Imus blast away

Parent Cafe
101

<p>MSNBC Fires Imus</p>

<p>Weak. Very weak. Some gooblygook about too many inappropriate comments, the need to be responsible, etc., etc. etc. What crap.</p>

<p>If they really believed that, they should not have started the simulcast.</p>

<p>MSNBC has never been on record as reprimanding or warning him. To the contrary, they have been so happy with the simulcast arrangement that they just built him a new TV studio in New Jersey for the show so that they would not have to continue to simulcast from the WFAN radio studios in Queens. </p>

<p>Moreover, they knew exactly what they were getting when they signed on for the simulcast to begin with. At that time, the show had already been on the air for more than 30 years - most of that time as an NBC property on their flagship New York station. </p>

<p>They’d also fired him before - in the 70’s - and then hired him back. Jeez, they even used to run a TV ad where Imus and Stern were each trying to be more outrageous than the other when they were NBC’s AM and PM drive time jocks. </p>

<p>For them to claim to be just SHOCKED, just oh so SHOCKED by Imus now is utter BS. At least if they said something like the marketplace had spoken and that this was a business decision, etc. they might have some credibility left. With this pathetic attempt to claim a moral high ground, they have none.</p>

102

<h2>"Oh some on, Idmom. I’m almost 50 years old, I went to school in Newark, NJ, and never heard the word “ho” before it was introduced by the rap world. It was popularized by rappers. "</h2>

<p>Stickershock - I’ll guess I’ll have to enlighten you about the word ‘ho’ then. BACK in 1975 or 76 in the good old pre-rap days, here in Texas, at my high school, kids thought it was oh so clever to say the phrase “Get out the do, ho!” when they wanted someone to move aside. (Btw…it was an equal opportunity lame joke…blacks, browns and whites all said it.)</p>

<p>And in my little town, in our little county, we only got one radio station, KWBY, and you can guess what they played. Not even a little bit of rock and roll, funk or soul…and certainly not the EVIL rap.</p>

<p>Some of you need to get your facts together…seriously.</p>

103

<p>Rap isn’t the only music to glorify violence against women, BTW. Rap didn’t even originate it. Some popular examples in American music: </p>

<p>“Cocaine Blues” from the late 70s:
Early one morning while makin’ the rounds,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my baby down
I shot her down then I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin’ forty-four beneath my head</p>

<p>The Knoxville Girl (bluegrass ballad):
“Oh Billy dear, don’t kill me here, I’m unprepared to die” (he did anyway).
Based on an older English folksong.</p>

<p>Rain and Snow (another bluegrass tune)
his wife “came in to the room where she met her final doom” unspecified, but that can’t have been good.</p>

<p>It may be more prevalent and graphic in rap, but we also probably notice it more when it’s rap.</p>

104

<p>^Good old Johnny Cash…more of the same…</p>

<p>The judge he smiled as he picked up his pen
99 years in the Folsom pen
99 years underneath that ground
I can’t forget the day I shot that bad b*tch down</p>

105

<p>The Knoxville Girl is pretty graphic too. Here’s more:</p>

<p>I picked a stick up off the ground
And knocked that fair girl down;</p>

<p>She fell down on her bended knees
For mercy she did cry
Oh, Willie dear, don’t kill me here
I’m unprepared to die
She never spoke another word
I only beat her more
Until the ground around me
Within her blood did flow.</p>

<p>I took her by her golden curls
And I drug her 'round and 'round
Throwing her into the river
That flows through Knoxville town</p>

<p>The song gives no explanation for the killing.</p>

106

<p>OdysseyTigger:</p>

<p>You’ve written very insightful posts on this subject. And I agree with you on all points. Every one.</p>

107

<p>Oh my conyat…in print I guess it just looks much worse doesn’t it? (I’m still a fan of the ‘long legged guitar pickin’ man’ though.)</p>

108

<p>Johnny Cash totally nails Cocaine Blues. So does George Thorogood. And it’s got a terrific, driving beat, makes you feel like you’re on the run with them down to Old Mexico.</p>

<p>Then again, I’ve heard some beautiful renditions of Rain and Snow that made me wish I could sing like that.</p>

<p>Hmmm, I think I’m starting to understand why people listen to rap even when it’s misogynist…</p>

109

<p>conyat - I’ve always been one to get caught up in the musical arrangement and the sounds of the instruments without thinking too much about the words. 10+ years playing a musical instrument during my formative years is to blame I suppose. So I can see kids similarly getting caught up in the beat, rhythm and sound of rap without necessarily endorsing the lyrics of some of the more profane songs. And though it’s not my cup of tea, I’ll defend rap because not all songs are profane or offensive.</p>

110

<p>

Imus, Stern, Limbaugh, Coulter, and Reilley are fulminating raving loons. One doesn’t need to give them any type of “equal time” in pursuit of fairness. Though those who take them seriously probably should be kept away from sharp objects, positions where they may influence young children, and encouraged not to do things like vote until they’ve engaged with reality-based information.</p>

111

<p>

<em>ROFL</em> Then they <em>DO</em> have something in common with the liberal extremists!</p>

112

<p>“If you can point me to some women’s groups who have organized against this, I’d like to see it. I pay pretty close attention to the news, and I have not seen a major campaign/effort in this regard.”</p>

<hr>

<p>NOW has been very upfront in their condemnation of his remarks, as well as smaller groups (Women in Media, etc…)</p>

113

<p>CBS Radio said late yesterday afternoon that Mr. Imus earns an estimated $10 million annually.</p>

114

<p>Wow…HE was overpaid.</p>

115

<p>Yep, it’s true folks. Rappers didn’t invent the word. It was common at least as far back when I was a middle -schooler in Seattle in the early 1970s. Not polite but certainly common among mannish teenagers and scruffy adults.</p>

<p>Also, I’ll add Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’ to the list of songs that give women a hard time.</p>

116

<p>“Also, I’ll add Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’ to the list of songs that give women a hard time.”</p>

<p>Our local public radio station has a feminist hour, which is followed by the “60s” music show. One morning, the 60s show opened with “Under My Thumb”</p>

117

<p>Thanks for the laugh, holymomma! Do you think the juxtaposition was an accident, or did someone have a sense of humor?</p>

118

<p>I was thinking “Hey Joe” too. There’s some heavy metal song with a line that goes something like “I used to love her, but i had to kill her.” Don’t know who it is (don’t really want to.)</p>

<p>Mysogyny has a long and ugly history in popular music. It’s never excusable, and it’s never an excuse for others to behave badly.</p>

119

<p>He’s a Hoochie Coohie Man</p>

<p>To the degree that it is not understood that hip-hop draws its murky water from the same well that has served the blues over the last 100 years, it will never be understood as the continuation of a cheap reworking of a dominant strain in Afro-American music. </p>

<p>Has there ever been, in recorded history (wax &cd), a music/lyric as misogynistic to the core as the blues? </p>

<p>Hip hop is just refried and served as fast food at a strip mall near you.</p>

<p>As it stands, hip hop has added nothing in the way of social commentary to the well established tradition of mojo-hand misogyny in the blues tradition. Rock & roll is a mere piker, a wannabe, as has always been maintained in other regards in the history of misogony, even at that drawing its more outrageous affectations from the blues tradition.</p>

<p>The difference is, of course, that now the misogyny of the blues has gone mainstream in rap music and in the burbs.</p>

<p>The popularity of the ersatz “pimp-hand” is just a reworking of the Hoochie Coochie Man’s “mojo hand.” Muddy Waters beat the little men to the punch.</p>

<p>“I got a black cat bone, I got a mojo too
I got John the Conqueror, I’m gonna mess with you
I’m gonna make you, pretty girl, lead me by the hand
Then the world will know, the Hoochie-Coochie Man”</p>

<p>Or how about Johnny Cash:</p>

<p>…I went up to Memphis
And I met Delia there
Found her in her parlor
And I tied to her chair
Delia’s gone, one more round Delia’s gone</p>

<p>She was low down and trifling
And she was cold and mean
Kind of evil make me want to Grab my sub machine…</p>

<p>…First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia’s gone, one more round Delia’s gone…</p>

<p>…So if you woman’s devilish
You can let her run
Or you can bring her down and do her
Like Delia got done
Delia’s gone, one more round Delia’s gone</p>

120

<p>She was poor, but she was honest,
Pure unstaind was her name,
Till the local squire came courting,
And the poor girl lost her name.</p>

<pre><code> Chorus:
It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what gets the blame;
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure;
Ain’t it all a bleedin’ shame?
</code></pre>