Oh! I found the "ratbag" video!

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We discussed the Rod Stewart quote based on the text alone, yesterday, here.

"May I say, well done in the Americas. You were superb, absolutely superb. Put that little ratbag in his place."

Said Rod Stewart, quoted in "Rod Stewart hails King Charles for putting ‘ratbag’ Trump ‘in his place’/The singer made the remark during a line-up at a 50th anniversary concert for the King’s Trust at the Royal Albert Hall, London" (London Times).

Did King Charles put Trump in his place? Maybe it's like that "bike rage" incident with Benedict Cumberbatch we were talking about yesterday. Two entirely nonviolent men stopped to exchange a few sharp words. 

The commenters over there at the London Times are going after Rod. Top-rated comment: "Rod Stewart put the King and Queen in a very embarrassing position by making political comments in a receiving line. It just shows he has no class whatsoever and doesn’t have the brains he was born with."

And: "Ah, Rod Stewart who made millions for being a hedonistic rockstar boasted about numerous, groupies, and rampant infidelity calling somebody else a 'ratbag' while shaking hand with the highest example of infidelity. Must have his picture in the dictionary next to hypocrite!"

Is this the first appearance of the word "ratbag" on this blog? No, it came up here, where I quoted the NYT obituary for Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna"). The NYT has printed "ratbag" a few times. In a 1984 piece about travel guidebooks, it has: "[I]n a section on 'picturesque patterns of speech'... the 'Maverick Guide to Australia' tells us that a bicyclist there is called a bikey, that to grizzle means to complain and that a ratbag is an eccentric character."

Well, Trump surely is an eccentric character. He should own it. Kind of cool too — isn't it? — in the American way of thinking — to have Rod Stewart calling you a "ratbag."

ADDED: Let's also consider the notion of putting someone "in their place." It reflects a background belief that people have a social rank or a station in life. For Rod Stewart — who, I hear, started from gasoline alley — to praise the King — a person of the highest rank — for putting someone "in their place" is pretty funny. And, we're told, the King just laughed. And didn't that put Rod in his place?

Take me back, carry me back down the gasoline alley where I started from....

In case you want Rod Stewart's body for Christmas...

 ... I found this awfully charming and ridiculous:

"Almost anyone, with a little exaggeration, would make a good comic character. There is no lack of raw material. Not only the woods, but the streets and houses are full of it."

Said Frank King (1883-1969), quoted in "Growing Old in Gasoline Alley: Ninety-four Years And Counting" (Comics Journal).

For a while, King focused exclusively on the car talk of his regular cast (Walt, Doc, Avery, and Bill), and then in 1921, Colonel McCormick’s cousin, partner and head of the Tribune-Daily News syndicate, Captain Joseph Patterson, decided that the cartoon would be even more popular if something in it appealed to women. "Get a baby into the story fast," he commanded the flabbergasted King, who protested that Walt, the main character, was a bachelor. It was then decided to have Walt find a baby in a basket on his doorstep—which he did on Valentine's Day, 1921.

"You start off with a grey. And then you add a little concrete colour, so every paving stone is slightly different. And the cracks have to have some black chalk... and then you add a little bit of rubbish in the gutters, you add a little bit of rust here and there."

Said Rod Stewart, quoted in "I am railing: Sir Rod Stewart reveals his epic model railway city" (BBC). Some pretty nice photos at the link.

"I've been meaning to phone you but from Minnesota/Hell it's been a very long time...."

I'm watching this at 6 in the morning not because I'm thinking of Minnesota — à propos of the Super Bowl in Minnesota tomorrow — but because the line "you wear it well" came up in the comments on Tom & Lorenzo's discussion of "Friday Leftovers for the Week of January 28th, 2018": "As for SJP - yea, love it. I feel like she's worn this before, but she wears it well." SJP — Sarah Jessica Parker — is dressed like this.

Speaking of fashion, I love the fashion in that video. Rod seems to be really enjoying his yellow satin pants — to the point of laugh-out-loud comedy. And who has ever done nipples as satirically as Rod in 1975?

"Rod Stewart left to pay huge bar tab after offering fans in Celtic kits a 'free beer' following Vegas residency."

Unlike The Independent, which reports this "news," Stewart used the word "shirt," so Americans understood what he was tweeting about.

"Some rock stars get tragic as time passes... That would never happen to Rod."

"He doesn’t take any of this nonsense personally.... You don’t get to be Rod Stewart unless you have an element of the cold-blooded showbiz huckster... But you also don’t get to be a husband unless you have some Rod Stewart in you — grinding through the years, getting off on repetition."

From a review of Rob Sheffied's book "Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love & Karaoke."

Drudgetaposition of the Day.

Links:

Drudge.

"LARRY PAGE: Here’s What’s Wrong With My Voice."

"Rod Stewart: Steroid 'addiction' shrank my manhood!" ("The steroids will take down the swelling in any membrane — including your k--b-- — and it’s what you do when you’re in a bit of a pinch and need to do a show and you can’t sing.")

AND: Meade read this and asked "What's 'k--b--'?" I said, "All I could think of was 'kielbasa,' but why couldn't you print it?"

I google the phrase "The steroids will take down the swelling in any membrane" to find a website that will print the unfit-to-print word. "Knob!"

What's with the dashes before and after the "b"? Damned editors. If I have to guess the word, get the dashes right. Knob. The Daily News — which is what Drudge linked — must have gotten it from The Daily Mail, which wrote "k**b," getting the asterisks in the right place... and displaying what must be the British decorousness about a word that seems more funny than dirty to an American... at least to this American. The Daily News probably just didn't know what the word was supposed to be.

"A great example of where ['Liz and Dick'] doesn't dare go as far as reality is the way the movie depicts the end of Taylor's marriage to Eddie Fisher."

"In real life, as in the film, Burton really did demand that Taylor pick between him and Fisher, and she chose Burton—right in front of Fisher."

In Liz and Dick, this scene marks the end of Taylor's marriage to Fisher. In real life, though, the cuckolded Fisher hung on for quite a while longer. According to Furious Love, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger's incredible book on Burton and Taylor based on their diaries and letters, Fisher called Taylor's villa days after the confrontation and Burton answered. “What are you doing in my house?” Fisher asked. “What do you think I'm doing?” Burton responded. “I'm fucking your wife.”

ADDED: Here's "Furious Love," which is only #30 in the "Rich & Famous" subcategory of the "Leaders & Notable People" subcategory of the "Biographies and Memoirs" list at Amazon. Who's leading among the "rich & famous"? Bruce Springsteen, followed by Rod Stewart. Aging boomers prefer a rock 'n' roll milieu for their vicarious memories.

"[The Grateful Dead's] Bob Weir sat in with Lukas Nelson... one of Willie Nelson’s sons..."

"... for Bob Dylan's 'Maggie’s Farm' and 'I Shall Be Released.' Ruby Stewart — Rod Stewart’s daughter — also added background vocals...."

"Cognitive fluency."

People like to think about things that are easy to think about.

Because it shapes our thinking in so many ways, fluency is implicated in decisions about everything from the products we buy to the people we find attractive to the candidates we vote for - in short, in any situation where we weigh information. It’s a key part of the puzzle of how feelings like attraction and belief and suspicion work....

Interesting. Now, how do you want to use this?

It made me think of this song:

ROD STEWART - Reason To Believe en Yahoo! Video