Friday, February 24, 2017

RESCUED FROM OBSCURITY 
Samantha Fox - "I Only Wanna Be With You"


Okay, I'm not even embarrassed by how much I love this one. 

Samantha Fox was more of a household name in the UK and Europe, but she managed a few Top 10 hits in the US during the late '80s. She started out as a topless Page 3 girl in 1983 at the age of 16 (okay, that's gross--but the age of consent in England is 16, so 16 in the UK = 18 in the US). At age 20 she "retired" from modeling and released her first record in 1986, Touch Me (I Want Your Body), an experimental, high-concept album that explored existential angst in the Reagan/Thatcher era (just kidding! It was bubblegum pop, of course). The title track shot to #3 in the UK charts and reached #4 in the US, which surprises me to learn--as I don't remember hearing it on the radio all that much--although MTV played the shit out of the video. 

Sam Fox in the "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)" video
I recall liking the song okay, but Sammy herself just didn't resonate with me at the time. Maybe because with her hair, the rhinestones, and all that denim, she looked more like a long-lost slutty Mandrell sister than a hip MTV starlet.

Who will get this reference?
Nobody born after 1980, that's for damn sure.


So then Sam came back in 1987 with a self-titled album and a new single, "Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)" (the girl liked parenthesis even more than I do). That song hit #3 in the US and the album itself was big in other markets--again, mostly in Europe and the UK, as well as Japan--they love blondes there, apparently. I had a French pen pal around that time and he and I would send each other mix tapes and magazine clippings; I remember he sent me a French fanzine and Samantha Fox was all over it, along with a cute 14-year-old gap-toothed pop singer called Vanessa Paradis, who became famous years later as the longtime paramour of Johnny Depp. Anyhoo, I found Sam's "Naughty Girls" song amusing, but not enough to buy the single or the album. I was happy to see that she'd hired a new stylist and was no longer dressing like a wayward Mandrell sister, though.

A subtle difference perhaps, but a big improvement.

Then in 1988, when I was 15 years old and entering my freshman year at boarding school, Samantha Fox came out with her third album. This time, I broke down and bought the thing because of this fucking song. It was a guilty pleasure and I couldn't get enough.

Not gonna lie, I still adore this.  

It wasn't an original, of course; Dusty Springfield recorded it first in 1963, then the Bay City Rollers did it in the '70s, along with a ton of other artists over the years (it's one of those old pop songs that tends to get covered a lot). But I have to say, I dig Sam's version the most.  

Looking at the video today, I'm struck by how, well, mature she appears. Samantha Fox was only 22 years old here, but in a lot of these shots she looks like someone's 40-year-old mom. She'd be the "cool" mom, though, the one who reads Jackie Collins novels and buys four-packs of Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers for her teen daughter and her friends, "as long as you drink it here at the house, girls. And don't get too tipsy, now--I don't want to get in trouble with your parents! Haha!"

Come on, I can't be the only one who sees it, right?
I also liked the title track, "I Wanna Have Some Fun," even though it hasn't aged as well as "IOWBWY". (In fact, it's a bit terrible.) Still, I have vivid memories of getting my groove on to that one at The Victory,* dancing in a circle with my friends, doing the white girl thing: feet planted, lots of hip swaying, elbow and shoulder action, along with the occasional hair toss. It's how we rolled in '88.

Samantha Fox is still a public figure, although she hasn't recorded an album in several years. Nowadays she mostly pops up as a guest host on Loose Women (basically a UK version of The View) and reality shows like Celebrity Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here. Although she was romantically linked to KISS's Paul Stanley (!) in the '80s, since 2003 she has been an out-and-proud lesbian and was in a long-term romantic relationship with her manager, Myra Stratton, who sadly passed away from cancer in 2015. Sam is apparently dating again, however, and has been pictured with new girlfriend Linda Olsen in recent months. 

Yay, I love a happy ending! :-)


*An under-21 nightclub in Evansville, IN. Do underage nightclubs still exist? I think they must be a relic of the '70s and '80s, since I can't imagine today's helicopter parents allowing their teens to shake their asses to raunchy club tunes til the wee hours of the night in a dark warehouse, with no adult supervision.    







Friday, February 17, 2017

BREAKING: VIOLENT SELF-RIGHTEOUS ASSHOLES 
BEHAVE LIKE VIOLENT SELF-RIGHTEOUS ASSHOLES

Note: This is NOT a rant against transgender people. I support transgender causes and I believe that trans people have the right to live safely and freely as the gender they feel themselves to be. I also have transgender friends in Minneapolis, and could not imagine any of them aligning themselves with trolls like the ones who apparently comprise this GAG group. Furthermore, I don't believe the people who staged this protest--particularly the "very tall, loud person" described below--are actually transgender. I believe the group that put on this pathetic display at the Vancouver Women's Library is not a genuine part of the transgender community. In fact, it would appear that GAG is nothing more than a dangerous fringe group; basically the secular equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church. Like the WBC, GAG seems to be a bunch of idiotic, rage-filled trolls who get their jollies by behaving like fascist bullies.
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The Vancouver Women's Library--a volunteer-run feminist organization dedicated to promoting and continuing the legacy of women-run bookstores, presses and libraries--were met with a group of hostile protesters at their official opening on Friday, February 3. According to Guerilla Feminist Collective, "the protesters held signs and shouted at people entering the space. They poured wine over the books. They smoked inside when asked not to. They pulled the fire alarm. Some of them tried to bar--then pushed--women entering the space. As far as we saw, men were left alone to come and go as they pleased." (That last sentence, as you'll see, is rather telling.)

So who the hell were these protesters? Hateful alt-right activists? Nazis? MRA's? Nope. The protesters who showed up at the library to disrupt the opening, threaten (female) patrons and destroy property were members of a group of queer activists who call themselves GAG--"Gays Against Gentrification." 


Image taken from feministcurrent.com
Destroying books? Seriously? That is some Hitler-level shit right there.

One of the library's patrons took a video of these destructive little pukes, and posted it online. The video was available up until Saturday 2/11, but it has mysteriously disappeared from Vimeo as of Sunday 2/12. (Gee, wonder who was responsible for that?) Luckily, the excellent blog Butterflies and Wheels provided a detailed description* of what went down. BTW, I watched the video when it was still up, and I found the play-by-play below to be 100% accurate.

FYI....the "very tall loud person" referenced several times in the description below is (reportedly) a GAG "activist" named J---- ehrm, make that "Mason Biatch." Yes, I fumbled his name a bit because I don't want him googling himself and finding his way here. I have an intense hatred of trolls and will not stand for their shit on my blog.

The hat-less person underneath the yellow sign? Yeah. THAT ONE.
Also, lying on the floor towards the bottom left side of the pic,
you can see the poster that he ripped off the wall.

A description of the protest (from Butterflies and Wheels):
The very tall loud person tears down a poster, and several people cry “Get out!” The very tall loud person does not get out.
About 2:40 The person with bangs next to the very tall loud person says “No SWERFs! No TERFs!” 
The very tall loud person immediately shouts “NO FUCKING TERFS in this FUCKING NEIGHBORHOOD.”
At this point talk becomes general, and less shouty…until at 3:00 the very tall loud person says with loud emphasis “BECAUSE WE DON’T WANT YOU IN OUR FUCKING SPACES.”
Women from the library gather in front of the very tall loud person (who looms over them) and the very tall loud person shouts at them.
At about 3:45 the very tall loud person bellows at them “NO YOU’RE ATTACKING THE WRONG FUCKING PEOPLE.”
The conversation goes on, mostly centered on the very tall loud person. Whenever very tall loud person talks louder (which is often), TLP also flails an arm up and down for emphasis – and, perhaps, for intimidation. That may be unconscious, or it may not.
About 4:40 – again with the very tall loud person shouting and flailing the hand up and down, inches from the face of one of the library women. No, I don’t think that can be unconscious.
5:12 the very tall loud person shouts into a woman’s face: “I’M A WOMAN.”
Okay, the very tall loud person says at the beginning “as a trans person” and a bit later “you said I’m not a real woman.”
At 5:12 the very tall loud person spells it out (by shouting into a woman’s face). But here’s the thing: the trans woman is carrying on exactly like an angry entitled bullying man with no scruples about bullying women. The trans woman is carrying on like Donald Trump. Isn’t it interesting how this particular kind of “activism” apparently functions as permission for large people with loud voices to do that? Isn’t it interesting that this “woman” has zero inhibitions about using typically male advantages of size and voice volume to bully and berate women? 

*The full account of the video is available here --
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2017/activism-in-action/)

As if that hideous display wasn't enough, the same half-wit thugs came back a week later and spray painted anti-feminist slurs on the building that houses the Vancouver Women's Library. 


More details here: Vancouver Illiteracy Project
This "GAG" group is trying to argue that they aren't welcome in "feminist spaces" because they're transgender (again, I call bullshit on any of them even being transgender). The truth is that they make themselves unwelcome by acting like violent, misogynistic dickheads. And people who act like that should be not be welcome anywhere.

In the words of a commenter on B and W:
"Wouldn’t everyone benefit from more places serving under-served or vulnerable groups? Go start your own! How does it make sense to bully the people (i.e. The Vancouver Women's Library) who created something because they didn’t create it to your specifications?"
WORD. Transgender libraries should exist. Transgender spaces should exist. Additionally, if a hateful little fringe group like "GAG" wants to start its own library, they should fucking GO DO IT. But they should not be allowed to vandalize a building, destroy its books, and act all confrontational and intimidating towards peaceful feminists. I'll say it once more, with feeling: Trolls like the ones who make up "GAG" should not be welcome in feminist spaces, or anywhere else. They sure as hell have no place in my world. 


And "Mason Biatch" can go fuck himself sideways.