I know it's only superstition, baby but I won't look back...

Even if the name Eddy Grant doesn't ring a bell, chances are you're familiar with Electric Avenue, his one big US hit that was EVERYWHERE in the summer of 1983.

I have vivid memories of "Electric Avenue",  as it played a big part in our family vacation in June of that year. It was our first vacation without my mother (my parents had separated earlier that year) and my dad packed up our turd-colored 1978 Malibu and hauled me (age 9) my sister Michelle (age 16) and my oldest sister Eileen (age 19 and home from Knox College for the summer) from Indianapolis to Panama City, Florida. It was an excruciating 12-hour drive in the scorching heat with just a tiny bit of wheezy air-conditioning flowing through the vents. The trip definitely took its toll on my father, who had to deal with my incessant whines of "How much longer?" along with the constant din of my sisters bickering over which radio stations to listen to. But the biggest thing I remember about being trapped in the sticky, sweltering backseat was "Electric Avenue," which was on the radio about three times an hour. Halfway through our epic sojourn to the sea, "Electric Avenue" went from a track that I kind of dug to "Oh my Gawd, not this song again! Come on you guys! Change the station!" Despite my dad's failing memory, to this day he still brings up our drive to Panama City and that damn song.

Over the years, however, my feelings have softened towards "Electric Avenue". It comes on my Pandora station quite a bit and I almost never hit "skip" when I hear the opening notes. But my favorite Eddy Grant song is one that I didn't discover for another twenty-five years: a breezy little ditty called "I Don't Wanna Dance," which was evidently a smash hit in the UK but barely registered on this side of the pond. I first encountered it on an old "Top of the Pops" episode, one of many that John has downloaded for me over the years. (TotP episodes from the 1970s and 80s are like crack for me; it's where I've discovered some truly bizarre/amazing British songs that I'd never have known about otherwise. It's also where I was first introduced to the magic of "Egyptian Reggae" and the dancing camel. Seriously: Jonathan Richman + Pan's People + DANCING CAMEL is a spectacle that must be seen to be believed).

So without further ado, here is my latest pick for the "Rescued From Obscurity" series. It's a great song that deserves some recognition. The video is simple, low-budget and fun, and Eddy Grant's truly wicked dreadlocks are a sight to behold. Seriously, those dreads need to be enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (or at least encased in glass on the wall of a Hard Rock Cafe).

  

To quote Morris Day in Purple Rain

"Tsk. Such nastiness."

I kind of hate to give bskillet81 any publicity for his (so awesome that it's password- protected) blog, or his--ehrm--"organization," the Christian Men's Defense Network, but I can't keep quiet about the malodorous torrent of soft-serve diarrhea he's excreted onto the interwebs on this post-election Thursday.

Today's Jezebel piece was the first I've heard of this guy, so it's safe to assume that neither he or the Christian Men Defense Network are creating much of a media storm. More like a bit of light drizzle on a pop culture feminist website. This bskillet81 (or B.S., because I refuse to type "bskillet81" again) fancies himself sort of a Nate Sliver for the right. B.S. blames Romney's loss and Obama's win on the emerging "slut" culture. Because a lot of women voted for Obama. And a lot of those women, B.S. reasons, happen to be sluts. 

Here are some of his excerpted brain droppings (again, courtesy of Jezebel): 

Women make up about 54% of the electorate.  It is very hard to win without winning that segment, or at least losing it only narrowly while winning men big. While the right usually wins married women, the fact is that married women constitute an ever-decreasing share of the female population.  Women want to delay marriage as long as possible so they can "have it all," and usually "have it all" means "have as much hot alpha sex as possible without any consequences."  And thus, less married women and more sluts.

Ooooh, there are many things I could say about this, but I think B.S. has done a pretty good job digging his own hole here. The funniest and most telling part of this paragraph is his assertion that single women are the only ones having "hot alpha sex". Is he saying married womenfolk don't engage in "hot alpha sex"? Maybe he assumes that a nice married (Christian) woman would be too busy cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her husband and chilluns to bother with a sex life, not that she would anyway because she's not a slutty sexy prostitute whore like these unmarried women intent on having as much slutty sexy alpha sex as possible. 

I know that men of his ilk think that women shouldn't even be allowed to acknowledge their private parts until marriage, that's why it makes him feel better to reason that any woman who defies this way of thinking and remains single (heathen!), actively dates (harlot!), and uses her no-no zone for something other than birthing babies (whore!) must be a "slut." In his tiny little mind this makes perfect sense. I mean, why else would an adult woman choose not to enjoy God-sanctioned holy matrimony? Because S-E-X, that's why! But when B.S. insults single women, he unwittingly insults married women, as it never occurs to these right-wing nut butts that many married women also can and do: a.) use birth control; b.) have abortions; c.) consider themselves to be feminists. 

B.S. seems to know a lot about sluts. For instance, he knows that a lot of sluts happen to be nonwhite. But B.S. isn't your average garden variety racist. In fact, he has a great deal of venom reserved for "white sluts" who--since they're sluts, of course--voted for Obama.  

....Obama appealed to white sluts by forcing someone else (the Catholic church, in this case) to pay for their birth control, and by scaring them about alleged threats to their ability to take advantage of Planned Parenthood's services (Planned Parenthood being conveniently located in the minority part of town, of course, so as to provide anonymity to visiting white girls whose white girl friends never go over there–except to visit Planned Parenthood themselves).  This created a wedge issue in the suburban community that allowed Obama to play more strongly there than he might have if the election ended up purely about the economy or the national debt.

Ah yes, the minority part of town. I love going there. I always run into my white girl friends at Planned Parenthood when I go for my annual pap smear (and maybe an abortion or two if there's time). It's great because when the doctor is finished rooting around in my downstairs parts, me and my slutty white girl friends grab handfuls of free condoms and head to the minority drinking establishment next door to celebrate our white sluttiness, preferably with a few well-endowed nonwhite minorities. Cause that's how white sluts roll.     

The right loses the female vote primarily because so many of them still operate from a feminist world-view:  Women are pure, perfect, kind, and altruistic, and the only reason they "get into trouble" is that some evil, conniving, manipulative man tricked them into sleeping with the entire football team.

"Sleeping with the entire football team"? This guy sure does watch a lot of porn, even for a Christian. And since when does the right "operate from a feminist point of view"? (Oh yeah, that Rick Santorum. Such a feminist.) AND since when does feminism mean holding up women as "pure, perfect, kind, and altruistic"? This guy has crawled so far up his own ass it's amazing he can still see to type out this ignorant bullshit.   

However, this election cycle shows that the Slut Vote is real, and Republicans lose because they discount the existence of original sin in women. 

So it's not that America fucked up when they gave women the vote. There's nothing wrong with women voting, as long as they're regular (God-fearing, Christian, married) women who will of course always vote Republican. Sluts, on the other hand? No way sluts should be allowed to vote. And I'm sure that if challenged, B.S. would be happy to devise some sort of "test" to separate the sluts from the regular women before the next election day. I mean, he'd be really, really happy to.

Because when you come right down to it, B.S. is just another guy who needs to get laid.