of them! At first the page didn't exist (she doesn't seem to have a footprint anywhere on the internet), then an empty Facebook page sat there for several days. Then, this! Many people are taking this very, very seriously and saying, "You see, folks? She DOES exist. You were being really stupid believing all those dumb conspiracy theories." From the comments, I'd say at least 3/4 of readers believe this is her real page. People don't really look at photos, and if they do, they believe what they see without questioning. Oh, there she is with Trump. . . with Michelle Obama . . . with  - Whatsisname. . . 

But I still don't buy it. She's a cardboard cutout, as convincing as the photojob you can see in these pictures. And yet, if we express any doubt of her existence, we're quickly clapped down for being one of those survivalists with guns and dried rations in his basement. 

The "proof" I'm hearing is stuff like: she co-wrote several books with Donald Trump in the 2000s. Look! It says so right on the book covers! And if it's in print, it MUST be true. My grandma used to say that (or was it my great-grandma?). She's 65 years old (though she looks more like 40 in the pictures). She went to ballet school, or someone named Meredith McIver went to ballet school, somewhere. She was born in New York and raised in New Jersey, or something like that, and that matches up with "a" Meredith McIver, so she must be real!

I still believe that her name/identity were either wholly invented so that someone could take the fall for Melania Trump's disastrous plagiarized speech, or perhaps they just pulled the name of a real person out of the files - someone now so disconnected from Trump that she's likely to keep her mouth shut (perhaps for a price).

To me, "proof" would be seeing an interview with her on network TV, or perhaps on the news. Anything at all would do, but it has to have her face on it, and it has to have her wearing something besides that dreadful polka-dot jacket. The excuse for her remaining out of sight is that she needs to keep a "low profile" to play down the embarrassment of the theft of Michelle Obama's speech (which was, of course, entirely her fault).

Someone is having us on here, of course. Michael Moore? Who knows. He's too busy predicting the end of the world as we know it (and he might just be right). There's no way in the world this is a valid Facebook page, but where IS her valid Facebook page? Why is it enough for some people to say "she co-wrote a book with Trump, therefore she must be real"? It might be a pseudonym. Such things have been known to happen. I just don't see anything that holds up. And the panicky/contemptuous tone of the articles debunking the "conspiracy theory" is suspicious to me, too. "Stupid idiots! How can you doubt Trump's integrity? He would never do a thing like this. That's as stupid as believing in Bigfoot."

As a matter of fact, I like the Sasquatch photo best, and it's just as skilfully photoshopped as all the rest of them. Her profile picture is so blurry that you really can't tell who it is, which makes me wonder. Maybe she really IS blurry, though - her identity certainly is.

https://www.facebook.com/Meredith-McIver-578466218980877/

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Dispose of your ugly ideas here

In spite of its satiric and sometimes humorous tone, this blog occasionally slips into the misanthropic. Meaning, "I hate humanity", or at least the jaw-dropping stupidity inspired or revealed by the internet.

This is an example. This photo, obviously a very old one, is doing the rounds right now. It's the sort of thing that draws hundreds, even THOUSANDS of comments from people, and many of them are indignant. "How could anyone say that about an innocent child?" "All children are beautiful!" "It should be against the law to say such things!" etc. etc. etc.

Somebody said "hey, that lettering looks sort of fake", but no one listened. The person was quickly shouted down. What's the matter with you, anyway? Don't you know how to join in on a massacre? 

Non-lemmings are rare, as are people who say, "Wait a minute." This was a big wait-a-minute moment for ME, which makes me realize why I'm so often shouted down - no, change that to "ignored". 

For it turns out (I had to check this with Snopes, but I was pretty sure of it before I checked) that the photo had indeed been doctored, and poorly at that, the sign photoshopped with lettering that looked far too uniform and modern to be original.

Here is the original photo:

The joke? (For yes, there is a joke/point!) It isn't "I hate children", "children are ugly", "let's put our children in the garbage", "'isn't it horrible that people want to put their children in the garbage", "what's wrong with people anyway?", "call Child Protection Services", "Call 9-1-1","Call the police", "I'd like to take that sweet little girl home with me right now and just love her to pieces" (never mind that the picture was taken in 1931 and she long ago died of old age), etc. etc. etc.

The point is, the JOKE is: see, there is a foolproof way to keep children off the grass! Hahahahahahaha. Or even this: perhaps this is the only way to keep children off the grass.

Oh. 

You mean - ?

But most people won't admit (or even notice) that they've been bamboozled and fell right into it, causing them to rant and rage that NO CHILD is ever ugly (!!), and that even the ugly ones are beautiful in their own way, just like in the song (though I used to wonder how that applied to Hitler). They will have moved on to the next whatever, bluh.

Do I sound misanthropic today? Perhaps I am. Does the internet bring out the worst in people? I sometimes think it brings out the dumbest. The dumbest of the dumb.

One of the things I tried hard to instill in my children was the imperative to think for yourself. Make up your own mind. Evaluate. Strain out the bullshit. I don't mean constant cynicism. I mean discernment, and there isn't a whole hell of a lot of discernment in internet culture. It's all very well to say, "oh well, it was always like that". That still doesn't make it intelligent, moral, right.

Yes, I said "moral".

Morality is a crusty old thing now, and is always (and negatively) associated with sex. It has nothing to do with conscience and one's deepest, most cherished values and beliefs. It's simply out of date. If some world leader displays an act of personal integrity in the face of moral disintegration or indifference, everyone gasps because it's just so gosh-darned different.

Values are something you find at Walmart. 

I can't do much about this, in fact I can't do ANYTHING about this, and if I even write about it I'm accused of being "negative" or a party-pooper. It's just that I'd like to see a little depth, a little substance, without having to go back 100 years or so to find something of value.

But I'm not making this happen, I'm not fixing it, I'm not changing the way things are. So I should shut up! That's the message I get. For God's sake, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all! It scares me to realize how many people actually believe in that.

The prevailing view should prevail. Right? The majority should rule. Right? This is a democracy, so whatever people are saying most often, must make the most sense.  

When Trump gets in, I can predict a certain reaction: a flood of protest at first, and then, once the panic dies down and hopelessness sets in, a certain turning of the tide, an "if we can't beat him, join him" attitude. A "let's make the best of this". And, finally, "hey, maybe the guy's not so bad after all." 

Comparisons of Trump to Hitler are tired and inaccurate, but they're also useful. I believe that the majority of human beings are followers and want to be told what to do. In times of desperation, they'll follow just about anything, the way baby ducks follow a tractor.

Maybe it's just too unbearable to do anything else.

So what does all this have to do with a picture of a little girl in a garbage can? Figure it out yourself, I'm just too tired to explain it.

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Midlothian Man: an evolutionary throwback

Midlothian Man sees Donald Trump in bathroom floor tile

POSTED 2:24 PM, JUNE 8, 2016, BY SCOTT WISE, UPDATED AT 06:26PM, JUNE 8, 2016


MIDLOTHIAN, Va. -- Clayton Litten was sitting on his toilet, admiring his newly tiled bathroom floor when he first saw it.

"This cannot be. There's no way," Litten said when he saw the image -- "clear as day."

An image of presidential candidate Donald Trump, standing with arms folded, emerged from the tile floor.

 

VIEW GALLERY (4 IMAGES)

"What are the odds?" Litten asked. "One in a trillion?"

When Litten asked the workers remodeling his bathroom if they too saw Trump in the tile, he said they all agreed -- they saw the Donald.

"It's a perfect image of him!" Litten said.

Litten, a Republican who planned to vote for Trump this fall, said he sent the image of his floor to the Trump campaign.

He said he hoped the man himself would stop by for a visit when he arrived in town to campaign Friday.

"I have not yet heard from anyone yet," Litten said.

Workers for the company that installed the floor said people can see all sorts of images in tile, "sort of like when people see objects in clouds."

We sent the photo to the company for further analysis and will update this post when we hear back.

In the meantime, Litten, who said he was dying of lung cancer, is holding out hope that Donald Trump would see this story and pay him a visit.

Follow

WTVR CBS 6 Richmond
✔@CBS6

Do you see @realDonaldTrump in the floor tile?

I can't unsee it, thanks

No, I can't "magic eye"

No, I see Hillary

I cannot wait to sue this guy

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING – By Donald J Trump

BY ROTTINGPOST ON MARCH 25, 2016

I have a pretty good idea whose woods these are, believe me.
And let me tell you something, my people say he’s a complete nobody.
This guy lives in the village. So what if he sees me stopping here?
I dare him to sue me! I dare him!

And by the way, this snow is pathetic.
These are by far, the least downy flakes ever!
I hear they had to import them from Canada.
I don’t know. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. We’re looking into it.

My horse – he’s the most incredible horse, seriously,
I have the greatest, the classiest horses –
My horse doesn’t even know what the hell we’re doing here.
The horses love me though. They do.
They’re always shaking their bells at me, it’s very loving.
It’s a beautiful thing.

Let me tell you something, these woods are an embarrassment.
They’re not dark. They’re not deep. They’re nothing. They’re for losers.
And I cannot wait to sue this guy.
I cannot wait to sue this guy.

"And I'm not gay!": or, begin the innuendo

Ah, those days: the days of  Johnny Larue and William B. and Dr. Tongue and all the other surreal characters taken over by John Candy. For the characters didn't take him over - it was the other way around. He invaded them and became.

Johnny LaRue, the chimney-smoking, booze-swilling, dame-exploiting would-be politician of Melonville was one of my favorites. In this clip he pitches himself as a candidate for City Council, and even that untidy flop of hair is reminiscent of Donald Trump, along with all the ranting bullshit.

But LaRue had a signature phrase he used in every sketch: "And I'm not gay!" I was reminded of this when I opened my email this morning and found a comment from someone about my Alan Gershwin post (which got a good response, believe me, in light of the 13 views I get for some of them). The reader vehemently denied any suggestion that either George or Alan Gershwin was gay. This is typical of the indignant, deeply insulted, even infuriated tone of people who perceive any such suggestion in biographies of famous (and usually it's) men.

Lost and Found: the mystery of Alan Gershwin

No one ever thinks - it doesn't occur to them even for a moment - that their fury reveals the slightest degree of homophobia. But even a suggestion the person in question MIGHT have been gay is automatically seen as vicious slander which has to be vigorously denied and argued into the ground. No, he was NOT "one of those". There is no EVIDENCE he was "one of those". He had hair on his chest, for God's sake! Don't defile his good name like that!

What???

I'm not defiling anything or anyone when I say there were suggestions that Gershwin might have been gay.  Most of his biographers (including Howard Pollack, who wrote a definitive 885-page doorstop) have pondered the fact without coming to any hard conclusions. In Gershwin's rarefied world, being gay or bisexual was not the big and horrifying deal it was in the general populace. Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Samuel Barber, and many other movers-and-shakers of composerhood were gay, some of them quite openly. It was an arts-saturated environment, and its most celebrated figures seemed to believe they were above convention.

It doesn't matter to me if Gershwin was gay, bisexual or a racehorse (though he was certainly that). But what interests me is the utter fury with which people deny and denounce such "accusations", even if they're stated as mere surmise. I'm apparently attempting to throw mud at an icon, drag him down into the slime.

Hey, wait a minute!

I did a piece on Nietsche not long ago, and the same "accusations" came up in his biographical material, along with that same strident, near-hysterical denial. It's a lie! He had a girl friend in university once and took her to the Philosopher's Ball! The implication is that I'm giving him a black eye just to be spiteful. And, of course, getting my facts wrong. All wrong. This reminds me of that classic Seinfeld episode where, whenever the issue of gayness came up, the mantra was, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Denial of the denial? Let's begin the beguine.

And Cole Porter? Are you kidding? And Noel Coward, let's not forget him. Gay! Gay! Yes, I'm going to ruin their reputations right here and now by saying they loved men (which is obviously a horrific crime - it goes without saying, doesn't it).

Huh??

Come on, people. The suggestion that some great literary or musical figure might have been gay is not automatically slander. In expressing that view, you're revealing a small and very homophobic mind. But your small-mindedness is such that you don't even see it, or at least won't admit it.

"Oh, I knew someone who was gay once and he was a real nice fella." But he's not Gershwin. Or Cole Porter. Or Johnny LaRue.

Imagine these same people were claiming, vehemently and furiously, "he was NOT black!", "he was NOT disabled!', "he did NOT have PTSD!", or any other sensitive categories, and these same people would be horrified. It's OK to be those things now - maybe - supposedly. Or not, but we have to say so, even if we don't believe it. (Though, think about it. A hundred years ago, would it have been acceptable to claim that some important/famous white figure "might have" had black lineage? Think of the outcry, the insistence he was blonde and got a suntan, or something equally ludicrous.)

But why then isn't it OK for Nietsche or Gershwin or any other major figure to be gay or bisexual (bisexual being a category that seems to have been lost in the shuffle, the implication being, for God's sake, make up your mind! Being on the fence like that is oh-so-politically incorrect, even disloyal to the cause.) Sexual orientation still seems to be fraught with confusion. If a man gets married at any time in his life, and (especially) if he fathers a child, he's "not gay". The assumption is, a gay man would not touch his wife with a ten-foot pole. She would remain chaste and pure for 25 years while he pulled out the bodybuilding magazines he kept under his mattress.

People's minds are still in brontosaurus mode. They're stuck, and their thinking is very dusty. Is social change just hurtling along too fast, or what? Is this trapped-in-amber mode of thinking just simple physics: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?

Whatever. They piss me off! So Gershwin was gay. Or might have been. Does that take away anything at all from his contribution to music? In some distant universe, not this one, we might even see it as a positive attribute, something that adds to the richness and complexity of that extreme rarity, the blazing miracle of creative genius.

BONUS POST. This is the piece I kept finding during my GershQuest of last year.

gramilano

ballet, opera, photography...

Michael Feinstein’s book on the Gershwins called, sensibly, “The Gershwins and Me” (Simon & Schuster) was published in October. While he was still working in piano bars, Feinstein got to know Ira Gershwin intimately, cataloguing his collection of records, unpublished sheet music and rare recordings in the Gershwin home over a period of six years.

The gay or not gay question has floated about George Gershwin even during the more restrained time when he was a young composer. It is an issue Feinstein tackles in his book. America’s National Public Radio asked him about it:

So many speculated that George Gershwin was gay because he never got married. And somebody once said to Oscar Levant, you know, George is bedding all those women because he’s trying to prove he’s a man. And Oscar Levant said: What a wonderful way to prove it. There have always been rumours circulating about George’s sexuality, and I addressed it because so many people have asked me about it, and it’s important to the gay community to identify famous personalities as being gay. In the case of George, it’s all rather mysterious because I never encountered any man who claimed to have a relationship with George, but a lot of innuendo.

Yet Simone Simon said that she thought that Gershwin must be gay because when they were on a trip together, he never laid a hand on her, she said.

Cecelia Ager, who was a very close friend of George’s and whose husband Milton Ager was George’s roommate, once at the dinner said, well, of course, you know, George was gay, and Milton said: Cecilia, how can you say that, how can you say that? And she just looked at him and said: Milton, you don’t know anything. But when I asked her about it, she wouldn’t talk about it. So it still remains a mystery.

My own theory is that I think that the thing that mattered most to George was his music. I think he could have been confused sexually. I don’t know. I think that he had trouble forming a lasting relationship.

Kitty Carlisle talked about how George asked her to marry him, but she said that she knew that he wasn’t deeply in love with her. But she fit the demographic of what his mother felt would be the right woman for him.

This is an extract of NPR’s long talk with Michael Feinstein.

Photo: left to right, George Gershwin, Michael Feinstein, Ira Gershwin

NOTE: here is the Cambridge Dictionary's definition of innuendo:

(the making of) a ​remark or ​remarks that ​suggest something ​sexual or something ​unpleasant but do not refer to it ​directly: There's always an ​element of ​sexual innuendo in ​our ​conversations.

Here we touch on the interesting issue of "unpleasant" being juxtaposed with "sexual", which opens up a whole new can of worms: that there's something unsavory and reputation-destroying about sex itself, unless it takes place in the heterosexual/marital bed, infrequently, in the missionary position. And only when you want a kid.

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