Back in Louisiana …

[Dave W]

The idiot principal has now reinstated the girl to her student government position, reinstated her scholarship endorsement, and asked to take leave for the rest of the school year.

Unfortunately, the scholarship deadline has passed.

I hope they sue.

Too little, too late

[westen44]

A failure compared to "Game of Love" which came before it and had reached number 1 on Billboard.  "It's Just a Little Bit Too Late" only got up to 45. 

[uwe]

The idiot principal has now reinstated the girl to her student government position, reinstated her scholarship endorsement, and asked to take leave for the rest of the school year.

Unfortunately, the scholarship deadline has passed.

I hope they sue.

Too little, too late

Given the extraordinary circumstances and the Principal's about-face, don't you think there could be a restitutio in integrum/retroacctive grace period applied? It would seem to me to be the pragmatic thing to do. The older I get, the more I love pragmatic solutions.

[Pilgrim]

Given the extraordinary circumstances and the Principal's about-face, don't you think there could be a restitutio in integrum/retroacctive grace period applied? It would seem to me to be the pragmatic thing to do. The older I get, the more I love pragmatic solutions.

Principals are in a position where they can cause a lot of good or a lot of problems.  That one is a jerk. 

If an exception is made, unfortunately there's always a rule follower who points to the rules and refuses to do what's reasonable and logical.

Of course, if there is someone sane who permits the process to go through after the deadline, then there will be a pecksniffian who decides to become offended at breaking the rules and raises a ruckus.

One of my friends (a former boss) once made an excellent observation:  Some people are dedicated rule followers. They will follow rules fanatically, and if there isn't a rule, they will invent one and enforce it. 

[gearHed289]

I do have a few shellac 78s.

I didn't know Shellac put out any 78s. 

[uwe]

To which my friend Dave will no doubt counter swiftly that he didn’t know either that you even comprehended the historic term ’78 rpm’.

Now get back to your computer game, Tom.

[westen44]

Twerking is so amusing.  It's almost hard to imagine that in some cases it's actually supposed to be considered sexy. 

[uwe]

I find it more life-affirming than sexually alluring too. Let young people move how they want to. Of course they have all grown up watching a million music vids in which painstakingly choreographed overtly sexualized dance moves were and are de rigueur. So what. (I consider the once popular habitual burning of witches as a sociological pastime to have been overall more problematic.)

When I first noticed twerking in RnB/rap music vids more often around the early 90ies - cue in Prince cooing “sexy motherf***er shaking that ass, shaking that ass, shaking that ass” in his song of the same name -, I was reminded of my years in Kinshasa, Zaïre, in the mid-70ies and thought "Oh wow, now they are doing it over here!". It’s how people danced there already back then - tribal cultural heritage. Watching it today, I always see the paleontological aspect of it - hey, at the end of the day we’re all primates, no reason to go ape over a little butt-twitchin'!

[westen44]

This isn't twerking, but when Shakira came out with this video years ago, a number of people raved about how sexy it was the way she was shaking her hips.  Somehow, none of that registered with me.  It just didn't seem all that sexy to me.  But Shakira isn't the only one.  There are plenty of artists who try to be sexy by shaking their hips.  A lot of the time I just laugh.  Now if someone starts stripping, I suppose that's another matter.  But even that can only go so far.  Like someone once said when the discussion was about usiing sex to sell music, "We want hits, not tits."

[uwe]

I saw her in concert! As a guardian for my little daughter (and her schoolmate) of course though it turned out that wasn't really necessary, all girls under 13 or so had a kiddie golden circle before stage (no extra charge). You weren't allowed to join them as an adult, but they had women there watching out for them. Teresa and her girlfriend of course went - "Bye Dad, see you after the gig!" (children can be cruel you know) - so I stood there by myself (with other likewise deserted moms and dads).

What can I say? I was entertained. Not just by Ms Isabel Mebarak Ripoll's Mideast-flavored (her dad was born in NYC, but has a Lebanese migratory background) hip movements, but by the fact that her performance followed the dramatics of a hard rock show: a backing band obviously schooled in hard rock, covers of Led Zep and Aerosmith songs, an unaccompanied guitar solo on stage, a drum battle with her (wo)manning a second drum set and playing well.



A huge Cobra prop appearing from behind the stage with laser eyes - Eric Bloom of BÖC would have given his left nut for it, Co-Co-Co-Cobra rather than Go-Go-Go-Godzilla! Her drum set elevated along the snake's body all the way to the fangs - Tommy Lee would have perhaps donated a (of course pineapple-scented***) right nut for that I think. The gig really rocked. To an extent that I think it went a little over the heads of all the kids there who only knew her MTV hits.

Of course, after the gig Teresa - then 10 or 11 years old - would stage dress rehearsals in her room with her friends to get those hip movements right!  She'll marry next year, where did the time go?

***Herr Lee holds the - empirically backed, he says - view that a strict pineapple diet for men enhances the taste of male semen for recreational oral consumption by others, thus triggering a motivational thrust. (My wife has never really asked me about those pineapple juice packs I keep stashed at home.)

[Dave W]

Then there's the twerking girl who caught on fire in this viral video.




Which turned out to be a Jimmy Kimmel production.

[westen44]

The twerking fire girl is a good actress, not just a stunt woman, IMO. 

As for Shakira, I once knew a guitarist who was obsessed with her.  I've never been an obsessed fan of anyone.  So it's a little hard for me to identify with that.  But I can imagine it.  Another thing about Shakira is she sings way better in Spanish than English.  Way better. 

[uwe]

"Another thing about Shakira is she sings way better in Spanish than English. Way better."

Sí, es cierto! She sang a lot of her stuff at the gig in Spanish too.

[Dave W]

What still tickles me about the video is the other girl. When she first starts, her legs move like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character -- they move fast but she's not, then she takes off. All that's missing is a cartoon cloud of dust.

[uwe]

I can't believe people didn't realize that was staged right from the start. The dramatic fast-moving legs of the other girl and the deus-ex-machina fire extinguisher were dead giveaways.