Wednesday, December 11, 2013

A Moron In A Tizzy

You all know how I feel about Joan Jett as a rocker and if you're new let me fill you in: she's a goddess and my girl crush on her is long and huge and has contributed to my questioning my sexuality more than once.

While I love her kiss-my-ass attitude and her guitar and her everything else I have a lot of respect for her as a human being who uses her position to make the world a better place. If there's a USO Tour she's there playing for the troops. She reached out to the surviving members of The Gits after the horrific murder of singer Mia Zapata and with them formed Evil Stig, all proceeds from shows and an album going to fund the private investigation of that crime.

Most controversially she's an animal rights activist and member of PETA. Yes, I remember PETA getting on Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers last year and while you may think they were overwrought I thought they were pretty restrained considering other protests they've mounted over the years. Agitators are valuable whether I agree with them or not.

Jett's PETA membership got her kicked off the South Dakota state float at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a couple of weeks ago when the state's ranchers complained. Organizers found her another space and she went on as planned. A few days ago she sent a Cease and Desist letter to Sea World to stop them from using "I Love Rock-n-Roll" in their Shamu shows, noting that Orcas are sound sensitive creatures (and huge and beautiful and cool and have I mentioned I have a thing about Orcas?) and that if they didn't stop she'd join the protestors at their gates. I can't begin to tell you how much I love that she's willing to walk it like she talks it.

So who's the moron here? Certainly not Joan or Heart or Willie Nelson or the Barenaked Ladies or any of the other performers cancelling at Sea World in the wake of the documentary Blackfish. Maybe it's Sea World or any other organization that uses an artist as background noise while ignoring the heart of what they're really saying. During the presidential race last year Paul Ryan said he was a fan of Rage Against The Machine and guitarist Tom Morello shot back that Ryan had missed the point (that smackdown was epic, look it up). Maybe it's us if we roll our eyes instead of using them to see what's really happening.

9 comments:

  1. No comments???!!! This post is perfect. Thank you.

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    1. I wanted to come back to this because I was short before but thank you, really, for acknowleding what I said here. It was important to me to say it. My rep for goofiness sometimes works against me so thanks for getting it and welcome to the blog. :)

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  2. :))) I like your style! Happy holidays.

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    1. I was thinking earlier about a game some friends and I played in college called Encouragement Tag. You'd choose someone maybe having a rough day and tell that person one thing you loved about them and then they did it for someone else. It was a good way to keep everybody's spirits up especially around finals. When I get anonymous comments like yours it always feels like the Universe is tagging me so thank you from the bottom of my heart today. Happy Christmas to you and yours!

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  3. Loves animals... Bill Murray.... we can exchange smiles.

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    1. Smiling is soul food. :) Bill Murray, huh? Saturday Night Live keeps pulling it from YouTube but have you ever seen him sing the Star Wars theme lounge style? Comedy gold.

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  4. I missed that. But Groundhog Day will always be an underrated masterpiece!

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    1. Someone underrates Groundhog Day? That person is wrong.

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