Did you hear the one about the guy who recorded his telephone conversation with a distraught cable provider representative who pleaded with him to keep his business?
I saw it on the internet, so it must be true!
I’ve been on the phone with cable, phone, internet, credit card, and myriad other companies and I can assure you that no telephone operator has ever held me on the line for twenty minutes. Ever! It’s a waste of their time. …and yes, you do have to return their equipment in person. It’s stupid, but thems the rules.
PLUS… Those conversations are “recorded for quality assurances”.
Other things about this call bother me…
Block strings this guy along rather than finding ways to end the call. After three minutes, any normal person would have asked for a supervisor.
The representative is emotional and stumbles through the conversation. No representative I’ve ever talked with was that emotionally invested in our conversation.
Why is he recording this in the first place? – Sorry, I don’t buy the “I started recording after ten minutes” story.
UPDATE: Since writing this story, Comcast announced an apology to Ryan Block, who claims to be an AOL VP, for the representative’s aggressiveness. There’s no further information available about the fate of the operator. Apparently, Comcast isn’t contesting the validity of the call. I imagine it would be a public relations nightmare to do so.
The bottom line is that I still don’t have enough information to remove doubt. Even if the call is real, the fact remains that Block used the representative for his own private game which, to me, puts as much of the responsibility on him. I’m not defending Comcast. They and Verizon have all but created a monopoly in the market. Sure, there’s TWC and a few other small companies. But the biggest share is Comcast and Verizon.
In the big scheme of things, this is just light entertainment for me.
I have been in a foul mood all winter. It hasn’t helped that Mother Nature also seems to have been in a pissed off mood. Seriously. It’s almost May and we’re still dealing with temperatures as low as 30°F a few nights this week. Will someone please make Ma Nature a cup of espresso or something?
When I’m in a foul mood, I tend to stay away from people. It’s a lot better that way. Otherwise I wind up snapping at folks for no reason. It’s not pretty. Like so many others, when I’m in a bad mood I turn to music. What usually works for me is Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979). For some reason, the Waters, Gilmore, Mason and Wright classic has a way with working out my aggression. It’s amazingly therapeutic. But I couldn’t seem to shake it this time. The winter was brutal. I still have a cold that just-won’t-go-away. On top of everything, cancer took three close friends within a two month period. It’s essentially why I haven’t been writing very much. Three funerals in such a short amount of time sends me right back to the early 90s, when everyone I knew was dying. I sat at my keyboard on more than one occasion to try to express the feeling of loss, but it was too overwhelming. I’d start a draft but then lose focus, which is what this post is about to do if I don’t guide it back to the point. 😉
On a mindless surf though YouTube, I stumbled onto Bette Midler’s cover of ‘One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show’ (Rose Marie McCoy, Charlie Singleton) It’s an old favorite. In this video, she’s performing it at the 1998 Billboard Awards.
It’s a fun song. Bette’s Studio version is better but, as with all of Bette’s live performances, there’s something about the attitude she projects on stage that brings a song to life. I guess it’s the same for most singers.
Because Bette Midler is a vocalist, she’s introduced me to many great artists. I’m always searching for the original singer of composer of any particular song she might have made popular. So of course I wanted to know the who, what, where, and maybe even the why of One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show. The earliest version that I was aware of is the one made famous by the truly wonderful Big Maybelle.
Truly, Big Maybelle doesn’t get the attention she deserves.
My appetite whetted, I wanted to know more. Who was this Rose Marie McCoy? Did she record a version of One Monkey? So… I checked everyone’s favorite source of misinformation, Wikipedia!
Hmmm… It’s not at all like Big Mabelle’s version. It’s good in it’s own right, but where Big Maybelle’s classic is about a woman tellin’ her man, “Buh bye! Don’t let the door hit ya on your way out!”, Stick McGhee’s version is about making your way through life without letting things get in your way. The themes are similar, but… Now I was on a mission.
According to Wiki “…another version was recorded by Joe Tex in 1965. In 1966 it was covered by The Animals.”
Here’s Joe Tex…
…and here’s The Animals.
It’s hard to choose between the two. I can see the appeal of The Animals but I like the rawness of Joe Tex. The most glaring thing so far is that now there are three completely different versions of this song.
But wait, there’s more!
“In 1972 the all-girl group Honey Cone took its altogether different version to number five on the R&B singles chart” – Wiki
Here is Honey Cone on the Sonny Bono Show
If those funky outfits aren’t enough, there’s a coked up DISCO version by Jessie Rogers. I’ll spare you. If you really want to hear it, you’ll have to click the link. I think it’s a little too peppy, If you ask me. 😐
So, what does the phrase “One monkey don’t stop no show” really mean? To me it’s fairly obvious. It’s another way of saying “Life will go on” or “This too, shall pass”. But could there be more? One could find himself deeply entangled within the interwebs, searching for a deeper meaning, but I gave it a go.
Curiosity killed the cat. …and kept this blogger up all night.
In their wordpress post, Yeah, But do you know what that song is actually about? #1 The guys at Old School Record Review put it perfectly. They wrote in part, ““one monkey don’t stop no show” is a perfect lyric for pop music because it shares so much in common with the music itself. It is ambiguous, emotional, catchy and supports introspection and interpretation.” They’re right, of course. Music is art and art is open to interpretation.
But what’s all this have to do with my pissy mood?
Haven’t you figured it out yet? Winter is over. We’re almost halfway through spring. Love and I are shopping for new plants for the tiny patch of concrete behind our tiny South Philly home. With spring comes a new chapter. Hopefully a little brighter than the last, but it’s new. Life goes on.
A Homosexual Invention By Alan Turing. Who cares if he cracked the German Enigma Code and won World War II.
It’s A Homo’s Devil Machine!
I saw this photo circulating around the interwebs. It bothered me that there was no information identifying it’s source. So I did a Google image search for the image to find out what, if any, protest this is associated with.
When you look at the full image, as posted on WeWasteTime you’ll notice that she’s carrying a rainbow flag. So I had to wonder from where this image originates and why, if she’s holding a homophobic sign, she is carrying a gay pride flag. (Look closely. They’re ALL carrying rainbow flags.)
The very first link took me to an online video game “Destroy The Computer” (by KibaGames) in which you throw punches at, you guessed it, a desktop computer. But it didn’t explain the anti-gay signage. It’s a stretch to assume punching the computer symbolizes a hate crime in some way. — Though I’ve certainly hated my computer at times, I don’t believe my PC represents ALL computers. That would be OS-ist.
The earliest posting I could find of the image was May 2006 on Barking-Moonbat.com. A watermark on that image led me to StrangePolice.com and that’s where the trail ends.
The fact that there is more than one person in the photo, and that they are closely grouped together, leads me to believe this is a staged photo.
Why anyone would stage such a photo is anyone’s guess. Part of me suspects it’s a promotional stunt to raise LGBT awareness. Not many people know who Alan Turing is, or that the process by which he cracked the German Enigma code led to the modern day computer. Many more are unaware that Turing was a homosexual.
This simple image has been spreading LGBT awareness around the interwebs in it’s own little way for more than seven years. None of the feedback that I’ve seen has been particularly homophobic. That, in itself, is pretty amazing.
ADignorantium 