Saturday 3 May 2008

Classic Words: Tipper Gore

This is actually a repost of a blog I posted some time ago. Due to the overwhelming amount of positive feedback I received from it, I thought I'd post it again, especially since people are actually reading my blog now. Peace out.

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It's no secret that Tipper Gore, creator of the infamous "Tipper Sticker" isn't particularly loved by the artistic community. Then again, is it any surprise? Her name is shoved on millions of album covers each year because they contain what she calls 'explicit content', the very definition of which changes according to each individual.

So just what IS 'explicit content' by her standards? As with most right-wing Christians these days, it would appear that explicit content is anything that offends their precious moral values, which seem to be so fragile that even sneezing on them would break them, sending Tipper and her minions into a frothed jabber-frenzy about how we're promoting violence, promiscuity and drug addiction to our children, who have been coddled and bubble-wrapped until they're so alienated from modern culture that they can't make it in the real world when they leave home.
One could argue that the Tipper Sticker has now become the new Yellow Star, a-la Nazi Germany era. But instead of the Jewish community bearing the brunt of alienation and hatred, it's Snoop-Doggy-Diddle or Icey-Tea. Book burning has been replaced by Wal-Mart casually slapping a Parental Advisory sticker on the album cover, so that the fundamentalist Christian far-right, gay hating, liberal bashing monkey-people can keep their kids away from it, lest their ears should shatter like they were made out of expensive china.

I think in a world where we have innocent people dying in bloody and highly illegal wars overseas, offending our children (They are our future, dontchaknow) should be the least of our worries. In any case, we're just trying to prevent the inevitable. They're going to come into contact with these things sooner or later, so why not at an early age? At least when they leave home to become real people they're prepared for the real world. And what are they prepared for? The horrors of life.

"I'm a strong believer in the First Amendment," says Mrs. Gore. This is a lie. She's doing all that she can to castrate freedom of speech.

It's not often I say this, but I'm actually somewhat thankful that Bush cheated his way into office. Already, Gore uses her husband's status as a senator to pass these ridiculous legislations that that would have banned the sale of albums with warning labels to anyone younger than 18. Now, think how much more leverage she would have been given if Gore had become president? She could try and pass virtually anything she wanted, making it a bona fide law if it had passed.
What next? It wouldn't surprise me if she tried to pass legislations enabling her to send so-called "controversial" artists to Concentration Camps sponsored by Nike and Barbie, where Icey-Tea and William Murderface spent some time with their new camp counsellor Barney the Dino-Sore and learned how to be good little boys and girls, and coming out with those Ritalin-Grins plastered all over their faces. Where lyrics about drugs and pimping once stood, they're now writing songs about how Jesus was a white man, and how we should all bow down to the almighty consumer market. God bless America and fuck anyone else who says different.
It's the invasion of the body-snatchers for the new millennium! No. It's invasion of Neo-Baptist Democrats. Ask yourself, which sounds more menacing?

But disregard all that you have read here. Just remember that if you say anything deemed too 'controversial', Tipper and her Pharmasmile Cronies may come a-knocking on your door.

Peace

Cripes!

You poor, poor Londoners. You have no idea how much I pity you at the moment. A city that used to be the most powerful in the world, a city that is steeped in culture. And what have millions of Londoners gone and done? Voted this man for mayor.
It's a sad, sad day for politics.

Hear ye, hear ye! Renaissance Fairs suck.

So I walk to school. To get to school from my house it usually takes me around ten minutes on foot. I have to walk through the town center to get there, and it usually takes me a good three minutes to go through it. Not today. Oh, no.
Béziers holds a three-day annual event each year called the "Caritas", which is basically a Medieval/Renaissance fair. By the way, I refuse (absolutely refuse) to write "Fair" in that kiddie, faux-nostalgia way, with the E at the end. Look in a goddamn dictionary, there is no such thing as a 'Faire'.
So anyways, I finally got out of school around six this evening looking to get home quickly so that I could put my feet up and get a few things done. I left my friends at the theatre and walked into the town center to see... oh, lawd... a goddamn Renaissance Fair set up right in the middle of the goddamn town.
The local barmaids were dressed up in that vaguely-provocative, slightly slutty, 100% tacky medieval reproduction dress, with their cleavage pouring out for the German tourists to drool over. Looking at the expressions of mild self-disgust and désespoir on their faces, I assume they were contractually obliged to dress as such. Either that or they'd just had some kid vomit all over them.
Then come the people who were there voluntarily. One thing you need to understand about people who voluntarily dress themselves up as asses for other people's amusement, is that in their real life they're usually very dull accountants. They may claim that they're doing it to preserve the town's cultural heritage, but in reality they're just trying to escape from their mundane everyday lives and hold off suicide for one more day. But at the end of the day, I hold them in the same regard as I do for people who celebrate halloween with the cheaply-made gimp costumes: they must die. If not to preserve the evolutionary characteristics of humanity, at least think of the fucking children.