Typing Out Loud: Y'all Need a Time Out

Sorority sisters protecting each other, many years later

Boys - may I call them boys? - are y'all doing ok? 

Because you are NOT representing yourselves well these days. 

As I've said repeatedly this year, Jesus fucking Christ. 

First, let us discuss the golf club situation. Good Good and Calloway released a commercial where the punch line was a man angrily shoving a female golfer to the ground because she almost touched his golf club. The good ol' boys countered with the usual "can't ya take a joke?", effectively gaslighting anyone who had a problem with it as the unfun, humorless, blue-haired liberals.

Calloway blamed Good Good, and Good Good blamed the fact that we didn't see the whole commercial, because "he got his in the end." I saw it; all it shows is that the antagonist is a bad golfer. Are we to accept this as his comeuppance for being a shitty human? Yeah, your joke failed to land on many different levels. 

So then it was explained away as the newest in viral advertising- rage engagement. Now I know about Good Good golf... but did I want to? 

THEN, there was the Ohio State/Texas game, where Texas pulled off a stunning upset over the Buckeyes. Holly Rowe, an award-winning sideline reporter for ESPN, attempted to engage the head coach in a quick interview. Chaos ensued; the coach shouted something about "Texas fight, hook 'em!" and was pulled away. Holly ended the interview as the crowd swirled around her. 

Should have been the end of it. 

Oh no.

Some jackass takes the footage and generates an AI alternate take on the interview where the head coach backhands Holly to send her sprawling. 

The knuckleheads guffaw, the pick-me girls laugh nervously while sipping their pumpkin spice lattes, and Texas QB Arch Manning brings it up in a press conference and asks the male reporters in the audience if they saw it and "wasn't it hilarious?!" 

Oh, but he's a BOY, you know... a 22-year-old boy who failed his media training. He apologizes two days later, to which all the boys are now insisting he shouldn't have to. In her grace, Holly accepts the apology, but she shouldn't have to. 

So what now? 

Oh, boys will be boys... apparently 57 of them, to be exact. Members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell are now under fire for an incident that happened in 2024. One member of the fraternity brought his female friend to a party, then slipped something into her drink. He proceeded to take her to an upstairs bedroom and advertised his friend as "free pussy!" in a group chat. Seven men took advantage of her, while 49 other boys in the chat cheered it on.  The lone exception was one who was not at the party, woke up to the thread, and took a screenshot of the communication and shared it with the girl to be used as evidence against the fraternity.

Result? Some boys were suspended; others were asked to write a paper on the incident. She, however, had to leave school in shame. 

Oh, fuck you - fuck all of you. 

This shit isn't new; I'm not surprised, I'm just disappointed we have yet to evolve. The reason for my sorority picture up top? Want to know what my nicknames were in college? I was "mom" to the sororities and "cock block' by the fraternities. Fun, huh?

I was older than most of the girls in my pledge class, and then was elected pledge director. That meant I was responsible for the education and initiation of each class of pledges coming into Phi Gamma Nu. I took that role seriously, and since attendance at parties was mandatory, as we were a professional sorority acting as a social one, I had to look after a lot of girls with high GPAs and low tolerance. Plus, I had a car. 

So, in addition to watching what they were drinking, I was chauffeuring around a lot of girls to make sure they got where they needed to be safely. Did I want to be their chaperone as well? No - I would have preferred to nurse my beer while looking at the DJ's record collection. But there were a lot of guys grabbing girls by the elbow to lead them upstairs. Girl code meant saying no thanks, getting them Taco Bell, and getting them home to sleep it off. 

Do I feel like a hero? Or am I, to use one of my most hated derogatory phrases, virtue signaling? No, it was exhausting, and no one wants to be the unfun one. But someone had to be, back in the 90s and even now. 

Do better, boys. Hard to call you men right now. 

Raised on Country Sunshine: Family Tradition

Family tradition includes colorful drinks

Kind of winging it on this theme, these are songs I remember from my childhood, especially when we had Coal Miner's Daughter playing on a loop off HBO: 

Hank Williams Jr., Family Tradition

Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys

Tanya Tucker, Delta Dawn

Alabama, Mountain Music

Johnny Paycheck, Take This Job and Shove It

Randy Travis, Forever and Ever Amen

Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner's Daughter

Kenny Rogers, Coward of the County

Buck Owens, Act Naturally

Dolly Parton, Here You Come Again 

Typing Out Loud: Hi, Steve

From a 4th of July post where we celebrated the idea of American Superman punching Hitler. 

I just found out my high school crush died unexpectedly over the summer. 

Steve was, by definition, a nerd. Smart, brilliant, really - I believe he would have been our class salutatorian if not for the fact that we had a three-way tie for valedictorian and thus no salutatorian was awarded. Played Dungeons and Dragons and the sax. Was into superheroes and had the deepest chocolate brown eyes with feathery lashes. Wicked, dry sense of humor. Rich, baritone voice that would startle and thrill me when he would come up behind with a mock-sultry "hello, Melissa," to which I would lightly reply, "hi, Steve."

I was not alone in my adoration, as several girls in my friend group were besotted. I asked him to prom my junior year, emboldened by the fact that I heard he had no date and there was a dress I really wanted. Timing was not on my side, as he had asked Kate that morning, a senior in the band who was also dateless. He apologized, wishing the timing had worked out. Embarrassed, I did not ask again, and he didn't either. 

No matter, I didn't stand a chance: he stayed closeted until he came out publicly on Facebook the eve of his 50th birthday. We all showed him our support. 

He struggled in adulthood, caring for his elderly parents, which led to money problems, mental health struggles, and homelessness. It seemed like he got it together in recent years and had a loyal group of family and friends in his life until the end. 

His family plans to host a service and inter him next to his parents back in our hometown at a later time. 

And 40 years later? The feelings I had for him were unrequited and had long ago mellowed to nostalgia for who we were, but I hope he felt it somehow and that it gave him the feeling of being special. However superficial my juvenile feelings were, they were genuine at the time, and I hope that positivity made its way into his world and gave him... something. 

I hope his soul is at peace. 

That's It, Just One Line: If 6 was 9

 "Cause I got my own world to live through and uh, and I ain't going to copy you."

LHOTR 2.0: Making a Build into a Home

Now that construction is underway and we can imagine it, time to start picking some things out. 

Blue chip is the siding, the copper is the roof, and the gray block is the deck. 

We chose a door... 

...and kitchen light fixtures! I got this for my birthday! 

Will joined us at Menard's to pick out kitchen cabinets and countertops. His verdict? He wanted it to feel warm. 

I think that all works together! 

We have a roof! 

Trying to pull all of it together. I'm thinking of getting a big presentation board with pins and arrows and things. 

The Fifth Beatle: Stu Sutcliffe

I'm giving love to the most tragic Beatle for my birthday. 

Who's the coolest Beatle? The one we never met. 

Beatle ghost.

Had Stuart Sutcliffe lived and stayed with the band, he would have been the oldest (beating Ringo out by a couple of weeks) and the only Scotsman. Arguably, the hottest as well.

But it was never really meant to be, as Stu was a visual artist at heart and went along with the others to Germany for the chance to escape Liverpool for a while, check out German art schools, and fall in love. 

Why wasn't this a Beatles album cover?!

Stu met John at the Liverpool College of Art, where they were both students; Stu helped John improve his portfolio and prepare for exams while doing work-study as a custodian. They soon became roommates. While hanging out at Mona Best's Casbah Club, he informed the band he had sold one of his works, Summer Painting, a big deal for a student at the time. John and Paul encouraged him to use the money to purchase a bass guitar and join the group in early 1960. 

Germany, in the clubs

Stu's time in the group was brief, but notable. His moment for their set during the Hamburg years was Elvis' Love Me Tender, and with the release of Anthology 1 in 1995, he is credited as a recording artist on songs Hallelujah I Love Her So, Cayenne, and You'll Be Mine. His most lasting contribution was renaming the Quarrymen: in homage to Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the band became The Silver Beetles, and finally The Beatles.  He quit in July 1961 after the band was deported, opting to stay in Germany with his fiancée, Astrid. 

Self-Portrait, 1959

His career as an artist spans the years 1957 to 1962. Labeled a "Beatnik Horror" in a Sunday newspaper article for The People, he studied at LCoA and earned a post-graduate scholarship to study at the Hamburg College of Art under Eduardo Paolozzi; he was considered an abstract expressionist. Some of his works include Hamburg, Hamburg No. 2, Self-Portrait, The Crucifixion, and Summer Painting. 

Stu died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 21 in 1962.

The Beatles included him on the cover of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band 

as member #35

LHOTR 2.0: I Get Knocked Down but I Get Up Again

We went up on August 2 to see the house before it was bulldozed. 

Time to let it and the novelty chain pull go.

Salvaging what we could. 

Dave the Builder helped by rescuing the windows to see if he could reuse them. 

That didn't take long.

Wow, it's gone.

We can rebuild the Little House on the River! 

Don't stop, keep it movin'; put your drinks up - we've got a floor! 

This already has me feeling so much better about everything. Within the framing, you can see where the big picture window will be, the center swing double doors, and the window over the kitchen sink. 

Now it's time to shop for the roof, deck, and siding.