Madonna, Wigs and Growing Old
Right before I got sick the Sparrow and I had one of our lazy evenings in front of the TV and I put on Madonna's 'Bad Girl' video from the 90s. He'd never heard the song before and liked it. And I too remember liking the song and video a lot when I was younger. We ended up listening to some other 90s songs from her and I was actually quite impressed with the lyrics of some of the music. 'Take A Bow' in particular surprised me. I knew the song well, but I am not sure I ever really "heard" the lyrics before and I was surprised by them.
This is juxtaposed against the video itself, where at some points it was quite a well made visual work, but on the other hand there's a part where she's rolling around on a bed like a total slut, seemingly masturbating in front of a television set. And this is the dilemma with her, and I am sure artists like her.
They say when there's a lack of talent, there's an over-emphasis on sex. But, in her case I don't believe there always needed to BE that over-emphasis, because the quality of some of her music was already excellent. But, her fame was directly linked almost from the beginning to her ability to shock, so there never came a point where she moved past that childishness and just tried to use her talent for music simply for music's sake.
We happened to watch a couple of her videos from the past decade last night and they were so awful. She is this old woman who is desperately trying to act like she's still 27 and it comes across as so cringy and embarrassing. Lest we forget her antics during the "pandemic" when she filmed herself for Instagram sitting in a bathtub looking like some sickly humanoid fish creature. I don't really care about women, as a gay man, but there is something to be said about women acting like ladies, and how most modern women just come across as brutish, disgusting sluts.
It's all self-esteem based. Modern women love to blame men for all their issues, but it is women holding each other to ridiculous standards and being awful and vindictive that just eats away at their self-confidence, turning them into "Mean Girls". I don't think most men give a shit if women wear the latest fashions, or put on high heels that fuck up their feet. But, this is going off on a tangent.
'Express Yourself' was another great song, which lyrically was empowering to women. I remember when the video premiered and its constant airplay on MTV. I loved the video for the most part. It was before she got into the really degrading behavior. That was more the 1990s when her Sex Book came out and she did 'Truth or Dare'.
In a way, I can kind of relate to her antics because in my youth I was very explicitly sexual. I talked about everything I did in my private life, I enjoyed being a slut on some level because I thought it empowered me to have power over other people through sex as well as the attention I got from saying "shocking" things. But, at some point you need to grow up and move past such things. And she most definitely is doubling down on the behavior in the most eye rolling ways. She is way too old to be dry humping the air on stage and wearing outfits where her cooch is practically falling out. You almost have to feel bad for her.
One of the other things we went down a clickhole on was "wig snatching". The one black girl's channel in particular hooked us for a few hours. She'd stand outside stores and when other black women with obvious weaves and wigs walked by, she'd rip them off their heads in hilarious fashion. We don't think the videos were staged, and surely some of the wig wearers were more than a little enraged. There was even a funny one where she yanked the woman's hair and it either was real or was sewn on tight and didn't budge.
But, it got me thinking how we are constantly told that white people have no culture and just in general, whitey is constantly shit on. While black and liberal whites alike lift up black culture as this sort of beacon of humanity. Which I utterly don't get, say musically, since rap music is some of the most god awful, uninspired, uncreative, untalented shit ever produced by human beings in any century through the entire span of history.
The real point I am trying to get to was a question that popped into my head. If black culture is "SO GREAT" and "real", as is constantly spoken of and shoved in everyone's face, then why is it that black women wear fake hair? Why do they not embrace the afro and embrace their natural beauty? It seems like some mixed messaging. Your culture is so great you have to cover it up with polyester?
It got me thinking about the 1970s blaxploitation movies. 'Black Belt Jones' being one of my favorites. The black folks in those movies fully embraced that "blackness" with the huge afros. And the men in those movies, specifically Jim Kelly, oozed this ultra-masculinity that permeated the entire television screen. And the movies usually had plots revolving around cleaning up the streets and getting kids off drugs. And the black community in general working together to protect the youth.
Such a contrast to today, where all the music glorifies drug use, sexual promiscuity and treating women like objects. I've heard people shit on the 1970s blaxploitation movement in film. But, those movies were attempting to have a positive message. Modern rap music sells a culture of degradation and utter stupidity. And all the movies they come out with now sell the idea of victimhood, that all the issues in "black culture" are caused by white people.
Andrew Klavan made a comment on his show a few weeks ago talking about the growing "racism" he saw in some comments when he'd talked about liking a black film that had come out recently. He felt it was "racist" for a white person to say they'd refuse to see such a film. I understand very simplistically the fact that he liked the movie, and perhaps the movie really was worth seeing as I think it made fun of white liberals who like to be sold the idea of the ghetto black culture in books, movies and music. But, I don't think it's "racist" to not want to spend one's money on such a movie.
I would feel the same way about any gay film that came out in "current year". I would not spend a dime to see it, even if there was no agenda, no messaging and no liberal cringe in it. I just wouldn't want to give money to Hollywood. I've heard that Neve Campbell is coming back for the next Scream movie, and even THEN I likely might not give my money to see it in the theater. Hollywood has just burned me too many times, not to mention how it openly talks about hating people like me. And every movie seemingly talks down to its audience with "the message".
I wouldn't not watch a "black" film because I am racist. I'd happily watch any from the 1970s or 80s with no issue, and do so on occasion. What I won't do is give money to a modern film that, no matter who likes it or how good they claim it is, I know for a fact will have liberal messaging in it. I couldn't STAND the hype when 'Get Out' was released and how everyone, especially white liberals, gushed over it. Partially because horror is often such a hated genre, but in the last ten years there's been this trend of "elevated horror" which allows pretentious assholes who shit on the genre to be able to partake in it because some of these new films were made to appeal to their elitist attitudes and false sense of intellectual superiority. And in my opinion, all the ones I've seen were shit. 'A Quiet Place' being on the top of that shit pile.
All the talk about sluts and whores like Madonna and women wearing wigs got me thinking about growing old in general and how I really miss my hair from when I was in my late teens. I miss the amount of it and the fact that it wasn't graying. I hate graying hair, and have often had people suggest I dye it. But, I simply cannot do that. If I am growing old, unlike Madonna, I try as much as I can to accept that fact. Because it is inevitable.
I see any man who dyes his hair, wears hairpieces or even dyes his beard to be rather pathetic. A real man accepts the passing of time and what happens to his body as he ages. Sure, one can workout and do the best they can to maintain a physique and be healthy. That I do not judge. But, hairpieces, hair systems, hair plugs, dying it with Just For Men... all that stuff is just sad. And anytime I ever have had the inkling to even in passing consider dying my hair, I remember how pathetic I see it as. I tell myself that a real man would not succumb to such vanity and weakness. A real man, if he's tired of looking at the scraps on his head of a once great hair society simply buzzes his head all the time.
I dated someone in my youngest days, we used to call him PFluggs behind his back because he was in his late-20s and had already once had hair plug surgery. He was obsessed with the fact he was going bald and spent thousands before he dated me and long after he dated me to try covering up and running from the reality of his situation. I saw him years later at Sidetrack. I think I even wrote about the encounter here. He was wearing this thousand dollar Persian squirrel on his head. And he always wore hats too.
So he was self-conscious and bothered by his baldness. Spent thousands on various things to cover it up. And yet just wore hats all the time anyway. I felt bad for him in a way, because he was an okay person. He just could not move past people's opinions (as well as his own) about going bald.
Hell, I remember when I wore baseball hats to the bars I would often have vain fags who thought I was cute literally ripping the hats off my head to check if I was balding. And they were so proud of themselves for doing so too. And then, comically, thought that I'd still be interested in them once they saw I *did* have hair, which allowed them to continue to be interested in me. Several encounters ended abruptly by me when I was put in those situations. Yes, I have hair at the moment, and I no longer have interest in YOU.
I hate getting old. I hate gray hair. I hate being out of shape. I hate waking up in the morning aching and sore and having these sciatica issues pop up. No one wants to grow old. But, there is something to be said about doing so gracefully. Accepting reality, which can be an ugly thing.
I could workout. I am working on eating better. There is plenty I can do that is perfectly acceptable as far as my own code on aging goes. But, if my hair were to thin further. Or if and when it all goes gray. I couldn't dye it. I couldn't try fighting reality. I'd feel like less of a man for doing so. And I'd rather feel like a man and have a head of gray hair, than look like some pathetic loser trying so hard to hang onto youth when it is so obvious that it has long since gone.
I spent years contemplating concepts of masculinity and manliness. Had I not done so a decade ago, I may well still be wearing earrings and tight-fitting T-shirts and getting my hair colored every two weeks. Thank god I wasn't as dumb as I thought I was back then.
This is juxtaposed against the video itself, where at some points it was quite a well made visual work, but on the other hand there's a part where she's rolling around on a bed like a total slut, seemingly masturbating in front of a television set. And this is the dilemma with her, and I am sure artists like her.
They say when there's a lack of talent, there's an over-emphasis on sex. But, in her case I don't believe there always needed to BE that over-emphasis, because the quality of some of her music was already excellent. But, her fame was directly linked almost from the beginning to her ability to shock, so there never came a point where she moved past that childishness and just tried to use her talent for music simply for music's sake.
We happened to watch a couple of her videos from the past decade last night and they were so awful. She is this old woman who is desperately trying to act like she's still 27 and it comes across as so cringy and embarrassing. Lest we forget her antics during the "pandemic" when she filmed herself for Instagram sitting in a bathtub looking like some sickly humanoid fish creature. I don't really care about women, as a gay man, but there is something to be said about women acting like ladies, and how most modern women just come across as brutish, disgusting sluts.
It's all self-esteem based. Modern women love to blame men for all their issues, but it is women holding each other to ridiculous standards and being awful and vindictive that just eats away at their self-confidence, turning them into "Mean Girls". I don't think most men give a shit if women wear the latest fashions, or put on high heels that fuck up their feet. But, this is going off on a tangent.
'Express Yourself' was another great song, which lyrically was empowering to women. I remember when the video premiered and its constant airplay on MTV. I loved the video for the most part. It was before she got into the really degrading behavior. That was more the 1990s when her Sex Book came out and she did 'Truth or Dare'.
In a way, I can kind of relate to her antics because in my youth I was very explicitly sexual. I talked about everything I did in my private life, I enjoyed being a slut on some level because I thought it empowered me to have power over other people through sex as well as the attention I got from saying "shocking" things. But, at some point you need to grow up and move past such things. And she most definitely is doubling down on the behavior in the most eye rolling ways. She is way too old to be dry humping the air on stage and wearing outfits where her cooch is practically falling out. You almost have to feel bad for her.
One of the other things we went down a clickhole on was "wig snatching". The one black girl's channel in particular hooked us for a few hours. She'd stand outside stores and when other black women with obvious weaves and wigs walked by, she'd rip them off their heads in hilarious fashion. We don't think the videos were staged, and surely some of the wig wearers were more than a little enraged. There was even a funny one where she yanked the woman's hair and it either was real or was sewn on tight and didn't budge.
But, it got me thinking how we are constantly told that white people have no culture and just in general, whitey is constantly shit on. While black and liberal whites alike lift up black culture as this sort of beacon of humanity. Which I utterly don't get, say musically, since rap music is some of the most god awful, uninspired, uncreative, untalented shit ever produced by human beings in any century through the entire span of history.
The real point I am trying to get to was a question that popped into my head. If black culture is "SO GREAT" and "real", as is constantly spoken of and shoved in everyone's face, then why is it that black women wear fake hair? Why do they not embrace the afro and embrace their natural beauty? It seems like some mixed messaging. Your culture is so great you have to cover it up with polyester?
It got me thinking about the 1970s blaxploitation movies. 'Black Belt Jones' being one of my favorites. The black folks in those movies fully embraced that "blackness" with the huge afros. And the men in those movies, specifically Jim Kelly, oozed this ultra-masculinity that permeated the entire television screen. And the movies usually had plots revolving around cleaning up the streets and getting kids off drugs. And the black community in general working together to protect the youth.
Such a contrast to today, where all the music glorifies drug use, sexual promiscuity and treating women like objects. I've heard people shit on the 1970s blaxploitation movement in film. But, those movies were attempting to have a positive message. Modern rap music sells a culture of degradation and utter stupidity. And all the movies they come out with now sell the idea of victimhood, that all the issues in "black culture" are caused by white people.
Andrew Klavan made a comment on his show a few weeks ago talking about the growing "racism" he saw in some comments when he'd talked about liking a black film that had come out recently. He felt it was "racist" for a white person to say they'd refuse to see such a film. I understand very simplistically the fact that he liked the movie, and perhaps the movie really was worth seeing as I think it made fun of white liberals who like to be sold the idea of the ghetto black culture in books, movies and music. But, I don't think it's "racist" to not want to spend one's money on such a movie.
I would feel the same way about any gay film that came out in "current year". I would not spend a dime to see it, even if there was no agenda, no messaging and no liberal cringe in it. I just wouldn't want to give money to Hollywood. I've heard that Neve Campbell is coming back for the next Scream movie, and even THEN I likely might not give my money to see it in the theater. Hollywood has just burned me too many times, not to mention how it openly talks about hating people like me. And every movie seemingly talks down to its audience with "the message".
I wouldn't not watch a "black" film because I am racist. I'd happily watch any from the 1970s or 80s with no issue, and do so on occasion. What I won't do is give money to a modern film that, no matter who likes it or how good they claim it is, I know for a fact will have liberal messaging in it. I couldn't STAND the hype when 'Get Out' was released and how everyone, especially white liberals, gushed over it. Partially because horror is often such a hated genre, but in the last ten years there's been this trend of "elevated horror" which allows pretentious assholes who shit on the genre to be able to partake in it because some of these new films were made to appeal to their elitist attitudes and false sense of intellectual superiority. And in my opinion, all the ones I've seen were shit. 'A Quiet Place' being on the top of that shit pile.
All the talk about sluts and whores like Madonna and women wearing wigs got me thinking about growing old in general and how I really miss my hair from when I was in my late teens. I miss the amount of it and the fact that it wasn't graying. I hate graying hair, and have often had people suggest I dye it. But, I simply cannot do that. If I am growing old, unlike Madonna, I try as much as I can to accept that fact. Because it is inevitable.
I see any man who dyes his hair, wears hairpieces or even dyes his beard to be rather pathetic. A real man accepts the passing of time and what happens to his body as he ages. Sure, one can workout and do the best they can to maintain a physique and be healthy. That I do not judge. But, hairpieces, hair systems, hair plugs, dying it with Just For Men... all that stuff is just sad. And anytime I ever have had the inkling to even in passing consider dying my hair, I remember how pathetic I see it as. I tell myself that a real man would not succumb to such vanity and weakness. A real man, if he's tired of looking at the scraps on his head of a once great hair society simply buzzes his head all the time.
I dated someone in my youngest days, we used to call him PFluggs behind his back because he was in his late-20s and had already once had hair plug surgery. He was obsessed with the fact he was going bald and spent thousands before he dated me and long after he dated me to try covering up and running from the reality of his situation. I saw him years later at Sidetrack. I think I even wrote about the encounter here. He was wearing this thousand dollar Persian squirrel on his head. And he always wore hats too.
So he was self-conscious and bothered by his baldness. Spent thousands on various things to cover it up. And yet just wore hats all the time anyway. I felt bad for him in a way, because he was an okay person. He just could not move past people's opinions (as well as his own) about going bald.
Hell, I remember when I wore baseball hats to the bars I would often have vain fags who thought I was cute literally ripping the hats off my head to check if I was balding. And they were so proud of themselves for doing so too. And then, comically, thought that I'd still be interested in them once they saw I *did* have hair, which allowed them to continue to be interested in me. Several encounters ended abruptly by me when I was put in those situations. Yes, I have hair at the moment, and I no longer have interest in YOU.
I hate getting old. I hate gray hair. I hate being out of shape. I hate waking up in the morning aching and sore and having these sciatica issues pop up. No one wants to grow old. But, there is something to be said about doing so gracefully. Accepting reality, which can be an ugly thing.
I could workout. I am working on eating better. There is plenty I can do that is perfectly acceptable as far as my own code on aging goes. But, if my hair were to thin further. Or if and when it all goes gray. I couldn't dye it. I couldn't try fighting reality. I'd feel like less of a man for doing so. And I'd rather feel like a man and have a head of gray hair, than look like some pathetic loser trying so hard to hang onto youth when it is so obvious that it has long since gone.
I spent years contemplating concepts of masculinity and manliness. Had I not done so a decade ago, I may well still be wearing earrings and tight-fitting T-shirts and getting my hair colored every two weeks. Thank god I wasn't as dumb as I thought I was back then.