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Showing posts from August, 2019

Explicit Lyrics, Tough Subjects, and Killing the Fear of The Truth Monster

“Teeth” represents the  Fear of Truth Monster  from the series of 8 new songs in Lady Gaga’s re-release of The Fame. – Information found on Genius.com When I look back at my childhood, I can see that there were a lot of contradictions in the way I was raised. My mom and stepdad loved watching stand-up comedians.   Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and George Carlin were all favorites, and we’d watch their cable TV specials whenever they came on.   When video rental stores started popping up in our town, they’d rent tapes of their favorite performances.   I was never sent out of the room due to the language they used or the subject matter discussed. My dad loved watching horror movies, and again, I was never sent away while they were on.   (A week’s worth of nightmares once made 6-year-old me wish I had been, but that’s got nothing to do with the topic at hand.) Swearing was not unusual among my family members, in either household.   The men were mostly former military, a

I Found Family in a Gaga Fan Group

“Social media, quite frankly, is the toilet of the internet…” – Lady Gaga on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”, February 27, 2019 This is one of my favorite Lady Gaga quotes.  I have many of them, it’s true—I think she’s an incredible speaker, on top of being an amazing musician and songwriter, and her words never fail to move and inspire me in one way or another—but this one just kind of cuts right through all the bullshit, and it’s dead-on accurate. Ever checked out the comments section of almost any public Facebook or Twitter post?  (Those are the two platforms I use most and am most familiar with, but I’m sure Instagram and others are just as bad, if not worse.)  If you have, you’ll likely already be nodding in agreement with that quote.  Especially if it has anything to do with politics, religion, current world events, or celebrity gossip, it really can be like stepping into a nasty public restroom; you can almost smell the filth and feel your shoes sticking to the floor, and when yo