.
Per the NYTimes:
With her toothless grin, floppy hat and tell-it-like-it-is persona, Moms Mabley may be one of the most influential comedians you don’t know. She rose to fame in the early decades of the 20th century on the chitlins circuit — the collection of stages around the country that employed black entertainers during segregation — and she would go on to a career that spanned more than 50 years. In that time, she pushed beyond racial and gender barriers, but she drew mainstream attention only starting in the 196os (she died in 1975) and little of her work has survived on film or video. That hasn’t deterred Whoopi Goldberg.
In the documentary “Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley,” which will be shown on Monday on HBO, she traces the comic’s life and talks with performers who were influenced by Mabley, including Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Joan Rivers, Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte….
In an interview at the festival and a follow-up this month, Ms. Goldberg spoke about how she discovered Mabley as a child and the influence Mabley had on her own comedy. “I knew there were records in the house that you weren’t supposed to touch,” because of the salty language, she said. “And then she would be on Ed Sullivan, and my mom would let us watch. And somehow she flew into my mouth. I don’t know how it worked, but she’s in there.” …
My dad had a couple of those ‘salty’ records, but my mother made him get rid of them as soon as us kids were big enough to figure out the record player (not that we’d have had any idea what those jokes meant). Giving Moms Mabley a forum on the public airwaves was one of the primary reasons Mom decided the Smothers Brothers weren’t really nice, much as it pained her earnest totebagger soul to admit that…
What’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
Ramalama
We listened to Bill Cosby albums when I was a kid. His stories about being really poor (shoes that were falling apart while wearing corduroys sounded like this: “voom voom flap flap”) made me feel better about our situation.
My favorite author, Doris Lessing, died yesterday. Going to have to rummage around and find another now, dammit.
Anne Laurie
@Ramalama: Can’t help with a ‘replacement’ for Lessing — she was one of a kind. But Bill Cosby has a special coming out, too. I’ll admit I can still recite large chunks of his early work from memory… like setting fire to the couch to keep away The Chicken Heart That Ate New Jersey…
RobNYNY1957
I actually saw some videos of her in the 1970’s. She was fierce and fearless, and quitle drole.
raven
@Ramalama: “Who put the bullet in the oven”?
OzarkHillbilly
I have no memories of Moms Mabley (guess I’ll have to get the show off netflix) but I have clear memories of watching the Smothers Brothers. I loved them then and still do now. Now I have one more reason to love them.
Schlemizel
I heard Moms at a friends house when her parents were away. The friend had to explain a couple of culltural jokes. The one I remember was her talking to people in the audience about their hair her best line was “Well you better have Madam walk on those edges harder” Which was a shot about the use of Madam Walkers hair straightening products. Once I knew that I thought the joke was hilarious.
My friend also has a couple of Red Foxx albums we listened to parts of. He was very funny also. I was a big it in Junior High with the ‘adult’ material I stole from those two. The cultural stuff they tossed out along with Dick Gregory’s work (which my mom brought into our house) is partly responsible for my world view, didn’t realize it but looking back it seems more than I knew.
Napoleon
I remember Moms! Our family watched SB when I was a kid and I must have seen her on the show. She was like no other comic at the time, no doubt.
Napoleon
@Schlemizel:
His stuff was really, really “blue”, so I can just imagine.
Tokyokie
I remember seeing Moms Mabley on the Smothers Brothers Show. I knew she was the upcoming guest, and I wondered who the hell she was, but upon seeing her, I thought she was a hoot. Only later did I figure out that she was a product of desegregated entertainment and that she had to tone down her act so that the audience for a network TV show (even a hip one) would understand the material. But kudos to Tommy and Dick for doing the right thing by her. They seemed to have a talent for that, and I still love them for that.
JPL
The NYTimes has an article about the Cheney girls and their family feud. link Everyone knows Liz will do what is necessary to win the hearts and minds of the tea party folk, even if it means throwing your family under the bus.
Mustang Bobby
@JPL: I’ll bet Thanksgiving at the Cheney Fortress of Solitude is going to be a riot.
WereBear
I can still recite that one from memory, along with many others. At one point we had a long commute to church, and I also have stuck in my memory that crack-crack sound of the 8 track changing during certain points.
This also influences my appreciation of Mantovani, but that comes up much less often.
WereBear
@Napoleon: In college I listened to Blackfly, who was navy blue.
And I remember Moms on Ed Sullivan/Smothers Brothers! Then we grew up, and discovered just how sanitized those acts were.
WereBear
I am unsurprised that the Cheney family practices Darwinian Socialism. I’m sure the whole family pits one against the other in a way that would give The Sopranos pause.
WereBear
@WereBear: Which reminds myself of that odd news that came out about George HW Bush’s birthday, where he & Babs hired the cast of a local production of Cats out to wherever they were. To be the party, since pictures showed and talking heads mentioned NO ONE else.
There were pictures of women dressed as cats perched uneasily on the former Presidential knee.
WTF? They can afford anything they want, throw countries into upheaval, murder and maim with abandon.
Perhaps it’s not surprising they can’t scare up a minyan for a birthday party.
Betty Cracker
@Mustang Bobby: I saw that. I’m wondering if it’s an evil Cheney family plot to bolster LC’s cred with Wyoming wingnuts by standing up to Big Gay. They seem Machiavellian enough to do something like that.
JoeC
I seem to remember Moms Mabley being on the Merv Griffin talk show a fair amount, anybody else remember that ? I believe it was when he had a daytime talk show. I’m thinking that must have been in the seventies…
Applejinx
“Ninety-one.”
“Ain’t no use you goin’ home…”
That was a laugh with a FUSE, fifteen seconds later I lost it :)
OzarkHillbilly
Ok, I am a bit of a luddite, but I just discovered Target: Women. w/ Sarah Haskins, Laughing my ass off over here.
Baud
@JPL:
Or shooting them in the face.
debbie
@JoeC:
Yes, I remember. I loved watching her shock Merv, but I think she did it without the salty language.
Elizabelle
@Ramalama:
Paul Krugman named one of his cats (now also RIP) after Doris Lessing.
OzarkHillbilly
@JoeC: I don’t remember it, but I just found a youtube of her on Merv’s show.
Elizabelle
Wish I had HBO. Sounds good; would like to see more about Moms Mabley. Glad Whoopi made the documentary.
Southern Beale
Judicial fight alert, v. elventygazillion.
gogol's wife
@JoeC:
She was on television a lot in the 1970s. I don’t remember Merv Griffin specifically, but I’m sure you’re right.
rikyrah
Jean Claude Van DAMME He Did That!
[ 4 ] November 18, 2013 | Luvvie
Have y’all seen the sickest ad that has come out in recent history? If you haven’t, then you need to.
Jean Claude Van Damme, original action movie goon collaborated with Volvo for a commercial about their new trucks with power steering. And he basically told us that we all need to go sit down because this is what 56-year-old badassery can look like. See below:
http://youtu.be/M7FIvfx5J10
I’ve watched this about 20 times and I still go “AW SHITTTT!” every single time. Because DAMMMMMMBBBB!!! My dude hit a split between two trucks THAT WERE GOING BACKWARDS like it was nothing. He did it while looking all zen, like he was almost bored. CHILE WUT?!? I can’t e’em touch my toes without bending my knees. Meanwhile, AARP-eligible Jean Claude just came through and slayed us all.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2013/11/jean-claude-van-damme-volvo.html#comment-270967
Elizabelle
Agenda: it’s a spring sunny day in NoVA, with lots of downed leaves and a dirty car.
Some outdoor chores today.
rikyrah
GOP Ramps Up Smear Campaign Against Obamacare Navigators
Dylan Scott – November 18, 2013, 6:15 AM EST
Beware anybody trying to help people sign up for health insurance under Obamacare.
That’s the line from top Senate Republicans, who have magnified their smear campaign against the law’s so-called navigators, groups that have received federal money to assist people in enrolling for coverage. Their latest shot: darkly warning that Americans could put their personal and financial safety at risk if they seek out assistance.
Republicans have a longstanding animosity toward the navigators — state officials in a number of red states have put up roadblocks for them — but the comments of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) are a new extreme in the party’s assault on those tasked with helping Americans navigate the health reform law.
It all seems to have stemmed from a line of questioning that Cornyn posed to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Nov. 6, at a hearing that was supposed to focus on HealthCare.gov.
“Isn’t it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background, even though they will receive personal — sensitive personal information from the individuals they helped sign up for the Affordable Care Act?” Cornyn inquired.
“That is true. States could add an additional background check and other features, but it is not part of the federal requirement,” Sebelius replied.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-navigators-gop-smear-campaign
NotMax
A favorite Moms story was about the rooster who strutted into the henhouse and saw eggs of all colors: blue, yellow, pink, iridescent green, etc.
(paraphrasing from memory here)
“Well that rooster, he turned himself around, walked right around back and beat the crap out of the peacock.”
rikyrah
Why Vance McAllister’s win matters
11/18/13 08:36 AM
By Steve Benen
When Republican Rodney Alexander resigned from Congress a few months ago, there wasn’t any real doubt that his Louisiana district would remain in GOP hands. The only question was which Republican would replace him in Louisiana’s ruby-red 5th district.
State Sen. Neil Riser (R) looked like he’d win easily – he received endorsements from Alexander, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the NRA, and nearly all of Louisiana’s Republican congressional delegation. But then the votes were tallied in Saturday’s run-off election, and Vance McAllister (R), a first-time candidate, crushed Riser by nearly 20 points.
In terms of the national significance, there’s one key takeaway from the results.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-vance-mcallisters-win-matters
aimai
I have a 96 year old neighbor (white) who looks just like Moms Mabley. She’s not as funny, though.
I don’t remember her on the Smother’s Brothers, which is the only place I would have seen her when I was little. But I did know the name. Like a lot of performers–like Mae West for example–the camera only recorded her later years and a more sanitized act. I’m glad Whoopi has done this tribute to her.
rikyrah
Why Isn’t It News When Republicans Make Poor People Pay More For Health Insurance?
You’ve probably never heard of Sherilyn Horrocks.
A 61-year-old woman with autoimmune disease, she was profiled by The Salt Lake Tribune before the governor of Utah’s health summit in September, as an example of someone who would benefit from Medicaid expansion but wasn’t being asked to speak at the event. Horrocks hasn’t had insurance since about 2000, when her husband’s company stopped offering spousal coverage.
Her condition is incurable.
“But there are medicines and procedures that would prolong my life if I could afford them,” she told theTribune‘s Kirsten Stewart. “I have a feeling I’m going to be one of those who falls through the cracks.”
Her story certainly has ended up between the cracks. She didn’t get to speak to the governor and her story never made it out of Utah.
Welcome to America, where one middle-class woman in Florida having to pick a new plan is a bigger deal than five million poor people being denied Medicaid expansion.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/its-no-big-deal-just-millions-of-struggling-people-being-asked-to-pay-more-for-health-insurance/
handsmile
@Ramalama: ,@Anne Laurie:
Glad to see your tributes to Doris Lessing, a writer of protean talents. With all this blog’s sci-fi fans, I wondered if many were familiar with her Canopus series. While The Golden Notebook deservedly remains (and I think will remain) well-known and well-read (at least on college curricula), Lessing’s literary immortality should rest in part on her legendary reaction to being informed of her Nobel Prize award in 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBODHFBZ8k
Also, yesterday I learned of the recent death of William Weaver, the most prominent English translator of modern Italian literature since the 1960s. Quite simply if you have read in English any of the fiction of Italo Calvino or much of the fiction/non-fiction of Umberto Eco (and I expect that’s true of a considerable fraction of the BJ community) you have read one of Weaver’s translations. He was also the translator of one of my desert-island books,The Ruin of Kasch by Roberto Calasso. I owe Weaver a great debt for the worlds he introduced me to.
Hillary Rettig
@rikyrah: that’s the guy who was endorsed by Duck Dynasty, right?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1117/Duck-Dynasty-backed-political-outsider-takes-Louisiana-Congressional-seat
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
I discovered Moms Mabley through music about twenty years ago when I ran into her cover of Abraham, Martin & John.
rikyrah
GOP searches for an excuse on immigration
11/18/13 09:35 AM
By Steve Benen
If House Republicans are going to once again kill comprehensive immigration reform – and by all appearances, that’s exactly what they intend to do – they’re going to need a good excuse. This won’t be easy.
President Obama recently drew laughs by mocking the very idea that Congress would kill a popular, bipartisan proposal: “Obviously, just because something is smart and fair and good for the economy and fiscally responsible and supported by business and labor and the evangelical community and many Democrats and many Republicans – that does not mean that it will actually get done. This is Washington after all.”
It’s left Republicans in the awkward position of explaining why they’re prepared to kill the bill anyway. In September, some congressional Republicans actually suggested, out loud, that the conflict in Syria meant lawmakers wouldn’t be able to tackle immigration reform, which is obviously silly. Then Republicans said they wouldn’t have time to work on immigration, which wasn’t much better. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently suggested the House can’t take up immigration because the legislation has too many pages.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-searches-immigration-excuse
Steeplejack
@Southern Beale:
Excellent post! Excellent but depressing/enraging.
burnspbesq
@Schlemizel:
Moms and Redd made Richard Pryor possible, and after Richard Pryor, anything was possible.
In college, my roommate and I stumbled across a bunch of standup comedy albums in the dollar bin at a local record store. We got Moms, Redd, Lenny Bruce at Carnegie Hall (which I still have), and some really funny mid-60s Woody Allen. Awesome stuff.
Redd Foxx anticipated this blog when he said “I say ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ ’cause people do.”
The record Redd is hawking in this clip is unbelievably funny, and unbelievably NSFW (as is this clip).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uldt6Y-CE3s
rikyrah
Alaska rejects Medicaid expansion
11/18/13 10:23 AM
By Steve Benen
Alaska loves to receive funds from Washington, D.C. On a per capita basis, literally no other state benefits as much as Alaska when it comes to collecting federal funds – the state takes in nearly twice the national average.
But on Friday afternoon, Gov. Sean Parnell (R) apparently made the rare discovery of federal funds Alaska doesn’t want: Medicaid expansion.
The governor didn’t explain why he thinks the Affordable Care Act “system” doesn’t work – Republicans do realize that websites can be fixed, don’t they? – or why his administration would deliberately put Alaska at a financial disadvantage.
The move was immediately panned by the state Chamber of Commerce, state AARP, Alaska Native organizations, local hospitals, and prominent religious organizations, each of whom said Medicaid expansion is a great deal that shouldn’t be rejected out of partisan spite. Making matters slightly worse, the Alaska Dispatch noted that many involved in the debate “blasted the administration for keeping secret a state-commissioned report on the topic.”
There’s clearly a preferred Beltway narrative when it comes to health care: what matters is turning implementation issues into a national scandal and presenting a sliver of the population that will pay more for better insurance as if it were a widespread crisis. But I continue to believe Republicans governors rejecting Medicaid expansion – leaving struggling families behind for no reason – is the far more serious scandal that much of the political world seems wholly uninterested in.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/alaska-rejects-medicaid-expansion
Jacel
Whoopi Goldberg first came of note about 30 years ago for a stage show with her impersonating Moms Mabley. I think there was a later phase of this act (under the title “Postmodern Moms”) where Whoopi spoke about current events as her Moms persona might. Here’s a poster from those Moms performances.
http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/201054964
Ramalama
@handsmile: Haven’t read Canopus yet. But I tore through some others that have stayed with me especially the Golden Notebook which I believe I read 7 times during Christmas break one year.
I have met famous people, spoke to them on the phone, worked for them, received an occasional email or letter back from them, but I had something different happen to me when I went to see Doris Lessing at the Boston Public Library. Had hallucinations right after she signed my book. I wanted so much to say something to her but when I got to the front of the line, realized it would be pointless. So I said Hi with so much emphasis I almost passed out. When I left the library the shapes of the bricks in the church across the street, the fumes of the 39 bus, the honking of the horns from cars on Boylston street, the texture of the trees in front of Trinity Church, the shades of mostly black in peoples’ clothing as they passed me by – all of it was completely high def, heavy metal, major leotard. This was before the internet, back when what we knew was what we knew even if it wasn’t much. I wasn’t drunk, stoned, or even hungry. But everything became that much more real to me for about 5 intense minutes. I did not know what to make of it so I told no one. When I was a kid I used to play guitar for masses in church. I’ve been on a couple of Catholic retreats and a bunch of Buddhist ones. I went to a Buddhist university. My father is a former Benedictine monk. Most of his friends even now are monks, abbots, priests, nuns. I think the Doris Lessing experience was a kind of religious awakening, without the religion.
handsmile
@Ramalama:
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply with such a marvelous personal anecdote. I can only imagine that Lessing herself would have enjoyed reading (in a brief note, as it was pre-Internet) of your profound reaction that day and the depth of your appreciation of her writing.
I don’t read much science fiction, so the first volume (Shikasta) of Lessing’s “Canopus in Argos” series (five in all) is the only one I completed. Of the half-dozen or so other novels by her that I’ve read (other than TGN), The Good Terrorist and The Four-Gated City made the greatest impression. Cheers!
kuvasz
@JoeC: Sure do. She was on Merv Griffin quite a bit in the late sixties. That is where I first saw her.