Shameless Fandom and a Bit of Etymology for the Septics

If you haven't heard, "The Two" (the surviving members of The Who) are searching for rare recordings and memorabilia for their 50-year reunion--like the guitar Townshend tossed at Woodstock. Word is a roadie managed to wrest it from the tripping, mud-drenched minions, but this is disputed. Here's betting a bunch of folks will emerge from the cracks bearing the alleged guitar, never mind the inevitable horde of former groupies proffering panties (knickers for the Limeys onboard) purportedly ripped by Keith Moon (probably by trying them on),  sealed vials of bodily fluids, snippets of hair in glassine envelopes...Their claims will be verified for a Sotheby's auction via DNA analysis after a lengthy battle over Moonie's exhumation, Townshend and Daltrey insisting through barristers that "It's simply too dangerous to dig the cunt* up"...and who can forget the Plaster Casters? 

Admit it, until just that moment--you did.  

Peace. 
------------------------------------------------------------------

*British men tend to use that word so freely in casual conversation, you begin to believe (after hanging out with them for a few weeks on holiday, say) it would be perfectly proper to tell parents you just met, as you peer into the carriage on a May morning, that their newborn child is "a cute little cunt." This is true in Eastern Scotland, apparently, but Not True At All in London.To confuse matters further, at a dinner party in London (where I was the honorary Septic) the hostess related getting Beckham's autograph in a random street encounter: "I don't mean to be a twat,  but could you sign this for my brother?" I later verified what the conversation implied:  for UK, or at least London usage, anyway, "twat" [rhymes with flat] is the politer form of the barely risque "cunt." Yeah, I know, the bulk of Yanks are clutching our heads and reeling at this point, but I merely report. Indeed, I've known anglophilic American women (I get it's the accent; British women certainly sound smart/sexy to me) at first merely shocked by this, to eventually become outraged at just how difficult it is for the poor bastard to actually stop saying the word, no matter how much he otherwise expresses his love.

Ghost of Addis

If you've been to Burning Man lately, it's hard to ignore the ever-increasing class-based bifurcation. While I have previously noted the unwelcome influx of suburbia and children, the event has broadened and accelerated its devolution to become a world overrun by .1%ers, who pay millions to haul in private compounds schlepped by I-shit-you-not fucking sherpas, with amenities like air-conditioned luxury yurts, swimming pools, sushi chefs, masseurs, pedicurists, supermodels  (the thoroughbreds of sparkle ponies) and worse. The elite at Burning Man now embody the polar opposite of radical self-reliance and self-expression. You half-expect to see them dressed--unironically--like Cleopatra borne by slaves on a litter, or Hemingway in  Green Hills of Africa, complete with pith helmet, elephant gun, and servants addressing them as "Bwana". 

Put another way, when NSA whores like Sergei Brin attend, it's clearly time to blow your mind elsewhere.    

I was there when Paul Addis had enough and Lit The Man Early in 2007, and while I have no plans to  commit suicide by BART anytime soon, I understand, I think, the underlying angst.

More, soon--now that various technical difficulties have been resolved.

Peace.


    

The Nuclear Porcupine

Redux:

A note on the origins and title of this blog--

As a simple Google search demonstrates, there are several genuine Gern Blanstons out there--

I plucked the name from an obscure Steve Martin routine off the vinyl issue of Comedy is Not Pretty. Despite my apparent misspelling and a possibly fictitious controversy over Martin's use of the name, I used it simply to send a veiled signal that I hail from a sarcastic segment of what was once termed "The Nowhere Generation".

We are too old to be Xers and too young to be Boomers or to have participated in the sixties, unless our parents dragged us to a demonstration--or our government dragged an older brother to Vietnam. We grew up in the seventies and watched the hippies morph a genuine revolution into a coke-addled nihilistic nightmare, resulting in Reagan's election in 1980...and we've seen how that worked out. 

Of course, that is a lot of detail that matters not at all, so long as the writing holds up.

I will call this blog The Nuclear Porcupine, because that's how my hypertrophied misanthropy frequently makes me feel...toxic and unhuggable.  Other options included Bring Rotten Fruit, The Hippie Speedball, and Never at Dusk.  But choices have to be made, and The Nuclear Porcupine it is.

Enough Whining.