. . . and I am still up. I have a video shoot in the AM, too. This is insane. The script isn’t done, The column isn’t finished. But here is the day, including an explanation about why I had the COLD STONES to diss a geek-friendly movie director. But right now I’m thinking: huh? Of all the things for iTunes shuffle to kick up: the Kingston Fargin’ Trio. I have one song: “Worried Man.” It takes a worried man to sing a worried song / I’m worried now, but I won’t be worried now. I listened to that album as a wee lad on the hard nubbly grey carpet floor of the living room, and I probably listened to that album more than my father did.
Here’s the thing: I grew up listening to the records in the front-room phonograph. It was an old RCA with a 45 table and a 33 1/3 table, purple fabric over the speaker. It had a radio, too. Took a while to warm up. There was a red light on the front of the cabinet that told you it was on, but it burned out at some point. I have to ask my dad where it came from – i suspect it may have been a hand-me-down from my grandfather. (Interest in latest-greatest consumer electronics clearly flows on the material side of the line. It’s remarkable: on the paternal side, no particular aptitude or interest; on the maternal side, we had Grandpa with every new radio or color TV, uncle with 8-track and Pong.) The record player was stocked with 45s, from proto-rock to Ernest Tubb to Dixieland to Johnny Cash, and I listened to them all. I laid on the floor and looked at the albums and memorized them – including the comedy albums. In those days a house would probably have a Cosby and a Newhart and a Vaughn Meader “First Family.” I listened to them all.
Don’t have a single memory of my father ever listening to any of them.
Did that stop, at some point? I keep meaning to ask. Why? How did that work, back then? You felt like hearing a little Johnny Cash, you put on the single, nodded along, then turned off the record player and did something else? Nowadays we have computers with 15,000 songs; you had an enormous wooden machine with 40 songs. One had to commit to the moment to decide you wanted to listen to “Ring of Fire.”
But you never did. I was the only one who played that machine.
Not to say my dad gave up on music: hah. When I go home and we sit up at night talking the TV’s set to the classic country music cable-feed, and we see who can name the artist first. I think he might be a bit pleased I can pick out the great old voices. I’d feel the same if I’m 82 sitting in a house at night staring at the mountains of Arizona with the water fountain ploshing, and my daughter says “Elvis Costello!” when the angular sideways chords of “Accidents Will Happen” comes over the speakers.
There’s no particular imperative for music to span generations, and it’s more likely that it drives a shallow rift. But it’s good when all is said and done, and you tell you pop you liked his tunes. It is likewise nice when pop appreciates what’s good about your kid’s tastes.
This can be difficult.
One hellaciously busy day stem to stern, but: I promised my daughter I would take her to a movie, so we went to “Tangled.” Thursday afternoon, one PM – figured we’d have the place to ourselves. Every seat was taken. The audience was about 82% little girls. Wise all-grown-up 10-year-old daughter was rolling her eyes: they’ll chatter and talk and scream. She has little patience for tiny pink princess-mode at this point, and is mortified when I produce photographic evidence that she once inhabited that demographic.
The movie starts; the kids are quiet. The movie goes on, the kids are quiet. The entire film, not a peep. The entire room is transfixed. I think the adults were expected Yet Another Animated Movie, but they got something you could put on a shelf with PIxar. It was Disney’s 50th animated movie, and I couldn’t help but think Walt (and we all think we know him well enough to call him that, and know what he’d like) would be proud, and astonished, and recognize the hand of his great studio in every frame of the movie. Great songs, one short but tremendous action piece, a villainess that’s probably the best of all the Disney villainesses for being a fully-formed character not a Bag of Evil, the best comic-relief horse in animation history, a genuine drunk midget, and character design that seemed a step above what everyone else has done so far. (No one looked like plastic.) We loved it. I probably loved it more than she did. She’s not old enough to get the teen angle, and the dad angle – which comes at the end, full-strength – of course escapes her.
Then we left and walked around the Mall, which I love to do with her, and I checked twitter, and oh crap. It’s like this. I got up this morning, grousy, banged out a blog post, forgot about it, came back to the internet later and found that Kevin Smith had called me a douchebag. I probably deserved it, because I made a crack about his weight. But the post was about his decision not to talk to media about his new movie, and instead refer everyone to TWELVE HOURS worth of podcasts about it.
I thought this was a bit high-handed and misguided, since A) no critic will listen to 12 hours of podcasts, and B) jeezem crow, dude, play the game. But he was unhappy his last movie got a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 19%, and said the press was going to write whatever they wanted to write anyway. He said anyone who didn’t want to make the effort was super-lazy, and I said I wasn’t going to listen to the podcasts, but I could fit in one airplane seat. Cheap shot, and I apologized on twitter and on the blog post – for the tone. Not the point of the whole post, but the tone. Tone matters.
I wouldn’t have been irritated by it all if it hadn’t been for the movie itself. Didn’t mention this in the blog post, because it strays from the intended subject matter of the blog – nice non-political pop-culture information of little-to-no-importance. But this is a fine spot. Here’s the poster for the movie:
Because those craaaazy red states are the places where you’re likely to find fundies, and the Westboro church is just the natural extrapolation of the red-state fundie ideas, right? RED STATE! OOHGABOOGA! Think of it: horror movies often have guys who A) kidnap victims, B) saw off their heads, and C) film it all for their own enjoyment. Oh, if only there really was a group of religious extremists who did these all things – it would give a movie a certain horrible topicality you just don’t get with unkillable bogeymen. But Smith would never do a movie about Al Qaeda in, say, a city in a blue state. No one would produce it; no one would distribute it. But a movie that links the Westboro church to something inherent in the ideological distinction of a “red state” will get you backslaps from all the right-thinking people. It’s lazy. It’s super-lazy.
So that’s what that was about. Anyway: New Year’s Eve Diner, here! It’s short – the 2011 Diners will be closer to 15 minutes than 30. Also, new ads at teh Gallery of Regrettable Food, here. Enjoy! And happy new year to all. See you Monday . . . with the start of an interesting tale.
Pass it along, if you wish
58 Responses to It’s almost 1 AM
Host with the Most
_@_v – a movie that makes villains out of christians? how edgy.
I don’t think your post on PopCrush was out of line at all. I mean, that thing with the airplane seats really did happen. And you’re the one who does all that wiiing.
Well, he also wouldn’t likely write a movie about Al Qaeda because those cats fight back.
http://viewaskew.com/theboard/viewtopic.php?p=1278852#1278852
“Scary thing is this: the film would have to touch on Islam. And unlike the Catholic League, when those cats don’t like what you do, they issue a death warrant on yer ass (see Rushdie). And now that I’ve got a family, I’m not as free to stir the shit-pot as I was when I was single, back when I made Dogma. I mean, now I’ve gotta think about more than my own safety and well-being.”
Which is a reasonable point, but makes for twisted incentives.
Interesting but probably unintended link between politics of moviemakers and Kingston Trio. The most successful folk music group of the late 1950′s/pre Kennedy assassination 1960′s – their folk music was scrubbed of any overt political sentiment, which was a basic ingredient of the genre.
Are you serious? That’s a real movie?
I wonder sometimes about people who would do something like that.
(sigh)
Happy New Year, to James, the Lileks family, and Bleatniks everywhere!
We, too, went to see “Tangled” Thursday, but in the evening. I was not looking forward to it – another tedious Princess movie! (I figured the excellent “Princess and the Frog” was a fluke.) I brought a crossword puzzle folded up in my pocket in case of desperate boredom. Never pulled it out of my pocket. Wonderful movie! Bravo, Disney! And may I add that Mandy Moore, that girl can really sing.
My first recollection of listening to 45s are those from my older siblings: Diana Ross and the Supremes’ “Love Child” and a song called “Good Morning Starshine” by Oliver (had to look up the artist). First 45s I bought with my own money were “Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson and “A Horse With No Name” by America. I can’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday, but I can remember exactly what I was doing while listening to those old records.
Happy New Year to all!
I took possession of my dad’s 45′s – everything from Marty Robbins to Bobby Darin to Brenda Lee. They were in a carrying case like a specially-designed suitcase. He bought me a record player when I was in 5th grade, and I had it on a tv tray in front of my bedroom window, with the case of 45′s on the floor underneath.
That was just about the best year of my childhood.
You acknowledge that your airplane line was a cheap shot, so why repeat it? James, too often you are still like that little boy who made friends by deploying an insult book.
Happy New Year everyone. I’ll be asleep. I will also be avoiding Red State despite my middle left leanings.
And I am sure ‘Red State’ will be hailed by critics as ‘brave’ which is a word they use when a movie follows their ideology.
Hey, guys, make one about Mohammed and depict him as maybe not-so-nice and then see if someone can find your head before the service.
Interesting Lileks interview over at hughhewitt.com. Our host lets us know that “irony” and “post-modernism” and worrying about “hypocrisy” are the purview of the liberal left and prevents us from celebrating good-ol’ American frontier hardiness, because they’ll whine about “oppression” or some minor historical detail like “slavery”.
Or something. Hard to tell.
We went to see “The King’s Speech” yesterday and it was everything wonderful we had read about it and more. As for the swearing needing a rating of any kind, much less an R, I say “grow up” to the censors. I hear worse swearing by teens at the bus stop.
If the Mall referred to is Southdale, I was there for the 3:45 showing of ‘Tangled.’ Yes, it was still full. Yes, I loved it, too.
Now I just need to find time to go see ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader,’ ‘Tron: Legacy,’ ‘The King’s Speech,’ and, I think, ‘True Grit.’ Why do all the movies I want to see come out at once?
I thought that TANGLED was all right, although a mishmosh of all the other Disney Princess movies. Some dynamite animation, though.
I’ll be checking in again before midnight, but in case I don’t feel impelled to say anything, a good evening to all of you and a happy new year!
Bob
One of my Orthodox Jewish friends, who sees movies maybe once a year, saw “King’s Speech.” He told me about it because he figured I would love it. (Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was my great grandmother’s 3rd cousin.)
My brothers and sister listened to 45′s.
I listened to their albums. Rarely a 45. Those that I did listen to were memorable – “Purple People Eater;” “Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas Song…”
My father and mother had that big stereo cabinet and we had the little turntable box record players.
My father had classical; big band; and the occasional musical.
My oldest brother had all the Kingston Trio albums.
I would actually sit in the living room, often just listening, to all the various music I liked.
I believe that I memorized all the Kingston Trio songs; most musicals; and Bill Cosby’s and Tom Lehrer’s comedy albums.
Later on, I would listen to all of the modern rock and roll stuff on my brothers new and improved stereos.
Sigh… When I think of all that perceptive brain power focused on memorizing music… Well, it makes me happy when I still burst out in song at the drop of a hat, sometimes annoying my wife and grown children but, it makes me a tad wistful that I did not memorize some useful financial data or similar money skills…
If only they could put “book larnin’” into catchy musical songs – I’d be a genius!
I think the adults were expected Yet Another Animated Movie, but they got something you could put on a shelf with PIxar.
It might as well be. Lasseter was one of the producers.
The assimilation is complete!
I still have a 1950 LP of Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant-inherited from an older brother and kept in very good condition by my mother at home-just in case one of her boys wanted it back someday.
She was quite right. It now resides on the shelf in my man-cave, next to the Telecaster I’d always wanted.
Yeah. Sigh. The Westboro “Baptist Church” principals are Democrats–or so I have read. But beyond that–they are unto themselves! They fit no one’s ideology on either side. They are utterly bizarre. If anything–they are something righties AND lefties can agree on.
Oh! And Happy New Year to all of y’all!
Your apologies are your own, sir, but I have to ask — how many times does a guy get to call people lazy (for not listening to 12 hours of self-indulgent, profanity-marbled oblique references to a film) before you get to take a personal shot right back at him? Yes, yes, 70 times 7 and all that, but your jape did seem in the spirit of the discussion as he defined it . . . and since I do, Lord knows why, still follow his Twitter feed, I’m not seeing where he took it amiss — and if he did, there’d be seventeen unpunctuated & unspaced tweets worth of rant aimed at you. If his fanboys are flaming you, I’d not find that reason to think I’d overstepped.
I’m not looking forward to the “cultural discussion” that is certain to erupt after “Red State” is released, but I’m sure Mr. Smith will have even less trouble paying for all the seats he wants after it plays out. Maybe he and Michael Moore can do a Rent-a-Jet together on a share basis.
I too took my girl child* (well she just turned 16) to see tangled Thursday afternoon expecting an empty house. The theater was 3/4 full to our surprise. Child* had admonished me in advance that this would be a “stupid” movie because they couldn’t follow the original Grimm’s Fairy Tale in which the hero dies and Rapunzel loses her hair. To our vast surprise, she was wrong. Like our Host, I enjoyed the film more than child* but that may be the teenage angst thing in our case. Not quite up with Pixar IMHO but very damn close.
As for old records, in 1966 my grandfather acquired a bankrupt restaurant and with it came the old Wurlitzer Juke Box with the bubble lights and fully stocked with 45s. He gave it to my dad who rigged it to play without coins and that’s what we listened to for the next few years. I must have heard “The Name Game” and “Travelin’ Man” by Ricky Nelson a thousand times.
@HAl
Not a happy day to remember Ricky (aka Rick) Nelson.
To call a person with James’ level of productivity “lazy” is akin to saying that Paula Deen does not make sufficient use of butter.
I found Kevin Smith’s work to be Highly Meaningful when I was in high school and college. Then I grew up. There are still parts I enjoy (the battle between Silent Bob & Mark Hamill in “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” is worth the whole flick), but his whole body is just too juvenile to be taken seriously. In many ways its similar to “Catcher in the Rye” in its tone. Salinger, however, I can respect for having the simple human decency to never show his face in public again after dropping that turd.
I just rolled my eyes when I first heard of Red State. Consider the source.
Funny, Red State is filmed entirely in the Los Angeles area. Budget concerns or did he expect to be ran out of town on a rail? I am sure the nice folks of the mid-west could find a rail he could fit comfortably on.
That “Red State” poster is perfect: It’s orbiting the shark! From now on, there’s no need to go into details when criticizing the Liberal mindset, pointing to that poster will suffice.
Really. One Der Stürmer cartoon about Jews tells you all you need to know about the people who published the paper, and it’s just the same here.
If you want to hear the real version of ‘Worried Man Blues’, and not the sweater-group interpretation, check out the original Carter Family recording, cut onto wax on May 24, 1930 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Before music was fake, it was real.
That Brad Keeler snowman casserole might be worth something. According to internet, the successful Mr. Keeler died in 1952, same year as ad.
I saw the Smith post yesterday, it made me laugh out loud.
I’m a couple years younger than you James and I had young parents (22/23 when I was born) I had some 45′s of my own, my mom had a box of 45′s from the 50′s-60′s, but for some reason none of them attracted my attention.
The albums however,I did listen to. Simon and Garfunkle, Sinatra (Come Back To Sorrento as I recall), Kingston Trio (my father loved them), Bill Haley Rock Around The Clock, the London cast of Jesus Christ Superstar (which I listened to non-stop and still have), Alice’s Restaurant, 3 or 4 Bill Cosby albums, National Lampoon’s Radio Dinner, and various classical albums. Oh, and the original Broadway cast of Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman (78′s no less, still have that one too). My parents had varied tastes.
The “Ralston” of “Ralston-Purina” has a very odd history. It started as a sort of health system/cult with a highly racist philosophy, advocating the elimination of lower races. William H. Danforth, the founder of Purina, joined with Webster Edgerly, the founder of Ralstonism, to produce healthful foods that conformed to Ralstonist principles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralstonism
“…but I won’t be worried long.”
Disney animation has been good and getting better with each release since Lasseter took over. Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, the Princess and the Frog – all better than anything the studio did for a long, long, time. I am looking forward to Tangled. Bolt and Robinsons were commercial failures, but I think that is because they were still carrying that burdensome legacy of crappy recent Disney animation.
Happy New Year, all (well, almost all)
“a genuine drunk midget”
Reminds me of college!
Sorry, wrong blog.
Hey now, I’m a liberal! A small ‘l’ liberal, not a big “L” liberal. Dad’s an old fashioned New Deal Democrat, to the left of Obama on social issues, but to the right of Dubya on fiscal ones.
To the best of my knowledge, the vile sleazeballs at Westboro Baptist Church have never so much as laid a finger on anyone. They wave around placards and are conspicuously offensive, but I don’t ever recall them either practicing or advocating violence. Unlike the conspicuously un-mentioned group of religious extremists who delight in violence. How courageous of Mr. Smith.
Also, this is why I sent you $25.
http://lileks.com/institute/gallery/ads/20.html
“But a movie that links the Westboro church to something inherent in the ideological distinction of a “red state” will get you backslaps from all the right-thinking people.”
Don’t you mean “left-thinking”?
There’s no particular imperative for music to span generations, and it’s more likely that it drives a shallow rift. But it’s good when all is said and done, and you tell you pop you liked his tunes. It is likewise nice when pop appreciates what’s good about your kid’s tastes.
When I was a teenager, my musical tastes and Dad’s were nearly polar opposites. But as I started the pursuit of a music degree, he started buying the orchestral versions of all the stuff I played in band; from there, it led to him acquiring the entire Time/Life mail-order Mozart series, and he ended up expanding his tastes to most of the Great Composers. He also got into Al Jarreau in his less-pop period, so it was nice to have some jazz to listen to as well.
Dad might not be enthralled by some of the newer jazz that I listen to now, but it’s great to have him so into something out of which I’ve made a career. And we sing in the choir together every Christmas Eve, unless they hire me to play saxophone there…priceless moments.
Saw James’ tweet yesterday about Tangled. I mentioned that I took our blonde six year old to see it before Christmas. She’s a Rapunzel look-a-like, even after her first haircut at five (they are scheduled annually now). She was enthralled. It was a delightful movie. My Child Bride and our nine year old daughter had gone to see Harry Potter, so the six year old and I were on our own. I think I got more out of the movie with the six year old than I would have with the wise nine year old sage.
Kevin Smith. Well… I honestly enjoyed Dogma, but that is the failing Catholic in me. His earlier movies were okay – but as mentioned above, they start at juvenile and never progress. I occasionally listen to one of his Smodcasts, but just a little goes a long way. I understand that he has a Fanboi horde, ready to pounce on any negative observation, but if you listen to him opine on any subject it’s chock full o’ wholesome negativity and criticism. That’s his whole shtick. When full-on pious outrage envelopes him, he turns to his fanboi legion of doom for affirmation. And he really whips them up. Elemer Gantry-esque I might add.
I enjoy the fact that he’s a comic book savant, but any more than that, eh, ok – enjoy yourself with all the hoopla Kevin.
My Dad’s music was the typical 40s – 50s mix of popular music. Leavened with some Perry Como, and Elvis – always Elvis. My Dad liked to sing, and when moved to do so, really surprised me with his ability. In the 70s it was mostly classic country starting with Eddy Arnold, then moving forward. Oddly, he enjoyed American Pie, and I could find him tapping his toe to some early Beatles, as we used Day Tripper and Drive My Car as songs to warm up with in our 80s garage band – literally in our garage. He always liked when us to play Surrender but I don’t think he ever really got the lyrics. It made us laugh.
We had three close family friends who were DJs at the big Country AM Station (KRAK 1140AM: 50,000 watt blowtorch of the Central Valley! – which is now Sports 1140 KHTK, where several of my buddies work)so country records just floated into our house. But James is correct, it required active participation to put a stack of vinyl on the console turntable and get your groove on. Technology is a wonderful thing.
Oh, I neglected to mention:
Diner!
Thanks!
Speaking of bygone 45s, Kevin Smith’s like any one-hit wonder. Elvis Costello said one of the tough things about the music business is that you get 18 years to write your first album and six months to write your second. Kevin Smith came up with “Clerks” — uneven, but promising in spots and kind of smuttily diverting. Who could have known that “Clerks” was as good as it would get? Every picture since has been another step in a downward slide proving that. Smith’s gone from occasionally amusing adolescent boob to tiresome, bloated mugwump at high speed, blowing right past maturity in any form. The caption in an old National Lampoon one-panel cartoon puts it best: Kevin, “you may already be a wiener.”
Wait. What?
Another Leftist movie I’ll never pay attention to, let alone go see?
What shall I do?
Better red than overfed.
I love it when people like Kevin Smith, people who think they are more enlightened than us ignorant yokels in Jesusland, go out and make left-leaning equivalents of ‘The Eternal Jew’. Nice one Smith, really nice.
Will says:
December 31, 2010 at 12:21 pm
“To the best of my knowledge, the vile sleazeballs at Westboro Baptist Church have never so much as laid a finger on anyone. They wave around placards and are conspicuously offensive, but I don’t ever recall them either practicing or advocating violence.
There is a very good reason for that, Will. Everyone hates them, and the cops are just looking for some justification to arrest them and haul them off to the pokey. They would probably get six months for spitting on the sidewalk.
For all the recent move toward “hate speech” and “hate crimes,” it’s sad that the concept of “fighting words” has fallen by the wayside. What those slime need is a good buttwhipping by some righteously PO’d retired Marines. When the inevitable court appearance was scheduled, the judge would peer over his desk at the Westmorons and say “What did you expect when you did something like that at Marine funeral? Case dismissed!”
Re: Al Qaeda in the blue states. I think an entire season of “24″ was funded on the idea of Al Qaeda in a blue state.
I look forward to “the start of an interesting tale.” Only great native writing talent sustains this website for me: what is actually written about mostly misses me. All comic-book covers can be extrapolated from two or three, the 1970’s were identical to all decades in having precisely ten years in ‘em, and I cannot imagine walking around a mall and thinking I must check the ether to see if a fat guy has reacted to my emissions. But maybe the tale WILL be interesting. Come MMXI, I will check for it. In any event, I wish our host and all his guests well. Avoiding the ether as much as I do, I cannot state with certainty, but my money’s on lileks.com being the most civil site there is.
Funny how (geezer voice) kids today appreciate music of generations past more than I did when I was young. (/geezer voice) Today in a restaurant, I overheard a 20-something humming along to a 35-year-old song on the sound system, i.e., one I liked when I was 20. When I was 20, I thought the music my parents liked was corny. Maybe our generation created the new classical.
“The King’s Speech” is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time and got the compulsory R rating from the use of the F-word, which occurs in one really quite poignant and funny scene. I wonder if Her Majesty has seen it, and what she thought of the portrayal of her father. I hope she was amused.
I have now, and will have later, absolutely no interest in the inbred Phelpses of Westboro Baptist (and I am sure the Baptists are cringing, sorry folks, chisel it off their sign) or any communications in any media regarding them.
it’s like making a “Triumph of Osama bin Laden” movie because there was film sitting in the back room, and you felt like you had to use it.
neither grimy twisted evil little bastahrde deserves the attention or exposure.
and both need to be targeted with the largest FAE bomb in the arsenal. now. don’t wait for midnight and 2011, put the laser on and lock down the tripod.
there is no red or blue, liberal or conservative, aspect whatsoever in featuring those sick snakes biting themselves for sympathy. there is only raw voyeurism and a total lack of sensitivity for anything, including the poor schmuck “timing” the film for color correction. why should the lab tech making the prints have to suffer?
You folks brought back some memories.
When I was a kid, the record store in town (remember those?) gave out 45s on Halloween. That’s how I got my first record: “Take a Letter, Maria” by RB Greaves.
We had the same big wooden stereo (or as Mom inexplicably called it, “steereo”). Dad loved (and still loves) Dixieland, swing, and big bands. And of course we had “First Family” and a few Allan Sherman and Bill Cosby records.
“To the best of my knowledge, the vile sleazeballs at Westboro Baptist Church have never so much as laid a finger on anyone.”
Best of your knowledge isn’t good enough.
http://natephelps.com/10801.html
“My father [Phelps] was a strong believer in ”spare the rod, spoil the child”. In the early years his weapon of choice was a barber’s strap. However, it was used so often that it eventually frayed at the business end, and his blows would wrap around like the end of a whip, opening up wounds on our hips. So one day he called a meeting of all the children, and presented his newest disciplinary tool. Presumably, the larger the rod, the less spoiled the child, so my father presented us with a mattock handle. He demonstrated its effectiveness that day by giving it a test run on my older brother, Mark. One blow and Mark’s face turned white.
“In terms of knowing how to administer punishment, my father was an adept. Seven or eight blows would be enough to cause the skin to swell and bruise. However, if he administered a few blows, and then waited five to ten minutes before the next round, this gave the damaged tissue time to swell and stretch the skin tight. The new round of blows would cause that skin to split and bleed. When he was particularly angry, it wasn’t uncommon for him to take careful aim at the lower back, or just behind the knees, where the pain was excruciating.
“Of course, no matter how extreme or unjust his actions might seem to others, as far as my father was concerned, he was acting according to scripture, and simply claiming his god ordained rights and responsibilities as the head of the house. When my mother tried to intervene in some of his more brutal beatings, he’d turn on her and punish her, also. Proverbs 13:24 was core to his actions: He that spareth his rod hateth his son. But there was a fundamental contradiction. He claimed that this punishment was done out of love for his children; yet as he beat us, he’d scream his hatred at us also.”