Before I start my rambling, I'd just like to give a call out and message to the disciples from the Church of the Perpetually Outraged, who have directed their ire and wrath to the new Disney-inspired line of lingerie. You guys are infuriated by what you perceive to be the sexualisation of children's characters. It's gone too far, you cry. Filth and sexism, you wail as you beat your (perhaps braless) chests. Look, here's an idea - don't wear it. Nobody is keeping you captive and forcing you to wear what looks to be uncomfortable undies, the way Jabba the Hutt did to Princess Leia. And yes, from what I've observed the lingerie sets do look uncomfortable. They model looks at ease, but she's a size somewhere WAAAAAY into the negative numbers, and she looks rather sexy in it. I'd probably look like a trussed ham. But to those disciples - don't wear it. Look, consenting adults have been dressing up for adult fun and games for many, many years. Look at the people who dress as Naughty Nurses. Personally, I find this a bit irritating because nursing is such a noble profession, and Benny Hill has done it no service with constant portrayals of these Angels of Mercy having little bald men getting trapped in their cleavage. But I'm not going to lose my shit and carry on over it.
Something that always did have me losing my shit was brought to my mind again through the week, with the demise of the 'Geils' part of the J Geils Band. Don't get me wrong. My thoughts and condolences go to his family. But when news of his death broke, I had people tagging me on Facebook because it is known among my coterie that the song 'Centerfold' shits me to high heaven. In a nutshell, the narrator thereof is a hypocritical fuck-up with a Madonna/Whore complex who professes shock and horror when he finds his high school crush has made her OWN decision to pose nude in an adult magazine. His memories are soiled and sullied forever. He appears to be unable to forgive this transgression in his sick and twisted mind (and YES, he's the one who has a sick and twisted mind). Then he starts fantasising that she'll got to a hotel room with him and do a private strip tease. How big a fuck-up is this bloke? The only way he will get her into a hotel room is courtesy of chloroform and a rag. The irritating ditty ends with him - after all his self-righteous pontificating, mark you - saying he's going to buy the magazine. He makes no mention of the box of Kleenex and bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care. But RIP, man, notwithstanding you are responsible for a song that has always really annoyed me.
As I type this, it is Good Friday. I will unlikely attend the Veneration of the Cross service. I will more likely slob around on the lounge and watch DVDs. I have played Brian Cadd's 'Show Me The Way'. Does anybody remember that song? It's a rather nice song referencing Christ's crucifixion. I like it better than the hymns we had to sing on Good Friday when I was a tender-aged tacker. There was one dirge that went, 'Oh Jesus crucified/For us you suffered/For us you died/On the crooooooooooooooooooosssssssssss'. I'm not a songwriter, but why would you sustain a note like that? None of the kids performing it were trained singers, and nearly all of us ended up on the verge of passing out when the song was over. It was as depressing as all get out as songs about crucifixion are generally not cheerful, and had so many sustained notes it sounded like a stuck car horn. Also, when I was a kid, there was a safe bet 'King of Kings' would be screened. I used to like watching this movie, with the most Anglo-European Middle Eastern looking dudes ever. Aussie Frank Thring was a wonderfully simultaneously camp and sleazy King Herod, perving on his wife's teenaged daughter. It gets me wondering if Woody Allen used to watch this. Interesting fact: the actress playing Salome, who performs a very seductive dance for Herod, was only sixteen at the time. This would probably not happen in film making these days.
Although we never missed Easter Sunday Mass, I have little recollection of our family being dragged along to the Veneration of the Cross. I'm sure we attended some times, but not every year. Maybe my mother decided to cut her losses and stick to the one service, rather than subject herself to the irritation of taking four naughty, recalcitrant children to church more often than necessary. There was this nun at the school who would go bat shit if she found out people had not attended the service on Good Friday. I suppose it doesn't happen as often, if at all, these days; but if I sent my kids to Catholic school and one of the teachers became abusive because as a parent I had chosen to not take my kids to a service on MY time, that nun would be on the receiving end of some very in-Christian invective from me. I wonder if this particular nun is still alive? She seemed to be about ninety when she was teaching us, so perhaps not. But when you're a kid, all nuns seem to be ninety even if they're only about thirty-five.
But anyway, Reader, have a safe, happy, and - if it is your bag - holy Easter.
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