The Grammys comedy sketch about trying out as the audiobook reader of "Fire and Fury" (and ending with Hillary Clinton).

"Spoken Word" is a category in the Grammy Awards, and it seems to be almost entirely the audiobook version of published, printed books. I love audiobooks, but I wouldn't call them "spoken word" performances. They keep giving the award to Presidents — Jimmy Carter (more than once! including 2 years ago for "A Full Life: Reflections at 90"), Bill Clinton (beating out David Sedaris!). They gave it to Hillary Clinton in 1997 for "It Takes a Village" (come on! who wants to listen to Hillary Clinton read her book).

My idea of a "spoken word" performance would be something more like what Spalding Gray used to do. Something like this, which he could take on tour and perform on stage, and you'd actually go see in a concert hall. I've done that. I've seen Henry Rollins give a spoken word concert. He once won a Grammy in the spoken word category, but it wasn't for a live, memorized performance like what I saw here in Madison years ago. It was a reading of his book "Get in the Van." And speaking — in written word — of Henry Rollins, I loved his performance on "Portlandia" as a member of the old punk rock band Riot Spray:



But back to last night's Grammys. I can't stand the Grammys, though I did DVR the show and attempt (unsuccessfully) to watch a few things, but I did watch that "Fire and Fury" sketch (just now, on YouTube). It must be hard for the Grammys people to figure out how to do politics, because they are playing to a general audience, and the people of the United States did elect Donald Trump. They can't act like they're talking within a group that all agree they hate Donald Trump. And yet those who like Donald Trump may like him in part because he can take all the heat you want to give him, his whole life has been heat, he likes heat, in a certain way. He wins even when he's attacked, as a certain subgroup of Trump fans understand.

In last night's sketch, we saw Cardi B, John Legend, DJ Khaled, Cher, and Snoop Dogg along with Hillary Clinton, and they were comical in different ways, some of which could be viewed as skeptical of the book or even admiring of Trump. Cardi B stops and says "Why am I even reading this shit? I can't believe this!" DJ Khaled seemed to love embodying Trump to proclaim, "If my shirt is on the floor, it's because I want it on the floor."

And a joke is made at Hillary's expense, with James Corden assuring her that her spoken-word Grammy is "in the bag." She has to say "The Grammy's the bag?" in an excited hopeful voice to set up the comedian James Cordon's line "in the bag," which is said in a way intended to remind us of how Hillary was (it seems) duped by pollsters and advisers assuring her that she'd already won the election.

ADDED: That "Portlandia" clip is even better now that Bruno Mars won all the Grammys.

Bill Maher proclaims himself the "sunlight" that served as the best "disinfectant" to Milo Yiannopoulous.

Here's the interview with Maher (in the NYT).

I said, specifically, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Then we had Milo on, despite the fact that many people said, “Oh, how dare you give a platform to this man.” What I think people saw was an emotionally needy Ann Coulter wannabe, trying to make a buck off of the left’s propensity for outrage. And by the end of the weekend, by dinnertime Monday, he’s dropped as a speaker at CPAC. Then he’s dropped by Breitbart, and his book deal falls through. As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. You’re welcome.

I think Maher is wrong. I watched the show and thought he made Yiannopoulos look good. My observation at the time was that Maher saw something of himself in Yiannopoulos. Maher's boosting of Yiannopoulos may have contributed to the timing of the release of the edited audio recording that crushed Milo, but that's all. Speaking of "emotionally needy," Maher is taking credit he doesn't deserve.

The Times interviewer does challenge him: "Could there have been more accountability in your segments with him? For instance, it seemed like he was allowed to grossly understate his role in harassing Leslie Jones on Twitter." Maher went easy on himself:

It’s not my job to hold him accountable to everything he’s ever said or done. I had eight minutes with him, on the show itself. Sorry I don’t have time to go over everything everybody else would want to do.

And he kind of goes easy on Milo:

I don’t think he frankly knows what he’s going to say half the time, or knows what his philosophy is. But to see him as this monster is a little crazy. You know what he is? He’s the little impish, bratty kid brother. And the liberals are his older teenager sisters who are having a sleepover and he puts a spider in their sleeping bag so he can watch them scream.

ADDED: And now Maher has smoked out this disastrous old video in which he actively supports a woman "who is in jail, because she is in love." "That's how I view it," he says about a 35-year-old woman having sex with a 14-year-old boy. Maher announces that that the women — who is having a second baby with this boy — is being punished because "she won't conform to what society feels should be the perfect American family."

if bill maher thinks sunlight is the best disinfectant then here's him saying the same shit as milo, that it's ok for adults to fuck kids pic.twitter.com/tqPAzbGY3J

— warrior cop (@wyatt_privilege) February 22, 2017

Nice to see Henry Rollins talking sense... as Maher mocks him for siding with a conservative woman on the panel. The woman calls it "rape," and Maher scoffs at her: "How can a woman rape a man?" (Yes, "man," to refer to a 14-year-old boy.)

Expressions of hyper-masculinity are covers for weakness.

That's an observation, and it may be true or false or true much/most but not all of the time, but what I want to know is: Who has made this observation? Where did this idea originate? What famous names do you associate with this idea?

Meade and I were talking about it in the context of the Henry Rollins apology, the subject of my first post of the day. Meade hadn't read the post yet, and I was explaining that Rollins — in response to angry mail that presumably accused him of not understanding depression — revealed that he suffers from depression, and that looked to me like an effort to claim the empathy that is extended to suicides.

Henry Rollins has very much of a tough-guy, hyper-masculine image, so it's interesting that he's requesting that we see him as a victim of depression, as a man who really feels terribly sad, worthless, and — despite all the muscles — drained of energy. Meade made the observation that expressions of hyper-masculinity are covers for weakness and asserted that he was the first person to notice that, back in 1957. I said that's like looking out your window and saying it's a nice day when everyone else is looking out their window and seeing it's a nice day. There's no vector from Meade's 1957 observation into the minds of all the other people who think expressions of hyper-masculinity are covers for weakness, but Meade's claim was comic and really only meant that he arrived at the observation independently.

I feel that the observation is quite old and widely embedded in the culture, though not widely enough to dissuade all males from going hyper-masculine. If everyone knew that hyper-masculinity would be interpreted as weakness, who would do it? That's a secondary question here, though, and the tertiary question is whether the observation is true. The primary question, the one I'm hoping you'll answer, is: What are some non-Meade sources of the observation?

Henry Rollins on suicide, round 2: The Apology.

Here's our discussion of Rollins's first piece, which was called "Fuck Suicide." My focus was on the effect of an artist's suicide on our perception of the work he has left behind, but there was also material taking the position that it is morally wrong for anyone with children to commit suicide. ("[I]t should be your utmost goal not to traumatize your kids.")

The new piece is headed "An Apology." First, let me reveal that when I wrote the previous paragraph, on proofreading, I was surprised to see that instead of "Fuck Suicide," I had written "Fuck Apology." Is Rollins really sorry and, more importantly, what is he sorry for?

For the last 9+ hours, I have been answering letters from people from all over the world. The anger is off the scale and in my opinion, well placed.

The article I wrote in the LA Weekly about suicide caused a lot of hurt. This is perhaps one of the bigger understatements of all time. I read all the letters. Some of them were very long and the disappointment, resentment and ringing clarity was jarring.

He acknowledges the "anger" and the "hurt" he caused, and he wants those who are enraged to see that he's taken quite a bit of time to read everything and to undertake to write back to everyone.  Acknowledging that your words have hurt doesn't concede that you now see that what you've expressed is wrong.

That I hurt anyone by what I said, and I did hurt many, disgusts me. It was not at all my intent but it most certainly was the result.

Even this does not take the words back or express regret. He could be invoking the principle of double effect, which explains why it is ethical to do something that has a harmful effect when your intent was to do good, to produce a good effect, even when you know the bad effect will also follow. You don't like that bad effect, but you did go ahead and do what caused it.

Next, Rollins — puts himself within the circle of victims of depression:

I have had a life of depression. Some days are excruciating. 

I'm sure many of the letter-writers accused him of not understanding what it is like to be depressed. If you only knew how it feels, you would not say such ignorant things. Those letter-writers are so very wrong.

Knowing what I know and having been through what I have, I should have known better but I obviously did not. 

Known better than... what? To predict how very angry people would get? Is he feeling sorry for himself for attracting all that hate mail?

I get so mad when I hear that someone has died this way. Not mad at them, mad at whatever got them there and that no one magically appeared to somehow save them.

Here he's backing away from a demand for personal responsibility and adopting the belief that the motivation toward suicide is a separate entity beyond the mind of the person: the "whatever," the absence of magical saviors.

I am not asking for a break from the caning, take me to the woodshed as much as you see fit. If what I said has caused you to be done with me, I get it.

This sounds as though he feels sorry for himself, because so many people got mad at him. He's presenting himself as the victim, visualizing the criticism as physical violence, a caning. And, as noted above, he himself suffers from depression, so he's doubly the victim. The "whatever" torments him and the people who hated his "Fuck Suicide" are beating him up.

We finally reach the apology:

I am deeply sorry. Down to my marrow. 

For what? Is this a nonapology?

I can’t think that means anything to you, but I am. Completely sorry. It is not of my interest to hurt anyone but I know I did. 

I say nonapology. He's sorry that what he said hurt, and he knows that being perceived as hurting others is against his interests. He's sorry for himself! And he's determined to flip the narrative: If we're supposed to empathize with the depressed and not criticize, we need to empathize with him, one of the legions of the depressed.

IN THE COMMENTS: betamax3000 said:

Rollins prides himself on being the angry Truth-teller. This works when you are telling the kids what they want to hear. In this instance he misjudged the expected reaction of agreement to his Truth, which calls attention to the importance of his audience in such events. He probably needs to go back to talking tough against Straw Men.

Paddy O said:

His previous article is out of my analog world. I know it existed, yet it has nullified its existence 

"When someone negates their existence, they cancel themselves out in my mind."

"I have many records, books and films featuring people who have taken their own lives, and I regard them all with a bit of disdain. When someone commits this act, he or she is out of my analog world. I know they existed, yet they have nullified their existence because they willfully removed themselves from life. They were real but now they are not. I no longer take this person seriously. I may be able to appreciate what he or she did artistically but it’s impossible to feel bad for them. Their life wasn’t cut short — it was purposely abandoned. It’s hard to feel bad when the person did what they wanted to. It sucks they are gone, of course, but it’s the decision they made. I have to respect it and move on."

That's not the only point Henry Rollins makes in "Fuck Suicide." My son John focused on one of the other points over at Facebook, where I'm participating in the comments. I'm choosing to focus on this because it made me reflect on the way I feel when artists who have spoken to me kill themselves. Unless they are in the final throes of a fatal illness, their suicide reveals something about the mind that gave rise to the art, and it infuses that art with different meaning.

Henry Rollins invites young people to be "morally upstanding... helpful, almost Boy Scout-like, presidential... altruistic."

Via Metafilter.

If you don't know who Henry Rollins is... don't you remember "Liar"? (I went to one of his spoken-word concerts once, long ago. The only thing I remember about it was a rant about how a symphony orchestra playing classical music is a cover band.)